#kingdon

[billspaid]

My favourite version on Mel and Frank is a slow burn friends to lovers where Mel is pretty much in love with him from the start but doesn’t do anything because he’s married and then eventually just resigns to the fact that they’re just going to be close friends.

Frank eventually gets divorced and then around 6 months post-signing-the-papers, he’s struck with the fact that yeah maybe he’s in love with Mel. But obviously he’s newly divorced and in recovery and Mel deserves better so he bottles up the feeling and pushes it deep deep down but they’re both living as if they’re dating. They go around to each other’s place all the time, Mel helps him the kids, Frank helps with Becca. They fall asleep in the on call room together, they have inside jokes, he brushes the hair off her face and she picks the fluff off his scrubs.

And then one night they’re standing in the kitchen and Frank realises he can’t stop this, he was never going to be able to push it away because it’s Mel. And he just turns to her and says “you know I love you, right.”

And Mel glances up, no shock, no surprise in her face. “Yeah, I know. I love you too.” And she goes back to chopping the veg.

Frank looks at the back of her head. “I’m in love with you.”

Mel puts the knife down and turns to face him with a small smile. “I think I knew that too.”

He crosses the kitchen and kisses her. It’s their first kiss but it’s common, familiar, like they’ve been doing it for years. Her face heats up under his hand and he pulls back, giddy.

“Are we supposed to have sex now?” She asks, biting back a smile.

“Well, it’s better to do it before we eat, rather than after.”

Mel hums. “Okay. I haven’t shaved my legs though.”

“I really couldn’t care.” He tells her, leaning down to kiss her whilst they walk towards his stairs.

[francislangdon]

[paperclips37]

What if Robby initially has Becca's case but his approach is just way off. He's just too much and rather... Dismissive? Condescending? Talks to Mel more than Becca.

Becca is getting increasingly angsty and uncomfortable.

Langdon asks Dana or Cassie to cover him and he sneaks into the room. Does his best to settle Becca. Turns down the lights and turns down the most irritating noises, or moves them away from her. Reducing the overstimulation as best he can. Hands her a stimming bracelet.

Of course she is instantly charmed and TOTALLY blabs about how Mel said he was the best thing about that first day.

(Frank has no idea what to do with this information but is extremely happy about it)

He manages to get out before the attendings notice. But then Becca is adamant she wants a doctor who works well with neurodivergent patients

"I want Dr. Langdon"

Robby is completely blindsided. Expects Mel to gently disagree as her medical proxy.

"I agree. Please give her case to Dr. Langdon."

[lizawithaz-notlisawithans]

Headcanon: Mel offers Langdon some tie dye shirts made by Becca for his kids. Langdon is all about the jokes

[drmels]

nothing, and i mean NOTHING, has felt better than getting vibes from two characters and then going to ao3 and seeing they’re the top ship lmao and then coming to tumblr to see a thriving community

[margathings]

mel being a little shy about asking for kisses so she just hoovers close to frank and leans her head into his shoulder when she wants some display of affection. he catches up pretty quickly to this, and usually drops his arm around her shoulders and places a kiss on her forehead

[iloverunningerrands]

they’re taking over my brain i fear

@thepittmonth 1/10 relationships: Melissa King and Frank Langdon

"Mel, you're a sensitive person. This is a tough place for sensitive people. But we need them, badly. Now, if you're ready, I need you"

[repressionmd]

mel who instinctively goes love you bye when she says goodbye at the end of the day to frank who then has a crisis because abby hadnt said that in a WHILE. they had maintenance sex but that was it for the 'loving' and then hes like oh my god. oh god. do i love mel???? do i !!!!!

[cvldbones]

everywhere, everything

for @thatkingdon & @fellowshipincynicism; moodboard by @thatkingdon

mel king x frank langdon | 7.3k | 1/6 (WIP)

She’d known this man for all of five minutes, and sure he was handsome and kind of endearing and seemed like he probably would be a fun person to travel around Europe with, but were those not the precise things that led girls like her into traps? She’d seen plenty of those Netflix documentaries all about the whirlwind summers abroad that went awry, and she’d thought, how does a person even wind up in that kind of situation?

or, the melfrank euroadventure AU

read on ao3

[kittydruthers]

When Mel and Langdon get together he’s going to try to convince her to start running with him. Mel’s a good sport about it really but Langdon honestly is running (no pun intended) her like a dog with these 4:30 am wake ups and strict regime for going from a beginner to 5k. The only reason she agrees is because she likes spending time with him. She likes the being let in on something he clearly loves—just another side of himself and she obviously wants to know all of them. Except despite all his enthusiasm and the fact the Mel usually musters enough of her own he can tell she’s not really that into it. She likes a slow morning because it’s usually the only time she has to regulate herself for the day. Let in the sunshine, drink a coffee or tea, go through her morning brain puzzles and listen to a playlist to set the mood. The runs are cutting into that, as adorable as her flushed face is by the end of their session, he wants it to be fun for both of them. Despite all his evidence, despite telling her she really doesn’t have to do it if it’s not fun for her, Mel is being stubborn about giving up their runs. They end up coming to a compromise though, they wake up at the same time and start their days, Frank heads out for his run while Mel starts her morning routine, and they meet up for his cool down to go through it together.

