Chapter Text
K4LI - or Cali Cable - is one of those bizarre local stations out of Los Angeles.
No-one has any idea how it’s hanging on; its signal seems powered by the smell of an oily rag, its viewership hovers around 1.2 in a good year, and the staff are… weird, but somehow, year after year Cali Cable makes it through, blasting a mixture of indie pop, news, weather and interpretive dance to its two key demographics; 16-24 year olds stumbling upon the station’s constant Tiktok livestream, and ages 65+ watching daytime television.
As a treat, it’s even got an Englishman as its evening weatherman.
And that is where we lay our story.
Jamie’s collar isn’t straight and the knowledge of it has been driving him sort of mad. One of those little things that doesn’t matter but inevitably does matter, because someone with too much free time on their hands will write into the studio, scrawling complaints with lipstick or blood or something, and the letter will be delivered to him, he’ll read it and it’ll be stuck with him for a week or more, waking him up at night.
So it does matter, actually. He points at the weather map, fighting to keep his pasted-on smile in place as his collar shifts again. “No clouds in California tomorrow and Thursday.” He says, like he has for weeks now. “Still no chance of rain.”
The collar gives up the ghost, and so does Jamie’s smile, a moment before the cameras cut to the listeners’ weather photo segment. Fuck’s sake. This is why he has a routine.
That morning, he’d found himself pulled into an impromptu meeting with the station heads, who he saw very irregularly, and who lurked in the dull greyness of their office up on the seventh floor. Gareth’s and Elizabeth’s heads were half in shadow when Jamie pulled up a chair, setting down his pen and notebook, mildly irritated by the change in his morning.
It wasn’t as though there was much difference to note in the weather bulletins, the sun had been beating down on California for weeks now, but it was the thing of the thing. “What’s this about?” He had asked, likely too firmly. They didn’t like it when he was to the point, and it was something that had earned him a slap on the wrist in the past, but he had breakfast to have, and a weather report to plan. The sooner the meeting was over, the better.
“Jan has left us.” Gareth had wheezed. Elizabeth, next to him, had nodded, her brightly coloured lips clamped in a thin line.
A shame. Jamie had liked Jan. Her interpretive dance segments over the end of the nightly news had been deeply impressive; she had plans to audition for Cats on Broadway, so he wondered if that was where she’d gone. “Okay.”
“We have a replacement.”
So soon. “Okay?”
“Jai, if you’d introduce yourself?”
As soon as Gareth had said it, Jamie had somehow known that Jai [/dʒeɪ/ - like the letter, like the shorthand for his real name, phonetic] had been spelled with an I. There’d been something in the pronunciation, like Gareth himself had been unsure, and then jumped on the easiest option rather than thinking too hard about it. He hadn’t been certain. The powers that be that ran the news station had always been sort of impenetrable.
When Jai had stepped into the room, it was like the already-stifling temperature had gone up a degree or two, flushing Jamie’s skin. He glittered, insanely, as though the light itself came out of his pores, but also sprung from his sequined shirt, which was several shades of gold. He was unbelievably pretty, dark hair curling around his highlighted cheeks, and immediately irritating.
He also looked worryingly like Jamie.
“What the fuck.” Jamie had said, unprofessionally, to a chorus of chiding from his bosses, and watched as Jai’s smile had dropped immediately off his face, lips settling into a sullen, cunty sort of pout.
“Weatherboy.” Jai said.
“I’m a meteorologist-”
So. The new employee meeting hadn’t gone so well.
A tragedy, knocking Jamie off his entire routine for the rest of the day. He doesn’t quite glare as Jai prances in front of the camera, ready for his first segment on the show, without having the customary pre-show freak out like Jamie has in his dressing room, which peeves him even more.
“I’ll toss it over to our new friend, Jai.” Jamie says, with gritted teeth.
It’s fine.
As Jai dances about, clearly charming the pants off everyone in the studio and all the viewing public at home, it’s actually totally super fine, and Jamie definitely doesn’t have a complex about it.
“I don’t have a complex about it. He doesn’t look like me.” Jamie rants, later. There might be a track being worn in his apartment’s floor, but he’ll never tell, the brown jacket and suit pants tossed over one of his chairs, ready for an ironing in the morning. Just stood in his pants and his white shirt, it’s quite the sight as he paces. “And he’s not more charming than me. Who’s been giving greater LA the weather for ten years now without any- many complaints? Me. He’s a nobody. He’s only got one IMDB credit.”
Jamie doesn’t have any IMDB credits but it’s the thing of the thing, okay. He’s peeved. Gently miffed. Definitely not pissed off. “I’m good at my job. People like what I do.” He flings his arms out, staring down Leo balefully. “That’s right, right?”
Leo doesn’t have anything to offer, because Leo is a cat.
The cat licks one of his paws and settles his tiny head down onto the top of the microwave, which is where he’s currently sitting. Moderate degrees of malice linger in his hazel eyes as his tail flicks back and forth, thumping against the side of the underused machine.
“Thanks, baby boy. Very helpful.” Jamie slumps down at one of his dining table chairs, sweat making his dress shirt sheer in damp, unpleasant patches. California’s so hot these days, he thinks he might be going a bit mad. But it’s fine.
Genuinely.
What Jamie hadn’t clocked, amid the tang of annoyance and the bitter taste of jealousy, was that Jai was from the UK too. When he remembers, at 11pm, absently flicking on K4LI and then immediately flicking it back off, that fact definitely doesn’t keep him up all night. At all.
Two weeks later, Jamie steps into his dressing room in the morning to find it already colonised by a glittery menace. Jai’s swinging around in his chair, feet up on the makeup counter, sucking on a lollipop like he’s not got a single care in the world, like he owns the place, like he’s got an oral fixation something fierce-
The annoyance Jamie feels spear through him is immediate and irritating. “What are you doing here?”
“Hey babes, long time.”
“I saw you yesterday. What are you doing in here?”
“Ugh, buzzkill.” Jai pops the lollipop out of his mouth and slumps back in his chair a little, muscles going tight and tense along his neck as he flings his head back to stare at Jamie. His eyeshadow today is bright purple, little random circles and designs. It’s not endearing. “They’re turning my dressing room into a junk closet, we’re roomies now.”
Jamie turns on his heel and immediately leaves.
(The powers that be on the seventh floor are not at all sympathetic to his plight and refuse to make any changes, citing, “You’re both adults, figure it out, Jamie,” and “He’s so handsome, why wouldn’t you want to share a dressing room with him?” from Elizabeth and Gareth respectively.)
When he gets back to his dressing room, he’s sweatier, warmer, more annoyed, and utterly dischevelled. Jai, on the contrary, somehow looks even more fit as he paints highlighter along his cheekbones in the mirror.
Fuck! Fuck’s sake! A retort from minutes ago comes spilling out of Jamie’s throat as he stares at himself - but worse - in the reflection. “Thought there was already junk in your room.”
He’d have been better to whimper with all the good the delayed retort does. Dammit, why does he not think of these things in the moment? Fundamental character flaw rediscovered, he sinks down into the other dressing room chair, head in his hands; so, so sweaty. This is the worst summer of his life.
Jai just snorts. “Ooh, he bites. I’ve got junk in one trunk, baby. Naturally bodacious.”
He is- He’s not. Jamie’s cheeks heat as he presses the heel of his palms firmly into his eyes. “Shut up, stop it.”
“Good to know you feel something about me.”
“I feel nothing about you.”
In the mirror, Jai’s smirk is gleeful, and unbearably irritating, trickling into the corners of his eyes. “Sure thing, babes.”