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HR's Worst Nightmare || Floyd Leech

You’re an SS Guide who accidentally pioneered hands-free grounding. Floyd is an Esper who pioneered new ways to terrify HR.

Together you form a two-person apocalypse.

or: Guideverse!

Series Masterlist

The world used to be aggressively uneventful.

People got up, trudged to their jobs, stared at spreadsheets that multiplied like they were reproducing asexually, and convinced themselves they were stable as long as they had sugar, caffeine, and the vague hope that the weekend wouldn’t punch them in the throat.

Humanity lived inside a loop of boredom so intense that the universe probably filed a complaint for lack of entertainment value.

Then a Gate opened inside a grocery store.

It randomly materialized between the discounted lawn chairs and the rotisserie chicken display, swirling like someone blended the concept of “doom” with the color palette of a migraine.

A creature crawled out with the posture of a damp cat and the screech of a malfunctioning car alarm. Customers watched, confused, because humans do not process danger until it physically makes contact with them.

Several people tried to poke it. One person tried to adopt it. The Gate responded by spitting out a second creature, this time shaped like a spiky refrigerator with legs.

And that was the planet’s new normal.

Gates kept popping up everywhere. One opened in the middle of a dentist’s office and ruined someone’s root canal. One appeared behind a high school during finals week and caused at least thirty students to try bargaining with it for better grades. Another tore itself open in front of a yoga studio and inhaled someone’s emotional support water bottle.

Everyone panicked loudly, except for a small subgroup of unhinged individuals who immediately tried livestreaming the apocalypse because clout does not respect mortality.

The Gates triggered mutations in a microscopic portion of the population.

These new Espers woke up with powers they did not ask for. Some blasted psychic beams out of sheer confusion. Some caused gravity to malfunction around them. One poor soul sneezed and accidentally levitated their neighbor’s car.

Espers learned very quickly that their powers were not majestic or cinematic. Their powers responded to emotions in the most disrespectful way possible. A stressful email could cause an Esper to crack the pavement. A mild inconvenience could generate a shockwave.

There was an Esper who once obliterated a hot dog cart because someone cut in line.

And just when the world thought things could not get worse, Guides appeared.

Guides were supposed to stabilize Espers. They were supposed to bring balance. They were supposed to keep society from exploding every time an Esper had feelings.

What actually happened was that Guides were exhausted by default, operating on sleep deprivation, stale snacks, and the thin thread of sanity that had never been designed to bear this responsibility.

They could calm an Esper’s powers, yes, but every time they did, they looked like they wanted to file for early retirement, fake their own death, and move into a cave with zero human contact.

Governments tried to create Guide-Esper programs, but the programs immediately devolved into chaotic messes. Compatibility tests melted. Training centers caught on fire. One Guide had a breakdown in the middle of orientation and accidentally grounded every Esper in the building so hard that several chairs disintegrated.

The agencies kept hiring people despite this because the alternative was the world turning into a crater.

Meanwhile, civilians pretended everything was fine. People still clocked in for work even if a Gate opened in the parking lot.

Students still got graded even if their Esper classmates accidentally bent the classroom doorframe.

Grocery stores stayed open even when an Esper meltdown caused all the shopping carts to glide around the aisles like malfunctioning Roombas.

Life went on, wobbling violently, making strange noises, occasionally catching on fire, but still somehow refusing to collapse.

The world had become an ongoing group project with no supervisor, no instructions, and too many psychic explosions, but humanity kept showing up because quitting would require entirely too much paperwork.

Being an SS-ranked Guide sounded glamorous on paper, yet the reality was closer to being a rare endangered bird everyone wanted to kidnap.

You were powerful. You were in demand. You were also constantly being hunted down by Espers who behaved like they were lining up for BTS tickets.

Your entire working life before The Incident™ involved sprinting down hallways, dodging overly enthusiastic rookies, and escaping break rooms because someone had gotten emotionally unstable about their lunch going missing and wanted you specifically to calm them down before they accidentally shattered the microwave for the third time that month.

Guides were supposed to need physical touch to ground Espers. Hand-to-hand, aura-to-aura, calm-to-chaos. That was the rule. And that was the biology.

Except you had always been a little overpowered, and your presence alone could settle most rookie Espers just by standing next to them and breathing. Which meant Espers followed you like hungry cats hoping you’d drop food. Or emotional stability. Same thing to them.

The constant pestering would have been manageable if they didn’t escalate. But Espers were dramatic creatures. They fell into two categories:

(1) “I can handle this myself” types who absolutely could not, and

(2) “If you don’t guide me right now I might spontaneously combust” types who said that while holding your sleeve.

You spent months enduring this circus of desperate Espers, screaming psychic auras, and training supervisors who pretended this was fine because you were one of their strongest Guides and therefore clearly durable enough to withstand the emotional hurricane that was your job.

You were not durable. You were very tired.

Then came the meltdown.

It started as a routine orientation session with a room full of rookie Espers whose emotional regulation skills were nonexistent.

Someone’s aura spiked because they found out their boyfriend had eaten their leftovers. Someone else panicked because someone else panicked. A third person began crying loudly for no reason. It was a disaster. You tried to mediate the situation calmly, the way Guides were taught to do. You held your composure for as long as humanly possible.

Then one rookie made the mistake of grabbing your shoulder without permission and shouting, “PLEASE FIX US I’M FREAKING OUT.”

Something in your soul snapped.

Your aura detonated outward with the intensity of a psychic bomb. Every Esper in the room dropped flat to the floor like someone had turned off their power switches. The entire building shook. Several light fixtures imploded. A vending machine shorted out. And most importantly: you guided them without touching a single one of them.

That had never happened in recorded history. Guiding without physical contact was considered biologically impossible.

You changed that rule by accident. Not through training or technique but through raw emotional instability.

The Bureau immediately shoved you onto a fully paid year-long vacation. They said it was for your safety. They said it was to avoid further mutation. They said this in the tone of people who were deeply afraid of whatever you might become if allowed to continue working while emotionally compromised.

So you took their money, vanished from public life, and spent the next twelve months sleeping, stress-eating, binge-watching shows, and ignoring all Bureau requests for check-ins. Your aura calmed. Your nerves settled. You remembered the joys of not being surrounded by feral psychics.

Unfortunately, vacations eventually end.

Which is how you now found yourself back in the Guide Bureau lobby, staring at the same flickering lights, inhaling the same stale coffee smell, and regretting your life choices before you even clocked in.

You expected some attention of course. You expected whispers. You did not expect to be ambushed with the speed of a predatory crow who spotted a shiny object.

One second you were walking.

The next second, your entire body was wrapped in limbs.

Floyd Leech—B-class Esper, chronic menace, professional chaos gremlin—had thrown himself at you like he was reenacting a dramatic reunion scene from a show only he remembered. His arms locked around your middle. His entire body clung to you with barnacle determination, and he began shaking you so enthusiastically that your vision briefly rattled.

“YOU’RE BACK!” Floyd announced with the joy of an overly caffeinated sea monster. “Shrimpy! You’re really back! I knew you’d come back!”

Your spine tried to resign from your body amd you contemplated turning around and returning to your hermit life.

“Floyd,” you gasped, “you’re compressing my entire ribcage.”

He ignored that. Entirely and enthusiastically.

“Be my Guide!” he demanded, tightening his grip in a way that suggested he believed physical pressure was persuasive. “C’mon. Say yes. Say it. I wanna go first. I already told Jade you’re mine. I told Azul too. And the receptionist. And the security guy. They all know.”

“You cannot claim me like a prize token.”

“Too late!” Floyd chirped, delighted with himself. “I already did.”

You pried at his arm. He clung harder.

“Floyd Leech,” you said, channeling every ounce of Guide authority you had left after a year of blissful avoidance. “I have been in this building for less than two minutes.”

“That’s why I’m fast!” Floyd replied, as if speed was a virtue. “Now no one else can snatch you. I’ve been waiting all year.”

You stared at him.

You stared at the ceiling.

You regretted returning to society.

But beneath the chaos, you noticed his Esper energy and it was wild, intense and electric. He was absolutely the type of Esper who needed grounding every three business minutes.

Your Guide instincts, traitorous thing, perked up.

You shoved that sensation deep into denial where it belonged.

Floyd nuzzled his cheek against your shoulder with a delighted hum, clearly convinced this was destiny. “You’re gonna guide me,” he said with absolute certainty, “and it’s gonna be so fun.”

You were deeply concerned about that definition of fun.

Floyd’s grip was still a full-body situation. His arms were wrapped around you like he was trying to fuse your ribcage to his soul, and every time you attempted to wiggle free he just tightened, humming like this was the highlight of his week.

You were running out of viable escape routes. The hall was wide. Floyd was tall. Your dignity was shriveling.

Then salvation swept through the corridor in the form of pure, simmering irritation.

A sharp, clipped voice cut through the air like someone was slicing frustration into neat pieces. You turned your head just enough to see a very familiar figure marching down the hall.

The Guide in question moved with graceful precision, the kind that suggested he’d been overqualified for this job since the day he was born. His hair—long, dark, and styled with the exact kind of perfection that made other Guides quietly hate him—flowed behind him as he dragged an Esper by the ear with the posture of a man whose patience had been boiled, evaporated, and replaced entirely with spite.

The Esper flailed dramatically. “Come on, it wasn’t that bad!”

The Guide tugged harder without breaking stride. “You set the break room on fire.”

“I said I was sorry!”

The Guide stopped walking just long enough to inhale in the slow, dangerous manner of a man sustaining himself purely on resentment and tea. His hair didn’t move despite the chaos around him, which was how you knew he had long since transcended mortal stress responses.

Floyd perked up instantly. “Oooh, look at him go. Bet he’s been holding that in all morning.”

