dazzling suns

Jack is on good terms with plausible deniability. He’ll let the salt of seawater lick at his heels as he walks through the sand, perch himself at the edge of the rooftop just to feel the rush, but he’ll never dive into water, leap over the edge.

He finds reprieve at the cusp of danger, an odd sort of calm where others would only find chaos.

He thinks it’s probably why he finds reprieve in her.

And the thing is, Samira’s really not dangerous. Certainly, not in the traditional sense. She is level-headed, kind-hearted, and bright-minded. She’s determined and inquisitive. Her patients feel safe in her capable hands, as they rightly should. And yet–

Jack gets that very same feeling when she smiles. That bone-white, delicious, perilous lurch in his gut. The flutter before the fall.

It was much easier when he was certain she had no idea the effect she had upon him. When she was blissfully unaware of the things he would do for her (the way he wants her to his core). Because when he suspects she knows, or maybe that she’s always known, Jack’s not sure if he fears or yearns for her response. He’s normally a straight shooter, honest and communicative to a fault, but that is not a path he’ll go down with her, not when it’s littered with real consequences for her career and reputation.

So, they take the thornier route. The one with swells and curves and roundabouts that twist and writhe around the sinews of his heart. And fuck, if it isn’t scenic.

There’s something probably a little egregious about the way he lets himself indulge the precariousness, the murkiness of deniability. But hell, he’s starting to think she, too, likes it just the same.

Because she asks to finish his wine at the biannual happy hour and downs the red liquid before handing him back the empty plastic cup. Because she’s changed out of scrubs and into a thick sweater and slouchy denim jeans that look so perfectly lived in. Because her curls are spilling over the curve of her shoulder and he would quite like to follow the line with his tongue. Because she says, “Bye, Dr. Abbot,” so intentionally sugar-sweet, he plays it back again and again like the lyrics of his new favorite song.

Because some time past midnight, weeks later when she’s picked up a last minute night shift, he plucks the glossy red apple right out of her hand and replaces it with the bitter green one he knows she likes better.

Because he can still taste the lingering tartness when her tongue slips right past his own.

a - mohabbot, one night stand fic

Against all odds, thinking had been kept to a bare minimum tonight as she clinked the neck of her beer bottle in a celebratory ‘cheers’ so many times she lost track somewhere around the sixth. Samira had protested quite vehemently when Princess insisted on dragging her to the dive bar at the end of the shift, but it felt good to mark the end of her residency somewhere other than the hospital break room or her couch. 

It wasn’t as though there was a big crowd, just Robby, some residents, and a few nurses, for good measure. But for some inexplicable reason, sitting at the back table was Jack Abbot, too. 

She hadn’t asked why he was there, just made the mental note that he was and moved on to ordering every type of french fry off the menu after Robby had tossed her his gold Amex and instructed her to order some stuff for the table. 

Except it took exactly forty-seven minutes for the sweet potato fries to come out and only thirteen for her to finish her first beer. On an empty stomach, the alcohol ran right through her bloodstream, a happy buzz building in her bones. 

After a full hour and half flew by without any sign of the truffle fries ever making it to their table, Robby clapped his hands together and called it a night with everyone waving off to their various cars, buses, and rideshares. 

“No luck?” Jack had called out from where he leaned against the brick wall of the bar, arms folded across his chest. She was the last one standing by the curb, as her app reloaded for the fourth time, desperately searching for a new driver.  

“No connection, I think,” she muttered, haphazardly.

“Try mine?” he offered, holding out his phone. 

Samira had been about to reach for it when her phone vibrated in her hand. “All good,” she had smiled, looking over her shoulder, “Jana will be here in sixteen minutes.”

He nodded, but made no movement to leave. 

“You really don’t have to wait,” she said.

He shrugged, “Don’t mind.”

Samira hadn’t argued, instead changing course, curiosity moving to the forefront of her mind, “So, how exactly did you end up here tonight?”

He laughed, his amusement scratching against her like sandpaper. 

“Is that funny?” she asked, brow quirked like she’s missed the joke. He often looked at her like that, like he was privy to some secret she'd never know.

“No,” he shook his head, “No, I just don’t have a good answer.”

“And how exactly do you plan on getting home?” 

He eyed her levelly, “I think that’s up to you, Samira.”

Samira Mohan made smart decisions.

Samira Mohan made good decisions. 

