Chapter Three: Warnings Of Things Bigger Than Big
Regaining consciousness after emptying himself out was, usually, like floating from the bottom of a pool to the top, and getting hungrier and hungrier the closer you got to the surface. It was that same hollowed-out feeling his got whenever he discharged a lot of energy, the thin shell of his skin holding in the echoing tingle that was left. He felt scritchy inside, like the strands of power left were coarse and wooly and rubbing his joints ever-so-lightly.
There was something different this time, though, a sense of urgency. Something was wrong. He needed to be awake, but he couldn't remember why that was so important. It was, though, he knew it was, and so for the first time, instead of letting himself ease to the surface, he kicked.
Eyes snapping open, Peter jerked into a sitting position, prompting Micky to yelp and stumble backwards. The cloth he'd been using to wipe the sand from Peter's face dropped damply onto Peter's knee, and the two friends stared at each other for a moment.
"Micky?" Peter breathed, his throat dry and pin-prickly. He really needed milk, or maybe ice cream. He glanced around; they'd put him in his own bed, tucking him in like they had been making a Peter burrito. There was a glass of water by the bed, but he really, really just wanted that milk.
Micky bit his lip, plucking the cloth up and resuming brushing the grit from Peter's nose. His eyes were distant, and he looked about as awkward and unsure as Peter had ever seen him.
"Peter, I don't mind telling you, this has been a really stressful day."
"'M sorry, Micky," the shaman replied guiltily, his response somewhat muffled by the washcloth in his face.
"I mean, the dead things were bad enough, really, but this…"
Peter wanted to curl up and die. He had never, ever wanted his friends involved in any of this. They were good people, the best people, and the thought of them being hurt because of him made his insides do horribly unpleasant things. He swallowed as Micky continued, trying to push the urge to cry back down.
"You scared the hell out of us, man. First Mike yells that you're gonna get yourself eaten, then you almost do get eaten by some kinda zombie dog thing, and you were sparking green all over, and then you go and…and…" His ministrations faltered, for which Peter was grateful, because Micky had been absently swiping at his nose through the entire rant even though Peter was certain it was now sand-free.
Peter had remembered something, though, and he lurched forward, trying to untangle himself from the blanket cocoon his friends had created for him. "Mike! Is he-"
"Davy's with him," Micky said quietly, neatly stopping Peter's attempts to leave his bed by sitting on the blonde's knees. "He's okay, we think. We debated calling the doctor, but-"
"No," Peter interrupted. "A doctor wouldn't help all that much, except maybe to give him some stitches. I have to check the bite, it could be…could be infected," he finished quietly, not meeting Micky's eyes.
His best friend sighed through his nose, fidgeting with the washcloth absently as he stared at Peter. This seemed to be everyone's favorite past-time these days - staring at Peter. Instead of Mike's assessing, contemplative gaze, though, Micky's eyes were sad.
"Pete," he started in the soft sort of voice he used when he was being unusually serious, "you and I, we've known each other for a long time, haven't we? We've been friends since you came to Cali, best friends, even…right?"
"Of course, Micky. You're absolutely my best friend."
Nodding, Micky's shoulder straightened. "Okay. So, what if I'd been keeping this huge secret from you, like a really huge secret. Say I…say I was hiding one of the biggest, most important parts of myself from you, and I was making up stories to keep it hidden, and never letting you in on it, even when my life could have been in danger. Even though I really knew I could trust you with anything, I still kept this huge secret from you. Don't you think that might make you feel kinda rotten?"
Peter frowned. This was one of those things Micky did sometimes, where he turned things around to make you see his point of view, whether you wanted to or not. Usually, it was a useful way for the drummer to make people understand how he felt about something without having to actually talk about his feelings. It was a trick he'd picked up from Mike, who liked to try to get points across in a vague, storytelling kind of way, usually involving a horse or a car or a old buddy he'd had in Texas. Mike's stories sometimes confused Peter, because they were awfully subtle, and sometimes unintelligible if Mike was especially nervous. Micky's scenarios, though, Peter always understood.
And Peter got it. He really did. He could tell that Micky was upset and hurt, and he could understand why, because he knew he'd feel the same if the situations were reversed. It just seemed like Micky was missing a vital bit of information.
"It's not like that, Micky."
"No?" Tossing the cloth onto the bedside table, Micky drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, not looking Peter in the eyes. "Seems like that to me."
"It isn't, though," Peter insisted, leaning forward as best he could with Micky sitting on his knees and gripping Micky's shoulder tightly. "It's not like that at all, because I was never hiding the most important parts. All this stuff, it's not important. It's not who I am, Micky, just what I am, like…like how I'm blonde and have hazel eyes. It doesn't change who I am."
