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Summary: It's the evening of the IRL match. As Rogal Dorn, Stoneheart himself, sends his trusted cousin Alexis Polux to be his stand-in for the evening, he begins to doubt if perhaps this is disaster waiting to happen. All while his healer gathers all her courage to finally come face to face with the one man who's held her together from beyond the screen.

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CHAPTER 5

The late afternoon sunlight is a gentle slant across your apartment, that now feels too small for your nerves.

Food? Eaten. Fluids? Hydrated.

Cutlery drawer? Re-organized.

Now, you’re standing there, staring at your bed where your chosen outfit for the evening waits for you to put it on, almost like it is mocking you:

Black jeans worn soft through the years and a deep green top with just the right neckline to leave something to imagination.

Who’s? Your mind questions.

Shut up! Your heart offers.

“Fine!” you grumble to the ensemble, hands on your hips. “It’s not like he’s even coming!”

Aha! Your mind quips.

Lobotomy is in vogue, I hear! Your heart muses.

The shower is hot and quick. Because if you’re going to make a complete fool out of yourself in public, you will at least smell good while doing it.

Steam curls the edges of the mirror; you wipe a circle clear and meet your own eyes.

“Okay,” you say to your reflection. “We are going to put makeup on our face. We are not going to cry it off before we leave the house. Agreed?”

Your reflection looks dubious at the suggesting but has the good grace not to object.

You sit at your small vanity – technically your desk, currently moonlighting – and start your slow little ritual. It’s not elaborate, just… careful.

Skin tint, blended until your skin looks like itself on a good day. Concealer under the eyes, chasing off the shadows of a week’s worth of emails and drafting plans. A soft sweep of colour across your cheeks so you don’t look like the ghouls you hunt in game. You mutter prayers to the makeup gods as you attempt a simple cat eye liner.

Mascara. Lip balm. A hint of colour.

You lean back and take yourself in: not glamorous exactly. You’re just… you, but a little more put-together. As if you’re quietly telling the world, I cared enough to try.

The plant in the corner is still doing its best impression of a Victorian invalid.

“You could at least pretend to be supportive,” you mutter, reaching for your earrings. Small, simple studs. Non-threatening. The fashion equivalent of saying “I’m approachable, I promise, please don’t perceive me too hard.”

You dress. The green top settles against your skin; the jeans hug your hips without argument. You work your feet into your favourite sneakers – comfortable enough to run away in, if required – and stand in the middle of the room, suddenly unsure what to do with your hands.

You end up in front of the mirror again, trying out smiles.

“Hi,” you tell your reflection. “I’m Troublemaker.”

You wince. “No.”

“Hey,” you try again. “I heal you on Thursdays and occasionally yell at Arcturus about fire.”

Worse.

“Hi,” you say, softer this time. “I’m… me.”

Your own name sounds strange in the empty room, like you’re trying it on for the first time. You imagine saying it to him, to the man behind the armour, and your stomach gives an undignified twist.

What if he’s nothing like you imagined?

What if he’s exactly like you imagined?

What if he’s disappointed?

You practise anyway.

“Hi. I’m—” You add a little wave. “We raid together. I’m your healer.”

You make a face at yourself. ‘I’m your healer’? Really? As if you’ve shown up at his door with a casserole and demands of joint custody.

You swap the wave for a small nod, shoulders down, chin up. You try not to look like you’re interviewing for the position of “favourite party member,” even though, in your more feral moments, you absolutely are.

Your phone sits on the desk beside the scattered makeup, screen dark and accusing.

You pick it up.

The chat with Stoneheart is already open, last messages still sitting there like warm footprints.

“You’ll be fine. It’s a room with people in it. And at least one of them already thinks you’re remarkable..”

“And the feeling is mutual.

Your name lighting up my phone has a statistically significant positive impact on my evenings.”

You read them again, thumb resting against the glass. The words make something inside you unclench and twist at the same time.

He’d said he’d think about coming. That’s not a yes. But it’s also not a no. And you are about to walk out the door with your heart doing backflips over a variable.

You try to be sensible.

He doesn’t owe you, his presence. He doesn’t owe you an explanation. You have no claim on him beyond shared dungeon trauma and a frankly irresponsible number of emotionally supportive late-night chats.

You are still typing before you can talk yourself out of it.

Troublemaker2301 — 5:02 PM: Hey. I’m heading out soon, so I don’t do the thing where I panic and miss my train lol This is not me asking for a promise, but… would it be okay to know if tonight is a “maybe I’ll see you” or “definitely won’t see you”? Just so I can prepare my poor raccoon heart accordingly.

You stare at it, every muscle in your body poised over the backspace.

It’s too much. It’s too honest. It’s too–

Your thumb hits Send.

You squeeze your eyes shut. “Uninstall my soul,” you whisper to the ceiling.

There’s no taking it back. Somewhere, your favourite paladin is watching those dots appear on his screen, reading the words “raccoon heart,” and either sighing fondly or deleting you from his friend list forever.

You put the phone down on the desk, face-down this time, like you’ve just set off a tiny emotional bomb and are now bracing for the shockwave.

Your bag is already half-packed on the chair. You add: one wallet, your transit card, the cherry flavoured lip balm, a small pack of tissues, because you have learned things from being alive, and your portable charger, because of course you’ll need your phone on full juice tonight.

You hover for a moment, then, pick the phone back up and slide it into the bag as well, resolutely not looking at the screen, hoping for a reply.

You shrug on your jacket. It’s nothing special: neutral colour, soft enough to feel like armour from the inside. You zip it halfway and glance around the room.

