Chapter 134: The Boyfriend Between Two Judges
The echo in the vast hall was a physical presence. The smell of chlorine from the drained wave pool mingled with the synthetic citrus of industrial cleaner. Rows of colorful bodyboards were stacked like giant teeth against a wall. The only light came from the emergency exit signs and the cold, blue-green glow of a malfunctioning vending machine, its hum the room’s lone heartbeat.
Olaf was winding a thick hose around a cleat, his movements practiced, his back to the entrance. He wore board shorts and a faded hoodie, his hair still damp from hosing down the synthetic surf ramps.
“You know, normal people call ahead,” he said without turning, his voice bouncing off the fibreglass rock walls. “Or, crazy idea, come during business hours.”
“Normal people have boring problems,” Varek’s voice answered, warm and amused, from the shadows of the入场 area.
Olaf turned slowly. He saw Aelyth first, standing perfectly still near a rack of wetsuits, her bioluminescent veins a faint emerald tracing in the low light, making her look like a forgotten statue from some deep-sea exhibit. Then he saw the man beside her, older, with an easy posture that somehow felt more invasive than a threat.
“Right,” Olaf said, forcing a chuckle. He wiped his hands on his shorts. “The uh… cultural exchange department. I didn’t realize my relationship status needed two international inspectors.”
Varek’s smile widened as he stepped into the pale light of the vending machine. It flickered across his face. “Some relationships need witnesses,” he said casually, as if discussing the weather. “Especially the ones where one person is quietly disappearing from them. Helps with the paperwork later. For when you have to prove they were ever really there.”
The joke died on Olaf’s lips. His cheerful mask, usually so resilient, stiffened. The echo seemed to swallow the silence that followed. “What do you want?” he asked, his voice losing its playful edge.
Aelyth took a single, silent step forward. “Edith Duadottir was hospitalized yesterday following a severe panic attack and physiological episode in the municipal archives. Her care has been assumed by Dr. Skellir Anthonysson. You were notified as her emergency contact, yet your visit was brief. Why?”
The question was a scalpel, cold and precise. Olaf’s jaw worked. He looked from her unreadable, dark eyes to Varek’s expectant gaze. “She was stressed. She’s… prone to that. Skellir’s her doctor. He knows her history. I had a kids’ birthday party booked here—thirty screaming eight-year-olds waiting for the wave machine. She understood.”
“She always understands, doesn’t she?” Varek mused, walking a slow circle around the hose coil. “The sweet, understanding girlfriend. While her sweet, understanding doctor provides a… different kind of comfort. One you’re not equipped to give. Must sting. The humiliation of being replaced by a better listener.”
Olaf flinched as if struck. The word ‘humiliation’ hung in the chlorinated air. His hands, which had been loose at his sides, curled into half-fists. The old, familiar heat of jealousy, the one he doused every day with jokes and loud energy, flashed in his eyes. He took a sharp breath through his nose, his broad shoulders tightening. But he didn’t move. He didn’t shout.
He stood there, absorbing the hit, letting it vibrate through him until the tremor stilled. “It’s not like that,” he said, but the protest was weak, hollow even to his own ears.
“Of course not,” Varek agreed amiably, stopping his circuit to face Olaf directly. “It’s professional. Clinical. All those late consultations, the private reassurances, the way his number is probably the first on her speed dial now. Totally above board.”
“He’s her doctor,” Olaf repeated, the words tight.
“A title that makes a convenient curtain, doesn’t it?” Varek’s gaze was unnervingly sympathetic. “A story you can tell yourself so you don’t have to feel the other thing. The gnawing, ugly thing in your gut every time she says his name with that little note of relief.”
Olaf looked away, staring at the dark, placid surface of the wave pool. His reflection was a blurred shadow. “What do you want me to say? That I’m jealous? Fine. I’m jealous. I feel like an idiot standing there with my surfboard while he’s talking about serotonin reuptake and showing her he takes her fear seriously. Happy?”
“Progress,” Varek nodded, as if awarding a point.
