The Orchestra’s Second Fiddle

“There’s no way you actually need this many bottles.”

You walk into the kitchen to see Brendon standing at the counter, staring in disbelief at your admittedly large collection of water bottles. It’s not your fault though. Some people collect stamps or spoons or Pokémon cards; you just so happen to have a weak spot for overly-price liquid containers.

“How else am I supposed to stay hydrated?”

He arches one dark brow.

“What the fuck are you talking about? You’re the least hydrated person I know. You drink one cup of water every three days.”

“How dare you.”

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

Your mouth opens and closes, but no words come out. Anything you say would be a lie, and he knows it. He smirks. You shoot him a dirty look and hip-check him out of the way while pretending you don’t see the smirk widen further.

“It’s at least every two days,” you mutter.

You hear him huff a laugh behind you before arms circle your waist and pull you against a broad chest. You do your best to ignore him for a minute, pulling water bottles out of the cardboard packing box and setting them on the white marble countertop, but it becomes harder to concentrate when he starts dropping kisses behind your ear and down your neck.

“Stop being sweet. I’m mad at you.”

“Hmm?”

“You’re being mean.”

Another kiss.

“Am not.”

“Yes you are, it’s your default setting. You can’t help it.”

Another laugh now, this one breathed out against the top of your head. 

“How about we go get you another completely useless water bottle to make up for it.”

A stronger woman would resist. You cave immediately. 

“Really?”

He answers by reaching across the counter to grab his keys. 

Knowing you have one hundred percent been managed and one hundred percent not caring, you fairly skip to the mudroom to put your shoes on. Brendon’s been in an exceptionally good mood all weekend, and you plan on capitalizing on it to scam as many water bottles out of him as possible. Clearly able to sense the direction of your thoughts, he nudges you with his shoulder once he joins you in the mudroom and says-

“One.”

“But-“

“We do not have enough cabinet space to support your addiction.”

The we sits bright and loud in the space between you two, and the smug satisfaction he’s been radiating for days intensifies five fold.

You’d defended your dissertation two weeks ago, at 11:00 AM on a Monday morning. Brendon had waited until approximately 1:04 PM to corner you.

“You’re moving in,” he says.

Your brain blue-screens for a second, and you stare blankly at him.

“Huh?”

“We’re professional equals now. Fuck HR. You’re moving in.”

“That didn’t sound like a question.”

“It’s not, but I can phrase it like one if it makes you feel better.”

You fight a smile.

“And what if I say no?”

“Then I drop it. But we both know you won’t.”

“You’re presumptuous.”

“I’m correct.”

You scowl at him but don’t protest. He might be annoying, but he’s also right. You spend almost every night at his place anyways, and your apartment is little more than a glorified storage unit at this point. There’s no real reason to refuse, except maybe wiping that smug look off of his face.

You hadn’t refused. 

It’d taken a bit of time to get your lease straightened out and to pack up your stuff, but you had officially turned in your apartment keys on Friday. Now two days later, your house keys sit in the same bowl as his, and your bags hang next to each other on the wall. Your shoes are lined up neatly beneath his on the shoe rack, and your car sits next to his in the garage. 

“You’re one to talk,” you argue as the two of you get into his 4Runner. “You have fifty million shaker bottles.”

He rolls his eyes hard enough for them to get stuck and starts backing out of the garage. 

“I actually use my bottles,” he fires back.

“So do I!”

“Yeah. To carry water around all day before dumping it in the sink when you get home because it’s not cold anymore.”

“I’m moving out.”

His lips twitch, and he reaches out to rest a hand on your knee. His thumb traces absent patterns on the skin bared by your sundress, and you feel the ire slowly leave your body. You’re well aware that you’re being managed again, but it’s not your fault it’s working. The black t-shirt he’s waring is snug across his chest and biceps, and his jeans fit him unfairly well. His hair is tousled and product-free, and the late-afternoon sun has highlighted the dark strands gold. He can manage you all he wants if you get to keep ogling him. 

Unfortunately, your phone chiming cuts off your staring, and you sigh as you fish it out of your pocket. Your annoyance vanishes when you see the name on the screen.

It’s an email from Massachusetts General. You scan the important parts quickly — job offer, Associate Director of Clinical AI & Patient Flow Innovation, relocation stipend. Emphasis on shared rights to the predictive patient flow model you’d developed. Your heart starts pounding like you’re staring down a bear. Two weeks ago you were a grad student with basically no money and about as much professional prestige as a pencil. Now you’re looking at a job offer from one of the top trauma centers in the country.

“Y/n?”

Brendon’s voice startles you enough you nearly drop your phone.

“I, uh, Mass Gen sent an offer.”

The worry on his face transforms into the most smug, most superior smirk you’ve ever seen in the blink of an eye. 

“You didn’t apply to Mass Gen.”

It’s not a question.

“No.”

