Brought to Heel Ch. 05

Conall suspended his viewing of the Epsilon-1 security footage immediately after he'd - after his - his lapse in behaviour. It was just inappropriate. Even if nobody knew except him, it was a matter of principle.

He had meant for that to be the end of it, after realising exactly how far in over his head he'd gotten, but... He worried at the thought of leaving things unfinished like it was a hangnail. He'd never discovered how the ventilation system was contaminated, nor had he found out what Eon had done during the containment breach or how they had ended up getting turned into a metahuman despite being one of Orpheus' best site directors.

A few weeks of fretting later, he conceded that he needed to check those last two things before he could feel he'd done his due diligence and then put the whole sordid incident behind him.

To that end, Conall had managed to get himself a copy of the Epsilon-1 floor plan with all the services marked out on it, ventilation ducts included. Viewing footage without a clear purpose was how he had gotten sucked in before, and he wasn't doing it again. Before he would even let himself think of looking at the videos, he was going to identify the air intakes for the ventilation around the break room he had been watching.

Admittedly it took him a while to figure out how to read the blueprints properly, but once he did, he only had a few locations to check rather than trying to watch every goddamn video from the surrounding floor and falling into the same trap as he had before. It took another while to figure out exactly how the floor plans corresponded to the security videos, to minimise the amount of footage he was watching, but once he did - it wasn't long until he discovered the probable cause of the vents being contaminated, at the third location he'd marked off.

It was bees.

A group of fae bee people were all crowded around one of the air intakes fucking each other and masturbating and dripping honey-like stuff everywhere. They were even starting to build honeycomb structures or at least the ones who weren't too busy having the stickiest, messiest sex in the world were. Various plants had burst through the floor and walls as well and were starting to flower, as if to provide the appropriate environment for the bees.

Conall noticed how the fae seemed to be beating their wings intentionally in front of the air intake vent and frowned. How the hell was he going to come up with a solution to avoid that happening? Probably nothing would be foolproof enough, short of insisting that all air was to be taken in from outside without recirculating any of the air from indoors, and he had no idea if it was even possible to set the ventilation up like that. Or how much it would cost to change... He audibly whimpered at the thought of making that kind of expense request and how to justify it.

At the very least he had the answer to one of the things bothering him, even if he had barely any idea what to do with the knowledge now he had it. For the other thing... What had happened to Eon?

Finding the security recording of Eon's office was relatively simple. They were in their office as well, at the time. However they might look now, in the recording they were as Conall remembered - their asymmetrical, dyed-purple hair with an undercut on one side, brown skin unadorned save for dramatic eyeliner and even more dramatic lipstick, sharply dressed, and with those eyes that seemed to pierce right through you. Not that Conall had been staring at them during site director meetings or anything. He simply admired the courage they had to be openly queer and non-conformist in a role like site director. Even if Orpheus was an accepting place to work, somehow Conall had fallen into dressing like a stern teacher whose only concession to personality was his choice of tie. So - he admired them. Or, he had.

Conall fast-forwarded to the time when the containment breach had begun in the previous videos. When the onsite communications networks went down, Eon went through a number of troubleshooting steps before taking their mobile out and trying to call the IT department, then the various site section heads when IT weren't picking up, and then finally got through to one who told them what was going on. They cursed loudly, stood up, and then strode calmly to their office door and locked it. After a moment they started pushing the closest furniture in front of the door.

Then they were locked in their own office from the inside, which - was not what Conall was expecting. How do you turn into a metahuman in a locked room with zero personal contact with others? Conall chewed on his lower lip as he wondered about that.

With the room secured Eon launched into phoning whoever they could, a series of short serious conversations which made Conall queasy to think about having to carry out if he was in their situation. Eon was remarkably cool-headed considering the circumstances. Only when they were done with their calls and with firing off text messages to those who hadn't picked up did they sit down at their desk and put their head in their hands.

