Chapter Text
He doesn't see Frankie for nigh in two years, and it absolutely destroys him.
He looks for him in every strays he takes, every kid he helps. But he never let them come this close ever again. That place is for his boy. And he can't bear to offer it to someone else.
Unknown to the both of them, Frank starts migrating further North at the same time Duke is getting tired of Tennessee. He had taken jobs here and there, building back his finances until the hitch to move becomes too strong and he takes the road once more.
He comes across his boy in Missouri, as the teen is walking alongside road 66 with a group of people. They are familiar enough with one another for him to understand they know each other, but they are also fighting. Not physically, not yet at least. But arguing loud enough for him to hear them over his Harley’s racket and his helmet.
He does a double take when he recognizes his boy.
That is enough for his decision to be made. He turns the bike around, klaxonning at the teen, a wide grin taking over when Frankie recognizes him and starts running towards him.
He does not expect him to throw himself in his arms, but he sure as hell isn't complaining! Not when he's got his kid back where he belongs.
Frank looks good. Healthy and happy in a way he had only started to make possible when they were forcefully separated. On his way to become a very beautiful young man.
“Gods, Old Man! You haven't changed an iota!” he laughs, still a teasing little shit and Duke chuckles.
“Can't say the same for you, kid. You finally managed to keep some meat on those bones, haven't you? How old are you now?”
The answer is eighteen.
Dear God, the answer is eighteen! Duke had made a point not to look into the passing time too much after their separation, not wanting to have the proof of it staring right back at him. And it has been two years!
“You're going somewhere special like that?” He enquires, motioning towards his group. Frank just shakes his head.
“Nah. We met on the road. It was nice to have some company for a while but they're bickering too much. You wouldn't happen to give a free ride, would you?”
And maybe Duke should ask what he is running away from this time. If people are still looking for him. But it's been two years and he has missed the kid like one misses a limb. So he pats his seat, trying not to feel too smug when Frank straddles his bike and clings to him in a fluid movement that speaks of long-held memories and easy intimacy. He waves at the group he has been walking with and off they are into the sunset!
Some might call it romantic.
Duke shudders at the idea.
Frank stays with him for three months. They cross Missouri, making a stop in Oklahoma to take on a few errand jobs and bulk up their funds. Frankie might still be a bean pole, but boy does he still eat! And money runs up quicker now that there are two of them.
They fight a lot. Frank has grown into himself, hardened somehow, but still very vulnerable in other ways. He chaffs against Duke's decisions and the biker struggles to see him as more than the waif he had met, all those years ago on the road. This child, starved of food and affection, who had needed a savior. Someone who would take his anger and rage head on and stay. Someone who would find him worthy.
Eighteen year old Frank doesn’t need a savior. Doesn’t need Duke to butt in in every interaction he has with strangers. Doesn’t want to be treated like a child.
Eighteen year old Frank has worked his way around. Bartender, retail, electronics reparations, homework support, English teacher, mechanic… Name it, he’s done it. Sometimes in shady places and back alleys. Where employers don’t look too closely into their employees’ age and governmental name. And on top of all that, he has managed to finish highschool thanks to an online program. Not only that, but as a Valedictorian!
Duke could burst with pride. He knew this kid was bright!
Still, they fight. Both of them too stubborn for their own good.
Until one quiet morning, when Frank mentions the fact that he wants to make his way to Nebraska, where he has been offered a place at UNK to pursue a Social Work degree. Duke chews on the information for a long time, wondering, and asking out loud if this is really what Frank wants to do? He knows the kid. He is brilliant, and can have a good contact with other people when he wants to. But some part of the biker can’t help but fear what a social worker job might do to him. Can’t help but fear for Frank’s own wounds.
Frankie shrugs, his answer pragmatic. “It’s a free degree, one that I can adapt to job hours. Can’t exactly complain.”
Not for the first time, Duke wishes he could offer him the world.
It brings the kid’s behavior into a new light. Frank hadn’t just been fighting with him for some independence. All this time, he had been living with the dread of a second separation, still fearing abandonment.
This kid will make a softie out of him…
So Duke changes his plans, taking him through Kansas and staying long enough in Nebraska to help him settle in the dorm room his scholarship comes with and make sure Frank still has his number. Still knows he can call him whenever he needs.
Then he is gone, promising to come back for him. He pretends he doesn’t see Frank’s bitter face, doesn’t hear his disbelieving scoff. He’ll just have to prove him wrong.
Turning his back to that boy is one of the hardest things he has ever done.
Xxxx
Proving him wrong is easier said than done when the only time he visits, at first, is once, a few weeks into Frank's birthday.
Not that he has had any other occasion. He is literally just coming back from the get away trip he had barely started when he and the kid had been reunited! Still, it sucks.
