Summary: You’re married to Frank, and Robby is your uncle, but people in the ER don’t know this and it ends up causing some problems
Warnings: kissing, workplace romance, false cheating rumors, family relationships, workplace rumors, no use of y/n
Word count: 2.0K
Requested by @thecranberrypineapple
a/n: finally managed to get some writing done! I haven’t had much free time with the holidays, traveling, and everything else, but I promise I’ll get to all the requests in my inbox...eventually 🫠
You’ve known Frank for a long time—long before you ever stepped into the ER. You met in college, both bright and eager to learn. From the moment you first talked to him, you knew you wanted to keep him around, wanted to make him a constant part of your life.
Luckily for you, you managed to get your wish.
Years of friendship slowly shifted into something more romantic, and before you knew it, it had turned into a lasting relationship. And when Frank finally got down on one knee, there was only one answer you wanted to give him.
That answer was yes.
You loved being Frank’s wife—loved knowing that at the end of the day, he was the one coming home with you. But there was one small issue: you both worked together.
Even though you’d started working in the same hospital back when you were just dating, and there was nothing that explicitly prohibited coworkers from being in a relationship as long as it didn’t interfere with their work in the ER, you and Frank had decided to keep your relationship quiet.
Not a secret exactly—more like something you simply didn’t mention at work. The moment the two of you stepped into the ER, you both slipped into your “professional mode,” only interacting with each other in ways that could be seen as two coworkers who happened to be friendly.
People knew you were married. Frank wore his ring on his finger every day, and you always had yours hanging on a chain around your neck—so yes, people knew you were married. They just didn’t know it was to each other.
It was kind of funny, actually. You and Frank had turned it into a sort of game. He would talk about his wife, always praising her, knowing you were close enough to hear. His eyes would find yours, giving you that knowing look that never failed to make you smile. And you did the same—talking about how amazing your husband was, your eyes often catching the soft smirk that would grace Frank’s features as you did.
It was the way the two of you had found to still give each other love during your shifts without alerting the rest of the people at work that you were actually talking about each other.
But that wasn’t the only thing people didn’t know.
Frank turned off the car engine, the silence in the interior taking over for a moment. You closed your eyes, taking a deep breath—this would be the last moment of peace and quiet you’d have until another twelve hours had passed, and you wanted to savor it.
Frank grabbed your hand, causing your eyes to open as you turned to look at him. You gave him a soft smile as he gazed back at you.
“Ready to march into battle?”
You nodded, giving his hand one last squeeze before reaching for the door handle.
“Hey, you’re forgetting something.”
You gave Frank a confused look, which made him pucker his lips, exaggeratingly tilting toward you.
“My goodbye kiss.”
You knew what he’d said, but with his puckered lips it sounded more like, “Mu gubye kisth.”
You rolled your eyes, glancing around to make sure no one was nearby before leaning over the center console and giving Frank a quick kiss.
“Come on, Langdon. We’ll be late.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
As always, you and Frank walked in together. Nobody questioned the fact that you always arrived with each other—you’d given the bullshit excuse that you lived close by, and that it was easier for Frank to give you a ride than for both of you to drive to work. Plus, it was better for the environment. One less car on the streets.
Of course, people believed you. You gave them no reason not to.
When you made your way over to check the board, Robby caught sight of you. He smiled and made his way over with ease. You let him tug you into a quick side hug, your arm wrapping briefly around his waist.
“Hey, Honey. How you doing today?”
You pulled back so you could look him in the eyes.
“I’m doing good. How about you, Robby?”
Your eyes caught the bags under his eyes, and you immediately knew he hadn’t slept well the night before. But Robby hated people worrying about him, so when he said he was fine, you pretended to believe it.
“You searching for a target?”
At Robby’s question, your gaze flicked back to the board, briefly catching Frank disappearing into one of the rooms with Mel before settling on the writing on the screen.
“Gonna start easy, I think. A kid with a nosebleed might be ready for discharge. I’ll go check on him.”
“Alright then. The kid’s in good hands. See you around, Honey.”
You smiled as Robby gave your shoulder a soft squeeze before heading off, leaving you to make your way toward your first patient. You didn’t even notice the glances, didn’t hear the whispers as you moved through the ER. But that didn’t mean they weren’t there.
See, here’s the thing—people in the ER love to gossip. It keeps them entertained, helps keep the pain and sadness at bay as you all try to make it through your shifts. And when people don’t have all the information, they can come up with some pretty wild rumors.
The most recent one was that you and Robby were secretly married to each other. Which was absurd—not only because of the age difference, but because Robby was family. Literally family. He was your uncle. Biologically. As in, your father’s brother.
But people didn’t know that. Only a select few did—people who mattered, like Dana and Jack and the higher-ups. They knew either because they’d seen you grow up, in Dana and Jack’s case, or because they’d been responsible for hiring you and were aware of your family ties to Robby.
But everybody else?
Oh yeah. They had no clue.
Which ended up causing some… issues.
Because the Robby rumor was bad—but the Frank one was so much worse.
It started harmlessly. Frank bringing you coffee during a lull. Leaning against the counter beside you while you charted, shoulders brushing. A hand resting briefly at the small of your back as he passed behind you in a crowded hallway.
Normal things. Small things.
Things that meant everything to the wrong people.
They started noticing it one by one. Santos clocked the way Frank’s voice softened when he spoke to you. Javadi caught the way Frank’s eyes followed you across the ER when you laughed at something a patient said. Whitaker saw Frank step a little too close when you were visibly shaken after a bad case.
And then, to make matters so much worse, someone saw you and Frank in a very private moment.
You hadn’t thought anything of it—ducking into an empty break room, adrenaline still buzzing through you after a rough trauma. Frank followed, shutting the door quietly behind him.
“Hey,” he murmured, hands already finding your waist. “You did good in there.”
You exhaled, leaning into him, fingers fisting in his scrub top as he kissed you—slow at first, then deeper. Familiar. Safe. His hand slid up your back, grounding you.
You were so caught up in Frank that you didn’t hear the door hinges open slightly. Didn’t hear the soft gasp, or the door shutting a little too quickly.
Someone had seen you with Frank. And because they thought you were married to Robby—and didn’t know Frank was married to you—the speculation took a sharp turn, fast.
An affair. A scandal. A nurse cheating with a married attending.
And somehow—somehow—people thought they’d finally figured out the truth.
They had no idea how wrong they were.
And because you had no idea these rumors even existed, you ended up unintentionally feeding into them.
When a tough case got to you, Robby had pulled you to the side, giving you a bear hug as tears swelled in your eyes. And when he left the room to keep working, and you started to take a breather, Frank had slipped in, his forehead resting against yours as he spoke comforting words.
And people saw it. They saw these small, soft moments—and twisted them into something they weren’t.
But like everything in life, there was a final straw.
It came as an accusation.
You were hunched over the chart, scribbling notes after checking on your patient, when a voice from the nurses’ station broke the quiet.
“You know… you should really own up to it.”
You froze, pen in midair. “Excuse me?”
They leaned a little closer, a smirk playing at the corner of their lips.
“Oh, come on. Don’t be coy. We all know you’re… you’re cheating on Robby.”
Your hand dropped to the counter. “What?!”
Someone else, leaning over nearby, snickered. You blinked, utterly confused.
“Cheating? On… Robby?”
The first person shrugged, eyes sparkling with mischief.
“Yeah. I mean… it’s obvious. You and Frank, right? We see it all the time.”
You held up a hand. “Okay, whoa. You need to relax. You’ve got this all wrong. Completely wrong.”
By that point, movement in the hallway caught your attention. Robby and Frank had both emerged from different rooms, strolling in the general direction of the nurses’ station. Their heads tilted slightly, noticing you animatedly talking to someone, lips moving, hands gesturing.
“Oh no,” you muttered under your breath. “This is going to get worse before it gets better.”
As they approached, you straightened, pinching the bridge of your nose.
“Okay,” you said, raising your voice just enough for everyone nearby to hear, “let’s get something straight. For everyone.”
The staff fell quiet, leaning in curiously.
“I am married—to Frank,” you said slowly, letting it sink in. “Robby is my uncle. I am not cheating on anyone. And yes, we all work together, but none of what you’re imagining is actually happening.”
A pause. Some eyes widened. Some shifted awkwardly.
And then there was Dana.
Dana had appeared quietly, arms crossed, a grin spreading across her face.
“Oh my god,” she said, barely holding back laughter. “This is gold. You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Robby calls you ‘Honey’ nonstop. What’s the deal with that?” the accuser jabbed.
You groaned, pressing a hand to your forehead. God, people really liked grasping at straws.
“‘Honey’ is my middle name. Robby’s been calling me that since I was a kid.”
The accuser froze, mouth opening and closing like a fish.
“Now that we’ve cleared that up, go back to work.” You turned to glance around at the people still gawking at you. “Everyone, back to work.”
The staff reluctantly returned to their tasks, whispers and smirks lingering just a little longer than usual. And Dana? Dana lingered a little longer too, clearly planning to tease you about this for weeks.
That’s when Frank appeared beside you, hands tucked in his pockets, smirk fully in place.
“Well,” he said, glancing around at the still-whispering staff, “guess the cat’s out of the bag now, huh?”
“Yeah,” you muttered, rolling your eyes but smiling. “I guess so.”
Frank leaned closer, voice dropping into a mock-serious tone.
“So… what’s stopping me from kissing you right here? In the middle of everybody?”
You laughed, shaking your head. “Decency.”
He raised an eyebrow, clearly offended. “Decency? Since when have I ever been decent?”
Before you could answer, he tugged you gently toward him. Lips met yours in a soft, fleeting kiss. You laughed against his mouth, and he grinned against yours before pulling back just enough to whisper:
“See? We should have told them about us ages ago.”
You shook your head, laughing softly. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Yeah,” he said, leaning his forehead against yours, “but you love me anyway.”
And you did.
You and Frank exchanged a look—quiet, silly, and utterly yours.
“Get back to work, Dr. Langdon.”
Frank gave you a mock salute. “Yes, Mrs. Langdon.”
You couldn’t help but smile and shake your head as he walked away. When he was finally out of view, you turned and stared at Dana.
“I hate you.”
She gave you a smile and pulled you into a hug.
“No, you don’t.”
You couldn’t hold back the smile that crept onto your face. Because yeah—you didn’t.
Imagine Robby and/or Dana clocking that reader is pregnant because of how hover-y Langdon is being around her and which patients she sees and such 😭🖤
dr.worrywart- f.langdon
summary: frank is not an openly affection man. what happens when that changes? the entire ER falls into the role of detective. robby and dana figure it out, of course.
pairing: frank langdon x fem! doctor! reader (probs late twenties/ early thrities)
warnings: litch nothing it's all just fluff and everyone in the Pitt being nosy as fuck
a/n: thanks for requesting, i LOVEEE this idea you're a genius! banners from my good friend @no-144444 !
Part two -> dr. worrywart returns
Langdon is hovering. That’s the first thing Princess notices. He’s always been the type to leave you to your work, mostly because you’d chew him out if he even dared step inside one of your trauma rooms, you’d see it as an offence. He had accepted that since your first days of med school together, he knew his place. You were Barbie, and he was Ken, just there. You two barely saw each other while on shift other than a few quick glances and waves or the occasional break room chat. Both of you were workaholics, and you both liked to go at it alone, so this was strange. You two walked in, and Frank had his arm around your waist. Regular-you would’ve hit his arm away. You just shrugged him off once you got to your station. She stared at you and you shrugged.
“He’s being clingy, I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” you shrugged, dropping your bag down. It was a partial-lie. You knew why he was being clingy, you were fucking pregnant. You did, in fact, not know what was wrong with him though. He was always a strange man. He stood beside you, looking at the board as he tried to cherry-pick, gaining a glare from Dana. He pretended he didn’t hear you two.
