Chapter Text
As a general rule, Langdon avoided going upstairs into the realm of Surgery, because surgeons were often arrogant, sitting at the top of hospital hierarchy, and looking genuinely surprised when ED made the right call, as if only just realizing emergency physicians had hands. And yet, here he was, standing outside the ENT administrative office on the tenth floor.
It had all started over a month ago, when Whitaker came bouncing out of the elevator less than a week after Amy Miller had been brought to PTMC as the victim of a single MVA.
“They approved it.” The intern had said, all breathlessly happy and bright-eyed. “Amy’s ENT surgery. Pro bono. Surgery approved my request!”
Robby had smiled, crossed the room in a couple of strides, and clapped Whitaker on the shoulder. “Good job.”
From the other side of the hub, Langdon had watched Robby’s whole face going soft as Whitaker talked to the attending with increasingly animated enthusiasm. He had lasted a grand total of sixty-five minutes, a new personal best, before snapping his wristband only twice and successfully hiding it from Robby.
Langdon took a deep breath, knocked, and pushed the door open.
Throughout the next ten minutes, he had to continue reminding himself that Robby was already stressed enough and could probably do without a complaint from Surgery about his senior resident’s attitude, all while listening to a clerk named Meredith explain, with thinning patience, that there had been no hospital-funded pro bono ENT surgery request pathway since 1998.
“No.” Langdon said.
“Excuse me?”
“No, that can’t be correct.”
Her expressions tightened immediately. Langdon couldn’t even blame her. People, especially surgery people, did not normally enjoy being told they were wrong by an ED resident whose tone on a good day, as Dana once lovingly told him, could turn a single disagreement into a morbidity and mortality conference.
“Dr. Langdon-”
“Dr. Dennis Whitaker, ED’s intern, submitted one for Amy Miller about a month ago. It was approved.”
Something flickered across her face at the mention of Amy’s name. It was tiny, almost nothing. Well, guess what. Langdon was an emergency physician. His entire livelihood and personality were built on noticing nothing
He breathed, trying to make his voice even, and failed. “So there is a pathway.”
“There are sometimes charitable exceptions.” She offered, carefully, reluctantly.
“Great. Then I’m requesting one.”
“Those exceptions are not processed through this office.”
“Then who should I talk to?”
“That depends.”
“On?”
Meredith pressed her lips together and refused to say another word. Langdon let the silence stretch until a migraine began to take shape behind his left eyelid.
“Meredith,” Langdon said, now literally pushing the words through his teeth. “There’s a nineteen-year-old who has been in and out of EDs all over Allegheny County for the past two years because his family couldn’t afford definitive care. He cannot sleep. He cannot exercise, and he was on track for a D1 athletic scholarship, for Christ’s sake. He can barely work. He is getting infections every few months, and every time, someone just gives him antibiotics and calls it a day because no one wants to touch the real problem. I’m not asking ENT to give him a free cosmetic rhinoplasty. I AM asking you to please tell me which chief I need to talk to so I can stop participating in…” this clusterfuck “...all of that.”
She was now looking at him with an expression akin to sympathy or, worse, pity.
“I’m truly sorry, Dr. Langdon.” She said, “there’s nothing I can tell you.”
“...Fine.”
He walked out the door before his temper could coax him into doing permanent damage, such as marching upstairs and yelling at Gloria Underwood. Although Robby would probably appreciate that. He would never say it in actual words, but Langdon was certain. Mostly certain.
He made it three steps down the hall before someone called after him.
“Dr. Langdon.”
His body reacted before his brain did, shoulders back, chin up, standing a bit taller before he turned around. The Chief of Surgery stood across from him, white coat wrinkleless, reading glass in one hand, tablet in another.
Langdon knew Dr. Elaine Mercer from exactly one incident. He had been an intern. When an ortho fellow responded to Langdon’s questions about his wrong and lazy treatment plan with “I am a surgeon”, Langdon countered “I’m very sorry.” Naturally, the ortho went up to his chief, threatening to write Langdon up. But the email never came. Instead, Dr. Mercer walked into the ED.
