I. Fifth Birthday

The cake was lopsided, chocolate with too-sweet frosting that his mother had made herself because store-bought was too expensive. Five candles stuck out at odd angles, waiting to be lit. Dillon sat at the kitchen table in their Baltimore rowhouse, swinging his legs that didn't quite reach the floor, watching his mother move around the small space.

"Can we call Daddy now?" he asked.

His mother's hands stilled on the matchbox. She didn't turn around. "Baby, we talked about this."

"But it's my birthday. He always calls on my birthday."

"Dillon." Her voice was careful, controlled. She turned to face him, and her eyes were red-rimmed though she wasn't crying now. She'd been crying a lot lately. "Daddy can't call anymore. Remember?"

He remembered something. People in dark clothes coming to the door. His mother making a sound like an animal. His sister Camille holding him too tight, her face pressed into his coily hair. But it didn't make sense. Daddy was supposed to come home. Daddy always came home, even when he was gone for weeks at a time doing the work he couldn't talk about.

"Is he still on a mission?"

"No, baby. He's not coming back from this one." She came over, knelt beside his chair, took his small hands in hers. Her hands were rough from the two jobs she worked, cleaning houses during the day and serving drinks at night. "He's gone. He's not coming back. Do you understand?"

He didn't. Not really. Gone was what happened to toys you lost or the neighbor's cat that ran away. Gone wasn't permanent. Gone didn't mean forever.

"But he promised," Dillon said, his voice getting smaller. "He promised he'd teach me to ride a bike. He said when I turned five."

His mother's face crumpled. She pulled him close, pressing his face against her shoulder. He could feel her shaking.

"Stop it," Camille said from the doorway. Her voice was sharp, angry in a way Dillon had never heard before. "Stop lying to him."

Their mother pulled back from Dillon, turned to look at Camille. "Excuse me?"

"He thinks Daddy's coming back." Camille was ten years old yet looked older, her face set in hard lines. "He keeps asking about it. You keep saying the same things and he doesn't understand."

"Cami, that's enough."

"No, it's not enough. He needs to know." Camille came into the kitchen, her hands balled into fists. "Daddy's dead, Dillon. Dead. He got killed fighting and he's never coming home and you need to stop asking about him."

"Camille!" Their mother stood up fast enough that her chair scraped against the linoleum. "Go to your room. Right now."

"Why? Because I'm telling the truth? Because someone has to?" Camille's voice was rising, cracking. "He walks around asking when Daddy's coming home and you just keep saying he's gone like that means anything. Gone isn't dead. Dead is dead."

"You're ten years old—"

"And he's five and he doesn't understand that Daddy's not on a mission, he's in the ground—"

The slap was loud in the small kitchen. Dillon flinched, pressed himself back in his chair. His mother had never hit either of them before. 

Camille touched her cheek, eyes wide and filling with tears. For a moment, nobody moved. Then Camille turned and ran upstairs, her footsteps heavy on the old wood, and a door slammed hard enough to shake the walls.

His mother stood there, hand still raised, breathing hard. Then she seemed to realize Dillon was watching and lowered her hand slowly. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry, baby. I didn't mean—"

"Is Daddy really dead?" Dillon asked. His voice was very small.

She closed her eyes. Opened them. Came back to him and knelt again, taking his hands. "Yes. He's really dead."

"Like Mr. Patterson's dog?"

"Yes. Like Max."

"And he's not coming back? Ever?"

"No, baby. Never."

Something cold settled in Dillon's chest. A weight that hadn't been there before. He looked at his mother's face, at the tears on her cheeks. He looked at the lopsided cake and the unlit candles and the presents wrapped in newspaper.

"Can I have cake now?" he asked.

His mother looked at him for a long moment. Then she nodded, stood, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She lit the candles with shaking hands. "Make a wish," she said.

He used to wish for his father to come home. But his father was dead. Dead like Max, who got hit by a car and didn't get up. Dead like the bird he'd found in the backyard last summer. Dead and gone and never coming back.

He didn't know what to wish for anymore.

He blew out the candles anyway. All five in one breath. His mother cut the cake, gave him a too-large piece on a chipped plate. It tasted like chocolate and something else he couldn't name. Something bitter.

Upstairs, he could hear Camille crying. His mother heard it too, kept glancing toward the stairs like she wanted to go up there but couldn't make herself move.

"Should we take her some cake?" Dillon asked.

"In a little while, baby. Let her calm down first."

They ate in silence. The cake was too sweet and the frosting stuck to the roof of his mouth. Outside, someone's radio was playing and kids were yelling in the street. Normal sounds. Like nothing had changed. Like his father wasn't dead and his sister wasn't crying and his mother hadn't hit her for the first time ever.

After a while, his mother got up and went to check on Camille. Dillon heard low voices upstairs, his mother's gentle and apologetic, Camille's choked and angry. He sat at the table and looked at what was left of his birthday cake, at the presents he hadn't opened yet, at the kitchen that suddenly felt too small and too quiet.

His father had been a contractor. That meant something important, something dangerous. Something that got you killed if you weren't careful enough or strong enough or lucky enough.

Dillon was five years old and he was starting to understand that some things, once they were gone, stayed gone.

His mother came back downstairs eventually, eyes redder than before. She sat next to him and pulled him into her lap even though he was getting too big for that. "I love you," she said into his hair. "You know that, right?"

