Shattered Obedience (BDSM) (Man x Man)

by ccc12321456

Summary:

Edward doesn't kneel. Not anymore. Not since the crash that took Lily.

In the years since, he's built a life with no give. ER shifts, back-to-back. The sharp clarity of the hospital: white lights, clean lines, no chaos. No bruises. No rules. That part of him, the one that craved being owned, he buried under routine and fluorescent glare.

Until Lance brings Sykes into his orbit.

Sykes. Calm. Unyielding. With eyes that stay on him too long and hands that know exactly where to press. He doesn't ask Edward to remember. He doesn't offer a way back. He simply holds out the silence and waits to see what Edward will do inside it.

What begins between them isn't romance. It's reclamation. A return to the part of Edward he thought he buried with her ashes. But his body remembers. The stillness. The ache that meant trust. And Sykes doesn't flinch from that edge. He stands on it, with Edward beside him, toeing the line between sanity and surrender.

Chapter 1: Ringing in the Dark

Three years had passed since Lily died.

Three years since Edward had worn a collar, knelt at anyone's feet, or let someone touch him in a way that meant more than a handshake or a clinical brush of fingers. In the months and years following the funeral, he didn’t so much leave the scene as fade from it; no grand farewell, just a quiet erosion. For a time, he still showed up at the occasional munch, even let Lance coax him into a party or two, but those nights had begun to feel more like pantomime than participation—hollow, distant.

Eventually, the visits stopped.

Where life had once been sprawling and full of sharp edges, it narrowed into something manageable: tidy, muted, easy to navigate. He liked it that way. Most days unfolded with the same rhythm—work, a run before sunrise, drinks with Lance when their schedules aligned. His life moved like clockwork, each day stacking neatly, predictably, like well-laid bricks. There was comfort in the routine. He needed that. Within the hospital walls, under fluorescent lights and unambiguous expectations, he was grounded. In control. His hands stitched wounds. His voice soothed panic. He served needs that were concrete and containable.

And for the most part, that was enough.

But not always.

Now and then, something slipped past the barriers. A flicker of memory. A glint of hunger. On nights when he lay still too long and silence pressed against him like a second skin, his chest would ache—not with grief, exactly, but with something quieter. Something diffused, harder to name. A kind of missing that didn’t announce itself, only lingered.

He didn’t dwell on it. Sleep and routine usually helped sweep it away.

Until Lance called.

Lance always called now—checking in, showing up with coffee, dragging him to movies he hadn’t asked to see. Edward appreciated it more than he said, even if the friendship had shifted: softer, slower, a little more careful around the edges.

The phone rang just as he stepped through the door that day, keys still in hand, scrubs clinging to his skin. He was bone-tired from the shift—two trauma codes, a close call in the OR, a backlog of charts he didn’t want to think about. The couch was calling. He almost let it go to voicemail.

But he answered.

"I need you to check someone out," Lance said, skipping past pleasantries.

Edward frowned. "What happened?"

"I’m... It’s a sub. Tim. Someone fucked up. Just come. Please."

There was tension in Lance’s voice—but also something rarer. Real worry.

That was enough.

"Give me ten minutes," Edward said.

And that was that.

Outside, the air carried the bite of winter, slipping beneath his sleeves as he stepped into the street. He expected Lance, but the car that pulled up wasn’t his.

He paused.

The window slid down with a quiet hum. A man leaned out, face half-lit by the streetlamp—cheekbones sharp, eyes steady, a smile tugging at his mouth like it didn’t quite know if it belonged.

“Edward?”

“Sykes.”

The name felt foreign on his tongue. Weighty. As though speaking it aloud might make something shift.

Sykes didn’t offer his hand. He simply tipped his head toward the passenger seat. “Lance sent me.”

Edward hesitated.

Sykes had moved to town not long after Lily died. Close enough in timing that Edward sometimes wondered if they’d crossed paths without realising it. But grief had made his world small. He hadn’t been looking. Not for new people. Not for anything at all.

They didn’t really meet until much later. The occasional nod at a party, the odd conversation in the background of a munch Lance had dragged him to. Brief flashes. Nothing that stuck.

But over the past few years, Sykes had started turning up more often. Or maybe Edward had just started noticing. Lance and Sykes had grown close—close enough that Edward, who still had a key to Lance’s place and no particular respect for knocking, had started stumbling across him more regularly. He’d show up late, shoulders tight from work, only to find Sykes already there—sprawled on the couch with his feet up, half-listening to music, or deep in quiet conversation with Lance over some shared bottle of wine.

He never looked surprised to see Edward. Never made himself smaller to make room. He just tilted his head in that unreadable way, nodded, and carried on like Edward had always been part of the background.

Edward didn’t mind. Sykes didn’t ask questions, didn’t try to fill silence with anything false. He had a stillness to him that didn’t invite closeness, but didn’t reject it either. And while they never spoke much—never alone, not really—Edward found himself watching him more than he meant to.

People talked about him, of course. Always had. His name passed through circles like a quiet kind of warning: a sadist with exacting tastes, a Dominant who didn’t need to raise his voice to get under your skin. The kind who didn’t just leave marks—he left changes.

Edward hadn’t cared much for gossip. But he’d stayed longer at a party once. Just long enough.

Sykes was working a scene in the back room—bare light, a man strapped to a cross, already shaking. He wasn’t screaming. He wasn’t even crying. Just trembling like something was unspooling inside him. Sykes stood close but barely touched. His presence did most of the work. When the first blow landed, it was sharp and purposeful. Not dramatic. Not cruel. Just… measured.

The submissive gasped. Not from pain, not really. It sounded more like relief. Like he’d been waiting to be undone.

Sykes leaned in, said something Edward couldn’t hear. Didn’t matter. Whatever it was, the man folded. Not all at once, not in collapse—but piece by piece. Like fabric loosening on the line, soft and inevitable.

Edward watched longer than he meant to. Long enough to realise he wasn’t just curious—he was hot under the collar, pulse a little too high, something dark and familiar pressing at the edges of his chest.

He left before the scene ended. His drink untouched. His hands cold.

He told himself it hadn’t meant anything.

But it had.

Lance had said nothing the next day. Just given him that look—mouth tilted into something too knowing to be neutral, part smirk, part question. You noticed.

Now, Sykes again. Behind the wheel of a parked car, engine low and waiting, expression unreadable. Not impatient. Not expectant. As if this wasn’t about waiting at all. As if Edward could get in or walk away, and neither would shift the balance of anything.

If Lance had sent him—if Lance trusted him—

Edward opened the door and slid inside.

Warmth enveloped him slowly. Not the mechanical heat of the vents, but something gentler, baked-in. The scent in the air wasn’t synthetic, didn’t announce itself as air freshener or cologne. Something subtler. Cinnamon? Chocolate, maybe. Not sweet—just present. The kind of smell that lived in the fabric of the car. Domestic. Settled. A scent that softened the air around it rather than masking anything.

Sykes drove with the kind of control that didn’t draw attention to itself. One hand on the wheel, the other loose over the gear shift. Nothing performative. Nothing fidgeting. The silence that stretched between them didn’t strain—it simply was. Held, like something cupped in both hands.

Edward kept his eyes on the road ahead. Asked nothing. Said nothing. Not about Lance, not about the destination. But eventually, and almost without thinking, he let out a quiet, “How bad is it?”

A breath, long and even, moved through Sykes—more reflex than consideration. “Not the worst I’ve seen,” he said, after a moment. “But bad enough.”

The words landed right where Edward had expected, yet still found weight.

He shifted in his seat, gaze tracking the white lines disappearing beneath the headlights. “Was it consensual?”

A pause followed—not hesitant, just deliberate. The kind of space carved out for truth, not for comfort.

Fingers tapped once against the wheel. “Not in any way I’d call clean,” Sykes replied. “Didn’t get the sense there were boundaries. No structure. No safety net. Just…” He let the word trail off. “Physically? Manageable. Surface injuries, I think. But that’s not always the part that leaves the bruise.”

No nod this time—just a small tilt of Edward’s head, barely perceptible, a shift toward thought rather than agreement. He’d seen too many clean wounds paired with dirty aftermaths. The kind that didn’t show on scans but clung to the way someone held themselves, the way they avoided mirrors and locked their mouths shut around language.

He glanced over, not sharply. “And you? Where do you fall in all of this?”

No turn of the head from Sykes—just a flicker of eyes, fast and exact. “Lance asked me to go,” he said. “So I did.” A beat passed. Then a dry edge of a smile, barely there: “That’s all, doc.”

The title landed heavier than it should have.

Edward turned slightly, not to confront but to look. He hadn’t said what he did.

Sykes didn’t blink under the scrutiny. “You’re his best friend,” he said, voice even. “You think I haven’t noticed the way you watch people bleed?”

No reply came. None was needed. But Edward’s posture straightened, not from tension—more like recognition. More like something quietly waking up in his spine.

He returned his gaze to the window. “Lance didn’t need me there.”

“No,” Sykes agreed. “Probably not.”

The next words came flat, not defensive. “He wanted someone who wouldn’t pretend it was fine if it wasn’t.”

Sykes didn’t argue. Which, Edward figured, was the closest thing to confirmation he’d get.

“I can’t do much for the rest of it,” he said finally. “Not the part that counts.”

“You’re here,” Sykes answered, no emphasis, no reassurance. Just that: a fact left on the dashboard like a receipt. “Sometimes that’s the part that counts.”

Silence returned—not empty, not awkward, but shaped. It had weight and symmetry, like furniture arranged in a room no one was ready to leave. Sykes didn’t try to fill it. Neither did Edward.

The road kept unfolding in clean lines. One hand on the wheel, Sykes drove like someone who understood containment. Stillness without stiffness. Focus without tension.

But under all of it—beneath the quiet, the calm, the carefully sustained distance—there was something else. Not danger. Not threat. More like attention, coiled and constant. The kind of awareness that didn’t need to announce itself to be felt.

Edward told himself not to notice. Not to assign meaning to silence, not to reach for things that weren’t offered.

But his body had already responded.

Not with fear.

Not quite with ease.

Just awareness.

And somewhere inside him—deep and not as dead as he’d once believed—something shifted in the direction of it.

The first thing Edward noticed upon arrival wasn’t the house itself, but the air—warm and saturated with the scent of cinnamon and browned sugar, tinged faintly with nutmeg. It was the same smell that lingered in Sykes’s car, only fuller here, infused into the walls, caught in the upholstery, and steeped into the floorboards like it had been simmering for years. Not overwhelming, but pervasive—a domestic sort of sweetness that seemed oddly out of step with what Edward had expected.

He stepped inside more slowly than he meant to, an involuntary hesitation settling in his chest as he tried to reconcile the man he’d heard so much about with the space in front of him. In his mind, Sykes had been all severity: cool, clean lines, hard surfaces, a minimalist interior that left little room for comfort and none at all for sentimentality. Leather, perhaps. Iron. Stark lighting and deliberately chosen absences. But the house he walked into was something else entirely—deep colours and worn textures, a quiet richness layered one object at a time.

It was clear this wasn’t the sort of space someone had designed in a hurry. Every detail seemed accumulated rather than curated: shelves bowing under the weight of too many books, some stacked horizontally when they no longer fit upright; throw blankets in clashing patterns and materials strewn carelessly over an old, low couch that looked like it had weathered a dozen winters; side tables cluttered with open novels, mugs half-full and ring-stained, paperbacks turned spine-up like someone had meant to return to them but never quite had.

Through an open archway, the kitchen offered more of the same—flour dusting the benchtop in a fine, uneven layer, a mixing bowl left to soak in the sink, and under-cabinet lights casting a golden, ambient glow that gave the impression someone had just stepped out of the room rather than prepared for visitors. The effect was unexpectedly intimate. Lived-in, certainly. Loved, even.

Edward lingered in the doorway for a moment longer than necessary, taking it in.

He hadn’t come for this, of course. None of it mattered—not really. He was here for Tim.

That thought, once surfaced, pulled his attention sharply to the couch and the slight figure curled up there. The boy looked younger than Edward knew he was, with a kind of fragility that wasn’t rooted in physical stature so much as the way he carried himself—hunched inwards, shoulders drawn close, blanket wrapped high around him like armour. Damp hair curled at the ends where it had started to dry, and his knees were tucked to his chest, feet hidden beneath the fabric, body folding in on itself like he wanted to disappear altogether.

His eyes—dark, wide, and watchful—were fixed on Edward.

On the floor beside him, Lance sat with one arm draped across the cushion, his voice pitched low in the kind of coaxing tone one uses when speaking to skittish animals or people on the edge. When he looked up and saw Edward, something unspoken passed through his expression—relief, yes, but threaded with concern.

“Hey,” Lance said. “Thanks for coming.”

There was no need for further prompting. Edward crossed the room instinctively, already scanning the boy’s posture, skin, breathing—already building a list in his head. Tim flinched when Edward crouched beside the couch, but he didn’t retreat. That alone was telling.

The injuries, while not life-threatening, were troubling nonetheless: bruises tracking along the boy’s wrists, a faint but unmistakable cluster of fingerprints discolouring the skin at his throat, and the shadow of an older contusion beneath one cheekbone. Nothing new enough to bleed, nothing acute—but that didn’t make it insignificant. Edward had seen worse, certainly, but damage like this left echoes. Often, the real harm wasn’t where it showed.

Tim didn’t speak as Edward worked. He sat stiffly, his fingers trembling slightly where they clutched the blanket’s edge. When Edward gently palpated the bones of his wrist, checking for breaks, the boy inhaled sharply—but he didn’t protest, didn’t pull away. His eyes tracked Edward’s movements with a kind of mute concentration, not yet trust, but something adjacent to it.

His skin was warm—too warm, but not with fever. It was the residual heat of a body recently flooded with adrenaline, a system still slowly coming down from crisis. Not sick, then. Just frayed.

When Edward tilted Tim’s chin to inspect his throat, the boy allowed it without resistance, though the quickened pulse beneath Edward’s fingertips betrayed his unease. The bruises were superficial, more ugly than dangerous.

“You’re sore,” Edward said, keeping his voice low. “But you’re going to be alright.”

Tim blinked rapidly and swallowed. His voice, when it came, was little more than a rasp. “I didn’t think—” He stopped, exhaled shakily. “I didn’t think it would be like that.”

Edward felt something contract in his chest, a quiet but familiar pressure. Guilt, maybe. Recognition.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, without hesitation.

Tim’s lower lip wobbled slightly, but he nodded.

Edward eased back, settling on his heels. His mind was already moving through the next steps: ice packs, fluids, sleep. Maybe something mild for pain, if Tim would tolerate it. But before he could begin to articulate those thoughts, Sykes disappeared into the kitchen, his movements purposeful but unhurried.

The clink of glass and the muted thud of a cabinet closing floated back into the room.

Tim hadn’t moved much—still blanket-wrapped, still drawn in—but something about his posture had shifted. His hands twitched, like he wasn’t sure whether to pull the blanket tighter or let it go.

Edward studied him for a moment, then spoke more softly. “Sykes didn’t hurt you.”

The boy looked startled, then wide-eyed. “No! No, he—” He cast a glance toward the kitchen. “He helped.”

Edward nodded slowly, watching the way Tim’s shoulders dropped by degrees, the way his frame uncoiled ever so slightly now that the words had been spoken aloud. He wasn’t relaxed, exactly, but he wasn’t braced anymore either.

When Sykes returned, he carried a steaming mug between both hands. He offered it to Tim without ceremony. The boy accepted it instantly, fingers curling around the warmth with a desperation that made Edward’s throat tighten.

Then Sykes turned to him.

“I made extra,” he said, voice steady, casual. “Want some?”

Edward hesitated. He hadn’t intended to stay—hadn’t even taken off his coat. He’d done what was needed: assessed the injuries, confirmed that Tim was safe for now, reassured Lance. There was no reason not to leave.

And yet he didn’t move.

Instead, he let out a slow breath, and nodded.

A flicker of something—approval, maybe amusement—touched Sykes’s expression. He inclined his head toward the kitchen.

“Come on, then.”

Chapter 2: Unsettling Comfort

It had been a long time since Edward had been around people who weren't colleagues, family, or Lance; people who didn't already have a preloaded idea of who he was.  He told himself he was here because Lance had asked. Because Tim had needed a doctor, and Edward had answered. That was hours ago now. If it had just been about triage, he could've left.

But he hadn't.

This wasn't his usual kind of evening. No structure, no itinerary, no careful performance. Just a handful of people sharing a room, letting the night do what it wanted. It should've made things easier. It didn't. Not exactly. There was nothing demanding from him here, and somehow that made it harder to know where to stand.

He didn't know Tim. He barely knew Sykes. Still, there he was, tea going tepid in his hands, planted at the edge of the dining bench like someone trying to remember how social muscle worked. How to sit still in a life that didn't revolve around fluorescent lights and clipped urgency.

There'd been a time when this would've felt natural. Familiar, even. Before things shifted. Before Lily died and the after-hours version of his life collapsed. There used to be nights like this. Lance at his side, Lily curled up with a glass of wine, someone laughing in the kitchen. The gentle chaos of people who belonged to each other. Now, rooms like this felt like postcards from a life he'd accidentally fallen out of.

Sykes' house was warm in a way that surprised him. Not just the heating, though yes, that too, but the texture of the place. Lived in, but not messy. The lighting was soft, but not dim enough to hide in. A room with nothing to prove. And somehow, that made it harder to pretend.

Tim had finally fallen asleep. Curled up tight on the couch, knees pulled in, face pressed into the cushions. The blanket Lance had thrown over him was halfway to the floor. His breathing had steadied, but only just. That brittle, weightless kind of sleep, the body shut down, the mind still lagging behind.

Lance sat cross-legged on the floor beside him, his head resting against the couch. He looked relaxed, but Edward knew better. Lance didn't do passive when he cared, his stillness was always laced with intent. He wasn't resting. He was guarding. That quiet, loyal vigilance of his, the kind that didn't draw attention to itself but never wavered. He was the reason Edward had come. The only anchor in a room full of people who didn't yet know how to hold him.

Sykes was draped over an armchair like someone who made a point of not performing ease. One ankle hooked over a knee, fingers curved around a mug. Casual, but deliberately so. Relaxed like someone who'd trained for it. Stillness worn like a second skin. But Edward saw the way he scanned the room, quick, efficient, constant. Not in a paranoid way. Just... aware. Present. Honest about it.

Edward stayed where he was. Bench seat. Lukewarm tea. One eye on the room, the other somewhere else entirely. He wasn't sure if he felt out of place, or just out of practice. Either way, no one was asking anything of him.

And that, more than anything, made him want to stay.
He stood without thinking. Not a dramatic exit. Just movement. He made his way to the kitchen, set the mug down, and braced his hands on the edge of the counter. The stone was cold under his palms. A simple, tactile anchor.

He breathed in. Held it. Let it out.

And then—

Soft footsteps behind him. Bare against hardwood.

"You look like you're about to crawl out of your skin," Sykes said.

The words weren't sharp. Just an observation, tossed out like he was commenting on the weather.

Edward didn't answer right away. He kept his eyes on the countertop, hand resting flat against it. It was cool under his palm. Solid. Anchoring.

"It's warm," he said finally.

Sykes made a low noise in his throat. Maybe agreement. Maybe not.

The house was quiet in a strained sort of way. Lance was still in the living room, moving around like he didn't know what to do with himself, and didn't want to dare risk waking time. Everything felt like a breath being held.

Sykes leaned back against the counter across from him, coffee mug in hand. His sleeves were pushed up to the elbow. He looked like he belonged in his kitchen. Edward didn't.

"Not the kind of evening you expected, huh?" Sykes said.

Edward gave a faint, humourless huff. "No."

He hadn't planned on staying long. He still wasn't sure why he had. Maybe it was Lance's tone on the phone. Maybe it was the way Tim had looked, wrecked and soft and clinging to kindness like it might vanish if he blinked. Maybe it was Sykes himself, standing in the middle of it all like he wasn't rattled, like he knew what to do.

"You don't strike me as a people person," Sykes said.

Edward glanced at him. "Being a doctor requires you to be one."

"So you like people. Just not... casual ones."

Edward gave a quiet snort. Not quite laughter.

"You keep touching the counter," Sykes added. "Not judging. Just noticing."

Edward looked down. His fingers had curled against the edge again. He pulled them back like the surface had burned him.

"You alright?" Sykes asked.

It wasn't invasive. Just steady.

Edward exhaled through his nose. "Fine." A pause. Then: "Just not used to this kind of space."

Sykes didn't press. Just nodded, slow and easy, like he wasn't expecting more.

"It's a weird night," Sykes said.

That, at least, they could agree on.

Edward gave a small nod. His body was still catching up to itself. The shift had ended three, maybe four hours ago, but now that he knew Tim was okay the drag was catching up with him. It had been one of those days where the pressure never dipped: back-to-back trauma cases, short-staffed, no time to eat. The kind of shift that left its fingerprints behind, even after the scrubs came off.

He rolled one shoulder, subtly, trying to work out the ache. His head felt foggy. Not enough to be dangerous, just enough to dull the edges of his usual composure.

They stood there for a while, not saying anything more. The silence wasn't awkward, but it wasn't quite easy either. Just something to fill the space between one strange moment and whatever came next.

The house creaked gently in places, warm and worn. Somewhere behind them, down the hall, Tim was still curled on the couch. Lance hadn't left his side, last Edward checked, he was sitting cross-legged at Tim's feet like he meant to stay there until morning. Lance stressed over a boy, at least, was familiar. Predictable.

Sykes, on the other hand—

He hadn't moved from his place by the opposite counter. He looked steady. Not rigid, but grounded. His sleeves were shoved to the elbows, mug loose in his hand, body relaxed in a way that suggested he didn't need to do much to command the room. There was a kind of stillness to him that wasn't performative. Like he knew how to wait things out.

Edward let his eyes flick over him once, just briefly.

Sykes was handsome. That much was hard to miss. Broad shoulders, dark eyes..

It wasn't the first thing Edward had noticed, but it wasn't nothing.

The thought landed weird. Not painful, not even particularly sharp. Just... out of place. Like hearing a familiar song in the wrong key.

He looked away again before the thought could settle.

"You know," Sykes said after a moment, "it's okay if you don't know what to do with it. Any of it."

Edward's fingers tightened slightly against the counter. Not enough to show. Just enough to feel.

"I didn't say I didn't."

"Didn't have to."

Sykes said it evenly, without challenge. No probing. Just a statement.

Edward huffed a soft breath through his nose. The corner of his mouth pulled, just barely.

"You always this direct?"

"Only when it feels like someone needs it."

There was the faintest twitch of something like a smile at the edge of Sykes' expression. Not quite humour. Not quite softness. Just the sense of someone making space for a conversation, but not forcing it.

Edward didn't reply. But he didn't leave either.

He stayed where he was, one palm flat against the counter, spine loose but not slouched. His thoughts were still a half-step behind, his body still heavier than it should've been, but he was here. Listening.

That was something.

Eventually, Edward heard footsteps. Lance.

He stepped into the kitchen, rubbing a hand over his face. "Kid's out," he murmured. "Probably won't sleep long, but at least he's resting."

Edward nodded, grateful for the shift in topic.

Sykes pushed off the counter with a final glance, longer on Edward than necessary, before disappearing into the other room. The moment he was gone, Edward let out a slow, steadying breath.

Lance, still leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed, didn't speak right away. He just watched Edward, his expression unreadable, like he was sorting through a thousand things and wasn't quite ready to name any of them.

Edward didn't need the words to know what was coming. "Whatever you're about to say," he muttered, not looking up, "don't."

That earned a small tilt of Lance's head, like he was amused but didn't quite want to show it. "You don't know what I'm going to say."

Edward shot him a look. Of course he did.

Still, Lance didn't bite. He stayed where he was, voice gentler when he spoke again. "You don't have to come back, you know."

The words hung heavy between them. Edward's jaw tightened.

"But," he continued, not backing down, "you don't have to keep pretending none of it ever meant anything to you either."

There was no accusation in his voice; just history, just truth. The kind only someone who'd been there could offer.

Edward looked away, and Lance let the silence stretch a little longer before stepping into it.

"You loved it," he said. Quietly. Not to provoke, just to remind.

Edward flinched like the words had cut. His hand curled tighter around the edge of the counter.

"You don't have to want what you had," Lance added, coming a little closer now. "But shutting it all out? Is that what she'd have wanted for you?"

Edward turned sharply, a sharper edge in his voice now. "Don't."

Lance held up his hands, but his voice didn't waver. "Look, I'm not saying you need to dive in headfirst. Just... let yourself be around people who speak the same language. You've been alone in this long enough."

Edward was quiet for a beat. Too long.

Then Lance grinned, that familiar flicker of mischief breaking through the tension. "Besides, I think you might even like Sykes. Not that you'd ever admit it."

Edward sighed. Tired. Frustrated. "I should go."

Lance didn't stop him. Just shook his head with a small, knowing smile. "Alright. But don't be a stranger, Ed."

Edward hesitated. Then, without answering, he turned for the door.

When he got home, it was quiet.

He closed the door behind him and stood in the dim light of his entryway, listening to the silence press in around him. No warm scent of cinnamon, no low murmur of voices in the next room. No quiet hum of another person's presence. Just him, the soft whir of the fridge, and the distant sounds of the city beyond his windows.

He exhaled slowly, setting his keys down with more care than necessary. He had an early shift at the hospital. It was better this way.

Wasn't it?

The next morning was routine.

Edward had always liked routine. It made things easier. It kept him steady, kept him moving. He woke before dawn, showered, dressed, and made coffee.

And yet, something sat heavy in his chest.

He ignored it.

 

Chapter 3: Treading Between Worlds

Edward wasn't sure why he was standing in front of the café.

The street was quiet for a weekend; just the occasional murmur of footsteps, the hum of traffic two blocks over, the sigh of a breeze curling through the buildings. The café itself was small, tucked beneath an overhang that had once been green but had faded to a soft, forgettable grey. One of those places you passed without really seeing, unless someone told you to look.

Edward didn't remember agreeing, exactly. He remembered the message: simple, unassuming. He remembered Lance's persistent nudges, those vague, irritatingly insightful comments that dug just deep enough to stick. And he remembered the silence in his house last night, the kind that settled on your shoulders like a weight, like someone draping a wet towel over your bones.

Now here he was. Palms cold. Muscles stiff from standing still too long. He hadn't moved yet, hadn't even reached for the door.

It wasn't nerves, not exactly. He didn't get nervous. He got cautious. Calculated. But something about this, about Sykes, pulled at the parts of Edward that didn't always follow logic.

He pushed the door open.

