Chapter Text
Frank doesn't get scared easily.
Horror movies never worked on him. Neither did scare attractions or haunted houses.
It was purely psychological.
He could always tell when a scare was coming. The silence in a movie when the camera lingers on an empty hallway, then moves back to the protagonist's point of view, a creature appearing in front of the camera.
Or the way the music would shift into something filled with suspense. Or when you can see the cutout in the wall where a scare actor will jump out at you.
It just ruined the vibe and made it impossible for Frank to see anything but the person underneath all that special-effects makeup. The suspenseful tautness of the muscles turned to laughter at your friend when they shrieked in fear.
So when Ray suggested they go to Fright Night at their local amusement park, Frank was more than happy to decline. Rather not spend almost $30 on a ticket to stand there and be bored while Ray tongue-fucks his crush's face.
"Please, Frankie?" Ray practically begged as he helped Frank fold his laundry. Frank knows he's doing it as a guilt trip and not because 'I'm a good, helpful friend, Frankie,' as he claims.
"Dude, no. I'm not spending money on a ticket for a stupid fright night just to not be scared the entire time," Frank reiterates for the tenth time.
Ray genuinely pouts. "Come on," he whines. Frank rolls his eyes. "It's one of those parks where they make you sign a waiver and the actors can touch you and shake you and shit."
"That sounds even less fun. I don't want strangers touching me," Frank grumbles and snatches a pair of boxers out of Ray's hands.
There's a devious little smirk on Ray's face that tells Frank exactly what he's thinking.
"Oh, you don't want strangers touching you?" Ray asks, voice full of humour. That fucking smirk morphs into a full-fledged grin. "That's funny because remember that time-"
"Don't even finish that fucking sentence," Frank cuts him off, face suddenly red and hot.
"Come with me. Please? I'll even pay for you."
Frank groans and rolls his eyes.
"Mikey's working at the park, and so is his older brother. You like Mikey, right?" Ray asks softly, his eyes gone all gross and dreamy.
"I've met him once, and he looked like he hated my guts the entire time," Frank says.
It was true. The first time Frank had met Ray's point of interest, Mikey, the nerdy-looking dork, barely acknowledged Frank. Didn't laugh at any of his jokes. Hardly looked at Frank unless it was to give him a dry look over the top of his skinny-framed glasses.
The younger of the Way brothers, as Frank is just finding out, just stayed pressed to Ray's side the entire time, or had his tongue down Ray's throat.
It kind of hurt Frank's feelings. Whatever.
"That's just what he's like, Frankie," Ray says as a way of explanation. "He liked you, even if he didn't say it. He thought you were cool or something."
"Or something," Frank mutters bitterly under his breath, rolling his eyes.
Ray looks at him, his eyes stupid and wide and begging.
Frank groans, long, deep and loud.
"Fine, alright. Cut it out with the puppy dog eyes."
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Frank hadn't realised how big the park was until he and Ray were walking through the front gates.
They had both been to this park before, but not for many years and not at night. They still snatched a map from the admission booth and peered at it to figure out where Mikey said he and his brother were working.
The front of the park, the entire park, in fact, is all decorated in cheap Halloween decor. Spiderwebs, jack-o'-lanterns that Frank smiles at, and miles upon miles of string lights, some in bat shapes, some in pumpkin shapes. Fake blood in the shape of footprints leads them deeper into the park and to the section where you have to sign a waiver.
There is a massive figure of the devil, gnarled teeth, and standing taller than Ray and Frank combined, right at the front gate to welcome people.
It's dark out, just after nine, but there are so many people milling around. Some are lining up for rides; others are standing around the direction boards, trying to find the attractions they're looking for.
There aren't any scare actors in this part. It's where the families are and the little kids who enjoy rides that make them vomit up cotton candy and soda on their shoes.
The park is lit up with multicoloured spotlights, shining everyone in hues of green, orange, red and blue. Popcorn and something sweet like candy corn permeate the air in that thrilling Halloween way that makes Frank feel nostalgic.
