#poor frank

A/N: Frank is my favorite character in Heroes of Olympus and I feel like his trauma isn't talked about enough so here's a fanfic.

Frank didn’t talk about it.

He couldn’t.

Every time he tried, something in his chest tightened, and his mind scrambled to find a way out. He hated feeling vulnerable, hated admitting that he was broken. But the truth was, every time he looked back at his life, he felt like a patchwork of everything that had gone wrong.

He didn’t need anyone else’s pity. He didn’t need to burden them with the weight of his trauma. He didn’t deserve to burden anyone with it.

He had already watched too many people carry their own burdens. Jason, with the weight of being the leader. Percy, with the memories of Tartarus that never seemed to leave him. Leo, with the grief of never having a family to come home to. Hazel, who had fought for so long to reclaim the life she’d lost. Frank couldn’t complain when he was surrounded by people who had lost so much more.

It didn’t feel fair.

But still, Frank pushed it all away.

His mother.

His mother had died when he was too young to remember her voice, too young to remember anything but the look on his grandmother’s face when she told him the news. Emily Zhang had been fighting in the war, giving her life for a cause she believed in. Frank never got to say goodbye. Never got to tell her he loved her. All those years without her, all those questions that he never got to ask, all the time he missed without even knowing her... It ate at him. He buried it deep.

His house.

Frank had never had much, but what he did have was his home. The house that had been a place of comfort, of safety. He had memories there, ones that no one could take from him. And then the fire had come. He was barely there when it happened, but by the time he realized what was happening, it was too late. It was all gone. His grandmother had barely survived the flames, but Frank didn’t get to hold her after. Didn’t get to tell her it was okay, that they would be okay. She left him after the fire, and he never got to say goodbye.

His grandmother’s death had felt like the last piece of the world he could hold onto slipping away. She was the only family he had left, the one who had raised him when his mother couldn’t.

And then there was Mars.

Frank had never known his father. For the longest time, he had wondered if his father had even cared about him. When Mars had finally found him, it wasn’t like he’d imagined it. Frank wasn’t welcomed into the godly fold with open arms. No, Mars had treated him like a possession, a vessel for his two conflicting personalities. He had learned that being Mars’s son meant bearing the weight of both Greek and Roman identities—and those voices, those constant arguments in his head between Ares and Mars, never gave him a moment’s peace.

The migraines started then.

They never stopped.

The firewood.

The curse had been the final nail in the coffin. A piece of eternally burning wood that was tied to his very existence. It wasn’t something he could just get rid of. The burning firewood was a reminder—every second of every day—that he was alive, but only because the gods decided he was. That at any given moment, the fire could burn him out, and his life would be extinguished. He had no control over it, no say in when it would end. It wasn’t just fire—it was a constant, inescapable reminder of his own fragility.

It burned. Always.

And yet, despite all of this—despite everything that Frank had endured—he still kept it together. Because he had to. Because his friends had enough to deal with already, and if he let them see just how broken he really was, how shattered he felt inside, he wasn’t sure they’d be able to handle it.

So Frank pretended.

When Percy would glance at him with a concerned look, Frank would smile, shake his head, and say, “It’s fine. Really. Don’t worry about me.” And Percy would frown, because Percy could always tell when something was wrong, but Frank would dodge the conversation, shifting the topic, focusing on something else.

When Annabeth would ask if he was okay, Frank would chuckle and wave it off. “I’m fine, Annabeth. Just tired. It’s nothing.” And Annabeth would look at him for a beat, those sharp eyes of hers always searching, always finding what others missed—but she would let him go. She would nod, and give him that little smile, and Frank would feel like he had won the battle.

But inside, Frank was falling apart.

The nightmares were the worst.

Every night, Frank would wake up in a cold sweat, his heart pounding, his mind replaying the moments he couldn’t forget—the fire, the screams, the weight of his mother’s absence. His grandmother’s weak hand in his, the realization that she wasn’t going to make it. His father’s cold indifference, his body shuddering from the anger that raged inside of him, the headache from the voices battling in his skull.

