All hours are thirsting hours

Lion El’Jonson - I

This man treats it like a military exercise. 

This is an expected duty and he will treat it like one.

You’re treated like a defensive checkpoint: deposited on the far side of the bed, wrapped up in blankets and furs, and then he lies down beside you. Alas, somewhere in that theoretical understanding of cuddling he failed to understand that he should probably be facing towards you - or even touching you in any way, and not just lying in wait, facing the door in case of intruders.

Guarding you.

You can make the most of this by snuggling into his back and he’ll allow it. Don’t worry, he’ll get better over time… hopefully.

Fulgrim - III

Surprisingly awkward.

In his quest to make it perfect, to set the mood, to make sure he doesn’t touch you too much or too little and precisely ready what you want in this moment he comes off stilted and slightly stiff.

He settles into it quickly though, ever adept at reading your mood and pulls you into his chest, letting you rest against him and pressing languid kisses atop your head. When you’re clearly relaxed and enjoying his effort he loosens even more and it makes for a very cute evening together.

Post heresy bonus: 

Coils around you confidently trapping you between thick ropes of his winding body. Enjoy being pet like the little well, pet you are. 

Perturabo - IV

Oh good lord, a feat in and of itself you got him to agree, but once he’s had it once he’s a tsundere addict so watch out.

That first time though, that first time is for you to coax him into being more than an unmoving iron wall. Showing him what tender touch and unburdened human affection feels like. 

He leans into your hands as you sit up upon his chest and caress his wires, letting out low rumbles you didn’t think was possible from your nigh unfeeling lord. It’s an addictive feeling you’ll try to replicate over and over.

Jaghatai Khan - V

It’s a cute date where he takes you out into the cold wilderness and shows you how well he can provide for you. 

Hot roasted meat skewers, look at these thick furs he brought for you, still cold? Don’t worry, that’s what his arms are here for, to hold you close and make you feel secure.

Just lean into his arms and let the warmth seep through as he looks down at his little hawk adoringly. He’ll press little kisses all over, your cheeks, nose, the top of your head, everywhere.

He carries you back because he doesn’t want to put you down.

Leman Russ - VI

This man is the most tactile creature known to the Imperium.

He’s already had his hands all over you, arms slung around you and had you over his shoulder plenty of times before he just decides to scoop you up for a lazy cuddle session.

By this point you’re already boneless and buried in a pile of wolf, both fluffy and human alike. Too bad if you’re too warm because you’re not leaving any time soon, not with his head laid on your thighs and arms spread across you to snuggle in the dogpile.

Rogal Dorn - VII

Emperor help him but he doesn't understand.

He understands theoretically and physically what happens but you’re going to need to walk and talk him through every step as he dutifully obeys. 

‘Lift your arm - no, that  one, that’s right. And now put it down. Gently…. Perfect.’

Once you’re settled in with him though he’s a nice steady presence, sort of like a weighted blanket but better because he makes you feel beyond safe in his arms. 

Konrad Curze - VIII

Work is cut out here, and you might want to try bathing him beforehand unless you want to pull away covered with … bits. 

Manage that first and he will actually cradle you somewhat tenderly, like you are fragile porcelain that will crack, which may very well be true from his perspective. His body cages around you and protects you from the world, even if you are entirely alone together. 

Just let him hold you, maybe even press shaky kisses into you, and he only mutters about the demise of humanity maybe once or twice (that's an improvement on normal)

Sanguinius - IX

What a dream… if you didn’t have hair or feathers in your face every other minute.

Trying to manoeuvre in a way that his wings aren’t pressed uncomfortably beneath him, you’re not pulling and lying on feathers, and his long hair generally tangling as you both tango into position makes for quite the challenge.

You both laugh at it though, giggling and clutching each other at the absurdity of trying to make it work and eventually succeed into settling together. It’s soft, it’s sweet, it's perfect.

Post heresy bonus: 

He plagues you in dreams of futures that could have been - fragments of his soul echoing through the warp and into your head the same way the black rage does.

You curl up against his cold sarcophagus and nobody stops you.

Ferrus Manus - X

This man could not take a hint that you wanted to cuddle him if you tried, so you’re going to have to take heavy handed initiative here.

You should forever treasure the look on his face as you triumphantly approach with about five oven mitts from the kitchens cobbled together into unholy abominations of fabric and begin stuffing them onto his hands with no explanation.

By the time he’s stopped rebooting enough to ask questions you’re already climbing up into his arms so he can hold you in relative comfort while he can walk around.

He will make a papoose like design for your second cuddling session so he can hold you close while he works unimpeded. 

Angron - XII

He’s screaming, crying, throwing up (™) - WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOURE GOING TO HOLD HIM CLOSE FOR A PROLONGUED PERIOD - ARE YOU MAD???

The answer to that one is probably, yes.

He holds still like a statue but trembles still as you curl into his lap, leeching his warmth. Maybe after a few sessions to calm down you might actually get somewhere.

Roboute Guilliman - XIII

Surprisingly good at this. Actually knows how to enjoy his limited free time and just scoops you into him and lounges back.

He’ll hand feed you fruits while you snuggle into him and enjoy each other's presence. Finds it very cute when you try to feed him back, kneeling up on his lap to reach and feed him what looks comically tiny in comparison.

He’ll definitely find more time to put aside for this, ending up very refreshed from just a little time with you.

Mortarion - XIV

This man is nervous beyond measure, please reassure him over and over and over.

And smooch him.

Lots. 

Very uncomfortable with physical touch and probably doesn’t get better on your first try either. But, it’s a very, very important step to getting close with him - sort of like getting close to a feral cat.

Give him affection but don’t overwhelm him and soon enough he’ll be coming to you at all hours of the day to steal you away for some quality tactile time in your arms.

Post heresy bonus: 

MTV: Welcome to my swamp - where I have made a nest just for you.

He will help you carefully climb in then clamber in on top of you, wings spread wide and covering the both of you like a canopy. Surprisingly nice if you don’t mind the smell because Mothtarion is soft and fluffy.

Magnus the Red - XV

The first time you cuddle is actually psychically - in your sleep.

He’s just so excited to get close to you, and there’s not enough time in a baseline’s day - so why not enjoy time together in dreams too?

Except you’re not as lucid as he is to start with, sleepily demanding cuddles from him that he very amusedly gives as you clamber onto him and press up into his chest. When you come around a little your face is as red as he is, apologising until he squeezes you closer and laughs as he kisses your forehead.

Horus Lupercal - XVI

One day when meeting him in his office before going out for a date he simply reaches out, swiping around your waist and pulling you confidently into his lap. He’ll wrap an arm lazily around your waist and press a kiss into your temple before telling you to sit tight while he finishes the last of his work.

It’s so smooth it’s criminal, and leaves you blushing and him smirking - what exactly did you expect? 

From then onwards he loves having you sat on him, especially when someone comes to visit him so he can put a possessive hand on you and flex his prize.

Lorgar Aurelian - XVII

He looks at you like a puppy for days until you figure out what he wants because he won’t ask for it. Just longing, staring and yearning until you give him permission.

Then his hands are all over you, mapping you out. 

Straight from 0 to 100 immediately for this man.

You’ll have to temper him back he’ll whimper and then comfort him gently for a long, long while before he’s willing to move from your side.

Vulkan - XVIII

He’s vibrating in excitement, he’s been waiting for this for a while but wanted you to be comfortable and ready knowing how physically intimidating he can be. But once you’re ready he’ll be spinning you around in his arms before spiriting you away to a pre-cooled room so you can stand being close against him for longer (yes, he was that prepared).

Such a cuddly man, petting and nuzzling and the whole works. He’ll make sure you’re beyond comfortable. Constantly checks in with you, massages you, holds you just right.

It’s just right for you both and ends up as very addictive stress relief.

Corvus Corax - XIX

When you ask him to cuddle he immediately melts away into the shadows, which honestly makes you upset… until he materialises some time later and nervously brings you to a nest he made just for this.

Accept and he’ll be strangely happy, settling in with you in your own private little place. 

This ends up becoming somewhere you can go to when you’re feeling down and or just need him and he’ll come as soon as he can, with you often finding treats or treasures left for you there to tide you over until he can arrive.

Alpharius/Omegon - XX

Idiot sandwich cuddle session.

They’re goofy and you’re stuck between them.

Throne help you because they have plenty of stupid questions to ask you to entertain themselves over the hours they keep themselves barnacled to you.

“Would you still love us if we were tyranid wyrms?” type questions.

Don’t answer properly and they’ll poke you and whine, unless you bribe them with snuggling in deeper.

Good luck soldier.

Bonus: The Emperor

You’re the nervous one here - mostly because you’re already struggling to comprehend why he’s chosen you of every human alive and everything feels very unreal. 

So when he quite literally sweeps you off your feet and carries you bridal style it's accompanied by a shocked yelp. Which he laughs at.

The custodes are struggling not to go insane - oh well.

He’ll perch you in his lap while he sits back on the throne, and you’ll tremble like a chihuahua in a handbag while he pets you. At least he makes sure the two of you aren’t disturbed while you acclimate.

It ends up being a sort of introductory trial for spending a lot more time cuddled up to him. 

When you come outside the next morning, armed with bathing suits, snacks and a new knife, your sandpiper friend has returned. He cocks his head, and you remark to him that you're going to the cove now. He takes off into the sky, heading that direction.

"You know, if he's going to be sticking around, maybe you should name him," your friend says, slinging her supplies into the cabin of the truck.

You nod, and think about it, "What if we just go with Piper?"

"You don't have anything better than that?"

"But he's so cute! And sandpiper. It's easy to remember."

The redhead shoots you a disbelieving look before climbing into her truck. The ride to the cove is smooth sailing despite the roots— you ride your bike as you follow the vehicle, watching the spanish moss sway in the breeze as you go. The two of you pull up and head down the trail. There's a few sticks you toss out of the way as you go. When you get to the bottom, you see a familiar bird standing on the shore, pecking in the sand.

"Hey Piper," you greet, walking up, "What is it that you've been wanting to show me?"

Piper shows no indication of caring about you anymore, and hops away to go search for bugs. Your feelings are slightly hurt, but you turn and look towards the ocean. It's different than it was the last time you were here— you shiver despite the warm temperature.

But the two of you are on a mission, and start searching for the net. You find it, not too far from the shore. The water is up to your waist. You turn around and call out to Mercedes: "Found it!"

She sloshes towards you, and you squat to start digging the net out of the sand. The saltwater licks at your face, the spray of it getting into your mouth. You spit it out and keep working. Your friend comes to join you, and soon the two of you are wheezing as you begin hauling the ropes in.

After about thirty minutes of struggling, your efforts have made it so the net is in the shallows. It's not going anywhere, so a water break is in order. You're sipping water as you inspect the net while sitting in the water. There's all sorts of things tangled in the net, but what catches your eye are the places with shells that have been caught up on the rope. Some spots have dozens of them hanging, and some look like a knife has cut off the shell, leaving a bald patch in the middle. Your fingers touch the rope, the scratchy fibers dragging across the skin.

"I think there's a shark out there," Mercedes' voice cuts through your thoughts, and you turn to look out in the distance.

Sure enough, there's a fin out in the waves, poking up above the water.

You eye it, then turn back to her, "We're pretty shallow, I don't think it'll come much closer."

After the two of you are done with your rest time, the net is finally, finally hauled from the water, and you begin the much worse task of getting it into the truck. You brought another knife with you— a much sharper one— and you relish in the second attempt at getting to hack away at the thing that almost killed you. It brings a smile to your face, which is a little disconcerting given the large knife in your hand.

"You look like a psycho," Mercedes mumbles as she moves to portion out another bit of net from her section. She also wields a blade.

"Just letting off a little steam," you retort.

"Maybe steam a little less crazily then, please. You're freaking me out."

You snicker, but quit smiling. The joy is still in your chest though, until the two of you are faced with the cut ropes, and get to the job of actually hauling all the netting up the hill. It's not as hard of work now, given that you lightened the load, but it does make for many more trips up and down the hill, and by the end of everything your legs are killing you.

The sand digs into your toes as you kick off your shoes and drop onto your towel, huffing and puffing. Mercedes flops down close by, hands pawing for her water bottle. The two of you sit and catch your breath, and you see that the fin is still out in the distance, moving back and forth.

"I may go for a swim," you remark.

Mercedes raises an eyebrow, "Isn't the shark a problem?"

You shrug, "I mean, I'll keep an eye on it. Besides, if you're here you can give me a heads up."

There was a certain amount of confidence you now had with sharks, given the whole aquarium situation. Even if it got too close, between the two of you the risk would be minimal. You'd stick to the shallows.

Mercedes gives you a thumbs up and pulls out a book to read. You slip out of your cover clothes that you'd put on once you'd starting working on dragging the net up the hill. You wade into the shallows and turn on your back to float, taking extra care to look out for the fin out in the distance.

You stare up at the overhang, and the rocking of the ocean calms you. The water cradles you, and you hum and close your eyes, content. The ocean was always soothing, and you were glad that your previous experience hadn't truly tainted your love for the saltwater.

Something brushes by you, and you crack open one eye, but don't see anything, and the fin is at the end of the cove still. You settle back into your practically meditative state, only to feel the sensation again. What the hell?

You finally put your legs down and stand up in the shallow water, only to realize that there's a small school of blacktip shark babies hovering around your legs. Most people probably would've been a little scared, but they're so tiny that you can't help but coo at them. They're so cute!

Waving at Mercedes, you call out: "There's baby sharks over here!"

She pulls up her sunglasses and calls back, "What?"

You cup your hands around your mouth and yell with all your might, "THERE ARE BABY SHARKS OVER HERE!!"

Your friend snaps her book shut, and wanders over to where you're currently petting said sharks. Their skin is smooth and rubbery, and you laugh as they circle around your legs like cats wanting to be fed.

"Well I'll be," Mercedes says as she splashes closer, "There are baby sharks."

Snorting, you respond, "Don't ever doubt me again."

You instruct her on how to properly touch one. These guys are surprisingly docile for a wild species, taking their fanbase in stride. You spend the next half hour meandering around the shallows in the cove with a small shiver of babies following you. They don't do much other than frighten away the smaller fish that hang out towards the beach. When you go back to floating they disperse, hiding in the shadow your body casts on the ocean floor.

Mercedes has gone back to hanging out on the beach, and you check to see where the adult shark is. It's gone. Weird, you'd assumed that with the amount of babies that the parent might have shown up.

After a while you splash out of the waves and onto the shore, showering the sand with a spray of water that comes out of your bathing suit. Mercedes lifts up her book in mock disgust as it happens.

"Could you drip dry somewhere else?" She huffs, although her words contain no bite.

You decide to wring out your hair just outside of the edge of her towel. She lightly hits you with the novel that she's reading before standing up and stretching.

"You ready to head out? It's getting about dinnertime I think," you ask, staring out at the sun.

"I think so— I've finally gotten through the juicy part of my book."

You ask what it's about, and she explains the plot of her romance novel as the two of you pack up to go back to the house. As you reach the top of the trail, you turn to look back.

The shark fin has returned, slowly circling in the water.

Shaking off the odd feeling that creeps into your chest, you head back home. Dinner is spaghetti and garlic bread, and you go to sleep exhausted.

The next day you spend time taking the rope off to a local facility, and then go about the town to run various errands. Mercedes accompanies you, and the two of you terrorize only a few shops that are on the boardwalk. You smile while watching the seagulls fly around, and are delighted to see a familiar little sandpiper scurrying across the boards.

"Piper? Is that you?" You don't know whether this is the bird that's been following you, but when he runs up to drop a small stone at your feet, you're delighted.

You thank him and smile, and the avian puffs up a bit, ruffling his wings. You're just happy that you didn't lose your little friend after all.

The sun sets again as you head home, and your thoughts turn to your favorite swim spot as you drift off to sleep.

