Work Text:
“I wish that I had known in that first minute we met
The unpayable debt that I owed you
'Cause you'd been abused by the bone that refused you
And you hired me to make up for that
Walking in that room when you had tubes in your arms
Those singing morphine alarms, out of tune…”
Frank hasn't even closed Abby’s front door before there's the thunder of tiny feet on the carpet, the joyous war-cry of Tanner shouting, “Daddy!” as he careens across the living room, limbs flailing, socks half-off, heart wide open. “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”
Frank barely has time to brace. His knees buckle slightly as his five-year-old collides with him, wrapping around his waist like a vine — all sharp little elbows and sweaty-warm body. Frank’s already short of breath from the walk up the steps. He shouldn’t be here when he feels this garbage. His stomach is lead, his legs gelatin, his spine held together with the trembling will of a man who refuses to break down in front of his kids. But he’s here. He came. He promised — and fuck, maybe his kids won’t remember everything about him. But he'll be damned if they don’t remember that Daddy kept his promises.
“Hey, buddy,” He rasps, his voice frayed and close to snapping. His mouth tastes like vinegar and pennies, the aftermath of chemo clinging to the back of his throat, but he kneels and kisses Tanner on the head regardless. Then Robin’s there too — his sweet, wild-haired Robin, her curls a halo of chaos and her cheeks still flushed from nap heat. She totters into the room dragging a battered pink elephant, sees him, and lights up like a sunrise.
“Dadaaaa,” She crows, arms outstretched, elephant forgotten as those chubby legs send her toppling into him.
She crashes into his lap before he can catch his breath, giggling, twisting, climbing. Frank lets out a quiet sound, something between a laugh and a groan, and lowers himself fully, slowly, so slowly, to the floor. Each inch is a battle. Gravity feels personal. His swollen joints shriek in protest. The cold floor presses through his ratty sweatpants like a slap. He’s so wiped from chemo, he shouldn’t have come. But he hasn’t explained anything to his babies yet, so they expect him to be there. He can’t let them down, even if he’s a puppet with tangled strings and no puppeteer left.
Down the hallway, Abby watches him. She hasn’t said a word yet. Her arms are crossed over her chest in a gesture so practiced it might as well be muscle memory — not hostile, not angry, just… holding herself in; holding something in. Her gaze drags over him, down his too-loose hoodie hanging off his bloated body. The paleness of his skin, the glistening sheen of sweat on his temple, the subtle tremor in his hand when he brushes Robin’s soft curls back. The shape of his body under the weight of chemicals and sickness and refusal. The man she used to love, the man she married, the one she still loves in ways she doesn't let herself name anymore, sitting crumpled on her living room floor pretending to be made of anything but what he is.
“You shouldn’t have come,” She sighs finally, and her voice has been sanded down to the softest possible edge — dull, not to cut, her words are harsh but she doesn’t mean them like that. “You look like you feel like shit, Frankie, we could’ve waited.”
Frank doesn’t look up right away. He’s too busy adjusting Robin’s little sock, pretending his vision isn’t swimming, pretending he’s fine, pretending this moment isn’t a thousand needles in his chest. “Told ‘em I’d be here today,” He whispers, like that’s enough, like that’s the only reason he needed.
Abby doesn’t argue — because what’s the point? He did promise. She remembers the way Tanner looked up at her that morning, eyes full of hope and panic both: Daddy said he’d come. Is he still gonna come? What could she say? Not no. Not even maybe. Not if she wanted to keep them whole for another day. Now Tanner is showing Frank the new drawbridge on his LEGO castle, bouncing on his knees, fingers flying over bricks like a little engineer. Robin is shoving her elephant into Frank’s arms, asking him to “kiss his boo-boo,” which is apparently located somewhere near the tail.
Frank obliges with a tiny smile and lips pressed to plush fabric, but Abby sees the way his hands shake afterward. She sees how long it takes him to straighten up, how he pauses to swallow, hard.
“T,” She calls gently. “Honey, can you go grab your sister a juice box from the fridge?”
“Do I get one too?”
“Of course.”
Tanner tears off toward the kitchen, and Robin trails after him, not to be left behind, elephant flapping in tow.
Once it’s just them — Frank leans back against the couch, exhaling slowly like he’s trying to keep his lungs from turning inside out. His skin’s the color of bad milk. His eyes are glassy. His breath smells like chemicals. It makes something twist in the pit of her stomach — so she does the only thing she can think of. She goes to get the pizza she ordered off the porch, heralded by the doorbell that saves her from another fracture in her heart.
The box hits the table with a familiar thud — a sound that used to mean Friday nights and lazy Saturdays, movie marathons with two kids wedged between them like living, giggling couch cushions. The smell is immediate: pepperoni, mushrooms, extra olives — his pizza. Not the new version with gluten-free crust and vegan cheese they tried during that brief, desperate health kick, but the real thing. The one he used to devour on his own, barely stopping to breathe between slices.
Frank looks at it now like it’s a stranger.
Tanner cheers like it’s Christmas morning. Robin slaps her little hands on the table, chanting “pee-zuh, pee-zuh!” in that sing-song toddler rhythm that makes Abby want to laugh and cry in equal measure.
She slides paper plates across the table, cracks open juice boxes, and kisses both their heads. Pretends this is a normal night, a normal dinner.
She sets a slice in front of Frank last.
His hands hover for a beat too long before he picks it up. It droops in his grip, steam curling off the cheese, grease beading at the edge. He used to fold them, New York-style, in one quick motion and go to town, sometimes four slices deep before she could even finish her first. Now he just… tears off a corner of the crust. Chews. Swallows. Washes it down with the smallest sip of water and thanks her with that goofy smile. Abby watches him from the sink, where she pretends to rinse a spoon that didn’t need rinsing. Her eyes linger on the way his shoulders slump, the hollow of his cheeks, how the color has never quite returned to his face since his first round. He takes another tiny pathetic bite. Then sets the slice down like it’s something delicate — a sparrow he’s trying not to crush in his grip.
Tanner’s got sauce on his chin, explaining in great detail how this pizza is actually better because he’s eating it in his Batman pajamas. Robin’s talking to her elephant again, feeding it a pepperoni she had already sucked the salt off of.
Frank forces a smile, nods along, adds a laugh where it’s needed, and fusses over their babies. His fingers brush Tanner’s cheek as he wipes the sauce away, and for a second — just a second — he seems to forget the nausea coiled in his gut. But then it returns. She can see it in the way his jaw clenches, the way he swallows down bile like he’s trying to pretend it’s just emotion.
Abby turns off the tap and dries her hands slowly.
She crosses the kitchen and sits across from him, close enough to just be there.
“Still your favorite,” She says softly, tapping the box.
He doesn’t look up, only nods, looking nauseated. “Yeah.”
“Too much?”
He finally meets her eyes and God, there’s so much in that one look — shame, frustration, grief. Hunger, but not for food. Hunger for the body he lost. The ease. The appetite. The person he used to be. “It smells good, Abs,” He swears. “I’ll have more in a minute.”
Abby presses her lips together. The pain is quiet, but vast. Her memory is too good. She remembers the boy who used to make fun of her for leaving the crusts. Who used to eat the last slice cold at two in the morning, standing in front of their fridge in his boxers, swearing it tastes better this way. She remembers movie nights and oil-stained napkins and the way he used to groan with satisfaction after his third plate. She remembers the life in him. Now he looks like a ghost in his own life. Picking at blackened crust crumbs like he’s not sure if they’re food or ash.
Robin squeals and tosses a half-eaten olive across the table. It lands near Frank’s plate. He chuckles faintly, then picks it up and gently places it in the center of her forehead like a sticker. She giggles uncontrollably.
Abby watches him pretend again and in the pit of her chest, her heart breaks in places it didn’t even know were still intact.
