ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ STARTING OVER!
summary: frank langdon told himself there was no happiness left for him after his divorce, so he spends his days chasing small satisfactions in the form of one-night-stands and first dates. that is, until he meets you. pairing: frank langdon x reader tags: afab reader, so much fluff, mentions of sex but nothing nsfw, mentions of drugs & addiction, lots of kissing, fuckboy & then loverboy!frank langdon, divorced!frank langdon, reader is such a chill gal word count: 2.5k notes: loverboy frank langdon my beloved. also i use a lot of emdashes in here, i know. i swear it's not ai. please reblog if you enjoy!
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Frank Langdon does not want to have sex with you—and he hates it.
Okay, that’s a bit of a lie. There’s just a lot of things he’d rather do with you before having sex with you and that’s the problem.
Since his tumultuous divorce and losing the great big love of his life, Frank’s refused to get close to anyone else. He’s already ruined a marriage, became one half of a fifty-fifty custody decision and had to regain his reputation at work, so there’s no reason to pretend like he’ll move on unscathed from everything he has done. For the longest time, he still peered at Abby a little bit too hard when she dropped off Tanner and Penny, hoping she’d look at him the same way she had all of those years before.
She never had, of course. He was lucky if she even actually glanced at him rather than just let her eyes brush over his chest.
As much as he wanted to enjoy his solitude, alone in his house when he was both off shift and without children, humans crave companionship. Unfortunately, that had brought him to making an account on a few dating apps. To his surprise, he got quite a few matches, even without including that he was a doctor. (There were a lot of hospitals and doctor’s offices in Pittsburgh, but he’d seen enough craziness in the emergency room to know that women could figure out anything they wanted to if they tried even a little bit.)
Every date went the same and Frank ensured that. A kind hug as an introduction, a nice conversation over a couple drinks (soda or water for him, of course, recovery was important) and then usually a one night stand. Never at his apartment, not in the place that his kids called home for three days out of the week. Plus, that gave him the opportunity to leave as soon as he wanted to, which was usually as soon as possible.
But with you, your date had been different. He’d followed all of the normal steps. Scheduling a date after a minimal amount of text messages, a public place with little to no romance, an almost friendly hug as a greeting, but immediately, he’d felt a change. The big smile you had on your face had seemed to light up the entire street he had met you on, seeping into his chest and making him feel warm all over.
Your hair smelled like rosemary and mint when he had politely curled his arms around your waist, chin barely touching your collarbone before he sat up again. Your perfume clung to your wrist when you had lifted a hand to point at the bar across the street, something sweet brushing his nose and distracting him from whatever words had left your mouth.
Luckily, you had been a good sport when he had looked at you, befuddled and speechless. For days, he had remembered the soft twinkle of your laugh and the sparkle of the streetlight in your eyes as you watched him closely.
During dinner, Frank could feel words spouting out of his mouth before he thought about them. He told you that he was a doctor. When the bartender had asked for his order and he had said a soda, he’d easily answered your brief questioning look with an explanation that he was in recovery. Not too much information, as it was just a first date, but you still regarded him with a soft remark of acknowledgement before moving on.
It had meant almost too much to him.
You didn’t invite him back to your apartment, and he didn’t want you to. Instead, he had ended the night with a chaste kiss to your cheek after walking you to your cab, a sincere smile on his face as he closed the door behind you.
The final nail in his coffin had been the text he had sent you afterward. It was nice meeting you. Hope you sleep well. I would love to do that again sometime.
He hadn’t sent a message like that since high school. Since he was still courting Abby and trying to convince her to be his girlfriend before he even asked the question. Admittedly, it scared him more than he liked to admit.
On the second date, he had asked to kiss you, on the mouth this time. It hadn’t been anything crazy, just something gentle beneath the streetlight in front of your apartment complex, but the only thing he could think after that is that he wanted to kiss you again and again and again and again, until his lips molded into the perfect imprint to press against yours.
