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Robby had been avoiding Langdon. Avoiding Langdon required keeping tabs on him. Keeping tabs on Langdon meant that Robby noted when he entered the treatment-room with the man suffering from heavy withdrawals. Robby also noted when about ten minutes later Langdon left in a hurried step, a kicked-dog-expression on his face, towards the staff room. An uncomfortable suspicion on his mind Robby made sure to wrap up with his current patient and follow Langdon.
He found him sitting on the couch, head between his knees, mumbling something. Upon hearing the door, he looked up, that same kicked-dog-expression on his face still.
“There are patients waiting for treatment, you know?” Robby crossed his arms, looking down at the man he’d once considered a friend. There was tension around Langdons jaw.
“I’m aware. I’ll be out in a minute.”
“So we’re taking breaks in the middle of a shift now?”
“I don’t need a lecture right now.” Langdons tone wasn’t exactly harsh, not compared to what Robby by now knew he was capable of. Still, it was the most forceful Langdon had dared to speak to Robby since his return. Robby responded with a raised eyebrow, and Langdon visibly shrunk into himself. “What do you want me to do, then?” he asked more quietly, not looking at Robby directly.
“Your job.”
“I’m trying, okay? And I’ll get back to it the moment I- as soon as I can.”
Robby was starting to understand what Langdon was hinting at. “If you weren’t sitting here right now… what would you be doing?”
Langdon blew out a breath. He was pale, Robby noticed, and his hands were shaking. “I think you know.”
“I see.”
There must have been something in Robbys tone of voice, because Langdon looked at him again, something like desperation in his features. “I’m sorry, okay. I-”
“I don’t want to hear it”, Robby snapped, before Langdon could say more. They were back to silence again.
Robby debated just sending him home. Having him escorted out of the building to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid. The angry part of him liked the idea, but as a doctor, as Langdons attending, he really couldn’t do that. Because Langdon, for all his stupidity, was doing the responsible thing right now. Punishing him for it would be too unfair even for Robbys hurt feelings.
“How are your kids doing?”
Langdon looked up at him, confusion completely unhidden. Robby had to look away.
“The’re doing good”, Langdon said after a moment. “Tanner’s in school now, so that’s some work off of Abby’s back. He doesn’t really know how to yet, really, but he’s been insisting on reading picture-books to Penny. He’s making it up completely. Abby and I have decided not to correct him because we want to build his confidence, but it’s hard not to laugh sometimes. The things he comes up with…”
While talking, Langdons features had slowly relaxed. It was good, Robby told himself. It was what he’d intended to happen. Pull Langdon out of his head, get him back working quickly so Robby wouldn’t have to think about him anymore. The downside was that hating Langdon was a lot harder, now that Robby was reminded that aside from being a liar and addict, somebody who’d broken Robbys trust in the most horrible way, Langdon was a father who loved his children.
“Thank you”, the loving father said now, as if to further twist the knife.
“I didn’t do it for you.” Robby was delighted and horrified at the way any trace of happiness disappeared from Langdons features at those words. “If you relapse while on shift, I’m the one who has to deal with the mess.”
“Of course.” The words weren’t even angry. It was the same tone of desperate self-deprecation that Langdon had taken to around Robby ever since Robby had made it clear that he wasn’t interested in making up. “Thank you anyway.” Langdon pushed himself up, hands smoothing over the bottoms of his scrubs. “I better get back to work now.”
Robby saw what was about to happen before Langdons back made contact with the cart. Knowing didn’t prevent the way Langdon sucked in his breath as the metal made contact, his whole body growing rigid as he just barely managed to catch himself. Still he didn’t leave the room until the patient was sedated. Then though he made a quick exit, one had pressed against where his back had been hit.
Robby found him in the staff lounge, laying on his back, feet up on the couch.
“Get up”, Robby said, not bothering to announce himself. Langdons head turned a bit too fast, causing another pained flinch to go through his body.
“My back”, he started.
“Yes, and we both know that laying on the floor like that won’t actually make it better. Get up, walk up and down.”
