Summary: Frank Langdon who's sober anniversary is December 30th x reader who's birthday is December 31st. Planning surprise parties for, each other! Chaos and fluff ensues.
CW: Mentions of addiction and rehab. Probably medical and recovery inaccuracies (?) Mostly fluff for fun, also AU where everyone in the pitt are BFFs and they all love each other xxx
A/N: It's been a minute but I think this is really fun. This is the most self indulgent thing I have ever written because MY birthday IS december 31st, but we can all pretend, right? Hope you enjoy!!!
Word Count: 5.5k
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
Frank Langdon’s sobriety anniversary was December 30th, which just so happened to be the day before your birthday. New Year’s Eve, you thought, was a fun birthday. You always turned celebrating the New Year into a fun party with your friends, and Frank made sure you were always celebrated.
This year was a little different.
This year, your birthday was the least of your worries. You were another year older, so what? What you were focused on was your husband's one year sober. You wanted to celebrate him in the same way he always makes sure you’re celebrated.
The Holidays were always a hectic time in The Pitt, but when wasn’t the ED packed to the brim with chaos? You knew planning a New Years/One Year of Sobriety Celebration with the staff of the Pitt was already going to be difficult. Keeping it a secret from Frank? That was going to complicate things by tenfold. But, you might as well try.
You were charting after your shift, per usual these days. Sitting at the computer, typing away next to Mel, Dennis, and Samira.
“Do you guys have any New Year's plans?” You ask, testing the waters before anything was set in stone. Also looking around, ensuring your husband was still in Trauma Two.
“Not that I can think of, isn’t that your birthday?” Samira asks, ever the attentive one.
“You don’t really seem like a Capricorn to me.” Dennis adds, you roll your eyes.
“Your astrology knowledge these days is starting to scare me,” You say pointedly towards Whittaker, who shrugs in response. “Yes, that is my birthday. But, I was thinking about doing something for Frank this year.” You say, watching Mel perk up a bit more at the mention of him, you definitely had her attention now.
“His one year sober is around that time, so I thought I might do a surprise party slash New Year’s thing. Thoughts?” You ask with raised brows, looking around at the three of them.
“I don’t have anything going on, might be fun.” Samira says with a small smile before standing up and walking away.
“Yeah, agreed, but I doubt Trinity will want to go.” Whittaker says and you exhale, knowing he definitely was right.
“That’s fine, I get it, Mel?” You say, getting Mel’s attention back to you.
“Oh! Yeah, Becca is doing something with her boyfriend I think, so, I can probably do something.” She says with a sweet smile. You nod and smile to yourself, this might actually work.
What you don’t realize is Frank had pretty much the same idea.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
“Hey, Dana.” Frank says, the day after you started planning his surprise party, looking around to ensure you were with a patient.
“What’s goin’ on, sweetheart?” Dana asks with raised brows, looking at him over her glasses.
“Do you think everyone already has New Year’s plans?” He asks, his voice a little hushed. Dana cocks her head to the side a bit.
“Maybe not, why? Isn’t that your girl's birthday?” Dana says with raised brows. Frank huffs out a small laugh and nods.
“Yeah, we usually plan something together, but she told me she didn’t want to do much for her birthday this year? So I thought I’d do like a surprise thing for her.” He concludes, and Princess and Perlah are already giving each other looks.
“Don’t say anything, you two.” Dana says with a pointed look, “Have either of you never heard the word surprise?” She says with raised brows. They both scatter off to respective patients.
“I can help you plan it if you want, kid.” Dana says, turning back to Frank with a small nod and smile. They both look over to see you coming out of Central Seven, you smile and wave sweetly. Frank knows immediately he needs to do something good for you, God knows you deserve it.
“Yeah, thanks Dana.” Frank says with a small smile before walking off to check on his patients.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
You and Frank were so similar and perfect for each other it hurt. At least that’s what Dana thought to herself when you walked up to her not even an hour after Frank had talked to her.
“Hi, Dana.” You say with that signature sweet smile of yours. You look around, making sure Frank was still with his patient.
“Hey sweetheart, what can I do for ya?” Dana asks, giving you her full attention, or at least most of it.
“I was wondering if you could help me with something?” You say, resting your chin in your hand, she awaits your next words with raised brows.
“I was thinking maybe you could help me plan a New Years thing with everyone.” You say, Dana has to stifle any smile she has.
“Ok, sure. Why me and not your husband?” She asks, digging for any answers and knowledge you might have.
“Oh, it’s for him!” You say, your voice an excited whisper as your smile grows wider, “His one year sober is the day before New Year’s Eve, he has really put in so much hard work and I wanted to kind of surprise him with a party with the staff and some of his friends. I told him I didn’t want to do anything for my birthday, so it’ll be a complete surprise.” You add, Dana rubs at her brow, suddenly conflicted.
“Surprise parties, for each other?” Perlah says in Tagalog to Princess, so you don’t understand a word.
“Shut it, you two!” Dana shouts without even looking at them.
“Sure thing, Hon.” Dana says eventually, resigning herself to figuring out the details later.
“Yay, thank you!” You say excitedly before leaving, going to find another case.
“What am I gonna do with those two kids, huh?” Dana asks, turning around to Princess and Perlah, who both shrug.
“How’re you gonna help them plan both of them?” Perlah asks, her brows furrowing slightly.
“You’ll have to tell one of them.” Princess adds, Dana waves them both off.
“I will figure it out, don’t you both have patients?” Dana asks, putting her glasses back on. Princess and Perlah both scurry to their respective patients while Dana rubs at her brow, suddenly craving a cigarette. Only you two would plan surprise parties for the other, she had to figure something out, fast. New Year’s was just around the corner.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
On the couch with Frank after both of your grueling shifts, you knew you had to do some digging. Find out who he wanted and didn’t want at this party, to try to make it as perfect as possible for him.
He had the exact same intentions.
“You haven’t hung out with your friends in awhile.” You murmur out, cuddled into his side while Wheel of Fortune plays in the background. A rerun, because you both never got home in time to watch it when it airs.
“I was thinking the same thing about you, actually.” Frank says, kissing the top of your head.
“We’re very busy people, if you haven't noticed.” You say with a smile and raised brows, he huffs out a small laugh in agreement.
“Yeah, but you still are close with your friends right? Grace, Lillian, Josephine?” He says, saying their names just to prove to himself he knows them. You laugh a little as he names them off.
“Yes, you know I still talk to them, like every single day.” You confirm with a smile and nod. He knew this of course, and he confirmed now as he mentally added them to the invite list.
“And what about you, Josh, Ben, Eugene?” You ask, mirroring his cadence and tone, proving how well you know him and his med school buddies.
“Yes, not every day like you and your friends,” He says, poking your side a bit as he talks, eliciting a laugh and elbow nudge from you, “but I talk to them quite a bit.” He confirms, and you unknowingly do the same as him, adding them to your mental list of people to invite.
“Well, I'm glad you have people to talk to.” You say, repositioning yourself so you can kiss his cheek, making him laugh, and though he’d never admit it, blush.
“Yeah, me too, and I’m glad you have friends, outside of work, of course.” He adds, you both knew you were inviting your coworkers, that was just a given.
“Well I’m very glad we had this talk.” You say, your smile widening, Frank’s widens in turn as well.
“Yeah, me too.” He says with raised brows, “Jeopardy’s almost on.” He says, pointing at the TV.
“And we can’t miss Jeopardy!” You say, half sarcastically, but you were both nerdy as hell, and loved it. Burrowing yourself back into his side, you can’t think of a better person to be planning a surprise party for.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
You were two weeks out now from the surprise party. You had a guest list, food (just some small appetizers), drinks (non alcoholic and alcoholic alike), venue (your and Frank’s house). Everything was perfect, you just needed to send out invites. And, somehow find a way to get Frank out of the house on your birthday. That was going to be the hardest task of all.
“Dana!” You say with a smile, leaning against the counter of the nurses station. Enjoying the slowness the morning had brought before the rush came in.
“What can I do for ya, sweetheart?” Dana asks, giving you a smile in return. You hush your voice a little, despite knowing Frank was in the ambulance bay awaiting an incoming trauma.
“Everything is pretty much set for this New Year’s thing I’m doing, except getting Frank out of the house. Any ideas?” You ask with raised brows, also looking at Princess and Perlah for help.
“How long d’you need him out for?” She asks, looking at you over her glasses.
“I can work with maybe 30 minutes?” You say, already calculating everything in her head, you watch as Dana does the same.
“I’ll think of something and let you know, how about that, sweetheart. South 14 has probable double ear infection.” She says, handing you a tablet. You roll your eyes a bit at the transition, but work comes first, you suppose.
“Thanks, Dana.” You say with a smile, walking off, just as Frank shows up at the nurses station.
“Dana, I need your help.” Frank says, licking his lips as he waits for her to respond. Dana rolls her eyes, throwing her hands up in the air.
“You two kids are driving me nuts, y’know that?” She asks, tilting her head as she looks at him. He gives her a confused look, but continues.
“I have got basically everything set for the party on New Year’s, but” He stalls for a moment as he watches you exit South 14, his shoulders drop in relief as you start talking to Samira, out of earshot.
“You don’t know how to get her out of the house?” Dana finishes his sentence for him, he looks at her, seemingly in shock that she knew what he was gonna say.
“Yeah, um, how did you know that?” He asks, his brows slightly furrowed. Dana laughs a little bit, shaking her head.
“What can I say, I just know, kid.” She says, still laughing a bit. Frank can’t argue with that, “I will think of something and let you know.” She says, patting his forearm before shooing him off to another patient. Dana turns around to Princess and Perlah, wiping fake sweat from her brow.
“Those fuckin’ kids I’m tellin’ ya. What am I supposed to do with ‘em?” She asks, putting her hands on her hips.
“You could, get them out of the house together, say you’ll set everything up. Joint surprise party, everyone’s happy.” Princess suggests, shrugging her shoulders. Dana points her glasses at her.
“Y’know that just might work.” Dana says, putting her glasses back on, “I’ll work out the logistics, tell everyone here to keep it all a secret, I’ve got this.” She says almost smugly with a nod, going back to her usual work day.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
Later that night, you and Frank were finally off shift, walking to your car.
“Y’know what’s in two weeks?’ You ask with raised brows, Frank looks over at you, intertwining your hand in his.
“Are we talking about December 30th, or December 31st?” He asks with raised brows, you smile a bit.
“December 30th, pretty big day, huh?” You ask, he smiles and shakes his head.
“Yeah, pretty exciting. One whole year.” He says, nodding slowly, thinking that over.
“I am so proud of you, y’know that?” You ask, he smiles and looks down at the ground.
“Yeah, me too.” He breathes out, his tone a bit quieter, you squeeze his hand gently.
“Do you have anything in mind, to celebrate or something?” You ask, testing the waters slightly. He thinks it over for a second before replying.
“We have to work that day, don’t we?” He asks, you smile and nod.
“Yes, but in general. Like we could go out to dinner that night, order in, watch a movie. Whatever you want to do.” You say, despite planning the party, you still wanted to make the day of feel pretty special too.
“I’ll think about it.” He says with a smile, squeezing your hand affectionately.
“Are you sure you don’t want to do anything much for your birthday?” He asks, also testing the waters.
“No, I’m good with something small, just us.” You say with a nod, he furrows his brows at you.
“Are you positive?” He asks, when you nod in response, he cocks his head to the side, studying you a bit further, “Is this about my one year of sobriety being the day before?” He asks, he knows his answer when you smile sheepishly and look down at the ground.
“Oh c’mon, it’s your birthday!” He exclaims, pushing your shoulder playfully. You laugh and shake your head, looking back up at him.
“It just doesn't feel as important this year, I’m another year older.” You say, rolling your eyes a little, “I’d rather do something for you, I mean, one year is an amazing achievement, Frank.” You say and his heart swells for you even more than it already had, which is something he didn’t even think possible.
“And it’s your journey too, y’know.” He says, opening the passenger side door for you, rounding to the driver's seat.
“Where would I be without you?” He asks, you flush, never having thought of it like that before. He reaches his hand over the center console and rests it on your thigh.
“We still don’t need a big thing, though, not for me at least.” You counter with a small smile. Frank doesn’t respond, and neither of you have a clue what the other was doing.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
A few days later, invites were ready. You had worked hard on beautiful invites, even buying Canva Pro for a month for the most perfect template. Frank's invites got the job done. They weren’t cute like yours, but for him? Not Canva Pro level, but not bad.
Now both of you just had to send them out. And Dana had to make sure to keep everyone in line, and keep everyone from not saying anything.
“Robby!” Dana yells across the ED as he walks in, he furrows his brows at her.
“What has got you riled up this morning?” He asks, leaning against the Nurse’s Station.
“Are our party planners here yet?” She asks with raised brows, Robby shakes his head. Of course, Dana had kept him in the loop about her predicament.
“I do not think so, why?” He asks, both of them searching for you and Frank.
“Well, they're both sending out their invites soon.” She starts, rubbing at her temple, “I made sure they both made the party start at the same time so I can combine them no sweat. But, I need you to tell the rest of the crew to zip it when they receive two separate invites, ‘kay?” She says, giving him that look. He nods immediately.
“I will round everyone up before they get here.” Robby says, giving Dana two thumbs up before calling over the day shift crew that had already arrived. Dana would handle the stragglers personally later.
“Listen up, all of you.” Dana says, pointing at each and every one of them, “You might have heard word about New Year’s parties, both at the Langdon’s house. They are both, stupidly, planning surprise parties for each other. So if you receive two invites to the same party, zip your mouth, alright?” Dana says with raised brows and threatening eyes. Emma raises her hand.
“How have they not figured out they’re planning surprise parties for each other?” She asks, everyone murmurs to each other, seemingly agreeing with this sentiment.
“Because they’re clueless and stupidly in love with each other, and I’m damn good at keeping secrets. Now scram, before they get here.” Dana says, shooing them all off. You and Frank walk in right then.
“Did we miss something?” You ask, taking one last sip of your energy drink before tossing it in the trashcan.
“Nah, nothing important.” She says, waving off your concern. You looked at Frank and shrugged your shoulders a bit. You give her a bit of a look, but don’t say anything. You just grab a tablet and start your day.
You catch Dana later when you know Frank is taking a breather in the break room.
“You sure earlier was nothing?” You ask, keeping your voice hushed, just in case.
“Yes, sweetheart. I was asking for volunteers if anyone was free to help me set up for your party. Didn’t want to say that in front of the husband, now would I?” She asks, and you smile with a nod.
“Right, well thank you. You really didn’t have to volunteer to set everything up, y’know.” You say, she smiles and gives you a half hug.
“It’s the least I can do, besides, Princess and Perlah are happy to help me.” She says, they both look up at each other, instantly chattering in Tagalog. You laugh and shake your head before replying.
“I mean, it does work out perfectly. Frank and I are gonna have a whole day just us, I don’t have to worry about getting him out of the house without me. Seriously Dana, you are a lifesaver.” She shrugs and gives you a smile.
“Anything for you two, you are quite the pair, you know that?” She asks, you flush just slightly.
“I guess we are.” You say before walking off again.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
“Dana!” Frank says, nearly crashing into the Nurse’s Station. Dana rolls her eyes, this feels eerily similar to the conversation she just had with you.
“Yes, Dr. Langdon.” She says with raised brows, trying to keep her composure.
“I have sent out invites, I just wanted to make sure that everything is set on your end.” He says, and Dana was actually pretty proud of him. This was the most organized and prepared she’d ever seen him, outside of work of course.
“Yes, Langdon, I have got it all handled.” She says, putting her hands on his shoulders and patting them before eputting her hands on her hips. Frank breathes a sigh of relief.
“Ok, yeah thank you. Just wanted to double check.” Frank says, giving her a thumbs up before heading back off into the depths of the Pitt.
“It’s kind of scary, how they keep having the same conversations with you.” Princess says, Perah nods her head in agreement.
“Tell me about it, it’s fucking creepy.” Dana says, rubbing her temple, “It’s like they’re the same person.”
“Kinda cute though.” Perlah says with a shrug, which both of the other women agree to.
“Yeah, they’re like, couple goals, or whatever the kids say these days.” Dana says with a small laugh. Javadi, who had been walking by, caught that last sentence.
“Never say that ever again.” Javadi says, mouth open in shock, and probably disgust, before walking off again. She shakes her head, probably trying to get that out of her mind. The three nurses explode in laughter.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
December 30, 2026
Frank had made it, officially one year sober. You woke up way, way earlier than you usually did. Went to the gas station closest to your house, got his favorite RedBull, and made his favorite breakfast. All before your 12 hour shift that day. You let him sleep in until the latest possible moment, and also had to refrain from literally jumping on him in excitement when he did wake up.
“Hi.” You say excitedly with a wide smile, cuddling into him the second his eyelids started to flutter.
“You’ve been awake for awhile.” He says, his voice rough with sleep as he sits up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
“Well I had to make your morning perfect.” You say, sitting criss cross on the bed next to him.
“No you didn’t, honey.” He says, giving you a good morning kiss before getting out of bed.
“There’s eggs and pancakes in the kitchen.” You say as he starts to get dressed. He turns to you and gives you a smile. Jumping back onto the bed to kiss you again.
“You’re gonna be so tired tonight.” He mumbles out against your lips. You laugh a little and shake your head.
“I’ll be fine. Happy one year sober, baby.” You say with a soft smile, and he absolutely melts against you.
“You didn’t have to do all this.” He says with a smile, and you shake your head.
“Yes I did. The hardest part is over, that is so exciting.” You exclaim, and God, he wishes he had woken up earlier.
“Your eggs are getting cold.” You say with raised brows. He laughs and gets up, finishes getting dressed, and drags you into the kitchen with him. There was also a letter in the kitchen you had written for him. It was so beautiful and exactly what he needed to hear. He didn’t expect to start off the morning before work crying, and neither did you, but neither of you were mad about it.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
The work day was fine, just fine. It seemed to drag on, especially since you and Frank had both somehow scored New Year’s Eve off. The rest of the day shift had to work until the party, and you were not envious, at all.
Robby had promised you that he would let you and Frank off right when you finished your charts tonight. No power outages or mass casualties, you were good to go right at 6:30, something that seemed to seldom happen in this place. When it did, you seized the opportunity.
You stood at the Nurse’s Station, waiting for Frank to finish getting ready to leave, chatting with everyone as you do.
“You sure you have everything ready?” You ask Dana with raised brows and a pointed look.
“Yes sweetheart, Princess, Perlah and I are gonna get there at 6:30, set up, party starts at 8. I’ve got this.” She says confidently. You laugh and shrug on your coat as Frank approaches.
“Happy Birthday, kid.” Robby says, clapping your back, you give him a wide smile and thank you.
“Yeah, happy birthday, see you next year.” Abbott chimes in, you roll your eyes.
“Like I’ve never heard that one before.” You tease, intertwining your hand with Frank’s and waving bye to everyone. Dana gives you a wink, and you are finally free of the Pitt until 2027.
“So, what is on the agenda tonight?” You ask Frank, looking up at him with raised brows. He had his last NA meeting of the year yesterday, and you had made cupcakes for his group to celebrate. He came back with raving reviews. That meant that tonight, you guys got to do whatever you wanted.
“Honestly?” He starts, lickig his lips before he continues, “I’m fine to just watch Jeopardy and make dinner at home.” He says, you both were exhausted, and that sounded perfect.
“Yeah, we can stop at the store on our way home, get stuff for whatever you want.” You say, squeezing his hand, he smiles down at you so warmly you cna hardly handle it.
“Put on some music, cook together, sounds fun.” He says with a sure nod. You smile and run ahead of him to the car, opening his door for him. Which makes him furrow his brows, and cock his head to the side.
“C’mon, let me be chivalrous for once, it’s your day.” You say with raised brows, he just laughs and shakes his head, getting in the car.
