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Thursday, 8am:
“I, my little cherubs, am a genius.” Jack announces, strolling into the classroom and launching his apple straight at the wall with a self-satisfied grin.
Sarika offers him a faux-sweet smile. “Did you finally figure out that the best use of your time might be actually teaching us?”
“Oh, God no. It’s better than that. I’ve discovered the secret to making money in this god-awful town without even lifting a finger.” He pauses for dramatic effect before withdrawing a pill bottle from the pocket of his sweats and holding it aloft before the class like a trophy. “Drug trials, children. Drug trials.”
An air of concern washes over the whole class- even Heather appears slightly discombobulated by the idea, and she’s usually the first to jump upon any of Jack’s schemes.
“Is that safe, Chief?”
Jack waves a hand dismissively, perching on his desk. “Ah, it’ll be fine. Y’know how many tests these things have to go through before they reach humans? It’s safe as houses. I took one this morning, and I feel fine.”
Marcus arches a brow from the front row. “You’re doing it now? I thought they had to administer these things in hospitals so that if things go wrong you’re already in the right place.”
“Marcus, the Toledo Medical Centre does not have that kind of budget. This isn’t LA.”
“Right... but you’re trusting this place with potentially dangerous medication?”
Jack grins. “Damn right I am. I need the money. Plus, it’s for a good cause, right? Who knows- I could be the key to curing cancer.”
Thursday, 8:30am
Mid-way through a sketch on the board (its subject being a plan to get back at the cashier from the local Walgreens who loudly announced that his card was declined), Jack’s hand shakes. The tremor is quick, almost unnoticeable if not for the messy squiggle that the woman’s arm has become, but the accompanying feeling of... wrongness... is not.
It lasts only a few seconds or so- like a burst of electricity shooting up his spine and scrambling his brain, making everything fuzzy and intangible for the brief moment it grips him. A surge of nausea and dizziness so strong he has to close his eyes against it.
There one moment, then the next? Gone.
“Mr Griffin?”
He blinks; finds himself back in his body. His muscles feel weird. His body not his own.
“Uh... yeah, where was I?”
“Are you okay?”
He recognises the voice as Marissa’s, and turns to face the rows of desks. From each one a set of worried eyes is staring back at him, Sarika’s included.
“I... I’m fine. Just, uh... lost my train of thought for a sec there.”
His lie is unconvincing, but he tells it anyway, and watches as the majority of the concerned expressions fade. Only two, in fact, do not.
Sarika Sarkar and Heather Wilmore’s.
Thursday, 8:55am
The bell rings. It doesn’t take long for the students to make their way from the classroom, shouting their farewells and chattering amongst themselves. Jack’s still standing by the chalkboard, arms crossed while he waits for the stragglers to leave, when Sarika approaches him.
“You should go back to that clinic, Mr Griffin.” Her tone is even, unaffected by emotion.
When Heather calls upon him, the last to pick up her bag and depart, she’s a little more sympathetic.
“Sarika’s right, Boss. You really should.”
He does his best to laugh it off. “Heather, please, I’m fine.”
“You had that look on your face that a pig gets right in the instant you pull the trigger of a bolt gun. I know that look, Griff. Something isn’t right.”
Another dismissive laugh, and he sends her on her way. A feeling of unease creeps up his spine as he sits down, though, and suddenly:
BAM. That feeling again- the all-encompassing nononononononono that makes him want to tear his skin off, that blurs his vision and sickens his stomach and he’s leaning forward in the chair, pulling the trash can beneath his desk towards him and retching into it violently, tears stinging at the corners of his eyes as the room around him spins. He feels like he’s going to die. Here. Now.
Another second, and it’s gone again. He’s left clutching at the rim of the trash can, ears ringing, eyes and nose streaming. He spits, a taste like battery acid coating his tongue- bile- then leans back in the chair and wipes his mouth shakily with the back of his hand.
A glance to the side reveals nobody saw this moment of weakness, and if a tree falls in an unoccupied forest, did it even make a sound at all?
He stands, trying to ignore the feverish feeling dancing in his mind.
Thursday, 11am
The break room is abuzz with the gossip of bored Toledo teachers as Jack sits on the couch, hoping his face doesn’t betray the terror building inside of him. It’s been hours since the first ‘flash’ as he’s taken to calling them, and rather than dissipating, the attacks are only getting closer together. Something is desperately wrong. Sarika (goddamn it) was right, and so was Heather- he needs to go back to the Toledo Medical Centre before he winds up in a body bag.
“I’m telling you guys, this dentist was hot. I’m talking top three Tom Cruise lookalikes in Toledo hot.”
“Ooh, Mary, you gotta get on that.”
“I agree- I mean, I would, but Keith is such a great husband and I really don’t want to upset him by cheating.”
