The Fires of Passion

I'm Not Joking, Guys

"Dr. Jimenez will be with you in just a moment," the adorable cat-eared receptionist gestures to a chair. "Please take a seat while you wait, nyah!"
"Kay," Brent replies. "What's your name?"
"Oh," she interjects, caught off-guard, "It's Franziska Von Bow-Dagenhart Way."
Just then, the doors next to her open. A man in a lab coat walks out. Franziska Von Bow-Dagenhart Way goes back to typing, brushing her black-and-white striped hair out of her face.
"Hello, Mr. Rivera," Dr. Jimenez gestures the new intern into the employees only section of the hospital.
"Call me Brent, dude!" he playfully snaps up some finger guns.
"Okay, Brent," Dr. Jimenez raises an eyebrow skeptically, but continues on anyways, "You actually won't be working for me."
"What? If I'm working for you, who am I working for?"
Dr. Jimenez unlocks and opens a door, saying ominously, "Him."
Sitting at a desk is a man in a tattered white robe, hunched over, examining something. A singular light beams down on him, engulfing the rest of the office in shadows. Brent finds the mysteriousness alluring. The mysterious man notices that he has company and pops his head up and turns to the door. Although only one side of his face was showing, Brent could already tell he was a decent enough looking guy. His face was pale, as if it lacked blood flow, giving his skin almost a glowing effect under the singular light. His sleek nose adds to the sharpness of his face.
"What do you want, Jimenez?" he croaks in a gravelly voice with a bored tone.
"I brought you an intern, Mr. Victoriano," he replies, pushing a perplexed Brent into the dark office.
"I already told you," he glares before turning back to his desk, "I don't need an intern."
For some reason unexplained, Brent finds himself quite attracted to the brooding man in front of him. The thoughts confuse him. He has a girlfriend, after all.
"Mr. Victoriano, you haven't slept in three days," Dr. Jimenez points out.
"Sleep is for the weak," the man replies. "Do you take me for a weak man, Jimenez?"
"On the contrary," the doctor smirks, "a strong man can accept help. You'll get more accurate results if you're not just running on fumes."
He sighs, causing Brent's heart to skip a beat.
"Fine," he grumbles, "leave him there. And shut the door behind you, Jimenez."
"Of course, Mr. Victoriano," he shuts the door, leaving poor Brent in the room.
"Name," the man grumbles."
"What?" Brent asks, still baffled by everything that's happened so far.
"You're name," annoyance drips from his voice. "What is it?"
"Oh, it's Brent Rivera!" he replies in his performance voice. The man exhales sharply, deeply annoyed by Brent's very existence. "What about yours?"
"Call me Ruvik. Everyone else does."
Brent stopped paying attention, looking at an unimportant jar on a shelf that caught his eye.
"Don't touch anything, Brent," Ruvik commands without looking up. Brent walks over to him.
"Do you need me to do anything?" he asks.
"Actually, yes," Ruvik responds ominously. "Sit right next to me and put your hand on this table."
"Okay!" Brent smiles, happy to be useful. He sits down next to Ruvik and places both hands on the table.
"I'm working on a study on the connections between hands and the brain and I'm trying to do a rough sketch for a diagram. I'd use my own hands, but they're too mangled to be good models."
He holds out his left hand for Brent to see. Burns that healed improperly plaster his hand. Brent goes to touch it when Ruvik suddenly grabs his wrist and pulls it close to his face to examine it. Brent can feel Ruvik's warm, faint breathing on it.
He throws it back on the table and goes back to focusing on the diagram. Brent begins to notice things about the man, Ruvik. Like, for instance, how closely the two are sitting on the tiny workbench. Brent can feel the expanding and collapsing of his body as he breathes, causing Brent's breath to shallow unprompted. Ruvik blinks heavily and shakes his head, determined not to doze off and lose his train of thought. He fiercely grabs Brent's wrist and pulls it towards his face once more, desperate to keep himself awake. It's becoming an uphill battle. Ruvik yawns, hating himself for such a visible display of vulnerability. Brent realizes that he's inching closer to Ruvik, staring at the ebbing and flowing of concentracion on the scientist's face. Ruvik blinks thickly a few more times. As if his brain shut off, he closes his eyes and collapses onto Brent, snoring softly. It takes all of Brent's nonexistent strength to keep from collapsing as well; for he is, in fact, quite weak, despite what all his fans think. After five blissful seconds, Ruvik's eyes pop open. With harsh realization, he straightens, ashamed of being caught sleeping on the intern's shoulder. If he has a stronger blood flow, he would have flushed red with embarrassment. While Brent is relieved to not have to worry about dropping his boss on the floor, he feels empty. For whatever reason, he liked the physical contact between the two of them. It felt good. It made Brent feel all mushy inside in a way Eva never made him feel. Brent shakes the thoughts from his head. He loves Eva. His relationship with her has never been better. But has their relationship reached its peak? Is it really going to begin its downward decent?
Suddenly, Ruvik stands up and starts walking towards a door on the right.
"Go home for the day," he grumbles as he opens the door, "and close the door on the way out."
"Oh... okay," Brent replies, puzzled but complicit.
Closing the door, Brent feels a tightness in his chest, as if an unexplained sadness just entered his system. He doesn't understand what, so he ignores it, calling Eva instead to ask if she wants to grab lunch.
Ruvik, on the other hand, is in a supply closet, succumbing to sleep. He realizes eventually that he was sleeping better on the intern's shoulder, but how demeaning that was. Pulling his tattered white cloak closer to his body, he drifts off into a dreamless sleep.