We’re in Deep Shit Now
Chapter 3: We're in deep shit now
Jayce wants to crawl into a deep hole and die.
It’s been 2 hours since him and Caitlyn were hauled over to Professor Heimerdinger's office. He was forced to wait most of it outside while the “adults talk,” which means it’s about him and how much of a failure he is. Age fifteen and about to be expelled- he was really doing the family legacy proud.
Jayce groans, quitting his vigilant pacing to slam back onto the wooden bench. He drops his head between his knees and interlocks his fingers against his neck.
This was his fault. He blew his shot, his one chance to finally be something greater than himself. What would Grayson say? Watch your surroundings? Don’t be an idiot?
He was out of his depths here in undefined enemy territory; knowing the Dean used to be a scientist though, he guesses they were in the scientific branch of the academy. He goes to school here and he doesn’t even recognize it all.
Jayce was admitted at the start of the season, one of the youngest to attend. He had to fight his mother tooth and nail to go, and he still had to lie to do it. The first class was in law- not civil but criminal, and a second in physical training which she thinks is political science. But really, it’s her fault for not seeing through him because his PT class is at five thirty in the morning. She really thinks he goes to lectures that early?
Jayce wanted to take more classes but apparently it was improper for a future council member to show so much interest in another career. Not that any of this petty stuff is going to matter if he’s expelled.
The door finally opens, allowing him into the dean of the academy’s office. He has some semblance of an explanation built up, until Professor Heimerdiner pulls up the footage from the hall by Caits apartment.
It’s on loop. Caitlyn returns to Jayce cussing, trying to jiggle the door. Caitlyn offers her key but Jayce puts his hand up, insisting that he has it. Jayce breaks open the door, the crystals fall, he’s yanked backwards by Caitlyn and both of them are blown to the side of the wall like ragdolls, all captured before the camera short circuits. Jayce can’t help but grimace every time he seems himself knocked out, how little force it took to take him down; at least his ass looks good on camera.
Jayce is going off of what he knows about the yordle from Caits word only. Heimerdinger’s “friendly and eccentric” humor was completely absent from his short stature. The video has looped for the 15th time when the professor pauses it on Jayce’s unconscious body, his posterior still looking amazing and Jayce really needs to focus on the situation at hand. He tries to make himself as small and unassuming as possible.
“This is certainly troubling,” the yordle announces after a long time.
“As you’ve mentioned, Professor. But hardly the worst thing to happen to the academy. Remember that one time the great statues were vandalized?” Cait jokes.
She’s standing beside Jayce looking crisp and presentable in her academy uniform. Jayce listens to her voice and marvels at how she can remain so calm, so casual like this was discussing the consequences of putting gum under the academy seats.
“I did not expect such recklessness from my own assistant. How do you imagine this reflects on the academy Ms. Kiramman?”
“I take full responsibility for what happened today. I only ask that you don’t hold Jayce accountable, Professor. It was my idea that Jayce provide a little extra security, given his determination for a career in law enforcement.”
“Feeding into the boys fantasies of becoming an enforcer? It’s a wonder his mother isn’t down here with a whole platoon of law enforcement!” The professor rubs his temple with his polished gloved hand in exasperation.
Jayce speaks up indignantly, “Cait wasn’t feeding into my ‘fantasties’, she was giving me the chance no one else was willing to- sir.” His voice sounds weightless and petulant to him.
The yordle exhales heavily, closing his eyes.
“This is grounds for expulsion for the two of you.”
“There are always risks when it comes to science- it doesn’t mean we should turn away from what’s impossible.” Jayce has heard her echo that motto practically in her sleep.
“And while I’m not shifting the blame onto those who broke in, I am saying that they did, in fact, break in. My experiments were under lock and key and would’ve been perfectly safe had they not been disturbed by careless hands.”
Heimerdinger is not convinced. He shakes his head, fixing her with a stern look.
“What if the young Talis here had died?”
Jayce feels her eyes on her and he knows her mouth is pressed in a firm line, a crease between her dark brows when she doesn’t have the answer.
“You will find out as I have in my many years of life that there is great danger in discovery. How much are you willing to risk next time?”
“What should I tell the council, Professor?” Cait asks quietly.