“Michelle, trust me, when a guy’s this good looking it doesn’t even count as cheating. It’s just called taking advantage of a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
Jack blinks, eyes flitting between Mary, Stef, and Michelle as they chatter at the adjacent table. Their voices sound muffled, like they’re speaking underwater.
“What about you, Jack? If you had an SO, would... let... hall pass?”
Mary’s lips are moving, but the words are garbled and he can’t seem to find meaning in any of the few sounds he makes out. The uneasy feeling has never been so great.
He must look awful, because Mary frowns, as do the other two. She asks him something- not that he can hear her- before turning to Principal Durbin, who’s standing at the fruit bowl with Coach Novak oblivious to the whole thing.
Jack swallows, listening to the ever-increasing thrum of his pulse. There can’t be any blood left in his face now, if the faint feeling in his head is anything to go by, and the feverish sensation from earlier has only worsened into an icy chill.
Another figure, blurry, fades into view- closer than all the others. It’s Lynette.
She furrows her brow, and in between the frequent blurs of static he makes out his own name on her lips before she tugs at his hand. His hearing briefly returns as he’s pulled upwards, the words ‘nurse’s office’ breaking through the fog. Yes. There. Except... Lynette’s hand is so warm in his, and he’s suddenly aware of how freezing he is, and how impossible even taking another step feels.
He plants his feet, and Lynette turns around. Her eyes widen, her mouth forming more words that Jack doesn’t hear, because this time the ‘flash’ is so strong that he knows an instant before it hits him that he’s going down. The pulse of electricity (or so it seems) shoots from his feet to the very top of his head, dissolving every thought into ash and fear and confusion. It feels like everything within him is short circuiting.
Someone’s muffled voice shouts his name as his eyes roll into the back of his head and he drops like a ton of bricks.
“Jack!”
“Oh... God...”
“Someone... ambulance!”
“Think... having... seizure.”
Thursday, 11:05am
The first thing that enters his awareness is pain, the screaming of all his limbs at once. It’s like he’s been working out non stop for a week.
The voices come next, hushed and at first unintelligible- some of them he can recognise, but there are a few that aren’t familiar (though even the speech of these strangers is steady and calming).
“Jack... open your eyes for me?... trying to make sure you’re okay.”
Then there’s the physical sensation other than pain- his eyes closed, his cheek pressed against something cool, someone repetitively stroking his hair.
“Can... hear me?”
His eyelids feel like lead, but he manages to force them open just enough to make out a vague mass of blurred colours in front of him. The same voice that’s been speaking to him- a woman’s, not familiar but not unkind either- issues from a blur in front of him. There’s a slight pressure beneath his right eye, forcing his view wider, before a light is shone directly into it.
“Pupils normal... coming back to us I think...”
The hand in his hair continues its ministrations, and its owner speaks from behind. This is a voice he would know even in death. Lynette.
“Okay, Jack... gonna be okay... got you... in safe hands now.”
He slips back into unconsciousness before he can hear any more.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
At first, he thinks his alarm clock is sounding, the rhythmic blaring rousing him from another night of fitful rest. He hears himself groan at the thought of getting up- especially this morning, when for some odd reason he’s so much more exhausted than usual. It seems this town really is killing him.
When he tries to roll over and open his eyes, though, he finds resistance. His limbs refuse to move more than a millimetre, and even this small distance sends a sting of pain shooting up his arm.
“Hey, don’t try to move too much, Jack. Just keep still. You’re alright.”
Lynette? What the hell is she doing in his bedroom?
He tries to voice this question out loud, but can manage no more than a quiet “L’nette?” before he’s out of breath. Despite the overwhelming fatigue, however, at last he’s able to force his eyes open enough to assess his surroundings.
The light that immediately hits his retinas feels blinding, so much so that it takes a few languid blinks for his vision to catch up to the fact that the room he’s in is actually fairly dimly lit. The room which is definitely not in his dead mother’s house but rather...
“You’re in the hospital, Jack.” Ah. Lynette. He drags his gaze a few inches to his right and finds her there, blurry figure coming into focus more and more each second. Her face is blotchy, and she looks almost as tired as he feels. Almost.
He swallows, throat dry, and finally discovers his voice again (as scratchy as it now is). “Wh- why?”
“The drug trial you texted me about this morning- the one you said was going to make you ‘easy money’?”
Jack nods, and Lynette’s weak smile tells him all he needs to know before she speaks.
“Not so easy, as it turns out. Your body did not like those meds, Jack.” She laughs uneasily, but it’s impossible to ignore the way her lip trembles. “You, uh... gave us a scare.” A sharp inhale, followed by another watery smile. “I think Durbin nearly passed out.”
“D-did I... ‘mbarrass myself?”
Lynette squeezes his hand. He didn’t even know she was holding it, but now that he glances down and sees her thumb brushing against some tape keeping an IV in place, the weight and warmth of her fingers is suddenly obvious. As necessary to him as the oxygen that he now realises is being pumped through the cannula in his nose.
