Lipstick & Pearls

Today in the Pitt, things are fast. Patients come and go fast. People die fast. Your lunch break goes fast.

It’s the type of day where patients are in the hallway until they can get a room. If they can get a room. Okay, most of the time they don’t get a room.

But! Like a door to heaven, you watch a man in a cast walk out the door with his care instructions in hand, and like so, a bed is empty. You take a woman who’d been in a car crash into the room.

She’s around your age, and she’s already had some glass picked out of her arm in triage. The seatbelt did its job, but is starting to leave a nasty bruise around her shoulder and where it rested across her chest.

‘Hey. I’m Doctor Y/N Harker. I’m gonna start to check you out okay?’ You need to palpate her chest to check for out of place ribs. And she needs a CT scan and bloodwork and probably pain meds and…

‘Thank you. My hero.’ She smiles gratefully at you, and you give a small one back while you draw the curtain that separates the smaller rooms.

You ask her for a brief rundown of what happened and her symptoms. She tells you all about the wreck, and how she’d been throttled around in the midst of it.

While you listen to her lungs, she says, ‘Um— my head hurts? Do you think I have a concussion?’

‘Any nausea, vomiting?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Sensitivity to light?’

‘A little.’

‘You might. We’ll have to get some scans done for that, so I’ll order one.’ You sling your stethoscope back around your neck and let your hands hang from it on either side.

‘You’re Dr. Langdon’s wife, right? He pointed you out to me earlier, when I was stuck in the hallway. You seemed busy.’

‘Yes, very busy. But, uh—‘ You huff softly, like you don’t understand where she got this information, ‘—We’re just dating. Not married.’

‘Really? Sorry. I didn’t mean to, like, assume…’

‘Oh, no, totally fine. Don’t worry about it. Just— did he say that to you?’ Your voice goes up an entire octave at the end. You can’t help it.

‘Yeah. He asked about the crash, and we were just small talking— and then, I said Are you my doctor?, and he pointed to you and said No, not me. But see the angry one right there? That’s my wife, she’s great.’

You scoff, ‘We’re not even engaged.’

‘Oh. Does he know that?’

‘God, I hope so.’ Your brow creases in worry, the patient laughs a little and you snap back to the task at hand, ‘Right, let’s get you in a wheelchair and down to imaging.’

-

As you round a corner, you see a blur of black scrubs and brown hair walk past you. He doesn’t see you, he’s got his back to you. Perfect.

You walk closely behind him and grab ahold of the neck of his scrubs and pull him back with… medium force, like a cat scruffing a kitten. You don’t actually want to hurt him. But scaring him, that you don’t mind. He was walking freely before so, the collar chokes him for a second until he bounces back with wide eyes and turns around to find you, less than pleased.

‘Oh, hey. My wonderful and non-violent girlfriend. Yeah, I have a second to talk. Thanks for asking nicely.’ He complains, pulling his scrubs back to normal.

‘Have you been telling people we’re married?’ You cross your arms over your chest, indifferent to his whining.

‘…No.’ He huffs and lies. He’s an okay liar, but you can tell. Well, technically it’s not actually a lie? Technically… he never said those… exact words.

‘Okay, let me ask you a more specific question. Are you referring to me as your wife?’

‘Umm...’ He scratches the back of his neck like he’s guilty.

‘What the fuck?’ You throw your arms up.

‘On occasion.’

‘Frank.’

‘Stay calm!’

‘Frank!’ You scold. Somehow the glare gets sharper.

‘What?’ He whines, indignant. ‘I thought that would be endearing to you!’

He’s got this dejected look on his face. Mouth open a bit in a frown and ready to argue, like you’ve rained all over his parade. You grasp him softly by his upper arms.

‘Honey, I love you. You obviously don’t have to work very hard to endear yourself to me,’ He brings his hands up to touch the bottom of your arms that hold him. You are in a less than ideal fork in the road, and he’s being given a soft warning, but it doesn’t stop him from reciprocating touch, ‘But I don’t wanna be known as your wife. I don’t want people to know me as Frank’s wife. Especially not my colleagues and patients. I want to be Harker. For my whole career.’

‘You don’t have to take my last name.’ Frank shrugs.

‘Honey, that was never on the table.’

‘Do you have any flexibility? On anything? Ever?’

‘Upon request.’

‘I’m requesting.’

‘Fresh out.’

He rolls his eyes, ‘Go away. I’m working.’

You ball your fist into the shoulder of his shirt so he can’t walk away from you. You hush your voice so only he can hear it.

‘If you keep calling me wife, I’m going to start telling people—patients and coworkers alike— that yes, we are engaged, and it’s a lavender marriage.’

He gawks at your audaciousness, a single, incredulous, amused huff bursting out of him. He smiles with an open mouth, and you soften a tiny bit. ‘You are insane.’ He says.

‘Yes.’

‘Couldn’t we hyphenate? Couldn’t you see me as a Doctor Langdon-Harker? That’s six syllables. It’s so long and obnoxious. I like it.’

He’s talking like he’s wholly unfazed by the concept of being bound together legally and socially. This is not something you’re familiar with. You never thought you’d be getting married. Sharing a bank account—in this case, with a man— seems all too stressful, and you the last thing you want is to be anyone’s housewife.

You’re a working woman. But you are starting to think about it now. That maybe… because he’s a doctor too, it’ll be easy. You won’t be expected to stay at home and cook and clean and be disgustingly traditional. He knows you’d never go for that, and he seems to still want it.

You let his shirt go, but you stay in each others personal space.

‘You actually want to marry me?’

‘That’s the plan.’ He smooths out his scrub top, lightly perturbed, for the second time today, ‘And what do you have against my shirt? God.’

You look him up and down. You sigh. You suppose… at the end of the day… maybe… this could be sweet.

‘Do you know what dress you’re gonna wear, or…?’ You ask, still having not broken your irritated demeanor. But he can read you. You’re trying to change the subject. He just smiles.

‘Ugh! I’ll think about it.’ The hyphenation, you mean. Definitely, definitely, not marriage yet. Fuck, you hope he can read between the lines there. He’s smart.

Right?

‘Music to my ears, Harker-Langdon.’

‘It’s like you have no survival instinct.’

-

Later that day

To you, Frank is doing a shitty job with the sponge stick. You still can’t see what you’re doing inside this man’s throat with all the red. And you’re still annoyed at him.

‘Oh, my god, sponge better, asshole!’

‘I am! Asshole!’

‘Hey, play nice? At least while you’re inside a dying man?’ Says Robby from the sidelines, watching over the surgery.

Frank finds it to be an apt time to joke, filling precious time with unnecessary comments. ‘Oh! Don’t worry, she can smell the grim reaper from a mile out. Honey, do it!’

You ignore him.

‘He’s not gonna die.’ You scold nobody in particular, being fed up with talking to men for the day. You look up at Robby for a second through your clear glasses, ‘Your pseudo-son will if he doesn’t let me do what I need to do.’

‘You might be in the doghouse tonight, son.’ Robby says to Frank as he walks around him to your side, trying to get a better view.

Frank sighs.

‘I’m always in the doghouse.’

‘No, he’s not.’ You assure your attending, ‘He just particularly responds to this tone of voice.’

Frank Langdon has nothing to say to that. Probably because it’s true.

‘Can one of you call off the wedding? Get cold feet? Cuz’ this is becoming unprofessional.’ Robby half-jokes. Oh, good. So he’d already told your boss that you’re engaged before you could get to him.

‘Frank!’

Frank is too used to the call of his name to have a visible reaction.

‘It’s been unprofessional, Robby.’

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You moved to night shift while Frank was at rehab. 

It’s just easier this way. You stopped finding yourself able to sleep well after the sun went down anymore. You sweat and have gory nightmares. You’ve never been one to shudder at gore, but these were highly indicative of stress. 

Sometimes the hospital blows up, flames licking up the walls.

Sometimes you’re eviscerated, an autopsy being done on you.

In these dreams, no matter what, you are always, always, at work. It is always, always daylight. And you look around for Frank. Someone to commiserate with. To look over and see him torn open too, and feel comforted. 

And he is never, ever there.

You tend to psychoanalyze everyone you meet. Silently, of course. Everyone except yourself. You can’t see that you’re having these vignettes in your dreams because you just miss him. And the botched routine has started to get to you, because a vital piece is missing. It’s a routine years in the making. And you fucking hate change. 

It seems to be making your mind violent.

Abbot accepted you immediately into his team. It’s harsh to settle into, but the knife always dulls. 

The nightmares stop. Now you dream of nothing at all. Like black out curtains. You wonder what it’ll take to have a good dream. And to remember it when you wake up, too.

You tell Frank all about the switch over when you visit him at the rehab center. You tell him about the nightmares, the switch over, and the nightmares’ departure all in one sitting. He has to pull it out of you, because you don’t want to talk about yourself at the museum of his addiction. You haven’t talked about yourself in a long time. The medical field will do that to you. But you talk, and it all comes spewing out. And there’s not much Frank can do about it from there. It seems to comfort you for now. And that’s good. 

But it’s Frank’s first week back, and he’s never been to work before where he knew you weren’t coming back. You’ve taken days off. Gone home early, shit like that. Now you’re just… on the other side of the clock. And he rarely sees you anymore. 

And there’s this new guy. He’s a PGY-3 and he definitely wasn’t hired to take your place at day shift, though it feels that way to Langdon. He’s 5’6 and has a very patchy mustache. He’s happy to be there. Like, suspiciously chipper. Frank knows they will not get along.

The week comes to an end slowly. It’s long. People know. Rumors spread, especially when you get caught stealing pills. And with that, comes people walking on eggshells around you. It’s fucking annoying. And he has no one to hold him to it and through it on his lunch break and in busy halls. There is no one to make him belly laugh. There is no one he’s excited to make laugh.

You are both suffering for this. 

You could not fathom the change of him being gone, so you throw your entire work life into upheaval, having to learn a whole new night routine after all. He’s back now, and the original change can be rectified. You know that. You don’t know why you stay at the night shift.

Frank cannot fathom the dissonance of you being gone. He can’t seem to stop looking for you. He wants badly, badly, badly. But it’s selfish to ask you to come back. You’re finding comfort in the night shift from what plagues you. And that’s good, he tells himself. Over and Over.

He texts you. He calls when it’s really bad.

The phone rings 4 times.

‘Hello?’ You answer, voice husky.

‘Hey. Were you sleeping?’ Frank says, trying to be as considerate as he can be. He’s eloped outside for a second to do this.

‘Almost. I was just about to get in my coffin. You’re lucky, cuz there’s no service in there.’ You sound like you’re rubbing your eyes.

‘S-Sorry.’ You don’t expect this stressed tone from him. You expected a joke back.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I’m fuckin’… It’s rough here today.’ He leans against the outside wall of the Pitt. ‘Y’know- I don’t like this little shit who’s taken your place.’

‘They didn’t take my place. No one did.’

‘Well, he’s using your locker.’

‘Who is it?’ You were sitting up before, probably to answer the phone, and it sounds like you’ve just sunk back into bed.

‘I don’t even know his name. I don’t want to know. He’s a transfer.’

‘I was a transfer.’ You say, monotone.

‘Yeah, but they don’t make em’ like you anymore.’

‘They tried. When they made you.’

He laughs, and you chuckle, and there’s a comfortable silence. He’s imagining your face, hair put up for bed. And as for what you wear to bed, he…

‘Can… can I see you this weekend?’

Frank has been sober from benzodiazepines for almost nine months now. Three in inpatient, which he thought was overkill, but whatever. And six in outpatient. He still has to go to meetings and do drug tests to make sure his job at the Pitt keeps. He’s moved into the apartment across from yours, and he was seeing you at least twice a week. Usually on the weekends. You run errands together. 

Then, it slowly evolved into a situation that was entirely too domestic to be comfortable. But it is. 

Some days, Frank hears your key turn in your door from his apartment and is at your heels before you’ve made it in. He comes in with you and you eat something together usually. You talk over your food until you’re too tired to stand anymore. The lines close in farther and farther. You tell him you’re going to bed, and the first time this happens he asks if you want him to leave. Only if you want to, you say. Watch TV. I have HBO. 

Just lock the door when you leave. 

He doesn’t know what you mean by this, since he doesn’t have a key to your apartment. You’re sleep deprived, he supposes. So, he stays until he wants to lay in a bed instead of a couch. When he needs to leave, he takes your key off the ring and locks the door with it, and then he slides it back under the door for you. 

You pick it up when you get ready for work. You keep picking it up each time until it has surely, solidly become a thing to expect.

Sometimes Frank felt like you were his only friend. Him and Abby’s friends chose her in the divorce. The others from work called and texted but… he only saw your face. 

Your apartment smells like you and it smells lived in. The blankets are pilled and frayed like you’d taken them from home. There are things to look at. Trinkets and books and loose papers scattered around. The walls have frames and art and your high school diploma. They aren’t glaringly white and empty like his. And you’re right across the hall. It’s hard to resist the urge to be with you.

Even if you’re just sleeping in the next room.

Now Langdon’s back at work, and trying to get a hold of you is like hell. Because, y’know. You’re sleeping, but it’s different now. You're nocturnal, and when you aren’t at work, you try to rest like every other doctor. 

Your door is closed before he can make it in now. It feels like a tombstone staring back at him; unmoving and final. 

And he needs sleep of his own. 

The symbiotic relationship seems to be at a disconnect.

He hears you clear your throat softly.

‘I’m off Saturday, but a bunch of us are going out then. Ellis and I- and… pretty much everyone who doesn’t have kids to put to bed. And I’m on call Sunday, so...’

‘Am I not invited?’

‘I was gonna ask, but I didn’t think you were doing bars yet. Or ever.‘ 

‘I can do a bar.’ He really shouldn’t. Not yet. He’s not far enough removed from it all. Or, that’s what the professionals would say. But he will abandon caution to not have to wait another month to see you. Risk relapsing one addiction to feed another.

On the other end of the phone, you’re worried for him. But you’re not his keeper. Just his friend. 

‘…Okay.’

-

Frank has a car. He’s always had a car. And it sits in the apartment complex lot getting dusty. You and him are usually going to the same place, anyways. Why double the air pollution? And, okay, he likes being your passenger princess a little bit. 

So, you and him take your car to the bar. 

You walk a little ahead of him in the parking lot, and he gets to sneak a full look at you tonight. You’ve got your hair down but tucked behind your ears. You have this big, bulky, leather men’s bomber jacket and you wear it everywhere, hands always finding their home in the pockets.  In one of the other pockets, you have a lighter and gum. The jacket is cropped shorter than most jackets, so he can see your ass move in your pants as you walk. Your boots don't make any noise anymore, weathered by the many years you’ve been wearing them.

He has the instinct to run up close to you and make you hold his hand the whole night. He doesn’t want to lose sight of you. But he knows he will have to at some point.

Together, you and Frank enter. He gets a couple of hugs from Collins and Mel. Abbot pats him once on the back. They’re surprised to see him there. He’s never come before. 

You settle into the quietest section of the bar you can. There’s a big open space for people to dance in front of a small platform where a band plays for the night, and already people have gathered there. 

‘Are you sure you’re okay? Being here?’ You ask him.

‘Yeah, I’m… It feels good to be out. With you guys.’

You catch up with everyone for a good thirty minutes. Then the clock strikes ten, and you order your first drink. 

‘We might have to leave the car here. Cuz I kinda want to get blitzed.’ You say to Frank, and though the bar is a little loud with the music and all, he’s right next to you, so you don’t have to yell.

‘So, if I stay sober, can I finally drive it?’ Your faces are close. Maybe six inches apart.

‘Mmyeah. But don’t do that. We’re celebrating.’

