Life had a way of bringing one set of surprises to another set of unexpected events. Today seemed to be no different then any other day let alone any exception to breaking such things. Moments ago he had been laying in the hospital bed in a drug induced zombie state, and now he was swaying down the hallway on a gurney. Switching from the hospital bed to the gurney had been a very awkward experience, but on the positive aspect of it all, he at least was able to moon Ms Taylor in the end.

Even though the dismount into the gurney wasn't smooth or slick, he somehow was tucked in comfortably with a touch only motherly fingers could provide. Time after time his defiance towards Taylor seemed to mean nothing as her frustrations with his behavior were out weighed by his need for something deeper. Though with the state he was in, it was rather questionable how much he would recall later.

"Why.....can......french fries." Nonsense, nothing worth wild seemed to sputter from his lips. It was more then difficult to make much sense of the last few days, let alone know what he was doing directly currently. Ready to be immersed into a rather nice long nap, he found it difficult to do much of anything. The blanket on the gurney wasn't half as warm as his hospital bed and his toenails felt like they were going to fall off if he was exposed any longer to the cold sterile air.

"Where Chase?" The squinted teen's head jostled about trying to catch a hold onto one thing he could remember decently. Wasn't Chase there when it all happened, those fleeting moments where he could have sworn life as it was, well that it was ending in a sad cruel of fate? It was a face he couldn't shake, one that he was sure he'd destroyed forever. Not that is was bad to kill someone, just the kid wasn't as bad as other people he knew. Still, it was hard to tell for sure if the Chase he saw just minutes ago was the real one or not, the drifting dreams could play tricks on him mind as reality seemed to keep drifting into a bit of disillusionment.

Alister's future seeing abilities had provoked the need for this intervention, and had given Sledge his marching orders. This beaten up teen was needed to prevent the apocalypse. An apocalypse brought about by a unicorn. The con man had to wonder if Alister had known about the collision in advance. Simply getting Sledge to accept the strange, and highly unlikely, source of the end of the world had been a sisyphean task. Unicorns were too noble in mythology. Perhaps the road was indeed paved with good intentions. With the teen floating in a cocktail sea of pain medications and the dregs of adrenaline leaving his veins it may very well be easy to accept that one My Little Pony was the four horsemen.

Of course Sledge had no clue if any surgery was necessary for Hokee. He had fed that rubbish to satiate the bird. Nothing on the medical chart made sense to him, if there was any sense to be made in the first place. Had he been able to decipher the scribblings that decorated the charts he would still need some sort key for the abbreviations. What was needed was time, time to be able to have a chat with Hokee in private without risk of interruptions. Speaking of unicorns and destruction might be easier under influence of prescription drugs, but such conversation could easily be waved off as a hallucination.

"No chips for you mate," Sledge responded to the incoherent mumblings. The words were not important, other than to make the injured party aware that he was not alone. Get him to talk, and keep talking. Preferably with sentences that make sense. "Iffin Chase was one of those anklebiters back there, 'e's fine. There's more important things we need to talk about." It was an interesting balance between keeping Hokee out of the room long enough for his lie to be convincing to the lady he had left behind, and getting him back before someone who actually belonged on the hospital staff swung by and found the empty bed. He was it in a real bad way, but surely if there was a pressing need for surgery the teen would have been put under promptly. This sort of tension was the thrill of the scam, the risk of being caught and having it all crash in on his head.

The guy driving his mode of transportation was obviously not from the area, that was unless for some really sick reason he was no longer in New York and had been air lifted to London or some other British medical area. Though trying to understand what he was saying was harder then anything he had ever experienced before, including trying to snag a first kiss. Not able to keep track of what he was saying was one thing, but trying to put together what the nurse was saying was harder. Hopefully this guy wasn't going to be the one bathing him later in the night. He certainly didn't need any more confusion then what he was experiencing already.

"BBQ ones....with ridges." Smooth chips just were not as good as the ruffles and ridges. The countless hours he wasted away standing in front of Hess munching on bag after bag of chips. Okay, so it wasn't the best hangout spot, but after he had one to many run ins with managers at the local drug store and the local grocery stores....well the gas station was the place. If he didn't mind the clunk of roller skates, he could have hung down in the rink but the ice skating rink on the edge of the Reservation was more of his type of people then the wanna be kid punks.

"We aren't talking...talking about....I know how to work in a girl." His mouth just didn't want to work right. He couldn't get a real thought out to save his life, but then again it was hard to have a real thought when his mind was so clouded with the recent drips of morphine in his system. The chances of him remembering much of anything right now was about good as the pair of underwear he was wearing.....which was none. Who knows for sure, there might be a room for something to stick between the dreadlocks. He wasn't going to have 'the talk' with this strange guy, was he?

