A little less fluffy than usual, slightly more self-indulgent than normal. Not sure if this counts as hurt-comfort or not, but hey, who cares really?
Jack lay on his bed, alone in the house, a single bluetooth speaker balanced on his chest. The speaker was small, and arguably too powerful for its size--the plastic shell vibrated almost more than the actual speaker components, joints buzzing where edges just barely didn’t line up. It played hell with the sound quality, but that wasn’t what was important right now.
To be honest, he was barely even listening with his ears, the lyrics of whatever song was playing a secondary counterpoint to the buzzing against his chest. It shifted with the music, rising and falling with the drumline like a heartbeat against his ribs. Jack closed his eyes and tried to feel--anything, really, but all he could feel was tired. It was one of those days. He was pretty sure he hated those days, or that he would if hate was a thing he could even access right now.
He buried himself in the false heartbeat and tried to fall asleep.
Eva got home first, several hours before Ris was due to get off work. The house was empty, almost silent, except for the muffled din of music coming down from the upstairs bedroom.
“Hey, Jack!” she called. No response. She climbed the stairs, knocked on the door. Tried again. “Jack, you awake in there?” Still no response. The music was louder up here, but still muffled.
Eva sighed. It was one of those days. She pushed the door open gently, slid into the room. “Jack…”
Jack had utterly failed to fall asleep. Not that it had made much of a difference, at any rate--either way, he still hadn’t moved since he’d started the playlist. However long ago that was.
He heard Eva come home, heard his name being called, but couldn’t quite muster up the energy to respond. His door opened, a new weight took up residence on the mattress near his head, and still he stared blankly at the wall beside him, music blaring on his chest.
Jack was… pretty much exactly how Eva had expected to find him. She sat on the edge of the bed and watched him, although so far he’d barely more than blinked. At some point, she knew from experience, he might be ready to talk about whatever had brought this on, but for right now that point would be well out of reach.
Briefly, Eva considered the speaker balanced on her boyfriend’s chest. It was pretty poor quality, all things considered, and seemed to be making a concerted effort to shake itself apart at the seams. And it had absolutely awful sound quality to boot. She made a mental note to get him a new one, though she’d probably have to wait until his birthday or christmas rolled around--Jack was absolutely terrible about accepting gifts unless there were some socially-mandated excuse available. Even then, though… He was just so fully convinced of how he didn't deserve anything nice and couldn’t possibly accept, or else wouldn’t want to be a burden that she could almost never manage to actually give him anything at all. Eva, for her part, was just as absolutely convinced that this was all complete and utter bullshit, and that Jack deserved absolutely everything she found to give him (otherwise she wouldn’t have gotten it for him, duh), and probably a whole bunch of other stuff she hadn’t even found yet.
It’d be a long time, though, before she managed to convince him of any of that--if there was one thing she knew about Jack, it was just how stubborn he could be whenever he was convinced he was right about something. For now, then, she just laid one hand on his shoulder, rubbing small circles, and resolved to just be there for him for as long as he might need it.
For a while there was mostly silence. The buzzing, tinny blare of the speaker seemed almost to accentuate the quiet more than cover it up, while the lyrics shifting from one song to the next gave the only indication of time to the scene.
...And when the lights go dark
I will stand right beside you
And if you’re feeling small
I’ll love your shadow
I’ll love your shadow
The last song on the playlist ended, plunging the room suddenly into complete and total silence. Jack made no attempt to start it over again, though he felt suddenly somehow even more blank, more lost and disconnected with the sudden loss of feeling against his ribs. He curled in on himself, letting the speaker roll off somewhere he couldn’t bother to track, and squeezed his eyes shut tight.
Until he felt a hand touch his face.
The faint squeak Jack let out was barely audible, hardly more than a catch in his breathing, but it was response enough. Eva kept stroking his face, fingertips brushing gently from temple to jawline, until the defensive hunch started to fall out of his shoulders.
“Shhhhhhhh…” Eva brushed a handful of Jack’s unruly curls behind his ear, shooshing and tongue-clicking absently as she worked her other hand under Jack’s farther shoulder. “C’mere, I got you.” Gently, gradually, she managed to shift the both of them around until Jack’s head lay in her lap.
Jack curled inwards again, but at least now he was curled around Eva instead of just himself, hands clutching at her shirt instead of at nothing. He pressed his face into Eva’s stomach and she was there, warm and solid and present, she wasn’t leaving, no matter what his brain said, she was there…
“I’m right here, dude. It’s okay. ‘S okay, dude, I got you.” Eva wrapped her arms around Jack, cradling his head and shoulders, and just babbled. She’d never been that great at staying quiet, but she could fill a silence, could fill in a void like nobody’s business. It wasn’t the words that mattered, not really; just the sounds of the words, the rhythm and patter of the hums and clicks and shooshes, the constant, quiet reassurances right here, right here, I got you…
Time passed, barely noticeable. At some point, Jack started to cry, in the way that Jack always cried--sobs completely inaudible, eyes almost dry, detectable only by the arrhythmic hitch of his shoulders. Eva folded over on top of him, still shooshing, until eventually his shoulders stilled and his breathing evened out. Finally, he’d fallen asleep.
When Jack woke up, hours later, he was surprised to feel Eva still pressed up against his shoulders. She’d shifted them around at some point, presumably to free a cramping leg, but she was still there, lounging up against the wall, one hand resting on his shoulder while the other held her phone. Jack made a sort of inquisitive noise, not quite to the point of words yet.
“Hmm?” Eva looked down. “Oh hey, you’re awake. Ris’ll be home soon.” She raised her phone by way of explanation. “Spaghetti sound good tonight?”
Jack nodded. Eva tapped off another message, presumably relaying his approval.
“Hey, you feeling any better now?”
It took a couple tries to get his voice to work. “Yeah,” he said eventually.
“You wanna talk about it?”
Jack shook his head. “‘S just…” No easy explanation presented itself to him, so he just trailed off into silence.
Eva nodded understanding anyway. “Yeah. It’s okay though.” She gave his shoulder a couple soft pats, then shifted to get off the bed. “I should probably go get the ground beef out of the freezer. Y’can come help if you like.”
Jack rolled off her lap, shrugging vaguely. “Nah, ‘s fine.” He located the tiny speaker, mostly by rolling over on top of it, and stood to put it back on its shelf. “I’ll be down in a bit.”
Eva nodded and slipped out of the room. Jack wandered over to the bathroom to wash his face. He at least felt a little more human now, he thought vaguely. He should probably make an attempt to look human too.