Plant. Lamp. Desk. Bed. All exactly as you’re leaving them. You feel a sudden urge to say goodbye to the space, as if you won’t come back quite the same person.

“This is ridiculous,” you inform the apartment.

The apartment, as usual, offers no counterargument.

Then phone vibrates.

You freeze, hand on the strap of your bag.

When you pull it out, your fingers are clumsy on the screen.

Stoneheart007 — 5:08 PM: You always give advance notice to your party. That’s considerate. I’m still… weighing things. I can tell you this much: I don’t like the idea of you walking into that room feeling alone. Whatever happens with me, you won’t be.

Your eyes sting.

It’s not a yes. It’s not a no. It’s not even a definite anything. But it is care, laid out in that careful, precise way he has, like he’s slotting reassurance into place where it can take some of the load.

You read the middle line again.

I don’t like the idea of you walking into that room feeling alone.

You swallow around the sudden tightness in your throat and type back with fingers that won’t quite behave.

Troublemaker2301 — 5:10 PM: Okay. That helps more than you know. I’ll try to remember it when my brain starts telling me everyone is staring at me and counting how many times I blink. (Thank you.)

You hover over adding “whatever you decide,” but leave it unsent. He knows. You both know.

You tuck the phone away before you can spiral any further, let the bag settle against your hip, and draw in one long, steadying breath.

“Right,” you tell your reflection in the hallway mirror. “You’re going to a café to play a game with friends. You are not being launched into orbit. You can survive this.”

Your reflection looks a little pale, a little too bright-eyed, but—you decide—braver than she was this morning.

With newfound purpose, you turn off the lights, lock the door, and step out into the corridor, carrying with you: one anxious raccoon heart, one carefully applied face of makeup, and most importantly, one favourite paladin’s non-answer that still feels, inexplicably, like support.

The elevator doors close on your floor with a soft sigh.

Somewhere else in the city, a man in an immaculate apartment watches the same chat window and wonders whether there is such a thing as an ethical half-truth when a healer has just asked you if she will see you tonight.

He presses his thumb hard against the edge of his notebook until it leaves a mark and tells himself—for the hundredth time—that this is temporary. That tonight is reconnaissance, not an ending. That the least he can do, if he can’t yet walk into the room himself, is make sure that when you arrive, there will be a shield waiting where you expect one to be.

The city feels louder than usual as you walk to the station.

Well… it’s not actually louder, of course. It’s the same traffic, the same rumble of buses and soft hiss of doors, the same overlapping conversations. But your nerves have turned everything up a notch. Every sound slips under your skin and jostles your heartbeat.

You swipe your transit card with what you hope is the air of a person who is not internally screaming and make your way down to the platform. The train is already there, doors open, exhaling commuters. You step inside and find a spot near the door, fingers curling around the cool metal pole.

Your reflection stares back at you from the darkened window: the deep green top, the black jeans, the jacket zipped halfway up. A little eyeliner, a mouth that keeps trying to decide between a smile and a grimace. You look like you’re on your way to meet friends. You feel like you’re on your way to be judged by the universe.

You let out a deep breath and try to focus on practicalities.

You know the route. Off at Central, follow the street to the corner, look for the sign. Shieldwall Gaming Café. The name had made you snort the first time, but tonight it sits in your head like a checkpoint in a game. And your objective: Reach Shieldwall. Don’t wipe out on the way.

The train lurches into motion, rocking you gently. You sway with it, letting the rhythm mask some of the jitter in your limbs. Above the doors, the line map lights its little bulbs one by one. People come and go, shoulders brushing yours, each carrying a whole life that has nothing to do with raid nights or paladins with careful virtual hands.

You wonder who else on this train is quietly terrified of wherever they’re going, as your eyes take in their faces and the little clues you can glean of their lives from how they’re dressed to what they’re saying.

Your phone is a weight in your bag, right against your hip. You can feel the outline of it when you shift. The urge to take it out and reread his last message, the one about not liking the idea of you feeling alone, is almost irresistible.

You believe him… and that’s the worst of it. You trust him so thoroughly, even when he has been nothing more than a disembodied voice on your headphones and a blinking cursor on your screen that your heart has stopped questioning whether you can trust him outside it.

Your heart… that is now dancing to a staccato beat as you wonder if he’ll be there, staring at the signboard of the place. Mayve he’ll walk in five minutes after you do, tall and quiet… well he could also be short, but you know you’ll recognize him immediately by the way he commands peace around him… the way he calms the storm. Or maybe he won’t. Maybe some part of you will be listening for his arrival all night anyway.

And now we’re doing poetry… Great!

You shake your head clear of thoughts as the train pulls into your stop, and you step out through the opening doors.

The street outside the station is slowly getting ready for the night ahead. The air smells faintly of exhaust and some nearby restaurant’s fried food. Neon signs are starting to blink awake one by one, in colours that look garish up close and soft at a distance.

With every step you take, the knot under your ribs gets a little tighter. Your brain seems insistent on narrating worst-case scenarios anyway.

You’ll walk in and nobody will recognise you.

You’ll walk in and everyone will recognise you and stare.

You’ll say something stupid.

You’ll laugh too loud.

You’ll spill soda on someone’s mechanical keyboard and will have to flee the country.

You turn a corner and there it is.

Shieldwall Gaming Café sits wedged between a laundromat and a stationery store, its sign glowing an earnest, slightly crooked blue over the door. Through the front window, you can see rows of monitors throwing cool light onto clustered faces, shelves of board games, a fridge full of drinks. There’s a poster of your game’s logo on one wall, all dramatic lighting and improbably muscled heroes.

Your heart executes a flawless triple axel.

