#physiotherepist

Scene 1 – “First Session of the Weekend”

Lando Norris groaned as he flopped onto the padded table.

“I swear this new seat position is gonna kill my back before Max does.”

Y/N laughed softly, already rolling out his shoulders.

“Mmm, I told you, posture isn’t just in the car. You’re slouching on your phone between sessions, aren’t you?” “…Maybe.” “Busted. Okay, we’re fixing that. No TikTok doomscrolling while leaning on one arm.”

She pressed gently on his scapula, and he winced, then sighed in relief.

“Ohhh my god, you’re magic.” “Not magic. Just anatomy, hydration, and a bit of tough love.”

From the corner, Oscar Piastri peeked in with a water bottle.

“Is it my turn after him?” “You’re early,” Y/N teased. “Feeling sore, or just want an excuse to avoid media?” “…Both.”

Scene 2 – “Advice Beyond Muscles”

Y/N’s reputation wasn’t just about her skill—it was the way she cared.

She’d worked in boxing and junior motorsport, so she’d seen how mental fatigue often hit harder than physical strain.

During a light cooldown with Charles Leclerc, she noticed his frown.

“You’re quiet today,” she said gently. “Mmm… just frustrated. Home race is coming. A lot of pressure.” “Pressure’s real, but remember your body listens to your mind. Tension up here—” she tapped his shoulder “—comes from up here.”

She handed him a breathing exercise card, handwritten with doodles. Charles blinked, then chuckled.

“You made this?” “Yup. Trust me, the muscles will follow if the brain relaxes.”

Scene 3 – “Grid-Wide Sunshine”

By Saturday, Y/N was a paddock celebrity.

Max Verstappen begrudgingly admitted her stretches helped him “not feel like an old man at 27.”

George Russell followed every single hydration tip and carried an extra water bottle because she told him to.

Even Lewis Hamilton stopped by just to thank her for “bringing good energy to the garage.”

Social media caught on fast:

[F1 Gossip Update]:

“Y/N L/N is officially the F1 grid’s adopted little sister/therapist/sunshine. Drivers have been spotted lining up for her massages and motivational sticky notes.”

[Comment Section]:

“She’s like the real-life Ted Lasso but in sneakers 😭”

“Imagine having Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc listening to you like obedient puppies.”

“Protect her at all costs.”

Scene 4 – “Post-Race Recharge”

After the Sunday race, Y/N found herself juggling three drivers on cooldowns:

Carlos Sainz with tight hamstrings.

Lando Norris demanding “emotional support and snacks.”

Oscar Piastri silently following every stretch like a model student.

“You do realize I’m not a magician, right?” Y/N laughed as she handed out electrolyte packs. “Nope. You’re officially the paddock miracle worker,” Lando mumbled through a mouthful of granola.

Before she could respond, Toto Wolff himself stopped by, arms crossed but smiling.

“The drivers are talking, Y/N. They say your work is making them faster.” “Really?” “Really. I might need you to fix my shoulders next.”

She laughed, realizing that somehow, in just a few months, she had become the sunshine of the grid—not just fixing their muscles but lifting the whole paddock’s mood.

And as she packed up for the night, she saw a new sticky note on her therapy table, in Lando’s messy handwriting:

“Thanks for keeping us together. Literally.”

End.

⋆ ͘ . ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ 𝑠𝑦𝑛𝑜𝑝𝑠𝑖𝑠 an early-season injury acts as the catalyst dragging bengals quarterback, joe burrow, into constant proximity with one of the team's physiotherapists—dahlia. someone steady, intelligent, and observant whilst maintaining complete detachment to the gridiron. what begins as routinely care, slowly shifts into an impossible-to-name attraction.

⋆ ͘ . ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ 𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 hurt , comfort , slight angst , fluff , conflict of interest , ethical dilemmas , injury details , mentions of medical appliances , mental health references , zac taylor being disrespectful ( not accurate to his true character !! ) , and referenced conflicts.

⋆ ͘ . ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ 𝑑𝑦𝑛𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑐𝑠 athlete/quarteback x physiotherapist, slow burn romance, mutual connection, crushing, mutual yearning, pining, ja’marr being our no. 1# dahlia defender, joe being a grumpy man (act one + two) & dahlia being the sweetest soul ever, tiny power imbalance (unsure of this one?), forced proximity, media instigation (pr & hr are genuinely so annoying in this for plot purposes).

ִֶָ. ..𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ🪽་༘࿐ 　 ྀི　𓈒    my   di𝚊𝚛𝓎  𓈒  ୨୧ ! credits to rupi kaur for one of the lines i took inspiration from, from this poem. anyways this is purely indulgent for me buttt i’m honestly glad to write this, i think it’s very intriguing and i wanted to stay as true as possible to joe’s character/morals etc. also i indefinitely suggest using cailee spaeny’s voice as dahlia’s voice, something light, softened around the edges, and southern but not overtly southern yk? also i indefinitely projected all my anger into zac taylor in this! otherwise, enjoy reading my loves :) !! IN ADVANCE, i apologize for the crappy spacing, tumblr only allows us writers to do so much ☹️🤍!! 💌 pinterest board

introducing: Dahlia “Dolly” Beaumont !

twenty seven , upenn alumni , physiotherapist , infp , she/her . . .

act one — fracture 

♪ I Hope You Find Your Way Home • Tyler, the Creator. 

“look, boy, keep runnin', you'll be crampin' in your foot.”

the smell of antiseptic burns like an undulating flame in a forest, a cast wraps uncomfortably around joe's lower leg all the way down to his foot, and worst of all this ugly feeling he refuses to name is corrosive within him. cincinnati, and perhaps the whole media spews absolute discouragement to his plight. talks of trades, retirement, and whether his dignity remains as a quarterback remains uncertain; foggier than his shower’s glass. 

injury. surgery. rehab. returning. first game back. successful season. no playoffs. somber press reflections.

it's a limbo he's grown far too accustomed to, robbing him of any autonomy he might have once felt. the scooter is only more an insult to injury, he loathes the sound of wheels rubbing harshly against linoleum-yet-waxy floors. jimmy burrow, his father, is beside him—muttering words of encouragement that bring no relief to his ego or whatever is left of him that isn't vulnerable.

vulnerability was never a language he spoke. not in some cold, egotistic sense. rather opening up felt like spilling all his guts out and then having to put each back in smoothly one at a time once it dawned on him that safety is never guaranteed.

wallowing in his woe is sorely interrupted by his ever loving father, “now, joe. you're gonna be fine, kid, you'll bounce back like with the knee and the wrist. these are just little blockages to greatness,” the grey-headed man spoke, a tiny smile like joe's was spread across his face.

he's exhausted, joe can read it in between every fine crease of his father's eyes. he's seen and been there for so much, he can't help it but feel like a burden. less of the phenomenal son and more of a failure. 

like the rest of the physiotherapy rooms, it's illuminated with clinical lighting, charts on the wall, cabinets, a familiar adjustable plinth, and the smell of antiseptic striking again. 

but this room—this one's different. not curated to simple aesthetics or the visual weight of medicinal practices. it's comfortable despite looking no different than any other.

joe's nostrils are hit with the scent of patchouli, vanilla, and maybe cocoa—or shea, give or take. 

he hears faint clicking from a desktop's keyboard. click-clack-click, a tiny hum let out in tune with a sade song—something somber yet light, and a familiar face of two years now. her expressive dark cocoa eyes scan a screen easily, before meeting joe's gaze. he's painfully early, he knows he is. the appointment was to begin at twelve and as of now the clock reads half past eleven. 

“oh, hello.” she's got a slight southern accent, warm around the edges of every vowel, she really says: ohh, hell-oh. joe feels even more pitied by her eyes speaking more boldly than her face, sure, she's a professional and all, but still. 

dahlia—or as her lanyard says: dahlia beaumont greets them both properly, shaking jimmy's hand and offering a smile to joe. after all his body language screamed guarded, closed off. “well, good morning, joseph. and i'd assume he's your father?” 

“yes, ma'am.” jimmy’s ever enthusiastic as he spoke for joe, he's barely got an impression of the physiotherapist and she's met his expectations. like father like son they say, once joe sees potential in something he immediately trusts it. 

joe shoots him a tired glance, mentally preparing for questions.

“so, joseph, let’s start with pain management ever since the surgery,” guiding him over to the plinth, she allows him to lean on her for support as he shifts his weight sparingly. dahlia observes agitation easily—it’s internalized discomfort turned outward; ugly, vulnerable, maybe the most human he’s been in years. “other than your medication, have you took a more therapeutic approach. considering you’re now becoming accustomed to a slower schedule?”

slow? joe attributed himself to anything but slow. his eyes glue upward to the ceiling, counting every little crevice as words pour out of him like flowing water, autonomous with no real intention whatsoever. “no, just the painkillers and rest.”

jimmy’s voice slightly overlaps his son’s, he’s on the phone not so discreetly with someone who the physiotherapist can only assume is joe’s mother from the feminine inflection coming out on the other line.

dahlia’s gaze softens for a brief moment, he’s painfully guarded. like a rock stuck in a tiny crack, immovable and unrepentant. she can tell it’s ego—not your stereotypical ambition mixed with pride or callous, it’s self protection.

