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David could rarely make it past ten o’clock in the morning without someone barging into his and Brad’s shared office (not knocking, just storming right in as though the door was an obstacle and not a suggestion that they were entering someone else’s place of work) and demanding something of either one of them. Well, often demands would be made of David himself. Brad usually received tentative, soft-footed suggestions while the asker stared meekly at their feet— the average MQ worker seemed to think that if they made eye contact with Brad he’d somehow gain access to their soul. Those higher up in the food chain knew that Brad didn’t need eye contact for that.
Ten o’clock on the dot was when Poppy disturbed the peace by flitting into the room in that jittery, anxious, humming-bird way of hers, Ian traipsing behind her and looking worryingly sulky.
Poppy placed both hands on David’s desk with such force that his monitor shook. David flinched, because of course he did. “Control your assistant,” was all she said.
“My— huh?”
Ian interjected from where he was pacing around the empty floorspace, “I don’t know what you’ve been teaching Jo to make her even more of a sociopathic nutjob—”
David furrowed his brow, “Jo?”
This seemed to only further fuel Poppy’s rage, “oh, don’t play dumb, David, you’re not good at it.”
Okay, ignoring that barely veiled insult, David worried his lip, looking from Ian back to Poppy in slight confusion, “Jo isn’t my assistant anymore.”
Ian stopped pacing, “since when?”
“Since she became mine,” Brad cut in, reminding all three of them of his presence and was seemingly immediately bored of the conversation. “David’s not playing dumb, he just is. Jo’s my assistant now. It’s all very simple. If you two could close the door on your way out…”
“Wh— so, you just traded her?” Ian asked David, incredulous.
Poppy, suddenly disapproving, shook her head, “like a Pokemon card.”
“No! What? No, Jo— she wanted to work for Brad and Brad was cool with it and I… I was also cool with it. It was all very amicable,” David looked to Brad for, what? Agreement, support? Whatever it was, he didn’t get it. Brad just shrugged and continued to look mildly irritated at the interruption. “Is that it? Are you guys…”
“God, David,” Ian remarked, that mix of pity and disgust present on his face that David was upsettingly familiar with at this point, “how do you make everything sound like it’s about divorce?”
“I am not… okay, it’s weird to compare my divorce to my relationship with Jo—”
Poppy hummed, “no, that’s not what he’s saying. It’s less like you’re divorcing her and more like… you’ve lost custody of her. Which means, by extension, you’d be divorcing Brad… in this analogy,” she turned to Ian for confirmation and received a thoughtful nod. “Which, weirdly, actually explains a lot of Jo’s behaviour—acting up.”
“Parental split,” Ian concurred.
From his desk, Brad made a noise of distaste, “gross. Don’t lump me in with David’s divorce complex.”
“I don’t have a— you’re divorced from me in this scenario.”
Brad pointed a finger at him, “which implies marriage. And that makes me want to throw up. No offence, bud.”
“Uh, offence!” David cried, disbelieving, “and, okay, this is… wildly unprofessional. Jo is not my daughter and she’s not Brad’s. If you have an issue with her, just… take it up with her, or Carol, or someone even slightly more qualified.”
“Talk to Jo?” Poppy snorted, “thank god she’s not your kid, you clearly don’t know her at all.”
“Yeah, Pop’s right. Jo has many of the qualities of a raging bull— which is great in a pinch, but not so much when you want her to be reasonable,” said Ian.
“Okay, then talk to Brad. She’s his assistant now,” David huffed, turning his attention away from them and back to the important looking email on his monitor.
Ian frowned, “ignoring the obvious custody-loss vibes of what you just said, you’re not wrong,” he spun to address Brad, “Brad, buddy, help us out here. She’s a maniac.”
David watched as Brad’s eyebrows drew together, thoroughly unimpressed, even more so now that he was in Ian’s direct line of focus, “I’m just training her. Any issues she has outside of my tutorship are none of my concern.”
Ian threw his hands in the air, “man, just say your teaching her the ways of the dark side,” and unceremoniously stormed back out, muttering something that sounded like ‘fucking dick’. Poppy remained momentarily, shaking her head in disbelief.
“You are one evil arsehole,” she remarked, before following Ian out.
There was silence for a grand total of forty seconds before David said, “are you making her evil?”
“Evil is relative, David.”
“Evil-er?”
