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As Robby confronted him and forced him to open his locker, one thought pulsed in Frank's mind: he had waited too long. Again. He was usually a reactive guy. How come these last few months seemed to sum themselves up with: "too little, too late."
"Time's relative."
Bullshit. This wasn't philosophy or physics. This was his life. And he was just one step behind every single time.
"They're prescriptions," he told Robby when his attending grabbed the bottle of pills waiting for him in plain view. Ignoring him, Robby checked the label diligently. He might even go check with the prescriber himself with how little trust he seemed to have in Frank, but those pills were all legally acquired. Unlike some others… "I made a mistake," he admitted, because what other choice was there? To keep hiding? For the rest of his life? "I was desperate once and I took a few pills I prescribed Louie… but it was only once for an emergency, and you know Louie never takes them anyway! It never happened again! I went to see a specialist to have them prescribed as soon as I could get an appointment."
Robby stared at him, unimpressed, keeping himself forcefully stone-faced. "Why didn't you come to me if you needed something?"
Frank looked away, ashamed. "I'd have had to admit to you that something was wrong for that."
"… Does that have something to do with Santos being adamant that you're not human-baseline?"
Fucking Santos. If she hadn't been so proud to admit to Garcia that she was half-fish he'd have called her half-weasel. Frank had never been fond of mermaids (or sirena, as the Filipino called them), and apparently it was reciprocal.
Sighing, Frank reached for his backpack.
"I meant to tell you," he admitted in a whisper. "I was going to… but I… didn't know how you'd react. I don't even know how to react myself."
He pulled a bundle of papers stapled together and a card and handed them over to Robby. He then stared at the tips of his shoes, too afraid to see Robby's reactions when he'd read the analysis and his new Supernatural ID card.
Frank Langdon was human. The supernatural factor that had given him access to the only Supernatural Emergency Department of Pittsburgh was his ExtraSensory Perception score, just high enough to be considered for Supernatural Emergency Medicine. Only his good marks and the approval of his mentors during his MS years had allowed him to get this residency. Unlike Collins who, with her angelic blood, had gotten an immediate approval, Frank had been on a waiting list. And he'd never thank Garcia enough for choosing surgery over SEM, in the end (but he'd do it in his mind).
So he had been freaking out over the last months, worried that this would change things and endanger all his hard work. He had made some mistakes. But God, please don't let this screw him over.
"No God."
… God, Fate. Whatever.
"… Eldritch possession," Robby read slowly, out loud, as if saying it could help it make sense. "…Since when?"
"The… mh… When I helped my parents moved? It was resting in the attic… as it had been for a century, apparently… and it didn't appreciate being woken up. I spare you the details, but it trashed the place, nearly killed me, realized it messed up and possessed me to save my life… It's not… It's not hostile. Just… maladjusted."
"Humanity's maladjusted."
And annoying, Frank didn't say aloud.
Robby leafed through the supernatural analysis that Frank's specialist had done when he had finally relented and admitted that this would be his life from now on (an eldritch possession only ended with the death of the possessed after all).
Robby's stone-faced attitude broke as his eyebrows climbed higher and higher. When he finally reached the amendment to Frank's contract with the hospital, he read the small lines as if it was his own.
"This was signed three weeks ago by Gloria. Why wasn't I made aware?"
Frank shifted his weight from one foot to the other like a guilty kid having hidden bad grades from their parents. "She said that you didn't legally have to be made aware... but she strongly suggested that you should be told anyway, so I asked her to let me do it… As I said, I was going to, Robby! I just… didn't want this to change anything," he admitted.
Robby folded the paper back and removed his glasses to glare at him. "You're taking benzos to suppress supernatural induced anxiety and intrusive thoughts, and now have high-level eldritch abilities. Of course this is going to change things! Frank, I had to know this, right away!"
"I didn't want you to stop trusting me!"
"Then you should have told me on your own! Before I found out from an intern!"
A wave of fury and resentment came over Frank at the thought of Santos. If only she had kept her mouth shut…!
"Eat siren?"
"NO!"
Shaking violently to repress the urges, Frank reached for the bottle of pills with trembling hands. Robby watched as Frank tried and failed to open it before he took it over.
"How many do you need?"
"Two." Santos would probably taste like trash anyway.
"How many have you taken today?"
"One this morning."
Robby nodded his approval at the dosage and handed over two pills. Before Robby could reach for a bottle of water, Frank threw them under his tongue for them to dissolve and act faster. They didn't have any effects on the Eldritch, but they lowered Frank's reactions to it: the shaking, the mood swings, the anxiety and intrusive thoughts… it slowed things down to a bearable level. The parapsychiatrist had promised that his brain would get used to this 'cooperation'. It was supposed to be a matter of months before the worst symptoms level out. It couldn't come soon enough. He hated losing control like this.
