Fallin' All In You
Brendan "The Shark" Park x male!reader—in which, he's been crushing on you since he saw you at his gym and shoots his shot after getting called down for a consult, unaware that you've been crushing too. TW: 18+ MDNI, NSFW. There is a sex scene, there are very limited descriptions though, more focused on aftercare. Angst because you know, working in the Pitt is hard. Reader loses a patient. (Reader is the bottom) A/N: Reader is Lena's son, the night shift charge nurse. No physical descriptions really are given, just wanted that dynamic. And the sex scene is brief. Song for the title is Fallin' All in You by Shawn Mendes! Tag: @normanssurvivalsite I PROMISED YOU I'D WRITE IT SO HERE IT IS!!! (Also I do not need your life, but I will take a reblog)
Brendan Park was not someone who cowered or stuttered or who knew what nervous felt like. He was someone who spent his days reattaching limbs and fixing bones and healing people in OR rooms faced with more blood than most people want to see in a lifetime. He was someone who was always in control and he didn’t know what being out of control felt like.
Until you.
Until the first time he saw you at his gym, running on a treadmill, doing nothing but running, headphones on, gaze fixed straight ahead, jaw tight, the line rigid. And in that moment, Brendan “the Shark” Park was a goner.
Because he had never seen anything like you before.
You were there, at the gym, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, running on the treadmill for three hours before dipping into the change room, grabbing your bag and leaving. Not even looking back, just disappearing.
He didn’t know your name, didn’t know what you did for a living, all he knew about you really was that you were gorgeous and perfect and something about you made him nervous. Made his heart race and his palms sweat and it was really damn inconvenient—not because wanting you was bad, but because you making his palms sweat really made it hard to lift weights safely.
He didn’t know you, but he wanted to. Desperately.
And that…that was something new too. Because Brendan Park was not someone who wanted to know people. He was the person who went into the bar, picked up some guy, slept with him and never called him again.
He was a man of one-night stands, of sex without the strings attached—but you, and your relentless pace, your disappearance and fixed gaze that never fell on him, made him want more. Made him want you and not for one night.
He wanted something that would last.
He wanted you to be someone who lasted.
He just didn’t know why.
***
“The ED needs a consult, Dr. Park,” Nurse Ava calls out and he turns, hand underneath the sanitizer, the foam landing on his hand, bubbles popping in strange sensations on his skin.
“I’m clocking out,” he tells her, tone that same one he always uses, the one that is dark and in control and terrifies the interns, meaning that they don’t fuck up on the job. The tone that earned him the nickname of “Shark”.
“It’s a strange one,” she says, stepping out from behind the desk, arms crossing and one eyebrow rising. “You’ve been requested specifically, Park. And I’ll remind you that you may be the surgeon in this floor, but I am the charge nurse and I am telling you to go.” Park smiles once at her, that easy smile that wins him the Friday night hook-ups that disappear from his bed as soon as they’re both spent, the easy smile that doesn’t faze Ava.
“I’m going!” he replies, the smile shifting into the one that is Ava’s alone, the one that grew when the two of them began working together back when Park was an intern himself and she was a beginner nurse, latching onto each other as friends, needing that person that could pull them out from the job.
“I know,” she says, before spinning on her heel and heading over to a cluster of nurses, whispering and gossiping, harsh voice ringing out, telling them to get back to work, phones away and that the hospital wasn’t high school while Park slipped away, hitting the button for the elevator, crossing his arms and tapping his foot impatiently.
He didn’t like the ED, didn’t like the disrespect of the interns down there, people so faced with trauma that they forgot the rules of decency and teaching. He didn’t like the danger of the patients. He didn’t like dealing with the patients when they were awake in his consult room, let alone when they were screaming and writhing in pain from—most of the time—an injury that they could have avoided if they’d thought their actions through.
He didn’t like the ED because it was chaos and he liked order. He liked things neat and tidy, fitting into their boxes. He liked to be in charge and in the ED, no one, not really was in charge.
But he did his job, stepping into the elevator, going down to the floor that was chaos incarnate, the handover beginning as day shift switched to night shift, the day shift staff clocking out yet remaining because no one in this department had a good idea of work life balance.