She reaches for another slice. “Well,” She smiles, trying for brightness, “More for me.”
Only, Frank makes himself take another bite. He chews it slowly, like it’s cardboard, like maybe if he goes slow enough it won’t wake the fire burning low in his gut. The slice is heavy in his hands, the cheese thick and rubbery now that it’s cooling. He swallows, winces, and takes another small sip of water to chase it down. Abby sees it all. Their kids are on the floor now, cross-legged and dazed in the blue glow of the TV — some animated chaos blasting from the speakers, colors flashing across their little faces as they eat the last crusts and giggle about something only they understand.
Abby’s watching him, though. Always him. Her first love, who gave her two of the greatest loves she will ever know. She watches the way he keeps pushing himself to eat — not for hunger, but for them, because that’s what Frank does. He shows up. He endures. He does his best, even when it costs him. None of this shit is fair. Another bite, another forced swallow. His skin has gone gray under the yellow of the kitchen light. His hand moves, slow and deliberate, to wrap around the slope of his belly — not in the absent way of a man who’s full, but like he’s holding something inside that wants to tear its way out.
Abby leans forward, eyes narrowing. “Frankie,” She asks, low and careful, under the roar of cartoon sound effects so their babies don't hear. “Are you hurting? Do you need the ED? Meds? Should I call somebody?”
He only shakes his head — once, fast, almost too fast — and she sees his throat bob, swallowing back more than just pizza now. “No,” He smiles, laughing, but his voice is a breath short of believable. “Just no space in there. It’s all my spleen.”
She doesn’t speak right away. Her eyes drift down to the way his arm is clutched tight around his middle. His fingers twitch like they’re trying to soothe something beneath the skin. “Spleen?” She asks gently.
He nods, then shifts in his seat, jaw tight. “Feels like I swallowed a damn football,” He mutters, trying for humor but it comes out flat, drained. “Can’t even take a deep breath without it pushing everything else out of the way.”
Abby’s throat tightens. She looks at the slice still in his hand. She thinks of the boy who once ate whole pizzas barefoot on the back porch, drinking warm Coke and talking about getting old like it was some far-off joke. Now here he is — hunched, pale, sweating, with a spleen swollen to the size of a cantaloupe and a body that’s become a battlefield with no truce in sight. She looks away and blinks fast. Tanner laughs at something on the screen, and Robin echoes it, even though she clearly didn’t understand the joke. Their small voices fill the room like sunlight trying to push through storm clouds. The best parts of both of them.
“I shouldn’t’ve ordered it,” Abby whimpers quietly, running her hands over her face. “I wasn’t thinking, just muscle memory.”
“No,” Frank says immediately, with a ghost of his old fire. “It’s perfect. They love it.”
His hand is still pressed hard to his side. “I just… don’t have the room anymore,” He sighs, softer now. “Like there’s no space left for anything that’s not... sick. Kinda like my life.”
She wants to reach for him, wants to touch his face, or take the plate away, or run. Anything but sit still and watch the man she used to know shrink beneath his hoodie and the weight of a spleen trying to split him open from the inside out. Instead, she just nods, quietly. The TV fills the silence. Robin sings to her elephant again. Tanner hums along. Frank leans back slowly, trying not to jostle anything inside him, breathing shallow. His eyes flutter closed for just a moment, and his plate stays untouched beside him — a slice of his old life he can’t stomach anymore. Abby — arms folded now, heart full of a thousand things she won’t say — just watches the cartoon with her children, pretending none of this is what it is.
She stands up and goes to clean up the mess, the way she always does.
When Abby returns from the kitchen, her face is dry, but her hands are red from where she must’ve scrubbed them under the tap too long. She's always done that when she’s overwhelmed — cleaned things, washed things, scrubbed things, like maybe if she just kept moving, she could stop the worst from settling into her bones. Frank is still slouched on the couch, one hand curled against his swollen belly, the other resting open on the armrest. The uneaten slice of pizza has been quietly discarded on a napkin beside him, and he’s watching the kids now with a look that breaks something in her all over again — part joy, part grief, part unbearable tenderness.
He senses her return before she speaks, but doesn’t turn.
“Frank,” She says softly, arms folded again, tighter this time. “Frankie.”
He hums in acknowledgment, eyes still on Robin and Tanner. She walks past him — too restless to sit — and stands by the windowsill, where the curtain’s pulled back just enough to let in the orange glow of the streetlamp outside. Her voice is low, controlled, but urgent in that way he knows too well — the sound of Abby slipping into fix-it mode, the last defense between her and panic. “Is there anything they can do?” She asks, not looking at him. “I mean — your spleen, Frank. You’re walking around like you’ve got a beach ball stuffed in your belly, just below your ribs. Can they take it out? Drain it? Something?”
Frank doesn’t answer right away. He just breathes — shallow, measured — then turns his head toward her. There’s a smile on his lips, faint and crooked, not from humor but from something softer, more painful. “Abs,” He smiles, her old nickname stretched thin with affection and fatigue, “It's the leukemia.”
She turns to look at him then, eyes narrowed like he’s said something cruel. “Yes, I know what it is,” She snaps, too sharp, and immediately softens, lest their little ones realize what she's actually talking about. “I know. But they take organs out all the time. Spleens, gallbladders. People live without them.”
Frank chuckles under his breath, then winces — maybe from the laugh, maybe from the pressure it sends through his already crowded torso. “Yeah,” He nods, “People do. But it’s not like a lightbulb I can just unscrew. It’s not just the spleen. The spleen’s just collateral damage. Everything’s messed up in there.”
Abby moves closer, arms still folded like they’re the only thing holding her together. “But if it’s pressing on everything, if you can’t eat, if you can’t even breathe—”
He lifts a hand, slow, palm up in surrender. “They won’t operate unless it ruptures or unless it’s a crisis and even then… I’m already neutropenic, already thrombocytopenic. Surgery’s a coin toss. Best-case scenario, it just makes the rest of my blood work worse. Worst-case, I don’t come back from the anesthesia. I’m not going out like that, Abby. I can’t go out like that. Every minute I have is going towards helping people and when I can’t anymore, I’ll park my ass in your guest room and spend every minute with our kids.” He says it all so gently, like he’s talking about someone else’s body, someone else’s odds. But it’s his. It’s him. That’s the part that keeps catching Abby off guard — how calm he is about disappearing.
He’s not even fighting — be it the cancer or his prognosis or her.
“No,” She hisses, and drops onto the edge of the coffee table again, her knees knocking gently into his. “The chemo is going to work and if it doesn’t, you get another BMT.”
Frank watches her carefully, sadly. “I get it,” He says after a long silence. “You want something to fight. Something to punch. Something with a checklist. God, I want that for you. But this isn’t a thing I can wrestle. It’s not an opponent I can pin. It’s... inside me. All the time. Multiplying. Hiding in places we can’t reach. It’s been my whole life, Abs. Even if we beat it this time, it’s just gonna come back. Eventually, my body will have more damaged cells than healthy cells. You know that.”
Her lips twitch, the threat of tears rising again. She bites the inside of her cheek, like pain might keep her composed. “But you were doing better,” She snarls, barely above a whisper. “You were doing better last week. You came over and ate dinner. You played with them. You laughed. You were in remission when we had them, we had time. We can have more time.”
“This is a good day, baby,” He says softly. “I won’t tell you about the next two when I can’t get out of bed.”
That lands hard, Abby flinches like he slapped her. She looks down at her lap, her fingers laced so tightly the knuckles blanch. “You need to be home. So you can have more of that. More good days. More time.”
“I know,” He says, and this time, he reaches for her hand again. Warmer now. Steadier. “But you deserve a life of your own, one that isn’t about your ex-husband’s cancer.”
