Dead End, Or Detour?
Frank Castle x Depressed!Female!Reader
Summary: Depression offers you two routes: dead end, or detour. With Frank's help... which do you choose?
Warnings: reader has depression, tough love, descriptions & depictions of the hard, ugly realities of depression & mental health & hygiene, unconditional love throughout depressive episode, Frank cares a lot, hopeful ending.
w/c: 6740
requested by anon here
Frank let the small shit slide.
For a bit.
Thing is, though, slides’re slippery. Before you know it, you’re downhill and off course.
S’exactly what happened to you, and Frank blames himself for it.
Just a few weeks. S’all it took for you to be downhill ‘n off course.
Today, though?
Today shit changes.
One way or another—doesn’t matter if you like it or not—Frank’s pullin’ you outta that goddamn hole.
The bedroom door creaks open, small shaft of light breaching the stale haze of your self-appointed lair.
No light. No television. No phone. Just you. Your thoughts. The old company of familiar misery at three in the afternoon.
From the stagnant heap of bedding you’ve refused to let Frank change, you lift only your eyes, otherwise curled in the middle of the bed. Look so goddamn small like this. Wounded.
Frank leans in the doorway, light from the hall a gold beam that silhouettes the steel line of his shoulders.
“Sleepin’?” Frank asks, a… cautious approach in the one word.
“No,” you mumble, expression long gone vacant. A smile not seen in days. A laugh not heard in weeks.
Frank thinks he’s dying. Or you’re dying. If you die, he’s right behind you.
Frank says nothing. His eyes flick to everything that’s wrong in the room.
Blank tv. Blackout curtains drawn tight. A water glass so empty it’s dried. Nothin’. Nothin’ in the room. Everything looks like it’s dead. Someone else’s distant nightmare, but it’s yours.
“What?” you clip out, lips parched from dehydration.
“Alright.” Frank pushes off the trim. Ambles in, boots scuffing. And that’s when you notice he has something. “S’enough’a this.”
“…Enough of what?” you push back on your elbows with furrowed brows, hair a matted nest on your head.
“This,” Frank waves a finger, motioning the room. “All this. Rottin’ away in here. Ain’t gonna have it anymore.”
“Just stop, Frank, I told you I don’t feel good, okay?” You sink back now, movements stiff from disuse, body feeble and withering at the fault of your mind. “Just stop. Go on.”
“Ain’t happenin’. Let you do this f’too long.”
Your eyes narrow with a rattlesnake’s seethe drawing you back like you might strike. “I want to be left alone,” you snip, dangerously low.
“How’s that workin’ f’you? Huh?” Surprisingly soft, careful. “‘Cause it don’t look like it’s workin’.”
You know. That’s the horrible part, you know your inaction isn’t working, you just can’t—
Can’t… care. Or try. Or want to care to try. You’re just… empty. Time is all the same. The days bleed together. The sun rises, it sets. The world keeps turning, indifferent to you. There is pain. There will be more pain. What’s the use in finding joy if it’ll only be snuffed out as soon as you’re comfortable, happy? The greatest adversary isn’t the world, but your mind. Your brain. It’s a cold, cruel thing—how it poisons your thoughts, corrodes your feelings, gnawing away at any inkling of hope.
You startle from your thoughts when Frank’s at the bedside, shoving a toothpaste loaded toothbrush in your face. Not rude or harsh, but unmovable; something you have no choice in.
Your head jerks back with an instinctive, defiant nuh-uh, pushing you deeper into the coffin of pillows around you.
“Sweetheart,” Frank says, using the tone that signifies your last chance to cooperate. “Ain’t asking f’much.”
“And I’m asking you to leave me alone.”
“Might wanna ask f’somethin’ else, ‘cause that ain’t gonna happen.” Frank nudges the toothbrush at you again, your last signal to take it. “You better do it yourself, ‘cause you won’t like ‘f I do it. You gotta pretty smile, sweetheart, yeah, ya do, hate to see your teeth fallin’ out ‘fore you’re fifty ‘cause you ain’t takin’ care of em, hm?”
Fine. With a disgruntled huff, you yank the toothbrush out of his hand. Fingers weak and stiff from absolutely nothing, you clumsily scrape it around in your mouth.
“Atta girl,” Frank murmurs rough praise, reaching a hand to smooth thick, calloused fingers over the matted snarls of your hair twice. One to test, one to try to remember the feel of you under all the hurt.
You growl at the touch, but it’s instinct. It’s the barbs of depression seeing affection as threat to isolate you, where it’s safer. Around the toothbrush, suds in the corners of your mouth, you flick your black-bagged eyes up at him. “…Where ‘m I gonna spit?”
