CHAPTER 203: CHAPTER 203: FUNCTIONALITY.

Chris had expected to collapse face-first into the carpet after Serathine and Cressida left, but apparently his body had other plans.

Instead of shutting down, his brain had quietly rebooted itself out of crisis mode and shoved him into something even worse:

Functionality.

He sat at his desk with his hair a disaster from where he’d dragged frustrated fingers through it, ankles crossed under the chair like a student trying to behave, and Volume One of Advanced Consort Protocol spread open before him like a medieval curse tablet sent to humble his spirit.

The title glared back at him.

Presence, Precision, Power.

Volume One.

He tried not to take it personally.

"...Why do I need this?" he muttered to himself, flipping the page as if the book might answer. "I’m already the High Consort. I’m marked. He’s mine. I’m his. Social order achieved. Declare victory and go home."

The book, in its treason, disagreed.

It disagreed loudly. It disagreed with charts.

By the third page, Chris was dragging a hand down his face.

"Why," he whispered, "is there an entire section on the exact number of steps I’m allowed to take away from him during official ceremonies? Why does distance matter? Why is this... calculus?"

He flipped the page again.

It was calculus.

There were actual formulas. Ratios. Proximity arcs.

One diagram even included a footnote explaining, ’Exceeding the recommended spacing risks signaling disunity to foreign courts.’

Chris stared at that sentence until he felt personally insulted.

"Disunity?" he echoed. "He moves me like a piece of furniture with feelings. The last time we were in public, he pulled me against him so tightly I thought my spine fused with his hip."

Chris flipped another page, skimmed a paragraph, and felt his soul leave the building.

"...This is nonsense," he muttered.

Volume One stared back at him with the confidence of literature written by generations of nobles who had clearly never touched a calculator, a blue-collar job, or the concept of efficiency. The diagrams weren’t protocol, they were trigonometry dressed in embroidery.

He turned the page and found a flowchart mapping the acceptable radius of the High Consort’s orbit around the King during foreign visits.

Radius. Orbit.

He closed the book with the slow despair of a man who realized entire centuries of royalty had too much time and too little humility.

"This isn’t etiquette," he whispered. "This is what happens when rich people get bored and start writing math fanfiction."

He stared at the cover again.

Presence. Precision. Power.

"Power my ass," he said under his breath. "This is like reading the instruction manual for assembling a very expensive, highly inconvenient IKEA display model."

He flipped the book open again, trying to be responsible, because Serathine and Cressida were terrifying in a way that made nuclear reactors look friendly. He skimmed the table of contents. He could admit, begrudgingly, that some sections mattered. Diplomatic precedence. Threat recognition. Crisis posture.

Fine. He would absorb what actually kept him alive.

But the rest? He lifted the book and let it fall back onto the desk.

"The rest can choke."

He leaned back in his chair, rubbing at the bridge of his nose with the weariness of a man who had survived three meltdowns, two matriarchs, one existential crisis, and zero hours of true dignity.

"Why would I ever take seven ceremonial steps away from a man who is literally seven-foot-three and spends half his time dragging me into his gravitational field like a sentient black hole?"

He pushed the book away as if it physically offended him.

"No, seriously," he continued to himself, "what foreign court is going to mistake disunity when every time I move two feet away from him, he follows like a very large, very determined predator? The man bends down to talk to me. Bends. He has to fold in half like a divine skyscraper trying to communicate with a civilian."

He ran both hands down his face again.

"And they expect me to stand at a mathematically approved angle next to him? Who is going to see the angle when his entire upper body blocks the light?"

He was mid-rant, hands gesturing, mouth twisting into a pained grimace, when the door clicked.

Chris froze.

That scent, rich spiced rum, heat softened with something warm and grounding, filled the air like a tide. It rolled over his senses, hitting every receptor he still had working, and coaxing out awareness he didn’t ask for.

He didn’t need to lift his head to know. He felt him.

Then he heard the quiet, measured footsteps of someone whose body geometry had to be studied to be believed.

Chris slowly lowered his hands from his face.

And Dax filled the doorway.

The king stepped inside with that lethal, effortless grace that came from a body designed by gods with no respect for mortal proportions, tall enough that the doorway seemed to bow out of courtesy. His eyes found Chris instantly, warmth flickering beneath controlled authority, and then shifted to the etiquette tome lying chastised on the desk.

Chris felt his stomach drop.

Dax stepped closer. Each step ate distance effortlessly, long strides that brought him from door to desk in half the time a normal human would have taken.

He wasn’t smiling, but the heat behind his gaze said he wanted to.

"Volunteering for further education?" Dax asked quietly, tilting his head with the lazy confidence of a man who knew exactly what effect he had.

Chris pointed at the book like it had committed a crime.

"This is not education," he declared. "This is... this is aristocratic fanfiction for people with too much time and not enough hobbies. Who wrote this? Why? How many committees approved this? And why does it involve geometry?"

Dax blinked once.

Then again.

Slowly.

"Geometry," he repeated, voice rich with amusement he was trying and failing to hide.

"Yes," Chris snapped. "Angles. Ratios. Distances. Do you know how far seven ceremonial steps are for someone who is five-eight standing next to someone who is seven-foot-three? I did the math."

Dax leaned one hand on the desk, lowering himself enough to look him directly in the eyes.

"And?" he murmured.

Chris swallowed.

"...You’d drag me back before I reached step three."

A slow smile unfurled across the king’s mouth, dangerous, indulgent, and very pleased.

"Yes," Dax murmured. "I would."

Chris felt heat bloom in his cheeks, annoyance mixed with something far more treacherous.

"I’m not reading the distance Chapter," Chris said firmly.

"You don’t need to," Dax replied, leaning close enough that his shadow brushed over the desk. "You’re not allowed to leave my side."

Chris glared up at him. "That’s not protocol."

Dax straightened, towering, powerful, and amused in that devastating way that made every courtier lose the ability to think. "It is when the king says so."

Chris narrowed his eyes, suspicion sharpening his expression. "Why are you here?"

Dax didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he walked around the desk, slowly as if giving Chris’s pulse time to misbehave. He rested one large hand on the back of Chris’s chair, lowering his height just enough to look him directly in the eyes.

"Well," he said, voice smooth as dark velvet, "a bird told me you want payment for something."

Chris froze.

Dax continued, "And I don’t like having debts."