‘Is it someone’s birthday?’

‘No. It’s Frank Is Nine Months Sober From Benzos Today Day.’

‘Oh, yeah. A fully gestated sober-baby.’

‘A baby, huh? Can I be the daddy?’

‘If you’re the daddy, it’ll look like the third Addams family baby.’

‘Pubert. He has a little mustache, it’s cute.’

‘Should I grow one?’ Frank asks. He touches his upper lip. You can’t tell if he’s serious.

‘No.’

‘You just said it was cute!’

‘He’s a baby!’

‘Gomez has a mustache too.’

‘You are not Gomez.’

‘I could be.’ He shrugs with wide eyes and a goofy closed lip smile. Neither of you meant for it to happen, but the next thought is obviously… who’s going to be Morticia?

It’s no secret, really.

‘You know you’re not going to grow one. So I’m not pulling at this thread.’

‘Why is it such a sure thing?’

‘You don’t have the je nais se quoi required.’

‘That’s not convincing to me because I don’t speak french.’ 

There are two MDs between you, and you argue like middle schoolers.

‘Neither do I. This is beginners french. Si tu te laisses pousser la moustache, je devrai baise sur ton visage.’ You start to get up from your stool to go see Santos, who is sitting at a four top with Garcia and Walsh. They’re having their own separate general surgery clique conversation. 

‘Hey, was that as filthy as it sounded?’

‘No.’ And then you’re away.

-

You sit at the empty seat adjacent to Santos. She’s on her phone and nursing something clear.

‘Drunk yet?’

Her eyes light up when she sees you. She ignores your question because she has something much more interesting to ask you. ‘Hey, do you know your blood type?’

‘Yeah, O neg.’

‘Universal donor. You donate?’

‘Of course.’

She nods and shakes her head like she’s found herself getting off track, ‘Anyways, I had a patient today with RH null. Rarest blood type ever. There’s only like, fifty documented cases.’

‘Fifty-one now. What was wrong with him?’

‘He screwed his sister-in-law and his wife hit him with her car. He was pretty much okay, though. And thank god, because if he had needed a blood transfusion, it would’ve been over.’

‘We’re on the wife’s side, right?’

‘Oh, definitely. And he didn’t even press charges.’

‘That was smart of him.’

‘I had to get help on it. Cuz honestly, I didn't know enough about his special blood to not accidentally kill this guy.’

‘Wow, you would’ve never admitted that six months ago.’

‘Yup. I watched Forrest Gump last night. Discovered the preciousness of life.’

Yeah, she’s a little drunk. You laugh with your chest. ‘No, you didn’t.’ You giggle out, shaking your head. 

‘No, I didn’t. But I thought you’d want to know about the blood stuff.’ She smiles, visually pleased at your reaction.

‘How thoughtful of you.’

‘I know.’ Santos glances behind you at the rest of your coworkers and sees Frank. ‘I can’t believe he actually came.’

‘We came together.’

‘Huh? Like a date?’ Pfft. If you and Frank going somewhere together was a date, you’ve been on a lot of fucking dates.

‘No. We’re like, neighbors, I guess.’ You fiddle with the wrapper to her straw that’s been discarded on the table. 

‘What the hell? Since when?’

‘Six months ago.’

‘Oh, god. Am I the last to find out?’ She cringes and almost whines.

‘You’re the only one to find out.’

She sighs audibly. Some in relief, some in disbelief at the situation.

‘Well— That’s so weird. Unless you’re fuckin’. Are- Are you eating that poor man alive?’

‘No, ma’am.’ You like the image she’s painted for you, like you’re a praying mantis biting off a man’s head after sex. Then, you remember Whitaker. ‘Are you eating Whitaker alive, then? You actually live together.’

‘Well, no. But I’m a lesbian.’ She heaves an exaggerated sigh, ‘I should stop putting so much faith in your horoscope.’

‘Uh- Yeah. I’m nothing like Abby.’

‘But… That’s a good thing, though. They’re divorced.’

‘Mmm… regardless, I’m a…’ You scratch your head and scrunch your nose, ‘…big investment, I think.’

‘Are you a stray cat?’

‘I meant, like, emotionally.’ You laugh.

‘Oh, and you think you’re special? Everyone on our floor is practically falling off the fuckin’ bone.’

She looks around at her coworkers and silently judges. You feel like she’s about to go on a tangent, so you recenter her.

‘What did the Zodiac say about today specifically?’

‘Ummm… Today, something about the fear instinct. Fight or flight. Horoscope says you’re fight.’

‘You still check mine?’ Even though I’m night shift now?

‘You’re the only person I trust to keep me reading them a secret.’

‘Aww. Thanks. My little scorpion.’ You kiss her on the cheek. She leans into it, and giggles lowly with a rasp. You find that you’re affectionate with Trinity. She’s not a touchy person. You’re not a touchy person, not easily. So, at the beginning, there was no expectation for it. That’s what makes it feel so comforting now. It’s like you’re doing exposure therapy for each other.

And— you sloppily made out in the bathroom of this bar many months ago. It’s a good foundation for a beautiful friendship with no boundaries.

She thinks for a moment, takes a big swig of her drink, then shrugs.

‘But, hey- look, fuck what the ‘scope says about fight or flight—’ She makes quotations with one hand, ‘Not everyone is either or. You can be neither. Some people are both.’

‘I’m suspicious of your tone. Like you know something I don’t.’ You poke at her.

‘We’re about to find out.’

‘What?’

She points with her lips behind you. You turn your head to see that Frank has found himself a skinny blonde. She’s sitting in the stool you had left open next to him. They’re faces are so close, like an open invitation to physical contact.

You flee.

‘I’m gonna go pee.’

-

You go outside to smoke a joint. You go out the back door and take three hits. You stay until you start to feel it. It takes five minutes.  When you come back, the blonde woman is still there. 

You approach the opposite side of the bar, trying to put distance between you and Frank. Trinity finds you there, like she’s been looking for you since you fled.

‘I need a shot.’ You say. Santos calls the bartender over and orders you one. Don Julio.

‘Sorry.’ Santos says eventually.

‘For what?’ You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand after the shot.

Santos realizes you are not drunk or high enough to be talking about this, and you will hold onto your denial until you can’t see straight. She narrows her eyes at you and opens her mouth a couple times like she’s about to inquire. But she cares for you. So for once in her life, she’ll have some tact. 

‘I asked the band to play that song you showed me.’

She drags you to the dance floor. You are stiff as a board at first, but then the shot takes it’s place in your blood and you feel comforted by her. She’s good to you. 

Your arms are around her neck and you sway back and forth. You are glad to not be alone. And you are glad to be distracted. It’s nice to be without him for a moment. To have someone to feel loved by, even if it’s not necessarily romantic.  

You start to come back to center, and the high settles deeper in your body. The places where you need most to feel at ease; back, shoulders, and jaw.

Maybe in another life, or time…

…You and Santos were something. But things are much too complicated. And if there’s a way forward for this, you can’t see it right now. You are both crushing on people you work with. That feels gross. But the person makes you feel anything but.

You wish the timing was right for you two. But some time ago, you were dealt a hand with Frank's name all over it. 

Maybe that could change. Fuck, you don’t know.

So, you don’t talk. You just enjoy your respite with a woman you admire dearly. Her fingertips don’t burn like when you dance with a man, because there’s no presumptions about getting laid being made.

‘You alright, Harker?’ She asks you, eyebrows peaked in concern. She can see you thinking, your own eyebrows dropped low and eyes zoned out.

‘Right now, yeah. Later, I don’t know. I never know.’ You make a sad smile like you wish you could change it too.

‘That’s okay. Just be drunk with me.’

She pulls you closer so you’re hugging, the sides of your faces touching as you oscillate together.

·:*¨༺ ♱ ✮ ♱ ༻¨*:·

The band starts to sing Like I Used To.

Will the marker stain the skin?

Stole the dress I saw you in

Now nothing comes to mind

Saw a life as override

One more session overdrive

The ceiling is the roof

While you and Santos were talking before, Frank sat with the rest of his coworkers as they made lively conversation around him. He actually enjoys his colleagues' company. He drinks but paces himself. He steals glances at you. 

Santos says something that makes you crack up. He hears your full laughter. He wishes it was silent in here so he could hear it unaccompanied. He wishes that Santos did not possess the ability to make you laugh like that at all.

That’s fucked up. Don’t wish that, he chastises himself.

His vision is suddenly blocked. A blonde joins him, and he is less than thrilled but glad to be distracted.

She scooches in close to him. She buys him a drink. She is very pretty, and interesting to talk to. She’s a programmer. You have to be really smart to do that.

He wishes all that was enough for him.

Now… you are swaying with Santos, attached to her by bare skin. And he is feeling very different. She is everywhere he wishes she wasn’t. Your arms are on her shoulders and slung around her neck and her hands are thrown on your waist and…

It burns Frank’s as he watches. He’s jealous. Does he have a reason to be? No, you aren’t his girlfriend. You’re friends with Santos? Right? You’re like, close, right? But this logic- it doesn’t deter him. The feeling is too vast, crossing over everything else.

He orders another drink. 

The music starts to sink into his bones and shreds him to ribbons.

He sees you, off his multiple drinks, through a series of memories from six months ago, shot to the heart via lyrics.

Change address and draw a line

Your voice on the other end of the line. 

Frank’s getting out of rehab soon. He’s reaching that ninety day mark steadily, and he needs to arrange for someone to pick him up.

He half expects you to not pick up. Then he remembers that you’re you, and if he misses you, you’ll just call back. 

‘Hello?’ You answer. He’s using the communal phone for this, so you probably don’t have this number saved, though he’s called you from here before.

‘It’s Frank.’

‘Oh, hey.’

‘Okay, so- basically, a week from now, my inpatient program is over. And I need someone to pick me up.’

‘What happened to your car?’

‘Abby took it home so it wouldn’t get towed.’

‘You really want the first thing you see out of rehab to be my shitty Buick?’

‘I don’t care. I’m just glad to leave. I’m gonna leave a Frank-shaped hole in the wall.’ You give him a chuckle for that. ‘And maybe I just want to see the smiling face of my dear friend. Did you ever think of that?’

‘Probably won’t be smiling but yeah, I’ll be there.’

‘At nine am.’

‘Nine am.’ You repeat back in concurrence.

‘Hey, don’t dress too much like an omen of death. I’m fragile.’

‘Well, if we’re making requests, please don’t dress like an undercover cop. Wait… no— never mind. That’s all you own.’

‘Bye.’ He rolls his eyes lightheartedly and hangs up.

Show my friends the silver line

You, leaning against your shitty Buick with sunglasses on and your hands in your jacket pockets. He’s walking out the doors of the rehab facility, and back into the world. Frank was in rehab for ninety days. He had a wife, and a house. Now he’s getting a divorce, and he and Abby are selling that house. It’s only the early stages of selling, so he still has a bed there, but he needs to start looking for new places now.

‘Hey.’ You say as he walks towards you with his bags. No smile but contentedness evident in your tone, ‘I’m here to pick up a newly-sober doctor with a pretty face. You seen him?’

‘Can I drive?’

‘Fuck, no.’

Call my family just to know they’re there

You, pulling out of the parking lot and into the nine am sunshine. You pull your car visor down to cast shade on your face.

‘Where are we going? I don’t exactly want to go home.’

‘We are going…’ You pull your bottom lip into your mouth, focusing on backing the car up. You look behind you to check your rear. ‘To my home.’

‘Aw, man. I’m not sleeping on your couch, am I?’ 

‘There’s an empty unit across from mine. I paid the first and last month’s rent.’

‘What? For- for me?’

‘For you.’ You keep your eyes on the road and make a turn, one hand crossing over the other. ‘Surprise.’

Sleeping in late like I used to

Frank almost leaves his stuff in the car. 

‘Hey. Bags.’ You remind him.

Right. 

He’s still a little confused.

Frank slings his backpack around his shoulder and you take his duffel bag. It’s fucking heavy. He’s high maintenance; he’s got aftershave and hair products and so many clothes stuffed in there. You don’t seem to be phased by the bag's weight. You’ve taken off your jacket since it’s nice out, and he gets to see your bicep flex and contract to carry his duffel.

You enter your apartment building and go up an elevator two floors without saying a word. Just the automated elevator voice saying Ground Floor, Floor two, Floor three.

That’s okay. You like the quiet. And you knew he’d be weird.

You turn the lock and open the door, gesturing for him to go in. He does, and he feels awkward. Like it’s not his place. But it is.

You show him. You show him every detail you find important. 

‘Welcome home, House.’ You grab his hand and pry it open, setting his new key in his palm.

‘Okay, so- it’s basically a carbon copy of my apartment.’ You start pointing in vague directions and he’s super overwhelmed, ’Kitchen. Bathroom. Shower with no tub.’ 

He notices you haven’t bothered to turn on the lights. The light comes through the windows that have no curtains yet. Your shadows are stark against the eggshell walls.

He keeps following you until you stop at a grey couch and a black entertainment center with a 45 inch TV on top.

‘This is Dana’s old couch. This is Perla’s old TV. Everything else… IKEA.’

You walk again, so he follows you again. Opening the door to the bedroom, you check behind you to see if he’s still there, because he’s been eerily quiet.

The bedroom opens to the cleanest bed he’s ever seen. No sheets. You haven’t picked out sheets for him. There’s no rug, no wall art, nothing personal. There’s a plain black nightstand with a plain white lamp. You’ve left it open for him to make his own.

‘Except… for this.’ You hold out your hands towards the bed like you’re Vanna White, ‘It’s a sleep number. For your fucked up back.’

You smile at him. Beaming, and he’s sure he’s rarely seen you with such excitement. Though it’s still restrained, not having found its way to your body. And the sunglasses are still on. 

He’s stunned. Unable to fathom.

‘How…’ He takes two steps into the room, and you’re behind him now, ‘…You did all this?’

Crossing my fingers like I used to

You, shrugging. ‘Soft place for you to land. Fresh start.’

‘Y/N…’ He sits on the edge of the bed. ‘Thank you. Really.’

‘Course.’ You shrug again, still smiling. He wants you to come sit down next to him.

You don’t. You won’t invite yourself to stay.

‘I don’t even know what to say.’ Frank runs his hand through his hair once and breathes out a brief, disbelieving laugh.

‘Say you like it.’

‘I love it.’

‘I’ll take you to get the rest of your stuff from Abby later-ish. Tomorrow, maybe. Take a shower. You smell like rehab.'

Waiting inside like I used to

You, before you’ve fully backed out the door.

‘Remember, first and last is paid for. The rest is all you. I’m not made of cash, you know?’ You joke.

‘You kinda are. You’re a doctor with no kids.’

‘So are you. Did you forget?’ You raise your brow at him like you're tough-love reassuring him that he’s still got a medical degree. You’re reassuring him he still has a place to be. And purpose. And help.

Avoiding big crowds like I used to

While he sits on the bed, the brand new bed, the very first thing he does is look up ‘sleep number price’.

On average,

They’re three thousand dollars.

Crawl the field and let you in

He starts to get hot. The rest of this specific memory is irrelevant. Because you are not there anymore.

Brand my heart I found you in

Frank lets the woman in front of him talk. He Mhm’s and Oh, Wow’s. He is busy watching you and Santos. 

Now nothing’s more apart

The blonde woman looks behind her to see who Frank has been staring at all night. She doesn’t know if it’s you or Trinity, but she loses interest in this clearly spoken for man. She walks away. 

He didn’t mean to scare her off. The woman’s name was Amy. He’ll never know.

