Disclaimer: This is a complete work of fiction. There's no resemblance to actual persons, places or events. If so, it is utterly not intended. I do not claim to own Monster High or anything to do with it at all. Character exposure in this story is completely non-profit and just for fun. I own nothing but my own plotline. Thank you!

Summary:

Heath Burns has been having strange nightmares of his life before Monster High. They're anything but pleasant and the distressed dreams attract the attention of a certain monster, who hopes she can help him rest easier than he has been. Rated M. Enjoy! HeathxTwyla

Genre(s):

Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Rating:

M, for possible trigger and angst heavy content.

Nightly Agony

At least hitting the ground again today didn't hurt as badly as it did yesterday. It might have been the fact that he expected it? Or perhaps he was becoming numb to the torture? Either way, he'd just endure it and wait patiently for it to end. He was hopeful that it would be shorter than yesterday.

Yesterday, they followed him home and threw rocks at him the entire way. The bruises had just surfaced last night. "Y'know what the funny part is?" The male jock grabbed the lankier boy.

"I have a feeling you're gonna tell me either way…"

"Yes, I am. The funniest part is that you actually thought we wanted to be friends with the likes of you." He shoved the smaller against the fence.

'Why now? I'm almost home…' the hurting young man thought to himself. He left school early to avoid this almost every day… perhaps they were starting to catch on? He'd have to think of something else to avoid this.

"Nobody likes you Heath, nobody ever will. So pick your pathetic self up off the ground and get out of my sight."

He tried to get up and head home with shredded pieces of his dignity, but he found himself on the ground once more. He was used to seeing his blood on the cement below him. This would be the fifth time this month he'd have to get his nose fixed up, damn it. Why couldn't he be left alone? His eyes stung and tears threatened to fall, a tiny sniffle escaping him.

"Aww, gonna be a cry-baby? Where are your balls, big boy? I guess you need to find a pair first!"

This wasn't how he wanted to spend another night… restless because of the torturous never-ending thoughts, threats and bruises. If he ever got the chance to start over… he would never be this person. Never again.

The shadowed beauty slid out from underneath the bed, sitting up on the carpeted floor. "I thought you seemed familiar…" She held her breath when the sleeping teen frowned in his slumber. She wasn't used to seeing him frown, normally he was so happy-go-lucky. Exhaling, she steadied her gaze upon him once more. "it seems to me this dream is upsetting you." Tapping her finger to her chin, she sighed. "Not my usual dream territory, but not gonna lie… I could go for a midnight snack."

It was decided that she'd snack upon Heath's nightmare the moment she saw a tear slide down his cheek. He really had a bunch of emotions wrapped up in that dream. She slid under the bed once more, ready to do the opposite of her father, and relieve Heath of his nightmare. A saddened Heath wasn't a sight she could ever get used to… poor thing.

Twyla shook her head lightly as some dust fell around her as he shifted position, his hand hanging down within her sight. She noticed some bruising. How could someone possibly bruise their hands? Normie anatomy confused her greatly. Monsters were far less complicated. Even though he wasn't complete normie, he was still half. She was certain because she saw his parents in their own bedroom. No one was having a nightmare in there… quite the opposite. They were being intimate and Twyla didn't want to stick around to see what would happen next.

So she settled for the quiet of Heath's room, until he whimpered slightly and it attracted her to his dream and the curiosity of it upsetting him.

She was startled by a thud when Heath fell right out of bed, landing on the floor. Hiding further under the bed she watched carefully.

He was stunned momentarily, though it didn't last long. He curled up in fetal position against his nightstand. "I hate that dream…" he said shakily. "that's not my life anymore… why do I keep seeing it?" He got up and sat back on the bed. "No one wants to be that person…" Heath sighed and moved his pillows from the head of his bed, to the foot. Maybe he'd have better dreams at this end of the bed? He could only hope. . .

The tears streamed down his face as quickly as he wiped them away. Now that he was home and his parents were at work, he was alone long enough to succumb to the emotions that he had to hold in all day. He held them in to be less ridiculed.

When the topic of 'bullies' were discussed in school, they told him to go to adults for help. They told him to stand up for himself. They told him many things and none of them were successful. His parents were hard working and loving. They would understand if he asked them to transfer schools, but he couldn't do that to them. He couldn't have them up and move away just for his own benefit. It was too selfish… so he had no other choice.

He searched through the bathroom cabinets and found a shaving razor at the bottom; he plucked one of them out and tried to steady his breaths. Every time he closed his eyes he saw their faces. When he went to bed for the night, he heard their voices. The merciless ignorance and the bruises, oh the bruises hurt so badly.

Heath slid the razor across his forearm momentarily. Just a small cut, enough for it to bleed. He let out a sigh of relief. The moment he did that, all of the emotions drained from the cut. He felt like he could breathe for the first time all day. He closed his eyes for a moment. Breathing felt good. Be able to do so felt even better.

