Chapter Text
Jake looked around frantically for Jeremy in his crowded house. He scanned through each in every room in his drunken haze. That hooligan had sex with his ex on his PARENT'S bed. He swore that when he got ahold of that dorky brunette, he was gonna rip his balls off. But no matter how hard he searched, he was nowhere to be found. It was actually pretty hard to find anything in the dim lighting.
Jake continued to bump into tables and horny teenagers making out as he went on his search. As he was walking up the stairs, he tripped on a part of his costume. That stupid Prince outfit... He stood back up and recomposed himself. This was no time to be making silly little mistakes like that. He scoured the upstairs rooms perpetually, opening and closing every door. His vision was groggy, and he could barely tell what he was even doing. God, this was the worst Halloween party he'd ever had.
When he opened the upstairs bedroom, a faint scent of smoke filled his nostrils... Was someone cooking downstairs? He constantly reminded people to not use his stove during parties, but they never listened! Jake groaned to himself. But it soon dawned on Jake that the smoke was NOT the result of food. Because after he investigated the guest bedroom he was in, a series of screams echoed through the house.
"EVERYONE! GET OUT!"
"THERE'S A FIRE!
"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIIIIIIEEE!!!"
The blood curdling screams pierced his ears and they all began to overlap with each other. Jake raced over to the staircase and looked over the railing to see what was going on downstairs. Flames were consuming his house by the second. The patter of feet from people rushing out the door filled his eardrums as he began to panic. Shit, shit, shit. He was so caught up in trying to beat up Jeremy that he had no idea what was going on around him. In a sweat, He rushed downstairs. Maybe he could still fix things.
He frantically scanned the downstairs area to make sure everyone got out safely, inhaling an unhealthy amount of smoke in the process. Was there still anyone left inside?...
Jake called out to see if anyone was trapped, but there was no answer. He booked it to his garage and was about to run out the door but that was when he saw a figure in the corner of his eye. Someone was still there, in the midst of all the flames, just lying on the floor. He stepped closer to see who it was.
It was Rich. Unconscious. Half of his face and body were already scorched, but he was still breathing. This was a total nightmare. Without thinking, Jake picked the shorter boy up and slung him over his shoulder. He couldn't just leave his best friend to die. He loved him too much. However, the garage door exit was now engulfed in bright orange flames. Jake managed to get out of there, despite all the heat. If he moved fast enough, he could make it back upstairs and escape from there, but the extra weight on his shoulders made it increasingly difficult. Jake would still pull through. He always did.
The idiot in the Prince costume sped up the stairs and darted into one of the open rooms. The only way out of there was through the window. He quickly made his way to it and pried it open with one hand, keeping Rich steady with the other. His breathing became erratic as beads of sweat rolled down his chin. It wasn't that high, right?... Yeah, no it was definitely pretty high. Everyone beneath them looked like little toy dolls from up there.
He could hear his own heart pounding in his ears. He was seriously doubting himself. Surviving a jump from this height wasn't likely at all. Rich's soft breathing began to fill his ears... Right. He had to do this to save Rich. Where would he be without him, anyway?... So Jake swallowed his fear, lunged out the window, and slid down his roof with Rich still draped over him. He glided down the shingles off his rooftop faster than he could process, and he hit the cold hard grass beneath him. Feet first.
A hard cracking noise echoed the streets of his neighborhood. Momentarily, he could feel himself lose feeling in his legs. Rich was lying beside him, unconscious. It hurt to move, so he just laid there.
A faint ambulance siren blared in the distance before Jake's eyes fluttered shut. Then he passed out completely.
...
It had been a few days since the fire. Jake squinted as the sun shone through the curtains of his hospital room. He tried to get up to walk like he always did, but then he remembered what happened to his legs. They were broken.
He sighed and slumped back into his bed. Everything had gone to shit ever since the fire. His hospital bed was too small, so his legs were dangling over the edge, the blanket was too short and didn't cover enough of him, the bandages on his legs tugged on his legs uncomfortably, and the food was slop... He just wished that things would go back to the way things were before.
Jake shut his eyes and reminisced. Thoughts of laughter and stupid jokes that he used to make with Rich and his friends flooded his head. That was when everything was perfect. But he couldn't even enjoy that thought when he knew that he and Rich weren't friends anymore. The harsh reality of everything fell on him like a ton of bricks.
What was he gonna do when he got back to school? He certainly couldn't do sports with these fucked up legs of his. He didn't journal enough to actually be GOOD at it. Everyone would ridicule him. He was useless now. The last thing that Jake wanted was to end up like his parents: sad and hopeless. But what other choice did he have? He knew that all of his friends would ditch him now that he was no longer a football star. Nobody wanted to be around a loser like him.
He groaned to himself. This was all Rich's fault. The name that used to bring him so much joy now left a sour feeling in his mouth. What kind of friend burns your house down? Jake got progressively more upset the more he thought about the situation. All of the things he was gonna shout at Rich the moment he saw him bubbled in his head.
Whenever he would check his phone for comfort, all of his social medias would be flooded with news of the fire. An absurd of rumors were spread about it. People suggested that Rich fled the country, set the fire because he realized that he was gay, or that he was full-on DEAD. But obviously Jake didn't believe that because Rich was in the hospital room next to him. He saw Rich getting led into it at the same time as him.
Jake was about to go back to sleep, already getting into a comfortable position before an ear-grating voice spoke up.
"Yooo, you gotta check this out! Someone recorded a video of the fire!" said Dustin Kropp from across the room holding his phone up. Jake had the misfortune of sharing a space with him. Dustin stared at Jake curiously when he didn't reply. "You okay? You haven't spoken a word to me since we got here."
Jake let out a grunt and sat back up, staring straight at Dustin. "Well, sorry if I'm not in the mood for talking. My best friend just burnt down my house and I didn't find out until afterwards," he spat, rolling his eyes. But he didn't have the energy to be mad at anyone today. It all seemed to fade into a melancholy feeling. "It all just happened so fast, man..."
Dustin set his phone down and gave Jake a sympathetic smile. "I'm sure that Rich didn't mean to. I mean, you guys were so close. He wouldn't do that to you, right?"
"Dustin, you can't burn down someone's house on accident. And according to YOU, he was fully sober."
"Ahhh, well it might've been a dare. You never know. We've made a lot of assumptions here."
Jake looked to the side and pondered the possibility. "...Maybe. Ugh, I just wish I knew the actual story. People have said so many things about him online, and I dunno what's real and what's NOT."
"You could always go and visit him once the nurses give you your crutches. Then, you could ask him yourself."
"That's actually not a bad idea."