Butterfly Complex

A/N: Heh. I hadn’t thought about this movie in a pretty long time before I started writing this. I had a… weird and very out-of-the-blue dream about Oogie, and my muse is such a sensitive creature, she said, “Let’s have at it! It’ll be fun!” Which left me with nothing to think about for more than a week but how Oogie would act on his apparent lecherous tendencies.
It seemed like someone else might have started a Shock/Oogie fic, but it never got past the first chapter, so… I don’t want to accidently step on any toes or anything, but… This was a lot easier than the OC from Valentine Town idea, or jumping straight on the Oogie/Sally bus to noncon-ville, so I hope whoever doesn’t get too annoyed.
If anyone who has read my other stuff is reading this and knows that it takes me forever to finish some things, or is worried that this will detract from finishing my other fic, don’t worry. This one is already all done. I’ve decided to post it in four chunks, is all.

TWO THINGS:
One: Shock is supposed to be either 17 or 16, I don’t really know. I wasn’t sure how old they were in the movie. I left it a little vague, so pick whichever you like.
Two: I looked up if vampires bleed. I’ve seen yes, and I’ve seen no, but mostly yes, so I decided to leave that part as is. If it bothers anyone, sorry, but this is a heads-up that it’s coming.

Sometimes Lock and Barrel really pissed her off. Really. It was not jealousy. No… not exactly… maybe a little…

Shock watched her former cohorts dribbling the shrunken head up and down the Halloween Town basketball court. Barrel had surprised both of them by hitting a growth spurt as he went into his teen years. He was still pudgy, but he carried it much better, and had built up some muscle in his arms and chest. Lock had remained tall and lean, but where Barrel outdid him with raw power, Lock had wit and speed.

The little half-witch hadn’t changed too much. She had grown taller, yes. Under the guardianship of Jack and Sally, she’d also developed a more regular bathing schedule. Shock was particularly pleased with the affect the latter habit had on her hair. However, moving into her late teens, she remained as scrawny as she’d ever been. Long legs, slender hands and feet, but barely any curve at all. Shock kept hoping she’d suddenly blossom like Barrel, but nothing yet.

Her eyes drifted back down to the book in her lap, a book about psychological disorders that she’d borrowed from Sally’s library. She couldn’t focus, though. The words ran together in a blur before her eyes. Her mind was heading into dangerous territory again. Six years ago. Back Then. Biting her lip, she closed the massive book and got to her feet. In the distance, she could see Jack’s tower standing out against the gray sky, towering over all of Halloween Town. Watching her black-booted feet from under a curtain of hair, she began the trudge home. Lock and Barrel didn’t even bat an eye at her departure.

“Evening, Shock,” the Mayor beamed as she passed.

Beamed too brightly. Not that he had much of a choice in facial expressions, but it always seemed like he was only nice to her and the other two out of fear of what might happen if he wasn’t nice. Shock forced a smile at the stupid man, but didn’t reply and moved on quickly. He pried too much for her tastes, and worried far too much. A dangerous combination considering her nightly habits, and the ideas her imagination cooked up this time of year.

“Hey, check it out,” a young vampire snickered from the shadow of a wall. “That book is bigger than she is.”

“She could use herself as a bookmark,” his sister giggled back.

Behind her curtain of hair, Shock glared at them sideways as she passed.

“Boogie’s ‘Boys’ indeed,” the brother whispered.

That stopped her. She was so tired of hearing about that. ‘Why do they call you Boogie’s Boys, aren’t you a girl?’ And even more annoying, the whispered, ‘Are you really a girl?’ Most annoying, this latter question hadn’t just been a stupid attempt at an insult, but an honest-to-god question, like the answer wasn’t obvious. Though the questions petered out as she got older, they still popped up among her peers as intended insults.

Shock turned abruptly, startling both of the vampires. She stomped over, raised her book, and brought it down on the vampire boy’s head as hard as she could. He cried out and dropped to his knees.

“Are you insane?” His sister asked, kneeling down to help him up.