In the life of a kid like Frank, suspicion is a given, trust a commodity. Difficult to obtain, terribly easy to lose.
And Duke can see it. In the shadows beneath his eyes. In the smile, too bright to see him, too happy. The manic energy that radiates off of him and the way he refuses to let himself clings to the biker.
There had not been any other occasion before. Still, it doesn't stop Duke from feeling like an asshole. Like another name on the long list of people who have disappointed Frank.
Maybe that's what pushes him into the decision he makes. It certainly helps, at least.
Because before Frankie has reached his twenties Duke is back in Missouri with a job not too far from Uni and the kid back to living with him. Tentatively, somewhat distrustfully. But back he is. Where they have a roof over their head and no one running after them. Frank has changed his last name somewhere during that time they were separated from one another, and he seems as much at peace with the idea of people looking for him (or not) as he can be.
Xxx
Frankie is 21 past a few months the first time he comes onto Duke.
“Legal.” He says, purring as he leans on his elbows onto the Harley's old leather while Duke is tinkering on the old girl.
“Jailbait” he retorts, deadpanned.
He doesn't actually take him seriously at first. Hasn't seen the professed interest build within his young companion days after days, weeks after weeks, months after months.
Maybe it's because he is a blind old fool.
Or maybe it's because he would not have been able to handle Frankie flirting with other people, searching and experimenting with his own sexuality while he lived with him if he had.
Duke is many things, but a saint he is not. And he sure has seen the beautiful man Frank is blooming into.
Still. He is 21, a jailbait in anything but name, and a goddamn tease!
So Duke decides he will forget about the incident. But that's without accounting for Frankie’s bullheadness. He takes the biker’s silence on the subject as a challenge and goes on with his fashion experimentation. Suddenly, crop tops and fucking skirts are implemented in his day to day wardrobe, making the elder one chokes on his spit the first time he is confronted with those sinfully long legged clad in nothing but flowing fabric!
He wants to run his tongue along those calves. To bite at his navel and nibble at love handles. To mark and marre the pale expanse of his hollow throat.
And Frankie knows. The goddamned tease fucking knows!
It's in the way he holds himself. How he dips his head to the side when Duke is salivating at the exposed view of a collarbone. In the crossed legs that make their length and the swell of his muscles stand out. In the free-for-all view of his happy trail.
Frankie knows. And he wants Duke's eye on him. Him, and only him.
And yet.
And yet…
Even with his resolve crumbling like a house of cards, Duke never forgets to be soft. To ask, and not demand. To wait for permission rather than take. Even as he willingly descends into the depths of hell, throwing ethics and common sense to the trash, silencing the voice in his head telling him this is wrong, all so he can have one chance to taste the tantalizing fruit that has been dangling in front of him… Even then, he never forgets to be kind to Frankie. Attentive. A lover starved and still not drinking.
He would never forgive himself if he ever hurt him.
And Frank is still so fragile in some ways. Despite the hardened behavior and the cutting edges. Buried deep beneath, there is still that hurt child looking for care and approval. Who could be pushed into accepting more than he is capable of handling if he doesn't pay enough attention to his tells.
So strong. And yet so vulnerable.
Frankie laughs into his throat, preening when Duke trails kisses like stars against his skin and calls him “Jailbait” once more. He blushes and averts his gaze when he calls him “My little sun. My beautiful mistake” and Duke would keep on calling him that just to watch the disbelief drain out of him, words after words. Just to witness his tentative smile and hear his teasing “Old Man” as Frank opens up under him, shy and frightened and oh so eager!
Oh so in love.
Two days later, as he is looking at the coffee brands on his grocery run it suddenly hits him! Like an icy shower cascading down his entire body. That he is in love too! Fully, completely, unredeemably in love with that man half his age.
So in love he wants to murmur sweet nothings and praises into Frankie’s ears all day long. Wants to keep him to himself, to go back on the road, in dingy motels with only one bed so they can be squashed together. In love to the point of not caring about Frankie’s age, or the grit he is going to leave on the kid.
It is terrifying.
Duke had sworn not to fall in love like that ever again! And here he was, in a supermarket, his choice in coffee brand making him realize that he has done exactly that. That love had crept up on him once again. Uncaring about his past decision. Of Frankie’s age.
And Duke is willingly sinking. Any thoughts of resistance erased by a single headshake, the one where Frank’s eyes go to the ground, unable to meet his, and a soft, pleased smile appears on his lips.
Duke has sinned before. But rarely has sin tasted so good.
Xxxx
Frankie graduates and he betrays no emotions. Not during the ceremony. Not after. He graduates and it's like he doesn't know what to make of it.
