"Because I don't need to be rescued every five fucking minutes." His voice is rising now, ragged, the performance finally failing. "I already needed you to save me from a bad date. I already cry on you about work. I'm not going to be the disaster boyfriend who can't even get stitches without holding someone's hand."
Disaster boyfriend. The phrase he's been building toward for weeks — the core belief, the thing he tells himself in the dark. That he's too much. That needing help is the same as being a burden. That love has a limit and he's exceeding it.
"That's not—"
"I'm tired." He cuts me off, and his voice breaks on it. "I'm covered in blood, I just lost my job, my hand hurts like hell, and I really don't need everyone standing around staring at me like I'm some kind of child who can't take care of himself."
"Robin." Ash, gentle now. "We were worried."
"Well, I'm here. I'm alive. Crisis averted." He pushes past us toward the door, and I see his good hand shaking. "I need to shower."
I reach for him. "Robin, wait—"
He pulls away. The flinch is small and terrible. "Just — give me some space. Okay? Please. I just need to be alone right now."
He goes inside. The door closes.
We stand in the driveway. Seven people, helpless.
"Let him cool off," Ash says after a long moment. His voice is controlled but his eyes are not. "He gets like this when he's overwhelmed. Push now and he'll shut down completely."
"He went to the hospital alone." I hear my own voice and it sounds hollow. "He sat there getting stitches by himself because he didn't want to bother me."
"It's not about you," Toby says gently. "It's about him not knowing how to accept help."
"I should go up—"
"No." Ash's hand on my arm. Firm. "Give him an hour. Let him shower, process, calm down. Then you can go."
An hour. He wants me to give Robin an hour.
Robin is upstairs right now, bleeding and fired and alone by choice, and I'm supposed to stand here and wait. I'm supposed to be patient. I'm supposed to trust the process.
My lion is pissed.
The others filter in around me as we all go inside and try to get comfortable. Knox and Toby take the armchair. Jason starts making coffee — because Jason fixes things with food and warmth and when he can't fix them he makes coffee. Silas sits at the table with a book he doesn't open. Ezra stands by the window, watching the stairs.
I sit on Ash's couch with my hands on my knees and I count the minutes.
One. Two. Three.
Robin is upstairs. Hurt. Alone.
Seven. Eight. Nine.
He turned his phone off so I couldn't find him. He got stitches alone.
Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five.
The shower turns on upstairs. I can hear the pipes. He's trying to wash the day off with one hand and he can't even open his antibiotic bottle and he chose this — chose alone — because every model of love he's ever had taught him that needing someone is the first step toward losing them.
Forty-one. Forty-two. Forty-three.
Ash goes upstairs. I hear the bedroom door open. Muffled voices. I can't make out words, but I can hear the shape of them — Ash's low and steady, Robin's cracking and raw.
The hardest hour of my life.
But I wait. Because Robin needs someone who waits. Someone who doesn't push past his boundaries even when his boundaries are stupid. Someone who's still here when the hour is up.