It's also loud. Spooky music, the sound of screaming and the ride mechanics all make Frank feel old and nauseous when he thinks about spinning around in one of those death machines.
Despite Frank's reluctance to be there, it actually looks pretty cool. He's excited, not that he'd tell Ray that.
Ray, as promised, pays for his ticket and bounces on his heels as they both take in the space in front of them.
Like something out of a movie, they look at each other, smile brightly at the other and then rush forward like excited children.
They approached a small booth just outside the physical scare section of the park. A bored-looking girl with face piercings and dressed up in nothing but a bloody nun's habit holds out a form for them both to sign.
Ray stifles a laugh when she asks to see Frank's ID.
"Shut the fuck up," Frank gumbles at him.
He signs his form, the girl puts a black wristband on them, and they're both let in through a spiderweb-covered fence.
"She probably thought you were my son," Ray jokes and artfully dodges Frank's kick to his legs.
"She probably thought I was your sugar baby," Frank shoots back.
Ray snorts. "Are you not?"
"If I ever offer you any sugar, shoot me in the face."
"Noted."
This part of the park is darker than the rest. The sweet, childlike joy sucked out and obscured in shadows that creep and crawl up brick walls and across the ground.
It knocks the air out of Frank's lungs, sets him on edge. It isn't exactly scary, but eerie, sending frigid fingers down Frank's spine.
There's different music, too. Something less haunted, but more like the fast-paced soundtrack in a movie when the characters are being chased, adrenaline coursing, and heart pumping.
"This is freaky," Ray says quietly.
Nothing around them tells them to be quiet, but Frank understands him, feeling like the second he raises his voice above a whisper, something will be attracted to them.
"It's definitely different," Frank mumbles.
They walk on, passing danger signs and more decor that looks less cheap and tacky. Frank snorts to himself. Obviously, they put more effort into this area of the park.
There are more of those metal construction site fences that create a wide alley, covered in caution tape and herding them along.
Someone — a scare actor — bangs on the fence from the other side, making throaty sounds at them. Their face is hidden behind the mesh over the fence, but both Frank and Ray jump, adrenaline spiking.
"Danger," the actor hisses over and over, stalking them along the alley from the outside. "Danger. Danger."
"Motherfucker," Ray breathes, a hand pressed over his heart.
Frank rolls his eyes and laughs at the way his own heart beats like a kick drum.
It's desolate in the alley, no other people, just the sound of the music and distant screaming.
They turn a corner.
Fence-lined laneways spread out to a larger, open part of the park with groups of people and scare actors running around in stupid costumes.
"Where did Mikey say he was stationed?" Frank asks.
He watches a painted green, pointed-hat witch chase after a group of men, cackling at them while Ray pulls out his phone.
"He's out the front of the mirror maze," Ray tells him.
"Mirror maze," Frank says sarcastically. "How scary."
Ray huffs at him as he pulls out the map, fingers trailing through their part of the park from the you are here checkpoint to the mirror maze marker.
"Can you at least try to have fun?"
"I am having fun," Frank says and gives Ray an award-winning, exaggerated smile that's all teeth, before dropping his face back to the scowl he was just wearing. "What part of me looks like I'm not having fun?"
"Your face looks like it could turn people to stone," Ray replies dryly.
"That's pretty scary, right?"
"Frank…" Ray sighs, finger pressed to Mikey's location on the map.
Frank rolls his eyes and starts walking. "Let's just go find your boy toy."
He rolls his eyes again at a sign that says 'Embrace the fear,' written in dark red that Frank supposes is meant to be blood.
"Stupid fucking sign," Frank mumbles under his breath.
They fall into step, weaving their way through people and actors, until Frank notices someone creeping up on them from his peripheral vision.
He stops short and looks to his right.
A ghostly little girl dressed up like an antique doll waves at him, slowly and spookily, from the dark.
Ray waves back at her and groans painfully when Frank elbows him in the ribs.
The girl comes closer, her dress stained in blood and holding onto a beheaded teddy bear with one arm. When she bares her teeth at them in an ominous smile, her mouth is blood-stained too.