“You better let me be chivalrous as hell tomorrow then, birthday girl.” He says, poking your arm as you get in the passenger side. You laugh and roll your eyes.
“Fine, I will.” He gives you a proud look and a thumbs up.
“I know you said you didn’t want to make a big deal out of your birthday, but we do have a reservation at Altius tomorrow.” He says with raised brows and a sly smirk. Your jaw drops.
“That is perfect, Frank!” You exclaim, leaning forward in your seat, “what time?” You ask, hoping it doesn’t push into the party at 8.
“6:30” He says with a nod, you had no idea he was planning the exact same way you were, “Then I was thinking maybe a small walk around the park, since it’s all lit up.” He almost adds ‘if we have time’, but catches himself before he lets the cat out of the bag.
“You are amazing, did you know that?” You ask, he blushes a little bit.
“I’m pretty sure that’s you.” He says, making it your turn to blush.
Tomorrow was going to be perfect, and you could hardly wait.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
December 31st, 2026. New Year’s Eve.
Today, it was Frank’s turn to spoil you. You had told him no gifts, Christmas was just six days before and you had everything you needed. He absolutely was not going to listen to that.
He lets you sleep in as late as you want, God knows you both need it. Although sleeping in for you looked like 8:30 still, you both were used to getting up too early for any actual rest. He greets you with kisses and the house smelling like butter and bacon.
“I attempted eggs benedict.” He says, your favorite, setting the tray on the bed, helping you sit up, “But, eggs are very hard to poach.” he says and you laugh, appreciating any attempt, giving him a few bites as well. It was pretty solid, for a first attempt.
He lets you have a slow morning, gifting you a book that you’ve been wanting for awhile that you get to read on the couch for as long as you want. He cleans up, the house looking immaculate, you didn’t have to do anything for the party tonight (which unbeknownst to you was also his motive).
After the house is spotless (which you offered to help, he was almost offended that you would do such a thing), he plops down on the couch next to you, putting his arm around your shoulders.
“I’m giving you an option.” He starts, you look at him with a smile and raised brows, awaiting whatever he was going to propose to you, “we could stay here and watch a movie of your choice, or we could go see Avengers: Doomsday again.” Before he even finishes his sentence you were off the couch, jumping to the bathroom to go get ready. He stands in the doorway, watching you try out the new makeup he had gotten you. You were going straight from the movie to dinner, so you were going to show up pretty much in full glam. With a Marvel sweatshirt on over your dress, of course.
He had planned everything down to a T. You were honestly pretty impressed, even though he did this every birthday, he never failed to make you feel special. You were honestly starting to feel guilty, had you done enough for his sober anniversary? Did you show your appreciation enough? He caught on almost immediately in the park after dinner.
“You have done everything for me and more this past year. I have needed so much from you, and you have given it to me. Let me have today to try and repay some of it, ok?” He says with raised brows, before you can even reply he kisses you deeply. So deep it makes your knees fold and you fall into him, making him fall into the snow. You both laugh until Frank was sure his ass was going to freeze off. Helping him up and wiping all the snow off of him, you finally head home. You were both silent on the ride home, music playing softly on the radio. You were both antsy about the party now, worried about each others reactions, totally clueless the other was planning the exact same thing.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
You rolled up to the house and Frank parks in the garage, you didn’t take his hand on the walk in because your palms were insanely sweaty. You were terribly nervous, but also very excited to celebrate him with all of his and your friends.
You both take a deep breath and Frank opens the door.
“Surprise!” Everyone yells out, but you’re just looking at Frank, waiting for his reaction. When you realize, he’s doing the exact same thing, and neither of you are acting surprised. You both synonymously furrow your brows at each other.
You were about to say something to him when Josephine, Grace and Lillian from med school, all tackle you in a hug.
“Happy Birthday!” They all yell out, you open your mouth in shock, laughing and falling to the floor with them.
“What is going on?” You ask, laughing. Frank’s med school friends took the queue to do the same, but less dramatically, greeting him, congratulating him on one year sober. That’s when it dawns on you both. You scramble up from the floor, a shocked, joyful expression on both of your faces.
“Frank Langdon, did you plan a surprise party for me?” You ask, he smiles and nods.
“Did you plan a surprise party for me?” He asks, you fall into him laughing.
“Finally, I’ve been waiting for you two to finally take the hint.” Dana says, coming up to the two of you, a wine glass already in hand. You let out a small gasp and start laughing again.
“But, how is that even possible?” You ask, Frank just shakes his head, rubbing at his brow.
“Me, that’s how.” Dana says, taking a big swig of wine. Everyone else was gladly watching this unfold, they’d all been waiting weeks for this moment after all.
“Well thank you, Dana.” You say, hugging her tightly. Frank thanks her too, she hugs him so tight you think he might have stopped breathing.
“Ok surprise has been revealed, can we please drink now?” Santos asks with raised brows. You laugh and nod.
“Yes, please, everyone enjoy themselves, Happy New Year!” You exclaim, and with that, the party you had both planned so hard for is underway.
You were dancing with Frank later on, about an hour till midnight. Your head on his chest, focusing on his heartbeat.
“Have you had a good birthday?” He asks after a moment, whispering into your ear. You look up at him with a bright smile.
“I have had the best birthday, did you have a good soberversary?” You ask, fixing his hair for him.
“The best.” He confirms with a smile, you feel your cheeks go warm, “And this is why you didn’t want to do anything for your birthday? Cause you were planning this?” He asks, you smile and nod.
“Yeah, now we get the best of both worlds, huh?” You ask, and he laughs and nods in agreement.
“We should do this every year,” He suggests, you agree immediately.
“Yeah, but we can do everything together now, save Dana the stress.” You say with a smile, you and Frank both laugh at this.
You received birthday gifts from your friends and coworkers, two cakes, one reading Happy Birthday for you, one reading Happy One Year Sober, for Frank, and all of your loved ones under one roof. It was everything you wanted and more.
While everyone talked about New Year’s Resolutions and played games, you knew you had the best husband ever, and Frank knew he had the greatest wife in the world.
That year, your New Year’s kiss was just that much more special.
˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗
A/N: Hope you all enjoyed this self indulgence mess. If anyone has any ideas or recs for future fics, lmk. pls.
summary: pre-relationship tension, small gestures, cute & simple
pairing: Frank Langdon x Reader
warning: none
word count: ~ 900
note: round three guys, just a short story this time. But I thought it’s a cute and fitting idea for now. Anyways I hope you guys enjoy it. PS: Is it only me or are you also obsessed with those protein bars from KoRo right now? Let me know guys!
Another loud day in the ER as usual.
The constant beeping of monitors mixed with hurried footsteps and distant voices calling for doctors. Stretchers rolled through the hallways, phones rang from every direction and somewhere a patient was complaining about the waiting time.
It was chaos.
Organized chaos.
But chaos nonetheless.
You barely noticed it anymore.
After enough shifts, the noise simply becomes part of the background. Like white noise. Something your brain learned to ignore while moving from room to room, checking charts, handling out medication, answering questions and somehow managing to drink half a cup of cold coffee somewhere between.
Today wasn’t any different.
The shift had been relentless for the start.
By early afternoon your feet already hurt and your shoulders felt sore from carrying tension all day. The break you were technically supposed to have never happened, and the lunch sitting in your locker had long been forgotten.
Instead, you found yourself sitting at the nurses station for the first time in hours.
Just five minutes.
Five quiet minutes.
That was all you wanted.
You leaned back in your chair while finishing charting on the computer, eyes scanning the screen as the department moved around you.
For a moment, things felt calm.
At least until a familiar voice appeared beside you.
“Tired?”
You didn’t need to look up to know who it was.
Frank.
Still, your eyes found him immediately.
Standing beside the desk with his hands tucked into the pockets of his scrubs, dark hair slightly messy from running his hands through it all day.
He looked tired too.
The kind of tired that settled behind his eyes after a long shift.
Yet somehow, he still looked annoyingly good.
You hated that.
“A little,” you admitted.
“A little?”
His eyebrow lifted.
“You almost fell asleep during rounds.”
“I blinked.”
“You closed your eyes for twenty seconds.”
You rolled your eyes.
Frank’s mouth twitched slightly.
The smallest smile.
The kind most people probably wouldn’t notice.
You did.
Always.
It had become a habit over the months.
Noticing him.
The way he rubbed his neck when he was stressed.
The way his voice softened around scared patients.
The way he always grabbed the extra paperwork nobody else wanted.
Little things.
The kind that stayed with you.
You were about to return to your charting when something landed softly on the desk in front of you.
Then another.
And another.
Your brows furrowed.
Three protein bars.
Different flavors.
You stared at them.
Then slowly looked up.
Frank suddenly seemed very interested in the hallway behind you.
“What is this?”
“Protein bars.”
“I can see that.”
A quiet silence followed.
One second.
Two.
Then Frank finally looked back at you.
“I saw you eating those.”
Your eyes dropped back toward the bars.
KoRo.
Your favorite brand.
Chocolate brownie.
Cookie dough.
Hazelnut.
A warmth settled somewhere deep inside your chest.
“You bought these?”
“It wasn’t a big deal.”
The immediate answer told you it absolutely was.
You smiled softly.
“Frank.”
“What?”
“You bought me protein bars.”
His jaw shifted slightly.
Almost embarrassed.
Which felt impossible considering this was Frank Langdon.
“I didn’t know which flavor you liked.”
The words came out quieter this time.
“I knew it was always the same brand, but every time I saw you eating one, the wrapper was different.”
You stared at him.
Not because of the protein bars.
Not really.
Because he noticed.
Among everything happening every day.
The endless patients.
The emergencies.
The exhaustion.
He noticed.
He noticed what snacks you ate.
Which brand you preferred.
How often you skipped lunch.
A thousand tiny observations you never realized he was making.
Your heart squeezed.
“That’s why there are three?”
Frank shrugged.
“You can tell me which one’s your favorite.”
The smile tugging at your lips became impossible to hide.
The gesture itself was small.
Objectively.
Three protein bars.
Nothing life changing.
Nothing dramatic.
But somehow it felt bigger than that.
Because affection wasn’t always grand gestures.
Sometimes it was remembering someone’s coffee order.
Saving them the last seat in a meeting.
Bringing them their favorite snack because you noticed they forgot to eat.
Little things.
The soft kind.
The kind that slipped into your heart before you even realized it.
You picked up the cookie dough bar.
“This one.”
Frank glanced at it.
Then nodded once.
As if he was mentally filing that information away for later.
Your stomach flipped.
“You know,” you said quietly, “you could’ve just asked.”
His eyes met yours.
For a second, the noise around you seemed to fade.
The tension was familiar by now.
Never uncomfortable.
Never overwhelming.
Just there.
Lingering beneath every conversation.
Every glance.
Every smile.
“I know,” he said softly.
His gaze stayed on yours for a moment longer.
Then a patient called for a doctor down the hall.
Reality returned immediately.
Frank stepped back with a sigh.
“Guess that’s my cue.”
You smiled.
“Guess so.”
He nodded toward the protein bars.
“Eat something.”
The concern sounded casual.
But not casual enough.
Your chest warmed again.
“Yes, doctor.”
A laugh escaped him.
Low and genuine.
The kind that always made your own smile appear without permission.
Then he started walking away.
Back toward the noise.
Back toward the chaos.
But before disappearing around the corner, he glanced back once.
Just once.
And somehow that tiny moment stayed with you far longer than the protein bars ever would.
Because sometimes feelings didn’t begin with grand confessions.
A/N: YAYYY first fic in so long!!! I am so excited about this one I hope you guys enjoy it, it has been my baby for weeks now.
travel nurse!reader x frank langdon
Summary: travel nurse!reader comes to PTMC for only one week, and everything she thought she knew gets flipped on its head.
CW: talks of addiction, rehab, some violence and death descriptions. lots of fluff, yearning, and some angst thrown in there too. Frank is divorced in this but never had kids (for convenience of the writer). And most definitely medical inaccuracies galore. Enjoy!
Inspired by the Queen song of the same name!!!
Word Count: 15.1k (damn)
In Only Seven Days
✿ . ˚ . ˚ ✿
Sunday
As a travel nurse, you tended to bounce around a lot. Going from one hospital to another, spending a few months there, packing up and leaving. This has been your life for the past two years or so. The pay was great, you’ve seen a lot of the country this way, and you weren’t quite ready to settle down just yet. You knew you would find your place eventually, but no where you went seemed very, you. That is, until you spend a week in Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center’s ER, “The Pitt” as they referred to it. You were in between contracts at the moment and your company asked if you’d be willing to work at PTMC for just one week, they apparently were in desperate need of help. They offered a small bonus and paid hotel, so of course you said yes.
The day before your first shift in The Pitt, you got settled into your hotel room, your new home for the next eight nights, awaiting the sure to be grueling week before you. You hadn’t seen much of Pittsburgh yet, but were excited to learn from your new temporary coworkers the best spots to explore on your, singular, day off. You washed your face as you got ready to get into the bed for the night, anxiously anticipating whatever was in store for you. You always do a little research on each hospital you go to before you spend your time there, and, according to your research, PTMC was interesting, to say the least. The Pitt was one of the best ERs in the country, you read news stories from local Pittsburgh news about how they handled the Pittfest shooting last year, you were honestly impressed. But from what Google was telling you, this place never seemed to catch a break. You get under the covers of the hotel bed, taking a breath and staring at the ceiling, mentally preparing yourself for whatever this next week has in store for you. You didn’t know it yet, but the week you were about to spend in The Pitt, was going to change everything.
✿ . ˚ . ˚ ✿
Monday
You take a deep breath as you walk up to the nurses station in The Pitt. You were looking for the charge nurse, Dana, as the man who administered your temporary ID told you. You approach with a smile, reading every badge, waiting for one of them to read “Charge Nurse”. She finds you eventually, greeting you with a smile, seeing the semi lost look in your eyes. Something that was always there for the first day or so at a new placement.
“Hi sweetheart, you must be our new nurse for the week” She says, patting your shoulder as you give her your name.
“Yep, it’s great to meet you, I’ve heard quite a bit about this place.” You say with a smile, looking around at all the hustle and bustle around you.
“Well quite a bit goes on here, you ever travel to a level one trauma center before?” She asks, listening to you while also being attentive to the ER around her.
“Yeah a few times, this one almost seems busier though.” You note with raised brows and a nod, trying not to get overwhelmed with the seemingly constant chaos.
“It’s cause it is,” she says, giving you another pat on the shoulder, “you’ll get used to it, don’t be afraid to ask questions and ask for help if you need it, sweetheart.” She says with a final nod, walking away, leaving you standing in the midst of the chaos. You take what you think will be your last second of peace for the next upcoming days before you hear another voice coming from behind you.
“This our new placement for the week?” A man asks, you turn to face him, his ID badge reading “Michael Robinivitch”, you also note he’s the attending, you give him a polite smile and nod, he starts speaking again before you can say anything.
“Try your best to find your place, step in where you can, we really appreciate the help.” He says before he’s also pulled away. You nod, forcing your shoulders to relax as you get to work.
You’re pulled into the chaos quickly, and you find that even though you’ve never worked somewhere as fast paced as this, you seemed to fit in quite well. An hour or two in and you already seemed to mesh well with your coworkers, you liked all the doctors and nurses. You were always eager to meet new people and learn from them, but you had a firm boundary that you never got too close with people at these jobs. Especially if you weren’t there for long, like here. It just made things too complicated too quickly, it was easier to just have a clean break. Sure, it made things kind of lonely, and you were starting to lose contact with your friends from home, but it was easier this way, or so you told yourself.
You finally get a moment of respite, charting at the nurses station and taking a breather from the chaos when you feel a rustle next to you, air moving against your skin, fabric quickly brushing against your arm. You look next to you to find one of the residents leaning against the counter, he’s tall with dark hair and light eyes. You think his name is Dr. Langdon, you’d worked a small case with him an hour or so before. He was nice, from the few moments you’d known him. You couldn’t quite get a good reading on him yet. He was a strong presence in a room, yet somehow having a quiet, commanding demeanor to him. The way he spoke to his patients was very kind and impressive, you had noted earlier. You give him a smile as he looks over at you, he returns it with a smile and nod of his own.
“You’re a travel nurse?” He asks, his eyes flickering down to your ID badge, reading your name and position.
“Yeah, just here for the week.” You respond, he nods again, licking his lips before speaking.
“Just the week? Short stint, you working every single one of those days?” He asks, his brows furrowing a bit. You shake your head in response.
“I get Wednesday off, then I’m going back home for a bit on Sunday before my next contract starts.” You explain, he grimaces a little at the thought of having to work so many hours.
“Where’s back home for you?” He asks, sipping from his energy drink.
“Wisconsin” You say, rolling your eyes a bit, “I haven’t explored much of the East Coast yet, and I’m honestly a little sick of the Midwest.” You say with a smile, he smiles and nods back.
“You should talk to Whitaker about that,” he says, pointing him out, “he’s our Midwestern farm boy.” He says and you laugh a little, shaking your head.
“Glad someone else knows the pain.” You joke and he laughs a little.
“Well I’ll see you around this week then, if you need anything don’t be afraid to ask, Dana is great.” He says, you look over at her, she’s very commanding, but you can already tell she’s one of the best people you’ll probably ever meet.
“Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.” You say with a smile, looking him in the eyes, almost finding it intimidating, how blue his eyes are.
“This is a chaotic place so just, take it at whatever pace you need.” He says with a nod, you barely get out a thanks before he’s being pulled away on another case. You pick up a tablet, knowing your moment of respite is over as well. As you walk into your next patient's room you look back at Dr. Langdon, and for just a second, you wish you could know him more.
The next few hours are gone in a whirlwind. Even though it was just your first day, you felt like this place had already claimed you as a victim, but you also understood why Dana had never left. The push and pull, the thrill of assisting on some of the most wild emergency medicine you had ever seen in your life. The constant noise and chaos, it was lighting a fire inside you that you didn’t know needed to be lit. You also, however, already felt the tiredness in your bones. Your feet ached in a way that you had no idea they could, and you still had five hours left of your shift. You sneak off to the bathroom for just a moment. Taking a breath and splashing cold water on your face. You only allow a minute or so before you open the door, ready to pick up whatever case was waiting for you. What you don’t see when you’re heading back to the nurses station is Dr. Langdon. You totally and completely crash into him.
“Oh! Dr. Langdon I’m so sorry!” You exclaim, he laughs a little and shakes his head, putting a hand on your shoulder, steadying you before quickly taking it back.
“Don’t worry about it.” He says with a smile, “first day taking its toll?” He asks, seeing the bags forming under your eyes.
“Guess so,” you say with a laugh and nod, "definitely different from other hospitals I’ve worked in.” You answer, looking at his striking eyes.
“Well, first day’s almost done, hang in there.” He says before patting your shoulder again and walking away. You feel the ghost of his touch and shake it off, walking to assist Dr. Mohan in a case.
“You seem to be handling the Pitt well.” Dr. Mohan notes as she talks with you about the case. You smile and appreciate the compliment.
“Thanks, it's challenging, but I’m liking it so far.” She smiles and nods back, you speak again before she can respond, “Dr. Langdon, what do you know about him?” You ask, almost immediately regretting the question.
“I’ve known him for a while, he’s a good guy, and an even better doctor. Used to be kind of an asshole, but ever since he came back he’s been great.” She says, shrugging her shoulders, you can feel her eyes searching you, reading you too well for having only known you a few hours.
“Came back from what?” You ask with furrowed brows.
“Oh, he was on leave for ten months.” She says with a smile before walking back to the patient. You bite your lip wondering what could’ve happened. Then you almost slap yourself, you’d known this guy for one day, worked one case with him and had two fleeting conversations, ever. You were being ridiculous, but there was something about him, something you couldn’t quite put your finger on. You knew if you kept letting yourself think it through, it would be dangerous, for the both of you. But then again, he was so hot.
