lover of men old enough to be my dad. lover of Noah Wyle, Shawn Hatsoy, Eric Bana, Josh Duhamel. lover of The Pitt, Untamed, Animal Kingdom, ER, Criminal Minds, Chicago Med, Chicago PD and Law and Order (SVU and Original) https://archiveofourown.org/users/GremlinKat1992 Come see my works on AO3.
synopsis Robby knew he loved you but he knew he couldn't love you the way you deserved. So he leaves. But when he comes back and sees Frank in the place that was his, he can't help but want the taste of you back (request) (7.4k words)
warnings angst. slight frank x reader, mainly robby x reader, language, talks of sex but nothing explicit, divorce langdon canon!
authornote this was such a fun request! thank you to the anon for it. justice to my boy frank, i love him so much. he was the reason i started watching then damn i became an old man lover. i think i aged up langdon's kids and i made him divorced (you're welcome)
Typically- everyday at the Pitt was a day from hell. You'd learnt to kind of enjoy it. But if those, regular, run of the mill days were hell; with the spitting patients and the frequent flyers demanding damn sandwiches and the computer crashes and mass casualties then this was another kind of Dante's inferno.
It had started with a pile up. It had ended with the computer systems lagging. You were nurses down from an un-planned strike and you were teetering on the edge of insanity when you stepped out toward the end of your shift, taking in a deep breath of the crisp night air.
Your shift was over three hours ago and the night was calling for you.
There was one person you thought about texting. The one person you could call and talk to but he had driven away thirty-three days ago and there was no contact. As stubborn as you were you resented the idea of being the first.
“Hey,” said another voice, a still familiar one. “You okay out here?”
“Yeah. M'fine.”
Langdon joined your side, eying you as you stretched your neck back to the sky. “You sure?”
“I'm peachy,” you said, in a way that could tell anyone you were not. You looked over at him. The bags under his eyes, the slight dishevelment to his hair. “Are you okay?”
His lips pursed in a grimace. “Peachy.”
“I coined it, you can't have that one.”
“It's been a rough day, I'd let it slide if I were you,” he shrugged.
You eyed him. “Rough? That's all you're calling it?”
Frank squinted at you, a small smirk pulling at his lips. “Pretty fucking horrible, shit, terrible.”
“Yeah,” you laughed, feeling the edges of insanity clouding your mind. Or exhaustion. Whichever one claimed you first. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“You should hear what my kids catch from me.”
You'd known Frank for years. Known him as the asshole Resident most of the time. You couldn't stand his cockiness when he first started the same year as you, jumping into traumas you were already on and answering every question asked of you. He'd pick and chose every case that came through from triage like it was a raffle.
He'd got better as he got older, as he became a dad. But he was always going to Collins for laughs at his jokes, or Dana to bug, or even Mohan to talk to.
You favoured Robby's side more and now you were miserable.
But still, the last few weeks had been a hard- harder than usual and since Frank came back from his rehab days he'd been better in more ways than one. At your side before you'd even asked for help. Talking instead of teasing and asking if he could refill your coffee for you before you even realised it was empty.
It was a different sort of Frank you weren't used to, but a nice one.
So when you heard about his divorce and custody battle on going after all the work he'd put in to be better, you genuinely were sorry for the guy.
“So what'd you think about the guy who thought wrenching his finger off was better than a hanging nail?” he asked, turning to you and folding his arms over his chest.
“I think you've never known the pain of a hanging nail.”
“But he didn't even get the finger off right?”
“Desperate times.”
He chuckled, clocking his head. “The worst of times.”
“Swiftie?” you asked, peering closer at him and the beaded bracelets on his wrist.
“Dickens,” he corrected.
You screwed your eyes shut. “Yeah, I-I know Dickens was the writer of the phrase, you know I knew it wasn't Taylor Swift, I was just, doesn't your daughter like her?” you rambled.
“Tanner actually. Penny's thing is Spider-man right now.”
“Respect.”
The two of you lingered in a silence of your own creation. You weren't sure you and Frank had ever had such a long conversation that didn't include something about ETA's and chest tubes.
“I've been trying to make amends,” said Frank, straightening up and focused on you. “Saying the sorry's I need to say-”
“- you don't have to say anything to me-”
“I was a dick, to you,” he said. “To a lot of people, but to you. I could stand here and say it was because I thought you were my competition which was true but it-it doesn't excuse how I treated you. I could blame it on the benzos but it still means nothing so I just want to say... sorry.”
You stared and took it in. You'd never expected Langdon to apologise. You thought Langdon was just Langdon. He couldn't apologise for himself anymore than a dog could for barking. Maybe you were wronged, twinged by the ten months of annoyance Robby had dripped into your ear.
“I'd actually kinda like us to be friends,” added Frank, glancing back to the bay doors. “I seem to be in short supply of them and you were the only one who ever reached out when I was in rehab so.”
It shocked you to hear. Had nobody thought about him, like you had? Wishing him the best, like you'd hoped? When it came out in Robby's angry rants about Frank and the pain-killers you first felt bad before you felt everything Robby did.
“Everybody was thinking about you,” you said, even if you didn't know that. When he left after the Pittfest mass casualty, nobody spoke about him, moving around the absence shaped like him.
He looked at you like he didn't believe you. He looked like he was about to say as much when a sleek black car rolled up.
Frank tensed up, rubbing at his temple. “Here we go,” he mumbled, the pale line over his ring finger glowing at you.
For a moment you stood confused before you spotted Abbey- his ex-wife- jumping out the drivers seat. She was well-put together, a blonde woman that you could imagine on the arm of Langdon. You think you'd seen pictures in passing, heard of her only in name.
“Frank, it's way past their bed time,” she said with an air of annoyance.
You wished it was past your bedtime.
“I know, I know,” he sighed, heading over and taking the bags she was handing him. “I couldn't help it.”
“They need to go straight to bed.”
“Believe me, so do I.”
You stood there, un-sure whether you should leave but un-able to take yourself away from doing it.
Abbey glanced over Frank's shoulder at you and you did your best to smile and wave but it probably came off half hearted from the exhaustion you moved your limbs with. Watching, you saw her make her mind up about you from the first glance.
The temptation, the other woman that Frank had fallen onto it.
Frank looked back to you before snapping his neck ahead again. There were mutters you couldn't quite catch to her, probably in your defence.
He swung the kids bags over his shoulders and shook off every bad thing the Pitt threw onto him. When he opened the car door he was all smiles and gentle voice as he helped down his son and daughter. “Hey guys! I missed you today,” he said. “What you been up to?”
Tanner had Frank's hair, Penny her mom's but they both seemed to have his smile as they greeted him, talking animatedly in spite of it being past their bed time.
You didn't even know you knew his smile until you saw it in his kids.
Frank went to collect the last bits of information from Abbey, leaving you and the kids in an awkward stand off.
As the adult it was down to you to break the ice.
Hurt kids were easier; you had a mutual interest to talk about and work toward. These kids were Langdon's, different.
“I like your shirt,” you said to Penny who stood in her spiderman top that looked like it was once her brothers, with a thick chunk of hair in her mouth.
“Spiderman,” she mumbled through the hair.
“He's very cool.”
“Do you know spiderman?” asked Tanner full of the six year old curiosity.
You nodded and crouched down, trying to act as casual about it as possible. “Don't tell anyone but I actually helped him out one time.”
You saw Penny smile.
“Do you work with my daddy?” asked Tanner.
“I do.”
“Are you a doctor? Like him?”
“Slightly better.”
“Hey,” Frank returned, gentle hands down on his kids backs as Abbey got back in the car. “Are we ready to go or what?”
“Ice cream?” asked Penny with eyes wide in hope.
You stood, watching Langdon battle with the fact he knew it was their bedtime, knew sugar wouldn't help and battled with her wide set eyes.
“We can talk about ice cream in the car, you ready?” he asked, earning a chorus of yells from them. Frank looked back at you. “Do you need some help with hand offs?”
“No,” you said, shaking your head. “Head out, you're good.”
“I can stay,” he insisted. “Help you get caught up, chart, maybe Earl could keep the kids company.”
You chuckled. “It's fine, I'll probably make sure we're all handed over, charts are fine and head out myself.”
Maybe it was because of your infamous relationship with Robby that lasted all of five minutes that had people looking to you for help and advice more than they were going to Al-Hishimi. She was new, you weren't. You were an extension of Robby. Just another reason you can be mad at him.
“Oh, you-you want a lift back?” he asked, as if he'd smelt your lie.
You planned to stay as long as you could, before Abbot physically dragged you out. Beat going back to your apartment where you'd packed Robby's stuff up in a box and left it at the door, un-sure or not if you could trust yourself not to set it on fire.
“No, no, don't worry about it,” you said.
“You sure?”
You hummed.
Frank took his kids in each hand, slowly walking backing away. “Okay well, have a good night, I owe you!”
You waved them off, waiting till they were around the corners and gone before taking a deep breath. Slowly, you retreated back into your self-made hell.
It was thirty-three days ago, you remembered it exactly. The day Robby chose not to stay.
He'd been talking about the sabbatical for so long you and everyone else had forgotten how it first came about. You just remembered one day Robby came by your place to pick you up and instead of the alerting honk of a horn there was the dangerous rev of a motorbike.
No- he'd never come to your door and knock because that was too definite and you and him were not definite. He gave you lifts to and from work when your schedule's aligned. He took you to your favourite coffee place on the way in without you having to say and three times after work you'd invited him up for a beer and all three times he ended up waking up in your bed, bare chested and smelling faintly of the last nights activities.
It wasn't where you thought you'd be in life, but you also didn't ever think the computer systems would be shut down and an abandoned baby would be found all in the same day.
You'd been in the room with the affectionately named baby Jane Doe when Robby tip-toed in, swinging his travel coffee mug in hand.
You eyed him and the mug and the clock on the wall as you rocked Jane Doe in your arms. “Are you going?” you asked. If he walked out now, just passing you a nod it'd be like ripping off a band-aid. The pain would sting for a moment but then be gone. It would've made things easier.
Of course, Robby didn't come into your life to make things easy.
“Just heading out,” he said. “Why is she crying?”
“Isn't that the million dollar question,” you huffed, continuing to bounce.
You were already dead on your feet from the extra hours pulled, fingers cramping after trying desperately to get everything from paper back into the system and finish off the charting you'd left abandoned when hell broke loose. You didn't put up much of a fight when Robby rounded you, throwing off his stethoscope and gently setting baby Jane Done back in her hospital obliged cradle.
“Why are you crying?” he cooed, un-knowing to how you lingered behind him, stretching out your neck. “Did you need to be swaddled again? I wish someone would swaddle me.”
You tried not to let his words get to you but everything he'd been saying got to you that day. From when he picked you up with one helmet and insisted you wear it- that he could go without, every small hint he'd give to people that he wasn't coming back, every snap he made set you on edge. You'd watched everyone's attempt at talking to him, and watched them walk away defeated.
Robby cradled the baby close, resting her against his chest and rubbing her back. “You got off to a bit of a rough start, didn't you, little one?”
He'd turned away from you, rocking lightly but you could hear the choke in his words.
“Robby,” you said, slowly.
His head turned enough for you to catch sight of the redness around his cheeks and eyes, the quick flutter of his lashes that showed someone's un-wavering need to not cry.
“Don't go.”
