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The first time Frank says it, Bill doesn’t even hear him.
Of course, he’s also not ‘Bill’ then. Not to Frank, anyway. Not yet.
He’s a stranger with a gun who probably deserves some grudging respect for his effective and elaborate security measures, despite the inconvenience they have caused.
He’s a cute stranger, and while Frank is honestly a bit torn about this whole situation so far – he feels stupid for falling in the hole and happy to not be seriously hurt and a mix of curious-angry-relieved regarding the guy who is understandably reluctant to give Frank the benefit of a doubt – he can admit to some initial, superficial attraction.
He’s starving and exhausted, not blind.
He can appreciate those sharp blue eyes flickering with wary determination, the strong build, the thick hair, longish and well-cared for. The other man is not ‘pretty’ by any means, but he is striking, handsome, and completely unaware of it.
These thoughts flicker in and out, automatic and distant underneath the more pressing concerns about survival, but they are there.
The man is a stranger, and the first thing he does is point a gun at Frank, and that should be the end of any and all conversation between them. The guy is clearly not interested in playing host to some drifter.
Frank can’t quite believe his own audacity as he plows ahead anyway. He introduces himself and begs for food and swears he can keep a secret and snaps out an unthinking retort about Arby’s, of all things.
It must be the lack of food making him lightheaded, or the shock of losing his home (again) and watching his friends die, one after the other, on the road. Either way, there’s a desperation in Frank that is making him bold. He can almost hear frantic laughter in his own voice, the giddy giggles of despair.
He feels careless of his own safety, almost nihilistic. He wants help, but mostly he just wants all of this to stop.
He’s not even sure he’s hungry anymore.
He just knows that there is a person standing in front of him – not a horde of infected, not a platoon of armed soldiers, not an impenetrable forest or roaring river or the unclimbable walls of a deep hole in the dirt.
A person is here, and more than Frank needs food or water or shelter or any other kind of impossible miracle, he needs this person to be here and talk to him and not leave him alone again.
He’s just so goddamn tired. He drops his hands and huffs out a sigh and lets the other man make his decision. He can’t be anything other than what he is, and what he is is a man at the end of his rope who is also, unfortunately, pretty bad at lying. It’s pointless to try to pretend otherwise.
He admits as much to the other man with a wry, ‘what can you do?’ shrug and a half-smile.
And then… then the stranger pauses.
Hesitates.
He doesn’t fire off his gun and send Frank careening back into the ready-made grave. He doesn’t insist again that Frank leave. He doesn’t even tell Frank to wait here until he can bring him back an MRE or granola bar and send him on his way.
He doesn’t say anything at all.
He blinks twice, and then his gaze flicks away, and something around his mouth twists slightly.
In the silence, Frank can almost hear the wheels spinning in the other man’s head, and suddenly an impossible possibility occurs to Frank, and he sees, and he thinks –
Oh.
Oh!
I’ve got you. I know you.
I see you.
And he can’t help a slight grin twitching up at the corners of his mouth.
It’s just as well that Frank can read between the lines, because it turns out that the stranger isn’t so good with words… at least, not when he’s dealing with anyone except an enemy.
As such, he doesn't actually get around to verbally inviting Frank inside the gate, though suddenly, impossibly, that is apparently what he has a mind to do. In an act bolder than either of them had any right to expect, he lowers his gun and flicks the safety on, and jerks his head towards the gate.
He does insist on frisking Frank, and when he says this, a brusque order that allows no argument, Frank has to bite back a hysterical joke that that’s the best offer he’s had in a while. Forcing himself to stay quiet, he simply nods, keeping his face neutral and spreading out his arms and legs like he used to do during security checks at the QZ.
The stranger’s hands are quick and efficient, and despite Frank’s almost-certainty regarding the man’s desires, they don’t take anything by force, without asking. Frank finds himself oddly charmed by the respectful restraint. The man with the gun is surprisingly more gentlemanly than some Frank has encountered these last few years.
Once he is satisfied that Frank wasn’t lying about any secret weapons, the stranger still insists on keeping his distance, his gun ready, though holstered. He punches in the key code for the gate, glancing over at Frank while Frank deliberately keeps his eyes averted, and he maintains a space of a few feet between them as he leads them to a big, beautiful white house at the edge of town.
Frank takes it all in as they walk – the high fence, the funny, empty little town, the road overgrown with dirt and weeds, the exterior of the house itself. It’s a bizarre, quiet little Norman Rockwell painting, if Rockwell had let the place go and also was heavily into supermax prison-levels of home security.
