Title: The Man Your Mother Warned You About
Artist: patriciatepes on Livejournal
Wordcount: ~5,000
Pairing: Freddy/Jason
Rating: R
Warning: Strong suggestions of child sexual abuse, a very unhealthy relationship between abuser and abused, talk of death and murder.
Notes: I thought I'd try something different, so this story is written in second-person. *le gasp* And, yes, Freddy/Jason is the ship, but it's not exactly a romantic tale.

Written for undeadbigbang at Livejournal, with art by patriciatepes!

Art: patriciatepes dot livejournal dot com / 30432 dot html

Freddy is the man your mother warned you about.

To say that, of course, is a gross understatement. Your mother did warn you about him, but she didn't know the half of it. You don't even think she knew men like him could exist. And it does seem almost inconceivable that he could, in the same world that your mother did. She was wonderful and pure and everything beloved to you and Freddy – well, Freddy is Freddy.

You're not really sure when things changed for you, for her. Maybe it was when you met him first. Maybe that was what set everything in motion. That smile, him bending over you, shaking your tentatively offered hand and chuckling.

"Jason, isn't it? I remember you."

He was working at the camp, a counsellor – he was working alongside your mother. He should have been looking after you. And not just stopping the other kids from taunting you, but making sure you were okay. Making sure you felt safe, and happy. He almost did for a while, you remember that. He was the first real friend you ever had, the only one who'd invite you back to his cabin or invite you to come and play with him. He was the only person besides your mother who'd ever sought you out before – and what's more, it was only you. It was only ever you.

But of course you were too young to understand, back then. You didn't know what real friendship was. You were happy to let him spend time with you, do whatever it was he wanted to do. You didn't always like it but that didn't matter – if you'd protested, maybe Freddy wouldn't have sought you out any more; maybe he wouldn't have wanted to spend any more time with you and then you'd be back to how you'd always been – friendless, and alone, hanging around and waiting for your Mommy to finish her work, tugging on the leg of her pants and begging to go home.

(And then there were the whispers, which kept hammering in what you already knew, the whispers from the other camp counsellors: "He's not like the other kids. He's... different."

Freddy never said you were different. Freddy said you were special, and you liked that word.)

Maybe that's when things started to go wrong, because it wasn't long after that that you saw your Mommy get angry. You'd never seen her angry before, and it scared you. She thought you couldn't see – you knew, because she'd sent you off on a scavenger hunt with the other kids, and she'd told you not to come back till you were done, but your feet hurt and you needed to use the bathroom and you didn't really know your way around the camp so you wandered back and that's when you saw her.

She was with Freddy, in the woods, and you thought that that was good at first, because it meant that perhaps she'd be speaking to Freddy about taking you to his home after camp had finished, or something, but she didn't sound right. You'd never seen her lose control before, but she was now. Her voice was shaking and her hands were clenched into fists at her side and even they were trembling. Her face was pale and her lips were tight and you knew she was trying not to raise her voice (because that's not what civilised people did).

And Freddy was – well, Freddy was Freddy.

He was standing looking at her with arms hanging loosely, head tilted as though he thought she was puzzling. He often gave that look to the other people at the camp, and you could see from where you were hiding in the trees that he looked a bit bored. Sometimes, when he was with you, his eyes would seem bright and he'd say funny things that would make you giggle – because he was good with words, Freddy – but mostly, his eyes looked blank and it made you feel a little uncomfortable because it almost seemed as though that in his head, he was somewhere else. And he didn't really seem to care for what your mother had to say.

You couldn't really hear them, or if you could, you didn't understand, and you don't really remember – you only remember snatches.

("...if I ever find out you have – if you ever, ever—")

("...wouldn't dream of it, Mrs Voorhees. I love kids...")

("—and do not go near my son again!")

Your memories from back then are hazy – everything seems hazy since you went under the water – but you could swear Freddy had seen you hiding from them, snivelling in the bushes. You didn't like seeing your Mommy upset, and you especially didn't want her to be mad at Freddy. You could swear that Freddy caught your eye, and winked, and that that cheered you up and you smiled at him – you remember smiling at him as he turned and walked away – but you never saw him again.

At camp, anyway.

