Pavor Nocturnus: Sleep terror disorder when it occurs in children.
Warning: Platonic Mordecai x Rigby and angst. I changed their ages from being six to eight years-old, so this set in the past!
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters from Regular Show. Please no credit.
Beta: Beyond An Anomaly – The awesome editor of this fan fiction! Thank you so much.
"Rigby?" Mordecai's voice was gentle, hardly over a whisper in the systematic silence of the night; even with the knowledge of his presence inside his bedroom, it still managed to startle the other accompanying him. Terror-stricken and as white as a sheet, he frowned over at his friend whose face peeked over the edge of the mattress from his sitting-up position on the floor. Mordecai's two-toned blue eyes, the left lighter than its companion, permeated the dusk shrouding his bedroom, bringing a strange sense of comfort to him, calming his quickened breathing from his earlier panic.
"Mordecai," Rigby rubbed the crust from his eyes to peer over at his LED digital clock radio. The red block letters on its neon face bled into his blurry vision. "Dude, it's eleven. Go back to sleep."
The ever present lisp in his voice accentuated his speech because of his missing front teeth. Spittle narrowly missed the dark crown of hair from the one taking refuge on the floor within his small sleeping bag.
Noting the lack of action shadowing his demand, Rigby narrowed his amber eyes. He hoped it was in an intimidating manner as it was in his mind's eye. However, the other played the role better than him, as he most often than not was in the position of being the victim.
"What?" he belligerently ground out in annoyance.
"Bro, you're the one up…" Mordecai said worriedly, but he masked his concern with a front of indifference. Folding his arms to cushion his chin on the bed, the bigger of the two shifted his lower half into a kneel. "And you're the one keeping me up from your tossing and turning."
Rigby pursed his lips as he leaned up onto his elbows with a heated stare directed at the voice of the smart remarks. In the present time of the night, the dark bags under his eyes could not be concealed, exposing his evident lack of sleep. He would not reveal anything, however, for reasons he wished to keep confidential to his prying friend.
Blowing brown strands from his face, only for its return in position before the air-assisted leap, he turned his head away. His sight retook focus on a paint bubble on the white surface of the wall in his range of view.
Mordecai poked his bare shoulder, as the early summer's warmth left them only clad in their boxer briefs. "Are you scared of somethin'?"
"I am not scared of anything!" His head turned on a pivot to perpetually glare into Mordecai's curious blue eyes, which were highlighted by the half-moon peering overhead. This moon was only seen through the remaining intact glass, which was half gone in alternative for poorly-taped together cardboard when a play incident left – at current time – irreplaceable damage from low wages and his mother's impending unemployment at one of her three jobs. The echoing screams of their angry landlord resonated through Rigby's ears, muffled only by his attachment to reality and not the past.
"You are…" in revelation to his find, even if it was only proved by a matter of observation and inference, Mordecai grinned."Dude, why are you?"
Rigby crossed an arm over his chest to flick his friend's forehead. Mordecai countered with a swat.
Puckering his forehead as his eyebrows knitted together in frustration, Rigby protested, "I'm not."
"Yeah you are!"
His frown deepened as he foretold the path their dialogue would take. Reasoning from his eight year-old mind concluded that out-matching his friend's pitch would put him in his place. "I am NOT!"
"Uh-huh, Rigby! You're just too stubborn to admit to the fact."
"I'm not, Mordecai!" He winced, instantly knowing his mistake. The thin walls that separated his room and the living room, to which his mother slept on the couch inside, were permeable. His whiny voice expanded into the neighboring room in an earsplitting tone, which lead to shuffling; a sign to his guardian's alertness.
Mordecai pantomimed zipping his lips and throwing away the key, a signal that he would behave until the moment sleep returned to the adult in the other room.
Once it came, it was partnered with a grumble and a soft "Shh…", due to a whine that emanated from Don, who was sleeping with her than his usual place in the interior of his older brother's room. The apartment was casted back into its initial quietness, much to Rigby's dismay.
It would not last long, as Mordecai pressed his lips together into a firm line, while the rest of his visage indicated his displeasure of an unanswered question. When his mouth opened, sounding out the root of the first word to what he was about to say, which was guessed by Rigby from earlier foreshadowing; the boy interrupted his friend with his hands over his lips.
