Chapter Text
The thing that really grinds Jake's gears, that gets his goat, that drives him absolutely guano, is that as far as he can see, he's done everything right.
Look at him six months ago! A respectable marketing job, a fiancee, a little house in the suburbs, hosting dinner parties for their friends. No sprogs, but it was early days still.
While not perfect, he doesn’t think he’d been a cad to Jane. He’d always remembered birthdays, anniversaries, and important holidays. True, he liked to spend time in his man-den, but that’s what it was for, was it not? Right in the name: a den for men. Nothing unusual about a gent liking his own space to do as he pleases.
As for his former employers, he likes to think he gave them good value for money. Admittedly, he wasn’t very good about returning emails – or phone calls, or most other communications – but when he was with clients, he was charming and capable and he could bring in new accounts like a whaler with a harpoon gun.
But Jane sat him down and said she didn’t think they were right for each other, which was code for I don’t like you and don’t want to see you again. His employer said that they were cutting back, which meant the same thing in corporate-talk.
Jake still had the house, man-den and all, but when he thought of spilling his woes to one of their many friends he came to the unfortunate realization that they all were Jane’s friends to start and no doubt liked her better, and he didn’t care to speak to any of them anyway.
Look at him today.
Today, he is sitting in said man-den, sipping soda and killing low-life mooks in Amazon Explorer. He is having a reasonably good time, and then his gaming buddy decides to go for his life.
gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering golgothasTerror [GT]
GG: so um
GG: you've been around a lot when I'm online
GG: and trust me, I'm glad to have you around!
GG: but I'm taking a look at your stats.
GG: Jake, you've been playing this game for the last week pretty much straight.
GT: tish tosh!
GG: see? you even sound like this stupid game.
GT: nonsense! this is my signature loveable verbiage.
GT: i couldnt possibly have been playing for that long, haha
GT: i do sleep you know
GG: I'll admit that you spent about six hours a day outside the game
GG: even if all you do is literally sleep, that's um. concerning.
GG: when's the last time you went outside?
Jake sets his status to invisible.
GG: I can still see you playing, you know.
Jake shuts pesterchum down with extreme prejudice.
If he’s been playing a while, so what? He enjoys it and it’s not like he’s doing anyone any harm. Not like there’s anything pressing he’s neglecting.
Admittedly, he should ideally be hunting for a job. But he’s not hurting for money, and he’s so tired. Maybe he should sleep more. Yes, that’s the ticket. Maybe he’ll go and have a kip right now!
The people facing Jake are cheering.
You’d think that would be enjoyable. It would be! The trouble is that Jake is inside a glass box and the sides are slowly closing in on him, like a transparent trash compactor.
“We love you!” someone screams.
Jake could scream, himself. He desperately tries to find a way out. He pounds his fists against the glass. The crowd goes wild. One of them waves an “I <3 Jake English” sign.
Can they not hear him? Do they not care? Jake screams himself hoarse, begs to be let out, met only with cheers that intensify as the walls loom ever closer.
Jake opens his eyes, and is strongly reminded of why he hasn’t liked naps much lately.
To make matters worse, Jade’s hints that Jake should do stuff other than game are continuing in an insistent manner. Worser and worser, she is backing up her suggestions with hard data such as, “Did you know most people don’t report constant fatigue across all hours of the day?” or “Generally speaking, if you can’t leave your house for long enough to retrieve your mail, there’s a problem.”
Finally, it comes down to this: Jake wakes up, logs into his game account, and receives a message he’s been banned from their guild.
golgothasTerror [GT] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG]:
GT: what in the blistering blazes?
GG: oh so now you’re answering me? nice.
GG: I’m sorry.
GG: I like you. I want to stay friends.
GG: but when I play with you I feel like I’m just helping you get worse.
GG: I can’t tell you what to do.
GG: but I can sure decide what I do!
GT: jade.
GG: text me anytime, I mean it.
Her icon goes gray.
Well, what of it? There are a hundred guilds on the server. Jake will just join another one. He’ll miss playing with Jade, sure, but by no means is she the only person he can play with. He’ll just need to message some guild leaders to consider him.
He’ll do that in a minute. In two minutes.
GT: i dont see why we cant keep playing
GT: im a perfectly cromulent person to play with
GT: just because u have these thrice-damned concerns
She doesn’t answer. He tries to message another guild leader.
