Prey (Male!Naga x Male!Reader)

Chapter 15

Y/n did not wake in the morning. His fever kept him under. His whole body felt hollowed out and weak. His lips were cracked and dry. He did not have the energy to fight this illness off. It was as if he were fading away.

Y/n tossed and turned, overheated and flushed as the sun climbed steadily across the sky. Any thoughts he had in his brief moments of awareness were broken. His dreams were vivid memories; twisted from reality.

He recalls Dr. Nilsson's laboratory back on their homeland. He remembers her holding up a vial to the light. A small glass tube with some of the most dangerous liquid in the world swirling inside of it. Cobra venom had the faintest sheen of yellow to it. Dangerous — and then the vial caught the light and everything disappeared in a flash of blinding white —

Y/n sucked in a breath, his eyelids fluttering open. He fumbled for a moment, pressing a limp hand to his forehead. It was hot to the touch. He laid himself flat on his back and stared at the dusty midday light seeping in through the caverns.

But that image too began to burn his eyes, blurring together into one mottled shade until something colorful pierced through the haze.

Y/n was staring at the emerald scales of the pit viper Einar had caught and skinned. It dangled in the man's grasp —

"The thing about deadly threats, Y/n, is that all you have to do is learn how to handle them."

Y/n broke from his fevered half-dreams with a gasp. His stomach felt like one limitless pit, empty and acidic. His mouth was as dry as the Sahara and it physically hurt to swallow. He wondered, in these brief moments of cognizance, what he did wrong when putting Mark's radio back together. It looked like he had done everything exactly right so what —

A headache split his skull, washing away his train of thought with pain that pounded sharply behind his eyes. He pressed two firm fingers against his eyelids to alleviate some of the ache.

Y/n felt like shit. The (h/c) man rolled onto his side and curled up, as if to protect himself from the pain spawning everywhere inside his body.

"Are you afraid of snakes, Mr. L/n?" Dr. Nilsson asked him over an informal interview, under the guise of a coffee date.

"Let's just say I have a healthy respect for them and their deadliness," Y/n quirked a grin.

"You'll have to learn to be comfortable with handling them if you're going to work for me," the woman replied. "Even the deadly ones," she laughed. "And don't worry. Most snakes have a bad reputation — unjustifiably so, by my account. I'll tell you one thing: snakes are more afraid of people than people are of snakes. They are cowardly creatures."

The naga's skin sat, white and translucent, upon the metal table in their portable lab. It promised a horrible dread... Dr. Nilsson was there, calling his name with her mouth closed.

"Y/n... Y/n —"

"Y/n."

Y/n shot awake — that had been his name said aloud — not in his dreams but in the real world —

"Wilma?" he croaked out Dr. Nilsson's first name, positively delirious. He rubbed his eyes and tried to focus through his muddled thoughts. Yet, when he opened his eyes he was met with burning, blood-orange eyes — he shot back immediately, hand grasping his chest as his heart gave a painful lurch.

"Fuck," he hissed, blinking at the creature observing him beyond metal bars. "You — you know my name?"

Y/n hadn't hallucinated it, right? Someone had spoken his name, right? But the only one here who could was...