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She hurried back to her quarters, threw the door open, and stepped inside quickly. She was breathing quickly, her hands were shaking. If she wasn't functional she'd think she was going into shock, but she was able to think coherently and she was able to move.
Move, that's what she needed to do. She needed to move around. She thought best when she was moving. It was bred from years of having to think on her feet in the healing center, and recently honed in battlefield medic situations. Yes, if she moved she could think better.
He looked so...different. So very very different. Without the...and the...and the... She had to stop. Her brain was freezing up again. She focused in on her breathing. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. Okay, the shaking was subsiding, this was good.
She found him attractive. Part of her wanted to retch at the thought. He was...and he...and the way he... There she went again. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.
Okay. This was Mayuri she was thinking about. The man who almost directly opposed everything she believed in. While she believed in saving lives, he had no qualms about killing his subordinates. While she valued science, because science lead her to be a better healer, he perverted science, doing strange...things. Creating back-up brains. Moving his internal organs. His science seemed more like magic, sometimes. And his poisons. His bankai made her uncomfortable. His shikai did as well, with it's ability to paralyze someone yet let them feel pain. He was a sadist, for heaven's sake!
But without his make-up on, he looked attractive. Toned, lean, thin, with muscles and hair that was a nice shade of brown and...he was her type. That build, that color hair, that was her type. But she simply couldn't get past his actions, and that was the sticking point. Her mind was caught up in a tumble of how she could be attracted to such a vile man.
She started to feel her mind race again, so she breathed. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. Deep breaths, calmng breaths. She shut her eyes, but there he was, bare to the waist, no make-up, no hat, looking at her in a manner that was decidedly attracted to her. Or at least she thought so,. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe he didn't think she was attractive, and please oh please oh please let him find her unattractive. Let the look simply have been appraising that she might be his next test subject, because if he was attracted to her, she wouldn't know what to do.
She took more deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. And she calmed down. She pushed the mental image to the far recesses of her mind, locked it away, threw away the key, and fervently hoped she didn't run into him for a long time. Because she knew if she saw him again she would see the attractive man, not the...the freak he normally was. Because she knew her, and she knew her tendencies. She was a healer. She liked to fix things. She liked to fix people the most. And, God help her, if he showed the remotest sign of interest in her she would try to fix him, too. And she knew that would be her downfall.