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He’d been little when it had happened.
He must have been twelve or so, so old enough to know better. He’d been playing basketball after dark, specifically when his mother had warned against it. Come home when the streetlights come on, and he’d stayed with his friends for an hour, only an hour after the fluorescent overheads had buzzed to life. If he’d been asked about it now, he wouldn’t have been able to recall- he was trying to make a free throw, or learn how to block better. He’d always been scrawny for his age, and he’d always had something to prove, even back then.
When he fell and flung those scrawny arms out to catch himself, instinct betraying him for the first time, he was rewarded with that distinctive crunch in his wrist and a blinding shock of pain. The visit to the ER hadn’t been entirely unexpected, even if he was wavering, trying to stay tough in front of his friends through the snotty sobs, stay tough for his mother, his little sister while clutching his wrist gingerly.
The room had been white, and the attending had teeth that were too white, and the sheets were too crisp. It was busy- a Friday night, or a weekend in the summer. The smell of rubbing alcohol and starch making his skin crawl wasn’t the memorable part of it all, he’d realized many years later. When his tears had dried, tacky and flaking into salt on his cheeks, he was able to get a better look around. There was a man poorly hidden by a curtain next to him, wheezing air, and he remembered the crimson peppering his chest, dripping onto the floor and swarm of blue and white scrubs surrounding him, and the shouting and crying.
His mother had turned his shoulder away as a masked man in scrubs pulled the curtain back in front of him, and it was hidden from sight.
It had been so scary back then, and he remembered the feeling of his chest seizing up, the flight response making his mouth go dry. He had started to cry, again- and he hadn’t realized why, in the moment. Robby had always wondered why he willingly, so willingly, prescribed himself to reliving some iteration of that night for the rest of his life.
There was always something around the corner, always just something waiting to happen. it didn’t matter whether it was a MCI, or a mother in labor, or a collapsed lung, or his senior resident-
Robby slammed his locker shut with a harsh clack.
Curled in the starched-cream sheets, he had asked his mother if the place they were in was haunted, and she’d scrunched her nose, appalled that he would imply something so morbid. He remembered the attending that was writing up something was turned away from him, and he remembered the way his shoulders had stiffened with the words. Robby had the sense that he’d just made some horrible faux pas that was more indecent than the Colles fracture he had been nursing since sundown.
Maybe she’d been so disgusted with him because there was some sort of macabre truth to it. They never spoke about it again, after that night.
He knew he should be leaving, now, with most of the blood washed out of his hair and off of his clothes. He knew the night shift had started to filter in, called in earlier than usual to mop up the day's messes- per usual. The pink wristbands were all that were left, for now, and you need the rest, you need anything but this place. Right now.
Still, there was a nagging in his chest, like his intuition pulling his attention away from where it should be. A shifting in the corner of his eye, and maybe it was a stray rat, which almost made him want to smile, his mind drifting, before-
“Robby?”
A weak voice from the corner of the locker room made his ears ring, and his eyes scrunched shut in instinct. He couldn’t count how many times his instincts had betrayed him. This place required a profound trust in your gut to make the decisions your head couldn’t.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Robby breathed out, voice equally as withering, and his fingers were still splayed against the door of his locker. There was a ragged picture of Jake taped inside the door from when he was younger, maybe twelve or so, with a big gap in a bigger grin. They had been at the beach, or on a walk, or-
Langdon shuffled a bit closer, like he was testing the waters, and Robby let out a deep breath. His head seemed to be moving back and forth on it’s own, gut and head toiling for control. There was a slight noise of fabric ruching against itself, like Langdon was shaking, struggling to hold his backpack up, and Robby didn’t know if he had the courage to open his eyes again. There was still so much work to be done. He needed the courage to cut cleanly, make this an even break. His team had already handled so much in the last twelve hours-
“I know,” and Langdon sounded so young, like he had been when he’d first started. He’d been an intern, and Robby had been much less senior that he was now, with far less weight on his shoulders, and things had been so much simpler. Fuck. “I know, I just- I just wanted to… I wanted to apologize, ‘bout-”
He was rambling already, and Robby had been trained to identify drug-seeking behavior, and he knew what Langdon was here for. He was old enough to know better. His hand curled into a fist against the cheap plastic of the locker door. He was too old to be punching holes in drywall, but after today-
“Get the fuck out, Frank,” Robby managed to choke out, and he hadn’t intended for his voice to crack halfway through, a nasally snarl that had no real heat behind it. At one point, Langdon would have snapped into a grin at the tone, poke fun at him, imitate the crack in his voice like a hormonal teenager, and Robby would’ve shoved his shoulder with a roll of his eyes.