She stopped in front of Robby and said, “Your Dr. Langdon is terrifying.
Langdon couldn’t see Robby’s face but he could hear the smile in his attending’s voice. “He’s also very good.” Because it was apparently not enough for Langdon’s heart to jump out of his throat, Robby then added, “I’m very proud of him.”
Langdon was useless for the rest of the shift, the day, and probably the week.
“Mr. Mercer.”
She looked at the office door behind him. “You are here to ask about an ENT case?”
“Yes.” He answered quickly.
Mercer studied him for a moment. “Walk with me.”
Langdon did not want to walk with her.
He walked with her.
They moved toward a quieter spread of corridor, and Mercer stopped beside an array of oversized windows overlooking the ambulance bay, where Mel was standing side by side with Dana. Outside, Pittsburgh’s gray February afternoon plastered itself against the glass.
“What were you told?” Mercer asked.
“That there was no such thing as a pro bono surgery request.”
Mercer sighed through her nose. “There isn’t.”
“That’s interesting,” Langdon’s grip tightened around the pad because it was either this or the wristband. He needed at least one grounding outlet. “The intern in my ED, Dennis Whitaker, got one approved for Amy Miller.”
For several long seconds, Langdon found himself stuck in a staring contest with the Chief of Surgery. Surprisingly, she looked away first.
“Dr. Robinavitch called me.”
Langdon blinked at her. The name sounded wrong. Too formal. Too…surgical.
“She asked me if I could speak with Flores,” Mercer continued. “Get him to take the case.”
“As pro bono?”
“No.” She literally grimaced, as if the memory itself was jagged. “He asked Flores to say the request had been approved.”
The hollow around Langdon’s heart sharpened into pain with the realization. “Robby paid for it.” When Mercer didn’t correct him, all he could say was, “Jesus Fuck. That’s insane.”
“He paid for an uninsured ENT procedure. It was incredibly generous.”
Langdon turned away, pressing his tongue against the inside of his cheek until his mouth numbed. “How much?” He asked.
“Dr. Langdon-”
“No, tell me. How much?”
“Enough.”
Langdon didn’t know if Mercer was talking about the number or chastening him like one did a four-year-old. Probably both.
“Robby told you to lie.”
“He asked me not to tell people who were not involved in the decision, specifically Dr. Whitaker and Ms. Miller.”
Now, Langdon really really wanted to scream.
Unfortunately, Mercer wasn’t finished. “We get this more often than you’d think. People paying who wish to stay anonymous. And normally, I wouldn’t have agreed.”
The question came out spikey and ready. “Then why did you?”
“Because Dr.Robinavitch had said it was for a friend’s loved one.”
This was such a Robby thing to say. Amy was Whitaker’s loved one. Whitaker was Robby’s intern, responsibility, and, apparently, friend.
Langdon looked down at his pad. His patient’s last name stared back at him in block letters. He thought about the way the boy had looked at him, and his mother’s immediate tears when Langdon had said, cautiously, that he was going to request a pro bono surgery for them.
He should have known better.
Hope had always been such a stupid, cruel thing.
“Dr. Langdon,” Mercer said, “I shouldn’t be telling you any of these. But I’m doing it anyway because the Dr. Langdon I know was going to keep pushing until someone gave him a clear answer. I would rather you have the truth than twelve different versions of bureaucratic nonsense.”
He nodded, curt and quick. “Appreciate it.”
He wanted to turn around, go back to the ED, and try not to smash his head into a wall. But Mercer had him pinned with her gaze.
“Send me your patient’s chart.”
Langdon stopped breathing.
“I’m not promising anything but I’ll see what I can do.”
The offer should have felt like relief. It did, just not as much as Langdon had expected. Still, Langdon was a doctor before he was…whatever the hell else he was in his jealousy, insecurity, and self-destruction.
So, he replied, with all the dignity he could muster at the moment, “Thank you, Dr. Mercer.”
