Bang.

Judy. 30s. Your local hasbeen. Come here to read some good shit.

[saintcastiglione]

LIGHTFALL

Summary: A Butcher and a Baker shouldn't mix. But when you accidentally become Frank Castle’s accomplice after a body turns up in your bakery, you learn the only man who can protect you is the one you swore was a plague.

Pairing: Frank Castle x Reader

Warnings: 18+ Always. Canon level Violence. Character Death (non-major). Smut. Frenemies. A little hurt comfort if you squint.

a playlist if you'd like to listen to the songs that inspired the story

Support an author trying to refine their writing! Lemme know if you'd like a tag.

🔥notes smut.

Chapter 1: Preheat to 375° Chapter 2: Beat Until Stiff Chapter 3: Sanitize Your Work Surface Chapter 4: Cut the Crust Off Chapter 5: Punch Your Dough Chapter 6: Burn to a Crisp Chapter 7: Fold in Wet Ingredients 🔥 Chapter 8: Serve Before it Cools

[castleabbot]

Our house

Life used to be so hard

Now everything is easy ‘cause of you

Witchy!gf x Frank Castle part 5.5

Talking to my emotional support coworker about houses and selling homes and my mind IMMEDIATELY went to Frank. So here is a little thing about Witchy!gf and Frank buying their forever home. This was supposed to be done already but them pomegranate margaritas had your girl in a chokehold. Warning: I have NO idea about the home buying process. I’m a renting condo girl thru and thru 😭 so if there are mistakes, no there ain’t! Take everything with a grain of salt.

Witchy!gf…. who has always lived in the city. Moving from apartment to apartment all her life. Never really wanted a home… until Frank came in the picture. The talks to buy a home was discussed early on in the relationship. You both had ideas on what you wanted: Frank wanted a backyard with a patio and garage where he could tinker, you wanted enough space for your altars and a garden. You guys decided to start looking about 6 months after your 1st anniversary.

Frank Castle…. who would do anything for you. Including moving from what he knows, what makes him comfortable. You both didn’t mind trying to stay in the city but it was becoming way too expensive. The landlord raised the rent AGAIN and it just made sense to buy a home. The problem? To be able to afford anything it was going to be a commute back to the city.

Witchy!gf…. who didn’t want to transfer jobs or not see her friends on a weekly basis but was willing to do that for something you guys could call your own. After about 6 months of just looking at homes, you two stumble across one. A green brick colonial, 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms. A garage and patio for Frank, enough space for you to do your craft and a beautiful garden that had the prettiest flowers already in it. The problem? Money.

Frank Castle…. who had been saving money with you for nearly a year now and somehow was still short for the down payment. “Let me take care of something for a few days. I promise it will be worth it sweetheart” he tells you one weekend as you are trying to crunch the numbers. “Whatever you are planning, please be careful and don’t have it blow back on you my love” you gently tell him. He gives you a hug and kiss on the forehead and leaves for two days.

Witchy!gf…. who is now used to Frank’s missions, but you still worry. You pray to your guides, Santa Muerte, and anything else at this point. When he returns two days, he looks…. normal? No blood, no injuries. “Where the fuck were you at?” you asked him. “Getting what we needed”. You give him a puzzled look. He tells you to open your bank app. You do and there’s MORE than enough money for the down payment and for you to take some time off of work. “Frank what the fuck? How did you… never mind I don’t even want to know” and to this day, you don’t.

Frank Castle…. who got the house for his baby. You two close on the house nearly a month later on 11/11, 5 days before Frank’s birthday. You spend Frank’s birthday at your apartment, the last thing you will do there. It’s a small affair, just some cake and his present you got for him: a brand new grill. It makes you a little bit sad, this place holds so many memories. But you know that your house is going to filled with so much love and new memories that you are not worried.

Witchy!gf…. who takes the winter off to get the house in order. Tons of green, maroon, and blacks, lush velvets, photo gallery walls in every room. Blankets and pillows and a fancy new coffee machine next to Frank’s decrepit coffee pot. You have two rooms that are just yours: your altar room and your craft room. Frank spends his days hanging up the photos and decor you have him do, drinking a ton of coffee, and hanging out in the garage doing whatever he pleases. By the time spring hits, you have set up the garden and altar space for outside, the new grill has been placed, and you are trying to get Frank to agree to a swimming pool. He really ain’t for it.

Frank Castle…. who in the summertime gets bombarded with the idea of a dog. He tells Witchy!gf no, they don’t need one. It will be hard, blah blah blah. Witchy!gf just knows that once he sees his child for the first time, he will melt like butter. And he does when you bring home an all black long hair dachshund boy who you promptly named Onyx. At least that is what the official paperwork says. His real name that his parents like to call him? Franklin Antonio Onyx James Castle the 4th. And Frank? That’s his baby.

Witchy!gf, Frank, and baby Frank are quite content in their beautiful new house. It was always meant to be: their address starts with 222. Destiny at work folks 🖤

Taglist 🖤: @hellilovedit @honeybeechestnut @reveriecodydex thank you lovelies 🖤

[saintcastiglione]

Can a ho get a tagggg

Your moodboards are beautifulll

Him getting the money for the reader to buy a home together is delicious. Love this.

[saintcastiglione]

Love Got In Anyway

Summary: Frank Castle loves you. Plain and simple. 

Pairing: Frank Castle x Reader

Warnings: Language. Smut (riding, pronebone. The good stuff). Smoking Weed. Fluff?

A/N: Me writing soft Frank? Wild. This is a part of a loosely connected compilation of one-shots with the same reader from Big Brat Energy and Up Your Sleeve. No need to read other installments. It's nonlinear.

Frank never thought he’d feel this again. 

The very notion got shoveled under years ago. Packed down with dirt and left to rot with the rest of him that belonged to a world of before. It can’t happen, therefore it shouldn’t. Simple math. Even simpler to live and survive by. 

Emotions don’t stay six feet under just because Frank thinks he can scare 'em away.

They claw, they sneak, they grow roots.

It starts innocently.  Don’t it always? 

Starts with him knowing your coffee order. 

Not because he’s a romantic or some soft-bellied asshole with a notes app full of your favorite things. Frank learns it because he’s bad at apologies. Always has been. So when he’s fucked up royally, when he’s said some hurtful shit that’s sharp enough to fold your mouth shut…

He gets you the overpriced swanky iced whatever from the coffee shop with exposed brick. 

The one with seven different kinds of milk, but none of them are actually milk. The one ran by freaks with tri-colored hair and bad attitudes that make him uncomfortable. 

He does it anyway. For you. 

When he hands it over, you stare at the cup, then him. 

“Is this agave or vanilla?” 

He sounds like he’s swallowing glass when he says. “Agave.” 

“Macadamia nut mil-” 

“Yes.” 

You smile and accept the drink. 

Then you let him eat you out on your dining room table. Because he may not always have the right words, but can do wonders with his mouth on you. 

The coffee gets knocked over in the process. Pale brown liquid spreads under your mail, your keys you spent time curating, an old bill you still need to pay. Frank even cleans it up afterwards with his shirt open and mouth still wet from you. Doesn’t want your table getting sticky. 

That should scare him. And it does. 

But not enough. 

Because it grows like weeds in an unkempt yard. Before he knows it, he’s tangled in the thick of it and not fighting hard enough to get loose. 

Hazy morning light pushes through your barred kitchen windows. The black bars are crusted in a heavy layer of rust, heavy orange-brown scales clinging to the metal like barnacles to the keel of a ship. Despite all that, light still gets through. Past the bars, the rust, the dirty glass, and filters into your small kitchen. 

He notices it against his will. How the light finds you. 

Sitting at a table in shorts and a worn down shirt, you’re hunched over. Green construction paper and oil pastels are scattered around you. You’re practicing the art lesson you’ll teach your elementary kids later that week. 

Flowers, you tell him. Texture. Shapes. Color. Something simple enough for eight-year-olds to understand, but interesting enough where they won’t shove the pastels up their noses by minute eleven. 

“You think they’ll get bored?” 

Frank sits across from you with an open book in his hands. He’s not reading a damn word. 

“They’re eight,” he says. “They get bored of anything that’s not on a phone.” 

You throw a pastel at him. He catches it because why wouldn’t he. Rolls it back to you. 

You teach kids around the same age as Frank Jr. Back when he painted a Marine on the wall to protect the family. The thought ricochets off Frank, the words on his book becoming a blur. 

He wonders what his son would have been like now? If he’d still be artistic or would he have outgrown drawing marines. If the world would’ve taught him the world needed different kinds of protection. 

He wonders what his son was like back then, too. Which is an even worse thought. Touring made Frank come back to his family in vignettes. One minute Frank Jr can’t read. Next time Frank sees him, the kid's got a trophy for winning the spelling bee. 

A whole life of stories, lost between visits, and Frank only got scraps. 

“I can’t wait to see what Susie does with this,” you say. “Girl’s got a real point of view.” 

You tell him about your students like you don’t know what you’re giving him. 

The troublemakers. The teacher’s pets. How a kid tried to coerce another student to snort glitter in exchange for their chocolate milk at lunch. The girl who cries because she thinks mistakes mean she’s bad. A kid named Derek who has become a monster once he learned how to draw dicks. 

Frank asks questions sometimes. Not many, but enough. 

You don’t know how much it helps him to hear about them. How he can close his eyes and maybe imagine a world where his boy got to be eight. Nine. Ten. Where the worst thing in the world to happen to a kid was before lunchtime. Glitter extortion and glue-sticks. 

In a world where Frank mostly sees burnt sand and blown open bodies, you give him temporary sanity. 

So he sits in your kitchen, The Razor’s Edge open in his hands, and he listens to you talk about flowers. 

And the weeds grow more. Wilder. Ensnare him. 

His fate is sealed when you visit him in the hospital.

He’s ugly there. All black and blue and weak, hooked up to machines that keep tabs on him like his body isn’t as strong as he thought. He hates the beeping. And the stupid damn gown. Hates the nurse who brings him applesauce like he’s a fucking geriatric. 

He’s a grown man. Not something you’re supposed to see this way. 

It’s all over your face when you step into the room. Fear. Big and worried and trying so damn hard to be strong it could make him sick. He sees it. Sees the guilt waiting to be spoonfed to him. If you cry, he’ll swallow that too. Will have to live with the physical proof that he made himself matter to someone again. 

He ain’t worth the tears. 

“You finish it?” you ask, voice shaky but fighting. Trying to be strong. That's his girl. “Job's done?”

He can't even look at you when he nods. 

“Yeah.”

You exhale. Then nod like it’s answered some internal question of yours. 

“Cool,” you whisper. “Because you look like they rocked your shit sideways.”

He immediately regrets his laugh. His internal organs aren’t interested in your jokes. 

You stay every day he's holed in there. Call out sick just to keep him company. Sit in that awful chair with a spare hospital blanket. Eat his applesauce. You both watch the Price is Right at noon like two idiots with nothing better to do. 

One of the days, when he thinks you’re asleep, he watches you in that chair. Neck bent to hell, mitch-matched socks on display, one hand tucked under your cheek. Still with him. 

Fuck. It does something to him he doesn’t have the name for.

One day, Curtis comes by.

Frank sees the surprise pass over your face when Curtis introduces himself. He gives you a firm handshake, kind eyes, and a smile. 

You glance at Frank, asking for permission without saying it. Frank nods. You give a smile back. 

“I'm going to grab something from the vending machine,” you say, already finding the exit. “Nice meeting you.”

“Likewise,” Curtis says. 

Not a second after you’re gone, Curtis’ smile grows twenty times bigger. 

Frank groans. “Don’t.”

Too late.

“Someone special?”

“Mind your business.” 

Curtis sits in the visitor chair with every intention to pry. “I’ll take that as a yes.” 

Frank shifts against the pillows, irritated to death by the wires taped to his chest. He hates the warmth crawling up his neck. 

“Yeah.”

“Good, man.” Curtis softens. “Good. I'm glad to see it. You uh, you deserve something nice.”

He really doesn't know what to say. Never really does.  What should he say? Curtis is one of the few people left who knew him before. Knew Maria. Knew the kids. Knew the kinda man Frank used to be before grief gutted him. 

Everyone’s told him the same thing. To move on. Like grief is a train you can hop off at any exit. Like it’s not quicksand and the more you move, the deeper you’re in. 

Why has it taken Frank so long to think it’s possible? 

“She's all of the above,” Frank says finally. “Fucking scares me.”

Curtis laughs under his breath. “It should.”

Frank gives him a look. 

“What? It should.” Curtis leans back. “Don't screw it up.”

By the time he gets out of the hospital, he’s choked on the smell of the weeds growing. Sweet and cloying. Goddamn liar, they weren’t weeds at all, but a garden. Same kinda flowers you were planning art lessons over. He’s tangled in them none the less. 

“You're so good to me,” he mumbles one night. 

He's sure you can't hear him. 

You’re not paying attention to his dark little confessions. Not with your thighs locked around his waist, and your hands on his chest, riding him like you’ve decided the pace. The start, the finish, it all belongs to you. 

Frank lets you have it. Happily. 

Whatever you want. Whenever you want. However you want. 

“I’m all yours,” he says. 

That, you hear. Makes your hips falter. The pace breaks just a little. Frank reaches up to trace the pad of his thumb along the pillow of your bottom lip. You open your mouth to take his finger in. Warm. Wet. Fuck. You’re going to ride him into delirium.” 

“Make me scream, Frank,” you whine, voice breaking at the edges. Your thighs flex with every slippery roll of your hips. “I need it.”

“Okay,” he says. 

Too fast. Too honest. Too submissive.

“Okay.”

The mattress cries when he flips you over. You're moving instinctively, going to curve into a

proper arch, but that's not what Frank wants tonight. He pushes you flat, body riding the waves of the bed from the force of it. It ain’t enough to hurt, but it makes you gasp. 

He shifts your leg higher. As high as you can give it. He gets to take in a pretty view of you. Just for him.You don't shrivel beneath his hard stare. Don't shy away from the seconds that pass as he drinks it in. You let him look.

“You want that?” he asks, on his knees, he teases you. Gets the tip of his dick wet in you and he slides up and down. “Y'wanna scream for me?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Uh-huh,” he breathes back, mocking and soft. 

Then he presses inside you slowly. Disappearing little by little. Gasp after gasp. 

You're choking for his name when he bottoms out. It pulls long from your throat, a moan stretched to its limits all helpless and thin while he lets you tremble around every inch of him. His hand digs into your lower back, you’re already trying to take more, to go back to commandeering the pace, but it ain’t yours to drive anymore. 

.

“I hear ya, I hear ya,” he coos, leaning over you. 

He smothers himself against you. His chest covers your back and the weight grounds you there.

That’s what undoes you. The heat of him, him taking over your space. Proof that he’s here and solid and breathing and not going anywhere. 

Frank starts moving. Nice and nasty. Deep enough to take your wits and senses. Slow enough to make you feel every thrust. Real and rough enough that the bed complains beneath you. 

“Were you scared?” he grunts, kissing your shoulder. He wraps you up in his wide arms, props your head up as he asks his questions. Lips placed right against your ear.

All you know is pleasure. Down to your toes. Behind your eyelids. Coming in hot. “Wh-what?”

“At the hospital.” His breathing turns ragged and labored, but his stamina doesn’t break. Frank may fall apart emotionally, but can keep a rhythm like he’s got something to prove. “You worry about me?”

“That’s not fair.” 

“No,” he says, thrusting harder. “It ain’t.” 

You try to turn your face away, but he keeps you in place. Wrapped in his arms, his lips right at your ear. 

“Give me an answer.” 

You don’t know whether to love him or hate him for asking right now. 

There’s no room to lie when he’s fucking you this dumb. Can’t put on a brave face now. No place for the fear to hide when he’s made your whole body a confession. 

“Yes,” you cry. Loud. Exactly how he wants you. “Fuck, Frank, yes.”

There we go. The thing you held in. An ugly little terror that maybe he’d leave and you’d be left with nothing but a version of him you almost got to keep. That kinda fear has to go somewhere, Frank pops the cork. 

“I ain't leaving you,” he says, and the words come out rough. Bitten between thrusts. “I’m right here.” 

You give a satisfied noise. Light and feather soft against all that force. He knows you're not about to give full sentences and he doesn't need you to. The message is received.

Manicured nails dig at your burnt sienna colored sheets. He shouldn't know that's even a fucking color, but he does. You told him once, offhand, folding laundry and telling him the difference between cool and warm tones. It mattered in your world so now it matters in his, 

That’s how deep you are in him. Engraved in him. Woven into the fibers of his DNA like you found a way in through the scar tissue. 

“Y'about to come?” he asks, pressing particularly deep enough to make you flutter around him. He knows the answer. Still needs your voice to announce it. “Lemme hear you say it.” 

You do. Writhing and wrangling it from your lips. Messy and desperate. 

Nothing sounds better. 

“That's right,” he grunts, “Attagirl. There you go. Let it out.”

You need to be loud. 

Obscene. 

To eradicate what's all the way down inside you. To let the fear burn off your tongue. Give it somewhere else to live that’s not the hollows of your chest. Frank can shoulder it. 

For the both of you, he’ll shoulder it. 

