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His cell begins to vibrate as the football slaps into his palm.
“Gimme a sec, bud!” he calls out, fishing the phone from his pocket. Junior smacks the football against his hand in annoyance and starts spiraling it into the air, somehow not the asshole Frank was at that age.
Blocked number. Damn telemarketers.
“Castle.”
“Hey, Frankie.”
A slow grin spreads across his face.
“Haven’t seen your ass in a couple days,” he says and mouths ‘Bill’ to Maria when she looks up at him from the blanket on the grass.
Billy chuckles. “Sorry to deprive you.”
His voice is odd. Like he’s talking to someone else. Billy Russo is a lot of things but distracted isn’t usually one of them.
“You alright?”
“Frank.” Billy says his name like the beginning and ending of a thought.
“Yeah?”
“I’m gonna need you to do something for me and I need you to not ask why.”
Frank glances around. At Junior, twirling the ball higher and higher with each throw. At Maria and Lisa on the blanket, Lisa pointing at the carousel. Frank promised he’d take her later.
Turns out the answer is an easy one.
“Yeah,” he says, his voice lowered.
“Laugh for me. Make it count.”
“Tell me a joke worth tellin’.” He’s scanning the park now, a smile pushing back onto his face.
Bill laughs in his ear. “Hey, handsome.”
“Where you at, Bill?” he asks. Lets his smile become a smirk. Forgets where they are.
“Where do you think?”
There’s no wind today so the treeline behind the carousel is still. Frank doesn’t wave but it’s tempting.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“What happens next?” It’s hard not to look, not to push through people until he finds his answer. Bill’s the actor of the two of them.
“I need you to grab Maria and the kids and leave. Get to the car. Don’t let them get curious.”
There’s a clank over the line, like something heavy being dropped in the dirt. Frank doesn’t know if Billy means the kids or someone else.
“Hey,” he says to Maria, waving his hand to bring Junior back in. “Bill needs help with something.”
Lisa groans and Maria raises an eyebrow. “Does he want to meet us here and you can go after?”
“Think it’s gonna be a rest of the day kind of thing,” he says like his eyes aren’t being drawn to every face, every car in a fifty yard radius.
“What, are we leaving?” Junior says, his face dropping in disappointment.
“I’ll make it up to you,” he says, ruffling the kid’s hair. “Promise.”
Maria is still looking at him, her head tilted and Frank tries smiling at her. It must come across as strained enough because she nods. “Well tell him he’s staying for dinner, next time.”
“Frank. Now.” Billy’s voice snaps, still so low, and Frank has to stop himself from reaching for a sidearm he doesn’t have on him. He can feel the scope on the back of his neck.
“Come on, guys, sounds like your uncle Bill is in a hurry.”
It turns out staying calm is easy, with the family marching behind him, Billy’s breath in his ear. Feels familiar, like he’s gonna look up to find rocky hills and armored vehicles instead of trees and stumbling kids. The playful screaming of the playground is a constant.
“Don’t go home,” Billy says as they’re loading the truck. “Find a motel. Lose your cells. If you don’t hear from me by tomorrow, leave. Get as far away as you can.”
The questions are burning a hole in Frank’s throat and he swallows every single one of them.
“Be careful,” Frank says. The same thing he’s said to Bill a thousand times before.
“Yeah, you know me. Can’t damage these good looks, can I, or what else’ve I got?”
“Me.” Frank’s voice is rough and unexpected. He takes a deep breath. “Always, Bill.”
There’s silence. Loaded. And then, “Time to go. See ya.”
“See you.”
A beep tells him they’ve been disconnected. He doesn’t look at the screen, just climbs into the truck. Maria looks at him with worry. Frank’s seen her make the same face at him every day since he got home.
“Everything alright?” she asks.
Frank doesn’t answer her.
They’re barely out of the parking lot when the screaming of the carousel stops. Starts again at a different pitch. Frank barely spares it a glance in the rearview mirror. He doesn’t look at his family at all.
The motel is only a little rundown, out of the way of major traffic. He pays in cash for the night, a room with two beds, the lights only flickering briefly when Maria turns them on.
Frank heads to the small tv and turns it to the news. In large headlines ‘GANG VIOLENCE IN CENTRAL PARK - DOZENS DEAD’ runs across the screen.
