4. Disrupt This
The penthouse was a mausoleum of bad decisions.
Broken glass glittered under the morning sun like tiny, expensive gravestones.
The pool, visible through the wall of windows, was still littered with the wreckage of the night — one sad, deflated flamingo float circling the drain and letting out a slow, agonising wheeze.
Silas emerged into the wreckage —black curls wild, shirt half-buttoned wrong, eyes sharp and merciless.
He kicked the hoodie-wearing founder’s body into the pool without even looking.
“Ugh. I’ll need to get Martha to clean that up later,” he muttered, deadpan.
He hadn’t drowned the night in liquor or laughter.
He had felt every second of it and remembered all of it.
He was carrying a single mug of coffee made from beans that cost more than a sports car. For himself.
He hadn’t made one for Rufus. He was feeling petty.
Rufus was already there, sprawled on the couch, sunglasses on, arms flung wide like some fallen angel of startup debauchery.
Someone had written DISRUPT THIS across his bare chest in sharpie.
He hadn’t bothered to wipe it off.
Silas sipped his coffee.
Loudly.
Rufus didn’t move.
“You licked the microphone,” Silas said at last, voice hoarse with disdain and something dangerously adjacent to affection.
A grunt from the couch. Possibly agreement. Possibly a death rattle.
Silas kicked a stray antique champagne flute across the floor with one elegant, contemptuous nudge of his foot.
“You’re trending,” Silas added casually.
A pause.
“Good trending or bad trending?” Rufus croaked, voice cracked like old vinyl.
Silas smiled into his coffee. “You tell me.”
He tossed his phone onto Rufus’s chest.
The screen lit up with an article from TechGhoul:
“Is Fangels Redefining Humanity?”
Below, a freeze-frame of Rufus mid-lick, looking utterly possessed.
Rufus squinted at it.
Grinned.
“I look hot,” he said.
“You look rabid,” Silas said.
“Same thing,” Rufus muttered, tossing the phone onto the floor and covering his face with one arm. “All marketing is good marketing” he said, muffled.
Silas just sipped his coffee again, expression unreadable. He studied the wreckage, not just the broken glass and wilted party favors.
The wreckage he couldn’t name.
The wreckage of something that had almost — almost — been said last night.
It lingered between them.
Heavy as a bespoke Italian coffin lid.
He could walk away.
He should walk away.
Instead, he sat down on the arm of the couch, letting one bare foot nudge Rufus’s side.
Not gently.
“Get up,” Silas said.
“Can’t,” Rufus said, voice muffled. “Dead. Send flowers.”
Silas leaned down, a razor across velvet, brushing a fang against Rufus’s ear, drawing a low, involuntary purr.
Leaning in so close that his hair curtained Rufus’s face, the sweet, ancient smell of oil and sandalwood wrapping around him like a noose.
Only a centimetre between their chests —where a heart would have beat, once, but now there was only silence.
“You wish you were dead,” he said, quiet as a knife between ribs.
“Death would be easier than admitting you remember”.
Rufus went still.
Very still.
Like Silas hadn’t just set fire to the room with one traitorous breath.
Like they didn’t both know one more second by that pool would have ruined them forever — or worse, given them something to lose.
Rufus dragged the sunglasses down just enough to meet Silas’s eyes.
He leaned in close enough their lips almost met, soft breath sliding over steel.
And smiled.
Not his usual bright, dangerous smile.
Something slower. Sadder.
“Careful, pet,” Rufus said, voice almost gentle, like a lace curtain clinging to the broken window of a burning house.
“The truth will have you ruined. On your knees. Gagged and begging… long before I have the pleasure.”
Silas stopped breathing.
Stopped moving.
An event occurred deep in his loins that he hoped — prayed to whatever elder god was listening — Rufus was too hungover to notice.
Then he opened his mouth, just briefly, and closed it again before the truth could escape.
What was he thinking?
Then — with cold, mechanical precision — he stood, smoothing his ruined shirt like armor, and finished his coffee in a single, savage gulp.
Then, as he walked toward the kitchen, he barked —
“Wipe the damn sharpie off. You look pathetic.”
Rufus stayed sprawled on the couch, one arm still flung across his eyes.
But his other hand — slow, uncertain — rose to touch the words inked over his heart.
DISRUPT THIS.
Silas didn’t look back.
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Effective disruption - no notes ❤️