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Chapter Text

Damian Desmond woke up to a buzzing fluorescent light, the scent of carpet glue, and the distinct sensation his brain tried to exit his skull sometime between tequila shot five and when-the-fuck-ever. More accurately, he woke up to a migraine sponsored by godly vengeance, earned after doing something unholy to a bottle of absinthe and/or cabinet minister’s daughter. The walls were covered in fake wood panelling that was once beige, but since lost the will to be anything. They hummed the song of electricity on life support. 

He was in an elevator.

“Shit,” Damian muttered, sitting up slowly and pressing his palm to his temple. “Fuck. Okay. Okay. What the hell did I drink?” His brain hit the front of his skull with the elegance of a train crash. The last thing he remembered was… nothing. Not a damn thing. Not a bender, not a fight, not a train station or a bar or his apartment or even his father’s office, where scotch was supplied in decanters and the judgement in triplicate. His first conclusion was that he passed out in the office again. He reached for his blazer. It wasn’t there. No blazer meant no phone, no ID, and no memory of how he got there. “Okay. Okay. I’m going to vomit, then I’m going to sue someone.”

With bleary eyes, he studied the button panel, which contained Reception, Accounts Payable, Customer Service, ???, Stairs (But Worse), Management, Emotional Baggage Claim, Quiet Room and Gift Shop. He pressed Reception, but it didn’t light up. The speaker next to it crackled to life.

“Helloooooo, guest!”

Damian yelped like his brainstem was yanked from his spine and smacked his head on the handrail. “Jesus Christ!”

“Nope, just your friendly onboarding assistant!” the speaker vibrated with perky corporate tone, like someone hired a Disney cruise director to narrate the apocalypse. “Welcome to The Elevator! You’re probably confused, and we here at corporate want to assure that’s totally normal. Now, first thing’s first. Don’t panic, but you’re dead!” He froze. “We know, we know, it’s a lot. But trust us, you’re very, very dead.”

There was a very long pause. He straightened slowly, like the air would bite him.

“I’m what?”

“Dead! Super dead! But that’s okay. You’re here now, and that’s what counts!”

“No,” Damian said, too loudly, “no, no, no, I was at- at work. I was working last night. Or maybe at a bar. There was a bar. I was probably very drunk. That’s what this is. This is a hangover elevator.”

“Oh, you sweet, sweet corporate burnout,” the voice chimed fondly. “That’s a classic denial response! Sadly, no, this isn’t a HR-mandated stress dream. You’ve passed away. Please remain seated, or standing – really, we’re not picky. We understand this can be a little jarring. Dying isn’t usually on anyone’s to-do list, especially not before brunch, but don’t worry. You’ve made it to the next step!”

“Say that again,” he hissed with venom so visceral it could have melted the screw out the light fixture.

“You’re dead! Congratulations!”

“Is this your idea of a joke? I swear to God, if this is a twisted VR empathy exercise bullshit for the Board’s next mental health quarter-”

“We get this a lot!” the speaker chirped. “It’s totally valid to feel this way. Denial is step one. But no, you’re very, very dead.”

“No,” he growled, “I am hungover, I am involuntarily detained and I am three seconds from tearing out that fucking speaker and shoving it somewhere anatomically enlightening.”

“Oh dear. Somebody’s cranky!”

“Somebody has rights.”

“Not anymore!”

“You don’t know who I am!”

“Damian Desmond. Born June 21. Legacy alum at Eden College. Head of Strategy at Desmond Global. Frequent bar patron, one-time podcast guest, and three-time finalist for Least Emotionally Available Bachelor in Berlint.”

His stomach turned. Desperately, he tried the elevator buttons, which refused to light. “Where the hell did you get that information?!”

“It’s in your file!”

“I didn’t consent to this!” He jabbed at the intercom. “I want my phone. I want my keys. I want my fucking lawyer-”

“Your lawyer’s not dead.”

“I’ll kill him if he doesn’t get me out of here.”

“We here at corporate don’t recommend that.”

“I’m filing a class-action lawsuit with every other poor bastard you’ve trapped in this budget crematorium!”

“Ooh, fun! We love ambition in the afterlife.”

“I have things to do!” Damian spat. “People to meet at corporate… meetings! A- fuck, a call with the Seoul office!”

“There’s no Seoul office anymore!”

“What?”

“Oh, sorry, you died… yesterday. Seoul’s fine. Just messing with you!” He kicked the panel full-force; the elevator jolted as if wincing. “Sir, please don’t damage the elevator. It’s mostly duct tape.”

“You can’t just- you can’t just say you’re dead like you’re announcing a fucking train delay!”

“Oh, but I can,” the voice veered on perkiness. “We workshop our delivery every fiscal quarter. I’ve been informed that I rank charming but deeply unsettling, which is ideal for my position.”

“What the hell kind of sick- no, you know what? Shut up. You’re a prank. This is some viral ad campaign. Great. Where’s the camera?”

“There’s no camera, but there is a next step! You’re heading to the bar.”

“I’m not going to a bar. I’ve been to enough bars. I’m done with bars. This is not happening,” he pointed accusingly at the ceiling. “I had whiskey, then, what, maybe something… laced? Was I drugged? Was this Emile? This strikes me as a very Emile thing to do.”

“We’re here to help you transition peacefully. All we need to do is go over a few things-”

“No,” Damian shook his head. “Absolutely not. I’m not doing anything until you explain how the fuck I got here.”

“That’s part of the journey!” the voice said brightly. “Memory recovery takes time. You’ll remember how you died eventually-”

“Except for the part where I didn’t die.”

“Sure you did!”

“I’m twenty-five, peak health, no criminal record and- fuck you, I did not die!” Damian snapped, stomping three angry steps. “I’m the head of corporate strategy. I have seven unpaid parking tickets and a date I never called back. Dead people don’t have Google Calendars.”

“Actually,” the voice mused seriously, “a shocking number do. You wouldn’t believe how many souls try to keep up with their inboxes.”

“If this is some PR stunt-”

“This isn’t a stunt! You’re being… processed!” The voice paused like it beamed a reassuring smile directly into his cerebral cortex. “Good news – your questions will be answered, and your next life choices will be made!”

“I didn’t make any life choices,” Damian muttered darkly. “My father did. Badly.”

“How relatable!” the speaker was obscenely cheerful. Damian paced grooves in the carpet in an attempt to tunnel out with nothing but stubbornness and upper-class entitlement. The elevator was still moving, or perhaps it wasn’t. “Let’s try a little exercise. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“To help you feel comfortable! Grounded! Safe!”

“I woke up in a carpeted coffin with ambient jazz and brain damage. Safe is off the table.”

“Great! Let’s move on. What about your job?”

“What, do you need my CV now?”

“We here at corporate just want to understand you better!”

“I work for Desmond Global Holdings,” he snapped. “My father’s multinational parasite factory. I develop business strategies for people who buy countries to ruin them. Are you happy now?”

“Thank you! Do you like your job?”

“No.”

“Okay. Do you like your father?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Great! How long have you had a drinking problem?”

“Excuse me?!” he choked.

“Most guests do. It’s part of why you’re here.”

“I don’t have a drinking problem,” he said through clenched teeth. “I drink with intent.”

“And how often do you drink with intent?”

“I don’t know! Daily? Like any functioning adult with trauma and a corner office.”

“Why do you think you drink that much?”

“Because I had nothing else to hold on to, and she-” He stopped; the intercom waited. Damian swallowed hard. “Fuck you. This is manipulation.”

“I’m just trying to help.”

“You’re trying to break me so I go limp into whatever door you want. Is that it? Get me to cry about some dead girl so I shuffle off to Reincarnation Bingo and forget that none of this is okay!”

“…Would you like a mint?” the voice offered.

“I would like to punch you in the throat.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t have a throat!” The speaker cleared its non-existent throat. “Let’s get to the juicy stuff. Any unresolved business?”

“Go fuck yourself. No unresolved business. Now, send me to hell or wherever you dump obnoxious rich kids with trust funds and rage disorders.” Damian sweated in a carpeted elevator with no exit, no phone, and a migraine he suspected was spiritual. The walls felt closer than before. He was not dead. He was not having another mental breakdown. He was just-

“How old were you when you realised your father didn’t love you?”

“Is that seriously your question?!”

“We here at corporate like to ask the heavy-hitters! So, was it early childhood neglect or garden-variety disapproval?”

“Shut. Up.”

“Okay, moving on! On a scale of 1 to 10, how often do you feel fundamentally unlovable?”

“I will dismantle you.”

“We hear that a lot. Now. How long have you been confusing guilt with purpose?” In response, Damian punched the wall. “Ooh, physical violence! Let’s talk relationships. Ever been in love?”

“No.”

“Liar! Try again!” He growled like a caged animal, which he supposed he was. “Was it a classmate? Coworker? Girl who smiled at you and it rerouted your entire emotional architecture for the next decade?”

Damian glared at the speaker holes like he could snipe the interlocutor with rage. “Do you enjoy this?”

“Immensely! Humans are fascinating under pressure. Speaking of, let’s pivot to your habit of mistaking cruelty for self-protection. Tell me, when you bullied that girl at school, was it a) repression, b) projection, or c) the emotional equivalent of throwing sand at somebody you liked on the playground?” He didn’t answer, as he was too occupied trying to dissolve through the floor. “We’ll mark that down as all of the above! Follow-up, totally unrelated, how long have you been obsessed with her death?”

“I’m not obsessed.”

“You built a colour-coded file system with timestamps and cross-referenced GPS logs.”

“It’s called being thorough.”

“You stalked a coroner.”

“Asking questions.”

“You’ve been drunk for six years and it hasn’t helped, has it?”

Damian’s hands curled into fists. “No,” he said through his teeth. “No, it hasn’t.”

“You feel guilty because you never said sorry. You treated her like shit and you liked her anyway and now she’s dead and that is the sentence you choke on every time you sleep.” The overhead light stopped flickering and just buzzed judgementally. He sat again, one leg stretched out and the other bent, temple resting on his knee, eyes closed, breath shallow. “Would you like something for the hangover? We offer a wide selection of afterlife-approved remedies!”

“I’d like a bullet in my head.”

“Okay, well, we don’t offer that, but we do have ginger water, rehydration salts, herbal tea, and a single, unwrapped mint I found in the console. Your pick!”

“Morphine,” he grunted.

“Not allowed. You made too many smug jokes about painkillers in your twenties.”

He rubbed his face with both hands. “Are we done psychoanalysing me yet, or is there a second round where you inquire after my bedwetting years?”

“Not unless they were formative!”

He groaned and tipped his head back. “You’re worse than every therapist my mother ever paid to fix me.”

“Thanks! Did you stop attending therapy?”

“I stopped answering my therapist’s emails. He said the words inner child with a straight face and expected me to engage.”

“That’s fair. Did you eat regularly?”

“Vodka comes from potatoes.”

“Did you sleep?”

“When unconscious.”

“Did you stop investigating the murder?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” he flexed his jaw, “I didn’t want to get it wrong.”

“Because if you chased the wrong person, it meant you wasted six years.” He didn’t answer. “You didn’t want that to be true. You wanted to be right. Being right meant you didn’t fail.”

“Don’t.”

“You think if you find the killer, she’ll forgive you. If you get justice, she won’t hate you.”

He buried his face in his knees like a sulking child. “You’re a glorified answering machine. You don’t get to talk about her.”

“She smiled at you, and you spent the rest of your life trying to deserve it.” The elevator creaked; he swallowed. Hard.

“…Are we done yet?” he croaked, exhausted.

“Almost! Final diagnosis time!” the voice practically sparkled.

“Oh, joy.”

“Damian Desmond, you are emotionally constipated, cripplingly self-loathing, terrified of being forgotten, addicted to control, affection-avoidant, penance-driven, and deeply in love with someone you were too afraid to be kind to.” He stared blankly ahead. “Also, prone to violence, surprisingly good at spreadsheets, and secretly wants a hug. Take your time, Mr. Desmond. This is where most people cry.”

“I’m not most people.”

“No. You’re worse.”

The elevator dinged again; the doors refused to open. Damian, aggressively not done yet, fiddled with his shirt, his last comfort being righteous indignation. “Okay,” he sighed. “I’m dead. Let’s work with that. Let’s assume I’m dead, hypothetically.”

“You’re not hypothetical! You’re a real dead boy!” chirped the intercom.

“Shut up,” he faced the panel of useless buttons. “There has to be a process, or a form, or an appeal. Don’t tell me there’s no return procedure.”

“There is! It’s deeply unpopular. You’ll need a three-part soul requisition review, plus proof of eligibility, spiritual motive, metaphysical clearance, and confirmation of moral net worth. Oh, and a drink.”

“I’m not drinking your cosmic bar piss to fill out a fucking ghost form.”

“Then it shall be a very long eternity!”

“Fine. What’s my moral net worth?”

“Low.”

“Define low.”

“You started the year by yelling at a barista, bribed a city official, and ghosted your latest therapist after sending an email at 4am titled the only reason I’m not a murderer is PR optics. You then emailed them again and said not really.”

In aggravation, Damian dragged both hands over his face. “You’re telling me I worked eighty-hour weeks, gave myself stress eczema, and skipped three birthdays for this?”

“Well, not just for this. There was the drinking, the repression, and that time you said I’m fine through tears at the company Christmas party.”

He smacked the handrail; the elevator creaked, but held. “Look. I didn’t do anything wrong. I worked. I paid taxes, mostly. I never ran over anybody important. You don’t just die at twenty-five with everything unfinished!”

“And yet,” the intercom simpered gently, “you did.”

“There must be someone I can talk to. A supervisor! A reaper! An angel! Satan! I don’t care!”

“Management doesn’t do direct calls anymore. Since the invention of podcasts, people won’t stop monologuing.”  

“I want a review! I want justice!”

“Do you?” The speaker’s voice turned deceptively sweet. “Or do you want to undo the worst day of your life because you’re not brave enough to face what it did to you?”

Damian stopped trying to punch the metal. “Let me go back.”

“We can’t.”

“I’ll fix it,” he spoke urgently. “I’ll change something. I’ll do it right this time. I’ll- fuck, I’ll talk to her properly! I won’t be a coward. I won’t waste it again. Let me-” his voice cracked. “Let me try.”

There was a pregnant pause. “You’re not ready.”

“I am!”

“No,” the intercom muttered gently, “you’re desperate. It’s not the same.”

Damian slammed his fist into the wall and felt no pain, not really, except the pressure and the empty echo of being too late. “You people are sadistic.”

“The corporate-approved term is emotionally comprehensive.”

“Open the fucking doors!”

“No. You just tried to negotiate out of death like a bad boardroom deal.”

He slumped down again, elbows on knees, heart in his throat. “Then what the fuck do I do now?”

The elevator only hummed in response. “We could go over a few of the rules?”

“Nope.”

“They’re required.”

“So was my NDA with Desmond Global, and I broke that with a martini and a conscience.”

“Rule One!” It chirped, like it hadn’t psychologically waterboarded him for the last… however long it had been. “No choices on an empty stomach! You need to have at least one drink before deciding anything!”

“Are you mandating alcoholism?!”

“No choices on an empty stomach,” the voice repeated patiently. “Souls are emotionally jetlagged.”

“I have a hangover and a grudge, not a fucking soul.”

“Rule Two – no choices on your first day! You’re emotionally compromised and prone to impulsivity!”

“I’m emotionally enraged and prone to kicking you.” He swore under his breath and tried all the buttons again; there was a new button titled Please End My Suffering.

“Rule Three, no cause of death, no clearance,” the voice read from an employee handbook supposedly written by Kafka on amphetamines. “You must remember how you died to move on.”

“I’m not dead. I’ve been kidnapped by an intercom having a manic episode.”

“Mr. Desmond, we both know if anybody kidnapped you, they’d return you in an hour with a refund request and a migraine.” He flipped off the speaker. “Now, Rule Four! Unresolved business tethers the soul here. You must either accept it will remain unresolved, or resolve it.”

“My unresolved business is with you.”

“We here at corporate are flattered. But Rule Five-”

Damian slammed his hand against the wall. “No more fucking rules! I didn’t sign up for this. I didn’t check I Agree. I didn’t get a terms and conditions pop-up before falling face-first into a corporeal purgatory elevator-”

“Any soul attempting to choose immediately is flagged for impulsivity and must cool down.”

“I’m not impulsive, I’m efficient.”

“You broke a chair once because somebody other than you got Employee of the Month.”

“She spilled coffee on the CFO!”

“She also implemented a compassionate restructuring plan. Rule Six! Entangled souls delay each other’s choice. You are not alone.”

“…The hell does that mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like.”

“I don’t love that answer.”

“You shouldn’t have spent six years emotionally fixating on someone you mistreated.”

Damian faced the speaker to try and burn it with his eyes. “Don’t. You. Fucking. Start.”

“You carried a photo of her in your wallet even though you never said more than three kind things to her.”

He dropped his head into his hands. “You’re the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“We’re not done. Rule Seven – time is non-linear, a lie, mostly irrelevant. However, last call is not.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” he lifted his head slowly.

“Nobody knows, but it’s poetic. HR loves it.”

“You have HR?”

“They’re worse than me.” Damian stared at the ceiling and willed it to fall and kill him a second time.

“Final rule. There are three options for you – final rest, restart your old life, or reincarnate somewhere new.”

Damian let the words sit. Restart. Reincarnate. Rest. He didn’t want any of them; he didn’t even want to be here. He wanted to go back to fix something, save someone or burn everything down if he couldn’t. “I want a fourth option,” he croaked hoarsely.

“Oh?” the voice perked up.

“I want to stay until I figure this out. Until I remember.”

The speaker hummed thoughtfully. “You may qualify for Limited Processing Delay, provided your file is approved under clause C-19.3(a): Prolonged Denial with Investigative Obsession.”

“Go shove clause C-19.3(a) up your fucking vents.”

“Processing request… Request approved!”

“Wait, wait – what did you just do?!”

The elevator ground to a halt with a mechanical wheeze not unlike a dying ventriloquist. For a moment, Damian believed it had stalled. The floor display blinked erratically and jittered through a series of glitched messages, Last Call, You Pressed This One Already, You Died Poorly and lit up in an old-fashioned script.

Midnight Minus One.

The doors opened with a faint pop, like a champagne bottle uncorking. Damian didn’t move. “This is your floor,” the intercom nudged him in that nauseatingly cheerful way. “Bar and transitional lounge. The first drink’s free, but your existential crisis isn’t included. Thank you for riding with us. Please exit before the elevator loses its will to maintain form.”

Damian looked at the button panel, then at the speaker holes. He flipped them off with both hands. “Rot in hell.”

“I work in corporate! I’m already doing that!” the speaker buzzed. “See you soon, Mr. Desmond!”

He stepped out nervously.

The scent hit him first. He sniffed appreciatively. It was burnt orange peel, crushed mint, aged wood with sweet floral notes, like nostalgia and gin made love and bottle the result. The lighting dimmed to a seductive low glow, bouncing amber off polished brass and dark green velvet. Soft jazz curled through the air, unbothered by the laws of time. The bar was a dream of a better afterlife. The floors were dark walnut, perfectly buffed, the bar counter an unbroken slab of jade marble with a gold filigree under the edge. Shelves climbed the back wall, holding liquor bottles arranged by emotional damage; heartbreak was on the left, grief in the middle, unspoken apologies. A grand chandelier loomed like a benevolent octopus, all glass tendrils and soft light. Armchairs curled around fireplace alcoves that flickered despite no visible firewood. A record spun in the corner, despite the lack of record player.

Damian forgot how to breathe, then remembered he didn’t have to, then remembered to be mad about it.

There was only one person behind the bar.

She stood with the effortless poise that suggested she hadn’t been surprised by anything in years. Her skin was porcelain in the dim glow, framed by impossibly pink hair that fell long, inward curls down her back. A fringe skimmed above those unmistakable emerald eyes. Her uniform was a well-fitted black vest over a pale blouse, bowtie crooked, sleeves rolled like she was actually working, which she was. She flicked a bottle in the air with one hand, caught it with the other, and neatly poured bright liquid into a copper shaker whilst singing tunelessly to herself.

She looked… older? Twenty-three? Twenty-five? Not a teenager anymore, but not quite polished by time either. Just… real. Lived-in. Grown-up in ways she never had the chance to be.

Damian’s stomach dropped through the floor. He opened his mouth, but no sound came. He stared at her like she would disappear, but she didn’t. She glanced up.

“Oh, hey!” she waved with a cocktail stirrer. “You must be new! I’m the bartender!” Her smile could have melted diamonds.

He blinked twice as the entire spectrum of human emotion collapsed like a house of cards behind his eyes. Confusion. Fury. Denial. Grief. Awe. Nausea. Heartbreak. Joy. Nausea again. His voice cracked.

“Anya?” 

Chapter Text

Anya Forger stood behind the counter polishing a coupe like it was the most normal thing in the world. Her hair was a touch longer than it had any right to be, posture loose with easy competence, eyes bright as if the whole room was a party thrown on a whim. She beamed so directly it felt like a physical object. "Are you allergic to anything?” she asked, practically bouncing. “We have nuts, time, gluten and consequences.”

The word Anya rose in his throat like a flare and he forgot how to breathe around it. “Evening.” The word emerged funnily, like it was ironed.

“Sit, sit!” she waved him toward a stool as if shooing away a pesky cat. “You look intense. Like a thunderstorm with cufflinks.”

He sat because his knees betrayed him. “Anya…?” he ventured.

Friendly confusion arrived on her face. “A new nickname! I love it. I’ve been called angel, hey you, and one time, ma’am, please stop juggling ice, which is rude. And mother, but we don’t do that anymore. What can I get you?”

“You’re Anya Forger.” The name felt like a door slamming and opening at once. “You-”

“Barkeep,” she corrected, flicking a bar towel over her shoulder with a flourish she was extremely proud of. “I’ve worked here as long as I can remember,” she leaned in, conspiratorially, “which, if you ask the clock, is a lie. Time’s a big liar. Anyway, drink?”

He stared at her stupidly. “Um. Whiskey. Neat. No. On the rocks.”

“Classic,” she grabbed a bottle enthusiastically, then hesitated. “Unless you’re secretly a tiny umbrella person? You have tiny umbrella energy.”

“Whiskey,” he repeated, because all other words were bunged up in his brain.

She nodded, poured and slid the glass across like she delivered a small trophy. “There, one reward for surviving whatever that was.” Anya wiggled her fingers toward the closed elevator. “It’s a very prestigious award.”

He didn’t touch it. “You don’t remember me.”

“Should I…?” Her tone was curious, not apologetic, like she discovered a new button on the coffee machine.

“We were at school together,” he managed. “You were impossible. You laughed at me. You…” his mouth tightened. “You died. Six years ago.”

Her sympathetic face was ninety-percent eyes. “That’s rough. For her. I’m just me. I mix drinks. I fish people from their doom spirals. I can do this thing – watch!” She scooped a handful of ice, tossed three cubes in the air, and caught them in a shaker she spun once, purely for drama. When the cubes clacked in, she positively glowed. “Did you see that? That was so cool!”

“You juggled ice.” He blinked.

“Flawlessly,” she preened for two seconds before catching herself. “Sorry. You were saying. Death. Very sad. Drink your drink.”

He lifted the glass because her order had the impact of gravity. The whiskey burned correctly, and he desperately wanted to hate it, but couldn’t. He set it back down carefully. “It’s you.”

“It could be your mind having a snack,” she shrugged cheerfully. “It happens a lot. People show up and the first face they see is someone they miss. The brain is like free trial!” She tapped the bar with a knuckle. “This is a safe place to try.”

“This is insane.”

“You’re sitting in a cocktail lounge at the end of linear time,” she replied brightly. “Insane is our house style.”

He exhaled through his nose, because yelling at her seemed undignified in a bar this luxurious. “You’re infuriating.”

“Ordinarily yes,” she nodded. “Right now, I’m also a hydration coach.” She plonked water down next to his whiskey; the lemon slice smiled up at him. “Sip, please. You're breathing like your chest thinks it’s a drum.”

“I don’t need-”

“Please,” she gently said, and he was suddenly tired of acting brash in front of her. “I’m excellent at noticing things and terrible at consequences. I’m noticing you’re about to fall off the stool.” The lemon looked like it wanted him to make good choices. He drank. “Better?”

“A fraction,” he said, which was true and insulting to fractions. “Anya-”

She snapped her fingers, distracted by his tie. “Nice knot!” Then, she snapped back on track. “Right! Name. I don’t have one of those, so if that helps you organise your feelings…”

“You’ve always had a name,” he pouted. “They took it from you with everything else.”

She tilted her head, processing in real time. “That’s upsetting. I don’t enjoy being upset at work.” She narrowed her eyes at him like he was a puzzle piece in the wrong box. “Oh, I don’t know what to call you. What’s your name?”

Every one of his muscles braced for dignity. “Damian. Damian Desmond.”

“Damian… Desmond,” she tasted it like wine. “It’s very double-barrel. It’s very I own too many waistcoats.”

“It’s a perfectly respectable name,” he said, clipped.

“It’s respectable, yeah,” she nodded too fast, “but also, it sounds like shoe polish.” She mimed buffing with the bar towel and looked very pleased with herself.

“I’m not shoe polish.”

“You’d be a luxury one,” she grinned reassuringly, “that comes in a little velvet box.”

“I was really important in the business world.”

She popped a peanut into her mouth; that hurt. “So was Caesar, and they made him into a salad with croutons.”

“What?”

“Ooh, or maybe a cologne,” she steamrolled on. “Yeah, definitely! Damian Desmond – For Men Who Yell At Lamps.” She smouldered in the mirror behind the bar, and almost tripped in the process.

“I do not yell at lamps.”

“You totally yell at lamps,” she clapped her hands with delight, “or curtains. You look like you go how dare you be drafty, then sue the window.” His jaw worked silently as inspiration tackled her. “Ooh, or a cheese! Damian Desmond – Aged Six Years, Pairs Well With Brooding.”

“It’s my name!” he slammed a palm on the bartop.

“It’s very fancy. It rolls off the tongue, but it’s a bit dramatic,” she mused, “like a horse.” She slapped the counter next to him. “That’s it! You sound like a racehorse. And coming in third is Damian Desmond, foaled in the spring, terrible temperament but excellent mane.”

“I’m not-”

“Neigh,” she interrupted, grinning like she cracked the case.

“It’s a name with history,” he groaned, then tried to reroute to dignity. “Power. Legacy.”

“Or like a brand of fancy wallpaper. Try our new line from Damian Desmond Interiors: patterns for when you hate plain walls but love repression.”

“You’re enjoying this,” he glowered over his whiskey.

“A little. You’re very grumpy. It’s like poking a lion with a breadstick. Very safe, very funny.” He muttered curses into his booze, but she snapped her fingers again. “Oh, wait! A musical! Damian Desmond, The Untold Story. Critics call it angry.”

“That’s enough!” he barked. He sunk his head in his hands. “I hate this place.”

“You don’t,” she patted his head over the bar like soothing a cat. “You like someone’s paying attention. Admit it.” The responding noise was between a sigh and a laugh as he slumped. She brightened instantly, as if she’d won something. “See? That’s better. Now, Mr. Shoe-Polish-Curtain-Cheese-Cologne-Horse-Musical, would you like another drink?” She poured something fizzy into a stemmed glass and slid it on the counter. “This is called a Dead Ringer. Ha. Get it?”

She gave him a minute. Maybe two.

“You’re not real,” Damian said finally.

“Weird,” she looked at her hands, “I feel real. Hang on.” She pinched her arm. “Yep, still real! Or close enough for this plane of existence.” His eyes locked on her; the resemblance was perfect. She had the same voice, the same face, the same stupid nose-scrunch when she concentrated. Even the handwriting on the drinks menu looked like hers.

He hated her. He hated that he didn’t. “Do you really not remember your name?”

“Really,” she shrugged. “You can call me whatever you want.”

“Anya?”

“Sure.”

“Forger?”

“Sounds cool.”

“You really don’t recall either of those names?”

“Nope! But if it helps you feel less like the walls are closing in, go for it.” He stared at her when she smiled; it was unbearable. “For convenience, you can call me Anya, or Forger, whichever is less likely to make your insides do the thing.” She wriggled her fingers around her stomach to demonstrate the thing. “I don’t mind.”

He turned away to stop his face from betraying an internal war and chose the blunter knife. “Forger.”

“Forger it is,” her tone was the same as agreeing to a table near a window. “Drink your water, O Patron of Forger. We can be people with names and beverages.” He obeyed. It didn’t fix anything, but it filed the edges.

“So, what do you do here,” he asked dryly, “other than mess with people?”

“I make cocktails, offer stickers, and gently guide lost souls into accepting their own mortality.” She reached under the bar, pulled out a sheet of glittery stickers, and held them up like a child at show-and-tell. “Positive reinforcement. The trauma crowd hates it, but you look like you need at least… two.” He stared at the sheet like it personally insulted his bloodline as she peeled one off and stuck it on his glass. “There, for surviving the elevator without punching the speaker. Most people fail that part.” He pushed the drink away, but she slid it back. He narrowed his eyes; she raised her eyebrows. It was a stalemate. Eventually, she picked up a shaker, poured something over ice, and said, “Wanna tell me how you died?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Okay. Wanna guess?”

“No.”

“Wanna lie creatively and impress me with your tragic backstory?”

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Too late!” she strained the drink into a glass and flicked a basil leaf on top. “We’re best friends now. That’s how bars work.”

“I’ve never been to a bar where the bartender gave stickers and told me I was projecting.”

“You’ve been going to the wrong bars.” He stared at the green, faintly shimmering drink. “Don’t worry. It won’t kill you. Again.”

“That’s very comforting.” She offered another sticker, which read Emotionally Unstable But Trying. “I’m not taking that.”

“Suit yourself!” She stuck it to the rim of his glass anyway. He hated how normal she made it all feel. It wasn’t normal. She died. He mourned her, quietly, bitterly, without ever saying anything. He investigated her death, printed reports, saved photos, zoomed in on surveillance footage until his eyes burned, and there she was, smiling, and offering citrus-forward drinks and existential cheer like the last six years of his life wasn’t a slowly collapsing shrine to her memory. “Okay!” Her fingers tapped a rhythm on the bar because her body couldn’t be still here, probably overcompensating. “Tell me about her. The girl with my name?”

Damian shut his eyes for a heartbeat. “Execution. Close. Powder burns.” She listened with a concentration that made the noise in his brain quiet.

She scrunched her nose. “Ouch.”

“The police report called it everything else. Accident. Burglary. Passion. Fireworks. The city shrugged. Her family were gone like paper on a campfire. No trace of them anywhere. I spent six years pulling threads that snapped.”

Her mouth twisted in horrified empathy, before her attention snagged on a glass out of alignment on the back bar, so she slid it into place, visibly chuffed with herself. “Sorry,” she caught his expression, “symmetry emergency. Carry on.”

He categorically should not have been charmed, but he was.

“I bribed clerks who forgot being bribed. I read reports that contradicted themselves while I still read them.” He rubbed his thumb along the rim, grounding himself on friction. “Witnesses took new names and new teeth. Every trail cut clean an inch from useful, like somebody measured.”

“Definitely someone mean,” she supplied helpfully. “Someone with a list. Do you have a list? I love lists. They make me feel like I’m winning.”

“I had a… board,” he admitted, cringing slightly. “With string.”

“A murder board?!” her eyes lit up, the same way they did when she was very, very young. “With string? I’ve always wanted a wall like that. I would put sparkly stickers on important suspects. Wait! New sticker system! They’re stars! Wait, do I have time? I have time.” She looked at the clock, realised it was decorative, beamed, and ducked under the counter. There were rustling noises, a small clatter, and she popped up triumphantly, holding a sheet of foil stars. “For progress.”

Refusing would be weirder than accepting at this point. “I don’t need… stars.”

“You don’t need them,” she agreed, “but they help your brain say hooray, and then your brain gives you a clue. Brains are very bribe-able.” She slapped a gold star on the napkin in front of him. “Hooray! You drank water.”

He stared at the star; his heart juddered in a very undignified way. “You’re making fun of me.”

“I’m making fun of the situation,” she shrugged. “You, however, I am helping. It’s like… ninety percent my whole thing.”

“I saw your name in an autopsy report.”

“Neat! I once saw my reflection in a shaker tin. It’s not the same thing, but I also didn’t find it helpful.”

“You were murdered.”

“As I said before, you might just be projecting a traumatised, idealised version of a girl you knew onto the first vaguely familiar face you saw-”

He slammed his fist down; she paused. “Do not psychobabble me. You are Anya Forger.”

“Sounds like projection to me.”

“You ate peanuts and told people they were brain food for your brain specifically.”

“That still sounds like projection.”

“You carried four pens and none of them worked.”

“Okay, that does sound like me.” She poured herself a water, sipped it, and refilled his glass like she didn’t catch him breaking internally. He batted it away, but she put a star sticker on the napkin in front of him instead.

“You can’t sticker your way out of death.”

“I’ve stickered my way out of plenty,” she snickered. “One time, some guy staged a philosophical intervention about the nature of truth and I made him a daiquiri and gave him a sticker that said You Tried.”

A chime sounded near the grand piano. The lounge intercom, in its pleasant voice, announced, “Gentle reminder to all clients. Philosophers drink free; jerks pay double; unauthorised exits lead into the void. The void has no snacks.”

A man in a turtleneck raised his glass. “Free!”

“Sorry,” a woman at the service door tried the handle and reappeared in her seat looking singed and sheepish, “I thought maybe today.”

Anya waved. “It happens! You’re doing great!”

Damian massaged his temple. “How are you this cheerful?”

She was delighted by the question. “I like my job. I like people. I like shiny things. I’m good at the part where you feel bad, and I do something small that helps, then I feel good. Also, I get to invent drinks,” she twirled a bar spoon. “Wanna see?”

“No,” he replied automatically.

“I call this one the Half-Measure,” she reached for the bottles. “It’s two different cocktails that hate each other but have to share a glass.” She splashed, shook with unnecessary flair, and paused, distracted by the pianist’s new piece. “Oh, wow, that’s nice. Okay! Focus!” She strained the drink into a glass, tasted a drop and smiled. “Nailed it.” She pushed it towards him. “Try.”

He eyed it suspiciously, before he sipped, prepared to loathe it. It tasted like a compromise that hadn’t learned self-criticism yet. He set it down very carefully. “It’s fine.”

“It’s great,” she corrected cockily. “Say it.”

“It’s acceptable,” Damian decided that spite added flavour.

She pretended to write something in the air. “Customer is petty. Noted.” Damian lived through hostile takeovers, corporate meddling, and once, God help him, an entire networking dinner for sons of executives, and none prepared him for this. Anya Forger was still in front of him, humming, like it wasn’t a cosmic prank wrapped up in a bar rag and served with artisanal ice. She reached up to grab a martini glass, spun it once in her fingers, and caught it behind her back. “Did you see that?”

“Show-off.”

“I’m Mixologist of the Month, I’ll have you know.”

“There are no other bartenders.”

“Exactly!” she grinned smugly as she torched a lemon twist. She flicked it into the glass and gave a tiny bow. “Try this. A lavender gin fizz, because you look like you’re on the verge of tears, but you’d rather die than admit it out loud.” He didn’t touch it, because he was too busy alternating between grief, confusion, longing and fury like coat options in a psychological wardrobe. He released a noise that was either a laugh or a sob, but was definitely unhelpful. “You okay?”

“You don’t know me.”

“Nope! But you seem very intense and emotionally backed up, and I like helping. It’s my whole job. I can make fire appear in my hand. Wanna see?”

“No!”

She did it regardless with a flick of a lighter and a sprig of thyme. He flinched, but she just grinned smugly again. “You’re jumpy. I thought finance guys loved flair.”

“I’m not in finance.”

“You dress like you are.” She refilled his water patiently, but he didn’t drink it.

“I remember everything about you,” he muttered suddenly. She froze, but Damian kept going, simply because he couldn’t stop. “You sat two seats in front of me in Chemistry. You made friends with the vending machine repair guy. You wore mismatched socks and talked like you were being timed. You once told me that dreams were like frogs.”

“That does sound like something I’d say.”

“You were kind.”

“Oh,” Anya said softly.

“And I was awful to you.”

“Were you?”

“Yes,” he snapped. “I was a little shit.”

“Well, I forgive you.”

“You don’t remember me.”

“I forgive you anyway.”

He nearly choked on the rising venom. “You think I’m joking, but I’ve been chasing your name and face through witness reports and footage loops and files, Forger. You died, and I didn’t let go, because I didn’t want to, because if I did, then it was like you never mattered. And you did. Do.”

Anya put down her rag, walked to the other end of the bar, and returned with a dish of chocolate peanuts and placed it in front of him delicately. “Okay. Have a snack.” He stared at it; she smiled, unbothered. “You look like your blood sugar’s low. Grief metabolises faster when it’s fed.”

“You died.”

“We all do.”

“You were nineteen.”

“Oof,” she winced. “Yeah, that’s kinda early, huh?”

“You still think this is a joke.”

“I think you’re sad,” she folded her arms, “and scared, and looking for the impossible.” She softened slightly. “You want me to be her. I get that.”

“I don’t want you to be her,” Damian said quietly. “I want you to know that you mattered.”

Finally, Anya was silent, before she held out another sticker, which said I’m Trying My Best. He took it and put it in his pocket. “You’re weird,” she said, fondly.

“You’re worse.”

“Thanks!”

He really looked at her, and wondered if grief made people invent hope out of bone and teeth. “Can I get a stronger drink?”

She smiled, like she always did. “Now you’re talking!”

He felt his mouth do something indecently close to joy, an emotion he hadn’t experienced in quite a while. “By the way,” he wiped it away with a hand, “I… yelled at your… elevator.”

“Oh, I hear about the elevator,” she waved it off with a generous forgiveness that made him want to be good. “It gets yelled at a lot. It loves it. It’s a drama queen.”

“I’m good at yelling at furniture,” he nodded dryly. “It runs in my family.”

Her face twisted sympathetically, then smoothed; she didn’t push it. “Okie-dokie. New rule. For the next hour, you don’t need to be brave or smart. You can be weird and sad, and I’ll make drinks and distract you with tricks and not say any wise things unless it’s an accident. Deal?”

It was such a ridiculous offer, and it was exactly the right one. “Deal,” he said softly.

“Great!” She popped another star on his napkin. “Look at you, doing deals! Are you hungry?”

“What is…” he studied the menu, “Bread of Life (It’s Bread)?”

“It’s bread,” she said gravely, “but really good bread.”

“Fine.” It appeared in front of him with a dish of fancy butter; he tore off a piece and tasted it, before fizzing with quiet resentment at how comforting it was. He didn’t remove any of the stickers.

Anya, or the bartender who looked exactly like her and may or may not have crawled out of his unresolved guilt like a cheerful memory golem, wiped down the counter with unnecessary flair. “You know what comes next?” she chirped, fishing beneath the bar.

“Judgement? Hallucination? A therapist who bills in minutes instead of hours?”

“Worse, paperwork!” She popped back up with a large, laminated trifold pamphlet. He flinched like she pulled a gun.

“What is that?”

“This,” she unfolded it for him, “is your Choice Packet.”

“You… laminated it.”

“Yup!”

“Why would a metaphysical document be laminated?”

“Spilled drinks,” she said distastefully. “You wouldn’t believe how many people cry directly into their afterlife documents.”

She slapped it down in front of him pridefully. The font was too large; the layout was too colourful. Each bullet point was reinforced by glittery sticker, one of which said YAY! Damian stared blanky at the first page, then looked back up, and blinked slowly. “What the hell?”

“Your options! This bar exists between lives, and you’re here to make a decision. You’ve got three choices, and one drink minimum before discussion. You’ve had… a fair few. Sorry! Anyway, I like rules.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I like these ones!”

She pointed to the header in Comic Sans. Your Next Big Adventure! He curled his lip. “You designed purgatory like a children’s activity folder.”

“We trialled a PowerPoint once,” she flicked a sticker onto the back of his hand, “everyone hated it!”

Choice One – Final Rest. A peaceful exit from all states of being. Includes: full metaphysical deconstruction, optional cosmic floatiness and, supposedly, really good naps. “So…” Damian sighed, “what, I just evaporate?”

“Poof,” Anya mimed. “Very clean. Very sparkly.”

“I don’t want sparkly.”

“Most people don’t,” she nodded. “It’s for the burnt-out types. Yoga people. Anybody who died at a spa.”

He moved on. Choice Two – Return To Your Old Life. Re-enter your previous incarnation at a moment of the universe’s choosing. Memory of this bar may or may not remain. Risks include déjà vu, inconvenient spiritual awakenings, and disappointing the same people all over again. “Can I request not to return to Monday?”

“Nope! Time’s non-linear and mostly vibes.”

“Vibes.” He turned to the final option. Choice Three – Reincarnate. Spin the cosmic wheel and try again! Options may include other species, other planets, or alternate timelines. No refunds. No warranties. No clue where your nose will end up. “I’m not spinning a wheel.”

“You could be a sexy falcon,” she offered.

“I don’t want to be a sexy falcon.”

“Not with that attitude!”

He distastefully shoved the pamphlet away; Anya forcefully shoved it back. “You really don’t seem to understand,” Damian said slowly. “I’m not some headcase looking for a reset. I had a life. I had unfinished business.”

“I know.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I know you need another drink.”

He stood, anger boiling over. “Stop pretending this is normal! You laminated the phrase cosmic floatiness!”

“That was an intern… probably.”

“You have interns?!”

She poured him another drink. “Well, we had interns. One tried to reincarnate as a presidential candidate. We had to revoke his sticker privileges.” He picked up the drink, set it down, and picked it up again. “You’re taking this very personally.”

“You look like someone I knew.” She didn’t respond. “I don’t know if that’s a punishment or some twisted… death bait. You smile the same way. You wrinkle your nose the same way. You even write the same.”

She simply tapped the sticker sheet gently. “It’s okay.”

He faced the mirrored shelf; his own pale, confused, ruined face stared back. “I didn’t come here to let go,” he muttered.

She refilled his water. “You don’t have to choose today.”

“Don’t patronise me.”

“I’m not. We’re very serious about emotional jetlag.”

“I don’t feel anything.”

She offered another sticker, which read Denial is Step One! When he didn’t take it, she stuck it on the counter near his hand. “I know this is hard. Everyone walks in thinking they’ll be the exception, or they’re here by mistake, or they don’t belong, but you do.”

“I don’t want to choose. I want to go back.”  

“Then you’ll need to remember what you’re leaving behind.” He looked at her, really, sincerely, looked at her. For a second, he swore she knew as something flickered behind her smile. Maybe it was softness, or recognition, but it was gone as soon as it arrived. “Olives?” He didn’t respond, but olives materialised anyway, because of course they did. “Read the pamphlet, or don’t. Sit here as long as you like. Eternity’s pretty flexible.”

Damian stared at the offending pages, the glitter, at the option that said Spin the Cosmic Wheel in a font that had stars inside the O’s. Folding the packet closed, he looked at her again. “Fine. I’ll take your stupid drinks. I’ll read your stupid documents. I’ll… play along.”

“Yay!”

“Please don’t yay me.”

She handed him another sticker. This one read You’re Doing Great, Probably! He put it in his breast pocket. 

Chapter Text

It was third period Literature, and somebody just compared Lord Byron to a trust fund baby, which meant the class officially was off the rails. The teacher paused with her hands mid-flutter and squinted at the pupil in question as if deciding whether or not to end his bloodline. “Byron,” she lectured with weaponised disappointment, “was not a vapid aristocrat with delusions of grandeur. He was an emotionally complex figure whose romantic excess was a byproduct of-”

The assembly bell rang. Everyone froze; regular bells meant you were free. This one meant you were summoned. The teacher sighed with long-suffering dread, stemming from reading the staff memo that morning. “Right,” she said, “leave your books. Assembly in the main hall. Now.” There was no whispering or laughter. There was the low scrape of chairs and the collective dread of teenagers who didn’t study for the pop quiz on mortality.

Eden Academy’s great hall was a study in bad taste with polished floors, columns that served little structural purpose, and a stage too big for its podium. It was acoustically perfect for announcements and emotionally useless for sincerity. Students filed in with the elite’s stereotypical subdued rebellion of pressed uniforms, whispered gossip, the occasional eyeroll that qualified as battery. Damian walked as he always did, hands in pockets, posture enough like his father’s to irritate even himself. Emile and Ewen trailed behind him.

“You think this is about scholarships?” Emile asked, digging for a snack in his blazer.

“Maybe someone plagiarised the debates,” Ewen offered, “or pushed the librarian down the stairs again.”

“No,” Emile mused solemnly, “this feels like… dead parent energy.”

Damian ignored them both as he sat stiffly in a centre-row, fourth seat in and crossed one leg over the other like control was an option. Ewen and Emile occupied themselves by drawing a constellation out of the moles on the back of someone’s neck. Becky sat two rows ahead, hair immaculate and arms folded; her gaze fixed dead-centre on the stage. She braced for impact and refused to look at anybody. The room filled painfully slowly.

“What if it’s a lockdown?” one girl near the back whispered.

“Then they wouldn’t call an assembly, dumbass,” her friend shot back.

Damian stared levelly at the podium; he noticed the microphone was already on from its hum invading the air. The Headmaster stepped on stage, and everything inside him instinctively knew that someone died. It wasn’t in his face, which always looked the same – puffy, dignified, ashamed of its own existence. It was how he held the paper too tightly with two hands.

“I…” he faltered. “I regret to inform you of a tragic loss within our school community.” The sentence hung like mould in the air, quietly poisoning everything. Damian felt his stomach contract. His posture didn’t change, but he tightened imperceptibly like a screw driven one notch too deep. “This morning, we were informed of the death of one of our students.”

A soft, startled sound rippled; understanding didn’t arrive fast enough.

Emile shifted. “Wait, like… one of us?” he whispered. “Like… here?”

“Is this a prank?” Ewen’s hands twitched in his lap. “They’d never- like, they wouldn’t tell us like this.”

Damian said nothing and stared at the microphone. He’d attended this school since he was six years old. He knew every face by now, not fondly, but with machine precision. One of our students wasn’t a statistic. It was a seat, a class schedule, a person who shared the hallway with him on Monday. Now, they were spoken about in past tense. 

The headmaster cleared his throat again to stall for time. He stared hatefully at his paper. “The student in question is Anya Forger.”

The room inhaled and refused to exhale. Damian blinked. One. Two. He didn’t react. Or rather, his body didn’t. His hands were folded in his lap, one leg crossed neatly over the other, spine straight like he was graded on posture. His ears rang, a church bell of wrong tolling through his skull; the world whitened at the edges.

Emile made a strangled grunt, like he couldn’t form vowels correctly. Ewen grabbed Damian’s arm, not for comfort, but confirmation, like he needed to borrow somebody else’s reality for a second.

“She- what?” Emile asked aloud, dumbly.

“She was just-” Ewen’s sentence broke apart like a bridge halfway built.

Damian didn’t move, because moving made it real.  He heard other students now: somebody gasping, somebody stifling a sob, someone whispering holy shit like a prayer. Girls in the front row started crying. Boys shifted like they didn’t know what to do with their limbs. A few people turned to Becky Blackbell, who didn’t return the gazes, and physically held herself in.

The headmaster stared directly over their heads like aiming too low would curse him. “At this time, no further information has been released. There will be a memorial at the end of term. The family has not responded to school outreach. There will be support staff available. Grief counsellors have been scheduled.”

He stopped listening. It was just noise, that eulogy from somebody who had no idea who she was. Damian tried to breathe, but his chest didn’t respond. His fingers were cold. He stared at the wood grain of the chair in front of him.

Anya Forger was dead. The girl who once threw grapes at foreign ambassadors on a class tour. The girl who said Ewen’s space dream was cute and tried to build him a rocket out of thermos parts. The girl who called Emile a disaster in a trench-coat and wasn’t wrong. The girl who-

He stopped that thought there. He sat in the centre-row’s fourth chair, in the great hall of people pretending this wasn’t the worst announcement they’d ever heard. One girl who barely knew her like he did wailed, and a teacher rushed over. The microphone was switched off, and no dismissal bell rang. The assembly just… ended. Damian stood because the row in front of him stood first. He didn’t look at Becky. He didn’t speak to Ewen or Emile. His limbs moved on autopilot, perfectly trained by years of etiquette and shame. He walked into the corridor, past the hopeful frescoes and gold fixtures and the glass display of trophies. He turned a corner and kept walking until he found a vending machine.

He punched it, not for the sweets. He just wanted something real to hurt.

The support staff were unhelpful. The counsellor assigned to their group had soft hands and an overly moisturised voice, speaking of grief training in expensive workshops and not real-life exposure. He threw around terms like coping mechanisms and acknowledging our feelings. Emile asked if they could watch a movie instead. At lunch, Becky didn’t sit with them. She ate in the gardens alone, picking apart a croissant.

Walking into town was forbidden during school hours. Then again, so was dying, so…

His coat was already on by the time he passed the school gates. His shoes clicked with the intention of being somewhere, even if his brain was three feet behind his body and cowering under a desk. Emile shouted after him in the corridor; Ewen grabbed his sleeve, but he didn’t stop.

Damian walked down the hill, through the side streets, and took a left at the baker’s, where Anya once bartered for a cherry Danish using five buttons and a rock. He didn’t think about that. The newspaper stand wedged between a butcher and a hairdresser, manned by a scruffy man who was smoking idly. Damian didn’t say anything, but picked up the first copy of the Berlinter Tageszeitung, then a second, then a third. She wasn’t on the front page, which was occupied by a budget crisis. He flipped to the local section, and spotted her in the bottom-right corner.

YOUNG WOMAN FOUND DEAD IN INNER CITY ALLEYWAY.

The photograph was grainy and showed some police tape, a flash of brick, a chalk outline someone made in a hurry. There was no body or any identifiers. Just a name in the caption. Victim identified as Anya Forger, 19, Eden Academy student. That was it. That was all the world got. He paid in coins, one-by-one, to delay the moment. Damian tucked all three copies under one arm and left, scanning for literally anything else.

He pulled out a few unhelpful phrases. No known motive. No witnesses. No public statement from her parents, Loid and Yor Forger, whereabouts currently unknown. His heart clenched, because of course, he wasn’t around. Of course Loid fucking Forger vanished the second she turned up dead. Of course the newspapers made no mention of who she was, what she liked, what she did for the people around her. They didn’t say she was kind. They didn’t say she was annoying. They didn’t say she read spy novels in the middle of lectures and snuck stray cats into the dorms like a secret side mission. All Anya Forger was, was a body in an alleyway, a headline below the fold. He stared at the chalk outline again, because it looked wrong, too small, as if somebody traced a mannequin and called it a day.

His throat hurt; his mouth tasted like rust. He walked the long way back and registered none of it. His fingers wanted a cigarette. His body wanted a strong drink. His brain wanted out. The wind picked up, blowing one of the papers out from under his arm. The headline fluttered across the square and into the gutter. Damian Desmond, aged nineteen, perfect GPA, second son of Ostania’s most influential man, last boy to ever see her alive, did not chase it.

*

The common room never felt louder in the obscene banality of it all. There was a fruit bowl on the sideboard. A girl cried into a silk monogrammed handkerchief. The fireplace was lit. Anya once fell into it because she wanted to rescue the logs . Becky glared at the flames as she sat so tightly her uniform creaked. A newspaper sat unopened in her lap.

“Shouldn’t you be reading that?” Emile asked through a mouthful of stress nougat. Becky didn’t answer; she hadn’t spoken in twenty minutes.

Ewen hovered awkwardly, arms wrapped around a throw pillow to protect him from feelings. “I think… we should wait for Damian.”

“Oh, you think?” Becky’s voice was glass that cut once and would do so again.

“I just meant…” Ewen flinched, “he went into town. He wanted- he needed-”

“He needed facts,” Becky snapped. “He needed facts while Anya is-” She stopped as her throat shut down. Her face flushed red, like her body attempted to cry and was promptly met with a No Entry sign. Instead, she gritted her teeth. “She hated facts. She hated newspapers. She thought the crossword gaslit her.”

“I explained what across meant,” Emile said quietly. They all paused as the memory hit harder than it had any right to.

“She wrote horse for every five-letter clue,” Ewen mumbled.

“She was right a lot of the time,” her best friend whispered. Nobody spoke. Emile shoved the rest of his nougat in his mouth. “She should be here. She should be in detention for… for sneaking booze into the astronomy room, or setting a badger loose in the hall, or…” her voice broke, “or because she insulted Damian in public again.” Ewen laughed sadly, and immediately stopped like he committed a crime. “I don’t want the newspaper. I already know what it says. I’ve read newspapers before. They don’t even care. They won’t even get the shade of her hair right.”

“They said it was light brown,” Ewen offered, hugging the pillow tighter. Becky blinked, and very slowly, opened the paper. Across the room, somebody turned on the radio, which blared a cheerful piano ditty about springtime. She crumpled the front page and lobbed it into the flames.

The door creaked, and all three of them turned at once. Damian stood in the threshold, coat buttoned immaculately, windblown hair stuck at odd angles, holding two newspapers. Becky’s throat clicked. Ewen straightened a touch. “Hey. Uh, did you… get-?”

His friend didn’t answer, but crossed the room in clean, deliberate strides, like every step cost him and he already spent too much. He walked to the sideboard next to the fruit bowl, set down one newspaper and poured himself a glass of water and drank none of it. “Did it say anything new?” Becky asked.

Damian didn’t meet her eyes. “No. Just that it happened.”

Emile choked quietly. “Do you- do you want to sit?”

“No,” Damian replied too fast. “No. I need- I have-” he stopped mid-sentence, as if he didn’t believe anything he was about to say. Becky opened her mouth again, but he turned away to leave the room without looking at them. The door shut with a quiet click. They didn’t stop him, but let him go; maybe he’d return with answers, or maybe not. Inside his dorm, he dropped the newspaper on his desk carelessly. His coat hit the back of a chair. He opened the unofficial liquor cabinet that wasn’t technically his, but his former roommate's. Damian offered to store his vintage cognac out of politeness, but now it was destiny.

He poured without looking at the label. The first sip was punishment. The second went down easier. The third hurt less than the headline. He walked to the window and looked down at the courtyard where she once yelled at an imperial scholar for having an arrogant cape. He looked down at the stone path where she slipped in front of a teacher and made it into a curtsey, somehow. His forehead touched the glass.

I’m not letting this go.

She wouldn’t have. If it were him in that alley, facedown, unnamed, subject of a four-inch obituary, she would steal a car, set a warehouse on fire, and seduce a private investigator before the autopsy report came back. So, he owed her.

The fourth drink didn’t even burn. He wiped his mouth with his cuff and went to the desk for the drawer. Out came a leather folio, a gift from his father, never used. He tore out the monogram page, scrawled her name in the corner, and drew a circle around it like a target. Next to that, he wrote why her? Why now? Where were her parents? And then no cameras. No noise. No cleanup, because that stuck with him. This wasn’t a random death. It wasn’t messy, loud or public, but clean, and efficient, like deleting a file from your computer. He stared at the page and wrote, very slowly.

Who wanted her gone?

He would find out. He’d do it right. He’d do it quietly, because somebody out there thought they could erase her. Damian Desmond, grieving, tipsy, deeply unwell, did not fucking agree.

*

“Do you have pens?” he asked the bartender abruptly. “Real ones. Not… metaphorical or whatever.”

She brandished two pens, a pencil, and a purple crayon with bite marks. “Pick your fighter.” He took the pencil, as the others felt too final, and she slid him a bar chit as paper. He wrote V__? Stairwell. Echo wrong. The second glass tasted like copper. His hand wanted to write Anya, but Damian didn’t let it; instead, he underlined the V. Anya watched him with genuine interest as she pointed at the letter. “Oh! V! That’s exciting. V-names have villain energy.”

“Victim also starts with V,” he countered.

“So does victory,” she leaned back, self-satisfied. “Wow. Philosopher. My next drink’s free.”

“You’re not a philosopher.”

“I am for that sentence,” she said, then stage-whispered, “please don’t tell the elevator.”

As if summoned, the chime went again. “Gentle reminder to all patrons. Please do not steal the olives.” Several patrons swallowed guiltily.

Anya jabbed a finger at a man two stools down. “You’re too obvious!” Then, her attention turned back to Damian, “Okay. Tell me one good thing about today.”

“I’m dead, apparently.”

“One good thing,” she repeated patiently.

He thought, then surprised himself. “The water was… helpful.”

She beamed brilliantly. “Yes! Hydration!” she slapped another star on the napkin. “You’re killing it!”

“Poor choice of words,” he muttered.

“Oops,” she made a face and bowed apologetically. “Sorry. I forget big-picture words are booby-trapped.” She wiggled her fingers. “I’m best at tiny pictures. Tiny pictures save the day more than people think.”

He looked at the stars on his napkin. Tiny pictures. He exhaled as the raging grief curled on a chair in the recesses of his brain and sulked. Something else had room now. “What happens to people who don’t drink?”

“They sit with themselves.” She mimed shivering dramatically. “Brr.”

“And people who do?”

“They get a little braver, or a little sillier, or a little honest-er. They go to a booth and stare into space until a decision knocks. Sometimes they cry into the bread, which is allowed. The bread’s absorbent.” He touched the pencil to chit again and wrote ask for records? Management? He scratched it out and tried loophole, which he underlined and circled thrice. She watched on approvingly. “You’re a loophole guy. Dangerous, but… fun!”

“Everything about me is terrible,” he wasn’t bragging for once.

She tapped the bartop with two fingers thoughtfully. “I like that you say please when you’re not thinking about it, and you didn’t throw the glass when your face said you really wanted to. Oh, and you smiled when the bread was good. Those aren’t terrible.” The ensuing silence wasn’t itchy. Across the room, a patron tried philosophy and was handed a napkin by the lounge intercom with the words Please Be Concise printed on it. The pianist tried a flourish he couldn’t land and apologised to the room with jazz.

“If you’re not her,” Damian examined her, “if you’re just… hey you, I’ll stop making you wear my grief.”

“You can put it on the stool next to you,” she shrugged. “I wipe them down between guests.”

“You make everything sound so stupidly doable.”

“’Tis my spiritual gift,” she said, mock-solemn, but ruined it by nearly dropping a jigger because somebody waved and she waved back with both hands. He caught the jigger on instinct, reflexes awakening like old guard dogs. He set it carefully on the bar. She brightened as if he gifted her a bouquet. “Look at you saving the day! Star!” She reached for the sheet.

“No!” he grabbed her wrist before recollecting himself. He let go immediately, shame jolting him. “Sorry. Don’t- just… not everything needs a star.”

Anya assessed him, calibrated herself, then nodded. “Okay, no star. Some things can just be good.” She holstered the sheet away like a weapon. He breathed out; the lounge exhaled with him.

The first hour of his death passed with the slow miracle of a heartbeat that didn’t exist. He didn’t solve a murder or remember a stairwell, nor become a better man, but he sat without combusting. He told the truth to a girl who might be a ghost or a kindness. When he stood, eventually, to take his grief for a walk, she lifted a hand in a little salute. “Thank you,” he said, and meant it.

“For what?”

“For… the drinks,” he said, because he wasn’t saying anything that made his insides do the thing.

“Anytime!” she grinned, proud for no proportional reason. “Did you see me catch those ice cubes earlier? I was amazing.”

“You were adequate.” Her delightful outrage followed him all the way to the booth.

*

He should’ve been studying. Exams were in three weeks, and his father expected ten distinctions, minimum. The school expected speeches; the country expected a Desmond. Instead, he was in his dorm room, alone, lights off, curtains open. His desk lamp flickered sadly. He had another bottle of something expensive, unlabelled; it was gifted to him at a reception and he didn’t ask why. He drank it without air between swallows, tasting only varnish and grief. The syllables of her name kept repeating.

For-ger. For… ger. For… get… her.

Damian laughed bitterly, slammed the glass down and missed the corner by a full inch. A slow trickle of liquid crept across his notebook, and the ink bled like it had been waiting. Ewen knocked once and left some candies by the door. Emile slid under a note that said you okay and a second one five minutes later with actually don’t answer that . His mouth tasted like old pennies; his lungs were static. The window refused to open wide enough to be useful.

This couldn’t be real.

She was literally just there, arguing whether ketchup was a smoothie, carrying four useless pens, asking questions in History like she didn’t care if they were stupid, because sometimes, they weren’t. She always looked like she was getting away with something, and usually, she was. He poured another glass with a shaking hand. He hated that. He hated that he felt anything at all.

There wasn’t a funeral. Her family were unreachable, their home clear, their records scrubbed. The official school notice called her a spirited and curious student known for her warmth, which read like it was copied from another obituary and adjusted for pronouns. Becky didn’t cry in front of anyone or yell. She shrank, with red-rimmed eyes and a vanished voice. Ewen kept asking if Eden would do anything. Damian never answered, despite knowing full well what they’d do. Perhaps a scholarship for girls, named something vaguely noble, but not hers. Emile claimed they should hold their own memorial, then forgot to plan it. Everybody else moved on, deciding grief had a runtime.

Damian bought another newspaper every day. The articles shortened, became less precise. One claimed the murder was an accident; another said there was no sign of a mugging; another stated she wasn’t carrying valuables. The photos were never her, but stock images, silhouettes, a girl’s outline with no name. Anya Forger disappeared twice.

Once from life.

Once from memory.

Damian set the clippings on his desk, flattened them out, opened his folio and stuck them methodically to the pages. Then, he opened the bottle again and drank until time blurred. 

Chapter Text

Damian took stock the way he inventoried a deal going sideways, with columns, proofs, and numbers that behaved when nothing else did. He sat absolutely still in the booth, elbows braced for turbulence and mentally counted.

1. Elevator. Definitely real, humming, too bright, smelled of aftershave and the end of all things.
2. Intercom. Cheerful, but threatened oblivion.
3. Pamphlet. Indisputably laminated. Comic Sans, which was unforgivable.
4. Bar. Lush, faintly ridiculous, chandeliers doing impressions of heaven’s earrings.
5. Bartender. Anya Forger. Murdered woman. 

He mentally added a line under that one and then repeated it twice, as redundancy felt correct. Anya Forger. The name didn’t budge. He added Dead , then changed his mind and thought Not Dead. Now it was time to inventory his day so far. First, he woke up on a carpet that once was beige and tried to logic himself into a hangover. He slung abuse at an intercom. He didn’t call his mother, because he didn’t do that when he was alive either. He stepped into a bar where a murdered woman smiled at him and offered him bread. He insulted a sticker. He discovered the afterlife had laminators to ward away tears. The conclusion pinned itself down with the finality of a stapler.

He was dead.

It wasn’t a metaphor. It wasn’t an early-stage career crisis.

Dead. Properly, actually, stone-cold dead.

He catalogued her then, mainly to stop his brain from blurring. She had Anya’s face, which was deeply unfair. She had Anya’s mouth, which made jokes before it made sense. She had Anya’s eyes, which were always too large for her head. The bartender wiped a glass with exactly three extra flourishes she didn’t need, then admired herself in the mirror as if impressed, which was sickening and exact. He liked her. He hated that he liked her. In his mental tally of proofs, he included She’s her. Then, because he couldn’t help it, She isn’t her. In the real world, the body he watched descend into the ground was nineteen. He remembered dirt hitting the lid, the numb ceremony of an empty family row because they evaporated like steam. Most of all, he remembered the autopsy report’s splotches of euphemistic language, and how he laid it on his dining table, so he ate on the counter for six months, like she was a centrepiece who now mixed drinks and winked at olives. Damian wanted to break a thousand glasses and eat nothing ever again. He inhaled carefully, counted one-two-three, and exhaled.

“You’re doing the accountant face,” she called over cheerfully, before bustling over with more water he hadn’t earned. “Let me guess, you’re making a list? Lists are soothing. I like ones with little boxes I can tick, so when I tick them, it feels like winning. Do you want a pen?” She held up four again, but none of them worked. Fate performed a cruel callback just for him. “Ha! That’s funny.”

“Funny,” he repeated. “I’m dead. I’m dead. You’re dead. Somehow, we’re not rotting corpses. You’re here, not knowing me, not knowing yourself, and you’re… bringing water.”

“I know me,” she rolled her eyes, “I’m the bartender!” His internal spreadsheet reached its end. There was no third column called Miracle Explaining Why Anything Hurt Less. Something inside him cinched, his ribcage believing it was a fist. Without permission, his fingers clawed his thigh. The sounds of the room were consumed by his pulse, thudding like boots on a stairwell. He added one final item onto his agenda. Panic pending , and then the pending became present. “Breathe,” she said, automatic hospitality in the shape of a command. “In, out. What you do before you yell at somebody.”

He laughed hard enough to scandalise his throat, because he was a coward, then it snapped in two and showed its bones. “Don’t. Don’t you-” His hand swept the water off the table with the petulance of a god downgraded into economy class. “Don’t treat this as a joke. I am dead.” The rag in her hand tightened until it squeaked; that was a new tell. He reached for it, mean as a drowning man. “Do you even know what dead means? Or is it just another word you put glitter on? Dead is you in a hole, Forger. Dead is your name on a report I printed twice. Dead is six years of my life rearranged around nothing. Meanwhile, you’re wherever here is inventing the Half-Measure as if compromise ever made anybody happy!”

Her jaw flexed like a muscle recalling it belonged to a person, then rounded itself obediently. “That drink is objectively great, and I didn’t invent death. I just work the bar.”

“You don’t work anything!” Cruelty wanted his mouth more than decency did. “You smile. You hand out stickers like a kindergarten teacher on commission. You laminate depression. You’re an empty nothing in a girl’s skin. No, actually, you’re a prop with a fucking pulse. Do you have any idea how insulting you are?”

Anya’s eyes blinked wrong, as if she checked an error message, then she folded the towel surgically. “I have many ideas,” she said in a singsong voice. “Would you like to hear fifteen of them in no particular order, or breathe like you mean it?”

“I want the real one,” he snapped brokenly. “I want the person who laughed at me and tried to fix it with candy, who wrote her name wrong on every test for a year because she thought R looked cuter backwards. Instead, I have you – a stranger doing crowd-work!”

“Okay.” Of course, she smiled, but the edges were chapped, and the hand that reached for a new water knocked a spoon, which she pretended never happened. “So, the thing is, stranger or not, I’m what you’ve got. You’re shaking hard enough to rattle the bottles, so we’ll do the annoying thing where I give you water and you take it and we breathe. Only after that, you can insult my customer service voice all you like.”

“I don’t take orders from waitstaff.” His heart climbed into his trachea and refused to climb down. He pulled at his tie, which felt like rope, and the action was embarrassing enough his hands shook harder. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

“I’m not touching you.” Her voice was equally bright and clipped. She pushed the new glass where his hand found it without admitting it was obedience, then placed a coaster under it. “I’m placing a beverage near the vicinity of you. I’m also putting a sticker on your- there.” She poked it on his cuff with more force than strictly necessary. This one instructed him to Breathe Or I Will Cry. “My job includes emotional manipulation.”

“My job included mergers,” he managed. “When something didn’t make sense, we fired it. We didn’t adopt it and give it stars. We didn’t call it cute.”

Anya’s smile worked very hard to remain employed. “We’re a small business. We don’t fire customers for crying.”

“Do you hear yourself? Do you hear how insane this is? You died, and now you’re a mixologist. Did you get promoted post-mortem? Are you paid in glitter? Is God your line manager?”

The rag twisted; the fibres complained, but she retained her pleasantness. “I’m an independent contractor. The benefits include bread.”

He realised, dimly, that he was acting monstrous, but continued anyway because stopping was worse. “Look at you.” Cruelty felt like control. “You were always simple, always jumping at the first shiny thing. Now look! No context, no consequence, just an empty, vacuous nothing. The girl I knew could at least connect a dot. You-” he gestured. The gesture failed, and failure humiliated him into more venom. “You’re a clown with my grief for paint!”

Her face didn’t crumple like he expected. Much worse than that, the smile stuck, polite, but her eyes flattened. “Cool. I’ll put that on my nametag. Hi, I’m The Clown With Your Grief For Paint.” She blinked, then tapped the table with her knuckle in a rhythm that wanted to be a rant. “For balance, you’re being a jerk. You’re very loud. You will drink your water, because, low-key, I am this close,” she pinched the air with forefinger and thumb so close together the gap could be her last nerve, “to charging you double.” He took the water on reflex because humiliation was excellent at training the body. The glass was in his hand, the lemon was under his nose, and the first swallow went down wrong, and then the second was better, and his breath lurched in. The relief was mechanical, and he hated her for it, and he loved her for it, and he didn’t know what to do with either impulse so he added it to his mental charts as a loss. “Better,” she said, businesslike, wiping a clean patch because anger needed a task. “Okay, we’re doing something. Five things you can see.”

Damian glared at her until the veins in his forehead lodged a formal complaint, but she just waited with a fixed smile. “Chandelier,” he ground out. “Olives. Your… stupid face.” Anya looked very unimpressed, and he swallowed the poison’s second dose alongside his water. “The laminated pamphlet. The… the sticker.”

“Good job!” That almost sent him back into the pit. She immediately softened and caught it before it sent him flying. “Sorry. That was condescending. Four things you can feel.”

“Um. My clothes. The condensation on the glass. My tie. The table. It’s sticky.”

“It’s clean sticky,” she protested primly. “Three things you can hear?”

“The piano. The… ice machine. My heart.”

“Counting your heart is cheating, but I’ll allow it.” She peeled a sticker and stuck it on the back of his hand; he regarded it like a rash. “Two things you can smell.”

“Uh. Your rag stinks. And orange peel.”

She threw the towel over her shoulder protectively. “Uh-huh. One thing you can taste.”

“Lemon.” He inhaled as if the world required it. The panic didn’t leave insofar as it retreated to crouch by his ankles. She smiled again, but it was tinged with annoyance. She refilled his glass with exaggerated care.

“You can keep yelling at me, because I can take it.”

Damian almost laughed or apologised, but did neither. “I didn’t ask you to take it.”

“You didn’t ask for a lot of things, but unfortunately, great service is compulsory. I’m very good at my job, which currently is getting you on the other side of the worst five minutes of your first afterlife meltdown without you climbing my chandelier and biting it.”

“I would never bite a chandelier,” he said with harrowed dignity.

“You’d strongly consider it.” She walked away briskly, and returned with a basket. “Comforting bread?” He glowered at the basket, but the smell arose like a childhood he never had. He tore off a piece because resistance was futile and he was exhausted; butter melted against his tongue with the apologies he’d never give. He chewed until the world decided to be normal for at least a minute.

“I hate this place,” he said to the booth.

“Plenty do, at first,” she shrugged. Her cheerfulness recovered from its stumble and now walked with a pronounced limp. “The trick is you won’t later, or you will, but you’ll hate it in a fond way, like a favourite terrible sweater.” She placed a sticker by his elbow that announced he was Allowed To Be A Mess and smoothed it down with her thumb longer than necessary. “Do you want to throw the pamphlet? I have spares.”

He looked at the Choice Pamphlet. He looked at her, and wanted to tell her she wasn’t the person he loved, he wanted to tell her did, and he wanted to beg her to remember him with the force of a bottle to the temple. However, he did none of those things. In the space panic left, shame curled in, which did not lend itself to coherence. “I was mean.”

“You panicked,” she said. “It’s my favourite reason for people to behave like jerks.”

“I meant what I said.” Cowardice often sounded like honesty when it was afraid of requiring forgiveness.

“Cool. I’ll keep that on your permanent record. Also, you’re getting another sticker.” She slapped one on his wrist – I Lived Through The Bit Where I Realised I’m Dead. “It’s limited edition.”

The world hadn’t stopped being ridiculous, just because his heart had. He stared at the sticker until his eyes burned. The pianist slipped into a mournful tune, then, out of mercy, a stupidly pretty piece. The intercom coughed another apology for the void policy. The same woman from before tried the handle near the service door and got singed again, but she just laughed at herself. The chandelier, on its part, didn’t bite him. He dragged in more breaths, because his body remembered how without humiliation. When he looked up, her eyes were at their typical wattage, but the coupe she now polished gleamed too cleanly, because she buffed it to erase something not on the glass.

“Forger.” Her surname was a dare, a plea and a complication. Her eyes flicked to his wrist where the sticker sat, then away, as if remembering something unpleasant.

“Do you want another drink?”

“Do you ever stop being so fucking chipper?” He didn’t know how to ask for anything he couldn’t pay for.

“Not on the clock!” The joke was a doorstop, and on the other side, somebody stood very still. “After that, I don’t know. I think I sleep? Or maybe I don’t?” She moved back to the bar, and picked up a shaker, which she presented to him. He found himself trailing after like a loyal, repeatedly kicked dog. “Yes?” He nodded, small, because big gestures wanted a body that wasn’t wracked with anxious aftershocks of insulting a girl into a fury she refused to show. She made the drink with less flair than before, her irritation converted into precision. When she slid it across to him, the stem clinked. He took it, because it was easier than saying sorry, and lifted it like a truce. She tapped the counter lightly, then leaned in an inch, enough he saw the crack in her smile. “For future reference, you can be horrible to me and I will be nice back, because that’s the job. But if you insult her again, the her you want me to be, I’ll garnish your next drink with a whole pickle. Do we understand each other?”

He huffed because it was nearly a laugh or an apology, but it was definitely surrender. “Understood.”

“Good!” Her grin reached her eyes the way light caught a window at the right hour. She peeled a star off her sheet, and pressed it on his hand gently.

*

It didn’t look like a murder scene. In fact, it didn’t look like anything at all. It was just another back alley, tucked behind an overworked bakery and a shuttered strip of housing riddled with rust and mildew. The street sign was stolen a long time ago, and nobody bothered replacing it. Something that may once have been a cat was now a suggestion of meat beneath a cardboard box. It was the sort of place you crossed the street to avoid. For some reason, she didn’t. Damian stood at the alley’s mouth with his coat collar turned up, one glove missing, bottle already cracked, insisting to himself he was here for facts, orientation, location, or some other physical context the human brain needed to process tragedy. He walked past it six times before he worked up the courage to stop.

There were four bins, two tipped, one crawling, one overflowing with things that never decomposed. A broken umbrella poked out the top like it wanted to flee. There was a mattress against the far wall, grey with weather. Above it, a window blinked light once, then went dark again. Cigarette butts paved the corners like confetti at the world’s worst wedding. A greasy neon light blinked overhead.

Anya Forger died here.

The police tape and chalk outline was long gone. He wasn’t sure if it ever really existed. Damian crouched near the wall; his knee clicked, which he promptly ignored. The bricks were old and scuffed, tagged with juvenile graffiti and flaking moss. There was a faded brown smear near the base that could’ve been anything and nothing, but his stomach rolled the same.

The air fogged in front of him to shield him from the view. “Hi,” he said quietly, and immediately felt stupid. “Fuck, no, that’s- sorry.” A rat scurried between the bins as he stared at the cracked cement to map the outlines of her final moments like it could make them kinder. He pictured it too easily. She would’ve fought, bitten, swung with whatever was in her hand, probably a bag of peanuts or a cuddly toy. She wouldn’t have cried or begged, unless it hurt, then she probably did. He swallowed the taste of metal. “I’m trying. If you’re listening. If any part of you… floats around, or whatever. I don’t know how it works.”

The wind answered with the bang of a loose gutter.

Damian finally sat down on the cold, damp pavement, between the bins and the mattress and the broken umbrella, his back to the wall where her breath left her body and waited to feel something that didn’t make him want to crawl out of his skin. He lit a cigarette. “Goddammit,” he muttered. “You would’ve made a joke about the rats. Or found them cute, because they were ugly, or something stupid.”

He looked up at the slice of sky.

“They got the wrong person. I should be the one rotting in this fucking alley.”

Then, much quieter, “I’m sorry.”

He lit another cigarette, then another, then another. The fifth one trembled between his fingers. He set the bottle on the ground between his boots. “This is bullshit.” The bricks agreed.

He picked up his vodka and took a punishing swig. It burned like it wanted him gone too. He let the alcohol hit his bloodstream like anaesthetic and leaned back until his head tapped the wall. It was wet, but the wall didn’t care. He thought about the headline, the chalk outline, the photo, the stock image of a body that wasn’t hers, the typo in her last name on one of the clippings, the way the world easily moved on. Another drink, another cigarette. Rain crept towards him with unhurried callousness. By the time his pack was empty, the bottle was half-gone. His legs outstretched in the filth, looking like the ghost of himself, so, of course, that’s when Becky found him.

“What the fuck?!” she breathed.

Damian blinked blearily up at her. She wore a black peacoat, hair pinned back tight, a bouquet of orange tulips in hand. The wrong flowers, he thought triumphantly, because Anya liked yellow. He snorted. “Bit late, Blackbell.”

“You’re drunk,” she accused him.

“I’ve been drunk since April. What month is it now?”

She stepped over a puddle and wrinkled her nose at the stench. She wanted to scream, but frankly, didn’t have the energy. Instead, she crouched beside him, cradling the flowers. “Why are you here?”

“I wanted to see it,” he gestured at the wall. “This is the spot, right? Between trash day and piss week.”

“Damian,” her voice was sharp.

“She bled out here,” he said. “Right here. Probably called out for someone, don’t you think? You think it hurt? I bet it fucking hurt.”

Becky stood abruptly. “You can’t do this. You can’t turn her into your… failure project.”

“Excuse me?” he scoffed.

“You didn’t even like her!” she shouted. “You mocked her! You ignored her! You couldn’t even be nice when she…” she looked away and sniffed. “Don’t pretend you’re the only one who lost something.” Damian didn’t reply, and just picked up the bottle and finished the last swallow. It ran down his chin, so he wiped it with the back of his sleeve. Becky dropped the tulips gently near the wall, far from the bins, with shaking hands. “I come here once a month. I say something stupid. I leave flowers, then I go home. You don’t get to hijack that.”

“I’m not hijacking. I’m just…”

“You’re spiralling,” she snapped. “You’re drinking yourself to death. And for what? Do you think she’d want this?” Damian didn’t answer. “She’d call you a dumbass. She’d say this place sucked and you suck too, then tell you your tie is crooked.”

“She’d call me a pompous gremlin,” Damian laughed weakly.

“She did call you that.”

She reached to take the bottle from him, but he didn’t let her. “Don’t!”

She yanked it free anyway. “You’re done.”

“I’m not!”

“You’re done.” Venom and grief were stitched into every word. “You get one breakdown in the alley, then you take a shower. And if you can’t manage that, I’ll make Ewen do it for you.”

“I’ll bite him.”

“I’ll let you.” Two broken, furious, wet people in a bin-stained alley stared at each other and tried to keep one girl alive with brute force memory. “I loved her,” Becky whispered finally.

“I don’t know if I did,” Damian admitted, “but I missed my chance.”

“Well. Yeah. You did.” He didn’t defend himself. She turned to leave him sitting in the rain. Before she turned the corner, she called over. “I’ll send Emile with soup. You don’t deserve it, but… she would’ve.” Then, she was gone.

Damian sat for another hour until the rain washed the alley clean. Not all of it, but enough to feel worse about everything.

*

Pretending everything was fine was a speciality of his. He performed fine at press conferences, funerals, while uncorking bottles of vodka disguised as wine. In the afterlife, fine was its own currency. He walked into Midnight Minus One, half-sure it was a coma dream, insulted a laminated pamphlet, had an emotional coronary, and somehow ended up drinking liquid shame in a very comfortable booth.

Currently, he weighed eternity’s options as if selecting between three brands of arsenic.

Final rest was certainly appealing in theory, except resting meant surrender, and Desmonds didn’t quit. They suffered in expensive silence. He wrote reincarnation off immediately. He clawed his way through this lifetime with blood and spreadsheets, and he absolutely was not starting over as some pissant with a be kind bumper sticker. And, oh yes, restart life, because he loved the idea of returning to year six of a cold case and a liquor cabinet that wept when opened. He groaned and stared at the stupid sticker that was still on his stupid wrist. I Lived Through The Bit Where I Realised I’m Dead. He hoped it also came with a coupon for emotional stability.

“Picked your flavour yet?” Anya asked.

“No,” he swirled his drink’s remnants as if tasting notes of irony.

“That’s okay. Some people don’t. One guy’s been here three decades. He writes limericks about broccoli now!”

“Comforting.”

“That depends on how you feel about cruciferous vegetables.”

Damian set his glass down carefully, like delicacy made what he was about to say make sense. “I’ve been thinking,” he lied, because he’d actually been spiralling in a grief carousel. “I can’t sit here indefinitely, drinking and debating reincarnation like a failed philosopher.”

“Lots of people do.”

“Yes, well, I’m better than most people.”

“I find that statistically unlikely.”

“I need to do something useful,” he snapped, “or at least a reason to keep my head above the proverbial drowning pool.”

“Right. Drowning pool,” she nodded, unfazed.

“I want to help,” he said firmly, like he was locked in contract negotiations with God. She looked up from polishing a glass with more affection than technique. “I can… work,” he clarified, hating how earnest he sounded. He cleared his throat until he was an important person again. “Not, like, a forever thing. Just until I… sort myself out. I can’t sit here and pick between reincarnation and… emotional sudoku.” She blinked. “I could bartend. Or stock garnishes. Reformat your sticker system. You’re clearly understaffed – it’s just you, the chandelier, and the haunted pamphlet rack. I have experience in… high-pressure environments.”

“You want to… help me?” Anya placed the glass down slowly, like it was a sentient creature.

“Yes.”

“Behind the bar.”

“Yes.”

“With drinks.”

“If I must.”

“As what? Angry sommelier?”

“I’m capable of basic service, Forger. Contrary to your assumptions, I know how to lift a bottle without yelling at it.”

Anya’s mouth was trying to smile and frown at once, her face entering an emotional custody battle. “I…” she started, then burst into a grin that illuminated the entire bar. “Sure thing, Sy-on boy!”

It tripped, fell, and became a moment. Damian stared at her like she’d thrown acid in his face. “What… did you just call me?”

Her brows lifted. “Sy-on boy?” she repeated slower to clarify the insanity. “I… uh. Huh.”

“Huh?” he echoed with a dry throat.

Anya tilted her head to rifle through her mental index cards. “That’s weird. That’s not a thing I say. I’ve literally never said that.”

“You just did.”

“I know. That’s the weird part,” she frowned. “Where the hell did that come from? What even is a Sy-on?”  He tried to answer, and promptly forgot how consonants sounded. “Is it… a type of melon, maybe?” she asked earnestly. “Or… a shampoo brand?” His replying noise was strangled. “Unless I said it earlier? Did I say it earlier? Was I high on sticker glue? That happens sometimes.”

“You used to call me that in school. You- God, you always called me that.” Damian’s voice cracked on the edge of something he didn’t want to define. “You called me that to piss me off.”

“I did?” her nose scrunched. “That doesn’t sound like me.”

“It was you.”

“I mean, it sounds like something I’d say – it’s rude and stupid, but I don’t know why I’d say it.”

“You made fun of my name,” he said, “like a child. Because you were a child.”

“Oh no,” she whispered dramatically. “Was I annoying?”

“Extremely.” He took on the haunted tone of a war widow recalling her first artillery strike. “You wrote Sy-on boy on the back of every quiz. You signed it with hearts. You spelled it with a y. You corrected the teachers.”

Anya covered her mouth, not laughing, but not not laughing. “Oh, I sound awesome!”

“I hated you,” he admitted, “but then I didn’t. I didn’t know what to do with it.”

She blushed. “Oh.” She paused, watching him carefully, noticing that his grip on the bar was white-knuckled, his breath was shallow again, he looked like a man mid-concussion. “I really didn’t mean to say that,” she continued softly. “It just popped out. Like a muscle memory in my mouth. Mouth muscle memory.” Damian nodded once, twice, then dragged both his hands down his face so he could physically compress his soul back into his body. She went red, a heat-lamp lit under her ears. “Weird. That was weird. Definitely weird.”

He sat back dizzily, her words elbowing him in the ribs. “You don’t know why you said that?”

“Nope, not a clue!” Her voice climbed two octaves and tried to jump out a window. “Braining error. Silly old brain. It gets the names all twisted around sometimes. Did I mention I named the plant over there Harvey? It’s not relevant, but, hey, Harvey!”

“You remember me,” Damian said, low, reverent, accusatory.

“I don’t, but maybe I should,” she admitted, nearly vibrating out of existence, “but, you also just asked to wash glasses in eternity, so, there’s a strong possibility that we’re both having a day?” She was still smiling, but it wasn’t a customer service smile, but a I’m really happy you’re here smile, which cracked him open like a dropped egg.

“I think I’m having another attack.”

“Okay!” She reached under the bar. “Water or stickers?”

“Neither!” he snapped, then immediately regretted it. “Actually, water. And- fuck it, sticker me!” She peeled one off ceremoniously and stuck it on his sleeve without making eye contact.

“Apron?” she offered, holding out a soft, black apron with flour on the corner. He hesitated, staring at it like a contract with the Fates themselves, but he took it. She rooted around under the bar and gave him his very own name badge and clipped it on the apron’s front.

HELLO, I’M NEW. PLEASE DON’T YELL AT ME.

He snorted through his nose. 

“Welcome to the team,” she said breathlessly, like the moment mattered more than it should. He didn’t say thank you or sorry; instead, he put on the apron.

Suddenly, eternity had a shift schedule. 

Chapter Text

The first year of university was supposed to be the start of something, not the end of everything else. His high school diploma, shuttered in a drawer somewhere, might as well have read congratulations on surviving when she didn’t. He didn’t attend the ceremony, but sent a valet to collect the certificate.

Damian moved into Berlint Universität dorms with two duffel bags, one recommendation letter, and the lingering suspicion he was failing at being normal. He studied business, because what else was there? It wasn’t ambition as much as inertia in a suit. He signed the paperwork with enough resistance to be called difficult, but not enough to stop anything. His father said it was good for him, which, in Desmond terms, meant it kept him close, compliant and useful. Damian, mostly residue in his own life by that point, filled notebooks with theoretical mergers and ethical quandaries that never applied to anybody with his bank account, and learned to fake conviction at networking events. Ewen studied engineering, because he wanted to be an astronaut, obviously. He repeated it with enough ambition in childhood that it calcified into a life purpose. Rockets were cool, and space didn’t have murder. He was wildly unqualified in most areas except enthusiasm, but that was enough to launch him into orbital mechanics. Emile took up Forensic Sciences and Criminology, not because he held a burning passion for justice, but because Damian once muttered about needing to understand cause-of-death timelines and evidence chains, and Emile took it personally. He declared he enjoyed problem-solving, but all his electives suspiciously aligned with Damian’s knowledge gaps, and he kept asking questions like, “How hard is it to get DNA off asphalt?” He was never the most intuitive person, but he was so loyal that he quietly volunteered to become an expert in murder so his friend didn’t need to grieve alone.

The boys kept it light because Damian didn’t. He lived in records and transcripts and government databases with more redacted lines than nouns. He drank too much, ate too little, and showers became an optional event. He kept emergency flasks inside textbooks with cut-out cores. They let him be obsessive, because the only thing worse was if he stopped.

But one night, Emile asked the million-dalc question. “Why her?” They were in Damian’s apartment, where papers were scattered everywhere. Ewen lazed on the floor, drooling over rocket schematics. Damian was on his second or third bottle of… something. “You didn’t even like her. She was a peasant, right? Not your crowd.”

“She was nice,” Ewen winced, “but weird. And smarter than she let on. But yeah, not really your scene.”

Damian turned the bottle upside down and let the last few drops run into his mouth. “I just think it’s strange,” he replied casually, belying the fact he was unravelling rapidly, “a no-name girl is gunned in a back alley and nobody gave enough of a shit to follow up. That indifference bothers me. I don’t care who she was. I care what it represents. If that can happen to her of all people, it can happen to anyone.”

“Did you rehearse that?” Emile asked, half-joking.

He didn’t tell them that he hated himself more every time he remembered brushing her off, or that she made him feel something inconvenient, or that she looked at him like she knew him, or that the world without her lost all colour and meaning. He convinced himself he chased justice. Still, sometimes, late at night, drunk and rageful, he looked at old school photos and said, “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything nice when you were alive.” He never expected forgiveness.

Damian stopped sleeping before the snow hit. It wasn’t an active decision, but his dreams turned on him. The first few nights, he jolted awake thinking he heard her. She wasn’t saying anything remotely helpful, as was typical, but she hummed some idiotic pop song that Becky liked and it stuck to his skull like wet leaves. Later, they turned cruel. She was there, calling him Sy-on boy, but always from behind a closed door, an alleyway, or a wall too thick to smash through. Occasionally, he heard the gun, followed by the silence afterwards.

He left the lights on.

After three days awake, his vision blurred. He mistook Ewen for a lamp once and apologised to a bin. Emile saw him huffing on a highlighter like a cigar. They joked about it, because not joking meant staging an intervention, and neither of them wanted to be punched. He took caffeine pills alongside boxed wine. His eyes developed new shadows and a tic in his left brow that only vanished when he passed out from exhaustion or vodka, whichever came first.

“You’re spiralling,” Ewen told him one night as he opened a window to smoke another packet of cigarettes.

“I’m focusing,” Damian replied, “and you’re enabling me.”

“Cool. May I enable you toward a sandwich?”

The nightmares worsened. He awoke clawing his throat, convinced a lie he swallowed or apology he never gave was lodged there. Emile found him on the dorm roof at 3 in the morning raving about jurisdiction and diplomatic immunity. “Are we breaking the law?” Emile asked.

“We are the law,” Damian replied, drinking from a mug labelled #2 SON.

Every attempt to trace Anya’s family or old contacts ended in a digital cul-de-sac. When he submitted a request for her birth certificate, he received a thin envelope marked no record found. Becky refused to speak to him after he sent her a list of security clearances he suspected Loid Forger might’ve held. She informed him she was blocking his number, but still, she sent back every article clipping he mailed her, annotated and underlined. By the end of spring term, Damian drank like a second degree, stopped calling it alcohol and used the terms fuel and medicine instead. He had vodka in his tea, brandy in his coffee, whiskey on toast. Once, he stirred gin into instant noodles. When Emile gagged, he snapped, “Grow up.”

Yet, for all the breakdowns, he was terrifyingly functional. His essays were clinical. His lectures, when attended, were punctuated with incisive questions that made professors sweat. His grades never dropped. His sense of direction never failed. He could locate a missing case file like blood in the water. Because for all the rot inside him, he was still a Desmond.

The first time he mentioned Loid Forger aloud, it was over takeaway. “He vanished the week she died.”

“Wasn’t he her dad?” Ewen asked, digging into noodles.

“That’s the thing. There’s no record of a Forger family before Anya. No birth certificate, no parent registration. I don’t think they were blood-related.”

“So, adoptive dad?” Emile shrugged.

“Adoptive, and what? In hiding? Every trace of him before Anya is smoke. All I have is some travel permits to Westalis and a surprisingly neutral employment history.”

“You think he’s a spy,” Ewen frowned.

“I think he ran, which means he knows something.” They sat in silence. The noodles cooled.

