𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐮𝐦 † 𝐟.𝐠

two

Frank woke up Sunday moring with the still bitter taste of the chalky pills he had taken without water before bed.

He sighed, getting up and opening his window, letting light in. It was Sunday so he and his mother would be cleaning up around the house.

"Frank!" His mom called.

"I'm up!" Frank yelled back knowing his mother was calling to wake him so that he could start laundry.

He slipped out of bed groggily, wandering untonthe bathroom to shower but not before opening the small window in that room too. Frank had a habit of opening windows for the hell of it. Even as a kid hed open all the windows he could reach. His mom thought it was adorable of course, being the woman she was. Frank's father however, was never too fond of his habit. It felt like a giant "Fuck you" to the man, being able to do the things that he hated now without aby ridicule or threats being thrown his way.

Frank stepped into the hot stream of gentel water and began to clean himself. He liked his showers to be as quick as possible, the water rushing past his ears paired with the isolation of the stuffy, closed in room was the perfect recipe for his symptoms to show up. He'd been advised by his psychiatrist to avoid doing things that commonly caused episodes but it was difficult to just follow simple instructions sometimes. He was able to convince himself that here was no episoded to fear at all, that he had made everything up and was just wasting everyone's time. He knew that was usually proved wrong when he had those thoughts but he was being reckless yet again.

everything started so quickly, the pure loudness hovering all around him. He couldn't stop it once it started, all that he could do was wait. You would think that after all this tike he'd be used to it but each episode was just as terrifyingly enthralling as the next.

Frank didn't reply to his mother. He only continued tugging on his hair. It was giving him a headache pretty quickly but he wasn't quite sure what to do anymore. His psychiatrist had told him not to do that. He wasn't very good at listening.

--

Gerard had noticed that Frank was taking a bit longer in the shower today. By a bit he meant over 45 minutes longer. He was starting to get worried. He could see through the window that Frank was still showering.

Gerard stood up and decided to take another walk around the neighborhood. Just as he made that decision he looked up to see a crying Frank in his room alone. Gerard's heart truly ached for his boy. He seemed to be extremely distressed by the way he sobbed. Gerard couldn't hear the painful noises his boy was making, but god could he feel them.

Gerard quickly sat back down on his old bench and watched as the boy cried till the point that Gerard questioned if it was even healthy to loose that much water in one sitting.

Gerard sighed. He wished he could swoop in and save his boy; cradle him in his arms and stoke the boys delicately, tear stained face. Sadly, Gerard couldn't do anything of the sort without being arrested and he doubted he could handle being away from his boy.

When his boy was finally done dehydrating himself, he stood up and wandered around his room a bit. He seemed worn out from his excessive crying. After pacing his room his boy went to his bed side draw and retrieved the same container of prescription pills from everynight.

Gerard had no idea what the pills were for, but his boy took them daily.

Gerard often wondered what was wrong with his boy. He was obviously sick. His poor boy.

When he looked back up he noticed his boy was laying in bed. He was most likely asleep; that amount of crying could wear out anyone.

Gerard went home after that.