“Are you stupid?” Shock asked, raising the book at the young vampire threateningly. The sense of satisfaction from watching them scurry off her put an extra spring in her step as she continued home. The few witnesses stared after her, but she ignored them.

Shifting the hefty book until it balanced under one thin arm, she made her way through the Pumpkin King’s gate and up the stairs. A delicious smell filled her nostrils as she pushed open the front door. Must be Sally in the kitchen. One good thing to come out of this situation was that anything Sally made beat the pants off… a certain someone’s snake and spider stew. Not that she meant any disrespect of course, but… ‘But’ what? What does it matter now? He’s dead. And you’ll only get in trouble thinking about it all the time.

Shock tiptoed past the kitchen and up the stairs, breaking into more of a run when she figured she’d reached the limits of Sally’s hearing. In her room on the top floor, she dumped the book on her bed. Every wall was filled with shelves, and every shelf was filled with glass containers of varying sizes. Inside each container was a small animal of some kind: assorted bugs, lizards, snakes, and frogs. A strip of fly paper hung by the open window, dotted with small, black carcasses.

The first thing she did was pull a vial out of a pocket in her baggy dress and set it on the desk in the corner. A shiny black and green beetle scrabbled around inside of it, trying to climb the glass only to slip down again. Shock opened her notebook to a fresh page, smoothed out the paper, and peered at the struggling creature. “Hang on, little guy. I’ve got a nice, comfy jar all picked out for you.” She picked up a chewed, stub of a pencil and began carefully sketching her newest specimen.

After making note of its size, colors, and patterns, she selected an empty jar, held her breath, and uncapped the vial. In capturing it, she’d quickly discovered that it was a Halloween Town stinkbug. She wasn’t sure how she would get the sickly sweet smell out of her hands. Once the bug was in the jar, she sat back and stared at it. Bugs. The earliest memory she had was one of chasing a bug. The memory had mist at the corners, and sometimes she thought it might only be a dream, but other times it seemed too clear.

She’d been five, or maybe on the verge of six. Though she couldn’t remember what she’d been doing there, she remembered chasing the most beautiful red butterfly she’d ever seen through a green field. Determined to net the prize, she’d followed it into the woods at the edge, deeper and deeper. Until the butterfly disappeared, and she looked up to realize nothing looked familiar. There was a gap between that memory and her first memory of the… tree house…

Oh, hell, avoiding the name wouldn’t help. It never did. The Boogeyman. His real title. She’d only begun calling him Mr. Oogie because of the way her six-year-old tongue tripped over the word “boogeyman,” and somehow it wound up sticking. She wondered if Lock and Barrel knew that. They’d only stumbled along later, and she’d introduced him as Mr. Oogie Boogeyman. Barrel contracted it into Oogie Boogie because it sounded better, and that was that.

Shock didn’t want to let go of that past. Couldn’t believe that Lock and Barrel had been so aloof about the Boogeyman’s demise. Oogie had been a presence when she’d been completely alone. Not a warm presence, oh, no, not by a long shot. But a voice in the still nights that kept her from losing her sanity. Sometimes she thought that the only reason she was still staying in Jack’s house was because he was the new voice in this new state of loneliness. Alone because she was the only one who missed the sadistic monster.

Couldn’t talk about it with anyone—Lock and Barrel might tattle. That timid, obsessive, overly cautious mayor was a constant threat to her security. She could almost hear him now. ‘She misses Oogie Boogie, Jack. She doesn’t belong here.’

Ha! Like Jack would throw her out. He knew the trio had nowhere else to go, and it wasn’t in his usual nature to be that cruel. The very fact that he’d put up with Oogie for as long as he did proved it.

Someone tapped on her door. A soft, unobtrusive sound. Shock got up and opened the door, not surprised to find Sally standing there. She was surprised to see the rag doll’s arms crossed and her lips pressed together in anger. Anger was a rare expression for Sally. Crap. “Yes?”

“One of the vampires just came to see us.”

“Oh?” Shock tried to look innocent.

“You’ve been fighting again.”