Will my lover bе there, stay

Follow them to less the pain

The ceiling must be wrong

Lighting one up like I used to

Dancing all alone like I used to

Giving it up like I used to

Falling in love I like I used to

Frank waits in the hallway outside your door at 7 am the next morning. He’s waiting for you to get home. You round the corner, and at first glance you just see a 5’11 male figure loitering outside your apartment. There’s a stutter in your gait until you realize it’s him.

‘Holy Christ, you scared the fuck outta me.’

‘Didn’t mean to.’

‘I know.’ One corner of your mouth tilts up, and you stick your key into the lock. He follows you inside.

‘So- uh… Just to like, clarify… that mattress is very expensive.’

You huff facetiously, ‘Try not to count my money.’ Toeing your shoes off your aching feet, you let your bag drop to the ground and you shrug your jacket off as well. He follows you around to continue the conversation.

‘It’s multiple thousands.’

‘I’m a saver. Why do you think I still drive the car that I drive?’ You chuck your keys into a bowl on the kitchen counter.

‘You won’t buy yourself a car, but you’ll buy me a bed?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Three thousand can buy you a car that doesn’t rattle.’

‘Yes, I know, dickhead.’

‘Y/N, I don’t know if I’m worth all this. Especially after what I did.’

Open my heart like I used to

You're both standing in your kitchen. Frank is standing aimlessly and listlessly in the center, no wall to lean against, no chair to sit in where he is. He's just standing there like a little kid, arms at his side.

You've turned around at the last thing he said. You face him now, arms crossed over your chest and resting against the counter behind you, the sharp corner of it poking into your back.

‘Well, you can’t return the mattress, okay? It was a final sale.’

You really don't want to talk about this. The why and the when and the how. It might just lead you to somewhere weird for the both of you; the true foundation for your care laid bare.

But he's still standing there, so you guess you have to continue.

‘I… want this to be as seamless of a transition as possible. A lot is changing. You’re gonna go back to work soon and people are gonna… look at you sideways. For a while. It’s going to be okay, but it’s going to be different.’

What you’re saying is realistic and not sugarcoated… it feels sad and heavy. 

‘And not to monologue, but...’ It seems like you’re struggling to collect your thoughts and articulate them in the most detached way possible. 

You suppose… the world will move on without you if you keep choosing to stay quiet because it’s easier. You can’t hide the fact that you consider him anymore.

‘When I was struggling… If someone had helped me, I would’ve had a much easier time being good at my job. Instead, I was cold to it all because I was alone.’ 

Somehow, in your monologue, you manage to specify nothing about this struggle you had.

You have a gift here. You are so kind in this it’s almost cumbersome with quiet grief. You must’ve experienced something that made you empathetic to this— his addiction. He doesn’t know how else you’d show up with exactly what he needs. Maybe you went through something similar yourself. Maybe you lost someone. Addiction can be so many things. 

Maybe it wasn't an addiction at all. Just a chapter of your life you were poorer for. Some dark cloud hanging over you.

But something has broken you all apart and pieced you back together different.

‘I did all this because… I want you to get back to who you are. Who you are is…— a doctor. Focus on that. The rest will follow.’

You expect him to have something to say, irritating and vocal as he is. 

But he just listens. So you keep talking in the space he’s opened up.

‘And, y’know I didn’t want to have to say this, but since—apparently—you need convincing; I’ve never been able to spoil anyone I cared about before. I never had the funds, and— when I did, there was no one who needed taking in like a stray. So, let me do this. Okay? God, it’s like pulling teeth.’

Frank doesn’t say anything. After a while, he just nods. A smile rises to his face slowly. You’re very vehement about this. It feels good for someone to be vehement about you. You smile back at him in the way you do, like you’re annoyed by the act. 

You sigh, a weight lifted off your shoulder, spewed into the air. Then, you slant your eyes at him.

‘Why start an argument if you’re not even gonna try?’ You say.

He’s falling in love.

Making out long like I used to

Holding hands openly, rights to

Taking what’s mine like I used to

The song ends, and his attention is drawn to people clapping for the band. Your coworkers clap. Frank takes a beat. Half-drunk and set to implode, he claps eventually.

When he looks back, you have vacated the dance floor.

-

Frank wanders outside for some air. The door closes behind him with a slam, and then the sound from inside is muffled and contained. He gulps in a big breath of fresh air.

‘Hello.’

The sudden voice jolts him, expecting to be alone.

Frank turns around quickly to see you leaning against the brick wall of the building, holding a cigarette. Your back and butt are against the brick and both your legs shoot out at an angle in front of you. The top of your hair is lit up by the streetlamp above you. The beginning of a smile dusts your face at his shock.

‘Oh. Hey.’

‘What’re you doin’ out here?’ He inquires. Your face relaxes back to a furrow in the brow and an effortless frown in your eyes. Like you were making your face neutral before to signal to him you aren’t a threat, even though you are above him in the food chain. He walks over and parks himself to your left, mirroring your position exactly.

‘I’m always out here. I just say I’m going to the bathroom.’ You take a drag and blow it away from him, though he can still smell it, and it doesn’t smell like a cig. He realizes it doesn’t look like a cig either, really.

‘Is that weed?’

You nod, and you think for a second.

Then,

‘I don’t like being drunk. So, I figured… smoke, come back in. Have as much fun as everyone else is having.’

‘That’s true. I’ve rarely seen you drink.’

‘Mhm.’

‘Why don’t you like being drunk?’

‘I make less-than-desirable decisions.’

‘Like what?’

‘Settle down. You ask a lotta questions.’

He just desperately wants to know every part of you.

‘C’mon, what’s the worst decision you’ve ever made off the bottle?’

‘Probably… drive my car. Total it. But aside from that… I saw one too many of my friends blackout for it to be interesting to me anymore. Depending on the person, you just… you can just lose it. You lose your restraint. I need my restraint.’

‘Oh.’

You glance over to find him looking like he’s thinking very hard.

‘Weren’t expecting that, huh?’

‘Uh-uh.’ He shakes his head. 

‘I’ll take a shot, though. Jane Eyre says I’d rather die happy than dignified.’

‘Actually, I guess it does kinda fit? Being surrounded by a cloud of smoke does make sense for a girl like you.’

‘A girl like me?’ You smile as your left brow goes up in question.

‘Yeah.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘Y’know.’ He shrugs, and gestures to your face, and down to the rest of you, how you’re all balled up, arms cradling you. And back up to your face. ‘Scary.’

‘Ohhhh. Okay. And we prefer to be called women, by the way. Not girls.’

‘Mmm.’ He puts his hands in his front pants pockets.

A moment passes, and you don’t take another pull from the joint, and he lets the silence ride for a while. There’s vibrations from the music playing inside to pad the moment that’s already fuzzy from drugs and alcohol.

Trying to get his next question out is like tearing skin from bone.

‘Do you like her?’ It’s blunt. 

‘Who?’

‘Santos.’

‘N- well… she likes Ellis.’

‘Wasn’t my question.’ 

‘No, I don’t.’ It’s a bit of a lie. You’ll always love her in a way that spills over a little. You don’t know if you’re willing to tell anyone something so sensitive, though. ‘I did. We had a thing. But those are fleeting.’

Yeah, not to him.

‘C’est la vie.’ Such is life, you say.

‘Blegh.’ He feigns disgust, ‘Too much French tonight.’

‘Lots of words are French, you just don’t realize. Cuz you’re uncivilized.’

He stays quiet. Expectantly.

‘Blouse.’ You poke the sleeve of his shirt. ‘Brunette.’ You point at his hair. 

‘Are you schooling me right now?’ He tries. You pay no mind to him.

‘Bachelor.’ You motion with the hand that holds your joint, up and down to his entire person like he had when he called you scary.

Frank thinks for a moment and shifts on his feet. ‘Touché?’ 

You start to hee-hee giggle and he follows. Not because it’s super funny. But maybe just because it’s him and it’s stupid. And he’s laughing because you’re laughing. And you’re both intoxicated! It feels giddy for a while, warmth blooming in both of your chests. 

‘And you? How’d it go with that girl in there?’

‘Mmm. Bad. Yeah… not good.’ He shudders a bit like he'd like to forget all that.

‘You fucked it up?’

‘No- umm… not my type.’ He rubs at his brow.

‘What is?’

He looks down at his feet. He shifts his weight back and forth.

‘Brown eyes.’

‘Ah.’

‘Black hair.’ You look up at him. He looks up at you.

Is he…? 

‘S-…’ His throat catches on the word.

‘…Scary.’

You freeze, the joint between your fingers stopping an inch from your face. 

You must be cross-faded from the shot you took.

You push off the wall, coming to stand completely on your feet. You start to feel that anxious feeling bloom, starting at your chest and spreading as far as you go. He watches you dutifully and lets you have your moment, impatient as he is.

You hide behind your hands for a second and pretend he's not there at all. You press your fingertips into your eyes.

‘What are you thinking?’ He asks quietly, drunk confidence wearing off.

‘I’m thinking I’m fuckin’ high.’ You look at the joint in your hand to see how much of it you’ve actually burnt through. Little more than you thought.

‘You’re not that high.’

‘Christ. I’m higher than I thought. I gotta go home, man.’ You start towards the parked car and he stops you by grasping you by the biceps softly.

‘Hey- no…’

‘What’d you say? Just a second ago?' You interrupt him, 'What were you telling me? Cuz I think I got it all wrong.’

‘I’m in love with you.’ He says, taking a sharp inhale after it’s finally out.

He doesn't know how much more straight forward he can be. He just wants you to know, and he wants to know back. Whichever way you respond, he wants the pining to be over with. He needs to get over you.

If it’s necessary. If you’ll let him.

‘Uhh…’ He's got a hold of you, so you have no choice but to look right at him. You look for the signal that he's being facetious. Or that he's blackout drunk. He looks... remarkably serious.

‘And I miss you. And I want you to come back to day shift. And I need you to know now, because… I feel like I’m gonna lose my shit being across the hall from you.’

‘What the fuck? No, you’re not.’ There’s the fight.

‘Why not?’

You’re shocked into silence again. Because you don’t know the answer.

He lets go of you and steps back a little, giving you space.

‘Look, you’re having trouble with this. I understand. It’s a grenade. And I wasn’t-‘ He rubs at his eyes and groans softly, ‘I did not plan on doing this tonight, but then I had two screwdrivers and a beer.’

‘Would you believe me if you were in my shoes?’ You’re not yelling at each other, but it’s getting there. It’s just… charged.

‘Yes! We’re good together.’

‘Stop.’ You sound annoyed. And he's beginning to feel offended that you aren't taking any of this seriously.

‘Why? You don’t feel the same?’

‘I feel…’ You drop the joint out of your hands and watch it burn a little longer on the ground.

‘I… feel…’ It seems you can’t bring yourself to say it. To say anything, one way or another. ‘I feel like you only want me because I was dancing with someone else.’

‘You- you think I’m jealous?’

‘I don’t know!’

Okay, now you’re yelling at each other.

‘Fine, I am!’

‘And you’re fuckin’ drunk!’

‘That’s such bullshit.’

‘Then why haven’t I heard anything about this before?’

‘Because I was married!’ Oh, my god, you do not want to talk about that.

‘And then I was caught out for being a druggie! Oh, yeah,’ His midwesterner accent slips out, ‘Let’s do it then! No- There’s- there’s no good time for this!’

He puts his hand on his hip, unsure what to do with his hands, exasperated and discouraged at your stubbornness.

‘Wait-‘ You remember what was going on in there, and suddenly you are even more angry at his hypocrisy, ‘You’re mad at me for dancing with our mutual friend-‘

‘She’s not my friend.’

‘-but you were in there with a blonde in your lap?’

Fight.

'I'm not mad!' He says, voice raised. Obviously not mad.

‘Oh, fuck off.’ You turn away, angry in your own way.

‘You fuck off!’

You spin around back to him with vigor.

'Look at you! Look at yourself, Langdon.' You hold a hand out at him, fingers flattened and all pointing at him.

He tries to check himself at that. He’s jittery and tipsy and rife with adrenaline and… a mess. He looks to the ground, tries to catch his breath, runs a hand down his face, and brings himself back as far down as he can get. Drunk and all.

‘Haven’t you ever heard that to get over someone, you have to get under someone else?’

You gawk at him, mouth open with a scoff in incredulity. Eyebrows coming down like a guillotine. That’s abruptly bold of him to say. And very clear. You look away from him and put your hands in your pockets. You’re retreating. He takes a step towards you, it makes your gaze snap back to him like you’re keeping your eye on a stranger.

Frank doesn’t want to be a stranger. He can feel you closing up. He’s getting scared. He’s going to start grasping at straws soon.

‘So, you’re jealous, too? Because of that random lady? You don’t have to be. That’s so stupid. You have me.’

You don’t like that he knows you’re jealous now. Like he has power over you. It feels like an exposed nerve. A button to be pushed at will. You just stare at him with your slightly agape mouth. But you don’t deny it, and with that, his flickering hope stays alight.

You snuff the joint out for good with the toe of your boot.

I need my restraint.

‘I’m going home.’ You scratch your head and realize you have to take him too, ‘Are you ready to go home?’

Flight, again.

‘No! Harker!’ His tone says We are not done here! Frank gets the sensation that everything is falling apart in this foreign place. He misses who he was before he got caught. He’s scratching and crawling to get back there. Just- sans drugs and with you.

He knew this would be hard to convince you of. It was hard enough to earn your friendship in the early days. But he’s started. So he’ll see it through.

He’ll try.

‘Then I’m leaving you here.’ You stomp towards the car.

‘Fine. Fuck.’ Frank is frustrated. He’s wounded. He gets in and slams the car door.

-

·:*¨༺ ♱ ✮ ♱ ༻¨*:·

The ride is quiet the whole time. It’s a warm night, and it feels like it might rain early in the morning tomorrow, so it’s just starting to get humid. You’ve rolled the windows down, and you have the AC on. Generally, this is counter-productive. But everything feels so restricting to you right now. You want to slice a cut into your skin and crawl out of it anew like a lizard. You try to feel the wind and the manufactured air. It’s warm, it’s cold, it’s physical. It’s something to grab onto.

You have your left arm bent and sat on the open window. The hand is balled into a fist and at your temple, like you should be resting your head against it. But you do not rest, your neck is tense and knotted, keeping your head straight and eyes on the road. 

Don’t look at him, you remind yourself.

Frank Langdon has been watching you. As he is wont to do. Your hair blows in the wind, and as streetlights fly by, they illuminate each strand. The light peeks through the gaps between tresses, lighting up your side profile. 

Frank started this car ride out the same as you. Perturbed and not knowing where you stand. Scared of what was in the atoms in the air between you. Now, every minute that passes by, his neck cranes and he faces you more and more. And every bit of anger you both feel, for whatever reason, is tamped down in this car. And all there is is time to think.

Earlier tonight, in the back lot of the bar, his mouth opened and words came out. He can’t put the words back. You can’t unknow what you now know. Frank can feel the weight of what he’s done. But you’re still there, his captive audience. There’s still a chance. You have laid all your spindly roots in him, thorned and black, and so grows something unruly. He can’t contain it anymore.

‘I love you.’ These are the first words spoken.

‘Langdon.’ You warn. The hand that’s steering the car wrings the wheel. Just be quiet, please. If we are both quiet, and nothing else is said, we can blame it on the weed and the liquor. Though, you’ve sobered a lot by now.

Frank has not. He's still tipsy. And you are so pretty. And there is so much more to say.

You start to cry. Quiet and stone faced, except your brow, which furrows and peaks with each wave of tears. You’re okay to cry in front of him. You’re just scared of what you’ll say, and what you’ll expose of yourself. What you’re scared to say is that this feels eerily similar to getting your hopes up for something that’s fake. Or doomed.

