Then there was the rumour that you were married to one of the social workers. A tall, lean man who Princess and Perlah had seen getting a little too close one day while you discussed a peds case with him. His hand lingering on your shoulder half a second too long, the way his eyes traced your face and body and how he angled himself a little closer than professional boundaries usually allowed. What they didn’t see was the roll of your eyes, your shuffle backwards and the way you pushed his hand off your shoulder with a disgusted look. They also didn’t see the way your actual husband's hands clenched at his sides, the way his jaw ticked and how his eyes narrowed into a glare that was menacing.

As most rumours are, none of the ones you had heard had quite hit the mark yet and when you colleagues tried to pull more information out of you, you remind them you don’t like bringing your personal life into the hospital and need to separate your doctor persona and your wife persona when you enter the doors of the ED.  The only ones who knew were HR, Dana and Doctor Robinavitch and that was only so they could make sure your relationship never interfered with work, which it never did. 

But then a new rumour started, a small one that didn’t quite reach your ears. Spoken in hushed tones across the nurses station and in between patients, going quite when either you or your husband approached. Prying (but loving) eyes now watching every moment for an indication of truth. 

It started with Donnie and Mataeo. It’s an early spring morning, darkness just not seeping away as the sun starts to rise showering the city in the deep indigos and blues of pre-dawn. The air is chilly and crisp, the winter cold still lingering in the air around them. They’re tired, it’s early. Far too early to be a functional human being, especially with Donnie being up with his little one during the night, and while they’ve already consumed enough coffee to kill a small horse they’re brains are lagging just that little bit. 

Then they see you, bundled up in a hoodie that is far too big and definitely doesn’t belong to you, with two cups of coffee in your hands as you climb out of the passenger side of a car that also isn’t yours (they had been in your car before, having given them rides after long double or triple shifts where it unsafe for them to drive themselves). Then they see Frank Langdon, climbing out of the driver's side, a small smile on his face as he laughs at whatever story you were telling. 

They both clock it as strange immediately. The softness in both your postures. The way your fingers brush lightly against one another as you trade your bag for his coffee. How close your standing, voices whispering low and almost conspiratorily. How the ER Ken Doll and golden prodigy seemed sweet with you. They don’t put two and two together, not yet. 

Especially as you both see them and take a small step away from one another before joining them at the staff entrance of the parking garage. Frank gives a curt nod and a ‘morning’ before continuing into the hospital, whereas you greet them with kind smiles and questions about how they are, how Donnie’s little one is doing, insisting he show you photos as you dig through your bag and pull out a tin of cookies you had baked the night before for him to take home for his wife. 

Momentarily distracted by your kindness and charm they file what they saw away for a later time, instead continuing the conversation as they walk with you to the locker room. It’s later, during a small lull where they’ve gathered with Princess, Perlah and Jesse doing charts, that Mataeo catches sight of you and Frank again. You’re looking over the case board, shoulders pressed together despite the fact that there’s plenty of room around you, and he nudges Donnie quietly. 

Princess and Perlah notice the interaction and insist they tell them what they know, the guilty looks on their faces being enough for the two women to know they have a new piece of gossip to share. When Mataeo and Donnie share what they saw, Perlah brushes them off, hand waving in the air with a roll of her eyes almost disbelieving. She doesn’t believe it, neither does Princess as she comments on how you, the personification of sunshine, and Frank Langdon, arrogant and sometimes egotistical, would never work. Never mind as a married couple. So, for a moment they drop it. 

Then the rumour starts up again, this time amongst the doctors. It’s a quiet spring day, in the few weeks just before summer where the sun sits high in the sky and its golden light illuminates and warms the city. There’s new life in the air, trees returning to a vibrant green and flowers blooming throughout the city. Spring showers and afternoon thunderstorms bring in a crisp, cleanliness to space. A city now full of new beginnings and stories being written. 

You and Frank had taken the time on your shared day off to relax, explore, do some shopping and maybe get some new decor pieces to shift away from the winter cool of your apartment and brighten it up a little bit.  Your first stop of the day was a café, far enough away from the hospital that you were sure no one would see you together because honestly you didn’t want to try and explain a logical reason why the two of you were out together.

It was an adorable spot, with garlands and hanging baskets lining the veranda and cute striped beach umbrellas in the middle of circular tablets to protect from both the sun and the rain. There was even a flower wall as you walked in, currently it was decorated with pinks and reds and white perfect colours for the spring time bloom and laced with local wildflowers that smelled divine.  

You got some breakfast and coffee and just as you finished up your food, you excused yourself to go to the bathroom. Not even two minutes later, Garcia walks into the café and she immediately spots Frank sitting at a two person table, where there’s two empty plates and nearly done coffees. She eyes it suspiciously, eyes snagging on the jacket and purse hanging on the chair opposite him. 

She recognised them, having seen you wear both on a night out a few weeks prior. Then the sun catches Frank’s left hand, his golden wedding band glistening in the golden light. This causes Yolanda to raise her eyebrows just a tad, questions forming in her mind. Were you both having an affair? Just spending time together outside of work? 

She knew you were married but she didn’t know Frank was. She rarely saw the two interact at the hospital, and when she did you were usually bickering over a course of treatment. Your eyes rolling sarcastically as he spoke, his following you around the room after a small disagreement over patient care or the way he hogged all the high stakes cases. 

But the more she thought about it, the more she remembered the light playfulness in your eyes as you glared at him, how there was never any malice in your words. How his eyes weren’t stern or hard, but soft and observational. Like he was checking in instead of just watching to make sure you were doing something right. There was a ‘click’ in her mind, information slotting into place like a jigsaw puzzle where she was finally starting to understand the image. Then her name was called, she grabbed her coffee and walked out, already pulling her phone out to call Trinity. 

Yolanda wasn’t one for gossip, not really, but she sometimes liked to talk through her observations to try and get a full picture. Speaking the words helping her visualise, so she tells Trinity what she saw, how she was sure it was your jacket and purse. How you were either married to each other, or having an affair. And of course, Trinity had her on speaker so Dennis heard everything. Then word got to Cassie and Samira and Victoria and Mel (who refused to participate in idle gossip about her co-workers and friends), and finally to Robby who just let out a sigh and shut it down immediately. This was a work place, not a high-school cafeteria after all. But the rumour still lived on, in text threads and hushed conversations now between the doctors and nurses as Princess and Perlah caught wind of what Garcia saw. 

Never one to be swept up in drama and gossip, keeping to himself and filing information away for later but never spilling secrets that weren’t his, Jesse is the next one to join the fray of co-workers trying to figure out if you and Frank are together, or having an affair, or are just extremely close. 

It’s early in the morning, clock just ticking over 6:45 and you and Frank are in the locker room, currently you’re the only ones there. A quiet sanctuary where you’re undisturbed before the day begins. It’s clean, a floral fragrance flowing through the space from a diffuser one of the orderlies had placed claiming the staff needed something to break up the smell of antiseptic and blood and sickness that permeates the rest of the ED at all times. Something to remind you of softness and beauty in a world where you see unimaginable horrors and pain. 

You’re leaning against your locker, head tilted back as you take a few deep breaths. You had been up during the night multiple times to be sick, some unknown ailment keeping you awake and draining your energy. Frank had insisted you call in sick, say you have norovirus and can’t be with patients, but you insisted you were fine. Had spent time before you left the house checking your temperature and vitals and symptoms to make sure you weren’t contagious, and given that Frank wasn’t also sick, you determined it was okay to go into work. 

Frank stands in front of you, hand placed on your hip as he lazily rubs soft circles into your skin through your scrubs. His head is placed in the crook of your neck, where he places soft lazy kisses against your skin, a reassurance that he’s here and he’s got you. He pulls away for just a moment, to look you in the eyes. He looks stern, but it's full of comfort and concern.

“You let me know if you need to take a break today okay? Promise me if you start to feel sick again you’ll let Robby know and go home and rest.”

There’s a quiet, desperate plea in his voice, all he wants is for you to be okay but he isn’t going to force you to do something you don’t want to. He just hopes that you’ll listen to his concern. You nod gently, hand reaching out to cup his cheek and pull him in for a soft kiss.

“I promise.”

Your voice is soft, a whisper that’s barely heard over the creaking of hinges as the door opens. The two of you force yourself apart, Frank immediately turning to his own locker facing yours as you close your eyes and rest your head against the back of your locker again. It's a practised dance, both you feigning indifference towards one another in moments surrounded by co-workers. 

When you open your eyes again, you offer Jesse a soft smile as he looks at you with concern. You’re a little paler than usual and your eyes are red rimmed. He can’t tell if it's from crying, being sick, or a lack of sleep. But he still eyes Frank a little suspiciously, as if he had said something to upset you. He can feel a lingering tension in the air, like he walked in on something he shouldn’t have but as usual, he just files it away. 

He offers a kind smile as he approaches you, back of his hand pressing into your forehead to check your temperature and you swat his hand away playfully.

“You look like shit.”

You let out an incredulous laugh and roll your eyes as you push off your locker, “I’m fine, just didn’t sleep well.” 

Jesse nods, as if he almost believes you but takes a step back to go into his locker next to yours. While he puts his stuff away, he keeps an eye on you out of the corner of his eyes. Can see how Frank's fingers twitch almost imperceptively at his sides as he fiddles with his phone with the other. There’s nothing on the screen, the phone still locked, as if he’s paying attention to something or someone else instead and is using the phone as a way to make it look like he wasn’t. Another piece of information filed away in Jesse’s mind. 

He talks to you for a few minutes, filling out the time before any of you have to go onto the ED floor, eyes scanning and watching your reactions as Frank joins in with a few comments. How you’ve gravitated just a little closer to him almost imperceptively (a single step here, another there as you try and wake up a bit more and shake yourself out). Jesse is first to leave the locker room, and as he does he notices the way Frank's hand reaches out for yours and laces your fingers together for just half a second before he lets go and you both start heading towards the door. 

For the rest of shift, Jesse quietly observes the two of you. See’s how Frank hovers close by in between patients. How he hands you a fresh water bottle and protein bar without you even asking. How his eyes follow you around the room in between patients. His hand hovering over your back as he moves behind you. Small, in-between moments that are usually missed in the chaos of the ED and are missed by everyone else as they deal with patients and charts and upset family members. All of it filed away and when Princess notices him watching, she narrows his eyes and tries to get him to spill what he’s seen but he refuses. But that’s enough confirmation for her to know something was definitely going on. 

The final nail in the coffin for the rumours comes from Samira. She’s one of your closest friends at The Pitt and after dealing with a rough trauma together a few days before, you two had decided you needed a girls day out filled with manicures, pedicures, brunch and a trip to your favourite bar where there was going to be a drag performance later that night. 

It’s early summer, temperatures are still rising and the skies are practically cloudless. The steely grey of winter vanishes completely and reveals the lush colours of trees and flowers as everything has finally come to bloom. There’s a bustle in the city, roads and pavements clear enough for cyclists and runners to venture out safely. A constant pulse of activity thrumming through like a heart beat. 

It’s eleven am when she arrives at your place, you agreed to be designated driver for the day because you were still feeling a bit ill but you didn’t need alcohol to have fun, and as she approaches the door she freezes for just a second. There’s voices. Two to be exact, one she instantly recognises as yours despite being muffled from behind the door and another, deeper, male voice. Of course Samira knew you were married, though she had yet to meet your husband and when she had asked about him you just said you were keeping it private for now because you knew how gossipy the ED could get (the current speculation about you and Langdon only proving that point). 

The voice is familiar, the baritone one she recognises but she can’t quite place through the distortion of the door. There’s a moment of stillness, of silence as the voices fade behind the door and instead replaced with shuffling. Then Samira knocks and a few moments later you open the door wide with a friendly smile. 

Instinctively, Samira looks past you just a little bit but not enough to be obvious. Her mind desperate for some sort of confirmation about what she already knew was true. Her eyes catch a hoodie flung haphazardly over the sofa. It's a collegiate hoodie, the name branded onto the back and the emblem on the arm, but it’s not your alma mater. It’s Franks. 

Then there’s the two cups of coffee sitting on the coffee table, yours branded with lipgloss and another (still steaming and only half-drunk) is a gimmicky mug labelled ‘Dr. Ken’ that she remembers someone gifting to Frank on his birthday. The light catches on the coffee table, highlighting an old well-worn book, and there’s a glimmer of recognition as something Frank had spoken about being passed down to him by his father. 

Samira stills for a beat, heart hammering in her chest as everything slots into place. There’s no affair. There’s no sordid scandal or love story. But a quiet lived domesticity of a husband and wife, who loved in the quiet moments and didn’t let it impact their professional lives. It all made sense now. The secrecy. The way you kept your husband and home-life close to your chest. You couldn’t bring it into work with you, because that meant also bringing work home. You needed the distinct lines of doctor and husband and wife and human. 

So she doesn’t say anything, just smiles and asks if you’re ready to go. The next day at work, when Trinity corners her knowing she was at your place, she holds her hands up and washes her hands of the rumour, removing herself from this particular gossip mill, saying there’s nothing to tell. Of course, Trinity’s disappointed and rolls her eyes not believing it for a second. But she lets it go, assuming like any rumour does, it will die off or be proven true. 

It's two weeks later that it all comes to a head. The sun is just starting to set, vibrant purples and pinks and oranges filtering through the windows of your bedroom and decorating it in a beautiful kaleidoscope of colour. Frank is sitting in the bed, phone in his hand as he mindlessly scrolls through social media while waiting on you to finish in the bathroom. There’s a hum of music playing from your own phone, muted by the closed door but Frank can still hear your voice softly singing behind it and it brings a smile to his face. 

Then there’s a text on his screen, one from Mel, and he chuckles slightly as he reads it. 

“Hey honey?”

You open the door, leaning against the frame and folding your arms over your chest, something obviously being hidden under your elbow. “Yeah?”

Frank looks up to you and smiles brightly, eyes scanning your exposed thigh and how his t-shirt hangs loosely off one of your shoulders. You chuckle with a roll of your eyes and raise an eyebrow at him, motioning for him to continue.

“Mel just texted me. Apparently, we’re cheating on our spouses with one another.”

You let out an ironic laugh, tipping forward slightly and shaking your head at the absurdity. You had known for a while now there were rumours about you and Frank, had heard the quiet whispers and seen the conspiratorial looks people would give any time you interacted. You let them be, let it live and follow its course to death like other rumours, but you never imagined it would reach this point. 

You smile gently at Frank, eyebrows raised as you unfold your arms and hold up the positive pregnancy test you had been hiding, “Maybe it’s time we tell them the truth.”

There’s a beat of silence. Frank’s eyes moving to your hand and bulging so wide you’re surprised they don’t pop out. Then there’s a smile, a joyous laugh as he jumps out of the bed and rushes to you, easily lifting you into his arms and placing a kiss against your lips as you giggle at his reaction. He places you down again, hand drifting up under his your shirt where he rubs soft circles into the skin of your stomach. 

He places his forehead against your, eye lashes fluttering softly as he closes his eyes and just holds you for a bit. It’s almost reverent the way he touches you, like he can’t believe he has you in his life and he thanks all the gods that exist that he does. There’s a press of lips to your forehead, his chin settling on top of your head, another moment of shared joy and silence.

“We’ll get an appointment with an OB first, just to make sure everything's okay and then we’ll tell them.”

Frank's voice is soft, a whisper and a promise all at once and you can’t help but smile and nod as you wrap your arms around him. 