A year ago, Langdon probably would have protested. Now he didn’t dare, instead pushing himself up with halting, rigid motions, until he was standing. As he started to walk, Robby paid close attention to his movement. From the way he held himself, there was no actual injury to be concerned about. Likely just some pulled muscle, or old nerve-damage flaring up due to the sudden impact.
“Hot or cold”, Robby asked.
“What?” Langdon barely looked at him, too focussed on the task of walking up and down the room. His steps had already gotten a bit more eased, but it was very obviously still painful.
“For your back. Heat it up, cool it down, what helps more?”
There was a pause. “Heat. Relaxes the muscles.”
“If I go get a heating-pad from the nurses-sation, will you still be sober by the time I’m back?” Robby asked. Langdon didn’t answer. “Then you’ll have to tough it out for now.”
“Nothing I’m not used to.”
Robby went back to watching the pattern of Langdons step, if only to avoid looking at his face. He could pretend this was just professional concern, him doing his job as a doctor.
Which it was.
“It’s bad, isn’t it. Your back?”
“Not really. One ibuprofen and I could easily ignore it.”
“Well you’ve lost that privilege.” The comment was intended to get a reaction out of Langdon. Ideally he would snap at Robby, proving that he hadn’t actually changed from the man Robby had convinced himself he was. If not that, he’d at least look hurt, confirming that it was Robby who was the monster between the two of them. Instead Langdon just blew out a breath.
“Yea. Toughing it out it is.” After a few more steps, he stopped, the tension in his shoulders mostly gone. “Okay. I’m fine now.”
“Get that heating-pat from Dana.”
Robby was surprised Langdon made it through the whole minute of silence. It was late, long past their shift was supposed to end, and they were gathered in front of a row of too-tiny bodies. The day had been one of the roughest they’d had, for all of them. Robby had barely been able to check on Langdon, not that he’d really wanted to. Only now that there weren’t any lives left for them to save, Robby wondered if he’d managed to make it through the day. Most likely. There hadn’t exactly been time to steal medication with children bleeding out in every corner. The real question was, would Langdon make it through the night, after watching one tiny life after the other slip away from them?
This time it wasn’t the staff-room where Robby found him. It was in the hallway, halfway down to the lockers, where Langdon sat on the floor, his phone opened to a whatsapp-chat. We’re all right, appeared to be the newest message, likely sent by Abby some hours ago to reassure Langdon that while a lot of children had been hurt today, his weren’t among them.
“Did you get any chance to eat?” Robby asked, leaning against the wall next to Langdon, hoping it came off as casual.
“Shit. I totally forgot about that.”
Robby held out the granola-bar he’d for some reason decided to bring. He didn’t question it, because he didn’t really want to know the very obvious answer to why he’d go out of his way to make sure Langdon got something in his stomach at least.
“Oh”, Langdon said, looking at the bar. “Thanks.” Langdon didn’t look up at him as he took the bar, unwrapped it and slowly took a bite out of it. “I should start putting reminders on my phone. This new medication is messing with my appetite more than I realized.”
“New medication?” Robby tried to keep the alarm out of his voice, but from the way Langdon glared up at him he hadn’t quite managed.
“For my ADHD. You remember about that, right?”
“Right.”
There was a pause, Langdon seemingly debating if he should say something else. Robby hoped he wouldn’t. “You’re still waiting for me to relapse, aren’t you?”
“Can you blame me?”
“No. But will it always be just this between us now? You only being nice to me when you think I’m gonna relapse otherwise?”
“You’ve only got yourself to blame for that.” Liar. Robby had been replaying every interaction he and Langdon had had before that horrible day. He’d catalogued every sign he missed, every time Langdon had tried to reach out and Robby had rejected him. You could have come to me. How blind had Robby been?
“I know”, Langdon said, seemingly oblivious to Robbys internal struggle. “And I get it. You have every right to resent me. I just… I feel like I’ve been waiting for you to come around, to be ready to hear me out. And I don’t mind waiting, you can take as much time as you want. But if you say there’s really no chance at all you’ll ever be able to hear me out… I guess I’d rather know now. Save us both some pain.”
