Jamie's New Hire

Jamie watched from the door as Tory worked with the jigsaw. The boy was learning very quickly, which left Jamie with more time to work on projects of his own.

"Where's Adam?" he asked as Tory took a small pause in his work.

Pulling his earmuffs down around his neck, Tory turned around. "What?" he asked.

"Where's Adam?" Jamie didn't like repeating himself, but at least the ear protection was doing its job.

"Oh," Tory said as he brushed a pile of scraps to the floor. "He's on lunch, so he went out to his car to take a nap. I guess he's not feeling well, or something. I'm supposed to go get him--" he quickly checked his watch "--a half hour ago. Sorry."

Jamie stepped aside to allow the young intern to rush through the shop to fetch his co-worker. He found Adam's nasty old car parked under the shade of the building with the windows opened slightly. As he approached, he could hear the DJ from one of the local radio stations saying whatever pointless babble DJs liked to say. Even from across the parking lot, it was clear that Adam was still asleep in the driver's seat, the bucket seat reclined fully as he napped to the voices of James Hetfield and Billie Joe Armstrong. It was bound to be quieter in the shop than locked in Adam's car.

Not sure that Adam would be able to hear over the radio, Tory rapped quickly on the glass window with his knuckle. Adam shot up from his reclined positioning, his eyes darting wildly through the interior as his brain caught up with his present situation. He realized that he must have been tired enough to not even remember needing a nap. Wrenching the seat back into its proper position, Adam unlocked his door and stepped outside.

"Jamie's looking for you," Tory said. "I don't know what he wanted. Probably just making sure you planned on coming back from lunch."

Adam narrowed his eyes at the younger man as he sulked past him to go back to work. It wasn't exactly like the thought hadn't crossed his mind a few times already, but why give the courts one more reason to deem him an unfit parent? He walked through the open cargo door, spotting Jamie at the base of the stairs. The older man didn't seem to notice him right away. He was too busy making sure his team of intern slave labourers wasn't fucking anything up.

"Tory said you were looking for me," Adam mumbled as he approached his boss. He couldn't even bring himself to look at the man. He couldn't even fake it. It was far easier to just keep Jamie out of his field of vision all together.

"Yeah," Jamie said as though this was perfectly normal behaviour for the redhead. "Upstairs."

Jamie led the way as the two walked up the metal stairs to the second floor. Assuming Jamie was going up to his office, Adam paused briefly at the door, but Jamie kept walking. Stepping quickly to catch up, he followed Jamie into the small kitchen area.

"If you're not feeling well, you need to call in," Jamie said as he opened the refrigerator door. "The last thing I need is for you to come in here all sick and spread that crap around."

"Yeah, well," Adam started. He shrugged, not sure what he was supposed to say.

Jamie grabbed a large paper grocery bag from the refrigerator and turned around. Before Adam had a chance to ask what it was, Jamie held it out for it to take. Hesitantly, Adam took the bag and opened it, almost expecting to see that giant snake Jamie had in his living room. Instead, he found several large Tupperware containers.

"What's this?" he asked, looking up slightly.

"Well, it's not Panda Express," Jamie replied as he let the refrigerator door swing shut.

Adam looked down into the bag again, realizing that Jamie had just handed him a week's worth of leftovers.

"Jamie, I--"

"Adam, I've seen your idea of food," Jamie said, cutting him off before he could protest. "It's Cocoa Puffs and that Ramen crap. That may be fine for you, but those kids need a little more than that."

Adam blinked a few times before looking up at Jamie. "Thank you," he said.

Jamie nodded and started toward the door. "Now go home and go to bed," he said. "You look like hell. You're not doing anybody any good around here today anyway, with how slow you've been going."

Adam nodded slowly, realizing that he hadn't actually seen his boys since the day before. "Okay," he said as Jamie left the room.

Ω Ω Ω

Jamie finished his morning routine early, giving him time to review the new set of rules the league had emailed him. The biggest changes were the added restrictions of no projectile weapons on the bots, as the organizers were worried about spectator safety. As he read through the rest of the email, Jamie began to suspect that none of the rules was going to have an effect on his bot. Knowing that he had more important things he could be working on downstairs, Jamie started to get up from his seat, but was stopped by the ringing telephone.