You’re scraped and bruised from the past. From words too cruel to stand. It's showing now, your drum of a heart sending blood to float it to the surface. And you can see him in your periphery watching you like a puppy.

He sees the change in your face and the tears come down. Over the brim of the eyes and trailing down under your jaw. He waits a moment. And then, again,

‘I love you.’ It’s quieter this time, ‘Why are you crying?’

‘Because…’ Though it pains you with every word, you manage, ‘I feel like this is all one big joke.’ 

‘I wouldn’t do that to you.’ He assures. It’s quick.

‘You’re like, important to me, y’know? I don’t wanna… I’m scared.’ You still haven’t looked at him. Your fingers come off the steering wheel a little bit, adjusting restlessly, and your eyes blur with more tears. You blink them out and down your cheeks.

‘Y/N.’

‘What?’ You raise your voice just a bit, distressed at his persistence.

‘I would never do that to you. I love you.’

‘Why do you keep-’

‘Because I’ve been wrestling with it for months. I just wanna…- Just let me say it.’

You turn the wheel to the right all of a sudden. You pull over to the side of the road, and he thinks you’re going to kick him to the curb. 

Instead, you just sit there for a minute. You turn the car off, and the AC goes with it. Your hand drops from the top of the steering wheel to the bottom, hanging there. You think to yourself that… not an hour ago, you were thinking you could never imagine you and Frank together realistically after seeing him with the woman at the bar. 

You’re starting to imagine. A seed is planted.

‘Months?’ You look at him finally, and he’s got the side of his face against the headrest, dutifully holding you in his gaze. 

He nods. His hands lay in his lap relaxed and face up.

‘I- I’m all fucked up. My paint is peeling. I’m a bitch. And I’m not easy to live with.’ You try to warn him off. He swears he’s never seen brown eyes look so blue.

‘Harker, It’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done.’ You cover your face with both hands for the second time tonight. You’re overwhelmed. ‘I’m an addict. I got divorced before thirty-five. And I’m a bitch, too.’

He pries one of your hands off your face. He puts both hands around it. You drop the other one to look at him.

‘Don’t you feel it?’ He brings your knuckles to his mouth, kissing it once, and then holding your hand, curled and tensed, against his chest. ‘Don’t you feel this?’

He’s starting to get circles under his eyes. They’re wet. You can see how you’re hurting him. You stare at him for probably thirty seconds. Could be much shorter. Time feels wonky here. He holds your gaze the whole time. You need to end his misery, even if the jump is terrifying to you. 

This could all end horribly, the devil on your shoulder whispers at you. But him, right in front of you… his face is telling you he does not care. Let it end horribly. Just let me show you how good it can be right now. 

Your chin quivers. You lick your lips for something you’ve never tasted before. You press your forehead to his, and you both close your eyes at the contact. It’s the beginning of something. Frank doesn’t know what yet; a rejection, an embrace, an I don’t know.

But you do. You know.

‘You know I do.’ You utter softly, heart beating in your ears.

You are deathly afraid. He breathes out in choppy puffs like he’s about to audibly sob, stomach twisted in knots. But he doesn’t. 

‘God, that feels good.’ He whispers. Cars and their headlights pass by your pulled-over one. The passengers of those cars have no idea there’s a whole world opening up here. It’s a complicated thing, but it’s hopeful to know something like this can happen even here, even in the back lot of the bar.

And if you trace your finger along the red string all the way back to the beginning, the first time you stepped foot into the Pitt. Robby introduced you to the current cast of doctors, and Frank can’t remember what the first thing you said to him was, but it was surely something short, sharp, and effective. Sharper than whatever snarky thing he’d said. Probably something like Hey, I didn't know the Pitt took transfers from Transylvania.

And you took a quick look at him up and down, and probably said something like…

Well, they take interns from Pleasantville.

And now, three— almost four years later, you still talk to him just like that. The only thing that’s changed within your dynamic is that he loves you now.

And… you love him too (?). He wants to be sure.

‘Can you say it?’ He asks of you, eyes still closed. God, he never stops.

‘I love you.’ You have little trouble saying the words. You’ve let it all go. The settings have already been turned over to Yes, I feel the same. ‘Okay?’

‘Okay.’ He says. You lean forward and plant a wet, closed-mouth kiss on him. He deserves it. He stuck it out.

‘Are you happy now?’

He is happy. But do not be fooled; he will never be kissed enough times by you to be fully satiated.

‘Yes. Let’s go home.’

As you start the car again, Frank lets his hand fall to your thigh. He tucks your fallen hair behind your ear so he can see you the whole way home.

You move back to day shift a week later.

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7:45 am

Frank Langdon watches you float through the hallways. Around central. In and out of doorways. You peek in on the cases the still-green doctors have asked you for help on. This time, it’s Whitaker. Langdon can’t hear what you say to him, he can only see the back of you and Whitaker’s perpetual, helpless, orphan-like gaze. When you back out of the room you’re leaning in on, you smile at both the patient and Whitaker reassuringly. And once you turn around and they can’t see your face anymore, your smile relaxes and fades, and the familiar furrow to your brow returns.

You have a resting bitch face. It’s chronic. You don’t frown, per se. Your eyes frown for you, slanting and squinting and making perfunctory eye contact when needed. Your eyebrows come over your eyes like rainy clouds, the left one arching up when you’re listening.

You have a darker disposition. You’ve always been that way. A loner in high school. Harder to get close to. It keeps the creeps away, you learned in your youth, so you leaned into it harder. Headphones in and angry looking. It’s habit now.

But for your patients… for the families, for the bright eyed, scared student doctors… you brighten. It’s kind. It’s conscious.

It’s so fucking… sexy.

Langdon should be helping a sickly individual, but god, he’s been distracted lately. The black hair doesnt help. The clean laundry slash faded perfume smell doesn’t help. The fitted black long-sleeve under your scrubs does not help.

He realized some time ago that he wants, so feverishly, to see that brow unfurl when he makes you laugh. To be the one you like more than anybody else.

It wasn’t romantic then. And then he was sent to rehab. He did a lot of begrudging introspection during his stay. And with your semi-frequent visits, he realized things he’d been refusing. He also got a divorce, so. That made things a little easier in some places, a little more painful in others.

You and Langdon had just gotten together. Just put a label on it. A desperate confession from him, not even six months after his divorce was finalized. He was overly tired and wearing thin. Composure lost to the wind. You took him home. Since then, he hasn’t really left your apartment. It’s been five weeks. He’s obsessed.

And now… he wants to see that brow crease again in focus when he’s got his mouth at your core.

He’s going to let the lease on his own shitty apartment run out.

You head to a computer to type something up. He’s uninterested in what. He follows you, and when you crash down into the chair, he drags another one over to you so he can be level with you. You don’t look at him. He loves it when you don’t look at him. He feels like he has to work for it.

‘I wanna fuck you.’ Frank Langdon whispers to you, front completely facing your profile, basically speaking into your ear as you type. Your head jerks, angles towards him at the abruptly vulgarity in your very sophisticated workplace. But your eyes say on the computer. You recover quickly, and that killer poker face comes back.

‘No.’

‘I want to eat you out.’

‘No.’ You don’t spare him a glance. You barely dignify him with a response. You know he’s a smooth talker, and you’ve fallen into bed at many inopportune times because of it.

He knows you a little too well by this point. He’s been with you nonstop; going from work to your apartment, from the apartment to your Buick LaSabre— which you won’t even let him drive once because you’ve seen him make a turn without slowing down— and back to work.

You were friends before, too.

You started working at Pittsburg Medical Trauma Center three years ago when Frank was still an intern and you were a second year resident transfer from a different hospital. Technically, you were his senior, being a year ahead of him. That made him competitive at first. He’d been in this ER since med school and now you show up, what– with your near perfect success rate with patients and your… arresting energy. Pfft.

Quickly, the insecurity wore off, and he stopped trying to deny that you were magnetic, like nobody else he’d ever met. It took some time to get you to friendship status. But he did. And it really, really stuck.

All there was to learn about you that he didn’t already know was how you looked naked, and how you liked your eggs in the morning.

And now, when you go home together, he follows your lead. When you get up to start getting ready for bed, he falls beside you at the sink, brushing his teeth while you pee. You pull your bedding over both of you and ensure it covers his shoulders because you like it colder in your apartment. You ask him if he’s warm enough. You don’t change the temperature for anyone, but you’ll make warm accommodations just for him.

You wake up to a clean set of scrubs set on the counter for you in the bathroom. When you come out, freshly showered, you find him already ready, pouring you both cereal. Walking up close behind him, you press your front to his back and snake your freezing hands up his scrub shirt. He jumps a little.

Getting up from your chair, you beeline for your next case. And of course, Frank bounds behind you, unable to give up. Ambition, after all, is a virtue in this industry.

‘Honey-!’ He stops in front of you so you can’t advance any further. ‘You’re killin’ me.’

Frank puts his hands out before him, palms up, in a pleading gesture. He knows he’s being unreasonable.

‘What do you want me to do? Tell me. I’ll do it.’

‘We’re at work. Your job.’ You cross your arms over your chest. It doesn’t deter him any.

‘There’s empty rooms. We could go upstairs.’ He follows your eyes with his whole head as you look around to make sure nobody has heard him and wave him a be quiet motion.

‘Don’t you have patients?’ You poke him square in the chest and start walking again. He walks backwards with you.

‘No, I have absolutely no patience when it comes to you. You smell so good.’ He says the last part as you walk past him. You hear him and break a smile he can’t see. He hopes nobody heard that. He scratches the back of his neck, embarrassed once you’re around the corner and he’s thrust back into the sterile white of work again, glancing about and trying to seem busy.

You linger around him. It must be your pheromones. You think you’re ovulating.

But maybe he’s just in love.

-

8:30 am

‘Can you tell your guy to stop moping around like someone took his lunch money? He’s bringing down staff morale.’ Says Dana with a pitying look, peering at you over her glasses. It seems she’s dealt with men like this before.

‘Our staff doesn’t have morale.’ You raise an eyebrow. She chuckles her raspy Dana chuckle. ‘And are you sure that’s not just his face?’

‘Rich comin’ from you, Wednesday.’

-

9:01 am

You stare up at the screen full of patients and ailments, deciding on which one to take. Really you’re just resting a little, leaning against the counter. Frank is next to you, of course, mirroring you, watching the board all the same.

Placing your glasses on top of your head, you rub at your eyes and sigh a little. You’re nursing a migraine, and the hideaway from the fluorescents behind your eyelids is a brief respite.

‘What’s the matter?’ Frank asks from beside you, your arms touching.

‘Just… headache.’

‘I can help with that. I know a remedy for headaches.’

‘Yeah? So do I. You know I’m a doctor too, right?’

‘An orgasm. Multiple, if possible.’ You gawk at him. Your mouth opens in honest shock with the corners of your mouth upturned. You’re thoroughly amused but… he’s getting bold. To be honest, you thought he’d dropped this after the first mention.

‘Relieves migraines, better sleep, helps with cramps, and helps to satiate excited boyfriends, too.’ He goes on… and on…

‘Oh, my god.’ You shake your head in disbelief and huff a single wry laugh.

‘Let’s-’ You cover his mouth with your hand. Well, if there wasn’t enough blood pooling in his dick before…

‘If Dana hears you, I’m never gonna live it down, you caveman.’ He smiles under your hand at the name-calling. You let him go, a little bit of Langdon spit on your palm.

‘I love it when you call me that.’

You point to the board. And he follows your finger.

‘There’s sudden vomiting, diarrhea, and body aches in south sixteen. Why don’t you take that? Could be norovirus. That’s fun!’ You turn to face him and lean on the counter with your hip instead, ‘Have at it, big guy.’ You slap his shoulder with facetious encouragement.

‘It’s gastroenteritis and you know it. Y’know-‘ He huffs, ‘Why are you torturing me? Do you take pleasure in torturing me?’

‘What a stupid question.’ You say as you exhale, ‘Of course I do.’

‘Where’s Harker?’ You hear in the distance, sounding all too similar to a grumpy attending you know.

‘You’re a sadist.’ You stand up to leave and press a smooch to his lips right as he finishes talking, barely giving him time to react.

Langdon makes decisions all day.

Where to cut, when to cut.

Dosage. Pressure. Time of death. Second opinion. Hold compressions. Pull, stitch, cauterize.

How to break a less than hopeful diagnosis to the parents of a toddler.

He notices the way you operate. He trusts it. A lot of times, at home, he wants you to make the decisions. He wants to fold like tissue and collapse in your hands. He’s been an unwavering champion of the ER all day, and he wants to know that when he goes home, or is simply in your presence, he can falter, and it’ll be okay. It feels— you feel— like the safety on a pistol that’s loaded. With one in the chamber.

And, of course, you don’t mind. Because… as a woman, the world as you know it is full of men who want you to be pliant and subservient to them. Just a little dumber so they feel a little smarter.

Not him. You are wanted, badly, just as you are. And that’s offputting and ready and jaded and wry and… oftentimes the most capable person in the room.

‘Makes you a masochist, I guess. I gotta go, baby.’

-

11:31 am

‘Doctor Harker?’ Mel King holds the tablet, looking at your patients chart curiously. You’re palpating a gym bro’s dislocated shoulder. Feeling at the knotted and tense muscles and the misplaced joint.

‘It’s Y/N for you, Mel.’ You smile quickly at her and go back to your task, tongue peeking out the right side of your mouth in fixation on the shoulder. She smiles quickly back. She still hasn’t been able to bring herself to call anyone by their first name, although she insists on it herself. Honestly, you find it nice to know someone who defaults to being respectful. You and Mel have become fast friends, but at work she still gets a little formal sometimes.

‘Right… are you aware that Doctor Langdon has been staring at you for…’ She checks her watch. ‘Four minutes?’

‘Relax at the elbow. Good.’ You guide the patient through. You steal a glance to the outside world for a second and scan for Frank. You see him across the way at central in a swivel chair looking like he’s got nothing better to do. His elbow rests on the desk in front of him and he clicks a pen in his hand. When you meet his eyes, he doesn’t falter. You can’t really tell what’s going on in his head. Maybe he’s zoned out on you, thinking of something wildly different. He could feel threatened by the Skarsgard-looking man you’re working on. Maybe he’s ogling you. But no, it doesn’t feel like a lustful gaze at this very moment. Although, knowing him, it could turn at any second.

You think maybe he just looks for you when you’re not there. And when he finds you, he makes your visage his home. It’s comfortable.

You’ve been independent a long time now. And you haven’t been in a relationship for a long time, either. You hope to settle back into this. Being needed. Wanted. Looked for. It feels good for once.

‘Let him. He’s not bothering me.’ You brace both your hands on the guy’s wrist and shoulder. ‘Deep breath in– and… out.’ You rotate the arm up until the ball pops back into place. Your patient grunts as expected, and you’re sweating a little after holding this dude’s buff arm up for so long. Otherwise, another satisfied customer.

Mel starts to wrap up the affected shoulder to stabilize it for a little while. She realizes that this whole time she’s never actually fully fleshed out your relationship with Frank. She’s been busy. And he was at rehab for a long time. ‘Is he…? Are you guys like… enemies?’

‘While I think he’s a little upset at me right now, unfortunately he is my lover.’

You flash back to this morning. You woke up slowly together for once. You snoozed your alarm, but woke again to Frank pulling you against him and smushing his mouth lovingly to your neck and shoulder. He was steady at half-mast, his hand skated across your skin until it danced its way into your underwear and fell between your lips, pressing and circling with the precision of an ER doctor. And then… your second alarm started to buzz, vibrating the bed.

You bounded out of the bed and away from his attentive fingers. You got ready for work with some urgency now, breaking out of your momentary sex trance.