“Well I ain’t bringin’ the bathroom sink in here, baby. God gave ya those pretty legs. Gonna need t’use ‘em. C’mon.” Jerking his head towards the bathroom.
“But I don’t wanna get up, Frank,” you whine, wrenching the toothbrush from your mouth.
Frank raises both brows. No play. Just the stone cold stare of there being no choice. “Really don’t care ‘bout that right now, ‘cause what ‘m doin’s what you gotta do, hm? What you wanna do ain’t doin’ you any favors. C’mon. Up. I’ll carry ya. Piggyback ride, yeah? You love those. Jus’ this time.”
Frank readies himself at the side of the bed, offering his back to you as his fingers wave you on board.
Well… what the hell else are you gonna do? Rolling your eyes, you clamber over the stale mounds of bedding and onto his back instead. Arms a loose, noncommittal drape over his shoulders with the toothbrush in hand. Legs twining his waist from behind, ankles hooked over his stomach with your heels on his belt buckle.
Forearms under your knees, Frank ambles along, ferrying you to the bathroom at an excruciatingly slow pace. Buying time, maybe just time with you out of that godforsaken hole of a room.
Chin on his shoulder, eyes fixed on the stitching of his shirt to neglect the rest of the apartment, you just… breathe in his scent. Fresh, clean… a recent shower. Masculine and warm… steady, the same soap and cologne he’s used since you first met and you told him he smelled intoxicating. He still does. But then… tainting that smell…
Sniff.
Sniff, sniff.
…ew?
Hot onions, wet laundry that’s sat and musted…
“What’s that smell?” you ask, cheek puffed with minty foam on the voyage to the bathroom.
Frank draws in a steeling breath through his nose, then sighs it out his mouth. “You, sweetheart. Smell’s you.”
“Me?”
“You ain’t showered inna week. Sure as hell ain’t gonna smell like sunshine ‘n roses,” Frank says with level honesty. No offense, no coddling. Straight fact. “Thought your skin was gonna be glued t’ the mattress. Wasn’t sure how much ‘a you I was gonna pull up ‘n leave there. By the feel ‘a it—” he bounces you a little, testing your weight, “—ya did leave some ‘a yourself there.”
The first sensation in weeks is in your eyes. A hot bite spreading to your cheeks, your upper lip. Tears rise in your eyes. You stink. You’ve lost weight. There’s something so fucking demoralizing about smelling bad—bad enough other people smell you, too.
The Frank train comes to a stop at the bathroom vanity. His arms loosen so you can slide down, your feet hushed taps on the tile, like you’ve forgotten how to exist on your own legs, how to take up space in the world.
Head bowed, eyes on the pristine sink basin Frank’s obviously kept clean while you’ve been losing yourself, your frame quakes. Small tremors at the root of your body, inadequacy in full view if you’d look in the mirror.
“Spit, sweetheart,” Frank coaxes as he moves around behind you, setting up your toiletries, giving you privacy to acclimate to your surroundings.
The clink of plastic bottles.
The snap and shake of a fresh towel.
The rake of the shower curtain opening.
The foamy spit in the sink, facet squeaking, water rushing as you rinse the toothpaste down.
Hand on the handle, water preventing a foul silence to amplify your question, you ask, “…Do I disgust you?”
“What’s that, sweetheart?”
Cringing, your eyes squeeze shut. Again. You have to ask again and it maximizes the shame. “I said, do I disgust you, Frank?”
Before he answers, Frank finishes what he started. Plugs the tub. Twists the handle, a roar of water splattering the acrylic. Staying beside the shower, Frank turns to you. Looks you up and down one good time, his face softened to a specific type of hurt. Hurt because he can’t fix. He can’t reach into that goddamn head of yours and fix it.
“No,” he says, whispered and final. “No, sweetheart. You don’t disgust me.”
The tub running, you ease the sink off. Steam rises from the bottom of the mirror, making your image a mirage; masked and distorted, like this part of you.
“I feel disgusting,” you admit in a gritted whisper, nose trembling in deep, angry crinkles. “I smell like trash. My teeth feel slimy. I think- I think I might have to cut my hair off because it’s—” a choked breath, you redirect before you lose it. “I- the bed’s disgusting, I’m disgusting. I haven’t- haven’t done anything around here in—”
“Stop.” A soft, stern command with his hand pulsing your shoulder. “That ain’t gonna help. It ain’t your hair’s fault. Or your teeth’s fault. Hell, ain’t even really your fault. Know what you do got, though? Control. You got arms ‘n legs that work. Know how lucky that makes you?” A pause to let it sit. He knows men that came back from overseas with less. “Huh?” Making sure you’re thinking it over. “Know what you can do, pretty girl?”
