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Frank ran.
Perhaps more accurately, Frank runs.
Robby had never dated a runner, before Frank. There were plenty of things that he might categorize as Before Frank and After Frank. A different list than the long running one he’s been compiling for the last few years. (Before Jack and After Jack).
Before Jack, for instance, he’d never have considered adding a third person to an already steady and fulfilling relationship. A partnership. But when Jack had first turned to him, leg kicked up in Robby’s lap and a thoughtful look on his face as he murmured, “What do you think about Frank?” Plenty of things had changed.
Surprising, fun, delightful, sometimes devastating. Change. He didn't find himself hating it.
Still. The running is a whole separate thing, unto itself.
Getting Frank into their bed had taken long enough, a slow creep that started with Jack and Frank’s burgeoning bond after Frank returned to work. It was all spurred on by the tentative mentorship that Frank accepted from Jack, but not from Robby.
That had been it’s own challenge. Robby had that once. He didn’t realize losing that would hurt almost as bad as when he’d watched Frank leave the day of Pittfest.
But Jack is patient. He’d managed to wait out Robby, after all, quietly lingering in the wings until Robby had finally managed to trust the other man’s words and let himself try.
Jack and Robby has been. Good. Great, even.
So he trusted that Jack would be able to get Frank on board, once he set his sights on him.
Getting him in bed with one of them, then both of them, had been surprisingly difficult. Given Frank’s easy capitulation to touch, how he’d lean into a hand in his hair or a firm grip on his waist, Robby had figured it wouldn’t take too long to convince him to climb into bed.
He’d been mistaken.
But the payout had been worth it. He’d wait five times as long, all over again, just to get the three of them on the same page like this.
So the first time Frank had not only climbed into bed with them, but had given in to Jack’s soft, cajoling words, the hand on the small of his back and the sweet, lingering kisses to his throat and chest and actually spent the night, Robby’s gut had sank when he’d been awoken by Frank slipping out of his hold and quietly walking into the bathroom. It wasn't until he’d ducked back out, pressed a kiss to Robby’s cheek, and murmured about how he wanted to get his run in before he could rest that Robby's nerves had settled. It'd been better when he'd returned, a couple hours later, and crawled back into bed with them, sticky and sweaty and unexpectedly horny enough it'd gotten both Jack and Robby wide awake.
So. Frank runs.
“The cold isn’t that bad,” Frank complains good-naturedly, for maybe the thousandth time. “Once you get going, you don’t notice it. Really.”
Robby lets out a soft, disbelieving noise, the front of his stomach pressing against the stove top as he works to keep himself upright. The cup of coffee to the side of him would help, once he drank more than a few sips of it. He hears Jack make a similar sound of disbelief, sat at the table a few feet behind him in the dining nook in the corner of their kitchen.
“You don’t run,” Frank snaps, and Robby only glances over his shoulder to confirm the unimpressed look Frank’s sending his way is really intended for him. “And you— you know how it goes, I don’t believe that look at all.” The second part he directs at Jack, who’s still in his scrubs and thumbing through the newspaper he’d brought in when he came in from his overnight shift.
“You could be warm as you’d like, but if you slip on the ice, your leg is just as broken as if it were 80 degrees and sunny,” Robby says, and swears when the butter in the pan starts to smoke. He shifts the skillet off the heat for a second as he drops the flame lower, and glances at Frank where he stands in the pass through into the kitchen.
He’s at least relatively bundled up, Robby’s glad to see. Leggings cling to the bulk of his thighs underneath his typically microscopic running shorts, and he’s got a snug thermal on that leaves only his throat and hands exposed.
Robby’s eyes linger on his throat, and he has to blink before he can look away. It wasn’t meant to be a tease, but Frank was a distraction, no matter how much or how little was covered.
“It hasn’t snowed in a week, and the way you two act, you’d think no one ever salted their sidewalks. Christ, fucking nannies, the both of you.”
Frank’s distracted by his fitness watch when he finishes, so he misses the quick glance Robby and Jack share, Robby bemused and Jack’s sharp in warning.
