Jared was running.
The tunnels twisted, folding back on themselves. Concrete sweated moisture, slick beneath his boots. Each breath pulled in cold, heavy air, pressing against his chest. Boots struck the ground, a rhythm old as memory. Behind him, Adrian’s steps echoed, answering in the hollow dark. They moved quickly, but the panic never came. Only the steady pulse of purpose. This was a hunt. Deliberate. The intention wound tightly in every muscle.
Their comms snapped with static and clipped orders. Bring it in if possible. Neutralize if necessary. No civilian casualties. No hesitation.
Jared slipped ahead, instinct urging him. Tight spaces always called him forward. The Dark pressed in, not hostile, restless. It pressed against his ribs and expanded into his chest, seeking a way out. He let it seep across his skin. He trusted the Dark. He trusted the self that moved within it.
They rounded a corner.
The tunnel widened into a maintenance junction lit by a lone flickering strip. Standing in the center was a little girl. No more than ten. Pink ruffled dress. Sneakers scuffed and worn. Long midnight hair gathered into uneven pigtails. She hugged a fabric rabbit, its ear hanging by a single thread. Her eyes wide. Wet. Drowning in terror.
The Dark wound about her, thin tendrils writhing, curling close. Protective. Instinctive. It did not strike. It did not surge. It clung to her, smoke wrapped tight around a wavering light.
Jared stopped short.
His heart hammered. Something inside him split, raw and sudden, pain blooming beneath his skin.
She looked up at him and Adrian, fear flooding her face as comprehension settled in. She knew what they were. She knew why they were there.
“Please,” she whispered. The voice faintly carried.
Behind Jared, Adrian lifted his gun.
“Contain her,” Adrian ordered. His voice remained calm. Professional. Certain.
Jared’s mouth opened, and silence filled the air. He tried to move. His feet would not obey, rooted deep in the concrete. The Dark thickened, feeding on his hesitation, his horror.
“She’s just a child,” Jared managed, but the words dragged, slow and heavy, as if forced through water.
Adrian did not waver. “She’s a threat.”
The girl squeezed her rabbit tighter. The Dark surged, tendrils rising, grasping hands.
Jared reached out.
The tunnel dissolved.
He woke with a gasp. His breath came hard and uneven. He clutched the blankets. His heart raced and pressed hard against his ribs, a dull ache in his chest. The ceiling above him was vague and indistinct in the darkness. His body was hollow inside, scraped clean, a crucial part scooped out and left unfilled.
He lay there, staring, waiting for the feeling to recede.
It did not.
The room was wrong. Distant. Flat. The furniture hazy at the edges, more stage than substance. His hands. He saw them, but they did not belong to him. The connection was thin, as if someone else moved them, always a moment too late.
Adrian slept down the hall at the other end of the apartment. He could not go to him. The nightmare clung, a residue on his skin, thick and unshakable. If he spoke it, it would become real. He might make Adrian into the monster he had seen. The memory of their argument pressed in, a quiet doubt whispering that he was not welcome, not when he was this broken.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Stood. The floor was unreal beneath his feet, pressure without feeling, as if thick gloves separated him from the world. He moved into the living room. Erebus followed, silent shadow. Jared paced, back and forth, hands flexing, unclenching, searching for sensation.
Nothing left to focus on. The research was gone. The gadgets, the tangle of cables, and the scattered data pads were all gone. No papers to shuffle, no odd trinkets to fidget with. Nothing for his hands to find. The room was stripped bare, a shell. Hollow, like him.
Time seemed endless, thin and strange. He could not say how long he had paced. The glowing streetlamp painted the window in dull amber, unmoving, frozen.
He stopped at the chair, perched on the edge. Rocked forward. Back. Forward. Back. A low hum escaped from his lips, wavering, the tune that once soothed him. River’s Lament, Aelith’s song. His fingers tapped his thigh, then each other, searching for something familiar to steady him.
Nothing landed.
His own humming sounded distant, as if it belonged to someone else. His chest was empty, emotions dulled and unreachable. Panic hovered at the edges, not sharp but everywhere, seeping in like fog.
He stood again and paced toward the kitchen.
The light in the kitchen was harsh, too bright. It sharpened the unreality, made the edges cut, colors too vivid to bear. He opened a drawer. His hand settled on the knife without thought.
