"Toledo," roared a voice through his rooms intercom, startling Wylie out of bed. The new alarm clock he'd lifted from the bases commissary was on the ground next to him.
"The fuck do they want at this hour," he wondered. The clock read eight o'clock in the evening, four hours after his shift had ended and just an hour after he'd fallen asleep.
"Toledo," a voice he recognized as belonging to Grady shouted through the intercom again.
"You know I'm trying to sleep right? What the hell is your problem," Wylie asked over the intercom, carefully pressing the button with his bad hand.
"My problem? MY PROBLEM," Grady said voice growing louder.
Rumor had it that Grady had been one of the first soldiers to serve in Overwatch, and one of the first to be crippled during the Omnic Crisis. Still wanting to do his part the former sailor said he'd do anything to stay, so one of Overwatchs black ops spooks said he could always clean the toilets.
"My problem is you, Toledo. Get your ass to the office ASAP."
Wylie dressed in the dark, sighing heavily and trying to think if he'd done anything wrong earlier that day. All the trash cans had been changed. Bathrooms scrubbed and restocked. Floors waxed. He'd even taken extra care to get the blood out of the combat training room because the gorilla had mentioned to Grady the custodial department hadn't been doing a good job. So he hadn't done anything out of the ordinary thst he could remember, at least not anything that would have Grady so close to an aneurysm.
"Oh shit..." he stopped halfway to the office. He thought back to a few days ago and his conversation with the Brit, Tracer. He couldn't remember exactly what he said. He could remember her laughing and zipping away, but what if he had been a dick. Tracer had been with Overwatch forever, Grady looked up to her. If she had said something he'd end up bagging his bags back the States.
As Wylie approached the office door he was ready to throw himself on the floor and beg for his job. To apologize to Tracer, to clean the bathrooms with a toothbrush and haul the trash bags by hand...and then smelled coffee. Fresh coffee. He walked in and could see the steam rising from the pot. Fresh. Fresh this late in the evening. He hovered over it, grabbing a Styrofoam cup with his good hand.
"Sit. Down," Grady barked.
Wylie did as ordered, uncomfortably crossing his arms. Grady stared at him for a long time, hands balled together. He finally unclenched them and slid a hastily hand written note across the desk at Wylie.
"Read it."
Wylie reached out and pulled it closer, squinting hard at the chicken scratch.
"What is...is this...I don't," he stammered at Grady.
"What the fuck did you do!"
"I...nothing!"
"What did you so!"
"Grady, listen, nothing...I swear."
"You threaten her? Because you want the easy job?"
"What the fuck are you talking about?! No! I hate cleaning the agents quarters!"
Grady balled his fists again, bringing them to his chin and leaning back in the chair. He glared across the desk, boring holes in Wylie, before finally leaning forward and sighing.
"I don't like you Toledo."
"Yeah...no shit," Wylie said, the sarcasm making the older man's face twitch.
"From here out you're assigned to the agents quarters."
"Grady...please. I don't want it, I fucking hate it...give it to Sam! Sam would do much better than i ever could," Wylie pleaded weakly.
"You're gonna do it and God help me, if I receive one complaint from any agent I will personally put your ass on a plane back to whatever backwater, podunk, piece of shit town you came from. Now get out."
-
It had been a week and Wylie was still miserable. He rose earlier than ever, working as fast as he could to clean and restock the agents quarters hoping every day he wouldn't come face to face with one. So far he'd been lucky. No Reinhardt, or McCree, or Tracer. Each morning he'd finish and rush out, sweating and short of breadth.
He didn't hate them. Sure, Reinhardt and the Japanese guy with bow had treated him like shit before, but the rest treated him with the total indifference those so often praised normally do. That's what he hated. The hero worship. He had hated it even when he was in a band and random people he had never met or would ever get to know heaped it upon him for writing songs and having an ok voice. He was a person. They were just people. They had amazing abilities and did great work, but that wasn't a reason to ignore that they had the same failings as everybody else.
Wylie was lost in thought and furiously scrubbing at what he could only assume was blood when he heard a shout.
"Hey man! How's it hanging," a cheery voice rang out from down the hall. Wylie stifled a sigh, phoning in a wave with his good hand and hoping the speaker would leave.
"Damn you're here early. Ya know, I was starting to wonder who was cleaning the place. We can normally catch a sight of Jackson, and Sam takes his time. We were starting to wonder if Winston found a ghost to do it."
Wylie looked up at the approaching figure and would have recognized him even if he wasn't a member of Overwatch. Lucio dos Santos was one of the most famous musicians in the world, and while Wylie wasn't a huge fan, as a fellow musician he respected the Brazilians craft.
"So what's your name man," Lucio asked.
"Wylie," he said resigning to the interaction and standing up.
"Wylie...cool. Good to meet you man," Lucio said putting his fist put for Wylie to dap.
"So I'm uh...I'm gonna get back to it," Wylie said after bumping fists. "Lot left to do...this blood won't come out so..."
"Yeah, yeah man, cool...hey can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"You ever been to Rio?"
"Um...yeah. Once, like, shit, a long time ago. Why?
"Where at," Lucio asked eyes narrowing.
"Well we played at some touristy spots," Wylie said uneasy at first. Then the memories came flooding back. Evan crushing them at strip Uno, the enormous pink drink Sophie had crushed in ten minutes, the four of them skinny dipping in the resorts hot tub.
"Anywhere else," the Brazilian asked snapping Wylie out of a trance.
"Yeah, we did a gig at a local spot. Somewhere in Rocinha."
"Aw man I knew it! I knew I'd seen you somewhere before," Lucio shouted wrapping Wylie in a hug. "You were in a band right? Vanny? Vinny? Something like that right?"
"Uh yeah," Wylie said with a smile. "Vincent. Like Van Gogh."
"That's right! Man your set was killer. And then at the end Bruno got on stage and tried to take the bass from that girl and you dropped him with one punch!"
"Yeah..." Wylie said getting uncomfortable.
"Man, you ruined his rep forever with that punch," Lucio rambled on without noticing. "So what are you doing here!? What happened to the band?"
"We couldn't stay together."
"Ah man, that sucks. You guys should have been a big deal."
"Sure," Wylie said.
"Well what's up? You still play? Because I could use so..."
Mercifully, he stopped talking when Wylie held up his bad hand. He stared at it, his smile fading a bit, but never truly leaving. The he grabbed it, clasping it with both of his hands.
"Look man, if you ever hear me up, stop by. I'm working on something new, it's gonna be great. But I could use another artists input. Cool?"
"Uh...yeah. Cool," Wylie agreed, unsure if himself.
"Cool," Lucio responded letting go. "I'm sure you will. I'm a bit of a night owl, and with the espresso machine Hana got me I've been bouncing off the walls the last few days. Be easy!"
With that he jogged around the corner and left Wylie alone.
"Guess it couldnt hurt to stop by one time," he muttered to himself as he got back to work getting the blood off the floor. "He's got coffee at least."