“Park!” Lena calls out, lifting her hand in a frantic wave, red phone held to her ear, the receiver muffled by her hand. “Trauma 2!” He nods at her, arms crossed as he walks down the hall, dodging the endless stream of doctors and patients and nurses until he reaches the sliding door of the trauma room, stepping in and surveying the scene.
He stops short when he sees you.
You stand there by the patient, hands gloved and body filling out black scrubs, the mark of an ED doctor, the blue sterile gloves no longer sterile but marked by blood and Brendan can feel his heart speed up even when he thinks it should be stopping from the shock.
“Dr. Park,” Abbot calls out, his voice shocking Brendan from his stupor, the stupor of seeing you, the runner, the enigma, the crush and the dream here, in his hospital. Like you’ve been here all along, so close. “Glad you could join us.”
“What’s the case, Abbot?” he asks, voice an imitation of his normal strength, normal tone, a façade truly because he feels like the earth has moved beneath his feet seeing you here.
“Care to explain, Dr. Handzo?” Abbot calls out and Brendan watches as you shift, lifting your head from the patient, eyes unfocused, mind on the case before you, yet settling on him nonetheless and Brendan can feel his heart drop at your attention.
He wondered what it would feel like to your eyes on him and now he knows. It feels good, too good. He doesn’t think eye contact has ever felt this good before and he wants nothing more than to hold to your gaze forever.
“Meet Gage Cramer, fifteen-year-old male who was hanging out with his friends at the bike park, practicing trick flips. Got knocked down on his jump and his friend miscalculated his at the same time, his bike landing and crushing Gage’s leg. Shattered femur, knee is still intact though,” Brendan hears you say, hears your voice for the first time, that slow even cadence and he’s gone even more than before.
But he ignores it—or tries to—stepping into the room, attention becoming that of “The Shark” eyes on the case even as his body heats at its proximity to you, his body so keenly aware of you that it makes him insane because he doesn’t even know you.
But god does he want to.
He looks down at the boy, the boy who is crying silently, tears sliding his face while his jaw is gritted with stoic determination not to show how much it hurts, not to show the world that he is vulnerable. A boy learning what the world wants of a man, not what is actually needed.
Brendan remembers those days, back when he felt the need to shut down who he was. Shut down the part of him that didn’t like girls, didn’t like the way it felt to be with them. He remembers how much he hated himself for so long, thinking he was a freak, a deviant. Not worth it.
He remembers how hard it was to come to terms with who he was. Who he liked. What he needed. He remembers and a part of him knows that that is why he has the issues he does, issues that something in you bypasses, changes. Rearranges. Which is why he resolves to stay, to catch you after this case, to ask you on a date. To not hesitate anymore.
But for now, he surveys the scene, the damaged leg and exposed bone, the bits of muscle tissue and blood and the knee, miraculously untouched. And he knows that this poor kid has a hell of a life ahead of him, one where he learns what it’s like to not be normal.
“I’ll book an OR, get him in for amputation. Nothing here is salvageable, but it’ll be below the knee, not the worst,” he says, the right of his body warm and rigid from its closeness to you as he turns away, turns to Abbot who nods, saying nothing, merely turning back to his people, to his patient. Park forgotten.
But not by you.
You couldn’t forget Park the Shark if you fucking tried and you have tried. He sticks in your head like a burr and has since that day he walked into your gym, attention flicking to you on the treadmill, the person forever running from everything.
You thought it was nothing, but even fixing your gaze ahead and biting your jaw didn’t change anything, didn’t alter it in any way, instead your peripherals picked up on his every movement, every flex of his frankly impossible arms. And after weeks of that, you resolved yourself to one truth:
You have a crush on Dr. Brendan Park.
And so, you are utterly screwed.
Moreso when he shows up in your trauma room, during handoff to the Night Shift, “Nightcrawlers” as Abbot says. Being on the night shift is supposed to mean that you never have to interact with him, that he’ll never be coming in because he’s a good enough surgeon—the best really—to not work nights.
That wasn’t why you chose night shifts though; in fact, you were on night shifts long before Brendan Park walked into your gym.
No, you chose nights because you like the dark, like the feeling of hiding because you’ve been living in a world that hasn’t wanted to see you anyways. Hasn’t wanted to acknowledge you, preferring to hide you away and ignore the fact that you exist at all. Ignore your presence, pretend you aren’t real.
