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It was good sitting with Curtis and not talking. He’d talked enough today, more than enough, and it was a relief to sit in front of the football game and just breathe.
He closed his eyes during the commercials, centering himself. It had been good to talk, to admit to the things he didn’t want to say, to work through the things Curtis had been nagging him to deal with for years. It was also tiring, and he was still a little shaky.
When his phone buzzed, he checked it. The number wasn’t familiar, but it was pretty obvious who it was. "We all ate 2 much 2 have dessert. Gonna have pie in abt an hr if u wanna come.“ The skull after the first sentence was a little dramatic, and he didn’t see why she couldn’t have written out ‘pie’ instead of using an emoji of one, but Frank half smiled at his phone anyway. He just wasn’t quite sure what to say back.
The phone buzzed again. "This is Leo, btw.” He smiled for real this time.
“You talking to someone I don’t know about?” Curtis asked.
Frank shook his head, still smiling faintly even as he blushed a little. "Nah, just Micro’s kid.“
"Micro’s kid has your phone number?”
“I guess,” he answered. He didn’t remember giving it to her, but Leo was clever and he didn’t really expect any kid of David’s to be good about boundaries.
He put his phone away, not sure quite what to do about that. The thought of going over there for pie was not awful, but that didn’t mean it was a good idea. Curtis was right about him. He was a shit magnet. If he went over there now, it would be the start of something, and starting something was dangerous.
The phone buzzed again twenty minutes later. An unlisted number, not that that much mattered when he opened the message, either. “Just realized Leo stole my phone. Sorry. Invite still stands though.”
Frank’s fingers itched to say something. Something about David not being an asshole for once, maybe. Something about his family being good for him. Something about his kids being assholes like him. Something about how he could be there in a few minutes. But he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t. He put his phone back in his pocket.
After another five minutes, it buzzed again.
“Don’t be an asshole. Just get over here.” Frank felt the corners of his mouth threatening to creep upward again. A moment later, the phone buzzed again. "Hope your meeting was good.“
"Chatty kid,” Curtis commented.
“This time it’s her dad.”
“Chatty family, then.”
“I guess.”
He shoved his phone back in his pocket again, hoping it would stop Curtis from looking at him like that.
“You gonna answer him?”
“If he wants to know where I am, he can track my phone.”
It wasn’t really an answer, but he didn’t really have an answer. Not one he could give without using more words than he had left after this morning. He wanted to text back. He didn’t have the words for that, either.
Curtis laughed. "You guys are a mess.“
Frank grunted. That was probably true enough. Just another reason to stay away. Didn’t make it easier to tell the Liebermans that.
It was fully 45 minutes later before his phone buzzed again. Sarah, this time. "Need you to help with my asshole kid again. Zach wants pie, but David keeps looking at the door and telling him not yet.”
Frank groaned. At this point, it was all starting to look like a setup, but that didn’t make it any easier to resist the impulse to fall into the trap anyway.
“Alright, spill,” Curtis said. “You look constipated.”
“They want me to go eat pie with them.”
“So go eat pie. Weren’t you just talking about trying to build a life?”
Frank grunted. He was. Had been. Should be.
Curtis rolled his eyes. "Come on, man, what’s the worst that could happen?“
“I’m a shit magnet,” Frank answered.
“Yeah, well, so’s Lieberman. You might as well try to have his back.”
Frank grunted back.
“Do you want to go?”
Frank didn’t answer right away and Curtis half growled under his breath. "Come on, man. Don’t overthink it. I asked what you want.“
"Yeah, I guess,” Frank admitted.
“You don’t guess,” Curtis answered, “You’re just scared. Go anyway.”
“What if they expect me to come over again after that?”
Curtis studied him for a moment. "What makes you think they won’t either way?“
Frank grunted again. That was a good point, but it didn’t make it less important to take a stand now.
"Frank, you said it yourself. Your war is over. Go home.”
“I can’t,” he said, almost before Curtis had finished.
“Look, I’m not saying it’ll be like having Maria and the kids back. It won’t. But you’ve got to build something, and having people in your life who aren’t me is a good thing. Go.”
His phone buzzed again, and this time he was sure it was a conspiracy. Another number he didn’t have programmed in, but the “I’m hungry” with 10 skulls after it had to be Zach.
“See, it’s a sign,” Curtis said.
“Yeah,” he said, turning the phone toward Curtis’s chair and pointing at the skulls. "A sign that this is a bad idea.“
"Frank, you spray painted a skull onto the front of your tach vest. They might be a sign it’s a good idea. Not that the whole Punisher thing was a great idea, actually, but that worked out in the end, at least. Kind of.”