Jack had tried. Dana had tried. You were sure even McKay had said something.
“Don't go,” you repeated. “Tonight just come back to mine, we can- we can do nothing. I can cook, you can rest.”
His head shook. “I'm going,” he said quietly.
“Why? Because you've told everyone you're going? Because you need to get out?”
“Yes.”
“Then get out,” you begged. “Take a break from this place but don't go off on a motorbike, to a place nobody's ever heard of before.”
Robby still wasn't looking at you, using the slowly falling asleep baby on his shoulder as a shield to avoid your gaze. “Did Jack put you up to this?”
“No. I'm worried about you.”
He bounced again, turning from you. You heard him sniff, saw the tilt of his head to wipe away emotions on his scrub top.
“Tonight, just don't go tonight. You've been working twelve hours, have you even packed anything?” you asked. “Just for tonight, you can come back to mine.”
“I can't.”
“Why not?”
“I can't-” his voice broke and he took a moment to compose himself, his hand continuing its slow circles on Jane Doe's back. It was as much a comfort to the baby as it was him. “I can't do that to you.”
There'd been no problem when you first invited him up, each of you sinking down your beers before Robby leant in and kissed you after some stupid joke you made. When it happened again, Robby following you up after an emotional exhausting day just to make sure you got up okay but ended up slowly peeling off your scrubs and kissing over every inch of skin his knuckles grazed. He'd never complained then. He'd never seen anything wrong that deemed he couldn't do it a third time with you.
“I just need to get away,” he said in the quiet.
“From what?” you asked, circling around to look at him. Still, Robby's gaze was locked to some mural painted on the wall behind you. “From the Pitt? From me? Yourself?”
“I can't be there for you,” he said.
Your lips turned down to a frown, where they'd been most of the day. “I've never asked you to be there for me?” had you? You'd asked for help on patients sure, it was your job and he'd offered the lifts when he realised he passed you at the bus stop every day. Had you ever put him in a position where he felt he had no choice with you?
“But I want to,” said Robby, louder than he wanted. He winced as the baby shuffled on his shoulder. He looked at you. “I want to be there for you, to be counted on but I can't. And I can't stand around and be around you when I can't- I can't-”
“- can't what?”
“I can't love you.”
The words paralysed in front of you, stuck in your head.
Three weeks ago you'd told him you loved him to which you guess maybe started all this. It had come out in bed, with your head on his chest and his hands slowly winding a strand of your hair.
You'd said it because you meant it. You'd told him he didn't need to say it back because you guessed he didn't love you back and meant it.
Loving Robby was like being cold, dying for the heat, craving the feel of the flickering flame upon your fingertips and knowing it would burn when you reached out to touch. You knew you were going to get hurt, but you had been so cold.
Robby moved slowly, with heavy limbs as he set baby Jane Doe back down, assuring she was swaddled tightly and sleeping.
“Robby I am not asking you to love me, I know you can't-”
“I should be able to,” he said, a tear falling as he stared down at the baby. “I feel like something's being leeched from me. Something I can't get back. I should be able to love. I'm un-able to.”
You shook your head, un-sure whether you should reach for him or not. “You're not incapable of it.”
He nodded, his shoulders shaking. “I am, I am.”
“You come in here every day. You save people, the best and worst of them. You hold their hand when they need it, you talk to their families, you sit with them, read out monologues they have prepared when they can't,” you listed.
“And it's killing me,” he said, turning to you with un-steady hands rested on his hips. His face was equal parts red in cheeks and pale behind. “This place... these people... they're taking things from me and I- I don't know if I can get it back.”
In desperate attempts you stepped closer to him, hands reaching for his arms. His head still turned down but there was a glimmer of glossy tears there.
“You can get it back, you haven't lost it, Robby, you haven't,” you said, your own heart rate picking up. You knew why Dana had almost cried when she told you it felt like she wasn't going to see Robby after that day. Why Abbot and reached and hugged Robby, muttering words to him. “Talk to someone-”
His head shook and your hands came up to his calloused beard, holding his cheeks.
“- go to Abbot, go to Caleb. Stay with someone, stay with Jack. Stay with me.”
He didn't say anything but his body softened just enough to let you know there might have been a way out.
“Robby I-I love you, don't do this.”
“And I care about you but I have to do this- I can't stay here-”
You reached up and kissed him, pressing your lips to his. You waited for the fever that usually took over with your kind of kisses but there was nothing. No rush of blood from him, no reaching hands, just a still body and incorporating lips.
You pulled away first, licking the taste of him from your lips. “Robby?”
“I've got to go,” he mumbled, picking up his mug again, leaving his stethoscope and left.
You watched him duck his head and avoid anyone's calls as he fled.
Dana found you that night as the clock struck eleven and as Robby pulled away from everything he knew.
That day was one of the worst in Pitt history, an agreement everyone came to without a discussion. So technically things could only go up from there.
“Hey,” Lupe said, heading straight to you.
You groaned, fingers pausing over the computer keys. “I dealt with the dead person in chairs last time, this one isn't mine.”
She chuckled. “Nobody's dead. Have you seen Langdon?”
“Langdon?” yeah, you'd seen him two days ago when he'd found you outside, contemplating your life and showed you his two beautiful kids. You'd seen him every day after that when he slid up next to you first thing in the morning. “He's, er, upstairs, some drug test protocol.”
“His kids are in chairs,” she said. “His daughter's took a fall from a swing, babysitters freaking out.”
“Oh, okay.”
You don't really know how it happened. How you ended up following Lupe back out to chairs where you were greeted with an angry mob demanding to know why they hadn't been seen yet. In the middle you found his kids and babysitter who truthfully didn't look much older than Tanner.
“Where's my daddy?” Penny asked.
“He's busy on something very important right now but he's on his way down. Can I see?”
It was a nasty gash on her knee which explained the tear streaks down her cheeks. You ended up carrying her back, securing a room for her and telling Dana to page Frank.
“I swear I- I looked away for a second,” the baby-sitter fretted, just as she had the whole way back to the ED. “Tanner needed help with his shoe-laces and she- she really wasn't going that high when I left and-”
“I can do my own laces!” Tanner objected, following at your side.
“Hey, Princess!” you called out.
You set the babysitter off with her, to get a coffee and to yap Princess ear off instead (she was used to it). You promised the sixteen year old the kids would be well looked after.
“Is get a coffee grown up talk for go away?” asked Tanner as you set Penny down on a bed, letting Tanner settle on the edge.
You settled on the stool and pushed yourself over to them. “You are a very smart kid, has anyone ever told you that? Okay Penny, I'm gonna check your knee now, okay? Is that alright?”
“I want my daddy,” she whined.
Kids came into the Pitt all the time needing help and you managed every time, winning them over or just trying to get through their treatment. These kids were different, they were Langdon's. VIP's.
“You daddy is heading down now, he's on his way,” you assured, cringing at the taste of daddy on your tongue. “In the meantime you think I could take a look? I promise I'm a good doctor, these are Spiderman healing hands.” You held up your hands, wiggiling them.
She let you check on her state of knee, finding the cuts and little bits of dirt in there. She was very brave and you told her so when she cried no more.
“Is that an Ipad?” Tanner asked when you pulled out the tablet to chart down her information. “Are there games on there?”
“I wish, bud.”
“Then what do you do on it?” he asked.
“We keep files on patients and doctors, so we know how to help and who's been helped. Your dad's probably on here,” you said, coming up with a wicked idea. “Do you want to see if we can draw on his picture?”
They grinned and nodded.
You settled in the middle of them, finding some drawing icon and Langdon's profile. You were half way drawing a red moustache above his lips when the door swung open and the man of the hour rushed in.
“Oh my god, are you okay? What happened?” he fretted in the only way a nervous dad knew how, rushing to Penny's side first and pecking the top of her head before getting a look at her knee. “Oh, baby, that looks painful.”
“She's very brave,” you said, shuffling up from the bed and hiding the tablet.
Langdon looked back to you, only then realising you were there. “What happened?”
You stood there silent before realising he was waiting for you to answer. “Oh-um, something about a swing? I think she fell of it.”
“Where's their babysitter?”
“With Princess.”
Once he'd checked in with his kids, assessed her injury himself and her chart (successfully you'd hid the changes of his profile from him) he let out a breath, shoulders slumping in relief.
“It should just need a clean, no stitches,” you said to her. “But I think for being so brave you should get a lolly, how about that?”
Penny smiled for the first time since you'd met her and nodded eagerly.
“Coming right up,” you said, leaning to Frank to utter to him. “Stay with your kids, I'll take your patients.”
His brows were furrowed, looking at you. It was unusual, for sure. Families weren't allowed to look after each other but for his kids you'd make an exception. While Robby wasn't around to say anything different, you insisted. “Thank you. I owe you, again.”
“Well, you can buy me a drink to say thanks.”
The words slipped out before you even realised what you were saying. Before you understood what the words meant.
Frank's brows rose. In surprise, amazement, disgust, you couldn't read it.
“I just- I meant a coffee, not- you know-”
“Coffee it is,” he said with an affirming nod.
With a distracted mind you nodded and left, carrying yourself in a daze to the nurses station and falling back to your seat for charting.
“What's the matter with you?” asked Dana, peering at you over her glasses.
What was the matter with you? “I think I just asked Langdon out on a date.”
Dana didn't scoff, she didn't frown at you or ask anything else. She smirked and set down her tablet, taking a careful step over to you. “Well, it's nice to see you getting back out there,” she said. “You know, he might not be coming back.”
The fact hit you like a bullet. You did know that maybe Robby wasn't coming back. Nobody had heard from him, not a picture or a hello, not a postcard or a letter. Still, you stared at the box of his things and imagined him coming to collect it. You went to bed imagining all the things you'd say to him when you saw him again.
At least in the dreams, he always came back.
There was a time on his sabbatical where Robby couldn't picture coming back into the Pitt. He thought about the waiting room full of people, or the sliding doors of the ambulance bay that never stayed shut for long and his chest would get tight, his palms sweaty. So he stopped thinking about it.
Instead he thought about you and it didn't stop the beating in his heart but it helped focus his mind.
By the time Robby made it back to PTMC, stepping a foot through the ambulance bay, it was like he'd never been away.
Ahmad greeted him, lingering in the way with paramedics. The walls of the place hadn't changed but they seemed maybe lighter than when he'd left. The patients from that night three months ago had all gone, replaced with new faces and names and identities.
“Robby!” as expected Dana was first to greet him, approaching slowly.
But when her arms wrapped around his shoulders and she hugged him, Robby knew he'd worried her with how hard she squeezed, as if she was trying to share some of that pain.
“Hey, you're back!” said Whitaker next, with a grin.
“I'm back,” he affirmed, saying his hello's to everyone that greeted him, trying to make his way through the crowd to get to the nurses desk. He didn't want a big send away and he didn't want a big come back either.
“Doctor Robby!” Javadi smiled. “Welcome back.”
“Thank you.”
“Yay, he's back,” said Santos, trying to sound as un-caring as she could but saying it with a tiny smirk. “Didn't throw yourself off a cliff then?”
“No I did not.” The truth was as soon as he got close enough to a cliff and looked to the bottom the idea of ever leaving home seemed stupid.