Langdon walked all ten flights of stairs back down to the ED, worked the remaining two hours of his shift, then took the long detour back to Robby’s townhouse. He parked a block away and pressed his forehead against the steering wheel.
Since he had gone upstairs, Robby had sent him three texts. He ignored all of them.
A week ago, they had run into one of Robby’s acquaintances on their way back from a date. Dr. Ashford, a cardiologist from either Mercy or Presby. Langdon’s attention had slipped because, although they weren’t holding hands, they were standing close enough for him to notice Robby get tense beside him in that subtle way he did when he felt threatened.
Ashford had smiled warmly, heartfelt. “Robby, hey. Good to see you, man. How’ve you been?”
“Good,” Robby had said, smiling back, albeit a bit forced. “Good. Been busy.”
They had exchanged a few pleasantries before Ashford had looked at Langdon. “And this is?”
Robby hesitated for a split second. Langdon felt it anyway.
“This is Dr. Langdon. We worked together.”
Langdon didn’t react. He was too busy smiling and shaking Ashford’s hand. Later, he was too busy letting himself melt against Robby when the older man kissed him the second they got home. Then, as Robby fell asleep pressed to his back, he was too busy telling himself Robby was a private person, that they hadn’t discussed labels, that he didn’t need one now that Robby had said “love”.
And yet.
For a friend’s loved one.
Something sharp and ugly sliced his chest open. Not because Robby had helped Amy. Langdon would have cut into his own veins if Whitaker could keep that light in his eyes for another day. But Robby had moved interdepartmental politics and his own money for Whitaker’s maybe-girlfriend under the category of friend.
Even before, before everything had crashed and burned, asking Robby to say Langdon was his friend had been like pulling teeth. What had Robby said when Langdon asked "we are still friends”?
Not if this conversation goes on much longer.
But Whitaker got that. Whitaker was better, easier, cleaner. Whitaker didn’t almost ruin his own life and drag Robby's with him. Whitaker didn’t have to walk around with a sobriety band. Whitaker could still become what Robby expected him to be.
Langdon thought about last July, Robby saying, “but he’s our fucking Huckleberry,” and asking the intern to house-sit during his sabbatical.
Langdon thought about all the hours he had spent refusing to admit that Robby giving Whitaker his keys was one of the major reasons he had accepted the MSF assignment.
Langdon thought about Robby introducing him as Dr. Langdon from work. Not his friend. Not even his resident.
Good lord, a psychiatrist somewhere could probably build a very successful career just by analyzing Langdon and his patheticness.
By the time he opened the door, he had bitten the inside of his cheek bloody. Robby was sitting on the sofa, looking like every horrible domestic fantasy Langdon would deny under oath.
Robby tilted his head and smiled at him, “Hey, Frankie.”
Langdon could only stare at him, long enough for Robby’s expression to change. The softness went first. Then the ease. Then the doctor took over, scanning posture, pupils, breathing.
Robby stood up, took a few steps towards Langdon, and stopped just short of touching him.
“What’s wrong?”
Langdon wanted to laugh. He didn’t. There was glass in his throat. He peeled off his jacket and threw it over the back of the sofa.
“Frank.”
There it was. Dr. Robinavitch’s attending voice.
Langdon felt suddenly, violently tired. He could still say it was nothing. He could still use work as an excuse and not ruin their nights. He really could.
However, “Did you pay for Amy Miller’s surgery?”
The fact that Robby didn’t answer immediately was enough of an answer.
An icy curve tugged at the corner of Langdon’s mouth. “Wow. Okay.”
Robby took another step forward. “Who told you?”
“Excellent first response.”
“Frank-”
“No, really. Very normal. Very not guilty.”
Langdon hated himself for making Robby flinch. He hated himself more for almost apologizing.
“I didn’t want Whitaker to know.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
“No, what? You didn’t pay, or you didn’t want me to know?”
Robby closed his eyes and exhaled. “Yes, I paid.”