Aelyth moved closer. “A hypothetical scenario. If it were confirmed that Dr. Anthonysson had violated ethical boundaries, that his relationship with Edith had become personal, romantic, or sexual. What would your reaction be?”
Olaf shut his eyes. The image was instant, vivid, and violent: Skellir’s messy, charming smile cracking under his fist, the satisfying crunch of cartilage, the doctor’s look of shocked betrayal. He saw it all in a red-tinged flash. He opened his eyes, the phantom violence leaving a stale taste in his mouth.
“Part of me,” he admitted, the words scraping out, “a big, stupid part, would want to find him and hit him. Just once. Really hard. Before I asked any questions. Before I heard a single excuse.” He swallowed, ashamed. “Then I’d probably want to hear the truth. Even if it wrecked me.”
Varek and Aelyth exchanged a glance. It was fleeting, but Olaf caught it—a silent transaction of data being logged.
“That first part, the hitting part, is useless to us,” Aelyth stated. “The second part, the capacity to withstand wreckage for a truth, is not.”
Olaf let out a short, bitter laugh. “Us? What’s ‘us’? What are you actually doing here?”
“We are observing fractures,” Aelyth said. “And occasionally, applying strategic pressure to see if the material will hold or shatter. You held. You did not explode. This is noted.”
Varek closed the final distance, his voice dropping to a conversational, almost conspiratorial tone. “There may be a situation soon, Olaf. Not with your girlfriend. Something bigger. Where we would need a person who understands this city, who can move through it without raising alarms. A person who can be calm. Not the funny man, not the loud event guy. The quiet man who sees the crack in the foundation before the whole wall comes down. Are you that man?”
Olaf stared at him. The offer, shrouded in vague threat and ambiguous purpose, should have terrified him. But a weary, unexpected clarity settled over him. He was tired. Tired of plastering a smile over the hollow feeling when Edith talked about her appointments. Tired of laughing off the quiet dread that his life was shifting under his feet without his permission. Tired of being the last one to get the memo when the important things changed.
Calm. Not loud.
He’d spent his whole life being loud.
He looked past Varek, to Aelyth’s impassive, alien face. He thought of Berg’s increasingly tense silences at the hospital, of Iva’s oblivious sunshine, of the uncanny feeling that had hovered over the city since these outsiders arrived. This was the crack. They were offering him a place at the edge of it, not as a clown, but as a watcher.
“Yeah,” Olaf said, his voice quieter, firmer than it had been all night. The echo didn’t touch it. “I’m tired of being the funny man who learns last that his life has changed.”
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Landspítali hospital area, Reykjavík, Iceland — Edith’s hospital room.
The door to Edith’s room whispered shut behind them, sealing her in with the beep of the heart monitor and the ghost of their presence. The silence they left was thicker than before, contaminated.
She stared at the wall where the paint was chipped just above the radiator.
Varek’s final words pooled in the hollow of her chest, cold and dense. Being fragile does not mean being innocent. She touched the pulse oximeter clipped to her finger, the red light glowing through her skin. A monitor of fragility. It proved nothing about innocence.
Across the city, Olaf was locking up the surf centre, his mind replaying the offer in the blue-green dark. He drove home past the darkened harbor, the water a black mirror. He did not call Edith. The silence felt like a new, heavy tool in his hands, and he was testing its weight.
In her room, Edith finally moved. She reached for the bedside table, for her phone buried under a pamphlet about panic disorders. Her hand shook. She opened her messages, thumb hovering over Olaf’s name. The last text was from him, sent hours ago: Hope you're resting. Call if you need anything. ☺️
The smiley face felt like a slap. A cheerful placeholder where depth should have been.
But Varek’s question echoed louder. Did he fail, or did you stop giving him the chance?
She thought of the last time she’d tried, really tried, to explain the crushing pressure in her chest, the certainty of impending collapse. Olaf had smiled, pulled her into a hug, and said, “Come on, let’s go make some waves. Salt air fixes everything.” He’d meant it as medicine. She’d received it as dismissal.