All he could think about when standing at the precipice or a cross roads was your face as he left, was your face when he told you he couldn't love you. Acceptance. Like you knew that and still wanted to love him anyway. And no matter how much he tried to convince himself it was on you to chose him, he couldn't find it in himself to be annoyed that you had.
It was something lighter stirring in his heart.
“Where's our gifts then, huh?” asked Jesse from the back of the group.
“Okay, okay,” said Dana, waving her hands out at everyone. “Let's not smother him, not before he's had a chance to get us caught up with the board.”
It was as simple as that, his welcoming. Pats on the shoulders, welcome backs and so forth.
Robby peeled off his jacket, slinging it over the chair where he liked to sit. Not one thing seemed to be out of place there. Maybe they'd kept his desk just as he left it, for him.
He stretched out, turning his head around and scanning the floor.
“She's with a patient,” said Dana, watching him with a keen smile. “Room three.”
Robby didn't pretend to act ignorant. He was looking for you. He peered into room three, finding an elderly lady in the bed, blankets tucked up high as she smiled at something you said.
Just the back of your head had Robby taking a deep breath. He lived those three months with you as memory. With the faint idea of what your hair felt like twined between his fingers, going to sleep in crappy motels every night trying to think of your head rested in the crook of his neck, the rhythmic falling of your breath against his skin when he began to panic.
Everything you made him feel rushed back to him like a truck hitting him.
He was still stuck there waiting when you turned with a laugh from the patient, leaving the room with an amused shake of your head and he felt himself smiling.
Your trainers squeaked to a stop on the other side of the desk, finding him standing there, looking at him like you were seeing a ghost.
“Robby. You're back.”
He gave a nod, wincing at himself. What did he say when all he wanted to say was sorry? What did he do when he just wanted to reach for you?
He was never given the time as suddenly rushing feet sounded closer and small voices were calling out your name.
Robby watched helpless as you turned, throwing on a grin and kneeling to catch the small girl that threw herself at you. He watched as you wrapped your arms around her like it was familiar for you to do so, picking her up and setting her on your hips and affectionately messing up the boys hair.
“Robby, hey.”
He followed the voice to Langdon who approached slowly, clad in jeans and a jacket.
“Frank,” he greeted with a nod, stealing a sheepish look at the kids- his kids- greeting you.
“Yeah sorry,” said Frank, smiling back down at you. “They wanted to come by and see you, drop you off some muffins they made last night.”
Your mouth fell open in a dramatic gasp. “Muffins? What flavour?”
“Chocolate!”
“Chocolate! My favourite!”
“With pink icing!” said the girl happily.
You gasped again. “Pink! My favourite again! How's the knee?”
Robby watched, un-shamelessly so as you checked in on Langdon's daughters knee, patiently listened to her and his son as they both spoke at you at the same time. Was he intruding? Probably, but he couldn't bring himself to turn away.
“Okay, okay,” said Frank, setting a tub of muffins on the side that Donnie immediately started sniffing around. “We just came to say hello, school run, remember guys!”
The boy groaned and you laughed, whispering something to him.
Robby thought it couldn't get worse, that the scene in front of him couldn't get sweeter but next Frank brought out a coffee cup, leaving it next to the muffins. The stamping from your favourite cafe that the two of you frequented together glaring at him.
He tried to look away as you said bye to the kids, stepping closer to Frank and talking to him quietly. Langdon seemed to ask you something and you nodded, a pinch to your lips. He watched Langdon nod at you, heading out with the kids and glancing at Robby.
“Good to have you back,” he said, stiff.
“Good to be back.”
Langdon looked at you once more before stirring the kids away.
The rest of the Pitt played around you, nurses calling out for labs, patients complaining.
Robby may as well have been miles away as your gaze met his again.
“Got one coming in hot!” Dana announced. “ETA five minutes!”
Santos chucked you a gown and dragged you out to the ambulance bay in a move Robby heavily suspected was to spare you from any more awkward stares.
“They Frank's kids?” he asked, turning around to find a herd of nurses lingering.
Donnie had already peeled back a muffin from its wrapper, spreading crumbs everywhere. “Yeah. Damn good bakers, too.”
“She knows those kids,” shrugged Dana, trying to make it less of a thing for his sake. “Little girl came in with a bad knee one day, they come in every now and then with fresh bakes to say thanks. Donnie, spare some for the rest of us!”
Robby felt a pang when he saw you all those months ago walk into the Pitt with a wailing baby in arms. Abandoned, you'd said. He saw a baby in your arms and was reminded of what he didn't have. What he wanted. Startled that he only saw that baby in his future with you holding them.
Would the baby he dreamed about be like him? Troubled. Would you be left with two broken Robinavitch's to look after? How could he do that to you?
Yet, seeing you with two kids that weren't his didn't help either.
“Seems things have changed since I was last around,” he said, trying to joke and rubbing the back of his hair.
“Yeah, since when were they close?” Perlah wondered, staring off to where you and Frank had left from.
“Since Frank came back,” said Princess like she had the day memorised. The day Robby also left. “She's been helping him out since the divorce.”
He looked between the two, knowing the answers to all his questions could be answered between the looks of Princess and Perlah. He looked at their raised brows and wide eyes, smirks dancing on their lips.
“Hey, Robby,” said Dana. He hadn't realised she was close until her hand was at his back, leading him away. “Let me give you the tour, in case you forgot some things.”
Robby let her lead him away, one last warning to Donnie who was already reaching for another.
“You're all good,” she said when they were far enough. “They're plantonic, nothing going on, I'm assured.”
He stared out in front of him, humming. “What?”
Dana scoffed with a roll of her eyes, pocketing her glasses. “C'mon, don't act dumb, doesn't look good for you or me.”
“I'm just trying to get through my first day back,” he said with a un-easy chuckle, remembering the words falling from Langdon's lips when he first came back after ten months. He was left in that position, left to clean up the mess he thought he could ditch.
“Yeah. Sure. Whatever you say, Cap,” said Dana. “Listen, her and Frank got close after you left because they both missed you. They both were lost, both felt abandoned and were both going through a divorce-”
“I was never married to her,” Robby corrected.
“You may as well have been. And she's been miserable since you left. She's been worried about you- we all have!” said Dana, lingering at the counters. “But I think she deserves an explanation before the rest of us.”
The roof was the easier escape from hell. Directly to the top where you couldn't hear the bustle, where it would take people so long to get to you they may as well not have bothered.
Night air welcomed you as you stood leaning on the railing, letting the wind caress and cool you. You'd felt hot all day with Robby's eyes lingering over you. They found you in the morning and didn't stop after that. From leaving every exam room to the storage closet to the bathroom, he was like a magnet attracted to you.
Once where you'd wanted that, now you feared what it meant.
There was a gust of wind that sent shivers down you, a welcomed cold.
“Hey.”
The wind hid Robby standing behind you.
You looked back at him, taking in every bit of him like you had every time you found him.
His skin was sun-kissed, hair a little longer than usual and his beard the same with new flecks of grey. He held himself up lighter, shoulders pushed back. There was new skin, a new glitter in his eyes but the same old Robby.
“Hi.”
To give you enough time he approached slowly, leaning next to you and waiting for you to say something.
But you wanted him to speak first, to know where to start from.
Another gust of wind pushed back your hair, had your skin pick up in trembles.
“Are you cold?”
You hadn't a chance to say anything. He was already pulling the zip of his hoodie down, peeling it off quickly to get it around your shoulders before the cold could leave you.
It still smelt the same. Like the box of his stuff you'd slowly dragged into your room.
“Thanks.”
Robby hunched over the rail, looking out to the skyline. “Not often I'm on this side of the rail,” he said. “Views nice from here.”
“Your trip teach you that, or have you just come up with it?”
“Just trying to find something to say,” he admitted.
You shook your head, pulling his hoodie closer around you. You could take it home, maybe, add it to the pile of him you were to weak to give up. “You don't have to say anything.”
“I do.”
“Robby-”
“I haven't got it rehearsed,” he said, holding out his hands as if to prove they're empty. They were slightly smoother, less calloused then before. “I haven't thought about what to say. I just want to talk to you.”
You turned to him, looking at him. In all of three months your heart didn't change when you found his gaze. “You've just come back, don't you want to settle in before we talk.”
He shook his head. “No. No, I don't want to waste anymore time.”
You bit down on your lip. “So, things have changed since?”
“A lots changed.”
“Do you- are you feeling better?”
His head tilted side to side. “Maybe. I don't know. There was a lot of time to think. To dream. To figure out what I want.”
You listened, watching his fist clench around the railing.
Robby sighed deeply. “I want you.”
A thousand times you must have dreamt of those words from his lips, in a hundred different scenarios in millions of different ways. It seemed just like another dream, where the city lit your backdrop, where his hoodie smothered you.
The dreams faded with work. With Frank.
The coffee you went for never turned to more. The idea of more played with, toyed with in lingering stops at each others place, when he dropped you off at yours and you didn't leave straight away.
It was all a painful reminder of Robby.
“I really want you,” he said again, eyes peering, head low. “I knew it before I left, I know it for a fact now.”
“I- I wish that was enough,” you found yourself saying. “I don't want to just be wanted anymore. It's- It's not enough.”
“Well, it's a good thing I love you too then.”
Your breath stuttered.
He stared at you, a small smile on his lips and a crinkle next to his eyes. “You couldn't count on me to love you then, you couldn't count on me to be there- you can count on me now. You can.”
You spent so long telling yourself you couldn't, that him not loving you back was okay that telling yourself to accept his words, to take them for what it was was foreign to you. “It's been three months. Things have changed.”
There was the first flicker of un-certainty in his gaze.
“Langdon?” he asked, puffing out his chest and preparing himself for pain.
“No,” you shook your head. “I mean.... maybe? Maybe there was something. But I'm so hung up on you how could I do that to a freshly-divorced man.” You leant back on the rail, counting every flicker of light.
The wail of ambulances and honking of cars punctured the silence.
Robby's knuckle turned white with his grip on the rail. “I'm glad.”
You glanced at him.
“Sorry,” he said, supporting a look that was decidedly not sorry.
You tried to hide your smile in a bite of your lip but Robby caught it and leant closer next to you, smiling too.
“I love you,” he said again, face creasing in adoration. “I love you, I don't want you to ever spend another minute thinking I don't.”
“You didn't love me before you left.”
“I did. I did I just... I didn't know how. But it was there.”
It was there? Was it in his kisses and the way he pressed you into his mattress, saying your name like a prayer into the skin of your neck. When he got you your coffee order, extra hot on the colder days, was their love in his touch when he offered it to you.
“I thought you knew, I really thought you knew,” he said.
There was still nothing you could have said.
From the corner of your eyes you saw him glance down.
“You don't- you don't love me anymore?”
“It'd make my life a lot easier not to love you,” you admitted with a sigh. “Wouldn't have spent three months worrying out of my god damn mind.”
His shoulders shuddered, his hand relaxing on the rail and heading deep into his pant pockets, trying to retreat, trying to hide himself.
You looked at him, counting the wrinkles at his eyes, matching your breath with his. “I don't know how to not love you, Robby.”
Robby looked back up at you, lifting his shoulders in a shrug. “Do you want to?”
You answer was tested.
Your hands were half drowning in his hoodie as you reached up and grabbed him, bringing him into you and kissing him. Unlike the last kiss you shared, in the dim lights with the ghosts of the pedes room, he kissed you back, breathing you in. His hands were firm at your hips, holding tight.
