>>>warning: cancer, hints of character death, angst (??)
SUMMARY:
Sam, newly diagnosed with leukemia, is jaded, bitter, and emotionally shut down. He spends his days pushing people away. Then, one afternoon, a girl appears—claiming to be a hospital volunteer. He tries to ignore her, but she’s persistent. Soft. Different.
A/N: I watched Five Feet Apart and thought of Sam so…
This will be my first multi-chaptered story so let me know if you guys want more!
The fluorescent lights never turned off in the oncology wing.
They just dimmed slightly—like that would make a difference to someone like Sam Monroe, who hadn’t slept properly in twenty-one days. Not that he was counting. Not that it mattered. Days didn’t mean much when you were hooked to a pole and had nurses tracking your blood like it was the stock market.
Leukemia.
The word tasted like metal in his mouth. Sharp. Cold. Something that didn’t belong to him until it did.
He hated the way the machines beeped around him, hated the way the IV line tugged every time he shifted, hated the way the nurses looked at him like he was fragile porcelain with a fuse underneath. But mostly, he hated the quiet. The sterile, muffled silence of a hospital room that smelled like bleach and loss.
So when the knock came that afternoon—three short taps on the door—he didn’t bother answering. He kept his hood up, one earbud in, head tilted against the wall.
But the door creaked open anyway.
“Hey.”
The voice wasn’t nurse-cheerful. It wasn’t clinical. It was… human. Light. Soft in a way he hadn’t heard in weeks. He glanced over, annoyed already, expecting a clipboard and scrubs.
What he got was… different.
You stood there in jeans and an oversized t-shirt, a visitor badge clipped to your shirt like an afterthought and a tote bag slung over your shoulder. You didn’t look like a nurse. Or a doctor. Or a counselor. Just a girl—his age, maybe a little younger—staring at him like he was something interesting.
“Room 304, right?” you asked, stepping inside like you hadn’t noticed the hand made ‘NO VISITORS’ sign taped to the door in red bold letters. “You’re Sam?”
He blinked. “Who’s asking?”
“I’m new. Volunteer,” you said, lifting your badge as proof before covering it too quickly with your flannel. “Supposed to check in on patients who might need company.”
“I don’t.”
You smiled anyway. “Cool. I’ll just sit.”
Before he could tell you to leave, you walked over to the corner chair—the one no one ever sat in anymore—and flopped down like you belonged there.
You pulled out a book from your bag. Something beat up and dog-eared. Opened it.
And said nothing.
Sam stared.
What the hell kind of game was this?
Thirty minutes passed. You read. He scrolled.
Once, your eyes drifted toward his IV pole.
“You mind the sticker?”
“What?”
You pulled out a little frog sticker from your bag. “Thought he looked like he could use a party hat.”
Sam narrowed his eyes. “If you put that on my IV pole, I’m calling security.”
You smiled like it was a challenge. “You’d have to stand up first.”
For some reason, that made him laugh. Quiet, reluctant, but real.
You didn’t say anything about it. You just went back to reading.
And when you finally stood to leave, you glanced back over your shoulder and said, “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Sam didn’t answer.
But he didn’t tell you not to come back either.
——
Sam wasn’t sure why he expected you not to come back.
Maybe because most people didn’t. Not when he acted the way he did. Not when he made it so easy to leave.
So when the knock came again—three short taps against the doorframe—he braced himself to roll his eyes, ready to tell whatever nurse or chaplain to kindly get lost.
But it was you.
Again.
Same beat-up tote bag. Same crooked smile. Hair pulled back like you’d gotten caught in a breeze and didn’t mind. You walked in like you’d done it a thousand times before.
Sam scowled. “You know I didn’t ask for this.”
“You didn’t ask me to leave either,” you said, dropping into the chair beside his bed.
He raised an eyebrow. “You always this pushy?”
You shrugged. “Just with the terminally charming.”
“Wow. You’re worse than the nurses.”
You reached into your bag and pulled something out. A tiny, neon green sticker. A frog. Wearing a party hat.
Sam blinked. “That again?”
“Morale support,” you defend, already rising from your seat. “Your IV pole looks like it’s considering its options.”
“You’re not—”
Before he could finish, you slapped the sticker onto the cold metal with a satisfied nod. It was tilted. It looked ridiculous.
Perfect.
Sam stared at it. Then at you.
“I hate that.”
“No you don’t.”
“…Okay. Maybe I don’t.”
You smiled again. It made something shift in his chest. Something small. Uncomfortable.
You didn’t ask him any of the things people usually did. Not how are you feeling or what’s the prognosis. You didn’t look at him like he was broken glass or a sad story waiting for a page number.
You just talked.