The rest of the day went, fine, almost too fine. There were a couple of traumas you got pulled onto that were hectic and overwhelming, but you lived for the thrill of it. It was finally the end of your very long shift, you felt dead on your feet and more than ready to shower and collapse on your too firm hotel bed. You were at the nurses station, chatting with Dana about some patients you were handing off the night shift, jacket on and purse on your shoulder, when Dr. Langdon walked up.
“Survived your first day, huh?” He asks, bending over the counter, you notice he’s in just jeans and a t- shirt now.
“Yep, headed out now.” You reply with a smile and raised brows, he gives you a small smile back. You’re astounded as you look at him how such a large crush can form in just 12 hours.
“Yeah, me too, let me walk you out to your car. It’s easy to get lost around here when you’re new.” He says, gesturing with his head for you to follow him. You give a smile and wave to Dana, who winks at you. You catch up to him, forcing yourself not to stare too hard.
“You really like it here?” You ask after a beat of silence, feeling the cool breeze of the Pittsburgh air on your face. You close your eyes for a second and breathe it in. You open your eyes and catch him looking at you, he goes back to looking at the ground pretty quickly.
“Yeah, I do.” He says with a nod, thinking over your question, “It has its days, days where you wonder why you chose this profession altogether. But you learn that it’s really just one day at a time.” He finishes with a nod. He says the last five words almost like a mantra, practiced, repeated, something he clearly tells himself a lot.
“And you’ve been here your whole residency?” You ask with furrowed brows, almost amazed. He chuckles a little and shakes his head at your bewilderment.
“Yep, been here the whole time.” He responds with a nod, repositioning his bag on his shoulder.
“And you’re an R4?” You ask, just trying to get to know him a little more, something that you usually are very against. He pauses, almost like he’s hesitant to respond.
“Y-yeah, I’m an R4.” He says after a moment. This is when you recall that earlier Dr. Mohan had mentioned he’d been gone for ten months, you wonder what could’ve happened in that time, but you bite your tongue.
“How long have you been doing this for?” He asks, you can see your car as you two approach the garage and you don’t want this conversation to end, even though you were dead tired.
“I’ve been a nurse for about seven years now, and then the travel nurse thing for about two years.” You reply and he nods, seemingly seeing his car too.
“Travel nursing must be hard, never truly settling into one place.” He says and you shrug your shoulders.
“Haven’t found my place yet, I guess.” You say with a smile, which he returns.
“Well I hope you like it here, even if it is just for the week.” He says with a nod, you hope he doesn’t notice how your cheeks flush.
“Yeah, me too. Thanks for walking me out here.” You say, motioning over to your car.
“Don’t mention it.” He says, starting to walk over to his own car now.
“Goodnight, Dr. Langdon.” You call from across the lot.
“Goodnight.” He says with one last smile and nod. As you get in your car, you know you were in for a rough week here at PTMC.
✿ . ˚ . ˚ ✿
Tuesday
Walking into your second of five shifts in the Pitt, you almost feel, excited? You weren’t sure if that was exactly the right word for it, but it was something along those lines. You felt pushed here to new bounds you didn’t even know existed. Not to mention that everyone here are incredible doctors, you shake away the thought of Dr. Langdon as you think of your temporary coworkers. Even though you were pretty sure the excited buzzing in your chest was at the thought of seeing him again.
You walk up to the nurses station, greeting Dana with a smile, stifling a yawn.
“Glad to see you back, sweetheart.” She greets you with a smile, looking at you over her glasses. You smile and nod in return.
“It takes more than a little chaos to scare me off.” You say and Dana smiles in approval. You stifled another yawn, clearly more tired than you were willing to admit. You raise your brows and force your eyes open as Dana gives you the rundown on the patients you would be taking on this morning. She wraps up her directions and you give yourself a minute to look over a few charts and orders before fully getting to work. You finally let yourself fully yawn, and when you opened your eyes, there was a can of RedBull being pushed toward you.
“Your first shift here will do that to you.” Frank says, pushing the can right in front of your face. You furrow your brows a little and cock your head to the side. You didn’t usually drink caffeine, especially in RedBull form, but it might be a necessity for surviving this shift.
“I’m sure you need this more than I do.” You say with a polite smile and raised brows, starting to push it back to him, but he shows you his own can, already cracked open.
“I always keep an extra one on hand, which came in handy today.” He says, pushing the can back to you. You roll your eyes and accept the energy drink, cracking it open and taking a swig, already feeling the sugar rush into your bloodstream.
“Well thank you, I clearly didn’t come prepared.” You say with a smile and nod, taking another sip.
“Almost no one does,” He jokes with a small smile, you look into his eyes, and hate the thoughts that start coming into your head. You had only known this guy for 24 hours, yet you felt so, drawn to him, in the most inexplicable way.
“I’ll keep that in mind, thank you again.” You say, raising your can to him, he copies your move.
“Have fun out there today.” He says before taking one last swig, throwing away the can, and going to find another case. You take a breath and go back to the tablet, studying over case notes.
You look up from the tablet a few moments later to see Dana staring at you. You start wiping at your face, thinking you had to have something on it, why else would she be staring?
“What is it?” You ask with furrowed brows, she just starts laughing.
“Nothing, sweetheart, I just haven’t seen Langdon act like that since, well,” She pauses and you think back to his ten month leave again, thinking she might tell you why, “in a while.” She finished her sentence and you hate how curious you are.
“He’s known me less than a day.” You counter with raised brows. She shakes her head.
“People can click fast sweetheart, too bad you’re only here till Sunday.” She says and you sigh, rolling your eyes a bit.
“I don’t get attached to people like that, especially in this line of work.” You say, going to go check on your patients.
“Keep telling yourself that, honey.” Dana calls back to you, you give her a look before drawing the curtain on central 12, officially starting your day.
Today you let yourself be more observant. Seeing how everyone interacts with each other. You quickly notice Santos and Whitaker are a duo. You notice how Javadi always seems to gravitate toward McKay or Mateo. Mohan is pretty evenly distributed, spending more time with patients than chatting with coworkers. You, embarrassingly so, notice the most about Frank. How Santos avoids him or rolls her eyes whenever he speaks. You notice tension between him and Robby. How whenever Robby talks to him his shoulders tense up and he looks, angry? nervous? You weren’t quite sure exactly, but it was definitely not great. Most of all you notice the clear bond between him and Mel. She always seems to find him, you’ve worked on a case with both of them. It’s like they understand each other in a way no one else can. It almost disappoints you. Almost, but you don’t get attached to coworkers, so you brush it off.
A little later in the day, once your RedBull had finally kicked in, you were assisting on a case with Mel. You noticed that nobody really seemed to pay attention to her, except Frank. Two days in and this place had already threatened countless times to break your rule about not getting close with your coworkers. You wanted to let her know, in your own way, that people did listen. Even if this broke every rule in your book. But hell, you’d broken a lot of your rules already. The conversation started off small talkish, like all of them had so far, the niceties, which you were very sick of.
“You close with anyone here, Mel?” You ask, handing her the tool she needed to continue the procedure.
“Uhh, well I guess so.” She starts, laser focused on what she was doing, “Dr. Langdon is really nice, and Robby and Dana are just the best.” She finishes with a smile. You smile and nod in response, noticing the way she talks and the way her hands move.
“Yeah, you and Dr. Langdon seem like quite the team.” You say with slightly raised brows and the same smile. You liked Mel, a lot, but you also wanted to know more about Dr. Langdon, in a selfish way that almost didn’t make sense to you.
“I guess, yeah.” She responds, giving you a very sweet, genuine smile, “We kind of just, understand each other, really he’s an exceptional doctor, and a really great teacher too.” She says, excitedly jumping into a few of the things he’s taught her. It warms your chest, imagining him in those scenarios with her. You barely knew him, and every morsel of information you learned about him, the more you wanted. You finish up with the patient, continuing chatting with Mel, mostly about Dr. Langdon and her cool medical stories. You follow her out of the room, checking the board for your next patient.
“Wow, you guys really are a great team.” You say, wrapping up with conversation, she smiles, almost proudly, and nods. You think about how she describes him and a hint of jealousy (?) enters your system. Which you hate.
“Is he your, boyfriend?” You ask with furrowed brows, the way she talks about him and the few interactions you’ve seen them have, you wouldn’t be surprised. You can feel the relief spread throughout you as she vehemently shakes her head no.
“Definitely not,” She says, and you believe her, “We’re just really close, I could never see him like that.” She finishes and you nod with raised brows, looking over and finding him throughout the chaos. You shake the thoughts from your head and move on to your next case.
Thirty minutes later you were doing work at the nurses station, you noticed out of the corner of your eye Frank walking toward you. You get a nervous excitement in your stomach, but just as he’s about to reach the station, Dr. Robby comes up to talk to you, and Frank swiftly turns on his heel, avoiding him entirely. You hope it’s not noticeable how your shoulders drop in disappointment.
“So, you’ve been here a day and some change now,” Robby starts, leaning against the counter, watching as you type a few things into the computer, you hum out and nod in response, looking at him with raised brows, “You seem to be handling it well.” He says, which you think is a compliment, you mutter a small thank you as he continues talking.
“You need anything from me? Have any questions, complaints, terms of endearment?” You huff a small laugh at his quip, but shake your head no with a pleasant smile.
“All good here, just getting through the week.” You report back and nod.
“Well you seem to be fitting in nicely, don’t get too good or we might want to keep you around.” He jokes and you nod with another smile. The thought of working here permanently, was a lot to think about at once. You shake your head and laugh a little.
“If you need anything, you know where to find me, or Dana.” He says before walking off, being pulled onto another case. The people here seemed to do that a lot. They check in and leave before things can get too serious, but you didn’t mind too much.
You keep working at the computer, enjoying the quiet moment for as long as you can, until you hear your name called from a few feet in front of you. You look up to find Dr. Langdon being the owner of the voice.
“Patient in room seven needs IV fluids and antibiotics, when you get the chance.” You smile and nod, rolling away from the computer and grabbing a tablet.
“Langdon!” You hear Dana call from behind you, “the patient in seven is Princess's problem, huh?” She reminds him with raised brows. Langdon shrugs his shoulders, looking at the board above him.
“Couldn’t find her.” He says before giving you a smile and going to check on another patient. Right then Princess walks up to the station, Dana rolls her eyes.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it.” You say with a smile, she gives you another one of those looks.
“I’m telling you sweetheart.” Dana says with a wink, you hope she doesn’t notice the flush on your cheeks and you go to take care of the patient. He catches you on your way out of room seven, stripping your gloves and tossing them in the biohazard bin.
“Thanks for taking care of that.” He says with a smile and curt nod. You smile back and mutter a small “no problem” in return. It was a fleeting moment, and then he was gone, but still, a moment nonetheless.
You get pulled away immediately after by McKay on a trauma, it was a good reminder, as you put in a PICC line, that you were here to work. Work was important, you saved lives. Focusing on your coworker of two days was not important. You focused yourself the rest of the shift on work, helping wherever you were needed, not on Dr. Langdon. Not on how his arms looked when transporting a patient from gurney to bed, not on how nice he was with patients, or how tense he was around Robby. No, of course you weren’t focused on that.
Traumas, sutures, IVs, the rest of the day gets lost on you. Somehow these 12 hours are the longest yet shortest of your life. You shrug on your jacket at the nurses station, chatting with Lena, the night shift charge nurse as you were introduced to her, and Dana about the patients you were handing off.
“I think our prodigal son is smitten with our newest addition.” Dana says, elbowing Lena, you roll your eyes.
“We’ve known each other for two days.” You say, your face unenthused, they both laugh. You wonder where the nickname prodigal son comes from.
“A lot can happen in two days, honey.” Lena says with raised brows and a pointed look. You wave her off, shouldering your bag before waving goodnight to the both of them. You start walking out when you hear a voice behind you, this time you don’t have to look to know who it is. You can practically hear the smiles on Dana and Lena’s faces.
“You find your way around yet?” He asks, catching up with you. You shrug your shoulders slightly.
“Enough, I can get to radiology, my car, and to my hotel.” You say and he huffs out a small laugh.
“Haven’t explored Pittsburgh at all yet?” He asks, looking down at you, you shake your head.
“Haven’t had the chance yet, tomorrow is my one day off, and I’m unsure if I’ll make it out of bed to actually see anything.” You say, looking down at your shoes for a moment, hoping he doesn’t see the pink on your cheeks.
“You should at least try and get out, it’s a pretty cool city, especially if you don’t live here.” He says with a smile and you can’t help but look back up at him.
“Well I’ll try, but I have no idea where to go, any recommendations?” You ask, forcing yourself to actually maintain eye contact with him. He thinks for a moment before putting his hand out.
“Hand me your phone?” He asks, you give him a confused look, but hand it over. You watch as he puts something into Google, handing it back, you see directions to a restaurant.
“Meet me there, tomorrow at noon?” He asks, and you’re stunned. You look at him with raised brows and mouth agape for a few seconds, before realizing you actually need to respond.
“Y-you don’t have to work tomorrow?” You manage to get out, your brows now furrowing, you were clearly flustered, and that made your embarrassing reaction even worse. He smiles a little and shakes his head.
“Nope, I got lucky.” He says, clearly basking in your flusteredness, but you can see him fidgeting with his hands, he was nervous.
“Well, yes, yes I will meet you there, tomorrow at noon.” You say with a definitive nod. You hadn’t even realized you had walked all the way to your car.
“Good, I will, see you then.” He says with a smile, walking over to his own car now.
“Yeah, see you.” You call out and he waves goodnight.
You unlock your car and quickly get in, the Killers CD that has been stuck in your receiver for the past five years starts blasting the second you start the car. You slap the power button, overwhelmed. You hit your head on the steering wheel, repeatedly, trying to knock some sense into yourself. What were you thinking? You were breaking every dumb rule you had ever set for yourself at work. All because of a man? How dumb was that, but then again, he really didn’t seem like any other man. You rub your palms down your face and groan out in frustration with yourself. Then again, neither of you said it was a date, he was just showing you around Pittsburgh, that was it. That was allowed, no rules broken there, as long as you didn’t let yourself get too attached. So in reality, this was fine, more than fine. You let out a heavy sigh and reverse your car, starting the drive back to your hotel. You had no idea what Wednesday was going to bring you.
✿ . ˚ . ˚ ✿
Wednesday
You stood in the shower for about twenty minutes too long, trying to steam off the soreness of your muscles, and also thinking maybe you can steam off all of your nervous energy, you can’t.
You eventually force yourself out of the shower, putting on your hotel provided robe while you start to dry your hair. You dropped the hairdryer on your toe halfway through and jumped around, cursing, but honestly the pain made you not focus on how nervous you were to see Frank in a setting like this. Do you call him Frank? Langdon? You had no idea, you’d known him for two days.
You think as you’re doing your makeup that maybe you’re making a mistake. But then again, you remind yourself it isn’t a date, and if it was, who cares? You never let yourself have any romantic attention these days, so you take a deep breath, and force yourself to let it go, even if the nerves come creeping back. You slip on the outfit you had packed for today, a cotton white dress with a butter yellow cardigan and hope you aren’t too overdressed.
You pull up to the restaurant and take a deep breath, leaning your head up against the headrest, the Killers CD playing softly in the background, despite how sick of it you were. You barely get any respite before you look over at a car pulling up next to you. A white Range Rover, and the one and only Frank Langdon behind the wheel. He parks and gives you a small smile and wave, it immediately relaxes you, you can tell he’s a little nervous too. You wave back and turn your car off, getting out and greeting him. He was wearing a t- shirt and jeans, you were definitely overdressed, but in a cute way, so really it was fine.
“Hey” He says with a smile, closing his car door, starting the walk with you to the restaurant.
“Hey yourself.” You reply back with a smile, immediately regretting your choice of words, just be cool, be normal, he was just showing you around the city, that’s all. You say to yourself as you walk in, making small talk that was only somewhat awkward. You sit down and put drink orders in, now faced with the real challenge, actually carrying a conversation.
“So, why is this the best restaurant in Pittsburgh?” You ask with raised brows as you take a sip of your water.
“My parents always brought me here, when we visited when I was a kid.” He says with shrugged shoulders, leaning back in his seat, “I always end up coming back.” He says with a nod, you accept this answer and nod yourself, setting your water back down.
“In the nicest way possible, why are you being so nice to me?” You blurt out, immediately wishing you could reword or take back your sentence entirely. You can feel the heat rising up your neck and onto your cheeks, he huffs out a small laugh and shakes his head.
“You mean, when you’re only here for a week, you feel like I’m wasting my time?” He asks, giving you a look that makes you feel completely exposed, vulnerable, and known all at once.
“I guess so, yeah, I-I mean I don’t mind, at all, I promise. But, I do kind of want to know.” You say, starting to ramble to explain yourself, hoping you didn’t seem too rude.
“No I understand, don’t worry.” He starts and you feel the tension in your shoulders dissolve, “I just, know what it's like to be alone, and I know with your profession it must get lonely. Didn’t want you to spend the whole week feeling like you had to be cold with everyone, just cause you were leaving so soon.” He explains, and you feel warmth spreading throughout your chest. You also feel a pang hit you as he says he knows what being alone feels like, how can anyone as kind as him ever deal with loneliness? You wonder this to yourself, but don’t dare question anything.
“Well, thank you, really.” You say with an almost shy smile, looking down at the table for a second before forcing yourself to meet his icy blue eyes, “it does get pretty lonely, from time to time, so I appreciate the company.” He gives you a soft smile before the conversation moves to lighter topics. It moves fluidly and without any tension, the awkwardness having left early on. It feels comfortable with him, getting to know each other, it felt easy, too easy.
Lunch comes to an end too quickly, he picks up the bill, even though you protest against it, he insists. You thank him a thousand times and he rolls his eyes at your gratitude. As you both walk out, you almost dread having to get into your car and leave.
“What other places in Pittsburgh do you recommend?” You ask, looking up at him watching as he ponders for a moment.
“You like music?” He asks and you smile, stifling a small laugh. Who didn’t like music? You nod and smile widely.
“Love it, deeply.” You confirm and he smiles, gesturing his head over past the restaurant.
“Theres a really cool record store just down the road, if you’re cool with walking?” He asks, you readjust your purse on your shoulder and nod, embarking with him down the road.
You talk on the way there about both of your record collections, various music tastes, bantering about who the greatest band of all time is (he finally caves and agrees it’s The Beatles). He notices the way your eyes light up when talking about music you’re really passionate about, and you can tell he has the same fire within him. Music was always your bonding point with people, and he was no different.
The rest of the day practically melts away, you learn so much about him through music and it means so much to you. It scares you how easy everything was with him. It hurts knowing that if you weren’t leaving on Sunday, this could really be something. You don’t let it bother you, you shake those thoughts out of your head and instead show him your favorite Queen record.
After a couple of record stores, he takes you to Frick Park, walking around, basking in the sun.
“So, what is your story?” You ask after a few beats of comfortable silence. He looks at you with raised brows, wide eyes, almost reluctant to even speak again.
“Who says I have a story?” He replies, trying to be witty.
“Everyone has a story.” You say, resting your hands in your dress pockets and shrugging your shoulders.
“Well then what’s yours?” He asks, clearly avoiding the question, you shake your head and smile.
“Doesn’t work like that, I asked first.” I say with a pointed, teasing look. He scoffs, thinking he might be able to get away with it.
“Well, my story isn’t very interesting.” He says, his voice kind and soft, but also kind of guarded. He has walls, and since you’re someone he will only know for one week? You understand.