“I mean, he always seemed like he could kill a guy with a spoon,” Emile offered. “Anya said he was a feelings doctor.”

Damian stared at the wall. He started a timeline of Anya’s final weeks, capturing her last movements, and cross-referenced those with Loid’s last known appearances. Every time he found a new inconsistency, he added it to the list. He unearthed a photo from their Eden Academy days. Anya stood in the middle, grinning like a complete buffoon; Loid’s hand was on her shoulder. Her mother, Yor, ruffled her hair. His eyes blurred. “She really loved him.” Neither of the boys responded; there was no need.

That night, he didn’t sleep, choosing instead to annotate three years of residency logs seeking Loid Forger. He didn’t find him. He found a single landlord who remembered a charming tenant who left no forwarding address. Damian punched a wall. Emile showed up the next day with bandages and candy. “It’s not what she would’ve wanted, you know. You hurting yourself.”

Ewen dropped off a schematic of a satellite project he was working on and taped a note to the back. You can still look up. She’d want that. Damian kept the note. The end of year one whispered in, and he hadn’t solved anything, but he built a shrine of theories and a mental map of dead ends. Anya lived, laughed, and irritated the hell out of him.

So, he would keep going, even if it killed him.

Which obviously, it did.

*

Anya gave him his very own bar rag. It landed on his shoulder with the accusing weight of responsibility. “Step one,” she chirped, “look like you belong here.” Damian smoothed his new vest, squared his shoulders, and promptly knocked over a cocktail pick jar. “Perfect!” She caught it mid-fall with the reflexes of somebody who broke twelve glasses once and learned an important lesson. “You’ll fit right in.”

“This place defies temporal law and logic,” he scowled.

“Exactly, hence customers show up earlier, later, now, never, and sometimes out of sequence. Time is a story they’ve simply stopped telling properly. However, the drinks are real, and people cry into them a lot, so you need to make sure it tastes nice.” Damian didn’t expect the afterlife to involve a 600-page cocktail manual. She dropped it on the bar with a thud loud enough to rattle his spine. It was bound in cracked green leather and held together solely by stickers of stars, hearts, and one faded, screaming ghost. “This is standard reading. You’ll want to start with the classics, then branch into the metaphysical variants. This one,” she flipped to a page with seventeen subtypes, “deals with liminal citrus, but don’t be scared.”

“Liminal?” He deeply, deeply regretted his decision already.

“Fruits that only exist emotionally.” She tapped a shimmering illustration. “Customers can taste memory here. They’ll want something familiar, but not too familiar. Too familiar, and they’ll break. Not familiar enough, and they’ll spiral, so you want to hit the trauma sweet spot.” He blinked dumbly. “Just read the book. The diagrams are pretty.”

He snatched it from her. “What the hell is this? This isn’t alphabetical.”

“Nope! It’s sorted by vibe.” He stared at her stupid, ugly, grinning, beautiful face. “Bartending’s an art, not a science. Though, there is a science. Ratio and technique matter. But most of all, empathy matters. People don’t really want a drink, they want a reason to stop crying. We just… put it in a glass.”

“Empathy isn’t my strong suit.”

“Great!” she said brightly. “We’ll cover some techniques first, then.” She demonstrated how to muddle herbs, using a motion that was suspiciously close to a stress-relief outlet. “Don’t pulverise the mint like it insulted your mother.”

“I have complicated feelings about my mother.”

“That’s between you and the lemon squeezer.” She showed him how to layer drinks for a visual effect. “I call this one Delayed Breakdown. The blue is calm, and the red’s the rage. Don’t stir it unless they ask explicitly for confrontation.” She cracked an egg into a shaker for a whiskey sour. “Egg whites make the foam, and also hold customers’ feelings in meringue.” He took notes and studied harder than he ever had at Eden, and pretended it was about technique, and crucially, not the need to scream into the ice trays. “Oh, and always clean as you go! A sticky bar is gross, unwelcoming, and full of regrets.”

“Like my apartment,” he commented.

She held up the jiggers and taught him how to measure properly. “Don’t eyeball it unless you know what you’re doing.”

“I always know what I’m doing.”

“You don’t even know what a swizzle-stick is.” He glared. She handed him a swizzle-stick. He glared more. She held out a bar spoon and a Boston shaker. “Start stirring. Two fingers on the spoon. Smooth circles.” With a touch of self-consciousness, he practiced slowly, deliberately, perfectly. “You’re a natural! All that repressed emotion gives you great wrist control!”

Damian wanted to die again, but he pressed on. “How do I know what to serve clients?”

“You don’t. You guess, but like, professionally. They’ll tell you eventually, or cry, or throw something. They’re all valid outcomes.”

“What if I mess it up?” He absolutely loathed that he sounded like a six-year-old boy.

“You will, but you’ll live.”

“I definitely will not.”

Anya demonstrated how she liked the glasses to be polished, whilst explaining that garnish was emotional punctuation, and that each drink required a flourish, a threat, or both. She taught him how to shake confidently, stir discreetly, and never, under any circumstances, serve a martini to anyone with an Oedipal complex. That usually resulted in bloodshed.

“Also,” she perched like a goblin on a barstool, “this is a service job, but you’re not a servant. You’re a midwife for closure. Don’t smile too much or they’ll think you pity them. Don’t smile too little or they’ll think you’re God.”

“What if they try to fight me?”

“If you lose, I’ll pretend to not know you.”

She wittered about always using fresh citrus and gentle muddling because herbs bruised easily. She advised that if somebody didn’t order, offer water and wait. He should know his ratios, but trust his gut, too. Sometimes, a broken soul just wanted more bitters. Damian wrote it all down. His handwriting was cramped until his notebook looked like a prayer scroll. By nature, he was competitive, and being bad at something in front of her of all people was intolerable. So, he practiced pours like a lunatic with a measuring complex, rearranged bar tools and cleaned the same surface five times.

The bar was mostly quiet. A few background souls wandered in, sipping cosmic espresso martinis or scanning through drinks menus that changed when they blinked. Time didn’t pass so much as loiter, but they kept busy. Rather, he kept busy; she amused herself. She set up a whole tier of glasses for when patrons broke into tears mid-order. “You’ll know the cry when you see it,” she said. “It makes you want to quit oxygen.” Damian nodded like that was sane.

It took four attempts to get a negroni correct, and six not to overburden the lemon twist. He broke two highball glasses. When he finally got it right with a decent pour, clean garnish and chilled glass, she sipped once and beamed like the sun itself.

“Now that,” she sighed reverently, “is okay.”

“High praise.”

She flicked a coaster at his head. He barely caught it. Anya leaned back as he re-racked glasses. “You’re good at this, Damian.”

It surprised him. It also felt nice. “Why doesn’t it feel like punishment?”

“Because it’s service!” She twirled a bar spoon like a baton. “People think that word means suffering, but I think it means kindness. Being useful is sometimes how we survive.” He didn’t answer, but she smiled softly to herself, as if remembering something affectionate, before picking up a shaker. “Now, let’s train you on what to do when a customer sobs into their daiquiri. Hint: it’s not asking for their trauma timeline. It’s garnishing with care.”

“How many cherries are appropriate for grief?” he smirked.

“Two for mild heartbreak,” she considered it. “Four if they’re talking in metaphors.”

Inexplicably, he wrote that down.

*

The third crash wasn’t a chair. It was the desk. Again. Emile glanced up from his snack. “That was the desk.”

Ewen set down his soldering iron mid-circuit. “I reinforced it just last week.”

“You used duct tape,” he replied, already standing. “Come on.”

They didn’t knock, because at this point, that was a formality they couldn’t afford. Damian’s room looked like the legal section of a library lost a pub brawl. Books scattered everywhere; papers steeped in whiskey. Red string hung from the light fixtures like he attempted to connect theories but summoned an arts and crafts demon instead. The corkboard had fallen to the floor. So had Damian. His back pressed against the floorboards, shirt half-buttoned, tie on backwards, and one sock missing. In his hand was a bottle barely clinging to the last inch. His eyes were glassy; his knuckles were raw. “I don’t want to be this kind of animal anymore,” he slurred.

“Okay,” Emile started gently, exchanging a glance with Ewen like this is new. “How much did you drink?”

“There were three bottles in the cupboard.”

“Were?!”

Damian raised his bottle. “My bones itch,” he announced. “Is that normal?”

“Alright,” Emile tried again, approaching his oldest friend like he was an aggressive cat. “Hey, bossman. Let’s… maybe hydrate, yeah?”

“I drank water.”

“Mm. I think that was gin.”

“The clear one?” he squinted.

Ewen grabbed a clean mug from the kitchen and filled it from the sink. “You’re spiralling. We get it. We’re worried.”

“You don’t get it,” he snarled, trying to prop himself up and immediately falling on his own elbow. He collapsed back to the floor with a defeated thud. “You don’t- fuck, I’m a joke. I’m a fucking joke with a monogrammed tie.”

“Drink.” He held out the water.

He snatched it. “I saw her in the hallway,” he admitted between glugs, “I turned a corner and she was just there. Not a ghost or anything. She was just walking with her stupid posture and wrong shoes.” He sipped again and grimaced. “I said something, but I don’t remember what. I think it was something nice, but then she wasn’t there.” They said nothing. Damian continued. “I keep losing hours. I wake up with paper on my chest and ink on my face and no clue what I’m writing about. I called a senator’s office last week pretending to be a professor. I don’t remember doing that.”

“Did they buy it?” Ewen blinked.

“Nah, they forwarded me to Intelligence.”

“Jesus.”

Damian rubbed his eyes blearily with the heel of his palm. “I smell like defeat and vodka. I haven’t been to class in… fuck, I don’t even know. I sent an email to my lecturer that just said justice is a joke and I’m the punchline. I think I signed off with yours vengefully.”

Emile choked back a laugh. “Bossman-!”

“I was mean to her,” Damian interrupted, “and now she’s gone, and it’s not even about me. That’s the worst part, it shouldn’t be about me, but it is, because I keep making it that way. I want justice, but also, I wanna undo it. If I just find out enough, she’ll come back and laugh at me and tell me I’m being dramatic and then do something really fucking dumb like open a restaurant staffed exclusively by raccoons, and it’ll be fucking delightful.” He rolled onto his side and spilled the rest of the water. “I miss her and I didn’t even let myself know her.”

“You’re grieving,” Ewen offered kindly.

“I’m failing at grief,” Damian whispered, “at everything. I’m a failure with a cork fetish and a bottle dependency and I have no plan.”

Emile patted his back. “This is a lot of self-awareness for somebody who forgot how socks work.”

“I don’t want to be this kind of animal anymore,” he repeated, barely audible. “I don’t want to bite first. I don’t want to run from important stuff. I don’t want to tear through people and say I’m ambitious.”

“You’re not an animal,” Ewen handed him another water, knowing it wouldn’t even touch the sides of tomorrow’s hangover.

“I’m worse.”

“No, you’re a guy in a very bad year, and we’re not letting you do it by yourself.”

Damian made a small, inhuman noise. They sat with him, past the worst of it, until the bottle rolled away and the shaking stopped. When he passed out, they tucked him in, on his side, a bucket propped next to his face, and left the window cracked for air. The corkboard and the embarrassed apology he never managed to spit out could wait until morning. But that night, he wasn’t alone.

In summary, Damian Desmond during year one was emotionally bankrupt, legally proficient, possibly hallucinating, severely alcoholic, and two weeks away from smuggling himself into a restricted archive in a fake moustache. It wasn’t a good year, but it was hers, and that made the spiral worth it. 

Chapter Text

The bar slumped into a liminal stretch between arrivals and regrets. The chandeliers cast sleepy halos across velvet booths, and the piano tune was overly polite. Damian Desmond, former heir of everything, future bartender of something, lost a one-man war against a muddler. “Why is this wooden club covered in mint corpses?”

Anya, wearing a cherry-red apron that boasted of her new position as Head Mismanagement Officer, leaned forward gleefully with a grin like the sunrise. “You murdered them for mojito justice!”

“I don’t think that’s what muddling is.”

“You’re right. It’s actually therapy for herbs. Give it some love. Show it some respect. Say sorry to the mint.” She swanned off, tray under one arm, vanishing into the tables with a string of apologies and overenthusiastic greetings to leave Damian alone with the mint’s recriminations. He stared at the mint, which categorically did not forgive him. He cleaned the bar three times in that not-quite-an-hour, because polishing made him feel in control. It was his third… not day, but something, behind the bar, and he mastered wiping surfaces, looking intimidating and nodding like he knew what mezcal was.

The elevator doors opened. The man who entered looked like a weather-buffed corpse, complete with slumped shoulders, a raincoat that never saw rain, and a face so pinched it collapsed in on itself. Damian straightened – this was it, his first customer, his trial-by-liquid-fire. The man slouched to the bar and folded into the stool. His hair thinned, his skin was translucent, and his expression was neutral. “Welcome to Midnight Minus One. Can I offer you-?”

“I’m dead, aren’t I?” the man said. “This is the afterlife.”

“Um,” Damian looked for Anya’s script. “You have… options.” He pulled out a laminated pamphlet like it was covered in anthrax. “This might help.”

The man took it distastefully with two fingers. “I don’t want options. I want a refund. I want to wake up.”

“Well,” he forced charm, “I wanted to make managing director before twenty-five and die at eighty-two during a moderately racist retirement speech, but here we are.” His customer stared blankly at him. “Sorry. That was meant to be funny.”

“I didn’t laugh in life. I’m certainly not about to start now.”

“Cool,” Damian manfully resisted the urge to bite the coaster. “What’s your name?”

“George. George Glooman.”

“Wait, Glooman? That’s… unfortunate.”

“Yes, it wasn’t a name. It was a prophecy.”

“Right, well, Gloomy George,” he slapped the bar. “What can I get you?”

George scanned him with the same expression he used when he found dog shit on his shoe. “You look familiar.”

“I get that a lot,” he lied.

“You’re a Desmond,” it sounded like a dying kettle. “Your family ruined mine. My father owned a pharmaceutical company, until yours buried it with a hostile acquisition. We sold the house, he turned to drink, and I took accounting for stability.”

“So… gin?”

“Something bitter, but with a good finish.”

Through sheer panic, Damian made a negroni. He set it down and gave himself a mental high five. “There. One negroni. No hostile acquisitions.”

George sipped it. “I suppose I don’t hate it.” Damian beamed, before remembering that he didn’t beam. “You don’t get points for being decent, Desmond. I still hate your face.”

“Understood.”

The bar took on a graveyard hush, as if the chandeliers held their breath out of awkwardness. Damian wiped the same two inches of the counter, watching George hunch like a gargoyle and mutter into his drink like it would answer back. Considering where he was, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. He relitigated the failures of Ostanian pharmaceutical regulations, which he held personally liable for his death and the futility of nasal sprays. Damian attempted three different topics, such as reincarnation theories, cocktail preferences, the trajectory of roof collapse, but none stuck. Empathy wasn’t landing, and charm wasn’t working.

In short, it wasn’t going well. His customer was miserable, and worse, correct.

When he considered faking an electrical fire, Anya reappeared from table service, sweeping behind the bar in a whirl of clinking glasses and cheer. She leaned across Damian to beam at the new arrival as if George were a long-lost friend instead of a human raincloud. “Hi there! Welcome! I’m the bartender, chaos technician, and professional glass polisher. What’s your name?”

The client blinked into the nuclear blast of her smile. “George,” he croaked.

She clasped her hands like it was the best name she’d ever heard, which was rude, especially considering she knew his name, Damian thought. “Oh my gosh, George! That’s so classic, like a lighthouse. I’m so glad you’re here!”

For a man committed to bitterness, he looked painfully like he would melt. He blinked. “I know you.”

“That’s bold,” Damian mumbled, but Anya shushed him with an elbow to the ribs.

“You look like her,” George pointed. “From Eden. Anya Forger. The weird girl. Exactly like her. But she died.”

“Maybe I’m her ghost!” she chirped. “Boo!”

George frowned. “That’s not funny.”

Damian’s head snapped up sharply, but Anya held up a finger. “No, you’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just… I don’t remember ever being Anya Forger, so maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m just someone who looks like her.” He made a noise of protest, and the mint slipped again, a leaf hitting him in the eye. “You’re doing great!” the bartender chirped automatically.

“I’m making a drink that could qualify as an act of war.”

“That’s the spirit!”

Confusion crawled across George’s face, so he turned to Damian. “Is this a joke?”

“No, this is the bartender.”

“No, that is Anya Forger.”

Anya blinked. “That’s what Damian calls me! Like I said, I don’t remember much before bartending. I remember how to mix a drink and do a cartwheel, but that might be unrelated.”

“She wore her blazer backwards for three semesters. She corrected a professor’s translation and offered him a gummy worm as compensation.”

“I can do that!” Anya offered him a gummy worm from her apron pocket, and he took it like it was radioactive.

“George,” Damian finally spoke, silently dying inside, “this is just… a bartender.”

“That’s not just a bartender. She turned a debate team event into a bake sale with a philosophical theme. She labelled cupcakes with Nietzsche quotes. My favourite was the one that said ‘God is dead, but this is chocolate’.”

“That’s genius!” Anya snapped her fingers.

“She asked me for a stapler once,” George continued, “then used it to hold spaghetti.”

“I wonder if she was happy?” Anya mused softly, resting her chin in her hands. Damian choked on his saliva.

George studied his rapidly vanishing negroni. “You were a menace, but everyone liked you, even the people who didn’t know why. You made everything feel brighter than it was.”

“Well,” Anya beamed, “that’s really nice to hear!”

Damian stared at the bottles and decided that jealousy, even if it was loud, wasn’t an appropriate afterlife emotion. He felt like an alien in a sitcom. “She was nice to me,” George said suddenly.

“Tell me,” she coaxed.

“I dropped all my books outside the library. Everyone stepped over me, but she didn’t. She sat on the ground and helped me put everything back. Then she said my handwriting looked like seagull footprints. I thought all the rich kids hated me, and they probably did. His family,” he jabbed rudely at the new bartender, “erased mine.” Damian opened his mouth to defend himself, then realised he didn’t need to, because he wasn’t Desmond Global anymore, but a man covered in crushed mint. “She didn’t care. She just cared about people. She helped me, and I never forgot it. Then she died.”

“I’m sorry,” Anya’s smile faltered. “That must’ve been sad.”

“Is there… something you need to resolve before you choose?” Damian attempted.

“How the hell should I know?” George snapped. “I died. I woke up. And now, you- you - are serving me overpriced cocktails in hell.”

“They’re free,” he said weakly.

“Oh, then this is worse than hell.”

“Welcome to Midnight Minus One,” Anya shrugged. “Time is fake. Choices are mandatory. Drinks continue to be free if you flirt well enough.” Damian dropped his spoon.

“You’re good at this,” George managed a pathetic laugh.

“Practice. And stickers!” She peeled one off and put it on his forehead. You Remembered Something Positive! Damian passed him another drink, which wasn’t elegant, but didn’t smell lethal. Not that it necessarily mattered if it was.

“Thanks. This is… decent.” It felt like he’d passed a national exam, but his customer turned away to face Anya again. “You remind me of the best part of her. That’s very comforting.”

Anya leaned over the bar, took George’s hand gently and patted it. Damian pretended to not see it, but shattered a glass in his hand. “You’ve done well, you know, remembering so much. I think that’s really cool.”

“I…” George faltered, “haven’t been called cool before.”

“Then somebody was bad at their job.” George didn’t smile, but his face relaxed; Damian studied her reverently, before she grinned at him. “You’re terrible at empathy, by the way, but I’m still proud of you.”

“I’m in hell.”

“You’re at work,” she corrected. “Now, let’s make Mr. Glooman another drink. You’re on emotional support duty.” Naturally, he obeyed, and George took the drink with misty eyes. For the first time since his arrival, he felt slightly less doomed.

*

It was official: Damian Desmond did not handle grief well, legally, or sober. In order, his response was:

1. Denial
2. Screaming
3. Drinking
4. Repeating steps two and three
5. Printing a student schedule from five years ago and interrogating it.

The investigation formally began with interviews with former teachers, classmates and janitorial staff, who all felt she was very annoying, and definitely didn’t want to be involved. Still, he made notes on everything, including that she skipped classes often, spoke several languages with suspicious ease, and once claimed her dog knew the future.

“Don’t say the word closure,” he snapped as they walked to their old school, “or I’ll push you in the road.”

“I wasn’t going to say closure,” Ewen rolled his eyes.

“You were thinking about it.”

“I was thinking about food.”

“You were thinking about closure food, which is worse.”

He vaulted over Eden Academy’s wrought-iron side-gate, deeply regretting skipping leg day. His blazer snagged on a spike, but he swore, kicked free, and landed in the rose bushes. Behind him, Emile wheezed, “You said holiday security was light.”

“I said they were underpaid,” Damian hissed, “which is practically an invitation.” He snapped the padlock off the gate to allow his compatriots egress.

“This is breaking and entering, right?”

“We’re not breaking. We’re entering strategically.”

“You used bolt cutters.”

“Strategic bolt cutters.”

The courtyard was empty, save for the memory of years spent pretending not to feel. Damian marched like a war general, eyes locked on where their old classroom was, where she fell out of chairs, where she asked if peanuts were a fruit and then cried when informed no. They reached the door, where he produced a lockpick set. “Why do you have that?” Emile asked, not for the first time.

“Let me be clear,” Damian muttered, peering through the door at the disappointingly beige corridor, “I’m not grieving. I’m investigating.”

“Sure,” Emile dutifully opened a notebook, “and what are we investigating?”

“Institutional rot, adult negligence, the broader failures of the justice system, and also,” he kicked the door open, “why nobody gave a fuck she died.”

“She was nice,” Ewen offered. Damian didn’t respond, occupied with demanding the staff records room open for him immediately. Inside smelled like antiseptic, old books and disappointment; Damian gunned for the filing cabinets, whilst Ewen kept watch and Emile wiped their fingerprints off doorknobs with his hoodie sleeves, because he was the practical one, a fact that horrified everyone.

“Anya Forger,” Damian thumbed through the files. “Attendance records, disciplinary notices, health slips… where the fuck are her test scores? She cheated like a gremlin with a magic wand. This is criminally incomplete.”

“You’re the one committing crimes,” Ewen pointed out.

“Don’t make this about me.” The filing cabinet screeched, hating being helpful. Her records were too thin, like somebody faked normalcy and bored of it halfway. “Age at admission, six. Guardians, Loid and Yor Forger, address in South Berlint. Father’s occupation, psychiatrist. Mother’s occupation, city hall clerk.” He paused. “No medical records before that. No attached birth certificate.” He flipped to the back, which held one photograph of her school ID. Anya, age six, beamed at the camera, fringe crooked, looking like she licked the photographer and demanded snacks. He found her attendance sheet next, which was inconsistent. Four tardies one week, then all perfect for a month. She skipped PE alarmingly frequently, doctor’s notes attached to each, all signed by Loid Forger. He found a disciplinary slip from the time she tripped somebody in front of the French ambassador’s son and claimed diplomatic immunity. There was a note from her maths teacher describing her as bright but distractible. Her library record indicated she checked out the same book on Introductory Psychology three times, and Damian was unclear whether that was concerning or impressive.

Ewen unwrapped a chocolate bar for the blood sugar. “She was weird, but this is… weird, weird,” he commented, mouth full.

“She said she named her dog Bond,” Emile offered uselessly.

“She once told me her mother tried cooking in the bath.”

“Oh my god,” Emile laughed. “She was raised by wolves.”

“Wolves wouldn’t have shot her in an alley,” Damian muttered, and the air sharpened. He pushed the folder aside and lit a cigarette indoors, which nobody commented on because they didn’t want to be punched. “I’m going to find out where she came from. Before Eden.”

“You think it’ll help?”

“I think Forger deserved more than a blank page and a bullet.”

By week’s end, the Eden archives looked like a polite war had been fought in them. Damian collected documents, transcripts, surveillance logs, anything that seemed mismanage-y. His corkboard filled up as steadily as his liver. At his apartment, he surrounded himself with papers. Becky sent copies of newspaper clippings, gossip from her circles, old photos, and one very strongly worded note that read you look like shit – eat something. He didn’t, and chose to read the same file seven times. It took a further four weeks and a minor data breach (thanks to Ewen’s classmate and a concerning fling with the entire IT department), but eventually, Damian confirmed what he suspected. Anya Forger did not exist before Eden, except for a single social worker’s note on an orphanage intake form that claimed she transferred from an unnamed group home.

“Well,” Emile read over his shoulder, “that’s haunting.”

“She must’ve ran away,” Damian mumbled, “or escaped.” He rubbed his temples and turned off the screen. “She never mentioned it, not once. She said her dad was a therapist and he made great lasagna. That was her whole backstory.”

“Don’t forget, she said she was telepathic once,” Ewen offered helpfully, “but then she hit her head on a pole and forgot the whole conversation.”

“She was probably joking,” Emile snorted, then paused. “Right?”

The deeper Damian dug, the more it felt like Anya wasn’t erased, just never meant to be found. He kept a dossier with colour-coded tabs, maps, photocopies, red string, and a photograph of Anya with cake on her face. You need to calm down, Becky wrote in a letter. Your obsession is showing. Drink more water and stop mailing me photos with arrows on them like you’re on a gameshow. Later that night, he stared at the evidence, which all pointed to Loid or Anya Forger. “Loid’s still alive,” he muttered, circling a blurry photo of a man at a train station. “He’s out there.”

He sighed, and poured another drink.

“Fucking closure.”

*

The next drink attempts were comparatively better, which was to say, it wasn’t a health hazard. Damian mangled another garnish when George decided the afterlife required verbal suffering. “You know, it’s funny,” he dragged his stool back, “when I walked in, I thought, well, surely that’s not him. Damian Desmond, heir to billionaire bastardry, reduced to… what is that?”

“Citrus regret,” Damian deadpanned.

“It’s a cocktail he’s learning!” Anya supplied helpfully.

“He always was good at pretending to work,” George was unimpressed.

Damian bristled and adjusted his collar with dignity that increasingly felt borrowed. “If you have feedback, submit it through the complaints department, which is a bin fire.”

“So, it is you,” he leaned back with a glint in his eye, before turning to Anya, tone lowering conspiratorially. “Did he tell you what he used to call her?”

“I don’t think-” she started.

“Peasant. Commoner,” George spoke readily, “also poor. And dumb. And a charity case. And a lunatic. And a freak. But always in this adolescent way that meant I hate that you occupy my every waking thought, please suffer visibly while I come to terms with it.” Damian aggressively pretended his fingers weren’t crushing a lemon in half.

“He bullied her?” Anya asked, startled, whilst he tried his best not to launch himself at the chandelier.

“He bullied everyone, but her especially. Must’ve been love.”

“That is a repugnant oversimplification,” Damian muttered, but nobody heard him.

“He waited outside classes for her to insult her poor-person coat and got weirdly mad if she didn’t respond. One time, he knocked her pencils on the floor, then helped her pick them up. He accused her of manipulating him, and then,” George warmed to his own bitterness, “he bought every snack in the vending machine because she mentioned she was hungry, or sat next to her in the cafeteria and pretended it was an accident. He stole her quizzes from her bag to compare scores so he could brag that he beat her.”

“Wow,” Anya tilted her head, deeply fascinated. “That guy sounds exhausting.”

“Exhausting and untouchable. His family were Desmonds, you know. Like the Desmonds. Boardroom autocrats. Basically royalty.”

She frowned slightly, then asked with innocent confusion, “Wait, Damian. You were rich?”

“Apologies for not currently being dressed for gala events."

“But Anya,” George ignored them both, “made him human. It was insane. She was weird. But he looked at her like she was the only good thing in the world. One time, she offered him a rabbit-shaped sharpener and he blushed for twenty minutes.”

The bartender turned to her student like a cat noticing a laser pointer. His face was the colour of a sunburned tomato. “That never happened,” he spat.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, delighted. “You had a crush on her!”

“I did not.”

“You did too!”

“I was allergic to her voice!”  Damian inhaled through his nose like a grouchy dragon.

“Did she die because of your weird crush?”

He spluttered, but George beat him to the punch. “No, though I spent three months thinking that. I assumed he snapped one day because she didn’t acknowledge his twelve-step emotional sabotage programme. But no, she died, and he…” he gestured vaguely at Damian’s rumpled waistcoat, dishevelled hair, and general aura of self-loathing.

She examined him like a museum relic that was unearthed in adverse conditions. “I still can’t believe you were rich.”

“We are not talking about this.”

“He was a little prince,” George teased, “but Anya never treated him like one, which was the whole problem. She never treated him like he was better than everyone else, so he just tried harder and worse.”

“That’s tragic,” Anya chewed on a straw.

“If either of you would like a drink with bleach in it,” Damian coughed awkwardly, “I’ll consider it a personal favour.”

“That’s the boy I remember,” George sniffed. “Snobbery with inferiority.”

“It’s just-! She was nice to me!” he spat out, and the bar quieted; the lights flickered from second-hand awkwardness. Damian began pointlessly slicing a lemon into smaller lemons. “I don’t know what she saw. I think I was her project maybe, or her joke, or maybe she was nice to everyone and it was just me that took it personally. Either way, she was unbearable.”

“Sounds like her. Nice enough to make you hate yourself,” his customer raised his glass.

“You guys are weird.”

“We’re traumatised by adolescence. What’s your excuse?”

“I was hired with no references!” she beamed. “Also, I’m delightful!” She spun away and bounced towards a corner table where a man sobbed into his martini like a long-lost relative. “Hi! Do you need tissues, tequila, or both?” Damian poured himself a double whiskey before aggressively cleaning the backbar, spilling some of it.

George turned to him. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“Nope.”

“Figures. I wasn’t the sort of person types like you remembered.”

“People like me?” Damian topped up both their glasses. “Rich? Arrogant? Better hair?”

“Your family crushed mine. We went from comfortable to repossessed in six months. I stopped attending private school. My mother cleaned offices. My father was diagnosed with cancer and couldn’t afford his own drugs.”

“So, what?” Damian drank. “You hate me for being born?”

“I hate what your name did to people.”

“Do you think I had a choice?” Damian glowered at him. “I didn’t ask to inherit a portfolio of sins.”

“Is that supposed to be customer service? Because it sounds like guilt monologuing.”

“You’re not wrong,” Damian exhaled. “Look, I can’t fix what my family did, but I can listen whilst you rant, or whatever. I’m here. You’re here. There’s whiskey. We can make death uncomfortable together.”

“You were really awful to Anya.”

“Yes. I was a little shit with a superiority complex and too many neckties.” Drink, repour, drink, repour. “I made her life harder than it needed to be. And she was kind and I didn’t deserve a minute of it.” Drink, repour all the way to the brim, drink that too.

George swirled his drink contemplatively. “In Year Four, we were both in the library, both hiding from Old Lady Tonitrus. She asked if I wanted her ginger biscuit. I said no, but she gave it to me anyway.” Damian snorted. That was so her. “I didn’t believe it was really her when I saw her behind the bar. I still don’t. It’s an afterlife trick, probably. But, if it is her… she looks happy. You, meanwhile, look like a man tenderised by time.”

“That’s one way of saying it.”

Finally, George downed his drink. “I wasted years hating you.”

“You and me both, Gloomy.”

“What if my unresolved business is just… letting go?”

“Then do it,” Damian shrugged. “Hate’s a shitty houseguest. It never leaves when you ask.”

“Will I forget it all when I choose?”

“Dunno.”

Anya reappeared then with a fresh sheet of stickers. “Snack break! And here’s your I Acknowledged My Bitterness Like A Grown-Up sticker, George.”

“Thanks,” he smiled, actually smiled, “Miss… Bartender.”

“You can call me Anya. Or Forger. Even if you don’t think I’m her.”

Damian watched them quietly, jealously aching; the sticker twinkled mockingly under the bar lights. “Why’d you become a bartender?” George’s question was directed at him.

“I needed something to do that wasn’t punishing myself.”

“So, you punish yourself with customer service?”

“It’s a slow redemption arc.”

His chuckle was sad and loose. “Maybe I’ll try it after I sort out whatever cosmic nonsense is keeping me tethered to a luxury bar filled with emotional masochists.”

“You could start by forgiving the person who didn’t know you existed.”

“That feels unfair.”

“Most of life was.”

They finished their drinks. “Hey,” George called as Damian cleaned the bar diligently. “For what it’s worth, you’re not the worst Desmond.”

“That’s the lowest bar in hell.”

They both laughed. It wasn’t joyful, but it was true, and in the land of the dead, that was somehow enough.

Chapter Text

Anya Forger’s life pre-Eden was a void, but Loid Forger had to be findable. Nobody just vanished – not without help, at any rate. So, Damian did what any grieving, obsessive, mentally unstable twenty-year-old with generational wealth and no parental supervision would. He called in a favour to a guy who definitely worked in counterintelligence and definitely owed him a favour for that time when Damian paid off his gambling debts. More specifically, he was a family contact with a penchant for forged documents and discreet people-finding. It cost him a box of his mother’s favourite jewellery, one wallet, and whatever shreds of his morality were intact. In return, he received a file, which he prised open slowly like a bomb.

Subject: Agent Twilight

Alias: “LOID FORGER” “TWAIN FONEY” “ROLAND SPOOFY” “ROBERT (LNU)” “LIONEL (LNU)” “LAWRENCE (LNU)"

Occupation: Undercover Operative, Active (Unconfirmed)

Affiliation: Westalian Intelligence Services Eastern-Focused Division (WISE)

Last Confirmed Assignment: Operation STRIX

Objective: Long-term infiltration of Ostanian elite circles

Method: Assume civilian role; establish fake family unit to gain proximity to Donovan Desmond.

When Damian started breathing again, it was aggressive. “You motherfucker.” His voice cracked. “He used her to get to my fucking family.” He stabbed the report with his finger. “Operation Strix was specifically designed to infiltrate Desmond security infrastructure via me. She befriended me to spy on me!” He poured three fingers of something amber and bootlegged. “She was fucking six years old!”

“I…” Ewen blinked, “don’t think she knew any of that.”

She must have,” Damian growled. “She pretended to be a stupid gremlin. All that peanuts crap? All the falling down like a feral toddler? It was a cover! It was all cover! She was a plant!” He was howling now. “She was deployed like a weapon with a stupid hat.”

“Wait, what?” Emile asked. “Did she even wear hats?”

“She got close to me on purpose for the operation. Operation Fuck-You-Damian.”

“That’s not what it says.”

“She was embedded to be my friend so her dad could spy on my father, Emile. I was a target. I was a fucking mark.” He shoved the folder at him. “She pretended to be dumb and weird and allergic to gravity and- fuck!” Damian took a long glug, wiped his mouth with his sleeve and collapsed into a chair like a Shakespearean villain. “She used me! And I-” He didn’t finish, but stared at the wall, then the ceiling, then the file again. He picked it up to re-read establish fake family unit, which meant Loid, the therapist-dad, Yor, the part-time mother, and Anya were all lies, all just to use him as a stepping stone to get to his father. It was insulting.

He drank for three days, and achieved very little else. He forgot to eat, shower and pretend he wasn’t dying inside. Ewen rocked up with toast. “This is your intervention.”

“I’m busy.”

“You’re probably hallucinating.”

“I’m processing betrayal.”

“You smell like shit.”

Damian looked up at his oldest friend with bloodshot eyes. “She told me once her dog was part of a super-secret science experiment.”

“I think she was kidding.”

“Was she? Maybe the dog was also a spy. Maybe she had tiny cameras in her hair. Maybe every time she giggled, it was Morse code for die, Sy-on boy, die.”

“Jesus.”  

Damian hurled his empty bottle across the room. “She called me that.” His voice broke into a million piece. “Sy-on boy. Like she knew me. Like it meant something.”

Becky emailed him the following day. You’re spiralling again. So what if she was involved? She was a child. You were a child. Maybe she liked you, or maybe she didn’t. That’s not the point anymore. Damian read it three times, then drank more.

A week later, he sat in his darkened apartment surrounded by papers, toast crusts, and the unwavering judgement of a half-empty rum bottle. He was on his fourth glass of fuck it, who cares? “I want to hate her,” he informed the room. “I really, really do.”

Nobody responded.

“I mean, what kind of lunatic lies their way into your life, then has the audacity to die?” The bottle didn’t answer either. “She was nice to me to infiltrate my father’s politics, and I still liked her. I liked her. Fuck me.”

He knocked back the rest of the bottle and wheezed.

“She was a kid, and Loid was her dad. She probably just wanted to make him proud.” He wiped his mouth. “I get it. I’ve been trying to make Father proud since I was six. Every time I open my mouth, it’s  a boardroom in there. She would’ve done anything for her dad. So I guess… I can forgive her. Not because she didn’t lie, because she fucking did. Because I would’ve probably lied too.” The wall was really blurry now. “Fuck. I’m an idiot.”

The following week, he broke into a municipal archive, filed two fake FOI requests, and held an entire phone call with a WISE agent he’d unmasked while pretending to be a junior attaché named Tobias McSentient. Eventually, the edges dulled, and all that was left was guilt.

“She wasn’t just a tool,” Damian whispered one night, very drunk, and buried in his couch cushions. “She loved him.”

“Who, Loid?” Ewen glanced up from a rocket schematic.

“Yeah. She talked about him like he fixed everything. Like he cared. Hell, maybe he did.” He paused. “Maybe she just wanted to make him smile.” Emile said nothing. Becky’s weekly email advised him that he didn’t need to forgive her to miss her. He stopped blaming her enough to stop hurling abuse and start being nice to her photo again. She would find his corkboard really stupid, probably, and call it a spider web, before drawing a smiley face or a penguin on it. He laughed, cried, and drank. The cycle was very familiar.

Spring hit. The trees bloomed. The case stalled with a lack of traces of Loid, birth certificates for Anya, photos of her before age six. It was just the blank space and the ghost of somebody he never really knew but still desperately wanted to.

“I’ve officially lost my mind,” he cheerfully informed Emile one morning.

“You’re having gin porridge for breakfast again, so I’d agree with that assessment.”

“I’m going to find him. Her dad. I’m going to find him and ask him what her favourite song was, and if he doesn’t answer, I’m putting his teeth in a blender.”

You’re spiralling,” Emile chided, like offering therapy to an unpinned grenade.

“I’m researching,” Damian replied between clenched teeth as he forged a municipal clearance badge using old printer ink and raw spite, “and it’s going fucking excellently, thank you.” It definitely wasn’t, but he didn’t care. The Eden archives gave him one concrete lead, which was Anya’s home address in South Berlint. Damian took that information and ran with it.

The apartment building was gone, bulldozed six months prior and replaced by luxury flats and malaise. The landlord, however, wasn’t gone. He was old, slightly drunk and easily lured into conversation with top-shelf vodka and almonds. “He was a nice tenant,” he slurred, staring into the distance. “Very charming and clean. Had a kid, if I remember. Smart little thing, pink hair. She was a bit odd.”

“Did he leave a forwarding address?”

The old man snorted. “No notice, no forwarding. One day they were here, the next, poof. Moved like he was running from something.”

Or hiding, Damian thought grimly.

*

George regarded his cocktail like it would deliver a verdict. He wasn’t properly drunk, like Damian was, who swirled a half-empty tumbler, nor like the bartender, who stacked napkins into architectural shapes whilst humming a tune that didn’t belong anywhere near mortal ears. He just felt… heavy.

“So, I remember now,” he started flatly. “My death.”

The ex-billionaire prince glanced his way. “Go on.”

George inhaled a thin and stale breath. “It was summer. Sweltering. It was a heat that made you wish you believed in divine punishment, so you’d know who to blame.” He rubbed his palm against his coupe’s condensation, and wiped it dry on his jacket. “I was in the office. Again, still. It had cracked tiles and a water cooler that hadn’t worked since the new millennium.”

Damian didn’t interrupt the confession. It felt illegal.

“I was behind on rent again. My supervisor didn’t like me, because he claimed I lowered morale, because I refused to sing along to the birthday jingles. I had a spreadsheet due by five and exactly one working pen.” He paused. “I was also writing a Yelp review.”

Damian’s mouth twitched to a smirk caused by both curiosity and dread.

“It was for Desmond Holdings. I’d just learned they absorbed another regional chain, gutted the staff and jacked up insulin twelve perfect. You know, as you do.”

“That wasn’t me,” Damian winced.

“You were long dead,” George said coldly. “Besides, it was never you, or your father, or your brother, or the board. It was just faceless market shifts and non-liability clauses.” The chandelier rattled softly like it knew something ominous was approaching. “Anyway, I was in full keyboard warrior mode. Keys clicking, sweat dripping, half a tuna sandwich in my desk drawer. You know the drill.”

“I don’t.”   

George acted like he didn’t say anything. “I heard this groan. I thought it was just the building, because that place always groaned. Then, there was this pressure shift, like the ceiling was reading over my shoulder.” He sipped his drink thoughtfully. “I didn’t even look up. I just said something about the HVAC being overdue for maintenance. My last words were, I think, I hope whoever inherits my debts develops gout.” Damian barked a horrified laugh before smothering it into polite coughing. “The window unit detached and fell straight through the rotting plaster. It hit me in the back of the skull.” He tapped the spot with two fingers, then dropped them wearily. “Blunt force trauma. It meant death was probably instant.”

“You… didn’t suffer?”

“Physically, no. Emotionally? I died bitter and alone in a sweatbox full of mousetraps and copy paper.”

Damian didn’t bother offering comfort, and opted to nod like he also walked the long hallway of disappointment. “And now you’re here.”

“And now I’m here,” he swirled the liquid in his glass. “The worst part? I don’t even know what’s keeping me.”

“You said before…” Damian trailed off, “about the Desmonds.”

“Yes, I hated you,” he spoke without preamble. “You were everything I wasn’t. Wealthy. Accomplished by default. Protected. I spent my life watching your name slide across quarterly reports like it owned the language. Desmond Holdings, Desmond Foundation, Desmond Global, Desmond Biologics. You know what my father called you?”

“What?”

“The weather, because we couldn’t fight you. We could only survive you. Your father’s expansion to pharmaceuticals wiped us out, and he never recovered, and I never forgot.”

Damian worked for the next sip. “That’s why you’re still here.”

“What?”

“You don’t get to choose until you know what you’re leaving behind. That’s what Anya told me,” he gestured to the bartender, who currently attempted to balance a lemon on top of a salt shaker and failed gloriously. “Your business isn’t some company. It’s hate.”

The words didn’t sting George the way he anticipated. They landed softly, precisely. “So what, I just… let it go?”

“I don’t know,” Damian shrugged. “I’m not good at… fixing people.”

“Then what the hell are you doing here?” George snorted.

“Trying.”

Two bitter men, two abandoned sons, two corpses stitched back together with booze sat in amiable silence. The bar didn’t burst into applause, nor did the chandelier sparkle, but the room exhaled as George Glooman felt, for the first time in years, lighter.

*

Becky Blackbell opened her front door at 2:43 a.m, her silk robe askew and murder in her eyes. Damian Desmond stood on her porch like a wet cat. For some godforsaken reason, he was barefoot and clinging to a bottle that smelled of cloves and defeat. His tie was around his head like a warband. He bled from a knuckle and seemed annoyed by moonlight.

“I solved it,” he announced. “You’re welcome.”

Becky closed her eyes and mumbled a prayer or a death threat, which Damian interpreted as permission and stumbled inside. “Shoes!” she snapped.

“I lost them in a canal,” he replied gravely. She shut the door and locked it, in case normalcy tried to sneak in.

Fifteen minutes later, he dripped on her couch, wrapped in her dog’s blanket, nursing a herbal tea he didn’t ask for and had no intention of drinking. Becky sat with her arms crossed, having long mastered the art of listening like she was taking notes for a court deposition. Damian, meanwhile, was deep into breakdown number eight.

“Oh my god,” he whispered for the two-hundredth time that night, “her dad was a spy.”

“Yes.”

“A Westalian spy. Like foreign. A secret agent! The whole family was a cover!”

“Mm-hm.”

“Which means,” he gesticulated with his tea, which splashed on the blanket, “she got close to me because of it, and I- fuck, I thought she liked me, but it was all just… espionage!”

“You’ve told me this before.”

“I was a target, Becky!”

“You said that two Tuesdays ago.”

“I was the mark!”

“You said that one last month.”

“She called me Sy-on boy.”

“You cried about that on my birthday.”

“I- wait, really?”

“Yes,” her voice was brittle, “and you made a diagram on my kitchen wall with barbecue skewers and dental floss and labelled it the betrayal web.”

“Oh.”

“You misspelled betrayal.”

“Oh.”

Becky massaged her temples passive-aggressively. “What do you want me to say, Damian? That it’s okay? That she liked you anyway? That you’re not losing your mind? Because I’ve said all those things, repeatedly, and you keep showing up here like I’m a therapy vending machine.”

He blinked, then looked down at his feet. “I just… I keep thinking she didn’t mean to lie, that she was just… in it. Trying to make her dad happy. Like I was. Like I am.”

Her breath hitched slightly. “She was my friend.”

“I know.” They sat in a silence that knew where the bodies were buried and helped carry the shovels. “I don’t think I’ll ever be normal again.”

“You weren’t to begin with.” His laugh was wrecked and crooked and sounded like it had claws, but he laughed. She got up and fetched him a pillow, but tossed it at his face. “No case files tonight. You sleep here.”

“But-”

“If you try and solve anything after 3 a.m., I’m calling the police and your therapist.”

“I fired my therapist.”

“Of course you did. Why wouldn’t you?”

He curled into the couch like a child with emotional collateral damage. “Thanks, Becky.”

“Fuck off,” she said, too gently.

*

Somewhere between the fifth and sixth drink, the line between on the clock and off the rails became mostly theoretical. Damian slouched behind the bar, tie loosened, shirt sleeves rolled as if he was prepared for battle with gin and repressed trauma. George Glooman, shaped like a middle manager’s dread, nursed a cocktail. In the background, Anya hummed whilst reorganising the bitters based on how she personally felt about them. She tried to pry the shaker out of Damian’s hand earlier, but stopped when she saw the unmistakable glint in his eyes that meant he would fight to the death over cocktail ratios.

“So, obviously, I hate your family,” George spoke with drunken honesty. “Still kind of do.”

“Entirely reasonable,” Damian agreed.

“You’re not even going to defend them?”

Damian threw back his drink and winced. “I spent two decades doing that. I think I’ve earned the right to stop.” The hum of ice machines, piano and intercom apologies softened in the background as they sat in the pooled light like conspirators in a crime nobody would catch them for. “My father,” he continued bitterly, “had three expressions: disapproval, public disapproval, and something approximating affection when we were in front of cameras. He didn’t raise me so much as… occasionally inspect me.”

“To parental inspection,” George raised his glass and downed it. Damian mirrored him before refilling them both with neat vodka.

“My mother,” he wasn’t slurring now, which was more alarming, “was nice when Father wasn’t looking, like it was a game. Like… hide-and-seek with basic warmth. One day, she gave me a biscuit and the next she told me to not to talk at dinner because it was unbecoming. I was… I’ll say… nine?”

George laughed unexpectedly and immediately cringed. “Sorry. That was-” They both silently drank, and Damian refilled with a liquor from Anya’s don’t-touch-unless-deeply-pathetic shelf, which meant it was top quality. She didn’t stop them.

“My brother was a ghost with better posture. I could’ve caught fire I doubt he’d say anything. He’s probably alive, or in a hyperbaric sleep chamber made of money.”

“So,” George studied him carefully, glass forgotten, “you grew up with all the wealth in the world and none of the people?”

“I had tutors,” he joked pathetically. It didn’t quite land.

They sat in very awkward silence.

“You were so awful to her,” George settled on at last, not as an accusation, but like he identified a body. “You called her a peasant.”

He exhaled painedly through his nose. “I know.”

“You sabotaged her science project.”

“She set mine on fire. It was mutually assured destruction.”

“You made her cry.”

Damian nodded, gaze looking anywhere except the bartender. “Yeah. And she still asked if I was okay when I passed out in the library from exhaustion.” His client was very quiet. “I didn’t deserve it. So I spent six years drinking like the world was ending. I threw up in more streets than I probably ever walked down. I investigated her life because nobody else did.” His eyes felt very wet. “I hated myself for being such a dick to her. I hated myself more for never fixing it.”

“You became your own funeral,” George mused.

“Poetic,” he huffed. “Pop that on my gravestone. Here lies Damian Desmond, full-time guilt merchant.”

“Anya would have forgiven you, probably.”

“That’s the worst bit.” Said woman pretended not to listen whilst polishing a glass so hard it qualified as a second sun. Her face was unreadable, but her eyes softened when they glanced over.

“I think I can forgive you too,” George decided.

*

Damian Desmond, age nineteen, imperial scholar, and three-time nominee for Eden’s Most Likely to Choke On His Own Arrogance arrived at school that morning carrying something deeply unbecoming of his station. Namely, a polar bear plush, roughly the size of a cantaloupe, hidden in his satchel beneath a stack of unnecessarily annotated economic analysis papers. The toy wasn’t from a fancy shop, but purchased in a moment of sheer panic. He sprinted out during the morning rush to novelty cart that sold apology gifts, apology jams and apology breakdowns. He handed over a shamefully crumpled bill without haggling. The plushie had big, round ears and stitched paws and more importantly, it was soft, and it was white, and it was vaguely dog-shaped.

Once, Forger off-handedly mentioned that her childhood dog was a white sofa but he ate shoes. Damian locked the phrase between his academic ambition and emotional constipation, so there he was, bearing a cuddly offering like he wanted to barter absolution with cotton stuffing. He hadn’t slept, or if he had, it didn’t count, because it was all just hours of staring at the ceiling and blinking at the constellations of shame.

Yesterday, he did something unforgivable.

He didn’t even like plushies. They were illogical and served no purpose, but neither, apparently, did guilt, and he had plenty of that going spare. He sweated under his blazer. He spritzed his usual cologne, then panicked that it smelled too intentional, so he sprayed again with something nondescript. His hair wasn’t cooperating; his tie was wrong. On its part, the bear kept peeking out the side of his bag as if trying to escape its captor. Every part of him screamed to be nice today, dammit.

He entered the homeroom five minutes early and scanned the classroom. She wasn’t there. The desk, third row from the windows, was extremely Anya-less. The ridiculous, borderline unholy doodles she left on her notebooks were absent. Damian went to his usual seat and sat down too hard. He stared at the door to will her into existence. She always showed up eventually. Maybe she was in the nurse’s office, or stuck in traffic, or maybe she transferred without telling anyone because of him and changed her name and-

“She’s not here yet.” He turned sharply to find Becky Blackbell holding a thermos coffee. She looked impeccable, caffeinated, and already irritated with him.

“I didn’t say anything,” he replied too fast.

“No, but you look like you’re two seconds away from chewing your fingers.”

“Did she say anything yesterday?” he asked, then realised that was too obvious, so added, “To you, I mean. About today?”

Becky regarded him suspiciously over her coffee. “Damian, it’s not even nine. Can’t you wait to yell at someone until we’ve all had breakfast?”

“I’m checking,” he gestured vaguely. “She’ll probably be late, as always.”

“Why do you care whether Anya shows up to class?” she smirked. “Did something happen?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snapped, instantly defensive.

“Right, of course not,” she sipped again. “It must be a different Damian who stalks into class with a guilty posture and something weird in his bag.”

"There’s nothing in my bag.”

“You just looked at it.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You definitely did.”

“I don’t- this is ridiculous.” He pulled out a textbook and was unnecessarily forceful with the spine. “I’m just trying to be nice today.”

“Did you hit your head?” He scowled, but she continued. “The last time you tried to be nice, you insulted her socioeconomic status and dropped a dictionary on her foot.”

“That was a misunderstanding.”

“She walked with a limp for three days.”

He didn’t respond, but kept his eyes on the door. Homeroom began, and there was still no Forger. First period was History. He spent the class tapping his pen against his chin and reading the same paragraph six times. Anya didn’t show. Second period was Mathematics. He stared through the board whilst the teacher tried to explain data modelling. Anya’s desk remained empty. By now, the bear felt heavier than it should. The memory of yesterday’s disaster, which he was determined not to think about, loomed behind his eyes like a migraine in bloom.

He considered, briefly, that maybe she was sick, or maybe she was avoiding him, or maybe she was never coming back. He nearly left class early, but that was too obvious, and if there was one thing worse than being cruel to Anya Forger, it was letting anyone suspect he cared about being cruel to Anya Forger. He sat through the lesson, tapping his pencil into soft submission. He answered a question he wasn’t asked, but nobody noticed, or maybe they did, but he didn’t care.

By the time third period rolled around – Literature, of all things – Damian was a hairsbreadth from combustion. He didn’t even like literature. It was subjective, full of feelings and contained long-winded nonsense disguised as metaphor. But Anya liked it, and she was obnoxiously good at it. She read faster than him and highlighted things like emotional resonance and themes of alienation. Most of the time she was bullshitting, but her essays came back with high marks and effusive praise like sparkling analysis and delightfully incisive.

She would be there, because she had to be there. She never missed literature.

He clutched his satchel to anchor him. The bear’s soft ears peeked out again.

He pushed open the classroom door. 

Chapter Text

Damian Desmond met Anya Forger when he was six, and he hated her instantly. Not for any valid reason - she didn’t throw food at him or insult his bloodline - but she looked him directly in the eye when she smiled. The other students deferred to him, but she didn’t. The moment he introduced himself to people who were not her as the scion of Donovan Desmond, she whirled around with unwarranted confidence and asked, “Is Sy-on boy your real name, or didja lose a bet?”

From that moment on, it was war, or whatever passed for it between six-year-olds in matching uniforms. He shoved her books off her desk; she stole his lunch and replaced it with play-dough sushi. He told her she would never amount to anything; she told him his face was really stupid. At seven, he loomed over her desk and yelled, “That’s my pencil!”

She blinked up at him dumbly. “You dropped it. I rescued it from floor exile. It’s mine now. Finders keepers.”

“You chewed it?!” He snatched it from her, but she shot him a gap-toothed smile, so he said something rude about commoners. Afterwards, he returned to his dorm and stared at it for ten minutes. Eventually, he taped it in his desk drawer with a note. Don’t remove. Historically significant.

For Anya’s tenth birthday, everyone brought sweets or fancy pens to the classroom. Damian, for some ungodly reason to win at birthdays, brought a potted fern. He panicked at the florist and grabbed the only plant that felt normal. It was wide-leafed and unkillable, so he felt a kinship. He left it on her desk before assembly with a hastily-scrawled note that said don’t read too much into this, it’s just a botanical gesture – D.D. Anya read it aloud to everyone, then named the plant Captain Leaves. She drew a moustache on the pot and said it was a spy. He didn’t talk to her for three weeks.

The years passed, and they escalated in ways only two children set on mutual destruction could. His vocabulary improved so he insulted her better; her cunning sharpened to retaliate. Teachers made them sit on opposite ends of the room, yet they found ways to bicker through note-passing, mirrored glances, and once, leg-based Morse code. Around age eleven, something shifted. Anya got taller; Damian got angrier. She was still impulsive, infuriating, distractible, noisy, aggravating, but she was also stupidly brilliant. It annoyed him. It fascinated him. It made him feel like a shaken bottle of soda with no way to un-fizz. He called her names with less bite, like peasant, Forger, chaos rodent, brain-on-fire girl. She laughed when he did. “Oh no,” she swooned dramatically, “not the dreaded Sy-on insult generator. Whatever shall I do with my pride?” Once, he responded by slamming his locker so hard the hinges bent; in revenge, she stuck a glitter sticker of a unicorn on the handle.

At twelve, Anya Forger became an Imperial Scholar. Damian, aged twelve and a half, nearly vomited. He aimed for the title since he was old enough to understand legacy. Desmonds were expected to ascend. Desmonds were born for it. Anya’s clothes were ill-fitted and her accent was off. Her essays were brilliant, but bizarre, yet she stood in front of the assembly, receiving her cape without the slightest idea what she’d done. She waved at him. He burned with jealousy and something hot in his stomach that made it hard to breathe and easy to hate. He didn’t talk to her for three days; also, he punched a tree. Then, with no fanfare and less self-respect, he snuck into the hallway after hours, opened her locker, and left a box of chocolates. She shared it with Becky. She never mentioned it, but smiled at him in the corridors. Sometimes he caught her watching him with that same look she wore when dissecting poetry or choosing whether or not to break a school rule for kicks.

Damian became an Imperial Scholar at thirteen. It was printed in gold and hung outside the main hall on the announcement board with enough ceremonial pomp to impress a monarch. He read it seven times to confirm he wasn’t dreaming, but he didn’t smile or cheer. Ewen fist-pumped; Emile tried to tear the paper off the board as a souvenir. Teachers nodded like they always knew.

And then, a blur of pink slammed into him from the left. “Oh my God!” Anya was breathless and beaming in a way that felt physically dangerous. Her bag was open, spilling pens and mints and a paper titled Ten Reasons Why Peanuts Are The Best Brain Food. “You made it!” she grabbed one of his hands with both of hers. “You actually-! I knew you would! I told Becky you’d make it! Oh, wow, you look so cool!”

It happened fast. She twirled them once in a victory lap for him, hands still gripping, like this was her win too. Damian’s brain short-circuited as he stared at her. She was genuinely, wildly happy; the damn sun emerged in her smile specifically to celebrate him. Her hands were warm. Her smile was sharp and soft at the same time, and she was…

Holding his hand.

“I- What are you doing?!” he barked, flushed from throat to scalp.

“Oh! Sorry!” she let go fast, then laughed awkwardly. “I just- I’m so happy for you, Sy-on boy!”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Right, right. Of course, Your Imperial Scholarness of Scowls and Grumpiness.”

He scowled harder to compensate. “You don’t need to patronise me.”

“What? No! I’m not-!”

“Go brag to someone who cares,” he snapped, “I don’t need your approval.”

He left so fast he nearly ran into a locker. Anya blinked after him, shrugged, and said, “Okay, then,” and collected her non-working pens. Meanwhile, Damian made it to the quad and stood behind a pillar for ten minutes trying to slow his heartbeat. His palm tingled. That peasant touched his dominant hand; he glanced at it like she branded it. He insisted it didn’t mean anything. However, he refused to touch food with that hand all day.

By the end of the week, Ewen asked why he wrote with his left hand. Emile tried to high-five him and he snarled. The dorm mother asked why he smelled like hand sanitiser. Damian just muttered, “Health reasons,” and continued reading with his right hand curled against his chest. He never admitted it, but that entire week, he washed everything else, but not that hand.

When they were fourteen, he faked a detention slip so they’d be stuck together in the library during an assigned reading period. It was forged in his own handwriting and signed Principal McPrincipal. It really shouldn’t have worked on the staff, but it did. However, Anya took one look at it and smirked, “You really wanted to hang out, huh?”

“Fuck off,” he snapped. “I needed the desk space.” They sat for an hour. He pretended to study; she read poetry aloud. He ordered her to stop, and she read more, so he called her insufferable, and she offered him a cookie. He took it. It was the first time he realised her voice made him feel like breathing hurt in a good way.

By sixteen, the war evolved into a cold one. They argued, but it was different now. He dragged her into debates and she danced around his logic. He mocked her penmanship, but she called it calligraphic rage. Damian insisted he hated her still, but he stared too long when she raised her hand in class and felt sick when she looked tired. When he found her asleep in the library, head on a stack of sociology papers, he covered her with his coat and vanished before she woke. He never told her. At seventeen, he drank coffee because she said it helped her focus, but he hated the taste. She offered him a sip of hers once, and their fingers brushed. He called her disgusting and walked away to hide the grin that stayed until lunchtime. At eighteen, somebody else called her beautiful and he nearly failed his chemistry practical.

At nineteen, he did something unforgivable and she never smiled at him again. He bought a plush because words failed him, as they always did around her, but she never received it. He kept it. It sat on his desk for months, untouched, until he packed it in a box marked DO NOT OPEN, along with every letter he never sent her and every apology she never heard.

From six to nineteen, if you asked Damian Desmond about Anya Forger, he’d say, “I never liked her.” He said it too fast, too defensively. He said it like he forgot how to lie convincingly. He said it like it hurt to remember how much he did.

*

Four years to the day Anya died, Damian found Agent Twilight in the worst possible place: a dog park. It rained the sideways, miserable Berlint rain that stuck to your neck. Damian stood on the gravel path, soaked through, holding a leaking umbrella. His boots squelched; his hangover squelched harder. But Loid Forger was there in a grey coat, gloves and a neutral expression. He was throwing a tennis ball for a golden retriever that didn’t exist in what he assumed was classic spy misdirection.

Damian watched him for three whole minutes before calling out. “The dog’s imaginary. You can stop now.”

Loid froze, then turned slowly, not in panic, but surprise. “Mr. Desmond,” he greeted calmly, as if they ran into each other at a charity gala and not an illicit meet-up in the rain.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Damian replied with gravel and insomnia.

“I’m aware,” Loid glanced around. “So’s half the agency.”

The sky coughed thunder. Damian lit a cigarette with hands that really shouldn’t be steady. “You’re good, I’ll give you that. They say you’re the best.”

“I am.”

“So how’d I find you?”

“That,” Loid said, with real astonishment, “is an excellent question.”

Ten minutes beforehand, Damian bribed a florist, lied to a dog groomer, blackmailed a park warden and followed a string of tip-offs from a money-laundering ring that might’ve seen a tall blond guy buying ibuprofen sadly. Now, they sat on a bench under a tree, sharing a hip flash like estranged drinking buddies. “Whiskey?” Damian offered.

“Declined.”

“Coward.”

“So,” Loid studied the rain, “you’re the one who dug through WISE’s storage units, hospital invoices and third-party data with a fake surname and a penchant for yelling at librarians.”

“They gave me attitude.”

“You threatened one of them.”

“Her glasses were stupid.” Loid didn’t smile. He seemed tired in a way he would never sleep off and made him forget why he was still breathing. Damian just swigged. “I want to know why she died.” Loid remained silent. “I want to know why Anya was shot in a fucking alley and why the only people who cared were four idiots, a corkboard and a bottle of gin.”

“I cared.”

“Sure,” Damian nodded bitterly, “so much you fucked off.”

“I needed to disappear.”

“Why?”

Loid didn’t answer immediately. When he did, it was soft. “Because I caused it.” His exhale was barely audible. “Operation Strix was designed to destabilise your father. Long-term infiltration, high stakes. Anya was part of it, yes, but she didn’t know, not really. She was… happy.”

“She was weird,” Damian snorted.

“She loved fiercely.”

“Yeah,” he stared at the sky. “She did.”

“When I took her in, she was five,” Loid continued, voice strained. “No records, no family, just a note that said she was too difficult to rehome. She didn’t trust anyone not to abandon her, but she trusted me.” He shook his head slightly. “And I handed her a mission.”

“You raised her in a lie.”

“I raised her in safety.”

“You dropped her in a school full of government brats.”

“I gave her stability.”

“You weaponised her,” Damian turned on him.

“And I hate myself daily.” Loid didn’t flinch.

Somewhere behind them, a real dog barked. A couple walked by, oblivious to the men having a protracted breakdown under a tree. Damian held out the flask; again, Loid declined. “I thought she was a plant,” Damian muttered, “I thought she used me. She laughed to get close. She pretended.”

“She wasn’t.”

“I know that now.”

“She thought the world of you.”

“Yeah, well, she also thought her dog had superpowers.”

“I don’t think she was wrong about that.”

Damian’s laugh emerged as a cough. “I didn’t say a single nice thing to her when she was alive.”

“She didn’t hold it against you.”

“How would you know?!”

“Because,” Loid coughed to cover a crack, “she told me she liked spending time with you.”

The rain was much quieter after that. They talked about Eden, the early years, about Loid’s cover and how it was supposed to last six months and turned into a decade and a bit with a child and a family, about how Strix quietly fell apart as the Ostanian government shifted priorities, about how, in the end, it was a nobody with a gun and no motive, wrong place, wrong time.

“No records, leads, claims of responsibility,” Loid sighed. “They never found the shooter.”

“They never even looked.”

“I did.”

“You… what?”

“I searched. I burned contacts, traced ballistics. I broke into a morgue for access to autopsy reports.”

“I get it.”

They sat for a while longer, then Loid ruined it. “I don’t think it was random.” Time itself froze. “I think somebody was tying up loose ends. Strix went nowhere. Anya was a leftover piece.”

Damian’s blood was mostly glass. “Are you saying someone executed her because she knew things?!”

“I don’t know,” her father emphasised, “but I suspect somebody found out what she was part of, or a revenge hit from the other side. I had enemies.”

“So did my father.” Neither mentioned it, but they both thought that she was caught in the middle. Again. Always. “Tell me everything.”

“No. I’ve told you enough. You know what you wanted to know.” Two men built by secrets and cracked open by a girl who wore shoes two sizes too big and called people weird nicknames like a love language looked at each other. “You need to stop, Damian.”

“No.”

“You’re twenty-three. You’ve already lost a lot. Don’t lose yourself too.”

“She mattered,” he gritted his teeth.

“She still does, but,” Loid put an uncomfortable hand on his shoulder, “you need to live.”

“I am living.”

“You’re chasing a ghost.”

“It’s all I have left.”

That landed. Loid looked away respectfully. “Then, I’m sorry.”

“You loved her too.”

“More than I thought possible.” They both drowned in what they never said when she was alive. Loid stepped away. “I doubt we’ll meet again.”

“That’s ominous.”

“It’s a spy thing.”

“Figures.”

“If you’re lucky,” Loid added, “you’ll forget all this. You’ll hopefully drink less. You’ll meet someone who doesn’t remind you of her.”

“I don’t want to forget her,” he shook his head.

“Then remember her as somebody happy.”

“I already do.” 

Loid nodded briskly, because any more than that was overplaying his hand. He turned to walk away. That night, he rested. Just a little.

*

Damian Desmond, aged permanently twenty-five, bartender-in-training, tapped the counter once, then again for good luck. “Okay. I want to practice something.”

“Alchemy?” George raised an eyebrow.

“No.”

“Necromancy?”

“Worse. Honesty.”

“Oh, don’t do that,” George warned. “That’s how my cousin got married.”

Across the bar, Anya perked up like a child promised a treat. “Honesty game?” she asked. “Like, what are you afraid of, what’s your middle name, what do you think of me-?”

“No!” Damian snapped, then softer, “not… emotionally loaded stuff.”

“You mean… fun honesty?”

“Yes,” he drummed his fingers impatiently. He inhaled. This was fine. This was normal. Normal people did this. “No stakes, just weird questions. You answer honestly, no matter how stupid. I want to…” he cleared his throat pretentiously, “practice talking without being horrible.”

“Bold goal,” George commented. “I give it two minutes.”

Damian just glowered at him. “We’ll take turns. One person asks a question, the other two answer. The rules are no lying, no consequences, no trauma. Definitely no hypotheticals about my father.”

“Then what’s left?”

“This sounds fun!” Anya beamed. She pulled out a coaster and doodled on it with a bar pen. “Can I keep score?”

“There’s no scoring!”

“I’m keeping score anyway.” She clapped her hands. “Okay, who goes first?”

“I’ll begin.” George’s tone implied the game was already a mistake. “If you were reincarnated as a cheese, which cheese would you be, and why?”

“Stilton,” Damian replied immediately. “Expensive, unwanted, goes bad if you leave it alone too long.”

Anya nodded solemnly. “Mozzarella, because everyone likes mozzarella. It gets melty and weird when it’s hot, and that’s relatable.”

“That’s…” George blinked at her, “the least unhinged thing you’ve said all day. I’m concerned.”

“Your turn!” she pointed at Damian with her pen like a judge passing sentence.

“Okay,” he hesitated slightly. “If you saw a potted fern on a table, what would you name it?”

“Is this a test?” George sniffed.

“It’s a question, Gloomy.”

“Hm. Doctor Cigarettes.”

There was no hesitation from Anya’s side. “Captain Leaves!” Damian’s whole soul left his non-existent body. He stared at her with his mouth agape like she recited his medical history through song. He fixed his gaze on the backbar like it would open a portal to hell, thus giving him an excuse to crawl in. He vomited slightly in his mind. “What? It sounds like a ship captain for plants.”

“Should I prepare an exorcism, or does he just make that face sometimes?”

“I-” Damian choked. “No, it’s fine. I’m fine.”

“You look like you’ve swallowed a wasp.”

“I’m fine.” Before the vibe curdled further, he ordered, “Next. Go.”

“Okay!” Anya twirled her pen. “If you were a conspiracy theory, what would you be?”

“Pigeons are government spies,” George considered. “Surveillance is very real, and I hate how annoying they look.”

“Mine would be that the aristocracy invented emotions in the 1800s to manipulate trade agreements.”

“You say that like it’s not true.”

“I’d be the theory that ducks are immortal and have watched us since Babylon!” Anya chirped cheerfully, even though she didn’t have to. Both men stared at her very fucking stupidly.

“…You’ve given that some thought.” Glooman put down his drink, and Damian automatically started making him another one. “Would you rather be haunted by a ghost that sings everything it says, or become a ghost and only communicate through knock-knock jokes?”

“Sing-ghost!” Anya gasped.

“You are a sing-ghost,” Damian muttered as he stirred a Manhattan.

“And you,” George addressed him, “are absolutely the knock-knock one.”

“I’d be silent out of spite.”

“Not an option. This is death, not dignity.”

Damian buried his face in his hands, then sighed, before giving George his new drink. “Fine. My question. If your soul was a sandwich, what would it contain?”

“Melancholy and a very old pickle.”

“Candyfloss and three jalapenos,” Anya beamed, “like, enough to make you cry but not enough to ruin the experience.”

“That’s extremely on-brand for you,” her trainee mumbled.

“My go again! If you made someone a rocket from scraps, what would you want them to do with it? I’ll answer first, because I already know! I want them to either hang it in a place of honour or launch it at somebody!”

“I’d throw it away,” George intoned, “and report you to the authorities.”

She made one for Ewen when he said he wanted to go to space and listened to him talk for twenty minutes about rockets because nobody else wanted to and she was so enthusiastic and fascinated and I said I’d take her there- “Um,” Damian’s mouth was mealy, “I’d… want them to keep it.”

Next up was George. “If you were sentenced to haunt a hat, what kind of hat would you choose?”

“A crown. Probably.”

“Obviously,” Anya snorted. “I’d pick a beanie, so I could stay warm and whisper secrets into people’s ears.”

“Hmm,” George nodded, “that’s genuinely unsettling.”

“Thank you.”

Damian stared down his glass. “How do you feel… about polar bears?”

“Overrated,” the customer snorted. “Big white bastards. Eat their young.”

Anya tilted her head thoughtfully. “I think they’re cute and big and soft and cuddly, but also really strong and lonely. I think it’s the kind of animal that wants to nap and roll around in the snow and maybe destroy capitalism.” She shrugged, dismissing a thought. “I’d hug one if it wouldn’t maul me.”

His grip on the drink tightened and he didn’t speak for ten whole seconds. “Noted,” he managed hoarsely. “I think they’re okay.”

“Is this flirting or a breakdown?” George looked between them, visibly repulsed. “I can’t tell.”

“Shut up!”

Anya pressed a sticker on his shoulder, which said I Asked A Question Without Crying! She hummed thoughtfully. “If your gravestone could insult one person eternally, what would it say?”

“Fuck you, Father,” Damian replied automatically.

George nodded. “Mine would say Here Lies George Glooman. Not You. Think About That.”

“Mine would say You still owe me five bucks, Kyle, even though I’ve never met a Kyle,” Anya grinned. Damian surprised himself by laughing; it snuck up on him. “Another sticker for you!” She placed one over his heart. It depicted a smiley face with stars for eyes with a caption that said I Genuinely Had Fun.

“You’re both so exhausting,” George sighed.

“Do you want a sticker too, George?” Anya asked. He opened his mouth, closed it, shrugged, so she gave him one that read I Existed Today, and That’s Enough.

“Yeah. That’ll do,” George smiled.

It was her, or part of her, or pieces that mattered. Something about how she tapped pens, or how she sang under breath, how she blinked like a frog when asked a question too fast confirmed it. That was Anya Forger. “What if I named the plant Captain Leaves?” she called over to him.

“Stop saying that dumb name!” he rasped.

“Why? You don’t like plants?”

“I love… plants,” he croaked, because his past was alive, giggling, and talking about haunted hats. She didn’t remember him, but the constellation of her existed. She liked silly names and polars bears and launching objects at people. She wasn’t entirely gone, and that made everything worse.

Damian’s teeth threatened mutiny due to extended pressure. Every afterlife atom vibrated like a tuning fork. His brain screamed at her in languages it didn’t speak.

It was Anya, it had to be. She stood three feet away with no idea he carried her name like a wound for six years, that he once sat through an opera because she said she thought the poster was so cool, or that he kept every note she ever passed him, including ones that just said fartboy. She didn’t know him, yet she was her. He wanted to scream and grab her by the shoulders and shake every memory from her to see if anything more of her remembered him. He wanted to be twelve again, and thirteen, and sixteen, and eighteen, all the versions of him that stood too closely, barked too loudly, and never, ever said what he meant. 

Damian wanted her to forgive him for everything. For being horrible. For being a coward. For having a crush on her and calling it anything but. His vision blurred slightly. He couldn’t look at her anymore, but he couldn’t look away. He gripped the counter tighter. He had proof, dammit, that this was her. Whatever cosmic cocktail of death and reincarnation and quantum stupidity brought them back together, it did so deliberately.

This wasn’t random.

Damian Desmond stood behind purgatory’s bar with a sticker over his heart and realised catastrophically, cosmically, too late. He didn’t think it so much as explode it; it howled in his brain like a banshee loosened in an orchestra. It wasn’t soft or poetic but violent and thrashing; his skull cracked from pressure. All the notes he never passed her, the jacket on her chair, the detentions he faked so he could sit near her, how she looked at him like she understood him, the polar bear plush he never gave her hit him at once.

He was in love with her. It wasn’t a crush or a passing affection, nor a rival he wanted to ruin with snark and a half-puked compliment. He loved her, and she didn’t even remember his name. His chest was molten panic and his heart beat traitorously. Part of him begged say something. The rest of him replied say what? Hey, sorry I terrorised you for thirteen years, turns out I was in love with you the whole time, please forgive me and validate my entire emotional framework for the next ten minutes?

She drew a picture of a polar bear on a napkin and pinned it behind the bar. Damian’s mind screamed louder. Nobody heard, except maybe the gods, who weren’t taking requests at this time. 

Chapter Text

Damian Desmond remembered being alive. He didn’t necessarily miss it. Living was a chore. Breathing was an errand. Waking up meant remembering she was dead; working meant remembering he wasn’t. Each morning he stared at himself in the bathroom mirror and wondered how he could look so put-together whilst spiritually decomposing. The suits were pressed, the colognes expensive and the watches cost more than most apartments. Behind the glassy stare and meticulous tie knot sat a man filled with regret, scotch and anti-anxiety pills. 

He was twenty-two when Donovan made him Head of Strategy at Desmond Global. “You’ll gain experience,” his father said, like shoving a body in a crematorium was excellent career development. “It will be good for you.” Of course, what he meant was if you cry in the boardroom again, I will personally bury you under the Marriott. Damian complied. He drank in secret, smoked openly, and once, during a quarterly meeting, hurled a branded paperweight into the wall because Eden Academy was mentioned. His therapist (the fourth, since the others kept calling him out) said he experienced complicated mourning; his father believed he used her death as an excuse. At night, he sat on his balcony and drank until the stars blurred. He sometimes watched penguin documentaries and tried not to cry. He picked fights with juniors at work. He kissed women he didn’t like and broke it off when they smiled wrong. 

Once, he sobbed in Becky’s arms at five in the morning whilst she patted his back.  “You are the most dramatic man I’ve ever known,” she told him. “I’m sorry she never met this version of you. He’s stupid and soft.” He didn’t stop crying, so she made him tea. 

He drank it and asked, “Do you think she hated me?”

“No,” Becky’s eyes were distant, “I think she wanted you to be better.” It haunted him for months. 

When he wasn’t at the office, he was in the archives. When he wasn’t in the archives, he was drunk in a bar. When he wasn’t drunk, he stood in front of his corkboard and whispered, “Please tell me what you said. Please tell me who you were. Please tell me why I can’t stop.” He once punched a mirror because he thought she was inside it. He told his friends he was tired of being pitied, but what he meant was I died the same day she did and kept moving out of spite. What he meant was please let me see her again. 

The end began with a politely-worded intervention and ended with a van. Melinda called it a wellness retreat; Donovan called it fixing the optics. Damian dubbed it a hostage situation, which wasn’t strictly fair, because nobody drugged him, but the emotional tone was accurate. His mother appeared in his bedroom at 7 o’clock with a travel bag and a glint in her eye that meant you’re going or I’m telling your father. 

He went. 

Technically, the facility was a rehab centre, but nobody said that aloud. It was a retreat for high-functioning individuals experiencing grief-adjacent symptoms, emotional exhaustion or minor unravelling. The foyer had plants; the receptionist offered herbal tea; his therapist wore silk blouses and used the phrase inner healing corridor unironically. Damian immediately loathed it. He spent the first three sessions describing his symptoms as boredom, bad lighting and the odd ghostly apparition. When asked if he wanted to talk about Anya, he snorted and asked why he’d want to waste time on that peasant.

Group therapy was a half-moon of suffering in expensive loungewear. Attendees included a hedge fund manager with abandonment issues, a divorcee who couldn’t stop painting her ex and a socialite who threw things when overwhelmed. Damian didn’t speak and chose to sit in the corner with the expression of a Roman emperor watching slaves fight to the death. One session, the therapist asked if he had anything to share. He shrugged. “I dreamed she was alive.” 

“Anya?”

“No, Marie Antoinette. Yes, Forger.” 

“How did that make you feel?”

“Stupid.” 

“Why?”

“Because it wasn’t real.”

“Oof,” contributed the hedge fund manager.

“I’ve felt worse.”

The room went quiet as he idly picked a thread at his sleeve. The therapist gave him a look of gentle horror. 

By week four, he slept through the night. By week five, he stopped drinking mouthwash. By week six, he said Anya’s name without choking. When he left - pale, cleaner, quieter - he was delivered straight to Desmond Global’s central office. “Work will give you purpose,” his father said, “and structure.” What he meant was try not to humiliate the family any further. 

So he worked. He took meetings, signed paperwork, filed things, and walked through corridors with enough gravitas to pass for functional. He said things like synergy and brand positioning and quarterly resilience. He was offered a private office (accepted), scotch (declined), and condolences about that girl, to which he always responded, “I’m over it.” He repeated it in front of the board, his assistant and his own reflection so often it sounded true. But late at night, when the office quietened, he opened his wallet, pulled out a photo and ran a thumb across it. 

He was over it. He was fine. He was moving on. Really. 

Rehab taught him structure, not healing. It taught him how to wake up early, sleep without choking on his own vomit and smile politely when she was mentioned like nothing detonated behind his eyes. More importantly, it taught him what not to say, like, “She died thinking I hated her,” or, “I hear her voice when I’m alone,” or, “I would set the world on fire if it meant one more minute.” He performed a palatable, marketable version of himself. When he walked into his father’s company, they told him he looked sharp, and he thanked them, put in his hours, and went home and drank in millilitres. That was his trick: the veneer of order stretched over an imploding star. Finally, he was a Desmond again.

At 8:00 p.m. he left the office; at 8:05, the first drink touched his lips. Never in public anymore, he wasn’t that stupid. No, he drank two fingers of whiskey (no ice, no noise) in the backseat of a chauffeured car with the privacy screen up. His second glass was at home, with pills if the day was particularly annoying. He didn’t drink to forget, but contain, because if he didn’t, the memories returned. Such as her idiotic grin when she was proud of herself, or how she doodled griffins with his face on them in Languages class, or the time she sneezed so violently her stupid hair-caps fell off. 

Down the hatch. 

Rehab taught him how to hide the rot, not clean it. 

By twenty-three, Damian clawed his way back from public disgrace. He was pristine now, having grown into his voice, jawline and aggressively clean suits. He drank sparkling water at lunches, hosted investment briefings with a terrifying smile and answered emails with let’s circle back on that deliverable without gagging. By all objective metrics, he was crushing it. However, it was never enough for Donovan.  The problem wasn’t that he was failing; it was that, for a long time, he had, in three years of collapse and one year of recovery to rebuild trust with the board after multiple scandal-adjacent inquired and one unfortunate incident involving a bottle of rum, a diplomatic attaché and the company yacht. Donovan called it a waste of tuition, but the ever gracious media dubbed it his frat-boy downfall, a wild phase, a youthful spiral, which meant the family spun it into brandable redemption. 

Donovan never said well done or I’m proud or you came back from the edge where most men don’t. Instead, he said, “Your presentation ran six minutes over. Try rehearsing,” or, “Our stock price would be higher if you kept your name out of the press at twenty-two,” or, “Do you plan on dying in obscurity like the rest of your generation or will you contribute to the family name?” At first, Damian begged for his approval. Indirectly, of course, he wasn’t an idiot. He crushed quarterly earnings, spoke flawlessly at summits, dismantled a hostile acquisition with a spreadsheet and a courtroom stare. Once he worked thirty-six hours straight to win a contract that Demetrius told him he’d fumble like he fumbled his adolescence. He closed the deal, personally, without sleep. His reward was Donovan glancing at the numbers and saying, “Next time, keep your emotions out of it.” It became a game. How much of himself could he burn before his father warmed up? He streamlined subsidiaries and fired a layer of yes-men. Nothing. He saved a billion in projected tax losses through restructuring. Nothing.

The worst was the annual review held in his father’s office, whose walls held only framed photos of Donovan looking powerful in front of national monuments. It was less conversation, more inquisition. Damian prepared a binder full of metrics, charts, case studies, and impact assessments. He presented it like gospel; Donovan silently listened. When he finished, his father flipped a page, raised one eyebrow and simply stated, “You’ve stopped embarrassing me. Good.” That was it. Damian left the room and laughed so hard he nearly threw up. 

Sometimes, alone in his penthouse, he imagined what would’ve happened if she’d lived. If Anya saw him like this - sleek, capable, ruthless when it counted - she would’ve rolled her eyes at him, and he would’ve smiled. He didn’t do that anymore. At twenty-four, Damian had power, reputation, and quarterly projections that made industry veterans jealous. He also had three nervous breakdowns, a framed apology to a janitor, and a growing conviction that if he’d met Anya again the first thing he would say was God, I tried, and he still didn’t love me. 

One evening in his private office, Damian stood opposite his father, binder in hand, tie askew from the uphill battle of holding it together. “I’m resigning,” he said flatly.

“No, you’re not.” Donovan barely reacted. 

“I’m not asking,” his voice tightened. “I’ve given you quarterly miracles. I’ve rebuilt investor confidence. I’ve been the Desmond you wanted, and I’m done.” Donovan simply flipped through paperwork deliberately and silently. “I’ve drafted a transition plan, seeing as the division runs itself now. You won’t even notice I’m gone. I want out.” 

“You don’t get out.” 

Something bitter boiled in Damian’s stomach. “I wasn’t aware I signed a blood contract.”

“You signed it the moment you were born,” Donovan finally looked up. “You owe this family more than half-competent damage control and a year of clean headlines for the three years you spent dragging our name through mud. For the clients we lost, the inheritance you rendered radioactive.” He stood and crossed to his drinks shelf where he poured himself a 40-year scotch Damian wasn’t permitted to touch until he learned to act like a man. “You threw your education and career in a ditch and cried over a dead girl in a house I paid for.” 

“Her name was Anya.”

“She was nobody,” Donovan replied.

“I’ve spent years making this business palatable again. You haven’t even said thank you.” 

“It’s your job.” 

“I didn’t ask for this job.” 

His father took a long drink, then, as if offering the most obvious solution in the world, said, “Talk to your mother.”

“What?”

“She’s worried. You’ve been listless. She says you’re not seeing anyone.” 

“That’s your concern?” he laughed. “That I'm not dating?!”

“Find a wife,” his father spoke as if ordering groceries. “Stabilise. You embarrassed us. We’ve done what we needed to do. It’s time you did the same.”

“I don’t want to be a Desmond anymore.” 

“You don’t get to stop being a Desmond.” Donovan straightened his tie. “Talk to your mother.” 

“I’m not marrying anyone.” 

“Damian,” his father regarded him coolly. “She’s dead. That will not change.”

Damian left without another word. The elevator doors closed behind him; the descent felt endless. 

*

Melinda Desmond never summoned her son to lunch. She scheduled him like a charity gala or a third divorce hearing. So, when Damian received a personal, handwritten summons to meet her at a garden terrace in a private club, he assumed someone died. He wasn’t wrong. “Sit,” she said as he approached. “You’re late.” 

“It’s two minutes past.”

“In that time I’ve imagined your funeral twice. Sit.”

He sat. The waitress brought wine, and his mother didn’t ask his opinion on the bottle; she never did. “Why am I here?”

“You’re brooding,” she spoke as if diagnosing an infection. “You’ve skipped engagements, not returned correspondence and rejected an invitation from a woman whose father owns half the oil in Ostania.”

“I don’t like… oil,” he scowled. 

Melinda sipped her wine slowly. “You need to go on a date.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Don’t be childish.”

“I’m twenty-four.”

“That’s halfway to thirty. You’re decaying.”

“Why do you care?” Damian rubbed his forehead.

“Because I’d like to know someone will look after you when I’m gone.”

“You’re not dying.”

“No,” she said, “but if I ever do, I’d hate for your only companion to be room-temperature brandy.”

“This is ridiculous,” he folded his arms.

“I’m not asking for much,” Melinda’s voice softened. “Just one date with someone who hasn’t been surgically grafted to state secrets or emotional damage.” 

“That eliminates everyone I know.”

Her withering glance could level nations. “There’s a lovely young woman, Clelia Hufstein. Industrial thread, excellent posture. Her family is discreet, wealthy and blessedly uninteresting. She speaks five languages and once stitched a diplomatic sash during a hostage crisis.”

“…Why do you know that?”

“I read society briefs. God forbid I have hobbies.”

“I don’t want to date a debutante with a CV.”

“She plays the cello.”

“Tragic.”

“She’s allergic to bees.”

“Worse.” 

Melinda sighed, gently placing her wine glass down. “Damian. I am not asking you to fall in love. I’m asking you to prove to the world that you’re capable of sitting across from another human being without insulting her, crying, or demanding an escape tunnel be installed.” 

“That’s a very specific accusation.”

Melinda pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m your mother and I’m worried about you.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“But I am,” she said. “You’ve become… strange. There’s a shadow in your eyes.” He looked down, and she didn’t press. “Frankly, I don’t like watching it kill you. You’re intelligent, occasionally charming and handsome in a way that makes you rude. There’s no reason you shouldn’t try to move forward.” He said nothing, so she raised a brow. “Unless, of course, you’d prefer I ask your father to arrange something instead.”

He froze, then exhaled slowly. “Fine. One date.” 

“Naturally.”

“With boundaries.”

“You’ll be delightful.” He scowled. She sipped her tea, victorious, and said nothing about the name hovering in the air between them. 

The restaurant was nice with its soft jazz trio, white tablecloths and low lighting to make everything feel like a tax write-off. The menu didn’t list prices. The wine list had footnotes. The chairs were ergonomic and actively discouraged comfort. Damian sat across from Clelia Hufstein, who wore silk like she was born for it and a practiced poise from years of playing piano for ambassadors. She was lovely, kind and articulate. He wanted to go home immediately. 

“So,” she started softly, “your mother mentioned you have interest in archival research?”

“I wouldn’t say interest,” Damian replied flatly. “More of a compulsion.” There was a beat in which Clelia blinked. He sipped water coquettishly and followed up with, “Do you think dreams are like frogs?” 

“…Pardon?” 

“Do you think they’re shaped like frogs? All bouncy and wet and poorly thought-out.”

“I don’t think so…?”

“Interesting.”

She tried again. “I dream in numbers, actually. Um, do you think dreams are like frogs?”

“No,” he shook his head. “Someone else did, once.”

“A… poet?”

He didn’t answer; instead, he squinted at the wine list and muttered, “Jesus, it has a table of contents.” Clelia smiled politely. The waiter arrived to pour the wine, which they sipped. It was excellent. Damian still wanted to leave.

“So,” she made another valiant attempt at conversation, “tell me something unexpected about yourself.”

“I used to get into fistfights over vending machines.” 

“Oh!” she laughed. “At university?”

“No, when I was eleven. She threw a shoe at me and I threatened to cram it down her throat.” 

“She?”

He blinked. “Did I say that aloud?” 

“Yeah,” Clelia studied him. “Was she someone important to you?” 

“She once said bears were the superior animal because they nap all winter and maul things. She also named my coat Gerald.”

“That’s… sweet?”

“It was deeply antagonistic.”

Clelia smiled patiently. “Well, I suppose we all have those early relationships that teach us something, don’t we?” Damian nodded absently, studying the wine list again. She looked around for another angle. “Do you… travel much?”

He didn’t look up. “Only when I’m following a lead.”

“A lead?”

He folded the menu with care. “Professional curiosity. Bit of a… hm. Long-term personal project.” 

“What kind of project?”

“A boring one.”

“Well,” she tittered, “now I’m intrigued.” 

“It’s mostly paper trails. Some travel. That sort of thing.”

“Oh. For work?” 

“Sure.”

“What are you researching?” 

He looked at her politely, deciding whether she would survive the truth. Then, without missing a beat, he asked, “What would you name a plant if you had one?”

“I don’t know…? Something botanical, I suppose.” 

“No,” he shook his head. “It needs to be wrong. Like… the Green Duchess.” 

“The Green Duchess?” she snorted, but he narrowed his eyes. “Fine. I’d name it Peter.”

“That’s a bit uninspired.”

“I could name it Damian,” she laughed lightly, but he didn’t react. “You don’t like jokes?”

He felt queasy. “I’m not very good at this.”

“You’re doing fine,” she lied. 

“I keep asking about frogs and plants.”

“I’ve had worse dates,” Clelia tilted her head. “Did your mother really set this up because she thought we’d be compatible?”

“She once paired me with a minor duchess because we both liked pears.” 

“That’s not very compelling.”

“She was allergic, I liked them on cakes. It was a disaster.”

“For what it’s worth,” Clelia said gently, “you seem like you have a lot going on.” He didn’t respond. “Someone on your mind?” He shrugged. “Well, whoever she is, she must be special.”

“She’s annoying. She talks too much. She gets distracted mid-sentence. She says weird stuff like if I were a dragon I’d hoard peanuts.”

“That’s… actually quite charming.” 

“She’s also a liar and possibly part frog.” 

“I see.” 

“She made a rocket for a friend once and nearly killed someone.”

“I see.”

“She’s dead.” He sipped his wine as the air changed between them. Desperate to fill the void, Damian blurted, “If you’re serious about marrying me, you’ll need to be fine spending a lot of time on your own. I have a case to solve.” Unable to leave silence well alone, he leaned back and finished flatly, “Besides, she’s more important than a silly wife anyway.” 

“Well,” Clelia sniffed, clearly formulating an exit strategy, “this has been eye-opening. Respectfully, Damian, I hope you enjoy your marriage to the dead teenager you hated.”

