The Sum Total
by: Akiko, Keeper of Sheep
The day started, as days tended to do, with waking up.
Granted, they didn't normally start with waking up inside a mummy's sarcophagus, even when you were a Monkee, but Peter was never really one to focus on the negatives. He peered at the pitch blackness around him, wondering if perhaps he ought not to have agreed to keep an eye on the place whilst King Putt went on holiday. Really, he supposed he should have seen this coming, although he wasn't sure how he would have connected the tightly-bandaged, groaning man in the Hawaiian-print shirt to the missing mummy from the museum.
Mike probably would have, because Mike was clever like that, and a bit suspicious of the world at large, like he thought it was conspiring against him. Given the track record of the band, Peter supposed that wasn't too paranoid an assumption. Still, sometimes he thought that Mike missed out on meeting a lot of groovy people and seeing a lot of incredible things with that attitude.
Wriggling around to get a hand in position to scratch his nose, Peter grimaced. It was hot and stuffy in the stone coffin, and not very conducive to resting in peace for eternity, which definitely explained why King Putt was so eager to escape. He felt jittery in the tight space.
He always envisioned motion to be like an aura, extending out from you in waves and wisps, all the little lines and curves and dips you made wriggling away from you in all the directions you go in. He could see it sometimes, radiating from people, and the more he watched, the better he got at seeing it.
Davy's motion was small and graceful, like little butterflies and bumblebees swarming away from him. It tended to be a bit swirly, with round little loop-the-loops and just enough of a bounce to make Peter a little motion sick. It billowed close to the ground at Davy's feet, fluffing outward with an easy confidence that Peter envied.
Mike's was much more sedate, broad and sweeping and sometimes strong enough to push you over, putting Peter in mind of a wide river that would suddenly turn to white rapids. Even when he was still, there was a sense of future about it, a purpose to it, every move made for a reason. Sometimes it was so tall it reached the ceiling, which was to be expected, because Mike was awfully vertically gifted.
Micky...oh, Micky's motion was a special thing. Just thinking about it made Peter wince. He'd once tried to follow it with his eyes, and he'd only gotten about three inches from Micky's vibrating form before he'd gotten a terrible headache.
Micky was never easily mapped. He was like wind and lightning and a landslide in the mountains. He was sometimes drifting leaves, sometimes crashing waves, always interesting and never ceasing (even in his sleep, Mike sometimes grumbled). Micky was a Force Of Nature, and Peter felt a momentary stab of empathic horror at the thought of his curly-headed friend being the one trapped in the tomb, all his erratic motion crammed and compressed into one tiny space, writhing around with no escape.
Best not to think about that, Peter reminded himself.
He couldn't help, though, but remember another small space, with a locked door and no windows and no company besides a blotch on a wall that looked like a face. He swallowed, trying his best to turn his thoughts to chord progressions or table tennis or something, anything but that. It didn't work nearly so well as he would have liked, the echoing sounds of footsteps on hardwood floors, fading into the drip drip drip of leaky pipes as they moved further away, reverberating in his head too clearly.
It was something of a relief, then, when he heard a scuffling sound, followed by knocking on the other side of the lid.
"Pete," came Mike's muffled drawl. "Peter, you in there?"
"That depends. Am I in where?"
"...In the tomb, Peter."
"Which tomb?"
"The one we're knocking on," Davy's voice cut in, sounding quite winded.
"Which one are you knocking on?"
"The one you're in, I hope," his British friend replied.
"Then I guess I'm in here."
"Great," he heard Mike mutter. "It's only, what, the sixth tomb we've knocked on?"
"I thought for sure that second one was the one," Micky said faintly. "He sure sounded like Peter."
There was a terrible scraping, and light stabbed at the blonde bassist's eyes. "Oh, good, I was in there, after all," he mumbled absently, flailing about a bit until Mike and Micky each grabbed a hand and hauled him out of the sarcophagus.
"You okay, buddy?" Mike queried, patting at Peter's shoulders to dislodge the dust of ages past from his shirt.
"I think so."
"Wonderful. Can we get out of here?" Micky whinged.
"Yeah," Davy agreed. "Being surrounded by all these dead people is giving me the creeps."
Returning to the Pad after a rousing adventure was always The Best Thing, in Peter's humble opinion. There was a sense of relief, of something ending, which was sometimes a sad thing, but nearly always a good thing, because new things can't start if the old things won't end.
Peter liked new things - songs, clothes, ideas, people. It didn't mean he loved old things any less, but new things, the prospect of new things, gave him something to look forward to.
He didn't think about The Monkees ending, because they didn't have to - they were part of him, a constant presence. In his mind, they began when he began and ended when he ended, and that was that.
This adventure, though, didn't appear to have ended. It wasn't until bedtime that he noticed that it was still hanging around, but as soon as Davy turned off the lights in their room, Peter's heart gave a jolt, and he was smothered by the smell of old stone and copper pipes and decaying flesh, and a blotch that looked like a face (or maybe a face that looked like a blotch) loomed at him in the shadows, far too close, too close...