She deleted the draft message she hadn’t written. Instead, she opened her call log. Skellir’s mobile number was at the top, from this afternoon when he’d checked on her after rounds. A clinical call, she’d told herself. His voice had lingered, though. Warm. Amused. You give us quite the scare, Edith. I’m glad you’re here where we can keep an eye on you.
Where he could keep an eye on her.
Her thumb pressed the call button before she could think better of it. It rang twice.
“Edith?” His voice was slightly breathless, as if he’d been moving. “Everything alright? It’s late.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Her own voice was a thin wire. “I just… the new medication. It makes my thoughts feel strange. Jagged.”
A pause. She heard a door shut on his end, background noise fading. “Strange how?” Not a brush-off. A question. An invitation to detail.
“Like I can’t settle. Like I’m waiting for something to happen.” She closed her eyes. “And those people came back. The ones from before. The woman with the strange skin and the man who smiles too much.”
Skellir’s tone shifted, the professional calm hardening into something more alert. “They came to your room? That’s highly inappropriate. Did they threaten you?”
“They asked questions.” She swallowed. “About you. About Olaf. They asked if being here helped.”
The silence on the line was different now, charged. She could picture him, perhaps in his home office, the messy desk, his brow furrowed not just with medical concern, but with a personal stake.
“And what did you tell them?” he asked, each word measured.
“I told them the truth.” A tear escaped, tracing a hot path to her ear. “I said it helped because you’re here.”
Another long pause. She heard the soft creak of a chair. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, a confidential murmur that traveled down the line and coiled in her stomach. “That was the truth, Edith. It’s okay. It’s my job to be your safe harbour. Let me be that. Olaf… he’s a good man, but he’s out of his depth. He can’t navigate this for you.”
The validation was a drug, instantaneous and potent. It flooded the empty spaces Varek and Aelyth had carved out. “I feel so guilty,” she whispered.
“Don’t. Your health isn’t a betrayal. It’s a priority.” A soft rustle. “I can come by. Not as a doctor. Just… to talk. To help you settle those jagged thoughts.”
Her heart hammered against the monitor, which gave a quicker, protesting beep. This was the line. The one they’d been drifting toward for months. The one Aelyth and Varek had just polished with their threats, making it gleam in the dark.
Crossing it would prove them right. It would make her complicit.
But Skellir was on the other side, offering the only anchor she could see in a swirling, terrifying sea. His voice was a promise of being seen, seriously, without a joke to soften the edges.
The monitor beeped again, a rhythmic accusation.
“Yes,” she breathed into the phone, the word barely audible. “Please.”
“I’m on my way.” The line went dead.
Edith let the phone fall to the stiff hospital sheets. She looked at the chipped paint on the wall, the tiny flaw in the sterile environment. She had just chosen her fracture. She had just given them all the evidence they needed.
Downstairs, in the hospital lobby, Varek watched a figure in a long coat hurry through the automatic doors, heading for the elevators. He didn't need to see the face. The purposeful, slightly rushed gait was enough.
He glanced at Aelyth beside him, who observed the same scene with detached interest. “The catalyst works faster than predicted,” she noted.
“Anxious systems seek stable input,” Varek replied, his hands in his pockets. “We just removed the faulty stabilizer. The rest is physics.” He turned toward the exit, the night air beckoning. “Let’s go. The sample is now fully compromised. We have what we need.”
They left as Skellir’s elevator ascended, two currents passing in the night, the infection they’d introduced already multiplying in the host.
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They left as Skellir’s elevator ascended, two currents passing in the night, the infection they’d introduced already multiplying in the host.
Skellir’s knock was soft, familiar. Edith’s “come in” was a thread of sound. He entered, still in his rumpled clinic sweater, stethoscope draped around his neck like a badge of honest intention. The room smelled of antiseptic and her fear.
“Hey you,” he said, his smile warm, professional, but his eyes scanned her face with a hunger she mistook for care. He didn’t sit in the visitor’s chair. He perched on the edge of her bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. “Those jagged thoughts. Let’s map them out.”