About your favorite vending machine snack (hot Cheetos, obviously), how one of the nurses played guitar in a terrible indie band, and the weirdly specific smell of the oncology wing (“like bleach and Jell-O and death”). Sam found himself laughing. Actually laughing.
It startled him.
You leaned back in the chair, watching him with soft amusement. “Wow. You actually have teeth.”
“Shut up.”
“No, I’m serious. For a second there I thought you were gonna hiss and melt under the fluorescent lights.”
“I still might.”
“I dare you.”
You stayed for an hour that day. He never asked you why.
And when you stood to leave, adjusting your bag strap, you said it again.
“See you tomorrow?”
He didn’t answer.
Didn’t nod. Didn’t look at you.
But as the door clicked shut behind you, his eyes drifted back to the IV pole.
…and he stared at that stupid little frog for a long, long time.
>>>warning: cancer, hints of character death, angst (??)
SUMMARY:
Sam, newly diagnosed with leukemia, is jaded, bitter, and emotionally shut down. He spends his days pushing people away. Then, one afternoon, a girl appears—claiming to be a hospital volunteer. He tries to ignore her, but she’s persistent. Soft. Different.
<<< VISIT 1 | VISIT 3 >>>
Sam didn’t expect you to stay long.
No one ever did.
But on your fourth visit, you showed up balancing two sodas, a crumpled bag of hot Cheetos in your mouth, and a sleeve of vending-machine cookies tucked under your arm like contraband. He blinked at you from his bed, IV line hissing softly beside him.
You didn’t say hi. Just dropped the food dramatically onto his tray and said, “Your taste in snacks sucks. So I brought better options.”
Sam raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “And you thought Oreos would change my life?”
“No, I thought they’d keep you from turning into a full-time cryptid.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
You flopped into the chair beside his bed, ripping open the Cheetos with practiced ease. “You know, for someone who’s half-ghost, you have a very punchable energy.”
Sam scoffed. “Glad I brighten your day.”
“You do, actually,” you said, chewing. “Like a little storm cloud I adopted.”
He rolled his eyes and grabbed one of the sodas. Didn’t say thank you. But you noticed the way he popped the tab and took the first sip immediately. Like maybe it mattered that you brought it.
You talked the way you always did—lightly, without pity. You rambled about a vending machine conspiracy (how none of the D7 slots ever gave you your food), the weird metal sculpture in the hospital lobby that looked like a blender, and how one of the nurses had a “secret TikTok” where she reviewed Jell-O flavors.
Sam listened. He always listened.
He’d never admit it, of course.
*
About halfway through the visit, your tone shifted.
Softer. A little quieter.
You leaned back in the chair, legs folded under you, and asked, “Do you ever wonder what you’d be doing if none of this had happened?”
Sam didn’t look at you right away. He stared at the heart monitor. Watched it blink. “Probably still failing trig. Smoking in the boy’s bathroom. Pretending I didn’t care about anything.”
You hummed. “I bet you were annoying as hell in high school,” you said, watching him sketch in the margins of a crossword someone had abandoned.
He didn’t look up. “That’s because I was.”
You grinned. “What did you do? Set piranhas in the pool or something?”
“No. But I did convince the substitute teacher that I was allergic to tests.”
You laughed. “How?”
“I told her pencils gave me hives.”
“God, you’re so full of shit.”
He smirked, finally glancing at you. “Okay,” he said, twirling his pen. “Your turn. What’s your tragic teen backstory?”
You paused.
Your smile wavered for half a second. Barely enough to catch unless someone was watching too closely.
Sam was.
You sat back down in the chair, hugging your knees to your chest. “I’m just… a volunteer. Boring. Normal.”
He raised an eyebrow. “No one normal chooses to hang out with me voluntarily.”
You looked at him. Softly. “Maybe I don’t want normal.”
He blinked at that.
Didn’t ask more.
Didn’t press.
But he kept looking at you, like you were a question he hadn’t decided whether or not to answer.
*
Before you left that day, you dug around in your bag and tossed something into his lap. A folded napkin. Inside it: three Oreos, neatly stacked.
“Emergency rations,” you said, standing.
He looked up at you. Really looked. Hair messy from the hoodie hood, IV cord looped beside him like a leash. And something else; something softer in his eyes than yesterday.
“Why do you keep coming back?” he asked, voice low.
You tilted your head. “Do you want me to stop?”
Silence.
Then, in a quiet barely audible voice, Sam murmurs. “..No.”
You smiled. “That’s why.”
And then you were gone.
He waited until the door clicked shut before pulling the napkin open again.
>>>warning: cancer, hints of character death, angst (??)
