Work Text:
The wind picks up, carrying leaves across the parking lot. It swooshes them around the feet of three people gathered in not quite triangle. Jeremy’s trousers flap around his ankles. He is facing two individuals. Richard, smoking by the backdoor, unseen at this point, doesn’t recognize them. The shorter bloke is in no way eye-catching. Balding, dressed plainly enough to get lost in the grey crowd, looking like he hasn’t had a wink of sleep since he was born. On his shoulder is an overnight bag and in the other hand, he’s holding a phone.
The character next to him, in contrast, is an absolute eye-sore. Not least because of the bright-blue puffed-up jacket that is meant to protect him from the wind but also attract an armada’s worth of attention. Despite that, the man in question doesn’t hold himself like someone who is. He is tall but not taller than Jeremy, the long strands of his grey hair are swirling around his face like seaweed. And during all the time that Richard had watched the scene, not once did the man look away from his fumbling fingers, constantly fiddling with something Richard couldn’t distinguish from this distance.
“Who do you take us for, Mr. Wilman?” Richard hears Jeremy say, addressing the man with the bag. His voice is stern, but still respectful. “A volunteering service?”
“I’m not alluding to anything of the sort”, the man named Wilman responds. “I understand your doubts but believe me, I know his capabilities better than anyone. Our institution wouldn’t have submitted him if they didn't know what he can do.”
“There is no free trial here, Mr. Wilman”, Jeremy continues resolutely. “Has he even had training?”
“I thought all the documented proof is in order. The agency had been contacted.”
“It is the job of our agency to employ capable, flexible, socially and mentally healthy staff. There can be no exception. Not even for him. Especially for the amount of social work one such place requires. Has that even crossed your mind?”
“I was told you lacked workforce”, Wilman retorts.
“That had nothing to do with it. He has autism and OCD, Mr. Wilman. As much as you want to help him, I can’t see how he’d manage here. I’m sorry.”
Richard's eyebrows touch his hairline. Whatever this encounter is, this was the last thing he expected to find after going out to blow a fag. Even more, nothing he expected to hear, either. He’d known Jeremy for at least a decade by now, ever since he started working for the Ford Ad & Marketing, and as everyone’s boss in the telemarketing wing, it was Jeremyʼs job to be strict and unrelenting, but above all else, correct. Heʼs hardworking and expects no less from his workers, but his heart is in the right place. Every newbie could tell.
However, Richard didnʼt think that Jeremyʼs goodness of heart extended to charity work as well. More than that, it makes no sense. If Richard had understood the situation well, and if there was anything Jeremy Clarkson held close to heart, it was the agency. It would be ludicrous to compromise it with such a blatantly illogical move.
Richard’s cigarette burned out by now, but frankly, he is too interested in this development to not pretend it didn’t. Jeremy and Wilman seem to be leading a silent war with their eyes, and neither of them seems ready to back out. Meanwhile, the man in the blue jacket, obviously the subject of the matter, hasn’t taken his eyes off the fiddly object in his hands. Not once.
“One client”, Wilman finally speaks. “A neutral party, one that won’t put a significant indentation in your financial gain or reputation. I know you are a good man, Mr. Clarkson. Please. One chance.”
Well, whoever this man is, he knows playing a sympathy card is a way to get past Jeremy Clarkson because however intimidatingly Richard’s boss wields his bravado, it’s a shield that hides the kindest and, even more frightening in Richard’s opinion, loyally vulnerable soul.
There is another moment of silence and in the middle of it, the long-haired man stops molesting the thing in his hands and his eyes fly straight up in Richard’s direction. Not directly meeting his own, but they hit him all right, and Richard visibly, and audibly, flinches, as if caught doing something he shouldn’t have. Which this doesn’t feel far away from.
Wilman looks over Jeremy’s shoulder which in turn makes Jeremy turn around and he gives Richard a scowl. Richard pulls a face and barely holds back from a jovial act of a marketing agent as a means of self-defence. Jeremy says nothing, though. Just turns back to Wilman.
“One call. And if it’s anything less than you’ve promised it to be, you will leave my office promptly and never attempt to contact me again.”
Wilman nods. “Fair enough.”