For a moment you simply stand there, a few metres away, pretending to look at your phone while you try to regulate your breathing into something resembling normal.

You could still turn around. You could text the group some half-truth about sudden work or a headache and go home to your vindictive plant and quiet room. They would tease you, sure, but they’d forgive you. Online, you’re already safe with them. You don’t owe them the extra proof.

Then, you think of his message again.

‘I don’t like the idea of you walking into that room feeling alone.’

“All right,” you tell yourself, so softly only the pavement hears. “Let’s tank this one ourselves.”

Shoving your phone back into your bag, you cross the last few steps and open the door.

The café is a rush of sound and colour: the low buzz of conversation, the clatter of keys, the shush and hiss of the coffee machine behind the counter. Screens glow in rows, reflecting off cans of soda, off glasses on excited faces mid-storytelling. LED strips run along the underside of shelves, throwing cool blue and purple onto already overloaded retinas.

The smell is equal parts coffee, energy drink, warm plastic, and something cheesy that’s probably pizza. It hits you in the face like nostalgia for a life you haven’t lived since college perhaps.

You hover just inside for a second, scanning.

There’s a cluster of people near the back where the biggest monitors are set up, a table pushed together to form a sort of command centre. You recognise one or two faces from profile pictures in the guild chat. Arcturus, loud even with his headset around his neck. LoFiMage, hoodie up, already sipping something with a straw. GM_Tower, wearing the focused expression of someone trying to herd cats with a spreadsheet.

You take a breath, step forward, and raise a hand in a small, uncertain wave.

“Um. Hi,” you say. “I’m…Troublemaker?”

Three heads swivel toward you. Recognition sparks across them like a fuse catching.

“Oh my god, healer!” Arcturus crows. “She lives!”

“Disaster angel has arrived,” LoFiMage murmurs fondly.

GM_Tower beams like a proud parent. “You made it! I was literally about to spam your DMs.”

You let yourself smile, some of the tightness easing out of your chest. They’re familiar, even in these unfamiliar bodies. You can see it in the way they occupy the space, in the rhythms of their banter.

There’s a spare chair at the main table with your handle scrawled on a sticky note and slapped onto the back. The sight of it makes your throat sting unexpectedly.

“You… saved me a seat,” you say, like an idiot.

“Of course,” GM_Tower says. “You think we’re letting our main healer float? Absolutely not. Sit. Do you want a drink? There’s a tab.”

You slide into the chair, bag at your feet, hands smoothing your jeans. Your headset hangs over the monitor in front of you, cable coiled. Just seeing it calms something feral in your brain. You know what to do when you’re behind a screen. Your fingers itch for the keys.

You plug in and log on to the game. As your handle pops into the raid chat like muscle memory, something in the pit of your stomach settles.

Troublemaker2301 has come online.

There’s still one name missing from the party list.

You try not to stare at the empty slot where Stoneheart usually sits.

“He’ll be here,” GM_Tower says, following your gaze with infuriating perceptiveness. “He confirmed.”

“Right,” you say, aiming for casual and landing closer to strangled. “Yeah. No worries.”

Minutes stretch. People trickle in. Someone arrives with a pizza box balanced on one hand like a tray. You make small talk, which feels like trying to juggle with your non-dominant hand. Arcturus tells a story about nearly getting kicked out of a different café for shouting at a boss mechanic. LoFiMage mutters about key binds being “different when you can smell dust,” whatever that means.

You laugh in the right places. Yet it still feels like your heart is half a step ahead of you, glancing at the door every few seconds.

When the bell above the door finally jingles, you don’t look immediately.

You force yourself to finish laughing at something LoFiMage just said about mana potions and questionable life choices. Then you let your gaze drift, as if by accident, toward the entrance.

The man who’s just come in is impossible to miss.

He’s tall. As in, “probably ducked slightly under every doorframe he’s encountered so far” tall. Broad through the shoulders, built more like a rugby forward than a tech guy. His hair is a bright, unmistakable blond, gathered back in a hasty, practical tie at the nape of his neck, a few strands escaping around his face. He’s in a simple black t-shirt and worn jeans, nothing flashy, but he fills the space around him in a way that draws the eye.

Sunflowers, you muse… He reminds you of sunflowers.

He pauses just inside, letting his gaze sweep the room. It’s not the cautious, slicing survey of a bodyguard or a bouncer; it’s warmer, curious, as if he’s already half amused by whatever he’s walking into.

Then he spots your table and his whole face lights up.

“Hi, I’m Stoneheart and I heard there was pizza?”

“Hey!” GM_Tower waves both arms like he’s trying to land a plane. “Over here! We finally wrangled the healer; we just needed our paladin.”

The blond man grins and makes his way over, long strides eating the distance in half the time it would take you. As he gets closer, you notice the details: the quickness of his eyes, the laugh lines, the way his hands move when he talks to someone who stops him briefly to say hi.

Not stone-faced. Not austere. Not the quiet, controlled presence your brain had quietly been sketching as a placeholder for Stoneheart’s face.

Your pulse stutters anyway.

He reaches the table and sets one large hand on the back of the empty chair beside you, the one wired up to a huge monitor: the chair labelled with a sticky note that says “Pally”.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says, the words coloured by a warm, easy accent that curls differently around vowels than you’re used to from voice chat lag. “Dog decided today was the day to revolt against the concept of leashes.”

“You’re not late, you’re spot on time!” Arcturus says. “Sit. We were just about to sacrifice Troublemaker to the social anxiety gods.”

The blond man’s gaze finally lands on you properly.

Up close, his eyes are a surprisingly serious grey blue, framed by lashes that really have no business being that nice. Whatever he was about to say dies for a second. Then his expression softens.

