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summary : [fem x reader] you and mel king have been friends for eight months. you know her coffee order, you know the face she makes when she’s about to go on a rant, you know the way she laughs with her whole body. you’re going to a renaissance fair together. you’re so normal about it.

wc : 1.8k

cw : slowburn, PININGGG so much pining, fluff (?) yearning, slightly one sided/friends to lovers-ish, soft domesticity, internal monologue that’s totally not coping

The Renaissance fair was Mel’s idea, obviously.

It had started the way most things with Mel started — mid-shift, out of nowhere, while you were both charting at the nurses’ station and she was supposed to be focusing. She’d looked up from her tablet with that specific look she got, the one where something had just occurred to her and she was physically incapable of keeping it inside her body.

“Okay but have you ever been to a Renaissance fair.”

You don’t even think this was a question, hardly anything is when Mel starts speaking.

You hadn’t even looked up from your chart. “No.”

“Okay so.” She’d spun slightly in her chair to face you more fully, which was your first warning sign. The chair spin meant you were getting the full thing. “There’s one in Millvale, like forty minutes from here, and I’ve been looking at the vendor list and there’s a glassblower, there’s a falconer —”

“A falconer?”

“— a falconer, and there’s a whole jousting tournament and they do immersive theater throughout the grounds which honestly is either going to be amazing or so embarrassing it loops back around to amazing, and I really feel like this is something we should do.”

You’d looked at her then. She was already pulling something up on her phone, probably the website, probably already planning an itinerary. Eight months of knowing Mel King and you understood that resistance was largely decorative. You were going. You’d always been going.

“Are we doing costumes?” you’d asked.

The way her face had lit up should be classified as a hazard.

So that’s how you end up here, in Mel’s apartment on a Saturday morning that is frankly too early for how chaotic this already is, surrounded by approximately one explosion of fabric.

Her bedroom is a disaster. A loving, intentional disaster, but still. There are two garment bags hanging off her closet door, a basket of what she’d described as “period-accurate accessories, mostly” sitting on the bed, and Mel herself standing in the center of it all in her jeans and a bralette, holding up two different belts with a look of intense academic focus.

“Okay,” she says, not looking at you. “The braided one reads more peasant-folk and the leather one reads more like, roguish traveler. I’m trying to figure out which direction I’m committing to.”

You’re sitting cross-legged on the edge of her bed, your own costume still in the bag because you’ve been here for twenty minutes and Mel has been narrating the entire time and you’ve been mostly just. Watching her. Which is a thing you’ve been accidentally doing a lot lately and are actively choosing not to examine.

“What’s the rest of the outfit?” you ask.

“Okay so —” she drops the belts on the bed and unzips the garment bag with a kind of ceremony, pulling out a deep green dress, linen, with billowy sleeves that lace at the wrist, a corseted bodice, and a hemline that would fall to mid-calf. It’s genuinely beautiful. She holds it up against herself. “I found it on Etsy, the shop does custom sizing, and I’ve been very normal about it for three months.”

“You’ve been very normal about it,” you repeat.

“I’ve thought about it every day,” she admits, completely without shame.

Something about that makes you smile in a way you have to press your lips together to contain. That’s Mel. That’s the whole thing with Mel, she doesn’t do anything halfway, doesn’t feel anything at a manageable volume. When she cares about something she cares about it the way other people breathe, automatic and constant and not really optional.

It was one of the first things you’d noticed about her, eight months ago. You’d been paired together on a case study, both of you hunched over the same table in the hospital library at some ungodly hour, and she’d started talking about the patient’s chart with this intensity that most people reserved for things they actually loved. Not performed enthusiasm. Real, inconvenient, overflowing interest. She’d looked up mid-sentence and caught you staring and said what and you’d said nothing, keep going and she had, and you’d sat there listening and thought privately, oh, this one’s going to be a problem.

You had been correct.

“Try it on,” you say, nodding at the dress.

She’s already pulling it on.

