Chapter 6 Nil #3
I close the door behind me. The room’s quiet, and that makes it worse. My head’s swimming with Stan’s voice saying “good boy” like it was nothing, but it singed fire into my veins.
The powder room door is sorta open, so I slip inside and shut it behind me.
Then I look up. Bad idea. Terrible idea. The mirror doesn’t do me any favors. It calls me the fuck out. My face is flushed. My jaw’s tight. And below the sink, I’m…hard as hell.
My pants are strained. It looks like I leaked a little too.
“No fucking way,” I mutter under my breath, blushing so hard I look red in the face. “This can’t be happening.”
I close my eyes for a second. Here I am. A full-grown man, hiding in a tiny bathroom because another man said to call him “good boy” as a joke.
I let out a quiet groan and try breathing through it. But the tension only gets hotter and reaches a boiling point, like my body’s sick of acting like it’s not affected by Stan, his jokes, his stare, and all the noises he makes that help me forget what lonely feels like.
“Get it together,” I tell myself. My reflection looks back like it disagrees.
There’s no way I can walk back in there like this. Not with Stan grinning at me. Not with Em watching every muscle in my face. Not with the scanner ready to broadcast my thoughts.
My pulse bumps hard. My hips buck forward. The want becomes an aching, throbbing need.
I brace both hands on the sink, breath unsteady.
I need to deal with this.
Now.
Before Stan asks me why I disappeared, before Em logs more “inconsistencies” on her tablet, before I humiliate myself in the MedBay with a reading that looks like an earthquake.
So with a deep breath, I splash cold water on my face until it drips down my collar. It shocks my nerves, steals my breath…but it doesn’t help. Not even close.
My pulse is still racing in the wrong places. My skin’s gotten too hot. My thoughts are worse. And Stan’s voice won’t stop replaying in my skull.
Good boy.
I shut the tap off too hard. I drag a hand over my face and force myself to breathe.
This is fine. I can shut this down. I can—
No. I can’t.
I push out of the powder room, needing to deal with this in my damn mattress. My hand wraps around a rung of the ladder to my bunk, ready to bury myself face-first into a pillow and fix this.
Except the moment I’m standing close to the bunk beds, his scent hits me harder. Sweets. Smoke. Warm sugar. Stan.
It’s drifting up from his bed. His pillow. His sheets.
I freeze when my hand lands on his mattress. My body goes tight.
No. Absolutely not. I’m not that desperate. I’m not—
My muscles move anyway. I drop down silently. Stan’s bed isn’t made, blankets shoved aside. The pillow gives under my cheek. His scent hits me full-force, knocking out whatever discipline I had left. My breath shudders. My fingers fist his sheets.
God, this is pathetic.
But my body doesn’t care about pride. Or logic. Or consequences.
It wants relief. It wants pleasure. It wants… I don’t even know what it wants, but it wants it now.
I bury my face deeper into the pillow. My pulse pounds. Everything in me coils tighter.
My other hand slides down inside my sweats, feeling my leaking cock. I’m painfully fucking hard.
And breathing in Stan’s pillow makes me twitch in my own hand and groan into the fabric.
“Fuck.” My hot breath hits me back. “Stan, fuck.”
My fingers wrap around my girth, pumping fast. My neck’s burning. My ears feel hot. My dignity is somewhere at the bottom of the sea.
But I need release, so I pump and pump, twist and thumb my tip. Trying not to think about Stan and his grin and his jokes and how he makes me feel like I don’t need to feel bad about anything I’ve ever done.
The more I try to fight it, the stronger his voice gets in my head. Calling me Ocean Eyes. Telling me to wake up. Showing me I can laugh again. Telling me to fight.
And then a memory slips in. One I didn’t realize was buried. When my body felt cold and my breathing felt forced, I could hear him talking about a calendar he found with pictures of cats on it. He was so happy. Inside my mind, I felt stuck, but I could feel the joy in his voice.
Oh, god, no.
I’m going to come to that.
Oh. God.
My pants are ruined the next second. My hand sticky.
I just came to a buried memory of Stan telling me about a cat calendar while I was in a coma.
All I can do is lie here until my pulse stops trying to punch its way out of my veins. Until I can think without wanting to crawl out of my own skin. I haven’t even taken the new Kys yet. What the hell can I blame for this?
Eventually, I push myself upright, careful not to look at anything for too long. Especially not the pillow. Especially not the proof in my pants of what just happened.
I wipe my clean hand over my face. My voice comes out low and bitter. “Never speak of this.”
The room doesn’t argue.
I walk back to the powder room like nothing happened, even though everything in my body feels different now.
Washing my hands, I catch my reflection in the mirror. I’m not red in the face anymore at least.
