3. Facility Overlap #2
“I’m staying here,” Cass said. “Room fourteen. They had a weekly rate I could afford with my mission stipend, and the manager said he didn’t care what territory I was from as long as I paid in advance and didn’t try any—” he lowered his voice, embarrassed by the memory—”‘cult stuff’ on the other guests.
Which I thought was rude. And inaccurate.
We’re not a cult. We’re a harmonious collective.
There’s a difference. Also he didn’t actually say ‘stuff.’ He used disharmonious language. ”
Riot closed his eyes. His hands, hanging at his sides, curled into fists and then slowly uncurled.
“This isn’t good,” he grumbled.
“What? The hotel?” Cass’s head was swimming.
It was hard to think with that scent filling his lungs, making everything feel soft and distant and warm.
“Are the rooms not safe? I asked about the locks and the manager said they were fine, but he also tried to sell me something called ‘protection insurance,’ which I think might have been a scam, but I wasn’t sure how to tell—”
“Fuck.”
Cass flinched at the word, an automatic response, and Riot’s expression immediately shifted. The hardness cracked into something that looked almost like pain.
“Sorry,” Riot said, his voice gentler. “I didn’t mean—you didn’t do anything wrong.
This is just...” He ran a hand through his hair, and Cass watched the movement like it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.
His hair really did look very soft. The kind of soft he wanted to touch and maybe braid. “This is complicated.”
“I don’t understand,” Cass said.
“I know you don’t.” Riot’s jaw tightened, then relaxed with visible effort. “That’s part of the problem.”
Cass swayed slightly. The hallway was tilting again, or maybe he was tilting, and the strawberry scent was everywhere, and his skin felt like it was humming at a frequency he couldn’t hear.
Riot’s hand shot out to steady him, warm fingers closing around his elbow—firm but careful, like Cass was something fragile.
The touch sent sparks cascading down his arm, bright little bursts of sensation that made him gasp.
That’s not normal, some distant part of his brain observed. People’s hands don’t usually feel like that.
Riot’s pupils were very large. His grip tightened for just a second, pulling Cass slightly closer, and there was something in his expression that made Cass’s breath catch—
Then Riot let go like he’d been burned, stepping back so fast he nearly hit the opposite wall.
“You’re flushed,” he said. “Are you sick?”
“I don’t know.” Cass touched his own cheek, feeling the heat there.
His hand was trembling. When had that started?
“I woke up feeling strange. Hot. Everything smells too strong and my joints hurt and I think maybe I’m getting the flu, which is bad because people die from the flu out here, and I don’t have money for a doctor, and I still have to find recruits or they’ll send me back for support, and I don’t want—” His voice cracked. “I don’t want to go back for support.”
“You’re not dying from the flu.” Riot’s voice was firm, certain. “You’d have other symptoms. Coughing, congestion, that kind of thing.”
“Then what’s wrong with me?”
Riot stared at him.
“I don’t know,” he said finally, but Cass had the strange feeling that wasn’t entirely true.
“Maybe it’s stress,” Cass offered, grasping for the explanation that had been working all morning.
“Brother Matthias says stress can cause physical symptoms. And I’ve been very stressed, because my mission isn’t going well and Brother Matthias gave me two weeks to show progress or they’ll send me home for support, and I don’t…
” His voice wavered. “I don’t want to go back for support. ”
“You said that already.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I repeat myself when I’m nervous.” Cass’s fingers found his braid, twisting the clay bead. “It’s one of my spiritual deficiencies. I have a list. It’s quite long.”
Something flickered across Riot’s face—there and gone too fast for Cass to read.
“What’s support?” he asked.
The question made Cass’s mind brush against that closed door again—the gap where memories should be, the blankness that felt less like protection and more like a wound he wasn’t supposed to pick at.
“I don’t know exactly,” he admitted. “I just know I don’t want it. People who go through it come back... different.”
“Different how?”
“Calmer. More aligned.” Cass struggled to find the right words. “They smile a lot. But it’s like... like there’s nobody home behind the smile anymore. Like someone cleaned out everything that made them them and just left the parts that fit properly.”
The silence stretched between them, heavy and uncomfortable.
“You should eat something,” Riot said abruptly, like he was trying to change the subject. “When’s the last time you ate?”