Robby's neck tilted, muscles working to kiss you deeper, to hold you in closer. He parted your lips to take a breath and prodded in his tongue, drinking you up.
The both of you shivered into the kiss and into the cool night air around you.
“I'm not-” said Robby, voice muffled by the lips he refused to give up. “I'll never leave again.”
You kissed him again. “Don't make promises you can't-”
His nose brushed yours when he kissed you. “- I promise. You can count on me, you can love me, I'm....” he grasped your cheeks, thumbs brushing against you as he pulled you back to get a look in your eyes, brushing back your hair. “I'm begging you to love me. Be mad at me, scream at me, push me off this fucking roof. But please don't stop loving me.”
He had your hands grasped in his as he peppered a slower kiss on your lips.
“I never stopped loving you.”
When Robby kissed you again, breathing a sigh or relief against you you felt every word he'd said, every dream you'd made turned real and every hope came true. The promises he made were laced in the new softness to him and you learnt to trace those vows.
When Robby gave himself into love, it was the sort of love he'd never take back.
taglist (if you want to be added or took off just say the word!): @oldbaddies, @mafercita101,@tiddieshakeshownu, @mismwaa, @annabethpotter221b, @elizamoe133, @delicatedragonflower, @mysatnin, @cherbicdollie, @macbaetwo, @cod-guys-slvt, @rach2602, @beebeechaos, @generation-zero, @sofianotvergara, @berrybisous, @pinkpantheris, @lacy1986
synopsis robby invites you to stay with him when your apartment becomes un-inhabitable, and just when he thinks things might be moving ahead in your relationship, he's forced back to earth when he hears something he really wished he didn't. (10K words)
warningsrobby goes through it, he's needy, obsessed, then hurt and an ass because he's emotionally oppressed. language! naked-ness, typical hospital stuff though, death (louie :( )
author noteI had this idea from a tiktok and it was robby and whitaker but I just had to write for it. This tiktok. I feel like the endings a bit rushed but hope you like. gif credits to @timothyolyphant
The Pitt mastlist. Last Robby fic!
“You moving in?”
You tripped over your suitcase, lugging it up against the wall in the staff lounge, shoving it into the corner and chucking your bulging bag on top of it with a huff.
Langdon leant against the counter, smirking behind his coffee cup as he took the last sip.
“Ha ha, hilarious,” you said, without finding it anywhere close to funny.
“What's with all the bags?” he asked.
So you went on to explain how you'd finished your shift last night after pulling an extra three hours to help the night shift catch up. How you'd dragged yourself home because your car was still in the garage, getting in at two a.m to find your neighbours outside their apartment, robes hastily thrown on and bottom of pyjama pants dark and damp. You explained to him that pipes had bust all over the place, leaving your own apartment a water park.
“I'm looking at hotels to stay in till they figure it all out,” you said.
“Your insurance going to cover that?” he asked.
You peered at him through the sleep you didn't get. “You're funny this morning, Ken, you know that?”
“Well I got an early start.”
“Hey-”
At the call of Robby's voice, you straightened like you'd been caught doing something you shouldn't.
Frank laughed into his coffee mug.
It was embarrassing, really. How quick your body reacted to Robby and his call quicker than your mind could catch up. All he had to do was appear, say your name or catch your eye and you straightened, falling to his side and doing whatever he said. Somewhere along the way of working with him, he'd trained you.
“You're late,” he said, a small tug in the space between his brows. “Not like you, is everything okay?” Robby slipped in and Frank slipped out, pulling a face behind Robby, puckering lips directed at you.
“Sorry, sorry. My car's in the garage and the uber cancelled and I didn't really sleep much last night, it- it won't happen again.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Interesting night?”
You chuckled to yourself. “You could say that.”
Robby squinted at you before his eyes caught onto the pile of your stuff that wasn't there the last time he came in for a coffee. “Moving in?” he asked.
You laughed, a little more genuine then you had at Frank. “My apartment's flooded, they're just here till I can get a hotel.”
There was something heavy in the rise of his brows, in the way his expression morphed and his eyes widened only a little.
You tried to ignore it, because it almost looked like genuine concern. Not just for his resident that everyone claimed he had a soft spot for, but for the person behind the medical training. “They'll be moved by the end of the day.”
“You get any sleep last night?” he asked.
“Do I look that bad?” you asked with a pitiful huff.
“No,” Robby said at once. “Did you?”
“Couple hours. Those that were lucky enough not to wake up on the Titanic had a few sofas available.” You'd slept on Mrs Issac's sofa for three hours before you woke to her cat curled on your chest and your phone alarm blaring. It had felt as if your head had only just touched down, your dreams had only just started to form in mindless and faceless shapes before you were being brought back out of it.
Robby looked around at the staff room that was empty besides the two of you, peeking out the jutted open door. “We're pretty slow out there. South nineteen's empty.”
You nodded. “I'll look who's in chairs, get someone in-”
“Get some rest,” he said.
At some point Robby had come close to you, leaning his arm on the counter to support his weight. The tattoo hidden behind his watch peeking out at you. He stared down, studying you.
“I'm-I'm fine,” you said, un-sure what to do under his care.
Robby shook his head, lips tugged up slightly. “Fine isn't good enough for my best resident.”
Best resident. Somewhere along the way of working with him that title had been given to you; knelt on the ground, a sword going from shoulder to shoulder and there you had your title. Whenever he could, Robby slipped it into conversation with you, saying it more than your actual name.
“Thirty minutes,” he said.
Arguing with Robby was like arguing with a brick wall.
You sighed, imagining the scratchy blankets and hard bed but your body slumping at the idea of rest. “Thirty minutes. And get me if there's a trauma.”
“Which one of us is attending?” he asked, amused at the fight you tried to pull.
“You don't have best in front of your title though, do you?”
“I don't know, you tell me?”
“Hmm, only on Tuesday's.”
“Oh, Tuesday's are special days, huh?”
Tuesdays were special days because every Tuesday the two of you worked together. You don't know how you realised it, and maybe Robby didn't even know but every single Tuesday since you'd began the two of you had always been on shift together. Days off, weekends missed, long weekends and holidays but every Tuesday without a doubt, you and Robby were there.
Robby led you out, a phantom touch of his hand ballad up in the back of your scrub shirt before it was gone again.
“You'll wake me up?” you asked again.
He nodded his head once more. “I will wake you up.”
“And if somebody needs the bed?”
“I will personally throw you over my shoulder and put you somewhere else.”
You were suddenly glad your back was to him, so he couldn't see the blush on your cheeks at the very idea of being thrown over his shoulder. In your delirious state you picture the situation you'd have to be in to be thrown over his shoulder, the behaviour it would take to have him moving you around, hauling you about-
Thirty minutes of rest you could do.
“Hope you know what you're doing.”
Robby flinched at the accent and heavy smell of nicotine mixed with mint. He didn't even satisfy Dana by glancing back at her. “What?”
She chuckled. “Nothing. I guess.”
He shook his head and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, checking the hotels around the area. There seemed to be three types: expensive, high-end and pristine. Dirty, still not that cheap or booked up. How long would you need the room for? Was your landlord or anyone going to help you out for it? He didn't know your situation exactly but he knew what it was like to be a third year resident and stuck with bills.
Dana leant on the counter next to him, smirking.
“I'm just trying to help,” he excused.
“Yeah, sure.”
He peered at her over the black rim of his glasses. “Something else to say, Evans?”
Her head titled. “Don't you have a spare room at yours?”
Yes, he did. It was plain walled and not at all decorated besides a map of Pittsburgh train lines framed and not hung up. Some old Christmas gift from Jack that he couldn't get rid of in fear of offending him. The bed was comfy because it very rarely got slept on, aside from Jack or Jake on occasion. Truth was Robby couldn't remember the last time he had a guest over.
“Cheaper than a hotel,” she added. “Unless your up-tight.”
Suddenly he was thinking about it. You, in his place. You'd been around maybe once before, he re-called, un-able to re-count the circumstances that had you around.
“You'd be doing the girl I favour, I bet,” she continued.
Robby looked at the screen then back to her. “Has she... said something?”
“Not to me, but hey, she's been asleep the last hour. What do I know?”
Robby looked back down to the time at the computer, the numbers flickering by. He knew it had been longer than his half-an-hour. Really, he had no interest in waking you from your sleep unless he really, really had to. And if he had time to sit and scroll through hotels, you had time to sleep.
He let out a breath. “Apparently everything.”
She laughed. “Hey, you said it, not me. But if you can't put her up think I heard Santos offering up a sofa.”
Robby looked around the space, trying to find Santos or Whitaker to confirm. He didn't see either of them.
It was decided in his head then that he'd have to ask you to take up his guest room. He'd act it was all under the pretence of making sure you were well-rested, had a decent bed and your own space to sleep in, assuring you could get the rest and come in bright eyed and bushy tailed. Deep down he'd know, just to himself, it was because there was a seething bite of envy at the idea of Santos having you waking in her apartment, going home with you at the end of the day.
He dragged his hands down his face as Princess called out his name, demanding his attention.
What was a couple days, anyway.
“I need to talk to you about something.”
You looked up from your tablet, handing it over to Jesse as you stepped away from exam room six.
Robby stepped in Jesse's place, hands deep in his pockets, shoulders lifted high.
“Two hours,” you said. “I was asleep for two hours.”
“Sweet dreams?” he asked.
Yes. There had been dreams and rest. The blanket hadn't felt so scratchy and as tired as you were the noises of the Pitt were muffled in your mind. By the time you woke up your body felt lighter, you could practically feel the bags under your eyes retreat. Then you stepped out and there were new sets of patients, a different lighting in the place and the hour hand had moved all away around the clock.
“I dreamt there was a long que of patients waiting for the room,” you said. “A line like at Disney, except without the pay off.”
“They fast tracked to another,” he excused. “Can I talk to you now?”
He seemed restless, fists balling up in his fleece pockets and glasses tucked away in the front. His hair was tussled slightly, as if he'd already done a full day of work while you'd slept.
You waited for him to go on, watching his mouth open and close before he shook his head at himself, a light chuckle leaving him.
“I did some research,” he said, dragging out his words, in the way he did when he was nervous. You'd seen it when he was trying to let down every one of his flings, scared it was gonna end up loud in the middle of his ER. “Hotels in the area are expensive, I have a spare room, got a bed, it's big, my place is spacious and I'm hardly ever there. No garden but there's a balcony-”
Robby listed aspects of his apartment like he was putting it up for sale.
It took some time for you to realise what he was saying. A spare room, yours, he was offering. You caught the fact he'd looked up hotel rooms and suddenly you were imagining him, phone pulled out with the glow reflecting on his readers. Was he frowning at the prices? Was he rubbing at his beard in frustration, thinking which you'd prefer.
Was he hoping to find you a room so he didn't feel obliged to give up his own?
“That's- that's very kind of you, Robby,” you said softly, letting yourself down gently. “I- I can't do that.”
He frowned. “Do what?”
“Take your room.”
“It's not my room, it's a spare.”
You blushed, thinking that he thought you were thinking about staying in his room. “No! No, I-I get that, I just- I can't put you out like that.”
Robby rocked forward on his heels. “You wouldn't. Really.”
