If Only I could Dream
A/N: My first Johnny fic, and my first fic on FF.net. A vast majority was written in the dark depths of the morn, since I can't seem to fall asleep before 2 - 3 am, so I apologize if it seems somewhat odder then it should and I also apologize if this first part seems slow, as I have no idea where I'm going with this. I find that spur of the moment writings are often some of the best. You may have (or maybe not. I don't fully agree everybody's musical preference) also noted that the chapter titles are song titles, possibly lyrics within a song (I haven't gotten as far as to give these chapters titles yet, nor have actually made it past the beginning of chapter two as I write this. Plus there are songs with the same name). No I don't own these particular songs, and as always, the meaningless disclaimer: I don't own any of Jhonen Vasquez's wonderfully created characters. I am full of envy and a lack of sleep and creativity (I write in a notebook before I type). Oh woe is I.
Hopefully tonight I may sleep, and then this story won't come out as shitty as I predict it will, and has already begun to be. But if I can't, I shall grace you wonderful readers (if any) and fellow writers (well, I don't actually think I'm quite good enough to be considered a writer.) with the glorious and grotesque words of this story..Or I'll draw. I like to draw. Drawing helps me escape reality and fall away into the pictures of my head. This is a long author's note, huh? Are any of you tired of me writing yet? Or continuously sticking these (((()))) in this note of mine? I haven't eaten all day. Sorry. No I'm not. I hope the darkness eats you.
Chapter 1: Demons
The crunching and rustling of fall leaves beneath his long, black boots broke the deafening silence, the kind that seemed to follow him those past few months. That odd sort of silence that made you think; caused you to question what, who you are and who you were; that silence like the calm before the storm- broken like glass.
Yet this time, he did not question , did not wonder, didn't at all attempt a thought on the subject of his own morals. As if he could. He didn't have morals anymore. He had become that antagonizing creature he sought to become a year back. Or was it two years? Three.? Hm. Draining one's mind of all emotion, or at least those that held him back, lust and loneliness and all, tends to distract one from such a pointless matter, as this 'time' was pointless. He didn't need to know years and days and weeks. He was now, fully and truly, himself.
Johnny C.
He sighed, abruptly stopping without any knowledge of doing so, as if by instinct, and turned to face the house. 777. Just as he remembered it. That shabby dwelling, tattooed with cracks, shut away by boards. He blinked sullenly, taking a quick mental note on the absence of feeling that once flowed through his frail, thin form. He had unbelievably ventured back to house, to his home, without thought. He had known sometime ago that he was ready to return, yet he had done this absent-mindedly. And as if that wasn't already disturbing, he felt no surprise by this. Yes, that emotion was nonexistent, the surprise of his own actions. He was cold.
The door swung open with a hollow creak, echoing throughout the emptiness, so like his soul, and returning to his ears. Johnny gulped and blinked some more. Anticipation. He had left that one inside, though it was scarce for the time being. He took a powerful step inside, flicked the long time neglected lightswitch, and grinned.
"I'm home."
He twirled around in a fine little circle, filled with malevolent joy, and raised his arms in victory. "I'm home! I'm home!" His arms retracted down once more; hands to fists that he held inches infront of his face, madness glowing brightly in his eyes. He giggled insanely and whispered, voice quivering with excitement, "And there's so much to do. So much to accomplish. Goals to achieve with my newfound gift. I no longer have to feel, to be held back by myself. The human emotions have been wrung out from my system." He giggled again and jerked his head towards the window. Towards that oh-so familiar moon, hanging alone in the black. Johnny felt its presence, sensing it reach out to him, welcoming him back to whatever memories he had left. And he welcomed its grace and coldness to him, an inspiration to this new life he had now.
~~~
Little Todd Casil awoke, dripping in a small puddle of fear. The nightmares. Oh God, it was always the nightmares. And not just any nightmare. A reoccurring one. The one that plagued him for weeks on end lately.
The Scary Neighbor Man had haunted his sleep, grinning and laughing and stabbing away at poor Mommy and Daddy. He tore insanely at their corpses and every dream and then, would beckon Squee to help, to kill off his tormentors' and be the happy child he never was. But that wasn't what scared him. His fear lay in the shadow that loomed over both him and his psychotic savior of sorts. Growling and laughing, and then it would lunge downward at them. Squee would scream in his dream, and Johnny turned his head, eyes wide and shocked. He turned around fully, menacingly almost, and jump infront of the little boy, and the shadow would take him. And take him, and take him, further and further away. And Todd was alone.