Micky groaned, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands before regarding Peter solemnly. "You've been lying to us, Peter. This whole time. Didn't you think we'd believe you? Didn't you think we'd still be your friends, no matter what? I just…I don't get it, man. Why'd you have to lie?"
"It's not just my secret to tell, Micky," the bassist murmured, eyes pleading for Micky to understand. "It's not just me in this - there's a lot of us out there."
"A lot of what," Micky asked, frowning.
Peter flinched. He didn't like the way Micky was saying 'what' - now, and the way he'd said it before Peter had passed out. It was an awful sort of tone, and Peter was afraid. He was afraid that Micky would spend too much time focusing on that 'what', and forget about the 'who'. He didn't want to be a what, not to Micky, not to any of his friends. He wanted to be a 'who' to them. He wanted to be Peter.
"Look, Micky, it's not like I can just make you forget you'd seen anything, okay? I'll explain, I promise, but please can I go see Michael? I want to make sure his wound isn't…infected."
For a moment, he thought Micky might refuse, bundle him up even tighter, and sit on him until he spilled everything. The thought was almost certainly there, lurking in the drummer's eyes. Finally, though, he nodded, clambering up and helping Peter wriggle free.
"Easy now," Micky said, taking him by the wrist and pulling his arm up over Micky's slim shoulders. Peter didn't mention that he outweighed Micky by a decent amount, and would probably squash him flat if he fell on him. Micky was hurt enough as it was.
If Micky was hurt, Peter would bet money on Davy being beside himself, and probably a lot more vocal about it. The two of them were so similar sometimes, even as they were incredibly different.
When Peter had met Micky, the fast-talking Californian had been distant and mistrustful towards pretty much everyone. It had taken a while, and a lot of work, for a solid friendship to form. Micky was used to shady folks, cons, and lies, and even though most people could tell from the off that none of those things even remotely applied to Peter, it had taken months for him to work past Micky's knee-jerk assumption that everyone had an angle. Once he had, though, they had bonded beautifully. He had known that he could never prove Micky wrong, that he wasn't ever going to betray him, but Peter had promised himself that he would spend the rest of his life never, ever proving Micky right.
Just another promise he'd been too useless to keep, he supposed as Micky helped him shuffle out to the living room.
Mike had been laid out on the couch, head propped on one armrest, the tattered orange and purple quilt that Gran had sent them draped over him. Peter wondered if they'd chosen that blanket purposefully - it was a normal quilt, with nothing stitched into it but love, but Peter supposed that was more than enough. He hoped, though, that they didn't now associate all things Tork with magical healing abilities, because they would be sorely disappointed.
Davy was seated on the floor next to the couch, head resting against the arm, his gaze distant and worried. He looked up when they entered, taking care to not let his feelings show on his face. He didn't do a very good job of it, though, and the tired, sad eyes that locked with Peter's made the blonde feel lower than low.
"He won't wake up," the Brit whispered helplessly.
Slipping away from Micky's grasp, Peter moved to stand at Mike's head. He gazed down at his unconscious friend, who looked far more at ease than Peter would have expected. Had he gotten all traces of the ghoul out of Mike? Had he pieced the bones back together properly? Healing wasn't his forte, after all. Bones weren't all that hard - it was like doing a puzzle, angry edge to angry edge until it all slotted together. He worried, though, that he might have somehow melted the whole joint together, or put it together backwards, or forgotten something. What if Mike lost the use of that arm? How would he play guitar? How would the Texan live with that? How would Peter?
"Peter," Davy said softly, fingers curling around the shaman's wrist. "Peter, you have to explain this to us. We have to know what's going on."
Looking back down at his diminutive friend, Peter winced.
Davy looked hurt all right, and angry. He was soft-hearted, even more so than Peter was, and he felt everything twice as hard as the rest of them. Sometimes, Peter wondered if maybe it was because all that emotion was packed into a tighter space, and so it got concentrated.
Davy and Mike had tumbled in Peter's life at about the same time. They'd been friends for about as long as Peter and Micky had, and were just as inseparable. The four of them had all bonded in different and wonderful ways - Peter privately thought Micky's idolisation of Mike was one of his favorite things to observe - but Davy and Mike's relationship was one of the strongest Peter knew. He supposed it was because of how stubborn the two of them were. Capricorns, and all that.
Peter had taken quite a shine to Davy from the start - of the three of his friends, Davy was the least likely to make Peter feel slow and stupid. He was always patient with Peter, no matter how much he messed up, and he did everything he could to help the blonde out whenever he needed it, whether Peter asked for help or not. He was never condescending about it, either. Davy was nice.