Fast-forwarding through the video, he saw Eon spend the majority of their time phoning or texting, doing what they could to respond to the security breach remotely. They tried their computer again, and from the angle the security camera had been recording at, he could see their deep frown and the crease between their eyebrows. Conall stopped, rewound a minute and pressed play at regular speed. They said something to themself that struck Conall as odd.

"Why is the security feed working? It should be down like everything else." Why indeed. That didn't really make sense, if the video feed was transmitted over the organisational intranet like everything else.

The rest of the footage was uneventful for quite some time. Eon checked their phone whenever a notification arrived, looking more concerned and resigned over time. Between messages they seemed to be watching the various security feeds, now and then making handwritten notes. Conall found the parallel to him watching them and taking notes unsettling.

Skipping forward again, he noticed the rate of messages they were receiving slowed down considerably, almost to a stop. Then they started making an odd, unreadable expression over some of the messages. Half an hour later, Eon closed their laptop and walked around the room a few times before stopping in front of their locked door. They simply stood there for several minutes, staring at the door. Then they went back to their desk, to their phone and messages, to their laptop and note-taking. Their mobile dinged incessantly with notifications.

Honestly Conall couldn't guess what was going on either in the messages or in Eon's head, but the resignation as they slumped back in their chair and covered their face with their hands was only too clear.

When he went forward another half hour, he couldn't tell what they were doing. The camera angle showed their face and upper body, and the rest was hidden beneath the desk including their hands. Eon was halfway slumped atop the desk, their eyes hooded as they watched whatever was on the laptop, mouth slightly open. It was only when they made a sound that Conall understood what was going on.

Eon was masturbating at their desk in the middle of the security breach.

Conall stopped the video and closed the tab, his face burning. Confused and appalled thoughts crashed into each other in a mile-long pileup.

What were they doing? Actually he knew what. But. Why were they doing it? At their desk, in their office, in the midst of their site falling apart around them, they had done that.

There was no way Conall was going back to watch more to try and make sense of it. There was just no way. What he had seen was inappropriate enough. The image of Eon's expression had already lodged in his memory the moment he understood what he was seeing.

Anything that happened after would have to remain a mystery. He was done with those videos.

-

Belatedly, a week later, he realised he should at least thank Eon for access to the recordings again now that he was finished with them. Writing the email was extremely awkward and he couldn't help reflecting on the fact that he had apparently known even less about Eon as a person than he'd thought, but Conall had been raised to have manners and he had gotten a few valuable insights from the videos. Just not the last one he had watched.

So he wrote a somewhat impersonal thank-you email saying he was finished with the videos and had gotten some useful information from them, just not which information that was. There. Sent. His obligation was fulfilled.

He had no clue how to respond to the conversation they'd been having, however. Every time he tried, his mind flashed back to Eon at the desk and he couldn't organise his thoughts to at all come up with a thing to say about music or movies or travel or anything else. Still, he didn't want to abandon it altogether, even if he almost certainly should. He settled for a short, 'hopefully now I am finished with the security footage, I should have time to watch some of the movies you've been recommending'. Eon wouldn't pass up the chance to enthuse about films. Then he could put the whole security footage topic behind him and everything would go back to normal.

-

"Good afternoon, Director."

Conall looked up at the sudden voice. Then he dropped his pen on the table, words failing to escape his mouth for far too long.

"Director... Santos...?" Even as he said it, he shook himself and blinked as if that would banish the figure at the door. Despite that, they were still there when he looked again, an amused expression on their face which was incidentally the same exact face he had so recently seen in a certain video, and his face went hot when he remembered that and it didn't help at all in either comprehending what was going on or responding with anything other than confused gibbering.

"Please, just call me Eon. I told you before, there's no need to be so formal. I'm not a site director anymore, after all."

Eon took a step away from the door and further into the room and thankfully then at least part of Conall's brain reasserted itself and he stood up at his desk and reached for his frankly archaic desk phone with his finger poised over the speed dial for security. Eon saw this and halted, giving him time to speak.