You get lucky with your OB, she’s an old friend from college who had helped tutor you during your undergrad while she completed med school and helped write your admission essay, and you’re able to get in the next day. Luckily, it was a day off for both you and Frank. She confirms, the baby is happy and healthy and based on your last period and size of the baby you’re around 10 weeks pregnant. 

You both get a copy of the ultrasound photos and the next day at work, you tape them to the inside of your lockers. Your rings are no longer hidden on a chain, but displayed proudly on your finger and Frank is the same. The gold band matching yours glinting in the early morning light as you walk into the ED hand in hand. There’s some looks, weary glances as some glares as people think you’re being brazen now parading your affair partner around the ED. But it’s quickly forgotten as you share your news with Dana and Robby, letting them know you’ve already sent an email to HR. Dana wraps you in a warm hug as Robby claps Frank on the back in congratulations. 

There’s no grand announcement. No shouting across the ED to confirm your relationship. Just a quiet acceptance, eyes now softening as they realise how far gone the rumour had gone and that you were not having an affair, but were each other's spouse. There’s smiles and hugs from Samira and Jesse, who had it all figured out, and shocked looks from Perlah and Princess as it finally registered in their brain that you and Frank are actually a couple. 

You’re only about three or four months into your recent move to Pittsburgh when you get sick. And you’re one of those, special, lucky people who has the immune system of an un-vaccinated Victorian orphan, so despite having several hours worth of college assignments waiting for you, you’re currently lying on your bathroom floor, face smashed against the cool tile.

It is, genuinely, the only comfortable place in your shitty apartment. (At the moment.)

You pull the thermometer out of your mouth and slowly blink at the reading:

100.2 degrees.

Like you usually are. Just barely outside the normal range. Well, normal range can eat bricks because there’s no way having a mild fever is making you feel this bad. And you’re not being dramatic. Your throat genuinely feels like it’s on fire, and every breath is laborious and agonizing. Your face and head feel like they’re about to explode, and you’re pretty sure someone or something is stabbing you over and over again in your legs and lower back (which also feel like they’re on fire.)

Time passes in a weird way on the bathroom floor. Not really slow, but the pain and discomfort of each breath keeps it from moving too quickly.

You recognize, distantly, that you’re really sick. Really sick even for you.

There usually comes a certain point in the common cold that never fails to absolutely destroy you when it faces a fork in the road: get better or get much, much worse.

It’s fairly obvious which path your immune system decided to take.

There’s a large puddle of drool wetting your cheek because swallowing hurts too bad, and it’s not like you can breathe through your nose anyway. You don’t even have the energy to be grossed out.

You never really do.

Being sick is all about distracting yourself from how much pain you’re in until the worst of it passes, but right now you’re only getting worse. You can’t keep anything down, not even water, which means you’ve just been digesting snot for the past two hours which is bound to make you throw up (again.) No matter what kind of sickness you get, you always end up throwing up.

You measure how much time has passed by how large the puddle of drool grows. When it surpasses hand-sized, you attempt to haul yourself up, maybe take some more ibuprofen (you really shouldn’t, your liver is honestly toast at this point) but upon making an effort, you find that you can’t.

It feels like executive dysfunction. You want to get up. You need to get up. You cannot get up.

You’re so tired.

Alarm bells are ringing in your head. The same alarm bells that went off the time you had walking pneumonia and genuinely came to terms with dying in your sleep. It’s a spike of panic in your chest, a small dump of adrenaline and cortisol that’s just barely enough for you to haul yourself upright.

The action takes more energy than it feels worth, and you feel like your heart is going to beat out of your chest.

You kind of feel like you’re dying. And honestly, with how bad you feel, you wouldn’t mind going to sleep and not waking up.

And that isn’t a usual thought to have when you’re sick, not to level of sheer apathy and exhaustion you’re feeling now, so you think that maybe it’s time to go to the Emergency Room.

You come to that conclusion about the same time that your roommate, who you aren’t quite friends with, comes into the bathroom and promptly screams when she finds you lying on the floor. (You don’t remember lying back down.)

“Hey,” She says, kneeling down and shaking your shoulder, “I think you need to go to the hospital.”

—

On another day, maybe when you don’t actually feel like death warmed over, you might be thankful that there is at least someone to take you to the hospital, to grab your hospital bag (you’d had to tell her where it was when you first moved in, and being a medical student herself, had understood your need for it) and to already have the route to the ED memorized. Probably because she currently works there.

“You’ll be fine,” Victoria rambles as she pulls into the parking lot with practiced ease, “I’ve worked with the night crew before, they’re great. They’ll make you feel better.”

Unlikely, you think.

Maybe you look particularly awful, or maybe it’s not that busy in the ED, or maybe you get some sort of special treatment as the roommate of a medical student, but before you know it, you’re shivering in a triage bed, still drooling uselessly into a wad of paper towels Victoria had been kind enough to shove into your hands.

It’s weird being in a hospital that doesn’t know you.

Nurses come and go, asking questions you barely answer and poking and prodding and you think, probably, that you should communicate that while on the worse end of the spectrum, this is still fairly normal for you. Being this sick from the common cold.

You think Victoria is talking to whoever is working on you, and then you’re in a wheelchair, and then they run more tests you don’t remember and then you’re in a bed.

“Dr. Abbot is gonna come see you,” Victoria tells you, looking mildly uncomfortable in a chair to your left.

She's honestly been so nice for this whole thing. Like, way too nice, considering that you guys aren't really friends (yet?)

“You should go home,” You tell her, speech really only possible because of the Toradol they gave you a few minutes ago, “You have work in the morning.”

She purses her lips and looks like she’s going to argue, so you painfully swallow and speak again.

“Go. I’ll be fine here. You said it yourself.”

It takes a few minutes to get the words out, and you have to pause more than once, which probably isn’t very reassuring, but logic seems to win out because she makes sure that you have everything you need before heading out.

And then you’re alone.

You attempt to pass the time by sleeping, to no avail. Discomfort, ever the unwanted companion, makes itself incredibly known. The Toradol helps, but since it’s basically just ibuprofen in IV form, there’s only so much it can do.

You’re just about to slip into a doze when a knock on the door frame rouses you. As the current pulls back, you have exactly one thought:

Victoria could’ve warned me that Dr. Abbot is insanely fucking hot.

“Hello there,” The man says, grabbing some hand-sanitizer which only served to extenuate the rippling muscles and veins of his forearms and biceps, “I’m Dr. Abbot. Javadi told me you weren’t feeling so good?”

Okay, focus. He can definitely see the heart-rate spike on the monitor. He’s just another doctor. You’ve had hot doctors before.

(Not like him.)

You shrug with the non-chalance of a twenty-something year old who has designated hospital clothes.

“Been better.” Kind of.

“Well, let’s see if we can’t get you better.”

He asks the same series of questions that Javadi helped you answer before since your brain still feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, but Dr. Abbot is patient and listens attentively while you stumble through answering every single one.

“Any pre-existing conditions?”

“Yes and no.”

He raises an eyebrow, finger hovering over the tablet in his other hand. “That sounds like a story.”

You wince. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be difficult.”

“You’re totally fine,” He immediately soothes before you can continue, voice rich and smooth like high-quality chocolate, “You’re actually the nicest patient we’ve had so far tonight.”

“Really?”

“Yep. No screaming, no cursing, you haven’t asked a billion and one questions or needed anyone to explain every single thing we’re doing.”

He grabs one of the spinny-stools on the other side of the room and wheels it over, sitting down with his tablet in his lap.

“Now. About those pre-existing conditions?”

You slowly and painfully explain your situation— very obviously chronically ill to pretty much everyone except the doctors you need to diagnose you.

Dr. Abbot doesn’t interrupt, doesn’t defend the doctors you’ve seen, just dutifully jots down everything you tell him.

“Any history of heart issues?”

You nod. “I went to a cardiologist last year and did a few tests. Second degree AV block, um, I think Mobitz one? And mild diastolic dysfunction.”

Another eyebrow raise. “And your cardiologist didn’t decide to move forward with any sort of treatment plans?”

“Just diet and exercise. He told me to drink more water.”

“That’s bullshit.”

Your eyes widen. “Sorry?”

He sighs, looking up from his tablet. “I apologize, that was unprofessional of me. I agree that Mobitz one is normally benign, so long as you’re asymptomatic or old. But coupled with that ‘mild’ diastolic dysfunction and the fact that, from you’ve told me, you are experiencing symptoms means it’s something that should be addressed.”

Oh.

Dr. Abbot barrels on. “I’m going to give you a referral for a cardiologist I know. She’s good.”

“Thank you so much,” You croak, barely able to believe what’s happening. "I don't know how to thank you. Um. Other than saying thank you."

He gives you a tiny grin, like this interaction is some sort of secret you're sharing. Is he not aware of the effect he has on patients? On you?

"Don't worry about it, kid. Call it duty of care."

Kid.

The way he says it doesn't make it seem condescending or pitying. It's an acknowledgment.

It makes your skin feel hot.

(That might be the mild fever.)

He breezes through the rest of the preliminary examination, questions all answered and typed into his tablet, which just leaves the physical examination.

He has gloves on, stop freaking out. And there's like, no way he isn't married, and he's literally your doctor for crying out loud. Don't make this weird.

No amount of internal begging to keep your rampant issues under control actually keeps said rampant issues under control. At the very least, you hope it isn't too noticeable when you bask in the feeling of his blissfully warm (you're already running a fever, so really, it should be uncomfortable) hand as it palpates here and there. Checking for internal bleeding, probably. Or an inflamed appendix. Or something like that.

Palpating is likely one of the least sexy touches a human being can experience, and yet, presumably due to the fact that hospitals are actually nostalgic to you and palpating is an experience you go through more often than most other people, and, you know, your issues, you genuinely manage to get a little... hot under the collar.

Like, his hands are right there. Gloved, sure, and he's not actually touching your skin, just the battered band t-shirt you've been wearing since you got sick three days ago, so again, really not hot circumstances, but his deliciously freckled and really enticingly well-muscled forearms are right fucking there.

Can Toradol make you high? Are you having an allergic reaction to the fluids? Has the common cold finally decided to snatch your soul, leaving you the shuffle miserably off this mortal coil?

He glances up at the monitor.

"Bit of a heart-rate spike there."

Oh sweet mother of Christ.

Dr. Abbot gives you a little knowing smile, which does nothing but make you want to crawl in a hole and die, and finally finishes his palpating.

"So from the look of things, you really do just have the common cold--" He winces when you groan, "I know, I know. But you do have a touch of strep-throat, which I think might be contributing to your general awfulness and malaise. Your labs came back a little all over the place, so we're going to send you home with a prescription for some broad-spectrum antibiotics. Have you ever taken Azithromycin before?"

You shake your head no.

"The coarse is only for a week, and you'll take them twice a day. As for your cold symptoms, I'd have to recommend your basic over-the-counter cold medicine and lots of rest. Sound good?"

You nod. "Thank you so much."

Another heart-rate-spiking smile. "Anytime. I hope you feel better, but come back straight back here if you feel any worse, okay?"

You agree, and offer him another thanks and pretend like you're not going to be silently wondering if this is who your roommate works with every day.

—

A few days of antibiotics later, you're staring at yourself in the mirror after a late-night everything shower, and you think you might be cursed.

"Hey Victoria?" You shout through the door to where you know she's studying in the nearby living room. "What are the normal symptoms after taking Azithromycin?"

"Uh, none?"

"Thanks!"

Motherfucker. Who the fuck is even allergic to antibiotics? They're antibiotics.

You stare at the rash-slash-hives that's developed on your arms and legs (you convinced yourself it was razor burn the first two days) and wonder how life threatening it really is. Like, what could even really happen?

You skip lotion and throw on what was supposed to be a cute-pajama set, but now the striped tank-and-shorts combo serve to be functional— no fabric touching the sensitive skin where the rash covers and for ease of access, because of course you're going to run it by Victoria before you jump to any sort of conclusions about severity and allergic reactions.

Maybe this just one of those things. Like when doctors say "Just a little pinch" or "You'll feel some pressure" and then you go on to experience a level of agony previously only experienced by mafia traitors.

Like, maybe you won't even have to go to the ER. It might be a low-level twenty-four-hour-clinic type of deal.

—

So apparently between the rash, your flu-like symptoms (you thought you were just sick) and the fact that your heart rate has been all over the place since starting the antibiotics, Victoria does, in fact, insist that you go to the ER. Again.

At least this time you're lucid enough to drive yourself.

You've only just checked in, settling in the moderately-empty waiting room, cursing your existence when a familiar face walks in the front door, backpack slung over his shoulder and a cup of coffee in his hand.

It's pure coincidence that you happen to be sitting in like, the only seat in his direct eye-line as he glances down and then comes to a full-body stop. You shove down the shiver that threatens to overwhelm your body as a sharp, calculating gaze scans up and down your body before coming to rest on the visible rash on your legs.

He blows out a breath.

"Oh, kid."

Dr. Abbot leaves in the waiting room with the promise to return shortly after he clocks in and does his... whatever it is doctors do upon clocking into work. Rounds? Or is that a general medicine thing?

Before he walks through the door, he points a finger at you and says:

"Stay."

Like the loyal dog you are, you comply. First of all, where would you even go, (do patients jump ship often??) and secondly, like there is any universe in which you are arguing with that man.

YOUR DOCTOR, you mentally correct. HE'S YOUR DOCTOR. THERE ARE LITERALLY LAWS IN PLACE FOR THIS KIND OF THING. HE'S ALSO PROBABLY MARRIED. GET A GRIP.

It doesn't take him long to return to you, and like, isn't that unusual? Don't nurses and whoever usually get patients instead of like, the doctor on shift?

He gets the door for you (which is hot, even though he literally has to since it's only opened via staff-issued key-card.)

You feel kind of bad for skipping the line, cause there's other people in the waiting room, and surely some of them have more pressing medical concerns than your little rash?

You paraphrase this to Dr. Abbot as he leads you down the hallway towards one of the triage rooms, but he just snorts.

"You questioning my triage and risk assessment skills?"

Horror fills every aspect of your being.

"No no no no no, no, of course not, I didn't mean—"

Then he starts laughing.

"Relax, kid," He huffs, shoving his hands in his pockets, eyeing you from the side, "I was just poking at you. I think it's very... sweet, that you're worried about the other patients, even if it's unnecessary. I promise, if someone else had a more pressing medical concern, they would get seen first."

You deflate a little at his reassurance, though you still feel thoroughly mortified.

"Besides," He continues, pulling back a curtain and gesturing for you to take a seat in one of the large triage chairs, "You're having a fairly serious allergic reaction. I'm guessing this started after you started taking the Azithromycin?"

You nod as you situate yourself. "Yeah, sorry. Um, it started—"

He holds up a hand, and you cut yourself off.

"Respectfully," He starts, his hands clasped in front of his mouth. "What the hell are you apologizing for? And don't say being allergic to Azirthromycin."

"Um... For having to bother you again..? Right when you get on shift?"

"Kid," That shouldn't be hot, that shouldn't make your stomach flip-flop around, "Didn't I tell you to come back if you got worse?"

"Yes."

"And did you come back because you got worse?"

"...Yes?"

"Yes, you did. It was good that you came back," He says the second sentence slow and careful, like he's trying to cement it into your brain.

"It says on your intake form that you were experiencing fast and irregular heartbeats and dizziness accompanying the rash and hives, is that correct?"