His hand tightens around your neck, keeps you in place and so close you feel claimed. His praises tear out of him raw and dark. Good girl. That’s it. I got you. Ain’t going nowhere. 

He comes with his face buried into your shoulder, a sound dragged out of him. Surrender prettied up as a string of curses. 

Afterwards, he smokes up with you. 

That might be the most intimate part of it. 

This is a first. 

The two of you are tangled in sex-damp sheets. A window is cracked and the city noise drags itself inside. You’re surprised when Frank offers to join in your post-sex ritual. 

Even more surprised when he offers to roll. 

“You're it for me,” he says as he crushes a pretty purple indica between his fingers.

You're particular about your spliffs. About the pack. The twist. Not wasting anything because a motherfucker wanted to be cute about loose paper. But you don't make any fuss. You're stoked to smoke with him. 

“The ending, the beginning, all the shit in between.”

You want to blame the sex haze. You know better than to let your insecurities eat at you

like that. 

The hammer of this feeling has been cracking your stone for a while. You just didn't think either of you had the guts to say it out loud. 

There was a time where he told you it was you and him but that meant sex to you. Something frivolous. Something temporary with a clear exit. A door you could walk out of. 

This ain’t that anymore. 

“Yeah?” you ask. 

You sure about that?

He rolls the raw papers, twists the ends, and hands you the joint along with you neon pink lighter. 

“Yeah,” he says. 

Very sure. 

You light up, rolling the tip so the burn evens out. First hit is smooth. Ridiculously smooth. 

Like a Ferrari hitting 110 on an open road with no end in sight. Good pull. Not rolled too tightly, but not loose where you're wasting more than smoking. 

Exhaling a thick cloud, you pass him his marvelous creation. 

“That's fucking legit right there.”

Frank takes a drag like he's never missed a beat. Your smile must be so obnoxious right now.

“Wasted my high school years on grass. Poor -”

“Did you just call it grass?” you screech. “Hilarious. I'm fucking Willie Nelson.”

He takes takes the insult in stride, “This shit sent me straight to the military.”

Your turn to smoke. “How so?”

“Colleges won't accept a bumfuck stoner with no GPA to speak of. Marines will.” he says, leaning back against the headboard. “That's who they want. Directionless. Gives someone purpose. Belonging.”

“Is this the shit you want to talk about while high?” you ask. “Don’t ‘noid out on me and have a panic attack. Dank nowadays is stronger than the reggie of your time.”

Frank laughs. It’s genuine. Beautiful. Transforms his whole face for a second and you just want to keep it there. 

“Ask me something then.” he says. 

God, now you're on the spot. You pass him the joint. 

“Ok...Cupcakes or muffins?”

“Come on. Muffins.”

“Yuck!”

“Why would you ask me that shit if you were gonna judge my answer?”

“I dunno! I thought maybe you'd answer cupcake like every sane person on the planet. Then we could talk about preferences. Red Velvet – is it just a chocolate cake with dye in it? Something normal, but you had to go ahead and make things weird.”

“Muffins ain’t weird.” 

“What, you like bran?”

“Blueberry!” he says, offended. “Don't bullshit me. A blueberry muffin is in front of you right now, you're sayin’ no? Fuck outta here.”

You think it over. 

Frank can see the whites of your eyes turning a reddish tint. 

“I’d fuck a blueberry muffin up.”

He squints, not sure whether to hand you back the shared joint. “You high right now?”

“I'm flying through Andromeda on my unicorn named Peridot,” you say, “when you offered to smoke with me I pulled out the intergalactic shit. Matt Damon didn't grow potatoes on Mars. That's just stupid. He grew this.”

Frank looks down at the joint. Then to you. 

His body is buzzing too, snuggly-soft and heavy lidded in a way he’d deny under oath. He takes another drag anyway. “Whatever you say.”

You hop out of bed, grabbing your sweats and dragging them on without bothering with underwear. 

“Let’s go.” 

Frank doesn’t think twice. Whatever adventure you're up for at one in the morning, he kind of wants to be a part of. 

Where we goin?”

Turning in the door way, your smile is too bright for the hour. “There's gotta be someplace open where I can get a blueberry muffin.”

Frank stares at you for half a second.

Then he reaches for his jeans.

Because this is what love is now, apparently.

Hospital chairs. Burnt sienna sheets. Neon pink lighters. Applesauce. Flowers. Your ridiculous coffee order. One a.m. muffin runs.

All of it impossible.

All of it his.

[honeybeechestnut]

the concept of a heartfelt conversation during the deed... i'm in heaven

[saintcastiglione]

Couldn’t think of a more Frank way than to actually discuss feelings. 🤪

[honeybeechestnut]

happy birthday                             ──Benjamin Poindexter 

summary: it’s your birthday and Dex makes sure you start it the right way <3

content: mdni. fluff. smut. somno + dub con adjacent. consent is given, guys. fingering + oral (f receiving). dry humping. premature ejaculation. Dex being insecure :( could be ooc (pls lemme know). very much self-indulgence bc aug is my month ;P

wc: 1.9k

The morning sunlight slips through the curtains, cascading across the pearly white sheets draped over you.

Your shoulder rises and falls in a steady rhythm. Everything is still, save for the low hum of your aircon and the chirping of the early birds outside.

The man beside you stirs awake at the first ring of his alarm. 5:30 sharp. Batting the haze away, he turns it off and rolls over to his side, only to find you not stealing his side of the bed.

His instincts spike, eyes snapping wide as they sweep over the curve of your spine beneath the sheets. The bed feels too big and too cold without you all over him.

Why isn’t it working?

It doesn’t occur to your man that this is entirely his fault for secretly turning down the temperature last night, thinking you’d eventually worm your way into his arms.

Nope. It’s you.

The audacity of you, choosing your precious pale green bolster named Shrek over the perfectly good man lying right here, is absurd.

And it also dismantles his grand scheme for your special day.

Dex still can’t wrap his head around how you could get comfortable nuzzling up with that… thing.

It’s lumpy. Frayed threads stick out around the edges. A few yellowish spots scatter across the fabric, all of which he’s tried and failed to get rid of.

The stains stay.

So does Shrek.

Normally, Dex doesn’t hold it much against Shrek. He knows how important that thing is to you, considering it has been there through all the twists and turns of your life.

The evidence of your teething.

Your place of solace during your heartbreak.

The silent listener of your soft murmurs about the neighbor who seemed to know you a bit too well, and the labored breaths that followed your deepest thoughts about him.

Back when Dex was just a door away.

But today is your day.

You. His woman.

There’s a talent in you that he’s not sure you recognize in yourself. 

Your reassurance looks… effortless. You accept him as he is, whole and broken.

He’s never thought your warmth would feel that easy and familiar. Everyone leaves at some point when he’s too much to handle. He’s convinced you would too.

Is today gonna be the last time he has you in his arms?

When will his jokes stop echoing your laughter down the hallway?

Are the fingers through his hair or the sweet nothings whispered against his skin even real? 

He doesn’t know how to voice it. Or he doesn’t want to.

It’s not normal, right? Who in their right mind would ask his partner if this was make-believe, born merely from the need to be chosen beyond the pretense?

The quiet doubt keeps gnawing at him. Every time the doubt resurfaces, you prove him wrong without even realizing you’re doing it.

Since you came along, your comfort has slowly and steadily become his safety.

He wants to be that for you too. Whatever that takes.

So he does what he’s best at. Learns. Remembers. Makes sure he’s the first person you turn to when you need something.

He’s your man, right? A good man for you.

Today is another chance to make good on that. A celebration that he’s carefully orchestrated, determined to repay even a tenth of what you’ve given him.

And this plan doesn’t require a fucking Shrek imposter.

Dex reaches out, snaking his arms over your middle to drag your back against his chest. His other arm slips beneath your waist as his thigh slots between yours to force your hips upward.

Using the precision of someone who never misses, he successfully evicts your cuddle buddy from your sanctuary.

The pillow lands on the floor with a sad thud before your sneaky guy slips his hand beneath your slip. His palm is warm, splaying across your stomach as he presses closer, pulling a sleepy whine from you.

“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” he whispers behind your ear, nipping lightly at the sensitive spot that he’s learned by heart. His steady embrace guides your hips to grind down on his thigh as he trails kisses down your shoulder. “Mmm… you smell good.”

Slowly waking up, you shift lazily against him. Dex follows, always.

His hand glides down from your stomach to the bundle of nerves between your thighs, rubbing back and forth over the dampened cotton while the other forces your hips down against his thigh again.

A low moan spills out from your parted lips, the grumbled protest dying somewhere against the pillow. You tilt your head to one side, squinting at him over your shoulder. Half annoyed, half interested.

“What cha doing, pretty boy?”

His stomach flips, fingers still against your clothed clit for a quick second. Whether it’s the petname coaxing through your morning rasp or the way you look with your brow raised, his breathing just stops.

He feels like everything is reserved just for him. A perfect gift wrapped up in gooey eyes and bird-nest hair, waiting for him to open you up, when he’s supposed to be giving you one.

“It’s your day…” He leans forward to dot a soft kiss at the corner of your mouth. Then your cheek. Your temple. His nose buries into your hair, breathing you in while you lean back into him. “Wanna make y’feel good.”

“But I wanna go back t’sleep,” you hum despite the growing tension between you. “Come back in… an hour or something.”

Overheated, you shove the comforter to the end of the bed with your foot, accidentally giving the hungry man everything he needs.

The blast of cold air from the aircon hits you, magnifying his scorching touch as his fingers slip beneath the cotton, finding your wetness.

“Then sleep,” he says, his fingers working skillfully with his knees between your thighs. Up and down. Back and forth. “M’not doing anything.”

“You’re distracting me.” You squirm away, grabbing his wrist and shoving his slick fingers off you. Your eyes dart around. Something’s missing. “Hey, where’s my…” And you see it. “Why’s my baby on the floor?”

Ignoring you again, Dex crowds right back against you in a heartbeat, arms still wrap around you, thigh still slot between yours. The heat of him is unmistakable through his sweatpants as he presses against your curve.

“Fuck you mean your baby’s on the floor? What does that make me then?”

A rhetorical question. He’s your baby. Case closed.

“C’mon, sweets,” he continues, naughty palm finding your core once again. His fingers work a few tight circles around the swollen bud before sliding two deep back into your slick. “I’ll make you feel so good. Promise.”

“Dex–”

Your protest is cut off by one purposeful roll of his wrist. Dex knows exactly how much pressure you like, how to angle his fingers to hit the spot that makes your toes curl. And he uses every bit of that knowledge to his advantage.

Your muscles tense around his knuckles as the squelching sounds and murmured moans fill the quiet room. It’s messy and desperate. Lost in the haze, you’re not sure if it’s you or him. Probably both.

“Oh fuck…” he whines, grinding his hips forward to drive his growing bulk against your rear, long thick fingers pumping in and out with relentless accuracy. “That’s the spot, huh?”

You mewl, nodding frantically as your lower belly flutters in waves.

And how could he forget your girls? His other hand skims up, thumb ghosting around one peak, making it a trifecta.

“See? I can be good f’you, baby.” His breathing against the shell of your ear grows heavier, mingling with your shallow gasps.

He wants to bring you there. Eager to see your eyes roll back and hear the melodious break from your throat when you claim your birthday gift.

“Lemme take care of you,” he pleads. “Please say yes, baby. Please.”

“Oh God. Fine. Yes!” you gasp out, hips jerking at every curl and every thrust. All thoughts of going back to sleep and your emotional support pillow are out the window. “Whatever. Just don’t stop.”

“Thank you,” he pants, his wrist flicking faster, deeper, matching the unsteady rhythm of his hips against your ass. His grip on your chest tightens, fingernails digging into your sensitive skin bordering on painful. “Thank you, baby. Thank you. Fuck. Look at that. S’wet for me. You like that, huh?”

“Fuck yes! Like that.” You reach back, fingers sliding into his hair. Dex leans into you, his lips finding yours, slurring words curling with shuddering whimpers as your lower stomach tightens into a knot, pulsing hard against his knuckles. “Dex, I’m so close. Don’t stop.”

“I got you, baby,” he breathes, hungrily returning your kiss. His eyes stay fixed on your closed ones, devouring every expression he can pull out of you, which only feeds into his fire.

He’s right there with you also. In awe of the simple fact that you chose him again.

Over sleep, over the cold, over everything.

The coil snaps.

Dex groans into your mouth, his entire body locking up as stars explode in his eyes. His fingers twitch inside you, stumbling as you convulse, then the movement dies.

“Huh?” you blink, trying to make sense of the sudden halt as you’re right on edge. The damp patch soaking through the front of his sweatpants against your ass tells you everything.

Dex pulls back, realization dawning over him. His face, flushed with a mix of pure mortification and panic.

His grand plan, his perfect birthday gift, ruined because he couldn’t keep his shit together for another five minutes.

“Fuck– shit, baby, I’m sorry,” he stammers. “I didn’t– fuck, I didn’t mean to–”

“Dex, it’s fine.”

“No, it’s not,” he snaps. The anger pours at himself, but it feels like it’s heading your way. “No, baby. M’sorry. I didn’t mean to– Fuck it. M’fixing it. Fixing it right now.”

Before you can process the sudden loss of him, Dex scrambles down the mattress, hooking his hands over your thighs to pry your legs wide open.

“You don’t have to, baby,” you say breathlessly, betraying your unmistakable need that the both of you can feel when he peels off your panties.

He catches your hips instead of an answer. Moving like a man with a single purpose, he buries his face between your thighs without hesitation.

The sudden warmth of his mouth replacing the cold air surprises you, causing a loud, broken gasp from your throat. You instinctively tangle your fingers into his messy hair as the searing press of his tongue hits your puffy folds, taking you right back to the high.

He gazes up at you through his glassy lashes, fixating on your face with that same intense focus he only uses when he’s analyzing the weakness of his target. Only now he’s searching for the crack in your control.

“Please, come f’me, baby,” he grunts, doubling down with his fingers finding your spot once again. “Please, baby. I need– need it. Please.”

As you writhe under him, you realize he’s not stopping now. Not when the wet patch against his crotch is still sticking to his skin, a constant reminder that he’s fucked it up as he laps over you furiously.

It’s your birthday. It has to be perfect. The plan went off track a little, but as long as he can weave it back, his fractured thoughts won’t go spiralling.

He doesn’t care how long or how much it takes. He’s staying right here, between your thighs, completely under your command until you’re satisfied.

His girl is gonna have a fucking perfect day just as she is, and damn if anyone, including him, tries to take it from her.

! pics from pinterest

[saintcastiglione]

Well damn. She the birthday frfr

[saintcastiglione]

Sex pollen with Frank is coming up next.

Because apparently I’m stuck on 2020 tropes 😂

[saintcastiglione]

Let me know if yall want a tag. Tryna make it sweaty and feral 🤪

[saintcastiglione]

I don’t like that when I paste my text in tumblr, my shit gets reformatted

[saintcastiglione]

Sex pollen with Frank is coming up next.

Because apparently I’m stuck on 2020 tropes 😂

[saintcastiglione]

Love Got In Anyway

Summary: Frank Castle loves you. Plain and simple. 

Pairing: Frank Castle x Reader

Warnings: Language. Smut (riding, pronebone. The good stuff). Smoking Weed. Fluff?

A/N: Me writing soft Frank? Wild. This is a part of a loosely connected compilation of one-shots with the same reader from Big Brat Energy and Up Your Sleeve. No need to read other installments. It's nonlinear.

Frank never thought he’d feel this again. 

The very notion got shoveled under years ago. Packed down with dirt and left to rot with the rest of him that belonged to a world of before. It can’t happen, therefore it shouldn’t. Simple math. Even simpler to live and survive by. 

Emotions don’t stay six feet under just because Frank thinks he can scare 'em away.

They claw, they sneak, they grow roots.

It starts innocently.  Don’t it always? 

Starts with him knowing your coffee order. 

Not because he’s a romantic or some soft-bellied asshole with a notes app full of your favorite things. Frank learns it because he’s bad at apologies. Always has been. So when he’s fucked up royally, when he’s said some hurtful shit that’s sharp enough to fold your mouth shut…

He gets you the overpriced swanky iced whatever from the coffee shop with exposed brick. 

The one with seven different kinds of milk, but none of them are actually milk. The one ran by freaks with tri-colored hair and bad attitudes that make him uncomfortable. 

He does it anyway. For you. 

When he hands it over, you stare at the cup, then him. 

“Is this agave or vanilla?” 

He sounds like he’s swallowing glass when he says. “Agave.” 

“Macadamia nut mil-” 

“Yes.” 

You smile and accept the drink. 

Then you let him eat you out on your dining room table. Because he may not always have the right words, but can do wonders with his mouth on you. 

The coffee gets knocked over in the process. Pale brown liquid spreads under your mail, your keys you spent time curating, an old bill you still need to pay. Frank even cleans it up afterwards with his shirt open and mouth still wet from you. Doesn’t want your table getting sticky. 

That should scare him. And it does. 

But not enough. 

Because it grows like weeds in an unkempt yard. Before he knows it, he’s tangled in the thick of it and not fighting hard enough to get loose. 