"I know."

"Your daddy loved you too. So much."

"I know that too."

"Good." She held him tighter. "That's all that matters. That's what you need to remember."

But what Dillon remembered, years later, wasn't the love. It was the weight in his chest. The understanding that people left and didn't come back. That gone meant forever. That wishing didn't change anything.

II. Fifteenth Birthday

The shawarma place was still open despite the hour, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, the smell of cooking meat and garlic sauce thick in the air. They'd piled into two booths, seven of them, still wearing the clothes they'd worn on the mission, still smelling like blood and smoke and the chemical stench of dissolved Abnormality.

Dillon sat wedged between Connor and Stephen, their shoulders pressed together in the booth's limited space. Across from them, Tristan was arguing with Matthew about whose kill count was higher, while James scrolled through messages on his flip phone with a glazed expression.

"I'm telling you, the centipede was mine," Matthew said. He had blood on his collar, probably not his own. "You took out the scorpion."

"The centipede split into segments. I took out five of them. That's five kills." Tristan was the oldest at twenty-two, broad-shouldered and scarred, contracted to an ALEPH-class Abnormality, just like Dillon. He'd been doing this longest, had the kind of confidence that came from surviving things that should have killed you. His codename was Alcmaeon, same as the Greek hero. Command thought it was fitting.

"That's not how it works."

"That's exactly how it works."

Dillon ate his shawarma in silence, letting the argument wash over him. His hands were steady despite everything, despite the fact that three hours ago he'd been covered in the caustic fluid that passed for blood in fear-manifestations, despite watching Connor nearly lose an arm to a snake-thing that had been as thick as a tree trunk.

"Yo, Dio." Stephen nudged him with an elbow. "You good?"

"Yeah."

"You sure? You went kind of quiet after we cleared the nest."

"I'm fine." Dillon took another bite. The meat was overcooked, the sauce too tangy, but it was food and his body needed it. "Just tired."

"Kid's shell-shocked," Connor said, but not unkindly. He was nineteen, built like he should be playing football instead of fighting Abnormalities. His real name was Connor Walsh, but in the field he was Promachus. "First time seeing a WAW-class up close will do that."

"It wasn't my first time."

"First time seeing five at once, though."

That was true. The nest had been worse than Intelligence suggested—it always was—and they'd walked into what should have been a straightforward containment only to find themselves fighting off multiple WAW-class entities simultaneously. Things with too many legs, too many eyes, too many ways to kill you. Fears of insects and arachnids made manifest, responding to some trigger they still hadn't identified.

The queen had been the worst. A scorpion the size of a truck, its stinger dripping venom that ate through concrete. Dillon had seen the weak point—or Athena had shown him—a gap in the carapace where the tail segments joined. Tristan had brought the charged blows. Between the two of them, they'd brought it down.

"Dillon saw the weak point," Tristan said. "In the queen. That's what turned it."

"Athena saw the weak point," Dillon corrected. "I just followed her instructions. But yeah, taking out the queen collapsed the hierarchy. Good thinking with the detonators."

"That was Stephen."

"Team effort," Stephen said diplomatically. He was sixteen, skinny in a way that suggested he still had growing to do, but sharp. His codename was Sthenelus. "We all made it out. That's what matters."

"Mostly made it out," James murmured, still looking at his phone. James Park, callsign Euryalus. "I heard Brian took a hit to the spine. Paralyzed from the waist down. They're saying it's permanent."

The table went quiet. Brian—Aegialeus in the field—had been Epigoni until two months ago, when a containment operation went wrong in exactly the way everyone feared. He'd been the oldest of them, twenty-three, already talking about retiring to a desk job. Now he'd be lucky if he ever walked again.

"Fuck," someone said quietly.

"Yeah."

They ate in silence for a moment. The restaurant was nearly empty aside from them and a drunk couple in the corner arguing about something in low, tense voices. Outside, the city continued existing: cars passing, distant sirens, the low hum of life that never quite stopped even at two in the morning.

Dillon's shawarma tasted like ash in his mouth. He kept thinking about Brian, about how easily it could have been any of them. How it would be one of them, eventually. The Epigoni weren't supposed to all make it out. That wasn't how the story went.

"So," Matthew said eventually, because someone had to break the silence. Matthew Kumar, who went by Thersander when things got serious. "Birthday boy. Fifteen. How's it feel?"

Dillon shrugged. "Same as fourteen."

"You say that now. Wait until you can drive. That's when it gets good."

"We don't get enough downtime for driving to matter."

"Depressing but accurate." Tristan had finished his food, was working on a drink that was probably supposed to be Coke but tasted like someone's approximation of what Coke should taste like. "But hey, fifteen means you've survived a year as a contractor. That's statistically significant."

"Most don't make it past six months," Connor added helpfully.

"Jesus, let the kid enjoy his birthday." Stephen kicked him under the table. "You've got like, two more years before the existential dread is supposed to kick in."

"I think it already kicked in," Dillon deadpanned.

"See, this is what happens when you contract at fourteen. You skip right past the denial phase."

"At least I got to skip something."

That got a laugh, surprised and genuine. Even Tristan cracked a smile, which was rare enough that people noticed.

"Kid's got jokes," Connor said, impressed. "Who knew."