"M5 Industries," Jamie answered.

"Uh, Jamie. I can't make it in today."

Jamie recognized the voice on the other end as Adam's, and couldn't help but noticing that the boy sounded even worse than the day before.

"Still sick?" Jamie played along. He knew Adam was healthy as an ox, but if he wanted to pretend to be ill, who was Jamie to argue?

There was a small pause before Adam started talking again. "No, I... I'm fine." Adam muffled the phone and shouted something across the room, returning to the conversation with a heavy sigh. "No, my... my sitter's husband had a heart attack last night. She just called me from the hospital about ten minutes ago."

"Is he alright?" Jamie asked.

"I don't know."

Jamie sighed. He knew that despite all the drama that seemed to follow him, Adam was a good person to keep around the shop. "Listen," he said, knowing that he was out of his mind. "If you can't find anyone to watch the kids by tomorrow, call me back and I'll have something set up for ya."

"Jamie, you don't--"

"Don't argue with me," Jamie said. "I'm trying to help you."

There was a long pause. In the background, Jamie could hear the boys fighting with each other, but over what, he couldn't tell.

"Sorry," Adam said finally. "And thanks. Really."

As the quarreling in the background intensified, Adam cut the connection. Jamie dropped the receiver back onto the cradle, taking a moment to enjoy the peace and quiet of his office. Why had things suddenly gotten so out of control lately? Somehow, nothing was right anymore. Knowing that it was too late to take back his offer, he sighed and picked up the telephone.

Ω Ω Ω

"Why aren't we going to Natasha's?"

"Because I told you," Adam said as he unlocked the car. He swung open the back door to let the boys climb into their seats. "Kevin got sick. Remember?" He reached down between the car's seat and the booster for the buckle, but was pushed away by his son.

"I can do it," the boy insisted.

"Oh, you can?" Adam asked as he took a step backwards. "Okay." He walked around to the other side of the car to the the smaller of his kids situated.

"Where are we going, Daddy?"

Adam struggled to fasten the buckle around the squirming child. "You remember Jamie? We took him to get his truck that day."

"Yeah," the boys said in unison.

Adam got the buckle situated and tugged on the strap to make sure it was secure. "Well, his wife said that she'd watch you until Kevin gets better." He shut the door and walked back around to the other side of the car. Taking the still unfastened buckle from his son's hands, he quickly secured it and shut the door. He climbed into the front seat and started the car.

"I don't want to go to Jamie's," the boy in the seat behind him said.

Adam shook his head and backed out of the driveway. "Too bad."

He tried to remember the route to Jamie's house in South San Francisco, but like usual, he found himself lost and making a bad impression. Cursing himself for not getting the directions from the internet, Adam pulled over to call Irene and ask where he was. Based on where Adam thought he was, Irene realized that he had gotten off on the 82, rather than the 280, and quickly told him how to navigate his way back to Junipero Serra, and gave him a list of turns to make from there. Adam snatched a ballpoint from his cup holder and quickly scribbled her directions down on his forearm before hanging up the phone.

As he twisted through the suburban streets, Adam knew that he wouldn't be able to handle two trips to South Fricso every day. At least the kids slept in the car; the one time they didn't put up a fuss about taking a nap. He realized that he also needed to call Lynn. She wouldn't be happy to go out to Natasha's on Friday only to find that the boys weren't there. Quickly checking the ballpoint scrawl on his arm, Adam rounded a corner, immediately recognizing Jamie's house by the perfectly groomed shrubbery in the front yard. He parked the car outside the house and turned around to wake up the boys.

"Come on," he said as he twisted himself around to unbuckle the safety seats. "Let's go."

"I dun wanna go to Jamie's."

"Too bad," Adam said as he swung his door open. "We're already here."

He walked around to the other side of the car and opened the back door, letting the boys climb out of the car. He grabbed an old book bag from the floor and locked up the car before leading the boys up the steps to the front door, both children clinging nervously to his jeans. He'd barely knocked when Irene opened the door and let them inside.

"Thank you so much for doing this," Adam said as he stepped inside. "I have no idea how long it's going to be before Kevin gets out of the hospital. You sure you don't want me to start looking for someone else?"

"No, it's fine," Irene assured.