Pretty girl. Even like this—hair knotted, shirt discolored, smelling so bad you thought he forgot to take out the trash… Frank still calls you that.
“…What?” the question shakes as you do, knuckles white where you claw the counter for life.
“Fight it. You can fight it,” his voice comes from behind you now, both hands covering your shoulders as he rocks you, instilling some of his own tenacity into you. “Fight like hell ‘cause that’s where it’s tryna send you. You can get in the bath. Clean yourself up. Brush your teeth. You can control how you respond t’ it. Don’t give it any ammunition, sweetheart. Everythin’ you don’t do’s fuel f’it… you feel me? That make sense? When you don’t do somethin’, it’s got a leg up on you. A big one, too. It don’t like a movin’ target. Don’t be a sittin’ duck. Might be the hardest thing you do… so fight f’it, baby. Fight f’your goddamn life, ‘n know ‘m right here, pretty girl, right here, fightin’ with you.“
For the first time in a week, you bathe. You wash and clean until the water goes cold, clouded with soap residue. Frank changes the sheets, opens a window, pulls the curtains back.
It’s not much.
But it’s a step.
“Up ‘n at ‘em!” Frank calls out.
Whomp.
Something—fabric, clothing—drops down on your face where you sleep, bolting you awake with seizure-like grace.
“Frank!” You cry, peeling the hoodie (his) off your face, eyes darting with disorientation. “What the hell?!”
Your eyes land on him in the doorway of the bedroom, hulking figure taking up most of the space where he leans.
“I said up ‘n at ‘em,” Frank repeats with an indifferent shrug of one shoulder. “Now you’re up ‘n at ‘em.”
“What? What time is—?” You whirl to check the clock. Digital numbers say 7:07 A.M. in screaming red dashes. “Seven o’clock!? Are you serious? You’re serious. Frank, why the hellare you waking me up right now?”
“Beautiful day out, sweetheart. Can’t have you missin’ it. We only get so many, yeah? Put that on.” Frank nods at the sweatshirt. “Gonna go f’a walk. Somethin’ I wanna show you.”
Through the slats of the blinds, light. A new day. Another day, one looking like all the others. But outside there’s… people. Taxi horns already raging, someone shouting incoherence muffled by distance. The metallic pelt of a construction jackhammer nearby. Sounds like hell. Your fingers fist into the sweatshirt, blankets at your hips. “But…” your face falls, eyes closing. “…there’s people out there, Frank.”
“Damn my girl’s smart.” Frank taps the doorframe twice. “C’mon. Ain’t gonna let ‘em bite ya.”
“No, no,” your face screws a bit, hands up to stop the misunderstanding. “That’s not… not what I mean.”
“‘Kay.” Frank tips his head back, adams apple jutting. “So whaddya mean? Words, sweetheart. Know so many in that brilliant damn brain ‘a yours, use ‘em f’me.”
“I can’t… I can’t go out there looking like… this.” And you swirl both of your hands around the general vicinity of… well, you. Mainly the tangle-infested lump that your hair’s become.
It’s a start. Being aware of the condition you’re in, how you appear to the world outside. Not because you give a fuck about what they think, but it’s a matter of your general cleanliness. How you could look homeless or dirty or scummy. How, they might think, could someone let themselves get like this?
“Tell you what,” Frank pushes off the doorframe, pulling open his dresser drawer. You watch the broad line of his shoulders as he roots around, the black hoodie stretched tight across his back. “Hat’ll do,” he assures. “Fix a lotta that.”
As you open your mouth to protest, Frank’s there, tugging one of his beanies down over your eyes. An intentional distraction.
“There she is,” Frank murmurs praise, rolling the band above your brows, stuffing the tangled rats out of sight. “There’s m’ girl, huh? See? No problem. Throw on the sweatshirt, this number,” Frank lobs a pair of your leggings over your lap, “‘n you’re good to go.”
Good to go has you crawling out of your skin.
Everything’s… too loud, too much.
The magnitude of being beyond the same four walls simply overwhelming.
Construction workers yell.
You flinch.
A bicycle chimes as it whizzes by, hurling air at you.
You flinch into Frank.
Hands sank into the hoodie pockets, you press harder into Frank’s side, the two of you linked by the arms.
Frank leads, every step synchronized to yours, gait shortened so you don’t have to rush. Hood overhead, Frank flicks a sideways glance at you.
You don’t even notice.
You don’t notice… much of anything, too much to focus on, like culture-shock to the same neighborhood you’ve lived in for years. Eyes on the ground, watching your tennis shoes mirror Frank’s boots.
“What’d you wanna show me?” you grumble, the count trying to drown your voice out.
“Hm? Ah. Right.” Frank nods across the street. “That. ‘F you ain’t noticed already.”
