Hospitals at night were supposed to be calm. That was the lie they sold in brochures and medical dramas. In reality, they were louder after midnight...machines hissing and beeping like restless insects, fluorescent lights buzzing with a faint cruelty, the building itself awake in a way that felt almost sentient.
Jason Hale lived here more than he lived anywhere else.
The ER doors burst open as the gurney rolled in, wheels rattling too loudly on polished floors. A nurse jogged beside him, shouting vitals that sounded normal enough if you didn't know what to listen for.
"Male, unidentified. Found roadside. Severe trauma, unknown mechanism..."
"Pulse is steady," Jason cut in, already pulling on gloves. His voice was calm, steady, professional. It always was. Even when his chest still burned from the way the man's tattoos had moved under his hands. "Blood pressure?"
"High," the nurse said. "Strangely high."
Jason nodded once. High didn't begin to cover it.
They pushed through swinging doors into Trauma Two. The man lay still, chest rising and falling in slow, deliberate motions, as if breathing were a choice he was consciously making. Jason walked beside him, eyes scanning automatically...pupils reactive, no obvious head wounds, musculature dense and symmetrical in a way that made his skin look almost sculpted.
And the tattoos.
Under the harsh white lights, they were impossible to ignore.
They weren't ink. Jason knew ink. He'd stitched it, cut through it, watched it distort with age and weight gain and scars. These markings didn't behave like anything human. They followed the lines of muscle and nerve, disappearing beneath skin only to re-emerge somewhere else, seamless, deliberate. The color shifted faintly...steel-blue, gunmetal, something darker...depending on how the light hit them.
They looked… functional.
"Jesus," someone muttered behind him.
Jason ignored it. "Cut the coat. Carefully."
Scissors slid through fabric. The man didn't flinch. When the last layer fell away, the room went quiet.
Not silence...machines still beeped, oxygen still flowed...but the human noise stopped. No small talk. No jokes. Just staring.
"He's naked," a nurse said unnecessarily.
Jason shot her a look. "He's a patient."
The tattoos covered nearly everything. Chest. Arms. Thighs. Down his sides, curling along ribs, disappearing beneath the line of his hip. They stopped abruptly at his jawline, leaving his face untouched...human, sharp-boned, too expressive even in unconsciousness. Dark lashes. A faint crease between his brows, like he frowned often.
"How old?" someone asked.
Jason leaned in, fingers brushing the man's neck as he checked the carotid. The skin was warm. Too warm. "Forties," he said after a moment. "Maybe."
The monitor chirped softly, rhythm steady but heavy, like a drumbeat underwater.
"Let's get scans," Jason said. "Full panel. Bloods. Neuro imaging."
The nurse hesitated. "Doctor, the system..."
"I'll handle the system."
That was the thing about Jason Hale. He always did.
They moved with practiced efficiency, but Jason felt off-balance in a way he couldn't quite name. His body knew how to do this. His mind didn't trust it. Every time he got close enough to touch the man, a pressure bloomed behind his eyes, subtle but insistent, like standing too close to high-voltage equipment.
As they wheeled the gurney toward imaging, the man's fingers twitched.
Jason froze.
The movement was small, almost nothing...but it was intentional. Controlled. Not the random jerk of damaged nerves.
"Did you see that?" Jason asked.
The nurse nodded slowly. "Yeah."
The man's hand curled, fingers flexing once, then relaxing. His breathing didn't change. His eyes stayed closed.
"Sedate?" the nurse asked.
Jason hesitated. Every instinct screamed yes. Another voice...quiet, unfamiliar...said wait.
"Not yet," Jason said finally. "Let's see what the scans show."
The MRI room was colder than the rest of the department. Jason watched from behind the glass as the machine swallowed the gurney, its mechanical hum filling the space. He folded his arms, jaw tight, eyes fixed on the screen as the first images appeared.
Then his breath caught.
"That's… not right," the technician said.
Jason leaned closer. "Enhance."
The image sharpened.
The man's brain didn't look injured.
It looked engineered.
Patterns threaded through neural pathways with impossible precision, symmetrical and repeating, like circuitry mapped onto organic matter. Metallic density flickered along the scan, especially near the brainstem and spine.
"What am I looking at?" the technician whispered.
Jason didn't answer. He couldn't...not truthfully. His mouth felt dry.
"This isn't compatible with life," the technician said. "At least not human life."
Jason straightened slowly. "Is he dying?"
The technician glanced at the monitors. "No. He's… stable."
The word felt wrong.