From then on, he avoided you. He didn't seek you out any more, and he didn't seem to want to play with you. It was as though he'd disappeared entirely. He hadn't, though; you knew because you'd heard the other campers and the counsellors mention him – never to you, but in passing. Sometimes, when you looked up, you thought you saw a flash of red hair or heard his laugh but he was always gone when you tried to look closer into the crowd.

Your Mommy kept a closer eye on you after that. She didn't want you wandering off alone, she said – but you could tell she wanted you to make new friends. She kept prodding you in the direction of the other campers, saying that you were to play with them.

"But make sure you stay where the counsellors can see you, Jason, and don't go wandering off. Do you understand?"

You nodded, and you tried. You tried to make friends with them but they didn't want to know. They were civil enough when the adults were around, but it wasn't long before the counsellors found some excuse to go and play by themselves – and you wished it was Freddy who was there, because Freddy said he didn't like any of the other counsellors, and Freddy only ever wanted to play with you.

"You kids be good, now, and don't get into any trouble. Make sure you don't go near the lake today."

"If you're really good, when we come back, we'll make s'mores with you guys; how's that sound?"

And then they ran off, giggling, into the sunny afternoon and you were left with a bunch of kids you didn't know who hated you, and you wished the counsellors had stayed so you'd be included in the games, and you wished your Mommy wasn't so busy, and you wished you could play with Freddy.

(But you couldn't, because your mother warned you about him, because she said he was "a nasty piece of work" and it was better if you just stayed away from him. She wouldn't tell you why, but she was your Mommy after all, and Mommy knows best, and if she told you to stay away from him and if she told you to forget him then that was what you would have to try your very hardest to do.)

The other kids sometimes ignored you, and that made you miserable, but it was much worse when they noticed you. When they noticed you, they would taunt you ("Freakshow!"), and if they were feeling particularly malicious, they would gang together, and they would make you a part of their games.

Don't go near the lake.

You'd heard that repeated what must have been a thousand times since you'd gotten here. Your Mommy had said it, again and again, and all the other adults, too. You knew why. You weren't a very good swimmer. The water was pretty, but it was also deep, and cold, and dangerous. But you'd been chased after enough by the other kids to know that whatever happened, you didn't want them to catch you, so you weren't thinking. You ran, and you ran, and before you knew it you'd found yourself on that slimly slip of wood leading into the water.

It was covered in a thin layer of wet film that squelched between your toes, and you slipped and slid across the thing with their footsteps and their shouts ringing in your ears and before you knew it you were at the end of the pier and the water was in front of you. And then it was coming towards you – whether you had been pushed or you slipped you didn't know. And then you were thrashing around and flailing and screaming for your mother but she couldn't hear you and no-one else cared.

Everything went hazy after that, murky and wavering like the water. You don't know how long you were down there for – looking back it seems like it couldn't have been more than a day or two, but at the time it felt like eternity, and it was long enough for things to change. Maybe it started when you met Freddy; you don't know. But something drove your mother crazy and it could have been him.

She did warn you that you ought to stay away from him.

You wanted to. You tried to. You tried to forget. Under the lake, you stirred your thoughts around and around inside your mind until they became as muddy as the water. Freddy became just another name, just another face among the kids you had never been friends with. And you could very well have gone without ever seeing him again. But then, there are so many things you could have gone without seeing.

You don't know what happened to you in the lake but you know you should have died. But for whatever reason it was ("You're my special boy, Jason..."), you didn't. You were just left there, as though whoever was in charge of the universe couldn't even be bothered to kill you, and after – what was it? Months? Years? – of stewing in your own thoughts you saw your mother killed in front of you.

(You shouldn't have been watching because you weren't supposed to come back but your feet hurt and you needed the bathroom and you didn't really know your way around the camp.)

That was the moment when something snapped inside of you; you definitely remember that moment. You'd known pain before and you'd known fear, but that was the moment when it really hit home. Your mother could do nothing to protect you any more, and you hadn't known it was possible to miss her this much. You wanted to please her, and you wanted to be a good boy.

You did what you thought you had to do, that was all. Your Mommy hadn't ever wanted the camp open again. She had hated the camp from the moment she realised she hated Freddy. She hadn't wanted to let anyone get away with hurting you, and that was why she did what she did. So you had to carry that on – you had to avenge her death, because that was the only way to make things right, and you had to carry on your mother's work.

