psa! every time i get a new follower here, i have this urge to reach out in the dms and say, “well hi! did you happen to notice up top where i mentioned this little blog is actually a side-blog?” which is really only important to know bc it unfortunately means that i actually can’t follow you back here. but i wish i could. in spirit i am! i want to follow you back on here soooooo bad! but also – you ought to know that if you’ve been melfrank posting since before idk like september of last year, there is a 99.9999% chance i already follow you back on my main. you just don’t know it’s me! so now i’ve just decided to make this a pinned post. :) so everyone knows. i follow you! okay?
@kingdonmicrofic @kingdonmacrofic | 684 words | rated G | cw: implied infidelity i guess :’)
Even with only five years under her belt, most people considered it a stroke of good luck to have a conversation with Penny Langdon. She was just so cute, and such a crack-up. She was very sweet of heart and soul, of course, but Abby had always sworn, from those first days when baby Penny had finally begun lisping singular words into proper sentences, that she’d inherited a little something extra from Frank. And that was, obviously, her predisposition for occasionally dropping a sharp barb of harsh truth into otherwise quite normal chitchats.
Even Garcia liked to joke that Pen was essentially a foot-in-mouth prodigy. Which meant a lot, coming from her. It wasn’t always an embarrassing personal remark, though. Thank God. Like recently, when the World Cup was eating up media attention everywhere, and was being broadcast religiously into the Langdon living room most nights, she’d sighed, “Do we have to watch this?” Abby insisted yes. It only happens every four years, after all. “I can see why,” poor Pen despaired.
But the zest of life, the really good stuff, to small Penny was her sparkly jelly sandals, squishy toy blind bags, the days Tanner had to go to school but she didn't, swim lessons, and going to Costco with dad on Saturday mornings. For the examples, she said. She meant to say samples, of course, but examples was just too narrow a margin of error to amend, and she was almost (nearly! so close!) correct anyway, so who really cared actually. Another time, Little P had overheard Auntie G refer to the liquor store in a whispery tone, and she mistook that for licorice store, and now persisted in getting very ruffled about the great mystery of what all must be going on at the licorice store; usually feeling strongly she’s probably being duped out of something delicious. She likes licorice a lot. The black kind especially. (Weirdo Frank would say, in a fond tone. He also loved black licorice.)
“P, go have a seat on that lounger right there, okay? Take off your shoes too, please. I want to get some sunscreen on your shoulders, and then we can have a contest to see who can make the biggest splash when we jump in.”
“This is a lounge-er-eh?” asked Penny, sitting obediently where she'd been instructed to, her face scrunched curiously up towards her mother.
“Eh?” grinned Abby, setting down her giant tote full of towels and goggles, and thinking of SPFs. “Are you being Canadian again? These are all loungers,” assured Abby, gesturing to the whole row of them surrounding the pool’s edge.
The Langdon family was indulging in a long weekend in Scottsdale. Abby’s parents had retired there, and now lived in this super swank gated community, which came with cost-effective (free, which is appealing when you’re still recovering from ten months of no income, from two years ago) amenities like the sixth largest golf course in the state, and a sparsely populated pool.
“Is it a new lounger-eh?”
“I don’t think so,” said Abby, peering over her sunglasses at her funny little girl. “Looks kind of sun-bleached to me. Why do you ask, PenHen?”
“Cos maybe if it was new, dad could send a picture to Doc’er Mel,” she explained comfortably, knees bouncing as she peeled a sandal off her left foot.
Abby groaned slightly. She could. Frank wasn’t here with Tanner yet, so she could be openly dismayed in peace. Mel King was a bit of a sour subject, you see. She couldn’t explain why, really. Just that Doctor King had come along one day, with her common face and uncommon hold on her husband. “Oh, yeah? Why would dad want to send a picture of a new lounger to Doctor Mel?”
“It’d be poe-lite,” said Pen decidedly, eyeing the edge of the pool for any floaties. “She’s sending him some, I think. Before we got here, dad was on the phone with Mel and said to please send him heaps of pictures of her in her new lounger-eh. He said it’d help get him through the weekend.”
mel and frank out of town, maybe at a med conference, and going out to a super fancy dinner afterwards, because it’s been three months since they first said i love you, and it’s all very sweet. and when a patron at this very fancy restaurant requires the heimlich, of course one/both of them step in. afterwards, when no one is choking on shrimps anymore and all airways are free and clear of obstructions, mel is out of earshot, reassuring the family of the person that was choking, back at their table. the boomer restaurant manager is lingering beside langdon while the guy who was choking downs a glass or two of water, and he’s very gratefully like wow thank you, i can’t believe that happened, and how lucky to have had not one but two doctors on site – can i send a bottle of red wine to your table? were you two celebrating something? but frank’s still observing him for signs of cyanosis so he’s sorta distractedly answering like well very unnecessary but thank you, it’s actually our three-month anniversary. :’) and then bro spots langdon’s ring, and gushes a little (sue him, he just almost died, he allowed to be slightly sentimental), and he goes, so you’re newlyweds? you guys just got married three months ago? and then frank, still distracted and thinking also of the possibility of aspirated particles in lungs, flatly says oh no. no, i’ve been married for nearly eight years now. any soreness in the ribs?