He loosened his arms a fraction to lean forward and stare.

A fraction was all you needed.

You shoved your shoulder sideways, ducked under his arm, and slid out of his grip with the skill of someone who had escaped far too many unstable Espers over the years.

By the time Floyd whipped around, you were already halfway down the hall.

“Shrimpy! Hey! That’s cheating!”

You didn’t respond. You slipped into HR like you were escaping a wild animal.

You shut the door. You leaned on the door. You contemplated nailing the door shut. HR person stared at you with that expression reserved for employees who arrive in crisis before they even clock in.

“Rough morning?” they asked, tone soft and supportive in the way someone talks to a recently escaped hostage.

You gave a dignified nod that communicated “I have lived several lifetimes in the past eight minutes.”

HR gestured for you to sit. “We’re glad you came in. Really. Everyone’s been looking forward to your return, but we want to be careful after… the incident.”

Ah yes. The meltdown. The classroom pancake event. The day you accidentally grounded twenty-six rookie Espers without touching a single one. Non-physical grounding had been considered impossible until you emotionally detonated and forced the universe to reconsider its stance on you.

“We don’t want you jumping straight into a dedicated partnership,” HR continued. “Not yet. It’s too soon for that level of intensity. And after last year, well… we want to make sure you’re stable, safe, and supported.”

You appreciated the careful phrasing. “So what’s my assignment?”

HR slid a folder toward you. “First responder rotation outside Gates. Low-risk guiding and short sessions. You’ll only regulate Espers right after they exit a gate—quick stabilization, then pass-off to the regular staff.”

You blinked. “No long-term pairing?”

“We’d like to start slow.”

The words settled over you like a blanket. Warm, reasonable and manageable. After twelve months rotting in bed like a depressed croissant, the idea of having a purpose again lit something in your chest you hadn’t felt since before the meltdown.

You’d joined the Bureau because guiding meant something to you. Because balancing Espers, steadying minds on the brink, giving someone enough control to breathe—those moments mattered. Even when it was exhausting. Even when you were drowning. The purpose had always outweighed the chaos.

And maybe—just maybe—you were ready to feel that again.

“I can do that,” you said. “Actually… I’d like to.”

HR smiled, visibly relieved. “Then welcome back. We missed having you.”

You were back.

And even if the world was absolutely still a disaster… you were needed again.

Your first Gate back should have felt nostalgic, maybe even comforting in a strange “I survived my burnout and now I’m contributing to society again” sort of way.

Instead, the moment you stepped onto the perimeter line, you immediately understood that the world had grown significantly more unhinged during your year-long absence. Espers weren’t just emotionally chaotic anymore.

They had evolved into something far more desperate, vibrating with the energy of people who had run out of coping skills and decided the solution was to latch onto the nearest Guide like a koala clinging to a eucalyptus tree.

You watched in stunned silence as a small cluster of unassigned Espers closed in on a blue-haired Guide who looked painfully introverted and dangerously close to passing out. He held his tablet like a shield while the group circled him with the enthusiasm normally seen in flash mobs and cult recruitment.

One tried grabbing his arm, another attempted to hand-feed him snacks, a third delivered an unrequested speech about how they were “meant to sync,” and the poor Guide made a strained noise that sounded like the life leaving his body.

It was only when his actual Esper stumbled out of the Gate—smoking slightly, muttering about respawn timers, and clearly one misstep away from a panic spiral—that the crowd dispersed.

The introverted Guide practically scrambled behind his Esper, and you watched the whole ordeal thinking both “poor guy” and “thank the universe that it wasn’t me.” You had dealt with your share of Esper drama, but in the year you’d been gone, it looked like the entire population had collectively opened the door to feral behavior and walked through proudly.

In a valiant attempt to preserve yourself, you retreated behind a trash can.

It wasn’t glamorous, but it offered shade, emotional safety, and a decent barrier from being pounced on by unassigned Espers with too much enthusiasm and not enough self-control.

You crouched there trying to regulate your energy and whispered a plea to the universe to send you a mild Esper for your first outing back.

A B-class with a stable temperament would suffice. Even a tired C-class. Someone who needed a gentle reset and would thank you politely before shuffling off. You would guide them, breathe a sigh of relief, and go home where no one could cause you to explode psychically again. That was your entire plan.

The Gate pulsed.

A silhouette emerged.

And you made a sound so high-pitched and miserable that only dogs would understand the emotional nuance behind it.

Of course it wasn’t a stable Esper. It was Floyd.

He emerged from the Gate like an aquatic calamity that had been temporarily evicted from the ocean and was ready to ruin everyone’s day.

His aura crackled around him in jagged, neon flashes. His shirt was ripped at the side, his cheek was marked with a fresh bruise, and he wore a look of irritation so sharp it could slice a filing cabinet.

Every Guide in the vicinity took one look at him and instantly pretended to be extremely busy doing absolutely anything else. It would have been funny if you weren’t hiding behind a trash can hoping he didn’t notice you.

But Floyd noticed everything. He scanned the area with a slow, simmering frustration that practically shook the air, and the moment his gaze drifted near your hiding place, you pressed yourself tighter behind the trash can like a raccoon caught inl headlights.

You debated staying put until he left. You debated pretending to be unconscious. You even debated rolling the trash can over yourself like some kind of improvised bunker.

But there was no denying the truth: Floyd was hurt. His aura was jagged, unstable, and barely holding together. As terrifying as he could be, he had always been strangely gentle—or at least uniquely tolerable—with you. That flicker of familiarity made your Guide instincts twitch.

You stepped out from your hiding place with the energy of someone volunteering for a task they absolutely did not want but could not ignore.

Floyd’s head snapped toward you immediately, eyes brightening with something that resembled recognition layered over irritation. He stalked toward you, posture tense, sparking with leftover adrenaline. He looked ready to find the monster that injured him and start a rematch inside the Gate.

“Shrimpy,” he said, voice low, annoyed, and yet unmistakably relieved. “One of those ugly things clipped me, and I’m gonna go right back in and rip something off it.”

He looked like he meant it.

Actually, he looked like he would enjoy it.

“Bench,” you said.

He blinked. “What?”

“We’re going to the bench.”

“I’m not sittin’—”

“Bench.”

He stared at you for a moment, tension radiating from him in waves, but you didn’t flinch and he sensed it. You grabbed his sleeve again and tugged.

And Floyd—menace, chaos incarnate, emotional hurricane—allowed himself to be dragged.

You hauled him across the field like someone escorting a violent golden retriever. He followed you even while complaining, allowing himself to be dragged with the reluctant compliance of a large, dangerous creature that had decided one particular handler was acceptable.

He glared the entire time. “Shrimpy, if you’re tryin’ to shove me into some dumb meditation thing, I’m gonna bite somebody. Maybe you.”

“Bench.”

“You’re real bossy today.”

“Bench.”

“Say bench again and I’m throwin’ you over my should—”

“Sit.”

He plopped down.

You didn’t even need to think about it. Your hand moved to his jaw. You steadied his cheek. You lowered your forehead toward his and began guiding.

His eyes went wide for a fraction of a second.

Then all the tension in his body collapsed like a sandcastle in the tide.

He leaned against you with all the tension melting away from his frame, settling heavily like someone who finally reached a safe place after sprinting too long. His voice, when it finally returned, had none of the sharpness from earlier; it was soft, tired, unusually honest. “Feels good,” he murmured, barely above a breath. “Lemme stay like this.”

You kept guiding him, feeling the neon storm of his aura settle into a low hum against your own. You hadn’t expected your first Gate back to be a disaster, but guiding like this—calming him, grounding him, watching him trust you so completely—reminded you why you joined the Bureau in the first place. Even if everything else had changed, this part of you hadn’t. This part still knew how to help, how to ground, how to bring someone back from the edge.

You missed this.

And for the first time in a long time, guiding felt like something you could love again.

Lunch with other Guides was supposed to feel like a reunion, maybe even something healing, like reconnecting with coworkers who understood the psychic horrors of your job.

Instead, the moment you dropped your tray onto the table, you realized you had walked straight into a support group meeting where no one admitted they needed support. Almost every single person at the table radiated the same emotional posture as overworked servers on a holiday weekend.

The atmosphere was a combination of trauma, denial, and cafeteria curry.

The first Guide you locked eyes with was the one assigned to a certain lazy, sand-dusted, lionlike SS-rank Esper who napped aggressively and insulted everyone with equal enthusiasm. Except today, that Guide looked like they had reached the end of several lifetimes’ worth of patience.

They slumped over their plate with the energy of someone who had aged a decade since breakfast. When you sat down, they looked up at you with big, haunted eyes and said, “He told me he chose me. And told me he didn't think I'd forget him”

You blinked. “Your Esper?”

“Yes. This morning. He just stared at me and said, very casually, ‘I picked you. So why did you pick me?’ And now I have to come up with an answer. What am I supposed to say? That when we met, he radiated the energy of a lion who might maul me if I made direct eye contact? That he terrifies me? That he naps with one eye half open like a lizard guarding a treasure chest?” The Guide sagged. “He wants a meaningful answer. I think he won’t stop asking until he gets one.”

You reached over and gently pushed their water glass toward them because dehydration would finish them off faster than Leona’s existential fishing expedition. You did remember their first meeting but who were you to step into someone else's romantic(?) endeavors.

Next to them sat the Guide assigned to that loud, green-haired rookie who had the vocal volume of a malfunctioning fire alarm.

The Guide wasn’t eating. They weren’t blinking. They weren’t moving.

They stared at their mashed potatoes with the kind of hollow dread people get after seeing ancient horrors. You waved your hand in front of their face. Nothing.

