Prompt: Connect
@kingdonmicrofic | 500 words | Rated G | 22/31 | Birthday Buddies (this takes place in the Birthday Buddies universe (Confetti, Laughter), no need to read beforehand, but it does help!)
“You’re getting married?”
She only just got Frank back—after ten years of phone calls and facetimes and rushed visits and being on opposite coasts for undergrad and med school and early residency, he’d finally moved home, she’d finally gotten him back.
And now he’s getting married?
“Abby’s pregnant,” he says, running a hand through his hair and pacing. “What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” she squeaks. She always thought someday they’d figure it out, that all his girlfriends were just temporary, and that maybe he’d figure out that he loved her too. But now his girlfriend—his supposed to be temporary girlfriend he’s only been dating for six months—is pregnant and they’re getting married?
That’s not how this is supposed to go.
“Do you even want to get married?” Mel asks, grasping at straws. They’re twenty-eight today, she supposes it’s not a bad age to get married, but they’re still in their residency for god’s sake. She couldn’t imagine getting married right now, let alone having a kid.
“I don’t know,” he answers, exasperated. “I always thought I’d get married, someday, I just didn’t think—” He looks away from her and puts his hands on his hips. “I didn’t think it’d be now. With Abby.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” Mel points out. “You don’t have to—”
“What would you have me do, Mel!” Frank yells. “Abby is having a baby, my baby, and I’m just supposed to not be a part of the kids life? Or figure out custody and only see the baby a couple weekends a month?”
“No, of course not,” she agrees. “I just…I don’t know, we’re in residency, we’re so young, I didn’t think—”
“Can you think of any reason why I shouldn’t marry Abby?”
Mel’s eyes snap to his. The question comes out of nowhere, but there’s weight to it, desperation to it. Frank’s looking at her like he’s waiting for something, like he’s waiting for her to connect the dots, to say something specific, but her mind goes blank.
Everything Frank’s said makes sense. He likes Abby, she’s a kind and loving woman who is having his child, why wouldn’t he get married to her? And he’s always wanted kids, why wouldn’t he want to have a baby, this baby, with Abby?
So what if she loves him? So what if she’ll never love anyone else as long as Frank Langdon roams the earth? Frank wants this, and Mel could never take this from him, not ever, no matter how much she loves him and always has.
“No,” she says softly, shrinking away from him. “No, I can’t.”
Frank’s face falls. He puts a hand over his mouth in disbelief, his eyebrows raising, the breath huffing out of him like he’s been punched in the gut.
“Okay then,” he says after a long moment, refusing to look at her. “If that’s what you want, Mel, then okay.”
@kingdonmicrofic day 22: connect | 257/257 | rating: g (implied infidelity)
It’s an awful noise, really.
Metal connecting with metal, tinny scratching echoing in the empty, concrete structure. Each line sends a chill right through her, rattling her teeth, but she simply readjusted her grip, steeling herself for the next swipe. It’s almost over anyways.
The whole thing is easier than she thought. In hardly any time at all, she’d finished the passenger side and the hood, and now she’s almost done with the driver side. Black chrome paint, it seems, gives way to the flat edge of a house key surprisingly easily. She barely had to apply any pressure. Funny how something so permanent could be so easy.
On the drive over, she thought about going full Carrie Underwood, but no, Abby’s pragmatic. As much as she’d love to stab holes in his tires and take his old Victus bat — the one collecting dust in a corner in the basement — to every window and mirror, she wanted the car to work. She wanted him to drive around and let all of Allegheny County and maybe all of Pennsylvania know exactly what he’d done and that the woman he did it to was vindictive enough to brand seven jagged letters across the exterior doors of his 2022 GMC Yukon.
Maybe then he’d think about sneaking around after everything they’d been through. Maybe it’ll be him and her walking out to the car, hand in hand, eyes wide as they discover Abby’s handiwork. Maybe they’d feel ashamed seeing cheater so brazenly carved.
@kingdonmicrofic day 21: lounge | 462/462 | rating: g
Richmond International Airport, USO Lounge, 2002
Her feet can’t touch the ground and the leather of the waiting room chairs is too squeaky for her liking, but there are fewer people in the secluded room than out in the concourse and Mel quite likes not having to press her palms against her ears to quiet the noise.