Langdon crossed his arms, if only to keep from trying to strip himself out of his own skin. “And you had ENT say it was pro bono.”
“I asked Flores to keep it private.”
“Such a pretty way to say you lied.”
Robby’s eyes had darkened into a shade of almost black. “It wasn’t about you.”
Fuck, that hurt.
But it was correct.
It was also wrong.
“No, it wasn’t. Until I almost started a war with ENT today because I thought they were lying assholes for turning down my request for my patient.”
“Fuck.” Robby rubbed a hand over his face, looking like half the anger had left him. He was quiet for a few seconds before he said. “I…it wasn’t meant to exclude you. Amy needed surgery and you saw how Whitaker was killing himself to figure something out.”
“Yes.” Because lying was unbecoming.
“I had the money.”
“And apparently the ability to bend reality upstairs.”
Robby frowned, “Do you want me to apologize for helping her?”
“No.” Langdon’s voice cracked around how fast that syllable came out. Even now, he was still desperate for Robby to know he wasn’t actually a monster. “No, Michael, obviously I don’t want you to apologize for helping her.”
Robby softened visibly at his first name. Langdon’s eyes burned.
“Then what is this about?”
With blurry vision, Langdon looked at his novel next to Robby’s medical journals on the coffee table. At his cushion on Robby’s sofa. At the evidence of a life he kept convincing himself was theirs.
Robby had said, This is Dr. Langdon. We work together.
Robby had also said, It’s for a friend’s loved one.
Apparently Robby could name what Whitaker was to him in rooms where Whitaker wasn’t even present.
Apparently the word friend wasn’t impossible.
It was simply never directed at him.
“When you tried to convince Mercer, you told her Amy was a friend’s loved one.”
Robby opened his mouth but Langdon kept going before the older man could even make a sound. Because he had no self-preservation and, therefore, was hellbent on continuing to press until they were both bleeding.
“You can call Whitaker your friend to the Chief of Surgery, but when we ran into Ashford last week, I’m just someone you work with?”
“It’s not the same. You know that.” Robby sounded pained. He looked pained. “Come on, Frank, you must know why I said that to Ashford.”
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
“Great. Explain it to me.”
“I didn’t know how much you wanted me to share.”
Out of all the answers Langdon was prepared for, this one actually stunned him silent.
He had to laugh. “Jesus Christ.”
“I mean it.”
“No, you don’t. You mean you were scared and grabbed the easiest answer.”
Langdon saw the blow land exactly where he wanted to and felt dizzy at how sickly the satisfaction was.
Robby crossed his arms and looked away. “That’s not fair,” he said quietly.
“No, it’s not. It’s also not fair that Amy Miller got free surgery because you can afford to call Whitaker your friend without dying. And yet here we are.”
Robby looked tired, so sad that Langdon wanted to touch him, and like he had forgotten how to breathe. Langdon’s anger, once hot and immaculate upstairs, was starting to collapse from within.
“Frankie,” Robby whispered. “I wasn’t…I’m not ashamed of you.”
Langdon swallowed. His throat had gone rough. “Okay.”
“Frank.”
“I said okay.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“Am I supposed to believe that you aren’t ashamed to call me your friend?”
The anger felt justified, the hurt righteous. But Robby was standing three feet away with his stupid gray hair and stupid brown eyes, making it impossible to hate him properly.
Langdon suddenly wanted to retire and sleep for three years.
He pressed the heels of his palms into his eye sockets until he was seeing black stars. “I can’t do this right now.”
“Okay.” Robby said. The softness in his voice made Langdon’s chest hurt and not in the interesting post-op way. It made him feel twelve, lonely, and desperate to be chosen. “Then we don’t have to do this right now.”
“Michael, I’m tired.”
“Okay.” Robby repeated, even softer now. “Eat something first. I can go heat up-”
“No. I’m not hungry.”
“Frankie-”
Langdon was already putting his jacket back on when he spat out. “Do not.”
“What are you doing?”
“I need some air.”
“Langdon.”
