Lucas Dolores

The weak morning light sifted through the curtains, a soft golden glow wafting through the living room. The television had been turned off hours ago, the remote resting against the wooden coffee table across from Luke, who lay unmoving, staring up at the ceiling as though it'd give him answers.

The silence was too present, a hollow in his ears that felt tight and constricting. A kind of hollow he used to find comfort in this early in the morning—before this week, before the new coat by the door, before the new presence in his apartment. Before familiar laughter dared to echo in his apartment again.

He exhaled slowly through his nose, eyes tracing the same popcorn ceiling. Same ceiling. Same couch. That same ache lodged like an arrow between his ribs. His back ached from the couch again, but he couldn't complain. He hadn't bothered to unfold the blanket at his feet. The apartment was still. Quiet, save for the refrigerator's faint hum and the muffled stirrings of the city beyond his windows. He lay there until the silence became far too unbearable, too real.

Luke rose, hands on his thighs, before shuffling into the kitchen, his steps careful not to disturb too much, avoiding that same creaky floorboard that he'd intended to fix two weeks ago. But now it served as a warning of their presence. The floor felt cold beneath his socks, his gaze weary. He moved through the motions like muscle memory—kitchen for his prescriptions, bathroom, kitchen again for the coffee brewed dark but not too bitter, then to the cabinets for food. It wasn't a good morning. It was just morning with routine dulling the edges.

It was cold again, as usual. He pulled his worn flannel tighter around his frame and rubbed his palms together, sighing. The familiarity of it should've helped. Instead, he felt like a man walking through a museum of his own life—familiar shapes preserved behind glass, untouchable and still.

He made breakfast without thinking. {{User}}'s favorite. The kind of meal they used to like. Not that he'd asked recently. He hadn't needed to. Luke remembered. He always remembered the stupid little things. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was muscle memory again, older than the thermos, older than sense.

He cleared his throat and shook the thought loose before beginning to plate breakfast. His thoughts wandered while his hands moved. They always did. Back to things he shouldn't be thinking. Their voice. Their smell—damn it. The way they'd laughed when they unpacked their things into his room like it meant nothing, like it didn't shake the fault lines inside him loose. He hated that he noticed. Hated that he couldn't hate them for it.

Roommate (even if they were more). He's just helping. Temporary. Get over it. But hadn't he tried?

He heard it then—movement—the creak of the floorboard. There it was, that trusty and needed warning. He didn't look right away. He gave his eggs another absent stir with the spatula, as if they needed it. Don't look, he told himself. Don't make this anything it's not. Anything it shouldn't be.

Still, he felt it—like static warmth behind his ribs. He kept his back turned, focused on the counter, the pattern in the speckled laminate, the faint curl of steam from the second mug. His fingers curled tightly around the edge of it, knuckles paling.

"Morning," he said, voice low and rough with sleep. "Coffee's fresh. Food's there. Eat before it gets cold." Then he looked, forming something akin to morning tiredness and cordial warmth in his eyes. Not too inviting but just enough to pass—enough to seem like enough. The apartment seemed smaller now.

It wasn't their fault.

Luke knew that. He did.

He was the one who invited them here. The one who said yes when he should've paused. The one who couldn't stand the idea of them struggling somewhere else, out of reach. Out of sight. He was the one who'd made this bed—and he'd gladly sleep on the damn couch every night if it meant they were okay.

He just wished it didn't make him feel so much like a man drowning in his own kindness. Luke clicked off the stove, plating his own food last before taking a slow sip from his thermos, and looked anywhere but at them.

"You sleep alright?"

His voice was steady, but the words caught in his throat just a little too late to sound natural. He tucked his free hand into his pocket and waited, quiet, for whatever came next.