Archive of Our Own

“We’ve identified a handful of subjects which seem to respond positively to the plasma infusions, but their condition soon deteriorates. There are some things I consider toying with, but, well… there are pieces we have yet to bring into the foray.” The doctor paces, unhurried, with his hands clasped behind his back. His speech is similar—slow and soft, like speaking to a child. His tongue, forked, flicks out from between his gold-plated teeth for a moment. He’s excited.

“Bring them into the foray, then,” Zeno tells him, trying to focus more on the smoldering cherry of his cigarette than the obnoxious clicking of Victor’s heeled boots on the tile floor. “The timeline is strict. Find the girl, or replicate the key. I don’t care what you do as long as something gets done. You’ve stagnated for too long.”

“But of course,” Victor says, pausing to smile blithely over his shoulder at Zeno. A peek of gold glints from between his lips. “I have people handling it.” He says nothing more, only strides across the room to rifle through full-to-bursting manila folders in sudden, jerky movements.

“You’ve been handling it for long enough, Doctor. We need results. I’ve given you the freedom to steer the course—but I need specifics.”

“Let’s discuss your condition.”

“Let’s discuss your lack of progress.”

“Last I remember, you experienced some interesting side effects after I administered the inhibitor, stemming from your unique antibody profile.” He raises a single piece of paper up high enough for Zeno to see it from where he sits. “Do you?”

Zeno says nothing, just takes a drag from his cigarette.

“You do, of course. Neuropathy, ataxia, agitation...” Victor places the paper back on the desk before him and lifts something else that Zeno can’t see. “I’ve experimented with the formulation. Such symptoms should no longer be triggered, and the stimulation of latent-lytic regulators should be in effect for a greater length of time.”

“It’s been a month, at best,” Zeno says, his voice scratchy and hesitant, “that’s too soon.”

“You’ve never been a doctor, Zeno, despite best attempts,” Victor tuts. “Your expertise is better suited for the business side of things, don’t you think?” He turns away from the desk, holding a syringe in his right hand. Whatever’s inside it reflects the dim, sterile overhead lighting. “Let the doctor handle the treatment, as the salesman handles the… well, the sales.”

“My expertise is more than enough for me to know that my condition requires no more than one dose per quarter year.” Impatient, irritated, Zeno’s foot bounces against the tile floor.

“Oh, did I forget to tell you?” The doctor smiles, stepping toward the examination table in the center of the room. “The virus is progressing. Who knows—maybe we wait until then, and you drop dead. I can’t predict when it may enter the lytic period, only try to put it off.”

Zeno eyes him, taking another drag. “You’d have mentioned that already if it were true.”

Victor shrugs. “It’s your life. The Connections will send someone else to play middleman, and I’ll continue my research; it makes no difference to me.” He turns away once more, coat fluttering around his knees, and places the syringe on one of three steel rolling trays.

The tip faces Zeno. A pearl of fluid beads there. Ash falls onto the tile as he sits, ruminating.

It would be silent if not for the rustle of paper and Victor’s jubilant humming—some discordant tune—as he wastes time with shuffling through more folders.

“Coercion of a superior is a dangerous game, Doctor.” Zeno stubs out his cigarette on the sole of his shoe.

Another wide, toothy grin spreads across Victor’s face, visible to Zeno at a tilt of the man’s head. “Coercion? I’d never. I like to call it mutual interest.” He spends another long, dragging moment rearranging items on the desk before returning to the examination table. “Come. Sit,” Victor says, beckoning him forth with a pat to the table’s worn leather. Like a master calling a dog. The assumption makes Zeno’s blood run hot.

And still he obeys, jaw tense enough for his molars to groan under the pressure.

Victor gestures for Zeno to roll up his sleeve.

Beneath the pristine layers of his suit jacket and shirt, the variegated black marks of the infection have begun to show; paler than those creeping onto his face from his neck, not quite so advanced, but present nonetheless. “Make it quick,” he says, gaze trained on one of the building schematics pinned to the wall across from him.

“But of course,” Victor chuckles. He takes up Zeno’s proferred arm at the wrist and leans forward to examine it, hming as if he’s found something fascinating. “I thought it would take much longer to reach this level of advancement.” He says it as if to himself.

“The pigment and spread are identical to how it’s looked every day for the last two years. Don’t bother putting on a show.” He makes to draw his arm back, away from the doctor’s trailing touches, but Victor grips hard to his forearm.

Victor heaves a large, world-weary sigh, and shakes his head in disappointment. “You think so lowly of me,” he says, tugging Zeno’s arm to full extension. “Make a fist for me, won’t you?”

Zeno does. The leather of his glove creaks; for a moment—as Victor tears open a disinfectant pad—he considers driving that fist through the doctor’s thick skull. The gauze drags over the ditch of Zeno’s elbow; its chill seeps into his unblemished skin, and where it touches the mottling bruises of the scars, his nerves return nothing but a faint prickle of sensation. Like a limb stuck halfway between asleep and awake.

As Victor pulls the wipe away, he pinches part of that necrotized flesh between two nails.

Zeno shoots him a glare, fingers twitching in irritated, half-hearted reflex, but keeps his forearm still.

“So you still have some sensation. That’s good,” he says, nonplussed, and discards the gauze in exchange for the filled syringe. His voice dips into a soft murmur after the initial observation; the doctor does it often, perhaps a holdover from working with patients—subjects—of a more fearful disposition.

Zeno’s glove creaks again, fist tightening enough for his knuckles to tingle. “The same amount of sensation as the last several times you’ve insisted on checking, yes. Get it over with.”

Victor smiles again, breath leaving his nostrils in an exhale that might be a laugh. “So impatient. And so tense. Relax, I don’t bite.”

As Victor brings the syringe in closer, Zeno’s arm jerks back the slightest bit—an involuntary reaction, some instinctual act of self-preservation. He rolls his shoulders and steels himself, gaze intent as the needle nears his arm once more.