His last name made him turn around just in time to see all the tenderness strop into fear. Langdon wanted to pry his scars open for causing that, for recognizing it in the set of Robby’s shoulders, in those large hands flexing once at his side like they wanted to reach but knew better.
“I’m not, Christ, I’m not going to do anything stupid, alright?” Robby looked all but convinced, so Langdon had to add, against his better judgement and the remainder of his survival instincts. “I just need to get out of here.”
Robby nodded slowly. He whispered, “okay.”
And just like that, Langdon almost stayed. That was the most embarrassing part. It didn’t take a hand around his wrist. It didn’t even take a plea. He almost folded right there because Robby had said those two syllables like they cost him a piece of himself. Langdon, unfortunately, knew that feeling all too well.
He left before he couldn’t. He got into his car, drove for five blocks, and realized he had nowhere to go. He parked in front of a CVS, watching the sky turning into a navy blanket over Pittsburgh. His phone buzzed. Because he hadn’t been tormented enough by hope already, he let himself think it was Rooby. It wasn’t.
Abbot: Tell me you’re still awake.
Abbot: Multiple collision on 376. I need another senior.
Langdon closed his eyes. The universe had somehow decided to offer him cases, multiple cases, of blunt force trauma to make up for the previous emotional fiasco. It was almost clinically poetic.
Langdon: How many?
Abbot: Dispatch says at least twelve vehicles. Two confirmed critical. Definitely more incoming.
Robby’s townhouse was ten minutes behind him. PTMC was fifteen ahead. There was something inherently wrong with how easy the choice felt, and how his first instinct was still to tell Robby.
He typed: Abbot texted. Multiple collision on 376. Going to the ED now. Don’t wait up.
He stared at the message for a full minute, then deleted the last three words and hit the blue arrow.
Then, to Abbot: on my way.
The multiple collision burned through the night shift like wild fire.
Twelve vehicles had become sixteen. Two critical had become five which became one ICU admit and four sent to the OR. A frantic call requesting an on-site physician had become Langdon jumping into the helicopter with Abbot’s intern and spending the next three hours on the highway, lit by headlights of police cruisers and firetrucks.
He used what Andy called “one person, one job” structure, pointing to a firefighter and saying “continue talking to that little girl. Tell me if she stops answering.” Then to a paramedic, “Flashlight on my hands, not my face.” Then to a volunteering civilian in a blue hoodie, “Count his breathing out loud”. He intubated with his upper body reaching awkwardly into a car window, taught Dr. Toomarian how to hold pressure so deep her hand cramped, and used a torn vest as a pelvic binder. He told Toomarian to take the helicopter back because she looked too pale for his liking. On the ambulance ride back to PTMC, he cut open the pericardial sac of a mother of two so her heart could beat again.
It was already 7:10 a.m. by the time he finished rounds with Al-Hashimi and day shift residents, who were all looking at him like he was either stupid or insane or both, changed, and stood at the hub to sign off the last patient. He hadn’t laid down in twenty-four hours, hadn’t had solid food in fifteen. His back hurt with every step. His ribs were screaming. It was hell.
But it was also good. Because he was not thinking about Robby. Not about why Robby hadn’t texted except the “Be safe” Langdon had only read after he was in the air. Not about whether the attending had slept or eaten properly. And not about the fact that whenever things got hard with Robby, Langdon’s only coping mechanism was apparently diving headfirst into whatever disaster that needed hands.
He was staring at the screen until the letters began to vibrate when Abbot stopped next to him.
“You look dead.” Abbot said, looking him up and down
“Flattered.”
Abbot smiled and took a sip from the Starbucks cup in his hand, Langdon wanted to know absolutely nothing about.
“Frank.”
“Yes?”
“You did an amazing job.”
Langdon blinked.
Abbot had turned to look him directly in the eyes. “You saved patients we would have lost if you hadn’t come in. At least three firefighters and four paramedics had told me how scarily calm you were out there. And Nazely had asked where you learned to bind a pelvis with a vest.”
“MSF.”