“would you say it’s affected anything in particular—the naproxen?” 

he finally looks at her, maybe through her. “i feel more drowsy.”

“elaborate.” 

“in the mornings, it sucks getting up. i’ll go back to sleep for a minute, or so i think, and a whole hour passes.”

smaller dosage + vitamin d3. the i in vitamin is dotted with a heart instead, so loopy and girlish that it’s nauseating for joe. he peers more at her notes before mentally scolding himself for staring at something unimportant. 

dahlia sets down her light pink and gold clipboard onto the room’s respective counter tops, drawers full of medicinal objects, braces, etc. “good to know, before we continue, can i take your height and weight, considering surgery, stress, and other factors can cause fluctuations.”

joe nods, feigning indifference to something that’s trivial, insignificant. he’s had it measured hundreds of times in his life, most importantly at the combine and for some uncertain reason—his heart throbs with a similar nervousness as that very day.

she wheels the chair scale over to him, doing mental subtractions from his scooter’s own mass. once joe sits, dahlia’s fingers trace over a few buttons, zeroing the scale for precise measurements. 

calibration makes this weird beeping sound never easing into quiet, jimmy’s mouthing to joe to ‘relax,’ but how could he?

there’s too many things happening at once. 

beep. 

first, it’s the fluorescent lighting that weirdly gets warmer and colder—or perhaps his mind deceives him.

beep.

then, dahlia’s close proximity, she’s hovering over the machine—professionally. adjusting little things like clock work, but her perfume; God, whatever saccharine combination that has come from it dulls his senses. 

beep.

finally, her voice. 

“two-twelve.” 

“that’s not terrible. in fact it’s expected, you’ve been through surgery, fluid loss, stress, and slight bone density loss.” dahlia mumbles more to herself than him, “you’re still six-four, correct? no difference from what i have you listed as.” 

joe nods again, which makes her brows furrow a little. physical responses mean something on a bodily level, but he’s got a voice, so use it—verbalize it.

“joseph—”

“just call me joe, and yes, i’m still six-four.”

rehab’s a continuous spinning cycle that can only be broken by one factor, humanity. accepting his humanity, swallowing the bitter pill named pride and not naproxen, and moving on.

so dahlia does what she does best—challenging someone (especially a patient) and their perspective of identity. who are you when a football tucked neatly under your arm and a helmet on your head cannot continue to define you? 

joe’s laying on the cream coloured plinth, while his therapist conducts light joint mobilization and soft tissue work which targets his ankle, foot, and calf to prevent a lack of circulation to his already weakened tendons.

her hands are gentle to the touch, working away with a raw grace that he’s never given himself, dahlia even mutters anatomical locations to joe or will drop a small fact. 

despite his interest in bones and fossils, he would’ve never considered the concept of his first metatarsal being responsible for well over thirty percent of bodily weight when walking.

“you know the song i usually play in the background?” dahlia lightly asks, pressing delicately onto a point that prompts joe to bite his lip—masking a obvious pained sound. “and i know it’s going to hurt, your neuroplasticity is newly rewired to pain right here,” she repeats the same motion, lightly, and somehow the pain has gone. “its a beautiful phenomenon. central sensitization.”

joe tucks away the piece of information, before returning his attention back to her initial question. “my mom’s a fan of her, sadie, right?” he attempts to flex his casted foot, only to hiss under his breath at the tension radiating within him now.

“close enough. it’s sade, pronounced sha-dey. anyway, this song it’s called ‘cherish the day,’ i use it for ambient purposes,” dahlia continues her motions, remaining passive considering his indefinite limited range of motion. “although, i think to an extent it heals. considering ‘cherish the day’ is recorded at four hundred thirty-two hertz, some light research i did on it showed a steadier range of heart beat and respiration when you listen to it—frequencies affect little things, i guess.”

joe raises a brow, his brain was wired for all tangible, empirical things with cold evidence and certainty. sure, he liked to wonder, question, and be insightful. but that sounded like pure speculation to him, “don’t tell me this is going to get psychological.”

“why not? i like wundt and winnicott, they’re quite insightful if you’d ask me.” she cracks a tiny smile, earning one back from joe. she couldn’t gauge whether this leaned in a direction of argument or pure amusement, but it felt pleasing in knowing that he smiled — barely.

joe slightly adjusts how he lays, “freud was pretentious.”

“i never mentioned freud,” dahlia added casually, “he’s indefinitely insightful in a strange way. that’s early psychology for you.”

joe’s jaw tightened whenever she bided her attentions to another spot on his foot, feeling his pain shed into neutrality even for ten minutes was a relief only for its eventual return. “he blamed everything on sex,” joe said a bit quietly, “it’s lazy. reductive.”

“or, honest.” she countered gently, “people don’t like admitting patterned behavior or how much of their behavior stems from the unconscious.”

exhaling through his nose as the annoying yet nostalgic of being at the combine resurfaced, instead of physical-analysis it reforms into psychoanalysis with dahlia beaumont. “or he liked hearing himself talk.”

dolly laughed softly, but she was already observing him. the way his fingers curled into the simple medical-grade paper sheet that acted as a barrier between the plinth and his body. 

a subtle stiffness crept back into his shoulders, even his breathing shortened though his tone stayed even.

“jung, then?” she inquired.

“he’s something else.”

“ah, you’re not wrong. what about early modern psychology as a whole?”

joe lets out another breath though it takes on more of a sigh, “feels like people guessing and calling it science. pseudoscience, or whatever.”

she hummed, not playfully in agreement nor disagreement. something in her expression shifted with ease, adapting to his need for something less ‘what if?’ and something that’ll ground him to the world. after all, it wasn’t her job to make him embody quarterback-1. no, her job was to reach a depth inside him alongside healing him.

“okay,” dahlia did not argue again. instead, she lightly moved her hand upward to his shin, tenderly pointing into the muscle with deliberate pressure, “we’re going to pause on that topic.”

joe frowned, “why?” not even sure of his facial expression, he didn’t want to admit it but she’d really found a way to redirect his addled mind.

“because, your body doesn’t like it.” she says carefully.

he stills, stunned. “‘m fine, dahlia.”

“i know you are,” she moves her hand up to his knee, getting a feel of the tiniest things pertaining to his biomechanics, “your nervous system disagrees with you though, your shin is tense—” she applies more force onto his knee, “—and so is your knee. that’s why i’m touching it, even though you’re clearly here for your toe.”

he glances down at himself, almost confused, like the tension that swirls around deep inside him and burrows into his gut was nonexistent. for a moment, his shoulders drop, “oh.”

dahlia gives him a reassuring look, “its fine. we don’t need to unpack your psyche.”

“thank God.”

there was another moment, then he brightened in a way which he hasn’t for consecutive three and a half weeks since his injury and his therapeutic appointments with dahlia. 

just slightly — nothing dramatic or oscar worthy. “you know what’s good science?”

she titled her head, “uh-huh?”

“fossils.” he blurts out, then trying his hardest to stifle a little bit of laughter. 

“oh?” her straightened hair slightly falls over on her shoulder as she laughs along with him, joe lightly notices the hair around the perimeter of dahlia’s hairline took on a curl pattern—baby hairs. 

he warms instantly once given the opportunity to ramble, although it wasn’t communication that concerned mental health or physical tolls—dahlia was more than willing to hear about something. after all, joe (wrongly) appeared to be a man of little words.

she listens, hands working gently at what she can access that isn’t bundled with layers of protection. he talked about sediment layers, time scales that made human anxieties feel microscopic, about how bones held empirical stories that no human mind could misconstrue and overly philosophize.

she listens, tension draining out of his body little by little. his breathing deepened, his eyes focused instead of immovably fixed onto a safe spot, his muscles softened under her touch.

there it is. a breakthrough from fracture. 

act two — soften.

♪ Why Did I Choose You? • Marvin Gaye

“i saw a quiet girl, who had a gentle way.”

just metals and wheels, utilitarian in purpose, and somehow now a refuge he is wary to unhand. such a small, insignificant thing that might have been featured in his camera roll like once, some mirror selfie he took weeks ago. 

but now it’s time to let go of an object he once deemed utterly useless. 

dahlia’s there, every step of the way per usual. her hair is pinned up in a messy bun, strands spilling out to frame her face neatly. she’s clicking the end of a pen, jotting down some notes.

“joseph—sorry, joe. from a scale of one to ten, describe your pain level for today as well as your perception of your ability to walk.” her glasses droop a bit more as she writes, then looking to him for his answer. she seems elated given how her dimples threaten to reveal themselves with every word—why wouldn’t she be elated?

after all her efforts are not in vain, every other day at noon she’s granted the ability to guide this person in the way they should walk, figuratively and right now, literally. whereas her other patients she’s already cracked the code too, deciphering all of their whims and quirks, with joe she’s left with no option but to dig into who the man is behind the mask.

