Midnight conversations
Title: Midnight conversations
Author: creepylicious/alles_luege
Pairing: Pete/Mikey (pre-slash, gen)
Rating: PG
Summary: How Pete lost his bogeyman.
“I have Gee,” he said and let another butt disappear into the moving darkness. It used to freak Pete the hell out, that moving, living kind of darkness. A darkness that seemed to be like a pet; a horrible, terrifying pet.
Warning(s): none
Author’s Notes: Part of the bogeyways-verse. It's a prequel of some sorts and you don't need to read Night Hours to understand this. For dr_jasley. <3.
Word Count: 1.907
Beta: theendermen
Disclaimer: Don’t know, don’t own, not real
~+~
“You're too old to believe in bogeymen,” the bogeyman said. He took a drag of his cigarette and Pete stared at his lips. He just couldn't help himself. He rarely could, was the thing, and that's why he was seeing a shrink at the tender age of fifteen.
Pete shrugged, he wasn't terrified anymore, like he used to be as a kid. “I was too old at thirteen, you didn't care.”
A complicated expression fluttered over the bogeyman's face. Something like a wry smile maybe. “You were too old at eleven,” he answered.
Pete nodded, it was probably the truth. He hadn't been afraid of the bogeyman for a few years now. He had no idea why he kept seeing the bogeyman at all.
The bogeyman took a last drag from his nearly burned down cigarette and let the butt fall onto the floor. There the darkness took it and it vanished, like it had never been there in the first place. The only thing that remained was the smoke and the smell.
“I was still afraid of you at twelve,” Pete said, because it was partially true. He had been afraid but only because he thought at the time he was going batshit crazy.
“Liar,” the bogeyman replied. He wasn't looking at Pete, but Pete was looking at him. His dark clothes seemed to be alive, like the darkness around the closet, that expanded sometimes to his bed, so that Pete would pull his naked feet back. He didn't want to touch it. Didn't want the darkness to touch him. His skin. At least it used to be that way. Nowadays he wasn't so sure.
“You didn't seem to care much either way.”
The bogeyman looked at him then. He lit another cigarette and Pete waited. Watched the bogeyman exhale, inhale, exhale again. “I don't care much now either. You believe in me, so I come and do my job.”
Pete could hear a but there. It was loud and screaming in the silence between them and he was afraid, suddenly and like he hadn't been since he first saw that glimmer of something dark and moving towards his bed when he was only three.
“There is something you're not telling me.”
“There is a lot of shit I'm not telling you, Pete,” the bogeyman answered. Pete shivered at the way he said Pete's name. It wasn't fear.
“Yeah, I know. Your name for one. You know we've known each other longer than I've known some of my closest friends and-”
“We're not friends. You're an assignment. I do what I'm told to do. You aren't-” he stopped, but Pete knew anyway what he wanted to say. “Never mind. The thing is there is a limit. Usually I get a new kid when the last stops believing. But the limit is sixteen, Pete.”
“You mean I won't be able to see you after I turn sixteen?” Pete wanted to know. That sucked: and sucked big on top of that.
“No. I won't come here anymore.”
“You will be with someone else,” Pete said and he nearly added: someone younger, but he didn't. It would've been ridiculous. He wasn't jealous because the childhood nightmare would be gone for good in a few days. That would be stupid.
The bogeyman nodded. He took another drag of his cigarette, his long bony fingers holding it carelessly. They looked strong, Pete thought, those fingers. He never had felt them. He never wanted to until recently either. Things were changing and Pete wasn't sure it was a good thing.
“It's the natural order of things,” the bogeyman said and it sounded to Pete like something he memorized, repeated dutifully and not something he believed in.
Pete heard that tone way too often from himself when he was speaking with adults.
“So, you don't have any friends then?” Pete asked and he was kinda surprised when the bogeyman answered.
“I have Gee,” he said and let another butt disappear into the moving darkness. It used to freak Pete the hell out, that moving, living kind of darkness. A darkness that seemed to be like a pet; a horrible, terrifying pet.
And Pete remembered. A hissing voice, a luring kind of darkness at the edges of his bogeyman's darkness. Like it was calling the bogeyman home. Sometimes, when Pete didn't feel like pretending, he could formulate it in his head. It was a caressing darkness, one that cared for his bogeyman. Thing was: Pete didn't want anyone, anything else to care for his childhood terror. This one was Pete's and Pete's alone (or that was what he liked to tell himself) and he would hold on to it as long as he could. With nails and teeth.
He looked at Pete suddenly and the darkness receded slowly. “Have to go, Pete.”
“See you tomorrow night?”
The bogeyman hesitated for a second or two. For a heartbeat, the darkness stilled too and Pete held his breath. “Yeah.”
And Pete could breathe again.