Oh Bill.
A gasp behind him and he turns to find Maria with her hand over her mouth staring in horror at the sight of body bags covering the grass she and Lisa were sitting on just a few hours ago.
“Frank, what is this?” she asks. Her voice is shaking.
“I don’t know,” he says and it’s the truth. He finds himself searching for Billy’s face among the wreckage, air stuck to his ribs, but all the faces are covered by the NYPD logo and he’s left with nothing.
“The phone call,” Maria says slowly. “Billy.” Something is dawning across her face. “You knew something was going to happen.”
“No, I didn’t,” he says. His voice is rough and he can’t stop staring at the bodies on the screen. Imagining them smaller or with Maria’s hair.
“Frank, don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not. I swear to you I’m not.” He ducks his head. Shakes it. Wishes there was sand in his hair. Under his feet.
“Mom?” The kids are still standing by the door, looking between the two of them, confusion on their small faces. Frank can’t look away from them all of a sudden. Needs to touch his children’s faces.
He goes to them, gets down on one knee and pulls them into his arms. He knows he’s scaring them more. He knows he promised to give them answers he doesn’t have. But right now he needs this. Junior is still holding the football in one hand and it presses into Frank’s chest now, painful and necessary.
“Bill called,” he says, pulling back and looking into Lisa and Junior’s eyes. They have Maria’s eyes. He’s lost there for a moment.
“Frank.” There’s a hand on his shoulder, slim with short bitten nails, a bad habit she’s never been able to get rid of.
Frank clears his throat, rests his cheek on that hand.
“Bill called. Said we needed to leave.”
He doesn’t think about Billy. Doesn’t count the hours in his head since the call was disconnected.
“He asked me to trust him. So I did.”
Maria is on her knees behind him, forehead pushed against his shoulder as he holds their children. They stay like that for a long time.
Eventually the kids begin to squirm and Frank pulls away. Maria goes to sit on the bed and watch the tv with wide eyes. Frank can see possible futures flash across her face. The kids settle for quietly tossing the ball back and forth.
Frank pulls the hood of his jacket over his head and walks in the shadows to the department store down the street where he grabs toothbrushes, sandwiches, a cheap pay-as-you-go, and enough medical supplies to make up a semi decent first aid kit because the one in the bathroom of their room is shit. The girl that rings him up never looks at him, simply tells him to have a nice evening before going back to fidgeting with her uniform.
He follows the shadows back to his family, thankful for his dark jacket and jeans, though the standard issue boots might give him away if someone were to look closely.
He knocks three times and waits until Maria’s face peeks out from behind the chain and she lets him in.
The first thing he does is rip the packaging off the phone and set the damn thing up.
There’s no answer on the other end. He hadn’t expected one. He hangs up after the third ring.
The sun goes down, time stilling to a crawl as they wait. Maria hasn’t said anything to Frank. Hasn’t said anything at all except gentle reassurances when Lisa or Junior get antsy. She keeps running her hands through their hair and Frank can feel something inside himself deflate each time she does it.
There’s a knock at the door and instantly all four of them freeze. Frank holds a finger to his lips, motioning for them to get back, before walking to the door and looking through the peephole.
His breath catches when he sees who’s on the other side and the door is open before he can remember turning the door knob.
Bill grins up at him, his lip split, blood dried from a cut on his cheek. He’s clutching his shoulder, bent over like some kind of creature is sitting on his back.
“Hey, Frankie. Long time no see.”
“You asshole.” Frank grabs him by the unzipped jacket and pulls him into the room, slamming the door closed and wrapping his arms around Billy as tight as he can.
“You asshole, I’ll kill you myself,” he says low into Billy’s ear, listening to the rise of his breathing, the hitch of it from the pain.
“Yeah, you’d try.” A single arm slips around his back and holds him there. And fuck if that isn’t the most amazing thing that Frank’s felt in years.
“How the fuck’d you even find us?”
“Gave your neighbors a bit of a fright.”
Frank notices he doesn’t answer the question.
“Uncle Billy?”
When Frank turns his head, Lisa and Junior are staring, their eyes wide with terror. Billy’s grin fades backwards, leaving him pale and haunted looking.
“Hey, kid,” Billy says to Lisa.
“Are you okay?”
