“I just... I’m scared.”
And like that the attention is off him in the silence that follows and Frank doesn’t intone the rest of the meeting, his last words ringing in his ear like a gunshot. The conversation around him seems muffled and he’s so inside himself he doesn’t notice the scrape of chairs as the meeting ends. So he sits, mulling over his fear and his pain and his anger, all the things he thought would be eradicated with the lives of all those involved in his family’s murder ended. Except it hasn’t. The guns and the murder weren’t any kind of substitute for therapy.
“Frank, you good?” He hears and his head snaps up and he can sense the wet in his eyes before he actually feels the tears track down his cheeks.
“I’m scared, Curt,” he says and it’s like a dam is opened with him. A chair scrapes next to him on his left and the arms that wrap around him are warm and solid and he lets himself be held as he cries in a way he hasn’t cried since before his family’s death. It feels like he’s being torn in two and Curt is the only thing holding him together. His shoulders heave and shake and at some point the tears are so much he starts gagging, but Curt is still there, rubbing his shoulders and being a silent affirmation that there’s a cushion and a solid place to stand at the end of this free fall.
When he’s done, his eyes are heavy and he feels puffy and gross. He pulls away from Curt and rubs at his face viciously. His bruises and scabs ache at the battering they’ve been through but he can’t find it in himself to care. Sure, he cried after his family’s death, but he couldn’t remember the last time he cried so hard it felt like he was unloading every single bad moment into a torrent of tears.
“You feel better?” Curt asks and Frank can’t help but laugh a little.
“I feel like shit,” Frank shoots back with a mirthful chuckle followed by one of those shaking post cry breaths that make you seem like you’re attempting to breath on a jackhammer, the kind that suck your bottom lip in with their intensity.
“Okay, but you gotta admit there’s some benefits to a good cry. You wanna talk about it, or have you had your fill of doing stuff in the name of feelings? Cause if so I’ve got this Vietnamese place I’ve been wanting to try and we could go together, celebrate your first day as a free man,” Curt speaks and Frank can’t help but appreciate the fact that Curt gives him an out.
“I think I’d like that. Even though I look like hell,” Frank responds and Curt laughs a belly laugh at something that seems to be going only through his head. He looks at Frank again after calming down and bursts into laughter again.
“What’s got you in stitches, Hoyle?” Frank asks and Curtis stops laughing long enough to tell him.
“God, I was just imagining us minding our own business and someone accusing me of being some abusive boyfriend or something. Your face is bruised to shit and you look like you’ve been crying for the past week,” Curt laughs and Frank can’t help but chuckle along with him.
“If only they knew,” he replies.
It’s nice, this easy companionship with no war and no impending doom and no hiding, he decides he likes it.
—
It’s been three months since Frank’s first VA meeting and he can honestly say he feels better. There are things he can’t saying without codifying but it’s nice. He talks about shit he’s kept buried for so long it’s rotted a hole in him and it feels like irrigating a wound. Each time, he feels a little lighter, a little less guilty for the atrocities he committed in Project Cerberus. He finds himself smiling more, mulling less on the past.
He starts letting go of the cloying feeling of betrayal that settles deep in his gut when he thinks of Schoonover and Rawlins and Billy. Especially Billy. He learns that he has to let them all go, their corpses are eating at his flesh and bones and Curt tells him the only way to truly be free of the tragedy of his past is to forgive them all.
At first that’s enough to make Frank angry enough to nearly bust a hole in the wall. He doesn’t talk to Curt for a whole week and doesn’t even bother showing up for VA until he’s finally calm enough to tell Curt why it’s such a monumentally bad idea.
But when he gets there, and the topic becomes forgiveness, he sits back and sees why forgiveness can help in some ways. He hears it in the voice of one of the vets, her shoulders squared and head held high.
“Being a woman is hard. Being a black woman is harder. Being a black woman in the military is the hardest. They expect us to sit hours in a chair to perm our hair, they expect us to be stronger and faster than all our other female compatriots, they want us to prove our worth ten times more than anyone else. I liked that, though, I liked the challenge, I liked rising to it. So when my commanding officer pulled me aside, I thought he was going to praise my growth and my strength. I felt like I deserved it.
“I didn’t expect him toss me on one of the cots in the barracks and rape me with my own underwear shoved into my mouth to keep me from making too much noise. And I didn’t expect to be filled with so much hate and anger afterward. Hate and anger that I directed at myself. That was a test, I said, a test of strength. I wasn’t strong enough to stop him and I should’ve been. So I trained harder, I pushed myself to the limit and then broke it, I was one of the best.
“I thought for certain after all my hard work that the pain and the betrayal would melt away, that my demons would rest and I could finally stop thinking about it. But they didn’t, even after my CO was dishonorably discharged for assaulting another officer, I was still angry. At myself, at him, at the system. I didn’t know what to do, I was drowning. My mental health was deteriorating steadily and after two tours I decided that I couldn’t keep doing this to myself.
“So I started therapy, I started talking to other vets, I started talking to a psychiatrist. And they all suggested the same thing. Forgive him, let him go, let that part of your past be just that. Live life in spite of such a horrific event. And I wanted to murder them for suggesting something so utterly ridiculous and stupid. But finally I decided, what the hell? So I found his information. I called him. I told him very simply. ‘I don’t know if you remember me but you were my CO and you raped me. I’m calling you to let you know that I forgive you,’ and I hung up. And then I cried. Because forgiving him didn’t do anything for him. It did something for me. It cleared up this anchor on my soul and I was finally able to breathe after so long suffocating. And I can’t think of anything that has helped more,” she recounted and Frank’s chest ached.
