a/n: ok i am loving on you guys so hard right now for reading my last a/n. things with school didn't exactly work out so i'm looking for another, better, full-time job right now. so blah blah blah, my boring life none of you care about. to you guys, this means more time for updates? why yes, yes it does.

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I'm not big on talking to strangers. It's sort of something ingrained in my psyche since my Dad had to tell me that the fat, sweaty guy at the mall wasn't really Santa and the dude in the ice cream truck was a registered sex offender. But in the last seventy-two hours, I've had two attempts made on my life by two different demons, and this girl may be my only hope.

Her name is Rose Lalonde. Rose Lalonde, aged 15, same as me, seeing spirits since she was two years old. Rose Lalonde, she's a bona fide clairvoyant and a certified paranormal investigator. She's got papers, as if I even knew that papers for that kind of thing even exist. She's legit, this Rose Lalonde. She's the real McCoy. And this Rose Lalonde, she asks for my address, so I give it to her. What do I have to lose if some psychic, possibly schizophrenic(?) girl shows up at my front door, right? I'm being targeted by demons. Apparently I'm already bound by some contract with Dave.

Speaking of Dave, I haven't seen him since last night. I haven't exactly been able to pin down his schedule yet. Why do I care? It's not like we're married or something, it's just that when your new roommate is a demon and you're rendezvousing with a psychic to give you advice on how to get rid of him, it's beneficial to know when you'll have your little private time. But since he's mastered the art of invisibility and probably teleportation, time travel, and mind control, nothing's ever a given anymore.

I ex out the window, shut down my computer, and contemplate destroying the evidence and hanging on to some hope that Rose Lalonde of Rainbow Falls, New York, will hop her private jet to Yakima and land a plane in my front yard. I almost smash the monitor with the keyboard when I hear the front door fly open and a raucous voice holler, "Where's my favorite cousin!?"

I pry my sweaty hands off it and run to my bedroom door, still startled. I walk cautiously to the top of the steps, start down, and nearly slip, but Jake is already halfway up, and he's grinning. "There you are, you rapscallion!" he exclaims. I try to double back up the stairs but he grabs me by my shirt, pulls me back down to where he's standing and puts me in a headlock. "Let's go a bout, eh, old boy?"

"No!" I manage to wrench from his grip and squeeze past him, down the steps and into the kitchen, where Jane is cooking dinner. "Why is he here?" I stand by her side in case she can offer me some protection, which she obviously can't.

"He heard about Dad and wanted to help out," she responds, and I sulk. "Can't you just be nice to him, John? He's doing us a big favor, you know..."

"He only punches me, though. There's no us in punch, Jane."

"You don't know how long Dad's going to be in the hospital, John. Until then, we could really use the extra help."

Extra help in this case means that Jake's a billionaire, and he's going to start paying the bills around here until Dad gets back. And concerning any extended hospital stays, I really don't want to hear it. I storm out of the kitchen and flop on the couch. The living room is lofty and dark and echoey, and above all else, it's cold. If it was more like our old living room, I wouldn't hate it as much. If there was a window here and there instead of the discolored spot where a deer or bear head used to be mounted, maybe I'd like it better. If it didn't smell like mildew and the great outdoors, perhaps I could get used to it instead of want to shit all over the next guy who delivers a Timberland catalog to our door.

"John?" I turn my attention to my cousin, standing in the doorway. He looks upset, genuinely concerned, and I sink down against the couch because he always has this way of making me feel shitty about my misgivings. "Can I sit with you?"

"Yeah. I don't know how much you've heard on our laws, but America's a free country." I try not to make my tone so cutting and fail miserably. Jake crosses the room and sits next to me, smiling.

"America's great!"

At that moment I'm kind of glad that he's so oblivious, and we do have a lot in common, after all. Jake's probably the closest thing I'll have to an actual friend for a while, since I'm not sure how to cope with a social life on top of all the turmoil in my house. That moment's the first time since my dad didn't believe me that I even consider telling someone else about Dave. Yes, I think Jake would believe me. Tell Jake that someone wrote gullible on the ceiling and he'll spend the rest of the night looking for it. The real question is whether or not I want him to believe me.

"Did I do something wrong?" Jake asks, out of the blue. I stare at him for a moment, trying to reconnect with reality, and he continues. "If I've done something to offend you, then I'm terribly sorry."

I don't have the heart to tell him I hate fisticuffs, and my hand finds his shoulder. "Dude, no. I'm just upset about Dad."

His face relaxes, his lips part slightly, and then he makes a noise. He grabs me, this time even harder, and presses me against his chest. "Ohh, cripes, John! You can cry."

He says this so matter-of-fact that I find it hard to believe, and he smells so strongly of woodsy cologne that it chokes the air out of me. It's so painfully obvious that he's never done this before. And awkward. Super awkward. Awkward times a million. So awkward that I'm actually relieved when I hear the sound of something smashing from upstairs. I wrench away from him, which is easy because he's already let go of me.

"What was that?" he asks. I can tell he's getting all wound up because he's already halfway off the couch. I leap to my feet and try to calm him down.