it probably makes me mean or something but after reading so much abt super confident babe-a-tron 5000 abby langdon (which i’m sure if we ever do see her, she probably will be), i’m kind of interested in the angle of chronically tired mum of two under five, who really hasn’t had time for herself since before covid abby langdon. she’s still carrying around some fairly significant baby weight. from uh, tanner. her entire tiktok fyp is mommy makeovers (no amount of cardio is going to lift her boobs back up to where they used to be, she thinks), and glp-1s. she’s even quietly texted eileen shamsi, asking for reccs of her most trusted cosmetic surgery associates. she feels like frank isn’t much attracted to her anymore, and it’s obviously a huge blow to their relationship, which was already fragile and slightly showing cracks before the kids. not to mention the extreme stresses of his benzo dependency, and everything that came after. two stints in rehab. her single parenting for four months (and realising it wasn’t all that big of a change from when he wasn’t in rehab, just working through residency). a scary lack of income, which resulted in all sorts of hardships like late mortgage payments, surrendering their newer car back to the dealership, and exclusively driving frank’s ugly old (paid off) ram, dings to their once 810 credit score, and borrowing money from frank’s sister. there’s no intimacy anymore. of any kind. not that she seeks it. not really. and lowkey fuck frank too because he looks better than ever sober. and like, the thing is that abby (in her heart of hearts) knows that she’s doing frank a disservice by chalking any part of their disconnect up to her mom bod, because of course frank has been attracted to her since tanner was born (penny duh) – it’s just that acknowledging that the relationship gaps are purely emotional is so so much worse. and way harder to fix.
i can't decide if that's penny or her first baby that's your discretion but regardless for melpreg summer you can see she's cooking up another delightful addition to the langdon-king household.
Abby shifted, rolling over and taking half of the covers with her, blinking sleepily over at him, “Who is calling you at midnight?”
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Abby shifted, rolling over and taking half of the covers with her, blinking sleepily over at him, “Who is calling you at midnight?”
Frank froze, snatching his buzzing phone off of the nightstand before Abby could catch a glimpse of the contact ID flashing on his screen: Mel PTMC
“... It’s the hospital. I better take this. Could be an emergency.”
Abby shrugged, too tired to argue, and went back to sleep.
As cautiously as he could, he crept out of the room and shut the door before answering the phone.
“Mel?” He asked, voice low, concerned.
There was a sniff, then a sound like she was clearing her throat. Oh, shit, Frank thought, she was crying.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
A moment of silence, and then she finally said, voice hoarse, “Um, hi, Dr. Langdon. I’m sorry for calling so late… you were probably sleeping! I’m so sorry!”
“It’s okay, it’s okay, hey,” He tried to assuage her, “I never sleep, okay? You’re fine. What’s up?”
“I just, um,” More sniffing, he could imagine her wiping her face off with her sleeves, her red-rimmed eyes, “I wasn’t feeling great today at work. And, I didn’t want to go home, so Dana tried to give me some Zofran, but, you know I hate taking medicine— sorry, hold on, I’m rambling,” he could hear her take a big deep breath.
“It’s okay. Just, say whatever you need to say.”
“Um, anyway, she asked me if there was—” Another big, shuddery breath, “any chance I could be pregnant."
Frank stopped cold, back against the wall.
They weren’t even dating. This wasn’t an affair. It was one time in the back of his car after a particularly rough shift. It wasn’t romantic, it had actually been kind of desperate. And afterwards, he had said she could call him any time if she needed him.
He supposed she had come to collect.
“I’m sorry,” Mel began to cry again, “I didn’t know what else to do!”
“Slow down, slow down,” he said after a moment of recalibration, mind going a thousand miles an hour, “Did you take a test at home?”
“Um, yes, I got about twelve of them–”
“Twelve? How did you have enough pee for twelve pregnancy tests?”
“I know,” She said miserably, “I’m sorry. It was my fault, I thought it would be okay.”
“It is going to be okay. No matter what, it’s going to be okay. And it’s not your fault. It’s my fault, for sure.” He was the one who had touched her leg in the passenger seat, had taken her face into his hands and kissed her.
“It’s just something that would happen to me. My first time ever having sex, and,” A puff of breath, dejected, “Of course.”
“Hold on, that was your first time? In the back of my car?”
wait okay so pictured here: two sweet-pea’s in a pod. 🫛 [i realise this is pals taylor and laëtitia, but i really hope we end up with some cute memma (emmel?) scenes in season 3. :’)]
but anyway, here mel is quite obviously explaining to emma how their respective secret ptmc hookups know each other so well; which is both as simple and as complex as frank n yo having graduated from the same med school + class btw. they still get a real big nostalgic thrill out of bullying each other, and competing for the last word (last joke, really) on a regular basis, but it’s all apparently in good fun to them actually, so don’t worry. but yeah, the whole tangled web is precarious for everyone involved because langdon is slightly married, and garcia has a debatably casual ex type she was emotionally walled up to hanging around the hospital. at the same time, garcia remains on a first name basis with franks wife, remember her? the one he’s cheating on with mel. and then of course mel is friends with that ex of garcia’s, and so is emma kind of, but that’s still overall strange for langdon, because that same person exposed his drug diversion to robby over a year ago, and and — meanwhile, when frank shrewdly caught on about yolanda and emma, he got this huge mischievously smug grin, and immediately started in on giving yo some smoke, sort of to the tune of ‘oh my god, how old is she even? was she born in the 2000s? i think she was born in the 2000s, yo.’ and then there’s garcia, buttons properly pushed, scoffing, because fyi doctor friggin king was born in 1999, frank. which means he has like, zero room to talk, thank you very much, but then he’s huffing like wow listen listen, that’s way different. it’s february 1999, which is almost 1998 if you really think about it—
wait okay so pictured here: two sweetpea’s in a pod. 🫛 [i realise this is pals taylor and laëtitia, but i really hope we end up with some cute memma (emmel?) scenes in season 3. :’)]