“Ok, then tell me more about the Pitt, or Pittsburgh, or anything, really.” You say, looking and watching him nod, presumably thinking of a good story to tell you. He tells you about some of the craziest things he’s seen in the Pitt, you counter with a few of your own as well. Emergency Medicine always came with stories, it felt nice to swap them, feeling like other people understand.
You eventually land at your cars and you sigh, knowing your day off has come to an end. You look at him as you fumble for your keys.
“D’you drive to all of your placements?” He asks with furrowed brows.
“Pretty much, I like being able to drive myself places, even if I have to drive like 15 hours to my placements.” You explain as you finally find your keys, unlocking your car.
“But seriously, thank you for today, truly. I don’t really talk to any of my coworkers outside of the ER, like ever.” You say with a smile that he matches.
“Anytime, really.” He says and you both stare at each other for a minute. You see his eyes flick down and you know exactly what you were both thinking, you could already feel your heart breaking over something that could never happen.
You both start talking at the same time.
“I know it’s ridiculous but-” He says.
“I just want you to know that-” You say.
You both shake your heads and laugh a little.
“I just want you to know,” You say, taking the initiative to go first, “I want to, but we shouldn’t start anything right now, not when I’m leaving on Sunday.” You say, and you know that disappoints the hell out of both of you.
“So you’re saying I can’t kiss you right now?” He asks, and the flush returns to your cheeks. What harm could one kiss do?
“Maybe just one, but, this can’t be a thing, we need to maintain professionalism throughout the rest of the week and-” You keep rambling when he cuts you off, pressing his lips to yours. You were shocked, for just a second, after that you melted into him, one hand on his face, the other on his shoulder. You weren’t sure how long it lasted, or how this affected things from here on out, but in that moment, you did not care. You eventually cut it off, taking a deep breath and looking at him, noticing your berry lipgloss is on his lips.
“Shit” You say, out of breath, and you both go into a fit of laughter.
“I just had to do that once, it won’t happen again.” He says, putting his hands up like he’s surrendering.
“I wish it could happen again.” You say, you both share an almost solemn look, knowing this can’t be more than what just happened.
“Well, I’ll see you at work tomorrow.” He says and you nod, muttering a small agreement and goodbye, he waves and you get into your respective vehicles. You turn the Killers off the second you get in, driving to your hotel in silence.
You get to your room and flop onto the bed, ordering room service for dinner and turning the TV on. You almost throw the remote at the screen when a shitty Rom Com comes on, frustrated that the one person you’ve ever felt anything real with will be gone from your life in four days. You let yourself wallow for a little bit before picking yourself up. Washing off your makeup and taking your second shower of the day. Crawling into bed earlier than usual, but you were still exhausted from the two previous days at the Pitt. You fall asleep replaying the kiss in your head, over and over.
✿ . ˚ . ˚ ✿.
Thursday
You had no idea how you were supposed to go to work after what happened yesterday. You splashed your face with cold water about five different times during your morning routine, trying to shock your system, trying to put yesterday out of your mind, at least while you were at work. It failed, miserably. You tug your scrubs on and head out, driving to work once again in silence. You steel yourself for a moment before heading into the belly of the Pitt, greeting Dana with a smile.
“You look more and more exhausted every time I see you, sweetheart.” She says, patting your back as you huff out a laugh and nod.
“How was your day off? You see any of Pittsburgh?” She asks and you aren’t exactly sure how to answer. You take a breath in and nod with raised brows, deciding to just skirt around the truth, for now.
“Yeah, I saw a bit, it’s nice.” You say, training your eyes on the board, she furrows her brows at you.
“Like it nice enough to stay?” She asks, you turn back to her with furrowed brows, cocking your head.
“You already know I’m not staying.” You say, getting everything sorted to start your shift. She tuts slightly and shakes her head.
“Well you could, y’know, we always need more nurses and,” She pauses looking around, finding Langdon, who was quietly approaching, two RedBulls in hand, “and you have a few reasons to stay now.” She finishes with raised brows, you scoff at her.
“Mateo saw the two of you in the park yesterday.” She whispers, your cheeks turn a bright shade of red now.
“You’re joking.” You say, stunned, word really spreads around here fast.
“Don’t worry, he won’t say anything to anyone else.” She says, the finality in her tone almost makes you worried about what happened between her and Mateo. You go to say something else but are interrupted by Frank coming up to the nurses station.
“How’re we doing this morning?” He says, addressing both you and Dana, he hands you the other RedBull in his hand, and this time you accept without any protests.
“Better, now that you’re feeding my caffeine addiction.” You say with a small smirk as you crack open the can. His face falls as you finish the sentence, almost into worry? disappointment? fear? Maybe all three, you don’t have time to analyze it too deeply before he shakes his head a little. He raises his brows as he blinks, rubbing his temple with his now free hand. You furrow your brows a little at his expression but he just shakes it off again, giving you another small smile. Did you say something wrong? You had no idea, but you didn’t necessarily have time to dwell on it either.
“Looking like another busy day?” You ask, looking at the board, he leans his head back to look too.
“Hope not, best not to say anything though, you’ll jinx it.” He says, elbowing your side teasingly.
“I’m not jinxing anything, and anyway, I have a patient, hypertension.” You say, smiling at him as you lift your tablet into the air, walking over to room seven.
When you walk out of the room you see Princess and Perlah over at the nurses station, staring at you, while speaking in Tagalog. You’ve been here long enough to know what that means, and it worries you slightly. You give them a small smile and wave, which they return too eagerly, before you walk off to your next patient.
The day actually was kind of slow, you had what seemed like too much time to catch up on notes and the patients in the waiting room. You didn’t say anything though, you sure as hell weren’t about to jinx it. You share a few stolen glances with Frank, every time his gaze meets yours, it threatens to break your heart.
About an hour later you were pulled onto a trauma with Langdon and Santos, who you noticed from your time here, barely interacted. You had no idea why, but you could feel the tension rising. Every time Frank tried to have a teaching moment or try to just talk to her, she would brush it off. Silently rolling her eyes or making a small, snide comment. It wasn’t necessarily mean, but it wasn’t that nice either. You had talked to Trinity just a handful of times, and she seemed like a good doctor, sometimes a little harsh or pushy, but she was alright, you knew there was a lot more to her than what she showed at work. So you really had no idea what happened between the two of them.
While you’re putting a line in the patient, Robby walks in. Asking questions, gathering intel, he sees the look on Santos’ face and gives her a look of his own, one that says don’t even start. She rolls her eyes at him. You assume they have a relationship where that’s ok. He leaves and shortly after that the patient is transferred up to the OR, you walk out, catching up to Frank.
“Everything ok?” You ask, looking over his face, studying him. He nods quickly in response.
“Yeah she’s just, a tough one to get through to.” He says with a small shrug. You nod back, understanding what he meant. You go to say something else but Dr. McKay grabs your attention, and Frank is called to another patient.
“Do you mind drawing up the meds for my patient in central four?” She asks, showing you what meds they need and the correct dosages.
“No problem.” You say with a smile, heading off to the med cart where everything is kept. While you start drawing up the meds she needed, you accidentally catch the tail end of a conversation between Robby and Santos, that you most definitely should not have heard.
“I’m not saying you have to like him, but you need to trust your fellow physicians.” Robby says pointedly, you try to tune them out, but you can’t.
“Well I’m sorry that I don’t trust an addict, Robby. I know you got over that fact pretty fast, but who knows when something else will catch him off guard and he relapses.” Santos says, your blood runs cold, nervous that you know who they’re talking about.
“Langdon is a damn good physician. I am not saying you have to like him, but I can’t have you two avoiding each other forever. It’s getting out of hand.” Robby says, a little more heated, walking away from the conversation now. You stand there for too long, shocked, reeling over what you just heard.
Your hands shake now as you finish drawing up the meds. You walk to the patient's room to administer them in a complete daze. That’s why he wouldn’t tell you his story yesterday, why he has tension with both Robby and Santos, and why he acted weird when you mentioned a caffeine addiction this morning.
You didn’t know how to handle this, you felt guilty for eavesdropping, for knowing about it when he clearly didn’t want to tell you, for everything. You knew you had to address it, you couldn’t know his biggest secret and hold it over his head like that. No way, but how did you even tell him? You walked to the bathroom, once again splashing your face with cold water and trying to get any rational thoughts through your head. This wasn’t fair to him, not in the slightest, you could feel yourself spiraling, panic rising in your chest, that is until you’re interrupted by a knock on the bathroom door.
`You alright in there sweetheart?” You recognize Dana’s voice from outside the door. You have to practically slap some sense into yourself, swallowing your panic and opening the door.
“I’m good, why?” You ask like nothing has happened, like you didn’t just accidentally ruin the best thing that’s happened to you in months, if not years.
“Incoming trauma, all the other nurses are tied up.” Dana says, gesturing her head over to the ambulance bay.
“Oh ok, on it.” You say, going over and putting a trauma gown on, waiting for the ambulance. Luckily, you were not on this case with Frank, you didn’t know if you could look him in the eyes right now. Or ever again, for that matter.
You forced yourself to focus as hard as you could on your work, trying to calm the frenzied beating of your heart, the guilt of this knowledge eating you alive. You avoid Frank as best you could the rest of the day, resolving to yourself that you would talk to him when he walked you out to your car. It was fine. It would all be fine. You would talk to him about it, and then you would leave on Sunday. Even though you didn’t really want to leave on Sunday. You wanted to explore this, let yourself have something nice for the first time in your life, but that’s not what was supposed to happen.
When shift change came, you were quietly shaking, tears threatening to fill your eyes. You weren’t judging him, God no. But, you were upset that his right to tell you or not tell you was stripped from him. That was what was eating at you. You grab your bag and jacket, exhaling heavily before you see him, walking across the ER to you. You give him a weak smile and shaky wave, he notices the shift in your demeanor almost immediately.
“Hey, haven’t seen you around much today.” He says and you nod, letting out another exhale.
“Yeah, day got away from me I guess.” You say, fidgeting with your jacket as you two walk out together. It’s silent on the way out to the parking lot, and not the comfortable silence you two had found yourselves in recently, but now, it was filled with tension. You could feel his gaze on you, worried, reading, you were just waiting for the perfect moment to talk. You finally get outside to your cars, the cool air doing nothing to calm your nerves.
“Can I talk to you about something?” You blurt out, not knowing how else to start the conversation. He looks at you with furrowed brows, cocking his head to the side a bit.
“Um, yeah, sure, my car or yours?” He asks, you point to his car with a shaky hand, he opens the passenger side door for you like the prince he is, while you were about to ruin the best relationship four days could build.
“What’s going on?” He asks, and the genuine concern in his voice kills you. You press your palms into your eyes and take a deep breath in before you reply.
“I accidentally overheard something I shouldn’t have today, and I just wanted to tell you outright, it didn’t feel right keeping it to myself.” You start, you see his whole face and body language shift. He was not hurt, but disappointed. That made it about ten times worse.
“I was pulling meds for one of McKay’s patients, and I overheard Robby talking to Santos, and, yeah I-I’m so sorry. I should’ve left or tried harder to tune it out but I, I didn’t know what to do and I- it was so shitty, and I am so sorry.” You ramble out, tears now glazing over your eyes. You had no idea you could have so much reverence and care for someone you had known for four days, but it happened.
He steels himself for a second, taking a breath, thinking over what he wanted to say next.
“It’s alright, it wasn’t your fault, word travels around here pretty quick.” He says after a minute, clearly gutted that you now knew.
“I, I kept it from you because, I feel like now that I’ve come back to the hospital, people treat me differently.” He starts, you don’t dare say a word, you just sit as open as you can, waiting for whatever he has to say to you.
“I wanted to feel normal for a bit, I’m not embarrassed of my recovery and I don't want pity. I just wanted to get to know someone without that being the first big thing they know about me, and feel differently about me because of it.” He finishes, taking a deep breath in, his hands resting on the steering wheel. You nod, taking a minute to let his words sink in, figuring out the right thing to say.
“I don’t think any differently of you,” You assure, shaking your head a bit, “truly, I just am sorry that the decision to tell me was stripped away from you, that’s not fair.” You say, fidgeting with your hands now.
“Please don’t feel pressured to go into details or anything like that, I am not pitying you and I am sure as hell not going to treat you any differently, I just wanted you to know that I knew.” You finish, closing your eyes and nodding, biting your lip hard. You have no idea if what you said was right or good or any of it, or what will come of this.
“No, I want to tell you.” He says, you look over at him with slightly furrowed brows.
“Are you sure? I don't want to pressure you or-” He cuts you off by gently grabbing your wrist, squeezing lightly.
“If you were staying past Sunday, I would’ve told you eventually, so I promise, it’s fine.” He says and you nod, waiting for him to start back up again.
“I hurt my back awhile ago, and then got addicted to benzos,” He starts, you nod, letting him know that you’re listening.
“I was, stealing meds from the hospital, I was going down a really bad path, and Dr. Santos is the one that turned me in.” He continues, you continue to nod, biting your lip again.
“She still doesn’t like me very much, which is ok, but she saved my life really. My wife divorced me, I spent 10 months away from the Pitt and I came back in July. I’ve been clean since December. ” He says, fidgeting with the bracelet on his wrist, which you now notice is a sobriety bracelet. You nod again, processing everything before you even dare speak.
“I’m really glad you got the help you needed, that takes a lot. I’ve seen that happen to a few doctors throughout my career, but none of them were able to really come back from it. That's a big thing, you should be proud of yourself.” You say with a small, tired smile, his hand still around your wrist. You move to intertwine his hand in yours and you squeeze.
“I fucked a lot of it up, and I let a lot of people down. I just, I wish this could be different between us.” He says, you take in a shaky exhale, tears threatening to fall from your eyes again and you nod in understanding and agreement.
“Me too.” You say with a deep exhale, slightly unsure of what to say next. “I’m honestly starting to hate travel nursing ” You admit, it was something you had yet to tell anyone, “I don’t make any friends, or let myself get attached to anyone, it honestly sucks.” You breathe out, wiping your eyes.
“Yeah, I get what you mean.” He says, he doesn’t beg you to stay in Pittsburgh, or try and come up with a solution, he just sits with you in it, and that’s what you appreciate most about him. You two sit in comfortable silence for a long time after that, neither of you wanting to ruin the moment. Just two people sitting in each other's messes, even for a short amount of time. You don’t even notice your eyelids starting to shut.
“Hey,” Frank says quietly, snapping you back awake, rubbing the bleariness out of your eyes, “let me drive you back to your hotel, I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning so you don’t have to worry about that.” He offers, you sit up a little in the passenger seat, thinking over the offer, looking over at your car that was just a few feet away.
“Are you sure?” You ask, never wanting to be too much of a burden. He squeezes your hand again before letting go, putting the car in reverse.
“I’m sure, it’s a shock to the system, starting a job here, especially after any other hospital, you must be exhausted.” He says, starting to drive out of the parking garage. You nod tiredly in agreement.
“Yeah, you’re right about that.” You say, he huffs out a small laugh. You talk lightly, moving on from the heavier topics from earlier now. You’re relieved, how easy he is to talk to, how understanding, and how shockingly soft he is.
He eventually pulls up to your hotel and you let out a regretful sigh, not wanting to part ways just yet, but also knowing how terrible of an idea it was to invite him upstairs. You resist the urge, even if it kills you.
“Thank you for the ride.” You say, with a smile that says ‘thank you for everything else’.
“No problem, and, thank you too.” He says, his voice softer now, and you know exactly what he means. You lean over and kiss his cheek, lingering for a second too long.
“Goodnight, Frank.” You say, your tone tired and almost sad, opening the car door and closing it before you do something stupid. You hear him say goodnight back, turning around to see him waving through the glass before driving away.
That night you don’t even shower, you just change out of your scrubs and fall asleep almost immediately. The last thing you think of as you’re drifting off was the kiss on his cheek you left, and his musky antiseptic scent.
✿ . ˚ . ˚ ✿
Friday
Today was Friday, two more days in the Pitt. This week had been more on your schedule than usual. More stress, more hours, more days without breaks in between. It was pushing you as a nurse and as a human being, but you couldn’t say you weren’t enjoying the challenge. Even if you were beyond exhausted at this point.
You stand outside the hotel at the time you and Frank agreed on this morning. Leaning against a pillar of the building, your eyes threatening to close again. You snap back up when you hear his car pull up, unlocking the car and leaning over to open the passenger side door for you.
“Good morning, sunshine.” He says, smiling at your tired demeanor. There was a RedBull in the cupholder for you, next to his opened one. Before this week you would’ve said you were not a RedBull fan, but now, he was definitely changing your ways.
“How are you so energetic, you’ve been working the same hours as me.” You say, your voice still heavy with sleep as you crack open the energy drink. He laughs softly as he pulls out onto the road.
“I’m way more used to it than you are, it’ll be over before you know it.” He says, focusing back on the road. That last part stings more than it should.
It’ll be over before you know it.
But, did you want it to be?
The rest of the ride to PTMC was filled with comfortable silence and the soft sounds of the radio. Which was fine by you, except your mind was going a mile a minute about everything you had experienced in the past week. You thought everything was fine before coming here. You liked independence, you were ok with being single, you loved traveling for work. Now? Everything was flipped on its head, but you didn’t have time to think about it. Not when you were pulling up to the Pitt, and lives needed saving.
“Word travels around here fast, you sure you’re ok with everyone seeing us walk in together?” You ask, you didn’t mind if everyone saw, but this was not your permanent workplace, it was his.
“I’m pretty sure people are already talking, so I don’t mind at all.” He says and you smile and nod in agreement.
“Dana told me yesterday that Mateo saw us in the park.” You admit, you see his eyes widen a bit, before huffing out a small laugh.
“Well, I’m not surprised.” He says, shaking his head, shoving his hands in his pockets. You both share another laugh before walking up to the nurses station, Dana giving you both a pointed look over her glasses.
“Well, look who it is.” She says, pulling you in by your shoulders giving you a half hug.
“What did I tell you, huh?” She whispers, making you laugh and blush.
“Be quiet, why don’t you?” You say, teasingly shoving her off from your shoulders. She gives you a mock offended look before turning her gaze to Frank.
“I’m good, no talk needed for me.” He says, putting his hands up, moving to look at the board. You and Dana laugh against each other, you wish this could be an every morning thing. This is why you didn’t get attached to coworkers.
You start your morning off with the lowdown on the patients from the night shift, easing into morning vital checks. The days here hadn’t been as hectic as you once thought them to be, but they added up, fast. Trauma and triage, gunshot wounds, to small burns, it was a lot.
And today, a trauma rolled in and you were the nurse assigned to the case.
They were the first patient you lost here in the Pitt. Which is very lucky, considering it was your fourth shift here, but it always hit you hard. You yank your gloves off with a snap, throw them in the biohazard bin and make your way to the staircase, something you noticed happened quite a lot around here when people needed a minute.
You just kept replaying it in your head, ruminating heavily on the situation. You felt bad, terrible, for that man's family. He was cleaning the gutters, standing on the roof, heart attack and keeled over, falling at least ten feet to the ground.
It wasn’t anybody's fault, and there was nothing anyone could do to save him, but that didn’t mean it didn’t sting.
You just sit there on the staircase a moment, taking some breaths. Doing somewhat of a debrief of your own before you had to go back and do one with everyone on the case. Something they do around here, you hadn’t seen that in many of the other hospitals you’d worked in.
You collect yourself, about to stand up, ready to face the rest of the day. That’s when the door opens. For a moment, you hope it’s Frank, but then you recognize Javadi’s purple jacket. She was on the case with you, she was here for the same reason you were.
“Hey, Dr. J.” You say, you couldn’t help but let the nickname slip, you had seen some of her videos. They were surprisingly really good, the kid has insight. You pat the spot next to you on the stairs, inviting her to sit next to you.
“Losing a patient always, sucks.” She breathes out as she sits down. You nod, your chin resting in your hand.
