Page 23 of Designation: Null

Robert gets off at the next stop.

8

Logan sleeps like the dead, asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. He releases copiously in the night and goes to work the next day feeling invincible. Nothing happens. He doesn’t see Hank. No one says anything to him or looks at him askance.

Maybe everything is fine and no one knows about his shower meltdown.

Logan is then gone for a week on a mission and when he comes back, he finds out that Robert has a new office. He debriefs, showers, and goes to find Robert, hoping they can get lunch before he goes home and sleeps.

He’s exhausted. But he’s feeling like himself again and there is no way he’ll embarrass himself with any rogue submissive tendencies. He’s safe.

Robert is taking things out of a box when Logan knocks on his open door and leans in. “Wow. This is a big office.”

“I know,” Robert says, frowning. He gives Logan a quick glance up and down. “I half expect someone to come by and yell at me for being in the wrong place. Welcome back. You just got in, right?”

“Yup. A week in Guatemala. It was fine. No one died.”

“Good.”

Logan blushes and folds his arms over his chest. One word should not make him blush.

“Have a look around if you want,” Robert says, gesturing for him to come inside instead of hovering in the doorway.

Robert is just as gorgeous as he was when Logan saw him last. He wants to be in his arms. He wishes there was some kind of sign he could give that meant he wanted a hug. Just a hug.

Heaven forbid he ask.

Logan goes in, looking around at the couch and the desk. There’s a table with chairs next to the window.

“Wait. Are those handcuffs?” Logan asks, pointing at the mound of stuff on the ground. There’s a coil of rope, said handcuffs, ankle cuffs, a paddle, a flogger, even a cane. “Jesus.”

“Yeah, who’s prostituting themselves now?” Robert jokes.

Logan recoils. “Well, let’s get you something else! A new job! They can’t make you do this!” he says, disgusted. In fact, he’s horrified. Someone needs to be held accountable!

“Logan. Thank you, but it’s fine,” he says, like it’s nothing. “Honestly. Just about every submissive who struggles on mission is someone I already know, and it’s kind of my superpower, anyway, so it’s not like I do a lot with them. I don’t feel like a prostitute. It was just a joke.” He waits until Logan looks at him. “I was kidding. I swear.”

Logan crosses his arms tighter around himself. “What do you mean it’s your ‘superpower’? Or,” he swallows, “or that you don’t ‘do a lot with them’?”

Robert blinks, hesitating, as if he’s not sure what to say. Maybe he’s surprised Logan doesn’t know? “I’m super high on the dominance scale is all. And I’m pretty confident about my…skills,and that’s usually what a sub is looking for. Most submissives need to feel safe with their Dominant in order to release well and get balanced out. Unless they need fear or misery, but even then, if they can’t trust their partner the experience will go rotten eventually. I can take a sub down so easily that it’s pretty quick and not all that personal.” He frowns, perhaps realizing Logan has no idea what the fuck that means.

“Not personal, like…?”

“Intimacy. Most of the time there’s just a sub asleep on the couch. There’s no nudity or anything sexual. I don’t have to dothatto help people,” he says, giving Logan a look.

What does the look mean?

He waits for Logan to say something. Logan doesn’t know how to respond. “I don’t, uh, I don’t really know what goes on with designation stuff,” Logan says haltingly. “I’m null. I don’t have a cycle.”

“Not ever?”

“Nope. Lucky me, huh?”

Robert smiles but doesn’t agree. “Right. Well, if there was a sub who wasn’t comfortable with Dominants, maybe had a bad experience or just didn’t like the submissive part of themselves, I’m usually good with them because they can sit next to me and might drop just from that. I’m so dominant that a little goes a long way. I wouldn’t expect anything in return, either,” he says, and looks away from Logan.

Is he talking about Logan? There’s an awkward silence until Robert starts speaking again.

“The higher the designation, the easier it is to help a submissive drop. If you spend time with someone who has a very high designation, it’s easy for them to roll you into a drop. So, if someone says I rolled them, or a Dominant rolled them, that’s what they mean. It wasn’t like a kinky sex scene, or an intentional plan to drop, it was something pretty normal and they dropped anyway. Hence why you’ll likely see people sleeping on my couch. And that’s all separate from a submissive who has a release cycle.”

---