Chapter Text
Javadi doesn’t pursue crushes.
Not that she hasn’t felt the desire to before, but she’s realised how incapable she is at bringing anything further than a surface-level conversation where she’s red in the face the entire time and then inevitably wrangles her way out of the whole thing due to sheer embarrassment. It simply isn’t worth it anymore.
Any boy that’s ever caught her eye, from Daniel Hughes in 6th grade to Ivan Torres in the 3rd year of her undergraduate, all the way up to Mateo a few months ago – she hasn’t been able to manage going any further than a few conversations and two hugs.
Well, she could have gone further with Mateo. He was the only outlier. He really did seem to like her, more than anyone had ever shown her. But, once she had her chance, after a walk through the city that ended sweetly at her front door, his head bowing to close the distance, she squeezed her eyes shut and faced the ground. Mateo stepped back, embarrassed, and she begged some higher power to split the earth beneath her feet in half and swallow her down.
What was wrong with her? The question sat heavily on her mind for the next few days. Isn’t this what she had wanted for so many years? Isn’t this where so much of her frustration came from, because she felt she never had time to think about pursuing anything with anyone, regardless of the internal deer in headlights thing that came with it? She couldn’t count how many times she caught herself daydreaming about kissing someone, arms wrapping around her back, a voice whispering sweetly into her ear as she writhed in pleasure under a faceless body. Why didn’t she take her chance with Mateo?
The realisation dawns on her during a sluggish Wednesday shift. If she were in a movie, the camera would be focusing up close on her face as she stands across from McKay. Javadi’s eyes would be wide, following every move she takes to stitch up the knife wound in some man’s deltoid muscle. Her fingers move so precisely, her tone so soft and reassuring, and when she glances up at Javadi to flash her a smile through her messy bangs, the camera would dolly zoom, capturing the metaphoric lightbulb switching on over her head.
The problem isn’t Mateo. The problem is Cassie.
She likes her.
Now, Javadi isn’t completely clueless. She had toyed with the possibility a few weeks ago when a particular few words of praise (“good job, hon”) from Cassie had elicited such a strong surge of dopamine in her brain that she actually almost giggled in delight. But, she had talked herself down because well, what medical student didn’t enjoy a bit of praise from their senior co-workers? It was normal. Her need for approval from McKay was normal. Yes, definitely.
But, as she thought back on her crushes and lustful daydreams, she had never counted the girls she thought were pretty, too pretty not to look at. She never counted Hana, the babysitter she had for a few years as a kid. She’d write her name in neat cursive with sparkly rainbow pens and ask to perform check-ups on her that let her inspect all the studs in her ears and the tattoo of a butterfly on her arm that she’d trace with her plastic syringe.
She never counted Laura either, the girl in her first year of University who she was always jealous of and couldn’t pinpoint why. She was in her last year of Neuropharmacology and always wore skirts, even in the Winter (Javadi only remembers this because she sometimes found herself looking a little too hard at her legs.) And how could she forget Amy, the Consultant Paediatrician during her rotation in the Paediatric department. Amy was 50 and incredibly smart and Javadi got so overwhelmed by her poise and charisma sometimes that she’d have to stand in a bathroom stall and ask herself what the fuck was wrong with her.
Recounting all of this made it seem so obvious that she liked women, but there was something they all had in common that Javadi wouldn’t have thought about enough to acknowledge before. They were all older. So, no fucking wonder she’s found herself crushing on McKay. She’s surprised she hadn’t figured it out earlier. She can get into college at 13, but can’t decipher her specific taste in women until it’s quite literally right in her face. Figures.
Javadi thinks these feelings will blow over after a while, like all of her past crushes, but she’s proven just how wrong she is two days later. A woman is rushed in, screaming and flailing around, filling the ER with high-pitched profanity and guttural roars of nonsensical gibberish. Javadi doesn’t know why, maybe it’s the noise, but she gets taken aback and finds herself cowering away from the patient while Mel and Langdon hold her down.
“Javadi, come on!” Langdon yells at her, irritated at her stalling.
“Sorry,” she mumbles for no-one to hear as she steps forward and injects the Olanzapine, quickly discarding the syringe and moves back to the end of the bed. The woman’s screaming stops and she turns sluggish in a matter of seconds, giving Javadi her chance to turn and walk straight into McKay. She holds her steady by her shoulders as Javadi’s palms instinctively cup McKay’s elbows.
“Hey. You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I was just – had an erratic patient.”
“Did it scare you?”
Javadi feels silly admitting it, but she nods anyway.
“It’s okay,” McKay tells her, “you helped her, didn’t you?”
Her eyes are so blue, and the heat of her hands still penetrates through Javadi’s scrubs. All she can manage is another nod.
“That’s all that matters. You did good, don’t worry.”
Javadi pockets the praise and cradles it, letting it repeat in her head. McKay walks off, needed somewhere else, but she glances back, craning her neck to meet Javadi’s eyes, and the sweet, innocent crush suddenly shifts to something hungrier, something inappropriate.
She can’t let herself fall down this hole, but she’s already on her mind at night in bed, wondering what she does after work to relax, wondering what she looks like with her hair down. It doesn’t even take a week before Javadi’s imagining that same daydream of someone above her, except this time, it’s Cassie with her fingers gently pushing up into her, the cold metal of her chain pooling in the hollow of Javadi’s throat as she rides out an orgasm.
The next few weeks are a struggle, and for once, it has nothing to do with work. Javadi swears open-heart surgery is easier than having to deal with this absolutely desperate, completely inappropriate attraction to her much older, very alluring senior co-worker. It’s all she can think about, waking up in the morning and going to sleep at night. It’s torture and so exciting at the same time. Being around Cassie gives her a thrill she has never experienced so strongly before. Every pat on the shoulder and passing conversation and – oh my God – if she hears her say you’re doing great one more time pressed up against her side as she tries to see what she’s doing, she thinks she might actually combust in the middle of the ER.
There’s no way Javadi could ever pursue this.
Right?