"Everyone knew," Stephen said. "He just doesn't waste them on you assholes."

"Language," James said absently, not looking up from his phone.

"Fuck your language. We just killed a nest of WAW-class Abnormalities. I've earned the right to swear."

They were joking, or trying to, but there was truth underneath it. Dillon had contracted young even by Achaea standards, had survived the bonding process through some combination of desperation and dumb luck. Athena had chosen him, or he'd chosen her, or they'd chosen each other—the semantics were unclear and probably didn't matter.

What mattered was that he could see weaknesses now. Structural, tactical, psychological. He looked at people and knew exactly where they were vulnerable. He looked at situations and understood the angles, the leverage points, the ways to make things fall apart or come together depending on what was needed.

It made him very good at his job. It also made him tired.

"You know what we need?" Matthew announced, suddenly animated. "We need to do something fun. Something stupid. Something that isn't a mission."

"We're literally eating shawarma at two AM," James pointed out.

"Something more stupid. Like—I don't know. Arcade. Laser tag. Normal teenage shit."

"We're not normal teenagers."

"Exactly. Which is why we should pretend for a day."

"That sounds exhausting," Dillon said.

"Everything sounds exhausting to you."

"Because everything is exhausting."

Stephen laughed, sharp and sudden. "He's got you there."

They argued about it for a while, the theoretical fun activities they could do if they had time and energy and weren't consistently deployed against existential threats. Laser tag came up again. Bowling. A movie that didn't involve supernatural horror. Someone suggested a bar, which got shot down because half of them were underage. Someone else suggested a strip club, which got shot down because Dillon would definitely get them kicked out for tactical analysis of the dancers' weak points.

"We could just, like, hang out," Stephen suggested. "Get pizza. Play video games. Normal shit."

"That's boring."

"Boring sounds pretty good right now, actually."

"You're all boring," Matthew declared. "No sense of adventure."

"We literally fought a giant scorpion tonight."

"Exactly. Now we need to balance it out with fun."

Dillon listened to them bicker, feeling something that might have been contentment. Or at least the absence of active suffering, which was close enough. These were his people, as much as anyone could be his people. They understood things civilians didn't. They'd seen the same horrors, survived the same odds, carried the same weight.

They were also all going to die, probably sooner rather than later. The statistics were clear. Contractors didn't make it to thirty, not usually. The Epigoni specifically had an even worse survival rate. They were children of dead contractors, forming contracts with the same entities that had killed their parents. The psychological toll alone should have been disqualifying.

But Achaea didn't care about psychological toll. They cared about results.

"Hey," Tristan said, pulling Dillon out of his thoughts. "You still with us?"

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Don't apologize. You did good work tonight."

"Stephen calculated the trajectory."

"Yeah, but you trusted it. You didn't second-guess, didn't hesitate. That's what made it work." Tristan leaned back. "You're going to be better than me, you know that?"

"I doubt it."

"I don't. Give it a few years. You'll be running operations, making calls. You've got the mind for it." He paused. "Just try not to let it eat you alive."

"Is that possible?"

"Probably not. But you can try."

When they finally left the restaurant, spilling out onto the street in a group that was too loud and took up too much space, Dillon felt lighter than he had in months. The night air was cold, cutting through the smell of Abnormality remains that clung to their clothes. Someone lit a cigarette. Someone else complained about the smoke. Someone made a joke about Brian that was probably too soon but got laughs anyway because that's how they processed things.

"Happy birthday, kid," Matthew said, clapping him on the shoulder hard enough to hurt. "Try to make it to sixteen."

"I'll do my best."

"That's all any of us can do."

They dispersed to various vehicles, called rides, disappeared into the city's arterial system. Stephen walked with Dillon to the bus stop, the two of them silent in the way that people who worked together could be silent. Comfortable. Undemanding.

The bus came, nearly empty, driven by someone who looked as tired as Dillon felt. They got on, paid, found seats near the back. The city passed outside the windows, familiar and strange, full of people who had no idea what moved in the spaces between their understanding.

"You ever think about quitting?" Dillon asked quietly.

"Every day."

"But you don't."

"Neither do you."

"I don't know what else I'd do."

"Yeah." Stephen stared out the window. "Same."

They rode in silence until Dillon's stop, where Stephen got off with him even though he had further to go, walked him to the group home where Achaea housed its underage contractors. The building looked normal enough from outside—just another residential structure in a city full of them.

Inside, it was different. Reinforced walls. Monitoring systems. Staff who were trained in containment procedures. A place designed to keep dangerous children safe from the world and the world safe from them.

"Fifteen," Stephen said at the door. "That's something."

"Yeah."

"Try to make it to sixteen."

"Everyone keeps saying that."

"Because we mean it."

Dillon went inside, climbed the stairs to the room he shared with two other contractors he barely knew. Miguel was asleep, snoring softly. Travis was gone, probably dead or reassigned or lost. They didn't always tell you which.

He lay down on the narrow bed without bothering to undress. His body was exhausted but his mind was still running, replaying the mission, calculating survival odds, seeing weaknesses in everything including himself.

Athena was quiet tonight, her presence just background hum. She'd be back tomorrow with observations and critiques and strategic assessments. But for now, she let him rest.

He was fifteen years old. He'd survived another year. Seven of the original Epigoni were still alive.

