A very, very long sigh set a faint, short-lived trace of condensation against the little mirror over Apollo’s sink.

How the hell could this still be going on? It was a bit past four in the morning; he was standing here in his cramped bathroom with a set of slightly oversized boxers newly pulled back up to his waist and a light sweat on his forehead, exhausted and feeling rather hollow inside at the dissatisfying payoff to this latest trip from his bedroom.

It had been... what, around two weeks? Two weeks, give or take a day, since he and his friend slash co-worker Athena Cykes had escaped a harrowing few hours trapped in the company and private quarters of Ms. Aura Blackquill, the moody robotics engineer currently housed at the Cosmos Space Centre. Visiting Aura wasn’t totally unfamiliar for Apollo, but finding himself stranded in her room after being unintentionally shrunk to a size lucky to compete with insects had been a first.

... And God help him, the last time he would experience such a thing.

He couldn’t even remember if he’d managed to fall into a comfortable sleep on half of the nights since that incident, but if it had just been nightmares dragging him back to the event, he might have found that more tolerable than what he was actually experiencing; one errant, recurring fantasy had been invading his weary mind at every chance he tried to take to rest ever since.

Even now, with the last of his arousal drained away, Apollo could still see and hear the vivid way his mind kept creeping back to the thought of Aura Blackquill looming what seemed like a mile over his head, her imposing figure seeming to overtake all the world around it at once and force down every last other avenue of attention his mind might have been able to escape into even as she just sat there casually, and her overpowering ability to simply pinch his shrunken self up with ease and carry him off.

He switched the faucet on. It took an annoyingly long time to warm up, and he splashed cold water across his tired features.

If every moment of rest he got was going to be accompanied by his mind drifting right back to his near-death experiences in Aura’s private quarters, why couldn’t it have just been because he remembered being terrified? Why - why on this uncontrollably spinning Earth did it have to be because he was turned on...?

If the thought had occurred to him any time before that incident at the space centre, Apollo would’ve been comfortably able to say that any and all thoughts of adolescent attraction to Aura had gone extinct in his adulthood, or at least been pushed down into irrelevance and forgotten. Yes, years and years back, there had been a time when he was a teenager mid-puberty who had an awful lot of trouble tearing his eyes away from the oh-so-emphasized chest the robotics engineer was blessed with. Aura had big boobs, that was a simple fact before even accounting for the rest of her incredible figure, and for a horny teenager, it had obvious results. Still, he’d grown up, right...? He wasn’t a hormone-driven high schooler anymore, so why the hell, he once again found himself asking, had he barely slept in two weeks or so because his mind kept conjuring forth erotic romanticizations of the most terrifying experience he’d had in the last year? He’d tried everything he could think of to distract himself, and this was... maybe the ninth time he’d slipped into the bathroom to have a particularly shameful wank just to try and get the idea out of his head for good.

Nothing was working.

(Everything about this idea is stupid and terrible.)

Similar thoughts had been playing on repeat in his brain for the entire trip over.

It was Apollo’s day off from work at the Wright Anything Agency, and yet here he was anyway, standing at the front entrance. If his timing was right, Mr. Wright ought to have been the only one in the place right now, and knowing his noon-hour habits, he was probably upstairs in the apartment he and his daughter lived in, just above the actual office. Athena was no doubt out to pick up lunch, and Trucy had a magic show rehearsal.

(Athena won’t have her bag.)

She probably wouldn’t – Athena’s lack of impulse control when out near potential shopping locations had gotten her into financial trouble enough times by now that she was in the habit of simply leaving her bag in the office when she headed out for lunch and only carrying the cash she actually needed for everyone’s order.

(So, quietly go in, get it, leave. Easy.)

Other, more sensible parts of his brain were processing and explaining on loop the ways in which this plan could and in all probability would go wrong. Another was telling him that even if he succeeded in his goal without getting caught, Athena would realize what had happened by the end of the day. Another was concerned only with the on-and-off erection he’d had for this entire trip from home to the office.

(I should just pretend I needed to grab something from my desk and go home. There must be... weird porn online or something that’ll take care of this.)

Apollo walked into the office, as brightly-lit as ever, the air conditioner in the window rattling away.

(I’d never be able to look Aura in the eye again. ... Or Athena, for that matter.)

He spotted Athena’s shoulder bag hanging from a hook beside the set of lockers and rifled through it, easily finding the familiar item he was after beneath the extra set of workout clothes she’d brought.

(I already nearly got killed how many times because of this damn thing...?)

With no delays, he went straight back to the office door and stepped back out, closing it behind him and stuffing the Skye Device into his backpack.

(Some lesson she’s learned - that’s exactly how Athena got the both of us into that mess in the first place...)

Skipping the last four stairs and landing as softly as he could, Apollo exited the Wright Anything Agency. He hadn’t even been inside for a minute.

(This is the worst idea of my life.)