She chuckled. “He’s obsessed with you. It’s annoying to watch,” she shook her head. “Remind me again why you married him?” He sent her the middle finger behind your back. He lingered despite the fact that he had a case to work on, one he deemed interesting enough for him. His hands landed on your hips and he pushed his front against your back, acting like he was part of the conversation.
You rolled your eyes and pretended to think about the answer for a second. “I was in med school and needed someone to fuck so I could release the rest of my energy?” you joked and he rolled his eyes with a scoff. “What?” you looked back, smiling. “You should take it as a compliment, you’re so sexually talented, I’ve stayed with you all this time!” you sent him a bright smile and kissed his cheek as he rolled his eyes and removed himself from you. He walked off to his patient, mumbling something about ‘drive me crazy’, as Princess laughed at him.
“He’s hovering today,” she shook her head. “You’re not concussed again or something, right?” she questioned, referencing the time you got a concussion on shift and he wouldn’t leave you alone. It was the day everyone found out that you and Langdon didn’t actually hate each other, and that you actually shared the last name. You’d gone by your maiden name in your first year, mostly because you hadn’t bothered to legally change your name after the wedding for a long time (med school kept you busy), and also to avoid the awkward explanation.
You laughed. “No concussion yet, but the day is still young,” you smiled before walking off to your first case.
Princess shook her head. Something was up.
Mateo stared at Frank as he stared out the window. “You good?” he questioned. Everyone had been a bit nicer to Frank since he joined back to the Pitt after his rehab stint and sabbatical, so he didn’t go straight to teasing. Everyone knew it was difficult for him, and they understood that sometimes he might be a bit more snappy, or a bit dazed. They did their best to accommodate because, even if he was an asshole, he was an integral part of the Pitt, and people loved how happy he made you.
“Yeah,” he nodded, biting his lip and he didn’t take his eyes off whatever he was staring at. Mateo sucked in a breath.
“Dude,” he cleared his throat. Frank finally pulled his eyes away from whatever he was so entranced by. He faced Mateo. “You good?” He asked again, a hand on his shoulder.
He nodded slowly, then quicker. “Yeah, yeah,” he shook his head, like he was shaking off whatever was in his head. “Yeah I’m good. Just tired. Forget how hard these shifts are sometimes.” He chuckled semi-convincingly. Mateo just nodded, filling it into the back of his mind if Robby ever asks him about Langdon and how he thinks he's doing.
Frank left the room, pulling his stethoscope around his neck as he left. “He’s being weird,” Mateo shook his head. “Makes me nervous.”
Trinity let out a breath she didn’t realise she was holding. “Right? Super weird, he didn’t even chew me out for making a joke about his hair today.” She stared at the spot he’d last been like he’d just disappeared into thin air. Mel looked between the two of them, it being an unnaturally slow (she knew she was jinxing herself by even thinking it) day, meaning both her and Santos were on a case together.
“I think he’s being normal,” she shrugged, confused by their reactions to him. “He’s just… getting his bearings. It’s his first week back and his first day was the 4th, and that was terrible. He’ll be back to normal in a few days.” She offered them her signature smile, and got nothing but shaking heads in return. She frowned.
“He’s being strange,” Mateo repeated. He walked up to the window, searching for him. “I mean, look, he’s filling up Y/n’s bottle for her. That’s weird.”
“Why would that be weird?” Trinity and Mel asked at the same time.
Mateo’s jaw dropped. “You haven’t heard of the bottle incident of 2022?” he scoffed. They both shook their heads. He chuckled, shaking his head. “Alright, so back then, none of us knew they were together, and all they used to do was bicker, which we all now know is their foreplay, which is gross,” he made a face, then continued on. “And one day, it got so bad, Y/n spilled Frank’s bottle all over him when he’d asked her to refill it, in front of Gloria and a patient. Ever since they’ve literally been banned from touching each other’s bottles. It always ends badly,” he looked out the window again to see him hand you the freshly refilled bottle, with a quick kiss to the cheek.
Mateo knew he had to consult Princess’s sheet.
Trinity stared at Frank in the breakroom. He was looking at something on his phone, but he was covering it with his other hand, like he didn’t want people to see. She raised an eyebrow, and kicked him in the leg (softly). “Watching porn at work?” she joked, Frank quickly turning off his phone and sending her his signature glare. “Come on, I’m kidding,” She smiled. “It’s good to have you back.”
He nodded, rolling his eyes. “Weirdly, it’s good to be back,” he agreed. He looked down. “Look, I was a dick to you before-” “aw thanks-” “Not finished. You can still be a pain in the ass, but you’re a good doctor. You’re talented. I was… well I was fucked up before, and I’m sorry I treated you the way I did. It wasn’t cool.” He finally met her eyes, an awkward sense of accountability filling the air. She blinked at him.
“Thank you for apologising,” she said tentatively. “That’s really… adult of you, I guess.” She chuckled to try and diffuse the awkwardness of the moment. Maybe Dr.Abbot was right about her needing to switch to nights? Day shift was too personal for her.
“Yeah well, I have to become one at some point,” he huffed before walking out, and she stared as he left, her jaw dropped to the floor. Had Frank Langdon just made a self-depricating joke? ER Ken, ‘the chin’, handsome squidward (okay maybe she came up with two of those), had actually admitted to having flaws. She watched as he swung by your workstation, a granola bar in hand, pressing it into your palm as he kissed the top of your head.
She was adding it to Princess’s list.
Jesse hated it when Langdon interfered with your work, because you always let him. Langdon wasn’t the most openly affectionate husband, hell, no one had known you two were together for about a year. Neither of you had anything to prove, no PDA would change the fact that you two loved each other, and everyone knowing really just made things more complicated.
So why the fuck was Langdon taking all the good cases and Jesse was stuck with him for half of them? It was no secret that you were Jesse’s favourite doctor, you were cool-headed, always kind to nurses, and always in a good mood somehow. He’d seen you lose it once, and it was the day Langdon’s drug problem was uncovered by Robby, and then the mass casualty after it. You’d sobbed in the breakroom with Jesse and Yolanda at your side, emotionally exhausted from the toll of the day. As the months rolled on and Langdon started his rehab journey, you still stayed positive. You were still smiling, still updating everyone and telling them he was doing well, telling them he missed them, even though they knew he didn’t. He missed you, missed being at work with you. Everyone else was just a side-character to him, you were everything.
“What the fuck is going on? You’re taking all the good cases and leaving Y/n with the shit,” Jesse asked as he threw his gloves in the bin. “I mean, come on, she’s getting all the easy ones! I did CPR in there for 4 rotations before someone else came to help!” He scoffed as Langdon turned to him.
“She’s tired,” Frank shrugged, dropping his own gloves into the bin as he passed Jesse. “She asked me to take ‘em, I took ‘em.”
Okay, Jesse knew that was bullshit. You always thought about yourself last, it was always the patients first. You also wouldn’t let Frank have all the fun with the difficult cases.
Jesse stared at the sheet as he stood at the nurses station. He added it, just to be safe.
Perlah was appalled by the sight in front of her. She had half a mind to write you both up. Frank had his hand around your waist in the breakroom, a hand sprawled over almost your entire stomach, with his head leaning on yours, just listening to whatever story Jack was recounting. She watched him. Chewing slowly against you, a thumb running back and forth over your scrubs.
You noticed her staring and sent her a mouthed sorry and a shrug, like you had no idea what had gotten into him. Perlah decided to blame it on first week back-jitters. She just averted her eyes when he leant down and stole a quick kiss, shocking the both of you in the process.
It was the next line on the list by noon.
Dennis Whittaker took no pleasure in making the right call when it meant he would face the wrath of Frank Langdon. He’d made a quick save, realised something before him, and he’d ordered the correct meds before he could consult. He didn’t want to explain. He didn’t want to fight. He just wanted to calmly explain that technically, Frank had made the wrong call.
“You alright Whitty?” You called out, Frank at your side. Whitty was something you’d started to call him a few months ago after he’d made a witty joke out of nowhere, making you laugh so hard, you’d cried. “What’s up?” You questioned. Frank’s eyes snapped to him and he took a very sharp breath.
“Y’know Mr. Gregor?” he asked, you shook your head and turned your attention to Frank. He nodded. “Well I was going over his CT scan and I notice how close his bleed was getting to causing a seizure and I know you told me not to push Atorvastatin unless he was actually seizing, but I tried it anyway, and his BP went way down and he’s stable enough to go to theatre,” he blurted out. “Sorry, I know I should’ve told you, o-or gotten you, or-”
A smile bloomed on Frank’s face. “Good save, kid,” he smiled, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Go check on Mrs. Taylor, yeah?”
Whittaker walked away genuinely concerned that Frank had been replaced with a different person. He added it to the list after he told Trinity about it.
It took a lot for Mel to notice something. She usually just assumed everyone was alright, and if they weren’t, they could speak up and say something about it. She knew that Frank had been a bit… antsy since coming back. He constantly looked for you once he left a patient's room. He stared all the time. He kissed you whenever you got close enough to him. You just laughed it off. Called him clingy, or a big baby. He didn’t bite back. He just smiled. He didn’t argue, just tried to kiss you again before you pushed him off, warning him about being written up. You acted like this total 180 personality change was normal. She swallowed back her surprise when Frank had started rattling off facts about pregnant women, to the pregnant woman in front of him. Obviously, every doctor and nurse here had knowledge on pregnancies, but this was overkill. Random facts about fetal anatomy and positioning. Those ‘lovey-dovey’ (as Santos had so elegantly branded it) things about mothers and babies that he would’ve called bullshit a year ago.
She blinked when she started talking about various tracking apps he wouldn’t have known the name of a year ago.
The patient was discharged with a smile, and Mel turned to him. “Trying to get patient satisfaction up?” She asked incredulously, completely at a loss for words.
He shrugged. “No, why?”
She stared, mouth open and helpless, like she thought he should know what she was talking about. He just stared back. “But, you knew all that?” She chuckled, more surprised than laughing.
“You don’t?” he asked before leaving the room, probably off to find you.
She added it to the list after a talk with Dana.
Dana had been keeping an eye on the both of you all day. Princess had shared her strange findings on a small chart at the nurse’s station. Frank had gone to find you 18 times in 7 hours, when he could usually go the entire shift without looking for you. Dana looked it over, confused, what the fuck was he doing?
“How’s your resident doing?” Dana asked as Robby came up beside her. Her eyes stayed on the piece of paper. It had add-ons from Mateo, Santos, Jesse, Perlah, Whittaker, even Mel was in on it. He stared at Frank from across the room, talking animately to a patient.
He sighed. “I don’t know yet. Still wondering if we brought him back too early,” He shook his head and noticed the sheet of paper. Robby stared at the sheet for a moment, then ripped his glasses off his face. He huffed. “Fuck’s sake.” he breathed out, and she turned to him expectantly, then it dawned on her.
“We’re going to be losing two of our best Senior residents in about 8 or 9 months for paternity leave,” She shook her head with a smile, and Robby couldn’t exactly hide his own.
Of course.
He’d had his hands on you all day. He kept looking for you to make sure you were alright. He refilled your water without having to be asked. He gave you his protein bar. Come to think of it, he’d been taking the strenuous cases and leaving you with the easy ones. He even took Trinity off your hands so that you could take Mel and have an easier day. Robby chuckled, grabbing Frank as he passed by, his eyes set on one thing, you.
He didn’t notice the hand reaching out and grabbing the collar of his scrubs, so he kind of tripped into stopping. “Woah!” he scoffed, his hands up in air as he balanced himself, Robby’s hand retracting. “What the fuck was that for?”
Robby smirked as Frank turned his attention back to you, those tiny glances everyone had seen all day. “Y/n’s still going to be there in 4 seconds,” he shook his head. Frank looked at him, faking confusion. “What’s going on? How far along is she?”