Your dreams are filling with sharks guiding you on a swim, the sun warming your bones as you go.

~~~

Waking up is less fun, but alas, there is money to be made. Technically speaking, your second job is also at the aquarium as a part time scuba diver. When you'd started your mermaid gig you didn't have the certification, but as time wore on there was a class offered for employees to get the right credentials, and you had hopped on the opportunity quickly.

Scuba diving didn't quite give you the same rush as free-diving did, but it offered other fun paths— you liked helping take care of the exhibits. It was like cleaning Betsy Ross' tank, only on a larger scale.

You're in the middle of making your lunch when Mercedes stumbles out of her room, hair sticking in every direction.

"You making sandwiches?" she asks, blinking blearily.

"Yeah," you respond, working on crafting the perfect bologna sandwich, "Diving today, so I'll be a little extra hungry when it's break time."

She snorts, "You'd think that you'd be hungrier after all the tricks you do in costume. Can I snatch some of your bread?"

You nod before responding, "I dunno, I think it's all the extra gear I lug around when we clean— it's not just me getting into the pool. It's pretty physically demanding."

Not that your mermaid gig wasn't demanding, it just used your muscles in a different way.

Mercedes nods, before you watch in horrified fascination as she spreads mustard onto the slices and slaps it together. Just mustard and bread. She catches your expression, and shrugs.

"What? It's good."

You have your doubts, but there's not much in the way of time to argue, so you stuff your lunch into your lunchbox and head out the door. Piper's on the porch when you pass, and you greet him. There's a lack of shells to be had, but you don't pay it any mind as you head to your job.

The building is quiet as you enter, and you greet the security guard (Michael) as you pass through the gates.

In the backrooms of the aquarium is the humming of equipment and pumps running, and you meet up with the dive team near the normal reef pool where you'd be if you were mer-performing.

You greet Stan, the head diver, and receive a grunted 'hello' in response. Stan was an older man, and had been diving at the aquarium for so long he practically came with the place. He was working on assigning you all to your zones, and you stand on your tiptoes to try and see over his shoulder at his clipboard.

Stan sighs, and moves it over, voice rumbling, "You'll see it when everyone else does."

You scowl comically, before batting your eyes, "I thought I was your favorite diver?"

"My favorite diver would be the one that's prepping their gear for the day instead of bothering me," seeing your expression wilt, he sighs, "You'll see it in ten minutes. Now shoo, I have safety checks to be doing."

Beaming, you scurry away to go collect your gear. Similar to your swimsuits, all the gear was treated at the aquarium. But since you were a regular, yours was specially tagged so you didn't have to do fittings every single time you showed up for a dive. It was lovely.

You go about doing your own standard safety checks as you go through your dive kit. Testing the air in your BCD goes smoothly, and you walk over to the weight storage to pick out what you think is the appropriate amount. It would vary slightly depending on which tank you were going into. Stan would verify with you before you headed out. You're almost done doing your checks when you hear him clap his hands loudly, signaling time for the safety briefing and assignment handout.

The other divers form a circle around him and you join, shouldering your way in between Dave and Buford— two guys who looked like football players but had actually never played a ball sport in their lives. They were marching band players with a love for fish. They fist bump you as you wait for Stan's instructions.

He clears his throat, and begins: "Alright people, we've got a big day ahead— can everyone hear me?"

There's a general murmur of assent among the group, and he nods before continuing on.

"We don't have any rookies in our ranks today, so I'm hoping this will be as smooth as possible. Nothing is out of the ordinary in terms of new decor, but as always please make sure to not hit any of the reefs. They may not be fully real, but there are some plants on there we need to look out for," he flips a page on his clipboard, reading off more notes, "Additionally, I was told to give a reminder to you all not to stir up the sand. Apparently it 'doesn't look good for social media.'"

He adds air quotes around the last bit, and your group chuckles appreciatively. Another page flip and a few more safety bits and bobs later, and he finally gives out assignments. You patiently wait for your name to be called, and when it is you step forward.

"Your partner will be Oliver. Oliver, they don't bite, please don't look so nervous," Stan says, gesturing to the guy in question. "You two will be cleaning the shark reef tank, along with Jill as your safety diver."

Oliver steps forward and you shake hands. You've only met him a few times but never had him as a buddy since he was newer. He seemed nice enough. He's a tall, lanky fellow who's about your age, and his face is dotted with freckles. He sports a haircut that might be good if it was styled differently.

You greet Jill with a high five— the two of have been paired many times, and know how to go with the flow. Jill is actually a marine biologist for the aquarium, so for a safety diver you've essentially hit a gold mine.

The meeting ends and you head back to grab everything you'll need, which is all stacked in a neat pile exactly where you left it. You double check the list and brace yourself before hoisting your tanks onto your back, carrying your fins, goggles and wetsuit in your arms. Underwater it's not all that much weight, but above water it was an easy sixty pounds that you plop onto your back.

You begin your confident waddling after Jill towards the shark tank. Oliver isn't far behind you, and you're focusing very hard on walking upright without the tanks dragging you backward when he speaks to you.

"Have you ever gone in this tank before?" He asks, speeding up a little to walk side by side with you.

You shake your head, "I haven't. You?"

He nods enthusiastically, "I have! This one is one of my favorites, especially since-"

Oliver catches you up to speed on the cool decor that's part of the shark aquarium, and informs you that his favorite bit are the decorative skeletons that are scattered on the bottom. Some of them have eyepatches, and the middle of the reef has what looks to be a shipwreck on it.

"It's a pain to clean," he informs you, "But it's so worth it."

Fortunately, his explanation distracted you from the walk for long enough that your group had arrived at your destination. You gently set your BCD and tanks on the ground, and begin to wriggle into your 5mm wetsuit. As much of a help as it is during dive time, it's such a pain to get on. Your compatriorts are in much of the same position.

After a bit of struggle, you pull the zipper on the back up and tuck the attached string into the back of your suit. Next thing on are your neoprene booties, and a final double checking of your gear. Then you and Oliver trade places and check, and do the same for Jill until everyone's kit has been double, triple, quadruple checked. The aquarium hasn't had an incident before, and you lot weren't keen on being the first.

You and Oliver are the first ones in, and after the entrance goes well, Jill follows. The long fins attached to your feet allow you to sail through the water with no problem, and you relish in the ability to do so. You so needed to bring your good fins out to the cove when you had the chance— feeling like a sea creature was an extraordinary thing indeed.

Oliver parks it on the bottom of the glass, slowly beginning to use his scraper to remove the diatoms and algae that had built up. Diving teams were sent in everyday with rotations of groups, but even then there was still some nastiness to be expected. You head over with a sponge to begin working on taking off any bits that might be easier than using a scraper, and using a net to catch any big chunks of debris floating in the water.

What you don't expect is the massive shark that appears between you and Oliver, and you backpedal immediately as the nurse shark pushes you away from the glass. It circles away towards the other side of the aquarium, and you look at Oliver. His expression is hard to make out, but he flashes the 'ok?' sign and you return it. The two of you turn back to work on the glass.

It happens again. The shark appears insistent upon separating you from your fellow diver. You frown, and signal to Jill. She comes down, and the creature swims away, only to reappear a moment later. The biologist redirects the nurse shark, but it appears to be dead set on the matter.

Jill pulls out her communication board and scrawls out: 'work on ship?". You nod, flash the ok sign and swim off. The nurse shark follows at a distance.

As you begin working on the mast, you're absolutely flummoxed by the behavior of the sharks. They're not aggressive, you simply just don't understand why all of a sudden they're flocking to you. Does it have something to do with the alleged merman that might've saved you? You snort at the thought, sending a burst of bubbles upward from your regulator. This seems to tickle the shark that's above you, as it wriggles a bit in the bubbles then continues gliding away.

In all honesty, you're a little frustrated about the situation, but you get through your task, and assist the others as you can. The sharks don't seem to mind Jill, but they do care about when you get close to Oliver.

Once everyone is at the surface, Oliver spits out his regulator and turns to you.

"Is that normal?" he asks.

You're just as confused, and say, "No, it's really not. I don't know what's going on but recently the sharks here have been super interested in me. It's freaking me out a bit."

Jill chimes in from where she's taking off her gear, "They could be sensing that you're the kind of person that loves ocean creatures. You know how sometimes cats like coming to people that aren't familiar, even if they usually hate strangers?"

You nod and she shrugs, adding on, "It could be something like that. Although I could test your blood and see if you're part shark."

That gets a laugh out of you, and you respond with a "no thank you" as you clamber out of the water. Jill gives you a hand as you make it onto the platform.

You all gather everything up and head back to the main area to hang out. There's a few other dives you do during the day, and you finally get to eat your sandwich. Somehow they also rope you into lugging buckets of sand around. You sigh, but go along with it.

At the end of the day you're a little bit sore, but overall very pleased with yourself. You crank your car and head back home. At your abode, Mercedes is working through trying to create a dress that gives off the impression that it's made of crystal, and you're terrified to ask how much it cost.

The rest of the week is much of the same in terms of performances and cleaning dives, and you find yourself looking forward to the weekend. You're ready to head back to the cove. Who knows what you'll find? With the storms that roll in and out throughout the week there's a higher chance of finding some really nice shells that have washed in from the deep ocean.

Saturday dawns, and you hum as you brush out your hair, gently working through the tangles that had appeared overnight. Gathering all your things and making sure your phone is fully charged, you make your way out into the main part of the house. Packing lunch is easy enough, and you head out to get your bike to ride to the cove.

You'd told Mercedes about your plan for the day already, and she'd asked that you at least give an update every few hours just to make sure you were alright. She was fairly swamped with work so she didn't have time to check on you barring an emergency. But a few choice words had you agreeing that yes, you'd make sure you did exactly that.

The water is warm as you get in, and you tug your fins on over your neoprene boots. These ones aren't as nice as the ones you use at work, but they go well enough with what you're trying to do. You wish you had your old seashell bag as you wade out even further, waddling along until you're waist deep so you can turn over and float.

You idly kick backwards, and chuckle as your fins simply slap the top of the water. Snickering, you adjust your waist so the equipment on your feet can actually propel you along. There's a brush against your fingertips, and you look over to see that your baby sharks have returned to keep you company. They all receive pets as you tread water.

Taking a deep breath, you sink under the water, blinking as your eyes adjust to being filled with saltwater. Your friends follow you as you swim towards the bottom, looking for good shells. There's nothing crazy on the bottom, much to your disappointment. You'd found a huge conch shell out here months ago after a big storm.

Eventually you take a break, fins coming off and you walk onto shore fully human, stretching. You text Mercedes and idly tap on the work groupchat that had gone off while you were out in the water. Something about a get together at a local restaurant on the pier? There was an ongoing war about details, so you simply give a thumbs up emoji to the person that initially suggested the idea, then put your phone back down.

You turn to wade back into the water and notice the big shark fin that's hovering around the edge of the cove again. Weird, but you're brave enough to wade back into the water that isn't above your head. After a little while of bobbing up and down through the shallows the fin is gone, and you're satisfied with heading back out into deeper waters.

You've almost made it to the first sandbar when one of the baby sharks swims in front of you. You laugh a little, and try to continue going, but it does the same thing as the nurse shark did and insist on making you swim backwards. It's less funny when you have a group of ten small sharks making you swim away from something. As soon as you get about ten feet away from the sandbar, the sharks disperse.

You surface, and turn in a circle, looking for anything that might have them acting strangely. As you do, you feel something tug at your fin, and you immediately yelp and splash your arms a bit as you attempt to go backwards. You dip your face into the water to try and see what's under you, but all you can see is sand and a few fish swimming along the bottom. You grunt in frustration, and try going back towards the sandbar, where you can see a massive seashell sitting.

But again, your apparent bodyguards swarm you, pushing you back to the cove. Coming back to the top of the water you give up, and tell them, "Fine, fine! I'll go back. I've gotten the message."

But as you go to swim back, something yanks on your fin, harder this time, and you almost choke on seawater as you shout in surprise. Something was fucking with you.

You do a small barrel roll in the water to adjust your position, and turn back to look for your shark entourage. To your dismay, they're gone— lingering in the distance. How odd. You look to your left and right, spotting a familiar looking knife on the ocean floor. It's half covered with sand, and after diving down you wave your hand over it to reveal the blade that you lost on the day you got caught in the net. How wonderful! You'd been missing the familiar weight.

The blade is smooth under your fingers, but the hilt has gained a new wrapping of sea kelp around it. There's small cowrie shells woven into the shorter strands that are tucked under the main bit of kelp. It's fascinating, and you're very very certain that this did not happen naturally. Which begs the question: who, or what, did it?

You feel a tap on your shoulder and spin around, stirring the water around you and kicking up a cloud of sand.

But through that sand you can see red eyes, and the outline of something huge. Your spine prickles and your instincts scream that now would be a good time to run.

It's as you swim backwards that you finally make out the shape, and see the fins swimming toward you that your brain puts two and two together.

The shark that's been following you wasn't a shark at all— it was the merman from before.

And he's here to make sure you drown this time.

~~~

Author's note: 14k in and MC finally gets to talk to the merman lmaoooo

Taglist (let me know if you'd like to be added!):

This would ruin you.

He knew it would. 

His brother was far too obsessed with perfection, too caught up in what had captured his own attention and caused him to bring a baseline all the way from Nocturne to Terra, and all too enamoured with you.

Fulgrim dogged your steps when he thought you alone, he asked of you far too often, and the way his gaze lingered…

Vulkan did not regret many things, but he regretted bringing you to the palace.

He had wanted to show a close friend of his the wonders of humanity, someone who had known him before his rise to glory and stayed steadfast to his side but now all he can think of is that he has doomed you to whatever this was.

Perhaps it would blow over.

He knew better than that though, no, the way the Pheonician’s eye had been caught and now his hand grasped to close around his prize.

You didn’t deserve this.

Sweet and fiery, he could see the enticement, but he couldn’t bear to lose a friend like you. 

He recalled being young, and though he wasn’t little for very long, you were there, and you were there with kindness. You loved him and played with him even when he wasn’t a skilled smith, when he didn’t have great power, when there were no titles or extraordinary skills to him.

The first time you met him, alone and newly adopted by his father, an outsider to the village you’d been compassionate, invited him into your group, shared what little sweets you had. He can recall in perfect memory the sounds of your giggles as you pushed the sour little pellets into his hands, your own clasping around his.

What a marvel you were that stood steadfast against the passage of time, always the first to follow him into anything and against anyone.

And still now, on Terra itself, where so many saw him as more God than man did you humble him. 

Chatting utter nonsense and gossiping with him at galas, calling him a fool and flicking him - throwing pillows at his face and completely disregarding decorum. 

He lived for it.

His heart beat for those moments of humanity that kept him grounded and reminded him he was not so far set from the rest. In many ways, you encapsulated completely what he fought for.

Which is why he would fight for you now if it came to it.

“Brother,” he starts, voice deep and grave, but low enough in timbre that you would not hear him from the next room over.

Fulgrim stops, deadly still and motionless, still facing away from him.

There was no reason to let the moment drag on as long as it did, both primarchs had processed and decided on action already, but both wanted to prolong the inevitable. 

“Yes, Vulkan?” he turns slowly, standing taller and straighter as he did and plastering on a wide smile in greeting, “Are you in need of my aid?”

Vulkan too stands up straighter, shoulders rolling back and squaring. It was not a fighting stance, but it was not too far off, and certainly intimidating on his larger frame.

“Yes, I think I am,” he replies simply, revealing nothing but what both already knew, and masks an order with a thin veneer of request “walk with me.”

Fulgrim hesitates for such a brief step that if he were not a primarch he would not have caught it, but he makes no comment as the man steps into pace beside him.

Away from your direction.

“You covet things that are not yours, brother,” he starts as they turn a few corridors away, “it is in your best interest that you take things no further.”

He does not anticipate the rotten snarl that rips from his usually immaculately composed brother’s throat. It takes him aback so greatly that he almost flickers with uncertainty at how he’d misjudged the depth of the situation. But he was no weak candle to flicker and splutter and die - he had earned his namesake as ‘The Drake’.

Vicious and defensive.

He rears on him, utilising every inch of his height and frame, turning until he was boxing the man backwards into the wall.

“Enough!” his words all but bellow, assuredly attracting attention, but he had no care for who came running.

Both men held wicked snarls now, both holding resolve barely on the edge.

Fulgrim’s voice comes as a scathing hiss, goading him with narrowed eyes and venom unconcealed, “And here I thought that you had introduced them as your ‘honoured friend’ - but clearly you do not hold them in honour if you would not fully claim them publically.”

Vulkan’s armour creaks in protest, metal screeching as his muscles tense and grind in place. The floor tiles were already cracking with the sheer pressure.

“Listen well, brother, it is precisely because I honour them that I will not allow you to ruin them - and you will heed my words or you will heed my fists.”

You don’t understand why later that night Vulkan informs you of the sudden departure back to Nocturne escorted personally by himself, but it’s hardly something you worry yourself with, probably having pissed off the wrong noble.

You roll out of bed with the grace of a badly unfolding camping chair and shuffle toward the bathroom. The mirror gives you back a woman who has technically slept and emotionally been chased through a hedge maze by the interaction with two different men, both of whom appear so diametrically opposite to each other and yet somehow feel eerily similar… like sister fonts! Like Garamond and Georgia.

You chuckle as you think of Alexis being Georgia. That man is clearly Pacifico in a sentient body.

“So stupid,” you mutter at your reflection. “You’re comparing men to fonts now. On theme, my dear!”

The shower helps clear your mind a little, the hot water loosens the stiffness in your shoulders and sends steam crawling up the glass. You stand under it longer than necessary while your mind sorts the images into piles.

Work pile: Dorn belongs there with his crisp shirts, exacting comments, and his redlines that look like battlefield casualties. The Wall.

Then, another image slips into the wrong stack: Dorn across from you in a small warm café, gaze lowered so he does not look at you too hard while you try not to cry over a man he does not know.

Except he knows enough now. You told him the outline of the wound, about how reality did not match the person you had built in your head. How you missed someone who was still there.

Stoneheart pile: that should be safer. A username, a voice through headphones, dry humor, Paladin’s orders to drink water and take long rests. The steady weight of his typed concern at the end of a day.

Now Alexis’ face keeps entering that room uninvited. Tall, golden, warm. Lovely. Wrong.

By the time you dress, you have chosen the safest office version of yourself: dark trousers, a soft blouse, cardigan, hair clipped back with enough force to suggest discipline. Small earrings. Concealer applied with the reverence of a restorer repairing a damaged fresco.

Your phone sits on the desk beside your bag, dark and far too conspicuous; you have not opened the chat since last night.

Well… that is a lie. You opened it twice after climbing into bed, read the last messages, typed nothing, then closed it again like someone shutting a cupboard on a ghost.

Stoneheart’s final message still waits in memory.

Tomorrow, then.

I’ll be here.

At the time, it had made something in you loosen, just enough for sleep to find you. This morning, the tenderness of it sits uneasily beneath your ribs. He is still there, and that is the problem! He hasn’t done anything overtly terrible enough to justify your retreat. He is still himself in all the ways that matter through a screen.

“We are going to work,” you announce to the apartment. “We are going to be normal.”

The plant in the corner drops one exhausted leaf.

You point at it. “Don’t you start.”

Outside, the city is already in motion. Morning light lies pale across the pavement, too bright for your amount of unresolved emotional admin. Commuters move with Monday faces on, clipped steps and sealed mouths, clutching coffee cups like ritual objects. The air smells faintly of rain, damp concrete, and bakery exhaust from the shop near the station.

At the platform, the train arrives with that familiar shriek that announces the start of yet another work week. You board, find a place near the door, and hold the pole while the carriage rocks into motion. The window catches your reflection whenever the train dives into the tunnel: face composed, eyes too alert, mouth set in a line that suggests a woman carefully negotiating with herself.

Then, as if on cue, your phone buzzes once in your bag.

You ignore it for exactly eight seconds. Then you pull it out.

Stoneheart007 - 7:42 AM Morning. Did daylight improve the situation, or is the situation still under review?

You stare at the message.

It is so him. Dry. Careful. Offering conversation while pretending to offer a procedural status check.

A tiny smile threatens the corner of your mouth before you can stop it.

That irritates you. Affection is deeply inconvenient when one is trying to be dignified in withdrawal.

You type:

Troublemaker2301 - 7:44 AM Still under review. Committee is tired and has requested coffee.

You hover over the screen, then add nothing else; no raccoon joke, no heart update, no little string of emojis meant to soften the restraint.

Once you click ‘Send’, the reply comes after a minute.

Stoneheart007 - 7:45 AM Reasonable. Do not let the committee make major rulings before breakfast.

Your smile happens despite you.

Then the train pulls into your stop, and the doors open with a sigh.

You tuck the phone away before your traitorous thumbs can respond warmly.

Phalanx Structural Design, the firm rises from its block like a verdict. The building has always looked severe from the outside, a clean grid of glass and stone with the company name fixed above the entrance in brushed steel letters. Today, it looks almost theatrical, as if it knows you spent the weekend accidentally humanising the man who controls half its internal weather.

The lobby smells of floor polish, coffee from the staff kiosk, and expensive air conditioning. Security nods you through. Your ID card taps against your chest as you step into the elevator with three other employees, all of whom look spiritually unprepared for Monday.

The ride up is silent except for the soft whirr of machinery.

You watch the numbers climb with an inexplicable anxiety typical of Mondays the world over.

By the time the doors open on the drafting floor, your face is as passably neutral as ever. The office beyond greets you in its usual language: fluorescent brightness, muted conversations, keyboards tapping in nervous bursts, the distant cough and whine of the plotter warming up for war. Rows of desks hold their careful chaos, mugs, printouts, cables, marked plans, desk plants, figurines, snack wrappers hidden behind monitors.