The scent hit first, coffee, soon followed by something warm and yeasty from the kitchen in the back. The lighting was low, tinted amber by overhead sconces and the fading afternoon sun pressing through tall, dust flecked windows. Conversations hummed beneath it all, soft and private, as though the whole place had been designed to hush voices on entry.

His eyes adjusted slowly.

And there, toward the window, was Sykes.

He looked casual. Comfortable, even. Legs stretched long beneath the table, one arm draped lazily over the back of his chair, fingers curled loosely around a ceramic mug. He wore a navy sweater, sleeves pushed to his forearms, jeans worn soft at the seams. He could have been anyone.

Except he wasn't.

Edward had seen him different. Sykes wore ease like a second skin, but it was a tailored fit, intentional, every stitch purposeful. He chose softness like a hunter chose stillness.

And yet, here he was. Just... waiting.

When Sykes looked up, their eyes met. A pause stretched between them, barely a second, but long enough to shift the air. Then, a slow smile pulled at his mouth. Familiar. 

Edward's feet moved before he realised he'd decided anything.

As he crossed the café, he could feel it; the subtle tightening in his chest. Like stepping onto thin ice you knew could take your weight, but didn't trust anyway.

"I was starting to think I'd been stood up," Sykes said as Edward reached the table, voice low and unbothered.

Edward let out a soft huff through his nose and slid into the seat across from him. His coat folded awkwardly under his arms, and he adjusted it without looking up. "And yet you waited."

A shrug. The motion loose, almost lazy. "Curiosity's a bitch."

There was no pressure in his tone. But there was something behind it, subtle and steady, an interest that invited.

Edward's gaze flicked to the counter when a server passed. He ordered out of habit, black coffee Sykes hummed under his breath, the sound more a vibration than a note. Amused, but not mocking.

Silence settled.

But it wasn't awkward. It was just quiet. The kind of quiet that asked questions without needing to voice them.

Sykes turned his mug slowly, fingertips ghosting along the rim. His body language was deceptively still, but Edward could see the tension in his wrists. He was not entirely relaxed.

"So," Sykes said eventually, gaze steady.

Edward tilted his head, unreadable.

"You always this chatty?"

A faint smile ghosted across Edward's lips. "I don't like small talk."

Sykes' answering grin came quick, a little sharp at the edges. "Good. Neither do I."

Edward leaned back slightly, letting the heat of the mug seep into his palms. The scent was familiar, grounding. It helped, a little.

He caught Sykes watching him again, not intensely, just... tracking. Following the micro-movements: the shift of his shoulders, the slight tension in his mouth. He wasn't reading him like a puzzle to solve. It was gentler than that. More curious. And maybe, in its own way, more dangerous.

Sykes spoke again, casual. "What's the worst excuse you've heard in the ER?"

Edward blinked.

It felt like small talk disguised as something else. Small talk without buildup, possibly. Without setup. A question dropped into the space between them without the pretence.

But he didn't recoil from it.

Instead, he shifted, stretching one leg under the table, letting himself ease into the question.

"A guy came in with his hand almost severed. Told me it was a tortilla."

Sykes barked a soft laugh. Not loud. No, a quick burst of genuine amusement that faded into a grin. "A tortilla?"

Edward nodded, more to himself than to Sykes. "Said it was 'aggressively sharp.' Turns out he tried to pull a machete on the wrong guy. Got what was coming."

Sykes shook his head, eyes glinting. "And you kept a straight face?"

"Barely."

That earned a smirk.

The conversation slid after that, easy, low-current exchanges. Sykes shared absurd therapy stories, some of which had Edward actually biting down a grin. A patient who believed her ex had cursed her shampoo. Another who insisted she'd been late to sessions for six months because Mercury kept retrograding.

There was something oddly steadying about it.

This wasn’t a performance. And it wasn’t flirting, not really. But there was something else unfolding between them. A rhythm. A deliberate kind of attention. Not dramatic. Just present.

Sykes leaned back in his chair, the legs giving a soft creak under his weight. His mug was nearly empty, and he traced the rim with one finger, absently turning it in slow circles like he didn’t want to let the moment drift just yet.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said.

Edward looked up from his coffee. His expression was neutral, but the slight pinch between his brows gave him away. “That sounds like trouble.”

Sykes gave a quick smile, more of a twitch at the corner of his mouth than anything broad. “Depends on the day.”

There was a pause, and then he asked, casually enough that it didn’t sound like the real question it was: “How does it work? For you.”

Edward didn’t reply right away. He looked down, shifting his cup between his hands. He didn’t ask what Sykes meant. He already knew what it was about. Submission.

“It’s not something I put on,” he said eventually. “It’s... just how I’m built.”

The light had softened through the café windows, casting long bars of amber across the table. Outside, the world was slowing down, people heading home, early diners taking corners of restaurants. In here, though, it was still. Quiet, but not empty.

Sykes didn’t speak, didn’t nod. He just listened.

Edward gave a small exhale. “With Lily, it kept me together. I do not know if I would have got through my residency without it. It's... it allowed me to breathe.”

“And now?” Sykes asked.

That pause again. Not judgment. Not even concern. Just... interest, worn lightly.

Edward’s eyes flicked to the window. A bus rolled by, its reflection cutting across the glass like a ripple. “Now, I keep moving because stopping feels worse.”

Sykes leaned forward a little, elbows on the table. He wasn’t crowding him, just closing the space a notch. Enough to say I’m here, if you want to keep going.

“That sounds exhausting,” he said.

Edward gave a soft, almost-laugh. No humor in it.“It is.”

The moment held, then passed, like a tide reaching the edge of something and receding before it could do real damage.

Sykes checked his watch, then looked back up. “I’ve got time. You want to walk?”

Edward didn’t answer immediately. He was tired. The kind of tired that lived in the joints. But he also didn’t want to go home just yet. Not back to the quiet. Not back to himself.

He nodded.

Outside, the city was turning gold. The temperature had dipped a little, that late autumn chill threading its way between buildings and down coat collars. They walked in a comfortable silence at first, boots scuffing dry leaves on the pavement.

There was a small park ahead, half forgotten, tucked behind an iron fence and some leafless trees. Sykes tilted his head toward it. “Shortcut.”

Edward didn’t comment, just turned in with him.

The park was nearly empty. A few joggers in headphones. Someone throwing a ball for a dog that looked more interested in sniffing every tree than running after anything. The path curved gently between benches and fallen leaves.

Walking side by side, Edward noticed how easily Sykes matched his pace. No adjusting, no glancing down to calibrate. Just a natural rhythm. It said something, even if it wasn’t meant to.

Sykes took a breath, let it out like someone used to forgetting to. “You know,” he said, “for a guy who insists he’s not people oriented, you’re surprisingly decent company.”

Edward gave him a sidelong look. “That the bar these days?”

“Hey,” Sykes said, “some of us work with clients who blame Mercury for their time management.”

Edward cracked a faint grin. “And yet you still go back every week.”

“Yeah, well,” Sykes shrugged, “Mercury always retrogrades eventually.”

They walked on. The banter was light, but not empty. It filled the air enough to make the silence afterward feel easier. Less like avoidance, more like breathing room.

They reached a bench near the edge of the path. Sykes slowed. “Sit for a minute?”

Edward nodded, lowering himself with a quiet sound that might’ve been a sigh or a groan or both. His knees didn’t forgive him like they used to.

They sat in a companionable quiet, watching the trees sway and the sky darken.

Edward glanced at Sykes, who was watching nothing in particular. Just present.

“You always like this?” he asked.

Sykes turned to him. “Like what?”

“Unrushed. Curious. Kinda annoying.”

Sykes grinned, relaxed in that unbothered way of his. “Only when I like someone.”

Edward huffed. No real reaction on his face, but something in his posture eased. “Lucky me.”

“You don’t sound thrilled.”

The streetlights flickered on behind them. A dog barked in the distance. Edward leaned back slightly, letting the quiet settle again. He wasn’t sure what this was, but it didn’t need a label tonight.

Sometimes, you didn’t need to solve a thing. Sometimes, you just needed not to be alone with it.

Eventually, they kept walking and the sidewalk gave way to gravel, their steps crunching softly. The park held a stillness that wasn't silence. Just a kind of quiet that lived in between movement. An old couple sat on a bench murmuring. A woman jogged with her dog in a snowman sweater. A child chased after a balloon, giggling as it slipped his grasp.

It felt strange, this whole afternoon. Not bad. Not even uncomfortable. Just... out of place. Like stepping into a memory that wasn't his.

Edward wasn't used to people who straddled both of his worlds. People who could talk about his job and kink in the same breath and mean both. Sykes was like that. Unflinching. He didn't require permission to speak plainly. He didn't offer disclaimers.

Sykes walked beside him, gaze drifting, but he saw everything. The woman's ankle brace. The way the jogger favoured her right hip. The slight stiffness in Edward's gait, still favoring the side he pulled when moving furniture last week.

He let the silence stretch between them, unhurried and intentional, as if Sykes knew Edward needed it more than he would ever say. It was the kind of quiet that didn't press for answers; just made room for them to surface on their own. They walked like that for a while, the rhythm of their steps easy, the evening folding in around them.

Then, without looking over, Sykes said, "You miss it?"

The words landed without warning. No lead-in, no gentle nudge. Just that. A truth too plain to sidestep.

Edward's hands curled slightly in his coat pockets. His first instinct was denial; it always was. "Miss what?" he asked, but the deflection was too quick to sound genuine.

Sykes didn't answer. He didn't have to.

Edward's breath left him in a slow exhale. "I think about it," he said eventually.

But that wasn't the same, and they both knew it. Sykes made a low sound, not quite disagreement, but not agreement either.

"No," Edward admitted. "It's not."

A breeze stirred the trees around them, sending leaves tumbling down in lazy spirals. A few landed in Sykes' hair. He didn't brush them off. Just kept walking, entirely unbothered.

Then came another statement, casual in tone but sharp beneath it.

"Praise," Sykes said. "When's the last time someone told you you were good, and you actually believed them?"

Edward didn't flinch, didn't falter. But something inside him locked down, like a door slammed shut. The question shouldn't have mattered; it wasn't new, wasn't even unexpected, but still, it pierced.

He could have lied. Almost did. But the answer came too clean and too quick.

"Lily."

Sykes nodded, slow and unsurprised. There was no smugness in it, no victory. Just a kind of quiet grief that didn't belong to him, but that he carried anyway.

The air thickened between them, filled with the weight of unsaid things. Somehow, they'd drifted from small talk to the heart of everything without realising they'd crossed a line. Edward didn't stop them.

After a while, Sykes spoke again, sharing something of his own, not as a trade, but as an offering. He told Edward about his last long-term partner. Said it ended two years ago. "Clean, but rough," was how he put it. The kind of ending that doesn't explode, just... dissolves. She'd been brilliant, he said. Could look straight through you without ever looking away. But they'd stopped needing the same things. Or maybe they just needed to be needed in different ways.

That phrase caught Edward off guard. Needed differently. It lingered, settled somewhere he didn't expect to feel tender.

He asked if that's why Sykes had moved, and Sykes said simply, "Clean slate."

Edward didn't press. He knew what that meant.

Then came the question he hated most.

"You think you could live without it?"

He didn't answer at first. Didn't even breathe, not really. It wasn't an accusation. It wasn't even a challenge. Just a mirror. One held too close.

When he did speak, it was quiet. "I've never thought about it."

But Sykes just tilted his head. "That's a lie."

Edward didn't respond, not with words, at least. Just kept walking, eyes fixed forward, jaw tight. And maybe Sykes sensed the tension building too fast, because he let the conversation drop like it hadn't just torn something open.

"Alright," he said with a teasing smile. "No more heavy shit. We'll save that for the third date."

That startled a laugh out of Edward. Short, rough, but real. "This is a date?"

Sykes shrugged. "I'm charming enough, aren't I?"

Edward rolled his eyes but didn't argue. Didn't say no.

They walked further, the tension easing, softening into something more breathable. Sykes told him about the time he nearly set his kitchen on fire trying to make macarons. Apparently powdered sugar and a torch were a terrible mix. Edward, in turn, shared the infamous "fish patient" ER story, a tale so absurd it had Sykes doubled over, laughing hard enough to stop in his tracks.

That laugh settled something inside Edward. Not entirely, but enough. Enough to remind him there was room for lightness, even when everything else still ached.

The city slowly reappeared around them, the sky washing itself in soft purples and cooling blue.

"You going to the party tonight?" Sykes asked.

Edward's body went still in the smallest way, just enough to notice if you were looking. He hadn't decided. Wasn't sure if he could decide.

"I don't know."

Sykes didn't push. Just nodded like he expected that answer. "You should."

Edward frowned.

"You spend too much time in your head," Sykes added, voice light but not careless. "A little fun wouldn't kill you."

"It's not that simple," Edward said, softer than he meant to.

"No," Sykes agreed. "But maybe it could be simpler than you think."

And that was worse, because it rang true. Because Edward knew that his not-going wasn't about the party. It was about what the party represented. What it might unearth.

He didn't say it, but he already knew he wouldn't go.

Not yet.

But deep down, in a place that still knew how to hope, he wanted to. Not for the scene. Not even for the memory of who he used to be.

But because Sykes would be there.

Because maybe, one day, just wanting to stand beside him would be enough.

 

Chapter 4: In the Warmth of Sykes' House

Edward lay sprawled across the couch, one arm thrown over his eyes, the other hanging limp toward the floor. He wasn't tired, not really. Just drifting. He'd been meaning to do the laundry or sort through the stack of unopened mail on the bench but instead, he'd been there for at least an hour, staring at nothing and wondering whether he needed a new hobby.

It wasn't that his days were empty. He worked. He read. He even attended a lecture last week, just for the hell of it. But there was this steady hum of something missing, something unspoken and unfilled, like an itch behind the ribs. He wasn't sure what it was. Maybe he needed to try pottery. Or crime novels. Or—

Then his phone rang.

Edward groaned like it had personally offended him, fumbling for it with the enthusiasm of a man being dragged out of his grave.

"If this is work, I swear—"

"It's me, dumbass."

He let out a breath, tension easing by a hair. Lance. Of course.

"Glad to hear you're still among the living," Lance said, tone dipped in his usual dry amusement. "How's the whole 'pretending to be a functioning adult' thing going?"

Edward draped an arm over his face. "Ambitious of you to assume I ever started."

Lance snorted. "Touché. Listen, I know you probably planned to merge with your couch and ascend to your final form, but I want you to come over."

Edward groaned again, louder this time, just in case the universe hadn't heard him suffer enough. Every part of him ached: his bones, his brain, possibly his soul, and peeling himself off the couch sounded about as appealing as elective dental surgery.

"Lance—"

"Nope. Don't. I can hear the excuses revving up from here. 'I'm tired.' 'I've earned this coma.' 'The couch and I are in a committed relationship.' You can sleep when you're dead."

"Great," Edward muttered. "I'll pencil it in for Thursday."

He scrubbed a hand down his face. He wanted to say no. Desperately. But Lance had that tone, not pushy, not demanding, just expecting. The kind that made it feel like not showing up would be a disappointment, not a choice. And damn him, that always worked.

He hesitated.

He was tired, no, beyond tired, but there was another kind of exhaustion pressing at his chest. The kind that came from too much silence, too many hours listening to the hum of the fridge and the inside of his own skull. The kind that made the air in his house feel thick and wrong.

Lance knew it.

Edward sighed like he was signing away a kidney. "Fine."

Lance sounded way too smug. "Knew you had it in you. Oh, also, minor detail, I'm at Sykes' place."

Edward's eyes snapped open. His brain lagged half a beat behind, but his stomach didn't. It clenched instantly.

"Of course you are," he said flatly. "Why wouldn't you be. Makes total sense. It's Friday, you're due for a poor decision."

"And before you start with the dramatic exit," Lance added, "it's just me, Sykes, and Timmy."

Edward blinked. "So, a full house of emotionally complicated men. Great. Should I bring a bottle of wine or just light myself on fire on arrival?"

Timmy. He was all wide eyes and quiet gratitude. Innocence personified, despite the fact he was not really all that innocent. He looked at Edward like he was something safe, which was frankly unnerving. Edward didn't feel safe. He felt like a cracked dam.

And then there was Sykes.

Edward wasn't even sure what it was about the man, something about him just itched. Like Sykes had a scalpel for a gaze and no sense of personal boundaries. Not in a cruel way. Worse, in a clinical, curious way. Like he was studying Edward to see what made him tick. Or break.

He should absolutely, 100%, say no.

Instead, he was already sitting up, already dragging a hand through his hair, already giving in like it wasn't even a real choice.

He still wasn't sure why.

But, in the end, he went.

Sykes' house was infuriatingly perfect. Warm, lived-in, and smelling faintly of cinnamon and smug self-assurance. Edward had been here enough times that the comfort of it was starting to get under his skin. It wasn't new anymore. The couch cushions were getting to know the shape of him. The warmth in the walls had started to feel like it meant something. And that, frankly, was the most irritating part.

Lance was already draped across the couch like a centerfold for Cocky Best Friends Weekly, swirling his drink with flair. Tim huddled in the corner under a blanket clearly stolen from someone three sizes larger, peering out like a woodland creature who hadn't decided if Edward was a friend or a forest fire. The bruises on his wrists had faded to that sickly yellow that meant they were healing... at least physically.

Sykes was in the kitchen like he belonged to it or it to him. Sleeves rolled up, forearms criminally well-defined, and moving with the kind of practiced ease that only people who were both hot and competent possessed. He looked up as Edward entered, something flickering across his face, interest, maybe. Or a calculation. Or possibly indigestion.

"You actually came," Sykes said, amusement curling around his words like steam off the coffee he wasn't making but probably should have been.

Edward kicked off his shoes and sighed. "Against my better judgment, yes."

"That's never stopped you from bailing before," Lance chimed in with a grin sharp enough to cut glass.

Edward flipped him off absently and moved toward the kitchen, where Sykes slid a glass across the counter. Their fingers brushed, just barely, and Edward didn't read into it. Except he did. And Sykes knew it.

A beat passed. Sykes didn't look away.

Edward cleared his throat and turned to safer terrain. "So. That party last week. Did anyone cry? Bleed? Or was it just as mundane as I imagined?"

Lance leaned forward, practically glowing with gossip. "You were missed. Sykes picked up a guy who thought he could handle him."

Edward snorted into his glass. "Of course he did."

"Oh, he had ideas," Lance said, gesturing wildly. "Big ones. Swaggered in like a lion. Left like a wet kitten."

Sykes was lounging now, as if recounting past activities bored him. One arm over the back of the couch, his fingers flexed once, idly, like they missed being used.

"It was a tease," Sykes said casually. "Not that he knew it."

Edward raised an eyebrow. "Didn't want to break him?"

"Didn't think he knew what he was actually asking for," Sykes said, like that explained everything. And maybe it did.

Edward gave a dry laugh. "So tenderhearted. You're practically a Hallmark movie."

Sykes put a hand to his chest, aghast. "How dare you."

Tim muffled a snort behind the blanket, and Edward shot him a conspiratorial look.

Progress.

Lance just looked proud.

Edward sank deeper into the couch, letting the moment settle. He wasn't really trying to watch, but his eyes kept drifting to Tim, still tucked into his corner, swallowed up by that oversized blanket like he thought it might make him invisible. He held his drink with both hands, eyes locked on them with quiet focus, the kind that listened for the words left unsaid.

Lance, never one to leave a silence hanging, launched into a story before the quiet could stretch too long.

"You know Edward and I go way back," he said, all dramatic flair and wide gestures.

Edward rolled his eyes but didn't interrupt. Let him talk, he thought. It's his favorite sport.

"And I mean way back. Before he had the glasses. Before he figured out how to dress himself. Before—"

Sykes cut in, just enough to show he was listening. "Yeah, I've heard a few of those stories." His tone was hard to pin down, calm, unreadable, but something about it felt familiar. Easy. Like Edward had always been part of this conversation, like his presence tonight wasn't new at all.

That stuck with Edward longer than he wanted to admit.

Across the room, Tim kept glancing between them. Curious. Not lost, exactly, but trying to map the connections like a nervous kid tracing family trees at a stranger's reunion. He didn't say anything, but it was clear he wanted to.

Lance must've noticed, because his voice softened mid-sentence.
Less show. More sincerity.

"You've got a question, kid?" he asked gently, not quite smiling. "You can ask. You're not interrupting anything."

Tim didn't answer right away. But his shoulders dropped a little. His grip on the glass loosened. He didn't speak, but he didn't shy away either. The air shifted—calmer now, held open for him.

No one rushed to fill the silence. Even Lance, for once, just let it breathe.

Edward stayed quiet. He knew the rhythm of these moments, knew that pushing would only scatter whatever Tim was gathering up inside himself.

Eventually, Tim looked over, brow creased in thought.

"Can I ask something?" he said, voice barely above a murmur.

Edward nodded. "Of course."

Tim hesitated, then asked, "Why do people talk about you like that?"

Edward tilted his head. "Like what?"

"I dunno," Tim said slowly. "Like... you're something I'm not supposed to understand. They talk about you like—like you don't fit. Like it's weird that you're... you."

He fumbled, looking almost embarrassed.

"You mean because I'm a slave," Edward said, gently.

Tim nodded. "Yeah. You don't—" He stopped himself. "It just doesn't seem like it should make sense."

Ah.
That question.

It always came back to that. To the dissonance. How someone like Edward clean-cut, calm, grounded could claim the word slave and wear it like it wasn't broken glass. Like it wasn't supposed to shame him. Like it just was.

Edward didn't answer right away. He'd learned not to. People usually needed to sit with the contradiction first.

But this time, Sykes spoke instead.

"Have you ever met anyone who used the term for themselves before?" he asked.

Tim shook his head slowly. "No. Not really. Not like that."

He stared down at his drink like it had answers.

"Most people don't," Sykes said. "But once you do, it starts to make sense in a different way."

There was a pause. Then, unexpectedly, Tim said, "I think it's kind of cool."

Edward blinked. "Cool?"

Tim nodded, still looking down. "Yeah. Like... it's not what I thought it was."

Sykes looked satisfied, like he'd known Tim would land there eventually.

"Good," he said.

Tim ducked his head, clearly overwhelmed, but he didn't retreat. He just let the moment sit.

And Edward, Edward felt something loosen. Something that had been wound tight for too long began to uncoil. Slowly. Not all the way. But enough.

Across the room, Sykes met his gaze. He didn't speak, but the look he gave Edward was unmistakable.

Approval. Pride, maybe.

It warmed something deep in Edward's chest. He tried to ignore it.

Lance, ever the emotional escape hatch, groaned and flopped back into the couch.

"Well, I think we've officially traumatised the poor kid," he declared, lifting his empty glass like a toast. "Let's move on before someone starts crying."

Tim made a noise that was half protest, half laugh. "I'm not traumatised."

"Not yet," Lance teased. "Give us time."

Tim huffed but didn't argue. The sharp edges were gone. He was looser now, less tightly curled into himself. When Lance leaned over to ruffle his hair, Tim swatted at him with all the ferocity of a sleepy kitten.

"Quit it," he muttered, scowling.

"Adorable," Lance said. "I'm keeping you."

Edward watched them, something like affection blooming quietly in his chest. For all his nerves, Tim had asked the question that mattered. The one most people were too polite—or too afraid—to voice.

That alone said something about him.

Eventually, Tim started to fade. His energy dropped off suddenly, like a switch had flipped. Lance stood and stretched, then reached out a hand.

"Come on," he said. "Time for bed, champ."

"I'm not that tired," Tim mumbled, even as he leaned into Lance like gravity had doubled.

Sykes, still leaning against the wall, raised an eyebrow and shot Lance a look. No words, but the message landed clear as day:

Seriously?

Lance grinned. "Hey, I'm irresistible. What can I say?"

Edward just smiled and let the warmth settle.

"You gonna tuck him in, too?" he asked, dry as dust.

Lance just grinned, wide and smug. "Obviously."

Sykes exhaled like a man burdened with the world's dumbest coworkers, but didn't argue.

As they moved toward the spare room, Edward followed. Sykes opened the door and stepped aside, leaving space for Tim to decide on his own.

Tim hesitated again, body tense, hands clenching and unclenching like he was caught mid-thought. Edward recognized the posture. Knew what it looked like when someone wanted to ask for permission without knowing the words for it yet.

Lance noticed too. He dropped his voice low and even, told Tim he didn't have to.

Tim swallowed hard and didn't respond. But he stepped inside. One small step, like a test. Then another.

And that was enough.

Edward knew that feeling. That awful, suspended moment where exhaustion and fear tangled together, making it impossible to decide if resting was safe. The bed was right there. Comfort was right there. And yet—

Sykes, still propped against the doorframe, finally spoke. "It's just a room."

His voice was level, unreadable. Not warm, not unkind. Simply a fact laid out with no expectation attached. The sort of thing that would either help or wouldn't, but he wasn't going to waste breath dressing it up.

Tim blinked at him. Sykes didn't elaborate. Just nodded toward the bed like it made no difference to him whether Tim stepped inside or not. No pressure, no softness. Just a door and a choice.

A beat passed, then another. Tim wavered for another second, then, with a deep inhale, crossed the threshold. Lance went with him, naturally.

Sykes let out a slow breath as he pulled the door shut behind them.

Edward, still lingering with his whiskey in hand, arched a brow. "You're judging."

Sykes shot him a look. "You're not?"

Edward took a sip, letting the warmth sit on his tongue before answering. "It's endearing."

"It's pathetic."

"You say that," Edward mused, turning the glass in his fingers, "but if Tim had asked, you'd have let him have your bed."

Sykes didn't answer. Which was an answer in itself.

Edward smirked.

Sykes exhaled, rubbing a hand down his face. "You staying?"

Edward hesitated.

That had been the plan, hadn't it? He wasn't due at the hospital until Monday, and Lance had all but pulled the please, Eddie, just one night routine on him earlier.

But now, standing in the hush of Sykes' kitchen, the house quiet and warm, he felt the same nagging weight he always did when he let himself linger too long in spaces that weren't his.

Edward rolled his shoulders. He should go. The thought sat heavy, practical. Sensible. But he didn't move.

Sykes didn't push, didn't tell him to stay. Just poured another slow measure of whiskey into his glass, the liquid catching the low light. "Then go in a bit."

Not a command. Not quite. But close enough that Edward felt the weight of it settle against his ribs. He sat back down anyway. Sykes smirked, lazy, victorious, like he'd won something. It should have irritated Edward, but instead, it curled warm in his chest.

He took a sip. The burn chased away the worst of his hesitation, leaving only the quiet hum of something unspoken between them.

Sykes tipped his glass toward him, casual. "So, what's your damage?"

Edward huffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head. Subtle as a hammer, this one.

