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After a year or so away from work, after rehab and court and spending one hour every six days in a therapist’s office, fighting against the knot in his throat, Frank Langdon returned to work. Kind of.
He did return to PTMC, he is still a resident and he still teaches the med students, it’s just that now he’s subjected to random mandated drug testing (supervised by someone who has to see him pee into a cup), he lost an entire year of medical practice (and most of his friends, and a fellowship), he can’t order or grab meds for his patients by himself, and he is now working nights.
He and Robby are not as friendly as they were before, but he was able to request the shift to nights without much fighting. See, what’s worse than not seeing your friends and coworkers for a long time and them knowing it was because you were (are) a drug addict? Seeing them again and working with them and them knowing you’re a drug addict. Frank was not ready for them to look at him with mistrust, or worse, pity. So he ran away.
Sure, he had worked doubles before, which means he has worked with the night shift, but, having children meant the only time you could actually hang out with them was between them getting out of school and before bedtime, so he always stuck with leaving work as early as possible. So it’s been a while since his hours were fucked.
Which means he never got to work with Dr. Shen as his attending.
In Frank’s eyes, Shen was a weird guy. He always walked in with a large cup of sugary coffee (gross), he was very chill (disturbingly, almost) and he was really fucking smart. He was also his boss now, which feels weird given they’re both nearly the same age (it’s weird because Frank could’ve had that job if he hadn’t been an idiot).
But, as weirded out (or jealous) as he was of Shen, he couldn’t deny that he was made for that job. Frank saw him dealing with small injuries and big traumas with the same amount of care and interest in both, he saw him chat with patients and nurses, and he saw him give out compliments and advice like they cost him nothing (he also was on the receiving end of those sometimes). He saw Shen bringing coffee to exhausted parents, and saw him command a trauma room with a steady hand and an amount of cockiness that only worked if you knew what you were doing (he did).
Ok, maybe Frank saw him a lot. At the beginning it was because of professional reasons, like getting accustomed to his leadership (which was slightly different than Robby’s), but now he caught himself more often than not staring at Shen with different eyes. He saw his hands while he was checking on a patient, not to see what he was doing, but because he wanted to look at strong fingers and short fingernails and skin. He saw him smile, not just to see that an attending could be happy with his job, but also to see how skin pulled on his cheeks, how his eyes crinkled, how his lips stretched. He tried (and failed) to come up with excuses like he had in the first few months of working with him, but now he ran out of those and he is faced with a slightly devastating fact: he likes Shen. Like-likes him.
And it’s not a revelation to him, he’s liked men before. In high school he had a crush on the swimming team captain, and he saw movies with certain actors (even if they were bad) because he was not immune to eye-candy. He had a few encounters in med school, and his eyes had wandered around in bars. Then he got married to a woman and kinda stopped thinking about it.
But now, he was no longer married, and he was kinda thinking about it.
He didn’t know if Shen was single, or if he even liked men, their chats were strictly medicine related. But even if he did like men, why would he like Frank? And if there was a chance he did, why would they do anything about it? Would Shen want a hookup? Did he do relationships? Did Frank? Getting into a relationship with someone you work with, someone who is your boss, is not something he had ever understood. But he knew that he felt too much sometimes, he knew that if they were to ever fall into bed he would want something more.
He slept with Abby the night they first met, and he had married her. Frank was trying to do casual and he fell in love. He couldn’t risk that anymore.
So he stuck it up and tried to forget about it. He willed his eyes away from Shen’s, away from his neck, and legs. He made fewer jokes around him (because his laugh made him feel weird things in his stomach) and he tried to keep his mind on his work. Which kind of worked (not really).
One night, after a rough shift, with car crashes, and critical stab wounds, and feverish children, they were all exhausted, but at the same time too wired to just go home. So after switching to the day shift (in which Frank did everything he could to not meet anyone’s eyes), Shen rounded them all up near the lockers.
“I think this is a perfect day to get drinks as a team. The shift was rough and we all deserve a little decompressing” Shen told them with a small tired smile.
Several questions raised in Frank’s head but most were derailed by the fact that Shen was wearing jeans and a tight t-shirt. He struggled to take his eyes off his chest (and the way the thin fabric stretched on it) to ask the most important question he could come up with.
“It’s seven am, where would we even find a bar?”
Turns out, when you work near several hospitals, there are actually a few bars who operate 24/7. Sure, they can’t sell alcohol (legally), but if they sell a few overpriced sandwiches and give out free drinks with them they’re technically a diner. So they order a $20 bowl of chips that include some complimentary beer bottles and sauce.
