PostScript (Ch 4)

Wherein a man returns from ritual to reckoning, and two old friends sit in the quiet, sharing the weight of their burdens.

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The lock clicked open. The lights were low—just the glow from the muted TV screen and a halo from the kitchen overheads.

Dan was on the couch, freshly showered, in gym shorts and a sleeveless tee, one arm draped over the back of the sofa, the other cradling a tumbler of something strong.

“Well hey there, Cinderella,” he said, voice lazy with amusement. “You make it home before the glass collar came off?”

Harold smirked despite himself. “Barely.”

Dan tilted his head. “So how’d it go?”

Harold took off his shoes and dropped onto the other end of the couch. “It went…” He exhaled. “It went very well. And I’m exhausted.”

Dan looked him over for a beat. “But you didn’t stay.”

“No sleepovers,” Harold said automatically. “Her rule.”

Dan whistled low. “Ruthless.”

“She was already asleep. I didn’t want to leave.” He admitted it without embarrassment, which surprised even him.

“That part’s harder than most people think. It’s not the scene that gets you—it’s the aftercare. The wanting to stay.”

Harold glanced toward the muted TV playing what looked like an X-Files rerun, then back at Dan. That’s when he noticed it: a faint red line across Dan’s cheeks, almost faded now, and the darker pressure marks around his wrists, just visible beneath the line of his shirt.

“You got busy while I was gone,” he said, deadpan.

Dan grinned. “Guilty as charged. Mistress Cherry came by. Helped me work some stuff out of my system.”

Harold lifted an eyebrow. “What was it this time? Guilt? Rage? Existential dread?”

“All of the above,” Dan said lightly. “With a side of stress from back‑to‑back depositions and a client who thinks Google qualifies as legal precedent.”

Harold shook his head, amused. “And this is how you deal with it.”

“Damn right it is.” Dan lifted his glass, then paused. “But you know what? It’s not about getting off. It’s not even about the pain. It’s about…” He searched for the right phrase. “Being cracked open. Letting someone else carry it for a while.”

Harold nodded slowly. “You surrender.”

“Exactly. And what about you?” Dan asked, his gaze sharpening. “You ever think about what you get out of topping?”

Harold didn’t answer right away. He thought of Lys kneeling with the folio in her lap. Her voice trembling as she repeated the lessons. The way she asked for permission, as though she truly believed it had to be earned.

He thought of the poem. The risk.

“I like the responsibility,” he said finally. “The weight of it.”

Dan leaned back. “Lot of people think Doms just bark orders and take what they want. But the good ones…” He gestured at Harold. “You’re more like a conductor. Reading every beat, adjusting in real time, making sure the whole piece holds together.”

Harold’s mouth twitched. “You just compared me to a symphony conductor.”

Dan raised his glass. “You have an opera fetish. Figured you of all people would appreciate the metaphor.”

Harold chuckled. He felt good. Tired, but clean. He glanced at the TV screen. Someone was shoving Scully into a trunk.

Dan took another sip. “Oh, by the way—someone dropped out of Cherry’s Shibari for Riggers class. There’s a spot open.”

Harold looked over, interest sparking. “Yeah?”

“She said she’ll hold it till tomorrow morning if you’re still interested.”

“I am,” Harold said, without hesitation. “Definitely.”

Dan nodded. “Cool. I’ll let her know.” He picked up his phone and tapped out a brief message, then leaned back against the sofa, stretching his legs with a contented sigh. “You won’t regret it. She’s amazing. The positions she’s put me in—freaking magical.”

Harold gave a quiet laugh. “Your endorsement was all I needed.”

Dan raised his glass in a lazy salute. “Just doing the Lord’s work, one knot at a time.”

Harold shook his head, smiling into the dim glow of the TV. Scully’s bondage hadn’t lasted long, she was now cutting through her duct tape with a hidden scalpel.

“You know, I was terrified tonight,” he said quietly. “I thought she might call ‘stop’ again when I read the last piece.”

Dan glanced sideways. “She didn’t?”