“You can stop waiting.” Robby forced the words out before he could think about them, phishing off the wall and hurrying away, anywhere at all.
Robby didn’t check on Langdon again. Not after hard patients, not when he could tell his back was bothering him, not at all. He just watched, from afar, reassuring himself that Langdon didn’t need him anyway. They were both better off away from each other.
Robby watched Langdon check his phone. He watched his face pale. Watched him hurry to the bathroom. Robby didn’t follow.
A few minutes later, Robbys own phone vibrated. A text from Langdon.
Langdon: I’ll be out sick for the rest of the week. Can’t finish my shift. Sorry.
Robby tried to find a way to respond that signaled that they were nothing but coworkers to each other, that he didn’t actually care what happened.
Robby: What happened?
Three dots appeared. Stopped. Appeared again.
Langdon: There was a recall on my ADHD-meds. There was a mix-up in production I guess. The bottom-line is that the pill I took this morning contained an active agent that binds to the same receptors benzos do.
Langdon: Not that it matters much, but I really didn’t know until it was too late. I wouldn’t have taken the pills if I’d have known.
Robby stared at the messages. It shouldn’t mean anything. He shouldn’t care. He should be annoyed that he’d be a doctor short, at most. Maybe he could even be angry at Langdon, blame him for not being smarter. What he certainly shouldn’t do was poked his phone and head to the mans-bathroom he knew Langdon had fled into.
He found Langdon, bent over the seat of one of the toilets, spitting out a mouth full of bile. He didn’t look at Robby, wiping his mouth as he sat back exhausted.
“Come to gloat?” There was no accusation in Langdons voice, which made it worse.
“Was it just the one pill?” Robby asked.
“Been taking them for a week.” Langdon pointed towards an now empty prescription-bottle. “Flushed the rest.”
“Probably for the best.” Robby knew he shouldn’t have come in here. That already having happened, he should leave. If not that, at least say something. Not just stand there, staring down at Langdon in his misery.
“I’ll be out of your hair soon”, Langdon said flatly. “I just need a moment. If I stand up now, I’ll probably faint and crack my skull on the tiles. Would be a lot of annoying paperwork for you.”
“Yea. Gloria would hate it.” He should go now. “So what’s your plan now?”
“Not sure yet. I’m in no state to drive. Can’t go home, because I won’t be around my kids while going through withdrawals. Can’t afford another stay at rehab. Probably take the bus to the cheapest hostel I can find and try to stick it out there.”
“Sounds pretty miserable.”
“That’s what you get for being an addict.” Langdon moved back more, leaning his head against the back-wall, eyes staring at the ceiling. “Shit. When the medication wears of this is really going to hit me.” Then he turned, looking up at Robby with an expression that looked almost relaxed. “You know, I’ve been doing really well the last few days. More happy and relaxed than I’ve been in ages. Probably should have known there was something up.”
“This isn’t your fault.” They were both surprised to hear those words come from Robbys mouth.
“Jesus”, Langdon said after a moment of shock. “I must look really miserable for you to be saying that.”
“You’ve seen better days.”
“I’ve seen worse days”, Langdon retorted. “Will see them. Tomorrow, probably. The day after that.”
“You shouldn’t be alone for that.”
“Where would I go?”
“I have a couch.”
Robby would have thought he’d hallucinated his own words if Langdon's expression hadn’t changed instantly. He looked downright horrified, which almost made Robby laugh. Of all the things to be horrified by.
“You’re not really offering that, Robby.”
“We both know that withdrawing completely on your own is a horrible idea. There’s a risk of seizure. Muscle-spasms can lead to falls, which can then lead to dangerous injuries. Not to mention that your heart will be racing like hell for most of the time. You really want to die of a heart-attack in some random motel?”
