#hope this is not gonna be so offensive she’s just a little uneducated

[minami-mad-fish]

[marie-dufresne]

The Gopher

[[Oh lordy lordy I hope you are all ready for this. Because I don’t write chronologically, I’ll be throwing my Hojosynthesis fics up here as posts and organizing them on a super special™️ page on Marie’s blog. As bizarre and horrible as it sounds, I do hope I can entertain at least one person with this wtfery. So um, here we go (: ]]

🧬 Main Verse Page 🧬

The Gopher: Marie finds herself offending the wrong person and as punishment, finds herself transferred to the science department.

When nineteen year old Marie Dufresne was called into the small room that served as the supervisor’s ‘office’, she knew exactly what she was in for. A scolding, a reprimanding, probably a bit of belittling. She was, after all, just some intern from the slums, the current gopher.

Intern go for this, intern go for that, intern where the hell is that thing I asked the other intern for?

She didn’t mind so much. She had been hired in the marketing department of ShinRa Electric Power Company for a full year paid internship and had high hopes of learning, of absorbing as much as humanly possible so that when her internship was through, she might manage to be hired on as a permanent employee, to make a better life for herself than either of her parents had bothered to make for her.

Marie had no formal education to speak of and even though she’d listed herself as a photographer on her (poorly written, badly formatted) resume, she was not an idiot. Uneducated, but not stupid. She saw the way her interviewer couldn’t meet her gaze, the way his eyebrows lifted slightly each time she inhaled, the way he cleared his throat when she crossed her legs.

She knew exactly why she’d been hired.

It wasn’t right, she certainly wasn’t qualified, and she should have been offended by such blatant sexism, but when it came to the world, the curly blonde had been raised more on a ‘do what it takes to get what you want’ approach as opposed to any sort of moral path to a righteous, wholesome life.

Now that she was here however, she wanted people to meet her eyes, to speak to her without undressing her in their minds, so when the man who had been the previous year’s intern suggested he could help her climb the ranks quickly with a little tit (or in her case, a whole lot of tit) for tat, she’d spilled coffee all over his chest.

By accident, of course.

So now she was standing before a supervisor, one Mr. Henry, bracing herself. She’d take a scolding, move on, and the next time she would simply say ‘no thank you’.

“Miss Dufresne, you know why I’ve called you here?”

Marie gave a practiced grimace and a little smile. “The coffee. It was an accident I…I didn’t mean it, he just got me a little upset so I wasn’t as careful as I should have been. I’m sorry.”

With a look down at her through his thick glasses, the fat, balding man who would achieve nothing higher in his life than babysitting the wayward underlings of the department gave a little snort.

“You do realize assault is a terminable offense.”

Assault? Well that was a bit dramatic.

“Sir he…he was…he was trying to bribe me with…favors. Or—for favors. You know like…bedroom…stuff.”

Three weeks into a job, how did she put that delicately? Maybe there was no way.

Mr. Henry gave another snort, moving behind his desk, the corporate metal separating them.

“How typical of a girl like you to think that way.”

He placed his two palms flat on the desktop, leaning forward. It creaked under his weight and he shook his head.

“You were being offered a mentorship, Miss Dufresne. We are team players here in this department and you’ve more than shown you aren’t capable of being one.”

What. Was he…serious? A mentorship? Was this the true face of big business? Was it exactly how it was in the movies, the only way to rise up was to step on the necks of others or climb into their beds?

“But I—“

“Oh I’ll be generous,” he assured her, heaving a sigh as he lowered himself into his wheeled desk chair, stuffing already fighting its way out of the seam. He reached into a drawer, thumbing through some files and drew up a sheet, “a transfer, not a termination.”

A transfer? For one incident? Sure, he was right in a sense. Transfer was better than termination. There were only two things waiting for her back in the slums if she lost this job—a shiny pole and a stage.

A smile that didn’t reach any other part of his face appeared on Mr. Henry’s lips then as he pushed the paper forward, not bothering to hand to to her directly.

