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frehleys-baby · 4 years

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Resurrection Fic, Part 2!

The sun was shining, pigeons were outside scavenging for crumbs and the bustle of New York City kept on like it always had. The world had, as expected, not stopped for Gene’s death. But Frances had been changed, even if the Earth’s spin hadn’t.

She woke up in bed, still a wrinkled black pantsuit, shoes neatly placed beside the bed-placed by someone else. Someone who clearly didn’t know she put her shoes in her closet.

The blonde reached over to her nightstand, patting around until she felt the smooth edge of her phone.

Looking at the screen, Frances squinted through the sleep in her eyes until the large white numbers became clear.

1:15 PM.

Her eyebrows shot up- she never slept in that late, not even on weekends. “The only time I sleep in like that,” she mumbled to herself as she sat up, “is when I-“

Frances groaned at the migraine she suddenly felt at its full force, leaning back against the wall, back pressed to the headboard. She hadn’t had this strong of a hangover since before she had met Gene, who was never much of a drinker.

What had made her get so drunk the day before? What made her drink like she was 21 again? What had-

Frances groaned again as the memory waded through the migraine and made it to the front of her mind.

Yesterday had been Gene’s funeral, where she likely had made a goddamn fool of herself.

The service was as lovely as the funeral of a 20-something could be; at least as much as she could remember.

As she swung her legs over the bed and tried to start her day, she tried to remember more.

The scent of sympathetic flowers and the thick perfume of distraught great aunts came back to her as she brushed her teeth- the scents that had masked the alcohol on her breath.

If she tried harder, she could remember Paul and Eric dragging her outside- had she been screaming? Fumbling with her zipper clumsily, Frances eventually removed the romper leaving it haphazardly on the ground.

She might have remembered throwing up in the washroom of the funeral home, she decided as she turned the shower faucet.

Fuzzy memories of her best friend holding her hair back and berating her surfaced as she stepped under the hot water, memories pelting her like the droplets. She possibly recalled Kate calling her every name in the book until her voice choked, until they sat on the floor of the handicapped stall and cried until they couldn’t cry anymore.

She didn’t remember getting home. She didn’t remember who took her home. All she remembered was waking up.

As she left the shower, clean and out of her morning fog, the heavy weight of her hangover still pulled on her shoulders, weighing down her body as she put a fresh bandage around her leg. The wound had been stitched shut, and the deep purples and painful blues that bordered the gash had faded into sickly greens and irritated reds. Neat black stitches were wrapped under bandage, covering the evidence of the crash, the same way her desperate mind covered the full events of yesterday. Perhaps one day they’d show her the full story, the same way maybe she’d find the full story of what happened that night. The police had simply written off the crash as a hit-and-run accident, a tragedy but nothing purposeful. They took her statement, called the medical examiner to take Gene away, and that was that. It was a anxiety-caused hallucination, they said, temporary psychosis from seeing her boyfriend’s face hacked to hell and back.

Frances normally would’ve believed that, had she not felt that gun at the base of her neck, that voice telling her she had to die.

The phantom barrel chilled her spine as she shook her short hair dry, and put on fresh clothes.

She realized too late what clothes she’d grabbed- the size of her shirt drew her eye to what clothes she’d haphazardly grabbed.

The cover of Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite For Destruction was emblazoned across the t-shirt- and her heart broke at the realization. It was Gene’s shirt. Tears rolled down her cheeks as Frances tore the shirt off of her body and threw it at the bathroom tile.

It landed in a heap. So did Frances, collapsing in front of her sink. She swiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand, hiccuping for air after each sob.

Frances sat there for a while, letting her heart fall apart all over again, the pieces falling where they may. By the end of her emotional shattering on that bathroom floor, she was calm again- and the phone in her bedroom was ringing.

She headed out of the bathroom, not daring to think about the offending shirt as she picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?!”The voice on the other end spat back.

Frances slapped a palm to her forehead, realizing who it was on the other end of the line. Her work partner, Danalia.

Frances said all she could think to say. “Fuck!”

“I’m at the airport and I’m supposed to be taking off on a flight of a lifetime, researching new hieroglyphs and a potential new Egyptian deity- I’m on the cusp of discovery, and my research assistant is nowhere to be found. And all you have to say is “fuck?!” Are you kidding?!”

To say Danalia was outraged was an understatement- Frances knew she was in for it when she saw her next. She worked with the Egyptian woman on a variety of under-researched topics, and while her and Dani usually got along quite well, right now wasn’t one of those times. Frances had totally forgotten about the work trip they were supposed to take for the museum they worked at.

