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( ANA DE ARMAS, 29, CISFEMALE, SHE/HER ) * hey, i’m looking for the office of DAPHNE ESTRADA. they’re the ALMAZ VODKA PRODUCT MANAGER who’s known around the office as THE KNOW-IT-ALL, if that helps ? not to be a gossip, but i’ve heard that they’re AMBITIOUS but SELF-SERVING, is that true ? i also heard that they’re the one who LEAVES CONDESCENDING ANONYMOUS NOTES EVERYWHERE CONTAINING “CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM”. anyways, here’s the coffee they ordered. ( DOJA, 28, SHE/HER, CST )

mason had been reviewing some of the paperwork that had presented at his desk, his eyes remaining focused as he ran his highlighter over a few key topics that he felt were important. that was until he heard daphne’s voice, which is what brought him to tear his eyes away from the ink to look at her. “haven’t seen him.” he stated simply, a smirk teasing his lips as he watched her eyes scan him. he knew it was a look of distaste, and he just couldn’t help but to find some sort of amusement from that. “well, that depends on what you need help with.” he retorted cheekily, still taking this as a chance to mess with the girl. “what can i do for you?”

Mason’s little smirk triggered Daphne’s bitch reflex but she kept it in check if only so he wouldn’t win. That was unacceptable. Instead she adopted a positively saccharine smile. “I needed a bit of legal advice, that’s all,” she said enigmatically. “You see, I’ve been having issues with...someone. An inferior.” The word came out sounding like she relished saying it. And it was true (she had a problem with most of her coworkers, actually), though it hadn’t been the reason she was looking for Nate. She was only toying with Mason now. “I was wondering about the legality of having someone fired simply on the grounds that their amphibious features and irritating smirk trigger my fight or flight response. What do you think?”

was it finally happening ? alice’s one goal in life ? she’d already successfully catfished david hasselhoff, after all – this was officially all she had to live for: getting daphne estrada high. to be totally fair, it did seem like she could use it. if drinking wasn’t working ( which it apparently was not ), and if alice didn’t know how often she got laid, then this was the next step up. she had to stifle a laugh when daphne told her she didn’t know what thc was – daphne estrada knew everything except for the difference between thc and cbd. “ thc’s what gives the actual high. cbd is just, like, calming, which is why it’s, y’know, heavier than thc in these guys, ” she explained, deciding to unabashedly pull the medical ones out. because she had a card ! “ i mean, they’ve definitely still got thc, it’s just, like… easier to function like you would if you weren’t high. hypothetically. ” of course, such was only given when other drugs had failed… there was a reason… “ basically, a hypothetical person would hypothetically experience a sense of euphoria – that’s the thc. ”

Daphne’s eyes widened and she looked around in a half-panic when the joints were taken out. Thankfully, however, everyone was so utterly wrapped up in themselves and their own drunken bliss (or drama) that no one had a fuck to spare for Daphne Estrada being offered weed and seriously considering using it. “Will you just...” Daphne mumbled, trying yet to keep the joints hidden from any potentially wandering eyes, but Alice was too busy explaining the difference between abc and xyz to apparently care. Euphoria...that sounded nice, though. Calming was always a good word, too. She also liked the idea of these joints in particular being ‘medical’ or whatever, since technically it was within the bounds of the law. And prescribed. By a doctor. “Alright,” she said finally, feeling reckless. It wasn’t without a pleasant little adrenaline rush, either. “Fine. Say I decided to try it. Do we just...right here?”

“Hello, Blake,” she said with relative formality. “I hope you’re doing well? I’m looking for records from an old case where a former employee tried to sue after quitting.” She chose not to say why she was looking for it, since there was really no reason to let them know she was preparing to be sued by a former disgruntled employee. Not that he had any real case, but...well. “I printed out the information, can you help me find it?” | @blah-keh​

“ sadly it’s almost a natural instinct now-” it was true, phoenix had very little to no fate in the intelligence of humanity. the proof was in the pudding, and florida. “ seriously- i’ll do a sobriety test right now. prepare to be amazed. ” he placed the remote for the camera in his pocket and proceeded to walk in a straight line, heel to toe, while lightly tapping his pointer fingers to his nose in an alternating fashion. “ i don’t mean to brag but that was incredible– i need a celebratory drink now. ” he gave her a goofy grin, it was an olson special, as he made his way back to his post. “ not vain, just beautiful. a beautiful domineering bitch– your words not mine. ” so resent that, he thought to himself.