Frank breathed in deep and leaned forward on his knees.
"Throw her back into the sea?"
"Shut up," Frank grumbled, exasperated. Apparently, for the Eldritch being he was saddled with, the solution to every problem was to make the problem disappear.
"Frank?"
"I'm fine. It's just terrible at giving advice."
"Unsurprising."
They had had more than a few patients coming in after unwise decisions following "voices"' recommendations. Who needed schizophrenia when you could have a good old haunting or possession instead?
"What is it telling you?"
Frank huffed, shaking his head.
"Frank. The truth." Robby's tone was demanding, and when Frank looked up to meet his eyes, there was a warning there. Frank was on thin ice and one wrong step would break everything he had built with Robby, he could see it. He was desperate not to let that happen, so he could only obey.
"To throw Santos into the sea."
Robby huffed. "The sea is a long way to go."
Flash of pictures went through Frank's mind with a sense of displacement which left him nauseous.
"It's willing to bend space and time if necessary," Frank managed to translate while holding his stomach in the hope to stop it from rebelling.
"Quite vindictive…"
"It's… protective." Frank got the impression that the Eldritch was quite pleased not to be alone anymore. It liked having Frank, and thus it was quite determined to protect him from everyone and everything. It had even been willing to destroy his furniture when he violently knocked his shin into it once…
"Is it dangerous?"
"No. I've got it under control."
"With benzos."
Frank tilted his head to concede the point. "They're mostly for me, though, so I don't… vibrate out of my skin or something. It's… unlike anything else I've ever felt, Robby." Not even his sixth sense could make him so anxious. His ESP had always felt like hints and hunches (they were part of what made him such a good doctor, sometimes he just knew what to check, what to do), it had never been long-lasting.
"I don't like it," Robby admitted bluntly with his arms crossed. "I want you to take the rest of the day off."
"But— Robby, you need me!"
"I need to be able to trust that you won't go apeshit in my ED."
"That's not fair! I've been controlling this!"
"Have you? You call this control?!" Robby shouted, waving at his shaking body, still waiting for the anxiolytics to kick in.
"I'm functional! Isn't that all that matters? I can work! I'll stay away from Santos if that's what worries you, but I'm a professional, Robby!"
"If you were, you'd have admitted the truth immediately so we could handle this!"
"I don't need help!"
"Clearly, you do!" Robby insisted, shaking the pills bottle.
A cold feeling went down Frank's spine, a warning that he had gotten familiar with, which he knew meant he was close to losing control and proving Robby's point. Feeling tears sting his eyes, knowing that they could turn black any moment, Frank grabbed his backpack and buried the bottle inside before closing his locker's door violently.
"This is exactly why I didn't want to tell you," he managed to utter despite the lump in his throat before walking away toward the exit.
He rubbed his eyes harshly once he was alone in the parking lot.
For once, the Eldritch stayed quiet. It knew that "Eat Robby" wouldn't be approved (it kept a list of forbidden food), and it hardly knew what other suggestion to offer. A Jewish magician would drown in the sea, after all, and that was off-limits too.
oOo
A vampire coven attacked Pittfest at sunset. It was nearing shift change when they got news, so at least there was twice the usual staff, but it was chaos nonetheless in very little time. They transfused so much blood that they were in shortage in a matter of minutes, forcing staff to donate and thus work while even more tired.
Three dozen victims had already been brought in when a flurry of bat wings invaded the ER. Vampires took human shape right in front of the Red Zone. Police agents drew their silver guns, shouting orders. Staff threw themselves down or over their patients. And yet the vampires smiled with their mouth and chin covered with blood. They were high with the blood of their victims and felt untouchable (partly because they were; silver bullets would barely slow them down).
"Now, now, no need to be so hasty," one of them crooned, a middle-aged white man, perfectly bland, except for all the blood he was covered with. "We're not here to hurt anyone… as long as you give us Whitaker. We're just taking one of ours back and leaving."
Robby and Jack shared a glance over the nurses' heads.
Dennis Whitaker's file indicated that he had been a vampire for ten years, turned in Nebraska by a local coven which he had left to go into med school. Of course it couldn't be that simple. Not with vampires.
Agitation came from the yellow zone. Whitaker walked forward with a vampire holding his shoulder (too tightly, judging from Dennis's wince).