“It never gets easier.” You say, but you almost immediately regret it as you see her eyes widen, “but, you learn to cope with it, see the difference you make in others lives, it’s worth it, I promise.” You add on, seeing the tension in her shoulders loosen a bit.
“How do you do it?” Javadi asks, you cock your head to the side a bit.
“What? Continue after losing a patient?” You ask for clarification, not really looking for an answer before continuing, “I mean you get to-” She cuts you off.
“No, no, I mean, travel nursing. How do you keep doing it?” She asks with wide eyes that make your heart squeeze at how young she is.
“Oh,” You say, realizing what she meant, you think before you answer, “I mean, the pay is pretty good, but, honestly right now I’m not sure how I’m still going.” You answer honestly, shrugging your shoulders. You had been going for a long time without stopping to think, and now, you weren’t sure what to do about anything.
“Think you might stop?” She asks, you bite your lip and slowly nod.
“I’m, considering it.” You say, pausing between words.
“Think you might stay here? We always need more help.” She says with raised brows, her expression hopeful. You smile, looking down at your feet.
“I have a lot to figure out still.” You say, you answer elusive, the way she looks at you tells you she has something to say about that.
“It’s because of Dr. Langdon, that you’re questioning everything?” She says with a smile and your face goes red, something that’s been happening way too much recently.
“It’s not just because of Dr. Langdon.” You say, rolling your eyes and giving her shoulder a teasing shove.
“And don’t think I haven’t seen the way you act around Mateo.” You add, giving her a pointed look, now it was her turn to blush.
“That's, well, he’s just so-” She fumbles with her words, you laugh and stand up, offering her a hand up.
“C’mon, they’re probably waiting for us to debrief.” You say, patting her shoulder while you two walk out of the stairwell and back into the ED. You silently wished everyone would stop being so nice, then it would be so much easier to leave tomorrow. As you walk back to the trauma bay to debrief, you catch sight of Frank. Who gives you a sympathetic smile, knowing you were on the case, and that you just lost your first patient here. You return his smile and give him a small thumbs up. Javadi gives you a look.
“I think it’s mostly because of Dr. Langdon.” She murmurs and you playfully elbow her side.
The debriefing was fine, it was a ritual you liked, you felt better about everything afterwards. That was until Robby called your name when you were trying to leave. He gestured to the hallway to talk in private. You furrowed your brows a bit as you followed, your heart starting to race.
“Nothing bad, you’re not in trouble.” He starts off and you let out a relieved sigh, “I just have noticed that you and Langdon are really hitting it off.”
Oh. You raise your brows, your lips forming a line as you anticipate whatever he’s about to say next.
“There’s nothing wrong with that, I am not trying to discourage it, but you are leaving Sunday, right?.” He says with a face that is basically saying ‘what the hell are you two thinking?’
“Um, yeah, yeah I am leaving Sunday, he’s just showing me the ropes of Pittsburgh and stuff, really.” You say, brushing it off but you both can tell it’s more than that.
“I’ve got it under control, Dr. Robby, and I appreciate the concern. But I’ve got a handle on it.” You say with a final nod, trying to convince yourself just as much as him.
“Ok, no problem, but if you happen to be looking for a permanent placement, you’re always welcome back here.” He says, getting hand sanitizer from the dispenser and walking off, leaving you alone in the hallway. Why did everyone keep telling you that? And why was it a little tempting?
You walked back to the nurses station, picking up a tablet and throwing yourself right back in it. You were not about to let personal feelings get in the way of your job. Even though every time Frank walked by you couldn’t help but stare. You sighed, unsure of anything anymore. You just needed to get through these two shifts and then you were back home. You could think about everything then, not now.
The rest of the day went by much better than expected, and a lot easier than your morning did. Dana assigned another nurse for each trauma that came in the rest of the day, letting you catch a break. It honestly felt good to escape and take a breather in triage. Some people complained that it was boring or slow, but you appreciated being able to sit down and really talk with people. It somehow made you feel a lot less alone.
Triage room three was out of gauze. As you went to restock it, you looked over and saw Robby pulling Langdon to the side. Frank looked tense as hell as he stepped away to talk to him. You wondered if Robby was about to have the same conversation he had with you with Frank now, but you sure weren’t going to stick around and find out.
The hours caught up to you before you knew it, you stuck around a little longer than usual, helping finish up charts and easing the shift change from day shift to night. You noticed that as you continued to help, Frank was at the nurses station, lingering. Waiting for you. You give him a smile and gesture that you’ll be just a few more minutes, he just smiles and nods, sending you on your way. You only leave him waiting for a few more minutes, running up to him as you sling your bag over your shoulder. You wave bye to Dana and Lena, and you were pretty sure Dana was catching Lena up on the whole situation, you could hear them gossiping to themselves, you just rolled your eyes and smiled.
“Just one more shift, huh?” He says, nudging you a little. You sigh and nod in confirmation.
“One more, then I’m out of here.” You confirm, your tone is a little heavier than usual.
“Robby told me it’s probably best I stay away from you.” Frank admits after a minute, you look at him with wide eyes.
“What did you reply?” You ask, studying his expression.
“I said we were both adults, and we know what we’re doing.” He says and you almost laugh.
“I said pretty much the same exact thing to him this morning.” You say with a wide smile now.
“Well I’m glad we’re on the same page then.” He says with raised brows and a nod. You look out at the dark Pittsburgh sky, taking it all in for a moment.
“I think I will miss Pittsburgh,” You say after a minute, “this is a special place.”
“Yeah, well, if you’re ever visiting again, you’re always welcome here.” He says, his eyes also fixated on the stars.
“Everyone keeps saying that I just- I don’t know what the hell is next for me.” You say with a heavy exhale, he looks over at you, almost like he’s trying to memorize everything about you.
“Don’t let anyone pressure you into staying, or not staying.” He says and you nod.
“Do whatever’s best for you, but I will miss you.” He admits, you feel your chest tighten. You give him a sad smile.
“I’ll miss you too, who knew so much could happen in only seven days.” You say and he nods back.
“Go get some rest, maybe tomorrow night I can take you out, celebrate your last night here?” He asks and your heart starts beating faster at the idea.
“That would be great.” You agree, your smile turning happier, “But, it has to be casual, not a date, we can’t, repeat Wednesday.” You say, he laughs and shakes his head, knowing exactly what you meant.
“No, I’ll keep it PG, don’t worry.” He jokes, making you both laugh a little. You grab his forearm and squeeze gently before letting go, walking to your car.
“Goodnight, Frank.” You say with a warm smile, he shakes his head and waves goodnight. You turn your car on and sit there for a long, long time.
✿ . ˚ . ˚ ✿
Saturday
Your last shift in the Pitt was finally here, and you couldn’t believe it. You felt like a completely different person now then the person who came in on Monday. And when you walked in, there he was, here extra early, chatting with Dana and McKay. Your final RedBull sitting waiting for you next to his arm. You walk up with a smile on your face, happy to be greeting them.
“Good morning, guys.” You say with a sweet smile, Dana pulls you in by your shoulders again.
“Good morning for the very last time, sweetheart.” She says, giving you a proud look that fills you with warmth.
“Are you ready to be out of here?” McKay asks, her eyes are tired, as you’re sure your own are. You smile and shrug a bit.
“I guess, it’s been a really good week though, I’m just excited to sleep for three days straight when I get home.” You say, and you honestly weren’t even joking. Frank slides the can of RedBull over to you.
“You can go back to saving your extra cans for yourself.” You say as you crack it open, he smiles and nods, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. All of this, bittersweetness, was new to you. You were used to working your contracts and moving on to the next one, but this was so incredibly different.
“Well it looks like it’s gonna be a busy day,” Dana says, clapping her hands together, “waiting room is already filling up, go, pronto.” She says, shooing everyone away from the nurses station. You let out a heavy sigh, rubbing a hand down your face as you go to do morning vital checks. The exhaustion and weariness about leaving is finally catching up to you. That wasn’t important right now though. Your patients were important. You walk into bay 14 with a wide smile and a good morning, despite everything, you were a good nurse.
The morning was filled with vital checks, med refills, and most of the Pitt staff stopping to chat with you. Most of them asked you to stay. Mel even hugged you, which you were not anticipating, but appreciated nonetheless. You had no idea how you slipped so far in the cracks of your own rules. You were beyond rules at this point, which had never happened before. Your high strung rulebook had withstood so much, you’d done so well for two years, and then one doctor in Pittsburgh ruined it all. And the worst part? You didn’t mind at all. Maybe this is where you were supposed to be, where you wanted to stay. You wouldn’t make any promises to anyone yet though. You would think it over on your drive home, that was that.
Today did feel busier somehow. The morning rush hit hard, you were thrown onto multiple traumas right off the bat. Your arms were sore from doing compressions, and you had probably hit a record for how many IVs done in just one hour. You caught a glimpse of the waiting room when you were getting intake paperwork from Lupe, and it was a lot of people. More than you had seen the entire time you had been here.
People were getting restless, and you understood. It’s hard not to get frustrated when you’re sick or in pain and waiting for hours. You want terribly to be able to help everyone as fast as possible, but you just couldn’t. That was always a hard pill to swallow.
You came back with the paperwork and brought it to the nurses station, sorting it all out patient by patient. You hear Dana call your name and you turn to her with raised brows.
“Can you repeat vitals on the patient in 14? They’ve been waiting there for a hot minute.” She directs and you smile and nod, reviewing their chart on your tablet. Mr. Sullivan had been here two weeks ago with a non displaced ankle fracture. Now, he was back, awaiting surgery because he hadn’t followed the recovery directions properly. You see the letters NPO in red on his chart, nod to yourself, and head in.
“Hi again, Mr. Sullivan.” You greet with a smile as you enter the room, donning gloves to check his vitals, “any changes at all since I talked to you last?” You ask, sitting down on the stool next to his bed.
` “Well how about the fact that I’m fucking starving.” He says, his tone hostile, but you were good at talking people down.
“I’m sure you are, and I’m really sorry but you are NPO, you can’t eat or drink anything while you wait for your surgery.” You explain with a soft, empathetic expression. He gives you a nasty look back.
“That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard.” He says, rolling his eyes, his body language guarded.
“I know you’re frustrated, I would be too, but it looks like you’re next in line for the OR, sir. You just got bumped by a few other people.” You explain, moving a bit to check vital signs. What happens next completely takes you off guard, even though you should’ve seen it coming.
“You bitch!” He yells as you readjust his pulse ox reader. You try to move out of the way, Ahmad already walking towards the room the second he heard yelling, but it was too late. He socks you right in the cheekbone, knocking you to the ground immediately.
“We got a code hula hoop in here!” Ahmad yells out, restraining the patient. Dana and Robby are immediately sprinting towards you. They help you up, a bunch more people swarm the room, trying to get a hold on the patient.
“What the hell!” Dana yells as her and Robby sit you down on a chair in the nurses station. You weren’t exactly sure what was happening anymore, there was so much chaos and noise and pain. White hot pain spreading and settling into a nasty headache, the bright ER lights not helping that one bit. You were trying your best to just stay calm, but that was much easier said than done. Unfortunately, this was not the first time something like this had happened to you, but this was the worst the aggression had been.
“Ow, ow.” You mutter as Robby looks over the injury. Dana takes your hand and squeezes it gently, she’s muttering curses at Gloria and the entire system the whole time.
“There’s a laceration on the cheekbone from the impact, might need stitched up, but not until after we get you a head CT.” He says, you furrow your brows a little bit.
“No, I-I don’t need a head CT, I’m ok.” You breathe out, your chest heaving from everything you haven’t had time to process. Everyone around you starts to protest your words, but only one gets through to you.
“You’re getting the damn CT.” Frank says, he’s knelt down, his face looks somewhat pinched in pain, but he needed to be at eye level with you in the moment.
“I’ll stitch her up when she’s back.” He volunteers, lifting himself up with a small grimace. Robby looks between the two of you.
“Are you sure that’s the best idea?” Robby asked with raised brows. You and Frank both start speaking at the same time in response.
“Absolutely.” Frank says with a curt nod.
“Please.” You say at the same time as him, Dana putting gauze over the lac on your cheek.
Robby says and nods in agreement, waving his hand a bit.
“Alright,” He starts, giving Langdon a once over, pausing before nodding again, “we’ll bump everyone, get you next in line for CT.” He says, Dana volunteers to take you. Frank asks Princess to get a wheelchair, but you refuse one, insisting you walk. Frank gives you a concerned look, but you wave him off, promising you were ok.
“I’ll stitch you up when you get back, ok?” He says softly, squeezing your shoulder before Dana sweeps you away to CT. Frantically apologizing the entire time.
“This shit happens way too often, it’s a fucking disgrace. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to come back here.” She says, you just let her talk, you were pretty sure she just needed to get it all out. You appreciated her ferocity though, and her unwavering company.
The scan was fine, Dana escorted you back to a room afterwards, Frank already setting up everything meticulously to suture your wound closed. Dana gives you a soft smile before turning you over to Frank’s care. You couldn’t even believe the last 20 minutes of your life had happened.
“Alright, up on the bed, let me have a look.” He says, his voice so gentle. You had admired this whole week how kind he was when speaking to patients, now that tone was turned on you. He peels back the gauze, prodding it with gloved fingers, you wince a little. Your eyes are closed but you can basically hear his face mirroring yours, pinched in pain.
“It’s not bad, maybe three stitches max, you’ll be alright.” He says, starting to prep everything to stitch it close.
“Careful with my face, Langdon.” You say, managing a small smile and joke. Despite the situation, he manages a small smile himself.
“Your face is impossible to mess up,” He says, and your signature blush gives yourself away, again, “minimal to no scarring, promise.” He says, getting the local anesthetic ready.
“Pinprick and some burning, ok?” He asks, waiting for your nod before he starts. You furrow your brows a little bit at the burning, but it leaves as soon as it came.
“Sorry.” he mutters, seeing your furrowed brow. You don’t respond, keeping as still as possible while he starts to work. It doesn’t take him very long at all. This is an intern or med students job, not an R4s, but you were beyond grateful that he was the one doing this. His skilled hands work fast and you felt like you only took a few breaths before he was cutting the string off, putting a small gauze pad over it.
“I won’t bore you with all the recovery instructions, I know you know it already.” He says, cleaning everything up. You sit up, just watching him for a moment. How had you gotten so lucky with him? And how unlucky were you that you had to leave?
“Thank you, really.” You say, going to stand up, but he stops you. He puts a hand on your shoulder and pushes you back down on the bed.
“Stay here, twenty minutes.” He says, his tone serious now.
“But I-” You start to protest, but he cuts you off.
“Nope, you got hurt by a patient, your CT results were clean, but I’m not letting you go straight back into it after that.” He says, his voice and face stern, you knew you couldn’t argue with him. You just nod and lay back down.
“Good, you still on for later?” He asks, his brows slightly raised, his eyes grazing over every one of your features with a pinched concern. You smile and nod tiredly.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” You say, now it was his turn to blush.
“Good, stay put, twenty minutes.” He says, dimming the lights before heading out. You sigh heavily, trying to process what the hell just happened to you, in multiple ways.
Robby comes in and checks on you ten minutes in, looking at your CT results and checking Frank’s stitch job.
“You can leave early, no one would blame you.” He says, sitting on the stool beside the bed. You shake your head, no way you were leaving your last day early.
“I’ll be okay, I appreciate the concern though, really.” You say, and he lets you stay. He does, however, make you do triage for the rest of the day. You honestly weren’t complaining too much.
Despite everything, you were still dreading leaving at the end of your shift. You slowly gathered your things and said your goodbyes. Robby clapped you on the back, saying you were welcome back anytime. Dana squeezed you into the world’s tightest hug, you were scared for a minute your stitches were going to pop.
“You take care of yourself, sweetheart, ok?” She says, giving you a pointed look. You smile and nod, promising you would. You finish your goodbyes and find Frank waiting for you,. For the last time, you two walk out together.
“What’re you in the mood for tonight?” He asks, you shrug in response.
“Whatever you want, you are the Pittsburgh local, after all.” You say and he thinks it over for a minute.
“Shitty fast food while we sit in my car?” He asks, you laugh and nod.
“That sounds perfect.” You say, refraining from taking his hand or leaning into him as you two walked. He lets you play whatever music you want while he drives to the restaurant. Even though you were sick of it, you chose the Killers album that was stuck in your CD reader, it felt too perfect.
“Are you kidding? I love the Killers.” He says with a smile and you start laughing, shoulders shaking a bit, he gives you a somewhat confused look.
“This CD has been stuck in my car for five years.” You say through laughs, now he’s laughing a little too.
“Well if one CD is gonna be stuck in your car, this is the one.” He says, you both continue to chat and banter until he pulls through the drive thru. He parks and you two eat in silence for the most part. You were so comfortable in silence with him, the unspoken understanding between you two was something you had never experienced with another person before.
“Thank you, again,” You start after a few minutes in silence, “not just for today. I just, you’re a really special guy, Frank.” You say, even though there was so much more to say than that. He gives you a warm smile and sits for a moment, you could practically hear his thoughts coming out of his head.
“I wanted to thank you too.” He starts, you cock your head to the side a little bit, waiting for his next words, “I’ve struggled a lot, with my divorce, my addiction, everything at the hospital, but you’ve been a really good breath of fresh air. I appreciate it more than you know.” He says, and hot tears well up.
“God, I don’t want to leave.” You finally admit, pressing your palms to your eyes.
“You’ll figure it out, I’m sure you will.” He says, and honestly, that was all you needed to hear, from exactly the right person.
“I will figure it out.” You repeat, leaning your head against the headrest of the car.
“Can I see your phone?” He asks, you furrow your brows, but hand it over. He opens your Contacts app, adding his phone number and name into it.
“Just in case, if you’re ever in town or just need anything, don’t hesitate.” He says, you smile and blush fiercely, texting him so he would have your contact saved too.
“Thank you, Frank.” You say, your voice ernest and sincere, saying everything you couldn’t. You sit and talk for what feels like hours. Your cheek was starting to ache and so were your eyes. One week in the Pitt felt like seven lifetimes. As much as you enjoyed it, you were excited to rest. Eventually, he drives you back to your car. You were dreading getting out.
He rounds the car and opens the door for you. You stand and your feet are aching instantly. He draws you into a hug and you have to fight back tears against him.
“I guess this is goodbye.” You say, looking up at him with raised brows. He shakes his head, the emotion getting to him as well.
“I don’t like goodbyes.” He admits, you furrow your brows slightly, “Just, goodnight.” He says, and before either of you can process it, he’s kissing you. You didn’t mind, at all, even though you said there would be no repeating Wednesday, that was the least of your worries right now. You taste salt, you weren’t sure if they were his tears or yours, and you weren’t sure that even mattered. When he pulled away, you both had sad smiles. You unlock your car, knowing if you didn’t leave now, you never would.
“Goodnight, Frank.” You say, starting your car. On the drive back to your hotel, you didn’t mind your Killers CD nearly as much.
✿ . ˚ . ˚ ✿
Sunday
Pretty much the second you’re back home in Wisconsin, you submit your permanent transfer request to Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center’s Emergency Department.
One day after that you get approved, you were starting in two weeks.
Ten minutes later you pull out your phone, shakily finding the contact saved as Frank Langdon.
You stare at the screen for three minutes, typing and retyping what you should say. Eventually, you decide to keep it simple.
“I’m coming back to PTMC permanently in two weeks.”
One minute after that you see three dots indicating he’s typing.
“So I can take you on a proper date now?”
You know immediately you made the right decision.
The End!