He’d lie awake in his bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to suppress the tears that were always threatening to come. And yet, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he pushed it all down, it always came back.

The pain never left.

And there were times, like now, when he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold it together. The voices in his head were louder, the fire burning hotter. It was getting harder to fight.

But Frank couldn’t ask for help.

Because if he did, if he admitted just how much it hurt, just how deeply it cut—he was afraid that his world would collapse. He was afraid that if he let himself break, he wouldn’t be able to fix himself again.

He had to keep it together. For them.

Because they were his family. They were his home.

What happens to Frank Horrigan when the Enclave has no more use for him? When his duty is over and the Enclave has no more need for a filthy mutie like him?

Assume the Enclave wins. The NCR is purged, their Rangers fleeing northwards, their fortresses abandonned. The Brotherhood is broken, their bunkers breached, their power armors deserted. Assume the Slavers have fled, hunted down by Enclave patrols. the Enclave, finally, is victorious. Now, only one question remains: What next?

What’s next for Frank Horrigan, Enclave Special Agent, supermutant cyborg, experiment, and doomed to die once his duty is complete? Will he walk happily to the slaughter, knowing he's to the executed, and accepting of his fate? Will he, for the few final hours he has left, as the stims stop and the sedation ends, will the horror finally set in, of what he's done and what he's become? Will he die unrepentant, forever swearing his loyalty to a faction who wanted him dead, praising Richardson as the last breath leaves his rebuilt lungs? Will he die in company of his beloved President, shot by the hand that fed, beat and leashed him?

Will he die remorseful, for once in his short, brilliant, violent life, cursing the men who doomed him and turned him into what he was?

Will they even afford him an execution? Will they simply turn off his life support and leave him to keel over, collapse and wither from the augments they knew he could not sustain? Will they kill him like any other filthy mutie or an Enclave traitor, a bullet to the back of the head? Will they take him in a moment he's unaware, or will he know perfectly well of his execution, yet sit down and wait for it? Will he even fight back?

The Chosen One, long dead by then, is not there to save the Wasteland. Or him, for that matter.

Or perhaps, Frank Horrigan is not as obedient as they believe. Perhaps, as his cybernetics fray and his reagents grind to a halt, in final moments of lucidity granted by the waning stims, he realizes what is about to happen. He was loyal. He was the Enclave’s finest soldier, their greatest enforcer.

And is this his reward? Is this the thanks he gets? To be put down like a dog?

Maybe he fights. Maybe he makes them bleed. Maybe, as his body finally begins to give in, as his augments shut down, as his muscles spasm from withdrawal, he still crawls toward the bastards who killed him. Maybe, in his final breath, he reminds them why they feared him.

And when they finally bring him down, struggling against the monster they had made, he leaves ruins behind him. Even in his last moments, bisected, bleeding, arm and leg rotators broken, bionic eye shattered, he was still crawling towards the bastards that betrayed him.

And when he is finally dead, a pile of corpses around him, the Enclave will erase his name from their records. He will be forgotten, utterly obliterated from history, as if he never served at all. He will be gone, as if he never were, and the Enclave will celebrate the removal of this stain upon their purity: the death of a mutant, and not a soldier.

Or perhaps, his watch ends, and he goes quietly.

Years. He served for years, he served them with his flesh, his strength, his literal blood and bone, and now they’re done and there’s nothing left to do but let him go. Perhaps he knows, perhaps he knew all along, he was just another walking corpse.

When they finally come for him, he does not resist. The last orders are given, the last Vertibirds set off from the oil rig - rusting by then - and the sound of the few remaining engines fade. Switches are flicked. Weapons are stowed away. Officers cheer.

And Horrigan receives his last order.

He accepts this as he accepted every other command, because that is all he has ever known. The chems are already thinning in his veins, The cybernetics they forced into him strain, his organs burn under the burden of enhancement.