Then he would awaken.
But this time, it was not the nightmare that bid him awake. Shmee achieved that.
"What's wrong, Shmee?" Squee's voice quivered fearfully. "Are the aliens here again? I don't like the aliens. They did bad stuff to my head." He held the teddy bear in his arms and stared with his large saucer eyes, listening to a voice that only he could hear. "Who's back?"
Another moment of 'silence' passed; Squee's eyes became even larger, his forehead leaking that familiar fear again. Quietly, he pushed the covers from his form and climbed out of bed with Shmee tightly in his arms. His footsteps were faint even in all the quiet, making only the tiniest pitter- patter, and he reached the bedroom's window that had been broken so many times: Aliens and maniacs and whatnot. Mostly maniacs.and aliens. He gulped and looked out towards house 777.
Were little Squee able to utter a single noise, it would've been a flat out scream, but the shock of what was happening prevented that for the moment. Instead he gaped, moving his mouth to speak, but emitting no sound.
When the moment of complete and utter shock finally passed, his voiced gently oozed up his throat like an expected mess of vomit. He let out a soft "Squee," not the scream he felt earlier, then hugged Shmee with all his might. A feeling had driven itself into his body, a bad feeling, telling him that something was going to happen. "You're right, Shmee," he whispered, face slightly bathed in the light that shone from the neighboring house. "It's the Scary Neighbor Man."
He glanced down, realizing that Shmee was no longer there. "Shmee? Shmee? Where'd you go? Don't leave me alone." The bedroom door slammed shut, and Squee was, in fact, left alone, huddled in a small ball. "Shmee.?"
~~~
"So much to do now," Johnny replied form the couch, contemplating his next move. He lifted one foot to rest on top of the dusty coffee table, ridden with dead moths and flies, and moldy food from the very night he'd left, which he hadn't even touched to begin with. Most of that filth had been eaten by a rather large rat. The very same that lay rotting in the corner, itself being eaten by maggots and time. God, how he hated time.
He had, upon first discovery of the decaying rodent, stared at it for a while (he came, soon after, to the conclusion that he did more staring in that one night he had done in the past two years. Oh damn. That time thing again, he replied, quite annoyed), then proceeded to poke it's dead flesh with a random knife's tip. Then boredom took over.
"No," Johnny told himself, "Boredom is just another feeling to be done without. Another feeling you sought to cleanse yourself of. You should be rid of that by now. Don't give in to what you left behind!" That was when he plopped of the cushions of the furniture piece and began to think for the fifth time that hour.
He finally came to a conclusion.
"Perhaps I should check to make sure that no one was left behind when I ran off," he declared aloud, standing straight up as though pulled by some invisible force. "I'm pretty sure I disposed of everyone, but you can never be too careful." He reached for the knob of the basement door and promptly opened it, still trying to escape the ever-present feeling of high school student in math class. "I would hate to have left someone to die without witnessing the snapping of their sanity as well as the snapping of their spines. Tee hee."
Johnny shrugged this thought off, happy to have thought of something occupy his attention for a while rather than sit on the couch wallowing in, well, nothing. He began his journey down each step, vaguely remembering the many souls who had come down, never to actually leave the house alive if at all (he could still see Jimmy's corpse decaying at the bottom of the stairs, to which Nny responded with a sickened face and a , "damn, it'll take me forever to clear out the stench of that distasteful wretch."). He also remembered Nailbunny.
Ah, Nailbunny. The one true voice that kept him so many times from ending it all, or at least tried to. Johnny always thought of few of its attempts to be vain, since something else seemed to stop his death from ever occurring (with the supposed exception of getting shot in the head by a device he stuck together, though he wasn't totally sure he had died). It was the part of him that wasn't selfish, wasn't bent on killing neither himself nor anybody else, and tried to keep Nny from slipping into vulgar habits. That part of him was dead, gone in a flash. Sure, Johnny didn't doubt Reverend Meat's existence, though the little prick had uttered a word since his arrival back home. But he knew that any future conversations with the dead bunny just weren't possible anymore. That thought tugged a tear from the corner of the maniac's eye, which his coldness instantly tugged back.