The point digs into his forearm; the doctor sighs as if pleased.

The injection feels no different from the others he’s been subjected to: a little cold, like anesthetic, but the sensation disappears into prickling numbness in the places where the scars mar his skin. The necrosis starts at the marrow and leeches up into the softer tissue layers—a discovery initially made through ordinary subject examination, and corroborated through exploratory surgery for Zeno’s own uniqueness.

Zeno is under no impression that this lack of novelty is an indicator of lacking risk. It puts him more on edge, if possible: like if everything went wrong from the beginning, it would at least be less time guessing.

“See? That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?” Victor grins at him, teeth shining. His head tilts to the side, wide lens of his intricate headpiece angled down toward Zeno. Obscured as his eyes may be, the feeling of being watched is no less prominent. “You’d better stay here for the next hour, at least. I’m sure we’ll find some way to entertain ourselves.”

“I’m sure, Doctor,” Zeno says through his grit teeth, deftly rolling the crisp layers of his suit back down to cover his forearm.

The ataxia comes on first.

“We’ve found that particular alterations to the RNA sequencing, in combination with suppression or removal of a cranial nerve or two, can be quite successful at encouraging habit recall in the infected,” Victor tells him for what may be the first time, or perhaps the tenth. He’s back to pacing, in that slow and controlled manner of his, though he stops to stare at Zeno in uncanny silence every so often. Still with that ridiculous headpiece on, it’s difficult to tell where, exactly, he’s looking, but maybe it’s better that way.

There are few reasons for Zeno to listen to anything the doctor says. What’s important will be present in the written reports and emails Victor sends. So, not for the first time, he spends the first half of the obligatory observation period chain-smoking. A way to keep his hands busy—and, if he were to admit it, a way to distract from the mysterious substance working its way through his body.

Five more stubs have joined what used to be just the one at his feet. He wishes he had an ashtray. He lights the sixth; his thumb struggles to move the wheel at all, fingers fighting to maintain their grip around the lighter’s metal casing. Zeno resigns himself to his fate.

Victor must have stopped talking at some point, now standing less than a handful of feet away from the chair Zeno isn’t sure he could escape from if he tried. Like looking through a microscope, he stands very still, head once more tilted to examine Zeno through his wide right lens. “Feeling it now, are we?”

“Yes. Obviously,“ he snaps. It comes out slurred. Closing his lips around the filter of his cigarette takes more focus than it should; if he trusted his body enough to do it, he’d be throttling the doctor. “For how long?”

Victor laughs. “Oh, I don’t know—it depends on how well you can adapt, I’d guess.”

“Liar,” Zeno croaks, tongue like lead in his mouth. His right arm jerks without his command, ash smoldering on his pants, fingertips crushing around the filter spasmodically. “How. Long?” From where his head hangs, Victor looks taller than ever, looming over him. The glee almost radiates off of him, palpable.

“Hours, days—I can’t say.” He takes a step closer, the sound of his boot heel like a gunshot on the tile. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure no harm comes to you.”

A laugh tears through Zeno’s throat unbidden. He surges to his feet in a motion so cacophonous that it makes his head spin—a complete upheaval of the simple poise and articulation with which he naturally carries himself. The unscuffed toe of his shoe catches on nothing; he stumbles forward, and then back, a stabilizing step to the side, then forward again. What was supposed to be a lift of his right hand becomes a jolt up and in, knuckles almost making contact with his own chin, head wrenching back in response. “Fix it,“ he seethes, every muscle tensed in an attempt not to jerk around like a poorly operated puppet.

The doctor responds as if he’s gentling a particularly uncooperative patient. His ringed hands dwarf the entirety of Zeno’s scapulae when they rest on his shoulders, thumbs stroking along his collarbones in a manner that makes Zeno want nothing more than to tear them clean off. “Hush,” Victor says, voice no more than a whisper, standing close enough now for his breath—cold—to ghost over the crown of Zeno’s head, the tip of his ear.

He becomes acutely aware of the way his skin has become warm, warmer than usual. Something in his blood tingles. Zeno jerks back—or tries to—but is stopped by those hands on his shoulders, his enhanced strength dampened by whatever chemical reaction is happening inside of his body.

Victor’s tongue flicks out when he opens his mouth to speak again, cracked lips splitting in a wide smile. Zeno doesn’t know if it acts as an olfactory organ, like a snake’s does—he hasn’t thought to ask. But he has a distinct feeling that it does. “It’s happening. How do you feel?”

“Like I want you to—to fix it, you— “ he heaves, yanking himself back harder, heels scraping on the tile. Both lighter and cigarette tumble from his hands, free now to grip hard to Victor’s wrists and pull.

“Sh,“ Victor hisses, “enough of that. You’ll hurt yourself.” He stamps out the smouldering cherry with the toe of his boot, kicks away the fallen lighter; his hands slide up, one plucking the sunglasses off of Zeno’s face, the other cradling his jaw in an eerie imitation of tenderness to turn his face this way and that. “Your abilities are killing you, you know. Each use of that speed or strength is another thousand cells killed, hastening the process of the virus’ activation.”

Zeno tries to pull his head away, but Victor holds fast, tilting his jaw up to examine his face in its entirety. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” he grits, feeling the way his jaw moves against the almost slick scaliness of the doctor’s fingers. It almost feels like his nose is blocked, not drawing in enough oxygen—he breathes through his mouth instead, quick, harsh pants.

“Hm,” Victor hums, leaning further down, face mere centimeters from Zeno’s now. The click and whirr of his lenses are audible. His thumb creeps from the junction of Zeno’s jaw to the point of his chin, sits there for a moment—cold, firm—before pushing down, bidding Zeno’s mouth open.

A gurgling sound of complaint rises in his chest. His gloved fingertips scrape at the doctor’s forearms. The lights seem terribly bright without the barrier of his sunglasses.

