“ i’m not afraid to look like an Idiot. ,,

most inconsistent writer ever 19

[francixoxoxo]

𝒲ℯ𝓁𝒸ℴ𝓂ℯ 𝓉ℴ 𝓂𝓎 𝒷𝓁ℴ𝑔 ,

જ⁀➴ ⠀ׂ ִ my name is francesca, and im currently head over heels for Ser Duncan the Tall 🥹

I love any and all music , hiking , pine trees and dogs if anybody cares

drop a request if ur interesting and cool

masterlist of masterlists below the cut!

˚✧ ₊ ℳ𝒶𝓈𝓉ℯ𝓇𝓁𝒾𝓈𝓉𝓈 . ʚ ˚ ❤︎︎

𝒯ℴ𝓂 ℬ𝓁𝓎𝓉𝒽 𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓇𝒶𝒸𝓉ℯ𝓇𝓈

ℬ𝒾𝓁𝓁𝓎 𝓉𝒽ℯ 𝒦𝒾𝒹

𝒞ℴ𝓇𝒾ℴ𝓁𝒶𝓃𝓊𝓈 𝒮𝓃ℴ𝓌

𝒜𝓁ℯ𝓍 𝒩𝒾𝓁𝓈ℯ𝓃

.꥟ * • .

𝒯ℋ𝒢 𝒸𝒽𝒶𝓇𝒶𝒸𝓉ℯ𝓇𝓈

ℱ𝒾𝓃𝓃𝒾𝒸𝓀 𝒪𝒹𝒶𝒾𝓇

𝒮ℯ𝒿𝒶𝓃𝓊𝓈 𝒫𝓁𝒾𝓃𝓉𝒽

𝒫ℯℯ𝓉𝒶 ℳℯ𝓁𝓁𝒶𝓇𝓀

ℋ𝒶𝓎𝓂𝒾𝓉𝒸𝒽 𝒜𝒷ℯ𝓇𝓃𝒶𝓉𝒽𝓎

.*• . ❤︎︎

𝓂𝒾𝓈𝒸 𝒸𝒽𝒶𝓇𝒶𝒸𝓉ℯ𝓇𝓈

ℳ𝒾𝓀ℯ𝓎 ℬℯ𝓇𝓏𝒶𝓉𝓉ℴ

ℱ𝓇𝒶𝓃𝓀 𝒞𝒶𝓈𝓉𝓁ℯ

𝒞𝓁𝒶𝓇𝓀 𝒦ℯ𝓃𝓉

𝓈𝓉ℯ𝓋ℯ ℋ𝒶𝓇𝓇𝒾𝓃𝑔𝓉ℴ𝓃

𝒮ℯ𝓇 𝒟𝓊𝓃𝒸𝒶𝓃 𝓉𝒽ℯ 𝒯𝒶𝓁𝓁

[clawxmoon]

── ⊹ ࣪ ˖ sleepyhead frank

the apartment is quiet except for the steady sound of rain tapping against the windows. it’s one of those rare mornings where everything feels slow enough to breathe, but frank is still dead asleep, stretched across the bed with one arm thrown over your side.

you’ve barely seen him all week. too many nights spent waiting up for the sound of his boots outside the door, too many mornings where his side of the bed had already gone cold before you woke up. now he’s finally here, and somehow he’s sleeping through the whole day.

you brush your fingers through the short hair at the back of his neck.

nothing.

“frank,” you mumble, nudging his shoulder. “c’mon.”

all you get is a low, annoyed grunt as he buries his face deeper into the pillow. you smile to yourself. “you’re ignoring me.”

“m’not,” he mutters, voice rough with sleep. “you’re just… talkin’ too much.”

“I missed you.”

he doesn’t answer right away. instead he blindly reaches for you, finds your wrist, and tugs until you lose your balance and land against his chest with a laugh. one heavy arm wraps around your waist immediately, holding you there like you’re not going anywhere.

“frank,” you complain, even though you’re smiling. “I was trying to wake you up.”

“bad idea.”

“it’s noon.”

“don’t care.”

his eyes stay stubbornly shut, brows pinched together in that little frown he somehow wears even while sleeping. you poke his cheek.

“you’re grumpy.”

"shut up.”

the words would sound harsh from anyone else, but they’re followed by the softest kiss pressed against the top of your head without him ever opening his eyes. you melt against him.

after another quiet minute, you whisper, “I really missed you.”

this time he sighs, the kind that seems to leave every ounce of tension behind.

“I know, baby,” he murmurs. “missed you too.”

his hand lazily rubs circles against your back before settling there, warm and steady. within minutes his breathing evens out again, already drifting back to sleep. you stay exactly where you are, tangled up in his arms, deciding the day can wait too. for once, you have him home, and that’s enough.

[francixoxoxo]

Stop it I love this sleepy frank for the win

[francixoxoxo]

do any of my followers like twd. would u guys kill me if I wrote smth for daryl dixon

[konigslittleliebling]

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ ⋆‧°𓏲ּ𝄢 drabble : : wherever you will go.

FANDOM : : the walking dead

PAIRING : : daryl dixon x female reader (platonic/romantic)

CONTENTS : : reunion , short n sweet :)

GENRE : : fluff & humor

NOTE : : just a lil silly something i thought up. . . no idea what this is really </3

SONG : : wherever you will go — the calling.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ ⋆‧°𓏲ּ𝄢 : : i. more daryl fics ii. mlist menu iii. navi

“psh, figures.” you grumble, dropping the empty granola bar box at your feet. your stomach growls in protest and you rub it solemnly, then press on to peruse the other shelves.

nothingness litters them—save for dust bunnies and bugs. a certain someone you used to know would snatch up one of those grubs and chow down on it as if it were a tex-mex. you shiver at the thought and continue aimlessly, poking your head around every aisle; but somebody else had the same idea, clearly. each one has been ransacked, and you curse whoever got here first.

with a weighted sigh, you heave yourself against the empty alcohol fridge and slide down it. the boniness of your ass against the tiled floor really drives your hunger home. that, and your skinny bitch insecurities.

it’s then that your wallowing is interrupted by the doors creaking on their rusted hinges. funny, your joints make the same noise.

anchoring yourself closer to the unit behind you, your hand gravitates to the knife at your hip. the entourage of footsteps that follow are calculated and cautious—the distant sound of instructive whispers rolling across the empty store. well, it was empty.

you bide your time—fingers itching to spring into action and unsheathe your blade; but you’re lethargic, hunger rioting within you. your hearing isn’t so ignorant, though; so when the click of a gun’s safety flips beside your ear, you spring onto your haunches.

“don’t.” the wielder warns. “what’s your name?”

you glare up at them, frozen in a rather uncomfortable position. “you first, highwayman.”

they tilt their head exactly 45 degrees. it’s almost funny, except for the other 45 staring you down. “name.”

“why? so you can carve it into my headstone? just get it over with.” you gripe, a little surprised by your own brass. might as well go out wittily, you suppose.

they take a step closer, purposeful yet slightly wary. “how many walkers have you killed?”

your face scrunches, but that might just be the thigh-burn. “the fuck is a walker?”

they adjust the gun in their hand, expression twitching irately. as their lips part to respond, a gruff voice that isn’t theirs but prevails all the more familiar, halts their tongue.

“leave ‘er be.”

you both turn toward it, and there, behind the glide of an-also-familiar crossbow’s limb, peaks a pair of blue eyes—the home where you hung your hat. they’re looking beyond you to confront billy the kid fiercely, and far narrower than you remember.

“you know her?” asks dummy, the eighth dwarf.

“uh-huh.” the former leans forward on one bent leg, stirrup raised. “put’cha gun down, man.”

‘man’ observes the way his arms flex—stance unyielding. “she good?” he looks between you. “ain’t gonna try anything funny?”

don’t count on it.

“wouldn’t count on it.”

aw, jinx.

after a minute, the cylinder of the man’s barrel disappears from in front of your face. as it does, your white knight’s crossbow lowers its aim from his face.

those blue eyes slide to you, then; unreadable.

a cheesy grin splits your face. “daryl dixon, is that really you?”

he grunts with a clipped nod of his head, hand gesturing. “just gonna sit there?”

but when you launch yourself to your feet, some other bozo joins the party.

“woah, woah, woah!” he skids to a stop at the end of the adjacent aisle, gun raised.

daryl’s crossbow flies upward again. “aye, get back!”

gunman numéro uno raises a hand. “easy, now—”

“what the hell?” the moment-ruiner who could pass for twelve scans you up and down, then glances quizzically at daryl. “she was coming at you!”

“glenn, they know each other.” diplomat derek tells him, inching forward.

glenn eye-darts you, the grip on his gun loosening. “wait, what?”

you roll your eyes. “if i give my friend here a hug, should i expect a bullet in the back?”

neither utter a word, probably don’t dare. not while the shaggy-haired archer has the beak of a blood-encrusted bolt pointed at them, anyway.

and no answer is good, right?

with a scoff, you make your way toward daryl who still has glenn pinned beneath a hard stare, watching him like a hawk. “your turn, dumbass. put it down.”

daryl looks at you sidelong, then lets his crossbow drop to his side. “a’right, c’mere.”

finally, you close the distance and leap into him, winding your arms around his neck. after a second, his crossbow clatters to the floor and his arms wrap around your waist.

behind you, glenn shuffles over to rick. “what am i witnessing right now? is he. . . hugging her?”

rick shakes his head, aghast.

