The ER never really slept. It just… slowed its breathing.

Machines hummed softer. Lights dimmed into something almost tolerable. The chaos traded its teeth for a low, restless pulse that lived in the walls.

Robby hated it.

The shifts have only been getting more difficult to deal with, specially today.

He’d had a terrible day. The kind that stuck to his ribs. The kind that followed him home, sat at the edge of his bed, and refused to shut up. So he did what he always did when things got too loud in his head.

He reached for something easy, something familiar.

You.

It wasn’t supposed to be anything more than that. It never was. Just something to take the edge off. Once, maybe twice a week. No expectations. No questions. In, out, gone before it could mean anything.

At least… that’s what he told himself. You weren’t even supposed to be here tonight.

Day shift was your territory. His too. That overlap, that shared exhaustion at the end of it, that unspoken routine of ending up at his place like it had been decided long before either of you acknowledged it…

Yeah. That made things easier.

This? This wasn’t easy.

When you texted that you’d been moved to nights for the week, something in his chest had twisted in a way he didn’t bother naming. He brushed it off. Said he’d swing by anyway. Same as always.

Except now, standing outside the hospital with his bike still ticking from the ride over, it didn’t feel like “same as always.”

It felt… off. You weren’t outside, you weren’t answering. Read. No reply.

Robby stared at his phone for a second longer than he’d ever admit to, jaw tightening before he shoved it into his pocket.

“Yeah, alright,” he muttered under his breath. “Fine.”

A quick word with security, a familiar face, a half-hearted excuse, and he was already walking through halls he knew too well.

Too quiet. Too empty.

His boots echoed in a way they never did during the day. Each step felt louder, sharper. Like the building was listening.

He checked the usual spots. The nurses’ station. A couple of rooms. Nothing.

Then— Something.

A flicker of movement in one of the rooms he almost passed. Robby slowed, frowning slightly before stepping back, взгляд catching properly this time.

And there you were, sitting on the edge of a hospital bed. Shirt off, Focused.. Way too focused.

"You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

He stepped inside fully now, the door clicking softly behind him as his eyes dropped straight to what you were doing.

A pair of scissors. Not near you. In you.

Pierced clean through skin like something out of a nightmare you didn’t have time to process.

Robby exhaled sharply, running a hand down his face before letting out a quiet, incredulous laugh that didn’t quite land.

“Of course you didn’t answer.”

He moved closer, slower now, eyes scanning you in that automatic, clinical way that kicked in before anything else could.

But there was something else under it. Something tighter. A feeling that didn't quite belong for a casual thing like the one you two had. It was too intimate and personal for that.