title: merry christmas, I miss you fandom: the pitt ship: mel king x frank langdon part 2 of 2 read on ao3
Melissa King was still getting used to the idea of having friends, plural.
Well, it wasn't like she'd never had friends. There had been a small study group in undergrad that managed to mostly stay afloat amidst all the chaos that came along with being in one's early twenties, but they'd gone their separate ways after graduation. Their interactions now mostly consisted of exchanged likes on the various social media platforms. And there was Nathan and Vanessa in medical school, before mom got sick. Their groupchat would light up every couple months with memes and check-ins. It wasn't nothing.
But it wasn't…this.
The entire drive back to the apartment, her mind was humming like a kicked hornet's nest. Too many thoughts to process, too many ideas to grasp one long enough to study it. Samira and Trinity are going to die when I tell them—
She caught herself frowning at a stoplight. Becca was singing along to the radio under her breath, oblivious to the turmoil beside her.
No. No, maybe Mel didn't want to tell them about Frank. Friends were good, she knew that. Sharing with friends was just what humans did, it was only natural—but some little foreign part of her wanted to keep this for herself. Tuck it away like a candle against the wind just to watch the wax melt.
She didn't know what to do with that specific emotion, so she pointedly ignored it the entire drive home.
Becca bounced on her toes as Mel unlocked the door to their apartment. The inside was dark as they slipped inside, lit only by a rainbow of colors strung around their Christmas tree. For a moment, she felt like a kid again—coming home after a Christmas Eve at their grandparent's house, when the world was lit only by moonlight reflecting off the snow and incandescent strands of lights.
Before dad got so mad he threw the entire tree into the backyard, anyway. He smashed all their presents with Mel's softball bat. Becca learned the hard way that year that Santa Claus wasn't real and there were no knights in shining armor coming to save them.
Mel shook off the memory and flicked on the entryway lamp. She was only half-listening to Becca as she unloaded their groceries onto the counter, pausing to kick her boots off by the door.
Becca followed her into the kitchen, fishing through the bags for her candy. A grin split her face in two, glasses hanging off the tip of her nose. "You didn't tell me he was hot!"
To be fair, Mel should've seen this coming. Becca was obsessed with romcoms and romance novels. She'd lost count of how many times she glanced over Becca's shoulder to find her reading something utterly ridiculous and downright filthy. She just…didn't think Becca would be meeting Frank first, of all people. Especially now.
Mel tried to ignore the traitorous flush creeping up her neck. She nudged Becca's glasses back into place before turning to wash her hands. "Sorry, I didn't think discussing the attractiveness of my coworkers was particularly relevant."
"So you agree, you think he's hot?" Becca appeared beside her, hopping to plant her butt firmly on the counter as she shoveled gummy worms into her mouth. "Well, I think you should kiss him. He likes you."
"I am not having this conversation with you tonight." Mel wiped her wet hands across the seat of her pants. "He's only coming over to help because he's kind. It doesn't have anything to do with me."
"Mom said liars go to Hell."
Mel stopped long enough to give Becca a pointed look. "I'm not lying."
And Hell isn't real, she thought, but she didn't say that part out loud.
In the quiet between their words, she could hear the light overhead buzzing with electricity. The yellow hue it cast over the kitchen made her squint. Under normal circumstances, she'd move a lamp onto the counter to work but she didn't want Frank to think they were…weird. Or trying to hide something, like a dirty kitchen.
As if it mattered.
(It mattered to her. Just a little.)
She shooed Becca off the counter and reached inside the cabinet for all the bowls and baking sheets they'd need. "Make yourself useful, we have cookies to bake."
Becca pretended to faint, buckling her knees with her hand pressed to her forehead. "How could you even think about cookies at a time like this?"
That made Mel laugh, despite the ugly overhead light and the clock on the stove ticking into the night. He'd be here any minute. It would be fine. Everything would be totally fine—
There weren't any bras hanging on the bathroom door were there? A box of tampons left on the counter?
"I'll be right back. Get the butter and eggs out of the fridge please."
She shoved the baking supplies to Becca, who protested with her tongue poking out between her lips. "Hey!"