"Excuse me, but why are you in my office? How did you get into my office? Not to be rude, but unless you give me a very good reason I will have to call security."

A far-off part of Conall's thought processes observed that Eon looked like they were trying not to laugh at that threat. The rest was preoccupied with hovering over the speed dial.

"Has anyone ever followed 'not to be rude' with something that wasn't rude? To answer your second question, that is a secret." They winked at him. "To answer your first... I thought you might have questions."

"About what?" He looked at them suspiciously.

"You might take your hand away from the phone while I answer; I'm not going to pounce on you. I mean about Epsilon-1, its 'fall', and what it was like to experience it firsthand."

Conall placed his hand on the desk. Maybe he shouldn't take their words at face value, but it didn't feel like they were lying.

"Surely you're curious," they pressed, one eyebrow raised.

He was a little curious about what on earth could have been going through their head at that time, but... He bit his lip as he reminded himself not to get complacent simply because they wore a familiar face. Them appearing like this all of a sudden had to be part of some sort of plot.

"If you want to tell your story. Stay on that side of the desk, keep your distance. And. Drop your human disguise."

With Eon looking like they always did, he could be lulled into a false sense of security and forget that they weren't human anymore. He needed to keep his guard up; seeing what they really were now would help. All of that went through his head before he added a belated "please," once he realised he might have been rude.

"Why, Director Hennessy, how forward of you," they said, sounding taken aback.

"Uh. I, um, I didn't mean, I wasn't trying to..." Conall felt his face heat as he tried to verbally fumble his way out of his faux pas.

Eon raised an eyebrow, saying, "honestly, I wouldn't have expected that from you, of all people."

Conall's face burned hotter as he tripped over his words, unable to look Eon in the face. Blessedly they interrupted him, but relief was swiftly overtaken by mortification.

"I'm just fucking with you," they wheezed, sounding like they were trying not to burst out laughing. "Okay, stop, stop trying to apologise, I don't actually mind at all. That's really not - not something metahumans care about."

"Oh." Right. He'd literally seen the videos. Then fell for their fake incredulity anyway. His face was going to be red forever now.

"Sorry, sorry, I couldn't resist. You're just too cute when you blush," Eon said without an ounce of apology in their voice. "Anyway, I thought you would be more comfortable seeing a familiar face, so to speak."

"That's - you came here to talk about Epsilon-1. So if you wouldn't mind, um, taking your metahuman form and taking a seat, I'd like to get on with that. Please." He wasn't going to linger on that 'cute' comment. His cheeks were already flaming as-is.

"Well, if you insist." Eon shrugged exaggeratedly and at last resumed walking towards the desk. The air seemed to shimmer and shift around their form, like three-dimensional space itself was trying to warp. It hurt Conall's eyes. He blinked rapidly and looked away to the side and then back again.

In that moment he wasn't looking, they had changed utterly. Conall's first impression was of height; they had gone from a bit shorter than him to twice his height. If they stood any closer they would have overshadowed him. The second thing he noticed was... A lot of things at once. They had a goat's head complete with horns. Four arms. Hooved feet on satyr-esque legs. Black fur with white patches. Three pairs of breasts, the lower ones lesser in size. Not to mention the sizeable flaccid cock hanging between their legs. They were also, of course, completely naked. Other than their fur. Somehow he felt like he should have expected that.

Eon grinned, showing surprisingly sharp teeth in their goat's snout. Conall realised he had been staring. He averted his eyes, looking to the ground next to their hooves. They sat down across from Conall's desk, shifting in the seat to get comfortable.

He looked back up to their face, unable to prevent his eyes making another intrigued scan up their body as he did so. As strange and inhuman as their new form was, there was a beauty to it, a strength and presence like some sort of ancient god. Or maybe that comparison only came to mind because of his time studying classics. When Conall's gaze reached their face, they were still smiling in a knowing way, with those sharp predator's teeth in a herbivore's mouth. A very confusing shiver went down his spine at the sight.

