If Working At Orsk Was Tolerable And Not Literal Torture AU

by GayLord3000

Summary:

In a world where Orsk is just the normal capitalist furniture conglomerate type of evil, Basil and Amy have some nice interactions.

Notes:

This is incredibly cringe but I really liked Basil and I just wanted some Basil/Amy content.

Chapter 1: Ruth Anne’s Birthday

The days at Orsk bleed into each other so much that Amy’s go-to way to tell what day it was, became remembering how long she’d been rostered on for that day. Lately between the drudgery of work, being annoyed at her roommates and the fallout of a recent phone argument with her mother Amy had been feeling particularly drained.

She didn’t even bother to say hi to Matt or Trinity when she came in today, pretending she didn’t hear them. Hopefully she’d be able to barely interact with some customers, idle around the store then check out in seven hours without incident. This seemed to be working for 15 minutes until Amy caught Basil heading over to her with a chilling amount of pep in his step out of the corner of her eye. While she started speed walking in hopes of avoiding him with his long legs Basil caught up to her quick.

“Just who I was looking to talk to, I have an exciting task for you today.” He announced with unwarranted seriousness. “It’s Ruth Anne’s birthday today and we’re going to decorate the break room for her.”

That actually surprised Amy. “You wanna do that for her? Wouldn’t that be counter productive to ,you know, getting work done?”

Basil frowned, looking slightly offended. “Of course not, we have enough people to cover the floor today and it won’t take long. Besides, Ruth Anne is an important member of the Orsk team; she deserves to know how much we value her.”

Admittedly however much Basil annoyed her with his constant pestering and unnecessary advice, it didn’t seem like he’d let down Ruth Anne like that. They did seem to have a kind of weird friendship. Now she felt kind of guilty. “It sounds fun, I think she’d really like that.” Amy forced an excited smile.This seemed to encourage him a little, considering he lectured her about employee motivation as described in the Orsk employee handbook all the way to the break room.

---

.

He’d kept going while they set up but Amy had stopped replying with even polite hums focusing on hanging the cheap streamers up instead. She should try to remember Ruth Anne’s birthday on her own next year, bring in a cup of coffee or something for her just to make her day. Come to think of it, when was the last time she brought a gift for anyone? Probably for her mom and her mom’s new husband last Christmas. A nice-ish vase and some football merchandise, she didn’t exactly have the budget to wow them. What a lame point to be at 24. No boyfriend, no money, no education. All that hard work had become meaningless, eventually her body would get too old to keep even this up.

Amy pinned the last streamer and climbed down the step ladder to avoid spiralling further. Ruth Anne would have a good day at least. As she folded up the step ladder she noticed Basil looking at her expectantly from his place in front of the break room table. “Sorry I just missed that, what were you saying?”

He gave a light disappointed huff. “I was saying that if you worked at it, redid your test and applied yourself organising employee birthdays may be one of your responsibilities soon.”

She tried to churn out a non-firable way to shoot this conversation down. “Thanks. Who did the cake?”

The cake seemed to be chocolate under the clumsily applied buttercream icing, decorated with messily m&ms reading ‘Happy Birthday R.A.’. Basil looked down at the cake as if just noticing this. “Oh my sister wanted to make it, Ruth’s picked her up from school a couple times when I’ve been working.”

No wonder the two got along so well. “That was really sweet of her to do.” Amy offered sincerely, gesturing toward the cake.

He straightened up (with his height and already perfect posture was very unnecessary) with pride. “She did most of it herself too, barely needed my help for any of it.”

“Efficient, methodical, nice and looks out for Orsk employees.” Amy listed on her fingers. “She must be a mini you.”

After laughing her own joke, she looked up to see his reaction. Rather than taking it as the joke it was intended to be, the brown eyes behind his glasses had grown big and his mouth had stretched into a warm slightly smug smile.

Feeling embarrassed Amy checked the time on her phone, which she was technically allowed to do in the break room, changing the subject. “Hey I’m good to go on break now right?”

Basil broke out of his pleased haze, seeming a little disappointed but maybe she was just imagining it. “Oh sure, we’ll be doing cake as a part of the break so make sure you're back in 15 minutes.”

