[RANGE COMBAT PROFICIENCY]

  LEVEL INCREASE

  The light seeped deep into me as I teetered between reality and sleep, possibly death, but I would be being dramatic with that choice of language.

  

  [RANGE COMBAT PROFICIENCY]

  LEVEL INCREASE

  Whatever the screen said, it smeared before I could fully see or care about the information. I just know my head rang, screaming at me for the events of yesterday. Today? Tomorrow? I stretched my abilities further than what I would have normally done on a job. But the pay amount of finding her was life-altering money, and the desperation of her parents was heartbreaking. I needed to earn my boss's trust.

  I held onto the bed, hands gently pressing me back to where I started. The energy from that dropped me back into my dreams.

  I reawoke trying to assess the environment I was lying in. From the crackling and familiar singing I could tell I was home. Ava always sang when she cooked; she didn’t need a radio when she had a gift from her gods.

  “Auggie, you have to stop moving.”

  Her voice was crisp and closer than what the singing sounded like. She wasn’t singing and cooking. The sounds were right here, right now. I was in the middle of one of her healing prayers. I could hear my heart rate increasing as I became aware of the pain burning through me. The beautiful healing ward she built in me, gone. Or, mostly gone, replaced by something rough and ugly, but I could feel it was doing something. If it wasn’t, I know I would have died from shock by now.

  “Is he stable?” A new voice. A new person from this new life experience. I mentally worked hard to grasp names, but it faltered. There was a rigidness to the voice but genuine concern for my well-being.

  “If you hover any harder, Silas, you’re going to make this worse. " Ava said. Slow and gentle with a hint of calming magic. Silas, my boss, standing somewhere worrying about me made my heart flutter. But not in the I’m about to die kind of way. Oh god. Maybe I would just let myself die rather than having to deal with this embarrassing crush.

  “That’s not an answer.” His voice floated over. There was an edge of anxiety I could feel rather than see. The healing was close to completion as I felt more of earth than of...wherever I will end up in death.

  “That’s the only thing I’m saying until you stop pacing," she answered.

  “I am not pacing.” He replies. This is the most I’ve heard this man speak. His voice when he’s not putting up a professional front is… warm.

  “You’ve crossed that doorway three times since we’ve started talking," Ava said. I could feel her move closer to me. She was stopping the conversation, and from what I could tell, there was no longer movement from Silas. A pause and then…

  “Is he stable?”

  “Yes. He’s stable. No thanks to you.” She quipped. Her hand pressed into my arms, checking to see if the ward was keeping. And, it was, but I couldn’t get my words from my brain to my mouth.

  “I already explained he brought the assignment to me.” Silas answered.

  “And, you being the old, wise, experienced, and competent adult, said yes.”

  “I assessed the risks.”

  “You assessed wrong.”

  There was a pause, and here, I tried to tell them to stop. But once again my brain and mouth were not cooperating. This is probably a dream.

  “With respect, Ava, I did not request judgment on my choice. I requested a medical status.”

  “And, with respect, Mister Emotionally Repressed, Auggie almost bled out. You almost got my best friend killed over your risk assessment.”

  “... He’s under my protection.” He says it as if that explains it better for her. It definitely didn’t clear anything up for me.

  “Could’ve fooled me.”

  “Is there anything else further required for his recovery? Supplies? Magical reinfor---”

  “What he needs,” Ava interrupted, “Is rest and less of whatever nonsense you’ve dragged him into.”

  “Your point is noted.”

  “And,” she added, "he needs someone who actually notices when he’s over his head.”

  “I noticed" was his reply, and with it came a long span of silence. I felt a warm hug wrap around me, a familiar sleep spell from Ava. Either she needed a moment to give him a piece of her mind, or I really did need more rest.