~+~
“So, you're nice to me because we only have a few days left?” Pete asked. He was marking every freaking day with a big fat X on his calender. He didn't want to be sixteen. He remembered that he used to live for that day when he could finally drive a car and be out of here or whatever. But now, now it wasn't so important anymore.
“I'm not nice,” he answered.
“Hate to break it to you, but you are.”
“No you don't,” the bogeyman said.
“What?”
“Hate to break it to me,” he replied with something like a smile.
The darkness around the closet was painting shapes on the walls that were darker than the shadows themselves. Pete always suspected that the darkness existed without the aid of light. Shadows, Pete once learned, were the product of light. No light, no shadow, no darkness. But it wasn't true. There was a darkness that didn't depend on light. It just was. And roughly 80% of all children all over the world knew it, had seen it, brushed it with their toes or fingertips - at least the braver ones. Pete hadn't been brave. But his fingers itched with the need to brush them against the sleeve of the bogeyman's shirt. It was an itch he would never be able to scratch, he thought, because he didn't know how and he didn't know how to ask for things in a language other people, or beings, would understand.
“Maybe not. It's a figure of speech.” Pete shrugged again. He shrugged a lot when he was feeling like he wasn't master of the situation and let's face it: when you're fifteen no one is ever the master of a situation.
“I know that,” the bogeyman answered.
“You've changed, you know?” Because the bogeyman had. He used to come to Pete in long shadowy clothes and now he was wearing skinny jeans and t-shits, all in black or really, really dark. No hooded cloak either. He was wearing Converse.
“I know,” the bogeyman said. Pete couldn't tell if he was happy about it or sad. Maybe he was indifferent to change. He usually seemed like he was indifferent to everything that was going on around. Maybe when you were an ancient, ageless being things stopped mattering.
~+~
“You'll come back tomorrow night, right?” Pete asked out of the blue. Tomorrow would be the last night. Tomorrow Pete would be sixteen and then the magic would be gone from his life and Pete wanted so desperately to hold on to it that it hurt to breathe. He dreaded the hours.
“Yeah,” the bogeyman said, but he wasn't looking at Pete. It didn't mean anything, Pete thought. The first time they met, the first time Pete saw him, saw something that frightened him to hell and back and he would never be able to forget, the first time he wasn't looking at Pete either.
Pete had felt a presence in the room for days. It had been a new room, a new house, a big old house his parents moved into because dad got promoted. Pete felt it staring at him. Just staring out of the closet, the corners of the shadows and then they started to creep in his direction and Pete ran out screaming. Waking every freaking soul in the house. He had been shivering and crying and he didn't sleep at all that night.
In contrast to that the bogeyman's face was pleasant to look at, the thing that scared Pete to death that first time he actually saw the bogeyman was the pure and simple fact that he was there. That Pete could see him and that no amount of denial could explain him away. Pete couldn't see him as anything other than what he was: the bogeyman.
The darkness had a lingering quality to it tonight. Like the bogeyman was hesitant to leave. It was far past their usual parting time. Pete was still wide awake. He didn't sleep. He didn't want to sleep and it was taking its toll too. He was tired and aggrieved in class and soon there would be more questions from teachers and parents and the shrink. Pete couldn't care less.
“I feel like I'm losing a friend,” he whispered into the darkness. “And I know you said I'm only a job, but still. You aren't a job to me,” he added.
“Pete,” the bogeyman said and then stopped. He cocked his head a bit and the darkness retreated in the closet's direction inch by inch. Pete's fingers twitched as if he could grab it and pin it down. Keep it there with him in the room forever. Or until sunrise would make them disappear.
“He's calling you, isn't he?” Pete said.
“Who?”
“Gee,” Pete answered.
There was a smile lurking in the shadows of his lips when he answered: “Yeah, he does.”
“And you will go now.”
“Yes,” he replied.
“See you tomorrow,” Pete said.
The bogeyman didn't answer.
~+~
He didn't show up the next night. Pete waited and waited and waited even he knew that after the clock struck midnight it would be impossible for the bogeyman to come. He punched his pillow and didn't sleep out of frustration the whole night.
Later he found out that he was born in the morning hours. In fact the bogeyman waited to the last possible minute to disappear to wherever bogeymen went when they weren't on the job. It didn't make it any easier. He didn't say goodbye. Pete had planed it all out. He was going to touch the bogeyman's skin and clothes and the all-present darkness, and maybe his lips too. He felt cheated, but he knew it was his own fault. He had had years to do it, and he just didn't and now it was too late.
~+~
Years later Pete would sign a band and the living, breathing darkness would creep once more into his life. At the fringes, the edges, but Pete would feel it.
The slight pull of magic and all the midnight conversations would rush back, crushing over him like a wave.
