Blood stained teeth glint in the too bright moonlight. Screams echo through the dense forest, bouncing off the trunks of maples and oaks before fading out into the quiet of the night. Bodies fall in tangled heaps as the unfair fight rages on. And th...
He shouldn't be here and he knew it, but something was going on with his best friend and damn it, Pete Wentz was going to find out what. It had been a week since the incident that had thrust the supernatural upon them, and in that week a lot had changed. Frank was healing nicely, though he was afraid that his lack of grievous wounds would mean that he would be asked to leave soon. Gerard was slowly making progress relating to others, he had even spoken to Ray when he and Mikey made a brief comic run earlier in the week. As for Mikey, by far the most profoundly affected by the trauma of the night that Frank came into their lives, he wasn't coping well at all. This is what had led Pete to ditch school early so that he could snoop around in Mikey's room before he got home.
Over the past week, Mikey had come to find the most mundane of tasks to be increasingly impossible to complete. Getting up for school, eating, sleeping, even brushing his teeth felt too daunting to take on. The only way he could get through the day was by self-medicating. He had started with his mother's liquor cabinet before moving on to her long-forgotten Xanax prescription, but even that didn't stop the nightmares. Soon Mikey had moved on to a stronger substance, the only one that let him sleep in sweet, blissful darkness, Gerard's sedatives. Try as he might, Mikey wasn't hiding his struggles well. He was drowsy all the time and had begun to drop weight from his infrequent eating habits. Something, that on his already thin and gangly frame, was quite noticeable. He was pulling away from everyone and everything that he loved, and though he knew he shouldn't be he was powerless to stop it.
Pete didn't know exactly what he was looking for, perhaps something out of place in the normal chaos that was Mikey's room. He just wanted an explanation for his friend's speedy decline. He expected the empty bottles stuffed under the edge of the bed, perhaps he had even expected to find the pills on the nightstand, but he hadn't expected the nearly empty vial and syringe hidden in his CD case. Surely Mikey wouldn't steal the medications that his brother so regularly needed, wouldn't risk overdosing or slipping into a coma because he had no tolerance to the drug, yet there it sat. Clear evidence as to his recent actions.
Pete nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard Mikey's keys in the front door. He had definitely not thought this part of his plan through, and as the saying goes, when you fail to plan you plan to fail. There was no time to leave and pretend he had just gotten there himself, so Pete did what any reasonable teenage boy would do in his situation, he dumped everything back where it had been and hid himself in the closet.
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Mikey was oblivious to the presence of his best friend in his bedroom, but that was what he was going for these days, sweet numb oblivion. The day had been long, the police were still snooping around campus looking for leads on the "disappearance" of the group of teenagers and Pete, when Mikey needed him the most, had bailed on the only class of the day that gave Mikey idle time to think, study hall. To top things off he had to walk home because his car was still covered in vampire blood, and with the police all over the school grounds driving it in that state wasn't the best idea.
By the time he had gotten home Mikey's high was wearing thin. His palms had started to sweat, his stomach beginning to churn, and a painful pounding rhythm was starting up in his head. At this point he didn't care about the consequences anymore, he just needed to be alone in his room with his coping method of choice.
It had so quickly become a routine to him. The sharp stab of the needle and the burn of the drugs all followed by the blissful high they brought him. Secretly Mikey worried about where all this would lead long term, when stealing Gerard's meds no longer gave him the escape he was seeking. Mikey couldn't indulge that thought process right now, not when the syringe was already full and the needle sliding into his skin.
Before the high could fully hit him the doors to his closet were bursting open and a very angry Pete was emerging from the dark clutter of clothes inside. Mikey gasped, startled by the unexpected movement, dropping the now empty syringe and vial to the rumpled surface of his bed.
"What the actual fuck are you doing?"
"What the fuck am I doing? What the fuck are you doing? Get outta here Pete!"
"Oh, me get out! Why, so you can keep shooting up your brother's meds unchecked?"
"Oh for fucks sake Pete, I'm not 'shooting up'. Its the only way I can get through the day without hearing them."
"Hearing who, Mikey, because if you're hearing voices I'm pretty sure that shit is what's causing it."
"Dave, Sam, Richie, Kate, Becca, it's them, their screams. I can't stop the fucking screaming."
Mikey's voice was small and broken at the end of his confession, the full weight of his exact predicament finally beginning to come down on him.
"Shit man, I didn't know-" Pete had lost some of his previous fire. He was still disappointed in Mikey for how he had chosen to handle his struggles, but he was sympathetic nonetheless. "Look, man, we can get you help but this isn't the way to get through this."
"How then Pete, it's not like I can go to a shrink and talk all about how my friends were murdered by vampires, oh and I'm hiding one of them in my mom's basement. That'll go over real well. Hey, do you think they make straight jackets in black because the whole white clothes thing never really appealed to me."
Mikey had a crazed look in his eyes, a desperate look. It hurt so bad to have been found in one of his weakest moments by his best friend, but it also felt so fucking good to have his whole truth out there for someone to see. Pete, on the other hand, looked truly heartbroken upon hearing the other's confession. It was no secret, even to Mikey himself, that Pete cared about him a little more than most friends do. He just couldn't stop himself from wrapping the tall troubled boy in his arms.
"I've got you. We'll figure something out, but you've got to leave that stuff alone. Promise me this is the last time."
"Promise-" Mikey whispered, his face buried in Pete's messy locks.
Just when the quiet of the moment had settled, and Mikey felt somewhat at peace again, a scream echoed through the house. It was coming from the basement.