“You must be Troublemaker,” he says.

You swallow.

“Yeah,” you manage. “Hi. Guilty as charged.”

He smiles, this time with a small hint of something like relief. He extends his hand.

“Alexis,” he says. “It’s good to finally meet you in person.”

His hand is warm around yours, his grip firm but not crushing. The contact sends a weird little shock through you, not because of attraction (though that’s not exactly absent) but because your brain is trying very hard to overlay another presence over his — a presence you’ve never actually seen.

“Alexis is our paladin,” GM_Tower puts in cheerfully, as if that’s all that needs to be said. “Your wall for the night.”

Your heart stumbles over itself.

“Oh,” you say. It is a sound. One you make that is technically just a syllable, but it packs an entire paragraph behind it: surprise, recalibration, something shamefully like disappointment for reasons you don’t know, and the frantic rush to cover all of that up before it shows.

Of course he has a name. Of course, Stoneheart is not actually called Stoneheart. You knew that, in the abstract. It just hadn’t… occurred to you that the name would be something else entirely. That he would be this tall, bright, golden presence who strides into a room like he belongs in the centre of it.

“I… yeah,” you recover, forcing a smile wider. “Our wall. Hi. Sorry, that sounded weird. I’m just—this is a lot of pixels becoming people.”

Alexis’ grin widens, as if that answer pleases him. “Tell me about it,” he says. “Don’t worry. We’ll ease into it. Screens are on. Headsets are ready. You can pretend we’re still disembodied voices if that helps.”

Something in the way he says it is kind, almost too attuned for a first meeting.

You relax a fraction despite yourself.

“Thanks,” you say. “That does help. A bit.”

He drops into the chair beside you, the poor thing complaining faintly under his height. When he leans forward to adjust the headset and mouse, you can’t help noticing again how large he is, how his shoulders fill your peripheral vision.

Not what you imagined. Not the careful, deliberate movements you’ve associated with your paladin all this time. There’s a looseness to him, a sort of easy elasticity.

You log back into the game, your fingers settling on the keys like they’re docking into their cradle. On the party list, a familiar name flashes to life.

Stoneheart007 has come online.

You watch the notification appear and disappear, and your throat tightening a little.

Of course. Of course it’s him. Of course, the tall blond man with the loud entrance and the easy warmth is also the calm, steady presence you’ve been relying on for months. People contain multitudes. You’ve been told this often enough. You just hadn’t realised how many multitudes could fit into one very tall, very blond Alexis.

You observe him furiously typing away on his phone and you wonder who must have his attention so raptly. No… You’re not jealous. That’s ridiculous!

He glances at you once as the lobby fills, a quick sideways flick of his gaze, like a check-in.

“Ready?” he asks.

You take a breath, feel the familiar weight of your healer spells sitting under your fingertips, feel the nervous crowded edges of the café fall away just a little under the glow of your UI.

“Yeah,” you say, surprising yourself with how true it sounds. “Let’s keep everyone alive.”

He chuckles under his breath, low and pleased.

“That’s the plan,” he says. “I’ve got you.”

The words are so close to what you’ve heard a hundred times through your headset that your heart misfires.

It’s him, you tell yourself firmly. Different packaging, same person. Stoneheart is Alexis. Alexis is Stoneheart. You can work with this.

You turn your attention to the screen as GM_Tower launches into their usual pre-pull briefing, trying not to dwell too long on the odd, hollow feeling lodged under your ribs, like a chord that’s almost right but not perfectly in tune.

If you notice that the way Alexis laughs at Arcturus’ jokes sounds different than the soft huff you’re used to; if you notice his hands are more expressive, his shoulders looser, his presence larger than the contained gravity you’d built in your head for your paladin… well.

You tuck that away in a quiet corner of your mind, where uncomfortable questions go to rest until the raid is over.

For now, there are bars to keep full, mechanics to dodge, a guild depending on you, and a very tall, very blond paladin at your side murmuring, “Don’t worry, I’ve got aggro,” like he means more than just the boss.

Rogal Dorn spends the early evening pretending to read.

The book is open in his hands, some dense non-fiction about urban planning he’d been meaning to finish for weeks. The words pass under his eyes without leaving any marks behind. Every few minutes, his attention peels away from the page and slides, inexorably, to the phone on the coffee table.

It sits there, screen down, as if the back of his phone might be less tempting than a lit display. Foolish, he knows.

He manages another page and a half before he gives up the pretence.

The phone is in his hand before he’s fully conscious of getting up. He turns it over, thumb waking the screen. No new messages from you. No new messages from the guild. Nothing from Alexis.

He checks the time. Close enough now that, if everyone is behaving, you should be making your way there. He pictures you standing on a platform somewhere, shoulders hunched against the air, checking your own phone for courage disguised as text.

He wishes, with unreasonable sharpness, that he were better at immaculate, surgical choices. The kind where you do the clearly correct thing and feel nothing messy about it afterwards. This thing with you has been nothing but mess, from the first time you stayed in the raid channel after everyone else logged off and started telling him, in that bright, sideways way of yours, how your workday had tried to kill you.

The phone vibrates, and the stoic Rogal Dorn actually flinches.

A grumble leaves his lips when he realizes that the name on the screen is not yours.

Alexis — 18:47 At the café. She’s here already. They put her handle on a sticky note on a chair. It’s cute. She looks nervous, but she’s holding.

His heart drops and rises in the same beat.

Of course you arrived early. Of course you’re sitting there now, in that neon-lit room, surrounded by strangers who are not strangers, waiting for someone called Stoneheart to walk through the door.

His thumb moves.

R.D. — 18:48 Is she alone?

