Hee hee hee...

[rosejailmaiden]

Okay, if everyone's wondering why I'm suddenly so fanfiction happy... thank the Saudi government, okay? Now that that's out of the way... My biggest fic so far, (I think...)
Enjoy. Real entry's below.

80. Ink

 

"It's said the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I personally know that is a misconception. The road to hell is actually paved with poorly filed paperwork, and at this point, I question if AC/DC was ever singing about some of you." So began the latest memo from Wendy, in her usual, aggravated tone she seemed to find somewhat funny. Wendy was of a particularly anal-retentive variety... for her, there was no order in the world unless all the paperwork was perfectly collated, alphabetized, and stapled. And God have mercy on your soul if you ended up forgetting any of that. Some questioned if the red substance she used to express her discontent towards poor examples of filing was normal, red ink, or the blood of the poor assistants who made the mistake of pissing her off that day by accidentally filing the F's before the E's. It was rumored she had undiagnosed OCD. Most agreed, however, it was simply Wendy, and thank your lucky stars she was the only one.

She was feeling frisky that day. Wendy penned filing procedure with the passion Shakespeare put into his plays. She considered each tome of new rules personal masterpieces, to be outdone by her next. This latest missive was 5 pages, Times New Roman size 12 font. Single spaced. Wendy couldn't stand the thought of double spacing. Having finally put finishing touches on the email version, signed with her typical "Have a nice day" send-off, she clicked send, then called one of her office assistants over. "I need you to get a copy of this to every department," she said, handing the monstorous stack of papers to him. His eyes grew huge at the sight of the sheer thickness of the pile. "I know this is where most of your livelihood comes from, Wendy, and I know you find it fun, but... couldn't you give people a break once in a while?" he asked. Wendy gave him an annoyed look. Her eyes narrowed, and the assistant realized he'd made a mistake. "You wanna find out if those rumors are true?" she asked him.

"Um..."

"That's what I thought. Now get those things out. I don't want the excuse "I missed the email" like I got last time. It won't work anymore," she sang, giggling like a schoolgirl, and running a hand through her green hair. "Off you go now!"

 

Wendy was like a child on Christmas Day eager to see what Santa had left as she opened the door to her office that day. Maybe now, finally, she'd have everything perfect... maybe the latest memo actually did its job... perhaps there would be less mistakes? As visions of order and happiness danced in her head, she pulled the latest stack of paperwork out of her IN box. So far, so good...

Then she came across a real mess. "Ohhh, what is this?" she said. She pawed through it. "Wrong font... wrong color ink... and that sticky arrow should clealy be puce, not red. My, my. Who could be responsible for THIS little fiasco?" She took another look at it. "Ooo-ooh. Someone's been a naughty boy..."

 

One more of these, and so help me Arseus, she is going to get it. Giovanni took another asprin- what seemed like the millionth one today, and sighed. He'd gotten the hard copy of her new memo just before he'd put the final touches on a particularly large bunch of papers, which of course had to go through her before anything happened... Of course, he didn't mean it. Yes, Wendy was bothersome- beyond it, really- and yes, something probably should have been done about her ages ago, but that was unthinkable. Wendy went about her job with a particular dedication that was almost inspiring. And it wasn't like he was willing to handle as many documents as she could... not as quickly and efficiently, at least. (Although he wondered if "efficient" could be applied to Wendy... typically, standard filing procedure for her was a Rube Goldberg-esque contraption consisting of a massive paper trail, perplexing everyone but her, who somehow made sense of it all.)

And he was positive he'd gotten it right this time... after staying up practically all night double-checking to see everything was in its EXACT place and every blank line had been signed. The whole ordeal vaguely reminded Giovanni of the term papers he had to do in high school- only this time, Sebastian wasn't there to bail him out. (Mainly because Sebastian had no clue what the hell was going on either.) 

There was a knock at the door.

Please don't let it be her... please... "Come in?" Unless you're Wendy...

Wendy walked in, a typically cheerful, sweet look on her face.

"When you mentioned how you knew personally the road to hell isn't paved with good intentions, would that have anything to do with the fact that you call it home?" he asked, sarcastically. Wendy pretended not to hear it, and instead slid a fat file folder- the very one that Giovanni'd completed the night before- across his desk. That only meant one thing, he realized in horror.

"I don't think I can take these papers from you, sir," Wendy said, with an innocent look that said wordlessly, "and you know very well why". It was one that was understood quite mutually.

Giovanni stared at them, then returned a look that said something to the effect of "what is it THIS time?"

"Since when have you been able to tell me how to fill out paperwork?" he asked her, knowing the answer.