"Really?" Adam didn't want to admit how uncomfortable the entire situation made him. Something about it didn't seem right, but he couldn't quite tell what. "I mean, they're three-year-olds. They're not like high school seniors. They can get kinda rowdy."

Irene smiled warmly and took the book bag from Adam. "I know," she said. "I've met their father."

Adam laughed nervously. He could feel his face turning red, which only made him more embarrassed.

"Yeah, well," he started, not sure how to respond to Irene's jab. "Anyway," he dropped his hand down on one of the boys' head. "This here's Dexter, and the one clinging to my leg is Simon. He'll probably be kinda funny for a few days, but just give him time, and he'll be every bit as ornery as his brother." He smiled as he tried to pry his son from his jeans. "Everything you need should be in that bag," he explained. "If they tell you they don't like something, tell them 'too bad,' and make 'em eat it anyway."

Irene laughed lightly. "You'd better get going," she pointed out. "I know Jamie doesn't like it when people are late."

Adam chuckled nervously as he gently nudged the boys toward Irene. "I have no idea how to get back to the freeway," he admitted.

Irene smiled, shaking her head lightly, and quickly moved into the kitchen. Grabbing a ballpoint and a sticky note from the counter, she quickly wrote down the directions both to and from the 101.

"Thanks," Adam said as he took the note. He turned around and pointed his finger at the boys. "You two be good," he warned. "If Irene tells me that you two were a couple of buttheads today, I will not be happy."

Both kids shook their heads, but said nothing.

"I gotta go," he said. "Come on. Give Daddy a hug." He knelt down and wrapped his arms around both boys, tousling their hair with his fingers. "You be good."

He got up and walked to the door. As he swung the front door open, Dexter shot his hand out and decked his brother in the side. Adam had hoped that they wouldn't start that crap again, but he chose to ignore it as he stepped out of the house, closing the door behind him.

Adam showed up at the shop a full five minutes before nine, a personal record by no small amount. Watching from his vantage point up in his office, Jamie watched as the young man walked over to his small wall locker to deposit whatever he didn't need, and didn't leave in his car for whatever reason. He could hear his muffled shouting as he tried to carry on a conversation with someone in Beijing. Finally, he picked up his shiny silver tool kit and retreated to another room in the shop; presumably to work on the project he had left half-finished on Monday. It was clear even from the small view through the mini-blinds that Adam was feeling more social, and ready to work.

The majority of Jamie's morning was spent in his office. As soon as the clock ticked past nine o'clock, the telephone began a relentless assault on all six of the shop's lines. Insane behaviour of the telephone was not normal for Wednesdays, but Jamie had begun to resign himself to the fact that nothing was normal any more. While Jen answered the calls, she took down all of the information and relayed names and telephone numbers to Jamie over email. He returned every call Jen sent his way, knowing that she knew how to weed out the exceptionally bad offers, giving Jamie more time to reply to the serious bidders. Even so, about half of the calls he returned were still pretty lousy offers, and Jamie vetoed them when the bidders refused to negotiate. He still, after all his years in the business, couldn't figure out for the life of him how people expected to get above industry-standard performance at a price normally reserved for college theatre techs. Experience told him, however, that every call should be returned, no matter how many bad offers were received, and as usual, experience paid off. Nestled amongst the emails sent over from Jen were several high-budget contracts. Jamie agreed to meeting with several bigwig execs early the next week, eager for his crew to work on the highly-anticipated sequels.

Shortly after eleven, Jamie finally stood from his desk and stretched, his body not liking long periods of just sitting. As he left his office, he spotted Adam wandering out to the main area, only to promptly turn around and disappear back into the small room where he had been working. Jamie ignored the man's behaviour, shrugging it off as simply normal for the odd redhead. He quickly made his rounds, checking on the progress of the few projects the shop had going. With nothing broken to fix, and no big projects that needed Jamie's assistance, he turned to retreat back to his office, stopped suddenly by Claire, one of his new interns.

"Uhm, Jamie," she said sternly. Jamie tried to guess whether she was going to try to get someone into trouble, or get herself out of trouble.

"What is it, Claire?" he asked flatly.

She sighed, as though he should have already been aware of whatever non-situation she was about to bring up. "I don't know who that new guy knows that convinced you to hire him, but he's not really doing anything. He's been gone for two days, and now he's just walking back and forth, and disrupting the entire crew."