Then again, mayhaps Alister hadn't known about the accident after all, at least not the condition that the teen would be in. Once again the language barrier had been raised. Talking to the septics could be a trial on its own when his conversation counterpart was cognitive. Right now he was attempting to hold a conversation with what boiled down to a well tenderized meat sack with noodles for brains. What did barbeque flavored, rigged crisps have to do with anything? Hokee was remembering only the things that Sledge said they shouldn't talk about. "Forget about the bloody crisps and chips!"

It may have sounded harsh, and it did not make a lick of difference to Sledge if that was the case. What made him wake up whenever he had dozed off in school was the short sharp command of the teacher or headmaster. He would have to use his voice as a sort of alarm clock in hopes of breaking through that thick skull and head that resembled a mop. "This ain't no talk about women, or food, but what will happen in your future." Sledge assumed that about half those words were heard, and perhaps even less than that had made any sense to him.

"The world is going to end," Sledge started, continuing to wheel the gurney down the hallways. Nurses and orderlies were always moving patients from one area of the hospital to another. Those on the gurney most likely did not know where they were going. Direction and location are hard to tell when you're on your back and the only scenery is overhead lights. Add to it prolonged rides in elevators and it wasn't surprising that hospitals had to paint stripes on the floor to prevent getting lost. "Unless some actions are taken, doomsday is upon us, and you are part of the stopping part."

He tried to recall the precise details of this end of the world scenario. Alister had to blackmail Sledge into going along with all this. How humiliating to be blackmailed by a child half his age, not just once, but twice. That was a detail that he wasn't going to fill Hokee in on. "Know 'ow all those girl things seemed evil when you were five? Turns out you were spot on."

No chips? Why was the guy talking about chips to begin with and now yelling at him on how he couldn't have them. Well this was a tease, much like the summer sitting in the chairs checking out the chicks sunbathing in their skimpy bikinis. They wanted you to look, but not look and you could expect to loose a limb if you dared touch them. But at the same time they always seemed to be looking for someone to rub lotion on their backs. It made no sense. Where was the hot nurse right now? He liked it when she bathed him, she have good cleavage to look down on...."Huh?"

His future? He couldn't have chicks or chips in the future? No, this was hell on earth now. He didn't want to hook up with dudes, that was just, not....he certainly didn't want that. How would it even work. Wait....this guy couldn't be serious. It had to be something else. Struggling to sit up, his face started to turn ghostly white. "I got AIDS?" He knew he lost some blood and all in the accident, and could barely recall seeing a red bag drizzling down into his arm at one point during his in and outs of sleeping. The hospital gave him bad blood. How cruel! Kick a man when he was down.

Falling back down into the gurney his eyes squinted at the florescent lights around him. The end of the world was coming. Of course it was if there were no chicks for chips for him. Having AIDS on top of that just only added to the horror of it all. This was not the way he anticipated going out, not in the slightest. Having AIDS and all meant he'd loose his hair, and well he worked hard to grow all that hair out plus the endless hours of back combing and work making his dreadlocks. End of the world for sure, he was going to be stuck in the hospital forever---

"What?" Five years old was so long ago. How was he supposed to remember what he didn't like at that age about girls? All he could really recall was....wait...was he ever that old? What did kids that age do? Chase was close to that age...well closer then he was. What did he do for fun? The world just seemed to be spinning, he seriously couldn't think straight right now. Maybe he was destined to be stuck with no chicks or chips now.

AIDS? Forget about hearing half the words, Hokee was making up Sledge's part of the conversation, or having a nice chat with the drug bunnies hopping around in his circulatory system. Just how long until the meds took the edge off the pain and granted him a window of opportunity before Hokee's body let him know the extent of the damage. "You do not 'ave AIDS." What you do have is a brain of bricks, thought Sledge, though he kept that to himself. If the only thing that Hokee had gotten out of the conversation thus far was contracting a horrible disease, being told that his skull was filled with a construction material would result in something even more obtuse. Bricks for brains? He had gone through an unnecessary surgery that would gradually replace his innards with various bits and bobs so that he could be cloned.

"Can you focus for just one minute?" Kaitlyn should have warned him that you should never make plans the days you stop by Alister. His hot date was going to have to wait for another day, if he could convince her to give it one more go. If Hokee couldn't clear his mind up long enough for David to deliver the message the whole evening might as well go to pot. If he could just stay awake and semi intelligent for three, four minutes the Brit would be fine with that. "World, going to end. You, healthy."

