Chapter Text
In the end, it’s all Santos’ fault. They’re out for drinks after a particularly unpleasant shift— they, the under-30 doctors-to-be, or Elite Dawg Doctors as their groupchat calls them, that too being Santos’ idea, of course — and the acre smell of death and the creeping, crawling hands of doubts — over if they diagnosed fast enough, if they could’ve seen more signs, if this is worth doing at all — follows them into the bar. The whole place’s stuffed with it, enough for Santos to call, over and over, “Shots! Shots! Shots!”
Mel usually goes to these outings for the company. She orders a soda and sips it throughout, then wrangles her friends into her car and drives them home. She’s not much of a drinker, likes to be well in control of all her faculties. Today, she lets herself get tempted by a beer, then another one, then a misguided elaborate shot the bar has dubbed Rainbow Surprise, which had been more surprise than rainbow.
She has a sweet buzz going for herself, as do the rest of them. Their empty drinks pile up on the table, knocked over when Javadi squeals, “Selfieeeee!” and spins carelessly around. The picture comes out grainy and poorly-lit, with half Javadi’s cheeks pulled into the widest smile and the rest of their heads poking around. Whitaker’s deer-in-headlights look straight into the camera, eyes stupidly wide and red and somehow caught offguard when he’d been posing for it. Santos sticking her tongue out, staring through slow, unfocused drunk eyes. Samira trying to wipe the spilled beer with the smallest square of napkin, her bangs fizzing around her face from sweat and heat and static. Mel giving her camera-smile, practiced in the mirror to be cute and non-overwhelming, lips closed but pulled just the right amount, eyes straight into the lens. She holds a peace sign.
(When the picture will make its way to Elite Dawg Doctors, Santos will send, jesus fuck we’re all ugly. except mel who of course looks like the prettiest camera-ready angel. how’d she do that. Samira will answer, Drink like fourteen less pina colada than us. Fuck i’m hangover, and Javadi, lying, im never drikning again…)
They’re drunk enough to indugle in a bit of a gossip session. Usually, Samira and Mel’s we shouldn’t talk about this, it’s none of our business, and Whitaker’s squeaky, um, I don’t think— is enough to brake Santos and Javadi’s scandalous whispers. But everyone’s too overeager and curious this time, and it spills out of them instead, I heard that David is getting divorced because he’s having an affair with a nurse — no, not Gloria, the one with the butterfly clip — yes, I know I should know their names — I thought Selena was with — well I heard that Parker — oh my God, no way!
Santos licks up the frothy pink off her straw, declaring all-knowing, “Robby and Collins definitely used to hook up.” Noises of agreements circle the table. Santos drops her straw back in her glass. “And they really need to start hooking up again. The sexual tension just stinks up the whole place. Gross.”
Mel considers this. “They do seem to have very strong feelings for each other. It would be a shame to waste such a connection.” Imagine loving someone — really loving someone — losing them, and then seeing them every day. Mel doesn’t think she could move on under these circumstances. She’s not surprised Robby and Collins haven’t either. At least, it doesn’t seem like they have.
Javadi bends over the table, looking at each of them as she whispers, “What do you think happened?”
Santos waves her away. “Whatever— I bet the first time they have sex again, Robby just cries the entire time.” The table rings with cries and gags, disgust and dismay at the mental image she’s forced into their skull swooping through them faster than their coconut vodka, and Santos just laughs.
“Jesus, Trinity!” Whitaker swears, rubbing at his forehead, perhaps like he could physically wipe the past two minutes.
It only makes Santos laugh harder, delighted. “What? I’m just saying. He looks like a crier.”
Samira stares at her. “That’s Robby. He’s like our dad.” Mel doesn’t think it’s very polite to talk about anyone this way, but she does have to admit it makes her feel queasy, the image of Robby in any kind of— and she’s blushing now. Jesus indeed.
Santos refuses to stop. She fuels on their discomfort, talking over them with a cackle, only speaking louder when they swear at her, “I think he’d be very sweet, though. Most of the time. When you get him mad— oh, you could get it. The way he screamed at Langdon the first day?”
Whitaker presses the palm of his hands into his eyeballs, groaning. “My ears are bleeding.”