He tried to calculate how many would be left by the time he was sixteen, but his mind wouldn't do the math.

He fell asleep still wearing his blood-stained clothes, dreaming of centipedes with too many legs, reaching for him with mandibles that gleamed like knives.

III. Nineteenth Birthday

The car smelled like weed and cheap cologne and the staleness of club air that had soaked into their clothes. Stephen drove carefully, under the speed limit, both hands on the wheel. Beside him, Dillon was slumped in the passenger seat, cross-faded and miserable, watching the streetlights blur past.

"You gonna throw up?" Stephen asked.

"No."

"Because if you're gonna throw up, tell me now so I can pull over."

"I'm not gonna throw up."

"You look like you're gonna throw up."

"I'm fine." Dillon closed his eyes, which somehow made the spinning worse. He opened them again. "Just drive."

They'd left the strip club early, before midnight, which defeated the purpose of going to a strip club but Dillon needed to get out. Needed not to be in that place with the music too loud and the lights too red and the girl in his lap who'd smelled like vanilla and baby powder and had no idea what he was.

He'd had a vision while she was dancing for him. Athena's gift, intrusive and unwelcome. Had seen with sudden clarity the future stretching out before him: of the seven Epigoni who'd eaten shawarma four years ago, only two would survive to see twenty-five. Had seen the faces of the dead—Connor pale and still, Matthew with half his skull missing, Tristan’s body twisted at angles bodies shouldn't twist. Had seen James burning. Had seen Ryan—whose actual name he couldn't even remember now—crushed under rubble. Had seen Tyler with his throat torn out. Had seen himself and Stephen, older and scarred and alone.

The panic attack had come fast, crushing his chest until he couldn't breathe. The girl stopped dancing and asked if he was okay. He'd pushed past her, stumbled to the bathroom, and began hyperventilating over a toilet that smelled like piss and chemical cleaner. Stephen had found him there and pulled him out through the side exit before management could decide it was a problem worth addressing.

"You want to talk about it?" Stephen asked.

"No."

"You want me to guess?"

"Please don't."

They drove in silence. The city was different at night, softer somehow, the harsh edges blurred by darkness and sodium lights. Dillon watched people on street corners, stumbling out of bars, waiting for buses that might not come. Normal people with normal problems. People who didn't see the future. People who didn't know that the world was full of things that wanted to kill you.

"Three more," he said suddenly.

"What?"

"Three more of us are gone. Ryan last month. Tyler in January. Connor two weeks ago." His voice sounded flat even to himself, wrung out. "That's five out of seven. Just you and me left from that shawarma place."

Stephen's hands tightened on the wheel. "I know."

"We're not gonna make it."

"You don't know that."

"I saw it. Tonight. Athena showed me." He laughed, sharp and bitter. "Had a fucking prophetic vision while getting a lap dance. That's my life now. Can't even enjoy a strip club without existential dread."

"What did you see?"

"You and me. Older. Alone." He looked at Stephen properly, taking in his friend's profile against the passing lights. Seventeen years old and already looking weathered. "Everyone else gone. Just us."

"That's not—" Stephen stopped. Started again. "Visions aren't certainties. You know that. Possible futures, not guaranteed ones."

"When has Athena ever been wrong?"

Stephen had no answer for that.

They pulled up to a red light. A homeless man pushed a shopping cart across the intersection, his entire life presumably contained in black garbage bags. Dillon watched him pass and wondered what that was like, having problems that could fit in a shopping cart.

"I don't want to do this anymore," he said quietly.

"Then quit."

"I can't quit."

"Why not?"

"Because." He gestured vaguely, encompassing everything and nothing. "Because I signed a contract. Because I don't know how to do anything else. Because Athena is in my head forever and she doesn't do well with rejection. Because, because, because."

"Those are all reasons. They're not good reasons."

"They're the reasons I have."

The light turned green. Stephen drove. They were close to Dillon's apartment now, the place he'd rented with hazard pay and blood money, the place that was supposed to feel like home but mostly just felt empty.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it. Probably his mother checking in, or Camille asking if he was okay. He wasn't okay. He hadn't been okay since he was fourteen years old and desperate enough to sign his life away to a god who wanted to study human failure.

"I'm sorry," Dillon said after a while.

"For what?"

"Ruining your night. Dragging you out of the club. Being a depressing drunk."

"You're not drunk enough to be a depressing drunk. You're a depressing crossfade, which is different." Stephen smiled slightly. "And you didn't ruin anything. It was a shitty club anyway."

"The girl was nice."

"The girl was working. That's not the same as nice."

"You're very wise for twenty-three."

"I learn from the best."

Dillon snorted. "If I'm the best you've got, we're both fucked."

"We're already fucked. At least we're fucked together."

They pulled up in front of Dillon's building. The lights were off because he'd forgotten to leave them on, and the windows looked dark and unwelcoming. He should probably get a plant or something. Make it look lived-in.

"You gonna be okay?" Stephen asked.

"Eventually. Probably. Maybe." Dillon fumbled with the door handle, got it open on the third try. "Thanks for driving."

"Thanks for not throwing up in my car."

"Night's not over yet."

"Please don't."

Dillon got out, wavered slightly, found his balance. The night air was cold, cutting through his club clothes. He should have brought a jacket. He was always forgetting things like that. Details. Small things that normal people remembered.