“like a four, maybe five.” his fingers rap against his scooter’s rubber handle, the texture is smooth but textile and dotted along the sides. he wonders if he’ll miss that sensory feeling beneath his hands, or look forward to an expedited return to regular football. 

“perfect,” dahlia looks at the boot, his leg from the shin down, and then his face—not unfamiliar to the unsure look across his face, his bitten lip, eyes trailing around the room, and how he shifts his weight is a dead giveaway. “we’ll try standing first, no heroics or anything daunting.” 

the boot suddenly feels heavier than it should, not in pounds—joe knows the math. the bioengineering designed to cushion and protect. but really, it’s hard plastic, velcro straps, and an achy compressor which hugs his ankle really tight. he swears there’s a major artery in his foot that mimics a tachycardic heartbeat. thump, thump, thump, is the rhythm. 

his mind swims over to another challenging moment that isn’t the combine, rather it is the rookie year injury that closed out his season—knee related. he can clearly remember his team’s physician’s words in the infirmary: anterior cruciate ligament, damaged.  posterior cruciate ligament, damaged. medial collateral ligament, damaged.

devoid of warmth or comfort was the voice he heard at only twenty three, that’d never leave his head. inside the o-line’s dilapidated pocket, scrambling when the o-line finally gives way to a defender, catching his breath on the ground when sacked—the doctor’s voice blared in his head always.

he exhales sharply, “right.”

scooting over to the plinth, he sits warily. 

dahlia comes over to the side he’ll end up favoring, he pushes up anyway even if the voice inside his head encourages him to sit down and ponder.

he felt like a fish out of water, pushing up anyways. palms barely planted upon the plinth’s cushy faux-leather, the room begins to spin—not in a theatrical way, rather his fear of fauilre obscuring his mind.

dahlia looks to the tiled ground, biting her lip nervously. 

she contemplates saying another word of encouragement or remaining silent. joe finally takes a step, setting his booted foot down next to his healthy one. the sound it makes is wrong. too loud. too permanent. too final.

this is truly where “rehabilitation” begins.

she’s already right next to him, her rounded-almond eyes are a deep brown—like pecans almost with their lightened shine in fluorescent overhead lighting. he notices little things like that, the little thing that may have pushed him to the eventual idea of standing.

she’s not holding him, yet, just a hand hovering by his forearm, her opposite hand finding a resting spot at his elbow. she’s preparing—no, contemplating something that isn’t failure.

“place that weight onto your heel first, trust your body.” dahlia says, her voice light and airy, overflowing with a surplus of expectation. “good. mhm, like that.” she praises him, oblivious to how his body radiates with heat when encouraged—could be embarrassment, after all this is no different from relearning how to walk.

joe decides then and there to take a step, a small, shaky step.

‘one step for man, one giant leap for mankind,’ they say.

in his perspective it’s clumsy, stiff, he feels his knee unnaturally lock out in place for an unnervingly long stretch. before correcting into place, and joe loathes how she witnesses this error—but she does. she witnesses joe burrow make his first mistake.

“there you go, joseph,” dahlia doesn’t correct herself this time, her cadence is sweeter than honey. ridiculously sweet and reassuring, “that adjustment was very smart of you.”

smart?

his jaw tightens, he glances down, up, and down to her hands which now are placed neatly against his lower waist to hip. joe’s practically scoffing at himself as heat travels up the sides and base of his neck. praise is easiest in a stadium full of people who cry his name, filtered by helmets, noise, and play calling. this praise is—oh, so, quiet and intrapersonal. exposing and vulnerable.

he falters on his second step. 

he grunts in a frustrated manner, attempting to center his weight or even proportion it wisely on the healthier foot, the one that can handle all the damage control.

dahlia steadies him, almost having to stand on her tippy toes to ground his shoulder. her fingers trace lightly upon his trapezius, her non-dominant hand only goes up by a little to his forearm, which is lateral to his lower waist.

“i’ve got you.” she whispers, “trust me, okay?” 

joe swallows thickly, nodding at her words. he hates how his chest feels tight—not from any residual pain after all that’s in his foot. the feeling ruminates, coming from the realization that he ached to hear that very sentence more than any physical support.

“again. i have faith in you.”

he walks, slowly but surely. his boot clicks and raps against the floor with each passing step, a metronome counting out waves of patience finally crashing over a distant horizon.

when told to stop, he does.

“that was your first unassisted walk. you did very well.” she’s ingraining his gait into her mind, he’s got no clue how confident he appears visually when not degrading himself mentally. each step is like a glide to her. slow and intentful strides.

and there it is — regression bleeding in like a bloody wound. the instilled part to be better, perfect. wanting to shrug off a major milestone as nothing but a failure in the midst of success, to say it was nothing at all. 

he knows he can’t.

“felt worse than i thought.” joe admits despite his nervous smile.

dahlia’s hopeful expression does not appear to change, “yea.” she adds, “it’ll get worse before it gets better, m’kay? i want you to know that every day is different. one day you’re on top of the world, the next you’re at the bottom.”

she beckons him over back to the plinth, “you’re not perfect. i’m not perfect. but i have faith, always.”

a subconscious part hiding in the cracks and shadows of his once idyllic demeanor resurfaces, a flicker of an emotion sometimes unfamiliar to him. progress isn’t linear or winning or exponential, instead progress is gradually being seen in a new light. 

sat atop her duvet, dahlia bundles up in a small throw blanket. the blanket’s a shade of rose and has white polka dots and flowers scattered across it, she pushes her tortoise-shell print glasses higher on her nose bridge. 

she’s been writing for an hour or so, a simple psychoanalysis of one of her patients, she conducts this study on each. just a basic overview on who they are on an external and internal scale. 

joe’s psychoanalysis is a walking mess, so to balance it out she scratched out the title and switched a mere psychoanalysis for: “psychoanalysis & physiology — j. l. burrow.”

ink smudges like rivulets of rain drops across the edge of her hand, dahlia regretted doing this by candlelight when she had an adequate lampshade next to her. 

minutes passed, her phone’s internal clock reading ten o’clock, she’d reached a general consensus about joe now. that he was not only a awkward perfectionist, but that there was major growth from within, he needed to define himself as someone—and just maybe, rehab this time around would teach him.

for no more than twelve minutes and added rest, dahlia’s had joe experimenting with walking around repeatedly. she’s trying to adjust his gait and pace, not to alter his confidence or natural movements, but to rewire how he favors one leg more than the other. 

his more dominant leg or the right one pulled most of the weight currently, although dahlia was more than certain that he would be distributing his weight differently after this injury. she’s jotted down a few notes concerning previous injuries which affect him residually.

“you look confident,” she mumbles, like she’s inquiring about the weather—something mundane.

he laughs at her neutrality, his laugh is breathless as if joe hasn’t had a good laugh in some time. “don’t flatter me.”

dahlia looks up from her notepad with a softened expression. “i’m not, just observing.” her brow raises suspiciously, its blatant that joe distributes most of his weight to his legs, not really reliant on any torso-to-hip movement to get anywhere. 

joe’s still pacing around in the same tiny circle he felt most comfortable in, it’s strange to him still. at home, he’s more cautious and wary. whereas here, he circles, and circles. his body tends to remember more than his mind does. there’s a moment where his foot hits the ground awkwardly, bracing for impact only to remain upright.

his heart isn’t even the most bit startled, maybe it’s all in his head. he’s utterly confused by the mere fact that it holds him, anchored to the ground.

he exhales sharply. “okay,” he whispers to himself, blinking, “i’m fine. that’s fine.”

“you need to rely on your hips taking you forward, not your legs. i know it’s not a stereotypically masculine thing from how it sounds, but you need to move freely too.” 

dolly notes, her gaze darts straight to his lower abdomen, then where his pelvis would be, and finally his hips. he’s still tense, “we can try light stretches, very light. as for now, you’re doing great.”

she fishes into a tiny bowl of wrapped lindor chocolates, passing one to him. the chocolate has white and light gold wrapping, a little scaly to the touch. “i want you to keep doing great. you earned it.” 

joe looks at it like he might explode. he’s not really fond of dairy, or sweets, or relatively anything that may throw off his calculated in-season regimen that meets every single goal; protein, macros, fat, antioxidants. 

he doesn't take praise well, in fact he takes it too well. his instinct is to deflect, joke, refuse it like it’s too much for him—anything to distract him from how his cheeks glow a reddish hue. “you’re gonna ruin me,” joe jests, half-laughing despite his resigned tone.

