Chapter Text
Frank hated apologising.
He loved being forgiven, but he hated apologising.
Trying to apologise was what landed him on the floor of the ambulance bay, having his shoulder stomped on by the angry, abusive father of a patient. It wasn't even his patient—not that he had any, given he was thrown into triage by Robby like he was an obstinate relic, valuable enough to keep around but so ugly that you can't stand to look at it.
The patient was Santos’. He wasn't even supposed to be there, near the patient beds. The entire reason he'd gone there, in one of the rare lulls in triage, was to apologise to Santos. He'd been tailing her all day, trying to catch a moment with her so he could say he was sorry.
He didn't like her, really—she was far too arrogant for an intern on her first day—but he was still far more cruel to her than he would've been if he wasn't in withdrawal. And she deserves an apology for that, along with a little gratitude, since he would've never gone to rehab if she hadn't snitched on him to Robby.
So he cornered her near the patient bed, offering a polite smile to the little girl—Kylie, he thinks her name was—and said he needed to speak to her about something important.
By the look in her eyes, Santos thought he was about to chew her out. A part of him still wanted to do that, wanted to yell at her and scream about how she ruined his life, ruined his marriage, his standing at the PTMC, but rehab had taught him that he'd done a fine job of ruining those things all on his own.
The one thing, however, he would likely never forgive her for, was ruining his relationship with Robby.
Still, he swallowed down that anger, the sting of Robby dodging him every opportunity he got, and around the dry tongue that laid heavily in his mouth, he said, “I'm sorry.”
Santos’ eyes widened, and she looked around wildly, for what, Frank couldn't tell.
“I treated you like shit. I was in withdrawal, and even if you were arrogant, I should've taken the time to make you understand instead of lashing out the way I did. You did me a favour. I understand if you can't stand me, but I still wanted to say it.”
Frank stepped aside, giving a polite nod to the kid once more, who smiled back and waved at him, and turned to head back to triage. Suddenly, he heard an angry yell near the nurses station. Kylie’s father was yelling at the nurses after overhearing them talk about the girl’s bruises and the blood they found in her urine. The man’s face was red, a vein popping out in his forehead as he angrily searched for whoever the doctor in charge was.
It didn't take long before someone looked at Santos for a second too long, and the man figured out she's in charge. Naturally, like all abusive dicks, he stomped over to the patient bed.
’Security is too far from us.’ Frank thought, turning his head just enough to see where Santos’ smaller stature was.
He grabbed Kylie's father as the man tried to brush past him, digging his nails into his biceps and stopping him dead in his tracks. Dickface, who had developed a sort of tunnel vision and was gunning straight for Santos, snapped his head to the side to glare at Frank.
“Why don't we calm down, sir? Would you like—” The man tried to shake Frank off, clearly not giving a flying fuck about assaulting a doctor in the middle of the ER, but the few seconds headstart that Frank had given security was enough for them to grab Dickface and drag him away, screaming and spitting.
Frank’s heart was beating loudly, his heartbeat thumping in his ears. He hadn't gotten in any physical alterations for a while—it was bad for his sobriety, his sponsor said—and being so close to violence was a rush. It reminded him…of Robby, as pathetic as it sounded. There was an edge of violence to the man, which most people didn't see, especially when he would grab Frank by his shirt, or his hair, or even his throat, and shove him onto the nearest surface so he could fuck him.
God, the last thing he wanted was to get hard in the middle of the ER.
Sighing and shaking his head, Frank turned around to crack a joke about what happened, only to see Santos shaking, her eyes unfocussed and hazy.
’Oh no. Ohhhh no.’ Frank approached her slowly, mildly worried that she would react violently and hit him if he tried to touch her, so he quietly grabbed an alcohol wipe and a pair of tongs, holding the strong-smelling piece of cotton under her nose at a distance.
On her next breath, as the smell of alcohol wormed its way inside her nose, Santos gasped, taking a step back and looking down at the wipe in confusion, before glancing around herself and realising where she was.
“Welcome back, Santos. If Robby asks, you never saw me, in fact, do me a favour and tell him you haven't seen me leave triage the entire shift.” Frank said with an awkward smile, aiming for friendly, but he wasn't sure where he ended up.
He could've headed back to triage, sure, but his blood was still pumping in his ear and he could really use some fresh air.