He stopped abruptly on the stairs, halfway down, and growled menacingly, "Don't. You. Dare. I won't allow myself to regress back to those habits of the past. Nailbunny is dead! Good riddance! One fucking less nagging voice I have to put up! I can't give in to the desire for conversation! Fuck loneliness!! I don't need to reminisce on the unimportant!!! Fffuck!!! I AM COLD!!! I made me who I am and I don't need this emotional plummet! So stop it already!!!" He grabbed his head, as though wracked by unbelievable pain. " Stop it!! Stop it!! STOP IT!!!"
"Too late," a voice tore through his mind.
Johnny turned to react to the owner's voice, possibly kill, but the other was prepared and hit him straight in the nose. He went tumbling downward, a blur of somersaults and cartwheels, until he fell back onto the late late LATE Jimmy.
There rang the sound of soft giggling then the voice continued," Few things can stop you now, Nny. That is whata you called yourself the first time we met, just before you tore your blade through my soft cloth flesh, isn't it?"
Johnny rubbed his swollen nose, feeling blood escape his nostrils, and looked up as the Voice came down. He stared and arose, clearly shocked, and blurted unrestrained," You?!?"
"Of course me!" Shmee snorted a reply. "Who else did you expect to 'save' you?"
"Save me?" Nny angrily ran a bloodstained hand against his clothing in a futile attempt to clean his skin. "You call shoving me down a flight of stairs saving me?"
Shmee leapt down to Johnny's level from his lace on the stairway. "Not really, no. But I find your anger amusing. Actually at the moment, I'm more prepared to talk. How long's it been since you talked to someone like me, Johnny, hmm? I'm curios to know."
I don't believe thi-NO! I see what's going on! You're just another figment! Just another illusion of the mind! Well, not created by my mind, but you are just like Nailbunny and Reverend Meat! It's all in my head. De ja vu! De ja vu!" He jumped to his feet, wailing in horror, "Well, no more, you disgusting, lying bastard! I'm onto you! You're just here to bring back the feelings; the emotions I myself have terminated from my system! Fuck you!!"
Shmee shook his teddy bear head. "No, I am not here to rid you of the cold you've planted inside your black heart. No, no." He moved a small step forward, to which Johnny took a big step back. "I'm here to get rid of you entirely. Before you destroy what made you somewhat human. That feeling's buried for the time being, but I will not give you the benefit of a doubt that you won't try to kill it before it has a chance to resurface."
The maniac fumed and pulled out his rat-infected knife from seemingly nowhere. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Shmee?"
Shmee turned, catching sight of the innocent standing at the basement door, and gasped. "shit, it's Todd. He must have followed me." He turned back to Johnny and sneered heavily, the single-toothed smile covered by a hateful glare. "I'm not about to let him turn out like you or not turn out at all, but I won't let him see like this, ready to leave you strewn out in your own guts. Not with all the shit that's been driven into his distressed mind. But dare to touch him and-"
"Shmee?" Came the pitiful little voice again. He was heading down the stairs. "Please Shmee, come out." Little Squee pleaded to the missing teddy. "I don't like it here. And the Scary Neighbor Man's back, remember? What if he.?"
Johnny's eyes became large to some realization. He grabbed the bear by his stuffed neck. "I see. I get it now." His demeanor became suddenly very dark. "He's the feeling, isn't he? The one I'll destroy to keep myself empty, right? Right, damn you?!?"
"My, Johnny," Shmee allowed another giggle to escape his throat, "you do catch on quickly. For a sick-minded fuck."
"I don't need to kill him, nor would I ever under any circumstance," Johnny replied gravely. "I may be empty but I know when to restrain my killing needs.for the most part anyhow."
Shmee let out an enormous "HA!" He felt the hand grip tighter, but remained quite smug. "Oh, do you? Hee hee. It is as I said earlier, Nny. Few things can stop you now. Yourself included. Do you honestly think you have control? Any control? No, you don't. You didn't when you painted the wall, or when you tried to kill that lovely creature, or even when you've seen Todd's father at work to make his son feel microscopic, and you don't now. Let's face it. The real reason you nailed Daddy in the head with a toy was not just so that you could leave, but because you were sick of the traumatization he induced on our young friend. You know it and so do I."
Johnny gaped. "How-?"
"You will always be under the control and influence of one thing or another. As that vile burger boy explained, you're always a slave to something."
"How do you know of that and all that other stuff?" Johnny asked quietly, his expression a curious one.