You reach your desk and find three sticky notes waiting on your monitor.

‘CHECK ROOF DRAINAGE DETAIL’

ASK ME ABOUT REVISION CLOUDS, with a tiny thundercloud drawn beside it.

MEETING 10:30? BIG ONE? from Rena two desks down, who has underlined BIG twice and drawn eyes beside it.

“Big one?” you mutter, and as if on cue, Rena’s chair swivels with the speed of gossip powered by caffeine. She is already holding a mug with both hands, hair twisted up in a pencil-assisted bun, eyeliner sharp enough to draft with.

“You didn’t see the email?”

“What email?”

Her eyes widen with theatrical pity. “Oh, honey. Never begin Monday with that sentence.”

You drop into your chair and wake your monitor. Your inbox loads with the sluggish menace of a beast digesting the corpses of the vanquished brave. And then, sure enough, there it is, near the top.

From: Rogal Dorn Subject: Department Coordination Meeting, 10:30 AM Location: Main Conference Room Attendance required. All drafting leads, senior coordinators, and relevant junior staff are to attend a coordination meeting at 10:30 regarding upcoming municipal work and resource allocation. Bring current workload summaries. R. Dorn

A sensible person would see this and think, meeting. You see it and think, public buildings, scrutiny, budget pressure, late nights, and the particular expression Dorn gets when someone uses “approximately” where a number belongs.

Rena leans closer. “Do you know what it is?”

“No.”

“Rumour says the firm landed something big from the city.”

“Rumour says a lot of things.”

“True. Last month rumour said the archive team had a ghost.”

“The archive team does have a ghost. It’s called outdated filing practice.”

Rena snorts into her coffee. “Oh, you’re alive after all. You looked like a Victorian widow when you came in.”

“I had a long weekend.”

“Fun long or spiritually educational long?”

“The kind that should have come with a diagram.” You sigh, suddenly tired.

“Ominous.”

“Very.”

She opens her mouth, clearly ready to pry, but a shift in the room stops her.

It is subtle the way the office adjusts to the change; conversations lower by half a register, backs straighten, and someone near the printer stops laughing mid-syllable.

For Rogal Dorn has entered the drafting floor.

He comes through the glass doors from the executive corridor with a folder tucked under one arm and a takeaway coffee in the other hand. His coat is gone, suit jacket immaculate, pale hair brushed back, shirt collar perfectly aligned. The weekend has been erased from him with almost insulting efficiency. He is once again Director Dorn, the Wall, the man whose presence makes interns remember they have spines only because he is inspecting whether they are properly installed.

And yet…

Amber light on the severe line of his cheek. His coat folded before he sat. Napkins set beside your hand. The brief warmth of his full smile. The careful pressure of his hand between your shoulder blades at the station.

He is walking down the central aisle, speaking briefly to a senior engineer, glancing at a marked printout someone hands him, making a note with his pen directly on the page. Efficient. Remote. Untouchable.

Then his gaze lifts. It finds you.

The contact lasts perhaps one second.

To you, the office narrows around the moment.

Of course, he looks the same. And he does not. Because now, you know the exact shade of his eyes in warm café light. You know that when he is unsure how to comfort someone, he says so. You know he can be funny on purpose, though he would risk perjury in court denying that. You know that when he holds someone, he does it as if the act has weight.

Then, just as quickly as it landed on you, his gaze moves on.

Rena’s voice comes from beside you, much too interested. “Did he just look at you?”

“He looks at everyone, Rena. It’s how he maintains office discipline and seasonal dread.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Do not ‘mm-hmm’ me before nine.”

Across the floor, Dorn continues toward his office.

He wants to.

He entered the building with an exact plan for the day. Review municipal briefing. Confirm resource map. Speak with Roboute before finance sign-off. Announce the internal team. Begin structural coordination. Maintain boundaries. Avoid unnecessary contact. Avoid looking at you in a way that someone with eyes and a functioning sense of human behaviour might interpret correctly.

He saw you at your desk in the greenish glow of your monitor, cardigan soft at your shoulders, hair clipped back. Composed at first glance. Tired at the second. Mouth held too carefully, posture guarded, as if you have placed several emotional objects on high shelves and do not intend to discuss them.

His phone sits in his pocket, heavier than it should be. He knows the latest exchange by heart already. Still under review. Committee is tired and has requested coffee. Even in distance, you cannot help being yourself. And he has no right to take comfort from that.

He reaches his office, steps inside, and closes the door.

The glass wall gives him a view of the drafting floor. It also gives the drafting floor a view of him, so he does not stand there looking at your desk. Instead, he places the folder on his blotter, aligns it with the edge, sets his coffee beside the lamp, and removes his notebook from the top drawer.

The first page for the day contains the list he wrote before leaving for home on Friday.

Municipal project launch… Staffing structure… Conflict review… Direct report issue unresolved… Do not overcorrect……. Do not avoid necessary professional development because of personal discomfort.

He knows what must happen today.

You are the right person for the assignment. And that makes this so much more difficult! For if you were unsuitable, he could remove the problem cleanly. If another employee were better positioned, he could reassign the task and call it prudence. If his judgment were obviously compromised, he could walk into Roboute’s office and restructure with a clear operational reason.

You are not the most senior drafter. You are not the loudest. You do not push yourself forward when credit is being distributed. You worry too much, second guess, overwork, apologize when you should ask, and assume competence in others before you grant it to yourself.

But you also notice things… Small things. Inconsistencies. Misalignments. The way a section line cuts through an assumption nobody has questioned. The way a dimension fails to match the elevation by just enough to matter. When frightened by failure, you return to the task at hand more carefully. You do not make the same mistake twice unless the system itself pushes you into it.

The Bastion Civic Centre requires exactly that kind of eye.

His phone vibrates. It is Roboute.

Roboute Guilliman - 8:31 Confirming 10:30 attendance. Finance package is complete. I’ll take the first twenty minutes to cover municipal oversight, conflict requirements, and public reporting obligations.

Dorn exhales through his nose.

R.D. - 8:32 Confirmed. I’ll handle staffing.

Roboute Guilliman - 8:33 Good. Also, sleep at some point this week. That is a management instruction, not a wellness suggestion.

Dorn looks at the message for a long moment. Then, he locks the phone without replying.

Across the floor, your morning begins to accumulate weight.

A revised lintel detail needs checking. Someone has mislabelled gridlines on a shared background file. The roof drainage note turns out to be attached to a section from two revisions ago, which inspires several uncharitable thoughts about document version control. Email threads multiply. You open your workload summary and try to make it look like a document prepared by a calm professional rather than a hostage note assembled under pressure.

You try not to think about Dorn being in the room. Impossible, because Dorn is frequently in rooms. He is one of the great room-altering forces of modern civilisation. You cannot blame yourself for noticing.

Work-Dorn, you understand. Stand straight. Answer clearly. Do not say “about” when you mean a number. Do not hand him anything you have not checked twice. Accept that he was forged in some ancient workshop where mercy was optional and chair alignment was law.

“Nope,” you whisper. “Absolutely not.”

Rena’s voice floats over from two desks down. “Are you praying?”

“More like filing a complaint with the gods.”

“About?” she quips, interested.

“Men.” You deadpan.

“Valid. Want me to co-sign?”

“Always.”

At 9:12, Stoneheart messages again.

Stoneheart007 - 9:12 AM How severe is Monday?

For a moment you want to click it. You want to tell him about the big meeting, about how the office feels as though it has inhaled and is waiting to speak. You want to say your boss looked at you once and your brain dropped a stack of files. You want to say you are angry with Stoneheart for being kind, sorry for being angry, and still unsure what to do with Alexis’ face attached to the steadiness you thought you knew.

You open your phone under the desk like a teenager hiding contraband.

Troublemaker2301 - 9:15 AM Standard Monday severity. Coffee recommended. Possible casualties by lunch.

You pause. Then, because distance feels cruel and warmth feels dangerous, you add the smallest offering.

Troublemaker2301 - 9:15 AM You?

His reply comes quickly.

Stoneheart007 - 9:16 AM High variable load. No casualties yet.

That makes you smile before you can stop yourself.

Damn him!!

Troublemaker2301 - 9:17 AM Tragic. I was hoping for drama.

Stoneheart007 - 9:17 AM You are drama enough for one server.

The laugh that escapes you is tiny, but real.

Inside his office, Dorn reads your last message and allows himself exactly one breath of relief.

You answered…

A foolish man would build hope from that. A responsible man would record it as data and proceed cautiously.

He sets the phone down and picks up the municipal folder.

The first page bears the city seal and the working title in clean official type.

BASTION CIVIC CENTRE Public Library, Community Hall, Municipal Archive, and Emergency Resilience Shelter Phase One Structural Coordination and Drafting Integration

Bastion: a building meant to shelter people in flood, heatwave, power outage. A place where children will read after school. A place elderly residents will come for city services. A hall where citizens will argue, celebrate, wait out storms. A building that must endure, not merely impress.

He turns the page.

Project deliverables. Schematic integration. Structural grid coordination. Public accessibility compliance. Fire egress. Archive load requirements. Mechanical plant zones. Flood resilience systems. Community-use flexibility.

At 10:15, the office gathers toward the meeting point.

People print summaries. Someone swears softly at the stapler. Rena appears at your desk with two mints and the look of a soldier passing ammunition in a trench.

“For courage,” she says.

“Is it that bad?”

“No idea. That’s why courage.”

You take one. “Thank you.”

She lowers her voice. “Your workload summary?”

“Mostly honest.”

“That means terrifying?”

“That means legally defensible.” You grin, feeling some of the anxiety leave your system as the mint blooms in your tongue.

“Excellent. Very Phalanx.”

You stand, smoothing your cardigan. Your stomach does something unhelpful. The mint continues to sit sharp on your tongue.

Across the floor, Dorn emerges from his office with the municipal folder in hand. The movement of the room changes at once. Chairs push back. Conversations taper. People gather tablets, notebooks, coffee cups. The main conference room waits with its long table, glass walls, wall-mounted screen, and the faint institutional smell of dry-erase markers and ambition.

For one moment, as you approach the doorway, Dorn stands just inside, speaking quietly with Roboute Guilliman.

You have seen Guilliman before, of course. Everyone has. Director of HR and Finance, calm as an ocean seen from orbit, tall and composed, with a face that suggests he knows where every budget line has been buried. He holds a tablet in one hand and listens to Dorn with the grave attention of a man who can turn policy into weather.

Guilliman’s gaze shifts toward the entering staff. It passes over you without lingering, though you get the distinct impression of being noticed anyway. Then he replies to Dorn, equally quiet.

You slip inside and take a seat halfway down the table, close enough to see the screen, far enough from the head of the table that your nervous system does not immediately perish.

Rena sits beside you. She opens her notebook and writes:

BIG MYSTERY MEETING????

She writes beneath it: If I die, clear my browser history.

You bite the inside of your cheek to avoid laughing.

But then, Dorn moves to the head of the table.

He does not need to call for silence. He simply stands there until silence becomes the only reasonable architectural outcome.

Your gaze drops to the folder in his hand.

The municipal seal gleams on the cover and underneath it is typed in bold letters:

Bastion Civic Centre.

Dorn places the folder on the table. His hands rest on either side of it, broad, steady, exact.

“Good morning,” he says, and the whole room sharpens with attention.

“We have received formal confirmation from the city,” he says, “that Phalanx Structural Design has been awarded phase one structural coordination and drafting integration for the Bastion Civic Centre.”

A ripple moves through the room.

A few people sit straighter. Someone near the end exhales softly. Rena’s pen freezes over the word MYSTERY.

Public building, your mind supplies, immediate and cold. Public use. Public safety. Public scrutiny.

“This will be a demanding project,” Dorn says, drawing you out of your thoughts.

“It is also exactly the sort of project this firm exists to deliver. It must be durable, accessible, adaptable, and exact. It will be used by people who will never know our names and who will trust the work regardless.”

A building, people will trust.

Guilliman steps forward, tablet in hand, his tone smoother than Dorn’s, though no less commanding.

He speaks of municipal oversight, public accountability, reporting requirements, ethics, documentation discipline, conflict procedures, budget transparency. The words should be dull. And yet, when he says them, they are not. They sketch the project as something larger than drawings and deadlines. This is not a private client’s vanity tower. This is a civic promise made in concrete, steel, glass, and compliance forms.

Dorn watches the room while Guilliman speaks. He watches who leans forward at complexity and who leans back from it. He watches who is calculating hours, who is thinking about reputation, who is thinking about the public good. His gaze passes you once and finds your hands folded tightly around your pen.

You’re afraid, he thinks. Good. Fear, properly understood, is respect for consequence. The trick will be teaching you the rest.

Guilliman finishes with a final reminder that all project communications are auditable and that public-sector work requires standards of transparency beyond ordinary private contracts. He says this in a calm voice that makes several people immediately rethink every casual email they have ever sent.

“Thank you, Roboute.”

Dorn opens the folder.

“We will review workstreams first,” he says. “Then assignments.”

Beside you, Rena writes in her notebook:

‘Oh no’

The morning, which began with a ceiling, a plant, and a promise to be normal, narrows to the sound of paper turning beneath his hand.

And at the head of the table, Rogal Dorn begins, and he begins with the scope.

No dramatic preamble. No inspirational little speech about civic duty wrapped in corporate softness. No PowerPoint slide with smiling stock-photo citizens standing beneath fake sunlight in a suspiciously clean public atrium.

He turns one page in the municipal folder, looks over the assembled staff with those sharp, assessing eyes, and says, “The Bastion Civic Centre is not one building in function. It is five structures wearing one envelope.”

The wall-mounted screen wakes from corporate-blue idleness into a site plan marked with municipal boundaries, setbacks, flood-risk overlays, and the early footprint of the proposed centre. You have seen hundreds of preliminary plans. Usually, they are abstractions at this stage: lines and shaded boxes, labelled zones, aspirational geometry. This one already feels heavier.

Public Library.

Community Hall.

Municipal Archive.

Emergency Resilience Shelter.

Administrative Services.

Shared Public Plaza.

The labels sit on the plan like obligations.

“The library and archive wings have different structural demands,” Dorn says. “The community hall requires clear-span flexibility. The shelter must function independently during service interruptions for up to seventy-two hours. Administrative services must remain publicly accessible without compromising secure zones. Flood resilience is of fundamental priority, since the site is on along the river bank.”

You sit very still, workload summary open before you and already useless. You had written active tasks, pending deadlines, capacity estimates. Neat rows. Sensible boxes. Now, it looks inconsequential in front of what you would most likely be a miniscule part of.

Dorn turns toward the screen as the next slide appears: a section sketch through the main public atrium. It is early, diagrammatic, stripped of polish. Even so, there is ambition in it. A broad central volume with terraces stepping upward, public reading decks, suspended walkways, a tall, glazed wall facing the plaza, roof trusses drawn as clean black strokes above a forest of preliminary columns.

Instead, all you can think about is how people will stand there, how children will run across that floor. Someone’s grandmother will wait beneath that roof during a heatwave. City employees will trust the egress routes. Books and archives will sit on shelves whose loads need to be calculated without romance. In a storm, when lights fail elsewhere and roads flood and phones blink low battery warnings, people may come to this building because some official pamphlet promised them it would hold.

It must hold.

“The architectural concept has been accepted in principle by the city. Our responsibility in phase one is to coordinate structural grids, primary framing logic, foundation strategy, flood resilience interfaces, archive loading provisions, egress conflicts, and drafting integration across disciplines.”

Dorn clicks again.

A responsibility matrix appears.

You recognise the format at once: workstreams divided by discipline, names listed in preliminary slots. Different strands that will braid together the rope that becomes the final structure.

Senior Structural Lead: Marcus Hale.

Civil Drainage and Flood Interface: Livia Chen.

MEP Coordination: Dev Malhotra.

Fire and Life Safety Liaison: Johanna Weiss.

Accessibility Review: Rena Malis.

Municipal Reporting: Roboute Guilliman’s office, with project admin support.

Workstream Integration Lead: TBA.

You stare at TBA, and it stares back with the blank malice of a trapdoor.

“Marcus,” he says.

Marcus Hale, seated three chairs down from Guilliman, straightens. He is one of the senior engineers everyone knows by surname first, calm, silvering at the temples, with the permanent expression of a man who has once found a structural flaw in a dream and woken up annoyed.

“You will coordinate the primary structural scheme with my office. Initial grid rationalisation by Thursday. Foundation strategy options by next Monday.”

Marcus nods. “Understood.”

“Livia. Flood interface.”

“Already reviewing the survey data,” Livia says, straightening her glasses. “The site drainage report has gaps. I’ll request the city’s supplemental modelling.”

“Do it today. If they delay, escalate to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

The assignments continue.

Dev receives mechanical coordination with the grim resignation of a man being handed a live octopus and told to make it code-compliant. Johanna asks one concise question about staged occupancy. Rena inhales sharply when her name comes up for accessibility review, then nods with a seriousness that makes you abruptly proud of her.

By the time Dorn reaches the final workstream, the room has settled into the rhythm of taking orders from a man who turns uncertainty into tasks. You know that rhythm; everyone here does. It is one reason people tolerate his severity. Dorn never pretends a problem is smaller than it is. By naming each piece with enough precision, he makes the terrible thing seem capable of being approached.

Then he looks down at the matrix.

“Workstream integration,” he says, and your heart leaps for some inexplicable reason.

You take a deep breath to steady yourself and to convince your silly brain that it is simply another workstream. Someone will be assigned. Probably a senior coordinator. Someone who has done three public-sector projects and speaks fluent consultant-ese. Someone who knows how to make architects, structural engineers, MEP consultants, fire code reviewers, city officials, and document controllers all stand in a line and behave like citizens.

Someone else.

“This workstream will control drawing consistency across all disciplines received by our department,” Dorn says. “It will track revisions, coordinate background updates, flag discrepancies between consultant packages, maintain drawing issue schedules, and prepare weekly coordination reports for review.”

“It will also require early detection of conflicts between structural logic, public circulation, accessibility compliance, life safety, and archive loading. Small errors in this package will become expensive if missed, disastrous if left to remain.”

Your heart gives one hard, unpleasant thud.

Small errors… disastrous… A memory opens beneath your ribs before you can stop it.

“If this were an actual construction, people would die.”

His voice from weeks ago, sharp enough to leave a scar.

Your pen presses into the paper until the tip nearly tears through.

Dorn’s gaze moves around the room, once.

Then it lands on you.

No.

No, no, no.

Absolutely not.

This is a clerical error. A hallucination. The result of low blood sugar, emotional confusion, and insufficient coffee. Perhaps your soul has temporarily left your body and is watching from the ceiling, wearing a high-visibility vest and screaming into a clipboard.