  ***

  The sun was once more in my eyes, which meant I was waking up on another morning. There was absolutely no way I was falling in and out of consciousness in the same rising sun. This time I could smell the weird vegetarian bacon that Ava made me in the mornings. Usually when she was apologizing for something like her sister was borrowing my room for the night, or a “friend” was coming over later…

  This time, however, I was able to sit up with only a slight pang bouncing through my skull. I could handle this. I stumbled through my room—this was normal physical behavior. I wasn’t worried the injuries impacted my nervous system—and made my way to the shared living space.

  I beelined into the kitchen for the plate of bacon and jellied biscuits with a cup of coffee. Her plate was covered in everything I couldn’t eat. I didn’t register why there was another plate at the table.

  “Also, Ava, what is inside of me?” I pointed toward my heart, munching on the bacon pieces. This brand, the one that was on sale, quickly crumbled with every bite.

  “Your boss," she answered.

  

  [SOCIAL STATUS UPDATE]

  Condition Applied: Secondhand Humiliation

  Source: roommate commentary

  Severity: Moderate

  Duration: Until I stop replaying this moment in my head forever

  She nodded toward the living room. There was a person pacing in front of the door. A phone in his hand.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Is that…?” I asked, leaning from my seat to get a better look. To confirm who I was looking at, yeah, that was all.

  He rushed straight to my neck, my ears felt like they were on fire. A devil itself could have pinched a flame on the tips of my ears. I swallowed a mouthful of crumbling fake bacon far to fast.

  

  [PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSE DETECTED]

  Heart Rate: Spiking

  Facial Temperature: Elevated

  Composure: Compromised

  “That’s not..." I coughed, “That’s not..."

  

  [EMOTIONAL FLAG REGISTERED]

  Trigger Phrase: Your boss

  Associated Memory Cluster:

  → Tall.

  → Silent.

  → Unfair jawline.

  → Low voice.

  → Didn’t ask for an assistant.

  Oh no.

  Oh no, no.

  

  [STATUS EFFECT APPLIED]

  Embarrassed Attachment

  Subtype: Workplace-Based, Deeply Inconvenient

  Side Effects:

  

  
• 
  
    

  Sudden desire to defend the subject
  
    ? Acute awareness of past jokes
  
    ? Internal screaming
  
    



  

  Ava tilted her head at me, blissfully very aware of the situation she mentally dragged me into.

  Then, before I could completely fix my face, Silas stepped into the kitchen. In the moment I hadn’t heard him start toward us.

  “Oh, good morning...sir." I straightened up a little. Ava gave me a look, and I tried to shoo her facial expressions away.

  SIlas gave a small nod.

  “Good morning," Silas said. Then, his eyes moved over me in a quick sweep—face, shoulders, hands—for a moment, it felt like everything—like he was cataloging damage.

  “You’re ambulatory," he said after a moment.

  "... that’s one way to put it.”

  Ava snorted from her side of the table.

  “He’s fine. Sit down and eat.”

  “I’m not --”

  “Sit down.”

  And, with that, Silas sat. Between me and Ava. In our apartment. Where my boss shouldn’t be. Silas picked up the fork like it was the first time in a while that he had done so. As if he was trying to remember if he had the training and the proper certification to be using one.

  I watched as his eyes glanced in various directions, trying to pretend that he was just eating anywhere but with someone he worked with at home.

  I shifted and noticeably winced.

  “Pain?” Silas asked. The question came fast.

  “No, just stiff.” I answered, watching Ava’s reaction to the interaction. The amusement I read on her face wasn’t that she wanted this to be a thing. I realize, she was enjoying that she could torture me with --

  I tried to stand up, but a ball of pain hit around my left kidney, so I stayed still.

  [SOCIAL DAMAGE – CRITICAL HIT]

  “So,” she said brightly, “How long did you hold August’s pulse that night?”

  I shook my head at her. She ignored me.

  “Seven hours and forty-six minutes.

  I dropped my fork.

  It hit the plate with a tiny, traitorous clink.

  Ava’s eyes lit up.

  “Oh good. You timed it.”