Their hands stay clasped between them. Her grip is firm, fierce, like she might hold him in place by force if that’s what it took. But his is the opposite — gentle, accepting, like he’s already letting go of something she still refuses to release. She watches the way he breathes: shallow, careful. Sees the line of sweat on his temple again, the soft pulse fluttering in his throat. He’s not losing a fight. He’s dissolving. Cell by cell. Bit by bit. There’s no war to win, only an unraveling. They’ll need to tell the kids. She lets go of his hand — not because she wants to, but because Robin is laughing again, and Tanner is yelling at the screen like his cartoon team is about to lose. The living room is full of joy, of now and Abby is still a mother, still a wife.
She presses her knuckles to her mouth, breathes deep, then leans back and wipes her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Do you want to lie down?” She whispers. Her voice is steady now, back to the practical, clinical calm that used to get her through finals and labor and court dates alike. “I can set up the guest room.”
Frank closes his eyes, a line of exhaustion deepening across his brow. “Yeah,” He obliges her. “That’d be good.”
Later, when the kids are finally down — Robin curled sideways like a comma in her crib, elephant tucked beneath her chin, and Tanner half-off the bed as usual, covers abandoned on the floor — Abby stands in the doorway of the guest room. The lamp casts a dim golden haze over everything, softening the edges. Frank is lying on his back atop the covers, hoodie off now, just a worn t-shirt clinging to skin stretched thin over a body that’s worked too hard to stay alive. His belly rises awkwardly, distended on the left side, spleen pushing out like something trying to crawl free. His arms are at his sides, palms up, the way a child sleeps when they trust the room around them.
But Frank doesn’t sleep. His eyes are half-lidded, lids twitching like he’s trying to stay present, for her. She steps inside without speaking, crosses the room slowly. Her pink-socked feet whisper across the hardwood like a specter, moving through a home that no longer feels like hers. She sits on the edge of the bed, not close, not touching, just near enough that he’ll know.
He turns his head, just slightly. “You okay?” He asks, voice cracked at the edges, like a receipt that’s been crumpled at the bottom of her handbag.
“No,” She admits and doesn’t look at him. Then she says it, suddenly, before she can second-guess the words: “You’re not allowed to die.” Her voice wavers, but only slightly. “I mean it. I don’t care how sick you are. You don’t get to die, Frank. Not when Robin can’t fall asleep without saying goodnight to your picture. Not when Tanner thinks you built the moon.” She’s staring at the wall. Her jaw’s clenched. Her hands in her lap, white-knuckled. She doesn't cry — not yet — but her throat pulses like it wants to. “You don’t get to leave me holding their grief,” She says, softer now. “Not after everything else. You don’t get to turn into some story I have to retell over breakfast. Some empty chair at their birthdays. You don’t get to leave me cleaning up after your death, Frank. I can’t.”
He closes his eyes for a beat. Then opens them again, slow and full of something that’s not quite pity — deeper than that. Grief, maybe, like a man who’s already rehearsed the scene in his head more times than he’ll admit. “I’m not planning to,” He sighs, voice worn and dry. “Trust me. Dying’s not exactly high on my to-do list.”
She doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t even move. Frank shifts just enough to turn his head toward her more fully. His gaze is steady now. Soft, but iron at the core. The moment hangs, suspended between them like the space between lightning and thunder — too quiet, too full of things unsaid. Abby’s hand is still wrapped in his, and neither of them is ready to break the contact, but the weight of reality — the hour, the ache, the long day behind them — starts to settle like a thick blanket over everything. Frank shifts again, trying to get comfortable, but his body moves like rusted machinery, every motion met with hesitation. His face pinches with discomfort. Abby notices — of course, she notices — and is already rising to her feet before he can say a word.
She crosses the room, smooth and purposeful, and pulls down the blanket from the top of the bed. It’s the same one they bought years ago from a clearance bin at Target — too soft, too pilled from too many washes, the color faded to a muted navy. She unfolds it with practiced hands, like this is just another night, like he’s not lying there with half his gut crowded by a swollen organ and a blood count that reads more like a death sentence than a diagnosis.
Frank watches her, something like a smile tugging at the edge of his lips — soft, tired, but still there. “Gonna be bossing me around forever, huh?” He grumbles.
Abby huffs a laugh through her nose, not mocking, just… knowing. “Damn right I am,” She says without turning, tucking the corners in like muscle memory. “Somebody’s gotta keep you from sleeping sideways and ruining your back even more than chemo already has.”
He groans dramatically. “Low blow.”
She finally looks at him, one eyebrow raised, mouth curled into that flat smirk that’s seen more battles than either of them ever planned for. “I call it effective pain management.”
Frank lifts a hand weakly in surrender. She pauses then, just long enough to let the silence sit between them again. She doesn’t want to look at his eyes too long. Instead, she focuses on the blanket. She folds it down gently, guiding it over his chest, her hands slow and deliberate. She’s careful not to put pressure near his ribs — she knows where the pain blooms worst now, even if he doesn’t say it out loud. Her fingers ghost over his collarbone, adjusting the edge so it doesn’t itch.
Frank watches her. Something old and unspoken glimmering in his expression. “You always did this,” He reminds her quietly, almost to himself, like she would ever forget. “Even when I didn’t want it. You’d tuck me in like I was something breakable.”
She shrugs. “You are something breakable.”
He exhales through his nose — not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. “Yeah,” He says. “But you never made me feel like I was.”
That lands heavier than either of them expect. Abby stops moving. Her hand rests lightly on his chest for a breath, maybe two. She doesn’t speak — she doesn’t trust her voice — but her fingers curl just slightly, the way they used to when they’d lie in bed after long shifts, after long nights, after bad news. She brushes his hair back, the way she did the night they first brought Tanner home. The night Robin got RSV. The night he told her it had relapsed again and again. The gesture is older than memory. It belongs to no single version of them — not husband and wife, not exes, not friends, only them. Carved out of fire and years and shared sorrow.
Frank’s eyes flutter shut. Abby moves around to the other side of the bed and sits down beside him — not in the center, not as if she’s staying the night, but just long enough to be near while the moment still belongs to both of them.
“You need anything?” She teases softly. “Water, meds, a new spleen?”
He chuckles again, breathy and dry. “Just don’t turn the hallway light off all the way. I get dizzy in the dark now.”
She nods. “Done.”
She rises, smooths the blanket one more time, and pauses in the doorway. The living room is silent now. The TV’s off. The kids are asleep. The whole house feels like it’s holding its breath, listening to the quiet hum of a man who’s been dying for twenty years and still has the audacity to smile at her.
“Night, Frankie,” She says, voice low but warm.
He opens his eyes halfway. “Night, Abs.”
She flicks the hallway switch down to the first notch — just enough light to guide him if he needs to get up, but soft enough not to sting his eyes.
“When I was checking vitals, I suggested a smile
You didn't talk for a while
You were freezing
You said you hated my tone
It made you feel so alone
And so you told me I ought to be leaving…”
Robby drags in a breath that rattles all the way down, his arms are still locked around Frank, but the tremor running through him shifts — grief bleeding into something sharper, something more functional, the way muscle memory takes over in trauma. “Sit your ass down.” His mentor’s voice is raw, sandpapered thin, but steadying now with the cold edge of authority. He pulls back just far enough to see Frank’s face, blotched and hollowed, the basin still clutched in his hand. Robby doesn’t give the syringe a second glance. “Bench. Now.”
Frank sighs, long-suffering. “Robby, can’t we just—”
“Don’t.” The word cracks like a whip. “Don’t you try me right now, Frank. You’ve lost your fucking mind.” Before Frank can snap back, Robby is already moving, already rifling through the wall cabinet like he owns the place. The hinges screech, metal rattles, supplies clatter. His big fists seize what he needs with a ferocity that borders on violence: BP cuff, pulse ox, thermometer. He wheels back, fists full of tools, jaw clenched. “You don’t go anywhere until I’ve got your vitals.”