Their neighbors are excellent about salting their sidewalks. Robby had walked with Jack along Frank’s running route for the better part of the summer to help ensure it, as Jack had made sure his prosthetic had been in clear view as they waved genially to their neighbors.
There’s been a few stragglers, who, once the first snow in late October had fallen, still left a fine layer of ice and snow across their sidewalks.
Jack had made sure he’d been in his scrubs when he stopped by those houses again, wide eyed and earnest as he politely requested they make sure their sidewalks stay clear. Robby had only went with him once on one of those walks, flushed crimson to his hairline as he stood on the sidewalk and watched Jack sheepishly tug up the leg of his scrubs and reveal his prosthetic, hitch up his bag on his shoulder and tap the hospital ID card on his chest.
The manipulation, no matter how mortifying for Robby, had worked. The fact that the route they’d covered extended beyond their usual walk to the hospital and included most of Frank’s most frequent running routes either hadn’t registered for the younger man, or he was just assuming a greater level of altruistic behavior from his fellow Pittsburgh neighbors than they might actually demonstrate. Regardless, Jack hadn’t wanted to share his summer project, and Robby hadn’t felt the need to elucidate Frank on the goings-on, either.
“Fine— your two nannies will be here, waiting for you, with a hot breakfast whenever you deign to return to us,” Jack says, voice a quiet and bemused rumble. He was flagging, Robby could already see, the exhaustion of a long shift catching up with him as he watches Frank with a guarded look.
“Thank you. If I slip and break my leg, I’ll make sure I call you first so you can make it to the Pitt before the ambulance gets me there.” Frank’s backing up already as he speaks, and the grin he sends Robby is sharp-edged and pleased.
Frank likes the attention, no matter how he protests. Still, Robby bites his tongue and lets him slip away without another word, something effusive and warm filling his chest and making it a little hard to pull in a full breath.
By the time Frank makes it home, despite Jack’s promise, there’s no hot breakfast for him.
It's only Robby who greets him, still in his pajamas and draped across the couch. He'd been weighing the benefits of actually picking up his latest book from where he'd left it (he was fairly certain it was on his nightstand, but he didn't want to disturb Jack and go grab it), or giving up and giving in to the nap that had been tempting him all morning.
The rush of cold air and the near slam of the front door has Robby glancing towards it, but it's only when he spots Frank, disheveled and pink cheeked, that he sits up with a frown.
"Frankie?" Any drowsiness is gone the moment he sees him hunching forward, but the other man's scalding look keeps him from panicking too badly.
"Calm down," Frank grits out as he limps in, and as soon as Robby rises, he sees why. "You'll wake Jack up."
"Fuck Jack," Robby murmurs distractedly coming up to him to wrap an arm around Frank's waist as he helps him in to sit down on the couch. "What— what happened?"
"You jinxed me," Frank snaps, but there's no real heat in his voice. His leggings are ripped across the thigh and knee, and the bloody, unhappy looking road rash underneath is obvious. "Stupid snow was slick, I slipped, what does it look like?"
"Mrs. Kazansky up the road never looks up when she backs out of her driveway, could have been a hit and run," Robby says, trying to tease, but Frank's unhappy expression is enough to sober him. "How's your knee?"
"Hurts," Frank mutters, but sighs. "I don't think it's bad. Fucking throbbing right now, can't really tell."
It's enough to make Robby actually worry, and he extends a hand to Frank.
"C'mon. No avoiding it. Bathroom." Robby's voice is no nonsense, and after a long beat, Frank takes it.
Getting them both upstairs and into the master suite is a bit of a trick, with more than a few low curses. The worst was Robby, as they were trying to sneak into the bathroom without waking Jack and he'd tripped over his prosthetic where it lay just inside the door.
By the time Frank's settled on the bathroom counter between the two sinks, he has the approximate appearance and demeanor of a half drowned kitten. He's about as chipper, too, when Jack stumbles in after them.
"I missed the party invite," he rumbles, voice rough with sleep. He's balanced on his forearm crutches, and he takes in the sight of them both with an impassive stare.
After he takes them both in and blinks the grit from his eyes, he sucks on his teeth with a shuttered expression.
"Did he say I told you so?" Jack asks, tilting his head towards Robby.