“Oh, quiet.“

Victor’s thumb slips between Zeno’s right molars. It tastes of something damp and chalky. His jaw fights to close, muscles struggling and spasming; they barely seem to work, teeth failing to move much at all, the digit tucked between them unmarred.

Again, Victor laughs, forefinger caressing the angle of Zeno’s jaw like one would a cat. “Very good. I didn’t even have to ask,” he breathes, not a twitch indicating that he can even feel the teeth on his thumb. “I’m curious to see—open.”

It takes what seems like minutes for Zeno to decide if he should listen; Victor only stands in complete stillness, an impassive statue. If his eyes were visible, Zeno imagines they’d be crinkled with amusement. The thought makes him try again to grind his teeth together, but when the attempt is no less successful, he acquiesces and releases: his mandible stutters and jerks as he does, but opens nonetheless.

“Ah, very good,” he praises, left hand leaving Zeno’s shoulder to reach for something outside of his line of sight.

Saliva gathers in the dip of his tongue as he waits, though not for long; the doctor soon brandishes a sterile swab. He takes care to rub the tip against every conceivable surface of Zeno’s gums, now-damp thumb pulling his lips out of the way.

The very moment Victor steps away to store his sample, Zeno stumbles again, arms flying out gracelessly to search for a modicum of balance. His breath comes shorter than ever, and his lungs search desperately for more air; he finds himself hunched, palms braced on the examination table, dizzy and faint.

“Why?” The question comes out a growl, and with his open-mouthed wheezing, drool collects and drips from his lips—rabid. “What does it—what does it do?” Zeno sucks a sharp breath in, trying to gather his dignity.

Unbothered by his display, Victor continues his work with the swab across the room. He lets silence, save for the ragged sounds of Zeno’s own desperation to take in a full breath, hang heavy in the air for several long seconds before speaking. “You’re the only stable specimen accessible to me. We have baselines for you, precise medical records for nearly two decades.” Victor tilts his head from side to side, as if considering, and turns to make what might be eye contact once more. “You’re resilient enough to take it,” he murmurs, voice low.

“Of course I am,” Zeno scoffs, struggling to turn his head enough to wipe his face on his shoulder. His hands suddenly feel much too moist in his gloves; he fights to remove them, relieved when he can at last feel the cool of the examination table’s vinyl beneath his palms.

“Yes, of course,” Victor agrees with an easy smile, turning fully at last with new medical instruments in his hands. “So you understand—I need more samples. This structure is more ambitious than the last.”

It’s a struggle for Zeno’s eyes to stay focused on Victor’s blurring, doubling silhouette; they roll in their sockets, no image staying clear for longer than a handful of seconds. “What kind?” He asks, voice like gravel in his raw throat.

“Oh, nothing too special…” Victor trails off, setting his gathered materials onto the tray closest to Zeno. A butterfly needle is among them, and several ten-milliliter glass vials. The doctor steps out of Zeno’s line of sight, fingertips trailing along the tray. Next he speaks, his voice comes from closer. Inches, maybe. “Blood. A biopsy or two.”

The hairs on the back of Zeno’s neck raise. He tries to straighten, heave himself further upright on his locked-out arms, turn to look at Victor. A palm to the back of the neck keeps him prostrate, muscles too weak to push back. “Gideon,” he growls, spittle flying, “let me go. Now.“

Victor hums something low, fingers digging into the tense cords of muscle on either side of Zeno’s neck. “Quiet. I already told you—you’ll hurt yourself.” He leans in closer, the click and whirr of the headpiece raucous. “It would be easier if I could restrain you, for your own safety. Don’t make me do that,” Victor says, almost whispering. Something damp and cool touches Zeno’s ear, barely a second. He shivers.

The world seems to swim in front of Zeno’s eyes more and more with each passing second. “If you think you can—can disrespect me like this, Victor, you are sorely mistaken,” he says, tongue clumsy and leaden in his mouth, voice a gasp that rattles his chest.

Victor presses down harder with his hand until the cool vinyl almost touches Zeno’s chin. “You mistake me, Zeno. I mean nothing by it, just simple concern for your well-being. As your doctor and the overseer of your care.”

Not one to give up, Zeno spends another several seconds trying to fight Victor’s hand. When he cedes victory to the doctor, Zeno asks, “And that’s all? Only blood and biopsies?”

“Yes, only blood and biopsies.”

Zeno inhales. He allows his head to tilt forward, his forehead to rest on the table beneath him, and his eyes to close. “Fine. Before I change my mind, Doctor.”

Victor hums his triumph, clamped-tight fingers relaxing to instead stroke along the shaved line of hair at the nape of Zeno’s neck; his thumb and little finger span wide enough to cover more than half the circumference of it. “Good. Very good. All you have to do is relax,” he croons, words stretching, “you won’t even feel a thing.” The doctor’s other hand settles along the dip of Zeno’s waist; the contact brings the film of sweat there to Zeno’s attention, cotton of his shirt sticking to the skin where the doctor’s hand depresses it.

“Gideon,” he barks, muscles tensing again. His own voice sounds a little far away; he has the distinct feeling that, were he standing upright, he’d be unable to support the weight of his own head.

“Hush, now,” Victor instructs, broad palm scraping up and down Zeno’s side over the fine fabric of his suit. “You should be feeling it more, now; I’d hate for you to overexert yourself.” His hands vacate themselves without warning, likely reaching for the materials gathered just outside Zeno’s line of sight.

The doctor’s words bring something almost like panic to the forefront of Zeno’s mind, though his unbalanced state makes it difficult to feel. “I should be? But you said—” He cuts himself off with a sharp inhale—in part because of the sudden surge of weakness wracking his muscles, and in part because of the abrupt myriad of sensations coming over him.

