Chapter Text
“Nice job.”
“He ran up for a drug test, you got your wish. You don’t have to say goodbye.”
For a moment, Robby felt lost at the sudden blessing of fate, of the only thing he had truly wanted all day to be granted and how badly he wanted to reject the hand fate had now given him. He had spent the whole day running from Frank, from tearing him down in a torrent of rage, grief, and pain, and now? Now all he wanted to do was see Frank one last time before he left. To finally let him go. Give him a shred of peace and dignity that he had denied him for the last ten months.
He doesn’t. He walks away. He finds Dennis and places his key in his calloused hands and a kiss on his lips, half hidden by shadows in the parking lot. Their relationship had been building in the last ten months, turning and twisting into a mutual possession. Frank no longer stood by Robby’s side, and the Pitt accepted it, accepted Dennis.
Dennis came into Robby’s hand with his name on his lips, and Robby bit down on the naked flesh of Dennis’ shoulder beneath the fabric of his scrubs as he followed a minute later, haunted by the image of Frank’s blue eyes.
Robby never asked Dennis for updates about Frank, and Dennis never gave them, filling him in on everything else, what was happening at the Pitt, what was happening in his life, about how much he misses him, but never about Frank. Jack also texts him, updating on random things, only the things he thinks Robby should absolutely know before he returns.
J: He’s still sober.
J: Langdon is partway through a two-week rotation on night shift; he’s a natural.
J: Something is going on between Whitaker and Frank. I don’t know what it is, but either you sort it out when you get back, or I will. Frank’s been keeping his head down and putting in too much work to have someone else messing with his head when I’m barely able to keep him out of it.
Robby had stared at that message for days. He didn’t respond and didn’t delete it, just staring at it. He knew he should call Dennis about it, talk to the younger alpha about it, but he didn’t. When did Jack start referring to Frank by his first name?
He has two weeks left of his sabbatical when he calls Dennis. They called each other once a week; it was grounding, it reminded him of what he was coming back for, who he was coming back for.
“Everything okay?”
“Everything is good.”
Robby didn’t believe him for a second. “What’s going on, Dennis?”
There was a huff, and Robby could only watch as Dennis’ gorgeous face twisted and darkened. “Langdon is transferring to the night shift full-time. Al-Hashimi approved it.”
Robby couldn’t name the sensation that washed over him, couldn’t place the feeling. Didn’t want to.
“Jack assures me it’s a good fit for him.”
He recognised the stubborn set to Dennis’ jaw, the hard look in his eye, the way his shoulders tensed. “He calls him Frank.”
He ignored that feeling as well. “He said something was going on between you two. What’s going on, Den?”
“Nothing,” Dennis assured him. “I don’t have a problem with Frank being back if that’s what he’s worried about.”
Robby doesn’t ask if it has anything to do with Frank being an omega, and doesn’t want to think about Frank at all. The conversation moves on, and they don’t talk about him again.
The Pitt is the same as he left it, and Robby doesn’t know if he feels relief or regret that Dana was right; it would run without him, stand without him. Jack greets him with a hug and a “welcome back”, not commenting on how much he smells like Dennis.
Dennis smells equally of him despite the scent patches, and Frank is nowhere to be seen. Not at first, and a primal uneasiness settles over Robby, forcing him not to look for his disgraced resident. Dennis is standing next to him when the bearded man feels him stiffen. Robby looks over just in time to see Frank step out of a patient's room, Crus by his side.
OH
He feels his world tilt and shift, spinning dangerously fast and glacially too slow at the same time. There is no fluttering in his chest, nothing burning low and dangerous in his core; there is nothing. Robby isn’t sure he’s breathing.
Frank looks small next to Crus. Delicate. Robby thought he knew exactly what shade of blue his eyes were, memorised the way his mouth curved, and the way his face crinkled when he smiled. He thought he once had every line of Frank memorised, long before Pittfest. They were the same lines, that same face that Robby saw on the Fourth. He had been so sure of that.
Now though. Now his eyes were bluer, larger, his mouth softer, his face still moved the same, but it was no longer sharp. The way he moved was different; confident in his movements, he didn’t remember seeing. Graceful, steady, beautiful. Robby would never know if Frank had truly physically changed, or if he was finally truly seeing what the years of too high a dose of suppressants and lies wouldn’t let him.
He just stood there as Frank, when prompted by Crus, turned his attention to Robby. When he pinned the older, jaded alpha, the man, in place with those captivating blue eyes and parted lips with a soft “oh,” Robby felt more than he could hear.
“You’re in one piece.” He greeted Robby with a genuine smile. “Good to have you back. Jack, got a moment?”
Robby watched as Jack reached up, and for a moment, he thought Jack was going to put his hand on his shoulder, but instead, Jack put his hand on the nape of Frank’s neck with such stunning familiarity that it made Robby’s heart beat again. It beat in an ugly rhythm against his chest.
Jack nodded at Frank, his lips twisting in a warm smile. “Five minutes or is this a breakfast conversation?”
Robby couldn’t remember when he last heard Frank actually laugh. The sound was almost foreign as it pulled the strings of Robby’s memory.
“Depends, are you paying this time?”
“Nope, I need a shower. You need a shower, kiddo. My place.”
“Done.”
Frank looked at him. Smiled at him. He was glad to see him. It left Robby feeling sour and hollow. He knew it was genuine but pulled back, reserved.
