Promise Me The Stars

As Forest sat in an uncomfortable chair painted an off white he concluded that the hospital was bi-polar. He was seated in a small waiting room just off the emergency room where a row of examination rooms were located. All was quiet for the time being besides the small murmur of hospital noises; machines humming, nurses speaking quietly to each other, nurses using louder voices as they talked to patients. A cart was rolled down the hallway, a doctor or nurse had taken off their latex gloves with a sigh and loud snap just outside the waiting room. And every now and then Forest would hear some drama from a very injured person and he would see a few uniformed staff members running past the open door putting on more of those blue latex gloves.

Forest wasn't concerned about his sister anymore, she was well taken care of and her finger tip injuries were nowhere near life threatening. So now he was just bored out of his mind sitting with his legs propped against another seat, his back to the doorway that people were walking past all the time. He was the only one sitting in the room that held stupid magazines and a water cooler in the corner. All the guys were in the room with Hazel, probably joking around and making her laugh like they always seemed to do.

"Stupid pricks taking her from me." Forest started grumbling to himself, he was in a hateful mood at the moment.

"Hey," Forest paused his nearly silent rant and looked to the doorway wanting to slam the door in the face of his father.

"Is it time to go yet?" Forest asked dully turning back to stare at the picture of some stupid abstract drawing that was on the opposite wall. Blues and purples swirled around a day-glo green square that burned his eyes and made a headache pound on his temples. He wondered who in the hell had thought that it was a good painting to put in a hospital where the lights were already bouncing off the shiny floors and putting headaches into peoples brains.

"Not yet. She cut her knees pretty bad and they're digging some rocks out of 'em." Zacky stated taking a seat on a chair just one chair away from him.

"Shouldn't you be in there holding her hand then?" Forest spat, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Maybe, but then who'd be in here?" Forest let his gaze meet Zacky's and for a split second he let his guard down. Let the blank look he had mastered drop from his face for a second and let his soft side show.

"Me," It all went back up and Forest looked away from Zacky, but he had seen it and he couldn't help but smile. Whether he cracked the boy or Forest just wanted to let his non-angry side be seen, Zacky had seen it and he felt...well he felt honored in some way.

Though all the guys had informed him that they had seen a different side of Forest earlier at the house when he had pushed through and went on about honoring his mother somehow. He had learned that Forest intended to get a tattoo and as much as he wanted to deny the kid permission to get the ink done he couldn't get the courage to do it. He loved Forest, he loved Hazel, and back then he had loved Vanessa, the children's mother. If Forest wanted to honor his mother by permanently drawing on his skin, then hell, he would take him to the best tattoo parlor in town to make sure it was done right.

"So Forest, Matt told me you wanted to get a tattoo in honor of your mother?" Zacky asked looking over at Forest as he stared at the wall.

Forest just nodded, never looking away from the walls that had been painted a light tan.

"Care to tell me what you wanted?" Zacky asked.

Forest shrugged, though he knew exactly what he wanted, where he wanted it, how he wanted it, when he wanted it.

"Then are you sure you want it?" Zacky asked.

"I know I want it, I almost need it." Forest finally spoke.

"Well,"

"A birdcage." Forest cut in suddenly. Zacky looked up with a confused look on his face.

"Wh.."

"An empty birdcage with a bird flying away. I want it on my left shoulder and the bird more on my neck. Just a simple silhouette of a bird. I want to get it on the six month anniversary of my mother's death." Forest said.

Zacky stared for a moment, not knowing entirely what a birdcage had to do with anything. So he voiced his question and a light grin broke out on Forest's face.

"When Hazel and I were about fourteen our grandfather died. He was the greatest man alive I swear. He was always talking about how when he died it would be like a bird being set free, he would soar through the endless sky with no worries whatsoever. He would know the feeling of being free, and that's what he lived by. Dying is just a bird being set free from it's cage. My mother believed the same thing and after he died I got this." Forest paused to lift up his shirt and reveal the tattoo he had gotten a week after his grandfather's death.

It was a black feather with birds breaking out of parts of it and flying off.

"Your mother let you get a tattoo?" Zacky asked in disbelief.

Forest couldn't help but snort as he pushed his shirt down, "The only reason she didn't murder me in cold blood is because I got it in memory of her father. She did, however, nearly murder her brother and she ended up giving him the silent treatment for the next month."

