Chapter Text
When Robby wakes in the morning, his bones ache with familiar exhaustion. A deep down, depleted kind of fatigue that speaks to a tank run on empty for far too long. Carbs busted, an engine’s running lean, and lines caked with sediment and oil. But waking up tired is something Robby’s familiar with, something he’s grown far too accustomed to. He hasn’t had a good night's sleep in months. Years. Since before COVID-19.
He knows how to power through.
Robby blinks away the sleep from his eyes, stretches, and then sighs deep into his pillow. As much as he wants to stay in bed, cocooned in the warmth of his blankets and shrouded in the dim morning light of his bedroom, Robby knows he can’t hide here forever. He has to go deal with the situation in his living room. The stray he unwisely took in for the night.
Frank Langdon. The problem Robby wishes he’d never had.
Unfortunately, he’s known Langdon for too long. Their tangled history and all of the memories and emotions that go along with it are far too intertwined.
There’s no prying Frank Langdon out of his head. Away from his own angry guilt. The margins are unclean -- there’s no world in which Robby can cut him out completely, no surgeon skilled enough. Like a chronic condition, Robby simply has to live with him.
But at least Robby can pry him off his couch and out of his house before he starts to get too comfortable.
Before Robby gets too comfortable with him there, too.
Because he was comfortable with it, once.
Langdon has fallen asleep at Robby’s before. Has spent the night between shifts when things weren’t great at home, back before it all fell apart. In his mind’s eye, he can see it -- Langdon, sprawled out over Robby’s old couch: a long and lithe line of muscle with Robby’s grandmother’s quilt draped over him like it belonged there. Even since the first time Langdon set foot in Robby’s home, he looked like he belonged there. So comfortable, so at home.
That was a long time ago, though. The memory probably won’t overlap with the here and now. Robby doesn’t know what Langdon looks like when he sleeps now. Now that he’s older. When he’s maybe coming down from something he refuses to name.
Because as much as Langdon negated the truth last night -- denied, denied, and denied -- there’s only so much he can hide, can lie about. At least now. Now that Robby knows what to look for. Not that Robby had to look very hard for anything -- nothing about Langdon last night was subtle.
He was shaking. Twitchy. Strung out. Hell, he threw up on Robby’s fucking living room floor. The state of him had made Robby’s gut contort in sick sympathy; it hurt, seeing Langdon like that, so far away from himself that he was nearly unrecognizable. It still hurts, in a way that Robby can’t look at for too long before the feeling twists right back up into righteous, venomous anger. Because it hurts Robby, too.
Robby gets up, pulls on a shirt, and trundles to his bathroom. He pisses. Brushes his teeth. Takes a long look in the mirror at the face that stares back at him until he has to look away from the bags, from the wrinkles, from the greying hair in his beard.
Then, he braces himself with a deep breath, eyes closed.
On bare feet, he pads out to his living room. His eyes land not on Langdon’s long, sleeping form, but on an empty couch. The quilt Robby had tossed at him like an afterthought has been folded up and draped carefully over the back of the couch.
His place is quiet. Echoingly empty. Robby breathes, the sound loud in his own ears.
It’s like Langdon was never there at all.
Robby can’t help himself -- he crosses the living room and brushes his fingertips over the space where Langdon would have been sleeping. Gently, at first, then more firmly. The fabric is cold to the touch; if Langdon spent the night at all, if he didn’t just up and leave right after Robby fell asleep, he must have left hours ago.
For whatever reason, Robby wasn’t expecting that. For all of the possibilities that this morning might have carried with it, waking up to find Langdon gone wasn’t one Robby had ever considered. Langdon was so strung out last night, so out of his own head, that Robby figured there was no chance in hell Langdon would even be awake by now. In the back of his head, he imagined having to grab Langdon by the shoulder to shake him back into the land of the living.
Looks like Langdon is still capable of surprises.
And Robby’s real tired of finding that shit out.
He picks up his phone. It’s a steady weight in his hand. The battery is almost dead, but he hadn’t thought to plug it in last night after coming home. He was too addled, too angry.
Should he call Langdon?
No. Langdon left. Robby doesn’t owe him a check in and Langdon doesn’t owe Robby an excuse. That’s not the relationship they have anymore. They aren’t anything to each other, other than coworkers. A boss and his subordinate.
Robby scrolls on his phone for a moment before landing on a familiar name, selecting it with the ease of muscle memory and the sharp tap of a finger.
“Abbot.” Even with the abrupt way Jack answers his phone, his voice is, as always, a steady comfort in Robby’s ear. A balm.