Frank grunted again, but Curtis just settled back into his seat, looking pleased. He knew he’d won.
Frank pulled himself to his feet as he started working on his reply text. "20 min.“
Zach sent back another skull before Frank had made it all the way out to his truck, but Frank actually felt good about ignoring that one.
As he pulled up outside the Lieberman house, he thought about driving away instead, but then he was parked and he’d set the parking brake and he was here for good, somehow. He got out, eyes locking onto the glow from the windows even as he closed his door.
On the porch, his fingers hovered beside the doorbell for a second before he thought better of it. He knocked with his usual force, but it still wouldn’t carry as far as the doorbell. If they didn’t hear, they didn’t really want him, and he could turn around and leave again. That would be safer, anyway.
The door flew open after only a few seconds and Leo barrelled into him, hugging him around the middle. "I told you!” she said, “I told you he’d come!”
Frank hugged her in return, feeling a little awkward as he patted her on the back. Sarah was laughing at him. "Finally! I thought you might actually be about to ditch us.“
"Yeah,” David agreed. “'Cause he’s an asshole. Good to see you.”
“Can we please have pie now?” Zach sounded impatient, but Frank noticed that he’d also stepped toward the door instead of toward the kitchen when he got off the couch.
Frank glanced toward the TV. "Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, huh?“
"Yeah,” Leo said, “We watch it every year. But the rest can wait 'til after pie!”
He let himself be dragged into the kitchen, where Leo dropped her grip on his hand just in time for Sarah to guide him toward the counter with a light hand on his shoulder. "David, get over here,“ she said, "You always cut the most even pieces.”
David groaned and rolled his eyes, but the huge smile on his face proved he didn’t mean it. "I got it.“
Zach squeezed himself into the space between Frank and David, reaching for the first piece of pie almost before David could get it on the plate, but Frank couldn’t step back out of his way because Sarah was there, too close, and he had to take a deep breath to steady himself. He felt a little trapped.
David shoved the second plate of pie into his hands harder than necessary and Frank put the pieces together. They were worried he was going to leave, even though he’d just gotten here.
As soon as he’d figured it out, it made sense. He was still a little rattled from the meeting, and he wasn’t sure he’d remembered to smile. Not that he was always great at making the attempt anyway. But he might still have enough energy left in the tank to fake one good one, and maybe that would be enough. Enough to convince them he meant to be here. Except he wasn’t sure he did. He just knew there was a part of him that wanted it, and Curtis had told him to listen to that part.
As soon as Leo had her pie he turned toward her, trying not to bump into Sarah in the process, and was surprised at how much easier it was to smile than he’d expected. "Alright, so where should I sit?”
Zach was a few feet behind his sister, out of the scrum and already digging into his piece of pie, right there in the middle of the kitchen. Sarah snorted lightly behind him, amused, but he didn’t think Zach could hear. "Zachary Lieberman, you wait for everybody else.“
"But mom-” Zach started, mouth full.
“No buts. Your dad’s almost done.”
“I think we should sit on the couch,” Leo said, “So we can finish Charlie Brown. Don’t you think, mom?”
Sarah looked at Leo, then at Frank, the table, and Frank again, and then she said, “Sure, sounds good. Just don’t spill.”
“Pie doesn’t spill,” Zach said, “It’s not a liquid.”
“Don’t talk back to your mother,” David said, the same huge grin wrecking the intensity of it. It was weird to watch him happy like this. It was good, too.
David handed Sarah a piece of pie and started cutting one for himself, and Frank found himself getting dragged off again, Leo’s grip surprisingly strong for a little girl. "Anyway,“ she said, "The dishwasher’s been making this weird noise, so I thought we’d take a look at it after the movie, before we try to make it do all the Thanksgiving dishes. Since it’s gonna be such a big load, you know?”
He’d known it. He’d known coming here was going to be the start of something he had no right to start, and now here he was, right up at the edge of it.
“I dunno, kid, your dad’s home now, so I’m not sure I need to-”
“Fine with me,” David interrupted, “It’s not like there’s anybody we can call to look at it on Thanksgiving anyway.”
He could tell from the way David didn’t quite meet his eyes that he recognized it as the betrayal it was, but he couldn’t exactly get mad about it with Leo still looking up at him with those big little-girl eyes.
“Would you mind?” Sarah asked, “Leo’s been bugging me about letting her open it up for a week, and it would be nice if she had some supervision.”
