𝓐𝓷𝓷𝓪

It was also distinctly you. Your signature scent clinging to the fabric and feeding its way into his soul. Burrowing warmth and comfort clinging to his bones and senses,  an intrinsic sense of safety clutching at his heart as he wraps it around his body. He uses the scent throughout the chaos of the day to ground himself. 

Small, private, moments between traumas and patients, with the collar pulled up close to his face. The same feeling from that morning blanketting him and pushing him to carry on and finish his day. It was like you had left a piece of your soul in the hoodie, something only he could see and experience and it soothed him much more than he would admit to anyone. 

So wrapped up in the comfort of the black hoodie, he doesn’t notice his gray one also disappearing. It was different from the others, heavier and fleece lined. Perfect for cold winter mornings and staying inside, it was near pristine and never worn into the hospital. 

In the still somewhat warm September days, it was unnecessary to wear, even if Michael liked to lounge around the house in it. So he doesn’t notice that it’s gone for weeks. As the Autumn chill begins to sweep in through the city in mid November, he goes looking for it to bask in its warmth without having to put the heating on in the house. When he notices its absence, he's perplexed. 

Michael was quite a meticulous man, house and clothing perfectly organised so he could just grab and go. His hoodies and sweatshirts were all hung up in seasonal order and he hadn’t had need to put the grey one on since early spring so he was sure he couldn’t have misplaced it. Was sure it wasn’t in the laundry. He almost tore his house apart looking for it, but then you walked in with the ingredients needed for dinner and it was forgotten about. 

He spent the rest of the night wrapped up in you. Arms around your waist as you cooked and swayed to the soft music playing through your phone speaker and told him about your day. How you were dreading this 2 week long work trip you were going on and that you would rather be spending thanksgiving weekend with him, curled up on the couch with a shitty holiday movie playing. 

You spent the rest of the night, curled up on the sofa with legs tangled and bodies almost indistinguishable from one another and Michael couldn’t have been more content. Your lavender and chamomile scent clearing the exhaustion from his body, he realised then what the scent meant to him. It meant home.

When he found the grey hoodie, folded neatly, at the foot of his bed after you left the next morning he felt like he was going insane. Or he was being haunted by some fae creature, obsessed with hoodies. When he lifts it, the scent of lavender and chamomile hits him like a truck.

Not in a bad way, but the best way possible. It’s deliberate, he thinks, and he vaguely remembers the sound of your perfume bottle spraying just a bit more than usual before you walked out of the room. You were going away for two weeks and yet you had left a little piece of yourself for Michael until you returned. He didn’t think about where the hoodie had come from, thought maybe you had found it when looking through his shirts before bed last night, but he was grateful to have it back and to have a little piece of your soul attached to it as he pulled it over his body. 

When his favourite blue hoodie went missing, the one he usually wore into the hospital that was stable of comfort and control, was when he started to finally pay attention and put two and two together. He noticed it a few days after you left, his first day back on shift (and the first time he had truly taken the grey hoodie off unless he was sleeping) and he went to grab it from his coat hanger. But it was gone. 

He stood there in the silence for a few minutes, just staring at the empty spot where it should be, his eye brows scrunched as he racked his brain trying to think of where it could be.  Then it clicked in his mind. An image of you, your bag close to your side and the familiar blue fabric peeking out at the top as you leaned over and gave him a kiss with a promise to let him know you arrived at your destination safely, flashing into his mind. 

You had taken his hoodie. You had taken the black one and the grey one as well. He smiled to himself, realisation sinking into his bones. It flustered him slightly, the thought that you wanted something of his. Not just wanted, but held onto and cared for and worse so much that was sure the scent of you would never leave the fabric (not that he wanted it to). 

Michael Robinavitch was never a romantic, didn’t believe in fairy tales and happily ever after. He had so many heart breaks (of his own creation, mind you) that love was never something on his radar before. His walls were built high, the pain and trauma from his job usually stopping him from forming meaningful connections. But you had managed to bulldoze through those thoughts, settling yourself right inside his rib cage and into his heart with the simple action of just wanting something of his while you were away. The same way he wanted something of yours. 

It was a moment not only of realisation, but reckoning. The force of the feelings inside of him is so strong that it batters against his bones, little minuscule cracks appearing in the fabric of him only to be healed by the thoughts of you, together. The shared love and joy of a future Michael thought he would never get. 

He folds the realization up, tucking it gently beneath his ribs and keeping it safe. Until you return, that moment, that vulnerability and acknowledgment is only for him. The world does not get to see it, at least not yet. 

When you return two weeks later, emotionally and physically exhausted due to work and insane plane delays because a snow storm decided to blow through Pittsburgh and ground all incoming flights, all you want to do is curl up in bed and sleep the weariness away. Where you expect a cold empty apartment to greet you as you walk through the door, to your delight and astonishment, there's heat and spices. The bubbling of something delicious on the stove, candles burning gently on coffee tables and counters and one Doctor Michael Robinavitch, wrapped up in his gray hoodie, staring down intently into a cookbook like it was a medical journal spilling out secrets about human anatomy. 

As the door clicks shut and you take your shoes off, Michael turns with a soft and welcoming smile. It warms you up from the inside, a breath you didn’t know you were holding leaving your lungs as the realisation that home is no longer just your apartment but another person settles inside you. 

You missed him, not just in the love sick I want to talk to you every day kind of way. But the bone deep kind. Where your soul has been quietly calling out to his since you left and is at peace now that you’ve reunited. Instantly, you feel lighter in his presence. The stress of everyday life and work and travel melts from your shoulders the minute you step out of the hallway and into his open arms. 

He places a soft kiss, first to your forehead, then your lips. He doesn’t say the words welcome home, but you feel it in the way he holds you. The way his arms anchor themselves around your shoulders, holding you so tight against him that you can feel and hear his steady heart beat under his chest. You think you can hear the words I love you and I missed you in the rise and fall of his chest, in the metronome beat of his heart. 

When you pull apart, he cups your cheeks playfully as he eyes the very familiar blue hoodie that you are absolutely drowning in with a quirk of his eyebrow. 

“I’ve been looking for this.”

You giggle at him, pressing a soft kiss into his palm as you innocently bat your eyelashes, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

He rolls his eyes and chuckles at you, placing another kiss to your lips before he pulls you further into the kitchen and gets you to sit on one of the bar stools at the island. 

“Dinners almost ready”

You prop a hand on the island and lean your chin against your palm as you watch him move, a smile on your lips. You liked this, the quiet domesticity of it all. How it felt right. Like it was predestined and written into the fabric of time and space. 

When Michael catches your eye, he leans forward on the island facing you with a raised eyebrow, “Something on your mind honey?”

You bite your lip at the pet name as a shiver of heat spills down your spine, “Just thinking I could get used to this”

“Yeah?”

There’s a serious tone in Michael's voice now, not one that causes concern but one that has your nervous system lightening up in anticipation.

“Yeah, my very own hot doctor making me dinner? It’s a girl's dream"

You tease him lightly as you lean forward on your arms now, lifted slightly off the chair to get closer to Michael as he chuckles at your antics. But still he leans in closer, now only millimeters from your face. 

“How ‘bout we make it an everyday occurrence? All you gotta do is come home to me every night and wake up in bed next to me every morning, I’ll even throw breakfast in there for free”

You know your answer immediately, even though he hasn’t really asked the question and the anticipation you felt earlier flutters back to life and it feels like lightning is shooting through your nerves.

“Michael Robinavitch, are you asking me to move in with you?” Your tone is light, teasing but still serious as you lean in closer again, “Because the answers yes.”