☺
Spending time with The Entity as a survivor felt different than being with it as a killer.
When she threw Frank back down to the campfire, his soul felt strangely hollow. He had no idea how such a thing was possible, but he could feel it, and that was enough for him to believe it. Frank's body felt physically weak, and each movement slowly became more and more of a struggle for him.
He wanted to drag himself across the ground and lay face first in front of the campfire but he knew he had to force himself to get up and pretend like nothing was wrong. He had to protect his image above all else- appearing weak in front of the group wasn't an option.
Eyes closed, he pushed himself off the ground with a soft grunt, feeling every muscle in his body scream in pain.
Fuck.
There was a point in his life when he was sure the worst physical pain he would ever experience was the time he'd sliced open his lip in a drunken escapade- but this was a million times worse than that. He couldn't believe he'd willingly put people through this. As much as The Entity had tortured him before, he'd given in to it's demands rather quickly- as much as he hated to believe it.
It wasn't that he wanted to do it, it was that he felt obligated to keep his 'family' safe at the time. They didn't have a choice, just as much as the survivors didn't. It might have seemed like the killers were on a higher level, but they weren't. They were being forced into this- and very few of them actually wanted to be here. The Entity was just molding the killers into monsters- that was what all of this was. Destroying hope, futures. Molding good people into bad ones, troubled people into monsters, and monsters into... Frank didn't know.
Originally, he believed he was a monster all along- that he was irredeemable, and horrible, and that was just what he was placed in this world to become. But honestly, after he'd met some of the other people placed into this world with him, he learned that it was more complicated than that.
He was fucked up, but there were always people worse than him- which was shocking.
Being brought here made him lose a lot of hope in himself- he always wondered if he'd be able to get himself out of the pattern of fearing rejection and fucking things up for everyone around him. He didn't even mean to become the person he was, but it'd been how he learned to cope without any support from anyone.
He was so ashamed of who he was and where he came from, that he never bothered to tell anyone about what he'd been through- not even Julie. She didn't need to know, he didn't need their pity, and he hardly trusted anyone enough to just hand over such vulnerable information about himself.
He knew everything about Julie, but she knew next to nothing about him. He was basically just an enigma, keeping every detail about himself under lock and key. Nobody could hurt him if he hurt everyone first, and told nobody anything.
Though, maybe this was another shot to do better.
"Wow, I haven't seen someone get up that quick after their first sacrifice since Jake!"
Frank hadn't realized he'd dragged himself to the fire, collapsing onto the nearest log with nobody sitting on it.
He jerked his head to the side, quickly finding the source of the voice. He recognized her, but not well enough to know who she was or what her name was. Somehow, near-perfect glasses sat perched on her nose, and she poked at the fire with a stick.
Frank didn't have it in him to say anything in response, only giving a soft shrug as his gaze once again found the fire in front of him.
This one felt colder than the one at Ormond- and he was sure that made absolutely no sense. It was fire, after all. It shouldn't have been any different from the fireplace at Ormond.
This fire felt warm, but muted in a sense. It felt warm enough to keep them from freezing, but like it was lacking something- substance, maybe? It was like it was there to keep them alive, but not to keep them comfortable. It felt like comfort was within reach, but not actually attainable.
And when Frank thought of it like that, he found it actually did make sense.
☺
Frank shouldn't have been surprised when Jake eventually sat down next to him again.
Part of him, the loud part, wanted to tell him to go fuck himself and leave him alone.
Luckily for Jake, however, Frank was too fucking tired to say much of anything- and really, he was beginning to like the other man's company, as much as he didn't want to admit it to himself.
"Here, I brought you another sweatshirt," Jake said, dumping the gray pullover on the log next to him, "Hopefully it fits, it's one of mine."
Frank felt his face flush, features immediately settling into a glare. People didn't do things like that for him, and if they did, there was always an ulterior motive behind them. He couldn't even remember if Julie had done anything like this, or if their relationship was just them using one another.
He realized it was probably the latter, and Frank felt sick.
"What's wrong with my clothes?" He snapped, though, looking down at himself he realized he was covered in blood, and they probably needed to be washed.
Frank turned to look at Jake long enough to see him smirk, and found himself pursing his lips to stifle a smirk of his own.
"Well, I mean, if you like having clothes covered in your own blood, be my guest!" Jake said, letting out a laugh that sounded more like a snort before continuing, "But it's kinda gross, don't you think?"
Frank said nothing, carefully shrugging off his coat. Really, he didn't care if people looked at him, and it wasn't like he had many options for privacy, anyway.
He folded the coat in his lap, placing it next to him before shoving the hoodie over his head.
The fabric was softer than what he'd been wearing before- it felt nice, really nice, like it was probably really expensive. It was definitely not something he'd ever have been able to get his hands on without stealing back home, and here Jake was just offering it up to him out of the goodness of his heart.
Or, whatever it was that drove him to give him something.
The sweater even smelled nice, which surprised him. He assumed they'd found detergent in a trial and brought it back for them to use. It honestly felt comforting, which was strange considering comfort wasn't really a feeling that Frank had ever been able to experience.
Frank yawned, and Jake must have been looking at him because he immediately asked if he needed a nap.