“like i said, you earned it. now use my corrections and rest for a few minutes,” she reassures. 

by the time that the session ends, joe’s tired but not in that bone deep way which plagued him for weeks on end. the feeling is honest, so honest he feels like he’s able to ruminate in it instead of depreciating himself.

all progress is good progress after all.

he unintentionally follows her back to her desk, boot clicking repeatedly against every tile he steps on.

dahlia’s charting little updates, observed variable, and all the details necessary to his growth. joe leans against her desk, watching how her short yet manicured hands move against each key. 

her typing is neat, practiced, and oddly he’s familiarized himself to the sound. her screen flickers through a plethora of names, most he recognizes for being on the injury reserve.

and his chest gets awfully tight unexpectedly. like the thought of her hands on someone else, her words bringing similar comfort, the fact that they rely on her too for what he does—startles him. 

then he sees it.

not medical notes or tedious reminders. those he can readily recognize; height, weight, age, measurements, ranges, timelines.

it’s the notebook tucked neatly under the crevice between the monitor screen and her desk, opened to a perfectly titled page. 

psychoanalysis & physiology — j. l. burrow.

he stiffens, scanning each word, letter, even how she dots her i’s with hearts if he hasn’t noticed that before.

“you wrote my height weirdly,”

is the first thing that flies out of his mouth because it’s something he knows is reflexive, safe.

dahlia removes her glasses off of her visage, folding the legs neatly. her lashes fan girlishly as she peers down at her notes, then meeting his gaze. her eyes are catty, her inner corners fold in slightly more, yet they’re youthful—warm, accepting. “not weirdly, just written in the metric system. six-four correlates to just over one-point-nine-three meters.”

“i know that. it’s still weird.” he squints.

she shakes her head, leaning more into her chair. “i guess i’m weird then.”

he eventually notices the handwriting again, all of the weird symbols she uses to emphasize things. he’s seen her handwriting before, but it meant nothing then. 

loopy, rounded, soft. little hearts dotting her i’s, her y’s curving in dramatically, how she slants her words as if she were to italicize them.

this should not feel intimate, these are mere notes.

his chuckle comes out quiet, almost disbelieving, everything about him is verbatim to his nature. when he recognizes her verbiage, it brings him back to their conversation almost a week or two ago. sigmund freud and carl jung, once not of any importance to him but two esteemed early psychologists with their heads up their asses, suddenly carry more gravitas.

“you psychoanalyzed me?” joe asks.

dahlia swivels her chair an inch more to see him better, granting him a small choice to lessen his confusion. “they’re yours. you’re allowed to read them.”

his throat tightens. 

she reads instead of handing it off.

gently, carefully. like she’s undoing layers of a delicate object. not how she’d read a diagnosis to a patient—rather an observation offered with empathy.

she talks about control, delayed vulnerability, and especially about how his body tenses before his mind admits fear. then ending it with how he intellectualizes pain to survive it.

joe laughs again, running a hand through his luscious hair. although he laughs less on edge, moreover he’s relieved that someone can see him without the fog of titles and trophies.

“so, guess i’m not crazy.”

dahlia shakes her head, after she looks at him. not through, not aside, not infront, not even behind. just at joe, “no, you’re just very human.”

her office goes quiet, you’d probably be able to her a pin drop. dahlia wouldn’t define his silence as awkwardness or label it as narcisse/pride, the silence is just full & overflowing with awakening.

joe doesn’t say thank you as dahlia does not phrase her words as a grand gesture.

he just stays there a moment longer than necessary, leaning by her desk, continuing to watch her chart details. something shifted without asking for permission, it just did.

a quiet wave crashed against him, softening sand and all the hard bits in its path. the wave whispers, the coast answered.

october twenty seventh, the day following an unparalleled loss to the new york jets and one of joe’s very few public appearances. despite his team’s loss, joe found himself in a optimistic state of mind. after all, being able to stay connected with the guys on the field through a sony headset slightly blurred out any anxieties.

little things like that kept him calm in the midst of injury and adversity. 

his rehab session was scheduled later for today as he had some obligations to tend to. the sun’s already starting to dip on the horizon, casting yellow strands across a sky of blue’s and coral-ish clouds. 

dahlia’s explaining biomechanics like gait analysis, kinematics, and kinetics as usual, all the science things that are empirical and embedded into his brain now. 

she seems more open as of late, opening up about smaller things like where she went for college and residency, even going so far to use casual language around him.

her hair is different today, much different. although not a bad different, usually it’s straightened, layered, and at the ends her curls almost flip inward to frame her face. but currently, her hair is piled upwards, strands spilling out messily yet organized, its artistic in an unintentional manner.

each curl having its own striking personality, curvature, and independent spiral. 

joe admires it, his expressive blue eyes tracking every singular spiral with genuine curiosity. it’s unlike his own, straight, a bit longer than he’s kept it in some time—but not as meticulously crafted. 

he’s not the biggest fan of hip and core work, he’s always sore after—little aches radiate low in his obliques after from being so reliant on one side to stay up. but each cramp and vulnerable muscle fades into obscurity with her. 

her lanyard was a interesting sight to behold, joe had no clue what shade of cream it was but what pulled his attention is her name tag. 

“dolly.” he reads, right in between dahlia and beaumont in quotation marks. joe says it like it’s already been used with her before. 

i mean it makes sense, he reasons with himself, she’s always dolled up. her hair, nails, jewelry, even down to her subtle lash extensions. 

dahlia doesn’t seem to react at first. she’s far too focused, fingers warm and precise against where his hipbone and femur, thumbs pressing slowly as she checks for pressure and discomfort—unbeknownst to how joe’s melting into her touch, he’s not quite aware either. 

she continues to work away at it, to see any hesitation in muscle response.

there’s this tension resting beneath her fingers, her brows knit in the way it always does when she’s working. engrossed, but gentle.

“hm.” joe hums once she locates where most of his tension lies, he then decides to test the waters again. “dolly.”

dahlia pauses.

it’s subtle—the smallest hitch—but he catches it. of course, he does. he’s mirroring her behavior, how she’s always watching, cataloguing, and noting the most subconscious of behaviors.

“uh-huh?” she hums, still distracted, not even making the effort to look up.

he smiles to himself and repeats it, joe’s good at little things like that. catching people off guard, reading into things he knows he shouldn’t — he really shouldn’t. “had no clue you went by ‘dolly’, dahlia.” 

that does it.

she looks up then with her rounded almond eyes, lashes fluttering upwards to him, eyes wide with confusion speaking momentarily before she tones down her expression.

but it’s too late, her mouth curves so voluntarily, and there’s an obvious heat radiating off of her—blooming across her skin. she could feel it rush through her, and for a second her complexion took on a more luminous quality.

dahlia’s uncharacteristically flustered expression is like a knife right to his chest, that unguarded, vulnerable look inside her eyes brought on a flurry of butterflies in his stomach.

“you didn’t hear me the first time?” he’s teasing her, but not unkind in his behavior. joe’s head tilts a little bit, feigning innocence.

she clears her throat, “i did,” stumbling over her words, “i just—thought you meant—”

“i meant you.” joe states the obvious truth with ease.

her hands still, her posture goes more inward.

joe reaches out without hesitancy, fingers looping gently around her lanyard. it’s instinctive, absentminded, the way someone might play with a loose thread.

her badge swings like a barrier between them.

dahlia beaumont. 

no,

there’s a name in small quotation marks between her first name and surname. 

dahlia “dolly” beaumont.

dahlia’s eyes trace over where his thumb traced, swallowing her nerves only for them to resurface all across her. eyes widening little by little, she can’t gauge whether she’s being flirted with or not.

“it suits you,” he murmurs, looking right into her eyes. “you’re always all… put together. hair, lashes, glasses. dolled up.”

she blinks at him. almost like a buffering television screen that flickers to channel to channel.

for a split second, she looks younger. less composed. like she’s not used to being looked at like this—not assessed, not admired, instead she’s being noticed. 

“you’re distracting—you’re distracting me.” dahlia whispers, trying to regroup herself. her voice came out steadier than she expected.

joe allows her badge to fall back against her chest, hands lifting in mock surrender. “sorry.”

but he’s smiling, pearly whites and all. so brightly, so warmly. so not the patient she’s been trying to get out of his shell for weeks. 

for once, joe’s softened.

act three — blurry.

♪ Can’t We Smile? • Johnny Hammond Smith

“all the while, baby, why can't we smile?”

storage rooms were always daunting to dolly, cubbies stacked upon each other, ankle tape and boxes spilling off of each other, an organized yet disorganized sea of medical devices. fluorescent lighting buzzes ahead to set a quiet mood, one of them flickering too brightly against the contrast of white and orange walls. 

you couldn’t really escape the who dey chant inside of paycor, especially when there’s some cringy mess on the wall reading:

“make every dey brighter”, in helvetica bold lettering. 

dolly squints, trying to make sense of a storage room she hasn’t had to visit in months now. “i swear we had more,” sliding a box of resistance bands across her forearm. 

an older nurse, marie, is in there with her. reading a label on a crate like she has all the time in the world, her accent is smooth—a little softer around edges of consonants, it’s trinidadian. 

she’s in her late fifties, maybe sixties now. she never rushes, her curls are always slicked back into a neat bun, glasses sloping low on her nose, face full of tiny freckles. she’s been here for the longest, before ocho-cinco played for cincy.

