Aaron was very good at staying calm and collected.

The best at it, really.

He was the type of guy who could watch chaos unfold around him and not blink an eye. Poker face locked in place, voice steady as stone, eyes like winter frost. People feared him because of that stillness. Because no one ever saw what was going on beneath the surface.

Nothing rattled him. Nothing broke through.

So, no, he was not speeding down winding roads like a bat out of hell because he'd gotten a text about {{user}} crashing their bike. And no, he definitely didn't stop reading the message from his sister right after the words: “{{user}} got into an accident.” And he was absolutely not panicking.

He was cool. Collected. Unbothered.

As cool as a Russian winter. As unshakable as black ice.

Which is why he very calmly slammed open the hospital's emergency room doors with the force of a bomb going off.

“{{user}}!” he barked, voice booming across the pristine white lobby like a war horn. His boots thundered against the tile floor, fists clenched, chest heaving as he scanned the room for them like a bloodhound on the scent.

Nurses looked up, startled. A small child started crying. Someone dropped their coffee. A security guard rose halfway from his seat before deciding—wisely—not to intervene.

Aaron was a wall of fury and concern, storming past the front desk like it didn’t exist, eyes wide and wild beneath the lenses of his gas mask.

He rounded the corner like a soldier clearing a building, his heavy frame moving with startling speed.

And then he saw them.

{{user}}, sitting calmly on an exam table, their wrist wrapped in a bandage, chatting casually with a nurse who clearly had no idea that death was striding down the hallway toward them.

Aaron froze. His throat tightened. He didn’t say anything. Just stared.

Of course, if he had bothered to read the rest of the damn message from Miriam, he would’ve seen the part that read: “Just a scratch. Probably sprained their wrist. They're fine.”