#KJNDFGKJSFNGKJSDFNKJSDFNKSJDNF

[karenpage]

Frank meets Karen’s dad: How does it go?

@sail-not-drift

Vermont’s cold. Not New York street cold but bone-chilling, freeze your ass off, cold. Jack Frost’s got his claws dug in deep and shit, shit just breathing hurts out here, like his lungs are filling up on ice and it burns on the way in as much as it does when he exhales. Plumes of steam from Frank’s breath hang around his face, squinting through it as the sun mocks, glares off the snow and does absolutely nothing to warm him. Even dressed in black, in fifteen god damned layers, Frank Castle would rather be holed up in the Syrian desert with IEDs and mortar fire.

He knows what to do with war, at least. With the hot stink of death and rot and the way it clotted with bloodied sand until he spat it out, a fire-fights quick-dry cement.

He has no fucking idea what to do here.

Fagan Corners is small enough to spit across and the buildings look tired, sagging from decades of exposure to the elements - the trees are sparse near the town’s center, and there aren’t mountains close enough to shield the worst of the wind. It kicks up, Frank swears in a gruff whisper, but the snow crunching under his boots drowns it out. Not that he’d really try and complain. He knows that his five-minute tactical assessment of Karen’s hometown doesn’t give him any sort of advantage headed into the unknown.

They’re walking, her hand wrapped in his and shoved into the front pocket of his sweatshirt. He’s a little less cold when he’s focused, zoned in until the world has fallen away except for the clear-cut path. The plan. The mission.

Some kids pass them, huddled around a cell-phone and laughing at some dumb YouTube crap, but Karen startles when they shove on by. Like their joy is gunfire and so Frank just holds her closer. He doesn’t know shit about her, about her past; not like his, which has been dug up, exploited, given a post-mortem so every dumb son of a bitch who’d watched a War Documentary can chime in on what he went through.

Think they know him. Not like Karen does, she’d seen the ugly, the blood the gore, the grief and he wonders if it’s love or collateral. How you get to be this close to someone as damaged as he is and not get some part of you hooked, broken off. Shrapnel buried deeper than even a seasoned Marine knew how to dig out.

Shit though, what he knows about Karen can be measured in the hand that holds hers all the same.

She’s remained a mystery in that, holed up in the bunker of her ache and Frank’s patient. He’d wait until she gave him anything. Wouldn’t pry it from her, wouldn’t make demands.

And when Karen had asked him three weeks ago to go home… he’d made a fool of himself, stumbling over his words just to say yeah, of course.

So here they are, in the trenches and he’s going in blind.

Karen’s been leading him around town, quiet, occasionally commenting on landmarks that meant something to her, from her childhood. The only movie theater where some fumbling freshman boy had tried to get her bra off in the middle of Armageddon. Or the curb she’d fallen off, twisted her ankle, and the ice cream shop across the street from it her mom took her to every day that summer because she couldn’t go swimming with Kevin or her friends.

Frank nods, smiling a little; it’s slow. The Thaw. But she’s coming around when they pass the post-office and the corkboard outside is tacked with article clippings from the High School’s newspaper - Karen had written for them, her first real journalistic endeavor.

“Had a knack for it, huh?” His voice is rough from disuse and Karen just smiles at him crookedly, using her free hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

“I guess. It earned me a spot at Georgetown, studied English.” She kicks some snow, watches it melt on contact with the heated fender of a parked car. Frank nods - didn’t know that, either. Makes sense, honestly, he’d read every article she’d put out at the Bulletin and each one was better than the last.

Won’t tell her that the one she’d written about him was taped to the inside of his lunchbox, or how worn the edges of the paper were from running his fingers over it.

More walking, more small talk.

They stop for coffee - Karen says it wasn’t a Starbucks fourteen years ago and yeah, there’s modernization on the edge of the old town. Or an attempt at it. Orders his black, the barista looks at him like that’s a Capitol Offense.

“It’s Vermont. They think salt is spicy,” she reminds him, stirring some cinnamon and nutmeg into her cup. No sweetener, and when she catches the confused look etched onto Frank’s mug she blushes. “– it tastes good. Shut up.”