"Can we leave the light on," Peter said in a shivery, too-high voice.
Davy was quiet for a second, a lonely second where Peter wondered if he'd fallen asleep and left his bandmate isolated in fear. Then, softly, he said, "Sure, Pete." There was a rustling, and small feet padded to the other side of the room, and warm light illuminated Peter, relief washing over him as it did.
"Thanks," he whispered, curling up with his back to the wall. He didn't like feeling it behind him, but it was better than having it in front of him.
:::
Breakfast was a quiet affair, and it wasn't until Peter had finished his stale toast (which was better than stale bread, because it was hard to tell how much of the staleness was actually staleness when it was toasted) that he realized everyone was looking at him. Sure, they played it off like they hadn't been. As soon as he looked up, Mike hid behind his upside-down paper, Davy spooned nothing into his mouth out of his empty cereal bowl, and Micky spun around and started making out with Mr. Schneider. It didn't fool Peter one bit.
"Okay, guys, what's going on?"
For a moment, they seemed to freeze, like a grainy snapshot, but then Micky was turning to look at him with sad eyes, and Mike was folding the paper up carefully. Davy scooted his chair down and reached out to take Peter's hand.
"Pete, I told them about your trouble sleeping last night."
Betrayal and fear spiked through the bassist. "Why...would you do that?"
"We're worried about you," Micky said gently. "I mean, come on, man. You were really rattled yesterday, and you hardly ate your cream of something unidentifiable soup, and then Davy tells us you spent all night kicking in your sleep and crying about walls..." he drifted off, tapping his fingers on the table jerkily.
"It's a little concerning, is all," Mike put in diplomatically, regarding Peter with the same sad eyes Micky was giving him. A glance at Davy told him that he, too, was staring at him like that, and it made him uncomfortable for all kinds of reasons.
It was a familiar look, bringing to mind a different set of eyes, the hard line of a frown, the tip-tap of shoes on hardwood floors growing fainter and fainter...
"I'm fine," Peter assured them, perhaps a little more desperately than he ought to have. "There's nothing wrong with me."
"We know that, Peter," Mike said, ruffling his hair and sending Micky a warning look when the younger man opened his mouth. "But you know that whatever's bothering you, you're gonna have to face it sooner or-"
"No," Peter interrupted with a decisive shake of his head.
Davy frowned. "Pete-"
"No," he repeated firmly. "There's nothing to talk about. It's fine."
"Okay, babe." Micky leaned over the table and pinched his nose fondly. "You know where to find us if you change your mind."
:::
There were many adventures that followed, but they just didn't feel as high-spirited as they usually did to Peter. Something had gone off, something important, and try as he might, Peter just couldn't figure out how to switch it back on.
He was sure he still slept fitfully, because he felt more and more tired every day. There was a vague notion of quiet sobbing and incoherent cries, of being frozen in place like marble, and of a blotchy face staring at him from far too close.
He certainly wasn't eating well, either (not that any of them ever did, but he was eating even less well than usual). He couldn't pinpoint where this lack of appetite came from, but it seemed oddly incongruous with the constant, gnawing pit of hunger in his belly, one that seemed to grow every day.
It was the hunger, too, that made everything seem so hazy and blurred, and it frightened him. He didn't like it when things seemed too unreal (no matter how relative that term was when applied to The Monkees), and the way his vision would fade and jump gave everything such a surreal quality.
"Maybe I caught something in the mummy's sarcophagus," he theorized one evening after a particularly awful gig. He couldn't remember why it was terrible - he couldn't even remember playing - but the club owner had seemed incredibly incensed.
The guys looked at him, eyes still sad and worried. "Maybe," Mike hummed, hands shoved deep in his pockets.
"I guess you could call it that," Davy agreed.
He didn't eat when they got home. He didn't know why - he was ravenous - but he just couldn't make himself do it.
When Mike mentioned turning in, Peter jumped up, blinking rapidly when the room seemed to flicker before his eyes. "Let's play poker for a bit."
Mike regarded him solemnly. "No, Peter. It's time for bed."
"But-"
Leaning down, his Texan friend took Peter by the shoulders and looked him in the eye. The grip was so solid, so warm, it made Peter feel suddenly relieved. "Listen to me, Peter. Sooner or later, you're going to have to deal with this. Reality isn't something you can ignore forever, and when it catches up to you, it's gonna be that much harder to handle."
Peter's breath caught in his throat when he felt Micky and Davy each place a hand on his back. "But...Mike, I'm scared."
"I know, babe. Life is a scary thing. But you know that we're here for you, right? Whenever things get tough, when it gets to be too much, you can always lean on us."
"We're here for you, Peter," Davy added. "Always."
Micky wrapped an arm around Peter's waist and leaned into him, hugging him so tightly it squeezed the tears out of Peter's eyes, sending them tracking down his cheeks. "We love you, Pete. We'll look after you, okay? It'll be okay."
