Chapter Text
Jayce has never liked the cold. He doesn’t like the cold or the dark, or the wetness that seeps into his sock when he’s caught in the rain on a stormy Tuesday afternoon. He doesn't like anything gloomy or dismal, nothing that leaves him feeling out of sorts and worn-down. Jayce likes the sun and the summer and the feeling of a warm breeze hitting his tanned face. Jayce likes the relentless chirping of cicadas. He likes the ocean.
He likes going to bed with the lights still on.
So, in retrospect, moving to a city the very opposite of that might not have been the brightest of his ideas in both the literal and metaphorical sense. In fact, it was probably not only not one of his brightest ideas but one of his most impulsive, too. A spur of the moment decision he had made with the heightened emotions that being faced with a new opportunity comes with. He had been graced with the chance of a change of pace and Jayce, if anything, has always been a man who loves to take his chances.
It's not that he had been against his previously mundane life. There is attraction and safety to living a simple existence. His routine could have been seen as a comfort—wake up, work a shift in the small, family-run tool shop that hired him part-time, go home and water his plants, feed his dog, and don’t forget about lunch with his mother every other Saturday. They were all events in his daily life that played on repeat as each day slid right into the next, a continuum.
The importance of having a routine is something that has always been stressed to Jayce, too. A routine keeps a balance on things. A routine helps keep things in check. A routine provides stability and ensures that he won’t diverge from the norm and fall prey to what most likely would bring the most harm to him: himself.
He might have fucked that up, though, when he gave an enthusiastic yes to the approval of his application. But hey, he couldn’t continue helping other men twice his age pick out fancy screwdrivers forever, especially not after six years of university and two separate degrees. Jayce needed change. He needed a new routine.
The salary, full-time benefits, and the potential to improve other’s lives also made great incentives.
So, Jayce had packed everything up and high-tailed out of his hometown as soon as he had been accepted for an engineering position halfway across the country. His hiring had been a lengthy process with multiple interviews conducted by several different people. He wasn’t even sure if they belonged to the same department. Nevertheless, the prospect and promise of it all seemed like it would only help his life get progressively better from there on out.
That being said, it was not a decision that only came with merit. It had a set of downsides that his brain had, at that time, overridden.
Namely, a puddle on the linoleum floor.
"I'm just worried about you, mijo." The voice of Jayce’s mother comes from the receiver, laced with concern and a bit distant and grainy due to her preference of speakerphone. Jayce's own phone sticks glued to his ear, propped up by a hunched shoulder since his hands are full. The paper grocery bags in his arms threaten to slip, wet and falling apart from the onslaught of the rain, and Jayce winces at the trail of water droplets he leaves behind as he hurries to the kitchen with them.
"I'm fine, mama," he reassures her for what must be the fiftieth time since his arrival to the city. The sixteenth if he's only counting the current call. Jayce doesn't blame her for her insistence or the routine check-ins on his wellbeing. Ximena has always been abundant and generous with her doting on him. A mother's love is supposed to be never-ending and at times overbearing and all that. He just wishes she would believe him.
It's been several years since he has given her reason not to.
Jayce sets the grocery bags on the counter and drags a now free hand over his face. The sound of pots and pans clanking against each other resonates through the phone, his mother a mirror in her own kitchen. He glances at the digital clock on the stove. 19:43. 17:43 her time. She must be making dinner.
"You say this every time, Jayce." Jayce can hear her displeasure, trepidation, and resignation all wrapped up in a single tone. The use of his name instead of one of her usual terms of endearment is another giveaway. There's a finality to her words, not her giving up, but her knowing she can only push so much. She lets out a heavy sigh, followed by more noises of her flitting around in preparation.
"Call me after your first shift tomorrow?" She adds when Jayce doesn't say anything in response.
"I will," he promises.
"Alright." There's a pause, more motherly worries left unsaid. More subdued hesitation. More shuffling on the other end. Then, a soft "te quiero mucho."
"I love you too, mama," Jayce says back.
The line clicks dead.
Jayce groans into the silence that comes after. Leaving his mother had been the hardest part of his decision, even if he has to calm himself down from getting frustrated over her misplaced concerns about him. Jayce is doing just fine.
He tosses his phone onto the counter and starts putting his groceries away. It’s enough to last him a week. The shelves of his fridge and cabinets get stocked with the essentials: meat, rice, bread, and milk. Snacks, too, of course. The ice cream gets put into the freezer.