When he tries to click on the message button, his hand shakes so much he can’t hit the key.
GT: jade
GT: somethings wrong.
GT: with me.
GT: jade im scared.
GG: hey.
GG: we’ll figure this out. dont worry!
GG: thank you <3
GT: what for?
GG: for trying to get help for my friend.
“This is easier said than done,” he tells Jade a week later over voice chat.
There are noises coming over the line, wind and such. She’s outside, tending to her garden, and the phone with Jake on it is tucked in her pocket. He can’t help but think that’s nice. “What is?” she asks.
“Everything,” Jake says, with emphasis.
So far, Jake has tried and failed to leave the house during the daytime and to apply for jobs online. Both were miserable failures.
“That’s fair,” Jade says. “Maybe you could start smaller?”
“Smaller than leaving my house? What do you suggest I do, send a white dove to find out if there is dry land out there?”
“What about taking care of your house?”
The match-three game Jake is playing is suddenly wonderfully engrossing. “What of it?”
“Don’t you– Bec, stop that!” There is the wind sound again, for a bit, and then Jade returns. “I mean, having a clean house can make me feel all kinds of better, I know that! Unless you’ve been keeping it spotless all along.”
Jake eyes the small mountain of snack packages that has accumulated next to his seat. It’s easier than looking at the rest of the room.
“Or maybe you could try cooking something new,” Jade says blithely.
Jake, whose kitchen has been growing cobwebs for the last three weeks, along with more disgusting things, says, “Sure!” very brightly, and then, “I hear a knock, must dash!”
He hears the beginning of whatever comment Jade is making but he’s not about to pay it any mind.
The sidewalk is full of people, some on foot, some riding bicycles, and it’s all Jake can do to avoid touching them. He moves with slow, careful deliberation.
Behind him, a car beeps, and he nearly jumps out of his skin. It’s enough to shift him into the path of an oncoming child on a tricycle.
“Get out of the way,” someone barks. Jake flinches, but it’s no good: they touch him, shove him, and he falls. His chest cracks like an eggshell and bursts into some disgusting fluid. Jake can see the things climbing out of his torn skin, and that’s when he wakes up.
Alright, bugger this, maybe he does need to clean up a bit.
The problem with this plan, noble as it is, is that Jake has no clue where his cleaning supplies have fucked off to. Is it possible Jane just took them with her and he hadn’t noticed? Surely he’d made use of them before now, right?
Be that as it may, he cannot find them despite searching high, low, and in the middle.
Clearly this is a sign, isn’t it? He’s not meant to clean today. He should do something else, like maybe cook a dish as Jade suggested.
There is no clean cookware in the kitchen: Jake remembers this from rummaging for a clean knife to spread peanut butter on his bread. He’d ended up eating it out of the jar with his fingers. Not like anyone would be around to complain.
Also, his fridge is empty, and the idea of going to the grocery shop is – no. He can’t. Simply can’t do it.
But Jade keeps going on about baby steps, and maybe if Jake had fresh ingredients, he’d be motivated to cook, lest they spoil. Honestly, a fresh new food sounds like just the thing.
An idea occurs, and Jake snatches up his phone. He’s been ordering plenty of pizza recently, and every time he has to scroll past these ads for grocery delivery. That should do the trick, should it not?
“And I haven’t heard a word since,” Jane says.
She and Dirk are sprawled on the couch in her new apartment: small, but tidy and comfortable. Apparently her old house (which Dirk has never seen) went to her ex (likewise).
“Maybe he needs his space,” Dirk theorizes. He’s got a glass of Jane’s good red wine hanging from one hand: honestly he’d prefer soda, but he’d never insult Jane like that.
“That’s possible, I suppose. But none of our other friends has heard from him, either. I asked.” Jane swirls the wine in her own glass. “You must admit that’s concerning.”
“Could be he’s mostly hanging out with his own friends and not the ones you had in common.”
Jane’s eyes are wide behind her glasses. Beautiful, really: if this Jake guy is licking his wounds, Dirk doesn’t know that he can blame him. “Dirk.” She puts her glass down on the table with a delicate clink. “I don’t think he has other friends. I would normally stay out of it, you know I hate to pry,” Dirk knows no such thing but he’ll allow it because Jane is distressed, “but I’m honestly worried he’ll end up eaten by his own cats.”