***
By the time I head back to the MedBay, I’ve changed clothes. I tell myself I look fine. I tell myself no one can tell.
Stan’s outside the MedBay, leaning against the wall, talking to Idris. They both look at me when I approach.
“Hey, Ocean Eyes,” Stan says with a wink that hits me like a punch. “You good?”
I hope my face doesn’t show anything. “Yeah.”
“You sure?” Stan steps closer, watching me like he knows I’m lying. “You need Idris to babysit you for a minute while I handle a mission from Prince of Egypt over here?”
Idris lifts a brow at Stan, then turns to me with a smile. “He means I’ve asked him to check on my brother.”
Stan beams. “I can crack open any emotionally constipated older brother.”
“That’s kind of you to say about him.” Idris laughs. “But he’s a tough nut to crack.”
Nut. The word spins in my head. I close my eyes and sigh.
“Please. I learned from the best,” Stan says. “You walk in anywhere lookin’ like a dreamy prince. People melt. It’s unfair. I already got Nil to compete with for Prettiest on Board, but now Prince Charming’s up for grabs between us, Idris.”
“Not even close,” Idris responds. “You easily win that, Stan.”
“Aww!” Stan sounds like he’s swooning.
I open one eye and frown, watching them. They’re so chummy with each other. When did that happen? While I was out cold? Does Stan flirt with Idris like he does with me?
My stare’s aimed at Idris. He’s a few inches shorter than Stan, so around my height. And he has blue eyes, like Darius too. My frown deepens. Does Stan have a type? Brown hair, blue eyes…?
I shut the thoughts down fast. I’m not attached. Can’t be attached. I literally jerked off in his bed ten minutes ago. That isn’t attachment. That’s possible brain damage. From the fall. Yeah, that has to be it.
My pulse thumps, while I force down the fact that my charts showed zero of that.
Then my thoughts stop spiraling, only because Stan throws a grin at me, his gray eyes taking me in.
God, I could melt. Idris is right. Stan would win the crown for Prince Charming. He’s so damn handsome.
“Anyway…” Stan’s eyes trace down my face. “You good with Idris watching your six while I go work my magic on Big Brother Adel? Don’t want you faceplanting if this whole revived miracle body of yours does a surprise shutdown after taking Em’s remixed Kys.”
My mouth feels wrong when I mutter, “All good. Have fun.”
Stan’s grin tugs at an edge. “Always will, Ocean Eyes. Don’t miss me too much.”
With that, he heads down the hall, and my eyes follow. Idris shoots me a curious look. “Everything alright?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say.
He nods and opens the MedBay door for me. “Em’s ready to run the scan again. We’ll take it slow.”
We step inside together.
Em stands by that sensor helmet, tablet in hand. She acknowledges me with a single stare. It’s the same flat look as always, but with the way her eyes search mine, it feels like she’s comparing this version of me to the one who bolted.
“Welcome back, Nil,” she says. “We’ll resume where we left off. I’ve recalibrated the system.”
Her tone gives nothing away. But she must know. My readings spiked when Stan said those words.
Idris stands at my side. “If anything feels off,” he says, “please tell us, okay?”
“I will,” I say, taking the same seat.
Em begins checking the sensors, her attention moving in smooth motions. Idris watches the whole thing. I watch neither of them, because I’m too busy pretending that Stan didn’t just walk away with half my sanity.
Idris’ phone buzzes. He murmurs something about needing to take a call and peels away toward the door, leaving Em in front of me.
Em lifts the first sensor toward my temple. I can feel how closely she’s tracking my breathing. My skin prickles. I catch myself tracking her hands and force my eyes back to the wall.
“Hold still, Nil,” she says.
My chest grips. If this thing spikes wrong a second time, she’ll know something’s off. Stan’s not here to run interference with a stupid joke. It’s just me and my stupid nervous system.
“Nil,” she says, “your file lists Otis Dela Cruz as your stepfather.” She doesn’t look away from what she’s doing. “If you recall how he described his original formula, it would be invaluable to the trial.”
My throat goes dry. Hearing his name out loud feels strange. I haven’t thought about my family name in years. It never felt like it belonged to me, just something stamped on the damage.
“I remember a bit,” I whisper back. “Just the parts no one wants.”
“All parts are relevant,” Em says. “When you’re ready.”
The scanner thrums to life. My heartbeat climbs, loud in my ears. I breathe in. I breathe out. I try to think of anything calming, so I don’t screw up this scan again. I stare at white walls, the pattern of tiles on the MedBay floor…
My brain ignores all of it and hands me Stan instead.
His grin. His deep voice. His ridiculous jokes. And how he says the nickname he gave me, like the trail of blood behind me’s been washed out with a wave.
Ocean Eyes.