She nodded, taking the step ladder with her to put away and leaving the room. Awkward as it was with the sudden change in atmosphere, talking to Basil had given Amy a pretty good idea.

---

.

Hastily rushing back in through the back door, Amy noticed she still had 8 minutes till her break was technically over. Her sneakers skidded on the floor as she made a quick turn into the break room. She pushed the door open harder than she meant to, drawing the attention of all the employees seated around the table eating birthday cake. It occurred to her that this may have been a weird thing to do. May as well commit to it now. She cleared her throat and handed Ruth Anne the stuffed Garfield she’d purchased at the gas station. “Happy Birthday, Ruth Anne. I thought he could be a friend for Snoopy.”

Ruth Anne’s eyes lit up as she took the toy. “Aw, thank you Amy. It was really sweet of you to remember him.” She put down her plate of cake to give him a loving squeeze, overly happy about a cheap last minute gift from the gas station. Amy nodded sheepishly, deliberately ignoring Basil’s eyes boring into her from the other side of the table. Her break was about up by now she mumbled this to the group before heading back out to the floor.

The rest of her shift was pretty uneventful, she helped some customers choose between the Chorbon and Walbnan mattress models and Ruth Anne came by to chat. She didn’t see Basil for the rest of her shift though. Which was probably for the best given how she had no interest in discussing the merits of the founder of Orsk or how the employee system was designed to allow for moving up within the company. (It would’ve been incredibly pathetic if Amy had actually gotten to the point where talking to her gangly, pedantic, Urkle-like manager was something that cheered her up.)

---

.

She clocked out her time card and gathered her bags to leave, as she walked to the parking lot she heard someone calling her name and slowed down. To no surprise it was Basil, he waved at her lightly jogging to catch up. Something unexpected was being handed a bagged Tupperware container. At her obvious bafflement, Basil pushed his glasses up and explained. “You didn’t get any cake earlier, so I saved you some.”

Amy took the bag, a little touched by the gesture. She felt herself smiling at it. “Thank you.”

He scratched the back of his neck looking away. “It’s no problem.” He pulled his arm back to his side standing straight. “In any case it was really nice what you did for Ruth Anne back there, very much shop responsible material.”

She waved him off dismissively. “Seriously, don't mention it. It wasn’t that big a deal.”

“Don’t be modest. I think it really made her day.” There was a pause as he seemed to be weighing up how to say something. “Especially since you’ve seemed a little… out of it lately. If there’s something going on-“

Ugh, Amy was suddenly hit with one of the big reasons she didn’t like talking to Basil. The weird pity. Like she wasn’t three years older than him and fully capable of looking after herself. She’d really been hoping it wasn’t that noticeable. “Trust me there’s really nothing going on. Listen, I have a thing after work I really can’t be late.” She shut him down.

He sighed “Well if you have a commitment, you have a commitment.” The disappointment from earlier was even more apparent.

“Thanks again for the cake.” Amy offered conciliatorily as she walked off towards her car.

Chapter 2: The Orsk Organisation Are Proudly Feminist Allies

Things at work had been a little weird lately. It seemed impossible but somehow Basil had become even more stilted and work focused when he spoke to her. Thankfully the weird ‘Is something wrong? You seem a little down when you come into your awful part time job, to pay off the massive amount of debt you have’ talk hadn’t come up again. Instead for some reason Ruth Anne kept coming over to talk to her. With weird secretive shrugs and a sly gossipy tone, asking her about boys or celebrity crushes. While finding out Ruth Anne had a crush on Jason Mamoa was kind of funny, Amy didn’t have any clue what the hell had prompted this.

None of it was disruptive enough to actually disturb her work. She’d been able to reprice most of the furniture in the bathroom section for the new three week sale that was coming up. Right after she’d added a new price label of a bathroom cabinet, she noticed Trinity heading over to her with uncharacteristic anxiety. Stopping close to her, she asked in a low, quiet voice.“Can we switch areas? There’s a weird guy in bedrooms who won’t stop talking to me.”

Amy stood up immediately.“Yeah, of course. Do you want to get Basil or Matt or someone?”

Trinity just shook her head. “No, it’s not a big deal. I’m just going to move sections until he leaves.”

