da pitt! i love da pitt!

Mel: I miss you Mel: Sorry, I didn’t want to text you while you’re out with your family. It’s still true, though. Mel: Ignore these. Sorry. Frank: hey sweetheart. just had to find a good second to step away. i miss you too. Mel: What are you doing now? Frank: stargazing. the kids love it, can’t stop looking up at the sky. Mel: And? Frank: ? Mel: What does she think about it? Frank: baby… Mel: Sorry. Frank: she’s having an awful time. mel, you know if i could have left her in pittsburgh and brought you with me, i would have done it. Frank: mel? Frank: baby? Frank: please, don’t go to bed angry with me. i can’t stand it. Mel: How alone are you right now? Frank: ? Mel: I want to send you some pictures, but I don’t want your wife or kids to see them. Frank: fuck, honey Mel: Just want you to remember who’s waiting for you at home. Frank: as if i could ever forget, baby. trust me, i’m counting down the days till i can be with you again. Mel: For real this time, right? Frank: for real this time. forever, this time. Mel: Good.

bonus: paperback version i made before the hardcover, including the dedication & publication page. flowers on the hardcover are iris and flowering dogwood, the state flowers of Virginia and Tennesee <3

Frank just barely manages to jump into the patient room before the doors slam shut, locking automatically. The man on the bed— Moe, in his sixties, unhoused and a frequent flyer— startles. “The fuck was that?” “It’s protocol that every room locks down in the event of the smoke alarms going off, Moe.” Mel is standing next to Moe’s bed, managing to be soothing despite the tension Frank can see in her posture. She doesn’t like being locked up somewhere. “Are you okay, Dr. Langdon? You would have been better off staying in the hub. At least that way you could evacuate on your own if need be!” She looks genuinely worried, even if they both know they’re relatively safe here. The doors are fireproof and there’s a fire department that will help with any necessary evacuation in minutes. Even being trapped with a patient isn’t a bad thing, not when it’s Moe who really just needs someone to make sure his feet aren’t gangrenous and to get a solid meal into him. Plus, Mel is his favourite, so he’s always extra polite to her. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Frank runs a hand through his hair, then joins Mel at her side, close enough that their arms brush. He grabs a pair of gloves and puts them on just in case he needs to help out with Moe’s treatment. When he looks down, Mel has her eyebrows raised. “I just, you know, I’d rather be with you if something goes wrong than get stuck outside.” She shakes her head, her frown deepening. “You would rather be stuck in a building on fire with me than be safe without me?” It’s a strong statement, one that holds real meaning behind it. Frank knows it isn’t the statement one coworker makes to another. It’s not a statement a married man makes to his friend. “Yeah. Yeah, I would.” The frown on Mel’s face softens, turning into something understanding and a little sad. They have things they need to work out, Frank knows they do, but it can wait until they’re not locked in a room with Moe.

Or, 5 times Frank put clothes on Mel, and one time he took them off.

[START OF RECORDING] LANGDON: Frank Langdon recording. Date: August 2nd, 1975. Could you state your name for the record, please? KING: Melissa King, but everyone just calls me Mel. LANGDON: Okay, Mel. How would you describe it? This thing you do? KING: My mother called it a gift. LANGDON: Does it feel like that to you? A gift? KING: Sometimes, when I’m able to get closure to a family, or help someone move on. Other times… LANGDON: Other times? KING: It’s hard to think something is a gift when you’re eight years old and you realize no one else in your class knows what a bullet hole does to a human body. LANGDON: Jesus. KING: Sorry, that was too much. LANGDON: No, it wasn’t too much. I’m writing this book because I want the raw truth about people with your gift. I’m just sorry you had to go through that. Can you always tell what someone died of? KING: Not always. Ghosts look how they did the second they ceased living. It’s easy to tell with more violent deaths, but there’s no way to know what did it in most cases. LANGDON: And you can really see them? It isn’t that you can imagine them in your mind’s eye or they’re just a feeling you get? You can see them the same as you can see me? KING: Well, yes. That’s why I asked to take your picture, earlier. Ghosts don’t show up in Polaroids. LANGDON: But I showed up? KING: You did. LANGDON: Wait, why did you say it like that. [Pause. Neither speaks for a moment.] KING: When you first approached me, there was a man with you. He said you were working together on this. LANGDON: Are you serious? KING: Greying beard? Wears a gold Star of David and has on an old leather jacket? LANGDON: Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck I’m going to be sick. KING: I’m so sorry. If, um, if you’re willing to listen Robby has something— LANGDON: You really see him? KING: Yes. LANGDON: Fuck, sorry. Yeah, okay, what does he want me to know? KING: He says: I love you, thank you, I forgive you, please forgive me. LANGDON: God. God. KING: We should take a break. LANGDON: I’m sorry, please don’t go— KING: No, no, I’m not leaving. I’m just going to pause the recordi— [END OF RECORDING]

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE PITT ON ITS 25 EMMY NOMINATIONS, INCLUDING 13 ACTING NOMINATIONS

Mel doesn’t feel good. Her head is fuzzy and her stomach feels flippy and she just— “You said to just drink this,” Mel says, but it comes out more slurred than she’d like it to. Santos also looks like she might be feeling fuzzy and flippy, so maybe there’s a gas leak? That wouldn’t be good. “But I think maybe it’s bad. Like the soda went bad.” Can soda go bad? Probably, right? The only thing that doesn’t go bad is honey. Mel’s name means honeybee, but nobody’s called her that since her dad died and— “It’s not soda, Mel,” Santos says, which doesn’t make sense because what Mel drank definitely didn’t taste like water. “It was a fuzzy navel. Booze. Hooch. Alcohol.” Frowning, Mel shakes her head. “I don’t drink. I told you that. You wouldn’t trick me into drinking—” “I wasn’t tricking you, god, you make me sound like an asshole.” Santos stands up, wobbles, and sticks a finger in Mel’s face. “I just saw that you needed to have fun, so I helped you do that.” Mel sits with that for a second, then nods. “You’re a mean person, Trinity.” She leaves Santos standing still and shocked in the bar. Outside, there’s a different dilemma. Mel can’t drive her car home, and she can’t afford an uber, but she doesn’t feel great about walking home alone on the Fourth of July— “Mel? You good?” Just across the street, Dr. Langdon is walking a dog and smoking a cigarette, dressed in new clothes and still dripping slightly from his hair. Like a saviour, Mel’s saviour. “Hey, woah, don’t cry!” Sniffing, Mel walks over to his side of the street, glad that there isn’t much traffic yet. “Will you walk me home? I’m drunk.” Langdon opens and closes his mouth twice before softening. “Yeah, of course. Come on, let’s get you home.”

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july 4th 2026, 7pm

@thepittmonth > week 1: parallels Mel, you okay? | Dr. Langdon, are you okay?

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thank you to @sawdustandstardust for letting me talk her ear off about this idea months ago and ecouraging me to use it for this prompt

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