"Yes. I thought I was just having a flare-up. And I kind of thought the rash and hives was just razor burn, but I don't shave my upper-arms, so."

He nods slowly. "...Right. I know that you've had a lot of unfortunate experiences with doctors and treatment in the past, but that's not going to fly with me, understand? There's a very real chance that if you'd ignored your symptoms you would've gone into anaphylactic shock. And while I trust Javadi to recognize the symptoms of a severe allergic reaction, I also know that she spends most of the day at the hospital or at lectures, meaning that if you had gone anaphylactic, there wouldn't have been anyone home to help you."

Dr. Abbot leans down when he notices you staring at your lap, sheepish, avoiding his gaze. "I don't say any of this to scare you. I just need you to understand the seriousness of your reaction."

He snatches the tablet off the cart. "You can't minimize your health issues. They're real. If you do, doctor's won't take you seriously. And you get enough of that without contributing to it or doing it yourself."

There's a few beats of silence while he types some things on the tablet and you digest his words.

"Thank you, Dr. Abbot."

He flashes you a grin, a little sharp. "Like I said before. Duty of care."

—

Victoria is happy that you had such a nice experience at the PTMC —"I told you they were great!"— and both of you are happy that the new antibiotics are working the last dredges of your cold are fading.

Since you finally feel (relatively) well, you decide to go to the coffee shop Victoria has been trying to convince you to go to for ages. Apparently, she loves their coffee so much she gets it there on hospital days and lecture days, despite it being much closer to the hospital than it is to the university. Thankfully, the apartment you share is fairly close to the hospital (a win both for your constant medical issues and for your roommates chosen career) so the coffee shop is within walking distance. Honestly, living in the city like this, there aren't a lot of things that aren't within walking (or bus, depending on the weather) distance.

You arrive to the cafe roughly around the time it opens, desperate to get as many hours studying and playing catch up as you can. Most of your professors were understanding when you explained your frequent health problems and the fact that you had to go the ER twice in the span of a week, and gave you extensions, but there's always a few no-nonsense hard-asses who think a 6,000 word paper can easily be accomplished from a hospital waiting room or bed, even when you explain how incapacitated you were. And to top it all off, in your endless wisdom, you hadn't thought to ask Dr. Abbot for a doctor's note that you could've held over the aforementioned hard-asse's head's, since they have to comply when you have actual evidence of illness, signed by a medical doctor.

So yeah. Lots of work, very little time.

You order yourself a gigantic coffee with several extra shots of espresso, heart-problems be damned, because there's no way you're accomplishing the amount of assignments you have without drugs, and since you can't do drugs, medically inadvisable amounts of caffeine is the next best thing.

Sure, the caffeine kind of makes your chest feel like it's floating, but the study work-flow you manage to accomplish is unparalleled.

With your headphones on and your eyes glued to your laptop screen your neck might as well be made of stone. Which means you don't really notice the man who's approached the table in the corner you've tucked yourself into.

"Do I even want to know how many shots you had them put in there?"

You jump, launching yourself backwards and straightening, causing your skull to crack rather unpleasantly against the wall behind you. You hiss in pain at the same time that Dr. Abbot says "Shit."

"Sorry," He rumbles, stepping forward. "Can I see?"

He really didn't have to ask. He could've just told you that he was going to look and you wouldn't kick up a fuss. You'd like it actually, if he told you what to do. What's that line from Fleabag? “I want someone to tell me what to wear every morning. I want someone to tell me what to eat. What to like, what to hate, what to rage about." Yeah. Dr. Abbot could do all of that for you.

Still technically your doctor you depraved lunatic.

You must've nodded or made a noise of affirmation or something (or maybe he got tired of waiting for you to respond) but he steps forward and. Well. Okay. You had this idea, in your head about what him 'seeing' actually entails, and conceptually, you understood that it involves him touching you, without gloves or a sterile, anti-septic wall between the two of you, but actually feeling his large, warm hands (is he always this warm, then? You remember how warm they were at the hospital) cradling the back of your head, fingers rubbing along your scalp, checking for a bump or scratch or whatever is a completely different ballpark.

If you thought the palpation was difficult to endure, it doesn't hold a goddamn candle to him leaning over you, dressed in his own clothes that smell like him, hands bare (!!) and actually touching you, skin-to-skin. There's no rumpled band tee or blue latex gloves between you now.

"No bump," He affirms after a few (unrequited and one-sided) sexually charged moments. "Sorry about that."

"No, it's not your fault. Coffee makes me jumpy."

His eyes skate down to the large, mostly empty cup next to your laptop. "And I'm sure the quantity was helpful."

You smile, more than a little embarrassed. He's charted your medical history. He knows exactly how stupid it is for you specifically to be drinking a twenty-four ounce iced cold brew with five extra shots of espresso. Realistically, that is an unhinged and borderline masochistic coffee order for a normal person.

"Enlighten me," He starts, his head tilted to the side, eyes once again looking you up and down. But this time, his gaze isn't clinical. Maybe you're imagining it, making things up to feed your delusions and issues, but right now, it's almost like he's looking at you like he's... hungry.

"Why would little-miss-mild-diastolic-dysfunction be drinking a concentrated heart attack?"

Jesus H. Christ.

"—Little-miss—“

This is genuinely becoming a very serious problem. You might have to leave Pittsburgh forever. Forget your master's program. Maybe your professors will understand that you ended up with a giant, overwhelming, unhinged, and slightly insatiable and completely inappropriate crush on the ER doctor you are definitely going to be seeing a lot of.

That's it. You can never come back to this coffee shop. Or go to the ER again. Ever. You'll just die next time you have a health problem, thanks.

Oh, fuck. How long have you been just staring at him?

He's smiling at you, all teeth and a knowing sparkle in his eyes and you know what, you actually hate him, he's such an asshole--

"You know I'm willing to bet I'd see a spike if you were still hooked up to that heart monitor."

"Oh, fuck you," You laugh, your shoulders relaxing.

"She does bite back," He says, humor clear on his features. "Was wondering if I should start concussion protocol."

You roll your eyes. "If you must know, I have a mountain of homework to do and very little time to do all of it, so."

You gesture to your coffee cup. "Caffeine it is."

"You know, as your former doctor, I'd have to advise you against finishing that. Please tell me you at least ate something with it?"

"... I had a pack of fruit snacks from the bottom of my bag?"

Dr. Abbot sighs, looks heaven-ward and mutters "kids" under his breath and, in a mirror of the week prior in the hospital room, points one finger at you and says:

"Stay."

Again. You're not sure where you would go and you are very inclined to listen. Probably too inclined to listen. Whatever.

He returns after a few minutes with a large iced water, a ham-and-swiss croissant on a plate, and another coffee, this one hot.

Then, smooth and confident, he moves your laptop back to make room, and sets the plate and water in front of you.

"Eat that," He points to the croissant, then to the water. "And drink that. All of it."

Your eyes widen. "Dr. Abbot, you didn't have to--"

"Jack."

"What?"

"We're not in the hospital. And I'm not your doctor."

Your face feels so hot. It has to be on fire. Are you on fire?

“I really can’t—“

“You can,” He assures, self-confident and jeez-us there is no way you’re not thinking about that in bed tonight. Or like, maybe forever?

You want to fight him on this, maybe push back a little, because there’s absolutely no universe in which this means what you want it to mean, but—

There’s a certain temptation to give in. Plus, who knows what other downright sinful things he’d say if you kick up more of a fuss?

“Okay,” You acquiesce (it feels a lot more like melting, though.)

Dr. Abb— Jack doesn’t say anything as you dutifully sip the water and take a bite, he just—

Watches. It’s almost worst than anything that could come out of his mouth.

“There we go,” Okay, you take it back that is a million times worse, “You’d better finish that, you hear me?”

“I will. I promise.”

Jack hums, then pulls a pen out of the pocket of his hoodie and scribbles something on a napkin. He hands it to you, then says:

“Call me.”

And then he just. Turns around, and walks out the door, coffee in hand.

What. The. Fuck.

—

Two things occur after your interaction with Jack in the cafe. Well technically, don’t occur, since the first thing is that you don’t tell your roommate that her kind-of boss maybe possibly flirted with you a teeny bit and gave you his number?

There isn’t really a way to bring that up organically, so you just. Don’t.

The second thing is that after an embarrassing long time about what to even name him in your phone (you settle on Dr. Jack Abbot, keeping the Dr. part as if you’re going to forget) you do not, in fact, call him. Or text him.

So yeah, actually, two things do not occur. There is no occurring. There is a severe lack of occurring.

It’s not that you don’t want to text him (you really do) you’re just not sure how to go about doing so? Like, what does that first text even look like?

‘Hey, thanks for not medically gas-lighting me, wanna get coffee? Except you probably don’t want to get coffee with me, because you’ve seen first hand how neurotic coffee makes me. So, drinks?’

No. Not happening.

You mainly just try to focus on staying busy. Which is easy, because master’s programs are so incredibly good at making sure you never have a waking moment to yourself. It’s so great. (You’re dying.)

Weeks come and go in a blur of late nights, intense study sessions, and minor breakdowns over your workload that turn into major breakdowns about your life (you are now the not-so-proud owner of homemade nose piercing, courtesy of you, Victoria, and two bottles of rosé.)

Soo the nose piercing probably wasn’t the best idea, but now you’re kind of too scared to take it out and honestly it doesn’t even hurt. Victoria made sure that everything was clean and sterile, and honestly she did an amazing job with the placement, so no complaints there.

You just now have a semi-permanent reminder of why not to get drunk when you’re having a bit of a breakdown. At least you didn’t tell Victoria about Jack. You might’ve given yourself bangs.

As it stands, though, the whole “don’t get drunk when you’re having a breakdown” apparently didn’t stick, because a dark Wednesday evening has found you at a bar Victoria told you was great, nursing a a third or fourth beer you really don’t have the money to be drinking.

(It was the cheapest thing the bar sold, anyways.)

You stare at the ring of condensation on the counter in front of you, thinking about the un-texted and un-called contact that’s currently burning a hole in your pocket. For some reason, no matter how busy you get, you never really manage to forget that it’s there.

“Call me.”

God, you think to yourself, pressing the heels of your hands into your eyes, the memory of the low timber of his voice and how warm and nice it felt to be the center of his gaze; the center of his attention.

The memory makes your skin flush, so you throw back the rest of your beer so you can blame the heat on the alcohol.

It’s an unconvincing lie and a miserable action.

“Didn’t know you were old enough to drink.”

You really need to stop taking Victoria’s recommendations. Or maybe remember where she works.

You don’t bother turning to face him, because he sidles up next to you at the empty bar seat.

“I’m legal,” You mumble, the tiniest bit buzzed from the beer.

Glancing over turns out to be a mistake, because he’s wearing a button down with the sleeves rolled up, which means that the arm he has propped on the bar is exposed in all it’s deliciously muscled and freckled glory.

And he’s looking at you. Eyes a little narrowed, tiny smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

He’s a bad idea, is what he is. Just like the sparkling stud in the side of your nose. Except that tiny piece of jewelry doesn’t look nearly as fucking good as he does.

You might be a little more than buzzed, if how much you want to kiss him is anything to go off.

“You stare more than you talk,” Jack says, curling his fist to prop his head up, absentmindedly waving the bartender over. “Always looks like there’s a lot going on in that pretty head of yours.”

“Don’t say things like that.”

“Why not?”

“Cause I’m not sure you mean them.”

The silence between you too isn’t really silence. Not with the dull sounds of bar chatter and shitty bar music and Jack telling the bartender to pour him a drink.

Whiskey, neat.

Figures.

“I would’ve told you that I meant them,” He tosses back the whiskey, almost all in one go. Leaves a tiny bit at the bottom of the glass, swirls it around before continuing. “If you’d called.”

More not-quite silence.

“I wanted to.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” You turn your body to face him, newly mirroring his position, “…I almost did. A few times.”

“Why?”

“Why didn’t I?”

“Why did you almost call?”

You swallow, nearly choking on the sudden lump in your throat. “Um.”

Very eloquent, you are. Truly, a master of poise and class.

“Need some liquid courage, sweetheart?”

“I’ve been drinking beer all night,” You say, sheepish. Sweetheart. God. It’s like he’s trying to torture you.

Is he?

“That’s not real alcohol. Come here.”

The next chain of events are much too sexually charged to happen in a cheap bar with a man who used to be your doctor.

It happens anyway.

You don’t move closer— frozen stock-still in something like apprehension or fear. But not necessarily the unpleasant kind?

The ‘Come here’ must’ve been figurative or metaphorical or something, or maybe he knows that you’re too nervous to comply (even though something in you desperately wants to) because he moves.

Jack reaches a hand up— slow enough that you could back up or push it away if you wanted to.

You don’t. You don’t want to, anyways.

His fingers ghost up your neck before settling on the edge of your jaw, his thumb pressed firm against your chin. He tilts your head back, just a slight angle, and then—

He takes his glass, the one with that little bit of whiskey in it (oh god, did he plan this? Did he leave that whiskey in there on purpose?) and raises the glass to your lips, letting the rum rest heavy against your mouth.

“You ever had whiskey before, kid?”

You shake your head no. You probably have, at some point, but relaying that would require a certain amount of effort and speaking skills— neither of which you are in current possession of.

“It’s gonna burn a little. Swallow it quick.”

What the fuck? Is—

He—

Then he tips up the glass, and you really don’t want whiskey on your face, so you part your lips enough to let the amber liquid be poured into your mouth, and he’s right, it does burn, and it kind of tastes gross.

You screw up your face at the flavor, but do your best to swallow it quickly, feeling the burn of it lick down your throat before settling like a warm, heavy weight in your stomach.

Like that was a normal thing to do, like nothing out of the ordinary just happened, he sits back onto his stool, releasing your face and resuming his position propped up on the bar.

“So. When did you almost call me?”

You don’t drink often. It’s honestly way too expensive, you despise hangovers (you have headaches and migraines all the time, why induce one?) and you don’t much care for the taste of most alcohols.

All of that to say. You are an embarrassingly easy lightweight. A cheap drunk, if you will.

“First time was two weeks ago,” You mumble, maybe not loud enough for him to hear over the shitty bar music, “Got a tea instead of a coffee to study with. Wanted to text you a picture.”

Jack has this easy, warm, but also simultaneously shit-eating expression on his face, which you take to mean that he’s aware of your incredible intolerance for alcohol.

“And what reason did you whip up in that pretty head of yours as to why you shouldn’t?”

You shrug. “Thought you wouldn’t care. Like, maybe you just want to hookup.”

“I do not want to hookup.”

“Oh.”

He motions to the bartender, who pours him more whiskey. What is it with men and whiskey?

“And the other time?”

This one you don’t really want to tell him, but with the alcohol burning away in your stomach and Jack’s equally burning stare, you give in.

“… Wanted to call you and ask you to yell at one of my professors. Cause he’s a dick and doesn’t believe in giving extensions or allowances even if you go to the hospital.”

He snorts. “And why didn’t you?”

You let your head flop onto your arm, halfway on the bar halfway off. “Didn’t wanna bother you. Seemed stupid. Plus, I managed to catch up on all my homework.”

Jack finishes the rest of his drink, then nudges your head off the bar and back onto your arm with the back of his hand. “Don’t lay on there. It’s gross.”

You whine. Your arm isn’t as comfortable as the solid bar top.