Frank is allowed to drink, he’s an adult for fuck’s sake. He has enough trust in himself to not overdo it and drunkenly try to find a dealer. So one beer turns to two, which turns to three, and five, and by 8 am half of the night shift is drunkenly giggling and trading all sorts of stories.
“No, no-” Ellis interrupts Shen’s rambling about Star Wars or something, he wasn’t paying enough attention (he was paying attention, just not to the conversation, but to the sliver of silver coming out from underneath Shen’s shirt around his neck, holy shit is that a chain- “that was your ex’s fault. That you’re into that nerd shit.” Ellis finishes.
And now that got his attention.
“Excuse you-” Shen says, with a slightly offended tone, “I was a nerd way before he got me into space shit. I just focused more on history and medicine.”
Someone else replies but Frank doesn’t register it, he is sure his brain had stopped working. Shen said he. He has dated men. Suddenly all of his hard work of trying to stay away from Shen starts crumbling down and he is right back at the beginning, looking at him, wanting him. But now there’s a chance, however small it may be.
Something must’ve been said while he was having his world reshaped, because now everyone is staring at him. “Do you feel alright Langdon?” someone to his right asks, and between the beers and the earth shattering realizations he doesn’t bring himself to answer fast enough, he just blinks and hopes they forget about him.
“Holy shit! Are you homophobic?” Ellis asks him, with her eyebrows raised to her hairline. Now he’s confused.
“No! What?” he answers, frowning, “I may be an asshole sometimes but I'm not a bigot-” and maybe he shouldn’t have had that fifth beer because he keeps going, “I just didn’t realize how many of us were queer”.
Oops. Frank expects a lot of responses: stunned silence, invasive questions, disbelief. But Shen just smiles and shrugs, “It’s part of the night shift’s charm” he says, and that’s that.
Around nine thirty am, they're all too tired and decide to go home. While Frank is on the curb, figuring out if he wants to take the bus or call an Uber, Shen walks up to him, slightly flushed (from the beers, Frank tells himself).
“For the record,” he says, “I don't think you're an asshole. Not even sometimes”. And it's said with such seriousness, that Frank can't conjure up a reply.
Shen looks around and furrows his brow, he steps closer and now Frank can smell his cologne, subtle and earthy, and the beers clinging to his breath. “Can I ask you something?” Shen asks. Frank can't bring himself to move his tongue, so he nods.
“Did I do something wrong or out of place?”
And Frank must be paying for all the wrongdoings he's ever done because he has never felt as confused as he has these past few hours. “No-” he answers, but it comes out as a question. “Why would you think that?”
And Shen's shoulders drop a little, he smiles, almost resigned, “Well, you have been acting differently around me for the past few weeks.” He looks into Frank's eyes and his gaze is soft, dark. “You were avoiding me, you stopped joking as often, and whenever I started a conversation you would shut it down if it wasn't patient related”.
Now Frank feels guilty and awful, he likes Shen so much and his attempts to mitigate his feelings are making him upset. Shen keeps talking though.
“At first I thought it might've been something related to the night shift, and it got me worried, but I noticed it only happened when you were around me so…” he looks away, “I had to know if it was something I did, something unprofessional. We don't have to be friends, but you have to tell me if I do or did something wrong or out of line”.
If he thought he felt guilty before, Frank now wants to go to church and confess his sins.
“It's nothing like that, I promise-” he tells Shen. And there might be more alcohol in his system than what he thought because he blurts out “I didn’t know being friends was on the table, I would like that”.
Shen looks at him again, with wide eyes and his mouth hanging slightly open (stop looking at his mouth, stop looking at his mouth, stop-) “That’s uh- that’s if you wanted to, of course” Frank forces his mouth to stop talking and looks away.
Before Frank could think about the earth swallowing him, or asking to be transferred to another ER, or looking up how expensive international flights were, Shen laughs. It’s a small giggle, a relieved one, not mocking him. He sees Shen standing in the sunlight, for the first time in- ever, and he knows, while looking at the way the sun lights up his dark hair, that starting a friendship with him would be heartbreaking in the end. But when Shen tells him “Yes, I would love that”, he thinks it might be worth it.
—
Hanging out outside of the Pitt was not something they’d usually do, not by themselves anyways. But when Shen invited him to watch the game at his place, with the promise of beers and takeout, on his day off, he couldn’t say no (he didn’t want to).