[kieranculkn]

MEL

[sad-endings-suck]

*afterwards*

“You just did a perfect crike. You’re doing great.”

“No, Mel will do the crike.” — THE PITT 01.02

[jynersq]

i am once again thinking about them

[shedelulululu]

he'll get it someday

[imgoingtofreakoutnow]

Glimpses of You

Summary: A patient hits on Mel and Frank doesn't like it

Pairing: Mel King x Frank Langdon

Words: 2.5k

A/N: it's a very small thing I had in mind and I do hope y'all enjoy! Also, thanks to @fictionobsession for pushing me to post this cause it wasn't as bad as I remembered! <3

Tagging a couple people who might like this (let me know if you don't want to be tagged <3) @paperclips37 @langdonking

Frank Langdon knew what jealousy felt like.

That feeling had accompanied him the first year of college, every time he saw Abby - the beautiful Abby that had stolen his heart with her loud laughter and even louder mind - locking arms with that Todd.

God, how he hated Todd.

He had lost count of how many times he pictured him dying of all the most extravagant and painful deaths he came across in his medicine books.

And how happy he was when he had finally disappeared from Abby's life, giving him the chance to step into it.

And now that feeling - that acid anger bubbling in his chest like a volcano ready to erupt - was back as he stared at Mel from across the Hub.

Or more precisely, at the patient she was suturing, and that was quite definitely hitting on her.

With all the noise and screams that filled the ER, he couldn't hear a word that the young man was saying, but he didn't need to. He knew the look of infatuation, especially on a patient's face.

It was almost a rite of passage, even Frank had had his bunch of admirers - both while with and without a wedding ring.

The desperate men and women came through those doors looking for help, but most of all, hoping to find someone who understood them. A shoulder to cry on. A human connection in their darkest moment.

Emotions running high, it's easy to latch on the first friendly face you see.

But did that face have to be Mel?

Frank tried to go back to the computer screen in front of him, tried to focus on the chart of his new patient who had persistent abdominal pain and diarrhea since coming back from their trip to Italy. However, as much as he tried, his eyes kept drifting back to her.

“Seems like Little Miss Sunshine has an admirer.”

Frank turned to Santos, who leaned against the counter with her eyebrows raised and a mischievous grin on her lips. He wasn’t sure when exactly did Santos become a sort of friend to him. He just knew that, after coming back to work, she had been one of the few people not walking on eggshells around him. Still bumping heads with him, but in a more playful way that reminded him a lot of Garcia.

It still felt weird talking to her like a normal person.

“Seems like it,” Frank mumbled, trying to play it off as he read his patient’s chart for what felt like the thousandth time.

It wasn’t the first time she teased him about Mel. Everything had started about three months after being back at work, about five months after his divorce. It didn’t take long for Mel and him to fall back into their routine, once he got back to work; it almost felt like they had worked together for years and not for just a day before his ‘leave’. And if that familiarity with which they easily played off each other and always seemed to orbit next to one another passed unnoticed to most, it certainly did not escape Santos and her inquisitive stare. And her pointed comments.

“You two seem to get along quite well.”

“Where’s your other half gone?”

“How long before you do something about it?”

But there was nothing to do anything about, Frank repeated to himself just as many times he had told her in the past few months, as his fingers tapped rhythmically on the desk.

And yet, a moment later his eyes were searching once again for the blonde braid and that mole under her right eye that he kept dreaming of brushing over with his thumb. He didn’t just want to look at her, he needed to, almost as if he’d drown if he didn’t. Taking in glimpse after glimpse of her was the only thing that kept him going some days, and he knew how lucky he was to be able to even be so close to her.

So he tried not to dream too much, not to let his thoughts wander too far.

He had his glimpses of her, and that had to be enough.

Then the man on the gurney raised his hand to push a lock of hair behind Mel’s ear. She immediately flinched away, her eyes wide with confusion and discomfort.

Frank was heading in their direction before Santos could open her mouth again.

Mel knew what flirting looked like; theoretically, at least.

During her teen years, boys and girls tended to mostly avoid her and her sister, and during her college years, between studying, work and taking care of Becca, she didn’t have any time to even try looking for a partner. Not that she didn’t want one: she longed for that connection that she always saw in the movies and tv-shows that she and her sister watched every night (at least when Becca was in the mood to try something other than Elf).