Billy straightens, puts his best face on when half of it is covered in blood. “Yeah, I’ll be okay. Your old man is gonna fix me up just fine.”
Frank can feel the way Bill’s hand grips onto him, can feel the slight tremble in it. The kids don’t look like they believe it much either, standing back, too hesitant to approach.
“Come on, bathroom, huh.”
“So romantic, Frankie.”
Together, they stumble across the room, leaving the wide eyes of Frank’s family behind, until it’s just the two of them behind the closed bathroom door.
“Come on,” Frank says and lowers Billy gently as he can onto the toilet. Not a moment too soon as Billy collapses onto it, his legs going out from under him.
“Where’s it hurt.”
“Shoulder. Everywhere else.”
Frank grabs a mostly white motel towel and wets it, leaning over the sink until all the breath, the tension of the day comes out of him in one big sigh.
Billy, leaning against the sink counter, raises an eyebrow. “That so.”
“All that talkin’ can’t be good for ya,” Frank says, kneeling down in front of Billy to start dabbing at his face.
“Hasn’t failed me yet.”
Frank is quiet, attention divided between the cut on Bill’s cheek and the flickering fluorescent light above them.
“Why, Bill.”
Bill laughs, a deep throated chuckle. “Why do you think.”
Frank waits. He can be patient when he wants.
“I did some real bad shit, Frankie.” It’s still not an answer.
“We all did, Bill.”
“Not like this.”
Billy gives him a hooded smile, something dark, and with the blood leaking down his cheek and over his neck, washed out bathroom lights turning his skin to bleach, he looks dead, dug up from his own grave.
The sight of it snakes around Frank’s rib cage until he’s choking, too close to the nightmares he still has.
“Then we’ll fix it,” he says and starts running the wet washcloth over Billy’s face.
Billy’s hand shoots up and catches him by the wrist. The smile is gone and his eyes are staring through Frank, looking for lies or enemy soldiers or whatever Billy Russo fights inside his own head.
“It’s just me, Bill.”
The hand doesn’t squeeze, just holds, leaving dirt and other things on Frank’s skin. The human comes back into Billy’s eyes bit by bit, leaving the instinct behind until he’s looking at Frank and actually seeing him.
“Just me,” Frank says.
Billy breathes in deep through his nose and then lets him go, runs that hand through his hair and drops it down to his knee, the knuckles no longer white.
“Yeah,” Billy says.
They’re both mostly silent after that, Frank asking for the occasional shift in position or the removal of Billy’s jacket so he can better get at the gouge in Billy’s shoulder, the sound of water running, of the both of them breathing like there’s still sand in their lungs, in their boots. The small sounds of Maria wishing the kids good night just beyond the door, a low key reminder this isn’t their tent. Billy doesn’t say anything at all.
His eyelids begin drooping twenty minutes in, staring at Frank from under his eyelashes until they close entirely, compliance and exhaustion in every bone. Frank would think he’d drifted off, and would have maybe even been grateful for it, if it weren’t for Billy following directions as they’re given.
Finally, it’s done. There’s blood across the sink and on Frank’s hands but it’s a deep red and means they’re both alive. It’s a thing to be grateful for. He thinks this over and over and over until the words stop making sense.
Billy’s head is resting against the wall, t-shirt padded with bandages in places and pushing out the seams. When he opens his eyes, it’s one of the most beautiful fuckin things Frank’s ever seen.
“Hey, c’mere.”
He reaches a hand out, slowly, feels Billy shiver when he places it on his neck, and pulls him into an embrace.
Billy goes willingly, pushes his face between Frank’s neck and shoulder where Frank can feel him breathing, slow if not all that easy.
“Whatever happened today, Bill… whatever happened before. We’ll figure it out. You and me.”
Billy’s only response is to get a grip on the front of Frank’s shirt and hold, material stretching over his fingers.
Frank can’t help but feel like something’s passing them by. Roar of a plane in his ears, flying too close for comfort.
But he knows his kids are asleep and Maria whispered good night to them and he has Billy in his arms.
“We’ll figure it out.”
His hand runs through Billy’s hair, still wet from water and sweat and blood. Cups the back of his skull just to feel it.
The sudden touch of lips against his neck, the tip of a tongue tracing his pulse, it’s probably less unexpected than it should be.