Frank wants to say something, fill in the lull with chatter, something he's been know to do, but the man next to him seems like he might take offence and he doesn't want to push his luck.
Instead, he gives the stranger a small smile when he catches him peaking at him as they walk, but the stranger just huffs silently when noticed and shuffles him into the house.
Frank thinks maybe this entire encounter will be nothing but awkward silence, but once they’re inside the house and standing in a beautifully maintained foyer, the man finally speaks.
“You should have a shower.”
The words are gruff, almost abrupt, and are clearly not some kind of half-assed flirtation. The stranger seems just as surprised by what he says as Frank is, blinking at Frank in consternation while Frank gapes back at him.
“Oh,” Frank says, surprised that the man apparently has running water and unsure suddenly whether he should agree or not, whether that might not be a bit more than he signed up for. “I…uh…”
But the stranger is already herding him upstairs, as determined as any sheepdog, and Frank can do nothing but go along with him. Their interaction so far has been such a strange mix of direct commands and cautious, unspoken invitations that he can hardly make heads or tails of it.
He thinks, perhaps ungenerously, that his new friend probably isn’t offering a shower because Frank is weary and sore, and the guy is a good host who wants to be nice.
No, he probably thinks that Frank is somehow hiding an Uzi up his ass and needs to get him out of his clothes to make sure. Or he doesn’t want Frank’s filth and possible contamination all over his nice house.
Or he’s going to steal Frank’s clothes, knock him out while he’s vulnerable in the shower, and chain him up in his sex dungeon / cannibal murder basement.
Okay, so Frank doesn’t really think that last one will happen. Mostly.
Maybe.
Frank has never met a doomsday prepper in real life before, and, while this particular man has obviously been proven correct in his isolationist paranoia, he is still understandably unsure about the man’s politics and relative sanity. It's hard to believe this nice house with its pretty décor and orderly set-up could be home to a monster, but the world is a pretty strange and hostile place, and is getting more so by the minute.
You invited yourself in, idiot.
Yeah, but...
He’s just so overwhelmed by all of this, and the surreal quality of the situation doesn’t lessen when he’s escorted into a sunny but clearly rarely-used guest bedroom and pointed towards an en suite bathroom.
He is, admittedly, significantly more inclined to be generous with the strange man once he sees the bathroom itself – it’s clean and homey and well stocked, and the water will surely be cold but at least it will be running.
And it’s been so long since he’s been clean. If the guy does plan to murder and eat him, he’s more than welcome to do so when Frank is freshly showered.
“I’ll be downstairs,” the stranger says in a rush. “Lunch in forty.”
“Oh.” Distracted by his perusal of the bathroom, Frank blinks and forces himself to remember his manners. “Uh, yes. Great! Thank – ”
But the man is gone, already out the bedroom door and halfway down the stairs.
The first time Frank says “thank you” to Bill, Bill doesn’t even hear it.
The “thank you” is an almost-afterthought, an automatic bit of politeness, and Frank only gets the first word out before biting down hard on the second.
He stares at the spot where the other man was standing just a moment ago and hums thoughtfully to himself, before returning his attention to the collection of soaps at his disposal.
The second and third time Frank says it, Bill hears it, though it is half-buried in a more profound revelation that steals most of his attention.
This time, Frank is the one who barely notices what he says.
He is, understandably, rather distracted.
Because the water is hot.
It’s unbelievably, gloriously hot, and the moment Frank steps into the shower and feels the water and steam against his skin he’s completely and utterly transported. He’s deliciously unaware of anything besides the sublime sensation of a hot shower, and, in that moment, he’d have happily stood on his head and recited the pledge of allegiance, worshipped the stranger and all his maybe-cannibalistic tendencies… because WOW.
Meanwhile, after some tortured internal debate, Bill decides to bring up clean clothes for his guest, and perhaps it is just as well that Frank will never know how much thought went into choosing them.
Bill feels like he should give the man – Frank, the man said his name is Frank – something to wear that isn’t the old sweater and ragged jeans he arrived in. It seems terrible to let the man shower and then put him back into dirty clothes, and it’s not like it’s a huge drain on his resources to give Frank just a few things Bill himself doesn’t need.