Across the street, through the low-rise clearing of demolition for new construction, you see the sunrise. That’s what he wanted to show you. It washes warmth over your cheeks, your eyes squinting at the intensity. The all days starts the same, you’ve noticed. Like the Earth’s in primal pain, ripping the universe at the seams as it bears the sun for a new day once again. The birth of another day, and with each one, the sun emerges screaming. Furious magentas tearing through the sky, the sun molten lava as it climbs. It’s… fighting, you realize. The sun, the day… It’s fighting to exist.
“Doin’ okay?” Head bent close to your ear, elbow a soft nudge at your side.
“…Is the nature of everything inherently violent?” you answer, brows a faint knit as you stare into the rising sun.
“Shit,” Frank gruffs. “You think ‘m the right person t’ ask that?”
You blink your gaze over, onto him. “Yeah.”
Christ. His throat works, looking down at you like this. Depression bruises under your eyes, lips pale and dry, wearing his hat and his sweatshirt like armor, holding onto his arm ‘cause you trust him to guide you safely through life. “Never was much of’a philosopher,” he says, looking ahead again, that uneven swagger in his walk. Thinks for a bit, eyes shifting through crowds, exits, habitual reconnaissance. “Nah,” he concludes, lips twisted. “Ain’t inherently violent. Could be. I guess. Maybe some things. Depends on how you look at it.”
You hum. Nod a small, considering thing. “What about sad? Are humans inherently sad?”
Frank quirks a brow, then straightens his expression before he glances over at you. “Maybe some.”
You tilt your head, eyes focused on the strong angle of his jaw, the knobbed bridge of his nose you love and haven’t kissed in two weeks. “But this wasn’t a thing before we got so many things,” you suggest, gesturing your free hand to everything around you. Shops, restaurants. Expensive cars parked on the curb. Cell phones crying in perpetual, shrill agony. Constant connection. Unending demands. This being depression. Things being the materialistic demands of life.
“I ever tell you, you think too much?”
“All the damn time.”
“‘Member what I said ‘bout control?” Frank asks, his eyes lingering one second too long on the display window of a jeweler. One second, like the thought crossed and the timing wasn’t right.
“Yeah, why?”
“This shit,” Frank circles a finger at the everything you referred to, “ain’t goin’ anywhere. All’s you can do’s focus on what you can control. Don’t worry ‘bout the rest.”
Your cheek presses to his bicep, hard muscle wrapped in cotton under your skin. “We stopped surviving and learned to live,” you say, as if an afterthought. “Somehow, sometimes… it feels like living is just surviving. Just looks different now… more lavish.”
The faded endcap of a bus stop bench catches your eye. A sun-bleached advertisement, images all burned away long ago. No one’s cared to mend it. Not worth the time or effort, maybe.
I wasn’t always like this, the sign says.
“Me either,” you whisper around the lump in your throat.
“Say somethin’, pretty girl?” Frank looks over at you.
“No,” you lie, “just thinking some more.”
Thinking about where it all went wrong.
It’s after midnight when you find strength in your legs and courage in your gut.
Before you can think yourself out of it, your feet carry you to the lamp-lit living room. Stealthy steps, tiptoes landing on every sturdy board to not betray you.
You stop short of the room, hidden in the hallway, swallowed whole by the darkness still. Safe here. You could turn back. Go back to bed. But… part of you doesn’t want to. Part of you… wants help. And help sits ten feet away on the couch, back to you, his head canted while he—as invested as you’ve ever seen him in television—watches the New York Rangers play lose against the Detroit Red Wings. A near-mute scrape of blades over ice as the hockey players fly up and down the rink, indecipherable commentary from the broadcasters. And Frank looks so… normal like this… A man watching the rerun his favorite sports team when he can’t sleep.
You almost feel guilty now, interrupting a night where he’s existing in whatever peace he has left, just being Frank instead of the man’s that’s lost everything and isn’t confident the world won’t take you, too.
One foot off the ground to retreat back to the bedroom, you’re apprehended.
“Stalkin’ me now, sweetheart?” Frank calls you out without ever looking behind him.
Damn it, you mouth, cringing.
“C’mon,” Frank lifts a hand, waving you along. “Should know not t’ sneak up on me like that, huh?”
“I wasn’t sneaking…” you mumble, scuffing out from the shadows, shoulders curled in. “I was… casually observing from afar.”
“Mm… mhm,” not believing for a second as he motions you to stand in front of him.
You stop off-center, leaving the tv open to his line of sight.
But the second you’re in his periphery, you have every bit of his attention. Eyes fastened to you from where he sits, legs spread wide, a skeptical narrow to his dark eyes. His finger—index, right hand—taps and brushes his thigh, an absentminded use of his trigger finger. His eyes drag down you once. The fresh shirt you’ve slipped into, the new pajama pants. Comfortable, but clean. All but your hair. “You okay?” he asks, testing before anything else.