Brad sighed, spinning away from his desk and focusing his gaze on David. And it was heavy; David suddenly felt itchy, disconcerted, with the full weight of Brad’s dark eyes on him, “I might have unorthodox teaching methods. That doesn’t make them wrong, who even quantifies that?”
“I mean, I’m pretty sure HR…”
“David,” Brad rubbed his eyes, cutting him off, “this is a ruthless business; I’m helping her survive, giving her skills she can actually use. I’d be worried if she wasn’t stepping on a few toes out there. No offence, but what was she learning from you, how to fetch coffee and lose divorce proceedings?”
That gave David pause, “y’know, just because you say ‘no offence’ doesn’t make that not offensive.”
“Sorry, man. But it’s the truth.”
“Or maybe we just have different ways of teaching,” David muttered, a little more than slightly irritated at this point. His tone, however, seemed to capture Brad’s attention, who refocused on him with a little more interest in his eyes. David glanced at him, unsettled by this sudden change.
“In that case, how about we make this interesting?”
“I don’t…”
“We co-train Jo,” Brad spread his hands wide, like he was pitching it, “I’ll take her Tuesdays and Thursdays, you get the rest. That way, we can see who’s mentoring methods are actually effective.”
David blinked at him, “that… sounds extremely unethical.”
“So’s treating the head of HR as your personal therapist. And getting your employee to set up your dating profile.”
Okay, point taken, “I get one more day than you? That doesn’t seem fair.”
Brad shrugged, “she voluntarily switched to being my assistant, makes sense to give you an advantage.”
“You’re… you’re seriously suggesting this,” David stared flatly at Brad, looking for any sign that he was joking, waiting to pull the rug out from under David.
Brad just smiled, “and you’re seriously considering it.”
And David would be lying if he said he didn’t notice that spark of excitement, that same one from when they were betting on Street Fighter, like dancing on a knife edge; doing something completely and utterly unlike him. Sometimes entering into these games with Brad felt like challenging the devil in a round of cards, so obviously wrong but tempting enough to make one forget. David mulled it over for a second longer, before grinning.
“Let the best mentor win.”
Brad flashed him a smile; one that was more dangerous for its sincerity than its intent. He turned back to his monitor, but it wasn’t long before he spoke again, “and David?”
“Yeah?”
“If you refer to this as co-parenting, even once, no one will ever find your body.”
A beat. “Okay, man.”
Having Jo back at his side in the office drummed up a strange sense of nostalgia, despite it not being long since she had been his assistant. Jo, however, seemed less thrilled by their reunion.
“You know I’m only here because Brad says it’s an important exercise, right? Like, testing my endurance for… pathetic-ness, or whatever,” she commented. David frowned.
“Okay, that aside,” David inhaled, “I think there’s important things you can learn from us both. Brad and I may work in different departments and in different ways, but that doesn’t mean…”
“That Brad’s better at his job than you?”
“Wh— no, I mean, I… yes, but that’s not what I was gonna say,” David sighed, “every experience is a learning experience, okay? So just… keep an open mind.”
“Do you want me to write that down?” Jo asked, looking at him over her laptop.
“Write what down?”
“The… ‘every experience is a—’”
“Oh, no. Actually, yeah. Yes. Everything that sounds inspiring, jot it down. It’ll help.”
Jo met his eyes again, thoroughly unconvinced, “okay.”
It didn’t.
It occurred to David, a week or two into this wager, that Brad was most likely spending his allotted time with Jo undoing whatever little victories David had managed to accomplish. It seemed that at the start of every day he spent with Jo she was similarly reluctant. Reluctant seemed almost too kind a word, she was slightly repulsed by him;
“Brad says that you smell like weakness,” she had told him, a few days ago, unprompted.
David had paused then, for kind of a long time, “let’s not think about what Brad says for a minute, huh?”
But that didn’t negate any ground he did manage to gain, minimal as it was. During the few weeks they had been apart, David wouldn’t have said that he’d missed Jo, but having her back felt like a return to normalcy. He’d grown so used to having her there, laptop at the ready; like an extra limb at his disposal. Well, an extra, aggressive limb that he had little to no control over. Sometimes, though Jo would vehemently deny it and probably bite his head off for even suggesting as much, he could feel them slipping back into something of a rapport.
Truth was, his relationship with Jo was different to every other employee at MQ. He had friends (well, he had Sue), and he cared about Ian and Poppy, sure. Hell, he even had a place in his heart for Brad, massive liability though it may have been. But he’d brought Jo in. He watched her take her first steps into the offices, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed; he’d watched her get her bearings, learning unnervingly quickly just how to get results. So what if he felt a little… paternal? Was that a crime?
According to Carol in HR, probably yes.
But whatever, he’d missed her, and although Brad’s intentions were no doubt nefarious, David couldn’t help but be grateful for the opportunity to reconnect with Jo.
“…And then you just press ‘Enter’,” David instructed, watching from over her shoulder as Jo tentatively complied, “and boom! Just… does all that math for you.”
Jo didn’t respond, but David did catch her mouth turn upwards slightly in pride.
“It’s crazy that Brad hasn’t been teaching you this spreadsheet stuff himself, seeing as he’s Mr. Monetisation—”
Jo grimaced, “don’t call him that. And he says spreadsheets are for babies and loser yuppies,” she shut her laptop neatly, “and, not to sound like I’m disagreeing with him— I’m definitely not, learning all that was super boring— but it seemed… useful. Like, something that would actually come in handy,” she paused, and then added, “unlike typing up your dumb inspirational quotes.”
Despite the minimal digs, David found himself smiling, slightly taken aback, “yeah? I— I mean, good! This is useful stuff,” he affirmed, grinning now, and watched as Jo rolled her eyes.
“Maybe that’s what Brad’s trying to teach me.”
“What?”
“That even though you’re boring, and pathetic, and you smell like mothballs—”
“Yeah, okay…”
“You… can have your uses,” she finished, focused intently on her folded hands in front of her. “Or whatever.”
“You think that’s Brad’s goal here?” David prompted, before chuckling a little, “I don’t know, I think he just wants to prove to me that he’s better than me in every conceivable way and trick me into shaving off another eyebrow.”
Jo gave him a puzzled look, and it occurred to him that he’d never actually told her that story, “he’s not as evil as you all give him credit for, y’know,” she shrugged, “ruthless, sure. But ruthless and evil aren’t really the same thing.”
“Aren’t they?” David asked, laughing weakly.
“Brad doesn’t do things for no reason. The things he does might seem unnecessary to you, but that’s just ‘cause he knows the best way to get things done, and he’s not afraid to do it.”
“And the best way to get things done involved shutting down all in game purchases for over twenty-four hours?”
Jo shrugged again, smiling slightly this time, “did it work?”
Fuck. Point taken.
David rubbed his eyes, leaning back into his chair, “so what? This was just an elaborate scheme to get you to realise that I— the executive producer— can sometimes have my uses?”
“That’s probably not all he was trying to do,” Jo answered, simply and ambiguously. David frowned.
“Meaning?”
She rolled her eyes, suddenly irritated once more, as though a switch had flipped, “god, David, it’s like you’re incapable of abstract thought. Figure it out,” she picked up her laptop and left the room with such finality that didn’t even occur to David that he had no idea where she was going. It was only 2PM.
“Brad, are you manipulating me— god, I hate it when you do that,” David winced at Brad’s creepy (yet, honestly, not entirely unexpected) anticipation of his question, watching as Brad turned from where he was gazing out of the office window. He strode across the office space, face disturbingly serene. “Come on, man, are you? This whole Jo thing?”
Brad seemed amused, “you think I’m manipulating you?”
David blinked, “aren’t you?”
“Big question; the Jo thing, no. No, that would be a stupid manipulation tactic, way too obvious,” Brad clicked his tongue, before inspecting his cuticles. “I mean, look, even you were suspicious. Well, prompted by Jo, I imagine.”
“Hey— so, wait, you… are…?”
“One thing at a time, huh, David?” Brad glossed over that with a smile. “You have questions.”
“Wh… yeah, I have questions!” David scoffed, indignantly, spurred on by Brad’s pleased expression, “you entrap me with this whole mentor wager thing…”
“Entrap you,” Brad repeated, chuckling.
“…And then Jo’s talking to me about… I don’t know, you’re grand plan, like you’re trying to teach her something with all this. Which gets me thinking, y’know, this isn’t a friendly rivalry mentor… bet… thing to you, is it? You’re doing some teachable moment, sure, but you’re Brad, so it’s gonna be bigger than that, right? You have to be… I don’t know, planning something that you want me in your back pocket for,” David lets out a sharp breath through his nose, “and, I don’t know how, but it’ll work. Because I always fall for this shit. But this time— this time— I don’t wanna be on the back foot.”
The corners of Brad’s mouth flicked upwards, not a smile, but something pleased and amused and fascinated all at once, “huh.”
“Huh?” David prompted, higher pitched than he would perhaps have liked, “what… what’s ‘huh’ mean?”
“It’s just,” Brad shrugged, “interesting to hear how you view me, is all. Flattering, even.”
David furrowed his brows.
“Look, man, I’m gonna be honest with you— this was a small play on my part,” Brad said, leaning towards David in an almost conspiratorial fashion, “Jo’s my assistant, we share an office; when I’m not with one of you I’m with the other, and don’t tell Jo I said this, but those first few weeks, she was a mess without you.”
David blinked, paused, then blinked again, “she was?”
“Oh yeah, and she didn’t even realise what it was about; she was moody, irritable, nothing I couldn’t handle but… I mean, even I started to feel bad for the interns in her warpath, y’know? And it wasn’t like you were any better, all mopey and sad. And you were just… sighing, constantly, it was driving me nuts,” Brad held his hands up, a what can you do type gesture, “I didn’t wanna forfeit Jo, no offence, but letting you mentor her alone would be a massive waste of potential. But I realised she does… need your… beige-ness. Unlike what most of the world believes, you do have something to offer.”
David squinted, “thank you?”
“I thought, y’know, the only way I can solve my problem is by bringing you guys back together and having you realise separately that it’s better that you work together. With me as the intermediate, of course,” Brad sighed, “nowhere near as nefarious as you were expecting, huh? But, no job is too big if it ensures me a sigh-free workspace.”
The two of them lingered in silence for a moment, David still overwhelmingly perplexed by Brad’s confession. Brad looked surprised when he spoke again, “Brad?”
“Uh, yeah, bud?”
“That… that was a nice thing to do. You know that, right?”
Then it was Brad’s turn to pause, he looked to David, then around the room, disbelieving, as though gauging the reactions of an invisible audience. He laughed, but the noise was choppy and uncertain, “uh, no. You think I did this for you guys? I told you, I did this because all your sulking was getting on my nerves and I knew it was the best way to get Jo at her best—”
“Brad, we shared an office through my divorce proceedings,” David said, “my sighs cannot have bothered you thatmuch.”
It was an interesting look on Brad, David noted, one he hadn’t seen before. His eyes were wide, mouth ajar as though he was going to speak but hadn’t yet devised the right words; he looked caught off guard. “If you think I did this for… for you guys, David, come on, I mean… that’s pathetic, even for you.”
“Is it, though?” David grinned, preening as he took a seat at his desk.
“Yes! I could not be less invested in your emotional state if I—”
“Oh! Sorry, Brad, can’t hear you over how much you care about me.”
“David, I’m serious...”
“It must be hard, loving me and Jo so much.”
“I know people, David.”
“But, y’know, big guy, it’s okay. We love you too.”
“Oh my god, shut up...”
“My own little workplace family, huh? How about that…”
“I hate you so much.”
Poppy glared through the shuttered window of her office, “hey.”
“Not now, Pop.”
“Hey,” she repeated, firmer, and Ian sighed.
“What?”
“Come take a look at this,” she beckoned, and with a groan, Ian got up from his desk to join her. “Isn’t that weird?” She continued, “those three aren’t usually so buddy-buddy.”
Ian followed her gaze out to the kitchen, where Jo, David and Brad stood together. Not a particularly common group, but not unusual. What caught his attention, though, were their smiles. Hell, they all looked downright amicable around one another—cereal commercial levels of amicable. Ian blinked, just in case it was a hallucination, “I don’t think I’ve seen Brad smile like that. Ever.”
Poppy scowled, “I know, it’s gross. Think they’re unionising?”
“Wha— unionising? Against us? No way, they love us.”
Poppy sent him a flat look, and he hummed.
“Okay, not an impossibility. But those faces seem too happy to be talking usurpation.”
“Unless they really wanna usurp us.”
This gave Ian pause, “shit,” he swallowed, pacing away from the window, “but, I mean— David, Jo and Brad, we can take them, right?”
“Well, as much as David is like if a wet towel came to life, he is an exec. And Brad and Jo together…” Poppy winced.
“Yeah, yeah, shit,” Ian clenched his fists, “god, I hate it when people in the office are friends. We should ban that.”
Poppy turned to him then, perplexed but intrigued, “can we?”
Ian’s eyes widened, the corners of his mouth inclining just a few degrees upwards, “I’ll call Carol.”