Without another word, Jeremy turns around and starts for the back entrance. He briefly glances at Richard as he passes him by but doesn’t say anything. However, something in the air around him tells Richard he better keep his mouth shut about what he had just seen. Richard respects Jeremy enough as a man, a friend, and a human being to hold onto it.
He looks over and watches Wilman coax the taller man and gently grab his upper arm, likely telling him to follow. He looks up from where he was observing the object in his hands and seems almost dazed. There is an emptiness to his eyes that Richard is baffled at for having first compared it to Norman Bates. But no, this is different. This lacks menace. Lacks anything.
If a plant were human, it would probably have that gaze. This comparison makes Richard shudder and he pretends it’s the wind and pulls the lapels of his jacket closer together as two strange men pass him by. Wilman nods at him politely, but to his bright-jacketed companion, Richard could be empty air.
It’s after they disappear inside that Richard realizes he hasn’t gathered the strange man’s name.
. . .
Jeremy leads them to a room Richard hadn’t seen since he first got here, because of the same reason. The room has two desks, almost identical, with a computer monitor and a telephone beside the keyboard, but the one in the middle served its original purpose. Richard remembered sitting right there, not a little nervous, trying to leave the best impression with his initial test call. He was just a greenie back then, freshly arrived, barely having basic knowledge about telemarketing, but by then he was quite used to handling the booming commercial tone of voice, having DJ’ed for the BBC radio for quite some time.
He hovers at the doorway now, not sure if he’s already crossed the line, having wordlessly tagged along until now. But Jeremy hadn’t said a thing, hadn’t told him to get lost or reprimanded him about listening in. Even more surprisingly, all he does now is nods for Richard to get in with a slight eye-roll. “It’s all right. He can be trusted”, he says at Wilman’s sceptical eyebrow.
Trusted with what? Richard asks himself but enters without a word and stands by the side, curiously eyeing the scene. Jeremy leans against the front of the other desk and crosses his arms. “We label potential customers chronologically by the last digit of the phone number. The latest list is in the notebook by the mouse.” He nods at the table. “All yours, Mr. May.”
It’s Jeremy’s method. All the intro you’re going to get. Good luck.
“Hot.”
Richard barely holds back from flinching. The voice is an almost muffled baritone, but it doesn’t belong to Wilman and it certainly doesn’t belong to Jeremy. That only leaves the person for whom Richard had believed to be a very convincing robot until now. The man in the blue jacket, whom Jeremy had referred to as May, could have just as easily said, “We’re out of milk” or “Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” with that tone. Richard had honestly heard grocery lists being read with more emotion. And as he says that, his eyes are looking off into space. Like he’s said it to himself, but with the loudness of referring to another person.
“Take your jacket?” Wilman says mildly and already turns the inquiry into action. May obeys, pulling at the zip of the blue eyesore and surrendering to Wilman doing the rest. Once rid of the excess wardrobe, he sits at the desk and starts to rearrange things on it to some inner compass’ satisfaction. Richard eyes Jeremy from across the room, but Jeremy indicates nothing with his gaze.
Once he’s aligned the table, May looks up, staring off at nothing in particular. “Dog, please”, he says, just as robotically.
Richard doesn’t think he can get any more confused than he already was up to this point, but whatever May is referring to, Wilman already has it and is holding it out in his hand—a plush toy of a terrier with a Santa hat hanging off one of its ears. Richard notices a pull bow and a green ribbon with a red tag hanging at its end. It’s like a present not fully opened, preserved in its authenticity, just the way it was when it was first seen.
May puts the toy in his lap and runs his hands through his hair several times, drawing it back. He looks concentrated while doing it. Like it’s a tic or a necessary action. Like there is a specific number of times he needs to comb it.
He then quickly scans the open notebook to search for a random number written there, of customers whose service is soon due or people out in the market. He almost looks professional as he’s typing in the number and if Richard hadn’t witnessed any of the previous oddities, he would’ve assumed the man is simply another dedicated employee.
May leans back in the chair. The conversation is on speaker, always is in this room. So the ringtone steadily rings all around the room and Jeremy and Richard know to be quiet and judging by how May knew what to do without being told much suggests he has had practice or navigation, presumably by Wilman, so Wilman must know to not interfere, too.
The possible future client picks up. And Richard watches the transformation unfold.
