Theo stormed into the workshop, his breath still uneven, his hands curled into fists at his sides. He dropped into one of the chairs, the metal frame scraping against the floor with a grating screech. His jaw clenched, his pulse pounding in his ears. He wasn’t just angry—he was rattled.

  That wasn’t like him.

  He was used to trading verbal blows, playing the game, keeping his emotions controlled—weaponized, even. That was how you gained an advantage in the cage, how you controlled a fight before it even started. But this? This wasn’t some pre-fight press conference, and Erasmus wasn’t an opponent he could intimidate with bravado.

  Why did he get to me so badly?

  Theo exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair, fingers tugging at the strands. His anger burned hot, but beneath it, something colder gnawed at his gut.

  It hit him then. I haven’t actually sat down and processed any of this.

  For the past two days, he had been operating under a quiet, unspoken delusion—that this wasn’t real. That any moment now, he’d wake up in a hospital bed, or back in his dingy flat, or maybe not wake up at all. A knockout-induced dream, a coma, CTE messing with his brain—any explanation was better than the ridiculous truth staring him in the face.

  But now… the cracks in that denial were showing.

  He had slept. He had felt pain. He had lived through events that followed a logical, undeniable sequence.

  He wasn’t waking up from this.

  The weight of it pressed against his chest, tightening his throat. He hadn’t really lost a home, not even a family—he’d never really had those things to begin with. But what he had was control. Control over his own life, his own trajectory. He fought, he trained, he worked his way up. He earned his place.

  And now?

  Now, he was nobody.

  No strength. No leverage. No path forward except the one Erasmus allowed him to walk. He was a project. A curiosity. A burden.

  And worse—what if that was all he’d ever be?

  His stomach twisted at the thought, a quiet, creeping panic threading through the anger. If Erasmus decided he wasn’t worth the effort? If he left him here to fend for himself?

  Theo swallowed hard, his knee bouncing restlessly. His fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, gripping it tightly. He hated this feeling—this helplessness. The fear of knowing, for the first time in recent memory, that he wasn’t enough.

  He forced out a shaky breath, trying to shove the thoughts down, but they didn’t budge.

  The sound of slow, hesitant footsteps broke through the haze of his thoughts.

  Theo didn’t look up immediately, but he felt the shift in the air. Erasmus never hesitated when he entered a room. He moved with calculated precision, like he always knew exactly what needed to be done.

  But now?

  The older man stepped forward, stopping just behind Theo’s chair, lingering there for a beat too long before moving to the centre of the room.

  Theo kept his eyes on the floor, his jaw tight.

  He didn’t know what was worse—the spiralling thoughts in his head or the fact that Erasmus had noticed.

  Erasmus cleared his throat, the sound deliberate, measured—a classic stalling tactic. His gaze flickered across the room as if searching for the most efficient way to phrase whatever was coming next.

  Theo exhaled sharply, leaning forward in his chair. The tension sat heavy between them, and he had no patience for it. “Look,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair, “sorry for the flip-out. I hadn’t really… thought about everything until now. What it means. What I’ve lost. Guess it just kinda—” He gestured vaguely, searching for the right words. “—boiled over.”

  Erasmus studied him for a moment before shaking his head. “No need for that. I probably had it coming.” His tone was softer than usual, stripped of the usual biting sarcasm. “I haven’t exactly been around people for… well, let’s just say a long time.” He gestured to himself vaguely. “Even adopted this face just to be left alone. I suppose we both have learning to do.”

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  Theo’s brow furrowed. “I’m just gonna park that ‘adopted a face’ thing for now, because I feel like unpacking it will unravel me.” He leaned back slightly. “But, uh… why? Why are you doing this? Opening up your life, helping me?”

  For the first time, Erasmus didn’t have a quick reply. His usual sharpness dulled as his gaze dropped to the floor, his fingers briefly curling into a fist before relaxing. “You already know we share certain biological traits. Traits that no other human on this planet possesses.” His voice was quieter now, words deliberate. “That’s because you’re my descendant. My great-times-eighteen grandson, to be exact.”

  Theo blinked. “You could’ve just said distant relative like a normal person.”

  Erasmus huffed. “Precision matters.”

  Theo let out a breathy laugh, but it faded fast. “So you did have descendants. What happened to the others? How is it possible that only I turned up at your doorstep?”

