Hardy Detective Agency featuring Hardy Boys Fan Fiction

Chapter Seven: Speaking of Nightmares

I squinted around my room, wondering why it was so bright. The sun was pouring in through my window and- Oh. Left the light on.

Joe was standing by the side of my bed, still in his night-clothes, one hand on my shoulder. With the other, he reached over and turned off the light, sighing. “It didn’t help?” he asked sadly, and he didn’t need to clarify: he was talking about how he’d comforted me last night. I sat up and ruffled his sleep-tousled hair.

“It helped, Joe. A lot. I fell asleep in less than five minutes; I just woke up again. Even then, the first time wasn’t too bad, but the second one...” I shrugged. He grimaced; he always acts like it’s some personal fault of his own when I have bad dreams after an investigation. Particularly if he’s put some energy into calming me down. “I wish you wouldn’t keep trying to hold yourself responsible for what goes on in my subconscious,” I told him.

“Well, I’m workin’ on that,” he responded. “But you’re not really one to talk, Frank- you know how you were whenever I had bad dreams.”

Touché.

When we were younger, Joe used to have terrible dreams. He would slip into my room several nights a week on average, and I would comfort him as well as any half-awake pre-teen could. I usually managed to get him back to sleep, but there were a few times when I drifted off before he did. I always felt bad about that, but I felt worse when, having told him he was safe with me, he woke up in the grip of a second nightmare. Right there in my room and I still couldn’t protect him from the monsters in his mind. Over time, the nightmares had diminished, but even as recently as this past spring, he’d come into my room once or twice for reassurance.

But not since that time in May…

I went alert suddenly, thinking that over. “You haven’t had any for a while, have you?” I inquired. And when he didn’t answer, I frowned up at him. “Or did you just decide to stop coming in, since I wasn’t being much help?”

“Not much help?” he repeated almost indignantly, dropping onto the bed with a bounce. “You helped me a lot!”

“Sometimes I wasn’t so sure about that,” I muttered. “But what about the rest of it? Have they started leaving you alone finally, or what?”

Joe hesitated. “They didn’t exactly go away, but they’re not happening as much now. And they’re not as bad as they used to be.”

“So you decided not to come in, or even tell me when it happens anymore,” I said levelly. I wasn’t pleased that he had let me think they’d stopped, but more, I was annoyed with myself for not asking about it sooner.

Ever since he started sixth grade, Joe’s had trouble with his self-esteem. Most of the time he’s fine, having plenty of confidence in himself and his abilities. In fact, he borders on arrogance at times. But every now and then, something gets said or done and his confidence starts to evaporate. It can be triggered by almost anything, from a major humiliation in front of a hostile crowd to a bit of teasing from a friend that hit him the wrong way. And it can affect any, or every, facet of his personality. His intelligence, his mystery-solving abilities like logic and deductions and reasoning, his problems, the things he likes to do, the food he enjoys, the clothes he wears- even his own physical presence!- all get their share of self-denigration.

The difficult part is that the intensity of his feelings varies wildly. Most often, the low mood is superficial; he gets down in the dumps, but deals with it and it passes quickly. This is particularly true if he gets some encouragement and/or distraction. But there’ve been plenty of times when he’s sunk into a gloom that lasted for days, and once, weeks. That one happened during our past school year, and that was mainly because of me and Dad putting a lot of pressure on him. We didn’t do it on purpose, but I still feel abysmal about it. Especially since I know how often he depends on me to help him get through those low stages.

Talk about counter-productive; who wouldn’t go into a funk when their main supporter was suddenly the source of their misery?

I’ve always encouraged Joe to confide in me, and done my best to help him see that he’s got a lot of traits to be proud of, but sometimes that doesn’t work. The reason is insidious: part of his worst ‘unwanted/unneeded/unworthy’ bouts include him deciding that I’ll resent helping him, that he’s too dependant on me, and he ought to deal with everything by himself. So he tries to do just that and won’t come to me for help, no matter how desperately he needs it. I have to notice that something’s wrong, corner him, and urge him to tell me what’s the matter. Convincing him that I want to help is tricky; he invariably talks about being a burden and messing up my life.

I’ve gotten good at reading his behavior and knowing when he’s crashed again, but sometimes I’m not aware enough and he lets himself suffer until I wake up and smell the burning rubber.

Like now. He’s definitely in his ‘don’t bother Frank with your stupid problems’ mode, but how long has this been going on? He hasn’t come in for at least three weeks- has it been going on the whole time? Three weeks- that’s when we got so busy studying for finals and I was so damned cranky from lack of sleep- Lack of sleep-! Of course, he wouldn’t come in and wake me up! And then I was so cross anyway, he must’ve figured- oh, Frank, you- you idiot!!

“Why did you pretend everything was fine when it wasn’t?” I asked. “Did you think I wouldn’t be interested, or was it-?”

“I’m going to get dressed,” Joe interrupted, and he was out of the room before I could say anything else.

I sighed, feeling chagrined. Well, having him offended at my prying, pressuring tone was better than having him think I wasn’t interested at all. The only question was, would he decide to talk to me or not? It might not be necessary; sometimes just knowing I was willing to talk was enough to jolt him out of his low mood. But other times, he did need to discuss the matter through before he felt better. And if he was really irritated or offended- or being stubborn- it might be quite a while before he loosened up enough to approach the topic with me. And I wouldn’t know which it was until he decided to tell me- if he did. I'd just have to wait and see- and hope.