🎲 Sharp Edges, Soft Spot 🎲
Summary: A sunshine nurse who never lets Frank Langdon get away with his attitude finally snaps back and when he later gets jealous watching her laugh with Dennis, he’s forced to admit she’s gotten under his skin in a way no one else has.
Warnings: none
Frank Langdon is good at his job. Infuriatingly good, actually. The kind of good that makes people forgive a lot. His sharp tone in trauma rooms. His clipped orders when things go sideways. The way he can look at someone over the top of his mask and make them feel two inches tall if they move too slow or ask the wrong question at the wrong time.
Most people in the ER just deal with it. You do not. Which, apparently, is what gets his attention. It starts in trauma two on a slammed Tuesday when the department is already drowning before noon. Samira had texted you an hour ago that the board looked like hell and she was right. Every room is full, there are three holds in the hallway, Dana is moving at the speed of light, and the overhead speaker keeps chirping with new arrivals like the universe is mocking everyone personally.
You’re in trauma with Frank, Robby, Samira, and Dennis when EMS rolls in with a young guy after a high-speed MVC. Hypotensive. Barely responsive. Blood everywhere. Controlled chaos in the way only the ER can be. You move automatically. Gloves. Monitor. IV setup. You’ve done this dance enough that your hands don’t shake anymore.
“Pressure’s tanking,” Samira says. “I can see that,” Frank snaps, already at the bedside. “Can I get someone moving a little faster on blood?” You glance up from your line setup. “You can, but glaring at me won’t make the tubing prime faster.”
The room goes just slightly still. Dennis, across the bed, actually looks up. Frank turns his head toward you, clearly not used to being spoken to like that in the middle of a trauma. “Then maybe don’t waste time talking.” Your eyebrows lift. “Then maybe don’t waste time being rude when I’m literally doing my job.”
Samira’s mouth twitches like she is trying very hard not to smile in the middle of a possible disaster. Robby doesn’t even look up from the ultrasound. “Children,” he says flatly. “Focus.” You do. So does Frank. Because despite the little spark of heat, nobody in this room is here to lose. The blood gets up. The pressure crawls. Surgery gets called. The patient stabilizes just enough to move upstairs, and by the time the room empties, your pulse is still racing with leftover adrenaline.
You’re peeling off your gloves when Frank steps back in. You expect another clipped comment. Another polished little dig. Instead, he leans against the doorway, folds his arms, and says, “You always talk back like that?” You don’t even look at him. “Only when deserved.”
There’s a beat. Then, to your surprise, he laughs. Quiet. Real. “Good to know.” You glance up then, and there’s something different in his face. Not annoyance. Not ego. Something sharper. More interested. You toss the wrapper from the pressure bag into the trash. “Anything else, doctor?”
His eyes follow the movement. “Yeah.” You wait. His mouth tilts. “Nice work in there.” It throws you off enough that you blink. Because Frank Langdon is charming when he wants to be, sure. Everyone knows that. But this feels different somehow. Less casual. Less performed.
You recover quickly. “I know.” That gets another laugh out of him, and when he leaves the room he looks almost amused with himself.
Unfortunately, that is not the end of it.
After that, Frank starts seeing you everywhere.
At least that’s what Samira says when you come home one night and she watches you kick your shoes off by the door with narrowed eyes. “He likes you.” You look up from unpinning your hair. “No, he doesn’t.” She snorts from the couch. “Frank Langdon barely notices gravity most days. He absolutely notices you.” “He notices that I told him to quit being rude in trauma.”
“Exactly,” Samira says, pointing at you with a spoon from her takeout container. “And for some deranged man reason, that apparently did it for him.” You laugh and steal one of her potstickers. “You’re dramatic.” “I’m right.” You’re still laughing when your phone lights up on the counter.
Unknown Number. You open it.
Unknow Number: It's Frank. Samira gave me your number for a very noble reason.
You squint.
You: That doesn’t sound like Samira
Three dots appear immediately.
