well now we gotta hear about this. you simply cannot hold out on us in that way. and after that wonderful discussion on the kind of childhood needed to create a personality like langdon's? it's simply too needed!! - 🩺

Finally got some foster AU muse again. Also I've had Langdon's childhood brainrot for a hot minute and his foster timeline is a fun one.

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For a while, anytime Robby or Jack tried to broach the topic of his life before coming to them, Frank got weird. Not quite distant, but he avoided any further prodding with the skillset of a squirrel outrunning a cat.

All it's fine and that makes it sound worse and I managed, or their personal favorite, a clipped and curt I got taken away for a reason, didn't I?

Slowly though, very slowly, like trying to force cloth through a funnel, Frank would make offhanded comments that gave them insight. Not a whole lot, but enough to paint a picture as to how the kid with a drinking habit in middle school that pushed at every boundary he could until being snapped back into place came to be.

"Run that by me again." Robby dragged a hand over the bottom half of his face, looking down at Frank. "You've never had watermelon?"

It was easy to pass over the cup of cocoa, put a blanket around the kid that was practically soaked to the bone from the rain. Taking care of Frank wasn't something new to Dana, it became second nature the first time he'd been brought into their ER by a worried looking Robby and a Frank that was so wide eyed she was certain they were going to fall out of his head.

"You wanna tell me why you walked here?" Dana sat down in her arm chair with a sigh, her own cocoa in hand. Why not? It was cold out. "And why you were in pajamas?"

Frank glanced over himself, hands clasped tight around the mug. "It's not- I just, I needed to get out. Can you not tell them I'm here? I, I really don't want to see them, right now."

That earned a quick frown. She'd already told Jack she had him the moment he showed up at her door. It wasn't the first time Frank had run out on them by any means, but she'd added to wait. Frank was safe, somewhere trusted. Clearly something had gone on.

"You're alright here with me, but we'll have to get them eventually." She decided on instead. "Still didn't answer my question."

She watched Frank fidget, pull lightly at one of the tassels on the end of the blanket. She'd gotten it at a flea market years ago, her daughter had loved it as a little girl. "They keep.. wanting to know about rehab."

"That doesn't sound too bad. They're interested in you."

"I don't want to tell them, Dana."

They knew something was wrong with Frank when he got home. They knew it in the way he was silent on the drive back, the way he slunk off to his room the moment he could and stayed there as long as possible. The way he just didn't talk, didn't come out, didn't even seem to move most days.

They could see it, plain as day, in the way Frank was once again clutching his old bunny, somehow even more torn than the last time they saw it.

"One of the other um, the other inpatients got hold of him." Frank half explained one day, worrying the ear between his thumb and forefinger. "Kind of fucked him up a little."

"Do you want us to fix him?" Robby was gentle when he asked, tilting his head some.

"No." It was a quick response, petting a hand over Bunny's head. "I did what I could. I can handle it."

Bunny was in bad shape.

Robby could see that Frank had tried to further repair the stuffie now that he was home, taken out his own sewing kit, but he never was phenomenal at stitching in this particular way. It just wasn't something he had mastered yet.

Jack didn't like seeing Frank so attached to Bunny so suddenly. Even when he first came to them, even after bad meetings with his parents, or rough days at school, Frank only sometimes got attached to Bunny.

"It was just, it was rough for him in there." Frank muttered, taking the brown thread. "He's been through a lot with me already, what's one more?"

Jack frowned a little but didn't push at it. "Alright. You don't need to fix him all by yourself though, right?"

It took a moment for Frank to respond, clearing his throat. "Yeah. No, I know. I just, prefer doing it myself."

Something about that conversation ticked something in Jack's head, and between him and Robby, they tried to pay a little more attention to the comments made when Bunny came up in conversation.

An offhanded ask of 'how's the sewing going?' was met with 'he's been better'.

Prodding lighthearted with 'how's Bunny adjusting back home?' had a response of 'it's been hard, he missed his own bed'.

It didn't take very long to them to put together the pieces.