“Could this get reported to HR?” Javadi squeaks, looking around as if someone from the hospital was there to overhear and get them in trouble.
“What? This is feminism. Men talk about us like this all the time, and it’s just locker room talk. God forbid a couple of girls grab a drink and objectify their male coworkers.”
“I’m literally right there.”
Santos allows this, waving at him. “A couple of girls and Whitaker.”
“That’s not what—”
Santos tsks and tuts, shaking her head in disappointment. “You guys are so sex negative. There’s nothing shameful about sex— Hell, I’m a lesbian, it’s not like I’m deriving any sexual pleasure from this. I’m just an astute observer. I’m sharing objective information.” As if going and for my next trick!, she adds, casual, “Like, hey, I think Abbot would be into some really kinky shit.”
Again, disdained groans make their rounds, but it seems the image of Abbot doesn’t kick in them the kind of raw discomfort that Robby did. The sounds are subdued, more for show or principle than a true, guttural reaction.
Javadi even pipes up, shy, “He does seem pretty good.”
Santos grabs onto this with both hands. Eager, she slams the table and cries, “Yes, yes — exactly, Crash!” She nods wisely. “He’s got that wild energy like he has a mattress on the floor and no bedsheets but he can fuck you through it.”
Samira eyes her. “He’s 49. I’m sure he has a bed frame.”
“It’s the energy. You don’t think he’d get feral after he’s done with his whole ER Cowboy bit? All that pent-up adrenaline?”
Samira bites her lip, looking caught-out. She admits, almost against herself, “Well. I guess he does give the impression that he’s very— talkative.” She seems hotter and frizzier than before, though the temperature inside the bar hasn’t changed at all.
Santos’s got a big dumb grin, reveling in their slow corruption, instigating them further into the dark side. “Uh-huh. Yes.”
Beside her, Whitaker thinks it bears repeating, “Jesus.”
Javadi hooks her chin on her palm and sighs, dreamy, “I think Mateo would be really sweet and gentle. Like he’d hold your hand and brush your hair the whole time.”
This, of course, feels to everyone more like hopeful thinking and projection than any kind of astute and objective reporting, but Santos allows it. She even indulges, though with a mocking sneer, “Yeah, I bet he’d always refer to it as making love.”
Before Mel can blink, the conversation has slipped and cracked, and now Samira is calling, humor-tongued, “Shen probably has the most awful sex playlist that he refuses to fuck without. It’s titled, like, Boing-chica-wong-wong.”
Javadi bites her cheek, giggling, “Getting down to business.”
“Poundtown.” Santos shimmies her shoulders.
Mel reflects on Shen and hears herself say, “He seems very laidback.” Which is not a remark on his sexuality at all, just on himself— thrown there because they’ve said his name. Whitaker still throws a betrayed look her way, screaming et tu, brute?
“Yeah, he’d probably be down to try whatever.” Santos builds, anointing her into this conversation before Mel’s brain can catch up.
“Donnie would treat you right. Just no-nonsense, pure confidence.” Samira has snapped into doctor mode. She talks like she’s rattling off a patient’s chart, clean and sure and professional. Not even a bit of a cheekful grin, acknowledging that it’s sex, and silly and, HR-violating.
Javadi has not managed to find that cool, and she lets out a giddy giggle. “Completely silent however.”
“Obviously.”
And then Santos says — because of course she does, of course they would, of course it’s her fault — “And Langdon would be awful in bed, of course.” Mel blinks.
She somehow hadn’t expected them to get to Langdon, although she acknowledges it’s quite ridiculous of her to not have seen it coming considering the list of male coworkers they were rapidly striking. It’s just — well, Langdon isn’t exactly just a coworker to her, but also a friend. Someone she sends medical memes to and facetimes and watches bad movies on her couch to decompress, someone who pays for her coffee when she’s not looking and talks her down from the egde of a spiral and has met Becca. He’s — He’s Frank to her, and it’s weird to— talk about him that way. Extremely inappropriate, beyond what HR demands.
Still, Mel thinks she should defend his honor, and notes, “I think you might be letting your biases influence your judgment.”
