Chapter Text
The sun shining and rising brightly on the outside world hit Jax harder than the wooden table he'd stubbed his toe on the other day.
Jax thought he was seeing the gates of heaven as soon as he opened his eyes. Sunlight slapped him right across the face landing straight into his eyes. What a great day to have a window right next to your bed, he thinks.
The boy quickly sat up with his left arm supporting his body as his right arm snatched the curtains and pulled it across the clear glass reflecting the light, as he tries to recall if he had somehow left the curtains open yesterday night, or if the spirit living in his house decided it was his time because it thought it was lonely and wanted company. Jax was definitely not the best choice in the house though. The spirit must have ass taste in friendship.
Jax then brought his hands up to his face and started wiping his eyes. Left and right, left and right.. Why do the hands on his face feel hot?
Was it just him, or was the temperature abnormally high today? Or was he high?
When all of the sudden, a wave of an overwhelming sensation slid across his body from bottom to top. A normal person would've addressed it as a shiver, but if you've been here long enough, you would know Jax was everything but a normal person would be.
He sat there like an idiot, thinking the spirit front earlier tried to possess him whatsoever. The hell did he even do to offend the spirit here?
Before he got the chance to really wake up, Jax notices a bunch of things going around his body.
First, he felt like he was some abandoned animal being left out in the cold snow, then at the same time, he feels like he's a pot of tea reaching it's boiling point. Second, his head hurts like shit. Third, his body hurts like shit. Fourth, his throat, was among all of them, the one that hurts the most like shit, hell, shit was an understatement. His throat hurt like constipation. At least one thing came to sense, and it was that he really, reaaally needed water. Desperately, right now, or he thinks his throat might collapse.
Immediately, Jax jolts up his bed and gets on his feet too quickly, which he quickly regrets. He stood up probably too fastly and well, he starts seeing stars around him as iron deficiency hits him harder than the sun did. What's the next thing that's gonna hit him? A tree perhaps? The stars?
Jax almost trips on his own foot before abruptly stopping himself with the help of his bedframe as he starts seeing stars revolve around his head. This seems oddly familiar. His soul probably jumped out of him during that moment as he grips onto his bedframe like his life depends on it. (except it might actually will) He stays still, frozen in an awkward position for a few seconds before his soul comes back to him and the stars transcend back into the sky where it should belong.
Without wasting further time, Jax starts walking slowly but not surely nor steadily towards his door, imagining that fresh, natural, delicious and pure water in his hands. With the thought of that in his mind, it urged him to walk even faster.
Jax is now halfway through his journey to the kitchen before meeting an obstacle in front of him. Jax starts rethinking life choices and genuinely starts considering drinking his sweat still running down his face.
Looking down at the flight of stairs, he gulps and decides to face it. Hopefully he doesn't fall and break a bone or something. If he does, he's gonna find that very spirit trying to off him when he's in the afterlife, and pull its hair off strand by strand if it even has any hair, then burn it in a forest and make sure nothing but the memory of having hair remains. Jax remembers reading about some theory saying hair contains memories or something like that, so if he does find that ghost and do that, it won't be able to remember anything including Jax, and the spirit will find peace. It's a win-win. (Jax doesn't want the spirit to find peace. Stupid thing deserves more torture even after death.)
He decides to just rely on the stair railing so he wouldn't fall to his doom. He takes a step, then two.. Three.. Six.. Seven... Six seven? Thats funny. And uhm, he lost count.
A loud bang coming from upstairs interrupted the peace and quiet Jax was having, and his soul almost flies out again. He assumes it's Lex because, well, who else would slam the door if it wasn't the only other person living in this house? Unless the spirit was really there trying to sabotage him.
His body parts stopped moving. I mean, almost every body part stopped moving. His legs were still somehow moving as if on autopilot.
Not paying attention to where he was stepping, eventually his left foot overlaps with his right leg and his body tilts down and falls in a graceful and swift movement. (..or quite the opposite, depending on your view of Jax) He's pretty sure his mind had already accepted his fate.