Then, he pulls out the ready-made dinner he had purchased during the evening store rush. It was one of the last hastily put-together containers of sushi in the deli. It’s not the best, but it’s what is affordable until he gets his new salary.
He takes the container in hand and crosses the open-floored apartment, his makeshift dining table being the coffee table and the nicely broken-in couch he had brought with him from his previous place. The maroon fabric with several stains of unknown origins does not exactly go along well with the grey and blue-accented walls of his new modernized living room but he couldn’t bear to part with it.
As he retraces his earlier steps and heads toward the living room his eyes drop down to the floor and the mess he had made coming in. The mess stares back up at him. Jayce isn’t even sure where his mop is, or if he needs to buy a new one.
Like any other responsible adult would do, he chooses to ignore the problem until his next and earliest convenience.
He sets his food on the coffee table and slumps down on the couch the second he reaches it. Another groan leaves his lips as his body sinks into the cushions.
There's another reason he hates the cold and the rain and the cloudy streets of the place he now calls home: his leg is absolutely killing him.
Jayce kneads the flesh of his upper thigh, right above where his residual limb fits into the socket of his prosthesis and the silicone liner that wraps around his skin to protect it. The phantom pain of his missing limb never leaves him, nor does the pain from what still remains, but it's always worse on days with poor weather like today. Possibly something to do with changes in barometric pressure affecting his nerves, his doctor tells him, and the difficulty it adds to him navigating with it. The pre-existing joint issues he deals with surely doesn't make it any better either. Neither does the weariness that settles in his bones.
He is only thirty-six but he wonders if this is what it feels like to be an old man.
Jayce reaches for the container of sushi and flips the lid open, then takes a bite out of the first piece of the roll. Cardboard boxes surround him in every room of the apartment, some half-unpacked and some still securely wrapped in filament tape. Everyday household items and bare necessities lie scattered around in different places, shoved wherever was within arm's reach when he was too tired to find them proper homes. A pair of scissors on the coffee table, his reading glasses wedged between the cushions of the couch. For some unknown or forgotten reason he can't recall, his laundry basket is knocked over by the entranceway.
No, thirty-six might not actually be old in the grand scheme of the average lifespan, but it sure does feel like an eternity has passed in his decomposable, mortal body. And the last thirty-five haven't been exactly kind to him, although people love to tell Jayce he should consider himself lucky.
He guesses luck is plaster and analgesics and screaming matches with insurance companies. He guesses luck is years of trauma work, adjusting, and physical therapy. He guesses luck is him not winding up dead.
Jayce doesn't know whether he's a pessimist or an optimist but he hates the word all the same. He has worked very hard to get to where he is now and it sure as hell wasn’t luck that got him there. It was his own calloused two hands.
Those two calloused hands now work their way through his dinner. Jayce picks up a second piece as he tries to escape the unbearable sensation that’s been bothering him for the past ten or so minutes. He kicks off his right shoe with a half-assed flex of his foot and leans over to peel off the sock that clings to it, heavy and sopping wet from the rainwater that had soaked it when he had accidentally stepped into a pothole in the parking lot of his apartment building. He tosses it with a grimace and it lands on the floor with a dampened thud.
Once somewhat more comfortable without that bugging him, Jayce finishes most of the roll and throws what little he doesn’t eat into the trash, its leftovers unsalvageable. Then, he starts what remains of his old routine.
The steps are robotic, habitual. He washes up, first his face and then his body. Lather, rinse, repeat. After that, he turns his attention to his residual limb. He checks for signs of irritation or other skin abnormalities but there's nothing unusual about it, just a tiny bit of red from the prolonged wear. Lately, he has been wearing his prosthesis for longer than he typically does each day, relying on it to help him get through all the moving.
He doesn't put it back on after showering. Instead, he opts for his pair of crutches. He uses them to rise from the bench in his shower and then finishes the rest of his routine in the bedroom after putting on pajamas and brushing his teeth. He’ll clean the liner in the morning.
Next is his meds. He keeps the bottles on top of the nightstand, right now the only thing there besides a small lamp and the glass of water he always keeps by his bed. Three are for after breakfast, two before bed. He puts them on the back of his tongue and swallows them along with the water.
Then, he reads. Just a short story or one chapter of a novel, it doesn't really matter. Just something substantial but not too long, nothing that'll keep him up longer than another thirty to forty minutes. The purpose is to wind down.
This is the routine that had been set just a little under a year ago that he still abides by today. Moving cities doesn’t change this. He goes through it flawlessly, the months of practice practically turning it all into muscle memory.