“It’s hard to say, my dear. It’s up to the whole of the council, and while I’m partial to suspension and community service, others might agree on…. harsher punishment.”
“I can’t just leave my years of research because of something I didn’t do- and Jayce can’t lose his future with the academy.”
Heimendinger snorts and looks back to him.
“No offense my boy, but you couldn’t get expelled from the academy unless you invented some scrupulous machinery capable of teleporting you into some unearthly region in the nebulas above, where your mother couldn’t reach you- in other words you’d have to shoot for the stars!” He snorts again at his own sense of humor.
“But I thought you just said I was on ‘grounds for expulsion.”
The yordle waves his hand, still chuckling.
“Grounds my boy, grounds. It’s no secret your mother sees our military programs as ‘brutal and uncouth’- I am sure this is the opportunity she has waited for to pull you out of the academy. Either way, she’d never allow expulsion to be on your record,” he continues cheerfully. “Who knows, maybe I will even see you attending council meetings now! Maybe even as the one on trial if the council pushes it far enough! How exquisitely uncomfortable that would be for everyone.”
Jayce is starting to see the ‘eccentric’ side of the Dean- he didn’t find anything funny about having to be babysat in the council room.
He sinks down further in his chair, his greatest failure still playing in the background for the upteenth time.
~
They were allowed to leave after each being handed ‘incident paperwork’, which was heavier than a five pound weight. The size of the stack was nearly comical, obviously devised as punishment on its own. They walk out into the large and warmly lit hall of the academy as the door slams behind them, sending loose papers fluttering to the ground.
Jayce tries to balance his stack and grab the rogue papers before Cait stops him, setting sets hers down. She’s grabbing them with a similar aggression Jayce has seen in the training room.
“Wow Cait, I don’t think I’m gonna need that workout regimen anymore- these should cover it.”
He gives her a smile, but she’s too absorbed to return it.
“None of this would’ve happened if those children didn't break in.”
“I’m pretty sure one of them was like, 10 years old. And there was a girl who couldn’t have been much older than you, with pink hair. We could send out a search with those details, get all your stuff back-”
“What does it matter now?”
With a swift motion, Cait gets up, brushing past Jayce.
“Cait!”
Jayce makes the call to chuck the paperwork in the nearest dustbin as he catches up to his oldest friend, her dark blue ponytail swishing aggressively behind her. She starts down the west hall, Jayce’s reflection running along the smooth white marble floor with him, his boots making an embarrassing squeak on the polish as he runs.
“If you’re looking for someone to blame, blame me. I should’ve heard them sooner, okay? I was too focused on what was in front of me, because seriously who breaks in through the balcony? Is that even possible? Maybe they came in through the vents?”
“It’s not connected to the primary vent system, it’s privatized.”
“One more theory that we can knock off our list! Look, I’m sorry Cait- I heard them behind the door and I should’ve waited. I was impulsive and…those crystals fell because of me.” He thought he would feel a weight off his chest, but Cait spoke with an emptiness that dragged him another incident report amount down.
“It doesn’t matter Jayce. Your mother is going to pull my funding and her apartment, and I don’t blame her after I literally dropped a bomb on it. And you are a member of house Talis- I was stupid to have had you anywhere near my workshop.” She acknowledges his rank like it was something terminal. She’d never cared about it before, never used class as an excuse not to challenge Jayce, or treat him any differently than anyone on the street.
Jayce needed a plan to fix this.
“Cait, let me go after them at least. I feel like I’m getting off scot- free while you could go on trial-“
She interrupts him with a gentle hand to his shoulder, stopping right before the mechanical doors they were marched through. Caits darkly lined eyes are smudged and her hair is out of place. Jayce notices a bruise on her jawbone and remembers that they just survived a bomb explosion that afternoon. She looks barely composed now that she’s looking at him, like she’s seeing the obstacles she will have to jump over to maintain her career. This whole time Jayce has only been kicking her while she’s down, too busy worrying about his own guilt to notice hers.
Her voice, always a current of ease and confidence, wobbles in the middle when she speaks.
“You could’ve died. I could never forgive myself if it happened because of me. Just, please go home- I need to be alone.”
“But what about everything? Your inventions, your scholarship, your job with Professor Heimerdinger?”