He did his best to ignore it.

Conall couldn't let himself forget the situation he was in. There was a metahuman in his office. A demonic metahuman, based on their horns, two curved and two sharply pointed, and the swaying tail with a spade-like tip which he hadn't noticed earlier. Like all demonic metahumans, they were an expert in temptation, and he couldn't forget that.

"Like what you see?" They tipped their head to the side a little, resting it in one of their upper hands.

"I don't really see how that's relevant. If you wouldn't mind commencing your story, that would be appreciated."

"Ah, you're all business, Director. A shame. Then, let me gather my thoughts."

Conall waited for them to continue, taking out a notepad as he did, just in case they said anything useful. Which they probably wouldn't, but - he was curious to hear what they had to say. Despite his better judgement, admittedly, but surely it couldn't do that much harm to simply listen to them talk.

"You've seen the video from my office." It was a statement, not a question.

"I watched some of it, yes." Conall tried not to let show in his expression exactly how much he had watched - how much he had seen.

"Then you've seen what I did during the containment breach. But you couldn't see what it felt like, what it was like to be there, to experience it as it happened." They looked away for a breath, as if viewing their memories. "How everything spiralled out of control so quickly, how I tried my hardest to hold on to what I was supposed to do, and how freeing it was when I finally let that go."

They opened all four hands as they said 'let go', and Conall's eyes tracked the motion before he realised it put him staring right at their chest. He jerked his gaze back up to their face and the faint knowing look there.

"But l'm getting a little ahead of myself." They crossed one hooved leg over the other, and Conall resisted the impulse to follow the movement. It was one thing to accidentally look at their bare chest and another entirely to look at what was, well, between their legs.

"At first it didn't seem that different from what we'd trained for, aside from the inconvenience of comms being down. I locked my door just in case, but I fully expected it was isolated to one sector and could be resolved with minimal 'loss' of staff." Their claws framed the air quotes, their tone amused. "That was before I realised almost the entire security team had been compromised and that containment had failed sitewide."

"I called everyone I could get through to, but at the time I was still hopeful that it was something that could be contained. I think I started to realise the real extent once I received near simultaneous messages from two different sector heads about how they'd barricaded themselves in their offices after containment failures in their sectors."

Eon snorted out a laugh. "The sheer drama of it. Sometimes I think Orpheus employees are like horror movie fans, making their plans for metahumans getting loose as if it would be some kind of zombie apocalypse. Even though we don't tend to bite unless asked."

Conall couldn't help but laugh quietly at the comparison. It was really too apt; back when he was a researcher, the topic at the lunch table when it was a slow day was often 'what would you do in a containment breach'.

"You see what I mean. Anyway, after I had gotten through to those I had numbers for, there wasn't much else to do. Only so much site directing to be done while locked in a room with site comms completely fucked. I decided to check if anything at all was working. When I used my administrative access to check the live feeds from the site security cameras, those were still working. Strangely enough..."

Eon left a rather ominous pause in the conversation, staring right at Conall with an expression he couldn't decipher.

"So you watched them. The same videos you sent me." There was that same unsettled feeling he'd had earlier, watching them take notes in the recording. The symmetry of it meant something. He still wasn't sure what that was.

"The same videos," Eon said with a nod. "But I didn't have the distance you did. This was outside my door, those were my colleagues, that footage was happening as I watched it."

There was a certain relish in the way they spoke the words that made Conall shiver. Without any prompting from him, they continued.

"I waited on replies to my calls and messages, and I watched, and I took notes for the incident report l expected to submit afterwards. I tried to keep note of which members of staff remained untransformed. There were plenty of them who took refuge in offices and such at the beginning, but a number who didn't even try." That note of relish reappeared in their voice. "They were waiting for an excuse, you know. A suitable opportunity. A little 'accident', some plausible deniability, a way to get around the physical and mental walls keeping them separate from us."

