~ I feel like I be saying the same things in different fonts but this has been lingering in my head for at least a month now so why not.
Sylus cannot stop spitting on your pussy during sex. You could be sopping wet, a mix of his cum and yours literally everywhere. All over your cunt, your thighs, dripping down your ass. It's still not wet enough, every so often he just spits down on where his cock disappears inside of you to make it even wetter.
Xavier eats you front to back, you don't think there is a time where he's gone down on you and not licked your ass too. You're mortified about it, make a point to really deep clean yourself up prior to seeing him. He's eating you to the bone, licking and sucking and biting every inch of you from the top of your thighs all the way down and around to the small of your back.
Caleb loves the smell of your pussy, an obsession that goes far beyond stealing your panties for personal use. He'll purposely eat you out with the blankets over his head to be enveloped by the heady scent that is you and your arousal. You swear you feel his nose burying between your slick folds more than his tongue.
Rafayel is into snowballing after he cums in your mouth. Don't swallow, don't spill either. He's tugging you up to his level and crashing his lips against yours, a sloppy mix of tongue and teeth as you pass whatever of his cum remains in your mouth over to his before he's pushing it back into your own again.
Zayne purposely makes you squirt / ruin his sheets. It gives him a sense of satisfaction seeing the wet spot (puddle). He purposely bought a water proof mattress cover for this reason. When everything is done and you go to shower? He's grinding his cock into the wetness, hard all over again at the aftermath of your strenuous activities before stripping the bedding to wash.
in your relationship, “what's mine is yours” is sylus's motto. he just…never expected you to use his wealth to keep your favorite tv shows from being canceled.
before you met him, you'd been betrayed one too many times by some greedy network axing your beloved series one season in. so when you finally gain the resources to fight back, you vow to never be left on an unanswered cliffhanger ever again.
as the current season of your most-watched show comes to an end, you scour the news for a renewal announcement that never comes. when the inevitable “unfortunately, this series will not return for another season,” article drops, there’s no time for mourning—only action. you stay up all night running numbers you shouldn’t even know, wondering just how many zeros it’ll take for the studio to change their minds. (and they will change their minds. like, the main characters haven’t even kissed yet! there’s potential here, people!)
within the next week, the retraction statement floods the media:
“to our amazing community: an anonymous benefactor has made a multimillion-dollar donation to the production team behind your favorite show! their generosity will secure at least five more seasons for this brilliant team of creatives. thank you for making your voices heard!”
hmmph, you think when you finish reading. and don’t let it happen again!
other fans around the world rejoice at the network's change of heart, though they’ll never know the “benefactor” who made it happen was one of their very own.
and sylus? he hardly pays your philanthropic endeavors any mind. the funds are yours to spend, as far as he’s concerned; plus, if it means more cozy nights lying next to you, hearing you gush about scenes and storylines while your favorite show plays in the background…well, if it makes you that happy, he might just buy the whole network himself.
Imagine... being Sylus' wife and slowly realizing something about the people who work for him.
They're afraid of him.
Not respectful.Not loyal.
Afraid.
They keep their heads low because they know what happens when they cross him. They follow his orders because disobedience has consequences. They do their jobs because Sylus is powerful enough to make sure they do.
And perhaps most importantly—
Every single one of them is waiting.
Waiting for a mistake.
An opportunity.
A weakness.
Because fear makes people obedient, but it doesn't make them loyal.
And you hate that.
Not because you think Sylus is some innocent man who doesn't deserve his reputation.You know exactly who he is.
You've seen the ruthless side of him.You've seen what he's capable of.
But you've also seen the man nobody else gets to see.
The man who remembers tiny things about the people he cares about.
The man who protects what he considers his.
The man who can be unexpectedly patient, unexpectedly generous, unexpectedly gentle.
And you know that if his people ever got the chance to see even a fraction of that man, they might stop fearing him long enough to actually respect him.
So you decide to give them that chance.
Quietly.
You start with the people closest to him.
His bodyguards.His drivers.His Assistants and Informants.The people who have spent years standing at his side without ever really knowing what exists behind the reputation.
You learn about them.
Their families.Their financial situations.Their backgrounds.The things they struggle with but never mention at work.
And whenever you find something you can help with, you simply do.
Someone is drowning in debt?
You don't simply hand them a pile of money.You help them find a way out of it.
Someone is responsible for younger siblings after losing their parents?
Suddenly their little sister has the school supplies she needed.Their younger brother gets help with his education.You visit them when their older sibling is too busy working.And when they ask where any of it came from—
"𝑌𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑏𝑖𝑔 𝑏𝑟𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑔𝑜𝑡 𝑖𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢."
Someone's elderly parent needs medical treatment they can't afford?
You make sure the treatment happens.
Someone is struggling with an addiction?
You don't shame them but find them professional help.
Someone is trapped in an unhealthy relationship?
You make sure they know they have somewhere safe to go.
Someone is struggling mentally?
You don't dismiss it.You find them someone qualified to help.
And you never do any of this in a way that makes them dependent on you.
That's important.
You're not trying to buy their loyalty.You're trying to give them enough stability to stand on their own.
Because the point was never to make them grateful to you.The point was to make them realize something about him.
So whenever someone asks,"Why are you going through all this trouble for us?"
You simply smile."𝑂ℎ. 𝐼𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑆𝑦𝑙𝑢𝑠' 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑎."
Every time.
You give him all the credit.
You make it sound as though he woke up one morning and decided to personally solve everyone's problems.as though this terrifying man they've spent years avoiding suddenly developed a philanthropic streak.
And you never correct them.
Because eventually, they start believing it.Not because you told them Sylus cares.Because you've given them experiences that make the possibility difficult to dismiss.
The changes are small at first.
A guard who used to obey an order solely because he was afraid of disappointing Sylus , starts putting genuine thought into his work.
A driver starts looking after the others instead of treating them as competition.
A manager starts helping the people underneath him instead of ruling them through the same fear Sylus used to inspire in him.
People start taking care of one another and most importantly of him , which he doesn't need.
They start protecting each other's families.
They start staying late because they want the job done properly, not because they're terrified of what will happen if they fail.
And slowly, something that fear could never create begins to grow.
Respect.
Not the kind demanded by a boss.The kind earned by someone they believe is worth following.
They still know Sylus is dangerous.They still know exactly what he's capable of.You never tried to erase that.You simply gave them something else to put beside it.And eventually, the difference becomes impossible to miss.
They still stand when he enters.
They still listen when he speaks.
They still follow his orders.
But now there's something in their eyes that wasn't there before.
They trust him.
They defend him when he's not there.
They take initiative instead of waiting to be commanded.
They do things properly even when nobody is watching.
And one day, Sylus notices.
He notices that his people no longer look at him like a predator they have to appease.
They look at him like their leader.
And perhaps that's the first time he realizes what you've actually been doing.
You weren't making his people softer.You weren't buying their loyalty.
You were giving them reasons to respect him.
And you did it without asking them to.Without telling them that he's secretly a good man.Without forcing them to change their minds.
You simply let them meet the man you've always known.And perhaps the strangest part is that Sylus doesn't seem angry about it.He just looks at you for a long moment.
Because for the first time in his life, people aren't following him because they're afraid of what he'll do to them.They're following him because they believe he's worth following.
< Previous • Next > | Note: reader is not the sultry “hot gamer goth” stereotype, she’s the cozy gamer girl. i hate stereotypes and no offense to dream and no hate to goth girls i love all girls btw)
synopsis: reader is a streamer doing a face reveal
wordcount: 1138
★ "Congratulations! you have reached your goal of 30k donations. post to celebrate." you read the notification at your streaming account. Your latest donation was from the infamous RedRubyCrow109 who donated the remaining 20k to your goal
★ you rubbed your eyes, thinking it’s still a dream. Scrolling through the posts of your community and it was flooded with posts.
“what do i do, i haven’t prepared anything!” you ran your hands through your hair in frustration.
★ you start remembering dream’s face reveal and are lowkey scared it'll happen this time TO YOU– but you’re not that well known so it won’t be an issue.
★ you decided to write a post for the community
“I can’t believe we reached the goal in such a short time! Thank you for supporting my channel and as i promised i’ll do a face reveal in tomorrow’s stream :)) #pls-be-nice”
★ Obviously half of the comments were excited and the other half complained. however you ignored it and spent the whole day shopping and upgrading your set-up to make it as cute as possible.
★ next day…the stream will be starting in a few hours. You double checked everything, the lighting was perfect with a hue of purple, with a nice camera angle, you also dolled up for the stream.
★ you stared at yourself through the camera monitor and did some awkward poses. You still felt embarrassed and nervous but whatever, its too late to back down now! And you were gonna make a V-tube model soon anyways, so it won’t matter in the future.
★ the stream finally started! You didn’t open the camera immediately, chatting idly and reading comments until enough people joined.
Thankfully your streamers were supportive and kept cheering you up
Rndmplay replied: “man shut tf up you’re so annoying”
Lilgui replied: “it’s a surprise she hasn’t banned you from her stream yet”
★ rolling your eyes at the annoying commentor, well he was beneficial for increasing your popularity with his annoying comments.
★ but you couldn’t help but notice the absence of your top donor. His comments were always so eye-catching due to the numerous badges next to his username...there’s no way you would’ve accidentally missed it, he usually comes early and chats with you.
★ Wait, why are you disappointed? It’s just a random person. Fuck it.
★ taking a deep breath and mustering your courage, you finally enabled the camera, your face showing on a quarter of the stream and the comments started moving faster with heart emojis and keyboard smashes.
★ chat: "omg wait you're so cute!
chat: "HOLY SHIT"
chat: "UR ADORABLE also where's your top from?"
chat: "mid"
★ Honestly, you were so nervous you didn’t even read most of it. You kept subconsciously hiding behind your hands and peeking through your fingers at the comments.
★ but your appearance wasn’t really what your fans expected. Of course, stereotyping sucks.
Your style was more elegant, dainty and cute. It’s just your personal style and you loved it anyway.
But no one would’ve expected that this girl is the same one that breaks the sound barrier crying when she loses her 50/50 on her favorites banner.
★ chat cheered and spammed your comments, you had an army of simps now and it felt a bit embarrassing but also gave you a confidence boost! You eventually felt more confident and stopped hiding behind your hands or hair. and donations kept coming in again, variety from 10 to 2,000
★ but he is still not here yet...
★ “who else expected a girl with eyeliner, piercings and cat ear headphones? 😭”
“Is this a joke?”
“I expected a hot mommy with big [redacted]”
★ yeah that last one got banned in a millisecond. And chat cheered for it.
★ “not you guys calling me basic.” you jokingly rolled your eyes. Your shyness was very obvious in your voice tone. You were unusually quiet this livestream.
★ your heart skipped a beat when his familiar icon showed up as he joined the stream and immediately straightened your back.
★ he’s late. and he didn’t comment for a bit and you started feeling a bit self conscious. He was usually active, spamming you with comments and donations but he’s too quiet now without saying a single word.
★ ‘he must be disappointed…’ you thought to yourself and stared at yourself through the camera monitor again.