Jamie sighed and started walking back up to his office. "I'll talk to him later," he lied.

"No, I think you should talk to him now." She stood unmoved from her stop on the floor, her hands firmly glued to her hips.

Shaking his head, Jamie turned around to face the intern again. "I'm not going to say anything that he wouldn't tell you, but he's having some issues right now, okay?" Claire snorted indignantly. "And, even with him only working at half speed, he's still ahead of schedule, and already done more today that you have all week. Stop wasting time and get back to work."

The intern scoffed and turned on her heel to leave in a huff. Heaving a light sigh, Jamie retreated back to his office to sift through the notes about old or broken parts that tended to accumulate. He hated these slow times when there wasn't much work to be done around the shop; he'd much rather have been down doing something productive over trying to figure out why he needed to buy drill bits every week. He was fairly certain someone was stealing from the shop, but until anything bigger than bits and bolts came up missing, he didn't feel he had any real cause for suspicion. Things just get used and broken, he told himself. A light tapping broke the silence as Jamie looked over the papers. At first he didn't hear it, looking up only with the tapping grew a little louder.

"Yeah?" he said, wondering why whoever was outside didn't just come in after knocking like everyone else.

Slowly, opening the door, Adam stepped into the office. Holding on to the door lightly, he looked down at his toes, his face a light shade of red. He slowly pushed the open door back and forth with his fingers, as he started to talk a few times. Each time, he barely got a sound out before deciding that those weren't the words he wanted to use.

"I, uhh," he finally managed to sputter out. "I--I've, uhh... I've been doing some... thinking." He glanced up at Jamie before looking back at the floor again.

Jamie sighed lightly and motioned for the young man to sit down in front of the desk. Adam quickly glanced at him again as he shut the door, unmoving from where he stood. Without having the door to play with anymore, his hand nervously reached up and began playing with the silver hoop he wore in his ear. Jamie remembered seeing Adam scurry back into the back room earlier in the day and realized that perhaps he wasn't ready to be social after all.

"Listen, Adam," he said, shaking his head slightly. He held back at cursing himself, knowing that it would only probably make the other man even more uncomfortable. His constant fidgeting was beginning to make Jamie nervous, and forming words proved even more troublesome than usual. "If this is about the other day--"

"No." Adam shook his head, still avoiding looking up at Jamie. "Well, yeah. Kinda. I guess." He stopped tugging at his earring, only to reach down and start tugging lightly on the hem of his worn out t-shirt, which remained perpetually un-tucked despite all the stuff that was kept on his belt while he worked. He seemed very careful, even as he tugged the fabric in a dozen directions at once, to keep the hem pulled below his belt buckle.

"Well, then, what do you want?" Jamie asked, trying not to sound too demanding.

When Adam didn't respond, Jamie went back to looking over the paperwork. Maybe not staring at the poor boy would make him lighten up a little bit. He'd suddenly begun to regret his previous stance on the day being slow. Slow days locked in his office were greatly preferred to dealing with strange employees.

"You... uhh... well, you didn't really, uhm, get yours..."

Jamie looked up, startled to see that Adam had not only moved closer, but was leaning on the desk. Jamie looked up at him over his glasses, not sure what the young man had in mind. He'd pushed too hard too fast, and clearly confused the poor breeder, and now he was put in an awkward situation as payback.

"You uhh... You don't need to--" Jamie managed to stammer before Adam cut him off again.

"No," he said, shaking his head as he slowly moved around the desk. "I told myself last night that I was gonna do this, and I spent all morning working up the nerve." He reached over to the mini-blinds over the window and adjusted them so the slats prevented anyone in the shop from looking into the office. He continued to play with the stick controlling the blinds while he looked back down at his ancient work boots. Jamie couldn't help but notice the nervous rocking as Adam visibly fought the urge to run away.

