Sadly I think it’s likely Abby will show up for a pre shift scene, and they will show them happy together. I have put all the pieces together and this is probably how they will shut down any hope left for canon kingdon. If this is the case I just wish they put a little bit more effort into the marriage in s2 so it’s not so shocking when they are shown to be perfectly fine.
/
You pushing this agenda on here to get the kingdoners riled up on literally no proof other than the fanfic your writing in your head which is lowkey a little funny but also please stop Its getting tired and unimaginative
Cause let’s be honest with ourselves here this is a TV drama they are never going to do a happy storyline for that marriage it may also never lead to Kingdon but it certainly isn’t going to be them in a good place
I don't remember if I ever actually asked for it in a prompt but I would love to see Charlie meeting Mel!! And/or Yoyo becoming friends with her after kingdon start dating :)
[the last prompt fill for now! set after EC / the other snippets shared so far - 1.5k]
“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Frank. Do you actually think that Mel would leave you for your sister?”
Frank scrubs his hands down his face, groaning. Yeah, he deserved that, and hearing the question in Leanne’s skeptical voice is, as ever, humbling.
“No,” Frank sighs, dropping his hands and rolling his shoulders back, as though he could fidget his way out of feeling anxious.
“So what’s the problem?” Leanne asks, nonplussed.
The problem is that Mel and Charlie are finally meeting. And Mel and his parents are finally meeting. And she’s going to see his childhood home and his embarrassing room and stupid hometown. And it’s his turn to have the kids on actual Christmas, so all of that will be happening with Tanner and Penny (and Bunny) as witnesses (or, more probably, as instigators).
Mel is shockingly calm about the whole situation.
“I think it’ll be nice,” she said, serenely, when Frank was checking for the hundredth time if she’s sure she wants to come up to Erie for Christmas. “I haven’t had a big family Christmas since high school.”
And that was such a classic Mel moment—heartbreaking content delivered so calmly, like she was talking about a restaurant she hadn’t visited in a while or a shirt she found in the back of the closet—that Frank forgot all of his previous worries in favor of giving her a hug and pressing his face into her hair, like if he held her hard enough some of his love and care could travel back in time to the past and find those other Mels who were so very alone.
But Mel doesn’t come with him to therapy, so there’s nothing to distract him now from the absurd anxieties his brain has been cooking up.
“Do you want to know what I think?” Leanne prompts after a moment of silence, since Frank is trying and failing to figure out how to articulate the problem. He nods instantly because duh, he always wants to know what people think of him, and hearing things from therapists means it’s, like, probably true. Hearing things from Leanne specifically means it’s almost certainly true.
(She gave him a gold star at their session that last week of school, when he showed her the letters he’d written for homework and then told her about everything with Mel. A gold star from his therapist. He peaked, probably.)
“I think you’re nervous because you idolize Charlie and think she’s—” Leanne consults her notes, which never means anything good for him. “—’the superior Langdon sibling in every conceivable way,’ which is combining with how you think that Mel will wake up one day and realize she can—” Leanne looks back at her notes. “—’obviously do better’ into an irrational fear of Mel leaving you for your sister.”
“Jesus,” Frank breathes. “Don’t hold back.”
Leanne raises an eyebrow and continues her freaky mindreading.
“More than that, I think that you’re remembering how Charlie didn’t think you and Abby were the right fit for each other, which you ignored, and you’re scared that she’s going to see something you’ve missed.”
“I take it back. I don’t want to know what you think.”
Leanne doesn’t respond to that, which he hates. Why is he surrounded by people who are so skilled at using loaded silences against him, and when will he learn how not to fill them?
The thing is that she’s right, obviously. Frank has looked back over the past decade of his life, randomly picked out some elements, and combined them into a nonsensical mishmash of anxious hypotheticals: What if Charlie hates Mel? What if Mel hates Charlie? What if Mel hates his parents? What if his parents hate Mel? What if they forget Bunny at home? What if Charlie somehow discovers that Mel is hiding an addiction to benzos? (That might be kind of funny, actually.) What if Mel leaves him for Charlie?
“Have you seen Hamilton?” Frank asks, wondering how effectively he can distract Leanne from the hole he’s started digging himself. Leanne nods, still looking unimpressed. “It’s like. I’ve been thinking I’m Eliza, but what if I’m Angelica, you know? I don’t think I’m good enough to be Angelica. Well, not good, but selfless, maybe? Although none of that part of the musical is very accurate, all that stuff about the Schuyler family. Angelica was actually already married when she met Hamilton. I think she even had a couple of kids? And she definitely had brothers. She had, like, twelve siblings or something. Have you heard of Historians on Hamilton? It’s a collection of essays about Hamilton by historians and academics and stuff. Charlie got it for me for Christmas a few years ago.”
Leanne closes her eyes and rubs her forehead. “Frank, has Mel ever expressed a romantic or sexual interest in other women?”
Frank presses his lips together, remembering the time that Mel told him she’s probably a 0 or 1 on the Kinsey scale. (Which she was disappointed about, to his amusement, because she’s missing out on “what sound like very enjoyable parts of the human experience.”) He sheepishly shakes his head.
“So is this really the topic of conversation you want to pursue? We still have plenty of time to talk about something else. Your father, perhaps?”
“Maybe I should give Charlie Yoyo’s number,” Frank muses, brightening up. “That would distract her, right?”
Leanne sighs and closes her notebook.
--
“I feel like I should have tried to learn greetings in Elvish or something to show respect,” Mel whispers, nervously running a hand up and down her thigh.
Frank tries to imagine what Charlie’s reaction would be if Mel hit her with Aiya or Mai omentaina. She’d probably try to steal Mel from him on the spot, no matter what Leanne said.