"Dio," Stephen called. "The vision. The one where it's just us. Did we look happy?"

Dillon thought about it. About the older versions of themselves he'd seen, scarred and tired and still breathing against all odds. About the weight they carried, the losses they'd survived, the hollowness in their eyes. "We looked alive. That's something."

"Yeah," Stephen said quietly. "That's something."

Dillon watched him drive away, taillights disappearing around a corner. Then he turned to face his empty apartment building, fumbled for his keys, and started the climb up four flights of stairs because the elevator was broken again.

Inside, the apartment was exactly as he'd left it: sparse, functional, showing no signs of life beyond basic existence. A couch he'd bought secondhand. A TV he never watched. A kitchen he barely used. A bedroom with a mattress on the floor because he hadn't bothered with a bed frame.

He made it to the bathroom before he threw up, retching into the toilet until there was nothing left but bile. His head pounded. His hands shook. His left eye—Athena's eye—ached in a way that suggested she was still watching, still analyzing, still cataloguing his failures.

He sat on the bathroom floor, back against the tub, and started laughing. It came out strangled at first, then louder, echoing off the tiles. The absurdity of it all. Having a panic attack during a lap dance. Seeing the future. Knowing he probably wouldn't make it to thirty and doing it anyway because what else was there?

The laughter turned into something that might have been crying, or might have been more laughing, he couldn't tell anymore. His body shook with it, months or years of held-back emotion forcing its way out.

Eventually it stopped. He sat there in the silence of his bathroom, tasting bile and regret, and tried to remember why surviving was supposed to feel like winning. He couldn't, but he got up anyway, brushed his teeth, stripped off his clothes, and climbed into bed. Tomorrow there would be another mission. Another chance to die. Another opportunity to prove Athena right about human weakness.

He was nineteen years old and already certain he wouldn't make it to thirty. But Stephen would. The vision had shown that much. Stephen would survive. That would have to be enough.

IV. Thirtieth Birthday

The wine was expensive, the kind Oscar had insisted on ordering despite Dillon's protests that he couldn't taste the difference. They'd finished dinner an hour ago at some restaurant with white tablecloths and a sommelier, the kind of place where the prices weren't listed on the menu because if you had to ask, you couldn't afford it.

Now they were in Dillon's townhouse, the same one he'd bought at eighteen and never quite made feel like home, sprawled on the couch with the bottle between them and jazz playing low from speakers that cost more than they should.

"You're too generous," Dillon said, swirling wine in his glass. "Dinner was too much."

"It's your birthday. Thirty's a milestone." Oscar had his feet up on the coffee table, tie loosened, jacket discarded somewhere. He looked relaxed in a way he rarely did, the strategic-mind portion of his brain temporarily offline. "You're supposed to celebrate milestones."

"With my married coworker at a restaurant where we had to pretend we were just friends?"

"We are just friends."

"Right." Dillon took a drink. The wine was smooth, probably meant to be sipped and appreciated, but he was drinking it like it was cheap beer. "Friends who fuck sometimes. Very normal friendship dynamic."

"It's not—" Oscar stopped. Started again. "It's complicated."

"It's really not. You're married. I'm not. We're sleeping together anyway. That's pretty straightforward."

Oscar said nothing, just turned his glass in his hands, watching the wine catch the light. He was thirty-eight, and beginning to grey at the temples in a way that somehow made him more attractive, and Dillon was exhausted by how much he wanted him.

The shared Contract didn't help. Seven years since that mission that had gone wrong, since Athena had offered Oscar a place in her existing bond with Dillon. Seven years of feeling Oscar's presence constantly, knowing his emotional state, sensing his location. Seven years of intimacy that couldn't be escaped even when they tried.

"I should probably stop inviting you over," Dillon said.

"Probably."

"But I'm going to keep doing it."

"I know."

They sat in silence. The jazz was Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, because Oscar had opinions about jazz and Dillon had learned to defer to them. Outside, the city continued its usual background noise: traffic, distant sirens, the occasional shout.

Dillon could feel Oscar through the bond. Could sense his contentment, his guilt, his desire, all mixing together in a way that probably should have been confusing but had become familiar over the years. Could feel Oscar sensing him right back, reading his loneliness and longing and the particular ache that came from wanting something you couldn't have.

"Penelope asked where I was tonight," Oscar said finally.

"What did you tell her?"

"That I was taking a coworker out for his birthday. Which is technically true." He drank. "She didn't ask which coworker."

"She knows."

"She suspects. That's different."

"Not by much."

Oscar shifted, angled himself to look at Dillon properly. His eyes were brown, warm in a way that made Dillon's chest hurt. "You want me to stop coming over? Is that what this is?"

"I don't know what I want." Dillon set down his glass, pressed his palms against his eyes. "I want you. I want you to leave your wife. I want none of this to be happening. I want about six contradictory things simultaneously."

"That's very on-brand for you."

"Fuck off."

"I'm serious. You've always been good at holding contradictions." Oscar's voice was gentle, which somehow made it worse. "It's part of what makes you good at tactics. You can see multiple angles at once."

"Right now I can see that this is a terrible idea and I'm doing it anyway. That's not tactics, that's just stupidity."

"Maybe." Oscar reached over, touched Dillon's knee. 

