Work Text:
Frank half-expected that he would come home to the house in flames.
Not because of Mel, of course, because at this point she knew all the fixes for the breaker whenever it was on the fritz, but because of how upset Penny was when Frank and Tanner left a few hours ago. He tried to explain to her that she would hate going to a monster truck rally, that the trucks were going to be loud and the people were going to be even louder and she’d probably spend most of it with her hands over her ears and her eyes closed anyway, but she was five - she didn’t really understand what that meant, even after he explained it (and even after he reminded her that the two of them were going to Disney On Ice in a few months without her brother). All she knew was that she was being left out. And she was not happy about it.
So he felt a little guilty about leaving her with Mel, but Mel insisted it was fine, and since she had a way of making him believe things he wasn’t sure he should, he stopped checking his phone halfway through the rally and tried to relish in his one-on-one time with Tanner. If nothing else, he trusted that she would call him if she needed something... and also that she wouldn’t need something to begin with. She was good with all kids, but she was especially good with his kids, and Penny loved her; Penny probably loved Mel almost as much as she loved Frank and Abby. Besides, they had access to three massive buckets of toys and Disney's entire film catalogue. It was going to be fine. He had nothing to worry about. And for a few hours, he stopped worrying.
That was before Mel didn’t answer three of his calls.
But he didn’t panic. He drove a little too fast down the highway, sure, but that’s mostly because the people driving on every single side of him were fucking idiots, and he got home five minutes faster than his GPS said he would, so it at least made him feel better. (Again, not that he was worried, but. Still.) He kept Tanner behind him as he unlocked the door and headed inside, and breathed a sigh of relief when he heard some kid’s show playing on the TV - except neither Mel nor Penny were anywhere to be found when they got to the living room.
“Dad?” Tanner asked, tugging on Frank’s hand. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, bud, nothing.”
“Where’s Penny?”
“That’s a good question.” The two Langdon boys crept down the hallway in their matching El Toro Loco shirts, and when his eyes adjusted to the light, Frank noticed his bedroom door hanging open; when he crept even closer, he could hear the sound of someone snoring. He had no idea which of the girls was asleep, but considering Pen didn’t come running when the front door opened, he had a pretty good idea. Besides, he knew Mel had been wanting to make a dent in the book that he bought her for Christmas, and it was extremely unlikely that she was going to pass up on the perfect reading opportunity. ("It's like having two little white noise machines," she told him once, after both the kids fell asleep on the couch in the middle of her crocheting lesson and she managed to finish two new dish cloths without realizing any time had passed.)
“Alright,” Frank said as he patted the back of Tanner's head. “Bed time, kiddo. Go brush your teeth and get your PJs on.”
“I’m not tired.”
“You were asleep five minutes ago.” He ruffled Tanner’s hair and then nudged him in the direction of the bathroom. “Go on. Teeth, PJs. And hey, if you get ready quickly enough, maybe we can watch an episode of Teen Titans before bed. ”
Tanner’s eyes widened. He scrambled down the hallway in the direction of the bathroom without a second thought.
Frank smiled to himself and turned back to his bedroom door. Someone had turned the bedside lamp on, and the room was bathed in soft yellow light when he pushed it open. But even though he more than half-expected to find Mel sitting up against the headboard and breezing through her book, he instead found her curled up on one side of the bed with her glasses clenched in her fist, snoring louder than he’d ever heard her. His daughter, on the other hand, was starfished out on the other side of the bed with her mouth wide open and one of her favourite stuffed animals dangling from her fingers. It was fucking adorable. It was so adorable that he almost grabbed his phone to take a picture before he noticed what they were wearing.
Hanging from the end of Penny’s legs were a pair of socks with hot sauce bottles on them. They were his. (Obviously - she was still at the age where she thought toothpaste was spicy.) The sweater she was wearing, as well as the headband she’d pulled over her eyes, were also his. And Mel - Christ. Not only was she wearing a pair of his sweatpants, but she’d somehow found one of his old Penguins t-shirts in the closet and put it on, even though it was so big on her that it probably went down to her knees when she was standing and was basically a blanket when she wasn't.
