emotional trophic cascade

@kingdonmicrofic / cw: serious injuries/hospitalization / 397 words / ao3

There's something called VIP syndrome, in which wealthy or famous or otherwise important patients receive a different level of care than the standard patient. Sometimes it's a positive (as with nicer rooms with better views) and sometimes it's a negative (such as radiation from unnecessary imaging, done to give the impression of being thorough.) There's a uniquely challenging variation of the syndrome that comes with treating patients who are themselves physicians, where the patient may have input on their own care, or the care team may be overly cautious when looking after 'one of their own.'

Langdon's room, like all the others in the SICU, doesn't have much of a view, and Mel knows that every single millisievert the CT scanner blasted him with was done for the right reason. All the same, she knows that Langdon is getting a different type of care than everyone else on the unit; he's not just a VIP, not just any physician, but one of their own. Surgeons parade through all day, peeking at the chest tube (still fine) and the vent (still working) and the monitor (BP still steady, with the bleeding now stopped,) even though there's nothing to be done but wait.

By afternoon, Mel asks Langdon's nurse if there's any way to get the incessant visits to stop, and fortunately, everyone knows better than to argue with an ICU nurse. The visits stop and Mel is finally alone with Langdon, finally able to talk to him in the way she wants. She's already told him about the logistics—the kids are with their grandparents and Abby is flying home as soon as she can, but most flights are grounded by the same ice storm that sent a pickup truck sliding right into Langdon at the crosswalk outside the ER.

With all that aside, Mel takes his hand in hers. "I'm going to tell you a secret," she says. "When you met Becca, she said that I liked you—but that wasn't entirely true." She takes a deep breath, steeling herself. "I think I've been in love with you since that first day. And I know I can't do anything about it, but—I needed to tell you."

'In case this is my last chance' goes unsaid.

Click. Click. Click.

“Can you go two seconds without making noise,” Mel huffs, hand already on her temple.

Across the note-littered table, Langdon clicks his pen again, defiance twinkling in his eyes. 

God, the nerve of him. 

She’s never met someone so stubborn and cocky and competitive before, which of course means she's never met someone who understands her better. He knows every button to push, how to crawl right under her skin, so much so you’d think he lived there. Always so good at keeping up with her, always catching her eye after a heated debate, watching. Smirking.

(If she thought about it for more than a second, their rivalry is less of a battle and more of a feast — each of them arriving hungry and wide-eyed for the challenge the other provides. He pushes her, she pushes him, cloaked in annoyance and insult. Satisfaction after supping themselves on their wit.)

(But why would she think, when she could blindly hate?)

“You’re insufferable.”

“Am I?” His eyes narrow. “Or do I just steal your chances to be right?”

Mel scowls, an indignant noise rumbling in her chest as she rearranges something on the whiteboard.

There’s another noise behind her, louder than before.

“Can you please be quiet?” She asks, turning quickly.

He’s much closer than she expected, towering over her. She swallows, and the corner of his mouth twitches upwards, and if she hadn’t been staring into his eyes — have they always been so blue? — she might’ve missed the way his gaze flickered downward for just a split second.

“I don’t know, can—”

Before he can finish, as if continuing the same argument they’ve been having all night, Mel grabs the front of his shirt and kisses him hard.

And Who is he really? Mini comic

Frank isn’t even fully through the door before a laptop screen monopolizes his field of vision.

“Who the fuck is this?” 

“Jesus, Abs,” he startles, trying to push into the house, past the computer being shoved toward him, closing the door to stop the neighbors from hearing whatever argument is about to happen. “What are you talking about?”

“Do you think I’m an idiot? Are you an idiot?”

“Woah, let’s just—” he replies, confused. “Stop waving— I can’t see what you’re showing me, Jesus.” 

When her arms steady and she pulls the screen back, he’s staring at Dana’s Facebook profile, who it seems has posted all her pictures from tonight. Most of them are hazy from the smoke or blurry or just too dark, only the orange blaze of the bonfire in the background. Abby keeps scrolling up and down the page so quickly, he really can’t see any of the pictures, much less the someone he’s supposed to identify. 

Frank shrugs, unsure of what to say. “Ok?”

She scoffs, rolling her eyes. “Ok? That’s it?”

“I mean, fuck, yeah Abs, like what am I supposed—”

Abby flips the screen back around to him, a singular shot picked out of the bunch, zoomed in on two figures huddled together. An arm thrown over a shoulder. The pattern of his flannel draped across the smaller figure, a long, messied blonde braid glowing in the dark. 

Two figures that he knows aren’t in the majority of the evening’s pictures.

“Oh. That’s Mel,” he answers, watching carefully as an icy expression crystalizes on his wife’s face at the incriminating affection in his voice. “I was just— being a good friend, she was cold.”

In response, Abby snaps the laptop shut.

It’s a slow day, so she thinks he'll duck out at seven sharp, home to the wife and the two little kids she’s heard about and never seen. But he stays three hours past sign-out with the overdose teen whose parents never showed, speaking in a low voice with the lights out until the boy sleeps.

She tries not to stand too close to him because she knows everyone thinks she has a crush. But some asshole in triage lunges for her and Frank steps right in the middle, takes a fist to the jaw, and apologizes to her after for the way he had knocked into her shoulder.

She won't ask about his marriage because it's none of her business and she doesn’t think she wants to know the truth anyway. But some days he wears the ring and some days he doesn’t.

Kingdon Cowboy Au 🐎