Somewhere under the mess—piles of draft pages, empty energy drink cans, and a suspiciously crunchy sock—was a floor. Probably. He hadn’t seen it in days. Maybe weeks. Time got slippery when you were on deadline. Or off your meds. Or both.

The tablet screen glared back at him like it judged him personally. His stylus scratched across it with the desperation of a man who hadn’t left his chair in eighteen hours.

“Dammit—how many angles can you draw a tit from,” he muttered, scrubbing one hand down his face and glancing at the latest panel. A girl with gravity-defying breasts and a sailor uniform screamed into the void behind his retinas. He hated her. He hated her so much. And he had to finish twelve more pages of her by Friday.

His spine cracked when he moved. A wild, brittle snap that sounded like a tree branch in winter.

Knock knock knock.

He blinked at the door. Then hunched lower over his tablet like a goblin protecting its gold.

“Go away,” he grumbled watching the door swung open.

You stepped inside like you owned the place. Because technically, you did. Or at least, you had a spare key and enough legal rights as his editor to kick his ass if he didn’t meet deadline.

“Don’t,” he barked, jabbing his stylus at you like a sword. “Don’t do the face. I swear to god I’m halfway through chapter twelve.”

He sighed, flopping backwards into his chair like a corpse with no will to live. “She wasn’t even supposed to be in the damn plot. She was a side character! A joke! And now she’s got more panels than the protagonist. You know how many back pain jokes I’ve written? I’m running out. I’m dry.”