"I take it he's the one that took you to get the tattoo?" Zacky asked and Forest nodded with a grin.

"Yeah, great guy, always did random and crazy stuff. Never told us what he did for a living which is weird, something having to do with a club." Forest was mainly talking to himself now as he thought about his Uncle.

"Anyway, birds, i've decided, are the Westfield family crest. So by the time I turn thirty I plan on being covered in birds and feathers and cages like some freak." Forest nodded and rocked his knee back and forth in a nervous tick.

"Maybe some other things though, things to represent other things in my life."

"Oh really?" Zacky laughed lightly and Forest nodded.

"Yeah,"

"So you're just going to get all tattooed up?"

"Why not?"

"Well..."

"Have you looked at yourself or your best friends lately Zacky? They're covered in tattoos."

"That's true but,"

"I'm thirsty, are you thirsty? Because I am. Call me when it's time to go." Forest said standing from the chair and walking quickly out of the room.

Zacky sighed and ran a hand through his hair while resting his arms on his knees.

"You piss Forest off again?" Matt asked as he entered the room and sat in the chair that Forest had previously been sitting in.

"I think so." Zacky said before groaning and rubbing his face harshly, "I just...don't know how to deal with him Matt. He's so fucking stubborn and I think i'm a few steps ahead in our relationship and all of a sudden I find myself ten steps back from where I started."

"Just...give him time I guess. I don't know what to do either since I don't have a kid. I especially don't know what to do with him."

"He still hasn't told me what's wrong with him Matt..." Zacky sighed and let his head fall in his hands.

"Then you have to get him to trust you."

"I'm trying to!" Zacky yelled looking at Matt.

"Well try harder," Matt said clapping his hand on Zacky's shoulder. Zacky turned and glared as Matt grinned.

"I don't mean to sound like such a dick but really man. You're his father, he hates you an extra lot because of that. It's going to take a LONG time, but if you get him to trust you life will be set. You just have to try harder then you're trying right now." Zacky sighed once again and nodded.

"I'll try but it's harder then shit you know."

"Don't worry too much about it, but don't not worry too much about it."

"Thanks for this crappy sounding advice man."

"No problem," Matt smirked and they both stood up to head back into the hospital room where Hazel was.



Forest's aimless roaming ended up getting him lost in the endless hallways of the hospital. His mind was on his newest want for a tattoo and he was already thinking of another one to get. Then after he thought of that one he was thinking of more. Endless ideas for tattoos were flowing through his mind and it was the only thing he could let his mind wander along without some pain or annoyance breaking through. The only thing that broke through was Shadow once again.

"Heya Stan." He said happily as he ran his fingers along the walls.

"Where have you been?" Forest thought as he passed a nurse who smiled at him.

"Eh, you could say I was resting in the depths of that little mind of yours."

"Sounds gross."

"It's squishy."

Forest couldn't help but snort and start laughing at that. A doctor gave him a weird look and thankfully Forest had been looking down at his cell phone at that moment so the doctor didn't exactly think he was insane.

"That's disgusting." He thought, still laughing a bit before he shook his head.

"Hospitals smell like death overlapped with chemicals to try and get rid of the smell of death." Shadow commented as he peered into an open room.

"All I smell is chemicals." Forest thought as he slipped around a corner heading for the cafeteria that signs had been leading him to.

"Well I can smell the death. It's everywhere." Shadow sneered as he watched an older doctor, a bit overweight and sweating like a pig, walk past laughing with a nurse that he was sure to grope sometime or another.

"Must suck; smelling death." Forest looked over as Shadow shrugged.

"I'm like this with death Stan," Shadow said crossing his fingers, "You get used to it."

"You're being a shit ton more creepy right now."

Shadow grinned a sinister grin that made Forest's heart skip a beat in fear. That grin just told of trouble and agony to come blasting into his life soon. That grin meant Shadow was doing something when he wasn't following Forest around and that plan was working it's way into production.

"Whatever." Shadow said laughing before he walked ahead and turned a corner. Forest stared down the hallway Shadow had went down and saw nothing but a nurse slipping into a room with a clipboard in her hand.

Sometimes he really scared himself when it came to Shadow. Shadow never told of anything in his 'life' that he did. Nothing really personal anyway and so that left Forest's imagination to work it all out himself. And what he thought of froze the blood in his veins.