Chapter Text
Bradley would be telling one of the most grievous lies he's ever told if he said that he didn’t fantasize about spontaneously quitting on a regular basis. He’s spent so many nights in this office, at this desk, mulling over his life choices and wondering how they all amounted to this – a job in a mediocre New York City law firm, working horrific hours and barely making enough to cover his rent.
Associates in the city are supposed to get paid so much they can afford luxuries like a bathroom sink that doesn’t consistently leak and the odd meal at a restaurant with real cutlery, but Bradley barely made it through law school after his mom passed, and this is apparently his penance. He can’t quite work out why he went to law school in the first place, it’s not like he ever really enjoyed the legal studies subjects he took in his undergraduate degree. He supposes it's because the US Naval Academy didn't want him, he got the marks and he wanted to do something to make his parents proud, wherever they are. He wanted to make something of himself; be worth something.
Instead, he’s fighting with the goddamn printer.
Bradley’s thought about rage quitting many times—walking out and throwing some papers over his shoulder, maybe telling his awful boss where she can shove her terrible phone manner and questionable moral compass—but he’s never considered doing it over a paper jam. He’s trying to make his way through a mountain of due diligence documents and the one currently open on his screen is a warehousing contract that’s two hundred and seventy eight pages long. He can’t review that digitally. His retinas might burn off.
The problem is that the data room is more secure than Area 51, making it almost impossible to print from. Bradley tried all of the PDF hacks he knew and still came up blank, before managing to intercept a harangued paralegal on their way out of the office. He had to agree to swap his desk chair for a week as a bribe, but in less than ten minutes he had a printable document and a new lease on life. Except that the printer refuses to cooperate and keeps jamming on him every time he gets to page fifty-five.
“You know,” an unfortunately familiar voice says softly from over Bradley’s shoulder, “they say printers can smell your fear.”
Bradley closes his eyes and says a quick prayer for strength. He’ll need it.
“Do I look like I care, Seresin?” he replies darkly. “I’m just trying to get this last document reviewed so I don’t have to sleep here like you do.”
“Bradshaw,” Jake Seresin interjects, sliding around Bradley’s shoulder to lean on the printer before having the audacity to wink. It’s funny how good they look together, Bradley thinks. The devil himself and the satanic office equipment – a match made in corporate heaven. “It could be fun. Think of it like a slumber party, only in suits.”
“Sounds terrible,” Bradley mutters, swatting Jake’s hand out of the way as he tries to touch the printer control pad. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Depends how much you like your job I guess,” Jake hums, apparently misinterpreting Bradley’s gesture and sidling up closer so that he’s practically hooking his chin over Bradley’s shoulder. “And how much you like me. How many pages are you printing?”
“I tolerate my job, but I do not tolerate you,” Bradley groans, pushing Jake gently in the side. “God, you could learn a thing or two about personal space.”
Jake snorts. “You’re printing with staples.”
“What?”
“You’re printing with staples, and the printer isn’t capable of stapling a document this big. That’s why it’s jamming.”
Bradley blinks at the control pad and then looks up at Jake. It’s really annoying when Seresin is right, and he sincerely wishes it was not so frequently the case.
Jake has been an associate for as long as Bradley has. He’s not exactly sure where Jake came from, although he does know that he was a nepotism hire—someone who knew someone who knew one of the managing partners—so Bradley hates him on principle. It’s hard enough being an employee in a firm that expects you to work as long and as hard as the big law firms and pays you terribly for the pleasure, but it’s made even less palatable when you bust your ass for a job only to find out that the other employees got here without ever having to prove their competency.
At least Jake appears to work hard, which is more than can be said for some of the other associates. Hunter, for example, who delegates sideways to Bradley and leaves at six on the dot every night because his mom owns a ski lodge in Aspen that the firm uses every year for a leadership retreat and his dad knows the name partner.
If Bradley’s honest with himself, he couldn’t do Jake’s job. Bradley does a soul-sucking combination of mergers and acquisitions and capital markets, which is only marginally more tolerable than Jake’s job in dispute resolution. From what Bradley can tell, the dispute resolution team does a lot more yelling over the phone and adding fuel to the fire than actually resolving anything, but that might be their client base as well. What is clear, is that Jake is scrappy, loves an argument and looks annoyingly good in a suit.