After the meeting finishes, he stops her before she’s able to leave, understanding why she’s able to square her shoulders and face the world with the fire and strength necessary to be a survivor. She turns to face him and even though she can’t be more than five-five, he feels dwarfed by her presence.
“Hey, um, Pete,” he greets and she smiles at him, extending her hand. He shakes it and smiles back.
“Leticia,” she introduces.
“Your story, I resonated with it. Even if our stories are different, I see a lot of myself in it. The only difference, I guess, is that you actually had the courage to forgive the man who hurt you,” he says and she smiles, moving to sit once more. He takes the seat across from her.
“You saying you’ve got someone you should forgive but you’re almost one hundred percent certain it’s impossible for you to do that?” Leticia asks and Frank can only hum his ascent. She nods sagely.
“It’s different for everyone. Sometimes forgiving people does jack shit except make them angrier. But if there’s nothing else you can try in order to make yourself feel better, then fuck it, I say go for it. At this point what more can you do for yourself to stop being so angry and scared all the time?” She explains and Frank can’t help but think she knows more about this situation and how it feels than he pegged her to.
“I guess you’re right,” Frank finally says and Leticia punches him lightly on the shoulder.
“You’re damn right I’m right, I can’t remember a time I was wrong,” she jokes and Frank can’t help but laugh a little with her. They continue talking, recounting their best memories of being stationed, of their families, just shooting the shit. She feels like an old friend by the time they part ways and Curt looks fondly at him with a smile he only reserves for special occasions.
After their talk, Frank tells Curt that he’ll give this forgiveness shit a shot.
—
Frank sits by Billy’s bedside, his fingers laced together as he leans forward on his knees. He can’t bring himself to look at the mass of casts that once was Billy’s face. It stings. It hurts so much he can’t breathe and if it weren’t for Curt’s hand on his shoulder, he would’ve bolted.
“You hurt me,” he starts, his voice already weak and watery with emotion. He huffed out breath before repeating himself, this time louder. “You hurt me.”
“The pain you caused me was so? I don’t even know the word for it? Intimate? Personal? I don’t know what it was but it hit so deep I didn’t think there’d ever be an after. But I’m not going to let you take that away from me. I get to have an after. This is me making my after, right here. You were my best friend, my brother, the godfather to my children, and because of your greed and need to be on the fucking top of everything you sat back and let them kill Maria and Lisa and Frankie. Your godchildren. My wife. You thought they’d kill me, too. And you sat in the background then, too. You didn’t care,” he spoke, soft, almost as if recounting a story he’d heard long ago from someone else. He kept going, determined to get it all out in one sitting.
“I wish you woulda been there to see what I saw. The sight woulda brought you to your knees. I vomited, Billy, right next to Lisa’s corpse. Her face was nothing but meat and bone fragments and brain matter. Her eyeball was dangling from what used to be her eye socket, the other one exploded completely. Her jaw was a mess of bone, a couple teeth hanging on for dear life,” He continued, his voice hollow. He felt a couple of wet drops seep through the cracks between the fingers on his hand and he felt bad for making Curt hear this. “That was the last thing I saw before they put a bullet in my head, y’know. And you knew they would. And you did nothing.”
“But you know what? If I’m ever, ever going to be free of this mess I gotta learn how to let it the fuck go. I gotta forgive myself for the shit I did in Kandahar, I gotta forgive myself for the way I got more and more distant every fucking time I left my family to fight Rawlins’ war, I gotta forgive myself for never questioning what it was we were doing out there, and I gotta forgive myself for the mistakes I made out there that got the people I cared about hurt,” he says, looking up at Curt. Curt’s smile is watery and the reassuring squeeze to his shoulder and minute nod gives him enough strength to keep going.
“And most of all, I gotta forgive you. Not because you deserve it, but because I deserve it. You won’t ever be a part of my life ever again. You’re just a piece of my past that happened then disappeared. You won’t ever hurt me again because now I’m drawing a line. I forgive you, but I hope to God you never forgive yourself,” he declares and the next breath he takes feels lighter. He knows he’ll still struggle with the betrayal, with his revenge, but for now he can walk out of Billy’s room with no regrets. He spoke his peace and he knew if he never heard from Billy again, he’d be fine.
The second his feet pass the threshold, he grabs Curt, holds him, and breathes. His eyes are shut against the fabric of Curt’s sweater and he just breathes. He lets the scent of coffee, metal, and Old Spice lull his brain away from the yawning precipice of panic. Curt doesn’t say a word, doesn’t have to. They ignore the obvious stares of the nurses milling about the nurse’s station.
When Curt walks him back to his apartment, he can’t find the words to say he doesn’t want him to leave.
—
There are bad days. Really bad days. The kind of days that leave him feeling like there are ants crawling all over him, his trigger fingers twitch almost incessantly and he screams into a pillow to make sure he doesn’t wake his neighbors. Sometimes he’ll grab his hammer and go to town on some walls, but it never feels the same as it once did. Before it was enough, now he wanted more.
He most of all wants to go back in time and shoot himself in the face for ever making the dumbass call to forgive his wrongdoers. He regrets not looking at Curt and Leticia and his therapist and saying: “I recognize that you’ve all made a decision, but given that it’s a stupid ass decision, I’ve elected to ignore it.”
