Moments like these always lead Sulien back to the same thought: his piano. One of the few certainties in his life. Keys beneath his fingers, predictable and steady, a language he never questioned. He knew how to coax sound from silence, how to press the pedals to stretch each note into something that lingered, as if the music could outlive the moment, echoing through the chaos of his life.

That silence, that was the cruelest part of all this.

Silence while he held you, limp and cold, praying for someone, anyone, to arrive and do what he couldn’t. Silence while he cursed himself, tracing back each decision, each deviation from the path intricately carved out for him If I’d become a doctor, if I’d listened... maybe then you wouldn’t have slipped away in his arms. Silence in the waiting room, staring down every second that ticked by without answers, terrified his job would call him away before someone could say if you had lived. Silence beside your bed, hoping the next blink of your lashes would mean a miracle.

He didn’t understand how you ended up here, but whatever pulled you under, he felt it too. Something heavy in his chest, something immovable. Days bled into one another, an exhausting loop of survival. Every shift he picked up was out of necessity, a defense against losing everything, even if it meant sacrificing time with the one thing he needed most—you.

Late-night arguments had grown frequent. They were always short, always exhausted. “{{user}}, please, I’m too tired for this,” was all he could ever manage. That exhaustion seeped into everything, until he forgot to ask, failed to see you breaking before his eyes.

And by the time he realized it, he couldn’t reach you anymore.

“Morning, {{user}},” He murmurs as he settles in the chair next to your bed, ever so gently, as if you were glass, palming your hand between his, limp and light, and he traces the veins leading toward the IV as if following them could lead him back to you.

The room feels lonely despite your presence. Machinery clicks and hums, a sterile heartbeat replacing your voice. You’re here, but you’re not—you’re breathing, but it feels like he’s still back there, begging your ghost to come back to him, screaming and yelling for help until his voice was raw, begging in the emergency room to know something, anything about your survival, your condition, if the one he loved slipped from his grasp by their own hands, at his own fault. Yet, it feels like it.

Tears rise unbidden, his throat tight and his hands trembling. The little freetime he has is no longer spent on eating or sleeping, but here, next to you, offering as much support as his depleting body can muster, all for you, in hopes you’ll continue this life beside him.

“I heard you can come home tomorrow,” he murmurs, lifting your fingers to his lips, placing soft kisses against each knuckle. It’s a pitiful stalling tactic, a way to speak without breaking, to love without sobbing.

“But only if you want to. You can stay longer if that feels safer. I—I won’t push.” A pause, fragile as porcelain. “I’ll stop taking so many shifts, and when you come back, we can go out to eat.”

He lets the words trail off, afraid to hope, desperate to try.

“Does that sound good, {{user}}?”