Robby doesn’t bother with a hello.
“You heard anything from Langdon?” Robby asks.
There’s a pause on the other end of the line: Jack thinking, assessing. Always so deliberate, so tactical.
“Not since Tuesday, when he was swing shift. Why?”
No point in beating around the bush. Jack’s almost off shift and probably lingering as he always does, ensuring a smooth handoff, and Robby was just lucky enough to catch him between tasks when he was able to answer the phone.
“He was here when I got home yesterday. In my house,” Robby says. He drags his hand down his face and sighs. “He seemed—fuck, Jack, he seemed high.”
“You’re sure?”
Jack asking gives him pause. Is he sure? Suddenly, he doesn’t feel as resolute as he did five seconds ago, when he’d been ready to throw down all his money on Frank Langdon being high off his gourd. Now? Robby feels like pinching pennies, maybe.
“He wasn’t in his right mind, brother,” Robby says.
In the background, Robby can hear the noise of the ED fade away; Jack stepping away from the hustle and bustle to have some semblance of a private conversation. Maybe into a recently cleared patient room, a bathroom, or even a supply closet. Robby appreciates it with a stark kind of gratitude that he feels right in his chest, his heart, fierce and poignant.
“OK. A lot of things can do that,” Jack says steadily. Robby can picture the expression on his face, the look in his eyes. Steady. Always so fucking steady. It makes Robby feel steadier, too. “You said he’s been good, right? Reliable, negative tests, the works.”
Robby nods even though Jack can’t see him. Robby knows that. Langdon has been good. He’s been following all of the rules that the hospital -- and Robby -- had laid out for him as conditions of his return. He’s been reliable on his shifts, never no-showing or even calling out sick; he’s been going to all of his required meetings, getting the appropriate signatures and everything; and all of his drug tests -- both scheduled and random -- have all been negative. There are no signs pointing toward a relapse or even warnings of a downfall. Not even a blip. Just some tired bags under his eyes and a slump to his posture that speaks to his youthful cockiness no longer having a home in the set of his shoulders. But Robby would probably have trouble sleeping too, would have trouble keeping his pride intact, if his childhood sweetheart had left him one day while he was at work, no warning, no note. The fatigue is expected. Anticipated.
Langdon’s been holding it together so far. Despite all of Robby’s misgivings. His worry.
“Yeah,” Robby says. “Yeah, you’re right. It could be something else.”
Could.
He thinks of differential diagnoses, a dizzying list of options beginning to swirl in his head.
It’s difficult to even calculate, given the little that Robby saw of Langdon. Last night, Robby hadn’t wanted to turn the lights on, like if he kept them off, he could write it all off as some horrible nightmare, something dreamed up, something he didn’t have to look at too closely. Now, in the light of day, he regrets that choice. Did Langdon look high? Or did he just look sleep-deprived? Even in the dark, he looked wet -- was that rain, or sweat? Did he look sick? There’s currently a surge in flu in the area, but not COVID-19, though the latter is never impossible. Did he get a flu shot? A COVID booster? Robby tries to remember if Langdon was warm when Robby grabbed him, but he only got his hands on Langdon for a second before the other man was pulling away like Robby’s touch burned him.
Which was strange, too. Notable. Langdon’s always been a physical kind of guy since Robby met him -- always ready to reach out for that extra bit of connection, be it a fist bump, a shoulder pat, or even a hug. Not that Robby’s touched him much, as of late. Not since all of it. Maybe no one’s touched Langdon in a really long time, and that’s why he reared back like he had.
It’s a shit explanation, but Robby doesn’t have much of a better one for that strange symptom. It’s easier to write off as unrelated.
“You want me to try and reach out to him?” Jack asks.
Robby knows exactly what that means. It means that the second the call disconnects, Jack’ll dig through Frank Langdon’s medical records with measured skill and zero compunction to obtain personal information that Jack’s not supposed to have. It means that Jack will call Langdon, will show up to his house, will truly check in on him in a way that would border on harassment just for the sake of sating Robby’s curiosity. Appeasing his guilt.
Jack won’t think twice about it. And Langdon will let it slide because he doesn’t want to lose his job after losing everything else in his life.
As much as Robby appreciates the willingness, this isn’t Jack’s problem.
“Nah, it’s fine,” Robby tells him.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’m sure. Thanks, brother,” Robby tells him. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“OK. Call me if you need anything.”
With that, Jack hangs up and Robby is left once more to the quiet of his house. He stares at his phone, at the little picture of Jack from too many years ago on his contact page, at the phone screen that dims almost instantly after the call.