Frank was projecting onto his stuffed animal that had been through all sorts of things with him since childhood. And, Bunny was doing bad.

That's how they got here. Robby sitting on Frank's bed while Jack was at work, trying to pry just a bit into how he was doing and not managing to get through. Just getting led aside every time. Not flat out dismissals, but refusing to look at the actual problem.

It was hard.

And then he saw that damn bunny on the side table.

Gently, as to not make things worse, Robby picked up Bunny. He could feel the lack of stuffing, the thin wear of fabric between fingers. The old stuffie felt worn. Tired.

Robby cradled Bunny, glancing up at Frank as he did. He was just a kid, God. A teenager, but just a kid nonetheless. "You said a patient got a hold of him? That sounds, very scary."

Frank was staring straight at them, eyes flicking between. He wet his lips, adjusting how he was sitting on the bed. "Yeah. He, he was. He didn't.. feel like anyone wanted him there besides me."

He nodded a little, swiping a thumb over the bunny's nose. There used to be stitching making a mouth there. "There must've been, staff to help him adjust."

This felt a little ridiculous, but fuck, it was getting Frank to open up a little, so he'd take it.

There was a pause as Frank thought of a response. When he finally found it, it was so, so quiet. "The staff didn't want to help."

"They didn't?"

"Mm." Frank shook his head, pulling his lips taut. "No. The staff, the staff actually hurt him too. Like the other patient did."

Robby wasn't pretending to just be looking at Bunny anymore, watching Frank for a little while. He didn't squirm, like he wanted Robby to point out what they both knew they were really talking about.

"Okay." Robby didn't think he managed to keep the heartbreak from his voice. He didn't want to. "Okay. Well.." He had to clear his throat before continuing. "If you ever, just wanted some help making him better again, Jack and I are here. And we'd really, really like to make Bunny more like himself again."

He reached over slowly, placing Bunny closer to Frank. A peace offering.

Frank scooped Bunny up like he'd fall apart if he wasn't handled with care.

"I don't know if it can all um, all be fixed, Robby."

"That's okay." He could hear it this time, how wet his voice was. "But it's better to get some help from some people who know a little more about sewing, I think."

They weren't perfect at it. They never would be, but hey, they'd been doing this for years.

Robby guessed it was just the playful fear of a child, the first time Frank looked up at him with one of those questions on par with those worm inquiries he heard go around the ED.

“Would you still love me ifff I killed a man?” They had just watched Scream for the first time the other day, thirteen dubbed the age old enough for horror films.

Robby just chuckled, pausing his cooking of dinner to look down at him. “I would, but I’d really prefer if you didn’t.”

The question never really went away. It came up at the zoo, in the car, at home. In random situations Robby wouldn’t have thought it could, and yet, it did.

Frank looked up at him as they exited the movie theatre, raising his eyebrows. “Would you still love me if I poisoned the city’s water supply?”

Movies seemed to be a good trigger for these sorts of things, actually, looking at it with hindsight. Nevertheless, Robby nodded firmly. “Yes, but you might kill me by doing that, so I don’t think that’s in either of our best interests.”

As he got older, Robby started expecting it to happen, and he got better at guessing when it would come up. A pattern eventually emerged that he latched on to.

Frank groaned, dropping his book and his forehead to the table with a thud. Talking into the wood, he asked; “Robby, would you still love me if I dropped out and became one of those guys that hops trains?”

“You know I would.” Robby walked over, looking at his very dramatic son at the dining table. “Though you’re legally required to go to school until eighteen, so maybe for now we start with a break.”

Frank asked it for assurance. It got more common when he was nervous, after visits with his parents, during weeks where things got hard. It was his quiet way of needing to know Robby and Jack still cared.

Like somehow, even after all this time, he doubted it. Or, could at least convince himself to doubt it, and needed that proof otherwise.

It had been a rough, very rough, night. Frank’s pain was bad enough he’d cried, curling up and aborting that motion and turning over and trying to find a single position to lay in that didn’t make him feel like shit.