(Bill tells himself that he’s letting Frank shower so he can be sure the other man is not carrying weapons or some secret infection into his home. But if he’s being honest with himself, he did it because he simply wanted to. He wanted Frank, with his bright eyes and warm smile, who looked away when Bill keyed the gate code in and was so calm when Bill was awkward and silent, to enjoy a hot shower. He wanted to see the man without dirt and sweat and tear stains all over his face. Like a beautiful stone found in the mud, he wanted to wash off the grime and see the shine underneath. Perhaps it is selfishness masquerading as kindness, but perhaps what it is or isn’t doesn’t matter.)
Bill picks out pants, an undershirt, and a flannel shirt that is just a bit too small for Bill’s own frame but that he hadn’t thought to get rid of yet.
He fusses over whether or not to include clean underwear (he decides against it, thinking it might be too forward). Then he worries over whether the sizes are right for what he picked.
Then he downright agonizes over whether getting the sizes right might suggest to Frank that Bill’s eyes had lingered over the man’s body for longer than was strictly necessary.
Good thing you decided against the underwear, he thinks as he knocks gently on the bedroom door, opens it, and glances over at the bathroom. Not sure you could have looked him in the eye afterwards.
The man is in the shower, doesn’t respond to the knock, is naked and vulnerable and completely unaware that Bill is in the adjoining room. This fact does not escape Bill’s attention as he debates how to alert the other man to his presence. They’re close to each other, he speculates thoughtfully, and yet divided still by barriers seen and unseen.
“I left some clothes here for you,” Bill calls quietly as he sets them on the bed.
A pause follows.
“… What?”
Oh, right. The shower.
“Clothes!” Bill huffs out, louder.
“Thank you! Almost done!”
Bill nods to himself. That’s fine. Frank clearly wasn’t too offended by the offer of clean clothes, so that’s one obstacle surmounted. And lunch will be ready soon. Maybe Frank can even lay down for a few minutes on the bed and rest before they eat.
(That last idea flits through Bill’s mind unbidden, and it’s a gentle shock – the realization that Bill would rather like it if Frank laid down on the guest bed and rested for a while. It’s the kind of thought that invites other thoughts.)
“Although…” the voice behind the door hesitates for only a beat, and Bill perks up, expectant and also strangely worried, like there might be some problem.
If there is a problem, he’ll fix it, of course. It’s what he does. Just because this is a completely unprecedented situation doesn’t mean that has changed.
“… Could I have just five more minutes?”
Oh. Right.
“Sure,” Bill says, the word coming out easily.
It’s almost funny how simple it is to say yes to the request, how right it feels to give this stranger whatever he asks for. You’d think it would be hard for a dragon to share its hoard of gold, for a survivalist to allow this frivolous expenditure of resources for someone who will be gone from his life in an hour or two.
It should probably worry Bill, or at least give him pause, but instead of dwelling on it he just sighs inwardly and pitches his voice louder.
“Sure,” he calls out so he can be heard over the running water.
“Thank you!” The voice that answers is bright with awe and joy. “This is amazing!”
The words land and for a moment Bill goes very, very still.
“Jeesh, boss… you could just buy out the store. It’d be more cost effective.” The clerk at the hardware store shoots Bill an incredulous look as he loads up yet another round of supplies to be checked out, a look that clearly says: you’re acting like a freak.
“You prepping for World War Three there, Bill?” Bill has always hated Doug Franklin, the nosy, snobbish owner of the blue colonial down the street. The man’s face is a taunting thing between a smirk and a sneer, and the laughing derision in it grows when he sees Bill unloading parts for a homemade water filtration system off his truck.
“Bill, that thing is an eyesore.” His mother lets out a pained sigh as she looks out the window at the newly installed generator. “This is not what I meant when I suggested you get a hobby.”
A genuine, joyous voice, bright and enthusiastic, disembodied and floating out of the guest bathroom like steam.
Thank you! This is amazing!
Thank you!
Amazing!
You’re amazing!
Okay, so Frank didn’t actually say Bill was amazing, but…
He thanked Bill. Twice. He accepted what Bill offered and thanked him for it. It made him happy. So happy that he asked for more and was so pleased when Bill gave it to him.
He called something Bill gave him, something Bill created and maintained through his own special skill set, amazing.
That’s almost like saying Bill himself is amazing. And even if it’s not quite the same thing, when is the last time anyone thanked Bill for anything his ‘crazy’ plans produced?
It’s fine. It’s nothing. Of course the man, Frank, likes the shower. It’s the apocalypse, and that makes it a rarity.