Duke is at a loss. He has no idea how to build his spirits up. No idea as to why his beautiful mistake is looking like someone just killed his dog. Then Frankie shows him the scholarship, and the Med School acceptance letter. He loses all his breath in one punched up exhale.
“Jailbait, that’s… that’s amazing!” For some reason his answer seems to displease the man even more. His face twists with a bitter derision.
“It’s a fucking mistake, is what it is.”
Oh…
Oh, his sweet, insecure boy! Duke takes Frankie’s hand in his, squeezing them. “No it’s not. You are brilliant kiddo, you have all it takes to become a good doctor.”
Frank huffs, putting the letter on the table, face down as he gets up to walk in circles. After a round or two, he finally admits “I declined… I mean, not like… decline, decline. But I told them I had a family emergency and I would not be able to attend in the fall. Asked if I could have the scholarship postponed for next year, or at least next semester.”
The look he gives Duke, with his steely blue eyes, stops him from protesting. Frank has never been his responsibility in this sense of the word. He doesn’t get to make choices for him now.
There is grief in Frank's voice when he next speaks. Grief and acceptance. Like he can feel an end coming. “I want to hit the road. I want you to take me away.”
How could Duke say no to that? Especially when he himself has been becoming more and more restless as the days go by.
Xxxx
Months later, as the hitch to keep moving is finally settling down in both of them, Frank accepts to enroll into Pittsburgh Medical School. He confesses this to Duke with too knowing eyes and some mean part of the biker wants to hurt him for it. For knowing him too well. For expecting Duke to flee.
Because Pittsburgh might be Robby, but it is also a lost family, a son dead before he ever had the chance to know him, a divorced wife. And Duke is still running away from that.
He takes his beautiful mistake right up to his dorm, lugging what little possession he has on his back. Their goodbye is an emotionless one. Two people too afraid to show what this separation truly means to them to be able to give more.
Xxxx
Once, and only once, does he cross paths with Frank and does not make himself known.
He is in Pittsburgh for a potential long-term job. An old buddy of his is retiring and trying to re-sell his garage. Duke is not getting any younger and while he still feels the call of open roads from time to time, still struggles not to drown his demons at the bottom of a bottle, he is also tired. And the prospect of setting roots somewhere isn't as daunting as it used to be. Especially when he has friends in the city.
He is on his way to meet Robby for a quick lunch and catch up when he sees him across the road. One arm around a pretty blond woman. Just as he goes to cross and say hi he realizes that the two of them are showing their hands to their friends. An engagement ring on their fingers.
A burning, passionate jealousy engulfs him in seconds, leaving him shaking at his own feelings. He turns tail. Never looking back. Not aware of how much he will regret this decision.
Xxxx
In between their sparse exchanges over the years, Duke finds Frank's old family. He is angry, still furiously jealous and terrible vengeful when he does. A bad combination in anyone, but certainly in him. He comes out of the encouter charged for Assault occasioning actual bodily harm and prison time. When he comes out, he never finds his phone and has to change numbers.
The loss of Frank's contact leaves him a guilty mess. What will he think? Will he believe Duke has abandonned him this time? Then he resigns himself. Maybe this is Fate telling him he wasn't meant to go on crossing paths with him forever.
Still. He can't help but look over peoples' heads in Pittsburgh crowds. Hoping, searching for a tall, lanky youth and blue eyes he would recognize anywhere.
Blue eyes he doesn't find.
Xxxx
Duke can't believe he missed Frank, that day, on the 4th of July!
It feels like a mistake, a glitch in the Matrix, the betrayal of the Universe!
Never, not once before, have he and Frankie missed one another! It had been so consistent all through their years that it had become a Truth of Fate that he and the kid were meant to find each other, time and time and time again. So immutable he had never questioned it.
And Fate had let them down.
Is this payback for that time he did not go to Frank? This feels like payback.
Thankfully, the Universe quickly realigns itself, reuniting them a few months later under Robby's jealous nose.
Once he has given him his new number, so incredibly grateful for the opportunity, they get back to chatting regularly. More regularly than they ever have before. Frank has clearly been in need of some form of support, and hasn't been able to find it around himself. That's when he learns about the drugs from Frank's perspective. About his accident and the unrelenting pain, his ever-present need to be needed, Robby's own behavior feeding into the deep-sitted fears of not being enough and deserving to be mistreated the man to still hide to this day.
So when Robby rehashes his pain and his betrayal, weeks later, blabbering once more about how Frank never came to him, how he could have asked for help and didn't, Duke quietly but calmly put a stop to it.
“Did he? Because Frankie has learnt the hard way not to trust people who were not willing to do one half of the work, Robby. And I know you. Did you make yourself available for him?”
He doesn't hide from the wounded look his friend give him. Because he does know Robby. His qualities and his faults.