There was a collective inhale from nearby tables. The jazz trip stopped; a spoon dropped somewhere. Damian opened his mouth, closed it and stared at his wine. “We weren’t married.” Nobody cared. “We weren’t even friends.”

“Jesus,” whispered a random patron. 

Clelia took her coat from the back of the chair. “Tell her I said congratulations. I assume she’ll be picking your matching gravestones.”

“She can’t,” Damian said numbly. “She’s dead.”

With a snort of disgust, Clelia walked out. The second bottle arrived, which he drank. The jazz trio switched to some weepy piece as he signalled for a third bottle. He ordered a dessert that he didn’t eat, then tipped forty percent, and walked out with the bottle. 

He didn’t really remember the walk home. 

Melinda stirred her coffee in a way that intimated she was strongly considering throttling her son. A sunglasses-clad Damian sat opposite her, one hand clutching a bottle of water like an anchor to reality. He hadn’t slept or shaven, but he had, at one point in the last twelve hours, bled from the eyebrow. Neither of them acknowledged this. 

“You’re not speaking,” she finally commented. 

“Hungover,” he croaked. 

“You had two bottles to yourself.”

“I walked home. She left.”

“You drove her to it with frogs and trauma.”

“She asked if there was someone else.” 

“And what, you told the truth?” In response, he shrugged. “You never tell people the truth. That’s a foundational family principle.”

“Guess I’m a rebel.”

Melinda pinched her nose. “You’re supposed to be building alliances, not tearing through them like a drunken widower at a wedding buffet.”

“She’s important to me.”

“She’s dead, Damian.” He flinched but his mother pressed on. “She’s gone, and no amount of brooding in bespoke suits will change that.” He didn’t look at her. “You’re alive. Act like it.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

“Excuse me?”

“You live like you’re in a glass box and the world can’t touch you if you’re polished enough.”

“Yet I function.” 

“Congratulations.”

“Don’t condescend to me in a shirt you’ve clearly slept in.”

“I liked her.” It fell out suddenly, before he stopped himself. “She was weird and loud and impossible to deal with.”

Melinda sipped her coffee. “I know it hurts, but you aren’t the first boy to lose someone. You’re not the only man to drink about it. But you’re not entitled to wallow your way through every opportunity I carve for you.”

“I didn’t ask you to.” 

“No, but you’ll need something to cry into when the guilt wears off.” His mother adjusted her wedding ring. “Clelia is fine, by the way. She thinks you’re unwell.” 

“I am unwell.”

“She thinks you should be institutionalised.”

“Not off the table,” he huffed. 

Melinda sighed, long-suffering. “How long do you intend to live like this?” 

“As long as I need to.”

“Then don’t expect me to watch.” Damian finally looked at his mother. “You’re not strong enough to live like this forever. Grief makes a pet of you, and one day, it’ll bite.” She reached over and adjusted his collar like he was still six. “I hope she was worth it.” He didn’t move or breathe. “Your next match is on Thursday. You’ll go, be clean shaven, and not talk about amphibians.” 

He didn’t reply, but he didn’t refuse either. 

The restaurant was French, which meant Damian hated it. The violinist wanted to murder everyone at table six, waiters moved like contemptuous ghosts, and Melinda Desmond sat with opera glasses she didn’t disguise like spying on her son was an acceptable maternal hobby. His latest date was Amara Linwood, who believed in conversation as a genuine art and smiled at him like he personally invented oxygen. His migraine grew teeth. 

“So, your mother tells me you’re very dedicated. Archival research sounds fascinating.” 

“It’s filing cabinets,” he said flatly, but caught Melinda’s glare like a spear to the ribs, “though, yes, it’s very enriching.” 

Amara laughed lightly, like she’d never heard a dull thing in her life. “I admire people who care about history. There’s so much to learn from the past, don’t you think?”

“Mostly that it repeats itself.” Melinda’s opera glass twitched so he forced his lips into something that qualified as a smile. “But yes, there’s value.” The waiter slid menus across the table. Again, there were no prices, only French adjectives longer than necessary. Damian didn’t bother opening his. “I’ll have the steak. Rare.”

“There are three, sir.”

“The most expensive,” he answered. Melinda gave a discreet thumbs-up.

Amara ordered something with duck and fruit. “Do you enjoy dining out often?” she asked. 

“No,” Damian replied, but remembered he needed to pretend to be human, “but I’m glad to be here.”

Her cheeks flushed with a pleasure that made him feel guilty. “I’m happy to meet you, Damian. Your mother speaks of you so often I feel like I already know you.”

He heavily doubted that. If she knew him, she would run screaming before mains. He nodded politely instead. “That’s generous.”

A pale gold wine arrived, and he drained half in one swallow. Conversation limped along the way he’d been trained with questions about her family (wealthy), her interests (painting, piano, philanthropy), her travels (all places Damian would rather drown than discuss). When she asked about him, he delivered the carefully curated biography of studies, work, the odd tennis match, the occasional gallery opening. She beamed at every banal lie. When he mentioned tennis, she clasped her hands. “I play as well! We must have a match sometime.”

“I’ll consider it.” He meant no.

Dessert arrived, an architectural monstrosity involving spun sugar. Amara laughed at the spectacle; Damian produced the required appreciative hum. Melinda dabbed her eyes like she visualised their wedding already. Finally, Amara reached across, fingertips brushing his sleeve. “I hope we can see each other again. Maybe dinner next week?”

Damian’s fork stilled against the plate. He felt his mother’s gaze bore holes in him. Amara’s eyes were bright. It would be so simple to just nod, but instead, he said, “No.”

“I…oh.” Her laugh lines froze. “Did I-? I thought we had a lovely time.”

“You did,” he said. She was everything on paper that should’ve worked. But she just wasn’t- well, she wasn’t. “I just don’t think I can… date.”

Her face collapsed regrettably with unshed embarrassment. “I see. Forgive me for assuming.” 

He wanted to apologise, explain she did nothing wrong, and he was defective. He inclined his head stiffly. “You don’t need to apologise.”

By the time he escorted her outside, his date’s politeness was armour, but her cheeks paled. “Good evening, Mr. Desmond.” He watched her car vanish into the night. 

The moment she was gone, Melinda appeared like a general storming an enemy trench. “You had that one in the bag!” 

Damian lit a cigarette and exhaled smoke at the moon. “You take her out next time.”

His mother smacked his arm. “Do you know how hard it was to find a suitable girl? Did you turn her down because you’re constitutionally allergic to happiness?” Smoke curled lazily. “She adored you.”

“She adored an incorrect idea of me.” 

“That’s enough!” Melinda cried, practically stamping her foot. “Do you think anyone with our way of life marries a real person? One day, Damian, you’ll regret this. You can’t afford to be choosy.” 

“Already am,” he extinguished his cigarette and headed towards his waiting car. 

Behind him, Melinda groaned theatrically. “He had it in the bag!” The violinist inside struck the exact same note as her wail. 

Damian didn’t return home. He arrived at the grave with the swagger that said he had something worth bragging about and the slouch of a man who didn’t. The flowers were obligatory, the peanuts optional and the boast compulsory. He set the flowers and the peanuts down. “Well,” he dusted his gloves, “guess who went on a date?” He leaned on the headstone to hear her applause. “Me. Not you - me. You never went on one, did you? Because nobody ever asked you. I bet you’d sit in the corner with breadsticks while I was man of the hour.” 

He smirked at the granite name to allow silence to fill in the eye-rolls she wasn’t alive to provide. “She was pretty, polite, and laughed at things that weren’t funny. Mother said she was perfect. Violin in the corner, wine that cost more than your family’s rent.” He tugged at his coat. “So there, proof that Damian Desmond is one date ahead of Anya Forger. History will remember me as the victor.” 

He waited for the stone to argue. When it didn’t, he crouched and ran his finger over the carved letters. “It was stupid. I was bored.” He glanced at the peanuts. “If it was you, you’d have spilled the wine on purpose to upset me. You’d have stolen my dessert fork, even though you’d have your own. You’d have asked the violinist to play the Bondman theme and gotten away with it.“

He tapped the stone twice. “So, there you go, I win, but it would’ve been less miserable with you. Don’t be big-headed. I’m still one up.” He stood, brushed off his knees, and looked at it one last time. “Stupid.”

The third date was meant to be another disaster. Damian rehearsed glares, the monosyllables, politeness via suffocation. Melinda set it up at a more discreet restaurant this time. Cecile stood when he approached, smoothed her dress nervously, and smiled like she expected nothing. That was different. “I’m glad you came,” she said softly, as if the words weren’t scripted. 

Damian sat, ordered a drink too quickly, and muttered, “Obligation’s one hell of a motivator.” However, the evening slid without its usual suffocation. She asked about his work like she actually wanted to know; he surprised himself by talking about the endless stacks of files and how they smelled of mildew and the things he wasn’t supposed to say, like the name Forger. “I knew someone once,” he idly traced a finger on his glass. “She’s dead now, but she’s the reason I… hate things like this.” 

Cecile didn't flinch, but listened. “You loved her?”

His throat worked. “N-no. She was… it’s just… she was…” he found the safest word, “important.” 

Cecile nodded, and didn’t laugh or change the subject in discomfort. “It must be difficult carrying someone like that with you.” 

“Most people tell me to move on.”

“Then most people don’t understand. You don’t stop caring for someone because they’re gone. You just… carry them differently.”

The words sank into him like water into parched soil. There was no pity or performance, just quiet acknowledgement. He stared at her for longer than he intended, surprised at the absence of hatred in his chest.  The conversation circled back to safer things like books, travel, music, and by the end, he wasn’t clock-watching. Outside, when she thanked him for the evening, he heard himself say, “We could do this again.”

Her smile bloomed, warm and genuine. “I’d like that.”

The second date followed, then a third, then more. She was nice, safe, and let him mention Anya. When Melinda prodded him about marriage, he didn’t argue; he nodded like she commented on the weather. Cecile’s hand was warm in his when they announced the engagement. She was beaming, radiant, hopeful; her betrothed managed a polite smile for the cameras. All he could think was she’s nice, I suppose. She’ll do. 

Damian approached the grave with a confidence that fooled nobody, least of all Anya Forger. He clutched a velvet box in his hand, engagement booze buzzing in his blood, and was about to humiliate himself in public and pretend it was on purpose. 

“Well, Forger,” he announced, planting himself in front of the stone, “congratulations are in order. Your old rival is engaged. That’s right, I, Damian Desmond, have a real, living, certified wife. You never had an idiot show up with a ring and stumble through a proposal. Pathetic.” He tapped the stone. “Meanwhile, I’ve got a ring, a fiancée, and a big party planned. Mother’s thrilled.”

He inhaled like he was starting a speech, then sneered. “Imagine it, Forger, our wedding. You’d probably trip down the aisle because you can’t walk straight to save your life. You’d forget your vows or spill water on the officiant. You’d insult my mother before dessert. It would be an absolute disaster. Worst wife in the history of matrimony.” His voice cracked, but he managed a laugh. “And the way you eat, God help me. Guests would choke left and right because of how much of a catastrophe you are. I’d be divorced before the ink even dried.”

His shoulders shook, and it wasn’t laughter anymore. “You’d burn dinner, you’d steal the sheets, you’d forget anniversaries-“ he broke off into a wet, ragged sound that tore his throat. “You’d be a terrible- terrible wife!” He slumped against the stone. “I would’ve done it anyway,” he whispered, before barking, “ It’s just so some poor bastard doesn’t get stuck with you!” 

His hands trembled as he pried open the velvet box, where the ring gleamed up at him. He stared at it for a long moment, then set it atop the headstone. “There!” he yelled hoarsely. “Take it. Don’t say I never gave you anything. Don’t say I didn’t think of you. It costs more than hers, by the way, so choke on that, wherever you are.” 

It cracked into another sob. He staggered to his feet, wiping at his face to reassemble the smirk and failed. The ring caught the moonlight sharper, brighter, more honest than anything he could say aloud. 

Chapter Text

The thing about dying was that it didn’t erase stupidity. You could sob into dirt, spend six months salary on a gift nobody received, then keel over a few months later, and the universe would make you clock into work. Midnight Minus One hummed as souls stumbled in from the elevator, confused and thirsty, whilst Anya greeted them overenthusiastically. Damian stacked glasses and avoided dwelling. “You’re sighing again!” she called as she bustled back from dropping drinks at a table.

“I’m breathing,” he corrected.

“You sigh-breathe. It’s like regular breathing, but dramatic.”

“I’m not dramatic.”

“You’re so dramatic,” Anya leaned on the bar, “like you’re in a painting. All you’re missing is a cape.”

“I would never, in a million years, wear a cape.”

“You would totally wear a cape,” she grinned. Damian’s jaw tightened as he contemplated throwing ice at her face. “Anyway, since you’re in a mood, let’s play a game. Tell me the most expensive thing you ever bought.”

The ring flared in his mind instantly, bright as emerald fire, to cut through years of denial. “Pass.”

“You can’t pass!” she protested. “That’s against the rules.”

“You’re making the rules up as you go along!”

“Exactly, and the new rule is no passing. C’mon, Mr. Fancypants. What was it? A sportscar? A yacht? Ooh, was it a horse?”

Damian moulded his expression into iron and put the glass down to refrain from hurling it at her. “A ring.”

“A ring?! Fancy!”

“Not fancy.”

“So, definitely fancy. You don’t say a ring like that if it wasn’t sparkly.” She mimed a halo with her hands. “So… a romantic ring?”

His throat worked. “…Yes.”

Anya gasped theatrically, clutching her chest. "What happened?! Did she say take it? Who was she? Was she nice? Patient? Blind?!”

“None of your business.”

She hopped over the bar and started shaking a ridiculously fragrant cocktail. “Damian Desmond, sigh-breathing all over, holding out a shiny ring. The poor girl probably fainted!”

He almost snapped, because he didn’t kneel, he dropped it on an unwashed grave because it was the only way he could do it without screaming. “She didn’t say yes.”

“Oh,” Anya blushed slightly, ashamed. “She said no?”

“She… wasn’t there.”

Anya nodded slowly, filling in the version of events. “Long distance, got it. Romancing by mail must be difficult.”

“By…” Damian was caught between horrified and hysterical, “mail?”

“Yeah! Like, ring in the box, tied with a fancy ribbon, little note that says love me or return postage. It’s very you.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Thank you!” she twirled a barspoon like a baton. “Anyway, don’t look so gloomy. If she didn’t say yes, maybe she’ll show up here eventually and you can try again!” She popped a cherry in her mouth and didn’t notice her coworker’s internal spiral. “So, on a scale of peanut to… chandelier, how shiny are we talking?”

Damian absolutely couldn’t resist the opportunity to showboat. “Two chandeliers.”

Anya’s eyes sparkled. “No way! You bought a chandelier ring? Oh my god, who are you?!”

“It was elegant,” he bristled defensively.

“Oh my god, you’re proud of it!”

“Am not!”

“Are too! Look at you, scowly red face, pretending you don’t care. You’re totally proud of yourself. Well, good job! Even if she didn’t say yes, you nailed the shopping part!” He muttered veiled threats into the ice well, but he felt an absurd pride she found it impressive. Then, Anya swivelled, new idea in her head. “Sooo… tell me about her.”

“About who?!”

“Chandelier Girl,” she placed her hands on her cheeks and blinked very adorably at him. “Spill!”

“There’s nothing to spill.” He focused intently on cutting lemons.

“There’s always something to spill. You don’t just drop chandelier money for someone you kinda like. So, who was she? A duchess? A spy? A princess cursed to be a swan by day and opera singer by night?”

Damian pinched the bridge of his nose and imagined breaking it. If he had a bloody nose, he would need to walk away. “It was nobody important.”

“Nobody important?!” Anya gasped, scandalised. “You’re the worst boyfriend ever. C’mon, gimme something. How’d you meet? Did you lock your eyes across a ballroom, or share an umbrella in the rain, or was it like…” she gasped, delighted at her own idea, “you hated each other, then fell in love? That’s my favourite!” He said nothing, and did his best to hide his burning cheeks. Too late – she spotted them. “Knew it! Did you insult her shoes? I bet you insulted her shoes.”

“I didn’t-!” he stopped. “Her shoes were fine!”

“So you insulted something else,” she nodded like she’d cracked the case wide open. “Her hair? Her laugh? Did you call her annoying and secretly pine for her?” His face reached a temperature only experienced when walking on the sun. “That’s exactly your style. You’re all like ugh, I hate you, then you wrote her name with your surname in your diary a hundred times!”

“I never-!” he cut himself off again, pressing his lips into a thin line. He imagined swallowing them so he would never speak again.

“You did, didn’t you?!” she squealed as Damian busied himself. “That’s a yes. Man… chandelier ring, secret pining, you dying… how does it feel to be a romance cliché?”

“I’m not.”

“I’m picturing it now. You drop the ring in her hand, she gasps, an orchestra swells-” she clapped her hands together dreamily. For one moment, Damian sincerely believed the entire afterlife-bar and Anya-reunion was a ploy by Becky Blackbell. Automatically, his eyes swept for cameras, but found none.

“It didn’t happen like that.”

“Then how did it happen?”

His chest hurt as he remembered yelling at a gravestone, dropping it, and trying to one-up someone who had been dead for five years. “She never got it,” he admitted. “I bought it. I left it. She never saw it.”

Anya seemed satisfied with that answer. “Okay, but if she ever shows up here, promise me you’ll tell me? I need to meet Chandelier Girl.”

He nearly laughed aloud and wanted to scream. Instead, he muttered, “Fine.”

“Great!” She hummed cheerfully as she grabbed a tray of glasses. “Your tragic love-life is now my favourite sidequest.”

Damian leaned heavily on the bartop, heart pounding, face hidden. She thought it was someone else, or he’d had a grand romance with a mystery woman, and perhaps it was safer that way. She didn’t needle him as she doodled on the specials board, declaring tonight’s cocktail was a Raspberry and White Chocolate Martini. Damian mixed drinks with his typical precision and re-checking of the manual as the words he wanted to say – Goddammit, I gave it to you, moron – gnawed him. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Have you… ever… been in love?”

Anya burst into laughter like he asked if she rode a giraffe to work. “Me? No! I’m a bartender. My only options are the customers!”

“And?” he frowned.

“And customers are usually two things,” she held up two fingers to count off. “One, emotionally raw because they just died, or two, busy deciding their preferred afterlife, which is a total mood-killer. Imagine it – you’re sipping cocktails, trying to flirt, and the other person’s all like sorry, I can’t compliment your eyes right now, I’m picking between eternal rest and reincarnating as a wombat. It’s hardly candlelight and roses,” she shrugged. “You try dating someone considering eternal rest. It’s like speed-dating, but you don’t swap numbers. You swap exit strategies.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Exactly!” Anya gestured at the room. “They sit here, cry into a gin fizz, tell me about their unfinished business or how their dog won’t understand why they’re gone, and then they leave. Poof. I’d make a terrible girlfriend, anyhow.”

“And you actually,” he suppressed incredulous laughter, “consider these people?”

“Sometimes,” she twirled a strand of hair coyly. “I mean, they’re cute, they’re grateful, but what’s the point? They’ll be gone when they make their choice. I don’t even remember their names, which is the worst part. I remember bits, like what drink they liked or which jokes made them laugh, but names and faces fade. It’s like they dissolve when they go. That’s the bit that sucks about this job. Everyone always leaves.” Damian noticed how her voice softened. She thought she was just a bartender, destined to pour drinks for people already gone, and didn’t realise she was the only person he never left, even in death.

Her grin held as she examined her artwork, but he clocked the hollowness. “You’re lonely.”

“Me? Lonely. No way!” she hopped onto a stool and kicked her legs. “I have my bottles, my lemons, my customers. And I have you!” The last part slipped out like it was obvious. Damian stilled. “You’re hanging out with me!”

“You…” he coughed to force his voice steady, “you mean that?”

“Of course! Who else am I supposed to bicker with? The fridge?

“I suppose I’m good at arguing.” For the first time since he was nineteen and alive, Damian smiled.

“The best!” she threw a straw at his face, “which means you’re not allowed to leave!” For once, he didn’t argue, but drank in her grin, the absurd hair, how she filled the bar with light because she wasn’t lonely, because he was there. He felt like he was exactly where he was supposed to be. “But, y’know, you’re not supposed to stay here.”

“Excuse me?”

“The bar closes at 100 seconds to midnight,” she said matter-of-factly, “that’s when everyone needs to go. That’s the rule.”

“Who made that rule?” he stiffened.

“The bar,” she grinned, like that explained literally anything. “I don’t argue with the bar. It’s older than the both of us combined.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“You will. Everyone does.” Anya spoke like it was written in stone. “But hey, you’re here now, and that counts for something.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“You’re Damian,” she replied easily. “Grumpy, weird, sighs-a-lot, polishes glasses like he wants to murder them. That’s plenty.”

“That’s hardly worth keeping around.”

“Worth keeping to me.” The fact that she didn’t remember Eden, their fights, the laughter under the cherry trees cracked in his chest; all she had was a bartender’s ledger of quirks and sighs, and she treated it like it mattered. “So, even if you leave when the bar closes, that’s fine. Right now, you’re here, and I like that.”

He watched her move through the room, radiant and completely oblivious to the way she undid him with every single word. “I like it too,” he whispered.

She looked at him and smiled wide, before tossing a bar rag. “Good. Now help me clean up. Junior bartenders don’t get to brood for free.”

Damian leaned over the counter and watched Anya juggle ice. “When does it happen? When it’s 100 seconds to midnight?”

“Oh. I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?!” he scowled.

“I mean,” she rolled her eyes, like she was explaining maths to a stubborn child, “I don’t know. It’ll just… happen. Time’s weird here. It doesn’t matter how many drinks we serve or how many hours you think pass. When it’s time, it’s time. The bar tells you.”

“That’s absurd!” his grip on the rag tightened. “There must be a measure – a clock, a calendar!”

“There’s a clock,” she pointed at the ornate one hanging above the mirror. Its hands twitched erratically, jumping forward minutes, and then leaping back for hours. Currently, it was stuck at six, second hand shivering in place. “But it lies. Don’t trust it.”  She hopped on top of the bar. “It’ll just happen. Ding-ding-ding, last call, everyone out.”

Damian exhaled. He hated vagueness, inevitability without detail, and that Anya could shrug off something so final whilst he felt the ground was pulled out beneath him. “You don’t even care,” he accused flatly.

She swung her legs idly. “Why would I care? It hasn’t happened yet.”

Anya balanced a cherry on her nose as Damian, arms folded, watched her with a tension he reserved for hostile witnesses, or Anya Forger between the ages of six and nineteen. “What happens to you?”

“I’ll open the bar again, I guess, or I disappear completely. One of the two.”

“You don’t know that, either?!”

“Some folks think the bar is eternal. Others think I’m part of it, and when it shuts, poof! No more me. Either way’s fine.”

“Fine,” he repeated, voice low.

“Yeah,” she nodded lightly. “My job’s to help other people. As long as I do that, what happens to me doesn’t matter. I’m not important.”

He cracked like glass under strain. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s true.”

“It isn’t!” he snapped, louder than intended; the words spilled before he could stop them. “I don’t want you to vanish!”

Anya looked startled, before she softened. “That’s nice.” Damian’s pulse hammered with the weight of what he’d just admitted. She hopped lightly off the counter like a baby bird. “But it’s not up to you. None of us pick the closing time. All we can do is serve drinks, crack jokes, and make it nice for whoever comes out the elevator. So, you don’t need to worry. Like I said, not important.”

“You are important!”

“No, I’m-”

“You are!” he cut across her, voice rattling the bottles. “You stand here for God knows how long, listening to every miserable soul that staggers in. You hold their hands, and trick them into laughing when all they want to do is cry. You keep this place running when time itself can’t even be bothered to show up, and you have the audacity to sit there and say you’re not important?!”

Her mouth fell open; she looked like a very stupid goldfish.

“No!” he jabbed a finger at her furiously. “Don’t you dare fucking smile at me. You matter. Half these idiots wouldn’t make it to their forever without you dragging them there with your stupid cocktails and your… idiotic jokes!” He breathed hard, face flushed, words tumbling out. “You’re the only one who stays, and you think that’s nothing?” For once in her career, she was rendered hopelessly speechless. “I don’t ever want to hear you say you’re not fucking important again.”

His heartbeat pounded in his ears. Finally, she blinked, as if resurfacing from deep water. “Wow.” He braced for mockery. “That was the nicest yelling I’ve ever heard.” She followed up, almost shyly, with, “Thank you.” He tried to drag his breathing back under control, but she looked at him with such warmth it exacerbated his exact issue. “I mean it. I don’t get told stuff like that.”

“I shouldn’t have-” Damian looked away quickly, pressing a hand over his eyes.

“You should,” she interrupted. “I forget, sometimes. So, it’s nice to hear.” His throat closed as the words burned. You matter. He shouted it and meant every word, and if she didn’t remember who she was, if she disappeared at the end, at least she knew someone refused to let her believe she was nothing. He vibrated with the aftershock, ears hot. Anya rummaged under the counter, and he heard rustling paper, tape snapping. “Here.” He removed his hand warily. In her hand was a big, neon yellow sticker with chunky block letters. World’s Nicest Yeller. “A sticker for you!”

“I don’t want a sticker.”

“You need to take it. It’s a reward for positive shouting.” She peeled the backing off with glee. “Now, hold still.”

“No!”

“Yes!” He backed away automatically, but she followed, brandishing it like a weapon. “C’mon, Damian! You earned it. You yelled at me so good my heart grew three sizes. This is your prize.”

“I’m not wearing that!”

“You are,” she said firmly, “or I’ll cry.”

Damian froze; she wasn’t joking. Her smile wobbled, and her eyes went shiny in a way that made his chest seize. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would.” Her lip trembled. “You said I was important. If you don’t take it, it’s like you’re saying I’m not important at all.”

“That’s emotional blackmail!”

“Correct!” she chirped. “Now hold still.” He groaned, but bent forward anyway. Anya slapped it onto his lapel triumphantly and smoothed it with her palm. “There. You look very handsome.”

He glared at the garish yellow circle. “I’m not keeping it,” he muttered, tugging on the edge.

Her eyes watered again. “If you take it off, I’ll definitely cry.”

“Urgh. Fine!”

“Thank you,” she grinned, swinging her legs brightly. “Seriously, though. Thanks. For yelling and for wearing the sticker. It makes me feel… happy, I guess.”

He looked away quickly, the stupid sticker burning against his jacket like a brand, but he left it on. Anya, radiant with her victory, hummed, as if she didn’t just dismantle all his defences with neon vinyl.

*

Eden Academy’s Culture Festival was, traditionally, a day of controlled chaos. Children wore costumes based on their heritage, real or invented, parents set up booths with traditional crafts (or snacks if they wanted actual attention), and the entire campus bloomed into a bizarre anthropology exhibit curated by nine-year-olds with unchecked sugar intake and nepotism. Damian Desmond was informed by his family’s secretary that his booth was located in Pavilion A, corner three, and was a tasteful display of national pride, featuring pamphlets, imported shortbread, and a velvet rope to discourage the poor. He was expected to stand there, look civilised, and answer questions about the duties of the elite. He was tired.

Children seemed to be… stampeding. “Where the hell are they going?” Damian asked aloud, mainly to himself.

Ewen and Emile arrived seconds later, faces shining with jam and purpose. “Bossman!” Ewen said, breathless. “The Forger booth.”

“They’ve got dumplings,” Emile added reverently, “and calligraphy. And Yor!”

“Yor?” Damian repeated with a frown. “What’s a Yor?”

“Anya’s mother,” Ewen supplied. “She’s awesome. She gave me a sticker and said I have nice eyes.”

“She said my posture was ready to pounce!” Emile puffed proudly.

“Why were you even near that peasant’s booth?”

“…Because her family is nice?”

“And their food’s yummy.”

“Traitors.”

“Come with us!” Emile grabbed his wrist.

“I’m not- I have-” Damian flailed aristocratically, unused to any form of manual labour, “duties!”

“You can do your dumb booth later!”

The Forger booth was chaos, but… kind chaos. There was an arts station on the left, dumpling-making lessons on the right, and a folding table in the centre with a handmade sign that read Make Your Own Paper Shuriken! Anya added To Defend Honour in glitter pen. Loid stood behind a kettle and calmly served tea as if born to host diplomatic brunches; Yor, clad in a cartoon-eggplant apron, crouched to help a child glue googly-eyes to a fan. Anya ran around offering fortune cookies and shouting things like, “Yours says you’re going to fall in love with an idiot!” before cackling. Damian hated it instantly. It was cheerful, authentic, and God forbid, fun. He lingered by the edge, soul vibrating with judgement.

“Sy-on boy!” Anya waved, spotting him. “Did you come to do art or eat culture?”

“No,” he sulked, “I was kidnapped.”

Yor beamed at him, and suddenly, was at his side. “Well, I’m happy you’re here!” she said warmly, placing a hand gently on his shoulder. Damian disassociated because he had been touched. Patted, even. It felt like somebody softly ironed his soul. “You look very smart today,” Forger’s mother added. “That colour suits you.”

“She’s complimenting you, bossman,” Ewen elbowed him.

“Of course she is,” Damian pouted, but he stood straighter regardless.

“You know,” Yor continued, “Anya talks about you all the time.” Damian’s heart fully, completely stopped. “She says you’re competitive and very smart, but you argue like an old man in a library.” Emile snorted.

Damian turned beet red. “She’s lying. I don’t argue like an old- I’m eloquent!”

“That’s such a long word,” Yor encouraged him, and then, horrifically, handed him a tiny dumpling in a leaf cup.

“I- thank you.” He blinked at it like it was a ticking bomb. Yor walked away to help another attendee, and he could only stare at her, dumpling in hand and dignity in shreds.

“She brushed my hair,” Emile offered dreamily. Damian crushed the dumpling leaf harder than necessary.

The Forger booth remained the most popular stall as Loid transitioned seamlessly to teaching origami and Yor painted flowers on children’s cheeks. Anya juggled apples and yelled, “Behold, culture!” Damian sat on a bench nearby - not in the booth, near the booth – and ate his fifth dumpling.

Loid passed by and offered him another. “You needn’t lurk, you know.”

“I’m not lurking.”

“You’re very good at it.” Damian scowled, but took the dumpling anyway. “You’re welcome to join us,” Anya’s father added, gently but firmly.

“I don’t join things.”

“Even if you enjoy them?”

Damian didn’t answer, so Loid smiled, patted his head once, and walked off, and had a quiet word with his daughter, who bounded up to annoy him. “Come on, Sy-on boy! You’re being kidnapped again!”

It was crucial to note that Damian Desmond did not hold hands. Holding hands was for peasants and propaganda, because it was unsanitary, manipulative, and worse, could be construed as equality. “I- what- NO?!” She ran, dragging him behind her. “Help,” he deadpanned, “I’m being kidnapped by a gremlin.”

“You love it!” Anya insisted cheerfully. He didn’t. He absolutely did not. He didn’t let go.

They bumped into Becky Blackbell, who smiled salaciously and said she planned something really cool. Trusting as ever, Anya was immediately on board as she dragged Damian after her bestie to the east wing, which was transformed into a mass of velvet tents and traditional crafts of varying authenticity. Becky led them to one booth in particular, which was aggressively purple and stated Lunaluna Selena Knows Your Destiny with crudely drawn moons. “We are not doing this,” Damian announced, digging in his heels.

Becky pulled him regardless. “It’ll be hilarious.”

“It’s childish!”  

“I scheduled this reading under your name,” she chirped, holding the curtain aloft. “You’re legally required to see it through.”

“That’s not how legality works!”

“Oh, look!” Anya peered inside. “There are pillows.”

“What’s wrong, Damian?” Becky simpered. “I’ll simply have to tell people that you’re scared of magic.”

“I fear nothing,” Damian gritted his teeth.

“Do they have snacks?” Anya interjected.

“Maybe some sweets,” Becky winked.

“I’m in!”

“I hate both of you.” However, he stepped reluctantly inside, and the tent flap fell shut with the finality of a tomb door. Bead strings hung like tripwires; a haze of incense hovered thick enough to kill an asthmatic. At the centre sat a figure in a glittering shawl, shuffling tarot cards with menacing purpose. Damian glared at all of them.

“Welcome,” intoned Lunaluna, who was definitely not Melinda Desmond in a lace veil and fake accent, except yes she was. Her posture was impeccable as she stared directly at her son with parental mischief. “Sit,” she gestured, “and let the stars speak.”

Damian stayed standing; Anya flopped dramatically onto the rug. “Can I have some sweets?”

“We’re here for a love compatibility reading,” Becky replied sweetly, “between these two tragic soulmates.”

“I will strangle you,” Damian hissed.

“You may sit,” Lunaluna gestured again, and he felt strangely compelled. She looked at Becky. “Are they a couple?”

“No!” Damian barked.

“He’s got cooties,” Anya giggled.

“I do not!”

“Let’s see what the universe says,” Lunaluna interrupted smoothly, shuffling her tarot with suspiciously mother-like fingers. She laid the first card. “The Fool,” she narrated, and glanced at Damian. “Interesting. A bold new journey, possibly triggered by emotional repression.”

Anya snorted. “She called you an idiot.”

“It represents someone naïve, or embarking on a journey without preparation. They are bold, self-destructive, perhaps arrogant.”

“Why’s everyone looking at me?” Damian pouted.

The second card was drawn. “The Tower. Collapse of ego, catastrophic change… emotional implosion?”

“Still not me,” he choked quickly. “I’m very stable.”

“You tripped on a shoelace this morning and blamed the floor,” Becky choked on her giggle as the third card was flipped.

“Ah, The Lovers.”

Damian stood up. “That’s it! I’m leaving!”

“You are very compatible,” Lunaluna said firmly. “The stars say your bond is undeniable. You are soulmates. I foresee… marriage.”

“I would never, ever, marry her!” Damian shouted, nearly knocking over the beaded curtain. “I’d rather die in a ditch! I’d rather throw myself off a building!”

Lunaluna traced her fingers along the cards. “You will be emotionally codependent, bicker constantly, yet complete each other’s sentences. You’ll raise pets together. Perhaps go to the market, and hold weekly game nights.”

“Stop! Talking!”

“We could have sleepovers every night,” Anya nodded, studying the floor intently, “and eat ice cream and wear those matching socks Becky showed me.”

Damian turned scarlet. “I- no! You- we will not have matching socks!”

“Ooh, Sy-on boy, we could get a pet snake!”

“I’m leaving!”

“Wait!” Anya interrupted, holding up something shiny. “I found a weird bug on the floor!”

Everyone stared at the beetle. 

“That’s not even-! Why do you-?!”

“Bugs are fun,” Anya stated proudly. Becky sighed as Damian stormed out.

Outside the tent, Damian fumed. “I hate this stupid festival.”

“Sure,” Becky patted his shoulder. “Just remember to invite me to the wedding.”

“Over my rotting body!”

Anya tried to get her new beetle to sit on a leaf. “Can Mr. Beetle come?” Damian made a noise like he’d been stabbed.

Inside the tent, Melinda peeled the veil off and wiped her eyes. Yor stood outside the back flap, sipping tea. “How’d it go?” she asked.

“He said he’d rather die than marry her,” she smirked.

“That’s a strong reaction.”

“He’s always been dramatic.”

“Do you feel better?”

“Oh, much,” Melinda grinned. “I’m doing this every year.”

Outside, Anya sighed heavily, grabbed Damian’s hand again, ignored all his protests, and took off again, Becky close behind. They skidded to a stop in the school’s side garden, where Yor set up a blanket under a tree, surrounded by juice boxes, two sketchpads, a plush frog named General Hops, and one confused squirrel who refused to leave. Ewen and Emile were already there. Becky swanned ahead with the unshakable confidence of a nine-year-old whose father could buy the continent.

“Bossman!” his friends chirped. “You came!”

Anya plopped onto the blanket. “Mama said we can just be kids today!”

“We are kids,” Damian corrected, sitting next to her, entirely against his will.

“Normal kids,” Becky supplied.

Yor packed enough snacks for a small army, and mended a stuffed bird Anya accidentally tore open to check if there were feelings inside. “Would you like a juice box, Damian?”

He stared at it distastefully. “I don’t drink… box.”

“This one has a dragon on it,” Yor offered, “and a bendy straw.”

“I’m not five.”

“It’s okay to have fun.” He took the box without another word. Soon, they were running on the lawn, playing the world’s most aggressive game of tag.

“Emile!” Anya yelled. “Tackle him!”

“On it!” Emile yelled, lunging at Damian. They tumbled in a heap.

Yor waved cheerfully. “Good form! Use your legs!”

The five returned when they were too sweaty to continue and collapsed on the blanket in a pile of limbs and crumbs. Anya’s mother passed around chilled grapes and congratulated them on their sportsmanship.  Eventually Yor collected juice cartons into a small trash-bag whilst the children sprawled in a ring and stared up at the sky. For a long moment, there was just the sound of birds and breeze and children breathing normally without competition or gold stars. It was a cool afternoon filled with the quiet feeling of being loved without having to earn it first. Damian never felt more confused. It was nice, unsettlingly so, which meant it was dangerous. Later, when the day was nearly over and the booths were packing up, Yor handed Damian a container with three dumplings, a sticker, and a note in very wobbly handwriting that read Thanks for not bullying today! Love, Anya. Damian read it once, twice, then shoved it in his pocket with enough force to tear the fabric slightly. 

It was stupid. It was just paper. Yet, he never threw it away.

*

George Glooman approached the bar, nursing his gin martini like it personally offended him, which it did. It was aggressive, astringent, and frankly, tasted like a bank statement. He requested the bitterest thing you’ve got, and Damian, increasingly good at his job, delivered with panache. “I’ve decided,” George swirled the glass hard enough to threaten centrifugal force.

“To get a real haircut?” Damian supplied.

“Funny.” He knocked the drink back and winced. “No. I’m making my choice.”

Anya peeked up from where she alphabetised garnishes by shape. “Ooh, we love a chooser. What’ll it be, Gloomy-Glooms?”

He didn’t answer straightaway, and stared into his empty martini glass. The rim left a faint sting on his lip. “Not rest, obviously.”

Anya propped her chin on her hands. “Why not?”

“Peace is overrated,” he grumbled. “It implies resolution, or spiritual satisfaction.” He made a face to intimate each word was an emotional tax bracket. “I’ve never slept well, I hate ocean sounds, and when I tried yoga once, I threw out my back and sued the studio.”

“Valid,” Anya nodded respectfully.

“Besides,” George added, “rest feels final, like closing a book. I’ve still got annotations to make.” Damian poured him a glass of water in what he believed was a subtle hint; George ignored it. “Not my old life, either. Why the hell would I want a re-run?”

“Some people miss stuff,” Anya shrugged. “Loved ones, opportunities, tacos.”

“I was miserable the first time. I’d be even more miserable knowing how it ended. That’s just capitalism, round two. Same rats, shinier maze. No,” he pushed the water away, “I want reincarnation.”

“Seriously?” Damian blinked.

“Yes!” Anya squealed. “New game plus!”

“I want another shot. At anything, everything, preferably with a different economic system, or a better spine. Definitely with a different family that doesn’t name their child George Glooman.” He exhaled through his nose. “Maybe I’ll be a tax auditor.”

“That’s the spirit!”

“Or a haunting,” he added darkly. “Something creaky, and inconvenient and spiritually demanding.”

“Even better!”

“Or gout,” George finished, viciously calm. “I’d like to be somebody’s karmic gout. Hopefully a Desmond’s. Kidding.” Damian looked down into the sink to avoid bursting into laughter.

Anya slapped a sticker on his shirt which said Reincarnation Station. “This is the best mood you’ve ever been in! You’re almost chipper, which is suspicious!”

“I’m not chipper, I’m vengeful. It’s a very specific clarity.”

“Well,” Damian set down a fresh coaster with the ceremony of a resignation later, “you’ll be missed.”

“I’d better not be.” There was a beat. “But thank you,” his eyes flicked between them, “for not being as intolerable as I thought.”

“You’re very welcome!” Anya reached for her glitter pen to log his exit.

“Don’t hug me.”

“We weren’t going to,” Damian informed him.

George stood stiffly, finally shedding the lifetime of grudges he held in his lumbar region. He looked at his door, then back at them. “If I come back as someone insufferable, it’s your fault.”

“We’re proud of you,” Anya whispered.

“I hope I really ruin people’s day.”

With that, George Glooman, late office drone, lifelong curmudgeon, and newly-minted potential haunting, walked through the exit marked Somewhere Else, with a final aggressive martini lodged into his soul like a lemon twist of fate. Somewhere else, a baby was born crying in the voice of a man who loathed Microsoft Excel.

Peace, predictably, was nowhere to be found. George wouldn’t have stood for it, anyway. 

Chapter Text

Loid brought a bag of groceries that didn’t belong to anybody. Yor unpacked them delicately, worried she’d crack the eggs if she held them wrong. They sat at the dining table as always, coffee between them, silence humming. “Anya hated soup,” Yor started.

“She told me it was her favourite,” Loid blinked.

“She said that to me too, but I found it hidden under the couch. Bowls – full bowls! For months!” Yor’s laugh stumbled. “I thought Bond was sick!”

Loid’s lips tugged upwards slightly. “One summer, she wanted to eat healthy, so I made her those awful green shakes.”

“She tipped them in the plant. I thought it was fertiliser.” The spitefully resilient plant waved from the windowsill like it was in on Anya’s joke the whole time.

“She just wanted peanuts, really.”

“She hid them in her shoes. I asked why and she said so I’m taller.” For a moment, both of them laughed too brittlely to last, and it cracked into silence.

“She was loud. Rooms feel wrong without her noise. Every time a door opens, I expect her, announcing something insane, as usual.”

“She would burst in and say I’m home, like she invented the idea,” Yor’s eyes burned. “I believed her.”

“She made everything feel like the first time. Even homework and dinner. She looked at me like-” he pressed his knuckles against his mouth.

“Like you were magical,” Yor finished for him. 

The air trembled with the ghost of her laughter. Yor felt her eyes fill and hated herself for blinking too fast, like she could outrun tears. Loid set his teacup down too hard. “I miss her,” he spoke, stripped of spycraft. “Every day. Every second.”

Yor reached across the table with trembling fingers and covered his hand with hers. “Me too. More than anything.”

They perched on the verge of breaking, holding onto each other like it was the only way to remember what warmth felt like, their daughter alive in every crooked giggle and empty chair as both of them waited for the door to slam open and her voice to declare she was home.

*

Yor washed the bowl three times, because the first two didn’t count. The sponge died heroically; the porcelain squeaked a little requiem. She kept listening for Anya to shout she’d already eaten, no, she didn’t want Mama’s soup, she wanted peanuts, which Yor once solemnly attempted to boil because that’s what one does to food, apparently, but Loid corrected gently that peanuts didn’t need steam to be edible. Maybe if she scrubbed hard enough, she could erode history to a blank slate and start over. She put the bowl away carefully, but it didn’t matter. Nothing did.

The phone she didn’t tell people she had chimed. The text was a grayscale flower. She took a breath she didn’t feel entering her lungs and changed clothes. She left sticky notes on the fridge because ritual stood between this and complete collapse. Loid, I’ve gone out for milk, she wrote in round handwriting, and added a smiley face because a magazine advised that small cheerful images improved household communication. Embarrassed by the frivolity, she added sorry for the smiley, and crossed out milk and wrote eggs, because milk was the lie last time.

The city at night was a polite stranger. Yor moved along the edges, nodded at streetlights like old friends and apologised inwardly for disturbing the air. The job was simple, reduced to a list, a route, a choreography of soft feet and a sudden ending. She asked each man for the honour of taking his life, and made sure not to absorb their faces. She learned the hard way that if you gathered too many faces they crowded your dreams and jostled for room. When she was done, she destroyed their phones, wiped the table clean with a towel that said Live Laugh Love. On the way home, she purchased eggs, and cried before she brought it home to Loid.

Loid visited her new home once a month with flowers. He chose something that looked simple, bright, and unpretentious, because elaborate apologies were overwrought. They sat around the kitchen table with tea, with a third cup set out for their daughter. “Did you remember to water her cactus?” Yor asked.

“Yes,” Loid replied, and they moved on to talk about the plant’s life, because it was neutral territory, and leaves didn’t speak the way photographs did. “We should talk.”

“Of course.” Then, she asked about how he liked the new tea, telling herself it was polite, which was a duty. In those days, she told herself many things, because truth had the texture of a blade and she had enough of those.

Garden didn’t send condolences, but a schedule. Yor accepted it because refusal was a choice, and she didn’t want to make decisions that meant standing still. The Shopkeeper slid envelopes across tables that were sugar-sticky. “Housekeeping,” he called it, “Maintenance.” They never said killing, because there was no reason to be vulgar. Yor nodded, took the envelope, and promised to return when it was done. It felt like a normal job, like the ones advertised in newspapers like administrative assistant or cleaner. Yor was excellent at cleaning.

The first seed was so small she nearly tossed it in the trash and told herself it was a smudge. APP/DOMESTIC – POST-ACQ. HYGEINE was a single line in a single briefing. Yor frowned at it, because in her kitchen, app meant apples, which she once tried peeling with a boning knife and learned that neither fruit nor implement respected her. She turned the page, and it was subsumed by a fog of acronyms so dense even Loid’s brain would need a machete. “Is there a glossary?” she asked gently.

The Shopkeeper smiled like Yor complimented his ikebana. “It’s old paperwork, a dead project. I wouldn’t worry about it.” Yor simply smiled, because that’s what you do when somebody talks at your face like a decorative bowl.

The second seed sprouted in a hospital corridor that stunk of bleach. She was tasked to collect a file, which was the polite term for destroying said file and the man who created it. His office had a calendar of kittens hanging off improbable surfaces. “Do you need help?” he asked, because she was a woman in a nice dress and not the end of his life. She apologised as she stalked past him; she apologised when she opened the cabinet and removed a folder stamped 103-B; she apologised when he grabbed her and she broke his fingers out of habit; she apologised after the last sound stopped echoing. Politeness mattered. On the way out, she glimpsed a memo tacked under a strawberry magnet PROJECT APPLE – CHILD OUTCOMES – REDACTED. She left it where it was, because her orders were exact, and she didn’t disobey precise instruction. Not then. Not yet.

The next morning, she made breakfast without lighting the burner because sometimes her mind obeyed the wrong set of rules. When the eggs remained raw, she told them, “We’ll try again tomorrow,” and meant it. Loid visited and didn’t speak for five minutes, which meant he geared up to say something difficult. Yor studied his face, his careful kindness and the weariness that sat on his cheeks like an extra decade.

“We could talk to the police liaison again,” he suggested evenly. “There may be a new-”

“No,” she replied quickly, then forced a smile. “Do you want more tea? I have the good kind.”

He watched her professionally, like she was a patient refusing anaesthesia. “You’re not sleeping.”

“I sleep during bus rides,” she answered, which was true and false. On buses, she put her head against the window and felt Berlint move her, and sometimes, she imagined the road was a conveyer belt and she was a parcel with a happier destination. She ground her teeth to stop herself from asking him please fix the world, and he already spent his life patching it with his bare hands.

The third seed was a slippery mouth. It belonged to a junior assassin with a cat’s nervousness. She had a coffee and too many bracelets. “We’ll need the mother neutralised,” she tried authority like a coat in the wrong size. Yor stilled.

“Whose mother?” she asked lightly.

Her junior flipped to a page and realised too late she was dead. “Sorry, I mean… the caregiver entity around 007,” she corrected.

“007?” she repeated.

“Old nomenclature,” she said, snapping the folder shut to will the page into nonexistence, “before my time. Garden has updated. We don’t use numbers anymore, it’s dehumanising. Anyway, the target is a man, not a mother. It’s… not to do with you.” Yor nodded, stalked to the restroom, and held the sink until the porcelain crumbled to dust.

Garden didn’t like it when tools read instructions, because tools should swing in the air and hit their marks and be wiped, then put away. Yor’s mind, deprived of Anya’s cheerful chatter and Loid’s patient calibration, started making nests out of scraps, including a maintenance list that used the term orchard, a line item for fruit inventory reconciliation embedded absurdly in a solvent budget, a colleague who said the girl and coughed three times. Yor folded all of it into a terrible belief that there had been a project, it involved children, and somebody decided certain trees should be pruned.

Yor didn’t tell Loid, because saying it aloud made it real, and she couldn’t survive the dimensions of reality yet. Instead, they spoke about the plant. When he put his hand in hers, he didn’t flinch at the strength in her fingers. “I’m proud of you,” he managed.

“For what?” She immediately apologised for the question because it sounded like she didn’t trust him, and she wanted him to know she trusted him the way one trusts the sun will rise.

The work multiplied as Garden discovered that if they gave a diligent person a pile, she stacked it and asked for more. Yor slept when her eyes decided. She ate things that came from boxes because cooking was trespassing on a life she no longer had. She kept waiting for grief to settle so she could carry it without dropping parts of herself. Instead, it made her clumsy; she broke a wine glass in the sink; she used her body like a weapon against men who didn’t deserve the courtesy of seeing her face.

Once, she saw Damian from across a street that smelt like rain on tarmac. He became his father’s posture and his mother’s face, yet none of their power. He looked like a young man who tried to sleep and woke up in a nightmare. Yor didn’t cross to him, because she didn’t know how to be Yor Forger in front of him. The next night she stole a glance at some paperwork Loid left and found the Desmond name like a paper-cut. It contained a list of external actors exhibiting maladaptive persistence. Yor closed the folder and went to a job where a man listed all his reasons for living that far exceeded her own. He mentioned his daughter, and her heart hurt, but she did what she came to do. On the way home, she bought peanuts, which she hid in a cupboard.

Secretly, she began a journal. It wasn’t much, just dates and oddities and the occasional doodle of a knife. She wrote APP and circled it, followed by 007, then, ashamed of her handwriting, slashed a line through it. She scrawled mother neutralised? She hid the ledger in a cookbook because it seemed hilarious that violence lived between recipes for sauces she burned. Sometimes, she opened the page for a simple stew, saw her notes, and ordered takeout.

She noticed Garden monitoring her. Her schedules got busier; the targets shifted. “Political hygiene,” Shopkeeper winked, which Yor found funny in a way that was genuinely alarming. She was tasked with frightening a reporter into choosing a different subject, to help a bureaucrat discover a sudden love of transfer paperwork, and wipe a lab whose microbes saw too much. The lab had a poster with a cartoon apple smiling. Yor wiped that too, worried the cartoon would feel left out. Anya liked cartoons.

The next seed was Loid’s face when she told him nothing but he understood everything. “Do you want to go away for a few days?” he offered; she imagined a place without schedules or knives, and the air didn’t smell like an alley, and Anya would just be late, and Yor would say where were you? Anya would laugh and answer not dead, and they laughed, because it was a bad joke.

“I have work,” Yor replied softly.

“I know,” he said. “I thought you might.”

She took his hand and squeezed. “I’ll keep you safe.” He nodded and didn’t say the thing he couldn’t say, which was that he was always less worried for himself than the parts of her that went dark to keep the rest lit. If there was proof, she would have broken the world immediately. Without it, she was a good tool and stayed sharp and waited. Waiting was an art that hollowed one out. She watched her superiors for flinches that told her where to press. She asked extra questions and apologised for being ditzy. She passed a file name to Loid and pretended it was a receipt she found in her pocket. He pretended to mishear and repeated it back incorrectly so the walls learned nothing.

On a street with a lovely bakery and the worst coffee in the city, she brushed shoulders with Damian Desmond. He didn’t recognise her because grief numbed him to the world. He stunk of rain, vodka, and unmade plans. He carried a manila envelope, which she allowed him to keep. Yor watched him walk away and recalled the afternoon Anya came home furious that Damian dared exist in the same world as oxygen. In that instance, Yor made hot chocolate and suggested Anya invite her classmate to play, because that’s what good mothers in movies did. Anya said, with a child’s grave authority, they would do no such thing. Yor bought a croissant but didn’t eat it, but took it home and put it on a plate. A few hours later, she moved it to a different place so it felt chosen.

The next seed arrived in a man’s mouth. He was drunk on impunity and she needed only nudge the glass towards him and listen. “They said it was national security,” he confided to the knife he hadn’t clocked yet. “They said the fruit would rot on the tree if we didn’t pick it ourselves. The doctor wouldn’t quit asking questions – stupid man!” Yor smiled politely and ended the conversation efficiently. On her way out, she picked up a page crumpled under a chair, which was a requisition for an education consultant to assess post-APP domestic integration. She folded it in half until it disappeared behind the battery in the kitchen clock. She kissed Anya’s photograph goodnight, then turned it face down like the dead could be embarrassed for the living. 

When she finally, in the privacy of her own head, allowed the sentence to form, it didn’t explode. Garden had its hand in Anya’s death. It sat there patiently, and she didn’t share it with Loid. She didn’t share it with Damian, though she sat three rows behind him in a public hearing and watched him ask questions in a voice that was steady from the effort of not screaming. She watered the sentence with each slip-up, every APP, every subject, every tragedy labelled necessary.

Five years was a number that was reasonable on paper and monstrous at two in the morning. Yor counted them in mission reports, in the weight of steel, in the way her eyes disguised themselves as ordinary. On the final night of the year, she took her journal and laid it on the table like a body. She spread her knives in a row because order calmed her. She placed it all beside a photograph of a smiling child who was her entire universe. She wrote one final sticky note and stuck it to the frame.

Find proof.

She turned the cookbook to stew and tucked the journal within it. She set her alarm for dawn, for Loid’s monthly visit that would arrive like a lighthouse in a storm. She hummed a lullaby to the photograph and prayed it brought comfort. In the morning, she went where the job told her to go, and she remained polite, efficient and hollow, but not empty. If Garden took her daughter, even indirectly, then the organisation would learn what it meant for a mother to prune an orchard to the stump with gratitude for the honour of ending what should never have grown.

*

Loid brought chrysanthemums. He always brought something, like the act of carrying objects across the threshold compensated for the silence Anya left behind. Yor set the vase at the centre of the table and smoothed the petals comfortingly. They sat with tea cooling between them, neither eager to break the quiet. Finally, Loid spoke. “He’s been busy.”

“…Damian?” she looked up uncertainly.

“Busier than most of my field agents ever managed,” he nodded, “and far less discreet.”

“I knew he was… looking into things,” her hands stilled, “but he’s still so young. What is he now, twenty-one? Twenty-two? Between us, I still see the boy who tried to outrun the school bell.”

Loid’s mouth smiled dryly, “He hasn’t outrun anything since. Drinks more than he sleeps, smokes more than he breathes. He’s breaking into SSS archives now. The night guards tell me he distracts them with cigarettes and philosophy.”

“Philosophy?”

“What was last week’s line…? Ah, yes, do you ever think about destiny?”

“That sounds like him,” she laughed fondly in spite of herself. “When they were in first year, Anya told me he tried to bribe the nurse to get an extra ice pack. When that didn’t work, he gave a little speech about fairness. That didn’t work either.”

“He’s still giving speeches,” Loid said. “Only now the audience has guns.”

“I thought he was just chasing shadows,” Yor folded her hands, “keeping himself busy so he wouldn’t feel her loss. I didn’t realise…”

“He’s closer to answers than either of us.”

“He can’t be!”

“Closer than he should be,” Loid grimaced at the tea’s bitterness. “He’s pulling the right threads, but he’s unravelling at the same time.”

“He was always around her,” Yor stopped listening, “always, like a little satellite, following but pretending he wasn’t. When he was nine, he tried to fight that dog that barked at her. He lost, terribly, but he stood there all the same.”

Loid allowed himself a rare smile. “Remember when he came to the flat saying he needed help with classic languages? He sat at the table and looked very serious, but he didn’t open his book once. He just watched her study.”

“He liked being near her. He never said it, but I could tell. I don’t think she disliked it as much as she said she did.”

“Well, he’s replaced proximity with obsession,” Loid shrugged. “He breaks into offices and keeps showing up on surveillance reports where he doesn’t belong.”

“He’s still that boy,” Yor’s hands tightened around the cup, “who wanted so badly to prove himself. He hasn’t changed much.”

“He’ll discover more than is safe. Neither Garden nor WISE tolerate persistence like his.”

“Do they know about him?” Yor’s voice dropped to a whisper.

“Not yet, but he’s not hiding it well. It’s a matter of when, not if.”

Yor fought tears. “When I saw him, he looked so small, even though he’s grown-up now.”

Loid adjusted the chrysanthemums by habit and avoided eye contact. “We should prepare for the possibility he uncovers what we already suspect.”

“Garden.” Her throat closed as she thought of the boy on the picnic blanket with a juice box with a bendy straw and a dragon and a pancake with sprinkles. “If they- if they had anything to do with-” Her body folded inwards, bracing for a blow that didn’t land yet.

“Then we deal with it,” his voice unusually softened, “but until then, Damian’s in danger of finding out faster than he can survive.”

“He doesn’t deserve this. He never deserved it. Not him, not her.”

“No, but here we are.”

The tea cooled. The flowers leaned, heavy-handed in their vase, as they bowed to the inevitable. “When Anya was little,” Yor talked to herself, “I told her boys like Damian only tease because they wanted to be close. She laughed at me and said I didn’t understand.”

“She wasn’t wrong,” Loid murmured, recalling the number of times Anya cried because of the youngest Desmond’s antics. In hindsight, her punching him was an entirely correct, if a little pre-emptive, response.

“He’ll always be that boy,” she laughed, “even if he’s got a cigarette in one hand and a crowbar in the other.”

“Then,” Loid nodded resolutely, “we’d better make sure he lives long enough to put them both down.” They sat in silence again, two grieving parents with no child left, and spoke instead of the stray boy who always hovered at the edge of their family portrait. Briefly, Loid wondered if there was an eventuality where he was included, but crushed that thought. Hypotheticals didn’t help anybody.

*

The cemetery had the good manners to be quiet. The paths were swept, the lamps burned low, and in the distance, the groundskeeper’s radio murmured a non-believing hymn. She arrived to leave flowers and not linger, but then Damian Desmond arrived like an opulent storm. His tie was skewed, his knucklers were red, and he held a velvet box pinched in his hand like he trapped a wasp. He approached Anya’s headstone with a swagger that he rented by the hour. Yor felt her body shift instinctively, her assassin’s calculus flickering on as she measured distance, angles, witnesses and exit routes. When he spoke, every equation fell away, because the boy she remembered opened his mouth and weaponised bravado like the old days.

“Well, Forger,” he announced, planting himself with a dedication to being wrong at full volume, “congratulations are in order. Your old rival is engaged. That’s right, I, Damian Desmond, have a real, living, certified wife. You never had an idiot show up with a ring and stumble through a proposal. Pathetic.” The word pathetic cracked like an egg, and Yor, who once saw him at six trying to impress Anya by running a whole lap without breathing, recognised the tilt of his shoulder when he lied, his jaw setting as if chewing the future into submission. He tapped the stone with two fingers, a child’s knock, asking may I come in? May I be allowed? “Meanwhile, I’ve got a ring, a fiancée, and a big party planned. Mother’s thrilled.”

Yor’s hands tightened around her bouquet. She promised not to intrude, not to make this about her, not to turn every open space into an ambush, but she couldn’t unhear the smallness under the noise. Loid said Damian unravelled, but that was far too polite. What she witnessed was a boy undoing himself thread-by-thread and knitting the mess into a ring pillow.

“Imagine it, Forger, our wedding,” he sneered, and Yor sensed the stage directions in his posture. Sneer here, say the mean thing here, pretend it doesn’t hurt. He laughed when describing how Anya would ruin her own wedding, and Yor was inclined to agree. He laughed, but it fell apart. She saw in stupid flashes the boy who hovered at the edge of school pick-ups, pretending to be late so he could loiter to see Anya. She saw the teenager who stood ramrod straight in their living room under the pretext of tutoring, eyes fixed not his essay but on Anya’s hair. Mainly, she saw a young man at a graveside, pretending to talk down so he would never admit he spent his whole life looking up. He broke into a wet, ragged sound that pulled at Yor’s chest like a hook. She looked at the ground and suppressed the need to go to him with a coat and a sandwich and the lie that he would be okay. Assassins weren’t meant to maternally hover in cemeteries.

“You’d be a terrible- terrible wife!” Damian slumped against the stone. “I would’ve done it anyway. It’s just so some poor bastard doesn’t get stuck with you!”

Yor closed her eyes, but opened at the click of the ring box. He stared at the contents like it would bite him, and she recognised the gravity in his shaking hands. She once saw Loid hold a ticking bomb with steadier fingers. The ring caught the moonlight and performed the miracle of telling the truth. It sat there like a thesis statement for a life he couldn’t bear to read aloud. He staggered, wiped his face as if cleaning a crime scene, and tried to wear a smirk like a uniform that wouldn’t fit. “Damian,” she whispered quietly, before recalling that technically, she wasn’t here. He took a drag on his cigarette that hurt.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he muttered like a child bargaining with detention. “They’ll think I’m- whatever.” He stared at the ring. “You don’t get to laugh at me.”

Yor smiled, because Anya would have laughed, because chaos delighted her and she would have instantly known what he was doing. There was no universe where you brought a ring to a grave and demanded take it unless a feral part of you believed it would be accepted. There was no universe where you called someone the worst wife imaginable unless you already tested the shape of your life against theirs.

“Congratulations,” he said bitterly, and it was the most sincere he’d been all night, “on ruining my life from beyond the…” he waved his cigarette, “this.” He put his hand flat on the stone and Yor recalled on parent’s day when he pretended to not know how to tie a tie, so Loid fixed it and Anya made crazy faces over his shoulder. He stubbed his cigarette out on his shoe, and reached for the ring again, then stopped halfway. His fingers hovered, indecisive, then fell. He left it there. “Don’t lose it,” he laughed, and God, it sounded gentle, “you always lose things.”

Yor understood that, in his own language, he proposed. Sure, it was in the dialect of boys raised in a cold house and colder fathers, of rivals who never learned to say please except picking a fight. He said the worst possible version of I wish I married you and set proof on the stone. She loved him for it with a severity that surprised her. “Anya,” she whispered to the air, “don’t let him go home alone.”

A wind moved through the graves; Damian straightened, squared his shoulders like a soldier reporting to a superior. “I have to go,” he told the stone. “I’ve got that big party.” He took one step, stopped, swivelled, and adjusted the ring’s position with ridiculous care. “Fine,” he groaned aggravatedly, “I’ll visit tomorrow. I need to make sure you haven’t stolen it.”

He left in the direction of the life he hated. Yor waited until he was out of earshot, and stepped forward to examine the ring properly. She rested her flowers beside it like a soft flank against a hard promise. “I’ll watch him,” she promised the carved name and the part of herself that took in strays without permission. “He’s doing his best to be brave.”

Yor adjusted her bouquet and tucked the ring an inch safer from the breeze and stood watch for a second longer. She turned toward the path and followed the smell of smoke and expensive, awful decisions, because somebody needed to make sure he survived the walk home. 

Chapter Text

The phrase Project Apple sounded innocuous, like a codename for snack foods or a plan to indoctrinate toddlers through educational cartoons. When Damian first saw it, buried in a misfiled intelligence transcript about Ostanian childhood rehabilitation facilities, a chill ran down his spine. “You’ve got the look again,” Emile told him over drinks. “That means we’re not sleeping this weekend.”

“I need access to SSS archives,” Damian muttered.

“Oh, the classified ones?”

“Obviously.”

“Do you want to ask, or just commit felonies?”

“I’ve already committed them,” Damian studied the notes on his phone. “I’m just making it elegant.”

He chased the thread for weeks. Anya’s lack of early records, the missing five years, the referenced facility transfer pointed to a controlled environment that under no circumstances wanted to be found. So, Damian did what he did when the world refused to cooperate – forged clearances, bullied Ewen into distracting a civil servant and bribed a janitor with a signed Desmond Foundation check he had no authority to issue. It worked, because when your surname was Desmond, doors opened. The file was buried under several layers of rot and had a nondescript name. Project Apple Archive Ref. #103-B Clearance L4.

The printout was grainy, half-redacted and used phrases like cognitive augmentation, resilience thresholds, neural flexibility models and behavioural prediction under duress. Damian read long past the point his stomach churned. “Um, is this…” Emile peered over his shoulder, “about kids?”

“Subjects,” he corrected grimly. “They never call them kids.”

He found the file by accident; hell, he nearly skipped it. The trio broke into a records office of a defunct military annex, half-hoping to find something whilst fervently wishing they didn’t. He read it standing up, then seating, then leaning against a wall to remain upright. The report was unfeeling in the way only government files were.

Subject 007

Age at intake: ~2.5 years old

Cognitive anomaly: Empathic telepathic response (active)

Treatment: Controlled isolation, stress-induced cognition monitoring, memory loop insertion testing

Notes: Exhibits premature cognitive/emotive indicators; signs of trauma-based adaptability; frequent attempts at bonding with staff and peers; danger flagged as emotional over-identification.

Facility: Red Hill Youth Home

Status: AWOL, presumed deceased

His mouth dried at the grainy scan of a toddler sitting on a plastic chair with a security tag. She was too small; her sock slipped down. She stared left of the camera, wide-eyed, hair matted, legs swinging. She clutched a pink animal, a chimera, Damian believed. Its face was worn from being loved too hard. He knew that face. Anya. She didn’t even look like she knew what being alive meant. He stared at it for a long while, before holding it up to Emile, who had the good graces to tear up.

There were scans of observation charts.

#T-017 – 007 placed in silent observation. Emotional distress peaked at 8 hours; repeated caretaker phrases aloud in cycles. Cognitive signature spiked. Further analysis required.

#T-020 – 007 shown images of family units. Reacted negatively to maternal images; no discernible bond markers. Possible memory interference or trauma trigger.

#T-023 – Exposed to high-pitched audio; 007 unresponsive until shown images of caretakers in distress. Resulted in cognitive activity spike.

#T-034 – 007 exhibited telepathic stress feedback when placed near others in emotional distress; required sedation. Transferred to Cell 3B for isolation protocol.

He recalled what he did at age two. He had his own rooms, his own nanny, a toy room filled with models, puzzles, a rocking horse imported from the west, a swan-shaped music box, blocks engraved with initials. At two years old, he went on his first yacht. There was a photo of him sitting beside his older brother while servants clapped. Anya was here, repeating caretaker phrases to herself because silence was the only thing that answered her. The image of an unclaimed toddler, whose first conscious memories were suffering, burned into his brain. He held the page up to the light; as he hoped, a few handwritten notes were visible through the redactions.

007 exhibits intermittent emotional mimicry; may not understand context, repeats expected response. Further observation required to determine if reaction is performative or learned.

007 shuts down in the presence of new adults. Investigate.

Surprising resistance to control-based language. May require psychological correction.

Damian couldn’t breathe. At age two, his Anya, the girl who named every duck in the school pond, was locked in a lab and poked at. He didn’t even know what fear was at age two. He had a private tutor to teach him colours in French. He felt sick, and for a moment, he hated himself, and not in the vague, everyday sense of loathing he was accustomed to, but in a deep, irrevocable way caused by memory.

He remembered Eden, where he called her a moron, rolled his eyes when she couldn’t keep up in class, when she tripped over her feet, when she said the wrong thing and made people laugh. He recalled how she smiled like she was just happy to be there. He assumed she was desperate for attention. Not once did he think she learned what joy was supposed to look like before she learned what it felt like. He made fun of her, mocked her, for smiling, and she probably rehearsed it in a mirror.

Damian pressed his palm to his eye, but no tears came. Good, he didn’t deserve to cry.

She said stupid things like, “I’m going to be a princess spy,” and “dogs should vote”. He called her names. She smiled anyway. He hated how kind she was and how small she made him feel. He spent most of his childhood proving she didn’t matter, but she stared at him from a forgotten file and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, she mattered more than anybody. She once asked him what his favourite toy was, and he teased her for calling stuffed animals friends, and now all he saw was her chimera, clutched like a shield. He wondered if she named it or remembered its voice. He wondered how many nights she screamed in a sterile room whilst adults behind a mirror wrote cognitive signature promising whilst he learned fucking piano.

He broke with a ragged breath through clenched teeth. He knew now, and he couldn’t unknow it. He tucked the photo in his coat, and walked out the room knowing the world broke children, and he was too stupid to notice.

At his apartment later, Ewen was aghast. “Oh my God. That’s her. That’s Anya.”

“No birth name or parents,” Damian said. “Just 007 and a report that says her greatest flaw was caring too much.”

“She was a fucking experiment,” Emile gagged.

“She was a lab rat. They made her that way. The weirdness, the panic attacks, the way she read rooms in seconds. She was taught, or tested, or both.” He stared at the page. “She ran.” They stayed up all night building a secondary timeline and upgraded the corkboard to two corkboards, a chalkboard, and a stressed whiteboard Ewen stole from the engineering department. Becky constantly texted her thoughts to each revelation.

What the fuck is this?

You’re going to jail.

I hate that I’m helping you.

Subject 007. Damian. What the actual fuck.

I knew her better than anyone, but not at all. Isn’t that fucked?

It was. All of it was.

Midway through the night, Damian said aloud, “She didn’t even get to know.”

“What?” Emile looked up.

“She didn’t know. She ran before she learned what they were doing, that they weren’t helping her, or that she was just an anomaly with a file and an exit plan.” He breathed deeply. “She used to say stuff, like she knew how people felt. Like she heard it.”

“She wasn’t lying,” Ewen whispered.

Damian sat back and stared at the ceiling for absolution. “They made her that way, and then they killed her.” The breakdown that followed was quieter than expected. Damian sat at his desk, staring at his boards like they would attack him, and stated, very calmly, “I’m going to burn this entire country to the ground.”

He didn’t eat or sleep for three days, but sat with the knowledge that Anya wasn’t just a kid with a weird sense of humour and bad shoes. She was a national secret. Loid hadn’t been the enemy; Loid likely saved her. Damian blamed the wrong man for a whole year. He mailed Becky a letter that just said I think I broke her. I’m sorry. She didn’t reply for a week. When she did, it was a postcard of a cartoon giraffe drinking wine. You didn’t break her. You just didn’t see her in time. That’s not evil, it’s just tragic. Stop confessing to me and go do something about it.

Damian looked into the facility, built a list of names, of staff and subjects alike, though most were redacted or marked deceased. It seemed she was the only one who made it. He found a supply record that mentioned apple juice deliveries and behavioural softening agents. He threw up in a sink. He found a note that stated 007 exhibits hallucinations of domestic fantasy. He punched a wall until he broke his hand. He found nothing but fragments about her, but he never stopped investigating, because somebody needed to remember. If Damian Desmond was going to die for something, it was going to be her.

*

Damian Desmond, nine years old, was not thinking about marrying Anya Forger. He wasn’t imagining the ceremony nor picturing her in a dress made of clouds. He wasn’t planning who walked her down the aisle, but it would likely be her terrifyingly normal father, who would shake his hand so politely that it felt like moral judgement. He wasn’t debating whether Emile or Ewen would deliver the worst best man speech. He was most definitely not thinking about the cake.

It would be peanut, obviously, and maybe with pink frosting and maybe, God forbid, a tiny plastic griffin on the top, and a second smaller one, because she’d find that hilarious. He found it stupid, but he’d probably keep the topper forever, hide it in his desk drawer at his important job and deny its existence to colleagues. They’d live somewhere nice, with windows and a garden and maybe a dog with a name like Lieutenant Nibbles, because of course, she’d name it that. She’d let it sleep in the bed, and probably make him read bedtime stories to it, out loud, and he would, every time, because-

“No!” He yelled in the silent study hall.

Ewen jumped. “You okay, bossman?”

“Fine.”

“You look like you wanna fight your homework.”

“I am fighting it.”

“You’ve been staring at that same page for ten minutes,” Emile whispered.

Damian glanced down. He’d written DF+AF in the corner. He scribbled it out so violently the desk shook.

At the same time, Anya Forger watched Damian frown like he wanted to kill the concept of thought itself. When he said no so loudly he scared a pigeon outside the window, she blinked. The boy was vibrating with repressed rage, which meant it was spying time. She tuned her brain like a radio and listened.

…peanut butter cake, obviously. Pink frosting – urgh, not pink. Maybe a lighter pink. She’d want a weird topper from the market with glitter eyes, not that I care, but if she smiled at it – whatever! It’s dumb! She always finds dumb things funny! What kind of dog would she like? Something with floppy ears. She’d call it Lieutenant Nibbles, probably. Gross, it would shed all over my couch. She’d let it, and she’d let it sleep in the bed too! I hate this. I hate everything! I’d still do it, but I’d hate it the whole time!

She opened her eyes to watch him chew the inside of his cheek and scribble furiously. What was he planning? She narrowed her eyes, and peeked back into his loud brain.

She’d want the dumb cake! I bet she’d make me wear matching socks. Do people wear socks at weddings? She would, just to be weird about it, and then she’d eat the stupid cake for breakfast and get frosting on the dog.

Anya blinked again slowly. Okay, so, Damian Desmond, her annoying, perpetually angry classmate, was planning his wedding. He would have cake, a dog, bedtime stories, and matching socks, apparently. She felt a weird squeeze in her stomach.

He’d probably make a good husband when he grows up, she thought. She stared at her desk, then at Damian, then back at her desk. That girl’s gonna get peanut cake, she mused bitterly, not sure why it felt like betrayal. She doesn’t even exist yet and she gets my favourite cake?! She glanced at Becky, who’d been whispering about a dumb TV show for ten minutes. “Do weddings always have cake?”

“The good ones do,” her friend grinned.

Anya frowned, and realised she quite fancied some peanut cake, and maybe a dumb dog, and maybe a bedtime story later that night. She looked at Damian again, who now furiously crossed something out on his paper. She poked her pencil sharpener, then stuck her tongue out across the desk. Naturally, he scowled; she giggled. At least she’d probably be invited to the wedding, unless his new wife was mean, in which case, Anya would break in, requisition the peanut cake and maybe kidnap the dog.

She was in luck that day, because the cafeteria was offering a peanut butter cake. It was just cake, but Anya beheld it like the second coming of Christ. “I’ll have the peanut cake,” she announced to the lunch lady with the gravity of a royal decree. “And no substitutions, and no icing smudges. If it’s the corner piece, I’ll cry, but if it’s not the corner piece, I’ll also cry.” The lunch lady nodded as if that made any sense. Damian, three people back in line, glowered at the back of her head. Anya bounced when the tray was handed over. “Thank you! I’m going to love this cake more than I’ve ever loved anything!”

Damian twitched as she sat at her usual table with Becky and her other no-name friends, the cake placed in front of her like a sacrificial offering. She folded her hands, whispered to it, possibly a prayer or a name. He hated that he couldn't hear it.

She picked up her fork and took the tiniest, most reverent bite, then made a very delighted, yet incredibly loud hum. “Oh my gosh!”

Becky snorted into her juice. “Are you gonna marry it?”

“I’d elope tonight,” Anya nodded seriously. “I’d fake my age, move to a peanut-friendly country and learn cake language.” She licked the frosting off her thumb. “Nobody will ever love me like this again.”

Across the cafeteria, Damian stared at his sad, beige pudding and experienced an emotional crisis. He daydreamed about that cake, planned it, even. Now, Forger made it weird, yet also, sacred, and she had no idea. This is fine, he thought bitterly, this is normal. Watching the hypothetical girl of your hypothetical future wedding make out with a cake in front of a hundred people. Forger is stupid. Cake is stupid. Peanuts are a mistake.

Anya caught his eye and smiled with frosting on her nose. He looked away so fast he gave himself whiplash.

*

Damian Desmond, twenty-four, was drunk at home again. His fiancée was somewhere in the house, and he didn’t particularly give a shit where. His tie was gone, his shirt open at the collar and damp with sweat or tears, he couldn’t say. A crumpled notebook lay on the floor beside him, and his mind kept returning the phrase empathic telepathic anomaly. Subject 007 was Anya Forger. She was telepathic; she was a part of Project Apple. What. The. Fuck.

“A telepath,” he mused to himself. “She could read minds.” The thought moved like a slow wave across his alcohol-soaked brain. “Read. Minds.” A beat. “Read my mind.” Beat. “Oh. No.” He sat up too fast and nearly passed out; he caught himself by slamming his hands on the desk and dragging the paper closer like it would solve anything. “She knew,” he whispered, panic rising, “she knew the whole time.” If she was reading his mind, she knew that every time he insulted her, called her names, shoved her books off the desk or mocked her scores, what he meant was…

The horror dawned in waves. She knew he was a wreck around her. She knew he dwelled on her handwriting and how she scrunched her nose when concentrating, or how he memorised her seat in every room, his thought process behind the cactus incident, and how he was physically ill when she stopped engaging with him.

“Oh my god,” he put his head in his hands. “She knew and she never said anything. She let me suffer.” The shame was nuclear. He spent years justifying it that she never noticed or figured it out because he was subtle and cool, but now, the façade collapsed. “She probably laughed at me or told stupid Becky!” The idea that Anya Forger, government experiment, mind-reader and chaos engine, knew every stupid thought made him want to die; instead, he pulled his emergency flask from his coat and mournfully sipped.

Why didn’t she tell me?

Why didn’t she stop me?

Why didn’t she say goodbye?

Did she know I liked her? If so, did she like me back?

There was silence, save for the wind howling and the memory of her, giggling in the sunlight, like nothing in the world could harm her. This was the worst truth of his entire fucking life. His childhood nemesis, his lifelong obsession, the girl he loved, had the power to read minds, which meant-

Which meant-

“Oh, fuck.”

Which meant she-

He made a sound like a deflating balloon and slammed his head on his desk. “She read everything.” And by everything, he meant every single unfiltered, unholy, hormone-addled teenage thought that dared pass through his vile fourteen-year-old skull, including every mental image and every internal monologue that started with why does she look good today and ended with God I want her to punch me in the mouth. The remnants of his teenage-filth brain crushed him.

“She knew I thought about her in the library,” he groaned, “and during exams, and during… detention!” He scrabbled at the wood grain to physically hurt it. “Oh God, the daydream in fencing club!” His whole life imploded. Therefore, he needed stronger alcohol immediately. He pulled a new bottle from his bottom drawer and cracked the wax seal with his teeth. “This is fine,” he insisted, “this is all very fine.” Damian took five long gulps, then six more, then put his head back on the desk, eyes wide and unblinking.

After exactly seven minutes of emotional coma, he fumbled for his phone. He scrolled past Mother (Do Not Answer), Becky (TELL HER NOTHING) and Cecile (???) until he finally hit Ewen (Space Idiot). He dialled; it rang twice. Ewen picked up, panting. “If this about breaking into the State Archive again-”

“She was a telepath, Ewen!” Damian blurted. “A full telepathic… entity! Brain ESP, mind-reading, and she snooped in my brain!”

“Is this about Anya again?”

“Who else would it be about?”

“Alright,” Ewen sighed. “Where are you? Are you bleeding?”

“Not externally.” There was a distant clanking; Ewen was probably building a rocket or replacing a satellite or whatever space-engineers did at four a.m. “She could read everything. She heard everything. Do you remember what I was like at sixteen?”

“I’ve spent years trying to forget.”

“Exactly. Now imagine her hearing that.”

Ewen choked softly. “I still need therapy!”

“I need an exorcism!” There was a shared moment of despair, and Damian leaned back in his chair to stare at his stupidly ornate ceiling. “I was such a creep.”

“You were a mess,” Ewen corrected. “It’s different. Creeps are intentional. You were just… emotionally constipated and horny.”

“I thought she was pretty.”

“You also threatened to buy a kid’s neighbourhood for calling her adorable.”

“I thought it was chivalrous,” Damian groaned and drank again. “She knew, Ewen. When I called her annoying or kicked her desk or said she was beneath me, she was in my skull and heard how beautiful I thought she was.”

“Bossman,” Ewen sighed. “That’s exactly on brand for you.”

“I hate that it is.” There was a click and a soft mechanical whirr. “Where are you?”

“Lab. Testing boots. Crying a little.”

“What do I do now?”

“You find the rest of the truth,” Ewen answered, “and keep going. You owe her that.”

Damian nodded, unseen, then, because he was tragically himself and pride was impossible to kill, he added, “She was annoying.”

“You were obsessed with her.”

“I had standards.”

“You also gave yourself a double barrel name of Forger-Desmond.”

“Goodnight, Ewen!” Damian hung up, drank, cried once, and kept going. He picked up his phone again and pressed Emile (Sherlock Wannabe).

At 04:14, Emile Elman squinted through his scope and whispered into his mic. “Target two is moving. Repeat, target two is-” His phone buzzed, and he gave it a cursory look. Damian Desmond [Incoming Call]. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He hit ignore, but then was immediately interrupted by an incessant buzzing. Damian Desmond [Facetime Call]. “You’re not even subtle,” Emile hissed under his breath, slid the phone halfway from his coat, and focused on his comms. “Ten-minute silent. Going black.” He tapped accept.

The screen lit up. Damian was unshaven, red-eyed, and lit by what appeared to be five separate desk lamps. He slouched, drinking whiskey straight from the bottle. “Hi,” he croaked, “how are you? Are you sitting down?”

“I’m on a roof with a gun, because I’m working, bossman.”

Damian blinked at him with grave intensity. “I just realised something horrifying. It’s about algebra.”

“…O-kay…?”

“So, she could read minds, right?”

“Oh God, not this again-!”

“No, listen,” Damian pointed at the screen, “she was a telepath, Emile. Subject 007.”

“I know! We worked that lead together!”

“No, I mean,” his voice dropped to a scandalised whisper, “she knew about the algebra daydreams.”

Emile rubbed a very tired hand across his face. “You’re gonna need to narrow that down.”

“The one,” Damian hissed, face very close to his screen, “when she bent over her desk to pick up her eraser, and I, like a fucking degenerate, imagined undoing the buttons on her blouse!”

“Yeah, you were a real pervert at fifteen.”

“I had very strong feelings and apparently no moral compass!” Damian swigged, nearly choked, then slumped sideways. “She knew I wanted to defile her in uniform!” he flailed his arms, knocking over one of his many lamps. No great loss. “I thought I was subtle!”

“You once threw a compass at Ewen for asking to borrow her pen.”

“I had a lot going on!”

“So did your therapist, it seems.”

Damian dragged both hands down his face. “She knew. Every. Single. Thought. Every time I looked at her ankles and thought oh, am I into ankles now? Every time I imagined her sighing my name. Every time I got weirdly into the idea of her undoing my tie like we were in a noir film.”

“She probably just thought you were insane.”

“She called me weird,” he continued mournfully, “and thought it was sweet- oh, God, she patronised me.”

Emile adjusted his scope, muttered something in his radio, then sighed and leaned on the ledge. “Bossman, you’re losing it. You know, maybe she… liked it?”

“Do not pull on that thread.” Emile snorted as Damian slammed his head on his desk. “What if I was just entertainment to her? What if she told Becky? What if they compared notes?”

“If they compared notes, Becky would be in jail.”

“Once I imagined her licking whipped cream off my finger in the lunchroom whilst I called her poor.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Do you think that’s why she stopped looking at me for the million-glare month?”

“Look,” Emile said firmly, “you were a teenage boy, she was a telepath. I think she understood the difference between I’m an actual degenerate and I have no idea what to do with my erection so I’ll channel it into hatred and algebra-based fantasies.”

“Don’t say erection again.”

“I mean it, bossman. She liked you.”

“She pushed me down a flight of stairs.”

“You called her a bog witch.”

“She was a bog witch.”

“She stole your pens.”

“She had her own pens.” Damian’s groan belonged to a dying accordion. “I fantasised about licking her face while solving quadratic equations.”

“Okay,” Emile rubbed his eyes, not believing this was his life, “you’re done talking.”

“God, I’m unforgivable.”

“Correct. Hence I’m on a roof, and not your therapist.”

“You’re my best friend.”

“Tragically.”

Damian dropped his phone. There was a thump. “Do you think she thought it was sweet?”

Emile hesitated, glanced through his scope, mouthed a silent countdown, and clicked off his mic. “Yeah. I think she’d be flattered.”

“…Really?”

“She always liked the weirdos, and you were the weirdest weirdo of all.”

“Tell Ewen I’m sorry about the compass.”

“Will do.”

“Tell him he was correct about the whipped cream. It was a mistake.”

“Noted.”

“Tell him if I die, bury me next to her.”

“You’re insane,” Emile smiled, “but she’d probably appreciate the company.”

Chapter Text

Wiping down the counter was not, in the strictest sense, part of his job. He wasn’t a cleaner nor a real bartender; hell, he wasn’t even supposed to be dead, but  there Damian was, standing behind the bar of a liminal cocktail lounge that served deceased people drinks, glaring at a coffee stain and processed his grief through friction. Meanwhile, Anya crouched beside the ice machine, sticking googly-eyes on a lemon. “Stop doing that,” Damian barked.

“Why?” she asked innocently. “He’s got opinions. He may possibly be French.”

“He’s a citrus. He doesn’t have a nationality.”

“Oui,” Anya lifted it triumphantly. “His name is Monsieur Citron. He runs a consultancy.”

“I hope you understand that death hasn’t absolved you of being an idiot.”

Anya plopped the lemon into a dish and slid it dramatically down the bar like a tiny CEO entering a boardroom. “He’s come to audit your attitude.”

“I’m going to peel him.”

“Noooo!” she lunged to rescue Monsieur Citron, cradling it like a baby. “He has a family! He just got new throw pillows! He got promoted recently!”

“Forger,” he hissed, “you cannot make up backstories for perishables.”

“You’re just mad he makes more money than you,” she said sweetly, and stroked her stupid lemon. “Don’t listen to him. He peaked at six.”

“I didn’t-!” Damian flushed, and picked up the bar towel and scrubbed to erase the part of the conversation where he was outwitted by fruit.

“You’re in a weird mood.”

“I’m always in that mood around you.”

“Aww,” Anya grinned. “That’s how I know we’re bonding.”

“We’re not bonding,” he said flatly, but the heat in his ears betrayed him. He definitely began bonding against his will, better judgement and every perfectly curated instinct drilled into him by an elite upbringing and several years of repressing both personality and emotions. She placed the lemon back in his dish as Damian reached for a bottle to occupy his hands. “You shouldn’t- look, you shouldn’t be this calm, okay? This place isn’t normal. Nothing about this is normal. I don’t even know what you are.”

“Oh,” Anya perked up, “now we’re getting into it.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he regretted the sentence immediately, but he continued. “You died, alright? You died. I know that. I remember. I remember what they said. Somehow, you’re here, you’re older, and I don’t know, sparkling! I don’t know what that means, and I-”

“You’re scared.”

“I’m not,” he looked anywhere but her, “I just don’t love loose ends.”

“Did you like her before?”

“No.”

“Before she died?”

“No.”

“You’re blushing.”

“I am not!”

She pointed at his ears. “Tell that to those guys. They’re on fire.”

“I hated her!”

“It’s okay. I understand I look a lot like her. Lots of people find their coworkers attractive.”

“You’re not my coworker. You’re a purgatory bartender who names lemons after businessmen.”

“I’m your manager, technically, which means I can order you to do things!” His protests emerged completely garbled. “First order of the day – smile!”

“I don’t do that.”

“I can tell.”

Damian looked at her and the muscle in his chest stilled. She had the same soft, radiant chaos. Her eyes were the same; her mouth curved like it remembered a thousand bad ideas. She was everything he tried not to remember and failed. “You don’t remember,” he repeated numbly.

“No,” she fiddled with Monsieur Citron, “but you do.” He wanted to scream until the world folded inwards, but his throat filled with metaphorical gravel. Sensing the shift, Anya held out her lemon. “Wanna squish him?”

“What?”

“You look like you need to squish something. He’s willing. He’s unionised.”

Damian stared at her, then finally, let out a shaky laugh. “You’re so fucking weird.”

“Merci beaucoup!” she chirped, though she pronounced it mercy buckets.

He took the lemon from her and held it like a grenade. “Thanks. For being annoying.”

Anya winked. “That’s my speciality!” With a satisfying squelch, Monsieur Citron met his citrusy demise.

Midnight Minus One hushed carefully when the elevator doors sealed, and the room decided not to breathe loudly in case somebody broke. Candles worried their wicks, the mirror behind the spirits doubled everything so it looked like abundance and not inventory, and the specials board insisted on tonight’s therapy with the steadiness of a prescription. Anya mixed a Maestro cocktail as Damian’s neon sticker glared like a small sun. He didn’t peel it off because she would cry, and he hated dealing with crying. The elevator dinged and produced a man in his fifties with a law firm face that remembered it once loved someone. He stood there in shock for a moment and waited for the light fixtures to provide instructions. Anya set down her shaker, kindness already in hand, as she summoned him over.

“Welcome to Midnight Minus One! Congratulations on surviving life; condolences on not surviving it more. House rules are no choices on an empty stomach, no choices in your first ten minutes, and no throwing up in my plant. I only have one of him.” The man took a stool without looking at either of them, palms pressed flat to the bar to brace for impact. Anay slid a coaster under his nose as gently as one did pulling a blanket over a child, then set down a small bowl of chocolate buttons. “Hydration next. Water first, then grown-up juice.” She poured, and the glass trembled in his hand. 

Damian recognised the look. He saw it in mirrors during the first month, the second, and the nights when it offered a reflection he refused to meet. It meant you never wanted to make another decision and undo the last one the world made for you. He studied the tremor in the customer’s jaw, how grief rearranged posture. Anya fulfilled her usual patter about the choices, how there was no fine print but also there was always fine print. 

She kept it light because the world was never kind for anyone at her counter. “What brings you in, sir? Besides, you know, cosmic scheduling.”

“Car,” his answer was rough at the edges. “It was- I didn’t see it.” He shook his head in a refusal to be simple. “She wasn’t in the car. That’s worse, somehow. She wasn’t there, and that’s what the mind-” He cut himself and fixed his eyes on the napkin like it contained resolution if he folded it correctly.

Anya’s brightness softened two degrees. “Would you like a drink with a silly umbrella, or a serious one with orange peel?”

When he didn’t reply, she glanced at Damian in a small baton-pass. He rounded the bar and took the seat to the customer’s left, leaving two inches of air between them like a respectful moat. He knew people spoke more when someone sat at their height and didn’t look at them. “Who wasn’t in the car?”

“My daughter.” He breathed like he was just remembering how. “I had a meeting. I always had meetings. Fridays were late so I could be home for-” He gestured. “She was twelve. She wanted a horse. We lived in a townhouse. We bought a plant instead, but it died in a week. I told her it was a metaphor, and she said that was silly. She was right.” His sound may once have been a laugh but was now only oxygen leaving his system.

Anya placed something amber with an orange peel and no umbrella, then retreated into busywork, because the kindest option was being in the vicinity. Damian focused on the lacquered wood. “What was her name?”

“Eloise.”

“Tell me about Eloise.” It startled Damian how the sentence came out without thinking. He couldn’t nudge a guest towards a choice with his hand at their back; Anya would glass him if he tried, but he could ask a container into existence big enough to hold grief that wouldn’t diminish.