The touch spread warmth through Dillon's leg, up into his stomach. He wanted more of it, wanted Oscar's hands everywhere, wanted to stop thinking and just feel for a while. But that was the trap, wasn't it? 

He could feel Oscar through the bond, feel the desire matching his own, feel the guilt underneath it and the affection underneath that. Could feel Oscar wanting to leave but also wanting to stay. Could feel everything, all at once, in a way that should have made things clearer but only made them more complicated.

"I'm in love with you," Dillon said, because the wine had made him stupid and honest. "I know. I know you're married. I know you have a kid. I know this can't go anywhere. But I need you to know that. I'm in love with you."

Oscar's hand stilled. "Dio—"

"No, let me—" Dillon finally looked at him, met his eyes. "I know you're going to say I'm in love with the bond. With Athena connecting us. That's not the same thing. But you're wrong. I know the difference."

"It’ll pass." Oscar's voice was careful, like he was defusing a bomb. "You're not in love with me. You're in love with the idea of me. With what I represent."

"Don't tell me what I feel."

"Someone has to. You're not exactly objective about this."

"Objective. Right. Because you're so objective. That's why you're here, drinking wine on my couch at midnight on a Thursday. Because of your objectivity."

"That's not fair."

"None of this is fair." Dillon pulled away from Oscar's touch, needed the distance to think clearly. "You keep coming back. You keep touching me. You keep acting like this means something and then leaving to go home to your wife. So tell me, what the fuck are we doing?"

Oscar was quiet for a long moment. Through the bond, Dillon could feel his conflict—desire and duty warring with each other, guilt and affection tangled together until they were indistinguishable. "I don't know," he said finally. "I care about you. More than I should. But I have a family. I have responsibilities."

"And I'm just what? The thing that happens in between?"

"You're not a thing. You're—" Oscar stopped, seemed to be choosing his words carefully. "You're important to me. But it can't be what you want it to be."

"What do I want it to be?"

"A relationship. Something real. Something that goes somewhere." Oscar's voice was gentle, almost pitying. "I can't give you that."

Dillon wanted to argue, wanted to point out all the ways Oscar was already in a relationship with him, just one with defined boundaries and built-in endings. But he was tired of arguing, tired of wanting things he couldn't have.

"Then why are you here?"

"Because you asked me to be."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only answer I have."

They looked at each other for a long moment. Dillon could feel Athena hovering at the edges of his consciousness. She found human relationships fascinating in the way that people found car accidents fascinating: compelling evidence of poor decision-making.

Through the bond, he could feel Oscar's next move before it happened. Could sense the decision forming, the shift from guilt to desire. Could feel Oscar choosing this, choosing him, even knowing it was wrong.

"I should ask you to leave," Dillon said.

"You should."

"But I'm not going to."

"I know."

Oscar leaned forward, kissed him slow and deliberate. Dillon kissed back because he always did, because this was the trap he walked into willingly every time. Oscar tasted like wine and cigarettes and regret, and Dillon wanted to drown in it.

The kiss deepened. Oscar's hand came up to cup Dillon's jaw, thumb brushing over his cheekbone. Dillon could feel everything through the bond—Oscar's desire, his guilt, his affection, his certainty that this was wrong but he was doing it anyway. He could feel Oscar feeling him right back, sensing his loneliness and longing and the particular desperation of wanting to be chosen for once in his fucking life.

They moved to the bedroom eventually, discarding clothes along the way, familiar with each other's bodies in the way that people who'd been doing this for years were familiar. Oscar knew exactly where to touch, how to make Dillon forget his own name for a while. And Dillon had learned Oscar's tells, the small sounds that meant he was close, the way he tensed right before finishing.

Afterward, they lay in the dark, not touching but close enough to feel each other's heat. Through the bond, Dillon could sense Oscar's contentment mixed with guilt, the satisfaction of the moment already giving way to the awareness of what he'd have to do next.

Leave. He'd have to leave. He always did.

"I grew up in East Baltimore," Dillon said into the darkness. "You know that?"

"I know."

"When I was a kid, before Achaea, before any of this, I used to—" He stopped. This was harder than he expected. "I used to notice boys. Men. The way they moved. I didn't understand it at first. Thought everyone felt that way."

"Dio, you don't have to—"

"And then I got older and I understood that not everyone felt that way. That what I felt had a name. And kids at school started using that name as an insult. Faggot. Like it was the worst thing you could be."

Oscar was quiet, listening. Through the bond, Dillon could feel his attention, his empathy, his sadness.

"My ma died when I was twenty-five. Cancer, fast and ugly. I never told her. Never told anyone, really, except Athena and she doesn't count because she's in my head." He laughed softly. "I used to think if I just ignored it, it would go away. That if I never acted on it, never said it out loud, I wouldn't have to be that thing that kids used as an insult."

"And then?"

"And then I met you. And I couldn't ignore it anymore." He turned his head, looked at Oscar's profile in the darkness. "You made me have to name it. Have to acknowledge what I am."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm just—" He searched for words. "I'm just trying to explain why this is hard. Why I keep doing this even though I know it's going nowhere."

"It's hard for me too."

"Is it? Because you get to go home to your normal life. Your wife, your kid, your house in the suburbs. I just get to sit here and want things I can't have."

Through the bond, he felt Oscar's flash of anger, quickly suppressed. "You think this is easy for me? You think I don't hate myself every time I come here? Every time I lie to Penelope?"