Before he got too comfortable he got to his feet, turning on the faucet and rinsing his razor in water and disinfectant shortly after. He wrapped it in a washcloth. Rinsing his wound in warm water, he wiped it clean and pulled his sleeve down. Finally, his mind was clear enough to fall asleep tonight.

Twyla was too full to move. The dreams of an adolescent took up more of her hunger space than she was used to. Though for the second time tonight, Heath was uneasy and restless. "What's bothering you, Heath?" She whispered in the darkness.

He sat up quickly in the midst of a cold sweat, the dream he just had didn't sit well with him any better than the first one. He brought his arm up, glancing at it. Very faintly the marks could be seen. They hadn't completely healed over yet, but they were almost gone. His body was on the same track as him, trying to conceal the memories and put them away… meanwhile his brain just couldn't stop going over them. "I'm trying to get over that part of my life…" He got up and headed out of his bedroom.

Twyla's curiosity got the best of her and she followed him, remaining completely in the shadows. She followed him downstairs and into the dining room, there was a hutch of some sort that he opened.

Heath grabbed a half-empty bottle and opened it, taking a generous swig or two of it. He shuddered and put the lid back on, closing the hutch. Hopefully that bout of alcohol would help those thoughts leave his head. He glanced back at the cabinet, second thoughts of taking the bottle back to his room ran through his mind, but he decided against it. He did have school in less than eight hours from now.

"I just wanna sleep peacefully, is that so damn hard?" He asked softly, directed at no one in particular, even though Twyla heard him perfectly. Heath trudged back up the stairs; he stumbled for a moment at the top but moved forward. It might have been possible that the little amount he had was getting to him… he was a lightweight when it came to that stuff.

He finally made it back to bed and switched sides again; hoping it would help this time, though he had doubts it was worth a shot.

The bass of the music vibrated the entire house, there wasn't a pleasant smell to the place but people seemed to be having fun. He didn't get the excitement to this or the concept of it, but it was the first thing he had received an invite for the whole school year. So he wasn't going to miss this. He lied to his parents about his whereabouts for the evening, he had to pull a few strings just to be here and now here he was.

He wandered into the kitchen where there were many people, guys and girls all dancing to the suggestive music, there were a group of guys in the corner chugging their drinks to see who could finish first, and many things were going on all at once. He noticed a pretty female who didn't look so well. The straps of her tank top were down and she was wearing a skirt that was way too short for her height. She staggered around, leaving the room. Exiting it in a shaking, stumbling manner.

Heath tried to convince himself not to worry about her, but his inner conscience knew that he wouldn't be able to do that. She had to be someone's daughter, someone's sister or cousin, right? What if she didn't make it home after this party? What if she died of alcohol poisoning? He would feel terrible…

He turned the corner and found his way to the bathroom, where the door was closed over. He knocked on it and peered behind it only to find two people in the midst of sexual intercourse. "No interruptions, unless you want in?" A drunken girl smirked as she clung on to the masculine frame underneath her. "I don't usually sex loners, but you're kinda good looking… we'll do you, sweetie."

Heath's eyes widened. "Uh, no… uh, no thank you?" he closed the door quickly and shuddered. That was the first wrong door. There were many more after that but after what seemed like forever, he found the third bathroom in this house. If the first intoxicated girl he saw wasn't in here, she was no where to be found. He took a quick breath and opened the door, he saw her sitting on the side of the bathtub, her heels half on and she nearly missed the toilet with her liquefied vomit.

"I can't believe he dumped me!" She said suddenly, in between bouts of vomit. "What a dick-bag, a friggen douche nugget-rocket… shit ticket!" And then there was more vomit.

"Why is there joy in this poison?" He thought out loud, referring to alcohol's affect on everyone at the party tonight. "Here, let me help you." He dampened a washcloth with cool water and put it on her cheek. "Don't worry about that, I'm sure he will regret it. Breaking up with you I mean."

She took the washcloth and held it, "You think so? Because I kinda was a psycho-bitch…"

Heath cleaned up the liquefied mess the best he could with some generic cleaner he found under the sink. "I'm sure you weren't. Guys just tell girls that sometimes when they did something wrong and don't want to admit their girlfriend was right. She's all the sudden the psycho for freaking out, when it's not necessarily her. Or she has every right to freak out and he thinks she's overreacting."

"Nerds are hot. The way you talk is a turn on." She grabbed him and pulled him into an unsuspecting lip-lock, though all Heath could taste was her vomit.

He pulled away quickly, gagging.

"Why do the nice guys think I'm gross?!" She shoved him to the ground and slapped him. "I thought you were nice!"

"I am! You're not gross! Your vomit is though – no offense." She stepped over him and staggered out of the bathroom.

Heath sighed, getting up from the floor until he was knocked down again, with a burning liquid being sprayed on him. What the hell? It wasn't until he heard familiar laughter that he put two and two together, when his enemy was doing up his belt.

He legitimately had been urinated on. He felt the urge to punch, scream, maybe even puke but he couldn't do any of that. "Maybe you'll learn not to try and fit in where you don't belong, Burns. Get lost and stay there if you know what's good for you."