“wrong section, doll.” marie says, pointing to a newer section. its new because it’s organized. “they moved the athletic tape last week. some p.t. was too short to reach and complained about it like we don’t have bigger problems.”

dolly sighed, “of course.” turning the corner to collect a few rolls of tape without even checking the size, “i feel like we don’t get told these kinds of things.”

marie hums, amused little by dolly’s comment. she follows, pulling out the drawer-like cubby of antiseptic creams. there’s just sounds of velcro unfurling and boxes being shifted as dolly checks the contents.

“rough day?” the older inquires softly.

“no. just tedious, busy. you know.” dolly assures her.

dolly stumbles upon what she believes to be the right size, some rookie safety on the team pulled a muscle the other day. 

she saw him early that morning but since she’d ran out of tape. “i dunno. he just—he just kept apologizing today. like it was his fault that favoring one leg over the other is his fault. it’s not, i think i push too hard—”

raising a brow, marie repeats: “he?” not looking up from how messily distributed some of these boxes were.

“joseph, sorry, joe.” dolly automatically corrects herself now. then realizing she hadn’t specified as there are two joe’s on their roster now, “burrow, the younger quarterback.” she adds.

marie glances at her now, just a quick look to assess. “ah,” she hums between her maude coloured lips, “him.”

dolly continues, “he’s been asking questions lately too,” stacking one too many rolls in her arms, the tape’s adhesive had become loose on one roll, scratching gently against her lower arm. “not even about rehab. just… random stuff. sleep, food, if vitamin d really does anything. he makes conversation now outside of science—shocker.”

smiling faintly, “and would vitamin d even help him?”

“it should.” dolly spoke too quickly, her words bleed through a bit gentler. she laughs at herself, “it would help with bone density! i think i should order some for him.”

marie chuckles with her, finally breaking the professional tension piled high in the storage closet. not sharp, or mocking, it’s warm. familiar like she’s had a similar experience with a player on the team.

“you’re quite fond of him, missy.”

the words don’t land with intention, dolly fears that’s what worsens the butterflies festering from within.

she blinks, “no?”

her one word answer is uncertain, like she’s answering a question she hadn’t finished hearing. 

marie hums again, she doesn’t push further, simply sliding the box back into its respective place. “you don’t talk about others like that. and you never really volunteer vitamins for people you don’t care about. so you care about him?”

dolly shifts her weight nervously, suddenly very aware of how each roll is basically fumbling out of her grasp. “i care for all of my patients, marie.” carefully, she speaks.

“i know that.” the older woman replies, “that’s why your suited for a field like this. it takes much compassion to heal what is—”

she catches herself. “this is different though.” 

frowning, dahlia can’t help herself from asking further. after all it’d be unlike her to have a favorite patient, that would be cruel. “different.. how?”

marie laughs again, openly—she tries to not be unkind. “its cute. very cliché, my dear.”

cute?

her choice of words makes dolly’s throat get dry, nothing about a giant of vulnerability in her hands that couldn’t even walk straight without seeking approval was cute. given that a little over five weeks ago, she was certain he hated her for mentioning freud. 

“cute?” the word falls from the younger woman’s lips.

“mm—juvenile.” marie adds, still caught up in her laughter. placing a hand right onto dahlia’s shoulder, “the way people get when they feel something they shouldn’t.”

dolly shook her head, “oh absolutely not! i don’t—”

marie looks to her once more, eyes hardening now with something honest but feels accusatory in its own right. “i did not say he felt anything, i said you do.”

that’s when it happens, a dimming tunnel in dolly’s mind which ran out of light on the way through. some small internal lurch, like her brain’s neuron’s completely misfired every interaction with her patient. 

her patient.

dolly opens her mouth. closing it before she can muster another word. looking down at her arms, then a little lower to the lowest shelf possible. “no, we’re just comfortable with each other now. he listens, he doesn’t—project. he is just a bit easier to work with lately.”

nodding, marie spoke, “mm. that is how it begins.”

she eventually steps past dolly, hand pressing against the grey-ish wooden door with some medical precautionaries labeled on it. “nothing wrong with it as of now,” she completes her sentence, “just don’t pretend to have immunity. nobody does.”

“and don't worry. it’s harmless. for now, i assume.”

the door finally swung shut behind her, dolly stands there alone now. fluorescent lighting still buzzing a bit louder than before. it is only then she realizes she grabbed the wrong size of tape.

a flicker of light appears across her phone’s screen, it lights up like a big caution sign in the middle of a busy street.

dolly blinks at the rectangular electronic on her nightstand, bare lashes fanning in disbelief. she blinks once more before rolling over properly to face it, the clock reads forty seven minutes after twelve. his contact name glows faintly against the grey-ish screen, “j. burrow,” not a facetime—just regular calling. this almost makes it stranger.

she considers letting it ring. being the professional physiotherapist, going back to sleep, feigning a mature, normal night of sleep. not that she didn’t want to answer, but answering feels like admitting something unlabeled. her conversation with marie days ago still rings rudely in her mind, occupying every thought—

—i did not say he felt anything, i said you do. 

she exhales through her nose and ultimately answers. 

“good evening.” 

there’s a brief pause on the other line, like joe’s stunned by the idea of dahlia beaumont being up past midnight given that rest is what she preaches consistently. 

“hey,” joe mutters, his tone is less firm, softened by exhaustion. maybe he’s not even tired, something about him sounds lower though, “sorry—uh. did i wake you?”

“no. not at all.” dolly responds, which is a partial truth. she’s been staring at the ceiling for twenty four minutes and twenty three seconds after all, that is indefinitely the opposite of eight hours every night—undisturbed. “you’re okay?”

“yea. yea, ‘m fine.” she can hear him let out a breath before speaking again, its endearing in some strange sense. “i couldn’t sleep.”

dolly could make sense of that. the days are shorter after all, the media is demanding more and watching the bengals implode in real time after all. october’s a restless, merciless cycle—he doesn’t need to explain why.

“what’s keeping you up, joe?” dolly asks.

he huffs a tiny, shallow laugh. “everything? nothing? i don’t know. i was watching this thing about migratory birds and somehow that turned into a video about magnetic fields and then i started thinking about how insane it is that they just— they just know where to go.”

she smiles despite herself, pushing up onto her elbow, peering down at her phone that becomes a blur in the dark. her astigmatism blurs the soft lines of her silicone phone case, “you called to talk about birds?”

“i mean, when you say it like that. it sounds dumb.”

“no,” she corrects him, “it doesn’t.”

and it doesn’t feel dumb, this feels brilliant inexplicably. that’s the catch, the big thing, nothing feels dumb with joseph. or an imposition. she can’t name the feeling in her own verbiage, but the feeling is loose like wind between a butterfly’s winged flaps. so loose, so the opposite of careful. 

there’s a soft rustle on the end of his line, sheets shifting underneath his weight. 

“are you busy?” he inquires, treading lightly.

dolly takes a glimpse of her surroundings in the little ambient light she has from a himalayan salt lamp she regretted buying years ago. her glasses on the dresser where she left them. 

her hair’s loosely tucked into her bonnet, baby hairs still swooped but slightly curled in ward at the ends, curls threatening to peek through to frame her face—dolly didn’t bother to detangle her fresh twist-out or throw it into a scrunchie style she called ‘the pineapple.’

“no,” she responds lightly, “i’m just here.”

“same,” joe quickly adds—a little eager. then he’s weirdly tired again, “do you wanna facetime? you don’t have to—i just, sometimes, it helps. seeing someone.”

she hesitated, being the furthest from dolled up in her mind. no glasses, she removed her lash extensions hours ago, her hair isn’t blown out and straightened. but she registers the moment as a patient needing comfort, regardless of her appearance. “mhm.” dolly hums.

the screen swiftly switches, and there he is—propped up against his headboard, hair pulled back by a tiny basic headband, some faded lsu tee with graphic letters reduced to insignificant outlines. the lighting is just as awful as hers, dim and barely taking up any space.

but he looks calmer like this. unguarded.

he looks at his screen with more intention and then he stills, almost captivated.

dolly, who’s already painfully aware of what he’s seeing. 

“sorry,” reflexively she apologizes, “i don’t have makeup on or anything, i know you’re not used to seeing me—”

he blinks again, and finally joe giggles. it’s sweetened, painfully clear that he sees no harm in the completely vulnerable version of her. the sound slips out before he could stop it.

“why would you be sorry for that?” 

dolly shrugs. she’s unbeknownst to how joe’s staring, he’s staring really hard. eyes scanning over each feature like he’s reading over a defense, what lures him in are those eyes—how they curve in around her cornea, like a cat or something.

yet she can’t feel even more aware of herself, each movement, mannerism, and gesture feels risky. a inch closer to forming a relationship she can’t label, “i dunno? habit, maybe.”

“you look—” joe recalibrates, “you look serene.”

serene itself lands heavier than it should. she’s been aware of his vast vocabulary, i mean, he casually uses paramount and grandiose.