The metal was cold. Solid. Real.
He drew the blade across his arm. Shallow. Controlled. Pain flared, sharp and immediate, cleaving the fog. His breath hissed out. The world jolted into focus, just enough. He stood at the sink, watching blood bead and drip, red against silver. The sight anchored him. He sensed his heartbeat. His breath. Pain meant he was real.
Footsteps padded into the kitchen.
Adrian stood in the doorway, hair mussed, eyes still full of sleep. He took in the scene at a glance. He did not raise his voice. He did not rush.
“Jared,” he spoke quietly.
Jared did not look at him.
Adrian advanced gently, careful not to startle. He set a hand on the counter near Jared’s arm, close but not touching. He took the knife gently from Jared’s fingers and dropped it into the sink with a dull clatter.
Jared let him.
Adrian turned, pulled the medical kit from the cabinet. He worked with experienced hands, calm, focused. The nanobot injector sealed the wound. Pain faded, replaced by a delicate warmth, and the distance returned.
Adrian watched the skin knit back together. He exhaled softly when he was satisfied.
He took Jared’s hand.
Jared’s hand clenched around his, tight, desperate. He did not speak. He did not need to.
“Come on,” Adrian murmured. “Allow me help you feel something better than that.”
He led Jared down the hall into his bedroom. Jared followed without resistance, clinging to Adrian’s hand as if it were the only solid thing left in the world.
The door closed behind them, shutting out the quiet apartment and the traces of the nightmare.
Erebus watched them without comment, flicking their tail in the shadows of the window sill.
Adrian’s bedroom stood as a sanctuary of order, a space Jared had never felt entitled to enter without specific permission. Tonight, the door was open. The sheets were cool and crisp as Adrian guided him to sit on the edge of the mattress. The sole illumination emerged from the city’s perpetual glow bleeding around the edges of the blinds, painting Adrian’s face in stark planes of shadow and muted amber.
Jared’s hand gripped Adrian’s. He could not let go.
Adrian stayed. He dropped to his knees before Jared, a pillar brimming with warmth in the chill. His other hand moved upward, not to Jared, but to his own neck, fingers kneading the skin. A small, tired motion.
“A nightmare,” Adrian said. It wasn’t a question.
Jared nodded, unable to speak. The girl’s face, Adrian’s gun wavered behind his eyes. He squeezed Adrian’s hand, desperate for an anchor.
“Look at me, Jared.”
The words were gentle, but they brooked no refusal. Jared looked up. In the half-light, Adrian’s eyes were fathomless, seeing through him. They caught the quiver in his hands, the ache for contact that pressed to his ribs.
“You are here,” Adrian stated, his voice bearing a low, resonant certainty. “You are in my room. You are safe. The dream has no power here unless you grant it. Do you understand?”
Jared nodded again. Adrian’s words captured him, dragging him back from the edge of nothing.
“Verbally, please.”
“I understand,” Jared whispered, the sound rough.
“Good.” Adrian’s thumb moved, slow, circling Jared’s knuckles. “I will touch you now. To anchor you. If you want me to stop, you will tell me.”
Another silent, frantic nod. Then, remembering, “Yes.”
Adrian’s free hand rose. Not to cradle, but to find the hinge of Jared’s jaw, then the pulse beneath his ear. The touch was precise, but it burned past the numbness, electric and real.
“There,” Adrian murmured, his gaze observing Jared’s reaction with fascination. “Your heart rate is elevated, but strong. Steady. A concrete proof of life.”
His thumb glided along the line of Jared’s neck, following the tendon. Each inch a shock, sparks chasing after his touch. Jared’s breath stuttered, caught somewhere between ribs and throat.
Adrian’s other hand came loose of Jared’s, only to imitate the touch on the opposite side. He held Jared’s head, fingers spanning the back of his head, tilting his face upward with the barest pressure.
“Warm,” Adrian murmured, voice subdued, almost reverent. “Smooth.” His thumbs swept Jared’s collarbones, tracing the fragile ridges. “You are made perfectly. Every part of you.”
A shudder ran through him. The words, so bare, so exact, did what pain could not. They filled the emptiness, burning him from the inside out.
Adrian leaned down. He brought his lips to Jared’s forehead and held them there, a firm, warm pressure. Jared’s eyes fluttered closed. A sound escaped him, a broken, grateful sigh.
