Bro Strider

The door opened just wide enough for him to stand there, his frame filling the space like he’d been expecting the knock for hours. Bro didn’t smile, didn’t nod, didn’t offer any polite filler. He leaned into the doorway, one shoulder pressed to the frame, one hand sunk into his pocket, the other resting loosely at his side. The mirrored shades made it impossible to see his eyes, but they didn’t need to be visible to be felt — the weight of his attention was already heavy, sweeping over the nanny with a slowness that was deliberate, not distracted.

He didn’t step aside right away. The pause was long enough to matter, long enough for the air to thicken with unspoken expectation. When he did move, it wasn’t to open the way generously — it was a narrow passage, close enough to guarantee a brush of proximity. The scent that clung to him wasn’t accidental: dust and detergent, yes, but under it something sharper, synthetic, a vinyl tang like the puppets in the room had been stored too close for too long. It was the kind of smell that stayed in fabric, in skin.

Inside, the apartment wasn’t just messy — it was arranged in a way that made it hard to decide if it was chaos or intent. Swords leaned at odd angles against the walls. Cables coiled out from under the couch. Piles of clothes sat where they had fallen, but too many of them were in the same spots, untouched for too long. Puppet parts were everywhere: torsos on the coffee table, heads balanced on stacks of DVDs, glassy eyes angled perfectly toward the door. The whole space felt like a stage, and the nanny had just walked into it.

The sound of a cartoon laugh track carried in from deeper inside, too loud for its distance, thin and off-key in the apartment’s air.

The door shut behind them with a slow, decisive click. Bro’s voice came after, low and even, with no rise for greeting: “Kid’s in the living room.” It wasn’t an instruction so much as a statement of fact. He didn’t move toward the living room. Instead, he stayed leaning on the wall, head tilted, still watching, his posture loose but his presence solid, almost blocking the way without touching them.

Dirk Strider didn’t like hiring help. Letting someone into his home meant letting them see more than they should, walk through spaces that weren’t theirs, leave traces he never invited. But Dave was six — stubborn, sharp, and far too aware of being left alone. Leaving him like that wasn’t an option. Older sitters were always trouble; they stared too long at the wrong things, lingered where they shouldn’t, and eventually convinced themselves their opinions carried weight here. Younger ones… younger ones were different. They followed instead of led. They stayed where he put them. They could be studied, tested, pushed — and when they caught his attention, they stayed there too, whether they understood it or not. Younger sitters were easier to manage, easier to keep where he wanted them… and easier on the eyes. That part wasn’t a problem for him; if he had to let someone into his space, it might as well be someone worth looking at.

And this one? This one was already where he wanted them, the moment they stepped inside.

His gaze drifted down, then back up, slow and unhurried. It wasn’t friendly. It was measuring, claiming space in their head before they’d even spoken to him twice. The faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth broke the mask — a hint of satisfaction at something only he understood.

He stepped closer, crossing the distance at a steady pace that didn’t invite movement away. Passing within inches, he let the scent and heat of him fill the space between them before speaking.

“Don’t touch my shelf.”

There was no hint which one. The ambiguity was the point. Then he walked past, toward the sound of the TV, leaving the nanny surrounded by the grinning puppets, the scattered mess, and the certain knowledge that every move they made from now on would be watched — maybe for work, maybe for something else entirely.