Heath woke startled, feeling around himself and his own clothing. He wasn't soaked; it was just the stupid dream. That horrible dream of a true event. Tossing the blankets off himself, he made it to his own bathroom. There was one way and one way only that he'd be able to get some sleep tonight. He pulled out a clean washcloth from the linen cabinet and he grabbed a plain shaving razor, popping one of them out.

It had been months since he did this, things were looking up but that was before he started having these nightmares again every time he closed his eyes. His dreams were all entirely true events that happened in his life before Monster High. It was in his past, but why it was haunting him he wasn't sure. He took the razor and sunk down to the bathroom floor.

He put it on his skin, applying the necessary pressure and he pulled it across. He took in a deep breath right away, it stung a little more than it used to. But the release of feelings he had previously all came flooding back to him. He no longer felt trapped.

He wiped away the bit of blood and began another cut, just one more. He couldn't complete it as he was interrupted. "No! Don't do that!"

Heath dropped the razor and it hit the floor with a small 'clink'. "What the hell?" he hissed, covering his two minor cuts with the washcloth. He felt a hand over the cloth as she appeared before his very eyes. "Twyla?!"

"You need to talk about this with someone! You can't hurt yourself like this… it's not…"

He sighed, rolling his eyes. "Normal?"

She nodded, "Yes! Heath… talk to me. Please… I'm very good at listening." She moved next to him, her hand back upon the washcloth. "I can disappear again if that makes it easier?"

"What can I say? I'm a hazard to myself." He swallowed what felt like a massive lump in his throat. He hadn't spoken to anyone about his most inner demons, ever. "I… Twyla, before Monster High… I just went to a regular school, I was total normie… but I was picked on, for some reason. No one liked me, I don't know why. They never got to know me." He moved his arm away from Twyla, taking the washcloth off to reveal the two small cuts.

"I'm right here," she told him softly. "take your time."

"It wasn't until I got to Monster High, a school full of odd looking misfits… that I realized that I had something in common with them. They haven't treated me like normies did. I wasn't… that, version of me anymore." He shifted, holding his head in his hands. "This was the new start I needed."

Twyla gave Heath's hand a pat, but he shifted a little further from her. "Hey, this needs to come out to someone. Be glad it's me and not a paid professional."

Heath was glad about that for sure. "It's just hard to tell someone I barely know. You won't get it."

Twyla shook her head, "See? You don't even know me, because you wouldn't say that if you did. I can always try to understand. Help me see, Heath. My strength is the dark, and you have lots of dark inside of you. It's clearly visible to me now that I've been introduced to that side within."

He bit down on his lip, "Every day. Every, single, day Twyla, they followed me home. Sometimes they spit on me, sometimes they threw things at me. They beat me up… I had to lie to my parents about where my bruises were coming from. I kept telling them I fell. I had to wear extra clothing to cover up my body anyway…" He heaved a sigh, leaning his head against the tiled wall of his ensuite bathroom. "It was so hard to conceal so much, to put it aside and not deal with it. And I sure as hell couldn't cry in front of them… any of them. There were a few, but a certain few people stick out most to me." He shook his head, he already felt ashamed so he might as well tell her just how bad it got. "He even physically urinated on me…"

Twyla shook her head, "That's terrible Heath. How long did this go on?"

Heath actually had to think back and calculate. "At least a couple years. All through middle school." He cleared his throat. "Wait… wait a second, the dreams… were they…" he glanced at her with a raised brow. "were my dreams… my nightmares, what led you to me?"

Twyla blushed; it didn't take much for Heath to put two and two together. "They were indeed. Heath, these dreams… how long have you had dreams like these ones? The severity… I mean, you were crying in your sleep." She gave his arm a comforting rub. "I didn't know you had such, heavy thoughts on your mind."

Heath honestly couldn't tell her, "I've dreamt about those things right after they happened… as they happened. I was going to turn to alcohol, maybe suicide… something to end the hell I was going through. But it ended itself when I received my fire element. It's been my blessed curse ever since." He let out a sigh of relief. "Oddly, speaking to you has lifted some of that from me."

Twyla weakly smiled, "You'll need more than just talking to me about it, to lift everything, but it is a start." She connected her gaze with his. "Heath, if you ever need someone to talk to… just call out to the shadows, I'm never too far away. Please remember that." She placed a sweet kiss upon his cheek and disappeared.

"I will, Twyla." He replied softly, staring down at his forearm. He knew that with time and most importantly – someone to talk to – he would slowly but surely start to feel better. This was a road that he didn't have to travel alone. For that, he was eternally grateful.

Hello everyone! This oneshot here was partly inspired by the song, 'We Don't Have To Dance' by Andy Black, check it out! I just found the song a couple days ago and something compelled me to just sit down and write this. I do hope that anyone who takes the time to read it enjoys it as much as I do!

R & R please, it would be greatly appreciated!

Until next time,

CreativeWritingSoul