Cass tried to remember. Yesterday felt very far away. “I had a protein bar? From the vending machine. It tasted like cardboard and chalk had a baby, but I wasn’t very hungry anyway.”
“Fuck—” Riot caught himself, glancing at Cass’s face, then softened his voice. “No wonder you feel like crap. Come on.”
“Come on where?”
“To get food.” Riot was already moving toward the stairs, his long stride eating up the hallway. “Real food, not vending machine garbage.”
“But—” Cass hurried after him, his head still swimming, his skin still too aware of the shrinking distance between them.
“You said seeing you should be a one-time thing. You said that yesterday. Did you change your mind? It’s okay if you did.
I change my mind all the time. Brother Matthias says it’s because I lack conviction, but I think maybe I just notice new information and adjust accordingly, which seems reasonable to me, but apparently isn’t spiritually evolved. ”
Riot stopped at the top of the stairs, turning to look at him. In the dim hallway light, his green eyes seemed almost luminous, and there were shadows under them that made Cass want to reach out and smooth them away with his thumbs.
That’s also a strange thing to want, Cass noted. You’re having a lot of strange wants this morning.
“Yeah,” Riot said quietly. “I did say that.”
“So why are you helping me?”
“Because you’re going to pass out in about twenty minutes if you don’t get some calories in you,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “And I’d rather not have that on my conscience.”
It wasn’t a real answer. Cass knew it wasn’t a real answer.
But Riot was already heading down the stairs, and Cass’s feet were following, because there was something about being near him that made the tightness in Cass’s chest loosen.
Like whatever was wrong with him—the flu, the aching, the strange swooping feelings—all of it got quieter when Riot was close.
That doesn’t make sense. He’s a Berserker. I should be more scared, not less.
But his body didn’t seem to have gotten that message.
The morning air outside was cool and damp, and Cass shivered despite the fever-heat still burning under his skin. Everything was too bright, too loud, too much—the vendors calling out their wares, the rumble of transport vehicles, the press of bodies moving through the narrow streets.
Walking in Riot’s wake felt different than walking alone. People moved out of their way, their eyes sliding over the massive Berserker and then quickly, carefully away. Nobody bumped into Cass or shot him disgusted looks or muttered about cult recruiters.
Is this what it feels like to have an outsider as an Alpha? Cass wondered, then felt his face flush at the thought. Not that Riot is my Alpha. Honey is an Alpha. I’m supposed to have Honey.
“Here.” Riot stopped in front of a small food stall with actual steam rising from actual cooking surfaces.
Most of Cass’s meals involved plastic-wrapped packages thrown into solar microwaves; he’d almost forgotten that food could be made fresh, right in front of him, by a person instead of a machine. “They do real eggs. Sit.”
There was a narrow counter with three stools, all of them empty. Cass sat, and the world tilted again, and he had to grip the counter’s edge until it steadied.
“When did the dizziness start?” Riot asked, sliding onto the stool next to him. This close, the Berserker’s scent was overwhelming—sweet and warm and somehow exactly right—and their knees kept touching every time one of them shifted.
Each touch sent little sparks up Cass’s leg. He kept his expression neutral. It was probably just the flu making his nerves oversensitive.
“This morning. When I woke up.” Cass watched Riot signal to the vendor and watched the vendor’s face go pale. “Everything feels... too much. Like my senses are turned up too high.”
“Too much how?”
“Smells are stronger. Sounds are louder.” Cass hesitated, then admitted: “You smell really good, even better than the first time we met. Which doesn’t make sense, because Berserkers aren’t supposed to smell good.
The safety briefings said you’re supposed to smell like cordite and aggression, but you smell like strawberries and cream with just a little bit of cordite underneath, and right now it’s the only thing that doesn’t make my head hurt. ”
Riot went very still.
“The safety briefings,” he repeated flatly.
“From my mission preparation. They covered the designation types we might encounter and how to recognize potential threats.” Cass frowned, trying to remember the exact wording.
“Berserkers were in the ‘avoid at all costs’ category. Along with feral Alphas and unmedicated rut-cycle Alphas and something called ‘Syndicate operatives,’ which I think are like... professional bad people? The briefings weren’t very specific. ”
“Professional bad people,” Riot said, and there was something in his voice that might have been amusement.