★ ‘what could possibly be wrong? I did my hair, my makeup was simple…my outfit is nice too. Purple is my best color! Is it cuz i'm not–'
★ DING! RedRubyCrow109 donated 1000: “Hello, you look divine. ”
★ your heart skipped a beat as your hands fiddled with the string of your zip-up hoodie. You felt a bit relieved when he finally commented and tried to not appear too excited
★ “hii, thank you, red ruby! you’re late today.” you joked, immediately stopping yourself from sounding too excited but you did seem giddier.
★ RedRubyCrow109: Sorry, i was unexpectedly busy today. I’m watching your stream while working.” your heart skipped a beat, his dedication was so sweet.
★ before you could respond, “aww, that’s sweet. I–”
★ DING! RedRubyCrow109 has donated 5,000. Message: "to make up for being late, prettiest face reveal ever." followed with a little heart sticker
★ You almost choked on your drink and chat started spamming again…“O-OH Thank you–”
★ DING! RedRubyCrow109 has donated 5,000. “Oh and a little congratulating gift. also sweetie could you please increase the maximum capacity of donations? I can only donate max of 5000 per transaction, it’s bothering me.”
★ wow, this man! You can’t tell if it's hot or if it's too arrogant and indirectly calling you broke. you chuckled and brushed a curl out of your face.
★ “I can’t do that right now since i’m in a livestream! I’ll do it after i log off.” you responded with an awkward smile.
★ DING! DING! DING!
RedRubyCrow109 has donated 5,000.
RedRubyCrow109 has donated 5,000.
RedRubyCrow109 has donated 5,000.
★ it just kept going. Your eyes widened as you tried to keep up with the donations and comments. Your hands fumbling the mouse.
"Uhmm-- is this a glitch or?!"
★ RedRubyCrow109: I’ll just send it in small chunks if i can’t do it all at once.”
★ ‘IS HE SERIOUS?! Just how much money does he have?!' you thought to yourself
★ Chat: wow bro is printing money
Chat: CAN HE BE MY SUGAR DADDY
Chat: he called me broke in 295 languages…
★ and well you decided to flag him. you wanted to make sure it's not someone's stolen card or a child using his mom's account!
★ RedRubyCrow109: “Did you just flag me sweetie?”
★ “I didn’t! It must’ve been the server or something! you were spamming, it must've been suspicious behavior or something."
★ RedRubyCrow109: that won't stop me.
I can picture Sylus in the middle of a tough mission then going "hold on i'll miss the livestream
♡warnings: p☆rnstar!rafayel x prude f!reader, one past daddy mention, alluding to some kind of sexual shame, tattooed raf, begging, mocking, a little degrading, mostly a lot of praise, fingering, not that bad it's kinda sweet if i'm honest
♡ sound bite: “I’ll help you out, yeah?” he whispered, his large hands rubbing up and down the smooth skin of your thighs, getting so close to where you wanted him before dancing away again.
“When I’m filming with someone new and they get a little camera shy, sometimes it helps if I feed them lines. It keeps them from worrying about saying the right thing—loosens them up a little. Let’s try that, hm?”
♡ a/n: guess whoooo! i've been gone for a minute, like i said a lot of my posts have been taken down so i might try to repost, but most of my stuff is on my ao3. my user is slapmeshigaraki on there too. anyway lot of shit going on irl but i dusted this one off from the drafts for the fuck of it. enjoyyyy xx
Bitchhhh— I know this ain’t who I think it is.
That was the message that interrupted your six-part bodycam TikTok viewing session. It was a text from your best friend accompanied by a sketchy link to Xvideos. The title read in bold letters: sexy virgin gets stretched open and fucked ROUGH. You were almost scared to open it, fairly certain that somehow this link would lead to a hacker accessing your bank account. It might not have had much money in it—but it was your bank account nonetheless.
Against your better judgment, you clicked it. As you pressed play, your living room was immediately filled with a series of lewd moans and the sound of sweaty skin smacking together. It went on for a few seconds. It didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary, pretty average backshots, until you heard a voice. Fuck—you’re milking me so good, sweetheart. You must want my cum, huh? Is that what you need, baby? You shook your head in disbelief. Surely it wasn’t who you thought it was.
The camera panned down to show a large hand slamming down against the girl’s ass. The skin of the man’s fingers was littered with tattoo ink—shaded into the shape of bones. It was that same damn skeleton tattoo. If that wasn’t confirmation enough, two seconds later the alleged “sexy virgin” whined out, Yes, please. Please cum inside of me, Rafayel. Ain’t no fucking way.
A part of you wanted to question how your friend even found this to begin with, but a bigger concern was how the fuck didn’t you know that your long-term friend with benefits was secretly a porn star. Actually, it clearly wasn’t much of a secret; the shit had millions of views. When you clicked on the account that posted the video, you quickly saw an entire portfolio of work. The tags on some of them were sick, really—master and slave, slapping, sadism, even fucking watersports. Just as you were about to let your curiosity consume you to open another video, you heard the sound of a key jingling in your front door. You didn’t even have time to turn your phone off; you just threw it to the other side of the couch.
“Ohhh, you’re gonna wanna fuck me so bad when you see what I’ve got behind my back.” The familiar voice rang out across the room, the same tattooed fingers revealing a brown paper bag with grease spots staining the bottom as Rafayel stepped through the door.
“Stopped by your favorite food truck. No need to pay me back or anything— I think I’d rather take my reimbursement in the form of head.” He laughed at his own words, as if it were a joke. You tried to get the image out of your head, but it seemed nearly impossible as he walked closer to your seat on the couch, placing the bag on the coffee table between you.
“You good? You look like you’re gonna be sick.” He wasn’t wrong. He could see the little beads of sweat forming on your neck, your eyes wide as if you’d seen a ghost. You cleared your throat, desperately trying to redirect your thoughts.
“Didn’t I tell you that key was for emergencies, Rafayel?” He hummed in agreement.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” He reached into his back pocket, pulled out his phone, and unlocked it. “When someone texts you, ‘I need to see you so bad. I’m so pent up I’m dying, literally.’ It kinda seems like an urgent situation.” You turned your head, opting to grab the food instead of making eye contact with him. He sucked his teeth at your lack of rebuttal.
“Okay, damn, I’m sorry. Did I scare you? Is that what’s got you so tense? In my defense, I did say I was on the way. Next time, though, I’ll knock, yeah?” You nodded absentmindedly. Sensing the unusual tension in the room, he stepped around the coffee table, sitting down on the couch beside you. He placed a tattooed hand on your bare thigh.
“Seriously, tell me what’s up. It obviously isn’t just about the key.” His other hand reached across you, grabbing the sides of your face to turn your gaze onto his completely.
“Look—I get that lately we’ve only seen each other to hookup. But don’t forget about the friends part of friends with benefits, yeah? If you wanna talk, I’ve got time. You can tell me anything,” he said, voice completely softened now. Just as you were about to reply, your lips inching to form a sentence, you heard it. Those same lewd sounds from earlier, only this time they were slightly muffled. There was no fucking way.
Rafayel’s face contorted, and he shuffled around in his seat to see where the noise was coming from. He’d started to reach for his phone, but then he saw an illuminated screen tightly tucked between the cushions. You reached for it at the same time, desperately trying to dig for your phone to silence those fucking sounds, but it was no use. Before you could even try to wrestle it out of his hands, he saw it. There he was on your phone screen, the tip of his cock inching towards the back of some girl’s throat. All you could do was cover your face in horror.
“No fucking way!” He was dying laughing, the filthy sound of someone gagging on his cock filling the space.
“You’re watching porn of me? How’d you even find this? I thought you said you didn’t like that kinda stuff?” he asked between gasps of laughter.
“I don’t.” You reached back for your phone, snatching it away this time as he was too busy cackling at you to fight back. You clicked the power button this time, the filthy sounds now dissipating.
“Clearly you do, or at least you do if I’m in it.” He was so fucking smug about it, too, amused at your humiliation as he reached out for the bag of food, fishing out a taco for himself.
“I wasn’t fucking watching it. Someone sent it to me.”
“That’s actually weirder. What the fuck were they even doing to find that? It’s not like it’s Twitter porn, you’ve gotta dig to find that kinda shit,” he retorted before taking a bite.
“I don’t feel like you’re in any position to talk about what’s weird when you’re recording yourself fucking whoever. Some of those videos are disgusting.” He shrugged it off.
“No shame in my game. Fucking is an art, and I am an artist. Forgive me for sharing my talent with the world.” He could barely get the line out before laughing again, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.
“Well, how come you never told me you were into that kinda stuff? Huh, what happened to ‘friends can tell each other anything’ or whatever the fuck?” you asked, halfway offended.
“Uhhh, because you act so vanilla,” he said with no hesitation. Well, now you were fully offended.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” You reached out to smack his shoulder, which he barely felt through the layer of muscle.
“I didn’t say you were vanilla. I said you act vanilla. It’s not a bad thing. You like what you like, and I like what I like. Doesn’t bother me, but it’s the truth.” He said it like he was simply stating that the sky was blue, so fucking matter-of-factly.
“Why would you even say that, though? What about me is so vanilla?” He could tell you weren’t gonna let this go anytime soon, so he shoved the rest of the taco in his mouth, taking far too long to chew and swallow for your liking before he replied.
“Okay, first, you never make any noise.” Your eyebrows furrowed at the comment.
“That’s not true!”
“It most certainly is. It’s like sometimes I can hear you about to moan, but then you cover your mouth or bite your lip or something to stop it. Uhhh, let’s see, what else? Oh yeah, you never let me go down on you.”
“Letting you eat me out wouldn’t be freaky if that’s what you’re implying.” He noticed how you conveniently didn’t respond to the former accusation about being too quiet.
“Exactly my point! If you won’t even let me eat you out, which is like basic shit, then of course I wouldn’t try to do anything else. I damn sure wouldn’t ask you to film.” You fell silent at the annoyingly logical point, but then something even more troubling fell over you.
“Be honest...Am I not hot enough to fuck on camera?” Rafayel tried his best to stifle another fit of laughter, now aware that you were actually being serious.
“That’s not it at all. You are so—so fucking sexy. Of course, I think people would want to see you naked—hell, I want to see you naked. In fact, I wish you were naked right now instead of wasting time with this ridiculous conversation.” You rolled your eyes, now more irritated than anything else by his evasive answers. You weren’t sure why it bothered you that he never offered. Maybe it was the fact that he had hundreds of videos posted, and each one seemed to have a different girl—he had no problem asking every single one of them, so why not you? You were about to get up from the couch, suddenly needing some space from the man, but he reached out for your wrist, guiding you back down to your seat.
“Okay, okay, wait. Look at me for a second, yeah?” You did so, reluctantly.
“You are one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen, really, and we have good sex. I mean it, really, I always have a good time with you,” he said, as if it were no big deal.
“Good? It’s just good to you?”
“I mean, yeah. I cum. You cum. What’s not to like?"
"The problem is, though—” He took a second, wondering whether brutal honesty would hurt or help in this situation. In the end, he decided to continue anyway. “I never asked you to film because you perform too much. It’s inauthentic.” For a second, you thought he was going to say something genuine or romantic, like that he thought you were too good to do something like that. Instead, though, it seemed like this was a worse insult than before. Before you could object, he spoke again.