Shmee answered with a hint of sarcasm, "Heh. The walls of this shack aren't exactly paper-thin. And your mindless conversations are the quietest either. I've seen nightmares quieter than you. Squee's nightmares (A/N: speaking of Squee, you're probably wondering where he is on the stairs. I mean, the staircase can't be that long.)
Johnny thought a moment, playing with the knife in his hand. "So, I'm always a slave to something? Under someone or something's control? Hmm. You are wrong. Because I'm aware and very in control of what I do. Observe."
The blade tore through Shmee's head and body, spreading cloth and fluff along the floor (yes. Again, he tears the poor teddy apart, but to a greater extent.) There now lay pieces scattered all over. But Johnny didn't stop. He kept going, kept slicing and stabbing and cutting, all the while screaming obscenities. "You stupid fucking bear!! I am in control! Not you! Not anyone else! Me! Me! Me! ME!" (Does this sound a tad familiar?)
"Shmee?"
He looked up, connecting eyes with the timid gaze of Todd Casil, standing fragile on the bottom step. Squee's mouth hung open, wanting to say or scream something, but the voice wasn't there. He gaped at his beastly neighbor in horror, then back down at Shmee. And Johnny stared right back.
Johnny twisted and writhed in his mind. That child. That look. It was that look of pure, unadulterated terror, shining brightly in those giant eyes. *What have I done?* he thought, as if repeating a question just asked to him; a simple question that sounded as though the asker should've known the answer. *I've destroyed that deceptive voice. Killed the feelings I could do without, No, I can't feel pity, or regret, or sorrow again. Not now that I'm drained of the unnecessary! I can't! I can't! Not for Squee! Not for anyone.*
NO. He had to keep the cold within. He had achieved what he had wanted; learned that important lesson from Mr. Samsa. Became that perfect being. Thriving only on what he needed. He had all of that now, didn't he? He was emotionless, right? Or was that disgusting animal correct in his assumption of the forgotten feeling? Too confusing.
"Squee," Johnny finally managed to exhale. He held what remained of the tattered Shmee and, with all the grace of the Grim Reaper, strolled up to the boy. "It's been a while." He smiled at the frozen creature, trying his damnedest not to scare him, and held out the bear fragments., which little Squee was hesitant to take. "He's not dead, I can assure you," Nny replied coolly, getting as close to his neighbor as possible before watching the child cringe, anticipating his death with his round face nuzzled into his friend's stuffing. "You can't kill what doesn't reside in your mind. He is your voice, not mine."
"He told me you were crazy."Squee whispered, clutching Shmee close. "He said.he said."
Johnny fumbled with the knife, trying to keep it hidden so as not to frighten the tiny youth. However, his mindset remained the same. "The bear lies. But I, too, have fallen victim to such a threat. The doughboys spoke lies; always deceptive. So it's wrong of me to assume that any other person is suffering from constant stupidity in such situations. But I can't let this go on. I will help you the only way I can, and in doing so, free myself of you." He pulled out the weapon, brandishing the blade to see.
Squee let out a righteous squeak of fear, eyes caught on the glimmering metal and the oh-so terrifying look in the Scary Neighbor Man's twitching eyes. He screamed, running between Johnny's spread legs.
Johnny stood stunned. Wait. What was he doing? Did he just try to kill-?Oh shit, no. Surprise. That was returning. Somehow he had to suppress it. He had to remain cold and empty and inhuman. But in the meantime, he had to find Squee and-did Squee just run DOWN? "Squee! Wait, come back!"
He turned on his heels to run after him, but slipped in an oozing puddle of what appeared to be Todd's sweat. He didn't have a chance to scream out or yelp, or stop the fall with his limbs, and smacked the back of his head straight into the edge of the bottom step of the ascending staircase. Then he felt a work of black eat him whole, unknowingly welcoming it.
~~~
Squee continued running down every staircase and every ladder; through every room, each scarier than the last, with horrible machines and the stink of rotting flesh. He ran and ran, never once stopping to wipe away the tears or the sweat; seeing only darkness. It took him a while to realize his mistake: he should've run upstairs to the front door. To freedom. Instead, he was in the house's darkest depths. One of the lower levels. Trapped.
He was trapped in the Scary Neighbor Man's house.
His very savior now on a mission to kill.
And worst of all, he'd lost Shmee.