Bill isn't trying to impress anyone. Don't be pathetic. He is simply skilled and crafty and fortunate, and it is nothing at all to share the results of that with someone else for a few more minutes.
Share it with the first person besides Bill to set foot in this house in years.
This is amazing!
There’s nothing Bill can really say in response, so he pulls himself together and leaves. He forgets to suggest that Frank take a nap, but Frank's words do decide an unconscious debate that was ongoing inside of Bill – they will have wine with lunch.
The next time Frank says “thank you”, Bill doesn’t want to hear it at all.
After Frank’s initial raptures about the meal and a brief exchange about the Beaujolais – and, dear God, does the man always have that breathtaking smile when pleased, beaming like a kid getting their first bike on Christmas morning? – the lunch Frank and Bill share is quiet, yet strangely comfortable.
It is punctuated by Frank’s soft noises of pleasure and contentment, and an occasional half-shrug or slight hum from Bill. At one point Frank asks about the vegetables and praises the use of garlic and herbs, and Bill responds briefly and politely, mentioning his garden and the wild herbs that grow around the neighborhood.
“I’m self-sufficient here,” he says. Frank gives him a soft, genuine smile and nods, mouth full of food. Bill can hear the “amazing” again, reading it now in the other man’s bright eyes and earnest, approving expression, and somehow it is just as good as hearing the word spoken out loud.
Otherwise, Bill doesn’t say much of anything. He wants to. Even though Frank is a stranger, an invader, a disruption upsetting his peaceful, perfect solitude, Bill still wants to give the man… something. More.
Bill doesn’t really think he has it in him to be outright charming, but he does have his own dry sense of humor, his personal experiences, his knowledge of all sorts of useful things. He could be, if not charming, at the very least not completely boring.
Each time Frank glances up from his plate and smiles at him, pleased by the food and the wine and the feel of clean clothes and the beauty of the house, it warms Bill inside. It is strange and lovely and he wants more of it. Something about this temporary guest’s approval seems worth earning, worth keeping.
Frank liked the shower and the clothes and the food, extensions of Bill and a testament to his efforts… but none of these things are Bill himself.
Bill could inspire more appreciation, maybe, and get more of that attention he both craves and fears. But he struggles to come up with something sufficiently witty and interesting to say, and as a result eats his lunch and says almost nothing at all.
Frank, for his part, feels the ground solidifying under his feet again.
Each moment, from coming downstairs to the dining room in his clean clothes, to evaluating the contrast of the neatly laid table and the layer of dust on the mantle while he waited, to the first bite of food and sip of wine and the confirmation he saw in the Beaujolais, has brought Frank more and more back to himself.
He remembers his friend Mary telling him in detail about how the mind loses focus when the body doesn’t have enough food or water or rest. He met Mary early on during his time in the QZ – she was an ex-English teacher in her 60s, a five-foot-tall old battle axe with long iron-gray hair who loved him like a little brother and tried her best to keep him alive before she got infected on the road from Baltimore to Boston and shot herself rather than turn.
If she could see him now, she’d be smacking him upside the head for taking food from a stranger without knowing what it might cost him, even though the physical consequences of not eating were well known to both of them.
Always the romantic, she’d say. One of these days you’re going to trust the wrong person and I just hope I’m there to say, ‘I told you so’.
He doesn’t care. Fuck the consequences. He feels like a real human being for the first time in days, weeks. Maybe longer. It’s worth whatever the price might be.
(Famous last words.)
And it's not just the food, although the food is great and his whole body is responding, the warm, full feeling growing inside.
No… it’s the whole place, this whole situation, and mostly it’s the quiet man with the furtive gaze and wonderous generosity sitting across from him. Like the king in that book Frank loved as a child, The Little Prince – the sole ruler of a planet with only one person on it, the man who thinks he controls the universe but is powerless to do anything but let it spin along the way it always has.
Does the man even understand how special this is, this lunch, this little slice of normalcy? What makes a person build this beautiful castle in the sky, here at the end of the world, and live here all alone? Frank isn’t sure.
And what kind of man lets a stranger inside, gives him hot water and clothes and fine food and wine, gives him comfort and peace and a chance to breathe? But only for an hour, only for a day?
Who serves exquisitely plated food with a perfect wine pairing but also lets a thick layer of dust build up on the dining room mantle?