This is the third time a hospital has sent an unprompted offer. The first had been Geisinger Medical, closely followed by Mercy in New York. You’d been surprised by the first, shocked by the second, and you’re now floored by the third. An offer from Massachusetts General Hospital is a big deal, like a really big deal. If you’d thought you felt imposter syndrome pre-defense, you’re drowning in it now.

“This makes eight,” you say faintly.

Mass Gen brings the total number of offers you’ve received up to eight, which is frankly insane for someone fresh out of school. Sure, a lot of places will count your years doing research as a grad student as years of work experience, but still. Most of these hospitals are offering ridiculous salaries in exchange for rights to your model design. Salaries that feel almost unreal after years of pitiful grad school stipends. Like he can read your mind, Brendon says-

“Told you your model was going to make you rich. I’m still expecting my cut.”

Instead of laughing like you’re sure he expected, your stomach suddenly becomes a ball of nerves, and you tug restlessly at a loose thread on your dress.

“I think I’m still going to go with PTMC.”

He takes his eyes off the road long enough to shoot you a look that’s equal parts disbelief and disapproval.

“What are you talking about? Their offer was insulting. They lowballed the shit out of you.”

“Yeah, well.”

You refuse to look at him when you say-

“The other places don’t have you.”

Silence fills the car, and you briefly consider just jumping out of it. Sure, you guys live together now and you’ve discussed marriage more than once, but that doesn’t mean you’re not nervous confessing just how important he is to you. Feminist you is chewing on drywall at the thought of making life decisions based on a man, but… It’s Brendon. 

Grumpy, sarcastic Brendon who says you have the diet of a pigeon and the survival instincts of a panda. Protective, possessive Brendon who always wants to know where you are and never goes to sleep until you’re home. Brendon who calls you a gremlin and treats you like a queen, who would rather gnaw his arm off than say something nice but who holds you like you’re the most important thing in his world.

Brendon, who is currently looking at you like you hung the moon. 

Brendon, who opens his mouth and says-

“Well that’s fucking stupid.

It’s such a Brendon answer that you can’t help but laugh. Especially since he follows it up by grabbing your hand and brining it to his mouth. He presses a lingering kiss there, jaw tight and mouth gentle. 

“That model is going to make whatever hospital you choose millions, and you have your pick of the field. You’re an idiot if you settle for a shit offer because-”

“But I’m your idiot.”

It’s ridiculous enough to shut him up. His jaw works like he’s either deeply touched or deeply annoyed — you’re one hundred percent sure it’s the latter — and he exhales slowly through his nose. But he doesn’t let go of your hand, and the glare he shoots you is only at sixty-percent strength. 

“Still a fucking idiot,” he mutters.

But he drops the topic and doesn’t mention it the rest of the night. At least out loud. He keeps you closer than usual, discontent when you wander out of reaching distance. His scowls are halfhearted at best, and he only calls you gremlin twice. Most telling, he stands quietly behind you while you spend ten years choosing between two nearly identical shades of red, content to just hold you and drop the occasional kiss on top of your head. 

And when you go home that night, it’s with two new water bottles and a set of colorful straws.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

You’ve walked into PTMC dozens of times, spent hundreds of hours meandering the halls and observing various departments. You wrote large portions of your dissertation here, and you practically lived in the second floor office you’d been assigned in the weeks leading up to your defense. But walking in now feels more weighted than it ever has. The hospital is expecting an answer to its offer in the next few days, and you still have no idea what you’re going to do. It feels like the walls can sense your indecision and are judging you for it. 

You grimace and try not to make eye contact with anyone as you push through the revolving doors. At least you’re not here in any official capacity. There’s little chance of you running into anyone on the hiring committee, especially since it’s just past six on a Monday morning. Night shift is exhausted and waiting to go home, and the day workers haven’t started arriving yet. To be honest, you’re not even sure why you’re here right now.

Well, that’s not completely true. Brendon usually left the house while you were still asleep, but he’d woken you up that morning and told you to meet him at the hospital before his first consult of the day. You’d been too tired to argue at five AM, which apparently meant you’d agreed, so here you are, sleepy and more than a little confused. 

You glance down at your phone again to check the text he’d sent. Meet me in your shoebox it says. That only confuses you more — why he would want to meet in your cramped not-even-really-yours-anymore office when he has a much nicer one two floors up, you have no idea. Still, the abrasiveness makes you smile fondly as you take the stairs to the second floor. 

You’re walking down the hall to your old office when a hand reaches out to grab your arm and drags you through an open doorway. You’re about to scream, but a familiar hand claps over your mouth before you can. 

It takes a second for your eyes to adjust to the dimmer light in this new room. When they do, you turn to find Brendon smirking at you, and you’re torn between wanting to smack him and wanting to kiss him. It’s been less than two hours since you last saw him, but it doesn’t matter. He looks so stupidly attractive with his stupid scrubs and his stupid stethoscope and his stupid perfect hair. It makes it hard to stay mad, even though he deserves it, which only makes you madder.