Frank’s face went blank. Dana laughed, gaining the attention of Princess and half the nursing staff. Frank cleared his throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He shook his head. Frank Langdon was many things. Blunt, rude, annoying. One thing he was not, was a good liar. Dana laughed into Robby’s shoulder as a chuckle left his own lips.
“Sure kid, just let me know so I can book off your paternity leave,” he clapped a hand on Frank’s shoulder, who quickly brushed it off, irritation surging through his body. Robby stayed smiling. “I’m happy for you two, congratulations.”
Frank gritted his teeth, stepping in closer, his voice cutting and final. “She is not pregnant. We are not pregnant!” He practically shouted, gaining the attention of nearly the whole ER. Everyone stared, he went bright red, he cleared his throat, and he walked.
Straight to you, of course. You laughed at him as he pushed some of his hair out of his face, following you around like a puppy. You hadn’t heard his outburst, but no doubt you’d hear about it.
“Nice catch Robby,” Dana smiled. “I wouldn’t have guessed it.” She shook her head.
He shrugged. “He’s such a worrier the second she gets sick, we’re going to have to deal with this for months now.”
The small group that had gathered all realised they’d have to deal with Dr. Worrywart for a whole 9 months. They quickly went back to work.
“I think everyone’s onto us,” You chuckled as Frank came up to you for the 24th time that day. He shook his head.
“No, I think we’re good. No one knows-”
“Everyone knows!” Both Robby and Dana cheered from behind you. Dana hugged you from behind as you laughed, Frank’s blank expression breaking into an annoyed squint. “Congratualtions,” she smiled. “You’re going to be the coolest parents.”
“I think you already fill that role,” you chuckled, taking her hand. “But thank you.”
“Congratualtions.” Robby smiled, shaking Frank’s hand and then pulling you into a hug as Dana pulled Frank into a reluctant hug.
They left you after a few more congratulations and you turned to Frank. “You’re totally right, no one knows,” you teased.
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, fuck off,” he couldn’t fight the bright smile on his lips.
It's been a long ten months for Frank Langdon. Rehab, endless meetings to prove he's fit for his job, and losing you.
It's his own fault. He knows that. He couldn't handle the pressure of his entire life going to shit, and combusted, destroying your life in the process. If things had gone to plan, the two of you would've been married by now. Instead, you're near strangers, and Frank doesn't know how long he can watch you date a guy that absolutely doesn't deserve you.
Until you turn up on his doorstep, with nowhere else to go after being kicked out by your ex.
And so, Frank Langdon's second chance begins.
warnings: 18+, mdni! this fic will feature medical gore, a little bit of violence, and explicit sex. more detailed warnings on each chapter individually
summary: when you and langdon get stuck on the roof of the trauma center together, he decides to stir up the ghost of your relationship to pass the time. but you've long moved on, and frank's left haunting the wrong house. (5k)
pairing: frank langdon / ex!fem!reader, jack abbot / wife!reader
contents: enemies to lovers to friends, established past relationship w/ langdon, established relationship w/ jack, unrequited love, unresolved feelings, angst cw for brief mentions of death (r loses a patient), mentions of suicidal ideation, mentions of past toxic relationships
it's starting to hurt, and i know you moved on . . .
★。／｜＼。★
“Why do you think we never worked out?”
That’s the first thing Langdon thinks to ask, after a half hour or more trapped on the roof of the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center with you. He’s only up there because you disappeared, to be fair, though it’s not like you were exactly begging anyone to come check on you. You just needed a moment alone — a moment to clear your head, and to breathe through the nagging thoughts of grief that threatened to strangle you.
A patient had died on your table. Sarah Michaels, seven years old, with a nine-millimeter GSW to the neck after getting a hold of her father’s gun. She was not the first patient you’ve lost, nor the first child you’ve seen flat-line, but you feel particularly heavy in your mourning for a reason you can’t quite name. You’re haunted by the tiny ghost of her, doomed to a lifetime of remembering that you could not save her.
You left to get some air a while ago, after Robby had tried to corner you to give you the whole spiel you’re already used to — about how he once lost a young patient too, the same you had today, and that you’ll eventually learn to grow around the grief instead of letting it take root inside you.
Langdon watched you leave with a strange tugging in his chest. He knew that it was never just about getting air with you; he knew that you only went to the roof to talk yourself down from the ledge again, and you hate that he knows that about you.
Almost as much as you hate the question he’s asking you now.
“I mean, I know why,” he adds, gesturing with a pair of strong hands from where his elbows are propped on his bent knees. “I just wanna know if you know why…”
You loll your heavy head to your shoulder to flash the man beside you an unenthusiastic, slow-blinking stare, from where he sits on the left side of the brick threshold. The rusted metal door, now missing a knob and refusing to open, sits between the two of you. Something about it feels like a metaphor.
“Because I knew you’d be a shitty husband,” you confess, perhaps a little more truthful than you need to be. “And, turns out, I was right, so…”
Langdon laughs at your honesty, though it comes out more like a punched-out breath. “Wow…”
With your head tipped back against the brick wall behind you, you turn back to face the golden blue sunset, made of a sea of milky pink and orange clouds. The view is far too pretty for the ugly day you’ve had, and for all the ugly you feel inside of you right now.
The music from the sports bar across the block swells distantly, in an unintelligible humming that blankets the momentary silence between you. The smoky scent of freshly cooked hamburgers fills the air, too, making your empty stomach grumble in a silent plea for a meal you haven’t gotten the chance to eat all day. You feel the early-evening chill down into your tired bones, piercing right through your black scrubs, which do little to cushion you from the cold, unforgiving concrete below.
“Gee, twist the knife, why don’t you…” Langdon hums cynically.
You meet his look of boyish offense — made of squinted blue eyes and a deep furrow between his heavy brows — with a narrowed gaze fixed into a firm glare. Sometimes, it’s hard to believe that this was the ever-oblivious asshole you spent four years of your life with, though that feels like a couple thousand light-years ago now.
“You’re selfish, Frank. You’ve always been selfish, even when we were kids. That was practically your whole thing,” you ramble with a lazy shrug. “You’re the kinda guy who thinks buying presents, cooking dinner once a week, and getting the mother of your toddlers the most high-maintenance dog on the planet is gonna make up for you never being home.”
The words of an instinctive argument die on Frank’s tongue when his eyes fall to his left hand, hanging off of his bent knee, and noticeably missing his gold ring. The thumb and forefinger of his right hand migrate to the top of his knuckle, twisting the pale tanline where his wedding band would usually be. The anxious tic is muscle memory to him now.
“Yeah, that was… That was a stupid move on my part,” he murmurs with a heavy sigh, and with his blue-eyed gaze averted to his bare ring finger.
Your eyes run over the sharp edges of his profile, bathed in soft shadows and orange sunlight. His chiseled jaw clenches until his temples shift; his brows raise until his forehead wrinkles; and his pink lips quirk into a cynical half-smile.
“And you know what the craziest part is?” he wonders with an emotionless laugh. “I’m pretty sure that’s the reason Abby left me… It wasn’t that I was never home. It wasn’t that I was working with my ex-girlfriend. It was the goddamn dog… And the sonofabitch doesn’t even like me—”
“It was all of it, Frank,” you tell him in a quiet, sympathetic lilt. “And you not understanding that is exactly why we never worked out.”
Langdon scoffs another half-hearted chuckle in response. He feels the ache of your words somewhere deep in his chest, like he’s feeling the pain of losing you all over again. It feels a little like being torn in two. He can’t recall the last time he felt whole since you left him, but he tries not to think about that.
“And what? You think you were the most innocent girlfriend in the world. Is that it?”
You roll your eyes with a chest-deflating huff and cross your arms over your bent knees. You could’ve seen this coming from a mile away. You learned long ago that Frank never learned how to take criticism without needing to hit someone where it hurt right back.
“That’s not what I’m saying—”
“Like you didn’t put me through the fucking ringer, too?”
“Frank—”
“You know what I did the entire time I was with you?” he wonders aloud, with a particular bite in his deep, melodic voice. He shifts on his weight, propping his left hand on the cool concrete as he turns to face you more. The dark strands of hair draping his forehead sway over his brows as he points to you with his free hand. “I worried that every single time I took my eyes off you, that you were gonna throw yourself off the goddamn roof—”
You inhale sharply through your nose, then click your lips against your teeth. “Wow…” you repeat in the same distantly incredulous murmur.
His words pierce you right back. The memories within them, more so.
It was hardly Frank’s fault that you had spent your years together just waiting — waiting to be someone else, waiting to become the person you always thought you were on the verge of becoming, waiting for your life to start finally making sense.
You could never quite shake the constant feeling of abandonment; the nagging thought that the world was constantly gathering in a room that you were not invited in. And Frank’s love for you never felt like enough. You craved affection from him so badly that you began to detest it. And, on the off chance Frank was emotionally available enough to love you, it felt as hard to take as violence.
It took several years of unlearning the filth you had taught yourself — it took finding Jack and realizing that love didn’t always have to be so complicated — to finally feel at home on an Earth that felt like it was constantly leaving you behind. And that thought isn’t lost on either of you.
Frank, particularly, is now forced to live out the rest of his day burdened by the weight of not having been enough to save you — that being with him would’ve killed you; that you would’ve thrown yourself off the roof of the apartment building you used to live in together just to get away from him.
The old memories burn him like a fresh, white-orange flame.
“So, you know what? Maybe it’s a good thing we didn’t work out,” Langdon concludes with a slow nod as he settles back into place again, grimacing softly when the brick snags the fabric of his black scrubs. “Because we actually found people who could put up with all our fuckin’— neuroses… Well, you did, I guess…”
He turns to you again, with softer eyes this time, and with a solemn twist to his chiseled face that you don’t see ‘cause you no longer have the strength to meet his gaze.
The thin chain around your neck glitters in the golden hour sun. A gold wedding band hangs at the center of it, usually hidden beneath your scrubs, but now draped at your chest and staring him right in the face.
Jack had given you the ring a few years ago, after three years shy together and a not-quite wedding. You’d eloped quietly, then spent the three days you had off work together on a makeshift honeymoon. No one other than Robby and Heather — your only witnesses at the courthouse the day you got your marriage certificate — even knew you had gotten married until you and Jack showed up to work some days later, with a pair of matching rings hung around your neck.
Frank had a panic attack in the locker room when he found out, which he opted to blame on the unforgiving shift.
The ring feels particularly heavy around your neck now, made leaden under the weight of this unwarranted conversation, of which you know you should not entertain but can’t seem to help yourself otherwise. You pinch the gold band between your thumb and forefinger, dragging it absentmindedly across the thin necklace in a faint swish, swish, swish sound.
“Yeah…” you sigh, blinking away the tears that sting at the backs of your eyes, made perhaps more emotional than usual from the long day. “Because Jack would never say something like that to me…”
He meets your glass-eyed glower with a crooked grin, just like he always used to — back when he was still a starving med student, and all of his problems felt like the end of the world, which only really meant that all of yours couldn’t possibly be as serious in comparison.
Sometimes they weren’t, to be fair. Sometimes, not getting your hair to cooperate in the morning sent you into a spiral the rest of the day. Sometimes, all Frank could do was laugh and hold you tighter and wait for you to put yourself back together again. Other times, you felt unearthly, not at home in the world, and you needed him to really care, but he didn’t know how to.
“Oh, please,” Langdon scoffs. “Fighting is what we’re good at. I’m pretty sure it’s the only thing we ever did right… Other than the sex, obviously—”
“Oh, my god! Frank!” you scold, though a laugh sputters from your lips before you can stop it. “You can’t just say that stuff to me!”