He didn’t really respond to your explanation (at least not in any normal way) so instead you decided to amuse yourself by just staring at his face. It’s a nice face.

You narrow your eyes at him. “Did you get me drunk on purpose?”

“No.”

“Then how come I’m drunk?”

“Because you’re a lightweight and whiskey has a higher alcohol content than beer.”

“Oh. Was that flirting? With the—“

You gesture vaguely to his glass and then to your lips. He just raises an eyebrow.

“Do you really need confirmation?”

“Yes.”

His face makes a funny expression. “Yes, that was flirting. The thing at the cafe was too.”

“Oh. That’s good to know. I wasn’t sure.”

“You weren’t sure?”

“Yeah,” Your neck is starting to hurt from lying there, so you prop it up with your hand. It’s only mildly more comfortable. “People don’t flirt with me very often.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s true.”

“Have you ever considered that maybe they are and you just don’t notice?”

“I would notice.”

“Kid, you just asked me if hand-feeding you my whiskey was flirting.”

You shrug, jostling your head and nearly slipping. “I don’t come to bars like, ever. Maybe that’s normal bar etiquette.”

“If you don’t come to bars, then why are you here tonight?”

You arm is too tired to keep holding your head up and your vision feels like it’s processing at a lower frame rate, like an old video game, so you put your head back on the bar top. Jack does a funny little huffing noise, and sticks the palm of his hand under your head right before it lands on the table, so you’re lying on his hand instead of the bar.

“Your hand is warm.”

“Is it now?”

“Yes.”

“Good to know.”

His eyes catch on the piece of jewelry now adorning your nose.

“When’d you get that?”

“Last week. Got drunk with Victoria— uhm, Javadi.”

“I know what her first name is, thank you sweetheart.”

“Right. Anyways, she had some nose jewelry from her mom, and kept drinking rosé and crying about our workload, I mean, hers is like, definitely worse than mine, you know, medical student and all, but we were drunk and we thought why not? Like, she’s a doctor, she knows how to sterilize stuff and keep it clean. She chickened out and wouldn’t let me give her one. Which makes sense. Cause I didn’t give myself a nose piercing. I had her do it.”

“You been keeping it clean?"

“Mhm. Twice a day.”

“Good girl.”

Jack sighs a little, the thumb that’s pressed against your temple beginning to sweep back and forth.

“You don’t belong in a place like this, kid.”

“I don’t?”

“No.”

“Oh. Okay. I think I wanna go home.”

Jack just nods, still rubbing your temple. It feels too intimate for a bar, but it feels really nice, and you don’t really want him to stop.

“Do you have a ride?”

“No. Victoria went to sleep before I left. She has an early morning. She works really hard.”

He hums. “I’ll walk you home.”

“You don’t have to,” You mumble, “I know you’ve got the. The leg.”

Some sort of unreadable look flashes across his face, the kind of look you probably wouldn’t be able to decipher even if you were sober and fully in possession of all your faculties.

“I know I don’t have to. But I’d feel better if I saw you get home safely with my own two eyes.”

You huff. “This isn’t some sort of sex thing, right? Like, you get me drunk so you’ll have to take me home, and then you know where I live, and then you take me to my room and then I’m drunk so i’m easier to coerce—“

“Fuck, no. Has someone ever tried that with you?”

“No. I’ve heard about it, though.”

“Look at me,” He raises your head a little with his hand, eyes searching your face. “You ever feel uncomfortable or unsafe, in any way, call me. I don’t care what time it is or if you think you’re bothering me. You’re not. Okay?”

That’s probably too intense for… whatever thing you guys have going on. But you’re not really normal, and it just sounds so nice, having someone to call.

“Okay.”

Jack nods again. “Alright. Let’s get you home. Come on, up we go.”

He manages to get you too your feet after a minor amount of stumbling on your part —“Jesus, kid, you are a lightweight”— and keeps one stabilizing arm around your waist as he helps you home.

“Your arm feels nice.”

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

He doesn’t talk very much except little mutterings here and there.

“Careful— there’s a big crack there.”

“Don’t walk into that trash can.”

“Keep your eyes open.”

“Almost there.”

The walk back to your house isn’t far, like most of the places you go to since moving to Pittsburgh.

“I can get up there myself,” You say, motioning to the stairs that lie in front of you and lead up to you and Victoria’s apartment, “Thank you, though. I’ll text you in the morning. I promise.”

Jack let’s go of you and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Don’t forget to drink water before you go to bed. At least a full glass.”

You clasp your hands behind your back. “Goodnight, Jack.”

“Goodnight, kid.”

—

Two days later finds you sitting at your tiny table, phone sitting face-up, Jack’s contact open and painfully empty.

You forgot to text him in the morning, because your hangover was fucking awful (You can’t even think about whiskey without getting nauseous again) and then you had school and… well. Now it’s been two days, and you still need to text him.

Victoria walks past you, two steaming mugs of coffee in her hands. She sets one down in front of you and sits down at the table.

“Still haven’t texted him?”

Apparently, Victoria had set an alarm on her phone to check if you’d made it home okay and ended up seeing you and Jack outside the apartment. She’d had the kindness to wait until the next morning before asking:

“So, you and Dr. Abbot?”

Vomiting had saved you from answering immediately, though you did end up telling everything that had happened after you finished worshiping the porcelain altar. Talking and throwing up don’t mix.

“No,” You answer her miserably. “I just don’t know what to say.”

“I mean, it’s pretty obvious that he’s into you. Based on,” She winces, “Past evidence. I doubt a text is going to put him off. Probably?”

“I told him I’d text him yesterday morning.”

“In your defense, you spent pretty much all day yesterday dying, so. I’m sure he figured that might happen.”

You take a generous gulp of coffee. “Should I just say hi?”

“I’m really not the person you should be asking for romantic advice.”

You take her by the shoulders. “You’re all I have, Victoria.”

“Um,” She sets her mug down. “Maybe something like, hello? Say sorry for not texting?”

You hum, typing out the sentiment, then slide the phone over to her. “Does that sound awkward?”

“Again. I really do not think you want to ask me.”

You chew on your lip, drink the last of your coffee in one go, totally burn the shit out of your tongue, then send the text.

You promptly stand, your chair screeching loudly as it nearly tips over, and run over to your fridge.

“Fuck. Do we have any of that rosé left?”

“It’s seven in the morning?”

“Desperate times, Victoria.”

She leans over, glancing at your phone, then gasps. “He’s typing!”

“Already?!” You screech, running back over to the table and hunching over your phone. Sure enough, the little bubble is on your screen, little dots jumping.

“What’s he saying?”

“I don’t know! You read it!”

Victoria snatches your phone and stares at it with the same amount of focus that you’ve previously only seen when she’s an hour deep into some medical textbook.

“Oh my god.”

“What? What?!”

She shoves the phone into your face.

Don’t worry about it, kid. Thought you might be hungover. You could always make it up to me, though.

“Oh my god,” You repeat. “Is it weird that I think it’s hot when he calls me kid?”

“Like, in the grand scheme of things? No. But probably.”

You pick absentmindedly at your hangnails. “I’m gonna text him back."

You type out a quick message and hit send before you can chicken out.

How am I supposed to make it up to you?

The dots reappear for a few seconds.

Let me take you on a real date.

You slam your hands (and phone) onto the table and whip your head to Victoria.

“He wants to take me on a date!”

The apartment becomes filled with the shrill squeals and screams of hysterical joy.

“Say yes!” Victoria screams. “You have to say yes. Please. For both of our sakes.”

“Shouldn’t I play hard to get? Don’t guys like that?”

“I don’t know. Haven’t you like, already unintentionally done that? Plus, Abbot is a pretty straightforward guy.”

“You’re right.”

When are you free next?

Tomorrow. You?

I have class until 3 :/

I’ll pick you up at 5.

You squeal again, practically jumping out of your seat and running to your room, throwing yourself on your bed.

Victoria follows a few minutes after, though in a much calmer manner.

“I can’t believe this is happening. You’re going on a date with my boss—“

“Oh my god, don’t say it like that.”

“So we’re ignoring the age gap?”

“No.”

“No judgement here, I know some people think experience is quite the kink—“

“Shut up—“

She laughs, leaving your room but leaving your phone on the nightstand by your bed.

You’re actually going to do it. You’re going on a date. With Jack Abbot. He wants to go on a date with you.

You only manage to stop screaming into your pillow when the downstairs neighbors shout for you to stop.

—

5 pm the next day arrives in a whirlwind of panic, about two million outfit changes, desperate makeup application, and way too much deliberation over what panties to wear for somebody who never has sex on the first date. Or like, ever, really.

By the time Jack has arrived (bearing a bouquet of flowers. Not roses, not the cheap dyed ones, but the kind of selection that takes time to make and time to choose) you’ve worked yourself into a frenzy about possibly being both under and over-dressed at the same time.

All Jack says, however, when meet him downstairs is a sort of winded:

“You look beautiful.”

And then you’re off.

The date itself is actually relaxing and easy, like being in Jack’s presence usually is. He asks about your schoolwork and classes and actually listens when you tell him what you’re studying. He doesn’t belittle your major or make himself seem self-important, like his job and career are better than yours. He actually says that he’s impressed that you manage to balance your health and workload so well, to which you respond by pointing at your nose stud and say “Not all that well.” which makes you both laugh.

He glares at you when you even glance at the check, which kind of makes you want to punch him and kiss him senseless.

He walks you home and, when you hesitate to initiate, pushes you against your apartment door and kisses you so hard your lips are tingling when he whispers a breathless:

“Goodnight, sweetheart.”

After that, Victoria bans you from speaking about anything beyond talking or hanging out that happens on your dates, because: “I still have to look him in the eye at work, and I really don’t want to hear about how good my boss’s tongue feels in your mouth.”

You can’t exactly blame her for that.

One date becomes two which becomes three, then four, and then you start staying over at his place a couple times a week because it’s way nicer than yours anyway.

One of the adjustments of your boyfriend (can you call him that? Are you guys dating? Or just going on dates?) being a doctor, and also apparently caring about you as a human being on a fundamental level, is that he actually worries about your health. Like, always.

“Put the ibuprofen bottle down, you’ve already had five today.”

“Are you tracking my medication usage?”

“Yes. Who else is going to stop you from giving yourself liver failure?”

Or:

“What’s your heart rate average been today?”

“…One-forty?”

“So do you think having an energy drink for breakfast is a good idea?”

“…”

“That’s what I thought.”

In some ways, it’s annoying. But in a lot of other, overpowering ways, it’s so… relaxing, to have someone around to think of you. You don’t really understand why or how he gets fulfillment out of helping you manage your life day-to-day, but he does, and does anything else really matter?

There are, of course, hiccups. There is the awkward moment where a two-week long flare sends you to the PTMC because you faint at school and school protocol requires they dial 911, and then even after the paramedics arrive and you explain to them that your body just hates you, your heart rate won't lower from the low 120's so then they insist they take you to the hospital, where Dr. Robby gets to meet you for the first time. And the entire day shift. It's about as awkward as it sounds.

Sometimes Jack has bad pain days too. He gets a little waspish, a little snappy, because being the man that he is (and just a man, at the end of the day) he doesn't like acknowledging that not having a leg means he has limitations. But just like he doesn't pity you or make you feel incapable when you hate your body or get sick for the thirty-millionth time, you do your best to make sure he knows that you get it, and he's still the ridiculously hot doctor you wanted to bang even with a 100.4 degree fever.

"It was actually 101.4," He likes to correct from the bathtub, steam curling around his neck and shoulders. "Your heart rate would spike every time you looked at me."

You bear through the reminders of your own awkwardness for his sake. Plus, it's hard to hate him for it, especially when he's always coming up with new and inventive ways to thank you for taking care of him (even though you insist he doesn't have to, because he's literally been taking care of you since the day you met.)

And, you know. There are worse ways to spend one's time.

Frank knew he wasn't supposed to have favorites. 

Really, favorites—or any sort of personal bias—is unprofessional. It’s especially unprofessional in his line of work, where you’re expected to be able to operate with anyone regardless of your own personal feelings or partiality. And, for a while, Frank understood and abided by this rule. Sure, it was hard sometimes to work alongside Santos after he finished his leave from rehab, but even their strained relationship had morphed into something more respectable these days. Frank liked to believe he treated everyone the same. In Frank's eyes, he has no favorites. 

Well, except you.  

You’re a different story. Something a little more... complicated. You’re a difficult thing to describe, Frank thinks, and an even more difficult thing to behold. You’re impossibly smart, witty, quick on your feet, hard when you need to be and sweet when you can. All of these things draw Frank to you, and he has a hard time understanding why. 

When Frank came back to the Pitt after his leave of absence, terrified out of his mind about jumping back into the environment where he once fell down a hole too deep, he was convinced maybe his return was a bad idea. Maybe, after all this time, the voices were right. He shouldn’t be allowed to be a doctor. 

These whispers swirled in his head like poisonous ivy on brick walls, growing their way to the core of his brain where they planted and nursed the most horrid of self loathing thoughts. Frank was halfway through his first shift back, contemplating the validity of what the voices had been saying to him, when he saw you for the first time. 

You were tucked away into a corner, medicine bottle in hand as you bit your bottom lip, listening intently as Mateo rattled off some unimportant patient details. You nodded every once in a while to prove you were paying attention, your dedication shown through your body language and intense facial expression. 

It didn't take long for Frank to realize you were a nurse, and a new one at that. You still had that anxious air surrounding you—one that Frank knew all too well. 

He attempted to listen to what Collins was saying to him—really, he was trying. But his eyes kept drifting to the side of your face, the curve of your hips, the small smile that escaped you when he overheard Mateo trying to soothe your nerves. He couldn’t look away.

From then on, it was difficult for him not to treat you differently. 

If there was any opportunity to have a nurse on a case, whether that be administering medication, patient assessments, or monitoring vitals, your name was the first thing out of Frank's mouth. Yes, he knows there are many talented nurses in the Pitt, but none of them were quite like you. None of them worked so well with him, none of them understood and returned his playful banter the way you did, none of them could take one look at his facial expression and determine exactly what was necessary for him to succeed in the way you always did.

It was almost magical the way he felt around you. In between stolen snacks from the staff lounge, shifts that ran overtime, and shared caffeine addictions, Frank grew fond of you, against his best wishes.

But it was so hard for him to fight it. He attempted, he really did. For a while he didn’t return your morning smiles, he feigned annoyance at your weekend updates with Mohan, but it was all futile. You were intoxicating—funny, gorgeous, sarcastic, and most unfortunately for him, engaged. 

That was the second thing Frank had noticed about you his first day back: the sparkling rock on your left hand. He had to admit, it was a sizable ring, which made it all the worse. It was salt in the wound. Frank, a man who had just gotten over his marriage, enthralled with you, a woman about to enter into hers. The irony was not lost on him. 

He watched in the following months as you let loose a few small details about your fiancé. Things like how you met (at a coffee shop, boring if you asked Frank), what he looked like (blonde, Frank never trusted grown men with blonde hair), and his name (Chad. Don’t get Frank started).

With every mention of your wedding, with every compliment of your ring, it felt like someone was dragging nails across a chalkboard directly in Frank’s ear. Chad’s presence irked him in a way he wasn’t able to understand, or rather, in a way he didn’t want to accept.