Embarrassment was not an emotion Mel was used to, at least not this far into adulthood. Bodies were bodies. Sometimes they did strange, smelly things. People with uteri shed their lining. Breasts sometimes went into bras. Skin perspired. It was all totally unremarkable in her book.
This, though, threw her for a loop.
She was too busy making sure there was no evidence of menstruation in a household of two women to hear the knock at the door. Becca had a habit of mumbling to herself, singing whatever ear worm had gotten stuck or reciting a bit from SpongeBob. It made Mel very good at blocking out most minor noises—voices that were low or familiar. It wasn't until she'd arranged the tampon boxes under the sink from tallest to shortest that she realized Becca was talking at all.
"She's in the bathroom. She's not pooping though, the door is still open."
Then Mel heard Frank laugh.
She moved so fast her head cracked into the underside of the sink. The stars only lasted for a second. It wasn't enough to be a concussion, but down on all fours on the bathroom floor—she wished it would've been enough to knock her out.
Mel didn't curse—Becca didn't like how it made her sound like their dad—but she thought of a few four-letter words that felt appropriate.
Her fingers found a small knot on the back of her head but came back free of blood. The last thing she needed right now was to spend the night with Dr. Abbot.
A shadow appeared in the doorway. "Your sister assured me you weren't pooping, though I think whatever this is might be weirder."
Mel looked up and found Frank leaning against the doorframe, nose pink from the cold and coat unbuttoned over a black hoodie. Faded lettering that read WashU stretched over his chest.
She opened her mouth and snapped it shut again. Sorry, I was making sure your vision of women as hairless dolphins remained unblemished.
That would be ridiculous to say out loud, right?
She shook her head, pushing the cabinet door under the sink closed with more force than was completely necessary. "I was just putting some stuff away. Sorry—I didn't hear the door."
"All good," he said, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. He jabbed his thumb over a shoulder. "I left the pizza on the counter with Becca. No pineapple, as requested. She promised she'd save us a slice."
When he offered her his hand, she stared at it for a moment before she realized what it was for. She didn't understand why, but it felt like knuckles to her sternum. It'd been a long time since anyone offered to help her with anything.
It mattered to her more than it should've that it was him, of all people.
His hand was warm and nitrile-dry, long fingers engulfing hers as he pulled her off the bathroom floor. She so often found herself flinching from touch, the too-much way of people. It buzzed inside her; a child screaming in pain. Someone covered in blood clinging to the front of her scrubs. A door slamming in her face. The distant wail of an ambulance in the bay as spit landed on her cheek—
Frank wasn't like that. There was no recoiling from his other hand coming to rest on her elbow as she stood or the brush of her fingers against the worn letters printed across his chest.
Frank was steady, like the gentle padding of water against the hull of a boat.
It only took a heartbeat for him to step back but it could've stretched for hours. She could name all the parts and pieces of her heart like a textbook.
The contraction of her atria pumped blood into the ventricles. The quiet huff of his mentholated breath fanned across her cheeks. The valves between her atria and ventricles closed to prevent backflow.
Maybe she rose closer than he anticipated.
Her ventricles contracted, the same blood pumped away from the heart.
Maybe the weight of her twinged the nerves in his back.
The aortic and pulmonary valves closed.
He dropped her hand with a breathless smile and stepped back into the shadows of the hall. "Come on, Dr. King, we have a van to fund."
Lub-dub.
She wrinkled her nose and followed him to the kitchen.
They found Becca perched on a stool, nibbling at a slice of cheese pizza crust-first. She wiped her fingers on her thighs before waving. Her cheeks were pink and the rainbow of Christmas lights reflected in her glasses.
When they'd first moved to Pittsburgh, Mel was sick at the thought of upending Becca's life again. Change was harder on her than anyone—and Mel just wanted to make her happy. She wanted Becca to know the safest place to land was always going to be at her side.
In the nights leading up to the move, Mel would stare at the ceiling as the moon beyond the blinds came and went, shadows stretching across the room and receding again. It smelled of cardboard and lemon cleaner, barely strong enough to mask the ever-present scent of their mother's death that lingered in the carpet like spilled wine—wasting away in a hospital bed tucked in the unused dining room.
The stain of it was always there, when the lighting was right and you knew where to look.
Mel curled her hands against her cheeks and tried not to cry.
Would Becca like it in Pittsburgh? Would she make friends?
