Work Text:
Frank knew he shouldn’t have come into work today but as much as he did not want to be here he didn't have much of a choice. It won't be long before he won’t be able to work at all and he has kids to provide for. He had already taken a month off for surgery and recovery, he couldn’t afford to miss anymore days.
Frank kneels down to put his bag and jacket in his locker, wincing when he feels pull of his surgery scar. He takes a second to breathe before standing back up and bracing himself for the shift ahead.
He's glad when he is met with the usual levels of animosity that he had grown accustomed to since returning from rehab. Frank is surprised when he finds out how tiring it is to walk around The Pitt when you’re used to having two testicles.
About 5 hours in he has to sit down and rest. "Did your month long vacation make you lazy?" Santos calls to him on her way past to check on her patient. Frank wants to shout a few choice words back but knows that it would not end well for him.
He's called for a meeting with upper management to discuss what work will look like for him with his treatment plan going forward. A weight is lifted off his shoulders when he's told that his job would be waiting for him once he was well again. Frank lays out the timeline of his treatment for them. He'd received the results of the biopsy done on his testicle that was removed and they confirmed that the mass was cancerous. His doctor's were pretty confident that the cells hadn't spread but they wanted Frank to do a couple of adjuvant chemotherapy cycles to be on the safe side.
Unfortunately they wanted to get him started on his first cycle as soon as his surgery incision had healed. As much as he was happy to not be in a lot of pain anymore, he wished he had a little more time. Frank is booked in for his first dose later in the week and is terrified. He had already gotten his port placed and it felt to late to back out now. Plus the idea of the cancer spreading and taking him from his kids was way scarier. Management assures him that there's no pressure on him coming in to work the day after, but Frank is adamant that he wants to work until he can’t.
Frank drags his body through the doors of PTMC. It's just over 24 hours since his first dose of chemo and it is starting to hit him. He'd hoped to have a little while longer but he wasn't that lucky. He must look like garbage because even the patients in the waiting room were giving him worried looks.
Getting down to his locker was the easy part. Frank attempts to stand back up but the room spins and he has to brace his hand on the wall to stop himself from falling back on his ass. He breathes through the nausea that rears it's head and swallows convulsively to stop his poor excuse for a breakfast from making an unwanted reappearance.
It's three 3 hours later when Frank has to make a dash for the bathroom to empty his stomach. Honestly he'd thought he could have lasted longer but a patient had an infected wound, which usually wouldn't have bothered him, but one look at the pus oozing out of it was enough to have him turning on his heels. Looking in the mirror Frank saw how awful he really looked. His face had taken on a greenish hue and his brow glistened with perspiration. Frank did not want to give in so soon but his body had a different plan.
Frank grabbed his phone and bag from his locker and decides to sit on the ground for a minute, feeling the cool metal against his back. He also didn't want to pass out in the hallway. He emails management that he was going home early and got a pretty quick response saying that they were glad he'd come in but more glad that he was listening to his body and going home.
The door to the left opens and Frank looks up to find Michael Robinavitch staring down at him. At this moment Frank wishes that he hadn’t been so against telling the attending about his diagnosis. The older man was going to find out eventually but he'd hoped to keep it under wraps until he was too sick to hide it.
"What are you doing down there?" Robby impatiently asks him, crossing his arms over his chest.
"What does it look like?" Frank shoots back, too fatigued to keep his mask of normalcy up.
"It looks like you're jonesing for your next hit." Robby growls, contempt clear on his features. "Was that why you were out for a month? Did you go back to rehab? Are you using again?"
Frank chuckles, the sound hallow and unnatural. "Fuck you."
Robby’s anger changes to surprise in an instant. "What did you just say to me?"
"I said, "Fuck. You." Frank sneers losing his patience. He'd been clean for just over a year now and he still didn't have the trust of the people around him. "Seriously. I fucked up. I know that and so does everyone else. I lost trust, friends, colleagues and my fucking marriage, and for someone reason you feel the need to rub it in my face as if I have forgotten." He snaps, breathing hard.
"I'm sorry if I am incapable of believing you when you lied to me for months." Robby yells back, his face flushed red.
"Well, it's your lucky day because I won't be back here for a while." Frank shouts back, his voice louder than Robby had ever heard it. "Because the reason I look like shot is because I have fucking cancer and I started chemo yesterday morning."
"You're lying…" Robby gasps out, more out of shock than genuine denial.
Frank pulls the neck of his scrubs down exposing his port to the attending. "If this isn't enough for you I can drop my pants and show you where my left testicle used to be. Will you believe me then?"
Robby face is pulled downwards in an expression the younger man had never seen on him. "Frank." Robby whispers.
"I can’t do this right now, Robby." Frank sighs all the fight having left him. He heaves his body off the floor and walks out into The Pitt where multiple eyes are trained on him. He curses softly knowing they had all heard the shouting match that had gone down by the lockers. He ignores them all and walks out.
Over the next few days Frank has an revolving door of visitors. Most people check on him or leave him home cooked meals. After about a week he answers his door to find Mel standing there. This isn't a surprise, she had visited him a couple of times, leaving him soup and a freshly baked banana bread. The odd part of this visit is that Mel is accompanied by Whitaker and Santos.
Frank stands there a mouth agape.
"Are you going to invite us in or not?" Santos asks, raising a brow.
Frank wordlessly steps aside and gestures for them to come inside. Mel follows her in smiling and handing Frank a container of soup. Dennis follows, shooting him an apologetic look and carrying what looks like a selection of various films and board games.
Frank closes the door behind them, putting the soup in his fridge for later. He walks out to the living room to see his three guests making themselves at home. "Hi." He finally says dumbly.
