Random Frerard Fluff [ONE SHOTS] [COMPLETED]

To Us, the End Was Everything

AU LONGFIC (12K WORDS)

WARNING:

THIS STORY MAY BE ALCOHOLICALLY AND/OR EMOTIONALLY TRIGGERING AT TIMES, ALTHOUGH THERE WILL BE NO MENTION OF SELF HARM OR SUICIDE.

Part One: Introduction

It all began with an ending; the fatality of a friendship, and the culmination of a day. It couldn't be called a good ending: it was better than good, so much so that later, each man wouldn't hesitate to call it satisfying - in all its sadistic glory. But underneath all the coats of justification that each man had slathered over the insults they had spat, this ending would be eternally dressed in an ugly fashion.

To an outsider, it was nothing short of an abhorrent ending; it was a friendship broken at dusk; pacts that meant forever were suddenly split by harsh words and icy glares so cold that they were frozen hard and solid as the fists balled at each man's sides. The two had once been bound by countless promises that were weaved so tight under the midnight moon; promises that were formulated so strongly by forbidden whispers late at night; that they had been held together at the seams over a course of a little under ten years.

The men had loved each other undeniably, and it couldn't just end - but it did, and life had promptly switched gears, moving forward into the next chapter of their respective narratives. One had cried in confusion and defeat for days, sobbing secrets into his filthy pillow until his face was rendered soggy and swollen with salty tears, his throat scratched into a pathetic resemblance of sandpaper. The other had grieved wearing a forced smile for others, and the only facial features that had been deceiving of his genuine emotions were his dull pair of hazel eyes, that had receded into his skull and birthed dark bags in their tracks. No one except he had noticed the lines of his loss that appeared as additional crow's feet at the corners of his eyes, spanning outwards like vengeful fingers, almost.

As they had felt themselves becoming more accustomed to life without each other, they too, like the crow's feet, spanned outward: they found groups of newer friends that they'd later argue were also groups of better friends. Only Michael, the stone-faced brother of Gerard (who was three years his senior) and the stone-faced, metaphorical brother of Frank, had completely disbelieved the hatred they had spouted in the midst of their big fight. He had squinted sceptically at their hostile forms where they were stood; a good six feet between them, with shoulders pushed back and chests puffed out - two men, two ex-friends, in their early twenties - reeling with pure anger.

Michael was indeed an outsider to the past-tense friendship, and he had chanced telling them on multiple occasions that their ending was an abhorrent one, but it was no use. Life switched gears and the two men switched friends, stubborn and hurt as they were. They had simply ended, that was that. And although they ended with an ending, an abhorrent but oh-so satisfying ending, it gave way to new beginnings - and a beginning is what that ending became... eventually.

~

Frank pushed his face further into the grime of his old, tattered pillow, stifling his sniffles the tiniest bit. He reluctantly reached an arm out behind him for his thin comforter - although it offered nothing of the sort. His fingers fumbled for a proper grip before he managed to drag its weight over his shoulders and head, encompassing his vision in a sudden cloud of darkness. The smell of stale beer hung in the air, and its bitter residue washed around his mouth as he swilled and swallowed, coughing a little from the awkward position he was lying in. His other hand fell limp over the side of the bed, and as the amber glass bottle was released from its grasp, it hit the floorboards with a shudder-inducing sound. Frank paid it no mind, too intoxicated on the strength of his own emotions - in conjunction with cheap alcohol - to care. As the empty bottle skated under the wooden frame of his bed, Frank's eyelids slowly crawled over his eyes and anchored themselves shut; only to open some hours later at the fault of someone else.