Work Text:
The headache started around hour three.
By hour six, Mel had convinced herself the piercing pain in her skull would evaporate.
By hour nine, she knew she was lying.
The fluorescent lights felt sharper than usual. Every monitor alarm seemed just a little too loud. Every conversation echoed somewhere between her eyes.
Mel adjusted her glasses and stared at the chart in front of her.
The world blurred. Not because she couldn't read them, but because her brain felt like it was trying to read through concrete.
"Mel."
She looked up.
Langdon was standing beside her desk.
Unfortunate, because it meant she had to pretend she was functioning.
"Hey." She replied weakly.
His eyebrows immediately furrowed. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," she leaned back in her chair. "It's nothing."
"Mhm," he replied "Sure. That's why you look seconds from passing out."
She clicked into another chart. "I have a headache."
"A headache?" He repeated.
"Don't sound so concerned," she forced a smile. "I've had much worse. Besides, if it's a migraine it's only in the early stages."
"A migraine?" He echoed, voice lowering. "Mel. And I'm not concerned," he leaned against the counter. "I'm just--I'm curious."
"About?"
"How bad is it?"
Mel sighed.
"Scale of one to ten." He asked it the same way he did to his patients.
"No." She waved a hand mindlessly to him, trying to refocus her attention to her charting. It proved difficult with him standing so close to her.
"Mel."
"Frank," she parroted.
"Scale. Please." His tone, the amount of care woven into it, almost made her crack.
Almost.
"Dr. Langdon," she said in a lousy attempt to remind him of where they are and the fact they were both supposed to be working, "we have more important things to prioritize."
He didn't get the memo, obviously.
"A six?" He guessed.
At her silence, he kept speculating.
"Eight?"
"It's not an eight," she sighed, typing mindlessly at her charts.
"Nine?"
She bristled. "No."
He nodded. "So nine."
Mel resisted the urge to be very unlike herself and hurl her pen at him. "I'm working."
"That's great, but not what I asked."
She turned back to the computer. Unfortunately, the screen seemed determined to shine directly into her retinas. She rubbed her temple.
"Mel," he said, softer this time. The concern had sharpened in his voice.
It made her feel queasy because Frank Langdon, the superstar of the ER, wasn't supposed to sound worried about her. He had more important things to be thinking about.
"I'm fine."
"You've said that four times."
"I'm still fine."
He leaned over her shoulder to peek at her screen. "You just entered the same medication order twice."
Mel froze, slowly and painfully.
She looked at the screen and--yeah. There it was. Twice.
She never put an order in wrong. "Okay," she muttered. "I might be a little off."
"Shocker." Langdon said dryly, sitting beside her.
She gave him a look. Or attempted to. The headache was making everything difficult.
Langdon remained unbothered as he crossed his arms. "When's the last time you drank water?" When Mel didn't answer, his eyebrows climbed higher. "Shit, Mel."
"I've been busy."
"What you've been doing is dehydrating yourself." He argued, his tone serious in the way it got when someone fucked with one of his patients. "You know better than anyone with the amount we're on our feet we need to stay hydrated."
"I had coffee earlier." She mumbled.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Coffee is not water."
"It contains water. In fact, a cup of brewed coffee on average is about 98% water."
He looked unimpressed by her fun fact.
For some reason, the way he was staring at her with such a lukewarm expression, made her laugh. But then the laugh immediately made her regret even existing because it sent a fresh pulse of pain through her skull.
Mel winced and Langdon straightened.
"Jesus Christ, Mel." He reached for her, hand cupping the back of her head to massage part of the ache.
"I'm okay." She tried to back away from his touch but he didn't let her. She felt herself flush as she saw Dana's gaze on them from the nurses table.
"You just recoiled from your own laugh. That does not say 'I'm okay'."
"It was aggressive."
"The laugh?" He asked, brows furrowed.
"The headache."
He stared at her, thumb still rubbing little circles.
She stared back, hands anxiously fidgeting with her scrubs.
Finally, he sighed. "Come on." He stood, waiting for her to follow.
"I can't."
He froze. "You can't?"
"I can't."
"Mel, I'm literally just walking you to the break room."
"No."
"Why?" He demanded, not bothering to keep the exasperation from his tone. Mel could tell he was upset, and she didn't know what to do with it. It's not like she hadn't seen him upset before, of course she had--it came with the job description.
It just had never been her fault.
