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“What the fuck happened to you!?” Penny says as she opens the front door, taking in the sight in front of him. Tanner Francis Langdon, with blood running from his nose down to his shirt, a black eye forming, and his knuckles bloodied and bruised.
“Keep your voice down,” he says, stepping inside. It's late, way past the rather generous curfew his dad and Mel have set for him. Penny is looking at him, her eyes wide. She looks almost girlish like this, reminding him of the girl who he used to share a room with back at his dad's old apartment.
“Some drunk asshole wouldn't stop bothering Emily,” Tanner offers as a way of explanation, the words said over his shoulder as he heads into the kitchen. Penny follows, peppering him with questions, a trait both his sisters seem to share.
“So you let him beat you up instead?” She asks as he opens the freezer, digging around for an ice pack. Her hair is flopping over her shoulders, strands of pink mingling with brunette. The tub had been stained for a week after she dyed it, much to Mel’s chagrin.
“Fuck off,” He says, pressing one of Evie's Disney Princess cold packs to his eye. He hopes she won’t mind him getting a bit of blood on it. It won’t be the only thing he gets blood on, as he realizes with mild horror that his knuckles are dripping onto the kitchen floor. It’s going to look like a murder scene by the time he gets patched up.
“I’m getting Mel and Frank,” she says, “You need stitches.”
“No, I don’t,” he says, even if it’s useless. Penny's glaring at him, waiting him out. He groans again. His face really fucking hurts
“Fine,” he relents, “but don’t call Dad that, he hates it.”
“I’ll call him whatever I want,” she says as she heads out of the kitchen, tossing a “don’t bleed out!” Over her shoulder.
He groans, leaning back against the counter as he listens to Penny run up the stairs. Mel says she’s just like their dad, inpatient when it comes to those they love.
He sees the resemblance more in the countless family photos that dot the wall in front of him; pictures from every stage of their family's life fill the space above the kitchen table.
There are school photos and sports portraits, Theo holding a bat on the little league pitch, and Tanner just this year for the varsity soccer team. In one the six of them are dressed in full medieval garb at the Ren Faire. Tanner was a lanky tween then, balancing Theo on his hip as they grinned at the camera, Evie on her dad's shoulders, and Penny tucked under Mel’s arm.
Another one was taken well over a decade ago. It’s a photo strip from the aquarium, the four of them smushed together in the booth. It was during that awful year when Tanner would still ask him if he was going to “go away again”, and Mel was just his dad's “friend.” In the photo, though, they are smiling, pressed together into a tender family unit.
“Jesus Christ,” is what he hears first, snapping him out of his blood-loss-induced nostalgia, his dad heading into the kitchen with Mel hot on his heels, “what happened?”
“Let me see,” Mel says, fumbling her glasses on, reaching for the ice pack so she can get a better look.
“Some asshole wouldn’t leave Emily alone, and he decided to start swinging.” He tells them as Mel looks him over, concern etched into her features. He’s taller than her now, requiring her to reach up to examine him. Still, he remembers when the opposite was true, back when she would hold him close, his head buried in her chest.
He still remembers the talk they had with them to tell them they were dating, the talk announcing Evie’s and later Theo’s impending arrivals, how many times they said “we love you”, as if he ever doubted it.
“Frank,” Mel says as she examines his face, “can you get me my pen light? It’s in my work bag.”
“Yeah,” his dad says, disappearing into the living room only to reappear with Mel’s light. It’s the one Penny got her for Christmas, customized to have Mel’s name inscribed on it.
He reads the Dr. Mel King-Langdon on the light as she shines it up his nostrils, face screwed up in concentration.
“No CFS, no hematoma,” she tells her dad, who is nervously examining his hand. She turns off the light, lifting her hands up to his face to feel for a fracture. When he was little, she used to wipe tears from his cheeks like this, telling him in her soft voice that it was okay.
When he winces at the pressure, she sighs, looking back at his dad.
“I think it’s broken,” she says, “we’re going to need to set this.”