The answer is almost immediate.

Alexis — 18:48 Guild’s already here. She was surrounded by your guild. She did that thing you do where you stand just inside and scan exits. Now Tower has put her in front of a monitor. She smiled like it hurt a bit.

Dorn closes his eyes for a second.

He can see that smile. The one you wear in meetings when someone compliments your work and you don’t know where to put the feeling.

Another message arrives.

Alexis — 18:49 I introduced myself as “Alexis”. Told her it was good to finally meet her. She shook my hand like she was meeting her XO.

He swallows.

R.D. — 18:49 And then?

There is a longer pause this time.

Alexis — 18:51 Tower said I’m “our paladin”. She said “oh” in a way that made my heart want to fold itself into a paper crane. She’s being very gracious about it. But I think she had… a different picture in her head.

Of course you did.

He doesn’t know what image you built from his voice, from his typed words. He only knows it isn’t this: a tall blond man with sunlight in his laugh and no edges to catch yourself on.

His fingers tighten around the phone.

R.D. — 18:52 Does she seem… distressed?

He feels ridiculous, parsing degrees of discomfort from a second-hand account through a device, but that doesn’t stop him.

Alexis — 18:53 Not distressed. Just… reorienting. She’s kind. She’s trying very hard to meet me where I am.

He sits back slowly, the sofa creaking.

This was what he wanted to know, wasn’t it? Whether the presence you reach for is attached to the role or the person. Whether anyone can wear the armour and make you feel safe, or whether you have unknowingly mapped your trust onto the lines of his particular restraint.

He had told himself information would make it easier.

Information hurts.

The next message arrives before he can steady around the last.

Alexis — 18:55 Logging in now. I’ll keep you posted. Promise I won’t improvise anything you wouldn’t say. R.D. — 18:55 Remember: if she looks unhappy, you leave. Alexis — 18:56 I remember. Breathe, cousin. OK… Time to Raid!

Dorn huffs out something that isn’t quite a laugh.

He sets the phone down, carefully, and stares at the blank television screen instead. His reflection looks back at him: composed on the surface, jaw set a little too tight.

He is not there. You are. Alexis is there wearing his name. The knowledge sits on his chest like a badly placed beam.

He tries, for the space of several minutes, to let the plan stand.

He tells himself Alexis is capable. That Alexis and Barabas together could defuse almost anything between them. That if you were truly distressed, he would receive another message and then he could… what?

What, exactly, is he going to do from this meticulously tidy living room while you sit in a noisy café somewhere else in the city, heart beating itself to pieces?

His foot starts tapping against the floor, a small, betraying rhythm. His eyes drift back to the phone again and again.

Time passes. The shadows in the room shift, climbing up the walls, blurring the edges of his furniture.

He imagines the café.

He’s never been inside Shieldwall, but he walked past it once, late at night, on his way home from a site visit. He remembers the spill of blue light through the window, the silhouettes bent toward screens, the crooked sign. He had frowned at the misaligned lettering and then, privately, at the way some part of him had longed, even then, to be inside a place where the stakes were less permanent than concrete and steel.

He realises he’s standing only when he hears the small sound of his keys in his hand.

He does not remember picking them up.

This is foolish, he tells himself. Completely unnecessary. Alexis is there. The situation is contained.

But another thought is louder, and it is not dignified or strategic. It’s simple.

If something goes wrong, he does not want distance to be the reason he failed to act.

He can’t intervene as Stoneheart. He can’t walk in there and claim what he’s given away for the evening. He can, however, be… nearby. In the neighbourhood. Within reach if something crosses a line he didn’t foresee.

He snatches his coat from the hook by the door before he can think himself out of it and shrugs into it, the familiar weight settling on his shoulders like an old instinct.

He pockets the phone. It vibrates again just as he opens the door.

Alexis — 19:11 We’re starting. She’s good. Voice is shaky when she laughs, but she’s already scolding Arcturus about fire. You picked a terrifyingly competent healer.

Something in him loosens at that, even as his hand tightens on the handle.

He types as he steps into the hallway.

R.D. — 19:12 I told you. Focus on the fight.

He doesn’t mention that his own fight, at this moment, is with his reflection in the lift door.

He watches the floor numbers tick down, one by one. In the smooth stainless steel, he looks like the man his colleagues know: coat neat, white hair tamed, expression controlled. Inside, his thoughts are anything but orderly.

He shouldn’t be doing this. He should be at home, letting the test run its course. He should be trusting Alexis completely or not at all, not half-solving his own doubt by introducing a whole new variable.

Barabas’ hand on his shoulder comes back to him.

You are not the only wall in her life. Don’t assume that if you move, the whole thing falls.

He is not sure if he is moving in a way that helps or if he’s just shaking loose his own foundations.

The underground car park is quiet, the concrete cool and faintly damp-smelling. His car waits where he left it, as precise in its lines as everything else he chooses.

He drives on muscle memory. Out of the building, into the slow river of city traffic. The sky outside is fully dark now, streetlights and signs and window-glow stitching together a different map of his world.

He knows, without checking, how to get to the block Shieldwall is on. That old habit of reconnaissance, of walking the boundaries of his projects, comes back now in a way he did not anticipate. He has always preferred to see the ground himself rather than rely solely on reports.

Tonight is no different, except that the ground in question is the pavement outside a gaming café and the project is a single human woman’s comfort.

By the time he turns into the right street, his hands have stopped shaking on the wheel. The decision is made; all that’s left is execution.

He slows as the crooked blue sign comes into view.

Shieldwall.

