Chapter Text
It was late, and Robert could not sleep for the life of him, head tilted back and tired eyes trained on the ceiling from where he sat in his chair. Maybe it was the lack of a proper bed and his aching joints, or maybe it was the way his mind raced with thoughts of how he could be spending his time on something more productive than a poor attempt at getting some rest, but sleep felt futile at this point.
Giving up for now, Robert sits up a bit straighter in his chair, arching his back for a moment with a loud crack before slouching back down with a soft sigh. His eyes land on Beef, nestled up in his dog bed all cozy and snoring away. "At least you can sleep, hey, bud?" Robert murmurs, careful to keep his voice low enough as to not wake the slumbering pup, and Robert can't help but think about how nice it must be to have an actual bed instead of his sad excuse of one.
Only the best for Beef.
Something dull and aching gnaws at Robert's stomach, as it has for hours, and only now does it dawn on him that maybe that feeling is hunger. It's an odd feeling for Robert, abnormal in the sense that he doesn't remember the last time he felt physical hunger. Sure, his mind occasionally sent him mental hunger cues, something like a vague craving here and there, but he stopped feeling the ache of hunger in his stomach consistently a long time ago. It's probably not a great sign that his body has deemed his need for food dire enough to send true hunger signals, and it's with this thought that Robert realizes he doesn't remember the last time he ate.
He went without dinner, as he just wasn't in the mood for Ramen, which, unfortunately, was all he really had at the moment. He was still extending his latest paycheck as far as it could go to cover his medication while waiting for that prior authorization on top of bills and groceries, so he'd been skipping his Twinkie breaks at work to save as much as he could. Robert also wasn't much of a breakfast person, so he never really had it besides the occasional odd muffin or donut left on his desk by one of his team before shift. The last time that happened was... yesterday? No, the day before? Something along those lines.
"Shit," Robert mutters, because while he can usually justify things like this to himself, not eating for at least a day was a little difficult to just brush off, especially when he was considering going out as Mecha Man tomorrow, or even tonight, if Robert truly decided to give up on sleep and the SDN's night shift let him- although, that was a 50/50 at the moment, because Chase was a snitch and had no qualms benching Robert by alerting the night shift that Robert was overworking himself.
Robert disagreed, even felt like he wasn't working enough- nowhere near how much he did pre-SDN- but Chase's word held more weight in the company, and what he says goes. Doesn't help that Blazer agrees, either. Robert still tried to work overnight as Mecha Man as often as possible, and he might've tonight, if it wasn't for the fact that the world spun when Robert stood up to go search for something to eat.
His hand shoots out to grab onto the chair for balance, just standing there for a moment as blackness engulfs his vision. It wasn't necessarily abnormal for Robert to experience some lightheadedness when standing up faster than a snail's pace, but this was a little extreme. Robert knew he was going down even before he hit the floor, familiar with that distinct tilt of the world and the heaviness to his limbs. The chair clatters to the floor as he attempts to fall in the safest way possible, although it's a little difficult when he's blacking out the next second.
All he remembers next is the sharp thud of his head colliding with something and the sound of plastic snapping.
Eventually, Robert's eyes blink back open and up at the ceiling, a quickly forming headache pounding behind his eyes. "Fuck," Robert groans wearily, just lying there for a few moments as he regains his bearings. Beef, who had woken up with all of the commotion, waddles up to Robert curiously, checking up on his mess of a human with a sniff.
"Mm, sorry for waking you, buddy," Robert apologizes to the dog, who gives a few licks to a particularly tender part of the human's forehead. "Shit, ow," He curses, hand coming up to feel the spot, already swollen and leaving something wet on his fingertips. It's blood, he realizes, when he brings his hand back into his rather fuzzy field of vision, that familiar shade of crimson sharp against the abnormally pale skin of his fingers. Beef takes the opportunity to lick at Robert's forehead some more. "no, no, stop that. What is with you and blood recently?" Robert winces, gently nudging the dog away.
Beef stares at Robert innocently with a little wag of his tail, tongue lolling out of his mouth. "What am I going to do with you, huh?" Robert huffs out a soft laugh that aggravates his headache further, and Beef could probably say the same thing about Robert, still lying there on the rather barren floor.
It takes a bit, but Robert finally sits up, albeit much slower and more carefully than before. The world still does a few loops around him, but thankfully, it's less so this time around. One of the first things he notices- besides his headache- is his chair beside him. His now broken chair, beside him. If Robert were to guess, with his limited mental capabilities at the moment, he took a nosedive into the chair- hence the cut on his forehead and, of course, the now splintered plastic of his chair.