"Then stop coming."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because—" Oscar stopped, something like frustration crossing his face. "Because you're right. I do care. More than I should. And I'm selfish enough to keep coming back even though I know I'm hurting you."

"At least you're honest about being selfish."

"It's the least I can do."

They lay there in the dark, not touching, both of them thinking about all the ways this would eventually fall apart. Dillon could see it happening already through Athena's gift, the slow dissolution of whatever this was. Could see the end approaching like a freight train, inevitable and devastating.

But not tonight. Tonight he had this, whatever this was, for a few more hours.

Through the bond, he felt Oscar's decision to stay a little longer, felt him pushing back the guilt and the awareness of time passing. Felt him choosing this moment, choosing Dillon, even if it was temporary.

"Tell me about Theodore," Dillon said quietly. "Your son. How is he?"

It was a deflection, a way to change the subject to something safer. Oscar let him have it. "He's seven. Smart. Penelope's DNA, probably."

They talked for a while longer, about nothing important. Work, mutual friends, the latest containment protocols. Normal conversation between coworkers who happened to be lying naked in bed together after sex. The absurdity of it wasn't lost on Dillon.

Oscar left around three in the morning, kissing Dillon goodbye like it meant something, promising to see him at work. Dillon watched him go from the bedroom window, watched his car pull away, and tried not to think about how this would end.

He was thirty years old. He'd survived long enough to prove his nineteen-year-old self wrong. Stephen was still alive too, the only other original Epigoni left. They'd beaten the odds.

But survival felt less like winning these days. It just felt like prolonged existence, stretching out toward some uncertain conclusion.

He went back to bed, lay in sheets that smelled like Oscar and sex, and tried to sleep.

Through the bond, he could feel Oscar driving home, feel his guilt settling back in like a familiar coat. Could feel the moment he pulled into his driveway, the shift in his emotional state as he prepared to return to his other life.

Athena whispered that he was a fool.

He already knew.

V. Forty-Second Birthday

The porch was quiet except for the cicadas and the distant sound of traffic on the main road. Dillon sat in the chair he'd bought three years ago when they'd moved into this house, smoking a cigarette he'd promised Lys he'd quit, listening to Nina Simone through earbuds that kept him isolated from everything else.

His phone buzzed. Stephen again, probably checking in. He ignored it.

Another buzz. Marcus this time, likely following up on some Project business that could wait until tomorrow. Ignored.

The sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple that would have been beautiful if he could bring himself to care. The yard stretched out before him, the garden beds Lys had planted back when she still tried to do things, the grass that needed mowing, the fence that needed repairs. All the small failures of maintenance that added up to a life not quite lived.

Inside, Lys was probably in the bedroom, door closed, existing in whatever space she'd retreated to. They barely spoke anymore. She'd stopped trying to please him somewhere around six months ago, had stopped eating meals with him around month twelve, and now they were in year seven of this arrangement and she'd perfected the art of being present without being there.

He didn't blame her. He'd done this to her, and he knew it, and knowing it didn't change anything.

The screen door creaked. Dillon didn't turn around, just took another drag of his cigarette.

"Daddy?"

Bug. His son. Seven years old and somehow untouched by all the wrongness that permeated this house. Dillon pulled out one earbud, turned slightly.

"Hey, Bug. You should be inside."

"Can I sit with you?" Bug was holding something—a book, looked like. He had Dillon's dark skin and Lys's almond eyes. Sometimes when Dillon looked at him he felt something that might have been love if he remembered what that felt like.

"Sure. Come here."

Bug climbed into the chair next to him, all skinny limbs and boundless energy compressed into temporary stillness. He was wearing a t-shirt with a dinosaur on it, shorts that were probably too big, and no shoes.

"What are you listening to?" Bug asked.

"Nina Simone. Jazz singer."

"Can I listen?"

Dillon handed over the other earbud. Bug stuck it in his ear, made a face. "It's sad music."

"Yeah."

"Why do you listen to sad music?"

"Sometimes sad music is the only kind that makes sense." He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray he kept hidden beside the chair. Lys didn't know he still smoked. Or maybe she did and just didn't care anymore. "What've you got there?"

"A book about raccoons." Bug held it up proudly. It was some children's nature book, well-worn from repeated reading. "Did you know raccoons can open almost any lock?"

"I didn't know that."

"They're really smart. And they have these hands that can do almost anything human hands can do." Bug opened the book, started flipping through pages. "They're nocturnal, which means they come out at night. That's when they do their best work."

"Sounds like someone I know."

Bug smiled at that, pleased to be compared to his beloved raccoons. He'd been obsessed with them for months now, ever since a family of them had taken up residence under the back deck. Dillon should probably call someone to remove them, but Bug loved them too much and Dillon didn't have the energy to break his son's heart over something so small.

"I saw General today," Bug announced. "And Private and Lieutenant and Sergeant and Cornbread."

"You named them all?"

"Yeah. General is the biggest one, so he's in charge. Private is the smallest. Lieutenant is the one with the white spot on her ear. Sergeant is really good at climbing. And Cornbread is just Cornbread."

"Why Cornbread?"

"Because I was eating cornbread when I first saw him and he looked at me like he wanted some. So now that's his name."

"That's a good name," he said.