Then, after a long, static pause, they whispered, “He started shouting about valor at sunrise. I wasn’t awake. I think he yelled me awake from a different room. My ears won’t stop ringing. I hear echoes of honor in my dreams.”

You nodded with the solemnity of someone bearing witness to a tragedy. The green-haired rookie’s enthusiasm had claimed another soul.

Across from you sat Floyd’s brother who looked composed and was smiling.

The picture of polite serenity.

If this lunch table were a battlefield, he would be the general calmly sipping tea while everyone else fought for their lives. His hair was perfectly tied back, his uniform crisp, his posture controlled in a way that said he had never tripped over anything in his entire existence.

You could practically feel the other Guides shrinking away from him because cheerful composure in a crisis is always a terrifying red flag.

His phone pinged. Then pinged again. Then kept pinging until the table began vibrating. He checked it once and smiled, the same smile one might give a child who just handed them a rock as a gift. “My Esper is asking how they can repay me for assisting them earlier. It seems they are determined to show gratitude.”

You and the other exchanged looks of mutual horror.

His Esper was incredibly powerful. His Esper was absolutely not prepared to deal with the psychological labyrinth that was Floyd’s brother.

You sent up a brief, silent prayer for the Esper in question. A very honest, very heartfelt prayer that they would survive whatever mental chess match they were being dragged into.

You looked around at this table of broken people and felt a deep, silent moment of clarity settle over you. For a whole year, the world had spun on without you, and in that year, it had absolutely gone to shit.

So thoroughly, so poetically, so spectacularly, that you almost considered turning around and walking straight back into your year-long isolation pod.

Before you could spiral into that thought, a group of bright, enthusiastic rookie Guides from another table wandered over, holding smoothies that were too colorful for the current emotional climate. They carried the kind of optimistic energy that felt illegal in the Bureau.

One of them beamed at you and said, “We’re thinking of going to the farmer’s market tomorrow! They renovated it after the corn explosion, and it’s supposed to be even better now. Do you want to come with us?”

Normally you would have said yes. Farmer’s markets meant snacks, little drinks, and emotional enrichment. But the moment they invited you, a deep, ancient part of your Guide soul shuddered. Your instincts—which had kept you alive through multiple psychic catastrophes—muttered a very clear, very urgent no in the back of your brain.

You smiled politely but firmly. “I think I’ll stay home.”

They tried to coax you, but the dread wouldn’t leave. Eventually, you escaped the cafeteria with your dignity intact and your soul feeling strangely light.

The validation arrived two hours later in the form of your phone buzzing with the furious desperation of someone trying to reach a runaway pet.

It was Floyd.

The messages came in aggressively fast.

shrimpy shrimpy are you stuck in the gate say smth don’t tell me ur one of the losers who got trapped in the farmer’s market gate answer before i come lookin

You stared at your screen in disbelief.

You typed back slowly, hands trembling with secondhand horror.

I didn’t go.

Floyd responded in under a second.

good stay that way you woulda been annoying to fish out

Then another message.

also im laughing so hard rn

You set your phone down and exhaled. Hard.

Your instincts had saved you.

The world was a flaming disaster zone. Again.

And apparently, your coworkers had been swallowed by a Gate in the middle of a stall selling microgreens.

This was your life now.

The annual compatibility event was supposed to be a civil, orderly day where unpaired Espers and unassigned Guides politely tested their resonance with each other in a professional manner. That was the stated goal.

The real atmosphere felt more like a speed-dating event run by overworked scientists and refereed by Guides who had lost all hope in humanity. You hadn’t attended one of these in two years, and you’d forgotten how much psychic desperation hung in the air.

The room felt like it was vibrating. Espers were shifting anxiously, Guides were clutching clipboards like lifelines, and every now and then someone’s energy would spike in a way that made furniture tremble.

You had been hoping to get a mid-rank pairing to test with. Something light and reasonable. Maybe a nervous A-class or a focused B-class who just needed someone to reassure them they were not about to implode.

Instead, when your name was called, you were handed a folder with the unmistakable marking of an SS-ranked Esper. You stared at the assigned name, felt your aura twitch, and immediately recognized the description.

Red-haired. High control levels. Precision aura. Zero emotional tolerance. A terrifying perfectionist who decimated threats in the field with the ferocity of a tiny, well-dressed hurricane. The kind of Esper who made rookie Guides faint and made senior Guides consider early retirement.

He was standing across the room when you looked up.

And the moment your eyes met, you understood that you were not ready.

He radiated the kind of tight, coiled tension usually seen in students about to flip tables over group projects. His posture was immaculate but brittle. His energy felt like a violin string pulled half a millimeter from snapping.

And his expression… oh, the expression. It wasn’t anger. It was worse. It was that polite, suffocating brand of repressed rage that came from someone who had rehearsed being normal for so long he might combust if one thing went wrong.

You stood perfectly still.

He stared back with judging intensity.

You felt your organs stop functioning in self-defense.

Compared to this, Floyd’s unhinged chaos was practically soothing.

Your survival instincts, which had been mostly dormant except once since your return, shot up like they were trying to seize control of your limbs. You did not want to guide this SS-ranked Esper.

You respected him. You admired him from a distance. You also strongly suspected that if you guided him even once, you might spontaneously combust from the pressure of holding his emotions in place.

You made a decision.

A very impulsive, very irresponsible, very necessary decision.

You pulled out your phone under the table and typed the two fastest messages of your life.

get here now

You could practically hear Floyd in your head when the message read “Delivered”: annoyed, unpredictable, mischievous, and entirely too pleased that you were summoning him like a chaotic sea demon.

Technically, Floyd was supposed to be at this event too. All unpaired Espers were required to attend. But Floyd considered bureaucratic obligations to be optional suggestions at best, so he had simply not shown up. The organizers looked exhausted just thinking about tracking him down.

So you waited.

Your assigned Esper approached with a crisp, elegant stride that made you straighten by instinct. He opened his mouth, probably to say something polite and terrifying, when the door behind you slammed open with the energy of a feral cat kicking its way inside.

Floyd walked in, looking disheveled and irritated.

He looked like he had abandoned whatever plans he was making just to show up and cause problems.

He also looked like the exact opposite of the disciplined SS-ranked Esper in front of you.

Your assigned Esper’s energy bristled immediately. A flicker of disgust. Then annoyance. Then something dangerously close to outrage. You hadn’t known a person’s shoulder tension could spike so sharply without their collarbone snapping.

Floyd saw the other Esper glaring and smirked in a way that sent two interns fleeing the room. “Ohhh? Why’s he lookin’ at you like that, Shrimpy? Did someone try to grab you again? I can break somethin’ if you want.”

You panicked in the calmest, most professional way possible.

You grabbed Floyd’s wrist and marched him toward the organizers’ table before anyone else could react. The event supervisor looked up at you with a hopeful, tired expression, seen in people who desperately want things to go smoothly but have long accepted that nothing ever does.

You cleared your throat. You unfortunately were here to send that hope straight to hell.

“We’re compatible,” you said.

The supervisor blinked. “Pardon?”

You gestured toward Floyd, who gave a toothy smile that radiated violence and affection in equal measure. “He’s my Esper. I would like him to be my assigned Esper for all Bureau matching purposes going forward.”

The supervisor’s left eye twitched. “Are you… sure?”

You nodded with the commitment of someone jumping off a cliff and fully accepting their fate. “Yes. I would like to exclusively guide him now.”

Floyd leaned down, voice low and pleased. “Hear that? Shrimpy picked me. Lucky me.”

Your assigned SS Esper was still watching from across the room, energy flaring so sharply that nearby Guides subtly moved behind furniture to avoid being caught in the emotional crossfire. His expression hadn’t changed, but his posture had stiffened into something silent and severe. You were relieved you would not be the cause of his inevitable meltdown today.

The supervisor looked between the two of you.

One unstable, exceptionally powerful Guide.

One unstable, exceptionally powerful Esper.

No one sane would approve this pairing. But you were terrifying, and Floyd was scarier, and the supervisor clearly wanted to live long enough to retire.

They stamped the form.

“Approved,” they said quietly.

Floyd beamed. “Told ya they’d say yes.”

You suddenly realized that your life was never going to be peaceful again.

You had only wanted to get to the fifth floor. You weren’t even trying to guide anyone or file trauma reports or deal with Floyd-related catastrophes. You just needed to hand in a form. You’d even told yourself, optimistically, that the elevator ride would be peaceful.

Instead, the elevator made a strange grinding noise the moment you stepped inside. You froze, stared at the ceiling like it personally offended you, and tried to decide whether you should trust a government-issued elevator that definitely had not been maintained since the first Gate incident. Before you could press the “Door Close” button, a blur of teal and dangerous enthusiasm slid through the narrowing gap.

Floyd.

He grinned as soon as he saw you. “Shrimpy! You tryin’ to ditch me? That’s mean.”

You were not ditching him. You didn't even know he was there.

But Floyd had always operated under his own definitions, so you stepped aside as he sprawled against the far wall like he was posing for a magazine cover no one asked for.

The doors shut. The elevator moved two inches upward. Then it shuddered violently, made the sound of someone chewing metal foil, and stopped dead.

You both stared at the unmoving doors for a long beat.

Then Floyd gave an incredibly unhelpful observation. “We’re stuck.”

You inhaled slowly. “Yes.”

He tilted his head, watching your expression like it was the most interesting thing he’d seen all morning. “You gonna freak out? Should I freak out? Ooh, we can freak out together.”

“I would prefer if neither of us freaked out.”

He let out a disappointed hum and slid down the wall until he was sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring up at you with bright, curious eyes. “So what now?”

“Now we wait.”

He considered this. You watched his energy twitch in that way that suggested he was already at maximum boredom. Floyd and waiting had always been natural enemies.