“does this mean we have to take her back with us? are we gonna have. . . two of ‘em?”

rick squeezes the bridge of his nose. “i’m gonna need some air before i tackle that question.”

[francixoxoxo]

Wait stop I love this sm give me more rn

[itslannabby]

ovulating

[slutterboxd]

the only man ever <3

[francixoxoxo]

He looks so good in this movie

[francixoxoxo]

guys after just across the hall is done we are finally clearing out the drafts

[swsjosnal]

He looks like he works with his hands, and smells like Marlboro Reds

[francixoxoxo]

[francixoxoxo]

i love your writing of frank it's absolutely canon how he is in your style

tysm!!! Is this a good time to admit that I only watched one episode of daredevil to see him, skipped the other parts, and watched s1 of punisher…….. like a little of s2 but I didn’t like it very much so I never finished it

so technically I don’t even know all the Frank canon

[francixoxoxo]

HIII wow just wanted to say that i’m a huuuge fan of just across the hall (can’t wait for the update) and miss independent heheh.. sending you lots of creative vibes, can’t wait to read what you write next!! 🤤 your writing is amazing and you’re super talented!

awww thank you sm!!! this has been sitting in the inbox I’m sorry but if you don’t know already the next chap is posted!! 💟💟💟

[francixoxoxo]

#iced cold lemonade??

[francixoxoxo]

Hello! Could I be tagged in your amazing story „just across the hall” if possible, please? X

Yes ofc!! I’m glad you enjoyed it 💟💟

[francixoxoxo]

what’s going on with the #iced cold lemonade 💔

soooo the thing is that nothing is going on with it 💔

[francixoxoxo]

we will not be lovers

frank castle x reader

Frank, with little convincing required, takes you in after night of bar crawling takes its toll. Fighting a battle of resolve versus craving, he struggles to handle a version of you that doesn’t keep her distance.

notes; honey im home!!! we’re done with the hiatus and In the home stretch of this series it’s getting serious ppl, thank you all for so much support and kindness about my little passion project that I didn’t expect so many people to gaf about! anyway this one includes a Frank pov, mentions of alcohol / r is drunk, Frank does not like himself whatsoever ig

part 7 of just across the hall

word count; 4k

prev | next

You would think a man would get sick of the same view after an hour. But he’s more disciplined than most. A stone faced soldier. In any case, he’s got plenty in his own head to keep himself entertained.

Yeah. The ceiling is fine entertainment for Frank. Or, distraction, more like.

It gives him a physical reaction, every minute recollection of a few nights ago. He has to rub a calloused palm over his bearded jaw, almond eyes screwing up as if trying to block out the brute shame of it.

He felt like a real asshole. He was a real asshole. Hardly any news.

The cold in New York is slowly passing through. Frost is biting at his window panes, the frames outfitted with three different locks. His joints are aching from the weather, but he can’t bring himself to throw on some layers just to walk around the apartment. He does fine with a pair of sweatpants and some old blanket draped over the back of his couch.

Standing in the kitchenette makes him feel.. some vicious breed of awkward. There isn’t a strong reason to be. He’s alone, nobody bugging him and nobody watching. But even having his socks on the same tile, the specifics come back to him and he feels god awful all over again. He was never great at forgetting. Especially nothing pertaining to you.

That thought brings fresh disgust to the surface of his skin, and Frank shoves it back down with a rough drag of his hand down his face. Not the image of you, per se, though your expression hangs perpetually over him like a rosary over a cot. The question of why he couldn’t just leave you in peace.

He guesses that he’ll never come to an answer if he keeps ignoring it like he is. He only has a vague interest in the colors moving across his TV screen, as he shifts for the first time in about half an hour to look down from his ceiling. It’s beat up, some garage sale junk made in 2013. Cable wasn’t great. But he had no idea how to get anything else on there, and Curt could never figure it out either.

So, Frank Castle, ex-marine, Kandahar-vet, partly-retired-vigilante, is reduced to watching the food network on a Friday night. And he hates to admit that it’s pretty entertaining.

He’s deep in a feature about ratatouille when the shoddy intercom by the door buzzes. And in an instant, Frank is transformed— from a man truly showing his age, considering whether the recipe on TV is worth scratching down on a notepad he keeps on the coffee table— to a man who has earned his paranoia from a laundry list of shameful deeds.

Before he knows he is doing it, he’s checking off security measures. Windows, locked. The door is locked too, twice over. Alarms are set. Or did he forget? Maybe he should’ve checked another time, before his particularly rough shift at the job site caught up to him like it now had. Frank isn’t a jittery man; the only clear difference in his gait as he traipses to the buzzer is the new hardness of his shoulders, and the movement of his eyes landing on the kitchen cabinet he designated for his SIG Sauer.

He presses the calloused tip of an index onto the button. Doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t have to; a woman’s voice bursts over the intercom system, static-fuzzed. “—llo? Helloo! You up there? Frrr-aaa-nnnk.”

Frank’s shoulders fall, a weighted breath collapsing from his nostrils. Christ. It sounded like you had been talking to the intercom box long before the static emanated from the speaker, like he had caught onto the tail end of your ramble. “Yeah.” He says, too quickly. “Yeah, I’m here. What’d’you need? You okay?”

He hates the relief that floods his system. Even worse is the readiness he speaks with; as though he had been waiting for you to ask anything of him. But, he doesn’t think of this instantly. At the moment, he is just a man in pajama pants, relieved that his neighbor is willing to speak to him at all, brushing his knuckles across his bearded jaw. Your reply dampens the relief. “I think I forgot my keys, can you, like, let me up? I reeeeally would really appreciate it, y’know. It’s cold. Pretty cold for spring.”

You don’t sound distressed, per se. More talkative than normal if that was possible, a certain drag hanging the syllables of your words. Drunk. Very, drunk. “M’ comin’ down. Stay put.”

He can’t let himself just buzz you in, let you hike up all those stairs to your floor. The decision doesn’t take much thinking. Any thinking, really. “Oh, thaaankk you, Frank! So, so much!”

He throws on the first shirt he can find (which happens to be a navy graphic-token from boot camp, more than well-worn) and is at the ground level within minutes. Frank finds you, leaning against the brick wall beside the outdoor intercom, looking out across the street as cars pass. Your face is turned away, but you’re easy for him to make out. It’s well past 11 PM, the night saturated with lamplight, red brake lights and neon signs suffusing color into the breeze. It’s only as he opens the lobby door that your attention turns to him, and he truly sees you.

The fluorescent light shining down from the concrete awning washes over your features in a way that would be unflattering for any other woman. But you aren’t any other woman, he knows. What might’ve been shimmer on your eyelids a few hours ago is now smudged around your eyes. Your hair looked a bit like it had been in an updo, and ripped free at a whim. He doesn’t smile, but some kind of lightness fills his chest.

“Awh, Frank.” You say, and he sighs through his nostrils, dips his chin imperceptibly. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“Don’t know about that.” He holds the door open as you walk— only stumbling once— into the lobby. It takes discipline not to watch you walk, not to look at the dress you wear; backless, black, short. He keeps his eyes up.

Elevators finally fixed, and so he bumps a knuckle into the button and watches the way you lean against the metal door jamb like your legs are decoration. “.. Had a good night?” Frank brings himself to ask.

The doors slide open, and he decides that a strong hand on your shoulder is a good fall-deterrent. “Oh, yeah. So fun. So, so.. uh, no. Actually. Not that fun.” Your line of reasoning crumbles before it was laid down. “Really cheap liquor. And I, like, couldn’t find any of my friends towards the end, so I just left, y’know?”

“Left?” The elevator hauls upward.

“It’s like, four blocks away.”

Something in Frank’s stomach churns, like a hard sock to the gut. He’s fairly good at concealing the feeling through a rough grunt, “You walked here?”

“Yeah!” The lightness of your reply elicits a half-groan, half-sigh. His roughened fingers come up to pinch the bridge of his nose, then to drag down his face, to his beard.

He wants to be angry with you; he can’t be. “Christ.” When he opens his eyes, you’re watching him with this sweet little furrow to your brow. Shaking his head and averting his look to the upward tick of floor levels, he grumbles, “Don’t do that again. You need t’get home, y’call me. From anywhere.”

The elevator dings, and the doors peel open. You nod slowly, eyes squinting as if you were thinking hard. “.. Thanks, Frank,” you murmur after a moment. He shrugs. It’s nothing. When will you get that it’s nothing, not since it’s you?

The quiet hangs as you step into the hall, one that’s comfortable considering the smell of alcohol lingering on you and the duty of caretaking wafting off Frank. You go the wrong way, first, he uses a guiding hand on your back to turn you. You laugh. He shakes his head.

Upon reaching his door, Frank watches you rifle through a purse that couldn’t possibly fit more than your phone and theoretically, keys. But, what did he know. He lets you dig around for a bit, amused, until you make a frustrated sound.

He interjects, “You lost your keys.” Saying it himself makes him nervous all over again. The kind of nervous that Frank tends to encounter often; not effectively worried, or paralyzed, but the kind that shakes him into running down a bullet pointed list. He guesses that it’s the marines that turned him into a man that converts threat into fuel. Already, he knows that he’ll have to check that club for your keys, change your locks, get you a new one. He grabs his own keys from a pocket. “.. This isn’t your door, anyway.”

“Oh, right. Fuck.” A smile crosses his features at your expression, he shakes his head. As if you had a thing to worry about.