Not entirely sure of Adam's intentions, Jamie slid his chair away from his desk slightly, allowing for a little more room for whatever Adam had convinced himself to do. His willingness to participate seemed to spook Adam a little bit, and he backed off slightly. Jamie realized that maybe Adam hadn't planned on not being turned down. He expected Adam to lose his nerve and run off, but much to his surprise, the breeder slowly began to inch his way toward Jamie. He ran his finger tips across the smooth metal desk for a few moments before awkwardly getting down to his knees and positioning himself between Jamie's legs. The older man began to wonder if Adam had expected him to undo his zipper, but his question was answered as the lightly-freckled hands moved to unfasten his belt, encountering some amount of difficulty from the intense trembling. He was certain that Adam would lose his nerve and bolt, but he seemed to compose himself long enough to loosen the pressed khakis. He blinked a few times as he toyed with the waistband of Jamie's white Jockeys, tilting his head as though he'd never seen a pair of underwear before that wasn't some stupid bright colour or covered in cartoon characters. He inhaled nervously and again shifted as though preparing to flee, but damn, the boy was determined to prove something. He shook his head lightly before adjusting the elastic waistband and wrapped his trembling fingers around the half-stock Jamie was already sporting. He bit his lip, and closing his eyes, Adam leaned down to wrap his lips around Jamie's member, slightly startled to feel it swell even further in his mouth. Exhaling sharply, he realized that there was no turning back, and committed himself to performing the one act he'd never imagined he'd be involved in. He began to suck nervously, not sure what he was supposed to do. Advice always given in bad porno was to just do whatever you enjoyed, but in Adam's experience, chicks didn't do oral. He began to wonder how much of Jamie he could fit into his mouth, oddly becoming curious about the whole situation, and took more than he could handle, almost immediately setting off his gag reflex. He jerked his head away as he coughed into his shoulder, jumping slightly when he felt Jamie's hand touch his face. Gingerly, Jamie turned the redhead to face him, making sure that the young man listened to what he had to say.

"Adam, you have got to slow down," Jamie said with a light chuckle, before releasing his grip.

Adam nodded slightly before once more guiding Jamie's cock into his mouth, this time slowly taking in more until he knew about how much he could handle. Trying to use his imagination, he tried biting down lightly as he worked his jaw, looking up over his glasses at Jamie, as though seeking approval. Jamie winced, though the young man wasn't entirely sure that it was from pain. Slowly, Jamie's hand moved from the arm rest of his chair toward Adam, changing course from his head almost at the last second, and instead landing on his shoulder. As Adam continued to explore with gentle biting and tongue flicks, he couldn't help but notice that nothing about what he was doing was arousing, although he couldn't deny that something about it was exciting on some very wrong level.

They were both startled by a harsh rapping on the door. Adam quickly ducked under the desk as Jamie pulled his chair as close as he could to hide his undone trousers, but still not crush the man at his feet. Before he was able to summon whoever had interrupted them, the door swung open.

"What is it, Claire?" Jamie sighed as the indignant intern stomped toward his desk.

"I don't know where that Adam guy is, but according to Tory, he has a bad history of walking off the job. I can't find him anywhere in the shop."

Sitting at Jamie's feet, Adam did all he could to not laugh at the woman who seemed to hate him for no good reason. He covered his mouth with one hand as he played with the laces on Jamie's red sneakers. When Jamie sighed again, Adam had to bite his tongue to keep from laughing.

"Is he working right now?" Jamie asked.

Claire scoffed at Jamie's stupid question. "No."

"Are you working right now?" Jamie asked flatly.

Claire's jaw dropped at the question. "I--well, I--"

"The answer is 'no,' and you're wasting company money. If you come to me to bitch about an employee again, you're out, and I'm failing you."

Claire tried to come up with a response, but Jamie's unblinking expression made her nervous enough to finally leave. Once the door was shut again, Jamie slid the chair back out to give Adam more room. He looked under the desk at the man, shocked to see him quivering with his face buried in his hands.

"Adam?" Jamie asked hesitantly.

Adam took off his glasses to wipe his eyes as he let his head slam against the side of the desk. Heaving a sigh, Jamie was relieved to see the man laughing, rather than crying as he'd originally feared.

"Adam, I still haven't gotten mine," Jamie said sardonically. Adam's laughing turned into wild cackling as he sat by Jamie's feet, his entire body shaking as he failed to compose himself. Jamie pushed his seat back against the wall and struggled to get his clothes back in order. "Go on," he said, motion Adam out from under the desk. "Get back to work before Claire comes in here to bug me again."