Jake is, without a doubt, the most irritating junior associate. Of all of them, he’s the one that gets in everyone’s way, talks too loudly and is way too obnoxiously competitive. Being competitive in the associate pool is kind of pointless, in Bradley’s opinion. They all have ongoing contracts, and everyone knows that the intellectual property associate—Natasha Trace—is the smartest of them, anyway. They’re reminded as much every Friday night when they’re two blocks away at New York’s dingiest bar, drinking away their sorrows while the hawk-eyed publican murders them slowly with her glare. Nat's the only one who wakes up on Saturday without a hangover, at least according to their group chat.
Bradley almost always wakes up with a hangover. Then, he works all weekend because he never has enough time during the week to actually get his to-do list done, only to turn up to the office at eight in the morning on Monday unrested, under-slept and completely at his wits end. The illusion of New York attorneys—suit-wearing, Harvey Specter types with sharp suits and even sharper wits—is a complete lie. The reality is dark circles so bad that Bradley looks like he has a black eye, crumpled shirts and a non-existent social life.
The cherry on the barely-edible cake is a fellow associate who is unfortunately attractive, sits on the other side of a filing cabinet and has an uncanny ability to know exactly when Bradley is at breaking point.
“Earth to Bradshaw,” Jake says, eyebrows furrowed as he passes a hand in front of Bradley’s face. Bradley pushes him away again. “Where did you go?”
Bradley sighs. “I thought it was purgatory, but then I remembered we’re already in it,” he mutters. “How do I stop this printing?”
“Easy,” Jake says, reaching across again, and before Bradley can realize his mistake, Jake has cancelled the entire job and queued his own instead.
“What—”
Jake shrugs, an innocent expression plastered over his features. “You asked me how to cancel the job.”
“Yeah, so I could re-attempt,” Bradley squawks, watching Jake’s print job flash across the control pad. “Not so you could— You’re printing seven hundred pages?!”
“I know,” Jake says, his tone laced with false sincerity as an infuriating smirk tugs at the corner of his lips. “Affidavits these days are—”
“You can’t be serious right now,” Bradley protests, anger prickling at his insides. “Seresin, I need to get this printing done so I can finish my fucking due diligence and go home!”
Jake raises his eyebrows, leaning against the printer. It doesn’t escape Bradley’s attention that he’s thrown his arm across the control pad so Bradley can’t extract his revenge.
“I also need to finish my work so I can go home,” he replies. “Which includes printing this affidavit. I suggest you go back to your desk and attempt to reprint that PDF without staples. Maybe you can use the real estate printer around the corner—”
“That’s not the point,” Bradley fumes. “You’re— Forget it.”
“I will,” Jake replies lightly, his gaze prickling the hairs on the back of Bradley’s neck as he stalks back to his desk, swipes his pass, his wallet and his phone up from the cheap fake-wood surface and turns to leave the office.
“Where are you going?” Jake calls, popping his head around the corner of the printing area.
Bradley isn’t even sure why he looks back. “To get dinner,” he snaps. “Since I have to wait for you to print the entire Amazon rainforest.”
“Are you going to that cheap bodega around the corner? Get me something, will you? One of those Italian combo sandwiches—”
Bradley glares at him. “You’re not serious.”
Jake arches an eyebrow. “I haven’t had dinner either and it’s nine at night. Take pity on your learned colleague.”
“Just like you took pity on me when my printing job failed, right?” Bradley retorts. “I think I’ll leave you to fend for yourself.”
It might be a little spiteful, but Bradley revels in the sight of Jake Seresin’s unimpressed expression as he eats the mouthwatering combination of salami, pepperoni, mortadella and provolone at his desk. The sandwich is so stacked Bradley can barely get his mouth around it, but that’s the best part about the eight dollar delicacy (the second best part being the fact that Jake doesn’t have one and he looks significantly less smug than before).
It takes his fellow associate thirty minutes to voice his displeasure, which is—funnily enough—about the same time it takes for Jake’s printing to have finished. He’d evidently queued a few jobs, because even seven hundred pages doesn’t take that long.
“I have a proposal for you,” he says, sidling up to Bradley’s desk. “An offer.”
