Closet Gremlin — Brendon Park x f!Reader
Summary: You’re in the last year of your PhD program at Carnegie Mellon, conducting research at PTMC. You don’t have time to be distracted, certainly not by a handsome orthopedic surgeon with an attitude problem.
WC: 2,708
A/N: set seven years before The Pitt (Park is mid-30s); fem reader; possible medical/probable computer science inaccuracies (contrary to what your local Karen thinks, Google is not a replacement for an actual degree); you can’t tell me Park is OOC because man was on the screen for half a second; mild d/s undertones if you squint and look upside down; Abbot cameo because I’m weak for that old man
Masterlist
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The first time you meet Brendon Park, you’re sitting on the floor of a supply closet with your laptop on your knees, a screwdriver between your teeth, and your head half-buried behind an open control-panel. There’s papers scattered next to you and a granola bar discarded by your feet. When the closet door opens, you jump like a startled raccoon caught raiding a trash bin.
“What the fuck?”
The man in the doorway freezes when he sees you, and you scramble to take the screwdriver out of your mouth and offer a timid smile.
“Um…hi?”
He does not smile back.
In fact, the man who just walked into your temporary work space doesn’t look like he smiles much at all. His startlingly blue eyes glint like ice as he stares you down, and his perfect Cupid’s bow is curled by the start of a sneer. His dark hair is gelled back from the harsh lines of his face, and his tall form is corded with muscles his scrubs do nothing to hide. Everything about him screams precision and control, and he looks at your poorly contained chaos the way other people look at particularly ugly bugs.
“What are you doing?”
His voice is low, sharp. The voice of someone used to being obeyed. You feel heat stain your cheeks.
“I’m uh, there wasn’t-, I didn’t want to-”
His arctic eyes narrow, and you wince.
“The room I was assigned to got double-booked,” you manage, pleased with yourself for getting out a complete sentence this time.
“That doesn’t explain why you’re squatting in here.”
“It has an Ethernet port?”
He holds your gaze for another moment before dropping his eyes to the visitor badge clipped to your shirt. It says your name, followed by “Carnegie Mellon University” and then “IT Consultant.” A little bit of the suspicion leaves his expression when he realizes you’re at least allowed to be in the hospital, if not this particular closet.
“You work for CMU?”
“Kind of? I’m in my last year of grad school.”
He says nothing, and you hurriedly continue.
“I’m in computer science. My dissertation deals with healthcare systems, and PTMC is a teaching hospital-, which you already know, sorry, and they work a lot with CMU. Which, you probably also already know sorry, but I’m working on my model here, and the room I was supposed to be in got double-booked, but I already told you that so sor-”
“Stop apologizing.”
“Sorry,” you blurt instinctively.
He levels you with a deeply unimpressed look, which is why you’re shocked when he asks you-
“What’s your dissertation title?”
“Oh, uh, it’s-, well it deals with healthcare systems and how to improve them-”
“I’m not a computer engineer, but I’m also not a fucking idiot. Give me the real title.”
“I’m s-”
He arches one dark eyebrow. It’s arrogant, almost condescending, but it makes your pulse do something embarrassing.
“-not sorry,”you amend. “My working title right now is: Hybrid Model-Predictive and Machine Learning Approaches for Adaptive Patient Flow Control.”
He’s silent for a moment, gaze calculating.
“How does your model account for unique versus overlapping variation caused by the nonlinear rotation of personnel on care teams?”
This time it’s your turn to stare. Most people kind of short-circuit when you start explaining what it is you actually study. This man not only clearly understands what you’re talking about, but he just asked you a surprisingly perceptive question. He must sense your surprise, because he snorts and says:
“I told you I’m not a fucking idiot.”
He’s still staring at you like you’re a bug under a microscope, but the rigid line of his back has relaxed a bit, and he no longer looks like he might bodily drag you out of the supply closet. In fact, you think he might even look…amused. Your heart gives another embarrassing stutter, and you hurry to answer his question.
You don’t know how long the two of you stay like that — him taking up the entire doorway with his broad shoulders, and you sitting on the floor with your screwdriver and notes and granola bar. All you know is that he’s listening, really listening, while you ramble on and on about your project. He nods when appropriate, asks astute questions, and then seems to genuinely care about the answer. When your long-winded speech finally peters out, he cocks his head.
On anyone else, the movement would convey curiosity, maybe deep thought. On him though, it looks like a predator considering prey. The thought should not make heat curl in your belly, but it does.
“Do you want an actual desk to work at?” he finally asks.
You blink twice.
