"This is a disaster," she says through her fingers, her voice muffled but still perfectly articulate. Even when laughing, even when breaking, she enunciates.
"Yes," I agree cheerfully, because I see no point in denying the obvious. The evidence is literally unconscious at our feet.
"You've been here less than two hours," she continues, lowering her hand enough that I can see her lips quirking despiteher clear attempt to regain her composure, "and you've already knocked someone unconscious."
"Technically, he knocked himself unconscious," I point out, holding up one finger in what I believe is the correct gesture for making an important distinction. "I merely provided the stimulus."
"That's not a defense!" Her voice rises again, though there's less fury in it now and something that might be hysteria creeping in at the edges.
"It is an observation," I counter calmly.
She lowers her hand. Her smile is gone, but something softer lingers in its place. Exhaustion, maybe. Or resignation.
"You can't keep doing this," she says quietly, her voice dropping to something softer, something almost weary. The sharpness hasn't left her posture—she still stands like a drawn blade—but there's a fragility creeping into the edges now, like even she knows she's fighting a losing battle.
"Doing what?" I ask, genuinely curious. I tilt my head, studying her face for clues.
"Treating the office like a battlefield," she says, gesturing vaguely at Steve's unconscious form with her free hand, the one not clutching that ridiculous binder like it's a shield. "Like every interaction is a potential combat scenario."
I consider this. "Is it not?" I ask, because from where I stand, the distinction seems arbitrary at best.
"No," she says, firmly now, her voice regaining some of that crisp authority I've come to recognize as her default setting. "It's a place of business. People come here to work, to collaborate, to produce results. Not to... to duel over lunch."
"Business is war by another name," I counter, crossing my arms over my chest. It's a simple truth, one I learned long before I ever set foot in this fluorescent-lit maze of cubicles and carpet that smells faintly of cleaning solution and despair. "Youcompete for resources. You conquer markets. You defeat rivals. The language is the same."
"That's not—" She stops. Reconsiders. "Okay, sometimes. But we use emails and meetings, not duels and conquest."
"Emails are cowardly," I say, and I mean it with every fiber of my being. "They hide the speaker behind words on a glowing screen. They let people say things they would never dare speak face-to-face. Meetings are tedious, endless circles of talk with no action, no resolution, just more meetings to plan future meetings." I lean forward slightly. "Duels are honest. Two warriors. Clear stakes. Immediate resolution. No ambiguity."
"Duels are illegal," she shoots back, her voice flat and matter-of-fact, like she's reading from one of her precious policy manuals. "As in, against the law. As in, you will go to jail. As in, I will have to hire a lawyer, and lawyers are expensive, and I am not paying for your bail because you decided the copy machine was your mortal enemy."
"Then your laws are flawed," I counter, spreading my hands as if this is the most obvious conclusion in the world. "Any system that prevents direct, honorable conflict is a system designed by cowards for cowards."
She looks at me for a long moment, her dark eyes sharp and assessing behind those severe glasses. I can practically see the gears turning in her head, the calculations, the risk assessments, the internal spreadsheets she's probably creating to categorize exactly how much of a liability I am.
Then, with a sigh that sounds like it's been building for hours, she picks up the binder, tucks it under her arm with the practiced efficiency of someone who has carried many binders to many meetings, and points one perfectly manicured finger at Steve's prone form on the floor.
"Help me get him to the nurse's office," she says, her tone leaving no room for negotiation.
I grin. "So we are allies now?"
"We are co-workers now. And you're going to learn the rules if I have to tattoo them onto your skin."
"I would prefer the duel."
"I know you would."
I lift Steve easily, slinging him over one shoulder like a sack of grain. He weighs almost nothing.
Orla leads the way out of the breakroom, and I follow, Steve dangling limply, the binder tucked under her arm like a weapon she's not ready to use yet.
As we walk, I catch her glancing back at me.
She's calculating again. Planning. Trying to figure out how to manage me, contain me, fit me into the neat little boxes of her world.
She will fail.
But watching her try will be entertaining.