Sykes watched him with a knowing kind of patience, fingers curled loose around his glass. "I'm a psychologist. Contractually obligated to be nosy."

Edward rolled his eyes, but his mouth betrayed him, twitching at the edges. "That a clinical term?"

"Absolutely."

The silence stretched, expectant. Sykes wasn't the kind of man to fill it for someone else's comfort. No, Edward was learning that he liked to make people sit in it, let it sink under their skin until they gave him what he wanted.

Edward sighed, rolling the glass between his palms. "I like rules."

Sykes hummed, a low, considering sound.

"The weight of them," Edward continued. "The steadiness."

Sykes didn't look away. His attention had a gravity to it, pulling Edward in, leaving little room to retreat. "You like the loss of control."

Edward exhaled sharply, amused. "People always say that like it's passive."

Sykes lifted a brow, waiting.

Edward turned the glass in his hands, fingers restless. "It's not about losing control. It's about giving it. Deliberately. Purposefully." He let the words settle, let himself feel them.

Sykes' gaze sharpened, something flickering behind his eyes; understanding, maybe. Recognition. Edward wasn't sure which unsettled him more.

He let out a slow breath. "I like knowing where I stand. I like expectations that don't bend or shift based on someone else's mood. I like..." His throat bobbed. "I like being shaped into something."

Sykes tilted his head, the weight of his focus pressing heavy against Edward's skin. "You like being owned."

Edward swallowed.

Not a question. Not really. But it still landed deep, resonating in places he thought he'd locked away. The air thickened, the whiskey's warmth curling low in his stomach. He felt seen. He felt stripped bare. He wasn't sure how much of it was the way Sykes was looking at him or how much of it was the whiskey.

He took a breath. Then another. Then, finally, he nodded.

Sykes exhaled, slow and even. No sharp-edged comment. No smirk. Just another sip of whiskey and a quiet, certain, "Yeah."

Edward blinked.

That was it? No teasing, no gloating? Just acceptance. Like it was obvious. Like he'd known from the moment Edward walked in.

The silence between them stretched, thick with something neither of them seemed willing to name. Sykes didn't press. He didn't need to. The weight of Edward's own admission was enough, settling deep in his bones.

Edward downed the last of his whiskey. The conversation sat heavy, too raw, too exposed. He set his empty glass down with a quiet clink.

Sykes watched him, unreadable.

Edward sighed, pushing to his feet. "I should go."

Sykes didn't stop him. Didn't argue. Just leaned back against the counter, gaze lingering, like he was already pulling apart the pieces of Edward's confession, turning them over in his mind.

"Hey, Eddie?"

Edward paused, glancing back.

Sykes smirked, slow and knowing. "Don't pretend you're not thinking about it."

The words slithered warm under Edward's skin, slipping between his ribs and settling there. He huffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head.

Then he walked out the door.

Chapter 5: The Quiet After

When he got home, Edward couldn't help but notice his house was quiet. Not the kind of quiet that soothed. No. There was no hum of conversation in the next room, no soft shuffle of movement, no presence tucked into the space beside him. Just empty silence, the kind that pressed thick against the walls and settled deep in his chest.

He exhaled, rolling his shoulders as he stepped inside, flicking the light on with an easy, practiced motion. Everything was as he'd left it: clean, orderly, untouched. The kind of pristine that, in contrast to where he had just been, felt less like comfort and more like absence.

He moved through the motions anyway. Keys on the counter. Shoes by the door. Jacket hung neatly in the closet. He should go to bed. Instead, he found himself in the kitchen, filling the kettle like it was muscle memory. The ritual of it was steadying. Simple.

Lily used to say he liked to keep his hands busy. She wasn't wrong.

He leaned against the counter, watching the steam curl upward as the water heated. The house around him was still, the kind of stillness that had settled in slowly over the years. It had been a home once, but now it felt more like a place where he just... existed. He kept it clean out of habit, out of a need for control, out of an unwillingness to let anything slip through the cracks.

Lily would've laughed at that.

She had always been able to see through him, past the logic and structure he wrapped himself in. She had called him on it constantly, amused and exasperated in equal measure. You can't plan your way through grief, Edward, she had told him once, fingers threading through his hair, her weight warm and familiar at his back. Knees pressed into the floorboards. You can't organize it into something neat and manageable. It doesn't work that way.

He had ignored her then.

He still did now.

The kettle clicked off, and he poured the water over the tea, watching the color bleed into the cup. He wasn't even sure he wanted it. Wasn't sure why he had made it in the first place. He let it steep anyway. The evening had been... something.

Sykes had been something. Edward wasn't sure what to make of him yet. Wasn't sure he wanted to make anything of him. He was sharp in the way that drew Edward in, the kind of man who picked people apart without needing to pry them open. That wasn't what unsettled Edward, though. It was the way Sykes didn't seem to mind what he found.

That was dangerous.

Edward took his tea to the couch and sat heavily, the exhaustion from the day finally catching up with him. He had spent years keeping himself busy, drowning in shifts that blurred together, letting the hospital consume him because it was easier than feeling like this.

But now, for the first time in a long time, he wasn't sure if that was what he wanted anymore.

The hospital was the same as always in the morning: bright, sterile, alive with movement. The scent of antiseptic and freshly brewed coffee lingered in the air, the steady beep of monitors blending with the quiet murmur of conversation at the nurses' station. Rolling carts rattled softly against the tile as orderlies navigated the narrow halls, and the distant echo of a call button chimed somewhere down the corridor. It was the same controlled chaos Edward had spent years moving through, the same unrelenting current of need and responsibility.

Edward navigated the morning with the ease of routine, nodding at nurses, exchanging clipped greetings with colleagues, and stepping into patient rooms with the same measured presence he always carried. He had learned, over the years, how to make people feel seen without inviting too much familiarity. How to balance warmth with professionalism, reassurance with reality. It was an art, really, the way he spoke to patients and their families, the way he delivered difficult news in palatable doses, the way he absorbed grief without letting it settle too deep in his bones.

He worked through his rounds methodically; assessments, chart updates, the usual parade of concerned family members with questions he could only answer in half-truths. He was used to it by now, to the weight of expectation, the quiet responsibility that came with being the person people trusted on their worst days. It was steadying, in its own way, the predictability of it. The hospital had a rhythm, a pulse of its own, and Edward moved in sync with it, letting the day unfold as it always did.

His first trauma case went smoothly. A car accident victim with a clean break, stabilized without complication. The second one ran long, stretching his patience and his schedule as he worked alongside a trauma team to stabilize a patient with internal bleeding. It wasn't the worst case he had seen, not by far, but it was enough to set him behind, enough to leave him feeling like he was constantly catching up.

By the time he finished, he barely had time to grab a coffee before he was pulled into a last-minute departmental meeting, where administration droned on about updated policies and budget concerns that didn't actually change anything about the way they worked. Afterward, he fielded a handful of minor administrative fires—conflicting schedules, a missing patient file, a nurse in need of shift coverage. It was nothing major, nothing unusual, just the ever-present hum of hospital life, the kind of background noise that made up his days.

By noon, his shoulders ached, and he had the vague, persistent urge to sit somewhere quiet and just breathe.

He didn't.

Instead, he grabbed his coffee and checked his messages.

Lance (9:32 AM): You alive?

Edward huffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head as he typed back a reply.

Edward (12:04 PM): No. It's my ghost texting you. Boo.

The response came barely a second later.

Lance (12:05 PM): Lame.

Lance (12:05 PM): Also, you coming over tonight?

Edward took a slow sip of coffee, mulling it over. He hadn't planned to. Hadn't planned not to, either. The thought of unwinding, of letting himself fall back into that familiar dynamic, was tempting. He missed the early days of med school where often he would end up at Lance's instead of home. It was closer, familiar, easier. Lily would meet him there, and they would crash in Lance's spare room. Outsiders often mistook them for a throuple given they spent more time with Lance than without. God, he really had neglected Lance over the past few years.

He hesitated over his phone, thumb hovering over the keyboard. Before he could respond, another message popped up.

Lance (12:06 PM): Don't make me beg.

Edward smirked.

Edward (12:07 PM): You'd like that, wouldn't you?

Lance (12:07 PM): Wouldn't be the first time.

Edward shook his head, amusement curling at the edges of his fatigue. The glow of his screen reflected in his glasses as he hovered over the keyboard, debating his next reply. He never got the chance to send it.

"Edwards, you got a minute?"

Dr. Patel's voice cut through the quiet hum of the workroom, pulling him back to the present. He glanced up to find her standing beside him, arms crossed, her expression a mix of mischief and expectation.

Dr. Patel was, perhaps, the closest thing he had to a friend at the hospital. He liked her. She was loud in a way that should have grated on him but didn't. She was quick-witted, full of stories, always caught in some whirlwind of personal chaos that she recounted with a dramatic flair. There was always a new tale: a disastrous date, a neighbor's dog stealing her groceries, a weekend trip that ended with an emergency room visit (never hers, but somehow always her problem). Yet, when she was in the OR, all that frenetic energy condensed into something razor-sharp. She was a damn good surgeon, and he respected that.

"That depends," he said, leaning back in his chair. "Am I about to regret saying yes?"

She grinned. "Possibly. A bunch of us are going out for drinks tonight. You should come."

Edward sighed, already anticipating the argument. "I feel like all I do these days is socialize."

Patel snorted, unimpressed. "Must be exhausting for you, considering you always look like you'd rather be anywhere else."

His lips quirked. "You make a compelling argument."

"Of course I do." She pulled up a chair, dropping into it with a dramatic sigh. "Come on, you work too much. You need a break. Besides, you can't let us think you have no life outside of this place."

He resisted the urge to tell her that, for a long time, he really hadn't. That outside of this place, there had been nothing but a quiet, carefully constructed existence where no one asked him to be anything other than what he was: a doctor. Instead, he gave a noncommittal shrug.

"I'll think about it."

Patel rolled her eyes and stood, tapping the back of his chair as she walked past. "Yeah, yeah. You're coming."

He didn't argue. She wasn't the type to let things go, and besides, she wasn't wrong.

—

He went.

The bar was a trendy little place, dimly lit with overpriced cocktails and soft music humming beneath the low murmur of conversation. Patel bought the first round, and Edward settled in, sipping his whiskey while the chatter flowed around him. It was easy, lighthearted. Mostly hospital gossip, complaints about administration, someone detailing the disastrous Tinder date they'd been on last week. He listened with idle amusement, observing the way people navigated their relationships, the way they agonized over things like texting etiquette and lukewarm chemistry.

It was fascinating, in its own way. Vanilla relationships always were. He had spent so long in something entirely different that the way other people dated—hesitant, uncertain, constantly negotiating control they didn't even realize they were fighting over—was almost foreign to him. He had given himself over completely once, belonged in a way most people couldn't fathom. There had been no power struggles, no blurred lines, just certainty. Just surrender.

And now, here he was, listening to a half-drunk resident complain that her situationship wouldn't commit.

Somewhere between drinks, Patel sighed, swirling the amber liquid in her glass like it held the answers to all of life's mistakes. "God, I don't even know why I'm out. I should be at home, drinking wine and regretting my life choices."

Edward took a slow sip of his own drink and quirked a brow. "That bad?"

She groaned, setting her glass down with a decisive thud. "My ex? A disaster. I mean, I knew that, obviously, but somehow, breaking up really drove it home. Like, what was I thinking? I dated that man for three years. That's a whole residency. That's longer than some marriages. That's longer than I've kept a houseplant alive."

Edward smirked. "That's usually how it works."

"You ever look back at a relationship and wonder what the hell you were thinking?" Patel asked, rubbing at her temple like the memory itself gave her a headache.

Edward hesitated. Not really, no. His 'marriage' had never been anything like that. He had never once looked at Lily and thought she was a mistake. He had looked at her and thought she was his beginning and end. "Not exactly."

Patel eyed him like she could see the gears turning in his head, but then shrugged. "What about now? You seeing anyone?"

He considered lying, if only to make his life easier. "Not exactly."

She rolled her eyes. "Cryptic."

Edward huffed a laugh. "It's complicated."

It wasn't complicated. It was an unholy mess wrapped in denial and tied with a neat little bow of self-repression.

Patel studied him for a moment like she was deciding whether or not to push, then shrugged and took another drink. "You know, I was thinking you don't really talk about anything outside of work. What do you even do for fun?"

Edward blinked. "I work."

"That doesn't count."

He exhaled, thinking. "Med school didn't leave much room for hobbies. Neither did—" He stopped himself. "Marriage." Close enough. "I guess I haven't been very good at it recently."

Patel hummed, tapping a nail against her glass. "You should come to Get Flocked."

Edward stared at her. "What?"

For a brief, horrific moment, his stomach lurched, something cold and tight clenching in his chest. Get Flocked. The name sounded like a kink event. Like something someone might invite him to if they knew. If they somehow suspected. If somehow, despite all his efforts, despite how well he kept everything compartmentalized, his past had started to leak through the cracks.

His mind tripped over itself, logic and paranoia colliding, before he forced himself to breathe, to relax, to remind himself that Patel didn't know anything. That she couldn't know anything.

"My knitting group."

He cleared his throat. "Your what?"

"Knitting group. It's called Get Flocked. It's very exclusive."

Edward bit the inside of his cheek, half out of amusement, half out of sheer relief. "That's ridiculous."

She smirked. "It's for the girls, the gays, and the allies. You seem like a good ally, so I'm inviting you."

Edward hesitated. Then, finally, with the same dry amusement, he said, "I'm actually queer."

Patel blinked, then grinned. "Well, then you should definitely come."

Before he could respond, Dr. Nguyen stumbled over from the other side of the bar, looking about two drinks past respectable. "Edward," she declared, bracing herself against the counter. "Tell Patel that a rectal foreign body is not the weirdest thing we've pulled out of someone this month."

Edward sighed. "I don't want to be involved in this conversation."

Patel smirked. "Oh, but you are."

Nguyen pointed aggressively. "Two words: porcelain squirrel."

Edward pinched the bridge of his nose. "Christ."

Patel looked victorious. "Told you."

Nguyen, apparently emboldened, leaned in conspiratorially. "You ever see someone come in with something so weird stuck in them that you just have to go home and rethink your whole life?"

Edward shot her a deadpan look. "I used to work trauma in Vegas."

Nguyen cackled. "So that's a yes."

Patel grinned. "Didn't you have a patient last month who insisted they accidentally fell on a candlestick?"

Edward took a slow, resigned sip of his drink. "Yes."

"And didn't they then describe the incident as, and I quote, 'a Cinderella moment'?"

Edward sighed. "Yes."

Nguyen wiped tears of laughter from her eyes. "Man, I love this job."

Before Edward could respond, there was a sudden commotion from the other side of the bar, where Dr. Kapoor was dramatically reenacting a particularly ridiculous code blue incident from last week. He was currently lying flat on the ground while Dr. Morrison, who was a full foot shorter, attempted to perform chest compressions on him while shouting, "Why is this your sleep paralysis demon position?!"

Edward gestured vaguely. "See, this is why I don't do things for fun."

Patel knocked back the rest of her drink. "Anyway. Knitting. You in?"

Edward smirked, shaking his head. "Duly noted."

Patel pointed a finger at him. "That's not a no."

Chapter 6: Familiar Roads

He didn't decide to go to Lance's until he was already on the road.

The choice settled into him somewhere between the stoplights, between the pull of muscle memory and the sharp edge of something nameless. He could go home. He should go home. But the night stretched too long, too empty, and the buzz of one drink wasn't enough to quiet the restlessness beneath his skin.

Lance's house came into view before he fully admitted to himself that this was where he was going. The driveway was familiar, the porch light spilling warm onto the pavement. It had always been like this, an unspoken welcome, a door that never quite shut in his face, even when he was the one doing the shutting.

The front door swung open before he even knocked.

"Knew you'd come," Lance said, smug as ever, leaning against the frame like he'd been expecting him all night.

Edward sighed, stepping past him. "Shut up."

The scent hit him first: leather, cologne, the faintest trace of something spiced in the air. It was all achingly familiar, wrapped in a thousand nights of belonging. Once, he had walked into this house without thinking, without hesitating. Once, this place had been as much a home as anywhere else.

Now, he had to remind himself he was allowed inside.

"You want a drink?" Lance asked, already moving toward the kitchen.

Edward hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah."

The whiskey burned down easily. Lance didn't fill the silence immediately, just watched him, the weight of his gaze pressing against the places Edward tried to keep untouched.

"Miss having you around," Lance said finally, voice casual but not careless. "Feels like the open door policy is a little one sided these days."

Edward exhaled, rolling the glass between his fingers. "It's not personal."

Lance hummed like he knew better. "Doesn't mean I don't miss it."

Edward didn't have an answer for that. He took another sip instead, let the warmth settle in his stomach. Some part of him hated how easy this was, how natural it still felt to be here. That was the problem, wasn't it? The familiarity. The comfort. The way it chipped at the walls he had so carefully constructed.

Lance leaned against the counter, tilting his head. "Club's almost ready."

Edward glanced up. "Yeah?"

"Month out." Lance took a slow sip, watching him over the rim of his glass. "You should come when it opens."

Edward huffed a quiet laugh. "You trying to lure me back into the scene?"

"Maybe." A shrug, too casual. "Maybe I just want my best friend back."

The words landed heavier than they should have.

Edward looked away, focusing on the dark swirl of whiskey in his glass. He didn't want to talk about this, about what he had walked away from. He didn't want to talk about the ache of it, the shape of something missing that he couldn't quite bring himself to reach for again.

Lance must have known, because his voice softened. "Sykes is great, but he's not you. And he's sure as hell not Lily."

Edward's grip tightened around the glass. Why did it feel like Lance and him kept having heavy conversations? Maybe it was because they had spent the better part of the past three years avoiding them.

Lance exhaled. "It's not the same without you." A pause, then a quieter, "You know that, right?"

Edward closed his eyes briefly before forcing himself to meet Lance's gaze. There was no pressure there, no demand, just the weight of years, of understanding. Of loss.

He didn't have an answer for that, either.

Lance let it sit for a moment, then smirked, cutting the tension with practiced ease. "Anyway, if nothing else, you should come just to see Sykes try to figure you out."

Edward frowned. "What?"

Lance waved a hand. "You've always been a goddamn magnet for D-types. Always. Look at me." He gestured to himself. "Hell, look at Sykes. The newbies in the scene already think you're a myth. Some legendary, long lost submissive that never actually existed."

Edward snorted. "That's ridiculous."

"Is it?" Lance arched a brow. "You ghosted so hard half of them think you're just folklore."

Edward rolled his eyes, but there was an edge of something unsettled beneath it. Sykes. The name sat heavy in his mind. The way Lance said it, like he was testing something, like he was setting a piece down on the board and waiting to see if Edward would pick it up.

Lance clapped a hand on his shoulder, grounding. "Just think about it. No pressure."

Edward exhaled slowly, running a hand over his jaw. "I'll think about it."

Lance grinned, victory claimed. "Good enough. Now, let's order some food before you drink all my whiskey and forget to eat."

Edward shook his head but didn't argue. Some things never changed.

The rest of the week passed in a blur of routine and exhaustion. Edward barely had time to breathe between shifts, his days bleeding together in a cycle of patient rounds, emergency cases, and the endless administrative nonsense that came with working in a hospital.

By Wednesday, he had given up on anything resembling a decent sleep schedule. By Friday, he had run almost entirely on caffeine and stubbornness.

The ER was relentless.

A steady influx of patients kept the team stretched thin. Some were straightforward, some were frustratingly complex. A young woman with a ruptured appendix, a construction worker with a nasty compound fracture, an elderly man whose heart refused to settle into a stable rhythm.

It wasn't until late Friday afternoon, when the shift was finally winding down, that Edward remembered what awaited him that evening.

Dinner with his parents.

He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face as he leaned back in his chair.

He had no real excuse to cancel. Not one they would accept, anyway. Work had always been his get out of jail free card, the one thing they respected enough to concede to, but he had already postponed this dinner twice. If he tried again, his mother would only sigh, his father would mutter something about priorities, and then he'd spend the next week fielding passive aggressive texts about how they "hoped he was taking care of himself."

So he went.

His parents' house was as pristine as ever, all clean lines and carefully curated decor. It had never felt like home, not in the way his own place did, but it was familiar. Predictable.

His mother greeted him with the same critical once over she always gave him, as if checking for signs of decline. She didn't comment on the dark circles under his eyes, but he could see the disapproval in the way her lips pressed together.

"You're late," she said instead, already turning back toward the dining room.

"Traffic," Edward lied, following her inside.

His father was already seated at the table, skimming through emails on his tablet. He gave Edward a nod of acknowledgment, then returned his attention to whatever pressing business mattered more than this meal.

Dinner was a carefully orchestrated affair, as it always was. His mother had set the table with precision, from the matching napkins to the perfectly portioned meal that left no room for seconds. The conversation was just as structured, polite, predictable, and utterly devoid of anything personal.

His father asked about the hospital, about the latest medical advancements he had read about in some business journal. His mother inquired about his diet, his sleep schedule, whether he had finally found someone 'suitable' to settle down with.

Edward deflected as best he could.

No, he wasn't neglecting his health. Yes, work was busy, but manageable. No, he wasn't seeing anyone serious. Yes, he was still 'focused on his career.'

It was easier to let them believe that was all there was to him.

By the time dessert arrived, which was some delicate, artfully plated thing that tasted more of presentation than indulgence, Edward was already counting down the minutes until he could leave.

"So," his mother said, folding her hands neatly in her lap. "Are you coming to the gala next month?"

Edward barely suppressed a groan. "I have a lot on my plate right now."

His father looked up from his tablet, finally paying attention. "It's important, Edward. You know that."

"For you, maybe."

"For the family," his mother corrected. "Networking is crucial, especially in your field. You could use the connections."

Edward exhaled slowly. They always framed it like that as if his career hinged on shaking hands with the right people over overpriced champagne. As if medicine was just another business to leverage.

"I'll think about it," he said, knowing full well he wouldn't.

His mother sighed but let it go.

Then his mother took a sip of wine, exhaled sharply, and said, "Edward, don't you think it's time to move on?"

He froze. Just for a second, barely perceptible but his mother caught it. She always did.

"Three years is a long time," his father added, setting his tablet down beside his plate. His fingers tapped idly against the polished wood. "Lily wouldn't have wanted you to wallow."

Edward's grip tightened around his fork. He wasn't wallowing. He was functioning. He worked long hours, he kept up with his responsibilities, he showed up for family dinners even when he'd rather be anywhere else. If anything, he was doing too much, running himself ragged just to avoid thinking too hard.

"I'm not wallowing," he said, voice carefully controlled.

His mother gave him that look, the one that was meant to be soft, but only ever felt like a careful calculation. "Sweetheart, we just don't want you to be alone forever. It's not healthy."

Alone. As if his life had some gaping void that needed to be filled, as if his existence wasn't already full of noise, obligations, and people who needed him. He exhaled slowly, pressing his fork against his plate just to have something to focus on.

"I have work. I have friends," he said, a little too sharply.

His father made a quiet noise of disapproval. "That's not the same."

The weight of their concern settled over the table like a second tablecloth, thick and suffocating. The clink of silverware against porcelain felt deafening in the silence that followed.

"We only mean," his mother continued, "that people are starting to talk."

Edward's jaw tightened. Of course they were. People always had something to say. He could already imagine the whispered speculations, the pitying remarks, the hushed questions about why Dr. Edward Hale, successful, respected, and widowed, had yet to move on.

He let out a slow, measured breath. "People?"

His mother swirled her wine in her glass, watching the movement like it might offer her a way to phrase this delicately. "You know how these things are," she said, as if that explained anything. "You have a reputation to maintain. And when a man your age remains single for so long... Well, it raises questions."

Questions. As if his grief had an expiration date, as if love, real love, could be replaced like an outdated piece of furniture.

His father cleared his throat, shifting in his seat. "You should consider dating again. There are plenty of respectable women—"

Edward set his knife down with a little more force than necessary. His pulse drummed at his temple. They spoke as if his life were something to be managed, as if he owed them an explanation for why he hadn't let someone else into the space Lily had left behind.

"I appreciate the concern," he said, his voice tight, "but my personal life is just that... personal."

His mother sighed, long suffering, but, for once, she didn't push. His father, however, simply shook his head.

"You can't live in the past forever, Edward."

He didn't respond. There was nothing to say that they would understand. Instead, he focused on the slow, methodical movement of his fork against his plate, the scrape of metal against porcelain.

For the rest of dinner, they said nothing more about it. But the words lingered, sinking into his skin like an old wound reopened.

By the time he finally excused himself, his patience was threadbare. His mother kissed his cheek, his father gave him a stiff handshake, and he stepped out into the night feeling like he had just survived a procedure without anesthesia.

The drive home was quiet. No music, no distractions just the hum of the engine and the distant glow of streetlights flickering past.

Edward exhaled slowly, his fingers flexing around the steering wheel before tightening again. The tension never quite left him these days, a dull pressure sitting between his ribs like something wedged too deep to be dislodged. His shoulders ached from a long shift, and his temples throbbed with the remnants of a migraine he'd been nursing since noon.

He just needed the world to stop for a minute.

It had been a long week. A long month. Hell, a long three years.

Three years since he lost Lily.

Time had dulled the sharpest edges of grief, but the weight of it never lessened. It had settled into his bones, into the rhythm of his days, turning every moment without her into something sluggish, something incomplete. He was functional. God knew he had to be, with his job, but that was all it was. Functioning. Moving through the motions.

And now, on top of everything, he had to deal with his parents being concerned about appearances.

As if his grief was some kind of unsightly blemish that needed to be hidden away.

His father had barely concealed his irritation during their last phone call, the clipped tone, the carefully restrained sighs. His mother had been gentler, but her concern was laced with something else embarrassment, maybe. Or the disappointment of seeing their son become something they couldn't parade around.

"You used to be so put together, Edward," his father had said, his voice filled with that particular brand of sharp disapproval only he could manage. "You're a respected doctor. You should start acting like it." And now the conversation at dinner. He just couldn't do it.

As if grief had an expiration date. As if losing Lily wasn't allowed to carve him open and leave him raw for longer than was deemed socially acceptable.

His fingers tightened around the wheel until his knuckles went white.

His phone buzzed against the center console, the sharp vibration cutting through the heavy silence. He sighed and glanced down. Lance. For a second, he considered letting it go to voicemail. He wasn't in the mood to talk. Not even to Lance. But then he exhaled sharply and hit the answer button, pressing the phone to his ear.

Lance didn't bother with pleasantries.

"You sound like shit."

Edward huffed a tired laugh. "Good to hear from you, too."

There was a beat of silence, then, "Come over."

Edward shook his head, even though Lance couldn't see him. "I'm fine."

"Bullshit."

