#xx. aesthetic

[kipocricyy]

@m2ds → current feed ( 220823 )

[gasolinne]

[mythologiestofollow]

[pi-slices]

In Waves.

[teenalien-xx]

the neighbourhood - sweater weather (2013)

[fix2010s]

The XX - for their album coexist

[notjustareject]

high on legal marijuana

[xiaojaan]

˚ ༘𑁍.ೃ࿔🪷🪕🪞🛺📜🪷🪔🦢🌙🦚｡˚❀₊˚✧°༘

(Pictures not mine. Credit to owners.)

[crushribbons]

thanks, peg J

summary: Dr. Michael Robinavitch needs help building a shelf.

cw: 2.7k words, fluff, my actual husband is an actual doctor i should probably know more/anything about how hospitals work, vague age gap (reader/oc is in her 30's), vague to graphic depictions of injury/illness, fem!OC/reader.

a/n: paging dr. daddy :) <3

(gif cred)

She pulled her stethoscope off her neck. “Oof. Sounds like a ball of a Friday night. Is it from Ikea?”

“The Ivar,” Robby specified with a nod and shrug. He looked back down at the patient list from their shift, which couldn’t have been ending at a more merciful time. The last man she had examined had spat on her. And what else should she expect?; she’d diagnosed his pain as a small kidney stone passing through his urethra and written a prescription that would all but eliminate the discomfort. If that wasn’t deserving of a loogie to the face, she didn’t know what else would be. Robby let out a sigh that sounded exactly like the exhaustion tugging her eyelids down. 

Nurse Dana swept by them, her fleece jacket already three-quarters of the way on. “Don’t take too long on those autographs, kids, or night shift will just let you keep right on rolling.” 

A raspy little laugh slipped past Dr. Robby’s lips and the corners of his eyes crinkled the way they always did on the rare occasions someone could tug a genuine smile out of him. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure if the lack of breakfast and the bag of Ritz crackers she’d scarfed down for lunch were the only things making her light-headed. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he called after Dana. The charge nurse raised her hand without turning around and wiggled her fingers at them while darting out the double doors that led to the waiting room and exit before anyone could stop her. Robby turned back to the doctor next to him and handed her the clipboard he’d just finished signing about two hundred times. 

Her hand grazed his, and the level of attention she paid to how warm and rough his fingers felt made her grit her jaw in frustration. It was her first year as an attending, how could she be letting something as ridiculous as a workplace crush get to her? She realized it had been a while since she’d spoken, and that Robby was pulling his own coat and backpack from underneath his desk. 

“Need any help chasing down the million nuts and bolts that are guaranteed to burst out of the little bag when you open it?” she offered jokingly. Robby’s eyes flicked to her too fast. She felt her hairline heat up, worried she’d overstepped. 

None of the attendings did anything outside of work together; the work hours were long enough to get their fill of each other without feeling the need to add alcohol or food to the mix. Some of the students and residents would occasionally hit bars after their shifts, and though she had no desire to join them, it made her miss the relative lack of responsibility of med school. Dr. Robinavitch, in particular, never broached the topic of his personal life at work, so she tried to do the same. There were too many patients to see and too much to accomplish to bother checking if the attractive ER chief with the puppy-dog eyes had plans for the weekend. No matter how much she wanted to.

He let out another chuckle, though this one was without humor. "Don't tell me you got nothing better to do than that," he said. "On a Friday night."

"I'm, uh, still finding my way around Pittsburgh." It was true. Her residency in California had spoiled her, and she found the stark greyness of Pennsylvania off-putting. She rarely ventured from her apartment for anything other than work and necessary grocery shopping.

He regarded her for a few seconds. His gaze felt heavier than it should have, as if she had some symptom that didn't line up with her lab results. She remembered what Dr. Santos had muttered to her on her first day at the Pitt when she'd caught the new doctor staring a little too long at Robby typing his notes.