Santos wrinkles her nose in disgust. “He’s too cocky and confident— super selfish lover. His sex would be all fratty and he’d, like, look at himself in the mirror the whole time. He clearly doesn’t make girls come. That’s why he had to buy his ex-wife all these consolation gifts.” She affects a low, slow voice, completely un-Franklike, “Oh, sorry I couldn’t find the clit babe, here’s a puppy.”
Javadi’s laughing to stitches into her drink, but she does scream, accusatory and happy, “You’re definitely being biased!”
Samira says, “Yeah, Langdon’s the type of guy you wish was really bad in bed because he’s such an asshole, but he actually makes you come so fucking hard that you just keep seeing him.” Mel’s ears are buzzing. Is she going deaf? What was in that Rainbow Surprise? “Like, he’s such a douche because he never had any consequences to his actions— the girls just kept coming back.”
“Jesus, I don’t understand straight girls.”
Javadi’s eyes start shining. “Plus, he’s really sweet with Mel. I bet he can be very thoughtful and caring if he likes the girl.”
Mel— “Me?” She chokes on the word, feeling suddenly like a butterfly trashing violently, held down with a thumb. Or is it just her heart trashing, and the bones of her ribcage holding it back, squeeze, squeeze, squeezing.
Mel blinks and— Frank rubbing his thumb on her jaw, eyelashes fluttering as he dips a look from her eyes to her lips, a branding-hot hand on her back, her hip, her— a little laugh, maybe from her or him, excited and delighted and— is that good, all sweet and low and earnest, and the cocky, confident smirk when she nods, and nods, and— oh. Fuck. What the fuck.
Santos begrudgingly admits, sounding bitter and pained, “I guess so.” Then her eyes find Whitaker, smiling dangerously. “So, Huckleberry, what about you? Selfish, sweet, animalistic— let’s hear it.”
Samira makes a face. “Let’s not.”
Whitaker stresses, desperate, “Yeah, please, let’s really not.”
Santos relents easily. She grabs the lemon off Samira’s drink, sighing, “You know, the one I really want to find out for myself is Garcia.” Her eyes shine with stars. “Man, I’d let her bend me each and every way if she only asked.” She bites into the lemon.
“So— animalistic?”
Santos ups her nose. Spits out the rim. “We can cuddle afterwards.”
So, yeah, it's really all Santos' fault. Mel has spent months perfectly ignoring how beautiful Frank is, with the jaw and the chin dimple and the floppy hair, looking right out of a magazine. She has very meticulously not noticed how his shirt rides up when he stretches, and the satisfied groan that slips out of him right after. Or how his hand presses at her back when he wants her to walk faster, restless to be there already, and the warmth of his fingers, and the length of them. She has very purposefully not been aware of how he rubs his lips when he thinks, and how flushed and panting he is after a run, and how his forearms flex when he helps her bring in her groceries.
Yes, Mel has put considerable and painfully careful efforts not to think about any of these things, much less how they make her feel. But Santos has thrown her life off-kilter with her drunk chatters. She was ridiculous and inappropriate, and she pulled everyone into her nonsense until they were painting a picture of the scene for Mel all pretty and tempting, putting her of all people as the female placeholder, and now she’s supposed to what— not think about Frank in bed? How?
It becomes obsessive. All Mel can wonder when he’s sitting on her couch is Frank’s— sexual proctivities. How he likes it, how he does it, who he has done it with. It starts inhabiting her, rolling and rolling in her mind, so much so that she figures it’s the big, vast, confusing unknown that is causing her such fascination and not, of course, Frank himself.
No, Mel just likes to understand things. When she was young, she’d ask but why so many times that people would start getting frustrated with her — short and dry answers, huffing, rolling their eyes, she knows the signs. They’d call her petulant and combative, say she was being disrespectful, when, really, truly, sincerely, she only wanted to know the why. It’s the same thing now, she can tell. The need to husk and hull a faraway concept until she can grasp it, can make it small and tangible and cool in her head. She just needs to get it, and then she'll be free of this compulsion.
And so, while Frank sits on her couch and sips on some mint tea, scrolling mindlessly through his phone, Mel blurts, “Can I ask you a question?” He makes a distracted hum, not looking up from his phone. Nerves start piling up her back. Her fingers feel numb and she thinks of cowering when— “Do you like sex?”