He should've just gone back to triage.
“Langdon! Hey!” An annoying voice filtered through the ringing in his ears, and a pair of tiny hands propped his head up.
The asphalt of the ambulance bay was rough against his skin, though that should've been the least of his concerns, given how his attacker had stopped on his right shoulder a couple times after ambushing from behind, grabbing him by the hair, and hitting his head against the wall.
His vision cleared just enough for him to see the frown on Santos’ face as she hauled him up with surprising strength.
“...yer str’ng.” Frank slurred, finding himself a bit alarmed when he found he couldn't speak.
“...str’k?” He asked, as Santos dragged him inside and stuffed him into the nearest patient bed, holding his right arm still when she realised something was very wrong with it.
“Follow my finger, Langdon.” She sounded pissed. Or anxious. Maybe her version of anxiety constituted her sounding pissed.
“That's a concussion. Fuck, I'm calling Robby.” Santos murmured, standing up straight and pulling back the curtain surrounding the bed and sticking her head out.
“NO!” Frank said, sitting up in a rush. He ended up jolting his shoulder violently, making him hiss in pain and groan, flopping back onto the patient bed.
“D’nt do it—not R’bby!”
Santos frowned at him, but obliged, taking a step back and pulling the curtain back to where it was.
“Robby is the attending. He should be making the call—”
“He d’sn wanna see me. Iss—iss no use bother’ng him.” Frank mumbled, swallowing and trying to blink his vision clear. He didn't want Robby to see him like this—he looked like shit, he was sure. Robby had already seen him fall from grace the day he discovered Frank's addiction, the last thing he needed to see was him bruised and beaten up.
Santos paused at his words, biting her lip and looking around.
“...you have a dislocated shoulder. I'm gonna need help to fix that.” Santos said instead, an unsaid ‘what do you wanna do about it?’ at the end of her sentence.
“...Garcia.” Frank said. He and Garcia didn't like each other—they respected each other, sure, but like? No. Fortunately, it was because of that shared respect that he knew Garcia would keep her mouth shut if he asked her to.
Santos looked hesitant, looking around like she was thinking of another way to do this without calling Robby.
“Fine. I'll text her.” Santos grumbled, pulling out her phone.
“You have her number.” Frank said, his concussed brain processing this bit of knowledge just fine, even if it was running slow in all other areas.
“...it’s for work. Pagers are clunky.” Santos said, and through his blurry vision Frank thought he saw a red tint on her face.
“She always had bad taste.” Frank mumbled slyly, adjusting his grip on his right arm as he winced in pain.
“What the hell—I’m helping you out here!” Santos said in offense, and Frank just smiled dimly. He was in too much pain to have any fun with it, but it was certainly a thought.
At least he wasn't the only queer bitch in the ER.
Time became an illusion after that, and Frank wasn't quite sure how much time passed before the ever-taunting voice of Yolanda Garcia brought him back into the ER.
“He's pretty banged up. You sure you don't wanna call Robby?”
“Oh I'm not sure about anything. He's the one who wants to avoid Robby.” Garcia looked at him with a raised brow, her expression screaming that she knew, somehow.
“Fix my arm.” Frank mumbled, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth in preparation for the pain.
“M'kay. But if you get yelled at for this—”
“I d’nt think it can get w’rse.” Frank mumbled, shifting on the bed as Garcia grabbed his arm with one hand and his shoulder with another.
Turns out, Frank is a little bitch who can't keep his mouth shut when having his shoulder reset.
A cry of pain inched its way out of his throat as his shoulder was reset, and another whimper when Santos grabbed his arm and put it in a sling.
“I'll put in the order for a head CT and a full-body X-ray.” Santos said, turning to the patient monitor.
“Doctor Santos, what—” Came a throaty rumble, paired with a hand yanking the privacy curtain aside.
“Uh, doctor Robby—” Santos said, looking mildly terrified.
Frank felt a surge of shame—he didn't want to be seen by Robby, not when the man had made it so clear that he didn't want to see him. His confusion-addled brain’s first response to the surge was to roll out of bed on his left side, and start running.
Unfortunately he could only get through the first part. The second part fell through when Garcia and Santos both grabbed the back of his scrub shirt, dragging him back onto the patient bed and keeping him from escaping.