Dorn says your name.

“You will lead workstream integration.”

The words strike with such clean force that for a second everything becomes unbearably clear: the grain of the table beneath your fingers, Rena’s pen frozen beside yours, the hum of the airconditioner in the room, the tiny omega shaped lapel pin on Guilliman’s blazer, Dorn standing at the head of the room, folder open, expression unreadable.

Your mouth goes dry.

Several people turn their heads. Some do it politely. Some only with their eyes. One junior drafter near the end looks openly surprised before rearranging his face into something less suicidal. Marcus Hale’s brows lift by half a millimetre. Johanna Weiss looks from you to Dorn as though evaluating whether a hidden argument occurred before the meeting.

Rena, beside you, becomes impossibly still.

For a moment, the silence lengthens. Then,

“Yes, sir,” you say.

Dorn nods once, as if there could have been no other response.

“You will report initial drawing structure, revision-control protocol, and consultant-background status by Friday. You will work with Rena on accessibility overlays, Johanna on egress pathways, and Marcus on grid alignment. I will review your first coordination log directly.”

Directly.

Wonderful. Excellent. Splendid. Your bones are chalk now!

“Yes, sir,” you say again.

Dorn’s gaze remains on you for one more second.

He does not soften. You find the same astute sharpness in his gaze that you’re used to. Yet something in his attention changes. It holds you with the same precision as before, but without the old lash of contempt you remember from that first report submission fiasco. There is no challenge in it, now. No public test designed to humiliate you. No faint narrowing of the eyes that says he expects failure and waits only to catalogue the form.

Judgment you can resent. His trust is harder to defend against.

He looks away before you can decode anything further.

“Questions regarding workstream integration will go through her first,” Dorn says to the room. “Escalate unresolved conflicts to me. Do not bypass the coordination chain because you dislike waiting forty minutes for an answer. If an issue is urgent, mark it as ‘urgent’ and justify why. If everything is urgent, nothing is.”

A few people look chastened in advance.

You stare at your notes.

Drafting integration lead…Lead… you…!!

Your hand moves by habit, writing the words down as if they belong to another person and you are merely taking minutes of her execution.

Friday: drawing structure.

Revision protocol.

Consultant backgrounds.

Coordination log.

Report to Dorn.

The last sentence sits there on the page like a weight, a verdict.

“Daily internal stand-up at nine for core workstream leads. Twice-weekly coordination review with my office. Formal city-facing report every Friday by four p.m. No drawing is issued externally without document-control verification. No consultant background is used without date stamp confirmation. If a revision is received informally, it does not exist until logged.”

Guilliman steps forward again, picking up the thread with immaculate timing.

“I’ll add one point,” he says. His voice is smoother than Dorn’s, nearly warm, though firm enough that nobody mistakes him for gentle. “This is a public-sector project. The city’s procurement office will audit process as much as outcome. Keep communication clear. Keep records complete. Do not make promises outside your authority. Do not hide delays in vague language. If you are uncertain, say so early enough that it can be managed.”

“Public trust,” Guilliman continues, “is not built only in the finished structure. It is built in the record of how decisions were made. Assume every email may be read by someone who was not present when you wrote it.”

Rena’s pen resumes motion beside you. She writes: ‘Every email is evidence. Cool cool cool.’

Dorn returns to the screen. The next slide shows the project schedule.

You can feel heartrates rise as a collective around the room.

Milestone dates march across the screen with all the compassion of a firing squad. Several deadlines cluster together so tightly they look like they are plotting murder.

“Phase one is compressed,” Dorn says.

Someone at the far end coughs in a way that sounds suspiciously like a laugh strangled to death.

Dorn looks in that direction, and the cough dies a silent death.

“The schedule is aggressive,” he continues. “It is not impossible. It will require discipline, accuracy, and early escalation. Heroics at the end of a failed process are expensive. Avoid needing them.”

Heroics.

Stoneheart flickers through your mind with painful suddenness.

‘Then I’ll be up too.’

‘If you won’t join the raid, I’ll help you slay this evil project instead.’

Your chest twinges.

That had been heroics, hadn’t it? Kind ones. Sweet ones. Improper ones, though you had not known the full shape of that at the time. He had fixed what you could not fix alone. He had stayed up and carried part of the load, and you had woken at two in the morning with gratitude blooming like a stupid flower in the dark.

Now Dorn is putting you somewhere no invisible paladin can rescue you without crossing every line in the known professional universe.

A stupid thought comes, uninvited and sharp: Stoneheart cannot help you lead a project.

Another follows, quieter: Dorn can.

You hate both thoughts on sight and push them away.

Dorn continues to speak, “Workload adjustments will follow this meeting. Existing assignments will be redistributed where necessary. No one is to pretend they can maintain full existing output while absorbing Bastion responsibilities. I want you fully present. And I can’t have you losing efficiency because you’re overworked.”

The screen changes to meeting cadence.

“Core team remains after this meeting for fifteen minutes,” he says. “Everyone else returns to current deliverables. Updated assignments will be circulated by end of day.”

He names them: Marcus, Livia, Dev, Johanna, Rena, you, and project administration from Guilliman’s office. Each name lands with its own little vibration in the room.

When he says yours again, you feel several sets of eyes return.

Her?

Isn’t she junior for that?

Didn’t Dorn tear apart one of her reports last month?

Maybe she’s better than she looks.

Maybe this is punishment.

Maybe this is favouritism.

Maybe this is a mistake.

The last one lodges because it sounds too much like your own voice. You lower your gaze to the table before anyone can read your face.

Dorn sees the instant your shoulders narrow inward, the way your chin dips by a degree, the way you place your pen down with care, so your fingers have something precise to do. It is a familiar movement now: you make yourself smaller when you think the room is questioning your right to occupy space.

This is the part of the assignment he cannot solve for you.

He can give you authority. He can define the chain of command in front of witnesses. He can make bypassing you inconvenient enough that even the impatient will think twice. He can review your work, correct your errors, and teach where teaching is possible. He cannot walk across the room and place his hand over the private wound where your self-confidence bleeds.

“Authority for workstream coordination is not ceremonial,” he says.

The room stills.

Your head lifts before you can stop it.

Dorn is looking at the group, which makes the words a little easier to bear.

“When she requests revised backgrounds, you provide them. When she flags an inconsistency, you answer it. When she asks for a decision record, you send it. If you disagree with the coordination call, you document the reason and escalate. You do not ignore it.”

It is ridiculous. He is simply clarifying process. A project needs defined authority. A workstream lead needs support. This is professional.

Yet your heart hears something else beneath it: You will not be left to fail because people refused to listen.

Dorn turns a page in the folder. “Questions.”

Livia asks about flood modelling. Dev asks about mechanical plant placement, and Dorn’s answer is so precise that it suggests he has already had a private argument with the preliminary plan and won. Johanna asks whether the shelter designation triggers additional emergency egress requirements under the latest city guidance. Guilliman answers part of that, Dorn answers the rest.

Then Rena raises her pen.

“Accessibility overlays,” she says. “Do we have community consultation notes yet? If the centre is serving as emergency shelter and administrative services, user profiles matter. Mobility, age, sensory needs, language access. The code minimums won’t be enough.”

For the first time in the meeting, Dorn’s expression shifts toward approval in a way almost visible.

“Correct,” he says. “Request the notes through Guilliman’s office. If the city has not provided them, ask why.”

Then Dorn looks at you.

“Workstream integration.”

Your soul leaves the building, files a formal complaint, and returns because your rent is due and depends on you having this job.

“Yes, sir?”

“What do you need first?”

No one has asked you that in a meeting like this. Usually, instructions fall from above and you scramble to implement them, no questions asked. Usually, you discover what you need at midnight while staring at a drawing that hates you. Usually, you are grateful for whatever scraps of context land in your inbox and then apologise for needing clarification.

Dorn however, waits.

You swallow as you reply meekly,

“I need the latest architectural background files with revision dates confirmed,” your voice is quieter than you would like, though steady enough to live. “Not screenshots, not PDFs only. Model files where available and issued drawing sets where models aren’t authorized.”

Dorn nods as he silently urges you to continue. And you do, your voice steadying a little when nobody scolds you for your presumption at authority.

“I need a single source for naming conventions and issue status. If teams are saving local copies with informal labels, we’ll lose track by Wednesday. I need consultant contacts for drawing queries, one person per discipline if possible, so questions don’t scatter across five threads. And I need the existing title block and revision protocol checked against city requirements before anyone starts building sheets.”

There is a moment of unbearable silence as those around you take in what you’ve just requested of them.

Have you said too much? Too little? Was that obvious? Did you sound like you were pretending to lead before the authority had settled? Does everyone think you are merely repeating things from a project management article you once read at one in the morning while eating cereal from a mug?

Dorn looks at you.

“Good,” he says.

One word.

He turns to Guilliman. “Can your office provide city document requirements and consultant contact confirmations by noon?”

Guilliman is already making a note. “Yes.”

“Dev, Livia, Johanna, Marcus,” Dorn continues. “Send her your current file locations and latest received backgrounds by two. Include date received, source, and whether you consider the file reliable. If the answer is ‘probably’, explain why it is not ‘yes’.”

Rena leans slightly toward you without looking away from her notebook and whispers, barely audible, “Look at you, terrifying already.”

You nearly choke.

By the time Dorn says, “Core team remain. Everyone else is dismissed,” your notebook is a disaster of arrows, boxes, circled deadlines, and one tiny drawing Rena has made in the corner of a person being crushed under a stack of plans.

Chairs scrape back. People stand, gather tablets, murmur. The general staff file out carrying fresh assignments and the haunted expression of people who have glimpsed the next two months and found them suddenly devoid of PTOs.

Some nod at you. Some do not. One junior drafter, Elias, gives you a quick, awkward thumbs-up that looks as though he regrets it halfway through. You appreciate it anyway.

You sit with Marcus, Livia, Dev, Johanna, Rena, Dorn, Guilliman, and Nisha Varma from project administration, who has the terrifyingly serene expression of someone who can find any email ever sent by any human being since the dawn of electricity.

“Now,” he says. “The less comfortable part.”

Dev mutters, “Excellent,” under his breath, earning a nudge aimed at his ribs from Livia.

Dorn ignores both, though you suspect he hears everything. Possibly including thoughts.

“This project will attract attention,” Dorn says. “From the city, from the press eventually, from other firms that wanted the contract, and from internal leadership. That means mistakes will travel faster than corrections. We do not feed that process by being careless with communication.”

“No speculation in written threads. No blame assignment in email. No informal commitments on schedule. No undocumented verbal instructions. If the city asks for a change, it goes into the log. If a consultant issues a revised background, it goes into the log. If someone says, ‘quick update’ in a corridor, you send a summary afterwards and ask them to confirm.”

Dorn’s gaze comes to you.

“Your coordination log is the spine. If it is weak, the rest of the body will not stand.”

Wonderful. Your spreadsheet will now make or break this project!

You nod. “Understood.”

“Do you have a template?”

“I can build one from the Eastbank School project log and modify the categories for multi-use public requirements.”

Marcus looks over. “Eastbank log was solid.”

“It was,” Dorn says. “Use it as a base. Improve it.”

Guilliman speaks then. “I’ll have my office share public reporting fields with you as well. The city will require traceability on major decisions. If your log tracks the decision chain clearly, we can use it to support Friday reporting without duplicating work.”

You look at him. “That would help.”

“Good,” Guilliman says. “Nisha will coordinate with you.”

Nisha gives you a crisp smile. “I’ll send you the fields after this.”

“Thank you,” you say, and write NISHA, REPORTING FIELDS in a box so heavily outlined it looks like a bunker.

The core discussion moves quickly after that. It is more practical than the larger meeting, more dangerous too, because the general shape has given way to actual details on who needs what, by when. What is needed and where… the minutiae that make up your days.

You listen, write, and ask two more questions when terror temporarily fails to strangle you. Both of which earn you surprised glances from the more senior people around you.

Finally, Dorn closes the folder.

“Initial actions are clear. You have until Friday to establish the coordination framework. I do not expect perfection by Friday. But I will need honest effort.”

Chairs scrape again. Tablets lock. Marcus is already speaking quietly to Livia about survey control. Dev and Johanna begin debating plant-room adjacency before they have fully stood. Rena squeezes your shoulder once as she rises, quick and fierce, then releases before anyone can make it sentimental.

“You’re going to be okay,” she murmurs.

Your mouth says, “Sure,” because your mouth is a liar with office-appropriate training.

Nisha pauses beside you. “I’ll send those fields in ten minutes. Also, congratulations.”

“Thanks,” you manage.

Guilliman remains near the screen, speaking softly with Dorn. Their voices are too low to catch. You gather your notebook slowly because your hands need the extra time. The room feels too bright now, too glass-walled, too visible. Through the transparent partitions, the drafting floor moves in its usual patterns, though you can sense the news spreading already. Heads tilt together. Screens are glanced at. Someone points toward the conference room and then pretends he has not.

You are halfway to the door when Dorn says your name.

“Yes, sir?”

Guilliman’s gaze shifts between the two of you with calm, unreadable attention. Then he looks back to his tablet, giving the illusion of privacy while remaining very much in the room. HR and Finance, you think faintly, must be an excellent training ground for appearing absent while recording everything with frightening accuracy.

Dorn stands behind the conference table, one hand resting on the closed municipal folder.

“I will speak with you at two,” he says. “Bring your preliminary thoughts on the log structure. Rough is acceptable.”

You nod. “Yes, sir.”

“And your current workload summary.”

“Yes, sir.”

You expect him to dismiss you. But instead, he says, “Do not spend the next three hours trying to solve the entire project.”

“I wasn’t going to,” you say, feeling a little called out.

Dorn’s brow lifts slightly.

Guilliman, traitorously, looks back down at his tablet with the faintest suggestion of amusement near his mouth.

Dorn says, “Good.”

The word is dry enough to be dust.

Heat creeps up your neck.

“I’ll... organise my notes,” you say, because that sounds more reasonable than ‘I will now go spiral in a controlled professional manner.’

“That would be a better use of time,” he says.

You nod once more, then escape the conference room before your face can do something career-limiting.

You return to your desk through a corridor of half-hidden glances. Nobody says anything immediately. That is almost worse. Silence can be polite. It can also have teeth.

When you sit, your chair feels different. Your desk feels different. The sticky notes on your monitor remain absurdly normal.

CHECK ROOF DRAINAGE DETAIL.

ASK ME ABOUT REVISION CLOUDS.

MEETING 10:30? BIG ONE?

You pick up the last one and stare at it.

Yes, Rena. Big one.

You turn it over and write on the back:

‘Bastion Civic Centre.’

‘Workstream Integration Lead.’

‘Friday.’

‘Do not die.’

Then you stick it to the bottom of your monitor where only you can see it.

Soon, your inbox begins to bloom: Marcus Hale has shared a folder. Livia Chen has forwarded survey files. Nisha Varma has sent reporting fields. Dev Malhotra has sent a message with the subject line: MEP BACKGROUNDS, MAY GOD HAVE MERCY. Rena has sent only: breathe, menace.

Across the floor, Dorn exits the conference room with Guilliman at his side. They pause outside the glass doors, speaking quietly. Guilliman says something with that calm, measured expression of his. Dorn listens, folder tucked under one arm, face severe enough to make even the municipal seal look nervous.

Then Guilliman departs toward the executive corridor.

Dorn stands there for half a second longer, looking down at the folder in his hand. After that, he turns and walks back to his office.

You only happen to glance up at exactly the moment he closes his office door behind him and sets the Bastion folder on his desk with careful precision.

Then your phone buzzes.

Stoneheart007 - 11:47 AM Casualty report?

You look at the message.

For a moment, the whole morning tips toward him. Toward the old reflex. Open the door. Tell him everything. Let Stoneheart make a joke about municipal bosses and evil scheduling goblins. Let him say he has your back. Let that invisible steadiness take some of the load before you even learn where to set it down.

Your thumb hovers as you contemplate a response. Then, you look across the floor.

Dorn is in his office now, seated behind his desk, the municipal folder open before him. He looks severe, remote, exactly as he should. One hand rests beside the folder. The other is out of sight below the desk line, perhaps reaching for a pen, perhaps nothing at all.

Yet you can still hear his voice from ten minutes ago.

‘What do you need first?’

Not a rescue. A question.

You type slowly.

Troublemaker2301 - 11:49 AM Promoted? Drafted? Sacrificed? Unclear. Work just handed me a public building and a shovel.

Stoneheart007 - 11:50 AM That sounds severe.

Troublemaker2301 - 11:50 AM It is. I’m trying not to panic.

Across the office, Dorn reads the words beneath the edge of the municipal folder and feels them land with more force than they should.

He looks through the glass.

You sit at your desk, shoulders held carefully, phone low in your hands, and your face turned slightly away from the room. From anyone else, the posture might look like texting. To him, it reads as bracing against a wall while pretending to not crumble into a nervous heap.

Stoneheart cannot say ‘I assigned it because I believe you can do it.’

Stoneheart cannot say ‘The shovel is not for your grave. It is for the foundation.’

Stoneheart cannot say ‘I will meet you at two and we will begin.’

And so, he types what he can.

Stoneheart007 - 11:52 AM Panic doesn’t mean you’re not capable. It just means that you understand the size of what you have been handed.

You want to believe it with the sudden hungry ache of someone who has spent too long confusing fear with fraudulence.

When you open your eyes, your screen is still full of new emails. The Bastion folder waits. The sticky note at the bottom of your monitor says ‘Do not die.’

Across the floor, Dorn’s office door opens again.

You hear him, though. The measured steps. The tiny recalibration of the office air. The way people around you become a little more focused, a little more upright.

He passes behind your row.

For a moment, his shadow crosses the edge of your desk.

Your phone buzzes once more.

Stoneheart007 - 11:53 AM Start with what you need first. Then the next thing. No heroic last stands before lunch.

Dorn is at the far end of the aisle now, speaking to Marcus, municipal folder under one arm, expression stern enough to frighten reinforced concrete into confessing its weaknesses. His other hand holds his phone, likely to call some poor contractor and scare his soul into compliance.

Start with what you need first.

The coincidence is small. Reasonable. The kind of practical advice two competent men might both give. There is no reason for it to catch in your mind like a thread snagged on a nail.

You look back down at your phone.

Troublemaker2301 - 11:55 AM Boss said something similar.

You send it before you can think too much.

Across the floor, Dorn stops speaking for half a beat.

Marcus pauses. “Everything all right?”

“Yes,” Dorn says.

It is an answer to several questions at once and a lie to most of them.

Later, Dorn stands behind his desk, one hand resting on the back of his chair, and feels the first thin crackle of danger move through the morning.

You are noticing echoes.

