Diluted ☻ FRERARD ONE-SHOTS

Lonely Winter

Frank is barely surviving on the streets until the son of a prestigious recording company takes it upon himself to begin working with a new charity case. Gerard has the money and the heart to save a boy's life from another cold winter - and maybe stick around for the sun.

🥀✨🥀

Frank is not the type of cold that a hot chocolate and a nap by the fire will fix. He's not the kind of hungry in which he can waltz to the kitchen fridge and pull out a three-course meal to mend. He's not even the sort of sad that smiling can cover.

Huddled into a ratty blanket under a highway on the outskirts of Belleville, New Jersey, he's spending his New Year's Eve starving, freezing and absolutely miserable. The seventies haven't been kind to him. The road overhead barely provides enough protection from the heavy flurry of snow, and the thin jacket and hat he's wearing don't do much to fend against the weather either.

The conditions will kill him.

Frank is about to give up. He's barely collected pennies today, and with the sun now set and many families celebrating a fresh start in the comforts of their homes, nobody will be passing by anytime soon. Frank has nothing to his name but the clothes on his back - even his shoes are black from dirt and falling to pieces - and he'd do anything for just a bit of money, enough to buy some water and food.

He hasn't eaten in over a week. His bones are prominent, and the absence of body fat means he's more prone to sickness, and quicker to death. He can't get comfortable on the grassy bank near the sidewalk, rolling over on his side and holding his knees to his chest. He's tired, too - sleep doesn't come easy, and he's paranoid that someone will steal his blanket, his main source of warmth. One would be surprised how desperate people can become at a push.

But more than anything else, as he lays silently without a pitying stranger for miles, Frank wishes for company. He's a lost cause, and he just wants to talk to someone, confess his sins or whatever his Catholic parents always got him to do before they disowned him. Even if his homophobic father were to take a seat by the shivering, skeletal figure known as his only flesh-and-blood son, Frank would converse with gratitude. He misses his mother, her home cooking. He misses being clean and hot under the stream of the shower, a pillow under and roof over his head.

He regrets telling them. He should've known that they wouldn't accept him, not with the strict upbringing he's had. 'We raised a kind, good-hearted, pure-natured boy,' they pleaded with him, 'and we don't want him to change. We won't tolerate this change.' Those were the last words they spoke to him before they kicked him to the curb to travel as far away as he possibly could.

The world doesn't accept people who aren't straight. Maybe they never will. Frank can only hope that one day somebody will realise, 'hey, what we're doing is wrong', and proceed to do something about it. He'll never marry a woman or conceive a child, no matter how normal it is. He just wants equal rights - someone to settle down with eventually, another man. He wants a home with him.

Because Frank is tired of travelling. He couldn't stand on his own two feet at present if he tried, never mind continue walking to God knows where. He wishes he had the energy to end it himself but he's exhausted, and ready to go in any manner. So he squeezes his eyes shut, allowing the ever-dropping temperature to freeze over his body.

Until he hears footsteps quickly approaching. Frank doesn't open his eyes - he's terrified that he'll be disappointed, seeing yet another stranger pass him by without so much as a second glance. He's the scum of the Earth, and he's used to it, but it still makes his heart sink as he witnesses firsthand how horrifically his own kind can behave. It makes him ashamed.