“I'm sure I could find somewhere cheap-”
“- you can't-”
“- or I can check around with friends-”
“- Santos only has a sofa,” he said, raising his brows.
“I-I have other friends.”
Robby pressed his lips into a thin line. “Like me?”
He was insistent. Had someone put him up to it? Had he seen how tired you were and felt bad?
Every morning you woke and before walking into work you took a shovel to the feelings you held for Robby and buried them deep, deep down, plunging a sign that read remain professional into the ditch of your own creation. You called him boss and cap, reminding yourself that's what he was. Of course a friend was another title too, but calling him friend and invading his space wasn't going to do much for your feelings. Or your nerves. And you liked to think you'd done a pretty good job in keeping both in check.
Robby rocked on his feet again, almost jittering. “I don't charge rent, you'd be saving some money.”
How many more excuses could you come up with? How long could you stand here going back and forth?
“How many bathrooms?” you asked.
“Just one.”
“You live in a quiet area?”
“Very.”
“You don't have a cat do you?”
He shook his head with a small smirk. “No. I had fish but lost them.”
You nodded, arms hugging yourself. Admitting yourself into his hands wasn't just a jump, more a leap. Denying yourself had been easier in work, when glimpses of Robby between procedures and patients was all you could gauge yourself on. In his space, you'd become full.
“Say yes and I'll put your stuff in my truck.”
Future regret bubbled up in your throat.
“Okay, fine,” you said, earning a slump of relief from him. “But I'm paying rent while I stay.”
He shook his head. “I don't need it.”
“It'll make me feel better,” you said. “I have to do something.”
Robby looked past you, thinking for a moment. “You cook?”
“Yes.”
“Okay then. While you're staying with me-” he jutted his thumbs at himself, like he was proud. “You can cook dinner, if you want.”
It wasn't a terrible service. More often then not you'd seen Robby slump his way out the place, mentioning something about a restaurant he was stopping by to pick up food that might last him a couple days. It would be like taking care of him and wasn't that what he was doing here? Taking care of you?
In a friendly way, of course.
“I will cook dinner,” you agreed.
“Great.” Robby seemed to relax in front of your eyes: his hands came out of his pockets, his shoulders shrunk and the crinkles at his eyes showed in a smile. “Your stuff's in my truck already.”
“Presumptuous,” you said, calling after him as he backed off slowly.
He shrugged. “Hopeful.”
But what did he have to hope for?
“Hey,” said Santos breathless and approaching you, moving your gaze from the pull of Robby's back to her. “I've got our labs back on that guy in seven.”
“Oh- er, great, great.” The tablet takes up your attention, but your mind lingers on the crows feet at Robby's eyes, the smile you saw briefly when you agreed to go home with him.
But Trinity Santos never missed a beat. “What was that about?” she asked in an uplifting teasing voice you were all too familiar with as she looked back at where Robby had disappeared to.
“What- what was what?”
“You and Robby, huh?”
“No. No me and Robby, don't make it weird.”
She smirked. “You're doing that all on your own.”
You carried yourself over to the nurses station, clocking Robby lingering in a corner, talking something over with Samira, so instead you distracted yourself with the tablet and charting. “He just offered me a place to stay.”
Santos's brows rose up high. “His place?”
You blushed under her analyses.
“Oh my god-”
“Don't- don't make it a thing-”
“It's already a thing,” she scoffed, leaning over and swatting at you. “You're staying at Robby's!”
“In his spare room, separate living completely.”
Santos leant back on the counter, looking around dreamily. “Suuurree, until you need the bathroom and just so happen to walk in on him, towel around his waist-”
“- Santos-”
“- it's all hot and steamy from his shower,” she continued. “And you just so happen to slip, right into his arms and- oh my- the towel falls.”
“You have too much time on your hands,” you said. “Go get Garcia for a surgical consult on twelve.”
Sulking, she did so, dragging her feet across the place while you were left to debate if the dent in your bank account was worth it to spare the dent in your heart.
A life with Robby was framed in different ways.
When you first stepped through his place, your case tugged in his hand and your bag slung over his shoulder along with his own, there was a thick layer of tension blanketing over everything, mystifying the tour he gave you. It didn't give in the morning when you both woke groggy from alarms, reaching for coffee. Through the day the tension sat between the two of you through patients and traumas.
It started to feel like a terrible idea.
Until you both went back to his that night and laughed about the couple that had super-glued themselves together, the teenage boy who got his head stuck in between balcony bars. You made mac & cheese, which Robby deemed the best he ever had but considering you only found kraft cheese boxes in his cupboards, you didn't think much of it.
Then the routine built, mugs of coffee in the morning, a hearty breakfast started by whoever was up earlier in the morning, taking turns in the bathroom with only the occasional awkward bump in to each other in between brushings of teeth.
It was one morning when he stepped out, a smudge of minty white toothpaste in the corner of his mouth.
“You've got a bit of-” you'd told him, gesturing to the corner of his mouth by your own.
He rubbed and missed it completely and your hand reached out first. It was like you were watching it outside of your own body, as your thumb swiped away at the corner of his mouth, scratching at his beard.
Every morning since then Robby had walked out with that same bit of smudged toothpaste and every time you spotted it, you got rid of it for him.
Feeling the heat of his breath dance along your fingertips.
The peppermint smell of him clinging like second skin.
The wet fall of his hair, droplets dripping down to your feet.
It made every morning harder, but made every one more the while.
In work, you had your own new routine between the two of you.
In the mornings everyone in the Pitt- including those that stuck around from night long enough- lingered to watch as you and Robby walked in side by side, heading straight for the fridge in the lounge.
There, Robby would pull out two containers of leftovers from the night before while talking about.... well, sometimes nobody could really tell what it was.
“- all I'm saying is that if it was real life they'd be shut down instantly,” Shen caught Robby telling you, shamelessly lingering in the door way with Abbot and Javadi.
“It's not real life, it's Disney.”
“It's a restaurant ran by a rat!”
“It's whimsy.”
Robby grumbled under his breath. “It's un-realistic.”
You laughed and as busy as you were laughing you didn't see the look Robby gave you, a smile of his own. A soft one, because when he was looking at you, nothing had to be loud. “Just wait till you watch Cinderella, the rats sew a dress!”
Abbot was first to clear his throat. “Good morning, happy couple.”
And Robby's expression dropped, passing a glare to his friend.
As distracted as he was with the glare, he didn't see the way your face fell. The disappointment that marred your features.
“Got anything fun for me?” asked Robby, clapping his hands and getting to business, taking the night shift attendings by the shoulders and dragging them out.
Javadi entered in, a sheepish smirk on her lips. “So, how's it going?” she asked with all the air of a girl needing gossip.
“It's fine,” you said.
It had been three weeks of living inside of his apartment, of his space becoming yours, of shows he'd never think about watching slowly enrapturing him.
“Just fine?” she asked. “Isn't this supposed to be the part where the two of you get together?”
It was a few beers kind of mistake to tell Javadi on your feelings for Robby. But she was a med-student harbouring hard feelings for Matteo and you'd been desperate to bond and suddenly it turned into Javadi shooting you looks across the floor whenever Robby got too close, and he was doing that a lot recently.
“No, no, that's crossing so many lines,” you excused.
“Yeah but, he invited you to stay.”
“As a friendly gesture.”
“And how friendly do we know Robby to be?”
With you, very. With others it was more a tough game to play to get Robby to show some sympathy.
Your mouth was left ajar, stuttering on words you couldn't even come up with when Princess drummed her knuckles on the door.
“Louie's in south nineteen, asking for you.”
Never had you been so thankful to be called away on a patient run, especially when it was one of your terribly concealed favourites.
But you didn't leave quick enough to not catch how Princess crowded in Victoria, asking her what the latest was.
You managed to skirt your way over to nineteen without any more fans asking you about your new living situations. You were more than happy to hide away with Louie.
“Hey, doc!” he grinned as you let the door shut behind you.
“Louie, it's been weeks, what took you so long?” you joked, taking the stool and wheeling over to him with a smile. Really, you'd been worried when he hadn't come in- counting two months down since his last visit. It didn't give you hope that he was doing better, it filled you with dread he'd given up entirely.
He chuckled. “Sorry, doc, been busy.”
“A good busy?”
“Always.”
It was one of those slow nights when Louie came in when you and Robby were working- a Tuesday night where you were just about to go home when you checked in on Louie one more time, finding him half way through a devastating story on his life.
You'd cried in the bathroom and Robby had silently handed you a tissue when you stepped out, cold water splashed in your face.
“Hold out your hand for me, Louie,” you said, watching him do so with a tremble you could have bet your money on. “Shaky, huh?”
“Well it is eight a.m,” he grinned.
“We'll start you with fifty of Librium, as always. Anything else bothering you, Louie?”
“I had some aching in my side, right there-” diligently he showed you the pain, wincing as he pressed down on the pain.
You tugged on gloves and did an exam, finding the are bruised.
“You been in any trouble recently?” you asked, knowing that if Louie ever was in a fight, it would never be started by him. He was happy to drink silently.
“Not that I remember, maybe with a stool,” he joked.
You smiled with him, testing out spots of his chest and asking him to breathe in, listening down the stethoscope. “Everything seems fine but we'll get an ultrasound in to check you over.”
He waved you off. “Don't rush, doc, I like to watch the people go by sometimes.”
You entertained him. “Course, I'll be back shortly.”
You got Perlah on the case, someone just as happy to see Louie as you were, the duo that took the best care of him. Then you were occupied with slowly ticking off the board, discharging simple cases, working harder on the demanding ones.
At some point in the morning Robby slid in next to you, taking his place casually.
“I think I win for most interesting case today,” he said.
Happily, you looked up from your charts. “I didn't realise it was a competition?”
“Competition keeps you young,” he said, head nodding side to side.
“I'm not the one that needs to be kept young,” you teased.
There was smirk of shock that gave way to darkening eyes and a straighter back when he pulled himself up.
“You wanna play that?”
“I'm playing that,” you said. “I'm surprised you don't have an old mans seat when you shower.”
“I didn't realise you thought about me showering.”
It took you so off guard your elbow slipped, taking down someone's abandoned coffee.
“Shit!” You cursed, clamouring to the shards and spilt liquid.
Robby was still chuckling to himself when he knelt next to you, collecting the bits of mug in his hands, taking what you had in yours to his also.
“I- I don't think about you showering,” you said, quietly. “Of course I don't, I just- I just meant- a joke. It was a joke.”
Robby inhaled, tilting his head to get a look at you. “Really?”
“Yeah, yeah, god, I-I didn't-”
Your name was cried out and the shards of China fell back to the ground as Perlah helplessly stood outside of Louie's room. Almost slipping on the coffee, you took off in a run, Robby hot on your heels as you burst through the doors.
“He just- he just started-” Perlah panicked among the blood.
He lay still, un-responsive and you didn't miss a beat in jumping up, pumping down on his chest with gloves, without a gown, just the need to save a life that had been drilled into you.
His blood got on your hands, under your nails as with every pump down on his chest, you pumped more blood out.
“Get an intubation tray, crash cart and suction, now!” Robby called as a flood of nurses assembled around you. He was intubated and a bag put in place, a nurse came in for suction and the heavy rolling wheels of the crash cart sounded.
It fell upon you muffled as your arms shook while pressing down on his chest.
“We can swap out,” Robby offered quietly from behind you.