"Do you want to play with me?" she asks, voice high-pitched and sweet, but something about it makes Frank's stomach bottom out like she's luring them into a trap.
She stops creeping closer when she's right in front of the pair, swinging her dress around and twiddling her hands.
There's a fuck off loaded on Frank's tongue before taking in the girl's height and realising she might actually be a child.
Frank might be an asshole, but he's not going to tell a child to fuck off.
"Not really, no," Frank says bluntly.
The girl's eyes widen before she opens her mouth, teeth caked in blood and lets out a blood-curdling scream.
"Jesus Christ," Ray says, reaching out to pull Frank along with him.
"Play with me!" the doll girl screams and chases after them, hot on their heels.
"No," Frank says again, trying to antagonise her.
Frank's rejection makes her scream even louder.
It's fucking funny. Frank giggles over his shoulder at the screaming girl and at Ray's haste to get them away from her.
"You having fun?" Frank asks when they're far enough away that the doll girl picks another victim to terrorise.
"You're an asshole," Ray huffs, still pulling Frank along by his sleeve.
"Yeah," Frank agrees happily and lets Ray drag him.
They reach the maze and haunted-house portion of the park with Ray still grumbling about goddamn scare actors.
The mirror maze is a fun house of sorts. The outside is done up with animatronics that move and scream when triggered. There's a line, and next to it are a few scare actors and another admission booth.
Ray drops Frank's sleeve and continues on when he catches sight of Mikey outside the maze.
Mikey is dressed as a ghoul, with a greyish, prosthetic-covered face to give him warts, ghastly bulging cheekbones and neon green slime dripping from the bottom of his jaw. His eyes are a pale yellow, and as people pass him by, he brandishes a meat cleaver at them with a horrible, throaty hiss.
What do a Ghoul and a fake knife have in common? Fucking nothing, that's what.
Mikey's height and lithe body all add to the overall look. The ghoul illusion really works for him.
But Frank can't help but laugh at him. Mikey looks fucking stupid, hissing at people and moving his skinny body around. It looks like it hurts.
Frank looks at Ray. There's an equally stupid, gummy little grin on his face when he watches Mikey chase after a couple of screaming girls, getting into their faces as they duck their heads and run.
"He's so the one, dude," Ray breathes, his smile getting wider when he looks at Frank.
Frank pats his shoulder. "I hope he scares the balls off you, man."
"Aw, thanks, Frankie," Ray says, but he's already walking away. He leaves Frank behind and makes a beeline to his precious Mikey-ghoul.
Not that it really matters anyway, because Frank stands off to the side and watches the private little smile that sneaks onto Mikey's face when he sees Ray. It only lasts a second before he's speeding toward him, hissing in his face and waving his fake knife around.
Ray looks fucking delighted.
Frank watches them mess around for a while before he starts to observe the others in the park.
There are several scare actors around this area of the park. A chainsaw-wielding man with a clear plexiglass mask that squishes his features into something ugly, a zombie schoolgirl reaching out to take a bite from a park patron, a few with snarled teeth, paws and lines of scratches over their faces, arms and torsos.
Nothing scary or even mildly interesting to Frank.
In fact, he's actually fucking bored, standing there, arms crossed, hip popped. All to signify his disinterest.
Maybe there's a secret hope that one of the actors will take interest in him, in all his glorious show of boredom, and try to scare his balls off. Whatever.
He takes a half step towards where Ray is pretending to lick one of the warts on Mikey's face.
But Frank stops short when he feels a large hand on the small of his back. It presses into him and then slips around to his waist, palm dragged up and across his ribs, then back down.
Oh.
Oh fuck.
A shiver wracks through him, muscles tight in preparation for an inevitable scare.
Instead of being jostled or someone screaming in his ear, Frank is pulled back against a large chest, the hands on his hips holding him steady.
Frank is stock still, breath laboured as blunt fingernails scratch softly at his hipbone. Fear and something else, something that makes his back arch, mix into a whirlpool in his stomach. A sick, private thrill that isn't nearly as unpleasant as it should be.