Could Mel build them a life worth staying for?
She hadn't known then, but watching Becca glow now—mouth shining with grease and lips stretched into a grin—Mel thought that maybe she finally had.
Frank brushed past her to reach for his own slice. "Just like I told you, best pie in town."
Becca smiled even wider and nodded. Mel was surprised when she remembered to cover her mouth when she spoke. "It's really good! You gotta try it."
Mel tried not to laugh. "Okay, but you're just eating plain cheese. You can't judge a whole pizza place on that alone."
"But it's really good cheese!" Becca insisted.
Frank dangled a long stretch of it into his mouth from above like feeding a baby bird. Utterly ridiculous. "Don't listen to her, Becca. That just means there's more for us."
Becca beamed when he said her name.
Truthfully, Mel was too anxious to be hungry. She waved off the piece offered and went to work gathering baking supplies.
It was a careful dance around Frank and Becca, who were busy chatting away about a new animated movie she hadn't caught the name of. She felt keenly aware of the exact amount of space he took up—the span of his hands across her counter and the way he towered over her, even hunched forward as he gestured towards Becca.
He smelled faintly of cologne—maybe of cigarettes too, like he'd traded one addiction for another. One that killed a little slower this time. And wasn't so…illegal.
She slid past him, flipping the lid of the pizza box shut and setting a stack of silver mixing bowls onto the counter. Absently, his palm smoothed across the small of her back, too absorbed in the conversation with Becca to know he'd done it at all.
She cleared her throat and found the measuring spoons without incident.
When Frank finished eating, he washed his hands and fell into step beside her. Sugar, flour, salt. Baking powder and soda. He emptied his shopping bag of cocoa powder, eggs, butter, and peppermint chips. Becca washed and wiped her hands across the seat of her pants before digging their ancient KitchenAid from the cabinet.
Becca patted it with pride. Butter yellow, to match their mom's kitchen in their first apartment after the divorce. It survived all these years and she didn't.
The thought made Mel's tongue feel thick.
Frank surveyed their ingredients with a grimace. He nudged Mel with an elbow. "Thank God you have reinforcements, huh?"
She already felt exhausted, but forced a tight smile anyway.
He noticed, because of course he did.
"Hey," he said softly, ducking his head to catch her eye. His hair fell into his face. "It's just cookies. We got this, right?"
She huffed out a breath and suddenly found it difficult to look him in the eye. Her hands smoothed over the pale enamel of the mixer, grounded by its cool touch. "Yeah, we got this."
He smiled and bumped their shoulders together. The beat of silence that passed was warm. Comfortable like an old sweater.
They fell in sync again like it was a trauma bay, like he'd never gone and they'd had all this time to learn each other. Their fingers brushed passing her single set of measuring cups back and forth. He reached around her to grab the unopened pack of better, chest solid against her back.
Becca was there for a while, content to move batches in and out of the oven or rinse a bowl. She connected her phone to a small speaker tucked in the corner and played all her current favorites. She explained who sang what and what each song meant, what popstars feuded with one another. Eventually, she stopped helping altogether and sat at the bar.
Frank was good natured about all of it. He watched and listened and asked questions, rolling dough into little balls and lining them along the baking sheet as they talked. The room smelled of peppermint.
"Okay, so whose side are we on with this one?"
Becca made a face like it was obvious. "Taylor, duh."
Frank nodded like it was obvious.
And when Becca finally disappeared for good and the last batch of cookies was sorted and bagged, they collapsed together on the floor of the kitchen.
The clock on the stove flashed nearly 2 AM.
Mel groaned and rubbed her eyes beneath her glasses. The cabinet handle dug into her back but she didn't have it in herself to move. Frank sat beside her, shoulders touching and his head thrown back against the counter. His eyes were closed, shadows in their hollows and stubble coming in on his jaw, but he was smiling to himself.
Somewhere along the way, he'd gotten flour on his cheek.
Maybe it was the exhaustion or maybe it was the hot coal of want that'd been burning in her stomach since he'd left, but Mel was reaching for him before she could even register she was moving at all.
Just under his eye, along the high planes of his cheek. Ever so lightly, she brushed her fingers across his skin.