“I don’t need one, I’m okay staying here-”
“That’s not what I asked.”
That tone again. The one that makes it clear he’s used to being in charge and expects obedience. It makes something in you sit up straighter.
“An actual desk would be nice,” you admit.
He nods once, as if in approval.
“Good.”
Your brain blue screens for a second. It was a completely innocent word, spoken in a completely innocent context. At least that’’s what you tell yourself as the part of you that likes his commanding tone decides it really likes when that command is shadowed with a hint of approval. He’s pleased with you that part of you whispers, and you feel your cheeks go nuclear. You’re a grown woman who’s a few months away from completing her doctorate in computer engineering. You should not care if a random, kind of rude, kind of overbearing stranger in a hospital is pleased with you. But you do, and to your absolute horror, he seems to know it, too.
The corner of his mouth crooks up in the smallest, yet somehow smuggest, smirk you’ve ever seen.
“You’re terrible,” you blurt out.
Two things happen at once. First, you physically recoil, appalled by your own words. You hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but apparently your self-control vanished somewhere along with your dignity. Second, far from being offended, he looks pleased. The ghost of a smirk becomes an actual grin. Granted, it’s a small one, still somewhat mocking and entirely too self-satisfied, but it’s a grin. One that only emphasizes the sharp beauty of his features and makes you blue screen again.
“Come on, closet gremlin. I have somewhere for you to work.”
You shoot him an embarrassed scowl that does nothing but make him roll his eyes at you, and hurry to gather your things. You can feel his gaze on you while you unplug your laptop before shoving everything into your backpack, and the weight of it feels like a physical touch. When you finally stand up, your entire body is thrumming with nervous energy, and you hope he can’t see the way you’re practically vibrating out of your skin.
“Let’s go,” he says and turns to leave.
“Wait! Didn’t you need something?” you ask.
“Nope.”
He leads the way into the brightly lit hallway, and you trail behind like a lost puppy.
“So why’d you come in the closet?”
“Because I heard you talking to yourself from all the way out here.”
“I do not talk to myself.”
“You were either talking to yourself or the wall. You can decide which one is less flattering.”
You stick your tongue out at his back, but you still follow obediently as he wends his way through the seemingly endless maze of hospital corridors. You notice as you walk that he doesn’t so much as offer a nod in greeting to the various people you pass. It’s early on a Monday, barely after six, and the atmosphere is a bit more relaxed than you’ve seen it later in the day. The staff who are already here call greetings to each other, some stopping to catch up about their weekends. Your stranger, however, ignores everyone like they don’t exist. It’s only when you step onto a nearly empty elevator that he finally deigns to acknowledge someone.
“Abbot,” he says to the lone occupant of the car.
“Park.”
The other man nods to your stranger — Park, apparently — before giving you a curious look. He’s older, with silver staining his hair and five o’clock shadow, and the beginning of crows feet bracketing his eyes. He’s handsome though, very handsome, and you flush a bit when he gives you a kind smile and says good morning.
Neither man fills the quiet that follows, and the three of you ride in silence until Abbot gets off in the next floor. Two floors later, and Park is striding out of the elevator with you hurrying behind him to keep pace.
A sign on the wall tells you you’re now in the in the surgical wing. He continues past the reception desk and the charge desk, veers down a hallway labeled “orthopedics,” and then finally stops outside the third door on the left. The name plate beside it reads “Dr. Brendon Park, Orthopedic Surgery.”
“Do not touch anything,” he says once he opens the door.
Inside is a small but fastidiously neat office. The desk has nothing on it except a monitor, phone, and a pencil holder holding exactly three pens. The only decorations on the walls are his framed diplomas, and the filing cabinets lining the far wall gleam like they came straight from the factory. A muted blue accent chair and bookshelf round out the space.
“Sit,” he says, gesturing at the desk.
You shuffle into the room and gingerly perch in his high-backed office chair. From here you can see just how spotless his desk is. The smooth wooden surface is perfectly polished with not a single crumb or water ring in sight. It’s either brand new, or he’s neurotic about keeping it clean. Your money is on the latter.
“When I said don’t touch anything, I didn’t mean the desk,” he says when you just sit there staring.
Your huff of annoyance is promptly ignored. Grumbling under your breath, you set your bag on the floor and pull your laptop out of it with as much dignity as possible. Which is to say absolutely none, as your screwdriver and a rogue pencil fall out of the bag and roll across the floor. You think his eye twitches.
“Am I even allowed to be in here?” you ask while your laptop boots up.