“I know. That’s why I told her you are just special.”
Langdon laughed a little. A real laugh. “Thank you.”
“From what I heard and saw, you were very impressive. I understand now why MSF wants you so badly. As they should. Emergency medicine doesn’t always translate well to field medicine, but you are a natural in both.”
Langdon’s cheeks burned. It was such a high praise that his heart seized in warmth. “I, um, thank you, Dr. Abbot.”
The attending nodded. Then, because he was Abbot, “If I were your handler at MSF, I would literally hold onto you and never let go.”
Great. Wonderful. Langdon’s brain unhelpfully supplied a harrowing image of Andy attached to him like a koala.
He closed his eyes, “please stop.”
“I’m just saying, if they had any sense-”
“Yes, yes, thank you, Dr. Abbot.”
Abbot hummed, sounding incredibly pleased with himself. They stood in silence for a few seconds before Abbot asked, “Have you two talked about it?”
He meant the offer from MSF.
“No.” Langdon was too exhausted to lie. “No, we haven’t.”
Actually, neither of them had mentioned it again since that night on the rooftop, when Langdon had practically flayed himself. What was he supposed to do after Robby had apologized and admitted that he didn’t want Langdon to leave? There had only been one thing possible: carving out his own heart and telling Robby he had spent every non-working second either missing him or talking to the sky about him like a madman.
“Ah.” Abbot raised an eyebrow. “So…” He gestured at Langdon’s face. “You looking like an abandoned puppy was about something else?”
Langdon inhaled, mostly to remind himself that trying to throttle an attending in the middle of the ED was generally frowned upon. Also, he would definitely lose.
“An abandoned what?”
“Puppy. A Border Collie puppy, to be exact.”
“Are you calling me a dog?”
“I’m calling you a highly intelligent, fiercely loyal, and occasionally intense shepherd. An accurate description, don’t you think?”
Langdon now understood why Robby had once, while tipsy, said having Jack Abbot as a best friend should be a diagnostic criterion.
Abbot took another sip of his coffee. “Did he do that thing where he did stuff without telling you until it blew up in his face?”
Langdon stared at him. “How did you know?”
Did he text you? What did he say? Did he ask about me?
“I’ve known him for almost a decade, Langdon. Time does things to people.”
Abbot’s gaze sharpened a little. Langdon stood a bit straighter despite himself.
“I don’t know exactly what happened, and honestly, I don’t want to know. But he has been the happiest I’ve ever seen him since you two, y’know…” There was another one of those vague hand waves that made Langdon grind his molars. “He cares about you. A lot. So just-I don’t know, try to remember that when he’s acting like an absolute idiot, alright?”
So this was Langdon’s life now: receiving relationship advice from Jack Abbot after working for twenty-four hours straight.
And the worst part? It was actually good advice.
His sponsor had told him to quit finding ways to hurt himself. His therapist had told him to give Robby the benefit of the doubt. And now Abbot. Maybe Langdon should stop gathering every speck of evidence to prove Robby’s love was fake. He should stop standing on a railing with one foot over the edge.
“Alright.” He muttered. “I’ll try.”
“Good.” Abbot beamed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Now, you okay to drive, or do you need a ride?”
Langdon had just opened his mouth when Abbot’s phone buzzed. The older man looked down and smiled. It was a fundamentally inconvenient smile. Too many teeth.
Langdon narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“Never mind.” Abbot said, sounding far too cheerful to be trustworthy. “I’m just standing here, enjoying my coffee and the consequence of other people’s romantic incompetence.”
Langdon understood all the words. None of them made sense. He just had a haunch that he didn’t like whatever was happening, especially with Abbot grinning - literally grinning - like a plotting Abyssinian cat. The attending tipped his coffee cup toward the front door.
“Leave, now. And do not faint before you reach the parking lot.”
Langdon made it to the parking lot just fine. Even if he was swaying a little, no one was around to report him to Abbot. He saw his car.
And the Triumph Bonneville next to it.
