Work Text:
Ivory was in Mr. Pierce’s office sorting letters.The two were originally at the table near all the other staff, but it got a bit loud for either of their liking.
It had been about ten minutes so far, and it had passed in complete silence excluding a question or two asked by Ivory and the sound of their breathing.
The girl was mostly done with her responsibilities for the day. Mr. Pyroscythe had been attended to already, and the only thing she had left to do was the task in front of her.
Ivory was, admittedly, struggling to keep her eyes open. She’d just been so tired today. She had work to do though, sleep would just have to come later. Falling asleep during work wasn't acceptable, and Mr. Pierce would definitely be mad.
Just resting her head in her hand would be fine, right?
Clown noticed rather quickly when the girl in front of him fell asleep. She stopped reaching for the pile of letters, put her head in her hand, and her eyes fell shut soon after.
“Ivory?” He asked.
She didn't stir.
He tapped on her shoulder a few times. “Ivory, wake up.”
She jerked awake and looked around, clearly not fully conscious yet. “What?” She asked.
A few moments later it seemed to dawn in her, judging by the extremely panicked look on her face. “I'm so, so sorry. I really didn't mean to fall asleep, Mr. Pierce. I promise it won't happen again, I'm just tired today, sir.” Ivory was embarrassed. She wasn't supposed to fall asleep! There was no reason she shouldn't have been able to stay awake until all her work was done. Mr. Pierce was going to be so mad at her.
It was a much bigger reaction than Clown was expecting, the girl had only been asleep for about a minute. Staff shouldn't be sleeping during work, but they were only human. With everything that had gone on lately he'd made the decision to be a little bit more lax with things like this as long as they were getting their work done. “Why are you so tired?” He asked.
Ivory looked away and tucked a fallen strand of hair behind her ear. “It's just taking me a bit to… adjust. I haven't been sleeping early enough and I've been getting up early to practice piano. I'm sorry, sir. I really should be more responsible.”
Clown couldn't keep himself from noticing just how young the girl in front of him looked. He felt that way about most of the staff, considering how many of them were barely adults.
Moving to a new place and being around a ton of new people out of nowhere usually took a toll on people. A murder happening couldn't have made it any easier. “Stop beating yourself up over it. I don't want you getting up early for piano anymore, though. I normally wouldn't allow it, but you can sleep if you need to. These past few days haven't been good for anyone.”
Ivory nodded. “That's very kind of you, sir.”
Ivory didn't need to sleep, she could stay up a few more hours if she tried, so she didn't. Her attention was now fully on the pile of letters in front of her. It was a larger stack than there usually was, but they were about halfway through it by now. She helped sort the letters into baskets. There was one for each of the Hemlockes. Once they were done sorting, her and Mr. Pierce would split them up and deliver them to the person they were destined for.
She didn't notice how the man across from her was looking at her.
Clown had expected for Ivory to put her head down on the desk and go back to sleep. She never really did what he expected, though. From what he'd seen of the girl so far, she was a hard worker and always did her best. Unfortunately she had a habit of taking things too literally. “Ivory, I want you to get some sleep. You clearly need the rest. You can go to your room, or if you’d prefer it I have an arm chair in the corner there that’s quite comfortable.” Clown pointed to the plush black chair he kept in his office.
He’d spent more nights there than he wanted to admit. As much as Clown made a big deal about the staff being in their rooms on time (He always went around and knocked on everyone’s doors, both for confirmation that they were in there and to say goodnight.) he didn’t follow that rule much himself. The late hours when the whole building was quiet was the best time for him to catch up on paperwork, sue him for not wanting to walk all the way to his bed.
Ivory looked at Mr. Pierce, puzzled. “Are you sure?”
Clown nodded. “Yes, I’m sure. I can finish this up myself.”
“Uhm…” Ivory trailed off. “I- I think I’d rather the chair.” She looked to the man in front of her, almost for confirmation that she didn’t mess up somehow.
He met her gaze. “Go ahead then.”
Ivory stood and walked over to the chair. When she sat down, she had to agree with Mr. Pierce. It really was comfortable. She brought her knees to her chest and rested her head on them. It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes until she fell asleep.
Clown smiled fondly before getting back to work. It truly was an obnoxious amount of mail for the amount of people it was supposed to go to. He’d never have dreamed that it would be a two person job, but here he was. There was an unsettlingly large amount of letters concerning the questionable business practices of Mr. Zombie, but it wasn’t his place to say anything about it.
_____
Later, once Clown had gotten back to his office after dealing with some of the staff and giving the mail to the Hemlockes, there was a knock at his door.
The person on the other side didn’t wait for a response, they simply opened the door and walked in. It turned out to be Ash, who immediately opened his mouth to say something.
Clown put a finger over his mouth and gestured to the girl sleeping on the chair.
Ash seemed to get the message and pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket to write on. Once something had been quickly scribbled down, he put the paper on Clown’s desk.
The man picked it up. It read ‘It’s getting late, I know you have all your nighttime rounds to do so I thought I’d remind you before you started freaking out because you were behind.’
Clown checked his pocket watch. It really had gotten late. He wrote a quick thank you on the same sheet of paper before getting up and heading toward the door. In the corner of his eye he noticed Ash smirking at him.
Once they were both out of the room with the door securely shut, Ash spoke. “So, you’re letting people sleep on the job now? I never imagined you were the type to let that happen.”
Clown rolled his eyes at the smiling man who was speaking to him. “We need our staff in top condition, she needed the sleep and decided to stay there instead of heading to her bed.”
“Whatever you say.” Ash laughed.
The evening went quite smoothly after that, a rare occurrence in this place, and it wasn’t until he was getting ready to make sure everyone was in their rooms that he remembered about Ivory.
A peek into his office showed that she was still fast asleep, laying in the chair in an awkward position. He really didn’t want to wake her up, but what else could he do?
Well… there was something he could do. She seemed light enough and he considered himself reasonably strong. Clown picked Ivory up and prayed she wouldn’t stir. Luckily, she was sleeping like a rock.
When he opened her door, Serapter shot up. “Is she okay? I haven’t seen her all day!”
Clown fought the urge to smile. Despite not knowing each other very long, it was clear the two had come to care about each other. He put the girl down on her bed. “She’s fine. She fell asleep when we were sorting letters and I can't let her stay in my office all night.”
Serapter nodded. “That makes sense, she seemed pretty tired.” He turned away from Ivory and to Clown. He smiled at the man. “Goodnight, Mr. Pierce.”
“Goodnight, Serapter.” Clown turned and left the room. He still had things to do tonight.