“The science department,” he informed her, “and don’t worry. Those nerds won’t have any interest in trading favors, so you’ll be safe.”

Marie pursed her lips, furrowing her brow when she reached forward for the paperwork, cheeks heating with a mix of embarrassment and anger. She was certain, certain, that creep had been trying to get up her skirt…hadn’t he?

Normally polite, Marie left the office without so much as a thanks and, retrieving her handbag from her desk (that had for the three entire weeks, gone unused), headed to the opposite side of the building, down down down down into the lower floors until she was standing before the reception desk, handing over paperwork her supervisor couldn’t even be bothered to process himself.

There was a sour look on the older woman’s face as she read through it.

“Henry, eh? Never heard of him. Can’t be that much of a bigwig.”

Marie smiled at that, tucking a whole handful of golden curls behind her ear. “Well, he’s pretty big.”

This earned her a laugh, but that was quickly followed by a low whistle and a raised brow.

“He’s sending you over to Professor Hojo? Oh honey what have you done upstairs?”

Well that didn’t sound promising.

“I uh…I offended the wrong person.”

“Mm. Apparently so.”

There was silence for a bit before she stood, circling around the desk and pulling her badge from a retractable lanyard.

“Well honey, I’m gonna have to let you in and out of the lab until we can get your badge activated here. Should be good by tomorrow or Thursday.” Marie nodded and she went on, “that one there, who hasn’t picked his head up from his desk in six damn days, that’s Hojo.”

“Oh uh…tha—thanks so much.”

The labs were an interesting place and were she in less of a hurry to impress her new—what exactly would this professor be to her? Supervisor? Boss?—she might have wandered around, marveling.  This was an entirely different scenario than the one she’d applied for in Marketing. Marketing was, as Mr. Henry had said, a team. Now she was assigned to a singular person.

A singular person who she’d been standing over for going on four minutes now and he hadn’t even lifted his head, too busy pouring over some sort of book she wouldn’t understand even if she was capable of reading well.

Finally, she cleared her throat. He seemed rather young to be a professor, but what did she know? She hadn’t made it through high school.

“Excuse me, professor?”

No response.

“…Mr—ah, Professor Hojo?”

“What.”

He didn’t look up, but there was enough demand in his voice that she knew he was hearing her.

“I’m Marie Dufresne, your new—“ shoot. What was she? “—intern.”

This piqued his interest and he looked up, examining her face. He hadn’t accepted any interns. No one ever posed them as an option for him. He had no interest in babysitting. And yet here was this starry eyed girl clutching a handbag and wearing clothing entirely inappropriate for lab work.

“What’s your field of study?”

The question took Marie by surprise and she blinked, taking a few seconds more than the professor was willing to spare and he returned to his book.

“Photography.”

He looked up again, this time, a snarl tugging at his top lip. Was this a joke? Was Gast fucking with him? What use could he possibly have for a photographer?

“Who sent you here to waste my time?”

“Mr. Henry, up in marketing,” she replied, displaying a sunny smile, her go-to peace offering, “he was my supervisor. He got upset because I—“

“I don’t need your sob story. Your problem isn’t my problem. Go.”

“I’m not your problem,” she protested, “I’m your intern. I’m not a scientist but I am a fast learner, I’m good at taking orders and I’m not clumsy so—“ leaning back, she took hold of one of her ankles, pulling up her foot and displaying her five inch stiletto, “—even in these, you don’t have to worry.”

Seriously. Was Gast fucking with him?

Finally, he gave her his attention, and a full once over. It wasn’t the same sort of once overs she’d gotten from so many other men. He was trying to place her here, in this space, to make sense of what she was doing here and why she seemed to damn happy about it. Was she retarded?

Oh gods, her smile was getting bigger.

“Fine,” he conceded, “get me a cup of coffee. Black.”

The way her eyes lit up at the instruction might have unnerved a lesser man, but intrigue sparked in Hojo. Just how eager was this thing to please?

It might just be worth testing.