YOU CAN'T KILL THE SPEW!!!

“Y’think he’ll ever connect the dots?” Dana asks with a snort, seemingly at random, making Emma look up at her from her current task in confusion.

“What?” she asks, and looks in the direction Dana nods her head. Standing just outside of the breakroom, she sees Dr. Langdon and Dr. King conversing. Well, it’s more than that, really. Emma notices the too big smiles, the way Dr. King lightly touches Dr. Langdon’s arm, how close they’re standing… Nothing really sticks out as unusual to her though.

Aren’t they always like that?

Emma supposes that she never really thought much of it. In fact, it seemed to her that, despite their personal feelings, the two managed to keep things rather professional at work.

Though the way Dana asks her question, Emma feels like there’s something she’s not quite understanding. What dots were there for Dr. Langdon to connect? She wonders if there’s some gossip that she’s not privy to.

“I’m afraid I don’t get what you mean.”

Dana frowns when she looks at her, like what she’d asked had an obvious response to it.

“C’mon, kid—” she nudges Emma lightly with her elbow, “—Don’t tell me you haven’t heard about those two’s weird will-they-won’t-they relationship by now.”

“What?” Emma repeats, thoroughly bemused. She looks back at the pair briefly before returning her attention to Dana. “You mean they aren’t already dating?”

It’s their day off; a day where they should be sleeping in, catching up on all the beauty sleep they’ve both lost due to working overtime. They can lounge around in bed all day, order takeout for all three meals, and maybe, eventually, pull themselves out of bed to cuddle on the couch and watch a movie.

So far, they’re not sleeping in, and Mel is very certain that so far, the only thing they seem to be achieving is staying in bed.

“Ah- Frank-!” Mel cries out, fingers digging into his back, adding more scratches to the ones from their first round. “I- I’m so close-!”

She can feel Frank’s back muscles flexing under her fingertips as he sinks into her, over and over, and can hear him hissing into her ear. “Come for me, baby.”

Mel has one leg thrown over his hip, digging her heel into the small of his back to spur him on, while she moves a hand to slip down between her legs. Right as her fingers touch her clit, they’re lightly smacked away, making her whine out and dig her heel harder into Frank’s back.

He grunts in response, but still grants her pleasure, fingers circling over her clit, making her cry out and move her hand up into his hair. She gives it a sharp tug, making him hiss again. She gasps as she feels him nip at the bend in her neck.

Mel can feel herself coming undone, letting out a string of mildly incoherent words as she feels herself barreling towards the finish line.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Frank moans hotly against her skin. “Come for me.”

That’s all it takes for Mel to reach orgasm, clenching around Frank as his thrusts become faster; more erratic. Moments later, he follows suit, filling Mel up before he’s pulling out and collapsing beside her.

There’s a mess between Mel’s thighs and she knows she needs to clean herself up, but in this moment, she can’t be bothered, instead, turning to look at Frank and his gorgeously flushed face and admiring how attractive he looks in his blissed out state.

She watches as he finally rolls onto his side to look at her, a lazy smile pulling at his lips that Mel returns. Her skin feels hot, heartbeat finally starting to slow as she attempts to even out her breathing.

“You okay?” Frank asks softly, leaning in to press a tender kiss to her forehead.

“Yeah,” Mel hums after a moment. “Just…a little overstimulated…”

Frank gives a faint chuckle, gently running his fingers up and down her arm. “Hell, I think I’m overstimulated…” After a beat he adds, “I’m sorry if it was too much.”

Mel shakes her head. “No, it was really good… I just, um, I’m really tired now…”

“Me too…” Frank agrees. “But you were amazing…”

Finally, Mel rolls onto her side, curling against his chest while his arms wrap around her.

“Round three after we wake up?”

Frank tries to replay the night’s events in his head. He knows he’d had too much to drink—not enough to be wasted, but enough to feel tipsy and loose. He’d gotten flirted with by girls who he’s sure wouldn’t have liked him if he wasn’t on the football team, and Abby wasn’t texting him back, still pissed off that he’d wanted to go to his teammate’s houseparty when she didn’t.

He’d gotten Mel to go with him, instead, and what a godsend she’d been. Though, he had to admit that he still felt bad about it. House parties were never really her thing, he’d known that, and still, selfishly, asked her to join him. He’d joked that she could babysit him, but that’s actually what she’d wound up doing; what she’s still doing.