The Kings don’t travel very often. It’s her first time in an airport, and in an hour, her first time on an airplane, and there’s a strange twist of nerves and excitement in her stomach.
“I like your hat,” a voice sounds behind her. She turns to see a boy around her age peeking over the seats, two blue eyes trained on the logo of her too-big baseball hat. When she doesn’t say anything in response, he asks, “Why’s it say Richmond over the Braves logo? They play in Atlanta.” His nose wrinkles as he says it.
“No,” she frowns. “They play here. At The Diamond. It’d be silly if the Richmond Braves played in Atlanta.”
“Huh. Cool! Well, I really like baseball. North Carolina doesn’t have a major league team, so we mostly just watch the college teams.”
She nods as he rambles on, and it’s very nice, even if she doesn’t really know what he’s talking about.
“Sorry,” he says suddenly, climbing over the seats to plop down next to her. “I’m Frank. My mom says I can come on strong.”
His hand hovers between them and she lets him shake her arm up and down until they dissolve into a fit of giggles.
“I’m Melissa,” she replies.
“Melissa,” he tries, but his front tooth is knocked out so it comes out more like Melitha. She laughs. “Can I call you Mel?”
Mel. That’s nice. “Yeah,” she smiles. “I think I like that.”
Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center, 2025
Mel does not like waiting rooms. They’re so loud, but they’re a necessary evil of emergency medicine, and she needs to acclimate better.
She’s on a preliminary tour with an administrator, on her way to finalize some paperwork before her first official shift at PTMC, so she’s understandably distracted.
So distracted that she didn’t notice someone walking in front of her until she runs bodily into them. The world tilts and she grabs onto whatever she can, which turns out to be a very handsome man’s steady arm and his own scrub top.
“I like your hat,” he smiles when he pulls her upright, pointing up to the worn cap that’s now been knocked askew by their collision. “Virginia, right? Flying Squirrels.”
A strange sense of deja vu washes over her, and it only takes a second of staring into his familiar blue eyes for her to figure it out.
“It’s easy to forget how small we actually are,” Frank whispered.
Mel turned towards him, glasses pressed against the ground. He lay next to her, hands on his stomach, staring up at the night sky.
Her stomach swooped when his eyes found her. Frank’s smile was small, crooked. He continued, “You know—when we’re in the lab, examining everything up close and focusing on the numbers and trajectories, it all feels close. Tangible.”
“But out here?”
“Out here,” he spread his arms, brushing Mel’s bare arm. “Out here, we’re just ants.”
She hummed, looking back to the heavens. Growing up, she’d always found comfort in the stars. When Becca and her parents were asleep, she’d sneak out to the garden and catalog the constellations. The Big and Little Dipper. Cygnus in the summer. Orion in the winter. It was a comfort that no matter what (regardless of what kids at school said or of how overlooked Mel felt at home), the stars were a comfort.
The same stars that had been gazed upon for centuries.
After her parents died and Becca became her sole care, the stars stopped comforting her. They mocked her—highlighting exactly how alone she was in the universe. No one came to save her.
Mel wondered how she could put this into words. How to explain to Frank—this brilliant, silly, funny boy she met at the start of the semester in their Intro to Astronomy course, bonding over the fact that they were both pre-med seniors finishing out the gen-eds they’d avoided. How to explain that studying with him in the library or grabbing lunch in their breaks made her feel a little less alone. Watching him interact with Becca when he came over to finish a project gave her more hope for the world.
Frank nudged her, his smile knowing and soft, “But at least the universe introduced you to me.”
@kingdonmicrofic day 20: stargazing | 314/314 | rating: g
There are glow-in-the-dark stars stuck all over the ceiling of Mel’s apartment. Not just in her bedroom like you’d expect, but everywhere. Above the couch in the living room, in the hallways, pressed to corners of kitchen cabinets, over the front door. Little green constellations scattered across crackling off-white paint.
Frank wouldn’t normally think much of it. They’re just another oddity; another loving, uniqueness of the King sisters. Something he can marvel at when Mel’s head nestles against his shoulder as a movie flickers on the television.
