Ruth Sadelle Alderson

Note: I'm not very good with lyric prompts, so I sort of started with dreaming and veered from there.


There's a wicked witch, with nails too long and a twisted sneer on her face. No, not her face. Bebe's face. Bebe's face twisted into a sneer he's never seen her make.

Pete turns away, turns around, and that's no good. Behind him is a snake, shifting and hissing to keep him in place. He knows those eyes. They're on either side of its head, so it has to keep turning its head for him to see them, but he knows them.

"Dude," Pete says, "this is fucked up, even for you."

The snake - Gabe-the-snake - just twists around him, coiling in closer and closer and closer.

"Don't let him get away," the Bebe-witch says.

The Gabe-snake hisses at her, but it doesn't seem to bother her. She's still watching them with that same unimpressed sneer.

"Come on," Pete says. "This isn't funny."

The Gabe-snake is in coils around his ankles, climbing up toward his knees. He can't move, can't step over it.

The Bebe-witch holds his arms, her nails pressing into his biceps.

Pete shudders when the scaly skin wraps around his knees, tying them together. "You said you wouldn't hurt me."

"Pete," the Gabe-snake says.

"Pete," the Bebe-witch says.

"Pete," they say together.

Their voices get louder. "Pete. Pete. Pete!"

"No!"

Pete's shout ripping his throat apart wakes him up. He twists away from them, away from the claws and the skin and the sheets.

"Pete," Gabe says, softer, not a snake anymore.

"Pete," Bebe says, not a witch, her voice a little too loud because she's scared, because she's so young and he's scaring her.

"No. No, no, no." Pete scrambles away from them until he trips over someone's shoes and his back hits the wall. It hurts, but it's real. It's not the path he was on. It's not a snake or a witch or the rocks of a cave. It's a wall, paint over plaster over wood. Just a wall. One of four around a room that has shoes and clothes and a bed and Gabe looking determined and worried and Bebe looking wary and worried.

"Shit," Pete mutters. He drops into a crouch, face buried in his hands. "Fuck."

"Pete," Bebe says, soft now that she's not being scared anymore, "do you want to come back to bed?"

"No," Pete snaps.

"Pete," Gabe says, the tone he uses when Pete's being such an insufferable douchebag that even Gabe will call him on it. His voice softens when he asks, "Couch?"

Pete nods. Couch. Couch is good. The couch is in a bigger room attached to other rooms with doorless arches between them.

He turns on lights as he goes, both of them letting him go first, until the whole house is lit up with soft white compact flourescents.

"Christ," Gabe says, rubbing his eyes. "At least Bebe has the decency to have her breakdowns at a reasonable hour."

"You broke three of my grandmother's dishes last time you had one," Bebe says. "This isn't that bad, all things considered."

Gabe yawns. "You want us on the couch with you?"

Pete looks at them, nothing snaky or witchy about them, just his lovers naked in the bright lights of the living room. "Yeah," he says, and when they're settled in, holding him without trapping him, "Sorry."

"All part of the package," Gabe says. "You don't care if I go back to sleep, do you?"

Pete's laugh is rusty, but there. "Nah, man, you crash out."

Bebe's fingers brush his hand. He can feel them, but it's not too much pressure. "I'll stay up with you. I don't think I can sleep for a while."

Pete turns his hand up to lace his fingers with hers. "Thank you. Sorry."

Bebe kisses his shoulder. "Any time."