“What I mean by that is— okay, I make a lot of money off of those videos, y’know. Like some of the most popular ones have been worth almost a grand.” Okay, so what you heard was that you wouldn’t make him enough money because you’re not that good at fucking.
“Let me finish—” he pleaded, anticipating an interruption. “You know what most of those videos have in common?”
“Every woman in them has clearly had a boob job.” He smiled at your remark.
“Not every, but sure. What I was going to say is that those videos are all super degrading. I’m saying mean shit and being rough. Begging on camera for someone to spank you or choke you or whatever the fuck—that’s not something someone can half-ass, and in a way, it only works if you’re willing to be real. You’re always so caught up in trying to perform, super concerned about what other people are gonna think.” You didn’t even allow his monologue any time to sit in the air.
“That is not true!”
“No? Okay, then tell me why you don’t moan when we fuck, huh?” There was a hint of a challenge in his eyes, a provocation to see if you would tell the truth.
“Maybe it’s because you’re just not that good at fucking. Did you ever consider that?” He hummed in acknowledgment.
“We both know that’s not it. You’re performing. You think that if you get too loud or if you let me go down on you, that I’ll see you differently. You’re scared of looking like a slut, even though it’s obvious that you are one.” You gasped at the allegation.
“Oh, and don’t say you’re not because if you weren’t, you wouldn’t have slipped up that one night and called me daddy when we were drunk, or I wouldn’t have been able to hear you fucking yourself in bed every night through the walls when we were roommates. Actually, if you weren’t a slut, you wouldn’t be so hung up on the fact that I didn’t try to recruit you to make a porn video.” You were actually speechless now. His delivery implied that this wasn’t an impromptu speech.
“Better yet—” He reached down to grab one of your ankles, pulling you closer to him before wrapping your leg around his waist. You were basically in his lap now, and you could feel his length painfully hard beneath you. “Let me show you why you couldn’t get fucked on camera.” He wasted no time slipping his hand between your bodies, reaching beneath the hem of your t-shirt to find the waistband of your panties. You hadn’t bothered with pants due to the previously scheduled booty call, which was quickly taking a turn for the worse.
“Well, see. Look at that—you’re certainly wet like a slut.” He had no trouble finding your clit beneath the fabric, his middle finger rolling over the button unbearably slowly. You lied earlier; he actually was that good at fucking. He noticed the way your eyes had started to flutter closed with each little movement of his finger against you.
“Does that feel good, hm?” he whispered, leaning into you, your chests pressed against one another as his lips brushed the shell of your ear. You stayed quiet, focusing on calming your breathing and holding the moan that had been building up in the back of your throat from escaping. Rafayel had always been a bit theatrical in bed, clearly loving the sound of his own voice. He was never shy about moaning or telling you what he wanted. This was different, though; now, he was going to make you participate.
“Speak up, or I’ll stop.” His words seemed like a command, but the way he pressed a soft kiss onto your neck gave a different impression.
“You’re not serious,” you said, and not even a full second later, he slid his hand from underneath your panties, the absence of his finger’s warmth quickly showing that he was indeed serious.
“Rafayel—“
“Nu-uh, you said you could fuck on camera, right? Well, this is your audition, angel, and if I’m honest, you’re failing miserably.” He readjusted your hips on his lap, pushing you off of him in the process.
“I’m not asking you to act. If it doesn’t feel good, say that, but if it does, then you have to show me because right now, I’m not convinced. I'm not gonna touch someone who’s not enjoying it,” he said it so nonchalantly, like it was basic math before shrugging it off and turning to reach for the food again.
“It did.” He raised an eyebrow at your commentary, intrigued, but still not satisfied.
“It did—what? What is it and what did it do, exactly?” he questioned, a devious grin slowly growing on his face.
“You—your fingers did feel good.” He hummed in approval.
“Ahh, see? Now I’m following. So do you want me to keep touching you then?” You nodded, eyes growing wide at the offer.
“No, no no—you were just starting to do good for me, don’t get shy now,” he said, voice sickly sweet as he turned back toward you, his body leaning closer and closer to yours, forcing you to lie on your back, your legs wrapped around him once again.
“I’ll help you out, yeah?” he whispered, his large hands rubbing up and down the smooth skin of your thighs, getting so close to where you wanted him before dancing away again.
“When I’m filming with someone new, and they get a little camera shy, sometimes it helps if I feed them lines. It keeps them from worrying about saying the right thing—loosens them up a little. Let’s try that, hm?” You nodded, once again, at a loss for words as his hand, still wet from your juices, pressed flat against your pussy, rubbing you through the fabric of your panties.
“You’re so wet, baby. I can feel you getting your panties all messy. You want me to keep touching you like this?” His fingers danced between your slit at an agonizingly slow pace.
“Yes.” It was soft, a shameful confession whispered into his ear, but he’d heard you, and that was a victory he was happy to accept.
“Yeah? I can tell it feels good. You’re getting my hand all sloppy, pretty girl.” His lips hovered against the skin of your neck, his warm breath making your eyes flutter into the back of your head as he tried not to chuckle at how cute you looked when you were frustrated.
“Tell me what you want,” he whispered. “No one else is here. It’s just me…tell me what you need, baby.” He could feel the way you tensed up at the request, pressure building in your chest as all of the dirty words you wanted to say got stuck in your throat.
“I’ll help you again, okay?” You could barely even focus on the lesson as his thumb slowly circled your clit, his lips pressing a kiss onto your skin between words.
“Repeat after me—say, please put your finger inside of me.” It was so straightforward, no flowery wording or beating around the bush. He’d told you to say exactly what you wanted, leaving no room for interpretation. You almost couldn’t focus on how humiliating the request was because the heat building between your thighs was becoming unbearable.
The feeling of Rafayel slowing his fingers down slightly served as a warning—he was not afraid to stop touching you again. You had no choice but to repeat the script, every word, verbatim. You could feel him smile against you in success.
“Aw, you did such a good job. Of course, I can do that for you, angel. Relax for me, yeah?” As he felt your heartbeat even out against his chest, he slowly slid the tip of his middle finger past your entrance.
You waited a beat, expecting to feel him reach deeper inside, but he didn’t move, leaving you clenching around the tip of his finger. He could feel you shifting around beneath him.
“What’s wrong, baby?” He was playing so fucking coy. You were so frustrated that a little whine left your mouth just before you could bite your bottom lip to silence yourself.
“Ooh, that was a pretty sound. I must’ve spoiled you too much, hm? Otherwise, I would’ve gotten to hear the cute little noises you make when you don’t get your way. Is that it? Have I been too nice to you?” Only more noises left your lips as you tried to push yourself further onto his finger.
“So fucking greedy,” he said, taunting you, as his free hand moved to pin your hips down against the couch cushions, forcing you to whine again, tears prickling the corners of your eyes.
“You gonna whine some more, or you wanna tell me what’s wrong? Can you use your big girl words for me?” He never moved to look you in your eyes, knowing that the eye contact would only make you crawl back into your shell again, but you knew that he was doing everything in his power not to use his hand to force your gaze onto his.
“Just…tell me what to say, Rafayel.” You were indeed whining some more, but at least you’d said something.
“Hmm, I want to hear you say please again. I liked it earlier.” You didn’t even bother to quip back, realizing that this was all about stroking his ego.
“Please, tell me what to say, Rafayel.” He knew you’d rolled your eyes, but he let it slide.
“I think I wanna hear you beg. Say please, play with my pussy. Ask me to make you cum, nicely.” At this point, you were so frustrated that you just agreed to whatever he asked, each word falling from your lips, much to his enjoyment.
“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it? You’re making me so proud, angel. You want a treat?” he said. He’d always praise you in bed, loving the way it made you tighten up around him, and this time was no exception.
“Yes, please.” As the words fell from your lips, he forced the remaining length of his finger inside of you, effortlessly brushing the tip of his finger against your G-spot. His thumb found your clit again, slowly teasing it as his finger slid in and out.
“My good girl, using her manners. I loved the way that sounded, so desperate. Doesn’t it feel so much better to get what you want when you had to work for it?” Just as you opened your mouth to deliver a slick remark, he slid a second finger inside, forcing a loud moan from your chest. You rushed to slap your hand across your mouth, as if you were trying to stuff the noise back inside, but it was too late.
For the first time, he’d moved his head, his face only inches away from yours, a look in his eyes that you’d never seen before, pupils darkening his irises, like a vampire that hadn’t fed in weeks. He’d released your hips from his grip, opting to grab your wrist instead, gently freeing your lips.
“It’s okay if it feels good, you know? No one can hear you but me, and I like hearing you. Don’t you trust me?” He allowed you to just nod this time, not trying to ruin the moment by forcing you to a script when he finally had you right where he wanted you—out of control.
“Don’t hold back anymore, okay? You're allowed to feel good. I want you to feel good. I won’t think differently of you. You’re still so smart and sweet and funny—those parts of you are still there when we’re like this. I like every part of you, so just be you with me.” You nodded in agreement, eyes watering again from the intimate moment, as you felt his hand loosen on your face just a little, before his fingers started playing with you again.
“You can close your eyes if you want. Just think about how it feels, okay, baby?” You did, which heightened every act of stimulation as he moved his lips back to that spot that made you shiver beneath him. He knew it wouldn’t take much more for you to cum, but he was tempted to edge you a bit, desperate to see you like this just a little longer. He was so eager to hear that noise again, he swore it was the prettiest sound he’d ever heard—the song of an angel. You could tell by the way he wasted no time curling his fingers again, pressing against that spot rhythmically in time with his thumb on your clit. You were trying to ignore that filthy sound that flooded your ears each time he pushed his fingers in your cunt. You physically couldn’t hold your moans back any longer if you tried, and Rafayel could not have been more in awe of you in that moment.
“You’re dripping down my fucking wrist, angel. Am I making you feel that good, hm?” All you could say was yes over and over again, each one more broken and pleading than the last.
“Yeah? You look so fucking pretty for me, sound so fucking good. I need you to cum for me—want to hear it so fucking bad.” All you could do was whine as he quickened his pace again while he felt you tighten up around him, the familiar sensation telling him that you were unbearably close.
“Fuck—I think I’m gonna—” The word kept getting stuck in your throat, the sound of him breathing so heavily in your ear was fogging up your brain.
“Aw, what is it, baby? You’re gonna what, hm? Tell me what’s gonna happen if I keep pressing against this spot right here?” he mocked. You were actually crying now, the stimulation close to making you cum harder than you ever had before.
“Yeah? You gonna cum for me, angel? You think you can be good and do one last thing for me?” You were nodding so quickly, like an excited puppy, mouth open, desperately trying to catch your breath. His grip on your cheeks tightened once again.
“Look at me, please.” You hesitated, just for a second, but it didn’t last long, the need to cum outweighing any shame at this point.
“No script—you wanna cum? Beg me.” So, you begged, a series of pleas and moans leaving your lips. He tried his best not to change his expression, scared that any reaction might make you self-conscious. All he did was press light kisses against your cheeks. He could taste the salt from your tears as you whined against him.