Except the stars don’t breach Becca’s room. They graze the doorframe, but don’t pepper her ceiling the same way they dot her sister's. Instead, they’re uniquely Mel's and they spill across the entire apartment, unabashed in their presence.
She never does tell him why they’re there.
That’s the thing about Mel.
She has this funny habit of offering bits and pieces of herself, but never fully elaborating on them. She just unfurls her fist, showing off a shiny little pearl of who she really is, and deposits in your palm, walking away before any questions can be asked.
It’s not because she’s secretive or private, he knows more than anyone that she’s an open book. Such unintentional flippance is only born out of people breezing past everything she’s ever offered before, and each time it happens, he slots himself right into the empty space, asking why or when or simply saying tell me more.
In a way, she’s kind of a constellation herself. A brilliant collection of light pinpricks, freckled and picturesque, imploring interpretation. There’s something beneath the straight lines, something that can’t be seen simply from stargazing, only learned through stories.
He’s grateful for each new star she shows him, even more grateful for what he finds in the negative space between.
(He wonders if there’s room in the sky to slot in next to her.)
@kingdonmicrofic day 19: heels | 151/151 | rating: g
Growing up, everyone around Frank always knew when it was going to rain.
His mother would rub at her knees, grimacing as she ground her heels into the floorboards; his father would squint at the still-blue sky, hollering at him to pull the bikes inside; his brother would walk faster when the tree leaves rustled just right.
No one ever explained it to him — how they just knew. So he waited until he, too, gained this preternatural ability.
He never did figure out that secret skeletal sense. The best he could ever manage is figuring it out right before the skies opened up. Sensing the pressure drop in the silence before that first clap of thunder. Always a touch too late, always leaving him gasping and soaked to the bone.
But the first time he sees Mel King, he suddenly understands exactly how it feels to know a storm is coming.
@kingdonmicrofic day 18: parade | 347/347 | rating: e (college au academic rivals - sequel to feast, hate sex (kinda))
Mel keens loudly, her back arching up off the desk as Langdon pushes into her again.
She’s not worried about her volume, no one’s ever on the third floor of the science building. Not on a Sunday, not when most of campus is nursing hangovers.
Ever since that day in the library, the first time she kissed him and she realized just how cathartic sex with him was, it’s been like this. Invigorating and hot and always under the pretense of a study session. No dorms, no parties. If it happened anywhere else it would mean something, and this absolutely does not mean anything.
Her heels dig into the back of his thighs, wanting him closer. Deeper. She can’t help it.
“Someone’s impatient,” he teases, pulling his cock out of her to run it up and down her folds.
“Well, if you didn’t waste so much of Saturday in that stupid homecoming parade,” she grits out as he pushes back in harshly, breaking her words apart. “We really — fuck, just like that — really have to get this presentation done.”
He pauses, smirk spread wide on his face, and she hates that she finds it so attractive. “Uh huh.”
His eyes twinkle with something competitive she’s only ever seen in lecture halls or when they’re like this. It sends a thrill through her — a lingering, electric tingling underneath her skin. It’s just adrenaline or endorphins or any chemical composition she can blame other than what she really knows is happening. This can’t be anything. They’re supposed to hate each other.
“Oh, but I think you liked seeing me up on that float,” he leans over her, body covering hers. “You were blushing so pretty.” His lips press to her cheek, then move to the other, teeth nipping at the already flushed skin. “Pretty, pretty pink.”
“Just— just move,” Mel whines, urging her hips forward, chasing some friction. “Please Fr—”
“Come on sweetheart, just say it.” His eyes search hers, frantic and pleading. “It’s ok to say it.”
When she finally comes, his name sits heavy on her tongue.
Prompt: Crowd
@kingdonmicrofic | 500 words | Rated T for (SPOILERS) non graphic description of a main character being shot | 17/31 | Castle AU (this takes place in the Castle AU universe (Champagne, Gold) no need to read beforehand but it does help!) | General spoilers for Castle, specific spoilers for Castle Season 3, Episode 24|
Frank has seen Mel do a lot of hard things. Has seen her break the news of someone’s death more times than he can count. Has seen her go the distance to provide justice for a victim. Has seen her slowly put together the pieces of her mother’s murder.
This might be the hardest thing Frank’s ever seen her do.
“Captain Michael Robinavitch was the bravest man I’ve ever known,” Mel begins her eulogy.