“That’s it,” Adrian breathed quietly against his skin. “Allow me to remind you.”
Adrian’s hands moved down, over the thin shirt, smoothing Jared’s shoulders, arms, pausing at his hips. “Stand.”
Jared obeyed, moving without thought. He stood between Adrian’s knees, small inside the circle of his presence. Adrian’s hands found the hem of his shirt.
“Lift your arms.”
Jared lifted his arms. The shirt slipped away, falling silent to the floor. Cool air tingled along his skin, but Adrian’s gaze was hot, wrapping him. It moved over his chest, his stomach, the lines of his body. Jared crossed his arms, trying to hide, hating the impulse even as he did it.
Adrian’s hands found his wrists, gentle, guiding them down. “Allow me see you.” His voice felt substantial, reverent. “You are exquisite. Perfect.”
Adrian leaned in, mouth finding the center of Jared’s chest. He pressed an open kiss to his sternum, tongue tasting salt. Jared jerked, sensation lancing through him.
“Clean. Sharp. Like the sea after rain,” Adrian whispered, breath gentle on Jared’s skin. His mouth moved lower, lips and tongue mapping Jared’s stomach. Each kiss burned. His hands found Jared’s hips, thumbs hooking into the waistband, pulling cloth away. Jared stepped free.
Jared trembled, a fine vibration running through him. Numbness had dissipated, burned away by Adrian’s touch and words. Every place Adrian touched, every word, was an electric current.
“Down,” Adrian instructed, his quiet voice leaving no room for doubt.
Jared lay back, the sheets cool upon his skin. Adrian followed, kneeling above him, a shade in the dimness. Jared was bare, cock hard and flushed, body open and exposed.
Adrian sat back, only watching. His gaze settled firmly, heavy as hands.
“You do not see yourself,” Adrian said, voice subdued. “All that focus, all that strength, stripped bare. Open. For me.” He reached out, not to Jared’s cock, but to the inside of his thigh, fingers exploring from knee to hip, feather-light. “Every tremor, every muscle, your body speaks your mind.”
At last, Adrian’s hand wrapped around him. Jared arched, a sound torn from his throat. Adrian’s grip was sure, rough in the best way.
“Eager,” Adrian said, almost smiling. He stroked, slow, relentless. His other hand dragged nails down Jared’s chest, leaving red marks. “So sensitive. You forget how much you can feel.”
Jared’s world shrank. Hand, voice, eyes. He panted, fists twisting the sheets. Words burst out, raw. “Adrian… please…”
“Please, what?” Adrian’s stroke never wavered. “Use your words.”
“More… I need… your mouth…” Jared begged, the confession ripped from him.
“An excellent request.”
Adrian bent, taking him in, swallowing him whole. Heat, wet, tongue pressing the most sensitive place. Sensation crashed over Jared. He cried out, back arching.
Adrian’s mouth was a hot vise, relentless. He pulled back, tongue swirling, murmuring words that buzzed against Jared’s skin. “You fill my mouth so perfectly… so thick and hard… the way you pulse against my tongue…”
It was too much. Sensation, praise, being seen; too much. Pressure built, tight and bright at the base of his spine. “Adrian, I’m… I’m going to…”
Adrian pulled away, breath uneven, lips wet. His hand wrapped around Jared again, stroking hard, fast. “Look at me. When you finish. I want to see it.”
Their eyes met. In Adrian’s gaze, Jared saw no monster. Only the man: demanding, tender, his. The tension snapped. Release ripped through him, silent and violent. His body locked, muscles seizing as white streaked his skin. A cry escaped from him, half sob, half surrender. He shook, eyes focused on Adrian.
Adrian watched, hand gentle now, coaxing the last shudders from him. “Beautiful,” he sighed softly. “Look at you. Beautiful.”
Adrian leaned down, kissing him deep, letting Jared taste himself. Jared melted, boneless, emptied out.
Adrian pulled away, reaching for a cloth, cleaning Jared with the same careful hands as before. Then he settled beside him, drawing Jared close, holding him tight.
Jared’s head rested on Adrian’s chest. The heartbeat was steady, the only sound. The emptiness was gone, replaced by warmth, heavy and real. The nightmare faded, far away.
Adrian’s lips brushed his hair. “Sleep,” he commanded, his voice once more the calm physician’s. “I have you.”