With a jut of Frank’s chin— “C’mon.”

—

By the time he’s done setting the extra locks back into place, you’ve kicked off your heels haphazardly. Looking over his shoulder, he watches you stumble-to and slump-down-on the couch less like you were attempting to sit and more like your feet gave out.

Springing into action, Frank finds it easier to focus on the tangible task at hand than the prospect of you, drunk on his couch. He grabs a bottle of cold water, not without checking your state over his shoulder.

You aren’t black out drunk. He shouldn’t be so focused on propping you up. He shouldn’t think he’s propping you up, in any capacity. You’re not his to take care of.

The reminder is a whip to beat back the part of him that relishes in your smile, when he hands you the bottle and says with the intention of a command but the tone of a too-gentle murmur, “Drink.”

A mild sip delves into a chug. Haphazardly, you lean over to the coffee table and set down what two or three ounces is left of the bottle. Frank raises his brows at you. Okay? You nod back. Okay.

He watches you lay back and sort of sprawl over the couch, arms wayward. Your legs leave just enough room for Frank to sit on the edge of the couch. Absent-mindedly, he tugs down the bottom hem of your dress for your own sake.

“Your apartment is so bare,” your eyes are moving, tracing the walls. He shrugs. He never expected this place to be permanent. Or, atleast, to last long enough under his name (Pete’s name, he amends) to justify buying more furniture than was necessary. You smile, a little more open, a little more honest than your sober face would break open to reveal. “You need like, a painting.”

“I’m not a painting guy.” Frank squints, averts his eye. He hates how awkward he feels, seeing you again. Some vulnerability settles twixt his third and fourth rib. Some kind of fear, fear of mishandling something delicate that he’d already dropped once, and he didn’t at all expect to be handed glue to mend it. You seem none the wiser.

“There’s too many paintings for you not to like atleast one. Like, atleast a hundred thousand.”

“Yeah?”

“Because, think of it, like, people have been painting since, what, the year 500. So imagine how many there are.”

“You’re right.”

That satisfies you. Atleast, you smile and settle more into the couch cushions. “I’ll get you one for your birthday,” you chirp.

He huffs through the nostrils, lip twisting with humor. “You’re not gettin’ me anything, sweetheart.” He wishes he regretted the pet name. “If I really want a painting I can buy a painting.”

“So you really don’t want a painting?”

“Enough with the damn painting.” Frank grunts. You laugh. Loud, unabashed. Not forced to last longer to make someone feel better about a lame joke. He doesn’t think he’s a funny man, hasn’t been for a few years. He thinks he could be, if he tried.

Maybe he wants to start trying. Or maybe he’s already started, months ago.

You’re smiling at him. And he doesn’t have a clue why, can’t explain the mild upward curl to his own lips. Then you’re reaching out. To him.

“What?” Frank mutters, hating the sweetness to his tone. You’re just smiling. A little lopsidedly, and though the overhead light is off, the dim floor lamp beside the couch illuminates your features in warm yellow. Just enough that he can see the faint smudge of your eyeshadow. And, against his better judgement, he leans to you. Gives up, just in that one foot of space bridged.

It’s close enough for you to curl your fingers into his beard, not tugging, but feeling. The backs of your fingers brushing his jaw. He feels sick. “Did you trim?”

“..What?” Frank repeats. Idiocy keeps his eyes glued to yours, squinted, his voice just above a whisper, and his brow faintly drawn. He can smell your perfume, under the liquor. From here, a little mark that might’ve once been a scabbed scar from youth is visible on your chin.

“You trimmed your beard.” You say it so casually. He trimmed his beard. It’s purely observation. If anything, it’s funny to you. This isn’t difficult for you. The firm gentleness of your fingers is nauseating. Frank closes his eyes.

“Yeah.” A lame response. He barely took half an inch off, just enough to distance himself from a fictional hobo.

Where’s his resolve? He rips his eyes open, and through pure discipline, moves away. Your expression is unchanged as you drop your hand. He can’t explain the craving for distance and closeness, culminating in the same breath, in the same man, and he almost wishes he didn’t let you in, didn’t let you crash onto his couch, didn’t let you remind him.

It was hardly your fault, he reminds himself. You were drunk; he was taking you too serious. You break the silence, as if you are oblivious to the weight pressing on all sides into Frank. “Has anyone told you that you could be a good Hagrid?”

He doesn’t have to think about the chuckle that comes out from his chest. It’s something like relief from the unintentional torture you don’t realize you’re inflicting. “Christ, no. I, uh, haven’t gotten that one yet.” It feels good to smile with teeth bared, as he is now. Unplaceably good. “That’s, what, Lord of the Rings?”

“What? What’s wrong with you?” You laugh, again, features breaking into mirth. It’s easy for you, he knows. “It’s Harry Potter.”

Frank bows his head, grinning still like a boy. “Uh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know.” His eyes flick up to you, through his lashes. “Y’know, my boy loved those movies.”

“Yeah?” You rub a knuckle into your eye, further smudging your makeup.

Frank screws his face up, lifting his shoulders and nodding in emphasis. “Oh yeah. Got him the box set one year for his birthday. Back when we had the DVD player.” He’s not sure when the words to describe his son came so easily to him. Maybe he just needs him to be known to you. Maybe he just needs to say the memory aloud, for his own sanity.

You don’t seem perturbed by it. He tries not to examine the smile playing on your features too closely. You mumble under your breath, brows raising, “Harry Potter.” Conclusive.

A quiet passes. He, with a grunt, rises to his feet. As if pulled by string you lift your head up, beginning to push yourself onto your shoulders. “Are you—“ you begin, but he waves his hand. The worry on your face is not too sweet for him to immediately want to shoo away.

“Not leavin’.” A soft sound of recognition leaves your lips. Frank can feel your eyes burn into him as he moves to the kitchenette. It wasn’t like he kept makeup remover around. Maybe he should start— just in case. He finds a chance to rebuild some resolve, in the simple routine; in wetting a clean wash rag from the kitchen cabinet, wringing out the warm water over the sink.

“I haven’t seen you in forever. Soo long.” He can hear rustling over his shoulder. A quick glance finds you kicking a old throw pillow at your feet onto the floor; stretching your legs out fully. Getting comfortable, he guesses. “Where’ve you been, Frank?”

He chuckles, a brief, easy sound. “Here.” He turns, bearing the wet rag in one hand. His shoulders raise to his ears, curling his lip with humor. “It’s been, what, a week?”

“A week?” You repeat. He watches you comb your tresses with painted fingernails, a faint grimace playing at your lips. An affirmative grunt from him, followed by his weight dipping the couch cushion beside your leg. You sit up, hands in your lap. “So, so weird.”

Frank doesn’t say anything, only since he doesn’t think he should. Doesn’t trust himself to say anything right. He offers the rag to you, with lips pressed and eyes squinting.

“What’s that for?” You sit up.

He waves the rag in a small circle, the movement more of a result from the shrug of his shoulder than anything. He grumbles, near awkward, “.. Y’know. Your makeup.”

Understanding washes over your face in nearly the same moment as giggles open it up. Frank doesn’t mean to stare. Truly, doesn’t. But does it count, when your own eyes screw shut with laughter for the sake of nothing but laughter? Can’t he steep his mind in the warm water of your presence a little, as long as you never notice, and never cast him away?

“Okay. Okay, alright.” Frank mutters, half to himself. He lets exasperation color his tone, but in truth he doesn’t mind. Doesn’t mind leaning forward, raising the rag to your face all too gently. Your cheek pulls up in a smile under his hand, sputters of giggles leaving you. “That hurt at all?”

You hum, “No.” Carefully, he brings the cloth up to the skin under your eye, lifting some smudged shadow. “Thank you. So much.”

Frank huffs through the nostrils, dabbing too gently at your eyelid to be at all efficient in removing the makeup. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s really not nothing.”

Onto the other eye, with the same care. Some part of him is anxious to break you. He tries, really does try, to find some good way to wave you off. “come on. Don’t be like that.” You peek open the clean eye at him. He huffs again, and can’t resist the upward tick of his lips. “You know I’m here.”

Here. Where was here, exactly?

He doesn’t finish the thought. Does what is right by you, and nothing more.

Frank’s focus is concentrated on the rag and the thin skin of your eyelid, and it isn’t until he’s satisfied with the lack of shadow that he moves away, tosses the rag over the back of the couch. Isn’t until then, either, that he realizes how much silence has passed, and that your expression has turned some kind of melancholy.

“I’m sorry we haven’t talked.”

So am I.

Frank stays silent. You go on.

“And i’m more sorry about the other night. Really.”

Frank doesn’t mean to fail at holding your eye. He means, really, to take this conversation like a man. But his churning stomach betrays him, and his eye dart between the notepad on coffee table, the barren wall, you. You, frowning with guilt. Why should you be guilty? He moves to amend it, almost on instinct.

“Don’t say sorry.” He mutters, quieter than he means to. He pats a rough palm against your bare shin, the curve of your warm calf on his fingers. Despite his better judgement.

The rise of your protest is nearly tangible, alcohol having washed away any trace of a poker face. “Seriously, sweetheart.” There it is again. He squints briefly as if flinching from the craving thing inside of him.

“But I was wrong. So, so wrong.” Frank shakes his head at you. He leans over, grabbing the near empty water bottle, handing it to you with what he hopes is a firm, expectant expression.

