Archive of Our Own

The light bulbs continuously flicker, glowing as bright as they possibly can- which isn’t that bright- before dimming and painting the cracked walls of the apartment floor a soft muted yellow. In addition to the flickering, the lights buzz at a low steady volume. The sound would be drowned out by other noises if it was day time, but it’s not. It’s the middle of the night, and nothing is preventing the constant humming of the half-dead light bulbs from slowly grating on Frank’s nerves the longer he stands outside of his apartment in the empty deserted hallway. 

He digs around his jacket pocket in search of his key. The drying blood coating his hand makes it a little difficult to gain a proper grasp on the small piece of smooth metal, but it doesn’t take Frank long to locate it and firmly grip the key between his fingers.

He pulls it out of his pocket and inserts it into the keyhole, twisting and unlocking the front door to his apartment with a creak that seems to echo throughout the hallway. Damn those hinges. Frank needs to oil them one of these days because he knows damn well that his landlord won’t do shit.

He steps through the opening and quietly closes and locks the door to his apartment behind him. Despite the heavy combat boots that Frank wears, his steps are light, his feet barely making a sound as they hit the floor. It’s late- sometime between early morning and late night- and he doesn’t want to disturb your sleep by accidentally waking you up.

Frank intends on going to the bathroom to wash up, clean himself of the blood and grime that covers him and patch up any injuries he sustained from the activities he partook in earlier that night and head straight to bed afterward. He has work early in the morning, and he wants to at least try to get a few hours of rest.

Frank abandons that plan of action when he hears a noise coming from your room. He pauses his steps and listens, straining his ears to see if he will hear anything else coming from your direction. He patiently stands in the dark, eyes cutting through the blanket of darkness to fixate on your closed door as if Frank will be able to glean any information from it.

His ears catch the sound of something that distinctly sounds like a sniffle, and that is all it takes for Frank to change his path and walk towards your bedroom.

As gentle as a man like Frank can, he lightly knocks on your closed bedroom door a couple of times.

“Kid, you alright in there?” He says in a low whisper.

Silence fills the open space between you after Frank lets the question leave his mouth. The longer the question hangs there in the air unanswered, the more Frank thinks that he should just barge in and make sure for himself that you’re okay.

“I’m fine, Frank,” you croak out.

Bullshit.

It doesn’t take a genius to know you’re lying. Frank can hear how hoarse your voice sounds- like you’ve been crying. He makes up his mind in that moment.

“I’m coming in,” he roughly says- a quick, swift warning- before he’s swinging your door open and entering your living space.

The sight that greets Frank’s eyes makes his jaw tighten uncomfortably. It’s mostly dark in your room, but moonlight streams in through your window, allowing Frank to see enough of you. You’re curled up in the fetal position with your back facing towards him. Your comforter is pulled high and tight around you as if it’s a security blanket that can protect you from the rest of the world.

“I said I was fine, Frank,” you mumble, irritation slipping into your tone.

Frank ignores it and slowly walks across your room until he’s within your line of sight, standing by the side of your bed you’re curled up on. You pull the blanket tighter around you, sinking further into yourself when you see Frank. You can try, but you can’t hide the evidence of your tears from Frank. His eyes have adjusted to the lighting in your room, and Frank can vaguely see the puffiness around your eyes and the glistening of your cheeks that reflect the silvery moonlight. His lips flatten into a straight line, the corners pulled taut as his brows heavily furrow, a deep line forming between them.

“Leave me alone, Frank,” you mutter, averting your gaze away from him.

Paying no mind to the ache of his muscles or to your words, Frank kneels on the floor right by your bedside, lowering himself to be closer to your level. His hand hovers over your side before he decides to let it rest on the blanketed curve of your shoulder. With a rough palm, he squeezes.

“What’s wrong, kid?” Frank asks you as gently as he can, but it still comes out as gruff. He’s not the best at shit like this, but he’d be damned if he didn’t try- try to be there for you because you’re one of the few people in this world that he cares about.

The question seems to set you off because your glassy eyes, shining with a new wetness to them, fly to Frank’s face and your lower lip wobbles.

Momentarily, Frank is caught off guard when you suddenly toss your arms around his neck, throwing your blanket off in the process to pool around your waist, but he is quick to react. He wraps his strong arms around your upper body and slides his hand around the back of your neck to cradle your head, holding you tight as you cry into his shoulder. 

“I don’t even k-know what’s wrong,” you hiccup, grabbing what you can of Frank’s jacket into frustrated fists, “I just,” you pause, searching for the right words to articulate how you feel, “I just feel so— so sad.” Your voice cracks on the last word you manage to say before you start sobbing in earnest, losing the ability to speak as you shake in Frank’s arms from the force of your cries. 

Frank gathers as much of you as he can in his arms, pulling you close and engulfing your trembling form in a hug that he hopes conveys what words can’t. He tucks you into his chest, his chin pressing into the side of your head as he rubs comforting circles with a calloused thumb into the delicate skin of your neck.

“I got you, sweetheart,” he murmurs, “I got you.”

