leetoltreatex | your ribs, a vaulted cathedral - a leetol treat for fiachairecht

Title: your ribs, a vaulted cathedral
Fandom: Overwatch
Characters: Moira O'Deorain, Angela "Mercy" Ziegler
Words: 663
Rating: Mature
Leetol Treat: participate in some terrible science experiments
Summary: Moira takes certain...liberties in repairing a little bird's broken wings
Tags: bones, surgery, dubiously consensual body modification, oddly romantic surgery, author knows this isn't how medicine works shhhhhh
Author's Note: Hello! At some point, in some event, you requested or prompted "oddly romantic vivisection" and it has stuck in my head all these years later, rattling its bars while I had no idea how to execute it. Well...I think I figured it out. Except it's oddly romantic surgery. So. Yeah. Hi, I hope you like it :3

Such a beautiful little bird. Moira considers the woman on the operating table before her—spine and ribcage open to the air, heart and lungs still thanks to the whir of machinery.

The accident had been catastrophic, her little bird's wings failing her. Truly, such an accident would have been fatal for anyone under the care of a handful of doctors and of course, Moira was one such physician.

Once the damage had been repaired, she'd taken certain...liberties. Certain reconstructions. Alterations. Reinforcements. Implants. Mercy would be stronger. (More secure.) And now, Moira eyes her work, tracing every edge and integration, fingertips following the gentle curvature of ribs as she feels for anything amiss. The process is repeated with each piece of hardware, finger joints hooking just so around the edge of each rib. The pads of her fingers fit so perfectly within the spaces of the angel's spine. She strokes over each vertebral arch, touch moving over her perfect, seamless work.

For a moment, Moira...lingers, long fingers curved around Angela's spinal column. Her spine. That unbreakable backbone of hers. (Almost unbreakable.) Holding it. Cradling it like the fragile little bird she really is. Such delicate structures—bodies; delicate and yet so incredibly durable. Absolutely beautiful things. And here she is, having been up to her elbows inside Angela's—held her heart in her hands. Her spine. Traced every rib inside and out. What a privilege to be inside Angela's body, wrapped up as it was in the bone chilling fear of losing her.

Moira never quite understood every literary metaphor, much as she loved to see how authors played with them. But seeing Angela laid out bare and broken and open in front of her? She understood what it meant when fear was so intense, so potent that it chilled one's bones. Though now that she is on the other side, now that the little bird will fly again, Moira contemplates that fear. The strange tug behind her breastbone. And claustrophobia in her throat. A weakness, to be certain (though Moira has known this since the day she met Angela Ziegler) and certainly something Moira would be wise to control. (Because she will control it. She must.) Yet, it is so incredibly fascinating.

Moira's own flesh gives way to sturdy bone, the weight solid as she takes as much as she dares. Gently disentangling from her spine, Moira searches for that one spot where heart and lung overlap. Sinks two fingers in the fifth, then sixth, intercostal space—a spot where, if you're knowledgeable and precise, you can pierce the lung, then the heart, and leave your victim literally drowning in their own blood. The thing that gives them life...brings their death. Angela's lungs don't breathe and her heart doesn't beat while on bypass, allowing Moira to do her work in peace. Neither organ moves beneath her touch. Nonetheless, Moira presses the tips of her fingers between heart and lung, mapping all the little details of muscle and tissue. Unique impressions of flesh. (Literally learning her heart. How distastefully saccharine.)

Ever so gently, she withdraws her fingers, the chilled air of the operating room even colder without the warmth of her body. As much as she would like to stay here for many more hours, the human body and modern medicine have their limits. She glances up at the clock, seconds ticking over in flashes of red, counting down the minutes she has with her silent little bird. Pity.

Moira straightens, forcing a little distance between her and her work. She doesn't believe in God, not any more—not in decades—those that do would say the human body is the beauty of God's work and Moira will never deny that the body is an exquisite work of art, but not the work of God. However, no matter one's beliefs, Moira has added her own artistic genius to one of the most beautiful works of art there exists.