“You gotta sober up.” He grunts. It’s an easy way out from under the wing of your pity. He can’t stand it— can’t stand the look on your face, like you owe him a fucking thing. Especially not some lame words for his sake. You take the water, delicately.

“I wish I didn’t.”

“.. Didn’t, what?”

“Didn’t leave, that night.”

He reminds himself to close his parted lips, to squeeze the hell out of his jaw, teeth-crushingly tight, in order to keep from saying anything from the chest. You frown at him, quiet, stone still until your head lolls to the side drowsily, ear finding the top of the couch back.

Frank turns his cheek with a weighty sigh through the nose. Hands splayed atop his thighs, and in a nervous tick, he curls his lip, looking to the far wall like it might give him a line. What else can he do? Warily, he glances at you in his peripheral. Sipping the water bottle until it's only hollow plastic. Like you’ve already forgotten this conversation, who last spoke, and said what.

There’s nothing to do. That’s the only right answer. Leave you be. Don’t search for meaning in words from a drunk woman. Even if that woman is you, and he wants to, worse than he’s wanted to find meaning in anything for fucking years.

“..S’my fault. I shouldn’t have assumed, y’know?” No response. He makes a lame, hesitating noise like his throat is a step ahead of his head, creating sound before his lips form words.

“Maybe you were right. I could’ve, uh, drunk too much.” A lie. He winces as the words pass his lips. “I don’t remember. I don’t know what man roundin’ on fifty gets, fuckin’— wine drunk.” Frank chuckles at himself, then, though it’s more of a grunt laced with weak humor.

Silence.

“..I just don’t you t’.. I don’t know. Think I’m some asshole.” He swipes his thumb against the crooked bridge of his nose, and can’t help the flit of his eyes from wall to wall. Another kind of humorless huff through the nostrils. “Maybe that ship has sailed. I just.. it’s good to have company. Y’know? I don’t want t’be the one that ruins that.”

He lets the quiet breathe a few seconds, until he gives himself the humility to look over his shoulder, see if he’s said something wrong. Instead, Frank hums a short, low note, in something close to amusement.

You’re all but knocked out cold. Maybe that’s for the better. He has a feeling your neck will hurt like hell tomorrow, craned like that. In his mind it’s hardly a decision; he’ll take the couch.

If you’re at all roused by Frank’s arms shifting under your knees and against your back to lift you, then you give him the kindness of not letting him know it.

He’s not a good man, he knows that; but if he’s anything, he’s dutiful. He doesn’t allow himself to appreciate your weight in his arms, as he moves to put his bedroom door open with his broad back; slow enough to not rock you. Neither does he give himself any credit, nor kindness to himself for pulling the comforter over you, closing the blinds so that you can sleep into the daylight.

Frank does, however, allowed himself to linger in the doorway. Callouses on the cool door handle, chest full and heavy with something familiar and suffocating. He does not try to name it. Does not try to recall the lifetime ago when this feeling was constant, surrounding him, woven into the fibers of his muscle and tendon.

He wants to be grateful to have been given another chance to feel it. But Frank is a man who puts a ravine between what is craving and what is deserved. And he does not deserve this.

He pulls the door closed against the jamb with a click.

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^ thank you guys for reading along I appreciate all your nice comments so so much 💟 pls lmk if your @ doesn’t work bc a lot aren’t!

[sochkila]

WE ARE SO BACK BABYYYY OH MY GOD I SCREAMED I HAVENT EVEN READ YET BUT MY FAVOURITE FRANK WRITER JUST UPDATED ONE OF MY FAV FRANK FICS AND I THINK I MIGHT CRY ITS LITERALLY LIKE CHRISTMAS

[francixoxoxo]

AW THANK YOU SO MUCH IM GLAD YOU ENJOYED 💟💟💟

[francixoxoxo]

we will not be lovers

frank castle x reader

Frank, with little convincing required, takes you in after night of bar crawling takes its toll. Fighting a battle of resolve versus craving, he struggles to handle a version of you that doesn’t keep her distance.

notes; honey im home!!! we’re done with the hiatus and In the home stretch of this series it’s getting serious ppl, thank you all for so much support and kindness about my little passion project that I didn’t expect so many people to gaf about! anyway this one includes a Frank pov, mentions of alcohol / r is drunk, Frank does not like himself whatsoever ig

part 7 of just across the hall

word count; 4k

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You would think a man would get sick of the same view after an hour. But he’s more disciplined than most. A stone faced soldier. In any case, he’s got plenty in his own head to keep himself entertained.

Yeah. The ceiling is fine entertainment for Frank. Or, distraction, more like.

It gives him a physical reaction, every minute recollection of a few nights ago. He has to rub a calloused palm over his bearded jaw, almond eyes screwing up as if trying to block out the brute shame of it.

He felt like a real asshole. He was a real asshole. Hardly any news.

The cold in New York is slowly passing through. Frost is biting at his window panes, the frames outfitted with three different locks. His joints are aching from the weather, but he can’t bring himself to throw on some layers just to walk around the apartment. He does fine with a pair of sweatpants and some old blanket draped over the back of his couch.

Standing in the kitchenette makes him feel.. some vicious breed of awkward. There isn’t a strong reason to be. He’s alone, nobody bugging him and nobody watching. But even having his socks on the same tile, the specifics come back to him and he feels god awful all over again. He was never great at forgetting. Especially nothing pertaining to you.

That thought brings fresh disgust to the surface of his skin, and Frank shoves it back down with a rough drag of his hand down his face. Not the image of you, per se, though your expression hangs perpetually over him like a rosary over a cot. The question of why he couldn’t just leave you in peace.

He guesses that he’ll never come to an answer if he keeps ignoring it like he is. He only has a vague interest in the colors moving across his TV screen, as he shifts for the first time in about half an hour to look down from his ceiling. It’s beat up, some garage sale junk made in 2013. Cable wasn’t great. But he had no idea how to get anything else on there, and Curt could never figure it out either.

So, Frank Castle, ex-marine, Kandahar-vet, partly-retired-vigilante, is reduced to watching the food network on a Friday night. And he hates to admit that it’s pretty entertaining.

He’s deep in a feature about ratatouille when the shoddy intercom by the door buzzes. And in an instant, Frank is transformed— from a man truly showing his age, considering whether the recipe on TV is worth scratching down on a notepad he keeps on the coffee table— to a man who has earned his paranoia from a laundry list of shameful deeds.

Before he knows he is doing it, he’s checking off security measures. Windows, locked. The door is locked too, twice over. Alarms are set. Or did he forget? Maybe he should’ve checked another time, before his particularly rough shift at the job site caught up to him like it now had. Frank isn’t a jittery man; the only clear difference in his gait as he traipses to the buzzer is the new hardness of his shoulders, and the movement of his eyes landing on the kitchen cabinet he designated for his SIG Sauer.

He presses the calloused tip of an index onto the button. Doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t have to; a woman’s voice bursts over the intercom system, static-fuzzed. “—llo? Helloo! You up there? Frrr-aaa-nnnk.”

Frank’s shoulders fall, a weighted breath collapsing from his nostrils. Christ. It sounded like you had been talking to the intercom box long before the static emanated from the speaker, like he had caught onto the tail end of your ramble. “Yeah.” He says, too quickly. “Yeah, I’m here. What’d’you need? You okay?”

He hates the relief that floods his system. Even worse is the readiness he speaks with; as though he had been waiting for you to ask anything of him. But, he doesn’t think of this instantly. At the moment, he is just a man in pajama pants, relieved that his neighbor is willing to speak to him at all, brushing his knuckles across his bearded jaw. Your reply dampens the relief. “I think I forgot my keys, can you, like, let me up? I reeeeally would really appreciate it, y’know. It’s cold. Pretty cold for spring.”

You don’t sound distressed, per se. More talkative than normal if that was possible, a certain drag hanging the syllables of your words. Drunk. Very, drunk. “M’ comin’ down. Stay put.”

He can’t let himself just buzz you in, let you hike up all those stairs to your floor. The decision doesn’t take much thinking. Any thinking, really. “Oh, thaaankk you, Frank! So, so much!”

He throws on the first shirt he can find (which happens to be a navy graphic-token from boot camp, more than well-worn) and is at the ground level within minutes. Frank finds you, leaning against the brick wall beside the outdoor intercom, looking out across the street as cars pass. Your face is turned away, but you’re easy for him to make out. It’s well past 11 PM, the night saturated with lamplight, red brake lights and neon signs suffusing color into the breeze. It’s only as he opens the lobby door that your attention turns to him, and he truly sees you.

The fluorescent light shining down from the concrete awning washes over your features in a way that would be unflattering for any other woman. But you aren’t any other woman, he knows. What might’ve been shimmer on your eyelids a few hours ago is now smudged around your eyes. Your hair looked a bit like it had been in an updo, and ripped free at a whim. He doesn’t smile, but some kind of lightness fills his chest.

“Awh, Frank.” You say, and he sighs through his nostrils, dips his chin imperceptibly. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“Don’t know about that.” He holds the door open as you walk— only stumbling once— into the lobby. It takes discipline not to watch you walk, not to look at the dress you wear; backless, black, short. He keeps his eyes up.

Elevators finally fixed, and so he bumps a knuckle into the button and watches the way you lean against the metal door jamb like your legs are decoration. “.. Had a good night?” Frank brings himself to ask.