So, after about ten minutes of getting his history, she had realized that Mr. Grant was flirting with her while she was injecting the anesthetic into the two sides of the cut on his thigh. As she started suturing and as his comments kept coming her way, she didn’t know exactly how to react to that. There was no one to ask for help – Jesse had left to go help in Trauma 1 – and she had never considered asking anyone what to do in a situation like this, mostly because she never thought it would never apply to her.

She didn’t want to upset Mr. Grant – what if he started moving, ruining her stitches and jeopardizing his health? – but she also didn’t want to return any interest. Not that he wasn’t attractive, he objectively was; she had noticed the way most of the nurses turned to him as they headed to Central 17, and how they kept eyeing him from a distance every now and then.

However…

Her gaze left for a moment the suture in front of her to wander towards the Hub, where Langdon sat in front of a computer. Blue eyes glued to the screen, an unruly lock of hair falling on his forehead. She quickly looked away, his focus returning entirely on the open wound.

“Is this a difficult procedure?” Mr. Grant asked, his voice low and gravelly. Mel was pretty sure that wasn’t his tone when he had arrived in Central 17 about fifteen minutes before. 

“Not at all,” she assured him, doing another stitch quickly with the ease of experience. “I’ve done this many times. You’ll soon be as good as new.”

Mr. Grant nodded, a smile on his face. “Then why do you look nervous?”

Mel’s mouth opened as she frowned in confusion. “I don’t think I’m-”

A moment later, Mr. Grant had moved closer into her space, pushing back a lock of hair behind her ear. “Am I making you nervous?”

Mel immediately moved away, the rolling chair swiftly sliding a few steps from Mr. Grant’s reach. Her hands were still holding the suture that tightened on his skin a bit too much. Thankfully, the nerve block from the anesthetic seemed to still be working.

“Please, sir.” Mel didn’t know how her voice stayed so still while her heart was beating so quickly in her chest. “I can’t treat you if you move.”

Mr. Grant’s smile grew wider. “I’m sure you can treat me in many other ways.”

“Is everything alright here?”

Langdon’s voice was accompanied by the elastic snap of gloves being put on and the sudden relief that washed over Mel.

“Everything’s fine,” Mr. Grant assured, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

Langdon glared at him, his face otherwise immobile as a statue. “I wasn’t talking to you, sir.”

Mel widened her eyes: she had never seen him so angry.

“Dr. King?”

Mel blinked quickly, as she looked up at Langdon. He raised his eyebrows, waiting. Mel nodded, and as she presented the case, she was slowly able to collect herself once again. What happened was pretty straightforward: Mr. Grant hadn’t noticed a rusty nail sticking out from a pillar in his barn, walked too close to it and slashed his thigh. Luckily, it had missed the artery and the cut was pretty clean, no irregular edges. The wound had been cleaned and some IV antibiotics had been administered.

“You already ordered a tetanus shot as well?”

Mel nodded as Langdon moved. As he stepped around her chair, she couldn’t help but be extremely aware of his closeness. She tried to breathe normally as Langdon stopped by Mel’s side to examine what she had done so far, and at the same time blocking Mr. Grant from her view. As soon as the patient disappeared behind him, a quiet sigh of relief left her lips.

“Well done,” Langdon praised, checking the stitches that were already in place. Mel lowered her head, a small smile pulling her lips as she muttered a soft thank you.

Then there was a light shift: Langdon leaned in closer, just enough so that when he whispered – in the chaos of the ER – only Mel could hear: “Do you want me to finish this?”

It took Mel a moment before being able to breathe again and understanding what he had asked her. Her gaze moved for a second between Langdon and Mr. Grant – or to be more precise, to his wound – then she shook her head. She had faced much worse than an inappropriate patient.

Langdon nodded slowly, then fixed his eyes into Mel’s. “Do you want me to stay?”

She nodded immediately, no hesitation this time.

And Dr. Langdon stayed, hands in his pockets, hovering over the suture and stuck in the space that separated Mel and Mr. Grant, who had suddenly become incredibly quiet.

Every now and then, a praise would come her way, sometimes a small piece of advice on how to be quicker and yet still very precise. Mel took everything in as she kept doing stitch after stitch, extremely aware of Langdon’s vicinity – their shoulders practically touching.

She truly hoped that he didn’t notice the smile that was blooming on her face despite her best efforts to stop it. But the joy in her chest was too much to be able to control it.

Frank couldn’t stop looking at her.

She was glowing as the needle pierced into the skin and left behind the suture, before repeating those movements again and again in a well-learned dance. He had lost count of how many times – in those few minutes he had been standing there – his hand itched to touch her. A gentle squeeze on her arm, a reassuring pressure on her shoulder, a ghostly caress on the small of her back…

Mel finished her last stitch and cut the suture thread.