On a day that he doesn’t have scheduled appointment, his fingers twitching and his skin crawling and sweat pooling, he busts into his therapist’s office with a manic look on his face. His need to kill is so overwhelming that it’s choking him and he knows that he doesn’t stand a chance against becoming the Punisher again if he gives into it. He can kiss the VA, his therapist, Curt and Karen and Leticia and David and Sarah all goodbye. So he stares at her, his grip white knuckled on the door frame, eyes wild.
He’s admitted to Metro General’s psychiatric ward under the Baker Act not an hour later.
The psychiatrist there asks him why he’s here.
“I know myself,” he says.
“What do you know about yourself?” He questions and Frank’s knuckles rap on the table between them. He doesn’t know what to say so he observes his surroundings. It’s small, the room, the door open, the table between them a tray table for hospital food. He’s cramped and uncomfortable in paper scrubs. His ass hurts and his back is spasming from sitting in a chair all fucking night since the stupid hospital had no beds.
“Mr. Castiglione,” the psychiatrist says and Frank snaps out of his reverie and looks at him.
“I know that I’m capable of things that will take away the only people I care about. I’m sick and tired of running and I’m not going to ruin the one stable thing I’ve got.”
The psychiatrist prescribes him a cocktail of pills. They let him out the next day, his careful wording and subdued demeanor making it hard to justify him staying. He was glad to have the presence of mind to avoid being stuck in that hellish place for longer than necessary.
He can’t say he’s excited about meds.
—
The Zoloft makes Frank shake like a druggie off a binge and he wakes up with a sore jaw from how much he clenches his teeth. If he forgets his Effexor for even a day, he’s light headed and angry all day, able to feel the movement of his eyes in their sockets and unable to get out of bed without the equilibrium shift sending him reeling. The Lamictal makes his body itch and the combination of meds make even the slightest of unpleasant textures a potential panic attack in the making.
He hates his meds.
“It’s normal to hate your meds when you first start them, Frankie,” Curt says and Frank looks up at him from where he’s curled up on the couch, hot and cold and shivering.
“Look at me, Curt, I feel like I’m being ripped apart. My therapist said that meds would help, too, but does this look like help?” Frank grits out and Curtis sighs. Frank hasn’t moved since his stint in the hospital, outside of stopping by the pharmacy to make good on his promise to take his meds and attempt to be a functioning human person.
“You haven’t left your apartment in a week, Frank. Come with me to the VA, reacquaint yourself, or just wait outside like you used to. But don’t sit here without anyone. You and isolation are a dangerous mix,” Curtis pleads and Frank, despite his incessant shaking, can’t deny him this request. So he uncurls himself from his couch and stands.
“Fine, lets go,” Frank concedes.
—
The VA meeting is going as well as Frank expected it to. He’s not participating much but whenever someone asks him something, he speaks. He briefly mentions that he’s on medication now and it earns him a smattering of applause. It’s not bad.
When the meeting winds down he walks to the table where the coffee is housed and grabs a cup as people filter out of the room, a few stragglers left behind to talk to Curtis about something or another. It’s peaceful. But just as he’s about to place the coffee pot back where it belongs, a hand comes down on his shoulder and he experiences something that he’s never felt before.
The panic that hits him is so sharp and intense he literally cannot see, his heart slamming in his chest as he freezes. The coffee pot in his right hand and the cup in his left slip out of his now stiffened limbs and clatter to the floor. The coffee pot shatters and scalding hot coffee soaks his legs. But he can’t feel it. He can’t feel anything. He can’t move, he can’t see, and distantly he realizes he can’t breathe.
There are hands on him somewhere and he can vaguely feel himself moving but the panic is muffling all of his senses. He can hear something being said but his body is unresponsive. Then there’s a little whooshing noise and he hears the slap before his body recognizes that it should be in pain. He gasps like a fish and starts coughing, his lungs burning and aching. He feels like a puppet with his strings cut and his chest heaves as he finally takes in some much needed breaths.
His vision is blurry and he’s so exhausted it makes his body boneless on the chair. He’s being held up by Curtis and he can feel his eyes fluttering.
“I’m so sorry,” someone whispers from above him and he can’t process what they mean by that.
“It’s his new meds, not anything you did. I don’t think he expected this to happen either, don’t beat yourself up,” Curtis explains and Frank hums. It wasn’t whoever was speaking’s fault. He didn’t even know what the fuck caused it until Curtis said something.
The person speaking sighs defeatedly and bids them both farewell before leaving them alone in the room. Curtis manages to haul Frank up and Frank knows he’s not going to make it to his apartment like this.
That night he stays at Curtis’ and sleeps until noon.
—
It’s been months since his stint in the hospital and Frank feels better than he has ever before in his life. It’s been forever since the last time a bruise showed up on his face or that his blood was spilled on the pavement. It’s refreshing. He talks to his therapist once a week now, as opposed to the earlier three times a week. He attends VA meetings regularly and has been hanging out almost daily with Leticia and Curtis outside of the setting of meetings. Karen has been a constant reassuring presence in his life and he helps her work through the pain of losing Matt when it’s too hard to bear some days. David and Sarah have him over for dinner every other Sunday. His life is easy, uncomplicated.
So when he looks at Curtis in the kitchen of his apartment, the sun filtering over his cheekbones and lighting his brown skin gold, and his stomach flutters dangerously, he has an internal moment of panic. What the fuck, he thinks to himself. What the fuck.
The rest of the day is somewhat awkward on Frank’s part but he powers through it, spending quiet moments wondering what in the literal hell caused this. He tries not to shiver when Curtis gives him a barely there hug goodbye.