First, Victor’s shoes come into contact with Zeno’s own, the doctor’s feet placed just next to each of his own; then, the cold hand grasping his left arm and pulling it straight; Victor’s coat, and breath, brushing across him; finally, the bizarre hot-cold sensation webbing across his skin like electricity, tingling discordantly. It takes monumental effort to pry his leaden head off the table again, searching in his bewilderment for some visual indicator of his present reality. For several long moments, he can neither hear nor see anything. His surroundings exist as nothing but a blur of color, light, and sound, percolated through some distorting filter.

When he can parse the visual and sonic feedback his brain is receiving, he realizes the needle has already punctured his wrist. Victor changes the attached vial as Zeno watches, one full—and almost black-looking—replaced by one empty.

“There you go, that’s one done already. I told you you wouldn’t feel a thing, didn’t I?” Victor murmurs, voice alarmingly close, spoken from no more than a centimeter or two away from Zeno’s ear. “Only two more.”

Zeno lets his head fall back down. “What..?” He tries to ask, but his voice comes dry and quiet. Sweat runs toward the point of his chin, his nose, from his hairline.

One of Victor’s hands rubs a thumb tenderly along the vertebrae in Zeno’s neck. “Don’t you worry about a thing, Zee. I’ll take good care of you.”

“Don’t…” Zeno trails off, mouth not cooperating, “… call me that.” It’s become harder for Zeno to keep his eyes open, so he doesn’t. He tries to pull his arm away from Victor’s grasp, but—as expected—it’s in vain. The hand on his neck leaves again, and Zeno hears shuffling before it returns; on the back of his head this time, stroking his hair like he’s some kind of pet. “Gideon,” he warns. It falls flat with how weak his voice is.

“What’s that?” Victor hums in question. His voice is light with his giddiness; his blunt nails scrape against Zeno’s scalp through the nitrile gloves. “Almost done.”

As the seconds pass, Zeno becomes more and more aware of the blood leaving his body. Maybe placebo; maybe not. It’s hard for him to tell. It makes his stomach turn, and he pushes his clammy forehead further into the vinyl of the exam table in an attempt to stave it off.

At last, Victor moves again, hand vanishing from Zeno’s head once more. He hums as he does, and steps in close enough that Zeno can feel him what must be only a few millimeters away from his own prostrate body. “There, all done,” the doctor says into his ear.

Zeno jerks when he does, pulling back as if he could throw Victor off of him. He could, before whatever the doctor gave him started ravaging his system, but as it is now, it’s useless. Zeno only succeeds at pressing the line of his back flush against Victor’s front. Loath as he is to admit, the coolness of the doctor’s body is soothing against his overheating skin.

“How are you feeling now, Zee?” Victor asks. Their faces are now close enough that Zeno can feel Victor’s jaw move when he speaks.

Zeno tries to respond once, twice, before his vocal cords work again. “Hot,” he says, voice no more than a rasp. His body, perhaps not quite caught up on its predicament, tries again to throw Victor off; again, it only presses the two of them closer.

He can hear the smile in Victor’s voice when he speaks again. “Oh, are you? I suppose that’s why you’re squirming around like that—I run quite cold, don’t I?”

“I’m—not,“ Zeno forces himself to say, fists and teeth clenching in frustration. He tries to push sideways next, but only succeeds in swaying dangerously; Victor’s hands, which he’d thought were busy, move to grasp each side of his hips under the guise of steadying him. “Get your…” Zeno huffs, squeezing his eyes shut in an attempt to gather his words, “hands off. Of me.”

“Oh, but Zee…” Victor sighs, “I worry you’ll fall if I do. Don’t you feel how unsteady your legs are?”

Again, Zeno pushes, not content to stay still and allow the doctor to have his fun. Again, it does nothing useful, and in fact seems to do nothing at all. He doesn’t move so much as an inch.

But Victor does. His fingers tighten where they rest on Zeno’s hipbones, and Victor pulls him closer—close enough, now, for Zeno to feel in very vivid detail each contour of Victor’s lower body. “I’m only making sure you don’t hurt yourself,” the doctor murmurs, lichenous breath seeming to fog on the too-hot surface of Zeno’s cheek. “I think,” Victor begins to say, “that if you’re feeling hot, we should fix that. I wouldn’t want my patient to be uncomfortable.”

Zeno opens his mouth to say no, because he’s certain he knows what the doctor means by that, but he finds himself remaining silent. If just this contact over clothes is cooling, then it can’t hurt to just… He nods, if only slightly, and does not fight again when Victor’s touch wanders.

Victor’s fingers are nimble for their size, and they work with finesse to thread each button through its matching eyelet until Zeno’s vest and shirt both hang open. One palm rests flat against Zeno’s bare sternum, the other low on his stomach. “Is that better?” Victor asks, his voice no more than a whisper.

Again, Zeno nods. The doctor’s hands are cold. The relief is instantaneous; his knees almost buckle, body falling forward into the broad, chilled hands along his front. Perhaps if he were more himself, he would be disgusted—but as it is now, he finds himself thinking who cares?

“Very good,” Victor purrs, thumbs dragging along the divot between Zeno’s collarbones and just above his navel. “See? Much better when you don’t fight it, isn’t it?” He pulls Zeno back again, arms the only thing keeping Zeno upright.

Zeno stretches his palms across the table once more, shifting to find a spot that’s still cool, not warm from his sweat-slick skin. He feels rather like a cat searching for the best spot to lie, and the thought sends such a visceral sense of humiliation through Zeno’s body that he considers finding some implement to end the doctor’s life and then his own.

“Still hot, though, I see…” Victor drags his hands along to pull the fabric of the suit off Zeno’s shoulders, fingers unsticking stubborn spots where sweat has adhered itself to the cotton.

The relief is enough to ease Zeno’s agitation, if only for a moment. He presses himself harder into the table, harder into Victor’s wandering hands. The cooling effect only lasts for a handful of seconds longer before a rather abrupt hot flash comes on. Zeno groans his complaint.

“Hush,” the doctor says, wrapping his arms around Zeno’s torso, front of his thighs pressed to the backs of Zeno’s own, cheek to cheek; the cold steel of his headpiece sends a shiver down Zeno’s spine. “It won’t do to have your temperature rising like this, Zee.”