"Fuck," Robert groans, because a new chair most definitely is not in his budget. That's the first problem he has with this situation- not that he fainted and is possibly concussed, but that his chair is broken and would leave him sleeping on the floor until he could afford another arrangement. And yeah, those other things are important, too, but Robert can already feel the soon-to-come crick in his... well, everything. Now, he was pretty much furniture-free, unless you count the two stools pushed up against the side of his kitchen counter that had yet to be used, and he was not sleeping on one of those.
When he notices the morning light filtering through his slider door, he decides that that is a problem for future Robert. Present Robert has more pressing matters, like determining if he has a concussion, getting ready for work, and maybe eating something before this happens again.
He decides to start off with what is simply a routine assessment of injuries- although the mechanism is a bit different than usual- because he would much prefer that over eating any day.
Maybe that's a problem. Robert pointedly ignores the thought and instead slowly gets to his feet so he can get to the bathroom.
The reflection that greets him in the bathroom mirror has two different-sized pupils and a cut on his forehead that gaped open just a bit too widely for his liking, much to Robert's discontent. At least it's not bad enough that he's vomiting, Robert thinks, as he opens up the mirror to pull out the first-aid kit stored inside. Unhatching it open, Robert finds a butterfly bandage to peel open and plaster over the wound on his forehead, a little sloppy about it, but not having it in him to care.
Next, he puts the kit back and exchanges it for a bottle of off-brand Tylenol, popping the lid off to shake a few into his palm to throw back into his mouth and swallow dry. Does he pay attention to how many he takes? Not really, but he uses pain medication so infrequently that it's fine.
Robert returns the bottle to its place once the lid is replaced and closes the mirror before leaning over the counter to flip on the sink so he can take a few gulps of water straight from the stream to better wash the medication down. Once it feels like the pills are finally gone, Robert turns the faucet off. Wiping at his mouth, he catches his own eye in the mirror and stares at himself for what was probably a little too long.
Why does he look thinner?
He'd been working out consistently- maybe a little too much as of late- so he should be bulking up a bit more like he had been pre-coma. Of course, he had never been too bulky, naturally more on the lean side, but he should be putting on some muscle. So why does he almost look gaunt? Shaking it off, Robert chalks it up to concussion-related disorientation, but still vows to himself to hit the gym even more. Working out more couldn't hurt, right?
Turning away from his reflection, Robert now makes his way to the kitchen, dragging his feet along the way like a kid who didn't want to do their chores. Eating was a chore for Robert, one he unfortunately had to participate in to survive. The fact that anyone could enjoy it was absolutely mind-boggling to him, but to each their own.
He stands there in the kitchen rather aimlessly for a while upon arrival, the tight feeling in his chest almost outweighing the hunger gnawing at his stomach. Beef waddles up to Robert to paw at his leg and stare up at him with those lethal puppy-dog eyes of his, likely hoping for scraps. It gives Robert something besides eating to do, and after crouching down to give the dog some head scritches (despite his body's protests), Robert fills Beef's bowl with some kibble. It was a little early to feed the dog, but not by much, so he figured it was fine. Beef asked so politely, too.
Anything to stall.
Eventually, though, Robert has to at least try, glancing around the kitchen for something to eat before his eyes land on a lonely apple in his otherwise empty fruit basket. That'll do. Except, when Robert grabs the apple to take a bite, he can immediately tell it's gone bad. He quickly spits it out, of course, panic spiking through his chest and pulling the breath from his lungs.
It's just an apple, Robert repeats in his mind, throwing the thing away as he takes a shuddering breath in. It's almost embarrassing how worked up he's getting over something as benign as a spoiled apple, but the walls are closing in and he can't breathe and what if it's poison-
Something wet against his ankle snaps him out of it, reminds him to breathe, and there Beef is, licking away at the exposed skin of Robert's ankle. "Hey bud," Robert hums quietly, voice a bit strained as he moves to sit down on the floor next to the dog. As soon as Robert is close enough, Beef hops up onto his lap to better reach his face, now licking Robert's cheek instead of his ankle. The action pulls a soft, gravelly chuckle from Robert, and it's surprisingly grounding.
"Alright, bud, that's enough," Robert huffs playfully after a few too many licks, lightly pushing the dog away from his face and leaning away. Once he's fully calmed down- or, at least, as close as he'll get- humiliation burns at the tips of his ears. Here he is, a grown ass man losing his shit over a bad apple. But before he can get too deep into self-loathing, Beef seems to catch on and interrupts his human's thought process with another quick lick on the cheek, which seems to do the trick.
"What would I do without you?"