Hazy morning light pushes through your barred kitchen windows. The black bars are crusted in a heavy layer of rust, heavy orange-brown scales clinging to the metal like barnacles to the keel of a ship. Despite all that, light still gets through. Past the bars, the rust, the dirty glass, and filters into your small kitchen. 

He notices it against his will. How the light finds you. 

Sitting at a table in shorts and a worn down shirt, you’re hunched over. Green construction paper and oil pastels are scattered around you. You’re practicing the art lesson you’ll teach your elementary kids later that week. 

Flowers, you tell him. Texture. Shapes. Color. Something simple enough for eight-year-olds to understand, but interesting enough where they won’t shove the pastels up their noses by minute eleven. 

“You think they’ll get bored?” 

Frank sits across from you with an open book in his hands. He’s not reading a damn word. 

“They’re eight,” he says. “They get bored of anything that’s not on a phone.” 

You throw a pastel at him. He catches it because why wouldn’t he. Rolls it back to you. 

You teach kids around the same age as Frank Jr. Back when he painted a Marine on the wall to protect the family. The thought ricochets off Frank, the words on his book becoming a blur. 

He wonders what his son would have been like now? If he’d still be artistic or would he have outgrown drawing marines. If the world would’ve taught him the world needed different kinds of protection. 

He wonders what his son was like back then, too. Which is an even worse thought. Touring made Frank come back to his family in vignettes. One minute Frank Jr can’t read. Next time Frank sees him, the kid's got a trophy for winning the spelling bee. 

A whole life of stories, lost between visits, and Frank only got scraps. 

“I can’t wait to see what Susie does with this,” you say. “Girl’s got a real point of view.” 

You tell him about your students like you don’t know what you’re giving him. 

The troublemakers. The teacher’s pets. How a kid tried to coerce another student to snort glitter in exchange for their chocolate milk at lunch. The girl who cries because she thinks mistakes mean she’s bad. A kid named Derek who has become a monster once he learned how to draw dicks. 

Frank asks questions sometimes. Not many, but enough. 

You don’t know how much it helps him to hear about them. How he can close his eyes and maybe imagine a world where his boy got to be eight. Nine. Ten. Where the worst thing in the world to happen to a kid was before lunchtime. Glitter extortion and glue-sticks. 

In a world where Frank mostly sees burnt sand and blown open bodies, you give him temporary sanity. 

So he sits in your kitchen, The Razor’s Edge open in his hands, and he listens to you talk about flowers. 

And the weeds grow more. Wilder. Ensnare him. 

His fate is sealed when you visit him in the hospital.

He’s ugly there. All black and blue and weak, hooked up to machines that keep tabs on him like his body isn’t as strong as he thought. He hates the beeping. And the stupid damn gown. Hates the nurse who brings him applesauce like he’s a fucking geriatric. 

He’s a grown man. Not something you’re supposed to see this way. 

It’s all over your face when you step into the room. Fear. Big and worried and trying so damn hard to be strong it could make him sick. He sees it. Sees the guilt waiting to be spoonfed to him. If you cry, he’ll swallow that too. Will have to live with the physical proof that he made himself matter to someone again. 

He ain’t worth the tears. 

“You finish it?” you ask, voice shaky but fighting. Trying to be strong. That's his girl. “Job's done?”

He can't even look at you when he nods. 

“Yeah.”

You exhale. Then nod like it’s answered some internal question of yours. 

“Cool,” you whisper. “Because you look like they rocked your shit sideways.”

He immediately regrets his laugh. His internal organs aren’t interested in your jokes. 

You stay every day he's holed in there. Call out sick just to keep him company. Sit in that awful chair with a spare hospital blanket. Eat his applesauce. You both watch the Price is Right at noon like two idiots with nothing better to do. 

One of the days, when he thinks you’re asleep, he watches you in that chair. Neck bent to hell, mitch-matched socks on display, one hand tucked under your cheek. Still with him. 

Fuck. It does something to him he doesn’t have the name for.

One day, Curtis comes by.

Frank sees the surprise pass over your face when Curtis introduces himself. He gives you a firm handshake, kind eyes, and a smile. 

You glance at Frank, asking for permission without saying it. Frank nods. You give a smile back. 

“I'm going to grab something from the vending machine,” you say, already finding the exit. “Nice meeting you.”

“Likewise,” Curtis says. 

Not a second after you’re gone, Curtis’ smile grows twenty times bigger. 

Frank groans. “Don’t.”

Too late.

“Someone special?”

“Mind your business.” 

Curtis sits in the visitor chair with every intention to pry. “I’ll take that as a yes.” 

Frank shifts against the pillows, irritated to death by the wires taped to his chest. He hates the warmth crawling up his neck. 

“Yeah.”

“Good, man.” Curtis softens. “Good. I'm glad to see it. You uh, you deserve something nice.”

He really doesn't know what to say. Never really does.  What should he say? Curtis is one of the few people left who knew him before. Knew Maria. Knew the kids. Knew the kinda man Frank used to be before grief gutted him. 

Everyone’s told him the same thing. To move on. Like grief is a train you can hop off at any exit. Like it’s not quicksand and the more you move, the deeper you’re in. 

Why has it taken Frank so long to think it’s possible? 

“She's all of the above,” Frank says finally. “Fucking scares me.”

Curtis laughs under his breath. “It should.”

Frank gives him a look. 

“What? It should.” Curtis leans back. “Don't screw it up.”

By the time he gets out of the hospital, he’s choked on the smell of the weeds growing. Sweet and cloying. Goddamn liar, they weren’t weeds at all, but a garden. Same kinda flowers you were planning art lessons over. He’s tangled in them none the less. 

“You're so good to me,” he mumbles one night. 

He's sure you can't hear him. 

You’re not paying attention to his dark little confessions. Not with your thighs locked around his waist, and your hands on his chest, riding him like you’ve decided the pace. The start, the finish, it all belongs to you. 

Frank lets you have it. Happily. 

Whatever you want. Whenever you want. However you want. 

“I’m all yours,” he says. 

That, you hear. Makes your hips falter. The pace breaks just a little. Frank reaches up to trace the pad of his thumb along the pillow of your bottom lip. You open your mouth to take his finger in. Warm. Wet. Fuck. You’re going to ride him into delirium.” 

“Make me scream, Frank,” you whine, voice breaking at the edges. Your thighs flex with every slippery roll of your hips. “I need it.”

“Okay,” he says. 

Too fast. Too honest. Too submissive.

“Okay.”

The mattress cries when he flips you over. You're moving instinctively, going to curve into a

proper arch, but that's not what Frank wants tonight. He pushes you flat, body riding the waves of the bed from the force of it. It ain’t enough to hurt, but it makes you gasp. 

He shifts your leg higher. As high as you can give it. He gets to take in a pretty view of you. Just for him.You don't shrivel beneath his hard stare. Don't shy away from the seconds that pass as he drinks it in. You let him look.

“You want that?” he asks, on his knees, he teases you. Gets the tip of his dick wet in you and he slides up and down. “Y'wanna scream for me?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Uh-huh,” he breathes back, mocking and soft. 

Then he presses inside you slowly. Disappearing little by little. Gasp after gasp. 

You're choking for his name when he bottoms out. It pulls long from your throat, a moan stretched to its limits all helpless and thin while he lets you tremble around every inch of him. His hand digs into your lower back, you’re already trying to take more, to go back to commandeering the pace, but it ain’t yours to drive anymore. 

.

“I hear ya, I hear ya,” he coos, leaning over you. 

He smothers himself against you. His chest covers your back and the weight grounds you there.

That’s what undoes you. The heat of him, him taking over your space. Proof that he’s here and solid and breathing and not going anywhere. 

Frank starts moving. Nice and nasty. Deep enough to take your wits and senses. Slow enough to make you feel every thrust. Real and rough enough that the bed complains beneath you. 

“Were you scared?” he grunts, kissing your shoulder. He wraps you up in his wide arms, props your head up as he asks his questions. Lips placed right against your ear.

All you know is pleasure. Down to your toes. Behind your eyelids. Coming in hot. “Wh-what?”

“At the hospital.” His breathing turns ragged and labored, but his stamina doesn’t break. Frank may fall apart emotionally, but can keep a rhythm like he’s got something to prove. “You worry about me?”

“That’s not fair.” 

“No,” he says, thrusting harder. “It ain’t.” 

You try to turn your face away, but he keeps you in place. Wrapped in his arms, his lips right at your ear. 

“Give me an answer.” 

You don’t know whether to love him or hate him for asking right now. 

There’s no room to lie when he’s fucking you this dumb. Can’t put on a brave face now. No place for the fear to hide when he’s made your whole body a confession. 

“Yes,” you cry. Loud. Exactly how he wants you. “Fuck, Frank, yes.”

There we go. The thing you held in. An ugly little terror that maybe he’d leave and you’d be left with nothing but a version of him you almost got to keep. That kinda fear has to go somewhere, Frank pops the cork. 

“I ain't leaving you,” he says, and the words come out rough. Bitten between thrusts. “I’m right here.” 

You give a satisfied noise. Light and feather soft against all that force. He knows you're not about to give full sentences and he doesn't need you to. The message is received.

Manicured nails dig at your burnt sienna colored sheets. He shouldn't know that's even a fucking color, but he does. You told him once, offhand, folding laundry and telling him the difference between cool and warm tones. It mattered in your world so now it matters in his, 

That’s how deep you are in him. Engraved in him. Woven into the fibers of his DNA like you found a way in through the scar tissue. 

“Y'about to come?” he asks, pressing particularly deep enough to make you flutter around him. He knows the answer. Still needs your voice to announce it. “Lemme hear you say it.” 

You do. Writhing and wrangling it from your lips. Messy and desperate. 

Nothing sounds better. 

“That's right,” he grunts, “Attagirl. There you go. Let it out.”

You need to be loud. 

Obscene. 

To eradicate what's all the way down inside you. To let the fear burn off your tongue. Give it somewhere else to live that’s not the hollows of your chest. Frank can shoulder it. 

For the both of you, he’ll shoulder it. 

His hand tightens around your neck, keeps you in place and so close you feel claimed. His praises tear out of him raw and dark. Good girl. That’s it. I got you. Ain’t going nowhere. 

He comes with his face buried into your shoulder, a sound dragged out of him. Surrender prettied up as a string of curses. 

Afterwards, he smokes up with you. 

That might be the most intimate part of it. 

This is a first. 

The two of you are tangled in sex-damp sheets. A window is cracked and the city noise drags itself inside. You’re surprised when Frank offers to join in your post-sex ritual. 

Even more surprised when he offers to roll. 

“You're it for me,” he says as he crushes a pretty purple indica between his fingers.

You're particular about your spliffs. About the pack. The twist. Not wasting anything because a motherfucker wanted to be cute about loose paper. But you don't make any fuss. You're stoked to smoke with him. 

“The ending, the beginning, all the shit in between.”

You want to blame the sex haze. You know better than to let your insecurities eat at you

like that. 

The hammer of this feeling has been cracking your stone for a while. You just didn't think either of you had the guts to say it out loud. 

There was a time where he told you it was you and him but that meant sex to you. Something frivolous. Something temporary with a clear exit. A door you could walk out of. 

This ain’t that anymore. 

“Yeah?” you ask. 

You sure about that?

He rolls the raw papers, twists the ends, and hands you the joint along with you neon pink lighter. 

“Yeah,” he says. 

Very sure. 

You light up, rolling the tip so the burn evens out. First hit is smooth. Ridiculously smooth. 

Like a Ferrari hitting 110 on an open road with no end in sight. Good pull. Not rolled too tightly, but not loose where you're wasting more than smoking. 

Exhaling a thick cloud, you pass him his marvelous creation. 

“That's fucking legit right there.”

Frank takes a drag like he's never missed a beat. Your smile must be so obnoxious right now.

“Wasted my high school years on grass. Poor -”

“Did you just call it grass?” you screech. “Hilarious. I'm fucking Willie Nelson.”

He takes takes the insult in stride, “This shit sent me straight to the military.”

Your turn to smoke. “How so?”

“Colleges won't accept a bumfuck stoner with no GPA to speak of. Marines will.” he says, leaning back against the headboard. “That's who they want. Directionless. Gives someone purpose. Belonging.”

“Is this the shit you want to talk about while high?” you ask. “Don’t ‘noid out on me and have a panic attack. Dank nowadays is stronger than the reggie of your time.”

Frank laughs. It’s genuine. Beautiful. Transforms his whole face for a second and you just want to keep it there. 

“Ask me something then.” he says. 

God, now you're on the spot. You pass him the joint. 

“Ok...Cupcakes or muffins?”

“Come on. Muffins.”

“Yuck!”

“Why would you ask me that shit if you were gonna judge my answer?”

“I dunno! I thought maybe you'd answer cupcake like every sane person on the planet. Then we could talk about preferences. Red Velvet – is it just a chocolate cake with dye in it? Something normal, but you had to go ahead and make things weird.”

“Muffins ain’t weird.” 

“What, you like bran?”

“Blueberry!” he says, offended. “Don't bullshit me. A blueberry muffin is in front of you right now, you're sayin’ no? Fuck outta here.”

You think it over. 

Frank can see the whites of your eyes turning a reddish tint. 

“I’d fuck a blueberry muffin up.”

He squints, not sure whether to hand you back the shared joint. “You high right now?”

“I'm flying through Andromeda on my unicorn named Peridot,” you say, “when you offered to smoke with me I pulled out the intergalactic shit. Matt Damon didn't grow potatoes on Mars. That's just stupid. He grew this.”

Frank looks down at the joint. Then to you. 

His body is buzzing too, snuggly-soft and heavy lidded in a way he’d deny under oath. He takes another drag anyway. “Whatever you say.”

You hop out of bed, grabbing your sweats and dragging them on without bothering with underwear. 

“Let’s go.” 

Frank doesn’t think twice. Whatever adventure you're up for at one in the morning, he kind of wants to be a part of. 

Where we goin?”

Turning in the door way, your smile is too bright for the hour. “There's gotta be someplace open where I can get a blueberry muffin.”

Frank stares at you for half a second.

Then he reaches for his jeans.

Because this is what love is now, apparently.

Hospital chairs. Burnt sienna sheets. Neon pink lighters. Applesauce. Flowers. Your ridiculous coffee order. One a.m. muffin runs.

All of it impossible.

All of it his.

[saintcastiglione]

Love Got In Anyway

Summary: Frank Castle loves you. Plain and simple. 

Pairing: Frank Castle x Reader

Warnings: Language. Smut (riding, pronebone. The good stuff). Smoking Weed. Fluff?

A/N: Me writing soft Frank? Wild. This is a part of a loosely connected compilation of one-shots with the same reader from Big Brat Energy and Up Your Sleeve. No need to read other installments. It's nonlinear.

Frank never thought he’d feel this again. 

The very notion got shoveled under years ago. Packed down with dirt and left to rot with the rest of him that belonged to a world of before. It can’t happen, therefore it shouldn’t. Simple math. Even simpler to live and survive by. 

Emotions don’t stay six feet under just because Frank thinks he can scare 'em away.

They claw, they sneak, they grow roots.

It starts innocently.  Don’t it always? 

Starts with him knowing your coffee order. 

Not because he’s a romantic or some soft-bellied asshole with a notes app full of your favorite things. Frank learns it because he’s bad at apologies. Always has been. So when he’s fucked up royally, when he’s said some hurtful shit that’s sharp enough to fold your mouth shut…

He gets you the overpriced swanky iced whatever from the coffee shop with exposed brick. 

The one with seven different kinds of milk, but none of them are actually milk. The one ran by freaks with tri-colored hair and bad attitudes that make him uncomfortable. 

He does it anyway. For you. 

When he hands it over, you stare at the cup, then him. 

“Is this agave or vanilla?” 

He sounds like he’s swallowing glass when he says. “Agave.” 

“Macadamia nut mil-” 

“Yes.” 

You smile and accept the drink. 

Then you let him eat you out on your dining room table. Because he may not always have the right words, but can do wonders with his mouth on you. 

The coffee gets knocked over in the process. Pale brown liquid spreads under your mail, your keys you spent time curating, an old bill you still need to pay. Frank even cleans it up afterwards with his shirt open and mouth still wet from you. Doesn’t want your table getting sticky. 

That should scare him. And it does. 

But not enough. 

Because it grows like weeds in an unkempt yard. Before he knows it, he’s tangled in the thick of it and not fighting hard enough to get loose. 

Hazy morning light pushes through your barred kitchen windows. The black bars are crusted in a heavy layer of rust, heavy orange-brown scales clinging to the metal like barnacles to the keel of a ship. Despite all that, light still gets through. Past the bars, the rust, the dirty glass, and filters into your small kitchen. 

He notices it against his will. How the light finds you. 

Sitting at a table in shorts and a worn down shirt, you’re hunched over. Green construction paper and oil pastels are scattered around you. You’re practicing the art lesson you’ll teach your elementary kids later that week. 

Flowers, you tell him. Texture. Shapes. Color. Something simple enough for eight-year-olds to understand, but interesting enough where they won’t shove the pastels up their noses by minute eleven. 

“You think they’ll get bored?” 

Frank sits across from you with an open book in his hands. He’s not reading a damn word. 

“They’re eight,” he says. “They get bored of anything that’s not on a phone.” 