By the fourth date, Frank had started to feel the pressure. He hadn’t seriously dated in a while, but he knew that the fourth or fifth date is when things start to move into serious territory. Sex and sleepovers usually started around this time, but that seemed too much. For the last few months, he’s been using sex as the final straw, the sign that he needs to make his getaway, but he doesn’t want to let go of you yet.
Or at all, if he allowed himself to admit that.
He holds your hand as the two of you walk towards his apartment, thumb drumming against the back of your hand nervously. A silence has fallen over the two of you, awkward on his side and contemplative on yours. He’s almost ninety-nine percent sure that you have him all figured out and that only makes his anxiety worse.
“Did I do something wrong?” You finally break the silence, moving your focus from the matching pace of your steps to his face. Despite your question, there’s not a flicker of uncertainty or anger in your eyes. Instead, you’re genuinely curious, receptive towards whatever response he’ll give you, which only makes his chest cave in.
Frank looks down at you, tugging on your hand to keep you from accidentally stepping off the sidewalk. “No, baby,” he murmurs. He lets go of your hand to wrap his arm around your shoulder and pull you close, kissing where your wide-eyed wrinkle has smoothened out, lingering there for just a moment to show he means it. “I was just thinking.”
The palm of your hand slides just beneath his shoulder blades, leaning into his side as much as you could without messing up his stride. “About what?”
His thumb brushes along the bare skin of your shoulder, a soothing motion more for him than you. Your hand rises and falls as he exhales a deep breath, staring ahead. “Well.” There’s a beat of silence before he decides to bite the bullet. “I was wondering if you wanted to stay at my place tonight.”
To his surprise, you answer immediately. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
All of the negative feelings he had had leading up to this conversation immediately dissipate at how breezily you agree. Instead, it’s replaced with an excitement that’s so overwhelming that one of his feet catches on the back of the other, almost sending him face-first into the pavement.
You laugh as he regains his balance, flattening your hand on his chest as if it’d help, and he covers that one with his own in hopes that you’ll feel how fast you make his heart beat. A small tell without the words having to leave his mouth.
Once Frank is sat up straight, he presses his face into your hair again, still feeling the rumbling of your chest as you giggle at him. It makes a smile bloom on his own mouth, laughing beneath his breath at just how foolish you make him.
“You know I don’t expect anything, right?” He asks once the both of you climb the steps to his apartment, pulling his keys out of his pocket. His thumb presses through all of his keys as he thinks of what exactly to say. “I just don’t want to feel upset at the idea of you leaving tonight.”
He can feel the shit-eating grin on your face, but he chooses to ignore it to slide his key into his lock.
Another laugh slips out of your lips as you curl your arms around his torso, pressing your cheek into his back. “You like having me around.” It’s a note more than a tease, settling deep in his gut. A truth spilled out onto the pavement for the both of you to marvel at. “I like that.”
The front door swings open and he reaches back to pull you in front of him, leaning down to press his mouth to yours. “Oh, you do, don’t you?” He mumbles against your lips, finger hooking in your belt loop to tug you into his apartment so that he can finally shut the door and leave the outside world behind the both of you.
You laugh again. Frank would probably fail to exist if you ever stopped laughing with him.
He trips over one of Tanner’s toy cars as he holds your hand all the way to his kitchen, cheeks flushing and a hand reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. “Sorry. I try to pick up everything, but sometimes they slip through the cracks with my shifts and everything.” Leaning down, he plucks up the toy, only separating from you to set it atop one of the side tables in his living room.
Every time you’ve come over, he’s ensured that all of the things belonging to his kids– Penny’s messy coloring books and Tanner’s numerous figurines– were picked up and put away. Not necessarily hidden, especially with the photos of them peppering his walls and fireplace mantel, but out of the way.
He couldn’t tell you why he felt the need to do so. He had made sure early on that you knew he was not only divorced but a father of two, especially since his family controlled every aspect of his life. The last thing he wanted to do was pretend that his son and daughter didn’t exist.
“It’s fine, Frank.” You assure, curling your hand around his bicep and giving it a light squeeze. There’s nothing else to say after that, and he’s okay with it. If you said more, he might end up saying too much.