“Hey, I’m not trying to hit on you or anything, alright? I’m just… making an observation,” he shrugs with a quiet smile and with his wide palms splayed in surrender. “We loved each other, we just… didn’t know how to show it—”
“You never loved me, Langdon,” you correct with a sad sort of smile, weighed down with a heavier reminiscence. “You loved the idea of me. You loved the idea of having someone that would’ve stuck around no matter what, even if we fought all the time—”
“That’s not true,” Langdon insists, with his ocean blue eyes narrowed into thin slits.
“Face it, Frank,” you laugh with a lazy shrug. “You want someone who will love you and be loyal to you, no matter how many times you hurt them—”
“No, that’s not—”
“Someone that’ll keep on loving you no matter how many times you fuck up—”
“Can you… Can you just let me talk—”
“You don’t want a wife, Langdon, you wanted a fucking dog!”
“No, I want you!” he hears himself shout.
His voice rings across the expanse of the concrete rooftop, forcing him to hear the words that he’d immediately take back if the universe allowed it. It might’ve been easier to take if you didn’t look at him like you were halfway horrified, flinching back like his words had pained you somehow physically. His cobalt-colored eyes widen in a similar look of alarm.
“I mean, I— I wanted you,” he stammers, stumbling over himself to get the words out. His hands flail wildly as he explains, like they always did when he was nervous. “E-Even if I didn’t exactly know how to treat you at the time. I did… I did love you, you know? And I… I think we could’ve been good together. That’s all…”
You open your mouth to speak, but nothing comes out right away.
Your breath hitches in your throat instead, as your mind races a million miles a minute. The knock that comes suddenly at the door beside takes you out of your stupor and makes you flinch — hard. You feel the two hard raps against the locked entrance in your burning chest. The familiar voice that accompanies it melts your heart into specks of ash that you can feel trickling down into your swimming stomach.
“Guys?” your husband calls, half-muffled from within the stairwell. “You up there?”
“Jack?” you call back on bated breath.
You share a wide-eyed look of apprehension at the man beside you, whose ocean-blue stare bores right into yours. Neither of you can shake the feeling that you’ve just been caught doing something horrible — and, in a way, you have.
You scramble to your feet and feel the blood rush back to your tingling legs almost instantly as you stand before the rusted door, resting your palms along the cool metal.
“How long have you guys been out here?”
“Too long,” Frank answers in a huff, still slouched against the concrete.
You scoff a breathy laugh despite the tight feeling in your chest. “How long did it take everyone down there to figure out we were stuck?”
“Yeah, I don’t think they have yet,” Jack chuckles. “I just got here, and Robby said you guys were getting some air, so…”
He trails off.
You can hear the smile in his gritty voice when he asks, “How’d you two idiots manage to get stuck up here, anyway?”
“The universe hates me,” you deadpan in a non-answer.
You hear Jack laughing from behind the heavy door between you, a sound more golden than the setting sun painting everything a flaxen shade of orange. It makes a wavering smile curl at the very edges of your mouth, though it’s weighed down by a more palpable dread that Frank can see from here, with his glittering eyes still trained on your profile.
“I’ll go tell maintenance, alright?” Jack tells you. “Just… don’t do anything else stupid up while I’m gone.”
“Yeah, no promises,” Frank jokes back with his own artificial grin that deflates the moment Jack’s muffled footsteps descend back down the stairwell.
He slouches back against the unforgiving brick with a heavy sigh, feeling the exhaustion settling heavy in his bones — the acknowledgement that, once he’s back inside The Pitt, he’ll never get to be alone with you like this again; and that he’ll have to spend the rest of his life pretending like he isn’t constantly grieving your absence.
You step away from the door with a trembling sigh. You try to turn away before Frank sees the emotion crumpling your face, but he catches it anyway — there’s nothing about you that he wouldn’t immediately notice.
“Hey, I… I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t,” you snap, turning on your heel to face him. You wear a stern glare on your face that makes him falter as he rises from the cold concrete to stand to full height. The golden hour sparkles in your glassy eyes, wetting with unshed tears. “Just… don’t, alright? Because if you make this a whole thing, I’m gonna have to tell Jack—”
“Tell him what?” Frank presses, brows raised to his hairline until three fine lines wrinkle at his forehead.
His shoes scuff the pavement when he goes to take a hesitant step forward. You flinch back again, like he’ll burn you if he gets too close — like he already has burned you and like you refuse to be kissed by that flame again.
He stops short, splays his wide palms before him in surrender, and continues quietly, “That I’m right? ‘Cause I really don’t think this upset if I were wrong—”
“Of course, I’m upset!” you shout, voice cracking and ringing across the empty rooftop. A breeze rolls by, cooler than silk, rippling in your scrubs and billowing in your hair. “But that doesn’t mean that us not being together is the wrong choice! It’s just— Something we’re gonna have to carry!”
“Then why can’t we just have it out—?”
“Because we tried,” you agonize through a stuttering breath. “And it ended up like this! Every single time!”
Frank shakes his head, strong jaw clenched, too stubborn to listen.
“The only reason we were ever together is because we were…” you trail off, gaze darting wildly as you search for the right words. “Pathologically terrified of abandonment—”
“What are you? My shrink?” he scoffs cynically, biceps straining against the sleeves of his scrubs when he crosses his milky white arms across his chest.
“We knew, before we started dating, that we both were incapable of giving each other what we really needed,” you tell him, half-strangled, as you fight back the emotion wrapping itself around your throat. “And we did that because we knew that when we inevitably didn’t work out, neither of us would be at a totally substantial loss! I mean, why do you think we both moved on so quickly?”
Langdon flinches, chin jerking as his pretty face screws in offense. Your words find him like a punch to the stomach — they knock the breath from his lungs, make him feel like the world is swaying below his feet.
“Substantial loss?” he echoes with his brows raised in an incredulous look. He exhales an emotionless laugh and looks away. His tongue darts out to wet his mouth before he clicks his lips against his teeth, waving an accusatory finger in your direction. “No, see… See, that’s the difference between us. Because I was with you, because I actually loved you—”
“Key word here being loved. Past tense,” you snap with a clenched jaw, mirroring his rigid stature with your arms folded over your scrubs. “We were never gonna work out, Langdon. So whether or not we would’ve been good together doesn’t mean anything anymore, alright? It’s too late, so just… Just drop it.”
“So what?” he calls to you when you turn away again. “All those years we put each other through hell and back, that meant nothing to you?”
“It meant everything,” you confess tearily, knuckles blanching around the cold metal railing you lean against. You lack the strength to look over your shoulder at him, lest you see the boy you used to love in the man standing behind you now. “And it’s over now. And it’s been over for a long, long time…”
“Yeah, not for me…” Frank tells you, voice breaking into a fragile whisper. He clears his throat a second later, half-strangled by the words that’ve been stuck in his throat since the day you left.
Your head snaps over your shoulder, delicate features crumpling in a pained look. “You can’t say that to me,” you repeat, voice coated with tears this time instead of laughter. “You can’t just say that, Langdon—”
Your breath hitches as a sob swells in your throat. You hide your face behind your palms before he can see the way it twists at your face. Langdon feels your hurt like it’s his own, a burning somewhere deep inside his sternum, as he rushes to you on instinct.
“Look, okay? I-I know I’m not a perfect guy— I know that I’m not half as good as Abbot, alright? I know that—”
His fingers are long and warm when they curl gently around your wrists, urging your hands away from your face. You’re swaddled immediately in the warmth of his musky cologne, much stronger than Jack’s, but just as familiar to you.
He ducks his head to meet your gaze, navy-blue eyes glittering as they dart between both of yours. You peer up at him from beneath your lashes, which are now clumped together with unshed tears.
“But I-I’m different now. I am,” he tells you, nodding rapidly. “I wouldn’t be the asshole I was before. I’d be different— I’d be good for you this time.”
“You are, okay?” you choke out, pointing a stern finger at his chest, hands still caught in his unwavering hold. “You are a good man, and I am so grateful to you, and I am so proud of you, but we would be miserable together—”
“Don’t say that,” Langdon murmurs, chiseled features screwed together like your words have pierced him somehow physically. “Why— Why are you saying that?”
“Because look at us!” you laugh through the tears clinging to your lashes. “Love isn’t supposed to feel this way, Frank! This isn’t normal! I can’t even remember the last time Jack made me cry— I don’t even know if he ever has!”
Your words take the breath from his lungs. His fingers slip slowly from your wrists. His chin jerks back like he’s flinching. The hair draping his forehead sways as he shakes his head to himself.
“It always goes back to him, doesn’t it?”
“Of course it does…” you sigh, deflating as you watch him walk away again, going blurry from the warm tears gathering at your waterline. “Because that’s what love is, Frank… And even if you and Abby are done for good, you will find someone, okay? And she will worship you, and she will love you in all the ways you need her to. Just because I can’t give that to you, doesn’t mean you can’t love somebody else—”
“That’s exactly what it means…” Langdon concludes with a heavy sigh, slouching back against the brick again.
He drops hard to the ground and rests his arms over his bent knees. His teary gaze, painted a lighter blue, focuses on the golden skyline behind you, slowly dimming to a darker pink color.
You sigh and muster a sad sort of smile. “Self-pity is not a good look on you, Langdon.”
“I’m just being realistic,” he shrugs. “You and… You and Abbot will be together forever, and you’ll have kids, and you’ll move on, and… I’ll watch…”
“Frank—”
“Don’t. It’s— It’s okay,” he interjects with a foreign sort of tenderness about him, as his pink lips curl into a distant half-smile. “Cause I… You know, I’d rather have a piece of you than— than nothing at all, so… You’re right. I’m just too late…”
You exhale a heavy breath and turn away again, bending at the waist to rest your elbows on the metal railing a few feet from the roof’s edge. You prop your forehead in your hands, watching a heavy tear fall from your bottom lashes and splatter hard on the concrete below.
You have to fight back the urge to climb over the barriers keeping you from the ledge, physically shaking the thoughts of doing so out of your head — of how free it would feel to jump, to fall and reach an inevitable darkness. It would feel much easier than being trapped up here, on this roof, and in this life, and in this skin that doesn’t feel like yours.
The train of thought always has a way of finding you, no matter where you are, no matter how happy you are. Sometimes, you find yourself physically startled by your very existence — like it’s some great mystery to discover that you’ve survived at all.
And, like always, Jack’s is the voice that pulls you back from the abyss.
“Alright, losers— As you were!”
His low, melodic voice shatters the heavy tension blanketing the quiet rooftop. But if he notices, he doesn’t show it. And if he heard anything that came before, he doesn’t say so.
You hurry to wipe the warm tears from your cheeks, swiping your middle and ring fingers below your eyes to remove any evidence that you’d been crying. You spin on the heel of your shoe to face him, mustering a tight-lipped smile as the man walks out into the cool, orange-pink evening — biceps straining against the black sleeves of his scrubs as his hands grasp either end of the stethoscope around his neck.
Robby walks out just behind him, brown eyes darting around as if he were surveying the rooftop — undoubtedly searching for dead bodies after being told that you and Langdon were trapped up here together. His brows bounce in silent shock to find that neither of you had killed each other.
The maintenance workers in navy blue coveralls stand just behind the two of them, replacing the broken knob with a newer one less likely to snap in half in record time.
“See?” Jack hums. The golden hour shines in his salt-and-pepper curls as he turns his head to the man beside him. “Told you I wasn’t lyin’, brother.”
“Yeah, thanks for caring about us, Robinavitch,” Frank huffs, grimacing at the ache in his lower back when he rises to full height again.
“Hey, I thought you deserved the break,” Robby says with his calloused palms splayed before him in surrender. “I just didn’t realize you guys had been forced into having one.”
Langdon says nothing in response, just slinks back through the opened threshold to what should feel like freedom, but finds him more like a slaughterhouse.
Robby watches him go, brows pinching in a wordless confusion, before his eyes dart back to you. His dark brown gaze glitters with curiosity as he nods his head towards Langdon’s disappearing figure, scratching at the grey patch in his beard with his left hand.
