Chapter Text
Frank wasn't supposed to look like that. He wasn't supposed to look worn down, burdened by the weight of the world. Frank wasn't supposed to be unshaven and unstyled, wearing his struggles in dark circles and stubble. Frank wasn't supposed to look like that. He was supposed to look like Robby remembered him, how he left him. Frank was supposed to be better than that. Robby knows it's mean and unfair of him to be mad at Frank for looking like the world had won, that he had given up the fight, but Robby knew if he let himself worry, worry over the man he spent four long months realising would always be his boy, would break him completely.
Robby knew he also had no right to worry, to be mad at Frank, not anymore. Fourteen long months of silence and dismissal had stripped away every small right Robby had deluded himself into thinking he had when it came to Frank Langdon, and he's not sure if he can ever get it back; he knows he doesn't deserve to. He had cut their bond so completely that there was nothing but the ghosts of a whisper left between them, and it's the only reason Robby came back.
The pain made him want to die in a way that was strange and foreign, and it was eating Robby alive.
"Robby, welcome back."
It's a sharp sting that unfurls in his chest at the simple words, his soulmate's words, even and a little dry with no hint of the history and love they once shared. Robby can feel his face twist, unsure of what to do, so he gives that smile Frank could always see past, but this time his boy doesn't look past it, taking the uncomfortable smile at face value.
"Thanks."
The stinging doesn't go away, and Robby doesn't know what hurts worse: the fact that Frank welcomed him back still after everything or that he was no longer really looking at Robby. He didn't realise how much he wanted Frank to still be looking at him until that moment, and his chest stings just a little more.
"See ya in there."
Frank gives Robby a nod, and nothing more, moving towards the Pitt, and Robby has to remind himself how to breathe. It's too easy to find himself looking for Frank all over again, to constantly be aware of him, searching him out, and the familiar pang of panic when he can't see him hits a little harder now after his absence, and then he realises it. The thing Robby didn't let himself realise for months before Frank stole from the hospital, before the outing of his addiction, the severing of their bond.
There was something profoundly wrong with Frank.
The Frank he knew was bright and constantly moving, with a sharp wit and an endless source of energy. Even when he was exhausted, he would be constantly moving, pushing himself to the edge. Now, though, Frank was still. No twitch of the leg or fingers when he sat. Constantly taking breaks and slower with his charting. Worry, corrosive and deep, started to eat at Robby's stomach, and the anger built with silent worry at how sick Frank suddenly looked, swaying slightly on his feet.
"Langdon?"
"I'm fine, Robby." Frank dismisses him with a tight tone, and Robby wants so badly to call bullshit, but he doesn't; he can't get the words out.
"Langdon-"
"Hey, it's just a wave, I promise." Robby shifts from one foot to another, watching, unsure what to feel when it's Baran who approaches them, with her brows together and her lips pinched in a displeased frown. Surprise mingles with worry when Baran stops right in front of Frank, unprofessionally close, and reaches up and brushes the back of her hand against Frank's forehead, her expression tightening further.
"Frank."
Robby feels like the oxygen has been punched out of him at Frank's name on her lips, the intimate ease at which she says it and the way Frank looks properly chastised by it.
"I'm sending you home."
"Baran, don't. I am taking breaks and making sure my levels are up. Jesse force-fed me a sandwich Shen made him bring, and Mel looked me over twice already. "Just please don't send me home."
"....He force-fed you a sandwich?"
"Said if I died, Shen would make him sleep on the couch for killing his second favourite white boy." Frank's voice drops into a pleading little whisper Robby has never heard before, pained and raw, and there are dots of jealousy clouding his vision as worry and concern continue to eat away at his vital organs. "Please."
He can't move, and Baran doesn't once look in Robby's direction. "Fine, but if it gets worse, I'm sending you home, Frank, where you should be already." She arches a brow, and it's the first time Robby sees a glimmer of his Frank, the first time he sees Frank actually smile all day.
"Your commute would be boring without me." He shoots at the older woman, and Baran rolls her eyes, walking away, and Frank gives a shuddery sigh as he rubs his ches like it hurts. He has to ask; he has to know what he's missing, he has to know what is wrong with Frank, why he's getting rides with Baran of all people, what is going on between them, what is wrong with his soulmate.
"Frank?" Robby's voice is rough; he knows it, and he knows this isn't the place to ask, to go into any discussion, but there's something deep and ugly that is ready to rip everything to shreds until he gets the answers he needs.