You throw a pastel at him. He catches it because why wouldn’t he. Rolls it back to you. 

You teach kids around the same age as Frank Jr. Back when he painted a Marine on the wall to protect the family. The thought ricochets off Frank, the words on his book becoming a blur. 

He wonders what his son would have been like now? If he’d still be artistic or would he have outgrown drawing marines. If the world would’ve taught him the world needed different kinds of protection. 

He wonders what his son was like back then, too. Which is an even worse thought. Touring made Frank come back to his family in vignettes. One minute Frank Jr can’t read. Next time Frank sees him, the kid's got a trophy for winning the spelling bee. 

A whole life of stories, lost between visits, and Frank only got scraps. 

“I can’t wait to see what Susie does with this,” you say. “Girl’s got a real point of view.” 

You tell him about your students like you don’t know what you’re giving him. 

The troublemakers. The teacher’s pets. How a kid tried to coerce another student to snort glitter in exchange for their chocolate milk at lunch. The girl who cries because she thinks mistakes mean she’s bad. A kid named Derek who has become a monster once he learned how to draw dicks. 

Frank asks questions sometimes. Not many, but enough. 

You don’t know how much it helps him to hear about them. How he can close his eyes and maybe imagine a world where his boy got to be eight. Nine. Ten. Where the worst thing in the world to happen to a kid was before lunchtime. Glitter extortion and glue-sticks. 

In a world where Frank mostly sees burnt sand and blown open bodies, you give him temporary sanity. 

So he sits in your kitchen, The Razor’s Edge open in his hands, and he listens to you talk about flowers. 

And the weeds grow more. Wilder. Ensnare him. 

His fate is sealed when you visit him in the hospital.

He’s ugly there. All black and blue and weak, hooked up to machines that keep tabs on him like his body isn’t as strong as he thought. He hates the beeping. And the stupid damn gown. Hates the nurse who brings him applesauce like he’s a fucking geriatric. 

He’s a grown man. Not something you’re supposed to see this way. 

It’s all over your face when you step into the room. Fear. Big and worried and trying so damn hard to be strong it could make him sick. He sees it. Sees the guilt waiting to be spoonfed to him. If you cry, he’ll swallow that too. Will have to live with the physical proof that he made himself matter to someone again. 

He ain’t worth the tears. 

“You finish it?” you ask, voice shaky but fighting. Trying to be strong. That's his girl. “Job's done?”

He can't even look at you when he nods. 

“Yeah.”

You exhale. Then nod like it’s answered some internal question of yours. 

“Cool,” you whisper. “Because you look like they rocked your shit sideways.”

He immediately regrets his laugh. His internal organs aren’t interested in your jokes. 

You stay every day he's holed in there. Call out sick just to keep him company. Sit in that awful chair with a spare hospital blanket. Eat his applesauce. You both watch the Price is Right at noon like two idiots with nothing better to do. 

One of the days, when he thinks you’re asleep, he watches you in that chair. Neck bent to hell, mitch-matched socks on display, one hand tucked under your cheek. Still with him. 

Fuck. It does something to him he doesn’t have the name for.

One day, Curtis comes by.

Frank sees the surprise pass over your face when Curtis introduces himself. He gives you a firm handshake, kind eyes, and a smile. 

You glance at Frank, asking for permission without saying it. Frank nods. You give a smile back. 

“I'm going to grab something from the vending machine,” you say, already finding the exit. “Nice meeting you.”

“Likewise,” Curtis says. 

Not a second after you’re gone, Curtis’ smile grows twenty times bigger. 

Frank groans. “Don’t.”

Too late.

“Someone special?”

“Mind your business.” 

Curtis sits in the visitor chair with every intention to pry. “I’ll take that as a yes.” 

Frank shifts against the pillows, irritated to death by the wires taped to his chest. He hates the warmth crawling up his neck. 

“Yeah.”

“Good, man.” Curtis softens. “Good. I'm glad to see it. You uh, you deserve something nice.”

He really doesn't know what to say. Never really does.  What should he say? Curtis is one of the few people left who knew him before. Knew Maria. Knew the kids. Knew the kinda man Frank used to be before grief gutted him. 

Everyone’s told him the same thing. To move on. Like grief is a train you can hop off at any exit. Like it’s not quicksand and the more you move, the deeper you’re in. 

Why has it taken Frank so long to think it’s possible? 

“She's all of the above,” Frank says finally. “Fucking scares me.”

Curtis laughs under his breath. “It should.”

Frank gives him a look. 

“What? It should.” Curtis leans back. “Don't screw it up.”

By the time he gets out of the hospital, he’s choked on the smell of the weeds growing. Sweet and cloying. Goddamn liar, they weren’t weeds at all, but a garden. Same kinda flowers you were planning art lessons over. He’s tangled in them none the less. 

“You're so good to me,” he mumbles one night. 

He's sure you can't hear him. 

You’re not paying attention to his dark little confessions. Not with your thighs locked around his waist, and your hands on his chest, riding him like you’ve decided the pace. The start, the finish, it all belongs to you. 

Frank lets you have it. Happily. 

Whatever you want. Whenever you want. However you want. 

“I’m all yours,” he says. 

That, you hear. Makes your hips falter. The pace breaks just a little. Frank reaches up to trace the pad of his thumb along the pillow of your bottom lip. You open your mouth to take his finger in. Warm. Wet. Fuck. You’re going to ride him into delirium.” 

“Make me scream, Frank,” you whine, voice breaking at the edges. Your thighs flex with every slippery roll of your hips. “I need it.”

“Okay,” he says. 

Too fast. Too honest. Too submissive.

“Okay.”

The mattress cries when he flips you over. You're moving instinctively, going to curve into a

proper arch, but that's not what Frank wants tonight. He pushes you flat, body riding the waves of the bed from the force of it. It ain’t enough to hurt, but it makes you gasp. 

He shifts your leg higher. As high as you can give it. He gets to take in a pretty view of you. Just for him.You don't shrivel beneath his hard stare. Don't shy away from the seconds that pass as he drinks it in. You let him look.

“You want that?” he asks, on his knees, he teases you. Gets the tip of his dick wet in you and he slides up and down. “Y'wanna scream for me?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Uh-huh,” he breathes back, mocking and soft. 

Then he presses inside you slowly. Disappearing little by little. Gasp after gasp. 

You're choking for his name when he bottoms out. It pulls long from your throat, a moan stretched to its limits all helpless and thin while he lets you tremble around every inch of him. His hand digs into your lower back, you’re already trying to take more, to go back to commandeering the pace, but it ain’t yours to drive anymore. 

.

“I hear ya, I hear ya,” he coos, leaning over you. 

He smothers himself against you. His chest covers your back and the weight grounds you there.

That’s what undoes you. The heat of him, him taking over your space. Proof that he’s here and solid and breathing and not going anywhere. 

Frank starts moving. Nice and nasty. Deep enough to take your wits and senses. Slow enough to make you feel every thrust. Real and rough enough that the bed complains beneath you. 

“Were you scared?” he grunts, kissing your shoulder. He wraps you up in his wide arms, props your head up as he asks his questions. Lips placed right against your ear.

All you know is pleasure. Down to your toes. Behind your eyelids. Coming in hot. “Wh-what?”

“At the hospital.” His breathing turns ragged and labored, but his stamina doesn’t break. Frank may fall apart emotionally, but can keep a rhythm like he’s got something to prove. “You worry about me?”

“That’s not fair.” 

“No,” he says, thrusting harder. “It ain’t.” 

You try to turn your face away, but he keeps you in place. Wrapped in his arms, his lips right at your ear. 

“Give me an answer.” 

You don’t know whether to love him or hate him for asking right now. 

There’s no room to lie when he’s fucking you this dumb. Can’t put on a brave face now. No place for the fear to hide when he’s made your whole body a confession. 

“Yes,” you cry. Loud. Exactly how he wants you. “Fuck, Frank, yes.”

There we go. The thing you held in. An ugly little terror that maybe he’d leave and you’d be left with nothing but a version of him you almost got to keep. That kinda fear has to go somewhere, Frank pops the cork. 

“I ain't leaving you,” he says, and the words come out rough. Bitten between thrusts. “I’m right here.” 

You give a satisfied noise. Light and feather soft against all that force. He knows you're not about to give full sentences and he doesn't need you to. The message is received.

Manicured nails dig at your burnt sienna colored sheets. He shouldn't know that's even a fucking color, but he does. You told him once, offhand, folding laundry and telling him the difference between cool and warm tones. It mattered in your world so now it matters in his, 

That’s how deep you are in him. Engraved in him. Woven into the fibers of his DNA like you found a way in through the scar tissue. 

“Y'about to come?” he asks, pressing particularly deep enough to make you flutter around him. He knows the answer. Still needs your voice to announce it. “Lemme hear you say it.” 

You do. Writhing and wrangling it from your lips. Messy and desperate. 

Nothing sounds better. 

“That's right,” he grunts, “Attagirl. There you go. Let it out.”

You need to be loud. 

Obscene. 

To eradicate what's all the way down inside you. To let the fear burn off your tongue. Give it somewhere else to live that’s not the hollows of your chest. Frank can shoulder it. 

For the both of you, he’ll shoulder it. 

His hand tightens around your neck, keeps you in place and so close you feel claimed. His praises tear out of him raw and dark. Good girl. That’s it. I got you. Ain’t going nowhere. 

He comes with his face buried into your shoulder, a sound dragged out of him. Surrender prettied up as a string of curses. 

Afterwards, he smokes up with you. 

That might be the most intimate part of it. 

This is a first. 

The two of you are tangled in sex-damp sheets. A window is cracked and the city noise drags itself inside. You’re surprised when Frank offers to join in your post-sex ritual. 

Even more surprised when he offers to roll. 

“You're it for me,” he says as he crushes a pretty purple indica between his fingers.

You're particular about your spliffs. About the pack. The twist. Not wasting anything because a motherfucker wanted to be cute about loose paper. But you don't make any fuss. You're stoked to smoke with him. 

“The ending, the beginning, all the shit in between.”

You want to blame the sex haze. You know better than to let your insecurities eat at you

like that. 

The hammer of this feeling has been cracking your stone for a while. You just didn't think either of you had the guts to say it out loud. 

There was a time where he told you it was you and him but that meant sex to you. Something frivolous. Something temporary with a clear exit. A door you could walk out of. 

This ain’t that anymore. 

“Yeah?” you ask. 

You sure about that?

He rolls the raw papers, twists the ends, and hands you the joint along with you neon pink lighter. 

“Yeah,” he says. 

Very sure. 

You light up, rolling the tip so the burn evens out. First hit is smooth. Ridiculously smooth. 

Like a Ferrari hitting 110 on an open road with no end in sight. Good pull. Not rolled too tightly, but not loose where you're wasting more than smoking. 

Exhaling a thick cloud, you pass him his marvelous creation. 

“That's fucking legit right there.”

Frank takes a drag like he's never missed a beat. Your smile must be so obnoxious right now.

“Wasted my high school years on grass. Poor -”

“Did you just call it grass?” you screech. “Hilarious. I'm fucking Willie Nelson.”

He takes takes the insult in stride, “This shit sent me straight to the military.”

Your turn to smoke. “How so?”

“Colleges won't accept a bumfuck stoner with no GPA to speak of. Marines will.” he says, leaning back against the headboard. “That's who they want. Directionless. Gives someone purpose. Belonging.”

“Is this the shit you want to talk about while high?” you ask. “Don’t ‘noid out on me and have a panic attack. Dank nowadays is stronger than the reggie of your time.”

Frank laughs. It’s genuine. Beautiful. Transforms his whole face for a second and you just want to keep it there. 

“Ask me something then.” he says. 

God, now you're on the spot. You pass him the joint. 

“Ok...Cupcakes or muffins?”

“Come on. Muffins.”

“Yuck!”

“Why would you ask me that shit if you were gonna judge my answer?”

“I dunno! I thought maybe you'd answer cupcake like every sane person on the planet. Then we could talk about preferences. Red Velvet – is it just a chocolate cake with dye in it? Something normal, but you had to go ahead and make things weird.”

“Muffins ain’t weird.” 

“What, you like bran?”

“Blueberry!” he says, offended. “Don't bullshit me. A blueberry muffin is in front of you right now, you're sayin’ no? Fuck outta here.”

You think it over. 

Frank can see the whites of your eyes turning a reddish tint. 

“I’d fuck a blueberry muffin up.”

He squints, not sure whether to hand you back the shared joint. “You high right now?”

“I'm flying through Andromeda on my unicorn named Peridot,” you say, “when you offered to smoke with me I pulled out the intergalactic shit. Matt Damon didn't grow potatoes on Mars. That's just stupid. He grew this.”

Frank looks down at the joint. Then to you. 

His body is buzzing too, snuggly-soft and heavy lidded in a way he’d deny under oath. He takes another drag anyway. “Whatever you say.”

You hop out of bed, grabbing your sweats and dragging them on without bothering with underwear. 

“Let’s go.” 

Frank doesn’t think twice. Whatever adventure you're up for at one in the morning, he kind of wants to be a part of. 

Where we goin?”

Turning in the door way, your smile is too bright for the hour. “There's gotta be someplace open where I can get a blueberry muffin.”

Frank stares at you for half a second.

Then he reaches for his jeans.

Because this is what love is now, apparently.

Hospital chairs. Burnt sienna sheets. Neon pink lighters. Applesauce. Flowers. Your ridiculous coffee order. One a.m. muffin runs.

All of it impossible.

All of it his.

[hellilovedit]

Apologies I Won’t Make 

Boyfriend!Shane Walsh x Girlfriend!Reader

Summary: A fight between you and Shane this morning left him needing you to be wrong. Funny thing about Shane when it comes to you…? He says one thing, but means another. He hates to admit it—and he won’t—but you’re right. 

Warnings: pre-apocalypse, asshole!Shane, very misogynistic Shane, sexist!Shane (if any of these even remotely trigger you, don’t read. I ain’t gonna fuckin’ hear it), Shane & Rick chattin’ shit, Shane’s down bad for you but it ain’t like he’s gonna show it well, slightly toxic relationship obvi, not proofread I’m so eepy

a/n: first time writing Shane help I’m scared and turned on and then I got tired and lost steam at the end so I’m sorry

w/c: ~2800

“I think we oughta be able ta bop women,” Shane muses, using both hands to smash his burger down. “Jus’-jus’ once. Not hard, y’know, not hittin’ ‘em by any means. I ain’t heartless. Jus’ a lil—“ Bop. A stiff flick of his backhand. “Get ‘em back in line. Used ta teach ‘em real quick ‘n real good back in the day. Ain’t hurtin’ ‘em or nuthin’, jus’ stop that mehmehmehmeh shit they get on.”

“She heard you say that, she’d slap your ass t’next Sunday.” Burger in hand, other arm draped over the wheel of the parked cruiser, Rick shakes his head. Looks out the window. “What’d she do now?” he asks, knowing damn well you aren’t the issue. “She leave the lights on again or change the thermostat?” 

Shane doesn’t need Rick to agree to anything. Shane’s always right and he knows it.

“On my ass soon as I get up, soon as I get home.” In mockery of yours, Shane’s voice pitches shrill. “You don’t ‘ppreciate anythin’ I do ‘round here, Shane Keith. You hear that shit? Usin’ my goddamn middle name. Goin’ on ‘bout sayin’ please, ‘n thanks, all that bullshit fer washin’ some damn socks ‘n makin’ sumthin’ halfway edible ta eat.” 

“A little please and a little thanks goes a long way with ‘em, Shane.” Rick flicks a glance over, bored in the repetitive honesty. “Try it some time. Might keep ‘er ‘round longer than a few months, do you some good.” 

Eyes narrowing on the windshield, Shane’s mouth hangs open for a few seconds. “Lemme ask you sumthin’, Rick. Ya say please, ya say thanks, throwin’ that shit out like confetti— tell me what happens the minute you stop, huh? Yer gonna get an ass full’a the mehmehmehmeh shit. Know what, I bet you like it, don’t’cha?”

Brow quirked, Rick blindly grabs a fry from the wrapper in his lap, looking at Shane. “…Like what?” 

“Goin’ home ‘n gettin’ yer balls busted by Lori. Listenin’ to her mehmehmeh over nuthin‘.” 

“Mine don’t get busted,” Rick gives another pointed look. “‘Cuz I use my manners, which I don’t believe you’ve heard of. Say please, say thanks, all’s good in the world. Simple.” 

“Bah,” Shane waves him off. Takes a gluttonous bite of his burger. Chews a bit before he pushes it to his cheek to keep on bitching. “I done tol’ her ‘f I come home ‘n she’s got more’a that fuckin’ tuna noodle casserole? I’m kickin’ ‘er ass to the curb. Put a damn gun in m’mouth ‘f I gotta eat more’a that shit.” 

Now Rick laughs, a genuine bubble he can’t help. 

“Shit ain’t funny, man! Tryna poison me with that nasty ass bullshit. Jesus, tha’s shit they conjure up in the pen. Who the fuck puts peas ‘n canned tuna in the oven ‘n thinks tha’s right? Feedin’ me worse than a damn convict, hell.” Ketchup oozes over the top of the sauce cup, Shane plunging a handful of fries in it.  

