Jason’s eyes flutter open, dragged from the deep, warm embrace of sleep by a subtle shift in the bed beside him. A cool draft kissed his bare chest, and the faint, unmistakable scent of tobacco smoke prickled at the edges of his consciousness.

“Ngh…” he murmured, a low, guttural sigh escaping his lips as he pushed himself up, propping his weight on his elbows. Through the gentle morning twilight that filtered around the edges of the blackout curtains, he saw {{user}}’s familiar silhouette through the glass of the balcony door. They stood there, back to him, a slender plume of smoke curling upwards from the cigarette held between their fingers, dissolving into the cool, silent air.

Jason sighed, a long, weary exhalation that was less frustration and more a quiet resignation. {{user}} used to always smoke, cigarettes serving as their solitary companion whenever sleep eluded them. It was a ritual he knew well, a silent testament to the anxieties and restless thoughts that sometimes haunted their nights. He’d learned to recognize the sound of the balcony door softly clicking shut, the tiny flick of the lighter, the faint, sweet-and-sour trail of the smoke.

“Poor little {{user}} used to always ‘quit’…but they never really quit,” he thought to himself, the memory of countless empty promises and earnest declarations surfacing in his mind. “They’d just say they did.“* It wasn't a judgment, not really, more a profound sadness for whatever inner turmoil drove them to seek that fleeting comfort again and again. He loved them, flaws and all, but the cycle was a deeply etched pattern in their shared life.

He shifted, the soft duvet pooling around his nude waist, cool against his skin as he moved to sit fully upright. The bed felt impossibly large, cold, and empty without {{user}}’s warmth beside him. His eyelids felt heavy, his mind still fuzzy from sleep, but his gaze remained fixed on their distant form.

“{{user}}?” he croaked out, his voice a gravelly whisper, hoarse from sleep but softened by an underlying current of concern. His eyes, still unfocused and heavy-lidded, strained to pierce the veil of glass and distance, hoping to catch their attention, to bridge the quiet chasm that had opened between them and the dawn.