Groggier than ever, Zeno spends more than a few long and dragging seconds attempting to force his mouth into motion. “Fix it,” he says at last—though it comes out sounding more like fissit, words running together into one, consonants weak.

“Yes, sir,” Victor grins, failing to conceal his condescending tittering. “Why don’t we try this,” he says, hands trailing downwards from Zeno’s waist to the line of his pants, fingertips dancing along it in a mimicry of shyness before setting on undoing his belt and fly.

Zeno is too focused on what feels like a one hundred and ten degree fever to worry about the movement of Victor’s hands—but it becomes the forefront of his attention when those same hands slink beneath his slacks and underwear both, pushing them down his thighs with a level of sensuality that betrays his intentions. “Fucking pervert,” Zeno says—or tries to say. He still shivers when Victor’s chilled hands skate along his pubic mound.

The doctor laughs again. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think? Especially when…” He trails off, hands trailing similarly until they settle, one framing Zeno’s cock—half erect already, how?—between fore and middle finger, the other wrapped most of the way around his bare thigh.

Zeno’s brain feels like a tangled web. He struggles to rationalize his current reality: a side effect of that injection, surely, it must be. “What?” He attempts to ask, if only to voice his confusion, but it comes out as more of a ragged moan than anything. Conflicted, he tries to pull back—and realizes how deep Victor’s perversion runs.

“Hm-hm,” Victor hums, pushing his hips forward in response to Zeno’s movement, fingers tightening where they dig into Zeno’s muscled thigh and dragging back and forth in tight, teasing strokes along his erection. “It’s alright, no need to feel embarrassed,” the doctor soothes, “it’s a perfectly natural biological reaction. I said I’d take care of you—and I will.”

Victor keeps his fingers feather-light, not enough to provide any real relief to the problem Zeno didn’t even know he had mere seconds ago. “You—” he pants, eyebrows drawing up, fists clenching tighter, hips struggling to twitch against the firm grip Victor has on his left thigh. “Why?” Zeno chokes out, body seeming to superheat itself. Sweat gathers in the dips of his elbows, the small of his back.

The doctor presses firmer against him, his own cock—trapped, still, in his gaudy leather pants—dragging along Zeno’s lower back. It cools him marginally. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” the doctor murmurs, tongue making cool, damp contact with Zeno’s cheek. “Do you think I did this on purpose, Zeno? No, no. An unintended side effect, that’s all.”

“Fuck you,” Zeno seethes, body still caught between jerking forward into the chilly pleasure of Victor’s scaled fingers and the cool relief of the doctor’s body. Another choked sound rises in his throat and spills out through his clenched teeth as a miserable little whine.

“Frustrated, hm?” Victor coos at him, rubbing himself against Zeno’s tailbone. “Shh, shh… just allow me,” he says, wrapping his hand around Zeno properly at last.

Zeno is by no means small—not in stature, and not in anything else—but the enormity of the doctor makes him seem as though he is. His large palm overlaps at the thumb and middle finger, and his strokes require less than an inch of movement to cover Zeno from base to tip. Trapped beneath Victor’s bulk, confined by his hands, Zeno feels… inferior. It’s grotesque. It’s exhilarating. He buries his face firmer against the vinyl table, but the lustful sound he makes is still audible. The tips of Zeno’s ears turn red.

“You make such wonderful sounds,” Victor sighs, sounding almost wistful. He turns his head to mouth at Zeno’s neck as he speaks. “Not that I’m surprised. Do you know how long I’ve waited to get my hands on you?” He tightens his fist without warning around Zeno’s tip, coaxing fluid from it. His rings bite into Zeno’s sensitive skin.

Zeno tries to complain—about the suddenness, about how disgusting Victor is—but all that comes out is “Nngh.”

“Poor thing,” Victor goads, “a man of your status isn’t able to indulge like this often, are you? And those skills of yours…” He digs a thumb meanly into Zeno’s slit, letting it sit there while he speaks. “It would be shameful to allow something like this to happen. To not fight back.”

“Shut,” Zeno grinds out, “up, Gideon.” He squirms under Victor’s punishing fingers wrapped around his cock, sweaty fingers scrabbling at the smooth vinyl for purchase to wrench himself forward and away. Zeno’s scant inch of progress is erased when he’s only followed, Victor allowing no more than a scant few seconds of separation.

Victor doesn’t respond to his posturing, but his left hand releases its grip on Zeno’s thigh, and he continues his leisurely stroking. It skates along his hip before vanishing.

Zeno can just make out the sound of rustling leather over the sound of his own labored breathing, the clink of metal, before Victor’s hand makes—accidental—contact with his lower back once more. Hm. Undressing himself, then.

“Mm, much better,” the doctor groans, voice guttural and rough, teeth skirting along Zeno’s trapezius, the nape of his neck. Victor bites down as his hand reappears to drag Zeno backwards, his now-bare cock grinding filthily along the small of Zeno’s back. Getting a taste of direct pleasure seems to reinvigorate the doctor, because his inadequate fondling turns exacting and deliberate.

“Fu-uck,” Zeno growls, voice breaking into a shameful falsetto partway through. He can’t stay the movement of his hips no matter how hard he tries, the winding cork in his stomach near maddening—he tries to focus more on Victor behind him, resolved not to embarrass himself further by coming so soon.

The doctor seems in no rush for his own pleasure, grinding himself slow and dry—save for the thin film of sweat there—against Zeno’s bare skin. “You’re holding back,” Victor whispers in his ear, giving a mean squeeze just beneath Zeno’s frenulum. “Don’t.”

Zeno curls his fingers into fists against the vinyl, breathing as deep and even as he can manage, and ignores the doctor’s words.