"He's smarter than that," Frank murmurs, staring down at the sluggishly bleeding scrapes on his leg.
"Well. You already know what I'd say, so." Jack deposits his crutches against the counter, and hops closer, bumping into Robby.
They've got a borderline overstocked first aid kit in the bathroom, between the three of them. Short of actual surgery, Robby's fairly certain they could handle almost anything at home. It means he's got trauma shears handy, among other things, to help cut off Frank's leggings, high up by the groin.
"Think we can save the leg, Doc?" Jack asks, voice pitched low.
Frank laughs, a little unexpectedly.
"We'd get our prosthetics confused," Frank mutters as he stares down at his leg, flexing it carefully as he tries to assess himself. "This is my left."
Jack nods sagely, and watches as Robby sinks to his knees to help untie Frank's shoes.
"Guess we have to make sure it stays attached, then. Sounds like a pain in the ass."
Frank smiles wanly at him, and Robby can't help but press a kiss to the smooth, uninjured top of his shin. When Frank meets his eyes, his smile is a little steadier.
Frank tolerates the fussing as well as he can, even as a flush of embarrassment keeps him pink long after the cold and exertion of the run have faded. He hisses softly at the hydrogen peroxide, and frowns as Jack uses their hand towel to keep it from dripping on the ground.
"It'll bleach it," he gripes quietly, and Robby laughs, despite himself.
"We can buy a new one. Maybe." Robby says as he stands back up, stealing the towel from Jack and dropping it in one of the sinks.
"Wait until we get the bill for this visit. You know how these things go, they charge you for every aspirin." Jack says as he tugs out gauze and coban wrap from the kit.
It's not until they've got Frank bundled into bed between the two of them, stripped out of his running gear and tucked into comfortable clothes that Robby starts prodding.
"You could have called us." Robby murmurs it into the hair on the top of Frank's head, soft and still a little sweaty from what running he did accomplish.
Frank stiffens in his arms. When he presses his cheek into Robby's chest, it feels a little warm.
"I know," he mutters, but Robby isn't done.
"You were out for a while, I mean— you had to have been decently far, and then you walked back?" His lips pull down in a disappointing frown, and Jack's head rises from where it was tucked into Frank's shoulder.
"How long was he gone?" Jack asks Robby, like the 'he' in question wasn't laying between them.
"Not that long," Frank gets out, as Robby says, "Forty five minutes."
Frank raises his head to glare. He'd been well behaved while Jack and Robby did their best busy-body impressions. It figures it had to break eventually.
"Rat," Frank mutters, and sends a look over his shoulder at Jack. It's a long moment before he speaks again.
"I didn't have that far to walk back, okay? I only made it to Freedmore street."
There's a moment of silence, until—
"Three blocks?" Jack's voice is incredulous enough for the both of them, and Robby pokes him with his free hand at the tone.
"I fell! I fucking hurt, okay? Snow felt good." Frank won't meet their gazes now, either of them, and he shifts in the bedding between them. "Rest, elevate, ice, I was just—"
Robby hides his face against the top of Frank's hair again, but his chest is shaking too much to mistake his laughter for anything else. Frank digs his fingertips into Robby's ribs, and when he wheezes and squirms, Frank's smug satisfaction is obvious.
"I don't think dirty piles of snow from the plow was really the prescribed methodology," Jack muses, and Frank groans softly.
"Enough."
"Ingenuity deserves points, though," Robby offers thoughtfully, and ignores the way Frank is quietly beating his forehead against Robby's sternum.
They're quiet for a long moment, and Jack presses a soft kiss to Frank's shoulder as his arm snakes around his front and squeezes him back against his chest. They'll all be sweaty in a few minutes, bundled up as they are with all of them touching each other. But for now, it's sweet.
"Once the snow starts melting in the spring, are we gonna have to keep you on a leash from climbing in the gutter and calling it an ice bath, or can you behave?"
Robby's laugh is startled out of him, and Jack's pleased look is only interrupted by Frank's pitiful moan as he hides his face again.
"I hate you," he mutters, and Jack drops another kiss to his shoulder with a grin.
"Love you too, kid."