Frank doesn’t expect to see his little sister standing outside of his dorm late on a Wednesday night during finals week, but when he opens the door there she is, stopping his heart in her puffy winter coat and jeans. 

“Mels? Baby,” he says, immediately pulling her into the room when he sees her face, red and swollen from crying. “What’s going on?”

Frank knows she’s been having a hard time at school, sophomore year being no kinder than her first year at the high school was, and he knows how hard it’s been on her to be without him at home. He wanted nothing more than to be with her all the time, making sure she was okay, keeping a steady eye on her, the way he was supposed to. He thinks maybe something happened at school, but when he gets a better look at her she doesn’t seem sad. She seems almost ... frustrated. 

“I just really miss you, Francis,” she mutters, watery eyes looking up at him so sweetly that he wants to throw her on the bed, roommate be damned. 

“Oh baby, I miss you too,” he reassures, kissing her cheek and tasting her tears on his lips. “How did you get up here? I didn’t sign you in?” 

Mel tilts her cheek up, asking for more kisses. “I snuck out, took the bus. Elaine let me come up.” 

“Ah,” he murmurs, kissing along her jaw. Elaine had a soft spot for Mel, her shifts always lining up with her visits, always remarking how nice it is that Frank had a sister he got along so well with. 

Frank leans back against his bed, pulling Mel close to him and easing her backpack, that has her change of clothes and schoolwork in it, off her shoulders. He lets it drop to the ground as he slots their hips together, letting her feel how excited he is to see her.

“You snuck out to see me?” He tries to tease her, hoping she may smile and blush.

She shrugs off her winter coat too and he tosses it on his chair. She doesn’t answer his question.

“Is your roommate here tonight?” Mel sniffles and wipes her red nose on the sleeve of his sweater, the one he’d gotten his first semester at Pitt. It was a quarter zip in the school’s colors, with the university’s name embroidered over the left breast. She started wearing it over the summer when they’d sit outside at night in the backyard at their fire pit, talking about anything and everything for hours. It made him feel like a god when she wore his clothes. He doesn’t know how much she’s washed it because he could still smell the faintest hint of smoke when he’d nuzzle into her before slipping it over her head. 

“Yeah, he has a final tomorrow too,” Frank says, stomach dropping at the disappointment on Mel’s face. “He’s in the shower.”

She pouts. “Kick him out,” she says flatly, voice low. Frank’s done anything Mel’s wanted him to do since she was born, already learning from a young age to come to her side when she cried, at her beck and call from the start. And his sister knew it. She didn’t have much shame in using that to her advantage when she needed to. “I need you tonight.”

He doesn’t respond fast enough, so she frowns and says, “Francis,” and he knows what’s coming. “This is just like when that girl—“ 

“Mels,” he soothes, cupping her face in his hand. He thumbs at her lips, noting how smooth they were now they weren’t getting cut up on her braces. “Whatever you want, baby. You can stay with me. You can always stay with me.” He wished he could keep her here forever, tucked away in his dorm, close to his side until he graduated and got them a place of their own, close to school so she could study but out of their parents house. A place they didn’t have to hide inside, always having to be careful like they did at home—he liked sneaking around, and didn’t really care if anyone heard, but he wanted to see Mel asleep naked on their couch, to take her wherever he wanted, to kiss her in the yard in the daytime. He wanted to love her in more than shadows and behind closed doors, hidden away. 

She smiles into his palm and he feels her eyelashes brush his skin when she blinks. He can’t wait to get her alone, pull her into his bed and feel her body against his, warm under the covers. 

Jake opens the door then and Frank doesn’t pull his hand away from Mel, just drags it down her neck and pulls her in to his chest so his roommate doesn’t see her face, all red from crying, or his dick heavy in his pants against her. 

Jake stops when he sees them. “Oh, Mel,” he says, trying to be careful not to let annoyance seep into his voice. Last time he’d gotten irritated that Mel came over, Frank made sure he understood that it better not happen again. “Frank, I didn’t know your sister was coming over. It’s Wednesday. Of finals week.” 

Frank gave him a look. “Jake, get dressed and go stay with Jesse down the hall. His roommate finished all his classes last week, remember?”

“What the fuck?” Mel tenses in his arms. Frank rubs his hand up and down her back. Normally, Jake didn’t care if Mel came over for the weekend and slept in his bed, because he’d just fuck off to a party or some girl’s place, but that wasn’t happening this close to the end of the semester in the middle of the week. 

“Jake,” Frank says, deeply. “Just do it.” 

He rolls his eyes and stomps around the room, grabbing his clothes and then his textbooks off of his bed, where he’d been working earlier, but he doesn’t say much else, just closes the door harder than he needed to. Jake was a bit of a pushover, something Frank was grateful for. He’d have to make sure next year to get a single dorm.

“So why are you really here, honey?” Frank asks when he’s gone, following Mel up onto his bed after shedding his sweats and shirt so he’s only in his boxers. He knew she liked to feel him, skin to skin, like how they used to nap as children. He peels off her jeans and leaves his sweater on her. He moves her so she’s straddling his hips, settled deep in his lap as he leans back against his pillows. 

She grinds down against him, finally breaking out in a satisfied smile for the first time since she’d gotten there. His chest cracks open when she does, so beautiful above him, and he’s so god damn happy she showed up. Fuck his final, fuck his roommate, fuck anything that wasn’t Mel, smiling and touching him, his favorite girl in the world. 