"Just my—" Monster roommate. "Cat! I better go check on him, ok?"

Jake scrunches his eyebrows, then nods, relaxing back onto the couch. Before Jane has time to appear from the kitchen, demanding an explanation, I race out of the room to the staircase. I feel slightly guilty at leaving Jake to face her, but it's all I can do to buy the extra time I need to smooth whatever Dave's problem is over.

I throw open the door when I reach my room, yelping at the sight of something flying past me in a blur. That something is Dave. Before my eyes have time to transmit the images to my brain, I'm tripping on my overturned mattress on my way to his side. He's bloody and bruised and barely moving, and the next thing I see is triangle glasses guy. He's standing in front of my closet, hardly scratched, unfazed by me. "What'd you do?" I scream. I didn't even think about Jake or Jane, about them overhearing me. Triangle doesn't answer me.

I turn to Dave. His suit is torn to shreds, and his glasses are broken. There are scratches all over him, but they're not quite scratches, more like cuts. Deep ones. "John, leave," he says in a strained tone, trying to stand up.

"That won't be necessary," says Triangle. "I can get rid of him right now."

"Don't kill him, he's mine," Dave blurts. The other guy doesn't seem very convinced, and there's something in his hand. Something bright and unnatural.

At that moment, I don't really think. I don't consider my imminent death, or what any of this means. I'm tired of demons, I'm tired of monsters, I'm tired of the supernatural and confusing mysteries and enigmas in sunglasses. I grab Dave's sword, get up, and shove it through Triangle. He doesn't react at all. He just looks down at me through those dark glasses, unfeeling. I pull it out with no resistance, no blood. I can't hurt him. The light has disappeared out of his hand though, and he pushes me down.

I hit my head on the floor and can't move. It's not because I'm hurt, but because he isn't letting me. I'm staring at the ceiling, and the worst thing about this is that I can't see either one of them. "You think it's him, then?" asks the triangle guy.

I hear Dave scoff, but his voice is weak. "Wouldn't you say so?"

There's no response from the other, but I can move again. I get up and glance towards the closet, but like I expected, Triangle disappeared. I scramble over to Dave, because he's a bloody mess. I start pulling the ribbons of clothes from his body, but he grabs my face suddenly. I freeze, breathing shakily, and I'm not really sure if I should expect him to hurt me or not.

He just says, "You're crying."

I hadn't realized it until then, and I blush, embarrassed for some reason as he wipes my tears away. "I'm sorry, Dave. That's the guy that tried to kill me at the hospital. This is my fault."

"Your fault?" He's using his magic to slowly rearrange my room, putting things back where they were and unbreaking things that were broken. "Dude, he's my parents' fault."

When everything is back where it should be, I help him up and get him on my bed. "What do you mean?"

"He's my bro. Dirk."

"Why's he so pissed at us, then?" I ask as I loose his shirt from his upper body. I can't help but stare at him, because his skin is so white and there are old scars all over his back. He's rangy and muscled, and ok, I'll admit, smooth. But I won't admit that my hands were probably trailing way below what we were both comfortable with and he had to use his spells to freeze my arms behind my back.

"Dude, easy now," he begins teasingly, smirking at me. "Didn't know I had a molester on my hands, fuck. What did I get myself into?"

I feel my cheeks burning, but I can't exactly look away from him. "It was an accident, ok? I'm not gay!" I eventually lose my balance without the use of my arms and fall on my face.

I guess he deems it fit to let my lie there groaning while he throws his destroyed clothes on me. I hear him shift under the blankets when I can move again, and I stand up and look down at him. He looks remarkably better than he did just a minute ago, the cuts growing smaller and the bruises fading. His glasses have put themselves back together in the frames, the shattered pieces reassembling without a crack. Even his jacket was mending on its own. I watched as blood was vacuumed back into a cut on his shoulder at a microscopic level.

"Bogeyman magic is a nifty thing," I breathe.

"Sure is, buddy," he responds, motioning for me to lie next to him. Keep in mind that I'm not keen on getting in bed with naked dudes, but it is my bed after all. "It's great to know you will be immortal and alone for the rest of your existence, which is eternal, until further notice." I'm quiet, thinking, wondering if Dave meant it when he said he'd been alive for thousands of years. It didn't seem possible, but when it came to him, I was pretty convinced that just about everything was possible. "So, tell me, Johnny boy, why did you try to kill Dirk?"

His voice is even regaining strength, but he sounds sleepy. I shrug. "I didn't want him to hurt me, I guess," I respond. There is silence after that, but Dave doesn't take long to break it.

"Yeah but that's not quite it, right John? You didn't want him to hurt me. Am I on the money or what?"

I don't want to answer that, not because I don't want to admit that it's true, but because there's no reason for it to be true. Of course I didn't want Dave to get hurt. But Dave is not a human, or even my friend. He's the Bogeyman, and whatever that is, he shows up in my closet, endangers my life, and makes me run errands for him. What reason do I have to protect him, or even care about him?

"Can we go to sleep now?" I ask. No matter how he answers, I'm doing it anyway.