"Don't," he warned with a squint, but in substitute to what he thought would be an inaudible babble through the barrier of his palm, the slickness of saliva over the flesh stunned him. Marginally veering back, placing all body parts away from his friend and the fresh coating of his friend's spreading cooties; he solved his predicament by swiping the germs onto his threadbare coverings.
"Oh dude, sick!"
"You asked for it," Mordecai shrugged, whose caustic smirk only seemed to fuel Rigby's complaining.
"Great, now I gotta worry about getting sick." With the hand not affected, he palmed the hanging curtain of mahogany hair spread out across his forehead. He lamented his decision in allowing his friend to stay over after an urgent call from Mordecai's mother, who needed her son to stay over at a friend's house because of a family emergency.
Naturally, she sent a call there first.
"Calm down," Mordecai reassured, lifting his arm from its overlapping nest on the springy mattress to slap the back of his hand on Rigby's exposed chest. The rest of his torso was hidden beneath the thin comforter. "I haven't had anything recently. In fact, I'm more worried about my own well-being after putting whatever was on your hand inside my mouth." He made a show of sticking out his tongue, portraying his disgust, though no real distress over his health was present.
Rigby just frowned in response to the undercurrent of Mordecai's statement, not missing the intended insult.
"Yeah, whatever," he pouted. He gave up on cleaning his hand and returned his head back to his flattened pillow.
"Oh, and don't think I forgot the importance of me talking." Mordecai's eye glinted in the moon's glow as he pointed his finger in close proximity of his friend's face. "We're still going to talk about your issues with sleeping."
"Ugh, right now?" he groaned as he rechecked the time on his bed stand. "It has been twenty minutes! It's way past our bed time."
"Since when do you care about 'bed time'?" Mordecai sounded exasperated as he watched the continuing streak of Rigby's diversions from the affair. He ticked his brow in confusion to the unwilling participation in giving a response to a question as easy as the constantly brought up joke of two plus two. "I just don't understand why you can't tell me. We're best friends, aren't we?"
"We are," he mumbled with a noisy exhale. "But that is not the point. What you're thinking would be an easy answer is different for me."
"Are ya embarrassed?"
"Again with the questions..."
"Sorry man, but I can't understand your hesitation."
Rigby growled, "And I can't see why you can't just drop it."
"Well, I don't know," Mordecai threw his hands up in frustration, "Maybe because I am concerned!"
"Then don't be." Rigby's pitch was nasty and adenoidal, as his nose became pinched.
"God dammit, Rigby!"
Rigby tried to warn Mordecai to keep quiet in fear of punishment, especially since he used that word. It was taboo amongst kids in their age group to say it, "Just tell me!"
Finally becoming aware that ignorance would keep them going in circles until one would give, he decided to denude himself of the false cover.
"Fine, okay?" Mordecai's shoulders sagged with relief as he nodded. Rigby rubbed his hands together, squirming as a dusting of pink across his freckled cheekbones left him flushed with shame.
"I have night terrors." he blurted out. At the same time, he turned away to avoid any connection between his bullion pools and blue ones. "They keep my mother awake. I hate to keep her up… and I don't want to scare you if I start screaming and crying, as they're more common these weeks than usual."
"Why couldn't you just tell me you had nightmares?"
"They aren't nightmares…or, from what I recall." he paused to gather his thoughts. "All I was told was that I start screeching and don't stop for several minutes. From mother's attempt to comfort me, she has been losing sleep."
"Well, it's obvious you're worried for everyone but yourself." Mordecai underlined Rigby's selflessness verbally, bringing rise to the thick swallow of nerves from the other. "Maybe me worrying about you is a good thing, Rigby. You have to stop doing stuff for others for once, and let others in."
Rigby let out a pent up breath that was locked within his chest throughout the statement. "I will not admit to any fear."
"You don't have to," Mordecai placed his hand over top Rigby's, skimming his knobby knuckles along the contrasting bronze that was plump with baby fat. "Let me help."
Rigby's eyes became glassy with a white film, as his lips quaked with the thrumming warmth spreading all through his chest. It was initiated from the gentle touch of the other. The sensational message beneath the simplicity of his best friend's words allowed the returning comfort from before.
