Chapter Text
Jérôme had his eyes on an array of screens when he raised the noodles to his mouth, wincing immediately at their heat and setting the carton down. He wiped at his mouth with his hand, and wiped his hand on the leg of his overalls. He tapped a button on his console and the screens changed, showing him another part of the facility. He picked up his chopsticks again.
The comms device alerting him to an incoming call made him jump, then growl with frustration. He set it to come through his speakers and answered. ‘Jérôme here.’
‘I need to speak with you,’ came a voice he knew too well. Jérôme rolled his eyes.
‘I’m busy.’
‘You’re always… hnnf… busy,’ Michael said. ‘You’ve not replied to any of my missives.’
‘I’m the overseer now,’ Jérôme said, tapping the screens again. ‘Lots to do.’
‘You’re only the overseer until Sligo gets back.’
‘Doesn’t mean I’ve got any less to do,’ Jérôme countered, gesturing around him as though his colleague could see. It was just as well he couldn’t; his control room was an imbroglio of surfaces littered with coffee mugs, food packets and dirty magazines.
‘Surely you can spare… gah… five minutes.’
Jérôme looked mournfully at his noodles and sighed. He swung his legs up onto the control desk and picked up a fidget toy. ‘I’ll give you three.’
‘You’re a real… hnn… bastard.’
‘Are you alright?’ Jérôme asked, faintly amused by the sounds of exertion coming over the line. It sounded like Michael was in some distress.
‘No! And it’s your bloody fault!’ the other man snapped, making Jérôme scowl and tweak the volume dial.
‘What have I done?’
‘You’ve made a stupid bloody mistake with the labour rotas, that’s what. I’ve been trying to get in contact with you for days. Something really needs to change!’
‘Two minutes fifteen,’ Jérôme drawled, knowing his colleague would prefer to have him guessing all night.
‘There aren’t enough technicians in Sector 3,’ Michael said curtly.
‘Of course there are,’ Jérôme said, typing a query and reviewing his screen to make sure he was correct. ‘Just you and Gerhart. That should be enough, looking at the numbers.’
‘Oh, looking at the—ah!—numbers, huh? Are you sure?’
Something in his tone made Jérôme pause. He brought up another sheet of data on a different screen and compared them. ‘Yes. Because a lot of the day-to-day stopped in that sector – and we needed technicians elsewhere. But I’m looking now and it’s saying that you managed an average of nineteen jobs a day when there were four of you, and now there are only… nine jobs a day. Half the work for half the people: are you telling me that isn’t fair?’
‘Yes,’ came the answer. ‘You’ve… hnng… forgotten something.’
Michael was annoying, but he was no idiot. Jérôme set his fidget toy down and sat up straight. ‘What have I forgotten?’
‘The supers.’
He typed a query. Studied another screen. He wasn’t getting it. ‘The supers?’
‘There are four of them down here, for God’s sake!’ Michael shouted, his voice cracking a little. ‘There were four before and there are still four since you cut Briggs and Paul. And don’t forget, Gerhart has his medical complaint.’
‘I hadn’t forgotten that,’ said Jérôme, who had completely forgotten that. He stalled while pulling up Gerhart’s medical file: it seemed that Gerhart, for medical reasons, was exempt from being used for symptom management by the supers. ‘I don’t see the relevance.’
‘And that’s why you’re not—gah!—a proper overseer,’ Michael snapped. ‘You’ve been away from real work for too long so you don’t get it. When there were four technicians, it was manageable. Now that it’s only Gerhart and me…’
‘All the supers are using you for symptom management,’ Jérôme said aloud, finally understanding the problem.
‘Half the work for half the people my backside,’ Michael grunted. ‘I can’t get anything done. Almost as soon as one of them is done with me, the next is waiting to fuck me stupid again. It never ends!’
Jérôme bit his lip. ‘Are you being used right now?’
There was a pause from the other end of the line. Jérôme switched from speakers to his earpiece so he could listen more closely – there were definitely sounds of shallow breathing and the smacking of skin on skin. It sounded hot.
‘…Yes,’ Michael finally admitted.
‘What’s he like?’
‘Jérôme…’
‘Tell me,’ he insisted. Their tones were different, now. They were talking as men who’d known each other for years.
‘…God, he’s insatiable,’ Michael moaned. ‘He takes so long to finish, but he almost never slows down… oh, f-fuck… and he’s the biggest of the lot. Must be thirteen or fourteen inches.’
‘Thirteen point seven – good guess,’ Jérôme smirked, looking at the super’s file. He looked like a brute. ‘It says here on his employee review he’s got a nasty habit of spanking technicians while using them.’
Right on cue, a smacking sound came from over the line. ‘Ah! Jérôme stop, seriously, he can hear everything we’re saying.’
Jérôme stroked his cock through his uniform. ‘Fuck him harder, big man,’ he said slowly.
From the sounds of it, the super obliged. Poor Michael was getting the lay of a lifetime. ‘Oh, shi-i-i-it… Jérôme, please… I can’t keep working like this… you have to do something to help.’
The temporary overseer licked his lips and swallowed, one method immediately springing to mind. But he couldn’t leave. He’d get in trouble, right? He wasn’t generally supposed to leave the office, even to sleep, except under special circumstances. Trying to recall old Sligo’s habits, though, he remembered multiple occasions when he’d seen him wandering about, talking with the technicians in person. Would it be so wrong?
His eyes flicked over to an inspirational poster stuck to one wall; one which illustrated the difference between good and bad management style. A boss orders, it said, but a leader leads.
‘…I’m coming down there,’ Jérôme said over the comms.
‘What?’
‘You said I’ve been away from real work for too long,’ he replied. ‘There are no other technicians available right now; I can’t adjust the labour rota until tomorrow’s shift at least. How long have you got left to work?’
‘About… ah… three hours,’ Michael said.
‘I’m coming down there. I’ll take over from you.’
‘You doing my assigned jobs for me isn’t really going to… oh, fuck… going to help. I need someone to get these damned supers off my back!’
‘That’s what I mean when I say I’ll take over,’ Jérôme grinned. He grabbed a bottle of lubricant and set a course to Sector 3 on his comms. Sure, this posting was cushy and he was making more than double the credits, but he could never stay as overseer permanently. Not enough happened, and if his rock-hard dick was anything to go by, he’d missed the supers more than he realised.
He threw on his jacket and headed for the door, getting ready to ‘lead’ his ass off.