“You come home ‘n she’s got tuna noodle casserole waitin’ on you?” Rick points his burger at Shane. “I suggest you say thank you ‘n can I please have more?” 

“More like please throw this shit outside, ‘n thanks fer tryna kill me.”

Laughter subduing, Rick only seems to be able to shake his head, lips quirked with inevitable amusement in another man’s stupidity. 

Elbow on the console, Shane leans over to dissect the scheme of the dreaded tuna noodle. “Stray cats don’t even touch it. What’s that tell you?”

Face as cool as can be, Rick raises his brows. “Tells me maybe she really does wanna kill yer ass and in court? I’m on her side.” 

“Shiiit. Fuck y’all, man.” 

Thought ‘bout you all goddamn day. Georgia heat pissin’ him off, takin’ that bad mood to a boil. 

Your face earlier. That stupid sad look you’ve managed to weaponize while you stood at the sink, lips twisted tight, eyes on the facet. Just barely holdin’ it together. ”You never appreciate anything I do around here, Shane Keith,” you gritted. “You’re a real asshole, you know that? Ungrateful. Rude. I’m not asking you for much. Just a please and thanks once in a while. Something nice instead of gettin’ bitched at sun up to sun down. Everything I do’s wrong according to you.” 

Thought ‘bout his response too. Or… lack of one, maybe. 

“You don’t like this shit, sweetheart?” he’d chided. “I ain’t good ‘nough fer you? You know where the door is. Use them pretty lil’ fingers ‘n walk on out ‘f that suits you better.” 

You got the last word in. Struck the fear of god in him good. 

“Maybe I will,” you’d said.

Three words. That’s all. 

And by God if you didn’t sound dead serious. 

Grocery store’s always a little different late at night. Eleven o’clock, just a few strays in the aisles with red-rimmed eyes and dirty clothes. Always smells like cool produce and cold fried chicken from the deli they’ll sell again tomorrow. 

Shoulders rounded from a long day, longer shift, Shane trudges up and down the aisles with a thumb hooked in his belt. Badge and holster jingles, that usual cocky, authoritative swagger to his booted steps. Blowing a staggered, attempted casual breath through his teeth, Shane parks himself in front of the candy. 

Candy. You like chocolate. He can do chocolate. Shit’s easy. So he grabs a mid-tier bag he’s seen you with before, little thing you tuck into the pantry as if he’ll eat it all first. 

…Thennn his eyes drift up. 

Higher priced shit, tastes all the same, he knows that. Individually wrapped bullshit, like that makes it fancier. 

A debate happens in his head, eyes still with a mental assessment. 

Spend stupid money, get stupid prizes. 

Brownie points with you ain’t all that stupid, though. 

With an exaggerated sigh, he yanks off a bag of the fancy shit. Assorted dark chocolates. The kinda stuff you’ll eat with a good bottle of wine after a tough day. Maybe even a night like tonight, after Shane gave you hell this morning. 

If you’re still there. 

Next stop’s the fridge. Pulling the door open, air spills out in a frost around his broad, uniformed shoulders. Grabs a half gallon of chocolate milk. Again—one of your favorites. You ain’t a hard woman to please. 

He’s stalling now, wandering the rows of prepackaged crap. The more he ain’t home, the less he’s gotta kiss ass. 

Next to pile into the crook of his arm is a box of shells and cheese. Not the powder kind. You only like the liquid gold kind. 

To the liquor section, he passes the flowers. Bouquets bright enough to blind a man. Being summoned to consider them—gettin’ you some goddamn flowers—he falters a step. Half a second contemplation makes his skin crawl. “Aw, hell,” he curses the thought. 

Damn near shudders at the idea, and it’s enough to get his ass in gear. Up and outta there, away from those flowers. 

What he will do, though? Yeah. That bottle of sweet, sparkly more-juice-than-wine you drink. Few glasses of that and he should be off the hook. 

The front door of the apartment clicks shut behind Shane. 

Silence follows. 

Empty silence. Darkness with it. Not a light on anywhere to indicate you’re home waitin’. 

No patterin’ of your feet when the door locks. 

No callin’ out his name with a sweet hello. 

Don’t even smell like tuna noodle casserole. That’d normally be a good sign. But tonight it smells vacant. Like nothin’s been touched. Like a big, well-earned: fuck you, Shane. 

Makes his gut pull, knot up all wrong.  He’d meant it, what he said earlier. 

…to a degree. 

Didn’t think you’d actually take the bait. 

Plastic bag in tow, Shane cranes his head, grits his jaw, and storms in for the kitchen ‘cause of course you had to make this a big deal, of course you—

Of course you’re… there? 

Perched at the table, bottle of wine a quarter from gone, fancy ass glass in front of you. 

In the dark, mind you. Just one lone candle—apple spice—lit beside you. 

Lookin’ every bit like a fresh drink of water in his old King County Sheriff’s shirt and maybe… just maybe like you don’t hate him yet. 

Boots thudding to a stop across the room, you blink from a trance and look at him with a wine-blank expression. Kinda face you make after a few drinks and you’re gonna chew him out nicely. 

And by god, he looks right back. Bottom lip tucked into his mouth, eyes squinted. You don’t speak first. Fine. 

“Girl, whatchu doin’ sittin’ in the dark for?” he asks. “Can turn a light on—one—don’t need the whole damn thing lit up like it’s fuckin’ Christmas.” 

Eyes on your glass, you shrug a little thing. Pushing it by the stem, a slow breath deflates your shoulders; some internal valve depressurizing. “I thought about not coming back. After work today. Thought about calling off, grabbing my things, and leaving the key on the counter.” 

Shane nods along, tongue raking over his teeth as he plays cool. “Mhm. Then?” 

“Then… I dunno,” you say with a breathy laugh, but it’s far from humored. “Felt like giving you one more chance, maybe. Seeing what you do with it. For how long.” 

Shane’s dealt with this time and time again. Nothin’ knew there. 

What is new, though, is the squeeze in his ribs. Some internal mechanism telling him this is the only time he ever gave a shit about. You, the only person, he’s ever given a shit about coming or going. 

When Shane doesn’t answer, your eyes drift to the bag. You dip a nod at it. “What’s that?” 

He follows your gaze to it. Feels real stupid now. This bag, the shit in it. Weighs more than it should. Costed more than it should. Drawing a steeling breath through his nose, he walks the rest of the way over. Setting the bag in front of you, his other hand plants on the back of your chair. Caging you, without really restraining, he dominates the space you’re in with his body. 

“…What is this, Shane? Seriously.” A confused flit of your lashes has you leaning back, hands hovering the white bag. The THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING print obscuring the contents. 

“Thinkin’ ‘bout you t’day,” he admits with flat honesty, no real indication of the faint pang in his chest. “S’all.” 

Could be good, bad. His tone doesn’t let on to much. 

His hand finds the top of your head. Gives a little affectionate ruffle of your hair before stilling, staying there. 

Your eyes meet. 

His, exhausted from the bullshit day, rough edges softened in the slightest. 

Yours, wary to get your hopes up, but you do anyway. 

He nods at the bag: your signal. 

Brows furrowed, you scoot the wine glass aside. One by one, you reach in. Plastic rustles. Glass clinks. You find the chocolate milk first and huff a laugh before you even get it out of the bag. 

“Generous,” you tease. 

“Ain’t nothin’ too good fer my girl,” he teases back. 

But the humor fades away as you keep going. Chocolate milk. Mac and cheese. Chocolates—like, the good kind. The kind for holidays and birthdays good. Wine. 

Hands wedged in your lap, you study the assortment in front of you with a tilted head and wrinkled brows. “…Shane… What’s all this for? I don’t get it.” 

“Milk’s meant fer drinkin’, ya eat the mac—”

Your swat to his stomach gets him to stop, but your eyes stay trained on the haul. “Be serious.” 

Shane shifts his weight. His hand, too. It falls to the nape of your neck, holding you in place. A gentle rock of his hand sways your body, summons you to look up at him. ”Now looky here, darlin’. You listenin’?” he asks, tongue peeking between his lips as he studies you for compliance. 

Skeptical, but listening, you nod. 

“Good. Listen real close, only gonna say this once, hm? I don’t got time ta go ‘round givin’ you constant praise fer all the shit you do. It ain’t gonna work like that.” 

Shane reads it all over your face: what the fuck is this spiel? 

A little patronizing, a little affectionate, Shane dips his head to be in your face. “Listen up ‘n you listen good, alright? You listenin’ ta me?” 

“Yes, I’m listenin’. Let’s hear it.” 

Mouth open, tongue frozen while forming the words, the corner of his mouth twitches up in a disbelieving smirk ‘cause he can’t even believe the shit he’s about to say. 

You wait, the patience of a saint, eyes noting every bit of hesitancy in his face. 

“…‘ppreciate ‘chu. All the shit ya do. ‘Kay? We clear on that?”  

Spine straightening under his hand—his bit of praise—you sit an inch taller and your cheeks go taut with a stifled smile. 

“Thanks fer not makin’ that vile casserole, ‘n please, Lord, baby, have mercy, stop bustin’ my balls. They can’t take much more. Alright? We clear?” 

When Shane looks back down at you, goddamn you glow. Ain’t fair, lookin’ so cute and knowing after he just poured out his heart and soul like that. 

“…Did you just apologize to me?” you ask, so delighted it’s evil, he swears. 

“Girl, ain’t nuthin’ I gotta apologize for!” 

“Oh my god, you so did!” 

“You better shut yer damn mouth ‘fore I take all this shit back. Don’t think I won’t. Store’s still open.” 

“You wouldn’t dare,” you say, clambering up to your knees in the chair. 

Your arms swing around his neck, your chest smooshing into his. He can feel the warm swell of your tits through his uniform, putting that impish glint in his eyes right quick. 

“Don’t try me, darlin’,” he warns, big hands snaking around your hips, twining around your back. And lower, one inch at a time, until they rest over the plush of your ass. He grabs greedy fistfuls of your ass, pushing your hips into his. “C’mon now, kiss yer man, huh? Lemme make it right. Lemme make it up to ya.” 

Grin splitting your face, you hum as his hands work so desperately at your ass, waist, back. Anywhere he can possess, he does, burying his face in the crook of your neck to latch mean, hot kisses against the sensitive skin. “Mmm, off to a good start. I’d like to finish this in the bath, though. With the wine. And the chocolate.” 

“Bath—?” He pops off your neck, lips slick with saliva. “Girl, how the hell you think we’re both gonna fit in the damn bath?” 

All misleading innocence, you blink up at him and scoff. “Well I’m gonna be on top of you, of course.” 

“Shit,” he huffs, hooking his hands behind your thighs to lift you up, lock you around his front so he can rut his cock against you. “Naw, we gonna shower, baby. Fuck you good, jus’ like this.” 

Ankles crossed, heels in his back, you perch in his arms to shove your tits closer to his face. “Fine, but I’m still bringing the wine. And the chocolate.” 

“Mhm,” as he nudges sloppy kisses over your collarbone, sucking skin into his mouth to bruise. “Better get yer shit,” he mumbles against your skin, taking a step to trail off. “Runnin’ outta patience.”

You fumble back. One hand snags the bottle, the other gets the chocolate before it’s just out of reach. 

But Shane doesn’t go for the bathroom. Carrying you like an attachment, he goes for the for the fridge. 

“What’re you doing?” you ask, staring over his shoulder with a longing for the shower. 

“Baby, Christ sake, I worked all damn day. I’m hungry.” 

“I got leftover tun—”

“Girl, don’t.” 

“Oh, stop.” Wriggling out of his arms, you discard your goodies to the counter and wave him off. “Go. Go on. Take my shit and go get in the shower, I’ll make you a damn sandwich, you bastard.” 

“D’aww… sweetheart. I ever tell I  ‘ppreciate you?” 

Omg I’m exhausted after this? LOL. The biggest thank you to @gradysbaby for looking over my opening lines and making sure it sounded Shane-enough! My Shane queen 🥹🩷

I don’t have tag list for Shane bc idk if anyone in my Frank tags gonna be triggered by him, so tags for Shane are open for 18+ users.

content is mine, always without the use of AI. i am strongly against AI in fandoms. do not share or repost on any other site without consent of the author (hi, me). characters are not mine. do not feed my work to any AI platforms. this is not a place for anyone under 18.

please consider reblogging to help this reach more people! comments are massively appreciated! if you’re not comfortable commenting publicly, consider sending an anon ask! 🩷🩷🩷 THANK YOU!

divider cred: graphiclost / pics & gif from Pinterest

[saintcastiglione]

I’m fucking with this the long way. I love how you don’t shy away from Shane being a rat bastard. He’s trying in this, but he’s a rat bastard none the less.

And kudos to the reader for still giving him shit. Good!

…also

It may be the Midwesterner in me…

…but I’ll fuck up a plate of tuna noodle casserole right now.

[saintcastiglione]

Love Got In Anyway

Summary: Frank Castle loves you. Plain and simple. 

Pairing: Frank Castle x Reader

Warnings: Language. Smut (riding, pronebone. The good stuff). Smoking Weed. Fluff?

A/N: Me writing soft Frank? Wild. This is a part of a loosely connected compilation of one-shots with the same reader from Big Brat Energy and Up Your Sleeve. No need to read other installments. It's nonlinear.

Frank never thought he’d feel this again. 

The very notion got shoveled under years ago. Packed down with dirt and left to rot with the rest of him that belonged to a world of before. It can’t happen, therefore it shouldn’t. Simple math. Even simpler to live and survive by. 

Emotions don’t stay six feet under just because Frank thinks he can scare 'em away.

They claw, they sneak, they grow roots.

It starts innocently.  Don’t it always? 

Starts with him knowing your coffee order. 

Not because he’s a romantic or some soft-bellied asshole with a notes app full of your favorite things. Frank learns it because he’s bad at apologies. Always has been. So when he’s fucked up royally, when he’s said some hurtful shit that’s sharp enough to fold your mouth shut…

He gets you the overpriced swanky iced whatever from the coffee shop with exposed brick. 

The one with seven different kinds of milk, but none of them are actually milk. The one ran by freaks with tri-colored hair and bad attitudes that make him uncomfortable. 

He does it anyway. For you. 

When he hands it over, you stare at the cup, then him. 

“Is this agave or vanilla?” 

He sounds like he’s swallowing glass when he says. “Agave.” 

“Macadamia nut mil-” 

“Yes.” 

You smile and accept the drink. 

Then you let him eat you out on your dining room table. Because he may not always have the right words, but can do wonders with his mouth on you. 

The coffee gets knocked over in the process. Pale brown liquid spreads under your mail, your keys you spent time curating, an old bill you still need to pay. Frank even cleans it up afterwards with his shirt open and mouth still wet from you. Doesn’t want your table getting sticky. 

That should scare him. And it does. 

But not enough. 

Because it grows like weeds in an unkempt yard. Before he knows it, he’s tangled in the thick of it and not fighting hard enough to get loose. 

Hazy morning light pushes through your barred kitchen windows. The black bars are crusted in a heavy layer of rust, heavy orange-brown scales clinging to the metal like barnacles to the keel of a ship. Despite all that, light still gets through. Past the bars, the rust, the dirty glass, and filters into your small kitchen. 

He notices it against his will. How the light finds you. 

Sitting at a table in shorts and a worn down shirt, you’re hunched over. Green construction paper and oil pastels are scattered around you. You’re practicing the art lesson you’ll teach your elementary kids later that week. 

Flowers, you tell him. Texture. Shapes. Color. Something simple enough for eight-year-olds to understand, but interesting enough where they won’t shove the pastels up their noses by minute eleven. 

“You think they’ll get bored?” 

Frank sits across from you with an open book in his hands. He’s not reading a damn word. 

“They’re eight,” he says. “They get bored of anything that’s not on a phone.” 

You throw a pastel at him. He catches it because why wouldn’t he. Rolls it back to you. 

You teach kids around the same age as Frank Jr. Back when he painted a Marine on the wall to protect the family. The thought ricochets off Frank, the words on his book becoming a blur. 

He wonders what his son would have been like now? If he’d still be artistic or would he have outgrown drawing marines. If the world would’ve taught him the world needed different kinds of protection. 

He wonders what his son was like back then, too. Which is an even worse thought. Touring made Frank come back to his family in vignettes. One minute Frank Jr can’t read. Next time Frank sees him, the kid's got a trophy for winning the spelling bee. 

A whole life of stories, lost between visits, and Frank only got scraps. 

“I can’t wait to see what Susie does with this,” you say. “Girl’s got a real point of view.” 

You tell him about your students like you don’t know what you’re giving him. 

The troublemakers. The teacher’s pets. How a kid tried to coerce another student to snort glitter in exchange for their chocolate milk at lunch. The girl who cries because she thinks mistakes mean she’s bad. A kid named Derek who has become a monster once he learned how to draw dicks. 

Frank asks questions sometimes. Not many, but enough. 

You don’t know how much it helps him to hear about them. How he can close his eyes and maybe imagine a world where his boy got to be eight. Nine. Ten. Where the worst thing in the world to happen to a kid was before lunchtime. Glitter extortion and glue-sticks. 

In a world where Frank mostly sees burnt sand and blown open bodies, you give him temporary sanity. 