✿ . ˚ . ˚ ✿
A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed!! I loved writing this so so much. Would also like to say I did unintentionally write Al-Hashimi out, and I indeed apologize. Would also like to say, there is no room for Santos hate here xoxo. How I wrote her was for plot convenience, I love her dearly. Thank you for reading!!
so now that pball went on royal court and said langdon was a football player in undergrad, i’m expecting at least 25 football!langdon x reader fics on my desk by tomorrow morning thank you very much
A/N: This is once again incredibly self indulgent, but I hope you guys enjoy!!
Frank Langdon x amateur musician!reader!!
Pure, pure fluff. Frank tries to get reader to teach him to play guitar, and there is slight pushback.
Word Count: 2,000+
⋆˚࿔♫⋆˚࿔
You didn’t get much free time these days, especially since your 12 hour shifts in the Pitt took up most of it. But on the rare occasion your schedule lets you breathe, you spend your free time typically doing one of two things: playing your guitar, or spending time with your boyfriend, Frank Langdon. Both things were almost equally important to you. They had both been there for you in your weakest moments, helping you through, and you always came out stronger. Those two worlds, however, were yet to collide. The first time Frank was over at your apartment, he had begged to play your guitar.
“Have you ever played a guitar before?” You ask, stepping in between him and the guitar on the wall, your brows furrowed, but a playful smile on your face.
“Well, no, but you could teach me!” He says with raised brows, you smile and shake your head.
“This thing is precious to me, Langdon.” You say with raised brows, “I am not risking it for you, not now, maybe not ever.” You watch as his shoulders drop, giving you a pout face you can hardly say no to.
“Oh c’mon, it’ll be fun!” He says, you still won’t budge.
“You really have to prove yourself to me before you even consider touching this thing. And I seriously doubt teaching you would be fun.” You tease, taking his hand and dragging him over to the couch, collapsing into his lap.
“Why would it not be fun?” He asks with furrowed brows, he moves some of your hair behind your ear.
“Oh do not act all coy with me right now.” You say with a laugh, “you get one thing wrong on your first try and you are done, bad mood, not fun.” You say with a pointed look, he rolls his eyes.
“Oh just you wait, I’ll prove myself to you.” He says, tickling your sides, you melt into him with fits of laughter, trying and failing to get him back.
⋆˚࿔♫⋆˚࿔
It was two months after that he found out you were in a band in undergrad.
He was helping you clean out storage and found your old iPhone from college. You thought it would be fun to see if it would charge, just to look through it.
That was until he found videos of your band performing at a dive bar in your college town. You thought this was long buried and you would never have to think about it again, turns out you were very wrong.
“What’s this?” He asks, pressing play on the video, you slap a hand over your mouth.
“Oh my God.” You say, your voice muffled by your hand. You’re too shocked to process anything for a second, but when you get your composure back, you immediately jump into action, trying to get the phone from him. You chase him around, trying to get the phone, but he is way ahead of you. He puts it where he knows your hand can’t reach as you jump over him trying to stop him from watching the video. You were playing the guitar and singing “Black Sheep”. Your face was bright red as you watched and knew you couldn't stop him.
“Why’re you so embarrassed? This is great, you look hot.” Frank says as the video concludes, reluctantly passing you the phone, which you pocket. Your face grows even hotter as the last few words leave his mouth.
“Are you serious? I was so young and dumb.” You say, rolling your eyes. He shakes his head and leans into you with a smile.
“A band in college? That is so not dumb, it’s sexy as hell. I didn’t do anything nearly as cool.” He says, picking you up, you yelp out as he unexpectedly lifts you, but laugh a little as he drops you to the couch.
“No one was ever supposed to find that.” You say, looking up at him as he stands over you.
“Well I did, and I’m insanely jealous of the guys you knew back then.” You just roll your eyes and laugh, he looks over at the two guitars on your wall.
“No promises, because they are still very much so off limits, but you would look sexy playing the guitar.” You admit, he looks back at you with wide eyes.
“I’m breaking you down, aren’t I? I’m that damn irresistible.” He says and you shake your head.
“Why do I even say anything?” You tease, he shakes his head, knowing that he has you wrapped around his finger.
⋆˚࿔♫⋆˚࿔
You had been dating Frank a year now, and you had the perfect anniversary present for him. You were at dinner, celebrating one year together, and you couldn’t stop smiling, excited to tell him what his gift was.
“Are you that happy to be with me, or are you scheming something?” Frank asks with a smile and raised brows. You flush, looking down at the table and shaking your head.
“You’ll find out later.” You say, giving him a look. He smiles and lets out a small laugh.
“Well I have a pretty good surprise for you too.” He says, you furrow your brows and cocking your head slightly. You had both discussed no gifts, you both weren’t very materialistic people, so you really had no idea what he had in store for you.
“You’ll find out later.” He says with a look of his own, mirroring you from just a few minutes ago. You roll your eyes.
You could barely contain yourself the car ride home, both from excitement about your gift to him, and for whatever he was planning. The second he rolls up and parks the car you’re jumping out, grabbing his hand and practically running to the door.
“I have the best surprise for you, you’re gonna lose your shit.” You say with a wide smile, he shakes his head.
“No way, I’m going first, I cannot sit on this any longer.” He says and you start to protest, but he cuts you off with a kiss.
“Just trust me on this, ok? I know we said no gifts, but I really couldn’t resist.” He says, sitting you down, you give him a puzzled look as he disappears. You sit anxiously as you hear him rustle around in the bedroom.
“Ok, close your eyes.” He yells from the room, you do as you’re told, squeezing your eyes shut, your leg bouncing in anticipation.
“Keep them closed.” He says, his voice much closer now, you can’t contain the giddy smile forming on your face. You had been with him one year now, and it was the best year of your life. You were so grateful to have him, and he was always full of surprises, especially now.
“Ok, you can open them now.” He says, you open your eyes and gasp. Your hand covering your mouth as tears form in your eyes. In front of you was the most beautiful acoustic guitar you had ever seen. You were sure it had cost a fortune, you could barely take your eyes off of it, not moving.
“Go ahead, it's all yours, baby.” He says, pushing the case toward you. You join him on the floor, tackling him in a hug.
“You should not have done this, Frank” You say into his shoulder in utter disbelief.
“But I wanted to, you’ve done a lot for me in the past year, y’know.” He says, moving you to face him, “I had no idea how I was gonna get back on my feet after everything, and then you came along.” He says and you smile, tears threatening to fall.
“Thank you so much Frank,” You say, hugging him again, “This must’ve cost a fortune, seriously, you didn’t have to do this.” You say, cupping his face in your hands.
“All worth it for you, play me a song.” He says, nudging your shoulder and you finally pick up the instrument. Your hand moving up and down the slender neck, admiring the beauty. The fret markers were stars and the body was a beautiful cherry wood with flowers etched into the pick guard. You propped yourself against the couch and positioned the guitar appropriately. You had played for Frank many times now, but this felt different. You were much more nervous, your fingers shaking slightly as you picked out the chords for the song you were playing. You messed around with the guitar for a long time, the widest smile on your face, Frank was loving every second of it.
“This makes what I was gonna do seem so lame.” You say after a while, looking up at him.
“I’m sure I’ll love whatever it is, and we did originally agree on no gifts.” He says and you smile, feeling a little guilty for the beautiful guitar in your lap.
“I was going to teach you how to play my guitar.” You say with a shy smile. You would’ve thought you had just handed Frank a million dollars by the smile on his face.
“And you’re being serious?” He asks with raised brows. You smile and nod.
“Yes, I know it’s not much, but-” You say, but he once again interrupts you with a kiss, you melt into him and he pulls away, giddy like a little kid as he stands up and goes to the wall, silently asking permission to take your old acoustic guitar down. You nod with a smile.
“This is very much so a big deal,” He says, sitting down next to you, you hover a little, making sure he’s holding it properly, “I can’t believe I finally broke you down.” He says with a teasing look and you smile, putting your new guitar back in its case so you can give him your full attention.
“Ok, think you’re ready?” You ask, helping him sit with the guitar and getting him situated.
“I was born ready.” He jokes and you roll your eyes.
“Well just saying, it’s not as easy as I make it look, and it doesn’t come naturally to everyone, something I know someone in particular struggles with.” You say, teasingly poking his chest, he pretends to look hurt, but you both know you’re right.
“I can handle it, c’mon, which song should I learn first.” He says, going to start placing his hands on the fretboard when you stop him.
“Whoa, we are nowhere near learning a song, Frank. We are just getting started with the basics, strumming tonight and maybe, maybe a few chords.” You say, helping him place his hands.
“Okay, when you strum you don’t want to just use your wrist, you need to use your whole forearm,” You say, demonstrating for him, he tries to strum like you, and it could definitely use some work.
“It’s just a fluid motion, and you gotta distribute it evenly to each string, like this.” You say, strumming once on your new guitar. He tries and it comes out very heavy on the lower strings. You have to hold in a laugh at how adorable he looks when he’s frustrated.
You keep trying, he gets a little better, but you both realize quickly he is not a natural. You give him props though, he hasn’t gotten insanely frustrated and stormed out of the room, yet. You stay as patient as possible, teaching him the differences between an up and down strum, how to place the pad of his thumb against the strings. You were up late into the night working on it.
“You’re doing great, baby, but how about we go get some sleep?” You asked with raised brows, and he shakes his head immediately.
“Not yet, I gotta figure this out before I forget it.” He says, you just smile and sigh. Staying up with him until 3 AM learning how to strum the guitar. You would’ve never thought a year ago that you would let someone like Frank get so intertwined into your life, break down your walls and know you so intimately, but here you were. And you wouldn’t trade it for the world.
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A/N: Hope you guys enjoyed! I am hopefully gonna have some more chapters of my spiderman au soon but tbh is that something we rlly want?? we'll see! Thanks for reading :)
A/N: Small break from my current series! This might be my fav thing I've written so far, hope you guys enjoy!
CW: Post rehab Frank, mentions of addiction and sobriety, mostly just pure fluff, reader is mustering about the courage to seize the day and ask Frank on a date, Carpe Diem!
Word Count: 2.7k
When your alarm blared in the morning, it took you at least three snooze cycles to get the courage to actually get up. You eventually force yourself up, groggily walking to the bathroom. You start brushing your teeth, your eyes half lidded as you mentally prepare for what was most likely going to be a grueling 12 hour shift in the Pitt. Your residency hadn’t exactly been easy. Mass casualties, patients dying, getting assaulted one too many times, and of course, your incredibly embarrassing crush on your superior, Frank Langdon.
You thought his leave from the Pitt would help nip your feelings in the bud, but in reality, made them much, much worse. You had been the only one to reach out to him during his leave. It started off innocently, just once a week check-in texts, then you went out to coffee, he stayed at your place until he got back on his feet after Abby left, it just kept progressing. But, you made sure not to push too much, you aren’t supposed to make big life decisions until a year clean, or so you’d read. That 12 month marker is here now, and you could barely wait.
As you brushed your teeth, you saw the sticky note on your bathroom mirror, your every day reminder. “Carpe Diem!” You had written out at the start of your residency, and it was your reminder to keep going. It was the first thing you saw when you woke up, and the last thing you saw before going to sleep every night. And today, those two words were taking on a new meaning. Today was the day you were going to put on your big girl pants and officially ask Frank out. You two were pretty much inseparable already, so how much would really change? Your mind starts spinning as you put on the bare minimum of makeup, psyching yourself out. Maybe you shouldn’t do it, what would you do if he said no? You force yourself to snap out of it, to not think about it until the end of shift today, then you were just going to do it. That was that.
You continued to think over your day, the ball of nerves tightening in your chest as you packed your bag and headed out the door, blasting music on the way to work, preventing you from thinking too much. You pull into the parking lot ten minutes too early, you take a deep breath, pushing your palms into your eyes. That’s when you hear a knock on the window, scaring the absolute shit out of you. You pant breathlessly as you recover from the scare, looking over at your window and seeing Frank waving at you, that dumb, sweet, insanely attractive smile on his face. You force a breath out and shake your head, rolling your window down.
“You’re gonna get hearing damage, y’know.” He says with raised brows, pointing to your radio, still blasting music. You turn it down immediately, laughing nervously, silently berating yourself, pull it together, you tell yourself, turning back to him with a smile.
“Good, then I won’t have to hear you all the time.” You joke teasingly, rolling your window back up and getting out of your car. Frank was already on the other side grabbing your bag for you before you could even think of doing it yourself.
“Why am I so nice to you, again?” He asks with a smile, carrying your bag in for you and handing you a cup of coffee. You freeze for a minute before taking it, hoping the shake in your hand wasn’t too obvious. You laugh, letting your nervous energy leave you that way.
“Because I’m charming, and I’m nice, when I want to be.” You tease, elbowing his side. He laughs, trying, and failing, to dodge your elbow.
“Guess so, you ready for another magical day in the Pitt?” He asks, looking over at you, you shrug your shoulders.
“Is anyone ever ready?” You ask with raised brows, he laughs and nods in agreement. The sense of normalcy you had brought him in the past year was so refreshing. The banter, the conversations you could have that didn’t revolve around his addiction, the conversations you could have that did revolve around his addiction. He was grateful for all of it.
“No, not really.” He says after a minute, forcing himself out of his head, handing you your bag as you both go to your separate locker rooms, “I’ll see you out there.” He calls after you as you walk away. You give him a smile and a salute before disappearing into the locker room, taking some deep breaths, splashing your face with cold water.
“What’s up with you this morning?” Cassie asks, you jump, not even seeing her when you had come in.
“Oh! Nothing, nothing, just tired.” You say, shaking your head and changing into your scrubs.
“Right,” Cassie says with a nod, clearly not believing you. She passes you as she goes to walk out of the locker room, you give her an unconvincing smile, she just shakes her head at you, smiling a little as well.
“God, it’s just Frank.” You say to yourself in the mirror now that you were alone. Psyching yourself up to go out and do rounds. You think of the words on your mirror again, “Carpe Diem!” You tell yourself to honor that mantra. You splash some more water on your face before heading into the belly of the Pitt.
After rounds, you were thrown head first into the chaos that was the PTMC Emergency Department. Case after case, a particularly rough trauma, you had finally gotten a moment to yourself to catch your breath. You were catching up on charting when Frank came up to you, ruining the almost peaceful state you were in. Usually, you were happy to have him interrupt you, annoy you, cherry pick a case with you, but today, you were just too on edge.
“Hey there.” He says, rolling up next to you in his chair, you jump again, third time today.
“Hi-hi Frank.” You say, giving him a quick smile before going back to your charting. He cocks his head at you a little bit.
“You good?” He asks, sipping on his energy drink, watching you a little too intently for your liking.
“Yeah, I’m good.” You say, assuring him with a nod and raised brows, still not looking away from the computer, “Just swamped with charting, per usual.” You say before standing up, giving him a quick, nervous smile before going to check on a patient. He looks after you for a minute, almost dumbfounded. You were off. It was barely there, but he knew you way too well to not know when something was up, and he was determined to fix it. He’s broken away from his trance by Princess and Perlah gossiping in Tagalog. What he doesn’t realize is that they were silently placing bets on when you and him were going to get together. He shakes his head, giving them a look before going to check on a patient himself. His mind still a little too focused on you.
You could feel his eyes on you the rest of the day. No matter where he was, he was aware of where you were. At one point during a debriefing you made eye contact, he smiled and you smiled back. You noticed how he was bouncing on the balls of his feet, snapping his bracelet against his wrist. You were too in your head to realize he was up in his own head as well. You didn’t have time to think about it, you just needed to get through the day, and talk to him at end of shift. You go to leave after the debriefing, but he stops you, you turn around, trying to keep eye contact, but fuck, his eyes were gorgeous.
“Everything alright?” He asks, his eyes searching yours. You nod almost immediately, he doesn’t believe you.
“Yes, I am perfectly fine, I could be asking you the same thing, Dr. Langdon.” You counter with raised brows, he shakes his head.
“Don’t turn this on me, you’ve been acting weird.” He says, pointing a finger at you, you shake your head, looking down at your shoes before forcing yourself up to meet his eyes again.
“I am fine, please don’t worry about me.” You say with that sweet, convincing smile. He decides to leave it for the moment, but his eyes still never leave you.
“Ok, but if you need a break, go take ten in the breakroom.” He says, gesturing his head over to the room. You smile and shake your head.
“I am good, I promise, thank you for caring.” You say, grabbing his forearm with both of your hands and squeezing before Dana called your name. You turned away from him, going to help a patient while the ghost of your touch lingered on his arm. You let out a breath, saved by Dana once again. You needed to get it together, he was seeing straight through you, and you couldn’t have that, not right now.
You spend the last few remaining hours of your shift trying to pull yourself together, “Carpe Diem, Carpe Fucking Diem.” You repeated to yourself under your breath as you escaped to the bathroom.
When you left the bathroom you were instantly pulled onto a trauma, with Frank. Something you had avoided all day. You couldn’t work a case with him, not when he was so damn distracting. He offered to tie your trauma gown on, something he usually did, but today it felt different. You could feel his hands shaking against you a little bit, and your heart rate instantly picked up. As you turned around to face him you looked at him with furrowed brows. He shrugged, seemingly confused by your expression, turning around and having you tie his gown on for him.
You try to shake it off, but you can’t. He is off. It’s barely there, but you know him way too well to not notice. He’s been way overly attentive, nervous, hyper, all of it. Your mind goes to the worst case scenario for just a moment, but you pull yourself out of it. You needed to fix it, fix him, but you couldn’t, not right now. You fumble a question from Robby, nothing bad but he has to correct you. You curse under your breath, beating yourself up for the stupid mistake.
“You’re doing great.” Frank says with his soft smile, you practically melt. You had no idea why you were so nervous, this was just Frank. Frank who, no matter what, will be your best friend. The rest of the case goes by just fine, ending up with a trip to the OR for the patient. Frank gives you another smile and thumbs up before you’re both pulled away again. The rest of the shift is stolen glances, smiles across bays, a warmth forming in your chest. Princess and Perlah notice immediately, chatting in Taglog again.
“Do you think they’re already together and we don’t know it?” Princess says to Perlah in Tagalog.
“No, no I don’t think so, I think they’d be way more obvious about it if they were, they can’t hide anything.” Perlah replies.
“They just need to fuck and stop playing eye tag, it’s getting gross.” Trinity jumps in, eavesdropping on the conversation. The three of them laughing at the comment a little too loud, the whole ED hearing them.
“What’s so funny?” You ask, walking up and sitting down, trying to finish your charts before end of shift. The three women just look at each other and laugh again. You furrow your brows and shake your head, training your eyes back to the computer. Frank eventually sits down next to you, doing the same with his charts. You exchange glances about the gossip, sharing a smile before going back to charting. Your knees brush and you swear your heart stops. Eventually, you both finish your charts, you round with the night shift, and now it is time to leave. Time to be brave, time to ask Frank out.
“Walk me out to my car?” You ask Frank before you both head into the locker rooms, forcing yourself to say it, trying to muster up the courage.
“Since when do I not do that anyway?” He asks teasingly, heading into the locker room to change before you could reply. When you exit the locker room he’s waiting for you, taking your bag and leading the way out to the parking lot. The walk to your car is dead silent, you can’t get the courage to say anything until you’re actually at your car, you lean against it, forcing yourself to look him in the eyes. You were about to start talking when he interrupts you.
“Would you like to go on a date with me?” Frank blurts out as you start your sentence. You look at him in disbelief, furrowing your brows and cocking your head.
“What did you just say to me?” You ask, genuinely asking for clarification. You cannot believe he beat you to it. He furrows his brows at your words, his confidence seemingly struck down a little.
“I-I mean, I’m sorry, It’s just, I’m a year clean now and, I thought, but, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.” He says, rambling, spiraling, messing with his bracelet and looking at the ground. You realize he thinks you’re rejecting him, and you can’t have that,
“No, God no, Frank, look at me.” You say, grabbing his hands so they would stop fidgeting. He looks at you with nervous eyes.