"Don't— Don't hurt anyone!" Whitaker pleaded with his gloved hands raised. "Please, Sire…"
"I won't," the leader of the coven replied nonchalantly, "as long as you're a good boy. You had orders, Dennis."
"I… As I told you… I've not finished school yet…"
"And as I told you, I have all your training and internships already planned at home."
Whitaker's eyes darted every way, as if looking for an exit, but he slumped, defeated, when he was pushed into the crowd of vampires staring at him avidly.
Before the vampire leader could savor his victory, black tendrils came down from the ceiling, followed by a gelatinous shape. It disgusted even the vampires, making them step back.
The amorphous black shape was holding a… smartphone?
"—requesting permission for lethal action."
There were two seconds where everyone was frozen, failing to understand what was going on, before a very down-to-earth voice came out of the phone on speaker: "Permission granted."
That was Gloria, Robby realized distantly. And instinctually, he knew. An eldritch abomination requesting permission from Gloria. Frank. Frank had come back.
"Are you trying to intimidate us? What the fuck even are you? A gunk shifter?" the vampire leader mocked, making his goons laugh. "Whitaker is mine."
"Incorrect. Dennis Whitaker has signed a contract with this establishment. You do not have permission to take him against his will. You have five seconds to leave the premises before—"
A vampire, a bold one, rushed the gelatinous shape, claws first, fangs following, but it looked like trying to stab melted chocolate: entirely ineffective.
"… I thank you for attacking first… My contract indicates that self-defense cancels my forewarning obligations… I now may eat you."
And it just… threw itself at the vampires, black gunk covering them all as they shouted in disgust and fear.
A moment later, they fell to the ground like puppets with their strings cut or… like corpses.
And the black gunk gathered in a pool. It slowly rose into a humanoid shape which lost its eldritch texture to reveal Frank Langdon with black eyes. He was wearing scrubs, a blouse and protective glasses, as if he had simply been getting ready to help before turning into gunk.
His phone was in his right hand. He brought it to his ear slowly.
"Threat eliminated."
"Thank you," Gloria answered calmly. "I'm on my way down. What's the damage?"
Black eyes blinked at the six corpses surrounding him.
"Six bodies for the morgue. Staff unhurt."
"Excellent. Thank you for your fast response."
"You are welcome, Chief Medical Officer Underwood."
"You may let Dr. Langdon take over now."
"It is under… way." Black eyes turned to white sclera and blue pupils. Frank looked around, blinking slowly at the people staring at him in complete silence. Ignoring the police officers now pointing toward him, Frank stretched his lips once before saying: "Going to work now, Ma'am."
"See you soon, Langdon."
The call ended and Frank slid the phone into a pocket.
"You good?" he asked Whitaker, who looked up from the corpses, wide-eyed.
"How… What… did you do?"
"Stole their preternatural energy. They're dead — not living dead, just dead," Frank confirmed nonchalantly before turning to the police officers. "Doctor Frank Langdon, registered and contracted Eldritch possession. I'm in control and ready to work, gentlemen. If you'd lower your guns and move those to the morgue instead, I'd appreciate it," he said, kicking the shoe of a dead vampire.
The policemen looked among each other before one of them turned toward Abbot and his orange jacket of Primary Emergency MD for confirmation. Jack nodded.
"He's ours."
And just like that, it was over. The policemen complied. Frank walked toward the hand sanitizer and gloves distributor, ignoring the police officers still staring at him warily.
"Where do you want me, Abbot?"
"With us! Back to work, people!"
oOo
Frank was in the middle of saving another patient when Leah was wheeled in, but soon enough he knew.
His ESP hadn't disappeared with the possession. On the contrary, it had increased. So he knew that Leah was beyond the means of modern medicine. She was even beyond Robby's magic help. It didn't stop Robby from trying, of course. Hebrew spilled out of his lips with desperation.
Letting the nurses wheel his patient toward OR, Frank rushed and caught Robby before he could exhaust himself fruitlessly.
"She's beyond your help," he explained before Robby could hit him to get him out of his way. "You can't help. I can. I have enough energy from the vampires earlier," he explained hurriedly, before Robby could reject him. As he remembered that not everyone agreed to being saved by supernatural means, he amended: "If she's pro-superresuscitation, I can."
Robby hesitated a second, looking into his eyes for… something, before he nodded and pulled away.
"Do it. Do it!"
Frank nodded and gestured for everyone to step back. "Clear."
"Clear," they confirmed, removing their hands from Leah's body. Dana kneaded the blood perfusion with one hand and held Robby's arm with another in support.