Dear lord now he was talking like an unevolved neanderthal. Given the state of his companion David should probably stick to words with two syllables or less, forget all the conjunctions, proper nouns, pronouns, adverbs... Slaughter the Queen's English and start grunting. Either that or start to babble utter nonsense and hope that it translated into actual words to the teen. Yes Hokee was under the influence of some unknown (to Sledge) drug that made his mind about as useful as a lint roller in a flood, but you would think the mention of an apocalypse would garner some attention. "Unicorn destroy world. You help."

He didn't have AIDS, well that was good news to hear. Good thing too, having that would make it even harder to get a chick. This couldn't be so bad, wait, was it bad? So confusing, this whole thing honestly. There was bad news, but it wasn't him having an incurable disease...what in the world was it? He didn't loose a dread did he? That would be worse then AIDS. His hair was very important to him, it gave him attitude, character, chicks loved it, plus he had grown very attached to each one. One day he would name them all after a woman he had a relationship with, but not quite yet.

Focus. Was he a camera now? This was who he was for the time being, a bit scattered between the ears and lacking the cognitive skills of someone his age.This wasn't his fault, nope not at all. With the gurney rolling down the hallway, it was very difficult to focus on anything. The world just kept moving, he couldn't help that concept at all. Or did the guy want him to think of the chick and chips again. No that wasn't it, it had to be something else, something that was more important. Yes, not having AIDS that had to be it.

Wait. He was healthy? Damn, if he was healthy then he didn't have to be rolling about inside a hospital on his back. Taking this as cue to get up, the teen tried doing just that. His efforts were sloppy and looked more like he was intoxicated then sober. "Lets go party!" Not having AIDS and being healthy definitely called for a party. Who he'd invite was a problem he could deal with later. Single girls though had to be on the guest list, lots of them too. "Huh?"

Either he was really doped up on pain medication or he was hearing things, but the two couldn't be far apart from the other. Is this guy just seriously say he was going to help save the world from a unicorn? With a laugh, the body vibrated in humor. Since when were unicorns alive, or more importantly when did they turn all destroy the whole world? He must have hit his head hard at some point in time, because no matter how much he tried, things just didn't make much sense of anything. "I stop for unicorns?" He didn't remember seeing one in the accident before things went dark for him. he wasn't exactly sticking around for much of anything. "Stop the unicorns."

In attempting to make it clear to Hokee that he did not, indeed, have AIDS, Sledge had implanted the notion that Hokee was fit enough to get up and about the hospital. Whatever pain pills they had used it must have been pretty powerful. "Git down you twit," Sledge scolded Hokee, putting some pressure on the teen's chest to push him down, "Said you were healthy, not well." It would seem that not only did he have to avoid any large words, Sledge would have to analyze every single word to make sure that it wouldn't be mistaken for something else.

At least the word unicorn managed to penetrate the teen's skull, which was as thick as several encyclopedias, though retaining significantly less knowledge. Now he just needed repetition until the entire picture was playing on the screen behind Hokee's eyes. "Yes, a unicorn. Unicorn is bad." That couldn't be complicated by delusions. Few syllables, fewer words. The gurney was pushed towards an elevator where they paused and waited for the lift. Sledge eyed Hokee carefully. Without the movement of the gurney the teen might try to climb his way to wobbly freedom. A patient on a gurney wasn't an uncommon sight, but a patient who clearly needed medical attention stumbling and bumbling their way about was.

"Don't ask me how, but the unicorn is very bad. Very, very, very bad." It sounded like a load of rubbish, an early childhood nightmare. Nothing that he believed in, but none the less had to accept. Although he could not understand how one of the most pure and good creatures in all of mythology could bring about the end of everything, Sledge could not argue against Alister's skills. At first he was able to brush off his meeting with Kaitlyn as pure coincidence, but upon his first meeting with the boy, Sledge had to accept that there was some truth to the concept of a future seeing psychic, and that Alister knew his business.

"You stop unicorn," he said, speaking very slowly, staring right at the dreadlocked head. Wasn't there some sort of witty telly line that he could use to relate? "Stop unicorn, save world." Well, if nothing else at least he was making the cause of disaster clear. Whether Hokee understood that the world was potentially in danger was still undetermined.

Twit? What was a twit? This guy really made no sense at all to him, but he could understand when pressure was put on his already sore body that he needed to lay back down. It was a good thing he really didn't have AIDS, or he might have turned into a prune or something. Wait...that wasn't what AIDS was. Why was he thinking about prunes? This was just to hard to even understand his own thinking let alone trying to decipher what was going on exactly.