Eon's strange caprine eyes glimmered, transfixing Conall as he listened. "They're only the ones who had already admitted it to themselves. Isn't it strange for a whole site, top to bottom, to change in a matter of hours? We all know that metahumans don't force anyone to transform. There has to be the desire for it. Orpheus is just dripping with people who desire that, Director Hennessy."

Conall sat up straighter in his chair when they called his name. Their line of logic made a frightening amount of sense. How much good would any changes he made to his site do, if the reason Epsilon-1 fell was because of a vulnerability in the staff Orpheus employed?

No. No, that couldn't be it. Eon was playing mind games with him, trying to demoralise him, and it had been working.

As if sensing his thoughts, Eon spread their hands and said, "but I'm getting ahead of myself. I was saying how I kept notes. I watched the videos. I waited for calls and messages. I called and emailed other sites asking for backup - I'm sure you remember that."

"I do. It's a shame all the sites tend to be so far away from each other. There wasn't really anything I could do..."

Most of the sites were far apart. It was good for stopping a containment failure from spreading, Conall supposed, but it meant sending any help to another site would take hours. He'd felt awful about it. With Eon sitting in front of him talking to him, he didn't feel quite as bad, but seeing them as a metahuman his emotions were a little mixed.

"You don't need to apologise. I really don't mind anymore. Even at the time I didn't expect much. I just needed to feel like I was doing something useful. Besides, it would have been impractical to send backup all the way across the Channel tunnel." They shrugged. "Everything was uneventful for a while; everyone who had taken shelter was waiting around for a security team that would never come. Sitting there while the site was falling apart outside was a strange combination of stressful and boring. Eventually, my adrenaline rush turned into come-down jitters. I considered mapping out a route to the exit, based on the live security feeds, but decided that the risk of stumbling across an orgy of some sort and being convinced to join in would be too great."

"Couldn't you have just, I don't know, walked around them? Since they would be, ah, busy."

Eon gave him a faintly amused look. "Well, yes, but I knew I wouldn't want to just walk past. Deep down I wanted to know what it felt like for myself, but I had a duty to my staff. So I just sat in my office and futilely tried to direct them from there."

Conall felt a renewed flush rise to his cheeks. He couldn't help but picture it; Eon knowing they would be tempted, perhaps imagining how it would happen. In the end they succumbed anyway, and now he couldn't help but be curious how. They'd been so dedicated, after all.

"That dull purgatory stretched on for what felt like hours, and I did my best not to take too much interest in the details as I watched the chaos my site had become. Then I got the first of a new sort of message." Eon shifted in their seat, eyes fluttering at the memory as they drew breath. "One of the sector heads saying they didn't see the point of waiting around in a room when most of their sector had already been transformed. That they were going to join them."

Eon sighed and uncrossed their legs, spreading them to get more comfortable. Again, Conall's eyes tracked the movement, but before he jerked his gaze away he'd already caught a glimpse of their cock. Luckily Eon didn't notice, too caught up in reminiscing. Their knowing look would have been too much.

"I never would have admitted it at the time, but I was envious. There was no way I could give up like that, not while part of Epsilon-1 still remained unchanged."

"That was far from the only message of that kind that I received. There was another sort that I started to get around then, too... Ones from staff members who had already been transformed, talking about how freeing it was, that I shouldn't worry about them, and that they were waiting for me to join them." Eon's voice was becoming breathy, and their eyes half-lidded. Conall realised they were getting pleasure from the retelling of their own temptation... Their own seduction.

What was it about metahumans that made even talking about becoming one such a source of pleasure for them? As he watched the glint of light off of Eon's fangs while they took a deep breath, Conall decided it was probably better not to think about it too much. Thinking too much about that sort of thing seemed like a bad call.

"It would have been easy to brush off those messages if I only received one. And at first I did. I watched the security footage to determine who was still human, and tried not to think too much about the imagery I was seeing. Or how affected I was by it."