It seemed like such a horrible word, but it was the only one that fit. Davy was a nice person, with a deep well of compassion and unbreakable loyalty to the people he loved. And now, like a fool, Peter had thrown that back in his face. However angry Davy was at him in that moment, he definitely deserved it.
Leaning over, Peter lifted the quilt and inspected Mike's bandage. He prodded at it gently, running his fingers under the edges, and felt around Mike's aura. As expected, it was muted. Mike would no doubt be unconscious for quite some time. He prodded a bit further, but if there were traces of ghoul within Mike's aura, they were imperceptibly small.
Peter wondered if he should worry about that. He wondered why he hadn't made an effort to learn more about healing. He wondered why he was letting everyone down so much lately.
That's useless thinking, Peter, his Gran was chiding him in his memory. Don't worry so much about what you did or didn't do. Focus on what you can do now.
Squaring his shoulders, he pulled the quilt back up over Mike and moved to perch on the other arm of the couch.
"Hey, aren't you going to do that healing thing?" Davy asked, brow furrowed.
Peter shook his head. "No. I'm not a healer."
"You did all right on the beach."
"That was kind of an emergency situation," the shaman explained, fiddling with the collar of his pajamas. They were a bit worse for wear, but they would survive.
Davy stood up, drawing Peter's attention away from the state of his nightclothes. "Peter, Mike is unconscious with great bleedin' holes in his arm, how much more of an emergency do you need before you do something about it?"
"Lay off him, Davy," Micky murmured from his seat in the armchair. "We don't know what's going on here, okay? If he's not patching Mike up, I'm sure there's a reason, right, Pete?"
He didn't like looking into Micky's hopeful eyes, didn't like seeing the pleading written across Davy's face. He hunched his shoulders, curling in on himself.
"I wish I could. I mean, I really wish I had that kind of skill, but…healing bones is one thing, but the rest? I mean, there's veins and arteries and tendons and nerves and…I could really end up hurting him if I do it wrong, you know?"
There was a slight pause, before Davy said in a low, warning tone. "I want to know what's going on here, Peter. Now." When Peter hesitated, his British friend strode forward and poked him in the chest. "Whatever's going on with you, it's dangerous, and it could have gotten you killed. It almost got Mike and Micky killed. Your secret is hurting people, Peter, including you, and I have to know what it is if I'm going to help keep you guys safe."
"Okay, Davy," he said, folding his hands in his lap and taking a deep breath. "I'm a shaman."
Micky and Davy continued to stare, nonplussed.
Peter blushed. "It's, uh…it's a type of mystic, along the same lines as healers and psychics and things."
"Like witches," Micky hypothesized.
"Uh, no," replied Peter, lips twitching at the corners. "Of course not. Absolutely two different branches of the occult. Shamans don't use magic, you see."
Snorting, Davy shook his head. "Peter…you grew a tree."
"Oh, that's easy - basically, you just have to pull together the elements that make up trees, and you bind them together with natural energy, and then you just kind of push until they're all grown," he explained with a smile.
"You just…make a tree. Out of nothing."
Micky shook his head. "You can't make something out of nothing, Davy."
"Says who?"
"Says physics."
Before Davy could retort, Peter held up both hands. "Hey, come on, guys, don't fight, okay? But Micky's kinda right, Davy." He cast the Brit an apologetic glance. "I mean, I'm not just making trees out of nothing - I'm making them out of earth and air and water and things."
"Can you unmake them?" Davy asked curiously.
Peter shivered a bit. "I'm…not sure what you mean by that."
"I mean, if you can take all those little bits and make trees out of them, can you take trees to bits?"
Blinking, Peter opened and closed him mouth a few times. "I don't…why would I want to do that?"
"If you could," Davy pressed on, eyes flashing fire, "then you could take things like that wolf-creature apart, turn them to dust, like."
"N-no, I-"
"I mean, if you can do one, you must be able to do the other." Davy was pacing now. "So why didn't you?"
Peter gaped at his younger friend. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Micky frowning, but he wasn't sure what at. Was he wondering the same things as Davy? Or was he, like Peter, suddenly very worried?
Because he knew. He knew he couldn't do that, just take a living thing and scatter it to the wind. He couldn't even think it, because as soon as you started thinking it, you started finding reasons everywhere - reasons it would be a good idea, reasons it would be okay, reasons it would be right. That's how you fell into the light or the dark, Gran had explained. You started thinking.
But he wasn't sure he could ever explain that to Davy, explain why not being able to do something wasn't the same as not having the ability, and that not being able was really the most important thing in the world. He wasn't sure, as he watched Davy pace restlessly, that his friend would understand.
