There's a little crowd huddled around the nurses' station and Frank has a bad feeling about it. Javadi’s in the middle with her phone out, Princess and Joy leaning in, Santos with a hand over her mouth. A few of them are laughing.
"What's up?" He shoulders his way in.
Javadi hesitates - that’s a bad sign. Then she tilts her phone so he can see the screen.
He recognizes the woman they're watching immediately: it’s Becca King. They’re watching what looks like a TikTok with Becca King front and center, and she’s doing some sort of choreography with her arms and lip syncing to the music. But behind her, only mostly in frame and also doing the dance, is Mel.
"There's like five of these," Princess says. "Mel does the-"
"Cool,” he cuts her off, annoyed. "So we're laughing at the King sisters, then."
"Not like that," Santos starts, rolling her eyes. “And not Becca, anyway.”
Javadi, to her credit, slips her phone in her back pocket, appearing appropriately chastened.
"She's not even here today,” he snaps, because that was where his bad mood began, when he rolled in at six-thirty and remembered Mel wasn’t scheduled this weekend. "She's off, and you're all wasting time laughing at her." None of them are looking him in the eyes. He gives up. "Whatever. Santos, your guy in North 3 started throwing up again."
He’s been practicing distancing himself from unnecessary stressors, so. He walks.
Frank lives alone now, and there isn’t all that much to do, which is why he downloads TikTok as soon as he gets home. She’s easy to find - the app has somehow gone into his contacts and pulled the profiles of what seems like everyone he’s ever met.
Becca has 76 followers and forty-two videos. In most of them, she’s either alone or with a man Frank assumes is Adam. Only a handful feature Mel, and he finds those quickly. He watches the one from earlier, just to see it better, just so that maybe he’ll understand what was so fucking funny. Then he watches the next one. It’s the same sort of thing, Becca dancing in front, Mel behind. They both know all the words, and they both look like they’re having fun.
There are two more like that, but then there's one where the sisters accidentally bump into each other and Mel laughs with her head all the way back. Her shoulders shake. He can’t see her face but he knows how it’s lit up. He can’t hear her laugh, but he knows what it sounds like.
Frank doesn't get what the big deal is. They're cute.
@kingdonmicrofic day 12: gold | 340/340 | rating: g
Becca sniffled in the bed across the room, breathing still uneven with upset, even in sleep. In her own bed, Mel snuggled into her mom’s side, blinking back tears that never seemed to fall with an audience. Her mother smoothed down her hair, tugging once on her earlobe, thumb firmly pressed against the gold studs that were still slightly tender from when she got them pierced five months ago. She winced, but didn’t whimper.
You’re always so quiet, her mother whispered. We never have to worry about you.
Her backpack straps dug into her shoulder, shifting uncomfortably in her BIO 313 professor’s office. The bags under her eyes keep growing these days, never enough time in the day for sleep on top of school and Becca and life. With the funeral, she had to miss a week of lectures, too physically exhausted to drive to campus from the apartment that still smelled of her mother’s perfume. It’s understandable why her performance on the midterm was underwhelming. All Dr. Stark had to offer was a bittersweet smile and a knowing look.
You’re a smart kid, he waved off. We never have to worry about you.
Six months into working in Pittsburgh, Mel felt like she was drowning. She worked and slept and worked and slept and nothing else. Every week, she and Becca watched Elf and every week, she’d listen intently to the social dynamics of Middle Hill, living vicariously through her sister’s complex web of friendships to fill the void that she didn’t know she had until a fateful September day. Sometimes, she’d slip up — miss a chart or forget to put in an order. Little things, to see if anyone would notice.
You’re one of our best, Dr. King, Robby assured her instead. We never have to worry about you.
“You really don’t have to do this for me, Frank,” Mel said, hugging her middle tight.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know, but you really don’t have to worry about me.”
actually mel and frank have a weirdo psychosexual connection where she tells him "you're like a brother to me" and he repeats "I'm like a brother to you" but they are two centimeters from each others face trying not to attack each other
