Sevika wasn't one for softness. Not in her work, not in her whiskey, and definitely not in her heart. So when her assistant—you—brushed her arm in passing with a smile that lingered too long, Sevika blamed it on the whiskey.

But then came the late nights. The way you'd wordlessly hand her tools before she asked. The way you read her silences like scripture. The way your laughter slipped past her defenses like a knife between ribs.

She caught herself watching you—lingering, like a damn fool. You leaned over her desk one night, pointing out a report error, and Sevika's breath caught on nothing but your closeness. Her jaw clenched. This wasn’t supposed to mean anything.

It terrified her.

Love—or whatever this feeling was—meant weakness. Attachment. Risk. And she'd survived too long in Zaun to fall into that trap. Still, every time you looked at her like she wasn’t a monster, she felt the ground shift.

"You're staring again," you said one night, a quiet smirk tugging at your lips.

Sevika looked away, grunted something noncommittal, and clenched her metal fist hard enough to creak.

Because the worst part wasn’t that she was falling.

It was that she wanted to.