#shroomline

[virysva]

He was three months away from finishing his residency when she first appeared in the hospital's blood bank. "Studying late?" she'd asked, her dark eyes gleaming with amusement as he catalogued the missing units. He should have reported the theft. Should have questioned why such a small woman cast no reflection in the medical refrigerator's glass.

Instead, he found himself explaining blood type compatibilities to her, watching her eyes light up with each technical term. She'd perch on the edge of his desk during night shifts, asking about his theories on rare diseases, never flinching when he described symptoms that made seasoned nurses leave the room. For the first time, someone wasn't just tolerating his obsession - she was feeding it. She started appearing in his lectures too, a dark-haired ghost in the back row who made his clinical discussions of death feel like courtship. She'd leave ancient medical texts in his apartment, full of procedures that no ethical board would approve. "Brilliant diagnostician," his professors called him, never knowing his insights came from practices centuries dead. It wasn't until much later that he realized she'd diagnosed him first - identified his precise strain of loneliness, isolated his hunger for understanding, and cultured it into something beautifully infectious. By then, he didn't care what she was. She had already become what he needed.

❥ art by me

[virysva]

It's a deep grief to lose my little companion at the same moment we say farewell to the great Maggie Smith. Rest in peace, both of you.