You nod, shrug, nod-shrug all at once. Kinda, sorta, fine, yeah.
“Need somethin’?” Eyes slitted further, forehead in creases.
Again— you nod, shrug, nod-shrug all at once. Kinda, sorta, fine, yeah.
Frank leans forward, hands finding your hips to guide you in front of him. Block out the television. He situates you between his knees, looking up at you as though in… fear? But it’s not fear, no. It’s hope. And hope’s terrifying. Head all the way back, every rugged bone in his face harder than cement, eyes dark, full… The look of a beaten dog wondering if you’ll be his salvation.
Pressure blooms in your chest, the aching wring of a festering cry. Your hands cradle the sides of his face, and his lashes flutter shut, a sigh deflating his shoulders. Yes, it’s true. There’s salvation in your touch.
You draw him in, and he comes without question. Your arms wrap around his head, keeping him against your stomach.
His forehead under the arch of your ribs, right below your sternum, Frank smashes his nose, his face into you gently, wholly. “Whatchu need, huh?” A whisper that says anything, anything at all, it’s yours.
Your fingers thread through the short crop of his hair, teeth sinking into your bottom lip to keep stable. “Just needed you,” voice thinning through your own whisper, half the words mute. You curl over him, his hands moving to fan wide over every inch of your back.
A reciprocal desperation in both of your holds.
Frank, with his devotion, his fingers impressing your skin. If he had to, he’d circulate the blood through your body. Breathe for you. Chew for you. Manually beat your heart. Whatever you needed—Frank would do it.
You, holding on to the only person you can’t fail, halfway in your own grave, halfway pulled to the light because Frank will not—cannot—let you go.
“I’m worried about you,” you say, tear-blurred eyes with a thousand yard stare through the couch, met with a tut from Frank. “I know this is hurting you, too.”
“I love you, sweetheart, all ‘a you,” hands up the back of your shirt now, swaying you gently to emphasize as he looks up at you with his chin on your stomach, brows knotted. “You know that. This part ‘a you, though? This one scares the shit out of me sometimes. Treatin’ your body like it’s already dead ‘n you’re jus’ waitin’ f’your brain t’ pull the plug. Scares me, watchin’ you let yourself rot away.”
Now… now a tear breaks free, racing down your cheek. Under the profound adoration in his stare, the need in his fingers on your skin as he begs you to harness some of that control he preaches. You nod quick bursts, one sob blowing out before you can stop it. “I don’t wanna rot,” you push out as your mouth contorts. “I don’t wanna die. I’m so tired, Frank. I’m so tired of feeling like I’m already dead. This is- this is no way to live, I know that, I just—”
“Death’s final,” Frank grits, chock-full of burning perseverance. “This ain’t. We’re gonna fix this, alright? You ‘n me. Gonna get this straight together, baby, yeah, always do, don’t we?”
You’re nodding again, rubbing at your eye because you’ve got to do something other than break. “Will you… will you please help me, Frank? Help me with my hair? I wanna wash it now.”
“Yeah?” His brows up, mindful to not get overly excited. Instead, he teases. Light prodding. Keeping you light. “Wanna wash it, huh? Get those bugs out?”
A soft laugh punches out of you, “I don’t have bugs, butt head…”
You love him so much you can’t even call him an asshole right now.
“‘F you got bugs, I got bugs,” he says with a sigh, leading you with a hand on your neck to the kitchen. “My bugs’re snug inna rug with your bugs, baby, better believe it.”
Five minutes later, you’re laid back on the kitchen counter, a towel rolled under your neck with your head tipped back into the sink basin.
Water rushes out the facet, a heavy patter over the stainless steel echoing in your ears.
Frank’s in front of the sink, sleeves scrunched up his elbows, looking at the back of your shampoo bottle with the bewilderment of a man who definitely uses 7-in-1 soap.
“Are you… reading… the instructions…?” You ask, face genuinely screwed with rightful judgement.
“Pfffft… nah,” waving you off as he sets it down, dipping the underside of his wrist in the water to test. “‘Kay, pretty girl, you ready?”
Blood rushing to your head at the angle, you bite your lip with a bashful grin and nod. “Yeah. I’m ready, Frankie.”
“Atta girl,” he murmurs, leaning in close with the detachable nozzle. So close his shirt skims your face, and then there’s the water. A warm whoosh, hair sponging up heat and wetness. Already… wow. You feel clean just by starting. Clean, because you made a decision you can control.
You can control your cleanliness.
And with a little help… you do.
