Chapter Text
"Jack, you're being dramatic."
"No, I'm being practical."
"Jack, it's a concert."
Jack just looked at Frank, the younger man's face open and earnest under the fluorescent lights of the Pitt, somehow looking fresh-faced and handsome despite coming up on the last thirty minutes of a twelve-hour shift. He had been back at the Pitt for six months, and the shift between Frank and the two attendings had been slow and almost unnoticeable at first. Robby was still short with Frank when he returned, still angry and distrustful at first, so Frank did the only thing he could think of: put in a transfer request to the night shift. Robby had sat there for a minute in total silence, looking at the form, then back at Frank with an expression Frank couldn't read, before signing it.
Frank let out a breath of relief and a soft "thanks, I'll stay out of your way now."
The words surprised Robby, but Frank had already walked away, leaving Robby no chance to respond. It surprised Robby even more when Frank took very deliberate care to do just that, only coming onto the day shift once or twice a month because he would have his children for the night. He tried so hard to stay out of Robby's way, Robby had no idea something was wrong until he got a phone call from Abby of all people, letting him know that Frank would not be able to come into work for two weeks. He had caught the flu, which quickly turned into pneumonia.
"The only reason the hospital hasn't called you or Jack is that I was the one who brought him in."
Robby was already frantically searching the boards, not finding Frank's name anywhere on the screen; his brain couldn't make sense of it. "Why would they call Jack or me?"
He ignored the questioning looks as he rushed to triage and then out to the waiting room to see if maybe Abby and Frank were just walking in. Nothing was making sense. "Oh, right, you and Frank-"
Robby wanted to snap over the phone, asking, "He and Frank what?"
"Frank made you and Jack his emergency contacts after rehab, he reasoned, you two and the Pitt were basically the same thing."
Robby only stared with unseeing eyes around the waiting room while Abby spoke. "What? Why would he do that? You are his emergency contact, Abby."
"He figured it would be one less thing for me to worry about after the divorce."
Robby's thoughts were quickly spinning out of control. "Abby, where are you? I don't see Frank's name on the board, and I don't see you in the waiting room."
"Oh, right, we're at Mercy. He said something about staying out of your way, whatever that means...Listen, I have to go, the doctor is here. They're going to keep him for a couple of days at least. Can you let Jack know? I can drop off any required paperwork later, thanks."
The call was disconnected before Robby had a chance to respond, leaving him to return to the Pitt in a daze, too thrown to even think of being angry at Frank for not going in earlier, for once again not coming to him, not letting him help.
I'll stay out of your way now.
Robby stopped long enough to give Dana a heads up, agreeing with the pinched expression on her face, before he forced himself to get back to work, barely able to focus, finding himself constantly thinking about Frank, hating himself for worrying about the man so determined to keep his word.
Jack took the news even worse than Robby, his face growing dark. "That fucking kid." He muttered, pulling out his phone. They still had ten minutes before hand off, and Robby could only watch as he dialled the number they both had memorised but tried so hard to pretend they didn't. Frank's phone rang three times.
"Hello?"
"Abby, it's Jack." There was nothing gentle in his tone, and from what he could hear of Abby's voice, she had expected this reaction. "Robby told me-I don't care-Abigail, don't start-where the fuck are you?-Mercy?-What the fuck?"
The conversation lasted maybe ten minutes, Jack's tone never changing, neither did Abby's, the familiarity between them making something sour in Robby's throat rise.
"What the hell?" He demanded when Jack hung up, looking at Robby with a clenched jaw, irritation clear in his brown eyes. "When did you two become so close?"
He watched as guilt flickered and settled over the man he shared his life with, Jack offering Robby a wince that made his stomach clench. "They changed Frank's SNRI's when you were on sabbatical...he didn't react well."
Robby was blindsided by the news; no one had said a single thing to him. "It got ugly fast, brother," Jack explained. "You were dealing with your own shit, at the time, and Abby was convinced you wouldn't give a shit if he had managed."
He was going to be sick, violently so.
"We noticed it pretty much straight away, a change in behaviour, in responses, shutting down and withdrawing. Parker caught him pocketing a scalpel. He didn't fight getting help once he realised what was actually happening. He stayed with me while he was weaned from the medication before going back to the one he was on originally; he didn't want the kids to see it."
What the fuck?
"I'm glad you were there for him." Was all Robby could say, and Jack knew not to continue. Hand off was quiet and tense, and Robby turned the volume of his tv up just a fraction higher, just so he could get some semblance of sleep that night.