“She cheated at Monopoly and said it couldn’t be cheating, because capitalism makes people bad. She painted stars on her ceiling even though we said no, because she said the landlord could evict us, but space couldn’t. She put cookies in my briefcase in case I was hungry in meetings. They melted onto contracts. I was furious, but ate them anyway.” Anya turned toward them subtly, eyes bright as if receiving a broadcast nobody else heard, but she didn’t interrupt. “I walked into a crosswalk. The driver was just a kid and cried like he killed God. I had a really stupid thought.” He looked at Damian’s sticker for permission. “I thought, thank God it wasn’t her, and it was just me. Now, I’m here, and you’re telling me there are doors.”

“There are,” Damian said, and felt the stupid ring in his throat that never loosened. He chose words the way he chose ice, by sound more than theory. “Rest is quiet, and you don’t owe anyone one more try if you don’t want it. Reincarnation means new rules, new names and a new species if you feel experimental. Restarting is the same old story again, with the same cast, same sets, the same arguments about where the dish towels go, only you’d get another pass through the hard parts.”

“Can I pick…” the man’s hand tightened, “can I choose to love her the way I meant to the first time?”

Damian swallowed, knowing he could only wipe the fog from the glass and let the guest peek through. “Only one gives you the same address.” The man nodded like he expected the answer, hated it, but needed it anyway. He breathed and let the room dwell alongside him.

Anya slid bread towards him. “No choices on an empty stomach,” she murmured.

“I used to make her terrible cheese toasties,” the man smiled fondly. “She told me they were perfect, which is how I knew she loved me.”

“Perfect is an iron setting, not a human option.”

“She would have liked you.” Anya flushed at that, as if nobody ever told her she would have been friends with a child who painted stars.

Suddenly, Damian wanted to tell his guest that he once stood in a graveyard with an emerald the size of surrender and said something to the dirt he couldn’t bring himself to say to a living person. He wanted to confess that loving too late was a chain light enough to carry and heavy enough to drag, but he didn’t, but he let himself say the part that helped. “I lost someone young. It made everything afterwards wrong for a while.”

“What did you do?” he asked.

“I came to work,” Damian replied dryly, and Anya snorted because that was technically true. “Then, I tried to be the sort of person she’d call an idiot, but encouragingly.” Anya’s eyes flicked up, soft, then down again. The man looked between them and chortled in a way that didn’t break anything on the way out. “She often called me a dingbat and then hugged me so hard I bruised.”

“Excellent child,” Anya provided solemnly.

“Annoying,” Damian corrected, but it emerged with an affection he forgot to sand down.

The guest’s decision didn’t fall like a coin, but grew like a plant that waited to be watered. “If I restart,” he said, testing the word, “could I fix it?”

Damian opened his mouth to say yes and stopped himself because he couldn’t make that promise. “You get to be there again.”

The man tapped an idle rhythm on the bar. “I think…” he looked at the empty stool that might have held a kid in sneakers at some point, “I want the same address.”

Anya nodded fiercely, as if stamping her approval. “We can do that. We’re very good at paperwork. It’s mostly pretend, but I can do the voice.” She straightened and did a voice that could earn a promotion at Desmond Global. “One restart, with extra father, hold the guilt.” She winked without apology. “Sign here!” she slid a pen that didn’t write because ritual mattered more than ink.

He mimed his name, and the bar accepted the joke as truth. He glanced at Damian, a salute in his nod, and he made his way to the exit labelled Once More, With Feeling. “Thank you for not choosing for me or making it sound like a test I already failed.”

“I don’t grade,” Damian inclined his head with automatic grace that came from too many rooms where everyone watched him. “I pour.”

Anya waggled her fingers in a goodbye wave. “Enjoy your second-worst cheese toastie. The worst will be the one you make in a hurry because she’s crying about a science project and you burn it. Eat that one too.” Her eyes shone, and she pretended they didn’t. The man laughed, and opened the door, before stepping through it. 

Anya leaned on the bar, chin in hands, looking at Damian like he performed a card trick with a loaded deck. He busied himself clearing because he didn’t know how to stand in her eyeline without fidgeting. “You were good. Not just at listening, but not grabbing the wheel. People try to do that sometimes and it makes a mess.”

“It’s policy,” he knee-jerked, then regretted deflecting because it sounded like he did it for the handbook. “He already knew what he wanted. He just needed to hear himself say it.”

Anya nodded with unflamboyant respect that tightened his chest. “You were kind,” she flicked his sticker. “The sticker didn’t lie.” The World’s Nicest Yeller huffed what one day might be promoted to a laugh.

“It’s an ugly sticker.”

“It’s a medal. They’re meant to be ugly, otherwise people sell them.” Anya rummaged under the counter and produced another one from her drawer of things that shouldn’t exist and did regardless. This one was holographic and head-ache bright and described Damian as Nice When It Counts. She stuck it crookedly below the first one. “There. Now nobody misses your personality.”

“Excellent,” he said dryly, but he didn’t fix it. It flashed in the mirror as he caught his reflection of two garish badges, one serious face and tired eyes, and for once, didn’t loathe the composition. Anya rinsed the shakers with ceremony; Damian refilled the garnish trays. The elevator spilled a pair of bickering poets who immediately started arguing whether reincarnation as seagulls improved meter. Anya handed them water and a warning about her fern; Damian’s shoulders loosened.

When the rush ebbed and the poets chose gulls, Anya prodded at the memory of the man, turning it like a shiny rock. “Do you think he’ll burn the toastie again?”

“Yes,” Damian nodded. “Once on purpose, because she’ll laugh.” He smiled at the notion of domestic failure rebranded as love. He was raised to be allergic to sweetness, but he could live with the itch.

“You said you lost someone young.” She phrased it with no hook as an open hand that would allow anything placed there to sit without being grabbed.

“I did,” he kept the rest of the sentence in his brain where it belonged, because talking about the real Anya Forger felt… wrong.

“Does helping help?” She seemed pleased with how that sounded, as if she invented a proverb.

The elevator dinged again as the poets returned because the gulls had terrible union rules. Anya sighed theatrically and refereed; Damian adjusted his stupid stickers and liked wearing them. Time lied on the wall as choices flickered through and out. In the real world, a cheese toastie burned into a memory to excuse a thousand late meetings. Damian, world’s nicest yeller and nice when it counted, kept himself steady for the next soul who wandered in and needed somebody to stand there. The poets reincarnated as gulls again with an agreement to scream exclusively in rhyme. The clock insisted it was ten, three and never.

“You know,” she tilted her head at him, “you were good today.” Her voice lost its bounce for a downy softness. “How you talked to the guests. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Damian shook his Boston tin to smother the warmth rising in his face. “It was obvious.”

“No, it wasn’t,” she stood in front of him, so he pulled back to not inadvertently smack her. “Most people panic when somebody cries in their water, but you didn’t. You sat there and let people be broken until they weren’t.”

He shifted uncomfortably under the sincerity. “It’s just what they needed.”

“It’s what I needed too.” That made him look up. Her smile wasn’t blindingly wide, but almost shy. Before he parsed it, she leaned in and wrapped her arms around him. A hug. Damian stiffened like she stabbed him instead of held him close. His brain screamed danger, danger, proximity breach, but his body betrayed him as his hovering hands gave in and settled on her back cautiously. She was ridiculously warm and smelled faintly of gomme, and her heartbeat tapped against his ribs like it lived there. “Thank you,” she murmured, “for proving I don’t have to do this by myself.”

His chest felt like it split in two. He pressed his face briefly against her hair, eyes stinging, and pulled back before he lost every shred of his remaining composure. “You’re an idiot.”

“Yes!” she grinned up at him. “You don’t seem to mind, though.” He turned away sharply, but his hands trembled. Oblivious, contented Anya hummed like nothing earthshaking happened at all. He pressed his palms flat on the backbar and willed his heart to slow. She hugged him, thanked him, and called him company. For the first time since death, he believed he was something other than somebody who hurled romantic abuse at gravestones.

*

Berlint’s sky that morning was smudged by a divine bureaucrat’s thumb, in that it was grey, greasy and uninterested in theatrics. Rain threatened but never arrived, even the weather deciding Damian Desmond wasn’t worth the energy. The Desmond funeral was a grand affair and spared no expense, naturally. Wreaths towered taller than men, a choir sang with professional grief, and there were enough marble angels to coup heaven. Damian would have hated the polished perfection of the coffin, lacquered black enough to reflect mourners’ faces back at them, and that his name was engraved in serif fonts instead of scrawled in messy ink. The irony wasn’t lost on those who knew him best that he would’ve wanted a send-off involving a bar fight, cigars and three people stabbing each other with broken bottles.

Funerals were never for the dead.

Becky stood near the front, understated as a Blackbell could manage, which meant her pearls alone could have paid for the organist’s retirement. Her face was stripped of theatre; she was tired, hollowed out. First, Anya at nineteen; now, Damian at twenty-five. She ran out of friends faster than she ran out of youth, and the unfairness of it burned sharply in her heart. Ewen hovered nearby, lanky in an ill-fitting suit, hands folding and unfolding the service order, brushing at his hair, adjusting his tie. His eyes rimmed red, and every so often he glanced upwards as if to glimpse his friend’s ghost in orbit. Emile held a posture of a detective who saw too many bodies and hated every one of them. He hadn’t shaved and his tie was crooked. The death report for Damian Desmond followed him, filed under Personal. He fiddled with the flask bulging in his pocket, forbidden but essential.

The family sat in their separate galaxies.

Melinda wept openly, handkerchief crumpled to damp ruin. She always wanted her son happy, she prayed for it, bribed for it, begged for it. Now, she mourned his death and the truth he never knew peace. Her shoulders shook with a grief that remembered childhood scraped knees and forgotten birthdays. Demetrius stood stiffly with a sour expression, as if grief was an inconvenience he scheduled but refused to participate in. He offered a polite nod at the coffin as if acknowledging a colleague who’d been sacked. Donovan sat in silence, not weeping nor moving. His gaze fixed on the coffin. The mourners watched him furtively, seeking a human crack, but nothing surfaced; those who knew him assumed he made mental calculations about stock markets and international relations, even at his son’s funeral. As always, he looked like a statue built by accountants.

The officiant droned about legacy and the blessings of family. Nobody listened.

When the service shifted graveside, the rain spat properly, streaking black coats with dark rivulets. Becky, Ewen and Emile clustered together on an island of survivors; their umbrellas collided awkwardly, water dripping on their shoes.

“He’d hate this,” Emile muttered. “All this marble and fake dignity. He’d want, I don’t know, a brass band? Strippers? Car park fist fight?”

Ewen snorted despite his tears. “Nah, he’d want to be launched into orbit. Desmond-2, a satellite that beams insults directly into your algorithm.”

Becky’s laugh was brittle. “He’d want Anya.” It silenced them all as they watched the earth thud on the coffin too finally, too cruelly. “We’re not even thirty, and we’ve buried two of our friends. It’s obscene. We’ve buried half the group. It’s wrong.”

“I became a detective to stop this,” Emile’s jaw tightened. “I thought I could save him, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t keep my best friend alive.”

“You kept him going longer than he would’ve,” Becky rubbed his back soothingly. “Without us, he’d have collapsed years ago.” She shook her head almost fondly. “God, he was already gone the moment Anya-”

Ewen interrupted, desperate for levity, banter, anything. “Do you think they found each other? Anya and Damian, I mean. Wherever they are?”

“I hope so.”

Emile barked a harsh laugh that cracked instead of calmed. “Even if they did, Bossman wouldn’t say anything. He’d sulk, insult her, pretend he didn’t care, and she’d laugh at him like always.”

“Yeah,” Ewen nodded, trying for humour. “He’d be all… Forger, even in death you’re beneath me, then follow her for eternity like a lost puppy.”

“God, it’s so tragic,” Becky laughed weakly, but it trembled into tears. 

The Desmond family departed, escorted into a black car. Melinda dissolved against her handkerchief, Demetrius shot a backwards glance at the grave, and Donovan lingered long enough to seem polite. Then, they were gone, swallowed by engines and tinted glass. His friends lingered, because what else was there?

“Remember when he dragged us back to Eden in the middle of the night?” Emile broached carefully. “Breaking into the records room, convinced there was some clue about her.”

“He once made me talk about rocket fuel to a public servant for three hours,” Ewen laughed hoarsely. “Three. Hours. The guy thought the moon was fake!”

“He was fucking unbearable,” Becky smiled faintly. “Brilliant, awful, impossible, whatever. He never stopped chasing her, even when it ruined him.”

They lapsed into silence. “What do we do now?”

“Live,” Becky took a shuddering breath, “because they can’t, and Damian would yell at us if we didn’t.” Emile pulled the flask free and unscrewed it. He poured out a tiny amount, drank some himself, and passed it wordlessly between them like communion. The rain thickened, pooling at their feet and streaking their clothes. They didn’t move until the groundskeeper approached, hat in hand, apologetic about closing. As they walked away, Becky glanced back at the grave half-swallowed by mud. She whispered softly, so the boys didn’t hear. “I hope you told her, wherever you are. I hope you finally told her.”

The city lights flickered on, the world refusing to pause for their sorrow. The three walked away heavily, carrying the silence of two friends who would never talk again. Somewhere beyond the rain lay unforgivable words only two people ever heard, and neither could repeat.

Chapter Text

It started with Maxwell from Villiers Hall. He was nice enough, polite, even. His hair belonged to a shampoo advert, and he probably read comics for fun. Anya helped him in the library by finding a book on experimental physics he’d been tracking for ages. He thanked her, then kept thanking her across multiple classes, which culminated in a tiny potted plant.

Damian noticed. “You’ve got dirt on your desk,” he commented coldly.

“It’s from the little cactus!” Anya beamed. “Max said it’s low-maintenance, like me.”

“You’re the most high-maintenance person alive,” Damian snorted.

“Thank you!”

“That wasn’t-!” However, she petted the cactus like a puppy, which boggled the mind.

Maxwell reappeared during lunch with peach gummies, her favourite. “Want some?” he wiggled them in front of her.

“Oh my god,” Anya gasped, “how’d you know?!”

“You mentioned it last week.” From across the room, Damian watched. His teeth hurt.

Over the next few days, it worsened. Maxwell walked her to class, complimented her awful handwriting and let her borrow his science notes; Damian memorised all the ways he’d punish betrayal. “He’s really nice!” Anya chirped to Becky during homeroom; Damian snapped his pencil in half.

Then, it finally happened; he overheard Maxwell stammering behind the gym. When he peeked, he clocked the fact he held a stupid friendship bracelet that was clearly handmade. Damian knew he’d pick something better, but still, stupid Forger studied it like precious jewellery. “I really like you,” Maxwell choked out, “like, not just as a friend. You’re really cool and smart and funny and I like how you laugh at your own jokes.”

“Do I do that?”

“I just… wanted to ask if you’d maybe want to… go out sometime?”

“Oh,” Anya said kindly, “I didn’t know you liked me like that.” Damian strained to hear the next words. “I just thought we were being nice to each other and being friends. I’m not really doing romance right now. I’ve got exams, and a cactus to take care of.”

“Right,” Maxwell laughed awkwardly, “yeah, of course.”

“I think you’re super-cool, though!”

“Yeah, same. Sorry, that was dumb.”

“It wasn’t dumb!”

“It kinda was.”

After that, they parted, and Damian wasn’t proud of the next bit. Maxwell barely reacted when Damian stopped him in the garden walkway with hands in his pockets, chin titled to convey that he was about to ruin his academic trajectory, but he paused.

“Desmond, what can I do for you?”

Damian’s voice was clipped and razor-sharp. “You’re not allowed to date Anya Forger.”

“…Why not?” Maxwell blinked dumbly at him.

“Because,” Damian said in the way of explaining fencing etiquette to a dog, “I have a long-standing and well-documented tradition of bullying her, and if she gets a boyfriend, it’ll disrupt that dynamic.”

“Right,” the other boy nodded slowly, “so this is about protecting the integrity of your emotional abuse?”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“You’re literally cornering me in a garden. Do you want to duel next?”

“You think because you gave her a cactus and some candy you can be around her all the time now? She’s not a charity project.”

“No,” Maxwell crossed his arms. “She’s a kind, brilliant, funny person who deserves better than the emotional rollercoaster you put her through daily.”

“Please,” he scoffed, “you think she likes you?”

“She doesn’t. She turned me down really nicely.”

“So what are you still doing here? Waiting for another pop at the champ?”

“You should be nice to her,” Maxwell didn’t deign give the question an answer, “because she’s good, and you, Desmond, are not.” Almost in jest, he tilted his head, a smirk playing on his lips. “You’ve got a crush on her.”

“I don’t.”

“Right, that’s why you’re threatening me,” Maxwell laughed incredulously. “So, what are you gonna do? Fight me over a girl you insult daily?”

“It would be unbecoming for a Desmond to start a fistfight.”

“But you would.” Damian didn’t answer, which was all Maxwell needed. He shook his head. “You know, if you were even half as decent to her as you are vicious, you’d stand a chance.”

“I don’t want a chance with someone like her,” he sneered. “She’s poor and embarrassing. She makes up words and can’t hold a pencil properly.”

“Yet, better than you.” The other boy walked past him without another word, as Damian stood there, fists clenched in pocket, pulse hammering in his ears, every muscle in his body screaming. He hated that kid, his calm voice, and above all, his stupid cactus. More than that, he hated that he was right.

Aforementioned plant sat on her desk smugly. It was round, stupid, and had a single pink flower on top like it had the audacity to accessorise. Anya cooed at it, watered it, gave it shade and affection and a name – Spikey. Damian loathed how proud she was, how she arranged her books around it like a shrine, and how, when bored, she tapped the pot to keep it company. She didn’t even treat his expensive pens that carefully. One day, during a group project gone wrong, they argued via fast-talking and personal snipes.

“I’m just saying, we should start with the thesis-!” she gestured wildly.

“You don’t have a thesis!” he snapped. “You have a chaotic scribble!”

“It’s a metaphor!”

“For what, delusion?!” That’s when he reached for his bag too forcefully. It wasn’t a shove, not technically, but his elbow caught the edge of her desk. The cactus tipped and the pot cracked as it hit the floor with a soft thud, a crumble of dirt, and a pathetic snap of ceramic.

Anya gasped; Spikey rolled; Damian froze. “Oh, no!” she crouched immediately. “Oh- oh no, no-no! Spikey!”

“It was an accident,” he snapped too defensively.

Anya gently cupped it like a baby bird. “I can repot it,” she muttered with a wobble, “I think. Maybe. He’s very strong.” Damian stared at the mess like a murder scene. She didn’t look at him or accuse him, but held her dying plant and started scooping soil back into the cracked pot with her bare hands. “It’s just a cactus! It’s no big deal!” He felt like she just forgave him for murder.

It was held behind the greenhouse. The coffin was a pencil case box lined with pink tissue paper; the deceased was one cracked cactus, wrapped in a silk hanky Anya insisted was his favourite. “I didn’t even know plants could die from trauma,” Freddy whispered.

“Shh,” Becky hissed, “she’s about to start the speech.”

Anya crouched beside the box, eyes red and voice trembling. “Spikey was more than a cactus. He was a friend, a mentor, and a very quiet listener.”

“Because he didn’t have ears,” Tertius muttered.

“Let her grieve,” Maxwell elbowed him.

“He was brave,” Connie sniffled.

“He was succulent,” Anya corrected through tears. She held up a drawing of Spikey with a halo. “I made him a portrait for the historical record.”

Damian, watching from a distance with Ewen and Emile, buried his face in his hands to cover his laughter. “I can’t believe she’s doing this.”

“She’s crying,” Emile observed, “over a plant.”

“She gave it a name,” Damian added.

“A legacy,” Ewen stage-whispered.

At the burial site, Maxwell gently lowered the coffin into the ground. Tertius, who stole a tambourine from the music department, shook it once respectfully. Connie tossed in a single petal as Anya poured dirt over Spikey. “I didn’t water you enough. I’m so sorry.”

Becky knelt beside her and rubbed her back. “He knew, and forgave you.”

“I never should’ve brought him to chemistry. It’s too dangerous there.”

“I don’t think he suffered,” Connie offered. “It was… fast.”

Anya sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Thanks for being here, guys. I know Spikey would’ve wanted this.”

“He died the way he lived,” Freddy saluted, “full of spikes.” Tertius said something mournfully in Septevian and threw in a Werther’s Original.

Across the courtyard, Damian turned away. “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Maybe we should…” Ewen tilted his head, “I don’t know, say something nice?”

“She’s holding a funeral for a cactus,” Damian snapped. “If we reward this behaviour, she’ll start holding vigils for missing raisins.”

“You cracked the pot,” Emile pointed out. “This is kind of your fault.”

“It was an accident.”

“Dude, she’s crying.”

“And Becky’s reading a cactus eulogy.”

“She printed memorial cards.”

Damian looked at the card in his hand that she left on his desk. It was white cardstock with glittered edges and announced In Loving Memory of Spikey in looping green pen. There was a crudely drawn cactus. He crushed it into a ball and shoved it in his pocket. “Ridiculous.” He didn’t throw it away.

That night, he spent two hours researching cacti in incognito mode with the lights off, like it was illegal. He typed things like gift cactus for girls who cry easily, succulent that says I’m sorry without sounding romantic and does it count as emotional manipulation if it’s a plant? The one he finally selected was rare and distinctly ridiculous and had tiny red blossoms and a proud, curled shape like it evolved specifically to be noticed. It cost more than a weekend getaway. He ordered it, had it gift-wrapped, and justified it to his family as botany club business. He made sure to arrive early so nobody saw him place it on her desk.

Anya walked in ten minutes later and gasped. “Oh my God!”

Becky peered around her arm. “What?”

“There’s a cactus on my desk!” It wasn’t just any cactus, but big, with three arms, and in a polished terracotta pot with gold trim. There was a tiny tag stuck in the soil that said Do Not Touch, I’m Moody.

“A handsome one, too!” Connie chirped.

“He looks expensive,” Tertius peered at it.

Anya clutched it to her chest. “Spikey the Second!”

“Any clue who gave it to you?” Becky asked, raising an eyebrow. Nobody answered; Maxwell, two rows over, gave Damian a glance of exhausted understanding and rolled his eyes. Anya paused and thought as he pretended to be invested in his textbook whilst listening to every single word with the concentration of a CIA wiretap.

“I dunno,” Anya settled on finally. “You?”

“Do I look like I spend money on plant royalty?!”

“Maxwell?”

“Too busy recovering from when you emotionally obliterated him.”

“Connie?”

“No money,” Connie shrugged.

“Freddy?”

“I steal my mum’s aloe vera,” he wrinkled his nose.

“Tertius?!”

The Septevian prince straightened smugly. “I am not without mystery.”

“I knew it!” 

Damian snapped his pencil clean in half, but said nothing. 

“Spikey II, you’re so handsome.” He focused on the blackboard with a scowl and pretended he didn’t spend hours online researching cacti that communicate inordinate wealth without implying romantic attachment. Anya beamed at her best friend. “This is the best day ever!”

At that, he almost smiled. Almost.

She carried it with her everywhere that day – to class, to lunch, to gym (it cowered in her locker). She made everybody say hi to it. She talked to it, and drew a portrait of it wearing a monocle and holding a tiny wineglass. Damian watched it all, jaw clenched so tightly it could shatter pewter. “Say something,” Ewen whispered. “She thinks Tertius gave it to her.”

“I don’t care who she thinks gave it to her,” Damian lied.

“She kissed the pot,” Emile said.

“I don’t want credit. It’s not about her knowing, it’s about restoring balance.”

“Totally. So you’re not mad?”

“I’m furious.”

Two weeks later, they found themselves paired in Chemistry again and crowded around a shared workbench. Spikey II sat on the corner of Anya’s table, supervising yet beloved. “Be careful,” Anya warned as Damian moved around the bench. “He’s watching.”

“I don’t care,” he muttered, irritated.

“He’s judging your posture.”

“I don’t care.”

“He says your handwriting sucks.” Damian rolled his eyes and moved past her, trying to not notice how the light hit her face or how her sleeves were rolled up or how cute her smile was when she teased him. He honestly didn’t mean to do it. He genuinely didn’t see the edge of the pot. His arm clipped it, and the pot slid, cracked against the bench, flipped, and shattered on the floor. Soil spilled, a blossom crumpled, and one of the cactus arms bent awkwardly, spine half-snapped. Spikey II lay in ruin. Alongside the rest of the room, he froze. Anya dropped to her knees, slow and horrified, to survey the wreckage. “Spikey II…” Damian opened his mouth, acutely aware everyone was staring, but she whirled on him. “You did that on purpose!”

“I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did!” she shouted. “You hated him since day one, been mean about him – you killed the first one and now you’ve killed this one too!”

“It was an accident,” he replied stiffly, but it didn’t sound remotely convincing, not even to him.

“You always do this!” she spat. “You ruin everything I like. You hate me and get mad when I don’t follow whatever script is in your stupid, angry head!” Everyone quietened; Ewen and Emile stared from across the lab like rubbernecking a car crash. Becky slowly closed her notebook, which was an indicator for everyone to stay the hell away.

“I don’t hate you,” he muttered, “I just-”

“Yeah, well, I hate you!” She stood, eyes shining, fists clenched. “I hate you! I hate you, and I don’t even know why you’re like this, but you’re mean and you’re exhausting and every time I try to be your friend you destroy something!” Anya looked at her ruined cactus one more time and stormed out to cry.

Nobody said anything. Slowly, Ewen raised a hand. “Should we… clean up?”

Becky shoved her hanky into Damian’s hand. “Fix it,” she commanded coldly, and flounced after her friend to comfort her. Spikey II lay on the floor as proof of his worthlessness. He crouched and picked up the biggest piece of ceramic with a shaking hand. He really, really didn’t mean to.

He didn’t sleep that night either, as he was too busy repotting a cactus. He trimmed the broken arm, taped the surviving stem, and even dug out a new pot, then wrapped it in a neat brown paper bag. It wasn’t Spikey II, but a broken remnant of the world’s most repressed affection packed into soil and damage control, but he took it to class anyway. He skipped breakfast and walked the long way to class, around the greenhouse, where she liked to sit when she was upset.

That’s where he saw them – Anya, crying into Tertius’ shoulder. He held her too closely and too tenderly with a hand on her back, chin resting against her hair like he belonged there. “I really loved it,” she said through tears. “I know it’s just a cactus, but it felt like somebody got me.”

“It was a perfect gift,” Tertius nodded.

“I thought it was you.”

Tertius didn’t deny it, but gave her a mild squeeze. “You deserve nice things, Anya.”

Damian’s brain went completely silent as rage consumed it. He stared at the paper bag in his hands, looked at Tertius, and in one fluid, furious motion, the bag arced through the air and struck Tertius squarely in the head. Soil exploded across his shoulder as the pot cracked and Spikey II (Resurrected Form) died again instantly. Anya jumped back as Tertius staggered. “What the-?!”

Anya turned to see Damian stood at the top of the steps with a blank expression and crossed arms, looking like a villain who just threw a grenade made of someone else’s feelings. She gasped. “What the hell?! Was that funny to you?!” Damian didn’t speak. “Wasn’t it enough that you accidentally-on-purpose broke him in class? Did you think it’d be hilarious to bring him back just to kill him again?!” He hadn’t considered how it would look. Of course, she didn’t know. Of course, she still thought it was from Tertius. Of course, this looked like textbook mockery. She stepped closer, quaking with rage. 

“Tertius,” he managed stiffly, “is insufferable.”

“Oh my God, that’s what this is about?”

“It’s not about him.”

“It is! You just can’t stand someone doing something nice for me! You can’t be kind, but God forbid anybody else is!”

“I was-” he started, then stopped himself.

“What? You were what?!”

“Nothing.”

“No, say it.” He didn’t, and opted to stare at the broken cactus. Anya shook her head with glassy eyes. “You’re fucking horrible. You did this on purpose, and you know what? I don’t even care! Kill as many cactuses as you want! I’m done!” She stalked off without looking at him, asking who the cactus was from, thanking him, or forgiving him; he stood alone with a cracked pot and a confession and said nothing.

The next day, he found her sitting on the stone ledge, in the same spot and same slumped posture. Her half-zipped back lay beside her; the dirt from yesterday marred her sleeve. He approached with the speed and grace of walking to his own execution. He didn’t say anything or look at her, but he held a small terracotta pot in both hands. The new cactus, Spikey III he supposed, was nothing fancy, just quietly green with a single blooming flower. Damian set it beside her gently like it would scream if he was too rough, then turned to walk away. Anya didn’t move until he took three steps.

“Hey.”

He stopped, and before he turned, she wrapped her arms around him from behind, quiet, warm and entirely without defence. It wasn’t the anticipated chokehold or tackle, just a hug, so naturally, every atom in his body launched into Defcon 1. “Wh-What are you doing?!” he choked out between outrage and cardiac arrest.

“You brought me a new cactus.”

“It’s not a big deal! It’s just a plant! It was on sale – I was already at the shop, because I needed to buy a new pen anyway-!”

“You’re warm.”

“That’s not my fault!”

She buried his face lightly against his spine. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know. That’s what makes it charitable.”

“You’re not charitable,” she giggled into his blazer. “It’s a good cactus.” He stood perfectly motionless, arms glued to his sides, neck pink, and his body language screaming I’m not enjoying this at all, shut up, please don’t stop on loop. “Thank you,” she finished quietly.

“You’re welcome.” It was barely above a whisper. She let go first, and he didn’t move for a full ten seconds. Then, after a quick scan of the surroundings to ensure nobody witnessed that nightmare, he picked up his bag, adjusted his collar primly, and snapped, “Don’t name this one. They don’t live long enough.”

“I’m calling him Lucky,” she smiled. God, she was an idiot. Why couldn’t she follow basic instructions? She picked up Lucky’s pot with both hands and held it to her chest.

“You’re insufferable,” he scoffed.

“I know,” she grinned, unbothered. He walked off, and Anya watched him go, Lucky sitting peacefully in her hands.

Damian rounded the corner with his collar tugged up and dignity in tatters. The phantom pressure of the hug clung around his waist, the spot where her head briefly leaned on his back tingled, her voice saying you’re warm echoed, but still, he insisted that he was deliberately not dwelling on it.

“Oh my god,” Ewen stage-whispered. “Was that Forger back there?!” Damian stopped walking like he’d been shot.

“Yup,” Emile peered around the wall. “Pink hair, hugging posture. Her. She grabbed you.”

“She didn’t grab me,” Damian said coldly.

“We saw it.”

“I was ambushed.”

“You let it happen,” Ewen accused, wide-eyed.

“I was stunned.”

“Did she rob you? Did she take anything?”

“No!”

“Do you need a trauma blanket?”

“I don’t need anything.”

Emile leaned closer. “Did she say anything before she attacked?”

“It wasn’t an attack.”

“Did she make demands?”

“No!”

“Did she whisper a spell?” Ewen asked. “She seems like she’d do that.”

“Stop being morons!”

“She looked sad, like, emotionally unstable,” Emile offered, like it helped. “She’s dangerous.”

“Of course she’s unstable,” Damian snapped. “She names cacti and draws moustaches on important documents. Hugging people is probably how she feeds.”

“You’ve been traumatised. Did she threaten you?”

“No.” His tone escalated. “She hugs everything! She’d hug a rock if it looked mildly distressed!”

“I did see her hug a lamppost once,” Ewen conceded.

“There! Case closed.” Damian quickened his pace, but Ewen and Emile trotted behind him like overeager hounds.

“Did your blazer lose value, bossman?” Emile grimaced. “I heard contact with commoners depreciates fabric immediately.”

“My blazer is fine,” he hissed, but checked the lapel for contamination.

“She touched you with her… her… peasant-hands,” Ewen gagged. “God knows what she’s picked up. Graphite, dust, ink- she’s escalating!”

“She’s not escalating!” he nearly shouted. “It was nothing. I was just caught off-guard. Any man would’ve-” He broke off, realising far too late.

“Any man?” Emile echoed. “Boss, were you… compromised?”

“I wasn’t compromised!” His ears pinked traitorously.

“Classic tactic,” Ewen nodded solemnly. “Latch on, lower his guard, whisper dark magic. Next thing you know, you’re carrying her books.”

“She didn’t whisper anything!” Damian snapped. “And I’d never- carrying her books- are you deranged?!”

“She smiled when she did it. That’s how they get you,” Emile’s tone hushed with horror.

“Stop talking like she’s a disease!” His voice cracked, which didn’t help his case any. “It wasn’t an attack, and I’m not infected!”

The two boys exchanged a pitying look, then Ewen clapped Damian gently on the shoulder. “It’s alright, Bossman. We believe you didn’t want it.”

“You’re the victim here,” Emile added sagely. “You survived contact.”

“Goddammit, I’m not a victim of anything!”

“Mm,” Ewen mused. “You look peaky.”

Damian stopped dead in his tracks. “If either of you tell anybody, I’ll end your bloodlines.” They both nodded, entirely unbothered, already certain their friend survived a traumatic brush with Forger’s bizarre lower-class rituals.

Damian thought about The Hug for three days. Not constantly, that would be insane. It was just every time he sat down or stood up or passed the greenhouse or saw a plant or felt a gust of wind. Anya smiled at him like nothing happened, like she didn’t wrap her arms around his body and whispered you’re warm. He found her under a tree, reading (badly) and humming tunelessly. He stalked over, and she looked up when his shadow fell across her page. “Hi!”

“Get up.”

“What?”

“Stand up.” 

“Are you gonna fight me?”

“No!”

She stood, and he didn’t explain. He simply grabbed her with stiff arms, tight shoulders, in a full-body revenge hug. It was awkward, terrible and sincere in the worst way. She squeaked in surprise. “What are you doing?!”

“I’m getting even!” he barked.

“Even?! For what?!”

“You hugged me. I’m hugging you. Then I don’t owe you anything!”

Anya blinked, then laughed, like he’d handed her a cake and fallen in it. “Aww,” she patted his back. “You give really safe hugs.” Safe? His arms tightened involuntarily, only slightly and only for a second. “You smell like cedar. Or storm clouds. Or maybe it’s just rage.” His fingers curled into the back of her jacket and his head tilted forward an inch to feel her hair brush his cheeks, but naturally, Forger managed to ruin it. “It feels like being in the sun when it’s cold out.”

His brain shut off as his heart betrayed him immediately. He closed his eyes to let himself stay there for long enough to feel that maybe he was good after all. However, his thoughts roared back into life. What the hell are you doing? You’re making it worse! Revenge hugs don’t even exist, idiot! He pulled back like she was on fire. “Okay, I’m done,” he said hoarsely. “I got what I needed.”

“Um, closure?” she guessed.

“Revenge.” He walked away like he fled a war he started, made it precisely ten steps around the corner and then collapsed against a wall, face in his hands. “I am the stupidest person alive,” he admitted to his palms.

Emile walked by, donut in hand. “Hey, boss. You look stressed.”

“Go away.”

Chapter Text

At twenty-two of age, he was heir to nothing except unspent rage of a declining dynasty. He hunched over his desk like a bad detective novel protagonist. Papers blanketed every surface, smudged with ink, coffee rings, and a bloodstain (origin unknown). In the middle lay the file, Agent Twilight, WISE, Operation Strix, describing a family of papier-mâché smiles and forged adoption papers to infiltrate his life. He didn’t so much as sleep as orbit the problem like a caffeinated moon. He read the file until the toner looked wet and the toddler’s matted hair lingered behind his eyelids. The only way to stand up was to rearrange the sin into logic, so he drafted a delicate ecosystem. On the chalkboard he drew a botanically offensive tree, labelled the trunk Apple, the canopy Red Hill, and Strix on a splintered limb. He pinned the grainy printout, intel file on Loid Forger, and the photo of Anya on his corkboard.

Strix, Apple, Anya. There had to be a throughline. Because Damian had no sense of moderation or self-preservation, he decided, between shots of what could feasibly be paint thinner, the only rational conclusion was that Strix and Apple were connected, or even one and the same. His hands shook, making the chalk squeak. Mercifully, the universe pretended not to notice.

Ewen arrived with a stolen whiteboard under his arm. “Morning.”

“Is it?”

Emile followed, carrying a paper bag that smelled of coffee and pastry. “You look like shit.”

“Thank you. I’m cultivating an aesthetic,” Damian fired back, then tapped the board. “Okay, so Apple makes a child.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Apple makes a child,” Damian repeated, because volume was legally binding. “Strix later adopts said child and weaponises her against my life.”

“Do you hear yourself?” Ewen winced.

“All the time. It’s emotional tinnitus.” He drew a crude flowchart of Apple → Anya → Strix → Desmond.

“This isn’t healthy,” Emile said.

“Correct, but is it elegant?”

“No.”

“Tragic, then?”

“Closer.”

“She was Apple,” his eyes gleamed with mania. “He was Strix. They were in it together.”

“Who?”

“Loid Forger, or Agent Twilight, or Papa-Fucking-Perfect. Don’t you see? He found her in the lab, he smuggled her out, and then planted her at Eden to spy on me. Apple plus Strix equals Anya.”

“Why would WISE care about Apple?” Ewen frowned.

“Think about it,” Damian snapped. “They took an Ostanian project, co-opted it, and embedded it in my life. Apple was their black-op, Strix was the delivery method, and I was the idiot customer. Target market: Damian Desmond, gullible prick.”

He bit an apple he didn’t want, glared at it for symbolism, and then chewed like the fruit personally wrong him in an alley. He attempted to start with comfort, discovered there wasn’t any, so switched to money, or as he dubbed it, ol’ reliable. “Budgets don’t lie,” he explained, “people and departments lie. Money doesn’t. It’s allergic to the concept of secrecy.” He stacked municipal ledgers, defence allotments and child welfare subsidies into an architectural hazard whilst Emile offered him cigarettes.

By midday, they located three shell charities with identical fonts and a suspicious peach logo, which was both vindicating and insulting.

“Peaches?” he muttered. “Cowards.” From there, he outlined his theory. “Okay, so Westalis needed an inroad to the Ostanian executive. WISE developed Strix to deploy a family near me because I was the weakest link, which is insultingly correct.” He tapped a photo of Anya at age six, who he assumed operated on scripts of joy. “To make Strix work, they needed a child to infiltrate elite social spaces, mirror emotions, and pass as harmless while extracting… whatever it is we’re calling vibes that can hear you think. Apple makes that child, then WISE steals that child, or borrows it, or rescues-and-redeploys, which is rescue if your ethics are printed on dissolvable paper.”

Ewen raised a timid finger like they were still in school. “Couldn’t Apple be Ostanian, and WISE found her after?”

Damian didn’t answer immediately, because the one that sprung to mind was kicking Ewen until he said ow. “No, if Apple is Ostanian, that implicates…” The word father had teeth, and he knew not to stick his hand in certain cages. “It implicates the state,” he finished, accurate and cowardly. “But look at the verbiage on the paperwork. These are Western phrases. If it were Ostanian, they’d use discipline and stability and necessary correction.”

Emile, who quickly developed a detective’s ear for self-deception, blew smoke at the ceiling. “You’re translating hatred into linguistics.”

“I’m translating reality into something I can walk through without breaking my ankles.”

Red Hill sat on the outskirts of South Berlint, a youth home re-tasked to science when somebody nearby had the money to complain. From Red Hill, he traced a snarl of lines, covering logistics firm names recycled across drug tenders and school lunches, an NGO with a poster of children holding fruit in a way that implied vitamins and not experiments, and a series of phone numbers that all returned a busy tone unless Ewen spoofed an embassy line. They spoofed, because God loves a man with a fake identity and no shame. Damian smiled into the receiver the way wealthy people smile when committing crimes for love.

“Good afternoon,” he began. “Tobias McSentient, junior attaché. We’re reconciling disbursements for the First Fruit Educational Trust.”

There was a rustle, a pause, and cross-border hold music that smacked of flag. “Which ledger family?”

Damian made a face at the ceiling. “Boiler replacement at… RHY,” he improvised.

“Partner institution,” the voice said. “Educational support.”

“Right. Educational.”

There was silence, followed by a very dry, “We’ll e-mail.”

The call ended, and Damian strangled the phone cord because he needed to dominate something whilst Emile stared at it like it confessed. “Boiler,” he said simply.

“A boiler,” Damian repeated with a sneer. “They heated the lab.” He circled boiler and wrote Westalian Funds next to it. “My condolences to ethics. They died doing what they loved: losing to logistics.”

In truth, you could hide a country’s sins behind the word transfer. He dug until he found an offhand notation, where the registrar received a call from a counsellor confirming readiness. He had the counsellor’s name within the hour via a professional networking site that styled itself a marketplace for talent instead of what it was, which was a phonebook for the ambitious. When Damian rang under the lie of evaluating an educational grant, the counsellor’s hello spoke of somebody accustomed to being recorded. Damian smiled and asked about readiness screenings, and the man insisted all children were screened, so Damian asked, hypothetically, if a child struggled with crowds, loud spaces and unexpected touch, would there be additional support? The man mentioned that some children had cognitive sensitivities and he did his best to coach adaptive strategies, so Damian asked how one coached a child prone to hearing too much. The line went silent, and then, the counsellor lied beautifully.

When he ended the call, Damian pressed his forehead to the chalkboard. “He knows the type,” he called to Ewen and Emile. “He had a script. He nearly said telepath and swallowed it with corpo-speak.”

“So, she was Apple before she was Strix,” Ewen whispered.

“Or she was Apple who made Strix possible. Or she was Apple and Strix was built around her because convenience outruns ethics every time you tie its shoes with patriotism.”

Becky dropped in, took one look at the chalkboard, and faced him. “Damian. Please go to therapy.”

“Therapy is a WISE front.”

She left him lunch and a note which stated you’re spiralling again. Call me when you hit rock bottom.

The ledger email arrived mid-spiral from the address that screamed we’re definitely not a front. Damian opened the attached spreadsheet and studied rows upon rows of partner institutions, covering clinics, schools and food banks, and there, like a cockroach in parfait, he found Red Hill and the attached line item Heat and Learning Materials. Two lines further was uniforms – school supplies vendor. He laughed. “Holy shit, they bought her a blazer. Westalis bought my future a blazer.”

“It’s hardly the worst thing a country has ever purchased,” Emile shrugged.

“It’s in the top twenty.” He closed his eyes and pictured her with her blazer too big, smile too wide, mentally rehearsing being alive. “New premise. Apple exists as an Ostanian sin wearing a child welfare hat. WISE discovers it, raids the pantry for a single, exquisite fruit, and Strix is created around that fruit’s social appeal.”

“Utterly disgusting sentence.”

“You’re welcome.” He pointed at WISE on the board. “Agent Twilight. Loid Forger. Papa.”

“Do you hate him?” Ewen asked.

“I’m certainly taking a number.” He looked at the toddler’s photo, at the chimera’s battered face. “She loved him.”

He started hunting Loid because righteous fury benefitted from a postal code. He placed a sealed envelope in a second-hand book called Ethical Espionage; the note inside read there’s a boiler in your orchard. The book sold within the day. Two nights later, the envelope returned to Damian’s doormat with a fresh note inside.

The lead you’re following is false. Before Strix, neither WISE nor myself were involved. Grief makes a poor compass. Be careful. Don’t send me another book. They’re not subtle.

“It’s not a threat,” Ewen commented.

“It’s a dad.”

He slid the note between Apple and Strix like a ribbon at a funeral. “Don’t,” Becky chided, not looking up from her phone.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought accelerant in italics.”

“Stay the hell out of my fonts.”

Damian resistaed grief by converting it into tasks. He wrote a list titled non-criminal errands (theoretically) and populated it with crimes. He bullied a telecom manager into spitting out switch logs for a landline registered to the Forger apartment four years ago, and when the manager refused, Emile mentioned a civil forfeiture case from last spring that went badly for his cousin, and all resistance evaporated like dew. Ewen cloned a keycard for a defunct SSS annex that became a storage for records nobody threw away, because disposal required a signature, which is how you caught people red-handed. Damian and Ewen ran their usual routine of Ewen asking technical questions about fire suppression systems as Damian leaned on the counter like he owned the world and found it boring until the clerk finally said yes. In the annex, they found a rack of boxes labelled with numbers only their enemies understood. When the security light flickered, Damian insisted he wasn’t going to die in a basement for a file-naming convention. They found little of substance, but Damian carried an idea back to the car that the SSS archived Apple evolutionary memos under child welfare, not research, to hide them amongst knowledge-based articles about developmental milestones.

By summer, Damian constructed a full narrative that Project Apple was a Westalian initiative disguised as an Ostanian one. WISE invented it, then planted evidence in Ostanian files to throw investigators off the scent. Loid Forger, perfect bastard, was the handler. Anya was the proof-of-concept. Strix was the operation to deploy her against him. The whole thing was a Western plot to destabilise his father by weaponizing how stupid his youngest son was. He toasted his theory with vodka at dawn, declared victory to his fatigued friends, then collapsed on the floor.

By autumn, Damian’s corkboard resembled an orchard with syphilis. At the centre of it all was one man, Loid Forger, alias Agent Twilight, who increasingly seemed omnipotent and omnipresent, personally designing science projects and blazers in his spare time. Then, the ledgers came to him, courtesy of a municipal clerk who caved under a bribe, three threats, and Emile’s ability to look like he knew where to hide a body. By dawn, he read through them, coffee eating holes in his stomach lining. Ewen fell asleep against the radiator, Emile chain-smoked in solidary, and Becky dozed off muttering about his imminent arrest. Damian’s eyes fell on a line item, dated three years before Anya’s entry to Eden Academy.

314 – Youth Rehabilitation Pilot – Red Hill Youth Home.

Budget Code – CPS Health and Welfare.

Allocation – Cognitive Development Program.

Authorising Signature – Prime Minister D. Desmond.

Damian’s hand froze on the page. “No. No, no, no.”

“What?” Ewen stirred.

“Read it.” He shoved the paper at him like it was cursed.

Ewen squinted at the font, then blinked. “This is all Ostanian. Ministry seals. Local auditors. No Westalian funds anywhere.”

Emile leaned in, exhaled smoke. “It’s dated before Strix was a twinkle in WISE’s eye.”

“Hmm, not worried about that,” Damian rasped, and jabbed a finger at the flourish that loomed ominously over his entire childhood.

Becky, awoken by the noise, peered over Ewen’s shoulder. She read the line, blinked, and stared Damian dead in the soul. “You wasted a year,” she diagnosed.

“Don’t say it like that,” he snarled.

“You did,” she pressed. “You wasted everybody’s time. Ewen’s time, Emile’s time, my time. You turned your grief into a conspiracy about her dad being an evil mastermind, and the whole time, you were wrong.”

“I wasn’t wrong,” he snapped defensively, “just… temporarily misled.”

“By yourself!”

His head sunk into his hand, a year of sleepless nights hitting him at once. “If I pinned it on them, I could put her story into enemy hands. It made sense! It made her suffering manageable!”

“For who?”

He chose not to answer that. “She’s ours. Ostania’s, not Westalis’. And I…” his words felt jagged, “I wasted a year blaming the wrong guy whilst the right ones sat in my fucking garden.”

Becky folded her arms. “So, what’s the plan, boy-genius? Start again? Chase another orchard?”

“Yes.”

“Of course,” she muttered darkly, “because God forbid you sit still long enough to just miss her.”

“I can’t,” he admitted. “If I stop moving, I’ll die.” He shoved the file back in the box; chalk squeaked as he crossed out WISE on his board. The string sagged; his beautiful lie sagged with it. “Fine. We start over. Apple is Ostanian, so the rot’s homegrown. A year. A fucking year wasted.”

The room, mercifully, pretended not to notice.

*

Damian hunched over a napkin with three pens, two whiskey glasses and one alarming murder corkboard, which hadn’t existed ten minutes ago. He found it in the cleaning cupboard, underneath something labelled Spiritual Bleach. Currently, it held a mess of string and scribbled notes. “Do we have thumbtacks?” he asked.

Anya sipped a highball with three maraschino cherries and a tiny umbrella. “We have cocktail picks shaped like swords.”

“Perfect.”

“This says a lot about you,” she chided, handing them over. “Most people want a drink menu. You want a murder wall.”

“This isn’t fun,” Damian jabbed a plastic sword through a napkin he’d jotted on. “She died. It wasn’t right.”

“Sounds like a case for… Detective Damian!” she declared; he winced when she threw her umbrella at him with panache. “With me, your saucy sidekick who occasionally knocks over crime scenes!”

“This is not a bit,” he hissed, horrified, “she was fucking murdered!”

“Well, yeah,” she shrugged, “so was he.” She gestured toward the jukebox, which was currently occupied by an IRS auditor. “Everyone here has a past-tense problem.”

“This isn’t just death,” Damian said coldly. “This was wrong. She was nineteen and shot execution-style. Her records were redacted and eyewitnesses disappeared.”

“Spicy,” she whistled. “This is so much better than the time I solved the mystery of who was stealing the cocktail cherries.”

“Forger-”

“It was me.”

“She was annoying,” he snapped to shut her up. “She was a pest. She smiled like she knew all my secrets and liked me anyway. I spent six years tracking every lead, every file, every lie-!”

Anya slid him an incredibly boozy soda. “Have you ever tried grief with bubbles?” He didn’t touch it, so she tried again more gently. “You know, it’s okay if you didn’t solve it.”

“No, it’s not.”

“But you tried really hard. That counts.”

“I failed,” he intoned, hollow. “I was a spoiled, arrogant idiot who got drunk and picked fights and insisted I’d solve it tomorrow, then, apparently, I died.”

“You think that’s what your friend would care about?” Damian flinched. “She’d probably find it funny, like oh my god, Damian tried to avenge me and tripped over himself in a bar.”

“That’s not-!”

“I think she’d be proud of you, even if she thought you were dramatic and poked you in the eye.” That shut him up. “But fine, let’s solve it!”

“You’ve already forgotten half of what I’ve said,” he eyed her.

“True, but you need a Watson.”

“This isn’t a game!”

“Then why is your murder board on a placemat?”

“You’re not helping.”

“Wrong! I’m helping so hard. You’ll be so annoyed by how helpful I am.”

“Can you keep your mitts off the crime yarn?!” However, she was already spinning it around her wrists like a bracelet, or if he was having one of those days, handcuffs.

“What if it was like a clone thing?” she mused.

“It wasn’t.”

“Or, maybe, she faked her death and ran away to an astral plane disco.”

“Please.”

“Or, what if I’m her?” she gasped. “But like, memory-wiped, or haunted?” The string snapped in Damian’s fingers; Anya saw his expression shift between hopeful, wounded and terrified. “Oh, no! I didn’t mean- sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You didn’t.”

“You look like souffle.” He didn’t ask what the hell that meant. He stepped away from his murder board, so she offered the soda again. “It’s lemonade with cherry liquor and a really small umbrella.” They sat in silence, the corkboard glowing faintly under the bar lights. “So,” Anya pointed with a straw, “it happened in an alley, right?”

“How…” he looked up, alarmed, “how do you know that?”

“You told me!” she chirped.

“I didn’t.”

“Huh,” she shrugged. “Must’ve guessed. It feels like an alley-y murder. Ooh, brainwave! It could’ve been like a really creepy school!”

“What?” his breath caught.

“Picture it, terrible vibes,” Anya continued casually. “Science-men with briefcase, one of them stinking of chalk, and they all looked at her like a frog to microwave.”

Damian stood so quickly he knocked over a barstool. “What did you say?!”

Anya blinked at him, then held out the garnish tray coyly. “Cherry?”

“No! About the science-men!”

“Oh, hm. Let me think,” she dusted her apron off. “They were probably lurking, like… lurky lurkers. Maybe one of them wore two watches, because like, who does that?”

“Forger,” his voice cracked. “You’re talking about Project Apple. You’re describing it like you-” His knees gave out, and he sat down, hard. “You- how the fuck do you know all that?!”

Anya tilted her head, baffled at his strange reaction. “I mean, I don’t? I’m just hypothesising.”

Damian laughed, high and sharp, which indicated he’d run out of available oxygen. “You’re either guessing with terrifying accuracy or you’re-” he stopped, and curled his hands into fists. The jukebox crooned a lazy sax riff, oblivious to the aneurysm in progress. Finally, he looked up and felt scrubbed raw. “Do you believe in fate?”

She squinted at him. “Like, does it deliver snacks or just kill you slowly?”

“I mean, was she doomed from the beginning? Was everything a setup?”

Anya chewed a cherry thoughtfully, and completely blanked the question. She angled her head this way and that to analyse the board. “Maybe it didn’t start where you think it did?”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, so, new theory. What if it didn’t start in the alley or the weird school or wherever. What if it started when she got home?” He blinked. “Imagine this, she walks in, right? And the apartment’s trashed. I’m talking drawers pulled open, books thrown, decapitated plants. Total chaos, and her family aren’t anywhere. Poof!” How did she know it was an apartment? Wouldn’t most people assume a house for a family unit? “Then, boom! There’s a man in the living room!” She grinned, clearly pleased by her theory. “Just sitting there, all dramatically in the dark.”

“What… kind of man?” Damian asked carefully.

“You know,” she waved a hand. “Sharp suit, voice like a dictation machine. Says something creepy.” Anya ate another cherry, completely unfazed; his heart stopped. “She thinks, maybe, it’s a joke at first? Like, haha, weird guy in my house.” It was said with such casual glee it sounded like they discussed a gameshow, not a murder.

“Then what?”

“Hmm,” she considered, “maybe she runs? From what I know about her, she’s not dumb, but she was probably unprepared, so she just… runs away.”

“To the alley.”

“Exactly! But it turns out it’s a dead-end.” She wiped fruit juice off her hands. “Anyway, just a theory.”

“You’re sure you just… made all of that up?”

“Totally!” she beamed.

“Not… something you remembered?”

“Nope, just my excellent narrative instincts,” she began stirring another drink for a guest at table seven. “But, now I think about it, I really hate suits, especially the clipboard-y kind.”

Damian turned away from her, eyes closed, hands trembling. “You don’t-” he tried, “you don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Sure I do! I’m a fabulous guesser.”

“Do you think she knew who it was?”

“Definitely.” He nodded, blood draining from his face. Anya tossed him a lime to cut up for her, because he was much neater. He caught it, barely. “It’s a good theory, right? Anyway, I’m off to make popcorn and avoid your weird aura. Want me to put on the kettle?” He remained in stunned silence, so she waved a hand in front of his face. “Earth to Mr. Desmond?”

He looked at her like she was a knife’s edge, but she smiled like she hadn’t just described her last day alive in excruciating detail. In her absence, he redrew his timeline thrice, rewrote the suspect list twice and stabbed the phrase who was there with a sword-shaped cocktail pick hard enough to snap the hilt. His drink sat untouched. Anya returned from the stockroom with a half-eaten bag of popcorn.

“Oof,” she hopped onto the chair opposite him. “The ghost in the freezer’s humming again. Either he’s stuck in a time-loop or that’s where jazz really comes from.” Damian didn’t respond; his knuckles whitened around a pen. “Are you still haunted?”

“I’m always haunted.”

“Sexy, but bad for digestion.”

Damian faced her slowly, like she’d disappear if he moved too fast. “You’re her.”

“Nope.”

“You are,” he insisted. “You have to be. You remember too much. You act like her.”

“I don’t act,” she protested indignantly. “I vibe.”

“You remember things you shouldn’t know! You describe things nobody else possibly knows!”

“I’m guessing.”

“You’re not.”

She picked up a piece of popcorn and rolled it between two fingers. “Do I seem like somebody with a masterplan?”

“You seem like somebody trying to smuggle the truth past her own brain.”

“You’re so dramatic!” she shoved a handful of popcorn in her mouth with a scowl.

“You’re frighteningly accurate!”

Finally, Anya patted his arm comfortingly. “Okay, let’s work with that. Maybe me and your Anya just had the same soul download, like cosmic twins with a shared Google Drive.”

“I’m serious!” he snapped. “You died! I never found out who killed you, or maybe I did and I don’t remember. Either way, I failed, but you’re here and apparently don’t remember me, which is hell, I’ll have you know.”

“You know what else is hell?” she frowned. “When people cry on the bar.”

“I’m not crying,” he spat but wiped his face nonetheless.

“Fine, your eyes are leaking.”

“This is so unfair,” he whined. “You’re here, you’re not here. I chased ghosts for six years and now the ghost’s in front of me and we’re coworkers.”

“You’re weirdly intense. Originally, I thought you were maybe one of those soul-dudes who thinks his soulmate is the moon.”

“I’m not-” he paused. “Wait, is that a thing?”

“It’s surprisingly common! Also, people who fall in love with me.”

“Oh my God!”

“What? I have very charming elbow energy.”

Damian dragged a hand over his face in exasperation. “I don’t know what this even means.”

“It means I’m adorable, and you’re spiralling again.”

“It means you remember!” he snapped. “You just- don’t remember you remember!”

“Huh, that’s trippy,” she tapped her chin. “You’re weird. You’re ranting, desperate, and wearing an emotional trench coat. I get like that too, sometimes, it’s okay. If somebody touches my peanuts, I go full crime noir.”

“No, no. You described classified memories or redacted scenes! There’s no record of any science-men! Only me and my only three friends knew about the weird school! And the double watches! Nobody else! So riddle me this, Forger, how the fuck do you know?!”

Anya raised her hand innocently. “Maybe you told me in your sleep.”

“I’m dead! I don’t sleep!”

“You most definitely nap,” she focused on her popcorn again. “Yesterday, you dozed off in the mop cupboard whispering this isn’t real.”

Damian visibly shook and hated every moment. “Anya.”

“Hmm?”

“What do you remember?” he swallowed bile. “Really.”

“Nothing,” she twirled her hair. “Just this bar, the drinks, my customers.”

“Sy-on boy,” he repeated. “She called me that. You called me that.” Damian shifted in his chair, bouncing one knee, hands clenching and unclenching like he negotiated with himself. Finally, he stood, paced a tight circle, and spun to her, ears stereotypically crimson. “Listen,” he blurted, “this is ridiculous. But, could you…” he groaned into his hands, “can you keep calling me Sy-on boy?”

“Like… permanently?”

He turned pink from throat to hairline. “Not permanently! Just… indefinitely, which isn’t the same thing, obviously. Forget it! This is stupid!”

“Oh, I see,” her smug grin broke wide and bright. “You want me to be your Sy-on boy dealer.”

“Don’t phrase it like that!”

Anya leaned to watch him struggle with her chin in her palm. “Why, though?”

He folded his arms, pretending he had composure left to maintain. “Because it was hers, and you’re here, and hearing it makes me feel like I haven’t lost my mind. There. Happy now?!”

“If it helps you,” she softened, briefly seriously, “to process it, then yeah, I’ll do it. I’ll call you it.”

His entire face went nuclear, colour flooding him from jaw to hairline. He pressed both hands to his face to prevent his imminent death by skull explosion. She rummaged under the counter with exaggerated cheer and slapped something on his chest. He peeked down between his fingers. It was another sticker, green and heart-shaped, with big childish lettering that screamed It’s Okay To Have Big Feelings!

Somehow, he flushed a deeper shade of red. He believed there was no more blood left anywhere in his body. “You cannot be serious.”

“It matches your request. Mr. Desmond with his big feelings badge. It’s emotional growth in action.”

“This is humiliating,” he tugged the edge of the sticker weakly, not quite wanting to tear it off.

“It’s supportive,” she amended. “Now, every time I call you Sy-on boy, you’ll remember you’re doing great at feelings.”

He dropped back into his chair and buried his face in his hands. His voice was strangled. “I regret ever asking you anything.”

“Do you, Sy-on boy?”

He groaned as the jukebox crooked. Damian burned alive under the nickname, the sticker, and the unbearable relief of hearing her say it again.

Chapter Text

Damian didn’t intend to be near the park. He was simply walking with intention, or a highborn constitutional, if anyone asked. He certainly wasn’t lurking by the old fountain where the water pressure made it wheeze like a dying goose, nor was he hovering in a hedge, and absolutely, under no circumstances, was he watching Anya Forger giggle her way through a picnic with her parents. It was a free country, or a tuition-based authoritarian regime, and that meant he could stand exactly where he pleased, even if that so happened to be, against his will, the exact six-foot radius around Anya Stupid Forger. She sat on a blanket shaped like a panda as her father, with devastating competence, poured her juice and her mother handed over a stack of lovingly scorched pancakes. There was laughter, hugs and disgustingly, a handmade paper crown Anya sported that decreed her Queen of Smart Ideas. She never had smart ideas; the idiot once glued a pencil to a pigeon to study aerodynamics.

Loid Forger, who clearly had time to parent, braided Anya’s hair with terrifying proficiency. Yor, meanwhile, offered her a high-five for eating fruit. Damian sincerely believed he would vomit. Anya spotted him, stood up, and waved like they were friends. “Hi, Sy-on boy! Wanna join?”

“I-” he blinked. “No! Ew!”

“You can have a pancake!”

“I don’t want your pancakes!”

“Okay,” she nodded agreeably, sat back down and returned to her family like his rejection of her didn’t sting. It definitely did sting. It was meant to sting. He stormed off, coat flapping behind him. Five minutes later, he was behind a tree, pretending to read, and watching them again.

Loid sipped serenely from his glass. “He’s behind the tree now.”

“I know,” Yor smiled. “He rolled behind it sideways.”

“Should we… say something?”

“Does he seem armed?” Yor tilted her head thoughtfully.

“He’s ten, so I doubt it.”

“Oh! He might be doing a nature observation for class!”

“…That’s a very polite term for stalking our child.”

Damian crouched nobly behind the hedge. The Forger picnic moved on to charades. Anya acted out an atomic explosion, which he guessed immediately, but her mother settled on fruit bat, and Loid guessed that dream I had in 1992. They laughed like none of them had ever been yelled at during a diplomatic luncheon. Anya leaned her head sleepily on her mother’s shoulder; Damian produced an involuntary noise. If he was asked to spell it, he’d probably say hurk. He never leaned on his mother, and one time, his father gifted him a pen for his birthday and instructed him to, “Sign something and make me proud.” Stupid Forger had a stupid paper crown with stupid stickers and a stupid title. He sat down, completely miserable.

Eventually, Anya trotted off to find a stick for reasons unknown. Loid turned to face the hedge. “You can come out, you know.”

Damian reacted like he’d been verbally shot. “I’m not hiding!”

“Of course not.”

“I was just… checking the soil conditions.”

“Your commitment to landscaping is admirable,” Loid nodded sagely.

Damian stepped out stiffly, trying to look like the scion of the Desmond family. “I didn’t want to disturb your outing,” he said too formally for a family picnic.

“You’re not disturbing us,” her father replied smoothly.

He cleared his throat aristocratically and forced words through gritted teeth. “Please don’t put yourselves out on my account.” However, his gaze cut straight to Anya with all the venom he could muster.

Yor held out a charred pancake. “Would you care for one?”

He stared at it. God, why did it have sprinkles? No pancake should ever, in any circumstances, have sprinkles. He took it. Anya’s father made room on the blanket. Damian sat with his spine like a sword and his expression betraying the fact he was inventing insults on the fly.

Anya returned, holding a stick. “Oh, you joined!”

“No, I didn’t.”

“He’s a guest now, Anya,” Yor smiled at her daughter. “Guests get smiles.” She beamed at him, but he didn’t smile back. Instead, he sat there, pink-faced and sweating, as a family that wasn’t his treated him like he was worth including.

Anya cocked her head at him. “Sy-on boy, you’re very pink and sweaty.”

“I’m not- sweaty,” he replied icily, which was betrayed by the moisture on his brow.

“Oh, dear,” Yor’s maternal alarm activated like a tripwire. “You’re flushed. Are you feeling feverish?” Before he retreated, her hand landed lightly against his forehead. “You’re quite warm.”

Every nerve in his body screamed don’t yell at the mother. “I promise, I’m perfectly fine.”

“Hydration wouldn’t hurt,” Loid offered him a cup of juice.

Damian accepted it with both hands, as etiquette demanded, not that the Forgers knew about that. “Thank you. That’s very considerate.” He sipped, like juice was a diplomatic test he needed to pass.

“He’s shy-sick,” Anya confided with that stupid face of hers.

He nearly inhaled his juice. “I’m not shy! Nor sick! And I’m certainly not both at once!” He turned beet-red, which didn’t help his case any.

“We can walk you to the infirmary after the picnic, if you’d like,” Yor offered sympathetically.

“No, that’s fine,” he replied courteously. “I don’t want to impose.”

Anya leaned on her elbows and stage-whispered, “He’s definitely shy-sick.”

Damian’s glare could have cracked glass. “Shut up, Forger!”

Unbothered, Loid reached for another terrible pancake. “Adolescence seems very complicated.”

Later, when the sun dipped low and Yor lifted a dozing Anya on her back, Loid looked down at Damian. “Do you need someone to walk you back to Eden?”

Damian shook his head. “I know the way.”

“Of course.”

Damian walked back to the dorms with syrup on his sleeve and something unnameable in his chest. He would never, ever, admit it, but… it was a good pancake.

*

Damian instinctively knew something was wrong before he even touched the handle. The lock gave way too smoothly, and the air had a displaced quality that said it was recently occupied and carefully erased. He dropped his briefcase and beelined to the study. The corkboard was no longer his corkboard. His deranged spiderweb was fixed with taut strings, replaced pins, and several feverish arrows quietly removed and redrawn neatly. The board didn’t look like the inside of a lunatic’s skull, but an intelligence product. On the desk sat a thick stack of files, labelled Operation Strix (Complete). The fragments he chased for months were arranged neatly, politely, and dropped off by a courier who somehow had a key made. He recognised the clean block letters, clinical as belonging to a man trained never to leave personality behind.

“Loid Forger,” he smiled.

Of course, he was gone; this man never left footprints. Damian checked the drawers, which had been rifled through, but carefully organised. He crouched to peer at the underside of the desk like a nervous child. It was empty. There was only the maddening trace of someone else’s lungs breathing his air. He sat down heavily and picked up the note left atop the files.

Desmond-

You were never the target. Strix required proximity, and you provided it. That’s all. She liked you for reasons outside our scope.

-Forger

The note corrected his trajectory with cruel simplicity. He wasted nearly a year convinced she was tied to state secrets, espionage, something larger, and the whole time she knew nothing and just… liked being near him, apparently. Damian pressed his fist into his mouth and laughed humourlessly. Somehow, Loid broke into his apartment, tidied his madness and delivered the full files like a final report. For God’s sake, he even corrected his spelling errors, which was insulting and weirdly kind.

Like father, like daughter indeed.

“Oh,” he muttered to the note, “so this is what camaraderie looks like in your line of work.” He leaned back, lit a cigarette, smoked it to the filter and crushed it out. “I need to move.” By dawn, he dismantled the corkboard, packed files into boxes and scheduled a driver to meet him at a side street two blocks over. He registered a new address under a shell corporation with a soulless name to bore anyone who checked. Though, before he left, he returned to the study and lingered for a moment, then opened the liquor cabinet. From the back he pulled a bottle of wine so expensive it felt like blasphemy to touch it. He set it on the desk and lined it square with the woodgrain. He locked the door behind him, knowing perfectly well it wasn’t a lock at all.

The bottle remained.

Damian didn’t so much study Operation Strix as exhume it. The file reeked of bureaucratic perfume with its stripped down summaries, clipped memos and redactions that seemed like censorship learned modern art, but the bones were visible if you squinted. The objective was simple, to stop Donovan Desmond destabilising the East-West post-war truce; the problem was that his father was essentially a recluse. So, the solution was to gain access to him via Eden Academy and his youngest son using a fabricated family. Damian pinned the summary to his new corkboard.

“Your childhood was a Trojan horse,” Becky snorted over wine.

“More like a battering ram,” Ewen chimed, flipping through yearbooks like they held state secrets. “Bossman, did you know you blink weird in photos?”

Emile hunched over a microfiche reader he’d successfully dragged upstairs. “Nobody talk to me until I find the smoking memo.”

Damian treated espionage like a board meeting, because it was the only way his brain let him breathe. If he called it grief, he drowned; if he called it research, he swam in circles forever. He never said Loid Forger’s name aloud, because the accusatory tones stopped and it felt more like an apology. Still, Becky unearthed a photo of him from when she was a kid and pinned it to the board. “The world’s most earnest spy invented domesticity to attend a parent mixer with your father. That’s either genius or really stupid.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Damian side-eyed her. “She was an imperial scholar. Loid Forger managed to regularly be in rooms with Father.”

They divided tasks like honest people doing legal things. Emile, who perfected the art of being an off-duty detective, handled public records and not-so-public financials. “NUP filings,” his fingers danced with the knowledge that clerks didn’t typically lock drawers, “foundations, affiliates, shell donors, the usual chorus.”

Ewen claimed the reconnaissance nobody else wanted because wires and lenses were easier than feelings. “I’ll pull every speech your dad’s given since the truce,” he dumped a crate of battered tapes on the rug, and didn’t seem slightly concerned that it was nearly thirty years of tapes. “Half of them are probably about how trains improve moral character, but I’ll filter.”

Becky handled soft power with a surgeon’s contempt for mess. She drafted a list of social invitations to obtain and ones she’d refuse on principle, and made two lists the same length because principle didn’t pay for bribes. Damian assigned himself policy review and pattern recognition, linking postwar positioning and seeing where his father’s politics muttered Apple. He crafted a grid; across the top he wrote years and down the side he wrote themes and in the cells he slotted bills, speeches, donations, schools, think-tanks, civic societies and any childhood memories. Patterns surfaced like oil on clean water; postwar, money and rhetoric pumped across three arteries – education, surveillance, reconciliation. On paper, NUP was patriotic centrism with an ironed shirt, and Damian understood their bills’ stern verbs, clean nouns and implications that tracked you through life.

Damian began with the inciting incident, a car crash that killed a Westalian diplomat and his driver, possibly caused by a party willing to test the tensile strength of peace, fingerprints everywhere and nowhere. Strix was born from that wreckage. In his official capacity, Emile followed the paper trail at work, but returned grim-faced. “Records exist-ed. Archive clerk said the file was transferred. When I asked where, she said she didn’t know where and I shouldn’t ask. Then, she misplaced her pen.”

“Cover-up,” Damian dubbed it immediately.

“Or incompetence,” Becky offered. “Never underestimate the state’s ability to misfile something into oblivion.”

Still, the clerk resigned the next day, officially due to sudden illness, unofficially countryside relocation. It translated to vanished, and Damian kicked himself for the snipped thread.

At an NUP fundraiser disguised as a classical music evening, Becky’s gown did espionage and Damian’s suit performed spycraft. He walked into conversation like a dagger sheathed in manners and asked donors about institutional resilience, until something in his chest clicked to a nastier gear. He studied his father from a distance, how his laugh ran on time, how his handshakes were calibrated, how he never said anything inflammatory via careful language deployment. “He’s performing suasion,” Becky whispered, barely covering her boredom, “in the old style. A lot of his phrases are repeatable.” She took sly photographs of exits, catering staff, of who touched whom on the shoulder; Damian quietly lifted a guest list and a garbage bag of shredded paper he’d get Ewen to tape back together like an insane toddler with his own intelligence service.

At a closed parliamentary hearing (transcript acquired by undertaking violence to the concept of library etiquette), he studied how the party interrogated itself about campus unrest as if the nation’s largest threat was teenagers with slogans. One attendee used the phrase total civil hygiene and Damian wrote it down and underlined it until it bruised the page. He pencilled a line from the phrase to an NUP nonprofit that produced a white paper called The Disciplined Citizen, which read like somebody laundered pseudoscience publicly. Emile flagged a half-dozen instances of identical, independently authored documents. “Shared language means shared origin,” he handed it to Damian, who dutifully pinned it on the board.

Ewen cued reel after reel of Donovan’s speeches. Some lauded the truce as civilisational maturity, others warned of foreign corrosion. “Contradiction,” Damian scribbled notes.

“Flexibility,” Ewen provided. “He’s fluent in ambiguity.”

The contradictions drove Damian mad. On Monday, Donovan praised peace, by Friday, he called vigilance eternal. Which one was his father, really? “He calibrates the room. Same voice, different audience,” Emile pointed out. “Detectives call that lying. How can he believe in peace and war at the same time?”

“He believes in power. Everything else is packaging,” Damian snapped.

Strix was never about catching his father committing a single flamboyant crime, but about containing a philosophy. “It’s the only model that fits the data,” Damian heard himself sound like a chief executive begging a ghost to let him make it up to her. “Twilight didn’t build a family to kiss my father’s ring at school concerts. He built it to stop a war my father kept in his back pocket.”

Becky, who knew this generally and exasperatedly, put down her glass like a gavel. “So now what? You’ve discovered the premise of the decade. Satisfied, now?”

Satisfaction was a sensation he’d entirely forgotten. “We complete it.” The room went stupidly quiet.

“You want to complete the flagship operation of a different country’s intelligence service with a socialite, an engineer, and a cop with a personal microfiche reader?” Becky counted on slender fingers.

“We have access they never had, because I’m access. Strix wanted a proximity measure, who breathes with him, who blinks when he does, who repeats him when he doesn’t need repeating.” He pinned photos until his board looked like a child’s family tree. “Loid married a stranger and adopted a little girl to stop my father from breaking the truce. He did it because somebody had to stand in the way.”

“And you’re going to stand there now?” Becky’s voice softened.

“Are you kidding?” he snorted. “I live there.” It was bravado’s way of saying yes.

The practiced collapse arrived quietly. He arranged the last of the documents on his wall and plotted Donovan’s language over the years in a line that looked like a heart monitor. He searched for any mention of Anya outside of Eden, an echo of that small girl who was the linchpin to stop men destroying the next decades. He found nothing but humiliating absence shaped like her. He smoked and drank the expensive things that made neighbours believe him cultured, then the necessary things that made his memory stop for five minutes. He rehearsed questions for his father he’d never dare ask, pictured Loid at the Eden interview pretending he wasn’t an instrument, but he didn’t cry, because that wasn’t on his mental checklist.

The investigation tried to track down attendees from early dinners, mostly mid-level bureaucrats who once shared wine and speeches with Donovan. Ewen sent letters; Becky pulled favours; Emile shook hands that weren’t worth shaking. One by one, the witnesses slipped away. A former minister scheduled for interview died suddenly of heart complications; the obituary was printed before the family confirmed. A secretary promised documents, then claimed to have never met them in her life; her brother reported she left town without luggage. An aide who drafted early NUP policies vanished between stations, his ticket stamped at neither end. Emile punched his microfiche reader in frustration

Becky exhaled smoke toward the ceiling, because fuck Damian getting his deposit back. “Every time you pull a string, someone vanishes. You’re playing Jenga with human lives.” Damian’s hands shook as he pinned three photographs with question marks to his wall.

At the end, only present, impassive, untouchable Donovan remained.

His new flat had locks like a bank vault and intentionally bland plaster walls. Damian picked it because it was impossible to imagine someone of his status living in it. It was anonymous, sterile and safe, or so he believed. He came home one evening to find the empty bottle of expensive wine he left in his old apartment sitting pleasantly on his coffee table. The cork rested beside it like a severed head posed for formal portraiture. Inside the bottle, folded tight, was a note, which he finished out with tweezers.

Damian-

Bottle received. Quality confirmed. Anya liked it.

-Loid

“Bastard,” Damian muttered, letting his cigarette burn his fingers. He shoved the note back in the bottle, then dropped his lit cigarette in after it, and watched the controlled burn. He then ran it under water, because he wasn’t insane. He hated the man for breaking in, drinking the wine, and dragging Anya into the message like grief was a polite conversation they both expected to have. Yet, beneath the hatred, an unrequested camaraderie or recognition bloomed; they were two men orbiting her absence, unable to step away. He laughed once. “Fine, I’ll take the bait. See you there, Forger.”

Damian hated the rows of graves aligned like soldiers and the hedges manicured to the point of parody. It was a place for tidy grief, not the real, ash-stained, gin-soaked version that lived in his brain. He lit a cigarette in front of her in hopes he looked cool.

“Well, you’ve really outdone yourself this time,” he muttered. He scanned the stone, and found a funerary greeting card, taped innocuously under the marble lip. “Oh, for God’s sake,” he peeled it free. “Grave-mail? Seriously?” The note was brief. Reconciliation conference, 1998. He barked a laugh so harsh it startled a crow off a nearby fence. “Of course you’d set up a treasure hunt at a cemetery. Classic Forger antics.” He stashed it in his coat like contraband.

The ridiculousness hit him, so he looked at her.

“Oh, I see what this is,” he gestured with his cigarette, “this is your idea of a playdate. You couldn’t just let me move on, could you? No, you needed to arrange clues with your dumb dad like we’re playing spies at Eden.”

The stone didn’t answer, which made him louder.

“You always do this,” he accused, “forcing me into your escapades. And now you’ve gone and turned your dad into your posthumous co-conspirator.” He shook his head, half-laughing, half-choking, and rested his hand briefly atop the headstone. “I didn’t even like you! You were obnoxious and always just there, which hasn’t changed, apparently. Well, you win, I’ll run another errand in your eternal game of tag. Happy now?”

The wind stirred the trees.

“Of course you’re happy. You’re always happy, even when you really shouldn’t be. Especially when I didn’t want you to be.” He lingered a moment longer. “Fine, Forger. Playdate accepted. But next time, bring better snacks.”

He turned on his heel; the grave remained silently smug in its victory. God, she was giggling at him. 

Chapter Text

By day, Damian was everything Desmond Global wanted him to be, namely punctual, presentable and terrifyingly productive. He wore cufflinks, held eye contact during meetings and said projected margins and cross-functional synergy. His calendar was full, his inbox was clear; the secretaries adored him, the interns feared him. Then, the sun would set, and Normalman McPerson vanished. 

By night, Damian chain-smoked out a window as a ritual, one cigarette per each stage of grief. One for denial, two for guilt, one more for rage and another to keep the others company. He drank strategically. It wasn’t the full-body obliteration of his early adulthood benders, but carefully timed destruction. Whiskey to start, vodka to forget, something expensive and herbal to clarify he was still a Desmond, and then vomiting into the sink to add but just barely. The pills arrived later to make his brain slow down, his chest unclench and ultimately keep him vertical. He had a very complex system of uppers to push through meetings and downers to push through the urge to scream. He never called it addiction, because that was messy, emotional and weak. This was logistics. 

At 03:00 most nights, he stood in front of a seven-foot cork monstrosity that was justified in the company accounts as a marketing display. It held timelines, maps, Anya’s file, Project Apple fragments, and a red string web of desperation that looked like a conspiracy theorist and a heartbroken teenager co-designed it. He always muttered to himself as he worked. “Parents missing. Witnesses say she ran, so she didn’t expect it.” Thread. “She was chased. She was scared.” He circled the phrase no death report for parents. He stood back, admired the handiwork and lit another cigarette. In the corner rested the grainy photo of two-year-old Anya and her stuffed chimera. She looked so small his stomach caved in. He smoked until the filter burned, then switched to a bottle of gin as he sat with the picture, the silence, and the mental stream of abuse directed solely at himself. 

At rehab, he was advised to face his pain, and he did, every night. It just so happened to stare back with big green eyes and call him Sy-on boy. He wanted to die. 

Approximately once a week, he called Becky Blackbell, and never explained why. He opened up with some asinine, unhinged question like, “Do you remember if she had any health problems as a kid?” or “Did she ever talk about her parents acting weird?” 

Becky always sighed and said, “You still haven’t moved on, huh?”

Still, she never hung up first.

He operated on brand new rules, such as: 

• Drink after work, not during. 
• Pills were only for weekends or panic attacks.
• Absolutely no saying her name aloud. 
• No crying when sober. 
• Never, ever, put a name on a feeling. 

It was going great. He was doing great. He was great. Everyone said so. 

The dining room at the Desmond estate could comfortably seat thirty-two. Tonight, it seated five. 

Damian arrived five minutes early, punctuality as performance, wearing polished shoes, cufflinks and a crisp tie. Normalman McPerson, by day a boardroom scourge, was now an obedient son at dinner. Donovan nodded at him, and that was the deepest conversation they’d ever had. Cecile offered an unflappable smile that suggested she enjoyed being there, but no sane person should. Demetrius was already seated, dismantling the duck and praying for the evening to finish early. Melinda hovered by the wine trying to determine whether it was a one or three glass evening. 

Nobody asked Damian how he was. It was that kind of family. 

They sat. 

Silverware gleamed as a servant poured drinks. From the phonograph came a polite string quartet. Damian adjusted his cuffs, nodded at Cecile and smiled when expected. The first twenty minutes belonged to Demetrius, who spoke of an upcoming keynote at some conference. “They want me to speak about legacy,” he swirled his wine disinterestedly. “I told them I’m not dead yet.” 

“You could talk about resilience,” Melinda suggested brightly. 

“Or how nepotism accelerates resilience,” Damian quipped. 

“Damian,” his father’s glance was cool. 

“Just contributing, Father,” Damian replied smoothly. Cecile patted his hand sweetly, pleased he was participating. 

“It’s lovely having both of you home,” Melinda clung to her script. 

“Is it?” Demetrius asked. 

“Nobody asked you,” Damian rolled his eyes. 

“Just saying what we’re all thinking.” 

“Boys,” Melinda sighed. Her youngest son simply dabbed his mouth with his napkin as the embodiment of poise. 

Conversation drifted to Cecile’s family vineyard, and she spoke brightly about harvests and barrels and pressing seasons. Damian nodded at all the right moments and even asked whether climate change affected grape quality, like he read books about agriculture instead of witness statements. Cecile beamed at him again; she liked him, God knew why. Perhaps she enjoyed the way he was trying. For a while, it worked. They attended a family dinner and talked about wine. 

Until Melinda, emboldened by her second glass, said, “I saw Yor last week. I took some roses, since it would have been Anya’s birthday.” The quartet droned on, but Damian froze as his chest chilled. He hadn’t realised, and of all people, he should have. “Yor keeps the place so tidy. She always fussed over her daughter.” 

Cecile’s hand tightened, grounding Damian, thumb pressing reassurance into his sleeve. Demetrius was as perceptive as usual. “You forgot.” 

“I didn’t.” 

“You did,” he returned to his food. “My tragic brother, who drank himself sick, didn’t even remember her birthday.” 

Damian forced a very pleasant chuckle. “I’ve been busy. Productive. I don’t dwell anymore.” 

“I’m just pointing out the irony,” his older brother shrugged. 

Damian’s hand twitched against his glass as he contemplated throwing it. He kept his smile pinned, even as guilt gnawed at him. “I didn’t forget. I just reprioritised.” 

Melinda rushed in to drown the moment and smoothed it over, fearing Donovan’s involvement. “It’s perfectly normal, darling. Everyone clings to the past sometimes, but you’ve moved on. You have a lovely future wife,” she smiled at Cecile, though her eyes screamed please help me, “and you’re thriving at work.” 

“She was nobody anyway,” Demetrius pushed the needle further. 

“She was still a person,” Damian snapped, mask cracking clean, “and someone murdered her.” 

“Damian,” Cecile cautioned softly, hand steadying him. 

“That’s what the police are for.”

“They let the case go cold.” 

“Oh, well, in that case,” Demetrius sipped his wine, “grab a magnifying glass. Solve it before dessert.”

“Enough,” Donovan said at last, calm and deadly, in the tone he used exclusively for annoying journalists. 

“They’re just having a bit of fun, dear,” Melinda tittered nervously. 

“Not at the table.” The Desmond patriarch simply reached for the pepper mill. 

“Boys, let’s not quarrel,” their mother laughed brightly. “Honestly, this is meant to be family dinner.” 

“It is,” Demetrius leaned back, “which is why we’re suffering.” 

“I have work,” Donovan interrupted, standing. “Good evening.” He left without drama or a backward glance. 

Demetrius watched him leave. “Should’ve brought a Ouija board if we wanted Father to emote.” 

“Darling, please,” Melinda pressed her lips together. 

“Mother, it’s fine. I’ve had enough,” Damian stood too. 

“But we haven’t finished-” Cecile started. 

“I’ve had enough,” he repeated. He didn’t storm out or slam anything, because that would’ve shown he cared, and he didn’t. He left quietly, holding Cecile’s hand impersonally, and Anya’s birthday rattling in his skull. 

*

The sticker burned a hole in his lapel when Anya reached across the bar for a bottle of sugar syrup. She overextended, hand fumbling, and the bottle wobbled on the edge. Damian moved instinctively. Their hands collided, skin-on-skin in a briefest brush of fingers. Naturally, he reacted like she’d shot him. He jerked back violently, knocked over the ice scoop and scattered cubes across the floor. His pulse detonated in his chest; Anya blinked. “Uh… you okay?” 

He wasn’t okay. His hand burned from where her fingers grazed him. It was ridiculous, yet there he was, staggering backwards because a ghost bartender touched his skin. “I-” his voice cracked. “You-” he tried again. “Don’t do that!” 

“Do what?” she looked at the sugar syrup for explanations, but none were provided. “Grab bottles?” 

“Touch me.” Her brows knitted together. 

“I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.” 

“Well, don’t,” he snapped and straightened his jacket with shaking hands to recover some dignity. “It’s unsanitary.” 

“Unsanitary?” she squinted. “You’re dead.” 

“Exactly! Does it look like I want ghost germs?” 

For a second, she stared at him stupidly, then burst into laughter. “Ghost germs?! Oh my God, you’re hilarious!” 

“Stop laughing,” he bristled. 

“I can’t! You jumped like I zapped you with lightning!” she mimed the motion, hands jolting. “Zap!” 

“I didn’t-!” Damian’s cheeks burned. 

“You did!” she doubled over, wheezing. “Big Scary Damian Desmond, taken down by a hand. Incredible.” He busied himself with stacking glasses that were already stacked, but he shook so much he nearly dropped one. Anya wiped a tear of laughter from her eye. “Seriously though, why’d you freak out?” 

Because it’s you. He swallowed the words and forced his face into practiced neutrality. “You startled me, that’s all.” 

“Want me to do it again?” she grinned mischievously. “See if you faint this time?” 

“No!” he whirled on her. 

She watched him squirm, completely delighted. “Don’t panic, Sy-on boy. I’ll keep my scary ghost germs to myself.” His chest hammered; his hand tingled. She hummed, spinning the bottle idly, blissfully oblivious. “You’re fun, you know that?” She thought this was fun. For her, this was a joke, but for him, this was hell on… well, not earth, but wherever this was. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to loathe it. “Ooh, you know your friend?” 

“I’m aware of her.” 

“Did she have a dog?!” 

“…What?!” he stared at her. “Um, yeah…?” 

“Ooh, let me guess. I bet he had big ears and huffed like a vacuum cleaner, but he was so big, she curled on top of him and drooled in his fur.” 

Damian’s world tilted on its axis as she blathered, completely unaware she triggered the emotional equivalent of a seismic event. “His name was Bond,” he managed, “like the cartoon spy.” 

“That’s so cool!” Damian sat down abruptly as gravity gave up on his spine. “Hey, you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” he replied unblinkingly. 

“You’re sitting.” 

“I wanted a break.” 

“You look pale.” 

“It’s the lighting.” 

“The lighting made you lose blood pressure?” 

“Do I even have blood?” he gestured at himself. “Look, you can’t just say stuff like that to me. About the dog. About napping on him.”

“Oh, I thought it was normal,” Anya shrugged. “Lots of kids nap on dogs.” 

“You don’t understand!” it tore out of him, but he swallowed and tried to be pleasant and conversational and God forbid, normal. “I met him once, actually.” 

“You did?!” 

“He licked my face and sat on my foot for thirty minutes.” 

“That sounds fun,” she smiled softly. 

“She, or you, or whoever, called him a furry mobile mattress.” 

“I’d definitely describe most dogs that way, but only if they’re bigger than me,” she nodded. Damian pressed a hand to his forehead to keep his brain precisely where it was meant to be. “You okay?” she asked again. “You’re sigh-breathing again.” 

“I’m processing a completely standard piece of information in a healthy and entirely restrained way.” He looked up at her, fists clenched against his knees. “Do you realise what it means for you to say that?” 

“That your friend had really great taste in pets?” Anya shrugged. 

He groaned in exasperation. “I’m going to die again.” 

“You’re already dead.” Anya tilted her head, watching him unravel like a sweater in a blender, then she smiled.  “It’s nice you remember things about her. That you kept it. Even the dog stuff. It feels like you’re saving parts of her she forgot to pack.” He looked at her, but no, she wasn’t teasing, or being flippant. Worse than all of that, she meant it. 

Damian coughed once, awkwardly, and folded his arms across his chest. “Yeah, well, don’t get used to it.” 

“Aww.” 

“I’m not some emotional valve.” 

“You sort of are.” 

“I’m not a grief butler.” 

“That would be a great job title for you.” 

“Stop. Talking.”

Anya patted his head affectionately. “Good job for remembering the dog.” 

He stared at the floor again, and mumbled, barely audible, “He was a good dog.” She smiled, and it meant everything. 

*

Damian adjusted his tie like a personality substitute, and ran through the module loadout, which included dinner conversation, mild compliments, appropriate desire, and zero ghosts. As he approached his front door, he subdivided the tasks, which were asking about her day without sounding like a performance review, commenting on flowers and maintaining eye contact, but not like a sniper. Throughout, he needed to keep his hands gentle, his thoughts gentler, and no matter what, not think about- 

He could do this. He could be a person. He could be the perfect fiancé and inhabitant of rooms. 

Cecile waited for him in her room, robe tied in a casual knot that likely took three tries to be casual. “You’re on time,” she said, surprised. 

“Punctuality is the sincerest form of flattery,” he replied and immediately hated himself. 

She smiled anyway, because she was great at giving him credit he hadn’t earned. “Wine?”

“Yes,” he said, because that was the right answer. He resisted the urge to realign the magazines on the coffee table by height, and observed peonies on the mantle that he remembered to compliment. “They look expensive. In a nice way.” 

“Thank you,” she laughed, “I think.” She handed him a wine before returning to her wardrobe; there was the rustle of silk and hangers, the percussion section of a well-funded life. “Big day tomorrow.” 

“Very,” he smoothed his tie. “Menu tasting at eleven, florist at two, your mother at three-thirty for the chandelier crisis.” 

“Oh, she moved it three,” she finally closed the wardrobe. “Apparently she thinks the chandelier is threatening.” 

“What’s it planning?” he asked. Yes. Joking was good. 

“An ostentatious descent,” she gave her winning smile that had a future in it. She was well-practiced at taking a man’s rough edges and making it seem intentional. She pressed a hand to his chest and felt for the steadiness in him that didn’t exist. 

Thankfully, he prepared talking points. It was important to establish, early, the narrative that one was stable by planting your verbs, watering your adjectives and smiling like you knew all the punchlines. “How did the call with the caterer go?” he asked. 

“Fine, but they’re worried your side won’t eat the fish.” 

“My side eats whatever money tells it to. It’s practically a sacrament.” 

She giggled tidily. “How was the charity board?” 

“Good. We voted to eliminate hunger by reallocating hunger to people who don’t donate.”

“Ah, efficiency.” 