So, nights suited you just fine.
“Anyone wanna take this fine young man up to the OR?” Abbot calls out as you pull off your gloves, dropping them in the disposal, simply shaking your head before ducking out the sliding door, back into the chaos of the Pitt.
“Not me,” you call out just before the doors slide closed and you’re back in the chaos so completely, the world of the night crawlers.
“Kid, you look like hell,” Lena calls out and you turn to her, flashing a grin and a thumbs-up as you walk towards the desk, leaning on it on your forearms while she types away at the computer, handing a clipboard to another nurse behind her without even looking away.
“That’s such an amazing compliment, Lens,” you tell her, reaching one hand down and grabbing your water bottle from where you leave it beside Lena’s, Shen’s second cup of Dunkins waiting there too. “But aside from how beautiful you think I am, what’s up?”
“Kid,” she says, looking up and sighing, a smile curving on her face as she shakes her head, reaching out to ruffle your hair, “get to work. And don’t call me Lens! I am your mother and I deserve respect!” Her last sentence echoes after you as you dart off, glancing up at the patient board and snagging an iPad as Ellis comes up behind you, her arm closing around your shoulder.
“Heard you were in the Shark Attack room,” she says, voice low as she guides you from the chaos of the Pitt towards the stairwell, pushing one of the doors with her hip, still guiding you by your shoulder.
“What’s it to you, Ellis?” you reply, crossing your arms, the iPad tucked awkwardly under your elbow, pressing against your ribs, one eyebrow arching as she lets go of you, stepping into view, that gleeful look on her face.
“You survived being in the room with the man you have the hots for?” she asks you and you roll your eyes at her, shifting on your feet, nerves running through you as you remember the way that Park had looked at you, the way his eyes had focused on you, looking like for all the world he felt something too.
Before he turned to the case like the Shark everyone calls him.
“Yes, I survived. Alert the media,” you answer, your tone sardonic, voice acidic.
“When are you going to get over your crush?” she asks you, eyes flitting from you to the ED, where the chaos all of you Night Crawlers live on thrives, the adrenaline and caffeine and insanity.
“When he stops going to my gym,” you tell her and she turns back to you, eyebrows nearly at her hairline as her hands migrate to her hips, one leg kicking out as she assesses you.
“Him using your gym is the problem?” she asks you, pushing you to the side, out of sight of the windows when she catches a glimpse of Abbot emerging from the Trauma room, lips pressed in a thin and angry line.
“Yes,” you hiss at her, “because I go and I’m running, just practicing my endurance and he shows up looking insanely fucking hot, lifting weights and flexing his Greek god muscles, making me all hot and bothered. So! When he stops going to my gym and looking all fucking hot, I’ll stop having a crush.” Ellis, your best friend since med school, looks at you then with such abject pity as she shakes her head, eyes reflecting idiot back at you.
“Just change your gym days,” she says and you can feel that pit in your chest, just drop to your stomach, Occam’s Razor suddenly right in front of you.
“Shut up!” you hiss, pushing past her and back into the ED, back into the chaos where EMTs rush in, a woman convulsing on the gurney, mouth frothing. You walk over, but you feel Ellis pushing past you at a run, heading to the gurney and taking your patient, your trauma.
Of fucking course she did, you think as you turn back to the patient rooms, iPad under your arm as you assess the board, Lena watching you with shrewd eyes. It wasn’t your ideal job working with your mother, but she’s always been there, accepting you before you knew how to accept yourself.
So, it’s okay.
Even if she may micromanage you to ensure you stay healthy.
(Read: she babies you.)
“You should try Room 3,” Lena calls out to you as she bustles around, darting towards Matteo, urgency in her step betraying the fact that he must have messed up on something paperwork related.
“Why Room 3?” you call out, the memory of Park’s eyes and the focus of his eyes on you still burning in your mind as your mom glances back over her shoulder at you, exasperation in her eyes.
“Palliative care,” she answers and in those two sentences you know—your case. It’s a family trait, really, the need to care for those who struggle to care for themselves, protecting them and advocating for them. The hand in the dark for them to hold when they see the last of the light.
And that’s why you approach Room 3, taking deep and calming breaths, expunging Park from your mind, focusing on the goal before you, the one of the patient, the one of the dying.