Frank Langdon: I needed to know where you get that coffee you bring in.
You smile despite yourself.
You: So you can insult more nurses more efficiently? Frank Langdon: I apologized to exactly one nurse this week. You: Was it painful for you? Frank Langdon: Excruciating.
You stare at the screen, grinning before you can help it. Samira sees your face and points harder. “That. That is the face of a woman who is texting a problem.” You throw a napkin at her.
The thing about Frank is that once he starts, he doesn’t really stop.
It’s little at first. He saves you the good trauma shears when the old ones mysteriously vanish. He grabs your favorite coffee on the days he knows you’re floating down to the ER from another floor. He leans over the nurses’ station and says things in that low, lazy voice that make Jesse roll his eyes and Dana smirk behind her computer.
“You’re smiling at me again,” you tell him one afternoon. “That must be awful for you.” “It is. I like you better snappy.” His hand presses to his chest. “Cruel.” “You’ll survive.” “Barely.” He says it like a joke, but his eyes stay on you a little too long. And you notice. You definitely notice.
The whole department does.
Because Frank is still Frank with everyone else. Still brilliant. Still fast. Still a little too sharp when the stakes are high and somebody fumbles in a room that can’t afford mistakes. But with you, there’s this strange softness now. Like some edge in him files itself down the second you’re near.
Dana catches him handing you a coffee one morning and mutters, “This is nauseating.” Jesse glances over. “He brought her oat milk. He doesn’t even know my last name.” Samira just looks smug. “I told you.” You try not to think too much about it. Frank’s flirty. Frank’s charming. Frank probably makes half the city feel special when he turns that attention on them.
So you don’t let yourself make anything out of it.
Which is why later, when you’re laughing with Dennis Whitaker at the nurses’ station, it doesn’t occur to you for even one second that Frank might care. Dennis is mid-story, doing an aggressively bad imitation of Santos during a chaotic central line placement, and you’re laughing so hard you have to brace a hand against the counter.
“No, because that is exactly how she sounded,” you say through a laugh.Dennis points at you. “Thank you. Finally, someone appreciates my gifts.” “Your gift,” you say, “is surviving Samira and Santos at the same time.” “Barely.” You grin. “Tragic.”
Dennis is smiling too, warm and easy, and you miss the exact moment Frank walks up. You only notice when Dennis’ expression shifts into something more careful, more entertained. “Well,” Frank says. You turn. He’s standing on the other side of the station with a chart in his hand and that perfectly neutral expression that means he is, in fact, not neutral at all.
“Hi,” you say, still smiling. His gaze flicks from you to Dennis, then back. “Didn’t realize comedy hour started without me.” Dennis’ eyebrows go up. “You want in, Langdon?” Frank’s smile is thin. “Pass.” You blink.
Dennis, because he has a functioning survival instinct but enjoys danger in manageable doses, glances between you two and slowly pushes off the counter. “I actually just remembered Dana asked me to do literally anything else.” “Coward,” you call after him. “Alive,” he shoots back.
And then Frank is there, leaning one forearm on the desk, looking at you in a way that makes your stomach do something weird. “What was that?” you ask. “What was what?” You narrow your eyes. “That whole weird territorial thing you just did.” He looks almost offended. “Territorial?”
“Yes, Frank. Territorial. Like Dennis was going to steal your favorite toy.” His jaw shifts, just barely. “You’re not a toy.” “No kidding.” He exhales through his nose, glancing away for half a second before looking back at you. “You were laughing.” You stare at him. “I do that sometimes, yeah.” “With Whitaker.” “Okay?”
His mouth tightens like he’s annoyed with himself for even standing here. “He was leaning in.” You actually laugh again, softer this time, because suddenly this is making a ridiculous sort of sense. “Are you jealous?” “No.” The answer is too fast. You fold your arms. “Frank.”