"Do you want a place to sleep?" Jake prodded, gesturing vaguely to the tents behind them, "I can wash this for you, if you want to rest."
Frank watched Jake reach over to take the coat, but quickly grabbed it and put it on his lap.
"No! I can do it, it's fine!"
♕
After some poking, Jake convinced Frank to take a nap.
The man was clearly exhausted, and Jake couldn't say he blamed him. He made a mental note to show him where he could wash his clothes himself, because he had seemed more than a little cautious with his belongings.
Jake didn't want to prod further, but the way he so delicately cared for his belongings seemed purposeful, and like there may have been a deeper reasoning behind why he acted the way he did.
Jake had decided to let Frank sleep in his tent, settling himself down with a journal and pen in the corner to write out some of his thoughts and clear his head.
He'd asked if Frank wanted privacy, but he'd only shrugged, so the pair of them, despite the curious looks, went into the tent together. Jake knew they didn't mean any harm, but he hoped that it wouldn't make Frank feel even more like an outsider than he already did. He knew it was hard enough already- he'd had a rough adjustment period if only because he was so solitary.
And anyway, Jake liked to keep track of things, so this was a perfect excuse to get some writing done.
In his journal he'd keep tabs on anything that caught his attention- recipes, stories, basically anything that he felt was important enough to remember, that he didn't want to risk forgetting at some point.
New survivor.
He scrawled, in barely legible handwriting.
His dad would have had a field day with his chicken scratch writing, but he wasn't here, was he?
Very grumpy, seems sad. He continued. Came from killer side. Kind of a dick, but he fills my heart with something I can't explain.
Jake scribbled out the last part, not wanting to have that vulnerable realization out in the open. Sometimes he just needed to get the words out of his head and nothing more. Needed to confess to something that his feelings were weird and confusing, but he didn't really trust anyone else to the extent that he'd say anything about it other than Dwight, and Dwight would worry for him.
He couldn't have Dwight worried about him, Dwight already had enough to stress about.
But, the journal did the trick at least for now, which was all that Jake could have hoped for.
♕
Jake always thought he was bad at taking care of people.
He was a solitary kind of guy, and even though he tried to be nice, he always felt he wasn't good enough at caring for anyone but himself.
It was part of the reason he'd always shied away from becoming the head of his family- he just didn't think that when the time came he'd be any good at taking care of his parents and anyone else he would end up becoming responsible for as an extension.
But when his attention was snapped from his journal from the sound of Frank absolutely sobbing in his sleep, he knew he had to say something.
He'd tried to wait it out, but he figured it would be more embarrassing for him to have someone else find them like this, over him waking him up and figuring out what was the matter with him.
And honestly, something inside him broke when Frank stared up at him with the most pitiful look in his eyes, and uttered in confusion that nobody had ever actually told him he cried when he'd dreamed about it in his sleep.
"What do you mean nobody has told you before..." He found himself whispering, without fully realizing what he was doing.
Frank blinked.
"I just thought they were dreams," He repeated, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.
Jake furrowed his brows.
"Your family or partners never..." Jake's voice trailed off, as he stared dumbfounded down at the man before him. The one who had seemed so tough and aggressive only hours earlier, but looked smaller than ever as he laid there with puffy eyes.
"I don't want to talk about it," Frank replied, in a surprisingly melancholy tone.
Jake would have expected him to get angry, but he didn't- maybe because he was tired, or maybe he was hoping for something else, but Jake just sat there and pulled his knees to his chest.
"Sorry," Jake whispered, "Didn't mean to push anything."
An uncharacteristically soft smile pulled at the other man's lips, that quickly dissipated as soon as it'd appeared on his face.
"It's whatever, I don't want to go back to sleep, what were you working on?" Frank asked, as he gestured to the notebook sitting next to Jake.
Jake didn't mind the subject change- in fact, it made sense. They still were more or less strangers, it didn't matter that he'd accidentally seen Frank in a vulnerable state.
"Oh. Nothing, really, just taking notes about stuff," His voice trailed off, but Jake quickly found himself gaining the courage to ask something that he'd been dying to know the answer to.
"Hey, why did you stop... You know..." Jake asked, resting his chin on the top of his knees, "Why did you... Let me escape so much."
"Your spirit," Frank responded, as Jake watched him sit up properly, "You were always so calm and quiet. I wanted that. I thought that maybe if I could learn to be like you... Fuck, it's stupid, but I thought I could fix things. With my gang."
Jake blinked, taking in the information and wondering if he could possibly be telling the truth.
"Your demeanor is so... Calming. Mine is loud and angry and I don't know how not to be this way. Everything about me feels so out of control, and now I guess there's just one more thing I need to be aware of. Pretty fucked up, huh?"
A laugh escaped from Frank, but Jake knew nothing about his situation was funny. It was sad, heartbreaking, even. He couldn't even begin to imagine what someone would have to go through to say something like that, let alone feel the way Frank seemed to feel.
Before Jake realized what he was doing, he was already speaking, offering help even though he normally would be too embarrassed to.
"I can teach you," He said, with the smallest grin he could manage, "You'll need to learn for the trials, anyways."