Frank exhales through his nose, a sound too close to a laugh and too far from one. “What, you planning to chart it, too?” His tone is flat, trying for levity but coming out brittle, hurting.
“Don’t tempt me.” Robby drops the kit on the bench beside him with a clatter. “Sit down. Roll up your sleeve.”
“Robby, I just told you what’s up. Vitals aren’t going to do shit about it, man. They’re gonna be ass, I’m on chemo.”
“I don’t care what you told me. You think I’m supposed to take your word for it, nu, when you look like death warmed over?” His hands are shaking, but his voice sharpens, gains teeth. “Frank, you’re pale as a sheet, you’re sweating through your scrubs, you’ve got shadows under your eyes like you haven’t slept in a week, and you were about two seconds away from passing out when you spun around on me. You want me to just shrug at that? Pretend I didn’t see it? Pretend I didn’t see you fucking trembling?”
Frank stares at him, hollow-eyed, lips pressed tight. “You thought I was on benzos.”
“I did and I wish you were.” Robby glares right back, his fury trembling now not with rage but with terror. “But if you think you're going to get away with being too proud to let me take a goddamn blood pressure; you’re dead fucking wrong.”
“Dying, more like.”
Robby doesn’t even wait for Frank’s compliance; his big hands seize Frank’s wrist, tug his arm straight, and shove the fabric of his scrub sleeve up. Frank’s voice hitches, a rasp caught on resignation. “…You’re just pissed I’m working.”
“Pissed?” Robby barks out a humorless sound, almost a laugh but poisoned at the edges. “I’m fucking livid. You shouldn’t even be standing and you sure as hell shouldn’t be dragging yourself through a shift or taking care of patients like this. What the hell are you trying to prove? That you can kill yourself on the clock instead of at home?”
The Velcro hisses as Robby jerks the cuff into place, his movements brisk, unceremonious, an attending doctor stripped of bedside polish, running on raw instinct and a fury sharpened into procedure. His hands are rough, insistent, tugging fabric, sliding cold nylon against Frank’s thin forearm until the cuff bites into skin with the intimacy of manacles. It’s not gentle — it’s the sort of handling born of desperation, the kind of grip you use when someone is already slipping.
Frank exhales through his nose, a bitter little sigh, his mouth tilted down as though speaking to the floor. “You’re wasting your time.” His voice is flat, scraped down to the skeleton, the affect of someone long past embarrassment and long past fighting. “This is just post-chemo fatigue. You know it. I've been busting my ass with my bones humming like tuning forks and my muscles chemically melting away, and you think a blood pressure cuff is gonna tell you something you don’t already know?” He almost laughs — almost — but it breaks in his throat, warping into something closer to a cough. “It’s gonna be in the toilet, Cap.”
The cuff inflates, rubber bulb squeaking in Robby’s enormous hand as he pumps it with unnecessary force, his jaw set so hard it looks ready to crack his molars. Air hisses into the cuff, squeezing Frank’s arm until the veins rise like tributaries beneath his paper-thin skin. Robby’s stethoscope is already in place, diaphragm pressed to the crook of the elbow, his other hand gripping the valve like he wants to crush it shut. His eyes never leave Frank’s face.
Frank’s gaze drifts away, eyelids half-lowered. He’s still talking, not so much to Robby as to the air, to the linoleum, to anyone who will listen so long as it spares him from silence. “You’re looking for numbers to prove something I’ve been telling you all along: I’m tired. Do you think I don’t know what my vitals are gonna say? They’ll say I’m sick. Congratulations. Nobel-winning revelation, Dr. Robinavitch. The cancer patient is sick.”
The monitor on the pulse ox blinks to life at his fingertip, tiny green numbers trembling, uncertain. His oxygen saturation stutters before it steadies, not high enough for comfort, not low enough for a crash, the purgatory numbers of someone who’s been here too many times before. His heart rate is worse, jagged, erratic, each beat a percussion note out of sync, drumming faster than the eye likes to see.
Robby sees it. His nostrils flare. He doesn’t comment, not yet, just keeps listening to the stuttering rush of blood beneath the cuff, his own pulse syncing against it in fury.
Frank licks his lips, dry and cracked. His words spill out again, tired but stubborn. “I warned you. Post-chemo fatigue. That’s all it is. You’ve seen this before. Hell, you’ve charted it before. We both know the playbook. Day one, nausea. Day three, bone marrow hits the brakes. Day five, I feel like I’ve been run over by a garbage truck and left to bake on the asphalt. It’s not a crisis.”
The cuff deflates with a long, whining hiss, numbers spilling into Robby’s ears like accusations. His eyes snap up, locking on Frank’s, wide and burning, wet but unwavering. He doesn’t speak at first, jaw working, the silence heavier than any shout. Then, finally, through gritted teeth: “Don’t you dare minimize this.”
Frank shrugs, the movement small, shoulders barely rising. “It’s the truth.”
“No,” Robby growls, leaning closer, his bulk blotting out the harsh fluorescent light until his shadow swallows Frank whole. “The truth is you’re sitting here tachycardic, hypotensive, desatting, and you’re pretending it’s fine. You’re pretending like your body failing in real time is just another goddamn side effect you can shrug at. But I’m not shrugging, Frank. You want to lie to yourself, fine. Lie all day. But you don’t get to lie to me.”
The words hang in the air, vibrating like struck glass. The pulse ox beeps faintly, mechanical and steady, a counterpoint to Robby’s ragged breathing. He obediently opens his mouth so Robby can slide the thermometer in.
Frank closes his eyes. He leans his head back against the lockers, braces clicking softly against the bench as his legs shift, the childlike rockets gleaming dully in the sickly light. Robby’s throat works, an almost-sob swallowed into silence. His hand, still clutching the bulb, trembles. He looks like he wants to shake Frank, wants to break him open until he stops talking like this is normal, like this is acceptable, like this is survivable. Instead, he just stares at the numbers, burned into the screen, incontrovertible proof of what he already knew — proof Frank won’t admit out loud.
Beep. Beep. 100.1. It’s nothing.
“Not a fever.” Frank’s mouth twists, a sour little prize of a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “It’s just nausea,” He says, the words a brittle thing, as if repeating them enough will make them ossify into truth. He holds the basin up like evidence again — a flimsy, damp excuse — and for a beat it’s as though the entire bowl might satisfy the room: recant the accusation, absolve him, make everything go quiet and normal again. “Zofran. Intramuscular. It’s routine. It’s nothing. It’s prescription.” He says the last word like someone tossing a coin into a tax collector’s hat, as though getting rid of it is the same as paying the debt.
Robby’s laugh is a sound split down the middle — half incredulity, half raw, ragged humor too exhausted to be kind. He doesn’t take the basin; he doesn’t reach for it. Instead, he crosses the few feet between them with a single, economy-of-motion step and sets the cuffed arm down on the bench as though anchoring both of them to the same gravity.
He leans in so close that Frank can see the pulse that races at the corner of Robby’s head, a little drumbeat of fear that has threaded itself into every word. “If you’re vomiting at the level that needs regular Zofran in your thigh, Dr. Langdon,” He huffs, the syllables sharpened, each one a blade, “You need a bed. You need a bed and a monitor and someone who can watch you while you sleep instead of you trying to stare the nausea into submission.” His voice makes the word need into something fundamental, like oxygen or a pulse — essential and nonnegotiable.
Frank snorts, an unhappy little sound that sits somewhere between defiance and exhaustion. “A bed would make me useless,” He grumbles, the complaint a reflexive animal sound, habitual and immediate. “You put me in a bed and I’m done. I can work through this. I have before. I can fake it, show up, triage rooms, chart meds, keep my head together enough to not wreck someone else’s night.” He says it like a practiced litany, like a coin flipped from finger to finger. The words are his scaffolding; they prop him up against the vertigo of admitting that maybe he can’t.