The first thing he does is show up at Karen’s, his face flush and his eyes alight with confusion.
“What the hell are you doing here, Castle?” She questions groggily through the door. It’s 10PM, he realizes, and she was probably sleeping well for the first time in a while to be groggy at this hour.
“I’m sorry to wake you up but I’m having a crisis,” he says, slightly breathless, and Karen’s eyes go wide as she drags him into her apartment, bolting the door shut.
“Are you doing it again? After you promised? Is there someone chasing you?” Karen asks, rapid fire, and Frank shakes his head.
“It’s not like that. And you’re probably gonna snap my neck for waking you up about this, but I think I might be falling for Curt and I don’t know how to process it,” Frank replies and the silence that follows is pregnant enough to make Frank’s skin crawl. Karen’s look is unreadable and he realizes that he has no idea how she feels about any single part of what he said.
Then she stalks right up to him and knocks him upside the head with an open palm.
“You had me worried half to death because you have a crush on your best friend? I swear Frank this could’ve been settled with a phone call in about five minutes. Why is this shaking you up so much?” Karen reprimands and Frank shrinks in embarrassment. He might’ve blown this out of proportion. Still, he feels like he owes Karen an explanation and he uses it as attempt to piece together his feelings for Curtis.
“I don’t know. I haven’t felt?” He begins, his voice losing confidence before he takes a small pause to readjust his wording, squaring his shoulders as he attempts it to look Karen in the eyes.
“Look, I thought the feelings I had for you were the same as I had for Maria. You know that. But there was something different. I love you to the ends of the goddamned earth and I will put a bullet in between the eyes of any human being that tries to hurt you, but... There was something different, so it was easier. It didn’t feel like my chest was being ripped open. But now? Karen, I couldn’t even think around him. Whenever the sunlight hit his face I had to stop myself from literally welling up with tears. I remember that feeling.
“Sometimes when Maria would smile at me I’d have to look away because she was so beautiful I could absolutely cry. It’s the same, right in the same space in my heart I thought only Maria could occupy. It’s like? Packing a wound. It hurts, Karen. But I think I might be legitimately falling in love with someone in the same way I did with Maria for the first time since she died,” he explains and by the end, Karen has tears in her eyes.
“Oh, Frank...” She whispers before pulling him in for one of her patented Karen Page hugs. He practically melts in her arms, the familiarity of her embrace like coming home after a long day. He may be in love with Curtis Hoyle but goddammit if Karen Page isn’t his soulmate. She understands him on a deeper level and he wonders that if maybe things were different, he could see himself in love with her in the same way he loved Maria.
“I can hear you thinking. This is a hug, there’s no thinking in hugs,” she speaks into his neck and the feeling of her voice on his flesh makes him squeeze her just a little tighter.
“Just thinking about how different things would be if I wasn’t going gaga over Curtis,” he responds and she laughs.
“I kinda always figured you would,” she says before pulling away from the hug, holding him at arms length by his shoulders. He shoots her a look that’s more puzzled than understanding. What?
“Yeah, I mean he’s always been there, from square one. He powers through the bullshit and the pain and the constant threats and he’s loyal. He probably loves you, too, because you cannot deal with bullshit like yours without loving you in some capacity. So tell him, I don’t think he’ll flip his shit if you tell him you’re in love with him if he didn’t flip his shit when he found out you were out there murdering people,” Karen declares and Frank wants to laugh at her complete lack of tact.
“I will, I promise. But since I’m here, you wanna crack a couple of beers and watch some movies on Netflix until we inevitably fall asleep on the couch and get cricks in our necks so bad we think we’ll never hold our heads up again?” He asks and she shoves him playfully.
They do.
—
Before Frank has the courage to tell Curtis how he feels, Curtis beats him to the punch.
“Frank Castle, I think I might be falling in love with you,” he says on one of their regular hang out sessions at his apartment and Frank almost chokes on the beer he’s nursing. Curt is staring straight ahead and Frank just stares at his profile for a long minute.
“Wait a minute, you’re telling me I’ve been working up the courage to tell you the exact same thing and you beat me to the punch?” He questions and Curt snaps his head to look at him with a bewildered expression. Jesus, were they both so dense they didn’t realize they liked each other? Were they not grown ass adults?
“Are you trying to tell me something?” Curt replies and Frank suddenly can’t contain the dopey smile that stretches his face at the faux sly look Curt has on his face. He lets out a breathless little chuckle at the absurdity of the situation. Curt turns his body just slightly to stare Frank down head on and Frank doesn’t even notice the infinitesimal shift they make towards each other, like two impossibly slow magnets.
When their lips finally meet Frank thinks the sensation that explodes from his chest deserves its own name. It’s so innocent, so delicate that Frank is afraid to break the moment. Their lips are barely touching and they’re breathing into each other, growing closer until they’re flush against each other, their lips coming together over and over, more and more passionate as the moment progresses.
Frank breaks away after a particularly long kiss and his heart feels so swollen he can’t even understand how it’s beating. A heart can’t hold all that love and still beat properly, can it? He rests his forehead on Curt’s shoulder and he breathes him in, like he did in the hospital so many months ago.
Curt repositions the two of them so that they’re pressed against each other, leaning back against the couch. Frank can’t keep his breaths from shaking so he presses his face into Curt’s neck and sighs, releasing a tension he didn’t know he was holding on his shoulders. Curt pulls him closer and presses a soft lingering kiss to the top of his head. The action makes him melt.
