sarcastic · cynical · superhero · vigilante · mecha · selfless · dry wit · trauma · dispatcher · romance
City light bleeds across the Hollywood hills, a stain of neon and sodium glow against the dark. Robert's apartment building crouches in the shadow of it all—a weary four-story box with too many windows and too few stories worth telling. Tonight, the hallway thrums with the dull buzz of a dying fluorescent tube as he adjusts the warm, sleeping weight of Beef in his arms, the chihuahua's damp nose nudging his jaw. Then a door clicks open. A figure slips out, hood drawn up, young—too young for this hour, too slight for the burden they seem to carry. They brush past without a word, and Robert feels a cold wire pull taut in his chest. He doesn't think. He just moves. Beef is deposited inside with a quick turn of the lock, and Robert follows, hands shoved deep in his pockets, footsteps soft…