Getting the bodice laced is a whole thing. She does the front parts herself with practiced efficiency, which tells you this is not the first time she’s worn this specific type of garment, which is deeply unsurprising, and then she turns around and presents you with the back like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Can you get that?”

You slide off the bed. Your fingers find the laces at the small of her back and you start working upward, slowly, pulling each cross snug. Her hair is loose right now, falling over one shoulder to make room, and there’s a strip of skin at the nape of her neck that you are pointedly not looking at.

You’re looking at it a little.

“So what’s your concept,” Mel says, because she cannot be in a room without filling it with words and honestly you think you’d be lost without that by now, the constant motion of her voice. “Like who are you going as.”

“I was thinking some kind of herbalist,” you say. “Or a healer.”

She turns her head slightly, even though you’re still lacing. “Okay that’s so on brand it’s almost annoying.”

“Says the woman dressed as a rogue.”

“I contain multitudes.”

“You contain a whole Renaissance fair apparently.”

She laughs, and you feel it, the shift of her back under your hands, and you tie off the laces and take a very deliberate step back.

She turns around. The green of the dress does something significant to her eyes. The sleeves fall loose and lovely around her wrists and the whole silhouette of her is like something out of a painting and you are having a completely normal reaction to this, you’re fine, everything is fine.

“Well?” she asks. She does a little turn. Unselfconscious, easy, just genuinely wanting to know.

“You look —” you start, and then have to recalibrate because the first word that arrived was not one you’re prepared to say out loud yet. “Really good. The belt’s the leather one, by the way.”

She points at you. “Roguish traveler, I knew it.”

Your costume is easier to get into, which is both a relief and slightly unfair given the circumstances.

It’s a soft, dusty-rose overdress with wide sleeves and a simple tie at the waist, worn over a cream linen underdress, and you’d found a little leather satchel to carry that fits the whole healer-herbalist thing you’re going for. Mel had procured a small collection of dried flowers from somewhere, lavender, chamomile, a few sprigs of something she’d called “vibes-accurate,” and she’d tucked them into the satchel with great focus and ceremony while you were getting dressed.

Now you’re both standing in front of her bathroom mirror doing hair, which has become a collaborative project without anyone deciding that.

She’s doing something intricate with hers, a loose braid with little sections pulled out to frame her face, and she keeps making small adjustments and then second-guessing them, and you’ve already done yours mostly but you’re still standing there because you’re helping hold a pin, or at least that’s why you’ve told yourself you’re still standing there.

“Okay and then I want to do yours,” she says, glancing at you in the mirror.

“Mine’s basically done.”

“I know but I want to put some of the flowers in it.” She meets your eyes in the mirror, briefly, and something in her expression is soft in a way that makes your chest do something embarrassing. “If that’s okay. It would look really pretty.”

The word pretty coming from her mouth in reference to you does something to you that you’re going to have to deal with privately, at a later date, in the dark.

“Yeah,” you say. “Okay.”

So you stand there while she works small dried flowers into your hair, her hands careful, occasionally tilting your head gently with two fingers at your jaw to get a better angle. You’re looking at the mirror. At her face while she focuses. She has that expression she gets when something matters to her , brow slightly furrowed, bottom lip caught just barely between her teeth, the same face she makes going over a patient’s chart, the same face she makes when she’s explaining something she loves, the same face you’ve memorized completely without intending to.

“Can I ask you something,” you say.

“Mm.” She’s focused. There’s a lavender sprig in her hand.

“How did we end up like this.” You don’t totally know what you mean when you say it. You mean at a Renaissance fair. You also might mean something else.

She looks at your reflection. “What do you mean?”

“Like —” you try to find the version of this that’s safe to say. “Eight months ago I hardly knew you and now you’re putting flowers in my hair at eight in the morning on a Saturday.”

Something moves across her face, was she blushing? you held in a smile.

“I think,” she says, carefully, going back to the flowers, “that we just fit.” A pause. “Like, I don’t know. Some people you meet and it’s just… it makes sense. That they’re in your life.”