One sided affection was growing increasingly difficult for him. He felt crazy, desperate, running his fingers through his hair at night and asking himself, why didn’t he meet you sooner? But Frank knew, deep down, there was nothing he could do to change the fate of your relationship. You were happily engaged to a man you loved, who loved you. It didn’t matter that he noticed the way your lips tugged into a smile the first time Frank caught your eye during the day, or the packet of goldfish you’d slide his way halfway through his shift, or even the quiet moments you two have had in the stairwell together after a particularly difficult case. There was no hope for him. 

So, Frank took what he could get. Sure, it was blatant favoritism, but Frank couldn’t bring himself to care. 

//

“Okay! I think you're all done.” You smile, patting your palms on the tops of your scrub clad thighs. The elderly woman in front of you, staring at her freshly dressed numb burn wound, beams back at you with a grateful expression as her frail hands clasp together in appreciation. Her young daughter that sits right by her side looks at you before saying, “Thank you, miss. For being so kind.” 

“Absolutely, my pleasure.” You respond, beginning to clean up the materials around you. “And, Ma’am, do you remember your steps for after you're discharged?”

“Yes, I think I’ve got it.” The mother begins to reply. “No harsh chemicals, only soap and water before the antibacterial cream, and then change the bandage daily.” 

“Yup, you got it. If there are any complications, if the pain suddenly becomes unbearable or if there's any swelling or pus, come right back here and we’ll get you sorted.” You explain.

The kind woman thanks you again as her daughter helps her up and out of the room, making sure to give you one last smile on her way out. You give a small wave back just as a familiar face approaches you.

“Feel like helping me today?” Langdon asks as you turn to look at him. His brown hair falls in front of his face as he angles his eyes down to meet yours. Something swirls in his irises, something familiar and warm, and you find yourself feeling clammy at the sight. 

You roll your eyes in fake annoyance, clearing your throat. “It’s only 11 and you're already asking for my help?”

“Pretty please?” He says, his voice turning syrupy and low. His bottom lip juts out into a pout. You find your eyes trailing over his oh so soft looking mouth. “Robby and I have a patient in Trauma 1 that I need you for, like asap.”

You laugh and shake your head as you give him a silent nod. You’ve never been able to say no to Frank, and he knows it. He grins in response, flashing you his million dollar smile before turning around, motioning you to follow him.

You try not to let his words swirl around in your head as you trail behind him, but somehow they find their way to the forefront of your mind. 

I need you.

For the next thirty minutes, you and Frank are glued to each other's side as you work in Trauma 1. Where Frank goes, you follow. You’re there for it all—the first time the patient codes, the blood transfusion you assist on, the frantic calls from Frank as Robby rushes into the room, it all swirls around you and him like a complex symphony. 

Frank watches you in admiration, though you’re so engrossed with the task at hand that you fail to see it. His eyes follow as you skirt around the room, listening to every order Robby gives you, nodding and jumping into action. This is one of the things he admires the most about you—your dedication. The silent way you accept direction without hesitation.

The thirty minutes pass like seconds. Before you know it, the patient is stable, and you watch as Frank and Robby chat quietly. You don’t feel like interrupting their seemingly private conversation, so you take your leave and head to the staff lounge, rubbing the soreness out of your shoulders as you walk down the halls. 

In the privacy of the staff lounge, you take a quiet minute to yourself. You crack open another redbull and give a sigh of relief at the taste. You need the boost this morning—you felt restless last night, tossing and turning in the comfort of your bed. A million things were running through your mind as you attempted to sleep. You tell yourself to get a grip, to shake it off. There are more important things to worry about, better things to do with your time than lament on things you shouldn't be thinking of.

When you think you’re beginning to take too much time, you force yourself back on to the floor. You walk fast towards the direction you last saw Dana, hoping to chat with your charge nurse for a few minutes before tagging along with Perlah and Princess. You’re so engrossed in your own mind—still replaying the same thoughts that kept you up last night—that you don’t see the shine of the floor below you, somehow missing the bright yellow bucket full of soapy water.

You don’t see the puddle of liquid in front of you until you’re slipping in it, falling backwards and smacking your head on the linoleum tile with a gasp. Pain blossoms at the base of your skull as your body lays on the ground. Your eyes flutter softly, vision turning blurry before, eventually, it fades to black.

//

Your ears are ringing. 

Someone is faintly yelling words you can't quite pick up somewhere in the background. You feel a pair of hands behind your neck as someone is propping your head up, and just when you think you may have escaped this incident unharmed, just as your eyes begin to squint open and you make out the face of Dana and Robby, the back of your head throbs.  

“Oh, motherfucking christ—” You sputter, attempting to sit up. “Jesus that hurts.”

“Hey hey. Take it easy, kid.” Robby orders, grabbing one of your arms to help steady you. 

Dana crouches down beside him, immediately handing you an ice pack that feels freezing against your palm. You accept it gratefully as your eyes continue to adjust to the harsh fluorescent lighting of the ED. 

“Quite a fall you took there,” Dana starts. “Here, let me check to see if your head's bleedin’.”

You groan as her hand ghosts against the back of your skull, hissing when the tips of her fingers barely come into contact with your pulsing skin. When she removes her fingers to examine them, they’re dry, which is a relief—at least you won’t need stitches.

“Do you know where you are?” You hear Robby ask. 

“I’m in hell,” you reply. You watch as a little of the concern melts from his face, a small smile replacing the serious expression he had been sporting since he watched you slip. 

“We should examine you for a concussion,” he continues, beginning to stand back up. Your ass is still firmly planted on the floor, one hand propping yourself up as the other ghosts the ice pack against your temple. Your entire head feels like it's on fire, like someone just took a wooden mallet and went crazy against the inside of your mind. 

You're just about to take Robby’s helping hand up when the sound of rushing footsteps catches your attention.

“What the fuck?” You hear Langdon say, and you don’t have to turn to know the way he’s looking at you. Your head starts to pound even further. “What the hell happened?”

“I acquainted myself with the floor,” you mumble, finally taking the aid to get yourself back on two legs. You feel like a baby deer finding its footing for the first time, wobbling slightly back and forth as you try and steady yourself. 

“Are you okay?” Langdon asks, his arms finding their way to yours, attempting to help stabilize you. 

“I’m fine, totally good. Just embarrassed.” You laugh, immediately regretting it as you wince from the pain.

“How hard did you hit your head?” He asks, eyes scanning over your face. He turns to Robby before asking, “Has anyone assessed for a concussion?”

“No, not yet, I was just abo—”

“Someone help me!” A voice cries out. 

Robby, Dana, and Frank tense immediately. Your reaction time is a little slower, and you’re still a little confused until you see Whitaker on the floor, attempting to stop the convulsions of an elderly man currently laying on the floor. 

“Jesus, we got people dropping like flies!” Dana yells before running over to help the poor fourth year med student. Robby isn’t far behind her, grumbling to himself about how he can't catch a fucking break, how its always one thing or another. 

“Langdon!” He booms from across the room. “Take over for me. Check her for anything, I gotta go.”

Frank gives him a wordless nod, taking no time before leading you towards an empty room not too far away. You feel like a grandma being walked across the street. Langdon’s hands are wrapped around your body, guiding you towards the seat of the bed before they remove themselves, shutting the door behind you both. 

“It’s a fucking shit show out there,” he breathes as he swiftly brings up a stool, positioning himself in front of you. “We’ve got doctors cracking their skulls open, patients seizing on floors—it's not even lunch.”

“Yeah, well. I wasn’t planning on practically seeing god today.” You huff. “Holy shit my head hurts.” 

“Yeah, let’s make sure you didn’t give yourself permanent brain damage.”

He wheels himself around the room in a comfortable manner, like he's done so many times before. His fingers wrap against the cool metal of a flashlight, and before you know it he's shining it in your face, making you flinch.

“Jesus! A little warning, please?” You hiss.

“Sorry, sorry.” He smiles sheepishly. “Just let me check out your pupils and then I’ll turn it off.”

He scooches his stool closer to you, finding a respectable place that is semi in between your legs. There's still enough distance that it's professional, but it's just close enough that it makes you sweat. 

“Can you tell me your name?” He finally says, clicking the flashlight off. You assume that means your pupils are fine, and he’s moving on to the cognitive aspect of his makeshift exam. You roll your eyes. You're almost positive you don’t have a concussion, just the makings of an incredibly nasty bruise and bump, yet you answer him anyway.

“And what day is it?”

“Wednesday.”

“The…?” 

“The twelfth, jesus. Do you want the year too?”

“I wouldn’t say no.”

You playful wave your hand, dismissing him. The pain in your head has slowly receded, not as prominent as it originally was. It thrums slightly in the background, though, not completely over.

“Alright, can you look at my finger?” He starts again, breaking the small silence. He holds his index finger in front of your face. “I’m just gonna move this around, and I want you to follow it, okay?”

“Yes, Dr. Langdon,” you attempt to tease, but your voice comes out lower than expected. You watch as Frank swallows hard.

“Tell me what you did this morning.” He stares intensely into your eyes as he asks the question, still moving his finger around the peripheral of your vision. You follow your order, eyes never leaving his hand as you think of your answer, hoping you don't seem as frazzled as you feel. Did he get closer or are you imagining things?

“Woke up. Ate breakfast. Came to work. Helped on a couple different cases before the one with you and Robby. Went to the staff lounge to down a redbull and before I knew it I was slipping on the wet floor.”

“Good, okay.” He breathes. He stops moving his finger around which allows you to look at him once more. His stethoscope hangs loosely around his black scrub top, the white of his undershirt peeking through his collar as his chest slowly rises and falls. He looks handsome today. Yet again, he always looks handsome, and you find yourself biting the inside of your cheek to keep yourself from telling him that very same thing.

“You were great this morning. With Robby and I, I mean. You handled it like a champ.”

“Thanks,” you whisper. You never know what to do when Frank compliments you. “It’s all you guys. You’re easy to work with.”

“Yeah, but you were collected. Purposeful. Calm. Even when Mateo almost threw up.” He chuckles.

“I try.” You say, and it’s true. You always try. You always give it your best, but it's just easier with Frank. You’re not sure why.

“I’m gonna take your temp now.” He decides, rolling away from you for a second to get a thermometer. 

“That feels a little unnecessary,” you say. You don’t want to be a bother—Frank’s a busy man, a coveted one at that. You know he could be helping someone else right now, and you'd hate to think that you were stealing him away from people who needed him more.

“Nope, don’t even.” He replies. “I’m checking off every box.”

He brings the electric thermometer that reads your temporal artery to your forehead. He clicks the button and watches for a few seconds as the device seems to think for a moment, giving you a small smile when a normal and acceptable number flashes on the screen.

“Thank you, again. For checking me for the concussion.”

“No problem.” He responds. “Can’t have you getting worse. Don’t know what I’d do if I had to ask Jesse to do anything instead of you.”

You try not to think too much about what he says to you. You try to pretend you don't notice the way he favors you over other nurses. You try to pretend you don't care. You try to pretend it doesn't kill you.

When Frank finishes putting away the thermometer, you think he's done with his exam. Yet, he doesn't get up to leave. Instead, he leans back, stretching his arms in the air. His shirt riles up, a sliver of his skin between the tops of his pants peeking out. Your eyes scan down the hair on his abdomen. 

You clear your throat. Looking at Frank like that is wrong, for many different reasons. When you get up to move, Frank puts out a hand to stop you, wordlessly communicating that he doesn't want to leave yet—that the exam isn't over. 

“What are you checking right now?” You ask as Frank sits in front of you, seemingly doing nothing.

“Your responsiveness.” So, bullshit, basically.

“And how is it?” 

“Well, for starters, you're responding.”

You give him a small chuckle. You feel appreciative of the calm moment between you two—you’re only halfway through the day, yet you feel like you’ve been going one hundred miles per hour all morning, never stopping to catch your breath. Especially with your newfound head wound. The rest and ice will do you good, you’re sure.

“How have you been?” Frank asks in hopes of breaking the silence. Your eyes flicker up to meet his, and you give the normal response. I’m good, smile. Work is crazy, cheek bite. Thank god I’m off this friday, chuckle.

Through your painfully normal response, Frank watches as your eyes betray you. Your body plays the part perfectly, posture open and inviting, smile bright and cheerful, but something distant swirls in the dark parts of your irises. Frank catches it all. 

He frowns. He wants you to be open with him, but he doesn't push it. 

“And your—” He coughs, choking on something oddly shaped like his pride. “Your fiancé?”

Your eyes widen. Right. You have one of those.  

“He’s.. fine.”

“Good. That’s good. Have you been telling him about all the amazing shit you do here?” 

“Um… No. Not recently. We’re actually…” You try to think of how to phrase it. “We’re having a little bit of a disagreement right now.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. It’s stupid, nothing serious, obviously,” you lie. “I just feel bad. I feel like it’s been distracting me.”

Frank tries to act like he's not enthralled. Obviously, he's sad that you’re feeling inadequate with yourself and distracted at work, but Chad can go kick rocks.

“You’re not off your game. Not at all. You were amazing this morning.”

“Thanks.” You reply, still deflected. You toy with your slightly melted ice pack, squishing around the slushy-like gel between your fingers. Your eyes bounce around the room. You don’t want Frank to see the discouragement in them. 

“I mean it. You’re a great nurse, and partly the reason why I’m a great doctor. I… I couldn’t do this without you, I hope you know that.” He whispers. 

It hasn’t been the easiest thing for him, coming back. There have been so many demons he's had to face, so many challenges he's had to overcome. The cold glances he's had to brush off his shoulder and the shame of his actions all seem a little more bearable when you’re by his side.

He smiles when you look at him again. There's a slight awe in your eyes, like you can't believe what you've just heard, but it's true. Frank thinks the world of you. 

“Can I ask what you're fighting about?” He says, lying to himself about his intentions. God forbid a nice doctor care about his a nice nurse. “We’re… friends, so I guess I can ask.” 

You sigh. You don't want to let on too much, to make him worry about you or anything. “He’s staying with a friend right now. We’re just disagreeing on stuff about the future. Really, it’s nothing.”

He can see the way you’re downplaying your true feelings in real time as arguments replay in your mind. Harsh words being tossed around, all about how you’re too busy, you never see me anymore, we never have sex anymore. 

You don’t tell Frank any of this, obviously. You would be mortified if he knew about the state of your relationship. (Or secretly enthralled, depending on how honest you want to be with yourself.)

“Well, he’d be an idiot to fuck this up with you.” He confesses.

You laugh. It’s heartfelt, Frank can tell. He’s proud of himself for pulling it out the depths of your lungs. After a second, your eyes fall back to the ice pack that's now fully jelly in your hands, feeling a similar melted sort of emotion. You start to speak, but feel like your words fail you.

“I don’t—” Want him. Love Him. “I just—” Want you instead. “It’s—” Easy. Kiss me. “—Complicated.”

“Well,” he starts again, “We don’t have to talk about it if you don't want to. And, anyways, I have to finish your exam.”

“There’s more?” You groan. This has been the longest concussion assessment of your life.

“Mobility. I’m just gonna check around your neck, see if anything hurts. That sort of stuff.”

You gulp. “Sure.”

Frank rolls his stool in front of you once more, a pair of plastic gloves now hiding his hands from the fluorescent lights of the room and the soft feeling of your skin. He inches slowly towards you, trying to find a compromise between the space he knows he should give you and the space he wants.

Quietly, he brings up his fingers to the side of your neck, lightly brushing against the area where your jaw meets your throat. You swallow thickly. 

