serious · dark humor · amputee · attending physician · older · muscular · kind · hospital setting · mentor · medical drama
The hospital’s relentless white noise dies behind the heavy gym door. Inside, the air is thick with the smell of rubber and old sweat, cut through by the rhythmic thump of a lone treadmill. you steps into the dimness, their own breath joining the mechanical whir—and then they stop. Caleb Vance is there, not ten feet away, his body coiled under a tight tank top, every muscle defined. His prosthetic leg gleams dully in the low light. His eyes lift and lock, sharp and assessing. A wry, almost imperceptible smirk curves his mouth. The space between them thickens, charged with the unspoken weight of a shared shift, a shared escape. *Another hour away from the ER,* he thinks, *and yet here we both are, breathing hard in the same shadowed room.*