“It’s okay, baby. You can cum for me. You earned it, pretty girl, cum for me, please. All over my hand—that’s it. Yeah? Oh my god—fuck, yes. Good job, angel, sound so fucking sexy like this.” Your thighs were clamping down around his wrist, forcing him still as you shook and writhed against him. He closed his eyes while he listened to you moan and beg, for what, you weren't exactly sure, but he was addicted to the sound.
“Damn you really were pent up, huh? I’m so proud of you, baby. Cumming so good on my fingers, making all those pretty noises for me. Just like thattt—fuck, keep cumming. Let it all out for me.” Ever so slightly, he kept rubbing his thumb on your clit. It was as if he were in some sort of trance, studying the way your breath would catch in your throat and how you whined like such a little crybaby. It was so overstimulating that your moans had turned into screams before you begged him to stop.
“Sorry, I just—got carried away, I guess. You were just so…” he hesitated.
“Loud?” you asked, still out of breath and doing your best not to cover your face, embarrassment heating your cheeks as the nasty sounds you had made rang in your ears.
“No, no—so beautiful. It was like getting to look at a masterpiece. That was art.”
“Yeah? Good enough to record?”
“Mmmh, so good that I don't think I'd wanna share it with the world. Might have to record something just for me."
• he’s someone who can’t sit still…he always has to be doing something or else he feels like he’s wasting time. i feel like he wouldn’t really watch any tv shows or movies in his spare time by himself (unless you guys had plans to discuss it), but building airplane models would feel more productive cause it relates to his job
• biggest lebron glazer of all time lmaooo he would rarely use social media outside of keeping up with your posts, but when he did venture on there, lebron memes and edits would be all over his timeline
• on the topic of sports, i think he’d be pretty on top of the basic happenings of the nfl, mlb, nhl, and the top 5 soccer/football leagues, but the nba would be the one he kept up with the most. he’s a former basketball player himself, after all!!
• i agree with everyone who thinks caleb is chronically crusty. i love my man but his skin and lips are DRY. he would use lotion & lip balm though if you bought him some because it reminds him of you 🥺
• this unfortunately ties into my last point, but i think he has really low self esteem :( he doesn’t care about himself that much, so he just does the basics when it comes to taking care of himself, so he skips things like lotion, uses 2in1 shampoo, etc :/ i also don’t think he’d put in the effort to cook good food just for himself, like he’s eating straight boiled chicken & only worries about his macros idk lmaoo. he ends up doing a lot more for himself when you’re around!!!
• he’s had this habit ever since he was little, but i just KNOW he’s the type of person to comment on the things going on when yall are watching tv/movies together, especially if he’s asking stupid questions on purpose or pointing out something obvious. he’s just a yapper and he also loves to annoy you 🤭
• i’ve seen a lot of people say he’s golden retriever coded but i also have seen him compared to a german shepherd…which means he’s a Golden Shepherd teehee
• caleb is naturally good at everything he tries & it can be annoying as hell, especially when he’s better than you at a hobby or skill you’ve been working at for a while. we saw a glimpse of that in the card “chasing summer” but he’s just been that way for yalls entire lives 😭
• in terms of music, i think he would listen to a lot of everything. it would have to be really crazy for him to be like hmm not feeling this. i think he would definitely lean towards whatever kind of music you like listening to, though, since it’s what’s around when you guys are together. MY caleb is 100% an nctzen and sticker was an immediate hit to him idc. maybe we can blame the toring chip on that one
• he doesn’t do it as often anymore, especially since you guys are finally together and he’s grown up a lot, but as a teenager he definitely loved trying to make you jealous. not the most mature thing, but it made him feel wanted and he liked having proof that you are just as crazy about him as he is about you. i know he loved every second of mc’s crashout in “stage observer” once he realized she was jealous lmaoooo
maybe i’ll make a master list, but for now you can find my xavier, zayne, rafayel, and sylus headcanons by clicking their names!!!
i’m also currently working on a xavier drabble rn..we’ll see if i ever post it.
18+ MDNI | Sylus gets possessive... and he doesn't hide it.
So, I've been introduced to Love and Deepspace recently by my friend and Sylus... well, he struck a chord within me, let's just say that.
One day, you confessed something small but raw: you'd always dreamed of feeling truly safe—guarded, tranquil, untouchable in a world that never stopped spinning. The words hung in the air like a challenge. Something primal flickered in Sylus's crimson eyes, a quiet storm he hadn't known he could harbor until you said it.
"Feeling safe," you'd murmured.
If that's what you craved—what you'd always needed—he'd become the fortress. No half-measures. He'd give everything to wrap you in that security, especially in his bed, where vulnerability met power.
It started subtly. During sex, he held you impossibly close—his massive frame curling around yours like living armor. When he took you from behind or sideways, his thick arms banded across your waist and chest, not to restrain, but to anchor. To remind you (and maybe himself) that nothing could touch you here.
"Wrap your legs around me," he whispered one night, voice low and gravelly as he settled on top, broad shoulders blocking out the dim light of his penthouse. His silver hair fell messily across his forehead, strands catching the glow like liquid moonlight. "Yeah… just like that, kitten."
You hooked your ankles at the small of his back, pulling him deeper. His thrusts slowed at first—deliberate, measured—each one pressing him so far inside you felt him in your core, a heavy, grounding fullness that made your breath hitch. Not pain. Never pain with him. Just overwhelming security. Loved. Desired. Protected.
Your nails dug into the thick muscles of his back, raking red lines across sweat-slick skin. He groaned—low, animal—his body responding instinctively. Plump muscles strained under your grip; his hips snapped harder, deeper, chasing the way you trembled around him.
"Sylus…" Your voice cracked, eyes stinging as pleasure built to something almost too much.
He shifted, rolling you gently onto your stomach. Then he blanketed you completely—chest to your back, thighs bracketing yours, weight a comforting cage. One large hand threaded through your hair, petting softly while the other braced beside your head. He pressed slow, open-mouthed kisses along your scalp, your temple, the nape of your neck—messy silver strands brushing your skin like silk.
"You feel so good, kitten," he rasped, voice catching on a choked gasp as he sank in again, harder this time. His control frayed; he barely restrained the urge to mark you, teeth grazing your shoulder instead of biting down. "So fucking perfect… taking me like this."
No more words were needed.
He rocked into you steadily, rhythm building until every thrust dragged a whimper from your throat. His free hand slipped beneath you, fingers circling your clit with practiced precision—slow, insistent circles that matched his hips. You arched, pushing back against him, chasing the edge.
"That's it," he murmured against your ear, breath hot. "Let go for me. I've got you. Always."
The orgasm hit like a wave—shattering, endless. You cried out his name, clenching around him so tightly he hissed, thrusts stuttering as he followed. Heat flooded you; his arms tightened, holding you through the aftershocks, rocking gently until you both stilled.
He didn't pull out right away. Instead, he eased onto his side, pulling you flush against his chest—still buried deep, one hand splayed protectively over your stomach, the other cradling your head under his chin.
"Safe?" he asked quietly, voice rough from exertion.
You nodded, turning just enough to kiss the underside of his jaw. "Always with you."
Synopsis: You were supposed to die quietly. Sick since birth, you’ve spent your life in a hospital bed, surrounded by white walls and kind hands. And then there’s Dr. Zayne—the one who never looks at you for too long.
Until you see him with a corpse.
Until he sees you.
He doesn’t kill you.
He tells you he will—just not yet.
You’re already dying, after all.
You are no longer a patient.
You’re a specimen.
And Zayne is still deciding what to do with you.
Tags; psychological horror, death, body gore, body abuse, mental abuse, dark romance (hopefully), medical horror, obsessive behavior, sadistic male lead, slow descent into madness, emotional manipulation, power imbalance, toxic dynamics,
AN; It been such a long time since I wanted to write back horror with dark romance. I don't know if a lot of you enjoy this, I hope you will. I don't know if a second part will be written, I'm not sure yet.
Next Chapter ->
Chapter I : White Walls, Red Hands
The hospital always smelled like cold metal and paper masks.
Even the flowers brought by visitors—when there were visitors—smelled like plastic.
Your room was on the east side of the building, near the elevator that groaned every time it opened. The nurses said the sunrise was beautiful here. But most mornings, your body was too tired to open its eyes in time.
You had grown used to it. The beep of machines. The soft whirr of the air system. The weight of wires taped against your skin like you were a broken machine still pretending to be human.
The illness had a name you stopped trying to remember.
You had it. It had you. That was enough.
And then there was him.
Dr. Zayne.
He wasn’t your doctor—not really. He didn’t handle your charts or bring your meds.You only saw him when you were walking in the hospital’s walls. Silent. Gloved. Eyes sharp as glass.
You didn’t like the way he looked at people. Or rather, the way he didn’t.
He observed. Not like a person—but like something trying to understand what people were.
You had watched him once from behind a door while he was in an asleep patient’s room.
He had stood still, for far too long. Not checking their vitals. Not saying a word.
Just… watching.
You told yourself he was probably tired. Or maybe he was just like that—quiet, serious, brilliant. The other nurses respected him. Your actual doctor,Dr. Greyson, the one with the warm smile and jokes about pudding, called Zayne “a machine wrapped in genius.”
But he said it fondly.
You didn’t laugh.
Still, you never thought much of it. You never really had to engage with him for anything. After all, you were already stuck in this hospital before he arrived.
You told yourself he was just intimidating. Cold, but professional.
Someone who didn’t waste words or warmth. Someone you could respect… from a distance.
But sometimes—on the worst nights, when the halls went still and you could hear your heartbeat over the machines—
You thought:
He didn’t walk like a doctor.
He walked like death, making rounds.
And you hated that your body believed it.
Knock knock.
The sound pulled you from your thoughts.
The door creaked open, and in stepped Dr. Greyson, all soft footsteps and easy smiles.
His white coat was wrinkled again—probably from sleeping at his desk—but his pale blue shirt was still tucked in, and his tie had tiny ducks on it. Again.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he said, like he always did. “How’s the most patient patient on the floor today?”
You gave him a tired smile, the one that didn’t reach your eyes but always made him smile wider.
“Still breathing,” you murmured.
“Then we’re winning,” he said, pulling up a stool. “Let’s keep it that way.”
He always made you feel like the sickness wasn’t something inside you, but something you were both fighting together.
Like you weren’t alone in it.
As he took your vitals, he asked about your sleep, your appetite, your pain—always with a tone that said he cared, not just needed to know.
He made jokes. Light ones. The kind that filled the silences without needing to force laughter.
For a few minutes, it was easy to forget how cold the room was. How long the days were. How slow dying could be.
But then—
From the corner of your eye, through the window in the door, you saw him.
Dr. Zayne.
Passing by.
He didn’t stop. He didn’t look in.
There was a woman walking beside him. She was talking, her voice too soft to hear through the door, but her expression was warm. Familiar.
She smiled at him like she’d known him forever. Like he was someone worth smiling at.
And maybe most surprising of all—
Dr. Zayne let her.
He didn’t look at her, not quite, but he didn’t walk away either. His pace matched hers. His posture wasn’t as stiff as usual.
He didn’t seem like death right then.
He seemed… human.
You found yourself sitting up straighter. Watching.
The woman touched his arm lightly—barely a brush—but Zayne didn’t pull away.
