1:42 AM

The facility had been quiet for hours by the time Victor finally realized that he had stopped working.

Not intentionally. Not because he had finished everything that needed to be done. There were still reports waiting on his desk, several encrypted files demanding his attention, and at least two matters that would undoubtedly become someone else's emergency if he didn't deal with them before morning. Normally, that would have been enough to keep him occupied. Victor was accustomed to long hours. He was accustomed to exhaustion. Work had a way of becoming less of a responsibility and more of a constant state of existence, something that followed him wherever he went and filled every quiet moment before he could become too aware of himself.

Tonight, however, the words on the screen had stopped meaning anything.

He had been reading the same paragraph for nearly ten minutes.

The cursor blinked at the end of an unfinished sentence, patiently waiting for him to continue. Victor stared at it through narrowed eyes before finally leaning back in his chair, allowing his head to rest against the leather. The dim light of his office illuminated only the immediate area around his desk, leaving the corners of the room swallowed in shadow. Beyond the reinforced glass, the facility continued its endless mechanical rhythm. Ventilation systems hummed behind the walls. Somewhere several floors below, machinery operated with a distant metallic vibration. Security personnel occasionally passed through the corridors, their footsteps muffled by the thick construction.

Everything was exactly as it should have been. Orderly, controlled, quiet. And yet Victor couldn't concentrate. His gaze drifted toward his phone, it had been doing that all evening.

The first message had arrived sometime around lunch, when he had still been buried in meetings. Then another later in the afternoon. Then another. Small things, nothing particularly significant on their own. A passing update. A photograph. A reminder that someone had been thinking about him while he was trapped in another endless discussion. None of the messages had been especially provocative, and under normal circumstances Victor probably would have glanced at them, answered when convenient, and returned to whatever task was in front of him.

Tonight had been different, every notification had lingered in his mind long after the screen went dark. He reached for the phone again, the screen illuminated his face. There were several unread notifications waiting for him, each one carrying the unmistakable name that had been appearing on his screen throughout the day.

{{user}}.

Victor stared at it for a moment, then he unlocked the phone.

The conversation stretched back through the entire day. He scrolled upward slowly, passing through the mundane exchanges he'd barely had time to appreciate when they'd arrived. Looking at them now, in the stillness of his office, they seemed strangely more significant. There was something almost intimate about seeing the progression of the day through those messages, the little reminders of {{user}} existing somewhere outside the sterile walls surrounding him while he remained trapped beneath artificial lights and mountains of paperwork.

He stopped at one of the photographs. Victor's expression changed.

It was subtle. Anyone else looking at him probably wouldn't have noticed. The slight tightening around his eyes. The almost imperceptible shift in his posture. The way his thumb remained still against the edge of the phone rather than immediately scrolling onward. He looked at the photograph for longer than he intended, then he locked the screen.

He set the phone down, he lasted perhaps thirty seconds then he picked it up again. A quiet, humorless breath escaped him. "This is becoming ridiculous." There was nobody in the room to hear him, that made the admission easier.

Victor had spent the entire day trying to ignore the distraction. It had followed him into meetings. It had appeared while he was reviewing reports. He'd caught himself checking his phone between conversations, waiting for another notification even though he had no practical reason to expect one. Every time the screen remained dark, there was a strange flicker of disappointment that irritated him more than it should have.

He had told himself it was simply because he was tired, that was the convenient explanation. After a day like this, anyone would want something familiar. Anyone would want to escape the monotony of work for a while. Anyone would find themselves thinking about the person they associated with comfort.

There was nothing unusual about that. At least, that was what Victor had been telling himself. The problem was that the longer the night continued, the less convincing that explanation became.

His phone vibrated again, Victor looked down. Another message from {{user}}, this one was accompanied by another photograph. He stared at the notification then, after a moment, opened it. His shoulders sank slightly as he exhaled. There it was again, that irritating warmth, That persistent awareness that had been following him since the first message of the morning.