May introduces himself (James is his name, Richard notes), informs the man where he is calling from and that the call is being recorded for company purposes. Richard mentally prepares himself for a sigh of exasperation over the speaker or a blatant refusal to accept anything May has to offer in that monotone voice of his, but before that can happen, May lays out a question in a serious, brain-sharpening voice.
“The cup of coffee you hold in your other hand. How many of the same did you have today by now?”
There is silence on the other end, save for the inconsistent white noise in the background. Richard pictures the man either looking around or processing the question completely unrelated to the car. Frankly, Richard is on the same page, and, looking over at Jeremy’s frown, so is his boss.
The man asks who is on the phone and James identifies himself again as he did at the beginning. The man asks how he knows he’s holding a cup of coffee, but May counterasks instead.
“At which point do you mean to slow down before life does it for you, to a stop?”
Richard is baffled, but Jeremy’s frown only deepens, and he’s eyeing the corded phone, probably the end-call button should things really go south.
However, rather than do that, the complete opposite happens. Richard watches in disbelief as James not only keeps the client on the phone by somehow unbelievably twisting his initial approach into something roughly Ford-related, but also grows more and more animated with each exchange of dialogue. Both his eyes and his voice come to life and he begins gesticulating like a university professor excited to share observations on a presentation he had been preparing for a long time. His voice cascades into heights and lows Richard hadn’t until now held possible for the man to be able to produce.
Something makes him turn around and Richard sees some of his work colleagues have filled the hallway, heads piling together so they can all peer inside but not crossing the threshold. Frowns of curiosity and confusion twist their faces Jeremy pays the unexpected visitors no mind and Richard wonders if he had left the door open on purpose for whatever reason.
Eventually, this bizarre phone call begins to slowly descend, like a cable car crawling down a mountainside: May’s gesticulating ceases, the volume of his voice falls and the glint in his eyes vanishes and before the deal with the man on the phone is concluded, before he had shared his info and been promised to stay in touch, James is back to being robotic. A porcelain mask of blankness and indifference on his face, eyes dull and grey like fog crouching in the gorge. He lowers the handset and sits back, gripping the plush toy in his lap and giving it rhythmical squeezes. Nobody says anything for a while.
Then Jeremy unfolds his arms and crosses the room in three wide strides, reaches past Richard and mumbles, “Take a lunch break” to the gathered crowd before closing the door and going around the other table. Richard can see the expression on his face is torn between disbelief and awe as he professionally fights to hide them both.
“It’s unreal”, says Jeremy in that genuine tone his employers have a rare opportunity to hear. He leans his fists onto the desk and looks up at Wilman. “Is it some sort of Savant syndrome?”
Wilman gives a small smile. “You’ve heard about autistic individuals who play the piano and sing simultaneously better than most of today’s celebrities do.” He shrugs. “Well, I’m pretty sure this is something similar.”
“How often does this happen?” Jeremy continues, still tight and resolute.
“Only over an audio medium. Always without a visual or tactile contact present.”
Jeremy nods, lips puckered in thought. He taps his fingers against the desk. Richard sees May’s eye twitch at that. Jeremy thinks for a while longer and the only sounds are Jeremy’s tapping and the slightest shuffle of the chair May sits in as he rocks almost unnoticeably back and forth.
Finally, Jeremy speaks in a level voice: “Mr. Hammond, would you please escort Mr. May to the canteen while I have a chat with Mr. Wilman. Alone.”
It’s not a request. It’s a plain order and Richard isn’t a genius, but he doesn’t need to be one to understand.
May turns his head towards Wilman and hunches his shoulders a little, squeezing the plush in his hands until his fingers turn white. Wilman nods at Jeremy, then gently tugs James up by the elbow and whispers something in his ear. As he does that, Jeremy approaches Richard and speaks in a private voice, “Don’t let him out of your sight. I’m counting on you.”
Richard nods, nearly toppled over by this level of trust. Wilman lets James go as he gently finishes speaking and May nods, eyes scouring the floor, and based on the look on his face, he seems to be looking for a way to avoid being left without his supervisor.
. . .
When they exit, the hallway is empty. There is nobody in sight. Richard leads James down the hall and towards the elevator, not actually looking if the man is following him, but grateful to hear his steps close. Honestly, he doesn’t know how he’d deal with James plain refusing to go with him. He’s mortified and scared of him causing a scene. But no such scene ever comes. May follows him, compliantly, albeit reluctantly.