Daphne narrowed her eyes at him, but after determining that Phoenix was not, in fact, being facetious, she allowed a small smirk. “Thank you,” she said, pleased. “That’s very nice of you to say, although I prefer ‘goal-oriented’ to ‘domineering’ for future reference. You’re looking very handsome yourself, especially now you’ve proved your sobriety.” She reached out to straighten his shirt at the shoulder and then brushed invisible dirt off of it. There was no such thing as too clean. “You know, you're particularly well-placed to be the watchful eye tonight—I’m easily the classiest employee here, would you agree? I mean—” she gestured to the masses before them, drinking and laughing and fighting and dancing and jumping fully-clothed into the pool, and she shook her head. “Even if I totally butcher this new campaign I’m working on, they can’t possibly fire me. Not when the company looks like this. Right?”

daphne’s extreme defense caused a grin to form, threatening to become an actual smile. it just confirmed her subject daphne had already been thinking about it, somewhere, even more ! “ alright, alright – if you don’t wanna go for it, i’m not gonna make you. i mean, who would i be to disrespect nancy reagan’s legacy ? ” d.a.r.e. hadn’t worked very well, but just say no ? far more successful ! the one successful thing to come of the reagan administration ! to her knowledge ! however, daphne’s question – very hypothetical in nature – caused the grin to creep back up. “ well, i, hypothetically, don’t have any edibles on me or anything – just joints. ” she couldn’t believe she was literally confessing to having drugs on her person on company property to a superior… she was either really risking it or really confident that daphne wouldn’t rat out her new confidant. “ hypothetically, if someone here would want to – hypothetically – start with something a little light, i, hypothetically, also have medical grade right now. a little less thc. hypothetically, of course. ”

Uptight Daphne might have been—or perceived as being, anyway—but she wasn’t an idiot, and she wasn’t naive, either. She knew her coworkers were all a  bunch of drug-abusing, law-eschewing, immature slackers. She knew people were using this party as an excuse to get absolutely wasted and make idiots of themselves. So she wasn’t surprised to find out that Alice had marijuana on her...which wasn’t to say that Alice was all of those things—maybe half—because Daphne certainly felt some fondness for her. Daphne sighed, griaced, looked to the open, starless sky as if for answers which didn’t come. “I don’t know what THC is,” she said finally, lifting a brow at Alice. “And I don’t know...that is, hypothetically, if one was to try a, um, joint...” She cleared her throat. “What exactly would happen?”

daphne was hot– a possible conquest if she ever overcame that invasive case of head-bitch-high-school-bully she had. “ i’d say perfect- but i have a feeling you already knew that. ” his eyes focused on the playback reel as he tilted it in her directions for her viewing. “ this is what i’ll be doing so long as someone stands on that platform right there ” he rarely ever gave people the benefit of the doubt so he figured he’d be there until he took everything down. “ drunk ? who’s drunk ? because it definitely isn’t me– i see it as a way to weed out the idiots– if you can’t stand on a platform and literally let the camera do all the work, honestly i don’t know what to tell you. if anything is unusable the subject is one hundred percent at fault. ” he shrugged.

Daphne rolled her eyes but it wasn’t without the tiniest hint of a grin as well that gave her away. “Well I can’t fault you for weeding out idiots, I guess,” she acquiesced—perfectly truthfully, too. She liked doing a bit of weeding herself from time to time. The problem was the number of weeds. “I do still think the person in charge of operating the—” she gestured again to the booth, just this side of too drunk to think of the word— “thing, shouldn’t be drunk. But of course, you’re claiming sobriety. And I’m feeling surprisingly inargumentative so I’ll take your word for it. And, you know, by the way,” she added suddenly, lifting a brow, “if your little perfect comment was implying that I’m vain then I want you to know I resent that. I may be the domineering bitch everyone says I am but I’m not vain.”