Victor laughs at him, quickening his strokes as the hand on Zeno’s hip creeps up to rest at the base of his throat. “Oh, don’t be like that, Zee,” he says, hand sliding up just a bit more until his palm rests against Zeno’s Adam’s apple, thick fingers curled into the muscle on either side of Zeno’s spine. “And to think you were doing so well for me…”

Without his say-so, a degenerate noise pries itself out of Zeno’s vocal cords—something between a whine and a groan, grotesque and animalic, bordering incoherent. Victor’s hand tightens until his breath comes thin through his nose, enough to make him doubly lightheaded.

“Come on. Be good for your doctor.” Victor releases his throat without warning, all blood returning to Zeno’s head and making it spin.

He comes before he has even a moment to realize it, a sharp, painful kind of pleasure cresting low in his abdomen and making him hurt. Victor doesn’t stop stroking him through it, even as the stimulation passes from too much to agonizing, Zeno’s weak fingers closing around Victor’s wrist in a futile attempt to stop him. He hears himself moaning something vicious. “Victor,” Zeno pleads, muscles seizing in overwhelm, “Vi-ictor—”

Victor’s right hand still works Zeno’s cock, the slide of it slick, now, with both come and pre-come alike; his left strokes indulgently up and down Zeno’s heaving sternum, though it pauses to pinch at Zeno’s words. “No, no—I don’t think that’s what a good patient calls his doctor, is it?”

Zeno gasps for air, spine bowing, brain caught between wanting it to stop and wanting it to go on forever. Sweat drips from the point of his chin, his nose; his fingers fail to find purchase on Victor’s wrist. “Doctor,” he groans at last, voice shuddering and weak.

“Very good,” Victor croons in his ear, forked tongue dragging through the sweat on Zeno’s neck. Everything seems to slow for one blissful moment before it starts again—the doctor doubles his efforts, returns his hand to Zeno’s throat to keep him from thrashing too much. “Again,” he commands. He leaves no room for argument.

“Doctor,” Zeno chokes again, fingers scrabbling again to remove Victor’s hand, “not—can’t,” he wheezes, eyes squeezed shut against the deft, powerful digits coaxing him toward release again.

“Hush. Again."

This time, Zeno comes dry and more painful than before; the avalanche of undiluted pleasure flooding his weak, uncoordinated limbs has him collapsing forward, a deadweight in Victor’s hands. His breaths become harsh, quick, barely productive at all.

“Good. Good, Zeno, very good,” Victor says, his lips flush to Zeno’s ear, breath cool.

Zeno shudders, lower abdomen twinging in arousal he shouldn’t be feeling. He tries to ignore it—but then Victor’s fingers trail teasing lines over his soft, overworked cock, and Zeno is choking back a miserable little whimper, scrabbling again at Victor’s scaled wrist. “Enough,” Zeno says, what might have been a successful command were he less pitiable in his current state.

Victor rolls his hips against Zeno in a firmer, more dedicated manner than he’d been before, his own cock—fuck, thick—still hard and drooling, now, where it had been dry before. Zeno shudders again. “I didn’t think you’d be a selfish lover, Zeno. All take and no give,” the doctor says, voice a heavy sigh. Both his hands slide across Zeno’s bare skin to hold firm to his jutting hipbones, thumbs pressing into the dimples of Zeno’s back.

It takes several moments for Zeno to figure out how to make his mouth move again. “I’m—I didn’t… do,” he heaves, tongue uncooperative, clumsy, “anything.”

Victor laughs, grinds firmer, lets his thumbs sweep down and in to touch Zeno’s tailbone, just below it. “No, you didn’t, did you? And therein lies our problem.” The doctor jerks upright without warning, hands dragging Zeno along as he steps backward.

Zeno stumbles, slumped at the waist and in danger of falling. Victor doesn’t let him—or, at least, doesn’t let him until Zeno is falling backward into his lap.

Victor manhandles Zeno however he pleases, chilled hands groping and grabbing at Zeno’s legs and hips; Victor stills once Zeno’s knees hook over his own, legs spread wide enough to hurt, half hard, messy, and poised over Victor’s neglected cock.

“Victor,” Zeno groans, letting his head roll back on Victor’s chest to avoid the pathetic sight of his own predicament.

The doctor makes a sound of reproach, right hand smoothing over the still over-heated, damp skin of Zeno’s inner thigh. “I thought you were all about professionalism,” Victor hums, condescending, pitying. He pinches a spot on Zeno’s thigh between his thumb and forefinger. Zeno jolts.

“You—doctor,” Zeno corrects, “enough. No… no more,” he hisses, breath whistling in his nose.

“It’ll make you feel better,” Victor murmurs, left hand petting over Zeno’s ribcage like one would a startled hound. “I promise.” The intentional, sensual turn of his voice evokes a feeling not dissimilar to being hunted—pursued. Which one of them is the hound, then, he wonders?

“Don’t trust you.”

“Oh, well, that won’t do. Doctor-patient integrity is important, wouldn’t you agree?” Victor hooks his chin over Zeno’s shoulder—an action that requires a considerable, inelegant amount of hunching for such a large man—so he can continue his earlier work of licking at his neck. “I can prove it to you. As part of your treatment, of course.”

Zeno leans his head away from Victor’s, though he knows he can’t get far. He makes a noise of dissent—one that Victor, predictably, ignores. He continues petting Zeno like an animal while one of his hands shuffles once more out of Zeno’s line of sight. “What’re you getting?”

“It’s only something to make this more comfortable for you, don’t worry,” Victor whispers into the crook of Zeno’s neck, breathing deep and even, stark contrast to Zeno’s own uneven, hasty breaths.

“Didn’t agree,” he grunts, resolving to squeeze his eyes shut again.

Victor hums at that before his hand leaves Zeno’s side to grope at his ass, hand wedged between their flush bodies. “That’s alright—doctor’s orders, Zee,” Victor murmurs, fingers kneading insistently at the healthy layers of muscle and fat beneath them. “You don’t need to do anything. Just let it happen, hm?”