Unfortunately, Frank never left it.

‘Okay, good. Because I was getting nervous.’ Mel utters to you, a glimmer in her eyes, like she’s able to find it funny now, ‘And… unfortunately?’

“Yeah, have you met him?’

-

12:58 pm

Frank finds you again after you've just led a procedure that had been particularly bloody. You're washing you're hands alone, room cleaned up and ready for another case. You’re the last one out, and you seem to have forgotten to take off your viscera-splattered glasses in your absorption.

You sense the tall, warm presence behind you.

‘Sometimes I wonder how you find the time to always be exactly where I am.’ You don't turn around yet.

’Are you mad at me?’

‘Why would I be mad at you, House?’

‘You’re ignoring me.’

‘I’m not. We just can’t have sex at work. And you know that.' Now you're drying your hands off with the noisy, crinkly paper towels. 'You know, when I started working here, they told me you would blow me away with your big doctor brain.’ You chuck the paper towels in the trash.

He notices that you always seem to be doing something when he's bothering you at work. Being productive in some way. And he can't help himself but be temporarily, fully occupied by your company. You two becoming intertwined has been detrimental to his time management.

‘Oh, I’ll blow ya.’ He nods once and impishly smiles like a little-shit kid. You start making your way over to him from the sink. He has your full attention right now. It feels like a rare occurrence here so, he really feels it. Physically.

In reality, it's not a rare occurrence. He's just spoiled.

‘Is this your first time talking to a girl?’

He ignores you, nipping at your heels to get his next verbal chess move in.

‘I just like to check in. You could be the happiest woman alive and we’d never know.’

‘I am happy!’ You mock offense, hands on your hips.

‘Did you tell your face?’

‘No.’ Your hands drop from your hips in forfeit. You stalk even closer to him. You like to get up close with him. See everything. ‘And you’ll be able to detect when I’m angry.’

‘How?’ He pulls the glasses off your face and chucks them in a bin to be washed.

‘Mmm… for one, I’ll start calling you Langdon again. Like the olden days. And someone once told me that when I’m pissed off, thunder booms in the distance.’

‘Oh, yeah? I’m takin’ notes, see?’ He mimes jotting down your tips on his hand (notepad).

-

1:30 pm

It slows down midday, so while you’re not needed, you decide to take lunch in the staff lounge. You set out two very big red apples in front of you.

Frank saunters in, stripping off his gloves and basketball-ing them into the trash can. He slides into the chair next to you.

‘Can you start this for me?’ You gesture with the first apple.

‘Mhm.’ He bites it while it’s still in your hand, making it easier to bite on the new edges for you. You have sensitive teeth. He takes the other apple and bites it for himself, taking a big chunk.

‘I’m guessing… five-hundred IV with Zofran and sent home with Imodium? For south sixteen?’

‘I didn't take south sixteen. I took fifty-three year old acute arrhythmia and lethargy.’

‘Oh… cardioversion?’

‘…Yeah.’

Pulling out your phone, you open the New York Times app and pull your chair closer to him so he can see. You click on Connections. It’s Frank’s favorite. You personally like Strands, but you like doing Connections more if he’s there. You eat your apples together with noisy crunches and mumble ideas for the possible categories to each other.

While you hold the phone, Langdon pokes at the screen with his index, the rest of his fingers holding his apple. He solves the yellow line with ease. Starting off strong.

answer, fix, remedy, solution (ways of solving a problem)

As you think about the puzzle, you chew on the inside of your cheek and… those brows come down. He loves to watch you. You’re his favorite show. There’s something so… animalistic about you. You’re wholly yourself around him. Free of tension for the moment and elbow propped up on your knee– the respective leg of which is propped up on the seat of your chair.

You don’t fake smiles for him. You rest your face. You’re relaxed. Though you’re happy to do it for others, you don’t have to manufacture a grin around him because he’s always liked you and your angry face. And when he makes you smile, he knows it’s real. Because it’s big and toothy and accompanied by other expressions. When you don’t want to laugh at what he said because it’s so stupid, but you do, and your eyebrows draw together and peak up in disbelief as if to say you’re lucky you’re pretty. When he compliments you and the smile rises to your face slowly like you’re fighting it.

He likes making you break a smile. But he likes the rest too. He loves that furrowed brow. That’s what makes this— you, together— so easy.

You solve the blue line: eraser, eyedropper, lasso, magic wand (photoshop tools)

‘D’you… still have a headache?’

Your mouth cracks open into a big laugh, dying down into little giggles after a few seconds, shoulders shaking. It’s funny to you because it feels like a stand-up comedy call back. It feels like he’s been sitting on that one, waiting for the right time. You took a migraine pill hours ago and it’s since been forgotten, but he doesn’t know that. You sigh with a Hmmmm in the afterglow of the laughter. Your eyes crease hard and your cheeks dust pink, raised higher by your grin. You’re leaning into the moment and its warmth. You rest your head in your hand and look at him for what feels like a long time. You pin him with your gaze like you’re thinking hard. He feels paralyzed.

Looking at him is nice. Usually, on busy days, the majority of the times you see each other are blurry shapes you think are Frank. He’s still and steadfast in front of you now. It helps that he’s pretty. You’ve never been one for blue eyes, but… they don’t look empty on him. It helps that without the obvious sex appeal, you really do love being with him. He was a good friend. He’s a good boyfriend. He’s a great doctor.

It helps that there’s nothing sexier in the whole wide world than a funny man.

It helps that you like him more than anyone else.

‘Go…’ He readies himself for another no, and prepares to pout. ‘…find a room. I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?’

‘Really?’

‘Go.’

He walks out of the room with his fist held high like Bender at the end of The Breakfast Club.

-

1:38 pm

Coming out of the stairwell, you enter the hospitals empty wing. It’s quiet, you knew it’d be quiet, but it shocks you every time. One or two of the lights in the long hallway flickers. It’s kinda setting the mood for you.

You continue on, trying to figure out where Frank could be, and he appears in the doorway to your right.

‘Well, hello.’ He says, leaning against the doorway with an endearing, faux-debonair voice. He can barely contain his excitement, a big smile peeking out. You approach him with your arms crossed over your chest, all guarded from the neck down, but your eyes are soft and you’re definitely, visibly in love. You take your hair down.

Once you’re within a foot of him he grabs your hands and pulls you backwards into the room with him. He crashes his lips down to yours in a kiss that you would expect mid-make out session. Not the appetizer. But he's already there. He's been there.

‘You’re so annoying. But I really do love you.’ You say, and he's got his hands cradling your face with barely any pressure at all, but enough to tilt your head up a bit to expose your neck and shoulder. He drags his mouth all along your jaw, and you smile and out comes a broken laugh because it's such a wet, tickly kiss. Your hands cover his where he holds you, squeezing.

‘Mm- love you.’ Says he, with his hands under both of your shirts and his voice dampened by your neck. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you.’

‘Couldn’t stop thinking about me or her?’ You pointed straight down to your vagina, weeping a little already at the thought of what’s to come.

‘Yes.’ He rushes out, cupping the her you speak of. He feels the warmth of your core and he can’t believe it’s real, that he convinced you finally to fuck him at work.

Langdon drops down to his knees and his hands slide around to the back of your thighs. He opens his mouth and bites the loose end of the bow of your pants drawstrings. He looks up at you like he's being knighted by a monarch.

‘Jesus Christ, Frank.’

He pulls it apart with his teeth until it gives, and when it does he hooks one finger into each side of your scrub pants and drags them down slowly. He looks at you the whole while, your idle hands becoming ambulatory by carding them through his hair. His eyelashes only flutter then.

‘Call me Langdon.’ He’s stopped his ministrations, looking at you expectantly. You stay silent, smiling down at him, and he thinks you aren’t gonna throw him this bone.

‘Fuck, you’re mean.’

‘Langdon.’ You give in, calling to him adoringly. There’s only so much you can deny to a man like this.

Langdon lets out a Mmh, muffling as he presses his mouth and nose over your panties. Those grey, cotton, brief-cut panties. You have a cutesy black lace pair. He’s seen them in your laundry. And even though you’ve been having sex nearly everyday, you still don’t feel the need to put them on. You know he just wants you like this. Comfortable.

Or maybe you don’t care at all. The panties are going to come off anyways.

He licks you through your briefs, making the grey material darker with his wet tongue. He moves against your pussy like he’s kissing your mouth.

‘Lay down.’ Frank says when he can pull himself away, and you find yourself on the forgotten-about hospital bed that comes with the room. You sit midway on the bed, and he tugs you down to the edge by your thighs, leaving you laying half diagonal across the bed. You let out an Oof!

Your legs have nowhere to sit until he’s kneeling and plants himself between your thighs. He puts them on either side of his head. He’s been activated, the moment snapped open, and he’s like a dog off his leash.

He's dragging his tongue and teeth up one thigh and down the other, leaving wet trails. You take the opportunity to sit up a little and pull his shirt up his back until he shrugs it off. When he returns to his ministrations on your thighs, he uses his unoccupied hand that's not holding your thigh to his mouth to thumb your cleft, still clothed, top to bottom.

He's had a smile since you took his shirt off. You admire the long, still red scratches that go all the way down to mid-spine. You really did a number on him last night. The thought is abandoned as he starts dragging your panties down your legs, watching them stick to your wet core. Once they're not touching your center anymore, he pulls them off quickly. They are thrown over his shoulder, discarded somewhere in the dusty room.

You thank your past self for always packing extra underwear everywhere you go.

‘How could you just leave me in bed like that? Don’t you have any idea what you do to me?’ He looks up at you from his station, pupils blown wide with lust, ‘How fucked up I am about you?’

‘M’sorry. Didn’t know it was so bad.’

He licks a wide, deep, pressing stripe up your cunt. You sigh in pleasure, a little sound catching in your vocal chords. He lavishes you freely in this. With others, Frank had been known to be a teasing lover, but with you, he wanted it now. He wanted to do it now.

‘It’s really bad.’ He moans out.

One of your hands is stable at the back of his head, one keeping your shirt up above your navel. He takes the latter and places it on his naked shoulder.

‘Touch me.’ He asks of you. He is so fucking horny, cracked wide open and all apart, unable to hold anything in. You start to move. Hands carding through that hair you love so much. Fingers scraping at all the skin you can reach, letting him know you’re there. You have what he needs, and you’ll give it when he truly, wantonly needs it. And when you deem it right. You let your nails drag along him, but you make sure your fingers fall to their pads when you reach his back, dancing with attentive pressure. He’s hurt there. In a good way. Red lines decorate him. Up and down and diagonal and horizontal. They’re only superficial. You won’t leave any scars.

He’ll heal, and he’ll ask for it again.

But for now, you will relent. You will put your claws away.

‘So pretty… oh, my god.’ You purr in pure admiration, unable to resist telling him. He loves, loves, loves it. Keep talking, his actions say. He gathers a good amount of your slick from the depths of your pussy with his tongue and sends it back down his throat, and he looks up at you through his eyebrows, eyes flitting back and forth, looking at you like you're doing something equally vulgar. And he's got a trail of your slick down his chin. You try not to let your eyes close.

The sight of him, the sight of that…

'You're demented.' You whisper. You love it. You love him more for it.

You tug his hair to pull him up and let your legs fall off his shoulders so you can kiss him stupid. Your hands cradle his face, and he braces himself on the bed. You can taste yourself on him. Skin and sweat and salt and highly recognizable sweet.

He gives a clipped moan at your mouth against his. It feels like a reward. And it is, you’re pulling him away from where you need him most just to show him pure and altruistic affection. His tongue goes into your mouth and your spit is mixing. His mouth tastes like pussy. You’ve eaten pussy before, it’s a specific thing, but you can almost see yourself from his point of view right now.

He really is good to you. Like syrup, sweet and stuck to you.

‘More.’ You lay back down and your fingers wrap into his hair and you place him back where he fits perfectly as you arch your back in anticipation. Your heartbeat thrums warmly. He returns dutifully.

There is no complaint from him, only a Fuck, Y/N and pussy-drunk whimpers. Your thighs go back around his head— to where they belong. He lowers back down and gestures back and forth with his head, burying his face and tongue back in where they were before, like he’s making up for the lost time spent kissing you. He licks and licks and licks you. Mouth going deep and then tending to your clit, sucking and circling and covering it fully with his tongue and then nudging it lovingly with his nose when he’s gone back lower.

It’s almost already over for him, really. He’s been strangely tolerant of the straining fabric over his bulge. For a while now, he’s been humping at the air, desperate for friction from his pants. But he dives deeper into the black, chases you there. One of Frank’s hands leaves your thigh and you let it. Because he’s being so thorough and good.

He touches himself rough and harsh. He fucks his fist over and over again. He tears his tongue out of you just to drop spit and slick on his cock and hand. He goes right back to you.

This is a wet, disgusting, sex-addled display of together and us and make me feel good, please.

You call to him, Langdon, quiet but loud enough so you know he can hear it over the wet eating of you. Those brows are coming down hard over squeezed shut, dark eyes, and it’s the nail in his coffin.

‘Langdon.’ Your hips start to move of their own accord and you grip his hair, putting him in the exact right place. Over and over. Nose pressing against your clit and his entire mouth covering the rest of you, lapping and vicious.

Holy fuck, yes. Hold me here. Let me die. Wear those cotton underwear to my funeral.

Touch yourself on my grave.

In between blinks and closed eyes, you try to steal glances of him when you can. And it’s almost too much. He’s started fucking you with his tongue so, he’s buried in there. You can only see that hair you love so much, and those eyes.

‘Oh, god.’ You utter to yourself.

And of course, he's been watching you too. More than you have him. It's what he's been asking for this whole time. He hopes and half-knows that he's the only one to ever make you feel this good. Your hair is splayed out on the bed beneath you and it'll be a fuckin' mess when he's done. He reaches out with one hand and paws at your abdomen, the side of your boob, your sternum, the plush of your belly.

‘Yeah… M’yeah, mmph-‘ He croons against your cunt, voice muddled and dripping in you as he's currently fucking you with his tongue. Under your hands, you can feel his jaw contracting and releasing to swallow you whole.

You feel like you’re being swallowed whole.

‘You gonna come?’ He manages to moan out when he feels your cunt start to flutter like rain. Hoping the answer is yes, yes, yes.

‘You’re so smart, baby.’ You poke at him breathlessly as best you can, voice raspy with pleasure. It only spurs him on.

‘Yeah?’

After that, you can’t make out his words anymore. Some seem to be yes’s and fuck’s and some are just guttural sounds, but they’re in the tone and volume that you’re sure he’s about to make a mess of himself.

You think to yourself that this really feels like love. He’s so deep in your most vulnerable, sensitive parts right now. And you’re not even halfway through a twelve hour shift, rings around your eyes from your sleepless profession. Your hair has been up all day until now and it’s been years since you could be bothered to put on makeup. And he’s in there. It feels like love.

Everyone’s greatest fear, at the end of the day, is that they won’t be deemed adequate. And when you get like this, it’s glaringly obvious that you’re both so far beyond adequate to each other.

‘Stay there- right there-‘

Frank Langdon hopes to a god he doesn't believe in that you'll say his name again.

‘Langdon-‘ Frank comes then and there, aligning your cry with a final thrust into his fist. He moans and raves and grunts into you, the vibrations of his voice sending you over the edge. And you can hear him down there enjoying himself thoroughly, loudly. Which only gets you there faster. You rock yourself over his face one last time, and then you’re finally there, sent swimming into the deep dark behind your eyes, twitching and tensing in bodily elation as you always do. As he always brings upon you.

