#x nomie!reader

His eyes snapped open instantly – still angled downward, shadowed under his lashes. His fists clenched, only slightly, but enough for you to notice in the dim light. For the first time, you were thankful for the metal support beneath your shoulder for propping you up. 

Slowly, painfully, his gaze raked up, crawling over you, taking you in bit by bit until his eyes found yours, cantered beneath his brows. His expression didn’t change, but the sudden, sharp rise of his chest betrayed him. He hadn’t expected you.

You took his lack of movement as permission, stepping finally out of the shadow to the thick, smudged glass. His chest only rose again, jaw tight, as he pulled in unsure breaths. For a moment, he resembled little more than an injured stray, unable to register anything but his own fear. 

He made no effort to move, nor speak. Neither did you. 

For the second time, his eyes drifted down, taking in the crutch beneath your arm, the bandages poking out from beneath loose sweatpants, the bruises from IV lines littering your arm and hand. 

It took all your strength to avoid flinching at the metallic clunking of the chains that bound him as he broke the suffocating silence, punctuated only by the small huff of effort it took for him to lower his arms, taking unsure, unsteady steps to close the gap. 

You had never felt so much like prey. 

“I did this?” His voice was raspy, yet sterile. Head tilting as if assessing you. The warmth you had known so well stripped away. 

Your tongue darted out to anxiously wet your lips. “The Hyde did.” It came out quieter than you meant for it to, quivering slightly as his lips twitched. They didn’t hold, but the ghost of the smirk was there, like some subliminal feed designed to mess with you. You shuffled your weight awkwardly. 

“You still don’t blame me, do you?” 

“It was Gates.” You said simply, the words so well repeated that they were second nature.

The huff of a laugh startled you, the first real show of emotion giving you the only glimpse of your Tyler since that night. 

“Did Fairburn tell you to say that?” His eyes left yours only briefly, glancing up to one of the many cameras you knew they were watching from. You weren’t dumb. You were only let in here to experiment with him further. Push him to another limit. 

“Do you think so little of me?” you frowned, mouth downturned as he glanced back at you, fixated on your still-chapped lips. He sucked in a ragged breath, but offered you nothing more. 

“You left me alive,” you murmured, so quietly you weren’t even sure he could hear you. The slight tension that set into his bare shoulders the only sign he had. You tempted another step closer. “Why?” 

He didn’t move, his eyes flicking between yours. “I don’t know.” 

“Don’t lie.” You weren’t sure where the anger boiled up from, something in you finally snapping as you spat your words, still barely raising your voice. 

His chest heaved now, dragging in breaths as if he had been running, nostrils flaring with the effort. He stepped closer still, so close that if either of you took another step you’d be pressed against the glass you were sure wouldn’t stop him if he really wanted out. 

“I should have,” it was practically a growl. 

You pulled your cheek between your molars, biting down so as to hold back the tears that threatened to spill. Not because his words hurt, you had been told to expect nothing but cruelty, but because a part of you wished he had gone through with it. Spare you from the hell of the last three months. 

“But you have a funny way about getting under people’s skin.” He stepped back slightly, well, it was more of a stagger, as if the words had stung him. 

Your laugh surprised you, but completely confused him. His brow furrowed as you sank into the support of your crutch further. “That’s it?” you scoffed, god you had hoped for something far less cliché. “You let me live because you cared about me?” 

“Cared?” Finally, his facade cracked, the skin finally twisting into something akin to real emotion. Real anger. “You’d reduce it down to care? As if I wasn’t the only one who loved you.” His words slammed into you, knocking the breath from your chest. For a moment, you were utterly speechless. “Now tell me, why are you here, if not just one of her experiments?” his eyes flicked back to the cameras, lingering this time as he waited for your answer. 

Your chest tightened, the crutch digging in painfully again. “Because I needed answers.”

“Answers?” His laugh was low, harsh, as he snapped his attention back to you, the vein in his neck popping. “No. You came because you couldn’t let go. Because some part of you wanted to see me again.”

“That’s not true,” you snapped, the words ringing too sharp, too fast.

He stilled. His gaze burned into you, patient in its cruelty, like he could peel back each layer until the truth was bare. “Say it again,” he murmured. “Say it without shaking.”

The silence pressed down on you, so thick you could hardly breathe. You opened your mouth, but nothing came out.

His lips curved. “That’s what I thought.”

For a second, you considered turning. Your weight shifted back a little as you raised your crutch, head turning just a little back towards the door. 

“You think I wanted this?” he called, halting your movements entirely. “You think I wanted you—” His voice broke, his chains rattling with the tremor in his hands. “I never wanted you anywhere near this.”

You turned back more quickly than you should have, stepping so close your breath nearly fogged the glass. “Then why?” you demanded, your voice rising despite yourself. 

“Because you were the only good thing I had.” 

For a beat, you couldn’t breathe. His eyes – usually hard, unreadable – glimmered with something fragile. Regret? Pain? Or was it just another performance, another way to keep you tethered?

You searched his face for the monster you knew, the one who had torn you apart, but in its place was the boy who used to smile at you across steaming cups of coffee, who carried your books just because he could. The boy you had loved. Still did.

Your heart ached at the sight of it, a dangerous pull dragging you closer. Against every warning in your mind, against the sting of your scars, you let yourself soften, just for a breath.

“Tyler…” you whispered, your palm lifting as if it might rest against the glass, reaching toward him despite the barrier, despite everything. His chest stuttered with the smallest inhale, his shoulders dropping, but his hands remaining by his sides. 

For a moment, it almost felt like the glass wasn’t there. The silence that followed was unbearable, stretching taut until the heavy lock of the door disengaged behind you. A guard’s voice broke the spell: “Time.”

Neither of you moved. You stared at him through the glass, your breath shuddering, his eyes hollow and wet.

At last, you turned toward the door, every step heavier than the last. But just before the guard pulled you out, his voice cracked through the space one last time.

“I see it now.” His chest rose sharply. “Killing you. It would’ve been kinder than what I left you with.”