prompt!! mel's an anxious flyer and frank helps ✈️
It was times like these that Mel really wished she hadn’t encouraged Frank to quit smoking. There was nothing she hated more than the smell–the way it stuck to his clothes and his car and covered up the eucalyptus in his cologne– but even she would have asked to bum one off him.
She’d never done well with flying, which embarrassed her perhaps more than it should have. How can I be ok with holding a beating human heart in my hands but shake like a leaf from being a few feet off the ground?
Her leg shook rhythmically, tapping her heel against the floor without knowing as Frank returned from filling up both of their water bottles. Despite her nerves, she couldn’t help but smile back when he beamed at her while walking over.
“Garcia texted me the name of that place she recommended, the one by the airport. So when we land we ca-,” Frank started, “Mel? What’s wrong?”
Mel shook her head and drew the strings of her sweatshirt shut to shield her face, which quickly grew flush with humiliation. She knew she should have told him. She knew that trying to keep herself calm would be hopeless, but it was their first trip together and she would never forgive herself if she ruined it before it had even begun.
“Mel,” said Frank, “Sweetheart. Please tell me what’s happening. I was only gone for five minutes.”
He rubbed her knee gently and she breathed along to the rhythm until she felt like she could face him again. This is so stupid. You’re being ridiculous. You’re almost thirty.
She took a deep breath and revealed her face to him, nose scrunched and brows furrowed. He raised an eyebrow, surveying her face, lifting a hand to brush the rumpled hair from her eyes. It was so tender that her held back tears began to well.
“I’m so sorry, Frank,” she squeaked out, quickly. “I didn’t want to stress you out because you’ve done so much to plan this trip for us, for me, really, and nobody’s ever done something like this for me before and I wanted it to be perfect so I thought I could-“
“Mel,” he interrupted, taking her hands in his and waiting for her to return his eye contact. “It’s gonna be perfect. We could lose all our luggage and get robbed or get food poisoning and lock ourselves out of the hotel for all I care.”
It earned him a small smile, one that crept on the edge of her lips and her breathing slowed.
“The point is, it’s going to be perfect because it’s my first trip with you. Hopefully of many. So it seems like this was going to come up at some point, sweetheart,” he said.
She pushed his arm away playfully, flushing again at his constant ability to see right through her facade. How silly of me, she thought, to think he wouldn’t understand me.
“Fine. You win. I’m so terrified of planes, Frank. Like recurring nightmare scared. Like maybe about to throw up, scared?” she said, frantic.
“Well damn, I guess I finally found the one thing you aren’t good at,” he said.
He stood up with a chuckle and pulled her into a hug, tight and long and deep and steady and everything she needed. She felt the floor return beneath her feet, felt the heartbeat in her ears subside.
“If only you could just do this the whole flight,” she whispered into his shoulder.
One hand stroking the small of her back and another running over the length of her braid, he pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time, baby.”
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