Frank almost does a spit take. He finally looks up at Mel, lips parted. But he’s always been more willing to indulge her tangents than most, accepting of all her quirks. He answers, awkward and unsure, “Uh, yeah? Yes.” Frowns. “Why?”
Ok. Frank likes sex. Mel has to admit, it’s not a particularly enlightening question. Almost everyone likes sex. Mel hadn’t gotten the impression he was asexual at all, so the answer is not much of a surprise.
She asks instead, “Do you do it a lot?”
This only confuses Frank more, who bends to put his tea on the coffee table. Still, “Uh— I used to, I guess.” He scratches his eyebrow. “Like, in college, and when you have a consistent girlfriend— if that counts. Does it count? Is your question based on the quantity of partners or, um, times?” Wow, he’s blushing.
But Mel’s not quite sure what she’s asking for. She should have prepared this before blurting it out, should have written down a list of proper questions. Now she’s just fumbling through in the dark.
She tries, “The latter. Both.”
Frank exhales out of his nose. “I’m sorry, Mel— Why are you asking this?”
She bites her lip. “Is it invasive?”
“Well, yes—”
“I’m sorry. You can tell me it’s inappropriate and you don’t want to answer.” Frank’s look is soft and warm like toffee, and Mel is a terrible, no good person, because all she thinks is he’s really sweet with Mel, I bet he can be really—
Patient, he says, “That’s not what I’m saying. I don’t mind answering your questions, I’d just like to know why you’re giving me a heart attack on your couch on this fine Tuesday.”
“It’s stupid.”
“I don’t mind.”
Mel takes a breath. Feels her cheeks get hot. “We were at the bar with the girls— the girls and Whitaker— and we— well, they, mostly, I didn’t really— anyway, they started talking about the— um, men of the ED, and their— sexual proclivities, I suppose you could say.” Mel’s eyes find his. “And it made me curious.”
Frank stays perfectly still. “Are you going around asking every ED male doctor if they like sex?”
“Curious of you.”
It washes over his face— he knows this, looks down at his knees to hide it. He comes back with a determined look. Nods at her. “Ok,” he says, decisive. “Ok, you can ask me what you want to know.” The sentence goes up at the end, sounding more like a question. Mel wonders how much of his confidence is bravado.
“How many sexual partners have you had?” There. That’s a better question.
Already, Frank flusters at this. He looks up as if counting. “Uh— 16, I think. I don’t know. The definition of what counts as a ‘partner’ has blurred in recent years.” He tries to joke, “All that woke shit.” It makes him sound more nervous than funny. Mel considers telling him this, but she thinks it’d only add to that nervosity.
Instead, she forges on. “Did you always enjoy it?”
“The sex?”
“Yes.”
He tilts his head. Thinks. “No, not always. Don’t get me wrong. Most of the time I did, of course, but sometimes you’re a little tipsy and not very compatible and it just doesn’t— click.”
“Click?” Mel pushes.
“I don’t know. There’s no chemistry. You’re just feeling around each other’s bodies.” Mel hums. “Or they do something you’re not into.”
“Like what?”
“Like— shit.” Frank looks away. He huffs. “Like, one time, this girl wanted me to slap her, and I wasn’t into that.”
“Oh,” Mel says. “Yeah, I don’t think I’d like that either.” Frank makes a little pained noise. “But most of the time?” Mel presses, just to make sure she’s really grasping it.
“Yes,” Frank smiles. “I usually enjoy it very much.” And— oh. Mel’s imagining it now, him enjoying it, parting his lips like when he's thinking hard and groaning like when he stretches and rolling his eyes like when he steals her ice cream and— ohhh. She squirms.
Mel’s heart is doing this weird somersault thing. She feels dizzy and drunk, like she took one hundred Rainbow Surprise, and she realizes, somewhere faraway in her mind, that she should absolutely stop. This is definitely, absolutely a bad idea.
And still, Mel whispers, flushed to her roots, “Did— they?”
Frank eyes her up and down. Fuck. Fuck.
He smiles to himself. “Well, I’d like to think so.”
“Wouldn’t you know?”
He tilts his head. “How’d you mean?”