“I can’t think about any of that when I’m facing banishment, Jayce. The council-“ she pressed her mouth in a firm line, eyes cast down to the floor.
She speaks delicately next, looking around in fear of someone overhearing.
“Experimenting with the arcane is grounds for banishment.”
…The arcane?
The arcane? The arcane, why can’t he wrap his head around that? Messing around with the arcane was like experimenting with the ability to breathe and putting it in a crystal, impossible and paradoxical.
“So we’re in deep shit now, is what you’re saying.”
Cait gives him a frown for his language, but amends,
“I am in deep shit. You’ve got a hall pass, Talis. Do
me a favor and don’t associate with me for the next few weeks until the trial passes.”
Jayce tries to give her another easygoing smile but ends up with a chagrin. Cait didn’t entertain any hopes that she would escape a trial for the accident today.
“Well,” he trails off, the conversation suddenly awkward. “You know where to find me when uh. If you want to talk. I don’t know what I’ll do without you to wake me up at the crack of dawn for a run.”
She only gives his shoulder a squeeze before she’s walking out of the great whirring doors. She leaves Jayce in the shadows of the great hall to regret everything all over again.
~
His mother was going to give him more of a slap on the wrist than the Professor. This is apparent when he walks out to see ten staff hands marked by the House Talis color navy; they shuffle him into the cool and heavily draped compartment of a carriage with the sort of quick pomp and circumstance that Jayce loathes. He could’ve walked, but Gods forbid a member of House Talis walks on his own.
The evening clouds were heavily saturated with blue, staining the city and tinting his skin with light through the window. Jayce looks at the city he knows, busy at every hour of the day because it’s the city of never sleeping progress. Little children run through some sort of street market as their families nose through the wares. Gas lanterns hold a blazing warmth at every corner, blending with the fading natural light. As the carriage swings around a fountain Jayce watches a little boy scrape his knee and his mother who helps him up.
Those were his people out there. Jayce was leaving scientific discovery and the politics that comes with it to high society whether his mother liked it or not. All he ever wanted to do from the time he was rescued himself was to help people.
House Talis finally came into view as they crawled out of the populated city center and up to the cliffs plateaux. It was dark by the time they arrived. The house was imposing with its signature black iron gate, the expansive house behind dimly lit. A few drops of a beginning storm hit Jayce before he enters through the front door.
So far so good- everything seems just like it was when he left it. A couple servants pass through the sprawling interior hall on some task, but otherwise it’s quiet like the house is asleep. Maybe he misread the whole carriage ride; maybe his mother was just being thoughtful.
The thought makes him chuckle as he takes off his boots, a puff of thick dust comes off of them that would be cleaned when he goes upstairs. He’s growing paranoid the longer no one reprimands him; he sounds crazy for wanting it, for needing it.
Unfortunately- fortunately?- he hears the echoing click of heels and there’s his mother at the top of the stairs. She walks down and past him staring hawkishly into her pocket mirror for any flaws in her face.
“Mother!”
Jayce realizes she’s in council attire and preparing to leave as she snaps her compact sharply shut.
“Hello?” He tries again.
She chooses anything else to fix her attention on but him as she speaks.
“I don’t have time to deal with this. All I can say is how utterly embarrassed I am that our investment in Caitlyn Kiramman is being reviewed along with everything involving her ‘experiments.’ She has a heavy price to pay for putting my son in danger.”
“That's not what happened. It was my fault-“
“I'm pulling you from the academy,” she says next like it was nothing, ignoring him as usual.
“You are a talent in many things Jayce, especially in exhausting my patience. I’m done entertaining this fantasy you have of being an enforcer.” She practically spits the word out.
“It’s not a ‘fantasy’-“
Finally turning to him, she touches his cheek once, and he bites his tongue at the pain that blossoms from it. He slammed on that side of his face when he fell to the floor. His mother doesn’t notice how it hurts him as she continues,
“Oh sweetie, thats all it ever was. And I’ve allowed it for too long because you’re my son. Now I’ve got to go, I'll be back late.”
Just as quick as it came the whirlwind left, marking the third time that day a door was slammed in Jayce’s face.
Well. It could’ve been worse, he guesses. Now he has time to prepare at least.
Jayce is going to find a way to fix this. Caitlyn saved his life once, the least he can do is save her from
his own mistake.