“...wh—what happened?” Frank heard Robby's voice, shaky. He hadn't heard his voice shake in a while. He hadn't heard his voice in a while, period.
He missed it, Frank realised.
“Kylie's father is what happened. Langdon intercepted him when he was…approaching the bed, upset. I guess he decided to come back for revenge.”
“And why was he near your patient bed at all, doctor Santos, when I specifically ordered him to stay in triage?” Robby’s voice hardened, directing his questions towards Santos since she seemed intent on answering for Frank.
Garcia cleared her throat, “I have done my job, I will be leaving.” She said politely, side-stepping Robby to leave.
Frank decided this was as good a time as any to take responsibility for his actions, and show Santos that he wasn't a dick anymore.
“I was—”
“I called doctor Langdon for a consult. I wanted to hear his opinion on the case.” The look on Santos' face was unreadable, and it only confused Frank's fuzzy mind further. Why on earth was she defending him? Hell, Robby already had a hundred problems with him, moving from triage to a patient bed would just be another tally, whereas Robby liked her, so it would be very stupid of her to risk that.
Frank would've never risked it, except he did, and this was his consequence, all of it.
Robby looked at her, unconvinced, but decided not to say anything further.
“Fine, I'll be calling his wife to come pick him up. He can't work in this condition.”
Bile rose up Frank's throat.
Abby had always been…an existence, between the two of them. Calling her a point of contention wouldn't be fair, since they never fought over her, but they also never forgot about her, since Frank always kept his wedding ring on when they fucked.
Even now, after the divorce, he was still wearing the ring, and he knew exactly what Abby would tell Robby the moment he called her. Still, he couldn't find it in himself to warn him verbally, so he just laid there quietly as he heard Robby's heavy footsteps walk away.
×××
Robby tried to offload the task of calling Abby onto someone, anyone, other than himself. Dana was too busy to even talk to him, so he couldn’t even explain that Frank Langdon was lying in a patient bed, injured, let alone tell her to call his family.
The rest of the nurses took one look at his face and turned around—he must've been broadcasting his annoyance at the situation.
Because that's all it was, annoyance. He didn't care that Frank was hurt, just annoyed that he had to deal with the aftermath. Their relationship didn't exist anymore, so obviously he had no reason to care about him. It was simply a professional inconvenience, nothing personal.
”Hello?” Abby’s voice was hard to catch with all the background noise on her side—chattering, beeping, shuffling of papers.
“Hey, Abby? This uh—this is Robby.” Robby cleared his throat, tucking his free hand into his pocket just so he had something to hold onto.
”He fell off the wagon on his first day?” Abby sounded both incredulous and aggravated, and Robby felt a rush of dread in his chest. The thought of Langdon relapsing, even though he absolutely didn't care about him anymore, made him nauseous. For professional reasons, of course.
“No, no, it's not that. He uh, he got attacked. We've ordered some tests but he's concussed, and he can't work in this condition. Think you can come and pick him up?”
”Why would you even ask me that, Robby?” She sounded accosted.
“Uh…well, I um, I figured calling his wife was the right move.” Robby was nervous enough about getting involved in Langdon’s personal life again, even if it was just a call to his wife, but the tone of her voice only served to make him more anxious. He cleared his throat again, rocking back and forth on his heels.
”...we got a divorce nine months ago, Robby. I'm not his wife anymore. Now, I really can't spend any more time talking, or my boss is gonna yell at me—Frank doesn't really have any family in Pittsburgh so maybe you should just take him home, yeah?” Without giving Robby a moment to answer, Abby hung up.
Despite having the responsibility of his ex employee dumped on him so abruptly, Robby felt lighter. He didn't know why. He should've felt grief, at that moment, for the end of a marriage, for the reality that Tanner was going to grow up in a broken home, but he didn't. He didn't feel an ounce of grief.
He felt like he won.
At what? Robby didn't know. Langdon wasn't his anymore, and even if he was, it's not like he was ever in competition with Abby.
The feeling of being the victor was quickly replaced by guilt, paired with the sweet notes of anxiety now that he knew there was no one else to babysit Langdon—he certainly couldn't be sent home alone if his shoulder, the shoulder on his dominant hand no less, was damaged.
“Fuck.” Robby groaned, grinding the heel of his palm into his eyesockets. He was going to have to be a responsible adult.