It seems like his guardian angel (if it even existed) had finally noticed this ghost poking his ass and decided to finally put in the least effort into making sure Jax doesn't end up in a hospital. This applies to both medical and mental hospitals. Thankfully, he was only a few steps from successfully completing the boss level obstacle in order to be able to get some water. Though he couldn't tell if the world was helping or against him, did it help that he only had a few steps left to avoid a big impact, or was the world trying to play with him by leaving him only a few steps from completing his goal then ultimately failing him?
Too bad for him, it seems like his guardian angel turned against him instead.
Jax landed FACE FLAT onto the floor. The hard and cold linoleum floor. Well, not completely face flat? He landed on his forehead. Forehead flat.
He wants to DIE.
Like the "nonchalant" person he is, Jax stands up and walks around. He honestly doesn't know if his forehead is bleeding or not by then. If so, he'll make his sister pay for it. Whether or not she knew he was out there and purposefully slammed the door so Jax would fall or not, he doesn't care. Lex caused it and that's final. It's aaallll her fault.
Not even a minute after, he sees the "one who caused all this" step down the stairs.
Lex looks at Jax with a...Confused? Surprised? Scared look?? He can't really make it out.
Jax then slowly lifts his finger up to point at his sister.
"You.. This is your fault.."
His forehead hurts so bad and he doesn't care enough to consider how it's not Lex's fault but he just needs something to blame. No he will NOT admit that it's him being clumsy or take the blame. Jax is an athlete, he doesn't do things like tripping down the stairs and falling forehead flat. That's soo not Jax at all.
Jax practically glares at Lex with those eyes that give off "I am currently plotting your death and I know exactly where to bury you so the police will never find you. "
Suddenly, Lex bursts out in laughter.
".. fuck you laughing at, bitch?"
Whoops, Lex doesn't think she can stop laughing anytime soon. She can't even explain the reason behind her laughter.
Finally, Lex somehow calms down a little bit.
"you... look ri—"
Okay, she can't hold it in anymore. Back to laughingtown, better hope Lex doesn't cause the laughing plague 2.
Out of instinct, Jax retracts his finger which was originally pointing at Lex to cover his forehead assuming it deformed into the shape of a cow or something.
When the bleeding boy finally gets back to his room—wait, bleeding??
Jax flinches his hand back down from his forehead in less than a second long, then observes his hand..
"Oh."
His throat attacks him and he starts coughing. Okay.. He's fully convinced he's dying.
Oh. He also didn't get his water. His whole purpose of going down the stairs, was to get a good glass of water. He forgot about that.
Oh yeah, that's right, he also forgot about something else. His Hemophilia. How did he even manage to hesitate the fact that his forehead wouldn't be bleeding out by now? And here he thought it would only be a bruise.
Jax just stares at his palm dumbfounded.
What a stupid move, he thinks. Jax knew he wasn't the brightest star in the constellation, hell, he doesn't even feel like he's emitting light compared to Hyde. But hey, he's still a bright star in other topics, just not in anything related to books, life, logic, school and..the list goes on. It's just that Jax doesn't enjoy being laughed at and doing things he obviously could've avoided if he pieced together those two braincells he had in that little brain up there.
With his condition, handling a normal day by himself would be impossible without gaining at LEAST 30 new injuries with this little sickness he's having. Jax being sick is a little funny even to himself, this guy is a top athlete and his immunity system is stronger than the great wall of China. It's been what, probably a few years since he'd been sick? Or was it a year? Or 12 months? Wait, isnt 12 months a year..?
Scratch all that, Jax does not wanna strain those few braincells he has right now.
So, he does something very not-like him to do.
Jax walks over to his bedside table and grabs his phone. 12%. Did he forget to charge it? Wow.
He presses on the call button to the contact that reads out "Hyde".
The phone starts ringing. Jax starts regretting it. He wasn't the type of person to really reach out for help but man, he doesn't want his whole body looking beat up especially with this little condition of his.
It's been probably 15 seconds since he rang the phone.
The constant ringing's kind of hurting his ears. A wave of regret hits him. He's THIS close to just pressing the decline button already.
