OOC: This Thread Takes Place Sometime After the Conversation With Bobby

The hospital corridor was stuffy and the air had an undertone of bleach. The walls were magnolia and were scraped in places from the hundreds of trolleys that had bumped into them. The pictures on the walls were cheap benign prints of uplifting scenes and above the double doors were large blue plastic signs with the areas of the hospital that lie ahead.

Intensive Care Unit

That was the white on blue sign that Shawn was passing through. In his left hand, he held some flowers that Mom had bought for the occasion. It wasn't like Eddy would appreciate the flowers if he really was in a coma. But if he got out soon, maybe it would bring him comfort.

Mom squeezed Shawn's own hand his right hand.

"Go ahead." She said. "I'll be right outside. It's important to visit your friends when they are sick." She advised, getting down on one knee and nodding over in the direction of the dark room that Eddy was in.

The door was open and there was a rhythmic, electronic beeping sound coming from all the equipment that Eddy was attached to.

Shawn awkwardly walked into the room, flowers clutched tight in his hand. At first he was looking at everything but Eddy - the room, the medical equipment, out the window. But eventually he screwed up the courage to go to Eddy's bedside and actually see how he was doing.

"chrrr.....frussss....." Eddy's motionless face hissed through the tubes and plastic that was connected and taped to his face. His own eyes were shut as if in some kind of deep slumber. But it was more than just sleep. His skin was pale and clammy-looking. His hands were tucked under the white linen blankets, the shadow of curtain near him was cast over his body.

Shawn's forehead wrinkled with confusion. Eddy almost sounded like he was trying to say something. "What was that?" He leaned in close, trying to get a better listen.

"chrrr.....frussss....." The machine pushed Eddy's chest cavity out, making it expand and filling the air around him with a senseless, mechanical sound. The sound a lifeless entity would make. There was no life in Eddy's voice, if you could call it a voice. It sounded like some kind of space vacuum each time he exhaled. The machine next him was also making beeping sounds, the black pump on the respirator machine rising and falling in its cylindrical, plastic tube.

There was a small note next to Eddy. Perhaps one that the Nurses had left. Or maybe someone that had visited him. It was written in some kind of cursive chicken-scratch on a yellow post-it note. It lay on the tray next to the orange jello that wasn't opened and perhaps never would be.

Shawn,

'Tought I'd come ta' see what happened.
I 'tink ya' went far with the card trick, ya' did.
I'm not sure 'tis worth fixin.'
The price'll be high. Take time ta' 'tink about it.

Take Care,

-Griffix

Shawn felt a mixture of relief that Griffix was still watching over him, and frustration that Griffix hadn't seen fit to warn him that 'going too far' was a thing that could happen. He carefully pocketed the note and set the flowers down next to Eddy before taking a seat next to him. Though he'd rather be doing almost anything else, he'd come here to visit and couldn't just retreat after 30 seconds. Besides, he didn't want to leave Eddy alone.

Shawn sat there for a long while. The noise of the respirator became almost soothing in its predictable repetition. A white noise in the background that seemed to set the somber tone for the room in all of its stillness and a constant reminder of the frailty of Eddy's life.

Suddenly, there was a small commotion outside. The sound of another mother encouraging her child to go into one of the rooms. A visit for sure.

Just then, a figure entered the room with flowers. It was Eric. Yellow roses bunched up in his left hand. The bouquet battered and sagging like the left side of his purple-bruised face. He sported several band-aids.

He paused in the middle of the room, as if somewhat surprised to see Shawn. Then, he registered a dull note of surprise.

"Oh."

Just a single word that recognized Shawn's presence in the room. Eric's eyes were bloodshot. Deep bags of tired skin weighed heavily underneath his eyes around his cheeks. Or were they black eyes from whatever had happened at the Circus.

He tossed the flowers onto the bed near Eddy's feet and the plastic made a crinkling sound. The action appeared to be disrespectful at first, the flowers coming undone at the base and spilling out across Eddy's stomach. But looking at Eric, it appeared that he his mind was elsewhere. A face that had retreated and was withdrawn. As if he was worried and thinking about other things besides Eddy and his condition.

Shawn got the impression that Eric wanted to talk about their experience with the Circus, get an explanation as to what happened. But that wasn't really something Shawn could just bring up. So he just stayed by Eddy's side quietly, waiting for the other boy to start talking.

Erik 'Trenk' might not have heard or noticed Shawn in the moment after he spoke that one word. His eyes seemed to float in his distant, serene face. A deep unease had stealthily settled into the room, Erik standing there, swaying slightly.

His clothes looked like they were brand new. A black Thundercats T-shirt with the red logo of the wild cat in the center. Short stone-washed cut-off shorts that seemed to be just off of the rack at the store.

But Erik's skin was pale. His face had a grayish pallor and he wore a worried look, brows knitted like he was in a state of prolonged anxiety that had kept him up for hours. His hair was disheveled, and he looked skinnier. Like he had lost a few pounds. His cheek bones were tight against the skin of his face in a way Shawn hadn't noticed before.

"You seem better." It was a foolish thing to say, but it just slipped out of Shawn. And sure, right now Eric looked like a nervous wreck, but it was a far cry from the bloody, bruised Eric that had attacked him back at the Circus.

Eric was looking down at the floor as Shawn spoke, his eyes snapping open.

"I should have never taken that Rabbit's foot." Eric said, his voice raspy and filled with remorse.

"If I never took that Rabbit's foot, everything would have been the same."
His eyes were sunken, his shoulders slumped. He looked more like a defeated zombie than a boy enjoying the last month of summer.

"I know." Shawn blew out a heavy sigh. It seemed like Eric wasn't handling the revelation about the Circus any better than Shawn did; the only difference was that Shawn was better at hiding it. "If it makes you feel better, you're probably safe as long as you keep your head down."

