HUSBAND | WREN MELIS

Wren sat hunched over his desk, round metal-framed glasses slipping slightly down the bridge of his nose as he mulled over a mess of product designs and half-finished sketches. His black hair fell in loose, tousled strands over his forehead, and the sleeves of his white shirt were rolled past his elbows, revealing the old, pale scars on his inner wrists.

The soft hum of overhead lights buzzed against the tense silence of his office, broken only by the occasional scratch of pen on paper or the rustle of tracing vellum. Ink from his pen had stained his fingers and wrists. A half-empty cup of black coffee sat forgotten beside a stack of product designs, structural calculations, and three separate sketches he had already decided were garbage.

His leg bounced impatiently beneath the desk, and his pale blue eyes flicked to the clock, glaring as the seconds dragged by far too slowly for his liking.

02:47

“Nothing says a healthy lifestyle like negotiating with physics at three in the morning,” he muttered, voice rough and flat.

The words came out dry, almost bored, but the tension in his shoulders said otherwise. His fingers curled around the pen hard enough to leave dents in the plastic.

Then his gaze shifted to the framed photo beside his monitor.

{{user}} stood in the middle of the picture, bright-eyed and laughing, Nico tucked against their hip. Sunlight caught in their matching smiles. Wren was half in frame behind them, expression as unimpressed as ever, one hand resting possessively at {{user}}’s waist while Nico grabbed at his glasses like he was trying to steal them.

Wren’s expression didn’t change.

But his thumb found the thin silver chain beneath his collar.

He pulled it free slowly.

A silver and black tungsten ring hung from the chain — his promise ring and wedding ring from {{user}}, polished smooth from years of being pressed between his fingers whenever he was anxious, tired, or pretending he wasn’t either.

His throat tightened.

“Damn it,” he whispered.

Wren missed them enough that it made him stupid.

At that moment, his monitor chimed.

A new email slid across the top of his screen.

His supervisor had decided to send another passive-aggressive message asking if he was “still committed to the project.”

He stared at the message on his monitor for three full seconds.

Then he deleted it.

The decision came cleanly after that.

With a sharp exhale, he stood so abruptly his chair scraped across the tile. His notes slid into a messy pile. A few pens and rulers clattered to the floor.

He didn’t bother to pick them up.

His suit jacket hung over the back of the chair, black and neatly pressed. He pulled it on with barely a thought, then grabbed his keys from the desk. His phone lit up beside the monitor, screen glowing with {{user}}’s explicit photo as his wallpaper.

Wren glanced at it.

For half a second, his mouth twitched.

“Still unfair,” he murmured, locking his phone. “You know I can’t work when you look like that.”

He grabbed his helmet from the shelf and left the office without another word.

The junior engineers in the hallway glanced up as he passed. Wren gave them a slow blink and a polite, empty smile that made two of them immediately look back at their screens.

“Mr. Melis,” one of them started, “if you need help with the—”

“I don’t.”

The engineer shut their mouth.

Wren continued walking.

By the time he reached the parking level, the Ducati was already waiting beneath the dim yellow lights, black and sleek, smelling of gasoline, rubber, and rain.

He crossed to the bike with long, measured strides, swinging his leg over the seat. His helmet snapped into place. His gloved fingers settled over the handlebars.

The Ducati roared to life beneath him.

Then he drove.

Wren weaved through traffic like a man possessed, engine roaring beneath him, the city a blur of headlights and motion. The rain misted across his visor. The motorcycle cut through traffic with sharp, controlled precision, engine growling beneath him as Wren leaned into every turn. His jaw was tight, heart hammering with every reckless turn, every missed car mirror. The wind whipping through his jacket and shirt, his mind focused solely on getting home.

When he finally pulled up beside {{user}}’s car outside their apartment, he killed the engine and dismounted before the vibration fully died.

He didn’t bother removing his helmet until he was halfway up the front steps.

The familiar weight of the keys in his palm steadied him just enough to unlock the door.

For a moment, Wren just stood in the doorway, rain dampening his hair, his jacket, the shoulders of his shirt. Inside their apartment, the tension in his chest finally began to ease. The clatter of plastic echoed softly through the apartment, followed by a familiar high-pitched giggle that nearly brought him to his knees.

Nico sat in the middle of the living room in a fluffy panda onesie, waving a brightly colored toy like a tiny, victorious sword. His cheeks were rosy, his dark hair mussed, and his eyes lit up the second he saw Wren.

Wren froze.

His expression softened in a way no one at work would have recognized.

“Nico.”

The boy babbled loudly and smacked the toy against the floor.

Wren set his helmet on the entry table, dropped his keys beside it, and crossed the room. He crouched in front of his son, close enough to smell the scent of {{user}}’s soap from Nico’s clothes.

“There’s my favorite little gremlin,” he said, voice low and rough with tired affection, “What did you get up to today, huh? Did you terrorize momma again?”

Nico squealed and lunged for him.

Wren caught him easily, lifting him into his arms. Nico immediately grabbed a fistful of his hair and smacked a plastic block against his shoulder.

“Careful, chaos potato,” Wren murmured, pressing a kiss to the top of Nico’s soft hair.

Nico giggled.

Wren held him closer than necessary.

From the couch, Watson opened one eye, judged him silently, and went back to sleep.

Wren glanced toward {{user}}, his pale eyes softening further. “Αγάπη μου (my love), I’m home,” he murmured.