Frank grunted. For a moment, Leo looked confused, and he remembered that he’d usually forced himself to be a little more communicative as Pete. And sometimes he hadn’t forced it at all. "Alright,“ he said, clarifying the grunt for her. "Can’t hurt to take a look.”
It could hurt. It could hurt all of them. Somehow.
He wasn’t surprised to be half-shoved into a seat in the middle of the couch, and he wasn’t surprised when Leo sat close to him, but he was surprised by how close Zach sat on his other side, close enough that he was a little worried he might accidentally elbow the kid in the ribs when he started eating.
There almost wasn’t room for Sarah to join them, but they all scooted over as she jammed herself between Leo and the arm of the couch, Zach sneaking another early bite of his pie as soon as his mother was distracted with fishing a throw pillow out from under herself.
Frank could swear David was practically laughing at him as he came and took a seat on the opposite arm, beside his son. The longer Frank looked up at him, the more his eyes seemed to twinkle.
Leo reached forward and grabbed for the remote, restarting Charlie Brown, and Frank tried to calm himself down. He wasn’t trapped. If he really wanted to leave, they would let him. If someone came charging in and attacked them, they’d get out of the way fast enough for him to defend them. They knew who he was. What he was. They’d get out of his way, if they had to. Everything was fine.
He managed to eat his pie, because he didn’t want them to know anything was wrong, but the movie was just noise in front of him, and he couldn’t make sense of it. Breathe in. Breathe out. Chew. Swallow. The pie was good, and eating it felt good, and the longer nothing went wrong, the easier it was to focus on balancing whipped cream and pumpkin and pie crust in every bite and to keep breathing. Something tight in his chest started to unknot itself. Nothing was going wrong. That feeling that something was about to was probably wrong. Nothing was wrong.
It was still a relief when the credits rolled and they could all get up off the couch. It was good to have breathing room, and even better to have something to do when Leo dragged him off to fix the dishwasher.
They ran the machine empty, so he could listen to the noise, but when he told her he had only half a guess about what was wrong, it didn’t deter her at all. She’d read the manual, after all. And she’d googled some diagrams of dishwashers. She already knew how to cut power and water to the dishwasher so they could disconnect it. She was sure they could figure it out. He couldn’t figure out how to tell her no, especially not with David beaming at her, pride written all over his face.
As he let Leo run across the house to pull the fuse for the kitchen appliances and shut off the water, he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a bad idea. He was getting in too deep. There was no going back from this.
David’s eyes locked onto his for a moment, and he wasn’t sure what David saw there, but his friend immediately stepped toward the dishwasher with a shrug and said “I guess I’ll help, too.”
Frank couldn’t decide if David joining them was a chance to escape this, or just another sign that he was in over his head.
When Leo came back, Frank pulled the dishwasher out of its cabinet so that they could get to it better, and it was too late. Whatever this was, he’d started it. It was happening. Leo was halfway underfoot as soon as the back of the dishwasher was visible, and a little nagging part of him couldn’t even be upset about it.
Somewhere between realizing they needed to disassemble a large portion of the dishwasher, realizing they weren’t sure they could put it back together, and figuring out how to fix it, the feeling of impending doom went away. Frank couldn’t explain it, exactly, but as the clock ticked later and later and the day caught up to him more and more, it also got easier to accept that things might not be wrong. They might not be awful. They might be ok.
When it was all back together again, Leo beamed and David helped him slot the appliance back into its cabinet. He’d have turned down the help a few hours ago, but the moment the project was done, he’d felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him, and David was probably the only person in the world he was actually used to letting help him when he felt that way.
Leo yawned as she walked out of the kitchen to turn the water and power back on, and David leaned slightly against him. Frank thought he should probably shove the man over to lean against the counters instead, but then he’d have to lean against the counter himself, instead of letting David counterbalance him, and he wasn’t sure it was worth it.
Sarah came in with Leo to listen to the newly fixed dishwasher and took one look at the three of them before declaring, "Alright, that’s it for tonight. I’ll set up a bed for you on the couch, Pete.”
“No, that’s not-”
Before he could say 'necessary,’ David interrupted, still leaning against his shoulder. "Frank. ’S Frank.“
"Pete’s fine,” Frank said, and then he hadn’t said no to the couch, and he was too tired to do anything about it when Leo followed up another yawn with “It’s alright, Mom, I can get it. I know you wanted to load the dishwasher now that it’s fixed.” She moved faster than the yawn had suggested, and then she was gone.
“She’s a good kid,” David said.
“Yeah,” Frank agreed.
“You too tired to help, babe?” Sarah asked.