So he woke up bright and early (four pm), he showered, did his hair, put on the jeans that make his ass look nice and walked out of the door. Frank knew this wasn’t a date, there were no reservations made, no chocolates, no flowers, it was nothing special. Even so, he wanted to look a little nice in front of his crush, sue him.
The fact that they have now become sort of friends made Frank’s initial strategy of ignoring it and willing his feelings away seem kind of silly. He was never going to be able to suppress it enough for it to work, Shen was just a really likeable guy. So he has now accepted his small(ish) crush on his attending and has decided to make the most of it, like hanging out as much as they can without crossing a line.
Standing outside the door of Shen’s apartment made him realize that he has never been in any of his other coworker’s homes, they always met on neutral grounds like bars or parks. It made him nervous, more than was warranted for a simple football-and-beers-hang-out, but he was not going to waste a chance to see Shen in his natural environment for a few hours, so he knocked on the door.
“Hey! You’re here!” The door opened and Frank was starting to regret showing up. Shen stood on the doorway, barefoot, wearing joggers and a motherfucking muscle shirt. “Come on in!” he told Frank with a relaxed smile, stepping aside so he could walk in.
The apartment was not as big as his attending salary could’ve bought, a hallway took them straight to the living room, the open plan kitchen on the left and another hallway on the right (bedrooms, he supposed). But the place was cozy and lived in, there were plants, and lamps, and pictures and posters on the walls. A big TV on the wall in front of the sitting area. The deep green couch was big enough for three people to fit comfortably and there was a white armchair to the side, it tied the room together. Maybe Shen was an interior designer in his free time. Frank’s apartment looked like a frat house, with thrifted furniture that didn’t match, ugly carpeted floors that he could not remove (screw his landlord), and old overhead lamps.
“Feel free to sit wherever you want” Shen told him, “I’m gonna get the beers”.
Frank looked at the armchair, then at the couch, then back at the armchair. If he sat on the couch, Shen was probably also going to sit there, and they will be side by side, pros: proximity and bodyheat, cons: turning to look at him will be difficult and awkward (and he wanted to look at him). On the other hand, the armchair provided an open view to see both the TV and the couch, but also he would be too far.
Before he could make a choice, Shen walked back with a couple of bottles on his left hand and a big plastic bag on the other. “I didn’t know what you wanted for takeout so I hope you like chinese-”, he looked at Frank, still standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, and cocked his head, “Dude, you can sit wherever, I promise I wash the cushions”.
“Uh- yeah, sorry” Frank answered and sat down on the couch, Shen joined him in it. He put the bottles on the coffee table and started opening the plastic bag.
“I got some basic dishes just in case, some fried rice and chicken-” he took out a few plastic containers, “some egg rolls, some noodles, y’know how it is, take your pick”. Frank was tired of picking, and he has been there for less than ten minutes. Having a crush when you’re in your thirties is hard.
“I- um, I wanted to thank you, Shen. For inviting me.” he said while grabbing one of the beer bottles on the table. He tried to twist the cap off but it didn’t budge, since when do people willingly buy beers without twist caps?
Shen reached and grabbed the bottle from his hands and conjured up a bottle opener from somewhere. Frank didn’t see, he was too busy staring at his bare arms flexing to get it opened.
With the cap off, Shen returned the bottle to his hand, “It’s no biggie, also I’ve told you to call me John outside of the hospital. ‘Shen’ is a little too serious”.
“Ok then, John. I’ll take the fried rice please”.
Their afternoon hang-out was fun even if their team lost (shocking), but the beers were nice and the food was tasty, the couch was soft and comfortable and John is unfairly funny.
After a few hours Frank realized that the sun had set, that he was starting to feel a little tipsy, and that his arm was flush with John’s. On the back of his mind he knew that he had (maybe) overstayed his welcome, that he should go home. But he refused to move until John did.
John moved.
Before Frank could do something embarrassing, like grab him, he noticed that John wasn’t moving away or standing up, instead he turned to face him directly, laying an arm on the back of the couch, near Frank’s neck oh my god oh my god oh my g-
“Why did you close yourself to me, those months ago?” John asks, with an almost curious tone, not sounding offended, “I know we cleared it up, you told me I didn’t do anything, but I still do wonder a little.”
Because I was afraid. Because I like you so much it is starting to hurt me. Because I didn’t want to go through heartbreak again. Because I’m a coward.