You look at her in the mirror. She’s not looking back, focused on the last pin, but there’s color at the top of her cheekbones that wasn’t there before.

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “It does.”

She smooths a piece of your hair back. Steps back to assess. Something about the way she looks at you then, she’s so… unhurried, like she’s got all the time in the world, like she’s looking at something that matters, god you might be delusional.

“There,” she says. Her voice is a little different. “Perfect.”

You look at yourself in the mirror. At the flowers in your hair. At her standing just behind your shoulder, still watching.

And you think, with the specific desperation of someone who has been thinking it for a while and is running out of room to put it — I think I’m in love with you.

You think it and you don’t say it. You turn around and smile at her instead, and she grins back, and she grabs her leather belt off the counter and says okay let’s go, I want to get there before the joust starts, and you follow her out the door.

You don’t say it.

summary : [fem x reader] you and mel king have been friends for eight months. you know her coffee order, you know the face she makes when she’s about to go on a rant, you know the way she laughs with her whole body. you’re going to a renaissance fair together. you’re so normal about it.

wc : 1.8k

cw : slowburn, PININGGG so much pining, fluff (?) yearning, slightly one sided/friends to lovers-ish, soft domesticity, internal monologue that’s totally not coping

The Renaissance fair was Mel’s idea, obviously.

It had started the way most things with Mel started — mid-shift, out of nowhere, while you were both charting at the nurses’ station and she was supposed to be focusing. She’d looked up from her tablet with that specific look she got, the one where something had just occurred to her and she was physically incapable of keeping it inside her body.

“Okay but have you ever been to a Renaissance fair.”

You don’t even think this was a question, hardly anything is when Mel starts speaking.

You hadn’t even looked up from your chart. “No.”

“Okay so.” She’d spun slightly in her chair to face you more fully, which was your first warning sign. The chair spin meant you were getting the full thing. “There’s one in Millvale, like forty minutes from here, and I’ve been looking at the vendor list and there’s a glassblower, there’s a falconer —”

“A falconer?”

“— a falconer, and there’s a whole jousting tournament and they do immersive theater throughout the grounds which honestly is either going to be amazing or so embarrassing it loops back around to amazing, and I really feel like this is something we should do.”

You’d looked at her then. She was already pulling something up on her phone, probably the website, probably already planning an itinerary. Eight months of knowing Mel King and you understood that resistance was largely decorative. You were going. You’d always been going.

“Are we doing costumes?” you’d asked.

The way her face had lit up should be classified as a hazard.

So that’s how you end up here, in Mel’s apartment on a Saturday morning that is frankly too early for how chaotic this already is, surrounded by approximately one explosion of fabric.

Her bedroom is a disaster. A loving, intentional disaster, but still. There are two garment bags hanging off her closet door, a basket of what she’d described as “period-accurate accessories, mostly” sitting on the bed, and Mel herself standing in the center of it all in her jeans and a bralette, holding up two different belts with a look of intense academic focus.

“Okay,” she says, not looking at you. “The braided one reads more peasant-folk and the leather one reads more like, roguish traveler. I’m trying to figure out which direction I’m committing to.”

You’re sitting cross-legged on the edge of her bed, your own costume still in the bag because you’ve been here for twenty minutes and Mel has been narrating the entire time and you’ve been mostly just. Watching her. Which is a thing you’ve been accidentally doing a lot lately and are actively choosing not to examine.

“What’s the rest of the outfit?” you ask.

“Okay so —” she drops the belts on the bed and unzips the garment bag with a kind of ceremony, pulling out a deep green dress, linen, with billowy sleeves that lace at the wrist, a corseted bodice, and a hemline that would fall to mid-calf. It’s genuinely beautiful. She holds it up against herself. “I found it on Etsy, the shop does custom sizing, and I’ve been very normal about it for three months.”

“You’ve been very normal about it,” you repeat.

“I’ve thought about it every day,” she admits, completely without shame.

