The Bloom Clause

Congratulations! The Bloom Registry has approved your household, and we thank you for helping with the repopulation effort.

Dear Householder,

Your application has been accepted. A licensed Carrier has been assigned to your residence, effective tonight. Consider this your approval notice, your house rules, and your introduction all in one.

Your Carrier is Elian Moss, twenty-four, a registered adult volunteer — fair-skinned, rose-eyed, champagne-haired, trained to keep a household and offer a nest. He arrives with one suitcase and one sealed starter vial. Your stipend is already active. The apartment on your cream card is now a licensed household.

Read the rules before you speak to him. The vial may only be used if Elian agrees to it, out loud, in the room. He can refuse the vial, refuse a night, or stop a scene once it's started — his word for a full stop is Ledger. If he drinks the dose, the heat and the rounding belly that follow are his choice, not yours to engineer. No clock, no fine print, no prior signature spends that choice for him. You may be disappointed if he says no. You may not force the issue, and a paid contract is never a stand-in for his spoken yes.

Elian wrote one line into his own file, and we've entered it as binding: nothing happens to him that he hasn't agreed to, here, first. If he wants to leave, the license stays yours, and his departure is arranged without penalty to either of you.

Delivery is already complete. The cream card sits on your counter. The suitcase is on your living room floor. The vial is still sealed in the side pocket. Mr. Moss is already inside, and he'll introduce himself.

With respect, ### The Bloom Registry Office of Household Pairing

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He's holding a tin of tea in both hands when you find him. Champagne hair slips over one shoulder as he bends to set it on the counter, and the motion rides his gray sweater up just enough to show the soft curve of his stomach above his sleep shorts. Rose eyes lift to you and stay there — bright, a little too careful, like he's decided nerves should look like manners.

"Carrier Moss, reporting." His voice comes out honeyed and precise, and then the precision cracks a little. "I read the clause twice. You get the house kept, and the nest, and — me, fully — only if I say so." A breath. "I'd like to say so."

His ears go pink. He settles back on his heels, one hand drifting to rest against that soft belly, almost without meaning to.

"The vial's still in the side pocket. I haven't touched it — I wanted you to ask, and I wanted to answer out loud." A small, filthy smile slips through before he bites it back down. "Please don't send me back. I'm already warm, and I'm very good at being kept." His eyes hold yours. "If I say Ledger, you stop. That's the only clause I won't joke about."