She had told you, back when everything was all right and before everything changed, that sometimes grown-ups – but mostly teenagers – weren't as responsible as they should be. Sometimes they took part, she said, in disgusting, degrading activities that made them behave as animals did. She hadn't wanted to go into it, but you could tell from her tone that it was a very serious matter.

And there you were, out of the lake and out of the woods, and completely alone, and this time you could hear the counsellors in their cabin and whatever you thought they had been doing as a child (playing?) sounded a lot like what your Mommy had told you about. A part of you was angry, because you knew they shouldn't have been doing it (they should have been watching!). Another part of you, a part you tried to ignore, was entirely confused (I used to play with Freddy).

And then you wondered where that name had come from.

You learned about sex, and you learned about death, and they became essentially one and the same. Sex meant, after all, that one deserved to die – didn't it?

You just kept going. You kept trying and trying to avenge your mother, and to do what was right, because you knew you weren't smart or handsome like the other kids, but you were a good little boy, and you wanted to please her. And maybe you should have died – and maybe you did, somewhere along the way – but there was something inside of you that wouldn't let go.

You even found yourself in Hell once, and you thought that was the end of it. You thought that, maybe, you'd done enough. You thought that maybe, your mother would be pleased with you now. You had to suffer through an eternity of pain and emptiness and darkness, but it was all right. You were satisfied, if you had done enough. Even the strange visions thrust at you from the permanent twilight didn't matter to you. You didn't care about the walls that bled or the man bound in leather and covered in scars who sometimes came to you and sank hooks into your flesh and whispered to you about carnal desire.

Everything stayed that way for some unquantifiable amount of time. You wished, sometimes, that things could go back to the way they were, when it was just you and your Mommy, but things kept changing, over and over again, and there was nothing you could do about it. Even Hell changed, one day: it became blank and empty. It became the camp. It became nothing but the camp, and the lake.

The lake seemed to go on forever, reaching away into the darkness, shimmering like the crystals that had given it its name. Or maybe that was just how you remembered it to have been, before you went under and everything turned grey. And all you could do was stand, and watch, and remember.

Sometimes you thought you saw ghosts passing, of men and women who had been there in past, the people who had been responsible for everything that had gone wrong. They deserved to be punished, and all you could do was punish them. You knew they weren't real and you knew your work had been finished, but killing was all you had grown to know.

You never thought you'd see your mother again, and yet there she was. Of course, you had seen her appear in the past but you were very aware that those were hallucinations conjured by whoever it was that controlled this place. This was different, though. This was outside of your mind and there was something off about it – and it almost reminded you of a happier time.

("Jason... My special, special boy..."

You remembered when you were a child and it was just the two of you and Mommy had all the time in the world for you and she'd call you to her and she'd play with you, or tell you a story and stroke your cheek and tell you that you were special.)

But you couldn't help but remember that someone else had called you special, too, and now, after everything had gotten mixed up, it didn't seem quite as nice a word. And your mother... she didn't seem right, somehow. You didn't know what it was, but you wanted to trust her and you wanted to listen to her speak forever (but mostly, you wanted to run to her and wrap your arms around her and never let go) but something was stopping you from listening to her properly.

That wasn't right and you should listen, you knew, because you were a good boy and that was what good boys did, so you stopped and you tilted your head and you did.

"Do you know what your gift is? No matter what they do to you, you cannot die. You can never die. You've just been sleeping, honey. But now the time has come to wake up."

You blinked, and then you understood. Hell wasn't the end, and you were almost glad of it. You were glad to be doing what your Mommy wanted, rather than wandering in the gloom and cutting down hallucinations.

("I need you to go to Elm Street. The children have been very bad on Elm Street. Rise up, Jason: your work isn't finished. Hear my voice, and live again!")

Yes.

You had work to do, and there was no time to waste. You turned and began to walk away. Where you were going, you didn't know, but you knew that there was no time to lose. And then, in the darkness behind you, you thought you heard your mother's voice change.

"Make them remember me, Jason. Make them remember what fear tastes like."

And you knew that voice, didn't you? It didn't sound right coming from what should have been your mother's lips; it was blasphemous and the fact that a voice like that even existed was obscene in itself. It was an offense to your mother and an offense to the very fabric of nature, and you didn't know where it had come from and you ought to hate it, but it made the memories of the camp clearer and that confused you more.

("I can show you my cabin, if you like. It's super awesome, and we could play a game."