She studied her coworker’s nervous face as she looked at the floor, arms crossed. “Are you sure you're alright? If it’s too stressful I can cover for you, while you take a break. I don’t care, I've just had my break.”

“No, no it’s fine. I just need to be somewhere else for a while. Thank you.” She turned her down.

Unsure how to handle this, Amy reluctantly nodded and moved along. Jesus poor Trinity, annoyed as she could get at her it really sucked to have some weird creep follow you around at work. It didn’t seem like a rare occurrence either.

---

 

Assuming her station on bedrooms, Amy tried to keep an eye out for who this guy could be. After 15 minutes without incident, she got hopeful that he just took the hint and left. These were dashed when an older man dressed like someone’s golf playing dad confronted her. “Where’s the other girl who works here? The Asian one.”

She didn’t bother to keep her customer service demeanour up, openly scowling at him. “She’s on break. I do the same job.”

“Well I needed to talk to her, can you bring her back out?” He snapped.

Pointedly planting her feet and crossing her arms, she snapped back. “Whatever you want to ask her, you can ask me.”

He stepped closer to her. It hit her then that he was significantly taller and heavier than she was. In fact she barely came up to the bottom of his rib cage. “It’s a free country isn’t it? I’m allowed to talk to whoever I want to and I don’t appreciate your tone.”

Amy swallowed uncomfortably but stood her ground. “Yeah but if she wanted to talk to you she’d be talking to you wouldn’t she? It’s a two way street like that. If you’re interested in some bedside tables get those, if not there’s the door.” She gestured with a jerk of her head.

He grabbed a bunched up handful of the front of her Orsk work shirt, yanking her up slightly. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears, her throat going dry. For a minute she thought she was about to be choked out. “Listen here you little shit-“

In what seemed like a sudden flash of blue shirt, Amy found herself being gently yanked back. She was now standing behind Basil. “Sorry sir, unfortunately Orsk has a zero tolerance policy for physical abuse of staff. It’s store policy that we have to ask you to leave.” The words were delivered loudly and firmly, drawing the attention of multiple previously zoned out customers.

The man gave a choked laugh, playing it off with a couple casual denials. Seeing the people around him watching this though he made a quick exit. Basil let out a relieved sigh, shoulders relaxing. He turned around quickly to face her. “Are you okay? I can’t believe he touched you like that.”

Realising that she must still look freaked out, Amy pulled herself together. “Yeah, all good.” She threw in a thumbs up for good measure.

He seemed very unconvinced by this. “Well I’m going to need you and Trinity to fill out an incident report. Just so we know what to look out for in case he tries to come back.”

Amy winced. “Is that really necessary?”

 

“Better to be safe than sorry, I’d feel better having the stuff on file in case we ever need to call the authorities on him.” Basil said firmly.

She and Trinity ended up sitting on plastic chairs outside the motivation room. Trinity seemed about as enthusiastic about it as she had. Matt had been fussing over her since he’d heard about it. It was sweet but it seemed like she’d just wanted to forget the whole thing.

 

“Thanks for stepping in.” Trinity suddenly spoke.

Amy was so surprised by it she jumped a little. “Huh?”

Her coworker with dyed hair remained looking straight ahead with what appeared to be a bored expression. “It was cool of you to stand up for me to that weird guy back there. I mean it was stupid but cool.”

“Thanks.” She replied, touched. “Sorry you had to deal with that guy.”

Trinity shrugged. “It just… happens. There’s not much anyone can do about it.”

 

She sat with that for a moment. There had been times when she’d been judgemental of Trinity- viewing her as kind of fake and shallow. It was such a misjudgment. Even if she was sometimes annoying, Trinity was tough. Smarter than she let on. Noticing she was being stared at, the aforementioned girl narrowed her eyes at Amy. “What?”

“You're a pretty cool person Trinity.” Was all she said.

Trinity blinked in surprise then softened into a slight smirk. “You too. Sometimes.”

Basil exited the motivation room with a sigh. “Well I’ve filed a report with a description of him in case he comes in again and I’ve alerted the authorities about the incident.” He announced.

“That seems like a bit much. It really wasn’t a big deal.” The younger of the two girls protested.

He considered her solemnly. “Honestly, I’m thinking of going to upper management to see about getting us some security. It could be really dangerous with some of the hours we’re open. Trinity, do you need me to walk you to your car?”