He looks at you for a long second, then drags a hand over his jaw. “I don’t know.” It’s the first time you’ve seen him lose that smooth, polished grip he keeps on himself. The first time he looks less like golden-boy senior resident and more like a man who hates not having the upper hand. And for some reason, it gets to you. “You don’t know?”
His eyes stay on yours. “I don’t have any right to be.” There it is. The thing underneath. Even though he has no reason. Even though you aren’t his. Even though whatever this is hasn’t been named and maybe can’t be.
The noise of the ER fills the space around you. Phones ringing. Someone calling for transport. A monitor alarming down the hall. The whole world keeps moving while the two of you stand there in this tiny pocket of stillness. You tilt your head. “That’s not what I asked.” “I know.” “Then answer me.” He gives you a look that is all sharp edges and honesty and something almost helpless under it. “Yes.”
Your heart stutters. “Yes,” he repeats more quietly. “I was jealous.” You should probably say something witty. Something light. Something that doesn’t make this feel like the floor just shifted under your feet. Instead you hear yourself ask, “Why?” Frank lets out a small laugh with no humor in it. “You really need me to spell that out?”
Maybe you do. Maybe you just want to hear him say it. He steps closer to the station, voice lower now, meant only for you. “Because every time you walk in here, I know where you are before I even see you. Because you smile at everyone, but when you smile at me it ruins my whole day in the best way.” He glances down, then back up. “Because you’re nice to everybody and still somehow make me want to be better than everybody.”
Your chest feels tight. “Frank—” “And because,” he says, quieter still, “I know you’re not mine.” The words hit harder than they should. Not mine. Not his. But he wants. You swallow. “That sounds dangerously close to feelings, doctor.” That finally gets the ghost of a grin out of him. “Yeah. Terrifying, isn’t it?”
You stare at him for a second, at the man everybody thinks they understand. The confident one. The polished one. The one with the quick mouth and the quicker hands and the sharp edges that cut when things get bad.
But this version of him, the one standing in front of you now, looks stripped down to the truth. And maybe that’s why you smile. Soft this time. Not teasing. Just for him. Frank notices immediately. Of course he does. His whole face changes.
You lean your elbows on the desk. “For the record, Dennis was telling me a story about Santos nearly committing homicide over a mislabeled specimen.” Frank huffs a laugh. “That tracks.” “And for the record,” you add, “if I wanted you to make a move, I’m pretty sure I could figure out how to let you know.”
His eyes drop to your mouth for the briefest second. “Could you?” You feel warm all of a sudden. “Frank.” “What?” he murmurs. “I’m just asking.” “You’re impossible.” “And yet.” “And yet,” you echo, unable to stop smiling. Overhead, the speaker crackles with another incoming ambulance. Of course it does. The ER never gives anyone long enough to sit in anything important.
Frank straightens with a sigh, all that softness tucking itself back under his skin as the doctor comes forward again. But before he steps away, his fingers brush yours on the counter. Quick. Barely there. Enough to make your breath catch. Then he says, low enough that only you can hear, “Try not to flirt with Whitaker for the next twenty minutes. I’m fragile.”
You laugh, bright and helpless and completely gone for him now, and Frank’s mouth curves like he can’t help it.
“Go save your patient, Langdon.” His eyes stay on you one second longer than necessary. “Yes, ma’am.” He walks away, and you watch him go with your heart knocking hard against your ribs. Dana appears at your shoulder like she materialized from thin air. “You two done being insane at my nurses’ station?” she asks.
You jump. “Jesus, Dana.” She squints in Frank’s direction. “He looked jealous.” You try for innocent and fail immediately. “Maybe a little.” Dana snorts. “Good. Builds character.” Then she wanders off before you can answer, leaving you smiling to yourself like an idiot.
Across the department, Frank glances back. Just once. But it’s enough.
Because now when he looks at you, it feels like he’s not just seeing the sunshine nurse who snapped at him in trauma. He’s seeing the one person in the room who never lets him get away with anything. And maybe, just maybe, the one person he wants to belong to when all of this finally catches up with him.
