burning_smile | (no subject)

It took him about seven minutes, through traffic, but he pulled into the parking lot while he was still on the phone with Dirk. For the most part he had been quiet, making occasional affirmative or negative grunts in response because he couldn't quite conjure the brain power for verbal replies. He sat in the car with it in park when he came to a stop, staring blankly ahead of him without really seeing anything.

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He turned slowly, reaching over to pick his phone up and hang it up, unbuckling his seatbelt as he did so. He opened the door and slid out of the car in a confused sort of daze, and then everything sped back up and a spike of abrupt heat left him turning away from Dirk to double over against the back door of the Jeep and retch. He hadn't eaten, so that was all that came of it, but it still brought tears to the corners of his eyes and a pain to accompany the strange seeping numbness of the rest of him.

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He leaned on the car for a handful of seconds after his fit was through, glasses smashed into his face from where he'd pressed it into his arm resting against the bottom of the window. He appreciated Dirk's hand, the way it grounded him, and stood up straight a moment later. He turned to face Dirk but didn't look at him immediately, pale and shaking and entirely not himself. He'd honestly never been so scared in his life.

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He exhaled, sagging into Dirk's embrace and slowly bringing his arms up to encircle the other's shoulders, dropping his head onto the Strider's shoulder. He couldn't find words, still, but the way he very nearly collapsed into Dirk's arms probably spoke enough of his thankfulness for it.

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When Dirk spoke up Jake finally stood up again and nodded, surprisingly dry-eyed despite his fear. He sighed, a little, and nodded.

"Sorry-- do you mind driving?" He sounded so small.

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He circled around the Jeep slowly, climbing in and buckling himself on complete auto-pilot. He muttered a nigh-silent thanks, and leaned against the window, once again staring ahead but not really looking at anything.

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Dirk had always moved faster than Jake, so as he sat away from the window to unbuckle his seatbelt, gripped in a cold, numbing fear, the blonde had opened the door for him. The expression on his face didn't quite make it to smile-tier, but it tried, and he slid out of the passenger's seat carefully, immediately going for Dirk's hand.

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He shook and sort of wobbled as he walked, and when they got to the front desk the nurse started pulling out paperwork like she intended to admit him to the hospital.

"Jade Harley-English," Jake said, setting his hand on the counter and fidgeting with a pen there. "I'm here to see Jade Harley-English." The nurse behind the desk paused, looked up at him, and nodded, picking up on the subtle differences between actual illness and sick-with-worry. She looked through a file, looked at the computer.

"And who are you?" She asked, looking back to both of them.

"I'm her grandson," he said, leaning into Dirk while he fished his wallet out of his back pocket. "Jake English. This is my best friend and probably the only reason I'm still standing." And here in the first place, because he so would not have made it to the hospital on his own. He squeezed Dirk's hand feebly, holding his wallet out for the nurse to see his ID. She nodded, and gave them a room number on the second floor. They could both go see her, which Jake assumed meant she was at least okay enough for visitors.

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He was actually hyperventilating a little bit by the time they got to the elevator. He pressed the button for 2 and leaned backward against the wall, his grip on Dirk's hand slipping a little. He'd never been good at dealing with hospitals, despite how many times he'd been in them as a child from getting a little too banged around for his own good. He kept his eyes closed as they ascended to the second floor.

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The elevator dinging to announce their arrival worked sort of like an alarm for Jake. He lifted his head and looked up at Dirk and the world sort of settled back into its proper time-passage, not slowed down in his terror or sped-up in his nerves. He inhaled, and closed his eyes for a moment, squeezing Dirk's fingers and following him out of the elevator.

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He hadn't remembered the number, actually. So he fumbled for a moment in thought until Dirk lead them to a room, and upon seeing the number on the plaque beside the door he remembered it, and blinked at Dirk. Oh. He leaned into the Strider's one-armed embrace for a moment, tipping his head against Dirk's.

"Thanks," he said, squeezing Dirk's hand. He reached out with the other to push open the door, steeling himself for whatever condition Jade was in.

Unsurprisingly, given she was Jade motherfucking Harley-English, she was mostly in a put-off condition. She had a good amount of bandaging wrapped around her head, an IV in her arm, and one leg was partially elevated with a cast around the opposite ankle. But she was sitting up, propped against a small mound of pillows, and the heart monitor to her left was steady as she goes. She looked to the door when it opened and her irritated expression, previously directed at an unsuspecting nurse, washed away into a smile.

"Jake," she said, apology in her tone. "I hope they didn't pull you out of class to come here, I told them I'd be fine and I'd call you myself. They wouldn't give me my phone." She passed another grumpy look to the nurse, who passed a few awkward glances between Jake and Dirk standing in the doorway and Jade still huffing on the bed. Jade smiled again, looking past Jake. "And thank you for escorting him, Dirk, I'm sure he was a bit of a mess."

Jake was sort of caught between a collection of reactions, but he came closest to crying. He laughed, faintly, squeezing Dirk's hand so hard his hand shook before he let go and stepped over to Jade when she raised the hand that wasn't attached to an IV toward both of them.

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"I can imagine," Jade conceded, reaching out to hopefully take hold of one of Dirk's hands when he got close enough. He may not have been much for affection, but Jade had as good as adopted him as her own, at this point. And he was not getting away without at least minor contact from her. In the meantime, she turned her other hand over on the bed, wiggling her fingers at Jake in a beckoning gesture. He bit his lip and sank into a chair beside her bed, taking her hand and folding over it to set his forehead against her hip.

"You scared me," he said. She tutted.

"That's why I told them to let me call you myself, I knew they were going to freak you out." She turned to Dirk. "Did he make himself sick?" Back to Jake. "You didn't make yourself sick over me, did you?"

Jake actually laughed a bit at that.

"I definitely tried."

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Dirk was taking wonderful care of her grandson, and he was a brilliant, attractive young gentleman to boot. She was endlessly glad that Jake had finally found someone to be close with, their perpetual insistence that they weren't together be damned.

"Well, good. You probably would have thrown up on Dirk's shoes, and that's rude treatment of your chauffeur." She chortled a bit, and Jake just shook his head.

"What happened, though?" He ran his fingers along the back of her hand, and Jade's irritated expression returned.

"People don't know how to drive. The Space Mobile is probably totaled, and I've got a broken ankle to show for it." Jake just sort of sighed again, nodding. He was just glad she was all right, really.

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