A/N: My first Johnny fic, and my first fic on FF.net. A vast majority was written in the dark depths of the morn, since I can't seem to fall asleep before 2 - 3 am, so I apologize if it seems somewhat odder then it should and I also apologize if this first part seems slow, as I have no idea where I'm going with this. I find that spur of the moment writings are often some of the best. You may have (or maybe not. I don't fully agree everybody's musical preference) also noted that the chapter titles are song titles, possibly lyrics within a song (I haven't gotten as far as to give these chapters titles yet, nor have actually made it past the beginning of chapter two as I write this. Plus there are songs with the same name). No I don't own these particular songs, and as always, the meaningless disclaimer: I don't own any of Jhonen Vasquez's wonderfully created characters. I am full of envy and a lack of sleep and creativity (I write in a notebook before I type). Oh woe is I.
Hopefully tonight I may sleep, and then this story won't come out as shitty as I predict it will, and has already begun to be. But if I can't, I shall grace you wonderful readers (if any) and fellow writers (well, I don't actually think I'm quite good enough to be considered a writer.) with the glorious and grotesque words of this story..Or I'll draw. I like to draw. Drawing helps me escape reality and fall away into the pictures of my head. This is a long author's note, huh? Are any of you tired of me writing yet? Or continuously sticking these (((()))) in this note of mine? I haven't eaten all day. Sorry. No I'm not. I hope the darkness eats you.
Chapter 1: Demons
The crunching and rustling of fall leaves beneath his long, black boots broke the deafening silence, the kind that seemed to follow him those past few months. That odd sort of silence that made you think; caused you to question what, who you are and who you were; that silence like the calm before the storm- broken like glass.
Yet this time, he did not question , did not wonder, didn't at all attempt a thought on the subject of his own morals. As if he could. He didn't have morals anymore. He had become that antagonizing creature he sought to become a year back. Or was it two years? Three.? Hm. Draining one's mind of all emotion, or at least those that held him back, lust and loneliness and all, tends to distract one from such a pointless matter, as this 'time' was pointless. He didn't need to know years and days and weeks. He was now, fully and truly, himself.
Johnny C.
He sighed, abruptly stopping without any knowledge of doing so, as if by instinct, and turned to face the house. 777. Just as he remembered it. That shabby dwelling, tattooed with cracks, shut away by boards. He blinked sullenly, taking a quick mental note on the absence of feeling that once flowed through his frail, thin form. He had unbelievably ventured back to house, to his home, without thought. He had known sometime ago that he was ready to return, yet he had done this absent-mindedly. And as if that wasn't already disturbing, he felt no surprise by this. Yes, that emotion was nonexistent, the surprise of his own actions. He was cold.
The door swung open with a hollow creak, echoing throughout the emptiness, so like his soul, and returning to his ears. Johnny gulped and blinked some more. Anticipation. He had left that one inside, though it was scarce for the time being. He took a powerful step inside, flicked the long time neglected lightswitch, and grinned.
"I'm home."
He twirled around in a fine little circle, filled with malevolent joy, and raised his arms in victory. "I'm home! I'm home!" His arms retracted down once more; hands to fists that he held inches infront of his face, madness glowing brightly in his eyes. He giggled insanely and whispered, voice quivering with excitement, "And there's so much to do. So much to accomplish. Goals to achieve with my newfound gift. I no longer have to feel, to be held back by myself. The human emotions have been wrung out from my system." He giggled again and jerked his head towards the window. Towards that oh-so familiar moon, hanging alone in the black. Johnny felt its presence, sensing it reach out to him, welcoming him back to whatever memories he had left. And he welcomed its grace and coldness to him, an inspiration to this new life he had now.
~~~
Little Todd Casil awoke, dripping in a small puddle of fear. The nightmares. Oh God, it was always the nightmares. And not just any nightmare. A reoccurring one. The one that plagued him for weeks on end lately.
The Scary Neighbor Man had haunted his sleep, grinning and laughing and stabbing away at poor Mommy and Daddy. He tore insanely at their corpses and every dream and then, would beckon Squee to help, to kill off his tormentors' and be the happy child he never was. But that wasn't what scared him. His fear lay in the shadow that loomed over both him and his psychotic savior of sorts. Growling and laughing, and then it would lunge downward at them. Squee would scream in his dream, and Johnny turned his head, eyes wide and shocked. He turned around fully, menacingly almost, and jump infront of the little boy, and the shadow would take him. And take him, and take him, further and further away. And Todd was alone.
