Chapter Text
03AM: Hey, Fox.
03AM: My shrink says I need my meds again so I can sleep. Ironic, really—no nightmares if I’m basically in a coma.
Whatdoesthefoxsay: Do you think you need them?
03AM: Maybe. I’m not just tired of waking up from nightmares—I’m tired of carrying them all day. They build this constant fear, remind me of things I’d rather leave buried. Remembering is enough. I don’t want to relive.
Whatdoesthefoxsay: Then change your routine. Distract your mind. Something or someone. It’s been a while since you last played with someone, hasn’t it?
03AM: Don’t say stupid things.
Whatdoesthefoxsay: Fine. Let’s go kill monsters.
No matter how long Andrew Minyard distracted himself playing RPGs with Fox, sleep still dragged him under like a rip tide—and the nightmares followed. He woke as he usually did: abruptly, heart in his throat, nearly tumbling off the edge of his king-sized bed. His alarm screeched. He groaned, slapped his phone silent, and let it drop on his chest as reality stitched itself back together.
Shadows layered the room in deep navy and muted greys. Dark wooden furniture grounded the space—orderly, minimal, controlled. The bed sat centered between two bedside tables with matching lamps. On the right, the air conditioner hummed quietly above the balcony doors, framed by navy curtains. On the left, two identical doors—closet, bathroom. At the foot of the bed, the entrance to the hallway and the rest of the apartment waited like a threshold he wasn’t ready to cross.
He chose this two-bedroom place precisely because it wasn’t a house. A building meant security, structure. Besides, the living room balcony offered a clean sweep of city skyline—morning coffee, first cigarette, silence. Usually enough to steady him.
The phantom crawl of bugs along his skin—one of the nightmare’s recurring gifts—lingered. He exhaled sharply, trying to shake it off. His conversation with Fox resurfaced, along with the promise of medicated, dreamless sleep. Pills meant fewer monsters, but also fewer late-night gaming sessions. That mattered more than he liked. The realization itself annoyed him enough to push him toward the medication. Enjoying someone that much never ended well.
Andrew worked for Wymack Co., a consumer goods company in Columbia, South Carolina. Senior software engineer—backend. He built systems the company relied on, and sometimes tore them down when Kevin Day, his boss and longtime friend, had what Andrew generously called ideas. Half of Andrew’s job involved telling Kevin why certain ideas were brilliant and the other half was explaining why the rest were idiotic.
Once, back in college, Andrew had nearly hated Kevin—his ambition, his persistence, his refusal to accept no. It reminded Andrew too much of people who never accepted his refusals in far darker contexts.
But Kevin hadn’t broken him. Instead, he offered incentives. A bottle of expensive whiskey if Andrew helped with what Kevin considered a spreadsheet and Andrew considered child’s play. From there, Kevin became permanent—the kind of permanent you don’t plan but can’t imagine undoing. Clubs with Aaron, Andrew’s twin brother. Weed behind dorms. Plans scribbled at two a.m. that somehow turned profitable. David Wymack’s mentorship. Money. Stability.
Kevin even acted as a wingman sometimes, armed with just enough knowledge of Andrew’s sex life to be dangerous.
And still, Andrew told him:
“That’s stupid.”
They sat in Kevin’s office, both in company uniform. Wymack insisted on them—“cuts the morning decision fatigue,” he’d said. Kevin wore a dark suit with the Wymack logo embroidered on his chest. Andrew wore a navy button-down with the same logo, dark jeans, black boots. The black armbands on his forearms stayed no matter the outfit—armor, habit, history.
Kevin glared at him. “It isn’t stupid to think Riko wants to take us down. He hates us.”
“Unimportant.”
Kevin slammed a finger against his desk. “Raven Co. is bigger. And they’re moving in here—our territory, our clients. If we don’t roll out this update by the end of the week, we lose accounts. Simple math.”
“It’s stupid,” Andrew said evenly, “because that’s not how coding works. Especially when your frontend trainee keeps breaking things. I told Renee the root issue, she told Seth, and Seth dismissed it because he’s allergic to correction. Either she pulls him off the project or you replace him entirely.”
Kevin’s eyebrow arched—once a shaving target, now merely irritating.
“I know you can fix it.”
“I’d have to stall five other projects,” Andrew corrected, because inevitability deserved precision. “I will, since you’re ordering it. But it’s not my area. The contract said backend.”
“I’ll buy everything if we go to Eden’s this weekend.”
Andrew stood. “Not Eden’s. Nicky’s visiting. He wants to go to that strip club where Dan works.”
Kevin grimaced. “You agreed to that?”
Andrew only shrugged. The deal with his cousin didn’t require explanation—Nicky had connections, good weed chocolate bars, and a promise that the club respected boundaries. Look, don’t touch. Theoretically perfect.
In practice, Andrew never confused theory with safety. Alpha or not, past experiences had carved deep and ugly reminders.
03AM: If you’re a hacker, you should work in cyber security. You’d be loaded.
Whatdoesthefoxsay: Hard to find work that pays well and doesn’t ask questions.
03AM: You and your mysteries. Irritating.
Whatdoesthefoxsay: You mean interesting.
03AM: And irritating.
Whatdoesthefoxsay: Confess—when you take your meds and sleep like the dead, you’ll miss me at sunrise.
03AM: Maybe you’re just a bot I coded out of boredom. Too dead to be bored means too dead to miss you.
Whatdoesthefoxsay: We both know you don’t have the creativity to make me.
Whatdoesthefoxsay: Try to have fun tomorrow. You’re going out—maybe you won’t come home alone.
03AM: For someone who doesn’t swing, you have a lot of sexual expectations for me.
Whatdoesthefoxsay: I know. It irritates me, too. Why do I care? I don’t know. Maybe I like you. Maybe we’re friends. Friends care, right?
Whatdoesthefoxsay: Maybe I want to live through you. Maybe your life sparks something in mine.
Whatdoesthefoxsay: Maybe I want you.
03AM: Don’t say stupid things.
Whatdoesthefoxsay: I don’t know. I don’t know :)