The doors slide open, and he decides that a strong hand on your shoulder is a good fall-deterrent. “Oh, yeah. So fun. So, so.. uh, no. Actually. Not that fun.” Your line of reasoning crumbles before it was laid down. “Really cheap liquor. And I, like, couldn’t find any of my friends towards the end, so I just left, y’know?”

“Left?” The elevator hauls upward.

“It’s like, four blocks away.”

Something in Frank’s stomach churns, like a hard sock to the gut. He’s fairly good at concealing the feeling through a rough grunt, “You walked here?”

“Yeah!” The lightness of your reply elicits a half-groan, half-sigh. His roughened fingers come up to pinch the bridge of his nose, then to drag down his face, to his beard.

He wants to be angry with you; he can’t be. “Christ.” When he opens his eyes, you’re watching him with this sweet little furrow to your brow. Shaking his head and averting his look to the upward tick of floor levels, he grumbles, “Don’t do that again. You need t’get home, y’call me. From anywhere.”

The elevator dings, and the doors peel open. You nod slowly, eyes squinting as if you were thinking hard. “.. Thanks, Frank,” you murmur after a moment. He shrugs. It’s nothing. When will you get that it’s nothing, not since it’s you?

The quiet hangs as you step into the hall, one that’s comfortable considering the smell of alcohol lingering on you and the duty of caretaking wafting off Frank. You go the wrong way, first, he uses a guiding hand on your back to turn you. You laugh. He shakes his head.

Upon reaching his door, Frank watches you rifle through a purse that couldn’t possibly fit more than your phone and theoretically, keys. But, what did he know. He lets you dig around for a bit, amused, until you make a frustrated sound.

He interjects, “You lost your keys.” Saying it himself makes him nervous all over again. The kind of nervous that Frank tends to encounter often; not effectively worried, or paralyzed, but the kind that shakes him into running down a bullet pointed list. He guesses that it’s the marines that turned him into a man that converts threat into fuel. Already, he knows that he’ll have to check that club for your keys, change your locks, get you a new one. He grabs his own keys from a pocket. “.. This isn’t your door, anyway.”

“Oh, right. Fuck.” A smile crosses his features at your expression, he shakes his head. As if you had a thing to worry about.

With a jut of Frank’s chin— “C’mon.”

—

By the time he’s done setting the extra locks back into place, you’ve kicked off your heels haphazardly. Looking over his shoulder, he watches you stumble-to and slump-down-on the couch less like you were attempting to sit and more like your feet gave out.

Springing into action, Frank finds it easier to focus on the tangible task at hand than the prospect of you, drunk on his couch. He grabs a bottle of cold water, not without checking your state over his shoulder.

You aren’t black out drunk. He shouldn’t be so focused on propping you up. He shouldn’t think he’s propping you up, in any capacity. You’re not his to take care of.

The reminder is a whip to beat back the part of him that relishes in your smile, when he hands you the bottle and says with the intention of a command but the tone of a too-gentle murmur, “Drink.”

A mild sip delves into a chug. Haphazardly, you lean over to the coffee table and set down what two or three ounces is left of the bottle. Frank raises his brows at you. Okay? You nod back. Okay.

He watches you lay back and sort of sprawl over the couch, arms wayward. Your legs leave just enough room for Frank to sit on the edge of the couch. Absent-mindedly, he tugs down the bottom hem of your dress for your own sake.

“Your apartment is so bare,” your eyes are moving, tracing the walls. He shrugs. He never expected this place to be permanent. Or, atleast, to last long enough under his name (Pete’s name, he amends) to justify buying more furniture than was necessary. You smile, a little more open, a little more honest than your sober face would break open to reveal. “You need like, a painting.”

“I’m not a painting guy.” Frank squints, averts his eye. He hates how awkward he feels, seeing you again. Some vulnerability settles twixt his third and fourth rib. Some kind of fear, fear of mishandling something delicate that he’d already dropped once, and he didn’t at all expect to be handed glue to mend it. You seem none the wiser.

“There’s too many paintings for you not to like atleast one. Like, atleast a hundred thousand.”

“Yeah?”

“Because, think of it, like, people have been painting since, what, the year 500. So imagine how many there are.”

“You’re right.”

That satisfies you. Atleast, you smile and settle more into the couch cushions. “I’ll get you one for your birthday,” you chirp.

He huffs through the nostrils, lip twisting with humor. “You’re not gettin’ me anything, sweetheart.” He wishes he regretted the pet name. “If I really want a painting I can buy a painting.”

“So you really don’t want a painting?”

“Enough with the damn painting.” Frank grunts. You laugh. Loud, unabashed. Not forced to last longer to make someone feel better about a lame joke. He doesn’t think he’s a funny man, hasn’t been for a few years. He thinks he could be, if he tried.

Maybe he wants to start trying. Or maybe he’s already started, months ago.

You’re smiling at him. And he doesn’t have a clue why, can’t explain the mild upward curl to his own lips. Then you’re reaching out. To him.

“What?” Frank mutters, hating the sweetness to his tone. You’re just smiling. A little lopsidedly, and though the overhead light is off, the dim floor lamp beside the couch illuminates your features in warm yellow. Just enough that he can see the faint smudge of your eyeshadow. And, against his better judgement, he leans to you. Gives up, just in that one foot of space bridged.

It’s close enough for you to curl your fingers into his beard, not tugging, but feeling. The backs of your fingers brushing his jaw. He feels sick. “Did you trim?”

“..What?” Frank repeats. Idiocy keeps his eyes glued to yours, squinted, his voice just above a whisper, and his brow faintly drawn. He can smell your perfume, under the liquor. From here, a little mark that might’ve once been a scabbed scar from youth is visible on your chin.

“You trimmed your beard.” You say it so casually. He trimmed his beard. It’s purely observation. If anything, it’s funny to you. This isn’t difficult for you. The firm gentleness of your fingers is nauseating. Frank closes his eyes.

“Yeah.” A lame response. He barely took half an inch off, just enough to distance himself from a fictional hobo.

Where’s his resolve? He rips his eyes open, and through pure discipline, moves away. Your expression is unchanged as you drop your hand. He can’t explain the craving for distance and closeness, culminating in the same breath, in the same man, and he almost wishes he didn’t let you in, didn’t let you crash onto his couch, didn’t let you remind him.

It was hardly your fault, he reminds himself. You were drunk; he was taking you too serious. You break the silence, as if you are oblivious to the weight pressing on all sides into Frank. “Has anyone told you that you could be a good Hagrid?”

He doesn’t have to think about the chuckle that comes out from his chest. It’s something like relief from the unintentional torture you don’t realize you’re inflicting. “Christ, no. I, uh, haven’t gotten that one yet.” It feels good to smile with teeth bared, as he is now. Unplaceably good. “That’s, what, Lord of the Rings?”

“What? What’s wrong with you?” You laugh, again, features breaking into mirth. It’s easy for you, he knows. “It’s Harry Potter.”

Frank bows his head, grinning still like a boy. “Uh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know.” His eyes flick up to you, through his lashes. “Y’know, my boy loved those movies.”

“Yeah?” You rub a knuckle into your eye, further smudging your makeup.

Frank screws his face up, lifting his shoulders and nodding in emphasis. “Oh yeah. Got him the box set one year for his birthday. Back when we had the DVD player.” He’s not sure when the words to describe his son came so easily to him. Maybe he just needs him to be known to you. Maybe he just needs to say the memory aloud, for his own sanity.

You don’t seem perturbed by it. He tries not to examine the smile playing on your features too closely. You mumble under your breath, brows raising, “Harry Potter.” Conclusive.

A quiet passes. He, with a grunt, rises to his feet. As if pulled by string you lift your head up, beginning to push yourself onto your shoulders. “Are you—“ you begin, but he waves his hand. The worry on your face is not too sweet for him to immediately want to shoo away.

“Not leavin’.” A soft sound of recognition leaves your lips. Frank can feel your eyes burn into him as he moves to the kitchenette. It wasn’t like he kept makeup remover around. Maybe he should start— just in case. He finds a chance to rebuild some resolve, in the simple routine; in wetting a clean wash rag from the kitchen cabinet, wringing out the warm water over the sink.

“I haven’t seen you in forever. Soo long.” He can hear rustling over his shoulder. A quick glance finds you kicking a old throw pillow at your feet onto the floor; stretching your legs out fully. Getting comfortable, he guesses. “Where’ve you been, Frank?”

He chuckles, a brief, easy sound. “Here.” He turns, bearing the wet rag in one hand. His shoulders raise to his ears, curling his lip with humor. “It’s been, what, a week?”

“A week?” You repeat. He watches you comb your tresses with painted fingernails, a faint grimace playing at your lips. An affirmative grunt from him, followed by his weight dipping the couch cushion beside your leg. You sit up, hands in your lap. “So, so weird.”

Frank doesn’t say anything, only since he doesn’t think he should. Doesn’t trust himself to say anything right. He offers the rag to you, with lips pressed and eyes squinting.

“What’s that for?” You sit up.

He waves the rag in a small circle, the movement more of a result from the shrug of his shoulder than anything. He grumbles, near awkward, “.. Y’know. Your makeup.”

Understanding washes over your face in nearly the same moment as giggles open it up. Frank doesn’t mean to stare. Truly, doesn’t. But does it count, when your own eyes screw shut with laughter for the sake of nothing but laughter? Can’t he steep his mind in the warm water of your presence a little, as long as you never notice, and never cast him away?