“Shit,” Tanner says, lifting the now warm ice pack back to his eye, “Asshole messed with my money maker.”
Beside him, Penny snorts, rolling her eyes.
“Idiot,” she says, earning a tired look from Frank.
“Penny Lane,” He says, the nickname making her roll her eyes again, “play nice.”
“We need to take him in,” Mel says to Frank, “do you know who's working tonight?”
“It’s Shen and Cruz,” He says to her, looking back down at Tanner's hand, “And Donnie.”
"You're going to need stitches, bud,” he tells him, taking a dish towel Mel grabbed and firmly wrapping it around his hand, “this guy really messed you up.”
“I can stay with the kids,” Mel offers, still scanning Tanner's face. He feels like he’s six again, letting them patch him up after he fell off his bike. She used to buy him Spider-Man Band-Aids, carefully pressing them to his skinned knees as he ate a freezer pop
His dad shoots her a glance, something soft and thankful. They're always doing this, having whole conversations with just a look.
Penny says he and Emily are the same way, communicating over her head during movie night and late-night drive-thru runs. He feels his phone buzz in his pocket, then, no doubt a text from her asking if he's okay.
His dad presses a kiss to Mel’s cheek before herding him out to the car. He turns the radio on as they drive, his playlist flowing from the speakers. He listens to George Harrison sing and thinks about the time he caught his dad and Mel swaying back and forth in the kitchen to this song. It was back when Mel was pregnant with Evie, his dad's hand placed protectively on her bump as she rested her head on his shoulder.
He asked him once how he knew she was the one. How, after getting it wrong once, he had the confidence to try and get it right.
“There wasn't ever a question,” He told him, “As soon as she walked into my life, it was like she had always been there. I couldn't imagine not being with her, however she would have me.”
—
“Langdon? What happened here!?” Lena asks as they approach the hub.
“Someone got in a fight,” Frank says, “he’s got a broken nose and needs stitches on his knuckles.”
“I was defending my girlfriend's honor,” Tanner tells her, his words muffled by the ice pack and the fact that his nose is fucking broken. He sounds like he’s underwater. Beside him, Frank snorts.
“Like father, like son,” Lena says, stifling a laugh, “South fifteen is open. I’ll send Donnie your way.”
“Thanks, Lena,” Frank smiles at her, leading Tanner to their room. The last time he was here was last Sunday, when his dad paid him twenty bucks to deliver his and Mel’s forgotten lunches. Emily had tagged along, as he had bribed her with the promise of spending the twenty bucks on a Sonic run.
He was treated to the usual fanfare that comes with his or his siblings’ presence in The Pitt, but was only amplified by Emily’s presence. After Dana asked him to pose beside his dad, noting for the hundredth time just how much they look alike, she slipped him a few condoms under the table.
“You’re seventeen with a cute girlfriend,” she offered as a way of explanation as Tanner blushed furiously, making Dana remark yet again that he was just like his dad.
When he told Emily about it later, she threw her head back and laughed. The window was down, the wind blowing through her auburn hair as she teased him. She looked like something out of a dream.
His dad helps him get settled on the bed before Donnie comes in, unwrapping his hand to get a better look at it. Under the hospital lights, it looks far worse than he imagined, deep, jagged cuts dotting his knuckles, a bruise already blooming around them.
“Shit,” he says, making his dad laugh.
“Yeah, bud,” his gaze is clinical as he shifts his hand around, “He got you good.”
“Worth it though,” he says.
“What happened again?” he asks, looking up at him, his gaze soft.
Tanner wants to hate him when he gets like this, all contemplative and worried, but he can't. He's seen the photos of him at his age, smirking at the camera with a drink in his hand. His mother has told him the stories about him defending her honor, how that hero complex she fell in love with eventually turned sour, about Frank Langdon's pathological desire to never need anything.
He asked Mel about it once, during a period of time where his dad increased his attendance at NA meetings.
“Your dad doesn't feel like he deserves the good things he has,” Mel told him simply, “he feels like he has to earn us, and that gets him into trouble when he starts to push his limits.”