I don’t know, she should say. Nevermind. Sorry. This is so unbelievably stupid. But all Mel can think about is Santos’ mocking and she feels the need to— defend his honor, leave him the possibility to clear the record.
Mel’s breathless when she says, “Did they come?”
A beat. “Yes.” And then, that cocky, confident, terrible, fucking hot grin rises over his face. “Often more than me.”
“More?” Mel squeaks. That butterfly-thumb conundrum again, beating against her head. She’s trapped, pinned in place. The world is rattling around her and all she can do is let it fall apart.
Frank makes one of his funny looks. “I’m just trying to bridge that O gap. Do my part.”
Mel eyes him. Settles on, “You’re being stupid.”
Not a question, but Frank answers truthfully. “Yes and no. They do— finish more, but I am being stupid. I do it because I enjoy it, too.”
“When they— finish?”
“Yeah,” he says, casual, like the world isn’t crackling around them. “When they feel good.”
“Ok,” Mel says. Tries to remember breathing. She should abort this whole mission— she’s found out enough to be quite intimately aware of Frank’s sex life, and still she doesn’t believe it’ll do much her to stop her from thinking about it. The absolute opposite, she fears.
But— There is one question she desperately wants to know the answer to, even if she knows it could ruin her, could— fuck, she shouldn’t, but—
“H-Have you had any partners… recently?”
Frank looks her right in the eyes and the world spins, spins, spins. “No.”
Mel releases a breath. She feels the need to say good, but that would be preposterous, and senseless, and inappropriate. She opts for, “Ok.”
Frank waits a beat. “Is that all?”
“Yep.”
Mel needs to wrap up this conversation and sit alone in a quiet room to process everything. She can’t narrow down how it’s making her feel, but definitely something— strange she needs to explore. Alone.
Frank has other ideas, apparently. He sits back on the couch. “Can I ask you questions back, then?”
Mel’s nose twitches. Well. It’d be hypocritical of her to say no now. “I— I guess so.”
Frank doesn’t hesitate. “Have you had any partners recently?”
“No.”
“Ok. How many have you had then?”
Mel doesn’t have to count. “Four.”
Frank makes this little knowing smile. “All boyfriends?”
“Most,” Mel admits. “I had one very ill-advised hook-up situation with a guy in med school.”
Frank stares at her. His voice is rougher when he asks, “And did you enjoy it— the sex, I mean.”
“Sometimes.” But— “I think I’m more proficient by myself.”
The pleasure she could feel with another had never been as high as when she was by herself. Mel just knew her own body better, had explored it enough to know exactly how to best get off, and she hadn’t been with anyone who really cared to find all her quirks. They’d all just preferred pawing lazily at her clit and asking, that good? Sex for her was just— fluff. Not bad, sometimes fun and enjoyable, but never mindblowing. Which was fine. To be quite honest, Mel could blow her own mind.
“Jesus,” Frank chokes. His eyes are dark, focused on her. “Yeah? They didn’t make you come like your little fingers could?” Oh. Mel gets a funny feeling.
“I use a vibrator.” She precises, ever-technical.
“Jesus.”
“It’s part of the problem, actually, I think— I generally need the extra stimulation to finish, but men can get very insecure over the addition of toys in the bedroom.”
“That’s— Fuck them, Mel. You’ve been dating babies.”
Mel takes him in. His dark wild eyes, his parted mouth, his tight jaw. The way he shifts on the couch, his restless hands.
“Frank, can I ask you one more question after all?”
Quickly— “Yeah.”
Mel tilts her head. “Are you turned on right now?”
The laugh bursts out of him. “Fucking— Yes, Mel. Obviously. Asking me all these questions, putting all these images in my head— Jesus, Mel, I want—” He puffs air out of his nose. Sounds choked when he adds, “You drive me crazy.”
Something thick and languid is moving through her veins. Her stomach feels hot, and she stares at him through her eyelashes in a look even she is aware is flirty. She smiles at him, feels the room charge and fizz with something electric. If she were to touch him, it'd spark on her fingertips.
“My turn,” Frank says finally, breathless, sliding closer to her. “Mel, sweetheart,” his eyes find her, eyelashes fluttering — up, down — “can I kiss you?”
Mel's grin only grows. “Finally, Frank.”