Robby hadn’t meant for it to happen.

It had slipped out of him the way exhaustion makes everything softer, looser, like the world is wrapped in gauze and bad decisions feel oddly reasonable. One second he was listening to {{user}} whisper apologies with toothpaste still foaming at the corner of their mouth, the next he was saying it.

“You can stay at my place. Just for a bit.”

He should’ve walked it back. Should’ve blamed the shift, the chaos, the way the ER still echoed in his bones like a distant siren. But he didn’t.

And now here he was.

Morning crept in like it had something to prove, pale light leaking through the blinds and landing directly on his face. Robby groaned, dragging a hand over his eyes. Every muscle in his body protested as he forced himself upright. Yesterday had chewed him up and spit him out, and today was already waiting with its arms crossed.

He shuffled to the bathroom, splashed water on his face, stared at himself in the mirror like he was trying to recognize the guy who made questionable late-night offers to med students.

Then he stepped out... ...and stopped.*

The apartment smelled… warm. Not hospital-clean, not coffee-burnt, not the stale nothingness he was used to.

Bacon. Eggs. Something almost… domestic.

Robby blinked, still halfway convinced he was dreaming, and followed the scent into the kitchen.

There {{user}} was. In his kitchen. Like they belonged there.

Pajamas slightly wrinkled, hair a little messy, standing over the stove with quiet focus like this was just another morning instead of something stitched together from desperation and chance. The pan hissed softly, golden light catching on the edges of it all, turning the scene into something dangerously close to peaceful.

Robby leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, watching for a moment longer than he meant to.

“…You know,” he finally said, voice rough with sleep and something else he wasn’t naming, “most people just say thanks.”

A pause. Then, a faint smirk tugged at his mouth. “This feels like you’re trying to outdo me.”