“Hamilton, in my office, please,” Flock said, and paced back and forth. Her office was a larger version of ‘Interrogation Room Four,’ that just so happened to be her living quarters as well, although tasteful wooden dividers and curtains segmented the large space in such a way that someone coming in to see her wouldn’t be able to see that she was actually pretty terrible at making her own bed. But she enjoyed living in what was ostensibly a large loft. Cut into pieces like this, it was cozy.

It was helping. A bit. She’d put on a pot of tea and the smell was slowly filling the space as she moved from makeshift room to room. While it was cozy, it felt a little empty sometimes. There was a lot of floor space, and while she’d filled it with furniture and decorations, really made it hers, it could do with a bit more life. 

That’s not what was bothering her, though. Ellis was on his way up, and would be here in just a moment, and she still hadn’t really decided on what she was going to do. She hadn’t heard from Tee or Tore. Maybe her information was out of date, or maybe Tore didn’t want to be contacted until Flock had something substantial to offer. But until she could make connection, she couldn’t tell anyone that Ellis had appeared. There were a few avenues of approach, but none of them were exactly ideal. So she needed input, and she was worried that Ellis wouldn’t be receptive. He’d already been staying here for weeks, and he’d been inordinately patient. What if he wanted to leave? 

That was, of course, the other thing. She didn’t want him to leave. He’d been stationed as part of her personal guard for most of his time here, which she’d explained as her wanting to keep an eye on the new person in her compound. But she couldn’t deny that he was, well, refreshing. He was… fun. Fun to have around. He had a refreshing view on things, and he seemed to have an innate understanding of what she was trying to do. He called them ‘theatrics’ and very often complained about how derivative a lot of her presentation was, despite the fact that, as far as she was aware, there was nobody like her. She didn’t know of a single other person in the city who had a giant laser pointed at a steel table in their basement. 

As frustrating as it was for him to be able to tell where her secret passages were, which he would call ‘cliché’ with a little smirk, he was also a breath of fresh air, and he had a sense of humour about everything. Other than Tee and Mal, there wasn’t much that seemed to be able to upset him, and it was fun to have someone she could talk to about things that maybe weren’t as important. Even Shakes, who was a good guy, was someone she mostly confided in when it came to plans and the running of her operations, but she couldn’t talk about, well… herself. She felt dumb even thinking about it. Maybe I should keep a diary, she thought grumpily to herself, with a little lock on the cover, where I complain about food and boys. She resisted the urge to throw something and settled on angrily sipping her tea. 

Flock hated the fact that she wanted someone like Ellis in her life. All things considered, if it had to be someone, she could do a lot worse than him, though. He wasn’t just fun, he was thoughtful, too. He had a habit of not hearing what she was saying because he was too busy listening to what she wasn’t saying and then cutting to the heart of what was actually bothering her. People weren’t supposed to be good at communication. That was cheating. And speaking of…

Flock sat down on her desk and turned the screen on it towards her. He was getting close. She sighed and looked at him. A few weeks of wearing twenty pounds of armor every day coupled with a lot of training, and he’d become a lot more… um. To say he was taking to it well was an understatement. And he’d done so without complaint. He was a perfect guard, even if he had a tendency to say something inappropriate at just the right moment to make another guard -- or herself -- lose their composure. She figured everyone in the compound liked having him around, after the initial strangeness had worn off. And that was, of course, the problem. She liked having him around. A lot. And he was here, waiting on his partner. There was a gross, filthy little part of her that wished they’d never find Tee. But she also knew that not finding them would probably break Ellis, and she wanted him to keep smiling and cracking jokes and saying ‘Yes ma’am’ in just that tone of voice. Fuck.

The door chimed, and she beeped him in. Ellis stepped inside, helmet under his arm, and saluted just a little too sharply. She knew he was taking the piss, but there was no way to prove it. His uniform was pristine, and his face a picture of perfect composure, excepting the subtle pull at the corner of his mouth that told her he was very close to breaking out in a wide grin. She raised an eyebrow. Both could play this game. If he was going to play the perfect little soldier and stand at attention until she gave him the word, she was going to see how long he could keep up. She squinted. He kept a straight face. She sat down behind her desk and pretended to do some administrative work, typing away, shooting him a glance from time to time. He didn’t even move. 