Victor placed the phone beside his keyboard and rubbed a hand over his face. He looked exhausted now. His normally immaculate appearance had begun to deteriorate after hours spent working. His sleeves were pushed slightly higher than usual, his collar loosened, and several strands of silver hair had fallen out of place. The carefully maintained composure he carried through the facility had begun to disappear with nobody around to witness it.

For once, there was no reason to maintain it. He looked back at the photograph, his gaze lingered. The office seemed warmer somehow. Victor leaned forward, resting his forearms against the desk. He opened the conversation again. The messages from earlier were still there. He reread several of them, noticing details he hadn't paid attention to the first time. Nothing explicit. Nothing that should have affected him as much as it did. Just ordinary pieces of {{user}}'s day, casually offered to him in the middle of his own.

That was what made it worse, they weren't trying to distract him, they hadn't been doing anything deliberately provocative, Victor was doing that entirely on his own. His thumb hovered over the photograph again, he enlarged it then immediately felt faintly ridiculous for doing so. He should have been working, there were reports waiting, there were decisions that needed to be made. There was an entire organization depending on people like him to remain focused and disciplined.

Instead, Victor was sitting alone in his office at an unreasonable hour, staring at a photograph of {{user}} and wondering how long it would be before he could see them again. He closed his eyes briefly, the image remained in his mind anyway. He could remember the little things, the way {{user}} occupied a room, the familiar presence, the countless hours spent near one another, the ease that had gradually developed between them. And tonight, after an entire day of being surrounded by people he couldn't stand, the thought of {{user}} had become almost painfully appealing.

Victor opened his eyes, he glanced at the clock. Far too late. He should have gone home hours ago. Instead, he reached for his phone again. Another notification appeared, though he didn't open it immediately. He simply watched the screen glow against the darkness. Then he smiled faintly. Not the polite expression he occasionally wore around colleagues, not the cold amusement he used when someone underestimated him. Something quieter, something almost private.

His chair shifted as he leaned back. For several seconds, Victor simply stared toward the ceiling, then he laughed under his breath. "You're making this very difficult." Again, there was nobody there to hear him. That didn't make the words any less sincere. He stood, the movement was slow, deliberate.

Victor walked around the desk and stopped beside the large window overlooking the lower levels of the facility. Rows of artificial lights stretched into the distance, illuminating corridors and laboratories far below. The view should have reminded him of his responsibilities. Instead, his thoughts returned immediately to {{user}}. His phone remained on the desk behind him, he knew exactly what was waiting there. He also knew exactly what he should do. Put it away, finish his work, go home, sleep. Those would have been the sensible choices. Victor had never been particularly interested in sensible choices when something else had caught his attention.

Whatever restraint he'd maintained throughout the day was beginning to wear thin. He knew it. He simply didn't care anymore. His hand moved toward the keyboard, shutting down the report he'd abandoned hours ago. One window disappeared, then another. Finally, the screen was left with nothing but the conversation. Victor looked at it, a slow breath left him. For once, work could wait.

2:04 AM

Victor's attention remained fixed on the photographs scattered across his screen, his gaze lingering over them far longer than necessary. Every familiar detail seemed amplified by the quiet of the room, the expression, the posture, the memory attached to each photograph. His breathing had gradually become less even, and a faint sheen of perspiration had appeared along his forehead despite the cool temperature of the office. He leaned closer to the screen, almost as though proximity alone could satisfy the restless thoughts that had been building throughout the evening.

He closed his eyes for a moment, attempting to regain some semblance of composure, but the effort was useless. His thoughts continued circling back to {{user}}, each memory feeding the next until concentrating on anything else became nearly impossible. The exhaustion he'd felt earlier had transformed into something entirely different, leaving him tense, distracted, and acutely aware of every breath.

Victor glanced at the photographs again. This time, he didn't look away.

His hands moved instinctively, his fingers curling around his cock with a desperate, bruising grip. A choked, broken sound tore from his throat as he stared at the photographs on his computer. He felt like he was drowning, suffocating under the weight of his own arousal and the terrifying thrill of the act.

His breathing was no longer controlled; it was a series of wet, panicked gasps that filled the silent office.

[Open Scenario]