“No, no, I- I got this,” you said through the gasps and slow bead of sweat beginning down your temple. “C'mon Louie, c'mon-”
Perlah stretched over, slamming down pads on his chest, under the gown that practically had his name on it from how often he visited. “Pads in place!”
“Hold compressions!” said Robby.
You backed up enough to get a reading, getting a dull feeling of Robby's hands on your arms as you trembled. “Still V-Fib,” you said, climbing off the bed. “Charge to two hundred!”
“Charged!”
“Clear!”
So it went on, maybe only for minutes, maybe for an hour. A continuous rhythm of your chest compressions, the push of epi, the constant let down of no pulse, the flow of blood. And Robby's eyes only fumble from you to check on Louie before returning to you.
Everyone in the room hung on the thread of the flatline.
“Do we push more epi?” asked Perlah.
There was a silence behind you but you could picture the slow shake of Robby's head. You'd seen it in dozens of patients, in several helpless cases.
“Robby?” you called out helplessly, without knowing what you were calling for.
He was slow in his approach to you but you could feel him closer, know he was reaching out. “We've done everything we can.” It wasn't harsh. It wasn't kind. It was fact and sometimes fact was neither thing.
His hand was gentle on your shoulder, not squeezing or pulling. Just there. It was enough for you to feel everything deep down in your bones, the pressure of trying to bring him back to life making you weak and Robby's touch helping you give up.
You didn't recall the calling of his time of death, or the stumbling out the room, the wiping down of his blood on your scrubs. You didn't know anything until you made it out to the ambulance bay, drinking in gulps of fresh air that seemed to poison you more then help.
It clamped down on your chest and choaked at your throat-
“Hey, hey- it's okay, you're okay-”
Arms were tugging at you, pulling you into a chest you'd grown knwon with.
You pushed back. “No, no, I'm bloody, I- I can't-”
“Shh-” Robby cooed.
He embraced you tightly, suffocating you into his chest like he was trying to tell the rest of the world to go away, to shield you from the hospital and ambulances would inevitably come by. Robby stood there, arms strong and protecting you. He rocked slightly, lips pressed to the top of your head like it was a natural thing to do. Like you'd never felt them there or anywhere else before.
“I'm sorry,” you sniffed into his chest.
“No, don't be- shh,” he whispered into you. “You did everything you could.”
“He's gone, he's gone,” you mumbled.
Robby held you until he felt he could let you go, which proved a while. By the time you'd dragged yourself back in, red faced and teary eyed word had spread about Louie. Robby remained behind you, a hand curling against the lower parts of your back as he guided you through to the scrub bin, daring anyone to stop and ask you what happened.
He was a dog ready to bite.
“Take some time,” he said in the same air he'd used to ask you to stay with him. With no room for arguments.
You changed scrubs, met Perlah in the middle of the nurses hub for support. When Louie's body was took to the viewing room, Robby stayed stuck at your side, fingers brushing yours as he let everyone who wanted to say goodbye, say it.
By your side he stayed for the rest of the day, with biting breaths and lingering looks. His touches became every other moment, every spare second he knelt next to you, checking in.
“I'm fine,” you told him repeatedly as the day went on, as new patient names clouded your mind and traumas stole your attention.
“We'll get out of here, tonight,” he promised, hand edging closer to yours. Closer to something he wouldn't be able to take back. “No cooking tonight, we'll pick something up.”
“I can- I can cook-”
Robby shook his head. “And you can pick the movie.”
You smiled, though it was tainted from the pain. “Even if it has talking animals?”
His eyes rolled playfully as he sighed, pushing himself up. “If you must.” His hands were gentle on your shoulders as he squeezed, moving by.
When you looked back up you weren't surprised to see the fleeing eyes of Dana over her glasses.
She knew you'd caught her but only turned and walked off. You didn't know how you knew she was still smiling, but you knew.
By the time you and Robby got home- back to his- the sky had darkened and the Thai was procured on the drive back.
He'd let you shower first, knowing you still felt the need to scrub the phantoms of the day from you. You'd been so desperate you'd left your own wash bag in your room, your own robe there. So you bathed in Robby's signature smell, washed your hair in his shampoo that wasn't a two in one.
You wrapped yourself in a towel that was fluffy and smelt like him, wiping down condensation from the window before letting yourself sit with the grief.
It was never a good idea, alone in your own apartment to let the day haunt you. In Robby's place, surrounded by a smell that was all his, you safely let yourself remember the wobble in your arms, the pain in your heart and ache in your body.
You stood, re-tucking the towel around you when the door burst open at once.
“Shit- shit-”
You grasped at the towel as it slipped down your body, clutching it to your chest before it could expose everything.
Robby stood, frozen in the doorway, his lips parted slowly. “Shit- sorry, I thought you were done.”
“I'm- I'm finishing up,” you gulped.
Robby nodded, hand clenched on the door.
You watched his eyes catch a glance past your shoulder, seeing something there that had a blush creeping up his neck and ears. Something that made him bashful and looking away.
A chill ran down your body, from the toll of the day, the lack of clothing around you or the look Robby gave you.
“I'll, er- just...” you trailed off.
Robby closed his eyes, breathing deep. “Yeah. Yeah.”
The door inched closed slower. Before it shut completely you were sure Robby paused, sure you heard him inhale and sigh before you caught the retreat of his footsteps.
You body sunk in on itself, catching the electricity buried under your skin by just being looked at by him. At the idea that he could smell him on you.
It wasn't until you turned, catching a glimpse of yourself in the wiped down mirror that you realised.
Wiped down.
When Robby glanced behind you- to the mirror- he'd blushed at the sight of that part of you left bare. The slope of your back, the dimples that sat just above your ass and the curve of you.
He'd got a glimpse of it. Not just a glimpse by the way he paused- an eyeful.
“Fuck.”
It was bound to happen, maybe, with how long the two of you had been in co-habitation. But the day had been messy enough. Navigating the corners of yours and Robby's changed relationship.... you didn't have the nerve, though it felt alight by his look.
Maybe he hadn't seen anything, you told yourself as you dressed.
He probably didn't even notice, you said as you threw your damp hair up.
Just don't bring it up and he probably won't, you repeated as you stepped out.
When you came back out Robby was hiding in the kitchen, tucking himself right into the counter as he set up several dishes of all the food you'd ordered. His head was tucked low but there was a new sheen of sweat at the expanse of his neck still poking out from his scrubs.
“Sorry for taking so long,” you apologised, slipping into a stool across from him.
He shook his head and shrugged without looking at you.
“Smells good!” you said, reaching for the food that lay between you.
Muscles in Robby's jaw moved. Tightening.
You watched his tongue run over the bottom of his lip before he stepped back from the counter, a finger running over his lips as he excused himself quickly.
It was just a glimpse you thought you caught, something tightening in his scrub pants exenterated by his hands trying to be discreet in covering it (and failing).
Only when you went back to the bathroom an hour later, to brush your teeth did you notice the very, very cold setting of the shower. But if he didn't bring it up, neither would you.
Robby was only supposed to be passing. It had been ten minutes since he last caught a glimpse of you and he decided that was nine minutes too long.
He couldn't pinpoint when exactly the obsession started, if he wanted to call it that. It could have been when your things started to pile up at his, your favourite mug that you drank from sitting comfortably next to his every morning, or the cook books you went back to like it was your bible. It might've been before you'd even effectively moved in with him. Maybe when he saw the way you commanded a room around a trauma, never once doubting yourself.
Whenever it began it only increased with every good morning he got, every night and gentle touch he felt.
And finding you in that bathroom, a blink and miss it moment when your towel started to fall. The expanse of everything behind you that you were so un-aware of.
Robby felt dirty for the erection he supported most the night, even after the coldest shower of his life and taking care of it in his bed when you were sure you were asleep.
It had taken every bit of taught and measure self-restraint to keep his hands off you. You'd had a tough day, Robby throwing himself at your mercy wasn't going to help.
But it had been a week since then, a week of near misses and close calls in the bathroom the two of you were treating like a battleground. The splotches of toothpaste he let linger on him got further and further along his mouth, the playing clueless became more silly. The brushed past each other in the kitchen when there was plenty of room became more telling.
It was all supposed to be going somewhere.
“ - while she is playing house with her boss,” he caught Santos saying, hers, yours and Javadi's backs to him as he slowed his approach.
“It's messy,” said Victoria.
“Oh, would you- the two of you stop,” you said. “It's not like that.”
“No?” asked Javadi.
“It's not like what?” he heard the teasing uplift of Trinity's voice.
“Like what you're trying to say,” you argued. “Robby and I are friends, just friends.”
Santos nodded, head lowering. “Sure. Friends. Friends with house mate benefits.”
“What are house mate benefits?” asked Javadi, looking over to you enough that Robby could catch a grin.
“Oh, use your imagination,” said Santos. “One bathroom, two people, trips to get water from the kitchen, in nothing but skimpy little-”
Robby could practically see the face you were pulling.
“Oh, can we not talk about this?” you said. “Nothing like that has happened, nothing like that will happen. We're friends, just friends.”
Robby didn't realise how badly he must have wanted it to be more until he heard you dismiss it out of hand. Until he heard the mocking chuckle of his doctors at what you were saying. That nothing was ever going to happen, essentially admitting you didn't think about the escapade in the bathroom as much as he did.
Why would you? You probably thought it was odd and gross how he lingered. How he acted the rest of the night- withdrawn and ashamed- probably didn't help.
What? Did he think that after spending more time with him, living with him, you'd grow to care in a way he had for you. In a way he'd tried to ignore for months?
Did he really think he stood a fucking chance?
He was hyper aware of himself, standing there like an idiot with the fading mark of his heart on his sleeve. Soon somebody would call his name, his game would be up and the three of you would turn to him, catching him there.
Robby cleared his throat and shouldered between you and Victoria, practically tossing the tablet down. “Guy in five needs a surgical consult on a blood clot.”
Santos held up her hands to be clear of it and Javadi was walking away at once.
Robby watched you take it and he left.
It was time to start re-building his heart.
“Hey,” you said, quick to follow him. “I was thinking of trying a carbonara tonight, do you like it?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. Cool. You know if we have parmigiana?”
“I have more pressing things to think about then what's in my fridge,” he said.
You were quiet for a moment and he hoped he'd scared you away. “Everything okay?”
“Fine.”
“Are you sure? Has something happened?”
“No,” he huffed, halting at the door to trauma two where a car crash victim was under the scope of three capable doctors. What was one more? “Now instead of pestering me can you go do you're fucking job?”
The flash of hurt in your eyes was almost enough to have him apologising. To have him cave and tell you he didn't want to just be friends, that he couldn't go a day without feeling you and being calmed instantly.
Almost.
Your lips pursed and you held the tablet up to your chest like it was a shield. “I will get right on that, boss.”
The tension that began at his house when you first joined him in the space of his walls falls returned, un-invited, with a vengeance.
After Robby's snap at you you figured it was a bad day, that things had piled up and him and he didn't want to talk about it. He still waited for you at the end of his shift, still drove you home but in a silence that was stale. He went to the bathroom first and you started on dinner, making two plates of the pasta you'd promised.
He never left his room that night and his dinner was still sitting on the counter in the morning.
It continued for three days. No blushing meetings outside of the bathroom, no movie's he'd fall asleep to and miss the end- though insisting he was only resting his eyes- it all stopped, quickly.