He didn’t move for thirteen minutes, and Flock was finally the one to crack. “All right, Fuck, at ease, Hamilton.” His face split into a wide grin and he relaxed. “You win,” she said. “How are you doing?”

“I’m doing pretty good, boss. Had training earlier. Shakes owes me another fifty, if you can believe it.” His grin got wider. Somehow. Flock pretended not to take notice, or of how he got a little glint in his eye when he was happy like that. “Is there any reason you called me in today, Ma’am?” She nodded and rapped her fingers on the desk, thinking. 

“I’ve been thinking of ways to help you, Ellis,” she said, and her use of his first name immediately mellowed the atmosphere in the room. It was an unspoken agreement. As soon as she did, he stopped being Hamilton, the employee. She liked to think that, as soon as she said his name, he was her friend, Ellis, although she didn’t want to be that kind of presumptuous. He put his helmet on a dresser and sat down in the chair opposite her desk and leaned forward. “I still haven’t heard anything, and I’m starting to think a more direct approach is going to prove to be necessary.”

He nodded, and chewed his tongue. “What are you thinking?” He looked her in the eye, his face serious, and his eyes were just so… ugh. She shook her head, as imperceptibly as possible, trying to focus. Of course he caught it. “Is everything okay?” She grimaced, and then nodded. 

“Yeah. It’s just going to be a little bit risky. For the most part, I’ve been using the most secure channels possible, trying to contact Tore -- the mercenary, if you remember -- but things have changed over the past year. Hero attacks have been getting more frequent…” She trailed off, trying to explain the intricate political minefield of bullshit that was the city’s infrastructure and its power dynamics. Ellis just nodded.

“You think sending a more public ‘To whom it may concern’ message is going to draw attention to you,” he said. “I get that. Me being here is… that’s the problem, then?” The way he said that was comforting. Well, it was comforting in the sense that it was sad. He seemed genuinely upset at the idea of leaving. Woo, she thought, we can both be sad. 

“Yes,” she said. “If I send out a message telling everyone you’re here, every corporation and hero out there is going to think you’re important, and they’re all going to come here looking for you. My defenses would be… tested. They’ve already been cracking down harder and harder on the criminal elements in the city. Even bounty hunters have been having a rough time of it.”

“Hum,” he said. “Wouldn’t sending a message draw that kind of attention anyway? Or… is it just that you’re trying to protect your organisation?” His voice grew quiet. He looked like a wounded puppy, and she resented the accusation that she’d value her operation over him. Flock paused her train of thought. Of course her operation was more important than one person in it, what kind of thinking was that? But why did it bother her so much that he seemed to think so too? She shook her head again. 

“I don’t think I can send out a message without people tracing it back to me. I’m not going to put a giant beacon on your head and throw you into the street, if that’s what you think.” He smiled a little and leaned back. Flock explicitly did not melt at the sight of that smile, the one that could light up a room. Maybe she should throw him out into the street, regardless of what she’d promised. Fuck him and his stupid face. “No… I think… what I’m saying is that, if you’re willing to take the risk, I think we can afford to have my defenses tested.” Flock steepled her fingers and looked at him, trying to keep her cool. “But if you’re not willing, I can find a way to send you up to where they were last seen. Right now, I can’t afford the attention of a major bounty hunter, but I can send a couple of the other guards with you. Your pick.”

Ellis blinked a few times, considering the options. Both of them were terrible. Option one would, if she was lucky, see her base under constant attack from heroes and the worst the major corporations could throw at her. She knew she’d been slowly becoming more and more of a target. Haze’s attack had made that clear. But option two would see Ellis leaving. And that was also terrible. She tried not to influence him one way or the other. She wanted him to take the decision hims--

“Which one would you prefer I take?” he asked. Damn this guy. He smiled warmly again and she felt like she was going to cry. “I… I like being here, bo-- Flock. More than I thought I would. Sure, the people in barracks are great -- you tend to pick out good ones -- and Shakes is a hell of a guy. The people down in science are a little stand-offish, but they mellow out after a few rounds of cards. But I didn’t expect to… you know… enjoy… hanging out. Y’know. With you.”