"I just need sleep."

Lance was quiet for a moment. Then, his voice softened, slightly. "Come over, Ed."

Edward clenched his jaw. "I don't need—"

"I'm not asking."

Something in his chest tightened.

Lance didn't pull rank often. They weren't in a dynamic, not in the way Edward had once been with Lily. He didn't have to listen. But Lance had been Lily's best friend. He was a Dominant. And they both knew Edward would always listen.

It was instinct, old muscle memory, the part of him that had been molded over years of devotion. Listening. Obeying. Submitting. It wasn't something that had simply faded away, even if he had buried it beneath hospital shifts and grief and the rigid control he wrapped around himself like armor. Once, in a life that now felt painfully distant, he and Lance had acknowledged their power difference without hesitation. They were friends first, always. But Lance had been Lily's best friend. And Lance is a D-type.

He swallowed hard, exhaled through his nose.

"...I'll be there soon."

Lance didn't say anything else. He didn't need to.

Edward ended the call, tossing the phone back onto the console before turning the car in the direction of Lance's house. The city lights stretched out ahead of him, neon blurs against the dark, and for the first time all night, the pressure in his chest eased just a little.

Chapter 7: Green

He walked up to the house in slow, deliberate steps. It had been a long time since he'd been summoned to Lance's home. Years, maybe. And yet, stepping up onto the porch felt the same as it always had like crossing into the gravity of something much larger than himself. Something inevitable.

The door swung open almost immediately.

Lance stood in the doorway, his sharp blue eyes flicking over Edward's face. He didn't speak. Didn't smile. Didn't move aside. Just looked. Weighing. Waiting.

Edward swallowed. The silence wasn't unfamiliar; it was the kind Lance used in the boardroom when something serious was unraveling, though Edward never saw it, only heard about it. But here, it rang louder. Stripped of banter. Of fondness. Of friendship.

And that's what made it land.

He wasn't sure what Lance saw when he looked at him now. The exhaustion etched into the lines of his face, maybe. Or the tension so deeply wound through his body it felt like a wire pulled tight enough to hum. Or maybe it was something else entirely, something only someone who'd known Lily, who'd stood beside her, could see. The remnants of what she left behind.

Then, finally, Lance stepped back. Wordlessly. Like a judge granting entry. Edward crossed the threshold.

The door clicked shut behind him. It sounded final.

Lance didn't ease. "I'm not your friend right now," he said, his voice even, like he was reading from a script he didn't want to memorize. "I'm not your comfort. I'm not your softness. I am stepping in because I believe you need this and I need your consent to do it."

It wasn't how Lance usually moved through power. Lance, who teased his subs into obedience. Who laughed in scenes and hummed while he tied rope. Who fed people before he broke them down. Lance was warmth, normally. Lance was a hearth. But not tonight.

Tonight, he'd taken something cold from the shelf and held it between them.

Edward lifted his gaze, met his stare head on. He expected this. But hearing it spoken aloud made something in his chest tighten, a shudder of restless panic that felt almost familiar.

Lance didn't blink. "I'm not asking if you want it," he continued. "I'm asking if this is a breach."

A beat of silence passed between them. The question was clinical. A scalpel slicing straight through the noise.

Edward's breath caught in his throat. His jaw clenched. His eyes slipped shut, just for a second. Then—

"Green," he said. The word ground out from behind his teeth. Taut. Forced. But clear.

Lance nodded, once. "Good."

And just like that, something shifted. The air thickened. The moment deepened.

"Strip."

The command landed like a stone in water: clean, cutting, no ripples of affection in its wake.

Edward froze for half a heartbeat. Then his fingers moved. Shirt first. Button by button, slow and deliberate. The fabric slid from his shoulders. He folded it. Placed it on the arm of the couch. Neat. Controlled. Like rituals. Like memories.

This wasn't about seduction. This wasn't even about submission.

This was about exposure.

Undershirt. Belt. Slacks. Socks. Each piece came off like shedding armor, until only his boxers remained. The room was warm, but his skin prickled with cold.

He didn't look at Lance. Not yet.

But Lance stepped forward, close enough that Edward could feel the heat of him. Still, he didn't touch. Instead, he tipped Edward's chin up with two fingers, firm and unyielding.

"You are mine tonight," he said. "You don't have to think. You don't have to fight. You will serve. And you will obey."

The words sank deep not because they were new, but because they came from someone who had not said them before. Not really. He had ordered Edward around before, but always with Lily present. Lily, the person who Edward would always turn to check in with. Lance never led him, only acted as a cog in the machine that was Lily's dominance. Lance had always been his friend first, and D type second. He was someone who'd seen him bleed grief into hospital floors. Someone who held him while he sobbed after Lily's death. Someone who usually offered comfort, not command.

But Lance knew. He knew this wasn't who they were but it was what Edward needed. And Edward—

Edward needed.

He nodded, voice barely above a whisper. "Yes, Sir."

The title didn't belong to Lance. Not really. But tonight, it did. Just for now. Because Edward needed someone who could carry the weight he couldn't anymore.

Lance's expression didn't shift, but his eyes darkened. "Good boy."

It was the only kindness he allowed himself.

The evening unfolded like a slow, practiced ritual. Lance led Edward to the center of the living room and pointed wordlessly at the floor. Edward knelt. Immediately.

And gasped.

The floor wasn't bare.

Uncooked rice spread in a thick, deliberate layer beneath him, sharp grains biting into tender skin as his full weight settled. The sting was immediate, tiny knives against bone and nerve.

He didn't move.

He wouldn't.

Behind him, Lance's hands settled on his shoulders. Warm, but not comforting. Strong, but not gentle. He dug into the muscles like he was unearthing something. Finding the rot.

"Talk," Lance ordered.

Not tell me how you are, not what's going on. Just that. Talk.

Edward's jaw tightened. The pain was easier. The pain was known. Predictable.

Talking wasn't.

But Lance didn't push. Not yet. He worked methodically, thumbs digging into the knots along Edward's shoulders like he was carving away months of tension. His hands knew the map of Edward's body from years of knowing him, of patching him up, of watching him fall apart. But this was different.

"Edward."

The name wasn't gentle. It cracked through the quiet.

Edward exhaled sharply. Then. Finally,

He talked.

About the hospital. About the dying. About the way his hands shook sometimes in the supply closet where no one could see. About how he hadn't dreamed in months, or maybe he had, but couldn't remember. About Lily.

It came in pieces. Fractured. Halting. Then faster. Like a dam that had cracked, then burst.

Lance didn't respond. He didn't soothe. Just kept working, kept digging. His fingers worked like sculpting tools, finding muscle and tension and fear and grinding it out.

Through it all, Edward stayed still.

The rice burned. At first it was surface-level, sharp stings and raw edges. But as the minutes passed, it deepened into a spreading, insistent ache. Up his thighs. Into his back. Into the very marrow of his bones. It wasn't sharp anymore. It was heavy.

And still, he didn't move.

He couldn't.

Because he was told not to. Because this mattered. Because this was the part that reached him. That held him. That didn't let him float away into numbness or detachment. The pain carved him out so the words had somewhere to go.

At last, silence returned. Not the tight, brittle silence from earlier. This one settled over them like a weighted blanket.

Lance's hands stilled.

But they didn't move away. One hand curled lightly around the back of Edward's neck. Not to control. Not to restrain. Just to anchor.

A tether.

"Good boy," he murmured.

The words landed like a hand pressed to his chest. Not praise, not approval. Recognition.

Edward's shoulders trembled. His fingers curled into loose fists. Not from tension, but to hold on, to stay present in this space, in this moment where pain and care could exist in the same breath.

The ache was still there. But it was quieter now. Like his thoughts.

Like everything.

He didn't need to move. Didn't need to fix or hold or brace.

He just needed to be.

And for the first time in a long time, that was enough.

By the time Lance gave him permission to rise, Edward's legs were trembling. Not shaking from pain but from the effort of holding still. Of holding together.

The rice clung to his skin when he moved. Pieces sticking to sweat damp flesh, imprinting their shape into him like some quiet brand. He moved carefully, jaw locked, one inch at a time, because any faster and something inside him might crack open. His knees burned. His thighs twitched. He could feel his pulse in places he didn't want to name.

But underneath all that?

The air in his lungs didn't feel borrowed anymore.

"Go grab us some juice," Lance said, voice casual. "Ice cream, too. Two bowls."

Edward didn't argue. Just nodded and disappeared into the kitchen, footsteps soft but uneven. When he came back, Lance hadn't moved. Still sitting on the couch, arms crossed, watching. Not smiling. Not speaking.

Edward held out the bowl and glass.

Lance took them like they were some test he'd passed. Pointed to a cushion now placed on the ground, and invited Edward to kneel and eat.

"You remember the cage?" Lance asked, finally breaking the silence.

It was a question, but not really.

Edward stared down into his own bowl. The ice cream that was left was starting to melt.

Lance didn't wait. "I want you in it tonight."

There was no ceremony in the way he said it. Just a kind of inevitability. Like he was saying, Time for bed.

Edward didn't answer, not with words. He didn't need to. His stillness was louder than anything he could've said.

Lance moved toward him. Not fast. Not slow. Just enough to crowd the air between them. He reached out, fingers brushing the side of Edward's neck, brief, grounding, familiar. The kind of touch that said: You're mine for now.

"When morning comes," Lance said, voice low, "we'll be us again."

He turned away before Edward could answer.

The cage didn't feel like a punishment.

It felt like being known.

He curled into the narrow space, letting it hold him. Metal against shoulder blade. Blanket tucked beneath his cheek. The ache in his knees pulsed in time with his heartbeat, sharp-edged and grounding.

And then he was gone.

Morning came slow.

He woke with the weight of rest settled deep in his bones. The kind of rest that left no splinters behind. His body was sore, but it wasn't tension. It was evidence. He stretched until the bars caught his limbs, a breath huffing from his mouth as he smiled into the silence.

Ridiculous.

Completely, utterly—

His fingers grazed the cage wall. His breath settled.

—exactly what he needed.

Somewhere in the house, something clattered. The low murmur of movement. A voice, not speaking to him. A smell curling through the air: sugar, butter, heat.

Edward crawled out slowly, not rushing the shift back into a body that belonged to the day.

By the time he reached the kitchen, Lance was standing at the stove. Barefoot. T-shirt clinging to the small of his back. He flipped a pancake with lazy precision, then glanced over his shoulder.

"Look who survived the night."

Edward leaned against the counter. Didn't bother with a reply.

Lance didn't press.

The kitchen smelled like Sunday mornings, which brought a small smile to his lips.

"You're grinning like an idiot," Lance said after a moment.

Edward didn’t respond right away. He let his gaze drift across the kitchen, pretending to study the pattern of the tile like it might reveal something worth knowing. The sunlight through the window hit the floor in soft squares, warming the worn grout. He didn’t look at Lance.

A plate slid toward him across the table. The scrape of ceramic against wood. He took it without a word.

The kitchen smelled the way it always had: coffee grounds, cedar polish, something low and leathery in the walls. It was the kind of space that broadcast man in every detail: the dark, heavy wood of the cabinets, the worn-in barstools that creaked under weight, the scuffed boots by the door no one ever moved. A scent like time and sweat and saddle soap lingered in the corners. Lived in. Male. Familiar.

He’d spent so many nights here once, half-drunk and barefoot, ribs aching from laughter or bruises or both. He used to know every inch of this house in the dark where Lance kept the good whiskey, which step creaked, how to work the shitty toaster without setting off the smoke alarm. The ghosts of it wrapped around him now, not haunting but present. Like muscle memory. Like home, almost.

They ate in silence for a while. Just the rhythmic clink of forks against plates, syrup dragging slow and sticky across their food. It was the kind of quiet that hung heavy but comfortable; like the hush after a storm, when the world hasn’t quite decided what to say next. A silence shaped by history. One that didn’t beg to be filled.

Lance shifted, his chair creaking under him. He didn’t lift his head. “You still have it.”

Edward didn’t ask what he meant. He just kept chewing, steady and unbothered.

"That... whatever it is," Lance went on, tone quieter now. "The way you go under. The way it happens fast. Like breathing."

Edward let his fork trail through the syrup again, watching it glisten. He tilted his head slightly. "It's not breathing."

"No?"

He shook his head once, eyes still lowered. “It’s drowning. But you know how.”

Lance leaned back, letting the words settle. He didn’t argue. Just exhaled slow, like something inside him had unclenched. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Yeah, that’s it.”

The silence stretched again, thicker now, but not tense. Just full. Like both of them were keeping their hands on something fragile. Something alive.

Edward let his shoulders relax, just a little. Let himself sink into the moment, into the weight of the chair beneath him, the faint scratch of stubble on his jaw, the warmth of the coffee mug near his hand. He’d missed this. Not just the house. Not just the scent of leather and morning and years.

He missed Lance.

His best friend, sitting just across from him but still somehow far away. Time had pulled at the threads between them, but they hadn’t snapped. Not completely.

The kitchen ticked faintly around them. Old house sounds. The whir of the fridge, the faint crackle of settling wood.

Then Lance nudged Edward’s foot under the table, a small, deliberate press.

“Thanks.”

Edward arched a brow, glancing at him sidelong. “For what?”

Lance didn’t answer. Just gave him a smile, crooked and uneven. The kind that showed teeth but never quite reached the eyes.

Edward held his gaze a second longer, something unreadable flickering there, then dropped his eyes back to his plate.

“Was about to say the same.”

That was it. No declarations. No confessions. Just the quiet kind of understanding that lives in shared spaces, in the places between sentences.

Chapter 8: Admissions

Notes:

I would love any and all feedback! I am very new to AO3!

Edward hadn't meant to come.

He stood at the edge of Sykes' porch like he was trying to convince his own feet to walk backwards. One hand still rested on the steering wheel of his car, keys digging into the fabric of his pocket, his brain a quiet warzone.

The porch light buzzed. Faint, fluorescent. A street dog barked twice; the sound reminded him of a ticking clock. Or a warning.

Sykes opened the door with a look that made Edward's stomach twist. It wasn't a surprise, not really. Edward paused on the threshold, like crossing it meant something. He cleared his throat, something neutral, like a cough could somehow pass for casual. "You baking again?"

Sykes huffed a quiet laugh, the kind that might've been disbelief or just his default setting. "What, you think I just glower in the dark?"

Honestly? Yes. That was exactly what Edward thought. Sykes seemed like some kind of brooding sadist, existing solely to loom in hallways and make men unravel with a single look. The idea of Sykes in an apron felt almost sacrilegious. As the days passed, it became increasingly clear to Edward that he might have spent too much time away from the scene.

The door clicked shut behind him, followed by the careful turn of a lock. Not loud, but deliberate.

There was a tray of cookies on the kitchen counter, golden and imperfect around the edges, still steaming. Something about them hit harder than it should've. They weren't pretty. Weren't meant to impress. They were just there.

Sykes gestured lazily. "Cookie?"

Edward just stared. Sugar cookies, most likely. Simple. Comforting. They belonged at a PTA meeting, not in the kitchen of a man who Edward felt an inexplicable pull towards. A small, twisted part of him resented Sykes for being so ordinary. For having depth. For refusing to fit into the neat, contemptible little box Edward had crafted for him.

"Not too sweet," Sykes said, like he could read minds now. "Figured you'd hate it."

Edward almost smiled. Almost. His jaw twitched instead. Some indecipherable cocktail of amusement, irritation, and the steady unraveling of his grip. He reached out anyway.

Their fingers touched. Just a graze.

"I didn't come for cookies," he said, and his voice was all wrong, too rough, too low, like something that lived under the skin had finally clawed its way out.

Sykes didn't reply immediately. Just met his eyes and held them. No smile. No challenge. Just that unnerving steadiness, like he was waiting for the rest of Edward to catch up.

"I know," he said.

And then he turned. Moved to the sink with that infuriating calm of his. Like he had all the time in the world. Like this, Edward falling apart at inconvenient hours, was just part of his evening routine. He washed a mug like it mattered, like he wasn't performing calm but was calm. That restraint... God, that restraint made something twist inside Edward, raw and sharp.

Edward placed the cookie down, untouched. It hit the counter with a soft thunk. He hadn't meant to say anything. Never did. He was good at silence. Practiced. Sharp-edged. But something about standing in this too quiet kitchen, across from a man who refused to fill the air with nonsense, loosened the screws.

"I keep trying to bury her," he said.

The words were out before he knew they were coming. No warning. Just breath and then betrayal. He didn't even look at Sykes just focused on some unremarkable patch of wall like it might do him the courtesy of swallowing him whole.

It was absurd, wasn't it? How much he'd told this man. They weren't friends. Barely even acquaintances. And yet here he was, confiding in him. Like he wanted to Sykes to know all his deepest fears.

He didn't trust Sykes. He wasn't that far gone. But there was a pull there. Something unnameable, magnetic. Something that didn't give a damn about rationality or boundaries or good sense.

"She didn't hide," he murmured. "She burned."

And when Lily came back, she always came back in flames. Never soft. Never gentle. She wasn't memory so much as combustion. Alive in ways that still scorched him.

"She scared people," he added, almost fond. "But not me. Well, not in the same way she scared everyone"

He leaned against the counter like his body needed something to hold it up. Like grief had bad posture and took up too much space in his spine.

"She made it easy to give everything."

That had been the trap, hadn't it? The certainty. The permanence they'd built that had no blueprint for what happened after. Because there wasn't supposed to be an after.

And yet.

When he looked up, Sykes hadn't moved. Still across the room. Still watching. Arms crossed, not defensive, not cold. Just there. Solid in a way that people usually weren't.

"There's no fixing it," Edward said. More confession than comment. "I tried. Tried to be good. Kind. Useful. A good doctor. A man people could rely on."

He laughed, bitter and humorless. The kind of laugh that had teeth.

"Turns out that doesn't make it go away."

"No," Sykes said simply. "It doesn't."

The steadiness in Sykes' voice made something coil tight in Edward's chest, not relief, though he tried to name it that. He told himself it was comfort, the kind that came when someone didn't flinch from the wreckage you brought with you. But that was a lie. The truth sat lower, heavier. It was the control threaded through Sykes' every word and movement, the quiet authority that didn't ask to be recognized but was impossible to miss once you knew how to see it. His ease was deliberate, curated for the vanilla world. A mask, not a deception, but a boundary. A warning.

Edward hadn't meant to talk. Not like this. He'd come for the distraction, for the company. For the safety of proximity without pressure. A quiet evening. Cookies. The illusion of normalcy. But now here he was, saying things he hadn't planned to share out loud. Things he barely admitted to himself.

"I keep trying to shut it off," he said eventually, his voice low and frayed at the edges. "The part of me that belonged to her. That... wants."

The last word hung there, soft but unmissable. A surrender in miniature.

He didn't know what made him say it, only that Sykes made silence feel like something you could fall into, and talking like something you didn't have to brace for. That was a kind of danger he hadn't prepared for. A softness that slipped in beneath the skin. Sykes didn't interrupt, didn't shift or offer platitudes. He just stood there, arms still loosely folded, gaze steady but not invasive.

Edward glanced down at his hands. They were resting lightly on the counter, but his fingers had gone still, curled faintly inward like his body had caught the gravity of the moment before his mind had.

"I don't think I know how to want without hurting," he said, more to the space between them than to Sykes directly.

Still no answer. Just the faint creak of the house settling and the soft hum of the refrigerator, as if the room itself were holding its breath.

Edward reached for the cookie he'd abandoned earlier, needing something tactile and realising he never actually tried it.

"What the hell," he muttered. The cookie tasted incredible.

That earned him the faintest ghost of a smile, just one corner of Sykes' mouth twitching up like it had been drawn there against his will. "Told you. I bake."

"No one should be allowed to be this good at a hobby," Edward said, half under his breath, wiping a crumb from the corner of his mouth.

Edward didn't rush to fill the silence, didn't flinch from it this time. He let it rest between them like breath, like a break he hadn't realised he needed. And god, he had needed this, this pause, this strange and improbable shelter in the middle of someone else's kitchen.

He looked down at his hand, curled loosely on the counter like it didn't belong to him, like it hadn't been trembling earlier. Then his gaze lifted again, slow, deliberate, and settled on Sykes. The man was just there, still, impossibly present. Listening. Not recoiling. Not correcting. Not trying to fix him.

Why was he even listening?

Edward didn't know. Couldn't begin to guess. He'd walked into this man's house with no right, no invitation, and spilled himself open like a split fruit: messy, too much, unasked for. Trauma dumped like someone without shame, without manners. But Sykes hadn't stopped him. Hadn't looked away.

And that, that, cut deeper than he expected. Because he hadn't realised just how badly he needed to say this, until he was here, in Syke's kitchen. And maybe it was easier this way confessing to someone who wasn't tangled in his past, who didn't look at him with pity or old understanding. Maybe it made sense, in the strangest way, to give his ruin to a stranger.

"If I go back into it..." he said slowly, the words pulled from somewhere deeper than before, "it won't be like it was with her."

"No," Sykes said. Not unkind. Not detached. Just honest.

That one syllable held weight. Not the weight of disappointment or judgment, just the truth. Edward didn't look away. Didn't blink. And Sykes didn't, either.

It wasn't a challenge. It wasn't even tension. It was gravity. The subtle pull of something shifting in orbit.

"I only ever knew Lily," Edward said, his voice quieter now, more internal. "And I know of others, I suppose, but none of them ever... called to me. None of them felt like something I wanted to give myself to."

Sykes didn't move. But something about the stillness changed. Like he was bracing for himself. As though he'd heard this before, and knew what it meant to be the one someone chose after grief.

Edward hesitated, then asked, almost without sound, "What are you like?"

Sykes' expression didn't shift at first. The silence that followed wasn't hesitation, it was intention. He let the question settle. Let Edward feel the choice of having asked it.

When he finally answered, it came slower. Quieter. Not coy, not seductive. Just stripped of performance.

"I don't want someone who serves me because it makes them feel good," he said. "I want someone who serves me because it costs them not to. Because they don't know how to be without it."

Edward went very still.

It wasn't the intensity of the words. It was the truth in them. The way they landed; something his body already understood. And Sykes watched it all; the way Edward's hand tightened around the glass. How his thumb traced condensation like it was muscle memory. He didn't call attention to it. Just took it in.

"And the sadism?" Edward asked, the words catching slightly as they left him.

Sykes tilted his head, just a fraction. "The physical part is easy," he said. "That's play. It's the emotional part that's harder."

Edward's throat worked around a swallow. "Harder how?"

"I don't just want to hurt someone," Sykes said, his voice softer now. "I want to take them apart. Strip them down to what's real. And rebuild them in the shape I choose."

It wasn't a threat. It wasn't even dark. It was... inevitable. A truth spoken with the same cadence someone might use to describe the tide.

Edward didn't flinch. But he felt it, every word. Felt it like the echo of a bruise you'd forgotten about until something pressed against it. He looked away. Down. The ache in his chest wasn't fear. It was want. Terrible, aching want.

"I think I'd be willing," he said at last, the words quiet and careful. "To try. With you."

It sounded too open. Too raw. The kind of admission you don't come back from. His pulse kicked up as soon as the words landed. Too fast. Too loud. He couldn't tell if he wanted to take it back or double down.

Sykes didn't answer immediately. He studied Edward in silence; his face unreadable, save for a slight narrowing of his eyes. Then he nodded. Just once.

"I know."

The room didn't relax. If anything, it grew taut with something denser. An invisible thread pulled tight between them, and Edward could feel it winding around his ribs.

Sykes reached lazily for the tray on the table, broke a cookie in half, and took a bite with the casual indifference of a man who hadn't just dismantled someone's emotional defenses. Crumbs clung to the corner of his mouth. He didn't brush them away.

Edward watched him chew, unnerved by the contrast. How easily Sykes moved from emotional warfare to baked goods. How human he could seem, even after making Edward feel like his bones had been rearranged.

"You always this unbearable?" Edward asked, trying for dry humor. It came out a little hoarse.

Sykes grinned around his bite. "Only with people worth breaking."

It wasn't flirtation. Not really. But it made something twist low in Edward's stomach. His leg bounced, barely perceptible under the table.

He looked away. Swallowed hard. "You're full of yourself."

Sykes shrugged. "I usually am. But I'm rarely wrong."

Edward leaned back, pressing into the couch like it might swallow him whole. His jaw clenched and unclenched. "I didn't think I'd ever... after Lily, I didn't think anyone could be intense enough."

Sykes' expression didn't change, but he stilled slightly. That perceptive silence again. That way he had of watching people that made Edward feel like he was being undressed layer by layer.

"Intense enough," Sykes echoed.

Edward's fingers curled loosely on the couch cushion. "I know how that sounds."

"Like you're a self-important asshole?" Sykes offered, one brow raised. "A little."

A huff of air escaped Edward's nose. Almost a laugh. "It's not that. It's just..." He trailed off. Shrugged. "What I want—it's a lot."

That got Sykes' attention. Not a mocking smile this time. Something sharper. Focused. Like a scent he was tracking.

"A lot how?" he asked, quiet.

Edward didn't answer right away. His gaze dropped to the floor. His hand rubbed absently at his sternum like there was something caught beneath it.

"I don't think I should say."

"You're an adult," Sykes said. "You can say whatever you need to."

Edward looked up, slowly. His eyes were tired. But his jaw had a new tension to it. "It's not easy."

"I know." Sykes leaned back, giving the moment space. "But if you're serious—if you're actually willing to feel this—you have to stop lying to yourself first."

The silence was longer this time. Edward's breath came shallow. He felt like he was standing on the edge of something enormous and hollow, and he didn't know if the bottom was jagged rocks or water.

"I don't know where to start," he said at last.

"Good." Sykes smiled faintly. "Then you're ready."

He stood up, stretching slowly, every movement unrushed. "Next weekend," he said. "Friday, six p.m. I come over. You belong to me until Saturday, six p.m. No half-measures. No safe distance. You don't have to like it. You just have to let it happen."

Edward's stomach dropped. His whole body prickled like it was adjusting to new gravity.

"Then Saturday night," Sykes added, turning his head, "we're just us again. I bake something too sweet. You sit on my couch and whine about how your back hurts and stay until you're ready to leave."

Edward blinked. "Gross and cozy?"

"Non-negotiable." Sykes gave a little mock-salute. "I refuse to be the kind of sadist who doesn't know how to eat cookies and watch bad movies after emotionally wrecking someone."

Edward let out a short, disbelieving laugh. "That's... oddly specific."

"Some things are sacred."

Edward didn't move. He couldn't. He was trying to catch up—to reconcile the man who wanted to break him with the man who insisted on shared desserts and aftercare that felt suspiciously close to affection.

"I don't know if I'm ready," he said softly.