His eyes are clear and blue, but dull and lifeless as they look at Robby, truly look at Robby, and he's pulling down his scrub and undershirt as far as it will go and that stinging sensation that had settled in Robby's chest explodes at what greets him. The soul mark Robby shared with Frank, the one he had burned off of himself, drunk and furious two days after PittFest, was black and necrotic, puffy and swollen, the skin around it an ugly web of infected red.
He really can't breathe.
"I'm in end stages," Frank tells him bluntly. "It started to rot a week after you left, and it's been rotting ever since. I have surgery scheduled to get it removed. It's a six-month recovery, but the board and PHP will let me restart where I left off, as this is considered mitigating circumstances."
"... why? Why didn't you tell me?"
There is no scathing anger, just profound heartbreak that tells Robby how stupid the question was, and Robby hates himself deeply for asking it.
"Why would I?" Frank cocks his head. "We're not soulmates anymore, Robby; we no longer have a bond. We never really did. I was your best resident, remember? I need to sit down; Baran will kill me if I collapse on the floor." Frank sounds too old, and Robby grows sick. "Robby-"
"Yeah?"
"I meant it when I said welcome back; I'll listen better to you now. I've finally learned that lesson."
Robby doesn't make it to the bathroom before he's throwing up, the contents of his stomach emptying into a bin, and Frank's words rattling around his head. He had killed his boy.
Jack finds him lying down on the break room sofa. He doesn’t say anything at first, dragging a chair over and running a hand through Frank’s hair, letting Frank wake up slowly, chuckling slightly when the younger man gives an unhappy pout at the fluorescent lights.
“Robby’s back.”
“I know.”
“I shouldn’t have come in today.”
“Nope, but live and learn.”
“Emphasis on learn?”
“Emphasis on live, smart ass.” Jack retorts with that quiet ease of his, moving his hand when Frank starts to sit up slowly, and Jack sees the pain plainly on Frank’s face as he did so.
“Did Baran call you?”
Jack gave a look of mock offence at his soulmate’s name. “Spidey senses.”
Frank raised a brow, and the older man crossed his arms and silently stuck to his story. He doens’t mention Baran’s texting him asking if he had plans this afternoon, or the way Robby blew up his phone until Jack finally picked up and told him to fuck off for an afternoon and they can talk about it when Robby is calmer. Jack also doesn’t mention the fact he knew from the moment he looked at Frank that morning, huddled up on their sofa, trying to take up as little room as possible, and the bowl discreetly tucked under the sofa for emergencies, that Jack cancelled all his plans, knowing already where the day was heading.
Jack had put the pieces together when Frank was still a young M4; he saw the mark when he patched the kid up after a patient’s spouse attacked him, and recognised it as Robby's, and was grateful the encounter didn’t scare the kid away from emergency medicine, away from Robby. He liked Frank well enough, but he was never his own person. To Jack, he was just an extension of Robby, and Jack was happy to keep it at that. Then the drugs and the fight, and Frank became a ghost.
Jack didn’t think of him much, not at first, and he silently cursed Robby out for his stupid act a couple of days later, attempting to burn off his soulmark himself. A more understanding man would remember Robby never had soulmates in his life growing up, never had the examples that others had, was traumatised by too many deaths and ultimatums to know how soulmates were supposed to work. It wasn’t something that just burned away; the mark was mostly symbolic.
A lesser man would be understanding; Jack wasn’t a lesser man, but Robby needed that symbol gone, and Jack would wait to remind him that he would never truly be rid of Frank.
It was one of his old service buddies who asked him to meet for coffee, telling him about this new guy, a kid really, that was skittish and quiet, and going through the worst of it, but there’s something off about it, something that doesn’t feel right. Jack asks if he means dangerous, and his buddy shakes his head.
They meet a couple of months later, when his army buddy calls him up and asks Jack to quietly attend a meeting, just to observe, that something about Robin was making him nervous, and he needs a second set of eyes, thinking it’s medical.
Jack goes for no other reason than he’s curious. The look of horror and shock on Frank’s face mimics the feeling in Jack’s stomach when he realises Robin is Frank Langdon. The man tries to leave, and Jack snaps to attention when he notices the way his legs don’t seem completely steady. He spends the whole meeting carefully watching Frank. Mack is right; there’s something not right about the resident. He sees the same lurking sickness, and he’s pulling Frank away from the crowd as soon as the meeting ends.
