West of Mars -- the Meet and Greet

"I just don't get it," Eric said. "I've done this for years. Why's it a problem now?"

"Because we're ShapeShifter," Mitchell said with a small shrug, like it was no big deal. But it was.

"We were ShapeShifter before yesterday! What changed?"

Now Mitchell sighed. "The number of records we've sold, the number of people who come to see us every night, the security staff, the type of hotel we stay in… do I really need to keep going?"

"It's called success, wanker," Trevor said, leaning around Mitchell so Eric could see his face.

Eric was privately glad when Mitchell gave the bass player a shove back into place. He understood it, and Mitchell knew that. Lord knew, they'd had these talks often enough. They were starting to be routine -- until the reason for today's talk. There was nothing routine about this, about what had happened.

Worst of all, their manager said if they didn't start being more careful, there would be more of them. They were lucky this was the first time.

He shook his head again. "I just don't get it."

Trevor sighed loudly. "What you don't get," he said, standing up so he could pose and vogue, "is why the band's in trouble over something you did. You're the good one, the one who never creates waves. So now that some chick's pissed that you threw candy into the crowd when she was busy begging her boyfriend to suck her face or something so she wasn't watching you and took one of your stupid candied eggs to the face and now she's making noise about suing us, you're pretending it doesn't make sense. What doesn't make sense is why no one's bothered to see how bad the girl's hurt--"

"JR told us not to try to contact her," Daniel said quickly. "Because she's got her lawyer involved."

"We still ought to know," Trevor insisted. "Did a corner of the wrapper put her eye out? Does she have a bruise she could have gotten when some crowd surfer dropped his foot? Did the stupid chocolate egg make her swallow her own tooth?"

"I don't throw that hard!"

"Maybe you should have," Trevor spit at him.

Mitchell growled. Trevor sat down.

Eric tried to understand what that had been about. It made about as much sense as this girl, who was having a tantrum about being hit in the eye by one of the chocolate Easter eggs he'd thrown into the crowd. He'd been throwing Easter candy for years. He'd done interviews about it. Every single ShapeShifter fan out there knew that for a few shows before Easter, Eric threw chocolate eggs. That was just one of the things ShapeShifter did.

And now this girl, who had been there only to make her boyfriend happy, was having a hissy fit. Trevor was right: she hadn't been watching the band.

"Hey," he said suddenly, "what about that bit about 'Enter at your own risk' that's on the back of every ticket? Is that still there?"

He was met by three dumb looks.

"I'll call JR and ask," Mitchell said after a painfully long minute of silence. "You might be onto something."

"A ticket," Daniel said. "Shit, I'd forgotten all about those things, it's been so long since we've needed them."

"That's because we're ShapeShifter," Trevor said. He tapped a cigarette on its box. "I told you idiots I'd make this band big."

"Yep," Mitchell said, standing up and heading for the hotel phone. "It's all because of you, Trev."

"I hope this doesn't mean the end of my eggs," Eric said.

"It does," Mitchell said. He paused and put the phone down. "Look, it sucks, but is it such a shitty thing to have to give up? Think about it, Eric. Can you give up the eggs if we're getting all this other stuff in return?"

This conversation, too, was starting to have hints of déjà vu to it. They were having to give up going in the front doors of hotels, of being able to move around without a bodyguard shadowing them. Every time someone complained, that was the answer: all this other stuff in return. Our dreams, they're coming true. It's worth it.

They were only chocolate eggs. But that didn't mean he was ready to give them up.



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Labels: creative writing, Daniel, Eric, fiction, Mitchell, outtake, ShapeShifter, touring, Trevor