At the sound of that, your cries grow stronger, wracking your body with their power, and louder in volume, and your grip on Frank’s jacket becomes more desperate as if you’re worried that he’ll slip out of your grasp if you don’t hold on tight to him. Frank can feel the mix of turbulent emotions that roll off of you in rough, choppy waves— desperation, frustration, and a deep profound sadness that’s palpable to Frank and strikes him at his core.

Frank is familiar with the feelings you’re experiencing right now. After his family passed, after they were murdered, he was engulfed in a hot blinding rage, consumed by a hunger for revenge that could not be satiated with anything other than the deaths of the people who took his family away, but underlying that burning anger was a sadness that ached within Frank’s bones. A deep sense of loss that left Frank feeling like a former shell of who he once was. A husband. A father. Those terms no longer applied to a man like him. All he was left with was a sadness that threatened to split his heart in two, one that made him think that there’s some truth to the idea that people could die from a broken heart.

With all the shit that’s gone on in his life, Frank is more than well acquainted with the feeling of sadness. He wishes that you weren’t.

“Please don’t leave me, please don’t leave, plea—” you repeat over and over as you cry into Frank’s chest, dampening his black jacket with your tears. 

Emotion swells in Frank’s chest and lodges itself in his throat because for a moment, Frank hears Lisa in you. Your voice overlaps with his baby girl’s- the sound of her begging him not to leave for his next deployment rings throughout his skull. He’s lost in the memory before another wet sob from you vibrates against his chest and brings him back into the present. 

Frank adjusts his grip on you, cradling you in his arms and brushing his lips against the side of your head as he moves his hand off of your neck to run it up and down your back in a soothing motion. “I’m right here, kid. I’m right here, I ain’t going nowhere,” he says, voice rough and scratchy with thinly veiled emotion, “I’m right here, sweetheart,” he repeats, and Frank doesn’t know if he’s saying it again for your benefit or his.

Frank stays there in your bedroom, holding you in his arms, for who knows how long. His knees ache from kneeling for so long and his unattended wounds from earlier that night sting and protest with each small movement of his, but he doesn’t complain. He holds you, keeping you pressed close to him as he rubs your back and murmurs words that he hopes are comforting into your ear. He could and would endure much worse things than achy knees and minor injuries if it meant bringing you any sort of peace.

Frank holds you until your cries die down into soft sniffles and hiccups as you catch your breath. “S-sorry for crying all over you,” you rasp once you get your breathing under control. Your fingers fiddle with his jacket’s zipper as you pointedly do not meet Frank’s eyes.

He roughly chuckles. It’s just like you to focus on an unimportant detail like that.

“It’s alright,” Frank says, continuing to slowly drag his palm up and down your back. You sag against him, forehead pressed to his collarbones. “Tears have nothing on blood.”

Your face scrunches up, and you stop playing with the jacket’s zipper, removing your hands from the clothing garment altogether. You look up at Frank, eyes squinting through the darkness to try and get a better look at him. “Are you bleeding?”

“Blood ain’t all mine,” Frank simply says, and the wrinkles in your face relax, the tension in your frame dissipating.

“Good.” You pull back from Frank and scrub at your eyes with your palms, pressing deep into your eye sockets with more force than what’s probably good for you. You move into a sitting position on your bed, pulling your blanket up from where it lays around your waist to cover your shoulders. “You should probably go wash up.”

Frank takes that as his cue to leave.

“Alright,” he says as he pushes himself from his kneeling position. The joints in his knees crack as he stands up onto his feet, and he almost groans from the stretch of his tight, sore muscles. He leans over and awkwardly pats you on one of your blanketed shoulders. “G’night, kid.”

You make a quiet noise of amusement. It’s not a real proper laugh. The sound is much too wet from leftover tears and subdued, but Frank will take it. It’s a good sign. He knows that you’ll be alright. You’re a tough kid.

“Night, Frank.”

You slide down your bed until your head hits your pillow and you’re lying down on your side, facing the window with your back towards the rest of the room. The edge of your blanket lies across your chest, and you rub the soft material between two of your fingers.

You look exhausted. Crying so much must have sapped you of all your energy because you look like you’re about ready to drop dead and fall asleep. Franks hopes that you’ll sleep well. You deserve it.

He walks towards your bedroom door, and in just a few strides he’s there. He’s about to step out of your room into the hallway and make his way to the bathroom so he can shower and dress his wounds when he hears-

“Frank?”

He pauses.

“Yeah?” He turns his head around to look at you, but you’re still in the same position you were just a minute ago.

It’s silent, but Frank waits. He knows you got something to say.

“Thank you,” you say in a small fragile voice. You don’t specify what exactly it is that you’re thanking him for, but Frank doesn’t need you to. He already knows.

The corner of his lips quirk up briefly as he looks at your curled up figure, outlined by the pale moonlight that streams through your window.

“Anytime, kid,” Frank replies, voice rough and low before he exits your bedroom and quietly closes the door behind him.

As he makes his way toward the bathroom, Frank’s chest warms with something that he hasn’t felt in a long time. Something that he hasn’t felt since his family died. Something that he only started to feel again when you came into his life. Something that feels like love.