He had been used. Left for dead. He often thought of himself as filthy; taking multiple showers a day and scrubbing his skin until it was raw. Such an event that led to this was as traumatizing as it was heartbreaking, and left him feeling dirty on the inside and out.
Frank never let anyone touch him. He wore gloves over his hands and regularly put up a fight when the doctors would make him take them off.
And you. God, you were a lost cause. A schizophrenic who thought you were being hunted. A murderer, who shot your father. An arsonist, who burned your bullies house down with her inside. Just another body to the list.
When he first saw you, he thought you were strange. Striking eyes and gaunt features, presumably from not eating the shitty hospital food.
But he found himself feeling safe around you, strangely. Though you often got into fights with the other inmates, got sent to solitary on a bi-weekly basis and analyzed everyone as if they were open books - he found himself drawn in.
Maybe it was the idea of someone labeled as dangerous and unhinged being able to protect him that was appealing.
Maybe it was because he was the only one who didn't think you were crazy. Not everyone is born a murderer, he thought. Some people are forced.
But still, he rarely let you touch him. He listened to you, though. Respected you, even. If you said run, he ran.
Frank knew he was damaged goods. A piece of meat tossed around and used, a fragile shard of broken glass left to rot in this godforsaken asylum.
And he knew you were no better. Volatile in many ways and calculated in others, to the point where he seldom thought you to be capable of gentleness. Perhaps you could prove him wrong.
He heard the sound of bare feet padding down the hallway in the dead of night and silencing out into the library. It was becoming a routine at this point. He knew the sound of your footsteps, how you hid this little mp3 player on the inside of a hollowed out book that you knew no one would ever read. The silence continued. One. Two. Three. The closing of a book. Four. Five. Six. Slow breaths- yours, he heard as he approached the doorway.
As he had come to find you late in the night for the past few weeks, you stood near the window. Your face was partially lit by the moonlight, only a sliver shading the side of your face where your hair hadn't messily fallen. Beautiful, Frank thought to himself.
Beautiful and dangerous.
He slunk into the room, his socks making easy work of hiding his presence as he came to stop near the couch.
"The Thespian... Alesana. Good song... reminds me of this fucking place, strangely." He said quietly, looking down and letting out a quiet breath as he turned and closed the library door.