“Zach can help,” David said, the best indication of all that he was feeling just as tired as Frank was. “His sister did all the hard parts.”
“Zach’s in bed. It’s almost 1 in the morning.”
“Oh,” David said.
“Why are you still up?” Frank asked, “You could have gone to bed.”
“I had a few things to get ready for Black Friday tomorrow. It’s ok. I’m used to running on three hours of sleep.”
Frank stifled a groan at the thought. He functioned perfectly well on little sleep, when he had to. But somehow, for the first time in a long time, he just couldn’t convince himself that he had to. He’d been right about this whole pie thing. Something was different now, and he couldn’t get his head around it. He just knew he felt something, under the exhaustion, and it was something good instead of something bad, and he didn’t know what to do with that. Didn’t know how to name that. Wasn’t sure he knew how to feel it.
When Leo shuffled into the doorway of the kitchen with an armful of blankets, David started steering both of them toward the door to meet her, and Frank let him lead the way, finally stepping away from the other man so that David stumbled a little without the support of Frank’s shoulder against his and Frank had to reach out and steady him.
This was funny. It was like they were drunk. But they weren’t. This was something else. Something different. The crash after the adrenaline, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d let go of the fight long enough for that. Frank snorted, amused, and David swiped at him ineffectively. "Asshole. S'not nice to laugh. I’m tired.“
"Yeah, but we did it!” Leo said, “I told you we could!” The encouragement was nice, but a little undermined by her third yawn in almost as many minutes.
“You should be getting to bed, too, baby girl,” David said.
Leo shook her head. "I’m almost done. I already grabbed a pillow.“
Frank hurried forward, half stumbling as he reached for the blankets. "It’s alright, Leo,” he said, “I can take care of myself.”
She tugged the blankets away from him. "Yeah, but we can take care of you, too.“
There was something there. Something. He wondered if they’d talked about him after he dropped David off at their door. He wondered what they’d said. They made it to the couch, and he stopped wondering because he needed to focus on helping with the blankets, untangling them and laying them out neatly so Leo would stop worrying about him and go to bed.
David tried to help too, and six hands were too many, and Leo giggled tiredly as they made a mess of it, and Frank felt the edges of his mouth pull up into a smile he was definitely too tired for, because smiling was work and he was done working.
"Stop smiling and go to sleep,” David said, “It’s late. I can’t believe you took apart my dishwasher.”
“You’re an asshole,” he answered, only remembering after it came out soft that he was supposed to at least pretend he meant it.
Once the blankets were good enough, he pulled them back and collapsed onto the couch, a little harder than he might have let himself anywhere else. He reached for the blankets before David or Leo could pull them over him, not ready to be quite that - something. Even this tired, being tucked in felt like too much.
David and Leo stood over him for a second, just staring, like they’d run out of gas, but then David broke the silence, sliding an arm around Leo’s shoulders. "Alright, help your old man up the stairs.“ She did, the two of them stepping out toward the staircase. "See you tomorrow, Frank,” he said over his shoulder.
Frank grunted back, but then realized that wouldn’t do for Leo. "Night.“
She turned to look over her shoulder at him before she and David could start climbing the stairs. "Night, Pete.”
“Sleep well,” he managed.
This time, she didn’t answer, she and her father both too focused on the stairs in front of them. That was good. The lights were still on, but Frank didn’t much want to get up and turn them off. It wasn’t like he couldn’t sleep anywhere he set his mind to, anyway.
He was halfway asleep already when Sarah finished up with the dishes and came over to the couch to smooth the blankets over him. He’d heard the dishwasher start, and he’d heard her footsteps moving toward him, and the only surprise was that it didn’t bother him having her suddenly close to him, in his space, smoothing down his blankets.
“Shh,” she said, before he could say anything, “Go to sleep.”
He was too tired to nod, but he managed a grunt and her mouth quirked up at the corner. "I’ll get the light on my way past,“ she said, "You know where the bathroom is. And the glasses in the kitchen.” He grunted again. "See you in the morning.“
Then she was gone.
The minute the lights switched off, he felt his eyes falling shut. Just when it had become least necessary to keep them closed. Her footsteps on the stairs got farther away, then the tone of them changed as she hit flat ground, then her bedroom door closed. He should open his eyes again. Should keep watch. Should make sure everything was still ok.
He didn’t. There was something missing in the middle of his chest, something that was meant to be telling him everything was wrong and everything was dangerous, something that wasn’t there and wasn’t doing that and everything - everything felt ok.
He drifted off, expecting Maria and the nightmares that so often followed her. Instead his sleep was deep and strong and dreamless, for the first time in a long time.