Then he would awaken.
But this time, it was not the nightmare that bid him awake. Shmee achieved that.
"What's wrong, Shmee?" Squee's voice quivered fearfully. "Are the aliens here again? I don't like the aliens. They did bad stuff to my head." He held the teddy bear in his arms and stared with his large saucer eyes, listening to a voice that only he could hear. "Who's back?"
Another moment of 'silence' passed; Squee's eyes became even larger, his forehead leaking that familiar fear again. Quietly, he pushed the covers from his form and climbed out of bed with Shmee tightly in his arms. His footsteps were faint even in all the quiet, making only the tiniest pitter- patter, and he reached the bedroom's window that had been broken so many times: Aliens and maniacs and whatnot. Mostly maniacs.and aliens. He gulped and looked out towards house 777.
Were little Squee able to utter a single noise, it would've been a flat out scream, but the shock of what was happening prevented that for the moment. Instead he gaped, moving his mouth to speak, but emitting no sound.
When the moment of complete and utter shock finally passed, his voiced gently oozed up his throat like an expected mess of vomit. He let out a soft "Squee," not the scream he felt earlier, then hugged Shmee with all his might. A feeling had driven itself into his body, a bad feeling, telling him that something was going to happen. "You're right, Shmee," he whispered, face slightly bathed in the light that shone from the neighboring house. "It's the Scary Neighbor Man."
He glanced down, realizing that Shmee was no longer there. "Shmee? Shmee? Where'd you go? Don't leave me alone." The bedroom door slammed shut, and Squee was, in fact, left alone, huddled in a small ball. "Shmee.?"
~~~
"So much to do now," Johnny replied form the couch, contemplating his next move. He lifted one foot to rest on top of the dusty coffee table, ridden with dead moths and flies, and moldy food from the very night he'd left, which he hadn't even touched to begin with. Most of that filth had been eaten by a rather large rat. The very same that lay rotting in the corner, itself being eaten by maggots and time. God, how he hated time.
He had, upon first discovery of the decaying rodent, stared at it for a while (he came, soon after, to the conclusion that he did more staring in that one night he had done in the past two years. Oh damn. That time thing again, he replied, quite annoyed), then proceeded to poke it's dead flesh with a random knife's tip. Then boredom took over.
"No," Johnny told himself, "Boredom is just another feeling to be done without. Another feeling you sought to cleanse yourself of. You should be rid of that by now. Don't give in to what you left behind!" That was when he plopped of the cushions of the furniture piece and began to think for the fifth time that hour.
He finally came to a conclusion.
"Perhaps I should check to make sure that no one was left behind when I ran off," he declared aloud, standing straight up as though pulled by some invisible force. "I'm pretty sure I disposed of everyone, but you can never be too careful." He reached for the knob of the basement door and promptly opened it, still trying to escape the ever-present feeling of high school student in math class. "I would hate to have left someone to die without witnessing the snapping of their sanity as well as the snapping of their spines. Tee hee."
Johnny shrugged this thought off, happy to have thought of something occupy his attention for a while rather than sit on the couch wallowing in, well, nothing. He began his journey down each step, vaguely remembering the many souls who had come down, never to actually leave the house alive if at all (he could still see Jimmy's corpse decaying at the bottom of the stairs, to which Nny responded with a sickened face and a , "damn, it'll take me forever to clear out the stench of that distasteful wretch."). He also remembered Nailbunny.
Ah, Nailbunny. The one true voice that kept him so many times from ending it all, or at least tried to. Johnny always thought of few of its attempts to be vain, since something else seemed to stop his death from ever occurring (with the supposed exception of getting shot in the head by a device he stuck together, though he wasn't totally sure he had died). It was the part of him that wasn't selfish, wasn't bent on killing neither himself nor anybody else, and tried to keep Nny from slipping into vulgar habits. That part of him was dead, gone in a flash. Sure, Johnny didn't doubt Reverend Meat's existence, though the little prick had uttered a word since his arrival back home. But he knew that any future conversations with the dead bunny just weren't possible anymore. That thought tugged a tear from the corner of the maniac's eye, which his coldness instantly tugged back.