So instead, he said simply. "No. I can't do that. It doesn't work like that."
It was true enough, he supposed, so it wasn't like a lie. It would just have to do.
Davy's shoulders slumped a bit. "That'd just be too easy, I suppose."
Peter cocked his head to the side and considered that statement, then nodded. "Yes. It'd be much too easy."
He was fairly certain, though, that they didn't mean the same thing.
"So, back in your room," Micky started, "you said there were a lot of you. Are they all like you, trees popping up and birds dying in people's shoes?"
"Um…well…no. See, I'm a gray shaman, sometimes called a green shaman. We're kinda…Gran calls us neutral parties. We keep the balance, stop people fighting, that sort of thing. We tend to be a lot more in tune with woody and watery things. There are light and dark shamans, too, but they're not really as laid back as gray shamans."
Davy was frowning at him again. "So…wait, you're not a 'light shaman'?"
"No," Peter replied softly, and there must have been something showing on his face, because Davy flinched a bit and didn't push any further on that subject.
"Okay," Micky said. "I get all that. But can we get to the part where things are kicking it in our house and there are werewolves trying to eat us?"
"Ghouls," the blonde corrected absently, gaze slipping to their unconscious friend. "That was a ghoul. They're not very personable."
"No kidding? I was gonna suggest we invite a few around for dinner," Micky snarked.
Peter understood the sarcasm, but he answered anyway. "Well, I don't think that would be a good idea, Micky, because they eat human flesh."
"Yeah, we noticed," their tambourinist muttered.
"Usually they stick to cemeteries and mausoleums - they like dead bodies best. They'll eat live people, too, though. They're always starving," he continued sadly, ignoring the greenish cast of his friends' faces. "No matter how much they eat, they're always mad with hunger. It's probably not a nice way to live."
Micky huffed a laugh. "Are you kidding? We live like that every day."
"No, it's worse than that. Imagine if it was, like, a hundred-million times stronger, so strong you couldn't think about anything else." Peter thought again of the creature he'd murdered, and he wrapped his arms around himself. "They can't really help it; they're just really hungry."
Davy reached out and wrapped his own arms around Peter, hugging him tightly. "Sometimes I think you care a bit too much," he whispered into the bassist's hair.
Pulling away, Peter tried to smile brightly. "I'm okay," he lied. "And Michael's okay, too, so you know."
The change in subject didn't go unnoticed by either of his friends, but they seemed content to let it go, so Peter continued.
"See, when he was bitten, he contracted a sort of…well, Gran calls it shifty juju, but really it's just bad energy. People don't usually survive encounters with ghouls, but when they do, something of the ghoul gets left behind."
"Uh, Mike's not gonna start trying to chew on us or anything, is he?" Micky asked cautiously, shrugging helplessly when Davy shot him a glare.
Peter's mouth twitched into a more genuine smile. "No, I don't think so."
"You don't think so?" Davy pressed his fingertips against his eyelids. "Peter…"
"Well, I've never had to heal a ghoul-bite. I think I got all the shifty juju outta him, and while I was doing that the bones kinda just got stuck back together, but I passed out before I could check to make sure. If there is anything left," he added quickly at their horrified expressions, "it's really, really tiny and probably won't have any effect."
"Probably?"
"Well…he might be really hungry for a couple of days? Eat more meat? Order his steaks rare?" Peter shrugged. "I can't really say. He'll be out for a while, though. Healing takes a lot of energy from both parties, ya know."
"Great." Flopping into a spare chair, Davy threw one arm over his eyes. "So you're really the epitome of a tree-hugging hippie, Mike might have ghoul cooties, and we're gonna have to deal with things dying left and right from now on."
"Um, well, no." Peter fiddled with the cuffs of his sleeves. "See, those weren't normal shaman-y things. They were omens. Bad ones. Predicting-your-doom kind of bad."
"Warning you about the ghoul?"
"I don't think so. I think the ghoul might have been part of it, but that's not nearly bad enough to account for all the death omens. I mean, for that level of shifty juju to be hanging around, something big has to be coming."
Micky ran his hands through his hair, tugging a bit as he tended to do when thinking. "Bigger than a ghoul?"
"Yes, and I think it's about time I found out what it was."
"And just how do you plan on doing that?"
Peter smiled. "I'm going to call my Gran."
A/N - So…yeah. A bit of my Micky/Peter/Davy/Mike Monkee Meetings headcanon there, which is, I think, fairly universally shared. And angst. And Davy being a bit frightening. And oh, Mike's okay…probably.