“M’sorry,” Frank murmurs as he downs another greasy fry. They’re sitting on the hood of his car—that Mel had insisted on driving, eating fast food that Mel insisted on ordering to sober him up. “This isn’t your responsibility.”

“It’s fine, really.” Mel’s voice is soft, though she’s not looking at him. Her gaze is locked on the scenery before them; the overlook giving way to the quiet town below them, light up faintly, though it’s nothing compared to the glittering sky above. “You’d do the same for me.”

Frank snorts. “You wouldn’t put yourself in a position like this.”

Mel hums, finally turning her gaze to look at him. “No, probably not. But if I ever did, I know you’d look out for me.”

They lock eyes and a quiet settles over them, before Frank blurts out, “You look good with your hair down.”

That’s all it takes for Mel to blush and reach a hand up to self-consciously tuck a few locks behind her ear. “Thanks…”

Her hair hadn’t been the only thing he’d noticed—and whether it’s the genuine attraction or the hurt pride of Abby blowing him off, Frank can’t bring himself to feel ashamed for checking her out. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Seriously, Mel, you’re way too perfect for me. Like, everything about you, everything you do…”

“You’re drunk,” Mel says dismissively, finally averting her gaze.

“I’m not,” Frank insists, and without thinking, he reaches out to touch the side of her face, making her look at him again. “I’m feeling a lot more sober now, thanks to you…”

When they lock eyes again, Frank decides that looking into Mel’s eyes beats stargazing any night.

Mel doesn’t pull away, doesn’t flinch, but stares back at him, and Frank swears her doe eyes could do him in.

He’s moving in on instinct, and can feel Mel stiffen beneath his touch as she says, “What about Abby?”

“What about her?”

“Frank…”

“I don’t think she wants to talk to me right now,” Frank admits. “She’s been ignoring me all night.”

Not that it’s anything new. 

“Oh, I—”

Mel has always wanted to be a mom—it’s something she’s known since she was a child, it had just been put on the backburner until now. Technically, she’s a mom-to-be, but she’s well into her third trimester so she feels like she could burst any day now.

She’s beyond ready to get it over with. 

She’d been nervous at the thought of giving birth at first, but now, with her heels kicked up and Frank massaging her swollen ankles and feet, she’d love nothing more than to get this baby out of her.

“I know we talked about possibly having two, but I don’t know if I can do this again,” Mel says, and as if on cue, she feels a kick to the ribs.

Frank chuckles lightly, knowingly. “Anything you want, sweetheart.”

Smart man.

@kingdonmicrofic | day 18: parade | rating: G | word count: 347/347 | cw: n/a | santos pov; santos is an unreliable narrator | gif credit goes to japril from here | ao3

She should get over it, she knows that, seeing as how Robby seems hellbent on not doing anything about it. Trinity is used to the feeling of injustice; it’s something she knows very well.

Doesn’t piss her off any less. 

It doesn’t matter that Langdon had given her an, arguably, insincere apology. It doesn’t change anything—especially not when she knows that if it had been someone like her doing the same thing she would’ve been fired, been barred, and serving jail time. It’s the injustice of it all that really eats her up.

But no one really seems to care. Not Robby, not Yolanda, and certainly not Mel.

Since Langdon’s return, she’s watched the two parade around with each other, smiling and laughing with Mel looking at Langdon like he hung the stars in the sky. Trinity likes Mel—she’s fun to mess with—but she really doesn’t know what Mel sees in Langdon. She’d noticed on day one how attached at the hip the two were and while she didn’t really get how or why—other than the obvious favoritism—it made sense for why Mel would be fawning over him.

She needs to be charting, lest she fall behind and have Robby or Al-Hashimi bitching at her for it, but she can’t take her eyes off of the pair in question. They’re far enough away that they don’t notice her staring, but not so far away that she doesn’t notice the way Frank touches Mel’s arm or the way Mel brings a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle.

“Do you see that?” Trinity nudges Whitaker next to her, gaining his attention.

“See what?”

Trinity rolls her eyes and chides, “Pay attention, Huckleberry. Mel and Langdon over there. They seem pretty…close.”

