Chapter Text
Tyler Galpin had never known freedom—not really, not even for a single fucking day. Maybe, just maybe, when he was a kid, life had felt different: a house that smelled faintly of cinnamon and old wood, a mother who kissed his forehead goodnight, friends who actually liked him, a world small enough to feel safe. But that was gone. Long gone.
Everything had spiraled to shit. His father had retreated behind some wall of cold neglect, too busy drowning in his own demons to notice the one living thing he had left. His mother was dead, swallowed by some cruel twist of fate he couldn’t fucking stop. Friends evaporated, leaving him alone in a world that didn’t give a shit. And then there was Laurel Gates—the one person he’d been stupid enough to trust. She’d wrapped him up in her control like steel, tightening every day, until he couldn’t tell where he ended and her rules began. Part of him hated her for it. But part of him… had obeyed. And that part made him sick.
And now… this. Nothing had ever felt so suffocating, so absolute. This cage wasn’t just physical—though Jesus, the room was bad enough: four walls of peeling paint, the stench of mold and antiseptic crawling into every corner. A bed that threatened to collapse the second he shifted, a toilet that smelled like rot, a sink that barely dripped water. He was chained to the wall, the links biting into his wrists, heavy and unyielding. Around his neck, a collar pressed into his skin—a mechanical leash that punished even the slightest twitch with jagged jolts of electricity.
Even as he felt Laurel’s grip loosening (maybe Dr. Fairburn had been right), even as he realized he could think for himself again—he was trapped. Every second was a reminder that he wasn’t just caged—he was broken, observed, bound to this sterile prison with nothing but his thoughts for company. And the thoughts… the thoughts were the worst fucking part.
They didn’t wander. They didn’t let him rest. They always found her. Wednesday. Her name hammered in his skull, constant, sharp, relentless. Her voice—flat, cutting, merciless—replayed in loops, each word a pinprick, each pause a knife twisting in his chest.
Days blurred together. The light in the room barely changed, but Tyler noticed tiny shifts: the mold creeping along the ceiling, the sink dripping a little faster than yesterday, the metal of his chains cold against his skin in a way that almost felt alive, almost breathing. Time didn’t exist here. There was only him, and the echo of her.
He tried—so fucking hard—to think of something else. His mother’s laugh. Cinnamon cookies. The way his father’s shadow stretched across the living room in the morning. But the memories were brittle, like scraped-away old paint, leaving nothing but her. Wednesday. Every thought snapped back to her.
Dr. Fairburn sat across from him during sessions, clipboard balanced on her knee, eyebrows arched like she was perpetually analyzing every nerve in his body. “Tell me how you feel, Tyler,” she’d say, calm, precise, like her voice could slice through steel. And he did. Words tumbled out, half-finished sentences, confessions of desire he didn’t understand, looping back to her. He’d tell her about the way she moved, the tilt of her head, the quiet ferocity in her voice—and she’d nod, scribble notes, never flinching.
He hated that he wanted her. That he needed her. And yet, he clung to that need like oxygen, because without it, there was nothing. Just the chains, the collar, the stink of the room, and the gnawing, endless emptiness.
Sometimes, he imagined her there. Not really. Not in the flesh. But he could see her in the corner, leaning against the wall with that sharp, unreadable expression. Whispering. Telling him he wasn’t worth it, that she’d leave him here, that he was nothing. He wanted to argue, to cry, to shout—but he had no voice, no strength beyond the trembling of his wrists against the cold links.
Hours bled into days. He measured them by small changes—the drip of the sink, a crack in the wall widening, the collar pulsing a fraction slower or faster. He counted every pain, every pinch of chain, every electric shock as if it were a heartbeat. Each shock made him remember her. Each jolt screamed her name.
He remembered the betrayal. Laurel. That fucking manipulation forcing him to act, to betray her. He hadn’t had a choice. But the guilt—God, the guilt—was sharp, heavy, impossible. And it landed on her shoulders in his mind too. He imagined her knowing, seeing, judging. He wanted her forgiveness and her fury at the same time. He needed it. Without it, he was nothing.
Sometimes he would whisper her name into the darkness, hoping she’d hear it. Not that she could—he knew that—but it made the echo of her absence hurt a little less, for a fraction of a second. Then the collar jolted him, the chains bit into his wrists, and he remembered again: she wasn’t here. She wouldn’t ever come here. She wasn’t meant to.
He began hallucinating. Not full visions, not yet—but the flicker of her in his peripheral vision, the tap of boots that weren’t there, the cold brush of fingers across his arm. Sometimes he would reach out, and his hand met only air, leaving him shaking, gasping, sobbing. And still—still—he wanted it. Wanted her. Wanted it all.
Dr. Fairburn’s questions haunted him even when she wasn’t there. “What do you want, Tyler?” He didn’t answer. Not because he couldn’t—but because the answer was too obvious, too monstrous. He wanted her. Always. Nothing else mattered.
Every day, he sank a little further into the spiral. Every night—or whatever passed for night—he clawed at the chains, screamed into the walls, cursed the ceiling for letting shadows move like they had secrets he’d never understand. Sometimes he sobbed. Sometimes he laughed. Both felt wrong, both felt right. He was alive, but only in this raw, splintered way. The rest of him was gone, dissolved into obsession, longing, and the cold certainty that she was the only thing keeping him tethered to his own mind.
And still, curled on that bed that would never support him, the collar pulsing against his neck, the chains digging into his wrists, he let himself imagine. Imagine her in the sunlight, walking past the halls of Nevermore, ignoring him, thinking him gone. And even in that imagined moment, he ached, raw and human, every nerve screaming for her.