Robby gave over ibuprofen easily, heart aching when Frank shakily reached for him, and he took the cue without hesitation.

“Robby?” Frank asked, voice hoarse, curled up like the child he was into Robby’s side. “Would, would you still love me if I- if I relapsed?”

It was fragile, said in such a way that a puff of angry air could break it. He didn’t need to be a psychologist to hear how scared he was of the response.

Like he actually believed Robby would say no.

There was the automatic urge to say don’t think about that, that it’ll never happen, but he just barely stopped himself. Robby cleared his throat, tightening his arms around his son. “Yes, Frank. I’ll always love you, okay? No matter what.“

Medical neglect my beloved.

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The drive back from neuro appointments were never great, per se, but they usually weren’t this tense.

“Okay, can you just- can you run me through why you didn’t feel the need to tell us you were having more frequent seizures?” Jack glanced up to Frank in the rear view, who was trying his very hardest to melt into his seat.

“You already had a lot to deal with, me blanking out a little more often isn’t a big deal.”

“You had to get stitches.” Robby deadpanned, glancing back.

Frank just frowned, almost reaching to touch the now pink scar in his cheekbone. It healed nicely, all things considered. Honestly the bruising had been worse, having whacked his face into his dresser when he went down last month.

He was still impressed with how long it took to get an appointment with his neurologist after Dennis found him mid-seizure in a small puddle of blood. Head wounds really did bleed a lot.

“I’m sorry for not telling you, okay? Is that it?” Frank stared at the back of Robby’s head, watching him sigh before Jack started again.

“You know that’s not what I’m concerned about, Frank. You’re lucky all you got was stitches, what if you gave yourself a concussion? What if you bit through your tongue? We need to know these things so we can help you, don’t hide shit like this from us.”

Despite the force behind them, Frank could hear just how worried this entire situation made Jack. Not just the seizures themselves, but the hiding of it.

It made him seriously tempted to jump out the car. Again.

“What, I’m just supposed to tell you every time I have a seizure?”

Oh, he could feel the mildly crazed look in Jack’s eyes this time. “What the fu- yes! Yes, Frank, you tell us when you have seizures. The rules on that didn’t change in a couple months.”

Frank looked out the window, not wanting to deal with this, and missed entirely the way Robby put a hand on Jack’s thigh, making them both take a breath.

It was quiet for a minute. Frank wondered if they ever took the child lock off the doors.

“You, you said that it’s been more frequent since rehab.” Robby was trying to keep his voice very level, firm. “Do you know why?”

Right. They hadn’t been in the office for this part.

“I was there for pill abuse, Robby. They didn’t want me to have anything once I detoxed, ‘just in case’.” He could still see the way one of the nurses had glared at him when he asked for his medication. And he could still hear them yelling at him when he started seizing again.

He still didn’t feel right. He probably should’ve said something sooner, considering how quickly he saw both of them tense up.

Robby turned, looking at him. “They withheld your medication?”

Frank nodded, clearing his throat. “Yeah.”

“Jesus Christ.” Jack muttered, anger easily heard. “Everything I hear about this place makes me want to go burn the whole facility to the ground.”

Robby nodded his agreement, swiping a hand over his hair. “Yeah. Frank, you gotta tell us about this stuff. I don’t have to tell you how dangerous this can be, but you know I will.”

“I get it, Robby, Jack.” He held up a hand, not in the mood for a lecture, even if it was well-meaning. “I’ll, keep you updated.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah.”

Another pause, gentler this time.

“Hey, kid?” Jack’s eyes flicked up to the mirror. “Anything else you wanna tell us about rehab?”

Too much and not enough was all he could really think of. How do you tell a zookeeper he poisoned the animal’s water? Easier to let them think it was natural consequences, and let the creature die angry.

“What the fuck is wrong with our children?”

Jack turned around the card for his husband to see, a strange mix of painfully amused on his face as he showed off Frank’s first Christmas card from his new place.

It looked like, somehow, their kids had conspired against them to make the worst possible combination of photos.