“Look, I don’t wanna get into my personal life with you right now, but I don’t think I can make it right now- can you call Vinnie?”

“You seriously think he can pack for a month-long trip in 8 hours?”

“He’d jump over the moon for you, Dani. Packing for a month is cake. I’ll even feed his dogs if I have to.”

“I-“

“You know what, Danalia? I’m sure you’ll make the next great discovery about Egypt since King Tut’s tomb was found, and you two will be happily ever after, riding camels into the sunset.”

She heard Dani laugh on the other end of the line, and Frances allowed herself to have a small smile at her friend’s boisterous laugh.

“I have to go, Dani. Make sure you give Vinnie a call.”

And before Danalia could respond, Frances hung up the phone. She put on a t-shirt emblazoned with a foreign soda brand, and some worn-out socks- pink with holes in the top, one of her toes poking out to say hello. She walked out into the living room area of her apartment- a small space, as it’s about all she could afford in New York on the salary of a glorified secretary, to a pile of blankets on both her couch and the floor. She recognized one from the mess of blue hair on the pillow, as that was all she could see on the couch, and the other blanket pile was unrecognizable...mostly.

Frances kicked at Paul on the floor, before stepping over him and shaking Kate awake.

“Why are you two here?”

Kate groaned, rolling over in response, while Paul sat up. He rubbed at his kicked shoulder, still in his crumpled dress pants and shirt from the day before, his jacket and tie thrown on a chair in the dining room.

“You were drunk, wailing about Gene, and you live on a fifth floor building- I didn’t wanna take a chance.”

“Excuse me?”

Kate grumbled from the couch before hopping up with a start, in a black sweater and her underwear, not bothering to keep her clothes on out of politeness or self-decency. Kate had known Frances too long to worry about that kind of thing- avoiding showing your ass was something friends did, not best friends.

“He means he didn’t want you to take a swan dive onto a New York sidewalk. The homeless people would probably loot your corpse.”

Paul cut his eyes at the smaller girl as she used her hand to simulate someone falling and hitting the ground, making a whistling noise- complete with an explosion noise at the end.

“Kate.”

“I’m being honest, Paulie, you know I am. You about jumped out of your skin when you heard her get up to take a piss at 3 am.”

Paul sighed, and stretched his arms while Frances furrowed her eyebrows.

“And...you elected not to tell me this?”

“We did!”

“You were just...ya know. Drunk. Like we said. Drunk as a skunk, bawling your eyes out, I don’t think the snot stains will ever get out of Paul’s jacket-“

”I get it.” Frances shot back. She turned to Paul, who gave a visibly strained smile. He looked like he’d been crying- He and Gene had been best friends longer than she had even known Gene, and he’d never even got a chance to say goodbye. She stole a glance at Kate, who’s puffy red eyes gave away more than she’d say. It was like losing a part of your family, even if some of the people in this pseudo-family viewed Gene like the rabid family dog and treated him as such. Frances sighed and crossed her arms, directly avoiding Paul and Kate’s gaze. She looked at her floor, the threadbare carpeting in desperate need of a deep clean.

“Don’t smile if you don’t wanna, Paulie, we’re all hurting.”

“No, I do wanna smile, Gene would’ve made fun of all of us for crying about him, and you know it. He’s probably laughing at us all right now, wherever he’s at.”

“I’m not sure he’s laughing in Hell.” Kate retorted, and the three laughed- laughed despite how unfunny the joke was, laughing just to keep from crying, laughing to try and feel better. When the laughter stopped it was quiet, and someone began to sniffle- Kate and Frances let our disheartened sighs and gasps as Paul began to cry, despite the smile on his face, scrubbing at the tears on his face.

“Dammit, I-

I’m sorry, Fran, I didn’t wanna cry in front of you, because I know you’re havin’ it rough too, and I-“

Frances simply hugged him, and he stopped- the sniffles didn’t, but he didn’t bother trying to explain it away.

Kate sighed, her eyes watering.

“Now I bet he’s really laughing at us.”

A/N: Hey everyone! This second chapter has been a l o n g time coming, lol. Honestly, I haven’t had any inspiration for this fic until recently, and I figured since I can’t do much because of quarantine, I might as well write! I haven’t introduced all the characters yet, but will do so in the next chapter! Thank you all for your patience, and I hope you enjoyed it!

Proofread by: @walkingmajority

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#kiss #kiss fanfiction #amateur author #fanfiction #frehley’s baby #resurrection fic

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