A prince in a fairy-tale, living in a tower, locked away from the world. A man with a gun strapped to his leg and such a gentle expression on his face as he watches Frank eat braised rabbit. A perfect red rose exchanged for a meal.
Frank suddenly has the urge to ask his host if he’s read The Little Prince. Maybe this quiet man is not a character from a book, not a fantasy king or any kind of literary metaphor that Mary might have been able to explain, but he does seem like someone who knows that one line: “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”
This man isn’t tame, and he doesn’t appear to be trying to tame Frank… but he does seem like he might understand that love is a choice, and that it’s a wonderous and terrible thing to be responsible for whomever or whatever it is you chose to love.
A romantic, Mary says.
So what? Frank thinks. I’m usually right about people. I was right about you. I could be right about him.
You’re just nosy. You want to understand.
You want to know this man’s secret truth. You want to know him.
The food is brilliant, but all too soon Frank’s shrunken stomach is protesting. He polishes off a carrot and then leans back in his chair, unable to bury another hum of contentment.
Bill, across the table, feels a ripple of unexpected dread when he sees Frank take that last bite. He barely realized that he himself stopped eating a while ago, stopped doing anything besides picking at the remains of his food and staring at Frank, drinking in the other man’s sounds and micro-expressions.
“There is more…” The words are out before he can think about them, but he means them. Oh God, he means them.
Watching Frank’s enjoyment made Bill’s toes curl, and it has brought the constant ache of loneliness in his chest, which he barely even noticed before now, into sharp and painful relief.
In the shared quiet, so different from the kind he experiences when he is all alone, he has been soaking up the feeling of another person in his space and turning over every word of their limited conversation in his head.
What the fuck?
Yeah, but… not like this.
A Beaujolais.
No, you do.
This is amazing!
Thank you.
“No, no… I want to, but… whoa!” Frank pats his full stomach and huffs out a laugh, shaking his head with a wry, good-natured grin.
“Thank you," he says. He says it easily, and laughs easily, and smiles with a free and open happiness, bright like the sun.
The appreciation is simple, shared.
It occurs to them both in that moment that this whole meal, and maybe even before that, with the shower or the walk here… or before that, perhaps, when Frank first climbed out of the hole in the ground and met Bill’s gaze head-on… that this thing between the two of them has been so… easy.
It is almost like they are friends of long standing, like they know each other well without even having to say a word, like all the practical reasons why they should fear and resent each other don’t exist, or don’t matter.
Like they’ve known each other forever, even though they just met.
Hello. Do I know you?
Yeah… I think I do. And I think you know me, too.
Frank says “thank you” once, and it is easy and laughing and genuine. Almost careless, but also beautiful in its carelessness. It feels like something special they created together. An expression of joyous gratitude that is fragile, but real.
Something heavy settles between them.
Bill knows what is coming and he doesn’t want it. He suddenly hates the “thank you” and what it means, and wishes he’d never heard it.
“Thank you,” Frank says a second time, and this time the words are more solemn, infused with meaning. The joy in them is not gone, but it is tempered somewhat by the recognition of what a free lunch means in this new world. The words feel inadequate, but they are also all Frank has to give.
Bill hears the truth in the words, the admiration and earnestness, the recognition that Bill saved this man and asked for nothing in exchange. But Bill feels like he got something, anyway… something more valuable than braised rabbit and Beaujolais.
Bill also hears a devastating finality in the words. A goodbye.
The first time he heard a “thank you” from Frank, it was brilliant, warm… amazing.
This last “thank you” is a death knell.
Lunch is over.
Bill would like to think he keeps his face admirably neutral.
“You’re welcome,” he says calmly, like it isn’t one of the most difficult things he has had to say in his whole life. He means it, he means it so much, but also, he can’t make the words mean what he really wants them to. Even though the world has ended, he feels trapped by the limits of this exchange, incapable of breaking the rules that have governed his whole life.
They both know what will happen now.
Frank will polish off his wine and stand up and say that he better get going. He’ll maybe thank Bill again, and this time the words will be drained of meaning and he’ll be repeating them just for something to say, something to fill the silence.
Then Bill will escort Frank to the gate and point him towards Boston and tell him he can still make it by nightfall if he hurries and sticks to the road.
Frank will wear his new clothes. Bill will be free to do whatever he wants with his old, discarded sweater and jeans.
(…Keep them, he’ll keep them, he won’t wash them, he’ll fold them neatly and place them in his closet and keep them as proof that someone else was here and they will be a source of agony for him for the rest of his life.)