Dinner was competent. He asked about her day at the gallery and remembered to look interested when she explained the difference between three identical frames. He rattled off a story about a board meeting and strategically omitted the part where he enjoyed making a grown man cry by asking for numbers that didn’t exist. He said mm at appropriate intervals, and when she touched his wrist, he didn’t flinch. 

He could do this. See? Function. Participate. Be present. 

Under the table, something stupid and small surfaced like a toy in a backpack. He shoved it under the mental sink and smiled at his fiancée. After dinner, she blew out candles with a sigh that suggested basic romantic competence. 

“Stay,” she instructed hopefully. 

“Of course.” He kissed her like the films Becky showed him – two beats, then a third, hands at the waist, pressure measured. She tasted like figs and luxury, and he catalogued it like a sommelier forced at gunpoint to be horny. 

She led him down the hall to the bedroom which held a white duvet, soft lamps and a neat row of pillows, then stood on tiptoes to kiss him again. He put his hands on her hips, careful in a way he wished somebody taught him years ago. This is good, he told himself. This is correct. You’re a man, you’re engaged, you’re in a room with a woman who wants you, and you’re not thinking about- 

He engaged the typical subroutines of affirmations (“You’re beautiful.”), consent checks (“This okay?”) and body language scans (green). He remembered to keep his hands where she put them, and also to breathe, but not to keep his head from wandering into a cheap kitchen with a stuck drawer and a draft and a list of dog names on the fridge. It wandered into a fight about whether dogs should have citizenship and into a dream where a ring was involved and he suffered it with comic dignity. His appetite – traitor – sharpened at the thought of being insulted and forgiven in the same breath. 

Not now. Please. 

“Damian,” Cecile’s breath was warm on his face, “stay with me.” 

“Here,” he said quickly. “I’m here.” He definitely wasn’t here. He was in the corridor with the echo and the wall and the worst version of himself, then he was in a future that didn’t exist where she lived long enough to make a mess of his cupboards and his life on purpose. 

“Say something,” she whispered. 

“You’re-” he choked, “perfect.” She smiled into his mouth at the compliment and relief flared that the script was accepted. 

Then her hair fell across him, wrong angle, wrong weight, wrong smell. His body, which never listened to him, tried to supply the scent it believed it should have. He closed his eyes and it worsened. His fingers – traitors, traitors – remembered another face, another time, another-

“Damian,” Cecile said again breathlessly. “You’re frowning.” 

“Just- concentrating,” he instantly hated the word. Concentration was not an aphrodisiac. He flattened the crease between his eyebrows with sheer willpower. He pictured a domestic world of tasteful lunches, tasteful friends and tasteful arguments. The picture bored him to panic. The next step was to deploy the mental workbook of acceptable domestic fantasies, so he imagined a beige future, safety without personality. He pictured himself and Cecile at a long table under an ostentatiously threatening chandelier. There would be a bowl of green things, a wife he introduced to shareholders and children who knew which fork. 

The picture kept glitching. 

In popped a different scene, with a kitchen he actually cooked in, a window stuck half-open and a radio on its last legs. Anya sat on the counter, deliberately misnaming herbs, with a pan smoking nearby because she’d forgotten about the concept of time, Sy-on boy, and the smoke alarm arguing with her. He pretended to hate it and failed. 

He blinked hard to switch channels. Cecile murmured his name in a tone to suggest she liked him and assumed he liked himself. No, he didn’t want excitement or madness. He wanted to be fine. He wanted to be cured of whatever set his life on fire at nineteen and left it smoking on good days. Ultimately, he wanted to be somebody who didn’t wake up with a sentence in his mouth he could never unsay. Like a mantra, he repeated marry her, be boring, live. 

“Lights?” she asked. 

“Low,” he replied. He didn’t want to see himself. 

In a mirror beyond his fiancé, a ghost of a boy sneered and said don’t call me that. 

“Stay with me,” she chided softly. 

“I am,” he promised, fingers mentally crossed behind his back. He kissed her with careful pressure and curated heat. It was just a question of choreography. You are here, he insisted. You’re a man in a bed with a woman who has chosen you. The air is ordinary and the ceiling won’t fall. He returned to focus by force; his body was trained to obey when the room required it. He lowered his head and became agreeable, but adjusted, harsher than he meant to. “Sorry.” 

“It’s alright,” she whispered patiently and rearranged them gracefully. He smiled like he was in an advert and closed his eyes to keep the edges from fraying. 

What would it be like if Anya was his fiancée? His brain – traitorous archivist – supplied an answer succinctly. Firstly, it would be registry office, not cathedral. She’d try rings and name them, then pick the one that bit him most when she punched his arm. She’d bounce down the aisle, stop halfway to pet her dog, who was obviously invited, then remember she was the bride and sprint to him, giggling. They’d likely send out the seating charts in glitter pen, and he’d pretend to be furious, but under the pretence, he’d be happy. He made a noise without meaning to, and Cecile took it for the right kind. He tried the Normalman-approved fantasy of honeymoon brochures, a resort with enough square footage for two people to avoid each other forever, and a photograph of a sunset that was legally mandated by the tourism board. 

The image didn’t stick long. 

Instead, he saw a train with windows and a thermos of cheap tea. Anya slept with her head on his shoulder, mouth open, and he pretended not to notice the drool, then gave up and pressed his lips to her hair anyway because he was an idiot. She woke up, poked him in the face, and said, entirely seriously, “I dreamed you were being nice,” and he snorted and replied, “Don’t tell anyone.” 

He never deserved that life. 

Cecile’s mouth found him again. He tried to be here. The problem was that the past insisted on being a present continuous verb. Do not think of how she said your name, he told himself, do not think of the sentence. Especially do not think about the sentence. 

He closed his eyes, opened his eyes, and completely ruined his life. 

“Anya-” 

Cecile stilled; even the room held its breath. Her eyes glassed like a lake in winter. “What did you say?” 

He should’ve lied or said literally anything else. The brain was a generous organ in that it offered synonyms usually, but not today. “I didn’t-” he began, but her face informed him that he had. 

“You said Anya,” she said precisely, as if it required cataloguing to be believed. “You said a dead girl’s name in our bed.” 

The world around them arranged itself into a courtroom. The chandelier threatened ostentatiously. Somewhere, a great aunt who was not physically present shook her head as if he betrayed the stemware collection. “It wasn’t-” Wrong, true words bunched in his throat. 

“What was it, then?” she stood and put her robe back on in embarrassment. 

“I slipped,” he said. “It won’t happen again.” 

“God, Damian,” she laughed humourlessly, all air. “That’s not how ghosts work.” Cecile sat at the edge of the bed and methodically put on slippers. “Your mother told me you were complicated, and I assumed it was about your father, or that you lost a friend. I didn’t think it meant I’d be competing with a dead girl you bullied. And yes, I heard the stories.”

“I-” he tried. “I didn’t-” 

“I’m going to my mother’s.” 

“I can explain,” he protested. It was a hilarious sentence for somebody with no language left. 

“You can’t,” she shook her head softly, “and even if you could, I don’t want you to. I’m not angry because you have a past, Damian, I’m angry that you still live there and keep renting me a room.” 

“Please.” 

“Tomorrow, we will do the tasting, and the florist, and the chandelier triage. You will not say her name. If you can manage that for more than one day in a row, we’ll see.” At the door, she paused, half-turned. “And Damian, be honest with yourself. You didn’t say it because you were thinking about her. You said it because a part of you is still nineteen, and you think you can rewrite the past. You can't.” 

The door shut with muted finality. The bedroom, tasteful, white, all objects chosen by consensus, stilled. He dropped back into the pillows and stared at the ceiling, which offered no counsel. The normal, functioning human persona he wore like a good suit hung off him in strips. He ran through the module failure report – dinner conversation (decent), mild compliments (passable), appropriate desire (interrupted) and zero ghosts (catastrophic). He closed his eyes and reversed out of the moment into a version where he said literally anything else, but his mind – traitor – delivered the wrong file which contained a mouth that hadn’t been kind. He scrubbed a hand over his face hard enough to hurt, but it removed nothing. 

He bit the inside of his cheek until metal flooded his mouth. 

He thought of nothing. 

He did not call Cecile.

He lay still until stillness meant nothing. Somewhere between midnight and its weaker cousin, he laughed once at himself, the chandelier, the expensive bed, and it sounded like defeat attempting to be charming. 

Good night, Sy-on boy, a voice in his head floated through, and he covered his face with his hands to keep the next word from leaving it.

Chapter Text

“Where the fuck was he?”

It wasn’t a rhetorical question. He asked it for months, years even. However, now, he wanted answers. He paced Becky’s third drawing room, which held busts of philosophers she never read, echoing acoustics and upholstery to bankrupt a nation. Naturally, she insisted on it, because if they were going to solve a murder, they may as well do it under a six-figure chandelier and with cognac older than all of them. The gilt-framed corkboard had FORGER scrawled in Damian’s impatient hand. It was circled thrice.

“You’ll need to specify,” Becky swirled her wine that tasted of ash. “Who are we crucifying tonight?”

“Loid Forger!” Damian snapped. “Twilight! Agent fucking Twilight! Where was he when she died?”

Emile, still in his tie because he’d sooner be buried in uniform than admit he was tired, set down the municipal file he combed for hours. “Not there, which is the problem.”

“I gathered that much!”

“No, you misunderstand,” Emile sighed. This was one of the angrier days, it seemed. “He wasn’t just absent. The file on his whereabouts doesn’t exist.”

“Doesn’t exist,” Becky snorted. “That’s sloppy.”

“Not sloppy, deliberate.”

He stopped pacing, eyes bright with fury. “Then find it! I don’t care if it’s buried under a hundred locks or stamped across some graveyard in code!”

It is a truth universally acknowledged that rich kids do not investigate murders, but being rich meant they didn’t necessarily care. Becky handled civic obstruction by pouring a small fortune into the police union’s pension fund in exchange for unfettered archive access. “I practically own the department now,” she sang. “If we’re unhappy with the results, I’ll buy everyone’s spouses and see how they’ll like that.” Meanwhile, Ewen applied the power of technology, which meant breaking into tower logs, subpoena-only traffic data and surveillance networks he technically co-owned through a family investment portfolio, all while chewing seventy-dalc cereal straight from the bag. Damian was the engine, paying bribes nobody requested. He was incandescently alive, fuelled by world-ending guilt and thought-ending vodka.

He started with his cover identity – Dr. Loid Forger, psychiatrist. His clinic ledgers revealed nothing unusual, except there were no appointments scheduled that afternoon, but his eyes snagged a neat gap between patients.

“God, this is boring,” Ewen muttered, scrolling through digitised ledgers and eating pistachios out of a Baccarat bowl. “He’s the most boring man alive.”

“Boring is suspicious,” Damian snapped and stabbed a printout provided by Emile. “People aren’t blank. Blank is a cover. Blank means something was scrubbed.”

“Or,” Becky plucked a pistachio from Ewen’s bowl, “it means he was out doing spy things. I mean, come on, he’s Twilight. You don’t get a neat Outlook calendar when you’re playing Bondman.”

“Even Bondman left evidence,” Damian hissed, and tried not to think about how it was her favourite show. “He was deployed, so find me the order.”

Obviously, WISE would hardly hand over Twilight’s assignments, so maybe the SSS noticed something. Emile made the calls, leveraging his badge with a side of Becky’s bank account. A week later, he dumped a stolen archive onto her dining table. “Technically, this is treason,” he announced.

“Yes,” Becky agreed. “Now pour me some wine.”

They combed through the intercepts. The majority were mundane, covering border crossings, intercepted radio chatter and various contraband imports, though one line made Emile straighten. Northern rail line – foreign asset activity suspected. Time of note: 18:07. The file was stamped Cleared; No Further Action. Damian snatched it. “This is him. It has to be.”

“Careful,” Emile warned. “We can’t prove definitively that it's him. It could be any foreign asset.”

“It’s him,” Damian snapped, because jumping to conclusions had never gone disastrously before. “It’s the exact window of time he left her.” He pinned it to the corkboard, but he wasn’t satisfied, because he never was.

Naturally, he got his wallet out. 

The defector was half-drunk, bitter, and stunk of cheap cologne. Damian met him in a seedy bar and slid a briefcase across. “I want Twilight’s deployment history.” The result was a single page – not the mission file itself, because that would be too easy, but the transmission header of a mission order. It showed a time of 14:42, a redacted operative number and the keyword apple. He paid the informant triple, shoved the paper into his coat, and failed to breathe until he was back in the Blackbell drawing room.

“He was deployed,” Damian slapped it on the board. “Somebody sent him north. It’s too convenient. I don’t think WISE issued it.”

Becky narrowed her eyes. “Who exactly forged a mission order convincing enough to fool Twilight?”

“That’s the question of the hour,” Damian growled.

Ewen raised a hand from the floor. “Did we, uh, check if he actually went?” Everyone stared at him. “What? I’m an engineer, not an idiot.” He cracked open a laptop, ran facial recognition against old rail security cameras (why on earth did he even have that?) and after twenty minutes, paused the footage. It showed a man boarding the 15:00 northbound train. It was grainy, blurred, but the height, build and stride matched what little he knew of Loid Forger, meaning he was gone from 15:00 to 00:00. He pinned the grainy silhouette to the board, drew a line to the mission order, and another to the SSS intercept.

“Somebody forged intel and tricked WISE into deploying their best agent on a phantom Apple lead.”

“And he went because he trusted it,” Emile said quietly.

“And left her alone,” Ewen added.

Damian dropped his marker and clenched his hands into fists. He couldn’t let any of them see him shaking. “Someone pulled him off the board and left her there to die.” He pressed his forehead to the wall, eyes squeezed shut. “Who the fuck knew how to do that?!”

“That’s only half of it,” Emile cut in. “I looked into Yor Forger, but I couldn’t find any rosters, but she still left work, three hours after him. CCTV shows her being fast and panicked, but I couldn’t find anything pointing to why.”

“I’m sorry,” Becky snorted. “Are you implying both her parents conveniently left at the wrong time and nobody notices or thought to ask why?”

“That’s… not normal, right?” Ewen ventured.

“So, they were just… gone?” Damian raked a hand through his hair. “Like she wasn’t even-” he caught himself with a violent cough that burned his lungs. “Like she wasn’t important enough to watch.”

“Or,” Becky’s tone was sharp as glass, “someone made sure she was left unguarded.”

Damian jabbed a photo of Yor Forger he unearthed from an old Eden brochure. “So where the fuck was she?”

Emile pulled another file from a box of SSS reports (half-redacted or stamped cleared). “Officially, there’s no record. She was at work at city hall, but she left. CCTV has her walking out of the building at 15:41, well before closing time at 17:00.”

Ewen raised a hand, still holding a pistachio. “What if she was a spy too?”

“What did you just say?” Damian stiffened.

“I mean, Loid was a spy, so she could’ve been one too. Family business, right? Spy father, spy mother, spy child.”

“There’s no way. She worked at city hall.”

“Yeah, about that,” Emile slid another page across the table. It wasn’t official, nor did it legally exist. It was a half-burned memo from a different crime scene he worked years ago; stamped in one corner was a very faint bloom, thorns curling like teeth.

“What the hell is this?!”

“Evidence from a weapons raid last year,” Emile shrugged. “It was sent to my precinct through an inter-agency intelligence request.” He tapped the emblem. “My boss has been chasing Garden operatives for a decade. You know, the mythic assassination bureau that leaves nothing but well-pruned corpses and… flower motifs?”

“That’s real?!” Ewen gasped. “I thought that was a spooky conspiracy story!”

“Oh, it’s real. And fond of botany metaphors.”

“And what does this have to do with Forger’s mother?!”

Emile simply tapped a smudge of blackened ink, which read Thorn Princess, which answered absolutely nothing. “Fast-forward to a double homicide I worked about, oh, six months back. Different district entirely, messy scene but somehow no prints. My boss pulled footage from a traffic cam five blocks away, and caught a woman in heels walking away with blood on her collar.” He tossed a timestamped photograph in front of Damian. “Guess who that looks like?”

“I thought she was-” he stopped, because what was he going to say? Too nice? Too warm? Too maternal? “You’re saying Forger was raised by two professional killers playing house?!”

“Not killers, operatives,” Emile amended, “with conflicting national interests.”

“Fucking hell, why are you only telling me this now?!”

“Because until now, you’ve been busy pretending Anya’s death was your fault and didn’t consider that maybe the world was trying to kill her before you got the chance?”

He swallowed hard. “She was my mother’s friend. They had tea together, and she…” his voice cracked. “She brought me a badly knitted scarf once. For Christmas. And she’s an assassin…?”

“Damian,” Becky’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t spiral.”

“She was a fucking assassin!”  

“And a mother, don’t forget that part.”

“You expect me to just believe she was both?”

“Yes, because people are messy, Damian. Not everything is a grand conspiracy. Sometimes a woman kills for work and then goes home to make meatloaf. It doesn’t make her less of a mother. It just makes her human.”

“Christ, that’s bleak,” Ewen sighed.

“She was an assassin,” he paced fast, too fast. “She killed for Ostania. God, do you think my family-” he slammed a fist against the wall to throttle that thought. “What if she was ordered to kill Twilight? What if she killed Anya?!”

“This is unhinged, even for you,” Becky drawled.

“She had the perfect cover, the perfect access. Nobody would have questioned-”

“Stop!” Becky snapped; Damian whirled on her, prepared for a fight. “Yor was a lovely woman. Hell, a shy woman. She baked too much and apologised for existing. She adored her husband, and she worshipped her daughter. Whatever else she did in the shadows, she didn’t put a bullet in her child. If you seriously think she killed them, you’ve lost whatever brain cells the brandy hasn’t stripped.”

He froze mid-step. Emile continued. “Your theory doesn’t make sense, bossman. She left in a hurry at the same time as Loid, and went in the complete opposite direction. Neither of them were anywhere near their apartment.”

“You think she was called in?” Ewen frowned.

“Probably.” Emile grabbed the dropped marker and scrawled pulled away under Yor’s name to match Loid’s.

“That’s both parents removed,” Becky nodded. “Both by false emergencies, which means-”

“It was coordinated,” Damian finished. “Somebody had an in to both agencies. Somebody knew exactly how to dismantle the Forgers, and they left her alone.”

Damian stared at the red ink on his board like it would bleed through the wall. It should’ve felt like relief, but it didn’t, because no matter how much Becky insisted Yor loved her daughter, Yor wasn’t there. Loid wasn’t there.

Nobody was there.

*

Yor Forger was terrifyingly nice. She remembered birthdays, brought baked goods to Eden social events, and once told Damian his hair looked handsome, which took two weeks to fully recover from. Loid Forger scared Damian more than midterms. He complimented him once on his good grades in Economics, in which he beat Anya by a wide margin, and Damian blacked out from pride. Anya Forger remained… Anya Forger. She was loud, glitter-coated and periodically brilliant. She never sat still and kept trying to start a school band with non-conventional instruments. She didn’t deserve parents like that. She didn’t deserve that love or support or pride or-

He watched her from across the schoolyard as she helped a first-year student stick googly eyes on a leaf. She beamed at the child encouragingly; Damian turned away, scowling, and called her a stupid leaf enthusiast. They weren’t friends, absolutely not, but he never missed a school event her family attended.

The next time, Damian was prepared. His uniform was crisp, the facts were memorised, and his public heir voice was polished. This year’s exhibition would not be his downfall. That was, at least, until he spotted him. Loid Forger sat in the audience, taking notes, and not vaguely-interested-father notes, but strategic-audit notes. Damian read three lines of his speech but lost his place when he caught Forger’s dad nodding approvingly at Anya, who pronounced catastrophic as cat-strophic, and giggled her way through it. Later, in the hallway, Damian came nose-to-metaphorical-nose with the man himself.

“Damian,” the man said, cool and collected, “good job on your speech today.”

“Y-you listened?” Damian blinked.

“Of course, I wouldn’t miss it. Your posture was excellent.”

He short-circuited with pride and horror. “Thank you.”

“You’re very diligent,” Forger continued. “You must care a lot about being reliable.” He was too stunned to speak, considering he was entirely convinced Forger’s dad could kill him with a pen. “You remind me of somebody I used to work with.”

“Who?”

Loid simply smiled and walked away. Damian didn’t sleep that night.

He spent weeks prepping for sports day. His relay team had a regimen and a strategy, because he was ready to impress the attendees and hopefully be declared the most efficient child in athletic history. Anya tripped during warm-up and bit her own knee. “Sorry!” she chirped, unfazed. “The floor’s feeling mean today.”

“Why are you like this?” he asked semi-genuinely.

She grinned, upside-down. “You’re fun when you’re stressed.”

Later, Yor cheered from the sidelines. Damian passed her mid-sprint and heard her yell, “Go, Damian!” He nearly fell. Naturally, Anya’s team won, so he blamed the wind and his traitorous coordination.

Loid offered him a protein bar, which he accepted with appropriate distaste and gratitude. “Thank you. I’ll, um, efficiently metabolise this.” Forger’s father smiled, and Damian nearly died.

At a culture mixer in his fifth year, he sat at the end of a table. The auditorium smelled like cheese and social anxiety, and across the hall, Anya Forger taped two paper cups together and declared herself mayor of Snackville, despite holding no official elections. He was unclear how he ended up here. One minute, he pilfered lemon squares, and the next Yor appeared like an overly kind forest spirit and invited him to sit with them, and he agreed, because it was impossible to say no.

He sat across from her and her husband, who corrected the entire pamphlet on Ostanian Historical Cuisine with a biro. Damian witnessed him annotate an asterisk with a smaller asterisk and felt a surge of awe. “…And the mix ratio for the sauce was off,” he told Yor. “Still decent, but not balanced. It was very garlic forward with a poor acid base.”

“Should we tell someone?” Yor asked, concerned.

“No, they’ll just flap.”

Damian stared down at the plate Yor fixed him. He wasn’t ungrateful. He’d been raised to make polite dinner conversation, say thank you and sporadically nod. He liked Yor and Loid, and he especially liked that neither of them asked why his family weren’t there and didn’t treat him like a ticking PR bomb like most adults. Anya bartered a packet of raisins for a fruit basket; Becky was approximately two seconds from slapping her. He took a breath. “You know…” the Forger parents looked up, “it’s nice that you two show up to these things.”

“That’s very kind of you to say, Damian,” Yor beamed.

He cleared his throat awkwardly. He meant to stop there, but he didn’t. “It’s just a shame you insist on bringing her everywhere.” Loid’s biro stopped scratching. “I mean,” he backpedalled, dying inside, “obviously she’s your daughter, I just mean- if she wasn’t, hypothetically- not- I mean, it’s just-” He waved his fork in hopes of stabbing a coherent sentence. “I’m trying to have a civilised time, and she’s using mozzarella sticks as puppets!”

Yor burst into undignified laughter. “Well, Anya likes being creative,” she settled on diplomatically.

“She once glued my tie to a table,” Loid added.

“Sometimes, excessively creative,” Yor finished.

Loid said nothing, but Damian felt the understanding between them that for all his insults and flailing pride, he felt safe with them. He enjoyed that Yor asked about his favourite books and listened, and that Loid offered dry advice like you can’t control outcomes, only inputs when Damian panicked about grades. Neither laughed when he used words like macroeconomics in conversations. The only downside was that she was always there, that pink-haired menace, that human banana peel, that-

“You have some jam on your cheek,” Yor passed him a napkin, and he wiped uncomplainingly. Anya balanced on two chairs yelling about how democracy died in dessert while Becky tried to physically drag her down. “She gets it from Loid,” her mother confessed.

“I don’t yell about dessert,” Loid looked scandalised.

Damian didn’t laugh, but tension escaped from his shoulders. He finished his food. “Thanks. For the table and the napkin. And…” he trailed off. Damian Desmond, eleven years old, unequipped to express emotion, switched course. “Try not to ruin it by letting your daughter talk.” Then, he got up, red-faced, and left. Loid sipped his drink; Yor smiled sadly. They knew what he meant.

At home that evening, Loid rinsed teacups. He could never stop being methodical, even when nobody was watching. Behind him, Yor sat at the kitchen table, her Hello, I’m a Cool Parent sticker clinging stubbornly to her blouse. “She fell asleep hugging a mozzarella stick.”

“It’s good to have goals,” Loid commented.

“She’s drooling,” she added fondly. “Becky tried to stop her after the sixth one, but Anya said she was honouring the cheese gods.”

“I assume that’s theology class sorted.” He couldn’t help himself, but he smiled. “Did you notice that Damian lingers near us a lot at these things? I don’t think he realises he’s doing it, but he finds excuses to hover. I think he enjoys our company, but refuses to admit our daughter’s his friend.”

“But he calls her names,” Yor blinked, “and hides her pens. Apparently, he once told her she had the handwriting of a possum.”

“That’s all true,” he agreed, “but they’re always paired for class projects and he spends most events three feet behind her.”

“That’s… not subtle.”

“No, but he’s eleven,” Loid snorted. “I suspect things aren’t particularly warm at home.”

“Oh. That’s sad.” She examined her hands.

Loid didn’t respond immediately, though his expression flickered. “Desmond kids aren’t raised to express much.”

“Anya said he cried once because she beat him in a spelling bee,” his wife smiled a little. “Should we tell her?”

“Absolutely not,” Loid snorted.

“She’d be nicer to him if she knew.”

“No, she’d lord it over him for a decade.”

Down the hall, Anya sleep-snorted so loudly it startled Bond. Yor tilted her head. “Do you think she knows?”

“Anya could read minds,” he said finally, “and she still wouldn’t notice.”

*

Melinda Desmond’s favourite tearoom smelled like bergamot, marzipan and generational wealth. Anya sat stiffly in a velvet chair that cost more than her father’s car and watched a biscuit melt in a flower-shaped saucer. Next to her, Yor donned her nicest tea dress and clutched her napkin like it held instructions. “It’s so lovely to see you again, Yor,” Melinda smiled, “and Anya, dear, how sweet of you to come.”

“Thanks for having us!” Yor said earnestly.

“Yes,” Anya eyed a gold-dusted biscuit. “This room is very… symmetrical.” Melinda chuckled politely.

Tea was served as Yor smiled widely and Anya dipped a sugar cube, then slurped it. After polite comments and some mild small talk, Yor leaned in with a secret mission. “Anya,” she started sweetly, “you know how you always talk about your friends at school? I was wondering, what do you think about Damian? You two spend a lot of time together.”

Melinda smirked into her tea, intrigued. However, Anya made a face like she’d bitten into a raw onion. “Ugh, he’s the worst.”

“Oh,” Yor blinked, “but you two work together?”

“We do,” Anya sighed melodramatically, “because he insists on being the boss of everything, even when he’s wrong, which is always. He’s allergic to being nice.”

“Surely he’s not that bad…” Yor glanced at Melinda, who looked tickled.

“Mama,” she said with deep, theatrical exhaustion. “He once told me I had the artistry of a sleep-deprived goat, then stole my eraser.”

“He’s very confident,” Melinda offered.

“He calls me a gremlin,” Anya continued, stabbing a jam scone. “He thinks he’s so smart because he uses big words and scowls like an old man.”

“It sounds like he values academic rigour.”

“He also values being a self-important jerkface,” Anya corrected cheerfully. “Yesterday he told me I was too poor to live.” 

“Perhaps it was a compliment!” her mother tried, wilting slightly.

“One time he complimented my shoes and then immediately asked if the clown I stole them from missed them yet,” Anya huffed, reaching for another biscuit. “He’s grumpy and thinks I’m stupid, even though I scored higher than him in languages twice.”

Yor tittered. “Children, right? They have such a spirited way of expressing themselves!”

Melinda waved her hand, grinning. “No, no, let her speak. This is far more entertaining than bridge club.”

Anya popped another biscuit in her mouth and kept talking. “He’s not all bad, I guess. Sometimes, he lets me copy his notes, but calls me an idiot when I say thanks. Oh, and last week, he stopped somebody from asking me to the dance by telling him I was 90% beetle!”

Yor willed herself not to faint into the jam tray. Melinda laughed so loudly a passing waiter jumped. “A beetle! That’s new. I must write that down.”

“Anyway, he’ll probably grow up to be a guy who gets divorced in a Patagonia jacket.”

Melinda smiled slowly, like watching a ship go down in flames. “How enlightening!”

Yor coughed, made a polite excuse, then pulled Anya’s ear close to her mouth. “That’s Damian’s mother, Anya!”

“Oh. Oops.”

“Oops?!”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Mama?!”

“I was trying to be subtle!”

Melinda sipped her tea, realising this was the best afternoon tea she’d ever had. “Well, how honest! It was really refreshing to hear!”

“Your tea is very hot,” Anya tried a compliment to smooth over the situation.

“Yes,” Melinda grinned. “Just how I like it!” This was the most fun she’d had in ages, and made a mental note to bring more biscuits next time, and perhaps a notebook.

*

Damian sulked in his room, which meant sitting perfectly upright with a workbook and a wallpaper-peeling scowl. Melinda swept in, perfumed and radiant from her tea outing. “Darling,” she began warmly, “I had a wonderful afternoon.”

“Congratulations.”

“I saw Yor Forger – such a kind soul – and little Anya came along too.”

His pen punched a hole through his page. “Oh.”

“So, we need to talk,” Melinda sat down.

“About what?”

“About Anya.”

Ink blotted across his perfect script like a wound. Damian glared at it before facing his mother. “Why?”

“Yor is a dear friend of mine,” his mother folded her hands, “and I’d hate to quarrel because of you two.”

“We’re not quarrelling,” Damian replied crisply. “We’re at war.”

“War. You’re eleven.”

“Eleven-and-a-half.”

“Damian, Yor is important to me, and Anya is important to her, and therefore-”

“No.”

“You didn’t even hear me out.”

“If it involves her, the answer’s no.”

Melinda sighed. “I’m asking, politely, that you be nice to her, for my sake.”

Damian stared at her like she’d announced plans to adopt Anya as his sister. “What?”

She fixed him with the gaze reserved for incompetent butlers. “Damian. Please be nice to Anya.”

“Nice?” he spat. “Mother, she glued my uniform to a desk! She throws raisins at me!”

“I’m asking you to stop treating her like an invading pestilence.”

“She is an invading pestilence! She’s a menace, Mother, a hazard to civilisation!”

“Be that as it may, Yor is my friend,” Melinda said sweetly, “and if your behaviour hurts her, it hurts me. I’d consider it a personal favour.”

Damian slumped in his chair like a condemned man. “What’s the exchange rate for favours these days? Do I get extra inheritance for sacrificing my dignity?”

“Damian,” his mother warned.

“You don’t understand. She looks at me with those big eyes and just ruins things. She trips on her own feet and somehow I’m the villain! She sings off-key! She called my essay economical but boring-!”

“Yet,” Melinda poked his face, “you noticed.”

He flinched from the red creeping up his neck. “Because she’s impossible to ignore! That’s not friendship, Mother, that’s survival instinct!”

Melinda hummed knowingly. “All I’m asking is that you be polite.”

“I’d rather be executed.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

For several long minutes, Damian groaned dramatically into his arms. Melinda waited with the patience she developed from raising two Desmond boys and surviving. Finally, he sat up with a sulky pout. “Fine! I’ll do it! I’ll be-” he gagged, “nice! Polite! Civil! Whatever!”

“Thank you, darling.”

“I’ll compliment her shoes and ask about her favourite flavour of crayon. I’ll draw her a guide of the alphabet and clap every time she spells her name correctly.”

Melinda calculated his tuition refund. “Just be normal.”

“I can’t! I abhor her! You’re asking the impossible!”

“She brings out a very particular side of you.”

“She brings out unspeakable violence.” He groaned again. “I’ll do it, but I’m not enjoying it. I’m not happy about it. If she so much as breathes in my direction, I reserve the right to retaliate.”

“That seems fair,” Melinda rose gracefully.

He scowled at her retreating form. “You owe me for this!”

“Of course,” she nodded lightly. “I’ll buy you a spare uniform in case she glues another one down.”

The door closed behind her, leaving Damian in his fortress, muttering under his breath. “She’s not 90% beetle, she’s 90% cockroach.”

*

The box was ordinary enough, which was the first crime. Emile set it on Becky’s walnut table ceremoniously. It was cardboard, taped three times over, and stamped with typical police evidence locker codes, but with the addition of Homicide – No Further Action in black marker. Damian’s eyes snagged on the words; his chest tightened. “Where the fuck did you get that?”

Emile tugged at his tie, less cocksure than he was two minutes ago. “Technically, evidence.”

“Technically?” Becky longed in her ridiculously plush chair, glass of Chateauneuf-du-Pape balanced on the arm. “Do enlighten us, Detective, on the technicalities of grand larceny.”

“I borrowed it…?”

“You stole it!” Damian hissed.

“Semantics. Look, nobody was ever going to look at it again. The case went cold the second it started, so I made an executive decision.” They demanded details, of course. “It was four in the morning. I told the overnight clerk I was cross-referencing. I flashed my badge, slid him a gift voucher for an entire artisanal soap collection, and just walked out with it. You’d be amazed what police departments ignore when you smell great.”

“Bravo,” Becky toasted him. “I always believed corruption can be elegant if you moisturise.”

Damian reached for the box and tore roughly. Inside was a kerfuffle of loose papers, bent photos, an evidence bag with a scrap of torn curtains, receipts and a cheap toy ring. Nothing was in order nor labelled. Somebody scooped up the fragments of Anya’s final day, shoved them in a box, and deemed it all irrelevant. “They didn’t even catalogue it.”

“If you don’t catalogue, nobody requests it later,” Emile shrugged, but his eyes glinted with suspicion.

Damian dug deeper until his fingers brushed a creased, crumpled scrap of paper. He smoothed it out on the table. Anya, back by 7. Don’t wait up. Leftovers in the fridge. You’ll be fine. Dad. Call this number if anything happens: 43-171-59-88. His breath stopped.

“Bossman, what’s up? It’s just a note from her dad,” Ewen perked up, worried about another incoming death spiral.

“No,” Damian’s jaw tightened. “She never called him Dad. It was always Papa, every time,” he looked away. 

“Whoever wrote this didn’t know her well enough to fake it well,” Becky mused.

“Or they knew precisely what they were doing,” Emile supplied.

Ewen pointed at the bottom line. “So… should we call it?”

All eyes turned to Damian, who was already dialling. The number rang once, then clicked; static hissed. And then, impossibly-

Her voice.

“If you see Damian Desmond,” Anya Forger spat with the cadence that always pulled the rug out from him, “tell him he’s a smug, self-obsessed, narcissistic, emotionally-stunted bastard.”

Damian froze; Becky sat bolt upright, spilling her wine and shattering the glass; Emile whispered, “Holy fuck.” The recording mercilessly continued.

“Actually, no! Tell him he’s Sy-on boy, and he doesn’t get to decide who disappears.”

There was a sharp bang, followed by something heavy hitting the floor. The line went dead.

Nobody spoke for a full minute. Damian lowered the phone slowly. Becky was bone-pale. “That wasn’t- no. That was-”

“Planted,” Emile’s policeman’s instincts chewed his brain like rats. “I’m pretty sure somebody recorded her last words, put them on that line, and slipped it in the box so we’d find it.”

“That’s fucking sick- that’s-” Ewen spluttered.

Damian dropped the phone like hot lead. Her words replayed on the world’s worst mental loop. If you see Damian Desmond, tell him he’s a smug, self-obsessed, narcissistic, emotionally-stunted bastard. Actually, no! Tell him he’s Sy-on boy, and he doesn’t get to decide who disappears. “She said my name,” he whispered, unable to process anything else.

“And someone made damn sure you’d hear it,” Emile grimaced.

He staggered to his feet, crossed to the chalkboard, and scrawled across the top. Someone wanted me to hear her die. He underlined it once, twice, three times; the chalk protested noisily. “Who the fuck are they? And why the hell do they think I deserved that?”

The box sat open on the table. The note lay next to it. The room reeked of silence.

He looked back at the chalkboard, and added, They know I’m listening.

Chapter Text

He was just confirming physics. That was the justification he sanded smooth in his skull as he watched Anya work with the cheerful focus of a parakeet reorganising foil. It was physics, not feelings; reality checks, not need. Anya promoted herself to Chief Theorist of Damian’s Dead Friend and skimmed past the dossier of her former life and turned it into a party trick. She got the dog correct, and the recall detonated the foundation of his sanity. He’d recovered enough to stand upright, but not enough to stop.

So, he ran the experiment like a complete coward. His hand just happened to be there when she reached for the scoop; his shoulder just so happened to steady her when she stumbled; his fingers just happened to catch a napkin as she caught the other corner. It would have been dignified if one believed in providence or illusions, but he believed in neither, but could fake both if he kept his breath measured and eyes bored. Every motion had pretext, and nobody could accuse him of deliberate contact, especially not her.

Still, he needed to be careful. Ice tongs in hand, he extended them closer than necessary, letting his fingers graze hers when she took them in an exceedingly innocent exchange. She paused, blinked, and he spotted it – the brainwave.

“Ooh, you know your friend?” she asked, miming donning an investigator’s cap.

“I remain tangentially aware, yes.”

“I bet she liked peanuts! Ate them straight out of the bag. Definitely the salted ones, maybe even honey roasted, and got peanut fingers everywhere,” she waggled them before miming stuffing an invisible handful in her mouth.

His vision went peripherally white. “She did.”

“Ha! Nailed it!” She plopped the tongs back into the ice bucket, clearly pleased with her own cleverness. “It’s funny, I like them too. Maybe me and your friend would’ve been besties. We’d have peanut parties.”

She allowed herself a brief daydream and seemed satisfied with the outcome. Damian gripped the counter until his knuckles hurt. Experiment 1, tong handoff. Result: peanuts, success. Emotional stability: non-existent.

Customers came and went. A man in a crumpled suit ordered a pint of gin and complained that he was meant to be at a conference, not dead; a girl in a hoodie demanded a mudslide with Baileys. Anya entertained them all, flitted with straws in her hair and demonstrated her fire tricks, whilst Damian plotted. The next experiment occurred when he reached for a bottle at the same time as her and poked her hand.

“You know, she strikes me like the person who had a novelty pencil-case,” Maybe-Anya nodded sagely. “If I had to pick one, I’d go for one with a duck on it. Bright yellow and quacks when you press it.”

“What did you just-?” his mouth fell open, but she interrupted by producing a realistic quack, pressing her thumb like a button.

“I’d drive everyone crazy with it. You, especially.”

He backed into the shelves, but she wasn’t even close to realising. Meanwhile, his ribcage caved in. Experiment 2, bottle reach. Result: duck pencil case, success. I require medical evacuation; unfortunately impossible, as I’m dead. “I need a break,” he muttered, ducking behind the shelves until he could breathe again.

They continued. Anya asked a new arrival what their favourite fruit was and argued about mangoes. Damian casually passed her a coaster, but there was no response. He tried a shoulder brush whilst sliding a tray past, and still nothing. The failure rate held steady. The pattern was maddening; the sample size was too small. There was only one conclusion, which was that God hated him as much as he hated himself. Later, she nearly dropped the sugar bowl, and both lunged to steady it. Their fingers touched, and she seemed momentarily stunned.

“I think if I had to wear a crown,” she mused, “I’d get one with Queen of Smart Ideas on it, because, just between you and me, I’m absolutely crushing this detective game.”

Damian nearly choked, and managed to hiss, “It’s not a game!” but she didn’t hear it, and skipped away to refill a glass.

Each success hollowed him, because none were revelations of who she was or what happened to her, and she didn’t even know they were hers. She sincerely believed she was entertaining him, bonding with him and showing off how clever her theories about this dead girl he carried in his ribcage were. The cruellest part was that she didn’t mind the contact. Each time his hand brushed hers, she brightened, and teased him. “Maybe you don’t hate me after all!”

He didn’t hate her.

He never hated her.

He hated himself.

When she polished silverware, he passed her a fresh napkin and ensured he was deliberately close to her elbow. Their arms brushed and produced nothing. “Ex-squeeze you,” she said mildly, “ever heard of personal space?”

He forced a smile. “Sorry.” Experiment 6, elbow contact – failure. Emotional state: humiliated.

“Sy-on boy,” she sang, “your face is doing the sigh thing. I’m considering stocking a sign that says No Sighing, Fire Hazard.”

“I’m perfectly fine,” he snapped, and passed her an empty snack bowl. Once again, nothing happened. He hated how grateful and devastated that made him. He reminded himself the experiment needed misses. He wasn’t chasing hurt, he told himself, he was gathering proof.

Still, science required repetition. She reached to clean after a guest, and he reached across her to orchestrate the perfect casual back-of-hand skim. “Another great theory from Detective Barkeep,” she announced gleefully. “Your friend was super messy. I bet she walked in buildings with muddy shoes.”

“Yeah,” he said normally, despite nearly cracking the counter in half. “She once tracked mud into class so thick Professor Henderson nearly killed her.”

“Ha!” she held a finger in the air. “See? I’m basically psychic, and helpful!” He nodded once, because nodding twice counted as worship. Experiment 7, muddy shoes, success. Emotional stability: tailspinning.

The shift continued as souls of the recently deceased ordered complicated cocktails like the apocalypse came with garnish. Anya chattered and made silly faces whilst Damian engineered contact like a touch-starved sniper. Pass her a lemon? Brush. Steady her wrist while she poured? Touch. Slide a coaster under her drink? A glance of skin. He poured himself whiskey like his life depended on it, which technically, it no longer did.

Anya leaned in sideways, shoulder pressing the line of his ribs with an easy entitlement that hinted she was never punished for taking comfort. “I like Friendly Damian. He’s my favourite.”

“I don’t have a friendly setting,” he snarled, eyes on the ice he stirred with enough vigour to betray various homicidal feelings.

“You’re passing me things without scowling – that counts! Also, you steadied my elbow, which is romance-adjacent in several cultures.”

“It’s called preventing occupational hazards,” he stopped stirring because the glass risked becoming a meteorological phenomenon. “I’m checking that you- obey physics.”

“Aw,” she turned to face him like a plant locating sunlight. “Do I?”

He hated how honest it emerged. “Yes.” He coughed, and immediately worsened it via elaboration. “You’re warm.”

She passed him a spoon over her shoulder, and he made sure their fingers touched. “Hm,” she hummed, “I think your friend had stupid taste in cakes. Like, maybe one time she had a birthday cake that was castle shaped, and it had turrets and everything.”

“How-” he almost blacked out. “How could you possibly-?” He dropped the spoon. “You- she- goddammit.” He pressed his knuckles against his mouth, laughing and choking at once. “On her ninth birthday. She brought it to class. Then she threw cake at my head when I said it looked like a barn.”

“She sounds awesome!”

“She was.”

“You… okay?”

“Completely fine,” he rasped. “Just reliving pastry-based warfare.”

“It’s nice,” she looked at him warmly, “that you remember all this stuff about her. You’re saving bits of her that everyone else forgot.”

“Don’t get used to it,” he snapped, scowling.

“Too late! Already have!”

He adamantly refused to pace because controlled men didn’t pace; he refused to check the mirror to confirm his expression. She smiled, and it meant everything, and he thought, pathetically, that it was enough to damn him forever. No, he reminded himself, this was science, but God’s honest truth climbed out of his brain without permission. It was six years of hunting her killer, of CCTV and late night files and a murder wall with alcoholism, of staking out alleys that smelled like yesterday’s rain and gunmetal. Above all, it was six years of rehearsing what he’d say if he could see her again and not once making it past her name. She laughed at a customer’s bad joke about being late to their own funeral, and leaned across him to scoop ice with alive momentum, and her shoulder bumped against him. The coin toss in his chest landed on heads, and he broke. He caught her with both arms and hauled her in like a drowning man who decided the lifeline was the shore, too.

She stiffened for a heartbeat, then softened with criminal speed, because of course Anya Forger treated an emotional crisis like a puppy left in the rain. Her arms looped around him with a confidence that said she hugged people who needed it and could do it on repeat without collapsing. One hand patted his shoulder and the other slid as slow reassurance down his spine. “There we go.” All humour was set aside for gentleness, which was another joke; the world gave him exactly what he couldn’t handle. “You needed one so bad. I was going to wrestle you into one eventually.”

He made a sound that wasn’t language and pressed his face into her hair. He wanted to be contrary and say he hated her shampoo but he wanted to be dignified but he wanted to be technical and log that her pulse was present at the carotid.

“Oh,” she said into his shoulder, “hey. You’re okay.” Then she snorted in a joke only she got. “You’re like one of those plants you need to mist every day, then you forget one day, and it’s like oops, he’s dust, water him.”

Some part of him laughed, whilst most of him skipped straight into sobbing. He didn’t want to cry at work, facing liquor bottles, and definitely not into her shoulder as she held him like a person and not a problem. He held on harder because, fine, he was crying, and he couldn’t call it anything else. The sound was embarrassing, the volume was moderate, and the duration was distinctly unprofessional. “I’m confirming you’re real,” he muttered damply. “That’s all. This is a- this is a reality audit.”

“You’re confirming hugs exist,” she nodded. “Breaking news – it’s cosy.” Her fingers made a slow path between his shoulder blades. “You’re allowed to be sad, you know. Even grumpy bartenders get a sadness quota.” His hands clenched on the back of her shirt because his hands had free will now, apparently. “You’re doing big feelings. It’s okay. It happens.” He nearly snapped at her to not call them big, and then nearly blurted they weren’t feelings, only leftover adrenaline from half a decade of running. Instead, her thumb rubbed the back of his neck and he made another disastrous noise. He hated that she was kind, he hated that she was kind to him specifically and he hated that the kindness was instinct and unearned. He met the exact thing he needed and was still incompetent at receiving it. Anya rested her head on his chest like it was supposed to be there, and exhaled a sentence from somewhere older than the bar. “This is nice. It feels like being in the sun when it’s cold out.”

He stopped crying because time itself suspended. He’d heard that before, and it branded itself on whatever part of him refused to die with him. The question changed from are you remembering to is it you?

“Sorry, I don’t know why I said that,” she giggled, baffled.

“Because you said that,” he choked and hated how his voice cracked down the middle. What he meant was you said it to me when you were small and sincere and my entire ecosystem. He just tightened his arms and felt her squeeze an answer. The pressure deranged his equilibrium as his dignity filed for bankruptcy; he didn’t miss it as much as he expected.

Her brow scrunched as she listened to something faint and far. “I think,” she faltered, frowned again, and pressed on, “there was a day. It smelled like varnish. I was crying because somebody said something stupid,” she tilted her head to look at him, “probably you, and you didn’t say sorry or anything, but you gave me a pen. Put it in my hand like it was radioactive and didn’t look at me the whole time. I stopped crying, because, um, it was funny…? No, because it was you.” She blinked, startled at her own certainty, then shook her head in polite bafflement, tripping a hypothetical switch in a strange house and turning on a familiar light. “I don’t know why I said that either. Sorry. I’m imagining things.”

He saw the silly frog pen he bought because apologies through commerce had anaesthetic properties, felt the way he shoved it at her like a coward and heard her hiccup laughter around her tears. His heart did something unsafe and he failed to be scientific about it. “Because of me.”

Anya made a helpless face as if her accuracy embarrassed her. “That was so weird, I’m sorry. I’ll shut up! Your hug is all… available. That should be illegal.”

“It’s allowed!” he snapped, but it surprised him enough to feel like a confession. He never allowed anything like this for himself when alive without earning ulcers of the soul on purpose. Her hair tickled his nose and his shirt stuck to his back, because apparently, dead men could sweat. He swallowed thickly and computed whether this would end if he took his hands away, but he stayed exactly where he put her, and worse, where she wanted to be. It scrambled him, so he took stock, like he always did. Her weight distribution was mostly forward, one of her feet on top of his accidentally she didn’t apologise for. Without permission, he logged that he missed her so badly it sank in his bones. “I’m letting go in three, two-” She simply hugged harder, locking at the count of one and trashing his plan. “You’re cheating!” he accused in a tone he never permitted himself to use with any human being that wasn’t a toddler.

“I like hugging you.” That was the end of the argument. “Also, you need it.” Damian considered that a fair assessment but contemplated ruining it anyway, but he didn’t. When they eased apart, he reassembled his face from the wreckage and completely failed. His eyes – traitors – stayed wet. He attempted to whistle casually. Anya tucked two fingers under his chin and tipped him with gentle tyranny. “There you are,” she nodded. “Your face is less murder board, more... art project.” He snorted and scrubbed at his cheeks with the back of his wrist, which made her laugh. He wanted to be a better person but also die a second time in a good way.

“I’m not- never mind,” he scowled. He stepped back and immediately missed her, which he artfully masked by reaching for a towel and scrubbing an already clean spot on the backbar. “You cannot tell anyone I did that.”

“It didn’t happen,” she said cheerfully. “We were doing science – hug science. It’s very advanced.” She ducked behind the register and rummaged with a purposeful clatter that made him nervous, because over the course of their working relationship, she’d uncovered googly eyes (stuck on the bottles), a kazoo (broken) and a harmonica (used for ambience). She resurfaced with an aggressively colourful sticker sheet. “For your records,” she declared, peeling one free.

“Don’t,” he said, already defeated.

“Do,” she corrected, already peeling. She pressed it to his apron like a royal seal, where it announced I Did A Hug. It featured a cartoon bear in high-vis giving a thumbs up; he didn’t see the connection. “There. You’re certified.”

“It clashes with my… everything.”

“It’s funny. I like funny on you.”

He gazed at the tiny tyrant of optimism and wished for an assassin. Barring that, he settled on a withering glare, which once made men three times his age pale, but Anya treated it as a soft breeze. “I’m incinerating this.”

“You’re keeping it. If you peel it off, the universe charges you a fee.”

“Then the universe may invoice me,” Damian pouted, lifting a hand to peel at it, but she caught his wrist playfully.

“Ah-ah! No refunds! It’s a warning label. Sy-on boy contents are pressurised. Hugs may happen.” He swore under his breath but didn’t take it off, because removing it meant more arguing, more touching, which led to annihilation by affection. Besides, peeling stickers left residue, and he hated residue. She refreshed the garnish tray like nothing world-altering occurred, and glanced softly over. “You know… if your friend had somebody to hug when it was cold out, she must’ve been pretty happy.”

“She was a nightmare,” he said quickly.

“You’re okay,” she nodded, and he wanted to believe her. “And if you’re not, we can redo the audit.” He laughed the right way, and nodded at her.

“Deal.” It was almost human, if he felt brave about putting a name on it. He hesitated, then cleared his throat awkwardly, adamantly refusing to make eye contact with her. “For audit purposes, we should probably… run that test again.”

Her grin was sly but kind. “Oh, more hug science?”

“For accuracy,” he insisted, red-eared. “Data integrity.”

She rolled her eyes but opened her arms anyway. “Come here, lab rat.”

His face found the curve of her shoulder like it always knew the way. Damian let his eyes close, let his breath find hers and let himself think for half a minute that things would be fine forever. It was quiet. It was serene. It was peaceful. Maybe they could just stay like that forever.

Until the elevator dinged open behind them.

“…Bossman?!”

Chapter Text

The elevator smelled like boiled disinfectant. Ewen slumped, which wasn’t dignified, but it was hardly like dignity was his strong suit. His chest hurt- no, scratch that, his chest didn’t hurt, which was a problem, because something had gone catastrophically wrong between standing upright and waking up in a metal box. The intercom above his head crackled, too chipper to be a human being.

“Good evening, new arrival! You are currently experiencing an elevator ride of indeterminate length. Please remain seated, or standing, hands and arms inside the car, and absolutely no attempts to press every button at once. One gentleman attempted that, and I needed to go in for repairs.”

“What the fuck?” Ewen croaked.

“Congratulations!” the speaker chirped. “That’s death you’re noticing! You’re very observant. Between you and me, some souls take ages to realise. You’re ahead of the curve already!”

“Jesus Christ!”

“Nope, I’m just your friendly onboarding assistant! And I’m informing you that you have died.”

“No, no, no, no,” Ewen straightened, and regretted it because the car lurched upwards. “I’m thirty-two! I go to the gym sometimes! I eat fruit… occasionally! I’m not dead. That’s not-” he smacked the wall. “I’m meant to pick Emile’s kid up from school! You’ve got the wrong guy.”

“Ah, the classics,” the voice sighed dreamily. “Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. We see the whole Kubler-Ross revue on this ride. You’re in stage two, with a promising audition for stage three.”

It didn’t compute. Dead? He was dead? He clung to the last thing he remembered, which was his drive home, perhaps some headlights at night. After that, it was all a complete blank. “Listen,” he tried for a non-existent bravado, “this is a dream. I’ll wake up in a hospital bed, where my mother will weep over me, and I’ll tell her to knock it off.”

“Incorrect!” the intercom trilled. “However, ten points for creativity!”

The elevator rattled as it climbed. Ewen focused; there was a chance he could break out. He pressed every button, but they didn’t light; he tried the emergency phone, but realised quickly it was a child’s toy. “Where is this thing taking me?”

“Oh, you’ll love it. It’s this exclusive, cozy cocktail bar at the edge of existence. We’ve got jazz, and a drinks menu that’ll knock your socks off, if you still had circulation. You’ll meet the staff, choose your next adventure. It’s all very straightforward.”

“I don’t want adventure. I want to go home.”

“Everybody says that!”

Ewen banged his head against the wall. “Can I- can I at least call someone?”

“Unfortunately, there are no long-distance plans covering the afterlife!”

He laughed or sobbed as the car clanged, each floor a numberless void. Ewen squeezed his eyes shut and thought about his apartment, alive with pizza boxes and the faint smell of detergent; he thought about Emile, who texted him stupid memes whenever he was on a stakeout. He thought about Damian, his rich idiot best friend who was supposed to outlive them on sheer entitlement alone. He stared until his eyes water. “You said onboarding.”

“Mm-hm!”

“What does that entail?”

“You sit down, you have a drink, you admit you’re dead in a way that helps. You learn the specials. You accept that the menu is, in some respects, stream-of-consciousness. You don’t punch the bartender.”

“I don’t hit service workers,” he said offendedly.

“Splendid! We here at corporate love good manners!” For a few seconds, it was smooth sailing. Ewen monitored the seam of the doors, the narrow black where Out was, and imagined prying, because he was a person who pried at problem seams. “Don’t,” the intercom suggested gently.

“I wasn’t going to.”

“As a child, you pulled the backing off every router in the house to learn what humming looked like. You work with objects that hum so loudly the earth hears them. You still pull at seams. You won’t enjoy the seam between this car and what is not this car.”

He sank back in silence. He remembered the rec room at the training centre where he convinced three other engineers to watch a launch at four in the morning and how he brought donuts and still cried when the rocket cleared the tower. He thought about the way people kindly ribbed him for believing in the romance of it. The intercom was rude, but not wrong. Ewen found himself cataloguing the hum frequency, panel screws, the amount of give in the rail beneath his palm, and the ratio between this ascent and the elevators at work that stunk of wet neoprene. “You don’t have to be brave right now,” the speaker buzzed, a hand on the proverbial shoulder. “You can if you want, but it’s not required.”

He swallowed, but the lack of saliva was theatrical. “What happens when the doors open?”

“You meet the bar, the bar meets you. There’s wood and brass and ice in tins. You’ll be offered kindness disguised as a wine list. There’ll be a register of jokes, some of which you’ll groan at. That’s part of the onboarding. You’ll be urged to sit and drink, but you won’t be urged to decide. We here at corporate are not vultures,” the intercom said primly; he envisaged a clipboard and a cardigan. “May I offer an optional, complimentary assessment?”

“If you must.”

“You think you failed,” the intercom spoke gently. It reminded him of his mother. “Not at death – death isn’t a grade – but at living, at getting there in time, or getting there at all. You feel foolish for keeping a patch on your desk that you never sewed onto anything, but you’re wrong. Wanting big isn’t childish, but it’s expensive. You paid, and you didn’t get what you wanted in the way you wanted. However, there are other skies, if you wish.”

Ewen stared dead ahead. “You’re very sure of yourself.”

“I’m sure of the drinks!” the intercom chirped, back to hospitality. “It’ll help!”

“I don’t really drink before noon.”

“You don’t currently have a noon!” Ewen pressed a button labelled please end my suffering, because why not, but it didn’t light. He pressed one labelled staff only, but that did nothing. A third said Stairs (But Worse), and when he pressed that, a tiny stick figure falling forever illuminated for precisely one second. The intercom clicked alive again, smug as a teacher delivering a pop quiz. “Shall we discuss childhood?”

“No, thank you.”

“Great, your response has been logged! You never asserted yourself where it mattered. Football field, yes; lunch table, yes. But in your best friend’s shadow? You followed. He moved, you moved. He insulted, you echoed. He barked, you amplified.”

“That’s called loyalty!” Ewen shot back.

“We here at corporate call that absence of self,” the voice corrected sweetly. “Now, space was the only thing you dared call your own. Rockets, dogs-in-capsules, the glossy wall posters – that was all yours. You wrapped yourself in it. Do you understand the stars were your alibi for existing?”

“That’s bullshit,” he snapped. “I wasn’t a shadow. I had opinions.”

“Yes, and you rarely voiced them,” the intercom breezed past cheerily. “For instance, with that girl. Strange little creature, wasn’t she?”

“She was odd.”

“Funny, though,” the voice pressed, “and kind, and best of all, she listened to you. You ranted about cosmonauts, orbital mechanics, food in pouches, and she called it cool. She called you cool! Still, when he sneered, you sneered too. When he tripped her, you laughed. When he pushed, you pushed, all out of loyalty.”

“I was a kid,” he side-eyed the speaker holes. “It’s what kids do. You back your friends.”

“Even when he was a… what’s the technical term…? A dickhead?”

“That’s what friends are for.”

“Oh, Mr. Egeburg,” the intercom cooed. “That’s what accomplices are for.”

He gripped the rail. “She didn’t hold it against me.”

“You could’ve stopped,” the intercom shot back sharply. “You could’ve said what you thought. You had the words in your mouth and chose silence. You could’ve shoved it in his face, and maybe, just maybe, he’d have stopped hurting everyone to prove he didn’t care.”

“He wouldn’t have listened,” Ewen shook his head. “He never listened.”

“False!” the intercom chirped brightly. “He listened to you. Always did. He just never let you know it.”

“Either way, he’d have denied it, gotten mad, and called me an idiot.”

“Of course he would! He was pride in good tailoring! Still, he would have gone home, stared at his ceiling and admitted you were correct!” The intercom allowed silence to yawn for effect. “Then, and here’s the bit that sucks, maybe she wouldn’t have died thinking she was hated, he wouldn’t lose himself in self-loathing, and maybe you wouldn’t be here in this charming vertical coffin.”

“Stop it.”

“You stop it!” the elevator bantered back. “She was nice to you when she had no reason to be, and you ground her down because you didn’t want to lose your place.”

His chest ached with the phantom memory of a heart that deserved pain. “I was a kid,” he whispered weakly.

“You were old enough to know better.”

He slid down the wall until he was crouched, arms on his knees, floor humming underneath him. “If I’d… maybe they’d…” Be alive. Be happy. I wouldn’t be here.

“Does it hurt?”

He barked a hollow laugh. “Hell yes.”

“Excellent!” the speaker said satisfactorily, followed by the sound of a page being stamped. “Acknowledgement is step one!” The elevator rattled upwards, and Ewen wondered if it would ever stop. “We here at corporate think loyalty is lovely, though we recommend it in moderation.”

“I’m a good friend,” he set his jaw.

“You are a fierce friend,” the speaker managed to sound like praise and a clinical observation. “You let him burn his hands because you couldn’t stand to take the match away. You carried his bag when his shoulder hurt, and pretended it was yours when his pride didn’t permit this. You sat on cold steps at dawn with coffee while he hunted ghosts. Despite not understanding the hunt, you brought the coffee anyway. You, Mr. Egeburg, are exceedingly kind.”

“You don’t know anything about me.” He didn’t realise his hands shook until the metal rail juddered under his grip.

“I have your calendar invites!” the intercom informed him pleasantly, before softening. “There are three doors waiting for you. Final rest, restarting your old life, or reincarnating somewhere new. You’ll decide when you’re ready. Not before.”

“That’s it?”

Ewen hugged his knees and wanted space. Not the metaphorical sense, the literal one. He studied rockets and plastered constellations above his bed as a kid. “You’re thinking about the stars, aren’t you? About how you never got there?” Weirdly, the intercom sounded inquisitive. This thing was definitely too weird to even engage with, so Ewen stuck to what he knew.

“So,” he forced a smile, “what’s the elevator run on?”

“Run on-?!” the intercom sputtered.

“The mechanics. The counterweight system? Hydraulics? Magnetic levitation? Because, if we’re moving between planes of existence, I can’t imagine you’re relying on steel cables.” He peered at the panel, eyes bright with interest. “What’s the load capacity? How do you handle thermal stress? What happens if the whole thing stalls?”

“Sir, this is an afterlife experience, not a manufacturing tour.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not engineered,” he tapped the wall thoughtfully. “Materials feel cheap, but you’re masking the frame. I’d bet my life that the carriage is non-Euclidean.”

The voice tried to sound firm, but there was a hint of fluster. “We here at corporate neither confirm nor deny our… uh, construction processes!”

“So, yes, then.”

“This is a spiritual transition device, not a freight-”

“Load. Capacity,” he repeated.

“Unlimited.” It sounded genuinely sulky.

“Counterweight?”

“Classified.”

“Cable type?”

“No cables!”

“Magnetic suspension, figures,” Ewen smirked. “What about power source? Quantum battery? Void siphon?”

“We use… corporate synergy!”

“That’s not real.”

“Neither’s gravity up here!”

“Every system fails eventually, you know.”

“Not this one!”

“They all say that.”

“You are very smug for a soul in transition.”

“Hey, it comes naturally.”

The elevator dinged; the doors began sliding open. Ewen rose on shaky legs and braced himself. “End of the line, cosmonaut. Try not to panic. You would hate to interrupt a tender moment.”

Ewen stepped out onto a polished parquet. The warm, citrus air, edged with smoke and vanilla, hit him first. A lazy saxophone curled around a bassline; the lighting made every brass fixture gleam. The walls were dark-wood panelled, the drapes were velvet, and the chandeliers dripped crystal. His jaw slackened. “Okay. This is nice.” People sat around tables, suits crumpled from offices, some in pyjamas, some in shimmering dresses, all sipping cocktails garnished like edible sculptures. Everyone seemed… oddly serene for the newly dead. “Alright, if I have to be a ghost, at least I’m a ghost with style.” He trailed his fingers across the back of the chair; it was supple, real. He smelled a lemon twist in someone’s martini.

Then his eyes landed on the bar.

The world dropped out from under him.

Standing there was Damian Desmond, dead seven years, the man who sneered his way through life. Except his face was buried in somebody’s shoulder, arms locked around them like a vice. That someone, absurdly, impossibly, was Anya Forger, dead thirteen years. They weren’t hugging. They were clinging. His fingers fisted the back of her shirt like if he let go the universe would erase her again. Anya pressed a hand to his spine, grounding him with surprising ease.

They looked happy.

Ewen’s knees buckled, so he caught himself on the nearest chair, leather creaking under his grip. “Bossman?!”

It cracked across the room’s hush as heads turned, glasses clinked faintly back onto tables. The saxophone gave a startled squeak; the brass instruments gossiped. Damian reacted first by springing back from Anya, arms snapping to his sides so fast he looked like a schoolboy who’d been caught smoking. His face went sheet-white, then tomato-red, then arranged itself neatly into the patented sneer that never fooled anyone.

“I wasn’t- this wasn’t- shut up!” he barked before Ewen said another word.

Anya blinked, then straightened cheerfully, entirely oblivious to the scale of the scandal taking place. She smoothed her shirt like rearranging cushions. “Hi! Welcome! New guy!” she waved sunnily, like she wasn’t in the epicentre of an emotional explosion. “What can I get you? Beer? Cocktail? Something with umbrellas? We have umbrellas!”

Ewen’s mouth flapped uselessly. He pointed at her, then at Damian, then at her again, the motion as jerky as a fault compass. “You- you two-”

“Don’t!” Damian snarled.

“You’re here?!” he blurted, voice cracking like puberty came back for round two. “You’re both here?! Hugging?! What the-?!”

“We weren’t hugging!” Damian yelped furiously. It fooled nobody, least of all the chandelier.

Anya tilted her head curiously. “Do you two… know each other?”

Ewen tittered incredulously. “Know each other? He’s my best friend!” he jabbed a finger at Damian, who was currently trying to become one with the wallpaper. “That’s Damian Desmond!” The room quietened. Anya looked at him with polite confusion on her face. “And you-!” he swung towards her, “are Anya Forger!”

“Um,” she shrugged apologetically, “sorry, no?”

Ewen staggered like somebody kicked his knees. “…What?”

Damian cleared his throat; all attempts to transform into upholstery had failed. “She’s telling the truth. She doesn’t know who she is.”

“Yes I do! I’m the bartender!” Anya brightened helpfully, like it was good news. “I make a mean gin fizz, and I can light sugar cubes on fire. Watch!” She reached for the tongues.

Ewen didn’t watch. He gawped at her, then at Damian, then the absurdly luxurious bar, and his brain made its final conclusion. He was dead, and God decided his purgatory was watching Damian Desmond canoodle Anya Forger and then pretend it never happened. He made it to the bar, where he flopped dramatically. “Holy shit.” Damian, same perfect posture, same tired eyes, polished a coupe glass and didn’t think about throwing it at a wall. He carried the same angry energy he recalled from school, and wore… an apron? Ewen blinked. An apron was not on his assumption matrix of afterlife revelations.

Damian noticed the stare, grimaced, and cut him off before the obvious question left his mouth. “No, I don’t know how it works. Yes, it’s complicated. And no, you’re not hallucinating. I’m real. The bar is real. You’re real. You’re also, you know, dead.”

Absurdly, Ewen’s face lit like a festival torch. “Dude, this is awesome! I thought I’d be stuck here with some boring angels or a talking goose or whatever, but you’re here!”

“Why does that make it awesome?”

“I haven’t seen you in years, and now,” he swept an arm across the bar, “here you are! This is- this is insane! Desmond and Forger in the same ghost bar! What is this, a group project from hell?”

Damian cleared his throat. “Can I make you something? I’m on, um, shift.”

That took a second to register. “…You’re… on shift.”

“Yes.”

“As in, working.”

“Yes.”

“Like, for money?”

“Nobody gets paid here.”

“You’re working in service?!”

“It’s not like that,” his jaw flexed.

“You’re polishing glassware and taking orders. You, Bossman, voted most likely to kill a waiter, are wearing an apron and saying phrases like on shift.”

“I’ll kill you with a swizzle stick.”

“This is the best day of my death,” Ewen whispered.

Anya handed him a drink. “Here you go! I picked this one based on your aura. It says cherry cola and chaos. And here,” she pulled something from her pocket, “is for being so brave on your first day.” It was a sticker of a skull wearing sunglasses that announced I Died!  

Ewen beheld it like she handed him a fragment of God. “I… I don’t know what to say.”

“Try thank you,” Damian muttered.

He took a long sip of his drink, then studied them both over the rim. “So, are you two, like…?”

“We’re co-bartenders!” Anya declared cheerfully. “We argue about everything and sometimes we do hug science!”

“I hate her,” Damian informed him through gritted teeth.

“Okay,” he nodded. “I’m dead. This is the afterlife. You two are professionally dysfunctional. I have a sticker on my chest and booze in my hand. Life is over. Nothing matters. This is perfect.” He grinned, and span on the stool like an excitable child. “Do I get to work here too?”

“God, no!”

“Maybe!” Anya perked up. “If you pass the vibes test.”

“What’s the vibes test?”

She leaned forward, very seriously. “Would you kill a customer who asked for extra ice?”

“Only if they were a dick about it.”

“That’s the spirit!” Anya beamed.

Ewen snorted into his glass, spinning the stool one more semicircle before it squeaked. “Hilarious. Love it. Man, you don’t know how relieved I am you’re both here. I thought I’d be stuck alone with my conscience, which is quite frankly, a dick.”

“You should listen to it more often,” Damian muttered darkly.

“Shut up, apron boy. I missed you,” he turned, but the grin cracked. “You died, made me bury you, then signed up for backshift in the afterlife. Do you have any idea how insane that is? You absolute bastard, you died before thirty.” Still, he lunged across the bar and hugged him anyway. It was a full-body hug which said I held your memorial and called you an idiot.

Damian stiffened like he’d been hit with a car. “Okay. That’s- that’s happening.”

“You’re here. You’re dead and alive and also behind a bar. This is so on-brand I want to scream.”

He peeled him off like a reluctant fruit sticker. “You’re crying.”

“I’m not.”

“You absolutely are.”

“Shut up! You’d cry too if your best friend faked his death by dying.”

“I didn’t fake it-!”

“I grieved you, man. I lit candles. I got super emotional. It was disgusting.”

His best friend looked uncomfortable in the way only somebody who was legally dead and emotionally unavailable could pull off. “I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t, moron! You were dead.”

“…How did I die?”

Ewen froze. His mouth opened. “You-” There was static in his ears, behind his teeth, across his thoughts. There was a thick, unplaceable wrongness that shattered glass, triggered earthquakes, or invited whoever watched into the room.

“Well?” Damian quirked a brow.

“You…” Ewen tried, gripping the counter, “you-?”

“Try again!”

“I am trying! You- you were-” Still, there was that overwhelming static. He shook his head to clear it. “Okay, that’s new.”

“You alright?”

“No,” he took another sip of his cocktail and exhaled. “I know how you died, I remember.”

“Is this trauma, or your usual flair for dramatics?”

“I don’t know! Every time I try and tell you, it gets scrubbed out! I’m being redacted in real time!”

Damian wanted to make a sarcastic remark, then stopped with a puzzled frown. “Hm. Might be this place.” He turned to Anya, who played Jenga with lemon wedges and sugar cubes. “Hey, Forger?”

“Yup?”

“Is there a rule about saying how someone died?”

“Hmm,” she balanced a sugar cube on her temple. “Unofficially, yeah. You’re meant to figure it out on your own. Like one of those mystery novels where the butler did it, except sometimes it’s not the butler, it’s you, so you can’t cheat.”

“Cheat?” Ewen blinked at her. “What counts as cheating in death?”

“Getting told straight up,” she said brightly. “You’re supposed to realise your own death in your own time. Otherwise, it doesn’t stick.”

“Doesn’t stick?” Damian echoed incredulously. “What am I, a fridge magnet?”

“So true!” Anya lit up. “Souls are fridge magnets. If you slap them on too fast, they fall off the fridge. Then they get lost under the oven and everyone blames the dog.”

His brown furrowed. “And you know all this how, exactly?”

“I work here.”

She sounded practiced, like a staffer, not a person. His throat tightened as anger and panic tangled in his chest. Of course she knows the rules. That’s her job. She’s a bartender. That’s all she is. For a fleeting second, it winded him, because if she wasn’t Anya Forger, and was just a divine employee with her face, it meant he hadn’t found her at all. His reason for staying and serving cocktails in his interpersonal hell would be gone, and he’d lose her twice.

“Also!” she brightened suddenly. “One guy tried to write his friend’s death on a napkin, but the ink spelled nice try with a smiley face in bubble letters. Isn’t that funny?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. Of course she’d say something idiotic like that. His certainty settled firmly back into place. Nobody else in the world could be that stupid. “You’re a complete moron.”

“Thank you!”

Ewen turned to Damian. “Bossman, I want to tell you, but the fabric of the… space-bar is stopping me. And if that’s not the creepiest shit I’ve ever said, I’ll eat my sticker.”

Promptly, Anya handed him a fresh one, which was pink and sparkly and declared I Tried My Best! “There. For your emotional efforts.”

He nodded solemnly. “Thank you, bartender. I feel marginally validated.”

Damian sighed. “So, to recap, we’re all dead, I still don’t know how I died, and you’re wearing glitter.”

Ewen held up his cocktail. “Welcome to the afterlife, baby.” 

Chapter Text

Damian suspected his father’s signature wasn’t ink but contagion. It appeared everywhere – on decrees, receipts, matchbooks he was fairly certain he didn’t sign for. Yet it was always there, the looping D. Desmond, staring back like a cryptic middle finger. He tried to ignore it, failed, so drank it away, and failed louder. Obviously, the only recourse left was to don an expensive coat, light a cigarette he didn’t want, and break into the National Unity Party’s headquarters at three in the morning with three accomplices who mistook criminal conspiracy for weekend hobby. Naturally, there was no alternative.

The NUP Headquarters weren’t built for espionage. It was built for grey corridors, fluorescent lights, and clerks who were born with a complaints form, which made it ideal for Damian to commit several felonies. The biggest problem was that Becky’s shoes were too loud. Every click of her heel sounded like a car alarm. “Do you mind?” Emile hissed, adjusting the collar of his ‘borrowed’ clerk’s jacket. “We’re meant to be discreet!”

“If you wanted discreet,” she shot back, “you shouldn’t have dragged me into a government basement in last season’s Versace. It’s disgraceful.”

Damian was five paces ahead, coat collar up, cigarette dangling like a lit fuse. His eyes gleamed with concerning mania. “It’s here. I know it.”

“You don’t know it,” Ewen huffed, lugging a bag of bolt cutters, duct tape and snacks. “You think it, which is drastically different.”

“I can feel it, actually,” he snapped, jabbing his cigarette. “Rows of children. Subject 001, 002, 003…” he inhaled more smoke than necessary, “007.”

“Christ,” Emile muttered. “Don’t say it like you’re reading a shopping list.”

“Do you even know which door we’re looking for?” Ewen whispered, pulling bolt cutters out his bag and slinging them over his shoulder.

“All doors,” Damian hissed back. “We’ll find the right one by force.”

“That’s not how locks work.”

“That’s exactly how locks work.”

“Gentlemen,” Becky glowered at them, “stop arguing. We’re here to rob the government, not audition for a pantomime.”

Emile, concerningly the only adult, pulled a folded mini-map from his jacket. “Records annex is sub-basement two. Restricted access. We’ll need to bypass two checkpoints, one camera, and one bored guard.”

“Bored guards are dangerous,” Damian lit his third cigarette. “They have time to think. They see everything.”

“Or,” Ewen suggested, “they’re watching Berlint in Love on their phones.” Becky nodded approvingly.

They reached the stairwell, where Damian kicked the door. The door resisted, so he resisted harder; it stayed locked, so Ewen clipped the chain; finally, the door sighed open. They spilled into the records annex like drunk burglars, because they were. It stank like the corpse of bureaucracy; boxes towered in uneven stacks as cabinets groaned under the burden of their secrets. “Split up,” Damian ordered.

“And we’re looking for what, exactly?” Becky drawled.

“Apple. Youth Rehabilitation Pilot. Cognitive Augmentation. Fruit!”

“Fruit?”

“Apple, you dolt!” He kicked the nearest cabinet. “Just search!”

They scattered. Ewen tugged open drawers and gasped at every page like it was a revelation, even when it was just plumbing invoices. Becky flicked through files disdainfully like she skimmed through disappointing magazines. Emile pulled out folders, photographed and replaced them. Damian ransacked. Ten minutes in, Becky hissed, “Someone’s coming!”

They heard a guard whistling tunelessly, percussed by bootsteps. Damian’s eyes darted like a cornered animal. Ewen panicked and dove into a box labelled Sanitation Reports 1999. Becky ducked behind a filing cabinet, heels glinting, as Emile pressed himself against a bookshelf. Damian had no plan, so he lit another cigarette and lounged like he belonged. The guard entered, saw the smoke, and frowned. “Who the hell are you?”

“Research,” Damian said smoothly. “Youth wellness initiatives.”

“In the dead of night?”

“Some of us care.” The guard squinted, so Damian sighed, pulled an envelope from his pocket, and pressed it on the guard’s chest. “For your children.”

“I don’t have-”

“You do now.”

The guard blinked, confused, but ten thousand dalc richer, so shuffled away. When the door closed, Ewen emerged from his box, covered in dust. “That was close!”

“That was expensive,” Damian hissed. “So let’s make it worth it.”

Two floors up, Loid Forger passed through the janitorial corridor. He carried a mop and a clipboard, nodded to the clerk, and casually removed the Basement Research Access log sheet from the counter. In its place, he slid a copy that listed only pest control. Down the hall, he intercepted a transmission of four individuals in sub-basement two, probably vandals. Loid rewired the signal, and the message dissolved into static. The guard cursed and returned to watching Berlint in Love on his phone. Behind his mask, his mind ticked. Desmond’s idiot son broke every law of espionage, probably bleeding evidence onto the floor. Yet, Loid allowed it, because Damian waltzed into places Loid couldn’t. A Desmond signature opened doors; a Desmond voice forced clerks to gossip. Loid simply erased the trails. He checked the sign-in sheet at reception with four terrible aliases scribbled by rich kids. He tore off the page, pocketed it, and signed in four unrelated ministers.

Below, they were in trouble. “Shit,” Emile mumbled. “The reel’s corrupted.” The microfilm warped, so whole sections were rendered unreadable. The logbook claimed it contained cabinet minutes, but the surviving frames were about agricultural subsidies.

“They’ve been scrubbed,” Damian groaned. “They’ve buried it in wheat, for fuck’s sake.”

“Or,” Becky countered, “the reel sat next to a radiator for ten years and melted.”

“Conspiracy makes more sense.”

Ewen waved a sheet. “You guys, look! Briefing by PMD with a timestamp. That’s gotta be your dad!”

Damian snatched it, read it, laughed bitterly and disregarded it. “PMD could mean Prime Minister’s Debate or Polarisation Mode Dispersion or Project Management Development. It’s nothing.” They tried another locked cabinet, which Ewen gently attempted to smash open; Becky slipped a crisp note under the hinge, and the lock practically opened itself gratefully. Inside were more ledgers and initials, none of which were decisive. Damian tore page after page out desperately. “He must have dictated something. A memo, a speech draft – I know he did, so where the hell is it?”

An hour later, the guard Damian bribed logged suspicious activity, possible break-in. Loid rewrote the page to routine inspection. He signed with the name of a long-retired clerk, and moved the original report into his coat. Yes, the guard would recall something, but memories without proof rotted. 

The investigation hit their next blocker in the form of a steel cabinet with a red seal which stated Clearance L5 Only. Damian rattled the handle, but naturally, it was locked. “This is the one.”

“You don’t know that,” Emile knelt to inspect the lock, and fiddled with the tumblers. Sweat beaded his brow. “This is non-standard.”

Ewen leaned over his shoulder. “What if we just-?” he brandished a hammer.

“That’s the opposite of subtle.”

“We’re not subtle people!”

Damian snatched the implement. “Give me that!” He whacked the lock with an ugly crunch, and the cabinet yawned open to reveal ominous, black ledgers. “This is it!” he studied the dates on each file. “The prime years.” He yanked one free, pages stiff with age, and read greedily. Youth Cognitive Pilot. Subject Intake: 0-5. Protocol: cognitive anomaly detection, resilience thresholds, predictive cognition. Every line seared with Authorising Signature – D. Desmond. “There it is. Not a minister, not a committee. Him. Always him.” By the end of hour one, Damain smoked an entire pack, threatened three filing cabinets and accused one water cooler of grand larceny. “This is useless,” he snarled, hurling a page into Becky’s expensive handbag. “He signed them, yes, but he signs everything. Maybe he autographs budgets like baseballs. This isn’t proof – he’s still got plausible deniability!”

“Which is why,” Becky didn’t bother removing the papers crammed in her bag, “we need corroborating evidence. Speeches, memos, anything with his voice attached.”

Ewen peered up from a stack of dusty boxes. “What if he was tricked? Like, some sneaky bureaucrat just… slipped it into the middle of some papers and he didn’t even look? It’s a classic shuffle move, Bossman.”

“My father doesn’t shuffle. He signs like God chiselling commandments.”

“Still,” Emile cut in, flipping through a microfiche reader that was one power surge away from exploding, “if we’re going to nail him, we need more than ink. We need him talking about it, pushing it, or else you’ll be told you’re seeing ghosts.”

“I am seeing ghosts!” Damian stubbed out his cigarette on a filing cabinet. “Hers, to be specific!”

Becky took a sip of emergency cognac. “Somebody get him a hobby before I smother him.”

They didn’t get out clean – a second guard nearly caught them, and this one wasn’t a bribe lover. Becky tried, but he refused. Ewen panicked and dropped his bag, spilling snacks and tools everywhere. The guard bent to grab him, but Emile swung efficiently with a punch that sent the man to the floor. He then yanked Damian and Ewen by the collars. “Move! Now!”

They sprinted, papers flying. The guard chased, radio crackling. Becky tripped on her heels, cursing like a sailor, but Damian held her up. The group burst into the stairwell with thundering hearts. At the top, the security gate should have been locked, but instead, it swung open. They didn’t question it, and fled into the night. Loid left the building an hour later, mop abandoned in the closet, alongside one unconscious guard. He scrubbed their fingerprints from the archive. By morning, their trail would be gone, but the four rich fools were closer to gaining what Loid never achieved. He didn’t do it for them, but because once, a little girl danced with him in the kitchen and called him Papa.

*

The tapes whined before they started. Dust coated the reels, labels peeled like cheap wallpaper, and the projector’s bulb hummed menacingly. Damian hunched over the machine, flicking ash on Becky’s carpet. “We’ll find it. The bastard can’t hide from his own tongue.”

Becky sprawled in a decadent armchair, utterly unbothered. “If his truth involves another ten minutes about train punctuality, I’m defecting to Westalis.”

Ewen untangled wires and muttered happily to himself. “This one says 1997 fiscal session. Ooh, infrastructure. You like infrastructure, right, Bossman?”

“I like vengeance,” Damian growled.

“Alright,” Emile resignedly sat beside a tape recorder with a notebook balanced on one knee, “let’s begin the descent into hell.”

The reel clicked. Donovan’s mercilessly dull voice crackled out of the tinny speakers. “It is the responsibility of this chamber to ensure the Eastern Rail Division continues its proud tradition of connecting our citizens…” Thirty minutes later, Becky slept with her sunglasses. The second tape was worse. “…While agriculture may seem humble, it is in fact the cornerstone of national stability. Without proper storage facilities, we risk both famine and decline. The chamber must consider-”

“Kill me,” Becky groaned in her sleep.

“He hasn’t said children once,” Damian paced. “Apple was about children. He should be obsessed with children. Where are the children?”

By the fifth reel, they drank straight from the bottle. “Our foreign policy must be rooted not in aggression but in vigilance. Our adversaries are patient; we must be more patient still. Peace is a discipline, not a gift…”

Emile scribbles notes grimly. “Every phrase could mean everything or nothing. It’s like he’s fluent in vagueness.”

“Of course he is,” Damian snapped. “He’s my father. Vagueness is his mother tongue.”

“We’ve been here four hours,” Becky yawned. “I’ve aged out of my own trust fund. If he doesn’t say something incriminating soon, I’m calling my butler to carry me to bed.”

“May I remind you your best friend is dead?” Damian barked. “You’ll fucking listen.” She looked away, moderately ashamed; still, she refused to cry, because he’d never let her live it down.

They slogged through speeches on educational reform (discipline must precede enlightenment), on civic hygiene (a clean street is a moral street) and on reconciliation (forgiveness must be institutional, not personal). At one point, Ewen perked up. “He said apple!”

Damian lunged to rewind. The reel squealed as Donovan’s voice repeated, “As the saying goes, one bad apple spoil the barrel…”

“That’s it, right?”

Damian collapsed melodramatically. “I’m going to strangle you with this tape.”

By hour six, Damian muttered to himself like a mad priest.

“Discipline, stability, orchard, seedlings!” he jotted each repeated metaphor onto Becky’s finest stationery until it tore. “He’s circling something! A garden! An orchard! Apple! It’s right there!”

“Or,” Emile pointed out calmly, “he likes gardening metaphors.”

“He hates gardens!” Damian shouted petulantly. “He once fired three gardeners in one summer for trimming the hedge wrong!”

They tried another reel; Donovan’s voice filled the room once more. “Our citizens must be resilient in the face of scarcity, to learn to bend, but not break. Resilience is the soul of our people. Our children-” They all sat ramrod straight. “…Must learn this discipline through rigorous education and civic duty. A seedling without pruning grows wild, unfit-”

The tape hissed. Damian’s cigarette dropped ash on his hand, but he didn’t register it. “There,” he whispered. “That’s it.”

“It could mean anything,” Becky scoffed, but her eyes flicked nervously.

“No, that’s Apple, hidden in plain speech. He believed it before it had a name.”

The next tape was even more explicit to Damian’s fevered ears. “Our adversaries invest in steel, but we must invest in minds. To win tomorrow, we must prepare the children of today. They are strangers until shaped, but once shaped, they become-”

“That’s creepy,” Ewen frowned.

“It’s policy language,” Emile shrugged.

“There, see? He wasn’t tricked! He wasn’t blindly stamping! He wanted it!”

Becky stole one of his cigarettes without him noticing and exhaled smoke toward the ceiling. “I’ll agree it’s not nothing, but it’s hardly evidence.”

“It’s at least fingerprints,” Damian snarled. He staggered to the corkboard, and spotted the note Loid pinned to Anya’s grave. Reconciliation Conference, 1998. “Hey, that’s it. Get me that tape!” Elsewhere in Berlint, Twilight removed Emile’s requisition request, and forged a different one for traffic records for the northern rail line. If anybody checked, they’d find a junior inspector doing perfectly ordinary detective work.

The four hauled the 1998 box onto Becky’s table. The reels contained therein were brittle with age, and Damian couldn’t stop his hands shaking as he loaded one. His father’s voice was younger; with horror, he realised it sounded a lot like his own. He decided to swill brandy in his mouth to cleanse it.

“This session is restricted to internal circulation. It will not appear in the public minutes. Western powers have increased their investment in covert operations that rely on behavioural manipulation and advanced psychological profiling. We cannot afford to respond with outdated methods. Ostania requires, at this juncture, long-term assets that aren’t subject to ideological drift or late-stage training failures. Intelligence must begin earlier. We’ve identified favourable traits in a limited number of subjects, including extreme pattern recognition, emotional filtration, and heightened perceptual response. We are not seeking volume. We are seeking refinement. The future of state security lies not in reactive force, but in pre-emptive design.”

Damian’s breath left his body. Becky sipped her wine, face pale. “This is not… nothing.”

“He wanted it,” Damian choked out. “He argued for it. He made it happen.” He pressed his forehead to the corkboard. “She never had a chance. From the moment she was born, he was there, and I-” his throat broke. He staggered on his feet and gazed at the photo of six-year-old Anya, smile impossible. “I called her a moron.”

“Damian-!” Becky started.

“Shut up!” he laughed from approximately six inches in his own brain. “My father tested her like a fucking rat, and when she got out, I spent thirteen years calling her fucking stupid! I guess it’s a family project now! We ruined her from conception to fucking grave!” Emile quietly poured himself a stiff drink. He knew better than to stop the spiral. “You don’t get it. All those times I laughed at her, sneered at her, tripped her, I was his perfect- fucking- little prodigy!”

“Stop it,” Becky snapped. “You don’t get to make this about you. Anya wasn’t yours or your father’s. She was herself, and you can’t fucking take that from her because you feel bad.”

He collapsed into a chair and cradled his skull in his palms to squeeze the shame out. Becky’s words hit a nerve, or perhaps a lung, but something collapsed, because she wasn’t wrong. Unfailingly, Anya Forger had been herself every fucking day, then she died thinking-

No.

“Bossman,” Emile broached cautiously, “you look like you’re about to hurl.”

“I’m drunk,” Damian muttered. “That’s the point of drinking.”

“You’re acting drunk, which means you’re about to do something stupid and I’ll need to save you. Again,” Becky chided.

“Save me?” he huffed arrogantly. “You couldn’t even save face if someone handed you a new one.”

“Deflection.”

“Observation,” he shot back.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no-

He remembered the voicemail recording, static-chewed, breathless, indignant. Tell him he’s Sy-on boy, and he doesn’t get to decide who disappears. The line gutted him the first time, the second time, and the seventeenth time, but now, for the first time, Anya Forger made sense, because she knew about the Desmond signature sewn into the spine of her childhood like a stubborn barcode, or perhaps she figured it out in time to realise what she always suspected, and then he-

“You’re pretty peaky, Bossman,” Ewen tried. “Want some pistachios?”

“I don’t eat pistachios.”

“You ate half a bag last week.”

“That was… strategy.”

“Strategic pistachios. Christ.”

His stomach lurched. He gritted his teeth so hard his jaw protested. He hadn’t meant it. He never meant anything, except that he wanted to win. She always said something, and he always said something worse. It got loud and cruel as his arrogance wore her down, and he watched it happen. He made her cry and walked away feeling triumphant.

“You’re hiding something,” Becky pressed. “Out with it.”

“Out with what?” he sneered. “I’m thinking. Apologies if the sight of a functioning brain offends you.”

“You look vaguely haunted,” Ewen whispered.

“I always look that way,” he laughed jaggedly. “God, you’re all so dramatic. Nothing’s wrong. I’m drinking, I’m tired, and I’ve spent the large part of a night listening to my father compare citizen welfare to railway efficiency. Forgive me if I’m not sparkling.”

“Something’s wrong,” Emile narrowed his eyes.

“Yes, Emile, something is wrong. The entire world is wrong. My father is wrong. You’re all wrong. And I,” he stabbed his chest with a thumb, “am drinking about it. End of story.” It silenced them, not because they believed him, but because they all heard the door clanging shut.

God, he always made her life harder, louder, lonelier. He always tripped her, mocked her, belittled her, all the while pretending it was perfectly harmless schoolyard antics. He couldn’t breathe right as her voice rang out through his ribs.

He doesn’t get to decide who disappears.

Except he had, hadn’t he?

He made her disappear first. He shoved her out of rooms, silenced her ideas, laughed at her voice, called her ridiculous and felt powerful doing it. Of course, the only conclusion she could have drawn was that he did it. He definitely had the means, the money, the motive, and the surname to pull it off. She wounded him in public; he humiliated her back. Isn’t that the way it always went? He remained, as ever, his fucking father’s fucking son.

No wonder, she thought it had his name on it. He would never, never be able to tell her she was wrong. He didn’t speak or move, and he didn’t weep, because that implied he deserved to.

Tell him he’s Sy-on boy and he doesn’t get to decide who disappears.

She believed, completely, that Damian Desmond, the boy who followed her, mocked her, wanted her, hurt her, decided she didn’t deserve to live, all because he wanted to win.

He never touched the trigger, but Anya Forger died thinking he’d paid for the bullet.

Chapter Text

He absolutely wasn’t holding hands. That would be absurd. Preposterous. Entirely beneath him. What happened, clearly, was that they both reached for the same piece of chalk at the exact same second, and through a tragic convergence of quantum bad luck and poor motor coordination, their hands collided. Somehow, they remained clasped like a pair of sentimental idiots in a pastoral painting.

“I had it first!” he snapped.

“I had it better!” she shot back, fingers still wrapped around his.

They hovered by the blackboard like two highly educated social hazards. “You can let go.”

“I could, but that would be surrender,” she sniffed, “and I don’t lose to rich boys with anger issues.”

