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Sam had Tinder. “Just for shit and giggles”, he said. At the FBI headquarters, he loved making fun of whoever took the app seriously. And Shirley, who found her fiancée on it, got offended. The whole office had him figured out anyway: Sam Stein, the guy who sneered at weddings and took bets on the durability of the couple. His own parents didn't last five years. Dad married for beauty, mom married for money. It was the time. It was the exchange of goods. Now, the goods changed. It's about sex, it's about self-esteem, it's about not wanting to be alone. His diner table reflections gave him the nickname of Schopenhauer. “A man can be himself only so long as he is alone”, yada yada – which Sam took very badly. Schopenhauer was a douche bag. Yes, Sam was sarcastic and deeply disillusioned. But he was also the hell of a hypocrite. Because he was scared shitless to die alone.
So every six months, he swept right, swept left. He never met anybody. Well, he met a dude in a coffee shop last February and it was terribly awkward. Sam did The Test. He set the date near a bookstore and proposed to go browsing. He wanted to find out the guy's tastes -- and nothing does the job better than bookshop browsing. This guy spent half an hour in the cookbook section.
Now, Sam was in his bed, a bit depressed, and his phone was horribly slow. He knew he had to delete an app to make some space. Tinder was obviously the first to come to mind: He hasn't been on it for a year. But before he deleted it completely, he thought he could just use it one last time. So he let the pictures pass in front of his eyes. He felt like a kid sneaking a light under the duvet to read comics.
He stopped on a picture. A silhouette. Not a face, not abs, not a group picture, not a dog picture. It was just a silhouette, an outline. And what an outline. Sam observed it cautiously. The profile didn't say anything. He swept right. And the screen lighted up Sam's face.
A match.
Okay. He waited and waited and waited. Then he said “hi.” And nothing. And he waited and waited and waited and “hi” popped up. Another one, just after his own, like an echo. How strange to have letters appear out of nowhere. How strange, that someone else, god knows where, was looking at the same screen as he was. And waiting for an answer. How strange and addictive it was. Connecting with someone in such a way, telling that person your thoughts, writing words and having them read it without knowing who they were. Them, reading and not knowing who you are. And a link, out of nowhere, creates itself between beings.
-
Frank was stuck in this hellhole and had no access to the outside. He never was the most outgoing guy, but he liked the air, he liked the park. He used to like the park. He used to like the carousel. And now every little thing was tainted. And even when he was outside and the light was just right, he wouldn't notice. The cherry trees were in blossom, he wouldn't notice. The smell of honeysuckles, he wouldn't notice. He noticed the exits he could take, the routes he could use to escape, the corners he could hide in. Most of the time, he was trapped in his own head. He'd do things without any memory of them. Micro called it dissociation. Like walking through life on automatic.
One night, he put toothpaste on his razor. Then Micro came in and told me he found a way to set up communication with someone on Madani's team. A point of contact who wouldn't cuff them on sight. Someone with info, someone in the action. Frank contacted Sam Stein on the message board Micro set up for him. Only after the first messages were exchanged did Micro mentioned it was a dating app. After a few days, it became apparent that the guy was professional as heck and wouldn't be useful as a point of contact. He was useless, they got nowhere. And yet, Frank kept talking to him.
-
Blood was rushing out of his eyebrow. A good slice of flesh had been taken out. Frank felt slightly dizzy and yet, nothing was hurting too much. Yet. He stood up and went to feel his eyebrow with the tips of his fingers. The second he expected to touch his skin, he didn't feel anything. He had to go a bit deeper to meet his own flesh. It was wet, it was soft and it was warm. Pieces of glasses were lodged in his right eyes. He couldn't close it, let alone move it, or the pieces of glass could roll under his eyelid -- and it would hurt like hell. On his escape route, he landed badly and dislocated his knee. Nothing broke but the kneecap popped out and went right back in. He killed the whole gang of mobsters alright. He did just fine. But he was in Staten Island, away from Micro, and he needed to take care of his injuries to do the journey back without attracting attention (a bloody guy with a limp do that to you). He recalled Sam's address (“Yeah you know that good Malaysian place on Forest Ave? Killer nasi lemak? I'm the window just above”). It was close.
Frank went in using the fire escape. He couldn't see much, blood was dripping into his eyes. Eyes he couldn't close without feeling an acute pain. The place was empty. He limped to the bathroom and, with some tweezers, began to take the sharp pieces of glass out. One by one. It was hit or miss most of the time. He didn't want to miss. The blood kept dripping and Frank applied a hand towel on his eyebrow. Bruises started to bloom across his face. His knee was still in pain, he needed to put some ice on it. But for now, the eyes were his focus. Sometime about the eyes make it such a nasty place for injuries. Maybe because the brain was just behind it.
-
And this is how Sam finally met his two-months Tinder crush. He went home, opened the bathroom door and found a gun pressed on his temple. He recognized Frank Castle immediately.
“First aid kit?”