She shook her, pointing a fake nail in the direction of the front of the store. “Nah, Matt’s waiting to walk me out. I'm ok.”

Basil nodded, then turned to face Amy. “Would you like me to walk you to yours?”

 

Amy blinked in surprise. Which was silly given that it wasn’t exactly out of nowhere. “Oh, you don’t have to do that. I’m not that far away today, it’s totally fine.”

Rather than looking reassured his lips twisted into a deeper frown. “Please, it’d really make me feel better.”

It made her feel a little guilty she’d even declined.

---

Once again Amy found herself awkwardly walking with Basil through the parking lot. This time they were side by side walking slowly and Basil seemed a little lost in thought. He hadn’t said a word since they’d left the store.

“Are you alright there?” She asked gently.

“Hmm?” He snapped out of his daze. “Oh it’s nothing.”

They walked over the asphalt for a couple more paces silently.

“Actually I was wondering if there was a reason neither of you came to me.” Basil said.

Amy laughed to break the tension. “Oh I just think Trinity didn’t want to make a big thing of it and I’m kinda the same. That guy was just some asshole you know?”

His glasses slipped down his nose and he pushed them back up with unwarranted seriousness. “I guess I can understand. You know you can come to me about this stuff though? Like that I’m on your side.”

The conversation was getting more serious than she would have preferred.“That’s good to hear. You weren’t worried at first that I was harassing the customers for sport?” She joked.

Basil barely seemed to register the humour, shaking his head. “Of course not. You wouldn’t do that, you’re a good person.”

 

Huh. It had been a while since she’d heard something like that said out loud. He’d said it so easily too, like it was obvious. It wasn’t that she’d thought she was a bad person but it hadn’t really been on her mind that she was a good one. Amy noticed Basil staring at her and realised she’d actually stopped in her tracks when he said it.

 

Somehow he managed to frown even harder- the look on his face going from a little concerned to a full ‘aww buddy’. He was about to say something so Amy cut him off in advance.

“Yeah, you too. It really wasn’t that we didn’t trust you or anything just… one of things you know?” She rushed out.

 

“Really?“ Basil asked.

 

“Really. I know you’d have our back, you’re a good manager.” She confirmed.

 

It was true. Even if Basil could be a stickler for the rules and fell way too easily for Orsk propaganda, Amy didn’t doubt that he’d look out for his employees. In general he just seemed like a pretty decent guy. Today was making her consider that maybe she should try harder to get along with her colleagues. After all it wasn’t as if she was always the easiest to get along with.

Basil smiled at her widely, he had very straight teeth she couldn’t help but notice. “Well thank you Amy, that means a lot.”

They both basked in the kind moment for a minute.

“Of course, Orsk company policy would support your side as well,” He began assuming a teacher’s pet lecturing posture. “All employees are entitled to be treated with respect both by other staff and customers. Harassment regarding religion, gender or race is not tolerated at all-“

Amy felt her left eye twitch a little. She was wrong- Basil was still pretty annoying actually.

“Provided we aren’t engaging in discriminatory action ourselves, we reserve the right to refuse any customers.” Basil continued obliviously.

Thankfully they were now in front of her red Honda.

“Well, we’re at my car now.” She cut him off.

He blinked back into focus. “Ah, so we are. Sorry about today, if it happens again call me over. I won’t make a big deal of it or anything. Promise.”

“It wasn’t your fault at all. Thank you for stepping in actually… it really could’ve gone worse without you there.”

Amy caught herself twirling a strand of hair while looking at the ground. She reminded herself that she wasn’t a 14 year old girl and that this was somebody she worked with. She cleared her throat. “Thanks. Anyway-“

 

“Don’t worry about it. I’d do it again honestly.” Basil said.

He was strangely intense about it. The way he normally was about organising what would happen before store inspections. All energetic and determined. She found herself unsure what to do with it being directed at her.

Amy settled on nodding and awkwardly pulling out her car keys. “Sure. Thank you. I’m gonna head, see ya tomorrow?”

 

“Oh yeah. See you then.” Basil gave a dorky wave, before heading back to the store.

She watched him for a few seconds longer than warranted before she got in her car and drove home.