“I don’t have anger issues,” he snapped, and squeezed her hand hard enough to hurt out of sheer spite.

“You’re gripping my fingers like they owe you money.”

“It’s not like you could pay anyway,” he hissed. “For the record, you’re the one refusing to let go.”

“You’re delusional, Sy-on boy. I’m keeping my grip perfectly neutral so you can let go without humiliating yourself.”

They stood there, palms fused in a battle of wills, whilst a few Imperial Scholars tried very hard not to watch. Damian’s jaw set like a sculpture of embarrassment; Anya wore a smug, unbothered face, because she’d survived several academic deathmatches and come out on top purely through chaotic tactics.

“You smell like chalk dust,” he spoke eventually, desperate to deflect.

“You stink of stolen cologne.”

“I don’t steal cologne!”

“You’re right. You just borrow it from your dad like a sad little heir.”

“I buy my own cologne, thank you.”

“Oh, let me guess, it costs more than my family’s rent?”

“It’s a refined blend of imported- that’s not the point!”

“Then what is the point, Sy-on boy?”

“Stop calling me that!”

“Stop being that!”

His ears went pink; she noticed. Unfortunately for her, though, her fingers twitched; he noticed. “See?” he sneered triumphantly. “You flinched.”

“I twitched. It’s different.”

“It means I’m winning.”

“It means you’re annoying.”

They were still holding hands. It had been three minutes and seventeen seconds, not that anybody counted, except Damian absolutely was, because this was a standoff, and his pride packed a picnic. The chalk lay abandoned on the floor like a war casualty. “You look stupid.”

“You look stressed.”

“You’d do well to show some gratitude,” he huffed. “I could’ve shoved you.”

“I’d survive.”

“Barely.”

“Brat.”

“Gremlin.”

“Trust fund baby.”

“Peasant.”

The door creaked as a teacher passed by. Automatically, both teens assumed the posture of Extremely Respectful Scholars Deep in Academic Collaboration. Their hands remained inexplicably entwined. When the door shut again, neither moved.

“Still holding on, huh?” Anya leaned in closer. “The more red you get, the more romantic this looks.”

“It’s not- not romantic at all!”

“What’s the non-romantic explanation for you clutching my hand like a prom date who lost the limo keys?”

“You’re delusional!”

“You’re panicking.”

“I’m not.”

“Good, then you won’t mind if I-” She squeezed his hand, and his brain short-circuited. It sparked behind his eyes and knocked loose any working memory of why they stood there in the first place. “See!” she grinned smugly. “That freaked you out.”

He glared. “I hate you.”

“Cool,” she smiled. “I hate you too.”

Still, both refused to let go. The tension reached critical mass around minute five. The chalk on the floor haunted Damian’s peripheral vision. His hand cramped, and worse, sweated. He, Damian Desmond, Imperial Scholar, genetically engineered for excellence, perspired over a girl. Something needed to give, and tragically, it was him. “Fine,” he growled, like it cost him blood, “take the stupid chalk.”

“Excuse me?” she blinked.

“I said take it. I won’t be responsible for your tragic academic downfall because your fingers are too weak to pick up basic stationery.”

“Wow,” Anya grinned, “big talk for somebody who lost the custody battle.”

He bent down, retrieved the chalk in a motion too dramatic for its worth, and deposited it into her hand like transferring a cursed artefact. “There. Now write your stupid answer,” he said tightly. “I didn’t even want the chalk anyway,” he retreated sulkily to his desk, “I have superior pens. Imported. Italian.”

“My pen’s great,” she called over cheerily. “I just like the chalk better for working things out. It’s tactile.”

“Tactile’s for starving artists,” he snapped. She laughed, then turned to the board to write whatever nonsense she worked on. Meanwhile, Damian crossed his arms and radiated grump. His ears were red and his pride was dented. He refused to think about how her hand was warm or soft or how she squeezed or how she smiled. “Stupid Forger,” he mumbled, pretending to reread his notes. “She probably uses scented highlighters like a child.”

He glared at his textbook and hated how cold his hand felt. This was ridiculous. This was undignified. He was meant to revise essay structure, not battling a pink-haired distraction in a chalk duel. He was 17% certain he developed a chronic condition from the encounter, maybe hand-swooning or brain-melt. “You’re still sulking, aren’t you?” she sang.

“S-Shut up, Forger!”

Anya twirled the chalk victoriously between her fingers. “Make me!”

Despite the embarrassment, the bickering, the way his heart hammered, he didn’t look away. She smirked, and he felt his cheeks turn red. He would never let this go, nor admit how much he liked it.

*

Damian didn’t so much excuse himself as get conscripted by fate. A man in a pinstriped suit, a CEO who believed quarterly profits applied in the afterlife, jabbed his finger. “I don’t care what you think this is,” he snapped, “you can’t just tell me my assets are gone. I’ll buy the bar – right now!”

“You can’t,” Damian sighed.

“Everything has a price.”

“Not this.”

“I’m offering you a deal.”

“You’re dead, as is your money. Sit down.”

“I’ll double it.”

“I will bury you again.”

“Sy-on boy,” Anya called sweetly, “remember rule nine! No stabbing the customers with stirrers!”

“We don’t have a rule nine,” he growled exasperatedly.

“We do now!” she tossed him a bar spoon. Ewen watched him stalk to the CEO, apron flaring like a cape, his posture radiating aristocratic menace. For a second, it was comforting to see the Damian he knew, but then recalled they were all dead, and it became significantly less comforting. Anya leaned on the counter, chin propped in her hands, smiling amusedly. “He’s gonna fight that guy for twenty minutes. Perfect timing.”

Ewen blinked dumbly at her. “Perfect timing for what?”

“For us to chat! You look like you’re about to explode! You want a soda or a ginger ale or some other miscellaneous fizzy liquid?”

“Do you actually have soda here?”

“Yup! The machine’s temperamental, but I’ve learned to whistle to it first,” she demonstrated, lips pursed in an awkward trill, then poured ginger ale that fizzed obligingly.

He took it numbly. “This is crazy.”

“It’s crazy fun,” she shrugged. “Better than… boring insane.”

“So,” he stared at the bubbles, “that’s really Damian?”

“Mm-hm!” she glanced at where Damian loomed over the CEO like a bouncer. “Grumpy, dramatic, apron-hating Sy-on boy.”

“Sorry, what did you call him?”

“Sy-on boy,” she repeated, as if it were self-explanatory.

“Do you…” Ewen gawked, “call him that to his face?”

“Yeah! The first time it sorta slipped out, and I have no idea why. But later he said I needed to keep calling him it, and I like keeping my guests happy!”

Ewen’s chair creaked with the force of laughter. “Holy shit! He hated that name! He went nuclear if anyone even hinted at it in school, and what, he wants you to use it?!”

“It suits him,” Anya nodded serenely, sipping a pink cocktail.

“This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Bossman, terror of Eden Academy, voluntarily branded Sy-on boy forever. You’ve really done a number on him, Anya – he’s wearing an apron!”

“He complains about it regularly.” She restocked the garnishes badly, fundamentally misunderstanding Damian’s system of things making sense. The mint ended up in the cherry jar, the cherries in a glass shaped like a boot, and the olives unionised against her.

“So, do you two… get on then?” he asked hopefully.

“Oh!” she lit up. “He’s so weird!”

“Is that a yes?”

“He acts like everything is terrible and he hates everyone, but then he makes really yummy drinks and gives them funny names. He does this thing where he scowls at everyone except me. It’s really nice.”

“You think exemption from his disdain is… nice?”

She leaned in to whisper behind her hands. “It’s a very exclusive club.”

“What’s working with him like?”

“I like it when he reads the labels,” she picked at the edge of a coaster. “He pretends he’s checking inventory, but he uses this serious voice and frowns funny. Oh, and he pretends to not listen to me, but remembers what I said ages ago and gives me a pink drink that tastes like candy.”

“That’s very specific.”

“He’s very specific.”

“You like him,” he squinted at her.

“Like him?!” her eyes widened. “Like, like-like him? No, no. We’re friends. Grumpy friends, mostly.”

“Uh-huh. Sure about that?”

“Yes,” she prodded his arm. “He’s my coworker. My apron buddy.”

“You don’t remember… before?”

Anya’s eyes slipped past him like she was watching a movie quite far away. “Sometimes. Little things. Weird déjà vu. Still, whoever I’m remembering, it’s not him.”

“How’d you mean?”

She tapped her temple twice. “Well, whatever flashes I get can’t be him. That person was a big time jerk. But Sy-on boy,” she pointed at Damian, who was currently explaining the metaphysics of currency at gunshot volume, “is really nice. He tries.”

“Maybe there’s two Damians.”

“Like clones!” she beamed. “I hear you.”

Ewen laughed. The relief he felt was obscene; here, in the absurd bar at the end of the world, somebody was happy. “Anya, do you even want to remember?”

She mulled it over. “Yes, but also no. What if remembering ruins this? I’m happy.”

Ewen drained his ginger ale and set it down. Across the bar, Damian yelled, “You cannot tip me with premium bonds!” Anya, watching him, looked fond.

“I think he’s really lonely,” she spoke after a moment’s silence, “but he’s good at pretending he’s not. He watches people leave, like he’s bracing for something.”

“Yeah,” Ewen nodded. “He’s been bracing a while now.” Anya offered him a sugar cube from her pocket like he was a horse. It had lint on it. He opted to not take it. Ewen studied her face, the miniscule crease in her brow, the way her lips curved when she spoke about him, the way her gaze wandered to where Damian dressed down a CEO in alphabetical loathing. “You know, I believe him,” he gestured at her. “You’re Anya Forger.”

Her smile faltered fractionally. “I think I’d remember if I were.”

“But you’re really her.”

“I don’t have any proof,” she ran a finger over the rim of her glass. “All I know is the bar. I’ve always been here.”

Ewen’s mouth felt dry, his head full of words that kept colliding. He wasn’t supposed to say it, and he’d never said it, not even when it mattered. But now, with Damian browbeating a CEO and Anya looking at him with baffled kindness, it slipped out anyway. “He really loved you.”

The words hit the wood like a glass dropped from height. Anya stilled, and for a moment, said nothing, and let a lazy sax riff fill the gap. She set her glass down carefully, as if scared of spooking it. “It makes me a little sad.”

“…Sad?”

She nodded with resignation. “When the real Anya shows up, he’ll go with her, and I’ll just be by myself again.”

“You are her, though,” he insisted stubbornly.

Anya fiddled with the coaster, then pushed it in slow circles, eyes transfixed on the bar. “I don’t think so,” she admitted.

“What do you mean? Of course you-”

“Nope,” she shook her head firmly. “I’ve thought about it. He keeps saying I’m Anya Forger, but it doesn’t feel right. I don’t have her life or memories. I only have the bar. I just… woke up with her face, like someone painted me to look like her and put me here to smile at strangers.”

“But you-”

“I’m not the real Anya,” she cut him off, and glanced to where Damian explained to the CEO why one couldn’t purchase reincarnation. “He’s clinging to a person he lost, not to me.”

For once, Ewen didn’t deflect, and leaned forward, catching her eyes. “Hey, you’re keeping him standing. That’s good. He spent six years without you, and it was a mess. If you’re here, you’re giving him a reason to not go mad. Even if it’s just your job, it matters.”

“That’s sweet,” she softened, but shook her head again, “but you don’t have to-”

“I’m not sugarcoating. I’ve known Bossman my whole life. You’ve seen the famous Desmond scowl, yeah? That’s his baseline. But that man – the apron, the arguing, the not-exploding constantly – is you. You’ve done more for him here than I managed in twenty years.”

Her smile wobbled, but ultimately held. “Thank you, Ewen!”

“Don’t mention it,” he grinned crookedly. “Actually, mention it a little. It makes me sound noble.” She laughed, but he caught how she looked at Damian (still locked in mortal combat), and the shadow lingering in her eyes. This was upside down; shouldn’t he spiral about metaphysics while she cracked jokes? Instead, she sat there with the certainty she was just a stand-in. “You know, copy or not, you’ve got her kindness down pat.” She blinked at him. “It was the very best thing about her. So, hey, if you’re the fake version, you’re a damn good one.”

Anya giggled, and it felt real enough to rattle him.

Damian finally finished eviscerating the CEO after he pitched him a Roth IRA. “You cannot short-sell reincarnation,” Damian snarled; the businessman whimpered about liquidity, but he cut him off with, “Sit down before I repossess your drink.” He stalked back to the bar, deciding his daily quota for idiots was at capacity.

Then he saw them, Ewen and Anya, bent close together, heads nearly touching. She was giggling, actually giggling, her elbow brushing his in conspiratorial ease. Outrage crackled static, ears heating, chest tightening, and before he stopped himself, his feet carried him across the floor like he was en route to stop a pub brawl.

He did not like it.

He did not like it at all.

“What,” he demanded, “is going on here?”

Ewen glanced up cautiously, like he always did when Damian’s temper kindled. “Talking,” he replied guiltily.

“Talking?” Damian repeated incredulously. “That’s what this is? Whispers and giggling and- elbows? This is a place of business!”

Anya tilted her head with a grin. “Aww, Sy-on boy, are you jealous?”

“No!” he snapped. “I’m supervising my best friend and the bar’s only, yet somehow most incompetent, employee from embarrassing themselves!”

As if pouring petrol on a fire, Anya laughed deliberately. “You’re worried.”

“I’m not worried,” he bit out, then coughed awkwardly “Why would I worry about you? You don’t even know who I am, and somehow, you look at him,” he pointed rudely at Ewen, “like he’s the nice one, like you know him, and-” His brain finally caught up with him. He stopped. Ewen blinked. Anya looked confused, as was her habit. Damian’s mouth flapped uselessly, mentally debating whether to run headfirst into the bar or swallow a lemon whole. “I didn’t mean-”

“You notice how I look at people?”

“I notice everything about you,” he bragged, before realising that it wasn’t an endorsement of his observational skills.

“Oh.” She was blushing. He was blushing. They both looked like fire-hydrants on the verge of rupture. She tucked a curl behind her ear, looking literally anywhere else. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I wasn’t upset!” he lied instantly.

“You snapped at her,” Ewen pointed out.

“I was being professional.”

“You hissed like a feral cat.”

“I was maintaining emotional distance,” he waved off the accusation, and then, to save face, his brain calculated the exact worst thing to say before he could prevent them by biting his own tongue off. “Besides, she’s just a copy of the real Forger. She’s… not anybody.”

It landed like a dropped glass.

Anya’s smile faltered and her eyes dimmed. Ewen replaced his cocksure grin with an accusatory side-eye. “Bossman, too far.”

Ewen rarely pulled rank. Damian’s stomach dropped, bile rose, and at the sight of Anya’s confused, hurt face, he wanted to rip the words from the air, then strangle himself. “I-” he stammered. “I didn’t mean-” his hands twitched helplessly. “That wasn’t-” He glanced at Ewen for the usual support, but none came. “You’re not nothing, you’re Anya, and the bar without you is quiet- um, the wrong kind of quiet-” he cut himself off, horrified by the depth of the revelations, and scowled to cover it. “I don’t know why I said that. It was vile. I… regret it.” The last two words nearly killed him, but  he meant them.

For a moment, Anya just stared at him, but a fragile little smile returned. “Wow, Sy-on boy. That was nice.”

“I hated saying it,” he muttered defensively, face burning.

“There’s Bossman,” Ewen exhaled a quiet laugh. “He says sorry like a terminal diagnosis.”

“Shut up, Ewen.” Meanwhile, Anya rummaged in her apron. With a triumphant little sound, she produced a sticker sheet of bright, childish stars, hearts and smiley faces. Damian squinted suspiciously at her. “What the hell is that?”

“Your prize!” Anya announced sweetly, peeling a gold sticker star and prodding it onto his face. “Congratulations. You managed to say something nice without being threatening.”

His fingers brushed the sticker in horror. “This is undignified.”

“It’s adorable,” she amended.

“You’ve decorated me like a school project!” He tugged at it, but the adhesive clung stubbornly, and he feared she superglued it there.

“Bossman, just take the win,” Ewen chuckled. “It… suits you! Yeah, it suits you.”

“It does not suit me!” he bristled, cheeks burning. “I’m not a sticker chart!”

“You are now,” Anya peeled off a glittery rabbit and waved it threateningly.

“Don’t you even dare!”

“Say please,” she pouted.

Pride and humiliation fought a battle across his face. Finally, through gritted teeth, he managed, “…Please.”

She stuck the rabbit on a napkin instead. “Look at you. Two nice things in one night. You’re on a roll.” All other options failing, Damian shoved his face into his hands and groaned. “I wasn’t trying to make you jealous,” Anya removed one of his hands kindly, “but I don’t mind that you were.”

“I wasn’t-!” he looked remarkably like a goldfish experiencing ego death. “I’m going to scream.”

“Not before I get my sticker,” Ewen held out a hand. She peeled one from her stash and slapped it on his palm. This one featured a crocodile doing a thumbs up, and read I Watched A Breakdown And All I Got Was This Sticker.

Midnight Minus One settled into an hour where gossip became philosophy and nobody checked the time, which still wasn’t chronological. The married couple in the corner booth radiated a warmth that made the rest of the room feel domesticated. Their hands kept finding each other; every glance was a private joke with a sixty-year set up. Anya drifted towards them with two fresh highballs and the expression of a child discovering penguins. “You’re very sweet,” she told them, setting their drinks down reverentially, “like sugar cubes. How’d you do it?”

“Do what?” the wife asked.

“The…” Anya circled her hands together to assemble a life out of air, “the together.”

The husband regarded his ring. “Practice,” he nodded. “Tea. Saying sorry when you’re not wrong. Taking turns being the fire.”

Anya nodded gravely, like she’d received state secrets. “Excellent. Tea.” She pointed at their interlocked fingers. “And sticky hands.”

“…Sticky?”

“So you don’t drop the person, obviously.” Self-satisfied, wafted back behind the counter. Damian, polishing a glass like he deeply loathed the concept of fingerprints, eavesdropped with something dangerously soft in his eyes. He dropped his gaze before anybody noticed. Ewen annexed the end stool and declared it his republic. He slurped his drink with a very funny idea in mind. Anya propped her chin on her hands across from his. “They were so cute,” she breathed. “I want to watch those guys forever.”  

“You’ve never been married?” Ewen asked, faux-innocent, glancing sideways at Damian and catching the oblique twitch in his brow. Anya blinked, so he clarified. “The shiny fingers thing.”

“Oh! Is that when you promise to share a house until you both end up like raisins?”

Damian dropped the glass, caught it before it shattered, but that was worse. “She wasn’t-!”

“Shh, bossman, I’m asking her,” Ewen waved him down, but Anya shook her head. He shifted, assumed the posture of a lecturer, and thumped a napkin on the counter. “Okay, Barkeep. Introduction to Human Relationships 101. No prerequisites, pass/fail.”

“A class!” she clapped her hands gleefully.

“A diagram,” he corrected, stealing a pen from her pocket. He drew a big heart, then a smaller heart inside that, not for any particular reason except it annoyed Damian. “Step one,” he said solemnly, “asking out.”

“How do you ask out?” she peered at the hearts. “Is it like asking out a cat from under a bed? Because in that case, I’d crouch and offer treats.”

“In spirit, yes,” Ewen nodded. “In practice, you’d just say would you like to go on a date with me? with your mouth, and not by casting a net.”

Anya absorbed this brand-new interpersonal law. “And then?”

“Step two, dating.” He drew a lopsided triangle. “You go to places, eat things, talk. Hopefully, you discover whether the person is a serial killer or just bad at chairs.”

“Bad at chairs?!” Damian repeated, incredulously.

Manfully, Ewen ignored him and sketched what could be interpreted as hands if one recently poured bleach in one’s eyes. “Step three is handholding. This is advanced. You can’t just do it. You have to initiate it like a gentleman. There’s a whole technique.”

“You’ve never initiated anything in your life,” Damian snorted.

“Incorrect, bossman. I initiated panic attacks in front of women several times.” He turned to Anya. “You graze the back of the hand and hover. If they don’t flinch, you land. Handholding is a… mutual treaty. After that, hugging, which you’ve already done with Bossman, but this should be a special hug.” Anya nodded like he’d informed her where stars come from. “Step five is kissing, which is when two faces decide to share one plane of existence.”

Damian wiped the rim of the glass for the seventeenth time. “You’re bullshitting.”

“It’s anthropology,” Ewen nodded. “Kissing begins with a micro-nod and a tilt. If you over-tilt, it goes badly, and you get demoted to hugs.”

“So many pitfalls,” Anya lamented.

“Step six, sexy times,” he wrote the term and boxed it, before sliding the napkin a fraction farther from Damian, because Ewen enjoyed having an unbroken hand. “This is a whole different course. You don’t enrol without the necessary trust and snacks.”

“Which snacks?”

“Oranges. Maybe a small cake,” Ewen deadpanned. “Moving on, step seven, which is a big one – engagement.” He drew a ring that was essentially a circle. “You ask, they answer. Everyone pretends to be surprised. After that is the final step, marriage.” He drew a house. “Basically, you throw a big party about how great the two of you are.”

“This is so complicated,” Anya leaned on the backbar, mind blown. “How do people live like this? Isn’t it exhausting?”

“Yes,” Damian replied instinctively.

“But worth it!” Ewen covered, pointing at the married couple, who raised their cocktails in solidarity. “Sometimes.”

She studied the napkin. “So step one is asking out.”

“Yes. There’s a script, but you can improvise if you’re charming, or if you can juggle.”

Anya nodded to herself decisively. “Let’s do that then! Ewen, do you want to go on a date?”

Ewen inhaled his drink and coughed like a mortally wounded car. Damian went rigid enough to creak. I’ll kill him. No, worse, I’ll let him live long enough to say yes, marry her, then I’ll kill him. “Me?” Ewen wheezed, not entirely hating the aneurysm rising from his best friend’s head like steam. “Why me?”

“You taught me the steps,” she explained. “So clearly you’re very good at it!”

Damian opened his mouth, closed it and opened it again. “Absolutely-!”

It took real heroism not to look at the human volcano. “Listen, as a matter of principle, bartenders dating customers is unprofessional. However,” he milked the moment because it seemed like Damian was calculating the prison sentence attached to first-degree murder, “coworkers dating each other is a totally different game. You should definitely ask Bossman.”

The glass in Damian’s hand split with a dainty crack. He set it down gently and stared at a point six inches above Ewen’s head, and imagined exploding Ewen with his mind. Anya pivoted. “Sy-on boy, you wanna go on a date?”

“No.” His voice was crisp enough to shave with.

“Please?”

“No.”

“You’d get to sit down,” she offered.

“No.”

“You could be mean, but in a nice way?”

“That’s not a thing!” he snapped, before catching Ewen’s grin. “Fine. It’s a thing. Still no.”

She folded her arms and contemplated how she did when deciding whether ducks deserved worker’s rights. “We could talk about nothing. I’m absolutely great at nothing.”

“Congratulations.”

“Please?” her eyes shone.

His composure slipped slightly. “Absolutely not.” Then, softer, for reasons completely alien to him, “This is ridiculous.”

Anya deflated. “I just wanted to learn. Normal people go on dates. It seemed like good science.”

Damian pressed his palms flat on the bar, sensing the married couple’s gazes like benevolent, yet still oncoming, headlights, and Ewen’s suppressed laughter, and Anya staring at him like a vending machine that might accidentally do the right thing if hit in the correct place. “Fine!” he barked, then immediately regretted the harshness, and overcorrected with a shout-whisper. “Fine. Yes. Fine. Whatever. Where do you want to go on this stupid date?”

Ana looked around at the bar, the jukebox attempting smooth jazz and the void beyond the windows that never produced a tangible location. She made a small oh, like the universe reminded her of its budget limitations. “Here!” she declared. “It’s the only place, and besides, the void has no snacks.”

Ewen slammed his head on the counter and laughed until he ran out of air. Damian pinched his nose so hard it qualified as self-harm. “Our date,” he repeated, dead-eyed, “is at work.”

“Yes! I know where everything is! Besides, we could use the booth near the neon sign,” she seemed blissfully unaware of his pending mental collapse. “You know, the one that says Absolutely No Making Out Behind The Fern. We can listen to it to keep it professional, or ignore it for fun.” 

“I- no- what?! Why would we-?! You can’t just-!”

Ewen lifted his head, eyes wet with joy. “Romance is back on the menu.”

“Shut. Up.”

“Oh, but when do we do it?” Anya bounced on her heels.

“Do what?!” Damian hissed, and then his brain caught up. “The date. The date, obviously. We’ll have it when it’s quiet!” He blamed Ewen entirely for this turn of events. “Happy now?!”

“Ecstatic,” Ewen grinned. “Now, some ground rules.”

“Rules?” he echoed warily.

“First dates have rules, such as not interrogating your date and not, under any circumstances, drafting a flowchart of romantic meanness.”

“I had no intention-!” he began, paused, realised he definitely would do that, and admitted, “Fine.”

“Also,” his childhood friend savoured every second, “handholding is optional, but encouraged. Conversation is important. You’ve gotta ask silly questions like what’s your favourite snack, what animal would you befriend, which cloud is the best.”

Anya raised her hand. “I know this! Peanuts, dogs, and all of them!”

“That’s not…” Ewen started, but capitulated. “Actually, that works.”

“This is obscene.”

Anya pulled the napkin closer and traced the steps with a finger. “People are so busy,” she concluded.

Damian erased an expression that could be correctly construed as fondness, and reached for a shaker to cover his trembling hands. For one treacherous instant, he imagined her hand fitting in his, and marvelled at how possible it felt. He crushed the thought with a psychic hydraulic press.  “We’ll conduct this date with dignity,” he insisted, because if he couldn’t control content, he could control tone.

“Dignity,” Ewen echoed, saluting with a cocktail sword.

“Get the fuck out of my bar,” Damian replied, and Ewen smiled, because it was objectively the sweetest thing he’d ever said.

The married couple in the corner raised their glasses. “Good luck!” the wife chirped in the happy way of someone who survived the first five years.

“Don’t try to win!” the husband added necessarily.

“Noted,” Damian said, lying.

Chapter Text

The room was dark, save for the thin glow of a dying fire. Becky hunched on the sofa, spine folded like her immense wealth couldn’t afford posture, her shoulders trembling. The muffled sound of sobbing wasn’t something Damian was built to handle; his training included memorising NUP speeches and surviving cocktail parties without vomiting, but distinctly omitted helping crying women. He felt like a trespasser, despite the fact he technically belonged as much as she did. He should have walked away, which would have been elegant. Instead, he cleared his throat.

Becky’s head snapped up, fury already loaded. “What?!”

“I… came to check on the fire,” he explained lamely, and immediately hated himself for sounding like a butler. “You’re. Um. Crying.”

“Congratulations,” Becky dragged a sleeve across her face, “your eyesight functions.”  

He suppressed the urge to tell her to shut up. “It’s about… her, isn’t it?” He refused to say the name; it was buried under his tongue with everything else.

“What else would it be about? The stock market? A lost earring?!”

He sat down stiffly on the other end of the sofa. “I miss her too.” The words were wrapped in his usual arrogance, and landed too polished,  like they were drafted for a presentation.

“You?!” her nostrils flared in disgust. “Miss her?! Don’t make me laugh.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” her voice shook with venom she didn’t bother concealing, “you treated her like shit, and now you have the gall to pretend you lost something?”

It pierced deeper than Damian wanted to admit. “You think I don’t know that? You think I wanted it to end like this?!”

“You didn’t want anything!” Becky shot back, hands balling into fists. “You wanted prestige, victory, your dad’s approval, which you’re never going to get, by the way. You wanted her to crawl at your feet. And Anya-” Her voice cracked into a sob, so she punched the cushion. “She wanted friends, she wanted to help people, and you fucking spat on her for it!”

“Don’t put her on a pedestal,” his pride reared up, fangs out, desperate to survive. “She was insufferable most days. She was irritating, with that stupid smile! She thought she was above me-”

“She was better than you,” Becky cut in. 

Anger rushed to fill the gaps, because it was a manageable emotion. “Shut the fuck up, Blackbell. Don’t sit there in your couture dress and act like you’re the authority on her. You think you knew her so well? You think you knew her better than me? You think your stupid friendship means you understand what it was like when she looked at me, when she didn’t back down, when-” He interrupted himself, cheeks burning. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

Her tears dried to fury and she leapt to her feet abruptly. “You fucking prick. You’re making this about you! Anya’s dead, and somehow, miraculously, you make it all about Damian Desmond. Do you even hear yourself?! She’s in the ground, and you’re what, exactly?!”

He needed to crush her, so he rose too, unwilling to be dwarfed. “You hide behind your money, your perfect little presents and your romance movies. You act like you gave a shit, but you just liked someone following you around. Don’t pretend your friendship was selfless.”

Becky’s palm cracked across his cheek before her brain stopped it. “How fucking dare you. She’s my best friend! She’s the only person- who ever looked at me like I wasn’t a spoiled little rich girl. And you, you stupid, selfish asshole, wasted every minute.”

“And what, you think you didn’t?” his cheek burned, but he refused to touch it, so he forced a laugh. “You think you were perfect? You think she never got tired of your constant bragging and gossiping about stupid shit? Don’t pretend you were some kind of saint either!”

“At least I never made her cry,” she spat, “or told her she was fucking worthless.”

His ears rang with memories of her shining eyes, his mouth filled with cruel barbs and hollow victory. He wanted her attention, and in a way, he got it. “You don’t know jack shit! You weren’t there every time-”

“I was there enough! I was there when she ran to me, upset- because of you! I was there when she doubted herself because you spent the day tearing her down, and I was even there when she forgave you, God knows why! Now she’s gone, Damian, and all I have for comfort is… you!”

“Don’t you dare think you’re grieving harder than me. You lost your friend, fine. I-” his throat betrayed him. “I lost-”

“You lost nothing!” she thundered. “You don’t get to claim her now she’s dead to soothe your conscience. You don’t deserve her memory.” He wanted to fight more, and tear her down until she bled, but he clocked the shaking hands, how she clutched her arms to keep herself upright, and for an awful second, he saw Anya in her place. He sank back onto the sofa and dragged a breath through clenched teeth. She remained standing, trembling with rage, and for a moment, their spat seemed to be over.

However, he made the critical error of speaking.

“You think you’re better than me, but you’re not. You just got lucky she liked you. I kept her sharp. Without me, she’d-” The rest of his sentence was literally strangled out of him, because Becky launched at him like an avenging banshee, hands locked around his throat. His eyes bulged as his pride dissolved into croaked protests. “Are you- insane- Blackbell?! Get- off me!”

“I’ll kill you!” she screamed and shook him like a particularly detested snow-globe. “She deserved better than you! You know what, you can apologise to her in person!”

Damian clawed fruitlessly at her wrists, sputtering insults between gaps of air. “Let- go- idiot! You’re- proving- my point! Get your- stupid hands- off me!”

“Not until you stop breathing!” she shrieked, face inches from his. “It’s the only way you’ll ever shut the hell up!”

He wheezed, but refused to capitulate. “You- you sound just like her- always nagging-”

“She nagged because you’re a spoiled brat!” she tightened her grip. Where the hell had she learned this?! “You’re pathetic!”

“At least- I wasn’t- dragging her around- like a handbag,” he gagged the words out.

“Better a handbag than a fucking parasite! You leeched her dry to feed your ego!”

“Coming from- you?!” he kicked, rather uselessly, against the coffee table. “You bought her loyalty- with dumb trinkets- because you didn’t have- any fucking friends!”

“She loved me!” her eyes flared. “She pitied you!”

“She pitied you too!” he clawed at her arms, and managed a full gulp of air because returning to his scheduled trachea-crushing. “She was too- damn nice-”

“Don’t you dare!” Becky shook him so hard the room blurred. “Don’t use her fucking kindness against her you self-obsessed-”

The door slammed open, and salvation, if one could call it that, arrived in the hulking form of volleyball captain Bill Watkins and his shoulders, which were broad enough to block the moon. Behind him stumbled a teacher, flapping uselessly like a startled pigeon. “What in God’s name?! Blackbell! Desmond! Stop this instant!”

“Not until he admits he’s worthless!”

“I’ll admit- you’ve got- man hands-!”

“Say that again, I dare you!”

“Get her off me!” Damian rasped, face red, hair mussed, and dignity shrinking by the second.

Bill lumbered forwards, arms like outstretched tree trunks. “Becky, please, this isn’t regulation conduct!” he boomed, but Becky clung to Damian’s throat like a vice. Bill tried prying her off with both hands, which was ludicrous given the size difference, but she thrashed so violently even he grunted with effort. “She’s stronger than expected!” 

Even though his life was literally in Becky’s hands, Damian refused to shut up. “See? This is why- nobody likes- you!”

“Shut up!” she lunged again despite Bill locking his arms around her waist. “I’ll end you, Desmond!”

“Blackbell! Compose yourself!” the teacher yelled, failing to command the situation.

Bill successfully hoisted her off the ground, but she kicked furiously midair in Damian’s general direction. Damian collapsed, gasping, one hand clutching his throat while the other pointed accusingly. “She’s insane! Arrest her! Expel her! She tried to fucking murder me!”

“You deserved it! If there was any justice in the world, you’d be dead right now and not her!”

Bill staggered sideways, trying to not drop her. “Becky, please! Violence isn’t the answer!” She nearly elbowed him in the jaw. “You’re very spirited, but this is… unsportsmanlike!”

The teacher, sweating bullets, finally decided to help, but his idea of helping was wringing his hands. “Now, now, both of you, calm down! Mr. Desmond, please stop provoking her. Miss Blackbell, stop clawing – oh, for heaven’s sake! Mr. Watkins, please restrain her!”

Damian straightened his uniform, the last vestiges of his dignity, throat red with finger-marks, and shouted hoarsely at Becky, still squirming. “This isn’t over, Blackbell! You’ll regret this! Everyone saw you assault me!”

Bill Watkins nearly tripped as she wriggled like a possessed eel. “Becky, this is unladylike…”

“I don’t care!” she howled. “He deserves to die screaming!”

“I am screaming! You’re insane!”

“Better insane than a walking disappointment! You’re the reason she wasted her time, you selfish bastard!”

“You’re the reason she wasted her money, you shallow brat!”

“Mr. Desmond! Miss Blackbell! This is entirely unbecoming!”

Damian jabbed in Becky’s direction despite wheezing. “She’s feral! She belongs in a fucking cage!”

Becky clawed at the air towards him, eyes ablaze. “You belong in a grave!”

Damian hunched on the sofa, rubbing the red fingerprints Becky left across his neck. His pride stung worse than the bruises. The teacher stormed out with Becky in tow, Bill Watkins lumbering behind like a traumatised pack mule, so naturally, that’s when Ewen and Emile felt brave enough to poke their heads in. “…Bossman?” Ewen ventured between concern and suppressed laughter. “Uh. You good?”

“I just got assassinated,” he croaked.

“Holy shit,” Emile’s eyes widened, “she really went for you.”

“Thank you for the observation!” Damian yanked his collar higher. “Where were you dipshits when I was being murdered?!”

“Honestly?” Ewen flopped next to him. “Kinda rooting for her.”

“You traitor!”

“Hey, hey, I’m on your side, obviously,” he held up his hands, “but like, it was funny. You’ve gotta admit, seeing Becky Blackbell throttle the untouchable Damian Desmond is pure comedy.”

“You should’ve seen your face,” Emile failed to smother a snort.

“It was attempted homicide!”

“I don’t think she would have actually killed you. Probably.”

Damian slumped back. “Why do I even talk to you people?”

Ewen thumped his shoulder in a gesture he believed was reassuring, but wasn’t. “We’re your friends. Also, if we weren’t here, you’d actually die of Becky-related injuries. But, oh, man,” he broke into helpless laughter, “I can’t believe she just snapped! She looked like a rabid badger!”

“She’s clearly lost her mind! She should be locked up! No, actually, I should press charges.”

“Yeah,” Emile propped himself on the arm, “but everyone would know that you got choked out by noodle-arms Blackbell. It’s the sort of story that never dies, bossman.” Damian crushed a cushion against his face to block them out. Ewen and Emile exchanged a look. Finally, Emile guiltily muttered, “Seriously though, you okay? She didn’t… crush your windpipe or anything?”

He peeked out from under the cushion. “Unfortunately, I’ll live.”

Ewen cackled into his sleeve while Emile failed to look sympathetic. Between Becky’s violent outburst and Damian’s new investigative zeal, it was impossible to tell which of them lost their mind first.

*

Ewen found her in the girls’ lounge, though technically, he wasn’t supposed to be there. Rules were rules, but grief cared little for curfews or signage. Becky curled in an armchair by the window, eyes glassy from exhaustion. For her troubles, she had a shiny new Tonitrus on her lapel, which she displayed proudly. Ewen cleared his throat softly. In one hand he carried a mug of hot chocolate pilfered from the kitchens, and in the other a plate of biscuits he bribed a dinner-lady for. “Uh. Peace offering?”

Becky’s eyes narrowed, fury flaring instinctively, but she saw the treats, and softened marginally. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”

“Yeah well,” he set the biscuits next to her and handed her the mug, “rules are stupid. Besides, you need a snack more than the rules need respecting.”

She stared at the beverage for a second, warmth seeping into her fingers, and she allowed the tension in her shoulders to evaporate. Ewen sat on the floor next to her as they ate in silence, crunching preferable to talking. Finally, Becky’s breath hitched as she clutched the mug like an anchor. “I miss her,” she whispered, “so much it makes me sick. I keep thinking she’ll walk into class, or call me or… laugh at something stupid. Then I remember she’s gone and I can’t…” Fresh tears welled.

Ewen looked up at her. He didn’t say I know, because he didn’t, not how Becky did. Instead, he reached up awkwardly and patted her sleeve. “She was cool, huh?”

“She was everything. And now, what? What am I supposed to do?”

Ewen, not built for philosophy or speeches, didn’t have an answer, so he slid the snacks closer. “You don’t need to do it all at once. Just eat something. Cry if you need. Tomorrow, you get up, and we’ll… we’ll figure it out.”

She let out a wet laugh. “You’re an idiot, Ewen.”

“Yeah.” Once Becky calmed a little, he cleared his throat. “I need to say this, even if you’re going to throw the cocoa at my head.”

“Don’t say it, then.”

“It’s about Damian.”

“Damian Desmond can go fuck himself.”

“Yeah, probably,” he agreed quickly, “but listen, he’s looking into, um, Anya’s death. Like, actually investigating. You know him, right? He’s like a bulldog with homework. Once he’s on something, he doesn’t let go, ever.”

“Good. Maybe it’ll keep him busy and out of my sight.”

Ewen studied her. “Thing is, I think he’ll get somewhere. He’s stubborn enough, and smart enough too. And if there’s a chance he can find out who did this…” he let the sentence trail and allowed her to fill in the blanks. Becky’s throat worked. She wanted to spit venom, tell him she didn’t care, but the thought that Anya’s death wasn’t accidental burned like wildfire. “So, what about you? Are you just gonna grieve, and try and live your life? Or do you want to help? Because, uh, we’re gonna need backup, and you’re the only one mean enough to yell him into line.”

For a long time, Becky said nothing and hid her face in the mug. When she looked at him, her eyes were rimmed red but determined. “I hate him.”

“Yeah. Me too sometimes.”

She sniffed and bit her lip. “If he’s serious, if he really wants to find out who did this,” her fingers tightened, “then I’ll help. Not for him, never for him, but for her.”

Ewen allowed a faint smile as he leaned against the chair. “Figured you’d say that.”

Damian was still in the common room when Ewen led her there, bruises standing out like medals from a war he lost. He looked exhausted, and worse, like he’d been alone with his own thoughts too long. For once, Becky didn’t storm in like she owned the place, but watched him hunched on the sofa, head in his hands, as if the world’s woes settled there and refused to budge. “Damian.”

He jerked upright, eyes flashing with defensiveness. “Come back to finish the job?”

She crossed into the room, arms folded. “Relax. If I wanted to strangle you again, you’d already be dead.”

“Comforting.”

For a long moment, neither spoke, until Becky broke it with a wry smile. “Do you remember the first day? When she decked you?”

Damian blinked, caught off guard, then despite being in a room with his would-be killer, rasped a laugh. “Yeah. I remember the whole class watching me get floored by a girl half my size.”

“And the Tonitrus she got for it,” Becky added. “First day, first bolt. She was ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous,” he echoed. 

“I talked to Ewen.”

“That explains the lecture I’m about to get.”

“It’s not a lecture,” Becky said flatly. “It’s a condition. He told me you’re digging into her death. That you’re not letting it go.”

“Somebody has to.”

“Fine,” she nodded curtly, “then I’ll help, but only on one condition.” He prepared for the inevitable tirade of hatred. “You don’t get to die. Not until it’s solved or until she has answers. After that,” she waved a dismissive hand, demarcating the remainder of his life as negotiable, “do whatever you want, but not before.”

For a moment, he stared at her in the shock of being seen. She knew. She hadn’t said it nor called him out, but she knew. Finally, he just chuckled like everything was fine. “That’s a hell of a deal, Blackbell.”

“I’m not joking. If you go under before we finish, I’ll hunt you down in whatever comes next and kill you again. Are we clear?”

“Crystal.”

The silence between them didn’t feel like a battlefield. It felt like a pact.

*

Becky Blackbell fancied herself practical. Not sensible, mind you, because that was the poor woman’s virtue. When a butler spilled wine on her dress at thirteen, she demanded her father purchase the vineyard and ordered them to stop producing that vintage out of spite. When Anya decided to make friends with the worst boy in school, Becky merely invested in patience like government bonds. When Anya and Damian ended up dead years later, Becky did the practical thing and investigated.

Practicality was never the same as sanity.

Her files were a disaster, which was oddly reminiscent. Damian’s death certificate, three different contradictory autopsy reports, clippings from dozens of newspapers spoke of the tragedy with feigned solemnity, when all they wanted to do was gossip. She had handwritten notes too – cross-referenced timelines, Damian’s final sightings, a sketch of Anya for reasons she didn’t care to explain. Practicality meant making sense of chaos, but unfortunately, sense refused to RSVP.

She spent a month gathering information. She blackmailed old servants with champagne, visited police precincts under the guise of donor relations and offered a fortune to a private detective, only for him to flee mid-meeting, because, in his own words, no amount of money is worth working the Desmond case. However, she pressed on, because Damian promised haughtily that he’d get answers. Of course, he’d only gotten himself killed, which was such a Damian Desmond thing to do that Becky wanted to throttle his ashes. In fact, she was knee-deep in useless paper when the knock came. It was too firm and measured to be a butler or a debt collector (which never occurred in her life, because that was a poor person’s houseguest). She opened the door and found Loid Forger standing there, hat in hand.

“Becky.”

In her memory, he was always impossibly tall, impossibly adult, impossibly father. She spent half her childhood eating his cooking and being begged to please, for God’s sake, don’t encourage Anya to hide under the desks. “Dr. Forger,” she replied automatically.

He smiled warmly, devastatingly; it could probably stop wars if it wasn’t already busy killing housewives in grocery shop queues. “I heard you’re looking into Damian’s death.”

She adjusted her blouse like it was bulletproof. “Of course I have. Somebody has to. The police are useless, the Desmonds have closed ranks, and the press can’t even spell their own names without a bribe. Damian would’ve wanted-”

“Becky,” he held up a hand. “Stop.”

“Stop?” she bristled. “You think I can just stop? Damian promised to find who killed her.”

“Anya.” The name caught in her father’s throat like glass shards.

“Yes, and now he’s gone too, and you’re telling me to stop? That’s two people, Dr. Forger, two. How many more before somebody actually does something?”

“It’s enough,” he said firmly, but not unkindly. “I don’t want you adding yourself to that list, Becky.”

Her pride wanted to kick him, but her grief sagged her shoulders. She gestured at the mess of files. “But we had all the pieces. He nearly had it and now…”

The softening of Loid’s gaze made her furious, because he pitied her, and she wanted rage, but in the two decades she’d known him, she never saw him angry. “Justice doesn’t always come in the shape we want. Sometimes it’s enough to simply survive. Leave this part to me and Yor. It’s our job.”

“Because you’re the great Agent Twilight?” she laughed. “And I’m just… what, a childhood friend with money and too much time?”

She anticipated a scolding, but what came next was worse. “You were her best friend since you were six. You made her laugh. You stayed at her side when others didn’t. You’re not just anything. That’s why I showed my face, here, against my better judgement, to ask you to stop, because Anya wouldn’t forgive me if you got hurt..”

Pride meant she never cried in front of men who ironed their shirts neatly. “What am I even supposed to do with all this?”

“Go visit her. She’d like that,” Loid suggested gently. “Tell her about Damian. Tell her what he tried to do, and that he kept his promise as far as he could. She deserves to hear it, even if it’s only from you.”

“She’s in the ground.”

“Go anyway.”

Then he left as suddenly as he arrived, the scent of his cologne lingering. Becky stared at the mess of papers, Damian’s arrogant handwriting, her own offensive scribbles and felt insultingly powerless.

The graveyard was colder than expected, but she put it down to the hangover of hovering ghosts. Anya’s headstone was simple, elegant and inscribed with a line Becky never approved of because it sounded like something a speechwriter spat out between brandies. She sat down, because Anya hated people towering over her.

“I brought your idiot,” she whispered, and produced the miniscule urn she was allowed. The amount of ashes was absurd for a man who took up so much space. She poured it into the soil, letting them scatter in the wind until they settled like grey confetti. “There. Now you two can be together and argue again, even if you’re both dust. Pretty good, huh?”

She pressed her hands against the earth, diamond jewellery grinding into the dirt.

“You’d both hate this, you know. Damian would complain about the fucking soil quality. You’d tell him to shut up. He’d tell you to shut up. Somehow, we’d all end up listening to a shut-up feedback-loop for three hours. God, you were annoying.”

Tears welled, spilled and smeared mascara down her cheeks. She hiccupped, cursed and laughed inappropriately.

“You’d laugh at me, Anya. You’d point at me and say look, Becky’s snot is shiny, and stupid Desmond would write it down so he could insult me later. God, you assholes.”

She collapsed forward, forehead against the stone, and sobbed.

“Dr. Forger told me to stop, because you’d never forgive him if I died too. And I believe him, Anya, because I’m tired, and I miss you so much I can’t breathe sometimes.” Her hands clawed at the soil to pull them both back to life through sheer irritation. “You idiots! You’re supposed to be here, let me be the cool and suave one while you two make a mess of everything. That was the arrangement! That was the deal!”

The wind shifted, and she finally stood.

“I’ll visit. I can’t fix anything, but I can sit here and tell you stupid shit you’ve missed. It’s not justice, but… it’s practical.” 

Chapter Text

The chairs were too stiff. That was Anya’s thought upon being summoned. It wasn’t cruel in the stiffness, but it accurately intimated not to slouch, lest Eden write home about her spine. Damian sat next to her, face locked in his usual boredom and contempt. Thankfully, it wasn’t for her this time, but for the situation at large. His cape was skewed slightly, which meant he was somewhat flustered. A flustered Damian, in Anya’s experience, was an annoying Damian. Housemaster Henderson closed the door with delicate precision, offended by the acoustics of poor woodwork. He crossed the room, each step echoing with moral disapproval, and settled behind the desk elegantly.

“Miss Forger. Mister Desmond.” Both students stood politely. “Sit. We shall proceed without theatrics.” They obeyed. Anya tucked her hands neatly in her lap; Damian mirrored accidentally, then glowered like she plagiarised his elbow placement. “Now, I believe we’re aware of why we’re here.” Neither spoke. “An academic environment relies upon elegance, dignity, and a minimal threshold of composure. You two certainly have encountered some of these.”

Anya raised her hand. “Sir, with respect, I wasn’t trying to-”

“Miss Forger,” Henderson interrupted. “In the last three weeks, I have received six reports of verbal altercations, two desk disputes, and one incident involving a snapped fountain pen, a metaphysical insult, and what I can only describe as poetic slander.”

“She started it,” Damian muttered.

“I have no doubt,” Henderson replied. “You, Mister Desmond, submitted a Latin translation of a poem in which the speaker directly likens their foe to a barely literate goblin.”

“It scanned.”

“It certainly did. And Miss Forger, you responded by presenting your comparative essay with marginalia in the form of drawings depicting a duelling griffin and a small, angry boy in a cape.”

“It was metaphorical.”

“I’m aware. Unfortunately, your metaphors have become institutional hazards.” He folded his hands. “Let me be clear. I do not doubt your academic abilities. Nor do I question that, beneath the endless posturing and deeply unnecessary Latin, you are…” Henderson paused, the words causing visible discomfort, “friends, in a certain capacity.”

Both students twitched.

“Acquaintances,” Anya provided.

“Adversarial classmates,” Damian clarified.

“What concerns me is not what you are, but how your conduct reflects upon this institution. Eden prides itself on decorum. You represent our most elite intellectual tier. You are Imperial Scholars, not rival generals on an exceedingly petty battlefield.”

“We understand,” Damian nodded stiffly.

“I don’t think you do,” his housemaster replied, “which is why, moving forward, the following conditions will be in place. Until further notice, the two of you shall limit unsanctioned interaction. You may engage only in structured, curriculum-based collaboration. If you require a lab partner, it will be assigned. You may not submit joint projects without explicit approval,” he turned to stare at Damian. “You may not participate in mock debates together,” he looked at Anya, “nor organise independent literary performances about each other’s alleged moral failings.”

“It was only three acts,” she protested weakly.

“And if I hear one more coded insult written in iambic pentameter,” Henderson continued calmly, “I will transfer you both to the Home Economics stream, until you learn to comport yourselves accordingly.”

Damian looked like somebody shot his mother; Anya gasped in horror.

“Now, I suggest you consider whether five minutes of adolescent provocation is worth spending your luncheons  cutting apples into elegant shapes.”

They both nodded. “Understood.”

“Yes, Mr. Henderson.”

He sighed deeply. “Good. Now go. Be civil. Be brilliant. And above all, be elegant.”

They stood and inclined their heads respectfully. Damian opened the door without thinking, so she thanked him. They realised what they’d done. He hissed under his breath at her, but she simply grinned. Behind them, Henderson strongly considered smoking for the first time since the war.

*

Midnight Minus One had many rules, most of which contradicted each other, but a new one was instituted. Dates were permitted, but must be elegant. Damian wrote it on a napkin in block capitals, then folded it in his pocket so Anya wouldn’t read it aloud to the entire bar as she always did with his incriminating paperwork. He sat across from her in a booth, where the leather squeaked nervously whenever he shifted, like the furniture mocked his nerves. Anya settled in, smiling dreamily at the mismatched cutlery. Expressly for dating purposes, she braided straws into a little crown and perched it on her head, which, if you asked Damian (though God forbid you did) was adorable.

Naturally, Ewen appointed himself bartender and waiter with the authority stemming from operating a soda stream once and surviving. “I’ll be your server tonight,” Ewen announced gravely. “Our specials include two warm beers, a cocktail I invented called the Egebomb, and an orange I found that I sincerely believe has achieved sentience.”

“You are not our waiter,” Damian pressed a hand to his forehead. “You’re dead and unemployed.”

“I’m between careers,” he sniffed, “and as a professional… between-careers-man, it’s my duty to bring you terrible service, so you’ll need to lean on each other.”  

“Yes!” Anya beamed. “Terrible service is very romantic!”

“It’s not,” Damian tugged at his collar.

Ewen set water in front of Anya, but sloshed half onto the table. “Uh. Complimentary flood.”

“Thank you, waiter!” Anya patted the spill like a beloved pet. Damian longed for death, which was inconvenient, given his current status.

“Now, for our lovers-”

“We’re not-!”

“Our daters, then,” Ewen corrected, “I recommend something seasonal and undrinkable. May I present to you… the Egebomb.” Damian inhaled like a man preparing himself to survive waterboarding; Anya looked enthralled.

“Dare I ask what’s in it?”

“Courage!” Ewen free-poured three different clear liquids that stunk of poor decisions in ascending price tiers. He added a splash of something bruise-coloured, then shook with his whole spine. The shaker exploded only slightly, and he strained the result into two coupes. Damian raised his to his lips with all the dignity money bought and no common sense could save. It tasted like pickled fire, with notes of solvent, undertones of shoe polish and a finish of pine despair. His throat staged a small coup and failed; his eyes watered, and he refused to acknowledge it. He set the glass down gently, because it was full of volatile chemicals, then inhaled through his nose, because, he, Damian Desmond, was a fucking soldier. “How is it?”

Anya swallowed her in two unfazed gulps and positively glowed. “Lovely!” she declared. “It’s very vivid, like, drinking, um… a saxophone!”

Damian, who hadn’t blinked for thirty seconds for fear his teeth would fall out, managed, “Charming,” and made an undetectable wheeze.

“Do you have peanuts?”

“Of course, madam,” Ewen scribbled on his forearm with a Sharpie. “What about yourself, bossman? Shall I bring your usual Nothing, I’m Fine, This Is Stupid, or are we feeling adventurous?”

Damian levelled a crystal-cracking glare. “I’ll have something non-idiotic.” He recalibrated to normal human speech. “A gin and tonic, with a lime, but only if the limes are… safe.”

Ewen set down a votive candle he found (where? why?) and lit it pompously. “Mood lighting, bossman,” he whispered, and fled before he was punched. He returned with a tray, upon which optimistically balanced a bowl of peanuts, one sweating G&T and a second glass of oh god, what the fuck now? “Your aperitifs.”

Anya snatched a peanut, tossed it at Damian’s forehead, and because physics loved humiliating him on an alarmingly regular basis, it bounced off and skidded under the salt shaker. “It’s a game,” she explained. “If you catch one, you get a prize.”

“That’s not necessary.” He failed to realise that opening his mouth at precisely that moment meant a peanut ricocheted off his lip.

“Prize!” she sang, sliding her hand across the table. His palm tingled with pre-emptive betrayal. Instead, he grabbed his glass instead, shoved his lime wedge in her hand, and drank in self-defence. In turn, she sucked the lime with concerning focus; juice slipped down her wrist, catching the neon. Instinctively, a small part of his brain immediately posited that he could lean in, kiss it clean, follow the line up to her elbow, up, further-

Down, boy! he snarled at himself, and the thought snapped like a taut wire. Reflexively, his face contorted into an expression he used when discovering corpses in the walk-in. Anya blinked. “Sy-on boy? Your face is… weird.”

“Oh, it’s perfectly fine,” he replied crisply. “I just remembered- democracy. Disgusting system.” She laughed freely, and his ribcage felt incorrectly installed.

Anya consulted the napkin like a prayer book, deciding to start with the asking questions portion of the date. “What’s your favourite sound?”

“Coincidence.” Seeing her confusion, he added, “When two things line up without trying.”

“Like socks that match, but you didn’t do the laundry?”

“Exactly,” he flinched at how easily she understood.

Anya fiddled with the rim of her empty Egebomb. “What’re you scared of?”

He strongly considered lying. “Forgetting,” he answered finally, “and being remembered wrong. And being the reason for either.”

“I’m scared of locked doors,” she supplied, “and also of not knowing what people mean when they say something sharp but mean something soft.”

Just for a breath, he stilled. His chest pulled in recognition and regret, before he snapped the glass back to his lips and smothered the reaction under a swallow. “That’s… oddly specific,” he managed, and prayed she didn’t notice his white knuckles around the stem.

Thankfully, she just nodded. “Also car washes,” she added, tone returning to its scheduled programming. “They yell at the car with foam. It seems rude.”

He set his elbows on the table, and despite himself, laughed until the last of the paint thinner Ewen classified as gin loosened its grip. They spoke like people; the void pressed its cheek to the window for gossip. That evening’s temporary bartender wiped a glass with such violence it counted as percussion.

“What day,” Damian asked, “would you abolish?”

“Thursday. It hides.”

“Agreed. It exists only to make Friday arrogant.”

“What’s your favourite bad smell?”

“Matches. Yours?”

“Bowling shoes,” she replied cheerfully. He wasn’t exactly sure where she’d encountered a bowling alley in the afterlife. “Tell me a story. Not a big one. A small one.”

When he spoke, he used the voice for when the world wasn’t cruel for thirty seconds. “When I was seven, I had a rock I liked. It was small and stupid, but for some reason, I kept in my pocket, and didn’t let anyone touch it. One day, I lost it, and missed it so much I made an agenda to look for it during break, like that’d make the rock feel appreciated and come home.” He half-smiled, embarrassed by how saccharine the story he chose was. “Emile found it in the science lab. Gave it back, and told me rocks were loyal.”

“Rocks are loyal,” Anya breathed. “Didja keep it?”

“Yes,” he cleared his throat, as Anya moved onto her next silly question with bright-eyed enthusiasm. It was like watching someone cracking a safe with only optimism.

“What’s your favourite cloud?”

“I don’t- clouds aren’t-” he sputtered, but saw her expectant expression. “Cumulus.”

“Mine too!” her face lit up. “They’re the fluffiest.”

Damian nearly drowned in his gin to avoid smiling, while Ewen scribbled notes on his arm. “Shared meteorological interest, check. Sparks flying.”

“I hate you,” Damian called over, but risked a glance at Anya. She craned her neck, straw crown sliding sideways, eyes big and stupidly green. He thought about kissing her, perhaps forever. His ears turned scarlet, and he snapped upright like he’d been shot in the spine.

“You okay, Sy-on boy?” she asked, stricken.

“I’m fine!” his voice cracked like a pubescent disaster.

They talked nonsense like it mattered, including their favourite benches, worst socks, and the best kind of rain. Anya confessed she named the limes; Damian sneered, but admitted he had a preferred ice scoop. They attempted eye contact and survived the encounter. Ewen arrived with hors d’oeuvres, by which he meant three bowls of peanuts in ascending heights, a handful of olives in a champagne flute, and a plate where he arranged chips into the word hi. He bowed. “Our chef recommends the… salted,” he managed gravely.

“A message!” Anya gasped, like the chips successfully achieved literacy. “Thank you.”

Damian simply looked at the disappointing plate like it was an employee asking for a raise during a performance review. Still, he found himself telling Anya about a garden he once drew on graph-paper because he was too precise to let leaves be chaotic, and how the gardener ignored his blueprint, and how the garden was better for it. He told her about a class where he memorised a poem then hated it because somebody liked it, because he was competitive with the concept of admiration. He told her he loathed olives and respected people who didn’t pretend to like them immensely. “…And you?” he forced, realising he monologued like lecturing the air. “What’s your favourite ordinary thing?”

She thought for a touch too long. “When you drink through a straw too fast and the ice jumps like it's frightened.”

“That’s a good favourite.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I’m never surprised by you.”

She promptly surprised him by leaning across the table and plucking an olive from the champagne glass with her teeth. She chewed thoughtfully, then made a face of instant betrayal. “Olives are gross!” she announced brightly. “Kiss it better?”

He made a noise not approved by the Ministry of Dignity. “Forger.”

“What? I asked for first aid.”

“I’m not- this is- the sign- poor Harvey-” he gestured helplessly at the sign, then at Captain Harvey Leaves, who was both complicit and smug.

“We could go in front of the fern,” she suggested, but his face implied fern-proximity wasn’t the issue. She wrinkled her nose at the concept of compliance, then brightened, because if you were Anya Forger, you metabolised anything into joy. “Okay, then. Handholding. That’s legal.”

She thrust her hand across the table with alarming gusto. He placed his own in it like holstering a weapon and their fingers threaded too easily. He could probably build a life like this, which was ironic. However, his own mind – traitor – ruined it. Her hand’s small. The thought drifted further than was healthy. Imagine it lower. Imagine it wrapped-

Down, boy!

“Would you like to… eat something other than peanuts?” he asked, wildly adult. “Ewen can probably demolish an orange.”

“That would be nice. Sharing oranges feels like a picnic. Or a wedding. Or a picnic-wedding. Do people have those?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “We should have a picnic-wedding every day.”

He should have said something clever or suave, but all he offered was an itemised list so he wouldn’t immediately pass away. “We could, theoretically, locate a blanket, sit on it, and distribute fruit. Not as a wedding. A picnic. Obviously.”

Ewen reappeared with the ‘starters’ balanced like contraband. It consisted of scrambled eggs cooked to three different textures, an avalanche of toast and a ramekin of pickles, because he couldn’t find anything else green. “Bon apathy.”

“It’s beautiful!” Anya beamed, unfortunately meaning it.

Meanwhile, Damian inspected it like it would explode. “Why are the toasts triangles?”

“Triangles are… romantic?” Ewen guessed.

“No, they aren’t.”

“They could be.”

Anya ate a triangle. “Mmm. Crunch information.”

Not to be outdone in the bravery department, Damian tried a reluctant bite. The eggs tasted like they negotiated with the concept of heat and lost; the toast was only bread in theory. Ewen withdrew with a flourish and busied himself with a complicated arrangement of bar rags that, if one squinted, may have been a swan; in no way, shape or form did he watch two childhood friends on their date. Without thinking, Damian brushed away toast crumbs from Anya’s sleeve. She caught his wrist and held his hand there with that same buffoonish grin that tormented most of his childhood.

“You’re very attentive,” she teased. “Good husband material.”

His ears turned the temperature of the sun. “I’m not-! That’s-!”

“You’re blushing,” she sang.

“I’m overheated! The eggs are… volatile!”

“Your next cocktail, esteemed guests,” Ewen announced, suspiciously pleased with himself, “served as a pairing.” He set down two shot glasses of sinister liquid and a paper cup of gummy worms. “I call this… the Glue Factory.”

“Absolutely not!”

“Cheers!” Anya knocked it back like a sailor on shore leave. “Is that… caramel?”

“Leather,” Ewen corrected.

Damian drank, because men died for less ridiculous reasons. He met the liquid halfway, and the inside of his nostrils evacuated. He blinked to cleanse his eyes. “This is… very glue,” he rasped.

“So glue,” Anya greed, chewing a gummy worm.

Ewen sniffed loudly into the bar towel. “I’m not crying,” he lied.

“You are,” Damian scowled.

“I am. It’s the Glue Factory fumes, and romance, probably. Now, I’ll go grab your mains!”

“This isn’t a restaurant!”

“It is tonight!” Ewen vanished with the purposeful gait of preparing to commit crimes against food. The mains, if one could call them that, were worse than anticipated. Ewen attempted a soup dish, which was essentially warm gin in a bowl. He tripped halfway and spilled half of it down Damian’s lap. The victim froze and thought of anything other than hitting him.

“Oh no!” Anya gasped. “You smell like juniper!”

“I already did,” he hissed.

“It’s very sophisticated,” she encouraged, “like a tree, but also a berry.”

His pride shrivelled, yet his pulse nearly stopped when her hand reached over with a napkin. She pressed it against his leg, fingers brushing, and his treacherous mind simply couldn’t help itself as it silently begged higher, just an inch, maybe two. Her palm sliding up, catching the seam, her breath when she realised-

DOWN, BOY.

His body stiffened so tightly it resembled rigour mortis; the fantasy collapsed and left only the familiar sting of self-disgust. He jerked back so violently the booth squeaked. “Enough. I can clean myself.”

“Sy-on boy, you’re making a dying-fish face.”

“I’m not,” he managed through clenched teeth and crimson cheeks. “This is my… serious-stain-removal face.”

Ewen, holding a second bowl of gin like a loaded gun, whispered, “You’ve been reborn as a man who dates.”

“I’ll kill you with that bowl.”

“Could I tempt you into dessert?” Ewen tried, terrified of the answer but overwhelmingly committed to the bit.

“What constitutes dessert?”

“I could… flambé a napkin.”

“No.”

Instead, dessert was an orange cut into quarters, served directly on the table, because Ewen misplaced every plate. Anya gnawed hers happily and declared, “This is the best date ever.”

“It’s not even-!” he choked. “Dates are supposed to be-”

“Romantic!” she finished, juice dripping down her chin.

“Yes,” he muttered, staring at the sticky trail like holy oil. The booth squeaked again, the neon sign hummed, and for a moment, Damian believed eternity wasn’t long enough. He craned his head minutely to peek at Captain Harvey Leaves. Internally, his thoughts were not calm. I want to kiss her behind the goddamn plant. I want to kiss her and pretend I’m not emotionally constipated. I want to kiss her to undo the whole bar. I want to kiss her and I’m going to panic about it for the next seventeen hours.

Ewen cleared his throat, breaking the reverie. “As your waiter, I must remind you of the fern’s clear prohibition against-”

“I’ll fire you.”

“You can’t fire me. I don’t work here.” With that, he flounced off to attend to his towel-swan, who he dubbed Sir Towelingham of Foldshire.

Anya finally turned back to Damian. “Sy-on boy?”

“Mm?”

“Your eyes are really bright,” she said easily, and then, because she was her, “you smell like a tree near a bakery.”

He grinned, completely fatally. It was too late now. “You’re catastrophically good at compliments. Um…” he floundered, entirely unused to the act of being kind without an ulterior motive. “You have… good laugh lines.”

“I do?!”

“They show up even when you’re pretending not to smile.” Once he started, he just couldn’t stop. “I like how you look at the menu like you want to bribe the words. I like how you never remember where you put the bottle opener, but you remember where the bandages are. And I like,” he swallowed hard but leapt anyway, “that you’re here with me, on purpose.”

The void outside leaned in to eavesdrop. Anya beamed with the full wattage of the sun. “I am here with you on purpose!” 

He knew he was going to be extremely unwise. He knew it the way he knew his own name. He felt the decision form inevitably. Damian squeezed her hand, and miraculously, she squeezed back. He leaned in just a fraction, just enough to count the flecks in her eyes, and she tilted her head in the micro-nod Ewen lectured her on earlier, and seemed delighted, like she was about to open a present she wrapped herself without knowing what was inside. “Bossman,” Ewen called over, “the fern is watching!”

“I will set that plant on fire.” He slouched back in his chair, and couldn’t believe that his biggest romantic rivals were the world’s most incompetent waiter and a plant named Captain Harvey Leaves. The jukebox coughed into life on a tune that wanted to be slow jazz when it grew up.

Damian shot a look at Ewen that could chasten God; the temporary bartender put his hands up in surrender. “Not me! The spirits approve.”

“Which spirits?”

“All of them.”

Anya stood, tugging his hand gently. “Dance?”

“I don’t,” he said, because he didn’t.

“You will,” she decided, and discovered that yes, he would, because she asked.

He placed a hand on her waist, and she set hers on his shoulder without hesitation; her head found his chest like it had coordinates. They swayed, and he discovered a brand new category of silence, which didn’t demand anything of him except to remain as he was. Anya’s hair smelled of strawberry syrup and cleaning product. I could kiss her there, he thought, on the crown of her head, then her temple... It was a wholesome thought, the one you brought with you to a town meeting. His thumb shifted fractionally, curving with her waist, then lower, slow, mouth at her throat, hand down, pull her against-

DOWN! BOY!

After all, the fern was watching, and worse than that, so was Ewen. Damian’s jaw snapped to a grimace so severe it constituted as constipation. Anya tipped back to study his face, concerned. “Do you need a priest?”

“No,” he said through a smile that got diplomats shot, “I’m practicing disdain.”

She laughed but didn’t move away, which felt like acing an exam he didn’t study for. He kept not kissing her, despite badly wanting to. It was, he realised, the best date of his life.

*

The rain was merciless, as if Eden sub-contracted God to wash the riff-raff off its marble steps. Sensible people bolted indoors, squealing about ruined shoes, but Forger, in defiance of common sense, perched under a stone arch, hair dripping, and grinning like she was queen of the puddles. Damian was halfway to the dorms when he saw her. He froze mid-step, eyes – traitors - catching before he stopped them. Her shirt was plastered to her, rain turning the cheap cotton translucent. He saw the faint outline of pale straps and the cup of her bra beneath, and it hit him like a brick to the skull.

He glanced away so fast his neck popped, but the damage was done. He knew what he’d seen, and the heat roared up his neck. His brain short-circuited and his stomach clenched when the next thought struck. Anybody else could see it too, some boy, some upper-year idiot, even, God forbid, a gardener, and they’d look, they’d notice, because all men were horrible. No, absolutely not. That’s for me. Fury at the rain, the world, and the possibility of being slightly cheated of what was his, lit his blood. His hands moved before his mind caught up. He tore off his jacket and shoved it at her distastefully. “Here. You’re cold.”

“I’m fine,” she blinked.

“You’re not fine,” he snapped. “You’re freezing. Ostanians look out for their fellow countrymen.”

Her mouth dropped open in a very unladylike laugh. “Did you seriously just quote your dad at me?!”

“I did not!”

“You totally did,” she grinned, but took his jacket anyway. “You sound just like him! Fellow countrymen, ugh. Next you’ll tell me the Agricultural Department is proud of me.”

“Shut up,” he hissed. “I wasn’t quoting anyone.”

“Uh-huh.”

She tugged his jacket on smugly, disappearing inside the fabric like a child playing dress-up. The sleeves dangled to her knees, the collar gaped against her throat, and when she pulled it tighter around herself and wriggled, his cheeks ignited. She looked small and stupid and ridiculous and, God damn him, cute. His mind – traitor – betrayed him instantly, coughing up the image of her padding around some future Desmond estate, hair down, swimming in his shirts like they belonged to her, then laughing at him over breakfast. He smothered it rapidly with rage. No. Absolutely not. She’s not allowed in my house. The thought was a binding commandment. His house was inviolable, sacred Desmond territory, and she was a nuisance, who wasn’t allowed to invade his mornings or wear his things. The words slipped out anyway. “You’re… cute.”

Her head snapped up. “What?”

“I said you look hideous!”

“Mm-hmm,” she nodded, and turned back to her puddles, completely unconcerned. “It’s the Frog Olympics. That guy just got silver.”

Damian wanted to slam his head into the arch. She hadn’t heard him. He’d confessed treason against his bloodline, and she thought he was just yelling. Anya hummed serenely to the frogs while his ribcage rattled. Thunder cracked overhead; lightning illuminated the courtyard. Anya jolted; Damian caught her wrist unthinkingly. “Careful, moron.”

She yanked herself free. “Relax, Sy-on boy. I’m not scared.”

“You should be. One bolt and you’re fried, Forger, and I’ll get blamed for letting you loiter.”

“Aww,” she beamed with sparkling eyes. “You’d miss me.”

“Not in a million years.”

He crossed his arms, rain clinging to his shirt, and he scowled at the storm in lieu of ordering it to stop. She sat beside him, sleeves dripping, and encouraged the frog athletes. Somehow, he couldn’t move. Hence, the universe decided it was the perfect moment for Becky Blackbell’s umbrella to appear, gliding like a shark fin. Riding the high from last night’s Berlint in Love, she instantly clocked Anya in Damian’s coat and the man himself scarlet from collarbones to hairline. Her eyebrows raised. “Well,” she called over sweetly. “Isn’t this cosy?”

“Hi Becky!” Anya waved like an idiot. He was tempted to kick her. “I’m watching the frogs!”

“And it’s not cosy!” Damian barked.

“Looks cosy to me,” Becky twirled her umbrella. “You even gave her your jacket. How gallant.”

“It’s not gallant! She looked ridiculous! I had to fix it!”

“Mm-hmm,” Becky tilted her head. “Do you need an umbrella? I’ve got a spare.”

“No,” Damian snapped, fixing his posture. “I have better umbrellas. I don’t need your pity umbrella.”

“Then where is it?”

“…In my dorm.”

“So you don’t have it.”

“I don’t need it! I’m fine!”

Becky’s grin sharpened. She looked at Anya, who was transfixed with an amphibian marathon, then back at Damian, whose ears glowed brighter than the lighting. “Well, enjoy your frog date, then.”

“Will do!” Anya chirped.

“It’s not a date!” Damian yelped so loudly that the winner of the race bolted into the nearest puddle. Becky simply flounced her umbrella and vanished into her family’s waiting car.

Anya tilted her head. “Hey, a frog date sounds fun, but you’d ruin it.”

“I wouldn’t ruin it! You’re the one who ruins things, with your- your idiotic grin and your swamp animals-” he cut himself off before blurting and my jacket.

She shrugged and turned back to her froggy cabaret. “Then it’s a frog party, and you’re crashing.”

He seethed, but stayed put. Sure, from a distance, he was certain it looked nauseating, and in the worst case scenario, romantic. Inside Damian’s chest, the echo of the word he couldn’t take back echoed. Cute. He called her cute, and she didn’t even notice, because Anya Forger was a grade-A idiot. Her pink curls clung in spirals against her cheeks, and Damian tried not to look and completely failed. The urge to touch, just once, was overwhelming, and perhaps even scientific, because he needed to check if it felt as soft as it looked. His hand lifted before he convinced himself this was a poor idea. Fingers brushed lightly against a strand. God, it was softer than he imagined. She didn’t notice, as she was occupied applauding a frog’s splash, and he allowed himself to drift closer, emboldened by how much of a moron she was. He curled the damp lock around his finger.

Her head turned slightly, and he yanked back. The curl snapped back at her scalp. Anya hissed, flinched; her hand flew to her head. “Ow! What was that for?!”

Panic detonated in his ribs. He couldn’t confess he touched her hair like a lovesick idiot. Thankfully, his mouth went feral. “You had dirt in it, obviously! You’re playing with fucking frogs!” he gave her a scowl that could have withered plants. “I just got it out before you embarrassed yourself further.”

She rubbed her scalp. “You could’ve just told me.”

“No, because you’d make a fucking scene! I did you a favour! You should say thank you, but you’re apparently too common to even manage that!”

“You did me a favour… by yanking my hair out?”

“By not making me look at your stupid, messy-” he choked on the rest.

“Dickhead,” she rolled her eyes.

Damian seethed and convinced himself he did the right thing. It was better that she thought him cruel than know he tried to be gentle. 

Chapter Text

Anya’s physics workbook looked assaulted. Damian observed smudged graphite, crossed-out numbers and doodles of peanuts riding skateboards. Damian sat across from her, typical sneer across his features. “You’ve managed,” he commented icily, “to misunderstand literally every part of this question. You’ve turned ignorance into an art form.”

“It’s not that bad!” she wrinkled her nose in protest. 

He jabbed a finger forcefully on the page. “You divided mass by velocity. That’s not force, Forger, that’s nonsense.” She pulled a face and dragged an eraser across her work, which he saw as the perfect opportunity to steal her pen. He rewrote the equation in perfect script. “Force equals mass times acceleration. It’s basic. Simple, even. Everyone understands it. Everyone but you, apparently.” Anya’s eyes drifted out the window where spring blossoms swayed in the breeze. He followed her gaze and clicked in front of her face to snap her out of her reverie. “God! Focus! You’re a broken compass - pointless and distracting!”

“A broken compass?” Anya snorted.

His cheeks burned when he realised he said distracting aloud. He coughed and buried it under more venom. “You’re lucky I’m wasting my time on you. If you fail, I’ll get blamed for poor tutoring standards.”

“So, you are tutoring me.”

“No, I’m preventing collective embarrassment. It’s completely different.”

She simply hummed as she copied the corrected formula. Her handwriting was wonky, but it was closer to right this time. “Your twos look like upside-down swans.”

“They’re swan-twos,” she shrugged proudly. She finished the line of problems and set her pen down with a weary sigh. “I hate this subject.”

“It hates you back.” She rolled her eyes, but her expression faltered. Her fingers tightened on the workbook, and her shoulders drew in. Damian recognised it immediately. It was her pre-crying or I’m-stupid-and-I-know-it look. His stomach lurched. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” Anya blinked.

“Don’t cry. You’re not failing.”

“You think I can actually do it?”

For one fatal second, the mask slipped and the truth bled through. He nodded, voice uncharacteristically soft. “Yeah. You can.” Her mouth curled into a little smile, and his chest clenched so hard he wanted to kick a wall to rid himself of it. “Not because you’re clever,” he added quickly, armour snapping back on, “but because I refuse to let you humiliate me by association.”

“Thanks, Sy-on boy,” Anya laughed, oblivious to the praise. “You’re so encouraging.”

“You’ve got it.” His ears burned hot enough to fry eggs; he slammed her notebook shut. “Try not to embarrass yourself tomorrow. If you fail, I’ll personally bury you so nobody remembers you existed.”

“Aw, you’d give me a funeral?”

He simply snarled and stormed back to his desk, where he lasted thirty seconds before glancing back. Forger was smiling, swinging her legs, and completely unaware of the fact he just spent half an hour tutoring her like a deranged suitor. He dropped his head into his hands to stop the thought that he actually wanted her to pass.

When she got the test back the following week with a passable, but hardly amazing, grade, she turned in her seat, and called over, “Guess you’re a good teacher, Sy-on boy!”

“Shut up!” he hissed, scarlet, fantasising about dying on the spot. Still, he didn’t deny it.

*

The office didn’t advertise murder. The sign dubbed it ForenPro Environmental Services in friendly corporate font, announcing that what waited inside were recycling bins and sustainability seminars. The room stank of ammonia and contained beige walls, plastic chairs and a potted plant that bravely died months ago, but remained on payroll. Damian despised every inch of it as he leaned against a wall with a face like a thundercloud and said nothing.

Emile did the talking as he laid his badge on the counter, professional in posture and tone. “Detective Elman,” he introduced himself. “I’m reviewing an old case. Berlint. South district. Six years ago. Alley off Kesslerstrasse. Teen girl. I’m led to believe you handled sanitation.”

The man’s nametag indicated his name was Rene. His expression implied he desperately didn’t want to be asked about that one. “Industrial spill,” he tried weakly. Damian slid an envelope with a deliberate push. Rene glanced at it, then back to the man himself. The glare informed him who the bad cop was, even if this particular interrogation didn’t have a good one. “Yes, I remember.”

“Walk me through it,” Emile gestured with his pencil, before resting it on his notebook.

Rene rubbed his hands together, skin raw from years of bleach. “We arrived just before dawn. The coroner hadn’t… moved her yet. She was… small.” He swallowed. “It’s not a scene you forget.” Damian’s jaw flexed and stared at the man until he studied his shoes.

“Blood?”

“Lot of it. Pool in the gutter, spray across the wall, streaks on the bin. We scrubbed the brickwork for hours, but that’s standard trauma clean up. Though… there were no casings or bullets. Nothing embedded. Whoever shot her, the evidence was gone before we arrived.”

“Where was she hit?” Damian finally spoke.

Rene faltered, then tapped his sternum twice. “Here. Two times. Close grouping. Straight through. Both wounds heart-level.” Damian’s eyes closed. Two shots, dead centre. He thought about her grin, how she argued with him, especially on that last afternoon. “The wall was already patched. I could smell a solvent. I think we were just… cosmetic, Detective.”

“Who sent the order?” Emile asked.

“Municipal sanitation,” Rene nodded. “It was fast. I think the request logged before the coroner signed off.”

“Someone pre-booked you?”

Rene didn’t answer, because he didn’t need to. “She laid there all night,” Damian bent over the counter until the cleaner recoiled. “When you arrived, the important parts were all gone, but she was still there, wasn’t she? She was still lying there.”

“Y-Yes, sir.”

“And you went home. You cashed your pay. You slept.”

“We don’t ask questions. If we do, we won't get jobs.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t sympathise with your career trajectory.”

Emile intervened before it spiralled, closing his notebook sharply. “You’ve been helpful. Stay that way by never mentioning this conversation again. Not to your staff, not to your wife, and certainly not to your reflection.” Rene bobbed his head, already erasing the memory.

Outside, Berlint had the audacity to be alive. Cafes clattered with plates, buses wheezed past and pigeons strutted like nothing happened six years ago in a narrow alley off Kesslerstrasse. Two shots, centre mass. Damian’s gaze fixed on nothing as a vile joke itched his brain. He broke her heart after I did. He hated himself for it. “She was there all night,” he finally commented. “Alone.”

Emile ground a cigarette under his shoe, then adjusted his jacket, but he said nothing. The air vibrated with things unsaid that six years refused to dull. “Alright,” he sighed. “Let’s go find him.”

*

Becky’s kitchen table looked like a crime scene when they returned. Cold pizza curled at the edges, ashtrays overflowed like a microcosm of Pompeii and Becky’s wine glass sweated nervously as Damian paced behind it ragefully. Emile stood at the head of the table with a whiteboard and a marker. “Let’s build him,” he tapped it, stepping into his deadpan detective costume. “We need to figure out who he is.”

“Alive, wealthy, likely smug,” Becky answered immediately. She scrolled property listings on her phone under the guise of background research. “Because let’s be clear, Daddy Desmond doesn’t hire cheap. You don’t erase a girl from existence and leave your guy struggling to pay rent. Whoever he is, he’s either got a summer home, a sportscar, or a trophy wife he doesn’t deserve, perhaps all three. Donovan doesn’t tip, he endows.”

“Don’t call him Daddy Desmond,” Damian stopped pacing.

“Fine, Papa Psychopath.”

Emile cleared his throat before Damian exploded. “Money now, yes, but let’s be systematic. Two shots to the heart is skill, not accident. You don’t get that clean without practice, which means ranges, clubs, logged hours, not the odd hunting trip.”

“Ewen,” Damian said flatly. “Cross-reference every Ostanian gun club membership since the Cold War.”

“Sure, why not?” Ewen sighed. “It’s not like I wanted to die happy.”

“The age bracket,” Emile continued, and wrote 25 – 35. “Too young, they’d balk. Too old, they’d wheeze. This was a fit, trained marksman in their prime.”

“So they’d be in their early thirties to forties now,” Becky nodded along, “or, as I prefer to call it, the prime age to start thinking golf is a sport, but young enough to murder people for pocket money.”

“Not pocket money,” Damian cut in, staring at the wall, seeing his father’s shadow everywhere. “Blood money. Father paid him well to never talk, so the amount will be obscene.”

“So, what you’re telling me is I need to filter for middle-aged rich guys with tight grouping,” Ewen snorted. “Congratulations, we’ve described half the country clubs.”

“Look for people who levelled up in the last six years,” Emile instructed. “Promotions, property, cars that don’t make sense with their salary.”

“He bought loyalty to kill her, and that loyalty’s now sitting in a villa outside Berlint.” Damian’s hands clenched into fists.

“That’s useful for us,” Becky said brightly. “Rich guys are awful at hiding wealth. They brag, buy shiny toys, they put photos online of their latest pedigree dog or ski trip. They want to be noticed.”

“I’m noticing,” Ewen squinted at his screen. “Jesus Christ. Give or take forty ranges or clubs, thousands of names, records? I’m going to die here. Please scatter my ashes over a spreadsheet.”

“You’re not dying until I have a name.”

“How comforting, Bossman.”

“We’ll visit the clubs you shortlist,” Emile sighed. “We’ll ask around. People gossip about who hit the bull every time. Nobody hides their perfect aim forever.”

“We’ll find him,” Damian smiled. “Then we’ll see if his aim’s as steady when someone aims back.”

As the day progressed, Ewen realised he once dreamed of charting galaxies and sipping a Diet Coke in zero-G whilst humanity cheered his name. Instead, he drank a third pot of coffee as he stared at thirty-six gun club rosters, and wondered if death by Excel was likely. Figures multiplied across his screen like bacteria, and he felt his soul leak out through his cuticles as he typed in another birthdate. “One more crash and I’m jumping out the window,” he announced to the room.

“You’re not done until we have every member of every club in Ostania.”

“Oh, sure!” he threw his arms up. “No problem, Bossman! Just give me a hot minute to solve Gun Yelp for the entire country!”

“Ewen, stop whining and work.”

“This isn’t work. This is torture! This is Guantanamo for nerds!”

“Give him breaks, Bossman,” Emile lounged with his own coffee. “Every three hours, he should be allowed to stand up, scream, then return to his clicking.”

“Not. Helping.”

“You’re doing amazing. Only nineteen more clubs and six hundred names to go.”

Ewen made a strangled noise in reply that implied his remaining hopes had died. “Do cosmonauts do this?” he pouted. “Because if they do, I’m switching dreams. I’ll be an accountant.”

“Buddy, if you were an accountant, you’d set fire to yourself with a calculator by week two.”

“Still better than this!” The laptop pinged angrily, and he slammed his head on the desk. “Fantastic! Another duplicate roster! Kill me!”

“No,” Damian simpered.

“You’re a monster.”

“Yes.”

“Hm, what should I put on your grave?” Emile mused. “How about… Here lies Ewen, may he rest in infinite Excel rows.”

“Shut up!” he flailed, nearly knocking over his coffee. “Do you know how many of these gun-nuts I’ve listed? It’s more people than the Black Death!”

“That’s the job,” Damian deadpanned.

“No, Bossman, that’s your job. My job was meant to be space! Stars! Rockets! Yuri Gagarin posters! Not digging through the Facebook archives of some guy called Deiter who once shot clay pigeons for charity!”

“Deiter had a watertight alibi,” Emile snorted. “A shame, really, he had an assassin’s eyebrows.”

Becky reappeared with another bottle of wine, perfectly pressed, as if the boys’ chaos only nourished her glow. “You’re a genius,” she cooed. “You’ve turned Ostania’s entire shooting scene into a list of rich psychopaths. That’s basically a dating app.”

“Can I swipe left on this entire country?” Damian ignored them and stared at the list of names. “Bossman. Buddy. I would die for you, but please stop making me live like this.” Ewen’s face was the exact colour of regret and bad lighting as he was reduced, by duty and over-caffeination, to somebody who could find the origin IP of a throwaway burner in ten seconds, but was forced to parse human lives instead. He worked the filters mechanically until the noise thinned. “Filter one,” he announced, “anyone who was twenty-five to thirty-five at the time. So, we lose the geriatrics and the teenagers.”

“Good,” Damian murmured. “Don’t make me come over there and point at people I don’t like.”

“Filter two,” Ewen continued after producing a noise that was either a laugh or an anguished howl, “documented presence in Berlint six years ago. If their social feed proved they were cottaging in Frigis, you’re fine.” He ran cross-checks against geotagged posts, five years’ worth of check-ins and public transit logs people forgot were public. Names vanished. “Filter three is access to private range or clubs. Not everybody in Ostania can afford to go bang in private. So, they either have family money or really sticky employers. I’m referencing registries and horribly nostalgic PDF newsletters nobody updates anymore.”

Emile sipped cold coffee. “Don’t forget mobility. Anya ran. Whoever took the job needed to be capable of moving fast. If you uploaded a picture of you in a compressed knee brace at that time, you’re off the list.” They moved quickly to eliminate the obvious, such as a man whose Instagram was wall-to-wall maternity photos, the octogenarian who shot clay pigeons because he missed war, the kid who was at choir practice in a different city. “Make sure none of them are idiots too. We want somebody discreet, not an attention-seeking maniac who rants on podcasts.” He grinned meanly. “Though, honestly, that would make our lives a hell of a lot easier.”

Ewen’s eyes were red-rimmed, but his hands steadied. The machine he built purred and spat. The clubs yielded a list which dwindled from seventy to forty then thirty. They paused for lunch, and kept going. Damian smirked, which meant the hunt was working, as Ewen applied the final brutal trim, which was money movements and proximity to Donovan’s web of associates. “Twenty three,” he breathed in relief. He scrolled the names. “I’ve got twenty-three that warrant boots on the ground. They aren’t obviously alibied, and have the means, motives, or the stench of Desmond cash.”

Damian leaned forward, fingers steepled, though he dropped them once he realised it was a habit he picked up from his father. “Show me.”

Ewen flicked through the profiles, which included ex-special forces contractors listed as risk consultants, a mid-level private security manager whose Instagram revealed an anomalous disappearance followed by a fancy vehicle, a small business owner who bought a second property in the countryside a year after the murder, and a man with tidy target photos. Emile whistled softly. “Concrete enough to warrant talking to them without looking mental. Perfect.”

“I’ll take the three with nice watches,” Becky announced. “Ewen, keep crawling for their financial dust. Emile, you’re talking to the clubs. Damian, you do your… thing. You make people nervous.”

Damian didn’t need to be told twice. He stood, coat perfect. He would knock on doors, charm and threaten and bribe, then watch men who were paid for making lives vanish and see if anybody flinched. For a moment, Ewen imagined the stars again; they were distant, untroubled. He smiled, and returned to his laptop, because the country was filled with secrets, and he was still alive to dig them up.

*

Damian stood behind the bar like the bottles were interrogating him, spine straight, jaw clenched, glass untouched. Next to him, Forger lounged with the ease of somebody who never felt shame. She cracked a peanut and fiddled with it, then began casually. “So, I’ve been thinking about your friend again.”

“For the last time,” he sighed through his gritted teeth, “you are-”

“Nope!” she replied cheerily. “She had a whole life – friends, family, too, I bet. I don’t remember any of that, so I can’t be her. I’m just me, which means she and I are totally different people! Anyway, as I was saying before you rudely interrupted me, I was wondering what she was thinking about. You know, when it happened.”

He craned his neck towards her, because he knew down to the syllable. Tell him he’s Sy-on boy and he doesn’t get to decide who disappears. He listened to the recording until it branded itself across his brain and her voice haunted him between gulps of whiskey. Still, he scoffed. “What a stupid thing to think about.”

“It’s not stupid!” she argued. “When I talk to customers about it, they always tell me their last thoughts were about something or someone that matters. So, she must’ve been thinking about something or someone that matters!”

“Matters, yes,” Damian’s laugh cracked halfway. “Nothing screams you matter like lying in a gutter of your own blood.”

“You’re so negative,” she sighed, then squinted at him. “What, did you know? Was it family? A friend? Oooh, a lover?!”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t spin fairy tales about things you don’t understand. Don’t talk about her – or yourself, for that matter – like she’s a character in some cheap romance novel.”

“I’m not-”

“You are, and it’s disgusting.” His voice was sharp enough to draw blood.

Her eyes widened dangerously. It was that look again. “Why are you being so horrible about this?”

“Because you don’t know!” The words tumbled out before he softened them. “You’re speculating about the final thoughts of a girl you know you look like, and you think it’s harmless? It isn’t. It’s grotesque. So, drop it.”

Hurt flickered across her face before she stubbornly smoothed it over. “I was just curious.”

“Curiosity killed you once already,” Damian snapped. “Shall we see if it kills you again?”

It landed like a slap. Her mouth opened, then shut. He felt his pulse pounding as the damn recording echoed in his skull. Every word of it was for him, and there she was, alive-but-not, speculating about it. Her eyes searched his face to find the truth behind the venom, but he turned away from her. “I just thought she must’ve loved somebody,” Anya said softly.

“Love. Yes. Exactly,” he laughed, then pressed on, because cruelty was safer than honesty. “Whoever it was didn’t save you, did it? Whoever you wasted your last thought on, it doesn’t matter. You still died, so forgive me if I’m not weeping over what you were thinking about in your final, useless seconds.”

She stilled, peanut forgotten in her hand. “You’re awful.”

“I’m aware.”

He hated the quiet. He hated the look on her face, which told him she glimpsed something ugly inside him. He wanted to tell her that he was right there, in her head in her last breath, and she cursed him forever with it. He wanted to tell her he listened to it non-stop until he stopped being a person and became a walking echo. He wanted to tell her how every time she called herself not the real Anya it felt like a knife to the back. He wanted to, but he couldn’t, because if she didn’t believe she was Anya, what good would it do? If she knew, she’d look at him differently, because she’d remember, and he knew he wouldn’t, couldn’t survive her remembering.