“All the important drawers are locked. I keep the first edition books at my house. Feel free to steal the monitor though, it’s hospital property.”
You scowl.
“You don’t seem to like me very much, so why are you letting me use your office?”
He pauses, considering. He’s leaning against the bookshelf, arms crossed, and you fight the urge to squirm under his scrutiny when he spends a minute just looking at you. You also fight the urge to stare at the way his scrub sleeves are pulled tight around his biceps. Finally, he says:
“The room you said you were assigned to, I passed it before I passed your closet cave.”
You hiss of indignation.
“They were celebrating Dr. Bell’s birthday in it.”
That shocks you into silence. The person at reception had told you the room was being reassigned last minute to accommodate an important meeting. Which you guess technically wasn’t a lie, since parties were a kind of meeting in the loosest sense, but it feels like a lie. The knowledge that you got booted so someone could have space to store their cupcakes fills you with a mixture of frustration and humiliation.
As a woman in a heavily male-dominated field, you’re used to being overlooked or stepped over, but this is a new low even for you. Part of you knows that they didn’t pick you, specifically, to kick out — they likely just needed a room, and space for the unpaid grad student was considered the least essential. Still, it stings.
“Oh,” you say quietly.
Park, Dr. Park, whatever he wants to be called, nods his head briefly towards your computer.
“You’re smart, ambitious. Your project could do a lot to benefit the hospital, even if the idiots on the second floor don’t realize it yet.”
A pause.
“Let’s be clear though, this is not me being nice. When you patent that program and get rich, I expect a 20% cut.”
Whatever complicated emotions you had are momentarily shoved aside by a reluctant laugh.
“Aren’t you already rich?” you ask, gesturing widely to encompass him, the office, and whatever being a surgeon at a major hospital entails.
He shrugs.
“Yes.”
He pushes off the bookshelf then and crosses the small space to stand next to you. The sudden proximity makes your breath catch, but you quickly realize he’s not interested in you. In fact, he completely ignores you in favor of opening the top drawer of the desk and pulling out a notepad. He grabs one of his three identical pens and scribbles something down for you, a phone number you realize.
“I have rounds this morning,” he says. “Do not call me.”
He then proceeds to hand you the paper with the number you’re not supposed to call before putting everything away.
“Do not touch anything, do not move anything, do not-”
“What, breathe on anything?”
Just like earlier, your snappy comment seems to entertain him greatly. He actually huffs a ghost of a laugh. Then slowly, so slowly you know he’s giving you time to move if you want to, he spins the office chair until you’re facing him. He leans even further towards you, placing his hands on either armrest so you’re trapped between him and the back of the chair.
If you thought your brain had malfunctioned in the closet, it has now officially combusted. His eyes are somehow bluer up close, he smells like a devastating mix of bergamot and vetiver, and the velvet darkness of his voice feels like a physical caress. Arousal hits you hot and fast, and you can’t help the way your thighs press together instinctively. He notes the motion with a slow, lazy smile, and you’re pretty sure you stop breathing.
“You,” he drawls. “Are awfully mouthy for someone who’s receiving a favor.”
You do your best to ignore the heat licking through your veins and glower back.
“You are awfully rude for someone whose job is supposed to be helping people.”
His gaze drops to your mouth.
“I think you like me rude,” he murmurs.
Time feels suspended for a second.
He’s brusque, supercilious. He’s kind of an asshole. But he listened to you ramble about your machine learning model and actually seemed interested. He gave you a place to work. Your brain is too overwhelmed by his proximity to sift through the dichotomy, and your body is too turned on to care. For one fleeting second, you think he might kiss you. You think you might let him.
Then the moment is shattered by the sound of his pager going off. He stays in place for one more tense breath, caging you in place, before straightening and taking a step back. The heated intensity immediately vanishes from his face, and the same perfect coldness from when you first met him takes its place. You, on the other hand, can do nothing but stare at him with uneven breathing, wet panties, and cotton candy for brains.
“I’ll be back after rounds,” he says, either unaware of your inability to function or choosing to ignore it. “I doubt anyone will bother you, but if they do, tell them Park said to fuck off.”
That startles a laugh out of you. His face doesn’t change, but you think the sound pleases him. He heads to the door, grabs his stethoscope from the hook next to it, and pauses just before stepping out. He looks back at you. You’re searching for something to say to him, maybe thank you, when be beats you to it.
“Bye, closet gremlin,” he smirks, then leaves before you can respond.
You stare after him for a moment, blinking slowly.
Then you knock over his cup of pens and settle in to work.