“It’s good to see you, Dr Robby.”
He should have fucking said goodbye.
Jack was right. Jack was always fucking right.
It took two days to see what Jack was talking about. To see the way Dennis would draw up straight anytime Frank was around, and the way his gaze turned sharp and cold. The way he would watch Frank, eyes trailing him with a slight curl of his lips. There was no mistaking the way he would stand a little too close to Frank, observing everything with a coldness, waiting for any mistake, like he was waiting for something. Anything.
Waiting for Frank to relapse.
He was waiting for Frank to do the very thing Robby was convinced was only an inevitability. He was treating Frank the way Robby had treated Frank’s first day back. Frank didn’t comment, didn’t react, like this was his normal, like he expected it. He didn’t speak to Robby or Dennis during handoffs unless completely necessary.
The distance was starting to eat away at Robby. He didn’t like what each bite left in its place. It was only when Frank was temporarily reassigned to the day shift for two weeks to cover an absence that Robby noticed.
He noticed the way Dennis would stand too close to Frank, putting his body protectively between Frank and the others, or Frank and the door. He noticed the way he would wedge Frank between himself and Robby whenever he got the chance. The way his lips curled with displeasure whenever Frank drank an energy drink instead of water, or when he noticed Frank wasn’t eating enough.
There was no mistaking the way Dennis would look for Frank, eyes sharp and hot until he found him, and when he couldn’t, he would look at Robby, silently asking if he had his resident.
If he had Frank, if he had the omega. Their omega.
Robby understood it now. The only time they discussed Frank on Robby’s sabbatical, the only time they really talked about Frank at all since Robby had thrown him out of his ER. He understood the darkness, the fury at the fact that Frank was moving full-time to the night shift. The comment Dennis made about Jack calling Frank by his first name and not Langdon.
He began to feel it too, every time he was reminded Frank would be going back. That slow gnawing possessive hunger wrapped in the brutal need to protect, to claim and keep him where Robby knew he would be safe. Be cherished. On the day shift with them. With his alphas.
Not the alphas of the night shift. No one missed the protective arm Shen would put on Frank’s waist, the way Crus would stand behind him and the way Ellis would guard him possessively against the day shit.
Ellis never let any of them get too close, minus Mel, who was the Pitt’s only other omega and Dana, as much as she would like to sometimes. Not even Ellis could keep the older woman away from the man she had long claimed as her unwanted pup.
It wasn’t Frank who made Dennis tense and his eyes go impossibly cold; it was Jack. Jack, who casually touched Frank and would carelessly rub his scent shamelessly on Frank. Jack, who never once let the sudden revelation of Frank’s omega destination after years of pretending to be a beta, do anything to change the fact that Frank was a good doctor in his eyes.
Jack, whom Frank looked at as if Jack were all the protection he would ever need. Jack, whom Frank looked at not as if he hung the moon and the stars, but was the force that kept the world spinning. Robby was aware of the rumours; he knew what people were saying.
Robby never replaced Frank with Dennis, but Frank had replaced him with Jack, and it fucking burned.
He’s quietly watching Jack talk to Frank from across the hub, Frank glowing even if exhausted, Jack’s hand resting between Frank’s shoulder blades as they go over a chart one last time before handing it off when he feels Dennis come stand behind him. He doesn’t need to look over to know the expression Dennis is wearing. Robby knows he’s probably wearing the same one.
“I want him, Robby.”
It's a small and dark confession. Robby feels himself exhale.
“I thought you didn’t like him. Didn’t trust him.” He looks over at the smaller, younger man to be met with a withering glare.
“You’re not that stupid.”
Robby clenches his jaw. “No, I’m not.” He agreed.
“Neither am I.” Dennis points out, “I never have been. I see the way you look at him, how you’ve always looked at him. I knew Robby-”
Dennis has his attention once again. “From the beginning, he would always be this thing between us. That you would never fully let him go, and now?”
Robby sucked in a breath, holding it and not knowing what to expect. Dennis turned his attention back to Frank and Jack, Frank smiling brightly at the praise Jack had given him, Jack looking satisfied in return.
“Now, I want him.” Dennis declared. “I want our omega in our home, in our bed.”
Robby can only stare in awe at Dennis, looking nothing like the lost med student that first day. He stood taller, with more confidence. He was solid, steady, putting on muscle and adding mass. He looked like an alpha, not the unsure pup that had originally come through the Pitt doors.
“I want him on our knots and full of our pups. I want everyone to know he’s ours, mine, yours. I want Jack to know who he belongs to. I want him in your ED on the day shift, with our marks and our children, reeking of us. I want birthdays and holidays and everything in between. He belongs with us, Robby.”
Robby fucked him hard that night, barely through the door before Robby was attacking Dennis, the more diminutive man, just as frantic and desperate, both fueled by need and the thought of more. The thought of Frank.
They don’t make it past the living room, Robby rutting into Dennis on the living room sofa, shoving his fingers in Dennis’ mouth as the younger man tells Robby exactly what he wants with Frank. How good they will make their omega feel, how well he will carry their pups, how they will dote and cherish him, how well they will protect him.
In the end, Robby comes too soon, shoving himself as far as he can before knotting Dennis’ ass, at the thought of it all. Dennis comes hard, crying out Frank’s name as he does. It’s only after they shower and eat and are sitting in bed that they really talk about it, plan it.
Robby wants it all, too. Always has.