Perhaps, as they lead him away, he does not feel fear. Frank Horrigan does not know fear. But in those last moments, as the final dose wears off, as his thoughts clear for the first time in years, perhaps, just perhaps, there is regret. A flicker of something buried under decades of conditioning. Just a flicker of what could have been…

But of course not. He is Frank Horrigan. He does not question, because to do so would have been beyond him. He does not struggle. 

He does not fight back, even as the bullet enters his skull, and he dies ignominiously, obeying the man that killed him.

Frank West, sharp dressed man with a guitar.

Considering Frank's expression, Jonathan is SO LUCKY he didn't get an acoustic to the back of his head, lol!

But what I was actually doing here was going for the Saint achievement: get at least 50 survivors out of the mall.

And I got it! Eee, I didn't think I could because, my WORD, somebody said that the survivors in Dead Rising are like trying to herd cats and I think that actually herding cats would be easier!

But I made it with 51, whew!

Dr. Barnaby dies if you progress the story, so he was unavoidable. Ronald was being a jerk so I abandoned him, lol. And I had to back up to a save point to try to get almost the entire bottom row in time annnnnd I forgot to go back and save Gil the second time. Oops. Sorry, dude. But thankfully you have a little bit of a cushion to still get to 50, whew!

The trick is to use the waypoints to tell them to go to a place with no/few zombies while Frank clears out the most of them, then to move them forward a bit more, continue clearing the way, rinse-repeat until you hopefully get them back to the Security Room in one piece. 🤞😣🤞 If you just point them towards the goal or just call them to you, they'll inevitably run right into an obstacle or a pack of zombies and die while you're trying to help everybody AND keep yourself alive.

Ask me how I know that. 😑😉

Sophie is demonstrating a form of this in the Security Room by being stuck behind the door but just walking, walking, walking to nowhere, lol! I love how Frank's looking at her like, How did I even get you back here alive, Sophie??? 🤔😂

Anyway! In the run right before this one...

...Isabela was clearly questioning Frank's fashion sense! 😮

Frank: "NOOOOOOOO, HOW COULD YOU, ISABELA?????"

But! If you happen to know your Dead Rising, you'd know Frank is on top of a tank and that means we won Infinity Mode! (And surprisingly, Unbreakable at the same time, woo!)

Now, I have no plans to try for the 5 and 7 Day Survivor achievements because, frankly, *ba dum tss* 😂 they sound awful. Everybody, even the survivors, are trying to kill Frank, your health continually depletes, there isn't nearly as much food available on the map AND it doesn't respawn but, hardest of all, you can't save, so you have to play the entire game in one go. For 7 Day Survivor, that's 14 hours in real time! 😵‍💫

Back to Frank's awesome fashion sense, though...

My dad came by while I was doing an earlier playthrough and I didn't realize he was behind me, watching. He finally said, "Don't you think he'd have an easier time killing zombies if you gave him some pants?"

To which I said, "Hey, Frank's a gentleman, he has pants."

Or at least, boxers, lol!

Brad seems to be confirming the presence of boxers. HIS EYES ARE UP HERE, BRAD.

Clearly, Brad and Sara Ryder from Mass Effect: Andromeda have the same priorities, lol! 🤣🤣🤣

We also tried out this look. Hot, sporty brawler with hat and golf club. Not bad! *nodnods*

But I just think he works it well in dresses, what can I say?

And I'd never say no to the wrestler look either. I still say this is weirdly picturesque, lol!

Man, in fountain, with zombies ~Aislynn, 2024

Don't give me that look, Otis. Just be glad buck naked wasn't an option, lol! 😇🤣

"There are a few survivors I don't get along with, but if I had to settle for one, I'd say Bill. I don't know, there's something about him that just makes me want to throw up when I see him. Every time I'm in a trial with him and I get injured, I'd rather wait until we're back at the campfire to get healed up by someone else instead of letting this old man touch me."

Because he and Frank are the only responsible ones there.

You know Leo and Percy are gonna sit back and watch him wander off, tear apart a few monsters to blow off some steam.

Though that does mean they lose him... Often.