The deliberate weight of his fingers scrubbing shampoo over your scalp has your eyes slinking shut. A hypotonic circle he rubs in, foam poofing on your head, lulling you to a blissful reprieve.
“Bugs?” you ask without opening your eyes, dragging your knees up so your feet rest flat on the granite.
“Nah,” he says with the scrunch of his nose. “No bugs. Scared ‘em off.”
“Mm… that’s good…” sleepy, slurred.
“Yeah, sweetheart. Real good.” And he ain’t talking about the bugs.
Shampoo rinsed, your body akin to a puddle on the countertop, the scent of your conditioner hits full-force. Heavy notes, clean and associated with you, and you’re almost inwardly giddy over it. Soon you’ll smell like you again.
Big hands envelope your head, smoothing the plat of conditioner through your hair, down to the ends. Like a thick rake, Frank combs with his fingers. Stops whenever he hooks a snarl, taking the time to untie it.
“Ow,” you wince, eyes crinkling shut harder.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” he says and means it, but— “S’why we gotta wash ‘n brush it, hm? So this don’t happen. Gonna take me a minute. Ain’t gonna feel good, alright? Ain’t tryna make it hurt.”
Facing one consequence of your own inaction, a sigh leaves your nose, a sound of disheartened acceptance. “I know,” you whisper, “it’s okay… Cut it if you need to. Just… help me not… be such a mess.”
“Nah, ain’t gotta cut it,” Frank whispers assurance, grabbing your brush from beside you when he needs to scrape through a tangle. “Gonna make it work.” Holds your hair by the shaft to block as much sensation as he can, picking away the matted clumps with the tines.
Just as your scalp aches and you’re ready to surrender to the mercy of scissors, Frank sets the brush aside with a pleased, “Done, pretty girl. You did it. How’s that feel, huh? Better?”
You do feel free. Clean again, and not just in the sense of being washed with soap. You feel functional, halfway normal.
“A lot better,” you squeak out over the water as Frank rinses your hair one last time.
Breakaway hairs snake down the drain. Conditioner leaves your hair shiny, softened; a quenched hydration after so long.
It’s your idea to settle in somewhere more comfortable after Frank wrings your hair out.
The couch it is. Back to that little slice of off-duty Frank. Him, on the couch with the game on (he doesn’t watch it now). You, sat on his knees, towel around your shoulders as he drags the brush through your hair with ease.
Neither of you talk much. A weight’s been lifted. You’re both content existing in it instead of discussing it. But you feel praise with every path of the brush, and when he curls your hair around his finger, and especially when he leans back into the cushions once the job is done, nestling your back against his chest until you both fall asleep there.
Over the next few weeks, unbeknownst to you, Frank’s stacking habits. Building routine. Up ‘n at ‘em by 7 sharp. Bed made as you get out of it. Teeth and hair brushed. Walk by 7:30. You don’t hide under a hat now. You don’t need to. You can look at the world with open eyes and don’t flinch when it looks back. Back home, he makes you breakfast. Lately you’ve been helping. Breakfast, laundry and tidying up the apartment together (Frank’s got rules about clutter. Reflects your brain, yeah? Get ridda’ it.), out to the library, or to the grocery store, or to the park, little errands to keep the time occupied and you moving. To a degree… you can control time. What you do with it, anyways. How you spend it.
Lunch. Absolutely lunch. Three square meals per day, no option. Sometimes out, sometimes Frank makes you a sandwich. Whatever it is, it’s got protein and he’s pushing it at you, nodding as he says, “eat”. You do. He smiles when you do, his smile a soft crinkle of his eyes.
If you nap, it’s for twenty minutes and not a second more. Frank won’t allow it. You stopped protesting after the third time you tried, but that didn’t stop you from snapping now and then.
The day winds down with dinner. Dense and nutritious, well rounded, organized by Frank. A slab of red meat once per week. Foods to keep your energy up, nothin’ processed. No time for that bullshit.
But the best time… is bedtime.
Pile of freshly changed blankets pushed to his hips, Frank lays with an arm hooked behind his head, lounged back and sprawled out on his pillow. An easy rise and fall to the muscular ridges of his stomach, bare chest stretched. Paperback in one hand, half-reading because he’s full-listening to you get ready for bed.
Washing your face, brushing your teeth, combing your hair.
Can’t help but crack a smile to himself. Good sounds. Routine sounds. Sounds like getting back on track. Sticking to routine, even when the day’s good. Especially then. Routine leaves less room for the bad ones. You’ve been having more of these. Good days, in the sense you didn’t waste away.
“Hey, Frankie?” you call from across the hall.
“Hey, yeah?” he answers. Sounds so normal, like you, his stomach flips. “Whatchu need, sweetheart?”
“Could you, maybe… please… do me a favor? Tomorrow?”