Through the front window, he can see exactly what you saw: rows of monitors, shifting colours, the unmistakable hunched-sharp posture of gamers mid-fight. The place is more crowded than he’d imagined, every table full of bodies and open cans, discarded hoodies and bags. The light inside has that peculiar digital quality—unnatural and oddly cosy.

He pulls into a spot far enough away that, if anyone glances out, they won’t read the plate and think of Director Dorn. From here, he has a clear line of sight to the window without making it obvious he’s watching.

He cuts the engine. The sudden quiet inside the car is almost absolute, a bubble of stillness in the noise of the street.

For a moment, he just sits, hands resting on the steering wheel, letting his gaze adjust.

There.

You’re easy to find, even in this sea of strangers. He knows the outline of your shoulders from the office, the way you tuck your hair behind your ear when you concentrate, the particular angle at which you lean toward a screen that’s holding your attention.

Here, the lanyard is gone, the office cardigan replaced by that green top. The colour suits you. It makes you look improbably alive against the wash of blue light. Your headset is on, one ear cocked loose so you can hear the people around you as well as the voices in your channel.

Beside you sits Alexis.

Even from this distance, the differences are obvious. Where Dorn would be contained, shoulders drawn in just enough to take up no more space than necessary, Alexis spills over into his chair, legs long, hands moving when he talks as if they can’t imagine not helping. He laughs with his whole face, not the small, half-hidden curve Dorn has learned to ration.

You tip your head toward him, say something, and he grins, a swift, bright flash. Then his attention snaps back to the screen, body tightening into focus as your party’s avatars move as one.

For the first time, Dorn hears nothing.

He tries to imagine the game sounds, the raid leader’s voice, your own. But from here, the whole scene is silent. It’s like watching fish through glass, mouths opening and closing on words he knows but cannot catch.

The first wave of the raid concludes, and he sees everyone relax a little… even you.

Then, his phone buzzes in his pocket.

He doesn’t take his eyes off the window as he retrieves it.

Alexis — 19:34 She’s in her element. Calls are sharp. Hands shake a bit when she reaches for her drink, though.

Another message follows almost immediately.

Alexis — 19:34 She keeps doing this tiny thing where she glances at the door between pulls. Not every time. Just… now and then. I think she was expecting you to walk in.

He feels that like a physical impact.

He watches you break into a quick smile at something someone on your other side says, watches you hide it in your mug a second later. He tries to read the angle of your neck, the way your shoulders sit. He cannot tell, from here, whether you are happy.

He had told himself being here was about safety, about having the capacity to act quickly if needed. It feels, alarmingly, like something more selfish now: this desire to see you in a space you chose, surrounded by people who do not know what he is to you in another world.

For one wild second, he imagines it.

He could get out of the car. Walk down the pavement. Open the door.

He could be “just passing by”, in casual clothes, on his way back from some nebulous errand. He could let surprise do some of the work—oh, you’re here? you play? — and let the two halves of himself collide in real time.

You would look up and see him. Your boss. Your paladin. All the neat compartments smashed together.

His hand tightens on the door handle.

Barabas’ voice arrives like a hand on his wrist.

Don’t assume that if you move, the whole thing falls.

He adds the missing piece to that thought himself, rough-edged.

Don’t move in ways you haven’t thought through. Not when someone else might take the weight.

He releases the handle slowly and leans back.

No. Not yet. Not like this, with nothing prepared, no conversations had, no structures rearranged. Walking in now would be about relieving his own discomfort, not protecting you.

He will not make you collateral damage in his inability to sit with his own feelings.

His phone buzzes again.

Alexis — 19:42 We’re between bosses. She told me your “I’ve got you” line makes her heart slow down. She tried to make it a joke. Didn’t quite land as one.

He exhales shakily, turning his gaze back to the pair of you inside. In the pause between pulls, you take off your headset and rub the heel of your hand over your forehead, then smile at something Alexis says. Your mouth forms words he can’t hear. He imagines, with painful clarity, the cadence of your voice when you talk about him.

He types without thinking.

R.D. — 19:43 And what did you say? Alexis — 19:45 I said, “Sometimes the right voice at the right time does that.” She looked at me like she was trying to fit puzzle pieces together. Then Tower yelled about ready checks, and she went back to saving our lives.

Dorn stares at the message until the letters go fuzzy.

Puzzle pieces. Of course. You’re clever. You notice patterns. Now there’s a new variable: a man whose face and energy don’t quite match the steady, laid-back silhouette you had built in your head for Stoneheart.

You will feel it, even if you never name it. The same way he felt, the first time he heard you laugh in a corridor, that the sound belonged in his headset.

He could end this charade now.

He could text Alexis and call the whole thing off, tell him to pull back, claim technical difficulties. He could walk away from this street, go home, and never let you know any of this existed.

Or he could stay exactly where he is: close enough to see you, far enough not to touch the dominoes.

He chooses the third option: discomfort.

He stays.

He sits in his idling silence, watching you move in that tank of blue light, a fish that has learned to breathe two different waters, and thinks, with a mixture of dread and something that is absolutely hope:

If she can feel that something is off, maybe she will also feel it when it’s right.

When—if—he ever has the right to stand in front of you as one person, not two halves stitched together by lies, he wants your heart to recognise him without ghosts in the gaps.

For now, he is just a tall stranger in a parked car across the street, holding absolutely still while the life he shouldn’t touch and the one he can’t bear to leave alone continue, a handful of glass and light and laughter away.

The last boss dies in a spray of particle effects and triumphant noise. Loot windows pop like bubbles across the screens. And the café erupts in a mixed chorus of cheers, groans, and the ritualised complaint of people who have just spent three hours doing something extremely difficult for fun.