Whitaker gives her a look like this isn’t anything new and Trinity resists the urge to kick him under the table.

“Well, aren’t they dating?”

Trinity’s jaw might as well be on the floor, eyes wide. “What? Since when?”

Whitaker shrugs and Trinity looks back at the pair.

They really shouldn’t be doing this. They’re both drunk—tipsy at the very least—and not thinking clearly. Yet, here they are, with Frank’s lips on Mel’s, as he blindly attempts to unlock the door to his house. His parents aren’t home so they’ll have the whole house to themselves and the thought alone sets Mel’s skin ablaze.

Frank only pulls away from her to push the door open and usher them both inside. It’s dark and Mel can hardly see anything in the dim light of the foyer. She barely has time to, anyway, as she feels Frank crowd her back against the door and his lips find hers again.

This time, Mel pulls back, still a bit breathless from before, as she asks, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Frank is hardly deterred from kissing her, instead moving to attach his lips to her jaw, kissing along it before murmuring hotly into her ear. “They’ll be gone ‘til tomorrow night; s’fine…”

Mel’s eyes flutter shut, gasping when she feels him nip at her earlobe. “No, not just them, I mean—”

“You don’t have to worry about Abby,” Frank says, and Mel has a full body shiver as he runs his tongue along the hinge of her jaw. “We’re not together…”

That should be good enough, but the truth is that it’s a well-known fact that Frank and Abby have a near constant on-again-off-again relationship. It’s certainly not healthy, but Mel isn’t sure that what they’re doing right now is healthy either.

Mel hates to think of herself as a rebound, but it’s hard to ignore that every time Frank starts going through it, especially when it comes to issues with Abby, he goes to her—which is fine, they’re friends—and something like this happens. It’s not like she does anything to stop it; she doesn’t want to stop it, but she knows it’s not fair either. She wants more, but she’ll take what she can get, even if it’s hardly enough.

So instead, she tries to clear her mind, which isn’t hard once she feels Frank’s hand moving up her thigh and her skin feels like it’s on fire.

“Frank…”

“You can tell me to stop…”

Mel doesn’t, can’t bring herself to, doesn’t want to.

She feels his fingers pressing against her inner thigh and fights the urge to clench her thighs around his hand. She swears she can feel Frank smirking against the side of her neck, moaning in spite of herself when he finally makes contact over her panties.

“Should I stop?” Frank teases, nipping at her neck as his fingers start to rub at her through the barrier.

Briefly, Mel has the thought of strangling him, but her body betrays her, hips rolling against his hand.

The movement stops suddenly, making Mel whine.

“I need an answer, sweetheart…”

Goddammit.

“Don’t stop, just—” she hesitates. “Do we have to do it here?”

“What’s going on here?” Mel says, bemused, upon entering the apartment. She hadn’t been gone that long—just enough to grab pizza for dinner.

“Melly!” Penny chirps with excitement. “I made daddy pretty, see?”

They’re sitting on the floor, Frank’s hair messily pushed back with a headband and his face— Mel can’t help herself as she erupts into giggles when he turns to look at her.

“What’re you laughing at?” he says, unbothered, sticking out his tongue. “I look pretty!”

“Yeah! He looks pretty!” Penny defends, not looking up from his face, concentrating as she adds more sparkly blush to his cheeks.

“Oh, yeah,” Mel agrees, setting down the pizza and coming over to perch herself on the couch, “Very pretty.”

Frank’s face is a mess of sparkly glitter eyeshadow, blush, and lipgloss that looks like it has confetti in it. Mel’s face itches for him.

* * *

Afterwards, once they’ve had dinner and Frank has corralled the kids into their beds, Mel saunters up to him, biting her lip around a smile.

“Penny wanted us to be princesses,” he supplies, and Mel giggles again.

“And what a pretty princess you are,” she teases lightly, pulling him down to kiss him. “But we should probably get you cleaned up.”

Frank snorts. “Yes, please. Join me?”

Mel doesn’t know how to tell Frank that she doesn’t like his new sheets. So when he asks if she wants to stay over at his place a second time—after spending a sleepless night on the first—she makes up an excuse. And when he asks another time, she makes up another excuse.

Becca wants to come over; I’m too tired to go anywhere right now; I’m sorry I didn’t see that you had texted me.