"Stop unicorns.....stop...." Was there a unicorn in the hospital right now? Was he going to be going under the knife or horn of a unicorn now? Couldn't this guy just give him a straight answer instead of talking so strangely. With the way the nurse was talking, he could swear he went back in time like 400 years or something and this guy was Christopher Columbus or something along those lines. He couldn't tell for sure about dates, history wasn't exactly something he paid much attention to.

Saving the world. This had to be a joke, of all people in the whole planet, he had to be last on the list of people who would go and save anything. Save himself was more of his motto, though avoiding a direct head-on collision with the other car in a way did save Chases' life. "How do I?" This just was a real muddled mess. Stopping unicorns and saving the world, was this a dream right now? Maybe he could get a really cool car out of it. Like a plow truck but in the shape of a car and then he could just run over unicorns like they were deer crossing the street. But having a plow on the front of his car would prevent damage. That had to be it...right? "Save world from ponies......save....." The squinted eyes struggled to stay awake at this point. "....candy mountain Charlie.....candy.....mountain."

Progress at last. Hokee did indeed get that the unicorn was to be stopped. Word by slow word the message was getting across. Why he even managed to get that the unicorn was the end of the world. Slightly though. Pony was close to unicorn, just lacking the horn and the powers. Also there was only one unicorn, not multiple ones. He was so close to getting Hokee to understand. Repeat repeat repeat and eventually the teen wasn't going to be so clueless.

Repetition didn't clear up a mind though. Sledge had no exposure to the internet unicorn cartoons, and thus thought that Hokee was speaking nonsense again. Even if he had gotten the reference it wouldn't have made sense. It wasn't Charlie the unicorn that was evil, it was those two unicorns that tormented Charlie that were malevolent. "Candy mountain?" he asked. All he could think of was that little kids game. It was one of those places that you passed by wasn't it? Or maybe it was that song that kids sang in primary school, the one about the streams of lemonade. Suggestive of something else, and if he remembered right, it actually was talking about alcohol.

"No, no candy mountain." Honestly this was worse than trying to talk to a three year old. This was yet another reason to avoid the drug ring. You get people who have the combined intelligence of a house plant. Remembering what happened earlier when Hokee mentioned french fries Sledge amended himself. "This has nothing to do with food or treats of any sort. Don't doze off, or you'll miss everything."

There wasn't a Candy Mountain? This was horrible news? Where would he find a unicorn now, they lived at Candy Mountain. Or was it under the sea? No, it had to be the mountain because sea horses lived in the water and there was no such thing as a seanicorn....sea unicorn? There had to be a name for an under water unicorn. His eyes closed completely as his mind drifted in a strange pattern of series of events.

Sleeping seemed to be something this nurse was against completely, which was a total bummer because it was the only thing he really honestly wanted to do right now. He couldn't help it, this was just a side effect of the condition he was in, along with the medication. The body naturally tries to heal itself by sleeping and such, asking...well telling him to stay awake right now was defying the natural flow of things. "Can't sleep, unicorn destroy world."

Red Bull IV? This was the only way on earth he was going to stay awake. The nurse had to give him some slack. Wait, if he was going into surgery, didn't he need to be put under in the end. No, he had to stay awake, but he had to sleep. Awake, asleep...either way he would be defying the orders of someone, which was cool but it also meant he had to follow the demands of another. Where was option 'c' when he needed it. "Where is it?" The squinted eyes struggled to stay open. The Elevator music was not helping in the slightest right now, smooth Jazz just called out a lullaby for an angst ridden teen.

"Right," Sledge said, feeling a slight flush of glee. He had never been in a position to teach really before. Yes he corrected his littlest blackmailer, but that was because the girl did bodge jobs with everything. If he didn't teach her how to lie properly it reflected poorly on his skills, and if she didn't learn how to eat with her mouth close he was going to have to tape her trap shut for some peace of mind. This wasn't a learning experience for the teen in the educational way, but Sledge still felt as though he had just taught Hokee some brilliant, centuries old knowledge. It might just be more drug induced rambling, actually that was very likely, but Hokee had just said the core of the message. "Don't sleep or the unicorn destroys the world"

By "Where is it?" Sledge assumed that Hokee meant the enemy. Nothing else had been a subject recently. Had it been something that was on Hokee's mind how was the con man to know or adjust the recruitment speech. "The unicorn?" he asked, then immediately continued on as though the question had no value, "It's not me place to keep track on 'im. I'm of a different type of intelligence." There were things that Alister had wanted of Bradford's criminal that were best kept on the down low, information to gather that didn't directly relate to the horned horse-man of the apocalypse.