Flock screamed a little bit. On the inside. She just nodded, trying to keep her poker face intact. “I think the… feeling… is mutual,” she said, carefully. “What’s your point?”

“I think you weren’t maybe in the greatest place before I got here, right?” he asked, as if he could just casually walk up to her and read her mind like that. “Like, you’ve got goals and stuff, but you’re alone in your office all the time, and as far as I can tell, you literally only ever work. You’ve got books all over this place, but you never read. You don’t take time for yourself. Or, well,” he smirked softly to himself, the cocky bastard, “you didn’t. Until you started inviting me up here. This isn’t, y’know, a strategy meeting. I think we both like me being up here.”

Flock felt her eyes stinging and she really, really didn’t need her own body betraying her own feelings like that right now. She needed him to make a choice already. A cold, calculated choice. None of this… caring bullshit. “Maybe,” she said, and her voice cracked only a little bit. “What of it?”

“What do you want to do?”

“I asked you first,” she said, and retroactively realized how childish that had sounded. She was practically pouting. 

“Well, what I want is to stay here, but I don’t want to put your base at risk, Flock. What you’re doing here is important, and I don’t want to get in the way of that. If you need me to strike out on my own, I’ll do it. In a heartbeat. You and what you’re doing here are important.” She smiled, despite herself. He’d called her important!

“I think that has the best chance of success,” she said, her voice still unsteady. “You staying here, I mean.” He smiled, and then did the unthinkable. He wiped his eyes. She hadn’t noticed him tearing up!? 

“I was hoping you’d say that,” he said. “I’d rather do this here than alone. Other than worrying, I’ve had a pretty good time here these past few weeks. With you.” Oh. You beautiful, annoying man, she thought. How -dare- you. She wiped a tear from her own eye. How had someone like that gotten under her skin so fast? 

“In that case,” she said, “I’ll get preparations started. It’s going to take a while to prepare everything, you know that.” He nodded. “But I --” Her voice quaked. “-- I’m glad you’re staying. I like you.” She’d said it. It was out there.

“I like you too,” he said, his voice small. “Y-- you’re…” Ellis took a deep breath, and Flock had to keep herself from staring at his mouth, waiting for the next few words to come out. “You’re a good friend.”

Boom. Dead. Flock was dead. Straight through the heart. She nodded. Her words were failing her. She knew of course, that Ellis had a partner, but she’d hoped that maybe, maybe… Ellis took another breath and seemed to think, looking for words.

“I… Okay, what I… I can’t say what I…” he said, eloquently. He shook his head. “Let’s do this differently. You’re not a good friend.” Excuse you? she thought. She was getting to a point where she wanted to reach for the gun hidden under her desk. “Well, not just a friend.” Oh. “But I have to…”

“What do you have to, Ellis? Don’t fuck with me right now.”

“Okay, I might have to… have you ever heard of polyamory?”

Elamimax

Communication is hard, ya know?

If you like this story and want to know how it ends, All 34 chapters are up on my patreon! Subscribers will get access to every single chapter right now. Other than that, I will be posting a chapter (maybe even two) every other day (I don't think we'll get many more four-a-day like this :p). If you're in the mood to catch up on my other stories, feel free to check them out. Additionally, Horns in the Library 1 is now available as an ebook! 

I also want to point people at the discord server of the ever-prolific QuietValerie (right here) where you can find her wonderful stories, like Ryn of Avonside, Falling Over and The Trouble With Horns, as well as other authors' works, and talk about them with fellow fans, and even the authors themselves! I heartily recommend joining it and reading their works! (Also check out Walls of Anamoor. It's rad as heck.) 

Thanks again for reading, and I'll see you all in the next one. 

<3