“Hey!” you hear Park call out and all your calming exercises go out the window because god, his voice is unfairly hot and he should not be allowed to just yell out like that. “Hey, Handzo, you got a minute?”
“I’m actually about to check on a patient, Dr. Park,” you reply, turning around, summoning as much calm as you can, knowing that something is bound to snap in you if you have to keep interacting with him. “Can it wait?”
“It’ll just take a minute,” he tells you and you sigh, but nod once, tucking the iPad under your arm as you follow him back towards the stairwell you just vacated with Ellis—who is currently looking at you with wide eyes, telegraphing What the FUCK?!
“What is it, Dr. Park?” you ask him, when the metal door closes behind you. You know that if Abbot catches wind of you constantly ducking out that you’re gonna get a talking too—never yelling, that’s Robby’s style, but still. You’ll get an I’m disappointed in you, son. Thought you were better than that. Which, honestly, is just worse. You would take the yelling any day over it.
“I was just wondering,” he begins and you take notice of the fact that he’s out of his scrubs, dressed in a tight black t-shirt, stretched so thin across his broad chest that it should be illegal and jeans with a leather jacket thrown over the whole ensemble, looking way too hot. “…if you’d like to get coffee?”
“Like, with…you?” you ask him, unable to hide the incredulousness of your tone, of your mood, the incredulity growing as he looks at you, a smile growing on his face as he bites his lip in an unconscious way, his eyes flicking up and down your body, the room suddenly far too hot and if you weren’t in front of him right now, you would totally be pulling on your collar and complaining of the heat.
“Yeah,” he says, tone soft but pleasant. Pleased. “With me.”
“Yes…I mean,” you pause, coughing just slightly trying to conceal your eagerness and failing horribly, “I would like to get coffee with you…” you pause, blinking once, trying to reorient yourself in this moment, this frankly impossible moment. “It is a date right?”
“Yeah, it’s a date.”
***
Your shift was exhausting and painful and emotional which is pretty much par with every night shift you’ve worked, yet somehow it was worse. Lexis, a twelve-year-old palliative care patient, Room 3, passed away just at the end of your shift, her mom unable to remain, work calling, money needed to pay the exorbitant bills of care.
You were the one who held her hand as she passed, crying silent tears for this girl that hadn’t gotten to live. She knew hospital rooms from the time she was five, remission for a singular year before the cancer came back worse than before, worse than anyone expected of osteosarcoma.
You were the last one she saw, the last one she spoke too and if you hadn’t been trained, you would have broken down as that sweet little girl whispered thank you and you replied with always and it won’t hurt anymore and I’ll make sure your mom’s okay. Things she needed to hear, things you needed to say, yet somehow it’s not enough.
It’s never enough.
Not even knowing that she went peacefully, in no pain, with a smile because of you. Because she’s gone and she deserved a long life and it’s just not fair. Who the fuck decides who lives and dies because it just isn’t fair.
For every thousand patients that you save, there’s always one you can’t.
And it’s that one that will haunt you forever.
You remember every single one, their names and their ages and their last words. You can’t help it. Call it self-torture, call it lack of compartmentalization, call it whatever you want. In this line of work, it means you care.
And that’s what you hold fast to as you dart out the doors, your mom sighing and walking over to her Volvo, the safest car and you head off towards your truck, your vintage, lovingly restored 1956 Chevy in metallic purple. The truck you’d always wanted, the truck you had.
“You always drive an antique?” you hear someone call out and a part of you thinks it’s Park but it’s been a killer of a shift and you just don’t know. You don’t really know anything. “Hey, Handzo? You okay?” And then Park is in front of you, hands on your shoulders, his touch searing your skin, giving you new sensations, more than just tiredness and sadness and pain. And you want these new sensations; you don’t just want the numbness that you live in.
The numbness where your skin feels like it doesn’t sit right on your bones.
The numbness where you don’t feel real, where you feel like you can just fade away.
The ED takes something from you. A little bit more each time you’re there, another little piece of you and the theft is so small that you don’t notice it at first until suddenly you don’t feel like you used to. And then you’re numb, just chasing highs and more adrenaline. And then you’re like Shen, just doing more to feel that adrenaline, that rush. And then you’re like Ellis, leaning into the numbness, taking the small joys in the idiocy that gets people in the ER. And then you’re like Robby, yelling at people because you’re so close to cracking and there’s no other way to communicate, to say I need help. And then you’re like Abbot, unable to stand the quiet and the stillness, seeking more danger, more risk.