"That's fine." Sykes started toward the kitchen. "But if you want to stop being scared and start being—come over Wednesday. Dinner. We'll negotiate."

Edward sat there, pulse hammering in his throat, and pressed a hand flat against his chest.

He didn't know what the hell he was doing.

But somewhere, beneath the fear and grief and guilt, something had begun to stir.

Something like want.

Something like hope.

Or maybe just something that hurt better.

Chapter 9: The Shape of Need

Edward had too much time to think. The hospital, usually a relentless tide of movement and urgency, had settled into an unnatural lull. The sterile walls of the ER, normally filled with the sharp sounds of alarms and hurried footsteps, were eerily silent. Today, there were no high stakes traumas, no emergency codes blaring through the halls. It was just a trickle of minor injuries and routine cases. The frantic pace of work that normally kept his mind occupied had stuttered, leaving space for thoughts he'd rather not entertain. The minutes dragged, stretching the hours into something sluggish and heavy.

It should have been a relief, a moment to catch his breath. But instead, it felt suffocating.

Edward moved mechanically through the morning, performing his tasks with the precision drilled into him by years of medical training. He checked charts, confirmed lab results, made small talk with the nurses, and lingered too long in the break room, where the conversation was hollow, devoid of the usual drama. Everyone was in their own bubble, which was extremely inconvenient on a day where he craved a distraction.

His mind wandered, and he thought about the evening that awaited him: Sykes. The idea of their negotiating tonight sent a mixture of fear, adrenaline, and excitement through him, a stark contrast to the slow burn of his day. And then, his mind wandered to Lance, and how for the first time in a long time he felt themselves getting back to their old ways. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so... social. It was a strange thought, and yet it lingered, clinging to the back of his mind like an itch he couldn't quite scratch. He had grown comfortable over the past few years in the routine of his interactions with Lance. But now, in this quiet hospital, he began to realise just how lonely his life had been in that time.

He hadn't realised until now just how few people he spent time with outside of the hospital. Was this what loneliness felt like? He had friends in the past, but they were either all scattered now, their lives moving in different directions, or they had grown distant over the past three years as he attempted to shut everyone out. And when it came to hobbies, his focus had always been so single minded. Medicine had been his life for so long. And BDSM. Was that enough? He wondered if he should seek out something else, something to fill the void. Maybe a class, or a group, something outside of work.

But the thought didn't linger long. As quickly as it had come, it disappeared, replaced by the familiar buzz of anxiety in the pit of his stomach. Tonight. Tonight. He shook his head, trying to banish the thoughts and focus on the mundane tasks at hand. But the silence of the hospital had its hold on him, pulling him deeper into himself. God, he could not wait for this shift to be over, even if he was terrified at what would come after.

By lunchtime, Dr. Patal collapsed into the chair across from him, her white coat billowing slightly before settling around her shoulders. She dropped her salad onto the table with a heavy sigh, rubbing at her temple like she was trying to massage the frustration out of her skull.

"Men are the worst," she announced.

Edward barely glanced up from his coffee. He'd been looking forward to these few minutes to distract himself on his phone with TikTok; just him, the bitter heat of caffeine, and whatever videos todays algorithm suggested. But he also knew better than to ignore that particular tone in her voice.

He took a slow sip before answering. "Rough morning?"

She scoffed. "No, rough dating life." The plastic fork in her hand flexed under the force of her grip as she stabbed at her salad. "I went out with another guy last night. He had all the right stats: tall, kinda intimidating in a non threatening way, easy on the eyes. My type, right? And then he spends the whole date talking about his ex."

Edward winced, setting his coffee down. "Oof."

"Right?" She punctuated the word with an emphatic gesture of her fork. "The one before that? Wanted to split the check after making me listen to his crypto pitches for two hours. The one before that got aggressively offended when I didn't want to go back to his place after a first date. And the one before—"

"How many of these are there?" Edward cut in, the corner of his mouth twitching despite himself.

Dr. Patal groaned, pushing her salad away like even looking at it exhausted her. "Too many." She slumped back in her chair, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes before exhaling sharply. "I think I might just give up and get a cat."

Edward smirked, rolling his coffee cup between his hands. "Probably less maintenance."

"Exactly." She let her hands drop and pointed her fork at him, squinting. "And a cat wouldn't expect me to laugh at bad jokes or pretend to be impressed by their job title."

He knew what was coming before she even said it.

"What about you?" she asked, tilting her head. "Any romantic entanglements keeping you busy?"

His grip on the cup stilled.

The words should have been easy just a casual 'no,' a deflection, a change of subject. Instead, they stuck, snagging somewhere between thought and speech.

What was he supposed to call it? Whatever he had with Sykes wasn't dating. It wasn't casual, either. It wasn't even defined, which was probably the problem. It wasn't something he could summarize in the space of a lunch break, and yet, his brain immediately filled with snapshots of last night's dream.

The press of Sykes' fingertips against his throat, light but firm. The sharp, assessing look in his eyes. The quiet hum of consideration before he'd leaned in, just close enough to make Edward feel pinned in place without ever actually touching him fully. The heat in his own body that had nothing to do with arousal and everything to do with response.

He swallowed, clearing his throat. "I... I'm kind of... seeing someone."

Dr. Patal arched an eyebrow, slow and deliberate. "Kind of?"

Edward exhaled through his nose, glancing down at his coffee. "It's complicated."

She studied him, and for a brief moment, he worried she might actually dig into it, press for details he wasn't ready to give. But then she just shrugged, turning back to her food with an air of forced nonchalance.

She studied him for a moment, something thoughtful passing behind her expression before she nodded. "Fair enough. If you ever want to talk about it, you know where to find me." Then, after a pause, she added, "I could use a friend right now anyway. Dinner tomorrow night? Promise only as a friend"

He let out a slow breath, tension easing just slightly. "Yeah. That sounds nice."

Dr. Patal smiled. "Good. And I promise, no complaining about bad dates. Well... maybe just a little."

Edward huffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head as she returned to her salad. The conversation drifted to work, patients, schedules, the never-ending bureaucracy of hospital life, but the quiet stretched between cases, leaving him too much time to think. His mind circled back to Sykes, to the weight of what they hadn't yet said out loud, to the anticipation that coiled tighter with every passing hour.

By the time his shift ended, the stillness had become unbearable.

Edward stepped into Sykes' house, the warmth of something spiced and slow-cooked curling through the air. It felt like the kind of meal meant to fill the stomach and quiet the mind. It did nothing to steady him.

Sykes was already in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, moving with an unhurried precision that made Edward feel like he was always two steps behind. The dim lighting cast deep shadows in the corners, making the space feel smaller, more intimate than it had any right to be. The scent of something rich and simmering curled through the air, wrapping around Edward before he even stepped fully inside.

Sykes reached for a second wine glass before he even asked the question, as if the answer had never been in doubt. It wasn't, really. Edward exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck, feeling the tension there. He nodded, and Sykes handed him the glass, the cool press of it grounding but fleeting. Their fingers didn't quite touch, a detail so small it should have meant nothing. It didn't.

Edward took a slow sip, letting the taste settle on his tongue, but his attention kept slipping back to the man at the stove. Sykes moved like he had all the time in the world, like nothing between them was delicate, like Edward wasn't standing here with something too sharp curling in his chest. Like they weren't about to talk about things that would leave him feeling stripped down to the bone.

When Sykes finally turned his gaze on him, it was steady, unreadable. "Nervous?"

Edward huffed, forcing himself to roll his shoulders back. "Should I be?"

Sykes didn't answer right away. He stirred the pot, slow and deliberate, before setting the spoon aside and leaning against the counter. A moment stretched between them, the pause heavier than it should have been. Then, finally, Sykes offered something infuriatingly vague. "That depends."

Edward arched a brow, the corner of his mouth twitching despite himself. "Depends on what?"

Sykes smirked, taking a sip of his wine before answering, like he was savoring the moment. Like he already knew exactly how this would go. "On how honest you're willing to be."

Something unsteady unfurled in Edward's stomach, heat pooling in places he didn't want to examine too closely. He let the silence settle instead, didn't trust himself to fill it just yet. The weight of the glass in his hand felt more significant than it should, an anchor he wasn't sure he wanted.

Sykes tilted his head toward the table. "Sit. Eat. Then we talk." The words weren't a suggestion.

Edward sat, but his body remained taut, the anticipation threading through his ribs making every bite feel secondary to the air between them. The food was good, better than he had expected, but he barely tasted it. Sykes ate like he did everything else, with an unwavering steadiness, an ease that made Edward feel restless in comparison.

Halfway through his plate, Edward broke the silence, the question slipping out before he could think better of it. "You do this with everyone?"

Sykes lifted his gaze, chewing with deliberate slowness before answering. "Negotiate over dinner?" He let the words linger before adding, "Only the ones I want to keep."

The words landed somewhere low and warm, knocking something off balance inside Edward. He forced another bite into his mouth, as if that would do anything to settle the shift in his stomach. It didn't.

Sykes finished his meal before speaking again, leaning back in his chair, fingers wrapping loosely around the stem of his glass as he studied Edward. "You ready to talk?"

Edward swallowed, setting his fork down with more care than necessary. He had been ready the moment he stepped inside. He had been ready before that.

He nodded.

Sykes nodded. "Good." He set his own silverware aside, fingers tapping lightly against the stem of his glass. His expression was unreadable, but there was something in the way he watched Edward that made the air between them feel heavy. Expectant. "Tell me what you want."

The words struck like a blow, quiet but unrelenting, threading through the dimly lit space between them. Edward exhaled sharply, gripping his glass a little too tightly, the cool condensation slick between his fingers. His knuckles whitened. "That's... a broad question."

Sykes smiled. Not a grin, not a smirk, but something slow and knowing, something that threatened to unspool the careful restraint Edward had spent years tightening. "I like broad questions."

Of course he did. Sykes enjoyed the unraveling, the way people danced around their own desires, tripping over their own shame before he stripped them bare of pretense. He liked to watch them squirm, peeling back their defenses layer by layer until there was nothing left but truth. And he always knew, he just wanted them to say it.

Edward shook his head, his fingers loosening just slightly around the glass, but not enough to let go. "You already know."

Sykes tilted his head, considering, his expression that particular shade of patient amusement that made Edward's stomach twist. "I know what I think. Doesn't mean I know what you'll admit to."

Edward hated that. Hated how easily Sykes carved into the spaces he didn't want to examine. Hated that he was right. That he was always right.

He inhaled slowly, trying to settle the restless heat curling under his skin, the anticipation thrumming deep in his bones. "I want..." The words caught, rough at the edges, barbed wire in his throat. He swallowed hard and forced them past his teeth. "I want the weekend."

A heartbeat of silence.

Sykes didn't react immediately. He only watched, gaze level, fingers still against his glass. Edward felt that gaze like a weight, pressing, peeling, exposing. Then, finally, a single question. "And what does that mean to you?"

Edward's stomach twisted tighter. He had forgotten how hard this part was. Negotiation was necessary, of course, but it felt clinical, dissecting something that should have been instinctual. A slave shouldn't need to dictate what is done to him. He should simply serve. Be taken. Be used. That was the purity of it. That was the point. But Sykes would not let him hide behind vague submission.

Edward swallowed. "I want to be used. I want to be hurt. I want to take whatever you give me."

Sykes hummed, unimpressed. It wasn't enough. It never would be.

"And when six pm hits on Saturday?" Sykes asked. "What do you want to feel?"

Edward exhaled, rolling his shoulders like he could shake the tension loose. He could be hurt. He could be used. He could be humiliated if that's what Sykes wanted. He could take whatever was given to him, endure whatever pain, whatever pleasure, whatever torment Sykes saw fit. But that wasn't really the point, was it?

His voice was quieter this time, but steady. "I want to feel like I was good."

Sykes' smirk softened into something more thoughtful, more calculating. "You want to serve. You want to be broken down, used, and at the end of it all, you want me to tell you that you did well."

Edward's throat felt tight. He nodded. "Yes."

Sykes nodded once, slow and deliberate. "Hard limits?"

Edward exhaled, trying to remember how to breathe. "No permanent damage. No scat. No mention of my vanilla life."

"Safe word?" Sykes asked, voice even, but there was something in his gaze now, something sharp and knowing.

Edward hesitated. "Mercy." His jaw tightened, his fingers pressing against the base of his glass. "I would be surprised if you make me say it. I need you to understand my preference is to push myself beyond my own limits. I will not be satisfied if you stop the moment I struggle."

Sykes' fingers tapped once against the table, slow and deliberate. His voice dropped, soft and thoughtful. "You want me to hold you past where you'd say it."

Edward clenched his jaw. "Yes."

Something flickered in Sykes' expression pleasure, hunger, approval. A slow burn of satisfaction curled at the edges of his gaze. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table, his presence pressing in, making the room feel smaller. "That means you need to trust me."

Edward hesitated. The answer hovered on the edge of his tongue, too instinctive, too quick. He forced himself to pause, to consider, but the truth had already settled deep in his bones. "I do."

Sykes' lips twitched, the barest hint of a smirk breaking through the steady intensity of his gaze. The satisfaction in his expression was almost worse than his usual unreadable calm. "Then this is what we're doing."

The words sent a shiver down Edward's spine, the finality of them wrapping around his ribs like a vice. Sykes would take him apart. Sykes would strip him down to nothing and remake him in his own image, and Edward—God help him—wanted it. Needed it.

"Friday, six pm to Saturday, six pm, you're mine," Sykes said, each word a weight sinking into Edward's skin. "No hesitation. No half-measures. You want to feel good? You give me everything."

Edward's fingers flexed against the table. It was too much. It was exactly what he wanted.

He nodded once. "Okay."

Sykes exhaled, gaze never leaving his. "Then you'll earn it."

Heat curled in Edward's stomach, hot and restless. He wanted to chase that approval, to dig his fingers into it and hold on tight. His body ached with the weight of unspoken want, anticipation threading through his ribs.

Sykes pushed back from the table and stood, stretching with unhurried ease. He stepped closer, reaching out, fingers grazing Edward's jaw with something almost like amusement. "Friday, six p.m.," he murmured. "Be ready."

Edward inhaled sharply, the weight of his own decision pressing against his ribs. He was in trouble. He just wasn't sure how much yet.

Chapter 10: Friends, Apparently

Edward wasn't sure when he had last gone out for a casual dinner with someone who wasn't Lance.

Dr. Patal had suggested the restaurant, some small but well-reviewed spot tucked into a quieter part of the city. It had good wine, better food, and the kind of ambiance that encouraged people to settle in and stay a while. Edward had no real reason to decline, and after the long week they'd both had, unwinding over a decent meal didn't sound like the worst idea.

It turned out to be a better idea than he expected.

They talked about the hospital, of course, because they always did. They shared gripes about administration, rolled their eyes over patient drama, and swapped stories about this weeks strangest cases. But at some point, the conversation slipped past work. It wasn't intentional, just easy, as if they had always talked like this.

Dr. Patal had an easy way about her when she let her guard down. She was sharp, witty, and unafraid to call him out when he said something ridiculous. She was also, he realized, more open than he had ever seen her.

She told him about her brother's upcoming wedding and the absurd family drama surrounding it. He told her about the worst blind date Lance had ever set him up on back when they were both fresh faced 18 year olds. She laughed so hard she nearly choked on her drink.

By the time the plates were cleared, and the last of the wine was poured, Edward felt something settle between them. Not tension, not expectation. Just something easy. Comfortable.

When they finally stepped out onto the street, Dr. Patal took a deep breath of the cool night air, stretching her arms above her head before letting them drop. Then, without hesitation, she turned to him and declared, "We're friends now."

Edward blinked. "We are?"

"Yes." She nodded as if that settled it. "Not just coworkers. Friends."

A small laugh escaped him, and he shoved his hands into his pockets. "That so?"

"Yes," she said again, this time softer. Then, with an almost self-deprecating shrug, she added, "I could use a friend."

It was quiet, that admission, but not uncertain. He glanced at her, at the way her usual sharp edges seemed a little softer under the streetlights. She wasn't someone who asked for things easily. He understood that.

Edward nodded once. "Okay."

She grinned, looking oddly satisfied, then gestured toward the park ahead of them. "Walk with me?"

He did.

They cut through the park, the sounds of the city fading beneath the rustle of trees and the distant laughter of late-night wanderers. Dr. Patal walked with her hands in her coat pockets, her steps slow and measured. The wine had loosened her, but it had also made her pensive.

The air was cool but not cold, the kind of early evening breeze that carried the warmth of the day on its edges. The path beneath their feet crunched lightly with every step, gravel shifting under their weight. Somewhere in the distance, a car horn blared, the sound bouncing between the trees before fading into the quiet hum of the city beyond the park. Dr. Patal walked with an easy confidence, hands tucked into her coat pockets, the crisp autumn air barely touching her.

She broke the companionable silence with a sudden, almost theatrical sigh. "I went on a date last week."

Edward glanced at her, surprised by the abrupt shift. "That so?"

She nodded, her expression thoughtful. "Yes. With a gorgeous woman. Absolutely stunning. And smart. And funny."

It was always the same story with her promising in the beginning, then something went wrong. Edward waited for the inevitable turn.

"And?" he prompted.

She kicked at a stray pebble, watching it skitter across the path before exhaling sharply. "She was too soft. Or maybe I was too much. Either way, it was very civilised. Too civilised. She told me she liked my confidence and then got scared of it in the same breath."

Edward smirked. "Tragic."

Dr. Patal shot him a flat look, dark eyes narrowing. "Don't mock me. It's hard out here."

"Oh, I believe you." He didn't doubt for a second that she was a lot to handle. She carried herself with an intensity that either captivated or intimidated. There was rarely an in-between.

She muttered something under her breath, then added, "Men are worse."

That made him raise an eyebrow. "Worse?"

She gestured vaguely, nearly stumbling on an uneven patch of gravel before recovering with a huff. "They're either too tame or too unsafe. There is no middle ground."

Edward considered that, hands slipping into his coat pockets. "And what's the middle ground?"

She turned to him then, a knowing glint in her eye. "Why? You volunteering?"

Edward sighed, already regretting engaging. "I walked into that."

"You really did." She grinned, but there was something more analytical in her gaze now, like she was considering a new puzzle. "Actually, wait. You're one of the good ones, aren't you?"

He frowned. "I have no idea what that means."

"Oh, you do." She waved a hand at him as if presenting undeniable evidence. "You're vanilla, right?"

Edward stopped walking for a moment, processing. "Excuse me?"

Dr. Patal laughed, looping her arm through his before he could escape and pulling him along. "Come on, you're good looking, you're responsible, and you're not a total disaster. You'd be the kind of guy who's good in bed but, you know, politely. Very... thoughtful. Very nice."

Edward pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling slowly. "Jesus Christ."

"I bet you make eye contact."

"I hate you."

"No, you don't. We're friends now."

Edward sighed again, letting himself be led along the winding path. The trees lining the walkway swayed gently, leaves rustling in hushed conversation. The golden hour light softened the world around them, stretching shadows and painting everything in warm hues.

Dr. Patal nudged him. "So? How's Mrs complicated going?"

He hesitated. Not long, just a fraction of a second. But she caught it immediately.

Her eyes lit up. "Oh my god, it is still going."

"It's not—" He exhaled sharply, shaking his head. "It's not like that."

"It's always like that." She practically vibrated with interest, watching him closely. "Who is it?"

Edward could have deflected, should have deflected. But something about the evening, the easy conversation, made him answer before he thought better of it. "It's a guy."

Dr. Patal stopped in her tracks, nearly yanking him off balance. Then, just as quickly, her face split into a beaming smile. "Oh my god."

Edward groaned. "Don't."

"Are you kidding? I need details."

"You need restraint."

"I need to know if he's hot."

Edward shot her an unimpressed look. "Go home, Dr. Patal."

She grinned, victorious, and resumed walking, practically bouncing now. "Tell me he's hot, Edward."

Edward sighed, gaze lifting toward the darkening sky. But he didn't correct her.

She caught that, too. And if her delighted laughter was anything to go by, she wasn't letting this go anytime soon.

The walk home stretched longer than Edward expected, though that was largely Dr. Patal's fault. She had a habit of taking the scenic route, winding through the well-lit paths that wove between the hospital parking lot and the surrounding neighborhood. It wasn't unpleasant, late evening had settled in, casting the world in a cool, quiet hush. The streetlights flickered on, painting the pavement in soft, golden halos, and the distant hum of traffic filled the silence between their footsteps.

Not that there was much silence with Dr. Patal.

"So, what's he like?" she pressed, nudging his arm.

Edward exhaled slowly, watching his breath ghost in the chill night air. He should've known she wouldn't let it go. "Why do you care?"

"Because I am a deeply nosy person," she declared, utterly unashamed. "And because I've never seen you look quite so much like you swallowed a live grenade."

Edward scowled, but she wasn't wrong.

She went on, clearly enjoying herself. "So? Mysterious man. How long have you been seeing him?"

"It's new."

"Oh? How new?"

He hesitated. He could feel her watching him, eyes sharp with curiosity, but he wasn't ready to lay everything out. There was too much in this, too many pieces of himself he hadn't yet examined, too much weight in every word that he hadn't quite settled in his own mind.

Instead, he deflected. "New enough that I don't want an interview about it."

Dr. Patal sighed, but she didn't push. Instead, she tucked her hands into the pockets of her coat and kicked absently at the pavement. "Fine, be secretive. Just tell me this, does he make you happy?"

That was the real question, wasn't it?

Edward swallowed. "I don't know him well enough yet,"

She hummed at that, watching him sidelong. "But you're drawn to him."

His jaw tensed, but he nodded.

And that, apparently, was answer enough.

For the rest of the way home, they let the conversation flow back to easier topics. The kind that raised between people who knew how to let conversation breathe. By the time they reached his building, Dr. Patal was lamenting about some minor workplace drama, something about an intern who kept calling her "ma'am" in a way that felt deliberately patronising, but she still threw him one last look as he reached for his keys.

"Whoever he is," she said, more serious now, "I hope he's good for you."

Edward didn't answer. He wasn't sure he knew how.

Once inside, Edward locked the door and exhaled slowly. The quiet pressed in, thick and unyielding, wrapping around him like a weighted blanket.

He should shower. Eat something. Sleep.

Instead, he paced.

Tomorrow. The scene was tomorrow.

His pulse kicked up just thinking about it, a strange mix of anticipation and something heavier—something tighter, curling in the pit of his stomach. He'd agreed to this. He wanted this. But the reality of it loomed, the thought of stepping into that space again after so many years.

He ran a hand through his hair. Fuck.

His apartment felt too empty, too still. His mind filled the silence with memories, flashes of things he had let himself forget. The way rope bit into his skin, the weight of a command pressing down on him, the electric thrill of surrendering to hands that knew exactly how to break him apart.

And Sykes.

Sykes, who had studied him with unsettling precision. Who saw something in him that Edward wasn't sure he was ready to name.

Edward sat on the edge of the couch, phone in hand, screen casting cold light over his fingers. The house was quiet. Too quiet. His own breath sounded too loud.

10:03 PM
Edward stared at the message thread, thumb hovering over the keyboard.
Edward: Would you be okay doing this at my place?

He sent it before he could regret it. His heart kicked hard in his chest too fast for such a simple sentence. But it wasn't simple. Not to him.

10:04 PM
Sykes: That what you need?

The response came fast. Too fast. Like Sykes had been waiting.

Edward's throat tightened. He didn't know what he needed. Only that the thought of stepping into Sykes' world, being bent and broken in a space that wasn't his, suddenly felt like more than he could do. His control was paper-thin. His heart, thinner.

10:05 PM
Edward: Yeah.

A pause stretched out. Not too long. Just long enough to make him second guess everything.

10:06 PM
Sykes: Alright. Any other limits or conditions I should know about?

Edward stared at the screen, then glanced around his dark living room. His body was buzzing with nerves, but his mind... blank. There were no limits he could name. Not tonight. He wasn't afraid of the pain, he was afraid of being seen too clearly.

10:07 PM
Edward: No.

10:07 PM
Sykes: Then we're set. Sleep well, Edward.

Edward didn't.

He lay in bed, body still, mind loud. He read over the thread again and again, watching the quiet confidence in Sykes' words hum against the chaos in his own.

Something had shifted. Maybe something had broken loose.

 

And whatever it was it wouldn't fit back where it came from.

Chapter 11: Let's Play

Edward opened the door before Sykes could knock.

The mistake hit him immediately; how desperate that must have looked. Eager. Pathetic. Like he'd been standing there waiting, listening for footsteps. Because he had.

And worse: Sykes noticed.

Not in any obvious way. No smirk, no arch of a brow. But something flickered behind his eyes, subtle and sharp. A shift in gravity. The air thickened, tightened, as if strung between them by an invisible thread. Edward couldn't name it, but he could feel it, thrumming just beneath his skin, vibrating low in his chest like a warning or a promise.

He didn't speak. Neither did Sykes.

He didn't have to.

Sykes stepped across the threshold without a word, his stride uninterrupted. The door clicked shut behind him with a sound that felt far too quiet to be innocuous. It sealed the moment like a vault. Like something inevitable had just begun.

Edward had asked for the evening to happen here, in his space. Familiar surroundings. The illusion of control.

That illusion had begun to crack the moment he sent the file, everything Sykes might want to know, laid out with clinical precision: detailed floor plans, precise room dimensions, an exhaustive inventory of restraints and furniture, photos from every angle, annotations explaining the uses and the history of each item. Every vulnerable corner exposed. Nothing hidden.

Sykes replied with a single emoji. A thumbs-up.

And still, he arrived with bags.

He moved through the lounge with an ease that felt rehearsed like he'd lived here before Edward ever had. He placed the bags by the couch, removed his coat with calm efficiency, and began rolling up his sleeves.

Edward stood near the threshold, hands clasped behind his back realising that whilst he was not stiff, he certainly was not relaxed. His posture held the exact tension of someone used to waiting. A soldier at parade rest. His breath shallow, his pulse embarrassingly loud in his own ears.

"Strip."

He obeyed.

His hands moved without hesitation, unbuckling, unfastening, fingers deft with practised rhythm. Each article of clothing folded, placed down with care. For neatness. For control. For ritual. For the illusion of distance from what came next. By the time he was done, he was bare in more ways than one.

Sykes moved, circling him once. His footsteps were quiet against the hardwood. A hand passed along Edward's side, down his ribs, over the shallow dip of his hip. There was no gentleness in it; just a quiet assessment.

"You belong to me."

"I belong to you, Sir."

From one of the bags, Sykes pulled a collar: thick, black leather. It had no shine to it, no decoration, nothing ornamental.

Edward didn't move.