Later that night, once you’re well-fed and well-kissed, he leads you into his bedroom. He speaks as little as possible as he hands you a stack of his clothes, changing into his own sweatpants inside of his bathroom and running the water for a bit too long to give you ample time to change. He’s only a gentleman, after all.
Once he finally mans up and steps out of the bathroom, Frank’s met with the sight of you already beneath his duvet like you belong there, hair fanned out over his pillowcase. Your eyes immediately drag down his bare chest and his heart drops along with them, butterflies sprouting in his stomach like he’s fourteen again.
His hand presses into the mattress first, then his knee. Slowly, he crawls up until he’s hovering over your body, knee pressed inbetween your legs. Your chin tilts up as he dips down, meeting his sweet kiss right in the middle. Like this, with his hands keeping himself from falling atop you, he can’t feel the outline of your body the way he so desperately wants to.
After he’s sure he’s stolen all the breath from your lungs, he finally crawls off of you, sliding beneath the duvet and immediately pressing his leg against yours just to be closer. He doesn’t have to wait for too long though, as you scoot close enough to slot your head beneath his chin and wrap your arm around his waist. A heavy sigh immediately leaves his lips, tilting his head down to press his nose into your hair.
The both of you are quiet for a few heartbeats, the only sign that either are awake being a wriggle here or there to get comfortable. Finally, Frank speaks, a quiet murmur into your forehead after he places a kiss there. “I’m scared,” he admits. It’s a soft whisper in the dark, like kids swapping secrets after bedtime.
“Of the dark?” You mumble into his chest, voice muffled by both his skin and the sleepiness taking over you.
Despite his best efforts, the corner of his lips twitch in amusement. His fingers card through your hair, gentle when the tiny tangles catch on his fingers. “No, baby,” he muses. There’s a pause before he speaks again. “‘m scared because I think you mean a lot to me.”
That pulls your head from beneath his chin, tired eyes finding his face in the dark. “You think?” you ask.
The hand in your hair stills, strands still caught between his fingers. He stares at you for a moment, admiring the moonlight reflecting off your cheekbones. You’re especially beautiful like this – in his clothes, in his bed, his for now. For a long time, if he can help it.
“I know,” he corrects, “that you mean a lot to me.” The other hand finds your waist, pulling you until you’re finally chest to chest, hip to hip. Your body heat bleeds into his own, but he doesn’t mind it as much as he usually does. “And that scares me.”
His face finds your head again, breath brushing against your skin as he speaks. “No one’s meant as much to me as you do in a long time,” he admits, “and the last time I had something this good, I messed it up. And I really, really don’t want to mess this up.”
You place your palm on his chest, feeling the slow thud of his heart and running your thumb over the skin there. “Well, then, I think you miscalculate how much you mean to me,” you respond. “Ever thought about asking how I feel?”
That makes him freeze, running over the words in his head. “What do you mean?”
To his chagrin, you sit up, leaning on your elbow so you can look down at him. “I mean that I really like you, Frank, and I am not afraid of that, because I know you.” Your hand slides along his side, fingertips pressing into his ribcage. “Your divorce was due to your addiction, which is a disease. Before that, you were a loving husband and, even now, you are a great father.”
You lean down to kiss his cheekbone, which doesn’t help the giddiness that bubbles up in him. “I think we’ll be fine. And I think you should stop treating me like I’ll run away at the slightest grevience.”
Speechless. Utterly speechless is what you’ve rendered him, lips parted as he stares at you. He’s quiet for so long that you smile at him, lowering yourself down to lay on the pillow again. “Now, can we go to sleep?”
Dumbly, Frank nods. Unable to speak, he does what he does best and pulls you closer. You turn around until his chest is flush with your back, the bend of his knees making them press into the back of your legs.
You perfectly fit in his arms, the same way that you’ve fit so perfectly into his life. There hasn’t been much happiness in Frank’s life since his scandal and divorce, but at least there seems to be hope on the horizon in the form of you.