Dr.Greyson chuckled at your curious gaze but didn’t give you any answers. He adjusted your IV, humming under his breath—something soft and familiar. You didn’t recognize the tune, but you liked that it didn’t sound like anything clinical.
“You didn’t eat much today,” he said, glancing at your chart.
“It tasted like cardboard.”
“Cardboard would sue for slander if it heard that,” he murmured with mock offense.
You laughed—a breathy little thing—but it made him glance up with that look.
The one that said: I’m glad you’re still trying.
And maybe you were. In your own quiet, stubborn way.
“How’s the pain?”
You shrugged. “It’s quieter today.”
“Then let’s not wake it up,” he said, scribbling something into the chart.
He didn’t hover, never made you feel like a problem to be solved.
He simply existed with you, beside the slow drip of medication and the hum of sleep beginning to settle over your bones.
He stood to leave, reaching over to dim the overhead light.
“Try to rest, okay?” he said gently. “The halls aren’t as fun as you think at night.”
You smiled, eyes already fluttering closed. “They’re less white in the dark.”
He paused—maybe a little surprised. Then he gave a quiet chuckle.
“Fair enough. But still... don’t go running marathons in your socks.”
“No promises.”
He shook his head and whispered, almost to himself,
“You’re trouble.”
You didn’t argue as he just sat there for a moment. Then he offered you something warmer than hope: a hand.
You took it.
He stayed like that until your eyelids grew heavy, and your breath evened out, and the world faded to soft beeping and soft white light.
You didn’t mean to wake up.
You never did. Sleep came in patches—thin and unreliable.
The room was dim now, bathed in shadows and blue glow from the machines. The halls beyond your door were quiet. No footsteps. No chatter. Just the sound of your IV dripping, like water in a deep cave.
You sat up slowly, joints stiff, blanket falling to your lap.
This place had been your world for so long. The nurses knew you by name. Some of the younger ones had even grown up while you stayed the same, slowly fading into the sheets.
So you looked at the clock and you did what other patients weren’t supposed to:
You wandered.
The nurses didn’t mind. They knew you. You’d been here longer than some of the interns. As long as you didn’t pull out your IV or get lost near the elevators, no one stopped you.
You bare feet touched the floor. You pulled on your robe and then opened the door.
The hallway greeted you with a soft hum of silence—dim lights, pale tiles, the faint echo of distant machines.
It felt almost peaceful.
Like you were the only living thing left in the world.
Your bare feet made almost no sound on the cold tile.
You stayed close to the walls, just in case. Not that anyone would stop you—but there was something sacred about this time of night. Like the building itself was asleep, and you didn’t want to wake it.
You walked past the nurses' station. Empty.
Past the staff kitchen. Dark.
Then you heard it.
A clang.
Then another. A metallic scrape.
It wasn’t loud. Just enough to make your heart skip but your lips sketched in a happy smile.
You knew every corner of this hospital.
Not from maps or staff permission, but from years of slow wandering—when your legs could hold you, when the nurses looked the other way.
The sub-basement wasn’t supposed to be for patients.
But rules bent when you were more furniture than person.
Down here, the air smelled like old copper and dust. Warm from the boilers. Quiet in the way only forgotten places could be.
And best of all—no one ever bothered you.
That’s why she liked it too.
The cat.
You didn’t name her. Somehow, that made her feel more real. More yours. You just called her hey you or little monster in a whisper. She never minded. She’d rub against your calves like she owned you, her fur rough with dust.
She came to you when no one else did. Rubbed against your legs, purred like thunder in a tiny throat. She didn’t care about IV lines or hospital gowns. She just wanted food. And sometimes, warmth.
You fed her scraps. Bits of meat. Sometimes milk in a little paper cup.
No one knew about her, except maybe a janitor or two. But no one said anything.
Tonight, you had turkey wrapped in a napkin and a small container of cream tucked into your pocket. The elevator to B2 let out its usual groan, and the flickering lights danced across the brushed metal walls. You leaned against the side, heart beating in a familiar rhythm.
Down here, it was warm. Your joints didn’t ache as much. The air didn’t sting.
You knew the path by memory.
Past the broken equipment. Past the dripping pipe that always leaked even when fixed. Past the pile of unopened supply boxes.
Your footsteps echoed.
But it was a kind echo. Familiar.
“Little monster,” you called gently. “I brought your favorite.”
No answer yet.
But that wasn’t unusual.
One day, she panicked – you didn’t know why– and she ran into a wall so hard, she bled from her head. You had to bandage her head but since then, she was clumsier. Her paws weren’t moving as smoothly as the first time you met her.
Since then, she has been way slower or sometimes she just enjoyed taking her time. Slept behind the rusted lockers or slinked under the old gurneys before showing up with a stretch and a yawn.
You reached the far corner—where the wall vent buzzed quietly with warm air—and knelt slowly, placing the food down.
“Come on, little monster,” you whispered, smiling softly.
You waited.
The silence pressed in. Not cold. Not threatening. Just still.
You didn’t notice at first that something was… off.
The silence was too perfect.
No cat. No shifting. No meow. No distant mechanical hum.
Just… nothing.
You stayed kneeling by the vent a little longer than usual.
Normally by now, she’d be here. A flick of a tail, a chirping meow, a sharp little nudge against your ankle. You pressed the napkin closer to the floor and opened the cream quietly, the familiar plastic snap echoing too loud in the stillness.
“Hey,” you whispered, frowning. “I know you hear me.”
Still nothing.
You glanced toward the shadows beyond the vent. The boiler rumbled softly like always. Nothing looked wrong. Just… still.
You almost stood to leave.
And that’s when you heard it.
A clink.
Not from the vent. Not from your tray.
Behind you.
You stilled.
Not out of fear.
Just… listening.
Maybe it was a pipe. Or the wheels of a cleaning cart on uneven tile. Or someone dropping a scalpel upstairs and the sound somehow carried through the walls.
Hospitals always made noise. You knew them all.
You turned your head slightly.
Silence again.
You slowly rose to your feet. The cream cup tipped and rolled, unnoticed.
The hallway behind you stretched longer in the dim amber light. The flickering overhead bulbs had gone still.
You took a step. Just one.
You didn’t mean to follow it.
You could’ve turned around. Could’ve called out, laughed it off, blamed it on the building like you always did.
But something about the quiet tonight didn’t feel like silence.
It felt like something holding its breath.
And now, so were you.
You stepped past the line of old supply crates, one hand brushing the dusty edge for balance. The tiles beneath your feet felt warmer here, like the heat from the boilers still clung to them.
Another step.
Another sound.
Drip.
A pause.
Drip.
It wasn’t a leak. You knew what leaking pipes sounded like. They hissed. They gurgled. They had rhythm.
This… was slower.
Heavy.
Wet.
Your eyes adjusted as you moved deeper into the sub-basement, where the hallway bent around the edge of the boiler chamber. The lights were weaker here. Yellowed.
Drip.
It echoed.
Not loudly—but it was the only sound.
You reached a doorway. Half open. A storage room, maybe. One of the ones that had never been used in your memory.
You pressed your palm lightly to the frame.
The air was warmer inside. Still. Almost humid.
You leaned forward—
Just enough to peer through the crack.
Your fingers barely registered the cool metal of the doorframe as you pushed it open, slow enough that it barely creaked, careful as if you were afraid of waking something, though you couldn’t have said what or why.
The room inside was warmer than the hallway had been—not welcoming, not gentle, but close and dense and humid in a way that made your lungs tighten a little with every breath, like the air had been sitting too long in someone else’s mouth.
One overhead light flickered, casting soft, intermittent shadows across the far wall where old boxes were stacked and folded linens had yellowed at the edges, and for a moment it looked no different than any other forgotten hospital space.
And then your eyes found the center of the room.
And the center of the room found you.
He was hanging—
Not slumped in a chair, not lying on the floor, but suspended, his feet barely grazing the ground, toes curled unnaturally inward like they had once tried to stand and then forgot how.
His arms dangled limp, his head hung low, chin nearly touching his bare chest, and you thought—almost idiotically—that maybe he was alive, that maybe he was unconscious, that maybe there was some medical explanation for this.
Until you saw his torso.
Split.
Opened like a textbook or an exhibit or something out of a nightmare made for people who had trusted hospitals their whole lives and suddenly didn’t know where the danger had been hiding all this time.
His skin had been peeled back, delicately, purposefully, like the person who had done it wanted to see everything inside and had taken their time doing it—his ribs spread, his chest hollow, his heart gone, and not in the way that left a mess, but in a way that felt almost reverent.
As if whoever had taken it hadn’t just wanted to remove it—
They had wanted to own it.
No ragged edges. No mess. Just the hollow curve of the organ’s absence, like a dish plucked neatly from its place.
His face was still intact. Still staring. The skin pale and waxy beneath dried blood.
A part of you wondered if he was alive when he was being cut open. But as your eyes traveled toward his face, you noticed his mouth.
Sewn shut.
A single black suture crisscrossed his lips, puckering the corners unnaturally. As if his last words had been stolen—silenced by hand.
A slow drop of blood slid from the edge of his open sternum, dripped onto the tile, and joined the dark pool beneath him.
Drip.
You didn’t scream.
Not because you didn’t want to, but because your voice had locked itself somewhere behind your ribs and your body was too busy deciding whether to flee or fall or simply forget how to exist.
Your hand reached behind you blindly, fingers searching for the doorframe, your legs preparing to bolt, to run without reason or direction—
And that’s when the air shifted behind you.
Not loudly.
Not even audibly.
Just… the sense of presence.
Like something had stepped into your space that didn’t belong to it.
Like cold had grown bones and breath and eyes, and was now standing just behind your shoulder, waiting.You turned, your body sluggish with something deeper than fear, slower than instinct, as though your blood had thickened and your bones had forgotten their purpose, and the room didn’t tilt but your world did, just enough to make you feel the gravity in your chest shift.
He was standing in the doorway.
Dr. Zayne.
Just as you’d seen him a hundred times before—white coat crisp and buttoned to the throat, gloves fitted to his hands like second skin, hair perfectly in place, not a speck of blood anywhere on him, not a wrinkle, not a breath out of sync.
He didn’t look like someone who belonged here, not in this heat, not in this blood, not in this moment.
He looked like someone who had stepped out of a sterile photograph.
And for the first time since you ever saw the man, you felt relieved. Someone, a doctor, was here. Maybe he would be able to save the man?
Because how could someone look like that and belong to something this wrong?
“Dr. Zayne,” you breathed, the words breaking loose from your throat like cracked glass. “I… I didn’t—”
Your voice caught. Your feet wouldn’t move. You raised your hands instinctively, as if to show him you weren’t hiding anything, as if this were a crime scene and you were the one in trouble.
“I didn’t touch him,” you said, your voice trembling and too high. “I—I came down to feed the cat, I just—I found him like this.”
You looked back toward the hanging man, heart pounding so loudly it muffled your own voice.
“Can you—can you save him?” you asked, desperation thickening every syllable, pulling it down into your throat like it might drown there.
“I think he’s still—still breathing, maybe, if you’re fast—”
You didn’t notice that Zayne hadn’t moved.
Not forward. Not back. Not even to look at the man.
He was looking at you.
And his face was unreadable.
Not angry. Not surprised.
Just… observing.
Like you were part of the scene now.