Frank wrote it for her. It’s the least he could do after Robby told Mel about the hand he’d had in her mother’s murder ten years ago, about the people who were after her, would never stop coming after her unless Robby did this, made this final stand. Writing Robby’s eulogy was the least he could do after Robby had asked Frank to pull Mel away, to let Robby die alone.
Frank can still hear Mel’s pleas, begging to help Robby as gunshots rang out. Can still feel the struggle she’d made until she’d finally broken free. Can still hear Mel’s sobs as she cried over Robby’s body. She hadn’t noticed the five bodies Robby had taken down on his way out, or the incoming sirens, but Frank had.
She struggled just as much when he dragged her out the second time.
“Captain Robby once said to me there is no victory, only battles,” Mel continues. “And the best you can hope for is to find a place to make your stand. And if you’re very lucky, you find someone willing to stand with you.”
Mel looks at Frank then, with wide, teary eyes, and Frank stops breathing.
She’s had these walls up since the minute they met, has only recently started really letting him in. Has only recently started teasing him back, maybe even flirting with him. Has only recently started leaning on him like this.
He’s been in love with her since the minute they met, and sometimes she looks at him like this, with these wide eyes, and it feels like maybe she loves him too.
Mel turns back to the eulogy, and Frank feels like he can breathe again. He looks out over the crowd—sees Robby’s widow, their children, sees his and Mel’s friends, sees Penny, sees—
Frank’s eyes catch on a flash of light. He can’t quite see what’s causing it, it looks like the sunlight is glancing off of something reflective, but he can’t—
—Crack.
No—
Frank tackles Mel to the ground, but it’s too late. Blood is already staining the dark uniform as Mel looks at him, her mouth dropped open in shock.
“No, no, Mel, stay with me, stay with me,” he pleads, putting pressure on her chest. That’s what he’s supposed to do, right? He’s written this scene before, how did it end?
Mel blinks, tears falling out of the corner of her eye.
“I love you, Mel,” he whispers. “I love you. Stay with me.”
@kingdonmacrofic Day 17: Crowd (958 words, general audiences, tw: addiction)
“The fuck is happening out there?” Frank asks Charlie, the college kid also working the market today. He’s been in the truck, loading pallet after pallet of berries and peaches, plums and apricots onto big cardboard flats to take out to the stand watching the line grow, not moving an inch.
“Some chick’s holding up the line,” Charlie sighs. “She’s been looking at peaches for twenty minutes.”
Frank frowns. “Let me go handle it,” he says, wiping his forehead just under his hat. “People will start to leave if the line doesn’t move.”
He lifts a box of blueberries, a familiar twinge in his low back that he’ll take care of later with the baggie of pills in his car.
It’s just for a few more weeks, he told himself when he took them from the hospital last night. Until the end of the summer. They need the extra money, and Frank’s sister was doing him a favor letting him work Saturday mornings for her wife’s family farm. Then he would stop taking the pills and try to wean off again, for real this time.
When he sets the box down, he sees a blonde with glasses carefully squeezing a peach, the others in line eyeing her in frustration.
“Hey!” Frank calls, walking to face her on the other side of the table. “Looking for anything in particular?”
Brown eyes snap up at him, cheeks pink from the morning sun. Her head whips between him and the ever-growing crowd behind her.
“Oh my gosh!” she exclaims. “I’m so sorry! I’ve been holding up the line!”
“No problem,” Frank replies even though it very much is a problem. “Just wanted to make sure you’re finding everything okay.”
“Not really,” she says honestly, speaking quickly. “I just moved to Pittsburgh, and I had my first appointment with my new primary care doctor, and she said that I really should be eating more fruits and vegetables, but my worry is that I don’t really like a lot of them because the textures are too weird, and sometimes one is sweet, but the next is sour, but I’m a doctor as well so I really should be making more of an effort if I’m expected to tell my patients the same thing.”
Frank blinks at her. He’s not sure if he’d ever heard someone say that much in that little time, and his jaw hangs loose as he processes it all. The man just behind her clears his throat, and Frank snaps back to reality.
“Here,” he says, moving the table a little bit to allow her to slip through, “come with me.”