He didn't reach for it. Didn't look away. He simply stood, chest rising too quickly beneath the quiet, as Sykes approached, carefully, like he already knew exactly how this would go, like he'd known from the beginning.

The collar wasn't hers. Not the one Lily used. But it didn't matter.

His body didn't need an exact match to remember the sensation of kneeling with the light slanting low across the floor, her scent warm in the space between them, her hands brushing his hair back with reverence before buckling the collar around his throat with the same tenderness she'd use to close a locket over something precious. She'd always checked the fit twice. Never too tight. Never carelessly loose. Then she'd kiss the edge of it, soft and sure, right below his ear, as if the collar was not the beginning of ownership, but the confirmation of it.

This is where you're meant to be, she used to say. Not as a command. As a truth.

And now, those same words seemed to hang unspoken in the air, but not in her voice.

Because it was Sykes' hands fastening the leather now.

Not gentle. Not rough. Just... certain. Intentional. A precision that didn't ask permission and didn't leave space for doubt.

The moment stretched thin, like silk pulled tight across the frame of Edward's ribs. He stayed still, breath shallow, as the buckle clicked into place. It wasn't restrictive, not exactly, but he could feel it with every inhale, every movement, a constant, inescapable reminder of who was standing in front of him, and of everything he hadn't let himself want since the last time he wore something like this.

Sykes didn't speak.

He simply moved to stand in front of him again, gaze catching and holding Edward's with something sharp and unreadable glinting beneath the calm. He didn't need to ask whether Edward had slipped into memory. The grief was there, subtle, yes, but impossible to miss if you knew how to look. And Sykes clearly did.

But he didn't back away from it. Didn't fill the silence with false comfort or pretend not to notice the shadow that passed over Edward's expression. Instead, he stepped a little closer, close enough that Edward could feel the heat radiating off his body, close enough that the collar between them felt suddenly heavier.

"You still with me?" Sykes asked, voice low and deliberate.

Edward blinked once, slowly, and swallowed hard. The leather shifted against his throat, dragging him back to the present, back to this room, this moment, this man.

"Yes, Sir," he managed, and even though the words trembled slightly on his tongue, they didn't falter.

Sykes studied him for a breath longer, as if searching for something in the way his shoulders squared or didn't.

"Remember," Sykes said, voice dropping low, thick with intent, the kind of tone that curled around Edward's spine and coiled there, "your safeword is mercy."

He stepped closer, just enough that Edward could feel the whisper of breath against his cheek, the heat of him pressing into the silence like a promise.

"And if you can't speak," he murmured, fingers ghosting along the edge of the collar, "tap me. Three times. Anywhere."

His hand trailed down Edward's chest, deliberate, steady, until it rested over his sternum, palm firm and grounding.

"I'll make sure I'm always close enough to feel it," Sykes finished.

Edward exhaled, slow and controlled, grounding himself not just in the heat of the collar, but in the tension stringing tight between them, in the way Sykes never filled the air with more than was needed, and in the impossible clarity of the power he held with so little effort.

"On your knees."

He dropped. His thighs moved wide. His spine straightened. Palms pressed flat against his legs. His body still trembling.

Sykes crouched in front of him. His hand found Edward's jaw, fingers firm, deliberate. Possessive. A thumb pressed at the corner of Edward's mouth, coaxing it open with the slow inevitability of someone who expected no resistance.

"You're well-trained," he said.

A fist closed in his hair, yanking his head back. The collar shifted, tugging against his throat. His breath stuttered, catching for a moment.

"So you know," Sykes murmured, his voice a thread of smoke, "I like it when grown men beg."

Edward's fingers flexed minutely where they rested on his thighs, not resistance, not protest. Just a tremor. A signal. Ache blooming like bruises beneath skin long starved of pressure. His breath caught in his chest, somewhere between need and shame. That awful, gorgeous hum of submission stirred awake in him, thick with dust and desperation, aching to be touched again.

Sykes didn't speak again. He let silence reclaim the room, let his words linger like incense, curling around the edges of Edward's composure. Then, slowly, he moved. One hand lifted and traced the contour of Edward's jaw, the vulnerable stretch of his throat, down to the parted line of his lips.

His thumb pressed firm against Edward's mouth.

"Open."

And Edward did. Instinctively. Mouth parting without resistance, tongue relaxing like it remembered what to do. He inhaled through his nose, slow and reverent, like he was preparing for sacrament.

Sykes held his gaze. Dark eyes unreadable. And then, without flourish, he pushed two fingers into Edward's mouth.The fingers went past his tongue, filled the space with blunt insistence until Edward's throat tightened in protest. His eyes watered. Breath stuttered. Reflex screamed to pull away.

He didn't. He stayed.

Only when Sykes was satisfied with the stillness did he draw back, fingers retreating slowly, dragging wet from Edward's lips. Spit clung and glistened and he wiped them carelessly across Edward's cheek, along his jaw, down the hollow of his throat.

And then the floor came up fast. A sudden, sharp shove sent Edward sprawling. The breath punched out of him before he could speak, and then Sykes was there. On him. Over him. All weight and heat and pressure, crowding into every inch of space Edward had once called his own.

Hands didn't grope. They pressed. Purposeful. Methodical. Not to hurt, yet, but to remind. Of presence. Of power. Of inevitability.

Fingers curled around his throat, enough to mark the rhythm of his breath. Enough to stop any air from coming throw. Enough to make his lungs burn.

Then Sykes bit him.

Not teasing. Not playful. Real.

His teeth sank into the slope where Edward's neck met shoulder and held. A deep, possessive grind of teeth against skin.

Edward jerked, hips twitching, but there was nowhere to go. No out. Only in.

"You still think you have control?" Sykes asked, voice low and threaded with cruel delight.

A hand found a rib and pressed down. Hard.

His vision flickered, black creeping in at the edges. His hand twitched, hovering near the signal, just about to tap, just about to ask for release.

And then Sykes let go.

His fingers uncurled from Edward's throat. Edward gasped, hands skimming useless against the floor. Empty.

Sykes leaned in, close enough that Edward could feel the smile curve against his skin. Then a kiss, fierce, brutal in its tenderness, landed against the corner of Edward's jaw. "Now get up. We've got cookies to bake."

Edward moved to obey, legs slow to listen, limbs humming with aftershock. He stood on shaking knees, the world still slightly off centre, his breath caught between want and overwhelm. Sykes turned away, already crossing to the kitchen like they hadn't just torn something sacred open between them.

The shift was surreal.

From teeth and possession to flour and mixing bowls. From gasps to whisks.

But Sykes didn't give him space to question it. Didn't offer comfort. Just walked back into the kitchen like everything was perfectly mundane. God, how Edward missed this being his normal. He missed the way cruelty folded so seamlessly into routine. The way pain could live beside laughter and love. He missed the clarity of it, the simplicity. Not needing to ask what was expected of him, not needing to decide. Just obeying. Just being.

There was no confusion in it. No wondering if he was too much or not enough. No negotiation of worth.

Edward had followed Sykes and now he found himself in the kitchen he sank to his knees without instruction, because it felt like the only right thing to do. Because his body knew.

Because Sykes had left his fingerprints all over Edward's sense of self.

The wood was cold and hard beneath his knees. That, at least, helped. A point of clarity in the haze. His body buzzed, oversensitive, trembling with the echo of hands and teeth and the stunning weight of surrender. His palms pressed against his thighs, grounding him. Trying to hold him here.

Behind the kitchen bench, Sykes moved like nothing had changed. Whisking. Measuring. Humming under his breath like Edward wasn't kneeling soul bared on the floor.

Edward watched in silence. Couldn't do anything else. His thoughts had stopped trying to make meaning of this; they had melted into sensation.

Sykes crouched in front of him again, that same hand sliding under his chin, lifting it with practiced ease.

"You like this," he said.

Edward's voice came thin, but honest. A whisper scraped raw.

"Yes, Sir."

A bowl of water thudded onto the floor beside him.

"Drink."

No force behind it. Just command. The words slid into his spine like heat, bending him forward before thought could catch up. Lips touched the rim of the bowl. He drank.

By the time the oven timer went off, Edward was floating. Sykes turned from the oven, tray in hand, expression unreadable. He held out a single cookie, like offering communion.

Edward blinked. Hesitated.

"Take it," Sykes said.

He reached, hand slow with uncertainty, but Sykes caught his wrist, tugged him forward until
Edward was pressed against his legs, knees spread, head bowed.

He didn't say anything else. He didn't need to. Edward's world had narrowed to the heat of Sykes' palm on his skin, the weight of the moment, the echo of his own submission still vibrating through his ribs like gospel.

"You're going to break so fucking beautifully," Sykes whispered.

Edward didn't move.

Didn't speak.

Didn't resist.

And it didn't matter.

Because for the next twenty-four hours, the choice wasn't his.

Chapter 12: Embracing His Control

Sykes read in Edward's bed: spine upright, glasses low on his nose, surrounded by a fortress of particularly arranged pillows. Edward had watched him arrange the pillows from the doorway. Not out of curiosity, but because something about the act made it hard to look away.

It was the first time he'd seen past that practiced stillness. The intention of it, the quiet ritual of arranging the space around him, said more than a glance ever could. He wasn't indifferent. He was exacting.

The lamp cast soft, deliberate light across the room, warm and gold, catching in the creases of his shirt and the fine lines at the corners of his eyes.

Edward watched him from the floor.

There was nothing particularly commanding about the way Sykes read. Nothing overtly Dominant in how he turned pages or adjusted the duvet over his lap. He didn't posture. He didn't look down. He didn't have to.

He was just... there. Mundane. Entirely at ease in his own skin. And that mundanity, that lack of need to prove anything, pressed up against something deep and hungry in Edward. He'd been expecting an edge tonight. He had prepared for it. When he had crawled into the bedroom, he had expected Sykes to want to draw blood, or tears, or both as his last mark of ownership for the evening. But what he got instead was silence. Stillness. This..

He knelt at the foot of the bed, naked, cock flushed and half-hard against the curve of his thigh, hands resting on the tops of them like he'd been born to be there. And maybe he had. Because this didn't feel forced. Didn't feel posed. His muscles had melted into the shape, breath soft and low in his chest. He wasn't holding himself up anymore; he was being held, in some quiet, invisible way.

There'd been some light impact after the cookies. A promise of what was to come tomorrow. He could still feel the ghost of it etched along his skin; cane strokes like heat trapped under the surface, small striped bruises forming brush strokes across his thighs. He felt spent, and yet here he was: hard. Obedient. Floating somewhere gentle in the aftermath.

And confused by it.

Not the arousal itself. That had always been part of him, at least before, but the surprise of it, the ease of it. He hadn't expected to get hard tonight. Had warned Sykes, in fact, with shame prickling at the back of his neck, that his relationship with sex had grown... tangled. Grief had a way of calcifying those parts of him. Making his body forget what it used to know. He'd said it flat, clinical, like it was a symptom he was reporting to a colleague. Not a plea for understanding.

But Sykes hadn't tried to fix it. Hadn't asked for more than what Edward could give. Just nodded and said, "Then we'll start with what's true."

What was true now was that he was hard, aching gently without pressure or promise, and that he didn't want to touch himself. He didn't need to be told not to. He wouldn't. It wasn't his to touch.

And that, God, that quiet, was what undid him most.

Sykes turned a page. The soft rasp of it sounded louder in the stillness, like it echoed across the whole room.

Edward watched the slope of his shoulders beneath the thin cotton, the edge of his thigh where the sheet didn't cover it. Watched the muscles in his forearm twitch slightly as he adjusted the book. Watched everything, hungry for it, soaking it in like light through skin. He didn't need Sykes to touch him. Just breathing the same air felt enough. Overwhelming, even.

Because this was the first time they'd spent a night together. The first time Edward had shared his bed with someone that wasn't Lance since Lily.

Eventually, Sykes closed the book.

"You need rest," he said.

Edward blinked, slow. His knees ached, though not in the way they used to, more like a reminder of where he'd been, not a complaint. His limbs were heavy. His back loose. He hadn't realised how far under he'd gone until Sykes' voice tugged him partway to the surface.

"Please may I—" he started, then stopped. The words caught on something too delicate to voice. He wanted to say he didn't want to move, didn't want to shatter the fragile quiet that had cocooned around them. That he wasn't sure he'd be able to sleep next to someone, not anymore. That he was scared of waking up and finding it had all slipped away in the night. That this moment, this peace, felt borrowed. That he wanted to stay here forever.

But he didn't have to explain.

"You can sleep like this," Sykes said. "I want you to. Come on the bed, grab the blanket, and curl up at my feet"

And that was it.

It wasn't the kind of order that came with rules and resistance. It was the kind that simply was.

Edward shifted forward, slowly, like approaching warmth in winter. The collar shifted at his throat, the weight of it familiar, welcome.

He didn't remember closing his eyes.

Only the sound of Sykes' breath above him. Slow. Certain.

And the soft, astonishing truth that he was here. This was real.

In the morning, Sykes stood in the doorway of the ensuite, a towel slung low around his hips. The light from the bathroom framed him in soft gold, all angles and calmness and heat still clinging to his skin.

"Shower with me," he said, voice roughened by sleep. "Something gentle. The fun doesn't begin till after breakfast."

Edward blinked slowly, breath still shallow from dreams he couldn't quite remember, only the lingering warmth of them, and the ache that hadn't faded overnight. His cock throbbed, heavy and full, not in desperation, but in that same slow, insistent way it had all through the night. A quiet pulse that lived in his belly and chest and spine.

He moved without answering. He didn't need to. He rose from the sheets like something reverent, each motion fluid, obedient. There was no hesitation in his body but there was trepidation in his mind, a quiet hum of disbelief at how ready he still was, how easy it had been to stay aroused.

He hadn't expected that.

He'd spent so long distanced from this part of himself that he'd started to believe maybe it was just gone. Maybe that part of his body, of his want, was something he'd locked away too tightly to ever find again.

But here it was.

He wasn't just hard, he was aching, in the slow, quiet, full bodied way that had always hit him the deepest. Not because he was being touched. Just because he was. Because he wasn't allowed to want and that alone made every inch of him throb with need.

The ache wasn't frantic. It was settled. Domestic, almost. Like it belonged there.

Sykes didn't comment. Didn't even raise an eyebrow. He simply turned, stepped into the shower, and waited.

Edward followed, and the warmth of the spray hit him. He stepped into the space Sykes made for him, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his chest, and lowered his forehead to rest against his shoulder. The water streamed down both of them, quiet and rhythmic, a hush in the silence of morning.

Sykes' hands moved slowly over him, methodical. Lather. Rinse. Gentle friction with the pads of his fingers, never more than was necessary. No lingering. No indulgence. Just care, like this was something they did every day. And that, that, disarmed Edward even more. The normalcy. The ease. In this moment, standing there, naked, skin against skin, he almost forgot how little he truly knew about this man. They were, in the most meaningful sense, still strangers, acquaintances bound by the subtle pressure of mutual attraction, the pull of shared interests, and the exasperating interference of the same best friend playing matchmaker.

Eventually, Sykes leaned in, his breath warm against the exposed skin of Edward's neck. His lips brushed the side of Edward's throat, a gentle press of contact that sent a shiver through him. He followed with a sharp, deliberate bite, just above the collar, his teeth sinking into Edward's skin with a sudden, intense pressure. The sting of it was searing, a sweet, possessive reminder of who held control here. Sykes's other hand shot out, capturing his wrists in a firm grip. He held them, just long enough for Edward to feel the weight of the command in the subtle restraint, the threat of something more. The grip loosened just as quickly as it had tightened, fingers sliding away with a deliberate slowness, as though testing Edward's patience, toying with the edge of his submission. It was a tease, like a promise of what was to come, lingering just out of reach, leaving Edward aching for more.

"You're hard," he murmured, low and matter of fact.

Edward's breath caught in his throat. He nodded first, then found his voice. "Yes, Sir."

There was a beat of silence. A breath. Then—

"Good," Sykes said. "You're supposed to be."

That was it.

No teasing. No playful denial. No drawled observations meant to embarrass. Just good.

He didn't realise he was holding tension until that moment. Didn't know how afraid he'd been that his arousal would be met with analysis, or pressure, or worse: praise that felt hollow. But Sykes didn't push him toward performance. He didn't make it about permission or power. He just... noticed. Acknowledged it. And left it be.

Edward exhaled, long and slow, head still bowed.

Sykes washed the soap from his hands, then reached up and ran a knuckle slowly along Edward's jaw.

"I'm going to ignore it," he said simply, almost conversational. "Until the twenty-four hours are over."

Edward swallowed.

"You can do what you want with it after that. Touch yourself. Don't. I don't care."

There was a pause.

"I want you to enjoy it. That you feel it again. That it came back. Let it ache."

And fuck, Edward did. It bloomed inside him like something holy, the recognition of it, the invitation to just exist in his body again. Not to perform, not to achieve, just to feel. To ache. To want, and be seen in that wanting.

He pressed his face closer into Sykes' shoulder, like he could hide there, like he could anchor himself in the scent of skin and soap and steam.

The water ran down over them both, and Edward stood still, cock aching, heart hammering softly, breathing in the closeness like it might stitch him back together.

He was hard. And for the first time in what felt like years, it didn't feel like a betrayal of grief.

————-

Breakfast was simple: eggs, toast, black coffee. Sykes moved through the kitchen like the quiet belonged to him: unhurried, deliberate, bare feet soft against wood. He still wore the same towel from earlier, slung low and damp, clinging in places to the shape of him. His body moved with the same calm confidence Edward was learning to crave, every gesture casual and effortless. It made something tight curl low in Edward's stomach, not from the overt suggestion of it, but from how unbothered it all was. How real. How normal. God, he was in deep. He was so hopelessly doomed. He was already halfway lost, and Sykes hadn't even had to try.

Edward remained kneeling on the floor, not because he'd been told to stay there, but because nothing in his body even considered the alternative. The kneeling had taken root. His thighs hummed faintly with the ache of it, but there was no protest, no fidgeting. Just the steady rhythm of breath and obedience, his spine long and loose, hands resting open on his thighs.

His cock remained hard.

It had been hard since waking up. It was there, throbbing between his legs with that slow, deep pulse of denied urgency, but somehow it didn't feel neglected. It felt held, contained by the very fact that it was being ignored.

That made it worse. Better.

He'd forgotten how full a body could feel from just staying still.

When the food was ready, Sykes plated it neatly, then sat at the table and looked down at him with a quiet that made Edward's chest constrict.

"Come here, warm me" Sykes said, his voice low, a quiet command.

Edward moved instantly, fluidly. His body gravitated toward Sykes as if he belonged there, as if this had always been his place. He slid forward, positioning himself between Sykes' legs, his cock heavy and aching as he knelt, ready.

Without a word, Edward leaned forward, his breath hot against Sykes' skin. He reached up, gently pulling the towel aside, and with a slow, purposeful motion, he took Sykes into his mouth. The taste of skin, salt, and the faint hint of the morning lingered on his tongue as he began to suck, his movements measured, precise, subtle.

Sykes didn't flinch, didn't react right away. Instead, he picked up his fork and began eating, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Each bite, each sip of coffee, was methodical. Casual. Almost bored in its normalcy. But that was what made it so much worse, so much more consuming. Edward was there, kneeling under the table, his cock a silent throb between his legs, completely at Sykes' mercy.

The heat of Sykes' body, the weight of him in Edward's mouth, was all consuming, but there was no rush. No pushing. Just the quiet stretch of time, the rhythm of Sykes eating his breakfast while Edward remained perfectly still, focused on holding Sykes' cock in his mouth. Sykes' hand drifted to the back of Edward's head, fingers gently threading into his hair, not pulling, just resting, present. A reminder of his control. A soft pressure on Edward's skull that didn't demand anything but submission.

Every so often, Sykes would shift, adjusting his position in the chair, and Edward's mouth would be forced to move in response, his lips dragged with him. His throat constricted around Sykes each time he swallowed, the motion nearly instinctive, but always controlled.

And still, Sykes didn't speak, didn't hurry, just continued his meal, his legs spread wide to accommodate Edward, making him the sole object of his focus, even if Sykes didn't look down. The silent, steady presence of him was more than enough.

Edward's own cock throbbed painfully between his legs, the heat of the situation more intense than any sensation of desire. He could feel the pressure building, but Sykes made no indication that this would end soon. No words. Just the soft, steady rhythm of eating, and Edward's mouth moving, eager to hold what was being offered.

Sykes finished his toast. Then, slowly, he set the plate down, on the ground, fingers lightly lifting Edward's chin, forcing their gazes to meet. Edward stayed. And as Sykes let his fingers brush through Edward's hair, he realized how deeply he was already lost. Not just in this moment. But in everything that came with it.

Eventually, Sykes pointed to the plate, indicating Edward should finish what Sykes had left for him. There was no laughter. No cruelty in it. Only intention. Only the knowledge that this was part of it, part of what Sykes wanted from him. To be kept low, and near. To be emptied slowly, reverently.

By the time he finished, the plate gleamed.

"Good," Sykes said quietly.

Edward felt the word land somewhere deep inside his chest. It settled like heat, like stillness.

His cock pulsed against his thigh.

It was devastating.

And it was perfect.

Chapter 13: Sir

They didn't speak much for the next few hours. The silence between them was comfortable, almost thick with unspoken understanding. Edward could barely remember what happened in that time. He knew time passed, but the minutes stretched into something fluid, like he was drifting in and out of a dream. Each breath felt deeper, slower, as though every part of him had surrendered to the weight of the morning, to the overwhelming presence of Sykes. It wasn't discomforting; it was just... all consuming. Everything seemed to happen around him, yet he felt strangely detached from it, as if he were floating just above his own body. He was aware, but the world had softened, the edges blurred.

Eventually, Sykes rose. Edward didn't need to be told to follow. He just did. Moving on autopilot, his feet finding their way to Sykes' side without conscious thought. The only thing that kept him tethered to this world was the soft weight of Sykes' presence, like a thread pulling him closer to something familiar. Something real.

They reached the door, the one Edward had seen a thousand times but had not passed through in so long. His pulse quickened, the knot in his stomach tightening, but it wasn't fear. It wasn't anxiety, either. It was anticipation. A strange mix of old memories and new needs, the past meeting the present in a way he hadn't allowed himself to do before. He'd been avoiding it, avoiding this very moment. But now that he was here, standing before the door, he felt like he was returning home.

The door creaked open, and there it was: the room. The one he hadn't entered in so long. The one that had always been both sanctuary and crucible. His breath caught in his throat, but it didn't come with the sharp sting of dread. No. There was something else now. A strange calm. Almost a sense of release, like finally letting go of something that had weighed on him for too long.

As they crossed the threshold, Edward's senses sharpened. The air felt different here: thicker, charged. Every surface, every shadow in the room seemed to pulse with a quiet intensity. He hadn't been inside for a long time, and yet, it felt like it had never changed. The space held echoes of everything that had happened here, everything that had passed between him and Lily.

He knew, in that moment, that she would be proud of him. Proud of the way he had finally allowed himself to let go, to walk back into this space of control and submission. He had tried so hard to bury it all, to hide from the darkness that had once felt like home, but now, now he was here, standing in front of the cross, willing to face it all again.

Sykes stood behind him, silent. Edward could feel his presence like a weight at his back, a steady pressure that grounded him even as his thoughts swirled. There was no need for words now. None at all. Sykes' touch was gentle as he placed a hand on Edward's shoulder, a silent reassurance that this was his choice. He could still walk away. But there was no question. No hesitation. Edward was already here, already committed to the next step, no longer trapped by the past.

Sykes stepped around him, positioning himself in front of the cross, his gaze sharp and focused. Edward's chest tightened as the moment hung in the air. It wasn't just the physical space that seemed to swallow him. It was the gravity of everything that came with it, the history, the choices, the surrender.

He didn't need to speak. He didn't need to do anything but stand here. Before the cross. And let the weight of it all settle into him.

"Are you ready?" Sykes' voice cut through the silence, steady and low. Not an order. A question. But the implication was clear.

Edward nodded, though the movement was almost imperceptible. He felt it in the deep pit of his stomach, that pull toward something bigger than himself, something more primal, more real. Something he could trust.

He was ready. For whatever came next.

The cuffs were already bolted to the frame, their steel glinting under soft, low lighting. The air smelled of old leather and oiled wood, edged with something coppery and sweet, like blood remembered. From a shelf near the wall, music started playing, a slow, looping jazz rhythm full of minor chords and unresolved tension. Something sensual, but off.

Sykes didn't smile He didn't need to. He moved with purpose, silent and mechanical, as though stepping into another skin entirely, not the man who had showered with him this morning. That man was gone.

This Sykes was clinical. Cold. Watching without warmth.

He cuffed Edward's wrists one at a time, movements efficient. His fingers brushed skin only when necessary. No praise. No tenderness. Just the sound of metal and breath, and the drag of leather against flesh. Ankles followed. Edward spread wider under instruction that never came, his body responding to absence as much as command.

The stretch of restraint was exquisite. His chest rose high. Shoulders taut. His cock was still hard, impossibly so. But it wasn't the same heat anymore. Not the soft, aching throb of domestic denial. No, this was something darker. Hungrier. Filthier.

The first cane stroke landed without warning.

Not a warm up. Not a check in. Just pain. Sharp. Precise. A punctuation mark carved across the meat of his thigh.

Edward gasped, eyes fluttering shut. His breath stuttered, caught on the jagged edge of shock.

Sykes didn't pause. Didn't ask.

Of course he didn't.

Another stroke followed, then another. The rhythm built slowly, deliberately. Not cruel for the sake of cruelty, worse. It was measured. Skilled.

"You're clenching," Sykes said coolly after one particularly sharp stroke. "Fix it."

Edward did. Instantly. Not because he wanted to, but because he couldn't not. Because the way Sykes said it made not obeying feel unbearable.

The music played on. That slinking bassline, that slow, off-beat tension. The rhythm wasn't for ambiance. Sykes struck to it, letting the tempo guide his cruelty. Syncopated. Relentless. Every few beats he'd vary his angle, breaking expectation, punishing Edward's assumptions before they formed.

Edward began to move with it, not resisting, not running..

His hips rocked forward on instinct, driven by the sting. He bit down on a moan, teeth gritted. The cane came down again, this time across his shoulder blade. The pain bloomed hot and wild.

"You're leaking," Sykes said flatly. No amusement. No praise. Just observation.

Edward flushed. The tip of his cock was wet, the ache impossible. He didn't reply. He couldn't.

Another stroke. Then another.

Sykes hummed under his breath, not a soothing sound, appreciative, maybe. Clinical. Detached. "There it is."

The words stung more than the cane.

Edward couldn't tell when he crossed over. When the pain stopped feeling separate from him and started becoming the only thing real. His body stopped protesting. It just moved. Just was. His breath came in shallow hitches, his muscles trembling under the weight of Sykes' precision.