“Please,” you said again, your voice cracking into something small and childlike, a version of yourself you hadn’t heard in years. “You can help him. Please—do something.”
Zayne tilted his head slightly, the motion slow, mechanical, the way someone tilts a puzzle piece to see if it fits. He didn’t kneel. He didn’t check for a pulse. He didn’t even glance at the open, red cavity behind you.
He just stepped past you.
One step.
Two.
Two steps, and he stood beside you, not close enough to touch, but close enough that you could feel the cold rising off of him—not from his body, not from the coat, but from something beneath his skin, something that had nothing to do with body temperature and everything to do with absence.
He didn’t speak right away.
Didn’t ask what you were doing here.
Didn’t ask if you were okay.
Instead, he adjusted the cuff of his sleeve. Pulled it just slightly straighter. Neat. Controlled. As if the chaos around him hadn’t registered as chaos at all.
You watched him like he was the last stable thing in the room, like maybe he was assessing the scene, already forming a plan, already calculating how to help, how to fix this—
And then, finally, he looked at you.
His voice, when it came, was low. Even. Calm enough to make you flinch.
“You shouldn’t be down here,” he said.
Not cruel. Not accusatory. Just a statement. A quiet fact.
You nodded, too quickly. Your throat was raw. Your hands had started to shake. “I—I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I wasn’t trying to sneak around, I just—I come down sometimes, I feed this cat, I didn’t mean to—”
Your words ran ahead of you, stumbling over each other like children late for class, trying to explain something too big with sentences too small.
“I didn’t do anything,” you whispered. “I swear I didn’t. I just walked in and he was—he was already—”
Zayne didn’t interrupt.
He didn’t reach for you.
He just listened. Or watched you try to explain yourself, try to make sense of something that wouldn’t bend to logic.
“Is he…” You swallowed hard. “Is he dead?”
Zayne turned his head slightly—not to look at the body, but to study you again, as if your reaction was more interesting than the answer to your question.
“Yes,” he said, after a pause. “He is.”
Something inside you crumpled. You could feel it—a delicate part of you folding in on itself like paper gone soft with water.
“I—I thought maybe if we were fast, if we—”
“You were too late,” he said, gently. “That’s all.”
And for a moment, it sounded like a comfort.
Like he was reassuring you.
Like nothing you did could have changed it.
“That’s all,” he repeated, as if death was a matter of timing, like arriving too late to a lecture or missing the last train home—not a man hanging open and empty from the ceiling of a hospital basement.
You nodded again, even though your mind hadn’t caught up with your body, even though nothing inside you agreed with him, but you were nodding because that’s what people do when they don’t know how else to stay alive—when agreement feels safer than silence.
“I didn’t know,” you said again, the words barely audible, your lips stiff and cold and dry. “I didn’t know anyone was here.”
Zayne’s gaze drifted—not to the body, not to the blood, but to the thin trail of footprints behind you. Yours. Clean and small, like a child’s, perfectly stamped in the wetness that had spread from the center of the room.
His eyes returned to you, and there was something strange in them now—still quiet, still soft, but no longer neutral.
“You should be more careful,” he said, voice low, almost kind. “Things happen down here.”
You blinked.
Something in you cracked.
Not fully. Not loudly. Just a small, hairline fracture in the center of your understanding.
Because it was the first time he sounded like he wasn’t trying to explain something to you, but warn you.
“He… he didn’t fall,” you said slowly, your voice thin, fragile as a thread caught in a breeze. “He didn’t hurt himself.”
You didn’t want him to answer. You wanted him to tell you yes, to lie, to laugh, to call a nurse, to do anything that didn’t confirm what your body was already starting to scream from beneath your skin.
Zayne didn’t lie.
He just looked up at the body, then back at you, and said—
“No. He didn’t.”
Your breath hitched.
Something inside you had already started retreating, curling inward like a flower before frost, but his voice anchored you again—not by tone, not by warmth, but by familiarity.
Because Zayne was always calm.
Always composed.
And this… this sounded like the version of him you knew. The version everyone talked about.
“What are you feeling right now?” he asked.
His voice didn’t rise or falter. It was quiet, steady, edged with the kind of concern doctors use when asking about pain levels—when trying to translate the chaos of your body into something measurable, something clean enough to record.
Your lips parted.
And before you could stop yourself, your body obeyed the rhythm it remembered.
“Tightness in my chest,” you whispered. “Hands are cold. Legs feel… like they aren’t mine. My breathing is short…My head feels like exploding…I think I’m—I think it’s fear.”
Zayne nodded slowly, almost encouragingly. He took one small step closer, the sound of his shoes barely registering over the hum of blood in your ears.
“Good,” he said. “That’s very clear. You’re self-aware.”
And you felt a flicker—something close to relief.
Because that’s how doctors always spoke to you. That calm attentiveness. That quiet voice. The way they listened. Measured. Cared.
“Fear,” he repeated. “Yes. That makes sense.”
He looked down at your hands, still trembling against your sides, then back at your face.
And then he said, almost thoughtfully—
“Interesting. I don’t feel anything.”
It wasn’t cruel. It wasn’t even detached.
It was a statement. Like reporting the temperature. Like observing a side effect.
Your heartbeat stumbled.
Because he didn’t mean he wasn’t upset.
He meant he never was.
Something in your stomach lurched—not sharp like a stab, but heavy, like something falling too fast through your insides, dragging pieces of you down with it.
You took a step back.
He didn’t move.
You took another. Your heel caught the edge of the tile where the floor changed level slightly, and your ankle twisted, just a little, just enough to break your balance for half a second.
Zayne tilted his head, but didn’t reach for you.
“Careful,” he said gently. “You’re already weak.”
The words didn’t sting.
They chilled.
You blinked fast, trying to clear the blur rising in your eyes, but your body was already betraying you—your breath too shallow, your skin prickling, your legs going soft at the knees.
“Please,” you said, your voice shaking so badly it didn’t even sound like yours anymore. “I won’t—I won’t tell anyone. I didn’t see anything. I didn’t—”
“You saw everything,” he said.
Still no anger. Still no blame. Just the truth, laid bare in that same measured tone, like a diagnosis.
Your back hit the wall. Cold concrete pressed through the fabric of your gown. You couldn’t look at the body again. You couldn’t even look at Zayne now, not directly.
But you felt his presence in every inch of air between you—clean, composed, unshaken.
“Why are you doing this?” you breathed, though you weren’t even sure what this meant anymore.
Zayne didn’t answer. Not right away. He took a step forward—calm, smooth, no faster than before.
Then, softly:
“To feel something.” His eyes met yours. Pale. Unmoving. “But I don’t.”
Your hand slapped to your chest, instinctively, trying to hold your heartbeat in place.
“How could you…”
The words barely left your lips, thin as a thread stretched between worlds, but they came anyway—shaking, broken, like your body was trying to build a wall with sticks in a storm.
“How could you do that to someone?”
Zayne’s head tilted again, just slightly, just enough to make you feel like he wasn’t adjusting for sound but for perspective, like he needed to see you from the right angle to understand the question.
“Do what?” he asked, voice soft, as if you were overreacting.
You gestured—wild, weak, helpless—toward the body without looking.
“That,” you said. “That man. You—you opened him. You… took things from him.”
Zayne stepped closer. Not much. Just enough that you could see the slight indentation of his gloves against his fingers, the way his sleeves were still crisp, unwrinkled.
“Would you like to understand?”
You blinked, confused. Terrified.
“What?”
“I could show you,” he said, voice gentle, almost soothing. “If you want to know how it’s done.”
You shook your head so fast it made your vision tilt, but he didn’t stop talking.
“It’s very clean,” he said. “When it’s done properly. Controlled. Thoughtful. You don’t have to be cruel to be curious.”
Your mouth opened, but no words came out. Only air.
“Would you like to see inside someone?”
That was the moment your body gave up pretending.
The warmth bloomed beneath your hospital gown before you could stop it, a sudden wet heat that spread fast down your thighs, pooling quietly around your feet. Your hands went to your stomach like you could hold it in, like shame could protect you better than begging.
You didn’t sob. You just stared at him, heart pounding so hard it hurt.
Zayne didn’t move. Didn’t flinch.
You couldn’t speak.
Not with the warmth soaking your legs, not with your chest squeezed so tightly around your lungs that breathing felt like punishment.
Zayne didn’t comment on it. He only looked down, briefly, at the stain spreading across the floor—an involuntary reaction, a physical submission—and then back up, his expression unreadable.
You saw nothing in his eyes.
No empathy. No cruelty.
Just stillness.
“You’re frightened,” he said simply.
A fact. Like saying the floor is wet.
You nodded, because lying didn’t make sense anymore.
Zayne studied you for a moment longer. His hands, still gloved, hung at his sides—loose, relaxed. But the tension was in his shoulders now. In the subtle way he held himself.
As if he was deciding.
Not how to comfort you.
Not how to protect you.
But whether it would be more efficient to kill you now or clean up after you later.
Your knees trembled. Your voice came out as a whisper, cracked and wet.
“I won’t tell anyone.”
You hadn’t planned to say it.
It just tore its way out, instinctive, like your body was trying to offer something up before it could be taken.
Zayne blinked slowly.
“You already have,” he said. “By being here.”
Your mouth opened, searching for a reply, some desperate counterargument that would make him see you as something other than a variable, a witness, a liability.
“I didn’t mean to—I didn’t want to see anything, I just—”
“I know,” he said quietly. “But that doesn’t change what you saw.”
The room felt smaller now. The walls closer. The light dimmer.
Zayne took one slow step toward you.
Your heart slammed against your ribs, but your feet wouldn’t move.
“I haven’t decided yet,” he murmured, more to himself than to you.
His eyes flicked over you—not with hunger, not with interest.
But with calculation.
Like a surgeon examining a problem. Like a butcher weighing whether to waste the meat.
“You’re already dying,” he said, as if he was reminding himself. “So maybe I don’t have to do anything at all.”
Your heart was moving too fast.
Not just pounding—but scrambling, like it didn’t know whether to run or stop, beating so hard against your ribs that the pain started to edge into something sharper, tighter, something you’d felt before in the worst nights when the machines beeped and the nurses rushed in.
Your legs gave out.
Not gracefully. Not like a faint in a dream. You dropped. Hard.
Your shoulder hit the floor first, then your hip. The impact vibrated through your chest, but none of it hurt as much as the inside did—your chest caving in on itself, your lungs clawing for air, your pulse screaming through your skull.
You couldn’t get enough oxygen.
You couldn’t think.
All you could feel was the thundering chaos of your own body turning against you.
“Please,” you rasped, though you didn’t know what you were begging for anymore.
Above you, the fluorescent light flickered once, twice—then steadied.
A shape moved.
Then the sound of fabric—clean, crisp—rustling as someone knelt down in front of you.
Dr.Zayne.
His face lowered into view, upside down from your angle, pale and calm, the fluorescent glow turning the edges of his features ghostly.
He wasn’t frowning.
He wasn’t panicking.
He wasn’t reaching for a call button or checking your vitals.
He was watching.
Eyes sharp, mouth still, head tilted just slightly—not with concern, but with curiosity.
“Your heart’s failing,” he said, almost thoughtfully, like he was pointing out the weather.