He leads the girl back to the truck, Charlie raising an eyebrow as he carries a box of peaches past him.
“Do you have a favorite fruit?” Frank asks her. “That could be a good place to start if you’re trying to eat more.”
“I like apples,” she says, almost like she’s embarrassed given the rich array of summer produce in front of her. “I’ll also eat bananas sometimes if they’re not too ripe.”
Frank clicks his tongue. “Not in stock right now unfortunately. Anything else?”
Her eyes scan the back of the truck, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.
“Oh!” she exclaims, pointing to a stack of rich, dark berries in the corner. “Blackberries! Blackberry jam is my favorite, but they’re sometimes too tart when they’re fresh.”
“That’s not an issue,” Frank assures her, taking a big step onto the truck bed. “These are some of the sweetest berries the farm’s ever had.”
He grabs a whole pallet, hundreds of berries spread out in the box, along with an empty pint carton and brings them back over to where she’s standing. Frank looks down into the box and pulls out a berry the size of his thumb.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“Mel,” she answers.
“Well, Mel, I’ll promise you that if this isn’t the best blackberry of your life, I’ll give you this whole pallet for free to make as much jam as you want.”
He offers her the berry, and with a shy grin, allows him to place it in her palm. She inspects it for a moment before biting it in half. Frank watches dark juice run down the corner of her mouth and feels his face get hot.
“Oh wow,” she breathes out. “That’s delicious.”
“Told you.” He extends out the container. “There’s more like that, so this is yours to fill up.”
She takes it, raising an eyebrow in surprise. “Wait really?”
“Have at it,” he insists. “Take the best of the best.”
Her face breaks out into a wide smile that Frank can’t help but match. His chest feels warm, and he doesn’t think it’s because he just earned the farm a customer for life. This girl — Mel — interests him, a new weekly puzzle for him to crack.
It takes her almost ten minutes, carefully judging each berry before putting it into her container, but Mel fills her pint with some of the biggest blackberries Frank’s ever seen. He walks her back out to the front of the stand, the line now much more manageable.
“That’ll be three dollars,” he tells Mel, and she narrows her eyes, pointing to the sign pinned up on the table.
“It says seven per pint.”
“Call it a new customer discount.” He winks, and the look on her face makes him not want to think about the gold band on his finger that’s rapidly collecting sweat underneath.
Mel passes him three bills from her wallet and starts to walk away.
“See you next week?” he calls after her, and she turns. “We’re going to have some cherries that I think you might be interested in.”
“Of course,” she answers sweetly, the stain of blackberry juice still on her chin. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
@kingdonmicrofic day 17: crowd | 317/317 | rating: m (sexual content)
“It’s a 2.”
Frank’s pencil hovers above the paper. “You say that like it’s obvious,” he grumbles, scribbling a 2 in the box, erasing some other markings he’d made earlier in the puzzle.
“If you spent as much time actually doing the sudoku as you do watching me, maybe it would be obvious,” Mel muses, eyes fixed on her own puzzle.
Across the couch, he scoffs playfully, muttering something about multitasking. A self-satisfied smile curls up on her face at his feigned frustration; she’s found she quite likes when she can rile him up. Likes when slow Sunday mornings morph into something else. He’s laughing as he lunges forward, crowding her against the couch cushions. “I’ve created a monster,” he teases, kissing up her neck.
“I think,” she replies, a sparkle in her eyes as his hands slip under the hem of her shirt, “you just met your match.”
The next Sunday, Mel finds the morning paper spread out in front of her on the marble countertop of their kitchen. The pencil in her grip wavers as she scribbles potential solutions in the margins. No, not seven, there’s already one in that row, she thinks, already flipping the eraser over, but it’s difficult to concentrate on anything other than the feeling of Frank pressed against her, one hand firm on her hip, the other moving steadily between her thighs.
Lead hovers over the page, useless and hesitant, as his fingers curl inside her, hitting a spot that makes her knees buckle and her vision go a little blurry. He only presses closer, pace unrelenting despite her whimpers.
“Come on baby,” he whispers against her shoulder. “I thought you were good at multitasking.” The hand on her hip trails up her body, gathering her hair into his fist, pulling her head back slightly. She moans at the pressure, the angle. “What do you say? Met your match yet?”