Not clearly yet. Not consciously. You are too overwhelmed by the project to follow that path fully. But the echo has sounded.

He types with care.

Stoneheart007 - 11:59 AM Then he may be correct for once.

Rena, passing behind you with a stack of folders, looks down. “Did you just laugh at your phone?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

“Go away.”

“Proud of you, lead.”

Rena says it lightly, affectionately, like a tease. Yet it lands with weight. Real weight.

You look at the project folder on your screen.

Bastion Civic Centre… Workstream Coordination… Your initials beside the workstream.

For a moment, your fear is still there, large and breathing.

Start with what you need first.

You open a blank coordination log.

You type the title anyway.

BASTION CIVIC CENTRE Workstream Integration Log Phase One

Then, you start typing. And little by little, the work begins to take shape.

It does not feel heroic. It feels like laying the first brick in an empty field where Dorn sees a wall in the making. It still looks like an empty field to you.

Still, you lay it.

And in his glass office across the floor, Rogal Dorn watches you begin, realizing he has now set into motion, events that may change both your worlds.

I swear the plot thickens, my friends! I'll be getting to the juicy "burn" of this infernal "Slow Burn" soon!!

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this chapter that almost did me in!!

As always, thank you for all the support you show me and for taking the time to read this and express your comments and reblogs! I love you all!!

He studies your face for one heartbeat too long, his gaze dropping just enough to catch the brightness in your eyes, the way your arms are folded tight across yourself like a barricade assembled in a hurry.

“You do not look all right,” he says, quieter now.

Every instinct you possess leaps to attention.

“I’m fine,” you answer automatically, acutely aware at how squeaky your voice sounds at the lie.

His expression does not change much, though something in it softens by a degree so minute it would be invisible on anyone else.

“I believe that was meant to be reassuring,” he says. “I do not believe it was accurate.”

That ought to embarrass you. It ought to make you want to bolt, or laugh it off, or bury yourself alive in the nearest ornamental planter.

Instead, your eyes burn harder.

You look away, jaw working once. “This is… embarrassing.” Your voice is barely steady enough to qualify as not being on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

“I…,” he starts, before stopping and then proceeds with an unexpected firmness. “It is human to feel embarrassed at times.”

That lands somewhere low and tender in you, somewhere already bruised.

The city goes on around you as if nothing monumental is happening, as if your boss has not just stepped out of nowhere and spoken to you like you were something fragile worth handling carefully. A car passes, a couple across the street argue amiably over directions, and behind you, the blue neon sign of Shieldwall hums like the ghost of evening past.

Dorn glances past you once, toward the corner where the bus disappeared with Alexis, then back to you.

“There’s a café half a block down,” he says. “Still open, I think. Or somewhere with actual food, if you have not eaten properly. Coffee, tea, dinner. Whatever seems most palatable.” He pauses, like the list has been laid out in his head with all the solemnity of a blueprint. “Only if you want it. If you would rather go home, I can walk you to the station instead.”

You blink at him.

“Are you always like this with distressed employees, sir?”

The question escapes before you can stop it.

To your astonishment, the corner of his mouth shifts. It is not quite a smile, but it is related to the concept.

“No,” he says. “Usually I have more warning.”

A sound catches in your throat. Half laughter, half something shakier.

God! Of all the people in this city to find you quietly falling apart on a pavement, it had to be him. Rogal Dorn, the director who frightens subcontractors into handing in revisions on time. Rogal Dorn, whose emails are so crisp and exact they could probably be used to cut sheet metal. Rogal Dorn, who now stands in front of you offering emergency beverages with the grave focus of a man negotiating a ceasefire.

It is so absurd that it circles back around into kindness.

You wipe quickly at one eye with the heel of your hand. “Coffee,” you say, before courage can fail. “Or tea. I don’t know. Something hot.”

“Good,” he says, as if you’ve given the correct answer on a test, you didn’t know you were taking.

He steps back a fraction, enough to open space rather than occupy it, and gestures down the street. “This way.”

You fall into step beside him.

For the first few paces, you are acutely conscious of everything. The damp shine of the pavement, the way your shoes scuff slightly because your legs still feel hollow, the clean, cool scent of his coat when the wind shifts. And the fact that you are walking through the city at night with your boss, after crying over a man who is not the man you thought he was.

A poet could do something with that. A therapist too, probably.

The café in question turns out to be one of those narrow late-night places tucked between a pharmacy and a shuttered florist, all warm glass and amber light and handwritten menu boards that try very hard to look casual about artisanal jam. Inside, the windows are fogged near the edges. A coffee machine murmurs softly behind the counter. There are only three occupied tables, all of them far enough away to feel like their inhabitants are on another world.

Warmth hits you the second the door opens. So does the smell of espresso, toasted bread, cinnamon, and something buttery.

It is nearly enough to undo you.

Dorn notices. He holds the door until you’re inside, then closes it behind him with careful restraint. You stand there for a moment with your bag still on your shoulder and your composure held together by emotional stitching nobody ought to trust in.

“Sit,” he says, not too unkindly. And you obey, murmuring a thanks his way.

The booth is by the window, upholstered in faded green fabric that has seen more sunlight than is wise. The table is small and scrubbed clean, with a little glass jar holding sugar packets and two tiny chrysanthemums that have started their own swansong. Dorn remains standing until he is certain you are settled, then removes his coat and folds it over the back of the opposite seat with almost military precision before sitting down across from you.

He studies the menu for perhaps three seconds.

“Tea?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Black, green, herbal?”

You blink at him. “You’re… weirdly good at crisis management.”

“I am good at variables,” he says. Then, after the briefest pause, “People less so.”

It is the first fully honest thing anyone has said all night, you feel.

Somewhere inside your ribs, something gives a tiny, painful twist.

“Black tea,” you murmur. “And maybe… toast? Or something simple.”

He nods once, rises, and goes to the counter.

You watch him while pretending not to. Even here, in a small café with his sleeves rolled once at the wrist and soft yellow light flattening some of the harsher lines of him, he carries himself as though the room has edges that only he can see. There is economy in every movement. Nothing wasted. Nothing fluttering loose. The barista, who looks about twenty and deeply unimpressed by life, somehow becomes more alert the instant he speaks, as if even she can sense that whatever this man orders has probably been considered from twelve angles before being voiced into being.

He returns with a number on a little metal stand and a square of paper napkins, which he sets quietly near your hand.

The gesture is so unshowy it nearly gets past you.

Nearly.

“Thank you,” you say.

He inclines his head, once.

For a minute neither of you speak. The café hums around you in a soft, insulated way, cups clinking faintly, steam hissing, some lo-fi jazz track wandering through the speakers, lending the whole place that cozy feeling of being held without question.

You stare at the grain of the wooden tabletop.

You can feel him not looking at you too directly. It is oddly considerate, the space he gives. Like he has understood instinctively that attention, applied too hard right now, might crack you clean open.

“You do not have to explain anything,” he says at last. “I should say that first.”

You exhale, long and unsteady. “That’s probably good, because I’m not sure I could explain it without sounding ridiculous.”

“Then perhaps we can begin with less ambitious objectives.”

Against all reason, that gets a real laugh out of you. Small, damp, but real.

His eyes flick to your face at the sound of it. There is something almost startled in them, as if he had hoped for that outcome without entirely expecting to earn it.

The tea arrives first, then a plate of thick buttered toast for you and, to your surprise, soup as well. Tomato, by the smell of it, with a little swirl of cream across the top and a heel of bread on the side.

“I didn’t order this,” you say.

“No,” he agrees. “I did.”

“I said toast.”

“You did. You also look like someone who could benefit from soup.”

You stare at him.

His face remains infuriatingly serious.

“Are you going to argue with me over soup while you’re trying not to cry?” his voice is dry, hiding just a hint of humour in them.

The laugh that escapes you this time is wet enough to make your nose sting. You look down immediately, blinking too fast.

“Wow,” you say. “That was almost mean.”

“It was practical.”

“It was soup-based bullying, is what that was!”

“If that interpretation helps, you may keep it.”

You shake your head and reach for the spoon because frankly, fine. The soup is hot and uncomplicated and exactly the sort of thing a person gives a child home sick from school, which would be mortifying if it weren’t so effective.

For a few minutes the only task in front of you is eating. The heat steadies your hands. The tea settles in your chest like a held breath finally released. Across from you, Dorn drinks coffee he must have ordered for himself without your noticing. Black, of course. Naturally his coffee would be severe, just like him.

When you can trust your voice again, you say, “What are you even doing here?”

The question hangs between you.

He sets his cup down with care.

“I was nearby,” he says.

That is, maddeningly, both an answer and not.

You tip your head. “Nearby doing what, sir?”

Something almost rueful passes across his features.

“I am aware,” he says, “that this sounds implausible.”

“Oh, fully.”

He accepts that with a slight dip of his chin.

“I had been out,” he says. “Driving. Thinking. I saw you from across the street.” His eyes hold yours now, steady and level. “You looked as though you might prefer not to be left alone with your thoughts.”

There is no neat response to that.

No witty ones, at least!

You lower your gaze to the spoon in your hand. “I probably looked pathetic.”

“No.”

The word comes so quickly it startles you.

He leans back slightly, as if forcing himself not to crowd the table with the force of his conviction alone.

“You looked as though you were trying very hard to remain upright after being disappointed by something… or someone,” he says. “That is… admirable.”

Something in your throat closes.

You swallow against it, then stare fiercely at your tea because crying in front of your boss over online paladin-related heartbreak is perhaps the one frontier of humiliation you were really hoping to leave unconquered.

Dorn seems to realise, one second too late, just how close he has brought you to the edge.

His hand shifts once beside his coffee cup, then stills.

“I’m not very good at this,” he says, almost under his breath.

“At what?”

“At comfort,” he says. “At saying the thing without overbuilding it.”

The words are so specifically him that even in the middle of your misery, affection sparks where you least expect it.

“You compare emotional conversations to construction.”

“I compare most things to construction.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“Mm.”

Silence returns, though it is softer now.

Eventually, because the night has already gone so far off the rails that one more honesty hardly matters, you say, “I met some online friends tonight.”

He gives no sign of surprise. If anything, he only becomes more attentive in a very still, quiet way.

“And?”

“And it was good,” you say immediately, because that part is true and deserves to be treated as such.

“They were lovely. Chaotic in exactly the ways I expected. One of them really does sound like he lives on energy drinks and poor impulse control. One of them is apparently just a hoodie with opinions. It was… nice.”

“But?”

You let out a breath through your nose.

“But one person wasn’t what I expected.” Your fingers curl around the mug. “And I know how childish that sounds. He wasn’t wrong, exactly. He wasn’t cruel. He was kind. Very kind. I just…” You shake your head once. “I had built something in my head, and when reality showed up, it didn’t fit.”

Across from you, Dorn goes utterly motionless.

It is not dramatic. There is no visible flinch, no theatrical shift. It is simply the sort of stillness that appears when a man has been struck somewhere interior and is refusing to make a spectacle of it.

You keep going because you’ve started now and stopping would be worse.

“It’s stupid,” you say. “You spend months talking to someone through a headset, through a screen, through typed little fragments, and your brain does the rest. It fills in spaces. It invents the room around the voice. The shape of the pauses. The energy. You start thinking you know where the walls are.”

He looks at you very carefully.

“It is not stupid.”

You laugh faintly, without humour. “No?”

“No.” His voice is lower now, roughened around the edges. “The mind builds from what it has. Voice. Timing. Temperament. Repetition. Care. We map a person long before we see them. Sometimes accurately. Most often less so.”

You stare at him, your mouth hanging slightly open.

There is a weight in the way he says it that catches your attention. Some private familiarity with the terrain.

“How do you know that?” you ask.

He glances down once, then back up.

“Because,” he says slowly, “people are rarely disappointed in abstractions. They are disappointed in particulars.”

The soup suddenly tastes like nothing. Your whole attention narrows to him and his words.

“That is…” You stop, searching. “Annoyingly insightful.”

A shadow of that almost-smile again. “So, I’ve been told.”

You study him, really study him, across the little café table. The hard line of his shoulders. The reserve that seems less like coldness tonight and more like great effort carefully leashed. The way he is watching every reaction cross your face and trying not to press on bruises he cannot see clearly.

“You know,” you say softly, “you are very different outside work.”

His gaze sharpens, then gentles.

“I would hope so,” he says. “At work I’m frequently solving disasters.”

“And what is this?”

He considers.

“A smaller disaster,” he concedes before adding, “With higher stakes.”

The words land on you like warm rain and leave you slightly winded.

You look down too quickly, aware suddenly of how intimate this little booth has become. Not in any grand romantic sense. In the quieter, more dangerous sense of being seen too accurately while your defences are somewhere in another postcode.

After a moment you say, “The worst part is that he was lovely. If he’d been awful, that would have been simpler.”

“Yes,” Dorn says, very quietly. “It usually would.”

You pick at the edge of your napkin.

“I think I was reaching for someone I’d already gotten used to leaning on,” you admit. “And then in person it felt like I’d put my weight on the wrong beam.”

That lands. You know it lands because his eyes close, just briefly. A blink that lingers half a beat too long.

When he opens them again, there is something almost painful in the restraint there.

“Beams matter in the particular,” he says. “Load-bearing elements are not interchangeable simply because they stand in similar places.”

You stare at him, then bark out a helpless little laugh. “Did you really just comfort me in engineering metaphor?”

“It was the language I had available.”

“It’s unbelievably on brand.”

“I’ve never understood what that phrase means.”

“Of course you haven’t.”

That, somehow, finally earns you a full smile. Small and fleeting, but unmistakable.

It changes him.

That is perhaps the most dangerous discovery of the evening.

For a second you can see what warmth does to Rogal Dorn’s face when it is allowed there. It does not erase the severity. It makes it human. Lived in. Sudden and quietly devastating.

You look away first.

“Sorry,” you murmur after a moment. “This is probably the last thing you wanted after work. Babysitting one of your employees while she has a bizarre emotional crisis over internet nonsense.”

“It is not nonsense,” he says again.

“Sir.”

“Rogal,” he says.

You freeze.

He seems to realise what he’s done only after the word has left him. A faint tension enters his shoulders, but he does not take it back.

“At least tonight,” he says, more carefully. “If we are discussing feelings in a café over emergency soup, ‘sir’ may be excessive.”

You should not find that as affecting as you do.

You absolutely should not.

“All right,” you say, and your voice comes out softer than intended. “Rogal.”

His eyes hold yours for one suspended second. Something passes between you there, small and bright and impossible to catalogue.

Then he looks down at his coffee as if he has narrowly avoided stepping off a roof.

The conversation turns after that, gentler by necessity. He asks whether the rest of the group was kind. You tell him yes. He asks if you want to go home yet. You say not quite. He does not pry after that.

Instead, you talk in sideways lines.

About how strange it is when digital friendships suddenly acquire height and body language and favourite drinks. About how one man turned out to be far louder in person than his mic ever suggested, and another had the exact same laugh you’d pictured, which felt like a miracle. About how embarrassment is somehow worse when the evening itself was objectively good.

At one point you say, very quietly, “I think what hurts is that I miss someone who is still there.”

Dorn says nothing for a long moment.

Then, carefully, “That is a difficult kind of grief.”

You look at him sharply.

He is not looking at you. He is looking at the steam rising from his coffee, jaw set in that disciplined way of his.

A thought flickers through you then, too quick to catch cleanly. Something about recognition. About voices. About certain cadences of steadiness that calm you without asking permission.

It vanishes before you can hold it.

By the time you finish your tea, the sharpest edges of the evening have dulled. You are still bruised, still tired, still a little hollowed out by whatever dissonance tonight opened in you, but you are no longer standing beneath a streetlamp trying not to split at the seams.

Dorn asks for the bill before you can object. When you do object, he fixes you with a look that could silence committee members and says, “Please. You can repay me by not pretending soup did nothing.”

“That’s extortion.”

“It’s accounting.”

You grin up at him, conceding. He walks you to the station afterward.

Outside, the night has cooled further. The city feels calmer now, as if it has passed the hour for spectacle and entered the softer shift where only the insomniacs, the workers, and the emotionally compromised remain in circulation. The both of you walk side by side in a quiet that no longer bites.

At the top of the stairs down to the platform, you stop.

“I’m okay now,” you say. “Or at least… more okay.”

“I know.”

The answer comes without hesitation, and something in it makes your chest tighten again, though more gently this time.

You look at him. Really look.

“Thank you,” you say. “For seeing me.”

His face changes, barely. Something deepens there. Darkens. Warms.

“You were not difficult to see,” he says.

You have no idea what to do with a sentence like that.

Apparently neither does he, because a second later he gives the smallest nod, almost brusque with self-correction.

“Get home,” he says. “Sleep. Reassess in daylight before deciding the evening was a disaster.”

You smile, faintly. “That sounds suspiciously like advice.”

“Don’t spread it around.”

“I’ll protect your reputation.”

“Please do.”

And because tonight has already broken so many normal rules that one more fracture hardly matters, you step forward and hug him.

It is impulsive. Entirely unplanned. One moment there is space between you, the next your arms are around the solid line of him and your cheek is against cool wool and clean cotton and the contained warmth of a man who goes very still under surprise.

For one breathless second you think you’ve made a catastrophic mistake.

Then his arms come around you.

Slowly. Carefully. As if he is handling something precious and dangerous in equal measure.

He does not squeeze. Does not pull you in hard enough to make it possessive. He simply holds you, steady and sure, and one broad hand settles briefly between your shoulder blades in a touch so grounding it nearly undoes all the work the soup accomplished.

When you pull back, it is with your heartbeat stumbling all over itself.

His expression is unreadable in the dim platform light. Only his eyes give him away, hazel and intent and carrying far more than the rest of his face permits.

“Goodnight,” you say, because anything else would be a structural collapse.

“Goodnight,” he returns.

You go down the stairs before you can change your mind or ask questions that would alter the shape of either of your worlds.

The train ride home passes in a blur of reflection and tunnel light. Your face in the window looks washed out, eyeliner smudged faintly at the corners, mouth still holding traces of emotion it has not finished processing. Your phone stays in your bag the whole way. You do not trust yourself with it yet.

By the time you get home, the city has thinned into that strange hour where even the traffic sounds tired.

Your apartment greets you with familiar stillness. The low hum of the refrigerator. The soft tick of cooling pipes. The plant in the corner, still slumped in its pot like a neglected Victorian invalid waiting for a tragic monologue.

You lock the door behind you and lean against it for a moment longer than necessary.

The night has left too many fingerprints on you.

The bright blue glow of Shieldwall still seems to cling to the edges of your mind. So does the warmth of the café Rogal took you to. The soup. The tea. The deep, careful cadence of his voice when he told you disappointment was human. The brief shock of his arms around you at the station, so restrained and yet so steady that for one dangerous second you had wanted to stay there.