The time to joke was over. None of it was funny anymore, and Robby didn’t know if it would ever be funny again.
He heard Langdon clam up with a breath, and inch closer, cowering like a scolded dog, the squeak of his tennis shoes on the linoleum making his teeth ache. Langdon’s voice was breathy, and choppy, and Robby knew if he met his eyes he’d start to crack himself.
“Robby,” Langdon murmured, and Robby recognized that, too. Hell, he didn’t know if there was a tone of voice Frank could pull out from a bag of tricks that he wouldn’t see through. The issue wouldn’t be seeing through it. It would be resisting it, and Robby knew they both knew that. Langdon bit his lip, and let out a small huff, and cast his eyes downward. “Robby, m’being serious.”
“I’m sure you are,” Robby snapped, and he finally pulled his eyes up, a fresh wave of anger fueling him. If he couldn’t call upon courage, anger wasn’t the best alternative, but it was the most readily available.
The sight that greeted him made his stomach flip, and he lamented not eating more during the day, mourned not finding the time. Stomach acid burned in his throat, and he felt like he was drowning. Frank’s hair was dark, matted with sweat, or the water he’d used to wash the dried blood out. His eyes seemed darker, and his pupils were dilated, the black nearly eclipsing steel blue, and his lips were puffier, chewed and pink and chapped.
He looked more hallow, in a way, a tortured saint, Saint Sebastian tied and beaten and littered with arrows, eyes cast skyward, searching for something to save him. Robby’s mouth went a little drier. He didn't subscribe to sainthood of any kind.
“Robby, you know I need you,” Langdon breathed out, and the locker room seemed to go quieter and ring with something unspoken. Langdon’s dark lashes were matted together with sweat, or tears- Robby figured the younger man wanted them to look like tears. After all, it sold the illusion better. The saintliness. “You know I- I need this place. I need everyone, here.”
His second statement was backtracking, plain and simple, but-
It was something they hadn’t talked about either, so it made sense that Langdon was grasping that particular straw now. He’d just been offered a residential position, and Robby had taken all of them, most of them still employed here in this haunted house, out to celebrate. Langdon had gotten too drunk, and Robby definitely had, too, and he’d offered to walk him back to his apartment-
They never made it back home. There in an alleyway in Pittsburgh fucking Pennsylvania, they’d slammed together, a hot whirl of teeth and spit for that first time, dirty scrubs pooled around ankles as Langdon shoved back against him with sharp grunts, chest to back. They didn’t talk about it the morning after, or the morning after that. Or the next- but the lingering glint in Langdon’s eyes told him everything he needed to know, even if he had to taper off whiskey because of it.
It seemed like a coincidence when it happened again, but the deniability became weaker when it happened again and again, and Robby had slowly started to cross off every cheap liquor on his roster, goddamn him.
He remembers feeling horrible about it, of course he did- sleeping with an intern who was scraping by in medical school while you had been postgrad for God knows how long, anyone would feel ‘’bad’’ about it, and God forbid Gloria ever catch wind of it and he be drawn and quartered. He’d tried to resist the advances- at least, that’s how he remembered it, God help him-
God wasn’t going to help any of them, today was enough evidence of that much, and Robby knew better than anyone that memory is a fickle, feeble thing- a poor character witness. Langdon let out a shaky breath, looking up at him from under puppydog lashes. He clenched his fist tighter around the strap of his backpack, and moved to slide a hand up against Robby’s chest. It wasn’t coordinated, or lithe, and his arm hair was dark with sweat, and his fingers were shaking. Alarm bells were blaring in Robby’s ears, every negative stereotype and premonition fighting for control. He was cracking. Drug-seeking. Strung out-
“Don’t- I- Don’t.” Robby batted his slim wrist away, and it fell away without resistance.