When they stop in front of the elevator, May freezes. He’s still clutching the toy to his chest. He doesn’t say anything but in the quiet hallway, Richard can hear his breaths turn louder and more rapid as the elevator arrives.
The elevator welcomingly tings and the door opens. Richard walks in and turns around, but May doesn’t follow. He remains standing there, breathing heavily in a way Richard can relate to people who are this close to starting to scream.
“What? Come on. It’s safe, I promise. I need a waz, and it’s pretty bad.”
May doesn’t budge and Richard reaches over to press the button for the door to remain open.
“Are you afraid?” he asks and hopes it sounds genuine and not mocking.
James doesn’t answer or move. He takes a deep breath through his nose and bows his head down, trying to hide his face in the Christmas hat of the toy. He shifts from foot to foot. Richard thinks of a dog refusing to enter a bathtub. He sighs, realizing he won’t get far like this.
I should get paid for this.
“Come on, then”, he gets out and treads towards the door to the staircase, gritting his teeth at a painful protest of his bladder. “It’s ten floors down, and just so you know, I’m not going back up the same way.”
It takes them more than five minutes to get down and by then, Richard can’t think of anything else but a desperate need to reveal himself. He turns to May who observes the noisy room with big eyes.
“Um. I need a slash, like really bad, mate. Do you think you could grab some food by yourself? You can tell the register lady it’s on me, I’ll pay, it’s no problem.”
Not waiting for an answer and by now pretty sure he wouldn’t get it anyway, Richard hurries to the back where the toilets are and takes a long, slow leak with his head thrown back, mouth slack and eyes closed in sweet relief.
When he reappears in the cafeteria, May is nowhere to be seen, but Richard assumes a tall long-haired man with a plush toy shouldn’t be hard to find so he stands in the line because he’s starving and the effect from the fag had long since worn off.
“May I pay for the new gent as well? The one with the dog?”
It takes the cash register lady a moment to understand who he means and her mouth forms an ‘oh’ of realization followed by, “No need to, he paid. Strange bloke.”
Richard hadn’t expected that, so it takes him another second to pocket his wallet and take the tray, and by then, people in the line had started to impatiently glare.
Having settled basic biological needs, Richard stops mid-hall with the last sentence Jeremy had left him with, the connotation of trust perfectly clear in his voice and the way the sentence was delivered.
Don’t let him out of your sight.
He is just about to panic when, thank everything, he spots him. He is several tables down, alone, his brown jumper unmistakeable, as is the seasonal Jack Russell terrier made of industrial waste. At least he’s sitting alone. Standing across the other side of the table, gathered close, clearly only having bought the lunch, is a group of workers Richard knows from experience to be rather unpleasant. It’s those colleagues whom you wouldn’t interact with unless you were strictly told to under the threat of being sacked. Richard hurries forward, absolutely not wanting May to freak out or get provoked somehow because it’ll be on Richard’s arse.
He gets close enough to hear what a guy at the front of the group is saying, staring at James down his nose. “…You don’t belong here. As far as I’m concerned, the only logical explanation as to why anyone would agree to bring you here is because our janitor is close to retiring. So nice of our company to be doing charity work.”
His friends cackle at that. May circles his eyes around, fork twitching in his hand. Richard doesn’t know if he’d arrived too late yet, but he needs to put a stop to this.
“Oi. Mind your business, mate.”
The man, their group leader—Richard decides to use the secondary school expression—turns around at the sound of Richard’s voice. Richard is all too familiar with that cast-down look. Being looked at from above. But because he is familiar, he is practiced at showing it doesn’t bother him by lifting his chin.
“What, you’ll stand with this weirdo?” the leader scoffs, sardonically eyeing Richard. “Actually, I think you would make a splendid team of crawlers, toadying up to our boss. Isn’t that how you got the job in the first place, Hammond?”
“Shall I tell him how you earned your first salary, then?” Richard retorts calmly, eyebrow arching upwards.
The bloke frowns and his friends don’t seem to know how to react or back him up. So he gives Richard a glare and turns around, but before he walks away with his buddies, he mutters to James, “We’re far from done here.”