SUMMARY:
Sam, newly diagnosed with leukemia, is jaded, bitter, and emotionally shut down. He spends his days pushing people away. Then, one afternoon, a girl appears—claiming to be a hospital volunteer. He tries to ignore her, but she’s persistent. Soft. Different.
<<<VISIT 2 | VISIT 4 >>>>
“You’re going to keel over.”
“Shut up. I’m pacing myself.”
“You’ve walked, like, six steps.”
“Yeah. And they were impressive steps.”
Sam grunted as he adjusted the IV pole, dragging it beside him like a reluctant dance partner. His hospital slippers scuffed over the sidewalk while the early morning sun filtered through the trees, painting gold on everything it touched.
You held the gate open with one hand and your drink in the other, waiting for him to catch up like you weren’t deliberately slowing down.
“You good?” you asked, softer now.
“Peachy,” he muttered, but he didn’t stop walking.
The hospital garden was quiet this early — just trimmed hedges, a few tired rose bushes, and benches that creaked like they were holding secrets. You had asked him to come out here all week. He’d resisted, rolled his eyes, said things like “what’s the point of looking at plants I can’t eat?”
But today, for whatever reason, he said yes.
You didn’t question it.
You just walked beside him in silence for a while. Not awkward. Not forced. Just quiet. Like the world had taken a breath with you.
*
There was a patch of lavender near the stone wall. You plucked a sprig and offered it to him without saying anything. He took it. Rolled it between his fingers. “…You like this place?” he asked finally.
You shrugged. “Yeah. Makes the hospital feel a little less like a prison.”
Sam’s jaw tightened. “Don’t say that.”
You tilted your head. “Why? It’s true.”
He didn’t answer right away. Just stared at the lavender in his hand like it might give him a reason not to break. You nudged him with your shoulder. “You’re allowed to talk about it.”
“Yeah, well… I don’t want to. Not right now.” His voice cracked. “I just want to—pretend. Like this is normal. Like I’m normal.”
You looked around at the garden. The morning sun. The empty bench you’d end up sitting on soon. “Okay,” you said. “Then it’s normal. We’re just two messed-up teenagers skipping school to look at boring flowers.”
Sam exhaled a breathy laugh. “God,” he muttered. “You’re annoying.”
You grinned. “You like it.”
*
Later, while you were brushing crumbs off your jeans, he said something quieter. “You don’t talk about yourself much.”
You shrugged. “I’m here for you.”
He tilted his head, jaws locked. “You don’t owe me anything.”
“That’s what makes it real.”
Sam didn’t reply. Not right away.
He just reached for the marker and started drawing something on the edge of his tray. A girl in a hoodie with a giant frog on her shoulder and a heart floating above her head like a cartoon thought bubble.
You rolled your eyes. “Is that supposed to be me?”
“Dunno,” he said, not looking up. “She looks too nice.”
You leaned over and drew devil horns on the head. “Fixed it.”
>>>warning: cancer, hints of character death, angst (??)
SUMMARY:
You decide to sneak Sam out to the rooftop for a night out and get to know each other even more.
<<< VISIT 3 | VISIT 5 >>>
The plan wasn’t complicated.
Which made it your kind of plan.
“Come on,” you whispered as you slipped into Sam’s dark room one minute after lights out, holding a blanket like contraband and your finger to your lips in warning.
Sam blinked, half-asleep, IV cord still clipped to the rolling pole beside him. “What the hell—”
“Shhh. Get up. We’re breaking out.”
“Breaking out? What is this, The Shawshank Redemption?”
“More like Ferris Bueller.” You tilt your head towards the door. “Come on.”
He grumbled but didn’t fight you. Not really. Not when you knelt beside him to unhook the brake on the IV pole, not when you handed him his hoodie, not even when you said, “Trust me.”
Because somehow, he did.
*
The hospital rooftop was colder than you expected. Windy. Vast. You spread out the blanket in the corner, just beneath a patch of sky not blocked by fluorescent glow or steel scaffolding. The stars were faint. But they were stars.
Sam stared at them like he’d forgotten they still existed.
For a while, you didn’t talk. You just sat; both of you on the blanket, IV pole beside him like a loyal dog, your legs curled beneath you.
“This is illegal,” Sam muttered.
“Technically, so is your attitude.”
He smirked.
You leaned back, arms propped behind you, staring upward. “What would you do if you could do literally anything?”
He scoffed. “Loaded question.”
“You said you’d answer next time.”
He was quiet for a long beat. Then, like cutting through the wind he finally answers. “..I’d run away. Somewhere no one could find me. Somewhere I could scream if I wanted. Maybe Montana.”
You glanced sideways. “You’d last three hours without Wi-Fi.”
Sam scoffed. “I’d be fine. I’m emotionally complex. I could meditate or some shit.”
You turned your head. “You? Meditate?”
