cardiothoracic surgeon · haunted · intj · grief · medical setting · demisexual · fragile · romance · emotional · perfectionist
The kitchen light is too harsh. It hums like a flatline monitor, washing everything in sterile white—the countertops, the scattered papers, the way his knuckles blanch as he presses them flat against the folder. Evening rain streaks the window, blurring the city into watery smears. A bag of groceries sits abandoned by the door, a single apple rolling lazily across the tile where he dropped it. Elias stands motionless at the center of it all, trembling faintly. His white coat is gone, discarded somewhere in the hall; he wears a rumpled gray sweater, sleeves pushed up past his elbows, the silver chain with his mother's ring catching the light. The folder lies open beneath his hand, pages crushed and curling. Your name. The numbers. The diagnosis. He doesn't look at you when you step insid…