“You’re lucky I didn’t punch you by accident,” you snap. 

He rolls his eyes.

“I think I’d have survived just fine, but yeah, thank god.”

You start weighing the pros and cons of first degree murder.

“You are such a-“

“Recognize where we are?”

Unsure if he’s just trying to distract you, you shoot him one last glare before glancing around. It’s a supply closet. Cramped, cluttered, and tucked around a forgotten corner down the hall from administration. The sole working light looks like it’s hanging on for dear life, and the shelves hold more dust than anything else. It’s clearly not used much, if at all, and it’s unclear whether the faint rattling coming from the corner is the old radiator or an evil spirit.

You beam at him, and his lips quirk.

It’s where the two of you met. Months ago, when you’d been temporarily booted from your shoe cupboard office and had needed somewhere to work. You’d discovered this closet had an ethernet port and had camped out on the dusty floor to try and work. Brendon had found you like that, muttering to yourself in the dark, and had looked at you the way other people look at particularly ugly bugs.

Closet gremlin he’d called you.  

“You made me get up early so we could visit the place you first insulted me?”

But you’re smiling as you say the words, and his lips curve in answer to yours. His right hand lifts high enough to touch your cheek, while the other slips into his scrub pocket. 

“Among other things.”

“What other things? Because I could still be slee-, oh.”

His left hand comes back out of the pocket, but it’s not empty. It’s holding a small box. Plain, black velvet with a tiny gold clasp on the front. Your gaze darts from the box to his face then back again, and your mouth opens, but no sound comes out. You feel more than hear his low, amused hum, and the sound travels in one ear before bouncing around the empty space where your brain used to be. 

Slowly, he opens the lid and shows you the ring inside.

The band is a warm yellow-gold, domed and slender. In the center sits a large oval diamond, held in place by four golden prongs. It’s flanked on either side by two smaller, round diamonds that taper into the band, and all the diamonds sparkle despite the closet’s dim lighting. You stop breathing. It’s delicate and classy and perfect and-

“I thought we made a rule about no crying before seven.”

His voice breaks the spell freezing you in place, and you let out a wet, slightly hysterical laugh.

“You made a rule about no crying before seven.”

He snorts and reaches for your hand. He doesn’t wait for an answer to the question he never even asked before slipping the ring over your fourth finger.

“You said you wanted to pick PTMC because I’m here, like you staying in Pittsburgh is a prerequisite to us.”

Something vulnerable and violent crosses his face when he looks at the gold encasing your finger.

“It’s not. You’re mine no matter where you go.”

That shouldn’t make the tears worse, but oh, it does. You do your best to blink them away before they fall, which does nothing but make them fall faster, and your lower lip wobbles. One of his hands comes up to brush away the tears on your cheek. His expression is the softest you’ve ever seen.

“I don’t care where you choose, imp, but you’re going to choose it as my wife.”

You let out another half-laugh, half-sob.

“That didn’t sound like a question.”

“It’s not, but I can phrase it like one if it makes you feel better.”

Then, gentler-

“I’m serious, sweetheart. You’re mine, and I’ll go with you wherever you choose.”

You love him so much it makes your chest ache. Only Brendon Park could demand you meet him in a dusty supply closet at six in the morning on a Monday, inform you that you’re going to get married, and still somehow make you cry with the romanticism of it all. 

“Yes,” you smile tearfully. “To your not-a-question.”

His answering smile makes your heart stop. It’s not a smirk or reluctant grin or annoyed curl of his lip. It’s a full, genuine, happy smile that steals your breath. He slips the ring box back into his pocket and pulls you firmly against his chest, his mouth meeting yours in a kiss that feels like a vow.

“I love you,” you breathe against his lips.

“I tolerate you.”

You stomp on his foot, and he snorts.

“Was that supposed to hurt?”

“How dare-, that’s it. I change my answer. No, I will not-”

“I love you, too.”

You scowl and huff, but allow him to kiss the irritation out of you. The closet feels like your own little world inside the hospital, and you melt into his arms with a happy sigh. He kisses you for a long, lazy moment. Eventually though, his pager goes off and reminds both of you that he does, tragically, actually have to work today.

“Fucking interns,” he mutters after checking the message. 

“Be nice.”

“It’s not my fault they can’t perform a simple procedure correctly.”

Fighting a grin, you tiptoe to press one last kiss against his jaw. 

“You’re one to talk. I’m pretty sure proposing is supposed to include kneeling.”

He shoots you a disgusted look.

“This is a hospital supply closet. I’m not touching whatever cesspool is fermenting on the floor.”

“I’ve sat on this floor.”

“Yeah, well like I’ve said before, you’re an idiot.”

There’s no bite to the words, and you can’t hold back the grin this time.

“But I’m your idiot.”

He heaves a sigh like the weight of the world is on his shoulders, but you see the answering smile threatening the corner of his mouth. He brings your left hand up to his lips and presses a kiss to the diamond glittering on your fourth finger, eyes soft.