Robby’s hand, callused and decisive, smacks the bench beside Frank with a sound that is more punctuation than percussion. “Useless?” He pounces on the word, bends it back, weighs it with an absurd tenderness. “Frank, being in a bed isn’t being useless. It’s being treated. It’s not a mercy parade, it's medicine. There’s a difference between lying down to die and lying down to be fixed.”
Frank’s jaw works. He wants to be indignant — wants to scoff, to pivot, to weaponize sarcasm — but his chest lifts and falls too fast to make the sound hold. “It’s just Zofran, Robby.”
Robby’s expression rearranges itself — the torn map of fury and grief softening toward something that resembles grief’s problem-solving cousin: practical panic. He lifts the basin by one edge, looks at the prepared syringe nestled inside like a loaded promise, and then meets Frank’s eyes with a steadiness that has the iron behind it of a man used to making impossible choices before coffee. “If you need Zofran IM, that’s not prophylactic comfort medicine,” He says, his voice exacting now, clinical as a scalpel and twice as tender. “That’s intervention. You don’t IM if you can swallow; you don’t IM if you can wait. You IM because you’re vomiting so hard you can’t hold oral down, because IV access is a pain or a risk, because the nausea is severe and uncontrolled. If it’s severe enough to go in your thigh, that’s severe enough to be monitored.” He sets the syringe down carefully on the bench between them, not an accusatory gesture but a chess move.
Frank’s lips thin. “I can’t be in a bed,” He says again, the mantra worn thin by repetition, a prayer to an old god. “You know me. If I lie down I’ll sleep for days. I’ll wake up in a different month. I’ll miss things that matter. I’ll watch the rot set in on the small parts of my life that still work.” His eyes burn with a brittle, tired light. “I’d be useless to our team. I’d be useless to Tanner and Robin. I can’t be useless.”
Robby leans forward, so close that the breath between them fogs like the first exhale of winter. His fingers find Frank’s forearm and grip it, hard in a way that’s more demanding than comforting. “You’re being useless right now, pretending you can carry on when everything in your body is telling you to stop. That’s not being useful, Frank. That’s burying the problem until it explodes into something worse.” His voice smooths into a teacher’s cadence, the kind that has to be patient because there’s nowhere to go but through. “You want to be useful? Be useful to yourself first. Be the patient who needs help so you can be the doctor who goes back to work whole. I need you okay. I need you, okay?”
Frank’s fingers curl in on themselves, nails biting crescents into his palm. When he finally replies, the word is small, ragged: “Fine.” It’s not capitulation so much as the giving up of a single point of pride — an inch surrendered.
Robby’s relief is immediate and clumsy and human. He exhales in a long, leaking sound that could be a prayer or a wound closing. “Good,” He says simply, and the syllable is all business now. He helps Frank to his feet with a carefulness that contradicts his bulk, tucking an arm around his waist like a brace against the vertigo of standing. “We’re getting you to a bed and I’m calling Greene,” He says, almost gentle, like he’s laying down a promise he can keep. “I’ll tell the team you’re off for the night.”
Frank’s mouth is a tight line, “You’re doing too much,” He grumbles, and it’s less a complaint than an observation, a fact rolled out for cataloguing.
Robby smiles — small, brittle, exhausted — and there’s a tremor around the edges of it that the fluorescent lights catch like glass. “Good,” He growls. “I like doing too much when it keeps you alive.”
Frank tries for dignity. He really does. He pushes up from the bench with that brittle stiffness of a man determined to demonstrate autonomy, the kind of cranky, stubborn independence that’s stitched into his bones like scar tissue. His knees snap and protest, braces clicking faintly, fabric tugging as he straightens. His jaw sets with the defiance of someone about to say something irritable — a half-formed complaint.
But the moment his torso uncoils, his rebellion is cut short.
It happens fast, violently, without warning. His stomach clenches, revolts, and the nausea he’s been tamping down like a cork jammed into a shaking bottle rockets up with volcanic inevitability. His cheeks bulge; his throat works once in panic. He barely has time to twist aside before he’s heaving, the sour bile and half-digested cafeteria food erupting straight down the front of Robby’s scrubs.
The sound is guttural, a tearing wrench from his gut, and it leaves Frank trembling, weak-kneed, horrified. Strings of saliva hang from his lip, and the stench of acid, granola, and cafeteria rice fills the air.
Robby stands immovable, chest splattered, front soaked, his scrub top transformed into something mottled and rancid.
Frank’s whole face flames red — not the sickly, pallid flush of chemo, but the mortification of a man who would rather be swallowed whole by the tile than keep standing here. “Shit,” He gasps, his voice shredding thin. “Shit, Robby, I’m so sorry — fuck, I didn’t—” His hands fumble automatically, desperate, frantic. He reaches for a wad of paper towels from the counter, tries to swipe at the front of Robby’s scrubs, his palms smearing more than cleaning, his panic making him clumsy. “Goddamn it. Shit. Santos — fuck Santos — she made me eat, she insisted, said I looked like I was wasting away, pushed that shit on me like it was medicine, and now look — now you’re covered, and the floor’s covered, and — fuck—” His words tumble faster than his lungs can manage, ragged little bursts between attempts to mop up bile. His embarrassment is a raw wound, gaping wide. He’s still gagging.
“Frank.” Robby’s voice slices through the mess, sharp but steady, the only thing in the room that isn’t trembling. His hand clamps down on Frank’s shoulder, halting the frantic motion. “Sit. Down.”
“But your scrubs—” Frank stammers, still trying to blot at the stain spreading across Robby’s chest like some grotesque inkblot test. His hands keep moving even though they’re intercepted, driven by shame, by the need to fix what he’s ruined. “I got it on you, I got it everywhere — shit, shit, I’m so sorry—”
“Frank.” Robby’s grip tightens, not cruel but immovable, an anchor against the storm of panic. He doesn’t even glance at his shirt, doesn’t so much as flick an eye toward the puddle spattered across the tile. His gaze is welded to Frank’s pallid face, his trembling hands, the way his legs bow dangerously as though they might fold with the next gust of air. “I don’t give a fuck about my scrubs. I don’t give a fuck about the floor. I care about you sitting your ass back down before you fall over.”
Frank’s eyes glisten, not with tears but with sheer mortification. His lips tremble around words he can’t quite manage, words that are equal parts apology and excuse. His knees finally buckle under the pressure of shame and weakness, and Robby all but guides him back down onto the bench, his big hand steering him like he’s nothing more than an exhausted child.
The smell lingers sharp and sour, but Robby doesn’t flinch, doesn’t recoil, doesn’t acknowledge it. His whole world narrows to Frank — the sheen of sweat crawling across his forehead, the faint tremor running through his thighs, the ragged pull of his breath as though even his diaphragm has given up on him.
Frank wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist, his voice hoarse, thready, still muttering curses between panting breaths. “Goddamn Santos. Should’ve known better. Should’ve kept my mouth shut. Should’ve said no. Fuck. What a fucking mess.”
Robby crouches, big body folding down to eye level, his bulk blocking the worst of the mess. His ruined scrubs cling wetly to him, bile-soaked and sticky, but his eyes are steady, unwavering, drilling into Frank’s with all the force of a physician’s oath and a father’s desperation. “Frank. Listen to me. You’re done apologizing. You’re done cleaning. You’re done worrying about anything except breathing and sitting still. Do you hear me?”
Frank swallows, throat raw, bile still burning its way up his sinuses. His answer is faint, uncertain, but real. “…Yeah.” He sounds like Tanner. Daddy, I feel sick.