"I know. He's crazy hot, right?" Trinity had pinched her elbow and embarrassment had made her stutter nonsensically. Then, to top off the humiliation, Trinity had started swaying her shoulders side to side and singing under her breath, "I will be your father figure, put your tiny hand in mine..." The younger woman was known for being abrasive, but, shit, she was a perceptive little fucker, too.

"I'd be a fool to turn down help wrangling Ivar. Ikea furniture is my Achilles heel," Robby was saying when she snapped back to the present. He seemed hesitant. He couldn't tell whether she'd been joking or not, and, frankly, she couldn't either. "But I couldn't ask you to–"

"You'd be doing me a favor," she cut in quickly. He would, in more ways than one. "If I sit on my couch with my cat for one more weekend, I think they're gonna start letting me collect Social Security."

A genuine laugh! Her stomach flipped upside down at the sight and the sound. Both were warm and inviting and made her want to kiss each of the individual lines on his weathered face. "Then by all means, please."

Oh, wait. Was this happening? Was it, actually? Nerves gnawed at her while she finished handing off the patient list to the night shift. What was it? A date? A friend helping another friend put a shelf together? A coworker helping another, older and more senior coworker who intimidated the hell out of her put a shelf together?

As Robby departed through the same double doors Dana had dashed through, he turned and pointed significantly at his phone, and she pulled hers from her pocket to see that he had texted her his address. Nothing else, just the address, dashed out in Robby’s usual efficient and minimalistic tone. He hadn’t even included the city and zip, but he didn’t need to. Living further than 15 minutes away from the hospital seemed like something a less dedicated physician might consider, but she knew that Robby didn’t really live at the address he’d sent her, anyway. He lived in all the exam rooms and hallways surrounding her, their sanitized scent pricking at her nose one last time before she stepped into the waiting room and the few remaining rays of sunlight waiting to greet her outside.

The door opened on her second knock, or, more accurately, before she could even finish it. Goddammit. She should have taken more time to consider what an off-duty Dr. Robby might look like. 

“Hey,” he said, a genial smile lighting up his tired face.

“H–mm, hi,” she replied. She tried to hide a swallow.

Robby stood aside and let her pass through the front door of the aged but charming brownstone. The long hallway was lined with dark wooden panels that creaked when she walked over them. She tried not to feel him following behind her, the scent of some musky shampoo or body wash drifting off him. She also showered directly after a shift. Too much hospital.

A line of hooks held various jackets and sling bags, and a haphazard pile of worn sneakers sat beneath them. “I gotta get a rack for those, or something,” Robby muttered from behind her, noticing her sightline.

“You should see mine. The floor of my closet is a nightmare.”

She walked into the living room and couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face. It was sparsely but cozily finished, an overstuffed couch and matching loveseat positioned atop a plush rug that hugged her feet taking up most of the space. And, of course, a veritable disaster of boards, planks, plastic bags, and ripped cardboard in the middle of all of it.

“Yikes.”

“Thank you, again, for helping me with this,” he said, and came to stand beside her. “Why is it that I can perform a trach in my sleep, but the assembly of Swedish furniture is my downfall?” He scratched the back of his neck, the white t-shirt he was wearing showing off far too much of what was usually hidden beneath a few layers of thermals, scrubs, and hoodies. Her hairline started to feel hot again. 

She cleared her throat and made her way over to the pile of shelf. “For what med school costs, they really should be teaching us the essentials like this stuff, too!” He didn’t respond, making her look up at him. He was watching her again, with that sort-of-absent-but-always-thoughtful x-ray vision. She wished he’d stop.

“You really got none of the cynicism and all of the optimism out of your residency, didn’t you?”

She flushed and looked back down at the ground, unsure if he was making fun of her. “It being basically on the ocean didn’t hurt. Lots to be optimistic about in northern Cali, it’s so beautiful.”

Robby shook his Midwest-born-and-bred head. “Damn hippy.” His voice was gruff, but his dark eyes were sparkling and she felt some of the tension in her shoulders dissipate in a giggle. He crossed the room and through an arch that led to the kitchen. “I ordered some Chinese for dinner, hope that’s alright,” he called back to her.