“God, you’re unbelievable.” She laughs. “I genuinely thought you were going to die today, and your biggest concern is whether you made a fool out of yourself.”
He musters the energy to arch a brow. Well? It asks. Did I?
“No, you didn’t. Fortunately, everyone was too worried you were going to aspirate on your own vomit to think about anything else.”
As he swallows again, trying to jumpstart his vocal cords before he speaks, he notices another uncomfortable sensation- they seem to be multiplying by the second. He raises his left hand and swipes shakily at his cheek, where the undeniable jut of a tube snakes its way into his left nostril just above the prong of the nasal cannula. Lynette’s hand takes his wrist and gently pulls it away.
“Hey, you gotta leave that alone, okay? If you start pulling things out, I’m pretty sure a bunch of alarms are going to go off, and I...” she sucks in a breath, her smile ironic. “I think I’ve had enough of hearing those today.”
How... how sick was he?
As if in answer to his question, Lynette continues. “You... you were in a real bad state, Jack. That drug they gave you, well, it’s experimental- they don’t just have antidotes or fix-it meds on file. Nobody knew what to do, so they were just sticking needles in you left and right and hoping one of them did something to stop you from...” She trails off, shrugging, and hastily wipes her eyes with the hand not currently tracing circles on Jack’s. “Anyway, it’s alright now. They pumped your stomach- through that tube, so don’t touch it again or I swear to God- and now we’re here.”
There’s a brief silence, punctuated only by the steady beeping that Jack now recognises as emanating from the heart monitor.
“Wh... what time is it now?” he croaks eventually.
Lynette glances over at a clock, too far away for Jack’s eyes to focus on. Or perhaps he’s just too tired to see it properly.
“It’s near midnight. You got here about twelve hours ago.”
“W’s I... asleep? Th’ whole time?”
“If by ‘asleep’, you mean ‘unconscious’, then yes. But the Doctors said you’re going to need way more actual rest, so don’t even think about getting out of bed yet.”
Her tone is teasing, but he senses the anxiety hidden in it anyway and does his best to squeeze her hand back.
“No... no chance of that. Th-think I’m just gonna... lay here a while.”
He closes his eyes for a moment, and with the absence of talking he becomes aware once more of every sensation- the sting of multiple IVs, the pinch of the pulse oximeter on his finger, the invasive and close to gag-inducing positioning of the tubes running along and into his nose. The cloying scent of antiseptic and the irritating fabric of a hospital gown. The deep ache in every limb, a fever still undeniably present as his body tries to reject what’s already been sucked out through one of the uncomfortable-feeling tubes.
A new sensation breaches his consciousness- a gentle hand brushing back the sweat-damp hair from his forehead.
“You alright?” Lynette asks gently.
He hums affirmatively, nodding beneath her touch and half-basking in the coolness of her palm against his burning skin. Licks his chapped lips and adds, “S’nice.”
“This?” She resumes her ministrations, and Jack nods again, opening his eyes to find her looking down at him fondly.
“Mm... thank you.”
She smiles. Her hand moves down to stroke along the curve of his jaw, and the movements are so repetitive he feels himself beginning to drift off.
“L’nette... ‘f you wan’ me to stay awake this is not the right way t’go about it.”
His blinks are languid, but in the intervals where his eyes are open, he can see the glistening of unshed tears in Lynette’s. Almost involuntarily, he raises a shaking hand to wipe them away, dragging the tubing of the IV line with him.
“D-don’ cry... why’re you crying?”
She laughs. Of all the possible responses, she laughs.
“Because I love you, you idiot, and a few hours ago I wasn’t sure whether you were ever going to wake up again. That’s why.”
“...Oh.”
The beeping in the background of their conversation hastens, and Lynette glances over at the heart monitor before turning back to him with a grin. Fantastic. He can’t even feign nonchalance because of all these stupid wires and their incessant tattling.
Thankfully, though, his unconsenting honesty appears to be a winner with Lynette, because she leans forward and presses her lips to his (evidently ignoring how gross and dishevelled he currently is) as if he’s just confessed his love for her in shining armour astride a dazzling steed. She’s as soft a kisser as he imagined she would be.
When she pulls back after a few seconds and sits down in the plastic chair beside the bed, her hands return to where they were before- one on his, the other carding through his hair.
Exhaustion is seeping into every fibre of his being, even more so now that she appears intent on soothing him to sleep, but he manages to remain awake for a few more crucial seconds, a groggy smile plastered on his face.
“... Love you too.”
He closes his eyes at last, the relief of letting go- both physically, and metaphorically- washing over him like much-needed rain after a drought. He shudders beneath its shower and is glad when Lynette draws the blankets up to his shoulders.
“I know. Sleep well, Jack. I’ll be right here when you wake up again.”