“I’ve been weird all day because, because I was going to ask you out tonight.” You admit, your hands are still holding his. Now it was Frank’s turn to be shocked.
“Are you joking?” He asks, you both just stare at each other for a second before you start laughing. You basically double over, laughing until tears left your eyes. Frank doesn't move, still looking at you with surprise.
“I am so not joking, Frank.” You say with a smile, sighing as you shake your head and smile, “I had this whole speech prepared and I was gearing up all day to ask you, so nervous about it, and you steal my thunder.” You say, shaking your head, the wide smile not leaving your face.
“And you’re being totally serious right now?” He says, gripping your hands back tighter now. You nod in agreement.
“Very serious, I have this note on my bathroom mirror, it says ‘Carpe Diem!’, that means seize the day in Latin, and I was so ready to seize the day today and ask you out, and you beat me to it.” You explain, and now Frank starts laughing, shaking his head, moving to stand next you, also leaning against your car.
“So that’s why you were acting weird today? Cause you were nervous?” He asks, looking over at you. You nod with a smile.
“And that was why you were acting weird too?” You ask, and now you both burst out into a fit of laughter.
“We are idiots, aren’t we?” Frank asks, you laugh and nod again.
“We absolutely are.” You say, you can’t believe you were ever nervous for this moment, it was perfect.
“Well, would you like to go on a date with me?” He asks again with raised brows. You smile warmly and nod, leaning against him.
“I would want nothing more.” You say, he puts his hand on the small of your back.
“God, I wanna kiss you so bad right now.” He says under his breath, you lean into his chest, smiling up at him.
“What’s stopping you?” You ask with raised brows. He shakes his head.
“I am doing this right, Carpe Diem, huh?” He asks with raised brows. The warmth in your chest explodes, and that’s when you know, you chose the right one in Frank Langdon.
A/N: Yay! Three chapters! Hope you like this one! Frank gets to use his powers a little bit more, and a ton more of the reader in this, enjoy!
CW: Some spider-man typical violence at the end but not much
Word Count: 1.8k
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So, superpowers. Frank had spent most of the night messing around with his newfound abilities. Climbing on walls, testing his strength, anything he could think of. It was like he was a spider, it was insane. Now that the initial panic was over, he was enjoying this a little too much. He had powers, unlike anything anyone had ever seen or done before. It was exhilarating. He felt slightly more in control now, no longer feeling like everything would explode if he just looked at it wrong. He felt ok to be around you now, like he wouldn’t hurt you. That was what felt the best out of all of it. He hated to admit it, but being away from you for almost over 24 hours had started taking its toll on him. When he woke up in the morning he checked his phone to find a text from you.
“How’re you feeling? Do you need anything? And is your shower still broken?” He reads, smiling at your thoughtfulness. With anyone else this would’ve annoyed him, but you, you were very different.
“I’m feeling better, and I’m all good, but my shower is still broken. wouldn’t mind an excuse to see my favorite girl…” He replies, you start typing immediately.
“Ok you can come over whenever!! :)))” He smiles, feeling your excitement through the screen. He quickly tells you he’ll be right over, going the short distance over to your apartment. When he knocks on your door you open it immediately, basically tackling him in a hug, knocking the wind out of him. He laughs, patting your back a little apprehensively. Still slightly worried about hurting you, or sticking to your shirt.
“Miss me?” He asks with a smile, letting himself be more comfortable around you, promising himself he had things under control. You nod against him, he pokes your side and you laugh.
“Yes, I was worried about you.” You say, pulling away, running your hand through his hair, your eyes scanning over every detail.
“Well I am completely fine, thank you.” He says, kissing the top of your head and releasing himself from the hug.
“Good, any plans for the day?” You ask with raised brows, he shakes his head.
“Only hanging out with you.” He says, basking in your smile, the superpowers could wait for tomorrow, he promised he would make it up to you.
“Perfect, cause I need you to proofread an essay and we need to study for Callahan’s exam that’s next Thursday, and then maybe we could reward ourselves with going to the bar, playing some pool?” You ask, listing off your itinerary. He smiles and nods in agreement.
“And how long have you had that planned out?” He asks teasingly, you laugh and shake your head.
“Only since this morning.” You say, rolling your eyes, “Now go shower, I need to finish that essay so you can read through it.” You say, shooing him to the bathroom.
“I'm going, I’m going.” He says, raising his hands above his head. He showers quickly, feeling a little jittery again. Being around you, knowing he was hiding something huge, and also scared to hurt you, was making him a little anxious, but he took some deep breaths in the shower, telling himself you were ok, before heading back out to you again.
When he came back to your living room he found you curled up on the couch, laptop in your face as you type, he finds the crinkle in between your brows incredibly adorable. He sits down next to you, smoothing the crease in your brow, making you laugh.
“Almost done.” You say with a nod, which means ‘Do not talk to me until I am ready.’ and Frank understands, nodding before pulling out his phone, waiting for your signal. It was a few minutes before you let out a sigh, pulling his attention back to you.
“Ok, please read it. And don’t sabotage it cause you want a better grade than me.” You say, he laughs as you hand him your laptop.
“I can’t believe you’d accuse me of such things.” He jokes as he turns the brightness up on your computer. You tuck yourself into his chest as he begins reading, watching him make small adjustments or comments. You find yourself listening to his heartbeat while he reads, something you do often, sometimes you’ll lie and say you need to use him as an example for an assignment, just to hear his heartbeat, to hear he was alive and well. Except today, his heartbeat was exceptionally fast.
“Frank, babe,” You say, lifting yourself off his chest. He looks over at you with furrowed brows.
“What?” He asks, seeing the concern in your face.
“Are you alright?” You ask, your fingers naturally finding his radial, silently counting.
“I’m fine, why?” He asks, cocking his head.
“Do you know how fast your heart is beating?” You ask, he puts his fingers to his neck, feeling that his heart was beating quite fast. He makes a mental note to add that to his list of symptoms.
“I don’t know why it’s beating fast, but I’m fine.” He assures you with a nod, his voice unwavering, you decide to believe him for now, reluctantly putting your head back down, letting him continue his revising.
He finishes revising your essay and you insist on making lunch for the both of you while he quizzes you on your upcoming exam. He tries his best to hide how the flashcards are sticking to his hands. You basically force food down his throat, hoping his heart rate was just high because of low blood sugar. He promises you he’s fine, but you worry, and he knows this all too well, he finds it endearing. And while it is incredibly endearing, your worrying nature and how detail oriented you were meant it was impossible to hide from you. He takes a breath and lets you fuss, continuing to study and laugh, throwing trail mix into each other's mouths.
He watches you get ready for the bar, you let him pick the top you were going to wear. He chooses a chic black off the shoulder long sleeve with jeans. He wears his usual t-shirt and jeans combination, even though you insist he needs to step out of his box. You also admit he looks very handsome, per usual, while he tells you for the hundredth time that day that you look beautiful.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you were hiding something from me, how much you’re kissing up to me, Langdon.” You tease as you put the finishing touches on your eyeliner.
“What? You think I’m hiding something?” He says with a serious tone and furrowed brows, stopping in his tracks, worried you were seeing right through him.
“No, I don’t think you are hiding something,” rolling your eyes and turning around to face him, “I’m saying you are showering me with a lot of love tonight.” You say, he closes the gap between the two of you, putting his hand on your jaw.
“Well it is true, you are beautiful.” He mumbles, kissing you as you blush and let out a small laugh.
“Let's go, shall we?” You ask, he links your arm into his as he leads you out of your apartment. His grip on you was tight, it always was but tonight you barely had any room to move. He felt on edge, like something was about to happen, but he couldn’t quite place it. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as his grip on you tightened even more.
“Everything alright?” You ask, a constant question in your rotation recently.
“Yeah, yeah, just, stay close to me, alright?” He asks, looking around for anything wrong.
“Don’t have to tell me twice.” You say with a smile, he laughs a little, his mind preoccupied with the danger he was sensing nearby.
Eventually, you make your way to the street your favorite bar is on, and Frank figures out why he was so on edge earlier. In the alleyway next to the bar, you both saw a guy being mugged, you gasped a little as the mugger punched the poor guy in the face. Frank couldn’t just stand by and let it happen.
“Stay put, out of sight.” He murmurs to you, his voice quiet yet incredibly demanding, moving you out of the way before running to the alleyway. You start to call after him, but he was already gone.
“Hey! Asshole!” Frank calls out to the mugger. The mugger turns his attention away from the guy and towards Frank. Frank’s blood runs cold for a second before he snaps out of. Time to test these newfound powers, he thinks to himself. The mugger goes to punch him but Frank sees it coming from a mile away, catching his fist in his hand.
“That’s the best you can do, really?” Frank quips, the guy on the ground frantically gets up and runs away as Frank punches the mugger in the gut. He lets out a grunt and falls to the ground, already KO’d. Frank must be a lot stronger than he thought.
“You’re lucky I’m not gonna call the cops.” Frank says before walking away, leaving him there in the alleyway, still groaning in pain. Frank wishes he had some way to restrain him so the cops could take care of him, but for now he just walks back to you.
“Asshole is taken care of.” He says with raised brows and a smile, quite proud of himself.
“What a hero, how’d you stop him?” You ask, taking his hand and scanning him for any noticeable injuries.
“Just scared him off a little, definitely not as tough as he looks,” Frank says, putting his arm around your shoulder, “but now that that’s taken care of, let's have some fun, how’s that sound? Frank asks, leading you into the bar, and you do. He absolutely smokes you at pool, but that’s alright, that’s how it usually goes.
That night, after you were home from the bar, you were fast asleep in Frank’s arms, but Frank was wide awake, staring at the ceiling. His mind was racing, playing and replaying his interaction with the mugger in his head. Maybe the next steps with these powers were to help people, to make a difference. He could use them to his advantage, but he’d need to hide himself if he were to do that. He tries to think of a disguise, how to make something like that. A shitty mask, what would it even look like? He couldn’t stop thinking, there were so many logistics he needed to figure out. He barely sleeps, but lets the weight of you in his arms ease his mind and comfort him enough to barely drift off.
End of Chapter Three
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A/N: I am having way too much fun with this series, super glad I could pump this out before school starts up again. Anyway, once again lmk any thoughts/ideas for this story!
A/N: Chapter Two of my Spider-Man AU!! I am having a lot of fun with this, I hope you guys are too! We get a few more familiar faces, not much of the reader in this chapter but I had a lot of fun writing the dialogue between Robby and Frank. Hope you guys enjoy!
Word Count: 1.3k
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Frank showers at your place, taking his time, being as slow and careful as possible, and he is positively freaking out. The shower calmed him down enough, but he needed to figure things out. He knew exactly who he needed to talk to. Unfortunately, it wasn't you, he couldn't let you know what was going on. Not now, maybe not ever, not if he couldn't get things under control. Your safety was his number one priority, and right now, he couldn’t guarantee that, and that terrified him.
He got out of the shower, towel around his waist, staring at himself in the mirror. He stared at himself for far too long, it wasn't until your knock shook him out of his trance.
“Frank, are you sure you’re ok?” You ask through the door. He lets out a heavy sigh and rubs a hand down his face.
“Yeah, yeah I’m ok, I need to leave though, forgot I had a meeting with Dr. Robby, about some research thing.” He lies, feeling incredibly guilty for doing so, but he has to, just for right now. For your safety, he tells himself, over and over again.
“Ok, I was gonna go to the library with Ellis, if you wanna meet up after both of those.” You say, and he almost falls apart, he never keeps anything from you, this was going to kill him.
“Yeah, yeah maybe dinner? I’m kind of tired, I guess.” Frank says, putting his clothes on, his pants stick to his fingers, like they were sticky. He had to fight to get them off.
“Ok, if you want to just rest that's ok too.” You say, he hates how sweet and understanding you are in this moment, because he doesn’t deserve it. Frank opens the door to your sweet, smiling face, he softens immediately.
“I’ll call you after, ok?” He says with raised brows, you smile and nod, leaning into him. He kisses you, but doesn’t dare put his hands on you still, it’s all too new, too dangerous.
“Let me know how your meeting with Dr. Robby goes.” You say, pulling yourself away from the kiss. He smiles and nods.
“I will, promise.” He says, grabbing his bag from your room.
“Love you, superstar.” You say, leaning against the doorframe as he walks out.
“Love you too.” He says, leaving you with a smile, and feeling incredibly undeserving of that nickname for the time being.
The walk to Robby’s office was a rough one. He was paranoid, feeling like everything around him was turned up to a million percent. He was hyperaware of everything, and it was terrifying. Every bug, gust of wind, person that was near him felt overbearing. He felt on high alert, even though nothing was going on. He put his fingers to his wrist, checking his pulse, and it was high.
When he showed up outside Robby’s door he knocked a little too harshly, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet impatiently as he waited for him to open the door.
“Langdon, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Robby asks, letting him inside.
“Hey, Dr. Robby, I guess I have kind of a hypothetical question for you.” Frank says, taking a breath, forcing himself not to appear too frantic.
“Ok, let’s hear it.” Robby says, sitting down, gesturing for Frank to do the same across the desk.
“So, um” he pauses, trying not to appear too frantic, he needed to sound calm, collected, like this was for research, and technically, it was, “those like, bugs and stuff, in the lab, specifically the spiders, what can those bites, potentially do to a person?” He asks, making sure he has his notebook and pen out, hanging onto every single breath that leaves his mentor.
“Well, depends on the spider, which ones are you studying and why?” Robby asks, Frank can’t help but feel like his eyes see right through him.
“Just, uh, any of them, I guess. What's the worst symptoms that can happen, from any spider bite? I’m just doing some extra research on bug bites, how it affects people, that stuff.” He says with a nod, fidgeting with his pen.
“I mean, most of the time the worst is death,” Robby says, Frank has to force himself to just nod.
“What symptoms typically present before that?” He asks with furrowed brows, Robby cocks his head.
“Shouldn’t you know this stuff already?” He asks, Frank shrugs.
“Thought it wouldn’t hurt to have a refresher from the best.” He says with raised brows, flattery was the key.
“Well, there can be pain, swelling, muscle cramps, fever, vomiting, all that good stuff.” Robby says, Frank nods along and writes it down in his notebook.
Spider Bite Symptoms: pain, swelling, muscle cramps, fever, vomiting, etc.
My Symptoms: fever, hyperaware of surroundings, enhanced strength, quick healing factor, ???
He had written down in his notebook, he basically slammed it shut before Robby could get too curious about what he was writing.
“Ok, well thank you, I will see you in class on Monday.” He says, getting up, already nervous about the doorknob.
“Yes, well, good luck with you, research.” Robby says, standing up to let Frank out. His face says that he can see the sheen of sweat across Frank’s forehead, but he keeps quiet, “If you need anything else, you know where to find me.” He says, opening the door for Frank. Frank lets out a sigh of relief, nodding and thanking Robby again before leaving. He finds a dark part of the hallway, leaning against the wall, taking some deep breaths. Clearly, something different was happening to him, were there other symptoms he didn't know of yet? There was still so much for him to figure out, he was only in the shallow end of this mess.
He goes to put his pen and notebook away, but realizes, for the second time today, things seem to be sticking to him. He goes to flick the pen away, out of his hand, but it won't. It is positively stuck on him. He starts flailing his arm, trying to get the pen off, and it just won’t budge. A professor walks by him as he is swinging his arm around, he tries to play it off like he’s waving, he doesn’t think it worked that well. While the pen is stuck on him he takes the opportunity to open his notebook back up.
My Symptoms: fever, hyperaware of surroundings, enhanced strength, quick healing factor, ??? sticky hands?
He updates the notebook, closing it and eventually peeling the pen and book off his hands, putting them back in his hands. He gets out of the building and runs, he just keeps running. He doesn’t stop until he gets to an empty alleyway, panting, basically falling to the ground. Before he does anything else he calls you, it goes to voicemail, your phone off since you were at the library.
“Hey,” he starts, still out of breath, “Just want you to know I am not feeling that great after all, I think I need to just rest tonight, but, I’ll make it up to you ok? I love you.” He ends the call, the guilt crawling back up his chest, but if he wanted to keep you safe he had to get himself under control first, and that’s exactly what he was doing. He puts his hand up against the wall of the building he was leaning against, realizing quickly his hand was stuck. He forced it off, turning around. If his hands were sticky, that sticky, what else was he capable of? He wanted to figure that out sooner rather than later.
Looking around, making sure no one was there to see him, he turned around to face the wall, putting both hands against it. He slowly started scaling the building, laughing to himself along the way. He, measly med student Frank Langdon, for lack of better word, had superpowers.
End of Chapter Two
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A/N: I would still love to hear any thoughts/ideas for this as it continues! 'm not sure how many chapters it's gonna have just yet, but probably, around 6? Hope you guys enjoyed!
"My Spidey Sense is telling me she took her morning insulin, but she skipped lunch."
A/N: So basically that line of Frank's has been in my head ever since I first watched the Pitt and I LOVE marvel and Spider-Man so this is where we are at now. I love a good Spider-Man AU.
Across the Spider-Verse, this Spider-Man was not a high schooler, or a kid named Peter Parker, nor did he live in New York. This Spider-Man was Pitt med school's very own Frank Langdon. And you are his MJ.
Word Count: 1.2k
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Med school had been hard for Frank. He was constantly sleep deprived and studying at all hours of the night, surviving only on energy drinks and the buzz of being with you. Your relationship had been a whirlwind, starting off with competing for the top grade in your organic chemistry class in undergrad, and has now grown into what you had now. What you had now was special, that was the only way Frank really knew how to describe it. You both just clicked, making each other better in the best ways possible. It was: countless study dates, one kiss for one right flash card answer, sleepovers at each other's apartments, classes, labs, too many nights out at the bar, and so much more. While med school had been hard, you had been a constant, something to help him be better. What he didn't know was that med school was about to get a lot harder, and this was something you couldn’t help with.
You were both in the lab, working with your respective assigned partners, eyeing each other across the room, watching each other's every move. You both were competitive, wanting to be the best. Even now that you were together, your competitiveness gave your relationship a fun edge to it. You had been up late with him last night, asking each other questions about the lab, going over the procedures, kissing, more procedure, more kissing. Frank’s thoughts during the lab kept drifting back to the night before. He finds his lab partner staring at him, he shakes his head and forces himself to focus, you try and do the same.
You and your partner finish the lab at the same time as Frank and his. You walk out together, Frank grabbing your elbow and pulling you into another, currently dark and unoccupied, lab. Frank pushing you against the wall and kissing you.
“Frank, we’re in public.” You say breathlessly in between kisses. He breathes a laugh against your neck.
“We’re barely in public, stop worrying.” He says with raised brows, his hands moving down to your hips.
“There’s like, weird animals in here and stuff, who knows.” You say, looking back up at him with a teasing smile, you knew exactly what you were doing to him.
“And who cares, c’mon, be adventurous for once in your life.” He says, pushing into you more, you laugh and shake your head. Finally after a few moments of teasing, you kiss back, your hand going up to his neck.
“Y’know we can do this at one of our apartments.” You say after a minute, he shakes his head and smiles, knowing you were never one for sneaking around like this.
“Fine, fine, let's go, how’d that lab go for you?” He asks, making conversation as he leads you out of the room, his arm around your waist, you chat with him as you walk across campus back to Frank’s apartment.
What Frank didn’t realize, in the heat of the moment, is that the lab room he had pulled you in did have a bunch of weird animals, like you had said. One of those animals happened to be a spider that had escaped its enclosure. He also hadn’t realized, in the heat of the moment, that the spider had crawled up to his neck.
The spider dug into his neck while you were walking back to his apartment.
“Ow!” Frank exclaims, his hand going to his neck instinctively. You look over at him with furrowed brows, concern written all over your face.
