Between the Times - 2. Frank

Even though Emily was now six weeks old, she was still tiny. And Alice still looked incredibly exhausted.

Frank, for his part, hadn't had a baby in front of his nose for the first time, but he was still uncomfortable even looking in Alice's direction while she was breastfeeding.

"What's up, little brother?", Alice wanted to know quietly.

"Um..." Now he did look her way.

Emily smacked her lips.

"Can Dante take me into town?" Just asking that question made him nervous.

"As long as someone takes care of Cole in his place, sure." She nodded, her smile warm despite her fatigue.

"Thanks." After a curt nod, he went off to find Dante.

He found him and Henry in the kitchen, hunched over a baking book while Cole sat in a high chair next to them, suckling a piece of banana from one of those baby nets. "Hey Dante..."

Dante and Henry's heads jerked up at the same time. "You shouldn't be in here," Henry protested. "We're baking your birthday cake."

"Great. Dante shall still take me downtown," Frank returned. He saw Henry screw up his face and Dante shrug apologetically in his direction. Without that little rephrasing, they would have protested until he gave in, and then his plan would have been screwed.

"All right." Dante sighed. "As long as you can live with me being dusted with flour and smeared with banana."

"Definitely." Frank nodded and tousled Cole's hair. "Eat nice so you'll grow big and strong."

In response, Cole chuckled happily and proudly presented his banana mush.

"Come on..." Truly excited, Dante didn't seem to be and that only made Frank more nervous.

"So you're leaving me alone with the kid and the cake. Real nice," Henry grumbled.

"Force majeure," Dante calmly replied.

"You guys are the shittiest big brothers anyone could ask for."

"Love you too," Frank and Dante said in unison.

~

"If I had known you were going to drag me halfway across town, I would have changed my clothes."

Frank didn't quite understand what Dante was actually grumbling about, because he couldn't spot any stains on either the white shirt or the black shorts. But that was perhaps more because his nervousness and the body itself were distracting him. "You worry too much about your appearance," he said.

"Well, there's not much else for me to worry about."

Frank suppressed a sigh. Was everyone in a bad mood around him today? At least they had reached their destination and Frank pointed to the ice cream parlor. "Take your pick."

Puzzled, Dante looked at him, then downright insecure at the ice cream selection.

The young woman at the counter beamed at them. "It's a wonderful day to try some of our exotic flavors!"

Frank didn't think so, but he stifled the comment. Instead, he glanced to Dante, who was reading the small signs with a furrowed brow until his expression suddenly brightened.

"I'd like a small portion of cinnamon." He seemed to say it equally to the waitress and to Frank.

"I'll have a small portion of strawberry."

"Of course, right away."

Frank paid and after accepting their ice cream cones, they sauntered off. His nervousness was rising.

Dante gave him a questioning glance or two in between, but he tried to ignore it. Instead, he took the ice cream cone in his left hand, licked a drop of ice cream from his right- and then reached for Dante's hand with it.

"What are you doing?", Dante wanted to know in surprise and tried to pull his hand away, but Frank held him tight. Actually, Dante had to feel that he was shaking.

At least he only gave Frank a skeptical, wary side-eye and said nothing else.

In this fashion, they came to the edge of the old town and Frank stopped on a wooden bridge over a stream, where he finally let go of Dante and propped himself up on the railing.

"Are you going to tell me what that was all about?" Dante asked, leaning in beside him.

They both stared down into the quietly murmuring stream.

"I had promised you," Frank replied after a moment.

"What exactly?"

"This. That we'd have ice cream and walk around Townsend holding hands on my birthday."

"Oh... um... that was last year..."

"Better late than never."

To that, Dante said nothing for now, and Frank sorted through his thoughts.

He had really tried to get Dante out of his head and out of his heart. Had slept with a whole bunch of guys and probably watched more porn than could be healthy, but his thoughts always returned to Dante. The time Dante had spent in the addiction clinic had been awful. His bed still felt uncomfortably empty more than a year after their "break-up" later.

"Dante, I-" he broke off as Dante looked up. He would have loved to take that face in his hands and kiss it, but he wasn't allowed to. "I... I... I really just want to tell you that I still... have a lot of feelings for you." His mouth was as dry as the warm wood under his fingers.

Dante averted his eyes and nodded curtly. "I like you," he returned quietly. "I liked the old you, and I like the new you even more."

With difficulty, Frank swallowed. "Is it enough for a second chance?" His voice trembled and was much too high pitched.

The tension in Dante was clearly visible. "I won't think about that," he declared coolly. "Not unless you present a theoretical way to make it work."

Frank nodded, though Dante didn't look at him. "Okay," he finally brought out. Right back home, he'd start scouring the Internet for ideas and possibilities. By all the Children, Dante wasn't the only asexual person in the world, after all.

"Thanks for the ice cream," Dante then said softly.

"I hate that sweet stuff," Frank grumbled, wondering not for the first time why he had promised Dante ice cream in the first place back then.

"I hate ice cream," Dante returned dryly.

Before Frank was aware of it, an amused snort escaped him- and suddenly they were both laughing, much more freely than they had in a very long time.

He would find a way. If it still went wrong, well, so be it, but then at least they would have given it an honest and sincere try.