You tried to stand still and pretend this elevator wasn’t the worst possible place to be trapped with someone whose emotional range swung like a pendulum on caffeine.

Thirty seconds passed.

Then Floyd perked up in the exact way that made you nervous. “Okay, Shrimpy, I got an idea.”

“Oh no,” you muttered, because life had taught you to fear that sentence.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper—badly folded, ink smudged, Bureau forms printed on the back. He smiled with a kind of slow, mischievous warmth that implied he had been saving this moment like a treat. “I wrote a quiz.”

You blinked. “You… what?”

“A quiz,” he repeated, incredibly pleased with himself. “It’s important. I gotta know if you actually pay attention to me or if you’re just good at pretendin’.”

You pressed the emergency call button, purely for emotional support. It did nothing. Floyd, on the other hand, was thriving.

He patted the floor beside him. “Sit. C’mon. If you sit, I’ll read the easy questions first.”

You sat because the alternative was standing awkwardly while Floyd’s energy spiraled into a storm cloud of hyperactivity. He unfolded the paper with exaggerated care, like he was unveiling something sacred, and cleared his throat with theatrical seriousness.

“Question one,” he announced, “What’s my favorite thing to eat?”

You tried to remember if he had ever given a coherent answer to that question. “Takoyaki?”

He clicked his tongue sharply. “Wrong! I like takoyaki, but my favorite is that chip you eat when you’re stressed. It tastes interestin’.”

You decided not to examine that declaration too closely.

He continued without giving you time to recover. “Question two: if I got turned into a sea creature by a weird spell, what kinda creature would I be?”

There was no correct answer to this. You knew it. He probably knew it. Still, you thought about it seriously because the alternative was being teased endlessly. “An eel.”

He stared at you like you were the smartest person alive. “Yes! Good job, Shrimpy. I thought you’d say somethin' stupid like octopus.”

You couldn’t tell if that was a compliment.

He moved on, cycling through questions. “Where’s my favorite place to nap? What noise do you make when you’re annoyed? How many teeth do you think I’ve chipped in fights? If we fused into one person during a Gate accident, who do you think would win control of the arms?”

Every question was more unhinged than the last. And every time you answered—even imperfectly—Floyd leaned in a little, eyes bright, expression softening in the way that made your heart trip.

He thrived on your attention, your reactions, your refusal to treat him like something fragile or frightening. For all the chaos he radiated, there was something almost tender about the way he watched you think.

Halfway through the quiz, the lights flickered. The elevator groaned again. Floyd didn’t even glance at the ceiling. He was too busy flipping the paper over and preparing for what he called the “important section.”

“Now,” he said, his voice dropping to that familiar lazy drawl that meant he was watching you very closely, “a hard one. What do ya think I do when I get scared?”

You looked at him, at the relaxed posture and the sharp grin and the storm held just beneath the surface. It wasn’t an easy question, but it wasn’t a trick one either.

“You get angry,” you said. “Or you pretend you don’t care so no one sees you panic.”

His smile wavered into something smaller. Something honest. Something that softened the entire room, even the broken elevator.

Neither of you had to say anything else. The elevator felt strangely calm now, the silence warm instead of claustrophobic.

Floyd leaned against your shoulder, humming contentedly, abandoning the quiz entirely because, apparently, you’d passed whatever test he actually cared about.

Eventually the elevator jerked back to life and began rising again. Floyd didn’t move. When the doors opened, he glanced at you with that lopsided, dangerous grin and said, “We should get stuck more often. That was fun.”

You responded with the patience of someone who had already emotionally resigned themselves to their fate. “I would prefer not to.”

He snorted, hooked a finger under your chin like he was checking your expression for lies, and said, “Too late. I’m puttin’ it on our schedule.”

You regretted everything.

And also, very quietly, not at all.

The Bureau’s mandatory “Interpersonal Professional Boundaries” training seminar had always been notorious, but this year’s version felt like a full-scale social apocalypse contained within a single conference room. Someone had decided every Esper and Guide pair with unresolved “boundary-related incidents” needed to attend, which meant the room was filled with Espers who had all, at some point, violated the guidelines so catastrophically that HR had made new rules specifically because of them.

Their Guides sat beside them glaring daggers at their respective Espers, who refused to look anywhere near their partners because eye contact alone would summon the ghosts of their shared disasters.

One Esper sat so stiffly that his shoulders looked permanently elevated, clearly remembering the time he dragged his Guide into a fight without warning. Another was nervously staring at the floor, probably thinking about the incident where he climbed his Guide like a tree during a panic spike. A third one had positioned himself behind a potted plant even though everyone could see him, because apparently hiding behind flora absolved him of past crimes.

The Guides, meanwhile, collectively radiated the energy of wronged spouses at couples therapy.

You honestly didn’t know why you were here, because you technically had no “ongoing conflict issues,” unless the incident involving Floyd trying to pick you up like a grocery bag counted. But the instructor had insisted you attend anyway “for awareness.”

So here you were, sitting comfortably in your row with a bag of popcorn you had absolutely smuggled in because there was no universe in which you’d suffer through this without snacks.

The instructor was droning on about “respecting personal space” while the very Espers who needed that lesson most were pretending to study the ceiling tiles like they had ascended into a spiritual plane where consequences no longer existed.

You had just popped a handful of popcorn into your mouth when someone dropped onto the seat beside you so abruptly that your entire row shook. Floyd's shoulder pressed against yours instantly, his posture unreasonably casual for someone attending a seminar about his own behavioral shortcomings.

He leaned close enough that you felt his breath warm against your cheek. “Shrimpy, this is boring,” he muttered in a low tone that absolutely carried across the room. “All these losers sitting here pretending they care about boundaries, when half of ‘em were clinging to their Guides last week like needy barnacles. C’mon. Let’s go do something fun.”

You elbowed him gently and whispered back, “If you get up now, the instructor will call you out.” Then, because you did not trust him at all, you added, “And we are not leaving. Sit still.”

Floyd huffed dramatically, leaning so far into your side that you had to stabilize yourself to keep from tipping over. “You’re no fun,” he said, clearly lying because he was already eyeing your popcorn like he intended to steal it. “Why are we even here? We didn’t break any boundaries.”

You gave him a flat look that said you remembered every time he had scooped you up without warning, pinned you to his chest during a guiding session because he “felt like being held,” or nipped your ear when you told him to calm down. You didn’t even need to say anything. Floyd recognized the look instantly and grinned, unrepentant.

The instructor tried to continue her presentation while pretending Floyd wasn’t clearly whispering commentary about every Esper present. He leaned forward slightly, tilting his head to observe a pair sitting in the corner, and muttered, “That one definitely broke a rule last week. Look how twitchy his Guide is. Bet he tried to steal their lunch again.” Then he added, with a delighted snicker, “And that one? Oh, he sat in his Guide’s lap during a mission briefing. Everyone saw it.”

Before you could warn him, Floyd’s hand drifted into your popcorn bag like a criminal testing security. He didn’t even try to be sneaky. He simply helped himself, grabbed a handful, and shoved it into his mouth with the aviation of a man who believed food tasted better when he didn’t pay for it.

You glared at him, but he continued happily, chewing with zero remorse while leaning closer, letting the warmth of his body sink into yours in a way that made the fluorescent-lit conference room feel less miserable.

You sighed and let your shoulder rest against his, because resisting the gravitational pull of Floyd’s chaotic presence was something only fools attempted. The instructor was attempting to discuss the importance of “emotional distance during stressful moments,” which would have been meaningful if the Espers weren’t quietly dying inside while their Guides glared at them like disgruntled parents.

In the back corner, someone raised their hand to ask whether “dragging a Guide bodily away from danger” counted as a violation if the intent was noble. Their Guide immediately buried his face in his hands.

Floyd snorted softly. “This is better than TV,” he whispered, taking more popcorn. “Look at that one. They're sweating. They know they messed up.”

You leaned deeper into his warmth, the exhaustion of the week catching up to you as he nudged his head against yours in a gesture that was far too gentle considering his usual chaos.

If anyone paid attention, they might have mistaken the two of you for being suspiciously close, especially when he stretched his arm along the back of your chair and let it settle there like he belonged in your personal space. But Floyd didn’t care. He never cared about optics or rules or the instructor’s slow descent into frustration.

He only cared that you were here with him, eating popcorn and ignoring the rest of the room’s disasters.

And if you were being honest, watching this mess unfold with Floyd pressed beside you was far more entertaining than the training itself.

You had not slept for three entire days, which was an impressive achievement in suffering even by Guide standards, and at some point during the late afternoon your body simply abandoned the concept of consciousness. You collapsed onto your office couch the way overworked employees collapse into retirement, face-first, limbs limp, energy flickering weakly like a dying lightbulb.

You had fully intended to take a quick nap, something modest and adult, but instead you fell into a deep, absolute, soul-crushing sleep that devoured several hours before you even had time to consider forming a dream.

Your phone was still on the floor where you dropped it and your half-eaten snack lay forgotten on the table.

When you finally surfaced from unconsciousness, it was not a gentle return to awareness. You woke because someone was shaking your shoulder with urgency, and before your eyes even focused, you recognized the disjointed, frantic rhythm of Floyd’s movements.

By the time your vision cleared, he was kneeling beside the couch, gripping your arm far too tightly, breathing heavily, and covered in bruises and scratches that looked fresh enough to make your stomach twist unpleasantly. There was something about the way his shoulders drooped and the slight tremor in his energy that made you sit up on instinct, your exhaustion shoved aside by the automatic reflex that came with being a Guide.

“Floyd,” you said, your voice still raspy from unconsciousness, “what happened?”