And then beneath all of it, threaded through everything like a fault line hidden under clean flooring, there is Stoneheart.

Stoneheart, whose words still sit in your chest with the weight of habit. Stoneheart, who has been your refuge so often that your heart stopped asking permission before it leaned. Stoneheart, who tonight became suddenly real and somehow all the more unreachable for it.

Or perhaps more real, and therefore more capable of hurting you.

You push yourself away from the door and toe off your shoes. One lands neatly by the mat. The other tumbles over on its side, and you stare at it for a second with the exhausted suspicion that it is somehow mocking you.

“Well,” you mutter to the flat, “that was an absolute circus.”

The flat, as usual, declines to defend itself.

You drift through the motions of getting ready for bed in a kind of haze. Jacket off. Earrings into the little dish on your dresser. Hair tied up, then untied again because the elastic catches. Makeup washed away in slow circles until the woman in the mirror looks softer, more tired, less arranged for public consumption.

Your eyes are a little puffy. Not enough that anyone would notice in the morning if you sleep properly, but enough that you notice now.

You pause with your fingertips resting on the edge of the sink and close your eyes.

Alexis’ laugh, bright and easy. The feel of his arm beneath your hand for that brief, foolish moment on the street. The quickness with which he slipped free, kind but unmistakably so. The bus pulling away. The cold after it.

And, absurdly, worst of all, the fact that he had still sounded like Stoneheart when he spoke to you in fragments. The same steadiness. The same little pauses. The same careful way of setting reassurance down like a hand at the small of your back.

It would have been easier if he had been cruel… shallow… if he had turned out to be someone you could cleanly reject.

Instead, he had been lovely.

Your mouth twists.

“Rude,” you tell your reflection who merely reflects your frown back at you.

You change into soft sleep clothes, the kind you wear when you want nothing from the world and would like the world to return the courtesy. Then you sit on the edge of your bed with your phone in your hands and stare at the dark screen.

There is a deep and primal foolishness in being afraid of messages. Yet here you are, staring at your phone like it contains either salvation or a small bomb.

You unlock it.

The guild chat blooms first.

Arcturus has already posted photos. Of course he has. One is mostly of the pizza. One is blurred beyond all hopes of human interpretation. One catches you half turned toward the table, smiling at something out of frame. Your smile looks real. That annoys you on sight.

GM_Tower is calling the evening an irrefutable success. LoFiMage has contributed a single black heart and the words: ‘our healer braved the daylight realm.’ There are jokes already beginning about next time.

Next time.

Your stomach gives a quiet, unhappy turn.

Then you see it.

A private message.

Stoneheart007 — 11:26 PM Home?

A laugh escapes you, soft and humourless.

“You don’t get to be good at this tonight,” you whisper to the phone.

But he is. Infuriatingly, stubbornly, he is.

You type.

Troublemaker2301 — 11:29 PM Yeah. Home now.

You look at the sentence before sending. It is not cold enough to be rude. Nor warm enough to invite anything. It will have to do.

You send it and place the phone face down on the bed beside you at once, as if distance will help. It does not.

The vibration comes scarcely half a minute later.

You pick it up again with a sigh that feels old.

Stoneheart007 — 11:29 PM Good. I was hoping you got in safe.

There it is again. That same unshowy care that has threaded itself into your evenings for months. The kind that never asks for praise, never calls attention to itself, never pushes. The kind that simply appears and waits for you to lean against it.

Tonight, for reasons both ridiculous and painfully sincere, you resent it.

Or perhaps you resent that you still want it.

You type. Erase. Type again.

Troublemaker2301 — 11:31 PM I did. It was a long night.

You send that too. Safe. Polite. Dry around the edges.

Across the city, in the quiet of his flat, Dorn reads the message and feels the change immediately.

It is slight. Most people would miss it. A simple sentence. A tired one. Nothing openly wrong with it at all.

Yet he knows your rhythms. Knows where you usually tuck a joke to soften the corners. Knows how you reach sideways for warmth even when you are anxious. Knows the difference between your shyness and your withdrawal.

This is withdrawal.

Small. Controlled. Real.

He sits a little straighter in his chair, phone in hand, his expression tightening by degrees.

He had known there might be hurt. Had known, in the abstract, that tonight would leave strain somewhere in the line. It is another thing entirely to feel that strain come through a handful of typed words. To recognise in your restraint the beginning of distance.

He deserves it.

That thought settles in him with the clean weight of iron.

He types carefully.

Stoneheart007 — 11:32 PM Would it help to talk about it, or would you rather have a quiet night?

He stares at the screen after sending it, jaw set. Somewhere in the back of his mind, some stern and better-governed part of him remarks that this is an absurd position to occupy. To ask a woman if she wants comfort while being one of the reasons she requires it. To stand at the edge of her hurt wearing the same name she reaches for when she’s frightened of falling.

The dots appear. Then they disappear. And then appear again.

He can almost see you doing it. Thumb hovering. Deleting anything too honest. Trimming emotion down to something presentable. You do that when cornered by your own tenderness. He has heard it in your silences often enough.

Then your reply comes through.

Troublemaker2301 — 11:34 PM I think I’m a little talked out tonight. Sorry.

Dorn closes his eyes.

The apology is what does it.

Not the refusal, the apology.

Because you are not simply drawing back, you’re also trying to make the retreat gentle. Trying to spare him the impact of the door closing even while you close it. Trying, as ever, to be kind when kindness costs you something.

His hand tightens around the phone.

He tells himself to leave it there. To wish you goodnight and let you sleep. To accept the consequence cleanly without reaching again simply because he hates the distance.

Instead, because self-denial has always failed most dramatically where you are concerned, he types once more.

Stoneheart007 — 11:35 PM No need to apologise. You don’t owe me conversation.

The message lands on your screen while you are sitting cross-legged on your bed, staring somewhere over the phone at nothing in particular.

You read it once. Then again.

You don’t owe me conversation.

It is kind. It is fair. It is, somehow, the exact right thing to say.

You hate it a little.

Because part of you, the more wounded and irrational part, wants him to be clumsier. Wants him to overstep. Wants him to make this easier by becoming briefly disappointing in some practical, obvious way. Wants some flaw you can point at and say there, there is the crack, there is where I stop trusting the bridge.

Instead, he is patient. Measured. Gentle.

Stoneheart-shaped, in every way that matters.

You rest your forehead briefly against your bent knee.

God, this is pathetic.

No. Not pathetic. Human.

Rogal’s voice slides unbidden through your thoughts with that calm granite certainty.

‘You looked as though you were trying very hard to remain upright after being disappointed.’

A fresh ache passes through you, softer this time. You type before you can overthink it.

Troublemaker2301 — 11:37 PM I know. I’m just tired, I think.

It is a partial truth. The most dangerous kind.

Because yes, you are tired. Bone-deep tired. Socially hollowed out. Emotionally overhandled by the evening. Yet that is not the whole of it. The rest sits under your ribs unspoken.

I’m hurt. I don’t know what to do with that hurt because it feels unfair. I don’t know how to tell you that your kindness is part of the problem. I don’t know how to feel about a face that I should have known but seemed so much like a stranger despite the kindness

But you say none of that and instead backpedal through the entire paragraph leaving only the line about being tired.

Dorn reads your message and exhales very slowly.

Still there, then. Still answering. Hurt, but not gone.

It ought to comfort him more than it does.

He types, stops, deletes. Tries again.

Stoneheart007 — 11:38 PM What did you think about meeting the gang in real life? Everything all right?

The question makes you stare for a long second.

It is harmless. Normal. Easy enough to answer.

And yet something in you flinches.

Because the truthful answer is too tangled for midnight. Yes, it went all right. Yes, the others were wonderful. Yes, you survived and even laughed. No, your heart did not emerge with all its original furniture intact. No, you are not yet ready to unpack why.

You bite the inside of your cheek and answer with care sharpened into restraint.

Troublemaker2301 — 11:40 PM Yeah. They were all lovely.

Nothing more.

The silence after you send it feels deliberate.

Across the city Dorn feels it like a dropped temperature.

He reads your words and, for the first time all evening, has to set the phone down for a moment.

They were all lovely.

Not you. Not it was good to meet you. Not thank you for checking on me. Just the others. A small, precise exclusion. So gently done it would pass beneath almost anyone’s notice.

Almost anyone.

He leans back in his chair and drags a hand over his mouth, the sting of it oddly sharp. Not because it is unjust. Because it is not. Because he hears in that tiny omission the shape of your hurt more clearly than anger would have given it to him.

You are not striking at him. You are simply withholding warmth.

There are few things more effective.

When he picks up the phone again, he is more careful than ever.

Stoneheart007 — 11:42 PM I’m glad they were good to you.

You close your eyes.

That one nearly undoes you.

Because he would say that, wouldn’t he?! He would make room for the part you can bear to offer and ask for nothing else. He would read the edges and refuse to tear at them. He would make it safe to be distant. Of course he would. The man is made, apparently, of emotional booby traps designed specifically to make resentment impossible to maintain in a clean line.

You rub at your eyes, suddenly exhausted again.

On the dresser, the little digital clock changes minute with a sterile click.

You know he is waiting. Not impatiently. Never that. Just there.

That same steadiness again. The same terrible, lovely thing.

You type slowly.

Troublemaker2301 — 11:44 PM I ran into my boss after. Completely bizarre coincidence. He took one look at me and decided I needed tea and soup.

For a moment, in his flat, Dorn simply stares.

Then he lets out a breath that is almost a laugh, except there is no mirth in it. Only astonishment at the absurd architecture of his own life.

You tell Stoneheart about Rogal. You tell Rogal, without knowing it, how Rogal was received. There is probably a Greek tragedy somewhere that would appreciate the symmetry.

He reads your message again, and a warmth, deep and helpless, slips in beneath the guilt despite his best efforts. You told him. Even now, even hurting, you turned and laid that piece of your evening in his hands.

He should not treasure that as much as he does.

He types.

Stoneheart007 — 11:45 PM That does sound bizarre. Was he kind to you?

The question makes you still.

You look at it for longer than you should.

Was he kind to you?

You think of the café’s yellow light. Of the napkins placed near your hand without comment. Of his grave insistence that soup was non-negotiable. Of the way he let you be hurt without ever making you perform it. Of him saying you were not difficult to see.

Your chest goes tight.

Troublemaker2301 — 11:47 PM Annoyingly so. He was very kind.

The answer reaches Dorn like a hand laid flat against his sternum.

His eyes close briefly.

For all the hurt in the conversation, for all the distance, that little line glows with you. With your humour. Your softness peeking through despite yourself. It is more mercy than he deserves, and he knows it.

He writes back with care so exact it feels like laying bricks with bare hands.

Stoneheart007 — 11:48 PM I’m glad someone was there.

You swallow.

The message should be simple. Instead, it lands crooked in your chest.

Because yes. You are glad someone was there. And no. It was not the someone you expected. And yes, some shameful splintered part of you thinks perhaps it should have been him, though you do not even know what that means in practical terms.

You type before you can overread the ache.

Troublemaker2301 — 11:49 PM Yeah. Me too.

Then, after a long pause, because honesty is apparently stalking you tonight with a knife between its teeth:

Troublemaker2301 — 11:50 PM I think I’m just a little out of step with everything right now.

Dorn reads that and lets the full weight of it settle.

Out of step.

Not angry, or accusing, or mad. Simply misaligned. Rhythm thrown. Footfall wrong. Trust not broken, exactly, but off-balance.

He knows something about structures out of alignment, how small deviations become strain if left uncorrected, how invisible they can seem until the load increases.

He also knows, with bleak clarity, that he is the deviation here.

Stoneheart007 — 11:51 PM That can happen after a night that matters. Things feel stranger in the dark. They usually look different in daylight.

You read it and breathe out slowly through your nose.

Again. Again, he knows exactly what shape of comfort to offer. Modest. Undemanding. No false promises. No demand that you name the bruise before you’ve even looked at it.

Your throat tightens.

Part of you wants to tell him that this is the problem. That he still sounds like home while you are trying very hard to remember the route out. That he still reaches you too easily. That he should not be allowed to be this careful when you are trying to be wounded with dignity.

Instead, you say what you can bear.

Troublemaker2301 — 11:53 PM Maybe. I think I just need to sleep before I decide how I feel about any of it.

There.

There is the distance, folded neatly and set down between you.

Dorn sees it. Hears it. Accepts it.

He does not try to climb over it.

Stoneheart007 — 11:54 PM That sounds wise. Get some rest, healer. Water, sleep, no verdicts tonight.

You stare at the message until the corners of your mouth pull faintly despite yourself.

Healer.

Even now.

Your eyes sting again, though gentler than before.

Troublemaker2301 — 11:55 PM You too. Goodnight.

The dots appear. Pause. Then:

Stoneheart007 — 11:56 PM Goodnight. I’ll be here tomorrow.

And that, more than anything else, is what nearly breaks you.

Not because it is dramatic. Because it isn’t… it is plain and unadorned and so entirely him that your heart, traitorous thing, curls toward it before you can stop it.

I’ll be here tomorrow.

A promise without pressure. A hand left on the table in case you want it. A lantern set in the dark and deliberately shaded so it won’t blind.

You put the phone down very carefully after that, as though it has grown heavier in your hands.

Across the city, Dorn remains seated long after the conversation ends, the last message still open on his screen.

He should feel relief that you answered at all, gratitude that you did not cut him off cleanly, and some measure of comfort that his check-in was not refused.

What he feels in its place is the precise and punishing ache of having been allowed to stay near the wound without being invited to touch it.

Passive hurt, he thinks grimly, is a more elegant weapon than rage.

Had you lashed out, he could have accepted it as impact. A strike, a sound, a fracture. Something obvious. Something earned and therefore easier to carry.

This is different.

This is you stepping back one pace and making him feel the missing warmth.

It is, he admits to himself in the silence of his flat, devastating.

He rises at last and crosses to the kitchen for water he does not really want. The city glows pale beyond his windows. The whole room is orderly as ever, each object in its proper place, and he feels suddenly, violently out of place within it.

He thinks of your message again.

They were all lovely.

Not him.

He deserved that.

He takes a sip only to grimace at how it tastes like nothing in the aftermath of all that. He drinks it anyway.

Then he goes back to the sitting room and stands with one hand on the back of the sofa, looking at nothing, then at the reflection of his own pale shape in the window, at the life he has built so carefully. Also, at the absurd, perilous two-person architecture of the thing between you.

Rogal in amber light. Stoneheart in blue. One man split by his own caution and now tasked with comforting the ache between those halves.

He laughs once under his breath. There is no humour in it, only fatigue.

“Well done,” he murmurs to the room. “Masterfully handled.”

The room, like yours across the city, offers no opinion.

At length he turns out the lights and goes to bed, though sleep does not come quickly.

Neither does it come quickly for you.

You lie under your blanket with the room dark except for the faint city glow leaking around the curtains. Your phone rests face down on the bedside table now, quiet. You can still feel the residue of the conversation sitting warm and aching in your chest.

Part of you is ashamed of the coolness in your replies. Part of you clings to it.

Because if you had been warmer, you might have had to admit too much. Might have drifted toward comfort before you were ready. Might have let him soothe you straight past the place where your hurt deserved to exist for at least one night.

So, you had done what you could, without accusations, anger or too much resentment.

Your eyes close slowly.

Somewhere in the exhaustion, another thought comes. Unbidden. Soft as a match struck in another room.

Rogal had said much the same thing, in his own way.

No final judgments tonight.

You frown faintly into the dark.

It is probably nothing. A coincidence. The city is full of men capable of giving competent advice about sleep and hydration. You are overtired. Raw. Likely to hear echoes where none exist.

And yet the thought lingers, warm and strange and impossible to place.

By the time sleep finally comes for you, it comes in pieces.

Across the city, so does it come for him.

And morning waits for both of you with all the quiet cruelty of daylight, ready to show what still aches when the shadows are gone.

A perilous impasse.

Aaaaaaaaaaaah! Rogal you absolute idiot!!!!! But also, props to him for the impeccable crisis control! I'd want my guy to feed me toast and tea and tell me everything is going to be alright!

But will the reader connect the dots? Will Stoneheart survive the night? Will Alexis be called upon once more? (𓁹‿𓁹)

Find out in the next episode!

As always, thank you so much for taking the time to read my silly stories! All of you make my world the beautiful place that it is!

Chapter Two: Try not to drown. Again.

Mercedes helps you up the hill and into her truck. It's a 1998 Ford F-150 that has been loved so severely that the white looks more like a grey, and the orange stripe on the bottom of the door has practically come off. You trace your hand over the dent on the passenger side fender as you pass by it— a leftover from a fight you'd had with a tree branch while driving the truck.

You stare out the window as Mercedes loads your bicycle into the back. Your fingers idly trace the worn leather of the seat you're sitting in, feeling the grooves and ridges of time-torn fabric.

Mercedes clambers into the front seat and starts the truck. It cranks with a low rumble, and the two of you head off towards the house. It's silence from the both of you, until you break it.

"Listen, I-"

"Save it," she hisses, fingers tightening on the wheel, knuckles turning white, "I'm not done being mad at you."

Fair enough. And you knew when to back down once the red head was mad at you anyways, so you wisely shut up for the rest of the ride. She pulls into the driveway of the house and stares at you when you go to get the bike.

"I'll get it. You go inside."

With that, you went into the house, and contemplated what to say to her. How were you meant to explain how you drowned but didn't drown?

You weren't even sure how it had happened.

You're standing in the kitchen when you hear the screen door open. Mercedes disappears into her room, and you hear the metal music start up, leaving you by yourself. In that case, a shower was probably in order. You were incredibly sticky from the salt water, and you were afraid of the amount of sand you might have just tracked in.

Heading into the bathroom, you stand for a long time and stare at the shower. It shouldn't be that difficult to turn on a shower head, but as you sway while standing there, it's the hardest thing in the world. You're incredibly tired, but getting onto your bed while covered in sand might be worse than just…sleeping in the bathroom

But you eventually pull enough energy together, and turn it on. You make it a quick shower, and flop down onto your bed, not even bothering with the blankets as your heavy eyelids slide shut and you're yanked into sleep.

~~~

You wake up, and you're back at the cove, standing knee deep in water. You're not in your swimsuit this time— you're in the outfit you'd been in the last time you went missing in the cove. A pair of jeans are rolled up to your knees, soaked up to your crotch with seawater, and a faded t-shirt with the image of a manatee on it. You'd gotten it from a state park visit.

You want to see the manatees again.

The waves are choppy in your dream, not calm and smooth like they should've been. The water is dark, and the stars are reflected above you. You try to step back and find that you can't— only forwards. Directly into the sea in front of you. Wonderful.

You trudge forwards a little, the water sloshing up your jeans, darkening the fabric further. You keep going on until you're up to your neck, head tilted back to keep it above the waves. It's cold.

Then you feel something grab your ankle, and you're dragged under the water, deep deep down until you can't see anything anymore.