Something about that makes you smile in a way you have to press your lips together to contain. That’s Mel. That’s the whole thing with Mel, she doesn’t do anything halfway, doesn’t feel anything at a manageable volume. When she cares about something she cares about it the way other people breathe, automatic and constant and not really optional.

It was one of the first things you’d noticed about her, eight months ago. You’d been paired together on a case study, both of you hunched over the same table in the hospital library at some ungodly hour, and she’d started talking about the patient’s chart with this intensity that most people reserved for things they actually loved. Not performed enthusiasm. Real, inconvenient, overflowing interest. She’d looked up mid-sentence and caught you staring and said what and you’d said nothing, keep going and she had, and you’d sat there listening and thought privately, oh, this one’s going to be a problem.

You had been correct.

“Try it on,” you say, nodding at the dress.

She’s already pulling it on.

Getting the bodice laced is a whole thing. She does the front parts herself with practiced efficiency, which tells you this is not the first time she’s worn this specific type of garment, which is deeply unsurprising, and then she turns around and presents you with the back like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Can you get that?”

You slide off the bed. Your fingers find the laces at the small of her back and you start working upward, slowly, pulling each cross snug. Her hair is loose right now, falling over one shoulder to make room, and there’s a strip of skin at the nape of her neck that you are pointedly not looking at.

You’re looking at it a little.

“So what’s your concept,” Mel says, because she cannot be in a room without filling it with words and honestly you think you’d be lost without that by now, the constant motion of her voice. “Like who are you going as.”

“I was thinking some kind of herbalist,” you say. “Or a healer.”

She turns her head slightly, even though you’re still lacing. “Okay that’s so on brand it’s almost annoying.”

“Says the woman dressed as a rogue.”

“I contain multitudes.”

“You contain a whole Renaissance fair apparently.”

She laughs, and you feel it, the shift of her back under your hands, and you tie off the laces and take a very deliberate step back.

She turns around. The green of the dress does something significant to her eyes. The sleeves fall loose and lovely around her wrists and the whole silhouette of her is like something out of a painting and you are having a completely normal reaction to this, you’re fine, everything is fine.

“Well?” she asks. She does a little turn. Unselfconscious, easy, just genuinely wanting to know.

“You look —” you start, and then have to recalibrate because the first word that arrived was not one you’re prepared to say out loud yet. “Really good. The belt’s the leather one, by the way.”

She points at you. “Roguish traveler, I knew it.”

Your costume is easier to get into, which is both a relief and slightly unfair given the circumstances.

It’s a soft, dusty-rose overdress with wide sleeves and a simple tie at the waist, worn over a cream linen underdress, and you’d found a little leather satchel to carry that fits the whole healer-herbalist thing you’re going for. Mel had procured a small collection of dried flowers from somewhere, lavender, chamomile, a few sprigs of something she’d called “vibes-accurate,” and she’d tucked them into the satchel with great focus and ceremony while you were getting dressed.

Now you’re both standing in front of her bathroom mirror doing hair, which has become a collaborative project without anyone deciding that.

She’s doing something intricate with hers, a loose braid with little sections pulled out to frame her face, and she keeps making small adjustments and then second-guessing them, and you’ve already done yours mostly but you’re still standing there because you’re helping hold a pin, or at least that’s why you’ve told yourself you’re still standing there.

“Okay and then I want to do yours,” she says, glancing at you in the mirror.

“Mine’s basically done.”

“I know but I want to put some of the flowers in it.” She meets your eyes in the mirror, briefly, and something in her expression is soft in a way that makes your chest do something embarrassing. “If that’s okay. It would look really pretty.”

The word pretty coming from her mouth in reference to you does something to you that you’re going to have to deal with privately, at a later date, in the dark.

“Yeah,” you say. “Okay.”

So you stand there while she works small dried flowers into your hair, her hands careful, occasionally tilting your head gently with two fingers at your jaw to get a better angle. You’re looking at the mirror. At her face while she focuses. She has that expression she gets when something matters to her , brow slightly furrowed, bottom lip caught just barely between her teeth, the same face she makes going over a patient’s chart, the same face she makes when she’s explaining something she loves, the same face you’ve memorized completely without intending to.