You eased him closer without bothering to ask permission, because every line of his body told you he was too overwhelmed to put up any real resistance, and you immediately began grounding his aura as gently as you could.

You tried to assess the damage, tried to ask what happened, tried to coax some coherent explanation out of him, but he refused to say anything beyond vague grunts. His head dropped onto your shoulder in a way that made your heart seize in irritation and concern, and while you supported him with both hands, you could feel the ragged, exhausted crackle of his energy fighting to settle down.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, you remembered your abandoned phone. You reached for it with your free hand, still guiding him, and your screen illuminated to reveal a massive Gate alert that you had somehow slept through.

The headlines alone were enough to make your blood run cold.

An unexpected high-tier Gate had erupted far from the city center, and this one had spewed out creatures vicious enough to trigger emergency measures.

Waves of Espers had been dispatched, reports were still coming in, and half the Bureau was calling for backup. Seeing the timestamp of the alert made you swallow hard, because Floyd had clearly gone through an ordeal far beyond the usual nonsense he dragged himself into.

You looked down at him again. He was too limp, too drained, too quiet for your comfort.

Normally he would be talking, teasing, provoking reactions, or trying to test your patience just for fun. Instead, he pressed his face against your shoulder, refused to meet your eyes, and made himself small in a way that felt profoundly wrong for someone who radiated so much chaotic confidence on a normal day.

“Floyd, look at me for a second,” you murmured, lifting his chin gently, but he avoided your eyes and buried himself deeper against your neck. You pressed your hand carefully to the back of his neck, trying to soothe rather than overwhelm. “Just tell me what’s hurt. Anything bleeding? Anything broken?”

He gave you absolutely nothing. Not a word or even a nod. Just a quiet, irritated noise followed by him biting your shoulder with the amount of force that communicated pure annoyance but no actual aggression. It wasn’t painful, but it was definitely a complaint.

You pressed a little harder because you needed answers, and the confusion was starting to grind at your already-thin nerves.

You reminded him sharply that he had a brother who was a Guide, a competent one, someone capable of handling emergencies like this without hesitation, and asked why he didn’t seek help there. Floyd’s voice came out low, slurred, and fundamentally defeated. “He’s busy. He’s got his own Esper.”

There was something raw in the way he said it, something that scraped against your ribs and made anger swirl in your chest—not the screaming kind of anger, but the tired kind that comes from realizing someone you care about has made a terrible decision for the sake of self-sacrifice.

You wanted to scold him. You wanted to remind him that he was allowed to ask for help. You wanted to shake him until he understood that showing up like this scared the life out of you. But you could feel how frayed his energy was, how desperately it clung to any stability you offered, and your irritation softened into a heavy, exasperated warmth.

You guided him more deliberately, letting your energy sink into his broken edges until the sharpness dulled and the trembling eased. His breathing steadied. His weight settled more fully against you. His hands relaxed from clammy tension into something looser, something trusting, something that needed you in a way he would never admit aloud.

Your rank difference allowed you to handle this easily, your guiding enveloping him without strain, smoothing the static, calming the erratic emotional spikes that made him vibrate like a struck tuning fork.

You stroked his back in a slow, grounding pace, feeling him melt deeper into the support you offered.

You sighed into his hair, in the way people sigh when the day becomes larger than their capacity to handle it. “Next time,” you murmured, “you ask for help before you drag yourself halfway across the city like a stubborn idiot.”

He didn’t argue. He just nudged his forehead into your collarbone as if that were somehow an acceptable substitute for an apology.

You stayed like that for a long while, letting him drain the chaos out of himself while your own exhaustion simmered beneath the surface.

Despite everything—your lack of sleep, your irritation, the lingering alarm from the Gate report—you held him, steady and unshaken, because even if he made terrible decisions, even if he refused help at the worst possible times, he still came to you when he was hurting, and guiding him felt almost instinctive now.

You stayed like that not because you had to, but because some part of you understood that Floyd had chosen you on purpose, and even if it drove you insane, even if it exhausted you to the bone, you would not let him fall apart alone.

Developing feelings for an Esper was already a terrible idea. Developing feelings for Floyd was the sort of catastrophic workplace hazard that belonged in an emergency manual, preferably with illustrations.

You had always had a soft spot for him, even before the crashout, back when his attention only made you wary and reluctant instead of warm and uncomfortably flustered.

But now that you were back and more stable, that soft spot had grown teeth—sharp, inconvenient, romantic teeth—and your brain decided the safest course of action was immediate repression before you did something irreversible, like admit it out loud or let him notice.

You could handle your job. You could handle instability. You could even handle Floyd on a normal day. But you could not handle the way your heartbeat seemed to perform an entire Broadway show every time he leaned too close or grinned that crooked grin of his.

So you did the only thing you thought would prevent emotional death: you avoided him with the skill of someone dodging debt collectors. You suddenly became very available to other Espers, volunteering for sessions the moment someone asked, even if they weren’t technically your responsibility.

You started helping rookies. You started taking on overflow.

You also discovered the sick leave system allowed twelve days of “mental recalibration” per year, and you used five of them within three weeks. HR emailed you asking if you needed support. You told them you were fine.

Every avoidance tactic had a pattern to it. Whenever Floyd roamed the halls—easily identifiable by the distant sound of either humming or panicked interns—you would hastily duck into supply closets, training rooms, or even staff bathrooms you absolutely did not want to enter.

The worst part was that your coworkers quickly realized what you were doing. Some pretended not to notice. Others whispered gossip about “that poor Guide in damage-control mode.” One even gave you a pity snack as you rushed past like you were evading a natural predator.

And through all of this, Floyd acted like nothing was happening. At least, that’s how it looked on the surface.

He didn’t chase you around the Bureau in dramatic fashion. He didn’t call you out in meetings. He didn’t make a scene the way he occasionally did when bored. He simply drifted through rooms with the same unpredictable rhythm as always, sometimes silent, sometimes loud, sometimes smiling in that disarming way that made your stomach crowd with butterflies you pretended were indigestion.

You had convinced yourself the plan was working.

You were very wrong.

You found out exactly how wrong you were when your shift ended early, and you thought—foolishly, tragically—that you could sneak out of the Bureau without incident.

You moved quietly, hugged the wall, avoided the main corridor, and congratulated yourself on your stealth. You had nearly made it to the exit when you turned a corner and walked directly into a solid chest.

There was a beat of stillness before you dared to look up.

Floyd was gazing down at you with a steady, unreadable expression that made your entire spine turn to static. Not angry or playful but observant. He was looking at you with unnerving clarity, like he had been waiting for this moment far longer than you wanted to imagine.

His voice, when he finally spoke, was quiet in a way that did not belong to him at all. “Why’re you hidin’ from me?”

Your soul briefly left your body.

You opened your mouth, prepared to lie, but Floyd stepped closer before the words could form. Not touching you—which was odd enough—but simply making it impossible to look anywhere else but at him.

“You been guidin’ everybody but me,” he said, tilting his head with a frown that wasn’t angry so much as disappointed. “And you take off real fast when I walk into a room. Thought we were good.”

Your heart thudded loudly enough to echo in your ribs.

“I’m not hiding,” you said, even though the two of you both knew that was an insult to honesty as a concept.

He leaned down slightly, the way he always did when he wanted to catch every micro-expression on your face. “Then what’s this supposed to be?”

You considered telling him the truth—that you had developed feelings strong enough to rearrange your brain chemistry and you didn’t trust yourself to stay normal around him.

But saying that would collapse every mental barrier you had so carefully built, so instead you said something generic about feeling overwhelmed and needing time.

Floyd squinted at you like he could see right through the excuse.

“You’re a terrible liar,” he muttered.

Your pulse stuttered. “I’m not lying.”

Floyd shifted even closer until the distance between you was almost nonexistent, the warmth of him sinking into your skin in a way you absolutely did not need right now. “Then prove it,” he murmured, voice surprisingly steady. “Stop runnin’.”

You swallowed hard, the conflict inside you twisting so sharply it felt like your chest was folding inward. You liked him. Too much. Too intensely. But this was Floyd—unreliable, unpredictable Floyd—and falling for him felt like placing your heart in a washing machine and praying it wouldn’t get shredded.

But you met his eyes anyway.

And he didn’t look unhinged or dangerous or amused. He looked hurt. And that was worse than anything else.

You broke eye contact first.

Floyd turned to leave with that loose, rolling stride of his, like everything in the world drifted around him instead of the other way around. You knew you should let him go, knew this was your chance to retreat and rebuild whatever flimsy composure you had left, but something traitorous inside you fired off before your brain could intervene.

His name tore out of your mouth in a half-whisper, half-plea that you regretted the exact second it left your lips.

He paused mid-step. Slowly, he looked over his shoulder, one eyebrow lifting in a way that made your breath catch. He didn’t look irritated or smug; he just looked curious, patient in a way Floyd rarely managed. The quietness of his expression made your pulse jump into your throat.

“What is it?” he asked, voice low.

And that was when your brain completely failed you.

You had no plan. No explanation. No thought. You had called him because your instincts rebelled against letting him walk away, and now you were left standing in a hallway with absolutely no script to follow.

You swallowed hard, your palms going clammy. “Nevermind,” you blurted, too quickly, too weakly, like someone trying to undo a text after hitting send. “Forget it, really. Just—go ahead.”

You even added a small shooing motion with your hand that betrayed exactly how panicked you were.

Floyd didn’t leave.

Instead, he turned around fully and started walking back toward you with slow, deliberate steps that carried far more intent than you were ready to handle.

There was no grin, no teasing glint in his eyes. He looked focused, almost serious, and that expression alone was enough to send your heart into a stumbling freefall.