“What’s going on?”
“Doctor Abbot, I’m-”
“Langdon, I’m not here to judge or do anything else you think I’m here to do. I’m pissed, I’m not going to lie, but right now, I need to know what’s going on; you’re clearly sick.”
“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“It’s not, but you also know I won’t give up until I figure it out. You’re sick enough you’re raising an old army buddy’s red flags, and he asked me to take a look at you.”
He waits as Frank looks everywhere but him before sucking in a breath and forcing himself to meet Jack’s eyes.
“It’s soul bond rejection sickness.”
Of course it fucking is.
Jack spends more time thinking of Frank after that, and it takes everything not to say anything to Robby. Mostly to protect Frank’s autonomy and privacy, but also because Jack grows pissed every time Robby and Dennis flirt, and he wants it to hurt that much more when Robby figures his shit out. He hopes that Robby doesn’t figure it out until shit gets too real and it’s too late, and will try to keep Frank alive until he does.
Jack is petty enough to count on Robby not figuring it out at all until there’s nothing his friend can do.
Frank comes back after ten months, and with him comes Baran, and Jack’s attention is stolen by the woman, the pair pretending not to know each other. They were never quite the right person and never quite at the right time, meeting here and there through the years, both agreeing that they were hitting the points in their lives to at least try. So they agreed to start over, reintroducing themselves all over again.
Frank performs a fucking miracle, and Jack only learns too late about Robby’s treatment of his soulmate that day, of the conversation on the roof, when Frank passes out in the middle of talking to a patient, going pale and lifeless before going into convulsions. They work incredibly fast, and Dana yells for them when removing Frank’s scrub top, noticing the rot that had started and was already setting in. Whatever bond Frank and Robby had was all but severed, and Jack made a new vow to actually keep Frank alive.
Robby this time had nothing to do with it.
Baran doesn’t understand it, this need to save Frank, but she doesn’t argue; the only time she had seen her soulmate like this was when she had been shot, and Jack refused to let her die. She threw herself into keeping Frank alive with him, not wanting to find out what would happen to her soulmate if Frank died.
She whispers that night when they are curled in bed together that souls don’t always need a mark to be tied; a mark is just a compass after all. Jack never loved her more.
Getting full custody of Tanner and Penny was brutal but quick, a dying soulmarked parent getting priority, and the order extends to a year after Frank’s surgery should he survive it, and Abby is angry and bitter over it, claiming it would be better for the children if Frank would just die. Jack doesn’t say a word, gritting his teeth tightly, but Baran does, ripping into Abby with a viciousness that scares Jack and makes him proud in equal measure, and he’s glad Frank’s with the kids and the lawyer to hear either woman.
“What are your spidey senses telling you now?”
Frank’s question brings Jack to the present, and he can’t help but chuckle. “That I need to take you home and get you into a way too hot bath with Epsom salts and let you soak until you turn into a prune before I pick up the kids from daycare.”
He groans and drops his head at Jack’s words, and Jack can’t help but feel a rush of satisfaction at the noise, constantly wondering how much he could spoil Frank without the man getting scared or pushing back. Baran would never let Jack spoil her like he does Frank, catching on far too fast and then it becomes nothing but a competition between the pair. He spoils his soulmate in so many other ways. He loves the way she cums.
“How bad is it?”
Jack hates the smallness of Frank’s voice, and hates that he knows exactly what Frank was asking.
How bad is Robby?
“Jack?”
He will never forgive Robby for this, no matter how much he loves him, no matter how much he feels like a part of him, his soulmate without a mark. Jack could never forgive Robby for making Frank sound so young and scared, dying as Jack and Baran are forced to watch, day after day, until the rot can be cut out, with a gruelling six-month recovery in its wake. There was always the possibility that the soul mark would regrow, or a new one could take its place, making Frank even more susceptible to reinfection should there be a rejection, but Jack refused to let that happen. He would carve his and Baran’s marks into Frank’s flesh himself if he had to.
“Jack.”
Frank’s hand is warm on the back of Jack’s neck, the younger man holding Jack with everything he has, and Jack feels himself swim up to the surface from the dark place he started to sink into.
“I’m okay-”
“No, you’re not.”