They moved him to a private room...Jason made that call without consulting anyone. No charting in the main system. No ID entered. A temporary Jane Doe designation that would raise questions later, but Jason was very good at handling questions.
When the heart monitor stuttered, it happened fast.
One second the rhythm was strong and slow. The next, it dipped...once, twice...and then flattened into a single, unforgiving tone.
"Shit," someone swore.
"Code blue!" a nurse shouted.
Jason was already moving.
"Start compressions," he ordered, hands flying into place. "Epinephrine, now."
The man's body was heavy under his hands, dense in a way that made compressions feel like pushing against reinforced steel. Jason counted automatically, sweat breaking along his spine.
"One, two, three..."
The tattoos began to glow.
Not brightly at first. Just a faint shimmer beneath the skin, like embers stirred by breath. The lights overhead flickered. The monitor screamed static.
"What the hell..." the nurse started.
"Keep going!" Jason snapped.
The glow intensified, spreading in lines and patterns that pulsed in time with Jason's compressions. Heat rolled off the man's body in waves, prickling Jason's skin, making his vision blur.
Then...
The man inhaled!!
Not a gasp. Not a reflex.
A deliberate, mechanical draw of breath.
The monitor snapped back to life, heart rate surging, strong and furious. The tattoos flared once...brilliant, blinding...and then dimmed.
Silence fell again.
Jason staggered back a step, chest heaving. His hands were trembling.
The man's eyes opened.
They were dark. Reflective. Too focused for someone who had just died.
For a moment, they didn't seem to see anything at all...just scanned the room, slow and precise, like sensors calibrating. Then they landed on Jason.
Locked.
A smile curved his lips.
Not relief.
Recognition.
Jason felt something cold slide down his spine.
"You're alive," Jason said quietly, more to himself than anyone else.
The man's lips parted. His throat worked.
No sound came out.
He frowned, confusion flickering across his face. He tried again...mouth shaping something, breath pushing uselessly past vocal cords that refused to cooperate.
Jason stepped closer without realizing he was moving. "It's okay," he said softly. "Don't force it."
The man's gaze never left him.
When a nurse stepped into his line of sight, the reaction was immediate.
The tattoos pulsed.
The air pressure in the room shifted, heavy and oppressive. Equipment rattled on trays. The nurse froze, eyes wide.
"Back," Jason said sharply. "Everyone, back."
They hesitated...then listened. They always listened to Jason.
As the room cleared, the pressure eased. The man's shoulders relaxed minutely, like a weapon being set down.
Jason exhaled slowly.
"Good," he murmured. "That's good."
He pulled up a stool and sat beside the bed, careful to keep his movements slow, non-threatening. He'd dealt with traumatized patients before...soldiers, victims, men who woke up swinging because fear was the only language left to them.
This was different.
"Can you understand me?" Jason asked.
The man nodded once.
"Do you know where you are?"
Another nod.
"Do you know your name?"
The man's brow furrowed. He opened his mouth.
Nothing.
Frustration flashed across his face...raw, startlingly human. His hand clenched the sheet, knuckles whitening.
Jason felt it again...that subtle pressure, like static crawling across his skin.
"It's okay," Jason said gently. "We'll figure it out."
He reached out without thinking, fingers brushing the man's wrist.
The tattoos flared softly at the point of contact, warmth blooming under Jason's touch. Not painful. Almost… responsive.
The man stilled, eyes widening slightly.
Jason pulled his hand back, heart hammering.
"Sorry," he said automatically.
The man shook his head. Slowly, carefully, he reached out again...this time stopping short, eyes flicking up to Jason's face, asking permission.
Jason swallowed. "Go ahead."
The man's fingers wrapped around Jason's wrist.
The pressure vanished.
The world sharpened.
Jason sucked in a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
"There you go," he whispered. "You're doing great."
Somewhere down the hall, Jason's phone buzzed.
Once.
Twice.
He ignored it.
The man released him reluctantly, gaze dropping to Jason's hand like he'd lost something important.
"We'll call you Jane Doe for now," Jason said, forcing professionalism back into his voice. "Temporary. Just until we know more."
The man's jaw tightened at the words Jane Doe, but he nodded.
Jason stood slowly. "I'm going to make sure you're safe here."
The man watched him like that was the most important promise anyone had ever made.
Jason stepped into the hall and checked his phone.
Three missed calls.
One message.
You don't get to disappear, Doc.
Jason looked back through the glass at the man on the bed...silent, glowing faintly beneath his skin, dangerous and inexplicably calm when Jason was near.
"I know," Jason murmured.
And for the first time in years, he wasn't sure who he was saying it to.