They weren’t good excuses, but Mel didn’t know how to tell them that the way silk felt made her want to crawl out of her skin. She supposed she could be straightforward and honest about it, but she didn’t want to come off as demanding or make him change anything about his lifestyle or the things he liked. So, coming up with excuses seemed like the lesser of two evils at first. Maybe she could wait it out until he changed his sheets back to the cotton ones she actually liked.

Frank apparently had different plans.

Mel doesn’t get visitors often, so she nearly jumps out of her skin when she hears a knock at the door. She marks her place in her book—one of her preferred routines when winding down for bed—and makes her way to the door. She only opens it after looking through the peephole and seeing that it’s Frank.

“Frank, what’re—”

“Did I do something wrong?” There’s a look in his eye that Mel isn’t sure she’s seen before, at least not on him; not directed at her. He’s worried—panicked, even.

“No, why would you think that?” Mel asks, immediately feeling bad. She knows that she hasn’t exactly been forthcoming about her real reasons for avoiding staying over at his house.

“Because you don’t want to stay the night? You aren’t answering my messages?”

Mel feels a rock in the pit of her stomach. She knows she needs to come clean.

Stepping aside, she lets him into the apartment, apologizing as she closes and locks the door behind him.

“It’s nothing you did,” she insists. “I mean, not intentionally.”

“Intentionally?” 

Mel wants to kick herself.

“No, no— I just mean… I haven’t been ignoring your texts on purpose or anything, and I like coming over to your house but…” She wrings her hands together, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “I really, really hate your bedsheets. I can’t touch them. I don’t want to sleep on them, but I know you like them so I’d never ask you to change—”

Mel cuts herself off as Frank suddenly lets out a bark of laughter. She stares at him, utterly confused.

“Mel, baby, you could’ve just told me you don’t like the way silk feels,” he says, closing the distance between them, grasping gently at her elbows.

“But you like them—”

Frank shakes his head and snorts. “Fuck those sheets, sweetheart. I’ll sleep on whatever makes you the most comfortable.”

“Well, kid, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”

Frank knows what she’s getting at but rolls his eyes and pretends that he doesn’t. He crosses his arms and says, obtusely, “The fuck does that even mean, Dana?”

“You know damn well what it means.” She shoves his shoulder lightly and Frank feels like a kid being scolded for stealing a cookie out of the cookie jar. “You can’t be married to Abby and keep stringin’ Mel along.”

“Mel and I are just friends.” Frank scoffs and can’t help himself as he looks across the nurse’s station, spotting Mel not too far off talking to Samira.

Mel has never liked the smell of campfires—or in this case, a bonfire. She hates how the smoke smell seeps into her hair, her clothes, makes her eyes burn and her nose itch… Still, she stays quiet. It’s not often that she gets invited out to do things and the last thing she wants is to sour anyone else’s mood.

So, she grins and bears it, eating a smore or two and takes little sips of the ginger ale she and Frank had brought with them since neither of them drank. But eventually, she gets a bit restless, and without even having to say a word, Frank notices. She feels him gently nudge her knee with his.

“You wanna go for a little walk?” he suggests, nodding his head towards the shoreline.

Mel nods and the two get up. Everyone around them is too busy with their own forms of entertainment to pay them much mind and Mel finds herself feeling grateful not to get held up.

They leave their sandals behind, and Mel decides she has a love-hate relationship with how the wet sand feels between her toes. She walks a little closer to the rolling waves and while it’s cold at first, she finds it soothing to her overwhelmed nerves.

Frank and Mel’s fingers lace together as they walk, talking about nothing and everything and enjoying the night breeze.

“We didn’t have to come, y’know,” Frank says after a moment of silence. “I know it can all be overwhelming, so we could’ve stayed home, or—”

“Oh, no,” Mel shakes her head, cutting him off. “I wanted to.”

This time last year they’d spent the Fourth of July in drastically different ways and if anyone had told Mel then that the following year she’d be enjoying the holiday with Frank as her boyfriend she would’ve thought they were crazy.

She stops after a moment to turn and look up at him, smiling. She gives his hand a gentle squeeze as she says, “I’m glad I came here with you.”

