Chapter 345: Curiosity

NICK

"Or babysit you. Or whatever other variation of ’I don’t need you’ you were currently constructing in your head." He stopped, setting the fruit back down, and looked directly at me. "I am fully aware."

"Then why."

He didn’t answer with words. Instead, he began closing the distance between us again, his steps slow and measured, a deliberate pace that left no room for accident. "I came anyway," he said softly.

I tracked his approach, my grip tightening on the edge of the mattress. "You have a complete lack of respect for personal space."

He stopped just a few inches away, his head tilting to the side. "I’ve been told that before," he said, the sly smile returning. "But nobody has ever complained about it quite as specifically as you do."

"That speaks poorly of the company you keep."

Cyan let out a short, quiet laugh. "Probably." His eyes drifted over my face, his scrutiny taking on a careful quality that almost matched my own. Slow enough that I could see it coming, his hand rose between us. I didn’t move away.

His fingers touched my jaw line. The contact was light, almost tentative, but the pressure was enough to tilt my chin slightly toward the light.

He examined the dark purple bruising, the split on my lower lip, and the small bandage across my nose with the look of a craftsman inspecting his own handiwork.

"I really did," he murmured, almost to himself, "a number on your face."

I stayed completely still under the touch of his fingers, my breath caught in my throat. "Yes," I said, my voice flat. "You did."

His thumb shifted, barely grazing the edge of the scab on my lip. "It’s only fair," he whispered, a small smile touching his lips, "that I’m the one to nurse you back to health. Don’t you think?"

My face remained perfectly frozen, but inside, the structural architecture of my defenses suffered a massive, silent fracture, a shift I fully intended to ignore for the rest of the evening.

"I don’t recall," I said carefully, "asking for your assistance."

"You didn’t." His hand dropped back to his side, though he didn’t take a step back.

"Lucky for you, I don’t usually wait around to be asked."

"That is a severe personality flaw."

"Probably," he agreed, entirely untroubled by the designation. "You have a few of your own."

"Such as."

Cyan appeared to consider the question, adopting the expression of a man who had been presented with a long list of excellent options and was simply selecting the most amusing one.

"You study people as if they’re specimens under glass," he said, his eyes locking onto mine.

"Which would be perfectly fine, except you’ve been doing it to me since the exact second I walked through that door. And you keep trying to force yourself to stop." He tilted his head further.

"Which means you’re entirely aware that you’re doing it. Which means you’ve realized something about yourself, and you absolutely hate that you have."

The room went completely quiet again.

I clenched my teeth, the muscle in my jaw jumping. "You are absurdly perceptive." It was the least dangerous true statement I had available.

"I have a degree in forensic psychology," Cyan said, his smile turning a bit softer, losing its sharp edge. "And I’m also just paying attention."

The monitor beeped In the background, measuring out the steady rhythm of the silence between us.

Cyan moved over to the plastic chair beside the bed, sitting down and crossing one leg over the other.

The jewelry on his wrists settled with a faint metallic chime. The entire energy of the room shifted; the teasing tone vanished, replaced by a quiet, intense attentiveness that made my skin prickle.

I noted the change immediately, filing it away as he watched me.

"You’re doing it again," Cyan said simply.

"Doing what."

"Looking at me with that exact expression," he said, his face completely serious now, full of a genuine, quiet curiosity.

"The same way you looked at me on the rooftop. Before..." He left the sentence unfinished, the memory of the rain and the pavement filling the gap without any help from him.

I felt a sudden freeze take over my expressions before I could prevent it.

Cyan watched the stillness settle over me. "What is that?" he asked, his voice low. It wasn’t an accusation; it was a real question. "That look."

"I don’t know what you’re referring to."

"Yes, you do," he said quietly. "You’re doing it right now."

I didn’t fill the silence. I couldn’t.

Cyan leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, studying my face the exact way I had been studying his. The interest in his purple eyes was entirely real now. "Why were you looking for me, Nick? Three weeks. Every time you came down to that ward. You weren’t there to check on Cassian."

"You don’t know that."

"I know," he said, his voice flat and certain. "You handed his care off to another resident. You came anyway. You were looking for something. For me. Specifically."

"You’re making massive assumptions."

"Then correct me."

"There is nothing to correct."

"Then give me an answer."

"You are incredibly persistent," I muttered, looking away from him.

"And you are actively avoiding the question," Cyan said, possessing the absolute patience of a man who knew he had nowhere else to be.

I looked back at him, feeling the intense, sharp frustration of a surgeon who had been completely outmaneuvered by his own tools. "What exactly do you want me to say?"

"Whatever is true," he said simply. "That’s all."

My jaw tightened. "I wanted—" I started, the words cutting off before the sentence could form.

Every possible conclusion that rose to my tongue sounded completely unhinged under the clinical light of an afternoon.

Cyan watched the words fail me, something shifting in his eyes. The last remnants of his amusement disappeared, replaced by something far more guarded. "What do you actually want from me, Nick?"

Hearing my own name in his mouth felt entirely different than I had anticipated. It hit below the surface, registering in my chest before my brain could process the impact.

The real answer sat inside me like a heavy weight: I want your attention. Consistently.

Exclusively. I want to be the single thing you look for every time you enter a room, the exact way I have been searching for your hair and your jewelry for three weeks.

I want to understand why nothing in my entire life has ever disrupted my system this way, and you managed it on a wet pavement in under four seconds without even trying.

"You keep acting," I said, the words slipping out quietly, completely beyond my authorization, "as if you’re ordinary."

Cyan blinked, his brow furrowing. "What?"

"You aren’t," I said, my voice flattening back into the tone I used for verified, indisputable facts. "You are not ordinary. And you seem entirely unaware of that fact, which is the most disorienting thing about you. Of which there are several."

Cyan went completely still. It was a rare, total stillness, the look of a person who had been handed a piece of information they hadn’t planned for and didn’t know the cost of yet.

He blinked slowly. "That isn’t an answer."

"It’s the only answer I have," I said, holding onto the last scrap of my dignity.

He stared at me for a long moment, the look on his face shifting into a expression I couldn’t immediately categorize... an experience that was thoroughly unusual for me.

"You looked for me for three weeks," Cyan said quietly, listing the facts aloud. "You used information about my family as leverage. You let me punch you in the face. You let me..."

He paused, the final two words carrying the full weight of the rooftop kiss between them. "You let me. And you still don’t know what you want from me?"

"I know what I want," I said before my brain could stop the reflex.

"Then—"

"I require more information."

Cyan stared at me, his mouth parting slightly. "...About me?"

"Yes," I said, my composure fully intact. "I’m very curious about you. I do not leave curiousities unexamined. It isn’t in my nature."

The silence stretched between us as he processed the statement.

Then, Cyan laughed. It started as a small, quiet sound before spreading across his face... the laugh of someone who had just heard something completely bizarre and entirely honest. "Curiosity," he repeated, tasting the word. "You want to study me."

"Something like that," I muttered, the words held between my teeth.

Cyan stood up slowly, stepping toward the bed for the final time. He leaned down, bringing his face level with mine, his proximity becoming its own unanswerable argument. A slow, dangerous smile began to build across his features like a change in the weather.

"Fine," he said quietly.

The monitor beeped. Outside, the October dark pressed against the glass.

"But I should warn you, Dr. Bennett," he murmured, his voice low, unhurried, and full of a strange, delighted peril. "People who get curious about me usually end up regretting it."