When Sykes finally moved, it was only to unlock the cuffs.

Edward crumpled instantly, legs giving out. But Sykes caught him before he hit the ground and lowered him with a kind of detached care, like putting a tool back in its proper place. Not tenderness. Duty.

The cane was set neatly against the cross. Purpose fulfilled.

Edward's cheek hit the floor, skin hot and slick with sweat, and some distant part of him registered that Sykes had done it that way on purpose, slow, clinical, methodical. Every motion told him something: You are not broken. You are not ruined. You are used exactly as I intended.

And that did something to him. Something deep.

He wasn't Edward anymore. Not really.

He was a body. A vessel. A need-shaped thing that had been emptied strike by strike. And now, all that was left was silence and heat and the steady hum of pain woven into every nerve.

Sykes crouched beside him.

He didn't say anything. Didn't rush to touch, to soothe, to fill the space with softness.

He just settled. A quiet gravity. A presence that did not flinch.

Then, one hand slid into Edward's hair. Not petting. Not stroking. Just there.

A mark of ownership more than care.

Edward turned into the touch anyway.

Because it didn't matter how cruel Sykes had become, how fast he'd gone from soft to savage, from warmth to razors. That was part of it. That was why he was here. Why he'd asked. No, insisted, that they go this far, even on their first time.

Because he'd known.

He'd known that if he asked for soft, he'd drive himself mad. He'd get stuck in his head, spiral into overthinking, dissect every breath and hesitation until he talked himself out of the very thing he needed.

He hadn't wanted that.

He'd wanted this.

A scene brutal enough to drown in. Sharp enough to slice past guilt and doubt and the years he'd spent pretending he didn't need this anymore.

And Sykes, God, Sykes had listened. Had heard what he didn't say. Had taken him seriously when others might have hesitated. Might have handled him like glass. Might have tried to love the damage out of him instead of wielding it as a blade.

He'd done what Edward asked.

And not once had Edward wanted him to stop.

His breath hitched. His limbs twitched with aftershocks, nerves fraying at the edges. But still, he turned into that hand in his hair.

Because Sykes had seen the need. Had met it. Had met him, right there, in the darkest part, without blinking.

And now that it was done, Edward wasn't unraveling.

He was anchored.

He was glad he'd waited.

Glad he hadn't tried to chase this feeling with someone who couldn't hold it. Who would've faltered halfway in. Who would've mistaken submission for fragility, who would've tried to protect him from himself.

But Sykes hadn't flinched.

He'd known exactly how far to go.

Not because Edward had spelled it out. But because he understood.

He understood what it meant to need to fall all at once. What it meant to be taken seriously in your want. What it meant to finally stop pretending you could do this halfway.

Edward didn't care that it was the first time. That they hadn't built up to this slowly. That Sykes had taken him apart on instinct and intention alone.

That was what made it right.

Not nice. Not gentle.

Right.

And in that knowing, something cracked open inside him. Something that hadn't moved in years. Something that had once belonged to Lily and never dared hope it could belong to anyone else again.

And now here it was fluttering back to life in the aftermath, while Sykes crouched beside him like a man watching his work settle into place.

Edward's eyes burned. His breath stuttered. But the tears didn't fall.

The tears were born from gratitude. For the pain. For the presence. For the quiet certainty of a man who didn't ask him to be ready, who just held the door open and let him step through.

He didn't feel lost.

He felt found.

He felt home.

Chapter 14: I Should Stop Talking

Time didn't really exist on the floor.

The blanket was wrapped around Edward's shoulders like a cocoon, and the air in the room had thickened into something warm and safe. His cheek rested against the carpet. Some part of him knew it was too rough, probably, too scratchy too. But, in this moment, he didn't care. Not now. He was curled in on himself, legs drawn up, breath slow. He felt small in a way that didn't scare him. Quiet in a way that didn't ache.

Sykes hadn't said much. Just knelt beside him, covering him with the blanket, then laid down next to him with the unhurried patience of someone who had nowhere better to be.

They didn't speak. Didn't need to.

Edward didn't want to move. Not yet. Not when everything in his body had finally unclenched. The world beyond this little square of carpet didn't matter right now. There was no before. No after. Just the steady weight of Sykes' presence beside him, the low rhythm of their breaths overlapping. The fading pulse of adrenaline giving way to something softer.

He let his eyes drift closed.

His mind was the quietest it had been in months.

But slowly, gently, reality began to seep back in. Not all at once. The carpet started to itch. His hip felt a little pinched. The light above them hummed faintly, too sharp now. And this room, the one he hadn't let himself enter in so long, was starting to look like a room again. Not a dream. And, fuck, his legs hurt.

Edward shifted a little, muscles still floaty. "Mmh."

Sykes opened his eyes beside him. "There you are."

Edward didn't answer right away. He rolled onto his back, blanket still clutched tight, and stared at the ceiling. The ceiling he used to memorize. The place he used to lay, post play, post orgasm, post panic, trying to hold himself together.

"I forgot how quiet it can be," he murmured.

Sykes propped himself up on an elbow. "You alright?"

Edward gave a small, lopsided shrug. "Still floating."

"That's okay. We've got time."

But he turned his face toward Sykes, just a little. Just enough.

"I think I need to..." He stopped. Tried again. "I'm bad at aftercare."

Sykes didn't tease. Just waited for him to continue.

Edward swallowed. "But... I probably need it this time."

His voice cracked halfway through the sentence. Shame bloomed hot behind his eyes before he could stop it.

Sykes didn't move closer, he didn't have to. The care in his expression was steady enough on its own. "Okay," he said simply.

Edward nodded, eyes flickering away. His mouth opened, then closed again. His fingers fidgeted with the corner of the blanket.

"I... god, I am..." He flinched. The words scraped at his throat, too sharp to voice. He swallowed them back, jaw tight. "I shouldn't talk."

Sykes didn't fill the silence. Just waited.

Then, quietly: "Why not?"

Edward's gaze dropped to the carpet. "Because I'll say something wrong," he murmured. "Because no one wants to hear about someone's dead wife after a scene."

There it was. The unsayable, said. Cracked open between them, all raw, inelegant, too much.

He braced for the reaction. For discomfort, dismissal, something.

But Sykes didn't flinch. Didn't shift away or look through him. He didn't make it small or make it worse. He just... stayed.

And somehow, that was worse. Or better. Or both.

Edward knew he shouldn't have said it: not now, not like this. Knew it breached some unspoken rule, some boundary between the physical and the personal, between sex and sorrow. But it was out there now, lodged in the air like a splinter.

Sykes only nodded. Once. Slow and certain. As if the words didn't wound, as if they belonged.

His body didn't move, but something in his presence deepened, like he'd rooted himself more firmly into the room, into Edward, into whatever this was. A still point in a world too fast.

Edward stayed where he was, sprawled on the floor, the chill against his skin grounding him in the after. One knee bent, the other leg stretched half-cocked. Limbs loose, heart not.

"You loved her," Sykes said.

Not a question.

Edward didn't answer with his voice. Just stared up at the beams above, slightly off-kilter, familiar in their imperfection. This room was meant for surrender. But now it held something gentler, quieter.

His mouth barely moved.

"Yeah."

The word was small in the room, but it landed heavy.

Silence fell again, but something else lingered, raw, human. Real.

"I still do," Edward added. His voice came out thinner than before, like it was unraveling as he spoke. "I—I don't even know what that means now. But it's true."

Sykes didn't answer immediately. He just let it hang, uncorrected. A truth that didn't need to be resolved. His eyes stayed on Edward, steady, calm.

Edward's hands, resting loosely over his stomach, had stopped fidgeting. "I used to talk to her after scenes," he said, quieter now. "Not even about the scene, always. Sometimes just... about what we'd eat after. Or things I forgot to pick up from the store. Stupid things. But I'd talk. And she'd—"

His voice caught. He turned his face slightly, as if the ceiling had become too much to look at.

He brought a hand up to cover his eyes, pressing the heel of his palm hard against the socket.

"She'd listen," he finished, the words barely audible. "Even when I didn't make sense."

"You can talk to me," he said. Gentle, but certain.

Edward didn't answer right away. His hand fell away from his face, arm resting limply by his head now. He looked wrecked in a way that wasn't about the scene. Wrecked like the past had cracked open and poured out into the present.

"I don't even know what I'd say," he said eventually. He stared up at the beam above him, but didn't really seem to see it. "I don't even know what matters."

"That's okay." Sykes' voice was quiet, but it had weight. "You can start with nothing."

Edward's lips parted slightly. He breathed in through his nose, let it out slow. Then, turning his head just enough to meet Sykes' eyes, he gave a flicker of contact. It didn't last. But it was enough.

"She used to hum, after," he said. His voice was hesitant, like walking across thin ice. "Not songs. Just... whatever came out of her. It wasn't even intentional, I think. But it was grounding. I didn't realize how much until it wasn't there anymore."

Sykes nodded. "That makes sense."

Edward laughed, sharp and quiet and wet at the edges. "It doesn't feel like it does."

"It does to me."

That landed softer. Edward didn't reply, but his chest rose and fell in a steadier rhythm now. Not fixed. Not fine. But less alone.

"You're bleeding," Sykes said gently.

Edward blinked, still somewhere underwater. He'd nearly forgotten his body again. But the moment Sykes said it, he felt it; the burn across the tops of his thighs, the sting where the cane had cracked skin. A warm, weeping kind of ache.

Edward didn't lift his head. Just gave a soft hum in acknowledgement. "M'kay."

Sykes rose from the floor without rush, hands brushing his own knees before he stood fully. "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up before it crusts."

That pulled a small huff of laughter from Edward, low and tired. "Romantic."

"I've always had a way with words." Sykes extended a hand down. "Up."

Edward took it. His knees wobbled a bit, legs shaky and half-asleep, but Sykes was solid. They didn't speak as he led him to the bathroom, just the sound of bare feet on the floor and the blanket still clutched around Edward's shoulders like armour.

The bathroom was already warm, Sykes had turned the heater on earlier, Edward realised distantly. The light was low, but enough to catch the red streaks across Edward's thighs. Angry.

Sykes knelt in front of him, gauze in his hands. Saline. A soft cloth. He didn't ask Edward to get rid of the blanket, just worked around it, peeling it back only as much as he needed.

"This'll sting," he said, with a nod to the bottle.

Edward didn't answer. He only closed his eyes and exhaled.

The first touch of wet against open skin made him flinch. Sykes hand was steady. Efficient. He worked with quiet focus, the same unhurried patience that had held them both on the floor.

When he finished, he stood again and handed Edward a glass. "Drink."

Edward took it obediently, almost automatically. Cold water, blessed and sharp against the dryness of his mouth. His throat ached around the swallow. When he lowered the glass, Sykes offered a square of dark chocolate next.

"Is this a bribe?" Edward asked, voice still a little rough.

Sykes quirked a brow. "It's blood sugar. But if it makes you more likely to curl about on the couch and watch cartoons with me, I'll take the credit."

The chocolate melted slow on Edward's tongue. He let it sit there for a long moment before chewing. He was aware of the blood between his legs drying tacky, of the water he hadn't yet finished, of the low throb beneath everything.

"Shower," Sykes said next. "Then you can decide if you're still upright enough for anything else."

They moved together easily. The shower was quiet, steam curling up around them like breath. Sykes didn't crowd him, didn't push. He helped Edward step in, then left him to rinse off first. When he joined, they didn't talk. Sykes washed Edward's back with sure, clean motions. No show of dominance now. Just care. Edward leaned into it like a sleepwalker. He couldn't have said how long they stood there, but the water had long gone tepid before they finally stepped out.

It was only once they were both in fresh clothes, that he spoke again.

“Can we cook something?”

Sykes paused mid motion, towel still half draped over his head. He was barefoot, hair damp and curling slightly at the edges. The shirt he’d pulled on didn’t quite fit right across the shoulders, Edward’s, clearly. He turned to look at him, eyes narrowing just a little. “Now?”

Edward shrugged. The movement felt a touch delayed, like it had to pass through water to reach his limbs. The soft cotton of his hoodie dragged faintly at his skin, still too aware of every contact point. He hadn’t quite made it all the way back into his body yet. “Or soon. I don’t know. I just... I think I want something... normal.”

The word came out strangely. His voice was hoarse, quiet. He didn’t mean boring. He meant anchored. Human. His hands still remembered the tremble of restraint. His mouth still tasted like copper and cotton. But something in him, something softer, ached for the clatter of pans, for the hiss of garlic hitting oil. For the gentle rhythm of daily life.

Sykes looked at him for a long moment. Measured him. Just... checking. Like he was making sure Edward was really asking, and not just trying to fill the silence.

“I’m not very good at sharing the kitchen,” Sykes said finally.

Edward shifted his weight, one foot bracing on the wooden floor. “Because you’re bossy?”

Sykes didn’t smile, exactly, but the tension around his mouth loosened, like something small and private had let go. “Because I forget how to be equals when knives are involved.”

His voice carried a thread of humour, dry and self-deprecating, but there was an edge of honesty beneath it too—less a confession, more a half-joke shared between people who’d seen each other raw.

Edward’s head tilted, slow and measured. He wasn’t teasing when he asked, “Genuinely?”

Not exactly challenge. Not flirtation, either. Just curiosity wrapped in soft cotton. The kind that didn’t require answers unless they wanted to give them.

Sykes shrugged with one shoulder. “Something like that.” He ruffled the towel through his damp hair, then let it fall around his neck. “I get... focused. And I’m not always good at remembering what that looks like from the outside. But I need us to be equals right now. Just… two people making food, so I am sure I can... adjust.”

The words sat between them, oddly gentle. As if naming it, this part of himself that could still take up too much space, was a way of offering it up. A way of asking if Edward could live with it beyond this moment, whilst also reminding him it is a choice, one he can turn off.

Edward didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull away. If anything, he looked steadier now, even with the pallor still beneath his skin and the floaty, half-hinged feeling clinging to his bones.

“I can work with that,” he said, voice low but clear. 

There was no drama in the words. No flare of tension. Just that same soft certainty that had carried him through the last twenty-four hours, worn thin around the edges, but not broken. Still willing to show up.

Sykes blinked once. Something flickered in his expression, an ache, maybe, or surprise, but it passed too quickly to name. He didn’t look away.

He just breathed in, slow and full, like grounding himself in the present moment. And then: “I can manage that.”

Edward nodded, the gesture small enough to get lost in the quiet, but deliberate all the same. A silent agreement. A promise to meet each other where they were.

He let the silence settle a moment longer, then added, “And I’m excellent with a knife. Perks of being a doctor.”

That earned a breath from Sykes, not quite a laugh, more a soft exhale that pulled something less guarded into his face.

“You’re saying you’d make a good sous-chef?”

Edward reached for the half-empty water glass and took a long sip, letting the chill of it sharpen his edges, ground him. “I’m saying,” he replied, with the faintest lift of pride, “that I can chiffonade basil faster than anyone you’ve ever met.”

Sykes gave him a look, towel slung over one shoulder, his mouth twitching in amusement. “That’s a bold claim. You’re not going to pass out mid-mince?”

“Not if you feed me again first.”

The pause that followed was companionable, easy in its silence. Sykes nodded, the motion slower this time, more thoughtful than before.

“Alright,” he said, gaze still lingering. “But if you start bleeding again in the kitchen, we’re switching to sandwiches.”

That pulled a breath from Edward, not quite a laugh, but enough to move something loose in his chest. He felt it shift there, grief and tension giving way to something smaller, more manageable. Something like peace.

“Deal.”

They moved together, quiet steps echoing softly against the wood floors. The hush of late morning and two bodies still recalibrating, still learning how to be near each other when pain wasn’t the anchor between them.

The kitchen waited, sunlit and warm. There were dishes still out from the night before, but it felt lived-in in a way that didn’t ask for apology.

Edward didn’t know what he wanted to cook. Didn’t need to.

This wasn’t about food.

It was about presence.

About sharing space that wasn’t built on dominance or obedience, but something slower. Quieter.

Chapter 15: Why Didn’t I Keep My Mouth Shut

He couldn’t stop thinking about how stupid it had been.

After everything. After the most intense, exquisite twenty four hours he’d had in years, the first real thing Edward said in the low, aching quiet of aftercare was about Lily.

Not thank you .
Not Sir .
Not I needed that or I’m okay or even silence.

Just her.

He didn’t even say her name.
It would’ve been better if he had. Cleaner, maybe. Like ripping the scab off all at once instead of picking at it until it bled. But no. He just… slipped her into the air. Casually. Like a stray thought. Like it made any fucking sense to mention her then , when his back was raw, legs bruised, head quiet, and Sykes was holding him like he was something precious.

He hadn’t meant to. Christ, he knew better. He’d heard himself doing it, could almost see the words hanging there, bright and wrong and fragile, as he said something about how he used to ramble to her after scenes. Like it was normal. Like that had anything to do with the man who had just spent the last day and night taking him apart in ways Edward hadn’t thought he was still capable of feeling.

And Sykes. Sykes, damn him, had just listened.

As if Edward deserved that kind of gentleness. As if he hadn’t just flung a ghost into the center of something sacred.

He didn’t even know why . Not really. Just that some part of him couldn’t stand to be seen like that: stripped, safe, and unmade, without acknowledging the person who taught him what that kind of vulnerability even meant. The person who shaped the skin he now let someone else touch.

And now the guilt clung to him like a second skin.

Not because Sykes had done anything wrong. Quite the opposite. Because he hadn’t.

Because he hadn’t pulled away. Hadn’t stiffened. Hadn’t punished Edward with silence or forced cheer. He had just… stayed. Offered dark chocolate for the crash. Helped him to the shower. Kept close without crowding. Let him cook, just to have something steady to hold onto.

And now Edward didn’t know what to do with himself.

Because Sykes had done all of that, and still wanted him after . And Edward had thanked him for the scene by talking about his dead wife.

Grief, he’d learned, wasn’t a thing that ended. It didn’t resolve, or fade, or even really heal. It just rearranged itself. Hid in corners. Curled under ribcages and behind molars. Waited for quiet moments to shove itself back up through the bones.

Three years. That’s how long it had been since Lily.

And still, she haunted him, so present he sometimes forgot she wasn’t just in the next room. So close he could feel the memory of her hand behind his ribs.

He hadn’t meant to bring her into this. Into what Sykes had made for him. 

Because Sykes had done what no one else had managed in all the years since Lily died. He’d given Edward back his submission. Not in shards. Not in broken bits he had to gather up and piece together himself. In full.

In the hollow years before Lily, he’d tried. God, had he tried. Running through Doms like a man dying of thirst in a storm, desperate for anything that might slake the ache. Every hand that offered pain, he took. Hoping something would click. Hoping it would hurt right . Some hands struck too hot. Others fizzled out before they’d even found a rhythm. There were the soft ones, kind, affirming, careful in all the wrong ways.

One Domme had brought homemade soup to the scene. Soup. Then she had sat him on a meditation cushion while she read affirmations off her phone, stroking his hair like he was a rescue dog with a tragic backstory. When he flinched at a cane strike, she cried. Kissed every bruise like it was an apology. A lovely woman. Absolutely terrifying guilt complex.

Then there was the praise guy, who treated Edward’s moans like a symphony and his submission like a fragile gift box. The moment Edward so much as twitched the wrong way, he safeworded for him . Out of concern. Which might’ve been touching if it hadn’t made Edward feel like a ticking time bomb.

Then there were the competent ones. Skilled. Precise. They played the role well, hit with technical grace, cleaned up after. But everything felt choreographed, like a scene from a BDSM manual. Nothing raw. Nothing real. Nothing held.

And then there were the dangerous ones. The chaos feeders. The ones who loved how loud he could scream. Who didn’t care if he shattered, so long as it was beautiful. Who let him fall.

And God help him, he had loved them, too.

Loved the edge.
Loved the razor line clarity of pain when it blurred into something quieter.
Loved standing at the brink and tipping forward just enough to taste the drop.

Because sometimes, that was the only way he could feel .

But none of them ever caught him.

And Edward?
Edward always fell.

And it was always Lance who picked him up.

Edward, the med student who was supposed to know how to fix things, was the one showing up at 2AM looking like a lesson in what not to do with a nervous system. And Lance, the business major with a minor in sarcasm, somehow became his unofficial field medic.

It was always a little absurd. The irony never quite stopped stinging. But still, Lance learned, how to clean abrasions, how to check for signs of shock, how to sit in silence without trying to make it better. He stocked electrolyte powder and vet wrap like he was running a one-man trauma unit. Called it: “his Edward kit.”

That was the rhythm of his early twenties: fall hard, get patched up, pretend the bruises meant progress into finding the one, into finding Lily.

That was how it used to go. Edward would always turn to Lance to piece him back together.

But this time?

This time was different.

This wasn’t a fallout from some unstable Dom with a martyr complex or a sadist who didn’t know his limits.

This wasn’t about recklessness or desperation.

This was about Sykes.  

Lance didn’t say anything when he opened the door. Just raised one eyebrow, took in Edward’s stiff shoulders and the bruising peeking from the collar of his shirt, and stepped aside.

Edward walked in like something had been shaken loose.
Not broken—just...bare.
His body ached in the way he liked best: deep, resonant bruises still humming under his skin, each one a quiet tether back to where he’d been. Back to who he'd been, under Him.

He felt settled, oddly so. Open in a way that made the world feel gentler. Slower.
But the quiet wasn’t entirely clean.
Something in it gnawed, small and persistent, like a thread left untied.

He didn’t sit until Lance handed him a coffee and nudged him down onto the couch.
Even then, he didn’t quite relax.

“You look like someone laid you out nice and slow,” Lance said, eyeing him. “And then walked away before the edges stopped bleeding.”

Edward didn’t answer. Whatever wanted to rise in his throat curdled before it could become laughter. He stared down into his coffee cup, hands wrapped around it, steady once, now faintly trembling at the wrists. Not from fear. From guilt. From being afraid to admit to Lance how yesterday ended.

The silence that settled between them wasn’t strained. It was familiar. Forged over years of friendship that had weathered worse things than quiet. Road trips where they didn’t speak for hours, nights spent in each other’s houses after bad scenes or bad news, the kind of bond built not on constant conversation but on knowing how to sit in things together. Even this.

Eventually, Edward spoke. “I… uhh… I brought her up”

Lance didn’t press. Just blinked, slow and measured, and asked, “Lily?”

Edward gave a small nod. He added that it had happened after. During aftercare. He hadn’t meant to, not really. It just bled through, and how Sykes hadn’t flinched. That was the worst part. He’d stayed. Calm. Solid. Like the ghost Edward had released wasn’t frightening at all. Like he’d expected it.

“He asked if I wanted to talk about her,” Edward said, voice tight. “Like it was normal. Like I hadn’t just pissed on something sacred.”

He shook his head, jaw clenched. He didn’t need to spell it out. Lance already knew the shape of his grief. He knew what Lily had meant. How long Edward had kept that grief locked up, untouched. A sealed room in a house he never let anyone walk through.

Now someone else had stepped close. Not inside. But close enough to feel the cold from under the door.

Lance leaned back, quiet for a beat before offering the truth: “If I’m going to overanalyze you, and you know I live for that, it’s not just that you brought her up. You clearly regret that. But what’s really got your hands shaking? You let someone that deep in… and he didn’t run.”

Edward didn’t argue. He couldn’t. Not without unraveling.

He tried to describe what the 24 hours had been like. Not in full, just the edges of it: the purity, the surrender, the ache. The way it had silenced the world. He hadn’t felt that in years. And then… he'd let her ghost into it. Haunted it.

Lance listened, steady as ever. Then, quietly, he reframed it. Maybe it wasn’t a haunting. Maybe it was remembering. Maybe the moment had made room for her because that part of Edward still needed care too.

Edward didn’t respond. But his hands stilled on the mug.

“You didn’t stain it,” Lance said eventually, voice low. “You made it real.”

Edward looked up, something raw behind his eyes.

Lance didn’t stop there. He reminded him, sharp, but kind, that submission wasn’t supposed to be some sterilized, trauma free fantasy. That grief doesn’t make someone broken. That being complicated isn’t disqualifying.

“Lily’s a part of you,” he said. “Not a footnote. The fucking preface.”

He told him that what happened wasn’t desecration. It was trust. Letting someone close enough to brush against the pain that lived under everything else.

Edward stared toward the window. Afternoon sun cut through the blinds in soft, dusty lines. He thought of Lily’s handwriting on sticky notes, her collar in his hand, the softness of her laugh when she leaned into him.

“I didn’t want to taint it,” he said quietly.

“It’s not tainted,” Lance replied. “It’s honest.”

There was a beat of silence, then Edward said, like it didn’t quite fit, “He let me cook with him after..”

That made Lance snort. “Yeah, he’s a good Dom.”

Edward almost smiled. Just barely.

When he admitted he didn’t know what to do with all of it, with the tenderness, with being held, Lance told him he didn’t have to do anything. That was the point. Sykes hadn’t given him a contract. He’d given him care.

And that care? He was allowed to take it.

Edward closed his eyes. For just a moment. But in that stillness, something inside him shifted. His spine softened against the couch. His breath came a little easier.

Lance didn’t say anything. Just let the quiet stretch, not heavy now, gentle. Spacious. Like it was making room.

After a while, he asked, “You going to do it again with him?”

Edward hesitated. Thought of the warmth of a hand at his nape. Of being told, I’ve got you.

“Yeah,” he said eventually. “I think I have to.”

Lance raised his Red Bull in salute. “Good. Maybe lead with ‘thank you’ next time, before the tragic backstory.”

Edward rolled his eyes. “Go to hell.”

“Already packed.”

Chapter 16: Bloodlines and Bruises

The hospital on a Monday morning smelled like burnt coffee, damp coats, and the peculiar sterile tang of hand sanitiser, so sharp and omnipresent it seemed to soak into Edward's skin by osmosis. The air buzzed faintly with fluorescent lights and the quiet churn of too many machines running at once. By 8:00 a.m., he'd already stitched a forehead split open by a bathroom fall, signed off on two rounds of bloodwork, and broken the news of a terminal diagnosis to a man who took it with far more grace than Edward suspected he himself ever could. The man had even smiled. Said he'd suspected for weeks. Edward had nodded, made the right sounds, kept his hands steady.

Routine was a mercy. Predictable. Contained. Monday blurred into Tuesday, and Tuesday into the same worn rhythm: charting, consulting, making the rounds with clipped efficiency and the occasional half smile passed between nurses. The world inside these artificially bright halls was smaller, somehow. Easier. There were rules here. Schedules.

No one here knew about Sykes.