She stands on her tiptoes, leaning in for a kiss. As their lips touch, she can hear the first poppings of fireworks going off over the water and the mildly drunken cheers of their coworkers a few yards down.

“Can you help me?” Mel stands in the doorway to their bedroom, watching Frank expectantly as he pulls his shirt on, over his head and turns to look at her.

“Sure, baby, what’s up?” Mel simply holds up her hand in response.

Ah, right.

Two fingers are wrapped in a stint, a product of their unforgiving jobs as ER doctors—an accidental slipup in moving a patient. She could still use her hand—mostly—but trying to braid her hair was next to impossible. It wasn’t the first time Frank had to braid it for her, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last. Thankfully, he liked to think that he was getting rather good at it.

Entering the bathroom, Frank stands behind her in front of the mirror. He gently brushes out her long hair—comparable to gold, he thinks—before sectioning it and grabbing the hair tie Mel hands back to him.

Carefully, he braids it just how he knows she likes it—he’d been practicing—feeling Mel’s gaze on him through their reflection as his brow furrows in concentration.

He’d already known how to braid because of Penny. They’d watched enough princess movies for the girl to get it in her head that she wanted to look like Anna and Elsa and Rapunzel. His braiding had only improved since then—especially since Mel could be very particular in how she liked it to be done.

Not too loose but not too tight, not too messy or bunched up at the base of her neck, and certainly not lopsided.

Frank had it down to a science now.

When he finishes, he takes a step back and says, “Whaddya think?”

Mel takes special care to look it over, observing his handiwork with a critical eye before he sees a smile break out over her lips. Turning to look at him, she nods in approval and says, “It’s perfect, thank you.”

Frank smiles back, meeting her halfway as she steps forward and leans up to kiss him.

Mel isn’t sure how much of a surprise it really is, as she gets prepared for an ultrasound. The blood results had come back, confirming that she is, indeed, pregnant and she hasn’t really let it fully sink in yet.

They had been careful; they weren’t prepared for this; they were supposed to start trying in a year.

Despite both of their nerves being rattled at the revelation, and what Mel can only assume is elation on Frank’s part, Mel feels calmer than she thought she would. She’d thought that surely she’d be a mess.

Yet, as Frank’s hands caress either side of her face, she feels at peace. Along with the nerves, she allows herself to feel excited.

“It’ll be okay, we’ll figure it out,” Frank tells her, sweetly. And then, unable to quell his own excitement, he adds, “We’re having a baby…”

They are. They really are.

Mel clings to his wrists as the emotion finally starts to hit her. Softly, she parrots, “We’re having a baby…”

Frank wasn’t sure what he’d expected when he’d invited Mel and Becca to join him and his kids to go swimming. But as he pushed past the gate, scanning the area for the two—they said they’d meet him here—his eyes weren’t ready for what they landed on.

On the opposite side of the pool, laid out on the chairs, under a big umbrella, were the girls. More specifically, there was Mel, in a yellow polkadot two piece—a true feast for his eyes—and he couldn’t help but stare.

“There you guys are! We’ve been waiting!” Becca called, giggling as the kids rushed over to give her hugs.

“Uh, yeah,” Frank said, pulling himself out of his trance, raking a hand through his hair in an attempt to pull himself together. “Sorry, Penny couldn’t decide on which of her swimsuits to wear.”

“It was important!” Penny defended with a pout, making Becca and Mel giggle. “Can we go swim now?”

Frank could barely finish agreeing to let them go before they were taking off to play under one of the fountains.

He shook his head with a sigh and set their bags down. He’d been preemptive with applying sunscreen, so when he removed his shirt, hearing Becca’s gasp, he wondered if he’d missed a spot or didn’t rub it in well enough.

“Your chest is really hairy, Frank,” Becca said, leaving Frank wondering if he should feel self conscious or not.

“Oh, uh…” He gave himself a once over. “Is that a bad thing?”

“No, you look good,” Mel blurted out, and Frank couldn’t be sure if she was blushing or if her cheeks were red from the summer heat.

Dating Frank was easy. They’d fallen into a bit of a routine and Mel felt content. Go to work; come home; eat dinner; spend time together; go to bed. And while their activities together sometimes varied, going from innocently watching a movie to getting their neighbors on the verge of a noise complaint, Mel felt content.

