PETRICHOR ━ pope heyward

- SEVEN -

"Why aren't you dressed?" Katherine asked, her heels slapping against the hardwood floor as she walked into her son's bedroom. Frankie was laying down on his bed, head towards the foot, with a Hoberman sphere in his hands. He'd had the toy since he was in elementary school, but he never really played with it. He figured now he'd have enough time to since he was grounded until the end of the century.

"I'm not going to Midsummers." Frankie responded as he expanded the ball for the millionth time.

"Stop with the dramatics, Francis." His mother snapped. Frankie didn't move, didn't even look at her. "Get dressed. Now."

"It's not like I need to be there," He argued. "No one's going to care if you two go without me."

"Dante!" She called, ignoring her son and yelling back down the hall. "You can talk to your father about this." She threatened, walking away, the sound of her footsteps being replaced by Frankie's dad's.

Frankie suppressed a smirk. His mother was under the impression that he was afraid of his father or the man had some way of strong-arming the teen into doing what he said. Really, his father just talked to him. They both talked, they both listened, and then they struck up a compromise, just like Dante did at work.

The door pushed open further and Dante walked inside, still in the process of buttoning the sleeves of his dress shirt. He kicked the door shut with his heel and walked to Frankie's bed, taking a seat by his son's legs.

"All right," Dante sighed. "What do you want?"

"To be ungrounded." Frankie deadpanned, collapsing the plastic sphere.

"You know that's not going to happen." Dante chuckled. "It's, erm, frowned upon to not punish your child after they do something wrong." He joked.

"I guess," Frankie grumbled airily. "If what I did was wrong." He added, insinuating otherwise.

"You know your mother and I only want what's best for you, right?" Dante finished buttoning his shirt and his hand landed on his son's knee, rubbing over the side with his thumb.

Frankie was always closer with his dad, just like most boys he knew were, but they'd really fallen out of step with each other since Frankie started high school and his father started working more. It felt nice for him to have time with his dad, even if he was in trouble.

Frankie whispered, "I know," and gave his dad a small grin. "Maybe ungrounding me is what's best?" He tried. Dante let out a bark of laughter.

"Tell you what," He clapped his hand down once on the teen's knee before he stood from the bed. "Get dressed and behave at Midsummers, and I'll talk to your mother about reducing your prison sentence."

"For real?" Frankie asked with a grin. "I don't think she'll bend." His nose wrinkled at the thought, his mother could be very stubborn when she was angry.

"She might, but you'll never know unless you're dressed in the next 10 minutes." Dante shrugged. Without another word, he opened the bedroom door and left, making sure to shut it on his way out. Even though he'd phrased it like his son had a choice, Dante knew Frankie would give in.

Frankie ended up taking more than 10 minutes to get dressed, but Katherine didn't seem too angry once she saw him walk out of his bedroom in the suit she'd set out for him. The teen was used to dressing up like this, hell, he did it at least once a month, but there was something about the light blue checkered shirt, pastel yellow tie, and navy blue jacket that made him feel so shitty.

There were people, like Pope and JJ, who were still at home without electricity and trying to make ends meet despite that, and he was going to Midsummers with his mommy and daddy. They all lived on one island, but they did not live in the same world.