Wintertime (Frerard, Sequel to Summertime)

6: If You're Gonna Be Murdered, Be Murdered Once You've Had Coffee

Frank Iero woke up one morning to see the curtains open.

It wasn't exactly a marvellous sight, but Frank was pretty damn sure he'd closed them before he'd fallen asleep last night, but then again, Frank reckoned he had very right to be sure of himself, after all, it wasn't like he was frequently hallucinating his dead ex-boyfriend up until about a week and a half ago, was it?

Frank stretched a little, turning his alarm clock off, and met his reflection in the mirror; he was tired and it was evident upon his face, but whatever, it wasn't like he had anyone to look pretty for, was it?

Frank laughed at his reflection, pulling a shirt on before he was forced to look at his just how pudgy he was getting any more, and with that, he met his reflection a newfound kind of courage and sense of self worth that led him to dismiss the curtains.

And just like that, Frank Iero set foot out of his bedroom, totally sure of the fact that he'd simply forgotten to close them the night before, because that was the logical answer here, and Frank wasn't an idiot, and he knew that he was susceptible to being fucked over by his mind, but he most definitely wasn't going to let it win - at least not this time, anyway.

Frank brushed his teeth for what seemed like at least three hours, and they most definitely didn't look any whiter as opposed how they did when he'd started, but he soon brushed the thought off, finding himself staring at his reflection in the mirror once again; it was a weird kind of staring - it wasn't vain, or self-loathsome, it was just, just, Frank almost felt as if he needed to keep looking at himself to know that he was really there, because fading away into nothing felt all too easy at this point.

Frank washed his hands in water far too cold, but with the shitty heating in this place, and the fact that it was wintertime, what else could he expect? He brushed it off, drying his hands on his shirt, and made his way into the kitchen.

You can't usually pinpoint the very moment that your entire life seems to fall apart; it tends just to be a gradual kind of slope in self-destruction that you tend not to recognise, let alone give a fuck about, before it's all too late, but Frank knew in the very moment that he walked into his kitchen that Tuesday morning that everything had just fallen apart.

Because Frank could have left the curtains open last night as he stumbled into bed and passed out, but he most certainly could not have set himself out breakfast.

He approached the set table with apprehension and distrust, almost expectant that it'd vanish away into thin air within seconds, but he dipped his finger into the coffee and felt the liquid piping hot against his skin, and fuck.

Frank pinched himself as he ran his finger under the cold tap, but he didn't wake up, and well, Frank reckoned the burn to his finger really would have done the trick already.

Frank didn't eat the breakfast; he didn't even question the breakfast because he knew what it was and who could have possibly put it there, but he wasn't going to let himself accept it. Frank ignored the breakfast and got ready for work in five minutes flat.

He grabbed his cellphone from his bedside table and plugged his headphones in, walking out of his apartment and passed the breakfast as fast as he could, and ignored how the door opened for him, because it wasn't real, and he just- no.

Frank stopped in front of the door, reaching out to touch it, and closing it, before opening it himself, because this way there wasn't any solid proof that what he kept seeing was real, because perhaps, just perhaps, Frank would even prefer insanity itself to this.

But Frank was anything but sure of himself at this point, and he did his best to bury that thought deep in the back of his mind and as he walked at twice his normal pace to the Starbucks Brendon worked in, because Brendon would probably slaughter him for treason for even considering going to another goddamn coffee shop, and well, although it sounded like a pleasant alternative to this insanity, he still didn't particularly fancy being murdered first thing in the morning, especially not before he'd even gotten coffee.