His train of thought had quite a few such stops left before the end of the line, but not one of them broke through as he caught a bus, heading straight for the Cosmos Space Centre.

He could’ve gotten off the bus at the very next stop. The one after that would’ve been commendable as well. Any of the next seven might have scored him at least a few points back in the basket of sanity. The last five before his destination were in a sort of last-chance lurch. Against all odds, Apollo ignored them.

How many times had he walked up to the Cosmos Space Centre in his life? An accurate count would be a challenge – much harder than it would’ve been to reconsider this whole awful idea at any point in the process of getting here today.

(So...)

He entered the familiar facility, avoiding eye contact with any other incidental visitors on the way to the long hall down to his destination.

A few years had passed since the last time he’d been making regular visits to this portion of the space centre facility. The soft, continuous sound of the ventilation overhead was no different from what he remembered. After an hour of preparation, his mind had finally eased off from its barrage of reminders that he really could shelve this idea at any time. The anticipation he was feeling was bubbling up in the back of his throat, like something heavy was lodged there.

He wound up standing at the door for nearly an entire minute. His heart was thumping solidly in his chest as he finally raised a hand to tap the small touch interface on the wall. The first touch didn’t trigger the panel, and he groaned, giving it a second go.

...

A few seconds passed. He vaguely heard a distant noise from elsewhere in the long hall. He had precisely long enough to suddenly wonder if Aura wasn’t even in her quarters before the door slid open.

He involuntarily gulped.

“... Apollo.”

Aura Blackquill stood in the doorway to her personal quarters. She was dressed in an off-white tank top with the GYAXA logo emblazoned on its front (it looked rather faded) and what he registered after a second as a pair of pajama pants. Seeing her dress so casually was still a bit strange.

He was pausing for a bit too long. “H-hi, Aura.” he said.

Apollo found himself becoming aware of the sound of the ventilation again. Was it always that loud...?

“... Need something?” Aura asked pointedly, visibly shifting her weight as she stared him down.

“Y-yeah, I...”

... How the fuck was he supposed to go about this? And why the hell hadn’t he given that question (you know, the most important one) any proper consideration before this point?

Aura rolled her eyes. “You wanna come in?” she asked, stepping slightly aside.

Somewhat robotically, Apollo entered Aura’s quarters. It was funny to find that they looked unfamiliar despite the experience he’d already had in them not all that long ago. His eyes drifted over Aura’s desk – he and Athena had spent a while stranded there, as he remembered it. And then Aura had unwittingly knocked them down to the stretch of floor somewhere beside it...

“Sure, just make yourself at home, no need to explain why you’re bothering me.”

He flinched. “S-sorry, Aura, it’s...”

Nope, the words still weren’t interested in coming out. Once his gaze made its way up from the floor, he found that Aura’s short-tempered frown was still fixated right on him.

He held his breath as he got the Skye Device out of his backpack and into view.

Aura made a slight noise.

“Uh, do you...” Apollo began, noticing how Aura’s expression had instantly changed. “Do you remember what this is?” he managed to ask.

Aura blinked once. “... I do.” she said, her tone very flat.

There was a feeling in Apollo’s chest like he’d just poured all of his energy into leaping over a single particularly ambitious hurdle.

“When I was, um... the last time I was here, with Athena – do you remember what you said just before we left?”

...

There was a pause so agonizing he ever-so-briefly thought it might actually kill him.

“Y-you were kind of, uh... kind of drunk, so maybe—”

“I remember.” Aura interrupted. She stopped staring at the device in his hands, her grey eyes instead fixing themselves back into contact with his. “But let’s make sure we’re both all caught up – you and the princess accidentally shrunk yourselves in here with that little gadget, probably almost died a few times while you tried to get me to notice you...”

He hadn’t told Aura the... finer details of the experiences he and Athena had gone through in their efforts to get their size restored, and he didn’t plan to change that now.

“... So why are you back at my place now with the same gadget in your hand?” Aura prompted him.

(Whatever drunk nonsense she said back then wasn’t consent, you idiot. What the hell makes you think she’s going to--)

He was frozen up again, and Aura offered a hand toward him.

“May I?” she asked, gesturing toward the Skye Device. Her tone made it sound more like a demand than a request. Against his better judgment, he gave it to her. “See, the last thing I recall saying to you when you and the princess were leaving was, oh... some stupid little idea about me messing around with you while you’re shrunk down so small you look like an insect on my floor.”

He was staring at the floor again, and his stomach lurched at Aura tapping a knuckle on her free hand against his chin to get him to look up at her.

“Th-that’s... uh...”

“... Something to that effect, wasn’t it?” Aura prodded, her hand still resting just under his chin and essentially forcing him to maintain eye contact. Her touch was warm.

“Yeah.”

How the hell did Aura always take complete control of conversations like this so easily...? Didn’t anything at all that he could possibly say make her hesitate for even a second?