You backed up on instinct, trying to regain distance, but the hallway was unforgivingly short and the wall met your shoulder blades far faster than you anticipated.

He didn’t even touch you. His presence alone boxed you in, warm and overwhelming and impossible to ignore. You tried to steady your breathing, tried to look anywhere but his face, but he leaned slightly forward to catch your eyes, searching them with quiet intensity.

“Why’d you call me?” he asked, completely calm.

You opened your mouth. Nothing came out.

Your throat tightened. Your vision blurred at the edges. Something deep inside you—something cracked and fragile and held together by too many years of forcing composure—snapped under the pressure.

You had spent so long being the strong one, the calm one, the Guide who could hold it together when every Esper around you couldn’t.

But being cornered by someone you cared about, someone you wanted and feared wanting, someone who saw you far too clearly, hit a trigger you hadn’t realized was still raw.

You didn’t gasp or choke or crumble dramatically. Your body simply decided to shut down and let silent tears spill over your cheeks without warning, as if releasing them was a physical reflex instead of an emotional collapse.

Your breath shuddered, barely audible. Your hands went numb at your sides, your heart thudding like it was trying to escape your chest. You weren’t scared of him. You were scared of what this meant, of how much space he took up inside you, of how little control you had left.

Floyd’s expression shattered instantly.

The intensity vanished. The confidence vanished. Even the usual unrestrained chaos drained out of him. In its place was something soft, startled, and deeply worried—the kind of concern he never bothered showing unless it was pulled from him by force.

He stepped back so fast it was almost a jump, hands raised slightly as if afraid to make anything worse. “Hey, hey, wait—no, don’t cry,” he said, his voice quieter than you had ever heard it. “Shrimpy, I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

But you weren’t freaking out for the reason he assumed, and the harder you tried to stop the tears, the more your body refused to cooperate. You wiped at your face in silent frustration, shaking your head as if that would help, trying to apologize but unable to form a single coherent word.

Floyd hesitated for a heartbeat—you could see it, the internal war between reaching for you and giving you space—and then he made the gentlest decision you had ever seen him make. He approached slowly, carefully, like you were made of thin glass instead of nerves and exhaustion, and instead of trapping you again, he crouched slightly to make his posture smaller and said, “Look at me, okay?”

It took effort to get your breathing under control. It took even more effort to meet his eyes. But when you did, he softened even further, something warm flickering under the concern. He reached one hand toward you—slow, so slow—and brushed a thumb beneath your eye, catching the tear before it fell any further. His expression twisted painfully at the sight.

He waited until your breathing steadied before carefully slipping an arm behind your back, giving you enough space to refuse if you needed to. When you didn’t pull away, he eased you forward with the kind of care that didn’t match his reputation at all. You let him, too drained to argue and too shaken to deny the comfort. You leaned against him, letting the warmth of his chest anchor you, and he held you like you were something precious instead of something fragile.

“C’mon,” he murmured, voice still uncharacteristically soft.

You were too overwhelmed to resist when he gently lifted you—not in one of his dramatic, over-the-shoulder scoops, but in a steady, secure embrace—and carried you back toward your office without a single complaint.

His grip was warm and protective, holding you as if you weren’t a disaster of nerves and repressed emotions but someone he deeply wanted to keep safe.

And that was the moment you knew, beyond denial, beyond repression, beyond avoidance, that you were absolutely, irreversibly, catastrophically fucked.

Because Floyd Leech, chaotic menace and unpredictable nightmare, had just handled you with more gentleness than anyone else had in years.

And your heart didn’t stand a chance.

You took one more sick day. You spent the entire morning wrapped up in blankets, staring at your ceiling as if it held the secrets of the universe, trying very hard not to think about the way Floyd had carried you like something that mattered, or the way he had crouched in front of you with genuine worry instead of the usual chaos, or the way your chest had clenched so painfully when he backed away the second he realized you were overwhelmed.

By the time the sun started rising again, you had reached two very clear, very terrible conclusions that stuck to your ribs like emotional glue.

The first truth was simple.

It was the kind of truth you couldn’t pretend was anything else. You loved Floyd. You loved him in a way that made your stomach twist and your chest ache and your thoughts drift back to him at every impossible moment.

You loved him in that quiet, hopeless way Guides learned to fear, because love made Espers complicated, and complicated Espers were dangerous.

You loved him, and the knowledge settled in your bones with a kind of trembling certainty you couldn’t push away anymore.

The second truth hurt even more. You could not keep going as a Guide, not like this, not with your heart tangled around a person who could shred your emotional stability just by existing near you.

Your crashout had taken more from you than you wanted to admit. You had been pushing yourself back into the field, back into the pressure, back into the responsibility, but walking around with your heart in your throat every time Floyd looked at you was not sustainable.

Loving him felt like standing too close to a storm, and you couldn’t let yourself break again.

By the time the next morning rolled around, you had written your resignation letter with the calm determination of a person walking themselves into their own funeral.

The words felt wrong on the page, too final, too heavy, but you didn’t stop. You printed it out, folded it neatly, and placed it in an envelope as though that would make the decision hurt any less. It didn’t.

Administration was on the third floor, and you walked toward it with slow, steady steps, breathing evenly, telling yourself this was the right thing.

As you approached the hallway, you saw a familiar tall figure ahead. Floyd was leaning against the wall, bored, restless, swinging his foot like he was waiting for trouble to appear so he could poke it. The moment he spotted you, his eyes brightened with recognition, and he started pushing himself off the wall to stride toward you.

Your heart lurched painfully, so you lifted a hand quickly and gestured for him to wait.

He froze mid-step, his excitement flickering into irritation. His brows knit together in a frown you knew too well, the kind that meant he wanted answers but was willing to hold himself in place for a moment.

He dropped back into a nearby chair with a dramatic exhale, legs sprawled, arms crossed, his foot tapping impatiently on the floor while he watched you walk into Administration as if you were personally offending him by going somewhere without him.

Inside, the Bureau tried everything to keep you. They pointed out your rank, your experience, your value. They reminded you that SS Guides were rare and that the Bureau depended on people like you, especially with how unhinged the Esper population had become.

They told you that stability could be re-learned, that your crashout wasn’t the end, that you still had so much to offer. But you calmly explained—because you had made peace with losing something important—that you were too unstable, too emotionally compromised, too close to breaking again in a way that could hurt people.

They listened. You could tell they hated it. But they listened.

And eventually, they accepted your resignation.

When you stepped back into the hallway, the envelope had been replaced by a strange, hollow ache in your chest.

Floyd was still sitting there, exactly where you left him, his legs stretched out, his eyes fixed on you with a simmering impatience that made your throat tighten.

You gestured gently for him to come closer, and he pushed himself up with a small roll of his shoulders, walking toward you with slow, deliberate steps that felt far too heavy for someone usually so fluid.

You didn’t trust your voice at first. When it finally came out, it was quiet. “Walk me out?”

He frowned again, confused, but he accepted your hand the moment you offered it, his fingers curling around yours with a warmth that nearly unmade you.

He didn’t ask questions as you walked through the Bureau slowly, passing coworkers who gave you concerned looks you pretended not to see. Floyd stayed close, his presence familiar and dangerous, his steps perfectly matched to yours as if this were something the two of you had always done.

He didn’t speak until you reached the parking lot, your car waiting exactly where you left it.

Only then did you draw in a shaky breath and force the words out. “I’m done.”

He blinked. “Huh?”

“This,” you whispered. “The Bureau. Guiding. All of it.”

You watched the shift happen in real time. Confusion first, sharp and clear on his face. Then something hotter—anger like a spark catching dry brush.

Then something far worse: hurt blooming across his expression in a way that made your throat burn. He stared at you with this raw, open look, as if trying to piece together a puzzle he wasn’t allowed to touch.

“Why?” he asked, voice low and frayed around the edges.

You couldn’t answer. Not without telling him the real reason. Not without confessing everything you had spent weeks trying to bury. So you just shook your head, trying to breathe through the ache.

Floyd’s jaw tightened. He inhaled sharply, then exhaled through his teeth, the sound strained and unsteady. And then—without a word, without a dramatic outburst, without even one of his usual sharp comments—he turned around and walked away.

He didn’t look back.

And that broke you more than anything else.

Because that was the moment you understood what he had decided. If you weren’t a Guide anymore—if you weren’t his Guide—then you weren’t interesting to him anymore. That’s what you told yourself, anyway. That’s what your heart believed, even if something in his shoulders had looked too stiff, too brittle, too wounded for it to be true.

You got into your car with shaking hands.

You sat there as the door clicked shut.

And when the weight of everything finally became too heavy to swallow, you broke quietly. The tears fell far too easily, pooling hotly at the corners of your eyes before slipping down your cheeks in exhausted silence.

You pressed your forehead against the steering wheel, trying to breathe, trying not to crumble, trying not to regret the resignation sitting in someone’s box upstairs.

Only you and the little plush cat sitting in your passenger seat—the one Floyd had stolen for you during a Gate event because it reminded him of you for some reason he refused to explain—knew how much you cried.

And the worst part was that the plush stared back at you with its unblinking stitched eyes, far too judgmental for something so soft.

You woke up the next morning with the emotional stability of a soggy napkin. You tried to pretend you were fine, but the universe, as always, had other plans. Because just as you were thinking “maybe I should open a bakery or disappear,” someone began absolutely annihilating your front door.

The banging was so violent that for a terrible moment you wondered if a Gate had spawned in your hallway. You considered letting whoever it was break the door completely so you could claim the damages on your renter’s insurance.

But unfortunately, you were alive, conscious, and too curious for your own good, so you dragged yourself to the door and opened it mid-bang.