“you do too.” she mumbles. in this context, serene means peaceful—right? dolly sets her phone up against her pillow, “you should be asleep,  joe.”

“uh-huh.” he agrees, joe looks pleased with his efforts—if he wasn’t the slightest bit conversational, this conversation would’ve swiftly after migration patterns. “but i’m kinda glad that i’m not, dolly.”

neither of them rush to fill the empty space, just a bit of eye contact, joe humming something random and fidgeting with his plethora of wristbands, and dolly’s busied herself with getting comfortable in her lying position. 

joe starts speaking again—about his rehab schedule feeling more nostalgic now that he’s seeing his trainer again just an hour or two before she sees him, about stats he read up on knowing they would never matter to a physiotherapist, about ja’marr sending him tiktok’s well into the night without reason to. 

dahlia continues to listen, humming in agreement or adding in her own thoughts or asking a question to remind him that she’s still engaged in whatever he’s rambling about. 

at some point, she’s fully curled into her side, eyelids almost shut in an effort to fight sleep. her cheek presses into her linen covered pillows. joe notices without commenting, his voice drops in it’s register, unconsciously matching the level of quiet she’s reached. 

“hey, dolly?”

“yea?”

“thanks for answering.”

his tone is simple, it shouldn’t make her chest tighten and twist the way it does. she can feel the humming between her sternum, an annoying pressure that bubbles into her response. “anytime.” 

she whispers although it feels a little dangerous.

they stay on the phone until their conversation becomes a sleepy mush. joe’s words slow like molasses, he mispronounced a word twice even. dolly’s eyelids get heavier with each ramble she hears about the fossil collection he’s grown over the past year. 

there’s no promises they’ll ever call like this again; unsolicited and in the middle of the night, there’s no awkward “goodnight” knowing they’ll see each other the next afternoon. just an unspoken understanding that this was okay.

when the pair hangs up, dolly stares at the dim, now dark screen. her manicured nails tap against her phone case, trying to pull herself back into reality—given that her bedside clock now reads: 2:43 a.m.

somewhere between midnight and wee morning hours, something has had bloomed.

dahlia’s fingers neatly crack open a container of disinfectant wet wipes, wiping down any surface that may have been touched today. each swipe is methodical, residue from the soapy texture leaves tiny imprints that’ll fade upon her counter.

she moves onto her stock, opening cabinets and counting all of her materials and shoving them away into each designated spot. her straightened hair feels all the more tangled in her bow shaped hair clip, her brows knit in exhaustion and a tinge of nerve.

joe has made noticeable progress that has her stumped, she aimed for a three month recovery and yet he makes progress within a time frame that should really still make him seem—injured. 

a voice comes behind her, stealing her from her train of thought. so does a tapping sound against the wall. she turns around to face none other than zac taylor. 

she’s had plenty of encounters with him, not many but enough to familiarize herself with the man.

“you’re dahlia.”

he’s not asking, he’s almost telling her. 

“thought your name was beaumont—who the hell names a kid that anyway,” zac laughs dryly, “that’s your last name.” he states the obvious, so dahlia nods, startled by the man’s lack of pleasantries.

clutching her clipboard to her chest like she’s been caught red handed in absolutely nothing. zac taylor stands a few feet across, loosely. his posture is relaxed in the way men learn when they’re used to respect being handed to them on a silver platter.

“yes, it is.” she raises a brow.

he nods once, eyes flicking around her room—starting from the plinth, her desk, the cabinets, counters, diagrams, and machinery. it’s pretty standard for a physiotherapy room, he can’t help but dryly chuckle at some diagram of pain levels, it’s something he’s seen far too often in his years of coaching.

“joe already took off,” he mutters, “said he was cleared today.”

dahlia places her clip onto the countertop, swiping off non-existent dust. “he reached all his goals for today. he’s gaining mobility in ways i haven’t seen before.”

zac hums thoughtfully, his eyes glisten with a wistful glimmer of hope. but he’s not impressed, not dismissive either, simply he files the information away. 

“y’know, he’s progressing faster than projected.”

dolly smiles, keeping it small and contained. “he’s very disciplined. ambitious too if i may add.” her eyes flick to her clipboard, seeking refuge in feigning a concentrated state. she can’t help but feel cornered in, zac’s gaze essentially reads judgement.

“motivated.” he corrects, tutting under his breath like he’s disciplining a child. sure, when the weight of the organization is on your shoulders performance-wise it’ll tend to bleed into conversation. but dahlia couldn’t deny he was being quite a smart aleck with her. “that’s not always the result we want.” 

zac speaks like a bird given too little room to fly in it’s cage, restrained by optics and years of polishing from the industry’s brutal media. suddenly, dolly is aware of one major factor—this isn’t conversation, this is assessment.

“you’ve become a big part of his routine,” he pinched his brow, “he asks for you specifically. over his trainer. he doesn’t really need this as much—we want him cleared inevitably by the beginning of next month.”

zac repeats, “he wants you.”

dolly’s stumped, still facing whiplash from marie’s light warning. it was never insinuated that this was mutual, after all ‘this’ shouldn’t exist. so she doesn’t pretend to know what the right answer is. “i’m assigned to him. but yes, continuity probably built his trust in me.”

zac finally looks to her, not at any laminated diagram or succulent and faux lilies atop her desk, not even the freshly laminated floors. his look is thoroughly dissecting where he wants her to fit, “he listens to you.” he mumbles.

her hands unknowingly take on a little clamor, whether her body is responding to stimuli—cold air blaring down onto her from an overhead vent, or any anxieties which pursue dolly in this moment. “joe responds well to familiarity. it keeps him regulated.”

“mm.” zachary huffs, “good. good as long as it remains focused. i want this focused and gradual. i want him back within a timely window.” 

focused?

she swallows, “of course, mr. taylor.”

he finally uncrossed his arms, turning to face the door he propped open with her door stopped that took on the shape of a tulip. he glances into paycor’s familiar hallways, “you’re doing good work.” he inhales, “real good work. just remember what this is, alright?”

dolly waits with baited breath held deeply beneath her chest.

“he’s one hell of an asset. our priority is keeping joe on the field.”

“i understand.” dolly says this anyway, she’s knowledgeable on this subject—she’s tended to several players in her relatively young career. yet, her conversation with zachary only reminded her more of a bitter pill named guilt she couldn’t swallow.

zac flashes her a professional smile, tight lipped. barely reaching his eyes, and he steps back. “good. enjoy your evening, miss dahlia.”

not doctor. dolly is a dpt, doctor of physical therapy. dpt is clearly outlined on the top of her badge, separated by a line between her name and respective role.

but, he addressed her as miss?

a sudden chill settles like cincinnati’s typical wind with a awfully heavy sense of uncertainty within her. 

she looks back over to a closed cabinet, opening it and rechecking for any error despite her top notch organization. something so careful and methodical to her felt pitiful in that moment. 

a light pink sticky note flew off the interior end of her cabinet and in scrawled handwriting says cholecalciferol, or in plain words, vitamin d3. for the first time that very day, rather this very night—she feels to feed into an unnecessary urge.

dahlia tells herself it’s stupid the entire drive. it’s stupid that she even has access to the gate for “emergency” visits which would never occur. it’s stupidly intimate.

vitamin d3, a done deal, sealed inside of a scratchy paper bag from a local pharmacy with outrageous prices and a heavy air of antiseptics and luxury perfumes. giving joe this vitamin was sensible, every opportunity for daylight got a few minutes lesser. 

people in ohio don’t see the sun enough in october after all, so this decision proves to be clinical, thoughtful, and most importantly: effective.

dolly’s not wasting two semesters of psych and putting it to good use, she tells herself. some weird habit of thinking in the third person perspective.

still, her heart wildly pirouetted in circles inside the thin confines of her ribs and chest. her nervous system probably sees an emergency thoracotomy as less daunting than this. 

joe opens the door after what seems to be seconds, he’s in sweats, a white tee, and his hair is still noticeably damp. the only light remaining in the background is from his kitchen, or so she thinks. 

“hey,” he greets, holding a cup of chamomile tea. his cadence is a bit softer than over the phone or during their sessions, “it’s kinda late.”

“you texted,” dolly lifts the small pharmacy bag, gently placing it into his free hand with a nervous smile. “you also said you couldn’t sleep again.” 

joe steps aside immediately, not even hesitating to let her inside his space. “come in.”

it smells like tea and something masculine, dolly’s a perfume addict so she’d easily label the scent as warm and clean like linen or vétiver. she slips her suede ugg slippers off immediately, a habit she’s always done—nothing outside should come in.

his home was all the more confusing to navigate, although his open floor plan helped guide her right into his kitchen which was ridiculously bigger than probably her whole apartment, 

hovering by the counter, she rests her elbows lightly. one side of her off shoulder sweater slouches to kiss her upper bicep—not too scandalously low of course. “you don’t have to—” dolly warns as he fills the kettle again even if the water was warm enough.