~end~
Author: creepylicious/alles_luege
Pairing: Pete/Mikey (pre-slash, gen)
Rating: PG
Summary: How Pete lost his bogeyman.
“I have Gee,” he said and let another butt disappear into the moving darkness. It used to freak Pete the hell out, that moving, living kind of darkness. A darkness that seemed to be like a pet; a horrible, terrifying pet.
Warning(s): none
Author’s Notes: Part of the bogeyways-verse. It's a prequel of some sorts and you don't need to read Night Hours to understand this. For dr_jasley. <3.
Word Count: 1.907
Beta: theendermen
Disclaimer: Don’t know, don’t own, not real
~+~
“You're too old to believe in bogeymen,” the bogeyman said. He took a drag of his cigarette and Pete stared at his lips. He just couldn't help himself. He rarely could, was the thing, and that's why he was seeing a shrink at the tender age of fifteen.
Pete shrugged, he wasn't terrified anymore, like he used to be as a kid. “I was too old at thirteen, you didn't care.”
A complicated expression fluttered over the bogeyman's face. Something like a wry smile maybe. “You were too old at eleven,” he answered.
Pete nodded, it was probably the truth. He hadn't been afraid of the bogeyman for a few years now. He had no idea why he kept seeing the bogeyman at all.
The bogeyman took a last drag from his nearly burned down cigarette and let the butt fall onto the floor. There the darkness took it and it vanished, like it had never been there in the first place. The only thing that remained was the smoke and the smell.
“I was still afraid of you at twelve,” Pete said, because it was partially true. He had been afraid but only because he thought at the time he was going batshit crazy.
“Liar,” the bogeyman replied. He wasn't looking at Pete, but Pete was looking at him. His dark clothes seemed to be alive, like the darkness around the closet, that expanded sometimes to his bed, so that Pete would pull his naked feet back. He didn't want to touch it. Didn't want the darkness to touch him. His skin. At least it used to be that way. Nowadays he wasn't so sure.
“You didn't seem to care much either way.”
The bogeyman looked at him then. He lit another cigarette and Pete waited. Watched the bogeyman exhale, inhale, exhale again. “I don't care much now either. You believe in me, so I come and do my job.”
Pete could hear a but there. It was loud and screaming in the silence between them and he was afraid, suddenly and like he hadn't been since he first saw that glimmer of something dark and moving towards his bed when he was only three.
“There is something you're not telling me.”
“There is a lot of shit I'm not telling you, Pete,” the bogeyman answered. Pete shivered at the way he said Pete's name. It wasn't fear.
“Yeah, I know. Your name for one. You know we've known each other longer than I've known some of my closest friends and-”
“We're not friends. You're an assignment. I do what I'm told to do. You aren't-” he stopped, but Pete knew anyway what he wanted to say. “Never mind. The thing is there is a limit. Usually I get a new kid when the last stops believing. But the limit is sixteen, Pete.”
“You mean I won't be able to see you after I turn sixteen?” Pete wanted to know. That sucked: and sucked big on top of that.
“No. I won't come here anymore.”
“You will be with someone else,” Pete said and he nearly added: someone younger, but he didn't. It would've been ridiculous. He wasn't jealous because the childhood nightmare would be gone for good in a few days. That would be stupid.
The bogeyman nodded. He took another drag of his cigarette, his long bony fingers holding it carelessly. They looked strong, Pete thought, those fingers. He never had felt them. He never wanted to until recently either. Things were changing and Pete wasn't sure it was a good thing.
“It's the natural order of things,” the bogeyman said and it sounded to Pete like something he memorized, repeated dutifully and not something he believed in.
Pete heard that tone way too often from himself when he was speaking with adults.
“So, you don't have any friends then?” Pete asked and he was kinda surprised when the bogeyman answered.
“I have Gee,” he said and let another butt disappear into the moving darkness. It used to freak Pete the hell out, that moving, living kind of darkness. A darkness that seemed to be like a pet; a horrible, terrifying pet.
And Pete remembered. A hissing voice, a luring kind of darkness at the edges of his bogeyman's darkness. Like it was calling the bogeyman home. Sometimes, when Pete didn't feel like pretending, he could formulate it in his head. It was a caressing darkness, one that cared for his bogeyman. Thing was: Pete didn't want anyone, anything else to care for his childhood terror. This one was Pete's and Pete's alone (or that was what he liked to tell himself) and he would hold on to it as long as he could. With nails and teeth.
He looked at Pete suddenly and the darkness receded slowly. “Have to go, Pete.”
“See you tomorrow night?”
The bogeyman hesitated for a second or two. For a heartbeat, the darkness stilled too and Pete held his breath. “Yeah.”
And Pete could breathe again.