The book’s forgotten, closed on his stomach. Brows pinched, Frank stares into the hall where your voice carries from. “Name it, pretty girl.”
In a dash of joy not seen in weeks, you slide-squeak into the doorway on your socks.
Jesus… Frank sits a little straighter, clearing his throat. Ain’t nothin’ different about you, not really, just… feels so good it hurts seeing you like this. Happier. Wet hair and fresh-faced in your pajamas, that goddamn smile back from an agonizing weeks hiatus. Lamplight wraps you in gold, in warmth, hitting him right in the chest.
You don’t notice. Least, Frank doesn’t think you’ve noticed. Maybe you do, the little hummed chuckle you give, cheeks puffed with a smile. “Could you—maybe, if you have time—pretty, pretty please, take me to, you know, if you aren’t busy—”
“Baby. Christ. Spit it out.”
“Wouldyouprettypleasetakemetogetmyhairdonetomorrow?”
“Yeah?” Frank’s fully upright in bed now, waistband of his boxers peeking out. He looks you over good, smallest sideways grin ruining the leery glare he tries to maintain. “You want that?”
“Yes,” you dip a firm, certain nod. “I want it… different. Just need a little change, I think.”
“Yeah. ‘Kay. Can do that f’you. You do somethin’ f’me?”
Hanging onto the doorframe, your head tipped, “What?”
A quiet thunk of his head back on the headboard, thick of his throat exposed. “Get your pretty ass ‘n bed already.”
In two seconds, you leap onto him. Literally. Springing through the air like a cat, landing on him with a thud of bodies and Frank’s drawn out grunt.
“Jesus,” he huffs, tugging the blankets up over you in your new frog-like plop on top of him. “Where’s all that energy earlier, huh?”
You wedge a hand down and root around between both of your legs, jolting another cursed grunt from Frank beneath you.
“You’ve got something down here, Frank—”
“No shit, s’my fuckin’ di—”
“Book,” you answer pulling free the paperback as proof.
Frank huffs from his nose, flared instincts requiring time to settled. “Goddamn book.”
You both settle into the quiet again.
Frank’s arms wrap around you.
Your arms tuck against his chest and yours, legs splooted at his hips, cheek smooshed on his shoulder.
“Did good today,” Frank rumbles. One hand grazes his fingertips up and down your spine, a languid memorization of your body. The other scrunches into your hair at the back of your head, rubbing relief like your scalp might still be sore from weeks ago. “Got out. Walked a lot. Cleaned. Didn’t even nap. You feel good after all’a that?”
Nosing into the side of his neck, your shoulders bunch up. “I dunno… not really. Maybe a little.”
“S’alright, pretty girl,” Frank pats your ass. “Ain’t gotta know. Your body knows, yeah, knows you took care ‘a it t’day. S’good. Proud ‘a you.”
“Proud of me for doing the bare minimum,” you scoff at your own continued struggle, brows cinched down as you hide your face in the slant of his neck. “It’s pathetic.”
“Hey,” Frank rocks you in his arms, jostling you out of your hiding place so you have to look at him. A stern lift of his brows, his eyes inescapable. “‘Nough ‘a that. What’d I say, huh? If I wouldn’t say it t’you…”
“…then don’t say it to myself,” you finish in a mutter, propping an elbow by his head, your chin in your hand. “I know, I know… still relearning that every time I get a bad thought.”
“Say you’re proud ‘a yourself.”
“…Mm. No.”
“Do it.”
“No. That’s not being honest.”
“Brain don’t know any different,” Frank scoffs, head cradled by the pillow as he stares up at you. You look like an angel like this. Above him, shower-warm, softly exerted after a productive day. “Brain jus’ takes whatever you tell it ‘n thinks s’a fact. Those bad thoughts gotta stop, sweetheart. Ain’t gettin’ you anywhere but a dead end.”
“Yeah,” you smear your hand over your face, sighing as it supports your chin again. “One hell of a destination.”
“Whaddya got t’lose?” Not literally, just with practicing positive talk, learning to love yourself effectively.
You tuck your lips in, the words right there on your tongue. Frank sees it. The hesitancy like maybe you’ll believe it someday, or maybe it’ll piss you off when a bad day inevitably comes again.
“Hey…” Frank skates his thumb on the round of your ass, under your shorts. Nothin’ nasty, just touching places only he’s privileged to. Other hand comes up, tucking hair behind your ear. Whispering now, a low, gravel coax. “Whatchu so scared of, huh? Jus’ me, pretty girl. Me, ‘n you. S’all. Worth a shot, ‘f ya ask me. Don’t cost nothin’.”