Langdon had been 26, and they’d been out celebrating a forgotten graduation, all of them on crew- Robby has to remember it like that, frozen in time, for his own sake. It was tequila that night, and it was both of them, and Frank had maneuvered him into the back of his car, sucked and licked and groped sloppily in a tangle of limbs and giggles and hiccups.
Langdon snatched his hand back when he’d registered the movement, like he’d been burnt, and his eyes seemed to glaze over.
“C’mon, man,” he huffed out, and Robby felt like he was going to be sick, like he was some dealer in a back alley enabling whatever the hell this was. They weren’t in an alley, or in the backseat, and yes, maybe this place was haunted, but there were still rules. There had to be rules, or else there was chaos, and with chaos came unpredictability. Frank Langdon was turning into an anomaly in that equation.
Langdon’s jaw tightened with Robby’s searching look, and his sweating palms balled into fists. “Don’t you fucking- pretend you’re perfect, Robby. We both know you’re not.”
He knew how to get under his skin, Robby would give him that much.
Langdon had been 27, and had asked Dana announce his engagement during their morning debrief, and he’d caught Robby’s eye with a mischievous little quirk of his mouth. Robby had felt like he’d been drowning then, too. He’d sucked dark bruises into Frank’s ribcage on their lunch break in the parking lot while holding his hips. He’d gone home early with shame overloading his nervous system.
Robby’s anger flared again, and he didn’t know what he was doing- but neither did Langdon. Still, it was Robby’s job to know what he was doing, all the time, so he had the burden of responsibility to shut this down, whatever the hell it was-
He fisted a handful of Langdon’s sweaty curls and wrenched his head back. Frank sucked in a shaky gasp, and it sounded like it had gotten caught in his throat, bordering on a sputtering cough.
“Don’t do this. Not right now,” Robby growled against his jaw, and Langdon went limp in his arms, a scruffed dog showing it’s throat, and Robby hated how much the feeling ignited muscle memory. “This isn’t a fight you’re gonna win.”
“I don’t wanna win,” Langon croaked against him. He wasn’t shaking, Robby realized. He was shivering, slumped against Robby’s chest. He could feel the body heat rolling off of him, and he wanted to lick the sweat off of his jaw. The urge disgusted him, he realized. “I want you.”
Robby released his hair, and Langdon practically crumpled. Robby typically quizzed students on the earliest stages of withdrawal, and he knew they would be hitting soon enough, spurred on by a long day and hours on his feet- the sweat, the headaches, the anxiety- and he also knew it would grow even more unbearable the longer he went without help.
Robby knew the younger man would hate him. Robby knew he’d become desperate, become a threat, a danger to himself, to others-
Langdon did crumple then, slumping to his knees with a hot huff of breath, brows pulled together as he struggled to lean up against the linoleum in front of Robby. The older man knew he couldn’t look down, for fear of the lump in his throat cutting off his air supply. No. No. This couldn't happen here. Not right now.
“I want you,” Langdon echoed himself against his thigh, and when had he pressed his forehead against his thigh? Robby’s limbs started to shake.
Langdon had been 28, freshly back from his honeymoon, tan and lazy, and had asked Dana again to announce their pregnancy. Abby Langdon, blushing bride, soon-to-be mother. Robby treated the day crew to pizza in the breakroom. They’d fucked in the private bathroom.
Robby staggered backwards a few feet, chest heaving.
“Get up,” he snapped, and Langdon slumped further in dejection. Robby could’ve sworn he saw tears glinting in his eyes, real glittering tears starting to streak down to his jawline, breath still heaving. “Get up, Frank. Now.”
He wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and Robby averted his eyes as Langdon choked out a half sob. It was instinct again, when Robby grabbed him by the hood of his sweatshirt and yanked him up, arms flexing with the strength. Thank God the private bathroom was still there, and unlocked, and the lights buzzed to life with the motion of Langdon’s body being slammed up against the wall. He let out a soft mmph, like a ragdoll, eyes dull and wet, and hiccuping out wet little sobs.
“You’re fuckin' unbelievable,” Robby hissed, shoving the younger man’s sweatshirt off with a fervor usually reserved for more professional matters. Emotions and work had to stay separate, but when anger was readily available-
“Just- don’t hate me, okay?” Langdon’s whisper was more of a choppy warble than anything else, and he seemed to find the energy for this as shaky hands tried to slide up to Robby’s jaw. Typical, Robby thought, as Langdon pulled his scrubs off over the top of his head and cast them aside, chest bare and heaving now, even with a slick tear slid down his neck. Robby cut him off with a punishing kiss, and Langdon seemed to get with the program to scrabble hands underneath Robby’s own shirt, sucking in the fervor like it could be shared.