“Okay. Okay, alright.” Frank mutters, half to himself. He lets exasperation color his tone, but in truth he doesn’t mind. Doesn’t mind leaning forward, raising the rag to your face all too gently. Your cheek pulls up in a smile under his hand, sputters of giggles leaving you. “That hurt at all?”

You hum, “No.” Carefully, he brings the cloth up to the skin under your eye, lifting some smudged shadow. “Thank you. So much.”

Frank huffs through the nostrils, dabbing too gently at your eyelid to be at all efficient in removing the makeup. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s really not nothing.”

Onto the other eye, with the same care. Some part of him is anxious to break you. He tries, really does try, to find some good way to wave you off. “come on. Don’t be like that.” You peek open the clean eye at him. He huffs again, and can’t resist the upward tick of his lips. “You know I’m here.”

Here. Where was here, exactly?

He doesn’t finish the thought. Does what is right by you, and nothing more.

Frank’s focus is concentrated on the rag and the thin skin of your eyelid, and it isn’t until he’s satisfied with the lack of shadow that he moves away, tosses the rag over the back of the couch. Isn’t until then, either, that he realizes how much silence has passed, and that your expression has turned some kind of melancholy.

“I’m sorry we haven’t talked.”

So am I.

Frank stays silent. You go on.

“And i’m more sorry about the other night. Really.”

Frank doesn’t mean to fail at holding your eye. He means, really, to take this conversation like a man. But his churning stomach betrays him, and his eye dart between the notepad on coffee table, the barren wall, you. You, frowning with guilt. Why should you be guilty? He moves to amend it, almost on instinct.

“Don’t say sorry.” He mutters, quieter than he means to. He pats a rough palm against your bare shin, the curve of your warm calf on his fingers. Despite his better judgement.

The rise of your protest is nearly tangible, alcohol having washed away any trace of a poker face. “Seriously, sweetheart.” There it is again. He squints briefly as if flinching from the craving thing inside of him.

“But I was wrong. So, so wrong.” Frank shakes his head at you. He leans over, grabbing the near empty water bottle, handing it to you with what he hopes is a firm, expectant expression.

“You gotta sober up.” He grunts. It’s an easy way out from under the wing of your pity. He can’t stand it— can’t stand the look on your face, like you owe him a fucking thing. Especially not some lame words for his sake. You take the water, delicately.

“I wish I didn’t.”

“.. Didn’t, what?”

“Didn’t leave, that night.”

He reminds himself to close his parted lips, to squeeze the hell out of his jaw, teeth-crushingly tight, in order to keep from saying anything from the chest. You frown at him, quiet, stone still until your head lolls to the side drowsily, ear finding the top of the couch back.

Frank turns his cheek with a weighty sigh through the nose. Hands splayed atop his thighs, and in a nervous tick, he curls his lip, looking to the far wall like it might give him a line. What else can he do? Warily, he glances at you in his peripheral. Sipping the water bottle until it's only hollow plastic. Like you’ve already forgotten this conversation, who last spoke, and said what.

There’s nothing to do. That’s the only right answer. Leave you be. Don’t search for meaning in words from a drunk woman. Even if that woman is you, and he wants to, worse than he’s wanted to find meaning in anything for fucking years.

“..S’my fault. I shouldn’t have assumed, y’know?” No response. He makes a lame, hesitating noise like his throat is a step ahead of his head, creating sound before his lips form words.

“Maybe you were right. I could’ve, uh, drunk too much.” A lie. He winces as the words pass his lips. “I don’t remember. I don’t know what man roundin’ on fifty gets, fuckin’— wine drunk.” Frank chuckles at himself, then, though it’s more of a grunt laced with weak humor.

Silence.

“..I just don’t you t’.. I don’t know. Think I’m some asshole.” He swipes his thumb against the crooked bridge of his nose, and can’t help the flit of his eyes from wall to wall. Another kind of humorless huff through the nostrils. “Maybe that ship has sailed. I just.. it’s good to have company. Y’know? I don’t want t’be the one that ruins that.”

He lets the quiet breathe a few seconds, until he gives himself the humility to look over his shoulder, see if he’s said something wrong. Instead, Frank hums a short, low note, in something close to amusement.

You’re all but knocked out cold. Maybe that’s for the better. He has a feeling your neck will hurt like hell tomorrow, craned like that. In his mind it’s hardly a decision; he’ll take the couch.

If you’re at all roused by Frank’s arms shifting under your knees and against your back to lift you, then you give him the kindness of not letting him know it.

He’s not a good man, he knows that; but if he’s anything, he’s dutiful. He doesn’t allow himself to appreciate your weight in his arms, as he moves to put his bedroom door open with his broad back; slow enough to not rock you. Neither does he give himself any credit, nor kindness to himself for pulling the comforter over you, closing the blinds so that you can sleep into the daylight.

Frank does, however, allowed himself to linger in the doorway. Callouses on the cool door handle, chest full and heavy with something familiar and suffocating. He does not try to name it. Does not try to recall the lifetime ago when this feeling was constant, surrounding him, woven into the fibers of his muscle and tendon.

He wants to be grateful to have been given another chance to feel it. But Frank is a man who puts a ravine between what is craving and what is deserved. And he does not deserve this.

He pulls the door closed against the jamb with a click.

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^ thank you guys for reading along I appreciate all your nice comments so so much 💟 pls lmk if your @ doesn’t work bc a lot aren’t!

[hellilovedit]

This was SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL OH MY GOD??????????????? I CANT. THE YEARNING. FRANK’S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE. YOUR WRITING. HOLY SHIT.

[francixoxoxo]

LOL THANK YOU SO MUCH!! his internal monologue is just self hatred 👌

[francixoxoxo]

olive branches, wood bookshelves

frank castle x reader

Frank helps you put together a new piece of furniture after a week long disappearance. You push to learn more about him, over wine on your living room floor.

notes; hehe things get a little teeeense, maria is mentioned, r has a dead older brother lol I promise he’s relevant, frank lets himself get closer to you, fliiiiirrrttttiiiingggg but r is still convinced he doesn’t want her 🫩😔 we yes WE will crack the fine much older widower it don’t matter

wc; 3.5k

part 3 of just across the hall

prev | next

It’s radio silence, with Frank.

His door never opens, and you never hear it slam shut. His car is gone from his allotted parking spot. His window faces the street, and it’s been dimmed for a week. Each time you come home from a party, or a simple dinner with friends, you squint up at the black square in the wide expanse of the apartment complex. Nothing.

You try to retrace your steps; have you seen any moving trucks lately? Who takes trips in early November when they have a job? You just keep replaying your last interaction. Surely you weren’t pushing it by asking if he was hurt. But then, why had he reacted the way he did? Maybe he didn’t want you in his business. Maybe to the point of taking a week-long trip to god knows where, far away from you.

Better to not take it personal, you guess. You keep to your usual routine; wake up early so you can move as slow as you like while getting ready, take the L-train to work, gossip with your favorite middle-aged coworker at lunch, come home and busy yourself. Books, TV, whatever. You try to calm the feeling swimming in you, a chest-tightening mix of loss and an overwhelming feeling like you could’ve done more. Or better. Add missing your across-the-hall neighbor to the mix, and it’s not ideal.

Little things, you know, they get you through. You keep chocolates in your pantry, keep the vase on your counter ever-filled with cheap yet fresh flowers. You’re waiting on a package for a real bookshelf, finally letting yourself splurge after months of stacking your novels along your bedroom wall and on the coffee table. Though you really are dreading lugging the huge box up all those stairs, what with the elevator still being down.

Currently you’re curled up on your couch, rewatching When Harry Met Sally with a hot mug of chamomile thats about half honey and half tea, in a pajama set fresh from the drier since you hit the laundromat after work that day. Being alone never made you feel particularly lonely, per se. You could keep yourself company just fine.

The universe disregards your alone time, though. Knuckles rap against your door, and a part of you gets excited, because, well. It could be Frank, couldn’t it?

You set down your tea and hurry to open it, a grin already pulling at your lips, before your eyes fall on an older, graying man’s face. He asks after a woman named Carmine. You point him down the hall with disappointment weighing down your polite smile, she lives on your floor. The two of you exchange goodnights.

It was a little foolish, to hope it was Frank. Feeling a little dumb, you unpause your movie again, watching Neil Diamond babble about men and women being friends. You want to agree with Sally, that yes, they could be. But you know this movie like the back of your hand, and the two fall in love in the end. So, even if Frank was around right about now, if you hadn’t botched things, would you be able to keep it friendly? Did you even want to? He didn’t seem the type to want company like that. And, you remind yourself, you were okay on your own. You don’t need someone to love, someone to make you laugh, someone to lean your head on, and.. Whatever. You don’t need it. Really, you don’t, you fight with yourself. Frank could be a friend. A really handsome, really endearing friend.

Well. If he even lived across the hall anymore. And doesn’t that bring you right back to where you started, or rather right where Harry started on your TV screen? Could you be friends without any romance between you? And why were you so against something coming out of it? You try and shut down the thinking before it eats too hard at you.

Thankfully, another knock at the door stirs you. It’s beginning to bug you; how many people could be at your door at, what, 8 PM? Did nobody have pajamas to be changing into, and movies to be watching on their couch? So, sue you if your expression is a little irritated when you pull the door open. “Can I help you?” You sigh, before you can fully see your visitor.

Frank is staring back at you. Not smiling, but not grimacing, either. Just looking at you blankly, save for a glint in his nearly-black eyes. He’s holding a particularly large box in his arms, not even breaking a sweat. “Uh. You got a package.” He grunts, simply, like the sight of him isn’t sending your brows to your hairline. You move to take it, but he shakes his head. “‘S heavy for you.”