“No I’m not.” Jack finds himself agreeing, “but you’re worse, so I’m counting it as I’m okay.”
Frank’s chuckle is weak, and it’s music to Jack’s ears. “You’re such an ass.”
“Let’s get you home.”
Baran spots them almost immediately, and Jack can’t help but feel a swell of love for the woman, seeing the worry behind her composure. “I’m going to take him home; he’s going to take a long hot bath, and then he’s going to take a nap, watch some movies, and decide what we’re ordering for dinner.”
Baran’s smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes, but Jack can see her shoulders relax.
“I’m sorry…” Frank begins, once again sounding small, “I just wanted one more shift before…”
Frank can’t finish the sentence, and Baran softens completely, and Jack doesn’t blink when she pulls him into a hug, generally breaking her rule about bringing home life into the workplace. Frank sags into her like the stings that had been holding him up had been cut completely, and Jack’s attention snaps to Robby, who is walking out of a patient's room, freezing completely at the sight. Jack doesn’t feel the satisfaction he thought he would at seeing Robby after all this time, seeing the man breaking apart beneath the surface with the discovery of Frank’s illness and his part in it.
Jack only feels a profound sense of grief and heartbreak.
Baran kisses Frank’s cheek and lets him go, warning Jack with a glance; the older man interprets his soulmate’s look with precision, and the car ride home is mostly silent with Frank resting tiredly against the window of Jack’s SUV, three distinct car seats in the back.
He doesn’t know what possesses him to bring it up, to talk about Robby now, but he does, and there’s an unshakable truth to it that Jack hates.
“Robby blew up my phone before I came and picked you up.”
“I figured.”
“How much does he know?”
Jack flexes his hands on the steering wheel and waits. “Just the basics. I’m dying, I have surgery, the rot, that I’ll listen to him now, that I’ve learned my lesson.”
Frank’s mirthless laugh is raw and ugly, and Jack can’t help but reach out and grab Frank’s shoulder, squeezing it, refusing to let go. “You weren’t expecting him to come back.”
That was the ugly truth of it; none of them were, none of them but Jack. Jack knew Robby wouldn’t know how to survive with Langdon even when he wanted to die.
“Were you?”
“Yeah, Frankie, I was,” Jack admits, and he doesn’t look at Frank, not wanting to see the heartbreak and betrayal on his face. “He loves you too much to be without you.”
Frank doesn’t call bullshit; Jack knows Frank will never believe him, and the car descends into silence. Frank is in the bath, with Jack a hollar away, not fully able to leave Frank alone in there, needing to check in on him, still not used to the mass on Frank’s chest. He’s sitting on the bed he shares with Baran, and now with Frank and Baran, neither soulmate comfortable with Frank sleeping on his own with the Rejection Sickness being this advanced, when he calls Robby.
Robby picks up immediately
“Jack?”
The desperation in Robby’s voice soothes and hurts in equal measure, and Jack bites back tears.
“Robby, I’m going to make this quick. It’s more than you deserve.”
“I know.”
“Frank is getting surgery in two days. He wasn’t supposed to be in today; if Baran and I had our way, he wouldn’t have been in at all. It will be a six-month recovery; three of those months will be almost complete bed rest and then working towards half shifts and then full shifts, if he survives.”
There’s a sob on the other side of the phone, and Jack knows this is not the time to tell Robby all of this, but he also knows Robby needs to know.
“In his condition, survival rate and successful recovery are 80-90%, It would have been much higher if he had the surgery before the rot set in.”
Before you let your bond rot.
“Robby?”
There’s a pained sound on the other side of the phone that lets Jack know he has Robby’s attention.
“He’s still alive; you haven’t lost him, not completely, but I need you to think, brother, really fucking think about what you want, because I will not let you kill him. This is your chance to walk the fuck away and never look back. Baran and I will take care of him.”
“And if I can’t?”
The question was an expected gut punch, but still it left Jack breathless all the same. “Then you better fucking work for him. Get your head out of your ass and figure your shit out, and don’t show up until then, and take whatever choice he makes. You didn’t want a soulmate. You made that choice for him.”
Jack takes a steadying breath. “Now Frank gets to make that choice for himself. You didn’t put Frank first, so Baran and I will make sure Frank does that for himself. Oh, and Robby?”
“Y-yeah?”
“You hurt either of my soulmates again, I won’t care I love you as much as one, you and I will be finished.”