“What’s his deal?”
“I’ve been asking myself that for years…” you sigh, trudging across the rooftop like your feet are made of nrick. You inhale sharply through your nose and just barely manage to find the strength to joke, “Just please tell me this cuts a half hour off my double?”
“No, it means you gotta work a half hour overtime. Obviously,” Jack scoffs, wrapping his strong arm around your shoulder when you’re close enough to reach.
You stumble hopelessly into his side, immediately blanketed by his innate warmth. You inhale deeply, and let his musky cologne fill your lungs — smelling of home in every sense of the word, and replacing all the remnants of Langdon (also in every sense of the word).
“Don’t worry, honey,” he croons in a low, gritty voice. “I’ll keep you company through the dinner rush, if you don’t mind bein’ stuck with me for the next twelve hours… And the twelve hours after that… And the twelve hours after that—”
“Alright, we get it…” Robby huffs, narrow features twisted in an only halfway playful look of disgust. “Go ahead and get it out of your system, you two. You gotta long night ahead of you…”
He follows Langdon back down the stairwell, footsteps echoing as he hurries back down to the main floor to help the day shift prep the night shift. The weight of his words remains long after he’s gone. You should feel preemptively fatigued by them, and in many ways you are, but just being in Jack’s arms now is enough to reinvigorate you — like a shot of espresso, or like sunshine after days of stormy weather.
You know you should probably be sick of him by now, ‘cause when you’re not working with him, you’re living with him. But even still, on the rare days your schedules don’t align, you find yourself missing him anyway. You’re always missing him. And every day you are with him, you can’t help but wish for a hundred more. A lifetime with Jack Abbot isn’t nearly enough, but you’re glad to have at least gotten this one.
“You know, I never thought that I’d say this, but…” you trail off with a heavy exhale as you melt into his side, smoothing your left hand up his spine. “After a half hour trapped up here, I wouldn’t exactly mind being stuck with you, Dr. Abbot.”
His thin lips curl into a quiet grin, though the expression glitters mostly in his hazel eyes, which crinkle softly at the edges. He can’t help but hold all his love for you there. You’ve never once had to guess where you stand with him, or if he truly cares about you, ‘cause he wears it all in his eyes.
“See, that’s the kinda spirit I’m looking for, my darling wife,” he lilts sarcastically and ducks down to press a chaste kiss to your cheek, before this sort of PDA becomes a strict no-go when you’re back in the trauma center together. His greying scruff scratches at your delicate skin there.
You only pray he doesn’t taste the salt on your cheek, from where your tears are still drying.
summary. Ten months since you kissed your attending in the on-call room. Ten months of guilt, of telling yourself it meant nothing. Now he’s back, freshly divorced, and apparently you’ve learned absolutely nothing.
word count. 5.1K
warnings. smut, 18+, MDNI, inappropriate workplace relationship, power imbalance, public-ish sex (on-call room), unprotected pnv, pussy slapping, lowk mean langdon, possibly ooc langdon (in the series, we don’t see him doing relationship stuff, so who knows), cheating bc reader and langdon kissed when he was still married, reader makes bad choices, Langdon is toxic, reader is toxic, everyone is fucking toxic, no use of y/n.
notes. baby’s first long Langdon fic, please be nice to me 😭 took some liberties, made Langdon an attending, bc I genuinely didn’t know he was an R4? (In my defence, there’s only 3 years of residency for Emergency Med in my country) By the time I realised he wasn’t an attending, I’d already finished writing the fic. So please work with me here 😭 thank you @sheriff-bodecker for saving me from a crash out.
⟡ READ ON AO3 ⚚ PITT MASTERLIST
They said he’d be back in eight months. Then they said it should be nine. Then ten. That was around ten months ago.
Somewhere during that, you’d stopped doing the mental arithmetic which was either personal growth or denial. Probably both. You’d stopped being able to tell the difference around the same time you stopped sleeping well.
You’d told yourself it would be fine. You’d been telling yourself that for so many months, you’ve started to believe it a bit.
He’d come back, you’d be professional, you’d be exactly what you were supposed to be. A third-year resident with a decent attending’s evaluation and no catastrophic personal decisions on her record.
That’s easy. Simple.
You’d kissed him once. People kiss people all the time. People kiss people once and recover. It's normal.
But people don’t kiss married people who are not married to them.
The kiss had happened on a Tuesday, which still bothered you, because things like that were supposed to have context. There should be a reason like bad shifts, long nights, the particular delirium of hour thirty of a 36 hour stretch.
The least it could’ve been is a Friday, when the week has already gone sideways.
You’d had none of that.
It had just been a regular Tuesday at the end of a totally regular shift. You were in the on-call room, Frank was saying something about the new bet, and you were laughing.
After that, details blurred. He’d kissed you. Or you’d kissed him. It was one of those things that happened in the half-second before the brain catches up with the body. His hand framed your jaw, the touch enough to send your body into a frenzy.
The brain soon caught up because you both pulled back. The kiss was brief enough that you could’ve called it an accident, if either of you had been willing to do that.
But neither of you were. So you just sat there afterward in the specific silence of two people who’ve tremendously fucked up.
He was married. He was your attending. Two reasons. Two very big, very destructive reasons.
You’d catalogued them both in real time, sitting three feet apart on a cot that smelled like disinfectant, staring at your respective patches of wall.
“That—” you’d started.
“Yeah,” he’d said.
And that was the whole conversation. The stand and the end of it.
As fate would have it, he went to rehab the next day. While he was there, his wife had filed for divorce. Dana told you that in the break room with the specific tone of someone who has noticed more than they’ve said.
You’d nodded and gone back to work and spent the subsequent months telling yourself that you were fine, that it was nothing, that you’d kissed him once and he’d gone to rehab and his marriage had ended and that it was his fate, not yours. That the divorce had nothing to do with you. That you weren’t a contributing factor in the quiet dissolution of a marriage you’d had no business brushing up against. That the timing was coincidence.
You’d repeated that one a lot. The timing was coincidence. It probably was.
It would be fine when he came back. You’d be fine.
You walked into the morning handoff and saw him standing at the nurse’s station with a chart in his hand. Your whole nervous system clocked you as the most terrible liar in the history of liars.
He was just standing there, and your hear rate was nearing a hundred. That’s not the behaviour of a person who’s going to be fine.
He hadn’t even looked up yet and your brain had already filed the entire situation under dangerous and started running contingency plans.
If things were going wrong already, he looked up and that was the start of things going wrong-er.
His eyes found you fast, without effort.
He gave you a nod. You nodded back. Very professional. Completely normal.
The handoff started. You listened and took notes and were a model of clinical focus. You also thought about the way his hand had felt against your face. About his wife. About whether she knew she’d been married to a man capable of kissing someone the way he’d kissed you, and whether that knowledge would’ve changed anything for her, or for you.
Fine. Completely fine.
You avoided him for the first four hours through a combination of genuine busyness and strategic routing decisions. It also helped that he was banished to the triage.
The east hallway was longer but the west hallway meant walking past him, so east it was.
You took your lunch break at a time you knew he wouldn’t be in the break room.
You reported back to Dr. Robby, and Dr Al Hashimi, even though she was new, and you don’t do well with new people.
Things were fine, even starting to look up, maybe a little more than fine, until Dr Al Hashimi brought him back.
That didn’t faze you though, because here’s the problem, the real problem, the one you’d been talking around for ten months.
He wasn’t married anymore.
That was one reason down. Which left you with one more reason.
That one was real and serious and you weren’t dismissing it. Except your body had apparently decided that one reason was an inconvenience rather than an actual deterrent.
Because every time his name appeared on the screen or his voice came, the back of your neck went hot and you thought about that Tuesday with a clarity that was frankly insulting.
You caught yourself thinking about it during a wound closure at two in the afternoon. His hand on your face. The fact that there was no hesitation in that kiss whatsoever. The small sound he’d made.
And underneath all of it, the thought you kept trying to bury: his wife had filed while he was in rehab. While he was already at the lowest point of his life, she’d filed. You didn’t know the marriage. You didn’t know what had happened inside it, what years of him had looked like from the inside, what she’d absorbed. You had no right to feel anything about it.
You felt things about it anyway. That was its own kind of guilty.
You were in serious trouble.
As most unavoidable things, he caught you in the supply closet at four. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
The tone was diagnostic, it was almost funny. Almost because it was happening to you.
You didn’t look up from the IV bag. “I’ve been busy.”
“You went around the triage like you were avoiding a plague.”
“I like the walk.”
Silence. You could feel him looking at you with that attending’s focus, the kind that made patients confess things they’d planned to keep to themselves, and you kept your eyes on the bag and your face very still.
“End of shift. On-call room. B wing.”
He walked away before you could respond, which was probably intentional.
You stood in the supply closet, contemplated your life choices and went back to work because you’re a resident and you have no other choice.
You should’ve probably got an Oscar or at least an Emmy, because you played ‘unbothered doctor’ so well for someone who was actively dying on the inside.
At 7.55, you handed off your patients.
At 8.36, you stood outside the B wing on-call room with your hand not quite on the door and had a brief, intense internal argument with yourself.
Do not open the door. What could go wrong?
It’s fine. It is absolutely not fine.
It’s one conversation. It's supposed to be one kiss too. Actually it wasn’t even supposed to be one kiss.
Against all odds, you knocked anyway and went in.
He was already there. Sitting on the edge of the cot, still in his scrubs.
The lights were off, it was just the small strip of light from the door. It was a terrible idea to notice what that did to the angles of his face, so you didn’t, officially. You let the door shut behind you. That should be better.
For the lighting, of course.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
All that waiting and you were back to that. You crossed your arms, which you were aware was a tell, and stayed near the door. Walking closer could and would result in improper physical contact.
“You heard about the divorce,” he said. Same way he’d say a diagnosis.
“Dana told me. A while ago.”
He nodded. “I wanted to tell you myself. I was—” he exhaled through his nose. “I was in rehab, so.”
“I know where you were.”
“Right.” He looked up to meet your eyes, you blamed your amazing dark adaptation. “How’ve you been?”
“Frank.” His name came out sharper than you intended. “Can we skip the—”
He stood up. “Yeah. Okay.”
He was closer standing up. You’d forgotten, somehow, in ten months of his absence, the specific fact of how he occupied a room.
There was no way anyone could ignore his presence. And you were not just anyone, you’re the one who kissed him, or who he’d kissed. Anyway, it’s much harder for you to ignore him.
You pressed your shoulders back against the door.
“I thought about you… in there. More than I should’ve. I’m aware that’s—” a pause where he looked like he’s recollecting himself. “I’m not telling you that to make something happen. I just didn’t want that to be the way things were left.”
You thought about what it meant, that he’d been sitting in a facility in western Pennsylvania doing the serious work of rebuilding himself, and you’d been one of the things occupying space in his head. Whether that was flattering or just sad, you honestly couldn’t tell. Both, maybe. It felt like both.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. You’ve been going out of your way all day. I’ve watched you do it.”
“Because this is complicated,” you interjected him too fast. “Because you’re still my attending. It’s your first day back from rehab, and you’re my attending, and I—” you stopped, because you had only one argument. “You’re my attending, even if the married thing is gone. I’m aware. But you’re still—”
“I know what I am.” He took a step toward you. “I know exactly what this is.”
“Then you know why I’m standing by the door.”
“Yeah.” He was close enough now that you could see the tiredness in his face, the hollowness of his eyes. He looked like a man who had been forced to do stuff, even if that stuff would only make him better. Whether he wanted to or not, the result was something steadier than what you remembered. It made things harder. “I know why you’re standing by the door.”
He just looked at you with those dark eyes, and you thought about the Tuesday, and the ten months after the Tuesday.
No, no you should not do this. You should absolutely not kiss him.
You pushed off the door and kissed him.