The tension returned tenfold and her heart began doing somersaults in her chest. Dinner? This included dinner now? Sure, it was time for dinner, but she hadn’t wanted to be so presumptuous as to suggest adding food to this friendly favor she was performing. Robby returned laden with white paper takeout boxes and a handful of napkins and chopsticks. “Like lo mein?” he asked. She nodded.

“Yes, but you really didn’t have to get anything for me! That’s so nice,” she gushed, trying to reign in the attraction to this man and behave as if he was just any other rugged, kind, intelligent guy she might come in contact with. She was so screwed. 

He pressed the box of lo mein into her hand with a pair of chopsticks. “It’s the least I can do to thank you for helping with this,” he shrugged. “Hopefully, you still have an appetite after that bike accident from this morning.” The memory of the young man’s torso torn open and spilling out onto the operating table sent a nauseous wave from her head to her stomach, but she quickly compartmentalized it, as she’d learned to do long ago.

“Why do people even buy motorcycles,” she muttered rhetorically.

“Uh, because they love visiting you so very much,” he returned with a wink that made her miss her mouth with the chopsticks.

Two hours later, the shelf was only two-feet tall and missing three of the nine screws it had required so far.

“Peg L, peg L, peg L,” Robby said through gritted teeth, “where the fuck is peg L?”

She held the instructions centimeters away from her face, hoping the proximity would illuminate its solutions somehow. “Peg L goes into plank K. We just placed plank H.” He stopped running his hands along the carpet to search for the missing peg L and looked up at her with a speck of encroaching insanity peeking through. 

“I’m out of order?”

“Miiiike,” she laugh-groaned. “Did you already use peg G? We need J right now!” When he didn’t answer, she glanced up from the “simple” instruction packet. A sleepy kind of flush appeared on his face, and he pulled the reading glasses off to massage the bridge of his nose and–hide it? Then, he sighed.

“God, no one’s called me just…Mike in forever.” It was a complete sentence, a complete statement, a complete story, and he was done talking about it, but it made a million questions bubble up in the back of her throat. She ignored them.

“You’re at work too much,” she almost whispered. Why she was no longer scared of stepping over some professional, coworker boundary, she wasn’t sure. Maybe it was the way he had accepted her help with such a domestic task, or the fact that they were seeing each other in something other than scrubs for the first time (the loose, perfectly worn-in jeans he was wearing would surely be appearing in her dreams that night), or maybe it was because their legs had been pressed together for the last half hour as they tried to decipher the mysteries of Ivar. Whatever it was, Robby–Mike, felt it, too. He stared into her eyes before averting them to the floor and mumbling,

“Yeah. I know.” He put the glasses back on. “So, peg J.”

“C’mere, ya little Swedish asshole,” she agreed, and they resumed pawing around the rug to try and find the screws that, as predicted, had spilled from the package as soon as Robby had ripped it. She tried to avoid brushing against his hand as well as she could, until her fingers bumped into a tiny piece of metal, and she snatched the screw from the ground. Carefully consulting the instructions, she looked from the page, to the screw, to the page, before shouting, “Oh my God, I found it!” 

His hands were cradling either side of her face in a second, and then he was kissing her. The part of her brain that handled compartmentalization clocked in at lightning speed and swept all her confusion into the bin so she could focus on nothing except his beard scratching her, his warm hands cupping her jaw. Well, well before she had gotten her fill of him, he pulled back and blurted, “Awesome! Good job, let’s put it in.” He plucked the screw out of her hand like the conversation had just been on pause, scooting over on his knees to the feeble half-shelf.

She sat in complete shock until Robby, without turning to face her, said, “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”

“Mike.”

“You just looked–and I, it’s been…I’m really sorry.”

“Mike.”