Robby was leaning against the bike. His hair was a mess. His beard was a mess. His eyes were bloodshot. He was wearing that motorcycle jacket that never failed to make Langdon want to drop to his knees.
Langdon stared at the two helmets set on the seat. Either Robby had assumed Langdon would come with him, or he had hoped.
Langdon didn’t know which was more devastating.
He continued walking, one foot in front of the other, because the alternative was turning around and hiding in a supply closet.
Robby watched him approach. Langdon stopped three feet away.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
For the first few seconds, neither of them spoke.
Then, out of nowhere, Robby said, “I almost came in earlier.”
“You what?”
“I wanted to.” Robby rubbed at his forehead, the corner of his mouth twisting faintly. “I rode here around 2:30 and stared at the front door for about forty minutes.”
“Why didn’t you come in?”
“Because I realized if I did, it would be because I was scared. I also would have been useless to the night shift. And you needed neither of those.”
Langdon stared at the muddied tip of his sneakers, hoping they could help him stifle the tears gathering in his chest.
“That’s…annoyingly healthy of you.”
“I hated every second of it.”
“There he is.”
Robby huffed a small laugh that faded too quickly. He shifted on his feet. “Frank, I need to say something.”
Langdon’s stomach stiffened. “Okay.”
Robby glanced once toward the glass doors, where everyone could see them if they wanted to. Dana, Santos, clerks, EMTs, and Abbot with the smugness of a man who would tell this story at parties for years to come. For exactly one beat, Langdon saw Robby’s face pass through the shadow of that decade-old urge yelling at him to step aside. Get into the car. Talk somewhere else. Make it private, safe, deniable.
Instead, Robby stayed exactly where he was.
“I didn’t say you were my friend,” he said, “because we are more than that.”
Instinctively, Langdon wrapped his arms around himself.
“And I didn’t say you were my…” Robby stopped and turned so red that Langdon genuinely thought he might explode. “I didn’t say you were my boyfriend because I hadn’t asked.”
The world narrowed to Robby’s scarlet cheeks.
“And I didn’t want to impose.”
Langdon blinked. “You what?”
Robby looked like he wished Cerberus would rise out of the parking lot and drag him underground. “I know.”
“No, no, I’m gonna need you to repeat that in a language less insane.”
“I didn’t want to assume you’d want that.”
“For fuck’s sake, Michael.”
“I was going to ask."
Langdon’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Apparently, when confronted with absurdity that exceeded what he thought was possible, his vocabulary reduced itself to a single word.
“What?”
Robby looked at the ground, then back up, jaw set the way it did when one of his residents was about to attempt a complex intubation in a compromised environment.
“I was going to ask you tomorrow night. At Sofia’s. I had a whole plan.”
“You had a plan.”
“Yes.”
“At Sofia’s.”
“Yes.”
“Like a date.”
“It was a date.”
“We’ve been on dates.”
“Yes.”
“And you were going to use this date to ask me to be your boyfriend.”
Robby’s blush, impossibly, deepened. “It’s Valentine's Day tomorrow.”
Langdon froze. He had forgotten about that, Completely. He could say that he had been busy, and since he became a resident, Valentine's Day went from the day people celebrated love to the shift he spent hours extracting odd objects from odd places and entangling people from odd positions. And that would be half the truth.
The other half was his unrequited love for his attending had been enough to make him lonely without the roses, chocolates, and pink bubbles everywhere.
But Robby remembered. Robby had even made plans. Langdon didn’t know what to do with either fact. Probably something between laughing, crying, and climbing Robby like a tree.
“You are,” Langdon said slowly, “the single most ridiculous man I’ve ever met.”
“Yeah.”
“How could you possibly think calling me your boyfriend might be imposing?”
Robby gave him a helpless little look that made Langdon want to break something.
“Frankie, I’m fifty.”
“And?”
“And your attending.”
“So?”
Robby took another step forward, reaching out for Langdon’s hand.