Sitting in the backseat of the Uber, she repeats it to herself over and over until it becomes less like a mantra and more like a band-aid to patch over how keyed up she feels with Jack's hand resting on her upper thigh.

---

g - mocollins, a fic that i've been dying to write but haven't been able to unravel in a way that's coherent

Generally, Samira wasn't like this. She chalk it up to the red wine in her system. Maybe the red of Heather's dress, the red on her lips.

“You don’t get to go there, Mohan. Not when you’ve got Abbot all longing and lovelorn,” Heather says, “He, like, love-loves you.”

Samira’s lips are moving in response but nothing is really coming out. She’s not sure what Heather’s expecting– a confession? Denial? All Samira manages is a weak, “Yeah.”

She feels herself wince reflexively at her coolness about the whole thing. It’s not that she doesn’t like Dr. Abbot. She does. He’s smart, savvy, and looks good covered in blood-strained scrubs. It’s just that it’ll never be casual between them. Not when he already so clearly adores her. And that’s the root of the problem, he’s already in so deep and Samira doesn’t really understand why, just that she is hard-wired in a way she needs to fight for that adoration, to claw for it. Maybe one day she’ll be ready for easy, want it even. But she thinks that day is nowhere near.

That's the thing-- Abbot gives, Robby takes. But Heather? Heather knows exactly what she needs.

“Boys, so emotional, huh?” Heather grins and suddenly Samira is struck by the desire to kiss the red right off her lips.

---

a - robbymira, i <3 the miserable sex to character study pipeline

And yes, fresh out of the icebox, the heart looks out of place, but in the palm of her hand, it feels so, so right. Samira can feel its determination: the throbbing, the beating, the pulsing for another hour, another day. 

Robby guides her through the movements: right between the lungs, middle of the chest, then a little to the left. The new heart settles nicely behind the sternum slotting into the cavity where they both know grief resides.

For a moment, the muscle is entirely still and then, finally it contracts. Samira’s lips twitch, almost imperceptibly, but he catches it.

He always catches it. Catches her, like he knows what it feels like to free fall. Like he hates the feeling as much as he hates her for daring to fly.

Robby takes her home that night, like he has no choice but to. Catches her again. And frankly, Samira should have known this is how it would go. If he was ever going to really see her, it would be on a high, not a low. (But what goes up...)

To his credit, he doesn’t try to say anything. He doesn’t need to. She witnesses the abject horror take hold when he rolls over sometime around noon, blinking the sleep out of his eyes, recognizing the shape of her eyes and curls. Like he'd been expecting someone else in her place. By the time the horror morphs into guilt and self-hatred, Samira’s already half-dressed.

She sort of has to laugh at the look he gives her when she leaves. Like he's a teenager that's been caught jerking off. Because that's what the sex was, wasn't? Mastabutory. Like he could fuck the worst parts of himself out of her.

Her memories of the night are tangled, out of order, askew but she's filed away enough to know she's cracked him wide open. In fact, Samira thinks she doesn’t even need him to like her anymore. Bearing witness to his want, alone, was enough to satisfy her ego.

He may still have his casual cruelty and his harsh quips, but he cannot undo the way her tongue slipped against his neck, the way his lips suckled her ear, the way her teeth grazed his temple. She still has the heat that lingers from when their hands were so entangled, they couldn't tell which fingers were whose.

Besides, Samira thinks, what is regret, if not an aphrodisiac?

---

r - mohabbot, reality tv au that will probably never see the light of day

Really, it was Samira’s fault for opening her LinkedIn. For answering the message from Gloria. For agreeing to send in an audition tape. For actually sending said tape.

It wasn’t as though Samira believed she would actually get a callback, much less casted. It was just something for a bored med student to do on a whim. Except now she’s sitting in a dark holding room, waiting to walk on stage and for the first time, Samira Mohan wonders what the hell she’s gotten herself into.

When the live taping begins, the stage lights flash glaringly in her eyes, but even so, the host, Dana Evans, remains vision in blue.

Samira didn’t like to think herself a liar but she had certainly made a habit of it. She lied to her friends about having a good relationship with her mother, lied to her mother about her plans for the summer, and now was about to spend ninety days lying to fifteen other houseguests to try and win a half million dollars. She’s done the math and she’s not sure how much of dent it would make in her student loan balance, after taxes, but it’s certainly not money to scoff at.