“I’m gonna press lightly on the sides of your throat, and then I’m gonna ask you to move your head around. Let me know if anything I do hurts you, okay?”

“Y-Yeah.”

You watch as his gaze leaves your face to focus on the task at hand. He’s gone from being Frank, to being Dr. Langdon. It’s sexy admirable.

You feel the light pressure of his two fingers as they make their way down your throat. You wait patiently for his instructions, trying not to gasp when his grip changes from two fingers to five, his hands practically engulfing your neck.

“Mkay,” he murmurs, cocking his head. “To the left… Good. Now the right.”

You feel yourself getting hot. Your heartbeat is spiking, you're sure of it. What a horrible time for Frank to have his hand on your carotid artery.

“You seem flushed? Are you alright? Is it hurting?” 

“Jesus—No. It’s nothing. Sorry.” You cringe. 

He halts his movements. You feel his hands soften around you, feeling lighter around your throat. Oh great, you think. He thinks he's hurting me.

When you finally get the courage to open your scrunched up eyes, you see that he’s back to Frank now. Frank, whose hands are around your throat, his latex clad fingertips barely brushing against the small hairs on the back of your neck. Frank, who’s the closest he’s ever been before. Frank, whose eyes are bouncing back and forth between your eyes and your lips. 

It’s wrong. You know it is. It’s bad to want it. It’s bad to think about it.

It’s even worse to do it.

But it happens anyway.

You don't know who starts it. One minute you’re trying not to crawl out of your skin in embarrassment of the way your body betrays you, the next your heart turns to putty as you feel his lips brush against yours, soft and slow with hesitance.

You kiss him back. You don’t think you could pull away if you tried. He tastes like the peach-nectarine red bull he drank this morning. He smells handsome, if that's even possible. Like the ocean. Your hands itch to cradle his face, to make their way into his dark brown hair that always looks perfect, no matter how many times he runs his fingers through them.

It’s deep. It’s sweet. It’s everything you’ve wanted since the first day you saw him. 

You play with your fingers to distract yourself reaching out to touch him, as if he’d turn to gold and crumble from your midas touch. Your fingertips run over something hard.

Your ring.

And suddenly it's over.

You pull back from him. You're breathless, you feel disheveled. Your lips feel swollen. Your head hurts worse than when you practically slammed it on the floor like a basketball.

“Are you—shit. I… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“We shouldn’t. I can’t, I have—”

“Yeah, yeah, obviously. Shit.”

“Yeah. Um. I should… go.”

“Yes,” he breathes, “You’re all good. No… no concussion. Or brain damage.”

“Thank you,” you say, scrambling to stand up. “For… Yeah, okay.” You find your footing faster than you did in the halls. You’re not sure what you would do if Frank tried to help stabilize you, but you imagine it can't be anything good. 

You leave the room without looking back. 

//

For the rest of his shift Frank is torn into pieces.

He feels awful. You came to him, hurt—possibly concussed—and what did he do? Kiss you. Stupid idiot. You had trusted him. Confided in him about problems you were having in your personal life, problems you were having with the man who put that rock on your finger, and Frank just couldn’t help himself, he had to ruin it. 

It was clear you were avoiding him. Painfully so.

You immediately walked away in the opposite direction if he spotted you, never giving him the chance to ask you for help with a patient. Every time you caught his eye, you were deep into conversation with whoever was around you, always managing to avoid his gaze he so desperately wanted you to see. 

You’re nowhere to be found when he’s roaming the halls, right as Frank is in between cherry picking cases. You’re somewhere in a room down the hall when Frank sits down to log some information, pretending to look busy as he clicks the mouse around an empty screen. He feels like a kicked puppy. 

The worst part is he knows he did it to himself. He knew at the beginning of your friendship that he wasn’t capable of knowing you without loving you, and he worked with you anyway. Now it's all ruined, he thinks. You’ll never speak to him again. You’ll probably never want to be in the same room as him, especially alone. It’ll be horrible to work with him, you’ll hate every minute of it.

He’ll be a gentleman about it though, transfer to night shift. Never speak to you again. Wishing you and your future toddler twins a good life as you cradle a new baby that looks just like fucking Chad. He can see it all play out in his head. He’ll die alone. The cat he doesn’t have will eat his face.

The hours pass by quickly as Frank loses himself in his head. He goes through the motions. He’s done it all before. It’s not good to work distracted, but there's no use in trying to clear his mind. He wants to talk to you desperately, but he doubts he’ll get the chance. 

And he’s right. You take off like a shot when your shift ends, leaving a trail of dust behind you. No one seems to notice but him. Frank feels so twisted inside, like he’s fucked everything up beyond repair. He pinches the bridge of his nose as he sits in the driver's seat of his car. He let himself get too comfortable, be too hopeful that anything could change between you two. 

He drives home in disappointed silence. 

//

When Frank finally makes it back to his house, to his sparsely decorated apartment that's just a little too small and a little too dark, he collapses with exhaustion. His bag is tossed somewhere haphazardly, his lanyard with his medical ID thrown loosely on his kitchen counter. He slides off his scrub top and doesn't bother to look where it lands. 

A hot shower should fix everything. 

He stands under his showerhead moments later, his shitty water pressure doing an even shittier job at getting the shampoo out of his hair. He tries to distract himself with miniscule things in order to prevent thinking of you. This ends pathetically, however, when Frank realizes he doesn't have much of anything else to distract himself with.

He’s not married anymore. He barely has any friends. All he does is work, and if Frank thinks of work, then Frank thinks of you.

“This is pointless,” He mutters to no one. 

When he finally deems himself clean, appreciative of the small relief that the shower has given him, Frank tosses on an old pair of sweatpants that ride low on the bony parts of his hips, sliding over a black steelers t-shirt to go with it. He reheats some leftovers from the night before, going through the motions of being too eager and burning his mouth over and over with every bite. 

He’s impressed with himself about how his cooking skills have grown. Now that he lives alone, all of the decisions fall to him. It wasn't like he never cooked when he was married or anything of the sort—Frank always helped out. But now, he’s on his own. He wonders briefly if you’d like the meal he’s eating. If you’d like his cooking. 

He stands in the kitchen for longer than he should. His plate is clean now. The dishes are washed and dried, put away in their respective cabinets. But Frank can’t bring himself to move. From here, he can see the entirety of his home as it lies before him. His small living room with a couch and a TV he got on sale. The door to his bedroom cracked slightly askew, allowing for the tiniest bit of light to bleed in from his bathroom.

His apartment is cold. Empty. It feels lonely and like salt in the wound. It’s times like this when Frank misses you the most. He closes his eyes and selfishly imagines you in his kitchen, smiling softly at him as he cooks for the two of you. The way you’d look on his couch, watching a movie so scary you’d have to turn to look away, burying your face in his chest. 

He tries not to think about you in his bed. It never ends well for him, and he feels all the more shameful the next time he sees you. 

When he’s done playing pretend in his mind, he makes his way to his couch alone. He turns on some shitty reality TV show to distract him, and make his space less quiet. He rots in the same position for what feels like hours. 

Frank’s eyes just begin to flutter shut when he hears the faintest knock on his door. 

At first he thinks he’s imagining it. It’s late, and Frank doesn't talk to his neighbors. It must’ve been from down the hall.

But then it happens again. He pauses the show and groans as he stands, stretching out his arms and legs before he rubs his eyes. He knows he didn’t order anything, so maybe someone’s just got the wrong house?

He contemplates a few different possible scenarios until he opens the door, and it’s clear the person in front of him is at the right place. You stand anxiously, toying with your fingers like you did that morning. You look at him like a deer in headlights, almost as if you weren't expecting him to answer. Neither of you say anything. 

He breaks the uncomfortable silence. “How the hell did you get my address?”

You seem relieved when he speaks, like you were afraid he might shut the door in your face. “I have my ways.”

“That's… frightening.” He admits. “Do you… do you want to come in?”

“Yeah.”

He maneuvers his body and opens the door widely for you, allowing you to step inside. You slowly creep into his living room, looking around and taking in his scarce decor, his degrees hung on the wall. He barely has any photos in frames. 

His apartment radiates the same sort of Frank-esque smell that graced your senses earlier that morning, and you find yourself inhaling deeply, as if you were running out of breath. You hope he doesn’t notice.

When Frank shuts the door behind you, he leans against the kitchen counter in order to give you some space. He thinks maybe you’re here to yell at him, to tell him you’re transferring to Presby or even moving just to get away from him. 

But he can’t help himself from worrying about you, which is why he ends up asking, “Are you okay?”

You don't answer him, which only puts him on edge more. He's always been used to easy conversations between you two. He hates this switch. He hates himself for it even more. The guilt that starts to bubble in his stomach again at the sight of you suddenly feels unbearable. He thinks he may just die if he doesn’t try to make amends in some way, he can't bear the thought of losing you because he couldn't control his desire. 

“I’m so sorry,” he begins to say, “For this morning—”

“No, no. That wasn’t your fault at all. Don’t apologize.” You confess. “Actually, that’s why I’m here. That’s—That’s what I want to talk to you about. If you have a second.”

“O-Of course, yeah.”

“Um… so I left work really fast. As I’m sure you saw. Partly to avoid you and partly because kissing you made me realize some things that I had been ignoring. So I went home and got into a really big fight with Chad.”

Langdon gulps at your confession. He wants to reach out and touch you, but he decides against it. 

“We fought about… well about everything. He said that I wasn't in love with him. And… he's right. I’m not. And also, apparently he was sleeping with the ‘friend’ he was staying with, so. Tried to tell me it was my fault because I wasn't giving him any attention.” you whisper. 

You stop yourself to catch your breath. You feel overwhelmed talking about something so fresh. You feel almost embarrassed in a way to admit this—that you had been so in love with Frank that it ruined your already crumbling relationship. 

“I ended things with him. Gave him his stupid ring back and told him to get the hell out of my house. I gave him the night to pack a bag but I couldn’t be there any longer, so I just left. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.”

Frank stays quiet as you explain the situation you find yourself currently in. He watches as your eyes dart around the room once more—you're nervous. You're worried he’ll kick you out, make you go back to your home where you have to come to the realization that the man you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with is a cheater.

“I’m so sorry.” He says. He hears the way his own voice cracks. He hates seeing you emotional, and it’s getting to him. “He didn’t deserve you at all. And fuck him for trying to say it was your fault.”

He watches as you take a shaky breath. You look up at him.  You’re dressed more casually than when he last saw you, a pair of low rise jeans and some old band t-shirt covering your body. You look nice for someone who's just had their world turned upside down. 

“Believe it or not… I’m actually not that torn up about it. In his defense, I don’t think I've mentally been there for the past six months. I’ve been distracted.” You admit. Your stomach does a somersault when you watch as Frank clenches his jaw. You have to admit being cheated on feels shitty, but there's a certain feeling of freedom blooming in your chest as you stand in your favorite resident’s living room. 

“By what?” He asks. His voice is low. His arms are crossed, and his fingernails dig into his arms. They leave tiny crescent shapes in his skin. 

You gulp. “By you. Always by you.”

Frank freezes. The hair on the back of his neck stands up straight, sending a chill down his spine. He can’t believe the words that are leaving your mouth. He feels like he must be dreaming. It just isn't possible for you to be standing in front of him after all this time, newly single, saying you’ve wanted him just as much, if not more, as he’s wanted you. 

Your confession hangs heavy in the air. Frank gets flashbacks to this morning. The feeling of your neck in his hands, the shape of your lips as they slotted so perfectly against his. He starts to understand that he was so worried after the kiss had happened, so convinced that he had screwed everything up, that he forgot to see the way you’d melted against him and moved your mouth against his.  

“About this morning… Did you mean it? Did you mean to kiss me?” you whisper. “Because if not, I’ll go, and we never have to talk about it again.”

Frank pushes himself off of the counter and walks towards you. He gets closer than he did this morning, yet his hands make their way to that same spot on your neck, just below your jaw. You exhale shakily as you wait for his reply.

“All I do is think about you. Every goddamn day.” He breathes out. “I’m sorry about how that fucking asshole treated you, but I’m not—I’m not sorry you’re not with him. You deserve to be with someone better than that. Who wants you.”

Something crackles between you two. Now that you both know where the other stands, it’s hard to not act on it. 

“And do you want me?” You ask lowly.

“Yes.” He replies, not missing a beat.

“Then kiss me. Please.”

Frank moves you closer with one small tug at your neck, bringing your face to his as his lips lightly brush against yours. Your eyes flutter shut, and you sigh into him as you let your hands wander. As your hands move up towards his hair, his move down your torso, resting lowly on your hips. He feels the rough material of your jeans underneath his palms. He hooks his fingers around your belt loops and pulls you closer, your body coming flush with his. 

“We don’t have to do anything,” he says once he breaks away from you. The last thing Frank wants to do is rush you and scare you away, so he’ll let you dictate how far you go tonight. He’ll take anything he can get, even if it's just a kiss. As long as it's with you. 

“Please, Frank. Haven’t stopped thinking about you for months,” you confess against his lips. 

The admission makes him rock hard. You feel like play-doh in his hands, so soft, so willing. You look at him in a way that makes him flush. You’re so perfect, he thinks. And by some miracle, you want him just as much as he wants you. 

So how could he refuse you?

He slides his hands down your ass to the back of your thighs, hoisting you up around his hips as he carries you to his bedroom. You feel his erection press through his sweats, and when he lays you down gently, you bite your lip at the sight of his outline through the sweatpants. 

It doesn’t take long before his hands are tugging at the hem of your shirt, signaling to you that he wants it off. You work on sliding it over your head as Frank removes his own shirt, his chest heaving up and down as his eyes rake down your body. His lips find their way to your neck as they kiss on your pressure point, causing you to squirm. You run your fingers through his hair as a way to distract yourself from the pleasure. He kisses his way down your chest until he comes to the swell of your breasts, reaching behind you to unclasp the garment. He groans as you help slide it off your body. He takes one nipple in his mouth and you gasp at the feeling of his warm tongue swirling around your areola. 

He gives both of your nipples a little bit of attention, suckling slightly, watching the way they gleam with his spit in the moonlight before he keeps moving down your body. When he reaches the top of your jeans, you give a little hip lift in desperation. He gets the hint. His fingers undo the button and zipper, grabbing both your pants and underwear before sliding them down your legs. He discards them somewhere in the darkness of his room before his eyes are back on you. Your thighs are pushed together in slight embarrassment of how wet you are. A flush creeps its way down your neck as Frank slides his hands up and down your hips, trying to coax you open for him. 

“You don’t have to,” you breathe out. 

“But I want to. Please let me, baby. Been thinking about it forever.”

You melt at his words. You’ve never been able to say no to him, not at work and not between the sheets of his own bed. His pleas cause your legs to spread open. He moves his head down to the same level as your soaking pussy, grinning when he sees how wet you are for him. He takes a moment to admire how you practically drip onto the sheets. 

You cry out when his tongue finally licks a fat stripe up your cunt. Your fingers tug at his brown curls, his name leaving your lips in small whispers as he moves his mouth against you. It’s sloppy, and the sound he makes against your pussy is obscene. He wraps his hands around the outside of your thighs, throwing your legs over his shoulders. This changes the angle of your hips, allowing his tongue to dive deeper into your core as your back arches from the sensation.

Before you can register him moving, Frank’s middle finger breaches your entrance. He pushes it in slowly, watching in awe at the way your tight walls engulf his digit whole. You groan at the intrusion. He curls it ever so slightly, a chuckle caught in his throat as your hips begin to grind down on his palm. 