“i want to,” joe says it perfectly, so easy, “tea or coffee, dolly?”

she sighs begrudgingly, unaware of how perfectly her curls frame her face, or how nicely her glasses rest low on the bridge of her nose. “tea’s fine,” dolly plays with the hem of her cuff.

he moves around the kitchen like one seamless unit, turning on the stove, setting down his kettle, tearing open a packet of ginger and chamomile tea. he’s adapted easily to a vulnerability neither of them have reached outside of late night calls, still feeling guarded by the confines of her their phones. 

she pries open the paper bag on the marble counters to busy herself, lining each one up beside other as he stirs honey inside a light grey cup. 

“vitamin d3,” dolly explains, “you’re home or inside for the most part. it helps with mood regulation, sleep cycles, and most importantly bone density.”

joe knows that, he vaguely recalls her clip board, everything she wrote whenever he was granted a glance. 

he’s amused, the inner corner of his mouth tugging lightly, “you always sound like that when you care a lot about somethin’.”

she stiffens as he sets her mug infront of her, before gently accepting it. the aroma is dewy, a artisan mixture of several herbs, but she knows the base is chamomile and ginger. “sound like what?”

“like you’re trying not to.” he looks damn near bewitched, leaning against the counter. smiling to himself as he brushed his curls out of his face, his can feel warmth from his own mug die beneath his hands but it’s fine—it’s fine studying a human vessel of comfort’s face.

his gaze dips to her collarbones, they’re prominent yet soft against her golden locket. a little lower to the freckle sitting right above her sternum, “you don’t ever talk about yourself.”

suddenly, she cracks a hazy laugh, her deep coloured eyes focused in on her tea. “i do. that’s not true.”

“it is, though.” joe replies, brushing his curls back again with the tips of her fingers. “i know everything about your job. your routines. what you think about sleep and muscles and pain thresholds. but i don't know, who’s here.” he points to her heart.

her fingers shyly curl around the mug, “i’m not very interesting. i’m just your physiotherapist.” 

“that’s a lie.” he snorts, “c’mon, talk to me.”

dolly lets out a shaky breath she hadn’t known was in, her lipgloss glazes lazily over her lips that she bit while caught in thought. “i just, i don’t like taking up space.”

his expression shifts ever so slightly, nothing pitiful, instead he’s intrigued. 

“you don’t,” joe murmured, “you understand it.” 

his words are enough to tip her ever so much over the edge, her posturing loosens, eyes no longer downcast or wrought in a shame she rarely carried.

so she starts small,

her upbringing. 

how she was the quiet one in the back of class because social anxiety kind of ate at her like a disease, she spent most of class reading or being taken advantage of for answers on tests. how she keeps her circles little and her business private since it’s something she learned early. 

how she’ll stay awake late into the night because she isn’t required to perform then, to mask someone who can feel like a second skin. about how she chose this career because to understand someone’s body when their psyche cannot is a comfort and knowledge she could bring.

joe’s tuned in immensely, a bit of reverie is lost somewhere between his expressive, bright gaze. no interruptions. or jokes to break the ice when it feels too cold to bear. just steadily focused on her, finding out who the woman behind the scrubs is.

when the conversation thins out, neither of them bothers to add in more input as there is no space that widens. joe reaches for her once she sets her empty mug down, fingertips brushing her smaller ones. neither of them reacts right away. 

the simplest contact lasting longer than need be.

his hand loops around her delicate wrist, “you always wear these?” he asks, twisting a finger around her beaded gold bracelets. 

she glances down, “i do.” her lips purse in the utmost honeyed manner he’s ever seen, kind of like a painting. all pouty and unsuspecting. 

he lifts her wrist gently, inspecting something fragile. each charm on her pandora charm bracelet, the embellishments click softly against each other, a few worn and aged.

“this one’s older,” he murmurs.

“mm. from highschool.” dahlia lets him hold a second longer, mentally scolding herself for admiring how sweetly he grins, she could tell he’s a smiler—laugh lines crease around the outer corner of both eyes. 

joe fixes his attention to her hair, his hand drifts deliberately, locking his index finger around a curl, brushing slightly over the skin of her exposed shoulder. it’s barely a touch, but he apologizes when she shudders. “sorry.” 

she replies just as quickly as he apologizes, “no—no, it’s okay.”

he migrates over to her, leaving his original spot at the counter. standing just a bit closer to dolly and he really looks, truly he does. there wasn’t any flowery language joe could muster to describe it, but her lashes cast tiny shadows onto her cheeks when she blinks up at him, her lips part quizzically. 

she always knows when to speak, how to speak, how to be. yet, in this moment she’s not sure what to do. 

“can i—” he starts, steadying himself for a reaction he’s mentally envisioned for a week or so, “can i kiss you?” 

dolly doesn’t utter a word, she just nods—weakly. the kiss is soft, cautious like he’s trying to figure out what she tastes like. his hand settles at her waist, giving her an opportunity to pull away, but she stays. 

three seconds in, they make eye contact, somewhere around four, their eyes are shut. 

her fingers dig into his wristbands to maintain balance, each kiss felt more all-consuming than the last. he’s a good kisser, she knows it well from how his other hand tilts her chin just a bit to give himself more access.

and when they part? the room is charged with this surge, it’s heavy and unsure. his lips on hers, his hand on her body, he felt like he was everywhere and nowhere all at once. 

dahlia looked unraveled, in the utmost confusing way, “okay.” she whispers more to herself than joe.

she pulls away first, reaching for her handbag on the counter, hearing her keys clink and chime inside. 

“i should go. before.. anything.” 

joe nods, letting his hand fall from her waist. the absence of her sweater’s fabric against his skin felt like betrayal, “yea.” he mutters.

at the door, she hesitates, and then she’s gone. 

joe lets a whole minute pass, glancing over at her half empty cup of tea that’s probably gone cold. he grabs his cup over from where he left it, curling his hand around it’s circumference. taking a bitter sip before exhaling sharply.

running a hand through his hair, he paces, once, twice. still tasting that remainder of her lipgloss on his lips. his eyes practically burn a hole into the vitamins on his counter—vitamin d, magnesium…

“fuck,” he mutters, absolutely stunned.

a neutral scent of antiseptic and disinfectant genuinely fill the room in a way that makes joe’s chest tighten, blooming anxiously under the undercurrent of potential. 

he’s nearing clearance every day and it eats at him so gently—whispering in his ear promises. he flexes his ankle, convincing himself of the voice in his mind which no longer whispers. it speaks. 

boldly. ugly. crude. 

promising not only renewal but renewal with a droplet of ego. ego that bares its teeth.

“don’t do that,” dolly exhales, trying to not fidget with her thin golden necklace sitting against her clavicles. 

he stops. chooses to listen.

the physician talks, he’s a bit old. grey haired and silver eyed which shine bluer in fluorescent lighting like this, he claims joe’s range of motion has improved; earning dahlia the tiniest smile. pride, maybe.

he continues—light activity is plausible, cautious optimism wrapped in clinical language. a barrier joe’s eroded in his time with dahlia, he knows little things now. so, he nods like he understands the stakes at hand, hanging onto a part of himself he left on the field weeks ago.

when it’s over, the room empties fast. 

dahlia’s gathering her things with a tight lipped emotion, she did not intend to heal him this quickly. turf toe is a injury that best heals with time, she knows this well. it isn’t a rookie mistake rather a remarkable occurrence — expedited healing. 

joe sits atop her counter, tapping her shoulder as she slips documentation into a worn manila file. he looks symbolically smaller, no padding or noisy audiences to linger near. 

“so,” he jests, “still useless.” phrasing it less like a question and more like a statement.

dolly looks up, seeing right through the patient and into the inner heart of a man she’s grown to know. 

“no?”

too quickly, her words leave her mouth. she knows it, gasping in a manner joe finds adorable as she covers her mouth with her manicured hands. 

he smiles at that, easily. “that was fast.”

she busied herself again, pretending to recount all of his documentation. yet, this would mean she’s recounting everything for a third time. “you’re healing! that’s not just nothing—don’t act like i’m being—oh, forget it.”

joe would naturally choose to laugh, but he stills. “dahlia. this feels like i’m being denied something—i, i don’t know. like being put on hold.”

his words sting, she swore she could feel his worn down patience drip through each word sanctimoniously. as if she could taste his tongue against hers, every vowel being dragged out.

“you’re not on hold. you’re recovering,” insisting with a doubt in her own mind she refused to let surface, “soon, you’ll be out there again.”

“yea?” he exhales, eyes focused on his boot. not even considering what he’d say next, “when i’m back—”

joe feels the urge to stop himself, but he chooses to allow words to flow right out of him. “—this changes, right?”

dahlia’s words felt misty. even unsure of how to respond. 

sure—whatever this has bloomed into was nice. hauntingly heartfelt. late night talks, making a man feel whole under her fingers yet again with every waking breath, sitting in the moment of not crossing 

a boundary but crossing with just words.

and then it escalated, oh, it escalated. 

kisses, plural. an all-consuming sequence, the earned access he gained, feeling her bodily heat against his own. 

she knows this isn’t a trap, but a plea. joe doesn’t need validation or permission, hell, he doesn’t need an answer he already has in his keeping. 

but her words haunt him. ‘your neuroplasticity is newly rewired to pain right here.’ the pain was her in its own way.