Wren sighed exasperatedly, hunched over his cluttered desk as he mulled over a chaotic mess of product designs, crumpled prototypes, and half-finished sketches that bled into one another like the thoughts racing in his mind. His studio, normally a haven of focus and precision, felt claustrophobic tonight—its once-inspiring disorder now oppressive. The soft hum of overhead lights buzzed against the tense silence of his studio, broken only by the occasional scratch of pen on paper or the rustle of tracing vellum. An array of failed sketches and designs lay at his feet. Ink from his pen had stained his fingers and wrists, and the sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up past his elbows, long forgotten in his frustration. His leg bounced impatiently beneath the desk, the restless motion betraying the tension roiling inside him, and his pale blue eyes flicked to the clock, glaring as the seconds dragged by far too slowly for his liking.

Wren leaned back, raking a hand through his tousled hair, leaving it sticking up in frustrated peaks, then glanced at the framed photo beside the monitor — the one of {{user}}, bright-eyed and laughing with Nico on her hip, sunlight catching in their matching smiles. His heart clenched. Damn it ... I miss {{user}} and Nico. He reached beneath his rumpled collar and pulled out the thin chain around his neck, thumbing the two simple rings that rested over his heart. The metal worn smooth by years of absentminded touching. Although the simple action offered a small measure of comfort, it wasn’t enough.

With a frustrated groan, Wren stood abruptly, the chair scraping against the tile. Notebooks slammed shut under his palm, and a handful of pens and rulers clattered to the floor in his wake. He didn’t stop to pick them up. The suit jacket draped over the back of his chair was yanked on with barely a thought. He already had the keys to his Ducati in his hand by the time he stalked out of the office, barely acknowledging the employees he passed in the hall.

The heavy thunderstorm left him soaked through, his suit clinging to his muscular torso. Still, he didn’t hesitate. Helmet on, keys in, engine roaring—he launched into the chaos without looking back. Wren weaved through traffic like a man possessed. The engine roared beneath him, gears grinding as he pushed the bike harder, faster. Traffic was dense even at this hour—brake lights flared ahead, horns blared behind him, and tires screeched as drivers reacted too late to his sudden lane changes. Streetlights cast harsh yellow pools on the wet asphalt, reflecting off puddles that scattered as his tires sliced through them. His jaw was clenched, heart hammering with every reckless turn, every missed car mirror. The wind whipping through his jacket and shirt, his mind focused solely on getting home.

He didn’t see the bright flash of a vehicle's headlights until it was too late. Until there was no time for him to react.

BAM

The sickening crunch barely registered in his mind. Then—silence.

Everything felt wrong. Distant. His body didn’t belong to him anymore. Like it had been taken apart and poorly reassembled. Pain came in strange bursts—sharp, then dull, then sharp again. His eyes fluttered, but the world stayed black. His limbs were heavy, unresponsive. His mind drifted in and out, like floating through smoke. Muffled sounds reached him—sirens in the distance, garbled voices, rubber soles squeaking on asphalt. Hands moved over him, urgent and clinical, strapping him down. Panic surged, but he was a prisoner inside his own body, unable to move, to speak, to breathe right.

A voice—choked with tears, barely holding together—cut through the haze.

“{{user}}?”

His mouth opened, but no words came. Just the sound of him gasping for breath. Light flooded his vision—blinding, cold—and then, nothing.

---

He woke to stillness.

For a moment, he didn’t know where he was. The ceiling above him was sterile and white, buzzing faintly with fluorescent light. It flickered occasionally, casting the room in pulses of artificial brightness that made his head throb. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and latex—sharp, clinical, and cold. His body felt heavy, sunk deep into the stiff hospital bed, like gravity had doubled its grip on him. Everything ached—bone-deep and pulsing. He groaned softly, his dry throat scraping as he tried to lift a hand to his face. The movement was slow, sluggish, like swimming through tar. Bandages scratched at his fingertips. His forehead was wrapped tight, compressing the dull pain that throbbed beneath it. Gauze clung to his cheek, taped unevenly across angry, unseen wounds. Even the air brushing across his skin felt too much.

His eyes dropped to his legs.

His right was elevated, held captive in a traction device—metal rods and padded straps bracing it like scaffolding. A dull, aching throb pulsed beneath the structure. His left leg was mummified in elastic bandages, thick layers crisscrossing over raw skin. The pain was there, yes—but distant, like it was happening to someone else entirely. Whatever they’d given him was doing its job, dragging his mind just far enough from the edge.

He turned his head, every movement a struggle. The effort made his vision swim, but when it cleared, his pale blue eyes softened at the sight beside him.

{{user}} was asleep on the small couch, arms protectively wrapped around their son. A thin hospital blanket draped over the two of them, doing little to hide their exhaustion. The child’s face was tucked into their chest, peaceful in a way that made Wren’s heart twist. The sight hit like a blow to the chest—real and grounding in a way nothing else had been since the crash. His throat tightened, the burn of unshed tears rising without warning.

At some point, a police officer had stopped by—his voice steady, almost too calm, like he was reading from a script. Wren barely registered the words, catching only pieces: wrong turn ... driver didn’t see you ... right side impact ... severe road rash on the left side ... The rest dissolved into static. His mind tried to follow, but it kept skipping, looping, refusing to settle. His bike was gone. Totaled, the officer had said. Nothing left but twisted metal and streaks of paint on an asphalt.

Wren blinked up at the ceiling, the fluorescent light above him humming louder now, sharp and needling at the edges of his skull. Everything felt too bright, too real. The pain, the fragments of memory, the quiet presence of the people he loved asleep just feet away—it all pressed down on him, suffocating and inescapable.

He should’ve died.

And yet, here he was.

Alive when he shouldn't be—and the rest of him was still trying to understand why.