“Metaphorical cats?” Dirk verifies.
Jane punches him in the shoulder, good-spirited and harder than he is willing to let on. “Yes, Dirk, metaphorical cats.” She sighs. “He was always a bit… off in his own world, I thought. I tried to bring him down to Earth. I suppose I got tired of it in the end, but I still care.”
Jane will not ask him to do anything about this, Dirk knows. She’s just venting. This isn’t a problem he has to solve.
But maybe he can, so how can he not offer? “Do you want me to go check on him?”
The instant relief in Jane’s face tells him he made the right choice. “Oh, would you? I would feel so much better just knowing he was well.”
Dirk shrugs. “Anything for my best girl.” He says it as deadpan as he can, to make up for the cheesiness. It’s ironic cheesiness. Fake stuff. Vegan nut paste with artificial flavoring. Except for how he means it.
The doorbell rings.
It startles Jake so badly that he sweeps a jar off the counter, littering the floor with glass shards and sugar. He has to tiptoe his way to the door, during which time the doorbell rings once more, which distracts Jake into stepping on one of the shards.
Finally, he reaches the door. It takes him another minute to find his keys and open it.
He is greeted by a paper bag full of groceries and an inappropriately handsome man who asks, “Need me to bring those in for you?”
Struck dumb, Jake can only nod and make way as the man picks up the bag and comes inside.
“Where do you want this?” the man asks, looking around the room. Then, in the same tone, he asks, “Are you aware that you’re bleeding?”
“That I– oh blistering buggery.” Jake awkwardly hops up on one leg to get a good view of the injured one. “Sorry, a jar broke, I hadn’t gotten around to cleaning it up yet.”
Jake can normally keep his balance alright, but the floor is slippery with the fuckforsaken sugar, and he slips. He has exactly enough time to consider how embarrassing it would be to break his nose like this when he realizes he’s not falling. He is braced against a warm, living body.
“Sit down before you hurt yourself worse,” the man says, and takes half Jake’s weight on the way to his sofa. There isn’t much of it visible, but the man shoves away dirty laundry and old newspapers to make room for Jake to sit. “Let me have a look.”
Perhaps Jake ought to protest. A rugged explorer can bandage his own boo-boos, thank you very much. But the man’s fingers are long and cool against Jake’s skin, and gadzooks, it has been so awfully long since anyone has touched him, hasn’t it?
So Jake watches with calf eyes as the man opens up his backpack to reveal quite an impressive first aid kit. He asks no further questions, only cleans, disinfects, and bandages the injury.
Then the man stands up. “Right. You need help with any of this?” He gestures around the room.
Delayed mortification sticks in Jake’s craw. “Oh, no, I have it fully under control.”
A hint of movement catches his eyes: a cockroach crawling out from underneath a tower of pizza boxes, and disappearing beneath yet another pile of dirty laundry.
“Right,” the man says. “But maybe a hand wouldn’t hurt. I could take these,” he gestures at the pizza boxes, “to the trash. Make some room around here.”
Oh. Wait. Jake is an idiot. This man delivers groceries; perhaps he’s looking to make an extra buck helping Jake with chores. Nothing wrong with that, is there? It’s practically charitable, to pay someone for those things that Jake could certainly do himself. Eventually. “Would five dollars do the trick?” he blurts.
The man remains motionless. “‘Scuse me?”
Did Jake misunderstand? “You were suggesting to take the trash out for some extra drinking money, weren’t you?” Was his offer too low? Did he insult the man? “Er, I think I have ten dollars around here somewhere, actually…”
The man holds up his hand. “Five is fine.”
Does he sound a bit odd? Jake isn’t sure.
The man takes out his phone. “Actually, tell you what. If you need help getting things done around the house, just call me.”
It’s on the tip of Jake’s tongue to refuse, but that would be downright rude, wouldn’t it? When this man had been nothing but kind. “I might jolly well take you up on that,” he says, and pulls out his own phone. “What name should I put you under?”
The man’s shades reflect the light as he tilts his head. “Dirk.”
Outside Jake’s apartment building, Dirk takes out his phone. He starts composing a message, deletes it, then starts again.
timaeusTestified [TT] has begun pestering gutsyGumshoe [GG]!
TT: Well, he’s alive.