Frank doesn’t stay still though. He never does, not when shame’s chewing at him like acid, not when the mess is right there, glistening on tile and dripping down Robby’s scrub top like a grotesque reminder of his failure. He jerks forward with that brittle determination again, dirty shirt from his locker balled in his other fist, muttering a litany of half-curses and half-apologies as though sheer velocity might erase the humiliation before it hardens into memory.
“I’ll get it, I’ll — Jesus, Robby, let me just—” His knees unlock with a stubborn lurch, braces hissing as metal shifts under the weight they’re barely capable of bearing. His thighs tremor, muscles firing like frayed electrical cords. He bends toward the floor, the shirt darting out, his hands already reaching for the puddle as though scrubbing bile with shaking fingers could restore him to some kind of manhood.
But Robby moves faster, decisive in a way that brooks no argument. A broad hand hooks under Frank’s elbow, another braces at his ribs, and before Frank can spit another word of protest he’s scooped — bodily, wholly, as though he weighs nothing. Robby’s strength is effortless, practiced, a kind of calm violence against the spiral Frank is hurling himself into.
“Goddamn it—” Frank’s voice cracks as his heels kick up off the tile, knees buckling mid-air, towel fluttering like some ridiculous white flag. His protest is guttural, an animal sound of rage and mortification combined. “Put me down, Robby, put me the fuck—”
But Robby doesn’t. He turns, controlled as a machine, pivoting on planted feet. Frank is lifted, not cradled like something fragile but held firm, contained, his flailing wrists and jerking legs neutralized by sheer implacable steadiness. Robby maneuvers him back toward the bench, ignoring every curse, every ragged plea.
The bench groans again as Robby lowers him, deliberate, inch by inch, until Frank’s thighs hit the wood and his braces clank against tile. Robby doesn’t release him immediately — not until Frank’s center of gravity is firmly back where it belongs, not until the trembling in his quads subsides from collapse into exhaustion.
Frank sits there, shirt crushed in his fist, chest heaving, face blotched crimson with shame. He looks like a man who’s been physically overruled — because he has — and the fury in his eyes is the only armor he has left. His mouth works, words catching on the jagged edges of breath. “I could’ve—” He swallows, bile still burning his sinuses, eyes wet with humiliation. “I could’ve cleaned it. You didn’t have to—”
“You couldn’t have, sweetheart,” Robby cuts in, voice calm, level, as immovable as the hand still pressed to Frank’s shoulder. “And you’re done trying. Do you understand me? Done.”
The finality in his tone rings louder than Frank’s sputtering resistance. It hits like a slammed door. Frank’s jaw clamps shut, the rest of his words choking silent. He stares down at his lap, dirty shirt twisting violently between his fingers, shame pooling heavily in the hollow of his chest. His body trembles, every breath shuddering as if the effort of existing in this moment might split him apart.
Robby stays crouched, one big hand steady on his shoulder, anchoring him in place like a ship lashed against storm tides. His ruined scrubs cling, sour stench thick, but he doesn’t move to change them. The mess on the floor waits, bile congealing under the fluorescent glare, but Robby’s eyes stay trained on Frank, as though the filth and ruin don’t exist anywhere but in Frank’s head.
“You’re not cleaning. You’re not fixing. You’re not proving anything to me.” Robby’s voice is softer now, but it carries a weight that smothers any further protest. “You’re sitting, catching your breath, settling your stomach. That’s all.”
So Frank sits; he’s outmatched — not just by Robby’s strength, but by the relentless, unflinching refusal to let him self-destruct for the sake of dignity.
The shirt slips from his grip, limp, damp in his lap. His shoulders sag. His chest shudders, and for the first time since the bile erupted, he stops moving.
Frank blinks and there’s a dampness at his cheek. He doesn’t know when Robby left to get a wet towel — can’t remember the sound of footsteps, can’t remember the door, can’t remember anything but the ringing hum of the hospital in his ears and the nausea still curdling in his stomach. But Robby’s back now, solid as ever, pressing the cool cloth to his face with a patience that feels almost unbearable.
The first swipe drags bile and spit from the corner of Frank’s mouth, and the sting is immediate. He flinches, a sharp wince that makes the tendons in his neck stand out. His lips twitch, his jaw tightening against the instinct to pull away. The sores lining his gums and the soft inside of his cheeks flare with angry protest, every brush of damp terrycloth like salt rubbed into open wounds.
Robby notices and his hand slows, the pressure gentling, but he doesn’t stop. He works methodically, small strokes, wiping at the crust of saliva clinging to Frank’s chin, the dried flecks caught in the creases at the corner of his lips. He tilts Frank’s face as though Frank isn’t a grown man but his feverish child in need of tending, his fingers broad and sure against the hinge of his jaw.
Frank’s humiliation spikes again, hot and corrosive. He wants to shove the cloth away, to snarl that he can do it himself, but his arms feel like waterlogged rope, heavy and useless. The protest dies in his throat, strangled by the sting in his mouth and the raw tenderness in Robby’s touch.
“Easy,” Robby murmurs, low, not condescending but steady. “I know it hurts, son.”
The words shouldn’t soothe — shouldn’t settle into Frank’s bones the way they do. But there’s something in the matter-of-factness, the way Robby says it like it’s not a weakness, just a fact of anatomy, that softens the edge of shame; like Frank’s his kid.
The towel drags across the curve of his jaw, down to the dip of his throat where sweat beads and sticks. Robby folds the cloth over, clean side out, and works with the quiet precision of someone who’s done this a hundred times before, not with Frank, maybe, but with others — patients, comrades, men cracked open by illness who couldn’t keep themselves whole.
Frank exhales raggedly, breath hissing through teeth that ache in their sockets. His hands flex against his thighs, useless, wanting to help, to reclaim some shred of control. But all he can do is sit there, letting another man wipe the sickness from his face, like dignity is something already lost.
When Robby’s thumb brushes too close to the raw split at the corner of his mouth, Frank can’t help it — he hisses and jerks his head a fraction to the side, eyes squeezing shut.
“Sorry,” Robby says instantly, pulling back an inch, adjusting the cloth. “Almost done.”
Frank forces his eyes open again. Robby is so close his presence fills the whole world, blocking out the mess on the floor, the stench, the shame. Only steady hands and steady eyes and the towel moving slowly, sure, deliberate.
It’s unbearable. It’s a relief. It’s both, tangled so tightly Frank can’t separate them.
Frank sniffles, a wet, uneven sound that he tries to swallow down but can’t. His chest jerks with it, shoulders curling forward as though he could fold himself small enough to disappear into the wood beneath him. His voice scrapes out low, ragged, cracking on the edges of air. “Would it be easier for you if I—” He breaks off with a sudden, guttural burp, the sour taste of bile rushing back up his throat. His face twists, flushed crimson with embarrassment, nose wrinkling, mouth clamped shut until it passes. He swallows hard, eyes shining with a frustration that isn’t tears, but looks close enough. “—if I finished my shift,” He forces out finally, jaw tight, “Or just went home.”
The sentence hangs fractured in the air, bisected by that burp, by his own body betraying him. He squeezes the damp towel in his lap like he might wring the shame out of himself if he just twisted hard enough. His cheeks flame hotter, the red pushing past chemo pallor until it climbs into his ears. His next word is nothing more than a thin, hoarse whisper: “Sorry.”
Robby doesn’t move for a long moment. He’s crouched still, the cloth hanging slack now in his hand, eyes steady and unblinking on Frank’s face. When he finally speaks, his voice is low, steady, like bedrock under shifting ground. “Frank, please. Do you really think I give a damn about shifts right now?” He tilts his head, not unkind but sharp enough to cut through Frank’s self-condemnation. “You think I’m worried about paperwork or timing or who’s covering what?”