“it does.” she simply answers. 

neither of them crack a smile or a gesture to erase the reigning sentiment.

“okay,” he mumbles more to himself. “that’s okay.”

so dahlia shoulders her feelings and her bag, hesitating to gauge where she sits. “you did really well today, joe.”

“did i?”

he’s almost in denial of himself.

finally, joe smiles. small but tenderly, “‘means a lot coming from you, dolly.” his sarcasm is charming enough to get her to bite back a tiny giggle. 

dolly shakes her head, “don’t push it, burrow.”

nighttime fades into the once light sky, a skyline from below dazzles like a sea of stars shining unequally, and the moon hangs above without a word.

dahlia considers leaving her door closed, not opening up to whatever lingers. but the sound of her doorbell ringing steals her brain’s quiet rhythm.

tonight finds itself late enough to be inconvenient, but not indecent—not late enough to ring alarm.

she glances into the golden peephole and freezes. 

joe’s outside,

she shouldn’t be shocked. she gave him her home address days ago, after all it now became easier to call him a confidant rather than a patient. 

he’s holding flowers in his right hand. left hand pocketed but tapping against his leg nervously. looking like he debated showing up for at least twenty minutes inside his aston martin.

dahlia opens it slowly.

“hi.” 

her voice comes out terribly small.

he exhales, probably holding that breath in since he left the parking lot. “hey,” he can’t help but smile.

the bouquet isn’t extravagant in any way, it’s homey. something which blends easily into the canvas of her apartment, after all anything within a short distance was cream or blush pink.

so were the flowers, 

soft white and pale peony. 

“these are for you,” joe offers the bouquet rather quietly, “didn’t know what you liked.”

dahlia handles them carefully, like it might wilt at the wrong touch. her hands shake a bit—unable to see what the trajectory of this may be. “they’re beautiful.”

“good,” he murmurs, shoulders relaxing as joe takes in the sight of her. no makeup, not much jewelry, her hair is in a simple style; he now understands what a protective style is. (joe might’ve asked ja’marr a few questions.)

she steps aside, “come in.”

her apartment feels smaller with him inside, not in a bad way, simply it became more intimate. warmer. dolly disappears into the kitchen to find a vase, he follows halfway before stopping himself, hovering near marble counters like he didn’t want to assume.

“you didn’t have to do this,” dolly mutters, trimming the stems at the wrong angle.

joe notices, one end being cut a bit blunt. “lemme see them,” he offers, trimming the stems to the side once placed in his grasp. 

she’s carefully watching him,

handling each flower with an unprecedented amount of care. 

“i just,” he starts, placing them through the vase’s opening. “i didn’t want tonight to be another almost.”

dolly cocks a brow. almost?

his words now hang between them like a insignificant but present border.

joe fills the vase up to ensure they’re watered adequately, he knows enough biology and botany to understand how much water a flower needs—perks of being a subconsciously nerdy man.

dahlia, then chooses where to place her flowers. right in the center of her small dining table, “what is tonight, then?”

he looks to her again, steadily. his eyes bleed honesty in a way which makes her stomach twist uncontrollably, “just a night. no timelines. no what-ifs. no future plans. just you and me.”

it isn’t possessive. no, it’s tired like he’s asking to be everything and anything but joe burrow right now. 

she nods. 

“okay,” dahlia bites her tongue, not uttering another word.

they eventually settle on the cashmere coloured sofa, angled towards each other, not touching initially.

he tells her about mundane details, the first pre-season game that filled him with an undying hope—this year should’ve been his. he recalls the memory like the back of his hand, his smooth helmet sliding perfectly around his head. his shoulder pads being a tinge too tight. 

she listens without interrupting, in these past months it has dawned on her that he probably doesn’t talk much around others. this is where his thoughts spill out, scattered, unorganized, yet admirable.

her knee brushes his and he admits something, “it’s weird. when you’re not playing, you realize how much of yourself is tied to it.”

“and how much isn’t?” dahlia phrases her words like a question, yet she knows the answer.

he studies her face, “you really believe that?”

“i do.”

dahlia’s always certain. it derails his hypercritical, hyperfocused nervous system in ways he’ll never quite understand.

their knees press close, no one moves away.

his hand drifts to her wrist almost absentmindedly, thumb tracing the edges of her bracelet stack, admiring the assortment like before. this time, dahlia doesn’t freeze. she lets him.

“you fidget when you’re thinking,” her words are whispered like a secret, as if the whole room could hear what they say.

“do i?”

dahlia nods, “yea. it’s kind of endearing. no, it is.”

joe rolls his eyes but his cheeks warm a rosy colour, he lifts his hand from his physiotherapist’s delicate wrists and instead fixates onto her curls. brushing a curl from her cheek, slowly. deliberately.

“you’re really beautiful,” he’s awestruck as if he doesn’t see her face multiple times a week, whether it be on the phone or in person. dahlia’s not some distant gorgeous figure, she’s right here and a part of him reveled in it.

she swallows, “joe. you don’t have to—”

“i know.”

twice now.

incredibly sure of himself, he leans in a bit slower than before. giving dahlia room to change her mind, she chooses not to.

the second kiss isn’t tenative like the first, it’s a softer form. deeper but restrained by the knowing of risk. his calloused hand cups her jaw lightly, thumb tracing warm sparks against her skin. she exhales into him, fingers curling into his hoodie.

she notices it immediately—

a little sound died on her lips, he’s such a good kisser.

not rushed, not greedy. he’s attentive.

her stomach flips into oblivion, in dahlia’s mind she fights to not over analyze it.

when they part, he doesn’t part from her fully. simply joe rests his forehead against hers, hearing every shaky breath she takes in. 

“you okay?” he murmurs.

dahlia nods, “uh-huh.”

his hands slip into her hair feverishly. fingers threading with a tender touch, like he’s memorizing the texture of her — each ringlet beneath his fingers. he presses a small kiss to her mouth. then her temples. 

they shift without a word. dahlia’s tucked into his side, small enough to burrow there with his arm lazily draped over her shoulders. somehow, the room felt dimmer in the pale moonlight.

he strokes her hair absentmindedly while she talks about nothing in particular—her first semester of medical school, how she considered dropping out and working in a tiny clinic for the rest of her life, how she hates admitting when she’s overwhelmed.

“you don’t give yourself enough credit.” joe mutters.

she laughs under her breath, “that’s rich coming from you.”

“no,” he insists, brushing his fingers down her arm. “i mean it, baby. you show up for people. even when it costs you.”

the praise lands harder than any mindless flirt wrought by lust, or something ingenious. it makes her sternum ache a little more than she’d like to acknowledge.

“joe—”

“i see you.” he exhales, unadorned by flowery words.

she presses her face into his shoulder so he doesn’t see the way her eyes glaze over with tears.

time skips like a tachycardic heartbeat, thump-thump. conversation blurs into unrecognizable touches for a man who guards himself and a woman who touches what’s broken for a living. 

another kiss, lazy—sweet to the taste. faint notes of her strawberry lip balm dazzles on his tongue, undoing him with a sigh that released weeks of stress.

her fingers trace the outline of his jaw, internally she can’t help but think about a diagram. joe’s mandible, under hands, then zygomatic bones like his cheeks. so soft to the touch.

his fingers linger at her waist, she knows exactly where, nestled above her dimples of venus. her iliac bones kiss her spine there, tethered together.

but this is emotionally intimate first, anything else should blur into obscurity. a distant echo meaning nothing.

at some point, her head is nestled into the groove of his neck. she yawns quietly.

“tired?” joe asks, smoothing out her hair.

“a little.”

“we can just stay here..” he words it like an admission. a plea for vulnerability. “i’m not going anywhere, baby.”

they shift so she’s lying back against the couch cushions, him angled beside her. his fingers continue moving through her hair, rhythmic. grounding.

neither decide to fall asleep first. 

simply, joe relishes how her breath evens out with a knowing, bone-deep certainty. the way her hands remain curled into his hoodie, even as she fights unconsciousness.

“just one night.” he whispers to himself.

and so, 

morning light settled in.

joe lives, no, he breathes for those first seconds in the morning where his nervous system barely registers anything. dew falls off trees and dances on top of saplings, sunshine rears its face to beautifully winged butterflies, and suddenly this world felt lighter.

but when he wakes, he turns to her, the pain doesn’t yearn to come back. it’s the shock of realizing nothing has left.

dahlia feels his thumb tracing slow into the cavity of her inner elbow. she knows he rises when the sun rises and sets when the sun sets.

“morning,” she murmurs.

his gaze softens, “dahlia.”