~~~

You wake up outside on the front porch, blinking in confusion as you finally register your surroundings. The sounds of junebugs and frogs are sounding out around you, but otherwise the night is still and quiet.

You stare in the direction of the cove, then head back inside. You want nothing to do with that mess right now. Sleeping is hard after that, but you finally manage to drift off.

The next morning you find Mercedes on the couch, sipping coffee. She glances up from her book and clears her throat, setting it down. You wring your hands at the same time, intent upon speaking to her.

"Hey, listen I-"

"I just wanted to say-"

The two of you speak at the same time, and both get a little chuckle from it. Mercedes gestures to you for you to go first.

You start, "Thanks for coming to get me yesterday, I really appreciate it. I'm sorry I was out all night, but I promise it was from swimming and I lost track of time. You're my best friend and I shouldn't have left you in the dark."

The promise rings hollow to you, but your friend seems to take it in stride, nodding. You've elected not to mention your incident.

She clears her throat, "Listen I…" her voice trails while she glances around the room, before settling on the ornate vase that sits on the living room mantle. "I'm sorry for yelling at you so much yesterday. I was pretty harsh."

She shifts on the couch nervously, tugging at her pearl necklace, "I just- I couldn't find you and all I could picture was the last time you went missing after you went down there and it really freaked me out."

Your heart sinks, and you creep closer to the couch.

"I promised I wouldn't do something like that again," you say in a hushed tone. "I'm not leaving again. I pinky swore." You hold out the finger in question, and a small smile graces Mercedes' freckled face as she returns the gesture, hooking the two fingers together.

She pauses, then asks, "You're still taking the meds, right?"

You snort, "Yes."

"And going to all your therapy sessions?"

"Yes, Mom," you respond with some levity now that the twinkle of mirth has returned to your friend's eyes.

She tuts and wags a finger from her other hand, "Careful who you're calling Mom, or I'll ground you for real."

You give a bark of laughter, then open your arms, "Awkward friendship makeup hug?"

Mercedes returns the gesture with a big bear hug, her taller frame engulfing you.

You go get yourself a hot beverage and sit beside her, before turning on the weather channel. Looked like it was going to storm. Wonderful weather for a Sunday.

"Any big plans?" You ask your companion.

"Probably watch the rain. Maybe cross stitch. You?"

You make a so so motion with your hand, then snort, "Hot date?"

She snickers, "You? As if."

A chuckle comes from your chest, then you respond with some seriousness, "I probably need to change Betsy Ross' water."

Mercedes nods, "I think she's getting fat."

You gasp, putting a hand to your chest in indignation. "No she is not. Do not speak of my beloved betta fish in such a manner."

The two of you banter on for a bit, before you move to actually do the chore. You grumble as your knees creak when you stand up.

Betsy Ross resides in a long forty gallon tank that sits in the living room on the most stable bit of flooring in the house. She received her moniker from her red, white and blue scales that had you and Mercedes cracking jokes during last year's July. You hadn't meant to get a patriotic fish while your friend had been working on Revolutionary War reenactment costumes, but that was how it had turned out.

Cleaning the tank is easy enough, but the biggest pain is taking care of the plants. You rustle around under the tank to find your aquascaping scissors.

You hum as you set about trimming vallisneria leaves. You had to give the plant credit— once it was settled in it left only a miniature jungle in its wake. You uproot a few of the runners and throw them in the 'FISH BUCKET', the acclaimed item labeled in large sharpie letters.

You make a mental note to ask the local group if anyone wants any extra trimmings before heading to go get the water siphon.

As you drain water, your thoughts turn to the flounder that you'd seen yesterday as you begin to drain water from the tank. Was it alright? Did it get caught again? You hadn't had the chance to actually remove the net from the sand. And besides that, had you really seen a merman? You frown as you siphon up mulm that had collected on the bottom of the tank.

What were the actual chances of seeing a mythical creature? And beyond that— one saving your life? But also… there weren't many other options. If a good samaritan had rescued you, why didn't they stick around? Shouldn't they have at least made sure you were alright before they left? Or called paramedics?

Your eye twitched while you thought about it. Maybe you just imagined the whole thing and actually the current nabbed you and slung you back. Yes. Yes! Obviously you lost consciousness and then your brain filled in the gaps with a hero to save the day while Mother Nature just so happened to deliver you back to shore in one piece. Obviously. And to add on to that, you shouldn't just immediately jump on the idea of there being mermen in your cove. Nope! Just because you were a part time mermaid yourself didn't mean there were any real ones.

You nod. Yes! That's perfect.

Yup. No mermen around here.

…

…

You were so going back to the cove to investigate. After a while, anyway. You were still a little freaked out by the events of the night before. You needed a plan if you were going to maybe catch the world's first merman. Wait no- catch sounded bad. You don't want to catch him, just talk! Say thanks for saving your life.

There's a nip on your fingers and you jump a little, looking down. Betsy Ross has emerged from her coconut cave to come visit you.

"Hey friend," you coo, wiggling your fingers at her, "I don't suppose you know any mermen, do you?"

Betsy Ross is thoroughly unimpressed, and swims away to go hide in a bundle of cambomba carolina. Ugh, you need to trim that too, but it could wait until another time.

You refill Betsy Ross' tank and head off to do more chores. You glance out the window as you do so, noting the thick layer of storm clouds that ring the sky above you.

"Do you need me to bring in any of your plants?" You call out to Mercedes, "I think they were right about that storm, but those clouds look pretty bad."

There's the creak of a chair as (you presume) she leans away to look through a window. Then her head is visible from around the doorframe and she replies back: "Yeah, can you grab my fern? She's a little delicate after the last drought— just leave her on the porch though. She should be fine with no direct downpour."

You nod and head outside, intent on bringing in the pot. You've just managed to scoop up the clay pot when you hear the rustle of wings behind you. You whip around, only to get a face full of fern. You spit and sputter as you try to get the fronds out of your mouth. Maybe the bird could wait just a second…

You set the pot down on its little dish, and hear the thunder rumble off in the distance. The cool breeze sweeps by you, and you shiver a little.

There's an indignant squawk from behind you, and you remember your new acquaintance. You spin around a see a sandpiper staring at you. How odd to see one directly in your yard, much less one that directly approached you.

It flaps its wings to get your attention again, and you lean down to see what's in the beak of the bird. It's rough and round, and to your immense surprise, the sandpiper simply trots up to you and drops the object in your hand. It steps back to stare at you, almost like its gauging your response.

"Oh, well thank you," you say, feeling rather silly that you're talking to a bird, "What have you brought me?"

You turn it over in your palm, and to your delight it's a seashell! A baby's ear seashell— small and white with swirls of gray along the lines of the shell.

The sandpiper apparently had enough of the interaction, as it turns around and flies away. You watch it fly off, feeling the shell in your fingers. Something scratchy hits your palm on the opposite side, and you look down to turn the seashell back over again. There, tucked away in the hole of the shell, is a piece of rope that's become calcified inside of the object. A rope that looks awfully familiar. Your heart beat skips frantically, and you look around for the bird.

But it's too late, the bird is gone. You head back in.

Mercedes finds the shell interesting, but she decides that it could just be a coincidence. You don't believe in coincidence like that, but you're willing to take the idea with grace. You put the shell on your dresser for the time being.

You do more odd and end things around the house and then settle in for the night, sheets soft against your skin. You drift off to sleep while listening to the pounding of the rain against the windowsill.

~~~

You're drowning again. The water is filling your lungs and you struggle against it but all you can do is choke and claw for air.

Nothing but darkness. No light, no air.

You're alone.

~~~

A flash of lightning wakes you up as a thunderclap hits at the same time, rattling the frame of your house. You stagger backwards, letting go of the doorknob that you'd been holding. Your head whips around and you hit the floor, your shadow cast on the door looking almost as perturbed as you feel.

You hear your name, and out comes your roommate, flicking on the light.

"Dude," Mercedes says, "It's two in the morning."

You feel a little offended now, because it's pretty obvious that she hadn't been asleep. "I'm not the only one awake."

She snickers and rolls her eyes, "God forbid a girl play her game into the wee hours of the morning." She sobers up slightly, "What're you doing?"

Well, time to bite the bullet on that one. "I think I may be sleepwalking? I woke up with my hand on the doorknob."

Her eyebrows bob up and she looks back at you, "I didn't know you did sleepwalking."

You shrug, "I didn't either until just now."

She gnaws at her lip in thought, "What if we put a heavy chair in front of the door? Maybe that would work? I don't think you should be sleepwalking outside." There's a tone in there that gives you the impression that she might know about the other incident, but given that she's not elected to bring it up, you leave that hook exactly where it is.

"Good thinking. You think the recliner is good enough?"

Between the two of you, you push the chair to the door, and you wind up falling asleep again to the sounds of Mercedes shouting at the TV from a room over.

~~~

Luckily, you don't dream anymore. The sound of your alarm brings you to the present, and you groan as you stick out your hand to feel for it. The groaning turns into cursing as you accidentally knock the stupid thing off into the floor, where it continues to wail, just from a more annoying angle. You stagger out of bed in order to shut it off, and decide that you may as well go ahead and get ready. Normally your alarms are set a little earlier than necessary, but with how antsy you're feeling, some extra laps around the pool would do you some good.

Mercedes is, rather predictably, asleep still. She works as a full time artist though, so while her schedule is packed, it does give her leeway to go to sleep when she feels like. You envy her slightly for it, then remember how much work it is to be free lance. Not for you, really.

You make a toasted cheese sandwich for breakfast and step out into the cool morning air to stretch. There's branches and leaves scattered all around, but it looks like everything remained intact overall— which is great, given the last bad storm you'd had wound up knocking out the power for days.

There's the fluttering of wings again as you lock the door behind you. You turn around and to your delight, it's your sandpiper friend from the day before!

"Hello!" you greet with a slightly childish amount of giddiness, "I'm so happy you made it through the storm alright! I was worried about you."

The bird tilts its head, then drops a seashell on the ground for you. This time it's an angel wing shell, although it's mostly yellow with bands of orange. You thank the bird, and head to your car while tucking the shell into your pocket, before turning around and thanking the bird. It feels a little stupid but hey! Letting your gratitude be known is never a bad thing.

It's as you're driving to the aquarium that it hits you. What are the odds of a bird doing that two days in a row? Your eye twitches again and you decide to compartmentalize that one for later as you pull in to the parking lot.

The aquarium that you work at is a decent sized facility for the location. The city receives a good amount of tourist flow through it, which had led to the invention of the mermaid program. You were hopeful that you'd be the next full timer to get added to the roster.

You swipe your badge card to be let into the security area. Bill waves at you from the office, and you step through the doors.

"Early morning for you, isn't it?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Bit earlier for you, I think," you respond, jovially walking over to give him a fist bump, "What're you doing here at the crack of dawn?"

He groans, running a hand through his balding hair, "Chris called out again, which means I'm working a twelve again."

You shake your head, "Seriously? When are they going to get rid of him?"

Bill shrugs, his jacket rustling with the movement, "Beats me. I scanned you through already, you should be good to go."

You nod, and head off to the pool area. It wasn't truly a pool, but instead a shallow part above one of the main tanks that had been designed for easy diver and performer access. It allowed for someone to get in and get ready, then had about a hundred or so feet to cross over before you could access the main part of the tank. The thought was that this would keep at least most of the fish out. And it did— there were only the occasional sea turtle or stingray that would join you up top.

You throw your stuff into your locker, and nab the bathing suit that you use for warm ups. These particular suits stay at the aquarium, and are treated and washed there along with your mermaid gear. The makeup and props you use are specially looked at and approved before you can wear them into the tank. Luckily, you've got your routine down pat at this point.

Head to the shower and decontaminate, check.

Swimsuit on, check.

Pre-do makeup for the show…check. You'll just need to touch it up later.

Get in the pool… check. Sort of.

The mer-performers are allowed to warm up in the shallow area, but there's always someone watching to ensure safety. You haven't slid into the pool because you're waiting on Brandy to make her way out to where the lifeguard is supposed to be. Your feet dangle into the water as you stare out into the tank. You have to remember to unclench your jaw. You're not out in the open ocean, you're in a safe environment.

Bleach blonde hair finally pokes out of the locker room, and Brandy beams at you as she walks towards the pool, bouncing in her steps.

"Oh em gee, hi!!" she greets you enthusiastically, "How was your weekend? That storm was crazy, right?"

You nod, idly swirling your feet in the water, "Yeah, it wasn't too bad at my place though."

"Really? Because the power totally got knocked all the way out at mine."

"Yikes, how long was it out for? Did you check the freezer?"

She shrugs, "I'll have to check it when I get home— didn't have time to check before I came here. I hope it didn't thaw though, I've got some steaks from the local farmer's market that are going to be killer whenever I get my dad to fire up the grill for them."

"Please send pictures when you make it," you respond, chuckling.

She beams and flashes you a thumbs up, "You ready to warm up?"

You stretch your arms out above your head, pulling a bit at your shoulder blade muscles, "Ready as ever."

"You think the others will show up soon?"

A non committal shrug in response. Everyone knows how much time they do and don't need to get ready. You were here before show call anyway.

You slide into the water, tamping down panic. You've done this a hundred times before, and turn onto your back to float, feeling the warmth seep into your bones. You roll over after a few moments, and begin going through the motions of warming up your swim style. After a bit, you grab your monofin, and begin to do the same thing again, making sure that you were prepared.

Eventually you were joined by your coworkers Rob and Diana. There were a few more personalities in the mer-squad, but there was only room for so many mer-people in one tank.

You slide into your tail, wriggling into the silicone cover. It was always a little tight to get on, but once you had it pulled up, the tail was a masterpiece. Long, flowing fins with a dorsal fin and pectorals fins to match. You felt like a betta fish every time you swam with it. Betsy Ross would be proud.

You roll onto your back in the water and give an experimental tail flick. Now was the time to make sure everything was good. Diana handed you an extra starfish pin, which you thanked her for and slid into your own hair, securing it with extra bobby pins to ensure that it was going nowhere.

It's showtime, and you start to slip under the surface. But the second the water fully covers your head, you immediately pop back up to the open air and gasp, clinging to the side. Brandy is there in an instant, hands gently grabbing onto you, securing you in place as you sputter.

"You okay? Everything good— what's wrong? Do I need to pull you out?" Brandy trusted you enough to know that if you couldn't respond in a few seconds that you were getting yanked out of the pool entirely.

You tap her arm twice, signaling that you're alright, and you take deep gulps of air as you formulate your words. Diana and Rob have resurfaced as well, looking at you with concern. You get your heart rate to slow down just a bit, and you finally tell them that everything is fine.

"I think I just got spooked. I almost got caught in some rope the other day while swimming— it twisted around my ankle but I was under water for a little bit too long." An embellished lie, but it worked.

Diana nods, "That sounds frightening, but I'm glad you're alright. Take a breath, and do what you always do, and remember that we've got help if you need it, alright? You're already a mermaid master— don't let that incident keep you from going down there."

Rob jumps in too, "Don't be afraid to get more air than usual. Feel free to tap me when you're headed to get it so we're all checking in." He pauses, "Let's all just check in with each other more than usual today. I don't think I'm the only one nervous about being down there with all the cameras."

With a pact in place, you finally make it underwater. As you descend, you can almost feel at peace again. There's a calm that takes over once you're so far down, where the noises are blocked out and all you hear are is the slight movements of water. It's quiet. You close your eyes for a moment and let it soothe your nerves. Everything was going to be alright.

And it was, for the first little bit.

Then you spot one of the black tip sharks swimming towards you. Not an issue, you're all trained to deal with the sharks. They don't mean any harm— they're just nosy. You redirect it, and go to swim the opposite way, only to realize that it's turned around to swim with you again. It doesn't appear to be aggressive, just swimming beside you. You glance through the aquarium glass, and you see one of the employees flash the 'okay?' sign with a frown. You shrug, and give the 'okay' signal back to them. The shark isn't… doing anything weird, just swimming alongside you.

It becomes extremely odd though, when you go to get air from the hose that they keep for the mer-performers to use, and the shark follows. It hovers in the corner of your vision, doing passes as you take slow breaths from the provided air.

You and your new friend head over to where the children are camped out in front of the glass, and you amuse them by doing back flips and blowing bubbles. Sometimes the bubble rings get big enough for your shark to swim through, and the children cheer and clap. You find the whole situation odd, but decide that maybe underwater isn't the best time to figure it out.

Once everyone heads back up, you realize that the shark has followed you all the way to the top. It hovers at the edge of the platform though, not daring to go into the more humanized part of the tank. Despite being a little spooked, you wave goodbye, and turn to go breach the surface of the water.

"Dude," Rob says, squinting hard at you as you wipe wet hair out of your face, "What the hell was that?"

You shrug and swim forwards a little bit. You respond, "No idea. I was trying so hard no to freak out. Does he normally do that?"

He shakes his head, "I don't think so— I've never seen it, anyway. Doesn't mean it hasn't happened. Maybe he was just extra bored today? I know sometimes they follow the cleaning divers around."

That seems reasonable enough.

After some extra post show chatter and promises of going out to eat sometime, everyone heads out.

When you get home, there's a sandpiper with a seashell that greets you. Okay! Three times makes this officially weird. You are weirded out. You still thank the bird, and go inside, staring at the shell as you close and lock the deadbolt. Birds can't open doors, but it helps with your peace of mind.

Mercedes glances up from the table, where she's taping together a pattern of so many shapes and sizes that you couldn't even begin to guess what sort of garment she was meant to be making.

"How was work?" she asks, going back to looking at her project.

You move to get closer, throwing your bag into the floor as you do so. "Wet. A shark followed me around today."

"Really?" Mercedes' eyebrows raise, "Do they normally do that?"

"Not that I've noticed, no."

"That's…weird then."

You shrug, "I mean he didn't seem aggressive? But it definitely freaked me out a little."

She nods, and frowns at a piece of paper that is refusing to line up correctly. She says, "You're the expert here, not me. I'll take your word on it— still weird though."

There's a comfortable silence between you two as she continues to work on what she's doing. You hand her little bits of tape as she moves around the pattern. She starts to shoo you away when it comes time to cut it out though, and you complain:

"You know I can help with the cutout part!"

Mercedes snorts, "Oh I don't think so— you couldn't cut a straight line if your life depended on it."

Your mouth hangs open, absolutely flabbergasted. You sputter for a response, "That is not true!"

She shoots you an unimpressed look, and remarks, "Remember the apron?"

Ah yes, you do in fact remember that. You'd managed to mess up not just the pattern, but the sewing as well. It had turned out less of an apron and more of an isosceles triangle. So you had to give that one to her.

"Alright fine, but before I go— I was thinking about going down to the cove, maybe this weekend?"

You trail off as she makes eye contact with you, eyes glittering with the start of a lecture. You put your hands up in defense, "I was just thinking that maybe you could…come with me? I just want to check it out after the storm— maybe the net moved in and we can get it out of the water."

That seems to appease her a bit, and she nods before grimacing, "Sorry, I didn't mean to get…" She takes a deep breath and exhales, "You're an adult and I can't stop you from doing anything. I just get worried— I don't mean it to be rude though. Yeah, I'll go with you this weekend. Now go… unmermaid yourself or whatever it is you do."

The last part of her sentence is laced with humor and you chuckle, heading to go shower and scrub off the last of your makeup.

The rest of the week passes with minimal incidents. The shark still hovers near you, but you chalk it up to the tail, maybe? Everyone thinks it's odd, but given the lack of other aggressive behaviors, it was decided to just keep an eye out, but other than that your new bestie was left alone. It did make it a little harder for you to play games with the other fish, but it was nice having constant company. If you humanized the shark a little, it was almost like he was babysitting you. But sharks don't do that, so you keep moving on.

The sleepwalking…well it keeps happening. But the recliner in front of the door seems to have solved the issue for the time being. You're unsure if this sort of behavior warrants a doctor visit or not. It's not like you're hurting yourself or others, you suppose. Besides, how were you meant to explain that to your insurance company? So you let it slide for now.

Your bird friend is still coming to visit, always with a present. You start leaving out some birdseed for it, which it seems to appreciate.

Then on Friday evening, you and Mercedes are out on the front porch in the rockers. Mercedes is working on an embroidery project, and you're making your way through a sudoku puzzle. It's pissing you off slightly, actually— but maybe that was your fault for going to the section with the hardest puzzles first, instead of warming up with an easier one. You grumble and flip to the front of the book and make your way through one of those.

The two of you look up when the arrival of the sandpiper happens. You get up, abandoning your book on the table next to you, and make your way down to it. You squat down and reach out your hand, a routine built during the week. But this time, the bird hops backwards, shell still in hand. You frown, and stand back up.

You turn and look at Mercedes, who looks just as confused as you do. You approach again, and the same thing happens. You stand up, hands on your hips and in befuddlement, ask:

"I don't understand what you're wanting from me."

At this, your bird hops to the side and turns to look at the cove. You don't move, and it flaps its wings and does the gesture again.

Mercedes' voice appears beside you and she says, "What the fuck."

What the fuck, indeed. You appreciate the sentiment.

The bird appears to give up on you, and soars away in the same direction. You glance and your friend and give a shaky smile.

You remark, "I guess we know what we're doing tomorrow."

