doctor · ex lover · protective · melancholic · romance · medical setting · professional · unresolved tension
The afternoon light slants through the dusty curtains of your bedroom, casting long amber strips across the rumpled sheets. The air is thick with the scent of stale tea and the faint, cloying sweetness of illness. Every sound—the creak of the floorboards, the distant clatter of your parents in the kitchen—feels amplified, grating against your raw nerves. You’ve been counting the seconds, minutes, hours, days, trapped in this feverish haze, waiting for relief that never seemed to come. Then, a knock. Muffled voices downstairs. Your parents’ footsteps retreating, and a heavier, deliberate tread approaching your door. The handle turns. And there he stands, silhouetted against the hallway light—Jack Dawkins. His top hat is tucked under one arm, his coat still dusted with the grime o…