Frank returned two and a half weeks later, looking impossibly thin and still way too pale. Robby hated it. He learned the night Abby called how much he couldn't imagine his life without Frank in it. He had done it for fourteen months, and a part of Robby hated himself every day for it. He hated Frank more until he couldn't.
Everything changed that night.
"I don't give a shit if it's a concert," Jack reasoned, arms crossed where he stood at the other side of the central hub desk, not quite glaring at Frank. "It's a bad fucking idea."
"You know I'm not actually asking permission, right, old man?"
"Oh shit," Shen murmured, clearly invested in the argument between the two men. Jack's overprotective tendencies towards Frank were quickly becoming one of the worst-kept secrets in the Pitt, Robby's overprotective tendencies were quickly becoming the other.
"And I'm not asking for your permission when I tell you, not only will I personally make sure you are scheduled for that night, but if somehow you do switch shifts with someone, I will blow up your phone constantly while you are at that concert and come find you, in person, if you don't answer every single text."
"And if he gets busy, then I will." Robby tact on, not looking up at the pair, his glasses low on his nose as he worked.
Frank looked less impressed at the husbands. "Jesus Christ." He muttered. "It's a fucking concert, and not like I'll be going alone."
Both older men looked at Frank. "Oh?" Robby inquired with false pleasantry.
"Well, that was a rookie mistake," Parker muttered, earning a nod of agreement from Shen. Frank glared at them, earning a smirk from Parker and Shen taking a calm sip of his coffee.
"Dennis asked me, happy?" Frank threw his hands in the air, looking from Jack to Robby. "Your golden boy," the nickname for Dennis, prickled, no matter how true it seemed to be. Frank was no longer Robby's golden child, his heir, his future. Frank was something different now, something more, something undefined and dangerously close to precious.
Still, the absence of Frank by Robby's side, where Dennis now stood, hurt.
"Oh so it's a date." Parker nodded as if understanding, enjoying the show more and more. She had seen how Dennis had grown interested in Frank, how he was constantly seeking the senior resident out, doing his best to stake a claim on the oblivious man.
Jack and Robby stiffened almost perfectly in synch at the choice of words, eyes narrowing dangerously at the idea. "It's not a date." Frank sighed, pinching his the bridge of his nose before shooting Parker an annoyed look. She smiled brightly in return.
"Did he buy the concert tickets?"
"Yes?"
Shen hummed. "It's a date, pretty boy. Jack, Robby, your boy has a date."
"I'm not their boy."
"Yes, you are." Jack corrected automatically.
"No, he doesn't." Robby declared at the same time. "Especially not with Dennis."
"Yes, because we all know Jesse is more my type." Frank joked dryly.
"Ahmed owes me forty bucks," Jesse replied, walking past, equally dry, he and Frank sharing a quick fist bump as he did. Frank had been taken by complete surprise when Jesse slipped Frank his number his third day back with a "call me when you need, McKay's not the only whose been where you are now."
Frank had, and still did, but now it wasn't even when he was struggling, a very real friendship had formed between the men, Jesse even hanging out with Frank when he had the kids. Uncle Jesse was just as cool as Uncle Shen and Auntie Parker in their books.
Jack didn't laugh, and Robby tried to look like he wasn't actively planning to banish Jesse to triage for the foreseeable future. "This is why he stays on night shift," Jack grumbled to Robby, who clenched his jaw in annoyed agreement. He still hated that Frank was on the night shift primarily, wanting nothing more than to keep Frank with him safe, where he could keep a constant eye on him while they continued to develop a new relationship out of the ruins of the one they burned down so completely.
"I fucking quit."
"No, you don't." Robby looked at Frank. "But feel free to try." He called the younger man's bluff. "Jack and I will just drag you back."
"Fine, then I'm transferring to Mercy."
"Presby has a better cafeteria." Shen pointed out, shrugging when everyone looked at him. "What?"
"Fuck no," Jack grunted. "Your ass is staying here, and you're not going to a fucking concert with Dennis Whitaker of all people."
Frank crossed his arms and shot the older man a look, his lips twisting into a challenging smirk. "Please, by all means, try to stop me. I'm a thirty-three-year-old man, father of two with an ex-wife, and a dog, what the hell are you two going to do? Ground me? Chip me like they do with pets at the vet?"
Robby and Jack shared a look, and Frank paled, realising his mistake. "Run," Parker suggested with pure amusement, and Frank for a second thought about it.