Richard watches them leave to make sure one of them doesn’t pull a last-second nasty joke and slowly exhales, realizing he’s had his shoulders spread and chest puffed up. He looks at James who is still staring straight ahead and doesn’t seem otherwise affected. He handled it better than the elevator in any case.
“Don’t mind them”, says Richard reassuringly. “They’re just intimidated by the possible competition. And honestly, I’ve had a taste of why.”
May’s mouth remains closed, but he seems to regard something behind Richard with intense curiosity. Richard slowly puts his tray down on the table and takes a seat across from him, giving James room to tell him to go away and sit somewhere else, that he wants to be left alone. But he doesn’t, so Richard makes himself relax in the chair but doesn’t immediately begin with his lunch.
He folds his arms on the table in front of his tray and juts his chin at the plush toy. “Does he have a name?”
“Aldebaran. ‘The Follower’”, James answers immediately, too quickly. On autopilot.
“Ah,” Richard can only say, pretending to understand what it’s related to.
Awkward silence follows and Richard forks his bolognese, lets the spaghetti turn around the fork and limply fall off. May hasn’t touched his food. The fork he’d been holding is set aside and he pulls out something from his pocket and starts fiddling with it. Over the edge of the table, Richard sees it’s roughly the same size as what he had in his hands in the parking lot. Now that he can take a closer look, he can see it’s some sort of puzzle. Like a Rubik’s Cube but with bits that can be assembled and disassembled. May’s fingers move in quick, practised motions so fast that Richard can’t even tell what the original shape is supposed to be before James starts to dismantle it again.
Richard clears his throat and looks around. “So… How did Wilman…you know…manage to get you involved with us?”
No reaction at all. A marble statue would be more responsive. May, instead, is completely endorsed in his little puzzle that doesn’t seem to be a puzzle anymore at all. His head twitches.
Richard sighs. Maybe he’s a fool for thinking this could work. He’s probably a fool for agreeing to babysit a grown-arse man, too, and not leaving when his cigarette burned out in the first place.
“Why do I even bother”, he mutters, stabbing some of the spaghetti and shoving it between his teeth. The cantine is too full to consider switching tables, and he was too annoyed with himself to bother.
May stops his movements and looks up, looking at Richard’s tray. “In 1958, the last human zoo was closed in Belgium. There were no consequences whatsoever for their then king, Leopold the second, for being the one to start with such inhumane acts, it not even being the worst of all the atrocities he’d committed, just as there was no consequence for the spectators who witnessed it.” To Richard’s astonishment at hearing so many words come out of James’ mouth directed specifically at him, May’s unfocused gaze shifts upwards to Richard’s chin, which Richard immediately equates to James’ version of eye contact. “Am I just a specimen to be observed in your eyes? Before you barely addressed me and now you want to be my friend. Does that help you feel better, or be a better person?”
Richard is in complete shock. Not just by the barrage of words having just exited James’ mouth, but trying to connect everything he had said to make some semblance of sense takes some time and effort during which James returns to his puzzle, clearly thinking the problem of Richard’s bothersome presence had therefore been solved. Richard straightens a little at the realization. And then decides to be just as blunt as James.
"You’re trying to shake me off”, he says.
May stops fiddling again and looks off towards the glass doors. Not much of a view to be admired, not unless you fancied cloudy, concrete side of the complex. Richard notices that James’ head slightly twitches every now and then. His hair bounces around his face every time, otherwise it would be almost unnoticeable.
“Well, I’ve got news for you, mate, my boss told me to keep an eye on you and I’m not someone you can get rid of easily, that, I can promise you”, he says just as indifferently and goes back to his lunch.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees James rub his nose with his thumb and forefinger, shake his head jerkingly like a dog trying to get rid of water and slap himself with his palm on the back of his head twice. Then he returns to the puzzle. Richard is too curious of the man’s very presence to be embarrassed about the baffled and weirded-out looks coming from the other tables.
Richard keeps a neutral exterior, but on the inside, he’s hitting himself on the head with a brick. Now James is sulking. And how could Richard expect to solve this now as he would with any other mate? Clearly, people like James don’t work like that. James is special-needs and he is aware of that, and if he is, he will on some level dislike being treated like a small child that he physically obviously isn’t. Not to mention the subjective “selfish” spectrum people like him have, of having to have everything aligned exactly how their intuition tells them or their brain begins to emit all the wrong signals and they start to freak out.
