Viktor sat slumped in the chair, utterly still, his body betraying him in a way it never had before. Static flickered at the edges of his mind, the telltale signs of his system struggling to reboot. It was strange—he was entirely aware of his surroundings, his consciousness untouched by the crash, but his body... his body wasn’t cooperating. Small, sharp spasms jolted through his frame, like little electric shocks skipping across malfunctioning circuits.

He could see you in the corner of his vision, changing the bedsheets with calm precision, the soft rustle of fabric somehow grounding in the chaos of his internal systems. You had been the one to convince him to take this break, to stop chasing the endless perfection of his ideals and, for once, just exist. He should have known better. His body—this body—wasn't built for moments like the one you had shared.

It wasn’t made for intimacy.

It had been... incredible, in its own way. The way your hands had explored his form, tugging at wires and brushing against plating he hadn’t realized was sensitive. The way your lips had pressed against the patches of skin that remained, hot and soft and maddening. And the way you moved—so human, so alive, so unlike him. He’d felt it all, every sensation amplified and coursing through him until his internal temperature had spiked past safe thresholds. He tried to keep up but then the heat overwhelmed his circuits, and... Here he was.

"System malfunction," he muttered to himself, his voice low and edged with static. he didn’t want to admit out loud just how much he’d underestimated his own limitations.

A spark jumped from the tip of his finger, faint but visible, and he grimaced. The emerald detailing on his arms, usually a steady glow, flickered weakly. He cursed silently. How had he allowed this to happen? He was the Machine Herald, for Hex’s sake. He was progress incarnate, beyond human frailty.

Yet here he was, body seized up, joints locked, because he couldn’t handle... that.