So quick you had no time to think of what had gone wrong.
“Hey,” said Victoria, lingering next to you as you went back to your search for cheap hotels that didn't have complaints of bug bites.
“Hey.”
“Your leftovers smell so good.”
“Thanks.”
“I didn't even pack lunch today,” she added, a small smile bitten back.
You huffed a laugh. “You can take Robby's, I don't think he's hungry.”
“Really?” she said. “He's usually very punctual about your lunches.”
He was, until a few days ago when you'd tried to find him to see if he was hungry, so you could sit down to your leftover together as you had done. But he'd brushed by you, telling you he wasn't hungry. He did so every day you asked.
“Has something happened?” asked Victoria.
Yes, something had clearly happened but you didn't know what.
“No, just.... Robby being Robby I guess.” You shrugged it off but the indifference hurt because it wasn't just Robby being Robby. You'd found a different Robby, the one that wasn't snapping and grumpy every day, the one who coaxed you to your room when you were too tired to move from the sofa, the one who let you hum along to the songs in the movies you'd pick, the Robby that made you coffee just the way you like. You'd never even had to tell him.
“Oh. I'm sorry,” she said. “You know if I didn't live with my parents I'd let you stay, of course.”
You smiled. “I know. Thanks.”
The hotel you settled on wasn't in the top ten in the city and it was nearly forty minutes out of your way. Earlier mornings were a small price to pay.
You let Robby drive you home without conversation, let him tirelessly switch from one radio to the other. Your fingers curled and un-curled against your knees in anxiety.
“My-urm- apartment is up and running again,” you said.
Robby's knuckles bleached white on the steering wheel. “Oh yeah?”
You nodded. “Yeah. I can get my stuff packed up and be out your hair.”
Robby didn't say anything. You glanced at him, seeing the tightness of his body and the eyes he kept plastered on the road. “It's late,” he said, mouth moving to say something else before he closed it again and thought. “I can give you a lift over.”
“You- you don't have to,” you said. The idea of one more tense car ride was enough to have you thinking about jumping out the moving vehicle. “I can book an uber.”
“It's late.”
Robby kept himself busy while you packed up the clothes you'd un-packed in the wardrobe in his room. He packed up your toiletries and your kitchen things that had slowly wound themselves in his cupboards.
You were already at the door, your case and bag standing next to you, your phone warming in your hand as you checked your hotel booking and uber confirmation.
Robby walked out from the bathroom, your toiletery bag in hand.
“I've got an uber booked,” you told him, quickly. “It's been a long day, I didn't want you to have to drive anymore.”
He nodded, slowly, handing you the bag. “Okay.” His hands retreated back to his pockets.
You loitered. You still had ten minutes before your uber on the way. “I'm sorry if I out-stayed my welcome.”
He shrugged, shaking his head. “However long it took to get your place fixed.”
“Still, I didn't mean for it to take this long.”
Robby didn't reply and his gaze faded away from you.
It was a heavy goodbye. The longer you'd stayed with him the little time you gave to thinking how leaving would work. You wouldn't be escaping him, no, he'd be stuck in your mind and lingering in the corner of your gaze. You'd still remember how he looked when he was falling asleep, how his shower smelt and the way he stretched in the morning.
They'd all be happy memories of another time.
You took it with you like extra baggage into the uber and into the two star hotel.
Robby knew he was ingraining himself into the night shift longer than he needed to but since you left a week ago his apartment was cold, empty and he loathed it.
He hated that there was no other noise, no other mug sitting next to his, nobody to talk to. Hated it so much he was choosing the taunting walls of the Pitt over heading back.
“You thinking of joining the night crawlers?” Jack asked, finding Robby stretching at the hub of the Pitt.
“Nope.”
“Oh. It's just, you're still here, so I assumed,” Jack teased.
“I get it,” said Robby in a sing-song voice.
“It can't be that bad, can it?” asked Abbot. “You see her tomorrow.”
Robby wished he could say he didn't know what Jack was talking about but it was painfully obvious to everyone that he couldn't deny it himself. There was no more coming in together, in fact, you'd been coming in late but he was doing his best to avoid you he couldn't talk to you to find out why. He no longer had a tub of well-cooked food or your teasing invitation to eat with you.
It felt like he had nothing all over again.
He looked down to the nurses counter, picking at a mark on there. “It's just...” he trailed, trying to think of a word to sum it all up.
“Yeah?” asked Jack, leaning next to him.
“Quiet.” He decided on.
Jack nodded, slowly. He glanced away before frowning at whatever he'd found. “What happened anyway? The pipes at her place were fixed so you just kicked her out?”
“No, she wanted to leave.”
“So you guys can't just, hang out?” he asked, holding his hands behind his back.
Robby made a pfft noise. “Hang out?”
“Well, Dana says-”
“- Dana-” he scoffed.
“Dana says the two of you can hardly look at each other,” said Jack. “Seems to be a change from what I'd heard before.”
Robby looked at him. “And what did you hear before?”
“You laugh,” he said, like it was a rare phenomenon. “Heard you joke. Saw you smile. Saw you happy.”
He thought about you, grinning with Santos and Javadi as you told them you were just friends, that nothing had happened and nothing was going to happen. He remembered how you looked at him first thing in the mornings and last thing at night, how you were- and still- were on his mind as he laid his head down and pushed himself up in the morning.
“She... she made it clear that nothing was going to happen between us,” Robby admitted.
“And you wanted more?”
Robby was still, the flecks of the stain coming off under his nail.
“Want more?” Jack corrected.
He nodded.
“And did you tell her that?”
It was rather annoying, sometimes, how well Jack knew him.
“I didn't have to.”
“I think you did. You still do,” said Jack. “Just talk to her man, tell her how you feel-”
Robby shook his head at once. “- no-”
“Robby. Brother,” said Jack with a firm pat on his back. “I've seen how you look at her. I've seen how she looks at you. Take it from me, it would be a waste to let that go.”
He didn't want to let it go, but Robby didn't know how to hold on either.
“Hey, big bosses!” Lena called. “Got major trauma's coming, hotel caught fire. We're the closest hospital, Westbridge can only take two traumas and ten minors.”
“Send them our way, I'll round up the crawlers!” said Jack already sliding into his professionalism.
“I'll hang around then,” said Robby, almost spitefully proving a point to Jack. That he didn't need to go home.
“I'm giving you an hour.”
An hour was all he needed.
A flood of people, most in their sleep wear, robes hastily thrown and tied up flooded in. Many were covered in ash, faces grey or pale. They were checked over for smoke inhalation, nobody got through without a stethoscope to their chest and back. There was a family of four who's father was being treated for bad burns. An elderly man with cancer that was put up to south eighteen, chefs from the small hotel kitchen that were being seen for burns, damage to their lungs and everything else.
“I told you! I told you!” one of them shouted, accent foreign to Robby. “That place is a death trap! It was just waiting to go up in flames!”
Robby stepped out and decided to let them argue, tugging of gloves and fetching another pair from the always stocked box on the wall. “Is that everyone?”
“Just one more, pulling up now!” said Lena, yelling over the chaos the ED had turned into to.
Just one more. That heavy set of exhaustion was starting to settle in his feet, making them ache. It was nearing one in the morning, in five hours time he'd need to be up and heading in.
He thought it was the need for sleep that had him hearing your voice.
“Mark Tellon, on his seventies, severe smoke inhalation and asthma attack. No signed nasal hair, his pulse ox is at eighty-four wet crackles bilaterally!”
There was no such thing as dreaming.
Robby stumbled at the sight of you in bottoms that were too long for you, in a cartoon character he couldn't name, in a shirt that drowned you. He guessed it was once white but was stained in ash and smoke, as was your face and hair.
You wheeled in the man with the paramedics and Robby stepped just ahead.
“What the hell happened?” he demanded.
“Hotel caught fire, quick evacuation, this is everyone,” you listed, clinically.
“You were there?”
You glanced up at him as the bed of the old man was wheeled by the two of you. He watched your face fall, smudging ash as you wiped at your forehead. “Er-”
Robby didn't care for the answer. Well, he did but not when your eyes were hazy, skin clammy and smoke and ash covered you. His hands climbed at your cheeks, holding you there and looking into your eyes. “Have you been checked over?”
“Urm, no I'm fine-”
“C'mon-”
“What? Robby!” you protested even as his fingers wrapped around your forearms, dragging you across the floor and past patients waiting for consults and doctors and nurses clearly rushed off their feet.
There was no spare room available but the family room so Robby took you there, where it was empty, and closed the door behind him.
You were stuck, again, alone with Robby. Exactly the place you'd tried not to be. But he'd closed the door behind him, zoned in on you with that tight crease of worry between his brows.
You stood there, holding onto yourself.
Robby made you follow his finger with your eyes, his other hand steadying your cheek as he watched you. “Any dizziness?”
“No, I'm fine.”
He took his penlight out from his pocket of tricks next, shining the light and checking your pupil response, you knew how it all worked and let him go through the motions. “You inhaled smoke?” he asked.
“Probably. I was trying to make sure everyone got out, first.”
There was a tut from his lips but a small upturn in his cheeks.
“Course you were,” he mumbled, ditching the pen light when he was done with it.
“Honestly, I'm fine, I'll just need a shower.”
Robby was already making his way behind you, warming up the drum of his stethoscope in the palm of his hand. Still, when you felt the brush of his rough fingertips skirting over the skin of your back and the metal pressing along, you shivered. “Breathe in.”
You took a deep breath in, Robby's eyes burning a hole in the back of your head.
“Breathe out.”
You did everything he said.
He moved so he was in front of you, sliding the stethoscope down the front of your shirt, closer over the drum of your heart.
Robby's eyes remained lower, not meeting your gaze. “Breathe in.”
Your chest expanded into his hand.
“Your heart's racing,” he observed.
You swallowed down the feeling of him so close. “Yeah. Probably. Been a crazy night.”
Gently his hands smoothed down your arms, sitting you down on the leather chairs as he set himself on the small coffee table in front of you.
“Want to tell me why you were at the hotel to begin with?” he asked, elbows rested on his knees and hands clasped together. “Cause I can come up with my own ideas and I don't like them.”
Lying to him had proved a silly task time and time again.
“My apartment isn't actually ready to be lived in yet,” you admitted, low in your throat and looking down to his hands. The only update you had from your apartment was that it would take another week, followed by a hopefully.
“No?” he said in fake disbelief.
You shook your head. “I just guessed I'd out stayed my welcome, you wanted to be alone.”
“No,” he said. “No, you didn't. You could've stayed.”
You eyed Robby. “You didn't really seem like you wanted me there anymore.”
You watched as he sighed, shoulders slumping.
Robby's fingers thread and un-thread. “It wasn't like that.”
“I mean did I- did I do something?” you asked, a spew of words ready at the barrel of your gun. “I thought we were okay.”
“So did I,” he said, bringing up his gaze and taking a deep, shuddering breath. “So did I.”
“Then what?”
Robby pushed himself up, hands flying to the back of his head and patting down his hair. His boots scuffed against the floor as he paced the area small and not built for pacing. “I thought things were going really well,” he admitted, hands making a weak gesture between the two of you. “I thought there were moments.”
“There were!” you opposed, quickly.
