Chapter Text
Richard Cameron does not get flustered.
He does not spiral , he does not panic , and he certainly does not throw a tantrum in the Marketing boardroom. Other than that one time the junior intern brought Comic Sans to a pitch deck.
That was one incident.
And it was justified.
Cameron is Senior Editor .
Capitalised. Italicised. Feared in publishing circles for his precision, his punctuation purity, and his ability to dismantle a weak sentence with nothing but a raised eyebrow and a red pen.
He owns six identical grey vests.
His calendar is colour-coded.
His mug says ‘Death Before Deadline’, and he means it.
He wears waistcoats like emotional Kevlar and has never once taken a sick day. Not because he hasn’t been sick. But because the Chicago Manual of Style doesn’t take days off, and neither does he.
His soul is bound to a very expensive, limited edition fountain pen named Horace.
He has a standing weekly argument with Oxford comma deniers on LinkedIn, and once had an op-ed go viral titled: “Why You’re Wrong About Em Dashes (And Probably About Everything Else, Too).”
So when he receives a calendar invite titled:
EMERGENCY MEETING — LEGAL + HR + EDITORIAL + MARKETING
Subject: Dalton, C.
—he only sighs once.
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Ten minutes later, he’s seated at the head of the conference table in a room that radiates existential dread.
There are seven people present.
Five of them look afraid.
The sixth—a junior marketing exec—is rocking gently in her chair whispering, “ It’s not that bad, it’s edgy, it’s very Gen Z, it’s camp, it’s– ”
“–a lawsuit waiting to happen,” mutters Legal, flipping through a copy with the air of someone actively experiencing grief.
Cameron adjusts his cufflinks. They are silver. Monogrammed. Professional.
He opens the manuscript.
It smells faintly of tequila and scandal.
He flips to Chapter Two.
Clears his throat.
And reads:
“The warlock licked the blood from his knuckles and whispered, ‘ I love chaos magic, baby girl .’”
No one breathes.
HR makes a quiet, choked sound.
Someone—possibly the intern—whimpers. “Wasn’t this supposed to be a YA mystery?”
“It was,” Legal says grimly. “Until the necromancer sex ring showed up in Chapter Five.”
“There’s a scene where the main character does shrooms with a raccoon,” adds Marketing, slightly hysterical.
Cameron turns another page. Then another.
Then closes the manuscript with the silent finality of a coffin lid.
He looks up.
“What,” he says, “ is this? ”
“Technically it’s a trilogy—”
“We can’t publish a necromancer orgy—”
“...but the engagement metrics!”
The voices overlap.
“Viral,” says the Marketing exec, with the haunted eyes of someone who’s seen too many TikToks.
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Charlie Dalton, meanwhile, is trending again.
Not just locally. Globally .
#FuckboiSupreme is the top hashtag in seven countries and climbing.
There’s fan art.
There are Spotify playlists.
There’s an Etsy shop selling Chaos Magic, Baby Girl enamel pins and hand-poured “necromancer energy” candles.
Charlie himself is doing an Instagram Live in a silk robe, barefoot, reading dramatic excerpts of the book into a microphone. His iced coffee has edible glitter in it.
The caption reads:
Art is pain. Also my company is probably super mad. Love u guys 💋
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Back in the boardroom, Cameron’s eye twitches.
“This is unsalvageable,” says Legal.
“This is performance art, ” says Marketing.
“This is a goddamn crisis,” says HR, who has now taken off her glasses and is rubbing her temples with the air of someone trying to astral project out of her job.
“This,” says the Managing Editor, sliding a fresh Manila folder across the table to Cameron, “is your new assignment.”
Inside the folder: a contract. A handwritten memo. A Post-it that says Good luck. And a note from the CEO:
Cameron — You’re the best we’ve got. Fix him.
Or at least, keep him out of jail.
P.S. Wear gloves.
Cameron leaves the meeting with the folder in hand and a migraine blooming behind his eyes, his jaw set like reinforced concrete.
He reads all of Charlie Dalton’s published works that night. Annotates every line. Circles every semicolon like it personally insulted him.
He builds a spreadsheet for edits. A colour-coded one. He even creates a timeline. A red, yellow, and blue-coded editing battle plan.
He is Richard Cameron, Senior Editor at Dead Poet Publishing.
He is ready.
Until, at 2:13 a.m., he stumbles upon the video.
Charlie. On a balcony. Shirtless.
Reading an excerpt of a sex scene from his own novel with the sincerity of a Shakespearean actor and the pout of a man who has absolutely no shame. While drinking rosé from a mason jar labelled “plot juice.”
There’s a moment—just one—where Charlie lifts his jar and winks at the camera.
Cameron closes his laptop.
He knows what he’s walking into.
And he still says yes.
Not because he wants to.
But because some disasters deserve to be edited .