He stopped abruptly on the stairs, halfway down, and growled menacingly, "Don't. You. Dare. I won't allow myself to regress back to those habits of the past. Nailbunny is dead! Good riddance! One fucking less nagging voice I have to put up! I can't give in to the desire for conversation! Fuck loneliness!! I don't need to reminisce on the unimportant!!! Fffuck!!! I AM COLD!!! I made me who I am and I don't need this emotional plummet! So stop it already!!!" He grabbed his head, as though wracked by unbelievable pain. " Stop it!! Stop it!! STOP IT!!!"
"Too late," a voice tore through his mind.
Johnny turned to react to the owner's voice, possibly kill, but the other was prepared and hit him straight in the nose. He went tumbling downward, a blur of somersaults and cartwheels, until he fell back onto the late late LATE Jimmy.
There rang the sound of soft giggling then the voice continued," Few things can stop you now, Nny. That is whata you called yourself the first time we met, just before you tore your blade through my soft cloth flesh, isn't it?"
Johnny rubbed his swollen nose, feeling blood escape his nostrils, and looked up as the Voice came down. He stared and arose, clearly shocked, and blurted unrestrained," You?!?"
"Of course me!" Shmee snorted a reply. "Who else did you expect to 'save' you?"
"Save me?" Nny angrily ran a bloodstained hand against his clothing in a futile attempt to clean his skin. "You call shoving me down a flight of stairs saving me?"
Shmee leapt down to Johnny's level from his lace on the stairway. "Not really, no. But I find your anger amusing. Actually at the moment, I'm more prepared to talk. How long's it been since you talked to someone like me, Johnny, hmm? I'm curios to know."
I don't believe thi-NO! I see what's going on! You're just another figment! Just another illusion of the mind! Well, not created by my mind, but you are just like Nailbunny and Reverend Meat! It's all in my head. De ja vu! De ja vu!" He jumped to his feet, wailing in horror, "Well, no more, you disgusting, lying bastard! I'm onto you! You're just here to bring back the feelings; the emotions I myself have terminated from my system! Fuck you!!"
Shmee shook his teddy bear head. "No, I am not here to rid you of the cold you've planted inside your black heart. No, no." He moved a small step forward, to which Johnny took a big step back. "I'm here to get rid of you entirely. Before you destroy what made you somewhat human. That feeling's buried for the time being, but I will not give you the benefit of a doubt that you won't try to kill it before it has a chance to resurface."
The maniac fumed and pulled out his rat-infected knife from seemingly nowhere. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Shmee?"
Shmee turned, catching sight of the innocent standing at the basement door, and gasped. "shit, it's Todd. He must have followed me." He turned back to Johnny and sneered heavily, the single-toothed smile covered by a hateful glare. "I'm not about to let him turn out like you or not turn out at all, but I won't let him see like this, ready to leave you strewn out in your own guts. Not with all the shit that's been driven into his distressed mind. But dare to touch him and-"
"Shmee?" Came the pitiful little voice again. He was heading down the stairs. "Please Shmee, come out." Little Squee pleaded to the missing teddy. "I don't like it here. And the Scary Neighbor Man's back, remember? What if he.?"
Johnny's eyes became large to some realization. He grabbed the bear by his stuffed neck. "I see. I get it now." His demeanor became suddenly very dark. "He's the feeling, isn't he? The one I'll destroy to keep myself empty, right? Right, damn you?!?"
"My, Johnny," Shmee allowed another giggle to escape his throat, "you do catch on quickly. For a sick-minded fuck."
"I don't need to kill him, nor would I ever under any circumstance," Johnny replied gravely. "I may be empty but I know when to restrain my killing needs.for the most part anyhow."
Shmee let out an enormous "HA!" He felt the hand grip tighter, but remained quite smug. "Oh, do you? Hee hee. It is as I said earlier, Nny. Few things can stop you now. Yourself included. Do you honestly think you have control? Any control? No, you don't. You didn't when you painted the wall, or when you tried to kill that lovely creature, or even when you've seen Todd's father at work to make his son feel microscopic, and you don't now. Let's face it. The real reason you nailed Daddy in the head with a toy was not just so that you could leave, but because you were sick of the traumatization he induced on our young friend. You know it and so do I."
Johnny gaped. "How-?"
"You will always be under the control and influence of one thing or another. As that vile burger boy explained, you're always a slave to something."
"How do you know of that and all that other stuff?" Johnny asked quietly, his expression a curious one.