Bill will only think later, after Frank is already out of sight, out of reach, that he should have given Frank better boots to go with his new clothes, and he’ll torture himself that he didn’t think to pack a bag with food and water and weapons for the man to take with him.
But he won’t think, and all his skill at planning will falter in that last moment because he and Frank will be too caught up in this formal, polite little dance where Frank says “thank you” and doesn’t ask to stay, and Bill says “you’re welcome” instead of “you’re always welcome here, forever”, and they both pretend that this is just lunch and nothing more.
And then Frank will walk away, and Bill will never see him again. He’ll never know whether Frank made it to Boston or died on the road. The gate will never open again, for anyone.
He will regret that he never told Frank his name.
This is Frank’s cue.
It goes: “thank you”, and then “you’re welcome”, and then “I guess I’ll be going”, and then “goodbye”. Frank knows his lines, knows that he’s supposed to come in now and wrap this up. A few words, a few gestures, and he can be on his merry way.
Yep.
Here’s the moment.
Frank sucks in a slight breath.
He feels a tiny, telling little itch inside, like a giggle at a funeral trying to get out.
Ah, honey, the voice that sounds like Mary says. What are you doing?
He almost smiles.
Because… here’s the thing about Frank. He always has been a gentle soul, an easy-going kind of guy, friendly and thoughtful and generous and fond of company, good with people and sensitive to the needs of others. Before the apocalypse and after, that much hasn’t changed.
You might think, if you didn’t know him that well, that these things make him a follower, a bit of a people pleaser, a bit of a doormat.
However, you’d be wrong there.
Because in addition to being an all-around lovely guy, Frank is also a notorious shit-stirrer.
Frank was a shit-stirrer when he was a little kid playing “secret agent man” and drawing on his father’s work papers and repeating back his mother’s gossip, and he was a shit-stirrer in college when he kissed Max Lockhurst right on the mouth on nothing more than a hunch and a prayer, and he was a shit-stirrer when that jackass of a soldier at the QZ bullied Mary and Frank triggered a fire alarm and almost caused a riot trying to distract the guy.
And Frank is a shit-stirrer still.
He sees secrets and he wants to uncover them. He sees people and he wants to know them. He sees the world and he wants to live in it on his own terms.
And if he needs to break some stupid rules to do it, that’s fine too.
It’s probably a bad thing, this inborn inability to be content with how things are without wanting to poke the bear and get out of your lane and open Pandora’s box. Especially now, at the end of the world, people who rock the boat don’t tend to live very long.
He is not going to hurt the man who gave him this lovely lunch. He's not going to do that... Frank may be many things post-apocalypse but he has kept his morality and humanity and he is not going to hurt this kind stranger.
But there is a fancy, delicate, expensive china vase on a high pedestal in this house that is just begging to be knocked over, and Frank feels like if he doesn't do this now he will regret it for the rest of his life.
He doesn't know quite why he is so sure about this. Maybe it is residual good feelings because of the shower and the food. Maybe it is the sight of that beautiful piano sitting a few feet away like Chekov’s gun, untouched and silently begging to be allowed to make some noise.
Maybe it is the solemn, handsome man with a secret, sitting there stiff with fear and longing in front of him, hanging on Frank’s every word and gesture like he can’t quite believe Frank is here, any more than Frank himself can believe it.
Whatever it is that triggers it, Frank feels more like himself than he has in weeks… years even.
Are you sure, honey? This might be something you can’t close again once you open it. Are you sure you want to know what’s inside?
Fuck it.
Frank slugs back the rest of his wine.
He gives that universally recognized 'I'm done' shrug and says his pre-approved line: “So, I guess I’ll be going, then.”
Bill nods, stoic and broken, unable to speak. Frank sees the slow heartbreak clearly on his face, and he knows.
Sure, he’ll go. He’ll leave and never look back.
If that is what his unnamed host really wants.
“But first…” Frank says, grinning.
And then he’s up. Then he’s flying, a whirling dervish, knocking over the fancy vase, tearing down the wall, rewriting the script.
And all Bill can do is follow.
They say thank you to each other many times over the years.
Frank thinks maybe he says it out loud more often. Words come easier to him, and that’s fine.
He opens Pandora’s box and discovers the secret – in the form of Linda Ronstadt sheet music – and in doing so he pays the price for his need to break down a beautiful stranger's walls.