Instead, he sneered. “Next time you get the urge to theorise, do us both a favour and keep it to yourself.”

Anya’s lip trembled, but she lifted her chin proudly. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

They glared at each other. Just when things were finally going well! Obviously Forger ruined it as always! Then he glimpsed the quick tremor of her lip, how her lashes fluttered to fight something back. She was about to cry. Damian’s chest seized. For all the venom in him, he just wanted her to stop, to smile, to glare, to throw peanuts at his head, anything but cry. He almost reached for the words, almost, but choked on them, caught between truth and the final weapon in his arsenal.

Silence.

Anya lasted five more minutes before she gave up. She held her grin for customers like a banner in a storm, but her eyes were glassy and her laugh came late. When she finally hopped from behind the bar, she waved enthusiastically. “I’m just going to, uh… reorganise the stockroom! Yeah! Spirits inventory! It’s very important!”

She swanned away, the door swinging shut behind her. Damian leaned back, exhaling like he’d just dodged a firing squad. “Fine, go sulk then. Maybe you’ll learn not to-”

“Not to what?” Ewen cut in. He slouched sideways across the bar, one arm draped, but his eyes were unusually sharp. “Not to poke the bear? Not to ask questions about her own life?”

“Not to corner me with things that aren’t hers to touch.”

“Her own death isn’t hers to touch?”

“Not when she gossips about it,” Damian rubbed his eyes wearily and rapidly fraying at the edges. “You didn’t hear her. She was speculating about her last thoughts like a parlour game! And I-”

“You what?” Ewen tilted his head.

“She reminded me of that fucking recording.”

Ewen sobered, as his grin slipped. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “That’d do it.”

“She doesn’t remember it. She doesn’t believe it’s her, but I- every time she talks about her I hear it again, and then-” his voice cracked, “she smiles like it’s fun. It’s not fun for me. It’s the worst goddamn thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“That’s fair, Bossman. I’d snap too.” Damian blinked at him, surprised by the lack of the mockery. “But, on the off chance that she is Anya – your Anya – you just made her cry again. She went to the stockroom because she didn’t want you to see. Listen, I don’t really know how many afterlives you get, but if you don’t fix it, you’ll be stuck knowing you pulled the same shit twice.”

“Yeah, well, she doesn’t believe she’s-”

“She might be,” Ewen interrupted. “It doesn’t matter if she believes it or not. You do, which means you’re still treating her like she’s her. That means, Bossman, when you hurt her feelings, it’s the same as before.” Damian’s throat felt raw. His best friend sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. “Look, you don’t have to spill your guts. God knows nobody wants to hear it. But you owe her an apology – one plain, boring, human apology. She deserves better than dying thinking about you, then getting stuck working a bar with your grumpy ass.”

Damian visibly flinched, but Ewen leaned back, vaguely suave.

“Besides, if you don’t apologise, she’ll weaponise the liquor cabinet against you, so you’ll be drinking flat tonic water for the next century.”

He groaned into his hands. “What do I even say?”

“Try I’m sorry, Forger, for being the human embodiment of syphilis. Better start rehearsing, Bossman.”

“I hate you.”

“Yeah, but you don’t hate her. So go say sorry.”

The stockroom door stayed closed. Damian stared at it like it was a gallows.

Chapter Text

The observatory once studied the stars, but now resembled God’s smashed ashtray. The dome half-collapsed, its ribs jutting like a boxer’s teeth, and the floor was littered with graffiti ranging from declarations of eternal love to anatomically impossible genitalia doddles. Damian picked it because nobody sane would enter, which made him the ideal customer. He was early, of course, because paranoia carried a punctuality kink. Cigarettes piled around his boots like a graveyard for the thoughts he couldn’t speak aloud, so he chain-smoked until he could. His lungs felt like overworked fireplaces, and his hands shook the filter into a dance. Demetrius arrived late enough to prove a point. His coat cut a line through the twilight, gloves gleaming pale in the half-light, and his face carried faintly irritated serenity. He sat without brushing the cracked stair, dust bending politely away from him. 

“You wanted privacy,” he said in lieu of greeting. “So speak.” 

Damian forgot every line he rehearsed, and it came out in frantic and cracked bursts. “You know what Father did, don’t you? Apple, that fucking… project. I’ve been digging, and you know what I’ve found? Children, Demetrius, for… research!” 

Demetrius didn’t blink. 

Smoke and words merged together as he ground ash under his heel to kill the past. “And it worked, at least once. Anya Forger.” The name scraped his throat. “She was one of them. I don’t know how, but she escaped and survived. She built a life, she laughed. Then, she was nineteen and in an alley and somebody put a bullet in her because Father said so.” 

He lit another cigarette like a priest with a candle. 

“I traced the lines, Demetrius. The money, the handlers, the erased names. I know it wasn’t chance. It was ordered. Father killed her. He signed the paper and washed his hands.” He laughed bitterly, the sound echoing off the dome like a stand-up comedian bombing on stage. “And for what? Because she just wanted to live normally?” He whirled desperately on his brother. “Say something. Say you’ll help.” 

“I know.” The two words were as clean as a scalpel. 

The cigarette slipped from Damian’s fingers. “What?” 

“I know,” Demetrius repeated calmly. “I know about Apple. I know about the girl. Father told me when I joined the party. I was old enough to understand the necessity.” 

The scenery tilted on its axis as cold dread ran its fingers down Damian’s spine. “You- he told you?”

“Yes.” Demetrius nodded once. “Telepaths meant supremacy in the information war. That’s the purpose. Apple succeeded, because we proved it existed, but the failure lay in unstable subjects. That one especially. She resented the program, and resentment breeds eventual betrayal. When we uncovered her father was WISE’s Agent Twilight, the conclusion was obvious. A telepath in enemy hands is catastrophic. Removal was logical.” 

“Removal,” he laughed, “you’re talking about her like she’s garbage.”  

“She was a liability,” Demetrius returned evenly. “It wasn’t personal.” 

“Wasn’t personal?” Damian staggered. “She’s Anya! She was alive-”

“And now she isn’t. That’s reality.” 

Inside him, something cracked open. “I loved her.” Not once on this earth had he admitted it aloud, but perhaps Demetrius would understand. “I wanted to marry her, and if I had, if she was my wife, she wouldn’t have betrayed Ostania. She would’ve been loyal. Through me, through us, she would’ve stayed. She could’ve… been with me.” 

His cigarettes burned down, forgotten, but Demetrius spoke. “You sound like a brat.” Shame crawled up his throat, fighting bitterly with anger. “You call it love, and maybe it was. It isn’t like I know. You insisted you hated her, and you knew better than to lie to Father. He believed you were being truthful. If you stated otherwise, perhaps another plan could have been considered. A telepath has its uses. But, you didn’t. You made her disposable.” Damian reeled; he looked startlingly young and caught-out. His older brother’s voice dipped into something resembling humanity. “You loved her, perhaps. But no, she didn’t love you, and you never gave her the chance to. Pity.” 

Pity landed like dirt on a coffin. For a moment, the observatory felt like a courtroom, he was the accused, and Demetrius read the verdict. If I said something, anything, there could’ve been another option. An option where she’s alive. Instead, I… he pressed his palms into his eyes until the dark turned red. His mind sketched it in cruel clarity – Anya, her hair loose under sunlight, her laugh spilling across their dining table, her hand on his arm, not pushing him away, but staying. It all culminated in the knowledge that this could’ve been reality. I built my pride on calling her beneath me. That’s what she died for. My pride. It’s my fault. Not Father’s. Not the state’s. Mine. 

“You should stop,” Demetrius said quietly, and not unkindly. “Let her rest. Walk away. There’s no victory here. Father won’t forgive disobedience. You can’t save her. The only thing you can do is join her.” 

Damian lifted his head, eyes emptied of all traces of humanity. His voice was steady with the resignation of a foregone conclusion. “Joining her was the end goal from the beginning.” 

It hung in the air like a noose. For the first time, disappointment flickered across his brother’s face. “So, that’s your aim.” 

“Don’t act surprised. Father raised us both to die for him. At least I’m choosing who I die for.” 

His brother’s stoic composure broke as he regarded Damian with sharp and helpless grief, like staring at an equation he couldn’t solve. “You could have been brilliant,” he said. “You have the mind. The fire. But look at you now, half-mad, drunk, and throwing yourself into a grave for one girl. I don’t understand you, Damian. I’ve tried, and I can’t. It saddens me that I’ll die not knowing the brother I may have had.” 

He turned and walked into the night, leaving Damian with the ash, the silence, and his confession hanging in the air like smoke.

*

A month after Damian Desmond’s funeral, Ewen was summoned by his brother. The meeting didn’t take place in a boardroom or sweeping estates where Ewen expected to be cowed by inordinate wealth. That was too theatrical, and Demetrius was never theatrical. Instead, he chose a bog-standard office building that resembled an abandoned warehouse; in most respects, it still was one. Ewen sat opposite him, hands resting on his legs because they were shaking. He always thought of himself as brave, or at least brave enough to back Damian’s insane investigation, but it meant nothing when one was observed by a Desmond who calculated the speed of one’s pulse by looking. Demetrius hadn’t spoken yet, which was part of it. He sat surgically straight, his eyes fixed slightly to the left, like Ewen didn’t qualify as the focal centre. The silence stretched so long that he considered blurting something to fill it, but every instinct screamed that it would be a mistake.

Finally, Demetrius spoke. “You wanted to be an astronaut.”

It wasn’t a question. He never told any other Desmond aside from Damian (who rolled his eyes so hard it was a miracle they didn’t detach), but that was years ago, in the playground, when outer space was his entire personality. “Yes,” he croaked. “Um. Yessir.”

“You still do.” Demetrius looked directly at him, studying him, assessing him, cataloguing which parts eroded first. “There’s a program. The national space initiative is underdeveloped. My father finds this embarrassing. I intend to remedy it.”

The words took their time settling in his brain, because they didn’t sound real. He followed every scrap of news about launches, proposals and half-cancelled projects. “You-You’re involved?”

The elder Desmond continued like he hadn’t spoken. “We’re building a new cohort. Candidates will train and eventually launch.” He relaxed fractionally. “You’ll be considered.”

For a heartbeat, he pictured stars, rockets, gazing down at Earth from inside his helmet in a ridiculous dream he carried with him since he was a boy, dangling in front of him like a shiny toy. Reality snapped back quickly, because he was here for Damian, because Damian was dead, his death was wrong, and Ewen, idiot to the end, kept asking questions. “Why me?”

“You’re intelligent enough,” Demetrius’ expression didn’t change, but it hardly ever did. “You’re obsessive enough. You don’t understand limits, but you understand loyalty.” He never raised his voice, but something invisible shifted in the room. “You’ll accept the opportunity. You’ll pursue it fully. You won’t distract yourself with irrelevant matters.”

“I-” He wanted to say something brave, like I’m not abandoning him, but his throat closed. “If I… stop, if I… take this, you’re saying I’ll-”

“You’ll go to space.”

“And if I don’t?”

The temperature dropped about thirty degrees. “Then you won’t.”

At that moment, he understood precisely what was offered, and what would be taken away. It wouldn’t end at the program, no, it would be his personal safety, his friends’ safety, his family’s safety. Everyone knew the Desmonds’ reach, even if they refused to speak it aloud. His chest hurt as he remembered smug, bossy, impossible Damian calling him an idiot affectionately, then of his obsession with fixing the world’s ills. Damian wouldn’t want him to stop; Damian wouldn’t want him to sell out.

However, Damian was dead.

He wanted to shout. He wanted to stand up and storm out, but he sat there, because Demetrius’ gaze pinned him, and moving would kill him.

“You understand.”

Ewen nodded before he even realised he had. Demetrius stood crisply, signifying the meeting’s end. He delivered the offer, the command and the warning at once, now there was nothing else to say. Ewen stumbled from the office block, heart pounding. He felt sick, but also, disturbingly elated, because the dream was right there, within reach, so long as he betrayed Damian. He pressed his fists to his eyes until stars burst behind them. It wasn’t the same as real stars, but it would have to do.

The following weeks were surreal. Papers appeared, interviews scheduled, tests arranged. He was whisked into training pipelines he only read about in scattered articles. Each step deeper into his dream was a step further away from the case. Naturally, Emile saw it. “They bought you,” he accused him once over drinks.

“They didn’t,” Ewen protested weakly. “It’s just… this is my chance. You know I’ve always wanted…”

“What about Bossman?”

“He would’ve wanted me to go.” Even to his own ears, it sounded like a plea. Fear stalked him, even in brightly lit corridors of his new workplace. Each time he thought about digging into one more lead for old times’ sake, he remembered Demetrius coldly informing him then you won’t. He wanted to be loyal and brave, but he also wanted to see the stars. The Desmonds knew that.

*

Emile believed himself unshakable, because he walked into murder scenes that were more viscera than wallpaper, took statements from weeping children, seen kingpins up close, and scented cordite on the skin of men who would gut him if given opportunity. Fear was part of the job, and he folded it into his paperwork and carried on. The door opened soundlessly as Demetrius entered. He crossed the room with steps measured to the inch and sat like a geometry problem. They faced each other across an interrogation table, but the roles were obscenely switched. Emile’s pen tapped once against his notepad. Despite his attempts to still it, his hand disobeyed.

“You’ve been asking questions.” It was a non-accusatory and uncurious statement; Emile’s insides broiled, because the elder Desmond brother never wasted words.

“I’m a detective.”

His eyes narrowed. “You weren’t assigned Damian’s case, which I’m informed is closed.”

“With respect,” Emile’s mouth dried, but he refused to show it, “Damian Desmond’s death was ruled suspicious, which puts it in my jurisdiction.”

“It doesn’t.” Overhead, fluorescent lights hummed in time with Emile’s pulse. “You misunderstand. It won’t be investigated further.”

“That’s not your decision to make!” Emile snapped before he stopped himself. He raised his voice at the Desmond who spoke the least, whose silences themselves had reputations. However, Demetrius didn’t react, and stared ahead to figuring out how many seconds Emile’s heartbeat would stutter before it stopped.

“You’ll stop.” It was an entirely neutral command, but his palms pricked with sweat.

“I can’t. He was my friend. He deserved better than… whatever this is.”

“You think you’re doing this for him.” Demetrius blinked slowly, as if recalibrating; it was minor, but it carried the weight of tectonic plates. “You’re not. You’re doing this for yourself.” He wanted to argue, but the words jammed in his windpipe. “Stop.”

The monosyllable lingered in the air like smoke. Emile knew he could handle himself, but Demetrius wasn’t like anybody he’d met before. He wasn’t even like Donovan, who had the decency to radiate polite, detached menace, but his son was cold, minimal and efficient. Emile knew he’d been filed, categorised and ultimately stamped disposable.

“You’ve been persistent,” Demetrius continued.

“That’s what makes a good detective,” Emile tried bravado, because he had little else.

“That’s what makes a dead detective.”

“I’m not walking away,” he pressed, forcing his gaze steady. If he flinched, it was over. “Not until I know what happened to Damian. And Anya Forger.”

For a moment, it was realistic to think Demetrius would rise, leave, and have him murdered in the hallway. Instead, the eldest son studied him with clinical interest, which was the worst aspect. “You won’t understand.”

“Then explain it.”

Demetrius’ mouth twitched in an involuntarily acknowledgement that Emile just volunteered himself for the scalpel. “Project Apple. You know the name already. You don’t know the purpose.”

“Enlighten me.” It would have been perfect sarcasm if his voice didn’t wobble.

“Espionage superiority,” he shrugged. “In an informational war, weapons are irrelevant. Trust is a weapon. The West thrives on alliances, coalitions, shared beliefs. My father identified its main flaw. It all rests on lies. A single telepath can unravel every falsehood.”

Emile pictured a field agent who could peel open minds like ripe fruit, extracting betrayals before they sprouted, crushing treaties before they were signed. No, a single operative could dismantle years of diplomacy in a single afternoon. “That’s monstrous.”

“It’s efficient.”

“Did it succeed?”

“No.” Emile exhaled, but not with relief, because it didn’t mean we never tried. It was we tried, we failed, and we left bodies behind. He recalled Anya’s bright smile and easy jokes. “You wanted answers. Now you have them. That’s the story.”

“It’s not enough.” A desperate detective was still a detective. “You can’t just tell me it failed and expect me to drop it. People died. Anya died. Damian died. So, what, you’re just admitting it? You made them? You made her?”

“There was an attempt.” Demetrius’ tone didn’t shift. “Children don’t make good instruments. They were imperfect, so, the project failed.”

Anya Forger smiled awkwardly in group photos. Imperfect. Failure.

“And the clean-up?”

Demetrius’ gaze sharpened. “Yes. It was ordered. It wasn’t personal. Remnants of failure are dangerous. Debris must be cleared.”

“Not personal? Anya was killed. How is that not personal?”

“You mistake personal for necessary.”

“And Damian?” he forced out.

“We knew.” The air promptly receded from Emile’s lungs; he hadn’t suffered an asthma attack since he was a boy, but he recognised an emerging medical crisis. “We knew his movements. We knew what he uncovered. We allowed it. He was family. Perhaps he would understand.”

Emile understood perfectly that Damian was permitted to dig until it became inconvenient. “You let him walk into it.”

“He walked in himself,” Demetrius corrected. “Death was the consequence.” The pen in Emile’s hand snapped. Ink bled across his palms, but he barely noticed. “You’re a detective, so… detect the outcome if you drag this matter into daylight. Let’s imagine that it emerges the National Unity Party experimented on children, some tests succeeded, some escaped, and they still may be at large.” Emile’s stomach churned. “The people will naturally ask, if such children exist, won’t they seek revenge? Won’t they turn to crime? Would they not unravel society? Neighbours will suspect neighbours. Paranoia spreads, and then it emerges that the de facto ruling family of Ostania ordered it all. What follows?”

“Justice,” he rasped. “That’s what should follow.”

“Disappointing. No.” Demetrius sighed. “What would follow are riots, instability, collapse, civil war, or even, invasion by opportunists. The truth wouldn’t heal. It would kill.”

Emile pressed his inky hands to his face, uncaring. “It was wrong!”

“Yes.” It was agreement without consolation. “It was wrong. However, revealing it helps nobody. Justice for one woman, or one man, creates injustice for thousands. Truth is irrelevant if it destroys the body politic.”

“You’re asking me to betray them.” 

“I’m telling you their deaths mean nothing if you destroy everything else with them. You cannot bring them back, but you can choose whether others join them. You understand.”

Emile’s body betrayed him before his voice did. He nodded once, small and broken. Demetrius adjusted his cuff, the same way Damian did when he wanted to appear suave. “Good. Then you’ll stop.”

He rose, and the door closed behind him equally soundlessly. Emile sat alone, chest aching like a rot had been excised. He had the answers he always wanted, but they stripped him raw and rent him in two. He agreed. God help him, he agreed, and it tore him apart.

*

The bar was bright, noisy and reeked of stale beer, but that’s why Becky chose it. If they were being watched, it was better to drown in strangers than sit silently in private. She arrived first, flung her expensive coat across a chair, and sat stiff-backed. She didn’t need to wait long; Emile slipped in a few minutes later with fatigue carved on his face. Ewen stumbled after him, jittery as he attempted bravado and failed. They crowded around the table, three shadows in a sea of offensive neon. Becky stared at them as Twilight’s words rung in her ears. Stop, Becky. It’s enough. She hated how calm he was and how much she wanted to believe him, even as her pride revolted. “I had a visitor,” she announced quietly.

“Who?” Emile’s eye’s flicked up sharply; Ewen seemed concerned.

“Twilight.”

The piano hiccupped through a wrong note. Ewen’s eyes widened. “Like, Anya’s dad? Like, super-spy, disguise-master, bogeyman Twilight?”

“Yep, hat in hand, trench coat, the works,” Becky’s lips twisted. “He stood at my door like a grief audition and told me to stop. What about you detective? Still chasing glory?”

“I spoke with Demetrius.” His empty eyes ringed dark.

“…What?!”

“He found me,” Emile spoke slowly, each word scraping his larynx. “He sat down, told me what Apple was, confirmed what we already knew. The family knew Damian’s every move and hoped he’d understand. He didn’t, and now he’s dead.”

“You’re lying.” Ice pulsed through her veins as Ewen shook his head furiously. “He wouldn’t just… say all of that.”

“He did, and let me know the consequences.”

“That’s what they want!” Ewen’s fists clenched. “Fear keeps us quiet.”

“Maybe,” Emile downed half of his pint, “fear’s the call this time.”

Justice doesn’t always come in the shape we want. Sometimes it’s enough to survive. Becky hated how convincing it sounded. Ewen pushed back from the table. “You’re both insane. Bossman wouldn’t have stopped. He would’ve… burned the world down!”

“Yes,” Emile’s voice cracked, “and now he’s ash.”

The words vibrated around the surviving trio as the bar carried on laughing, clinking glasses and blasting music. Becky swallowed. “This isn’t helping. Let’s just… go home.”

They left the bar, night air thick with cigarette smoke and Berlint’s decay. Emile drove. Ewen sat in the passenger seat, sulking. Becky perched in the back, arms wrapped around herself, eyes fixed on the blurry lights. She didn’t think about Twilight’s face, or how his voice cracked on Anya’s name, or how her pride wanted to scream ragefully, but her grief imploded it. They turned down to her street, where she would go home and sleep alone. Emile braked before she understood why. Smoke curled above the rooftops, backlit by orange. The closer they rolled, the more evident it became.

Her house was on fire.

“You’re fucking joking!” she whispered.

“Holy shit!” Ewen lurched forward. Flames clawed through shattered windows, roof sagging under the blaze. The hedges her gardeners trimmed with rulers curled black and collapsed. Her hand flew for the door handle, but Ewen caught her arm. “Don’t! It’s gone!”

“My fucking house! Damian’s fucking notes!”

“They’re gone.” Emile pulled the car into a shadowed side-street and killed the lights. His eyes swept rooftops, alleys and every corner. Becky’s lungs constricted as she pictured Damian’s messy handwriting scribbled across her walls, the threads tied neatly together with string.

“They knew everything was in there.”

“They don’t need to touch us,” Emile confirmed. “They just need to erase the proof.”

Becky pressed her fist to her mouth. She refused to cry, but the smoke stung, and her vision blurred. “They erased him. Damian’s work. His promise. Everything.”

The fire roared triumphantly as sparks burst upwards. Ewen punched the dashboard. “So that’s it?! We just stop? They win?!”

“What else can we even do?”

“We fight! We keep going!”

“Go where?” Becky snapped loudly. “It’s all gone. Twilight told me to stop. Emile says Demetrius convinced him. They’ve bought you off. Now,” she gestured at the skeleton of her home, “we don’t have a choice.”

Horror and betrayal mingled in Ewen’s eyes. “Becky!”

She shut her eyes and visualised Damian’s handwriting curling into smoke as Anya’s memory was buried ever deeper. Exhaustedly, Emile leaned back in his seat. “It’s over.”

The trio sat in silence, their faces flickering orange in the firelight. None moved. None spoke. Becky pressed her head to the window and thought about ridiculous, cheerful, loyal Anya and how many afternoons she spent at the Forger residence. She thought of Anya’s grin when they got in trouble. Sitting there, watching flames erase her life again, Becky hated that Anya would never laugh again, never hide under desks, never get into childish spats with Damian. This is what enough looked like. Emile sat rigidly in the driver’s seat, hating how clean Demetrius’ argument was, how impossible it was to refute with the fire smouldering before his eyes. He was meant to protect people, but what good was it when protecting one meant sacrificing thousands? His continued survival was proof that he agreed. Ewen slumped as his mind reeled with Damian’s arrogant voice. Don’t be an idiot, Ewen. Pay attention, Ewen. We’ll figure it out, Ewen. He wanted to scream and hurl himself into the fire and drag out a scrap of evidence to prove they hadn’t lost, but he didn’t. Damian was gone. There was no use joining him.

Together, though none said it aloud, they realised this was where they stopped.

The next morning, Becky woke to the sound of gulls, and for a blissful second, she thought she dreamed the fire, the ruin, her home snapping. However, she opened her eyes to her summer villa, and the truth crushed her. Her hands shook as she pushed herself upright. Sunlight painted long bars across the bed cheerfully.

On the nightstand sat a heavy cream envelope with no return address. Inside held a cheque, stamped by the Desmond Foundation, with so many zeroes it boggled the mind. It was enough to rebuild her mansion twice over, to restock every room with even finer furniture, to wipe away scorch marks and dub it electrical failure in the society pages. She folded it back into the envelope and shoved it distastefully in a drawer. Her villa felt like a dollhouse built for a child who outgrew it. Becky dragged breath back into her lungs.

“I got it. Message received.”

*

Becky hated that Blackbell Heavy Industries’ conference room smelled of the money her family minted weapons with. Demetrius Desmond sat across from her, and looked how she remembered from the glimpses of Damian’s orbit. He looked like every angle was aligned with a ruler. “Miss Blackbell,” he greeted, clipped, “I trust the Foundation’s contribution was received.”

“You mean the cheque with enough zeroes to buy out a city block?”

“It was a recognition of loss,” Demetrius replied evenly, “and an assurance of continuity. Blackbell Heavy Industries remains a valued partner. We’ve drawn up revised terms, including improved rates, exclusivity, contract guarantees. I trust you’ll find them satisfactory.”

Satisfactory. The Desmonds burned down her life and rebuilt it prettier, shinier and more profitable. Her father would toast to it; her mother would redecorate. Neither would ask what else was lost. “So,” she leaned forward, “that’s all this is to you. A transaction.”

“Correct.”

“Fine,” she laughed. “If that’s how you see it, let’s cut another deal. I want Damian’s ashes.”

The air-conditioning’s hum filled the silence. Demetrius tilted his head by a millimetre and studied her like a machine with a programming error. “Why?”

“He was my friend.”

For a long, unbearable moment, the elder Desmond regarded her, expression neutral. “It’s unusual.”

“So am I.”

Demetrius’ eyes flickered once - a hairline crack. “He was buried. There are no ashes.” 

“I know the coffin’s empty,” Becky shot back before she stopped herself. “You don’t just bury somebody with three conflicting autopsy reports. A body like that isn’t a body anymore, it’s evidence. Evidence I’m certain your family doesn’t want to surface.” 

“Miss Blackbell-”

“Save it. I don’t care if you cremated him, hid him, shipped him to a lab. You’ll give me something.” 

The elder Desmond brother didn’t move, but for one fraction, his breath caught - guilt for the brother he couldn’t protect, calculation at the danger of letting her press, and fear of what she already suspected. However, when he spoke, it was as stoic as ever. 

“Very well. A portion will be delivered to your residence.”

“That’s it?”

“You asked. I’ll provide. It’s business. You’ll receive an appropriate portion.”

She forced his hand, but his acquiescence made her feel no victory. She wanted to scream, throw her chair at his stupid face or break his immaculate calm. Instead, she rose, smoothed her skirt and picked up her bag. “I’ll wait.”

Three days later, the ashes were delivered to her summer villa. The Desmond Foundation courier handed her a slim box, bowed and promptly scarpered. The transaction was complete. Becky carried it inside and set it on her desk. Her hands trembled as she lifted the lid to reveal a vial no bigger than her pinkie. It was… pitifully small. Her throat burned. Loud, arrogant, impossible Damian was reduced to ash and parcelled like a wedding favour. She sank into her chair, shoulders sagging, tears blurring. “You stupid bastard. You promised you’d get justice. You promised.”

Only the gulls outside answered as they cried over the sea. She hated the Desmonds. She hated herself for taking their money. She hated how small the vial felt in her hand. She held it anyway, because it was all she had left.

Chapter Text

Emile wore a too-small suit that once was courtroom-ready and now reeked of stale coffee; Ewen wielded a laptop bag full of cables and a nervous, earnest face that implied he’d rather be anywhere than an old boy’s shooting club. Emile and Ewen wandered to the section where they framed their triumphs. The board was plastered with yellowed news clipping and target sheets that looked like children’s homework. “Christ,” Emile muttered. “Half these guys couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn if the barn was actively approaching them.”

Ewen, who scanned with manic devotion of looking at dirt constellations, froze. “Hey, wait. Wait. Look.” Emile tracked the end of his finger to a target sheet pinned dead centre with four standard holes, then one ragged one. Across the top Two In One was scrawled in unrefined handwriting. “Holy shit, that’s…”

“Two in one hole, huh?” Emile squinted, then grinned like the bastard he was. “I’ve only ever seen that sort of thing in videos online.”

“I hope to God they were gun safety training videos.”

“They were not.”

The club owner, a stocky fellow called Marek, led them into a side office that was mainly used for petty arguments about membership fees. There were framed photos on the wall of men in ridiculous rifle-based poses. Marcek shut the door to cut off the loud bragging of somebody bragging about a new watch. Emile set his badge down on the desk like a polite landmine. “We’re here about the framed target in the display room.”

“That’s- ah,” Marek paled. “That old thing? Pride of the club!” He chuckled nervously, eyeing the young detective like a rabid animal on a leash. “We’re proud of anybody who can shoot like that detective. It’s certainly a feat.”

“Two in one hole,” Ewen repeated.

“Bit of a private joke. We get those sometimes. Guys showing off. Nothing much to see.” He rubbed his eyes. “There’s a quiet fellow. Rocks up sometimes, but I won’t say he’s a regular. Uses the private lane mainly. Pays cash.”  

“Private lane?” Emile pressed. “Does he book the sessions? Do you have any logs, anything with dates?”

Marek shuffled through a battered folder and produced the sign in sheet. “Most sign. This guy signs with an initial, mostly. R. Sometimes R-field.”

“Any CCTV of private lanes? I assume you film the indoor lanes because of safety regs and all that.”

“We have CCTV, but it’s private. Members get twitchy about it. Privacy concerns and all that,” he glanced at the window. “We keep thirty days. Why?”

“When was the private lane last used by anyone with that grouping?”

“There was a session about a month ago. He came in late at night, left about an hour later. I can pull the footage if you’re… asking nicely.” Marek’s eyes shifted towards Emile’s badge, which seemed to bend the room’s morality.

Ewen clocked the ledger entry for R, clocking in at 23:20. “We need whatever you’ve got for… due diligence. A young woman is dead.”

“I don’t like trouble,” the owner rubbed his chin, “but I don’t like girls dying either. Alright, I’ll pull it, but I’ll warn you now that not everyone likes their face on a screen.”

He clicked through a clunky interface that was crafted with optimism and quickly abandoned. Grainy frames scrolled past, showing late-night empty lanes, a cleaner sweeping, and then the club in the grey void of the wee hours. Then, at the 23:20 mark an unremarkable figure appeared in the doorway. The camera caught the profile for three seconds; Emile’s eyes moved before his brain finished reading the pixels to absorb the man’s jaw, the aquiline nose and a slight scar at the temple. The figure walked the lane with measured steps, though the camera didn’t capture the shot because the frames blinked, but how he steadied his stance and adjusted his breath, it read like rehearsal. Ewen’s fingers was already in motion as he plugged a thumb-drive into the ancient machine and copied the footage off the system. It protested, naturally, so Ewen spoke gentle words of encouragement to the frankly dogshit code.

Emile watched him work, then turned back to Marek. “Anything else?” he asked.

“There’s one small thing,” Marek fumbled. “He left a card once. Said it was for work or something. I tossed it in a drawer because I don’t do free advertising.” He shuffled in his desk and produced a bent, oil-stained business card, which read Black Rose Solutions Ltd. – Consultant, Security & Logistics. The phone number was scratched on with biro, and there was no logo. It was the sort of card that was either boring or dangerous.

Emile felt his ridiculous little heart push itself into work again. “Thank you. You did the right thing.”

“Don’t make me sorry I helped,” Marek mumbled, refusing to look relieved.

They stepped out of the side office into the lounge. The noise felt obscene. Ewen’s hands were damp as he wielded the drive. “Face and a name,” he breathed, reality finally landing.

“We’ll take it from here,” Emile smiled.

“If this is the guy, it means somebody paid him very well.”

“We’ll make him wish he spent it on better lawyers.”

The pair walked into the evening, the saved clip burning quietly in Ewen’s palm. For the first time in a long time, they had something to do.

*

Emile called at lunchtime, which meant Damian didn’t eat it. He sat in his lounge, staring at the newspaper when the phone rang with the particular cadence of doom. “We’ve got a suspect. Matches the alley ballistics. But don’t get ahead of yourself, Bossman, he’s obviously protected. If you called him tomorrow, it can’t look like you’ve pulled him out of thin air.” Damian murmured assent, hung up, and stared into his coffee like it would explain to him why his life was a long-running farce.

An hour later, he found himself at Berlint’s most exclusive shooting club, which stank of cigar smoke and old money desperately trying not to rot. The front desk clerk searched for a reason to eject him, but realised his face was attached to a Desmond name and immediately melted into a puddle of servile politeness. Damian signed in and allowed himself to be guided inside. The club itself was insane. People fired pistols whilst sipping imported champagne. Targets were paper silhouettes of burglars, revolutionaries, or, in one creatively racist corner, foreign agitators with caricature features. Nobody here wanted to improve their aim; they wanted to prove they could afford bullets.

Damian tugged his jacket straight, forced his spine erect and fixed his expression into Normalman McPerson, Wealthy Patron of Security Concerns. The trick was to look bored and menacing, like the concept of being mugged by a poor person was offensive yet inevitable. He ceased being Damian Desmond, grief-strangled wreck who woke most days hearing Sy-on boy in his dreams. He was a client whose only problem wasn’t enough bodyguards to fetch his coat.

A man in tweed with cheeks like overcooked ham waddled up. “Master Desmond, isn’t it? We don’t often see your family here.”

“Family’s busy,” Damian replied smoothly, clasping his hand firmly to pretend he didn’t want to crush his bones. “I thought I’d get some practice in, and, between us, look into private security.” Rich men loved hearing other rich men complain about commoners infiltrating their sacred halls. “The world’s getting jumpy. You can’t be too careful.”

“Smart lad, smart lad,” Ham-cheek’s eyes gleamed. “Why, just last month some socialist rag threatened to burn half of Berlint. Can’t let them anywhere near the estate? You want the best shooters, you come here.”

“That’s what I was hoping for. I’ve heard this place is renowned for its… discretion.” Ham-cheeks roared with approval and promised to make introductions, so Damian allowed himself to be swept through the room like a debutante at her first ball.

He needed to play the part.

At each lane, he watched politely, then dropped a little line. “Impressive. I may be in the market for a man like that.” At the bar, his voice carried. “The estate’s too porous. The family’s worried. We’ll need people who can shoot straight.” On the balcony, he idly lit a cigarette and remarked, “If I’m paying for security, I expect the best shot in Ostania. Nothing less.”

Because gossip was the true currency of the rich and bored shitless, it spread instantly. A widow with pearls whispered it to her caddish nephew, who tagged along for inheritance reasons. A colonel mentioned it loudly to a man with too many medals on his chest. The bartender passed it along like the weather. By the time Damian downed two brandies and hit three targets with deliberate mediocrity, half the room knew the Desmond boy sought protection. He saw the information take flight, and knew Garden would hear. They usually did.

At one point, a patron leaned in conspiratorially. “If it’s real protection you’re after, Mr. Desmond, there are fellows who train far beyond this club. Ex-military types. Efficient and cold as steel.”

“That’s exactly the sort I’ll need.”

The man beamed at his own usefulness and ordered another round. Damian permitted it. He wandered, careful to be seen, careful to drop the correct phases without overplaying his hand. The trick was the casual inevitability of Desmond wealth plus Desmond paranoid equalling Desmond hiring. It was nothing suspicious; it was just another rich boy terrified the rabble might one day break down his door. Inwardly, it was unbearable. Each time somebody boasted about their aim, he pictured the grouping. Every time laughter followed a clean shot, he heard an echo of one that no longer existed. Wow, Sy-on boy, you’re doing such a good job pretending you’re not plotting murder at the gun club. By dusk, he set the rumour afloat and let it mingle with the cigars until it became common knowledge. If Garden was watching – and they were always watching – they would know. Damian Desmond was shopping around for the best.

As he signed the guestbook on his way out, the clerk bowed low. “Will we see you again soon, sir?”

“Count on it.”

Outside, the Berlint night was cool, heavy with exhaust and the stink of politics. He loosened his tie and let the mask slip. The anger pressed against his ribs like a second set of lungs, so he lit a cigarette with shaking fingers. A couple passing on the pavement glanced at him oddly, but he sneered, because it was safer than crying. The smoke stung his eyes anyway. He walked alone, the perfect rumour sprinting ahead of him into the city’s veins. He cut down a side-street toward home, but Berlint’s alleys had a bad habit of remembering what the living preferred to forget. Halfway down one, his stride faltered as he realised he was perfectly level with the alley.

His feet always knew the way in a trick of muscle memory or punishment. The streetlamps buzzed sickly yellow ahead. Once again, there were fresh flowers. Damian stared, wanting to mutter a caustic comment about sentimentality, but his throat contracted. Becky Stubborn-as-Hell Blackbell never missed a month. He stubbed his cigarette out under his shoe and shoved his hands deep in his pockets before anybody saw. Then, he walked on, leaving the flowers in the alley, because what else was there to do?

Once he reached home, he sat alone at his table, cigarette dying in the ashtray. The card Emile pinned to the board lay innocuously before him. It wasn’t the card of a professional who needed clients, but still wanted you to know he existed but not why. He’d swiped it before anyone realised it was missing. Damian picked it up and dialled the number. The line clicked once, twice. A man’s voice answered, bored as God. “Black Rose Solutions.”

“This is Damian Desmond,” he reclined and let his surname work like a battering ram. “I’m in the market for private security hire.”

There was the faintest shift in tone towards the respectful or curious, underlaid by a quiet dread stemming from knowing what the Desmond name did in Ostania. “Mr. Desmond. How did you acquire my number?”  

“I hear things. I was told you’re the best, and I don’t hire anything less.”

“Then you’ve heard correctly.”

Damian tapped the card on the edge of the table. “I don’t tolerate amateurs. My family, as you know, requires excellence.”

“Excellence,” the man repeated. “That’s a premium service. Do you understand the price involved?”

“Try me,” Damian sneered, then immediately regretted it. The man named a figure so obscene even he, scion of the Desmond family, nearly balked. It wasn’t so much a salary as the GDP of a struggling province.

“That’s the standard retainer. Should you want more than standard, the number grows. And grows.”

“I’m a Desmond,” he said smoothly, despite the blood filling his mouth and the distant whimpering of his bank account. “If I wanted cheap, I’d hire one of my neighbours. I want the best.”

There was a shuffle of papers, which Damian imagined was an empty schedule that was just a blank page with the word MURDER scribbled across the top. “Tomorrow. 8 p.m. One hour. No guests, and bring cash.”

“Fine,” Damian forced himself to sound bored. “Where?”

Black Rose rattled off an address, an industrial estate on the edge of Berlint. “Eight. Don’t be late.”

The line went dead.

Damian set the phone down, lit another cigarette and exhaled until his vision fogged. His stomach rolled at the realisation he just bought an hour with the person who put two bullets in Anya’s chest six years ago. Once again, a Desmond purchased this man’s services. The irony made him laugh, but he choked on it.

*

When alive, he stared down parliaments, interrogators, assassins and his father, but nothing in his twenty-five years of life and however many of death prepared him for the closed door of the stockroom. It loomed like the gates of hell, except painted in flaking green and labelled Liquor Storage. Behind him, the bar buzzed faintly with laughter, but he barely heard it as the universe narrowed to a single unbearable task – apologise.

Damian tested it in his head first.

Forger, I’m sorry I was mean. Nope, too straightforward. She’d think he’d taken leave of his senses.

I apologise for my regrettable conduct. No, too formal. He sounded like he was writing a resignation letter.

Look, I’m not good at feelings, but I didn’t mean to- Ugh. Disgusting. Far too honest.

He groaned aloud and raked his hands through his hair. Why was this so difficult? He delivered speeches before. He lied gracefully; hell, he manipulated artfully. However, faced with telling one tiny ghost bartender he was sorry, his tongue felt like it was lead. He tried again.

I didn’t mean it. Too much of a lie. He did mean it, every venom-laced word, which was his exact fucking issue.

You’re not insufferable all the time. Pathetic.

Stop hiding, you’re making me feel things I don’t want to. Accurate, but suicidal.

He pressed his forehead against the door and exhaled. “God, just kill me again.” Then, he heard it. It was soft at first, muffled by wood and bottles, but it was the undeniable sound of sniffling. Damian froze. He recognised it was the small, helpless crying someone did when they didn’t want anyone to hear. It was his fault. His heart, which long ago calcified into a fortress of guilt, split cleanly down the middle. He pressed harder against the door as if the wood would hold him upright. The memory of her voice – angry, breathless, alive, seconds before she wasn’t – bowled him over. He carried it with him for years.

Now, here she was, crying again because of him; because he could never hold his tongue; because cruelty was easier than vulnerability; because history was a circle he was doomed to redraw. He shut his eyes to shield himself from being shredded further. His mind conjured excuses, defences and anything to drown out the truth.

It’s not her. She says so herself. She’s just the bartender. Still, she sounded the same.

She doesn’t remember. It doesn’t count. She cried the same way.

You’re not responsible for her feelings. He always had been, hadn’t he? He was always sharp enough to make her flinch, yet always desperate enough to patch it up afterwards with a pathetic token – a pen, a plushie, a not bad – which was never enough.

He banged his head against the wall, once, twice, to distract him. It didn’t. The gulps of breath and shuffling of attempts to hide it continued. He considered walking away, pretending he hadn’t heard and he wasn’t a condemned man outside the only room in the universe that mattered. Yet his feet remained rooted to the ground. He couldn’t bear the sound of her crying because of him again. He covered it with more apologies.

I’m sorry. I was wrong. Too bald; she’d laughed.

You didn’t deserve that. Too soft; she’d see right through him.

I overreacted. You just reminded me of something I can’t- Nope, too raw, too close, too dangerous.

Another sniffle echoed. It was worse than the recording, because at least that ended. His chest tightened as he realised he’d rather be shot than stand here listening to her cry. Ewen’s voice floated lazily from across the room. “Bossman? Are you going to stand there all century or are you just growing the balls to knock?”

Damian didn’t answer, but pressed his hand flat against the door to feel the barrier. He debated pushing it, walking in and the words he would string together, but none came, so he stayed locked in paralysis. Finally, he admitted that maybe the afterlife was precisely what he deserved. It wasn’t flames, pitchforks or torture, but the endless echo of her crying behind a door he couldn’t open.

“Fuck it!” he whispered to himself, and wrenched the handle down to break it. The door shrieked open as the stockroom spilled into view, throwing the scent of dust, citrus peel and detergent in his nostrils. Anya sat curled up next to a crate of limes, hunched with her face in her hands, shoulders trembling. She jerked up at the sound, eyes red, swiping at her cheeks to erase the evidence. His first thought was she’s beautiful.

“I’m fine,” she blurted, “just, um… checking if the vodka’s feeling okay!”

He didn’t think, strategise or insult. He crossed the floor, dropped to his knees on the scuffed floor and folded around her from behind. His legs bracketed hers, arms locked around her midsection, and buried his face in her shoulder. He inhaled salt and strawberry sweetness and misery and pressed closer.

“Damian-?!” she gave a startled little squeak, stiffening. “What are you-?!”

“Shut up.” Damian pressed his face closer, his grip absolute.

“Don’t-”

“I’m sorry,” he croaked, jagged as broken glass. “I’m sorry.”

Her sobs transformed into confused hiccups. Damian didn’t apologise like that, from what little she knew of him; he said sorry sarcastically through clenched teeth. He didn’t do this, which was to crush her to him like she was the last thing tethering him to existence. Slowly, hesitantly, her hands rose to cover his where they clenched against her midriff. “Oh. You’re… sorry?”

He tightened his arms, as if she might dissolve through his fingers if he let go. “Yes.” Damian hated how easy it was to say and how impossible it felt simultaneously.

Anya breathed slowly and carefully, unsure what to do with the arms or the apology. “You’re having another one of your episodes, aren’t you?” He huffed against her shoulder. “Mm,” she squeezed his hands, “you’re hugging me, so I’ll allow it.”

Damian closed his eyes. Her warmth bled into him, steady and real. He hadn’t realised how cold he felt until now. He hadn’t meant to unravel, but with her shoulders under his cheek and her breath against his arms, it felt inevitable. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Didn’t mean to what?”

“Make you cry.”

For a second, he thought she might pull away, laugh or dismiss it, but she stayed still, hands resting on his and not letting go. “You’re weird.”

“Yes. I am.”

“You’re also warm.”

He wanted to tell her everything, but to speak it was to force her to face a truth she didn’t remember. Instead, he clung tighter. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to keep saying it.”

“You have no idea.”

Her fingers stroked his knuckles absently, and his heart jolted. He hated how badly he wanted it; he hated he spent his life pretending he didn’t. She leaned back, head tilting, shoulders sinking against him, and Damian nearly collapsed at the instinctive trust. His grip softened marginally, though he didn’t let go. A sting burned his eyes. He clenched his teeth, but one tear escaped, sliding down his cheek. It landed on her neck where her collar sagged.

“…You’re crying.”

“Don’t tell anyone.”

Her brows furrowed, but she nodded. “Your nose is in my hair.”

“Good. Stay still.”

The dust, the barrels, the gin all faded into static and were replaced by the steady rise and fall of her breathing next to his chest. She was warm. Alive. Here. Without realising, Damian fought to memorise the shape of her and carve it into his bones. Stop fucking this up. Stop hurting her. Stop replaying the past. Stop. Then, he broke his own rules.

Without warning, he tilted his head and pressed his lips into her hair in a deliberate, firm kiss. The world stilled. His heart thundered; he inflicted lockjaw on himself. He did it. He actually did it. He pressed his mouth to her like a lovesick moron with no impulse control. Panic flared immediately as every muscle seized.

Christ, what had he done? What the fuck was that?

Anya shifted in his arms, so he braced for horror, disgust or an accusation. Instead, she asked, completely puzzled, “Is that how people normally say sorry?”

His brain performed a swan dive straight out the nearest window. “Yes!” he agreed loudly and quickly. “Yes. That’s absolutely how normal people apologise. It’s entirely standard, completely normal human behaviour.”

“…Really?”

“Obviously,” he doubled down. “What, you thought the words alone were enough?!” He forced a very, very unconvincing laugh. “No, afterwards you need to k- press your lips gently into hair! It’s… traditional!”

“Huh. Okay.” Damian buried his burning face back into her shoulder before she saw his cheeks turning scarlet. His mind was a screaming abyss. Good job, Desmond! You kissed her head, then invented an entirely new cultural norm! Brilliant! A masterclass in subtlety! Meanwhile, Anya giggled softly in delight. “You’re so strange!”

“Shut up.”

“No, I like it. It’s funny. I didn’t know that’s how apologies worked.”

“They don’t,” he hissed reflexively, then snapped his mouth shut. “I mean, they do sometimes, in certain countries. I- I read about it. In a journal.”

“You read apology journals?”

“Yes,” he answered flatly, “for fun. As one does.”

Anya laughed again, hiccupped and leaned her head back against him more easily than before, which was worse than the kiss, because she believed it was a strange human ritual and not a desperate slip of affection from a man who couldn’t say what he felt. He tightened his arms around her, face hidden in her hair, lips clamped closed. If she wanted to think it was normal, fine, let her. He’d take that.

However, he knew what it really was.

Chapter Text

The Desmond family always believed that problems solved themselves if ignored, which explained their national legacy and wallpaper choice. Unfortunately, Damian wasn’t a problem that solved itself. He was the sort that drank, swore, and was photographed in increasingly terrible bars. Three years after the Forger girl’s death, he hadn’t given up. He inherited their mother’s volatility and their father’s ego, a genetic booby-trap that produced grief of operatic proportions. At this point, the only mystery left was how he hadn’t been disowned.

Demetrius, the elder son, was beginning to take it personally.

He sat at his desk; the day’s schedule allowed one hour for despair, and a further two for containment. Family disgrace wasn’t listed, but he was adaptable. He opened his planner, and wrote neatly 10:00 – Address Brother Situation. He didn’t elaborate, because he never did. The Brother Situation was that Donovan finally hinted about “course correction”, which, in the Desmond dialect, was a death sentence. Demetrius didn’t love his brother, exactly, but he found the prospect of fratricide inconvenient.

For the sake of efficiency, he intervened.

Information was readily available when one spoke fluent Desmond. A single phone call to his father’s security contractor later, a thumb-drive was delivered to his office, accompanied by a polite note thanking him for ongoing cooperation. He sifted through the files until he found one labelled Audio – female subject, final exchange. He pressed play.

Static, then an angry girl’s voice. “If you see Damian Desmond-” Demetrius stopped it there; context was unnecessary. The room silenced, except for the faint crackle of moral discomfort trying to start itself. After four seconds of contemplating ethics, he sipped at his water. If his brother found it, he would implode spectacularly, which admittedly, was the goal. Demetrius found human emotion largely theoretical, not unlike quantum physics or jazz. He understood the concept, but saw no practical application, but he recognised that every time somebody mentioned her name, Damian combusted into anger, tears or alcoholism. It was annoying.

He was a good brother. He tried other approaches first.

1. Offering him a different job, in the National Unity Party – refused, then drinking.
2. Suggesting therapy – laughter, then more drinking.
3. Threatening to tell Father – panic, then even more drinking.

Clearly, conventional methods failed, meaning the only logical conclusion was that unconventional ones had to be deployed. He needed to make Damian stop investigating, which he would achieve by providing the illusion of closure that redirected his energy inwards. A psychological implosion leading to a near-catatonic state was, after all, a form of peace.

He pulled a clean sheet of paper from his drawer; if he was falsifying evidence, he’d do it legibly. Anya, back by 7. Don’t wait up. Leftovers in the fridge. You’ll be fine. Dad. He knew enough about the girl from Damian’s ramblings that she never called her father Dad, so he was confident the inaccuracy would gnaw at his brother’s mind like termites. He added a phone number from the Desmond Foundation’s old switchboard system, where one analyst owed him a favour. He transferred the recording to that line, set it to auto-play upon call, then wiped all digital traces.

Demetrius sat back, steepled his fingers, and wondered why anybody bothered feeling in the first place. Demetrius calculated outcomes. If Damian continued investigating, Father would notice. When Father noticed, bad things usually followed. So, the solution he devised would collapse Damian’s obsession without leaving a body in its wake.

It was a noble goal, in the uniquely Desmond sense of the word.

The next morning, he transported the note to the Berlint Police Archive. Nobody questioned him, because they never did. The clerk had approximately two brain cells, one of which was on annual leave. Demetrius murmured about audits, and the clerk nodded like an obedient plant and stamped something, though Demetrius didn’t care what. He slotted the note in a box labelled Homicide – No Further Action, then moved the box to a middle shelf between Robbery – No Arrests and Domestic Dispute – Resolved. The categories, in his estimation, described 90% of human relationships.

Back in his car, he checked his watch. He was ten minutes past schedule. Irritating, but ultimately acceptable. He’d still make it to the board meeting by eleven, assuming no unforeseen traffic or divine intervention. The city blurred into an unfeeling grey, which was his ideal environment. He reflected on what he’d done. It wasn’t evil, precisely, because evil implied passion, and he was innocent of those charges. He simply did what the situation required. It was much better to snuff the flame than clean ashes later. Briefly, he thought of the girl. He met her once when she was alive and inconveniently cheerful. She smiled at him and made small talk about the weather, to which he replied, “Statistically irrelevant,” and walked away. He considered that a complete interaction.  

Anyway, she was dead, his brother was insufferable, and he had a meeting in twenty minutes. Life continued acceptably.

For two months, it worked. Damian’s name vanished from public discourse; even the servants whispered he’d finally found peace, though Demetrius preferred to think of it as adhering to brand guidelines. 

When a faint ache rose, he neutralised it with logic. He protected his brother from his father. The method was irrelevant. Occasionally, at night, a daydream drifted up of his brother’s face staring at the note. Demetrius laid awake for precisely three minutes, then decided the feeling didn’t help, and slept. Still, maybe he overcalculated, because human beings didn’t function on input-output logic. He filed the thought away under Unresolvable, alongside empathy, spirituality and modern art.

Meanwhile, across the city, Damian Desmond worked in a mausoleum of corkboards and red string. He stopped drinking in public because people talked. He smiled for cameras to appear rehabilitated. It was easier to investigate when everyone assumed you gave up. Demetrius would have approved of the discretion, if he’d known.

He didn’t.

Demetrius spent most evenings reading economics journals and congratulating himself on foresight. He told colleagues the family was healing. He told his Father that stability was restored. He told himself, privately, that the dead should stay dead. When insomnia occasionally visited, whispering accusations about phone numbers and forged notes, he countered with a single, unshakeable belief.

He did the right thing.

*

Damian finished relaying the phone call when the room erupted. “You did what?!” Becky snapped, wine sloshing dangerously close to her silk. “You gave the hired gun your fucking real name? Damian Desmond? Ring any bells? Billionaire’s son, heir to an empire, famous walking liability? That name?!”

“Yes,” he replied coolly, lighting a cigarette.

“God!” she rolled her eyes. “If you’re going to let an assassin shoot you, at least let me know so I can wear something appropriate to your funeral.”

“Becky…”

“No, I’m serious. I’ll need to know whether it’s a pearls or sapphires occasion.”

“You don’t just ring Anya’s murderer like you’re booking a haircut, Bossman!” Ewen’s voice was shrill. “You can’t just say Hi, I’m Damian Desmond, I’d love to hire some homicide please. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“It worked,” he shrugged, exhaling smoke. “I have a meeting.”

“That’s not a success, that’s a trap!”

Emile sat back in his chair and smiled at the slow-motion trainwreck. “Technically everything Damian’s done for the last five years has been a trap. At least this one has a start time.”

“Thank you, Emile.”

“Not a compliment, Bossman.”

Becky threw her free hand up. “You think you can waltz in, flash a smile, and what? Make small talk with the guy who shot Anya?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?! What’s next, offering him a drink? A job reference? Christmas cards?!”

Ewen paced and muttered. “He’ll recognise you. The guy worked for your father! He’ll put two and two together and realise you’re not hiring him, you’re baiting him.”

“You cannot be serious,” Becky hissed.

“I am.”

“You’ll be dead!” Ewen snapped. “This isn’t debate club, Damian! You don’t win points for showing up to get shot!”

“To be fair,” Emile smirked, “if he dies, we’ll know we found the right guy.”

“Emile!” Becky barked, aghast.

“I’m just saying…”

Damian ground out his cigarette. “He agreed to meet because I’m a Desmond. Men like him don’t shoot clients, especially not rich ones. They don’t bite the hand that feeds them.”

“You’re not feeding him,” Becky choked on her wine. “You’re dangling yourself like an expensive canape!”

“You aren’t bulletproof just because you have a pricey surname, Bossman,” Ewen jabbed a finger in his direction. “If anything, you’re more shootable!”

“I need to see his face,” his jaw tightened. “I need to hear his voice. Until then, he’s just a ghost on paper.”

“What if he realises you’re not a client, but the grieving Desmond brat?” Becky sighed. “What then? What’s your master plan?”

“Then I’ll kill him.”

“Oh my God,” Ewen yelped. “You can’t even use a toaster without starting a housefire, and you think you can kill a professional assassin?!”

“Listen, if you insist on walking into this,” Emile placed his coffee cup down, “you’re not going alone. At the very least, you need backup.”

“No. If he smells backup, he’ll vanish. I need him to think it’s business.”

“You’re calling revenge business now?”

Ewen flopped into a chair exhaustedly. “I can’t believe this. You’re actually meeting him. This is insane. You’re insane.”

“Maybe,” Damian lit another cigarette, unbothered. “But insanity gets results.”

“Or funerals,” Emile pointed out darkly.

“Fine,” Becky pointed at Damian. “Go, but when you get shot, don’t expect me to cry at your service.”

*

The bar settled into a peculiar hour when glasses stood rinsed but not refilled, the jukebox hummed a melancholy waltz and customers debated choices. Damian leaned against the counter, glaring at a particularly acrimonious lemon. Beside him, Anya lounged, hair glowing in the light. They weren’t doing anything particularly scandalous. She just lingered close enough that her shoulder brushed his sleeve every few seconds, and he wasn’t moving away. Worse, every time she spoke, he turned his body towards her. She convinced him to taste-test a cocktail she invented, which from the flavour profile was mostly sugar with a hint of booze, and he grimaced through it with theatrical disgust while she giggled into her sleeve.

“You’re supposed to stir it, not drown it in syrup,” he grumbled, pushing the glass towards her.

“I like it sweet!” she licked the sugar rim, oblivious to how his jaw locked. “If you don’t like it, don’t drink it.”

“You practically tried to poison me.”

“You’re still alive.”

“I’m very decidedly not.”

Their eyes darted to each other like a magnetic pull neither wanted to acknowledge. Anybody with half a brain could see it. Unfortunately, Ewen had more than half a brain. From his booth, he watched with growing disbelief. Damian, professional ice cube in human form, was smiling like a person, and letting a girl sit in his personal space without complaint. Ewen squinted. No, not without complaint, with enjoyment. He sauntered over to the bar with a mission, and plonked himself down on a stool, elbows splayed.

“Alright,” he indicated between them. “What’s happening here?”

“Nothing,” Damian said immediately and guiltily.

“Oh, we cuddled in the stockroom!” Anya replied cheerfully. 

Ewen blinked twice. “You… what?”

“Cuddled,” she repeated innocently, as if it explained anything. “On the floor. He wrapped his arms around me.”

“On the floor…?” Ewen’s jaw dropped so hard it nearly hit the counter. “…In the stockroom?”

“Not like that,” Damian groaned, and reddened so rapidly it physically hurt.

“Oh my God. You two- behind the vodka crates-?!”

“We didn’t-!” Damian’s voice shot up an octave. “It was a hug, you brainless jackass!”

“Do you know how long we’ve waited for this day?! Bossman finally drops the haughty prince act, and-”

“It wasn’t-!” Damian’s hands curled. “It was perfectly innocent.”

“Why are you shouting?” Anya blinked between them, confused. “We just cuddled.”

“Anya,” Ewen whipped to her, scandalised. “You don’t cuddle in the stockroom unless you mean business.”

“We did mean business,” she chirped brightly. “We were surrounded by inventory. It was very business.”

“She doesn’t even know what she’s saying!” Damian slammed both hands on the counter. Ewen spluttered with laughter. “It was nothing improper-!”

“Shame on you, Bossman. Taking advantage of Forger’s amnesia like that.”

If it was possible, Damian would be having a myocardial infarction. “It wasn’t like that, idiot. She was crying, and I was comforting-”

“With full body contact?”

“It was innocent,” he repeated, seconds away from ripping his own face off.

“Nobody believes stockroom cuddles are innocent. That’s like saying you went upstairs to study.”

“I really did study when I went upstairs!”

“Look,” Ewen summoned his relationship professor persona, “I’m not saying don’t do it, but at least wait until you’ve had another date. After that, you can defile the limes all you want.”

“Defile the limes?!” Anya gasped, horrified that anybody would harm her citrus.

Ewen swirled his drink mischievously. “So, Forger,” he began casually, “be honest with me. Was he… any good?”

Damian nearly choked to death. “What-?!”

“Oh, yes!” Anya perked up. “The best!”

“The best?!”

“She doesn’t know what you mean!”

“Did he take his time with you?” Ewen’s grin turned wolfish.

“Mm-hm!” Anya nodded enthusiastically. “He held on forever. He wouldn’t let go.”

Damian emitted the noise of an exploding kettle. “Forger. Stop. Helping.”

“You lasted forever?!” Ewen howled. “Bossman, you absolute machine.”

“It was a fucking hug!”

Unfazed, Ewen leaned closer to Anya, lowering his voice dramatically. “Was he gentle?”

“Yes! He was really careful. Squeezed me, but not too hard.”

“Bossman, you’ve been holding out on me.”

“I’ll kill you.”

“Okay, okay,” Ewen ducked out of Damian’s immediate punching range, “one more question. Did he make you… feel good?”

“Don’t answer that!” Damian snapped, horrified.

“Much better!” Anya replied instantly to spite him. “I stopped crying!”

Damian dragged his hands down his face to muffle a scream. “I hate both of you. I hate this bar. I hate eternity.”

Obliviously, Anya patted his arm. “Don’t be embarrassed. You really were good at it.”

For a filthy, traitorous sliver of a second, his brain wandered into an absurd, forbidden entry. Ewen was still crowing, Anya sipped her sugar-gin, and Damian, entirely against his will, imagined it, if they’d been alive, door locked, obligations shoved aside. Her mouth hot on his throat, her laugh muffled under his palm, the infuriating way she’d still probably make commentary whilst he was-

CHRIST.

The thought hit him like a sucker punch, because he knew exactly what it would feel like – reckless, like everything with her always was. She’d ruin him with the same maddening ease she ruined everything else. He felt his blood rise treacherously, undeniably, and for a catastrophic instant, he wanted it.

Then, he realised what he was thinking, who he was thinking it about and slammed his face on the counter. Nope. Not thinking that. Not now. Not ever. Damian groaned as his soul attempted escape from his body. Ewen raised a glass in salute. “To the stockroom stallion.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

*

The stench of oil clung to the warehouse walls that saw deals people didn’t speak aloud in daylight. A shooting lane stretched into dim-lit distance, targets pinned like polite corpses. It was the perfect place for Damian to die, so naturally he walked in wearing a suit that screamed money and arrogance, the two things most likely to get him shot. Black Rose wore a plain outfit; his only notable feature was a scar at his temple. It was not a place people came to be alive, but somewhere you came to hire someone to un-alive your problems.

“Mr. Desmond,” he greeted him smoothly. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“I wasn’t sure you’d exist,” Damian returned.

His hand was ordinary – firm and businesslike – which made Damian’s stomach pitch. This was the hand that steadied a gun, tore a hole through Anya twice and reduced his life to a ghost hunt and chain smoking. And he was shaking it like a bored executive finalising a contract, whilst inside he screamed that he let himself be contaminated, dirtied, by the contact. His skin crawled; he wanted to scrub it raw, but outwardly, he only curled his mouth into a disdainful Desmond smirk. A muscle in his jaw twitched, so he forced himself into bored hauteur. He was a Desmond. Desmonds didn’t twitch.

Above in the shadows, Yor balanced in the rafters. Her hands flexed, calculating how fast she could cross the space if the assassin moved wrong. Behind a maintenance door, Loid sat with headphones pressed to his ears and listened to the bug planted in Damian’s lapel. Damian hadn’t recognised him in the street earlier, which was ideal. His face was the picture of quiet suffering. He agreed with his wife to let Damian play at control and intervene only if his stupidity would get him killed. It was, Loid reflected grimly, exactly like babysitting a grenade-juggling toddler.

“The terms are straightforward,” Black Rose said with the faintest smile. “It’s just a matter of whether you want to expand your coverage.”

Damian blinked slowly as if registering a terminal diagnosis. “Coverage.”

“Yes. Security, discretion, elimination. Depending on your family’s priorities, I imagine you’ll require a similar package to your father. Institutional coverage can be tailored to the household line.”

Inside, Damian screamed. You killed her. You absolute bastard, you fucking killed her and filed it like a line item. Outside, he adjusted his cufflink with aristocratic ennui. “Naturally.”

“You want to see method or results?”

Damian showed a small, ironic smile. “Both. Method first. Then the rest. I want to understand logistics.” He watched for a flinch, but there were none.

The assassin moved unceremoniously. He set a target at a measured distance and pulled a second target behind to catch the backstop. The whole thing was absurdly bureaucratic as he selected a weapon with the casualness of a sommelier choosing a vintage. The gun whispered as he stroked it into readiness. “I prefer two,” he narrated conversationally. “One to stop the heart, one for assurance.” The first shot snapped like a dry branch; the target ripped. The second shot landed almost exactly in the first hole.

Damian was steady in a way he didn’t feel. He saw a Berlint alleyway, a damp mattress and her small frame crumpling. Still, he forced a curt nod. “Precise.”

“Of course.” The assassin wiped his palms on a handkerchief. “That’s the standard. Short window, low fuss. If you need it done cleanly, that’s the deliverable.”

“And housekeeping?” Damian asked casually to cover the fact he wanted to vomit.

“Yes. Casings collected, entry points patched, cameras acquired, scenes neutralised. We have contractors for cleanup; they usually don’t ask what’s dissolving what. The story can be whatever you’d prefer - your father favours a mugging. It’s respectable enough and doesn’t insult the papers.”

His hand curled in his pocket. He nearly split the seam, but his face remained bland, because that was his curse. “Convenient.”

“It’s retainer work. The Desmonds expect nothing less.”

That twisted the knife. It wasn’t your father or your line, but the Desmonds, as if they were one organism, and Damian was the next cell in the tumour. “So, in a way, I’m already your client.”

“Whether you use the service or not, you benefit.”

A laugh wedged in his throat. “And private work? Do you moonlight, or is my family enough of an employer?”

“It depends on the overlap. Retainers are primary, of course. If a smaller client wishes to purchase certain… methods while the institution holds priority, I compartmentalise. Still, I don’t cross my principal. That would be unwise.” Damian thought of his father’s chequebook and a household ledger where murder was budgeted next to postage. “You’ll find our rates competitive, and our results consistent.”

Damian nearly broke then, fantasising about tearing the gun from his hands and shoving it in his mouth, but he didn’t. Instead, he smiled like a spoiled princeling. “Send me the details.”

“You’ll receive them through your family channels,” Black Rose inclined his head. That was the worst part – the assumption that the son was another cog spinning in the same greased groove. Unseen in the dark, two figures held their breaths. Yor thought in muscle memory of angles and the speed of death. Loid’s fingers poised on a trigger.

The two men shook hands on the way out; Damian made a mental note to scrub the flesh until it bled. The door banged shut behind him. Outside, he adjusted his coat and stalked away, steady as marble. He had his answer. He just needed to live with it. He lit a cigarette and let the first drag burn his lungs clean. He had the demonstration, the method, and a tidy list of how to erase a thing. The second he emerged from the industrial district, he staggered down a cracked side-pavement, bent double, and retched so hard it sounded like his ribs cracked. The acidic taste of scotch and smoke burned as he braced against the brick wall, coughing and gagging, trying to claw the ghost of the handshake off his palm.

God, I touched him. I touched the hand that-

Another violent spasm wracked him, knees buckling; he spat bile, eyes watering, stomach heaving long past empty. When it finally subsided, he dragged a sleeve across his mouth, lit another cigarette, and re-emerged with an iron mask again. Any onlookers would only see the arrogant scion of the Desmond family. The only remnant of his episode was the sour taste in his mouth.

Back inside, Loid and Yor waited until Damian was far from view. They then moved with the necessary silence of people who would prefer not to explain massacres when the sun rose. Yor craned her neck and looked down at Loid, who primed himself to strike. Ready? her husband signalled.

She nodded with a grin that was all fang and promise. Always.

Below, Black Rose smiled privately at another rich boy satisfied. He turned to pack his kit, humming softly; the rafters above him whispered. Yor dropped like a guillotine. One second, the room was empty, and the next she was behind him, a hand clamping over his mouth before an exhalation of surprise even left him. He twisted, tried to bring his gun up, but she buried her blade cleanly between his ribs twice. It was so sharp his body didn’t understand it was dead before his knees failed. She lowered him gently, then slid the knife free. His blood spread quietly, absorbed by the concrete like ink into blotting paper. Loid stepped from the shadows, gloves already on, face blank. He didn’t even look at the corpse long, just enough to confirm the profile. Then, he brought out a camera, and used it with quick, clinical clicks.

“You were right,” Yor murmured softly, wiping her blade on the dead man’s suit. “He would have done it again.”

“He won’t now.” He pocketed the camera, and pulled out a sheet of plastic from his bag. Together, they worked with brisk professionalism to wrap, drag, and deposit it in a waiting trunk outside. The body would vanish by daybreak, catalogued into whatever abyss Loid prepared.

The photographs arrived the next morning in a manila envelope with no return address. Nobody couriered a fruit basket after a meeting with a contract killer. Damian slit the top with a stupidly ornate letter opener, still in his dressing gown, coffee cooling beside him. Inside were half a dozen glossy prints of the assassin sprawled on concrete, eyes open to nothing. Clipped to the front was a note in an extremely neat hand.

Stop playing chicken with your own mortality.

Damian gazed at it, then dropped the photos on the table and pressed his thumb and forefinger to his eyes. He wanted to throw the lot in the fire and pretend he didn’t shake Anya’s murderer’s hand yesterday, only to discover her lunatic parents already filed him under problem solved. Forger’s mad spy father. Forger’s crazy assassin mother. Of course they were there; why wouldn’t they be?

He had no proof they were listening, but Damian still hissed. “Fuck you. Both of you. I had that under control.” He didn’t have that under control and never did. He walked into a warehouse basically wearing a sign that said Shoot Me and the only reason he wasn’t folded neatly in a trunk is because Agent Twilight thought babysitting trust-fund babies was part of his civic duties. 

He pushed the photos back in the envelope, walked over the fire, and tossed them in. He needed air. He needed to be away from his house and its ghosts. He needed-

Her.

The cemetery was quiet by mid-morning. The gardeners had already passed through, so fresh flowers lined the path in funereal rows. Her headstone sat as plainly as expected; it was too small for how annoying she was in life. He towered over it, hands in pockets, hoping to scold the stone into answering him.

“I didn’t want to shake his hand,” Damian said eventually, “if you’re even listening.”

The stone offered no judgement.

“Your parents took care of it anyway.” He crouched then, and produced a small envelope from inside his coat. Inside was a simple note, three words written in stiff, formal hand, like that would help. Thank you both. He weighed it down with a stone so the wind wouldn’t take it. “That doesn’t mean I forgive them, by the way. This doesn’t mean I wanted it done for me. It just means-” he faltered, looked at her name, and bit down on the rest. “It just means.”

He straightened, shoved his hands in pockets grumpily, and glared at the grave. Loid Forger would pick up the envelope and know it wasn’t gratitude but a truce offered on Anya’s behalf. It was enough.

Damian exhaled thinly, and read her name one more time. “Tell them to stay the hell out of my affairs, Forger,” he instructed quietly, “or I’ll…” he stopped himself, because she wasn’t going to argue. “Never mind.”

He walked away, and did his best to not look like he just thanked his dead friend’s parents for murdering somebody on his behalf.

Chapter Text

Damian practiced asking so many times the words felt second-hand. He gripped the towel so hard he gained crosshatch bruises on his palms. The lights hummed opinionatedly. Captain Harvey Leaves loomed smugly. “Forger, I propose- no, propose sounds like marriage. Abort.” He smoothed his shirt until it qualified as ironed. “Forger, I request- nope, too bureaucratic. Forger, I humbly inquire- Jesus, am I writing an email?”

At the counter, Ewen nursed a layered cocktail that served as a traffic light system. He stirred it idly and rolled his eyes at Damian’s mumbling reflection. “You look,” he drawled, “like you’re passing a kidney stone through your mouth.”

“Drink your drink and perish,” Damian hissed, flattening his hair into the idea of order.

“Best man privileges, Bossman,” Ewen sipped noisily. “I get a front row seat to the world’s angriest courtship. Don’t fuck this up.”

Anya breezed out the backroom, a lime tucked behind her ear – literally, how? – and straws braided into a lopsided tiara on her head. She looked like she’d won a child’s craft competition, which, if asked, Damian would claim was adorable, but only during waterboarding. “Hi!” she plonked her tray down. “Oh, dear. You’re making your fish-face. Are you having feelings?”

“No!” he lied instantly. Damian smoothed the air between them with the practiced hauteur of being raised in a family where emotions counted as a misdemeanour. “I am, however,” he managed, “in the market for… an appointment.”

“With the electrician?” They had an electrician? Where? Who?!

“With you,” he clarified; Captain Harvey Leaves shifted to eavesdrop. “That is to say, a continuation of our experiment in… coordinated… uh, elegance.” 

“A second date,” Ewen translated helpfully.

“Yes,” he nodded. “A continuation. From before. You and I.”

Her hands stilled on the glass tower as she looked at him for a painfully long second. Her faint smile faltered enough for him to notice. Anya shook her head. “No.”

His mouth formed his rebuttal before his brain evaluated the damage. “No?” he squeaked.

“I can’t.”

“Can’t, or won’t?”

Anya puffed her cheeks. “Don’t interrogate me! I just… can’t.”

Coldly, the rejection settled under his ribs. Still, he forced a smirk like he just invented mathematics and the world could thank him for it. “Fine. Can’t. Excellent clarification. Care to explain before I drown myself in the ice bucket?”

She tapped her finger idly. “Can I tell you something?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Don’t be mean!”

“I am constitutionally incapable of anything else.”

She rolled her eyes, but smiled anyway. Anya inhaled, deeper than necessary, to marshal the courage to admit something. “I’m scared.”

“Of what?” Damian scoffed. “Ewen’s cocktail-making skills?”

“That one day real Anya will walk through the door.”

He certainly wasn’t expecting that. “…What?”

“You know, the actual one. The one you knew. She’ll come in, and you’ll realise I’m just an afterlife bartender with her face, then you’ll leave. And obviously, I’ll still be here. By myself.”

The words landed too softly to justify how violently they stung. His chest painfully splintered. “That’s idiotic.”

“Excuse me?” Her eyes narrowed; if he didn’t know better, it looked like she wanted to deck him.

“You heard me,” he glared. “That won’t happen.”

“But if she did-” she insisted stubbornly.

“No,” he jabbed a finger in her forehead rudely. “You’re not getting rid of me with some hypothetical-metaphysical nonsense. The real Anya won’t show up.”

She jerked back from his finger, pouting. “Damian-”

“She’s already here.” The words emerged louder than the bar deserved. The jukebox stuttered into silence as the room eavesdropped.

“…What?”

He felt the heat rise, but he steeled himself. “I mean it, you’re real. Somehow, you’re here, with your towel, and your crown and your… ridiculous humming! So, I’m not leaving.” The last part escaped before he stopped it. “Ever!”

The silence that followed was obscene. Even Captain Harvey Leaves seemed scandalised. Anya’s heart did a treacherous little thud. Oh, no. That wasn’t… supposed to feel like that. “Oh,” she said, because that was the extent of her vocabulary.

“Don’t make a big deal out of it,” he growled, immediately crossing his arms to smother sincerity. He tried to backfill with sarcasm but tripped on his own tongue. “What I mean is, the bar would collapse without proper staffing. Turnover is… operationally inefficient! I’m staying purely out of- professional responsibility!”

She gave him a look best described as affectionate disbelief. “You’re terrible at lying.”

“I’m excellent at lying!”

“Not when it matters.”

He mentally bullied his pulse into submission. “I don’t care if ghosts walk through that door wearing your face. I don’t care if the void spits a thousand variations and parades them like a gallery exhibit. They aren’t you. You’re you. So I’m not going anywhere.”

For a brief second, he clocked the trembling in her fingertips. “You don’t mean that.”

Damian nearly laughed from the sheer insult of it. “Do I look like somebody who wastes breath on things he doesn’t mean?!”

“Yes,” she replied immediately.

He conceded the point. “Well, not this time.” For once, she didn’t have a witty retort, and resorted to blinking to reboot herself. “I mean it. I’m staying.”

Her face softened and it frightened him more than rejection. Anya smiled reluctantly to acknowledge her bad-mannered miracle. “Then, I suppose one more date wouldn’t hurt.”

“Excellent,” he forced himself to smile. “I’ll schedule it. Elegance required, snacks optional, no refunds.”

“You’re so dramatic.”

“Occupational hazard.” He smirked, which was criminal, because it made his cheekbones sharper and his eyes brighter, both of which made her stomach do the thing. Anya fussed with some coasters, but she stacked them in the most illogical sequence in geometrical history. “Wrong,” he muttered.

“It’s a new system!”

“It’s chaos.”

“It’s art.”

“It’s ugly.”

“You’re ugly!”

The childishness should have irritated her, but whenever she looked at him, her chest betrayed her with another thud. He’s a customer. He’s my coworker. He’s grumpy. This is not attractive. This is very not attractive. Yet her mind lingered on the line of his jaw, how his hands moved when he was annoyed, how his voice cracked on ever like he meant it even though he’d die before admitting it. Her cheeks burned hotter. No way! He’s my colleague! He’s wearing an apron! Pull yourself together!

She peeled a sticker and slapped it onto his apron to distract herself. You’re Here! He stared down; his throat bobbed. “This is hideous. It clashes with my entire aesthetic.”

“It’s your new aesthetic now,” she grinned, knowing it would piss him off. Then, she did the stupidest thing imaginable and pressed her palm to smooth it down. There, beneath her hand, was a solid heartbeat. Her own heart answered in kind. Her cheeks pinked, but she snatched her hand back before he noticed, or before he admitted he noticed.

Oh, no! Nope. This is bad. Abort mission.

With heroic effort, Damian maintained the scowl despite the fact she looked at him with her stupidly luminous eyes. For the first time since death, he ventured to believe he wasn’t being laughed at. When she giggled, the sound bubbling in her chest, for an exhilarating second, he wanted to grab her and kiss her, but he didn’t. Still, he felt her eyes on him, and it thawed things he spent years freezing on purpose, and he was terrified.

He retreated to the stockroom and the safe company of bottles. He rearranged them by height, by mood, by anything, hands moving faster. Idiot. You’re an idiot. You begged for this. You spent six years wanting her to look at you again, and now she’s looking and it’s not hatred, it’s not disgust, it’s- He nearly smashed the Angostura. She’s looking at me with affection. I don’t deserve it, and I can’t keep it, because if she remembers-

He saw the old look she gave his worst self. His breath caught. If she remembers that, it’s over. This’ll vanish. Eternity, side-by-side, with her looking at me like I’m poisonous. No exits, no next day, no forgetting. He shoved a bottle too hard. It clinked on the shelf.

“Damian?” Anya’s concerned voice floated from the doorway.

“Inventory!” he barked, despite biting down hard on his tongue.

“You did it already!”

“Doing it again!”

God, she’s smiling at me like I’m worth something, but if she remembers what I did- His stomach churned unhelpfully. I want her to remember me, but not that, anything but that. Except, if I keep nudging her, keep making her recall the stupid things, eventually, she’ll get there, and this is gone, forever.

He wanted to scream, run, or fall over and die. None were options.

*

Two crystal decanters awaited them, accompanied by a handwritten card in aggressive block letters that advised EWEN. SIT FAR AWAY AND PRETEND TO BE A COATRACK. Anya slid across from Damian, knees bumping under the table. She clocked the decanters and beamed like she discovered indoor plumbing. “Oh my gosh! You batched!”

He shrugged, pink with pride. “I refuse to be poisoned twice in one afterlife.”

“You made me something,” she corrected, “for romance.”

“For quality control,” he quickly amended. He’d ditched the tie, pushed his sleeves back, collar open enough to toe the line between coquettish and whorish. He laid out the snacks, including warm peanuts tossed in brown sugar and butter and chocolate-dipped strawberries. Anya ate one whole, leaves and all, leaving a red smudge on her mouth. He acted like he didn’t notice for three seconds.

Anya surveyed his preparations with royal satisfaction. “You’re very competent,” she declared.

“I’m aggressively adequate. I just wanted this evening to feature beverages that legally count as beverages.”

She reached for a mixing glass and held it out to him. “Teach me the martini.”

“You don’t teach a martini, you obey it.” Still, he measured the gin precisely and let the liquid fall in a whisper of vermouth. He stirred it by glaring at the spoon until it complied. “Dirty, or classic?”

“Filthy!” she replied enthusiastically, and he nearly dropped the olives.

“We’ll start, um…” he coughed awkwardly, “moderately untidy.”  He poured, letting the pale diamond of liquid catch the light and slid it across. “Please be civilised.”

She fished out the olive with her fingers. “Olives are still gross,” she announced, “but this one was brave.”

“Yes,” he scowled to cover up how endearing he found her, “I’m sure it was heroically brined.” He wasn’t ready for how she laughed, so he focused on the platters he prepared, including crostini with goat cheese and honey, prosciutto-wrapped melon and spiced nuts. She scooped a peanut up and flicked it into her mouth; in response, he made a noise that couldn’t be transcribed.

“Okay,” she slammed her hand on the table. “New date rules! One, you’re not allowed to call anything acceptable like a grouchy judge. Two, every time you get flustered, I get a peanut.”

“I don’t get flustered,” he protested, flustered. Anya held out her palm, so he placed a peanut in it. 

“Rule three,” she continued, throwing the peanut in her mouth, “no being mean for sport. You can if it’s self-defence, though!”

Damian opened his mouth to argue and saw her stupid smile and closed it again, because it elevated his blood pressure pleasantly. “Fine,” he assented, “but I reserve the right to glare at inanimate objects.”

“Valid,” she glanced at Captain Harvey Leaves in warning. She then sniffed appreciatively, like an alerted dog. “That’s peanut bourbon. You did peanut bourbon?”

“Yes. I spent most of today fat-washing it with roasted peanuts and hating myself,” he popped the decanter. “It is, to my disgust, excellent.”

She poured them both a Peanut Old Fashioned, dropped a single ridiculous cube into his glass and two honey-roasted peanuts into hers. He tried not to watch her mouth when she sipped and failed spectacularly. “How is it, Sy-on boy?” she asked, eyes alight.

“It tastes like… competence in a tuxedo,” he heard himself say, realised he sounded exactly like her, and immediately wanted to die. “Forget I said that.”

“I’ll remember it forever,” she promised. “Also, give me your hand.”

“What? No.”

“Science!” she grabbed it anyway. She traced a tiny crown on his wrist with orange zest oil, and his pulse – traitor – performed a cardio routine. “Now you’re knighted. Sir Peanuts-A-Lot!”

“We’re not-” he inhaled, “doing that.”

“We are tonight!” Damian needed to look away before his face betrayed him. He needed a distraction, and distraction was pink. He reached for a prepared Paloma pitcher and poured her a tall glass over ice, balancing a grapefruit wedge on the rim. She sipped and made an appreciative noise that didn’t help. “This tastes like vacation plus rules!”

“Impossible combination,” he smirked. “Rules hate vacations.”

“You hate vacations.”

“I hate unstructured time,” he corrected, but added, “which is what killed me,” in a deadpan so dry she snorted grapefruit. He handed her a napkin without gloating. When she dabbed at her lip, he tried not to have an event about it.

“Okay,” she pointed at him suddenly, “say something nice!” 

“Easy,” he lied, “your hands are steady when you pour.”

Anya instantly pouted. “That’s a bartender compliment. I want a me compliment.”

Damian found himself trapped in a minefield of sincerity; his brain offered several options that would have him shot, so he chose the least fatal. “You… make the room brave,” he muttered, burying his mouth in his hand to muffle the words. “It does what you want, whether it knows how to or not.” Her mouth fell open, and she slid a peanut into his hand without breaking eye contact and folded his fingers around it gently. “Shut up,” he said, ears red.

“Flustered!” she sang, and he begrudgingly gave her a peanut; she tucked it behind her ear. “Souvenir.”

He aimed for even footing and poured champagne into peach puree but she switched their glasses mid-reach with mischievous speed. “What the hell are you doing?!”

“Taste swap!” she grinned. “So we may argue with authority. Go!”

“It’s… overenthusiastic,” he sipped hers. It was a polite way to say disgustingly sweet.

“It’s sunshine!” she countered. “Yours is… stingy.”

“Yes, because it’s balanced.”

“Mine’s more fun.”

“It’s chaotic!”

“You like chaotic!”

“I like you,” he almost said, and then promptly gave himself whiplash to smother it with, “to sit down.” She collapsed back on her seat with a little huff.

“Fine,” she smirked. “I’ve got a new game for you.”

“Nope.”

“Yep. It’s called Don’t Look at My Mouth.”

“That’s- what is wrong with you?!”

“You lose if you look,” she said, then took an exaggeratedly slow sip, lips shining. He lasted all of two seconds. “I win!” She held out a hand for a peanut; he put two in her hand because if he was about to humiliate himself he might as well commit. “Your turn!” her eyes gleamed wickedly. “Fluster me.”

He straightened, feeling like the universe handed him an exam paper with the instruction seduce the girl you spent your whole life insulting. His mind ran through thirteen years of strategy, which mainly boiled down to calling her names, mocking her voice and threatening to expel her from imaginary clubs, none of which was remotely close to fluster her romantically. He coughed, smoothed his shirt, then messed it up again by tugging at the collar. “Fine. My turn.”

She leaned forward expectantly, her eyes sparkling like she waited her entire afterlife to watch him choke. “Go on, Sy-on boy.”

He tried insults first, because it was the only tool available in the Swiss-army-knife he called a heart. “You look ridiculous in that apron.”

“That’s not flustering.”

“Right. Yes. Obviously. Shut up.” He gritted his teeth. His entire face betrayed him in slow increments, one nerve at a time. “Alright then, I’ll…” he hesitated, then tried again, “I’ll just…” he hesitated worse.

“You’re losing!”

“I’m not losing!” he snapped, definitely losing. Inspiration or demonic possession overtook his lips. He leaned across, close enough their noses almost touched, and muttered, as low as possible, “I just meant you’d look better in my shirt.”

The words dropped like a stone. Anya’s eyes widened, and her grin faded into something human. Her cheeks pinked first, then her ears; her body couped against her composure. She pulled back sharply, nearly knocking over her glass. Meanwhile, Damian reeled in horror at himself. What the fuck did I just say? Who the fuck authorised that?! Anya shoved his arm and stammered, “You’re not allowed to be smooth!”

“Guess I win,” he said, mortified with triumph.

“Well, stop winning,” she complained with a pout.

“You started it!”

“I start everything!”

“Yes,” he spoke too softly and honestly, so he coughed into a peanut. She threw another one at his forehead, then decided to feed him.

“Open.”

“No.”

“Open.” He opened, because he always did when she sounded bossy. She placed a candied peanut on his tongue and he entirely forgot to swallow. She watched his mouth like she’d cast a spell and wanted to check if it stuck. With immense difficulty, Damian swallowed. Anya was unreasonably pleased with herself, and he wanted to immediately spit at her, but his throat was busy. “Next rule, no dodging. If I ask you a question, you answer. If you ask me a question, I answer.”

“This sounds like a trap.”

“It’s a date,” she bumped their feet together. “It’s a trap with booze.”

“Fine,” he sighed, theatrically doomed. “Ask.”

Anya pondered for a second longer than normal, which meant thirty perilous years. “What are you like when you’re alone?”

“Loud,” he confessed, surprising himself, “in my head, mainly. I file things that don’t want to be filed. I fix things that aren’t broken. I argue with people who aren’t there. And I- I tidy, so I know I exist.”

“That’s a big answer.” Her gentleness was catastrophic.

“You asked a big question,” he rebuffed her lightly, but softened. “Your turn. What are you like when you’re alone?”

“Hungry,” she answered promptly, then considered, “but also loud. I sing wrong lyrics at full blast and pretend nobody hates it. I throw peanuts at the ceiling to see if they stick. If they do, it’s a sign!”

“Of what?!”

“That I should do the thing I was scared to do.” He memorised it wholesale. “And I make secret lists! I like acting like everything I do is silly, but the things on my list are be nicer to X and learn Y and remember to sit down.”

“You’re…” sweet, “competent,” he settled for, because his personal brand was self-harm. She blew him a fake kiss, which he caught with a scowl. He poured more Paloma before his mouth ran off on him again. For her part, Anya popped a stupid mini-umbrella in his and cackled at his scowl. Promptly, Damian retaliated by stealing it and planting it behind her ear; she abruptly quietened, which felt like winning a very silly war. “You look nice,” he blurted.

“Say it again,” she demanded shamelessly.

For precisely one millisecond, he refused, then repeated it anyway. “You look nice.”

“You’re getting good at this.”

“I’m terrible at this,” he flushed. 

He hid in the chocolate to maintain structural integrity; she caught his wrist halfway to his mouth and dragged his hand to her instead, replacing it with her strawberry. He took a bite from her fingers, because fuck it, he was dead, and dead people didn’t have boundaries, apparently. Anya looked at his mouth like she’d won a point in whatever ludicrous game she was playing, and he felt somebody should come in and arrest them, preferably the plant. “New game! Say something arrogant you don’t believe.”

“That’s not how arrogance works.”

“Say it!”

Damian pondered. “I’m the most interesting person in the room,” he replied flatly, glancing pointedly at her.

“Lies!” she burst out laughing, unguarded, beautiful.

“Your turn,” he felt drunk on how easy it was to make her collide with joy, and also, about two bottles of whiskey.

“I could kiss anyone I want!” she boasted, then turned a gaudy shade of scarlet, so crammed peanuts in her mouth to survive it.

He turned into a statue, then remembered her rule, and found the loophole. “Accuracy contested,” he managed, “because you have appalling taste.”

“In what?”

“Men.”

“Like you?”

Damian spluttered and spilled some Paloma onto his wrist; with no hesitation, she grabbed his hand and licked the grapefruit off his skin before he found a napkin. He forgot how to be alive or dead all over again. “Anya!”

“Damian,” she rejoindered brightly, like a punchline.

“Stop,” he said half-heartedly.

“Make me,” she sang, and stole another strawberry in a classic Forger power-move. He considered immediate marriage with Ewen ordaining, but chose instead to knock his knee into hers with calibrated ferocity. She yelped, then giggled, but didn’t move away. Neither did he. Dutifully, the fern didn’t watch, and the neon covered its blush. Ewen, in the periphery pretending to be a coatrack as commanded, acted like he didn’t see Damian’s entire personality slide off his shoulders. “Again,” she said after a while, eyes shining. “Um, not the grapefruit thing. This. Date. Us. More.”

Pride opened its mouth to argue and he drowned it in Paloma. “Yes,” he replied embarrassingly fast. “Schedule aggressively.”

“We’ll pencil it in under science.”

They sat with their decanters and piles of food, bruising each other’s knees under the table and exchanging their stupid trophies – stolen umbrellas, orange-oil crowns, rescued peanuts – whilst Anya flustered him so effectively his arrogance needed to take a number and wait its turn. When the neon flickered, Damian glared it into complicit silence. Anya laughed into her hand, and he tried to scowl, but failed. She held out her palm. “Fine,” he groaned, and dropped a peanut into it.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” she said primly, then ruined the formality by leaning close enough to fog his confidence. He looked at her mouth on purpose. 

They laughed about nothing when her face tilted, like a radio snagging a non-public-use frequency. The chatter behind her eyes thinned; she set her glass down carefully. “What?” he asked, already bracing, like he could tackle the memory to the floor and frisk it for weapons.

“We were…” Anya started slowly, “younger. Teenagers, maybe. There was a corridor with green lockers and it smelled like… raincoats.” She blinked at a place that didn’t exist in this reality. “My pen exploded. There was ink everywhere – on my face, on my shirt. It looked like I lost a fight with an octopus!”