'I can trust him…'
Mordecai grinned, taking away all physical connections to lean in close. "What do you want me to do to help?"
Rigby traced the wet spots on the ceiling with his mental cursor. With his pride, it was hard to allow anyone underneath the overlaying defenses because trust was a given, but can just as easily be taken for granted. To have the amount of trust he held toward his friend scared him, and the weighing threat of betrayal had second thoughts swarm within his mind.
'What if he starts picking on me?'
His eyelids flickered, fantasizing the event.
'I wouldn't be able to stand it…'
But when he really thought about it, all childish views of things aside, Mordecai had never done anything to seriously inflict embarrassment on him, unless it was the rare occasions where the humiliation could be equally returned. For him to take a complete left-turn, and bully him profusely for his sleep dilemmas, was something that could only happen in his unlikely daydreams.
While enveloped in his endless doubts, he had not taken notice of his friend standing up. Mordecai kicked away his sleeping bag to pick up his knee and set it on to edge of Rigby's bed. It was until he had added weight into the appendage, causing the mattress to squeak and depress from the extra weight, that Rigby awoken from his inattentiveness, to retake focus on what was going on.
"W-What," he gasped, taking his eyes away from the ceiling to owlishly stare up at Mordecai, who continued his progression of climbing onto the bed. "What are you doing?"
He clumsily kicked at his friend's thighs, causing him to grunt and take a hold of his toes, squeezing.
"Calm down." he awkwardly swung his gangly, long-legged body over onto the other side of Rigby, while in the process accidently settling down on the other's hand, who yelped in protest. "Ah, sorry dude."
"Whatever," he hissed, scooting away up until the pull of gravity on his right side beckoned to him and the wired lining of the bed dug in between his shoulder blades. At the same time, Mordecai slipped under the covers.
"If you insist being here, fine, but don't hog the blankets," he growled out in irritation. He mostly certainly did not welcome Mordecai onto his bed with open arms. He was just plain out mad at him at this point, replacing the breathtaking, sickly sweet sense of comfort and trust he had before.
"Hey man, if you just answered my question instead of being passive aggressive," Rigby snorted at his fancy use of words, "Then I wouldn't have done this. So shut up and let me comfort you."
Rigby picked at a loose thread on the ends of his boxer's pant leg, gnawing on his bottom lip from the sudden anxiety that fluttered in his stomach.
"I wasn't being 'passive aggressive.'" he horribly imitated Mordecai's voice. He just rolled his eyes at the failed impersonation. "I was…thinking."
"About what?"
By the end of the night, Rigby knew he would have a pillow thrown over his head in an attempt to block out his friend's series of endless questions. "You…" he briefly allowed his eyes to look over at Mordecai, "…picking on me."
"Dude," It was Mordecai's time to snort. "What would I pick on you about? That you have night terrors?" Rigby nodded solemnly. "I wouldn't gain anything from it. Stop being stupid."
"I'm not stupid." His hands reached out to pull what blanket he had over his nose, whilst closing his eyes encompassed his world in darkness. "If you're happy, then go to sleep."
Mordecai laughed, "Fine dude, you win."
'Technically, you won…' Rigby thought, but chose not to voice it, thinking that it would only serve to feed his friend's ego, which is something he did not need right now. Bidding a final good night to one another, silence ensued, only interrupted by their light breaths and faint shifting.
Rigby believed nothing else would happen, concluding that Mordecai in the very least understood that he knew he was there.
Now that the issue has settled, he more than ever just wanted to sleep.
He didn't know how many minutes had passed, but when he was finally beginning to go under, he heard a faint, ear-tingling whisper of his name in his ear. "Rigby…"
Squirming, he cracked open a lid lazily to look grumpily over at his friend. "What?"
"Remember," Mordecai grinned, pearly white teeth showing through the stark blackness that chocked the room of light. "I'm here… if you need me."
Outwardly, Rigby replied automatically with, "Yeah, yeah. Now why don't you shut your yap?" While internally, he was thinking…
'Thank you.'
When Rigby began screaming later in the night, Mordecai was there to take care of him.
All humanoid forms of these characters are based on Animegirl000's designs of them.