“Under the kitchen sink.”
Frank frowned.
“Yeah, I...” continued Sam. “I figured if I was going to get hurt somewhere, it'd be in the kitchen.”
Frank extended a hand. “Gun. Phone. Give'em.”
Sam gave his gun and phone. His hands didn't shake as much as he assumed they would. He knew Castle's reputation but knew to keep calm, in control. Seeing this guy so beaten, so battered, and yet so dangerous, was a strange sight. He remembered “Silence of the Lambs” and supposed that Clarice felt as torn as this when she met Hannibal Lecter behind bars. He had to do as she did: Establish mutual respect. Except there weren't any glass between Castle and him. And Castle had a gun. So really, Clarice Starling was an amateur.
“How did you find my place? Assuming it wasn't luck,” said Sam, coming back with the First Aid Kit. Frank took own his phone to show their conversation. On Tinder.
“We been talking.”
Well, fuck. Mutual respect is out of the window. Sam had a hard time catching his breath, nodding to himself, chewing on the inside of his cheeks.
“You're Pete.”
“So FBI agents use those kinda sites, hm?” asked Frank, raising an eyebrow.
“You catfished me? Not the first time it happens but--” Sam frowned. Realization hit him. “You figured I wouln't tell the FBI... They'll never believe me. Frank Castle and I matched on Tinder.”
“Ain't you glad you swept right?”
-
Frank sat on the edge of the bathtub and took his calvar vest off, careful to keep Sam at gunpoint. Sam sat on a stool and motioned for him to take the top off.
“We've got to check for fractured ribs first.”
And, holy shit. Sam didn't know where the abs began and the nasty bumps ended. His body was so bruised it looked like a Klein painting. He poked it with the tips of his fingers. All seemed to be in order. Vital organs safe. Somehow, he felt Frank looking down on him. Sam, self-conscious, needed to clear the air.
“For your information, you're not my type.”
He was totally his type. He just needed to be a FBI agent now. To be to the point. Mutual respect. He took the tweezers and with his fingers, pried Frank's right eye open. The white of his eye was now bright red and glassy. Sam squinted, searching for the pieces of glass that lodged themselves here. One by one, he picked them out.
“That right?” asked Frank.
“Yeah. Well. I didn't know about the whole killing machine side job you had.” Sam winced for effect. “Should have put that in your profile.”
Frank's mouth curled into an amused sneer. The tips of the tweezers were against his eyes and Sam tried to be as still as possible.
“Is now a good time to admit I have no idea what I'm doing?” He felt that if he hurt Frank, it would be the last thing he ever does. He could feel the tip of his gun against his own ribs. But to heal sometime, you've got to shove tweezers in somebody's eyeballs.
“You doing good.” murmured Frank. And Sam felt the breath of each word before he heard them.
“So, is Moby Dick really your favorite book or was it bullshit?”
“Nah, is true.”
“And you like Malaysian food?”
Frank nodded.
“I guess I can use that for profiling,” Sam said. “There's a piece stuck... try to look on your right.”
Frank did. Sam squeezed the tweezers in the outer corner of Frank's eye and extracted a piece. “Last one, I think.”
Frank closed his eyes. Opened them again with a sight of deep relief.
“Now, your eyebrows. I've got to do some embroidery on it. Again, not a pro. I'll just use some cross stitch patterns. Yeah?... Yeah I'll shut up.”
Sam prepared the needle.
“You a funny guy, eh, Stein? You're funny.” Frank, shaking his head, gun still in hand. Fatigue was breaking him slowly and he leaned in slightly.
“Ah, you still find me funny? You didn't lie about that.”
“I ain't a good liar.”
“And all those questions about my job? I shouldn't have guessed...” Sam scoffed, “You must have had a good laugh, hm?”
Frank shook his head, no. Sam continued.
“This whole time, you must have thought: Jeeze, this FBI guy, what an idiot.”
Frank shook his head again.
“I don't play with people," Frank said slowly. "Ain't my style. Was this other guy... it was his plan, yeah?'
“So you don't work alone.”
“You tryin' to get me talkin' Stein?”
“Only fair, isn't it?”
“The point is, that was sly and I ain't that. Everythin' but.”
“How about you drop the gun?”
“Dunno. What are you gonna do?”
Sam was still trying to put the thread in the needle but couldn't manage it.
“I helped you get this far, didn't I?”
Frank dropped the gun. Slowly, he took Sam's hands to help him with the needle. Sam looked up. The tip of his nose so close he could touch Frank's. Sam didn't expect to have a crush on Frank bloody Castle and yet, here he was.
-
Sam woke up the next morning. Frank was still sleeping, probably enjoying a real bed for the first time in months. So. That's a Tinder date. Sam drank his coffee on the balcony. Down the street, everybody was wearing sunglasses with a raincoat. April showers spared no one. Today, at the office, he was going to apologize to Shirley about his Tinder comment. He'd been wrong, he'd say. All along.
-
The End.