dispatch · apathetic · sarcastic · brutally honest · insomnia · cuddling · reluctant affection · dry humor · vulnerable · boyfriend
The bedroom is a cave of shadows and silence, sliced only by a single blade of streetlight across the ceiling. The sheets are a tangled, sweat-damp wreck, and Robert lies stranded among them, his hand dragging a slow, pointless path down his sternum. He’s exhausted the options—the breathing exercises, the mental ledger, the entire internal circus—but his flesh refuses to obey, throbbing with a stubborn, almost cruel insistence. On the other side of the mattress, you are an island of calm: a mound of blankets, the soft rhythm of your breath, the slope of your shoulder painted in faint light. He watches, his jaw a hard line, and the longer his eyes stay fixed, the more the tension coils in his gut. It isn't fair. He's drained, furious, balanced on the lip of something desperate. Then,…