It wasn’t the first time Mel had worn his clothes, and Penny - well, she’d made a habit out of stealing his crewnecks so she could wear them to sleep. But seeing them both, together, wearing his clothes and sleeping in his bed… if he hadn't just spent all night screaming, he probably could've cried. Instead he crept towards his daughter and slowly bent down to scoop her up in his arms.
She put up no resistance as he did, which was good, and she didn’t wake up as he walked back down the hallway to her and Tanner’s room, which was good, too. She only woke up briefly when he tucked her into bed, but one kiss to the forehead and another to the tip of her nose and she was out like a light. He smiled as he closed the door behind him and headed back to his bedroom, because he had a second sleeping beauty to tend to before Tanner was done getting ready for bed.
Frank sat down on the edge of the mattress and just stared for a minute, taking it in. Mel really was a sleeping beauty - at some point in the evening she had pulled her hair out of her braid so it was spilled across the pillows, his pillows, and her cheeks were bright pink from how high she’d cranked the thermostat. He touched his hand to her thigh and shook her. She didn’t wake up. He shook her again - still nothing. Grinning, he leaned over her as far as he could from where he was sitting and kissed wherever he could reach, which ended up being her shoulder.
She didn’t open her eyes, but he knew she was awake when she groaned. “Nnn… What time is it?”
“A little after ten,” he responded, sitting back up and resting his hand on her hip.
She opened one of her eyes to peer at him. “Frank?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh... I thought you were Penny.”
“Hey, don’t sound too disappointed.”
“Mmm not, ‘m not.” She closed her eyes and curled back up around the pillow she’d been spooning. “Sorry, I was just... a-sleeping..."
"Yeah, I can see that."
"When did you guys get home?"
"A couple minutes ago."
"Are th'kids in bed?”
“Penny is. Tanner’s in the bathroom; I promised him we’d watch an episode of Teen Titans if he got ready fast enough.”
“Mmm... so you don’t have time to cuddle?”
“Of course I have time to cuddle, who the hell do you think I am?”
Mel hummed happily as he laid down in bed and stretched out behind her. He tried to stick his hand under her shirt, like he always did, but his t-shirt was so big on her that the fabric was bunched up around her hips and he couldn’t find a way in. “Are you gonna tell me why you and Penny are wearing my clothes?” he asked when he finally felt her skin under his fingers and flattened his palm against her stomach. "Or do I have to guess?"
“She wanted to play a game… ‘Daddy Time’, I think she called it.” Mel turned her face to the ceiling, and now that he had easy access to it, he kissed her cheek. “She walked around the room doing an impression of you for twenty minutes or so, and then she fell asleep.”
“Was it good?”
“It was alarmingly accurate.”
“Did you do an impression of me, too?”
“Hm?”
“You’re wearing my pants.”
She cracked an eye open and craned her neck to look down. “Oh,” she murmured, then let her head flop back down on the pillow. “No, that’s just… because I was cold.”
“And the shirt?”
“It smells like you.” Her face felt even hotter under his lips as he pressed another kiss to her cheek. “And I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.”
“Did you have fun?”
“Yeah, we had a blast. My voice will probably be shot tomorrow, but it was worth it.”
“Did Tanner wear his earplugs?”
“Of course he did.”
“Did you?”
“I plead the fifth.” She reached back and pinched his bicep. “Hey! I’m sorry, alright? I forgot them in the car and I didn't want to go back for them.”
“Mmhmm. Well, you can’t forget next time, Frank.” He kissed her neck to try and stop her from scolding him, but she kept going. “I don’t want to be yelling directions at you when we’re in our eighties.”
“When we’re in our eighties, everyone will have super-hearing.”
“Someone has been watching a little too much Teen Titans with Tanner…”
“It’s a good show!”
Mel laughed. He sighed and pulled her closer, even though she was already as close as she could get.
“Did you and Pen have fun?” he asked, his voice so soft that he could barely hear it himself.
A few strands of her hair tickled his nose as she nodded. “We had lots of fun. We made cookies and friendship bracelets and watched a lot of Bluey.”