The hands on his hips loosen a fraction — a fake-out — before they clamp down with a bruising force and make Frank jump a mile high. His heart beats fast in his chest, his breath coming quick and heavy. He's actually fucking freaked out. And horny. Jesus.
"Motherfucker," Frank gasps, half fear, half face burning, shameful arousal.
There's hot breath on his ear, driving another shiver out of Frank. The man behind him chuckles, damp and warm on the side of his neck.
It's so fucking stupid.
The laugh is the stereotypical 'Dracula' laugh, slow and put on, but there's something sweet and seductive underneath it that is doing embarrassing things to Frank's cock in his pants.
"Oh my god," Frank whispers this time. Goddamn breathless.
It's probably against the rules to try to fuck one of the scare actors. It's all a show, anyway. A hot, horny fucking show. But a show, with rules and strict guidelines, nonetheless.
"What a delicious-looking victim," the man breathes down Frank's neck.
His voice is snarled and lisped from the fake teeth in his mouth, the stupid Transylvanian accent kind of awful in a laughable way.
Frank wants to roll his eyes. What a cheesy, stereotypical line, too, but fucking Christ. It's working for Frank.
Everything about it, the fingers digging into his hips, the warm chest against his back and the fear that feels like pure adrenaline, all really works for him.
Sharp plastic teeth scrape a line down Frank's neck, followed by a tongue. The man behind him hums approvingly when Frank's breath hitches and chokes on a moan.
"Holy fucking shit," Frank squeaks out, his hands flexing at his sides.
The park rules had stated multiple times, "Do not touch the actors." Frank wasn't the type of guy to swing when he was scared anyway, so he'd brushed it off as a no-brainer rule. He was so, so wrong.
He wanted to touch the guy so bad. Fling his arm back and get his fingers into the guy's hair. Grind back against the crotch pressed snug to his ass. Interlock his hand with the fingers on his hip. Frank wanted all of it. To touch him everywhere.
Frank has to cover his crotch with his hands. A boner the size of Texas strains against his zipper, and it's so extremely obvious that it should be considered a crime.
They're in public, like right in the middle of the park, with people still walking around them and probably calling the police for the act of public indecency.
Frank can't make himself move. He wants to believe it's fear, and it partially is. Frank hasn't even seen this guy's face, and it could just be some weird pervert instead of a scare actor.
But he's warm against the October chill, and he's so turned on from some tame but rough grabbing and licking. It's pathetic. He's pathetic.
And it's really fucking good.
"Run, sweet little lamb," The scare actor — Dracula — whispers in his ear. "Don't let the temptation win."
Too fucking late, Frank would love to point out.
Is it ethical to play into his religious upbringing to come back with an appropriate response to his 'temptations'?
Probably not.
Instead of actually responding, Frank goes pliant and leans further back against the man's chest.
Baring his neck is something Frank's body does without his permission. It's been a while since his dick has been this invested in anything.
The man behind him seems to approve. He nips at Frank's throat, humming low and sweet. Less like the character he's playing, and more like the man underneath it actually enjoying the fact he's got Frank like this. What a fucking pervert.
Dracula's fingers dig into his hips harshly all of a sudden, his fingernails creating red crescent moons underneath Frank's shirt.
"You want to be my victim, don't you?" Dracula hums out a little nasally laugh.
Frank's head knocks back and rests on the man's collarbone. Throat completely bared.
"Please," he whispers, breathy in a way he's never heard himself.
Someone in the park near them screams as an actor gets in their face. Frank jumps, and the fingers on his hips press in until he feels a pop of them breaking skin.
"Be not afraid, little lamb," Dracula whispers right into Frank's ear.
One of the hands on his hips relents its hold and travels down, over his stomach and the waistband of Frank's jeans. He knocks away one of Frank's hands, covering his crotch, fingers ghosting feather-light tips over the hard bulge in his pants.
"I won't hurt you in any way you wouldn't like."
Oh, Jesus Christ. Jesus motherfucking Christ.
