The DREAM WORLD Series
DAYDREAM REALITY
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----- Chapter 4 ------
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"An'.. an' then he just fainted dead away." Jeff
finished off his story and promptly took the last bite of his
waffle.
"Definitely scary." LB tossed his plate into the sink.
It was the next morning, but none of the guys had managed to
sleep very well the previous night. You try getting a good
night's rest after having a guy faint dead away at your feet.
They had all helped him back inside and Eric had taken his friend
back home, but everyone was left quite unnerved. Especially Jeff
who had gotten the strangest feeling when Kez had locked eyes
with him just before going under. Like the guy saw straight
through his outward appearance and knew who he really was. That
would have
accounted for the fainting at any rate.
"Eric said Kez had been hanging around with some 'friends'
earlier today. Might have been the effects of an OD, you never
know." Aaron tried to be the voice of reason, but was
failing rather miserably.
Just then, the phone rang and without even thinking twice, George
reached over and picked up the receiver. "'Ello? Oh, 'ey
Eric. How is 'e?" The other three sat straight up when they
heard who it was on the other end of the line. "Sure. We'll
be ovah in a little bit." George replaced the receiver in
it's cradle and turned to the others. "'E's in the hospital.
Wanted to know if we could stop by." George turned to Jeff.
"'E wanted tah talk tah you 'specially. Not sure why,
exactly."
"We'll go, then." Jeff said simply to cover the shock
of this request. "Sure he just wants ta explain himself, or
somethin'."
The four headed out the door and climbed into the Monkeemobile.
It was oddly, almost becoming routine by this point. Wake up,
clean a little (make that a very little), listen to Mr.
Babbit rant and rave, and go off to save the world in some way.
Yep, they were definitely living the life of the TV Monkees.
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Kez came to slowly. Had he been dreaming everything from the
night before? Maybe he had passed out from that new stuff Randy
had sold him and everything from early in the afternoon onward
was some kind of acid-induced vision.
He couldn't even hold onto that delusion for a second, however.
He knew it had all been way too clear to be an acid trip. And
after one of those he would inadvertently wake up with his head
firmly planted in the ceramic seat... not on a pillow in the city
hospital.
"Morning sleepy head. Glad you finally came to. I was
starting to think we could let the pidgeons in to use you as a
new roost." Eric's face slowly came into focus.
"You been here all night?" Kez asked blearily.
"Never left the room for one minute. Okay, so there was that
point where the nurses stripped you down and changed you into
that hospital gown but---"
"You're either the best friend I could ever hope for, or
amazingly stupid." He sat up slowly in bed. "And did
you say nurses?"
"Don't get too excited. Male version. Not female."
"Oh." Kez's shoulders slumped. Another thought crossed
his mind suddenly and he felt his skin crawl. "Oooooh!"
"Are we interrupting something here? Cuz we could always
come back later." Micky was leaning in the doorway with the
other guys just barely visible behind him.
"Complete professionals." Eric said reassuringly before
eagerly waving the Monkees in. "He just got up. Slacker's
sleeping in until all hours now. Thinks he's some kind of
royalty."
The four musicians filed in and took up various positions around
the room. He noted with amusement Micky's immediate fascination
with a metal pan that lay on the bedside table. Inverting it into
his lap he started tapping out a beat to what was most likely the
band's newest musical effort.
"You DO know what that thing is, doncha?" Eric was
watching with just as much fascination as the bed bound Kez.
"You mean besides a metal bowl?" Micky gave him an
innocent look.
"Bed pan." Kez tried hard not to laugh.
The pan clattered to the floor with a bang.
"Oh, don't worry. I don't use it. Not that bad off you know.
Guess there's one in every room." Kez glanced from the pan
on the floor to Micky's face.
"It's one of those standard issue bedpans." Peter
quipped from his perch on a chair across the room.
Mike cleared his throat a little in expectation. Kez caught his
eye and knew the Texan wanted to know why he'd asked for him in
particular. The other four in the room seemed to catch the look
and suddenly started to think up excuses for leaving the room.
"Well, Peter and Davy and I were gonna go---" Micky
began.
"-- get something tah eat." Davy tried.
"-- buy something in the gift shop." Micky said at the
same time.
"-- get lost in the corridors." Peter added, again at
the exact same time.
"I'll go with 'em... wherever it is they said they're
heading." Eric threw all three an amused look. Embarrassed,
they shuffled out of the room after Eric.
"Well, Kez? What's up, pal?" Mike looked a bit on edge,
but that could have just been Kez's imagination.
"Well, Mike. There's no easy way to say this but last night
I...." He was avoiding the issue. No good. Might as well
come right out with it. "Who are you?"
The man in front of him drew in a sharp breath. Had he taken him
off guard? This was quite interesting.
Oh man. Jeff's head was spinning. Do I tell him the
truth or keep this act up?
"Whoa. You must've hit yer head harder than ya
thought." Jeff selected the later option. No need to lay all
his cards on the table until he absolutely had to. "I'm
Michael Nesmith, born and bred in the great state of
Texas---"
"Who did I see in the mirror then?" Kez hung onto his
belief obstinately.
Mirror? Wait. Those candles last night. And... oh man.
Time to be straight up with this guy. Jeff just hoped he could
handle it. "Alright, man. I'll be straight with you."
He sighed and paused to collect his thoughts for a moment.
"My name is Jeff Geddis. I'm an actor. An' the rest is,
let's just say, complicated."
Kez was just about to ask him for the truth again, but something
about the way Mike had just spoken killed any skepticism he felt.
"Does it look like I'm going anywhere any time soon?"
"Touché." He sighed. "The gist of the thing is,
where I come from the Monkees weren't just some two-bit group of
strugglin' musicians, but real honest ta goodness superstars. So
my friends an' I were hired to portray these guys in a TV movie.