"Hey, you up for board games or do you want to watch a mindless movie?" Santos asks. Frank sits down in his recliner slightly overwhelmed by having all of them in his home.
"Give him a second Trin." Whitaker then turns to Frank. "How have you been, man?"
"As well as I can. I don’t know how I'm going to survive another 2 months of this."
"Don't say that." Mel looks to him with a friend. "You're going to be fine. You're going to survive and come back to work."
Frank has been doing a lot of crying and he hates that it’s happening now in front of them. "Sorry." He sniffles, his sweater covered hands coming up to wipe the tears from his face.
"This seems like a movie situation. We'll watch one and come back to the board games after." Santos decides, taking control of his TV and putting in a DVD.
"High School Musical?" He asks incredulously.
"We're all in this together." She shrugs, settling back to watch the film.
Just as the credits roll and they've decided on Catan as their first board game, the doorbell rings. "I'll get it." Dennis says. The other man had insisted on first names. Frank wants to protest that it's his house but he's too wiped to leave his comfy seat.
Yolanda enters the room like she owns the place, Dennis trailing in behind her.
"Thank God, I missed High School Musical." She says in way of greeting, glancing at the TV.
"Hi Yoyo." Frank smiles, happy to see his friend.
"Hi Frankie." She replies placing a kiss on his head. "Mel said you were craving strawberry ice cream so I picked some up on my way from work. This is from Robby." Yolanda throws a beanie, hitting him in the face.
Frank turns it over in his hands. It's lined on the inside. He's seen similar ones on cancer patients in the ER. A person's scalp is usually sensitive after all their hair falls out. Robby had brought this for him?
As they sat around the coffee table playing and laughing Frank realised that it would be a while before he could be a part of a gathering like this again. His immune system was going to be shot and with them all working in a hospital it wouldn't be safe having this much contact with them. He savours the moment while it lasts.
A month later he's finished his first cycle and his immune system is on the mend. He has a couple weeks before he starts his last cycle and Frank has decided it was finally time to shave his head. Most of it had fallen out anyway and it was really starting to itch and irritate his skin.
Trinity, because somehow she'd become Trinity to him, suggested they have a get together at his house to mark the occasion. Frank agrees only because it's probably the only time he'll be able to see everyone before his immune system goes to shit again. The invite is extended to everyone in the ER, plus some of the surgeons he knows through Yoyo.
He's almost brought to tears by the amount of people that show up for him. All the nurses fuss over him, Donnie and Jesse try to be nonchalant but their eyes' tell a different story. Javadi, Joy and Ogilvie bring him some silk pillow cases which he greatly appreciates. Mel, Trinity, Dennis and Yolanda arrive together bringing more board and card games with them. Samira and Cassie give him some light snacks that will be easy on his stomach during his chemo. His ex wife, Abby, doesn't bring anything except their kids which is the best gift of all. They can’t stay long but neither can most of the other guests. He'll take whatever time he can get with them.
Abott is the last to arrive and he drags a sorry looking Robby behind him. Frank thought that it would anger him to see Robby again but over the last month he's had a lot of time for reflection. He'd been caught up in his own shit and hadn’t recognised how much the older man was struggling which made him feel guilty. Frank realises now that Robby felt the same thing for him but on a bigger scale. Frank also knows that Robby is an extremely emotionally constipated person. He feels so much but has no fucking idea where to put them. It doesn't justify either of their actions but it's a start.
After about half an hour, Robby gets him alone to have a chat.
"Look Frank. He begins, "I fucked up big time with you and I am really sorry. I don't expect you to accept my apology but I am working on it. I'm seeing a therapist and I'm dealing with everything going on in my head. I just wanted you to know that."
Those are the words Frank has been dying to hear from him for months. He clears his throat, "I do forgive you. I've thought a lot about the relationship between us and what went wrong. We are both fuck ups. We are not communicators when it comes to feelings. This whole situation has really put a lot of things into perspective for me. I'm done holding on to unnecessary anger, it doesn't make everything okay, but if we both work at it, I think we can fix it."
"I was terrified. What if I lost you? How did I not know you were struggling? I felt guilty." Robby admits. "I still do."
"You don't have to. We're going to work it out."
Robby pulls him into a hug. Frank crumples, he didn’t realise how much he needed that. After a few seconds he wipes his tears and sees Robby doing the same.
"I made you more beanies," Robby says holding a bag out to Frank.
"Made?" He replies taking the bag and finding a whole selection of different coloured beanies inside.
"When I went on sabbatical and decided not to ride off into the sunset on my motorcycle, I needed a hobby. My Bubbe used to knit, I remember her teaching me a little bit when I was young." He smiles. "I picked it back up and made scarves and blankets at first. When I found out you had cancer and were undergoing chemotherapy, I made beanies and took up sewing so I could line them on the inside."
Frank doesn’t want to cry again but damn it his face is wet instantly. He doesn’t know what to say. Robby knows this so he claps him on the shoulder and they go back to the party.
Frank is sitting on one of his dining room chairs that has been placed in his living room on top of an old sheet. A towel is pinned around his neck and Yolanda stands behind him with clippers in hand. He breaks down as the first patch of hair is shaved off. Dana steps forward cradling his upper body in her arms and whispering gentle encouragements in his ear. Frank sobs into her shoulder. He's embarrassed by his reaction but he's always been proud of his looks and his hair especially. When it's done and he's handed a mirror he chokes back a sob. Frank had looked sick before, but now he looked like a cancer patients.
He finds it hard to feel sorry for himself when he's surrounded by faces of the people that live and care about him. Frank knows he will survive this. He has so many people in his corner.
The Pitt can't get rid of him that easily.