Floyd stood there like a vengeful seagull holding a cardboard box he had definitely stolen from somewhere. His hair was a mess, his shirt was half buttoned wrong, and he had the of a man who had been stewing in righteous fury for at least a day.

Before you could say hello, good morning, or “why does your aura feel like a malfunctioning blender,” he shouldered past you into your apartment with such force that you spun a little in place like a confused NPC.

The first words out of his mouth were:

“Your apartment is tiny and I hate it.”

No greeting. No preamble. Just that raw, unfiltered critique of your living conditions as he walked in like he was conducting a surprise inspection.

You blinked blearily. “Good morning?”

He ignored the concept of mornings entirely and dumped the box into your arms like a disgruntled postal employee.

The box was heavy, and when you opened it a crack, you saw a horrifying assortment of Floyd’s personal office items: the jacket he threw at interns when bored, a handful of pens he stole from HR, a stress ball shaped like a goldfish, three mission reports with dubious stains, and the shark plush he once used as a projectile during a meeting.

You stared into the box, then up at him. “Why do I have your… everything?”

He scoffed in a single huffy exhale that sounded like a cat preparing to fight its own reflection. “Because ya suck.”

Your eyelid twitched. “Okay. And?”

He gestured wildly at you like you were failing a math class you hadn’t even signed up for. “You shoulda warned me if we were quittin’ together.”

You stared. “We—wait—both?”

He kept going, leaning closer until there was barely any space left between you, his voice lower now but not gentler, still sharp with the edge of hurt he clearly didn’t want you to see. “You’re mine,” he snapped, not in a possessive way, but in the bewildered tone of someone who had made a decision weeks ago and was confused why you hadn’t reached the same conclusion. “So how can we not quit together? Or stay together? Why would you leave me behind? What part of this is confusin’ ya?”

“The entire thing,” you said honestly, holding the box like you were cradling a bomb.

He made a noise of frustration so dramatic it could have won a theatre award. “Why would I go to work if you’re not there? I’m not gonna sit in the office alone like some boring loser while you pretend to move on with your life. That’s stupid. I’m not stupid. You’re stupid.”

You were now too tired to be offended. “Floyd… you can’t just quit the Bureau because I quit.”

He blinked at you like you had just told him water was wet. “‘Course I can.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“It's exactly how it works,” he said, stepping closer like proximity would destroy your argument through sheer force of personality. “You’re mine. So we’re in this together. How’d ya not figure this out? Have you not been paying attention?”

You made a horrible, broken laugh that escaped your chest before you could stop it. The kind of laugh that said “my brain is burning” mixed with “this man is ruining my life.” “Pay attention to what exactly?” you asked, voice cracking in disbelief.

He rolled his eyes so hard you could practically hear them rotate. “To me. Duh.”

And then you finally broke in a “my last functioning neuron has snapped and I am now operating on pure emotional instinct” way.

Because without thinking or considering even one consequence, you reached up, grabbed his face with one hand, and kissed him like you were trying to short-circuit both your futures.

Floyd froze for exactly one millisecond, the sheer shock visible on his face, and then he made a low, delighted noise that absolutely should not have made your spine do that Thing.

He grabbed your waist with both hands and dipped you so strongly that the box of stolen office supplies launched itself out of your other hand, hit the floor, burst open, and scattered Bureau property all over your rug.

He kissed you back with aggressive enthusiasm, tilting your chin, pulling you closer, and acting like this was the best morning activity he’d ever been gifted. At one point he pressed you so tightly against him that you wondered if he was trying to absorb you like a chaotic emotional sponge.

When he finally pulled away slightly—just enough to look at you, his forehead almost touching yours—he gave you a grin so smug, so unbearably pleased, that you nearly slapped it off his face.

“Knew you were mine,” he murmured. “You’re just slow.”

You dropped your forehead against his chest because your legs felt entirely unreliable.

You were doomed.

Comically doomed.

Astrologically doomed.

Emotionally doomed in six flavors.

And you loved him anyway.

Floyd had always thought being an Esper was the perfect gig. You get to punch monsters, throw yourself into glowing portals, and legally commit violence without anyone giving you a lecture about “ethics” or “property damage.”

For a while, that alone sustained him. But eventually even chaos gets boring, especially when every Guide assigned to him trembled like a leaf trapped in a wind tunnel. Scaring them used to be hilarious. He loved watching them squeak and drop their clipboards whenever he smiled too wide.

But after the fifteenth one fainted mid-sentence, even he lost interest. Predictability was a disease, and he was allergic to boredom.

Then you showed up.

You walked in acting like the Bureau hadn’t personally attacked your soul every day since birth. You held your clipboard like it was emotional support, you breathed like a person silently negotiating with god, and your eyes had the frantic, neurotic panic of a raccoon trapped inside a fridge. Floyd took one look at your “I’m trying so hard to function normally” energy and immediately felt nourished. Finally, someone with seasoning.

The universe must have agreed, because not long after, it launched him out of a Gate like a missile someone forgot to aim. He soared through the air, limbs flailing with the grace of a disgruntled albatross, and crash-landed straight into you.

You weren’t even doing anything. You were just standing there like an innocent item on a grocery shelf, and he barreled into you like a shopping cart possessed by demons. But Floyd forever remembered it as “you heroically caught him,” and no amount of eyewitness correction would change that.

Before he could say anything, you touched him and instinctively guided him, and that tiny flicker of stability hit him like someone had thrown a warm blanket over his brain. Floyd made a noise that would haunt weaker Guides.

It was the sound of a man experiencing emotional stability for the first and last time in his life.

He melted on the spot. It was embarrassing. It also felt great. So when you kept guiding him afterwards, voluntarily and without the Bureau forcing you at clipboard-point, Floyd officially decided you were his new favorite thing.

Naturally, right when he was getting ready to poke at you more—see what made you twitch, what made you huff, what made your carefully neutral expression fall apart—you crashed out. You crashed like your mental health saw a cliff and said “bet.”

It was dramatic, Bureau-alarming, paperwork-generating. They yanked you away and slapped you into a full-year paid vacation like you were a ticking bomb made of feelings. Floyd hated it. The world lost color. Missions felt like static. Floyd found this whole situation deeply inconvenient.

Without you, missions were boring again. Monsters were boring. His coworkers were boring. Even bullying rookies felt like eating cereal without milk. He wandered the halls like a neglected housecat whose favorite human had gone on holiday.

Jade kept trying to talk to him about “processing emotions,” which was rich coming from a man whose emotional range went from “smiling politely” to “smiling ominously.”

Then one day you came back. You walked into headquarters looking like you had fought god and lost, but you were still you, and that was enough.

And Floyd decided instantly that you were going to be his Guide forever. Who cared that you were SS-ranked and he was B-ranked?

Rank differences? Fake.

Bureau rules? Fake.

The concept of professional boundaries? Fictional.

But your guiding was not fake. And he wanted it forever. Touching you felt good in a way he refused to analyze, so obviously he needed more of it.

Then he went into another Gate. A strong one this time, too strong for his rank—but Floyd loved ignoring rank restrictions, so he charged in happily. Some ugly creature managed to scratch him, and Floyd got so offended that he almost marched right back inside to beat it into soup.

But before he could exact revenge, you appeared from behind a trashcan, dragged him bodily to a bench like he weighed nothing, and guided him until he shut up completely.

He pretended to be annoyed but secretly enjoyed every second of you fussing over him, especially the part where he got to lean on you with zero shame.

Later, Jade mentioned something about a bunch of Guides getting trapped in a farmers market Gate because they were shopping instead of being smart. Floyd’s first instinct was to cackle loudly and call them all idiots.

But then he had another thought, a horrible intrusive one: “Shrimpy would absolutely get trapped in a farmers market.”

So he grabbed his phone and sent you a message pretending he was checking for the purposes of mockery.

In reality, he typed “don’t tell me ur one of the losers who got trapped in the farmer’s market gate” and hovered his thumb over send for longer than he would ever admit.

When you replied that you were safe and not stuck in some overpriced vegetable carnival, Floyd felt his shoulders drop, not that he was going to acknowledge that sensation out loud. His brain went, “oh thank fuck,” but his mouth said, “lol losers.”

It was at that moment that Floyd—though he would rather chew gravel than tell you directly—realized you had become his comfort human. His stabilizer. His favorite emotional toy. His certified interesting thing.

And he wasn’t planning to let anyone else have you.

Not then.

Not ever.

Even if he had to steal you directly from the Bureau.

Which was also why Floyd ended up at the compatibility event—a hellscape he had vowed never to set foot in unless bribed with prizes or explosives. But you asked him so he came.

Did he admit that he went because of you? Absolutely not. Did he glare at everyone in the room like they were personally insulting his outfit? Yes.

Then he saw you standing next to another Esper and he short-circuited.

His entire brain became one long dial-up noise.

You were standing next to someone who had the nerve—the audacity—the GALL—to breathe near you like you were an available romance option in a dating sim.

Floyd’s eye twitched with enough force to cause seismic damage. He considered removing the man from the timeline entirely. But he pretended he was okay, and approached you with the same smug grin you were used to.

But then you immediately abandoned the other guy like he was expired yogurt. You walked straight to Floyd, grabbed him by the wrist, dragged him to the coordinator, and declared compatibility with him. Floyd didn’t even have to gloat. He just felt the warm, smug glow of the universe aligning itself correctly for once.

From that point on, you were his. Permanently. The compatibility event had spoken, and Floyd didn’t question fate when it benefitted him.

Naturally, he decided that since you were his, you should know things about him. And since he didn’t trust your coworkers not to interfere, he followed you into the Bureau’s ancient elevator—a relic older than the invention of the wheel. It immediately broke down, trapping you both inside with flickering lights and the faint smell of existential failure.