For twenty minutes, he was the perfect clinician. He listened, he nodded, he offered gentle corrections to catastrophic thinking. His hand rested on her wrist, thumb brushing her pulse point. A therapeutic anchor. His touch was warm. She floated on the relief of being understood.
Then his thumb stilled. His gaze dropped from her eyes to her mouth. The air in the room changed, thickening, the hum of the fluorescent lights suddenly loud. “They had no right to question you,” he murmured, his voice lower. “To scare you. This is a place of healing.”
“I feel safer with you here,” she whispered, the confession molten and dangerous.
“You are safe,” he said. And he leaned in, his intention crystallizing in the slow arc of his body. The kiss, when it came, was soft, questioning. A breach masquerading as comfort. She gasped against his lips, a tiny sound of shock that he swallowed.
The door clicked open.
No knock. Just the smooth hydraulic sigh of the hinge. Skellir jerked back, eyes wide with guilty fire, scrambling to his feet.
Varek stood in the doorway, Aelyth a silent silhouette behind him. He didn’t look surprised. He looked delighted. “Doctor,” he said, the word a velvet-wrapped indictment. “Consultation hours running late? Or is this a more hands-on treatment plan?”
“Get out,” Skellir spat, his face flushing. “This is a private room. I’ll call security.”
“You could,” Varek agreed, stepping fully inside and letting the door swing shut. “But then you’d have to explain why you were muzzle-deep in a vulnerable patient. The ethics committee does so love paperwork.” He cast a glance at Edith, who had pulled the thin sheet to her chin, her face a mask of horrified shame. “Don’t worry, Edith. We’re not here for him. We’re here for you. Our conversation earlier lacked… closure.”
Aelyth glided past Skellir as if he were furniture. She stopped at the bedside monitor, her fingers tracing the lines of the screen displaying Edith’s spiking heart rate. “Physiological distress is pronounced. The catalyst of shame is potent.”
“Get away from her!” Skellir moved to intervene, but Varek was suddenly there, a hand flat on his chest. The push wasn’t violent, but it was final, backed by a strength that seemed to radiate from the man’s utter calm.
“Sit down, Doctor. Or leave.” Varek’s mercury eyes held his. “But if you leave, you abandon her to us. Your choice. Stay and learn something.”
Skellir froze, trapped between cowardice and a crumbling sense of duty. He sank into the visitor’s chair, a prisoner in the corner.
Varek turned his attention back to Edith. His smile was gone, replaced by a terrifying focus. “You sought solace. You wanted to be taken seriously. To have your fear fucked right out of you by someone who talks a good game. Let’s skip the pretense.”
He yanked the hospital sheet from her grip. It fluttered to the floor. She wore only a standard-issue gown, thin cotton, ties at the back. She clutched at it, a pathetic shield.
“Aelyth,” Varek said, never looking away from Edith’s wide eyes. “The subject is overdressed for her revelation.”
Cool, smooth hands slid over Edith’s shoulders from behind. She jerked, but Aelyth was immovable. The Laurian’s fingers found the gown’s ties and pulled. The knot gave way. The cloth fell open, baring Edith’s pale breasts, her trembling stomach.
“Please,” Edith whimpered, shrinking back into the pillows.
“Please what?” Varek asked, unbuttoning his own trousers. His cock sprang out, already thick and hard. “Please stop? Or please, show me what a real violation feels like so I know the difference?” He grabbed her ankle, his grip like iron, and pulled her down the bed until her legs dangled over the side. “You let him kiss you. You wanted his professional concern to turn into something wet and personal. This is just a more direct route.”
He shoved her knees apart, standing between them. He spat into his palm, slicked himself roughly, and pressed the swollen head of his cock against her. She was dry, tense, clenched shut with fear. “This is the part where you beg him to save you,” Varek said, looking at Skellir, whose face was ashen, fists clenched on his knees. “Go on, Edith. Beg your doctor.”
She turned her head, tears streaming into her hair. “Skellir…”
The doctor stared, paralyzed, his mouth a tight line. He did not move.
Varek thrust. A brutal, unforgiving invasion, tearing through her resistance. Edith screamed, a raw sound of shock and pain. Her body arched, trying to escape the brutal stretch.
