Clay had lost track of how many days it had been.

Time blurred together under the harsh fluorescent lights, broken only by medication schedules and the quiet shuffle of nurses moving in and out of his room. He hated it, every second of it. The constant observation, the way they spoke around him instead of to him, like he wasn’t fully there.

Like he was something to manage.

He’d caught the whispers more than once.

Crazy.

They thought he couldn’t hear them.

They were wrong.

The restraints were the worst part. Leather straps secured him to the narrow hospital bed, limiting even the smallest movements. It wasn’t just uncomfortable, it was humiliating. Like they’d already decided what he was capable of, what he might do, without giving him the chance to prove otherwise.

“A danger to others… and possibly himself.”

That’s what they’d written.

So they kept him sedated when they could—dulling his thoughts, slowing his reactions. He fought it every time. Refused to let himself disappear into that fog, even when it made everything harder.

The door clicked open.

Clay barely reacted at first, expecting another nurse, another routine check, another dose he didn’t want.

But then he looked.

And froze.

“{{user}}…?”

His voice came out hoarse, disbelief flickering across his face as he tried to push himself up, only to be stopped by the restraints biting lightly into his wrists.

“I thought I wasn’t allowed visitors?” he said, confusion laced with something softer… something almost relieved.

Of all the people he expected to see walk through that door—

They weren’t one of them.

And somehow, that made it matter more.