𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐮𝐦 † 𝐟.𝐠

eleven

Frank couldn't stay asleep much longer than an hour after he'd been placed in bed. He woke up to a racing heart and an uncomfortable warmth making it impossible to fall back into unconsciousness. He remembered falling asleep in the art room with Gerard standing in front of him, focused on his work. Since he had no recollection of wandering into his room on his own he assumed that Gerard had carried him which left him feeling quite odd. Even though he had not been awake to experience either, he recalled the day that he and Gerard first met, when he was carried off completely defenceless without anyone noticing, not even himself.  Technically he had walked right into his own doom, unknowingly and naive to what was to come only moments later when he asked the alluring man for a lighter. He remembered thinking of how attractive the raven haired man was, sulking in the corner. It had been innocent. He didn't expect anything when he walked up to Gerard, he was older and (as he had thought then), wouldn't be interested. Sometimes he did blame himself, when he had nothing else to do but ponder how he'd been living if he wasn't in captivity. Most times though he was content in blaming Gerard.

Right now though he was fidgety and restless but at the same time, exhausted. He was parinoided due to the dark room, his mind forced him to focus on the distorted humming of the house, the quiet but excruciatingly loud settling creeks that made him gasp and flinch. His toes curled as he bit down on his lip painfully, everything was too loud the darkness wasn't helping him rationalize. He had to get out of the room, he was done with crying for the week and he knew where this was leading.

He pulled at the lamp switch twice and sighed in relief as the room lit up. He sat for a moment on the edge of his bed, looking over at the full body mirror Gerard had installed to his wall, "so he could see how pretty he was," Gerard had joked. He remembered blushing like an idiot. He shook his head out of embarrassment, like he would fling the memory from his head. When he scrunched his eyes he was met with his face, lit up by the soft glow of the lamp. Gerard had gotten him a light with dimming settings since he'd told him about how he struggled with sensory processing and how he couldn't handle bright lights. He'd been so understanding and sweet about the whole thing, Frank still hasn't thanked him for it.
He squinted at his reflection, lifting a slow hand up to his cheek. The light caused abstract shadows that caused a sharpness to show against his features. His hair was messy and sticking up oddly, he couldn't be bothered to fix it or think too much about the bags under his eyes. He wished morning would come faster but the digital clock on his nightstand was telling him that it was only nearing 11pm. He came to the conclusion that he wasn't going to be getting any sleep like this. The longer he was in the room the more paranoid he was getting and his tiredness was making it all the more unbearable.

He grabbed the light blue knitted blanket that draped over the end of his bed frame and wrapped it around his shoulders. The soft yarn and the scent of the washing powder that Gerard buys was comforting as he escaped the confines of the room. He was thankful that the hall wasn't pitch black, there was a wax warmer emitting the aromatic scent of sugar cookie, something that smelled like autumn and an auburn colored light that glowed not too bright  and not too dim. He wondered if Geraed secretly had a little far of the dark, as ironic as it sounded, He thought of the man fearing something he couldn't even see attacking him in the safety of his own home, it was ridiculous, only because it was Gerard. He shouldn't have anything to fear, he was what most people were afraid of.

Gerard's door wasn't closed. There was a small crack being kept intact only by a hardback copy of The Catcher in the Rye sitting between the door and frame. Frank remembered Gerard telling him about it being his favorite at some point, Gerard probably thought that he wasn't listening since he hadn't responded but he was about ninety nine percent of the time. He loved hearing Gerard talk, specifically about the things that made him happy and how passionate he seemed when he did so.
Slowly, so slow that he held his breath to make sure that he heard just how loud each of his tentative steps were, he pushed the door open and stepped through it. Once he had one foot inside of the room, touching the chill hardwood, bent down to push the book outside of the doorway. When the book was out of the way he straightened himself back out slowly so as to not make any shuffling sounds, taking the door between his two hands he pulled himself through the crack, not opening the door anymore than he had to in order to avoid the squeaking that he'd heard from Gerard's bedroom door before. Once in the room completely, the darkness enveloped him, aside from the small slit from the slightly opened door created by the hallway's luminance.