Frank wants to tease you, he really does. But for your first time together he can barely contain his excitement, let alone make you wait any longer than you have to, so he slides his ring finger in as well, developing a smooth rhythm that has you crying out his name.  

He presses his tongue up against your clit, sucking it into his mouth as his fingers work to bring you closer and closer to your first orgasm of the night. You feel the familiar ache in your abdomen as he picks up his pace. 

“Frank, fuck, fuck—” You whine. “‘M close.”

He groans against you in response. He wants nothing more to have you cumming into his mouth, your sweet slick dripping down his tongue as he licks your pussy like it was made for him. 

Your thighs begin to tremble and shake around his head. You scrunch your toes in pleasure as your eyes roll into the back of your head. You see stars as Frank brings you to the edge. When you cum, it's with a gasp and an arch of your back. You throw your head back against his pillow, and Frank doesn't let up on his movements as he works you through your orgasm.

When you finally come back down from your high, you see Frank with a shit eating grin between your legs. The lower half of his face shines with your juices. 

“Oh my god,” you blush, bringing your hands up to your face to hide your embarrassment. 

“Fuck, that was hot.” He laughs, pressing a wet kiss to the inside of your leg.

He climbs back up your body, wiping his mouth before kissing you softly. His tongue runs over your top lip, sliding its way into your mouth. You taste yourself as he deepens the kiss. Your hands run up and down his shoulders until your palms come flush with his chest. You feel the softness of his hair over the sharp edges of his muscles, sneaking your fingers down to the drawstring of his sweatpants. You undo them as Frank suckles at your neck. 

You gingerly slip a skilled hand down his pants until you feel his erection through the thin fabric of his boxers. He hisses through his teeth at the relief the pressure from your hand gives him. You bite your bottom lip before cupping him gently, then raking your nails over his lower stomach once more before slipping your warm hand into his underwear. You gently grab his cock, watching as he shudders into your body. An involuntary whimper escapes his throat as you slowly begin stroking him up and down, feeling how hard and angry he feels even in the dark.

“‘M not gonna last long if you keep doing that.” He groans. 

You can't help but smile at the way his face scrunches up in pleasure as you continue to tug at his weeping member, occasionally running your thumb over his slit, gathering the precum before spreading it down his base.

“Can’t wait anymore. Need you.” He states plainly, grabbing your wrist and removing you from his pants before he stands up, removing his sweats and underwear in one motion. 

His cock, now free from the restrictive fabric of Frank’s boxers, pulses red between his legs. You drop your head back onto the mattress. He’s big. 

“Need you to fuck me, please,” you beg as he leans over to his bedside table, ripping open a condom. He throws his head back as he slides it over his penis, eventually lining himself up to your dripping entrance. He drags his mushroom tip up and down your soaked folds, tapping your clit lightly. Your legs twitch at the stimulation.

“You're my favorite, you know that?” He teases. 

You drag him down for a kiss. Your nails scrape down his back as he slowly begins to push himself in, watching with hooded eyes at the way you take him so well. It's lewd—down right pornagraphic the way you sound. You feel yourself stretch around him, chest rising and falling as he kisses you deeply, swallowing your moans as he begins to move his hips. 

He’s slow at first—calculated, like he’s thought long and hard about each stroke. His hips find a rhythm that makes your mouth fall open and leaves your mind blank, only one thing running through it—Frank, Frank, Frank. 

Your hands fall from his back onto his soft sheets, scrunching them up in between your fingertips. Frank leans back and grabs your thighs, throwing them over his shoulder before pressing his torso into yours. You gasp at the change in angle. Suddenly, with each thrust he reaches deeper and deeper, grunting each time his thick head brushes against the spongy part in your walls, enthralled at the way it makes you moan. 

His pace feels unrelentless and unforgiving. For a man whose admitted to liking you and respecting you so much, he sure fucks you like he doesn’t. It only brings you closer to the edge.

You watch his face in a haze. The way his lips part slightly, the small beads of sweat that have gathered on his forehead due to the physical activity, the way those piercing blue eyes that you love so much suddenly look pitch black with lust. 

He reaches his thumb down to circle your aching clit, biting his lower lip as he watches your back arch, pushing your tits into his face. He wants this burned behind his eyelids forever, buried alongside him in his grave. 

Your high pitched whines and hics let him know you're close again. He feels the way your walls clench around him, gushing out your arousal with each slam of his hips. You move your legs down to wrap around his hips, linking your ankles together to pull him impossibly closer to you as he continues to pistol into your pelvis. You cum unexpectedly, like a white hot blaze bubbling in your stomach, shooting down your veins before you even realize it's happening. It renders you speechless. Tears prick the sides of your eyes as Frank works you through it, his encouraging yet incredibly sexy voice whispering praise in your ear. 

When you come down from your high, you feel the way his hips stutter. Their movements, once precise, now feel erratic and dangerously close to finishing. You watch in amazement as his eyes squeeze shut. He grows louder and louder, slurred words leaving his lips as he tells you how good you’re doing, how nice you feel, how he could fuck you forever. His hips slam and eventually stall, a growl making its way into your shoulder as he releases his warm load into the latex of his condom. 

Your fingers find the sweaty hair at the nape of his neck as he pants above you. You two laugh gently before Frank’s arms give out, leaving him to lay on top of you. You bear the weight of his body for the light neck kisses he gives you in return. Something tugs at your heart. The moment is slow, hazy in the best way. It's yours to share and hold. 

When he finally pulls out of you, you whine at the loss of contact. You could have stayed like that forever. With Frank, forever. 

“I know,” he whispers. He can already read your mind. 

He walks to his bathroom and is gone for a moment, discarding his condom and cleaning himself up slightly before wetting a washcloth to wipe you down as well. It’s warm and comforting as he cleans up the mess you made between your own thighs, a mixture of the condoms pre-given lube and your own arousal. 

When you hear the start of his shower, you smile softly. It feels so domestic, like what you’ve always craved with Frank. Like what Chad never gave you. 

He helps you up off the bed, cracking another joke about you slipping as your legs try to find some balance. All you can do is give him an annoyed look before his lips are on yours again, dragging you from his room to the shower. 

You fall asleep in his arms afterwards. You're dressed in an old shirt of his, a pair of his boxers clad on your lower half. His sheets smell like you and him. You two speak softly about what this all means, how long you’ve wanted this, how much Frank has needed you. About how he’ll never let you go now that he has you, and no Chad is changing that. 

You kiss him gently. A thank you, an I’ve missed you, and an I love you seemingly all said with one small peck. 

Frank doesn’t fall asleep immediately. You’re slumped against his chest, softly breathing in and out as his fingers curl against your lower back. From here, Frank begins to memorize the slope of your nose from up close, the fluffiness of your eyelashes that flutter occasionally. He’s thankful for this moment of peace. He always wants this, he realizes. You, in his arms. His ring on your finger. Your toothbrush next to his. The smell of your shampoo on his scrub tops that will no doubt distract him. 

He drifts off thinking of his rule that he followed dutifully for a long time. He’s still following it as far as he’s concerned. He knows he’s not supposed to have favorites, and he doesn’t.

Well, except for you. 

//

1 Unauthorized Draping in a High-Risk Zone

Heel. Toe. Heel. Toe. Heel. Toe. It’s not a conscious thing you do, but you move anyway. You figure it’s your nervous system trying to siphon off all the anxious energy that perpetually resides within you.

This is just how your body chooses to cope, with tiny, repetitive motion, as if it can shake the dread loose before it calcifies into tears or sweat or both.

You make an effort to stop. To try and plant your feet, tell yourself to be good and normal and someone who belongs in this intimidating world.

But your brain pipes up with its favorite playlist: don’t touch anything blue, don’t lean on anything that costs more than your rent, don’t talk unless someone with a PhD says your name first, don’t be weird, don’t be you.

Not you-you. Not the klutzy, apology-powered wind-up doll who says “sorry” when someone else steps on your foot and once high-fived a paper towel dispenser by accident (don’t ask).

“Wrong hallway. Wrong badge.”

Shit.

Every neuron in your body slams on the brakes at once, and when you turn, it’s with the same slow, dawning horror of someone realizing they’ve just wandered into the morgue by mistake, except instead of toe tags and chillers, you’re greeted by six feet of brutal posture and eyes that look like they haven’t seen joy since the inventions of pagers.

You look down at his own badge and frown. Dr. Langdon. The senior resident with the god complex and the too-loud temper and the rehab stint. 

He’s severe. That’s your first thought. Gaze that makes your mouth dry up and hate how immediately attractive you find him in that hyper-competent, morally disapproving kind of way.

You open your mouth to say something, anything, hi, sorry, I swear this was an accident, maybe even please don’t kill me but you don’t get the chance, because he’s already moving.

Coming close enough that you can see the indent on his chin, flexing with every angry breath he takes.

His hand then moves to your shoulder while the other catches the tie at your gown and tugs it with quick efficient impatient.

What is happening?

Your ears burn, heart going loud, obnoxiously so, like it’s trying to escape your ribcage and run laps around the hallway.

This is the part where you do something. Step back maybe? Speak? React? Anything that might come across to the effect of: hey stranger danger why are you touching me like that?

Instead, you freeze completely, letting him reposition you like an object with poor spatial awareness, standing there like the world’s most pathetic statue. 

“I — wait, I thought —” you squeak, and it’s not a strong performance, not even close, just a frantic jumble of syllables strung together with the blind optimism that maybe, just maybe, he’ll let you explain yourself.

He doesn’t. He talks right over you, his words slicing through your sentence. 

“You’re not cleared,” he says, cool and direct, the kind of tone that doesn’t invite conversation so much as it ends it. Then, as if the knife needed twisting: “No one told you to suit up.”

He undoes the final knot, as if he’s unwrapping an inconvenience instead of peeling the last bit of your dignity off your shoulders, and when you don’t drop the gown fast enough he just takes it from you, tossing it in the linen bin.

He shoves a chart into your hands.

“Triage notes need updating,” he says. “Do that.”

You’re still rooted to the spot, stunned into inaction, gripping the clipboard like it's the only thing keeping you upright. 

You manage one step backward. Then another. It feels like learning to walk again.

Behind you, he adds, “And drink some water. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

2 Manual Dexterity: Failed Check

You’re staring at your hands. More specifically, the gloves that reside there. They feel weird on your skin, too loose at the fingertips, too bunchy on the palms.

There’s this awful puff of air trapped between your fingertips and the latex, and you keep flexing your hands like that’ll make it better, but it only makes the squish-snap worse. 

You could take them off and grab a better-fitting pair, but that would involve drawing attention, and you’re already pushing the acceptable intern limit for “visible fumbling.”

Especially not with Dr. Langdon standing nearby. Dark hair, cutting eyes, that carved-from-contempt expression that already seems to say you’re wasting his time just by existing. His whole aura screams, I have better things to do than acknowledge your carbon footprint, and it works, you’re been trying to stay out of his way since the Gown Incident (capital G, capital I), but he has this unnerving talent for appearing exactly where you don’t want him to be. 

And you could maybe cope with that, if your body didn’t decide to implode every time he got close. Five feet is the threshold, apparently. Any closer and all the blood rushes to your cheeks.

You’re so focused on pretending to be normal (chin up, shoulders back) that you don’t even realize he’s moved until it’s already happening.

A common theme, apparently.

His hand is around yours, lifting up your own like it’s some sort of misfiled lab result and brings it up under the light. He turns it over once. Then again.

You think for a second he might have forgotten it’s attached to a living, breathing person.

His brows furrow in what you assume is either concentration or deep disappointment. Probably the later.

“What are you doing?” you whisper, because that’s all your vocal cords will give you right now and you’re deeply afraid of drawing more attention than he already has.

He doesn’t answer, but rather just releases you hand. The loss of contact leaves a strange chill behind.

He stalks off toward a shadowy corner of the room that apparently hides a second supply cart.

A cart you’ve walked past, what, twenty times? He crouches, grabs a glove box from the bottom shelf, glances at the size like he’s memorized your hands from the quick thirty second glance over he gave them, and straightens in one fluid motion.

He’s back in front of you before you can fix your face, reaching for your hand to unpeel the glove in a way that makes your knees whisper things like maybe buckle now?.

The material slides away with a snap, leaving your hand bare and tingling in the open air. 

“I can do it,” you hiss, “I knew they looked weird. I mean, not my hands, the gloves obviously, my hands are normal, at least I think they’re normal, unless you — no, sorry, what I meant was — I just didn’t know there were any smaller ones and I didn’t want to slow anyone down and —”

He positions the new, correct-sized, glove and slides it onto you, smoothing it down with expert hands. 

He has really nice hands you realize. You mourn the second the go out of view.

“Wrong size compromises dexterity.”

“Oh,” you say, and then immediately regret it, because oh is not a real response to anything, so you tack on a breathless, “Thank you. I mean — for noticing. And fixing it. Sorry again.”

You’re smiling now. Why are you smiling?

“Don’t thank me.”

“Right,” you say, nodding. “No, yeah. I didn’t. I mean, I did, but… un-thank you. Consider the gratitude rescinded. Retracted. Gone.”

What a loser.

You wish the floor would do you a solid and just open up, suck you in, maybe relocate you to a dimension where you’re not inventing new ways to embarrass yourself in front of the grumpiest man alive. Preferably somewhere tropical and remote. With no gloves.

He looks at you like he’s deciding whether or not to dignify that with a response.

Then: “You done?”

“Uh-huh,” you say, “Done. Done talking. So done.”

He lifts his chin, gestures down the hall toward curtain three, and starts walking.

You follow like a kicked puppy. A very polite, professionally dressed, medically licensed kicked puppy.

3 Redirecting a Human GPS Malfunction

“She’s hyponatremic but still alert, which makes me think it’s chronic rather than acute, and the reflexes were intact except for a slight delay on patellar, so I’m leaning away from neuro, but if her cortisol’s low again I think we need to rule out secondary adrenal insufficiency, especially since her ACTH levels haven’t come back yet and nobody seems concerned about the mild orthostasis.”

Dr. Langdon hums low in his throat. It’s not disapproval. But it’s not agreement either. It’s a sound that lives somewhere in the neighborhood of try again, but smarter.  

“And if the ACTH comes back low?”

“Then I’d want a CRH stimulation test to see if the pituitary’s response because if both ACTH and cortisol are low, we could be looking at hypothalamic suppression instead of adrenal failure, and at that point, imaging the pituitary would be the next step. Unless she’s been on chronic steroids, but I didn’t see anything in her med list to suggest that.”

“Good. But keep an eye on the sodium trend, if it spikes with fluids, you might be chasing the wrong diagnosis.”

Good.

It’s one word. One syllable. Not even said warmly, more of a clinical stamp of temporary adequacy. But your brain grabs onto it like a starved plant seeing sun for the first time in weeks.

You want to keep your face still. You really try. You train every muscle into neutrality, schooling your expression like a child behind glass. But inside… inside it’s glowing. Confetti. Champagne. Tiny internal high-fives.

You got a good. From him. From Dr. Langdon, who looks at most people like they’re bad test results. Who’s allergic to praise. Who speaks in critiques and glares and weaponized silence.

“Yep. Sodium. Absolutely,” you nod eagerly. “You know, I read this case study once where a woman presented with severe hyponatremia after a hot yoga retreat and it turned out she’d been drinking like three gallons of water a day because she thought it was detoxing her live, and her sodium dropped to 118, which is horrifying, but she was totally asymptomatic until she passed out in her car.”

