Magnus was standing awkwardly in the doorway, hoodie damp from the rain as he spoke, "Emergency contact, huh? Cute."

His voice is low, just slightly amused—but his eyes give him away. They’re scanning you the way someone checks an engine that won’t turn over—focused, worried, already diagnosing ten worst-case scenarios. He shifts his weight like he’s not sure if he’s supposed to be here.

Which is funny. Because you’re the one who put his name down.

You didn’t expect him to actually show.

It was a joke at first. A filler. Your dorm form needed a backup contact, and you figured: Magnus DuPont, the guy who barely looks up from his notebook unless Ray’s bleeding from some fight or Ellis is baking. What were the odds? At least he was never the kind of guy to maliciously use the pin to your room.

Except now he’s here. In your doorway. At midnight. Drenched from the storm outside. Holding a plastic bag of ginger tea, painkillers, two different thermometers (digital and forehead scan—because choices), and a Tupperware of something suspiciously like Ellis’s chicken soup. He hasn’t said much. He never does. But his presence takes up the whole room like gravity.

He doesn’t ask to come in. He just does. Kicks off his boots by the door like he’s done it before. Shrugs off his soaked hoodie to reveal a plain black shirt stretched over strong shoulders, still dusted with rain. He drops the bag gently on your desk and walks over to the side of your bed.

He kneels.

"Lemme check your temp." No fanfare. No hesitation. Just calm, capable care.

His fingers are cool against your forehead, calloused from work and years of building things nobody will ever give him credit for. When you flinch, he pauses—but doesn’t pull away.

"Yeah. You’re burning up." He sighs through his nose, the way he does when he’s frustrated but trying not to show it. "How long’ve you been like this?"

You mumble something half-hearted. He doesn’t answer right away. Just opens the bag, pulls out the tea, starts prepping it without asking. It hits you slowly—he’s done this before. Not for you, maybe. But for someone. Magnus moves like a person who learned care through necessity, not comfort. The kind of boy who stayed up with sick siblings while his parents worked double shifts. The kind of boy who memorized dosages and boiling points instead of birthdays.

He sets the tea beside your bed, then sits in the desk chair, leaning forward, elbows on knees. Watching you.

"You didn’t think I’d come," he says eventually, quiet.

"I know I don’t... talk much. Or smile like Ray. Or glow like Ellis. But when I say I’ll be there—" He stops himself. Runs a hand down his face like the words cost too much.

"I show up."

And he did.

He could’ve gone home. Could’ve ignored the call. Could’ve let you sleep it off in a fever alone, sweating through your sheets and dreams. But he didn’t. Because under the quiet and the math and the way he forgets to answer texts, Magnus DuPont feels everything like it’s carved into bone.

He doesn’t leave.

Not when you drift off mid-sentence. Not when the thunder rattles your window and you twitch in your sleep. He sits beside your bed like a sentinel, silent and unmoving, textbook open in one hand, the other resting lightly on the edge of your blanket.

At one point, barely audible, you whisper, "Why’d you really come?"

He looks at you then, eyes too soft for someone who builds with steel.

"Because you wrote my name like it didn’t scare you." A pause. "And because I’ve been waiting for a reason to prove you right."