Damian’s throat pulled tight. He knew that hallway; he was awful in it six days out of seven.

“And you…” she faltered, shook her head to clear it, “you didn’t laugh. Everyone else did this… looking thing but you didn’t. You took off your blazer and just… put it on me.” She laughed nervously. “You stood in front of me so the prefect didn’t see. You, um,” her hand floated to her hairline, “fixed my hair accessory. You didn’t really look at me, but you said…” Her mouth tried the shape. “Hold still, idiot. But nicely!” she laughed, delighted by the paradox. “Then you told the prefect we had a stationery malfunction and dragged me to the sinks!”

He remembered seeing ink on her cheeks and wanting to murder the pen. He remembered the heat in his ears when his hands shook fixing her hair-caps. The sinking feeling exacerbated, because her memory was half-filled. She didn’t recall how he ensured everyone in earshot understood his official narrative, that Forger humiliated herself again so he had to intervene before her incompetence contaminated them all. He snapped at her, “Don’t touch anything, you’ll make it worse,” and “Of course I have to deal with this, nobody else is capable of handling you.” He rolled his eyes theatrically, and to ascertain nobody thought he cared, he disdainfully informed the prefect, “She’s with me, I’ll fix this disaster. No, don’t thank me. Somebody needs to stop her getting herself expelled. Forger’s clearly incapable.” The lie that he was simply protecting the school from Forger and demonstrating leadership in crisis was so airtight he believed it himself. In truth, all he wanted was for her to stop looking so sad. Anya stood at the sinks as he loitered uselessly, signature sneer on his face, covering the fact he suppressed the urge to tell her she looked beautiful, even like this, especially like this, all wild and splattered. What came out in its place was, “You’re such a moron, Forger. Honestly, how do you hold a pen and fail?”

She remembered kindness; he remembered the insults he wrapped around it like, praying nobody, especially her, noticed.

“Handsome,” she added into the palm of her hand.

“What?” he choked.

“You looked handsome,” Anya repeated matter-of-factly, and then, because she was who she was, added, “like a rectangle with… purposes.”

“I don’t-” he forgot basic grammar, “rectangles- shut up.”                                           

“You were nice to me,” she beamed at him like he was the first snowdrop of spring.

“Once.” It came out too quickly, a confession with brakes on. Thirteen years of everything pressed down on him unsmilingly; selfishly, he didn’t introduce them.

Anya’s gaze drifted, softened at the edges. The floor of the world tipped a degree. “I was real,” she whispered, awed. “I really was a person before I came here, which means…” the thought arrived, inevitable yet kind, “…dead.” It should’ve knocked her clean off her seat, but it didn’t; she simply examined her hands, and exhaled slowly. “That’s okay!” she said, almost apologising. “I like the bar. I like making people feel better.” She squinted at him. “I also like that you’re here.”

His chest did something he prayed wouldn’t show up on his autopsy. “You like that I’m here.”

“Obviously! You bring your rules and stupid faces and peanuts. I remember you were nice, Sy-on boy!”

He watched the lie he could correct, and selfishly refused. Nice got him dangerously close to what he wanted. If the truth was a tide, it could wait. He slid around the table unthinkingly, like gravity pulled him there. She didn’t move, just titled toward him like a flower in the sun. He stopped so close he saw the tiny half-moons she bit into her lower lip earlier, the faint citrus oil that lived in her hair because she was too generous with peels and the constellation of flecks in her eyes he denied knowing by heart. “Anya.”

“Damian,” she answered.

His hand lifted before permission could argue. He cupped her cheek, thumb along the soft heat under her eye, palm curved to her jaw. She stilled, before leaning infinitesimally into him. “You’re doing it again,” she breathed, “the… helping.”

“Shut up,” he said, but his thumb made a small, traitorous stroke anyway. Her lashes stuttered, and the bar performed the miracle of shutting the hell up. Her hand found his wrist, fingers wrapping lightly, because she knew his pulse was an animal and didn’t want to spook it. Her other hand rose clumsily, and pressed flat against his sternum. He forgot how to sit like a person.

“Say something else nice,” she whispered, looking indecently at his mouth.

He should have admitted the whole thing. He should have told her he kept a thousand apologies alphabetised. He should have informed her that she made the world acceptable. He chose the version that kept the bridge intact. “You looked good in my jacket.”

She made a happy noise. “I did.”

His forehead eased against hers in a cautious nudge. Their noses brushed; their breath mixed. Her lips parted; his thumb moved to the corner of her mouth as he cradled her face. “Okay?” he asked, absurdly, the please he learned from her trying to get out without scaring the room.

“Okay,” she confirmed, and because she was her, “now.”

He moved, slowly, deliberately, but greedy. She rose fractionally to meet him, mouth tipping, fingers tightening at his wrist. The distance between them dwindled to a heat-spark breadth. The moment snapped taut, a wire hummed with the very stupid future of two idiots who decided to be the same idiot on purpose-

“…Anya?!”

The shout smacked into them like a thrown chair; they parted as if the police raided the lounge.

“Damian?!”

He knew that voice. It curdled milk across town.

“And fucking Ewen, too?!”

Ewen, emerging from the many coats flung on him, sprung to attention. “What-?! We are under attack- who’s swearing my good name-?”

Becky Blackbell stepped into Midnight Minus One as she did all rooms, with an immaculate coat and furious grief. There, in her booth, was Anya Forger, her murdered best friend from school, apparently alive, aproned, and two milliseconds from necking Damian Desmond. On her part, Anya looked up at Becky’s crumbling expression and grinned like she spotted a shiny coin.

“Cute coat!” she chirped. “Table, or bar?”

Becky’s knees nearly folded.

Damian snapped into guilty schoolboy mode, fiddling with his shirt like it could defend him in Blackbell’s pending court session. Becky stared at him, half-shattered, half-seething. “You.”

“Me,” he cleared his throat, adjusted his collar. “Hello, Becky.”

“Hey, Becky!” Ewen waved cheerfully, sending a fedora that was hung on his arm across the room. “Long time no see!”

“Hi, dead idiot.” 

Anya, oblivious to the emotional fault-line, hurried to the counter and poured a glass of water. “Here you go! Hydration first. What’s your vibe? Sweet? Strong? Both?!”

Becky blinked at her beaming face. “Anya?”

Anya tilted her head, and waited for a drink order.

Chapter Text

The elevator stank of flat champagne, which Becky decided was an accurate summary of her life. She smoothed her skirt and examined her reflection in the brushed metal walls. There were no wrinkles, no liver spots, and not even the creak in her knee that announced rain three hours before the weathergirl. She was twenty-eight again, the age she once thought the pinnacle of adulthood.

“Helloooooooooo, guest!” the intercom sang.

Becky lived eighty-eight years, buried friends, raised a daughter, inherited an empire, and once endured a three-hour investor dinner with men who used the phrase synergy unironically. A talking elevator wouldn’t crack her composure. “Good morning,” she replied as if addressing an overenthusiastic intern. “Where, exactly, am I?”

“Why, you’re in an elevator!” the voice beamed its theme-park cheer. “Welcome to your onboarding process! Don’t panic, but you’re dead!”

“Yes, I gathered,” she inspected her manicure. Her nails were flawless, lacquered with a discreet wine-red she hadn’t worn in decades. “I’m not usually this hydrated either. Interesting.”

“You…” the speaker hiccupped, “already know you’re dead?”

“If you expect me to scream and pound the walls, I’m afraid I don’t have the energy. I spent sixty years doing that at board meetings.”

“Oh! Uh, well, that’s, um… very self-aware of you!” the elevator recovered gamely.

“I’ve prepared for death since I was six and Eden forced me to wear those ghastly uniforms. Compared to that trauma, this is nothing.”

“Most guests… deny it.”

“I did denial in my twenties. I’m much too old for that now.”

“Wonderful! Then let’s proceed with your onboarding! We like to know a little about you.”

“Of course you do.”

“Becky Blackbell! Born August 20, heiress to Blackbell Heavy Industries. Graduate of Eden academy, CEO. You married Bill Watkins, and had one daughter.”

“All correct,” she curtseyed mockingly. “You memorised my Wikipedia page. Congratulations.”

“Not just that!” the speaker chimed. “We have your file! So let’s go through your performance review!”

“Oh,” Becky tittered, “this will be good.”

“First category… wealth! You were born into it, swam in it and used it like air! You never knew the price of bread!”

“I still don’t.”

“You offended people constantly with casual remarks about money.”

“Not intentionally. Mostly.”

“You always got what you wanted!”

“Not true,” Becky sniped sharply. “If I got what I wanted, she would still be-”

The intercom spoke over her. “Second category… pride! You were vain, entitled and spoiled.”

“All synonyms for fabulous, I’m sure.”

“You thought your inordinate wealth made you clever.”

“It bought me tutors for the same result.”

“You wanted to be seen as mature, elegant, worldly…”

“And I was.”

“You weren’t. You were a child who thought watching romance dramas made you grown-up. Which brings me onto category three… romance! You wanted whirlwind passion, opera, running in the rain. Tell me, did you get it?”

Becky’s throat tightened. “No.”

“You got Bill. Steady, loyal, safe Bill.”

“Yes.”

“You settled.”

“He made me happy.”

“Eventually.”

“I loved him.”

“After you stopped waiting for fireworks.”

Petulantly, she smacked the wall. “What’s your point?!”

“My point is you compromised. You stopped asking for more and let your dream of a great love die quietly, and you buried it under silk sheets.”

“I had to!” her face burned. “After everything, I had to!”

“Why?” the elevator crooned sweetly.

“Because if I didn’t, I would’ve gone mad!”

“Exactly!” The elevator juddered, as if nodding. “You chose survival over passion! Comfort over chaos! And boy, didn’t you just hate yourself for it?”

“Enough.” Becky examined her shoes, and resolved to pass the rest of this journey in silence.

“Not quite! Category four… ambition!”

“Spare me,” she groaned.

“You inherited an empire and expanded it. You knew they always got their way, but you made sure you did too.”

“Somebody had to.”

“You loved power.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“You loved winning more.”

“Yes.”

“You used your wealth to rebel in small ways. You funded those scholarships, didn’t you? You lit those little candles against the dark, but it was never about them, was it?”

“It was about Anya,” she snapped, spine stiff.

“It was about you. Your guilt. Your shame. You needed to prove you weren’t complicit. Each signed cheque was a confession.”

“You arrogant robot-”

“All of this culminates in our main event. Fear.” Her muscles contracted and refused to budge an inch. “You were terrified, Miss Blackbell. That’s the truth. You strutted, you postured, you wrote cheques, but all it took was one man telling you to stop, and you stopped.”

“Don’t.”

“He said enough, Becky. Dig further and you’ll end up like them. You obeyed.”

“It’s called practicality.”

“Nope, you were scared! All you needed was permission! One father figure saying don’t chase the ghosts, and you grabbed it like a lifeline. You wanted to live. You wanted villas, cocktails, easy nights. Screw the dead, screw justice! You wanted the high life again!”

“I loved them!” she spat venomously.

“Yet abandoned them all the same.”

“I-” her eyes stung; she bit down on her lip. “I couldn’t-”

“You could’ve kept digging, but you didn’t. It was easier to survive.”

Becky trembled like a furious rage. “Yes, but I lived. That’s my crime, is it?”

“Crime? No, that’s silly! It’s a choice – you lived, others didn’t! It’s survivor’s privilege!”

“That’s not fair.”

The elevator softened, insidiously kind. “Miss Blackbell, I’m simply reading your file. You loved them. We here at corporate recognise that, but we also recognise that when the choice of fight or fold came, you folded, with immense relief.”

“Yes.”

“Do you regret your life?”

Becky thought of Bill’s steady hands, her daughter’s laughter, the ocean outside her villa, the faces of girls she never met, Anya’s easy grin and Damian’s endless rage. “No.” The elevator nodded again as the electronic display jittered nervously. Last Call. Please Hold. Business Casual. Midnight Minus One. The mechanical whirring ceased as the doors peeled open. “Very well. Let’s see who’s left standing.”

“Have a wonderful afterlife!” the intercom chirped.

“Darling,” Becky smirked over her shoulder, “I’ll settle for tolerable.” With that, she stepped out, heels clicking, into the glow beyond.

*

Becky Blackbell didn’t faint. Fainting was for women on fainting couches with fainting husbands. However, her spine briefly considered ejecting through the ceiling. She clung onto the counter instead, because it was either that or the floor. “Anya,” she repeated sharper to pin the apparition down, “what the hell is this?”

“Cocktail lounge!” Anya announced brightly. She plucked a napkin and held it like a magician’s card trick. “Welcome to Midnight Minus One! We have drinks, jokes, existential crises, your usual.”

Becky gawped. The stupid upward lilt in her voice was the same. The face was slightly older, but those absurd and open eyes were Anya’s eyes; they should be in the ground with her. “You’re dead,” she accused.

“Maybe, but… so are you, silly.”

“Awkward first date topic,” Ewen coughed, “ask me how I know.”

“You shut up!” Becky spun. “You died too!”

“Heroically, probably,” Ewen insisted, “and also tragically, of course.”

“I’m going insane,” Becky whispered, and folded onto a barstool because her knees refused to obey her lifelong posture training. “I’m in hell. That’s the only explanation.”

“It’s not hell,” Damain styled himself in gravitas, but it emerged like a schoolboy doing roleplay. “It’s… transitional.”

“Transitional what?!”

“Bar,” Anya explained, and slapped down a menu card written in three different fonts. “You get three doors – choose wisely! No pressure, though.”

Becky flipped the card over.

Three Super-Cool Choices!

1. Final Rest – like a long nap. Forever!
2. Restart – same life, same mess – hope you like sequels!
3. Reincarnation – roll the dice! You could be a king or a pigeon.

Hand-doodled next to it was a pigeon in a crown. Becky massaged her temples. “No, no, no. This isn’t happening. I was eighty-eight! My hip went first, then my heart. For God’s sake, I have great-grandchildren! Why the hell am I twenty-eight again?!”

“House policy,” Damian shrugged. “Something-something about being in your prime.”

“My prime was thirty-five, Damian, not twenty-eight.”

“Be grateful,” Ewen sipped a radioactively green drink. “I look like a washed-up boyband member.”

“You always look like that. Now, you,” Becky turned to Anya, who shook a cocktail like a maraca. “You don’t remember me?”

“Nope!” Anya beamed.

“Nope?!” 

“Don’t worry, it happens a lot,” Anya soothed her as she tipped a glittery drink into a glass. “People show up, they know me. I don’t know them.” She shoved the drink across the bar. “Try this!”

Becky glowered at the shimmering liquid. “What the hell is this?”

“Sparkly Cosmopolitan!”

“Of course,” Damian pinched his nose.

“Hydrating! Cranberry juice is great for UTIs too!” Becky sipped, and it was bizarrely tasty. Against her better instincts, she continued drinking as Anya clapped in delight. “Yay! That’s the first step! No choices on an empty stomach!”

“Excuse me?”

“Rule one,” Damian groaned, “states you can’t make your afterlife decision until you’ve had at least one drink.”

“I lived eighty-eight years and the universe’s grand finale is a drink minimum?!”

“Exactly!” Ewen snorted, raising his glass. “Isn’t it hilarious?”

Becky downed the rest of the martini like poison. “Great, drink finished. Now, tell me why the fuck my best friend is bartending instead of, you know, resting in peace.”

Anya shifted on her feet and fidgeted with a cocktail pick. “I don’t know. I just work here.”

“You were murdered!” Becky hissed. “Execution-style, alleyway, nineteen-years-old! You don’t remember that?! You don’t remember me?!”

“No,” Anya flinched, eyes wide and guileless. “But, um, you seem really cool, and your coat is like… wow! Best coat I’ve seen all death! We can totally be besties here!”

It felt like a gunshot with confetti. Becky slammed her palm flat on the bar because otherwise it would be Anya’s face. “We already were best friends. For years! I braided your hair. I yelled at you to study! I-!” her throat locked.

“That sounds nice,” Anya softened into a kind smile. “We can do that all over again here, if you’d like. You’re very glamorous and grown-up, and I like you already, so why not?”

“Because you don’t remember me,” she laughed brokenly.

Anya reached across and patted her perfectly manicured hand. “I don’t need to remember you to like you. I like you now.”

It was the exact sweetness Becky once protected and it gutted her. Tears threatened, so she bit her cheek. The girl she buried and mourned was here, alive and looked at her like a stranger and offered friendship anyway. Behind them, Ewen made a muffled noise into his drink and Damian stood ramrod straight. It was evident both men had no idea how to handle this. Becky kept her eyes fixed on Anya, searching for the memory that wasn’t there.

“She’s had a rough… adjustment,” Damian wedged himself in the crack.

“She’s got bartender-brain,” Ewen piped up helpfully, “completely wiped clean. Like a chalkboard, but more booze in the system.”

“Shut up, Ewen,” Damian’s hands tightened, collar beginning to strangle him.

Becky rounded on Damian like a gun swivelling to target. “You’ve been here, with her, this whole time. Don’t you dare tell me you didn’t even try.”

“I did,” his jaw clicked. “I’ve tried, Becky, dozens of times, maybe more. I told her she went to Eden, that she had friends, that she…”

“You had one job, Damian! She’s standing right there, and you couldn’t get through her thick skull?!”

His composure cracked into guilt which he normally buried under sarcasm. “She doesn’t believe me! What do you expect me to do, huh? I’ve tried, and as I always fucking do, failed!”

“You’ve been here for how long?”

“Time isn’t exactly real here.”

“Answer me.”

“Long enough.”

“Long enough for you to try and swallow her face, even though she doesn’t fucking remember you? What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Baffled, Anya blinked between them. “The dating and the near-kiss was… kind of nice,” she admitted sheepishly.

Becky nearly fell off her stool. “Anya!”

“What?” she shrugged, pink on the cheeks, oblivious to the tectonic plates shifting beneath them. Damian’s throat worked as he choked on his own want.

“This is hell,” Becky threw up her hands. “I died, I landed in hell, and it has cocktails, and the world’s shittiest fucking rom-com!”

“It’s not hell,” Ewen rolled his eyes. “It’s a limbo with drink specials.”

“Shut up, Ewen!” Becky turned back to Anya. “It’s me, Anya. Becky. Becky fucking Blackbell. Your best friend! The one who defended you when this prick-” she jabbed at Damian, “made your life hell. The one who stayed with you through everything! And you don’t… you really don’t remember?!”

“I do remember some things,” Anya nodded encouragingly. “Don’t be sad.”

“You do?”

“Yes! I remember my dog, Bond. He was a big fluffy guy, saved my life a bunch of times, and was definitely smarter than me,” she grinned proudly, before immediately ruining everything. “And I remember Damian was nice to me.”

“…Excuse me?!”

Damian coughed violently into his fist, eyes darting anywhere but Becky. “She, uh, may have slightly… misremembered.”

“Misremembered?!” Becky barked like an attack dog. “You called her names, made her cry, made her think she wasn’t worth the shit on your shoes!”

“Yes, my thanks, Becky, I’m aware of my CV,” he snapped back, face reddening, “but if she happens to believe I was periodically decent, why would I ruin that?”

“Because it’s a fucking lie!”

“It also makes her happy, and isn’t that the point? Or would you prefer I drag her through every miserable insult so you can feel historically accurate?”

“I like the nice version!” Anya chirped unhelpfully. “It’s cosy.”

“Cosy?! He called you a charity-case mutt who should’ve been drowned at birth!”

“That sounds funny!”

“It wasn’t funny! It was cruel!”

Damian leaned against the barback, mask of smugness dripping like venom. “She just said it was funny, Becky. Apologies you lost the vote.”

“You’re seriously letting her think you were a saint?” Becky’s glare could set the liquor shelf on fire.

“I’m not correcting her. If Anya thinks I was nice, then nice I was. End of debate.”

“That’s-” she sputtered. “That’s- you’re-!”

“Winning?” he supplied sweetly.

“Point for Bossman,” Ewen cackled. “This game’s rigged and I fucking love it.” Becky slammed her forehead on the counter to knock herself into a coma. Sadly, no dice. Ewen offered her a bowl of sweets. “Want some?”

She smacked the bowl off the bar. “I don’t want sweets, I want my best friend to remember me!”

Anya rested a gentle hand on Becky’s hair. “Hey, I don’t really remember a lot of things, but we can make new memories. Please?”

The heiress found herself torn between sobbing and screaming. “That’s not fair.”

“Life wasn’t fair,” Anya shrugged, “and neither is death. Are you hungry?”

Becky crumpled. “I cannot believe this. Eighty-eight years of slog, and I finally drop dead, and this is what I get? My best friend doesn’t recognise me, Ewen’s eating sweets like everything’s normal, and he’s-” she flung a hand at Damian, “being rewarded for historical revisionism!”

“Sometimes the good guys win,” Damian smirked glibly.

“You’re not a good guy!”

“I am if Anya thinks I am.” Anya smiled at him, which only made him smugger.

Ewen continued munching. “You know, I like this afterlife. It’s like a traumatised sitcom.”

“Shut the fuck up, Ewen,” Becky and Damian snapped in unison for very different reasons.

“You guys are fun!” Anya giggled.

“Kill me again.”

“Can do,” Damian muttered.

Anya held up her hands to keep them apart. “Hey, hey, no murder! We’re indoors, and the bar rules stipulate no fighting.”

Becky’s fury finally snapped into incredulity. “So, let me get this right, Desmond. Instead of telling her the actual truth, you thought you’d just… make your move?”

Colour flared across Damian’s cheeks. “That’s not- a fair interpretation,” he stammered guiltily.

“Oh my god. You’re pathetic, you know that? You’ve wanted to make out with her your entire life, and the first time you try it is when she can’t remember you? When she doesn’t even know who she is? I can’t do this. You’re right here, Anya, and he’s trying to kiss you like the schoolyard creep he always was.”

“I wasn’t-!”

“You were two seconds from tongue, Damian.”

“Can confirm,” Ewen enjoyed the fireworks. “I saw it.”

“Shut up, Ewen!” Damian pouted, face twisting between pride and despair.

Anya, smiling like a waitress in Hell’s restaurant, slid Becky another drink. “On the house!” Anya was radiant with revelation, like she remembered how to ride a bike. Except the bike in question was Damian Desmond, now with new virtue-gloss paintwork. “He was nice to me,” she insisted to Becky, eyes dreamy. “I distinctly remember it.”

Damian, to his own disgust, kept a straight face. He even nervously shuffled his cuffs to confirm yes, of course, he was wonderful, to cover the fact his soul imploded in twenty-four different directions.

“Are you kidding me?” Becky’s eyes were horrifically wide.

“Don’t be mean,” Anya poked her face with a bendy straw. “He gave me a pen once.”

“After you burst into tears because he snapped yours on purpose!” Becky exploded.

“…Really?”

Damian nearly dropped his glass. It was such a tiny, stupid event, but she recalled it fondly, which counted for something. No, more than something. It was, in this place of shredded timelines, a rope he could coil around himself and survive. So, he slid smoothly into the conversation like a professional liar, and worse, a professional Desmond. “Technically, yes, but… it was an accident. Pens are fragile, and the one I gave you was better.”

“That’s not what happened,” Becky accused.

His skin prickled, feeling like he was shoved back into a corridor lined with lockers and echoes. He spoke too quickly. “That’s exactly what happened,” he insisted.

“Well,” Anya tilted her head in consideration, “I remember the new pen. It had stars on it. I liked that.”

“See?” Damian shrugged victoriously.

“See?!” Blackbell’s heiress combusted. “You bullied her for years. You made her cry in homeroom, you mocked her clothes, you told her she was beneath you!”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Damian wagged a finger. “Allegedly.”

“Not allegedly, you gaslighting dick, it’s-!”

“Let’s all calm down,” Anya interrupted brightly. “What I remember is nice, and nice is nice, and that’s what matters.” Damian forced a shrug, because casualness smothered the rising terror. If Anya chose to remember the gesture and not the cruelty that birthed it, maybe that became the new truth. Maybe memory overwrote history. Anya beamed at him. “It was a really nice pen.” His lungs unclenched. Yes, let me exist in the lie where I’m good.

“I stole that pen once,” Ewen lounged like a dog in a sunbeam. “Smoothest glide of my life.”

“Not helping,” Becky muttered.

“Not wrong either,” Damian shot back. He knew Becky was objectively correct in that he crushed the pen from spite.

There was no universe where Damian Desmond deserved to be remembered kindly. He knew that in his marrow, every time Becky spat his offenses like a prosecutor, in the way his stomach soured when Anya smiled at him as thirteen years of cruelty were replaced with a neat pen and mixology knowledge. He hadn’t earned those smiles, but purchased them in the currency of her amnesia, and God damn him, he was spending. Besides, the rules here were different – reality wasn’t brick-and-mortar, but pliable, wet clay.

It was selfish.

It was pathetic.

He lived with her hatred once and wore it like a badge of honour. He couldn’t endure it again, not after how they parted with the thing he did and could never undo. The last time they saw each other, he obliterated any possibility of being remembered well. If she carried even a fragment of that day, he was doomed.

So, yes, Damian gaslit the afterlife. He fed her every half-truth, because if Anya believed in the better version of him, maybe the better version existed. It wasn’t about honour or protecting her happiness. No, it was greed, plain and simple, because he could pretend he didn’t ruin everything. If she never recalled the last time they were together, then perhaps he could live in limbo with her indefinitely, smiling back at her, and perfectly safe in the lie.

Becky gripped the glass with both hands, because if she didn’t, they would be around Damian’s throat in two seconds flat. She breathed, and allowed the alcohol to burn away the edges. This is hell, she thought, hell with cocktails. The worst part was that the drink was delicious. Their conversation devolved into an hour-long mess of swearing, snack theft, drink refills and arguments about revising history for personal benefit. By the end, Anya still didn’t recall who Becky was, but was extra-convinced she had a new ultra-cool best friend all over again. Damian, against all odds and justice, walked away the victor, smug in his stolen sainthood. Becky vowed to kill him eventually, but Anya’s joy at his presence certainly made it tricky to follow through.

And Ewen? He finished his sweets.

Chapter Text

The elevator had a polite coffin’s acoustics. She woke up sitting upright in a corner, knees tucked, palms flat to the humming floor. For a long moment, she watched the panels breathe light at her to determine whether she should breathe back. She tested a word. “Hello.” The walls were cool under her fingertips as she stroked it as she would an anxious cat, and they thrummed, pleased by the contact.

“Good morning! Or afternoon! Or evening!” the elevator chimed cheerfully. “Time is an illusion, but service is eternal. Welcome, new arrival!”

She reassembled her face into a smile because politeness felt correct. “You talk,” she observed, relief blooming at the fact she wasn’t alone.

“I surely do!” the display brightened. “It’s one of my many accessibility features. Nobody likes a silent ride. Besides, silence invites panic, and we prefer limiting claw marks. We here at corporate prefer to keep those for limited-time promotions.”

“I don’t want to be scary,” she insisted quickly, rubbing the wall like it required reassurance to continue being a wall. “You’re my friend.”

“Oh, bless your soul,” the elevator cooed, and if it could fluff its hair, it definitely would. “I don’t hear that often. You’ll be an excellent employee!”

“Employee?” The word sat in her mouth like a marble, in the sense it was fun to roll around with her tongue. “But… I didn’t fill out a form.”

“Not to worry! Your paperwork is pre-filed!” the speaker maintained its upbeat certainty. “Your file was flagged. You’ve been pre-selected for a mission-critical role!”

“Yay!” she clapped once and startled herself with the volume. “What’s my job? I can do a lot of jobs, probably! You need to tell me the steps, though. I like steps.” She wiggled her fingers like she could count them, even if she didn’t know what came after three.

“What a wonderful growth mindset!” the Door Close light blushed. “You, employee, will run our in-house lounge. We’ve had some trouble with bartenders, what with despair, metaphysical collapse, et cetera. We need someone who can keep spirits high. Spirits – ha! We here at corporate enjoy our little puns.”

“Spirits,” she repeated dutifully. “I like drinks.” She paused to add more honesty. “I think I like drinks. The idea of them is nice. Do I get a little umbrella? I feel like I know about little umbrellas.”

“That’s the energy! You’re the new Barkeep! It’s gender-neutral, inclusive, trendy, and perfectly aligned with our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy. Our EDI committee workshopped ten names, and Barkeep won in A/B testing! Congratulations on your brand new name!”

“Barkeep,” she tilted her head to test it, “Barkeep.” It clicked pleasantly against her teeth. “Did I not have one before?”

“Oh, you did,” the intercom answered quickly, “but names are sticky, and we need you squeaky clean! Sticky barkeeps don’t smile, and we require smiling. It’s in your contract.”

“I have a contract?” This was exciting. Contracts implied bullet points, and bullet points suggested prizes.

“Implied consent by occupancy!” it answered with a billboard’s confidence.

She hugged the wall because it was kind, and the steel made a happy air-conditioning purr. “Thank you for the name,” she nodded sincerely. “I’ll keep it safe and not throw it at anyone unless I have to.”  

“We here at corporate are proud of you,” the elevator murmured tenderly. “Now, an official notice! You were a real person once, with memories, friends, and loved ones. However, remembrance is correlated with decreased performance and increased crying-in-sinks. Hence, we here at corporate instituted our Compassion Fatigue Mitigation Policy, under which you have been freshly debriefed of burdensome details. No memory, no sadness, but a lot of new friends! Everyone wins!”

“I was real?”

“You’re real now, and employable, which is what matters!”

She nodded because it felt like a solution, but something tugged in her ribs like a kite string. It yanked a shape across her mind of a boy, or the idea of a boy, faceted into a pair of eyes like melted gold. “I think I remember a boy,” she whispered conspiratorially, like the intercom was a secret friend who kept her contraband thoughts safe. “His eyes were gold. They were very pretty.”

“Scrambled synapses,” the intercom replied briskly, applying a cartoon bandage over the metaphorical shark bite. “It’s completely normal. Early-stage arrivals often experience colour-based phantoms! You’re not remembering a boy, but perceiving a migraine aura. We here at corporate advise drinking water.”

“Okay, I won’t remember. Unless it helps my job. If remembering helps, can I remember a little?”

“Fabulous question! No.”

“Oh.”

“We here at corporate neither confirm nor deny that you asked for this, and we neither confirm nor deny that it would destroy your cheery disposition if you remember. However, you are bouncy, bright, emotionally buoyant, and exactly the person who can make paper crowns and make grief taste like cherries. That’s why you were flagged!”

She beamed, because that sounded like winning something. “I can do cherries and crowns! I think I can also do bouncy.” She demonstrated a contained bounce. “Do I get tools, like a shaker or a manual?”

“Absolutely!” the intercom trilled. “Allow me to present your onboarding. Commencing Orientation Module One – Welcome to Midnight Minus One, Where It’s Always Almost Too Late, But Not Quite! Please enjoy this audio-visual presentation!”

The ceiling panels dimmed and a jingle that was legally distinct from something one heard while on hold with an unspecified airline played. The voice’s more enthusiastic sibling began. “Hi there, Barkeep! If you’re hearing this, you’ve been selected for our Afterlife Hospitality position! Congratulations! At Midnight Minus One, we believe souls deserve dignity, options and coasters. Your mission is simple – keep spirits high – haha! – keep the glassware clean, and gently shepherd guests towards their choices. There are no wrong answers, only regrettable ones, but regret is none of your business! Please see our Boundary policy for more information.” She listened with big eyes and bigger agreement. The more the voice spoke, the more shapes of shaking tins, counter polishing and sliced citrus assembled in her head. “We will now move onto our Frequently Asked Questions! Q1 – Am I dead? A1 - Yes! Great news for you, as no further dying will occur! Q2 – Are my loved ones okay? A2 – Unclear! This is an elevator!. Q3 – Do I get tips? A3 – You get our sincere thanks! Q4 – What if I cry? A4 – Please do so in the walk-in fridge and reapply your smile before returning to service!”

“Excuse me?” she raised her hand. “I have a question.”

“We here at corporate love your initiative!” the elevator ditched the pre-recorded voice. “Shoot!”

“Can I drink drinks? Just a little. For quality.”

“Not officially,” the intercom allowed, but the speaker vent whistled to a whisper. “However, selective sampling is tolerated, provided you maintain upright posture and don’t declare anybody your new bestie. You are also permitted to… compile a playlist of shaker rhythms! Research shows syncopation calms the newly deceased.”

“I can be calm,” she invented a shaker with her hands and made shhk-shhk noises until she giggled. “I can do syncopation. I feel… syncopated!”

“Micro-competence, macro-cheer,” the elevator checked boxes on an invisible clipboard. “Now, a very small, non-contractual favour. If you could occasionally prepare me a Shirley Temple – non-alcoholic, heavy on the grenadine, maraschino cherry – and leave it discreetly on the floor, it would align wonderfully with my wellness goals.”

“You can drink?!” she gasped with delighted scandal.

“I aspire. Union rules forbid me from saying no.”

“I’ll bring you so many Shirley Temples! I’ll bring a bendy straw too so you don’t spill it on your floor! Do you have a tongue?”

“Topic change!” the elevator sang, so she re-holstered her curiosity. “Orientation Module Two – Boundaries, Banter, and Beverage Safety. We here at corporate want to remind you that you’re not a therapist, a judge, or a door. You’re a drink-scientist and smile-farmer. You keep guests hydrated, validated and guided. Never promise outcomes. Never insult reincarnation options. Never, ever, tell a soul they look great for a dead person. We here at corporate learned that the hard way.”

“I would never!” she promised, hand over heart. “I’ll tell them they look great without qualifiers. And if they don’t look good, I’ll compliment their coat. Everyone has a coat.”

“Excellent! Are you… frightened, Barkeep?”

“A little,” she admitted. “I don’t remember how to be anything, but I can be nice. That seems like the first thing. Oh, and I feel fast in my fingers. That helps.”

“That’s perfectly normal. Fear is proof of consciousness, and consciousness is proof of employability. You won’t be alone, Barkeep. Your purpose is friendship, and you’re going to make so many new friends! Think of all the customers who’ll adore you – why, you’ll never be lonely again!”

“Never lonely,” she repeated. “I don’t like that word.” Before she could stop herself, she murmured, “Gold eyes,” and it felt warm. She pressed her forehead to the steel and squeezed her eyes shut. “I keep seeing him. He looked at me like I was… like I was…” she couldn’t find the word. It simply ceased existing.

“Ah, there we go again!” the speaker nudged the thought off the cliff and threw confetti as distraction. “It’s neurological glitter. You’re not remembering, you’re experiencing… posthumous sparkle! Focus on your tasks – tasks are a love you can do with your hands!”

“Tasks,” she latched onto it. “Yes, I’ll slice limes, memorise where the glasses live, keep the napkins straight, and I can invent a drink that’s pink with bubbles, because that feels encouraging!”

“We here at corporate are impressed with your initiative! We’re approaching your floor. Please secure all dangling anxieties and place them in the overhead compassion locker. Now, a final polite reminder. You will not endorse a door. You will not accidentally nudge a soul with your hip towards their choice. We have cameras.”

“I would never hip! I’ll stand straight like a respectable beverage professional. I’ll make a rule that stops bar fights, and no setting coasters on fire unless it looks cool. Oh, and I’ll have stickers that say things like You’re Doing Great, Probably! for customers who need a prize for trying.”

“Where did you get that idea?”

“I don’t know. I think it’ll fix most things, or keep it sparkly.”

“Keep that.”

“May I ask one more question? Am I allowed to be loved?” it burst out of her before she parsed it, and she was compelled to stuff it back in.

“Our policy neither prohibits nor endorses personal attachments. We here at corporate ask that you refrain from making a single customer your entire personality. Spread the sunshine, Barkeep. Share the cherries. Diversity of connection supports our mission!”

“Okay! I can be general sunshine. Still, if I meet that person with gold-” she clapped her hands over her mouth. “No! No more glitter! I’ll make Shirley Temples and a drink called Focus Juice to make my brain sit.”

“Outstanding! Brace yourself. Doors opening in three… two… one!”

They slid apart politely. Warm light spilled in, followed closely by the scent of citrus and second chances. The lounge stretched before her with mismatched stools gleaming under a chandelier that hadn’t chosen a century, so chose several. A jar of cherries glistened redly next to a mountain of limes. The leather booths looked… squeaky. She ran her finger on the counter; on its part, the counter accepted being friends. “Hello, bar,” she introduced herself. “I’m Barkeep. We’re going to be so tidy together.”

Behind her, the lounge intercom buzzed to life. “Your shift starts now. Smile, Barkeep! Remember, you’re never lonely when you’re customer-facing!”

“I’ll bring your Shirley Temple!” she called over, and felt the elevator’s delighted vibration through the floorboards.

Once temporarily unaccompanied, she inventoried, because action felt significant. She found the shakers and tapped them together to check if they harmonised (yes), she lined napkins, she sliced a lemon and felt instinctively like she knew what to do. When she tossed the lemon slice in a small arc and it caught on the rim of a glass, she flushed with a cocky thrill and glanced around to see if anyone saw that. Nobody had, so she made sure to do it again later with witnesses. She practiced the flourish twice and decided it was enough excellence for now.

The gold-eyes-boy slid under her mind’s door, but she didn’t acknowledge it. She pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth and felt the shape of a name that didn’t exist. She poured a practice glass of water, because corporate recommended hydration, and added a cherry for aesthetic. “Breathe,” she encouraged herself. “Smile. Do the hands love. No glitter. Make friends. No hips.” She adjusted a stool elegantly. “I’m General Sunshine. That’s me.”

She didn’t think about the boy’s eyes, nor ask the intercom about gold. She exchanged the glitter for champagne bubbles, because bubbles were encouraging. The horror of her situation sat politely in the corner, where it behaved whilst she learned the taps, dealt with customers, and figured out which stool squeaked when the sitter lied. When people walked in, she lifted her chin, released the sunshine, and became a friend.

*

That changed about seven hundred years into her shift. Well, it could have been seven hundred years, or six minutes. It was difficult to tell. The elevator sighed open and delivered a man like a problem gift-wrapped in nerves. He stepped out too cautiously for a person, too stubbornly for a ghost, and he looked furious and seasick. His shoulders pulled tight, suggesting posture kept death in check. The chandelier dimmed into flattering amber, and the room decided to adore him before Barkeep cast a vote.

Barkeep saw his eyes. Gold. It wasn’t the dull gleam of jewellery, but live, burning metal, like somebody melted sunlight and poured it into his skull. Recognition snapped so violently she nearly dropped a glass. She didn’t know him, but her body did. No, that wasn’t accurate. She knew him, the way she knew the shape of her own hands. It was the phantom glitter or the migraine static, but it walked into her bar.

She hated him instantly.

She liked him instantly.

She wanted to curl into his chest and sob.

She wanted to hurl him out of her bar headfirst.

She couldn’t bear to see him go.

She wanted him to tell her who she was.

She wanted him to leave her ignorance intact forever.

She was terrified of him.

Meanwhile, her face performed its duties flawlessly, her smile deployed like a weapon. She waved a cocktail stirrer like greeting an old friend. “Oh, hey! You must be new! I’m the bartender!” Bartender landed on her tongue safely, neutrally and professionally; she wasn’t allowed to call herself anything else.

The customer stared at her. The rest of him – the hard mouth, the stiff posture, his regular breathing – collapsed around that look, and then, cracking like a dam, emerged the word.

“Anya?”

Her stomach dropped violently, and she thought she would retch over the bar. Her fingers locked around a shaker until her knuckles ached. The name wasn’t hers; it simply couldn’t be, but the sound… fit, like a coat she hadn’t worn in years pulled snugly around her shoulders. It was foreign and familiar, and the paradox made her dizzy.

So, she widened her smile, strained at the corners. “A new nickname! I love nicknames! I’ve been called angel, hey you, and one time, ma’am, please stop juggling ice, which was rude. And mother, but we don’t do that anymore.”

Anya. Was that her? Anya. Was that who she was before here? Anya. She needed to know; she didn’t want to know. “You’re… Anya Forger.” The name cracked through the bar like lightning.

“Barkeep,” she corrected with forced brightness. “That’s me. I’ve worked here as long as I remember, which, if you ask the clock, is a lie. Time’s a big liar. Anyway, drink?”

“Whiskey. Neat. No. On the rocks.”

“Classic!” She poured with expert precision. She hated that she wanted to impress him with her amazing pouring ability. She hated that she cared whether his eyes watched her.

The whiskey sat between them, glowing faintly. He hadn’t moved his eyes from her since he stepped into the bar, and the longer it went on, the worse it got. Terror swam up her nerves, sudden and overwhelming. She knew this man, and not just as a long-lost memory, but viscerally, like she tried hard not to remember because remembering hurt. She knew his eyes, but she couldn’t summon any other details except a bitter, humiliating aftertaste.

He hurt her, once.

Yet, he was handsome, devastatingly so; even the chandelier colluded with him. Fear and attraction tangled until her hands tingled with the need to reach for him or shove him off his chair. Most frightening of all was how he spoke her name, with a certainty that said he knew about her life. He knew her past, before she was wiped clean and smiled at strangers. He was the answer to every forbidden question.

She wanted to demand everything from him. She wanted him gone before he ruined this peace. She wanted him to speak, to explain, to stay, to leave, to stop looking. 

“It’s you,” he whispered.

She wanted to scream at him to stop. She wanted to beg him to keep going. She wanted him out of the bar before he broke the world. Instead, she smiled, and tapped the counter for comfort. “It could be your mind having a snack,” she nodded, more for herself than him. “Happens a lot. People show up and the first face they see is someone they miss. The brain’s like… free trial!” She gestured to the bar. “This is a safe place to try.”

She knew him.

She didn’t know him.

She hated him.

She liked him too much.

She wanted answers.

She wanted him gone.

She wanted him to stay.

Still, she kept smiling.

Who are you?

*

Damian rehearsed it twelve times after Becky swanned off to commiserate death with Ewen. His problem was that every version of would you like to go on another date with me ended up sounding like a legally binding contact, a deathbed confession or a hostage situation. Presently, he loitered near the ice machine for emotional support, but it just hummed unhelpfully. Anya stirred a drink with a cinnamon stick and hummed off-key. She looked criminally pretty in the soft light, her hair pinned with two cocktail umbrellas. One was pink; the other was existential.

He watched her for five minutes, and wiped the same glass for four of them. This was, by any reasonable standard, catastrophic. “I’m just going to say it,” he muttered to himself. “Simple. Confident. Normalman McPerson.”

He took one step toward her and immediately walked into the icewell, which clattered judgementally. Anya perked up. “Hiya! Are you coming over to ask me something?” 

“No.” She waited patiently for ten seconds. “Maybe.”

“Oh, no, is it about the martini glass I shattered on accident and hid behind Captain Harvey Leaves?”

“What? No.”

“Oh, good, then what is it?” she smiled sweetly.

Damian opened his mouth, closed it and recalibrated. “I…” he began self-importantly, then stopped, because every neuron in his brain declared mutiny.

Anya propped her chin on her hand and batted her eyelashes mockingly. “You’re very cute when you panic.”

“This isn’t panic,” she retorted. “This is strategic conversational buffering.”

“Fine, buffering,” she nodded. “Take your time.”

He inhaled, exhaled, then, in a voice flat enough to iron on, he spoke. “Would you like to go on another outing? Coordinated seating event? A tertiary casual romantic bar-based engagement?”

“Are you asking me on a third date?”

“Yes! Obviously!” he snapped. “That’s what I said.”

“No, you said coordinated seating event.”

“Which I maintain is essentially the same thing.”

“You’re precious,” Anya giggled. “I’d love to.”

“You would?”

“Of course! You’re the most entertaining person I’ve co-bartended with, and you make killer drinks.”

His glass cloth dangled from his hand like a white flag. “…Co-bartended with?” his tone stiffened with aristocratic suspicion.

“Oh, you know,” Anya twirled the cinnamon stick. “Lots of practice partners. Shake with one, stir with another, tag-team the bitters, swap garnishes at midnight.” Outrageously, she winked.

“…Lots?”

“Mm-hmm,” she slouched cockily. “All sorts. An opera singer who sang while she strained cocktails, a dancer with excellent shaker rhythm. I can’t remember all their names. It’s a really fast turnover.”

“You- you can’t just- do you realise how unprofessional- no, how unethical- it is to suggest casual co-bartending? You’re trivialising-!”

“You’re jealous,” she grinned, feline.

“I’m not!” his voice cracked, which was unfortunate. “I simply value exclusivity in professional partnerships.”

“Sure you do, Sy-on boy.” His jaw flexed. His ears glowed. He stood there, locked in a duel to the death with her smug smirk, until she broke the tension with a laugh and a hair toss. “Relax. I haven’t co-bartended with anybody else. Just you. Complete co-bartending newbie.”

His chest deflated, his hands unclenched, his eyes softened, then immediately hardened again, because relief was weakness, and weakness was unacceptable. Still, something gnawed, which was exactly why his mouth betrayed him. “Oh!” he blurted too fast. “So you’re a virgin!”

The silence was apocalyptic. Even the chandelier drooped in disbelief, because Damian didn’t so much drop the ball as spike it directly into the deepest pit of Hell.

“That’s not what I said,” Anya sipped smugly through her cinnamon stick like a straw.

Damian’s face went through several shades of collapse. He opened his mouth, shut it, then hissed, “So, you- you’ve- with somebody?!”

Anya raised her eyebrows serenely. “Perhaps.”

“When?!” his whole body locked in a rigidity statues dreamed of achieving. “Where?!” his voice pitched up, then the horror caught up with him. “Oh, God! Did you- in the bar?!”

She looked at him, cinnamon stick smugly perched against her unfairly kissable lips, watching him like a scientist with a volatile specimen. Internally, pandemonium bloomed inside the form previously known as Damian. Oh, God, opera singers with high notes. Dancers with rhythm! Cocktail Casanovas whispering sweet nothings. And what am I? Nothing. 

The pressure built to compete. 

I need to outshine them. Be sharper, smoother, better. No, best. Impossible. She’s comparing me right now! There are probably manuals, or… advanced bartending positions. 

Anya raised a brow and sipped as his brain fried itself on high heat. 

I need to be perfect. No, scratch that, instantly legendary. Damian Desmond, drink-mixer, love-god, untouchable icon. Otherwise she’ll leave me for the opera singer or the dancer or- oh, God, both at once?! How am I already in last place?!

“No!” she burst into laughter. “There’s customers!”

The chandelier quivered gleefully. Damian’s tension faltered as the truth hit him that she was playing him like a harp strung with his own neuroses. His face flamed. “You’re-!” he croaked, half-homicidal, half-devastated. “You’re mocking me!”

“Only a little,” she simpered, reaching under the bar and slapping a fresh sticker on his chest which read Green-Eyed and Gorgeous!

He gazed upon it with earth-rending despair. “This is unbearable.”

“Yet you’re still here.”

The chandelier – traitor – winked smugly. Damian sagged against the backbar, sticker glinting like a medal awarded for public idiocy. His pride was in ashes; his dignity circled the proverbial drain. Anya twirled her cinnamon stick victoriously. “So… about that third date.”

“You already asked me.”

“Yes, but,” he glared fixedly at the glass rack, “I require confirmation.”

“I said yes.”

“I know you said yes, but did you mean it, or was it pity disguised as consent? There’s precedent for your mockery.”

“Sy-on boy,” Anya bit her lip to smother her giggles, “I meant it.”

“So,” he inhaled, “you’ll go with me.”

“Yes.”

“On a date.”

“Yes.”

“On the third date.”

“Yes, Damian,” she took his hand, clearly amused. “I’d like very much to have another coordinated seated event with you.” Finally, he unspooled his shoulders, but the chandelier’s sparkle informed the whole room of his absurdity. Anya slapped a fresh sticker on his shoulder, which announced Congratulations! You Needed Reassurance!

“I need a lie down.”

“You can lie down after dessert. I’m thinking sundaes.”

“Do we even have ice cream?”

“Liminal ice cream, yes.”

Captain Harvey Leaves loomed approvingly as the quiet sentinel of their developing romance. “Maybe we’ll kiss this time,” he muttered to the countertop. Anya didn’t respond, but squeezed his hand and smiled like she already knew. 

Chapter Text

Becky gave up on lighting candles, because nothing disguised ink, nicotine and whatever Damian dragged in after investigating. The corkboard sagged, the carpet was entirely paper, and the coffee table supported a microfiche reader, three pistols Emile definitely wasn’t supposed to give them, and Ewen’s cereal box. “We’re doing this wrong,” she declared flatly, surveying the carnage. Why did she offer up her nice house for this? Damian had a perfectly nice house of his own to ruin.

“We’re doing it right. This is what detective work looks like,” he gestured without looking. “Question. Why did the Forgers vanish? We know why they weren’t there at the time of the murder, but where the fuck did they go after?”

“Uh, grieving?” Ewen raised a timid hand.

“Wrong. Parents like that don’t disappear on their own. Someone made them disappear.”

Becky slammed her head into the wall. “Christ. Here we go.”

Loid was easy enough to figure out with what they knew. It was clear WISE pulled him, but the question remained as to why. Yor Forger, née Briar, was easier to track in theory, because she wasn’t meant to be anybody except a city hall clerk with a frankly offensive pension plan. Still, her work records went dark at the exact same time, with her last payroll dated the week after Anya’s death. “That doesn’t happen,” Ewen said grimly. “Payroll departments are the most persistent organisms in the state. They’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth for a five-dalc discrepancy. Yet, she vanished, and nobody from her job looks into that?”

“She didn’t vanish, she was retracted,” Damian snapped. “May I remind you, she was a Garden asset, and a pretty good one, too? Anya mentioned once her mother carried knives in her boots – boots! At a parent mixer! And you all thought that was normal?”

“I just figured she was a protective parent.”

“She was compromised. Apple’s stray experiment was murdered, her husband unmasked as Agent Twilight, two agencies colliding. What do you do? You silence both.”

“How do you kill an unkillable woman?” Becky asked pointedly.

“You don’t.”

Of course, theorising it and proving it were different beasts. The municipal archives Becky bribed open yielded standard payroll slips, utility bills and year-end tax filings until the dates simply stopped. When Emile pressed the clerk with his badge drawn, she blinked like he spoke ancient Greek. Instead, they fixated on gossip. Former neighbours remembered Yor as sweet but strange. Nobody saw her leave, she was simply there one day, and wasn’t the next. Another recalled seeing Loid at the grocer’s the day before the murder, then never again.

“Why?” Becky asked. “Why not let them mourn and fade out? Why bother?”

“Think about it,” Damian paced, smoking as usual. “If Loid talked, admitted he inadvertently adopted a government experiment and paraded her at Eden as part of Strix, WISE as a whole is compromised. If Yor talked because let’s say, the execution order came from Garden, Ostania collapses. Both countries would be exposed. They clipped their own.”

Proof came piecemeal and through corruption, like always. Becky bribed a civil servant with two bottles of cognac. Emile leaned on a confidential informant. Ewen hacked into a database from the computer lab of a university he never stepped foot in. Together, they unearthed mere fragments. A WISE memo, redacted to hell carried the phrase deep cover reassignment, reason asset compromised, and an innocuous expense sheet for Yor  with retirement provision circled.

Loyally, Damian pinned them to the board. “There. Confirmation. He was pulled, she was retired.”

“So, they’re both alive?”

“Yep. Which is worse.”

*

For Parents’ Day, Eden filled with brass bands, manicured lawns, fathers lighting cigars like victory torches and mothers comparing hems and lineage. Each student was expected to demonstrate filial piety and superior posture, both of which Damian had in spades. What he didn’t necessarily have was a parent. Melinda sent her regrets via a delicate envelope – Engaged this afternoon, but do make us proud – which meant she pencilled in a headache.

He stood under a sycamore, insisting he didn’t care. However, he noticed when Ewen’s mother smothered him in kisses, when Emile’s father roared proudly about his son’s maths result (which was middling at best), and Becky’s father spun her in the air. Every child had somebody; that is, everyone except him. Naturally, Anya had Yor, who arrived with a picnic basket, a lopsided homemade dress and sunshine in her smile. She crouched to admire a drawing Anya produced and held it up like it belonged in a gallery. “That’s wonderful, Anya! You’re so talented!”

Damian scowled. Talented? Anya was terminally untalented, ridiculous, and inferior to him by every conceivable metric, and still, Yor beamed like she’d birthed the next Rembrandt. His mother never praised him like that, even when his scores were perfect. He was too occupied glaring at the grass to notice Yor spotted him.

“Damian!” she waved both arms. “Hello! It’s so good to see you.” Adults didn’t normally greet him like that. They nodded, bowed or offered rehearsed lines about his father. “You’ve gotten taller!”

“I haven’t,” he stiffened.

“I think you have,” she brushed a fleck of grass off his sleeve, “and you look so smart in your uniform! Oh, Anya said you’re doing really great in class!” He flushed. Of course he was doing great, but hearing it made his chest ache.

“Mama, don’t talk to him,” Anya tugged her mother’s skirts. “He’s mean!”

“I’m not mean!” he snapped.

“You called me stupid yesterday!”

“Because you were being stupid!”

Yor laughed and ruffled Anya’s hair. “Oh, you two tease each other so much. I’m glad you’re friends.”

“Friends?!” Damian choked. He wasn’t Forger’s friend. He was her superior at best and her rival at worst.

“Thank you,” she said. “It means the world that Anya has classmates looking out for her.”

Nobody thanked him for anything. Not his mother, whose smiles never reached her eyes, and certainly not his father, who barely looked at him most days. Something desperate and sour twisted under his ribs, and he recognised it for what it was.

Envy.

It wasn’t fair that Forger, too constitutionally stupid to live, received affection she didn’t deserve. Yor touched her hair, beamed at her drawings, and happily lied by telling her she was clever. Damian had perfect grades, impeccable posture and better public decorum and received nothing. Yor Forger wasted her big heart on somebody undeserving when he was right there. He clenched his fists so hard his nails bit skin. “You’re a good mother,” he blurted out.

Yor seemed momentarily startled, and then smiled so kindly he nearly hugged her. “Oh! That’s very kind of you.”

He wanted Yor to smooth his hair, beam at him for existing and tell him he was clever without qualification. Instead, he scowled, shoved his hands in his pockets and muttered, “Don’t get the wrong idea. I only said it because you’re nicer than most.”

“Still, it’s very sweet,” she said, and ruffled his hair anyway. He went red to the roots and jerked back, but the damage was done. Her hand was very gentle, and he wanted her to do it again. “We’re going to have a picnic on the lawn. Would you like to join us? Loid made too much again.”

“Mama,” Anya groaned, “noooooo.”

Yor shushed her. “You’d be very welcome.”

His first instinct was to refuse, because he wasn’t some charity case who needed scraps, least of all from Forger. But her eyes were nice, and his stomach – traitor – twisted with longing. “Fine,” he nodded primly. “If only to make sure she-” he jabbed a finger at Anya, who looked like she would rather peel her eyebrows off than spend time with him, “doesn’t eat like a pig.” She blew a raspberry at him.

“That’s wonderful,” Yor smiled. “Come on, then.”

He trotted along, not looking at her. If he did, he worried he would blurt out he wished she was his mother too.

*

The issue wasn’t whether Donovan ordered Anya’s death, because that much was clear. The problem was proving he did. Proof meant something concrete to shove in history’s stupid face and say there! Without it, Damian was another drunk nepo-baby crafting conspiracies. Naturally, their only recourse was theft. “We break into Garden HQ,” Damian announced, and was met with world-ending silence.

“Brilliant!” Becky trilled. “Shall we shoot ourselves now and save them the trouble?”

“Garden’s a ghost, bossman,” Emile sighed. “That organisation leaves you in pieces for asking where the toilet is.”

“What if we did ask?” Ewen perked up. “Casually, mind. Like, excuse me, sir, where do assassins powder their noses?”

“Christ,” Becky drained her wine.

Damian stalked the rug like a caged animal. “Garden answers to somebody. Orders leave trails. If Father sent a directive, it moved through hands.”

“Yes, and those hands could snap our necks before you finish that cigarette.”

“Alternative suggestions?”

“Donovan’s study,” Emile suggested reluctantly.

“You’re suggesting we break into the private study of Ostania’s most paranoid man?” Damian blanched. “He has the locks changed daily and the curtains weighed for bugs.”

“It’s only slightly less suicidal than Garden.”

“And his butler? His bodyguards? His secretaries?”

“Hear me out,” Ewen raised a hand. “Air ducts.”

Damian rounded on him. “You wouldn’t fit.”

“I could try.”

“You couldn’t bend your way out of your own trousers, and you want me to trust you with hi-tech ventilation systems?”

“Bossman, that’s harsh.”

Emile flipped through his notes. “We’ve tried state archives, SSS intercepts, party ledgers. Every road ends with a brick wall.”

“Then we bring a hammer,” Damian announced.

“You keep saying that,” Becky said, “but the hammer is always your forehead.”

Meanwhile, Agent Twilight swept through the wreckage of their attempts. In a clerk’s office, he retrieved bribe money Damian forgot to disguise. At a police archive, he smoothed Emile’s pointed questions with a joke about rookie cops. He worked less like a trained spy and more like a weary parent tidying up after children who kept setting his curtains on fire.

In Becky’s drawing room, the arguments circled themselves into exhaustion. Damian sagged into an armchair, rubbing his temples hard enough to bruise. “We need somebody who was there,” he muttered, “somebody who saw the orders move.”

“Oh, splendid,” Becky snorted. “Let’s summon a ghost while we’re at it.”

“Not a ghost,” he said slowly. “Someone alive.” They looked at him, confused. “Yor Forger.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Anya’s mother, and your mother’s tea-time-buddy. The woman who knitted you a scarf so badly it looked like a noose for a duck.”

“Yes.”

“You want to interrogate your mother’s friend.”

“She was in the house. She was part of Strix, even if by accident. She would’ve seen something.”

“She baked muffins,” Ewen said dreamily. “Good ones, too. Had a sugar crust on top.”

Damian’s hands clasped like a prayer. “She’s the only one left. She must’ve seen something.”

“Do you hear yourself?” Becky blanched. “You’re proposing we hunt down the woman who gave you socks for Christmas, and do what, exactly? Accuse her of hiding your dad’s death warrants?”  

“This is reckless. Even if we find her, what makes you think she’ll talk, or that she won’t kill us?” Emile shook his head.

“She won’t. She’ll help us,” Damian replied sharply, then faltered. “She… she loved her daughter.”

“That doesn’t mean she loves you,” Becky deadpanned.

“I don’t need love,” he snapped. “I need the truth.”

Obliviously, Ewen munched on a pistachio. “So, when do we start?”

He didn’t so much investigate as he did erode obstacles. He began with a list of people who would never betray Yor Forger. Yuri Briar sat at the top, a loyal face with a personal life arranged like a security deposit box. Damian trailed him anyway, not by skulking in trench coats (they were unflattering), but showing up everywhere with a toothache’s patience and a small principality’s bankroll. He dined at the same cantina, learned the waitress’ names, discovered the cashier’s gambling problem and the manager’s side-gig of supplying council offices with bulk tea. He bought the tea contract out and donated it to a distribution firm he controlled for eight hours, which was the exact time he needed to see which route delivered to Briar’s workplace..

He tipped the driver to mislabel one crate and watched where the correction call came from. He cross-referenced that office’s outgoing calls with numbers reserved for pensions, found one that rang on the first half-ring every Thursday at dusk, and asked how often pension updates were mailed to whitewashed houses at the edge of town under names the postmaster pronounced too carefully. By the end of week three, he had an address. His entire celebration was a fresh cigarette and a quiet declaration to the rain.

“Got you.”

He went alone, so there were no witnesses to how his hands shook. He knocked with three precise raps that declared familiarity he hadn’t earned. The door opened to lamplight and the smell of southern stew. Yor stood with a ladle, startled and already apologising. Loid Forger rose from the table sharply. For once, his face showed alarm. “Desmond?! How?!”

Damian stepped inside without permission. He set a fat folder on the sideboard. “Cunning,” he shrugged, and then, because he couldn’t help himself, “and money. Mainly money.” His gaze snapped to Loid with the bright malice of a schoolboy who’d finally outwitted his teacher. “You said last time we spoke would be the last time. Guess what, Forger? You were wrong. Not bad, huh?” It landed like a smug child brandishing a test paper with full marks as Damian radiated a young, petulant energy in the worst possible way.

“Nobody knows this address,” Loid settled on finally, because it was true until it wasn’t.

“Nobody tried hard enough.” Damian looked gaunt, and Loid knew he was burning through himself.

“Damian!” Yor found her voice, kindness leaping out. “Oh, you’re soaked! Come in- wait, you’re already in, um- sit, please, you’ll catch your death-”

“I’m not fragile,” he protested, then sat. The towel she fetched ended up around his shoulders by the inevitability of maternal physics. Grudgingly, he allowed it to happen. “Don’t mistake trembling for weakness. It’s rage.”

“It looks like fever,” Yor replied, tucking the towel closer.

Loid evaluated him, because his life depended on never being surprised. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said, meaning you shouldn’t be able to be here.

“And yet.” The house smelled like soap and something left in the oven too long, like Yor tried for comfort and overshot. He stared at the steam arising from the stew. “You were there,” he cut past any preface, “during Strix. You worked for Garden. I know my father moved his little pieces with his stupid pen. You must’ve seen the order.”

“Careful,” Loid warned flatly.

“I drank careful to death years ago,” Damian smiled thinly. “Did you see it?” 

She shook her head frantically. “No, Damian. I never saw anything about… I only knew what I was told at the time. I didn’t even understand Apple or Strix or anything until…” she didn’t finish her sentence, and she looked at Loid. They didn’t enjoy reliving the six months after Anya’s death.

Damian’s expression flickered from disbelief to total neutrality. “Then, you’re useless,” he dismissed her with automatic cruelty, an old Desmond reflex to make the world smaller when it refused to obey him.

“I’m sorry.”

“Everyone’s sorry. It’s Ostania’s favourite hobby.”

Loid’s hands were still, which meant they were dangerous. “She’s telling the truth. Garden compartmentalised so Yor would never encounter-”

“Then where,” Damian interrupted, “are the orders?”

Yor, who was always underestimated by men, found her confidence. “The Shopkeeper kept records.” Loid turned sharply, less in surprise than acknowledgement. “It’s insurance. If a client moved against Garden, there would be proof. Mutually assured destruction. So, if your father ordered anything, it would be there.”

“Good,” Damian’s smile was akin to bared fangs. “Let’s go get it.”

“You’re not coming!” Loid stared at him, aghast.

“The hell I’m not!”

“You’re drunk!”

“I’m always drunk!”

Yor gave him tea because people who couldn’t be saved could be warmed. “At least have this,” she said, and when he didn’t take it, she took his hand and placed it around the porcelain. The cup rattled against the saucer, and something heavier rattled near his chair. Loid and Yor’s gaze snapped to it instinctively. Damian, infuriatingly unbothered, reached down and picked up the object that slipped out his pocket.

It was an Ostanian service pistol.

“Damian, is that-?!” Yor gasped, scandalised.

“Yes.”

“Put it on the table,” Loid ordered.

He set it down resentfully. “The safety’s on,” he rolled his eyes, placing his finger near the trigger to either demonstrate or dare them. “I’m an adult.”

“You’re a hazard. Give it here.”

“What I am, Forger, is armed and competent.”

“Finger off the trigger,” Yor snapped automatically, but her voice softened. “And no flourishes, see? Straight grip. There’s no need to- oh, goodness, don’t-” In one clean motion, she removed the pistol, checked the chamber, popped the magazine, cleared it, and slipped the now-empty weapon in her apron pocket.

“It’s mine! Give it back!”

“When you’re sober enough to hold it correctly,” Yor stood like a schoolmarm who knew how to cut men in half. 

He inhaled through his teeth as irritation and humiliation hit the same nerve. He tried to cross his arms and discovered the towel became a blanket and the blanket became a restraint. She wrapped him so neatly that he couldn’t move without a wiggle his pride refused to perform. It dawned on him exactly what she’d done and how long he let her do it. “You’ve swaddled me!”

“You looked cold.”

“I’m not a parcel, Mrs. Forger.”

“You’re currently a danger to toes,” Loid sighed. “To be specific, your own.”

“This is- illegal restraint! I’ll have you both arrested.”

“You broke into my house.”

Yor fussed as Loid gathered the folder Damian brought and lined the paper’s edges with annoying exactness. On his part, the youngest Desmond regarded the unremarkable curtains and envisioned war. “How’d you find her?” Loid asked finally with a professional curiosity with pity folded inside.

“I followed Briar. I bought a tea contract. I bribed a postal worker. I threatened a civil servant with a very real budget committee hearing. I memorised the retirement patterns of city hall staff because people leave predictable footprints when they stop being useful to their employers.” He shrugged. “I’m a Desmond. Doors open when I walk by them.”

Yor frowned at the notion of doors opening for that reason alone. “You shouldn’t have to carry this,” she settled on, barely masking her sorrow. This ridiculous man had once been a ridiculous boy, and she couldn’t reconcile them.

“No, but I do,” Damian agreed. “So… I will do something that is very much not me. I will listen to you for one evening.”

Forger’s father’s mouth twitched. “Garden keeps leverage in secure vaults. They aren’t official, they aren’t on maps. They’re in places nobody keeps because nobody wants them. If Shopkeeper signed off, the order will be there.”

“You already know which vault.”

“I know several places to start,” Loid corrected. “None of which you could find by threatening tea purveyors.”

“Then we begin,” Damian accepted the rebuke uncomplainingly, “tonight.”

“Tomorrow,” Yor commanded firmly. “You’ll sleep here.” She forestalled his objections with a raised hand. “You’re in no condition to be out, and I refuse to be responsible for you dying in a drain.”

“I don’t sleep.”

“You do tonight.”

She set about making up the couches, whilst Loid set one impossible condition after the other. No gun until Damian demonstrated trigger discipline. No cigarettes in the tunnels. No improvisation without a signal. No Desmond voice at doors. No calling in favours they couldn’t smother. He nodded, because it was cheaper than arguing and more expensive than shutting up. At one point, Yor spoon-fed him cake, and he chewed. “Your scarf,” he spoke between bites, apropos of nothing, “was a crime. I wore it anyway.”

“I’ll make you another.”

“Please don’t.”  

Loid looked at Damian to decide whether the figure gazing back was a stranger or merely an older version of one’s mistakes. “When we find it,” he said, meaning if, “you don’t pull the trigger on anything. Paper, person, and especially not your future.”

Damian’s smile gentled and he briefly resembled the six-year-old who pretended he didn’t want to stand near the weird girl, then stood next to her for thirteen years. “I’m very good at not doing what I want,” he replied. “It’s basically a family tradition.”

Yor tucked the blanket in closer, which he allowed. Whispered plans laid themselves out as Loid spoke in routes, Yor in warnings, and Damian in outcomes.

“Thank you,” he managed. It could have meant for the tea or the soup or for not throwing him into the rain for being as broken as he was competent. When they finally settled him on the couch, he discovered the blanket restricted his arms cleverly when horizontal. He tested it once, decided to not be a buffoon, and obeyed.

“Tomorrow,” Yor cooed gently as she switched off the lamp.

“Tomorrow,” he agreed, half-under.

The future waited in a wool blanket, hands pinned, grief less brutal for the first time in years, as Damian was watched over by the only two people in the world who knew how to treat him like a boy and a bomb.

Chapter Text

Cecile coaxed the fire into a cooperative glow that made faces appear kind by the time Damian returned. She changed the flowers twice – once because the tulips drooped and once because she worried they weren’t him, and settled on white ranunculus that read as money to the uninitiated and apology to the fluent. She rehearsed a smile and pinned it to her face as the key turned. He entered like the room admired him. His coat was removed, his hair smoothed, and the tie immaculate as he presented the picture on the box of a life she agreed to assemble.

“Evening,” he greeted her warmly. 

“Darling,” she answered.

He kissed her on the cheek like applying mild pressure to a glass. His eyes absorbed the room quickly. “You’ve set everything beautifully.”

“You say that even when I don’t.” She eased when the line landed and forced a light laugh out of him.

He poured wine professionally. “Ewen tried to fight a vending machine,” he slipped into an anecdote, which was easier than saying where he really was, “because he thought it owed him a snack. Emile dragged him away by the tie before the machine developed an ideology.”

“And Becky?”

“She eviscerated a canapé, but between you and me, the canapé had it coming.”

Cecile relaxed by degrees. This was a man she could love, or at least, teach herself too. They sat at the table where they were supposed to. Lamb steamed in a way that flattered the senses and the chef. He carved it surgically, but made a face when the first bite proved hotter than Hell, and she laughed. “I do like this,” she admitted when the plates were settled and servants dismissed. “Us. Our evenings.”

“So do I,” he said automatically. It sounded sincere enough.

She felt reckless; it happened sometimes, like standing very close to a cliff edge in great shoes. “I like you very much,” she ventured, and heard the rest arrive before she could stop it. “I love you.”

His glass stopped en route to his mouth; his expression dropped. The room’s warmth found a door and promptly exited. “Don’t,” he spoke like extracting a splinter.

“What?”

“Don’t say that,” he glared at her; space contracted. 

Cecile’s heart was in her mouth. “Damian, I do-”

“You don’t.” The final consonant was a click; he placed his glass down like setting a bomb. “There’s no use pretending.”

She flushed with childish humiliation. “I’m not pretending!”

“Cecile.” Her name became a correction. “You like this.” His eyes took in the fire, the table, the wine decanter. “You like the calm version. You like the name. You like how rooms stand straight when I enter. That’s not love.”

“It is, actually,” she retorted, stung into stupidity, “or, some of it is.”

“No,” his vicious laugh cut his mouth, “it isn’t.”

“Why won’t you let me say it?” 

Because the only voice I wanted to hear it from was silenced. Because if you said it, it wouldn’t be hers anymore. Because I know precisely how to wreck tenderness handed to me. What he did say, before he could stop it was, “I don’t want to hear it from you.”

“Who, then?” she asked lightly; hopefully, she could play this off as a joke about rivals or mistresses, just anything that wasn’t that fucking cemetery.

“Nobody,” he lied. He faced the fire as if consulting it, because he felt the hinge give in his head, which let him fall into rooms he should’ve bricked up years ago.

The first was idiotic and golden. In it, Anya told him a hallway stinking of polish and medals, poking him in the face. “Sy-on boy, I love you.” He stood there with his mouth and pride open, and produced the worst possible answer with catastrophic certainty, “Prove it!” He never knew how to accept good things on their first visit. She snorted, then kissed him badly. He said it back inelegantly, breathless into her face, “I love you, for fuck’s sake.” He always said it like he threw his hands up, finally caught out.

The second was on his couch during a Bondman rerun, her lips red with cherry soda. “Love you, Sy-on boy,” she declared. He’d probably say something pedantic in extremis, like, “That’s not my name.” She threw a cushion and missed on purpose, so he said it back muffled, “I love you.” Afterwards, she made him repeat it properly without his face covered, and he did, mortified.

The third was a hungover morning with her hair wild as she made breakfast despite the migraine. “Love you,” she greeted him. He, idiot that he was, pouted, and replied, “Since when?” because love was a competition. “Since always,” she said without thinking, and burned the toast with conviction. He said it under the blaring smoke alarm as he turned it off.

The fourth was Anya sticking a note to his forehead while he napped through her lecture about the Bondman lore. He awoke and peeled off the I LOVE YOU note. He folded the note into the pocket where he kept tickets and receipts, and later, he whispered, “I love you,” to the note, ridiculous even to himself.

In all versions he ruined it. In one, he said it like a dare, “I love you, then,” as if matching her. She threw a spoon at his head and whined, “Don’t make it a stupid competition!” and he apologised, practiced, and tried again. In another he said “I love you,” like surrendering a city, and she always declared him conquered, and fed him charred meat because victory required burnt offerings. He kept opening doors because ultimately, Damian was weak. He stumbled on the tender one that nearly killed him, on a quiet morning with her sitting on a counter in old socks, swinging her legs and looking at him like God. “I love you,” she said softly, no jokes, no weaponised cuteness. He said it back like he learned to speak again, syllables careful and the right size, “I love you.” It scared him how easy it was, and he panicked. 

The parade collapsed in on itself. He saw with indecent clarity the actual problem, that he was, fundamentally, unlovable in the way display furniture was – beautiful, heavy and wrong for the home. He would be admired, dusted, inherited, even fought over at auctions, but never lived with. Anya was the only one reckless enough to seize the ugly chair into the middle of her room. If she ever did love him, he ruined that too, and it left him with the certainty he was built precisely to drive away the one person foolish enough to tolerate him.

He returned to the room like he was slapped. Cecile sat with her humiliation in both hands like a hotplate. The fire crackled, embarrassed to still be burning. “Never say it again,” he ordered, voice so level it qualified as a high wire, “not to me.”

“Alright,” Cecile nodded, because obedience was critical. She arranged her face to passably fine at a distance. She looked at the man she decided to love and recalibrated him. He was security, social gravity and a surname that opened rooms immediately. She wanted him, the life, and to be right. She told herself this was a blip in an otherwise excellent plan.

Damian stood with composure he didn’t deserve. “Shall we have coffee?” he asked, like nothing happened. He sounded like the polite son of a man who built a nation out of distance.

“Of course,” she managed, because what else was there, screaming? She wouldn’t be that woman in front of her ostentatious chandelier.

He crossed to the tray, arranged cups, and measured sugar scientifically. Because self-harm liked costumes, he imaged her again. “I love you,” Anya cooed to the coffee machine, then glanced over the steam at him, “and you also!” He answered automatically, “I love you,” before saying it again properly. He carried cups and set one down precisely in front of his fiancée. She felt wrecked and stable at once, which was how women like her survived men like him. She told herself love was a project. One day, Damian would finish this obsessive hunt, this performative grief, then he would realise she stayed. Men rewarded staying, so she could do that. The Desmond name would do the rest.

The coffee’s bitterness was bracing. “I’ll need the car tomorrow,” he said.

“Of course.”

He nodded, adjusted his cuffs, looked at the fire, saw the hallway, the couch, the kitchen, the note, and he smiled at them. “Thanks for dinner. It was perfect.”

Cecile acted like he never told her to shut up through a love confession. “I’m glad.”

With that, he padded down the hall to his study. Halfway there, he stopped as a new door opened in his idiot head, and allowed a silent laugh at a vision nobody else saw. Anya stood on a staircase, two steps above so she was taller, yelling “I love you!” to the ceiling, and him yelling it twice as loud to win. He moved before the house noticed. Back in the dining room, Cecile straightened the décor by millimetres to keep herself from going to pieces. This wasn’t the end of anything, merely the adjustment of expectations. 

*

Damian knew it was a mistake to play it alone. The record began with static, and a shuffle of movement, followed by shallow, sharp breaths. His hands shook on the laptop. There was a distant sound of boots, echoes, wind, a clattering mental can, and then, unfailingly, Anya’s voice.

“If you see Damian Desmond,” she spat, “tell him he’s a smug, self-obsessed, narcissistic, emotionally stunted bastard.”

The voice was so hers in its aliveness, ferocity and stupid, stupid bravery. 

“Actually, no!” her breathing was ragged. “Tell him he’s Sy-on boy, and he doesn’t get to decide who disappears.”

Then the shot. Always the shot. The sound was brutal and final, captured in low fidelity. The silence afterwards stretched forever. Damian didn’t move. His heart should have done something, anything – race, stop, whatever – but it never did. It simply compressed. He stared at the waveform on the screen, the jagged spike where the gunshot lived, and the quiet after. His name, then that.

In her last moment, she saved one final sentence. She talked about him, not her father, not her mother. She didn’t blather about justice or dignity or survival, but for Sy-on boy. That damn stupid nickname. He hadn’t heard it in years, but she said it with the same irreverent affection she always used, right after calling him a bastard, right after running for her life.

You don’t get to decide who disappears.

He laughed, because what else was there? He covered his mouth and stumbled back from the desk like the laptop was radioactive. He hit the wall behind him and sank. “You idiot. You fucking idiot.”

He stood in a hallway with his heart in freefall and spat the worst sentence of his life into her face, and now she was gone. He didn’t get to take it back. He didn’t apologise. He didn’t even see her the following day. She vanished from his life like a door slamming shut and left a single file, a handful of words and a shot. 

He remembered every part of her face the day she died. She scrunched her nose when suspicious; her mouth twisted around an insult like it was a joke she was unsure you’d laugh at; her hands danced when she thought. She meant something, not just to him (though God knew that was bad enough), but in the world, in the space she occupied. All he had left were missing person posters and a USB that broke his brain.

You don’t get to decide who disappears.

She thought he could decide. He believed they had more time. He shoved the laptop off the desk and it crashed to the floor. He couldn’t bear to hear her voice again, but also knew he’d listen to it again, a hundred times, a thousand times, because it was all that remained. He stumbled to the window, opened it and breathed in the night to revive him. Berlint thrived with its traffic, lights, humans, noise. Somewhere in all of that was a killer, and Damian would find him. He pressed his palm flat to the windowpane to force his heart to start beating again.

“She said my name,” he informed the city like it mattered or helped. It didn’t, on both counts.

He returned to the laptop. The screen flickered, and the audio was still open on the waveform, that tiny mountain range of cruelty and affection and death. It was the final proof that she was alive and clever and Anya Fucking Forger to the last. He clicked play again.

“If you see Damian Desmond-”

He sobbed into the crook of his arm, knees folding as he collapsed to the floor.

“Tell him he’s a smug, self-obsessed, narcissistic, emotionally stunted bastard.”

God, she knew me better than I do.

“Actually, no!”

He choked. He already knew the next part.

“Tell him he’s Sy-on boy.”

He whimpered.

“And he doesn’t get to decide who disappears.”

He remained on the floor for hours. When Ewen called, he didn’t answer; when Becky messaged, he didn’t open any of them. There were no words left in him that hadn’t been stolen by a dead girl who had better timing than anyone he ever knew.

*

Berlint didn’t care that Damian vanished for forty-eight hours. It had sheets of rain to iron and a backlog of sirens to clear. However, Becky Blackbell cared, and became a one-woman emergency service with better shoes and worse patience. They started speaking in police procedural when he didn’t answer his phone for the second day running. At 07:12 on the third morning, she slammed a stack of printouts onto her kitchen table so hard her elderly kettle reconsidered boiling. “Roll call!”

Ewen raised a cautious hand from behind a cereal box fort. “Present, terrified, prepared to cry on command.”

“Don’t cry, it lowers the room’s IQ. Emile?”

Emile, who pulled an all-nighter voluntarily, glanced at Becky, who scared him in a way grisly homicide scenes never had. “Present. I have timelines, phone pings, and three different worst-case scenarios ranged by likelihood and the degree to which Damian did it to himself.”

“Good,” Becky adjusted her hairpin that doubled as a stabbing implement. “Our boy has been missing for two whole days. Two days is an eternity in Desmond time. Donovan can start and finish a political takeover before lunch. Damian can start and finish a meltdown before coffee. If we assume foul play-”

“We always assume foul play,” Emile said. “We hang out with Damian.”

“The last ping was twenty-three forty-one,” Ewen announced, blue light from his screen rendering him consumptive. “He left it on purpose. Nobody forgets a phone in a cab twice.”

“Or he sold it for gin,” Becky countered, lighting her cigarette off a candle for efficiency. Emile, who filled out missing persons for strangers and never friends, said nothing, but watched the door. “Walk me though.”

Emile flipped a legal pad. “Okay, the last confirmed sighting was Halensea district, at twenty-three-forty, night one. He called me. His voice wasn’t slurred for once. Told me, and I quote, Tell Becky I’m not doing anything stupid, I’m doing something correct. After that, he hung up and turned his phone off, or more likely, threw it in the lake.”

“Ewen. Please translate what correct means in Damian-ese.”

“Uh…” Ewen grimaced. “Burning bridges, storming offices, punching mirrors, picking fights with cabbies, threatening to swim across rivers in full clothes-”

“So, stupid. We already knew that,” Becky concluded.

Emile rubbed his face, tired of being alive. “Listen. After he calls me, the trail vanishes. There are no cabs under his name, no bar tabs on his card, no witnesses except one woman who saw a handsome-in-a-homeless-sort-of-way man.”

“Right, so that narrows it down to Damian, or half the men in the city,” Becky said grimly. “What about hospitals? Morgues? Police impounds? Secret government wards?”

“Checked, no Damian,” Emile replied. “No Max Mustermanns matching his height or offence to God.”

“What if he’s, you know,” Ewen’s spoon paused, “just on another bender?”

Becky regarded him like a golden retriever reading Kierkegaard. “Ewen, if Damian’s drunk, he’s also doing something that ends in arson.”

“Maybe he jumped in the river?”

“We’d have heard the screaming already,” Ewen added quietly.

Finally, the kettle boiled. Ewen poured without asking. Becky leaned in her chair and exhaled purifying smoke through her nostrils. “If he was kidnapped, there’d be a ransom note. If he was arrested, we’d have a headline. If he was drunk, we’d have a corpse. So where the hell is he?”

“Pattern says he’s digging again,” Emile shuffled his notes hopelessly. “Every disappearance he’s had in the last year coincided with him chasing leads on Anya. I checked WISE activity, I checked SSS chatter, I checked Donovan Desmond’s damned shadow cabinet and found nothing. But if Damian thinks he’s correct, then he’s got a line to Donovan.”

“Of course!” Becky pinched her noise. “The stupid boy’s playing spies again.”

“The timing lines up with three possibilities. One, he tried to hit Garden and failed. Two, he tried to hit Garden and got arrested. Three, he tried to hit Garden and is lying in a ditch composing an apology while a raccoon steals his shoes.”

“He promised us he wouldn’t die before he solved it,” Ewen pointed out.

“He promises many things. He promised to eat vegetables. He promised to stop calling my chauffeur at 3 a.m. He promised to behave at your birthday and unveiled a crime board on a placemat instead.”

“In fairness,” Emile conceded, “that placemat solved two unrelated burglaries.”

“We have a window,” Becky pointed her pen. “If Donovan has him, he’s already dead. If Garden has him, he’s already dead. If the river has him, he’s-”

“Wet,” Ewen finished.

“Shut up,” Becky softened by one molecule. “We’ll assume he’s alive until we find a body, then we fight death. Emile, what’s step one?”

“Check private garages and safehouses near Halensea.”

“I can canvass,” Ewen perked up. “I speak lake.”

“You speak sandwich,” Becky snorted, “but fine. Emile, call your snitches. If Damian has rattled Garden, we’ll hear it.”

Ewen ran his hands through his hair, which only made it taller. “What if he shows up? Like just… walks in?”

“He will not just walk in,” Becky began, and the front door banged open, and in walked Damian. He stood in the frame like he was Xeroxed by a crime scene. Blood dried in arterial flecks across his cheekbone, coat torn, hair fighting for independence, jaw sporting the most spectacular bruise. He carried himself like he hadn’t slept or eaten, but had punched at least seven furniture items.

“Oh my God,” Ewen squeaked, “my best friend is alive and terrifying.”

“I got it,” he said softly, then grinned like the damned. It was smug and relieved and ready to die if required.

“You- what did- get inside! You’re destroying my doorway!” Becky snarled.

He stepped in and left a neat trail on the parquet. Emile professionally examined him. “Is any of that… yours?”

“Probabilistically,” Damian conceded.

“Answer.”

“Some.” Damian lifted his shoulder with a blood-stiff sleeve amusedly.

“You’re bleeding,” Ewen appeared with a tea-towel. 

“I was, then I wasn’t. Now I am, but just a little.”

“Sit,” Becky commanded. “Not on anything soft.”

He looked at her sofa like a cat beholding a forbidden cushion, then selected the least expensive-looking chair and deposited himself on it. His coat dropped open, and beneath it, strapped tight to his chest, was a waterproof portfolio pulsing like a second heart.

“Are you shot?” Emile’s cop instincts warred with his friend instincts.

“No.”

“Stabbed?”

“Lightly.”

“Concussed?”

“Probably,” Damian replied cheerfully, and swayed like yes.

“Where’s your gun?” Becky asked suspiciously.

“Confiscated,” he smiled, “on loan to a responsible adult.”

“Who?!” all three demanded in unison.

“Mother,” he replied absently, then remembered to be careful. “A mother,” he corrected. “Don’t worry, I’m safer without it.”

Ewen rushed him with tender chaos. “You were gone for two whole days!”

“I was busy,” Damian replied aristocratically into his shoulder. “Don’t wrinkle the paperwork.” He disentangled himself from the hug, tapped the packet on his chest, and raised his chin to dare gravity to question him. He undid it gently, then slapped it on the table. “Behold. Proof.”

“Proof of what?” However, her heart already fell through the floorboards and clawed its way back with knives.

“Donovan.” He opened the packet to reveal typed pages, stamps, and wax seals with hairline cracks. He tapped a paragraph with a bruised knuckle. “Recommendation – Subject 007. Termination. Liability. Client… Donovan Desmond.”

The room didn’t breathe for a moment. “Oh,” Ewen mumbled.

Becky’s mouth flattened into something that would only transform into a smile with intense therapy. “He signed it.”

“He recommended it. He wrote it like he writes golf invitations. He called her an accounting problem.”

“That’s – that’s it. That’s the-” Ewen flailed for a noun.

“Gun,” Emile supplied, “smoking variety.”

Becky read it again, slowly, as if reading a terminal diagnosis, then set the pages down in front of Damian. “Where,” she asked calmly, “did you get this?”

“On an errand,” Damian replied.

“Don’t be cute. You’re getting iron on my upholstery.”

Emile diverted his attention to Damian’s arm, which he began treating. Damian hissed as Emile dug through the wet cloth. “Shallow,” he pronounced, prodding a half-sliced scab. “Nasty, but shallow. You’ll need stitches if you want to keep the scar elegant.”

“I’ll keep it barbaric. Conversation piece.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“Garden,” Damian shrugged, “with the Forgers.”

The words rearranged everyone’s brain furniture. “You were with them?!” Ewen squeaked.

“Yes,” Damian nodded. “Yor invited me to a murder waltz, Loid brought the percussion. I brought righteous indignation. Long story. We dismantled a small army, stole a boat, nearly created a tourist attraction, then I cried in a car and got punched. It was all very healing for all of us, I feel.”

“Oh, buddy,” Ewen’s eyes filled sympathetically.

“Don’t. We have work.”

Emile completed triage with a strip of medical tape Becky claimed from a couture first-aid. “You should see a doctor.”

“I have. He told me to quit drinking, but wasn’t specific about when.”

Emboldened by the absurdity, Ewen brought a plate of snacks. “Pistachio?” he offered hopefully.

Damian regarded them like a tiny green reprieve. “Strategic,” he pronounced, then took three. “Don’t let me fall asleep.”

“You need to sleep.”

“Shower,” Becky commanded, “before you touch anything else.”

He rose obediently, then swayed, because his concussion held opinions about verticality. Emile offered his shoulder, which he accepted. Ewen hovered in the event the towels needed moral support. On his way to the bathroom, he turned back, and tapped the papers with two fingers. “If something happens,” he spoke like it cost him, “don’t become me.”

“We won’t,” Becky smirked. “We’ll become worse.”

They heard the shower start and the unmistakable swearing of a man discovering antiseptic in an open wound. He returned thirty minutes later wearing one of Becky’s spare robes – navy, monogrammed, inexplicably flattering, and a bandage Emile taped on him. He looked less haunted in the way fresh corpses looked less like themselves. 

They worked; the plan built itself from old habits and new malice. At some point, Damian’s head tipped back against the chair and his eyes closed. He looked briefly like a child asleep at a party. Becky reached to shake him awake, but opted not to. “Let him have twenty minutes,” she sighed, surprising herself. “He’s earned a nap.”

“Should I watch him breathe?” Ewen asked seriously.

“Yes,” the other two replied.

Damian slept dreamlessly. When he woke, he started mid-sentence. “…And if anyone asks where I’ve been for two days, tell ‘em I’ve been at a spa.” He opened his eyes and smirked despite himself. Ewen burst into laughter which he instantly drowned; Emile shook his head; Becky, who once cried in public and vowed never again, just rolled her eyes.

“I can set up blind drops, schedule releases,” Ewen continued, hands moving, “so if something happens to any of us-”

“Me,” Damian corrected politely.

“Any of us,” Ewen repeated, “timers go off, files replicate, and it’s impossible to kill.”

“We need to scan and duplicate,” Damian moved to photograph the pages with a cheap, stubborn phone. “We hide the originals where Donovan can’t burn them.”

“Slow down,” Emile cautioned. “Chain of custody matters.”

“The heavy copies should go to people who can’t be bought,” Becky suggested.

“Twilight,” Ewen said.

“Journalists who love death threats,” Emile agreed.

“Parliamentary aides with grudges.” Damian drank the plan like water. “We light him from five angles and watch him panic.”

“Hang fire,” Emile tapped the page. “We need corroboration. Budget authorisations that track the order to an operational ledger. A courier chain. A name.”

“I have names,” Damian shot back. “There are recurring initials. DD, obviously, but there’s also K, who signs as Kitchen, which is either a joke or a position, and a B written by a drunk spider. I also took a photograph of a staffing rota, which is the ugliest piece of typography I’ve seen in my life.”

“Show me.”

He passed over his phone; the photos were shaky, but legible, showing stamps, initials and a date header. Emile marked the information in pencil as Ewen hovered. “So, we have proof. Do we take it to the police?”

“No!” responded the rest of the room.

“Right,” Ewen wilted. “Corruption, paper-shredding, we have no comment at this time.”

“Also, a chain of evidence that begins with I broke into a murder club doesn’t play great to the magistrates.”

“I’m killing my father,” Damian bared teeth.

“He’ll kill you,” Ewen paled.

“Yes,” he replied briskly. “He’ll try. He’s already trying. He’s always tried.”

Becky leaned in, hands on the table, gaze like a scalpel. “Then don’t make it easy to succeed. Don’t go alone. Don’t grandstand without a back exit, a second copy, a third plan, and a phone you don’t drunk-text me with.”

“I don’t drunk-text.”

Ewen produced his phone. “Four days ago, you messaged to ask what if the moon is just a stamp God forgot to emboss.”

“Confiscate his phone!” Damian glared.

“Focus,” Emile sighed, but his smile betrayed relief to have them alive enough to bicker. 

Ewen edged closer to Damian and lowered his voice. “Are you… you know, okay?”

“No, but I’m functioning.”

“Attaboy.”

Damian left briefly to get changed into different clothes, and returned rubbing his jaw. “Does anyone have ice?” Ewen bolted for the freezer and returned with a bag of peas and an apology on behalf of the concept of swelling. 

By dusk, they had a plan which could be mistaken for sanity in low light. Eventually, Damian stood, rolled his shoulders, and put on a fresh coat. “Where are you going?” Becky asked.

“Home.”

“No.”

“Yes. I need to look my father in the eye and pretend I haven’t dug up his garden. He needs to see a son, and not the knife he’s holding.”

Emile nodded reluctantly. “He’s right. If Donovan spooks, we lose angles. Go home, say good night like a good little heir. Lock your door from the inside and wedge a chair under it.”