“Can I ask you something,” you say.

“Mm.” She’s focused. There’s a lavender sprig in her hand.

“How did we end up like this.” You don’t totally know what you mean when you say it. You mean at a Renaissance fair. You also might mean something else.

She looks at your reflection. “What do you mean?”

“Like —” you try to find the version of this that’s safe to say. “Eight months ago I hardly knew you and now you’re putting flowers in my hair at eight in the morning on a Saturday.”

Something moves across her face, was she blushing? you held in a smile.

“I think,” she says, carefully, going back to the flowers, “that we just fit.” A pause. “Like, I don’t know. Some people you meet and it’s just… it makes sense. That they’re in your life.”

You look at her in the mirror. She’s not looking back, focused on the last pin, but there’s color at the top of her cheekbones that wasn’t there before.

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “It does.”

She smooths a piece of your hair back. Steps back to assess. Something about the way she looks at you then, she’s so… unhurried, like she’s got all the time in the world, like she’s looking at something that matters, god you might be delusional.

“There,” she says. Her voice is a little different. “Perfect.”

You look at yourself in the mirror. At the flowers in your hair. At her standing just behind your shoulder, still watching.

And you think, with the specific desperation of someone who has been thinking it for a while and is running out of room to put it — I think I’m in love with you.

You think it and you don’t say it. You turn around and smile at her instead, and she grins back, and she grabs her leather belt off the counter and says okay let’s go, I want to get there before the joust starts, and you follow her out the door.

You don’t say it.

ogilvie x fem reader

summary: you spend an entire shift being picked apart by the most insufferable person in the ER, only to realize he’s watching you closer than anyone else.

note: been obsessed with ogilvie lately so this is kinda rushed, also this was originally posted on my main but i have switched accounts @mitchas ^^ i’m currently working on a part two for this fic

wc: 1.9k

tags/tropes: slow burn, academic rivals but it’s not academic it’s literally life or death, emotionally constipated man x competent woman, angst, reader is actually good at her job, ogilvie is just an asshole.

The Pitt is already moving when you clock in at 06:45. Bays fill steadily, monitors beep in the background, Dana speaks low to techs at central. You wash your hands at the entrance sink, dry them, pull your hair into a tight knot, and walk to the board. Dr. Robby studies the list. He speaks without looking up. “Bay 3. Car accident. Driver ejected. You’re with me and Ogilvie.”

You nod and head over. Ogilvie stands gloved and masked, arms folded. He glances at you as you step beside him.

“You’re late,” he says.

“I’m not. Shift started at 06:45. It’s 06:45.” He blinks, “Perception matters. You walked in at 06:44:58. That’s late enough.” You bite the inside of your cheek and stay silent. Robby joins you both.

“Patient hypotensive. Bad leg injury, likely internal bleeding. Ogilvie, airway. You get lines. Whitaker backup.”

Whitaker works a few bays down. He gives a small nod when your eyes meet. You remain at Bay 3. The doors open, the gurney rolls in. The patient is conscious and in pain. Nurses transfer him to the bed. You place a large IV in his arm and start fluids wide open. Ogilvie secures the breathing tube on his side with precise movements.

Once finished he looks across at you. “Check placement. Do it right.” You listen to the chest and watch the monitor. “Good.”

He exhales through his nose. “Barely. Capnography curve is flat. You should have noticed before you spoke.”

You keep silent. The patient’s pressure drops. Robby calls for compressions. You push the medications he orders. Ogilvie watches the ultrasound.

“Fluid in the abdomen. He’s bleeding. Obviously.”

“OR,” Robby says. “Scrub if needed.” The surgeons don’t call for help. You and Ogilvie return to the computers at central station and chart in silence.

Minutes later he speaks without looking from his screen.

“Extra second on the second IV. Again.”

You continue typing. “I made sure the first was running.”