“All done, Mr. Grant,” Frank exclaimed, taking off his gloves. “You couldn’t have hoped for a better job, not even from a plastic surgeon.”

A glance at Mel and he bathed in the small smile pulling her lips. Then he looked around and caught Perlah’s gaze. After a nod, she was quick to come to Central 17.

“Are you free to finish with this dressing?” he asked hushedly. “His hands are a bit too long to be left alone with anyone…”

Perlah nodded, sending a quick glare to the patient. “You got it.”

“Thanks,” he whispered again before turning back to the man on the gurney. “Now, Mr. Grant, Perlah here will finish your dressing and then you should be good to go. Dr. King?”

“Oh, absolutely,” she agreed, “we just have to quickly go through the aftercare of the wound to make sure it doesn’t get infected.”

“Dr. Langdon?”

Frank turned to Javadi, who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere with a tablet held close to her chest.

“The test results for our patient in South 15, the one who went to Italy, just came back.”

He nodded, throwing away his gloves in the nearest bin and getting some hand sanitizer. “I’m coming.”

Before following Javadi down the corridor, he leaned one last time next to Mel, catching a light floral smell that fogged his brain for a moment as he whispered: “I’ll leave you to it then.”

That fragrance seemed to follow him for the rest of his shift. Whenever he thought it had been taken over by the metallic smell of blood, or perhaps by the piercing scent of rubbing alcohol, the aroma came back as Mel quickly walked by, busy with other patients. It was the sweetest of tortures, but also the most unbearable.

So when the shift finally came to an end, Frank sprinted to the lockers and out of the ER. All that closeness to Mel that day had almost driven him crazy and he needed some hours away from her. To dream of what he could have. And to remind himself what he could never have.

“Dr. Langdon!”

Mel’s voice cut through the parking lot. With his hand already on the handle of his car, Frank turned around to see Mel running towards him. A few blonde locks had escaped her braid and were dangling on the sides of her face. Despite not agreeing with his actions and overall behaviour, Frank couldn’t help but understand Mr. Grant: his own hands itched to push that hair behind her ears and let his hand linger on her cheeks as he did so.

“Everything okay, Mel?” he asked when she stopped a couple of feet away, pushing his hands deep into his pockets to avoid any temptation.

Her hands gripped tightly the straps of her backpack, her thumbs nervously circling the fabric in a soothing motion. “I didn’t get the chance to thank you today,” she finally said, her eyes wide behind the glasses. “For your help with Mr. Grant.”

“It was the least I could do,” he replied with a smile. “And you can call me Frank when we’re off work, you know that, right?”

“Definitely,” she said, nodding vehemently before taking a deep breath and squinting her eyes, tilting her head ever so slightly. “Are you busy tonight?”

Frank froze on the spot.

“Because Becca and I are gonna buy some pizza and watch a movie, probably Elf for the thousandth time, and she loves meeting new people and-” she stopped, shaking her head quickly and looking down to her shoes. “Sorry, you’re probably busy.”

“I do have my kids tonight,” he confirmed, with his heart menacing to just jump out of his chest. “And they love Elf.”

Mel raised her gaze back again, a wide smile widening on her face as her eyes glimmered in the dark. “Really?”

“Only if we’re not a bother,” Frank pointed out but Mel was already shaking her head.

“Not at all!”

Frank smiled, trying to keep his composure as he circled his car and opened the passenger’s door. “Lift?”

Mel moved quickly to the other side of the car and climbed in with a grateful smile. As he closed her door, Frank had a really hard time not to scream of joy.

[lunarfuneral]

mel finding franks locker open one night after a long shift that he was in a rush to leave and closing it for him (not before taking a look inside and maybe taking a random pen or a lanyard he left lying in there) and leaving a little handwritten note sticking out of it 'you left your locker open! i closed it for you and made sure it was locked :) ♥️ mel' and it starts this little thing between them where they leave notes behind for the other to read in increasingly random and unexpected places. frank leaves them on mel's windshield. she tucks them into his crossword books. they start leaving them where other people might be able to find them. by the coffee pot in the break room. in the corner of the stairwell they sneak off to sometimes, just to talk. but it's all just innocent little things, some inside jokes, a note here and there that frank noticed mel's new perfume, its nice! or she likes the way his hair looks today. or the new set of scrubs he's wearing, they show off his arms. he's still married and things are still weird and stilted with everyone at work, but this is something special just between the two of them that gives them both something to look forward to at work! but mel doesn't want it to be just at work anymore :( so she tucks one about how his eyes looked so blue today when they sat together outside in the ambulance bay into the pocket of frank's sweats, poking out of his open backpack, before they go home one night. she knows abby does the laundry :)