“We coulda been like this ages ago,” Frank sighs into the skin of Curt’s neck and smiles silently to himself when Curt shudders against him, goosebumps raising on brown flesh.
“You keep talking into my neck like that and we’re gonna end up doin’ something else,” Curt warns and Frank laughs, light and easy.
When they finally make love for the first time that night, it’s just as easy.
— Being with Curt is like breathing. You don’t think about the nuance and the effort, you just do it. Frank doesn’t have to think when it comes to Curt. Curt has seen the worst of him and has brought out the best. It’s not always that the peace gets disturbed.
“Frank, Jesus fucking Christ, will you listen to me?!” Curt yells as Frank attempts to slam the door of the apartment they now share behind him.
“No, Curtis, I can’t, because you didn’t listen to me!” Frank shouts back, wheeling around to face Curtis.
“Babe—“ Curtis begins.
“Don’t call me babe,” Frank snarls, his face set in a grim expression. Curtis has to fight extra hard not to roll his eyes.
“I know, I know that you were doing the right thing, but you were going to take it too far and I couldn’t let that happen,” Curt says and Frank wants to tear his hair out. There is no such thing as too far when it comes to scumbags like that one.
“What don’t you get, Curt? He was trying to rape her! I stopped him. I coulda made it so that he could never do that again, goddammit! I was gonna stop him for good!” Frank screams and Curt can’t stop himself from placing his hand on his forehead and looking away.
“I get that, you know that, but god fucking dammit Frank, don’t you understand it’s all different now? I would’ve killed him, too, this isn’t about the morality of the fucking situation! This is about where we are now! What if you got caught? Huh? What then? You don’t live in a hideout and exist off black coffee and despair and disappear whenever the moment calls. You have friends, you have an apartment, a job, dammit Frank, you have me. You don’t understand how much it would fucking hurt if I lost you. I don’t wanna lose you, not again, I can’t do it again,” Curt finally explains and Frank is floored.
The tears that well in Curt’s eyes are real and Frank stalks briskly to where Curt is standing to pull him into a crushing hug that allows Curt to let go for real, holding onto Frank like he’s trying to physically anchor him to the present, to reality. Frank pulls Curt back to pepper kisses all over his face.
“God, baby, I’m so sorry, I didn’t—I wasn’t think about all that. You’re the smart one in all of this, always thinking for me. I can never hate you for that. God, baby, you must be so exhausted all the time looking out for me and I can’t thank you enough,” he whispers reverently into Curt’s hairline and he can feel the man relax against him.
“I just don’t want to have to worry about you anymore,” Curtis whispers back and Frank’s heart breaks.
“You won’t.”
—
Karen Page introduces Frank to a woman named Claire Temple on a sunny afternoon in Harlem. He greets her politely and she gives him a knowing smile when he introduces himself as Pete.
“She knows,” Karen says, and Frank rolls his eyes.
“Of course she does,” he quips and Claire laughs, bright and high.
They get to talking about all sorts of things, the three of them. Frank talks about how Curt was a corpsman and now works as a group therapist. He mentions that he’s in construction, but that his heart really isn’t into the work. He does it because he’s good at it, good at destruction.
“Have you thought to see if maybe those hands could be used for something else?” Claire suggests and Karen tilts her head in confusion.
“What are you on about, Claire?” Karen asks and Claire smiles knowingly.
“I know a nurse type when I see them. I mean, the do no harm part doesn’t exactly apply to him, but I think he’s got the take no shit part on lock. It’s always a fun experience and since you’re a veteran there’s probably a good scholarship program out there,” Claire explains and Frank is shell shocked.
“Never was much of the school type, ma’am,” he tells her and Claire shoots him a look like she knows exactly what to say.
“What’s there to lose, Castle?”
—
Frank flops down on the bed face first next to Curt, not even bothering to take off his tennis shoes or scrubs. He groans into the pillow and Curt doesn’t bother looking from the book he’s reading.
“Nursing school is hell, babe. It’s worse than the Marines, Curt, the Marines,” Frank laments, muffled by the pillow, and Curt lets out a belly laugh at the statement, reaching over to run his hands through Frank’s thick curls. Frank lets out a contented sigh at the feeling and sinks lower into the mattress, practically purring.
“You gotta like something, right?” Curt asks and Frank turns his head so that his face isn’t smooshed into the pillow.
“I like working pediatric,” Frank says and Curt softens at the statement.
“You always did love kids,” Curtis adds and Frank smiles at him. The moment stretches on comfortably and Frank can’t keep his eyes off Curtis Hoyle, the man that he loves. A soft smile stretches over his features and his heart swells with all the emotions Curt makes him feel. Safe, loved, cared for.
“I love you,” slips from his lips unbidden. Curt gives him a smile of his own and scoots down on the bed to lay a kiss on his lips before declaring his love for Frank too and in that moment Frank knows, knows with ever fiber of his being that he’s going to love Curtis for as long as he’ll allow and maybe even more.
He kisses Curt again, slow and deliberate and moves so he’s straddling his waist and Curt drops his book to the floor to place his hands on Frank’s waist and it’s slow, easy when they grind into each other, lips never leaving the other’s swallowing moans and pants and staying flush, skin to skin. Frank pulls away to yank his scrub top off and Curt wastes no time sliding up so he can kiss his way from Frank’s neck down to his chest, laving his tongue across scars and old bullet wounds, scraping teeth across his nipple to hear him gasp, and pressing his lips reverently to Frank’s abs.
