In Which Frankie Makes His Way In The World Makes A Friend, And Observes From Afar
Frankie's not like his brothers. He doesn't miss or long for the parents he doesn't remember. He doesn't have any residual mixed feelings or uncertainty about Mike who, before too long, has been a part of his life for much longer than he hasn't been. He never feels at all out of place in the slums, which raised him almost as certainly as his brothers did. He doesn't grieve for a possible future lost because as far as he can tell, he never had another.
Frankie's childhood memories are not of long relgious services under a hot foreign sun, but of pokey, dusty rooms and long winters and shady alleyways. To Frankie, the entire rest of the world is an adventure, and the city is all he has ever known.
When he's fifteen, he joins a zeppelin crew to get a look at the rest of it for himself.
He knows Kevin will worry, and that he might not go if he sees the fear and worry in his big brother's eyes firsthand, so he leaves a note. It may be cowardly, but it's honest.
It's the only way he's going to be able to walk out that door.
A part of him's already asking--why leave? It's not like home lacks excitement, danger, or even, as the years go by, opportunities. But Frankie's family is an ever-lengthening shadow stretching across anything he might do with his life, and even though he'd do literally anything for them, he wants to see the person he can be without them, as well. It's hard to figure out who you are when everyone looks at you and sees "baby brother" writ large.
How are they supposed to take him seriously after he sat on their shoulders to see over the crowd at a hanging, or practiced lock-picking on their front door long before he knew what he was doing? He doesn't even blame them for seeing him as the baby, but he does want to give them all a reason to respect him.
He's also watched his brothers earn the respect they have, and he doesn't want to be given anything just because he's their brother. He has to leave before he can come back as an adult, a peer, an equal
Of course, even on a zeppelin, some people are going to make connections, but not as many as he feared - slum people tend to stay close to the networks that supported them, so even the kids from the school tended to work the docks and such rather than the airships themselves.
Of course, the name Jonas has longer legs than that, but Frankie grins and works his butt off to make new associations with the name. Volunteers for extra duties, which is how he meets Cash, who has a similar approach to the job. They're both trying to make a place for themselves here rather than where they were raised, but for Cash it's a way to prove he doesn't need the people back home, and for Frankie it's a way to find his place with them. Some how, strangely, they meet in the middle. Besides which, they honestly like each other and enjoy each other's company - each brings out in the other something they wish they had.
...
The first few years that Cash started coming home with Frankie, Alex's schoolboy crush didn't stop Cash from picking up a pretty face here or there on leave in other ports, though in the city, where Alex might hear, he never tried, and Frankie realizes early on that that means more than simple courtesy.
As years go by, though, he starts looking for the pretty faces in the crowds less and less often, and mentions Alex in casual conversation more. It's not too hard to figure out.
It's all Frankie can do not to laugh. He helped raise Alex, and Cash is his best friend. He knows they'd be good for each other, and approves thoroughly
Not that that will stop him laughing his ass off at them as they fumble towards enlightenment. He'll stick around with the safety net, though, because Alex could do a lot worse, and Cash probably couldn't do much better.