The lift halted on a floor and Sledge rolled the gurney out. Hospitals might be a complex structure but he had a good head for direction, not often finding himself lost. In any case if you do not care where you are going, can you be lost? This journey through the hospital halls was just wasting time. Hokee was needed, but in the condition that he was in the only good he would serve was as a sort of meat shield. There would be work for him, but only once he did not need the medication. "Once you're on your feet again you'll 'ave to get your marching orders from Ali." It was not his place to question what Hokee could do.

An unknown whereabouts for a mythical creature. That was lovely, so lovely he could take a nice nap on that matter. The teen's eyes fluttered one more time before closing completely. Saving the world could wait until after he got a bit of sleep, right? Not like he could do much from where he was right now. This was just how things ended up in a hospital, take a nice blow in a car accident, sleep in a wonderful world of delusion then wake up to a unicorn taking over the world. Odd movie to watch but there weren't many options with the hospital televisions.

"Two apple pies save the world." Good dreams and movies could go with good food. This whole unicorn thing was just a TV program he was hearing from his travels, right? Wiggling a little under the thin blanket, Hokee attempted to get more comfortable. That was easier thought of then done. It was like his whole body was a giant bruise or something. What happened to him? Wait.....car crash and Chase.

"And fries." The words mumbled from his lips. With his eyes closed, he could see himself driving through the drive thru of a Mcdonalds but at the same time he could see himself in the back seat of his car rummaging about for something or another. Nothing new for him, living out of his car was the newest craze. Freedom, go where he wanted when he wanted and who cared if you changed your socks every day or not. His house, his rules, his Mcdonalds. "Don't sleep with unicorns...." His voice trailed off.

Apple pies? Was that some sort of American slang that he had never heard of? David had heard that things were as American as apple pie. With Hokee having been able to understand the words at last Sledge thought that this might have been some bit of insight to the teen, a window into the unmedicated mind. Perhaps apple pie meant the two of them. But wait, that was more of a slang term for women, at least it was across the pond. He knew that over here pissed meant angry, not drunk.

Then the French fries returned. Had Hokee not actually heard anything before that would make the little bit of sense that he had made nothing more than a parrot like mimic. If that were the case than Sledge was the fool who believed the bird could talk. “Already said no to the fries,” Sledge offered as a reminder. His pride was stinging. Was the daftie only capable of thinking with his stomach? Surely in such a condition food would be the farthest from his mind. “Keep eating them and you’ll swell up into a lard arse.”

Not that he really was one to talk. Until Kaitlyn had recruited him David had been on a diet comprised entirely of fried fast food and what you could microwave at the 7-11. His innards had rebelled against him, wanting actual food and not something with barely more nutritional value than the packaging that it came in. Now that he had access to an actual kitchen it would make sense to cook frequently. It wasn’t as though David was lazy. More along the lines of being able to cook only a few edible things. Some habits are just bad for you, but you do them even with that knowledge. Sleeping with a unicorn probably was bad, and the con man chuckled. “Don’t play leapfrog with them either,” he offered as advice to the morphine fueled lump.

No fries? This was abuse! One could not live life on apple pies alone, you had to have fries with them. To dip into the warm goop between the perfectly crusted edges. It was good, just like dipping Wendy fries into a frosty. Just fries in general were good, so not having them was depriving one from greatness. Unicorns must not eat fries. That was it, to save the world he needed to feed the unicorn french fries and then they could-- "Leapfrog?" What did frogs have to do with apple pies for french fries?

"No frog legs, french fries." Did people with that funny accent eat frogs or something? Sure he would eat a lot of things himself, but he hadn't had frog legs yet. He had flung a frog on a see-saw, spun them off a merry-go-round and even had one take a flying shoot ride down a slide, but yet he never actually ate a frog. After he got out of the hospital, maybe he'd find a way to fry a frog, but for now french fries were higher on his list of things to eat.

Did unicorns eat frogs? Did they leap for them? What in the world was leap frog and why would he not want to do that with a unicorn. Did they shoot sleeping powder out of their butts or something? He obviously didn't know much about unicorns, this guy however did. Now if he could only stay awake enough to ask about them. Trying to sit up again, his legs limply dragged towards the side. Though the movements shot an indescribably pain up his back. "Unicorn." Muttering curses, his body dropped back down into the gurney again. "You save the unicorn from frogs...."