"Then we do whatever she says." Bradford answered, the flame flickering and then going out. "We do whatever she says."


As the flame went out, the mood changed. Shawn could feel a chill run all along his body.

"How does it feel?" Bradford asked after a long pause.

"How does if feel, knowing what you did to us?" Bradford's tone was measured in the darkness. But Shawn could tell there was an edge to his voice. A pointed question. A question that demanded an answer.

Shawn shivered a little as he felt the chill. It wasn't a change in temperature, but the mood.  "I-it's like there's a hole in my heart and every day when I wake up and every night in my dreams and every time a good thing happens to me, it hurts. It hurts real bad because I'm safe and everyone else isn't. And I wish I could say it isn't fair and I didn't deserve it, except I know I do." And that was true, but Shawn didn't mention the entire truth. The truth that every awful thing he did, every terrible thing he saw, the hole in his heart hurt less and less, and that in itself scared him more than anything else.

The truth, the realization brought with it a sort of silence. Then Bradford spoke again.

"I saw you." Bradford said, accusingly, and lit another match, illuminating the good side of his face, the melted side laying in shadows.

He chuckled. "It's funny, you know? I've spent a long time thinking about you. Thinking about what I would do if I saw you again. I just never thought I would."

"I saw you." He repeated, the words coming out like a dagger, healthy side of his face grimacing, lip curling back in an angry sneer.

"You wrote all of our names down in the Book. You killed my best friend. Ruined his life." He laughed a singular, harsh, chuckle. "You ruined my life. All of our lives."

"I did. And I can't undo it. I can't fix it." And even now, Shawn wasn't sure if he would undo it if he could. He'd picked his side now, he was damned forever. "What did you decide to do when you saw me again?"

Bradford smiled, the air and the curling smoke from the match twisting above the air in the darkness, the good part of his face a wicked grin.

"That's the trouble with killing. Once you set your mind to it, it's hard to know when it's going to stop. Oh you'll find out what I'm going to do." Bradford said with a wicked, savage glee. Revealing nothing. But the voice was filled with an uneasy, forboding, promise.

"You'll see that I'm not the same Bra...arghh!" Bradford let out a squeal, shaking his hand as the space between them grew dark again, the match having gone out and burned his fingers.

"Are you okay?" Shawn asked the question as an almost automatic response - Bradford was obviously threatening him, why should he care if he was hurt or not? But years of putting his best face forward all the time meant if someone had an accident, you show concern.

It just came out of Shawn. Things had happened so quickly and the words were now out there in the empty darkness, hanging there waiting for a response.

"Oh I've never been better." Bradford's wry voice answered back. He had changed, it was clear. It was the scar on his voice, but also more than that. He lacked the bouncy optimism and goofy manner of speaking. Instead, he now spoke with a grizzled, sarcastic voice.

He continued

"You know what my Mom used to tell me? She used to say that it wasn't like the 50s. She said that kids nowadays have too many choices." He chuckled a dry, joyless laugh. "Well, I can tell you for certain, losing an eye is just the medicine....it....changes your perspective."

Shawn didn't feel like he had a choice; he couldn't even remember the last time he'd made a choice for himself, it was always about keeping other people happy. Mom, Dad, his teachers, the directors, Mr. Cherrywinks, even Bobby and Ralph. "I'm sorry..." He meant it, but even as he said it he knew it wasn't nearly enough.

Silence. Awkward silence. The different pressures of Shawn's life pushed against him like an unbearable weight. But it was Bradford's silence which was unbearable. It was a silent, judging emptiness.

"When you left me to die" Bradford said starkly, the words like a dagger into Shawn"Ron was out there, trying to help me."

"You remember Ron don't you? Strong kid from back on the farm where we're from? He and I got separated. He ran in one direction and I ran in the other. I made my way up a hill to a large tent. It was a big, huge thing. And I crept inside. It was Cherrywinks tent of course. I found that out later. Too bad too, because I would have saved myself a lot of pain. Maybe I'd even have another eye, the one I lost."

"I crept into the tent and moved to the back room. There was a large well back there. The kind of old well we might have on the farm back in the day. I knew I shouldn't look in, but I just felt I had to."

"I saw him. I saw the proprietor."

Shawn's head snapped around towards Bradford, though it was a pointless gesture here in the pitch darkness. He'd heard of the proprietor a few times, from Gaggles and from Mr. Cherrywinks. Whatever it was, it scared even the Circus clowns. "What did it look like?" He almost didn't want to know, but at the same time, he had to find out.

It seemed like Bradford was going to cry, or perhaps that he should have cried at the question. But that would have been the old Bradford. This new version, all grown up and corrupted with cynicism barked a harsh laugh.

"It burned my face off." He said, the way a someone might dismiss a joke told by a less popular kid at school. "I peered over into the well with just this side of my face." Shawn could hear Bradford touching the melted side of his face, tracing it in the darkness, the skin sounding leathery to the touch.

"I'm not sure that I remember what I saw. I can't tell you exactly. But I know I don't sleep anymore. Not well. And not from the pain on my face, now that it's mostly healed. It's because when I sleep, if I do, I know it's waiting for me. Waiting in my dreams...the proprietor."
This message was lightly edited by the player at 00:58, Thu 30 Mar 2017.