  Silas frowned slightly.

  “It was relevant to stabilization thresholds.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Ava said.

  “And were you sitting… where, exactly?”

  Silas gestured subtly with two fingers.

  “Floor. Left side of the bed.”

  He would remember. Can he not tell what Ava is doing? She’s not even hiding it.

  

  [PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSE]

  Facial Temperature: Escalating

  Composure: Actively failing

  “Isn’t that where you keep your dominant magic channel, Auggie?”

  I made a noise that should not exist in any healthy human throat.

  Silas froze, actually, almost ice-cold frozen. Slowly, his eyes slid to me. Just long enough for my soul to experience a minor outage.

  “…Yes,” I admitted weakly.

  He inhaled. Carefully.

  “Oh.”

  Just

  Oh.

  

  [SYSTEM MICRO-EVENT]

  Unexpected Intimacy Recognition

  Subject: Silas Thorne

  Ava absolutely noticed.

  "Oh, that’s precious.”

  “It was coincidence,” Silas said immediately.

  Ava waved a fork.

  “Sure. So is synchronized breathing.”

  Silas paused. I stared into my eggs like they could save me. Ava leaned forward slightly and lowered her voice just enough to make it worse.

  “You know,” she said lightly, “most people don’t realize that prolonged pulse anchoring creates subconscious comfort mapping.”

  Silas’ brow furrowed.

  “…I am aware.”

  She smiled wider.

  “Good. Because that means you also know the body starts tagging the anchor source as a safety signal.”

  Silas’ gaze drifted—again—to me.

  I could not feel my face.

  

  [STATUS EFFECT APPLIED]

  Unsafe Emotional Proximity

  “So if Auggie starts getting calmer when you enter a room…” Ava continued cheerfully, “...that’s not magic.”

  I tried to get up again—this time trying to slide under the table—but she gave me a sharp kick in the shin. I went to say something, but I noticed how Silas straightened... it seemed impossible to have a firmer posture, and yet, here he was. Silas looked over at me again.

  “I will be …mindful.” He said. It sounded like a vow. Ava paused for a moment, looking directly at me.

  “Oh, you don’t have to be careful with him." She tapped her fork against her plate.

  “But you do have to be careful with me.”

  The air sharpened.

  Silas met her gaze without blinking.

  “Understood.”

  She had eaten most of her breakfast. Mine was barely touched. I looked over and noticed Silas had stopped mid-bite when this conversation turned. She didn’t make breakfast in her usual way. This wasn’t meant as anything other than to show how pissed off she was with me for taking this job.

  She was handed the best possible situation to tear into both of them about her distaste of Silas's work and my choice. It took her standing up from the table before the two of us got our wits about us and made our way out of the apartment.

  “I can drive myself to work.” I said as we walked toward Silas's car.

  “Look.” Silas faced him. “I have to keep you alive per company policy. There’s a reason many of us do not take on assistants.”

  “I didn’t realize it was a big thing," I say.

  “ I’m also now trying to keep peace with a fae princess of the Thorn-Crossing Court. That you neglected to tell me you are friends with.”

  “Wasn’t relevant to the job.” I say. Though at this point. He wasn’t listening to me.

  “In a week's time I am now borderline an enemy to a Fae Court. Do you know how long it takes to un-piss off a Fae court?” He huffed, running his hand through his hair, “I should have let you die and dealt with the repercussions."

  Ouch.

  “I will get to work on my own.” I answer. Anger bubbling in me, “Please leave and don’t come back. I’ll meet you at work.”

  “I didn’t…” Silas nodded and made his way to the car. I stood in the parking lot for a few minutes waiting for him to drive out of sight. I looked around the parking lot and realized that my car was still at work and Ava was pissed off at me.

  So, in all the pain, I decided to walk. I hit the stop sign, leaning on it to rest. When a car looped back around, rolling down the windows.

  “Get in the car.” Silas said,

  and I was in too much pain to argue.