So he sits in your kitchen, The Razor’s Edge open in his hands, and he listens to you talk about flowers. 

And the weeds grow more. Wilder. Ensnare him. 

His fate is sealed when you visit him in the hospital.

He’s ugly there. All black and blue and weak, hooked up to machines that keep tabs on him like his body isn’t as strong as he thought. He hates the beeping. And the stupid damn gown. Hates the nurse who brings him applesauce like he’s a fucking geriatric. 

He’s a grown man. Not something you’re supposed to see this way. 

It’s all over your face when you step into the room. Fear. Big and worried and trying so damn hard to be strong it could make him sick. He sees it. Sees the guilt waiting to be spoonfed to him. If you cry, he’ll swallow that too. Will have to live with the physical proof that he made himself matter to someone again. 

He ain’t worth the tears. 

“You finish it?” you ask, voice shaky but fighting. Trying to be strong. That's his girl. “Job's done?”

He can't even look at you when he nods. 

“Yeah.”

You exhale. Then nod like it’s answered some internal question of yours. 

“Cool,” you whisper. “Because you look like they rocked your shit sideways.”

He immediately regrets his laugh. His internal organs aren’t interested in your jokes. 

You stay every day he's holed in there. Call out sick just to keep him company. Sit in that awful chair with a spare hospital blanket. Eat his applesauce. You both watch the Price is Right at noon like two idiots with nothing better to do. 

One of the days, when he thinks you’re asleep, he watches you in that chair. Neck bent to hell, mitch-matched socks on display, one hand tucked under your cheek. Still with him. 

Fuck. It does something to him he doesn’t have the name for.

One day, Curtis comes by.

Frank sees the surprise pass over your face when Curtis introduces himself. He gives you a firm handshake, kind eyes, and a smile. 

You glance at Frank, asking for permission without saying it. Frank nods. You give a smile back. 

“I'm going to grab something from the vending machine,” you say, already finding the exit. “Nice meeting you.”

“Likewise,” Curtis says. 

Not a second after you’re gone, Curtis’ smile grows twenty times bigger. 

Frank groans. “Don’t.”

Too late.

“Someone special?”

“Mind your business.” 

Curtis sits in the visitor chair with every intention to pry. “I’ll take that as a yes.” 

Frank shifts against the pillows, irritated to death by the wires taped to his chest. He hates the warmth crawling up his neck. 

“Yeah.”

“Good, man.” Curtis softens. “Good. I'm glad to see it. You uh, you deserve something nice.”

He really doesn't know what to say. Never really does.  What should he say? Curtis is one of the few people left who knew him before. Knew Maria. Knew the kids. Knew the kinda man Frank used to be before grief gutted him. 

Everyone’s told him the same thing. To move on. Like grief is a train you can hop off at any exit. Like it’s not quicksand and the more you move, the deeper you’re in. 

Why has it taken Frank so long to think it’s possible? 

“She's all of the above,” Frank says finally. “Fucking scares me.”

Curtis laughs under his breath. “It should.”

Frank gives him a look. 

“What? It should.” Curtis leans back. “Don't screw it up.”

By the time he gets out of the hospital, he’s choked on the smell of the weeds growing. Sweet and cloying. Goddamn liar, they weren’t weeds at all, but a garden. Same kinda flowers you were planning art lessons over. He’s tangled in them none the less. 

“You're so good to me,” he mumbles one night. 

He's sure you can't hear him. 

You’re not paying attention to his dark little confessions. Not with your thighs locked around his waist, and your hands on his chest, riding him like you’ve decided the pace. The start, the finish, it all belongs to you. 

Frank lets you have it. Happily. 

Whatever you want. Whenever you want. However you want. 

“I’m all yours,” he says. 

That, you hear. Makes your hips falter. The pace breaks just a little. Frank reaches up to trace the pad of his thumb along the pillow of your bottom lip. You open your mouth to take his finger in. Warm. Wet. Fuck. You’re going to ride him into delirium.” 

“Make me scream, Frank,” you whine, voice breaking at the edges. Your thighs flex with every slippery roll of your hips. “I need it.”

“Okay,” he says. 

Too fast. Too honest. Too submissive.

“Okay.”

The mattress cries when he flips you over. You're moving instinctively, going to curve into a

proper arch, but that's not what Frank wants tonight. He pushes you flat, body riding the waves of the bed from the force of it. It ain’t enough to hurt, but it makes you gasp. 

He shifts your leg higher. As high as you can give it. He gets to take in a pretty view of you. Just for him.You don't shrivel beneath his hard stare. Don't shy away from the seconds that pass as he drinks it in. You let him look.

“You want that?” he asks, on his knees, he teases you. Gets the tip of his dick wet in you and he slides up and down. “Y'wanna scream for me?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Uh-huh,” he breathes back, mocking and soft. 

Then he presses inside you slowly. Disappearing little by little. Gasp after gasp. 

You're choking for his name when he bottoms out. It pulls long from your throat, a moan stretched to its limits all helpless and thin while he lets you tremble around every inch of him. His hand digs into your lower back, you’re already trying to take more, to go back to commandeering the pace, but it ain’t yours to drive anymore. 

.

“I hear ya, I hear ya,” he coos, leaning over you. 

He smothers himself against you. His chest covers your back and the weight grounds you there.

That’s what undoes you. The heat of him, him taking over your space. Proof that he’s here and solid and breathing and not going anywhere. 

Frank starts moving. Nice and nasty. Deep enough to take your wits and senses. Slow enough to make you feel every thrust. Real and rough enough that the bed complains beneath you. 

“Were you scared?” he grunts, kissing your shoulder. He wraps you up in his wide arms, props your head up as he asks his questions. Lips placed right against your ear.

All you know is pleasure. Down to your toes. Behind your eyelids. Coming in hot. “Wh-what?”

“At the hospital.” His breathing turns ragged and labored, but his stamina doesn’t break. Frank may fall apart emotionally, but can keep a rhythm like he’s got something to prove. “You worry about me?”

“That’s not fair.” 

“No,” he says, thrusting harder. “It ain’t.” 

You try to turn your face away, but he keeps you in place. Wrapped in his arms, his lips right at your ear. 

“Give me an answer.” 

You don’t know whether to love him or hate him for asking right now. 

There’s no room to lie when he’s fucking you this dumb. Can’t put on a brave face now. No place for the fear to hide when he’s made your whole body a confession. 

“Yes,” you cry. Loud. Exactly how he wants you. “Fuck, Frank, yes.”

There we go. The thing you held in. An ugly little terror that maybe he’d leave and you’d be left with nothing but a version of him you almost got to keep. That kinda fear has to go somewhere, Frank pops the cork. 

“I ain't leaving you,” he says, and the words come out rough. Bitten between thrusts. “I’m right here.” 

You give a satisfied noise. Light and feather soft against all that force. He knows you're not about to give full sentences and he doesn't need you to. The message is received.

Manicured nails dig at your burnt sienna colored sheets. He shouldn't know that's even a fucking color, but he does. You told him once, offhand, folding laundry and telling him the difference between cool and warm tones. It mattered in your world so now it matters in his, 

That’s how deep you are in him. Engraved in him. Woven into the fibers of his DNA like you found a way in through the scar tissue. 

“Y'about to come?” he asks, pressing particularly deep enough to make you flutter around him. He knows the answer. Still needs your voice to announce it. “Lemme hear you say it.” 

You do. Writhing and wrangling it from your lips. Messy and desperate. 

Nothing sounds better. 

“That's right,” he grunts, “Attagirl. There you go. Let it out.”

You need to be loud. 

Obscene. 

To eradicate what's all the way down inside you. To let the fear burn off your tongue. Give it somewhere else to live that’s not the hollows of your chest. Frank can shoulder it. 

For the both of you, he’ll shoulder it. 

His hand tightens around your neck, keeps you in place and so close you feel claimed. His praises tear out of him raw and dark. Good girl. That’s it. I got you. Ain’t going nowhere. 

He comes with his face buried into your shoulder, a sound dragged out of him. Surrender prettied up as a string of curses. 

Afterwards, he smokes up with you. 

That might be the most intimate part of it. 

This is a first. 

The two of you are tangled in sex-damp sheets. A window is cracked and the city noise drags itself inside. You’re surprised when Frank offers to join in your post-sex ritual. 

Even more surprised when he offers to roll. 

“You're it for me,” he says as he crushes a pretty purple indica between his fingers.

You're particular about your spliffs. About the pack. The twist. Not wasting anything because a motherfucker wanted to be cute about loose paper. But you don't make any fuss. You're stoked to smoke with him. 

“The ending, the beginning, all the shit in between.”

You want to blame the sex haze. You know better than to let your insecurities eat at you

like that. 

The hammer of this feeling has been cracking your stone for a while. You just didn't think either of you had the guts to say it out loud. 

There was a time where he told you it was you and him but that meant sex to you. Something frivolous. Something temporary with a clear exit. A door you could walk out of. 

This ain’t that anymore. 

“Yeah?” you ask. 

You sure about that?

He rolls the raw papers, twists the ends, and hands you the joint along with you neon pink lighter. 

“Yeah,” he says. 

Very sure. 

You light up, rolling the tip so the burn evens out. First hit is smooth. Ridiculously smooth. 

Like a Ferrari hitting 110 on an open road with no end in sight. Good pull. Not rolled too tightly, but not loose where you're wasting more than smoking. 

Exhaling a thick cloud, you pass him his marvelous creation. 

“That's fucking legit right there.”

Frank takes a drag like he's never missed a beat. Your smile must be so obnoxious right now.

“Wasted my high school years on grass. Poor -”

“Did you just call it grass?” you screech. “Hilarious. I'm fucking Willie Nelson.”

He takes takes the insult in stride, “This shit sent me straight to the military.”

Your turn to smoke. “How so?”

“Colleges won't accept a bumfuck stoner with no GPA to speak of. Marines will.” he says, leaning back against the headboard. “That's who they want. Directionless. Gives someone purpose. Belonging.”

“Is this the shit you want to talk about while high?” you ask. “Don’t ‘noid out on me and have a panic attack. Dank nowadays is stronger than the reggie of your time.”

Frank laughs. It’s genuine. Beautiful. Transforms his whole face for a second and you just want to keep it there. 

“Ask me something then.” he says. 

God, now you're on the spot. You pass him the joint. 

“Ok...Cupcakes or muffins?”

“Come on. Muffins.”

“Yuck!”

“Why would you ask me that shit if you were gonna judge my answer?”

“I dunno! I thought maybe you'd answer cupcake like every sane person on the planet. Then we could talk about preferences. Red Velvet – is it just a chocolate cake with dye in it? Something normal, but you had to go ahead and make things weird.”

“Muffins ain’t weird.” 

“What, you like bran?”

“Blueberry!” he says, offended. “Don't bullshit me. A blueberry muffin is in front of you right now, you're sayin’ no? Fuck outta here.”

You think it over. 

Frank can see the whites of your eyes turning a reddish tint. 

“I’d fuck a blueberry muffin up.”

He squints, not sure whether to hand you back the shared joint. “You high right now?”

“I'm flying through Andromeda on my unicorn named Peridot,” you say, “when you offered to smoke with me I pulled out the intergalactic shit. Matt Damon didn't grow potatoes on Mars. That's just stupid. He grew this.”

Frank looks down at the joint. Then to you. 

His body is buzzing too, snuggly-soft and heavy lidded in a way he’d deny under oath. He takes another drag anyway. “Whatever you say.”

You hop out of bed, grabbing your sweats and dragging them on without bothering with underwear. 

“Let’s go.” 

Frank doesn’t think twice. Whatever adventure you're up for at one in the morning, he kind of wants to be a part of. 

Where we goin?”

Turning in the door way, your smile is too bright for the hour. “There's gotta be someplace open where I can get a blueberry muffin.”

Frank stares at you for half a second.

Then he reaches for his jeans.

Because this is what love is now, apparently.

Hospital chairs. Burnt sienna sheets. Neon pink lighters. Applesauce. Flowers. Your ridiculous coffee order. One a.m. muffin runs.

All of it impossible.

All of it his.

[saintcastiglione]

hi Judy. just checking in. how are youuu? did you watch BND? <33

Hiiiiii!

I got sick af and have been out of commission frfr, but I'm finally doing better!

I saw BND! It was cute. Very cute. Seeing how they handled Frank's tone was a fun watch. Nice seeing him be serious but not down-in-a-hole-serious.

How've you been!

[hellilovedit]

Alright. Welp. I woke up to 1,000 followers. Yall are just as insane as me. I love you. I’ll make an intro post soon for yall new faces and we’ll be in for a fun treat to celebrate!

[saintcastiglione]

CONGRATS BABE

[gothcommie-blog]

Ginger Snaps (2000) “Out by sixteen or dead on the scene, but together forever.”

[honeybeechestnut]

the days are long n the nights are hard ──Frank Castle

summary: A quiet night at home with your daughter while Frank is deployed.

pairing: marine!frank x wife!reader

tags: pre-series. domestic angst. slight fluff like 🤏 this much. young parents. firstborn. letters. texts. voicemails. sad, really sad. pet names. lemme know if i missed anything!

wc: 1.1k

A few months ago, this was enough.

A healthy child. A great husband. A pretty house with space for your kid to run around.

But looking around the dimly lit nursery while the crickets sing somewhere outside, you can’t quite push down the hollow feeling gnawing in your chest.

Your daughter is curling up under her blankie, finally satisfied with her daily mission to turn the house into her personal rock concert. You rub small circles on her back while your free hand traces over your husband’s handwriting on the papers in your lap.

The letters are crinkled at the edges, smudged with faint fingerprints of dark grease, and decorated with a few damp spots. Frank is… well, Frank. Just leave it to him when you want a love letter to sound like a military report.

“Weather sucks. Training’s rough. I’m good. Don’t worry.”

“Can you send more photos? The one in my helmet liner got a little sweat stain.”

“I already scheduled your car check before I left. Make sure they don’t rip you off.”

“Got the care package you sent today. Don’t know what I’d do without you, Mrs. Castle.”

The sudden buzz of your phone makes your heart jump. You turn to reach for the screen, but that flicker of hope quickly fades when you see the sender.

It’s just your best friend.

You swallow a lump of disappointment, opening the group chat to reveal a blurry fifteen-second video they sent. Your friends are dancing under the flashing neon lights, surrounded by loud, ear-blasting music that used to be your whole world. Seeing this now somehow feels like you’re watching from a different lifetime.

You shake your head fondly, turning the volume down before it can wake the baby as you type back.

“don’t do anything i wouldn’t ;)”

The reply comes quickly. “sure, grandma 🙄”

A small laugh escapes you, making the munchkin stir. You pat her back gently, cooing until her breathing slows and she settles once more. Only then do you kiss her forehead goodnight and finally retreat to your own bedroom.

Worn papers shuffle inside the shoebox as you close the lid. With the letters put away, the silence pressing on your shoulders feels heavier than ever. You look around for something else that needs doing. Nothing.

The house is clean. Kid’s sleeping. Work’s done.

It doesn’t take long before you climb into bed and open the chat with one person you actually want to talk with. Especially this late at night when the world is dead asleep outside, and you’re wide awake under the sheets.

Last message: 5 days ago

Jul 07 - 15 photos attached

Jun 28 - my presentation 😈

Jun 25 - pediatrician :(

Your thumb skips past the recent texts, hovering over the screen for a moment before you press play on the video you already know by heart.

Jun 03 - BABY SAID DA.mov

Your laughter cuts through the heavy air, bouncing off the walls when the lens focuses on your daughter, who is clutching the couch with both hands. A little frown that looks exactly like her dad’s deepens between her brows, making you smile all over again.

“Da!” The tot chirps on screen, pointing straight at the camera.

Blue light washes over your tired features as the eight-second clip freezes on the frame of you grinning, your cheek squished against the girl’s. One’s grumpy. One’s happy. One’s missing.

You drag Frank’s pillow into your chest, burying your nose into the fabric to drown out the empty space beside you with the lingering scent of your husband in the threads. It still amazes you how quickly he became home. Three months was all it took.

Unable to sleep, you scroll through the string of saved voicemails and tap. The familiar voice fills the room like it never left.

“Hey, sweetheart… It’s like three in the mornin over there, I think. You’re probably sleepin now.” A weary sigh from him mingles with yours.

“Sorry I missed the doctor’s appointment. Did the rash go away? Curtis here said lettin it air out can help– Huh?” Someone shouts in the background, distorted by static.

“Copy that. Uh… sorry, baby.” His voice drops. “We’re rollin out. Tell the squirt Daddy loves her, and you. Bye.”

You start the next voicemail, listening to the constant rustle and hiss bleeding through from the other side of the world.

“Hey, pretty girl. It’s freezin here tonight. Check the thermostat before you go to bed, yeah? Lil boss still keepin you up all night?” There’s a hint of amusement in his tone.

“Tell her Daddy’ll be home soon and uh… he’s bringin her back a souvenir if she promises to stop givin the big boss a hard time, alright?”

Click. And the next one continues.

“[...] Billy tried to steal your cookies. Told him he’d lose a hand.” People protest over the line, drawing a laugh from Frank. Your fingers dig deeper into the pillow.

