ONE: Vanilla on My Hands

7: It All Started with Pink Pineapple Socks

"I can tell you're nervous," Ryan chuckled, reaching a hand across the car to try and get Frank's attention. He laid his hand on Frank's thigh, giving him encouraging affection, but it didn't work. Frank jumped in his seat and wondered if Ryan was trying to give him heart failure, "Frank. Take a breath."

Frank obeyed the gentle offer, taking in a lung full of air, but it did nothing to calm him down. He didn't get how people telling him to breathe was supposed to calm him down. It just made him more aware of his tongue and that made him panic more. Frank looked at Ryan briefly before his gaze drifted down to his bag in the footwell. In his bag he had the bare essentials. Notebook, pens, recorder; all that he needed for this. He had everything set up and he was ready for this, but mentally he was really starting to wonder if he could have been more prepared.

"I just..." Frank started before he stopped himself, wondering if he actually wanted to go ahead and voice how he felt to Ryan, but he sighed, "I really don't wanna fuck this up."

"You're not gonna fuck this up," Ryan reassured him with a roll of the eyes, "Frank, you've got this."

"I don't want him to think I'm stupid," Frank voiced one of the many fears that were starting to crop up in his head right now, "Wh- Dude- What if all this hard work I've done... He just thinks that it's stupid."

"He won't," Ryan reassured him, "You're not stupid. He won't think that this is stupid."

Frank nodded, feeling somewhat better about it. The mere reassurance from Ryan allayed his fears a smidgen despite how badly it still niggled in his stomach. He tugged nervously on his jacket sleeves and grimaced at the outfit, remembering that Ryan had helped him pick it out because he had almost fainted with the anxiety. He knew he couldn't pitch up in his usual comfy clothes, but he still had zero idea on the occasion and its dress code.

The white t-shirt and black sweater worked well together as it always did especially when it was paired with his black jeans and the black boots that he was grateful he owned. Ryan had picked out his sweater, too. Frank had worried that it was too casual; the black sweater was a bit worn around the edges but Ryan had said that it would be perfect. Frank had been annoyed with himself because when he was half-dressed with his t-shirt and sweater on, he realized that he hadn't had a single clean pair of socks to his name.

He had sworn and cursed every dirty up and down minute until Ryan had to come to his aid. All of Frank's socks had somehow managed to end up in the laundry hamper. At first, he had toyed with the idea that he should have just put on a dirty pair because it wouldn't matter. It was when Ryan found him digging in the hamper, he nearly fainted and had to pry Frank from the hamper like a dog digging a hole in the yard. He had been so sure that he had had a clean black pair of socks for today but they had been swallowed up into the ethersphere somehow. Ryan had offered to help him out as a good boyfriend would and even tossed Frank a pair of his own socks that he could wear. Herein lay the problem that was definitely not helping Frank's anxiety.

Frank felt so self-conscious about the socks that Ryan had given him. Frank liked his socks simple and one-color. He was the opposite of Ryan in this way. Frank liked solid colors and minimal pattern. He liked dark colors and tones. Ryan adored patterns and pattern-mixing. He wasn't necessarily a fan of bright colors and neons but muted shades like burnt orange and plum were a favorite combination if you threw in some plain and paisley. And then an extra pattern to his socks. Frank owned twelve pairs of socks and all of them were black except for a single pair of navy blue ones that he still had from high school gym.

Yet Ryan always wore a shock of color on his feet because that's just how Ryan chose to live his life. His clothes were the exact opposite of his bland routine in Frank's opinion. The shock of color was what Frank felt so self-conscious about because they were the socks Frank had no choice but to wear. The socks were the softest pastel pink he had ever encountered, like cotton candy. Oh, and they had pineapples all over them, too.