This is not part of the character script or something that the park even remotely allows. Frank is damn sure of it.
Should he be worried about being kicked out of the park and permanently banned? Definitely.
But Frank's body has other plans.
With a soft, swallowed groan, Frank presses his crotch forward, tries to get those fingers rested and palming against his dick, much like the fingers on his hips.
Dracula's hand rests low on Frank's stomach instead, angled pinkie finger running the length of his zipper.
"Oh, fuck me," Frank whines.
All words other than fuck and shit, and fucking shit, have completely escaped him. Frank's left mumbling obscenities under his breath like he was never taught how to curse right.
Frank is half a second away from grabbing that hand and shoving it down the front of his pants, but he's really not interested in getting arrested for public indecency.
It doesn't matter anyway, because the man behind him traces his tongue down the cartilage of Frank's ear, then clamps his teeth down hard on Frank's neck. It fucking hurts, pain blooming down his throat and shoulder.
It's not a sexy bite. It's the kind of bite a predator takes out of its prey. Frank's cock doesn't soften, though. It throbs.
A loud half-yell, half-yelp forces itself out of Frank's chest, body tight with fear all over again.
"Run," Dracula growls in his ear.
Frank listens this time.
He twists out of the man's hold and sprints away without looking back, heart pumping and neck aching from the two little indents in his skin.
"Oh my god, oh my fucking god. What the fuck." Frank pants as he runs in the opposite direction, away from Dracula, Mikey and Ray, not a care for how much of an idiot he's making of himself.
When Frank slows down into a paranoid, fast walk, looking over his shoulder to make sure Dracula didn't follow him, he ends up in a food court area.
His dick is still hard and straining against his zipper, like the fucking lunatic that it is.
Frank finds a spot away from the rows of picnic tables and people, somewhere out of the light, where he can lean against the building, catch his breath, half bent over with his hand on his knee and a hand pressed up against his cock to take the edge off.
His hips sting with sweat where the fingernails had broken skin. There is definitely blood on his shirt. Fuck.
Frank's mind whirls and rakes over the last twenty or so minutes. Ray and Frank getting to the park. The screaming doll girl. The mirror maze. Mikey's ghoul costume.
Dracula.
Dracula's tongue and teeth on his neck.
Dracula's hand over his cock.
Frank's dick gives a violent twitch in his pants.
"You're so fucking cooked," Frank mutters bitterly, unsure if he's talking to himself or his dick at this point.
Either way, it rings true.
He's so fucking cooked.
Frank gives himself a few minutes to breathe and for his cock to soften in his pants. His heart is still pounding, eyes peeled, looking for anyone in a vampire or Dracula costume, but all he sees are people in tacky Spirit Halloween get-ups.
He pushes off the wall and retraces his steps until he's back where he started, the mirror maze in his sights, but no Ray and no Mikey.
"Fuck," Frank sighs.
Ducking his head and walking as fast as he can makes him look afraid, but Frank still does it and weaves his way through the crowds, not making eye contact with anyone.
"Do you know where Mikey is?" Frank asks the other Ghoul-costumed actor in front of the mirror maze.
The ghoul starts to hiss at him, and Frank levels her with a dry look.
She clears her throat, looking embarrassed. "Mikey and that tall dude went to the fun house."
Frank gets pointed in the right direction and hastily thanks her while she starts hissing at other people again.
"What the fuck happened to you?" Ray asks when Frank finds them outside the tacky fun house. Ray's arm slung around ghoul-Mikey's shoulders. "Did you get sick?"
He's taking in Frank's frazzled appearance, along with the way he's hunched in on himself like he has a stomachache.
Frank is not about to tell him about his boner situation. Some things are better kept as insider information.
"Dude," Frank says in disbelief, and shakes his head with wide eyes. "Dracula just totally felt me up."
He expects Mikey to tell him there isn't a vampire or Dracula scare actor, and Frank got touched by a random perv, but he just rolls his eyes like it's not shocking information.
"Of course he did," Mikey mutters under his breath so low Frank almost didn't hear him.
