Cassian’s footsteps echoed too loudly in the empty stairwell each one a drumbeat against his ribs, each breath too shallow, too fast. The air slled of polished wood and distant perfu, but all he could taste was fear. His palms were slick with sweat, his throat dry as dust. He slowed as he reached the seventh-floor hallway silent, carpeted in deep burgundy, lit only by the occasional wall sconce casting long, trembling shadows that seed to reach for him.
Room 73.
The number glowed faintly in brushed steel, cold and indifferent. Cassian stopped in front of it, heart hamring like it wanted out of his chest, like it knew sothing he didn’t. He could still turn back. Run. Scream for Aiden. Text Leonel. But then he rembered Lucian’s eyes at the party cold, betrayed, furious and the quiet threat coiled beneath every word he’d ever whispered
"You don’t know how fucked up the shit I’ll do to you all."
He took a long, shaky breath. Gripped the handle. Turned it.
The door opened without a sound.
Inside, the room was bathed in dim amber light from a single floor lamp in the corner. Heavy velvet curtains frad a floor-to-ceiling window, the city glittering far below like a sea of fallen stars. And there standing with his back to the door, hands buried in his pockets, shoulders rigid as stone was Lucian.
He didn’t turn. But his voice cut through the silence like shattered glass.
"You’re late." A pause. "It’s 9:10."
Cassian swallowed hard, stepping inside and closing the door softly behind him. The click of the latch felt final. "It’s just ten minutes," he said, forcing a nervous laugh that cracked at the edges. "Co on."
Lucian finally turned.
His face wasn’t twisted in rage not exactly. But his eyes were sharp, burning, his jaw clenched tight like he was holding back a storm. He looked less like a predator and more like soone who’d been waiting too long for an answer that never ca.
"Ten minutes?" Lucian echoed, voice low now, dangerous in its quietness. "You think this is about punctuality, Cassian?"
Cassian shifted his weight, arms crossed like a shield over his chest. "Then what is it about?"
Lucian took a step forward. Then another. Until only a few feet separated them. The air grew thinner, charged with sothing electric and suffocating.
"It’s about you choosing them," Lucian said, voice cracking just slightly, raw with sothing that sounded too much like grief, "over . Again."
Cassian flinched. "and so what it’s not like you are more special then them" he says in a shakky voice
"You were with them," Lucian said, voice tight, raw. "Laughing. Leaning in. So wrapped up in your little world you didn’t even notice the ti." He took another step, close enough now that Cassian could see the pulse beating in his throat. "I was ready to co down here at 8:45. But then I saw you smiling at sothing Aiden said, letting Leonel brush your hair back like it was nothing. Like it was yours."
Another step. Cassian didn’t retreat. Couldn’t.
"I stood there," Lucian went on, voice dropping to a whisper, "watching you for fifteen minutes. You didn’t look up once. Didn’t feel staring. And when you finally did?" He let out a shaky breath, eyes glistening. "You looked at like I was a ghost."
He was close now close enough that Cassian could see the hurt beneath the anger, the flicker of sothing broken in his eyes, sothing that didn’t belong to the Lucian he thought he knew.
"You used to lean into like that," Lucian murmured, voice thick with mory. "You used to see ."
Cassian blinked, confusion cutting through his fear like a knife. "What are you talking about? I never -"
"Don’t," Lucian cut in, voice sharp as a blade. "Don’t pretend like we were nothing."
"I’m not pretending," Cassian said, firr now, though his hands trembled at his sides. "I never liked you. Not like that. We never even had a real conversation just you showing up, watching , saying things that made my skin crawl." He shook his head, voice breaking. "You’re rembering soone I wasn’t."
Lucian’s expression twisted not with rage, but with sothing worse disbelief. Pure, aching disbelief.
"You really don’t rember, do you?" he whispered.
Cassian’s breath caught.