“I missed you Francis, I’m telling the truth,” she groans, finding just the right spot through their underwear, clit catching on the soft head of his dick. He can feel her wetness, making their underwear cling to them, so tight it feels like he’ll slip inside through the fabric. “I was thinking of you, up in your room, in your bed …” 

Frank bucks up at the same time that he grabs her hips, guiding her to rock with him. He can’t believe what he’s hearing. 

“Are you saying you snuck out of the house—“ he sits up, pulling her closer. “Took the bus all the way to Oakland—“ he takes her nipple into his mouth and bites, hard. “Because you wanted to get fucked?” 

Mel whines, trying to get his mouth on her breast again. “I tried touching myself, the way you do,” she sighs, closing her eyes and throwing her head back when he wraps his tongue around her other nipple, getting it nice and hard and bruised.

“But it wasn’t the same, was it?” he asks against her skin. 

She shakes her head no earnestly. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” she admits, pawing at his boxers. He helps her slide them down his legs so she can feel the hot, velvet slide of him on her inner thigh. He pulls her underwear to the side and toys with her slit, letting her drip down his fingers. “If you were studying, what you looked like, what you were listening to, if you missed me, if you’d be happy that I just showed up, out of nowhere.” 

His sweet girl. Thinking of him, just like she should. He loved that she thought about him so much. He wanted to be the only thing on her mind, the only thing she concerned herself with. He wanted to be all that mattered to her, the only person she’d ever need.

“Mels,” he rumbles, frantically shoving his fingers inside, unable to wait much longer. She writhes in his grasp, sucking him in deeper. “I’ll always be happy to see you. Even if I just saw you a day ago, or an hour ago, or just a few minutes ago. Please always show up,” he begs, pulling his fingers out in favor of fisting his cock. He angles it up for her, letting her feel it prod inside. She feels so fucking warm and wet that he grabs her shoulders and forces her all the way down, enveloping him all the way so quickly that she gasps, falling into his chest. 

“I’ll give you what you need,” he continues, bouncing her on his lap while she whines. His neighbors can probably hear. “You did the right thing, baby. I’m here for you. Fuck, you just couldn’t wait ’til Friday.” 

“No,” Mel babbles, trying her best to thrust down in rhythm with him, but he’s fucking her like a rag doll, moving her how he wants. “No, it was too far—needed you, can’t be away from you, Francis—“ 

“Yeah,” he grunts, bracing against the bed with his legs, letting her lean against his knees while he sloppily pounds her cunt, delighting in the squelching sounds it makes around him. “Tell me about it.” 

Mel bursts into fresh tears, wiping at her face with the sleeves of his sweater. “I hate that you’re gone,” she sobs, still letting him fuck her through it, used to him not stopping. “I don’t know how I’m going to make it another two years, Francis, I don’t—I—we’ve never been apart this long, it kills me. Every day I want to come home to you, to listen to music with you in your room, to hug you, to hear you moving around the house like you used to, but you aren’t there.” 

Frank’s heart nearly breaks clean in half. 

He slides a hand down to her clit, wetly rubbing at her while he grips her hip so hard his knuckles cramp. “Baby girl, I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry I’m not there, I should be, Mels—“ 

He hits her cervix, deep and hard, and it has her slamming desperately against him, choking on her tears, trying to get as close to him as she can. She leans in and pulls him to her chest, burying his face where the sweater opens to her flushed skin. 

He keeps talking into her chest and he tastes her sweat on his lips. 

“I know it’s hard honey, I know it is.” She moans into his hair at his words. “But we’ll get through it, okay? No matter how long it takes, there’s gonna be a day where you don’t have to go back home, and I don’t have to go back to school, and we’ll be together.” He feels her hot tears hit his shoulder and pulls back to look at her through her fogged-up glasses.

“Yeah?” she asks, voice haggard, fucked out. She doesn’t look away from him as she clenches around him, fluttering the way she does when she’s close. 

“Yeah,” he answers, all seriousness, “yeah, Mels. One day we won’t ever have to be apart ever again.” 

His girl smiles despite the tears, and he kisses her, swallowing anything else she may say, keeping it safe inside him where he keeps everything else of hers—in his heart, where it belongs. 

In the morning, after he drives Mel to school, he walks back into his dorm to find Jake standing at his bed, frowning at something by his pillow.

“Hey man,” Frank says, throwing his keys and wallet on his desk. “Thanks for clearing out last night, my sister’s been having a hard time at school. Our parents—they don’t really—“ He stops when he turns around and Jake’s holding up a pencil, head cocked to the side. 

“I was doing homework before my shower last night, must have left this in my bed.” Frank’s heart is in his throat, only just now realizing he and Mel forgot to rustle up Jake’s sheets like they usually do. “Did Mel—“ 

“You know what, we didn’t really get that much sleep last night. Just stayed up and talked. She fell asleep sitting up in my bed. I just leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes til I had to take her to class.” He shrugs, knowing it’s not even a good lie, just threadbare and panicked. “Sorry to kick you out and not even use it this time, I owe you.” It’s not weird. Jake’s used to it. Mel comes over sometimes on weekends when they don’t want to be at home, when they want a little more freedom. If Frank presses on and doesn’t linger, it’s not weird. He was close with his sister, everyone knew that. Common knowledge. She just needed to get out of the house. 

“Damn,” Jake laughs, slipping the pencil into his backpack before slinging it over his shoulders. He has an eight am. “You’re a really good brother, man. Family must be really important to you.” 

Frank thinks of Mel in the attic bedroom, watching him smoke a cigarette out of the window, listening to records together.