He finishes it by closing his eyes with the lamp by his bed still on. Then, his morning routine begins as soon as he wakes up.
It starts with the blaring sound of a phone alarm set to the default tone, loud and obnoxious. Jayce purposely keeps it set to that tone because it annoys him enough to want to get up and turn it off right away. On occasion, he hits snooze instead. The early morning cold air that chills his arm is a stark contrast to the warm confines of his bed.
When he actually gets up, he debates on how he wants to go about getting ready for work. He usually settles on dressing first, then donning next. He opts for a pair of loose khakis and a navy button-up shirt. Formal, but still casual. It’s enough to look perfectly presentable for the first day at his new workplace.
His breakfast consists of a smoothie filled with extra scoops of protein powder and a few eggs with toast. However, he washes the liner he wore the previous day in the sink as he wears his spare one first, then sets it aside to dry as he prepares his food second. After his breakfast is complete he eats, washes the dishes, takes his morning meds, brushes his teeth, and trims his beard.
He doesn't leave his apartment until he makes sure he's got everything he needs: his keys, his wallet, an umbrella and an extra sock just in case. His PRN stays in the glove box of his car along with some over the counter pain pills and he keeps an extra set of crutches in his trunk on the off chance his prosthesis breaks. It's very rare but still very possible. Jayce knows; he used to build and forge things for a living.
After all that is in order, he heads out.
The drive to his new establishment of work isn't very long. Ten minutes without traffic, an extra twenty five with. It's the streets he has to maneuver to make his way downtown that is the real hassle. Cars sit bumper to bumper only a few blocks over from where he needs to be and Jayce accidentally takes a wrong turn just before arriving, but approximately twenty-eight minutes later he's pulling into the giant parking garage the company offers its employees.
Three minutes after that, he has successfully managed to make it to work with two minutes still to spare. Now, he has to face the change of pace he has set up for himself. Here comes the change to his routine.
Jayces heads into the building, a magnificent forty stories tall and glossy with its reflection. His shoes tap against the marble floors of the lobby, along with the dozens of others who pass by him. The nine o’clock hustle of businessmen and other types of corporate workers brush past him on their way to their designated offices, all in various departments under a single company, HexRobotics.
Not too far from the automatic sliding entrance doors is a desk with a receptionist. Jayce makes a beeline towards it, carefully dodging those who walk in the opposite direction as him. A girl with large brown eyes and a heart-shaped face looks up to greet him as he approaches it.
“Good morning! How can I help you?” She asks, voice high and distinctly of someone who has been well-taught in the art of customer service impressions.
“Yes, uh, I have some training here at nine. With the engineering department.” Jayce tries his best to not appear as nervous as he feels. He isn’t sure he’s successful. The girl behind the desk scrutinizes him.
“Ah.” She looks him up and down and Jayce wonders if there’s something on his face. Maybe he didn’t trim his beard as well as he thought he did, or maybe there’s a blotch of egg yolk on his shirt that he has missed. Whatever it is, her gaze of judgement passes in a blink, and she holds up a single manicured finger. “One moment, please. I’ll let them know you’re here.”
Jayce watches her pick up the landline on the desk and punch an extension number into its keypad. She twirls the black phone cord around the same manicured finger she had held up to him only a few seconds ago.
Jayce tries to not shift where he stands, a nervous habit he struggles to let go of and still did even when he wasn’t up and walking. It’s hard, though. His fingers twitch at his side. Eventually, someone finally picks up on the other end of the phone. “I have a man here who says it’s his first day working in the engineering department. Yes–oh? His name?”
The girl presses the phone to her blouse and looks up at Jayce again. In what he assumes is supposed to be a hushed volume, she asks him, “What’s your name?” It’s the very opposite of discreet.
“Jayce.” He clears his throat. Now he knows his nerves are definitely showing. “Talis. Jayce Talis.”
She repeats his name to the person on the other line and gives them a physical description, then hangs up the phone.
“Someone will be down to meet you here shortly. You can go sit over there, if you’d like.” She points to a seating area in the middle of the lobby. There’s a grey couch surrounded by plants, two large leather chairs, and a giant patterned rug. Very chic.
“Okay. Thank you.” He gives her a nod and goes to sit down. He chooses one of the large leather chairs but regrets it almost immediately. It isn’t particularly comfortable, the intent of its existence more for stylistic purposes than anything else. Then again, standing around for who knows how long would probably not be much better.