He leans in, presses the clean edge of the towel once more at the corner of Frank’s mouth, softer than before, careful to avoid the sores. “Sweetheart, the only thing I care about is that you don’t keel over trying to play tough guy when your body’s telling you it’s done for the day.”
Frank swallows again, throat raw, Adam’s apple bobbing like it costs him. He doesn’t answer right away — doesn’t trust his voice not to break in half again.
Robby straightens up, knees cracking faintly as he unfolds his big frame from its crouch. The ruined towel dangles loose from his hand for a moment before he tosses it onto the counter with a wet slap, like a gavel calling order. Then his arms come up, folding across his chest in a gesture that is both casual and absolute — the kind of posture that says discussion over before the words even leave his mouth. His forearms bulge against the sleeves, scrub top stiff with drying bile, but he doesn’t shift, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t reach for fresh clothes. He simply plants himself there, an unmoving figure carved out of patience and authority.
“The only place you’re going,” Robby says, voice low but carrying, the cadence sharp enough to slice through Frank’s half-hearted defiance, “— is into a bed in the ED. Or upstairs, if Greene decides to admit you.”
The words aren’t loud, but they’ve got a density to them, a gravitational pull that drags Frank’s gaze upward whether he wants it or not.
Frank exhales through his nose, long and theatrical, as though he’s been handed the most predictable script in the world. He tips his head back against the cinderblock wall with a soft thud, eyes rolling skyward in exaggerated exasperation. “Admit me for what, Robby?” His voice is thin, frayed, but still laced with sarcasm sharp enough to cut if you weren’t listening closely. He lifts his hands like a magician revealing empty palms — except in one of them he’s still clutching that damp clump of paper towels, wrung nearly to shreds between his fingers. He waves it vaguely toward his stomach, toward the air, toward everything and nothing. “Chemo bellyache?”
The phrase comes out bitterly jaunty, a showman’s line, as if mocking himself could make the reality smaller. He lets out a short, humorless bark of a laugh, one shoulder shrugging up and immediately sagging again under its own weight. “That’s just the way the cookie crumbles.”
The words taste chalky even as he says them, the borrowed levity collapsing into a grimace. His face is flushed with effort, with nausea, with shame, but he keeps his chin tilted in mock defiance, like daring Robby to argue.
Robby doesn’t rise to the bait. He doesn’t snort, doesn’t smile, doesn’t even blink at the flimsy attempt at humor. Instead, his mouth hardens, lips compressing into a single blade-thin line, the kind that carves away pretense. His jaw tightens, the tendon standing out like a drawn bowstring. When he speaks, the words are not casual. They are clean, precise, cut with the cold edge of a diagnosis.
“Intractable nausea.”
Frank flinches as though struck — not visibly, not enough for anyone else to catch, but Robby sees it. The smirk he was holding onto falters, the angle of his mouth breaking into something less stable, less sure. His eyes slip sideways, away from Robby’s stare, focusing instead on the floor where the bile has already begun to congeal in glistening patches.
He huffs out a sound, part laugh, part groan, the kind that leaks out when there’s nothing left to shore up the façade. His hand scrapes down his face, dragging at the stubble on his jaw until his palm drops heavily into his lap.
Robby doesn’t move. His crossed arms stay locked, chest broad and immovable, like he’s rooted himself there until Frank either surrenders or passes out trying to resist. His eyes stay steady, weighty, unwavering, the kind of gaze that doesn’t scold, doesn’t pity, but refuses to let the other man squirm free.
The silence between them hums, thick as the sour stink of vomit still clinging to the air. Frank’s chest rises and falls in ragged waves, his throat working, his pride shrinking by slow, reluctant degrees under the pressure of Robby’s immovable authority.
Frank lets out another long-suffering sigh, the kind meant to communicate theatrical irritation. His eyes roll with such force that it looks like he’s trying to check whether the fluorescent lights above are still buzzing. His hand presses against the bench, the other against his thigh, and he braces himself as though sheer stubbornness could substitute for muscle.
“You’re worse than Santos,” He mutters, the words ground out through clenched teeth, pitched low but edged with exasperation. It’s the kind of jab meant to bite and deflect at the same time, a lifeline of humor thrown in the middle of humiliation.
He pushes upward. His legs quiver, plastic braces clicking faintly as the metal strains. His jaw sets, cords standing out in his neck. For one half-second he looks like he might make it — like sheer force of will could bridge the cavern between what his body can do and what he demands of it.
Then the bottom drops out, again.
His head swims suddenly, violently, the room tilting sideways as though the floor itself has lurched. Black spots explode across his vision, swelling and shrinking like faulty camera shutters. His breath hitches, trapped between ribs that refuse to expand fast enough. The strength in his thighs buckles, muscles quaking like overstrung wires.
“Shit—” The curse spills out in a groan, half-swallowed by nausea, his voice thinner than he’d like. His body lists left, jerking clumsily off balance, the towel slipping from his grip to the tile with a damp slap.
He pitches forward — into Robby.
The impact isn’t elegant; it’s heavy, sudden, all slack weight and trembling limbs. Frank crashes against Robby’s chest, his forehead bumping against the damp fabric already stiff with dried bile. For a fractured second he’s horrified — he meant to stand tall, to prove, to finish his sentence, and instead he collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut.
But Robby is there. His arms come up fast, strong, one bracing around Frank’s ribs, the other sweeping across his back in a motion so fluid it’s muscle memory. He catches all of it — the dead weight, the shudder, the involuntary sag. He pulls Frank against him, chest to chest, solid as bedrock while Frank clings to nothing but air.
“Breathe, sweetheart. Breathe, I’ve got you.”
The words are low, steady, a rhythm to match a heartbeat. They vibrate against Frank’s ear, pressed as it is to Robby’s chest. A command, not a suggestion, spoken with the calm certainty of someone who refuses to let panic set its claws in.
Frank wheezes, ribs stuttering, the sour taste of bile still clinging to his tongue. He tries — God, he tries — to drag air in, to push it out again, to make his diaphragm behave. His body shakes, betrays him, groans leaking from his throat like the sound of something fracturing under pressure.
“I got you,” Robby coos, lowering his weight, guiding the both of them back down toward the bench. His grip tightens just enough to contain the tremor, to steer Frank without making it feel like restraint. “Sitting you back down.”
The bench creaks as Frank’s body meets it again, lowered with the same care one might use to set glass on stone. Robby doesn’t release him immediately — doesn’t risk it — keeping him anchored against his side until the tremor in Frank’s legs subsides into mere exhaustion instead of collapse. Frank’s eyes are half-lidded, swimming, chest rising too fast and shallow. The embarrassment is etched into every line of his face, but for the moment, his pride is drowned out by sheer necessity.
Robby’s hand lingers at Frank’s temple longer than necessary, palm broad and warm, thumb brushing the damp sweat clinging to his hairline. The touch is diagnostic, not tender, though the two blur in moments like this. His jaw hardens, a flare of impatience sparking through the mask of calm.
“You’re febrile,” He snaps, the syllables clipped, bitten off like he’s forcing restraint through clenched teeth.
Frank’s head tips back against the wall, mouth slack with exhaustion, eyes half-lidded. He whines more than answers, voice pitched high and thin, the sound of a man too tired to summon full defiance. “No, I’m not.”
Robby’s nostrils flare. His palm shifts to Frank’s wrist, two fingers pressing hard into the fluttering radial pulse, counting, measuring, confirming what his eyes already know. His voice lands sharp again, relentless. “You’re tachy.”
Frank groans, a guttural little sound of protest, and flops his head to the side, cheek smearing against the cinderblock wall. The motion is petulant, almost childish. His answer drags out, long and nasal. “Nooo, I’m not.”