The price is that he falls in love.
It is a big ask, a steep price, it’s true. It is one you have to pay every day. It means that he stays. It means all the complicated things love can be. It means he tamed another and is tamed in return, and it means that he has a new purpose he never really thought he’d get to have in this life.
It’s tough, but there are worse things. He is grateful, and he doesn’t mind saying it.
Plus, Bill gives him so much. Frank thanks him for meals, for clothing, for all the little needs that are met every day.
And the bigger things – some of them complicated, like paint, or an acknowledgment of the importance of useless beauty, or Tess and Joel – he fights for them, and he thanks Bill for them, too, because he knows how hard it is to change, to make room for someone else in your life.
Bill’s response to thanks changes yet stays the same. It evolves over time.
At first there is always a beat, a startled glance, like he isn’t sure he heard right. After there is often a verbal dismissal, something self-deprecating to negate the value of the thing given.
The coffee is instant, not fresh. That shirt doesn’t fit me anyway. I had extra. It’s only fair I return the favor. It’s nothing, really.
But despite the words there is something just under the surface. Something furtive, hopeful, sweet, shy. A wish, an unspoken longing. The human need to be seen, recognized.
Frank understands. He refuses to let Bill’s efforts be dismissed.
It tastes delicious. The clothes are perfect. Thank you for sharing. You didn’t have to do it, and I’m grateful you did. You’ve done such good work.
Eventually Bill figures out that Frank will always insist, gently, on something’s value regardless of Bill’s initial response, and he learns to take the thanks in stride.
The knee-jerk dismissal slowly goes away, though the underlying sense that what Bill does for Frank is something that Bill naturally expects of himself, like taking care of Frank is his mission, his vocation in life, never really does.
What also never stops, from their first day to their last, is the soft look that comes after, like Bill is cradling something warm and precious in his chest with each expression of gratitude, storing up all the affirmations and building something strong and lasting with them.
Bill says “thank you”, too. Not usually with words. More often it is with looks and gestures, though not always.
Frank will never forget waking up that first morning in a bed that still smelled of sex to Bill bringing him a cup of coffee. The man had already dressed, was holding the cup carefully with both hands, and had an almost formal air about him that made Frank want to giggle and also slap senseless whoever put that godforsaken stiffness in the man’s shoulders.
“Good morning,” Frank says, gaze darting between the coffee and the man holding it.
“Morning,” says Bill. He places the cup on the bedstand next to Frank carefully and then stands awkwardly next to the bed as Frank pulls himself into a seated position and looks up. “Um… that’s for you. I don’t know how you take it. I can get you creamer if you like.”
“Oh, thanks,” Frank smiles. “That smells wonderful.”
“Thank you,” Bill blurts out abruptly, causing Frank to pause in reaching for the coffee.
The man huffs and visibly pulls himself back before continuing.
“Uh. Thank you. For. Yesterday. Last night. It was. Did you…?” Bill swallows. “Was it… good? For you?”
Oh.
Frank blinks up at him, and the strange impulse to laugh and cry at the same time hits him once again.
“Oh,” Frank murmurs. “Oh, baby. Come here.”
Despite his stiffness, Bill comes easily enough once Frank reaches up for him.
Frank catches his hands, still warm from holding the coffee cup, and presses kisses to his fingertips, his knuckles, the backs and then the palms. The affection drags a wounded noise from Bill, more eloquent than words, and soon enough Frank pulls him down, presses his naked body against Bill’s clothed one, and shows him again just how good it was, and is, and will be.
It is like that between them. A give and take that blurs the lines between yours, mine, and ours.
The gift within a gift, the one the giver receives by giving.
Words aren’t perfect, but Bill says "thank you" in many ways. He is a thing of beauty. The more he gives, the more grateful he is for the opportunity to give.
Even the things he gives to Frank come back to him in time.
The house becomes a home, becomes a warm, clean space, full of flowers and paintings. Bill poses for portraits, his face depicted in vivid colors, which are then hung up all over the place. He tastes strawberries again. He watches Frank bloom, safe and happy. His own hurts, internal and external, are tended to with kind and gentle hands. He learns lovemaking, how to love another and how to love himself.
And even the things he doesn’t like at first end up saving him, saving them, in the long run.
Tess and Joel, for example. Joel is an asshole and Bill doesn't like him, but he does understand him. Bill likes Tess a bit more, and he even gets in the habit of setting aside clothes for her when he scavenges. He finally has friends, now, at the end of the world.