"Um... since I got promoted to where I am now," Wendy replied, as though the question had been "nice weather today, isn't it?"

"Just checking," he said, wishing she'd forgotten that part. He had a tendency to check once in a while. Sadly, she still hadn't forgotten, even after six long years of this. "You'll get them soon enough." It was a good reply. One without much of a time frame attached to it, and one she couldn't easily argue with if she knew what was good for her.

"Do you want me to show you what you did wrong, sir?"she asked. At first, it would seem she was merely trying to be helpful. That wasn't the case. Wendy felt a sense of satisfaction when her work perplexed its hapless victims. She knew then she was doing her job right.

"No," he replied after contemplating this for a moment. He was fully aware it would only be giving Wendy exactly what she wanted to admit defeat. "I'll look over everything again, I must have missed a thing or two.

Actually, more than that, Wendy thought. Then, all professionalism aside: "Please get out."

Wendy stepped back. "Toodles," she said, leaving, feeling pride in a job well done.

 

It would be a daunting task, but for the sake of everyone's sanity, it had to be done. Armed with a bright yellow highlighter and the largest size of coffee that could have been bought, Giovanni sat down with the pile of past memos of Wendy's he'd had Sebastian pull off the main Team Rocket server earilier. The two agreed over lunch that by the law of averages, at some point Wendy had screwed up and failed to follow one of her past procedure memos, therefore, by her logic, rendering everything else she'd sent out past that point totally toothless. And if she hadn't... at one point Giovanni said he'd just turn control over to her, admitting defeat, but Sebastian pointed out that given how dangerous she was, it would be best to simply kill her ("and that should have been done a long time ago, anyway," he added).

Pulling the earliest one out of the folder, he uncapped the highlighter, and began to work... God, he HOPED she'd screwed up...

 

Wendy hummed to herself the next day, happily.  She still hadn't gotten Giovanni's delinquent paperwork yet...  Was it really that hard to understand? Yes, she'd definitely done well... She glanced up to the sound of the door opening.

"Oh," Wendy said. Speak of the devil... "Is everything taken care of yet, sir?"

"You have no idea," Giovanni said, smirking at her.

"Um, what?"

He gave her the fruits of the previous night's labors. "None of what you gave back to me matters," he said.

"What?... that's impossible," she said in disbelief.

"But is it?" he asked her. "You're not exempt from your own rules, are you?"

Damn it, Wendy thought. I should have decided that long ago...

"I'd like you to show me where I went wrong, then," Wendy said, defiantly.

"It all comes down to this," he said, pulling one of the memos out of the stack. "According to this here, paperwork is defined as "paper that's got things written on it." "

Wendy stared at it. He was absolutely right. That was one of her earliest... she'd sent that out after there'd been some debate over the definition of exactly what paperwork was. She thought it was quite self explanatory at the time...

"As a result, not only are any of MY mistakes a moot point, but imagine the effect this has on anything else that's "paperwork"," he said. "And you realize your entire demented framework comes crashing down. Think of it... all the memos sent around outside this department... the reports...all  the clandestine Post-It Notes that have circulated on your watch, Wendy."

Wendy's mouth fell open. She sat there in shocked silence.

"I'll trust you to remedy this problem, then, Wendy. You've never let me down before... I know you're a busy woman, so I'll just leave you here to get all  this sorted out," he said, turning to the door. "Toodles!"

Wendy listened to the cold sound of the door slamming behind Giovanni, then shuddered, realizing what she'd gotten herself into. All the clandestine Post-It Notes... but how? She thought she'd had a system, it all seemed to work out at the time...

 

A few hours later, as he was leaving, Wendy's assistant, wondering why there was silence from her office as opposed to maniacal laughter, discovered her curled up under her desk, sobbing.

So I went to the dentist yesterday... Apparently, my wisdom teeth are coming out on Tuesday. This WAS supposed to happen back during Christmas break, but the hospital we were at screwed us over (more or less). So now it's finally going to happen.

I'll be honest. I'm terrified. Even though I know everything's going to be okay (Azu even TOLD me so), I can't help but worry. I won't remember what's happened after I come out, for example. What if I have a fantastic dream involving James, Sebastian, and Robert (all at once) and never get to remember it? What if I have a prophetic dream revealing the key to SOVA's success (stupid as it sounds, I've had dreams like that before... helpful ones). And what if something bad happens, and, God forbid, I end up in a coma or something?  I won't know... because I'll be asleep. It just scares me to death. I need hugs now. 
(I'm not trying to be pessimistic, by the way.... I'm just terrified. Don't get all worried about me.)