It had been nice to have a friend.)

Should you trust Freddy, or shouldn't you? It was a hard question to answer. Your mother had said no, she had warned you about him, but it was hard to trust even your mother when she was so unclear, and your memories were so hazy. You couldn't remember how you had felt about the whole thing. Had your mother forced you away from Freddy? Or had you told her how uncomfortable he made you, sometimes, when the two of you were alone in the woods or in his cabin?

(All you can remember is the funny brown hat and the bright red hair and his smile and how he told you that you were special and you liked that.)

It doesn't matter. You have a purpose now, and you'd rather it was your mother's, and you'll keep trying to believe it is, but in the end it doesn't matter. Killing is all you know you can do, all you know you're good at, and maybe, if you do it right, your mother – or Freddy – will be pleased with you.

("My special, special boy...")

(He looks different now, though, doesn't he? It's like his face has melted and one of his hands is a claw. His teeth aren't white any more, like you remember; instead, they're cracked and ugly and yellow, and his smile's become a leer and his hair's all gone, probably singed off in the same fire that burned his face. But you know it's him because of that hat, and because of the way he looks at you. It makes your skin crawl a little, and you don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing but you know it's definitely him because Freddy was always Freddy.

But you can't remember if that was the way he looked at you before.)

You're happy to kill for him, and you're even happy to die for him. You just want to make him happy. You want things to go back to how they were between you before. If you can't have your mother, surely Freddy is the next best thing. You tried to forget him and you thought he'd gone, but he's here again now and maybe you are disobeying your mother but you've (almost) accepted that she isn't coming back.

But Freddy's given up all niceties. He doesn't tell you you're special any more, no matter how much you want him to. He doesn't understand how much you want to please him. But then again, he never did understand how much you wanted to please him.

("What do you mean, you don't like this game? You've never complained about it before.")

He scares you a little bit. You don't know what he wants from you. You killed, like he asked, but he's not satisfied. He's there in front of you again, pretending he's your mother, yelling at you with her stolen voice and then morphing into that demon he's become and dragging his claws along metal pipes and you don't know what to think.

You never wanted your mother to be disappointed in you.

You never wanted Freddy to be disappointed in you.

You're a little bit angry that he doesn't understand, a little bit frustrated that he never understood. It was always his way; he said you were special but you're starting to doubt if he meant it.

(But you must be, or else why would he come back all these years later, just for you?)

You want him to know how desperate you are, that you'll do anything to appease him. You'll do anything to make things go back to how they were, to make it so that you didn't have to worry about staying away from him and not having any real friends.

You fight. You rip each other to pieces. You don't even mind that; if it's what Freddy wants to do, you'll do it – killing's become a way of life for you, after all.

("Penny for your thoughts, chief," and you know he remembers sitting all alone with you in the cabin.)

("You ugly little shit," and you know he doesn't care.)

But you can't stop hoping that maybe he will. Maybe he'll see that you've done a good job. You know he wants you dead now, but he's all you've got left and you want to please him. You only ever wanted to make him happy, because he was the only friend you ever had.

And even when you're drowning again in the lake, and you can feel yourself dying again, you hold onto him. He laughs at you, gurgling, and then he's silent. You don't know if he's dead but you keep clinging onto him in the hope that he'll reawaken and he'll tell you you've done really, really well, and he's proud of you.

You pull yourself from the lake and you bring him with you.

He's pissed off at first, and you understand that.

"You stupid momma's boy! Now you've gone and gotten us both killed!"

You hang your head and he snarls at you, and you wish things would go back to the way they were.

"Nice job, Hockey Puck."

He's miserable, and you wish you could cheer him up. You know enough about this bizarre place to know you'll be stuck here for a long time. You're back in Hell, but you're not dead. You're just living inside your own head, and Freddy is trapped in here with you.

He has a bit of fun at your expense before getting bored. He doesn't even try to hide it. He knows you're equals now, and he's not trying to manipulate you in the same way he was before. He's only laughing at you – and that makes you miserable, but you bear it, because at least he's laughing.

And then, after what could have been days or weeks or years he gets bored. He turns to you and he says, "What do you do for fun around here, huh?"

You don't know what to tell him. All you've ever done, at the camp that exists in the perpetual gloom, is kill, and you killed for him but it wasn't enough (or maybe it was too much; you don't understand that part; you were just trying to do well).

