Archaic ||Peterick||

Vampire Playground

We bought your shit and we blew it to smithereens.

Patrick wrote in his journal. He was taking down whatever came into his head. Right now it was all angry. There was something he needed that he couldn't find.

Pete played with the yo-yo. He was doing whatever he felt like doing which wasn't much.

"Can I go to the-"

"No"

"But it's just outside the-"

"No"

"It's right there!"

Patrick rolled his eyes.

"Fine." He said, looking up from his laptop.

Pete smiled. He looked out the window. Patrick was too distracted to notice much. Pete opened the window up, with a grating noise that annoyed him a bit, but not enough to make him stop.

"What're you d-"

Pete didn't hear the rest of Patrick's question. He'd fired himself out the window of the 4th floor, and was whirling towards the ground at speed. He screwed his eyes shut. He squeezed his hands into fists, and brought his knees into his chest, holding them there as tightly as he could. He trusted in newfound things.

Close to the ground, a tulip opened in reverse around him. A swoosh, and he stopped in midair, and fell like a feather to the ground. He lay there, trying to ignore the disconcerting feeling of being compacted down into a very small amount of space. Skin stretched, and bones broke, but soon enough, he opened his eyes, staring at the sky, to find the bush beside him had grown.

He tried to stand up. His legs were weak, but by waving his arms about a bit, he got off the ground. He squeaked a little bit, happily. He knew birds had the right idea. It was only when he looked down and realized that he was actually off the ground that he panicked.

He waved his legs around, and his arms too, but it didn't help. In fact, it actually made it worse. He was getting further and further away from the ground and he didn't know how to stop.

He screamed, but it came out as a sort of screech. It echoed off the walls of the hotel, and off in the other direction, coming back in the shape of a tree. He turned his head to see that he was right. It was a tree. He kept flapping his arms.

Patrick looked out the window.

"Pete?!" He yelled. Pete looked over at him, waving his arms until he was level with the window, and chirruped back:

"Yeah, I'm here, not notice this yet?! I think I can fly!"

Patrick looked around confusedly. The dark had fallen, and Pete could barely see him. It was strange. He was so used to being able to see in the dark that he'd forgotten what life was like without it. He guessed that he'd traded that for being able to fly.

Pete flew a little closer and squeaked at him. He looked a lot bigger than he had before. That was odd too. It almost seemed as if at this stage he could hold Pete in one hand.

"Yoo hoo! Over here!" Pete said. He was almost exactly in front of Patrick's face. Maybe he didn't have his glasses on, and that's why he couldn't see him. Pete flew right at him, then over his shoulder into the room.

"What the-" Patrick said, turning around quickly to see a tiny black bat on the bed, waving its matchstick legs in the air, and flapping its paper thin wings wildly.

"Oh for God's sake." He said, picking it up in his hand. He was a little too rough, and it let out a shrill trilling noise, as its wing ripped and it fell to the floor.

"Sorry." He said, quickly, and picked it up again. "I guess I can't put you out now. You're a little cutie, aren't you?" He said, stroking the thatch of black, spiky hair atop its head. It nodded. Patrick laughed.

It tried to stand up, but fell back down on the bed. Patrick scooped it up and held it close to his chest. Little tiny fangs poked out of its mouth, and its squashed-up nose was all sniffly. He liked bats. He liked most animals, but he found bats especially cute.

He placed it down on the bed, and looked back out the window at the dark.

"Pete come back here, I'm not gonna chase you. You'll only get so far... I swear to god when I find you, I'll skin you alive!" He yelled, harshly out the window. There was a crackling noise behind him, and a soft groan. He turned around.

"Sorry." Pete said, sheepishly. Patrick looked incredibly confused, until he connected the dots in his brain. It took about five seconds for him to realise what had happened. Pete cradled the cut on his arm. It was leaking black all over the bed. Patrick cursed, and ran to get some tissues.

Pete sat on the bed, while Patrick tended to the wound.

"Did you ever think of being a vet?" Pete asked. Patrick didn't look up. He ignored him. "Patrick?"

"I never got to be anything else. I never really dreamed of doing anything else." Patrick mused, quietly, clearing up the black, and throwing away a tissue. Patrick had said it out loud, but Pete wasn't sure he should've been listening. He answered anyway.

"So you always wanted to go around staying in bad hotels and cleaning up people's messes? Killing things?"

Patrick had to think about it.

"Well, no. I just kinda got... pushed into it." He looked down at his hands. "I used to have a list of things I wanted to do."

"What were they?"

Patrick wiped the blood off of his hands with an already dirtied tissue. A few pieces of the paper stuck to his palms, and he pulled them off with none of the agression he'd always had before. He seemed confused. A bit lost.

"I used to always want to travel the world. To have some friends. Get married, maybe. Always said if I ever had a son, I'd name him Declan." He brushed his hair to the side. "I used to want to be a musician. But I can't sing. And besides. Who wants to listen to some ginger fat boy from Chicago sing about his first-world problems? It's better to get something done in life."

"You'd be doing something in life then."

"Oh yeah?" Patrick said, disbelievingly, sifting through a pile of sheets and printouts.

"You'd be making people happy. Just like sometimes, you make me happy."

Patrick looked around at him, and for the first time, a proper smile spread across his face. A nice smile. He was happy. And that made Pete happy.

"Thanks, Pete." Patrick said.

Pete nodded, and fell back on the bed. He was all achy everywhere. He felt like someone had rolled him into a ball and thrown him out a window.

"Have you seen my yo-yo anywhere?" He asked Patrick. Patrick looked around the table.

"No, I don't think so."

"Awh. I guess I'll just have to be bored then."

Patrick stopped rooting, and sat up in his chair, which he turned around in to face Pete.

"You know what, I'm bored too. I was gonna leave it til tomorrow but-" he dropped the book he was holding on the desk. "Let's go. Grab your jacket."

"Where are we going?" Pete asked, sitting up.

"We're going to Hyland."

"What's that?"

"It's a haunted house. And it is high time we un-haunted it."