Christ.
He reaches out and grabs for the counter before he loses his balance. He can’t help the smallest groan at the sharp teeth pushing against him.
And then Billy sits back. His eyes are closed and his mouth is open like he forgot what he was doing. He’s swaying where he sits.
Frank makes a decision for the both of them and gives himself a shake before straightening.
“Come on,” he says, slipping one of Billy’s limp arms over his shoulder. “Let’s get you out of here, huh?”
“Mmm. Like it here.”
Frank chuckles, hauling him to his feet. “That so,” he says into the fringe of Billy’s hair.
Billy groans, hand clutching tight at Frank’s shoulder before he steadies. “Liked it better sitting down.”
They make it out the door, a four legged creature half drunk on old wounds and secrets. The lights are off in the main room except for the glow of the television playing the news on repeat. Frank tries not to look at it too closely.
Lisa and Junior face away from each other in the bed closest to them, their breathing even and soft. It takes a stampede to wake ‘em up once they’re out.
They barely make it halfway to the other bed before Maria is on them.
“Billy.”
“Maria.” Billy gives her his charming smile, a shadow of its usual brilliance. This time it’s flavored with something like sheepishness. “Sorry-”
And Frank can’t describe the expression on her face just then. Anger or shock. Tiredness. But then her arms are around Billy, hands clawed into his t-shirt like he’ll disappear.
Billy’s eyes are wide, smile tossed aside in the face of something else. He looks at Frank over his shoulder.
“Thank you,” she’s whispering. Over and over again. “Thank you thank you thank you.”
Slowly, like a wild animal looking for a trap, Billy’s free arm comes around her, nothing like her own death grip, but solid. It trembles with exhaustion against her back.
“You’re welcome,” he says, still unsure, still looking at Frank with bloodshot eyes.
And then Maria pulls back and kisses him.
It’s not a deep kiss. And she has to go up on her toes to do it. Maria’s tall but Billy’s tall. It hits the corner of Billy’s mouth more than anything. Frank knows because he watches every moment of it, takes in every detail. The light of the tv flickering over their profiles, Bill mostly in shadow, Maria lit from behind.
It’s also maybe less unexpected than it should be.
Maria pulls away to find Billy staring at her with shock, genuine shock, no mask or smile or quip. Just a face that only Frank gets to see on the regular.
Maria doesn’t really seem to notice, only smiles at him before pushing her shoulders under his other arm.
“Come on,” she says and Billy breaks out of the spell long enough to chuckle.
“You Castles,” he says, shaking his head and allowing himself to be lead over to the empty bed.
Laying down on his uninjured side, he curls himself inwards, refusing to get under the covers when they ask him.
“You gotta be careful, Frank,” Billy says. He’s wide awake in that moment, eyes glittering and staring hard, staring at Frank who’s halfway through untying Billy’s shoes. “Gotta watch out tonight. The stuff I did, I don’t know who else…”
“Yeah, Bill. I will.”
Billy opens his mouth to say something else before nodding instead. “Kay.”
Frank pats him on the ankle, lets his thumb run over the bone. “Go to sleep, Bill.”
And he does. Long limbs folded upwards, arms pushed into his stomach. Small.
Frank lets his weight fall into the one chair in the room, lets himself breathe out before running a hand over his face.
“I can’t believe…”
Maria is right there next to him, her eyes darting between Billy and the other bed with Lisa and Junior. The three of them breathe in tandem.
“Yeah,” Frank says. “Yeah.”
“You gonna stay up?” she asks.
Frank nods. A sharp singular thing. “Gotta keep watch.”
Who the fuck knows what else is out there tonight. More planes flying by in the dark.
“Alright.”
She trails a hand on his shoulder until he looks up at her. There are tears on her face. A lingering horror there behind her eyes.
“It’s gonna be okay,” he says, grabbing her hand and pressing it to his face. “I promise.”
She nods and leans down, kissing him slow and for a long minute.
“I love you.”
Her hand trails out of his. “I love you too.”
He watches as she climbs into the bed, under the covers. Watches as she pauses for a moment before moving over and resting her forehead against Billy’s back.
Billy doesn’t move, only sleeps on, knees pushed to the edge of the mattress.
Frank watches the four of them sleep for the rest of the night.