I Lost My Laughter

Chapter 8: Results

“So, what did you need again?”

Blake said nonchalantly, the last month had been good for him. He had a smug smile on his face, the breaking, and rebuilding of Pinkamena had been a huge success. It took longer than he expected to break her, but he liked that part. He had pretended to have romantic feelings for her, in order to help create a masochistic feeling, and it worked. She was becoming even better than he hoped for, and he still had so much planned. Though, there was still a few…problems.

Right before he could get to work, Igneous had called him into his office. When he got in there, Igneous was sitting behind his desk like usual. His hands interlocked in front of him, looking right at Blake. He didn’t seem to be in a bad mood, but he wasn’t in a good one either. Blake, not entirely sure what he was here for, sat in the chair in front of the desk.

“It’s been a month now, so, I want you to-“

Blake had jumped out of his chair as soon as he sat in it, slamming his hands on the desk in front of him, a panicked look on his face. Igneous didn’t even flinch, this response was expected.

“WHAT?! There’s no way it’s already been one month! There’s still so much I need to do! There are a few tweaks I need to do! Some techniques I need to teach her! Please, Igneous, I need more ti-“ Suddenly, Igneous quickly sprang up from his chair. He put one hand on the back of Blake’s head, and another on his left arm. Then, he slammed his head onto the desk, with his left arm behind his back, and his right still on the desk in front of him. Igneous had no emotion on his face when he did this, no anger or annoyance, just a look of seriousness. Blake though had a look of panic, surprise, and fear on his.

“Blake, I’m only going to say this once, listen closely. This is a very serious matter, this isn’t just some little pet project I felt like doing. This affects the entire organization, so, I won’t make any exceptions on this. I already have everything planned out for the remainder of time we have, I won’t allow anything or anyone to mess with it. Now, you’ve had your time, your job is done. And since you’re such a fuckup, I expected you might not be able to finish your job. I will finish whatever it is you failed to, so, no, you’re not getting any more time. The only thing I want from you, that I know you can’t fuck up, is a status report, so I can know specifically how you fucked up. If you understand, blink.”

Igneous nearly shouted into his ear, frustration, and seriousness evident in his voice and face. The longer he talked, the stronger his grip and louder his voice. By the time Igneous was done, Blake was sweating. There weren’t a lot of things he was afraid of, but this was one of them. Igneous had never done anything to him, but he’s seen what happens when others get in his way, and not even he would do something that brutal. Hesitantly, he blinked his eyes.

Igneous saw this, and slowly let him go. Watching Blake, Igneous sat back down in his chair, going back to the same position as before. Blake slowly sat back in his seat, looking back at Igneous as he did, fear still in his eyes. For a few seconds, there was no noise in the room. Blake was too afraid to say anything, and Igneous just stared at him expectedly.

“Well? Tell me what’s happened over the last month, you really don’t want to test my patience right now.”

Igneous had a tone of anger in his voice like he was seriously pissed off. Blake hadn’t seen him this angry for a long time, and he was beginning to think he wasn’t the reason. With all his experience, he’s become very good at reading people. Looking at Igneous, he realized it was blatantly obvious, something else had made him this angry.

“A status report, eh? Hmm, where to start?”

Blake put his hands in his pocket, slowly slouching down in the chair as he seemed to space out in thought. His usual cool returning quickly, as if what happened only moments ago, hadn’t happened at all.