Frank paints his hand and lower abs in come. Aforementioned abs are stuttering and clenching. Your collective sweat and your slick and his come. Just everywhere.

His face stays stationary as you fuck yourself through your own orgasm, but it’s not like he could easily move away with your climax-induced iron grip on his hair. And he’s still got a hold of his cock, barely stroking now but wanting to eke out the last licks of pleasure he can.

You're both panting and wracked with aftershocks. Becoming still after an orgasm tears through you while your heart still pounds hard is a hell of a feeling.

He stays on his knees, not wanting to move yet. He rests the side of his face against your knee, back hunched in relaxation, tension gone and forgotten.

There’s a close, warm moment. Like you’re bound together by a heavy blanket that covers you both. There’s heat from bodies and cool air from the vents. You both feel like you could fall asleep right now. And that makes it all the more intimate, knowing that when you go home, you will fall asleep together.

‘I’ve never had anybody go down on me so much.’ You speak into the quiet, caressing the back of his neck.

‘Anything to say about the quality, or just the quantity?’

‘You’re the Pitt’s leading cunnilinguist.’

‘Thanks.’

-

You straighten yourselves up to go back to work, a little hazy but satisfied. You look over to find him wet from nose to chin.

‘You’ve got pussy all over your face.’ You try to wipe the bottom half of his face off with your hand, fussing over him, and you barely get to his bottom lip.

‘Stop! That’s mine, I earned that!’ He protests, shooing you away.

In your house, I long to be

Room by room, patiently

I'll wait for you there like a stone

I'll wait for you there alone, alone

➶❥➶❥➶

Night shift had started calmly enough, but by the time the clock hit ten, your desk is already buried in forms, patient charges, and a line nearly out the ER doors. You barely had time to sip the lukewarm coffee you’d grabbed before your shift started, and your phone is sitting on your desk behind the registration counter, buzzing insistently, forgotten. 

You’ve left it, your pocket empty as you walk back to a patient bay, paperwork in hand, juggling a clipboard and this particular patient’s medical history file.

The faint trill of your alarm continues ringing behind you, lost in the noise of beeping monitors and conversation.

You glance up from your spot in North-1 and catch Parker leaning against the counter at the nurse’s station, arms crossed and her eyebrows raised in a mixture of amusement and mild impatience. You throw her a quick smile and she tilts her head, her lips twitching up in the smallest smile before returning her attention to the chart she’s reviewing.

Back at registration, your phone’s alarm keeps insisting on your attention, even though you aren’t there. After a few moments, your coworker, who’s become irritated by the constant noise, snaps. “Seriously? Turn that shit off,” he mutters, pressing the side button to disable the sound before walking away. 

Your medication reminder silenced without your knowledge.

You don’t think twice about it because you’re already down the hall in another bay, answering a patient’s questions about an insurance form. A nagging feeling that something is off tugs at the back of your mind, but you ignore it, instead focusing on the words coming from the patient’s mouth.

You’re fine. You always are. 

The ER chaos is familiar, almost comforting even, at least when you’re not a doctor being pulled in a million different directions at once. Your job is important, there’s no mistake there, but it’s not a matter of life-and-death if you screw up. But the constant noise and movement of the emergency department doesn’t bother you now, especially with Parker around.

It’s beyond you how a casual night out turned into this.

The Monday-to-Friday night shift had been planning drinks after a long week, and while the front desk staff didn’t usually attend, they were always invited. You were expecting to see familiar faces when you arrived, but instead, it was just her. Just Parker. You hadn’t ever actually talked to her before; she always seemed…serious. Intimidating, even, in that calm, no-nonsense way that doctors can be. You’d almost turned around and left until she gave you an easy, small smile and nodded for you to join her. 

And then the night unfolded in a way that still makes your stomach flip even now. One-on-one, alone in the dive bar just up the road from the hospital, the ice had melted. She laughed when you told personal stories, her hand brushed yours when she reached for the appetizer menu, and God that teasing smirk when she leaned in close enough to whisper something that was hard to hear over the bar chatter. And when she’d kissed you, it was quick and surprising and left the tingling feel of her lips on yours long after you’d gone home alone.

Since then, it’s been more than just little moments. It’s been late dinners that turn into sunrise conversations, taking turns staying the night at each other’s places because neither of you can stand to say goodnight yet, and mornings spent sharing coffee in mismatched mugs while you scroll through streaming services and you have to pretend not to stare too hard at her. 

But tonight, as you pivot to another bay and Parker’s eyes find yours across the room, your pulse isn’t just running from the floor. You’ve learned her microexpressions, how to tell when she’s actually upset versus her focused face, and you love to watch her in her element so much that you can’t stop yourself from looking for her every time you cross the doors from triage into the department.

The night stretches forward in a blur of paperwork and patient names, and the constant shuffle of movement never really stops. By the time the initial rush settles into something more manageable, you finally make it back to your desk, your chair creaking as you drop into it for the first time in what feels like hours. The glow of your computer screen washes blue light across your face as you begin catching up on entries you’d been forced to postpone.

You rub at your eyes, blinking hard as the numbers blur together for a moment before snapping back into focus. You chalk it up to fatigue. Night shift always carries this heavy, dragging exhaustion that settles in your head and makes your brain go fuzzy. You take a sip from the cup beside your keyboard anyway, grimacing at how cold it’s gone.

The ER doors open and Parker moves through a cluster of patients in triage, her posture straight and voice calm as she discusses something you can’t hear. You watch her for a second longer than you should, the familiarity of her presence making your chest warm, before you drag your attention back to your screen. There’s still too much to do.

The lull doesn’t last long.

Another patient is called back before you can finish their intake and you’re back on your feet again, the clipboard tucked against your side as you weave through the maze of curtained bays and rolling equipment. The fluorescent lights overhead seem abnormally harsh, catching the edges of your vision in a way that makes you squint slightly as you step into the next room.

The patient greets you with the tired politeness that often comes with being in an ER in the middle of the night. They hand you their insurance card while you run through your practiced script, fingers moving automatically across your tablet. Halfway through confirming their address, the room tilts, like you’re on skates and someone has bumped you without warning. You falter, your sentence stuttering as you instinctively shift your weight, your hand finding purchase against the edge of the workstation beside you.

It passes as quickly as it comes.

You finish the intake without another hitch, offering the patient a reassuring smile as you step back into the hallway, rolling your shoulders once to shake off the lingering fuzziness.

You’re fine. Just tired.

The hours crawl forward, marked only by the rhythm of new arrivals and discharged patients. You move between bays, occasionally stopping at your own desk long enough to input information before being pulled away again. Somewhere around two in the morning, you realize you’ve refilled your water bottle twice already, even though you don’t remember finishing the first one. Your mouth feels dry anyway.

You’re halfway down the hall toward South-15 when the dizziness hits again, but worse this time. Your foot catches slightly on the tile beneath you, your balance slipping just enough that your shoulder bumps lightly into the wall. You still, pressing your hand flat against the textured surface as the world sways.

A passing nurse gives you a quick glance. “You good?”

“Yeah,” you answer automatically, pushing off the wall with a quick and embarrassed smile. “Just tripped.”

The explanation is enough for the nurse to let you move on without the conversation lingering.

The next few hours blur together in patches of conversation and data entry, your concentration slipping in and out. At one point, you find yourself staring at a patient’s insurance number, re-reading the same sequence of numbers three times before you realize you haven’t typed any of them. You blink and shake your head, and force your fingers back into motion.

It’s just fatigue. A long shift. Nothing out of the ordinary.

By the time the clock creeps towards four, the department has settled into a comfortable rhythm. Not slow, the ER is never slow, but everything seems less emergent. There hasn’t been a trauma in over an hour, allowing staff to start clearing out the patients in the waiting room.

You step into another bay, offering the patient a polite greeting as you pull his information up on the computer stationed near the foot of the bed. He hands over his wallet, chatting absently while you confirm his details, your fingers moving on autopilot through the familiar forms and fields.

Halfway through entering his policy number, a sudden wave of lightheadedness crashes over you.

Your breath catches.

The edge of the room darkens instantly, your vision peppering with black spots that flicker and multiply no matter how hard you blink. Sound dulls, muffling the patient’s voice into something distant and warped, like you’re hearing him in a tunnel.

Your pulse hammers wildly in your ears, fast and uneven, and you can feel it in your head, in your chest, in your fingertips. Your fingers slip against the keyboard as you try to steady yourself. The floor feels unsteady under your feet again.

You grip the edge of the workstation, knuckles paling, fighting to stay upright as your vision tunnels further, the overhead lights dissolving into blurred halos. 

You know this feeling, the warning signs buzzing in the back of your mind, but it’s hitting you too fast, too hard, stealing the breath from your lungs before you can think past the heightening of your senses.

“Can you -” your voice comes out thin and distant, even to your own ears. You swallow and force the words out through the haze. “Can you hit the red button behind you?”

The bed creaks as he moves to do what you’ve asked, confusion etched into his face.

You never even see him reach for it.

The last thing you register is the sharp trill of the alarm beginning to sound as your knees buckle, the world folding inward as you crumple toward the floor.

➶❥➶❥➶

Parker Ellis has always considered herself observant. It’s part of the job, noticing subtle things that patients don’t say, the symptoms that hide beneath lab results and vital signs, the changes in condition that can mean everything if you catch them early enough.

She’s been watching you all night. 

Not intentionally at first. It’s second nature now, her attention is drawn to you in the same unconscious way her hand finds you in the dark when she wakes up in the middle of the night. She watches you move through the department with your usual easy rhythm, weaving between bays with paperwork tucked under your arm, greeting patients with that unusually cheerful demeanor that sometimes puts patients at ease and sometimes surprises them that anyone can be that peppy in the middle of the night. It’s one of the first things she noticed about you: how naturally you slip into kindness, and how little effort it seems to take you to be happy.

She hadn’t expected that from you the night you first sat across from her in that bar.

You’d been quiet then, nervous in a way you tried very hard to hide, your fingers tracing condensation around the outside of your glass while you looked for something to say. Parker remembers thinking you were going to bolt at any second, or maybe throw up. She remembers intentionally slowing her tone, softening her posture, coaxing conversation out of you piece by piece.

And then you’d surprised her.

Beneath that shyness was quick humor, dry and witty in a way that didn’t lend itself to your nervous exterior. You’d discovered you both stayed up at ungodly hours on your nights off watching Formula 1 races, you trade commentary about teams and drivers like you’d known each other for years instead of minutes. By the time the bar staff had started stacking chairs, Parker had already become invested in the way your eyes lit up when you talked about something you loved, in the way your laughter slipped out and you covered your mouth to stifle it.

And later, when she’d kissed you outside beneath the parking lot lights, she was happy everyone else had bailed.

Now, months later, she’s learned the quiet details of you. The way you instinctively curl into her side while you sleep, one hand clutching her shirt to anchor yourself to her. The way you mumble half-formed words when she runs her hands over your hair. The way you pretend to still be asleep when she moves to get out of bed, only to then tighten your hold when she moves too far away.

She doesn’t scare easily. She works in emergency medicine, panic isn’t something she does. But the realization of how quickly you’re becoming important to her still catches her off-guard sometimes, surfacing in small moments like watching you from across the department and not knowing how to handle the affection that swells in her chest. 

Shen often makes fun of her for the way she stares at you.

Tonight, though, something is off. 

It had started subtly enough that she almost dismissed it. A slight hesitation in your step leaving registration. A moment where you’d paused mid-conversation with a patient, blinking like you’d lost yourself completely. She had caught it in her peripheral vision while discussing labs with a resident, her attention snagging instinctively on the movement before she forced herself to look away.

You’d kept moving. Smiling. Working.

She told herself it was nothing.

But the pattern continued.

She’s watched you lean a little too heavily against a workstation while entering information, your shoulders tight as though you were steadying yourself before pushing off again. She’s watched you refill your water bottle twice in the span of an hour. Once, she could swear she saw you misjudge a turn near South-10, your shoulder brushing the wall before you corrected yourself with a quick recovery that might’ve fooled anyone who wasn’t paying close attention.

Parker had noticed.

She notices everything about you now.

At one point, earlier in the shift, she’d walked past registration intending to make some excuse to stop by – she’d ask about a patient, maybe, or offer to grab coffee from the vending machine down the hall. The chair behind your desk had been empty when she arrived, the computer screen still glowing with an unfinished intake form.

Your coffee sat beside the keyboard, untouched and long since gone cold, the surface unbroken except for a thin film forming across the top. 

You’ve been running the floor nonstop tonight. She knows how registration gets when the ER backs up, how easily breaks get skipped, meals forgotten, coffee left abandoned in the rush.

Your exhaustion makes sense. It explains the sluggish movements, the occasional stumbles, the way you seem slightly less present when she catches your eye across the department.

So she lets herself believe it.

Even now, as she signs off on discharge paperwork near the nurses’ station, her gaze drifts automatically across the floor, tracking you as you disappear into another patient bay. There’s discomfort settling in her stomach that she can’t quite figure out, restless awareness tugging her attention every time you leave her sight. 

She tells herself she’ll check on you when things slow down. Make sure you’ve eaten, make sure you have more water, maybe steal five minutes alone with you in the stairwell.

The thought makes her smile.

The shrill alarm slicing through the ER shatters it instantly.

Her head snaps towards the sound before her brain has fully processed it, adrenaline surging as the emergency call light flashes from one of the bays down the hall.

The same one you’d just disappeared into a few minutes earlier.

Parker is already moving before she’s thought it through.

Nurses are converging from multiple directions, Lena’s voice is already rising above the noise as she pushes through to get to the front, Mohan is stepping out of a nearby bay and following close behind, Dr. Abbott appearing from the physician station with the calm and purposeful stride that always seems to precede chaos.

Parker is right behind them.

Or, she thinks she is.

By the time she reaches the curtained bay, they’re already inside. 

She catches the curtain with her hand and pulls it aside just enough to see through – and then she stops.

You’re on the floor.

Dr. Abbott is already kneeling beside you, his fingers pressed firmly against the side of your neck while his other hand steadies your shoulder. Lena is barking orders, her voice clipped and efficient as she directs someone to grab a gurney. Mohan drops to one knee beside Abbott, reaching for your wrist to confirm a pulse, her brow furrowing as she watches the second hand tick across her watch.

“What happened?” someone is asking the patient sharply.

“I – I don’t know,” the man stammers, half-standing from his bed, his eyes wide as he gestures helplessly toward you. “She was talking and then she started acting weird – she told me to hit the button and then she just fell!”

Abbott nods once, already moving.

“Pulse is rapid,” Mohan says quietly.

“Get her on the gurney, let’s move.”

Lena shoves the gurney into the bay, locking the wheels with a sharp click. Hands move in coordinated precision, lifting, stabilizing, repositioning you. Parker watches as they gather you carefully, one nurse supporting your head while another secures your legs, Mohan guiding your shoulders as they transfer you onto the mattress in one smooth motion.

You look wrong against the stark white sheets.

Parkers feet feel rooted to the tile.

She knows what she should be doing. She knows every step of this protocol, she’s performed it dozens of time for strangers, has issued the exact same rapid-fire instructions that are currently spilling from Abbott’s mouth. But her brain feels distant from her body, like she’s watching through thick glass as they wheel you out of the bay.

“BH-2,” Lena calls, already steering the gurney down the hall. “Someone go grab her bag from registration.”

The trauma bay doors swing open ahead of them, and Parker follows automatically, her pulse hammering painfully in her throat as her own team floods into the room. The heavy doors seem to slam shut behind her, cutting off the ambient noise of the ER and trapping her inside with the harsh fluorescent brightness.

Abbott is issuing orders immediately.

“Vitals. Cardiac monitor. Start a line.”