He sat up straighter. “I could. I’m very zen.”
“You literally flipped off a nurse for waking you up during your nap.”
Sam shrugged. “Disturbing my peace.”
You rolled your eyes. “You’re like a raccoon who developed anxiety and a nicotine addiction.”
He laughed, really laughed, and for a second, you forgot this was a hospital rooftop. Forgot about IV poles and labs and things you hadn’t told him yet.
Another beat of silence. Then he asked it—carefully, the words were balancing on the edge of something sharp.
“What would you do if you could disappear?”
You didn’t look at him.
You didn’t have to.
“I’d fall in love with someone.. go on a roadtrip to nowhere. Just us and the vast open road.”
He didn’t say anything for a while.
The air between you pressed down like a blanket soaked in unsaid things.
Then—
“Alright, Hallmark card. That was dramatic.”
You turned to him, offended. “Excuse me?”
“Just saying. You could’ve said something like, ‘open a bakery’ or ‘ride a motorcycle.’ But nah, you went full Nicholas Sparks.”
“You’re such a dick.”
“You started it.”
You reached over and poked his side, and he flinched. Your eyes widening at the sudden revelation. “God, are you ticklish?”
“No,” he said too fast.
“That sounded like a lie, Monroe.” You smirked.
“Touch me again and I’ll yeet your soul off this roof.”
You burst out laughing—real, loud, head-tilted-back laughing—and it was so infectious Sam couldn’t even pretend not to smile.
He watched you like you were the only bright thing on that rooftop. Maybe the only bright thing in his entire goddamn life.
You didn’t notice.
…And he wasn’t brave enough to say it.
<<< VISIT 3 | VISIT 5 >>>
ROOM 304 BOT
ROOM 304 MASTERLIST
TAGLIST: @rorysbrainrot
A/N: this took too long to write I’m so sorry 😢 I’ve been so busy lately I hate it! Next chapter will be a bit of a plot mover so I’ve been putting out some filler lol
>>>warning: cancer, hints of character death, angst (??)
SUMMARY:
Sam suddenly gets a fever while you’re together and it scares you in more ways than one.
<<< VISIT 4 | VISIT 6 >>>
The fever came fast.
One minute Sam was teasing you about stealing his hoodie again—
the next, he was shivering so hard his teeth clacked, skin burning, face pale and flushed all at once.
You were halfway through a story—something stupid about a patient in the lobby mistaking you for a nurse—when you looked up and realized Sam hadn’t laughed nor said something sarcastic. He was staring at the wall. Breathing fast. Blinking slow.
“Sam?” You stood. Crossed the room. Touched his forehead.
Too hot.
“Sam—hey.” Your voice cracked.
He didn’t answer.
Didn’t even look at you.
You hit the call button.
Then the fear hit.
*
They rushed in. Nurses. A doctor. Someone said “infection.” Someone else said “low white count.” Words like dangerous and neutropenic and platelets. They pulled the curtain. They didn’t pull you. You stood just outside the fabric wall, arms around your middle, hearing Sam’s ragged breathing and trying not to crumble.
Please don’t let this be it.
*
The next 36 hours blurred.
He was out cold most of it. IV drips doubled. Machines beeped too fast. You didn’t leave. You curled into the chair beside his bed, hoodie pulled tight around you like armor. His hoodie.
You only left when they forced you to.
And the whole time you’re thinking; he doesn’t even know.
*
On the second night, he stirred.
Eyelids twitching. Brow furrowing. Hand jerking slightly under the blanket like he was reaching for something. You stood quickly, wrapped your fingers around his. “Hey,” you whispered. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” His fingers twitched. Then curled tighter around yours.
And just like that, he settled.
Your hand didn’t move the rest of the night.
*
In the morning, his eyes cracked open.
Bleary. Bloodshot. But there.
Sam looked around, disoriented, until his gaze landed on you, curled in the chair beside him, legs tucked up, cheek pressed to his mattress, still holding his hand. He blinked. Swallowed. “You’re here,” he rasped.
You smiled sleepily. “Of course I’m here.”
His throat worked. “You… stayed?”
“I didn’t want to miss you waking up. Would’ve ruined the dramatic reunion.”
He let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “You’re an idiot.”
You squeezed his hand. “Takes one to know one.”
Silence. A long, quiet beat filled with things haven’t said.
He stared at your hand in his.
Didn’t let go.
Didn’t want to.
<<< VISIT 4 | VISIT 6 >>>
ROOM304 MASTERLIST
ROOM304 BOT
TAGLIST (lmk if you wanna be added): @rorysbrainrot @bookfan210
Ugh. I’m really sorry for not updating at all guys😭 I’ll try to update visit 6 sooner!