It didn't do much to erase the flour, but his eyes snapped open to find her—pupils blown out in a ring so blue it made her shiver. His hair, again, fell in his face. Her hand hovered in the space between them, itching to brush the strands away or to touch the open seam of his lips.
The thought was so shocking to her system she couldn't move, couldn't even breathe.
An old ache radiated from her chest all the way down to her marrow. A bone-deep kind of longing stepped suddenly into the light because he was here and he was looking at her like that.
"Mel?" His voice was as soft as his lashes against her fingertips—like she was a fawn he was trying not to startle. His hands curled into fists at his sides.
A reflex.
A denial.
Reality came rushing back. She remembered who they were and where she was. He was in recovery and freshly divorced. They'd spent a singular shift together. He was supposed to be her mentor.
An ugly sequence of thoughts snuffed her hope out like a candle. There were a series of universal laws in science, all based on repeated experimentation and empirical evidence. Including, but not limited to:
Energy within an isolated system can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed from one form to another.
One object attracts another object in direct proportion to their combined mass and inversely related to the square of the distance between them.
Men like Frank Langdon do not fall in love with women like Melissa King.
She dropped her hand and felt the cold of the linoleum against her palm. It smelled of lemon cleaner and chocolate, brown sugar warmed in an oven. Combined with the humming of the florescents, her stomach turned.
Worst of all, her face felt like it was on fire.
She stood despite his protests and dusted the invisible crumbs off her apron, keen to look anywhere besides at him. "Sorry," she mumbled. "There was flour— I thought—"
He had the audacity to laugh as he rose too. "Mel, it's fine. I promise."
She busied herself with cleaning her glasses—only managing to smudge them even worse than they already were. "I just shouldn't have—"
"Mel."
"I don't want—"
"Dr. King." He spun her and held her by the shoulders, firm and burning through the material of her sweatshirt. Without her glasses, he was just a vague outlining of colors and shapes. "Thank you. For everything. Especially for letting me hang out at your place tonight. I had a great time. You didn't do anything to ruin that, okay?"
She blinked, cheeks still hot. "Oh."
He took her glasses and slid them gently onto her face, adjusting them on the bridge of her nose. His grin of little white teeth came into focus.
"There she is," he said, almost like he was just saying it to himself. A thought he could save and tuck away for later.
"I think I should be the one thanking you though."
He scrunched his nose. "Nah, you saved me from an evening of microwave dinners and bad reality TV."
Mel felt a little bit of the tension leak out of her shoulders. She let herself look away from him to the mound of sorted cookies piled on the counter. They'd even managed to tie them off with curled ribbons. "We did make a lot of cookies."
"Anything for a good cause, right?"
"I don't know if baked goods are tax-deductible."
He just stared at her fondly. "I'd like to see the IRS try and make anything as good as us."
Us.
She liked the sound of that a lot.
He stayed to help her clean, swapping jokes and stories in a low tone as they worked to keep from waking Becca. When the kitchen returned to its former middle-class glory, he flicked the light off and stepped into the entryway. Mel followed, eyes dry and back aching.
He traded her apron for his coat, toeing on his boots again and trying to look like there wasn't something heavy hanging on the tip of his tongue. It was all moving so slow, wading through reluctance and uncertainty. Mel couldn't help but imagine he didn't want to go.
She didn't particularly want him to go either.
Hand on the doorknob, he allowed himself to look back at her. The lights of the Christmas tree cast colors over his face like stained glass. She could only wring her fingers together, trying not to squirm under his gaze or look too hopeful.
"Let me know how it goes tomorrow, we better be the top sellers. We didn't stay up until 2 AM just to be shown up by Karen and her shitty banana bread."
Karen usually made brownies for these kinds of things, but Mel let it go. Instead, she saluted dutifully. "You can expect a full report by tomorrow evening."
He smiled again, just enough to make the skin around his eyes wrinkle. "I'll be looking forward to it. And tell Becca it was nice meeting her. I see why you talk about her so much."
The grin that stretched across Mel's face made her cheeks hurt.
When he couldn't delay it any longer, Frank Langdon finally opened the front door and stepped out into the hall. Mel watched from the doorway with something new warming up her chest.
He nodded, once. "Merry Christmas, Mel."
"Merry Christmas, Frank."