"If I sit down I'm never getting back up." She admitted softly. And it was true. She only had three more hours of her shift. She could tough it out.
Probably.
"Well, good for you that's not how chairs work."
Mel groaned, and the sound hurt. Everything hurt.
Langdon pointed toward the hallway. "Five minutes."
"I'm busy. I still have so much charting to do and at least three patients I need to regularly check in on."
"You have five minutes. I'll cover for you."
"The department is busy," she rebutted anxiously.
"The department survived before you got here."
Mel opened her mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again.
Nothing came out.
Mostly because thinking was growing increasingly difficult.
Langdon's expression softened, just slightly, but enough to noticed. "If you're not going to do it for yourself, do it for me. And the quality my patient will receive, because as long as I know you're out here suffering, I'm not going to be on my A game." He lowered his voice to a teasingly conspiratorial whisper. "And we all know I'm the best we got."
Despite his banter, she suddenly felt very tired. Not even physically. Just tired. The kind that settled into your bones after seeing too many sick people and too many scared families and too many things go wrong in one sitting.
"I can't think straight," she admitted quietly.
His face immediately changed to a mask of understanding. "Okay." The simplicity of it almost made her emotional. Like he understood exactly what she meant. Which, he probably did. He worked here too.
Langdon gently took the mouse from her hands. "Five minutes."
Mel looked at him. Then the hallway that led to the break room. Then back to him. "You are unbelievably persistent."
His grin appeared instantly. "I know."
---
The break room was empty.
It almost made her feel more guilty, like it was a universal sign that everyone was out there hard and work and here she was, being lazy.
Mel sat at a table while Langdon disappeared toward the vending machines. She took the chance to rest her forehead against her folded arms, sinking into the darkness.
It made the pounding in her skull slightly more bearable.
All of a sudden, something cold touched her hand.
Mel looked up to see a water bottle, and next to that, a packet of crackers. "What's this?"
"A revolutionary treatment." Langdon announced proudly.
"Langdon."
"Hydration and carbohydrates."
She smiled. Even that hurt. "Funny."
"I'm not joking."
He sat across from her and she reluctantly unscrewed the cap and took a drink. Langdon watched, and the second she swallowed she pointed at him."You're looking pleased with yourself."
"Of course I am. I'm using my ER magic to heal your wounds."
His smile widened, and in return, so did hers.
Mel still wasn't used to this back and forth banter, sometimes she worried she would hurt his feelings somehow. Say something wrong and make it awkward. But if she did, Langdon never showed it.
For a few moments, there was silence as she sat and drank while he pretended not to watch.
The headache hadn't disappeared, but the sharp edges had started to dull into something a little more bearable.
"Better?" Langdon asked after a while, looking her over carefully.
"A little."
He nodded, like that was enough and he hadn't really expected a miracle rather than improvement. She relaxed a little, the tension leaving her shoulders. "Thank you."
Langdon looked surprised, not because she'd thanked him, but because she said it so sincerely. "You're welcome."
Mel twisted the water bottle between her hands, feeling guilty again. "I pulled you away from work. You didn't have to stop what you were doing."
"Sure I did." When she looked up, he offered a softer a smile. The ones she'd only ever seen him give to her. "You would've done it for me."
The answer came so quickly she knew he hadn't thought about it. He hadn't needed to.
Something warm settled in her stomach.
She didn't respond, didn't know what to say, and as they stared at each other the silence stretched,
Neither of them looked away.
And for one, utterly ridiculous second, Mel wondered what would happen if neither of them ever did.
Then the overhead intercom crackled.
It was a trauma alert.
Both of them blinked and reality returned all at once. Mel stood first, pretending not to notice the worried look Langdon have her. "Well."
"Well." He echoed, standing. He pointed at her water bottle. "Finish that. Doctors orders."
She smiled. "I don't know if that works as well when you're saying it to a fellow doctor."
"I think it means it's even more valuable because you know I'm right." He bumped shoulders with her and she smiled as she adjusted her glasses.
She took another swig and she followed him to the door. Before either of them could get out there, she paused. "Langdon?"
He turned instantly, looking ready for whatever she was about to say. "Yeah?"
"Thank you for noticing."
His expression did something funny, then. Something Mel didn't quite know how to read, but she recognized the fuzzy feeling it gave her. "I was never planning on stopping, Mel." He nudged her again, just a small brush of shoulders. "Come on, partner. Let's get back out there."