No one here knew how Edward had spent his weekend crawling out of his own skin just to be stitched back together by a man who smelled like home baking and violence. Sykes hadn't coaxed anything out of him; he'd demanded it, dragged Edward's submission out by the roots and held it up to the light like something worth keeping. And in that, something shifted. Not a collapse, not a surrender in the way most people thought of it. More like recognition. Like brushing the dust off a part of himself he'd locked in the attic and finding it still fit. It hadn't brought joy. It hadn't even brought clarity. Just a strange, anchoring quiet. The kind that hummed low under the skin. The kind that let him breathe.

And he liked it that way.

He liked that no one asked why he flinched when he reached too far, or why he sat so gingerly on hard chairs. The ache in his body hadn't faded yet, not that he expected it to. It pulsed steady beneath his clothes, low and rhythmic. A reminder.

He felt it most when he bent too quickly, when the muscles along his thighs seized or the bruises across his butt lit up like they had their own pulse. Even walking held its quiet consequences. In the breakroom, he caught himself smiling, just a twitch, a flicker, when he shifted his weight and a line of soreness tugged along the swell of his ass. Not pain, exactly. Just... presence.

Smiling like some fool in love.

He immediately buried the expression behind his coffee cup, eyes fixed on the stained countertop, willing his face back to neutral.

Tuesday evening found him holed up in the staff room waiting on some labs, nibbling a protein bar with the grim efficiency of a man too tired to care. The overhead light buzzed faintly. Outside the door, the hospital hummed its usual, tireless symphony of pages, footsteps, and low murmurs.

When his phone rang, Edward already knew who it would be.

Classical Symphony No. 1, elegant, tasteful, prestigious, sliced through the quiet of the hospital breakroom like it had something to prove. Like it hadn't been smugly assigned to his phone by someone who hadn't asked, but assumed it was appropriate.

It made his skin crawl. Not sharply anymore. Just faintly. Like the memory of an old rash that used to itch but had since scabbed over.

He didn't answer right away. Just sat there, watching the screen as her name pulsed with slow, metronomic insistence. His thumb hovered over the green icon, but there was no real debate. He would answer. He always did. Not out of fear anymore. Not even guilt, really. Just inertia. Habit woven into bone.

The tension that bloomed in his chest wasn't panic. It was more a low grade hum, the familiar kind, like a breeze slipping under a doorframe. He knew it well. Had learned to live with it like an old injury that only flared up in cold weather.

Then he swiped. Reflex, not choice.

"Hi, Mum," he said, voice smooth, neutral, noncommittal.

A sharp inhale on the other end. Her tone landed precisely, every syllable brittle with polished concern.

"Oh good, you're alive. Your father and I were beginning to wonder."

He didn't sigh, not audibly. But the weight of it gathered behind his eyes, settled in his skull like a pressure system rolling in.

The breakroom offered no distraction. Flickering fluorescent lights. A forgotten coffee mug with old milk clinging to the rim. A vending machine that always hummed. Rest, simulated and insufficient.

"Yes," he said flatly. "Alive and breathing."

He'd learned not to offer more.

She always made it sound like that was the bare minimum he could do for her. Like his continued existence was a performance she tolerated.

"Well," she said, drawing the word out like it bored her, "you've been so busy lately. Always working. You don't make time for the important things."

He scraped at the side of his thumb, finding an old scab and pressing down just enough to feel the sting. He used to get smacked for that. "Stop fidgeting," she'd snap. "Stop ruining yourself."

"Important things," of course, meant dinners. Parties. Statements made with ties and cufflinks and silence. Meant standing beside his father and smiling while someone else accepted praise for their suffering.

They'd only gotten worse since Lily died. Like they didn't know how to grieve in private, so they turned it into performance. Mourning as theatre. Her motherly concern had sharpened into something colder, more invasive. His father had retreated into strategic absences. Neither of them had room for the truth of loss, for the shape it left in him.

And he didn't have it in him to keep placating them anymore. Not this week. Not after days where he'd finally felt something close to okay.

He'd slept without waking in a sweat. He'd laughed, properly. He'd gone out. Had a drink. Had a conversation that didn't make his skin itch.

He'd even let himself sink. Let himself be touched in a way that wasn't clinical or performative or expected. Let the part of him that knelt, the part of him he'd buried alongside Lily, rise and breathe and ache and be seen.

It had settled him.

And now here she was, back again, tugging at the threads.

"We've taken the liberty," she went on, syrupy and assured, "of setting you up with a date."

The drop in his gut was immediate. Familiar. Tired.

"Her name's Veronica Amesbury. Private practice. Very well connected. You'll thank us."

He looked down at the cracked leather arm of the chair, hollowed out by years of use.

Why did they always show up like this? Just when he'd caught his breath. Just when he'd made some kind of peace with the grief.

"Mum—"

"No, Edward, really," she cut in. "This is getting absurd. You're not getting any younger. Do you want people to think there's something wrong with you?"

And there it was. The thrust, cloaked in concern, honed over decades.

But it didn't land quite the same anymore.

It didn't pierce; it just pressed. Dull. Expected. The way a once-sharp knife gets used to buttering bread.

He let her keep talking. Let the words wash over him like traffic noise. He could almost laugh, if he hadn't been so tired.

There was something wrong with him. Plenty, probably. But not the kind she could fix with a dinner reservation and a curated introduction.

What was wrong with him couldn't be polished out of photos or silenced with good breeding.

Maybe it hit harder today because he'd let his guard down. Because the quiet hadn't felt hostile for once. Because the week had been kind in small, strange ways; his coffee hadn't burned, the traffic lights had lined up just so, and Sykes had looked at him last Saturday like he was something worth holding.

Or maybe it was because just yesterday he had delivered a terminal diagnosis, and the reminder that life could end for anyone, at any time, still clung to him like the scent of antiseptic.

He pressed his nail into the torn skin beside his thumb until pain bloomed in a neat, red flare. The scab split. He watched the blood rise and welcomed it. It grounded him.

He was tired. Not shift tired, not sore feet or too many patients tired. He was the kind of tired that took root in the bones. The kind that came from performing stability so long it calcified. He wasn't sure when the numbness had started, but he knew exactly who had nurtured it.

"I'm thirty-two," he had said quietly into the phone.

"Thirty-two and single," she'd shot back, each syllable laced with that pinched, papercut edge. "People notice these things, Edward. They talk. It's not a good look. You have a responsibility to your family name. To yourself."

She never asked if he was okay. Just why he wasn't better yet.

Legacy. Optics. Reputation. The image of the man she'd raised him to be: successful, presentable, emotionally impervious. The version of himself she could display like an award.

It had always been like that, really.

He remembered once, fourteen, maybe fifteen, coming home from Lance's place after one of those long, aimless sleepovers where time seemed to bend. They'd sprawled on the carpet listening to music symbolic of their repressed angst. Talked about futures that didn't quite fit. At some point, the conversation had edged into stranger territory, not sexual, not exactly. Just... hunger. A recognition. The way Lance's voice had dropped when he'd admitted, offhandedly, how much he liked telling people what to do. How good it felt to be listened to, sometimes, with the right person.

And Edward, heart hammering like something caught between shame and relief, had said nothing. But he hadn't moved away.

He'd let the silence stretch long enough to count as acceptance. Had offered, instead of words, a stillness. A kind of understanding.

They never said it outright. Not then. But something passed between them, a shift. A shared knowing. Like they'd uncovered something dark and private, not in each other, but in themselves, mirrored back.

The next morning, Edward's father had called him into the study.

"You and Lance. You boys are... very close."

There was no anger. Just a subtle recalibration of tone. Careful. Weighted. Enough to make it clear that closeness was only acceptable in certain forms.

After that, the rules became quieter but more rigid. Lance was still welcome, technically, but there were glances. Pauses. A chilled civility in his mother's voice whenever Lance's name came up. A brittle tightness behind her smile.

Especially after Lance came out.

Edward had never told them what he and Lance shared. What they'd so carefully not said out loud. But something in the way they sat too close, in the silences that lingered too long, in the strange tenderness of their teenage defiance, it had been enough for his parents to notice. Or suspect. And that was all it had taken.

They continued to suffocate the friendship hoping it would finally wilt, but this time with more vigor. His mother's voice took on a certain brittle edge whenever Lance's name came up, like she was speaking around a bitter taste. His father simply grew quiet, the way men like him did when something didn't fit their blueprint of how a son should be.

Lance coming out changed things, not between the two of them, not really, but for how others looked at them. Before that, the suspicion had lived in the margins. The proximity. The softness. The kind of closeness two boys weren't supposed to keep past childhood. But once Lance said the words out loud, once there was a name for it, it gave shape to the unease his parents had always carried. It wasn't just teenage friendship anymore. It was potential. A threat to their narrative.

Looking back, it was almost funny. Yes, younger Edward had nursed a crush. On Lance's certainty. His effortless way of taking up space. His grin. But it had never been more than that; just a flicker. Something private and quiet, never acted on, never even named. They stayed close. Best friends. Just... quieter about it. Better at disappearing from view when they needed to. They got good at sneaking around, not because they were doing anything wrong, but because it had been made so clear that even the idea of them together was unacceptable.

So Edward learned not to talk too much. Not to linger. Not to be obvious.

He buried the part of himself that wanted to kneel. That needed someone else's control like gravity. That craved pain not as punishment, but as permission, to let go, to be messy, to need.

And in a strange way, he was grateful for that silence. For the enforced repression. Because he knew now what he didn't then: how easily a lonely teenager might have gone looking for answers in all the wrong places. What kind of corners he would've stumbled into online. What kind of people might have taken advantage of a boy so desperate to feel right in his want.

God, even eighteen year old him was reckless. When he finally moved out at eighteen, he ran. He hurled himself into the scene like it owed him salvation. Chased the leash like breath. D-type after D-type, chasing surrender like it was something you could be handed if you just tried hard enough. None of them stayed long. None of them taught him how to stay with himself.

And then there was Lily.

Lily, who had seen him. She'd simply held him, and in doing so, made space for the rest to unfold.

After then she died.

His parents didn't talk about the funeral. Or the months he barely slept. Or the way he moved through those years like a ghost inside someone else's life. They offered condolences like they offered advice: elegantly phrased, cleanly delivered, and almost entirely devoid of intimacy.

No one ever asked what it felt like to lose the one person who knew all of him and stayed anyway.

And now, instead of compassion, there was Veronica Amesbury.

A solution. A checklist. A fix for the problem of their grown, grieving son who still hadn't snapped into the right shape.

Someone to marry. Someone to photograph. Someone to bring home. Or at least that was their idea.

"She's expecting your call," his mother had said with finality. "You'll be nice to her."

He'd closed his eyes, let the ceiling blur above him. The fluorescent light buzzed like it might split at the seams.

He'd only just started to feel real again. To feel the press of his knees into carpet and know it wasn't a grave he was kneeling at, but someone, someone, who saw him.

Sykes.

And now, here was his mother, with her polite little interventions. With her reminders that there was a right kind of future he was supposed to want.

"I'll think about it," he'd said, flat and final.

A pause. Barely a breath.

Then the line had gone dead.

The silence afterward filled the breakroom like smoke. Slow. Thick. Stubborn.

He sat for a long time. Staring at the chipped paint on the wall. Listening to the hum of tired machines and lives carrying on around him.

His phone lay in his lap like a stone. His thumb ached where it bled.

Somewhere down the hall, a nurse laughed. Somewhere else, someone was dying.

And Edward just... sat.

He didn't want to be polished. Or impressive. Or their fucking legacy.

He wanted to be undone: gently, cruelly, deliberately.

He wanted to be owned again.

Chapter 17: Backstitch

Edward had never been to a knitting group before.

He stood just inside the doorway of the community centre, holding a drawstring bag someone had handed him and pretending not to notice that the yarn inside was bright lemon yellow. Around him, the room buzzed with soft chatter and the rhythmic clicking of needles. There were maybe fifteen people, seated in a loose circle of mismatched chairs. A few sat cross legged on the floor. One person was perched on a beanbag, knitting with their feet tucked under them.

It wasn't the group he'd expected.

He had imagined, vaguely, something older. Maybe quieter. Tea in chipped mugs and delicate doilies. That kind of thing. But the people here ranged wildly: piercings, cardigans, glitter nail polish, rainbow hair, bare feet, Doc Martens. A young man in a cropped hoodie was holding up a sock and asking for heel advice. Someone else was embroidering swear words into a tea towel. One of the older women had a Bluetooth speaker clipped to her belt, playing something acoustic and sad. The woman beside her was arguing gently about gauge.

He didn't quite know where to look.

It had been Dr. Patal's idea. She'd caught him in that small, unguarded pocket between caffeine and chaos, when he was still warm from his morning coffee but not yet braced for patients. She'd looked far too pleased with herself, her bag slung over one shoulder like a quiver, stuffed with knitting needles and a disturbingly cheerful selection of yarn.

"You need hobbies," she'd said, breezing past him like this was a conversation they'd been having all week.

"I have hobbies," he'd muttered, following her down the corridor.

"You listen to true crime and then sit in the dark overthinking your life. That's not a hobby, that's just advanced brooding."

She'd grinned when he rolled his eyes, and then she'd said, "See you tomorrow!" in a tone that didn't really leave room for refusal.

Now, he found a seat near the edge of the circle. The chair creaked under him. His yarn rolled out of the bag and across the floor like it was trying to escape. A stranger picked it up, smiled, and tossed it gently back toward his feet.

The needles felt unfamiliar in his hands: slick, slightly too light. He tried to remember the YouTube video she'd sent him the night before. Something about loops. Something about tension. Something about not panicking.

The room smelled faintly of lavender and wool, the kind of soft, layered scent that seemed to cling to the well worn armchairs and the faded rugs. A scattering of mismatched cushions lined the low benches along the walls, each one sporting some kind of hand-stitched cover: a quilted pattern, a row of sunflowers, a clumsy but earnest embroidery of a cat.

Across from him, a teenager with perfectly manicured nails was working on a lace shawl so delicate it looked like spider web. The way their hands moved, confident, precise, entirely unbothered, made Edward feel like he'd been given chopsticks and told to build a house. The soft clicking of needles filled the room, punctuated occasionally by a laugh or a murmur.

He caught movement in the corner of his eye.

And then, still, somehow, unexpected, Tyler.

She was halfway across the circle, seated with one leg tucked under the other, a half-finished blanket spread over her knees like it had grown there. She hadn't changed much. Maybe her hair was a little shorter, maybe the tattoos on her arms had multiplied, but it was her. And she was looking at him. Same silver rings on her fingers. Same easy posture that always made her seem younger than she was, until she looked up and caught your eye and you remembered exactly how much she'd seen.

The last time he'd seen her had been at Lance's Christmas barbecue two years ago, the kink one, with candy-cane colored rope and a spanking bench someone had decorated with tinsel. She'd been there in a deep red collar, curled up at someone's feet, warm and laughing and bright. And he'd lasted an hour. Two drinks. Then the edges of the world had started closing in, too sharp, too loud, too familiar, and he'd left before dessert.

She'd seen him leave. She hadn't followed.

Now, across the circle, she didn't rise or speak. Just gave him a quiet, steady smile and a small nod, barely a tilt of the head, but unmistakably meant for him.

He nodded back, just once. It didn't feel like enough and also like exactly the right amount. The tension in his chest eased by a fraction, something in him loosening like a knot that had been pulled just a little too tight.

She looked away first.

He exhaled slowly, surprised to find his throat a little tight. The sense of being watched faded, replaced by a low hum of conversation around the room. A middle aged man at the other end of the circle was recounting a story about a cat that had developed a taste for yarn, while a group of older women near the windows were whispering about a new café that had opened nearby.

Then, someone beside him nudged his elbow gently.

"You're the doctor friend Leah has shown us photos of, right?"

Photos? What had she shared? Dr. Patal—Leah, he reminded himself—wasn't the kind of person to casually share personal details. He blinked, trying to steady his thoughts amidst the confusion.

He turned toward her, trying to keep his voice steady. "Emergency medicine."

She tilted her head, watching him closely. "And you can't knit?"

He looked back down at the mess in his lap, lemon yarn wound in on itself, a series of loops that seemed to defy the idea of order.

"I work under pressure," he said. "Not...with patterns."

The person beside him hummed. "You'll get it. Muscle memory. Hands learn, eventually."

He nodded. He wasn't sure if they were talking about the knitting anymore.

Dr. Patal arrived a little while later with muffins and an amused glance that said she was definitely watching him fumble. She didn't say anything right away, just handed him a chocolate chip one and a stitch marker in the shape of a tiny fox, which he turned over once in his hand like it might bite.

He still didn't know what to do with it. So he put it in his pocket.

She settled beside him, cross-legged on the rug like she belonged there, like her scrubs hadn't been exchanged for a hoodie and bare feet. She smelled faintly of coffee, and lemon balm, and something wool-sweet and human. Around them, the circle kept its gentle spin: someone talked about the feeling of merino on bare skin. Someone else taught a provisional cast on using a hair tie. The music had changed twice: first folk, then something instrumental with a banjo.

Edward stayed.

That surprised him, more than anything. That he was still here, half dropped stitches and all, trying to pretend he was not failing miserably.

Dr. Patal was halfway through her second muffin when she leaned in, casual as anything, and said, "You know, I think someone's checking you out."

Edward blinked. "What?"

Mid-knot. Mid-frown. Mid–trying-not-to-break-a-damn-needle-in-half.

She didn't point. Just did that slow, unhurried tilt of the head, eyebrows arched, eyes twinkling. "Over there. Knitting the blanket."

He turned before he could talk himself out of it. Before he could do the smart thing and stay small.

And.... ahh Tyler.

Still seated where she'd been, her leg bouncing in rhythm with some silent internal beat. Her hair was clipped up and messy, curls twisting loose at the temples. Her eyes didn't lift, but her mouth curved. Barely. Subtly. Like she knew.

Like she could feel him looking.

Something inside his chest twisted, sharp and strange. Not pain exactly. Not memory either. But something just shy of both.

He scoffed, a low, automatic sound, not quite a laugh. Then the real one came, unexpected, clumsy, real. It scraped up out of his throat and cracked like a fault line, warm and ridiculous and entirely too human.

He rubbed a hand down his face.

"Oh my God," he said, already regretting it. "No. No, that's just, she's an old friend."

Dr. Patal looked at him the way she looked at febrile patients who insisted they were fine.

"Old friend, huh?"

He tried to school his expression. Tried not to pick at the threads of his own voice.

"Yeah," he said. "We knew each other. Years ago."

And that should've been enough. But her gaze lingered, slow and assessing, and he knew, knew, she wasn't going to let it go.

"Interesting," she said.

Then she turned and waved.

It was the worst possible kind of wave. Big. Beckoning. Bold. Like a mum at pickup. Like she thought this was a game.

"Oi! Tyler! Come here!"

Edward felt his entire spine lock in place.

His heart stuttered. Something between embarrassment and fury fizzled in his chest like a lit match on damp paper.

Tyler looked up.

Met his eyes.

Tilted her head, amused, unreadable, and after a beat, stood and walked over.

"Oh my God," he hissed under his breath. "You're a menace."

"I'm delightful," Patal said brightly, brushing muffin crumbs off her knees. "Besides, I want to know how you two know each other. You never talk about old friends."

He didn't. And there was a reason for that.

Tyler reached them with a soft, uncertain smile. Not shy, she wasn't shy, but there was a thread of caution behind it, like she wasn't sure how tightly to wrap the moment. She looked at Patal first, then Edward, and back again. Measured. Steady.

"Hey," she said, her voice a little lower than he remembered. More grounded. A touch wary.

"Hi," he said, his mouth suddenly dry.

Patal beamed like this was her own personal soap opera. "So, you two? I need context. How does he know someone as effortlessly cool as you?"

Tyler's eyes flicked back to him. And in that moment, just that second, there it was. The old knowing. Two people who had learned long ago how to smooth over the truth/ A perfectly crafted lie that felt almost real, just like the way they'd once learned to dress up their darker desires in polite, socially acceptable packages.

She grinned. Too fast. Too bright. That wicked, magnetic charm she always had, like a trap made of silk.

"Oh, he spilled coffee on me," she said smoothly. "One of those 'meet cute' disasters. Ruined my favourite shirt."

Edward almost laughed. Almost.

But instead, he leaned into the shape of the lie like it had always been theirs.

"Full latte," he added. "Oat milk. Everywhere."

"Third-degree burns," Tyler said solemnly, eyes wide.

"She made me buy her another shirt."

"I made him buy me two. One for emotional damage."

Patal barked a laugh. "Honestly, that tracks."

Tyler looked at Edward again, and this time, her smile softened. Something real peeked through the edges, something warm and careful and not for anyone else.

And just like that, the lie didn't feel like a lie anymore.

Not exactly.

The coffee had happened. He had spilled it. But the moment had come long after he'd first seen her, months earlier. Tyler had been new. Edward had been around. He had seen her at munches before, but it was at that party, under the hum of conversation and the faint thrum of music, that he'd actually noticed her.

Tyler had been with her girlfriend at the time, a steady D-type with a low, measured voice and a knack for sensation play. Edward had watched them from the edge of the room, catching glimpses of the way she knelt, wax slowly dripping down her back. It wasn't desire, exactly, more like an understanding, something familiar in the way they moved, like a shared rhythm. There was something in the air that night, a quiet recognition. A knowing that didn't need to be said.

Afterwards, they'd spent more time together, just two people who got it. Tyler had been the first s-type he could really talk to, someone who understood what it meant to give something up without really losing anything. They swapped stories, traded scars. They'd even done a scene once, with Lily topping them both, a slow, easy exchange that didn't feel as intense as it might have sounded. Edward remembered the lightness in Tyler's laugh, the way the moment after had settled into something easy, no need for words, just a shared sense of something done, something simple.

He hadn't thought about that in years. About the way Tyler had rested her head on his shoulder after, breath hot and damp with laughter. About the way it had felt to not be alone. Maybe that was why seeing her now pulled at something fragile inside him.

He missed her.

God, he hadn't realised how much.

"You two still close?" Patal asked, peeling the paper off another muffin. Edward noticed the slight tension in Tyler's jaw before she tilted her head, letting the silence answer for her.

"We were," she said simply. "Then life got busy."

Edward nodded. "Yeah. That." He forced himself to meet her eyes, bracing for something sharp, but she only gave him a small, rueful smile. Their eyes met, and something softened in his chest.

She winked.

He smiled. Not much. But it stayed, like an ember refusing to die out.

"Alright," Patal said, standing up. "I'm off to go pretend I understand brioche. You two reminisce or flirt or trauma bond, I don't care. Just save me a seat."

She vanished, and for a second the noise of the room returned in full: a burst of laughter, a shout about dropped stitches, the faint murmur of acoustic guitar from the speaker in the corner. Edward became aware of the way his hands were clenched around the yarn, his pulse still skittering from the sudden shift.

Tyler slid into the chair beside him without asking, and he felt the air grow denser, charged. The years between them folded like paper.

Edward cleared his throat, trying to shift the heat prickling at his neck, and glanced down at his hands. He hadn't meant to grip the yarn so tightly, the soft wool now tangled around his fingers. Taking a breath, he let it unravel, hands brushing against the half mangled square in his lap.

He could feel Tyler beside him, not quite looking, waiting with the sort of patience that always came so easily to her. There had always been that steadiness to her, even back then, when her eyes were bright with something like mischief but never reckless. He'd envied that about her, the way she could just be.

"How've you been?" Edward asked, the question coming out softer than he meant.

Tyler didn't answer right away. She ran a thumb over the edge of the table, tracing the nicks and scratches like a map. "Been good," she said finally. "Seeing someone, actually. About a year and a half now."

"Oh," Edward said, surprise flickering through his voice before settling into something warmer. "That's great."

She smiled, not wide but real. "They're... incredible. It's good, you know? Real good." She glanced at him, the look in her eyes warmer than he'd expected. "Lance introduced us, actually."

A smile tugged at Edward's lips. He tried to picture it: Tyler laughing over coffee, someone new beside her, maybe with the same easy confidence. He couldn't quite put a face to it, but it felt good to know she was happy.

"That's really good," he said, feeling like he was still catching up. Tyler's hand brushed the back of his, quick and light, and he didn't pull away.

She didn't ask him, not directly, but there was something in the way she looked at him that made him feel like he should say it anyway. Before he could think better of it, the words were out. "I'm—uh. Kind of seeing someone too."

The corner of her mouth twitched upward. "Kind of?"

"Yeah," he said, feeling a little self-conscious. "It's... really early. Just... early days. I don't even know what to call it yet." He hesitated, almost embarrassed. "You know Sykes?"

Her smile widened, and she snorted, just once. "Oh my god. You're seeing Sykes?"

Edward couldn't help but smile at her reaction. "I figured you'd know him."

She gave him a look like he'd just asked if she knew how to breathe. "Of course I know him." Her voice dropped to a more private tone. "Pretty sure everyone does."

A flush crept up his neck. "Right. I just—yeah."

Tyler's laughter softened, the initial surprise giving way to a kind of fond amusement. "Honestly? Good for you. I didn't picture the two of you together, but... it makes sense. You've always needed someone who doesn't let you get too comfortable." She gave him a teasing nudge. "Someone who keeps you in check. And from what I've heard, he's great at that."

Edward couldn't help but huff a laugh, trying not to overthink it. "Yeah. Me neither. But it's... good. Really good."

The warmth between them settled back in, the earlier awkwardness fading to something easier, like a language they both understood.

"He's—yeah. He's perfect for you. I mean that."

There was something gentle in the way she said it, a soft acceptance that made his shoulders relax. Tyler knew how much Lily's death had broken him. God, their friendship had died in the wake of it.

A warmth spread through his chest, more surprising than anything else. Tyler had always known how to cut through his defenses without even trying. He gave a small, shaky laugh, feeling the tension in his shoulders finally ease.

"Thanks," he said.

They lapsed into silence, and Edward picked up his knitting again, fingers finding the rhythm. He could feel Tyler watching, but it wasn't uncomfortable. Just familiar. He could almost hear Lily's voice in his head, telling him to stop overthinking and just let it be.

They didn't need to say much else. It was just easy, like falling back into an old song.

Patal returned, hands full of more muffins and an expression caught between mock outrage and amusement. "Wait, wait, wait. Did Tyler get to hear about the mystery man and I didn't?"

Edward glanced at Tyler, whose grin was entirely unrepentant. "Don't worry, Doc," she said, eyes glinting. "I'm sure he'll tell you all about it."

Patal huffed, dropping into the chair and tossing Edward a muffin. "I'm demanding a full report later. Including any dramatic declarations of love."

Edward snorted. "You'll have to wait for the sequel."

Tyler laughed, soft and low, and Edward couldn't help the smile that spread across his face, the ember still there, burning brighter now.