Before he could ask what that ant, Lucian reached out slow, almost gentle and brushed his thumb along Cassian’s jawline, just once. Then his fingers slid downward, cold and deliberate, to the top button of Cassian’s red shirt.
With a slow, practiced flick, he unfastened it.
The fabric parted just enough to reveal the hollow of Cassian’s throat, the faint pink lines still healing along his collarbone marks left days ago, after Lucian had cornered him on the balcony.
"Hey -" Cassian grabbed Lucian’s wrist, pulse spiking. "What the hell are you doing? I don’t get it none of this! You keep talking like we had so history, like I owed you sothing -"
Lucian didn’t pull away. He just stared down at him, eyes darkening like storm clouds rolling in. Then, voice low and edged with venom, he said:
"Remove your hand... if you don’t wanna get hit straight in your fucking face."
The words didn’t just echo they unraveled him.
His breath stopped.
His vision blurred.
Suddenly, he wasn’t in Room 73 anymore.
He was seventeen.in his past life Rain pounded against the windows of a dim, mold-scented apartnt. The power had gone out again. His hands were shaking as he gripped the wrist of a much taller boy his roommate’s older brother, the one who’d been "watching over him" since his parents left for good. The one who’d started "joking" about how pretty he looked when he cried. That night, he had been alone. And the guy had pinned him against the fridge, breath reeking of whiskey and cigarettes, saying those exact words:
"Remove your hand if you don’t wanna get hit straight in your fucking face."
He had let go.
And the next thing he knew, he was on the floor, lip split, ribs aching, sobbing into the damp carpet while the guy laughed and walked away.
Now, again coming back to room 73 standing in this quiet hotel room, his fingers trembled on Lucian’s wrist. The grip loosened unwillingly, instinctively just like it had all those years ago.
Lucian’s lips curled into a smirk. "Good. At least you know your place."
He finished unbuttoning the next button himself, pushing the shirt aside just enough to see the fading bruises along Cassian’s shoulder the ones from the balcony, the ones Lucian himself had left. His expression softened not with remorse, but with sothing possessive, almost tender.
"Oh," he murmured, tracing a fingertip over the pale marks like they were sacred. "They’re almost gone." He looked up, eyes gleaming with sothing dark and intimate. "You don’t know how much I had to hold back my anger when I saw them. Knowing soone else had touched you... hurt you... before I could."
Cassian couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. His body rembered what his mind had tried to forget.
Lucian leaned in, close enough that his breath ghosted over Cassian’s ear. Then, softly, deliberately, like unveiling a secret only they shared, he whispered:
"Do you rember now... Elliot?"
The na struck like lightning.
Cassian’s world flipped.
His knees nearly buckled.
"W-what did you just call ?" he choked out, voice raw with disbelief, eyes wide with terror.
Lucian pulled back, studying him with a mix of amusent and triumph, like he’d just won a war no one else knew was being fought. "Elliot," he said again, slower this ti, savoring each syllable like it was honey on his tongue. "My sweet, quiet Elliot. The boy who used to hide in the library after school because he was scared to go ho. The one who let walk him ho every Friday... until you vanished."
Cassian’s chest heaved. "That’s not -my na isn’t -"
"Awh," Lucian cooed, reaching up to cup Cassian’s face, thumb brushing his cheekbone with terrifying gentleness. "Did my bunny get scared hearing his real na?" He smiled, but there was no warmth in it. Only ownership. Only certainty. "Don’t worry. I also ca into this world. I was so lost then guess what I found you. And this ti... you’re not disappearing on again. like you did in that room although I dissapeared too but that doesn’t matter "
Cassian stared at him truly stared and for the first ti, he saw it not just a stalker, not just a rival.
But the man from his past.
The one who’d walked him ho every Friday after school, who’d held his books when his hands shook, who’d whispered, "You’re safe with ," right before he started demanding paynt in silence, in obedience, in fear.
His breath ca in shallow gasps.
Because Lucian wasn’t just here.
He’d always been.
And Cassian had never really escaped.
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