Then, Frank wanted to properly introduce his kids to her, and Mel’s world tilted on its axis slightly. She knew things were getting more serious and she’d expected them to, but it didn’t keep her from being nervous as hell to meet his children.

While Penny had taken to her without a hitch, Tanner was shy and quiet, barely wanting to engage with her when they first met. It had been a bit disheartening at first, but Mel couldn’t blame him. She didn’t know how she would’ve reacted if her parents divorced when she was a kid, but she can assume that it wouldn’t have been much different than Tanner.

Still, Mel tried her best to interact with the boy without being pushy and offering him space if he didn’t seem to want much to do with her. Her efforts seemed to pay off, eventually, when she managed to bond with him over making bracelets.

“I saw the one you made for your daddy,” Mel said. “You did a really good job. Do you think you could show me how you do it?”

“Okay.” A bashful look adorned Tanner’s face, but the tiny smile on his lips told Mel that he was flattered.

Mel spent the next hour or so nodding along to Tanner’s instructions and suggestions, every so often glancing up from where they’re sat on the livingroom floor to Frank. Penny was curled against his side on the couch, fast asleep with Frank’s arm around her. Mel and Frank shared a brief smile before Frank addressed Tanner.

“Alright kiddo, start wrapping up. It’s time for bed.”

“Aw, five more minutes?” Tanner whined, looking at Frank with the same big, pleading blue eyes they share.

“Tell you what,” Frank acquiesced, “I’ll go lay Penny down but when I come back, it’s your turn, deal?”

“Deal!”

As Frank carried Penny off to bed, Tanner did his best to hurry and finish the bracelet he’s making. By the time Frank had returned, Tanner was putting on the finishing touches.

“Alright, Tanner, bedtime,” Frank called patiently.

“One second!” Tanner didn’t look up from the bracelet, brow furrowed in concentration.

Before Frank could open his mouth to protest, Tanner was holding up his finished work, handing it to Mel, beaming.

The bracelet had a multitude of colorful beads, and in the middle, three white beads spelled her name.

“Here you go! A gift for you!”

Mel can’t sleep. She’s been feeling sick all day, barely able to get Frank to do anything more than fuss over her. She glances at the alarm clock on the bedside table, squinting slightly as the dull red numbers glare at her.

Just past midnight. 

Her stomach churns, and she curls her arms around her abdomen as another wave of nausea washes over her. It’s been like this all day; in and out of the bathroom. She’s fairly certain she and the toilet have become best friends while she deals with the stomach bug she’s caught, somehow. She chalks it up to the consequences of working in the hospital—it was only a matter of time before she got sick.

Still, she really could do without puking her guts out and not being able to keep anything down. The medicine she’s taken has hardly done anything to curb the feeling and she’s been avoiding telling Frank, not in the mood to be nagged to go to the hospital. She doesn’t want their coworkers in her business.

But, she can feel the nausea getting worse and knows that she has to get up—preferrably without waking Frank up—so she takes as much care as she can muster to move his arm from around her waist, before hurrying into the bathroom and closing the door behind her.

She empties the contents of her stomach into the toilet bowl for the umpteenth time and hears the bathroom door open beside her as she moves to start cleaning herself up.

Fuck. 

“Mel, baby, are you alright?” Frank asks, voice a mixture of groggy and worried. “The medicine isn’t working?”

Mel doesn’t look at him as she goes about brushing her teeth, eyes remaining on her reflection. “Not yet. I’ll take some more, don’t worry.”

Mel doesn’t even have to look at Frank to know what he’ll say next. “I seriously think we need to get you checked out.”

“It’ll pass,” she says, dismissively, around a mouthful of toothpaste. “Just give it a little more time.”

“Mel—”

“Frank, please.” Only now does Mel turn to look at him, indignant, but pleading. “Just one more day.”

“Fine.” Frank sighs, dragging a hand through his bedhead. “But if there’s no improvement by tomorrow we’re taking you to the ER.”

Mel could shudder at the thought. She resists the urge to fight him on it, not in the mood to start something this late. So, instead, she sighs back and reluctantly agrees. “Fine.”

A brief silence passes between them, but Frank seems satisfied with her response and says, “Okay… Are you ready to come back to bed?”

“In a minute.”