He sees parallels between them and him and Frank, and when the time comes when they need help, Joel and Tess are there.
Other things, too.
Bill wonders sometimes how long he would have lasted without Frank here.
Frank, bless him, would probably have gotten himself killed ages ago without Bill. That's kind of a given. Even Frank jokes that falling into that hole was the luckiest, best thing that ever happened to him.
As he looks around the house, the fences, the security measures, it occurs to Bill that, with this set up, he is completely safe here from the infected, from soldiers, from raiders.
Without Frank, he arguably could have gone on indefinitely, living all on his own in his secure house, in his little town.
Except... he wouldn't have.
When the alarm signaling a triggered trap went off the day Frank arrived, Bill hadn't felt anything but a deep weariness in his very core.
Despite his initial satisfaction at essentially 'winning' the apocalypse, it had gotten old... living in his secure bunker alone, drinking wine by himself, watching the infected on his security cameras, blasting classic rock to keep his thoughts quiet, designing endless traps to keep everyone else out.
Despite having everything in the world he thought he wanted, something insidious had been creeping into his soul, as invasive as any fungal disease.
And as the years pass with Frank by his side, it becomes harder and harder for Bill to imagine any other kind of life.
No. He wouldn't have lasted long on his own. As strong as he is, every man has his limits. And it's not like he was ever short on ways to end it all.
Bill sees plenty. He is circumspect, and he only grows more so as he ages. And what he sees and knows about himself and how he was saved fills him with gratitude and makes him infinitely stronger.
Bill finds ways to be the soil, to nourish others. Especially Frank. He gives himself over to it.
The years, they roll past.
The last time Frank says it, it is barely even a whisper.
It is two words mouthed almost-silently over a glass of Beaujolais and a final meal. An echo of their first day together, the recognition of being saved and loved and blessed with the generosity of another.
Frank is not insensible to the magnitude of what he requested. Of course he isn’t. It is why he kept going for so long, even through the bad days, because he knew that when the moment came, the burden on Bill would be immense.
They are partners. Today, they are husbands. And Frank is aware of the price you pay for loving.
This is the hardest thing Frank has ever asked Bill to do, and he has never meant the two words he whispers more than he does in this moment, in the quiet as they settle down to their dinner.
Bill hears him, gives him that familiar, warm, almost-smile. And the look in his eyes says: Of course. You are welcome. I will always love you the way you need me to.
Just give me one more good day.
And it was a good day. A beautiful day. And as Frank looks at Bill, framed in soft candlelight, with flowers on the mantle...
He’s grateful.
He feels a small ripple of something that is almost fear.
What’s this? Are you nervous, you hellraiser? Mary asks. Funny how she never left him. Funny how she’s pretty sensible sometimes.
Not nervous, he corrects. Not afraid. Not of dying. I’ve seen too many people die in my life to be afraid of it now. And I chose this. That wasn’t something I ever thought I’d get a chance to do.
It’s just that something beautiful is ending… gently and sweetly, but still.
You see, George Bailey, you really had a wonderful life!
I wish I wasn’t leaving Bill all alone.
Dinner is over.
Bill goes to the kitchen. When he returns, he has two clean glasses and a fresh bottle of wine. Always fastidious. He sets the glasses down carefully, pours for Frank and himself, and adds the crushed pills to Frank’s glass.
Then, when Frank has finished his wine, Bill drinks down his own.
Frank looks at the wine. Then at Bill.
Oh.
Frank should be mad. Oh, he should be furious. Bill taking his own life… it is something Frank never wanted to happen or would have allowed given the choice.
If that makes him hypocritical, so be it. We are all idiots in love. And Frank has been in charge of Bill's happiness and well-being for too long to simply drop the habit of caring deeply, with everything in him.
But… well.
Frank is also too much of a natural-born rebel not to appreciate Bill’s little coup de gras. Turnabout being fair play and all. Frank has out-stubborned Bill plenty of times during their life together, so perhaps he can let the man have this one.
And, not-so-secretly, he is glad.
It is incredibly romantic. Like something out of a fairy-tale.
And he really didn’t want to leave Bill alone.
“You were my purpose,” Bill says.
Thank you.
“Take me to bed,” Frank says.
Thank you.
I love you, and I always will.
Frank reaches up and takes Bill’s hand, holds as they go to bed for the last time, and doesn’t let it go, even when sleep finally comes.