And at the end of the day, Frank is still his. His kid. His beautiful mistake. His battered star.
Frank has been his from the moment he climbed behind him onto his Harley, all of sixteen and already so hurt by the world around him.
Besides, it's not like he ever thought Robby was right in this specific case anyway. He had said nothing until now, because he could see his friend was deeply hurt! But it did not stop him from wondering where this intolerance against addicts came from? Had it always been there and he had never realized? That would be rich coming from Robby, but then again it is already rich of him to criticize addicts so harshly to Duke, of all people! Duke who had often looked at alcohol a bit too fondly. Who had more than certainly nursed one glass too many more often than he wishes to remember. Who had been admitted to the hospital for the beginning of a cirrhosis two months into Frankie's 24th birthday.
Thank God, his Jailbait had not been here to see it!
He steps back from Robby's bike, analyzing his work with a critical eye, making sure the reparations are holding. Then he turns back to his friend, piercing eyes pining him in place.
“Listen to me buddy. You think I don't see what you are trying to do? You think Frankie doesn't see it?” He ignored the startled little jump Robby makes at the way he addresses Frank, or the twisting of his face. “You're acting like an entitled asshole because you can't handle looking at your own wounds. And let me make this clear… What I am going to say is not so you can be absolved of your guilt. Because you've been acting like a right cunt. But…” and there he takes a deep breath and crosses his fingers. Hoping what he'll say is the right thing, and not something that will push Robby into acting even more like an asshole. Or worse, an overprotective idiot.
Frankie will never forgive him if that happens.
“You're not the worst thing he's had to face. Hell! If I were to guess, you're not even in the top ten. That kid has had to fight for everything in his life, long before you came into the picture. This? This is just a blip in his path. This is not what will break him. You are not what will break him.”
Robby stays silent for a long time, lost in his thoughts. Until he sits on the seat of his bike, shoulders and neck slumping like a puppet cut from its strings. When he raises half of his face towards Duke, a relieved look in his eyes, the biker breathes a bit more lightly.
“That's a good thing, isn't it?”
Duke shrugs, hands thrust in his pocket. “Depends on you, buddy. Are you gonna stop acting like he deserves to be hit every time you have to see him?”
Robby winces, a bitter grimace making its way on his face. Duke sighs, and lets himself falls on his ass on the pavement, facing him.
“Listen pal… I have never influenced Frankie's choices. Never outright told him to do or not do something. Not once. But if you two can't patch things up enough to be at least professionals, I will ask him to find somewhere else to work. And this is not me picking sides. This situation is not good for either of you!”
Robby's head jerks upwards at his admission, panic and disbelief carved in the lines of his face. “Frank loves to work here!”
He shakes his head, sadness suffusing him at having to shatter another of Robby's illusions. “That’s not how he functions. Frank loved working with you. And with the other people in your ED I suppose. But you're talking about a kid who hasn't had a stable home for ages. He'll move if he has to. Moving is less of a hardship for him than making real, long-lasting connections.” He knows he has hit a sore spot the moment he catches the man's guilty winces.
Yeah…
Frankie and Robby. Talk about a bad combination…
“I know it seems impossible to you, when all you've ever done is cling to people and places, but leaving is easy, Mike. And he's got years of experience doing just that.”
For a moment, all he does is observes his friend. The shaking of his hand, the convulsive swallowing as he tries to battle the cry that wants to break out, the defenses and self-righteousness he has held onto for so long just to continue taking one step after the other…
Then he gets up, dusting himself and patting one of Robby's shoulders lightly. “Come on man. Let's get you something to drink.”
Xxx
Frank divorces and Duke gets an invitation he can't refuse when the man asks him to show up to his divorce party in the middle of Robby's ED. Not that they could have done it anywhere else, he'd been seeing him off to work after a lunch date so it only made sense.
Too curious ears turn towards him, but Frankie only has eyes for him. Gods be good! That kid still knows how to make him feel special!
So Duke agrees and gets the hell out of here before Robby can catch him. He has no desire to get an earful of his friend's jealous rambling. The man truly needs to tidy up inside his brain!
Which is why he is pretty certain he is not supposed to hear what comes next.
“A divorce party? Well that's a bit morbid, kid. And how come I’m not invited?” He can imagine the head nurse's pinched expression. As some kind of self-appointed surrogate mother to Frank, she is bound to be vexed by the lack of invitation.
Quickly, other voices join in. Young, old, most of them females though not all of them.
“You are not invited, because no one is. I don't plan to make a big evening out of it, I plan to get laid. Now scram! All of you.”
Laughter, squeaks, exclamations of disbelief and hoots fuse inside the ED. Duke bites his first not to burst into raucous laughter as he flees the place. Guess he has to provide now.