“Don’t- talk,” Robby grunted into his mouth. Don’t give me anymore reasons to hate you. I don’t want to hate you. Don’t make me hate you, God-
Langdon brought hands up to Robby’s neck and pulled him closer with a noise that could’ve been a sob or a moan, and Robby could taste the salt from tears in his mouth, at the corner of his jaw as the sound of their huffs filled the cramped space, rutting up against each other messily, like they were teenagers.
“Fuck, Robby,” Langdon shuddered out, and Robby shoved a hand down the cheap fabric of his scrubs.
Langdon had just returned from paternity leave for the first time, eyes duller than they had been the months prior, and his shoulders more curled in, and Robby had stuck a thumb in his mouth in the backseat, and the younger man’s eyes had lit up like he’d just seen an angel, completely sober with a thin line of drool down his chin.
He was hard, and Robby didn’t hesitate to wrap a thick hand around him and give a sloppy stroke. Frank responded with a full body shudder, and a half-moan, before Robby clamped his other hand over his mouth. There was a swirl of heat enveloping the two of them, and Robby scrambled his hand down to pull his scrubs down. Langdon was bucking his hips up against him again, desperate for any sort of friction as they shared hot huffs of breath, clawing desperately at the nape of Robby’s neck-
“Don’t- hate me,” Langdon insisted against his fingers, like he had any leverage to be bargaining right now, and the feeling of rutting skin against skin made Robby’s head spin too hard to really process any sort of structured language. Langdon slid a clammy hand down to Robby’s hips, pulling him closer, and they rutted together, a pantomime of fucking as their dicks, slick with sweat and precum, slid against each other frantically.
Robby couldn’t bring himself to look him in the eyes, even with their foreheads pressed together, even with the feeling that it wasn’t a conscious decision. “M’so sorry,” Langdon choked against his spit-slick fingers, and Robby wrapped a hand around both of them, and the breath turned into a ragged whine- he was close, Robby knew the tells, and he knew the fact alone would inevitably drag him closer to the edge. "Don't ha-"
‘Hey, so… don’t hate me for this’, Langdon had murmured as he’d saddled up behind Robby with his hands tucked behind his back. It was a slow and sunny day, a Wednesday, Robby remembers- his eyes were shining, and he was younger back then, Robby thinks, but with the tone he used, Robby could already tell there was a grain of insecurity nestled somewhere in there. Even from the start, it was evident.
Robby couldn’t hold back a roll of his eyes with the words, even as a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He turned to face the younger man, eyes narrowed, and he tried to muster up some brand of professionality. ‘…How can I help?’
Langdon’s cheek quirked, and Robby wanted to thumb the shadow of a dimple that appeared. ‘So, there’s this fellowship I’ve been thinking about-’
Robby felt Langdon cum with a sharp twist of his spine, his cock pulsing pushed up against his own and his fist, and fuck if that didn’t twist something inside of him. He came with his teeth dug into the side of Langdon’s jaw with a sharp grunt, drinking in the whine it pulled out of the younger man.
Robby could taste the salt trails on his jaw, as the temporary euphoria took over. Langdon’s fingers slackened around the nape of his neck, chest heaving and eyelashes fluttering.
He was 34, now, and Robby asks, trying to keep his voice even- ‘Have you ever taken a patient’s medication?’
He needed to ask, in part, to soothe some sort of unheard truth in the back of his mind, and Frank's pupils had gone narrower. No, no, no, no- all he had needed to hear was-
Robby let out a huff of a sigh, and pulled away. The lights were still buzzing, and Frank was still breathing so hard. Robby rubbed a hand on his own scrubs, the newfound flood of shame and hurt threatening to overwhelm.
“Go… go home, Frank,” is all he had the strength to muster out, and Langdon didn’t have the gusto to argue this time. Robby watched him collect himself, a hollow aching somewhere behind his ribs. “Go home,” murmured to no one but himself this time, and the door clicked shut quietly behind him, not a second later.