Only somehow or other we woke up an' we actually WERE the
Monkees."
"Sounds like fiction." Kez glared suspiciously.
"Fanfiction, actually." Aaron was standing in the
doorway. Jeff spun around. "I came back to get some change
for the machine. Little did I know I'd walk in hearing our cover
being completely blown." Irritation bristled in his voice.
"He knew, Aaron. I couldn't keep tryin' to fake it."
Jeff rubbed his temples. And he thought the night before had been
intense.
"And how exactly did he find out----" Aaron began, but
was cut off by Kez.
"Aaron?" Eric stared at Micky. He could only imagine
what this guy really looked like.
"Oh gee. Sorry, where are my manners? Must have forgotten
them in all the secret identity dropping." He extended a
hand, sarcasm still cracking in his voice. "I'm Aaron Lohr.
Just to lay all the cards on the table, yes, I in fact double as
Superman on the
weekends."
Kez took his hand, his eyes glazed over in shock. Well, I
wanted the truth, didn't I? What was rather interesting was
that this Aaron guy seemed to be pretty funny anyway, Micky or
no. He smiled and was about to say something else when he was
aware of yet another person walking into the room. Peter. Or
whatever this guy's real name was.
"Hey LB." Jeff waved. LB looked at him as if he had
lost his mind. "S'alright. He knows. He did some kind of
psycho-jello thing an' found out."
"Psychedelic." Kez muttered. "And no it's not.
It's a completely valid form of seeing beyond the limits of the
mere human spectrum."
"Man, sounds like you've practiced that speech." LB's
jaw was hanging open in surprise.
"Just once or twice." Kez was starting to feel just the
slightest bit easier with this arrangement.. but only slightly.
"So you're---"
"LB Fisher." He smiled in a very Peter-like fashion.
"Man. Feels weird being able to say that again."
"No kidding." Aaron ran a hand through his curly locks.
"But you guys sound and act like the real
deal." Kez was still in the process of completely wrapping
his mind around the concept.
"When we came here everything that we had been simply
putting on before became reality. The clothes, the accents, the
hair." LB emphasized his point by once again brushing the
long, annoying blonde bangs out of his eyes.
"So you guys are the Monkees... and aren't."
The bed bound hippie felt like his brain was about to explode.
This was far out. This was more than far out. "And
you have no idea how you got here?"
"None." The last of the four jumped into the
conversation as he walked in the doorway. Davy made his way over
to Kez's bedside. "George Stanchev." He too looked
relieved to be able to use his real name again.
Kez was about to ask yet another slew of questions when he became
aware of Eric standing in the doorway. Everyone else in the room
stopped dead in their tracks as they realized the same thing.
"Hey guys."
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"Eric.. We've got something to tell you---" Kez began
and was shocked to promptly find Micky- no, Aaron's hand- clamped
over his mouth, blocking the remainder of his sentence.
Jeff jumped into action. All four had thought the same thing. No
need to spread the word around about their true identities any
farther than it had already gone. If they kept blabbing the truth
to every person who happened to walk through the door, they would
find themselves locked up in a mental institution, not on their
way home. And home was still foremost in their minds. "We...
uhm, we wanted ta tell ya that.... Kez here's all set to be
checked out now, then, yeah."
Eric shrugged. "Cool, Mike. So I'll met you
downstairs?"
"YES!" Aaron, LB, George and Jeff all said in unison.
Once Eric had walked out of the room again and closed the door
behind him, Kez turned to the four musicians in front of him.
"Care to explain to me why we suddenly can't tell my best
friend what's going on here?"
"We couldn't risk spreading the truth any farther than it's
already gone." Aaron tried his best to explain.
"Probably wouldn't 'ave told you eithah, 'cept you found out
on yah own." George flopped down in the chair next to Kez's
bed. Physically he might have looked fine, but mentally he was in
a state of near collapse. As the days wore on, it was taking a
terribly high toll on all of them to keep the act up. Sometimes
he didn't know where Davy Jones ended and George Stanchev began.
"He IS gonna find out that I'm not leaving today, you
know." Kez readjusted one of the pillows behind his head.
"Oh. Actually, I wasn't lyin' 'bout that part." Jeff
managed a weak smile. "Ran into a nurse on the way back from
the lobby. You're all set to be discharged."
"Thank God." Kez tossed the hospital blanket off and
jumped to his feet. The floor immediately rocked beneath him, and
he very nearly collapsed again. In fact, the only thing that
saved him from a spill on the floor and a longer hospital stay as
a result of a broken hip or whatever else, was the sudden support
from four separate pairs of arms.
"Monkees to the rescue." Aaron said and grinning,
pushed Kez back onto his feet.
"Thanks, Micky." Kez breathed a sigh of relief and
waited a beat before he realized what he said. "I, I
meant--"
If Aaron was embarrassed, he gave no indication of it. Heck,
that's who he looked like and for all intents and purposes was
for the time being, right? "It's alright, no harm
done."
"This is gonna take a little more getting used to than I
thought." Kez eased himself into a sitting position and
began searching for his shoes.
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The VH1 movie "Daydream Believers: The Monkees Story" is copywrite Pebblehut Productions. I am in no way affiliated with the guys who played the Monkees (Aaron Lohr, LB Fisher, George Stanchev, and Jeff Geddis) in this movie. I just wrote this out of admiration for the guys and the incredible job done on the movie. If you don't agree with my interpretation of one of the actors or one of them happens to actually READ this... I'm simply guessing about what they're (you're) really like. No offense is intended! This fanfic is copywrite Random Fandom. If you would like to link Random Fandom on your own website, be my guest!