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Post by Adrien Baillon on Dec 19, 2019 17:09:56 GMT -5
"Remember the last time I was in here?" asked Adrien in earnest, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "You wished me luck finding someone!"
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Dec 19, 2019 17:15:05 GMT -5
"According to this report," Veidt said, "you've found... five someones."
He looked up and met Adrien's eyes, profoundly weary of the whole thing already.
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Dec 19, 2019 17:25:33 GMT -5
"Over the last four months," he said helpfully. "And not at the same time."
With Veidt's reputation, perhaps it was not startling there had been so many men of the queer persuasion working in various offices. True to his word, Adrien hadn't gone looking for them.
And four of those men hadn't been a problem. It had been the fourth, an unfortunately named Alfie Dixon, who was the reason for all of this. Handsome and bespectacled, the man had fifteen years on Adrien and had been divorced for two of them. He hadn't taken the breakup especially well, but it hadn't become a problem until Adrien took up with #5.
Two weeks of stoically, sternly saying they needed to talk, being more and more frustrated when Adrien did not talk, and then he had shown up to work uncharacteristically late and a bit disheveled and gone straight to Adrien and started shouting.
Adrien was not particularly sorry or secretive about being queer so it wasn't a lot to him, but the divorce being known about the office since Dixon had been there for five years, that part came as a surprise. As far as Adrien knew, Dixon had been reassigned to another Veidt-operated business in another building after being given a mandatory and paid vacation for the amount of stress he seemed to be under.
For Adrien, however, HR apologetically said they'd have to take it to the big man, seeing as it was technically allowed but frowned upon to date in the office, and Adrien had apparently made a habit of it. Annoyed, he'd said, 'I mean, I could meet people outside of work, but they would all be junkies,' which he supposed he regretted now seeing as it had made it into the report on Veidt's desk.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Dec 19, 2019 17:33:47 GMT -5
Veidt was pinching the bridge of his nose by now.
"Okay," he said. "Okay, listen. I know this isn't prohibited by company standards, but this is a little excessive-"
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Dec 19, 2019 17:34:28 GMT -5
"It's not like I slept with them on the clock," he said, exasperated.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Dec 19, 2019 17:54:37 GMT -5
"And no one is saying you did," Veidt began, "but regardless, you must have noticed the turmoil this has been causing the office-"
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Dec 19, 2019 17:58:46 GMT -5
"You mean delight," he said with a snort of laughter.
The names of the other four men had been promised to be kept a secret, but Dixon had been shouting about the most recent one, and one of the others had voluntarily outed himself. Adrien had not experienced a whole lot of homophobia himself - one woman had started to shun him, and Adrien suspected that had more to do with her horror at having once tried to set him up with her college-aged daughter - but it had been marvelously awkward, even for someone as insensitive to these things as him.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Dec 19, 2019 18:02:34 GMT -5
"Adrien-"
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Dec 19, 2019 18:03:55 GMT -5
"I believe that is Mr. Baillon," he said primly. "This is meant to be a serious meeting, no?"
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Dec 19, 2019 18:06:42 GMT -5
"I'm taking you out of the filing pool," said Veidt. "This has gone on long enough."
He pressed his lips together, rubbed his nose again, and continued, with a sigh, "I'm moving you into my personal staff, where I can keep an eye on you."
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Dec 19, 2019 18:07:30 GMT -5
"Is that what you want to put on me-" he said bitingly, with a flare of the nostrils.
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Dec 19, 2019 18:12:46 GMT -5
"Adrien, I don't know how many times I must tell you that I'm not interested in that, but I can assure you that my reasons for wanting you on a short leash are for your benefit and not mine."
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Dec 19, 2019 18:14:58 GMT -5
"This is so stupid, I haven't done anything wrong!"
He wasn't so loud as to be overhearable, but he was not quite professional.
"I never came on to any of those guys! I'm sorry I'm cute," he said angrily. "Is that what I have to apologize for?"
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Post by Adrian Veidt on Dec 19, 2019 18:19:19 GMT -5
Veidt frowned.
"You didn't?"
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Post by Adrien Baillon on Dec 19, 2019 18:21:43 GMT -5
"No! So is accepting a date a crime?"
He tossed his hair back angrily and leaned back in the chair opposite Veidt, tense and poised as if waiting to start shouting again.
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