In the annals of the empire, did it always look so grey before the fall?

[frankly-bamf.livejournal.com]

*There's a knock at the door. A pounding, really, but Frank's a hard sleeper, and it doesn't do more than nudge him from dead asleep to the odd twilight passing between deeply out and waking. On habit he cracks open an eye to give a cursory glace at the clock; just past six, they don't have to be up for another hour. Already forgetting what had woken him, Frank resettles himself against his wife's warm body, the puppy giving a protesting whimper on his other side, at the movement.

The pounding at the door comes again, more forcefully, and this time it's enough to rouse Frank a bit more properly. It'll wake Neville, if it keeps up like that, and he groans into his pillow.*

Alice - 

Comments

[frankly-bamf.livejournal.com]

*That look is warning enough, and confirmation enough, but Frank still has to see. He owes them that. He owes them that and so much more than he can ever begin to make up for, but this, at least, he can do, even if it breaks him to do it.

Stowing his wand in his jacket pocket, Frank steps into the flat. It's at once intimately familiar (how many nights had he slept on that couch before he'd married Alice?) and sickeningly wrong, even out of sight of any blood or bodies. There's a coldness to it, now, a sense that a light's been snuffed out. It's a feeling he knows too well from crime scenes, that ineffable knowing that a building is no longer a home, but merely a place where things and belongings and objects are, that used to mean something to someone. It's a mausoleum now. He knows, a step inside the door. He could stop now, go home and cry and let Alice hold him, and part of him wants to, knows it would be safer for his state of mind and kinder to his wellbeing. He knows it. But the part that knows is caged in on all sides by shaky terror and brittle rage that's riding his skin just under the surface, and a feeling at the back of his throat like he's about to be sick. He probably is. It still doesn't' stop him.*

Where?