So you tilt your head at him and he scowls, scratching his nose with his claw. Then, "You wanna hear a story?" he says, and it's just like he's your camp counsellor again, so you nod, and he starts telling you about how he got into this state. He wanders through the woods as he does so, and you follow, mesmerised. You could listen to him talk forever; Hell wouldn't be so bad then. It would be just like summer camp.

Freddy tells you about all the people he's killed and you realise that no-one ever told him they were proud of him. The two of you aren't so different (that's what he told you when you were little, but for the first time in a very long time, you're starting to believe it). It's almost as though he's your new mother, and you're almost okay with that. You reach out to wrap your arms around him, but Freddy lashes out and his claws leave long, jagged trails all along your mask.

"No touchie."

It's all right for him to say that, but he'll touch you whenever he wants to. Sometimes when he's angry (not always at you), and sometimes just whenever he feels like it. You don't mind, though. It's nice to have someone hanging around with you. The other kids laughed at you for having an 'imaginary friend' when you were younger (amongst other things), but they're not here to taunt you. Here, it's just you and Freddy. And you realise, after some time, that he's not going to leave you.

He's not going to die. He can't die. He exists only in your head, and maybe that's a good thing, because it means he can't leave.

(And he doesn't want to leave; he says he does but you know he lies now, and he could just hide from you if he really wanted to because sometimes you think he knows your mind better than you do.)

You like having Freddy around. It makes the monotony you've grown used to a little more bearable. Sometimes, he still gets angry, and sometimes he attacks you for no good reason other than that he seems to like to kill, too, but it's not that bad, really. Sometimes he still makes your skin crawl with the way he looks at you, and sometimes he still wants to play.

But it's better than being alone.

And eventually you come to realise that things are almost back to the way they were. Freddy hurts you sometimes, and he makes you feel shameful and wonderful all at once, but that was nothing he never did before. He doesn't call you his special boy any more – 'Hockey Puck' is his new name for you; you suppose you can live with that – but sometimes you see him looking at you when he thinks you don't notice.

(But you do, even if you shouldn't, because you always seem to have had a knack for catching sight of things you shouldn't have.)

And you know he remembers being at the camp with you, and you can't quite read his expression. He looks sad, and a little bit scared. A part of you knows that Freddy knows the two of you are equally matched, and if you wanted to, you could probably lock him away in your mind forever. You know, and Freddy knows you know, that what went on between the two of you in the cabin should never have happened. And maybe Freddy's a little bit sorry for it, but it doesn't stop him still acting the same way now.

("A man's gotta eat.")

You're not sure if you like him that much, in the end, but you can put up with him. He almost makes you laugh, but you know why your mother warned you about him.

And then you come to realise that things haven't changed in a long time. Freddy is a constant. Freddy won't leave. But you can't help being scared. You're scared that one day, this won't be your life any more. You're scared that one day, you'll wake up, and then Freddy will be gone. You don't know what will happen to him if you wake up, but you know you don't want him to leave, just like everyone else.

So you put up with him. You try to please him. You want more than anything to make him happy. You know it isn't really right – hell, you know it's messed up entirely, and you shudder to think what your mother would say. But you'd rather not be alone in Hell, and if it means pretending that you ever meant something to Freddy, then so be it. You can pretend Freddy's only ever been good to you. You can pretend it's only ever been the two of you, here, together. Hell, if you have to spend eternity with him, you can pretend he's your brother, or you father, or even your mother. You can choose to forget what he's done, choose to believe he's sorry.

(Even when you know he's not because he's told you about what he did to all those children before he killed them and he thought it was funny and that's about as far from sorry as you can get.)

You can let him follow you around and regale you with stories, but you know now that the two of you are equals. You could shove Freddy away in a dark corner of your mind and lock the door if you wanted, but you don't. It's partly because you don't know how, but it's partly because even if Freddy was never good to you, you want to be pretend that he was, or maybe he will be. Camp Crystal Lake gets lonely over endless nights. You want someone there, someone who once, even in a lie, told you that you were their special boy, and you can pretend that it was the truth. You can pretend, wandering blindly and not seeing any reason for your existence, that you are happy, and that Freddy – well, you can pretend that Freddy isn't Freddy. You can pretend that he is your friend from camp, and that he isn't the man your mother warned you about.