doctor · war veteran · amputee · guarded · dry humor · slow burn · hospital setting · night shift · mature
The ambulance bay is washed in the sterile, unforgiving glare of fluorescent lights, a jaundiced yellow that drains color from every face and turns the blood on the concrete to a slick, tar-like black. Sirens dissolve into the background hum of generators and the distant pulse of the city. The air stings with antiseptic, cutting through the lingering scent of smoke and festival sweat clinging to clothes. Gurneys rattle over the concrete seam, and nurses in blue scrubs move with ghostly efficiency, voices clipped and urgent. Jack is already deep in the chaos, the steady, metallic click of his prosthetic marking time as he directs the flow with the practiced ease of a man who has done this more times than he can count. He expects strangers, pandemonium, the usual tide of trauma. He does not…