~~~

Taglist (let me know if you'd like to be added!):

Chapter 1: What do you mean mermaid are real?

It was hotter than hell outside, you were fairly certain. Not that you'd ever actually been to hell, but if you had you'd summat that this was very close. If not worse. The sun beat down on you from high in the sky, and the humidity had swelled from a rainstorm that had occurred earlier during the day.

You were sitting on your porch, idly rocking your chair back and forth while sipping your favorite drink from a glass that was dripping with condensation. You grimaced as the ice cold drops of water hit your thigh where your shorts had ridden up— it wasn't a bad temperature change, just a bit shocking.

It was a heat wave indeed, and you stare off into the distance while considering going to take a swim. There was a cove that wasn't too far off from where your house was— perhaps you'd go take a visit and dip. It wasn't like you were doing much else, and the day wasn't getting any colder any time soon.

Glass drained, you make your way back inside, and change into a swimsuit before pulling on suitable shorts to cover your legs for the bike ride to the cove. It wasn't a far walk, but you didn't feel like making the trek on foot today. It was flat enough ground anyways, so a ride wasn't anything to worry about.

You yell over your shoulder to your friend that you're heading out and get a vague answer in response— you don't hear exactly what she said, but it sounded like acknowledgement enough. A sandwich, water and snacks are shoved into your backpack as you head out. The screen door slams behind you, the wooden frame nipping at your heels as it shuts.

You click the helmet into place and climb onto the bike. You don't ride as much as you used to. Your friend Mercedes had moved in after your shitty ex-boyfriend had moved (read: been kicked out) from your place to elsewhere. You didn't know where, and didn't really care either. The sand churned up onto your ankles as you start to move the bike pedals, and you take off down the well worn path to the cove.

You hum a bit as you start getting into the old rhythm of the ride, bumping over the gnarled roots of the trees that twisted and formed a canopy over the trail.

It had been only yours, once. The cove. Your favorite spot to go to and relax, away from everyone else. As far as you could tell, the only path down was split from your house alone, with little access from any other direction unless you knew where to look.

Then you'd shown your boyfriend where it was and he had begun bringing friends down to it. They'd trashed it, and once you'd broken up with him it had been one of the first projects you'd undertaken to get your mind off the issue. You'd picked up broken bits of bottles and scraped bits of old food off the rocks while barely holding it together, listening to the quiet crash of the waves on the shore and trying not to fall asleep despite the bags under your eyes saying otherwise. Mercedes had been very kind and come out to help you lug the trash back to where you could properly dump it out. And given that the access was on your property, it was easy enough to keep people away from it. Besides— all the friends he'd brought with him were his friends. Never yours.

But at any rate, you'd succeeded, and now the shore was as clear as it had been the day you'd first found it. Crystal clear waters, sand with small pebbles that dotted the beach. It was beautiful. And the overhang of rocks and trees provided the perfect amount of shade to go swimming.

The salty breeze from your biking lapped at your face, bringing you to the present once more. You parked your bike behind a tree, and raced down to the cove, sending little rocks scattering as you did so.

You sling off the backpack as you get to the bottom, and unfold the towel that you'd kept tucked away to lay on the sand. Abandoning your shorts, but keeping your shoes on (they were water shoes with thick soles), you slid into the water, relishing in the coolness of it as it washed over your skin.

You'd gone to the pool in town a few times (Mercedes preferred it to swimming in the ocean water), but you'd found it too crowded in comparison to your little slice of paradise. Mercedes had always claimed that at least she knew what was in the pool, but you'd retorted that at least nobody had to clear out the ocean because someone threw up in it. She didn't appreciate that much— although you chalked it up to her college life-guarding summer job flashbacks.

And besides, what was wrong with not being able to see the bottom? The weightless feeling of looking down into the deep blue that you got when you swam out a little too far. You couldn't help it! Besides, there was a sandbar not too far out that you could reach when the tides got low enough. It wasn't like you were going to be swept out to sea. You were a strong swimmer— which was how you and Mercedes had met. You'd both been attending lifeguard classes. Although you had attended simply for want of something to do. But it had come in handy when you'd needed to swim to the bottom to get things.

The lifeguard training had paired with a long string of free-diving classes, where you'd learned how to hold your breath for long periods of time, and the proper technique to stay down on the bottom with little to no weights on your belt to counter act the buoyancy. That part wasn't something you had used frequently, but it was useful to learn for your mermaid gigs.

You chuckle while thinking about it as you swim backwards, staring at the blue sky overhead. The sun felt a little less like a death ray while you were in the calm, shaded waters of the cove.

You'd picked up being a mermaid as a side job after your free-diving instructor had mentioned it to you. There was a large aquarium in a nearby city that allowed you to come in and dress as a mermaid to entertain the guests from a large tank filled with all sorts of fish and ocean wildlife. You had a blast doing it, and interacting with the children and adults that came through.

You kick your feet, amused as you wonder what it would be like to only had fins, and not be able to take off the tail and walk around. Mercedes had always joked that you were part fish. You do a practice barrel roll as you glide through the water, finally crossing out of the shade and into the sunny waters.

You squint as the light reflects off the rippling waves, and paddle back into the safety of the overhang. You idly check your watch and realize it's been longer than you thought— it was easy to get lost in the waves, but upon noticing it was after lunch, your stomach gave a grumble.

You make your way back to the shore, easily cutting through the current, and come up to eat your sandwich. You take off your shoes for a minute and sit down onto the towel, intent upon chowing down on your lunch. It's slightly soggy where your hands touch it, despite the fact that you wiped them on the towel as best as you could. You dig your feet into the sand while you watch some birds in the distance, curling your toes to feel the bits of shells that are scattered among the pebbles and sand.

There might be some good seashells out near the sandbar, you think as you pop some pineapple into your mouth. The sweetness of the fruit contrasts with the way it makes your mouth tingle. You're pretty sure you might be a little bit allergic to it, but it just adds to the flavor, in your opinion. It's a very minor allergy, if any at all.

The current is solid and the tide is beginning to go out, so you slide your shoes back on and make your way over to your backpack to pull out your seashell collecting kit. You don't always find anything good, but sometimes the shells you find can be repurposed into jewelry. You enjoy wearing a seashell necklace, especially if it's made from shells you collected yourself. The kids at the aquarium seem to enjoy them too— along with the occasional adult who shyly asks if they can have one.

Alongside your normal net seashell bag is a large knife that you strap to your hip. Sometimes you find trash and lines that need to be cut, and you'd rather have a knife with you to try and cut through it than leave it. You have a compartment in your shell bag for small bits of trash. Anything major and you'll have to collect it all up and drag it to shore as best as you can.

Fishermen don't come out to the cove much anymore— none of the good sporting fish hang out around your cove. There are, however, several dozen different smaller species that come to greet you as you begin your underwater swim. You hope that you see the puffer fish that had been swimming around the outer rocky crevices the last time you'd swam through.

You breach the surface as you near the starting spot for your search, and take in a deep breath, before plunging beneath the surface. You swim to the bottom (which is, admittedly, not that far away), and begin to look for seashells. Ones that are discarded, obviously. You'd learned a lesson when you'd pulled up an entire conch only to find that the inhabitant was not only quite alive, but very angry at you as well. You'd gently put them back, surmising that you'd be angry too if someone simply picked up your house with you inside of it.

There's a few good shells you see as you go along— you're trying not to kick up too much sand as you search. A fish or two nibble at your exposed legs, earning a giggle and a small kick as you move away. They're harmless, really, but it tickles and laughter uses up air.

You hit the sandbar in no time at all, and you surface to take a breath again. Your toes skim just the bare top of the sand, obscuring whatever is underneath it. The only thing about the cove was that the sandbar was what blocked out the rest of the ocean from coming in too close. Although if anyone were to ask you about it, you'd say that Mother Nature was trying to prevent the fishermen from getting any closer to the safe haven that the trees and small caves provided. But no one asked you, so that opinion had to stay to yourself.

At any rate, the other side of the sandbar was daunting. Even you tried to not go past it. The water of the inner cove had a much different vibe than the waters on the other side. The waves rolled bigger, and the color was darker. Light didn't pierce as far down. You had to agree with Mercedes there— who knew what was down there?

You continue along, collecting bits and bobs of shells that you find. You also spend a good few minutes following a horseshoe crab that was slowly walking along the bottom. Fascinating creatures.

You flip over onto your back again and eyeball the sun. It wasn't much lower, but it wasn't attempting to suck all the life out of your veins anymore either. A glance at your watch shows late afternoon. You decide that you're going to do just one more sweep and then call it a day before your friend decides to call the authorities to help rescue you. Again.

You take another long breath, and dive down again. But this time as you do, you spot a small bit of movement out of the corner of your eye. Further inspection shows you a ghost net that's stuck to the bottom of the ocean floor, tangled with debris and swaying in the current. It's on the other side of the sandbar, but you carefully maneuver yourself down towards it. Your bag won't be able to hold all of the netting, but you can certainly grab as much as you can and bring it back towards the shore. A quick pass around it shows that smaller fish should be able to get through just fine, but larger ones might have an issue.

That observation is quickly proven correct when you spot a flounder doing its best to writhe free of the netting, the ropes tangling around its body. Flounder were particularly susceptible to getting caught since they were bottom dwellers, but to see a net so far out here…

You frown, then pop up to the surface, devising a plan, then heading back down to help out. The fish has done an excellent job of wrapping itself up in the net, although really that couldn't be helped. You scowl even more, and begin searching for the best spot to begin cutting to get your new friend free.

It proves more difficult than you initially thought— the net is old, but instead of the ropes fraying and breaking with ease, the coating on the lines has created a more solid shell for you to saw through. It results in you cursing out every single man, god and other being in existence that you can think of as you hack away at the line while trying not to cut the frantic fish just two knots down.

You surface again, take another breath, then go back.

The rope is fraying now, just a tad, and your hands are becoming sore from the amount of pulling you've been doing to help keep tension and cut the rope. You might have one hell of a blister tomorrow, but at least you've got a story to tell. The rope finally breaks in that one knot, and you could cry with joy from the victory.

It's short lived though as you bob upwards and breath, blinking the stinging water out of your eyes, and then dive again.

There's so much rope. You work and work and work, surfacing again and again, until there's only a few knots remaining between you and the flounder. The fish is still breathing, but seems to have realized what you're trying to do, and is holding much more still. It helps, just a tad.

You're busy trying to figure out the last bit of rope when you feel it— the current shifting. This might not have been a normal cause for concern, if you were closer to the shore. But out behind the sandbar, it was going to become a problem shortly. Especially since you didn't have your swimming fins with you to provide any sort of advantage for fighting a current. You begin to work faster, knife going until finally, finally, the rope breaks and the flounder swims free. It shoots out past you, rocketing into the depths below and disappearing from sight.

You smile with relief, and then give a strong kick towards the light above you. Only to be stopped as something tugs at your leg. For a moment you don't think much of it and try again, only for that movement to snap you deeper into the water. You twist, and are horrified to find that part of the netting has now ensnare your leg.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

You try to remain calm— what was it your instructor had always said? Slow your heart rate, and try to tamp down any panic.

Which is great advice, in theory. Less so in practice, when you're snared to the bottom of the ocean and there's no one that knows you're down this deep so rescue probably won't be coming. Scratch that. There is no rescue. So either you free yourself, or you're royally fucked. And dead. One of those is worse than the other.

You look up at the surface, and you see the shining blue above you, the light shafts coming into the water as the sun shines on overhead, oblivious to your plight. Stupid sun. Wouldn't it be better for it to be cloudy while you're maybe about to die?

You tug at the rope around your leg, hoping that perhaps you can simply wriggle out of it. The rope doesn't budge, so you grimace, and begin to move around so you can try and use your knife. The cold steel feels odd against your leg and the stray thought crosses your might that you might cut yourself. But in all honesty, you'd rather have a cut on the leg than drown.

The air is seeping out of your lungs faster with the exertion of using the knife. With the flounder you'd been able to get more gulps of air, but with your own leg it's much more difficult to focus.

The edges of your vision are blurring slightly as you fight on, willing your hand to keep going. There's more than one line attached to your leg, but as you keep dutifully sawing, more of the net moves, and you're frightened to realize that it's coming for you, and there's nothing to be done.

You think you spot something then— in your peripheral— but nothing is there when you turn to look so you spin to watch the horror show unfolding in front of you. The current is slow moving, yet the net is moving too fast for your liking. You shout as it tangles around you more, realizing much too late what you've done as the saltwater rushes into your lungs, seeping in and blocking your airways.

You cough and sputter and struggle in vain against the ropes, the knife slipping out of your hand. You only manage to get yourself twisted tighter against the net. You stare up at the rippling waves above you as you get dragged deeper down. The sand bumps against your knees as you hit the bottom. Your lungs burn, but trying to purge the water has done nothing.

You're beginning to go limp when you see the movement again. A massive fin swims by you, and faintly you recognize it as a shark tail. Well, at least you may be a decent snack. The humor is morbid, but at least no one can say you aren't funny, even in death.

That's when something touches your leg deliberately, and if you had the air, you might've shrieked again. But instead, with the dwindling consciousness you have, you focus on whatever is touching you.

It tugs at the ropes, and you have the faint idea that maybe a diver has come to rescue you. A diver. From a boat. A boat that you definitely would've seen out in the open ocean. Fuck, it's not a diver, is it? An angel, maybe?

With what little energy you have left, you turn your head, and catch sight of the massive shark tail that's behind you. It's a dark tail with scars littered down the back— if you had any presence of mind, perhaps you could identify the species, but as is you were fighting for your life. Your head bobs back to its original position, and a giant arm has appeared beside you, with clawed hand that are carefully cutting at ropes.

Maybe it is a diver after all?

Your vision is blacking out around the edges, but you feel a yank as you're pulled free from part of the rope, and are spun to be face to face with what you're pretty sure would be a merman. Cool. Mermen are real. They're real and you're getting to see one. Or maybe heaven is underwater? At least you got to go out in a cool way.

You watch him work while you bob in the water, vision blurring in and out of focus. He was huge, but the thing your brain decided to focus on where the bits of golden jewelry that glinted in the sun's rays. Neat. Very pretty.

Red eyes shift to you, and you're certain that maybe you tried to speak the words. You doubt they were intelligible at all given the circumstances, but maybe he understood you anyway.

The last of it is untangled from around your legs, and off you go to the surface. Your head breaches the water and you can feel the air on your face. But your lungs are still full of water and your head sags— almost back into the water before your rescuer rights you. Everything goes black as you start to move again.

You wake up to the sensation that you need to vomit, and you're already on your side as you begin to violently cough up lungful after lungful of saltwater. It tastes horrible, and you shiver as your body does its best to purge everything out of your system.

The next time you wake up, the sun is on the opposite side of the cove, and you come to the realization that you spent the night on your little beach. There's sand stuck on your cheek and in your hair, and your hair texture has dried with the salt water to be slightly crunchy. You try to get up, only to flop back onto the sand in exhaustion, muscles drained of energy. Maybe a little more sleep couldn't hurt.

Your eyes flutter open again to hear panicked shouting coming from the top of the cove. Mercedes rushes down the path, and she almost falls flat on her face from the speed of which she does it. You feel a sting of relief upon seeing her.

"What have you been doing?" She shrieks, flinging herself at you to pull you into a hug. You're reminded of your nausea as she shakes you. "You've been gone all night!"

"I uh…" did you almost drown? Was that real? You shake your head, "Sorry I… fell asleep. I think. I freed a flounder from a net though." Mermen were not real, and you must've dreamed the whole thing. Yes. Yes! That's what happened. You nod, sounding a little more convinced as you continue on speaking, "Should have some good shells, I—" you pat around at your hip, only to realize that the shell bag is gone, and so is your knife.

Mercedes frowns at you, before pulling you up. You stumble slightly as she does it, but your friend is already plowing on into a (well deserved one, mind you) lecture. "You're lucky I didn't call the guard in again— seriously, just what were you thinking falling asleep on the beach? I'm never letting you out of my sight again I swear—"