“What’s wrong?” You ask, your eyes scanning all over him, he moves his hand off his neck immediately at your concern, not needing you to worry about him.
“Yeah, m’fine, just moved my neck weird, sorry.” He says, his neck twitching a little, your eyes still don’t move from him, despite his reassurance that he was fine.
Frank barely sleeps that night, feverish, tossing and turning, doing everything in his power not to wake you. He eventually gets up, his whole body seemingly buzzing, something feeling wrong, immensely wrong. He sneaks out of the room, silently moving to the bathroom, but when he goes to open the door, he tears the doorknob straight off. He stands there for a moment in shock, his hands shaking violently. He had barely touched the knob, so what the hell was going on. He felt the familiar twinge of pain on his neck again, he moved his hand to his neck and in his shirt, only to find a dead spider.
He closes his eyes for a moment, trying not to let the panic eat him alive. Was he dying? Did he need to go to the hospital? Wake you up? So many questions, and yet really the only answer he could come up with is he didn’t want anyone to know for now. He was training to be a doctor, he could figure this out, and he sure as hell didn’t want to stress you more than you already were. He finds his small tool kit, bending a few wrenches and screwdrivers before figuring out how to handle his newfound strength. He slowly, but surely, fixes the doornkob, finding his way into the bathroom. He goes to turn on the shower, thinking that would help with the fever, and instead of turning the water on, he tears the knob off the wall. Second time in thirty minutes, great. He was trying silently to fix the knob, but his hands wouldn’t stop shaking so he kept dropping the knob, when he heard you rustling around in his bedroom.
“Frank, everything alright in there?” You ask through the bathroom door, hearing the commotion he was causing.
“Um, um yeah just, just give me a second!” He yells, deciding to just come up with an alibi and call a guy. He goes to get out of the tub and trips, crashing into the ground. Whatever was wrong with him, he needed to get to the bottom of it, and quickly.
“Frank!” You exclaim, opening the bathroom door, finding him sprawled against the floor, the knob to the shower on the floor, it had seemingly cut his arm in the fall.
“M’fine, stupid handle broke, now I can’t fucking shower.” He says, standing up, blood dripping onto the floor.
“You can shower at mine, how about we get you cleaned up, you're bleeding.” You say, forcing him to sit on the closed toilet seat while you rummaged around in his cabinet, looking for a first aid kit. When you turned to face him, the cut wasn’t there, like it had healed that quick. You look between his eyes and his healed arm, your brows furrowing.
“You had a cut on your arm.” You state, pointing at where the cut should be. He looks down and finds there was no cut there, not even a trace of blood.
“Maybe you’re seeing things, babe.” He says with raised brows, standing up and kissing you. He made sure not to touch you, he couldn’t have this affecting you, couldn’t put this on you, not yet, at least. He had to get to the bottom of it himself first. But he was stronger, he was healing incredibly quickly. What else was he capable of, he was curious to find out.
End of Chapter One
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A/N: Ok I had so much fun writing this!! Please lmk your thoughts on this, do we like? do we want more chapters? any ideas for potential villains? I would love to hear any thoughts/ideas!!! Hope you enjoyed :)
Anxiety was something you had struggled with for a while. You thought you hid it fine, going off into corners, breaking down in silence, never asking anyone for help. That was until you got together with Frank, who unraveled you in a way you had no idea anyone could. You had both helped each other through so much. You had been there throughout rehab, standing by Frank when he thought no one would, visiting him as much as you could, keeping him strong when he felt incredibly weak. To him, you were a big encouragement to get better. And he had helped you too, so much. He helped you through your worst moments, distracted you when you couldn’t stop thinking, held your hands when they were shaking, talked you through deep breaths. All in all, you made each other better.
You came out of all of it better, together, but, when you looked at Frank you saw your strong, resilient husband. When you looked at yourself, you saw someone who was still struggling to get by. He told you you were making progress, that you were better. There were still bad days though, too many for the amount of help you had been receiving, you thought. Days where patients got to you, days where you took one too many breathers outside, days where you couldn’t show up at all. But, Frank saw you through all of it. Talking you down, helping connect you with a therapist. You’d hoped that he feels that you’d helped him half as much as he had helped you.
On one of these bad days, you had lost a patient. You were doing compressions for at least 20 minutes, you were sore and tired, but your patient was dead. Robby assured you it wasn’t your fault, but after the debriefing you quickly escaped to the hallway, blinking tears out of your eyes, your breath shallow and shaky as you replay the sound of the flatline in your head. You don't even realize Frank is outside of the room waiting for you, you don’t realize that you shoulder check him as he asks you if you’re ok. You just make your break for the hallway, replaying the last twenty minutes in your head over and over, trying to fix it, but you can't.
You stand in the empty hallway, taking deep breaths, tapping your collarbones back and forth, back and forth. You focus on the feeling of your fingertips against your collarbones, trying to calm down.
“What’re you doing?” Frank asks softly, snapping you out of your trance. You look at him for a second before replying, moving your hands away from your collarbones, starting to pick at the skin around your thumb before Frank grabs your hand and squeezes gently.
“It’s supposed to help, I don’t know, I read it’s supposed to help.” You say, not meeting his gaze.
“Well, does it help?” He asks, his tone patient and his brows raised.
“In the moment, I guess it does,” You say with a nod, thinking the question over, “people do it in a lot of places, like their forehead or under their eyes or wrists,” You say, demonstrating each one for him, he follows along lightly, “but I think the collarbones help the best, it’s new.” You finish your sentence, your tone quiet and shaky. Frank pulls you into him, putting his hand on the back of your head.
“Well, I’m glad you’ve found something that helps, even a little bit,” He says, kissing your head, you nod into him, letting him hold up your weight, “Y’know what happened wasn’t your fault.” He adds, his voice muffled by your hair.
“Robby said that too, but I just can’t stop thinking.” You say, letting out a shaky breath, tears burning your eyes.
“I know,” He says sympathetically, tightening his grip on you, “but I just want you to know that it wasn’t your fault, ok? You’re a great doctor, and you gave it all you got.” He adds encouragingly, you nod against him, breathing him in, taking a moment before saying anything.
“I’m sorry I put this all on you.” You say after a minute, Frank’s brows furrow at the comment. He pulls you away from him, grabbing your face in his hands so he can look at you.
“You are not putting anything on me, ok?” He says, his tone quickly getting serious.
“It just feels like I am sometimes.” You say, wiping your eyes and sniffling, he shakes his head and pulls you back into him.
“You’re not, and do you know how much you’ve helped me through my shit? It’s about time I repay the favor.” He says resting his chin on your head.
“That’s different.” You say, your voice now muffled by his chest.
“No it’s not, and I’m never gonna stop being here, so you need to get used to it.” He adds, his tone teasing, you laugh against him, he relaxes as the sound leaves you.
“Take all the time you need, and find me if you need anything, ok?” He asks, pulling you back to look at you again. You nod silently, kissing him, muttering thank yous in between kisses. He leaves eventually, forcing himself away from your touch and back to reality. You go back to tapping your collarbones for a minute before heading back out as well. Silently promising yourself to ensure you give as much as you take. Because with you, he is good, and soft, and gentle, and you had no idea what you did to deserve him.
The rest of the shift you felt his eyes on you, silently checking in, making sure you were ok. You gave him small smiles or silent thumbs ups when you could, promising him everything was ok now, that you felt better. It took some convincing, but he believed you eventually, even though he made sure to hold you extra tight that night.
The bad days, for both of you, got lighter, easier to deal with. They still happened sometimes, but you were there for each other, no matter what. And now, when he was having bad days, or particularly rough moments, when the cravings were strong, you would catch him tapping at his collarbones, or wrists. And you think to yourself, maybe you do help him, maybe you do give as much as you take. You were both broken, but when you were together, it just felt right.
A/N: Hi!! This is the first thing I've posted so be kind pls!! :) This is INCREDIBLY self indulgent, but I thought it would be fun to share!! Hope you guys enjoy!!
Basically this is 3 times Frank hears you singing in the shower + 1 time he does something about it.
Word Count: 2.6k
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You love to sing in the shower, it was a guilty pleasure, so to speak. But now, you live with Frank, the tough, abrasive, and yet incredibly soft emergency room doctor. You love him, deeply, but the thought of him knowing your secret was too much too soon. Because of this you always picked the perfect times to shower, always making sure he was out of the house. Until today, when you had miscalculated and he had come home way before you anticipated.
“She came in through the bathroom window, protected by a silver spoon,” you sing out.
You didn’t have a bad voice, not in the slightest, but you didn’t show it off to people either. If anyone heard you, you’d be incredibly embarrassed. Singing was something you did for you, in private. It was something you had never shared with anyone else, and you didn’t plan on changing that anytime soon.
Frank walked into your shared home, setting his stuff down on the kitchen table, hearing what sounded like singing coming from the bathroom. He recognized your voice immediately, and a small wave of surprise came across him at how beautiful it was.
“But now she sucks her thumb and wanders, by the banks, of her own lagoon,” he heard as you continued the song. He raised his brows and smiled to himself, biting his lip and shaking his head. He had no idea you could sing, or even enjoyed it. He hummed the rest of the song along with your voice as he cleaned up the kitchen. When you came out in your robe and wet hair, he pretended to be oblivious. Greeting you with a wide smile and a kiss. You try your best to hide the shock of seeing him when you exit the bathroom, hoping he didn’t hear anything.
“I didn’t know you’d be home yet or I would’ve waited to shower.” You tease, leaning into him, his arms around your waist. He laughs, drinking you in for the moment.
“I escaped the Pitt early tonight, thought maybe we could go out for dinner? Whatever you want.” He suggests with raised brows, you smile, snaking your arms up his chest and around his neck.
“I’ll go get ready then.” You say with a smile, heightening yourself on your tip toes to kiss his cheek before heading back off to the bathroom. He watches you go, feeling the ghost of your kiss on his face. He wonders what he could've done to deserve domestic bliss like this.
Frank kept it a secret that he’d heard you, scared that you would stop if he told. And he knew already he never wanted to be deprived of your voice again. He couldn’t believe he’d gone so long without knowing about your hidden talent. But, that didn’t mean he wasn’t opposed to messing with you a little.
Later that evening when you two were in the car together, driving to dinner, Frank put on some music. The back half of Abbey Road by the Beatles. Chosen, unbeknownst to you, very purposefully by him. The music starts flowing through the car and he grabs your hand, his other hand effortlessly driving to the restaurant.
“She Came in Through the Bathroom Window” comes on eventually, just as Frank had planned. He smiles to himself, he knew exactly what he was doing. He starts humming along softly, squeezing your hand as the song continues. You look over at him, wondering if he could have possibly heard you in the shower. But the walls had to be at least a little soundproof, you think to yourself. You were happy to convince yourself it was just a coincidence, for the time being.
“I love this song.” You say after a minute, breaking the silence. He looks over and smiles at you before forcing his eyes back to the road.
“Yeah? I thought so, you always pick the niche ones.” He says with a teasing smile, you laugh at the remark, knowing he had a point.
“Someone has to love them!” You exclaim with a wide smile. Frank just laughs and shakes his head, bantering with you and discussing music the rest of the way to the restaurant.
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After the first time, Frank was hoping every time he walked into the house he’d be greeted by your singing. He hasn’t been so lucky, until now. For the first time in his career, he had been sent home sick. He had a pretty high fever and had been feeling sluggish all day. He was blaming the kid who sneezed in his face in triage two days ago. Robby didn’t want him spreading anything to any compromised patients or any of the other Pitt staff, so he practically forced him home.
When he came home he plopped down on the couch, putting his hand over his eyes. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead as his body tried to fight whatever infection he had been given. He felt like he was about to drift off until heard the shower running from the other room, unaware that you were home yourself.
“I hope we kiss goodnight, it might just end my life.” You sing confidently, no clue that you were no longer alone in your house. Frank pulls himself from his drowsiness, focusing on your voice. For a moment, he was almost glad he got sent home. He basked in your voice for as long as he could, until the water turned off. When you walked out of the bathroom, you almost screamed at the sight of your boyfriend on the couch.
“What are you doing here?” You ask, your brows furrowed as you walked closer to him, seeing how pale and tired he looked.
“Robby sent me home for being ‘too sick to work’ and for ‘posing a risk to the ED,’” he says, using air quotes around his words. Any apprehension of him hearing you singing is out the window as you sit down next to him, feeling his forehead.
“Shit, you're burning up.” You say, jutting your lip out as you fuss over him. He shakes his head, moving your hand from his forehead.
“M’fine,” he mumbles out, sitting up and looking you over, “I could ask you the same thing, what’re you doing here, it’s early.” He asks, pushing away your concern. You furrow your brows and cock your head at him.
“I had a few cancellations, so my day ended early. That is not what’s important right now.” You say, shaking your head and getting up, grabbing him some Gatorade and wetting a cloth with cool water. He lets you drape the rag over his forehead, thanking you quietly.
“Y’know I’m supposed to be the doctor in this relationship.” He teases with a tired smile, you roll your eyes at him, practically forcing Gatorade down his throat.
“Just let me do this, ok?” You say with raised brows, kissing him after he takes a few sips, not a care in the world that he might be contagious. He pulls back after a moment, looking you over, his eyes drawing down to your lips. He isn’t sure if it’s the fever or the kiss, but the words just slip out of his mouth.
“You might just end my life.” He mumbles out with raised brows, you pause at the phrase. The phrase you had been singing while he was apparently laid up on the couch. You blame it on the fever, hoping it was high enough that he would forget what he’d heard by the morning. You just smile softly, rubbing your thumb on his lips and kissing his burning forehead.
“Try and rest, I’ll make some soup.” You say, moving to the kitchen, looking back at him on the couch. You wonder if these last two coincidences were really that, or if he had found out your secret.
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Frank recovers from his bout of illness quickly, and it seems like you both blink and weeks have passed. In a rare and blissful turn of events, Frank had scored a long weekend. You had the best weekend with him. Your favorite restaurant, he even took you to the art museum, kissing you in dark corners, you felt like teenagers again. And now it was Sunday, and you were doing everything in your power to keep from waking him up. You slowly crept out of bed, pausing each time he stirs. You quietly collect your clothes and head for the bathroom, turning on the shower and slipping in, hoping Frank was able to get some much needed rest.
“She wore a raspberry beret, the kind you find in a second hand store.” Is the first thing Frank hears when he wakes up. Your voice is softer than the past couple of times he’s heard it, seemingly to keep him from waking up and hearing. He rubs his eyes and lays in bed for as long as he can get away with. He listens to the softness of your voice for what feels like ages before the water turning off snaps him back into reality. He hears your feet pat into the kitchen, hearing the click of the stovetop as you start on breakfast. He eventually musters the energy to pull himself out of bed and join you in the kitchen, greeting you with a kiss.
“You’re supposed to be sleeping in.” You say, pulling away from him with raised brows and an amused smile.
“Can’t stay away from you for too long.” He counters, and you can’t even bring yourself to argue with that. You start on breakfast together, you order him around the kitchen. He begrudgingly lets you tie an apron around his waist while you set him up to make the eggs. He connects his phone to the kitchen speaker, playing music and slowly moving closer behind you. Moving his hands to your hips, swaying you back and forth to the rhythm.
“Stop that, you’re distracting me.” You joke with an amused laugh, he shakes his head, resting his chin in the crook of your neck.
“Breakfast can wait.” He says, turning you to face him, you laugh, letting him lead you in dance. He hums along with the music with you, spinning you around. You both settle in silence, melting into the other one, dancing slowly around your kitchen, the bacon in the frying pan getting cold. He hums the song playing, you can hear the vibration as your head rests against your chest.
“You don’t ever sing or hum along to the music.” He states after a moment, smiling to himself as you’re against his chest. Your eyes go wide at the observation, not anticipating those words to leave him.
“Not very musically inclined.” You say after a minute. He continues swaying, slowly moving in a circle with you.
“I bet that’s not true.” He says, his voice low and rumbling against your ear. He’s almost caught you, yet you’re both skirting around it. You weren’t quite ready to admit it yet.
“Breakfast is getting cold.” You say, resting your chin on his chest, looking up at him. He rolls his eyes at you amusedly, dropping the subject and going back to helping you with breakfast.
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Frank wasn’t scared of getting caught anymore. He had had fun teasing you, making you flush and feeling your heartbeat rise, but he was done with secret keeping. He knew he was hiding your singing for a reason, and he silently vowed to himself that whatever insecurity you had, he would break it down. There was no way he was going to let that voice of yours hide away forever, and he couldn’t stand just hearing snippets of it any longer.
It was weeks again before he was able to get off early, but it did happen eventually, and everything so far was going exactly to his plan. He smiles to himself as he walks into the house and hears the water running, your voice following soon after.
“While Mona Lisas and mad hatters, sons of bankers, songs of lawyers, turn around and say good morning to the night.” You sing out, Frank sets his stuff down and tip toes to the bathroom door, sitting down next to it. Your melodic singing floats through the house, bringing it to life. He sat there for as long as he could, his head resting against the wall. He drifts off lightly,your singing lulling him to sleep. He’s later woken up by the sound of your shocked yelp, his presence right by the bathroom door startling you. He jerks awake and greets you with that signature smile of his.
“Holy shit, Frank!” You exclaim, letting out a laugh and shaking your head.
“What’re you doing down here?” You ask, joining him on the floor as he laughs, a little too hard, and rubs the sleep from his eyes.
“I was waiting for you, and I guess I fell asleep.” He says, resting his hand on your exposed knee.
“Real stalker move there.” You joke with raised brows and a smile. He laughs and shakes his head.
“Didn’t think that part through.” He says, seeing you were still recovering from quite the scare.
“Oh, didn’t think you’d scare your girlfriend half to death, huh?” You tease with raised brows, you both laugh together until your stomachs hurt.
“You have a beautiful voice, y’know.” He says after the moment had died down, breaking the comfortable silence that had formed between the two of you. You pause, your eyes going wide and your heart rate quickening.
“You were never supposed to hear that.” You say, your face bright red with an embarrassed flush and your tone gone quiet.
“Why not? I’m being serious, it is quite beautiful.” He says with raised brows, secretly finding your embarrassment adorable.
“That’s for me, not for, anyone else.” You say, pausing between words, fidgeting with your hands. Frank reaches over and tucks your hair behind your ear, knowing you were trying to hide away from him.
“Well you shouldn’t be embarrassed, it’s beautiful, and you pick the best songs to sing.” He adds with a smirk, your eyes go wide again.
“Frank Langdon, have you been keeping tabs on me?” You ask, looking over at him, he just smiles and turns away, laughing and shaking his head.
“Maybe, maybe not.” He says, shrugging his shoulders. You playfully push him away from you.
“You have been!” You exclaim, he laughs and puts his hands up.
“Guilty as charged.” He says, looking over at you, a smug grin on his face.
“You’ve been messing with me, haven't you?” You ask with raised brows, he looks away, a flush creeping up his neck.
“Who can blame me? You’re cute when you’re flustered.” He says, elbowing your side, you smile and shake your head.
“I can’t believe you, Dr. Langdon.” You say, closing in on him, he grabs you by the waist and pulls you into his lap. You two laughed together, and you realized you honestly didn’t even care that much. He kisses you in between fits of laughter, the wetness from your hair leaving water droplets all over his face.
“I’m sorry I messed with you.” He adds after another kiss, holding your face in his hands.
“Don’t be, I wouldn’t expect any less from you.” You say, looking down at him with the widest smile you could muster. He laughs at your remark and nods, you absolutely had your point. And after that, there was no fear around singing in the shower, and Frank got to hear your voice whenever he wanted.
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A/N: Hope you guys enjoyed my first fic!!
Songs used: (Go listen to them!!)
"She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" - The Beatles
"Kiss Goodnight" - I DON'T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME