Work Text:
Jimmy sat outside Mr. Major’s office, head in his hands. Of course his luck would turn out this way. Sometimes he wished he could just… turn into a worm. Lizzie always said she’d still love him if he was a worm. Maybe if he found a fortune teller something they could turn him into a worm. Do fortune tellers even do that sort of thing? Jimmy wasn’t quite sure. It’d be worth a—
“Mr. Solidarity?” Lauren opened the door to Major’s office and Jimmy stood. “Mr. Major will see you now.”
He entered the room to see Mr. Major fixing the buttons on a new button-up. It was a pale blue that matched well with the man’s hair. The old, stained, white shirt was set over the back of his chair. Jimmy stood awkwardly in the doorway, Lauren left it open and walked off towards one of the cubicles.
“To be entirely blunt with you Mr. Solidarity, my coworkers are not aware of the… activities I participate outside of work.” Major turned to face him. “I’d prefer it if it stayed that way.”
“Of course, Mr. Major.” Jimmy nodded respectfully, trying desperately to keep his mind focused on the conversation.
“Now, are you aware of what your role is here at Chromia Incorporated?”
“No, sir.”
Major rolled his eyes at the use of ‘sir’, but otherwise ignored it. “Alright, so basically if I need something, I let you know and you do it. It’s usually just coffee runs, the occasional printing and that sort of thing. You get paid whether I need you or not. Simply be here and your check will be delivered each Friday.”
Jimmy nodded. “Yes sir.”
“By gods Solidarity, I’m not a court marshal.”
“Sorry sir.”
Major sighed, clearly giving up for now. “Alright, well security will be by shortly to take you in for a more detailed background check.”
“Excuse me sir, but they didn’t they do that during the application process?” Jimmy stood by the door, watching as Major walked back to the desk and sat.
“They did, but now that you’ve been hired, a more thorough check is required.” The man pulled up a stack of paper and began filing through them.
“Of course.” An awkward silence filled the room. Jimmy resorted to counting the number of books on the shelves. He’d made it to 127 before his phone began to ring. He winced at the sudden noise in the silent room. “Sorry sir.” He moved to turn it off but Major spoke first.
“Go and take it,” he said. “I don’t have anything for you as of right now.”
Jimmy hurriedly thanked him and stepped out into the office. He closed the door this time and checked his phone to see Lizzie’s profile filling the screen. He hit ‘accept’ and her cheery voice burst through the microphone.
“Hey Jimmy!”
He quickly hit the speaker button to put her on quiet. He held up the phone. “What?!” he hissed.
“Jeez, no need to be judgey, Joel and I just wanted to check in and see how your first day was going!”
“Aren’t you doing Uber runs right now?”
“Yes, but I’m no the way to my next pickup. So… how’s the new boss?” She sounded way too cheery for how the morning had gone thus far.
“He seems… nice. Very much no-nonsense which is good.” Jimmy started tapping his foot as his eyes scanned over the room. “I wish I could say it’s going well but I’ve already been kicked out of his office twice since I showed up an hour ago.”
“…Sometimes I’m not sure we’re related.” The words came out thoughtful and distant. “Anyways, you better tell me the whole story later. I’m picking someone up right—yeah yeah, that’s me—okay. Love you Jimmy, talk later, bye!”
The phone beeped before he had time to say goodbye back. He sighed with a small shrug and pocketed the phone. He ran his hands down his face and turned back to look at the door, shoulders tense. He breathed a deep breath and opened the door again. Major was still sitting at his desk. He didn’t look up when Jimmy entered.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked.
Major looked up and checked the clock. “Not as of right now. Security is waiting by the elevator for your background check, if you’ll head there.”
“Yes sir,” Jimmy said firmly, turning to the door.
“Oh, and Solidarity?”
“Yes?” He looked over his shoulder.
“Nonsense is entirely prohibited in this office.” The smile in his voice made Jimmy blush. Had he heard the whole conversation?
“Sorry si—”
“Just go.” There was an unmistakable chuckle in his voice and Jimmy sped out of the office, face beet-red.