“I’m not—oh, fuck,” Zeno tries to argue, put up more of a fight, but it breaks into a quavering moan, head reeling back into the doctor’s shoulder.

“Shh, shh, it’ll feel good soon,” Victor tells him. Zeno wasn’t paying attention, perhaps, or Victor is stealthier than he thought, because there are now fingers—two of them—inside him. It happens too easily, too quickly—he wonders if Victor mixed a muscle relaxant of some kind into his injection.

It burns, but more than that, Zeno just feels the tingling. The bizarre sensation brought on by his infection and the injection both. It makes him squirm in place, prompting Victor’s free hand to snake around Zeno’s waist to hold him still. He tries to focus more on his breathing, without leverage as he is; the way Victor moves his fingers thwarts every attempt, as if on purpose.

Victor hums the same tune he did earlier, as if more in his element now that his fingers are up Zeno’s rectum. Zeno shivers in discomfort. The doctor is insistent in his fingering, thick fingers moving with purpose, pace measured, unhurried; his thumb sweeps across Zeno’s tailbone. The gaudy rings he wears press against Zeno in a way that isn’t altogether pleasant.

Just when Zeno’s begun to think that the sensation might be tolerable, the doctor twists his wrist and presses his fingers forward. Zeno’s left hand shoots up, grabs at the long, limp locks of Victor’s hair, as his spine bows and his slack body attempts to rise away from it. It’s so good it’s bad, his breath coming out reedy and thin, teeth grinding and toes curling.

“There it is,” Victor says, “doesn’t that feel nice?” He doesn’t wait for Zeno’s response before easing in a third finger, restricting arm stroking Zeno’s side once more with a nauseating tenderness.

“Enough,” Zeno says, fingers tightening in Victor’s hair. “Doctor—enough.” He’s hard again, and every firm jab at his prostate gets him dangerously close to coming again; it’s worse than the previous two combined, so intense it sends waves of numbness and prickling nerves through his lower body, and there is no sign the doctor will give him a moment’s reprieve.

“Quiet. It’s as I said—you’ll feel better after this,” Victor murmurs into the skin just beneath Zeno’s ear. “Unless you want to skip ahead?”

“If it—speeds this up.”

Victor laughs again, the breath it casts over Zeno’s ear making him recoil. “It will.” His fingers vanish from inside Zeno, the abruptness startling and uncomfortable.

Zeno’s half-functioning brain struggles to conceptualize what skipping ahead looks like—but it becomes clear when he chances a look down and catches sight of the doctor stroking himself with newly lubricated fingers. “Gideon,” Zeno snaps, renewing his struggle against the iron grip around his waist. “You are not—”

“Quiet,” Victor’s tone turns angry, intense; “I am.” Where his fingers had gone tight on Zeno’s hip, they ease up some, and his voice has returned to its typical pleasantness next he speaks. “Don’t worry, I expect you’ll find it quite enjoyable.”

Zeno opens his mouth to argue again, but clamps his jaw shut when the arm around his waist lifts him upward. Zeno holds tighter to the doctor’s hair, even as his fingers spasm. He wishes he had a cigarette.

“Take a deep breath for me, Zeno,” Victor says, voice honeyed, his earlier ire forgotten.

For a moment, Zeno considers ignoring him. He thinks better of it when Victor moves, the broad—everything about him is broad—head of his cock trailing along his inner thigh before stopping at his rim.

The doctor seems to have taken Zeno’s words to heart, because he does not stall before pushing inside.

“Shit,” Zeno says, voice no more than a whine. Like a machine failing.

Victor doesn’t pause for even a moment before his hips have met Zeno’s once more, sheathed fully inside. His hands wander along Zeno’s chest and stomach before settling once more on his hips, grip exacting; he only allows a moment’s rest before he’s lifting Zeno again.

Zeno is, as he has been since the injection started taking effect, powerless against it. He lets his head fall back on the doctor’s shoulder, senses overwhelmed with the penetration. Victor’s cock is, like the rest of him, cold—and thick. He rubs against Zeno’s prostate without trying to, the sensation unerring and intense enough to have him shouting “Fu-uck, Victor,” through the most pathetic sounds Zeno might have ever heard.

The doctor doesn’t respond immediately—at least not verbally. He uses his grip to pull Zeno back down hard, hard enough to make Zeno’s eyes roll, his stomach clenching. “Not Victor. Try again for me,” he says, voice almost a growl.

It takes Zeno several seconds to re-enter reality, head limp against Victor’s chest, each breath tapering off into a moan. The doctor doesn’t stop moving. It’s an unending feedback loop of sharp, biting pleasure. It makes Zeno’s head spin more than it had already been, makes his jaw reject cooperation when he opens his mouth to respond.

Victor does not appreciate the hesitation. His fingers pinch on both of Zeno’s hips, and he thrusts—if you can call it that, considering Zeno is the one being moved—hard again. “I said, try again. That means you try again.“

Zeno gasps, the air itself feeling sharp in his lungs, and stumbles to say, “Doctor! Doctor,” his cock drooling uselessly as Victor handles his body however he pleases.

“Good, Zee, very good,” Victor says, voice rumbling in his throat, grinding himself in deep in reward. “Touch yourself for me, why don’t you?”

Zeno can think of nothing he’d like less than that. Every nerve ending feels rubbed raw, oversensitive—the head of his length is flushed almost purple from the abuse. And still he obeys, chasing after the doctor’s praise, even as his own touch makes him choke and whimper in complaint.

“That’s it, just let yourself feel it.” Another sharp thrust strikes him, abdomen roiling with pleasure. “You feel exquisite,” Victor huffs in his ear, “so very tight and hot.” His tongue darts out to run across the peak of Zeno’s cheek.

It’s then that he realizes he’s… crying. It’s a drop in the sea of other sensations, but so clear now that he’s noticed. Zeno doesn’t know if he can make it stop—if it will stop, because each torturous movement of his own hand brings forth more tears, each rise and fall on Victor’s too-thick length. “Doctor,” he pleads, not sure what he’s asking for.

