#ft. indira

[gcnetics]

who: ezra & indira | @ncbodyssoldier where: a trauma room

the patient’s arm is a mess—radius angulated, ulna shifted, the whole thing puffed up like it had been caught in a bar fight it didn’t win. ezra rolls his shoulder back as he stands over the table, flexing his gloved fingers like he's about to reset a chessboard, not someone’s mangled bones. “alright, on my count,” he says to no one in particular, but his gaze flicked toward indira. after all, she's already right beside him, all calm professionalism and a stray lock of hair tucked behind one ear. ezra has to forcibly refocus on the arm in front of him. “ready?” he asks, though the answer is always yes with her. not just in the o.r.—where she's steady, composed, sharp as hell—but also, maybe, in the way her body had arched toward his in that cramped on-call room last week like she'd needed it as badly as he had. “three… two—” with a precise movement, he manipulates the arm back into alignment, the muted crunch of bone sliding into place hitting him like the high of a drug. he glances up. “and that,” he says, voice lower now, just for her, “is the sound of a job well done… or a meet-cute gone very wrong.” ezra peels his gloves off with a snap, tossing them into the bin. he leans in slightly, speaking just above the sterile hush of the room. “you know, if you wanted to spend more time with me, you could’ve just asked. didn’t have to volunteer for the human jigsaw shift.” he grins—lopsided, crooked, aware it's never failed him. “and hey, if you did want to reenact the other day, i still remember exactly how you like your coffee… and exactly how you sound when you’re trying not to wake the rest of the floor.”

[gcnetics]

who: gabe & indira | @ncbodyssoldier where: the operating room

the o.r. is too bright. gabe adjusts to it like he adjusted to everything else that first day—quickly, quietly, and with the kind of faint detachment that lets him push past the unfamiliar. new place, new staff, same bodies on the table. his hands, his instincts, they don't care about the badge clipped to his coat or the color of the scrubs around him. what matters is the kid under anesthesia, the team moving like a clockwork organism, and the fact that he hadn’t tripped over his own feet yet. so far, so good. he glances across the sterile field and catches sight of the scrub nurse handing off instruments with easy precision. small frame, steady hands, calm presence—he clocks all of it automatically. when she looks up, offers him a scalpel like it's something sacred instead of stainless steel, she smiles. just briefly, one of those soft ones that doesn't reach all the way but still sticks with you. gabe blinks, pivots his gaze back to the site. "thanks," he says, and when she doesn't immediately look away, adds, “you have a nice smile. has anyone ever told you that before?” it comes out before he can second-guess it—easy, offhand, not flirtatious so much as observant—but the o.r. has a strange intimacy to it: quiet voices behind masks, gloved hands passing sharp things, lives paused mid-sentence. he doesn't mean anything by it, not really. but then again, maybe he does.