You scoff, but it doesn’t really offend you. “Did you seriously carry that all the way up the stairs?” Frank shrugs and makes this indecisive, deflecting sound, like he’s finding words but never says them. Like it’s not the big deal you’re making it into. Something about how casually he treats a gesture that to you means an olive branch, it makes you step aside and let him in.

He sets the package down in your living room, and looks around with parted lips when he straightens up. “Got scissors?”

You stare at him. Maybe you’re making a face, because his dark eyes land on you and he swallows. “.. Or a knife, I guess.”

“Uh– yeah. Yeah.” You mutter lamely, hurrying to your kitchen and pulling a knife from a drawer. Failing pretty miserably at acting cool. You press the handle into his open palm and he nods, as you glance up to meet his eyes you find he was already looking. With an exhale, you wonder if he ever peeled his eyes away in the first place.

“You all-right?”

“Me? Oh, yeah. Mhm.”

“You.. sick or somethin’?” He huffs, and you laugh, though nothing on his face hints that he’s joking on purpose. For some reason his eyes crease with a smile a few moments after you do– but you can tell that he doesn’t get what you two are cheesing about. “Or, uh.. High?” You laugh harder at that. “What?”

“That’s so rude!” You giggle, even though you really aren’t slighted by it. He’s showing concern in the best way he can. Frank scoffs, his brow pinching again and he slices through the tape of the box. “I’m just– I just thought you were out of town. Or that you moved and I didn’t know about it.”

“Y’think I’d leave and not tell you?”

He lifts his face, studying you in some way that makes you suddenly shy. Something about his tone, under the rough timbre, it’s almost like he’s offended. You clear your throat a little. “Uh, I don’t know.” He doesn’t turn his attention back to the box, doesn’t open the cardboard flaps. His eyes don’t even leave you. You meet them, only long enough to consider the meltiness swimming in his chocolate irises, the almost imperceivable feather of his jaw. “I wasn’t sure if you would.”

The silence stretches from wall to wall. Frank nods, slow and thoughtful, and gives you a break from his intense stare as he starts opening the package. Quietly, he cranes his neck to the side and mutters. “..M’ back now, ain’t I?”

Well. You guess he is.

When Frank starts to pull parts out of the box, managing to get his hands on the manual, you shake your head and put out your hands. “Frank, stop, you really don’t have to..”

“Awh, c’mon now, quit that.” Frank shakes his head, scoffing and glancing at you through his brows.

“Quit–”

“Tryna wave me off.”

“You wave me off.”

Frank throws you a lethal look, and you can’t resist a grin spreading over your cheeks. He sighs through his nostrils the same way your father used to, irritated but beat. “Quit it. M’doin’ this for you ‘cause I want to, n’that’s it. Okay? That’s it.” His eyes can’t stay on you for long, darting around as his head bobs a little. You’re shut up by the strange realization of what he just said. You have to take it in context, you know– but something about how firmly he says it, like it’s unwavering fact, it’s so easy to play pretend. Pretend like it’s a promise to stick around.

“Okay.” You nod after a moment of chewing on your lip. He grunts as if to say finally.

–

“Whatcha got over there?”

“G.”

“‘Kay, you gimme that.”

You’re sat on the floor of your living room with Frank, tens of bookshelf pieces scattered in front of you. You said you’d help him, but really, he shucked off his sweater onto the couch in exchange for a plain gray T-shirt that hugs his arms in the most perfect ways– and, well, is doing most of the work for you. He’s got the shelf half-assembled, sitting up on his knees and furrowing his brows down at a allen wrench while you read from a manual he already memorized in the few minutes he glanced over it. He doesn’t stop you, though.

Frank’s hands are strong and steady, you’ve noticed. Precise. Absentmindedly you wonder how he became so sure handed. You can’t resist staring at the veins in the back of his hands, his calloused fingertips, your eyes drifting up to the toned definition of his forearm and biceps. If he notices, he doesn’t let on. You put on a record a while ago, though he asked you very roughly to “change this hipster bullshit, could’ya? No offense, but m’fallin’ asleep.” The vinyl had been Mazzy Star, and you had given him a good earful when he insulted it. When you put on your Bruce Springsteen greatest hits (an ooold gift from your brother,) he hadn’t said a word, but nodded a little and dipped his chin to the rhythm. You guess that meant he liked it.

Two glasses sat between you, too. Both half-filled with wine that Frank admitted was “the stuff,” and you couldn’t help laughing then. Another thing you’ve caught on; if ever you make fun of the guy, he does this little smile and pinches his brows, looks away from you. Once you know Frank, he’s really quite predictable. Even as the thought makes you smile at the half-constructed bookshelf he’s building for you, your mind backtracks. Because, really, what do you know about Frank? His little ticks, fine. That’s about where the list ends.

You lift your glass to your lips and peer over the rim at him, “You know, I think I have an idea.”

Frank tosses you a glance, furrows his brows when he looks back at his working hands. “Hit me.”

“You didn’t answer my question, last time.” You watch his expression falter, and go on. “So, how about every answer is one favor?”

He gives you a dubious look. “I don’t need anything.”

“Then every answer is another answer. Get it?”

“What’re we, middle schoolers? Christ, woman–”

“-- Christ, woman!” You repeat, laughing and scolding him without any bite. “You’re an ass, Frank. Here I am, not even knowing your last name, while you’re in my living room putting together furniture.”

Frank huffs a disbelieving laugh, shaking his head at you and leaning back from where he was bent over and attaching that shelf marked G. He takes a long, long pull off his own wine glass, his nose scrunching as he places it back down on your area rug. It’s taking every ounce of self control you have in your body to not let your eyes drift to his chest, swelling with a deep breath. “..What’re you waitin’ for?”

You sit up a little straighter and smile like a schoolgirl. The questions you really want to get to, it feels a little rude to ask them right off the bat. “Okay, uhm..” You hesitate, finding some filler in the faint imprint of a necklace under Frank’s shirt. “That necklace. Are those dog tags?”

Frank looks down at himself with a tight brow, grunting in the affirmative after a second and fishing the metal out from under his shirt. He holds the tags up to you, the chain in the crook of his thick thumb. You lean forward a little to see them, but when you open your mouth to ask a follow-up question, he interjects. “Ah ah ah, nope. My turn.” You huff indignantly, and he laughs at you. Real, gravelly, from his chest– suddenly you aren’t so upset, watching him grab a wooden piece beside your right hip and get to work attaching it. “Where’d you learn to bake?”

You shrug and take a swig of your wine. “My mom’s kitchen, I guess. She was one of those that never measured anything, but everything she made came out perfect.” Frank glances at you through his eyelashes, hums softly.

“My old lady was like that.”

“Your mom, too?”

“My wife.” He grunts. You feel the strangest sinking in your stomach, like the air has been sucked from you. Wife? Was, in the past tense? That guilt rushes back to you, the feeling like you were pushing at a man who didn’t want to let you in. But curiosity, it eats at you.

“What happened? If you don’t mind.” You mutter, voice a bit quieter. Frank doesn’t look up from the furniture anymore, but he does push his hair from his eyes. Springsteen fills the silence for a few moments.

His voice is curt, simple. “She uh, she passed.” You try not to gawk, try not to show the shock you feel twinging behind your ribs on your face. You felt terrible for even asking. At least, you think, it’s a stark reminder of what this was. A wall being put up; Friends. Neighbors. That’s where this ends. You hate the selfish disappointment swirling in your belly.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Frank shakes his head, finally lifting his nearly-black eyes to you. His jaw feathers, but maybe your poker face is no good, because he shakes his head again, firm. “Don’t be.”

“Kinda ruined the game, huh.” You try and chuckle that shyness off, averting your eyes to his glass of liquor, but it clings to your skin. Frank grunts negatively.

“Only way y’ruined anything was by asking two in a row. So I get two.” He tilts his head to meet your stare, and there’s this strange look in his eyes. Beckoning. Or maybe comforting, by playing into your silly game. Though you aren’t the one in this living room who should be consoled. When you grin at his words, he smiles right back before chewing on the inside of his cheek, lips falling open. “Uh.. Lets see. Who’s that guy?”

You follow the tilt of Frank’s chin to a framed photograph on your entry table. “Oh, that’s just.. That’s my big brother. Charlie.” And damn him, damn him and that stupid skill of his to know exactly what you were thinking, to read you like a book when you couldn’t pick his brain for anything, because Frank’s giving you this stupid look. Like he knows there’s more. You take a sip of your wine and mutter, like you’re being hypnotized into it, “He died, too. Last year. So.”

Just the mention jabs distinctly between your ribs, but you thank God that your eyes aren’t stinging anymore at the thought. It used to be that you cried whenever your brother was brought up. Because, really, you’ve stowed Charlie away, tentative to open the mess of grief and anger you’ve let accumulate. It’s easier that way, sometimes.

Frank does what he knows best, he stays silent. Nods, a very little bit, grunts softly as if to let you know he’s listening. He stares at you for a long time with what you think is newfound compassion, it warms up his eyes so much that you have to look away. “..It’s a stupid life.”

“Yeah,” You huff a bitter laugh and stand up to retrieve the bottle of wine you left on the counter, assuming half a glass would be good. “Yeah. Stupid.”