“Of course not. So if you’re offering what I think you’re offering, I’ll have to accept.” There was a strain in his voice now. “But I don’t know how I’m supposed to- I don’t know how I ever could-” Langdon took a breath, wiping tears from his eyes, staring up at Robby with pain and desperation and hurt. “Do you have any idea how hard it’s been to accept that you’d never forgive me? That you can’t even look at me, can’t even let me apologize? Half my time in rehab I spent thinking about how I could make things right with you. I don’t even know if I’d managed to get clean if I hadn’t wanted to prove to you that I could. And then you just - you hardly even look at me, you don’t even treat me like a stranger, you don’t even hate me, you just- and I know I have no right to ask anything of you, you can resent me for the rest of your life and I’d deserve it, but god Robby… If I take you up on that offer, I don’t know how I can ever come back here. Not if you’re just- and I know I fucked up. You have no idea how much. But I can’t Robby, I just can’t. Fuck.”
In front of him, at Robbys feet, Langdon broke down in horrible, shaking sobs, barely muffled by his hands as he tried to silence them. And Robby should leave. He should retract his offer, not involve himself in the live of somebody he’d sworn not to care about. He sat down next to Langdon. “Let’s hear it then.”
“Hear what?” Langdons voice was barely audible now.
“The apology.”
“You can’t be serious.”
Robby shrugged. “If it will stop you from going cold-turkey in a shitty motel.”
“No. Robby. This can’t be about me. It’s not a real apology if you’re just listening to it because you feel guilty”
“I do feel guilty, though.” It was a heavy admission to make. Not because of the vulnerability that came with it, but because Robby knew that talking about it, getting it all out there, would make him feel better. It was a redemption he didn’t deserve. He didn’t want it, either. He wanted to stew in his own guilt and self-hate. But that would mean letting Langdon put himself in danger, and no matter how much he hated himself, Robby just couldn’t go that far.
“What do you feel guilty about?” Langdon asked. His sobs had mostly stopped now.
“Not noticing earlier. Santos managed to figure it out within a few hours. I knew you for years, and I didn’t even notice you’re struggling.”
“I hid it.”
“You weren’t that clever about it. I could have figured it out.”
“I’m sorry for not coming to you. I should have told you.”
“I didn’t exactly make myself available for personal conversations.”
“Still.”
Robby waited for a moment. “So that was the apology?”
Langdon snorted. “Barely. I’ve written… God, I don’t even know how many pages. But I don’t want to force it on you if you aren’t comfortable with it.”
“You’ll really make me ask for that apology I don’t even want.”
Langdon looked at him, mustering up something almost like a glare. “The whole point is that I won’t say it unless you want me to. Otherwise it’d just be for my own sake, and that’s not fair on you.”
“Frank. You know this isn’t about me blaming you, right? Not anymore, at least. I’m blaming myself. I haven’t earned an apology.”
Langdon almost laughed. “I should have figured. I’ve done horrible things. Said horrible things, I really tried to hurt you that day. You don’t think you deserve an apology for that?”
“You were in active addiction, coming down from an adrenaline-high. I’m a doctor. I shouldn’t have taken it personally.”
“It was personal, though. That’s the whole point. You weren’t my doctor. I wasn’t your patient. We were… I honestly don’t know what we were, but I tried to use it against you. I broke your trust.”
“That sounds an awful lot like an apology.”
“If it were one, would you accept it?”
“Probably not. Not because if you, it’s just…”
“You don’t think you deserve it.” A soft, sympathetic smile had crept on Langdons features now. “Believe it or not, I understand that part.”
“So where does that leave us? Well enough for you to crash on my couch for a few days and be able to come back to work after?”
Langdon glanced at him. Then away. He took a breath. “If the offer still stands. Yes.”
“Okay then. Let’s get you up.”
Robby pushed himself up first, then offering Langdon his hand. Langdon allowed himself to be pulled upwards, but went to lean against the wall for support almost instantly.
“You about to keel over?” Robby asked, half preparing to catch Langdon either way.
“I’m trying to figure that out myself.” Langdon did look dangerously pale, but after a moment he moved away from the wall. “Never say you can’t achieve your dreams.”
“Glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”
Robby had given Langdon instructions on how to get to his apartment. He’d also given Dana a very rough rundown of the situation, which she’d commented with a disapproving headshake. “That’s what it took for the two of you to work things out? We’d all given up hope, at this point.”
“I wouldn’t say we’ve worked it out.”
“Well then you better get to it, or the next few days are going to be very awkward.” After a pause, she added: “Give Langdon my best wishes. And tell him to sue that pharmaceutical company for all they are worth.”
“I was going to make that suggestion myself, but thank you for your input.”
“Always a pleasure.”
By the time Robby got off work, he’d convinced himself that this wouldn’t be too bad. Detoxing from benzos wasn’t too bad. Yes, it was better to have a responsible adult there, but for the most part he and Langdon would be able to avoid each other. And in a few days they’d both be back at work and just… be normal around each other.
The evening was about what he’d expected. They ate in silence, watching TV, until Robby decided it was late enough for him to go to bed. The morning went by with awkward smalltalk and weird familiarity, until Robby went to work.
When he came back in the evening and Langdon wasn’t in the living room all that pretence of ease was gone. “Langdon?” he called. “Frank!”
“Not dead”, came a hoarse voice from the bathroom. For the second time Robby found Langdon hanging over the toilet bowl spitting up bile, though this time he managed the impossible feat of looking worse. His hair was sweat-slick. His whole body was being wrecked by tremors. He looked pale and exhausted.
“Could have fooled me. Was it this bad all day?”
“You saw me this morning. Only started to get bad over the last few hours.”
“Is this the worst you’re expecting it to be?”
Langdon took his time to answer, which already was an answer in itself. “It’ll get worse over the next twentyfour hours, probably. I probably won’t be a pleasure to be around.”
“So nothing's changed, then. I’m calling in sick tomorrow.”
“Robby, no. I’m fine, honestly. You don’t have to do that.”
Robby rolled his eyes, taking a step back. “Fine. Get up, make yourself something to eat, and then eat it. If you can manage that, I’ll let you stay here by yourself tomorrow.”
Langdon didn’t even make an attempt to move. “We both know that isn’t happening.”
“So that’s settled then. Come on, get your ass to the couch.”
“You know I’ll ruin your couch-pillows, right? I’m already sweating like shit, and that will only get worse.”
“I wanted to get a new couch anyway. Now come on, I don’t want you freezing to death on my bathroom floor.”
“Bullshit, that couch looks new.” But Langdon allowed himself to be helped up, resting far more of his weight against Robby than either of them wanted to admit.
“So? Maybe I’ve gotten really into interior-design recently.”
“Your furniture is actively giving me depression.”
“Perfect, you’ll fit right in.” Somehow they’d managed to reach the livingroom, Langdon letting himself be dropped onto the couch without much protest. “I want to check your heart rate and blood-pressure. Have you eaten today?”
“I plead the fifth.”
“Probably would have puked it out anyway. Are you keeping liquids down?”
“Haven’t tested it.” Despite his sour tone, Langdon didn’t protest as Robby went to take his temperature, measured his heart rate and took his blood-pressure.
“Have a glass of water. If you puke it out, I’m taking you right back to the hospital. If not, you’re getting chicken-broth.”
“Anybody ever tell you your beside manner sucks?”
“Yours is worse.” Robby plopped down the glass, keeping a large bowl ready just in case Langdon really would spit it up again. He finished it all, and then glared at Robby.
“You can put the puke-bowl away. I won’t throw up.”
“Then you can keep down some soup as well. And you’re keeping the bowl, just in case.”
Langdon started at the bowl as if it had personally offended him. “Probably a smart move”, he finally conceded.
“I’m a smart man.” Robby turned his back to Langdon as he walked towards the kitchen.
“A smart man wouldn’t take an addict home to detox on their couch.”
Robby didn’t turn around, not wanting to see whatever expression might be on Langdons face as he spoke those words. “So we’re being self-deprecating now?”
“I feel like I’ve earned the right.”