Ray, on the other hand, has wide eyes and immediately starts to fuss over Frank. Asking him if he's okay. If he needs Frank to drive him home. Like a good friend.
"Ray, I'm fine, I swear," Frank promises, slapping his friend's hand away while he squints his eyes at Mikey until the other looks away and starts to play with the fabric of his costume. "I actually kind of liked it."
Frank mutters that last part, but Ray hears him and looks aghast before he also rolls his eyes, his features schooled. Ray knows him too well to be shocked at the confession. He's heard a lot more vile shit come out of Frank's mouth than this.
Frank sends a pointed look to Mikey. "You know the Dracula actor?"
Mikey looks more uncomfortable than usual, fingers wrapped in the scraps of his ripped-up shirt and purposefully not looking at Frank.
"Sort of," he says with a shrug of his shoulders.
Frank saddles up right next to Mikey and bumps their shoulders together, a sly grin as he looks at Mikey's painted, warty face. He's fucking gross to look at up close in his costume. "So can I, like, get his number?"
"Frankie," Ray sighs.
"What?"
Ray just sighs at him again, a long, forlorn sound that Frank knows all too well.
He still has half a mind to keep up his harassment of Mikey for the guy's number, but he sighs in response.
"Fine," he says, somewhat bitterly.
Mikey informs them he's off the clock and drags them around to a few attractions before they leave, still dressed up in his stupid ghoul costume, fake knife tucked into his pocket.
A haunted house run by overly enthusiastic theatre kids, a fake corn maze, and another fun house with bloody masked clowns that leaves Frank even more bored than the last.
Dracula is still on Frank's mind. The way those fangs dragged along his neck. His tongue on Frank's throat. The hand on his crotch. Fuck.
He's in serious need of some friendly one-on-one time with his cock and the scratches on his hips.
"Are we giving Gerard a ride home?" Ray asks once they're seated at a splinter-covered picnic table in the food court.
Frank stifles a laugh when a group of grown men yelps and scuttles away from the doll girl.
She spots Frank and gives him the same spooky little wave and smile with blood-covered teeth, before sauntering away to find another victim to harass.
"Nah," Mikey says around a mouthful of the fries he's mashing into his face. Frank's fries, might he point out. "Gerard doesn't like to hang out. He's probably home already."
The park starts slowing down at almost midnight. Most people and families sick of the novelty after a few hours.
Frank trails behind Ray and Mikey, watching happily when, at one point, Mikey threads his fingers with Ray's and swings their joined hands between them as they walk. It's so cute; Frank wants to pretend dry-retch in their direction.
They all pile into Ray's car after an announcement over the loudspeaker that the park is closing. Frank shoots daggers into the back of Mikey's head when he throws himself into the passenger seat at Ray's insistence.
He still doesn't really like Mikey, even though he likes the way the younger Way brother makes Ray so stupidly happy and soft. Frank decides he'll put up with him, if only for Ray's sake. Maybe he can even convince Mikey to tolerate him, at least.
And possibly meet the elusive Gerard, who Mikey talks about like a ghost that lives in his house.
"You're both so gross," Frank grumbles when they pull up outside the Way house, and Mikey clambers out of the car with his long limbs.
He's bent down, half in the car, as Ray leans over the centre console to meet him for a kiss.
"Shut up, Frank," they both say in unison, making Frank laugh.
Frank watches Mikey stalk off to the side of the house and down a set of stairs.
He throws himself over the gap in the seats to take back his role as passenger Princess.
"Gerard lives in the basement," Ray explains when he sees Frank pull a face at Mikey's back.
"So a basement-dwelling ghost?" Frank remarks.
Ray pulls away from the curb once the light on the front door goes out. He rolls his eyes.
"Be nice to him," Ray says seriously. "You'd like Gee. He's… weird."
Frank pulls another face and turns to look at Ray, who is smiling to himself as if he said something funny.
"I feel like I should be offended."
"Whatever." Ray quirks. "Did you have fun tonight?"
"No. I'm never doing that again."