“Okay, okay, I shared with the guys. I can literally hear you naggin from here. Sharin’s carin, whatever. They said send more homemade stuff, too. MREs suck… but y’know. Just ignore ‘em, baby. Don’t wear yourself out. Love you.”

You tap the screen again before silence can swallow you whole.

“Hey, it’s me. Listen, I can’t stay long or Gunner’ll have my head.” A rough laugh follows through the speaker. He sounds distracted and a little breathless.

“We’re headin out to a new site, so I’m goin off the grid for a few days. I’ll call when we get there. Kiss my baby girl for me. Keep the doors locked. Don’t miss me too much, okay, sweet girl? I’ll be home ‘fore you know it.”

The last audio cuts out, and in the sudden absence of his voice, the low hum of the thermostat only seems to make the room feel colder.

You curl up in a bed that has no business feeling this big as your gaze drifts to the wedding photo on the wall before settling on the gold band around your finger. The ring never leaves your hand, catching every soft light when you move, but it still spends most nights without its match.

With blurry eyes and shaky thumbs, you swipe up the keyboard and type out the words that will never go through. Then you toss the phone to the nightstand and roll onto the other side of the bed, chasing the warmth that’s been gone since you said goodbye.

Before long, sleep slowly pulls you under, offering a little break before you have to get up and do this all over again.

On your blank screen, a new note joins the others in your drafts:

“please come home”

[saintcastiglione]

His love letter sounding like a military report is such good characterization. Mad I didn't think of that myself! The please come home was chef's kiss. I like how you balanced the yearning/romance of it all with still keeping it real. Felt like this could've happened pre-Punisher.

[honeybeechestnut]

hahaha nobody asked, but i got me a military man for a good few years. not Marine, so it could be different. i was rereading my ex’s letters when i wrote this

[saintcastiglione]

I STG I COULD TELL AND DIDN'T WANNA BE WEIRD AND ASK!

iktr, we're pulling from experience.

[honeybeechestnut]

Judy and me:

[saintcastiglione]

My girl!

[saintcastiglione]

LIGHTFALL - Chapter 4/8

Chapter Summary: Wearing Frank’s shirt and a dead girl’s guilt, you deliver a cake and lie perfectly. Be cautious, every lie costs you something. Pairing: Frank Castle x Reader Chapter Warnings: 18+ Always. Language. Violence. Flirting. Body horror. Angst. Gore. Perhaps, the eroticization of violence against women if you really think about it. Word Count: 5k A/N: This one drained me. Hope you like it! a playlist if you'd like to listen to the songs that inspired the story

Chapter 4 - Cut the Crust Off

It’s the beat of Frank’s heart that tells you good morning. 

Says it before anything else. 

A soft little drumming that kisses your ear, syncopates to your breaths, and lies to you that everything is going to be okay. It’s the calmest thing you’ve felt even if at one point, you threatened it beneath the mouth of a gun.  

Your eyes can’t open. Not yet. If they do, it means accepting the truth and letting reality have its ugly way with you. Means allowing the light to come in and take everything back. 

Perhaps it’s cruel to disturb the moment, when sleep escapes you and all you want is to hang in the balance with the last person you ever thought a moment like this would be plausible with. Skin. Quiet. Nothing else exists except this perverse version of peace. Like lovers, your limbs are entangled with his and warmth coalesces in the absence of space. 

Frank must hear you wake. Or maybe he feels you cheat to get a few more bits of calm, because his palm presses into the small curve of your back. The fleshy part that’s been aching terribly after your fifteen-hour-shift. The same part that doubly strained itself when you were on hands and knees, scouring away blood until clean lost its meaning. 

The pressure’s a little too good. 

Makes your mind go empty and your eyes flutter open. 

Drops of the morning filter through the newspaper-covered windows, jagged shards of morning creep across the room. Its rays are diffused, not as bad as what you thought it would be. 

“Rise and shine,” Frank says though his actions disobey his words. 

He could’ve gotten the day started all on his own, he must’ve been up at least fifteen minutes before you. Instead, he drags you ever so slightly closer and fuses you into his ribcage. Digs a little deeper into your spine because he surely knows how much it’s unraveling you. 

A groan of relief inside you is bitten back. 

“Long day today.” 

“Not yet.” Your voice sounds crushed. Remnants of last night’s tears. You fight through it. Try your best to sound whole and not let the truth of everything spoil the moment. “Give me five.”

“Think you’ve earned ten.” 

Too nice of a response. No biteback. No protest. Just ten minutes of comfort. How unlike him or what you surmised him to be. 

You’ve got your guess as to why he still lies here with you, but rather than call them out, you ask, “any women I should be worried about if they learn I’m in bed with you? Gotta know what I’m dealing with.”

“Floor.” 

“Much more your speed.”

“Ain’t just my speed. Not anymore,” he says with a smugness you don’t know how to wipe away. A fist could work. Your lips, even better. “Here I thought you were gonna complain about thread counts or water pressure.” 

“Joke’s on you, I like your shower’s water pressure.”

“Is that right?”

You hum an approval. “It’s hard.”

A mistake is made when you tilt your chin up to catch his eyes, only to find he’s already looking at you. Heavy from the sleep or lack thereof, Frank’s gaze still holds that punch in them from Sleazy’s. A throb that should’ve burned in the fire. 

Something wicked makes it grow. Has you tracing the scar tissue over his sternum with lazy touches. 

“Not quite how I was expecting to wake up to you,” you reveal, hushed.  

It’s so strong, not even Frank can deny it. His Marine discipline snaps just from a touch. A simple one at that. 

“Sorry to disappoint.” His muscles flex beneath his inhale, and it cracks him open. His first real breath of the day starts from you. “Need me to make up for it?” 

“I’m not sure if you can,” you say, breath ghosting over his stubble. “Do you want to try?” 

You’re a hypocrite. So is he. That, and a slew of other bitter words. 

After everything, after blood, and chemicals, and a pyre, none of this should be happening. But he’s guiding you onto your back and there’s nothing in you that wants to protest. It should be the furthest thing on either of your minds, but a dark part of you both needs this. Brokenness, maybe? Damage? All you know is your scars are fresher, all puffy and red, and his have had time to callous over. You guess that’s why you keep touching him. To feel what survival can look like for you.

The floor is unforgiving and returns exactly what you feed it. Thighs splayed to accept him between you, the USMC shirt he’s loaned rides all the way up. And that blanket? Nowhere to be found. 

“This is wrong,” he forces out. Chokes it like it’s the last part of his resolve trying to make right of this situation. A voice of reason. Strange, that it’s coming from him. “Goddamn wrong.” 

“After all we just did and are about to do,” you reach lower and lower, skimming along well earned muscle and bullet wounds. He’s a man still here out of spite. Are you spiteful enough to push through this? “I don’t think this is too bad. To feel alive.” 

“I do.” 

“Liar.” 

“You’re grieving.” His actions still betray him as his hand gets lost under your shirt. 

“And you’re scared,” you sigh. “You tell me what’s worse.”

He’s reaching further until his mean grip finds the swell of your breast. There’s pause in how he decides to caress you, how hard he wants to go. If he’s allowed to want this.

You want all of it. Deep in the center. 

Taking his hand, you show him exactly how much you can take.

“I don’t–Christ.” 

His sentence falters when your moan breaks against him. Real and without shame. Frank’s eyes squeeze shut like even the monster he’s built of himself has to surrender to a beast more powerful. After a night spent hiding the truth, this is the only honest thing either of your bodies have done. 

“This will-”

Reality snaps you back to your right mind. 

Flings you so hard it’s dizzying. 

It comes in the violent buzz of your phone next to your bodies. Beats against the floor and with reckless, accusatory abandon. It tells you how rotten you are.

Frank’s off you immediately as if he’d been caught and has no explanation for his actions. You reach for your phone and go sour when you see the name on the screen. 

“What?” you answer, tossing the phone on speaker. 

Curtis’ response has the same bite, though less venom. More worried than anything. “Don’t what me. Called you like nine times last night. You could’ve at least texted me to leave you the hell alone.” 

Burning a dead body meant you didn’t have time to look at your phone. Hadn’t noticed Curtis called at all.

“It was implied with my lack of answering,” you say. “What do you want?” 

“Someone shit in your brownies, what’s got you all bunched up? Don’t tell me you’re still harping on Frank?” 

Your gaze hits Frank’s and holds it entirely too long. He sighs quietly, wrings the lust from his face. That shirt that’s way too high up your body? You tug it down. 

“Of course, I am.” 

“Well, lucky for you, I called because I wanted to apologize.” 

“Are you going to tell me what he’s got you wrapped up in?” 

Curtis sounds remorseful, at least. “The best I can do is say sorry.” 

“Then you’re a liar and an apology means next to nothing,” you spit, “not after all of this. After everything I’ve endured.” 

“It ain’t that deep,” he says. “We were doing so good. No arguments, no-” 

“Don’t put this on me. You fucked it up and I responded. Not my problem. Listen Curt, it’s not like this is permanent, but I just need some space right now.” God, it feels like you’ve been caught in a blender, body tornadoed and shredded. Everything aches again. “You said Frank wasn’t around anymore and he is. So now we all have to deal with what that means. This is me dealing with it. Leave me alone.” 

He gets the picture. From the silence, you can tell he’s pissed. Makes two of you.

“You know, it’s very hard being your brother sometimes.” 

How unfair. After all of this, he gets to be the victim. 

“Curtis, please, you don’t know how tired I am.” you say. The only truth you’ll allow him to have and it hitches in your voice. Even your body reacts to it. Good, it makes the next jab land better. “Of being your fucking sister.” 

You hang up. 

It’s three deep breaths before Frank says, “I’m not trying to get in between you both-” 

“Don’t.” 

“He loves you. That’s all.” 

“And?” 

“Family’s worth fighting for. Even if it’s fucked up.” 

“Worth lying to as well. Just evening the scoreboard. He has a lie, I have a lie. And now you… you have two.” You wag two fingers at him. “Unless you want to tell me why you showed up at Church.” 

His jaw clenches tight, a silent scorn to the trap you’ve set for him. “Long day today.” 

“Sure is,” you state. “Let’s get going.” 

It’s not an argument between you.

Frank doesn’t say much after and lets the day take hold. It makes your thoughts scream too loudly. Not of Chloe, no, that would be too saintly of you. Not even the lies you feed to Curtis. On that long drive to downstate New York, you sit in the passenger seat with a gnawing inside you. Hungry and desperate to feed on Frank. The way his touch lingers on your skin, or how he can let you in and keep you out simultaneously. It’s biting away.  

To make it worse, he ain’t saying a damn thing. 

The McCarthy’s live in a wealthy part of Westchester. A little over an hour’s drive inside a gated community that acts as its own city with its own governing. Deep emerald hedges keep the layman on the outskirts while the secrets of this mini-city are neatly tucked within.

As you pull up to Edna McCarthy’s house, you think the same envious thought that always pricks your brain once you see her cobblestone walkway. You could fit WHIPPED fifty times over in her manor. Not a mansion, that would be too below Edna’s tax bracket. Ivy vines twist along the Norman Revival cast-stone manor that’s methodically guided and now wild growing. Her gardener must make more than you do. 

There’s no hiding WHIPPED’s van parked right at the curb where the walkway starts. The white van looks terribly out of place nonetheless.  

Frank kills the engine. Neither of you move. Including Edna’s cake order sitting in the back.

“I’ll make this quick,” you say. “Twenty minutes. Edna’s chatty.” 

“And a suspect,” Frank says, undoing his seatbelt. “I’m coming with you.” 

“You’re coming with me because you think a seventy-two-year-old-failed-actress killed Chloe?” 

“Stop thinking the best in people.” Apparently age doesn’t absolve you from murdering an early twenties pastry chef. “She’s rich, knew her, and could have connections.” 

“Sorry to burst that bleak bubble, but Edna collects tinned fish cans. She’s not exactly the mafia-hiring type.” The next part is a little bitter as you say it, but it comes out your mouth so fast you didn’t even know this was your truth.  “Not to mention Chloe isn’t worth the trouble of spending money on to kill. She had no family, no tangible goals. Lived life like one day something miraculous would fall into her lap and bail her out of being an actual adult.” 

“Sounds like a fuck up.” 

You don’t answer. Not right away. If Chloe, wherever she is now, is listening, you wanted to at least make up for the harsh words you’d just said. “She was,” you struggle. “Lost. Trying.”

“Ain’t we all.” 

“Is the twelve year old who she rang up yesterday also a suspect? I’m trying to get a sense of the Punisher’s methodologies. Where does the line get drawn?” 

“It don’t work like that,” he says. “I only care about your safety. Would be a helluva easier on me if you stopped fighting me every goddamn step.” 

“So bang bang send ‘em all to hell, huh?” 

“I just play executioner. What happens after that ain’t my call.”

“Is that what happens to whoever killed her? This ends in more death?”

You have a staredown with each other like the cake is the only adult present. 

“You don’t get to make big girl decisions and then back out of them when reality gets a little sticky.” 

“I didn’t ask for fucking any of this.” 

“Yes, you did. Not her death, but everything that came after. You gotta make peace with it. Until we know what we know, everyone is a suspect.” 

Torn into two, you don’t have much fight left in you. Part of him makes sense, the other you completely reject and want to shove as far away from your consciousness as you can.

He touches your hand for only a moment and the quiet you’ve been missing comes back. “I woulda done the same.”

The black hood covering his head won’t do so you remove it. Along with the beanie as well. The hairs beneath are jagged and all wrong. You smooth them out.

“Stop that,” he protests, but doesn’t remove you. “The hell are you doing?” 

You lick the back of your thumb, wipe at the tired under his eyes. It stays. “Getting rid of the killer. It’s all over you.”

He takes himself in. Black everything. Black coat. Black shirt. Black mood.

“I look how I always do.”

“That’s the problem. We’re not scaring criminals. We’re dropping off a cake. Means I need you to look like a normal civilian. One who smiles regularly. Likes sugar. Can hold a conversation that doesn’t end in death, guns, or pessimism.” 

“I ain’t crazy,” he frowns. 

“That is very debatable.” 

“I know how to talk to people.” 

“Also debatable,” you say. “I’m not saying that you can’t, but I haven’t seen it. That’s all.” 

Pushing open his door, Frank goes to your side. You don’t even register he’s going to open the door for you before you’re already out, heading to the back of the van. You open it and sitting neatly is that tacky geode cake that’s going to get you paid well. Blood money, you suppose, but don’t let the thought linger. 

“Rules,” you say. “Do not call her ma’am.” 

“It’s respectful.” 

“Rule two, stop pushing back on my rules.” You reach for the white box but Frank beats you to it. “If you drop that, I’ll never forgive you.”

“Ain’t like she should be eating this anyway.” 

“Absolutely not,” you say. He doesn’t judge you. “But I need the money.” 

The walkway is long. Grey clouds loom with a threat of rain. Curtis was right.

“Don’t go scoping out the place like you’re looking for tripwire.” 

“This ain’t the 80s. We’d use a fiber optic or a UG-”

You’re cut down his sentence when you realize he’s enjoying getting a rise out of you. There’s a touch of a smirk on his lips. 

“When she talks to you, please say more than five words at a time. You scare people, Frank, I need you to be the exact opposite of who you are.” 

“Don’t seem like I scare you too much.”

“No, but you do other things.” You ring the doorbell. “Like annoy the fuck outta me.”

A maid named Ginny lets you in and leads you to a kitchen big enough to give you vertigo. It’s picturesque. Marble counters, a stove that looks like it’s never lit a flame, that quiet kind of luxury that nastily whispers there are levels to wealth.  

“I dream of these pans.” You point to the kitchenware and suck in your annoyance when you see Frank’s eyes drift to the row of knives sitting on a butcher block. You’re just about to correct him as Edna comes in. 

She enters the room the way she always does, like the world is her stage and she has a permanent spotlight following her. Kaftan the color of an akoya pearl, her red hair is set in place like it’s been sculpted instead of styled. Between her two fingers is a cigarette that will never find a spark. 

“There’s my dear,” she says, arms beckoning and open. “My dear with the hands of magic.” 

You let her hug you and immediately her white floral perfume assaults you from all angles. Usually, it’s a deterrent, but right now, a hug is really what you need. “It’s been too long, you look good!”  

“Don’t insult me, I’ve never been good. I’m incredible.” She pulls back, blue eyes already moving past you and sliding onto Frank. She takes her time examining him. “And who might you be?” 

“How rude of him to not introduce himself!” You rush to Frank’s side, throwing an arm around his shoulder. “This is my new dishwasher. He’s going to help with deliveries during the winter rush. I wanted to show him the ropes. And get to catch up with you, of course.” 

Edna’s pencil-drawn eyebrow quirks. She says nothing, but studies him like a script. With intent and not looking over a single detail. “Do you have a name? Or should I call you Mute.” 

“I’m Pete,” he says. 

“Pete,” she repeats, tasting the name as if she’s deciding whether she enjoys it. “Welcome, Pete.” 

"Ma'am," Frank says, and you pinch beneath his arm so hard he yanks himself from you rather than making a grunt of pain. “Where should I sit this?” 

