“Tell me why- ain’t nothin’ but a heartbreak-” “Queer,” someone in the hallway suddenly shouts. The younger Jonathan takes off his headphones and looks around for the suspect. A boy with long blond hair walks past him, “Why do fat people always listen to gay music?” He scoffs and rides away on his shitty skateboard. Jonathan rolls his blue eyes and continues jamming out, this time to NSYNC. To this day Justin Timberlake is still his hero.

“Delirious! Delirious! If we get out of here alive will you kiss me?” Vanoss shouts as he runs away from the scary monster chasing him. “What?!” Ohm questions and then laughs. Delirious’s face goes bright red, “Uh, what?” The clown has become very silent. They ignore it, just like every other little flirty comment the guys make to each other sometimes.

Suddenly Delirious is sprinting to the opening, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he mumbles over and over again. He finally runs through the opening and laughs, “Yes! Yes! We made it! We fuckin’ made it!” They made it, but Delirious can’t physically kiss Vanoss. Suddenly Jonathan thinks of them actually kissing, that’d be absurd. Delirious is too ugly to kiss a pretty set of lips like that.

“So what’s next?” The same owl questions. Delirious looks at his friend on the computer screen. He then looks at his clock and curses, “I actually have to go guys. See ya!” The clown quickly logs off of his computer and gets dressed for work. Yes, work. You’d think YouTube would do the job for him, but it unfortunately wasn’t. Jonathan curses as he slips on his black pants. He slips on a white shirt and a black vest over it. He hates the way it looks on him, but he has to wear it, or else he’d lose the job.

He hops into his blue jeep and drives to work in a rush.

He disobeys some traffic laws.

Music is blaring in his jeep as he gets ready for the blow from his boss, because he’s late; again. He’s now 20 minutes late for his first shift. “Fuck it,” the clown grumbles in his car and drives through the intersection, but he didn’t do it just because he’s late to work; other thoughts were in that delirious mind when he drives through that red traffic light. Suddenly, a huge truck horn is heard in the distance as Delirious’s blue jeep turns into jello.

The red cased phone vibrates in the pocket of the one and only, CaRtOoNz. “Wait guys, I gotta phone call,” he speaks to the few friends of his playing Rainbow Siege with him. He whips out the phone and slides the answer button.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Luke Patterson?”

“Yes, this is him. May I ask who's calling?”

“NC Medical. You’re a first contact for Jonathan Dennis correct?”

“I guess, why? What’s wrong?” Luke now stands up from his gaming chair and rubs his beard. The nurse heavily sighs, “Your friend has been in a serious car accident.”

“I’m on my way,” CaRtOoNz answers and sprints out of his home leaving his friends online.

“So what happened?” Luke asks the nurse at the front desk; breathless. She clears her throat and asks Luke to follow her.

“So ran through a traffic light and a 18 wheeler hit him. A truck vs. an 2004 jeep isn’t a fair fight.”

“Oh my god.”

“Jonathan was knocked out as soon as the truck came into contact with the jeep. He has a major concussion; the doctor will explain that later.”

Luke nods.

“He has been out of surgery for 15 minutes now.”

“Really? Why was he in surgery?”

“To remove all the debri from his body. He was nearly impaled all the way through. His lucky to have survived this.”

The brown eyes look to the nurse in understanding, “So, has he woken up at all since he was brought to the hospital?”

“No, I’m afraid not. I’m sorry. We called you, because maybe all he needs it a close friend with him.” The nurse sadly smiles and gestures Luke to walk into the room of Jonathan’s.

CaRtOoNz opens the door to his broken friend. The left side of his head was bruised, a long scar ran down his neck and probably even further down the poor man’s body. Scars crawl all over his left arm, down until his elbow where a blue cast starts. Luke grabs his friend’s hand, “What the fuck were you doing out there man?” He sits with Jonathan for the rest of the day, occasionally using the restroom and eating.

In the morning Luke wakes up to the ringing of his phone. The contact says Vanoss, “What the fuck? Oh…” He slides to accept the call.

“Hey Evan, what’s up?”

“Holy fuck, you sound tired.”

Luke laughs, “Yeah sorry about that, I’m-”

“You’re what?”

“I’m at the hospital,” Luke bites his lip, knowing Delirious doesn’t like it when he tells the guys stuff about him without his consent.

“Why are you at the hospital?” Evan panics, something Luke has never heard before. Not a “panic in a video game” kinda thing, but a “holy shit someone’s in danger” kind of panic.  

“Evan, if I tell you, you can’t tell anyone else. Especially the guys online. You also can’t flip your shit about this.”

“Just… tell me why.”

“Fine, it’s Delirious.”

“WHAT?”

“Evan!” Luke whisper-yells into the phone.

“Sorry, sorry. Why? What happened? Is he okay? He’s not dead is he-?”

“Evan, calm your titties boy. He’s… not dead. He just has a major concussion and lots of stitches.”

“Oh thank God-”

“But Evan, he hasn’t woken up since he’s gotten here.”

“I’m going.”

“What?”

“I’m coming down.”

“What? To North Carolina? To Delirious?!”

“Yes! I want to make sure he’s okay physically, and mentally. He kinda sounded different when we were talking like the second to last time we played together.”  

“What do you mean?” Luke wanders outside of Delirious’s hospital room and into the hallway. Evan clears his throat over the phone and thinks back to their conversation before their game of GMOD, “Well, I asked him what he did earlier that morning and he just got really quiet and didn’t say anything to me. Then he asked me if I worked out everyday.”

Luke peeks in at Delirious and understands his questioning. The man didn’t like the way he looked, how much he weighed, but he loved everyone no matter what; except himself.

“Evan, I know why he acted like that, but I think you coming down here without him knowing would make him worse, mentally.”

“But, I’m one of his friends.”

“I know that, he knows that, but…”

“What?”

“I really wish I could just tell you.”

“Tell me what? CaRtOoNz?”

“Why he acts this way around most of the guys.”

“Tell me why CaRtOoNz, or I’ll figure it out myself.”

“Evan, you’ll only make it worse. I’m sorry.”

The line goes quiet for a little bit before Vanoss finally speaks.

“I just… really want to see him.”

“Evan...Evan just try calling him first. Once he’s up of course.”

“Trust me, he’s going to have multiple voicemails on his phone.” They both laugh at the owl’s comment. Evan sighs over the phone once again, “Luke?”

“Yeah?”

“Could you at least talk to him about me coming down to see him?”

“I will.”

“And Luke?”

“Yup?”

“Tell him I miss him and I hope he gets better real soon.”

Luke smiles at this, “I will Evan.”

“Thank you man. Bye.”

“Bye.” Luke hangs up and then smiles at the generous Evan. “If only the damn clown could realize that his weight doesn’t matter.”

Oh CaRtOoNz it’s not that easy.

The bearded man returns to the room and sits with his friend once again.

“Evan called,” Luke states out loud, hoping his friend could hear. CaRtOoNz knows that as soon as Delirious would hear those two words a goofy smile would crawl across his face.

***