Officially, Jayden's shift ended around 8pm. In practice? He's sitting on the stool in the techlab, empty mug of coffee next to him. Not that the caffeine did much to keep him awake. He was supposed to stay at the lab for one, maybe two hours after his shift, work on something for the agencyā¦ But oh well. One mistake, he got angry, practically smashed the whole project. Now, he has to start again, finish it and not only make it good, make it great. His fault for not controlling himself, his fault for getting angry, his fault for making that stupid mistake- he's not supposed to make these. He's supposed to make every project clean without a trace of imperfections!
It's his fault, he has to fix it, so now he's staying up late, stress and anger from the whole day isn't helping. Not only that, he's failed a mission this morning too! Which automatically made his day three times worse. He doesn't even have the right to be upset. It's entirely his fault! He should just accept it, clench his teeth and go on about his day. But no, he's sitting in the tech lab with lights off, except for the singular desk light, head on the counter, cheeks red. He's not going to bitch about it, he's a grown ass man, he shouldn't be feeling this way. He shouldn't be crying over this.
Mantra had just came back from a mission, having agreed to taking a very late shift that night. It went a little longer than he had expected it to, but he didnāt mind all that much. He had left his bag in the techlab earlier that day and headed over to retrieve it. Considering how empty the rest of the SDN building was, he didnāt expect anyone to be there. Mantra quietly opened the door to the lab and stepped inside. He saw his bag on the floor next to the doorway and went to pick it up, but paused when he saw Jayden. He stood still for a few moments, trying to stay as quiet as possible. A part of him wanted to just grab the bag and slink away completely unnoticed, but then he heard a soft, shaky coming from the other man.
āJayden?ā He spoke quietly, starting to very slowly step closer, āYouāre here lateā¦ Are you, uhmā¦ okay?ā He stopped walking, stopping a few feet away from Jayden. Mantra could tell Jayden was upset, and he didnāt want to intrude any further than he needed to.