"I know." Bug settled more comfortably against him. "Mama says I shouldn't get too attached because they're wild animals and they might leave. But I don't think they will. I think they like it here."

"Why's that?"

"Because I leave food out for them. And because we don't bother them. And because maybe they know we're nice." Bug paused. "Are we nice, Daddy?"

The question hit harder than it should have. "I don't know, Bug. I hope so."

"I think we are. Mama is nice even when she's sad. And you're nice even when you're busy. And I'm nice to the raccoons." He nodded, satisfied with this logic. "So we're a nice family."

If only it were that simple.

They sat in silence for a while. Nina Simone sang about trouble and heartache and things that couldn't be fixed. Bug looked through his raccoon book, occasionally pointing out facts that Dillon already knew but pretended to find interesting. The sun continued its descent, the sky darkening from orange to purple to deep blue.

"Daddy?" Bug said eventually.

"Yeah?"

"Are you happy?"

The question was so direct, so innocent, that for a moment Dillon didn't know how to answer. Was he happy? Had he ever been happy? What did happiness even look like for someone like him?

"I don't know," he said honestly. "That's a hard question."

"Why?"

"Because happiness is complicated when you're a grown-up."

"Was it easier when you were a kid?"

"No. It was harder, actually."

Bug processed this, frowning slightly. "That doesn't make sense. Kids are supposed to have it easier."

"Kids are supposed to have a lot of things they don't always get."

"Like what?"

"Like parents who know what they're doing. Like safety. Like a childhood that doesn't involve learning how to kill things before you learn how to drive." Dillon stopped, realized he'd said too much. "Sorry. Forget that."

But Bug was looking at him with those strange eyes, too perceptive for seven years old. "Is that what happened to you?"

"Yeah. That's what happened to me."

"Is that why you're sad sometimes?"

"Probably."

Bug thought about this for a moment. Then he reached over and took Dillon's hand, his small fingers wrapping around Dillon's scarred ones. "I'm glad you didn't die," he said simply. "When you were learning to kill things. I'm glad you're alive to be my daddy."

Something broke completely then. Some final piece of Dillon's careful armor, shattered by seven words from a seven-year-old who didn't know what he was saying.

"Me too," Dillon managed. His voice was rough. "Me too, Bug."

"Even if you're sad sometimes?"

"Even then."

Bug smiled, pleased with this answer. He went back to his book, still holding Dillon's hand, still trusting in the way only children could trust. Still believing that his father was good, that this family was nice, that the world made sense if you just looked at it the right way.

Dillon looked at his son and tried to remember the last time he'd felt that kind of certainty. Tried to remember what it was like to believe things could be simple, that love was enough, that survival meant winning. He couldn't. But Bug believed it, and maybe that was enough. 

His phone buzzed again. Stephen, persistent as always. This time Dillon pulled it out and looked at the message.

Happy birthday, asshole. Thirty years since we thought we'd be dead. Drinks tomorrow?

Dillon typed back with one hand, the other still held by Bug. Yeah. Drinks tomorrow.

He was forty-two years old. He'd survived nineteen years longer than his vision had shown. Stephen had too. They'd beaten the odds, broken the pattern, lived past every expiration date.

And it had cost everything—Connor, Matthew, Tristan, James, Ryan, Tyler. Oscar, who'd ended things when Dillon had gotten too attached and Penelope had issued an ultimatum. His mother, dead from cancer. His sister, who barely spoke to him anymore after he'd brought Lys home. His own humanity, chipped away piece by piece until he wasn't sure what was left.

"Tell me more about the raccoons," Dillon said.

Bug lit up, started explaining the social hierarchy of raccoon families, how General kept everyone in line and how Cornbread was probably going to challenge him for leadership soon. He talked about their foraging patterns and their communication methods and how they washed their food before eating it.

Dillon listened, really listened, letting Bug's enthusiasm wash over him like absolution. The sun set completely. The cicadas grew louder. Inside the house, a light came on—Lys moving through her evening routine, existing in parallel to them but never intersecting.

This was his life now. Sitting on a porch with his son, smoking cigarettes he shouldn't smoke, listening to sad music and stories about raccoons. It wasn't happiness. It probably never would be.

But Bug's hand was warm in his, and the kid believed he had a nice father in a nice family, and maybe—just maybe—that belief was worth protecting.

"I love you, Bug," Dillon said.

"I love you too, Daddy." Bug squeezed his hand. "Can we go see if Cornbread is out yet? I want to show you how close I can get."

"Sure. Let's go see Cornbread."

They stood up together, Bug clutching his raccoon book, Dillon pocketing his cigarettes and phone. They walked around to the back deck where the raccoon family lived, Bug chattering the whole way about proper raccoon-approaching technique. Through the bedroom window, Dillon could see Lys's silhouette, motionless. She'd know they were out here. She wouldn't join them. 

"There's General," Bug whispered, pointing to a large raccoon emerging from under the deck. "See? He always comes out first to make sure it's safe."

"Yeah," Dillon said quietly. "I see him."

They crouched together in the fading light and watched the raccoons emerge one by one.

"Happy birthday to me," Dillon murmured.

"It's your birthday?" Bug looked up at him, eyes wide. "Why didn't you say? We should have made a cake!"

"It's okay. This is better."

"Better than cake?"

"Yeah, Bug. Better than cake."