Some time had passed. Shawn couldn't say how much time. He had come to consciousness slowly, in a haze. There was a distant, clicking noise that was made around Shawn's forehead which reverberated into his eyes and caused a dull tingling in Shawn's face.
It took a moment to realize that it was the sound of Shawn's wooden eyelids opening.
Shawn's slatted mouth opened and closed with a stiffness that felt artificial.

There was another sound, a heavy breathing coming from the other side of the bed. Shawn watched himself or rather, watched his own body, the breath silently moving in and out, his chest rising and falling. It looked as if Mr. Clayton, occupying Shawn's body, was completely asleep.

Shawn took a deep breath, or at least he tried to before realizing that he didn't need to do that anymore. He tried to get his bearings -a t least this time he knew what was going on and could manage his panic. He looked down at his own body, and resisted the urge to poke it and see what would happen. Instead, he looked a little closer, wondering if he'd see the 'Shawn' that everyone else saw, or the puppet 'Shawn' that he'd seen in the mirror in that dream.

Shawn's body let out a small snore, "****sigh****."  A peaceful sound.

At first glance.

But seeing his own body there now, it appeared as if the body was exhausted, depleted of all it's energy and in a state of complete collapse. To be sure, Shawn could see how his face was more than good looking, even in this tired and worn out state. He could understand why kids and adults a like felt that looking at him was a pure delight.

However, he could also see deep rings of purple around his eyes, heavy bags from weeks of not sleeping, from hours of practicing ventriloquism in the mirror. Also, there was a sour smell emanating from Shawn's body, like he hadn't cleaned himself for quite some time. Shawn could see that his fingernails had black dirt underneath them.

Shawn hadn't looked at himself in the mirror in a while - even when he went to the bathroom, he'd started to deliberately look away when he'd washed his hands or brushed his teeth. On the rare occasions he did either. So it was a bit of a shock seeing how worn down he looked.

Still, he knew he had important stuff to do, so he looked away from himself. It was just a matter of time before he had a visitor, so he tried to get into character. Mr. Clayton was immature and selfish and liked to deliberately provoke reactions. None of those were natural behaviors for Shawn, but he could do it if it was an act.

Shawn watched his body roll over to one side, hand slowly moving before settling on the edge of the bed. Shawn's breath fluttered his bangs and it sounded like he was murmurring something.

"....hgmgn..." Shawn's mouth said, and then more clearly.

"...because of Gaggles. She's dead."