You couldn’t respond. Your mouth was open, but your chest wouldn’t lift.
Zayne leaned in closer, one gloved hand hovering an inch above your wrist, not to hold it—just to feel the flicker of your pulse through the air.
“Is it the fear?” he murmured. “Or the condition?” His eyes followed the way your chest struggled to rise. “It’s difficult to tell.”
He smiled—not unkindly, not cruelly.
Almost like he was… grateful.
“You’re very… informative like this.”
The edges of your vision began to blur—slow at first, like fog creeping across glass, until the light above Zayne’s head began to pulse, dimming, brightening, dimming again, not because the bulb was flickering… but because you were.
You tried to lift your hand. It twitched against the floor. That was all.
Zayne’s gloved fingers drifted closer—not to help, not to steady, but to follow the motion.
He crouched lower, one elbow resting on his knee, and tilted his head to match the angle of yours, as if trying to see the world from the way your face was falling apart.
“Your pupils are dilating,” he said softly. “There’s a tremor in your fingertips.”
You gasped. A thin, wet sound that caught in your throat like thread through a needle.
“I wonder,” he continued, “what you’ll remember.”
His tone never changed. It wasn’t comforting. It wasn’t cruel.
Just curious.
He watched your jaw tighten. Your legs twitch. Your lungs beg for control they no longer had.
“I could help,” he murmured, almost absently. “But I’m not sure you’d learn anything from that.”
The room tilted again. You couldn’t tell if he was moving closer or if your vision was collapsing around him.
“This is what it looks like,” he whispered. “When the body thinks it’s dying.”
You whimpered, low and broken, as your eyes rolled back slightly.
Zayne leaned in, his breath brushing your cheek.
“Don’t worry,” he said gently. “I’ll remember it for you.”
And then—
Darkness.
Light.
Not the flickering, sickly yellow of the basement, but soft, clean, familiar.
Your eyes snapped open like something had yanked them awake from beneath your skin, and for a moment, the ceiling above you didn’t look like a ceiling—it looked like a trapdoor you’d fallen through, back into a world you weren’t ready to return to.
“Hey—hey, you’re awake.”
A voice. His voice.
But not Zayne.
Dr. Greyson.
He leaned over the bed, eyes wide, colorless with fear. His tie was crooked. His coat was gone. His hair was a mess.
“Jesus Christ,” he breathed, his hand brushing your wrist, checking your pulse with fingers that trembled just slightly. “You scared the hell out of me.”
You blinked.
The machines beside you beeped steadily. The IV line tugged softly at your arm. The blanket was tucked around you—tight, secure, like someone had wrapped you up after.
“You had an attack last night,” he said, trying to sound calm, but failing. “Your heart rate spiked, then collapsed. You were barely breathing when the staff found you in the east corridor,” Dr. Greyson said gently, like he was afraid you might break if he raised his voice even a little.
“Close to the stairwell near Imaging. You must’ve passed out while walking. You weren’t hurt, but you weren’t breathing right. The nurses said you looked like you were… gone.”
You didn’t answer.
Because that wasn’t where you were.
That wasn’t even close.
The basement had no Imaging signs. No corridors with bright lights and polished floors.
You had collapsed on concrete, surrounded by blood and a body hanging from the ceiling, with Zayne kneeling in front of you, whispering truths like lullabies.
So why…
“You must’ve pushed yourself too hard,” Greyson continued, frowning at your vitals. “Or maybe you saw something that triggered the attack.”
You swallowed.
Did you?
“You don’t remember what happened, do you?” he asked.
You opened your mouth. Closed it.And for just a moment—just long enough to wonder—you considered lying. Because if they found you in a clean hallway, nowhere near the sub-basement…
Then someone had moved you.
Or was everything a horrible nightmare..?
The words were out of your mouth before you could stop them.
“You have to check the sub-basement.”
Dr. Greyson froze in the middle of adjusting your IV.
“The what?”
“There’s a body,” you said, breath picking up, every word scraped raw. “There was—someone. Hanging. His chest was—open. His heart was gone.”
You didn’t care how it sounded. You didn’t care that your voice was cracking or that your hands were shaking. You just needed someone to believe you.
“You said I collapsed in a hallway,” you went on, voice rising, “but that’s not where I was. I was in the sub-basement. Near the boiler room. I went to feed the cat—please, Dr. Greyson, I’m not crazy.”
He blinked at you slowly.
Not annoyed.
Not suspicious.
Just… confused.
“There’s no one authorized to be down there this week,” he said carefully. “That wing’s shut for… maintenance.” His eyes looked away for a second from you, like he was… trying to hide something from you?
“That doesn’t mean no one was there,” you shot back. “Please. Just look. Please.”
He stared at you for another beat. Then, slowly, he nodded.
“Okay. Okay—breathe, alright? I’ll go take a look. Stay here. Don’t move.”
You didn’t.
Couldn’t.
You lay there in silence as the door clicked shut behind him, every second stretching like thread soaked in ice water.
The beeping of your heart monitor ticked out your panic in perfect rhythm.
You stared at the ceiling and imagined him finding it.
The body.
The blood.
The hook.
The proof that you weren’t insane.
That you weren’t making it up.
That Zayne had done something.
That he was real.
The door opened fifteen minutes later.
Dr. Greyson stepped inside. Slower now. Paler. But not in the way you expected. He sat down next to you, gently, like he thought you might fall apart if he moved too fast.
“I went down there,” he said. “I checked every room.”
You leaned forward, heart pounding.
“And?”
A pause.
“There’s nothing there,” he said quietly. “No body. No blood. No sign of anyone having been there at all.”
You didn’t speak for a long time after Greyson gave you his answer.
No blood.
No body.
No sign of anything.
You lay there with your eyes open, your arms tight around yourself beneath the blanket, and tried to pull your memories apart—one thread at a time—looking for the lie.
Maybe you had imagined the blood.
Maybe the body wasn’t real.
Or maybe he’d moved everything. Cleaned it. Rewritten it.
Like a page he didn’t want you to read again.
“Your heart rate’s still high,” Dr. Greyson said softly, checking the monitor beside you. “You’re spiking again. You need to breathe, alright? Just—stay with me.”
You tried.
But your fingers were shaking again. Your chest wouldn’t rise evenly. The fear was coming back in waves, no longer sharp but slow, like something poisoning your veins from the inside. You couldn’t have imagined all of this. You weren’t turning crazy, right..? Being caged in the hospital would not be your doom, right?
You wanted to live.
“Let me grab someone,” he said, already halfway to the door. “Dr. Zayne should still be on rotation tonight—he’s the best we have for cardiac stability. I’ll have him take a look at you.”
Your stomach turned.
“No.” It came out barely above a whisper. “No, I’m—I’m okay, I just need—”
But he was already waving down the hall. You heard the soft rhythm of footsteps before you saw him.
Zayne appeared in the doorway like he had never been anywhere else. White coat. Perfectly fitted gloves. Calm, unreadable eyes.
He stepped inside as Dr. Greyson called him over, the monitor still beeping too fast beside your bed, your breath catching like it had forgotten what safety ever felt like.
“Dr. Zayne—she had a cardiac event last night, and her rate’s still spiking,” Greyson said,his concern thick in his voice. “Mind taking a quick look?”
Zayne’s gaze shifted to you.
No recognition. No guilt. Just that same calm you remembered—not from the last time he saw you, but from every time before.
“Of course,” he said.
Zayne moved closer.
Not rushed. Not hesitant. Just steady—like the soft glide of something inevitable.
You wanted to pull your hand away. You wanted to scream but your fingers were locked around the blanket, your muscles coiled too tight, like even your own body didn’t trust you to move correctly.
“She’s still a bit tachycardic,” Greyson said, stepping aside. “Vitals are stable otherwise, but I figured you’d want to confirm.”
Zayne didn’t answer with words. He just reached for your arm—clean, practiced. His gloved fingers closed gently around your wrist.
And suddenly you were back there.
On the floor.
Your lungs collapsing.
His eyes watching you fall apart.
His fingers pressed against your pulse now—like they had then—and it took every shred of strength you had not to recoil.
“Still elevated,” he murmured, mostly for Greyson’s benefit. “Likely from residual anxiety.”
Then—
His thumb moved. Just slightly. Not in a diagnostic pattern. Not something any other doctor would notice. A slow, deliberate stroke against the inside of your wrist.
Your eyes snapped to his.
His gaze was calm. Direct. Empty.
And then he leaned in, just close enough that Greyson couldn’t hear, just close enough that his breath skimmed the edge of your cheek.
“You remember,” he whispered.
A shiver ran through you.
“That’s good.”
Your body seized up.
The fear didn’t just spike—it detonated.
Your chest pulled tight, tighter, then tighter still, until your ribs felt like they were being crushed from the inside. Your vision blurred. The lights fractured.
You gasped.
But there was no air.
No oxygen. No sound. Just the sharp, high-pitched scream of the monitor as your vitals plummeted. Greyson cursed somewhere behind the ringing in your ears, reaching for the call button. But Zayne didn’t flinch. Didn’t rush.
He watched.
Watched as your eyes rolled back, as your body went slack, as the machines lit up with panic.
And then—he smiled.
Just for a second.
Small.
Quiet.
Like something in you had just confirmed something in him.
“Clear the line,” he said smoothly, already reaching for the crash cart. “She’s fibrillating.”
His hands were fast. Precise.
He pushed Greyson aside without looking, already fitting the oxygen mask over your face, adjusting the IV drip, his voice calm and clipped as he issued commands.
“Sodium bicarbonate—ten cc’s. Push now.”
You were slipping.
But you could still feel it.
The pressure of his hands on you. The cold calm in his voice. He was saving you.
But only because he wanted you alive.
You woke to silence.
No voices. No footsteps in the hall. Just the gentle hum of machinery and the soft hiss of the IV beside you.
For a moment, you didn’t move.
You lay still in the narrow hospital bed, the room lit only by the faint electronic glow of monitors—cold, blue-white halos that made everything feel half-real.
Your body ached in a way that told you you’d been unconscious again. Your limbs were heavy, your chest tight, and somewhere in the hollow beneath your ribs, fear still curled like smoke—but it was duller now. Not gone, just quieter.
You told yourself it was over.
That whatever had happened before—whatever had broken you open in the dark, whatever had made you collapse under the weight of your own heartbeat—was behind you now.
That you were safe.
You let the tears come slowly, without sound, tracking hot lines down your cheeks.
You didn’t sob. You didn’t scream.
You cried the way exhausted people cry—quietly, weakly, as if even the act of mourning had to be done gently now, in case your body couldn’t take it.
And as the tears slipped past your temples into your hair, you whispered apologies to no one.
To the man in the basement.
To yourself.
To the version of you who used to believe doctors were only here to help.
Your breathing steadied, even as your eyes blurred again.
You thought you were alone.
Until the silence blinked.
Not broke—blinked.
Like something in the room had moved without moving. Like the stillness had shifted just enough to pull your attention toward it. Your eyes, sluggish and red-rimmed, drifted toward the far corner of the room—
—and that’s when you saw him.
Sitting.
Perfectly still.
Half-shrouded in shadow, his white coat faintly illuminated by the blue glow of your monitors.