He just ducks his head, hiding the amusement in his eyes and wrinkling his nose as he chokes down his drink.

Now her hand in his is shaking, her palm is clammy and he takes no offense when she draws it away, wipes it off on her thigh and reaches for him again, filling the empty spaces between his fingers with practiced ease.

Their path turns off from the pavement, and gravel gives way when they step off the sidewalk and turn down an unmarked road. At the end, a white and blue building with a sign that’s barely intact, ‘Penny’s Diner’. Eviction notices, ugly red tape that says condemned, paper the sides of it, but Karen’s unflinching.

As if part of her had expected exactly that.

Frank’s just a guard dog, got his leash caught between his teeth as he trails warily behind Karen - she knows the way, so it makes objective sense that he falls to her six. Doesn’t mean he likes letting her go anyplace before him. It’s tactical training, and something else. Felt that obligation gnaw at the back of his skull: gotta keep her safe.

What place is safer than some sleepy little town in the heart of Vermont?

Circling around back, a mailbox with Page scrawled in a child’s handwriting marks the start of a dirt driveway, curling behind an outcropping of pine trees. Stoic, blue-green soldiers hiding the modest house behind them.

Karen stops about halfway, her eyes wet with tears but there’s a stubbornness to it, like she’s got something to prove by setting her jaw, sniffling, and carrying on. She won’t let them fall. But Frank’s ready to wipe them away if they do all the same.

Frank hangs back a little, lets her climb the three stairs, lets her open the screen and – the moment, the beat, the breath before her knuckles rap against the blue front door. Robin’s egg blue, he thinks, and when Karen turns to look at him, motioning with her chin for him to join her, he realizes that this blue, much like the blue of the diner, is the same color as her eyes.

He swallows and soldiers forward, steps heavy, the wood of the deck groans underneath his added weight.

He’s alert, eyes narrowed, jumping to tally every movement around them. A squirrel rushes out of the bushes, climbs the little picket fence jutting out of the side of the house, and disappears. Frank shifts his weight from foot to foot - there’s movement inside the house, but no one answers the door.

It’s quiet after that in the way that nature is, makes Frank’s palms itch.

Birds chatter and the needly fingers of the spruce trees sway with every angry gust of wind. Some brush across the roof, others just tangle with their neighbor and catch the first few raindrops before they hit the tops of their heads. Fat, cold, the kind of rain that’s not yet snow but it’s trying to be.

“We should go,” Karen’s teeth chatter, the rain picks up so he holds her tight - the thin lip of an awning over the front door keeps them dry, but only just.

Frank wraps his arms around her shoulders, looks over them, where the blinds part and a pair of eyes watches - disappearing as soon as they’re spotted.

Son of a bitch.

“Nah, see… see you did the right thing. You came here, an’ no matter what he said it is your home. You have that right.” His is ashes. Red edges in on the perimeter of his vision and he only holds Karen that much tighter, keeps the tide of his rage at bay.

Karen sniffs, he knows that she’s crying but he won’t add insult to injury by commenting on it. He strokes his fingers through the edge of her hair and then, with one hand stroking up and down her back, he balls the other into a fist and pounds on that door again.

“Know you’re in there,” a growl.

Karen draws away, looks up at him to hurriedly whisper, “Frank what are you doing–”

The door swings open and Paxton’s staring them down, well, if the shock that washes over Karen’s face tells him anything - it’s what’s left of the man she’d known as her dad.

Frank’s stomach churns; what he wouldn’t give to have his child at the door. What he wouldn’t give to even see Lisa or Frankie again. He swallows down the hot bile rising up the back of his throat and stares Karen’s father down.

“Karen I -” his words are slow, slurred. A drunk. She flinches visibly and Frank’s upper lip curls. “I told you not to come.”

“Yeah, yeah you did.” But she doesn’t care, that much is obvious and despite the tension and painful discomfort of the situation, Frank feels just a little bit of pride. Atta girl. “But the thing is, Dad, the thing is you pushed me away. Shut me out and – I was alone, in New York. I found people and I kept going but you took away my right to mourn and I’ve spent over a decade trying to figure out how to let all this… all this loneliness, out of me. But I come home, I come home and you’ve just drunk it all away. Mom died, and you did nothing. Kevin died and you were all I had left, I was all you had and and —”

She has to stop, Paxton hasn’t moved, hasn’t reacted aside from the hand on the doorframe beginning to shake. Frank won’t rule that out as a byproduct of the vodka on his breath, though. His own fingers tighten against the back of Karen’s shirt. An anchor to keep him from lashing out.