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it never failed to interest alice: some of the people in the building perceived as ‘the worst’ had some hidden depths that made them far more entertaining. yes, vice versa was far more common – ‘the best’ had hidden depths that made them the worst, but man… daphne was just a shining example of the former. especially now that she was venting to her by her own decision. god, maybe alice should become a therapist – she was so good at pretending to really, really listen !

daphne’s immediate response was more than amusing. perhaps alice had been subconsciously ( unconsciously ? ) considering offering her a joint again, but nothing came to the forefront of her mind until daphne actually acknowledged it. all of a sudden, she knew who she had to be: the bad guy in all the ‘just say no’ psas. “ it’s legal here, y’know. ” maybe she did know, but on the off chance she didn’t and that played into it… she wasn’t totally sure about what the code of smoking on the premises after hours was ( but she had a card ! ha, rolfe ! ), but daphne didn’t need to know that. “ i mean, i know you said no before, but… it’s gotta be somewhere in the back of your mind if you brought it up, right ? ”

“It’s nowhere in the back of my mind!” Daphne insisted, though it was without her usual...oomph. She was tired. She was tense. She needed to relax badly, and she had been thinking about it quite a lot, maybe somewhere deep, deep deep down hoping Alice might offer again...? God, the inanity of it. She met Alice’s eye and frowned but didn’t actually say no. She looked around discreetly, as if her sudden contemplation might have been seen by anybody happening past with the ability to read minds. “And I realize it’s legal. That doesn’t mean it’s legal at a company party. Nor does it mean it’s smart.” She paused, looked Alice up and down. “How would...what sort of...method would be used? Hypothetically?”

“Don’t give me that look,” she said after finishing a short—relatively short—rant about work. Maybe she was just paranoid now, but she swore she could see a mischievous twinkle. “I said no before and I’m saying no now.” | @escxpiism​

the tone coming from the woman had caught her off guard, so off guard that she wore the shock clearly on her expression. her posture tightened as she crossed her arms, teeth grinding together with a roll of her eyes. gianna pointed to the name on the door leading to her office briefly before her words begun to spill past her red painted lips. “you doubt security that much?” she asked as her head tilted to the side. “gianna sur, crisis management..” she explained as she took a moment to bite from her donut. 

Daphne blinked a few times and followed the gesture to the name on the door, going red-cheeked when she realized her mistake. “I...no,” she said stiffly, feeling at once guilty and too prideful to admit it. “Of course not, my apologies. Daphne,” she offered a hand—stiffly—but smiled more or less genuinely enough. “Daphne Estrada. Up on forty-two at Almaz Vodka. Maybe you already know that,” she said with a short laugh. She’d, of course, meant it because Gianna was in security, but she also realized things had a tendency to sound arrogant when they came out of her mouth, and she hoped internally it wouldn’t be taken that way. Excessively beautiful women had an annoying way of robbing Daphne of her verbal faculties, which were typically top notch, thanks. “You were trying to show me something?”

“Yeah, of course I’m doing something right! I’m kind of awesome, duh… You’re not that smart, right?” Joey asked with an innocent smile on his face, as he looked at the other as she offered to help. It was definitely nice that the other seemed to change her mind about helping him, because he needed someone to help him find the file. Nodding his head slowly, he thought about who the file was for. If he was being honest, it’s not like he could actually remember. “Oh, it was probably for Griffin… I assume, since I’m his intern and he probably sent me down here to get those files, but… I lost it.” He said with a small smile, hoping that he had gotten that right.

Daphne lifted an eyebrow but said nothing in answer to what she assumed, coming from him, was not meant to be as rude a question as it sounded. And if it was, well...there was hardly any logic in being upset about being called stupid by a stupid person, right? “Griffin, right...” Daphne said, hands going to her hips as she looked around the room, keeping an eye out for any papers that looked out of place and might have readily presented themselves as the files in question. No such luck, of course. “Well, the good news is, I don’t see him reaming you for it. What are the files you lost, exactly? Contracts, forms? Were you copying them? I mean, it could be anywhere.”

Are you any good at it, though? Most people aren't. If you're one of them I'll take the latter.

I'm more than happy to oblige so long as you don't ruin my shoes.