“Don’t care,” Bradley says shortly, not looking away from his computer screen. He’s come to accept that he’s just going to read the two hundred and something pages on his computer, and it’s making him go slightly cross-eyed already.
“You should,” Jake continues, annoyingly persistent as always. “Your face is way too close to that screen. You’re practically licking it.”
Bradley sighs deeply and reluctantly turns his chair to face Jake. “What do you want?”
“To come to a deal,” Jake presses. “That’s what you guys in M&A do, right?”
Bradley scoffs. “Congratulations. You finally cracked the code on corporate law.”
“Seems kinda…easy,” Jake replies flippantly. “Boring, even.”
“Why?” Bradley asks, narrowing his eyes, “because we don’t spend all day yelling at people only to get yelled at by our clients?”
Jake shrugs. “Sometimes we get yelled at by judges, too.”
“You’re really selling it,” Bradley mutters. “Seriously, I need to get back to this—”
“You go get me one of those Italian combo sandwiches and I’ll do your printing,” Jake interjects, offering a hand as if they’re seriously going to shake on a deal. Bradley looks at it with as much judgmental energy as he can muster.
“Or, I could do my own printing,” Bradley replies slowly, “and you could go down to the bodega and get your own dinner.”
“I could,” Jake replies, a saccharine tone to his voice. “But I know how much you hate the printer and how you probably want another one of those sandwiches yourself. Plus, I don’t think you can be trusted not to break the office equipment. Not after your four hundred unsuccessful attempts earlier.”
Bradley wrinkles his nose. He does hate the printer and the concept of getting away from his desk for another ten minutes is somewhat appealing.
“Fine,” he says shortly. “But my printing better be perfect. If you miss a page, I’m requisitioning the sandwich.”
“Fine,” Jake repeats, laughing sharply. “Prepare to be impressed.”
When Bradley gets back to his desk for a second time he notices that there are no documents in sight. He’s just about to tell Jake that he will gladly consume three Italian combo sandwiches tonight, before he notices the man in question lounging in an internal office, beckoning him forward.
“Are you holding my printing hostage?” Bradley asks, raising an eyebrow. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”
“Isn’t the term ‘in escrow?’” Jake smirks, pushing out the chair on the opposite side of the table with his foot. “Take a seat, Bradshaw. I figured if we’re both reviewing documents, we could probably do it together.”
Bradley rolls his eyes. “Who said I wanted company?”
“You look lonely out there,” Jake argues. “We’re the only two left on this side of the office, so we may as well—”
“Fine,” Bradley groans, noticing that Jake has bothered to get him a highlighter. “Hey, these documents are stapled…”
“Oh,” Jake replies, without looking up from the affidavit he’s reviewing. “Yeah, I lied about the staple thing.”
“You—”
“I just wanted to skip the queue,” he adds lightly, as if this does anything other than boil Bradley’s blood. Then again, he has a stack of perfectly printed documents in front of him.
“You’re the worst,” he mutters, uncapping the highlighter.
“I know,” Jake hums, before they lapse into comfortable silence.
It drags on for at least an hour and a half, only punctuated by the odd crunch of bread. By the time Bradley has identified all of the relevant parts of the document he needs to insert into the report, there are several thousand crumbs over his suit pants and he’s pretty sure his hair is sticking up at odd angles from running his hands through it so many times.
“Do you ever think,” Jake asks, leaning back in his chair. Bradley hopes to god it tips over. “About how much easier our lives would be if our bosses had realistic expectations of us?"
Bradley frowns, trying to ignore the fact that the end of Jake’s highlighter is stuck between his lips. It’s weirdly alluring. He shakes his head vigorously.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
“You know,” Jake sighs, flourishing his hands towards the documents in front of him. “Natalie works your team so hard—”
“And Rufus works your team hard,” Bradley points out, feeling oddly defensive. “What’s your angle? We’re both here after hours, right?”
“Right,” Jake nods, his tongue flicking around the end of the highlighter. Bradley wants to tell him to cease and desist. “Do you think there’s a reason for that?”
Bradley’s lip curls a little in confusion. “Uh, because they know we don’t have lives and are desperate to keep our jobs or we won’t be able to afford rent.”
“And?” Jake asks, apparently unperturbed.