The embarrassed warmth that stole over Conall whenever the footage was mentioned came back again, but stronger this time. He still found the parallels eerie, but maybe because of the huskiness of Eon's voice telling the story it seemed a little more... Tantalising. More intriguing... Not as embarrassing as before, not quite as unsettling. If he happened to picture Eon being 'affected' by the footage before he could rein in his imagination, well, at least they wouldn't mind... They were the one breathlessly telling the story, after all.

"I could ignore a single message talking about how becoming a metahuman wasn't anything to be afraid of, or of liberation from social constraints, or how amazing it felt, or how everyone was waiting for me to join them, or how free I would feel when I did - how freeing it was - the freedom of being your unrestrained self - being a metahuman, like it was one and the same. If it was just one, or two, or half a dozen, I could ignore it. But as time crawled along and the messages kept flooding in, it got harder..."

Eon's chest heaved and all of their hands gripped the chair after the breathless flow of words. Conall listened spellbound as they continued.

"I had been determined, I truly was. To guide Epsilon-1 out of a crisis and stay calm and professional as a site director. To look after my staff and my site. To stay human, at the very least, and deliver my report on the containment breach to Orpheus afterwards." They smiled nostalgically. "But if my determination was a rock, the messages I received were the waves crashing against it. One or two won't do too much, but enough over time and it gets worn down and washed away."

"Because the truth was, I really, really envied metahumans. I wanted to be one. To be me, truly, freely, loudly and proudly and unapologetically. To be my queer self without compromise, to be myself in every way possible. I did my best as a human, but there was still part of me that felt I could be more, somehow." Their voice dropped back into a seductive timbre. "The fact that it would feel really fucking good didn't hurt either."

Without noticing, Conall leaned forward in his chair to listen closer.

"The footage and the messages together were too much. I really considered just opening my door and joining the bacchanalia beyond. I wanted it so hard it almost pained me."

For some reason, Conall let his gaze trail lower as Eon talked about wanting.

They were hard.

He couldn't pull his eyes away from the sight, his brain too full of dizzy heat to send proper signals.

"Ah," Eon said, as if they themself were surprised. "Talking about all of this is intense, l can't help but react to it. I can stop, or leave. If you want."

Conall didn't know what was going to come out of his own mouth until he heard himself say "keep going". He hardly sounded like himself, voice thick and stumbling over the words.

Eon nodded, the movement drawing Conall back to their face. "If you say so. But you know, you can change your mind. Just say it. I can't exactly control my reactions, revisiting it all, so I understand if you'd prefer I cut it short..."

Strangely Conall felt reassured by that. As much as he had to be cautious, they had never deceived him, as far as he could tell... Even if he was watching them get off on their own story, there was no physical contact and enough space between them. It was okay.

"It's okay..." He wanted to hear all the way to the end. "I want to hear it."

"Then I am happy to tell it. Now, what was I... Ah yes. I even got up and thought about opening my office door. But there were still some human holdouts in the building and I felt responsible for them." Eon took a breath, the red of their tongue visible between their teeth. "I went back to the videos, both to figure out roughly how many were left and because even if I couldn't participate, I still wanted to see."

Conall watched them shiver in their seat. His eyes drifted back down to their cock while Eon started describing what they'd seen. Their cock was redder than before. It was long, but slender towards the tip, smoothly tapered.

" - saw one of the research staff fucking herself with a sinister-looking idol - "

He'd never been so close to anything like it in person. Even as a researcher there had always been a pane of glass between him and any metahuman research subjects. He kept staring while Eon's words washed over him.

" - the choir club had been singing to keep calm, but their songs had taken on strange harmonies; several of them started sprouting feathers, and as I watched - "

Without that layer of separation it felt like there was a gravitational pull keeping him staring at it, making him want to drift inexorably closer. He knew better, of course, but it was still hard to look away.

"- but finally it was all too much. There were so few human staff members left, and with them went my reasons to resist touching. I couldn't hold myself back. I didn't want to..."