“You and me both.”
When Robby returned with the warmed bowl of chicken-broth, he found Langdon curled up on the couch, the trembles shaking his body even more noticeable than before. He looked at Robby, then at the soup, and made a displeased sound. “You’re really going to make me eat that, aren’t you?”
“I can always take you to the hospital, if you’d prefer that.”
Langdon responded with a huff. “Soup. Great. Love it.”
Robby sat down on the other side of the couch, trying to put as much distance between them as possible while also not wanting to be too far away. From there he watched Langdin visibly struggle to force down even just a few sips of the soup.
“How bad is it?” Robby finally asked.
“Wouldn’t recommend it.”
“Frank.”
At the sound of his first name, Langdons shoulders tensed for a moment, before dropping in defeat. “I’d say the pain alone is at a five or six. If it goes like last time, it’ll be at an eight during the worst of it. The emotional part of it is worse, though. It’s like all your defenses are down. Pain, anger, fear. It’s all turned up to eleven. You’ve seen the beginning of it last time.” He paused for a moment, hands tracing the rim of the still steaming bowl. “Sure you want to be around when I’m in the middle of it?”
“Honestly? I’m kind of curious what you’ll come up with this time.”
“You’re a masochist.” Langdon looked at the bowl of soup again. “And a sadist. You’ll really make me drink this whole thing?”
“Keep complaining and you’re getting seconds.” But truly, Robby couldn’t help but feel bad for Langdon. Even with all their history, even with how much a part of him still resented the other, Robby couldn’t help but see a person in pain. Helping people who were in pain was the whole reason he’d gone into medicine. “TV to distract you?” he suggested.
“Seems like a good idea.”
For a while they sat in silence, watching some documentary about the struggle of finding new homes for previously abandoned dogs. Not exactly a comfortable one, but Robby had experienced worse in his lifetime. As the evening turned to night, he watched Langdons body-language grow more agitated.
“You know I won’t get any sleep tonight, right?” He finally asked.
“I figured.”
“You don’t have to stay up, you know? I won’t die on you.”
“I know.”
Silence returned between them, only broken by the quiet voices from the TV, narrating something about the domestication of wolves.
“You want to hear something funny?” Langdon asked at some point close to midnight. By this point Robby had managed to convince him to take one of his blankets. He was wrapped in it, curled up at the very edge of the couch, left knee bouncing like a prey-animal waiting to bolt.
“Will it be funny?” Robby asked.
“Probably not.”
“Fine. Tell me, then.”
“The whole time I was taking the pills, I really thought I’d make you proud.”
“Where the fuck did you get that idea?”
“You always said I was your best resident. I figured I should do anything to keep it up. Fucking idiotic, looking back at it. But I was really-” There was the horrible sound of a grown man choking back tears. “Trying”, Langdon finished.
“You want pity-points for that?” Robby asked.
“I don’t fucking know. I don’t care.”
Robby looked over to Langdon. He was bent over now, head almost between his knees. He didn’t look like somebody who didn’t care, but Robby decided against pointing that out.
“I know I’ve let you down. And I know there’s nothing I can do to make things be like they were. But I need you to understand that at every point, even while I was screaming at you in the parking lot, I was really really trying to make you… I don’t even know.”
Now Robby really did look at Langdon. Not in a perfunctory way, trying to make the mental checkmarks so he could turn away without a guilty conscience. He really tried to look and understand what kind of man was sitting next to him. “Have you ever been evaluated for a personality disorder?”
“The fuck?” Langdon looked up at Robby through red-rimmed eyes. “No I fucking haven’t, I don’t have a fucking personality disorder.”
Robby was still looking at him. Maybe for the first time he was actually looking at Langdon without filtering the image through the mesh of his own personal hopes and fears and pathological guilt. “I’m just saying. An intense fear of being abandoned, tying your self-worth to the approval of one person. That is textbook borderlin-behaviour.”
“Fuck you!” Langdon pushed away the blanked, getting up but barely making it one step before his legs appeared to be cramping. “Shit.”