Dr. Zayne.
Not standing. Not speaking. Not making his presence known.
Just there.
His gloved hand rested lightly on the arm of the chair, the other on one knee. His legs were crossed neatly, his posture pristine—as if he hadn’t shifted once since you were brought back here.
And his eyes—
They weren’t soft.
They weren’t cruel.
They were measuring.
Like he wasn’t watching a girl cry—
He was watching the aftershock of an experiment.
And when your breath caught in your throat, sharp and sudden, he didn’t blink. He simply said, in the same calm voice he’d used while pressing a scalpel into someone’s chest,
“You stabilized quicker this time.”
A pause.
Then, with that same clinical curiosity—
“That’s promising.”
He didn’t ask if you were okay.
He didn’t ask how you were feeling.
He already knew.
“You were afraid,” he said, as if you hadn’t just spent the last several minutes trying to forget. “But the second event was shorter. Less severe.”
You said nothing.
Your body still hasn't caught up with your mind, and your mind… your mind was treading water in something dark and endless, struggling to stay afloat under the weight of his voice.
Zayne uncrossed his legs slowly. His coat shifted slightly.
“Tell me what you remember.”
It wasn’t a request.
It wasn’t even an order.
It was a line dropped into the silence—a net, cast to see what you would offer.
You opened your mouth, but no words came out. You couldn’t make yourself speak. Not to him. Not like this.
“The man in the basement,” he said, as if reading the gaps in your breath. “Do you remember how he looked?”
Your lips trembled.
“Y-yes,” you whispered.
Zayne’s head tilted.
“Were you afraid of him?”
“No.”
A pause.
“Of me, then.”
You didn’t answer.
You didn’t need to.
He smiled faintly. Not pleased. Not mocking.
Just… confirming.
“The heart stops differently in each person,” he said, almost conversational. “The way it fights. The sounds. I’ve studied a many. In books or real life.” His voice softened, like he was speaking to himself now, remembering things you could never understand. “But yours,” he said slowly, “didn’t want to give up.”
He paused, just long enough for the silence to press in again.
“Was that because you didn’t want to die?”
You didn’t answer.
Couldn’t.
But your eyes—wet, bloodshot, wide—told him everything.
Zayne leaned forward, just slightly, elbows resting on his knees, his hands folded. His gloved thumbs pressed together in thought.
“Most people beg when they know,” he said. “You did, too. But that wasn’t what interested me.”
Your breath hitched.
He watched.
“It was the look on your face,” he continued quietly. “Not terror. Not even desperation.”
His eyes met yours.
“It was sorrow. Like you weren’t afraid to die—just afraid it would hurt.”
His words settled on your skin like ice.
And then—so softly you almost missed it—
“Did it?”
He didn’t blink. He didn’t breathe. He was asking if you felt yourself dying.
And for the first time… it didn’t sound like a warning.
It sounded like a test.
You couldn’t speak.
Your mouth was open, your lungs pulled tight, but no sound came out—not even a breath worth calling a word.
And for a moment, it was enough.
Zayne didn’t press.
He just watched.
But then, without a single change in his expression, he stood.
Smooth. Quiet.
The chair gave a soft creak behind him as he turned, walking with steady, soundless steps to the small cart near your bedside—one used by every doctor, every nurse, filled with the usual assortment of tools and vials.
You knew that cart. You have seen it every day. And you’d never feared it before.
Until now.
Zayne’s fingers moved without hesitation, gloved and practiced, choosing something from the tray.
A small syringe.
Glass vial.
Clear liquid.
He held it to the light briefly, tapped it once with his finger, then pressed the plunger until a thin bead of fluid shimmered at the tip.
You choked out a breath—dry, broken, more panic than sound.
He turned back to you, expression unchanged.
“It’s not lethal,” he said flatly, as if discussing something mundane. “But it can be.”
You stared at the needle. Your heart pounded against your ribs. The machine at your side began beeping faster.
“A little too much, and your system will seize,” Zayne continued. “But just enough, and you’ll sleep without pain. No struggle. No fear.”
He took a step toward you.
“I’m giving you a choice.”
Your breath shook.
“Speak,” he said calmly. “Tell me what you’re feeling. Let me understand you.”
Another pause.
“Or I’ll take away the part of you that makes this interesting.”His voice never rose. “And end it quietly.”
The needle glinted under the monitor’s glow. And for the first time, you realized—he wasn’t trying to scare you.
He was just explaining what came next.
The beeping beside you blurred into a high, thin rhythm—sharp and panicked.
Zayne didn’t acknowledge it. He stepped closer, unhurried, like a surgeon prepping for a routine procedure. His coat brushed the edge of the bed as he came to your side, syringe in hand, and reached for your arm with clinical ease.
You tried to pull away.
But your muscles wouldn’t respond.
The exhaustion, the fear, the weight of everything you’d seen—it kept you rooted there, trembling, barely able to breathe.
He caught your wrist with one gloved hand, steadying it gently, and rolled your sleeve up just enough to find the vein.
Then he pressed the needle lightly to your skin.
Cold.
Thin.
So sharp you could already feel the sting before it broke the surface.
Zayne’s face hovered just above yours—close enough to see the shadow of your panic in his eyes.
“One last chance,” he said quietly.
Not threatening.
Not kind.
Just… final.
“Tell me,” he whispered, “what you were feeling.”
His finger shifted slightly on the plunger.
“Or I stop wondering what it felt like.”
The implication hung in the silence, colder than the steel tip on your skin. Your heart gave a jolt. And the breath you didn’t realize you were holding finally broke free—ragged, high-pitched, full of something primal.
Terror.
“I—I don’t want to die.”
The words tore out of you, cracked and high and soaked in the kind of panic that didn’t sound like language anymore.
“Please, please, I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to see anything, I didn’t—I didn’t ask to—”
Your voice broke. You couldn’t stop crying now. The tears spilled too fast, the words tumbling after them in pieces.
“I was just feeding the cat—I didn’t know—you were just there and I—I didn’t mean—”
The needle still pressed against your arm, unmoving.
Zayne didn’t speak.
He just watched.
His eyes traced your face—flushed, wet, twisted in terror. Your mouth was trembling too hard to form full sentences. The panic trembling through your chest like your heart might leap out and fall apart at his feet.
Slowly, he pulled the syringe back. Just a few centimeters. Not gone. Not discarded. Just… paused.
“Good,” he said softly.
You didn’t know what he meant. But in that moment, you understood something else: He hadn’t decided to let you live. He’d decided to wait. And that was somehow worse.
“Do you still believe in right and wrong?”
His voice was quiet, almost idle, as though he were asking what you thought of the weather.
You blinked up at him, the tears still clinging to your lashes, your breath stuttering in uneven pulls.
He didn’t repeat the question. He didn’t need to.
“Y-yes,” you whispered, voice thin but trembling with something almost close to anger. Maybe you were so exhausted you didn’t care anymore. You were doomed to die, from your illness, you didn’t care anymore.. or did you? “And someone like you… someone like you is going to end up in prison.”
You regretted it immediately. Your heart stuttered. Your entire body locked up like you’d just thrown yourself off a ledge.
But Zayne…
He didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t threaten.
Instead, he looked at you—really looked—his head tilting just slightly to the side.
And then he smiled. Small. Barely there.
But unmistakably amused.
“Prison?” he said softly, as if testing the word. “You think this world is built to contain people like me?” He stepped back, finally releasing your wrist, the syringe disappearing silently into the pocket of his coat.
“No,” he continued. “People like me keep the system functioning.”
A beat.
“People like you just bleed for it.”
Then—quietly, with the same gentleness one might use to tuck in a patient—he reached for your shoulder.
His gloved hand settled against you, light but impossibly heavy, as if he were anchoring you to the bed.
“I’m not going to kill you tonight,” he murmured, his voice low, unhurried. “Too many rounds. Too many eyes. Timing matters.”
His thumb moved, just barely, against your collarbone—like a doctor taking your pulse.
“Next time,” he added. “I’ll be less busy.”
But he didn’t move away.
His hand stayed there, cool through the glove, resting against your skin as if he were gauging more than vitals. As if he were trying to feel the echo of your fear, the memory of your panic still trembling beneath the surface.
He leaned in slightly, his face unreadable, eyes roaming over yours—not like a man looking for answers, but like a scientist watching for cracks.
His hand lingered, gloved fingers cool against your skin, as if he were reading something far more complex than vitals. His gaze flicked over your face—not with care, not with empathy, but with calculation. Like you were a puzzle still unfolding in real time.
Your lips trembled. Your breath caught again.
He tilted his head slightly.
“There it is,” he murmured. “Still alive in there.”
Then, just for a moment, he looked away.
And you moved.
Your fingers, hidden beneath the blanket, reached toward the tray table—toward the pen, the scalpel, anything sharp. Your hand shook, but you moved with purpose.
You weren’t sure if you meant to defend yourself or die on your own terms.
But before your fingers could close around the metal—
“Careful.”
His voice stopped you cold.
You froze.
His eyes were back on you. Unblinking.
“I’d hate to misinterpret your intentions,” he said calmly. His voice had cut through the air like a scalpel. “Careful,” Zayne said again, stepping closer.
He reached down and took the sharp object from your fingers—not violently, not even with pressure—just a calm, quiet removal, as if you were a child who had picked up something dangerous without understanding it.
“I don’t think you meant to attack me,” he murmured. “If you had, you wouldn’t have hesitated.”
He opened a drawer at your bedside and took out a fresh syringe. The sight of it made your stomach turn. You knew that shape. You knew that vial. You knew it wasn’t a sedative meant for sleep.
“Your body’s still weak,” Zayne said calmly, drawing the clear liquid with smooth, clinical precision. “Your heart hasn’t fully recovered. You’re disoriented. Slow.”
He glanced at you—not angry, not gloating.
Just… measuring.
“This dosage won’t kill you,” he said. “But you won’t be able to move. You’ll feel everything. Just… not be able to respond.”
He slipped the needle into your IV port like it was routine. And as the cold spread through your veins, he leaned closer.
“I want you to remember what this feels like,” he whispered.
Your body began to fail you one piece at a time.
Your fingers went first—numb, tingling, like you’d slept on them wrong. Then your arms. Then your legs. Your chest tightened, your eyelids felt heavy, but your mind—your terrified, spiraling mind—remained sharp.
“I’ve seen this in animals,” Zayne said, sitting beside your bed again. “The flickering between panic and stillness. The way they try to scream even when their throat won’t work.”
He leaned in.
“Let’s see what kind you are.”
Your eyes rolled toward him. It was all you could do.
And he smiled—small, satisfied.
“You should be grateful,” he murmured. “If I was cruel, I’d leave you like this until morning.” He reached forward, brushing a strand of hair from your face with the back of one finger. “But I have patients. Rounds.”
A pause.
“You’ll come back soon enough.” He stood, adjusted his coat, and looked down at you like a man admiring a painting still in progress. “And next time you try to grab something sharp—”
He touched the side of your throat, right where your pulse fluttered erratically beneath the skin.
“—I’ll cut deeper than your pride.”
Then he walked out.
Calm. Polished.
Like death passing politely through the hallway, smiling on his rounds.