Eon's cock twitched as Conall watched. A drop of glistening cum emerged from the tip. Eon spread their darkly furred thighs wider, and the motion made the droplet start to run down their length. Conall's eyes tracked the movement.

"Once I started touching myself it was like a cascade of feeling. Relief, pleasure, anticipation." Eon's words seemed to catch in their throat, their voice getting lower and huskier with each passing moment. "It's - hh, hard to put it into words."

More twitches, more precum, their hips rutting against thin air. The sight made Conall feel dizzy, hot all over, and as his gaze followed the path of the cum that slowly dripped down their cock all the way to its base, he noticed the fur on Eon's inner thighs was already shiny wet, and the chair beneath them was too. Molten heat ran down his spine to his stomach when Conall realised that Eon had a slit as well. He wished he could see it.

"When I, hha, noticed I was starting to change I was already in a, a frenzy of touching. More, and mm, more, and more. Mmh. It just, ah ahh, spurred me oh, oh, onwards." Conall finally managed to sweep his gaze back up to see Eon clutching the arms of the chair so hard their claws made scratches. Their mouth hung open as they panted, tongue protruding out over their sharp teeth.

Their gaze when they met his was unfocused, and they blinked like they were struggling to keep their eyes open. Even as hazy as they were, their look held him in place. Conall forgot how to think, how to speak, how to look away, even if he had wanted to.

"Director, hh hha, Hennessy, Con - Conall. It felt so so good. So good. So - ah! - good. Ghhh. Haa, mm, mmh, mmh, mmMMh - ah, ahh."

Eon's hips jerked forward and their eyes rolled back. Cum streamed from their twitching, untouched cock. It splattered on their thighs and the floor in front of them. They let out a long, low moan. They kept cumming as their hips rolled against the empty air like they were fucking it. Their torso writhed with the motion, tits bouncing slightly with each thrust against nothing.

Harsh breaths punctuated their moans and whimpers, every noise painting Conall's memory. When their hips stilled and they fell back heavily into their chair, all they were able to do was pant heavily, blinking pleasure-dilated eyes at Conall.

Conall still couldn't manage words, but he wouldn't have known what to say anyway. He swallowed hard and waited. He felt like he was burning. His clothes rubbed intolerably against his skin with every rise and fall of his chest. He was unforgivably hard. All he could do was sit there and wait for Eon to speak. That was all he could allow himself to do. Whatever scrap of self-control he had left in his addled overheated brain wouldn't let him do anything else. He swallowed again. He waited.

After Conall had spent an eternity burning in place, Eon spoke.

"I hope... That answers any questions you had," they said, voice rough.

They were expecting him to answer.

"Uh. I think so?" Conall barely managed not to stumble over the words.

"Okay." They smiled, and then the smile turned a bit apologetic. "Sorry about the mess. I can't relive that time without, well. That happening."

By that they meant coming untouched. Which, god. Conall wasn't thinking clearly enough to come up with any response other than a faint "uh huh".

"I can clean it up if you want."

"I'll do it," Conall said quickly. He didn't know if they'd do it properly. If they'd be thorough enough. He didn't want his office smelling like metahuman cum.

"Well. If you say so." They shrugged. "I guess it's probably about time I left, before someone comes looking for you for something, work stuff. Busy job, site director."

Conall nodded weakly. He could get up to show them to the door, but he didn't. He didn't want them to see how hard he was.

"I'll be in touch. I still haven't given you more movie recommendations than you could watch in a single lifetime." They grinned.

"Yeah, okay," Conall said without much thought.

He watched them walk to the door, before stopping at the handle and turning to look at him.

"Oh, and Conall? One last thing I wanted to say." Eon paused, capturing his gaze even from across the room. "Every Orpheus site is a precariously balanced house of cards, just waiting to fall."

With that they stepped through the door, the sound of their footfalls vanishing immediately. Conall was left with his brain grinding in the attempt to decipher that last ominous statement, stupidly hard, and with... With biohazardous material to clean off the floor and Eon's chair.