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crushribbons · 1 month ago

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the hot, flirty resident curse

summary: Dr. Frank Langdon just sustained the luckiest on-the-job injury ever.

cw: 2.8k words, nurse!reader/OC, friends to lovers, i started writing this before 1.10 so we're gonna say it's a "1.10 never happened"AU 😭, single dad frank, i made him probably more respectful than he actually is but nurses deserve the entire world so they're getting that too!!!, go hug a nurse rn, brief injury/knife ment, definite inappropriate behavior for a hospital, fem reader/OC.

a/n: drug theft???? what drug theft????

(gif cred)

The “break room” was busy today. Dozens of nurses hustling in and out of the dimly-lit, stale-smelling, and nowhere near big enough lounge. The microwave never could heat her leftovers to a degree that was actually pleasurable for human consumption, so she picked around her butter chicken with a sigh.

Only three hours left. She could have waited to eat dinner, but the promise of thirty uninterrupted minutes where she would not be yelled at by patients’ families or ordered around by some of the more pompous assholes she worked wi–

Speak of the devil, and he’ll stick his head into the nurse’s lounge, catch sight of you trying to enjoy a moment of peace, and yell, “HEY! Hey, you, Lululemon!” Her eye twitched. The black Define that she was wearing was her favorite. She did not turn to look at what she knew to be one of the new interns that started last week. He scoffed in frustration. “Yoohoo!”

“I have a name,” she said calmly, evenly. The butter chicken now held a lot of interest for her.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know it! How do I get to Imaging from here?” Her knuckles turned white around the plastic fork she was using, and she started to turn and read this greenie the riot act, but someone beat her to the punch.

A hand appeared from behind the intern (she realized with a little chuckle that she didn’t know his name either) and smacked him soundly upside the head. “What the FUCK?!” he cried. Dr. Langdon pushed him out of the lounge and down the hall.

“You will show respect to the nurses of this hospital if you want to continue working here, got it?” Langdon called after him. The kid muttered something snotty, she assumed, and she saw him amble away like a dog with its tail between its legs. “Sorry about him,” Langdon apologized. He hung on the door frame for a minute and chewed his lip. Her hand that wasn’t holding the fork searched for something to do, landing on smoothing down the hair that was already pulled into a perfect bun. “Kid’s an asshat.”

“I’ve known a few of those in my time here,” she joked, and Langdon grinned. She dropped the fork. “There was this one guy…Langdumb, or something like that. He was insufferable.” Langdon gave her an exasperated look that made her laugh and say, “But he’s much better now.” The exasperation was replaced with an angelic beam.

“Well, thanks for saying that. Some days, I wonder,” he said, then rubbed the back of his neck. She pouted in sympathy without realizing she was doing it. Langdon laughed. It was a little gravelly and when he smiled, he showed off each of his straight, white teeth. Her heart hammered at the ribcage prison bars that held it hostage.

Residents had a reputation. Of course they did; they’d toiled away in thankless obscurity for four years as medical students, so it only made sense that at the first opportunity they had to stretch their newly-educated legs, it would go straight to their head. She remembered Langdon being somewhat of a douche himself as a first-year, always correcting nurses and, on one occasion he later apologized profusely for, disregarding an order Dr. Robby had given for a patient to be intubated. Langdon had been correct in his estimation, thank God, but Robby had berated him in that terrifying, humiliating, cool as a cucumber way that he always did. She had been assigned to that patient at the time, and the memory of Robby quietly seething at Langdon in the corner of the hospital room still made her cheeks hot. That had been what finally whipped Langdon into shape.

Some residents also had a reputation for certain, seedier behaviors. There weren’t enough fingers or toes on the planet on which to count how many times some new hotshot had hit on her, usually opting to do so through negging and second-guessing her work, like she would be tripping over herself to go out on a date with the grown man tugging her pigtails on the playground. The kid Langdon had shoved down the hall was no doubt on his way to do something similar to the first nurse distracted enough to walk across his eyeline.

Dr. Langdon had no such reputation for flirtiness, and he had never made any sort of advance to her. Thank goodness. It was nice to have a friend in a slightly higher place than her.

She cleared her throat. “Anyway, what’s going on for you, Dr. Frank?”

“Quit calling me Dr. Frank, especially in front of patients.” He rolled his eyes. “That puts a whole ‘Dr. Phil’ image in their heads and I hate it.”

“Oh I’m glad you mentioned that…” She turned in her chair to face him fully and seriously. “My teen has been drinking at parties and my husband is an absent father,” she said, face grave.

Frank adopted a Southern drawl and put his finger above his lip to simulate a moustache. “You have gawt to send that child to military school, it is the only waaay.” They giggled. Frank’s pager went off and he pulled it off his waistband to read it. “Shit, gotta run. Don’t have too much fun without me,” he ordered sternly, a frown creasing his pretty forehead.