Jayce waits there for a while, fiddling with his thumbs in his lap. His right leg bounces up and down with displaced anxious energy as each second on the clock ticks. After some time, he pulls out his phone to scroll through social media but pauses when he hears his name being called just as he opens up the first app on his home screen.
“Mr. Talis?” Jayce looks up to find a different girl peering down at him this time. Her brown eyes, just as wide and open as the other’s girls, gaze at him from behind thick-rimmed glasses, though far less judgmental. She gives Jayce a shy smile, expression candid and clear as all her hair is pulled back away from her face and into a high ponytail. A nametag dangles from the shirt she wears but she holds out a hand towards Jayce before he gets the chance to read it.
“I’m Sky.” Jayce distantly recalls seeing her name in an email, one of many that got exchanged after he had gone through several virtual interviews. Her grip is surprisingly more firm than Jayce would have expected. Her fingers brush the back of his hand as she takes hers back, the pads rough and definitely not that of a person who is simply an office worker. He wonders if she builds things like him. She pulls back and taps the nametag Jayce had failed to read. “Sky Young. I’m the engineering manager here, and also the one who is going to be showing you around and overseeing your training for the next couple weeks.”
Jayce nods. “I’m Jayce.” He grimaces the second his own name leaves his lips. She called him Mr. Talis. She already knows his name. Luckily for Jayce and by her saving grace, Sky ignores the redundancy of his introduction and takes it in stride.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Jayce,” she says. Then, she gestures to the set of elevators behind her. “Shall we go upstairs?”
Jayce follows her to the other side of the lobby. Just as they reach the four different elevators that line up against the wall—a number very befitting for the amount of employees the company has and Jayce is sure there are more—a man rushes past him as he exits one of them, nearly sending Jayce to the ground. Jayce stumbles but manages to catch himself with a palm on the wall. When he looks up, Sky’s eyes are narrowed and following the direction of the man who had pretty much shoved him out of the way with his shoulder.
Once he is out of sight without as much as a single apology, she pushes up her glasses in embarrassment and presses the button by the doors indicating that they need to go up. The doors to the elevator the man had come out of have already closed. “I’m so sorry about that. You see, it’s the middle of a very busy week for many and sometimes those in the financial department or–”
“It’s fine.” Jayce cuts her off not impolitely, an apology coming from her unnecessary. He knows the different kinds of people that work in a corporate location. Some are jackasses like the other guy and some are nice, like her. He wonders which one his head boss is.
The next elevator gets to the lobby floor with a ding and the doors slide open. Sky shakes her head but drops it nevertheless. “We’re on the twelfth floor.”
Jayce steps in and his heart drops out of his chest. The back wall of the elevator is made of glass, letting the rider get a full view of the landscape below as they climb each floor. Just like everything he’s encountered in the building so far, it’s very in tune for a billion dollar company that can flaunt their worth. However, unlike the uncomfortable chair or the other fancy lobby decor, Jayce finds himself unable to look at it.
He turns his back towards the back of the elevator and plants his feet towards the door. He looks straight ahead when he realizes the floor of the elevator is transparent, too.
“Afraid of heights?” Sky asks beside him.
“Um.” Jayce hesitates and her eyes widen as she quickly tries to correct herself, mistakenly taking his reaction as her overstepping. “Sorry! That was a bit invasive! We’ve only just met! But it’s okay—if you are! I’m scared of heights, too. This elevator scared me when I first got here. It took me a few months to get used to it.”
Jayce takes a deep breath and counts down from ten to one. He appreciates her attempt to make him feel better.
“I’m not very fond of them,” he admits. Heights remind him of his worst days. Of cold nights when he couldn’t sleep. Of gloom, like the grey clouds in the sky they grow closer to with every passing floor they rise above. Of falling down, down, down.
Jayce continues to look away.
“Don’t worry. They’ll grow on you. You know, a few people in the engineering department actually designed these elevators themselves. They don’t work here anymore but their legacy lasts.” Sky gives him another one of her timid but tender smiles he has already come to be familiar with. He isn’t sure if the first part of what she says is true—he finds it hard to believe he’ll end up liking them—but he figures he’ll have to get used to them either way. He’ll have to go up and down them every weekday. He doesn’t have much of a choice.
Finally, they come to a halt and the doors slide back open with a second ding that rings out, revealing another floor with two long halls that diverge in each direction. Sky leads Jayce down the one to the right.
They walk past several rooms with various purposes. One appears to be a lab with special equipment not limited to a computer system and a large 3-D printer. Another smaller room looks like a workshop.