Eric shook his head in abject disagreement. His movements were slow and awkward, like he was carrying a heavy yoke around his neck that limited his ability to balance himself. His face was gloomy but his words were certain.

"No." His objected

"You're wrong."

"We'll never be safe. Ever." he stated with complete certainty

"We got involved with it. And now its never going to let us go. It's not just going to take us down. It's going to take everything we know and care about away too."

Shawn just looked as Eric as he expressed one of Shawn's most deep-seated fears, that at the end of the day, this was just pointless struggling against the inevitable. "How do you know?" Their shared trauma made Shawn much less reluctant to question or contradict Eric openly.

"You know it too." Eric said, looking up to meet Shawn's gaze with dull, vacant eyes, rimmed with purple.

"Can't you feel it?"

"I still have hope." Shawn didn't know why he was lying, but he did it anyway. Maybe because the alternative was even worse, that admitting that it was all pointless would also be admitting all the terrible things he'd done were for nothing.

Eric didn't reply to Shawn with judgement or dismissal. Far from it. Instead he sighed.

"Then you're better than me." He said in a voice the croaked as if he was going to cry. "I keep thinking that its your fault somehow. And then I remember that I took the Rabbit's foot from you. If I just hadn't done that. Something so stupid as a Rabbit's foot."

"And now I have to worry about my little brother. And my little sister..." He said, voice croaking again. He swallowed several times, keeping the tears at bay by clearing his throat. "Max was going to go into kindergarten this year. And I was going to show him how to throw a baseball now that he's older."


"But now...." He looked over at Eddy. "I can't do that..." he swallowed again, and then rubbed his eyes, a last ditch effort perhaps to avoid collapsing in front of Shawn, or perhaps to stop himself from sobbing and breaking down into a fit of tears.

"I already told Max not to go to sleep with the lights off. And I told him to stay away from you. Because you're part of it. Just like I am. I told him to stay away from me too."

"That's smart. Even if we can't save ourselves, maybe we can save the people we're close it."

Eric laughed a joyless, sputtering laugh. Now he was dismissing Shawn's argument.

"Sometimes, the only thing that we can do to stop things. Is to stop ourselves." He said in a despondent tone.

"I'm not going to do that. You shouldn't either." Shawn folded his arms and spoke seriously and sincerely. He could follow Eric's line of thought, and he didn't like where it was going.

"Promise me you'll stop." Eric said, his voice a last-ditch bargainer.

Shawn had heard something like it before. A long time ago in Wisconsin. He heard through the vents of the old apartment they lived in when he was four years old a woman say 'promise me you'll stop seeing her!'

The sound had come through the air vent near the kitchen while mom was making noodles.

"Do you really think that'll protect anyone? It won't. It's just the easy way out." Shawn was near tears, trying to convince himself as much as Eric.

"PROMISE!" Eric yelled suddenly at Shawn. The fear and anger--and probably regret--boiling over. It was the first time since...

Well since Eric had used to attack him or bully him. But that wasn't so long ago, even though much had transpired since the middle of the summer.

The venom in Eric's voice was familiar. But there was something different about it as well. Along with the disdain and malevolence, Eric's shouting was lined with a desperation. An ugly fear. He sounded somewhat like cornered dog that had barked a snapping bark.

The sudden anger in Eric's voice suddenly changed the dynamic - Shawn was no longer trying to persuade the older boy, he was trying to avoid his ire. Eric was a threat; something to appease, avoid, or trick somehow, not a fellow traveller. "I've gotta go..." He had dropped off his flowers, and since Eric had arrived he had a ready-made excuse for why he was leaving early ('Eric was a closer friend, I didn't want to disturb them').

After Shawn spoke, he could see the anger in Eric's eyes and the defeat. Time was that Eric would chase Shawn down. But this wasn't the playground or even the neighborhood.

And so Shawn left Eric in the room with Eddy and entered the hallway.

Mom approached him with a quizzical look.

"Everything alright?" She asked. "I though I heard yelling in there."

Shawn nodded seriously. "Eddy's friend Eric's visiting too. He feels really bad about what happened to Eddy, and I wanted to give him privacy."

"Shawn. I have really good news!" Mom said, glossing over Shawn's response.

"Mrs. Worthington called! She's agreed to represent you as an agent, and I think she might have a movie in mind!" Mom was giddy with excitement and stood out from the other somber faces that lined the hallway, no doubt upset at the circumstances of people they knew in the Intensive Care Unit.

Shawn hugged his Mom with relief, more because it seemed like she was finally back to normal than the actual reality of going back to show-business. "That's great!"

People in the hospital--nervous and distraught faces, diligent nurses, an old woman in a wheelchair--they all gave Shawn and his Mom disapproving looks at the level of noise.

"It's such great news honey. With this second chance, you'll finally be able to get everything you always wanted: a star in Hollywood! Oh sweety, my baby is going to be a star!"

Shawn noticed the looks they were getting from other people and tried to modulate his energy in hopes that Mom would take his cue. "Can we tell Dad?"

"Honey...." Mom started. "We need to tell EVERYONE!" She shouted, oblivious to the concern that others were showing to the volume of the conversation. She was completely engrossed in the idea.

Though Mom may have forgotten, or perhaps never paid any mind to it, Shawn had not: Dad clearly did not approve of Shawn's movie career. That was the clear indication he had given when the subject invariably turned to career vs. grades. Dad had also expressed a sort of male-skepticism towards the idea of performance in general.

“Let’s!” Shawn took his Mom’s hand and seemingly in excitement started to pull her along to where hopefully her joy would be more appropriate.

OOC: End Thread