Tanner can understand that. Hell- he can often feel the same impulse in him, creeping in on the edge of his vision when Emily threads her hand through his hair. “Love you, Tan,” She says, and he’ll fight the urge to scream, to tell her he can't possibly deserve her.
So he indulges him, his eyes landing on the rate your pain sign as the words fall from his mouth.
“We were in the kitchen at Stevens party and this guy kept hitting on Emily and I could tell it was making her uncomfortable, and even if she said it was okay and asked me to leave it I couldn't and-” he gestures with his good hand to his face.
“We got into a fight after.” He says, “She said I reminded her of her dad, and um-” he stops, looking back at Frank.
Emily doesn't talk much about her dad, but he's heard enough to know that he doesn't want to wind up like him. That for Emily- being with a man like her father is a fate far worse than death.
“She got Tyler to drive me home,” he starts again, “She needed a minute.”
“Hmm,” His dad exhales, still looking at him, “You sound like me at your age.”
“I know,” Tanner says, and it's loaded. His dad takes another breath.
“But you're not me,” he starts, “So you'll figure it out, and you won't do it again. And besides, it sounds like the guy had it coming.”
Tanner laughs at that, the sound muffled by his broken nose.
“He did,” he tells him, “But still-”
“Of course,” his dad nods, “But I think you guys will be okay.”
“I hope so,” he says, too tired to be embarrassed by how earnest he sounds. It's another thing he inherited from his father, his inability to hide that he is completely and irrevocably in love.
It's then that Donnie knocks on the door, his father waving him inside.
“How often do you guys get told you look alike?” Donnie asks as he puts on his gloves, smiling at the pair.
“A lot,” His dad says, running a hand over his face, “Even more so when Theo’s with us.”
His brother inherited his dad's chin dimple as well as his blue eyes. If it weren't for Mel's blonde hair, he would be the spitting image of his dad.
“You got the hero complex, though,” Donnie says as he takes a look at his hand, "didn't know that was genetic.”
“Come on, man,” Frank says, making Tanner snort, the sound strangled due to his now very deviated septum.
“Yikes, dude,” Donnie says, shooting him a sympathetic glance, “Let's get this fixed.”
They do, Donnie, setting his nose and stitching up his hand in record time. He peppers him with questions as he works, asking about school, soccer, and Emily.
The latter is the one that earns him a few sideways glances. Donnie even calls him “Loverboy Langdon,” at one point, a nickname left over from when his dad first started dating Mel.
Afterwards, he takes his dad to sign some discharge paperwork, heading out of the room just as his phone buzzes yet again. He pulls it out, greeted by Emily's smiling face on the screen.
“Hey, I’m okay,” he says when he picks up, trying to get ahead of her flurry of questions, “Did you make it home safe?”
“Yeah- yeah, I’m fine,” He hears her let out a breath. She's panicked, no doubt pacing around her room as she talks, “What about you?”
“I’m okay,” he says again, trying to sound far more calm than he feels, "The guy broke my nose, and I needed a few stitches, so my dad took me in, but other than that- I’m okay.”
“Stitches!?” Her voice breaks, “Tan-”
“I’m okay,” Her interrupts her again, “besides, it's my fault. You told me to back off.”
“I know, but still,” She inhales sharply, “I’m sorry.”
“No- I’m sorry, I should have listened to you and stayed out of it.” He says, looking down at his now stitched-up hand. Donnie told him it will scar, a reminder not to be such an idiot next time, “I’m so sorry, Emily.”
“I know,” She says, “But still- I shouldn't have said what I said. You're nothing like him, Tan. You just scared me. Please don't do that again.”
“I won’t,” he says, “I promise.”
“I believe you,” She says, then, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” he tells her, as if the words are made of him, jagged and bloody and whole, “More than you’ll ever know.”
He thinks back to his dad in the car, about My Sweet Lord and the story he's heard a thousand times over. How Mel saved his dad, and how, in turn, his dad saved Mel.
“You make me better,” He says, then, “I love you.”
On the other end of the line, Emily smiles.