Shmee answered with a hint of sarcasm, "Heh. The walls of this shack aren't exactly paper-thin. And your mindless conversations are the quietest either. I've seen nightmares quieter than you. Squee's nightmares (A/N: speaking of Squee, you're probably wondering where he is on the stairs. I mean, the staircase can't be that long.)
Johnny thought a moment, playing with the knife in his hand. "So, I'm always a slave to something? Under someone or something's control? Hmm. You are wrong. Because I'm aware and very in control of what I do. Observe."
The blade tore through Shmee's head and body, spreading cloth and fluff along the floor (yes. Again, he tears the poor teddy apart, but to a greater extent.) There now lay pieces scattered all over. But Johnny didn't stop. He kept going, kept slicing and stabbing and cutting, all the while screaming obscenities. "You stupid fucking bear!! I am in control! Not you! Not anyone else! Me! Me! Me! ME!" (Does this sound a tad familiar?)
"Shmee?"
He looked up, connecting eyes with the timid gaze of Todd Casil, standing fragile on the bottom step. Squee's mouth hung open, wanting to say or scream something, but the voice wasn't there. He gaped at his beastly neighbor in horror, then back down at Shmee. And Johnny stared right back.
Johnny twisted and writhed in his mind. That child. That look. It was that look of pure, unadulterated terror, shining brightly in those giant eyes. *What have I done?* he thought, as if repeating a question just asked to him; a simple question that sounded as though the asker should've known the answer. *I've destroyed that deceptive voice. Killed the feelings I could do without, No, I can't feel pity, or regret, or sorrow again. Not now that I'm drained of the unnecessary! I can't! I can't! Not for Squee! Not for anyone.*
NO. He had to keep the cold within. He had achieved what he had wanted; learned that important lesson from Mr. Samsa. Became that perfect being. Thriving only on what he needed. He had all of that now, didn't he? He was emotionless, right? Or was that disgusting animal correct in his assumption of the forgotten feeling? Too confusing.
"Squee," Johnny finally managed to exhale. He held what remained of the tattered Shmee and, with all the grace of the Grim Reaper, strolled up to the boy. "It's been a while." He smiled at the frozen creature, trying his damnedest not to scare him, and held out the bear fragments., which little Squee was hesitant to take. "He's not dead, I can assure you," Nny replied coolly, getting as close to his neighbor as possible before watching the child cringe, anticipating his death with his round face nuzzled into his friend's stuffing. "You can't kill what doesn't reside in your mind. He is your voice, not mine."
"He told me you were crazy."Squee whispered, clutching Shmee close. "He said.he said."
Johnny fumbled with the knife, trying to keep it hidden so as not to frighten the tiny youth. However, his mindset remained the same. "The bear lies. But I, too, have fallen victim to such a threat. The doughboys spoke lies; always deceptive. So it's wrong of me to assume that any other person is suffering from constant stupidity in such situations. But I can't let this go on. I will help you the only way I can, and in doing so, free myself of you." He pulled out the weapon, brandishing the blade to see.
Squee let out a righteous squeak of fear, eyes caught on the glimmering metal and the oh-so terrifying look in the Scary Neighbor Man's twitching eyes. He screamed, running between Johnny's spread legs.
Johnny stood stunned. Wait. What was he doing? Did he just try to kill-?Oh shit, no. Surprise. That was returning. Somehow he had to suppress it. He had to remain cold and empty and inhuman. But in the meantime, he had to find Squee and-did Squee just run DOWN? "Squee! Wait, come back!"
He turned on his heels to run after him, but slipped in an oozing puddle of what appeared to be Todd's sweat. He didn't have a chance to scream out or yelp, or stop the fall with his limbs, and smacked the back of his head straight into the edge of the bottom step of the ascending staircase. Then he felt a work of black eat him whole, unknowingly welcoming it.
~~~
Squee continued running down every staircase and every ladder; through every room, each scarier than the last, with horrible machines and the stink of rotting flesh. He ran and ran, never once stopping to wipe away the tears or the sweat; seeing only darkness. It took him a while to realize his mistake: he should've run upstairs to the front door. To freedom. Instead, he was in the house's darkest depths. One of the lower levels. Trapped.
He was trapped in the Scary Neighbor Man's house.
His very savior now on a mission to kill.
And worst of all, he'd lost Shmee.