Well, he can’t just leave it here, can he? Richard swallows his pride and hopelessness he knows will follow if he doesn’t manage to get on good terms with James, at least for today, and tries again.
“How did you know all that? About the bloke on the phone? I mean, you barely said hello and you somehow concluded that he’s full of caffeine.”
“He was sitting in a semi-busy cafe and breathing heavily, meaning he’s either fat or a heart patient. There was no clogged quality to his voice. He’s a heart patient”, says James in one breath.
Richard shrugs. “Maybe he just sat down when you called him.”
James shakes his head, looking at Richard’s tray. “His breathing hadn’t changed throughout the conversation. Heart patient.“
Richard looks down and nods. He would have never derived the same conclusions but May obviously knows things that Richard doesn’t, and that has nothing to do with his condition. Speaking of which…
“You…you kept him on the phone.” Richard speaks meekly. “Most just hang up, say they aren’t interested. You performed an entire play with that guy.”
James looks up from the table and sets the puzzle down on his lap, somewhere next to the dog.
“You have to make it about them. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? It’s about them, not you.”
That… makes perfect sense. Especially given how self-absorbed humanity usually is, taking everything, but giving scarcely, even if doing a job for a living that includes being dependant on other people.
Richard looks into those dull eyes with the most genuine expression he can muster, hoping James can somehow see it. “I’m sorry if I offended you. I don’t want you to think I ever thought anything less about you than what you are, which is, quite frankly, amazing. That phone call was the best I ever heard, and I think it was awesome. I… Perhaps this is out of your comfort zone and maybe it’s pointless to ask but…do you think you could somehow teach me?”
James is, and it’s something Richard should get used to already, expressionless to Richard’s candour, appearing on the outside to not have heard him at all.
Richard lets out another sigh and slowly sips from his glass of water, hoping it will clear his thoughts. Once it’s empty, he sets it down and prepares to stand up, abandoning this crazy idea, because that’s what it was. A crazy, stupid idea.
“Did you know that astatine is the rarest naturally occurring element that isn’t a transuranic element?” James babbles out loudly in rapid succession.
Richard blinks, relaxing back in his chair. “I, uh…I didn’t.”
“Chances of you finding one is one in a sextillion as there is only less than a gram of it present on Earth at any point in time.”
“….Oh.”
“But it still isn’t unique enough”, James continues in that same flat tone of voice, looking everywhere except into Richard’s eyes. Yet despite that, Richard feels important. “It still isn’t as unique as every human being on the planet. Even identical twins. Because reality is a stochastic process that cycles through all possibilities in the indefinite long run.”
It takes him a second to gather his thoughts and form a reaction out of them, but to his own surprise, Richard finds himself smiling. “I can tell.”
James’ eyes wander away to the side, like there is a classmate sitting next to him equally in trouble as he is, and Richard feels a bit braver.
“I'm Richard”, he says and holds out his hand and when it’s ignored, he instinctively flinches and mentally slaps himself, remembering how autistic people don’t fare well with body contact. His suspicions are confirmed when James leans further back in his chair and protectively draws his hands close to himself.
“Sorry. Sorry, I’m—I forgot—” Richard tries, then shakes his head and stares down at his food, more than a little sheepish. He had suddenly lost all appetite.
“James May.”
His head jerks back up. James’ hands are on both sides of his still untouched tray and with his right, he is picking up the fork and bringing it to the salad.
“I’m James May. I love Lego. Do you love Lego?” he asks, shooting one sentence after the other like rapid artillery fire, referring to something above Richard’s right shoulder.
Richard feels warmth spilling all over his chest and can’t help a broad grin that splits his face in half.
“Love, yeah. Bloody adore.”
James’ lips twitch before settling back down and Richard thinks it could’ve been a smile, which causes another warm, fluttering wave to tickle his insides in the oddest of ways. James grabs for the salad and starts eating like he hasn’t in days and Richard, not wanting to make James feel awkward, digs into his pasta again, appetite suddenly back. He finds he can’t quite keep a smile out of his stuffed cheeks.
Richard doesn’t know what road he’s embarked on here, but he thinks this could be a start of a strange, but interesting new friendship.