He met you in the middle of it. This kiss was nothing like the first time. The first time had been this cautious, surprised thing, a moment catching both of you off guard.
This was not that. This was the two of you grabbing at each other in the dark of an on-call room with the full information of what you were doing and doing it anyway.
His hands were in your hair and yours twisted in the front of his scrubs. The sound he made was nothing like the one he made ten months ago, but this one had the same effect. You’d be thinking about this for ten more months. Or forever, who’s to say.
He walked you back into the wall, kissed your throat and you let your head hit it. There was a moment when his hips pressed onto yours, and you realised with complete lucidity that this is going to be a disaster.
And then you stopped thinking.
“Frank—”
“Yeah.” His hands worked your scrub top up and over your head and yours did the same to his. You spread your palms on his chest and felt the warmth of his skin and the unsteady rhythm of his breathing, that somehow comforted you. That you had the same effect on him that he had on you.
Mirroring that, he looked at you in the dim light with an expression that had absolutely no composure left in it. You’d never seen his face like that before. It made your stomach bottom out.
“How long?” You were not entirely sure what you were asking.
He seemed to know anyway. “Longer than that Tuesday.”
That’s wrong on so many levels. On that Tuesday, you were an R2 and he was married. Which meant there’d been a stretch of time where Frank Langdon had looked at you in a way that wasn’t professionally appropriate while he was still going home to Abby. You didn’t know what to do with that. You filed it under later, which was the same drawer you’d been stuffing things into all night.
You also liked how he remembered that it was indeed a Tuesday. You did have the same effect on him, that he had on you.
Then, you grabbed the back of his neck and pulled his mouth back to yours.
He unclipped your bra with one hand, the other flat on the wall beside your head, and dropped it somewhere behind him like it was irrelevant. Which it was.
His palm cupped the heavy swell of your breast, thumb brushing the hardened peak of your nipple with a stroke that made your breath hitch. Soon after, his mouth dragged down from your throat to your collarbone, then lower, latching onto the sensitive bud with a hot, wet suction that sent a jolt straight to your core. You felt the warm pressure of his lips close around your nipple and your head knocked back against the wall.
“Frank—”
He only sucked harder, his tongue swirling around the peak in lazy, teasing circles while his teeth grazed the underside just enough to make you gasp. His eyes though, they were locked on your face the whole time. Watching.
That was the thing that made you unravel. The watching, constant and clinical and completely indecent all at once. Like he was memorizing every twitch, every flush creeping across your skin.
His teeth grazed again, a sharp little nip that bordered on pain, and you grabbed the back of his head to keep him there, which he seemed to find interesting, because he smiled against your skin before switching to the other side.
Your fingers tightened in his hair. He took his time. His patience was now pointed somewhere it had absolutely no business being.
The sounds coming out of you had already exceeded what you’d have considered acceptable for an on-call room, but the part of your brain monitoring ‘acceptable’ had clocked out around the time he’d walked you into the wall.
Eventually his mouth moved lower. He traced the valley between your breasts with his tongue, dipping into the dip of your navel before kneeling slightly. His breath ghosted hot over the waistband of your scrub pants as his hands hooked into the elastic. His hand slid into your waistband.
“Here?” He asked against your navel.
“Obviously here.” Your voice came out wrecked. “Don’t stop.”
Something that was almost a laugh came out of him, felt more than heard. His fingers found you and you were already embarrassingly wet, slick heat coating his fingertips as he parted your folds with a slow, exploratory stroke, circling your entrance teasingly before dragging up to smear the wetness over your swollen clit.
Nothing could’ve prepared you for the sound he made. It was rough, involuntary, pressed into your skin like he was trying to muffle it.
“Christ.” Like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. His forehead dropped to your ribs. “Ten months.”
“Don’t.” The more he spoke about the ten months, the more you thought about how unfair and horrible this all is.
“Don’t what?” He looked up at you. Even in the dark the expression was legible. “I’m just observing.”
He worked one finger into you first, then a second, stretching you open with a curl that hooked right against that spot inside you that made stars burst behind your eyelids, his thumb pressing firm circles over your clit in a rhythm that had your thighs trembling.
He worked two fingers into you slowly, watching your face do things you had no control over. The stretch of it pulled a sound out of you that you’d be cringing about in approximately two hours. His thumb found your clit and moved in a slow circle, the kind of pace that made it very clear he wasn’t in a rush, that he intended to do this for exactly as long as he wanted, and the fact that you had opinions about the timeline was charming but irrelevant.
Your hips moved. Chasing it.
He stopped.
Not all the way though. His fingers were still inside you, thumb lifted just enough. You made a sound that was not your finest moment.
“Tell me something,” he spoke against your skin, the soft underside of your breast.
“Frank—”
“You went around the hallway twice.” His fingers moved barely, a suggestion of a touch. “You took your lunch break forty minutes early. You reported to Al-Hashimi, who you don’t even know, rather than coming to me.” The fingers curled slightly and your jaw went slack. “So tell me. Have you been thinking about this all day, or just since you knocked on that door?”
“No—”
“Wrong answer.” He withdrew his fingers entirely and delivered a sharp, stinging slap right to your soaked pussy, the wet smack echoing in the dim room as your hips jerked forward involuntarily.
A fresh wave of heat flooded between your legs at the unexpected bite of it. The embarrassing part wasn’t the sound it made. The embarrassing part was how much more wet you got from it. You genuinely could’ve wept from the sudden emptiness, your clit throbbing from the impact.
He waited, eyes locked on yours, that gaze daring you to lie again while his hand hovered, fingers glistening with your arousal in the faint light. “Try harder.”
You bit your lip, thighs clenching as the sting faded into a pulsing ache, but he noticed and slid his hand back up your thigh, teasing the edge of your folds without giving you more. “Frank, please—”
“Not good enough.” Another slap, firmer this time, landing square on your clit with a slick, obscene sound that made your knees buckle, the jolt of pleasure-pain ripping a whine from your throat as your body arched toward him. His thumb brushed the stinging flesh soothingly after, just enough to make you chase it again.
The denial burned in your chest, but so did the need, coiling tighter with every denied thrust of his fingers. “All shift,” you gasped finally, the words tumbling out broken. “Since handoff. God, since I — ahhh — saw you.”
“Closer.” He rewarded you with one finger plunging back in, shallow and torturous, his palm grinding against your mound but not quite hitting where you needed it most. “But not all of it. Keep going.”
You shook your head, dignity fraying, as he added a second finger, scissoring them slowly to stretch you wider, the wet sounds of your arousal filling the room like an accusation. “I can’t—”
“You can.” He pulled them out again, the loss making you clench around nothing.
This time, the slap was a quick, targeted flick to your inner thigh, inches from your dripping core, making you spread your legs wider. “Or I walk out right now, and you finish yourself off thinking about what you almost had.”
The threat hung there, his fingers tracing lazy patterns over your hip instead, close but not touching, until the ache became unbearable. “All day.” The words came out before your dignity could intervene. “Since — Since you looked up and I imagined you bending me over the desk, fucking me raw right there with everyone listening.”
“Fuck.” Back in with his fingers, deeper this time, three fingers now, curling hard against your g-spot while his thumb pressed down with actual intent, rubbing firm, insistent circles over your throbbing clit that had your walls fluttering around him. And the sound you made echoed somewhere it shouldn’t have. “Was that so hard?”
“I hate you.”
“No.” His mouth was at your ear. “You’ve been wet since 7 AM — soaking through your panties during rounds, clenching around nothing everytime you heard my voice. Try again.”
He fucked you with his fingers in earnest,, the heel of his hand grinding against your clit with every thrust, building you up until your vision blurred.
You came with your fingers digging crescents into his arm, your forehead dropped hard to his shoulder.
The orgasm wrung you out in waves, and left you feeling stupid. He worked you through every second of it without stopping, prolonging it with a final, twisting curl of his fingers that had you gushing over his hand, your release slicking his wrist.
When you finally stopped shaking, he withdrew his hand and you heard him licking his fingers clean with a groan, the wet suction of his tongue obscene in the silence.
That alone made your skin go hot all over again.
When you looked at him, his expression was very focused and very dark and had no composure left in it whatsoever.
He kissed you before either of you could say something that would ruin it.
Getting the rest of the scrubs off was not graceful. Yours caught on your ankle, the cot made squeaks when you both hit it, his elbow found the wall with a thud that you both ignored.
He settled between your thighs, his thick cock nudging insistently against your soaked entrance, smearing your wetness along his length as he rocked his hips teasingly. His precum coated you in return.
He looked like exactly what he was: a man who’d done real damage, to himself and other people, who’d spent months in a room somewhere reaping what he sowed.
“Stop,” you said.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re looking at me.”
“I’m allowed to look at you.” He dropped his head to kiss your jaw, your throat. “You’re in my on-call room.”
“Your on-call room?”
“I was here first.” His hips shifted and you felt him right there. The blunt head of his cock breached you just enough to stretch your entrance, teasing the slick, sensitive rim without pushing deeper.
And every coherent thing you’d been about to say dissolved completely. Your body did something embarrassing and obvious, tilting your hips toward him, asking without asking. “You know what I keep thinking about?” He asked.
Words apparently couldn’t make out of your mouth, you only whined in response.
“You knocked on that door.” His words were muffled against your throat. “You stood outside it for a while first. I could see the shadow under the door. But you knocked anyway.” He pushed in, just the head, parting your walls with a slow, burning stretch that made you gasp as your body yielded to him inch by torturous inch, and breath left you entirely. “And now look at you.”
He paused there, buried only shallowly, his cock throbbing inside you as he gripped your hip hard enough to bruise, letting you feel every ridge, every vein pulsing against your clenching heat.
Then he pushed inside fully, bottoming out in one smooth, deep glide that filled you completely, your pussy stretching around his girth until your walls fluttered and gripped him like a vice.
The sensation was so overwhelming you could feel him nudging against your cervix. His whole body went still at it, every muscle locked, breath coming out slowly against your cheek while he waited.
You felt everything. You felt the stretch, the fullness, the particular and specific reality of Frank Langdon that your 2 AM imagination had constructed and gotten completely wrong.
You’d underestimated it. Ten months of underestimating it, underestimating him.
“Move,” you said when you could.
“Mm.” He pulled back slowly, dragging his cock out until only the tip remained, coated in your creamy arousal. He pushed in slower, grinding deep on the re-entry so his pubic bone pressed flush against your clit. “You had a whole plan, didn’t you? You’d stand by the door, hear what I had to say, then go home.” Another slow drag, the wet slide of him pulling free making your pussy clench emptily, and your fingers curled into his back. “What happened to that?”
“Frank—”
“You’re taking my cock in the on-call room is what happened.” His pace stayed measured, each push intentional, his hips rolling in a way that made his shaft stroke every sensitive inch of you. “All that effort today. All those reroutes.” His mouth brushed your ear. “And here you are, creaming all over me like you were made for it.”
“Shut up,” you managed, which would’ve landed better if your voice hadn’t cracked down the middle.
“You shut up.” He shifted his angle, hooking one of your legs over his shoulder to open you wider, allowing him to plunge even deeper, his balls slapping wet against your ass with every thrust. He did it again, watching your face, filing it. “There. That’s the one —right there, where you're squeezing me so tight I can barely move.”
He pounded into you now with a rhythm that shook the cot, as he chased that angle, his cock splitting you open over and over, your tits bouncing with the force of it.
The filthy sounds of it were loud enough in the quiet room that you were dimly grateful for the distance to the nurses’ station.
Somewhere in the back of your head, your brain supplied that he’d been sober for ten months. This was his first night back. And you were here, you were the thing he’d come back to, or one of them. What did that make you in the story of his life. What part were you playing.
You pulled him closer. You’d think about that later.
You stopped trying to maintain anything. To hell with the composure, the distance, the careful architecture of self-possession you’d been constructing and maintaining for ten months.
