Chapter Text
Frank tugged at the soft pastel pink sweater he was wearing, pulling the sleeves to cover his hands, twisting his feet under him as he fidgeted nervously in front of his mirror. Was it too much? Nah, he could look after himself if need be.
He checked his alarm clock, 1:30am, before leaving his room and slipping out of his front door, being careful to not wake his sleeping housemates. He locked the door behind him and walked away, passing under the orange glowing streetlights.
He hadn't really planned on going anywhere that night, but his insomnia kept him up, and his thoughts had started to suffocate him while he just lay doing nothing in his bed. A noise pulled him from his thoughts and Frank looked up - a group of drunks were stood under a streetlight, laughing loudly between themselves. He crossed his arms across his chest and sped up slightly, but that didn't stop the insults and satirical cat-calls being hurled at him as he passed by them.
He hurried on past, not looking back at the men, and soon found himself at the New Jersey State Park. He settled down on the first bench he found, looking around him to check there was no one else there, pulling his legs up onto the bench and crossing them and folding them in his lap, relaxing and letting his eyes flutter shut.
The scene itself was quite serene. A very feminine presenting boy, sat on a park bench - where someone had probably been murdered - at almost two am, a pink bow clipped into his hair and not a fleeting care in the world.
"What's a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?" A voice whispered huskily into Frank's ear. Frank flinched, tensing slightly and his hand curled around his keys tightly, but he didn't move.
"Thanks, but I'm not a girl." He replied, pointedly dodging the question as it was one he'd rather not answer, for obvious reasons - previously explained - and wasn't about to spill all his worries and his doubts to a complete stranger.
"Shit, my bad, I just assumed-"
"Yeah yeah, it's okay, I get it, you aren't the first by any means." Frank shrugged the man's apologies off, brazenly waving his hand through the cool air, relaxing slightly and opening his eyes again.
"Aren't you scared, or, I don't know... worried? That I'm gonna do something to you?"
"Well," Frank started, "I assumed that if you were going to do something, then you probably would have done it by now, I mean you've been standing behind me for-" he checked his dainty wristwatch, "four minutes and thirty two seconds now."
The man fell silent, standing straighter, but still leaning on the back of the bench where Frank was sat and Frank could feel the flimsy wood bending under the pressure. Even though the man had leant back, Frank could still smell the faint lingering presence of aftershave that he seemed to be wearing, and decided that he liked it.
"You're peculiar, I like you." The man whispered huskily, and with that, he was gone. Frank leant back against the splintering wood again, shivering involuntarily in the cool air and pulled his sleeves over his palms again, looking around himself before climbing off the bench, flattening his black skirt under his hands, smoothing out the crumples and walking away from the park bench, heading for the exit.
He paused for a second, hearing what sounded like running footsteps behind him, and turned to look over his shoulder, but saw nothing, just the gloomy black trees standing out against the distant New York skyline.
He sighed, continuing towards the exit and opting to take a different route home, wanting to avoid the drunks.
Frank stopped again, holding his breath and standing impossibly still. He could've sworn he had heard footsteps again, but they had stopped as soon as he had, and again when he turned to look, there was no one there, no shadows lurking under the dim glow of the streetlamps, and no dodgy people sulking behind him.
He pushed the key into his front door, opening it quietly and letting himself in, pressing it closed just as softly being careful to not wake any of his housemates, locking the door behind him as he did so. He gently placed his keys down on the sideboard in the hallway before creeping upstairs on his tiptoes, only stepping at the very edges of the stairs where he knew they wouldn't creak and slipped into his room, closing the door and leaning back against it with a sigh as he did so, his head tilting back and his eyes fluttered closed.
After a couple of minutes, he pushed away from his door and stripped of his clothes, dropping them into his laundry basket and slipping under the duvet into his bed, pulling the soft fabric all the way up to his chin and closing his eyes again.
As soon as he did so, his dreams were filled with the man that had spoken to him at the park.