conversation for the darkest of minds —> “If I am to die, I want to die at the hands of someone I trust.” [ for Frank ]
At first, he just stared at her. Like the words hadn’t landed yet. It was as if the words were still suspended in the air between them, and he was trying to determine whether he had heard her correctly or if grief had finally driven him into a place too painful to escape from.
It was the kind of sentence that sounded poetic in the moment. Almost noble. But when it settled, really settled?
Frank's mouth tightened, and his jaw ticked once and then twice before he looked away.
“You can’t say shit like that, Karen.”
His voice was quieter than usual. Not cold, not cruel. Just… steady. Careful. Like if he raised it too loud, the world might tilt the wrong way again.
His fingers curled into a fist against the table, as if he needed to feel something solid. Something real. Wood didn’t care how hard he clenched. Neither did the ghosts. Neither did memories.
“You don’t get it,” he said finally, shaking his head. “You die by my hands, and that’s not trust. That’s failure.”
Frank looked back at her now, really looked. It was the kind of look that stripped everything bare, leaving nothing between them except for the truth and the blood he always seemed to carry with him.
“I already lost ‘em. All of ‘em. My wife. My kids. I held ‘em after. I buried ‘em. I live with their faces every goddamn night like a film strip I can’t shut off, and you just-”
His voice broke just enough to make him pause. A slow, shaky breath escaped his chest, as if forcing those words into the world cost something.
“You sayin’ you’d let me be the one to put you down? To carry that weight?”
He stood up suddenly and abruptly, pacing once before stopping. Stared at the wall, shoulders tight like a coiled spring. Then his voice, quieter now; hoarse, tired, and cracked down the middle.
“That’d kill me, Karen. That’d be the thing that finishes the job. I'd want it to finish the fuckin' job.”
He paused for another long moment.
He turned back to her at last. This time, he was not wearing any armor. No bulletproof glare burned into his gaze. Just a man ripped apart raw.
“I know what you meant,” he said, gently now. “I know you were tryin’ to say you trust me. And I’m grateful. God, I am- but don’t ask me to be your executioner.”
His voice dropped even lower; almost a whisper fell from his cracked and dried lips.
“If the day ever comes… I’ll fight tooth and fuckin’ nail to make sure I go before you do. Because you're-" he gestured toward her, his hand trembling just a little. "You’re the last good thing I know, and I won’t be the one to snuff that out.”
He let the silence return after that.
Didn’t try to fill it.
Didn’t move to touch her.
But his eyes never left hers.
And in those brown eyes lay clear everything he couldn’t say: grief and fury, fear and devotion, and something that looked a hell of a lot like love, worn and frayed and aching under the weight of too many losses.
He’d kill for her.
Die for her.
But he would not bury her.
Not if he had anything to say about it.
"Please-" The curse was uttered under his breath before he gained the strength to finish his sentence, "Fuck. Please. Don't ask me to be that for you. Don't ask me to let that happen. That can't happen."