Frank looks away, his lips hanging open and his brow pinching for an instant. There’s a ghost of a chuckle in his voice. “We ain’t that good at this.”

“Nope.” You fill your glass, and add a little more to his. He nods in thanks and blows the air out his cheeks as he finds the words.

“Uh.. What’s your favorite.. color?”

You burst into disbelieving laughter at that, and he does that thing again, smiling with that crease in his forehead like he doesn’t quite know what the two of you are laughing about. That alone lifts the mood of the room. “Playing it safe!”

Frank shakes his head at you, shrugging with a steadily growing grin. “Guess so. Hand me that?” You pass over a ziploc bag of wood-detailed screwhole covers. His voice raises a little with humor. “Answer for an answer, mama. C’mon.”

You hum thoughtfully, secretly tucking the way the pet name sounded from his mouth away for a sleepless night and hoping that your cheeks don’t look as warm as they feel. “Hm.. Maybe blue. Or pink. But green is nice, and–”

“Alright, that’s good. You’re done.” For some reason you can’t quit laughing, and whenever you do, he smiles to himself proudly. You scoot forward, handing him the next piece without him asking. “You wanna try?” He hums, you nod.

Frank fishes a small screw and washer from the plastic bag and puts it in place for you. You try not to think too hard about the proximity, the fact his calloused hand is inches from yours and you can hear his breathing if you strain your ears. Christ, he smells good. Musky and deep, like a mixture of sweat and faint cologne. You almost miss his reminder about it being your turn. “Oh, uh– You never let me ask. What branch were you in? In the military, I mean.”

“Marines.” Frank grunts, his gravelly timbre quiet and within a foot of your ear. That explains his steady hand. When you glance at him, those dark eyes flicker up to yours, ever-calm. For once, you don’t want to push his vague answers for details he won’t give. He produces a new screw and washer, positions it at the next socket for you to screw in with the allen wrench. “What kinda books you gonna fill this thing with?”

“Uhm, y’know.. I like Bradbury. And Sylvia Plath, too. A lot of classics,” You admit, smiling a little shy. “You read?”

“I like a good book,” he shrugs. You get a feeling he’s being humble. As you screw in the last of the four screws along the corners of the shelf slab, he hums low. “Attagirl.”

You push your fingers through your hair and try (and fail) to act like the little encouragement doesn’t affect you. In your defense, you had a roughened, masculine and definitely older man in your living room telling you attagirl. It’s hard not to smile and save the exact way he said it away, deep in your brain alongside the rest of tonight.

But there’s something else nestled there, you’d forgotten it until now. Sitting back, your eyes find the floor. ‘I’m on fire’ hums from the record player, moody and romantic, and you think you hear Frank humming quietly. The sound is barely there at all. Over the buzzing in your head it’s a wonder you pick it up.

“Real good song—“

“—Why were you all bloody?”

Your voices tumble over each other, but Frank doesn’t repeat himself. Doesn’t act like he hasn’t heard you, either. He stares, those dark, dark eyes heavy but glinting from the yellowy lamplight of your living room, the set of his jaw tight underneath his gruff beard. “The other week. What was that?” You stare just the same. Waiting.

Eventually he tears his eyes away, and they don’t stay on anything for long, his lips twitching. His brows draw sometime, he nods and his voice comes gravelly, “I.. I, uh, I got shot.”

“..Shot.” He makes an affirmative sound and meets your dumbfounded stare with wide, nearly puppy dog eyes. Like this rugged, tough man was nervous for your reaction.

“Uh.. yeah.” His large hands get back to work with the wrench after he finds the final shelf— the whole thing only would come up to your hip if you stood, a nice dark wood. But you couldn’t care any less about some bookshelves.

You blow the air out your cheeks, a little relieved and a little dizzy. “Can I see?” You half expect him to shoot you down, call you nuts. But he only grunts softly, looking down at himself and bunching the hem of his gray T in his hand. He tugs it up to just below his chest.

You’re only human. The first thing your brain goes to is the definition of his stomach, the sturdy muscles splayed there, mind wandering to how the skin would feel under your palms— snap out of it, you scold yourself. You’re thinking about your widower neighbor, weirdo. Except your willpower isn’t very strong and you can’t feel guilty for very long.

Second, you notice the bullet wound. Stitched neatly, clean but pink and downright toe curling. You grimace at it, leaning forward to see better. “Oh my god.”

“Looks worse than it feels.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you.. Jesus, why didn’t you go to the hospital?” You gawk now, rambling and shaking your head. Frank just lifts his head and stares quietly for a while before replying.

“..Didn’t wanna scare you.” Frank’s voice is gruff, simple. Like the stubborn bastard he is, he doesn’t even address the second question. When your eyes flick up to his, he’s still staring at you in that strange, almost shy way. You’re determined to wipe that look off his face, like he has any kind of anger— or fear— to face from you.

You sigh through your nostrils, looking to the far wall to try and make sense of the millions of thoughts swimming through your brain. “So why are you telling me now?”

Frank makes an indifferent sound, shakes his head and averts his own eyes, too. The wall you thought he had built, it now feels more like a hazy mirage than solid brick. “..I don’t know.”

He does know, though. He does. It terrifies him too much to face, head on. Because something about you draws the truth out of him, and fuck, he can’t stand it. He doesn’t say any of that, though. Instead, Frank huffs a laugh and his brows furrow tight, he looks at you out of the corner of his eye with a grin that hasn't tugged at his lips in a long time, and only ever seems to dust itself off in your presence. “Maybe it’s uh, the liquor. That your plan?”

You laugh, narrowing your eyes at him to mirror his own expression. For someone who deflected so often, you’d think he’d be better at it. “Frank, if any of my plans worked out, you’d be done with that bookshelf by now.”

“Ch-rist, woman. Puttin’ me to work.. I liked it better when you were all shy.” He huffs, you giggle hard enough for your chin to tilt back and eyes to crinkle. By the time Frank leaves, your shelf is assembled and placed exactly where you want it to be (by him, obviously), and you both have enough wine in your system that you’re laughing like idiots.

Of course, you’re laughing because Frank’s got wit. He’s laughing just because you are.

tag list; @starrvine @macenotclub @castawayclub @thuul-box @dungeons-bat @strawberrycheesecake262 @slowbutterflies @chompwoman @demiebarnes @dude-its-hannah @ilovehyperfixating @pleasantducktimetravel

[saintcastiglione]

Loving that their relationship has deepened and that the reader isn't as shy or self-conscious anymore. The prop plot-device of the bookshelf, it being the emotional support of it all, chef's kiss.

Loved them revealing dark parts of themselves and still staying. This is really doing it for me right now.

[francixoxoxo]

U r smarter than me yes I agree

[francixoxoxo]

Imagine having long hair that Billy brushes for you. It’s your bedtime routine for him to unwind your braid and comb out your locks, always being very careful and singing a little lullaby too

Oh absolutely 1000%

It’s been a day for both of you, to say the least.

Tunstall had Billy working until the sun shot orange into the sky, and particularly difficult chores had piled up until you finally tackled them all today. Not such a good idea. Billy had clicked his tongue against his teeth and shaken his head when you told him about your mending the fence and moving the furniture that needed moving, painting the wall that needed painting. Too much for one girl on one day, Billy had insisted.

At last, the sun slumbered below the horizon, and Billy could tug you into his arms again. Not without mumbling for you to sit on the bench at the foot of your shared bed. The same braid he’d watched, with stars in his eyes, you pull your hair into that morning, he gently unwove. His fingers delicately loosen the braid until your hair falls around your face, a soft sigh escaping your nostrils. Billy nestled a kiss into your crown, his large palms coming to splay over your shoulders. “Long day?”

You mumble in the affirmative. His fingers press into the taut muscles of your shoulders, eliciting another sigh from you. “The longest.” Billy hums sympathetically, like you’re a poor thing. His hands quit massaging you to part your hair, find some skin to lay his lips onto. As he combs his fingers through your tresses to discover a handful of knots, he rises to his feet. You watch him as he rifles through your drawer for your hairbrush, grinning boyishly at you when he’s successful. Billy resumes his position kneeling on the bed behind where you sit, gifting the edge of your shoulder a smattering of kisses. “What about you?”

“Me?” Billy huffs, his brows lifting as he combs the brush through your locks. He lays a palm flat over your scalp to hold the hair taut, you don’t feel a thing as he brushes out the knots a New Mexican August accumulated. “You.” You smile, watching him through your vanity mirror. He’s almost comically focused on doing your hair in a way you’d approve of.

“Nothin’ t’write home ‘bout.” Billy shrugs. The initial knots are out now, and your lover is simply occupying himself with watching how the brush glides through your smooth tresses. You snort, “You just don’t know how to talk about yourself!”

Billy chuckles, a warm sound from his chest that makes your mind go a fuzzy pink. “Maybe not.” He moves your hair off your shoulders to lean over, press a kiss to the apple of your cheek. His lips smack a loud ‘mwah!’ as his other hand comes to hold the back of your neck, your smooth hair under his fingertips. “But I can talk ‘bout you, mama.”

A delighted giggle bubbles from your lips, crinkling your eyes and warming your cheeks. You’ve turned to the side on the bench, your hand finding a place on his thigh and squeezing affectionately. Billy’s hand on your nape moves to cradle your chin, turning your face upward so he can better access the tip of your rosy nose. “You’re beautiful.”

[babydollemsy]

little tb to some franci works

[francixoxoxo]

aw stop ily