An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Pitt (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Michael "Robby" Robinavitch/Dennis Whitaker, Yolanda Garcia/Trinity Santos
Characters: Trinity Santos, Michael "Robby" Robinavitch, Dennis Whitaker
Additional Tags: Secret Relationship, BDSM, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Dubious Consent, POV Outsider, Piercings, Panic Attacks, Implied Sexual Content, Choking, Wound Care, Drugs, Suicidal Thoughts
Summary:
Trinity yanks her phone out of her pocket on the second ring cycle, glaring at Dennis’ smeary, goofy contact photo. She takes the call.
“What?” she snaps, thinking: this had better be good.
—
Trinity Santos has a really, really, really weird night.
RobbyLangdon: The Mirror That Loves You (S2 Character & Relationship Analysis)
Mmm, I have been Thinking (always a worry, I know) but I have been thinking about RobbyLangdon.
RobbyLangdon and the idea of making your own match. Of forging the thing that ultimately can destroy you. Of mirrors and reflections. Of self and self-loathing. Of self-hatred and self-hurt; how hurting you hurts me. Of circles and cycles and Sisyphus. Of impossible standards and inevitable failure. Of pedestals and perfectionism. Of fault and blame. Of 'what is you, what is me, what is us?'
How, in The Pitt, all roads lead to Robby; but all Robbys lead to Langdon.
I'm thinking of other mirrors.
Of Louie as Langdon, of Robby's love and compassion for Louie, of digging graves and gatekeeping shovels (or not).
Of Robby trying and failing to save Louie - how he never tried to save Langdon, so he couldn't fail at that, couldn't fail him again.
Of Robby trying to blame Langdon for Louie's death - in part because of how that would blame him in turn - but he fails. Langdon doesn't let him. Because sometimes mirrors break.
They refuse to show you what you want to see - either the best version of yourself that you can love (the version of Langdon that existed to Robby before 1x10 and the reveal that Langdon is human and flawed - just as Robby is). Or the worst version of yourself that you can hate (the version he tries desperately to see in season 2 - that he projects all of his self-hatred and guilt and grief and anger onto like a punching bag he can take his anger out on and have it feel like a twisted form of punishment).
So what then?
What happens when you cannot separate your own failures from the man who failed you?
What happens when you project all of your darkest thoughts and deepest doubts and every ghost and every grave and every person failed or life lost or chance missed onto the man you made to be better than you so you have a thing to direct all of your own self-loathing at? What happens when that manifestation of your failures that has haunted your narrative for the last ten months: stops being a ghost that you can avoid and ignore because he is real and he has finally come home?
What happens when the very manifestation and personification of your self-hatred: loves you?
Well, then, you get: season 2 RobbyLangdon in a nutshell.
What happens NOW, though, is we drop this poetic aesthetic shit and we: unpack of that. Because boy there's lots to unpack, and for all the flowery language and floaty imagery: I DO have some solid and serious meta/analysis points/some #receipts to back all this shit up. But: beneath a cut, bc I still have some Manners left in me.
So I have decided that it is Time, we have reached the point at which we must discuss my beloved: The Esophagus Parallel.
Yes you read that right. No it is not a typo. Yes I am entirely serious about this. No I have not UTTERLY lost my mind. only mostly.
Come, friends, all shall be revealed, I promise. In the words of season 1 Langdon: "I've got this. Trust me..."
We begin: at the end. By which I mean we're gonna start off by discussing: the end of Louie (RIP, bud, u will be missed) and thus, 2x06. Here, have a quotation so I have something to colour-code my way out of the distress and sadness:
2x06:
Robby: Suction that tube. You're not in the esophagus, are you?Langdon: Definitely not. I passed right through the cords. Good breath sounds. End-Tidal CO2 confirmed.
Ah, look, behold: the esophagus in the esophagus parallel makes itself known! Now for the other half, let us saunter gayly back in time to 1x13 and the MCI and remind ourselves of this little nugget (keeping that esophagus in mind. And also mind: them cords.)
1x13
Langdon: But if you hit the esophagus, he's toast.You told us never to pass a tube unless we see the vocal cords.
Oh, I love it when a parallel comes together. There now, you see? You SEE!!!!
No? Still just me??? Okay listen up, people, there are dots here and I have connected them!!! Let me explain:
The esophagus parallel maatteeerrrssss okay!!! It matters because Robby is: the 'intubation/airway expert'. That's his THING!!! (and is the kind of accepted ER speciality (Garcia has a line abt this, in 1x09 “You guys are supposed to be the airway experts”. That’s their thing, their ‘special sauce’ - if the ED can do one damn thing (as far as the other departments are concerned) it is, at the very least: securing a damn airway.
Robby has at LEAST 3 crazy ass MacGyver moves on display in the airway department and they're all intubation based (tactile intubation (the aforementioned 1x13 one), retrograde intubation (on tonsillectomy kid in 1x05), and bubble intubation (1x12 - chest compression makes bubble that you can see and follow down into the airway when the chest is full of blood. At which point we also get the iconic Robby line of: "More than one way to tube a cat." (there may very well be/likely are more of these - these are the only ones I recall from memory rn and I’m on a roll so I ain’t stopping to go look for more - I think we get the point).