Sky talks as she leads him, explaining the multiple procedures he may have to go through. Some rooms are locked with a key and some, mainly the ones that hold unpublished research or current projects not yet made known to the public, can only be opened with a scan of his employee ID.
“You’ll have one by the end of the day,” she tells him. “Well, we’ll have to take a picture to make one for you before we can print one. But that can come later, you need to meet the director first. He’s the one I report to but sometimes you will as well. You probably already know this, though, since you’re not an intern or junior engineer. I reviewed your resume and letters of recommendations for a second time yesterday, just to make sure I remembered where your credentials and abilities lie, then I went over them again with Viktor.”
Viktor. The name rings a bell, sparks a long-term memory in the back of Jayce’s mind. He thinks of bright golden eyes as warm as the summer he had first seen their color. He thinks of a very distant past filled with a collection of both exhilarating and terrible feelings.
“Viktor is a fantastic director,” Sky goes on, dragging Jayce back to the present. She speaks his name with a fondness that implies they share a good relationship, syllables interwoven with familiarity. Jayce remembers when he said that name with the same tone, albeit said for what must be a different Viktor. It’s not a terribly uncommon given name.
“I’m sure you will enjoy working with him, too. He might take a bit of warming up to and he’s a bit of a workaholic, even moreso than me and that’s saying a lot, but it’s because he cares deeply about his work and what we produce a lot. He’s-well, you’ll see when you meet him.”
“Overall, we have a great team here,” she continues with a smile. “Or teams, I should say. There’s a lot of us and each team works on different projects. You’ll be assigned to one at the end of your training. But each team has members who are pretty close to each other. Sometimes different teams interact with each other, too. We go out every Friday evening if you’re interested. It would be a great way to get to know you outside of the workplace!”
They come to a set of mahogany double doors at the end of the hall, the last of the rooms on the twelfth floor. A silver nameplate with engraved black lettering next to the left door reads Viktor: Director of Engineering. Then again, printed in braille underneath.
“Well, here we are,” Sky says. “I’ll come back to take you to get your ID picture taken later and then we can go over a few other things before lunch.”
Jayce nods and thanks her. He feels somewhat less anxious knowing that she will be his trainer. He thinks they’ll get along. “Sounds good.”
She says goodbye to Jayce with the promise of returning in the next hour and a small wave of her hand. He watches her become a blur as she heads back down towards the other end of the hall. Once she’s out of sight, he turns around towards the double doors once more and braces himself.
His nerves grow again now that he’s alone but he doesn’t let it inhibit him. He’s faced much worse, before. This also isn’t his first job. This isn't his first boss. And Jayce is doing just fine.
With a heavy fist and another deep breath, Jayce knocks on one of the doors. His knuckles echo loudly against the wood.
He waits there patiently, refusing to enter until he hears a quiet but unmistakable “come in.”
Then, he turns the handle.
The next moment Jayce wonders if he’s dreaming, that maybe a mix of milnacipran, gabapentin, and lamotrigine aren’t the best combination for his morning routine anymore. Maybe he’s experiencing a new and previously unknown to him symptom—hallucinations. Or, like his first thought, very lucid dreaming. Because the man that Jayce sees sitting at the large desk once he opens the door does not look like Viktor: Director of Engineering, the boss he has vaguely given a shape to and conjured up in his imagination.
No, the man at the desk looks a lot like Viktor: his bisexual awakening.
Bright, golden eyes land on him in shock. Lips part in surprise. The lines of time have etched themselves across his face and his features are much sharper than Jayce remembers but he remains distinctly recognizable and impossible to forget.
The door slams shut behind Jayce, his grip on it lost as the hand that had been holding it open moves to clutch the fabric of his pants to check if this is truly his reality. The touch feels as real as ever. The khaki wrinkles underneath his fingernails. Not a dream then, but still possibly a hallucination.
Viktor recovers first. At the sound of the door loudly closing, he snaps back into himself, immediately trying to conceal the reaction that has already slipped out of him. Not that it matters. Jayce knows all his tells. He hears the way Viktor struggles to keep his tone completely even, sees the way he licks his lips before speaking. His mannerisms are expressive as ever. “Hello, Jayce.”
And just as expressive, his voice is soft, velvety—his cadence and accent melodic. It sends Jayce right back to his adolescence, to when it was just him, Viktor, and the itchy grass that stained the shorts he played in. The first time Jayce learnt what it meant to be doing well.