“I’m probably not saying it right. I never say things right.” Cass’s fingers found his braid again. “But you don’t seem like an ‘avoid at all costs’ person. You seem like a person who helps people even when he doesn’t want to. You have kind hands.”
“I don’t have kind hands.”
“You do, though. They’re very gentle when you’re bandaging things.” Cass pointed at the shadows under Riot’s eyes. “You also look tired. Did you sleep?”
“You—” he started, then stopped. His hands were gripping his thighs hard enough that his knuckles had gone white. “You can’t just say things like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like—” Riot cut himself off, his jaw clenching. “Never mind. Just eat your food.”
The vendor set down two plates of eggs and some kind of fried protein that smelled better than anything Cass had encountered in months. His stomach growled loudly, embarrassingly, and Riot’s mouth twitched into a smile.
“Eat,” he said again, softer this time.
Cass ate.
The food was good—really good, or at least it tasted that way to someone who’d been surviving on protein bars and bad coffee.
He didn’t realize how hungry he was until he started, and then he couldn’t stop, shoveling eggs into his mouth with a complete lack of grace or dignity.
Some of the yolk dripped down his chin, and he wiped at it with the back of his hand, too hungry to be embarrassed.
Riot watched him eat, barely touching his own plate. His eyes kept tracking over Cass’s face, his throat, his hands, and every time Cass caught him looking, he glanced away like he’d been caught doing something wrong.
“You should eat too,” Cass said between bites. “It’s not fair if you buy food and don’t eat it.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“But you bought two plates.”
“The second one’s for you if you’re still hungry after the first.”
Cass felt something warm bloom in his chest. When was the last time someone had thought ahead about what he might need?
“That’s very considerate,” he said. “Brother Matthias says true generosity is anticipating needs rather than just responding to requests. He was usually talking about spiritual needs, but I think food counts too.”
Riot made a sound that might have been a laugh, though it didn’t seem like a happy one. “Yeah. Food counts.”
Cass finished the first plate and started on the second, more slowly this time. His stomach was settling, the dizziness fading, though the strange heat under his skin remained.
“I feel better,” he admitted. “You were right about the food.”
“I usually am.”
“About food specifically, or about things in general?”
“Depends on the thing.” Riot was staring at him with that unreadable expression again. “Cass, those symptoms you’re describing—the heat, the heightened senses, the aching. Are you sure it just started this morning?”
Cass thought about it. “I think so? I mean, yesterday I was tired and sad, but that’s normal. Today is different. Today everything is...” He searched for the right word. “Louder.”
“Did you take any medicine?”
“Oh, no, the medicine I carry is for people who really need it. I did take my wellness supplements though. I almost forgot this morning, but I remembered before I left my room.”
“Okay,” he said, and the word came out careful, measured. “That’s... okay. Just keep taking them and try to rest today. You’re not going to recruit anyone feeling like this.”
“But my deadline—”
“Will still be there tomorrow.” Riot’s voice was firm. “One day of rest isn’t going to make or break your mission. But trying to work when you’re clearly unwell is going to make everything harder.”
Cass wanted to argue, but he was so tired, and Riot’s voice was so certain, and the thought of going back to his room and lying down sounded so much better than another day of rejection and contempt.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “I’ll rest.”
“Good.”
Cass finished the last of his eggs and set down his fork, suddenly aware of how close they were sitting. Their knees were touching again. Riot’s scent wrapped around him like a blanket.
“Will I see you again?” The question came out before Cass could stop it, small and hopeful and embarrassing.
Riot stood abruptly, pulling out paper iscs to pay the vendor. “Probably,” he said, without looking at Cass. “We’re in the same goddamn hotel.”
Then he was gone, disappearing into the morning crowd, and Cass was alone with his empty plates. He should go back to his room. He should rest, like Riot said.
Instead, he sat at the counter for a long time, breathing in the fading traces of strawberries and cream, and wondered why the only person who’d shown him kindness kept walking away like Cass was something dangerous.
Maybe I am dangerous. Maybe there’s something wrong with me that makes people want to leave.
It wasn’t a new thought. But this time it hurt more than usual.