“She’s not that into Lord of the Rings,” Frank says, slinging his arm around Mel’s shoulders and pulling her a little closer to him. “...Anymore.
They’re standing on the porch of his childhood home, expecting Charlie to arrive any minute. His mom is helping Tanner and Penny walk Bunny, God bless, which means they get to do this without an audience, Tanner and Penny get a chance to walk/run/skip off some of their energy after the two-hour drive up, and Mel gets a little break from loud noises after the aforementioned drive: win-win-win.
(Plus: his dad is at a buddy’s house. Everything’s coming up Frank, really.)
“Frank,” Mel whispers, tugging on his jacket until he swings his gaze away from the street and meets her beautiful eyes.
“Yes, gorgeous?”
“This color is really nice on you. It really brings out your eyes.”
She keeps smiling up at him, cheeks rosy in the cold air, and Frank can’t help but lean down, capturing her lips against his own.
Charlie chooses that moment to pull into the driveway, of course. Frank breaks away just as she wolf whistles out the window. He really does think they might be cursed at this point. He can probably count on one hand the number of times he’s gotten to kiss Mel in public without being interrupted or spotted by somebody annoying.
“Ok, Mel, just remember that even though she’s cooler, smarter, funnier, and smoother than me, I have Bunny,” Frank whispers in Mel’s ear as they start descending the porch stairs to the driveway.
“Frank, I have no interest in leaving you for Charlie,” Mel tells him, somehow not sounding annoyed, even though it’s probably the fifth time she’s said it. (Apparently it’s “cute” that he thinks so highly of his sister. He doesn’t understand how Mel King is a real person.)
Charlie pops out of the driver’s seat, no jacket in sight.
“I thought she was Ubering from the airport?” Mel murmurs, which is, as always, an excellent point. Charlie yells across the yard before Frank can answer.
“Hi Frankie! It’s so great to meet you in the flesh, Mel!”
Charlie twists side to side, probably stretching out her back. Jesus, how is she only wearing a T-shirt? Mel’s wearing her winter jacket and scarf and beanie and still looks a little cold around the edges. Also, when did Charlie finish her sleeve?
They’re only halfway across the yard when the passenger door springs open and a second woman emerges from the car, mostly blocked from Frank’s view.
Frank looks to Mel to see if he missed something, but she looks equally confused. Which, fair. Why would she know more about what’s going on in his family than he does?
“Surprise!” Charlie chirps when they finally reach her. She hooks her arm around Frank’s neck to drag him into a hug that’s more of a squeeze, honestly, but it’s still nice. “Meet my new girlfriend! We made it official last week and she’s breaking her lease to move in with me when we get back to Brooklyn!”
“DAD!” Tanner’s voice yells, still at least half a block away by the sound of it. “I TOLD HER NOT TO BUT BUNNY CAUGHT A SQUIRREL! PENNY’S TRYING TO GET IT OUT OF HER MOUTH!”
Frank looks down, relieved to see that Mel is grinning, her brown eyes shining, and he lets out a sigh of relief. Not only will Charlie not try to steal the love of his life, he’s finally the least chaotic member of the family again.
Frank knew it was best to abide by the “don’t have sex until the third date” rule. But he and Mel had been pseudo-dating for months…that means this is fine, right?
This being Mel’s lips hot against his, her leaning over the console of his car parked outside her apartment. She tasted like masala and turmeric, remnants from their dinner. He was licking into her mouth obscenely, sliding his tongue against her teeth.
“Come inside.”
“Are yo—”
“Frank.” She leveled him with a stern look, promptly shutting up his attempted chivalry.
“As you wish,” He said
Thank fucking god, he thought.
The journey up to her apartment was a blur. Standing in front of her door, Mel fumbling for her keys in her warm layers. Frank lost a bit of his resolve, leaning against her back and kissing exposed skin above her scarf, just below her hairline. His arms circled around her waist, hands at her hips, pressing her back into his front. This only made her hands shake more, no longer just from the crisp February air, keys bumping against the lock as she tried to fit it in the hole.
A few seconds later she managed to slide the key into the lock, quickly opening her front door as Frank pushed her inside. He reluctantly removed a hand from her hip to shut the door behind him once he crossed the threshold. Once closed, he spun her around the pushed her up against the wood, capturing her lips back against his earnestly. There was a soft thud as her hands dropped her bags, a muffled clang of her keys inside one of them.
(All still unopened even though he’d begged her to open at least one at the restaurant. She refused, preferring to open gifts in privacy out of fear of her reactions and that she might cry.)
He began to strip her of her warm layers.
First, her scarf—it was a soft and multicolor, wrapped around her neck several times. His fingers tenderly undid each loop, baring her throat to him slowly, his lips dipping down to kiss the skin as the scarf fell to the floor. Mel let out breathy sighs, her hands scrambling against his back. His eyes caught on the fading hickey he’d left the other night. Fuck.
Next, her coat. He sucked softly at her sternocleidomastoid muscle as one hand pulled down the zipper. Once opened, he pushed the down material off her shoulders, joining the bags on the floor.
Underneath the coat was a cardigan. She’d worn it intermittently throughout the day, keeping it tied to her waist when she got warm. It was light blue and a size too big, making her look incredibly cozy as she waltzed around the sterile ED. As much as he’d loved her in it throughout the day, he loved taking it off even more.
//-// Workplace Romance Among Hospital Staff: Pros, Cons, and Professional Guidance // Hélène Cixous from "The Love of the Wolf" // i can see you - taylor swift // illicit affairs - taylor swift // In the mood for love, 2000 // X-files undercover // Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The swing, 1766 // savior complex - phoebe bridgers // pride & prejudice, 2005 // demi moore - phoebe bridgers