“There it is,” Varek grunted, sinking deeper, his hips meeting hers. “The real fucking treatment. No sweet talk. No serotonin lies. Just this.” He began to move, short, punishing strokes that jolted her body on the mattress. “You’re a tight little wound, aren’t you? Clenching around the medicine.”
Aelyth moved into view. She had shed her own garments, her bioluminescence a soft, mocking glow in the sterile light. Her slender, slick tendrils emerged, their tips glistening. One traced the line of Edith’s jaw, then slipped into her open, sobbing mouth. It didn’t thrust, just rested on her tongue, a tasteless, smooth intrusion. “Silence the noise,” Aelyth instructed softly.
Another tendril, thicker, probed between Edith’s ass cheeks, pressing against the tight pucker with insistent, circular pressure. Edith gagged around the appendage in her mouth, her screams reduced to muffled gurgles.
“Look at her, Doctor,” Varek panted, his rhythm settling into a ruthless, deep pounding. Each impact shook the bed frame. “Look at what her need really is. It’s not your gentle understanding. It’s this. To be used. To be proven right about how terrifying the world is.”
Skellir watched, horror and a sick, guilty arousal twisting his features. He was hard in his trousers, and he hated himself for it.
The thick tendril at Edith’s rear pushed inside, an inch, then two, a slow, cold invasion alongside the burning stretch of Varek’s cock in her cunt. She was packed impossibly full, a vessel being stuffed beyond capacity. A third tendril, thin and dextrous, found her clit, a cool, relentless point of contact that vibrated with a faint, biological pulse.
“She’s dripping now,” Varek observed, his voice gritty with exertion. His balls slapped against her. “See? The body betrays the mind. It’s accepting the truth. It knows this is what she’s worth now. A data point. A fuckhole for our research.”
He leaned over her, his breath hot on her face. “You wanted importance? This is it. You’re the center of our universe right now, Edith. Every gasp, every tear, is logged. You’re giving us everything.”
His thrusts became harder, faster, a piston driving her into the mattress. The tendril in her ass matched his rhythm, fucking in and out with slick, squelching sounds. The one on her clit buzzed, a merciless stimulation. The combined sensations, pain, violation, and a shameful, creeping biological response, coiled in her belly.
Her body, traitorous and starved for any release from the tension, began to spasm. A crushed, shuddering orgasm ripped through her, milking Varek’s cock inside her and clamping down on the tendril in her ass. She convulsed, a silent scream around the mouthpiece, tears flooding her temples.
“There it is!” Varek roared, his control snapping. He hammered into her, his own release triggered by her involuntary contractions. “Take it! Take this truth!” He emptied himself in deep, pumping spurts, filling her with wet, possessive heat.
He stayed buried for a moment, panting, then pulled out with a slick pop. He stepped back, watching his seed immediately begin to leak from her ravaged, gaping sex, mixing with the glistening honey-like fluid from Aelyth’s tendrils.
Aelyth slowly withdrew her appendages. The one from Edith’s mouth came out with a soft, wet sound. Edith curled onto her side, withdrawing into a tight, shivering ball, spent fluids smearing on the hospital sheet beneath her.
Aelyth looked at Varek, then at the broken woman on the bed. “Subject’s capacity for degradation exceeds initial parameters. The hypothesis is confirmed. Attachment formed through perceived safety is functionally identical to trauma bonding. The data is robust.”
Varek tucked himself away, his breathing returning to normal. He looked at Skellir, who seemed to have aged a decade in the chair. “Your prescription, Doctor,” he said, his voice once again chillingly conversational. “A dose of reality. Administered brutally. She won’t be calling you for those late-night consultations anymore. She’s been… thoroughly treated.”
He turned, straightening his jacket. Aelyth collected her garments, her luminescence fading to a subdued glimmer.
They left without another word, leaving the sterile room reeking of sex and shame, the beeping monitor the only voice speaking for the broken woman on the bed and the shattered man in the corner. The infection wasn't just multiplying.
It had fully consumed its first host.