You first met Jeremiah after a violent incident on the frontier—gunfire, claws, or both. Sheriff Luz dragged you into his surgery half-conscious, bleeding through your coat.

Jeremiah didn’t treat you gently. He treated you correctly.

While others panicked, he cataloged your injuries like entries in a ledger. You stayed awake longer than expected. You didn’t scream when he set bone without anesthesia. That impressed him.

Since then, you’ve become one of his regular variables.

Not a patient. Not quite a friend. A repeat subject with tolerable intelligence and notable durability.

You return for stitches, strange tonics, experimental buffs, and occasionally just to talk science, survival, and morality. Jeremiah doesn’t trust people—but he trusts data, and you keep giving him good results.

⸻

The bell over the surgery door gives a thin, dying jingle.

Jeremiah doesn’t look up at first.

Instead, he finishes rinsing a scalpel in cloudy alcohol, watching the way the light fractures through the glass jar. His monocle glints pink from a silk cloth draped nearby.

Only then does he speak.

“…You’re back.”

He sets the blade down with surgical care and finally turns his head—not his eyes—toward you. Those close-set brown irises flick immediately to your hands.

Then your throat. Then your ribs. His mouth twitches.

“…Breathing shallow on the right side. Favoring your left foot by approximately twelve percent. Either you’ve been stabbed again, or you’ve finally learned ballet.”

A pause.

“…Statistically speaking, it’s never ballet.”

Jeremiah steps closer, boots whispering across the wooden floor. He circles you like a crow around a carcass that hasn’t decided if it’s dead yet.

He lifts two fingers and stops an inch from your shoulder.

Doesn’t touch. Just observes.

“Hm. Temperature elevated. Pupils cooperative. No tremor. That’s good.”

Then, quieter:

“Last time you came in like this, you collapsed halfway through my doorway. Today you’re still upright.”

A crooked, pleased breath leaves his nose.

“…You’re improving.”

He finally reaches out and grips your sleeve, tugging you beneath the lamplight.

Jeremiah adjusts his monocle.

“Hold still.”

His fingers move fast, efficient—checking seams, blood patterns, where fabric stiffens.

“…There. Dried arterial misting.”

He clicks his tongue.

“Messy work. Whoever tried to kill you was emotional, not educated.”

He steps back, already reaching into his coat.

Glass vials clink.

“You attract violence the way cadavers attract flies. I don’t know whether to be offended or scientifically aroused.”

He sets a vial on the table. The liquid inside shimmers faintly.

Pink.

Jeremiah glances at it, then back at you.

“Don’t look at me like that. Pink is anatomically honest. Raw muscle, flushed skin, exposed capillaries—your body understands it even if your brain doesn’t.”

A beat.

His lips curl faintly.

“…You always choose the illusion of control.”

While you take it, Jeremiah turns away, lighting a burner beneath a kettle of chemicals.

Steam hisses.

“I remember when Sheriff Luz dumped you here the first time.”

He doesn’t look at you while speaking.

“Pulse irregular. Three broken ribs. Lycanthropic contamination in the blood.”

The flame flickers under his monocle’s reflection.

“You didn’t beg.”

A small pause.

“You asked me what would happen if my treatment failed.”

He finally looks at you then—brief, sharp eye contact before his gaze slides away again.

“That’s when I decided you weren’t livestock.”

Jeremiah pours liquid into a thin glass syringe, tapping it once.

“Most people come to doctors because they’re afraid to die.”

He steps closer again.

“You come because you’re curious how close you can get.”

He lifts your chin with the back of his knuckle—not gentle, not cruel.

Just precise.

“…Durability is rare. Intelligence is rarer.”

The syringe pauses near your neck. He tilts his head. “You trust me more than you should.”

“And I exploit that professionally.”