~+~
“So, you're nice to me because we only have a few days left?” Pete asked. He was marking every freaking day with a big fat X on his calender. He didn't want to be sixteen. He remembered that he used to live for that day when he could finally drive a car and be out of here or whatever. But now, now it wasn't so important anymore.
“I'm not nice,” he answered.
“Hate to break it to you, but you are.”
“No you don't,” the bogeyman said.
“What?”
“Hate to break it to me,” he replied with something like a smile.
The darkness around the closet was painting shapes on the walls that were darker than the shadows themselves. Pete always suspected that the darkness existed without the aid of light. Shadows, Pete once learned, were the product of light. No light, no shadow, no darkness. But it wasn't true. There was a darkness that didn't depend on light. It just was. And roughly 80% of all children all over the world knew it, had seen it, brushed it with their toes or fingertips - at least the braver ones. Pete hadn't been brave. But his fingers itched with the need to brush them against the sleeve of the bogeyman's shirt. It was an itch he would never be able to scratch, he thought, because he didn't know how and he didn't know how to ask for things in a language other people, or beings, would understand.
“Maybe not. It's a figure of speech.” Pete shrugged again. He shrugged a lot when he was feeling like he wasn't master of the situation and let's face it: when you're fifteen no one is ever the master of a situation.
“I know that,” the bogeyman answered.
“You've changed, you know?” Because the bogeyman had. He used to come to Pete in long shadowy clothes and now he was wearing skinny jeans and t-shits, all in black or really, really dark. No hooded cloak either. He was wearing Converse.
“I know,” the bogeyman said. Pete couldn't tell if he was happy about it or sad. Maybe he was indifferent to change. He usually seemed like he was indifferent to everything that was going on around. Maybe when you were an ancient, ageless being things stopped mattering.
~+~
“You'll come back tomorrow night, right?” Pete asked out of the blue. Tomorrow would be the last night. Tomorrow Pete would be sixteen and then the magic would be gone from his life and Pete wanted so desperately to hold on to it that it hurt to breathe. He dreaded the hours.
“Yeah,” the bogeyman said, but he wasn't looking at Pete. It didn't mean anything, Pete thought. The first time they met, the first time Pete saw him, saw something that frightened him to hell and back and he would never be able to forget, the first time he wasn't looking at Pete either.
Pete had felt a presence in the room for days. It had been a new room, a new house, a big old house his parents moved into because dad got promoted. Pete felt it staring at him. Just staring out of the closet, the corners of the shadows and then they started to creep in his direction and Pete ran out screaming. Waking every freaking soul in the house. He had been shivering and crying and he didn't sleep at all that night.
In contrast to that the bogeyman's face was pleasant to look at, the thing that scared Pete to death that first time he actually saw the bogeyman was the pure and simple fact that he was there. That Pete could see him and that no amount of denial could explain him away. Pete couldn't see him as anything other than what he was: the bogeyman.
The darkness had a lingering quality to it tonight. Like the bogeyman was hesitant to leave. It was far past their usual parting time. Pete was still wide awake. He didn't sleep. He didn't want to sleep and it was taking its toll too. He was tired and aggrieved in class and soon there would be more questions from teachers and parents and the shrink. Pete couldn't care less.
“I feel like I'm losing a friend,” he whispered into the darkness. “And I know you said I'm only a job, but still. You aren't a job to me,” he added.
“Pete,” the bogeyman said and then stopped. He cocked his head a bit and the darkness retreated in the closet's direction inch by inch. Pete's fingers twitched as if he could grab it and pin it down. Keep it there with him in the room forever. Or until sunrise would make them disappear.
“He's calling you, isn't he?” Pete said.
“Who?”
“Gee,” Pete answered.
There was a smile lurking in the shadows of his lips when he answered: “Yeah, he does.”
“And you will go now.”
“Yes,” he replied.
“See you tomorrow,” Pete said.
The bogeyman didn't answer.
~+~
He didn't show up the next night. Pete waited and waited and waited even he knew that after the clock struck midnight it would be impossible for the bogeyman to come. He punched his pillow and didn't sleep out of frustration the whole night.
Later he found out that he was born in the morning hours. In fact the bogeyman waited to the last possible minute to disappear to wherever bogeymen went when they weren't on the job. It didn't make it any easier. He didn't say goodbye. Pete had planed it all out. He was going to touch the bogeyman's skin and clothes and the all-present darkness, and maybe his lips too. He felt cheated, but he knew it was his own fault. He had had years to do it, and he just didn't and now it was too late.
~+~
Years later Pete would sign a band and the living, breathing darkness would creep once more into his life. At the fringes, the edges, but Pete would feel it.
The slight pull of magic and all the midnight conversations would rush back, crushing over him like a wave.
~end~