Frank called forth his little friend, who took over his hands eagerly, all too glad to use the excess of energy it had suctioned of its previous victims. Black goo spilled from Frank's hand to the gaping wound on Leah's neck. Those vampires had massacred their preys, tearing apart any artery they could reach and everything else with it. Leah had a whole chunk of her neck missing.
"Blood pressure stabilizing," Dana noted, cautiously hopeful.
"Warding the wound," Frank explained distantly, his voice still human, but his eyes lost in all black. "Ensuring continued blood flow to the brain."
"Weak femoral pulse."
"Starting reconstruction of the tissues. Please don't interrupt."
Frank lost track of time as he guided it into proper reconstruction. This was its power but Frank's knowledge. Without one the other would be useless.
When he opened his eyes and removed his hands, there was no longer a hole where there should be flesh. The light skin was marred with what looked like a tattoo where it had been reconstructed. He looked up to Dana, who called out steady, acceptable vitals with a relieved tone.
Frank took a step back as he glanced at Robby. His attending was staring at Leah as if she was a miracle. It wasn't, because it wasn't a god's intervention, but it was close enough.
"She just needs some more blood," Frank said. "It can't create that without messing up with the bone marrow and organs."
"Add one unit," Robby ordered before moving away from the gurney.
Before Frank could give Robby some space and go back to the other patients, he was pulled into a tight embrace.
"Thank you," Robby murmured, squeezing him. "Thank you, Frank."
While happily surprised, Frank patted his back hesitantly before he realized Robby probably needed a squeeze back. He looked like a breeze would make him crumble.
"Of course. I've got your back, Robby. Always."
Robby nodded shakily while only pulling away to hold his shoulder. "Thank you," he repeated, his mind clearly too overrun by gratitude for anything else to register.
Later on, when things calmed down and Frank was left with a moment of peace to remove his bloody gloves and blouse, Jake came toward him a rush. He threw himself in Frank's arms, leaving just enough time for him to hold the soiled blouse away (Perlah caught it for him with an 'I got this' expression, bless her).
"Frank. Frank! Thank you! Thank you, thank you so much. Robby said you saved her. God, thank you!"
"Hey, it's okay. You're welcome, Jake. You're welcome." Frank patted his back. The teen was shaking like a leaf. "I just hope that she won't mind the tattoo, you know, I'm afraid it's there to stay," Frank tried to joke.
"Oh, no, no. She likes tattoos. She's cool with everything paranormal too. I bet she'll think it's badass," Jake tried to joke back despite his tears.
"Awesome. Let's never do that again, right?"
"Right!" Jake laughed while drying his cheeks with his forearms. "Thank you, Frank. I don't know what I'd have done—"
"And you don't have to because she's going to be just fine," Frank soothed him. He led him back toward Leah's gurney and the chair in which Jake was supposed to stay.
"Because you're badass. Robby said… Eldritch possession? I mean, that's heavy shit, isn't it, man?"
"Yup. A-level. You know me. Can't do things by half."
"Yeah," Jake chuckled while taking Leah's hand. "She… she's really going to be okay, uh? And no side effects despite the tattoo?"
"Well…" Frank takes a moment to consult with it before replying. "She might poop black for some time."
Jake blinked in surprise before laughing. It burst out of him and then he just couldn't seem to stop, the nerves finally catching up with him in the most unexpected way. People stared at them, but laughing was catching and several smiles appeared on tense lips. Robby walked toward them, staring from one to the other with a hesitant smile.
"Everything's alright?"
"He s-said… that Leah might…" Jake tried to explain himself but the giggles took over again.
Frank lifted his hands in a show of innocence. "He asked if there will be side effects. I just said—"
"She might poop black," Jake managed to repeat before smothering his hysterical laughter into his forearm.
"It's medical jargon, I don't think he got it," Frank told Robby with false solemnity.
It made Jake laugh (and cry) harder.
Robby snorted, shook his head, and rubbed Jake's shoulder. "Let it out," he advised. "Just let it out."
oOo
Frank was leaving after sharing a few beers with some of the day shift when Robby called his name. He looked back to see Robby jogging to catch up with him. When he reached him, they faced each other. Robby seemed… earnest.
"Would you do me a favor?"
"Of course, anything."
"What I told you in the locker room earlier… forget it. My head wasn't on straight. I trust you. I do. You proved yourself twice over this evening."
Frank smiled, a weight leaving his shoulders. "Thank you."
"I know you've got this under control… But if you ever need me… please tell me… Any other day than today, I wouldn't be an ass about it, I promise."
Frank offered his fist. Robby bumped it.
"Will do."