  Erasmus hesitated. Just for a second. But it was enough.

  “I didn’t think I had any left,” Erasmus admitted, his eyes flicking back to Theo’s, unreadable. “It’s… a long story I have no desire to share in detail right now. But let’s just say my kind should never have tried to play human.” His jaw tightened slightly. “And generations suffered for it.”

  Theo sat with that for a moment, letting the weight of those words settle. He hadn’t expected warmth from Erasmus, but this wasn’t cold, either. It was something heavier. A truth left unsaid.

  Erasmus exhaled sharply, his gaze distant. “Hybrids like you—like them—didn’t fare well. My biology doesn’t mix as cleanly with human genetics as my predictions suggested. The brain chemistry becomes… unstable.” His fingers tapped absently against the console, the closest thing to nervous energy Theo had ever seen from him. “Some developed heightened cognitive abilities in ways their minds couldn’t process. Perception distorted. Reality became fragile. Many deteriorated. Others…” He hesitated. “Didn’t last long enough to deteriorate.”

  Theo’s stomach twisted. He didn’t need Erasmus to spell it out.

  Erasmus finally looked back at him, sharp and assessing. “You should be dead. Or worse. But for whatever reason—random chance, I would suggest—your enhancements are combat-adjacent, movement-based. Your mind isn’t breaking under the weight of an accelerated neural process. It’s adapting.” He leaned back slightly, crossing his arms. “You don’t even realize it, do you? How much faster you process movement? You see patterns before they happen, you adjust before your body even knows why.”

  Theo frowned, shifting in his seat. “I just… trained. It’s instinct.”

  Erasmus nodded. “Instinct built on hyper-efficient cognitive processing. Others had voices in their heads, time displacement, sensory overload—things that destroy a mind not built to handle them.” His expression darkened. “But you? You get better at fighting. The rest of your brain is untouched. I would hypothesize that it’s down to dilution.”

  Theo let out a slow breath, his chest feeling heavier than before. “So what, I’m lucky?”

  Erasmus huffed, shaking his head. “Unbelievably. Though I doubt you’ll see it that way.”

  “Shit,” Theo muttered finally. “That’s… a lot.” He rubbed the back of his neck, glancing at Erasmus. “And about—well, our family… I’m sorry. That must’ve been hell to watch.”

  “Wait, how the hell old are you?” Theo blurted, staring at Erasmus like he’d just grown a second head.

  Erasmus barely looked up from his console. “Let’s just say I settled here over six hundred Earth years ago.” He said it with all the enthusiasm of someone reciting the weather.

  Theo blinked. “Oh my gentle Jesus.” He dragged a hand down his face, as if physically wiping away the sheer absurdity. “You say that like it’s normal. Like you just woke up one day, paid your sixteenth-century council tax, and went back to inventing the flushing toilet.”

  Erasmus smirked. “Well, to me, it is normal. You’re the one reacting like I just admitted to eating infants.”

  Theo let out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Mate, you’ve lived through plagues, empires collapsing, multiple fashion atrocities—how are you not bored yet?”

  Erasmus finally glanced at him. “Oh, I am. That’s why I find this situation so amusing.”

  He thought about pushing further, about prying into the details Erasmus clearly wasn’t ready to spill. But he knew what it was like to carry things you weren’t ready to talk about.

  Theo smirked. “Well, just know that I love you, Grandad.”

  Erasmus closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and then exhaled like a man reconsidering every decision that had led him to this moment. “Take your goddamn shirt off.”

  Theo’s grin stretched wider. “Wow. We just had a moment, and you’re already trying to get me naked? At least buy me dinner first.”

  “For the mesh device, you insufferable berk,” Erasmus snapped, pinching the bridge of his nose so hard it looked like he was trying to remove it.

  “Uh-huh. That’s what they all say.” Theo stood, making a show of peeling off his shirt, dragging it over his head with the slow, deliberate movements of a man who had long since perfected the art of being annoying on purpose.

  Erasmus didn’t look up. “If you strip any slower, I’m installing a function that will give your entire body a Chinese burn.”

  Theo flopped back onto the seat, dramatically tossing his shirt aside. “Please, be gentle,” he said, voice dripping with mock vulnerability as he swivelled to reveal the device.

  He didn’t need to look. He could feel Erasmus rolling his eyes so hard it was a miracle they didn’t fly out of his skull.