“You’ve been so good for me,” Victor says, “so cooperative. So willing. All you needed was—fuck,” he groans, thrusting up hard, “was… plausible deniability. Isn’t that right?”

A pitiable moan forces itself through Zeno’s taut vocal cords, his fingers tightening around himself despite the pain.

“Yes, of course it is. Such an important, busy man; too august to let yourself be taken apart.“ The doctor’s breathing becomes more labored, words more rasped. “That’s alright; I know how to handle you. Don’t I?”

Zeno finds himself nodding, as if in a trance, eyes and jaw both squeezed shut.

“Yes, I do. Are you going to come again, Zeno?”

Zeno nods again, forced to gasp through a well-placed roll of Victor’s hips. “Yes, yes, I’m going to—” he cuts himself off, tilting his head away from Victor with a shuddering breath.

“You won’t. Not yet. You’ll wait for me, won’t you?” Victor asks, his hands sliding from Zeno’s hips to instead grasp him from under the knees. It’s worse, so much more humiliating; it only makes it easier for Victor to bounce him in his lap like it’s nothing. Like he's nothing.

Suddenly, Zeno feels very, very close. He rips his hand away from his cock like he’s been burned, grasping Victor’s—still coat-clad—forearm instead.

Victor laughs in his ear, trailing off into a throaty groan at the end. “The perfect specimen,” he says, almost to himself, “and all for me.” He fucks harder now, faster, thrusting up each time he lowers Zeno down.

“‘M not a specimen,” Zeno finds it in himself to say, voice weak, teetering so close to the edge it’s dizzying.

Again, Victor laughs, not dignifying him with a response.

Perhaps Zeno should be offended; maybe off-put. As it is, he can’t find it in himself to be much more than aroused.

It takes only a couple more thrusts for Victor’s otherwise impeccable rhythm to get sloppy, uneven. He gets louder, too, each pump of his cock inside Zeno drawing a ragged moan or pleased groan from his throat. “Will you be able to come just like this, I wonder? From me fucking your tight hole? Or do you need to touch yourself again?”

Zeno shakes, body keyed up, gasping like a fish out of water with each breath. He could come like this, he thinks. He could.

“I think you can finish just like this. I can feel you, so, so close… focus on me.” Victor’s thrusts become shallower, remaining buried as deep as he can between each one. “You’re making me feel so good, squeezing me like that. You want to make me feel good, don’t you, Zeno? You want to be good for me.”

Lungs heaving for air, tears still trailing from his eyes, Zeno nods. He yanks hard with the hand tangled in Victor’s hair, twists his fingers into the doctor’s coat.

“Then come for me.”

For a moment, Zeno doesn’t think he will. But then the dam breaks, and every muscle in his body seizes up; his legs thrash where they’re held open by the doctor, fingers curling and uncurling, spine bowing and teeth grinding hard enough to hurt. Some anguished sounds escape his closed mouth, sweat and tears rolling onto his neck and chest from his face. It feels like it might go on forever, pure ecstasy and hellish agony all at once, cock leaking the last dredges of come he has onto the—likely filthy—tile beneath.

Victor doesn’t stop. He speaks too quietly for Zeno to make out over the blood rushing in his ears, and only thrusts inside Zeno harder, deeper. It’s terrible. It’s exquisite.

It’s over too soon, the doctor’s hips stuttering and fingers clenching harder to Zeno’s thighs. And Zeno can feel it then, when Victor comes inside—warm, despite the doctor’s external temperature, and wet, and so deep it might have been nauseating if it weren’t so erotic.

Zeno still gasps for breath, though with less desperation. He’s damp all over, every muscle sore, and still weak, off-kilter. The return of his higher cognitive function brings with it a sharp wave of revulsion, and then another of the purest, most undiluted anger Zeno might ever have felt in his life.

“Gideon,” Zeno says, still slurring and winded, “release me. Immediately.” He forces his fingers to let go of Victor’s hair and forearm.

The doctor says nothing for a moment before humming. “But of course.” With a tenderness that makes Zeno’s eye twitch, Victor lowers his legs down to the floor, hands migrating up to lift Zeno out of his lap.

Zeno swats away the doctor’s hands, staggering back toward the examination table to retrieve his pants. After an embarrassing amount of stumbling and swaying, he buttons them closed, left hand groping along the table for his belt.

By the time he’s sufficiently dressed, Victor has not moved except to remove his extravagant headpiece and tuck himself away. He sits in the same seat, elbow propped on the armrest, chin in his hand, watching Zeno with unconcealed fondness. Though, maybe fondness isn’t quite right—hunger, maybe. Intrigue.

Zeno spots his cigarette case on the small table to Victor’s right where he left it, his lighter still on the floor; wordlessly, he holds his still-ungloved hand out, palm up.

Victor does not break the tense silence between them. He complies with Zeno’s silent demand, both case and lighter returned to his waiting palm, arm long enough to reach without standing.

As he lights up, Zeno turns to scan the room. His sunglasses sit on the third, otherwise unused steel tray on the other side of the table. He supposes he’s glad the doctor had the foresight not to toss them away—his temper is fragile as it is. By the door, his coat still hangs on the rack. Zeno grinds his teeth, takes a drag; he regrets not keeping it on him, Redemption a clear, heavy outline in its inner pocket.

Victor is still watching when Zeno turns back to face him, attention dragging up from Zeno’s hips to meet his eyes. Fucking pervert. Zeno twitches in agitation again.

Zeno reaches for his sunglasses, placing them back on his face where they belong. “I want those reports in my inbox within the hour, Gideon,” he says, ignoring the way his consonants blend and melt together. He crosses to the door without a glance spared to the doctor, though he pauses after refastening his coat. “Try anything like that again, and I’ll personally find your replacement.” He shuts the door behind him with enough force to crack the steel frame.

God, he needs a fucking shower.