Floyd, delighted by the ambiance, pulled out a quiz he had prepared on stolen paperwork. You, deeply exhausted and emotionally vulnerable, made the mistake of indulging him.

You answered every single question—favorite snacks, death count estimates, hypothetical fusion body-part control—without hesitation. And somewhere in the middle of “how many monsters do you think I’ve bit?” Floyd realized a horrifying fact:

You had been watching him too.

He pretended he wasn’t thrilled. But his internal emotional raccoon was screaming.

Then came the massive Gate.

It was the kind of Gate that would make rookies cry and senior Espers file their wills. Floyd went in excitedly and came out annoyed because something hit him hard enough to bruise his ego.

He also remembered tye previous day, where Jade’s Esper—the SSS-ranked monster with enough power to shatter a city block—staggered out of the Gate looking half-dead. And Jade, who never made expressive faces unless he was about to ruin someone’s day, suddenly looked terrified.

Floyd had nearly vomited.

He had hated how it made him feel. Because he wanted someone to look at him like that.

Specifically: you.

So he refused every attempt at treatment, shoved the medics, threatened the healers, hissed at a rookie, and limped all the way back to headquarters like a wounded raccoon committed to revenge.

He went straight to your office.

You were passed out like a dead NPC.

He shook you awake because subtlety was for cowards.

And the second you opened your eyes and saw blood on him, your entire face shattered into fear, affection, and something dangerously close to heartbreak. All of it laid out for him to see.

He drank it in like water.

He didn’t want to answer your questions. He didn’t want to explain what happened. He just wanted you to touch him, guide him, hold him until the buzzing in his chest settled. And when you did—when you dropped every concern and simply focused on getting him to breathe properly again— Floyd knew exactly what that meant.

You cared.

You really cared.

And that was enough for him.

In that moment, as your hands steadied him and your voice softened around the edges, Floyd decided with absolute certainty that he didn’t need compatibility tests or Bureau approval or logic.

You were his.

And now that he’d seen your face look like that because of him, nothing was ever going to change his mind.

Floyd had always known you carried panic in your bones. It was part of your charm. Even before your crashout he could feel that buzzing tension sitting under your skin like a fire alarm only you could hear.

But the new habit you’d developed—slipping through rooms like you were avoiding debt collectors—that was different. He watched you dip behind pillars, vanish behind interns, and once even use a spinning mail cart as cover.

At first he let it slide. Guides sometimes needed space. He figured you’d come back around once your brain stopped sizzling.

Except you didn’t.

Five days passed. Then a sixth. And Floyd started to feel that crackle under his ribs that only showed up when something important was getting away from him.

So the next time he caught you trying to escape a hallway by flattening yourself against the wall like a distressed gecko, he stepped directly into your path and asked what your deal was.

You tossed out a half-answer that didn’t even qualify as a real sentence. He stared. You tried to slip past. His eye twitched. He turned on his heel and walked off, visibly annoyed enough that anyone with survival instincts would have let him go.

But then you called out his name. Soft. Uncertain. Like you weren’t sure you wanted him to hear it.

He stopped and looked back. That tiny sliver of hope flickered—and then you told him “never mind.”

Something in him snapped sideways.

He moved back toward you without thinking, walking you backwards until your shoulder blades touched the wall. You weren’t trapped by force; you were trapped by confusion and the fact that Floyd was extremely tall and extremely unwilling to drop the question.

He expected you to push back or complain or finally spit the truth out, but instead your breathing went thin and sharp and your eyes glazed over with that look Guides get when the world has worn them down to raw wire.

You didn’t break loudly. Instead, you broke inward, silent tears sliding down your face, your whole posture folding in on itself. It wasn’t dramatic or manipulative. It was the kind of collapse that comes from long-term damage.

And Floyd hated it instantly.

Not because you were crying—though that made something uncomfortable twist through him—but because you looked defenseless, and he could not stand seeing you crushed like that.

He stepped back immediately, hands up, giving you more space than anyone would’ve expected from him. The wild part of his energy dimmed, replaced by something careful and strangely gentle.

He scooped you up only when you’d gone so still he wasn’t sure you could walk. The way you leaned into him without resisting struck him harder than the Gate monster that bruised three of his ribs last month.

He carried you back to your office with quiet steps, as if noise might shatter you further, and waited nearby until your breathing evened out again.

While you collected yourself, he did some collecting too—mostly ideas, none of which would pass any psychological test.

Leaving the Bureau together. Wandering. Causing problems in places with no paperwork. You at his side where he could keep track of you. You far away from the things that drained you. You alive, not hollow. And maybe him biting whoever tried to drag you back into danger.

It made sense in his head.

Then the next day he found out you’d resigned.

No warning. No message. No “hey Floyd, I’m about to wreck your entire worldview, heads up.” Just… gone.

And he felt something heavy sink into him, not the usual tantrum-madness but something quieter and sharper. You were supposed to tell him things like that. He kept track of you. You were supposed to keep track of him. That was how this worked in his brain.

Betrayal wasn’t a feeling he had often, but this hit like a truck. You were his. His Guide. His person. His shiny thing. His emotional enrichment object. And you left without even warning him?

He quit on the spot after you left. Poorly. Very poorly.

Administration tried to ask for justification, and he absolutely threatened to give them one. In blood.

They stamped the papers and sent him out.

He spent the night gathering his things—mostly stolen items, half-finished snacks, doodles on official forms, a plush he liked throwing at rookies—and shoved them all in a box.

Do you know how many things he steals in a week? Too many to pack alone.

Then he went to your apartment the next morning, because stewing alone was not one of his skills.

He banged on your door like he was trying to knock the building down. When you opened it, he barreled inside, declared your apartment too small for someone as interesting as you, and handed you his resignation-box because he fully expected you to react.

He wanted a confrontation. An explanation. Something.

He demanded to know why you didn’t warn him. You sputtered. He ranted. You blinked at him like a confused kitten. He insulted your apartment size. You apologized for reasons unclear.

You looked overwhelmed—which was not the satisfying reaction he’d come for—and he found himself snapping before he could stop it, asking why you thought you could run off without him following.

You tried to answer, but your confusion was so… you that it knocked the anger right out of him. He just stared at you, half annoyed, half relieved you weren’t hurt, fully annoyed again that you had made him pack things alone.

Then you reached for him and kissed him like your brain finally lined up with his.

He felt your whole body lean into the kiss, and something inside him slid into place with ridiculous ease. He dipped you because it felt right. You clung to him because it felt right. Your thoughts finally matched his because it was about time.

You didn’t need to say it out loud. Floyd already knew.

Finally.

Finally you got with the program.

You’re a little slow on the uptake, but that’s okay.

He likes you that way.

You don’t go back to the Bureau.

Floyd doesn’t either.

Between the two of you, there’s enough savings from years of guiding and monster-punching to coast for a long while, maybe forever if neither of you develop a sudden taste for yachts or solid gold kitchen appliances.

There’s no supervisor tracking your hours anymore. No Gates pulling you in at dawn. No panicked rookies clinging to clipboards. No compatibility tests waiting to ambush you in the hallway.

Just Floyd. And you. And the entire world outside the Bureau’s walls.

It’s a strange sort of freedom—one that still makes your stomach flip like you’ve forgotten an assignment. But Floyd seems immune to that particular anxiety.

He takes the idea of wandering as easily as he takes everything else in life: no planning, no hesitation, just enthusiasm that occasionally terrifies you but always pulls you forward.

Your stamina doesn’t match his. It never has. Floyd can walk for hours without slowing down, hopping over rocks and obstacles like the world is one long playground built specifically for him.

You get tired after a while, sometimes earlier than you want to admit. You try to hide it once or twice. It never works.

He never lets you fall behind.

If you lag, he loops back immediately, grabbing your hand or your backpack strap or your shirt sleeve like he’s reeling you in.

If you sit down, he plops down with you, even if he was mid-rant about how boring the path was or how he wanted to walk all the way to the next city before sunset.

If you sigh too heavily, he mutters something about Guides having fragile little bodies and scoops you up onto his back like it’s a requirement.

He complains sometimes, but it never means what it sounds like.

“Shrimpy, you walk so slow.”

“You’re tired already? I’m barely warmed up.”

“You can’t keep up with me at all.”

But his hands keep steady on you. His steps remain paced to match yours. Every time he talks, you can hear the affection threaded into the irritation like it can’t help leaking out.

And at the end of every day—no matter where you are, no matter how long you’ve walked—the two of you settle down somewhere quiet.

Sometimes it’s a cheap inn with creaky floors. Sometimes it’s a tiny rented room with mismatched blankets. Sometimes it’s a beach, or a hillside, or under a tree that looks like it’s seen too many seasons.

He always pulls you against his chest when you lie down.

It's never done half-heartedly, it's always wiith the full-body insistence of someone who believes proximity is a basic human need. His legs tangle with yours. His arm wraps around your middle. His chin rests in your hair or on your shoulder, depending on how he’s feeling.

He falls asleep like that—holding you like the world can’t take you away if he keeps a firm enough grip.

And you always relax.

For the first time in years, there are no Gates waiting to snap open or explosions of psychic energy or psychic static crawling under your skin.

And most importantly, there's no fear of losing someone in a fight you weren’t even present for.

It's just you and Floyd’s heartbeat under your ear which is stubborn proof that he’s here and staying here.

And in that wide, quiet moment—pressed against him with his arm heavy and protective around your ribs—you feel a peace so complete it startles you. A peace you never thought your body would know how to feel.

Because he’s not going anywhere.

And you’re not losing him.

You close your eyes, and the last thing you hear is Floyd mumbling something half-asleep and smug, something about how he told you you’d be happier like this.

He’s right.

Of course he is.

You fall asleep smiling.

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