Wintertime (Frerard, Sequel to Summertime)

24: Gerard Is Disappointed To Discover That He Isn't Jesus

The first thing he saw was a man; a man who found himself staring at it again.

That room.

His room.

It had been his, a long time ago.

It wasn't anymore.

The place was familiar but Frank couldn't place as to how; he couldn't move, he could only watch: eyes fixated upon a figure he didn't quite recognise, as the figure stared at the room - a closed door, a door he didn't dare open.

Frank stared too, and felt himself sick to his stomach as he did so.

Because consciously, he didn't have the slightest clue as to what this all meant, but the sinking feeling was proof that his subconscious was more than well informed, and perhaps even just protecting him from the truth.

And just like that, Frank was scared, and he didn't quite know why.

He felt safe, in an odd way, but one he didn't think to question, as the man he'd been watching stepped away from the door and let out a sigh, shaking his head as if to himself, and staring right past Frank as if he wasn't really there.

And Frank began to doubt that he was for a moment.

"Fuck," the man spoke aloud; his face somewhat blurred and turned away from Frank, rendering him unrecognisable in the frozen state Frank found himself in.

"Hello?" Frank called out to the man, well attempted to, but his words seemed to fade out as he pushed them out, creating little more than a muffled whisper, and in fact, the man didn't even look up, and Frank was left confused, but somehow calm, as the man continued to curse to himself and glance back at the door - he even looked close to crying.

"Why?" Was the first non curse word he uttered, speaking to no one, or perhaps himself as he leaned back against the wall, tapping his foot out of what Frank assumed to be anxiety and nerves.

Frank wished he could he could communicate somehow: nothing seemed to make sense, and in fact, he seemed to find himself coming to realise that this place couldn't be real, that this all couldn't be real, because the guy would have to be able to see him, and he began to wonder if this was just some kind of fucked up dream.

However, he found himself hesitant to believe such a thing; he hadn't had a dream of any sort since leaving New York and he really wasn't keen to have another, but at its current point, whatever Frank found himself baring witness to in that moment seemed pretty harmless, but well, everything seemed as such at first.

But if this was a dream, he no longer found himself caring for the man and who he was, and the door and what could be behind it, his mind revolving solely around the matter of waking up, of getting back to reality, of opening his eyes in the bedroom in that house, 'their house', and rolling over in bed and seeing him, seeing Gerard.

Because for Frank, nothing was real, and nothing was okay until Gerard said it was.

"Why?" The man choked out for a second time, before getting to his feet and making his way downstairs, and it was at that point, that instead of following him, Frank's vision faded out entirely.

He found himself accompanied by nothing but black for a good minute: a low hum like buzz of sound in the background, until he managed to push his eyelids open, until he managed to let the light in and 'wake up'.

He sat up in bed, his eyes wide, shuddering a little all over, and glancing across towards the window: guessing the time to be something like six am from the amount of light coming in.