He was attempting to twist the screw into place with his fingers so he didn’t have to come get the screwdriver from beside her. “I overstepped. It won’t happen again. If you want to take it to HR…”

That was enough to jumpstart her brain again, and she burst into laughter, forcing him to finally spin around.

“HR? Really?” She made a phone out of her pinky, fist, and thumb and held it to her ear. “Hello, Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center Department of Human Resources? Yes, I’d like to file a report against one of your doctors.” She was having a hard time stifling her laughter. “Dr. Michael Robinavitch. Yes, the hottie from the ER, that’s correct. He really laid one on me—"

It was Robby's turn to cut her off, and he did so by rolling his eyes and snatching the instructions out of her other hand. "Hey!" She dove after them but decided instead to drag him in by the collar of his shirt for another kiss. They both held each other tightly, Robby's hands wandering, respectfully, under the hem of her shirt. When she tugged a handful of his hair, he grunted in annoyance.

"Watch it. Don't have much of that left."

"You've got a lot for an old man." She regretted it as soon as she said it, even though he had already alluded to it. His head dropped and apologies bubbled up and out of her lips, assurances that that's not how she'd meant it, that he was the most attractive man she'd met at the Pitt, but he waved them off.

His glasses were sliding down his nose again. He cleared his throat and pushed them back up. "Are you okay with it, then? I mean, I know I'm not..." Her heart ached when he trailed off, nervously scratching the back of his neck again.

"Very ok," she whispered. She reached for his hand and took it. He was fiddling with a screw that she plucked out and tossed to the side. "I'm 31, you know, Senior Elder Doctor Robinavitch."

Robby smiled, clearly in spite of himself. He tucked a piece of hair that had fallen into her eyes behind her ear. For a minute, they just sat and looked at each other, matching each other's lazy smiles. "That's it. Didn't want to have to do this, but you're fired."

"Okay now I want to take this to HR."

masterlist

[kipocricyy]

Infinite Task #5; 'the genius cave'

cool greys. snake habitats. constantly cleaning up cat hair. concrete and wooden floors. the slight scent of marijuana. gentle television static. rain tapping against big windows. modern industrialism. musky candles. weighted blankets. a bed rarely slept in. little remnants of her. the gentle purr of felines. anime posters. manga murals. paint stains. charcoal smudges. ash trays. lighter baskets. comic book shelves. studio spaces.

malachi lives in a converted warehouse that was split into two town homes after it's closure in 2011, that he now shares with his current girlfriend. it blends industrial and modern notes with the dusky 'back alley' feeling of being 'downtown' in a large city. ducked off on the edge of seoul, the only access point to his unit specifically is lined by a dark alley only large enough for only bumper to bumper, linear vehicle travel. a pinpad covers the door, a code only five people have access too and no, that doesn't include his mother. inside you'll find a space that just recently has started to look like someone's home. concrete walls and iron like accents for light fixtures and windows. his kitchen and bathroom match the sleek grey almost 'ikeaic' scandonavian style seen often in the us, muddled into a more korean-japanese traditional modern style. you'll find the remnants of torn sketch papers, and unfinished manga, along with murals he'd painted himself upon moving in of some of his favorite characters. a wall in his room is covered with clippings from ruined mangas and comics that he could salvage, almost paying homage to his childhood. (thanks jaime :)) ). in other corners you can find pieces of him that express he's a chicago native. bulls, bears, and cubs memorabilia. kanye, juice wrld, king von etc tributes in those same places. he keeps it kind of tidy, and often only spends time in his room or in the previously shared outside space. its not much, but what was once a meet up spot between him and his homely neighbor has now turn into his personal smoke spot, when his anxiety starts to thunder in, and he's no where to be found? ask ilsu to check there, you'll find him.

[gasolinne]

[mythologiestofollow]

[make-death-proud-to-takeus]

Floris Verster: Two dead rooks, 1926

[arabellasrevenge]

room inspo 🌿📷

[facingaltars]

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

William Mielatz (1864-1919) Old House in Wind, 1906.