Frank really didn’t know what he was doing here. He hadn’t been to a bar in a little over a year— seemed kind of pointless since he wasn’t the type to drink anymore. Yet, here he was, having let his restlessness get the better of him. Besides, going out to enjoy what was left of the fourth seemed like a better alternative than sitting in an empty apartment, parsing through his streaming services for something to watch.

He’d only been there for a matter of minutes when—

“Next up on stage: Trinity Santos and Mel King!”

The crowd roared in encouragement and applause, and Frank was fairly certain he’d nearly injured his neck with the speed in which he turned to look.

Sure enough, there Mel stood, microphone in hand, singing along to the lyrics as Alanis Morrissette’s “You Oughta Know” began playing. Frank felt transfixed, feeling something stir in his chest as he watched her; the way she tried to find her footing, how she bounced around on the stage—

The way her hair framed her face upon being taken out of her signature braid.

Frank hadn’t ever seen Mel with her hair down, and suddenly had the overwhelming urge to touch it. He could already imagine how it would feel to run his fingers through it, to pull it as he—

He shook the thought from his mind, though he could hardly be blamed for thinking it when Mel was up on stage, scream-singing about being perverted and going down on someone in a theater. Goosebumps began forming at the thought and he wondered if the tingle in his face meant he was blushing.

He really shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be having these thoughts about Mel. The last thing she needs is to have to deal with his baggage. Yet, he stays rooted to the spot, even as the song comes to an end and she and Santos take a bow while the crowd erupts into applause.

He didn’t mean to seek her out, but being the cause of her nearly bumping into him could be argued as intentional. 

Mel looks at him, wide-eyed in surprise. “Dr. Langdon?”

“Oh god,” Santos says from beside her, not bothering to hide her displeasure. “What’re you doing here?”

“Am I not allowed to go out after work?” Frank asks, only a touch defensive.

Santos rolls her eyes, moving to push past him. “Whatever. I’m not drunk enough for this.”

Frank spares her a glance as she moves past before turning back to Mel.

“You were great up there,” Frank says, smiling. “I didn’t know you liked karaoke.”

Mel blushes, shyly tucking some of her hair behind her ear; Frank can’t help but let his gaze linger.

“Thank you, um— It was Trinity’s idea. I felt a little out of my element.”

“I couldn’t tell. You looked like a natural,” Frank says, and he thinks he sees her blush more. “Can I get you something to drink?”

Today, 7:21 AM Frank You’re not working today?

Mel Oh, no, sorry. I had to call out. Wasn’t feeling good when I woke up. Frank What’s wrong? Do you need anything? Mel I’m fine, just a cold I think. You don’t need to worry about me. 🙂

Frank You’re my friend, I’m always going to worry. I’ll bring you something after work.

Mel You really don’t have to do that. Frank??

Today, 9:32 AM Frank Sorry, trauma got called in. Still bringing you something after work. It’s not a problem.

Mel What happened? Sorry I wasn’t there to help. How much will I owe you?

Frank Degloving accident. Trust me, you’re lucky you didn’t have to see it. And don’t worry about that. You don’t owe me anything.

Mel Oh god. Just the thought makes me feel worse. Fine, but the next time you get sick I’ll do the same for you.

Frank Don’t worry, I’ll bring your favorite food and my brilliant sense of humor. Have you feeling better in no time. Not necessary

Mel Brilliant sense of humor?

Frank Are you trying to say that I’m not funny? Ouch.

Mel No, not at all! I mean, not that you’re not funny I meant no as in I don’t think you’re not funny!

Frank I know, I was just messing with you, Mel 😉

Mel Oh Ha-ha.

Frank I’m going to take that as a genuine, not at all sarcastic laugh. Laughter is the best medicine, after all.

Mel You always make me laugh. You’re funny 🙂

Frank You might actually be the only person besides my kids who thinks so

Mel That can’t be right. I would hope that the doctor who says the best treatment for my cold is laughter is actually funny, so

Frank You’ve got a point You’re also good at boosting my ego

Mel I guess I better be careful with that- wouldn’t want you getting a big head Bigger than it already is, I mean That was a joke

Frank Damn, shots fired, Dr. King Tell me how you really feel

Mel 🙂

Today, 8:26 PM Frank Sorry, got held up. I’ll be there in 30!