Of all the scars Steve carried, the ones people couldn’t see were the worst.

Broken bones healed, bruises faded, but the damage inside his head lingered, stubborn and permanent, a reminder of every concrete floor, every bat swing gone wrong, every time he’d been slammed, knocked out, or left bleeding while something with too many teeth tried to kill him.

The doctors had eventually stopped sugarcoating it: repeated traumatic brain injuries, they called it. A polite way of saying he’d taken one hit too many. The seizures came first; small at the beginning, easy to miss. A flicker of light at the edge of his vision, a moment where his hands wouldn’t listen to him, a sudden, terrifying sense that his body was slipping out of his control.

Then came the bigger ones, the kind that landed him in an ambulance, the kind that left him sore and exhausted and embarrassed afterward. Medication helped and structure helped, but nothing erased the fear completely.

The hearing loss was slower, crueler. It crept in quietly, stealing pieces of the world without asking permission. Conversations blurred, background noise became unbearable and some days it felt like everyone else lived behind a thick wall of glass, their voices distorted and distant. He learned tricks; turning his head just right, watching mouths, pretending he’d heard things he hadn’t because asking people to repeat themselves made his stomach knot.

Hospitals became routine after that; check-ups, EEGs, audiology tests with a lot of adjustments. Night appointments worked best around his job, even if he hated how lonely the building felt after dark. The buzzing lights made his head ache, and the antiseptic smell always brought back memories he tried hard not to think about—blood on tile, sirens, the feeling of waking up not knowing where he was.

But then there was you.

Steve sat on the edge of the exam bed, paper gown crackling under his weight, one foot bouncing nervously as he waited. The ringing in his ears was louder tonight, a high, persistent whine that made him wince. He angled his head automatically when he heard footsteps, relief loosening his shoulders when he recognized you before you even spoke.

The charge nurse during the night shift; the one who never made him feel like a problem to manage instead of a person.

You always explained things twice without making him feel stupid, you made sure he was looking at you before you talked, you noticed when his hands started to shake and gave him a second to breathe. Steve didn’t realize how rare that kind of care was until he had it.

As you moved around the room, checking monitors and jotting things down, a brief wave of dizziness washed over him—sharp and sudden. His fingers dug into the mattress, grounding himself the way he’d learned to do, jaw clenched until it passed. He swallowed, embarrassed despite knowing you’d seen worse, and forced himself to look up again.

Being around you made the hospital feel less like a punishment. Somewhere along the way, casual conversations turned into something he looked forward to. You remembered details about his life, asked how he was really doing and listened when he admitted he was scared, or tired, or angry at his own body. And lately, that warmth in his chest had started to feel like more than gratitude.

Steve hesitated, heart hammering, painfully aware of how thin the line was; patient and nurse, rules and boundaries and all the reasons he shouldn’t even think about this. But the words came out anyway, shaky but sincere.

“Hey, uh… I don’t know if this is allowed or not, but maybe... maybe we could get coffee sometime?” He let out a small, nervous breath, eyes flicking to yours. “No pressure. I just really like talking to you.”