You sag back in your chair, fingers falling away from the keys. Your pulse is still high, that post-raid buzz humming through your chest. You did well. Everyone lived. You pulled off that last-minute save on Arcturus that had him yelling loud enough to turn heads at neighbouring tables.

“See?” he crows now, slapping his hand on the table. “What did I tell you? Our healer’s a beast.”

“Language,” Alexis says mildly, pushing his headset down around his neck. His blond hair is slightly mussed from the band. Somehow it makes him look even taller, like he’s unfolding out of the chair.

GM_Tower stretches his arms above his head until his back cracks. “Okay, that’s a full clear,” he declares. “I’m claiming that as a win for Team IRL Bonding. Dinner? There’s a ramen place two streets over. My treat if someone else carries the leftover pizza.”

There’s a chorus of agreement. Arcturus is already halfway to his feet. LoFiMage just raises a hand and mutters, “Feed me and I will follow.”

You swallow. The idea of trailing along with everyone, extending the night, is appealing and terrifying in equal measure. You are socially out of practice. You have used up a lot of your bravery quota just to sit in this chair.

Beside you, Alexis is already unplugging cables with efficient movements, wrapping the headset cord around his fingers.

“That sounds great,” he says. “But I’m going to have to pass. I’ve got an early start tomorrow.”

You shouldn’t feel as disappointed as you do. He’s a man you met hours ago, even if his name has been in your chat window for months. Still, something in your chest dips.

“Early start?” GM_Tower groans. “On a Sunday? Tragic.”

“Chinchilla dental,” Alexis says, completely serious. “It’s a whole thing. You don’t want to know.”

Arcturus makes a face. “You’re a vet, not a dentist.”

“Try telling that to a chinchilla with an abscess,” Alexis replies. “Anyway. Rain check on dinner. But you should all go.”

The others start packing up with the unhurried clatter of people who have already decided to prolong the night. You find yourself closing out of the game and logging off more slowly than necessary, fingers lingering for a moment over the party list before it disappears.

Stoneheart007 has left the group.

You stare at that final message a little longer than you should.

You don’t actually feel like ramen. You feel like you’ve swallowed too much air. Still, the idea of peeling off alone while everyone else walks away in a laughing cluster suddenly makes your stomach twist.

You stand, sliding your bag strap over your shoulder.

“I think I’m going to head out too,” you say. “Beat the crowds on the train.”

GM_Tower makes a wounded noise. “Traitors, both of you.”

“We’ll feed you next time,” Alexis promises him. “Try not to drown your sorrows in broth.”

There’s a flurry of goodbyes, promises to do this again soon, jokes about “same place, next patch.” Arcturus insists on a slightly too-tight hug that smells like enthusiasm and energy drink. LoFiMage gives you a soft, brief one that somehow feels like an apology for Arcturus existing.

When you and Alexis finally detach from the table, it’s with the weird, weightless feeling of leaving a cinema and stepping back into daylight.

The night outside is cool and a little damp, the pavement still holding a shine from some earlier rain. Streetlights cast long, soft-edged pools of yellow along the road. Traffic’s thinned to an easy trickle.

You stand just outside Shieldwall’s door, the glow of its crooked blue sign behind you, and inhale like you’ve been underwater.

“Well,” Alexis says, rocking back on his heels. “You survived.”

“Did I?” you ask. Your voice comes out lighter than you feel. “Maybe this is a very elaborate afterlife where all my unfinished raids get cleared.”

He huffs a laugh. “If so, it’s a decent one. You did well. For the record.”

“Thanks.” You look down at your hands, at the faint tremor that hasn’t quite faded yet. “It was… nice. Seeing everyone. Putting faces to… death counts.”

“And how did I fare? All that you expected?” he asks, but the question is soft, not smug.

You lift your head.

The streetlight paints a warm line along his jaw, catches in the bright strands of his hair. He looks every inch a man who could carry a room’s attention without meaning to. Not what you had imagined. Not wrong, exactly, just… different.

“You’re taller than I expected,” you say instead of the other things sitting on your tongue. “And blonder.”

He grins. “Occupational hazard.”

You hesitate. The words you want are not polite ones. They are messy: I thought you’d be quieter. I thought you’d be a little more like the man whose pauses I’ve learned by feel. I thought I was ready, but I’m not sure my picture matches the frame.

You don’t say any of that. You say, “You’re… nice.”

That earns you a look that is both amused and fond. “You make it sound like an accusation.”

You huff out a breath that’s almost a laugh. “It’s just… a lot. Good a lot. I’m still catching up.”

For a few strides, you walk in silence, falling into step together without really thinking about it. Your route to the bus stop and his, as far as you know, overlap at least a little.

There’s a comfortable hum of the city around you: distant siren, low thrum from a passing car, the occasional burst of laughter from a nearby bar. Your heartbeat slowly starts to align with the rhythm of your footsteps.

You tell yourself you should peel off, say a brisk goodnight, go home, dissect the whole bizarre night in the privacy of your flat. Instead, you find yourself glancing at his arm as it swings at his side.

It’s there, solid and present, within reach.

You’ve walked alongside a version of this man through so many fights now, felt that digital reassurance of his presence like an invisible brace at your back. Out here, with actual air between you, it feels wrong to keep quite so much distance.

Your hand moves before your brain can vote on it.

Your fingers brush the fabric of his sleeve, then curl, light as a question, around his biceps.

He stiffens for a fraction of a heartbeat. Not much. Just enough that you feel it through the touch. His steps don’t falter, but there’s a flicker of something in his posture, a tightening, as if you’ve leaned your weight on a wall he wasn’t expecting to hold.