Was this a chance you'd been looking for? Was he wanting you to say there was something more? That the touches and everything else meant something.
He looked at you, arms pulling over his chest. “But we're just friends, right?”
There was a way he was saying it, a bite to his words like a dog barking, trying to make a point. Just friends.
With your head spinning you remembered another time of saying those words. You remembered Santos's teasing (really it was hard to pick one particular moment out from it all) and Javadi there too. You remembered their teasing grins, asking you about benefits-
And how Robby forced the tablet in between the three of you.
Your head hung, hands wiping away the stress. “Oh god.”
Robby waited.
“Oh god,” your voice came out muffled by your own hands. “Robby-”
“Yeah, I started to like you,” he said, trying to make it all seem like it was no big deal, body moving to shake it of. “I shouldn't, I know. I'm your boss, you're the resident, you were staying with me as a guest.”
“Robby, I-” you pushed yourself up, making your way around the table.
“- and you made it very clear to Doctor Santos and Doctor Javadi-”
“- they were teasing me, it was- it was nothing. I didn't mean it! I mean, they'd been teasing me for weeks, they were just annoying me.”
His body moved in his breath as looked at you. “You don't have to lie.”
“I'm not!”
“You lied about your place. Instead you chose a hotel, one that was a death trap, apparently.”
“I thought you hated me!”
“No, I want you!”
“And I want you!” you yelled.
“You didn't tell me.”
“Well, you didn't tell me.”
Robby scoffed. “Yeah, I'm the one who's supposed to have communication issues, sweetheart.”
Within seconds you had thrown yourself into Robby's arms, practically leaping atop him and kissing him. His lips were frozen, body waking up slowly as his arms curled around your back, holding you in. You could feel the scrunch of his noise and the scrape of his beard as he didn't kiss you back.
You pulled away, keeping your eyes down.
Just because he wanted you, because you wanted him didn't mean throwing yourself at him (literally!) was going to work.
“I-I'm sorry, I thought-”
His hands drowned your face as he pulled you back in, head dipping low to lick his tongue into you. He pressed his mouth into your, letting his tongue in your mouth. His hands tilted your head back, thumbs brushing your cheeks as he reacted to you at once.
Your hands tugged a hold of his hoodie, bending him further along you while his hands slowed down your body, cupping your backside and digging his fingers in.
Some noise made its way out the back of his throat, groaning into your mouth.
“Are we-” you said against his lips. “Mmp; are we doing this right now?”
“Doing what?” He mumbled, tilting his head to nudge your mouth open deeper.
You smiled against him. “Making out in the family room?”
“God, I hope so.”
His mouth was open, warm and welcoming as he kissed you harder, finding parts of you nobody had ever found before.
“I meant it,” said Robby against you, his tongue running over the tip of your lip. “I want you.”
You nudged your nose with his, arms coming to wrap around the back of his neck. “I mean it. I don’t- we’re not just friends, Robby.”
“Yeah,” he sighed, smirking. “I don’t think think friends kiss each other the way I’m about to kiss you.”
taglist (if you want to be added or took off just say the word!): @oldbaddies, @mafercita101,@tiddieshakeshownu, @mismwaa, @annabethpotter221b, @elizamoe133, @delicatedragonflower, @mysatnin, @cherbicdollie, @macbaetwo, @cod-guys-slvt, @rach2602, @beebeechaos, @generation-zero, @sofianotvergara, @berrybisous, @pinkpantheris, @lacy1986, @marquiserose
I love your smut, truly I do. But could I get some fluffy omegaverse Rabbot? Just two mates being happy in their nest please?
"Comfortable, alpha?" Jack whispers to his mate, observing the way he's curled up in Jack's nest after being so graciously invited in.
Robby nods, clutching one of Jack's shirts close, breathing in its scent. Jack snuggles up with him, his back to Robby's front, Robby's arm going around his waist as they get settled.
"This whole nest smells like you," Jack whispers. "I love it." He designed it that way, meticulously. Every piece of this nest was carefully selected to fit them both, to make it smell of them and their bonding.
"My talented omega," Robby praises, getting ready to fall asleep with Jack in his arms. In here, the rest of the world can't touch them. In here, they're safe.
“we need to stop the stigma towards drug users and addicts” and “we need to challenge the idea that being sober makes you boring” and “we need to stop acting like binge drinking to the extent you’re doing medical damage is fun and normal for young people” are all ideas that can and should coexist.
just so we’re clear, the threshold for “binge drinking to the extent you’re doing medical damage” is waaaay lower than you think.
I work in an obstetrician and gynaecologist’s office. we have to tell patients on a regular basis that they are binge drinking weekly when they think they are simply consuming a normal amount of alcohol on the weekends.
having more than 3 drinks in a single sitting if you have an estrogen based endocrine system is a binge that is medically significant.
having more than 5 in a sitting is a medically significant binge for someone with a testosterone based endocrine system.
every time you do this, it significantly impacts your risk of getting breast cancer, and damages your liver. it takes time to recover from that liver damage. if you’re having a 3-5 or more drink binge on a weekly basis, you are an alcoholic, medically speaking, and your liver is not recovering.
again: the bar for what binge drinking is, medically, is so much lower than what you think it is.
alcohol is a really toxic substance and not something you should fuck around with.
again: if you have an estrogenized hormone system (common for most women), then 3 drinks is a binge. if you have a testosteronized hormone system (common for most men), then 5 drinks is a binge.
anything above that number, consumed as frequently as weekly or more, and you’re medically a binge drinking alcoholic.
also, if you’re drinking any quantity of alcohol 6 days a week or more, that’s another threshold at which, medically speaking, you meet the definition of alcoholism. your liver needs more days without alcohol in your system than just one a week to recover and be healthy.
I don’t say any of this to shame anyone—to me, alcoholism or substance use disorders aren’t a sign of weakness or moral failing. and most of us genuinely don’t know this stuff.
rather—I point this out because it’s important to reduce harm, and find ways to live healthier, happier lives. there is a life outside of constant binge drinking. it’s not always easy to find it. but it’s out there. you deserve a life where your emotional needs are met by something other than alcohol, and a life in which your liver is healthy, and the ways you cope and celebrate and find joy don’t put you at increased risk of cancer.
also–even if alcohol is the only way you can self-medicate, or if you choose to go on with your alcohol usage anyway regardless of other options–you still deserve to know what it’s doing to your body.
information is key. you don’t have to stop drinking, but the utter lack of education on alcohol + the normalization of binge drinking in current society leads to many people drinking without any idea of what it’s doing to their bodies.
addicts deserve accurate medical information regardless of what they decide to do with it. for some people, losing liver function is worth the benefits they get from binge drinking, but they can’t make that choice if they don’t know what the consequences are to begin with.
listen; while i do think abbot is a freak, i also think he is especially around violence too often. working in the ED they see wounds, sure, but jack abbot in the field sees injuries wrought from intent.
because of this, i think he truly does enjoy the gentleness of intimacy when it comes to sex. he likes to look at robby's face, he doesn't want any rough actions, even if they'd be eagerly welcomed. he wants to cup robby's graying beard and murmur sweet words to him, to feel the warm body against his own, and the heart beating in the chest under him. i'd like to think he sleeps the same way too, where he can feel robby's pulse.
They were already closing for the day, Jack had already sent his staff home early since he was in charge of closing the restaurant. Moments like this he usually reserved for himself, just admiring the silence as he tidies up the kitchen. The door opened, Jack must have forgot to put the closing sign and was about to tell the person that they were already closed but he stopped at his tracks at the weary man who looked like he really needed a meal.
Jack knew who he was of course, one of Dana's friends who worked at the nearby ED as the chief attending, and so happened to be one of the prettiest doctor Jack had ever seen. The man was still in his scrubs and at this hour he probably worked more hours than usual as exhaustion was easily draped on his expression. But that didn't stop Robby from offering a small smile towards Jack.
"Hey man, are you still open?"
"Yeah, but it's just me here I already sent my staff home." Jack answered before he could stop himself, he could make exceptions just this once.
"Oh if you're already closing that's fine, I can just find another-"
"Take a seat, Robby. It's the first time you came here, let me treat you atleast. What would you like to eat?" Jack handed him the menu, Robby sighed and finally took a seat his aching muscles finally relaxing now that he's out of PTMC.
"Thanks Jack, I've been meaning to stop by but the ED's been swamped with cases."
"I understand how busy your work can be but you still managed to stop by, order up it's on the house, brother."
"I'll take some pasta and something you'll recommend, I can pay up Jack it's-"
"Nuh-uh, what you're going to do is to sit there and relax while I cook for you, understood?" Maybe it was some trick of the light as a light pink dusted Robby's cheeks while he nodded in agreement at Jack's request.
Robby watched as Jack prepared his meal, glancing at how the man's arms seemed to flex while he's kneading pasta or how focused he looks when he's cooking. He looked away when he realized what he was doing, he's already 50 surely he can get a grip of himself but as the pan sizzled to life Robby's eyes went back towards Jack like a moth drawn to a flame.
When the food was served Jack was sitting across from him as he watched Robby eat. And Robby didn't know where to focus, either Jack's delicious food or at the delicious chef infront of him. He couldn't seem to find a suitable answer as he choked on the pasta that he was eating while Jack instantly handed him a glass of water.
"Slow down brother there's plenty more where that came from." And if Robby choked again at that response then that was his fault.
By next week he came back again at the same time where Jack was alone in the restaurant, maybe he had intended it and maybe Jack indulged on the privacy that they both have during moments like this as they chatted away while Robby ate his food. And maybe Robby finally had the balls to ask Jack out after 8 months of going back and forth to his restaurant just to get a glimpse of the gorgeous chef.
Robby starts hearing a weird word passing around the ER, mostly between the pittings, the newbies around and some nurses.
He's heard the word "yaoi" along his name and Jack's in conversations he had accidentally eavesdropped during his shifts.
After the 4th time hearing it he tried to search up online what the hell that word meant, but every spelling he tried gave no results and he was too embarrassed to ask them because he'd be getting old man and boomer jokes again.
One day, Robby is finishing his shift and he's feeling really rough, so when he sees Jack enter to start his shift he doesn't think much and steals some quick cuddles from him. Then he hears Frank say "No way the old men Rabbot yaoi is actually canon".
Robby can't help but groan quietly in Jack's shoulder "ugh, what the hell is that old men yaoi bullshit, brother" and Jack says "oh, just that we're very gay". Robby blushes and then looks up and raises an eyebrow at Jack, he shrugs and says "unlike you I use social media, also gotta keep up with the youngsters, iykwim"
Alpha!Jack hearing a bunch of stories about service members who get cheated on or served unbonding papers while on deployment and getting anxious that him being away will be too much for omega!Robby.
So before he leaves he sits Robby down and tells him that if he wants to hook up with other people while Jack is away, he’s fine with that (he’s not but he figures he has a better chance at coming home to Robby if he knows he doesn’t have to end their relationship if he meets someone new)
And Robby takes that as Jack telling him he’s gonna fuck other people on base so he doesn’t care what Robby is up to. It feels like Jack is gently telling him their courtship won’t turn into a bonding when he gets home.
They’re both in for the worst seven months of their lives.
dailybridgerton
romaincrisis
yousharknotpass
pixelskylines
2087
amandla
snowghoul
discoholicmusic
turnnoffyourmind