“That’s the extra second. Second hesitation today. If you freeze every time the clock moves, fourth year may not be for you.” You stop typing and meet his eyes. “I didn’t freeze. I confirmed.”

“Confirmation is hesitation when seconds count. You should know that.” You finish the note, log out, and step away.

You walk down the short hallway to the supply alcove. Javadi restocks a cart. She looks up.

“Ogilvie on you already?”

“He’s always on someone. Today it’s me.” Javadi shelves the pack of gauze. “He noticed you got the neck line fast last shift. He didn’t tell you.”

“He said plenty today.”

Joy appears at the hallway end, coffee in hand, and walks over. “He just told Whitaker his abdominal pain read in bay 7 was ‘kindergarten bullshit.’ ” You know Joy was probably exaggerating. “Whitaker looked ready to disappear.”

“Whitaker never pushes back.” Joy studies your face. “Why do you let Ogilvie get to you? You’re good. Robby knows it. McKay knows it.”

“What? I don’t. He just keeps talking.” She raises an eyebrow and decides not to press you this time. You head back to the floor.

A knife wound to the chest arrives next. McKay is attending. She looks between you and Ogilvie as you approach the bay. “Chest tube. One left, one right.”

“I’ll take right,” Ogilvie says. “Try not to butcher the left.”

You ignore the comment and take left. You make the incision carefully, slide the tube in, connect it. The patient breathes easier. McKay checks both sides. “Nice work,” she says to you. “Quick on the clamp.”

Ogilvie mutters as you strip your gloves, “Adequate. For someone who needs praise to function.” You don’t look at him. You walk out of the bay and head to the hydration station. You grab a bottle of water, twist the cap, and drink. Your jaw aches from clenching.

The middle of the shift passes slowly. You stop at the triage counter and eat half a protein bar standing. A child arrives with high fever and seizure. You administer the medication while Ogilvie speaks to the parents in the hallway.

“Common with temperature spike. Doesn’t mean epilepsy. He’ll be okay. There’s no need to cry.” The mother cries harder. Ogilvie steps back into the bay and writes orders.

Later, after the family leaves with the child, you catch him at the nurses’ station.

“You could have said it more gently.”

He continues writing. “Why? It’s not gonna change anything if I do.”

“You made her feel worse for no reason.” He looks up. “I’m not here to manage feelings. I’m here to manage patients. If you want to be a therapist, you graduated from the wrong program.”

You don’t have time for this, instead you walk back to the floor and pick up the next chart. A middle-aged man presents with shortness of breath. You listen to his lungs, check oxygen saturation, start an IV. Whitaker supervises from the doorway. The man stabilizes after treatment. You chart quickly and move on.

An elderly woman arrives next, altered mental status after a fall. You examine her, note raccoon eyes and Battle’s sign, order a head CT. The scan shows a small subdural hematoma. You call neurosurgery. They accept her into the unit. You explain the findings to her daughter on the phone. She interrupts often and sounds scared. You stay calm and repeat information as needed. Your throat feels raw by the end.

Ogilvie passes while you update the board.

“Four minutes to get the daughter on the phone. Four minutes later she could have cried in the hallway instead of on hold.”

You do not turn. “She needed to understand the plan.”

“She needed information. Not hand-holding.” He keeps walking.

A multi-car pileup hits in the afternoon. Patients arrive in waves. You move from bay to bay, start lines, assist with compressions, call out lab values. You and Ogilvie end up at the same bed, an older woman with chest pain. You study the heart monitor.

“More than front wall.”

He looks at the strip, then at you. “Riiight. Cath lab. Took you long enough to say it.”

You step out and tell Robby. When you turn to leave the bay your shoulder brushes his. The contact is brief. Warmth lingers. He does not acknowledge it.

Robby takes over the case. You and Ogilvie return to the computers and finish notes. After a long silence he speaks.

“You saw the change first.”

“Yeah.”

“Most miss it. I almost did. Almost. Not quite. Unlike you, I don’t need twenty seconds to decide.” You glance at him. His eyes stay on the screen. You don’t reply.