"D-does it talk to you? When you sleep?" Shawn's eyes were wide as saucers, not that you'd be able to tell in the dark.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:04, Thu 30 Mar 2017.

"No." Bradford snapped. "It just plays out over and over again, except I know I see it. I just can't remember all awake what he...it...looks like."

Emptiness filled the space after Bradford spoke.

"It doesn't matter." Bradford noted, filling the space once again with words. "We are here now. Ready to be traded. Traded to some other demon. A demon who isn't even here yet." Bradford noted with some trepidation, the fear of the unknown creeping into his voice, momentarily making him sound like the old Bradford.

"How long do you think we'll be here?"  Shawn wondered how much time was passing; would his family worry about him?

"You're not here. And neither am I." Shawn heard Bradford say. "This is only the part of the dreamer's world. The waking world is still out there. And actually, you're out there right now, probably doing whatever it is that you do." Shawn noted slight sneer in Bradford's voice as he commented on Shawn's outside, 'waking world' activities.

"I'm here because I made a deal with Cherrywinks. I gave myself over to him. And now he's trading me. After running for a while, losing Gaggles and the one lady who had the tattoos. After I looking the well, I ran from there too. I ran and ran, heading up to the high places, past the Krinner. Some strange kids and things out there." Bradford remarked.

"Anyway, I suppose we're here until the Fortune Teller gets to the Circus. That is who you sold yourself to, isn't it? You do understand the rivalries in the Circus, don't you?"

"Not really - I just know some of their names." Shawn made a mental note of strange people in high places. Maybe it'd come in handy later. "How you learn about all this?"

Bradford spluttered a choking sneer before he answered. "ahha-I've been here Shawn." voice sounding like someone who was saying 'isn't that obvious?'

"I've been here the whole time. Right here. And in the Circus. Running away. Talking to the Pawnshop dealer. Making my own deals. Trying to find a way out."

"You see I didn't have access to that wonderful Book that you have. You remember the one?" He asked sarcastically.

"The one you stole from us. Well, maybe not us, but Ron and the girl-woman. While you were out there living your real life with Bobby and Will, I was here all alone--running for my life. You pick a few things here and there. When your back is against the wall and you need to survive, you'll talk to anyone and anything. You want to know how I know these things? I know because I've been here." Bradford said. Hard words. Sharp words.

Shawn tried to push past the needling and accusations. He'd done terrible things, and while he could try to justify it as protecting people he cared about, the fact was that his own life had been made magnitudes safer than Bradford and others. But he couldn't just descend into self-flagellation if Bradford had legitimate information to pass along. "So the Circus isn't united?"

"Nothing is ever the way it should be." Bradford sighed. "I thought by giving myself over to Cherrywinks, that he'd make things, I dunno, more simple. I wouldn't have to run all the time and worry about dying. I would have done terrible things. That I know."

"But this waiting and waiting, its really getting to me. I've never been good at waiting. Before, with my parents, I would always get in trouble for being 'silly.' That's what my Dad called it. But what it really was, was that I was happy."

"Now I don't know what to think. I don't know when or how the Fortune Teller is supposed to come about. The unknown is some ways worse that Cherrywinks. But I do know that we're part of some package deal to keep the peace. Something that will keep Cherrywinks in charge. Crowely the Pawn Shop keeper told me that usually Cherrywinks, and the Fortune Teller are usually vying for who is the top dog at the Circus. Whoever wins out controls the flow and the amount of souls that the Circus takes in. Sometimes, the Master Maker tries to broker deals between the two."

"You're right, it doesn't make things more simple. It's just a different kind of afraid..." Shawn wondered if having dealt with Crowley before would be an advantage or disadvantage with the Fortune Teller.

"Let's be clear about something" Bradford said into the darkness. "I don't care if you think I'm right or not. Just because we're both going to be....going to be...doing something with this Fortune Teller, it doesn't mean that we're friends."

"I could never be friends with you. Not after what you did. You're worse than a liar. And it isn't because you left us to die to save your own skin either. It's because you're made of death. Because of you, April lost the Book and her life. All of the work she could have done...we could have done to save kids from this Clown and this place were lost."

Shawn didn't say anything to that - what could he? But at the same time, the deeply cynical part of him, the mean side that he concealed under layers of politeness and unstated self loathing wondered if Bradford really meant it. After all, for all his anger and protestations, ultimately Bradford had come to the same decision that Shawn had. There was a sickening sort of comfort in that.

After a while, it was clear that Bradford felt that silence was somehow acquiescence, agreement with  what he had said.

"Well..." he said. "It's time...I mean its that time that I usually lay down. I mean to say, I don't know exactly what time it is. But its more a feeling." He explained. Shawn could hear him shuffling, laying his head down on the ground in the pitch black.

"Okay..." Shawn considered whether he felt tired or not, though even if he was, he probably wouldn't sleep right away. He had too much to think about.

OOC: Shawn Joins Thread:

Shawn: Macaroni And Cheese