She orchestrates him to a table that sits next to her bay windows. Frank places the box down, and allows Edna to open it. She has a slight tremor to her hands that’s a testament to a life well lived, but lifts the white lid to the cake as if she were still a child on their birthday. 

“Oh my,” she says.

There it is. The cake that isn’t worth an ounce of the trouble it’s caused. Ivory buttercream, because you refuse to use fondant, wraps around six micro-layers of blac- cherry-soaked chocolate-cake. Carved open in the middle like it’s been gutted, are dazzling red isomalt crystals spilling up the hollow cavity. 

“You’ve outdone yourself,” she praises. “Pete the dishwasher, what do you think?” 

Frank doesn’t look at the cake the same way you nor Edna do. It’s just another object with no meaning. But when he answers and stares at you while he does, it’s with an honesty that shakes you. 

“I think she’s a real artist,” he says. “Who is too hard on herself.” 

You’re here to bring joy to an elderly woman, and right now you’re taking recognition for a cake you had no part in. “I don’t deserve the praise.”

“Modesty doesn’t suit you,” Edna says. “You look tired dear. Long night?” 

“You caught me.” 

“Not much gets past these eyes. For instance.” She snips at your shirt. “You’re wearing Pete’s clothes.” 

Your ribs hurt from the sudden jolt your heart gives. It almost makes you sick how fast it pounds. You rest against the table, prop yourself on it for stability. Frank was right. Edna knows everything. She killed Chloe. It’s as irrational as it sounds, but your body believes it anyway. 

“Dear, you’re always so wound up and nose first into your craft,” she teases. “I can’t say I’m not thrilled that you have yourself a handsome man to cozy up with during the winter months.” 

That anxiety-inducing jolt melts into a murky puddle of disbelief. “Nothing’s going on with us.” 

“Self-delusion.” She points to Frank. “You don’t regard her with innocent eyes.”

Frank’s body language shifts into an unrecognizable man. Not a killer, not someone you shared a floor with, but a fleeting moment where he’s charming. Smiling. Actually trying to adhere to the rules you’ve given him. If Frank wanted to, he could play the part and bury away all that haunts him. 

“Nah, nothing is between us. She’s my boss,” he says and dammit, something almost twinkles in his black eyes. “And redheads are more my speed.”

Edna’s delighted and her body responds like a woman who hasn’t been flirted with since her late third-husband. Bashful and girlish. 

“Redheads,” she savors. “Keep him. He’s got good taste.” 

The laugh you give is one you’d honed and perfected over years of customer service. Melodic enough to be feminine, sweet enough to have people think you’re genuinely humored. To you and only you, you feel how thin and spindly it is. No real foundation, just air wheezing from your deflated frame. 

Redheads.

The word clicks in your mind and it’s all you can see. 

Red. 

Streaked everywhere. 

Blood. Ginger. Red blood. Ginger hair. Hair a shade that you helped pick out dye for. That you knew took hours to get right and at one time smelled like amber-scented dry shampoo. 

It would catch the light behind the register and glow in your shop. 

But she’s not glowing any more. And she’s not behind the register. Chloe’s in the kitchen. Not the kitchen you’re in now, in WHIPPED. Flour dust, moving hands, cooling racks.

A hooded man is also there. You can’t zoom in on his face good enough to see him.

An argument you can’t hear, but you can see. Can feel Chloe’s rage dissolve to panic as she’s thrown onto the floor like she means nothing. Thwack. She kicked the mixing machine on her way down. A single shoe peels off her foot as she struggles. Squeezing. A hand around her neck. Failing. Body fighting for life. Keys and phone spun loose. 

Hard stabs to her stomach. 

There it is again. Red. Ginger. Everywhere. 

She stills. 

Her killer checks the oven. A weird thing to do after murdering someone. Opens and slams shut a few drawers, before running out the backdoor of the shop. 

Why is she dead in your kitchen? And you cleaned it… how could you clean it? There was no one else strong enough to do it. How could you not?

“You okay?” Frank grips your shoulder and pulls you back in. “You with me?”

Your inhale sounds like you’re snatching your first breath after nearly drowning. Your ribs strain and your lungs burn. “I-I’m fine.” 

No longer in Edna’s kitchen, making breezy smalltalk and drinking Earl Grey, you’re in WHIPPED’s office. Your office. Behind your desk with Frank, who’s behind you, hunched over your shoulders to get a good look at the surveillance camera footage you have pulled up. You don’t remember leaving Edna’s. Not the goodbye, not the van, not Frank taking the cake money from your numb hand.

Chloe’s dead body is a paused shot on the footage you’ve replayed. Frank rewinds until Chloe is upright again. Alive again. Bent over the McCarthy cake with a piping bag in her hand.

“I told her to come back here, Frank. If I wasn’t so hard on her she’d still be alive.”

“Blaming yourself ain’t gonna help,” he says. “She was dead no matter what.” 

“You don’t know that.”

Frank skips forward some frames right until the hooded man steps into the shop. He taps the screen. “Whoever did this knew her.” 

There’s nothing you see in the footage that would give that away. “How do you know that?” 

“Just do.” 

He leaves, puts a period at the end of your conversation as he heads back to WHIPPED’s kitchen. You follow behind him, digging your nails into the issue. 

“You’re trying to protect me. Now’s not the time.”

“Tooth and fucking nail,” he says, “every step you’re going to fight me?”

He checks the locks to your back door - unlocks each bolt and opens the door to see the courtyard where all of your deliveries are handled. Night air, sirens howling, nothing of interest. The door shuts. 

“I sent Chloe back here against her will. Maybe had I not, she’d still be alive.” You rest a hand on a countertop that’s sparkling clean. “And after less than five minutes of watching her be stabbed to death, you suddenly know it was by someone she knew. I’d like to know what it is that you saw.” 

“I just know-” 

“Bullshit. What was that shit you said about running away when things get sticky,” you bite. He’s still a mass of man against a wall, but this time, you see him budge. “You said we’d do this together. Did you mean it or not?”

“The door was open.”

“Chloe’s fault.”

“She didn’t act surprised when he came in. They talked before he acted.”

“So? She was boy crazy.” 

He grabs you, both arms, and it’s nearly unsettling how fast he can move. How your body has nothing it can do to fight back. 

“She let him get this close,” he says, yanking you forward until your shoes scuffle against the floor. “Not something you do with a stranger.” 

He’s still holding back.

“You don’t kill someone like that unless you know ‘em.” 

Jaw tightening, you almost think Frank’s going to walk away from you. Shove his Punisher certainty into a dark place where you’re not allowed to touch.

But you want to touch it. Need to, in order to know how ugly things have become.

“Show me.” 

It scares you to ask, but dammit, it’s your truth. None of this makes sense, and you have to know for certain that Chloe didn’t die because you’re so tethered to your work. Didn’t die over a fucking cake you could’ve finished your damn self. 

The kitchen hums around you, bright and clean and it smells like bleach and lies. The overhead vent rumbles a deep rattle. Fluorescent lights hit everything - glass containers, freshly washed knives, a vat of royal icing, the blowtorch you use for crème brûlée. Like nothing ever happened. Like Chloe didn’t spill red on the floor beneath your feet. 

“Say stop and I-”

“I’m not goddamn soft. Spare me the pleasan-”

He moves precisely. Hard exact movements that leave no room for frivolity. Your back hits the floor hard enough that all the air in you gets knocked loose. The room tilts so all you can see are those burning fluorescent bulbs like you’re being gurneyed through an emergency room. Before you can gather your senses, Frank’s on top of you, eclipsing the light with his frame, smothering you beneath him. 

His hand latches to your throat and siphons until your breath nearly disappears. Even how much air supply you have, he gives you. Not crushing. Claiming. Showing you how little space there is between talking to someone and being trapped by them

“He was scared. Didn’t know what he was doing.” He moves his thumb upwards to a more sensitive piece of your skin. “You press here.” 

Cut. The little air you had is gone and so is everything else. The room. The footage. Blood you cleaned out of the grout of the floor your hair now pools against. It all goes silent beneath the weight of Frank’s hand. A hand that doesn’t hurt you nearly as much as your lungs screaming do. 

Your nails dig for a reprieve.

“You tucked your chin down, you’re fighting back. That’s good instinct,” he whispers. “But it’s already over.” 

You’d spent so much time trying to fight for your air back that you didn’t notice the tiny prick of Frank’s knife beneath your shirt. He moved so languidly, you hadn’t realized he even had a knife. He doesn’t press, only shows you know what came next. 

“Over before she had a chance.”

Cold air finds you when he lets your throat free. You take in a few ragged breaths before he tells you - 

“Your turn.” 

And the roles and positions have flipped. You’re upright with him beneath you. Eyes locked and a look to him that you don’t have a word for. 

Taking your wrist, he brings you to his throat. Cautiously, you wrap a hand around it, like this was your first time handling a piping bag. It’s an immediate difference. 

Chloe flailed. You fought. Frank stays beneath you, alive and stubborn with a pulse dragging against your palm. His stubble scratches your wrist, you can feel him swallow, and immediately you know this is wrong. 

Your fingers tremble.

“Higher,” he says.

You move them.

“No.” His hand covers yours, correcting the shape. “Here.”

The quiet that you’ve been desperately missing since this morning, since the van, it’s back. God, what’s wrong with you? 

You hate him for giving it to you.

You hate yourself more for taking it.

“I can’t,” you say, but your hand is still there.

You try to press. Try to understand the awful mechanics of it and can only settle with realizing how cruel this is. One person deciding another person’s last breath belongs to them. But your hand won’t obey. It stays weak and shaking against his throat, useless and weak as spun sugar.

“It’s intimate, choking someone,” he says. “Means you see everything. Even the little shit you think you can hide.” 

“What did you see in me?” 

He repositions your thumb that’s gone lazy. “You already know.”

Your other hand moves lower, toward his stomach, where the rest of the violence would go, and you’re still determining if that’s where you want to end your trek.

Frank catches your wrist before you can finish. All you hear is both your breaths sawing in and out. The building settling. A hum of the kitchen. A rumble in the vent.  

“Jesus,” you give a weak chuckle that sounds barely sane to you. “And here I thought I was good with my hands.” 

You turn away from him before he can see whatever is moving across your face. Grief. Heat. Horror. All the same ugly family now.

“Whoever did this,” he repeats and this time you understand. “Knew her.” 

On the prep table, Chloe’s phone and keys sit sealed in one of your clear pastry bags. Apparently that’s where you put evidence when you run a bakery and lose your mind. Phone dead. Keys streaked clean because you white-knuckled wiped them too hard. The little keychain charm she bought from some street vendor in SoHo glitters under the fluorescent light. A tiny acrylic strawberry.

“Yeah,” you say. Knowing exactly where you’re both headed next. “They did.”

[tinydramatist]

Chile this is so good

[saintcastiglione]

When I tell you I saw your name and instantly remembered you from when I was allaboardthereadingrailroad. Had to look it up just to make sure I wasn't tripping. Mf 7 years ago.

Immediate follow. Hope time has treated you kindly, babes. <3

[honeybeechestnut]

the days are long n the nights are hard ──Frank Castle

summary: A quiet night at home with your daughter while Frank is deployed.

pairing: marine!frank x wife!reader

tags: pre-series. domestic angst. slight fluff like 🤏 this much. young parents. firstborn. letters. texts. voicemails. sad, really sad. pet names. lemme know if i missed anything!

wc: 1.1k

A few months ago, this was enough.

A healthy child. A great husband. A pretty house with space for your kid to run around.

But looking around the dimly lit nursery while the crickets sing somewhere outside, you can’t quite push down the hollow feeling gnawing in your chest.

Your daughter is curling up under her blankie, finally satisfied with her daily mission to turn the house into her personal rock concert. You rub small circles on her back while your free hand traces over your husband’s handwriting on the papers in your lap.

The letters are crinkled at the edges, smudged with faint fingerprints of dark grease, and decorated with a few damp spots. Frank is… well, Frank. Just leave it to him when you want a love letter to sound like a military report.

“Weather sucks. Training’s rough. I’m good. Don’t worry.”

“Can you send more photos? The one in my helmet liner got a little sweat stain.”

“I already scheduled your car check before I left. Make sure they don’t rip you off.”

“Got the care package you sent today. Don’t know what I’d do without you, Mrs. Castle.”

The sudden buzz of your phone makes your heart jump. You turn to reach for the screen, but that flicker of hope quickly fades when you see the sender.

It’s just your best friend.

You swallow a lump of disappointment, opening the group chat to reveal a blurry fifteen-second video they sent. Your friends are dancing under the flashing neon lights, surrounded by loud, ear-blasting music that used to be your whole world. Seeing this now somehow feels like you’re watching from a different lifetime.

You shake your head fondly, turning the volume down before it can wake the baby as you type back.

“don’t do anything i wouldn’t ;)”

The reply comes quickly. “sure, grandma 🙄”

A small laugh escapes you, making the munchkin stir. You pat her back gently, cooing until her breathing slows and she settles once more. Only then do you kiss her forehead goodnight and finally retreat to your own bedroom.

Worn papers shuffle inside the shoebox as you close the lid. With the letters put away, the silence pressing on your shoulders feels heavier than ever. You look around for something else that needs doing. Nothing.

The house is clean. Kid’s sleeping. Work’s done.

It doesn’t take long before you climb into bed and open the chat with one person you actually want to talk with. Especially this late at night when the world is dead asleep outside, and you’re wide awake under the sheets.

Last message: 5 days ago

Jul 07 - 15 photos attached

Jun 28 - my presentation 😈

Jun 25 - pediatrician :(

Your thumb skips past the recent texts, hovering over the screen for a moment before you press play on the video you already know by heart.

Jun 03 - BABY SAID DA.mov

Your laughter cuts through the heavy air, bouncing off the walls when the lens focuses on your daughter, who is clutching the couch with both hands. A little frown that looks exactly like her dad’s deepens between her brows, making you smile all over again.

“Da!” The tot chirps on screen, pointing straight at the camera.

Blue light washes over your tired features as the eight-second clip freezes on the frame of you grinning, your cheek squished against the girl’s. One’s grumpy. One’s happy. One’s missing.

You drag Frank’s pillow into your chest, burying your nose into the fabric to drown out the empty space beside you with the lingering scent of your husband in the threads. It still amazes you how quickly he became home. Three months was all it took.

Unable to sleep, you scroll through the string of saved voicemails and tap. The familiar voice fills the room like it never left.

“Hey, sweetheart… It’s like three in the mornin over there, I think. You’re probably sleepin now.” A weary sigh from him mingles with yours.

“Sorry I missed the doctor’s appointment. Did the rash go away? Curtis here said lettin it air out can help– Huh?” Someone shouts in the background, distorted by static.

“Copy that. Uh… sorry, baby.” His voice drops. “We’re rollin out. Tell the squirt Daddy loves her, and you. Bye.”

You start the next voicemail, listening to the constant rustle and hiss bleeding through from the other side of the world.

“Hey, pretty girl. It’s freezin here tonight. Check the thermostat before you go to bed, yeah? Lil boss still keepin you up all night?” There’s a hint of amusement in his tone.

“Tell her Daddy’ll be home soon and uh… he’s bringin her back a souvenir if she promises to stop givin the big boss a hard time, alright?”

Click. And the next one continues.

“[...] Billy tried to steal your cookies. Told him he’d lose a hand.” People protest over the line, drawing a laugh from Frank. Your fingers dig deeper into the pillow.

“Okay, okay, I shared with the guys. I can literally hear you naggin from here. Sharin’s carin, whatever. They said send more homemade stuff, too. MREs suck… but y’know. Just ignore ‘em, baby. Don’t wear yourself out. Love you.”

You tap the screen again before silence can swallow you whole.

“Hey, it’s me. Listen, I can’t stay long or Gunner’ll have my head.” A rough laugh follows through the speaker. He sounds distracted and a little breathless.

“We’re headin out to a new site, so I’m goin off the grid for a few days. I’ll call when we get there. Kiss my baby girl for me. Keep the doors locked. Don’t miss me too much, okay, sweet girl? I’ll be home ‘fore you know it.”

The last audio cuts out, and in the sudden absence of his voice, the low hum of the thermostat only seems to make the room feel colder.

You curl up in a bed that has no business feeling this big as your gaze drifts to the wedding photo on the wall before settling on the gold band around your finger. The ring never leaves your hand, catching every soft light when you move, but it still spends most nights without its match.

With blurry eyes and shaky thumbs, you swipe up the keyboard and type out the words that will never go through. Then you toss the phone to the nightstand and roll onto the other side of the bed, chasing the warmth that’s been gone since you said goodbye.

Before long, sleep slowly pulls you under, offering a little break before you have to get up and do this all over again.

On your blank screen, a new note joins the others in your drafts:

“please come home”

[saintcastiglione]

His love letter sounding like a military report is such good characterization. Mad I didn't think of that myself! The please come home was chef's kiss. I like how you balanced the yearning/romance of it all with still keeping it real. Felt like this could've happened pre-Punisher.

[honeybeechestnut]

hahaha nobody asked, but i got me a military man for a good few years. not Marine, so it could be different. i was rereading my ex’s letters when i wrote this

[saintcastiglione]

I STG I COULD TELL AND DIDN'T WANNA BE WEIRD AND ASK!

iktr, we're pulling from experience.