Pretty forehead? Fuck is wrong with you? She admonished herself without mercy while she went through the motions of undressing and redressing the various beds in the Pitt for the rest of her shift. It was not a desirable duty to be stuck with. Luckily, it was a slow day in the ED by ED standards, with only two ambulance visits and a quiet trickle of less urgent cases admitted from the waiting room, so she had ample time to think about the piece of hair that was always falling in Frank’s bright blue eyes when he was working, and the way Frank cackled any time he cleaned up on one of his and Mateo’s college basketball bets, and Frank…

God, you’d think I had a thing for this guy, she mused to herself, slipping a pillow into its fresh case. Do not fall for the evil Hot Flirty Resident Curse. It might be a canon event for some nurses, but not for her. No, sir, she had her head on her shoulders more than that.

Didn’t matter if Frank wore a kitschy, clunky little bracelet, beaded with love by one of his daughters, every day. Didn’t matter if Frank spoke with the utmost respect about his ex-wife whenever the topic came up. Didn’t matter if he had once placed his hand on her lower back to steer her towards the patient’s room that he had needed her assistance with, and that she hadn’t stopped thinking about it since. Didn’t matter if Frank–

–was knocking gently on the door of the room she now stood, motionless, in and asking, “Hey, did you see Mrs. Horowitz getting discharged?”

“Mrs. H-Horo–?” Her tongue felt about ten inches thick as she tried to remember which patient he was talking about and how to move her feet like a normal person.

“The low blood sugar.”

“Oh, right.”

Frank raised his eyebrows, making her realize she hadn’t answered the question. She wished a hole would open up in the speckled tile and swallow her. “Yes, I saw her checking out with Dana at central an hour or so ago,” she said. Ok, got it all out without stammering. This was just Frank; why was her brain foggy and making it impossible to speak to a man she’d always just thought of as a coworker? Her favorite coworker, sure. The highlight of her day? Also sure, but it wasn’t…She pulled a face that mirrored her thoughts before she could stop herself.

Frank thanked her, then paused on his way out of the room again.

“Uh..are you done for the day?” he asked, and a glance at her watch told her that yes, she was three minutes past being done.

“I could stick around for a bit,” she shrugged with all the nonchalance in the world. “Need help with something?” Frank shook his head, a tiny smirk she would have missed if she hadn’t been staring too hard at his mouth flickering around his lips.

“No, no worries, head home! I can totally just grab someone–”

“No!” She tried to play it cool with a chuckle and threw the pillow she was still holding down on the bed. “Let me help. What is it?”

Frank sighed and yanked his right sleeve up to show her his shoulder, and all the mortification that had been comfortably fading away in his presence came back in full force. She stared dumbly for a few seconds before he turned a degree to his left and she caught sight of the ugly, crimson gash that ran from the back of his tricep to the top of his shoulder. “Jesus, Frank! Mention this shit first!” she cried, rushing to him. “What happened?”

He grimaced. “Turned my back for one second and a patient grabbed the scalpel off my tray and slashed. I’m angrier about the scrubs, to be honest. FIGS ain’t cheap.” He plopped himself down on the bed and looked up at her. “It’s not bad, really, I just can’t reach it to dress it myself. Would you mind?”

No, Man Who is Colloquially Referred to Around the Hospital as Dr. Dreamboat, no, I would not mind patching you up even a bit. She cleared her throat, trying to muster all her calm and competence, and said, “I’m not sure this hospital accepts your insurance, Mr. Langdon.” Frank grinned while pulling his sleeve up once more and holding it in place so she could access the wound.

“My work,” he groaned. “They got me on the worst plan possible. Acts of God are about the only thing they cover, so if anyone asks, God stabbed me.”

Her laugh surprised her. It wasn’t nervous; it was loud and probably obnoxious and it made Frank beam even more widely. She dashed over to the nurse’s supply station and requisitioned a wound care kit. When she reentered the room, she was horrified to discover that Frank had given up on holding his scrub shirt out of the way and had opted to pull the whole thing off. He was, thank heaven, wearing a white tank undershirt, and sat waiting for her expectantly. She took the second before he realized she had reentered the room to ogle as much as her professionalism and casual friendship would allow.

The sound of the alcohol swab’s packaging tearing echoed through the awkwardly quiet room. “Is it gonna hurt?” Frank whispered, making his eyes huge. She wanted to tell him to shut up.

“Shut up, just stay still,” she said, more thankful than she’d ever been that there was a layer of blue latex between her and the person she was patching’s skin. Using quick, dabbing motions to hide her trembling hands worked better than she had hoped. Frank got bored and started fidgeting after about 20 seconds. She had once told him that he needed four more letters added to his MD title: ADHD. It had been the hardest she’d ever seen him laugh, until, of course, he got distracted by something brightly colored in the distance.