Mohan is already reaching for your arm, her fingers searching for a vein while another nurse rips open the velcro of a blood pressure cuff. Someone is coming in behind her, practically slamming your bag onto the table and looking through it to search for something that might help them understand.

Parker lingers through the doorway, her hands clenched uselessly at her side. She can’t make herself step forward. The air feels too thin in her lungs, her focus narrowing to the unnatural stillness of your body on the bed, the pallor of your skin under the lights, the way your chest rises too quickly with shallow breaths.

“Hey,” a voice says from beside her.

Shen appears at her shoulder, slipping into the room, his eyes shifting between you and Parker in an assessing glance.

“Parker,” he says firmly. “Stay back. We’ve got it.”

She barely hears him.

“Does she have any allergies?” he asks, reaching for the chart tablet someone hands him.

The question slices clean through the fog in her head.

“Yeah,” Parker says automatically. “Aprepitant, anaphalaxys.”

The room seems to all still at once, not literally, the movement of the people inside continues, but it seems like everyone’s awareness changes. Heads turn, surprised eyes flick towards Parker.

Shen looks at her, then toward Abbott.

Abbott straightens from the bedside, glancing between Parker and the tablet in Shen’s hand, his expression tightening. “You’re involved?” he asks. It doesn’t sound accusatory, more like it’s just confirmation.

Parker swallows, her throat dry. “Yes.”

Abbot nods, already turning back toward the team. 

“Dr. Ellis, you’re not on this case.”

“I’m fine,” Parker protests quickly. “I can still -”

“No,” Abbott interrupts, leaving no room for argument. “You can’t.”

“I’ve got her ID,” one of the nurses calling out breaks the tension as she rifles through your bag. There’s a soft clatter as something plastic inside it shifts. “Hang on -”

She pulls out a small, color-coded pill organizer, the translucent lids marked with days of the week. “We’ve got meds.” She flips the Thursday lid open. “Today’s still in here, whatever it is, she hasn’t taken it yet.”

Abbott reaches for the container and holds it up to the light. “Looks like Propanolol, and I’m counting four, if she’s on a standard dose that means she hasn’t taken any.”

Propanolol? Why would you be on Propanolol?

“Looks like we’ve also got Fludrocortisone in here!”

“Give me her chart,” Abbott orders, reaching for the tablet that Shen is holding out to him. 

The room hums with movement, your blood pressure cuff inflating, monitor leads snapping into place, while Abbott scrolls quickly through your file, his eyes scanning efficiently. 

Parkers brain works overtime. Propanolol and Fludrocortisone together are typically only used to treat one specific condition –

“There it is,” Abbott announces, mostly to himself. “POTS, we’ve likely got a flare up.”

The room seems to relax all at once, but Parker can’t tear her eyes away from you.

Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.

You never told her. 

It’s not like you owe her your medical information, Parker isn’t stupid. She isn’t accusing you of anything, not even for a second. But she still can’t stop the disappointment that pangs her chest. 

She knows how you take your coffee, the weight of your sleeping body tucked against hers, she knows the cadence of your breathing when you’re dreaming. 

But she didn’t know this.

“Let’s get her positioned in a reverse trendelenburg and start a saline bolus,” Abbott orders. 

The bed begins to tilt as Lena adjusts the controls, angling your body while Mohan preps the IV line with quick and steady hands. She secures the IV catheter smoothly, saline beginning to drip steadily into the line as the cardiac monitor chirps with rapid, uneven rhythm.

Abbott straightens from the bedside and moves closer to her, resting an insistent hand on her arm. 

“Parker,” he murmurs. “Come on.”

She doesn’t allow herself to be moved, even as he tugs at her elbow.

“If I can’t stay as her doctor,” she says,  “I’ll stay as her girlfriend.”

The room pauses again. Mohan’s hands still for just a second before she continues her work. Lena glances briefly toward Abbott to see if he’ll allow it.

Abbott studies her, the lines around his eyes deepening with conflict he doesn’t bother hiding. His gaze settles on you, then on the steadily improving blood pressure reading crawling upward on the monitor.

“You can’t interfere,” he says finally.

“I won’t.”

“You don’t touch equipment. You don’t answer for her medically. You stay out of the team’s way.”

Parker nods immediately. “Okay.”

Abbott holds her gaze another moment, calculating. “You stay until she regains consciousness. Then you get back to work so we can assess her properly. Understood?”

Relief washes over her. “Understood.”

Abbott gives another short nod and turns back to the bed.

The room resumes it’s rhythm around her. Parker shifts backwards until she’s pressed lightly against the wall near the side of the bed, careful and silent and exactly where Abbott told her to be.

Close enough to see you.

Close enough to hear the deepening of your breathing as your body begins to respond to the fluids coursing into your veins. Minutes stretch as the monitor tone gradually slows, each beep spacing out just a little more than the last. Color creeps back into your lips and cheeks. Mohan checks your pulse again, nodding to Abbott.

“Pressure’s coming up,” Lena says, her eyes trained on the screen.

There’s a flutter beneath your eyelids, a subtle twitch to your fingers against the sheets. She leans forward without realizing it, crossing her arms to prevent the instinct to reach out and touch you.

“Hey,” she says softly, before she can stop herself. “You’re okay.”

Your brow tightens slightly, like the sound of her voice is tugging at you beneath the surface.

“There we go,” Mohan murmurs, pulling at your eyelids to watch your pupils as she shines a penlight briefly across your eyes.

Your fingers flex again, purposely this time, dragging across the bed beneath them. A faint, confused sound escapes you.

Your eyes flutter once. Twice. Then they crack open.

You flinch at the harshness of the lights, disorientation evident in your face as your gaze drifts unfocused across the ceiling before sliding sideways, searching without direction.

“…wha…” The syllable falls apart halfway out of your mouth, your voice hoarse.

“You’re in the ER,” Abbott says gently, stepping into your line of sight. “You had a syncopal episode, but you’re okay.”

Your eyes slide again, more in focus this time, past Abbott and land on Parker.

Recognition flickers in your face, followed by confusion and the ghost of fear as you try to piece together why she’s standing against the wall of a trauma bay, her face almost looking panic-stricken.

“Hey,” she says again, softer this time, but careful not to move closer lest Abbott lay into her. “I’m right here.”

Your brow furrows deeper, your lips parting as if you’re trying to ask a question but can’t quite get it out, your hand twitching weakly against the sheet. 

“...what happened?” Your voice comes out rough, barely more than a rasp.

With a glance back at the Attending, who nods, Parker approaches your bedside and reaches for your hand. “You collapsed,” she says, her thumb brushing an absent circle against the back of your hand. “You were in a patient bay. You must’ve missed your first propranolol dose and had an episode.”

Memory doesn’t come back so much as it flashes – the black spots in your vision, the sound of your own voice telling the patient to hit the red button.

A groan slips out of your mouth, eyes squeezing shut in mortification. “Oh my god,” you mumble. “That is so embarrassing.”

Parker huffs out a laugh, shaking her head. “You passed out at work,” she says. “I promise you, nobody here is judging you for it.”

“You don’t get it,” you mutter, dragging your free hand over your face. “Administration fainting in the ER is like…the most humiliating professional hazard ever.”

“You fainted because you have a medical condition,” she corrects softly. “That’s not the same thing.”

You peek at her through your fingers, studying her expression, the lingering worry still in her eyes. Guilt twists in your chest.

“I didn’t tell you,” you say quietly.

It’s not a question.

Parkers gaze softens but her grip on your hand tightens just a little. 

“You didn’t get the chance,” she says. A lie to save your guilt.

Silence settles between you for a moment. The monitors continue their steady rhythm, the IV pump clicking beside you. You become vaguely aware of the rest of the staff trying their best not to intrude on what feels like a very private moment.

“I scared you.”

She exhales slowly. “Yeah,” she admits.

Her thumb brushes over your knuckles again. 

“But I’m here,” she continues. “You’re okay. And for what it’s worth, I’m glad it happened while I was around.”

You swallow, your throat tight for reasons that have nothing to do with dehydration.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper.

Parker’s expression shifts into surprise, then relaxes into a small smile. “You don’t have to apologize for something your body just does,” she says quietly. Then, after a small pause, her voice lowers even more.

“I love you.”

The words are gentle.

Your eyes widen and you inhale sharply. Parker’s gaze flickers, a hint of uncertainty slipping in. But she doesn’t take it back.

“I think I have for a little while,” she admits. “I just didn’t know when to say it.”

Emotion swells in your chest, shoving away the lingering haze in your head, past the embarrassment and exhaustion.

You squeeze her hand weakly, a watery laugh escaping you. “So you pick the moment where I’m hooked up to fluids and humiliated in a trauma bay bed?”

One corner of her mouth lifts. “You’re very memorable like this.”

You shake your head, tears threatening at the corners of your eyes despite yourself.

“I love you too,” you say.

The relief that washes across Parker’s face is immediate and raw, so tender it makes your chest ache. She leans forward, pressing a careful kiss against your forehead, lingering just a second longer than necessary.

“Good,” she murmurs against your skin. “Because you’re not allowed to scare me like that again.”

You chuckle again faintly. “No promises. My autonomic nervous system is kind of dramatic.”

Parker pulls back just enough to meet your eyes, smile still resting on her lips. “Then I guess I’ll have to stay close enough to catch you next time.”

➶❥➶❥➶

Enjoy this? Check out my Masterlist.

☆ okay so i truly believe parker would be down horrendous for her gf. like constant lovey dovey eyes and smile whenever shes looking at you. shen high key bullies her for it.

☆ always holding hands. she always wants to have a hand on you in someway which is perfect cos you also want to be touching her 24/7. loves when you play with her rings. hand on your thigh when driving. arm around your waist at the bar. oh and shes always asking for kisses. always.

☆ cuddler!!! the second she gets back from a shift? shes basically falling on top of you and always falls asleep with her head on your chest. spooning only happens occasionally because she doesnt like that she cant see your face. but when it does happen youll normally watch tiktok’s on your/her phone (whoevers lil spoon) and press soft kisses against eachothers cheek and neck.

☆ and too continue from that. shes a sleepyhead. before she ever worked night shifts she had to drag herself out of bed in the mornings. and now throw you into the occasion? soft warm cuddly you? yeah youre having to spend a fair amount of time having to get drag her out of your bed.

☆ will speak for you when out in public if youre shy or anxious.

☆ she buys you flowers a lot. sees certain colours and arrangements that remind her of you so she has to buy it. showing you a picture of it wont do. duh. your apartment is full with so many pretty bouquets and it never gets lets sweet. she could give you a million and youd still nearly cry each time.

☆ takes a vested interest in all of your hobbies- and you for hers too. youre always doing some activity together whether its sporty or arty or relaxing or nerdy you are always down to try something new together or learn about the others interests.

☆ i love imagining her being made to do like tiktok relationship trends. “would you rather kiss me for $1 million or the prettiest girl in the world for $10 million?” she says the first option with a proud smile and no less than a second later does it click and she’s apologising to you.

☆ now lets get a lil freaky 😝😝

☆ this woman is a PLEASURE DOM

☆ i truly in my heart of hearts cannot see her being mean or rough. shes all about giving and receiving praise. no degradation unless you specifically ask for it because?? why would she wanna say those things to you?? ur the love of her life??

☆ and thats not to say she cant get rough. she can when needed. but her baseline is gentle and caring

☆ loooves when you ride her strap. holds you so close and is constantly kissing you. loves scissoring even more because you guys are even closer!!! some of her favourite experiences have been when she comes home from work, you run a bubble bath for you both and then eat her out soooo slow and soft and sleepy. very intimate, very vunerable.

☆ and she will spend hours between your legs. its the remedy for everything. shes bored? eating you out. shes stressed and needs to clear her head? go down on you. you both really missed eachother while at work? you know what im gonna say.

"You waiting on some news?" Jack frowns as he looks up from a patient's chart as he leans against the central hub of the nurse's stations. Shen passes by, his obnoxious slurping stealing her attention before she gazes back up at the older man.

Parker shakes her head. "Nah, it's just… I thought I felt it vibrate. Thought I missed a text." She drops the phone back in her pocket.

Jack pauses and he has that look where he seems to see right through her, sees the half-lie for what it is: a sad, hopeful wish for a different outcome. Fortunately, her attending leaves it be but it has Parker itching to check her phone just once—

Bzzt.

Maybe she should've been a bit more cautious at how eager she looks as she digs out her phone but the rush of dopamine is irreplaceable when the one person she's been waiting on occupies her screen in a multitude of playful texts.

—

"So. Night shift. This is weird."

Trinity shifts her weight from her left foot to her right foot as she stares up at the board, Mel by her side with her usual shifty yet calm energy. Dubbed as one of Robby's 'pitt-lings', day shift had been her usual schedule until another awkward not-fight with Garcia had her searching for some reprieve to the so-called dark side of PTMC.

"It's not that weird," Mel hums casually as she steps closer. She's been experimenting with night shifts now that Becca seems to crave more independence. Hand-offs had been completed an hour ago and although chairs never seem to catch a break, there's an odd sense of calm that blankets the ED anyways. "Just like day shift but the sun isn't up."

"Thanks, Mel." Sarcasm is easy to reach but it always falls flat whenever it comes to the other resident. Trinity sighs and picks up a patient but it's still so unnervingly calm. However, she isn't bored enough to tempt fate and say the 'Q' word out loud so she sidles up to the charting computers where Crus seems to have taken shelter in between his sips of red bull.

"Here to gossip, Santos?" Crus chuckles knowingly, his gaze fixed upon the screen. Trinity huffs out a laugh as she lets her gaze wander before they land on a curious scene of Parker near Peds, brows furrowed and lips pursed as she glares down at her phone.

"What's up with her?"

Crus follows her eyes over to his fellow senior resident and bites back a grin. "Honestly? I have no idea. Shen says it's an ex-girlfriend. My guess is it's a situationship."

Amusement flickers to life within Trinity as she gives Parker another cursory look. Tense shoulders, desperation evident in that gaze, and yet the slight fidgeting that never seems to settle.

"Situationship. Has to be."

Mel frowns. "I don't see it."

—

Jet lag doesn't touch you anymore when you land in Pittsburgh from Europe, maybe a touch sleep-deprived and dehydrated but nothing a decent nap and a bottle of Gatorade can't fix. However, you call for an Uber to take you straight to PTMC rather than the closest hotel from the airport.

You travel light anyways, a backpack slung over your shoulder as you circle the side of the hospital towards the ambulance bay instead. A security guard stops you, a frown on his lips. "Ma'am, you can't come this way."

A charming smile stretches across your lips. "I know, I'm here to see Doctor Parker Ellis? Unless she doesn't work night shift anymore?"

"I—" Before the security guard could answer, a doctor approaches with an iced coffee in hand.

"You're looking for Dr. Ellis?" Although the doctor—Dr. Shen, according to his badge—maintains professionalism, you wonder if you're imagining the mischievous glint in his eye.

You nod and readjust your bag on your shoulder. The doctor waves away the guard with a friendly grin before he beckons you over. The pitt encloses around you in its own specific energy of the night shift but you fall into step with Dr. Shen without a stumble. You're good at that, adapting and slipping between the spaces to fit in— makes it easy to slip out when you need an escape.

"Are you coming back from a previous appointment?" Shen asks but he knows better, a smile fighting around his straw. He's seen you before, not in person but on the homescreen of his colleague's phone when she'd been too exhausted about hiding her private life. Your hair might've been shorter in the photo but the beatific smile is the same.

"No, I'm just a—" But before you can solve the mystery of who you are to Parker, she appears around the corner and your nickname falls from her lips like a bad habit.

"Bug? What're you doing here?"