“And…”
“Because they don’t have lives, either,” Jake points out. “They spend all their time making our lives miserable, or out schmoozing more clients who generate more work, to make our lives even more miserable.”
“Okay,” Bradley says slowly. “So you want to give them a hobby or something?”
Jake groans, as if Bradley is being very slow to catch onto something very obvious. “Answer me this,” he says. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
Bradley just about chokes on his tongue. He only recovers it because Jake looks so smug that he goes from shocked back to annoyed in two and a half seconds. “What’s it to you?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest. “Why do you care?”
“Just answer the question, Bradshaw,” Jake says dryly.
“Well, do you?”
Jake quirks an eyebrow. He has a very unnerving amount of control over his facial features, Bradley realises. “Sure,” he says. “I have someone.”
“Congratulations,” Bradley retorts. “I bet she loves how much you work.”
“He, actually,” Jake replies coolly, and god, that sends Bradley into a spin. “But you’ve hit the nail right on the head.”
“I have?” Bradley practically squeaks. The thought of Jake making out with some faceless, nameless man feels as if it’s spinning around in his head like some kind of deranged hamster wheel. He wonders if it would be appropriate to blurt out something about his own sexuality, even though the moment has definitely passed.
“Sure,” Jake shrugs. “I mean, I think it’s kind of obvious from your reaction that you live a sad, single existence—”
“You’re such an asshole,” Bradley manages to choke out.
“So you keep telling me,” Jake continues smoothly. “All I’m saying is, if you want more time to, I don’t know, live your life, then maybe we should think about meddling.”
Bradley almost drops his highlighter. “Meddling in what?”
“Our bosses lives!” Jake says, exasperated. He’s acting like everything he’s said in the last five minutes is extremely obvious, but all Bradley has learned is that his infuriatingly attractive colleague isn’t straight and apparently has a boyfriend.
“What—”
“You could never be a litigator,” Jake says shrewdly. “You can’t think on your feet to save your life.”
“So I was right about the hobby thing?”
“Bradley,” Jake deadpans. “You think a hobby is going to deter Natalie Chan and Rufus Blake from work?”
“I don’t know—”
“What do you know about Natalie Chan?” Jake asks. “Come on, tell me something.”
“I don’t know,” Bradley repeats, feeling very unbalanced. The highlighter slips from his hands again and he has to awkwardly bend in the chair to pick it up.
“She’s only the youngest person to ever make partner in this place,” Jake points out. “She always takes clients to La Bernardin, she’s beautiful, single—”
“I wouldn’t say those things about my boss,” Bradley says sharply. “That’s weird.”
Jake smirks. “But they’re not untrue, are they?” he asks.
“Not to my knowledge,” Bradley admits. “What’s your point?”
Jake leans forward on his chair, laying his arms on the table. “My point is,” he says, voice low. Bradley has to stop himself from leaning in automatically. Something is very wrong with him today. “Rufus is also single and he needs to get laid. Like, bad.”
Bradley cringes. “Okay, that is a very weird thing to say about your boss.”
“But again,” Jake replies breezily, “not untrue. I’m just saying if we could engineer a way for them to get together, they might have other priorities. It might make our lives easier.”
Bradley caps his highlighter and shuffles his paper. “That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,” he declares. “Those are two of the smartest people in this place. They’re going to see right through anything we come up with. Plus, how are we going to come up with any time to execute this plan?”
Jake picks up his own affidavit and stands up from his chair. “We have time to fight over a printing job,” he points out. “I think if we make it a priority we’ll figure it out. You have access to Natalie’s Outlook calendar, right?”
“She keeps it private,” Bradley says slowly, unsure why he’s suddenly entertaining this hair-brained scheme which was cooked up by the least trustworthy associate in this place. “But I could probably get her assistant to share it with me.”
“Rufus doesn’t know how to hide his calendar thankfully,” Jake replies, gesturing for Bradley to exit the internal meeting room first. “But think about it. If we could even get them to blow off some steam or something—”
“I really don’t want to be thinking about that, Seresin.”
“I’m just saying,” Jake insists. “Consider it. Of all of the partners in this place, they’re the two biggest workaholics. Unsurprisingly, they also happen to be single in the prime of their lives. Somewhat like yourself, Bradshaw.”
Jake Seresin is an arrogant asshole, Bradley thinks. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s wrong.