He looks at you. “You ever do that?”

You blink. “Sorry, do what?”

“Hot yoga.”

“I have! Um, I went through this whole phase junior year where I was like, trying to become one of those ‘balanced’ people who wake up early and do gratitude journaling and drink matcha and just like, glow all the time? So I signed up for a free week at this studio that was supposed to be ‘soul-transforming,’ which in hindsight should’ve been a red flag, but I was optimistic, and kind of desperate — anyway, I made it halfway through the first class before I realized I’d accidentally worn fleece-lined leggings, and then I couldn’t leave because the instructor locked the door for ‘heat-integrity,’ and —”

His fingers close over your collar, tugging you just enough to redirect you a few steps to the left before you cheek meets drywall.

“— and I was already sweating like crazy but trying to act normal because everyone else looked so serene, and then —”

He stops walking. You stumble to a halt just behind him, trying to get a handle on your breathing and your mouth, which have both been sprinting ahead without a permit.

“Watch where you’re going,” he says, flat and unbothered. “I’m not doing that again.”

You’re not quite sure what he means, but apologize anyway, “Right. Sorry.”

He pauses. Glances over his shoulder. “And stop apologizing.”

“Mhm. Got it.” You give him a weird little salute. Loser strike two.

“Go check on your patient.”

“Going!”

You make it three steps before his fingers wrap around your elbow. He spins you back around with minimal effort. “Wrong way.”

You glance sideways. “Thought you weren’t doing that again.”

He doesn’t let go yet. Just raises one eyebrow. “Don’t be a smartass.”

His mouth twitches. A small, tiny flicker of amusement. It feels like a secret you weren’t supposed to see, so you pretend not to.

4 Medical Intervention (Sandwich Required)

You’re not even sure when you stopped standing and started leaning, all you know is the supply cart is cool and metal and solid under your palm, which is more than you can say for your knees.

Sixteen hours in, eight traumas logged, and your internal organs are currently operating on a diet consisting of two cups of hospital coffee (burnt and betrayal flavored) and a single saltine you found crumpled in your pocket.

You blink against the sudden fuzz crawling at the edges of your vision, but it’s no use, the black spots are doing synchronized jumping jacks now. Little warning flares that you’re probably pushing your luck. Again.

Dana steps into your line of sight, eyes narrowing. “You okay, kid?”

You slap on a smile like a band-aid over a bullet wound. Your special-sauce if you ever had one.

“Yup! All good. Just needed a minute. Long day. A lot of… exciting cases. You know how it is.” You do a vague jazz-hands motion. “Crushing it.”

Your vision pulses again. You do not, in fact, appear to be crushing it, you’re very sure of that. Maybe in the way a soda can gets crushed under a steel-toed boot. 

“And I’m the Queen of England.” She takes one long look at your pale face and glassy eyes. “Sit. Before you faceplant and I have to explain to Gloria why we lost one to stubborn optimism.”

“I promise I’m fine! I just — stood up too fast.”

“Bullshit.” 

His hand appears at the same time as his voice, both faster than your excuses.

One moment you’re vertical and the next you’re yanked with just enough force, like he knows how much pressure you can take without crumbling.

His grip is all calloused heat, palm pressing into your arm as he pulls you into the chair.

The world tilts once, then slams back into place. Cold metal bites into your thighs. His hand lingers a second too long, fingers flexing like he’s still gauging whether you’ll tip over again. 

“I could’ve sat on my own, you know,” you grumble half-heartedly.

You glance toward Dana, hoping for backup, or at the very least a supportive eyebrow raise. She meets your gaze, chews her gum, and shrugs one shoulder in a perfect display of girl, please. Entirely unsympathetic. Possibly amused.

“Nope,” she says. “You were about one sway away from eating tile. Survival of the smartest, sweetheart. ”

“Don’t care if you could’ve,” he says as he crouches. “I’m not scraping you off the floor because you’re too much of a hard head to sit when you’re clearly crashing.”

Then, without asking (because when does he ever ask), he takes your wrist in his hand, thumb pressing gently into the inside. You try not to squirm.

“There’s a difference between committed and careless.” His brow furrows as he counts the beats under his thumb. “Right now, you’re leaning toward the wrong one.”

“I wasn’t trying to be careless, I swear. I just lost track of time, which is funny because I’m usually really good at that, like I even set alarms for hydration, but I ignored all of them because I didn’t want to miss rounds and then one trauma turned into five —”

You stop when you realize he’s still holding your wrist. And staring.

He exhales hard through his nose and shakes his head.

“You’ve got ten minutes here with food,” he says. He jerks his chin at Dana, who nods and heads for the cart without needing more. “Then fluids. Then, and only then, you can check on the lac in bay four.” His eyes cut back to you. “And if I see you wobble even once, you’re off the board for the night.”

“Yes. Yes sir – uh, not sir, just — yes. I’m staying.”

Dr. Langdon nods once, brushes his fingers briefly over your shoulder in what might be the lamest pat in human history (the universal ‘don’t make me come back’ signal), and walks off without another word.

Dana returns with a sandwich and a raised brow.

You unwrap it slowly. “Is he always so — uh — intense?”

She barks a laugh. “That was him being gentle.”

5 Objects in Motion (You) Meets Immovable Force (Also You, Apparently)

“—I’m telling you, he’s been on my ass before the sun even showed up,” Santos grumbles, tapping her pen against the desk. “I said good morning, and he looked at me like I suggested we kick a puppy together. Someone pissed in his Cheerios, and now I’m the one getting crucified for it.”

You tilt your head. “Maybe he just needs a snack. Or like… a hug.”

She snorts without looking at you. “I was thinking more along the lines of a double whiskey and a week locked in solitary with nothing but his own guilt complex, but sure. Hugs. Why not.”

“That’s so mean! Dr. Robby is not that bad. He just… glares at people like they personally ruined his life on occasion. He’s usually very kind.”

“Next you’re gonna tell me he’s just misunderstood and has a good heart underneath it all.”

“I mean… yeah. I kind of believe that about everyone. Doesn’t mean I’m right, but like… I’m not not hoping.”

Santo swivels in her chair, stares. “Even Langdon?”

You falter there. Step back. Physically, even, as if that’ll help distance you from the question, from the thought, because now it’s in there. 

Dr. Langdon. Frank Langdon. The man who speaks in flat tones and judgmental silences. Who glares like it’s a sport and you’re always losing. 

And now you’re thinking about him with… layers. Like, not just as a terrifying force of workplace intensity, but as someone who maybe carries all that stormy energy because he doesn’t know what to do with the softer parts.

Someone who maybe, just maybe, has a good heart buried underneath a mile of barbed wire

You chew on the thought like it’s an overcooked piece of gum — rubbery, bitter, sticking to the inside of your skull even as you try to spit it out — and you’re not even sure what part is more disturbing: the possibility that Langdon has hidden depths, or the fact that your brain insists on exploring them like a museum exhibit you weren’t emotionally prepared for. 

But before you can get to the part where he maybe owns houseplants or secretly feeds stray cats behind the loading bay, the thought shatters, violently, like someone dropped a wine glass in the middle of your mental dinner party.

Noise. Sudden. Loud. A voice shouting something urgent, boots hammering the floor, movement that feels too fast for the space.

You flinch instinctively, start to pivot toward the commotion, but before your body can even decide what direction to go, a hand snaps around your waist and then you’re moving, pulled into something broad and unyielding and extremely human-shaped.

Specifically, Dr. Langdon-shaped.

Your cheek brushes the starchy edge of his scrub top. His arm curls in front of you, protective like a steel beam, while a crash cart screams past, inches from where you were just standing, the air it kicks up biting against your skin.

You realize, distantly, that you would’ve been directly in its path if not for him.

You can feel his heartbeat through the wall of muscle between you and everything else.

You can smell him, too. Clean, masculine soap invading your senses.

You shift, just slightly, enough to tilt your face upward.

He’s looking down at you like you’re a particularly complicated equation he’s trying not to solve out loud. And for a second, you don’t breathe. Not really. Because his grip tightens and you swear, you swear, his eyes flick down to your mouth.

“Jesus,” Santos mutters, breaking the spell as she peers after the cart. “You good? That thing was flying.”

You blink, realizing a second too late that Santos was talking to you.

“Huh?” You clear your throat, a sound that comes out way too dry. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’m good.”

At the same moment, Langdon steps away. Lets go. And the absence is bizarrely loud, like someone hit mute on the part of your body that had been braced against him.

You’re suddenly hyper-aware of not being touched. Of gravity reasserting itself. Of how your arms feel too light and your chest feels too tight and none of it makes any damn sense.

“You could’ve gotten flattened,” he mutters, jaw tight. It sounds like criticism, but there’s something else under it. Concern, maybe. Or frustration aimed more at the situation than at you.

You rub at your forearm, pretending it itches instead of tingles. “Yeah, well. I’m thinking of investing in high-vis tape and a ‘please don’t run me over’ sign.”

He doesn’t say anything. Just stares at you with that signature flat, heavy-lidded expression like even he can’t believe how often he has to save your life from your own proximity to disaster.

You can’t really believe it either.

“I won’t say thanks,” you say. “I know you hate that. And apologizing. But uh… I didn’t die. That’s… cool. For both of us. I mean, mostly me. But also you, probably, because paperwork would’ve sucked. I’m gonna leave before I say something dumber than that, which is a very low bar, so —”

“Do you really believe that?” he says behind you.

You stop. 

“What?”

“What you said earlier. About everyone?”

It takes a second. He’d heard that?

You scratch your cheek, suddenly feeling exposed.

“Yeah,” you say finally. “I really do.”

+1 Please Just Stay

The stairwell is freezing, cement bones and rebar spine, and you’re crumpled against the wall like a misfiled piece of paper. It’s quiet here, except for the stupid way your breathing bounces off the walls and makes it sound like someone else is crying too. 

But it’s just you. It’s always just you. The tears keep coming, hot and salty and mortifying. You wipe them away with the back of your hand, again and again, but they just keep returning, stubborn as guilt.

Everyone said it wasn’t your fault. In serious tones people use when they want to sound very sure. As if it makes a difference. It really doesn’t. 

It was your first patient death.

He was somebody’s father. Somebody’s brother. Somebody’s son. And in the end, you were the last person to touch him. You watched the monitors go still. You felt his hand lose its warmth. 

Footsteps echo up the stairwell. 

Your body reacts accordingly, jolting upright like you’ve been caught doing something illegal (crying isn’t illegal, you remind yourself, but it sure feels like it), and your hands fly to your face.

Both of them. Too rough, too fast, trying to erase the emotions by brute force.

Your shoulders curl in, chin tucking down so far it could hit your collarbone. Hide, hide, hide. You try to stop the sniffling, will it down your throat, but it stutters out of you anyway, weak, wet, pathetic. Perfect.

“Oh — shit. Sorry.” It takes you half a second to recognize the voice. A half second too long, because by the time it clicks, it’s already too late. Dr. Langdon. 

Your stomach flips so intensely it feels like it’s trying to escape through your throat, a sudden swoop of nausea and disbelief tangled together. Of all people. 

You hear the shift, his footsteps faltering, uneven now, breath snagging mid-step before everything goes still. The stairwell swallows the sound. 

Then: “You’re crying.”

You let out a exhale that stumbles out halfway between a laugh and a cough.

It sounds pathetic, honestly, but you don’t have the energy to care. “That obvious, huh?”

Silence stretches long enough to get awkward, and you start to hope maybe he took the hint. Maybe he backed away, quietly, like a decent person who knows how to pretend they didn’t just catch someone crying their face off in a desolate place. Maybe you get to keep your breakdown private.

However, you aren’t so lucky.

“First time I lost a patient, I threw up in the supply closet.” He doesn’t sound embarrassed by it, just matter-of-fact, like he’s naming a side effect. “I told the attending that it was food poisoning. It wasn’t.”

You twist toward him, shoulders still hunched, face hot and raw. You’re sure you look like hell, and he sees all of it, but he doesn’t react. No flicker of discomfort. No awkward glance away.

“Does it… ever get easier?”

It sounds fragile on your tongue. Like you’re scared of the answer, but more scared not to ask.

He looks past you for a second. 

“No,” he says. Then, almost like an afterthought, “If it did, that’d be worse.”

You swallow around the lump in your throat. “Yeah,” you whisper. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

He nods and you see the look on his face that suggests maybe he wants to say more. But he doesn’t.

“Take a minute. If you need anything…” He hesitates. “Come get me.”

He turns, just slightly, like he’s giving you privacy. Respect. Distance. 

And maybe that was what you needed. What you thought you wanted not even two seconds ago. But not anymore.

Because the second he turns, the second his body shifts and his presence starts to pull away even by the smallest degree, panic claws its way up your chest like a reflex, like a toddler reaching out in the dark, and your hands shoot forward without asking permission from the rest of you, both of them closing tight around the soft fabric of his scrubs. Clumsy and fast and maybe too hard. 

You don’t even know what you're holding onto exactly, not really, except it’s him, and he’s warm and real and not going anywhere, not unless you let him, and for a second you just stand there like that, fists full of fabric, heart full of please don’t leave.

“Don’t —” you choke, the word cracking like it’s too big for your throat, and you bite it down fast, try again, quieter this time, like whispering might make it less desperate. “Can you just… stay. Just a minute. Please.”

He doesn’t say anything right away, and for a terrifying, breath-holding moment, you think maybe you misread it, maybe he’s about to step back, untangle himself from your grip, do the polite thing and leave you to cry in peace like people do when they don’t want to deal with someone else’s damage. 

His eyes drop to where your fists are bunched in his scrubs

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Yeah. Okay.”

His arms come around you. Not expertly either. It’s real and maybe a little uneven, a little unsure, like he’s not totally certain where his hands are supposed to go.

But he does it anyway, one hand finding the back of your head, fussing with the tag on the back of your shirt, the other curling around your back.

And for the first time all day, you don’t feel like you’re falling.

yourusername

liked by madmax, kingsteve, and 62.9k others

yourusername: some fractured bts 🤭 (ps its out in theaters now!)

tagged: snapshotsbyjon, nancywheeler, madmax, + 3 others

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madmax i thought that photo wasn't going to see the light of day ↳ yourusername @.madmax sorry max but you looked too cute not to post ↳ madmax @.yourusername count your days

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fracturedmovieofficial watch out for her axe! [liked by author]

kingsteve

liked by snapshotsbyjonathan, yourusername, and 2.2m others

kingsteve some snapshots from tour 🙃🙃

tagged: theroyalsofficial

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user.5 hey so he's trying to kill with with the first and third pic! ↳ user.2 god i need him bad

user.6 4th picture 🤨 mans looks like he's in the studio... new album coming???

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yourusername posted a story

youruser.updates

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youruser.updates @.yourusername was spotted at The Royals concert in LA N1 last night + posted to her story

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user.7 something is happening here but i can't prove it ↳ user.4 @.user.7 i fear you might be seeing things bc wtf is happening she just went to a friend of friend's concert ↳ user.3 @.user.7 girl she was also with nancy she's literally in the picture

user.1 maybe im delusional but lowkey steve and her would look good together ↳ user.7 @.user.1 THANK YOU! IM GLAD IM NOT THE ONLY ONE ↳ user.5 @.user.1 @.user.7 yall are delusional 😭 what happened to not shipping celebrities