"You have not seen chaos if you believe this is minimal," he says, sweeping one massive hand toward the cubicle farm beyond his partition like he's gesturing at a battlefield strewn with corpses.
I follow his gesture with my eyes, taking in the orderly rows of workstations, the neatly labeled filing systems, the precisely scheduled calendar notifications pinging softly across the office. "I've seen your first day," I counter, my voice dry as the company's health and safety manual. "That was chaos. Actual, quantifiable chaos with property damage and three separate incident reports. This—" I gesture to the peaceful hum of productivity around us, "—is controlled order. There's a difference."
He shifts in his chair, turning to face me more fully, and I feel his attention like a physical thing. "You enjoy control."
It's not a question. It's a statement, delivered with the same certainty he probably uses when identifying which end of the axe does the damage.
"I enjoy efficiency," I correct, pulling my tablet back up to review the next section of training materials. "Control is simply the tool that achieves it."
"And when control is not possible?" His question rumbles through the small space between us, deep and genuine, like he's actually trying to understand how my mind works.
I straighten my spine, squaring my shoulders with the same precision I use to align spreadsheet columns. "I make contingency plans. Multiple ones, actually. Color-coded by severity level. I have backup systems for my backup systems. Redundancies built into my redundancies. And when those inevitably encounter variables I haven't accounted for—" which happens more often than I'd ever admit in a performance review, "—I adapt and overcome using real-time data analysis and strategic resource reallocation."
"Like a warrior," he says, and there's something almost reverent in his tone, as if I've just described a battle strategy rather than basic project management protocols.
I look up from my tablet, genuinely startled by the comparison. My fingers pause mid-scroll, hovering over the screen as I process what he's just said. "I'm not a warrior," I correct him. "I'm a project manager. I manage timelines and deliverables and stakeholder expectations. I mitigate risks. I optimize workflows. That's not warfare, Thraka. That's corporate operational management."
"The difference is smaller than you think." He leans forward to examine something on the screen, and suddenly he's right there, chest brushing against my shoulder, his breath stirring the hair near my temple.
Every nerve ending lights up.
My heart kicks into overdrive, pounding against my ribs with a force that makes my Fitbit buzz a concerned inquiry on my wrist.
Professional distance. I need to maintain professional distance. This is a fundamental principle of workplace conduct, clearly outlined in section 4.2 of the employee handbook, which I have not only read but also helped revise during the last policy update cycle.
I should move. The logical, rational, professionally appropriate action would be to create physical space between myself and my colleague. To relocate to a different position in the room. To step back, reclaim my personal boundaries, restore the proper radius of interpersonal separation that corporate culture dictates.
I don't move.
My body remains exactly where it is, frozen in place like a system caught in an infinite loop, unable to execute the next command in the sequence. My muscles refuse to respond to the clear directives my brain is issuing. It's as if every protocol I've ever established has suddenly been overridden by something far more primitive, something that doesn't care about HR guidelines or professional conduct policies or the fact that I have never, not once in my entire career, allowed personal considerations to interfere with workplace professionalism.
"Why does your heart beat like a trapped bird, Little Manager?" His voice is low, curious, too close to my ear.
Heat floods my face.
"It doesn't," I lie, smooth and automatic, the same voice I use to assure executives that projects are on schedule when they're absolutely not.
"I can hear it." He taps the side of his head with one thick finger, drawing attention to the pointed ear that's visible through the wild tangle of his hair. "Orc hearing. Very, verygood. Better than human. I can hear your pulse from here, Little Manager. Fast. Rapid. Fluttering. You sound like prey."
The word sends an involuntary shiver down my spine that I absolutely refuse to acknowledge.
"I'm not prey," I say, injecting as much ice into my tone as I can manage, which is considerably less than usual given the current circumstances.
"Then why do you run?" His head tilts, genuinely curious, like he's trying to solve a puzzle that doesn't quite make sense to him.
"I'm not running." I gesture unnecessarily at my current position, my voice rising just slightly despite my best efforts to maintain professional composure. "I'm sitting. Right here. Exactly where I've been this entire time. Stationary. Sedentary. Definitionally not running."
But even as I speak, even as I list the factual evidence of my physical location, my body wants to run.
Or maybe it wants something else entirely, something my rational brain refuses to process because Thraka is a co-worker and this is a workplace and I have professional standards that I will not compromise regardless of how warm his proximity feels or how my traitorous heart continues its frantic percussion solo.
I stand abruptly, putting the chair between us, reclaiming space and sanity.
"Break time," I announce. "Fifteen minutes. There's a break room on this floor. Do not eat anyone's lunch. Do not challenge anyone to a duel. Do not decapitate, maim, or otherwise physically harm any employee."
"Those are many rules."
"And you're going to follow all of them."