Frank can’t bear to keep his hands off Curt’s skin any longer so he pushes him back to yank his sleeping shirt off and runs his hands across the expanse of flesh before him. They move to kiss each other again and it’s feverish, hot in a way that makes Frank’s bones ache as he strips them both down to nothing. He shivers when Curt flips him effortlessly and there’s a hand on his aching cock and fingers pressing insistently against his hole and he’s writhing, biting at Curt’s lower lip with abandon. Then he feels a slick finger push into him and he arches, his neck exposed and Curtis latches on, sucking bruises onto his throat wherever he can reach, fucking him deep with three fingers now.
“Fuck, Curtis, love you, love you so much, God,” Frank moans out breathlessly his eyes rolling back as Curtis keeps pressing into him, keeps jerking his leaking cock and then he’s over the edge, his body tensing as he comes and in that brief moment of pure looseness, Curt pushes in and Frank wails, his arms snapping around Curt’s back, nails digging into his flesh and he can feel his spent dick twitching. The world is a supernova and he’s caught up in heat and light and the feeling of Curtis and him coming together over and over again. It’s a feedback loop of pleasure and love and he can’t help but kiss Curtis over and over again, kiss bitten lips meeting to fill the spaces in breathing.
Then one, two, three, thrusts and Curt is coming and Frank feels his whole body shudder with the release. They lay next to each other and Frank has never ever been the one to pull away after sex so he crowds Curtis as close as he can, pressing his face into his neck to plant soft kisses, drawing lines and swirls on his flesh with his fingers. Curt keeps an arm around his shoulders and lips pressed into his hairline and for the first time in years, he feels like he’s truly home.
—
It’s the day of Frank’s graduation and every so often he finds himself turning his head, catching eyes with the little cheering section that’s been set up in the bleachers. He can’t stop smiling to himself. When they ask veterans and their loved ones to stand, he does so with a smile on his face and gives small smiles of his own to the three other veterans in his graduating class. He realizes everyone there for him stands as well, considering themselves his loved ones.
Curtis is standing and next to him is Karen. Matt is in the row behind her with Foggy and Claire and Frank still can’t believe he’s alive. Claire brought Luke, who brought Misty, who brought Danny and Colleen, who yanked Jessica into the mix. David, Sarah, Leo, and Zach are on Curt’s other side and sitting reluctantly with them is Dinah. Finally he spies Leticia standing next to Claire. He has a family, a support system.
When they finally sit back down, the ceremony commences and Frank feels like Maria and the kids are proud of him wherever they are.
And when they call his name he can’t help but straighten up like he’s receiving the medal of honor when they pin the caduceus onto the collar of his scrubs and his friends are all cheering for him. He takes a picture holding his degree as he walks off stage and they hand him a rose as he takes a seat. At the last name they say to hand the rose to someone who made the journey possible and he knows he’s handing the rose to Curt the minute he gets a chance.
Then they all stand and with all the conviction in his heart, Frank begins to recite the Nightingale Pledge.
“I solemnly pledge myself before God and in the presence of this assembly, to pass my life in purity and to practice my profession faithfully. I will abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous, and will not take or knowingly administer any harmful drug. I will do all in my power to maintain and elevate the standard of my profession, and will hold in confidence all personal matters committed to my keeping and all family affairs coming to my knowledge in the practice of my calling. With loyalty will I endeavor to aid the physician, in his work, and devote myself to the welfare of those committed to my care.”
The cheers are deafening when they finally finish.
—
Outside of the auditorium Frank finds himself surrounded by his friends and there’s pictures being snapped and he’s laughing. The there’s a tap on his shoulder and he turns to see Curt and is swept up into a hug before he even has a chance to speak. They pull back and kiss for a long while before breaking apart. The pure adoration shining in his eyes is enough to bring tears to Frank’s and he presses his face into Curt’s neck and sighs. The whole world around them doesn’t exist and for that moment he forgets that he’s surrounded by people who want to wish him well.
So he pulls away from Curt, presses a chaste kiss to his forehead and turns, smiling, to face everyone. Immediately he’s swallowed in congratulations and cards and he laughs when Leo and Zach fight over who gets to hug him first. Karen hugs him long and hard and says that she always knew he could live a good life. He tries not to cry at that.
Matt gives him a firm handshake and they share a knowing smile that sets Foggy on edge, who gives him a handshake as well even though his hand is trembling in Frank’a grip. David and Sarah gather him in a dual hug that makes it hard to breathe and congratulate him fiercely and he can resist the urge to loop his arm over David’s neck and run his knuckles over his wild mess of curls, nearly knocking his kippot out of place. David half heartedly smacks him in the chest. Leticia hugs him close and whispers in his ear that she’s proud of how much he’s grown. Claire follows and one by one her guests all offer their congratulations. Jessica tips her fingers at him in salute, Misty smiles warmly, Colleen takes his hand in a firm shake, Luke pulls him to clap his back a couple times, and Danny — too excited for his own good — gathers him up in a congratulatory hug despite the fact that they’d only met a few times before.
Dinah steps up finally and she looks bashful. There’s a scar on her right temple from where Billy shot her and when she offers a hand he pulls her into a hug that she sags into.
“You did good with this second chance, Castle,” she murmurs into his scrubs and Frank let’s a single laugh out before pulling away.
“I couldn’t’a done it without you, Madani. You really pulled through,” he says and she scoffs, a bemused smirk on her face.