“So when I run into people from outside the ED,”Robby said, his thumb moving over Langdon’s knuckle, Langdon’s breath catching at the back of his throat . “I can see all the reasons someone could look at us and decide I took something from you. Your career. Your autonomy. Your choices. Look, Frankie, I know that’s not what happened. You are not a kid. You would also throw a pen at me before you let me make any decision for you.”
“Correct.”
“But I keep thinking about it. Then I overreact. I tell myself I’m making things vague because I’m protecting you, protecting us, when really I’m just protecting myself from having to watch someone judge us and wonder if they’re right.”
Langdon’s anger, sizzling and exhausting, shattered around Robby’s words. He understood that. He did. He had heard the nasty things people said about Heather and Robby. He had snarled at residents and come very close to punching an attending radiologist in the middle of the cafeteria because of it.
“But I hurt you, again.”
“Michael,” he murmured, half pleading, half warning.
Robby stepped closer. “I love you,” he said.
It was not the first time. It ruined Langdon anyway.
“I love you,” Robby repeated. “And I’m sorry I let my fear get in the way.”
Langdon had to look away because if he kept looking at Robby, he would cry, which would be deeply unfortunate because Abbot was literally right there. But tears reached his eyes regardless. He wiped at his cheek with his free hand and sincerely hoped everyone looking their way developed sudden traumatic cataracts.
“So,” Robby said, and the word shook just enough to make Langdon look back. “I was going to do this tomorrow. Properly. With pasta. And cannoli. Sofia was apparently going to put flowers on the table, which I did not authorize but also did not stop, because I’m not stupid.”
Langdon made a sound that could only be described as a broken kettle.
“But I think,” Robby’s throat bobbed, “I need to ask you now.”
Langdon’s heart was thrashing hard enough to crack his chest bones.
“Frankie,” Robby said, “will you be my boyfriend?”
Langdon could recognize how preposterous everything was. The motorcycle. The extra helmet. The dried blood on his hands he had washed off but could still feel anyway. Robby looking like he had never meant anything more in his entire life.
It should be funny.
It was funny. It was very funny.
It was also the gentlest and most romantic thing anyone had even done for him.
At that very moment, he decided with impeccable maturity, the hell with it all.
Langdon grabbed the front of Robby’s jacket and crashed their mouths together. It was not a graceful kiss by any measure. But the startled gasp Robby made against his lips was more than enough for Langdon to forgive him for every idiot thing he had ever said.
Already panting, Robby pulled back just enough to look at Langdon. “I still need an answer, Frankie.”
Langdon leaned in to kiss the gray in Robby’s stubble. “Yes. Yes, of course. You infuriating man.”
Robby was looking at him like he was the only thing that mattered. And Langdon’s chest softened in a way that was worse than pain.
“Hi.” Robby covered Langdon’s hands with his own.
“Hi.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
They stayed like that for a while, foreheads pressed together, grinning at each other like two sappy idiots.
Then, Langdon took a deep breath. He didn’t want to say anything that would ruin the moment, but he had to.
“Michael.”
“Yes?”
“The next time you pay for somebody’s medical bills - I mean, obviously you don’t need my permission - but, just…tell me, so I don’t have to hear it from the Chief of Surgery.”
“I can do that.” Robby said quietly.
“Good.” Langdon spoke around the strain behind his throat. “I…thank you. And I’m sorry I ruined your plan for tomorrow.”
“You didn’t ruin anything.” Robby’s smile faded into something even more delicate, almost shy. “And it could be our first dinner together as official…” He practically squeaked before whispering, “boyfriends.”
Langdon was so completely screwed.
He was also going to be insufferable for the rest of his life.
“Boyfriends.” He repeated with a grin, his own face burning as Robby jammed a helmet onto his head. It didn’t help that the helmet smelled like leather and Robby’s shampoo.
Langdon climbed onto the bike behind Robby and wrapped both arms around his waist. Robby’s gloved hand stayed on his for one brief second before the motorcycle rumbled to life beneath them. He held tighter and rested his helmet against Robby’s back.
Finally, he was going home with his boyfriend.