It’s the cost of the job.
It’s the cost of the Pitt.
You save people and destroy yourself, a little bit at a time. The Pitt is a doctor’s form of a devil. Do what you’ve always wanted to do and save so many lives…the cost?
Only all your feelings.
But in the touch of Park’s hands on your shoulders, you feel more than just the numbness. You feel alive, and you haven’t really felt alive in a long time.
“Do you wanna fuck me?” you ask him instead of answering, your eyes on him and you can see the change in his eyes, the dilation of his pupils, the bob of his Adam’s apple and you can feel the slight twitch in his palms.
“We haven’t even gone on a date yet, pup,” he says and maybe it’s the nickname or maybe it’s the way he doesn’t answer your question, but you place your hand on the side of his face, a tender gesture, just toeing the line, never crossing it.
“Is that necessary?”
He answers you by pressing you against the side of your truck, pressing his lips to yours, those lips that feel as soft as you’d imagined, as perfect and plush and he tastes like coffee and vanilla and strawberry ChapStick and desire. He tastes like everything you want and you feel his one hand on your waist, fingers digging into the planes of your stomach, one finger digging into the groove between stomach and hipbone, that pulling of the skin away. His touch sears, his other hand cupping your face as his tongue strokes into your mouth, sensuous and torturous and more than enough and not enough at the same time.
Your hands fist into the lapels of his jacket, pulling him closer to you, his body entirely pressing against you, so much that you can feel every hard line of his body pressing against yours, every inch of definition, your hands sliding from his jacket to the hem of his shirt, slipping under, hands pressing against his abs, tracing the shape, his body growing harder and harder under your touch, muscles twitching at every pass of your cold hands on his over-heated skin.
And then he pulls back, pupils dilated so much that his eyes look like the bottomlessness of the ocean, the dark waters where danger and desire lurk, his chests rising and falling violently, mouth just slightly open.
“I didn’t even think you’d noticed me,” he whispers, voice breathy and cracking, husky. “All those times in the gym, my palms so sweaty from the sight of you,” the way he says you steals your breath away, said with such desire and fervour, “and your unfair sexiness, I never thought you knew I existed. You always looked straight ahead. When you said yes to coffee…I was surprised so much.”
“I looked straight ahead,” you tell him, leaning forwards to press a kiss to his jawline, the sharpest point where the jaw falls under the ear, “because otherwise I would just be watching you. I had a crush on you from the first moment you did a bicep curl, watching yourself in the mirror not for the aesthetics but to watch your form, critiquing yourself on the next curl. I had to take a very cold shower that day.” And then Brendan’s hands shift from your waist and your face to your ass, palming it and causing you to gasp, the sound choked.
“You don’t need a cold shower this time,” he whispers, eyes so pupil-blown that they’re black, “cause I’ll take care of you.”
***
Which leads to now and the feeling of his hands on every inch of your body, tracing every line and plane and swell and dip, lips and fingers and tongue. The feeling of him in you and the way he hits that spot every time, a spot you didn’t even know existed really inside of you until now, your body hard and coiled, his hands soothing, back pressed against yours, hands on your hips, your hands braced on the wall as his lips find your neck.
He kisses and sucks at the skin, working it between his teeth, leaving marks behind, the feeling of his teeth causing everything to feel hot and hard and tense and for that coil to wind tighter inside of you. It’s so much and yet not enough.
It’s so much and yet not enough every time he rocks into you, his hands stroking every inch of you, lips trailing down your back, the press of his lips against your skin muffling the sound of his cries as he thrusts into you while your cries aren’t muffled, shattering through your room.
As he moves in and out, you feel alive. You feel warm and hot and hard and so close and alive. And you haven’t felt alive in so long.
“Just—hold on!” Brendan cries, his grip tightening on your body, teeth sinking into the muscle of your shoulder.
“Can’t—hold much! Longer,” you reply, words hard, mind fuzzy from the fucking you’ve been getting from the Greek god behind you.