He checks the time. Robby’s off shift today, but Langdon is on.
Before he can think any better of it, Robby calls the hospital. Dana, specifically. Most of the day shift should be in by now, if not already partially into the swing of things, and Dana will definitely be there. She’s always early. Always stays late, too. Robby’s most dependable coworker. His coworker who deserves the largest raise, if only he could give it to her.
Langdon called out sick this morning, Dana tells him when she picks up. Didn’t sound too good.
It’s Langdon’s first absence. It’s unlike him.
Something about that irks. Sticks like a burr and makes something unwanted pinch painfully right between his ribs.
Mentally noting to bring Dana a coffee on their next shared shift so that he doesn’t have to explain himself, Robby hangs up with a sigh and a thank you more sincere than he was aiming for. But he’s too tired for measured, too thrown for a loop to keep a check on his own tone.
With a breath, Robby selects Langdon’s name from his contacts list. He hesitates for two seconds, then clicks call.
When the call connects, it rings and rings, then goes to voice mail. Undeterred, Robby calls again. And then again. Robby refuses to acknowledge a world in which Langdon doesn’t answer. He can’t.
Not after he just saw him last night, not even twelve hours ago.
Then, the ringing stops.
“What?” Langdon says, likely finally picking up the phone when it becomes clear to him that Robby is just going to keep trying.
Even with just one word out, Langdon sounds awful, voice totally wrecked. Something in Robby’s chest loosens all the same.
“You called out?”
“Did Dana call you?” Despite the tone, Langdon sounds less offended than he should, more resigned.
Robby doesn’t want to answer that, because he doubts that Langdon would want the truth: that Robby called the hospital to check up on him. And as upset as it would make Langdon, Robby doesn’t particularly want Langdon to know he did it, either. Now that he’s talking to Langdon, now that Langdon’s voice is in his ear, he can’t even really believe it himself.
“You never get sick,” Robby says instead.
It’s too accusatory. He doesn’t know how to backpedal.
“Yeah, well,” Langdon says. “I am.”
The more he talks, the more clear it is that he is sick. His throat sounds rough. Raw. Every word sounds like it hurts to cough out.
He doesn’t sound high. Or even like he’s coming down from something. Robby isn’t sure how he feels about that. Relieved, yes, of course, but there’s something else there, too. Something complicated and nebulous, too hazy to fully grasp onto. Certainly nothing he wants to interrogate.
“OK,” Robby says, because he called Langdon in a fit of pique; he’s not sure where to go from here.
He never mapped out this part of the conversation. Holding the phone in his hand, looking at Langdon’s contact info on the glowing screen, Robby knows that he had mostly worried that Langdon wouldn’t answer the phone at all.
Silence falls heavily between them for a moment, before Langdon finally breaks it.
“Look,” Langdon says with a sigh. “I’m sorry about—last night. Can we just—” He trails off for a moment before finally landing on a tired, “It won’t happen again.”
Robby doesn’t care about that. He’s not sure what he cares about right now.
“What do you need?” Robby asks.
Silence stretches on the other end of the line. Static rings in his ears.
“What do you mean?” Langdon finally asks.
Irritation swells in Robby’s gut. It’s easier to give space to than anything else.
“Medication. A Thermometer. A rapid test. Gatorade. Fucking—soup. What do you need, Langdon?”
“A day off,” Langdon says, voice as stoic as his throat will allow. “I’ll be better by tomorrow.”
“Like hell you will.”
With the way he sounds right now, there’s no world in which Langdon will feel better tomorrow. Hell, last night he was shaking like a leaf and nearly throwing up on Robby’s shoes. By tomorrow, Langdon will probably feel worse, not better. Especially if he doesn’t take care of himself. And all alone in his house, his wife and kids in the wind, there’s no way Langdon is going to do it himself.
“I’m going to drop off some supplies,” Robby tells Langdon, before he can think better of the idea, before he can back out.
Robby feels out of control, at the absolute mercy of his own panicked, short-sighted whims. But Robby has always been better about putting aside his own feelings when there’s something else to focus on; his anger, his frustration, his hurt, can all be placed on the back burner and set to a slow simmer while something else takes precedence.
“Robby. I don’t—,” Langdon starts, but swallows his own words, whatever was meant to come next.
Robby’s ready to argue with him, to tell him to shut up, but he doesn’t get a chance.
On the other end of the line, Langdon just sighs. Long and deep and pained.
“I moved,” Langdon finally says. It sounds blessedly like surrender.
“OK. Text me your address.”