Work Text:
You woke up this morning with a pit in your stomach. February 14th. You hate today. You hate every day, but especially this one. This day in particular sucks fucking ass. You don’t want to get out of bed, you don’t want to exist at all. Your muscles ache, you can feel your skull against the pillow like it’s seeping out of your skin and melding with the sheets. The very idea of standing feels impossible.
When you finally get up on your feet and walk out to the living room, maybe minutes, maybe hours later, you can’t really feel time anymore, you’re greeted by your sister Jade. She looks at you, noticing that you’re… definitely far from okay. She immediately pulls you into a hug. While she does give the best hugs ever, not even the soft rubbing of her calloused hands against your back helps ease you. “John, do you want some breakfast?” she whispers to you.
“I think if I eat I’ll throw up.”
You squeeze your eyes shut.
“I’ll get you some toast. You’ll do great today, and food will help,” she promises, and you feel her pull away from your hug and hear the pitter-patter of her feet towards the kitchen. You open your eyes, taking in a shaking breath before following Jade to the kitchen.
When you sit down at the table you put your head down in your folded arms. She puts a plate of white toast in front of you, vaguely mumbling something about jam and butter before sliding an envelope towards you. You pull your aching head off your arms to look up as she says something about “don’t open it until you’re ready,” but you recognize that red scrawl on the crumpled paper and grab it with the most intent either of you have seen from you in weeks. Jade looks down at her feet and shakes her head, still mumbling about jam.
You tear open the letter, making sure not to rip the red pen in your hastiness, and pull the lined notebook paper out of the envelope.
“hey john. hope youre doin ok. havent heard from you in awhile. i know i was kind of a dick but i like. miss u and shit man.”
Your vision starts to blur a bit, and you feel Jade’s hand on your back again.
“ive talked to jade and she wont tell me jack shit about you. somethin about privacy and i respect that shit man but im worried. please write me back bro. -d stri”
Half of you wants to scream. Half of you wants to cry. All of you wants to see Dave.
“Jade?”
“What do you need?” she asks in her sweetest, most comforting voice.
“Get me a pen please.” You try to steady your voice as much as possible, but it’s not working very well.
She does hand you a blue pen and a piece of unused drawing paper, but before you finish angrily writing “hope you feel better than i do, asshole” she taps your shoulder and whispers your name, pointing again at the discarded notebook paper.
“ps happy valentines day”
You stare.
You stare more.
You can’t feel your hands anymore.
Or your arms.
Or your legs, or your butt against the hard wooden chair, you can’t even feel the aching in your muscles or the pounding in your head anymore.
You can barely hear Jade say “I’m always here if you need someone to talk to,” before breaking out into sobs. You can’t feel your body, you don’t even feel the tears fall down your cheeks and splatter onto the pen ink, smudging the a (the only letter you managed to write of “asshole”). You don’t feel Jade still rubbing her hand against your back, even though there’s no way in hell she stopped. Everything slips away. You miss Dave Strider.