It came down. All of it, at once, under the specific and targeted demolition of Frank Langdon. His forearms were braced on either side of your head, his face close to yours, refusing to let you look anywhere else.
“You feel—”
“Don’t stop.” Not at the sentence. At all of it.
“I know... you feel fucking incredible.” His hips snapped forward, burying himself to the hilt in a brutal thrust that made your vision white out. “You’ve been wanting this since that day and so have I, and we both—” another thrust, harder, his pace turning feral as he fucked you into the mattress, the slick sounds of your pussy taking him mingling with his ragged grunts. His control was gone, you could feel it dissolve. “We both made different choices and none of them—” his rhythm stuttered. “None of them fixed it —none of them stopped me from jerking off to the memory of your mouth on mine, imagining this exact fucking thing.”
That almost made you cum. The thought of him jerking off to you, like marriage be damned. Your nails were in his back. You’d apologize for that later, maybe. The pressure was building fast and you grabbed his shoulder and held on, your cunt starting to spasm around him, milking his cock with rhythmic squeezes that had him cursing under his breath.
“Come on then,” he said, almost gone. “Let me feel it. You’ve earned it, all those months—cum on my cock like the good girl you are, let me fill this pussy up.”
You came apart completely. Your orgasm crashed over you in waves, your walls clamping down hard on his thrusting length, gushing around him as you cried out.
He shuddered and followed. His whole body went taut, cock pulsing as he spilled inside you, hot ropes of cum flooding you, marking you deep as he ground against your cervix with a final, broken groan of your name.
His weight was half on you, half off, his softening cock still twitching inside you, a trickle of your combined release leaking out around him.
You stared at the ceiling and let your pulse find its way back down from wherever it had gone.
He moved first. Rolled to the side, pulling out with a wet pop that made you both wince, his spend dripping down your thighs in a sticky reminder.
There was now cold where he’d been, and you didn’t react to it. You sat up, found your scrubs on the floor, and started putting yourself back together. He did the same beside you.
Your badge was near the foot of the cot. You lipped it back on. The normalcy of the gesture felt briefly insane. “I don’t know what this is.”
“Neither do I.”
That was honest, at least. You stood. He stayed sitting on the edge of the cot, staring at the floor. His usual composure was not fully reassembled. You’d done that. You did that to him.
When you got to the door, you could hear his voice, “tomorrow.”
Just tomorrow. Like it was already a given. like it was already on the calendar, like you’d both signed off on it somewhere between the wall and the cot and the rest was just the hours between now and then.
Your hand stayed on the door.
The thing was, he wasn’t wrong. You’d known it when you knocked. Known it when you kissed him, known it when you stopped running the argument halfway through and just let it go. Probably you’d known it since the day, ten months ago. Since you’d pulled apart and told yourself this was a thing that would not happen again.
The responsible and correct thing, the thing a person with any functional self-preservation instinct would do, was to say no. Or nothing. To leave and let the silence be its own answer. To remember that he is your attending, that this is your career, that you’d spent ten months building very sensible walls and had just spent the last forty minutes enthusiastically dismantling them.
You didn’t say yes.
You also didn’t say no.
You just let go of the door handle and walked out, and the thing that followed you down the hallway wasn’t guilt, exactly.
It was something more complicated than guilt. Something that didn’t have a clean name yet and would probably still be sitting in your chest tomorrow morning. Something you hoped would prevent you from knocking the same door at the same time tomorrow.
my masterlist !
extras. I lowk suck at writing mean characters, sorry if the smut was boring or bad 😭
I do have a taglist, it is just Bucky atp, but I do plan on writing Frank more. Lmk if you want to be added.
੭꣒ ˖ ❛ bf!langdon who takes the phrase “kiss and makeup” a little too seriously.
c.ws :: mdni , smut , slight degradation , missionary so you can continue arguing , dirty talk.
"stop being so fucking mad at me." frank grumbles out from above, driving the point home by grinding his cock in deeper inside you. your thighs quiver despite yourself where they're hooked around his waist, lewd slapping noises permeating the room just to tease you. “i said sorry an hour ago.”
you keep turning your face, trying to angle it out of reach, or at least force the fury back into your expression. you can’t fight the scrunch of pleasure that crosses your face, however. he can see that too. the grudge held like a stone dam, meant to keep your pride immune and well guarded from the way he's fucking you into the mattress. but it never works.
"m’not-"
"you are." he nips at your shoulder, voice muffled. "you keep clenching up when i talk.” his hips rear back steadily, a wet squelch sounding from where you're joined, then he sinks back in with a grunt of effort. "except down here."
the truth stings worse than the fight itself: frank knows you like the back of his hand. the front and back. he knows exactly how to fuck you until your resentment feels misplaced and petty.
hands that had been pushing against his chest find the silky sheets instead, clutching tight.
"it was a stupid fight," he pushes in again, slowly, allowing you to relish in the thick ridge and veins dragging along your walls while he explains the situation to you.
"and you know it." pride makes you not answer, of course, the only thing you can manage is a soft whine.
"sweetheart," he sighs. "you really gonna let me cum in this pussy while you're busy pretendin' to hate me?" you blink up at him in silent retort. defiance radiating from every inch of your face.
"mmm." the man even has the audacity to pinch the bridge of his nose, like you're the one being unreasonable. like he’s not currently balls deep. "always so fucking stubborn." he reaches between your bodies, thumbing lazily at your clit. "you think i like walking out?"
rage bubbles back up your throat at once, rolling your eyes with the little attitude you had remaining. "you slammed the door — our door — and left."
"you knew damn well i'd come back…” he grunts, not missing a beat to retort. an especially brutal thrust has you seeing stars. "you’re a smart girl, stop acting stupid, yeah?" you try to hitch your hips, to hurry him along but he only holds you down, eyes narrowing.
"go ahead and scream all you want, curse me out, break something if you need to. but don't fall asleep hating me.” he rambles on, shaking his head faintly. “can’t take that shit."
your words come out sharp, bitter once you find your voice. "so what’s your plan, fuck me into forgiveness?”
there's no hesitation in him when a toothy grin splits across his face, "there you go. if we fight in the morning? before work? fine. but if we're sharing a bed like this, we fix it before we close our eyes. understood?" no thought forms twice before your head's nodding stupidly, not an ounce of resistance (or dignity) left in you as he sinks back in.
Summary: Frank has still some struggles to remain calm after therapy. So when he sees his pretty doctor walking around, he knows exactly what he needs to endure the rest of the shift.
Warnings: Messy Langdon, quick fuck, choking, mention of bruises. Breeding kink if you squint. A man who yearns it’s a man who earns.
Langdon was tired.
Coming back after months of time out proved to have a heavy toll on his body and mind. He still cared too much, the shift was being fucking stressful and a thousand people just keep coming in. He feels his pulse pounding beneath his ribs, sweat starting to glaze his skin. And he doesn’t want to even look at his watch because that would look fucking weak too.
He can do this. He can handle it. He just…
Your frame passes across the other side of Dana’s desk. Your chart in hand, you talk to Mohan with kindness, smiling at her while she thanks you for looking at her case with care a couple hours ago. And maybe this is the perfect moment for him to take a little advantage of you both friendship with the black-haired. So he walks straight up to you, placing a discreet hand on your shoulder, almost as just a colleague, and lowering his head to yours.
“Are you very busy?” Your eyes look up at him, raising an eyebrow like he just told you a joke. Langdon huffs, tilting his head side to side like an annoyed kid. “Like very busy, you know what I mean.”
You look back at Samira, who’s holding back her laugh at the man. And you need to compose yourself before coming back at him so you don’t laugh almost on his face. You definitely would feel bad if your poor boyfriend ended up looking like a sad puppy for the rest of the shift; so you give a soft squeeze to the hand on your shoulder and shake your head: “No, baby, I’m good now. Do you need anything?” Your voice is quiet low, so only the three of you could hear you, you would rather not have any eavesdropping on your conversation.
Langdon watches your surrounding for a second, squinting. You can almost see the nuts on his brain turning. “Mohan, can you cover us for a minute?”
The girl brings her hand to her forehead, saluting to the air “As you order, captain.”. Still, you lose her words with barely any time to register what Langdon said and what questions to ask before he was already pushing you to the storage hall. You pass the last room, the lockers and then he opens, just in time for you to not crash your face on the wood, the door where you kept some of the drugs that needed refrigeration and cool treatments. So it is almost normal for you to shiver when both of your feet are inside.
“Frank, what are we…?” Your words never leave your lips. Langdon grabs your hips and places you on top of an small shelf, his lips crash on top of yours, and his hands come to cup your chin and the other one grabs your hips, forcing your body to come closer to his, to feel the growing hardness between his legs, so you don’t need an answer anymore. There it is. The metal clings beneath you body weight.
“I need you.” Langdon pants, mouth sloppy and hot. You can feel you panties starting to wet just with the sole vision, the man was handsome. With his perfect hair coming down to his face, big eyes and big dilated pupils pleading for your help to get out of his system the heat that right now made his cheeks red and lips puffy, and maybe too his hips too desperate, rubbing himself with your legs to find the smallest of relief. “Please, please, please, baby… I need you.”
Your lips place a couple more of open mouth kisses on his skin, passing his chin to his neck, feeling his throat keeping a growl well hidden inside his vocal cords. And you value how he doesn’t really move waiting for your confirmation. “Whatever you want, Frank.”
But that’s all he needed.
His fingers unbutton your pants, pulling them down your legs until he can kick them to a side. Then, his hands go to his own, letting the fabric fall to the floor. He spits on his palm, stroking himself one, two, three times, wetting his length. And you can almost salivate at the sight, his well groomed skin, that you can almost remember the soft touch of his short hairs on your nose while you went deep-throat on him last night. And while you are lost in your thoughts, he keeps on his tracks. His left hand comes up to your neck, pushing you back until your head is pressing against the wall, and his right helps him align himself with your entrance, barely giving you time to breath before he thrusts inside, gaining a savage speed immediately. You gasp loudly before you can bite your lip to keep the sounds down, but Langdon looks at you for a moment, studying your face. To make sure he didn’t need to cover your mouth too, you know.
But he doesn’t.
So his right keeps on squeezing so hard on your hip, to keep you exactly where he needs you, that you are certain there will be a bruise tomorrow morning decorating your skin, tender to the touch. You don’t care. Not when your pretty boyfriend looks completely lost on his own movements, on the way your pretty pussy sucked him in, creamed him. He yearns almost in an animal way, you see it, when his eyes are black, when he bites down your hand that now cups his face, wrinkling his nose when the feeling of hitting the deepest part of you hits him right on the lower stomach.
“Make me feel so good, baby.” He whispers, and you let go of your lip for a moment, rewarding him with a pretty sound that makes him throw his head back. “So good, so good…”
His left cuts your air flow from moment to moment, making you squeeze him inside, burying your nails on his forearm when you feel the lack of oxygen hitting your body. And he loves it. His eyes fix on your face, melting at the way your body molds to every thing he does to you, complacent to every wish he puts out. How could he have such luck?, after everything he did…
You know that face, when the breath gets stuck on his throat and his chest moves faster and faster. When he can’t really control, no matter how much, the sounds that escape from his lips, panting, hissing, and eventually moaning lowly as his thrust stumble, letting the same shiver running his body passes to you, tensing your stomach, closing your eyes as you feel his pace coming to a halt, keeping all of him inside you while his seed spills, and the pleasure over consumes him: “Mmmm, fuck…”
And you feel so full, you pull at his hair, your legs press him against you, instinctively reacting to receive everything he wants to give you. “Frank, Frank…” You pant, until you feel the first drop slide to your thigh. “Langdon!”