“It was something silly, you don’t need to worry about that”, he answers instead. John’s fingers, beside him, start fiddling with the fabric of the couch as he looks away. He takes a deep breath and Frank can feel the air leaving the room with his exhale. Is he mad at me? Does he know why I did it? Did I ruin this?
When John looks at him again, there’s a determination in his eyes he’s only seen when a bad trauma comes into the ER. Frank feels his heart thumping in his ears and his leg starts to bounce unconsciously.
“Y’know”, John tells him, “I had a little hunch about why you did it, maybe you can tell me if I was right?”, his hand moves from the back of the couch to Frank’s neck, resting it against his nape. It’s warm and a little rough from all the work and disinfectant, and he can feel his pointer finger rubbing up and down. “I think-” his eyes look down to Frank’s lips and back up again, “that you liked me”. He knows his face is warm (and probably flushed), and when John’s eyes don’t move away from his own, it’s too much- he closes them.
It's not something he can deny, if John it's telling him it's because he knows. Apparently he did a bad job at hiding it. And that may be daunting and terrifying, but there's a warm hand on his neck, and he knows John is into guys, and it all could be worth it if he gets to have this for a little while, even for just the night.
He nods, small and unsure. “Yeah?” John asks him, moving the hand on his neck down, until it stops on his chest, on top of his heart. “You liked me?”
He nods again.
“Open your eyes Frank” he frowns and bites his lip, eyes still shut. “Please”.
When he opens them John’s eyes are still looking at him, softer, and there’s a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips, “You liked me? Or do you like me?”
As embarrassed as he may feel, he can’t tear his eyes from John’s. He forces his throat to work again, “I like you. Back then, but also right now”
John smiles, fully, with a bit of teeth, “I’m going to do something, if you don’t like it feel free to stop me. You’re a doctor, you know my weak spots.”
Frank knows what he’s going to do, he’s pulled that move on women before. He’s never had it directed at him, and now he can admit, it is a little cheesy. But then John’s lips are on his and his brain stops working.
It has been a while since he's kissed someone, so he was not expecting to feel fireworks or butterflies in his stomach, for some reason though, they were both there. John pulled up the hand on his chest, to the back of Frank's head, holding him closer, and the other one to his thigh, to stop the bouncing.
Frank was not going to waste a chance to feel him up too, so he grabbed the arm that was holding him, traced the strong muscles of his bare arm, and with his other hand, he cupped John’s cheek. He kissed back enthusiastically, but when he felt the slide of John’s tongue against his lip, he gasped.
He hadn’t meant to, but he was not used to letting others take the lead.
“Sorry-” said John, pulling away, a little out of breath with his handsome face blushing and his arms still holding Frank, “I got a little carried away, we can stop if you want to”.
Fuck no.
Frank pulled him back and kissed him again. And again, and again. The kisses deepened and, as much as he wanted to keep at it, their position was slightly awkward, with both of them turned to the side, and their legs hanging off the couch. So Frank did the logical thing: he pushed John until his back was resting on the back of the couch, and climbed in his lap.
He kisses him as he feels hands on his waist, tugging him closer, and now John was biting at his upper lip and if this keeps going I’m going to embarrass myself- he reluctantly leans away from the kiss, “John-”
Whatever he was going to say is derailed by kisses going down his neck. He closes his eyes and grabs the back of John’s head, to keep him there. Feels teeth grazing on his skin. But then John pulls back and looks up at him.
“Everything alright, sweetheart?” he asks, with lips red and wet, and his hands moving from Frank’s waist to his thighs.
If you asked Frank, he would have told you that he doesn't whine, he never has and never will. But the sound that came out of him could not be described any other way.
John's hands move to cup both of his cheeks, “We don't have to do this, if you don't want to. I am ok with anything you decide”.
“Anything?” Frank asks.
“Well-” John puffs out a laugh, “If you decide that you want nothing to do with me afterwards, I would be pretty upset”.
Frank grabs the hands still holding his face and leans in for another kiss. Slower, softer, trying to make John realize how much he actually likes him. He might've gotten a little lost in it too.
When Frank pulls back, he moves John's hands back to his waist. “I want you-” he says, “like this, right now. But also, all the time, if you wanted to”.
John sits up as much as he can with a lapful of Frank, and pecks at his lips briefly. “I want to-” he says, “Right now and all the time”.
Frank rests his forehead against John's and breathes him in. With strong arms around his middle, warm legs underneath him and soft eyes looking into his, he's never felt safer. He realizes he's in love.
John kisses him again, and maybe he's not the only one feeling that way.