Someday and soon, I'll make you proud of your boy.

Of course it was something he was proud of. It was all he was good at, and paid inordinately well no less. Surely there were worse things than using your one real talent? But his father wasn't proud. He just registered that Frank was. In a way, it was fair. But it also disappointed like he expected it to.

He was wiling to put aside his silence acceptance of that feeling if it meant he and his dad could really talk about this. Even if only this once. They had the mutual desire to keep Alice and their mother from finding out, so that certainly boded well for Frank's ability to keep his 'profession' quiet.

"I don't know if it does," he admitted. "Probably. I don't always take anything, so much as listen and... act, I guess? If I take anything, to be clear, it's because it was previously stolen and the owner wants it back. I'm pretty strict about what I'll do and what I don't." Frank shrugged, figuring that was about as close as he could get to the truth without sounding mental. What he wanted to say was that he didn't take jobs that didn't align with his morals. Because that was the truth of the matter. But it did sound kind of stupid.

"What I do is entirely based in referral. People don't want my activities getting out, considering they hired me to do something technically sneaky. The odds of getting caught...? I mean, there's a chance. But not so much, after the fact. I never go into a situation if I don't think I can get out."

It was odd, really, to speak so casually about it to someone in his family. Merlin, if they knew about his alliance with Jack and the others... Probably best to leave that bit out, he decided.

Frank kept a straight face, but it wasn't like that meant much anymore. If everything he was telling him was true, his son had been maintaining a perfect poker face for years. It was a little disheartening, really, to now suddenly worry if the looks of excitement or gratitude after Christmas gifts and offerings of praise had only been conjured expressions.

But none of this was fair, of course. He had new information on his son, but that didn't mean his son was a new person. He had raised Frank, had helped cultivate his sense of the world, and he would always be his son. He would always know Frank in a way that Frank possibly couldn't know himself. Neville was grieving but it was not because the person he knew was gone - it was because the person he knew had become a grown up, and Neville had been one of the millions of parents to hope against hope that it wouldn't actually happen.

But how many of those parents actually had children who admitted their demons to them, who told the hard secrets, who insisted on honesty, even if it was after the fact?

Neville sighed. "I don't mean to sound... judgmental. It's just... when I was your age, I had a very strict view of right and wrong, and as I've gotten older, I've come to understand that it can be more complicated than that. I also worry with... with my past, and your mother's, and our... families... that you feel..." he searched for the word. "Obligated to be something. And I hope you know that all I want, and all your mother wants, is for you to be safe and happy."