Your smile widens and something kickstarts in her chest. It fights against the slight resentment that builds every time you go radio silent ever few days; how could you look at her like that when she never seems to be enough to stay?

"I just landed, I wanted to surprise you," you say simply as you cross the space to gently cradle Parker's jaw. She goes down easily, bending the distance so you could press a feather-light kiss to the corner of her lips while her hand finds your waist. "Are you almost off?"

The mention of work sobers her up and she looks up just in time to see Lena, Shen, and Jack watching in quiet amusement. "Uh— almost. One more hour. Wanna wait for me in the break room?"

You nod and gently squeeze the forearm of the hand that's still holding your hip. "Take your time, El."

—

When the door shuts behind you in the break room, Crus doesn't hesitate to step into Parker's orbit with his red bull long forgotten.

"El?"

"Don't start, Henderson," Parker bites but the little smile on her lips shine likes a million-watt sign that even Trinity's curiosity is piqued. "She's just—"

"— your situationship," he finishes. "I remember her, you know. I was with you. Was she the same one that came by to drop off coffee a few weeks ago?"

The emergency department must've hit a lull because Lena wanders closer along with Trinity in tow, charts momentarily set aside for some good piece of gossip. Princess and Perlah's been rubbing off on her.

"Wait, spill." Trinity all but demands and even with the sidelong glance Parker gives her, the new resident doesn't budge. Looks like someone's already made herself comfortable with the night shift, Parker thinks to herself.

"We met a few months ago—"

"— several months ago," Crus amends with a shit-eating grin.

Parker takes a deep breath. "Several months ago at that shitty dive bar near here. It was karaoke night and the little thing had too much to drink. I was close enough to the stage to catch her before she took a tumble. Guess she saw my badge or somethin' because she asked if I could… check her out."

"Oh my god, that was kinda smooth," Santos grins, the exhaustion ebbing away; who needs energy drinks when hospital gossip works just as well to keep anyone up?

"Long story short, we started seeing each other, but…"

An awkward silence follows when Parker's little audience realizes there isn't anything else to say—or rather, nothing else she's willing to divulge to them.

"It's a situationship," Trinity realizes aloud and now her grin matches Crus, giddy at the new bit of information that subtly chips away at the cool front that Parker always seems to exude. "You have a situationship with that— sorry, what'd you call her? Bug?—and you're not handling it well."

Parker glare sharpens but it lacks any heat with the slight frustrated purse of her lips. "I'm handling it."

—

Parker Ellis is not handling it. Not even close.

Not when you're looking so peaceful, curled up on the lumpy couch of the break room, lips slightly parted for each quiet huff of breath. It's the end of her shift and yet fatigue takes a seat on the backburner of her mind so she could kneel by your side, run a gentle finger along your cheek to slowly rouse you awake.

"Hey, sweetheart," she murmurs and when your lashes flutter open, something inside her cracks at the way you beam so brightly at her despite the late hour. "Sorry for taking so long. Ready to head home?"

You gently take her wrist to kiss her palm before nodding and it takes everything in Parker to keep her mind from creating every domestic fantasy she's had of you. "Mhm, I'm ready." You slowly sit up and whine quietly in objection when Parker takes your bag along with hers, a sleepy frown on your lips when she slings both bags onto one shoulder so you could hug her free arm to your chest.

"Want breakfast?" she offers as the sunrise to peek through the clouds, ignoring the way day shift is watching the two of you exit to the employee parking lot.

You nod, still half-awake. "Waffles. Extra syrup, stat."

A bemused laugh escapes her as she kisses the top of your head. "Yes, doctor."

—

In the beginning, it hadn't been this hard. You were gorgeous but it'd been your smile that stole her breath, that much had been enough to suck her into your orbit even after you landed right into her arms. But in the beginning, it'd been something just physical.

"Maybe it can be… a few times thing," you had tried to explain over a glass of water. Parker had shepherded you to the bar to get you hydrated again, the flush on your cheeks slowly dissipating as you sobered up under her gentle guidance. Her hand was warm against your thigh, knees knocking into one another as she had all but dragged your stool closer until your thighs had parted to make room for hers.

"A few times thing?" Parker repeated with an amused chuckle.

You didn't back down, just elaborated with a smile that she couldn't quite parse through. A Mona Lisa type of smile, Jack would comment wryly. "Mhm. A few times thing, not a one time thing. It works out, doesn't it? You're an ER doctor, very hot of you by the way, and I… I travel a lot. I'm never in one city too long but if the stars align and you're free while I happen to be here, then we can totally fuck."

She choked on her Dr. Pepper at the blatant invitation but she focused on something else entirely, her smile widened. "What do you mean, while you happen to be here?"

"I mean, I don't really choose where I go sometimes." You had taken another dutiful sip of water and you were rewarded with another pass of her hand along your thigh. "I spin a globe and wherever my finger lands, that's my next destination…"

There was a story there, Parker knew it, but she decided back then to not pry just yet, lest you lose interest if she demanded a potential sob story in a bar. She must've played her cards right because she had you under her within a couple hours, moaning her name like a prayer.

A couple months in, she'd begun to make room in her closet for you, on the random week or weekend Pittsburgh had been your destination of the month. Maybe that should've been the first red flag that Parker's starting to crave more than this unorthodox relationship but she's already six feet deep when one day, she rolled over and nearly smothered herself into her pillow to catch the faint traces of your perfume.

One month ago, she's accepted her fate and can only pray that your little globe would lead you back to her.

—

It feels like home whenever you pass the threshold of Parker's apartment, but instead of the terrifying gallop of your heart that follows the idea of settling down (tachycardic, Parker would say—only because she knows how squirmy and turned on you get whenever she talks 'medical'), your heart rate settles. Like the fight or flight instinct inside you just turns off around Parker. And maybe that alone should be enough to terrify you anyways but it just has you seeking her out.

"You wanna shower first, lovebug?"

The full nickname never fails to bring forth a smile as you nod, watching Parker set your things down by the couch to free her arms so she can sling them low around your waist. "Yeah, I smell like plane."

She leans down to kiss along your temple, cheek, and jaw. "Smells good to me." With an indulgent grope of your ass, she hustles you over to her bathroom as your laughter echoes behind you. It's domestic and heartachingly perfect, living in this limbo of unnamed connection that's making you want more than just a stolen weekend. So maybe you stopped spinning the globe exactly five weeks ago, the countries and places you visit acting as placeholders to kill time before Parker Ellis pulls you back in; there's only so much distance you can go across the earth before you're right back where you started.

You shower quickly and efficiently, stealing her body wash to sate the homesickness that's been festering the moment you had left a few weeks ago and is only now abating back in Parker's presence. With nothing but a towel on, you step out to see her on the couch, TV on and a cup of coffee in hand.

"Are you working tonight?" you ask, a droplet of water sliding down the nape of your neck as you approach until your knee bumps against hers. An appreciative gaze runs down your body and you burn with delight.

She shakes her head. "No, I'm off for the next couple of days. So you didn't have to seduce me in that tiny little towel to convince me to stay," she teases, a hand sliding up the back of your thigh to skim the skin beneath your towel.

Your eyes roll but your smile is bright, playfully swatting her hand away as you head over to her bedroom. "Nuh-uh. You smell like hospital, Ellie, go shower then maybe I can share the bed with you." You drop the towel just right before you shut the door and she's left there reeling, mouth slightly agape.

"Cruel woman," she calls out but she hauls ass to the bathroom anyway.

—

"… god, yes—! right there…! fuck, fuck, fuck—" you squeal, hands fisted around the sheets beneath you as your thighs clamp like a vice around Parker's head. She's already wrung out three orgasms from you, once from her fingers alone, the next two with her strap (lavender, your favorite), and now she seems dead set on killing you with a fourth.

Her mouth is precise, her tongue deadly accurate as she tongue-fucks you with a brutalistic rhythm— it'd almost be considered clinical if it isn't for the way she's moaning around your sopping cunt while she grinds against the mattress. "Cum for me, sweetheart," she croons as her lips glide up to suck around your nub, her fingers taking the place of her tongue as she watches you arch off the bed and finish right on her face.

Your tense muscles slowly loosen as your hips sink back down into the bed, whining quietly when you feel Parker's hands massage your calves to alleviate any cramping for when you hurtled into your final orgasm. "I hate you," you say, eliciting an amused laugh from your lover as she places feather-light kisses up your body before settling in beside you.

"No, you don't."

You shake your head, lifting it so you can rest it right onto her chest while her arm fits itself around your frame. "No, I don't," you confirm with a quiet sigh, pleased and content.

—

It's rare for your visits to coincide on Parker's off days. It makes the short time she has with you feel longer in comparison to the days where you could see her between shifts, spending it mainly in bed or in the same four walls of her apartment.

("I can always call off for you, sweetheart, it's fine—"

"No—! Then it wouldn't be serendipitous, Parker. Imagine a weekend where the globe takes me back to you and fate decides to not keep you at the Pitt for me. Wouldn't that just be the perfect sign?"

Parker didn't quite agree but she couldn't ever say no, not when you get hung up on signs and hidden meanings and fate— it sounds like you've been circling the idea of the two of you being soulmates and she likes the sound of it too much to ever negate your own thought processes.)

So when you ask to see the city rather than be spoiled to death with more orgasms (another glaring sign that this has always been more than physical), it takes her a second to nod and agree as she takes this chance to show you that the two of you could be more than fuckbuddies.

"Where are we going?" Despite your third time asking, Parker merely hushes you with a playful kiss to your forehead before helping you into the passenger seat of her Jeep.

"You'll see, sweetheart."

It takes all your energy to keep from asking her to pull over as she drives, looking unbelievably attractive with the way she's got one hand on the wheel and the other curled around your inner thigh. With the short skirt you've got on, each pass of her warm palm seems to land closer and closer to where you usually need her the most.

"Parker…" you huff. She chuckles and at a stoplight, her hands move back down to your knee before stealing a kiss from you across the console. "You're such a tease." She neither confirms or denies it, just sends you a wink before turning her attention back to the road.

The drive takes you to the Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, eliciting an eager gasp from you. After the hassle of parking and admission (which Parker pays for without a chance of arguing), her fingers tangle with yours as the both of you stroll along the pathways.

Conversation flows easy and with the sun as your witness, you realize that spending time with Parker outside of the bedroom doesn't necessarily leave you like a fish out of water, struggling to pass the silence that isn't a moan or a desperate cry of her name.

"So where did your globe take you this time?"

After the botanical gardens, Parker had taken you to her favorite pizza place, buying a pie for the both of you to share. Not wanting to head back to her place yet, she's parked at an empty lot with the two of you sitting on the hood of her Jeep with the pizza box between you both.

You glance back down from where you've been staring up at the starless sky, mid-bite. "Rome," you hum, reaching for a napkin to wipe your mouth before Parker beats you to it. Her touch lingers. "Didn't really stay too long, might've gotten homesick."

Parker couldn't hide the surprise on her face even if she tried. "Homesick?" The unspoken question is there: what's home to you?

"Mhm. Homesick." The pizza box is shut and put away as you lay down, resting across the hood with your head nestled on the meat of her thigh. She waits patiently, her fingertips tracing your features gently. "My aunt traveled a lot and when she passed, she made me promise to see the rest of the world for her."

"You've seen a lot of the world already," Parker muses quietly.

"I did. She said that once I've seen my fill of the world to come back home. Maybe that's what's happening now."

The meaning of your statement settles deep in Parker's bones, her heart fluttering in a way that felt like hope. She can't deny that the gaps between your visits have been lessening far more frequently, feeding the impractical dreams of asking you—wanderlust personified—to stop flying. To stay here with her.

"You know what I want from this," she says quietly. "I think I've made it obvious."

Your laugh is delicate when your eyes finally meet hers, reaching up to cradle her jaw as your thumb skims along her cheek. "I think I need you to be more obvious, Parker. Every time I visit, I keep waiting for you to stop me from packing."'

"Can't ask you to stay for me when you've got the rest of the world to see, lovebug," she frowns. As much as she's been dreaming of this, she can't be the reason you clipped your wings.

"Parker, I stopped spinning the globe."

Your confession makes her pause. "What?"

Slowly, you sit up and she moves in tandem, bringing you close to straddle her lap as her arms wind around your waist. Your hands lock loosely behind the nape of her neck. "I stopped spinning the globe. I just… went wherever to pass the time, just to keep moving, but I couldn't stop myself from just going back home to you anyways."

Her eyes search yours and she must've found the confirmation she needs because when she kisses you, all the walls you both have half-heartedly drawn up crashes down. It isn't the first kiss you've shared, hell—not even the hundredth, and yet the way she kisses you without any hesitation elicits a newfound desperation to sit even closer.

But she slides slightly against the hood of the car and she laughs gently against your seeking mouth to reach behind and stabilize the both of you with a palm against the windshield. "Hold on, sweetheart—" she mutters as she carefully gets off the hood with you still in her arms, your legs wound tight around her waist. With her feet now planted on solid ground, she hikes you back onto the hood before leaning in to kiss you without a second to waste.

"Can't believe we're having our first kiss in the parking lot of a pizza parlor," you mutter against her mouth and she nips your lower lip in reply.

"Baby, this isn't our first kiss," she mumbles back, refusing to part from your lips for even a second.

You shake your head. "It is— as girlfriends."

The confidence that reverberates from those four little words draws out a pleased, dreamy sigh from her as she nudges the tip of her nose against yours. "So we're girlfriends now?" Parker teases anyway, just to see the way your nose scrunches up.

"We better be. You kissing anyone else, Doctor Ellis?"

"Wouldn't dream of it, lovebug."

—

EPILOGUE.

The sliding doors of the ambulance bay open for you and this time, Ahmed tips his head to you in greeting.

"Morning, Bug."

Ever since your first arrival, the nickname Parker gave you was immediately adopted by the rest of her colleagues. Despite her griping and whining, you never really did mind so she would drape herself around your back, huffing and whining into your neck much to everyone's utter surprise.

"Good morning, Ahmed," you chirp as you flounce into the ED just as handoffs have been finished up. Lena finds you first and you casually set a banana bread muffin onto the nurse's station before handing Shen a fresh cup of iced coffee from the artisanal cafe a few blocks down. Your gifts brighten up the end of what seemed to be a brutal night shift.

Dr. Robby chuckles and even his cool exterior as chief of the PTMC crackles beneath your insistent warmth when you make it to one of the charting computers where he's perched himself at. "Good morning, Bug."

"Hi, Dr. Robby. Muffin?" You offer the tray you arrived with, rewarding the older man with a beatific smile that he even falters at. "Is Parker done?"

Jack cuts in with a swiftness, stealing a muffin with a large bite. "She'll be right out, darlin'. Make sure she gets some proper rest, she got stuck with the few Dr. Googles."

You wince and nod in understanding. "Got it. Thanks for taking care of my girl, doctors." The two older men chuckle in fond unison, their gaze following the way Parker materializes from one of the rooms in South (after finishing a handoff with Trinity) and immediately perks up when you cross the distance to greet your girlfriend with a chaste but sweet kiss.

Parker Ellis had always been one of the cool-headed residents, quick to adapt to any situation in an emergency department and could be relied on to stay steady. Calm, collected, and undeniably charming only to fall apart and unravel into a blubbering, giddy mess when you deign to spare her a gentle smile.

Jack chuckles as he watches the way Parker slings an arm around your waist, dragging you into her side to press an obnoxiously aggressive kiss to your temple and cheek that has you squealing in delight while the both of you finally exit the hospital.

Before Jack could turn away to finish up his charts, he sees Ahmed clear the white board in the security breakroom to scrawl on a new betting pool category.

NEW POOL: Parker + Bug. Wedding date?