Alinar and Conall were the security officers doing his background checks, and Jimmy found them quite pleasant. The questions made Jimmy want to run and hide in a corner, but honestly, it was quick and easy, and not as bad as Major hyped it up to be. Jimmy didn’t have a past criminal record and was usually good with grades while he was school even through college which probably surprised him the most.
When they were done they sent him back up to the 27th floor and Jimmy stood outside of Major’s door. Part of him didn’t want to go back in to the awkward silence and constant standing in one spot. When he mustered up the courage, the door opened for him.
Major stood in front of him with a stack of papers. “Oh! You’re back already!”
“Yes sir, can I… help you with something?” Jimmy gestured to the papers and Major looked down at them.
“Oh! Um, I guess this would be your job. Um… can you take these to be printed? There’s a copy machine in the break room just down near the elevator.” Major handed him the papers awkwardly. The man’s arm brushed Jimmy’s and his face heated, but he ignored it.
“On it, sir!” Jimmy gave a one-handed salute, before turning and walking off with the papers. He was beginning to think that maybe this job wouldn’t be as bad as he’d previously thought.
Lizzie picked him up from work around five. He was so glad she was an Uber driver. He had his own car, but because Sausage and fWhip had ditched him last night, he’d left it at his apartment parking garage.
“Heyyyyy!”
Jimmy sat in the passenger seat and buckled in. “Hey Liz, how was work?”
“Great! An elderly lady tipped me fifteen dollars! It was insane! And then this cool Hispanic guy told me a story about his second cousin who was in the Olympics! I love this job.” She sighed wistfully and switched the car into drive.
Jimmy slumped down in his seat and rubbed his eyes tiredly.
She glanced at him before turning back to the road. “So how was your work?”
Jimmy groaned and moved his hands down to his lap with a slapping sound. “Terrible. It was so awkward Liz! I didn’t know what to do.”
She was silent, waiting for him to continue.
“You remember how Joel met his employer right?”
“Of course!” She turned down Southbound Road. “We were skiing in the Himalayas for our anniversary and this old guy tried to tell us we were skiing wrong, only to fall flat on his face. It was funny and we laughed. Then Joel walked into his new work the next Monday and find out the old guy was his new boss! Who’d’ve thunk it.”
“Yeah well… I met my employer in an even more embarrassing situation.” Jimmy put his feet up on the dash. At a glare from Lizzie, he put them down again and continued. “So you know how some people who are really rich will have a side job because they make enough to have fun with their passion or whatever?”
“Yeah, our mom did that when she was working for the accounting firm.”
“Exactly. SO! Turns out my employer has a more… exotic sort of hobby.”
“Oh. My. God. Jimmy, what did you do?” Her tone scared Jimmy almost as much as Alinar and Conall had in the beginning. She took a left down a side road before turning onto a main avenue.
“Umm… it was Sausage’s fault?”
The reached a red light and she banged her head on the steering wheel and gave him a look. “James Buchanen Solidarity. Do you mean to tell me that you slept with your boss before even knowing he was your boss.”
Jimmy’s face was on fire and he slipped down further in the seat, peeping out a ‘maybe’.
“WHAT THE HECK!?” The light turned green. “I might strangle you, you know?!”
“Please do. I don’t want to go to work again tomorrow.”
“Hold on! You slept with him, and went into work, and he didn’t fire you?!” She sounded so incredulous Jimmy couldn’t help but be offended.
“Are you saying that I’m not good at it? How would you know?!”
“YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN JIMMY!”
“DO I?!”
“DO YOU?!”
The two burst into hysterical laughter. Lizzie pulled into Jimmy’s apartment complex and let him out.
“Okay, okay. I’m going to dinner with Joel, but we’ll be back around seven or eight and we are GOING to talk bout this.”
Jimmy winced, sheepishly. “Really?”
“Yes.” Lizzie rolled up the window and drove off, leaving Jimmy on the sidewalk, yesterday’s clothes in his arms, and phone in his pocket.