Her dad just – he moves to shut the door and without thinking, Frank shoves his arm out, the pain of it being caught between the heavy wood and metal frame doesn’t bother him in the least.

Karen’s turned away, rushed down the short flight of stairs to cry freely, he wouldn’t fault her for an inch of her mile-long hurt.

Frank doesn’t get it, so he’s got Paxton’s sweat-stained shirt balled up between the white of his fisted knuckles and he draws him forward, speaks in that snarled, low rumble that makes his whole frame radiate rage.

“See, I don’t get you.” Spittle catches on the corner of his lip, “Both my kids… both of them. They were taken from me and shit– shit I made sure the people responsible paid for it. I hunted them down like animals. ‘Cuz they were. They were animals but they’re all dead now and I don’t feel better. Doesn’t… didn’t bring them back an’ I’m not sorry for what I’ve done but they were monsters, you see? They … they were bad people who did bad things. But you..” Frank shakes his head, shaking Paxton by the hold he has on him.

“You lost your son and it was a tragedy. There is nothing that takes away the hurt of having to bury your flesh and blood. Buying a tombstone for your baby is the worst kinda hell there is but you – you lost one kid and threw the other one away and I get it. I get… I get that you blame her and shit I’d have been just as angry but the thing is.. The thing is, is that people screw up and people like Karen? They hold that coal in their hand for the rest of their life. She’s done good, she’s… she’s saved lives, you know? And you chose not to be a part of that. I don’t get … Karen’s the best thing okay? The best thing to happen to me since… since all the good was taken from me. And she asked me to come here because shit, maybe she though havin’ me around would make her brave but she’s always been braver than me. Karen sees the shit she’s done and holds herself accountable. I just try and lock it up. Try and keep me separate and you know what.” Those last three words are grit out, caught on his teeth so he throws Paxton down, kicking the door the rest of the way open as he scrambles backward on his hands and heels, reaching for the phone.Frank grabs it out of his hands, rips it out of the wall, “No. No I’m not gonna do nothin’ and you’re not gonna call the cops on me or Karen and you’re gonna wallow.” He kneels, looks that man right in the eyes, the vein in his jaw twitching, “You’re gonna spend the rest of your days knowing that you missed out. That you had … you had a chance to be a good man. A good father and you let your hate win out. Now listen to me–” He ducks his head, can hear Karen rush back up out of fear - he won’t hurt Paxton Page. As god as his witness he wanted to, wanted to beat the miserable slump into a bloody pulp but he can’t do that to Karen.

“We’re gonna leave. And you’re gonna forget we came. You’re gonna make a choice. Either rot in your god damned filth, drink the rest of yourself away. Or you’re gonna… you’re gonna get help. Because the shit that happens to us ain’t our fault but what you do.. What you do with what you’re given is. If you decide to get your shit together. If you choose to live. You can beg Karen to maybe forgive you, and I maybe won’t put a bullet in your head.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, doesn’t want to hear what he’d have to say. Frank stands, feels Karen reach for him.

Two hands.

“Let’s go home,” her voice is even and despite the tears in her eyes, Karen’s offering Frank a weak smile.

And they do. They leave.

Karen tells him, her head on his shoulder as they pull out of the Essex station; the train humming to life underneath them… tells him, “No one’s ever put my da–Paxton Page in his place before. It was…. Did you mean what you said to him?” Like she can’t really believe it. 

That she is anyone’s Best Thing.“Every word.”

#asks #kastle #kastle ff #kastle fanfic #kastlenetwork #*writing #KJNDFGKJSFNGKJSDFNKJSDFNKSJDNF #i'm so sorry #alcoholism tw #alcohol tw #death mention #sail-not-drift #long post for ts #long post #THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SHORT #2.5K WORDS LATER-