Wintertime (Frerard, Sequel to Summertime)

33: The Trauma Continues

When Frank woke up, it felt like he'd been asleep for a thousand years, but his life was much less fairytale than that, but it honestly didn't feel all that much more real, which was something he just couldn't shake.

Sure, the appearance of the world, this time was real: the sunlight streamed into the room and illuminated only a portion of the room: their room, not Gerard's room this time, but their room, and that felt infinitely better already, not that Frank could pinpoint why - he just didn't feel as if he needed to.

He was okay, okay with the world, okay with himself, and beaming with the realisation of it all, and he stood there, alone in the sunlight, stretching a little for a good few minutes, listening to the sound of Gerard's footsteps downstairs; he had asked him to be there when he woke up, but he felt as if Gerard was making sure that Frank could hear him, and that was enough, in the overwhelming happiness he found himself almost drowning in, it was enough.

The world outside was beautiful.

Frank had never paid nearly enough attention to the forest.

He'd just deemed it as that place.

The place he'd ran away to as a teenager.

The place Gerard had died in.

The place his mother's body lay.

But it was more than that.

That was simply what it was to him, and he was in charge of his own perception of things - that was the one thing he controlled, and he reveled in such powerful and such authority, even over himself, because you simply couldn't appreciate control over your own head until you'd lost it, and Frank had, more than fucking once.

Far too many times.

This was the recovery.

He reckoned, at least.

As he stood and smiled and just breathed, because in that moment there was something simply beautiful about the sunshine and the trees and the way it was to be alive. He wanted this sensation to extend itself, to say with him, but he doubted that happening; he wondered if he should.

He wondered. He really did.

And he smiled. He really did.

He stretched upwards, brushing his hair away from his eyes: feeling properly rested for the first time in far too long - maybe it was this place, after all, it was evident that location could really impact things, even to an unbelievable extent.

Perhaps this was just the sweet spot, perhaps if they stayed here forever, they could waste away as everything remained okay: in bliss, in oblivion, as the world turned to hell and flames around them, they could live, and they could smile, in love, as long as the house stood still.

But that was far too fairytale, and no fairytale was complete without the horrifying twist, and such a realisation had not yet dawned upon Frank, and perhaps that was why he was just so startled as he rolled down the sleeves of the sweater he'd thrown on last night, because this house was fucking cold.

What startled him, was not the existence of his arms, because somehow he had indeed managed to get used to the presence of his upper limbs in the past twenty eight years of his life, but what lay upon them, upon one of them.

What really should have never been there.

What certainly was not present the day prior.

What had appeared as if by magic, over night, and now lay, almost smirking up at him: all raw and red and slashed up: gruesome in nature.