Your eyes are wide open now, coming back to reality in just a second. You were so used to him pulling out before coming that you didn’t even think about the fact that he didn’t use protection nor that he did, in fact, not pull out. But he wasn’t really listening, his brows were now slightly furrowed and his eyes reflected almost all of the light of the room inside the darkness of his pupils. He lets his body cover you, changing the choking hand to a cupping one, pressing his lips softly over and over again to yours, his tongue wets your lips, messy, slow. You run your fingers through his hair, allowing him to come down his orgasm.
“Your period is due in two days. We’re good, baby.” And there it is. Your perfectionist doctor. “I got carried away and didn’t ask. I’m sorry.”
“No. You knew exactly we we’re going to be okay.” You take his face from the crook of your neck, smiling at him. Warm. You were always so warm to him. “You have never let anything get in between that.” Those words go straight to his heart, caressing it so softly he can almost cry. He’s never going to be thankful enough for having you think so highly of him after all this time.
“I love you, I love you so much, baby.” He moves his face from side to side, wishing for all of his skin to touch you, to carry your smell for the rest of the shift.
“I love you too, Frank.”
…
By the time he’s back at Dana’s desk looking at the top screen for a new patient, Samira walks to his side, leaving her iPad on one of the tables without really looking in his direction.
“So… That was really just minute.”
Langdon keeps his arms resting on top of his head, bouncing calmly on his feet. “Fuck you, Mohan.” He says, and even though he walks away on the opposite direction, he can feel the middle finger of the girl pointing at his back.
…
“Oh, my god, baby.” Langdon launches at you while you dry yourself in front of your shared closet. “Did I do that?” His hand is now over your hips skin, touching carefully the bruise you had just developed overnight. He doesn’t wait for you to answer. “I am so sorry, love. I am. I am going to be more careful from now on.”
You stop squeezing your hair with the towel when Langdon presses his lips on the tender skin, standing back at his full height looking, unfortunately, like a sad puppy. So instead of wasting your words, you push him back on the bed.
“What are you doing?” He asks, and you look back at the watch on your nightstand.
“We have some time to spare.” Its what you whisper, before taking his mouth with yours. And he knows you’re right and that it isn’t much. So he lowers his shorts and break the kiss just enough to spit on his hand.
It feel heavenly the way he stretches you when you leave all you body to sit on him. “Come inside again, please.” You whisper, hugging his body and you hips come up and down.
He pulls your hair, letting a soft growl scape his lips. “You’re not going to be satisfied until I fuck a baby inside you, uh?”
summary: uh oh! the door won't open and now you're stuck in a supply closet with the most annoying man on earth
contains: medical inaccuracies, forced proximity, pittlings! cameo
a/n: happy s2 finale day to all who celebrate! find the ask that inspired this fic here! i definitely just let the spirit move me so i hope you enjoy! | lovely divider from @strangergraphics
You're off your game today. Even though you only act as the dayshift charge nurse when Dana's preoccupied or off for the day, you run a tight ship. What can you say? You learned from the best.
You like finding order among the chaos of the ER. You like checking things off a list, moving from task to task so quickly that you barely have time to think. You like anticipating problems before they even come up.
But you did not anticipate running out of IV kits.
There are truly none in the entire Pitt, which is really saying something considering how paramount they are in an emergency department.
You called someone upstairs to bring a box down, but that was five minutes ago, and you don't like to wait. Like most everything, it'd be much easier if you just did it yourself.
The supply closet on the first floor of the hospital is just up the stairs and down a hall. The soles of your trainers squeak as you march purposefully along the linoleum. You yank the door open, then halt in place, as there's already someone in the supply closet.
The absolute last person you'd want to see, in fact.
"Jesus Christ," Langdon curses, startled by the sound of the door. The tension in his shoulders relax when he sees it's you.
"Just me, actually," you say dryly, then step into the closet. Behind you, the door swings shut with a click.
The closet is big enough for two, but just barely, the walls lined with industrial shelving. Rectangular, plastic bins occupy every space on the shelves, stocked with various medical paraphernalia.
"Somebody unchained you from the hub?" Langdon asks, the sterile light of the singular fluorescent bulb blanching his face. Wisps of brown locks slide precariously over his forehead.
"We're out of peripheral IVs," you state, scanning the shelves for a cardboard box of them. You blink a few times, then whip your gaze to Langdon. "What are you doing up here?"
Langdon shoves his hands in his pockets, leaning against one of the shelves. "Just needed to hide for a second."
You spare one moment of urgency to frown at him, then continue your scan of the supplies. "Oh-kay," you draw out both syllables, uninterested in whatever he's obviously trying to bait you into asking him about.
Finally, the right label jumps out at you… from a shelf a way above your head. You stand determinedly on your toes, using your fingertips to nudge the edge of the box forward, but yield little success.
"Here," Langdon murmurs, crowding you without warning, his long arms reaching up to snag the box. You're suddenly all too aware of how close he is, how his scrub top and the t-shirt underneath ride up, the warmth of his abdomen radiating towards you.
You hold out your open forearms, but he keeps the box tucked to his chest.
"I got it," he says with a shrug.
"Okay," you murmur. "Thanks."
You jiggle the door. The handle doesn't budge. "Um." You look to Langdon. "Do supply closets lock?"
He doesn't answer right away. Which isn't a good sign.
You try the door again, the lock rattling uselessly as you shake it.
"Langdon."
"Yeah," he responds, a little too casually.
"Why isn't the door opening?" You ask.
He shifts the box in his arms. You know it isn't heavy, just a hundred or so tiny IV kits, but the bulk of it certainly makes it more of a burden to hold.
"Sometimes doors… stick," Langdon offers with an awkward shrug as he balances the box.
"Stick?" You repeat, hoping he'll hear how ridiculous he sounds. You rotate a precise ninety degrees, then shove your weight against the door as you try the handle again. It doesn't budge. "This isn't sticking, Langdon, it's locked."
He sucks in a sharp breath, then examines the door. "That does appear to be more stuck than locked."
"Oh, is that your professional assessment?" You jeer, irritation building up inside you. "An astute observation from the man with a medical degree."
His blue eyes are fixed guiltily on the floor.
"Oh, my god," the realization dawns on you like a migraine. "Did you lock us in here?"
"Technically, you locked us in here," Langdon's laugh borders on a nervous titter. "I, apparently, didn't get the door shut all the way when I came in."
"Why would you lock the door?" You demand.
"I told you, I needed to hide for a second."
You drag a hand down your face, leaning defeatedly against the impenetrable door. "You're unbelievable."
"Hey, I was having a moment," he says defensively.
"You're always having a moment." Not necessarily true, but in this moment, your frustration wins out.
He exhales a short laugh at that, the tension in his shoulders easing despite the situation. “Yeah, well. Usually I don’t have an audience.”
“You still don’t,” you say, then gesture vaguely at his entire body. “I’m not engaging with… whatever's going on here.”
You turn around, then knock your knuckles rapidly on the door. “Hello? Anyone out there?”
The hallway beyond remains stubbornly silent.
You press your forehead to the solid wood, then sigh.
“Well, this is fantastic," you say, turning back around. "Now we're down a charge nurse and one of our more questionable physicians because you needed a timeout.”
“Wow,” Langdon says with a low whistle. “That’s how you’d describe me? Questionable?”
You fold your arms over your chest, jaw tightening. “Would you prefer ‘liability’?”
He grins like you've given him a medal, a quick flash of teeth. “Harsh.”
“Accurate.”
For a moment, there’s only the low hum of the fluorescent light overhead. The space feels smaller now, the air warmer. Or maybe that’s just him still standing too close.
Not like there's anywhere else for him to go, you argue with yourself. The man is all limbs.
“Alright,” Langdon says after a beat, setting the box on the ground so he can reach past you. “Move.”
You furrow your brows. “Why?”
"Would you stop being a little pissant for one second?" He snaps, then immediately softens. He gestures fruitlessly at the door. "So I can try the handle."
"I already tried the handle," your patience wanes. As this shift's charge nurse, you're connected to the central nurses' station by an invisible tether. It grows tauter with each passing second, as well as the tension in your shoulders.
"Yeah, but I'm taller," he quips, like that has anything to do with it.
You reluctantly take a step back, his arm brushing yours as you switch places, sending uncontrollable goosebumps down your skin.
Langdon, thank god, doesn't notice, and instead runs through the same troubleshooting you did —jiggles the handle, then shoves his weight into the door, all to no avail.
"Brilliant," you comment, tightening your embrace around yourself. "Wonderful problem-solving, Doctor."
"Do you want me to kick it down?" He offers, and you almost laugh before you realize he's being serious.
"Yes, please do," you shake your head at him incredulously. "I'd love to explain to Robby why his number two has a broken ankle from trying to kick down a solid wood door."
Langdon snorts, then holds up his hands placatingly. "Alright, fair."
A beat passes, then Langdon points to the box on the floor. "At least you found your IV kits?" he offers.
"Don't," you warn, loosening an exasperated sigh.
"C'mon, silver linings and all that?"
You ignore him, tapping your foot anxiously against the floor and locking your gaze to the wall behind him.
There's another pause, but this one is somehow even quieter than before.
Langdon shoves his hands down into his pockets again. "So, you really didn't notice?"
"Notice what?" You ask.
"That I'm having an off day."
"You're always having an off day," you deflect. "It's kind of your whole thing."
Langdon laughs in a hummy, self-deprecating sort of way. "Not like today," he murmurs, maybe more for himself than it is for you.
"Maybe you've been a little… quieter than usual," you concede. "But I was more focused on basking in the silence rather than figuring out what was causing it."
The corners of his eyes crinkle. "I annoy you that much?"
You nod, though there's roiling feeling in your stomach. You attribute it to forgetting to get a snack earlier. "Yes, Dr. Langdon. You do."
He hums again, his jaw flexing. He straightens his back, then nods to the door. "I guess we'd better get you out of here then."
He bangs his closed fist against the wood. "Hello?" He shouts, the sudden volume filling the small space. "Anyone out there?"
"I didn't mean it like that," you say before you can think better of it. His fist freezes on the door.
The words carry more weight than you intend, and you see the way they spark against something in Langdon, lighting a flint you didn't know was there. "What way did you mean, then?"
Heat creeps over your cheeks, and you suddenly shirk back a step, bumping into the edge of a metal shelf. Plastic tubs and kits rattle behind you, making the space feel even more claustrophobic.
Langdon's eyes narrow a little, as if he's studying you under a microscope. "What way did you mean?" He asks again.
Your heart hammers are the sudden emotional confrontation. You open your mouth to say something, about how he isn't annoying, how you actually like talking to him, it's just that he pulls you from thinking properly at your job. How he sometimes distracts you so much you occasionally forget to check the board or call ICU to see if there are empty beds yet or stock the goddamn IV kits.
But any thought you attempt to form is yanked away by an aggressive knock on the other side of the door. "Hey!" the voice shouts through the wood. It's Whitaker. "I heard shouting! Is somebody in here?"
"Yeah! Yes!" Langdon shouts back, tearing his gaze away from you. "The lock is stuck! Can you call someone in facilities to get us out?"
"Us?" Another voice inquires. Javadi. "Who else is in there?"
"I am," you call out, your entire face now turning pink. "Can you please make sure the hub has IV kits as soon as possible? I don't know how long it's going to take to get out of here."
"I'm on it!" Javadi responds, then, through the wood, you make out the muffled sounds of whispering.
"What are you saying?" You ask.
"Nothing!" Javadi warbles with a giggle.
"She was just wondering how the pair of you ended up stuck in here, together," Whitaker muses, the lilt of a lingering laugh lining his voice.
You pinch the space between your brows.
"It was an accident," Langdon states matter-of-factly, to your surprise. "Now will you please call facilities?"
You shoot him a grateful glance, to which he rolls his eyes.
Ten minutes later, when a maintenance worker finally unjams the lock, your heart still hasn't stopped hammering.