Sporting matching, truly gaudy, red and green onesies, Frank was standing proudly in the middle, starfish style with his hands on his hips. With their chins hooked over his shoulders, Mel and Samira were on either side. On the floor, on their knees and sitting back on their heels, were Trinity and Dennis. Star of the show was Victoria, between Frank’s feet, on her belly with her chin propped up on her hands.

And not a single one of them was smiling.

Robby put on his glasses, took one look at the picture, and tried so fucking hard to stifle his laughter. “Those? Those are your kids right now. I don’t celebrate Christmas.”

We're playing a game called Schrödinger didn't want to look up legal proceedings while they're taking a break from writing fanfiction (to write other fanfiction) so suspend your disbelief if this isn't how it works.

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Robby had been staring at the ad since they saw it. Simple and unassuming, just a clip in a magazine. An advertisement, mentioning a class action lawsuit against the rehab they sent their son to.

Did your child have negative experiences while at the Mountain Spring Rehabilitation Center?

"We did so much research." He muttered, pulling off his glasses for the third time tonight. "We read so many reviews. I thought we vetted this place properly."

"Apparently not." Jack had been angrily cleaning the kitchen since they saw it. Since everything from the last months clicked suddenly into place.

Frank's turning in on himself. His refusal to eat that didn't quite go away, hiding snacks again, his quick return to old self-soothing habits they thought he was past. How damaged his stuffed bunny was when they got back, and Frank's almost dramatic protectiveness over it when they wanted to fix it. The bruising Frank kept assuring was from a fellow patient, the skittishness that wasn't there since he was twelve, the strange secrecy.

They thought it was regression from the stress of what he went through, and Robby just knew the guilt of not noting it as a trauma response was going to haunt him until he died.

"We have to talk to Frank." Robby turned to look at his husband, crossing his arms over each other. "We have to talk to him, find out the full story."

Jack put down the sponge a little aggressively, shaking his head. His jaw was clenched so damn tight, whole body taut. "I can't fucking believe we sent him there. What the hell, Robby? Do you- fuck." He looked up at Robby fast, eyes hard with worry. "Do you think he thinks we knew?"

Every thought he had going screeched to a stop, making Robby blink quite a few times. "What-What makes you say that?"

"Think about it. He's never been the most open, but we can usually get him to talk to us within a couple weeks. He trusted us, but he hasn't said shit about rehab." Jack grabbed a towel to dry off his hands. "He shuts it down the moment we ask, gets testy about it. I thought it was just a bad experience but.."

"If he thinks we knowingly sent him somewhere bad, no fucking wonder he's hiding from us." Robby sighed, dropping his head.

He'd be paying for yelling at Frank like he did for the rest of his life, he was pretty sure. For breaking that trust in an instant, letting his fear take over like that.

Jack sighed, long and heavy, picking up the sponge again to try and take his frustration out on the counter tiles.

"Robby, Jesus Christ-"

"I know, shit, I know." Robby swallowed whatever the protest was going to be, kissing Jack again.

It was nearly all dark in their room, blind hands groping at each other, hips rolling despite the fabric between. It had been way, way too long since they had any time to themselves, and they had essentially a twenty minute window before Trinity got back from her friend's house.

Hence, grinding against each other in bed like a couple of teenagers.

Jack ran his hand through Robby's hair, cupping the back of his head to pull him impossibly closer. He could hear their teeth hit, hips twitching up against his husband.

Robby hand one arm on the mattress next to them, his other palm tight on Jack's waist, squeezing to encourage the give and take. He moved his lips, pressing messy into Jack's jaw, his neck.

It gave an opened for Jack to pant, hot and heavy right in Robby's ear, little encouraging gasps of c'mon and baby and please.

So close, they were so damn close, first time alone in fucking weeks and-

"Yo! Anyone home?"

Robby had never froze so fast in his life, dropping his face into Jack's collar at the whine the sudden stop pulled from the man under him.

"Trinity's home early." He muttered, closing his eyes with an incredibly long suffering sigh.