He almost fell, but Robby managed to catch him just before he hit the coffee-table. At least this once Robby could say that he’d caught Langdon before he fell.
“Don’t fucking touch me.” Langdons attempts to fight Robby off were frankly a bit pathetic. There was no strength left in the man, and Robby managed to deposit him back on the couch with ease.
“Sure. After I check your temperature, heartrate, and bloodpressure. And the way you’re sweating, I want to get some more liquids in you sooner than later.”
“You’re such a patronizing piece of shit.”
“Uhuh.” Suddenly, finally, it was easy not to take Langdons words too personal. It wasn’t exactly the kind of professional detachment Robby managed with his patients. In fact, for the first time in months, Robby could admit to himself that he did care about Langdon. Because they were friends. Had been friends, long before Robby had been willing to admit it. It was more that he finally understood what a healthier person would have known from the beginning. Not every mistake Langdon made was a reflection of Robby. Maybe Robby could have handled things better, but ultimately whatever had driven Langdon to this point didn’t start or end by Robbys actions as his teacher. Maybe Robby didn’t need to find a way to fix Langdon. Maybe it was enough to be at his side, offer support as best as he knew how to, and hope that Langdon would be smart enough to figure out his own path.
By the time Robby was back with a fresh glass of water, and some medical supplies, Langdons anger seemed to have fully dissolved again.
“I’m sorry”, he mumbled to the floor he was staring at. “I don’t know why I said any of that.”
“Probably because you’re in the middle of withdrawing from benzos, and that tends to make people not act like the best version of themself”, Robby suggested, starting by taking Langdons temperature.
“Probably”, Langdon mumbled, barely reacting to Robbys touches now. “I wish I could sleep.”
“You can try to lie down”, Robby suggested. “Just because insomnia is a typical part of withdrawal-symptoms doesn’t mean you won’t be able to sleep at all.”
“I’m afraid. I’ll get nightmares. Last time I had horrible nightmares.”
“Want me to watch over you?” It was said as a half-joke. Robby was fully expecting some sarcastic retort. Instead Robby watched as Langdon reached for the blanked he’d thrown off earlier, pulling it tight around his shoulders. Then he looked at Robby with a painfully lost expression.
“Want me to get you a pillow?” Robby suggested. At this point he was really just guessing what Langdon might need. This was uncharted territory for both of them. Langdon nodded. “I’ll be back.”
By the time he was actually back, Langdon had already curled up on the couch, eyes half open, watching the TV.
“I’ll need you to make some space for me”, Robby prompted, gently nudging Langdons head upwards to put the pillow under it. Langdon only responded with a hum. In the end Langdons head was half-cushioned on Robbys legs, since it was the only way to fit both of them on the couch now. Langdon didn’t seem to mind. Robby didn’t really either, he’d been in situations much stranger than this, and if it was making Langdon feel more comfortable in his misery he certainly wasn’t going to complain.
From this position he noticed the way the sweat-slick strands of hair stuck to Langdons forehead. Almost without thinking about it, he went to brush them aside. Langdond didn’t react much, just looked up at Robby questioningly. Robby raised an eyebrow. Langdon turned back to the TV. Very quietly there was the sound of tears dripping onto cotton.
“I really am sorry, you know?” Langdon mumbled.
“Belive it or not, I got that message.” Absent-mindedly, Robbys fingers found their way back into Langdons hair, playing with the strands.
“You should hate me.”
“Maybe. Maybe I do. But apparently I also care about you.”
“Stupid decision.”
“Not really a decision. Just kind of happened.”
“Sucks for you.”
“Not the worst thing to happen to me.”
“That really sucks for you.”
Robby laughed softly. “Maybe.” There was a lull being filled by the comforting rumble of the TV. A documentary. Something about the social dynamics of wolves. They are really just big dogs. “I’m sorry too, you know? I shouldn’t have taken your mistakes so personal. I guess I have a habit of doing that.” But as Robby looked down, he realised that Langdon had actually fallen asleep.
Good, he thought.