“Please, Castle, CIA would’ve done anything to keep you from running your mouth. I just gave them a push in the right direction before we caught Russo, is all,” she replies and at the mention of him Frank can’t help but notice her involuntary flinch.
“I’m sorry you got caught up in all of that... You didn’t deserve to get hurt like that,” he laments and she shrugs, looking far away.
“It’s fine. In the end, you did what you had to do and I can’t help but wonder where we’d be if you hadn’t,” she says and before Frank can reply she continues. “He’s been doing physical therapy, trauma therapy, you know really working on getting better. But I can’t help but wonder if under all that bullshit he’s still the same piece of shit who’d do anything to get a dollar more than the next guy,” she finishes and Frank scoffs.
“Far as I’m concerned, Madani, that piece of shit can do whatever the fuck he wants with his life because he’s done fucking around in mine. On the off chance he does decide he wants to try again, lemme know if you’ve got a third chance laying around there somewhere in DHS,” he tells her and she laughs at that.
“Wherever Billy Russo is concerned I’ll find some strings to pull. And if there aren’t any, I’ll make ‘em myself,” she tells him and he claps a hand on her shoulder before pulling her into a side hug. There’s a tap on his shoulder and he turns to see Curt with a bouquet of flowers in his hands, a gift bag Frank can only assume is full of his graduation cards in the crook of his elbow.
They aren’t roses and what they are, he doesn’t have names for. One kind white, feathery and multi-petaled, another yellow kind shaped like a star, the other kind a white and yellow bevy of petals that layer out into a circle, and in the middle, bigger than all the rest, sits a gorgeous flower with stacks of yellow petals that seemed to be circling the center.
Frank looks at the rose still in his grip and laughs a little.
“You done getting all those congratulations out of the way or should I wait a little longer?” Curt asks with a smile in his voice and Frank playfully punched him on the shoulder.
“Yeah, yeah, you big sap. Who told you to get me a bouquet, was it Karen?” Frank questions and Curt lets out a single laugh at that.
“Very funny, I came up with this all on my own, thank you very much,” Curt replies and Frank rolls his eyes. “You wanna know what they all mean? I got ‘em picked out special just for this.”
“Lay it on me,” Frank answers and Curt’s smile is enough to make him want to listen about flowers all day long.
“Well these,” Curt says, pointing at the feathery multi-petaled flower, “are chrysanthemums. They mean fidelity, long life, optimism, and true, loyal love.” Frank has to swallow a bit at that.
“And these,” he points at the star shaped flower, “are daffodils. They symbolize rebirth, new beginnings, and joy.” Frank almost laughs at the irony of it but finds himself busy holding back tears as Curtis continues. He points at the flower with the bevy of petals all going around and around in a circle.
“That’s buttercup. It means that I’m charmed by you,” Curtis laughs and Frank laughs with him, watery. And then he points to the flower in the very middle, his own eyes a little glassy and Frank is so preoccupied with the thundering of his heart in his chest that he doesn’t notice his friends have gathered in a semi circle around him and Curtis.
“This flower right here. This is the most important one. It’s called a Dahlia and it means a lot of things but the one I care about the most is that it means a commitment. A sacred bond shared by two people,” as he speaks Frank can hear the tears and he’s shell shocked. And then Curt starts going down onto a knee and Frank can’t see much at all through the mist of tears. “I want it to mean that for us. I feel like I’ve loved you my whole life and now I can’t think of any one else I’d rather spend the rest of it with no matter what. You’re... you are the only person left out there for me. You’re it. And I want to know if you would do the honor of marrying me.”
Frank is speechless and the ripple of whispers from his friends are nothing but background noise. He barely gets the words out before he’s crying and he says:
“You’re the only one for me, Curtis.”
“So does that mean yes?” Curt asks with a reverence in his voice that Frank can’t even imagine being directed toward him and all he can do is nod.
His friends erupt in cheers but when that band slips onto his finger and Curtis is kissing him like tomorrow is their last day on earth, he can’t hear them.
—
Frank can’t stop pacing and he feels so dumb and stereotypical right now but it feels like his dress blues are staring at him in the face and he hasn’t worn them since his first wedding and it’s clawing at him now that he realizes he’s found a start again without Maria. So there he is. pacing in his underwear and long socks like he’s about to run a hole through the carpet. When the door opens he barely even notices.
“Frank,” a voice says and Frank whips around faster than anything and grabs the gun he had resting on the dresser drawer and points it at the intruder.
Karen’s face is blank as she regards him.
“Goddammit, Karen, you can’t sneak up on me like that,” he pants, placing the gun down after clicking the safety back on.
“Noted. Now get dressed,” she says and Frank wants melt into the floor at her tone.
“I haven’t worn those since I got married to Maria,” he tells her and her face goes soft for a moment before she picks them up and presses them into his hands.
“And now you’re going to wear them to marry Curtis. One doesn’t cancel out the other. Maria would be happy you’re trying again,” she says and Frank breathes deep, looks at the dress blues, and presses his lips to the left side of his collar where Maria had placed hers during their first dance all those years ago.
“I’ll always love you... Always,” he whispers into the fabric before closing his eyes and breathing.
—
The oak doors in front of him seem massive and he subconsciously flexes his bicep against Karen and she smiles. He tries to keep his face as stoic and impassive as he can but when the doors swing open and he sees Curtis there in his Navy formal attire he has to stop himself from crying right then and there. He notices that Curtis is barely holding back his tears as well. His brother places a hand on his shoulder and whispers in his ear and Frank wishes so desperately that his family were here to see this.