Robby’s eyes narrow, a flash of heat beneath the surface. His patience thins into a growl, words coming low and rough, each syllable heavy with the authority of a man who’s seen this game before and refuses to play along. “You’re pancytopenic.”
That gets Frank’s attention. He drags his gaze back up, bloodshot eyes locking onto Robby’s with all the force of a man mustering his last shred of resistance. He rolls his eyes, slow and exaggerated, the way a sulky teenager might when cornered. His mouth twists into a crooked smirk that doesn’t quite land.
“You don’t have my CBC,” He mutters, voice rasping with exhaustion but carrying just enough bite to make it an argument instead of a concession. Sweat beads like dew across his upper lip. But Robby’s arms tighten across his chest, scrubs still sour and sticky, his mouth pressed into that hard line again. His silence stretches sharp, as if he’s deciding whether to scold, to drag Frank by brute force, or to wait him out until the sarcasm crumbles into surrender.
Robby doesn’t answer right away. His arms unfold from his chest with the kind of deliberate inevitability that makes Frank’s stomach twist — not from nausea this time, but from the knowledge that he’s about to lose another battle. Robby moves with the calm certainty of someone who has already decided the outcome.
He plants one palm against Frank’s forehead. The hand is broad, callused, still faintly damp from that ruined towel, but steady. His thumb presses against the temple, his fingers splayed across thinning hair. The heat radiating back into Robby’s palm is confirmation enough.
Frank immediately jerks, shoulders hitching upward, mouth curling in a grimace. “Aw, Robby, quit it—” His voice grates out whiny, petulant, all brittle edges. He leans away from the hand, trying to slide down the bench, trying to escape the touch like a cranky toddler wriggling away from a spoonful of cough syrup. His braces click faintly as his legs scrape against the bench, the sound as irritable as his voice.
“Don’t.” Robby’s voice snaps like a leash. His other hand clamps down on Frank’s shoulder, broad and immovable, pinning him back against the cinderblock wall. Not cruel, but absolute. “Sit still.”
Frank groans, an ugly, nasal sound, twisting his head like he can worm free of Robby’s grip. “I’m not febrile. I’m not tachy. I’m not — fuck, Robby—” He squirms harder, twisting at the waist, but his strength is smoke, dissipating as soon as it sparks. His arms flap uselessly, batting at Robby’s forearm with more indignation than force. “Get your hand off me. I’m fine.”
Robby doesn’t move. His hand stays planted firm on Frank’s forehead, unshaken by the weak swats, his thumb steady against the racing pulse at the temple. His other arm anchors Frank in place, pinning him with a calm, inexorable strength that’s not aggression so much as inevitability.
“You’re not fine,” Robby growls, low and certain, the words vibrating like steel cables under strain. He leans closer, his chest broad and immovable against Frank’s slouched frame. “You’re hot to the touch. Your pulse is bounding. You can’t keep food down and you can barely sit upright without collapsing into me.”
Frank squirms harder at that, a red flush burning across his cheekbones that’s as much humiliation as fever. He growls low in his throat, like a dog trapped in a corner, but the energy fizzles almost instantly. His head lolls sideways under Robby’s palm, the heat obvious now, his skin tacky with sweat.
“Goddamn it,” He mutters, words muffled by exhaustion. He tries to wriggle again, weakly, his movements losing coherence, more twitch than struggle. “I’m not — fuck — you don’t get to—” His voice cracks, trails off.
Robby shifts his grip, one hand sliding from forehead to jaw, fingers braced at the hinge, thumb pressing under the angle of Frank’s ear. He tilts Frank’s head forward, bell of his stethoscope angled toward his chest, listening. His bulk crowds close, catching the thready, rapid beat of Frank’s heart, the ragged hitch of his breath.
The diagnosis is obvious, carved into sound and heat and weakness. Robby exhales hard through his nose, mouth pressed into a grim line.
“You’re not declining under my watch,” He murmurs, voice low but fierce, vibrating against Frank’s temple. His hand tightens briefly on Frank’s jaw, steadying the wobble of his head. “Not today. Not ever. You hear me?”
Frank makes a noise halfway between a groan and a sigh. His body sags, the fight leaking out of him, though his pride still tries to flare in his eyes. He mutters something unintelligible — defiance chewed down to slurred fragments — but his weight lists heavier into Robby’s grip, all stubborn resistance undone by fever and fatigue.
Robby doesn’t release him. He holds steady, big frame braced around Frank’s sagging one, immovable as a wall. The sour stench of bile clings to the air, the sweat sticking to skin, the fluorescents buzzing overhead, but none of it matters. Robby has him, pinned and steady, and nothing Frank says or squirms can change it.
Robby makes his decision the way he always does — fast, absolute, final. No more arguing, no more whining, no more room for Frank’s paper-thin sarcasm to shield him. He slides his arm down, across the slope of Frank’s ribs, hand bracing against the sharp ridge of hip bone, his grip firm as a seatbelt. The other arm snakes under Frank’s elbow, hauling him upright with a practiced yank that brooks no resistance.
“On your feet,” Robby mutters, voice flat, as if Frank’s legs have any business carrying him. “We’re going.”
Frank makes a strangled sound, somewhere between protest and gag. His knees lock then buckle almost immediately, braces clicking with the futile effort of keeping up. Robby doesn’t loosen his grip — if anything, his arm cinches tighter, practically cinching Frank’s middle like a strap, frog-marching him forward with short, firm shoves of momentum.
The hallway looms ahead, harsh fluorescents bouncing off the tile. Robby angles them toward the double doors leading into the ED proper, each step measured, steady, a man forcing the issue.
Frank, meanwhile, goes the color of paper left too long in the rain — a sickly, mottled green-gray that starts in his cheeks and floods down his throat. His head jerks forward with a sudden groan, body heaving against Robby’s hold.
“Stop — stop, Robby, I’m—” His voice breaks off in a wet gag. His hand slaps weakly against Robby’s arm, trying to wrench himself free before his stomach revolts again.
Robby feels the shift instantly — the tightening of abdominal muscles under his palm, the sudden rigidity in Frank’s torso, the cold sweat popping under his hand like condensation. The doctor in him moves faster than the friend. He halts mid-stride and pivots, hauling Frank back around, practically lowering him in a controlled fall until his ass finds the edge of the bench again.
“Shit.” Robby’s voice cracks with frustration, but his grip never loosens until he’s sure Frank is settled, sagging, hunched forward, elbows braced weakly on his knees.
Frank drags in a ragged breath, swallowing hard, eyes squeezed shut against the rolling nausea. His cheeks glisten with sweat, his lips pale and wet. Another gag wracks him, though nothing comes up this time — just a hollow dry heave that leaves his whole frame trembling.
Robby crouches low in front of him, one hand firm against his sternum, the other ready to tilt him forward if he starts retching for real. His face is hard, his jaw set like granite.
“That’s it,” Robby growls, the sound more protective than angry, though it scrapes like sandpaper. “I’m not dragging you another step like this. I’m getting you a wheelchair.”
Frank tries to lift his head, blinking past the tears that nausea forces into his eyes. His expression is halfway to a glare, though ruined by the fact that his lips are trembling and his skin is the same shade as hospital sheets. “I don’t — need—” He pants, though the last word warps into another gag that forces him to clamp a fist over his mouth.
Robby doesn’t even dignify it with an answer. He’s already halfway rising, muscles taut with purpose, gaze flicking toward the hall like he’s about to sprint. But his hand lingers at Frank’s shoulder, thumb pressing into the bony ridge, anchoring him for just one more beat before he moves.
“You’re not walking another inch,” Robby says, slow and heavy, every word weighted with command. “And if you fight me on this, I’ll strap you into the damn thing.”
“But something kept me standing by that hospital bed
I should have quit, but instead I took care of you
You made me sleep and uneven, and I didn't believe them
When they told me that there was no saving you.”