And all of this is important because: this is what he's taught Frank (and his other ducklings). "You told us never to pass a tube unless we see the vocal cords." "Correct." (and then something something - Robby shattering Frank's entire worldview/the foundation upon which his world turns by being like 'Not today' bc MCI - BUT THAT'S A SEPARATE RANT OKAY, WHICH I WILL GET TO (ask me to write meta on any random line (relating to Frank) of this show and I bet I can pull something out of my ass for it…)
Because this is - this is one of THE foundational lessons/things that he's taught Frank and others. It's how to secure an airway. And: not going in the fucking esophagus is fairly goddamn basic/the 101 of tubing someone: go down the right fukin' tube.
So when he @'s Frank and is like 'ur not in the esophagus r u?' he remembers, as we remember (and by ‘we’ i mean: ‘my obsessed ass and it alone’) that conversation ‘you told us never to pass a tube unless we see the vocal cords’ - that lesson - that bit of information that Robby gave Frank - his mentee, his protégé, his heir apparent, his BEST resident.
And theres' an element of....like Robby knows, Robby HAS to know that Frank is: NOT in the fucking esophagus. Because 3 seconds earlier, the respiratory therapist Carrie says: “Good square line on the End-Tidal CO2.”
Even my medically uneducated ass knows that means: we have a successful intubation here people! So Robby DEFINITELY does. This is not about mechanics or him actually asking/checking Frank has done this right - this is him trying to blame Frank, and HIMSELF, as the one who taught and made Frank - for Louie's death.
Because if Frank has fucked up this Most Basic Of Things. THE Most Basic Of Things in the airway department - the thing Robby's supposed to be best at - the thing Robby taught him - then it's his fault, too. It’s a repeat of him failing Langdon in terms of the benzos. Everything comes back to him and how he’s failed Langdon and this moment right here, Louie’s death, that’s going to prove it all over again.
"I taught you this - and you fucked it up/didn't learn it right - this is your fault and therefore it’s also my fault. Because you are me, my mirror, my creation - the one that I made to be better than me. and you failed. Because I failed. Prove that to me now. Let me see myself in you and let me hate what I see, let me see failure and let me despise it, let you make a mistake and let it be mine, one more thing to carry, one more ghost to bury in the graveyard."
And Frank says: No.
Frank says: I am absolutely NOT in the esophagus. And I NEVER fucking stand up for myself. Ever. Not with you. Not with Dana. Not with Santos. Not with Whitaker. Not with anyone. Ever. I was saying 5 minutes ago that maybe my line was sloppy? Maybe I can have fucked up instead of have this patient be seriously ill. I'm going to be having a breakdown in a few hours wondering if I've lost anything I ever had at this job. But right now? Right now I am telling you again: trust me, I've got this. Because you taught me this - and you taught me well. And I can't stand up for myself - but I can stand up for you. Even the you that you see in me.
He's confident. He's certain. He doesn't question himself. He doesn't waver. He backs himself. He says no. Definitely not. How do I know? Because I did what you taught me to do: I saw cords, I passed right through them into the lungs. We have good breath sounds. End tidal confirmed. I did it. I did what you taught me the way you taught me to do it and I did it right.
In the past I failed and I fucked up - and maybe you did, too. But not in this. You did right by me in so many ways. You made me the doctor I am today. You made me your best resident. I was; I am a good fucking doctor. And I will not let you see anything else in this mirror. I will show you yourself and it will not be a version you can so easily hate - because it reflects the truth of what is here, not what you want to see.
Langdon is a mirror for Robby. A mirror he's terrified to look in (for many reasons). But absolutely one of them is: it's the only mirror that it's not easy to look in and immediately hate the you that's reflected back. Because Frank still loves him. And no matter how hard Robby tries to break it and make it hate him, too - every time he looks at Frank - he sees a version of himself that loves him.
Aaaaaand i'm back with more art for The Car's in Reverse by third_crow!
And i picked out the very first scene of the chapter - Dennis with his mouth full of food, hit with the spotlight - idk man, it was too funny of a visual to not draw. Plus i love when they tease each other
mckay's conversation with robby might actually be one of my favorites this season so far. she saw through everything he's been doing this shift, all the little ways he's been teetering, and she didn't make it a confrontation. she came at him in a very specific, deliberate way, and that's what makes it stand apart.
compare it to dana and abbot. dana's approach is accusatory, pressing: sometimes it's like you're just tempting death 'cause you don't give a shit anymore. and what is wrong with you today? while abbot's is emotional, heavy, and anticipatory: you just make sure you come back and if it gets dark you call me. both are coming from places of worry, but their approaches demand something from him.
cassie does something else entirely. she frames it through herself: in a previous life, i had friends who liked to see how close the edge was, as if it were a challenge. trouble is, they all inevitably found it. 9 years sober, she has lived this recognition. she places it gently, through her own past, through the people she knew and the patterns she saw unravel, in a way that doesn’t demand a response. she leaves space for robby to step in—or step away. she doesn’t corner him, doesn’t demand admission, doesn’t make him the problem. she quietly says: i see you. i’ve been you. she offers him recognition without expectation, something he can receive—or ignore—without feeling attacked.
and, of course, he laughs it off; says, it’s been a weird day, and walks away. but that doesn’t make the scene any less powerful. what lingers is the precision of what she offered: understanding without pressure, insight without accusation, awareness without judgment. what a beautifully fragile moment. the heartbreak isn’t in confrontation or confession; it’s in the near-miss, the delicate truth she lays bare and he chooses not to receive.
