I tell this story all the time but I'll tell it again! When I taught kindergarten full time, we had a working bee one weekend where we did a bunch of gardening/landscaping in the outdoor area. One of the dads put up a bit of fencing, then stood back and had a look, kind of frowning like he wasn't sure. His wife then came along, and the following conversation ensued:
Wife: GETMO?
Husband: (after a moment, with a sigh) Yeah, GETMO.
Me: GETMO?
Wife and husband, in perfect unison: Good Enough To Move On
Absolutely LIFE CHANGING acronym, friends and enemies.
"Robby is so nosy." You see, the thing about Robby when he looks at Frank, it's not that. When he looks at Frank with Becca, it's his mistrust. His own disappointment in Frank, which directly extends to his disappointment in himself.
To be nosy, you have to be curious. But Robby isn't curious, Robby is in pain. Robby wants Frank and what they had back, but Frank matured, healed and keeps on healing. Robby thinks that "his" Frank is no longer there (and he is incredibly wrong). That kind of good doctor that he let loose in "his ER" and a good friend that he trusted.
While Frank is trying to look into the future and get better, Robby, to a degree, is looking into his past. He is still hurting—worse than ever, too—and he's all alone. (When the reality is HE is the one who tries to leave other people behind and pushes them away, because the people that are close to him—Dana, Jack, (even Frank, if Robby would let him)—try to help, try to explain that it doesn't have to be this way, but Robby just keeps on adding bars to the cage of his own creation. The cage of misery, and pain, and desperation, thinking—and perhaps genuinely believing—that not only it's not going to get better, it simply can't get better for him.
So, no. Robby is not nosy with Frank. Robby is an asshole with and about Frank and everything Frank does. If it wasn't for Mel and Dana, Robby wouldn't pick Langdon simply because. We've seen how he's been riding Langdon up to this point. And it's probably going to get worse—for both Frank and Robby.
There's no Frank without Robby and no Robby without Frank, huh? Or, perhaps, there's Frank without Robby, if Robby wants it so bad, but in the process, Robby only punishes himself.
The difference between "wow, that's true love" when you're a teen and don't really understand the full weight of the things happening vs "wow, that's such a shitty thing to do" when you're in your 30s? And those are reactions to the same actions? Yeah.
Shipping, jokes, and fantasies aside, can you imagine how much effort Frank needs to put into his relationship with his kids for them to create him friendship bracelets? For them (their voices, their faces) to, supposedly, light up when Dad is talking to them? For Frank to be present enough in their lives for them to (presumably) adore him? And miss him very much, too.
All of that while he was studying, then dealing with his addiction, now going through his fourth year residency for the second time, and then he's gonna become a "grown up" doctor and will, perhaps, be missing for longer?
Frank doesn't seem to respect his wife (anymore?), but his kids are his world. Except if he was asked to choice between the kids and medicine, he MIGHT choose the kids, but it would pain him greatly. He loves being a doctor. He IS a good doctor. So even then I'm not sure that he'd walk away from medicine, because he was and still IS working hard to "graduate". Because it's borderline just as, if not more important to him.
He's balancing the heck out of his relationship with his kids, his wife, his work, the work team and especially his boss (Robby means a lot to him, whether people like it or not)—the best he can.
Frank Langdon is truly trying.
"My wife threatened to divorce me. I almost lost my kids." Why does it feel like, while he'd try to fix it in order to keep his access to the kids, he still wouldn't give up medicine? Maybe he'd be distraught, but it's like giving up EVERYTHING he worked so hard for? Especially if Abby left him? So he'd be with no wife, kids, with a high energy untrained dog, and then with no job either? That's an immediate relapse—or at least that's how it feels.
So yeah, even if Abby left and Frank would be facing divorce, sleeping at a new apartment/in his car/in the hospital, he'd still show up at work and try to function. Hell, I feel like that might be the only thing that would carry him through that dark time, just like it works for Robby ("but it's killing me" part aside, his work is the only place where he can have things semi in order. Same would be for Langdon, I guess?).
4 a.m. thoughts: a shape-shifting au where, when Langdon fucks it up or feels insecure and wants Robby's attention / reassurance, Frank turns into a puppy / cat and tries to attach himself to Robby (to be constantly carried around, he in his hands, ride in hid hoodie pocket if a kitten). but when Robby is really mad and he can't make Frank turn back, he either locks Frank somewhere or just gets him to Dana.
"take him. I can't deal with this anymore."
then Frank meows / whines non-stop, exhausting Dana, wanting to be reunited with Robby. Dana'd be like, "you can stop this at any moment."
but no, no, he can't, he must complain and be delivered back to his boyfriend. (and maybe there's a time limit. maybe, when he changes, he needs to stay in that form for a specific period of time before he can shift back into his human body.)
Frank losing himself in the moment and taking pics, short videos of Robby while fucking him (the expressions of pleasure on Robby's face? Frank wants to remember that). Later he finds those in his camera roll, freaks out a bit and is grateful Abby or the kids haven't stumbled upon those, but also refuses to delete them. Removes any kind of bio security (face ID, fingerprint) and changes his password so his family can't get into it by chance.
Surely it won't bite him in the ass at any point later.
Even though Abby is not the one to be suspicious or actively check his phone, she's still confused when Frank gives her some lame excuse ("The kids at work must have seen my password and got into my phone, so I had to change it") and instead of telling her the password, he unlock the phone himself. On top of that, he carries the phone on him at all times. Not like he wasn't doing it before, that's just Frank, but that change in his behavior is definitely not good.
Ooc but: perhaps she's even suspecting he's cheating (although she is DEFINITELY not prepared to find the kind of explicit content Frank has on his phone) and lets him get away with it anyway. (Perhaps she has nowhere else to go? And got used to his antics? Or too tired of them to actually do something about it.)