Peter nodded. "Okay."
"Great," Micky hummed in his ear. "Then the first thing you need to do is open your eyes."
:::
"Peter? Can you hear me? Peter?"
The blotchy inkblot glared at him from the wall opposite, and Peter frowned and turned away. Unfortunately, this brought him into eye contact with the small, gray-haired man sitting beside the bed.
"Ah," he said, somehow making the non-word the most condescending non-word in existence, "there you are. Back with us again?"
"I don't..." Struggling to sit up, he was appalled to realize that he was restrained to the bed.
"For your own good," the man intoned, not looking up from his clipboard. "You'd taken to somnambulism. Sleepwalking," he clarified, eyes flickering up to regard Peter patronizingly.
"But...I don't understand."
"Let's start with the basics, then. Can you tell me your name?"
"Peter. Peter Tork."
"And my name?"
"I...don't know? Should I know that?"
The man didn't answer, scribbling on his clipboard before asking another question. "What's your home address?"
"I live in the Pad."
This time, the man sighed. "Peter...I thought we'd made progress on this."
"I don't understand," Peter said again, tugging at the wrist restraints.
There was a brief, tentative knock on the door, cutting off whatever the stranger was going to say. As the man got up to open the door, Peter was suddenly aware of the faint sound of sobbing coming from the wall his bed was pushed up against. It was so constant, so uniform, it could have been a record skipping, but Peter had the feeling it wasn't.
"Ah, good, come in."
"Thank you for calling me," a very familiar voice said, catching Peter's attention with an iron grip.
"We did promise to, as soon as we saw any improvement."
Peter looked up into eyes that looked just like his, his heart aching uncomfortably at the sight of the worn, tired lines of his mother's face, the hard line of her frown. She sat next to him on the bed, her gloved hands clasping one of his, and the way her weight dipped the bed bothered Peter. It was too solid, too substantial, and he didn't like it one bit.
"Peter, it's me."
"I know that. I can see you," Peter muttered.
She either didn't hear him, or didn't care to hear him, because she prattled on. "I know you're a little out of it right now, sweetheart, but things are going to get better. Dr. Helm says isolation is really helping, that you're coming out of your little daydreams more frequently. You're getting better, darling, isn't that good?"
Peter pursed his lips and shook his head. "I don't understand," he whimpered, clutching at the bedsheets. They felt too cool, too there, and he made his fists unclench.
"Peter seems to be carrying his delusions over from his catatonic state," the man - Dr. Helm, Peter presumed - interjected.
"Oh, Peter," he mother whispered, reaching out to stroke his forehead. He jerked away as best he could while restrained, suddenly furious.
"They aren't delusions! I don't understand! None of this makes sense! I'm supposed to be home now, at the Pad, with my friends!"
"There is no 'Pad', Peter," his mother said.
The silence that followed echoed with the sound of his neighbor's sobs.
"That's...no. No, there is. There is. I live there, Mom, with Davy and Micky and Mike-"
"No, Peter," she replied, gently, the way Mike would have, but it didn't comfort Peter the same way. "Davy, Micky, and Mike don't exist-"
"No-"
"They're not real-"
"No-"
"It's just a fantasy, sweetheart," his mother whispered. "It's not real."
"No," Peter pleaded, turning his head away.
:::
The waves tickled his feet welcomingly, and Peter grinned over at Mike, who was leaning back on the towel beside him, squinting out at the passing boats.
"It's quiet today."
"Yeah," Mike murmured, letting his eyes slide shut. They sat in silence for a while, listening to the faint sounds of Davy arguing with Micky over the proper water-to-sand ratio of a sandcastle. After a while, though, Peter turned over on the blanket and slung one arm over Mike's hips, pressing his cheek to his friend's shoulder.
Mike was warm, a bit damp from the salty spray of the surf, and smelled of woodsmoke and the sea breeze. It didn't get realer than that, Peter thought to himself, and he felt something tight in his gut unwind.
Seeming to understand, his taller friend reached up and threaded his fingers into Peter's hair. "It'll be okay, man. It will."
"I know," Peter said, smiling against Mike's sleeve.
:::
Dr. Helm sighed as Peter's mother stroked her son's hair, her face crumpled in fear and pain. It was several long minutes before he could remind her that visiting hours had been over even before she'd arrived, and several more before she had gathered herself enough to leave, the tip-tap of her heels on the hardwood floors echoing faintly as she walked away.
:::
There were no nightmares when Peter dozed this time. They would come back, perhaps, as they tended to do, but for now, all he felt was contentment. Even the hunger seemed to be fading into irrelevance as Davy and Micky, sandy and soaked to the bone, flopped down on top of the drier pair. Their cozy little Monkee-pile was at once suffocating and secure, and it felt real enough to Peter.
And if, when he looked into their sleepy faces, they blurred a little at the edges, well, he could live with that.
END
A/N - I...have no idea. I can only apologize. The song I used to accompany my writing was 'Epilogue' from the Tale of Two Sisters OST.