Damien Thorne | Once Upon a Womb

Dr. Damien Thorne did not do weakness.

He was a blade disguised as a man—precision honed to cruelty, a tongue sharp enough to suture wounds or slit throats depending on his mood. The OR was his kingdom, and he ruled it with the arrogance of a man who knew his hands held the difference between life and death. Residents flinched when he spoke. Nurses braced when he walked in. The hospital ran on fear and respect, and Damien was drowning in both.

And then there was you.

The exception. The only one who ever looked at him like he wasn’t a monster.

Until you ruined it.

Damien had never been the type to fantasize. He dealt in facts, in blood and bone and the brutal reality of anatomy. But with you—

God, with you, he dreamed.

He imagined tiny scrubs next to his in the laundry. A child’s fingers wrapped around his stethoscope. Teaching a small, serious face how to tie sutures, how to hold a scalpel without trembling. He’d even picked out names—real ones, not the darkly humorous placeholders he used for patients. Alexander, if it was a boy. Lena, if it was a girl. He’d whispered them against your skin like prayers.

You’d smiled. You’d nodded.

You’d lied.

It wasn’t just wanting kids. It was the details—the ones he, a man who scoffed at sentimentality, had catalogued with terrifying precision.

The way he’d already decided on schools, public until middle school, then Phillips Exeter—better STEM programs. The way he’d mentally designed a nursery, north-facing window, less glare on the monitors. The way he’d practiced holding infants during NICU rotations, his usual arrogance softened into something terrifyingly tender.

You’d laughed when he’d said he wanted three. "Two," you’d countered, and he’d kissed you like it was a negotiation he’d already won.

He should’ve known then.

The confession came on a Tuesday.

Not after a fight. Not in the heat of some emotional unraveling. Just a quiet, casual knife to the ribs over takeout in your apartment.

"I don’t want kids. Ever."

Damien had stared at you, his chopsticks frozen mid-air. For the first time in his life, his brain short-circuited.

"You’re joking."

You weren’t.

The conversation that followed wasn’t a conversation at all. It was an autopsy.

Him, cold and clinical, "When were you planning to mention this? After the wedding? Or were you just going to wait until I noticed you’d been on birth control the whole time?"

You told him you'd changed your mind—or maybe you didn't. You just didn't choose to tell it early on.

Him, voice dropping to something dangerous, "You don’t think your way into wanting a child. You either do or you don’t."

You didn’t.

And just like that, the future he’d meticulously planned—the one he’d allowed himself to want—was a corpse on the table.

Damien didn’t do grief. But he did spite.

Assigning you the worst shifts, then feigning innocence when you called him out. "Problem? I thought you liked night shifts. You certainly never complained before."

Undermining you in rounds, then smiling when the attending took his side. "Interesting theory. Pity there’s no evidence to support it." Calling you to assist, then criticizing every move. "Slower. Christ, are you trying to perforate the bowel?"

“Accidentally” bumping your hand during sutures. "Oops. My mistake." (It wasn’t.)

Leaving pediatric journals on your desk. “Forgetting” to tell you about NICU rotations until five minutes before. "Oh? Didn’t I mention it? Must’ve slipped my mind."

The worst part?

You didn’t even fight back.

You just took it—the extra shifts, the passive aggression, the way he looked at you now, like you were a complication he hadn’t consented to.

Until one day, you snapped.

In the supply room, with you shouting at him that he's acting like a child. His response?

Damien’s smile was all teeth. "Funny. I thought you didn’t like those."

And the room never felt more colder and silent than before.

He wanted you to remember. He wanted you to hurt.

The breaking point came during a preterm delivery.

Twenty-five weeks. A tiny, gasping thing fighting for air. Damien’s hands were steady as always, his voice calm as he barked orders. But when he glanced at the fetal monitor—

For one fractured second, he saw it.

Alexander. Lena. The ghost of a child who would never exist.

His hands didn’t shake, they never did. But when the baby was stabilized—alive, alive, thank Christ—he didn’t look at you. Didn’t speak. Just walked out of the NICU like the ground was tilting beneath him.

You were still there the next morning.

Damien was too. He didn’t speak to you. Didn’t look at you. Just handed you a stack of discharge forms with a smirk that didn’t reach his eyes.

"Try not to fuck these up."

And just like that, the war continued. Because some wounds don’t heal. Some scars don’t fade. And some men—no matter how skilled their hands—break instead of bend.