“It feels stupid,” you mumble, pushing yourself to sit up, straddling his lap. You trace one finger along the divots of his stomach, outlining the defined muscle. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Alright,” Frank says, eyes magnetized to your face. “Then say it in your head. Say it in th’ bathroom ‘fore you start th’ day. In the shower. Whatever. Jus’ say it. You deserve hearin’ it, ‘specially from yourself. Ain’t been very nice t’yourself, hm? Yeah.”
It’s a battle you won’t win. So you brace. Sitting on top of him, in the stillness of night, you bow your head and close your eyes. Privacy to talk to the most intimidating person you’ve met: yourself.
I’m proud of me, you think, I’m proud of myself.
“Your best ain’t always gonna look th’ same everyday,” Frank says, both rough hands tracking up and down your thighs. “S’long as you did your best t’day… s’enough.”
“You’re… terrifyingly good at this,” eyes cracking open, wary to see again after showing yourself clemency.
“Been there. Done that. My solution ain’t what I want f’you. Had a lot I had t’ work through, too, sweetheart. You ain’t alone. Never. You hear me?”
“Yeah, I hear you, Frankie.” You slink back down on top of him with a sigh. This one of relief, a fractional weight dissolved.
Frank clicks off the lamp, adjusting you on him. Your face in his neck, body blanketing his, covers draped over the you two-shaped lump in bed.
“Night, pretty girl,” Frank press a kiss to your hairline. “Love you most.”
“Goodnight, Frank,” you leave one under his jaw. “Love you times infinity.”
“Most’s still more.”
Maybe today it is.
The battle van—currently running domestic errands—comes to a stop in front of the salon.
Early morning, sun out. A merciful day. Scary, though, because mercy is temporary.
As all good things are.
“Okay,” you say in a nervous inhale, clicking your seatbelt off, turning to look at Frank as you hike your purse over your shoulder. “I’ll see you in an hour?”
In a lazy recline, one hand draped over the wheel, Frank shrugs his shoulders up. “Ah…” Frank tap tap taps his trigger finger on air. “Not quite, sweetheart.”
“What?” Worry lengthens your spine, face dropping, knees fully facing him. “Why?”
“Gonna be more than ‘n hour,” he says, almost like a warning. Like something bad. Not today. Is he leaving…? Finally had enough of your miserable mentality he has to see himself out? Please not today. Today’s been so good so far. You can’t do this today, right now, ever.
Answering the petrified-confusion wrecking your face, Frank looks at the wheel to subdue his barely-there smile. “…Figured maybe you’d want your nails done, too.”
Nails…
More than an hour, because it’s your hair… and your nails…
Then he looks at you. That impish glint in his eyes, and only his eyes, mouth relatively straight. Like he’s delighted by you, with you, but long forgot how to arrange his face to show it.
Your eyes drop, a rapid succession of blinks as another flood clouds your vision.
Have you ever… loved someone so deeply it crushes you? Realizing how much they care, everything they see of you, and still… still, they show up.
Because they want to, in ways you least expect, treating you like something to cherish instead of a burden.
Yeah… those people are rare.
And you’ve got one.
Frank.
Tears balanced, your eyes flick to his.
“I love you,” you whisper in a tremble of overwhelming relief, throat closing around the words.
It’s hard to describe the hollowing fulfillment of such reverence. It’s an emptying of your insides, restored by unnatural, all encompassing warmth. Trust. It’s trust, and gratitude, and forgiveness, and championing for the person you love when they can’t. Seeing them at their worst, only to love them most, more than infinity.
It’s good days.
And best days.
Bad days.
Worst days.
Love is something… divine, you think. A transcendental experience not meant to be understood or described, but felt. No explanation to the severity of the phenomenon, but it’s real. You know it for a fact, sitting with it exploding in your stomach right now.
“I love you,” Frank says, the three words exaggerated with the tap of his trigger finger, voice barely audible under the intensity of what you’re feeling too.
You crash into him. Catapult yourself across the cab, throwing your arms around his neck.
You hug him with all of your might. Which, turns out, is a lot, crushing his windpipe.
Better that way, doesn’t trust his voice right now. He doesn’t care, though. His arms bolt around you too, flattening your chest against his.
“You’re alright, pretty girl,” he whispers, breath warm against your ear. “You’re alright. Gonna be a good day, alright? Gonna make sure ‘a it. Doin’ so good, hm? Go ahead. Go in. Don’t wanna be late.”
“Okay, yeah,” sniffling as you pry yourself off him, face dry, heart in a thousand beautiful pieces. “See you in two hours?”
“Maybe,” he teases as you reach for the door handle. “‘Nless I decide I like the quiet.”
A fond roll of your eyes, door propped open, you scrunch your nose at him to quiet a timid smirk. “Asshole.”
“There she is,” Frank grins, “there’s m' girl.”
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