You flush. “Sorry,” you start to say. “That was—”

He looks down at your hand with an expression you can’t immediately parse. Not displeased. Not pleased, either. Just… considering.

“Look at that,” he says suddenly, a little too brightly. “That’s my bus.”

You blink.

You’re not even at the stop yet. The bus has just come into view at the far end of the street, indicator ticking as it approaches.

“Oh,” you say again, and there’s that wretched little tremor in it you wish you could sand down. “Right.”

He gently, carefully, disengages your hand from his arm, folding your fingers away as if he’s unhooking a piece of jewellery that might tangle.

“It was really good to meet you,” he says, and his voice is warm, sincere. “I’m glad you came.”

He steps in close for a moment, arms moving in a short, encompassing motion. The hug he gives you is full-bodied and solid, his chest against your shoulder, his chin just brushing the top of your head. Friendly. Nothing withheld, nothing suggestive. The kind of hug a man gives a person he likes and absolutely refuses to complicate.

You stand there for a heartbeat, caught between leaning in and holding yourself carefully still.

Then he’s gone, drawing back, smile wide and infuriatingly gentle.

“See you around, healer,” he says, already jogging backwards a few steps. “Get home safe, okay?”

You manage a wobbly salute. “You too. Don’t let the chinchilla bully you.”

“Too late!” he calls over his shoulder, turning to run properly now. He covers the distance to the bus stop in ridiculous, easy strides and hops onto the step just as the doors wheeze open. A moment later, he’s swallowed by the dim interior.

You watch the bus pull away, taillights winking as it turns the corner and disappears.

The street feels much larger without him.

You realise you’re standing very straight; arms folded in close, as if you’re trying to keep something from spilling out of your chest. Your eyes burn as you blink hard.

It’s stupid. Nothing bad happened. The night went objectively well. You raided, you met people, you didn’t embarrass yourself. The man you’ve been leaning on in-game turned out to be kind in person too, just… not quite in the way your treacherous heart had started to fantasise about.

You should be happy. You should be relieved.

So why are you standing on a pavement beneath a buzzing streetlamp, jaw clenched, fighting off the urge to cry?

Because something doesn’t fit. Because you reached for a presence you thought you knew and it slipped away, neatly sidestepping the place you were unconsciously offering it. Because a hug that warm should not leave you feeling this cold.

You take a breath that shakes on the way in.

“Get a grip,” you tell yourself softly. “It’s fine. You’re fine. It’s just… a lot.”

You wrap your arms tighter around yourself, more to keep your composure from rattling apart than against the chill.

Across the street, partly tucked into the shadow of a doorway, a tall figure watches you, well hidden.

Dorn had told himself he’d stay in the car. Then he’d told himself he’d just walk once around the block, stretch his legs, make sure the area felt safe. Somehow that has turned into this: him standing a discreet distance away, coat collar turned up, feeling like the protagonist of a bad spy film.

He had followed at a distance when you and Alexis left the café together, telling himself it was sensible to make sure you weren’t simply… left. That if something felt wrong, he would be close enough to intervene. He feels ridiculous, and worse, he knows it.

He watches you walk and talk, sees the way your shoulders slowly un-hunch as you fall into some shared rhythm. Sees, at one point, your hand reach out, light as a tentative bridge, to rest against his cousin’s arm.

His lungs forget what they’re doing for a second.

Alexis’ body language is readable even from here. The tiny stiffening. The quick, affectionate, almost apologetic hug. The way he points to the oncoming bus like a lifeline and uses it to extract himself, quick but not unkind.

Dorn sees the whole miniature play without hearing a word, like a sequence under glass.

He sees, more importantly, what happens after.

The bus takes Alexis away. The street exhales. You stand very still, shoulders drawn in so tight it looks like it hurts. Even at this distance he can tell your eyes are bright, the line of your mouth thin and precarious.

His hands curl into fists at his sides.

This is the cost of every carefully measured half-truth he has told himself was for your own protection. This is the human shape of it: one woman under a streetlamp, feeling inexplicably foolish and alone after an evening that was supposed to make her feel more connected.

Something in him snaps.

“Fuck it,” he hears himself say under his breath.

The word is quiet, almost conversational. For him, it’s a battle cry.

Before caution can haul him back, he steps out of the shadow and crosses the street, shoes whispering against the asphalt. Each step feels absurd, like he’s moving between different versions of himself with every footfall.

Director.

Paladin.

Man who should know better.

Man who cannot, tonight, bear the sight of you holding yourself together alone.

He stops a little to your left, not close enough to crowd, close enough that his presence falls into your peripheral vision.

He clears his throat, because suddenly he has no idea what to do with his hands, his voice, his entire existence.

You start, head snapping up, eyes still bright.

For a heartbeat, the world narrows to the small circle of light you’re both standing in.

Rogal Dorn, your boss, is there beside you on the pavement as if he has just been dropped in out of a different scene entirely. Tall, severe-profiled, coat buttoned, expression caught somewhere between composed and absolutely caught out.

You stare at him, stunned, your mind white-noise blank.

The coincidence is too big. The universe feels, for a second, like it has slipped its track.

“Sir?” you say, voice very small.

The word lands between you like a marker on a map, and you know—without knowing how—that whatever comes next will redraw the rest of the evening.

PHEW!!!! There you have it folks!! An opportune event for Rogal Dorn to do the most Rogal Dorn thing ever... But will he? Or will things take a turn for the most comically worse scenario?!!!

Find out in the next chapter coming out.... in a month or so? Hopefully?

Okies... As always, I love reading your comments and reblogs! I sit in my room like Gollum with the One Ring going "My Presciousssss" everytime I get one of those!!

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