He blew a puff of air from his lips and looked around the room. “Soo. Any plans tonight?”

“I was supposed to give the keynote speech at the Annual Best Nurses in the Universe Banquet, but my friend needed help putting a band-aid on, so I missed it,” she deadpanned absently, while opening the bandage and aligning it over the wound. “Are you worried about infection?”

“Not anymore, ‘cause the best nurse in the universe fixed me up real good,” he simpered. He batted his eyelashes up at her and she snorted to hide the smile that she couldn’t stop from appearing. “Um, well, anyway…” Frank began, but then trailed off. His tone had changed.

She was almost scared to ask, “What?” Her fingers smoothed over the bandage, adhering it flush to his arm, and tried to ignore the way she felt every ridge and groove of him. Or maybe she was memorizing.

Frank coughed and shrugged the shoulder she wasn’t working on. “Just…if you ever do have a free night, I mean, after work. Or not!”

She frowned. Whatever he was rambling about took a backseat while she made quick work of cleaning off the tray of supplies. “Again, what?” Her grocery order would be ready for pickup in ten minutes, and she didn’t want to miss the window by getting stuck in the parking garage with the rest of the mass day-shift exodus.

“Jesus, do you wanna go out with me?” Her eyebrows shot skyward as she whipped around to face him. “I’m sorry!” He immediately jumped up. “I wasn’t snapping at you, I mean, I was snapping, for sure, but at myself because I couldn’t just…cough it up. It’s taken me, what, like three years?”

He had a sheepish look on his face, and couldn’t seem to hold eye contact with her anymore. Three years. Three years? Three years was how long she had known him. Every last drop of nerve, embarrassment, confusion, attraction all threatened to bubble up in her stomach. She slammed the tray down on the counter next to the sink.

The reality of her feelings finally hit her full force, and she decided to acknowledge them for the first time in front of that serial stabber God and Frank and everyone: “I think I really like you, Frank.” It was easier than she could have imagined to say it, at last. Especially now, that he’d gone and taken their flirting to its natural conclusion.

“Well I know I really like you,” he replied, a grin spreading as rapidly as the elation that was filling her chest so tight she thought she might start floating away.

“You fucking doctors, you always have to come out on top, don’t you?”

Frank reached for her hand from the bed and tugged her to him. She stood between his legs, which were dangling off the bed, kicking back and forth like a kid who just got told that school would be ending three hours early on the sunniest afternoon of the year. “That remains to be seen,” he muttered up at her, his blue eyes a lot softer than his tone was suggesting, and she swatted him on the forehead for being so presumptuous before leaning down and kissing the stupid smile straight off his lips. Langdon groaned and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her down and onto the bed.

“Shit, we–” It was hard to get words out when Frank chased after her lips every time she pulled them away. And she had never been good at saying no to him. “We really should not be doing this in here.”

He agreed by putting his hand on the back of her head so he could kiss her even more deeply. “Definitely shouldn’t,” he hummed into her mouth. “Could get caught. Could get fired.” Frank pulled away fully and she took the opportunity to gulp down some air into her neglected and giddy lungs. “Wait, will you still go out with me if I’m not a doctor?” “I’d rather you were ortho, but–”

“Don’t piss me off, baby.” But they were both giggling the same, stupid way they did when they exchanged jokes and insults. Only this time, she was kneeling on one leg in front of him on a freshly-made hospital bed, her other leg slung over his, his strong hand resting on the back of her thigh. Her heart was pounding at a wild rhythm she was not familiar with, and when Frank placed his hands on her waist and pulled her even more flush against his chest, she felt his beating similarly. “I’ve already taken off like half my clothes,” he murmured. “Should we just round up and get rid of the rest?”

“Definitely not,” she admonished through a laugh. “At least take me to get some jello or something first.” Suddenly, she was pushed off his lap and back to a standing position, her legs wobbling like a fawn’s after being folded under her so awkwardly. Frank tugged his scrub shirt back over his head and rose from the bed as well.

“Jello sounds really fucking good right now, good call,” he said, eyes already focused out the door and mapping the quickest route to the cafeteria. She wanted to laugh and cry and put blinders on the hyperactive physician so he kept kissing her until one or both of them died, but she opted instead to push that one strand of hair (the 90’s Leo one, she would later refer to it as) out of his eyes and said,

“You are insufferable.”

Frank shrugged. He grabbed her hand in his, loosely locking their fingers together and leading her out of the room. Her grocery order seemed like the least pressing matter in the world. “You love it!”

She kinda did.

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#legit my least favorite thing i’ve ever written and it hits 1500 🩷#it’s soooo bad you guys but thaaaaaanks 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻#srb

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