“So close,” he murmurs, teeth still pressing into your skin, his words vibrating through your over-heated skin. And then he slams into you again and the two of you come undone, him into the condom and you into his hand and then he’s pulling out, his touch pulling away from your body and you can’t really think straight and so Brendan guides you to your bathroom, flipping the shower on and taking care of you, washing every inch of you as you just cling to him, his body the only thing keeping you upright.
“That was…” you pause, drawing in a deep breath as he shuts the shower off, grabbing a towel and helping you dry your body, tucking the towel around your hips while he dries himself, “fucking amazing.”
“I take it coffee’s gonna wait,” he says as he disappears out of the bathroom, ducking out and grabbing you boxers and a t-shirt, helping you step into them and guiding you back towards your bed, your room set for your daytime hibernation. “Can I borrow some clothes?”
“If they’ll fit,” you answer and you can hear him chuckle as you slide beneath your covers, groaning at the softness of the mattress against you. “And yeah, I’m…exhausted. I’m sorry, Brendan…I just needed to feel something.” He turns around, dressed in an old band shirt of yours that you don’t even remember buying that fits tight on him—which to him means it fits.
“I’m not complaining,” he tells you, climbing into the bed beside you, pulling you against him, your head falling on his chest, his arms around you and yours on him. “I just got to fuck the man I’ve been pining after for months. You think I’m upset about that?”
“You wanted to date and I just…jumped your bones,” you reply, tone tired yet sardonic and he lets out a chuckle in response, tucking you even tighter against him, a wholeness and completeness in his chest for the first time.
“As long as this isn’t for one night,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to the top of your head, “then we’re fine.”
“Do you know that song?” you ask him. “The one by Shawn Mendes that goes like,” and here you sing a little, your voice cracking but you don’t care, “sunrise with you on my chest/no blinds in the place where I live/Daybreak open your eyes/’Cause this was only ever meant to be for one night?”
“Fallin’ All in You,” he says, “yeah I know it.”
“While, here’s I think it should go: Daybreak open your eyes/’Cause this was never meant to be for one night. I want the long haul, Brendan. If you do?” And you can feel his body relax, breaths less constricted and the way he relaxes against you and into you.
“Yeah, I do. I really, really do.”
***
Epilogue
A year. One year since that horrible shift, the one where you were numb and Brendan made you feel something, made you feel alive when you hadn’t felt alive in so long. Felt so numb to the world.
One year now of feeling alive and happy and loved. One year of smiling, rearranging. You ended up switching to days, the constant coming and going and not sleeping beside Bren just not right. You wanted to be on his schedule and in him, with him, you didn’t feel the need to hide anymore, to hide at night, to hide like the world wanted you to hide.
One year of living a life.
And now, looking down at your hand, at the simple platinum band, you can’t believe your luck. The simple band wasn’t really so simple, rather it was engraved with a Celtic knot pattern, This is the long haul engraved on the inside of the band, the words Brendan told you when you woke up that evening to him sitting at your table with pancakes and coffee that he’d made for you himself.
“God,” Lena says, her eyes lining with tears, “my little baby boy is getting married!” And then she’s hugging you as she cries, sobbing because she’s been there for every moment, every heartbreak and betrayal. And now she gets the happy moments. “Does this mean I’ll have grandchildren? Are you and Brendan going to adopt?”
“Mom!” you groan, pulling back from her embrace and wiping her tears away, smiling softly at her. “Let’s just focus on right now, okay? I have to get through the wedding with the bulking Groomzilla before I think about adoption, okay.”
“He’s really bulking?”
“Oh yeah. Says he has to compete with my unfair sexiness and the only way he can do that is if he bulks.”
“Well, I don’t think you’re complaining,” she says and you can’t help but laugh, catching a glimpse of your fiancé in his purple scrubs walking towards you with a Dunkins coffee cup in his hand for you.
“I am most definitely not.”
No, you really aren’t because you got the life you always wanted. You fell all in him and he fell all in you.
It was never meant to be for one night.
THIS. IS SO. FUCKING. GOOODDDDD OMG🥹🥹🥹🥹 STOP ITS SO SWEET BUT SEXY AND REAL AT THE SAME TIME WTF I LOVE THE DETAILS THE FRIENDSHIPS THE CHARACTER LORE.