“That was not a fight,” Shock said indignantly. “A fight implies that hits are exchanged, and they both ran off after I hit him with…” The stern look on Sally’s face made Shock trail off. “They started it,” Shock mumbled, looking down at her shoes.

Sally’s voice softened. “That doesn’t give you permission to hit someone.”

The teenager crossed her arms and walked over to plop on her bed. She didn’t look up, but she heard Sally drag over the desk chair and sit.

“You made him bleed,” Sally said.

“Good,” Shock muttered.

“You don’t mean that.”

Sally’s tone sounded like gentle chiding, but when Shock looked up she noticed real concern in the large, white eyes. For the love of… was Sally going to be paranoid, too? “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Is there something bothering you?”

“I dunno. It gets weird between Halloween and Christmas.” It was a good excuse, and half true. Shock left out the part where Christmas meant something completely different to her than it did to the rest of the town. “And they did make that stupid Boogie’s boys joke again. Hey, are you sure there’s not something the Doctor can do? Whip up a potion or…”

Sally smiled—a rather relieved looking smile, Shock noted—and put a hand on Shock’s shoulder. “We’ve been over that before. You’re still too young.”

“Mmph.” Shock put her chin in her hands and looked down.

“Wearing clothing like that only makes you look smaller. I could take that in for you, or maybe make you something-”

“No,” Shock sighed. “Don’t worry about it.” The half-witch didn’t completely believe that, anyway. She’d rather hide.

Sally seemed to shrug it off and stood up. “Anyway, Jack’s going to be home soon, and dinner’s almost ready.”

Shock knew Sally would tell Jack about the altercation, but she also wasn’t too worried about it. She simply nodded as Sally left, and then began harvesting the fly corpses to feed her collection.

XXX

The weather had taken a turn for the cold. It would probably start snowing any minute, but Shock knew it wouldn’t be anything serious for another couple days. Ever since the first snow six years ago, it snowed a few days before and a few days after Christmas every year without fail. By the middle of the winter period—Christmas—it was almost impossible to get anywhere outside the town. Ironic. The citizens didn’t know if something was trying to punish them or keep them entertained enough that maybe they wouldn’t attack another holiday. Either way, they made the most of it, and many of the children looked forward to the snow.

“Jack actually grounded me this time,” Shock complained from her position on the floor. “Can you believe that? Can he even do that?” She hugged her knees to her chest and wrapped her thick, velvet cloak tighter around herself. “I guess it’s not that bad, but… I won’t be able to get away much in the next couple days. They’ll probably be keeping a close eye on me.”

The sagging, burlap face only stared back blankly. The light from the lantern on the small stool made the shadows in its eyes waver at the corners, but that was it. Not that Shock expected anything else. In fact, if the hollowed out husk of Oogie hanging on the wall did respond, her first impulse probably would have been to scream. Though she did like coming here and snuck off as often as possible, there was something innately creepy about the way those remains stared at her.

In fact, years ago, when she’d finally gotten up the nerve to go down into his lair and collect the scraps, she’d wound up staring at them for an hour or more. Trying to bring her self to gather them into her arms and get back up the hole she’d found inside the tree. He’d rarely actually touched the trio, and they had certainly never hugged him, so wrapping her arms around even the cloth that had once been him just didn’t seem right. It was like his essence was infused in the rough fibers and touching them sent involuntary chills down her spine. But, that’s what made him the Boogeyman.

“I can deal with being stuck inside, but I wish Lock and Barrel wouldn’t tease me about it. I miss being able to knock them around whenever they piss me off.” Her hands balled into fists. “Lock and his stupid ideas. ‘Hey, let’s bring Santa to Oogie Boogie.’ Little shit…” She sat for a bit just staring. “Gotta get back before someone looks for me,” she sighed and stood up. “I’ll try to get back before the bad snow.” Fishing around in her pockets, she found the small bag of candy she’d brought and set it with the others, lingering next to Oogie for a minute. Terrifying to the point of inducing nausea, but… Shock lifted a hand toward him, and then jerked away at the last minute, hightailing it into the dark woods.