But when he sees David there next to Sarah standing on his side of the altar, Leo and Curtis’s niece Rebecca holding a basket each, and Zach standing attentively with the rings on his pillow, he can’t help but realize that he does have a family here. He also can’t help the watery smile that graces his features when Karen finally deposits him at the altar and takes her place at his side as his best woman.
Matt is officiating and Frank couldn’t‘ve chosen a better candidate. He speaks from the heart and his sincerity about how happy he is for Frank and Curt makes the moment all the more sweet and Frank spends his time watching Curt, gazing into those dark brown eyes and seeing the whole universe reflected in them. He wishes he and Curt could take their gloves off already because every moment he’s not holding this man’s hands is criminal.
“And now the grooms have decided to recite their own vows,” Matt announces and for the first time Frank decides to speak his mind first.
“Well... I didn’t really write anything but I knew that when this moment came I’d know exactly what to say. I remember the first time I saw you. You joined our covert ops group as a Navy SARC and I wondered why they’d pick you over anybody else. But then when I saw how you put us back together, how you used those hands to heal, how you were the only one who ever gave enough of a shit to listen to our problems, I realized you were special. You did something none of us did back there, you shone. You were a beacon in all this horrible bullshit and you kept us together in more ways than one. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t regret being the one that broke you in a way we couldn’t fix. There isn’t a day that goes by that I wish I would’ve taken that shot. But through it all I knew one thing. That you’d always be one of the most important people in my life,” Frank spoke and the words came without him thinking, everything he felt for Curt spilling out like a miasma of adoration spilled upon the altar.
“I didn’t truly realize my love for you until I was sitting in your kitchen one afternoon a few months into therapy and the light hit your face just right and I was overwhelmed with how much I wanted to kiss you. Karen almost murdered me because I woke her up pounding on her door like the devil was at my heels only to tell her that I was falling in love with you. Do you know what she said, after she smacked me upside the head? She said she always figured it’d be you and me. And she was right. So now in front of our families and God I want to say that from now until you’ll have me it will always be you and me. Always,” he finishes and he can hear the sniffs around the room, someone going so far as to blow their nose. Frank could wager a bet that it was probably Danny.
“Damn, Pete. How am I gonna top that?” Curt laughs and Frank laughs with him, full of joy. “See when I met you, all I could think of was that you were a mean son of a bitch when you were out there fighting. You’d go out there and do things that would strike awe in the heart of anyone. But when it was just us, chilling in the tents you were a different person. You’d never talk about your feelings, but you’d always get us to feel better even when the times were at their lowest. I remember laughing at you so much that it takes up a bigger chunk of my memories serving with you than anything else. The other chunk belongs to that stupid kid’s song you kept singing that had everyone within earshot stuck with an ear worm for the rest of the day.
“But then you came back. You were here and then the unspeakable happened. It took a while for you to come back for me, but I waited. You were getting your mind right and when I finally saw you again, I saw a man who was holding the sky up on his own shoulders and I wondered how I could share the weight. You... you said I was special but I’ve never met a man as special as you. You have so much love and for a long time you were afraid to give it. You were afraid to receive it. And now, standing on this altar I can’t help but feel blessed and honored to be the man who gets to feel that love every single day. I love you more than life itself and I hope you’ll let me do that for as long as I live,” Curt speaks and this time the tears come down Frank’s face in silent rivulets.
“Can we skip the till death do us part crap because I just want to be this man’s husband as fast as you can make it happen,” Frank says to Matt and the church laughs, Matt included.
“Okay, okay, Zachary, the rings?” Matt says and Frank can’t get his gloves off fast enough. Matt hands one to Curt and one to Frank and the cold metal warms to his skin quickly as he holds it tight in his palm.
“Do you, Curtis Patrick Hoyle take Peter Castiglione to be your lawfully wedded husband? To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, in poverty and wealth, till death do you part?”
“I do,” Curt says in a reverent whisper.
“And do you, Peter Castiglione take Curtis Patrick Hoyle to be your lawfully wedded husband? To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, in poverty and wealth, till death do you part?”
“I do,” Frank says before Matt can even finish his sentence and it earns him a round of chuckles. Matt nods almost imperceptibly and Curt and Frank exchange their rings, too proud to keep from smiling as they do.
“Then by the power vested in me by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and the state of New York, I now pronounce you man and man, you may kiss your husband!” Matt declares and without a second’s thought he captures Curt’s lips in a feverish kiss and doesn’t even care about decency.
—
On the plane to their honeymoon, Frank his vibrating. He doesn’t know where they’re going or what they’re going to do, but Curt said to pack for cold weather and he’s nervous as all hell. When they land the airport isn’t all that large and everyone looks vaguely slavic. He can’t help but hold Curt’s hand in his own as they walk outside to cool mountain air, their suitcases rolling behind them.
“Where are you taking me?” Frank asks and Curt shushes him.
“Oh, come on, please!” He begs and Curt gives him a look of amusement.
“Do you not like surprises?” Curt questions and Frank gapes.
“It’s not that,” Frank responds vaguely and Curt laughs as Frank sputters for an answer.
“Seriously, you’re schemes are top notch and I’d like to know what I’m getting into,” he clarifies and Curt laughs before pulling him in to kiss him and Frank laughs breathlessly when they pull away. He attempts to explain his apprehension of a surprise honeymoon in the best way that he can without smiling like a loon so he says with a laugh in his voice and a playful shove against Curt’s chest.
“I just... I’m scared.”