You log out and walk to the break area. You stand still for thirty seconds. You lean against the wall and close your eyes. The lights buzz overhead. His words replay in your head. Those words shouldn’t even fucking matter, so why are you thinking about it? You sigh and walk towards the hydration station, luckily it’s busy so you have a moment to breathe until Joy ends up finding you with a chart in her hand. “I’m guessing our dear Ogilvie has been talking to you nicely.”

“Sure! with multiple insults attached.”

“I wonder if it turns him on or some shit, talking down on people.” You pause, and ignore the statement. Joy huffs out a laugh “I’m just joking, you okay though?”

“I’m fine.” You feel unsure about that response, but you’re keeping yourself together.

Javadi passes later while you grab water. “He pays more attention to you than anyone else here.”

“He pays attention to anything and anyone he thinks is beneath him.”

“Seems like it’s not only the mistakes.” She keeps walking.

You finish the water and toss the bottle. Back on the floor you pick up another chart. A twenty-something man presents with abdominal pain after a bar fight. You examine him, order labs and imaging. It is appendicitis. You page surgery. They take him to the OR. You chart, sign out, move on.

The final hours are somewhat rough. Codes stack. You work on a young patient hit by a car. You perform compressions until your arms burn and your scrubs stick with sweat. Robby calls it, and whispers you a ‘good job.’

You stand slowly. Blood covers your scrubs. You walk to the sink near the trauma bays and wash your hands. Ogilvie stands beside you.

“You did everything correctly.”

You keep scrubbing. “It wasn’t enough.”

“Doesn’t change that you were correct.” He pauses. “For once.” You turn off the faucet and grab paper towels. “Why are you telling me this?”

He looks at you. “You look like you’re going to cry every time I give you constructive criticism. And I'd rather not deal with drama.” You don’t even look at him, me, about to cry? Please, you dry your hands. He just stays in place.

You step closer. “Do you like watching me struggle?”

He looks at your face, then briefly at your mouth. “I like watching you work. When you’re not proving how fragile your ego is.”

The space between you feels tense. You hate him. You really do. Robby’s voice carries from down the hall. “Debrief in five.”

Ogilvie turns and walks away.

You stay at the sink and stare at the drain. You exhale slowly and head to the debrief room.

Robby reviews cases, notes what went well and what could have been faster. He looks at you once during the chest pain discussion. “Good catch on posterior changes.” Ogilvie doen’t react. You do not look at him, thank god he didn’t say anything.

After debrief you return to the floor to sign out loose ends. Bays are quieter. The night team takes over. You finish your last note, log out, and head to the locker room.

You change slowly. Your scrubs are stiff with dried blood. You pull on street clothes, stuff the dirty set in your bag, and sit on the bench for a minute. Your hands remain unsteady.

Joy waits outside the locker-room door.

“Drink?”

“Not tonight.” She nods. “He’s still here finishing notes. Probably rewriting everyone else’s for fun.”

Why would you even want to talk to him at this hour, you’ve had enough of his voice.

You walk through empty corridors to the staff exit. The hospital is quieter and heavier at night. You push through the doors into the parking garage. The air is cooler. Your car is on the third level. You take the stairs. Each step echoes.

At your car you pull out your phone to check the time. The screen lights up with a notification. Unknown number.

Unknown number: Try not to embarrass yourself again.

You stare at the message. Your thumb hovers over delete. You give it a second thought and turn your phone off, leaving it alone might just be better.

You get in the car, start the engine, and sit with the heat on low. The dashboard clock reads 21:58. “How the fuck did he get my number?” You muttered under your breath.

You hate his guts.

The drive home is quiet. You keep the radio off. Streetlights move across the windshield. His words replay: the flat “barely” after placement, the muttered “adequate” after the tube, the final “try not to embarrass yourself again.”

You pull into your parking spot, cut the engine, and sit in the dark for another minute. You unlock your phone. The message remains. You read it once more.

You lock the phone, grab your bag, and head inside.

Requiem.