Victor was gone. For three blessed hours, Elias had the office, and his sanity, to himself. Or so he thought. Ashwin was still there.
Not the stoic, vigilant Ashwin who moved like a shadow behind Victor, but the bored one. The one who, stripped of immediate purpose and divine proximity, began experimenting with the concept of entertainment.
Elias had learned this version of Ashwin existed only after Victor's third meeting of the day. And it was terrifying.
He sat at his side of the desk, the left, because apparently that was a territorial concession now, pretending to focus on the stack of data reports projected across his terminal. The desk's surface glowed faintly under the ether light, dividing the workspace into two symmetrical halves. The right was pristine, untouched, sacred order. The left was… cluttered with notes, half-drunk coffee, and one unfortunate stylus that had died a noble death in his hand an hour ago.
