(not to yuck anyone's yum you can do whatever you want forever! I just wanna ramble) I think the reason I've never been interested in mohabbot (other than the fact that I tend to go for queer ships) is because the characterization throws me off so bad.
samira mohan feels incredibly watered down, it feels like samira mohan the Aesthetic™ and not samira mohan the character. samira mohan the aesthetic is bland, one-note, cool girl gorgeous girl drinking matcha in cafes with her chic outfit and messy bun. also she's fiery but also so sweet and tiny compared to big jack uwu. it feels very very self insert-y.
jack abbot is often portrayed as a shawn hatosy fantasy rather than, again, the character of jack. the fantasy jack is protective daddy dom who croons in your ear and calls you the smartest girl in the world, always smooth and rich and buff and tall. his traits include having grey hair and looking hot. (and also on occasion, completely missing his disability.)
samira mohan the character? she's not cool. she's, tbh, a total loser. her apartment is most likely messy as fuck, she probably lives in hoodies and sweats and collapses in a pile on her couch with chips after a shift. she's incredibly intelligent. she strives for empathy but is self absorbed at times. she doesn't give a fuck about sex. she's lonely but it's not even really romance she's looking for, just... company.
she feels out of control and like she has to be in control and she's burnt out and she can be rude as well as kind. she's interesting. she's multifaceted. if she has something she needs to take care of, (usually a patient she doesn't want slipping through the cracks) she's laser focused and usually doesn't care much about anything else. (her scene with Jack, focused on mr diaz and Jack's injury coming secondary). she's definitely not a damsel in distress. she's capable and she can be quite confident. she's not uwu small shy sweet bean.
jack the character? broken, traumatized, jaded. a mess of contradictions. he hates the system and plays into the system all at once. he's disabled. he has PTSD. he goes to therapy but he half-asses it. he's isolated, he's in denial about his struggles. he's flirty but also awkward and goofy. he avoids saying things outright until he cant beat around the bush anymore, and then he's blunt.
he's giving... same outfit six times in his closet, bed neat, acts more confident than he is. sure, he flirts, but he's still wearing his ring and he's still grieving and he doesn't actually seem the type to sleep around. he's throwing himself into work, not slowing down, even considering adding more onto his already full plate. he's avoidant and he's hurtling towards burnout. he can confront people but he can't confront himself. he's interesting.
together? mohabbot is two isolated, overworked individuals who just... don't wanna sleep alone anymore. the weight of getting home to an empty bed— samira and her struggles to be social, jack and his grief. I don't think they're very "sexy" in fact I see them as the opposite. I see Samira as ace and jack as demi, if not also ace. I think the romance would matter so much more than the sex, I think connection and intimacy is what they need and are subconsciously looking for.
I think it'd be rocky before it'd be easy. I think they'd push each other away at first, hiding the worst parts of themselves, both in denial. if jack wakes with a nightmare he's icing Samira out. if Samira has a panic attack she's gritting her teeth and pushing through it, not talking to him about it. he wouldn't push even if she secretly needed him to. and if he did, she would snap something out and he would drop it quick, wouldn't fight.
I think that would only go on so long before their wounds start to pour, bleed, spill onto the other. and jack is waking up with a gasp and tugging samira closer instead of pushing her away, hiccuping and breaking where someone else can see for once. and samira is calling jack during her next panic attack and once he helps calm her breathing, she's crying about her mother and her father and how lonely she always feels.
and then it's easy. and then it's laid out and bare and open and they fall into something undefined. she sleeps over at his or he sleeps over at hers and they don't even kiss. they curl up and they're quiet and sometimes jack is completely nonverbal, words unable to choke out of him. sometimes samira will ramble, needing to talk to someone for once, and Jack likes her voice. and jack still wears his ring and samira still likes being alone sometimes. but neither of them are quite so lonely anymore.
anyways ! that's how I would characterize them. just rambling lolol