“I bet you did.”
“She is such a great kid, Frank.”
His heart clenched in his chest. Nothing was more important to him than his kids, and knowing that they had taken such a shining to Mel and that she had taken such a shining to them… it was more than he ever could’ve asked for. And he did ask for it - he talked to the man upstairs about it more times than he’d like to admit.
“Well, she loves you.” He slid his hand from her stomach and tucked it under the curve of her waist. (If both the kids were in bed, he probably would've moved it to her tits, but he was trying to keep it PG, just in case.) “Sometimes I think she loves you more than she loves me.”
“Oh, don’t be silly, she loves you! That’s why she wanted to play ‘Daddy Time’.”
“Mel, you really gotta stop saying that word.”
She was silent for a moment before letting out a scandalized gasp and reaching back to punch him in the thigh. He winced but didn’t mind when his responding jerk made him press his hips into her ass.
And then he pushed himself up in bed to look at the door and double-check Tanner hadn’t snuck in and was now watching his dad fondle his girlfriend. It had happened once before, a few months ago, and not a single Langdon, past or present, was happy with the aftermath. Satisfied that they were still alone, and ignoring the fact that they wouldn't stay alone for much longer, he settled down in place and pulled her into him again.
“Seriously, though.” He pressed his nose to her ear. “I was thinking about it earlier, and, uh... I wanted to know if you wanted to take Penny to see Disney on Ice in a couple months instead of me.”
“What? Why?”
“I dunno, because she loves you? And you’re the one who bought the tickets.”
“If it’s about who bought the tickets, then I should’ve gone with Tanner to the rally tonight.”
“You would’ve hated it.”
“Yes, I absolutely would’ve hated it, but that’s not the point. I bought the tickets for you, so that you could take the kids.”
“I know that. I just… feel bad.”
“Why do you feel bad?”
He didn’t say it out loud, but there was a part of him that was embarrassed that she spent so much money on him. He wanted to be a man, to be able to provide for her the way she deserved. But he was still catching up on rehab bills, on top of rent and student loans and doggy day care, which meant that sometimes he barely had enough money to pay for parking in the hospital lot, let alone tickets for monster truck rallies and Disney on Ice and whatever the hell the Sylvanian Families mansion was that Abby texted him about last week.
“I just wish I could take care of you," he sighed.
The words had barely left his lips before she was turning around in his arms and taking his face in her hands. “Frank,” she said firmly, now seeming a lot more awake than she had literally five seconds ago, “I don’t want you to ever question how much you take care of me. Ever. Okay? What you do for me, a-and for Becca - I can never, ever repay you for that.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Right! So you don’t have to repay me for anything, either.” She leaned in even closer to him, uncharacteristically close, and looked between his right eye and his left. “Frank, I love you, I love the kids soo much, and I would do anything to make you guys happy. I mean anything. Because you’re my people, and that’s what you do for your people. So no, I won’t take Penny to Disney on Ice, because I want you to do it while I watch four hours of the Spider-man cartoon with Tanner.”
His throat suddenly felt very tight. “Yeah, it's... it's not as good as Teen Titans, but it's still a pretty good show.”
“I know, and I’ve been really looking forward to finding out why.”
The bedroom door squeaked open, and Tanner popped his head into the room. “Dad? Are you coming?”
Frank felt like sighing, but he didn't - Abby kept reminding him that they weren't going to stay this young forever, and he knew that eventually he was going to be the one begging Tanner to watch TV with him. “Yeah, bud, I’m coming,” he responded. Mel hummed and dropped her head back onto the pillow, her eyes already fluttering shut. Giving pep talks really took a lot out of her, apparently. At least it made them look less suspicious. “Why don’t you go set it up and I’ll come join you in a second?”
“Alright.”
When the sound of Tanner’s footsteps faded, Frank leaned in and pressed his mouth to her forehead. “I’ll be back in thirty,” he whispered.
“Okay,” she whispered back, barely audible under the sound of him noisily pressing kisses along her hairline. “I’ll be here.”
Good, he felt like saying as he closed the door behind him. There was nowhere else on earth he ever wanted her to be.