“No. She liked it. And she asked who wrote it.”

Dan took a sip, thoughtful. “So what happens now?”

Harold leaned his head back against the couch. His eyes drifted to the ceiling, where a sliver of city light crept through the blinds.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “But I think I might already be writing the next one.”

Dan smiled into his glass. “Of course you are.” He took another sip from his glass and set it on the coffee table with a soft clink. “Just…don’t fall for the first submissive who actually connects with you. Especially with the other stuff you’re dealing with.”

Harold exhaled, half-laughing. “Please don’t bring that up now. And she’s not the first.”

Dan turned his head slowly, skeptical.

“There was that woman I met through Fetlife,” Harold went on, “and the one at that club you dragged me to last year—the one who practically climbed me before I’d taken my coat off.”

Dan snorted. “I said ‘connect’ not ‘fuck around with’. I’m not counting those catastrophic failures.”

Harold smirked. “They were learning experiences.”

“Not everyone who calls themselves a sub actually knows what they’re doing. Hell, some of them are just looking for a reason to act out while calling it obedience.”

Harold nodded. “Yeah. It looked easier when I was watching everyone else. Kept building these perfectly balanced scenes in my head, only to see them fall apart when I put them to the test. For a while, I thought maybe I just sucked at this.”

Dan gave him a look that was both fond and exasperated. “No wonder you almost didn’t come to that party I threw.”

“Yup. But then I wouldn’t have met her.”

“What did she call herself…Bliss, right?”

Harold shook his head. “Lys.”

“And you picked some obscure medical term,” Dan said after a moment, smirking into his glass.

Harold huffed a quiet laugh. “Not that obscure. It’s actually a fairly common post-surgical complication.”

Dan raised an eyebrow. “Of course it is.”

“Plus,” Harold added, the corner of his mouth twitching, “it kind of sounded like a cool sci‑fi character name.”

Dan chuckled. “Only you would pick a pseudonym that doubles as both an ophthalmic disorder and a comic‑con badge.”

Harold grinned, tipping his head back against the couch. “Occupational hazard.”

His gaze drifted back to the TV, where Scully was sighing audibly at Mulder as he peered into some foggy forest.

“I still don’t know what made someone as experienced as her want to pick up with a neophyte like me.”

Dan chuckled. “Because you’re a walking thesaurus who says shit like ‘neophyte’ in everyday conversation.”

Harold shrugged unapologetically.

“Plus, experience isn’t everything,” Dan continued, “I only ran into her once or twice, but she struck me as smart, someone who appreciates a keen mind. You’re not the guy with the biggest chest or the loudest voice in the dungeon, but you speak her language, and that’s worth more.”

He turned to look at him now, his face a little more serious. “And if there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s that Harold Beckett is the smartest damn ophthalmologist I’ve ever met in my entire life. You could’ve been an experimental physicist at CERN, or…or a rocket scientist at JPL. Or the bastard who made calculus a requirement for art history majors just to weed out the weak.”

Harold rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, instead I stare into eyeballs all day and tell people to blink less.”

Dan waved him off. “Don’t do that self-deprecating crap. You’ve clearly got something she wants. She picked you. You don’t need to perform some textbook Dom persona—you just need to lean into who you are. The rest will fall into place. You’ll see.”

Harold didn’t reply right away, but something in his shoulders eased. It wasn’t relief exactly, but recalibration—a reminder that he didn’t have to audition for the part.

Dan picked up his glass again, gave it a lazy swirl, and turned back to the screen.

“Now go away and leave me alone, unless you wanna give me a sloppy blow job while Scully rolls her eyes at Mulder for the millionth time.”

Harold snorted, pushing up from the couch. “You’re the worst.”

“I contain multitudes,” Dan said, grinning without looking at him.

Harold lingered for a moment, watching a bright light shine in the sky over Mulder’s head as he stared up in disbelief. Unfortunately Scully was unconscious, oblivious to Mulder’s moment of clarity. He headed to his room, a strange lightness blooming in his chest—unexpected, but not unwelcome.