The phone picks up.
"Jax?"
Oh, he didn't expect him to actually pick up.
"Hi.. Can you—"
Cough couugh couoouuughhh cougucouchchhhghhhh
Oh, fuck his throat and Lex for making him fall and forget to get water.
"Uhhh are you okay..?"
"What do you thi—"
His voice was hella raspy when he tried to speak before that stupid itchy feeling travels its way up his throat again.
"Are you sick? Okay, probably... Want me to come over?"
"Ye—"
Cough cough x20
Jax is gonna rip off his throat if it decides to interrupt his speech again.
Before Jax could really process everything that was happening around him, it was already noon and Hyde was already sitting on the end of his bed with a medical patch and medicine. When did he even get here? Were those his patches and medicine or Hyde's? Jax didn't even remember opening the door for him.
"Gosh, what even happened before you called? The wound is definitely fresh out of the oven and this is by far one of the worst injuries I've seen from you"
Hyde says as he wipes the not so big amount of blood on Jax's forehead.
"Uhhh, it was.. Lex!! She slammed the door and scared me and I fell down the stairs so it's all Lex's fau—"
"Jesus, stop moving for the love of a missing star"
A missing star? Really? Nobody gives a shit about a missing star, do they? Jax knows theres probably an infinite amount of stars out there, who's gonna care about one singular star if it disappeared?
"I know what you're thinking, Jax. Astronomers were driven to find out the phenomenon of a singular star disappearing, so yes, people will very much care about one missing star."
"Oh?"
"Shush, don't move and if you do I'm leaving this house."
Jax knooowwwss he wouldn't leave him all vulnerable and helpless in his house. Jax knows that Hyde knows his sister doesn't give two shits about Jax. Nahhhh, Hyde cares sooo much about Jax.
After alot of fussing and Hyde treating Jax's wound with "care", Jax sits there waiting for Hyde to put back the medical stuff into Jax's closet. Oh, so Hyde did not bring it himself. Now that he thinks about it, why would Hyde even bring over those things? It wasn't like he knew Jax was over here bleeding out of his forehead anyways.
As Hyde finishes putting away everything, he comes back and sits back down on the same spot on Jax's bed as before.
"So, mind explaining what happened to you?"
"I—"
The coughing Jax rises once again.
"Nevermind, you don't have to explain. Just.. Rest for now, kay?"
Hyde brings up his hand and gently places the back of his hand on Jax's forehead, testing the temperature.
"Did you drink water this morning?"
Something perked up inside Jax as he begins to shake his head signalling "no" and dramatically pointing and gesturing the story hoping Hyde could understand whatever he said.
"Uh..from what I think you're trying to say, you... Were walking and.. A burglar came in..? And.. What?"
The injured boy gives up on trying to explain. He'll just say it later when world war 3 ends inside his internal orphans. Wait no, organs. Stupid sickness messed up his mind.
In the corner of Jax's eye, he spots an unfinished notebook that was abandoned since last year used for some math class.
Ah, he's too lazy to move. It's fine, he can just...
Jax uses his finger to point at the notebook.
"You want me to grab that notebook for you?
Hyde says, questioning Jax. (and his life)
Jax wanted to say, "No, you idiot, I want you to choke me and punch me off to the Andromeda galaxy and give me two sprained ankles so I won't be able to walk forever. Use that bigass brain of yours. Why would I point to that if I didn't want it right in front of me." But sadly he can't because if he tried, he would end up thinking he has hanahaki disease without flowers. So instead, he nods.
The bluenette then reaches over to grab the said notebook and places it in front of Jax as he pulls out a pencil from his ass(nowhere).
He opens the freshest page that wasn't infected by math that made no sense and began scribbling something.
Hyde sees this and tries his best to read what Jax wrote.
"So, you're saying.. Your sister slammed the door when you were walking down that stairs, and that startled you causing you to fall?"
The boy in front of Hyde nods frantically.
He then proceeds to (try to) draw himself with a bunch of stars surrounding his head. Jax translator : he's trying to say that he's been feeling very dizzy
Hyde looks at the poorly drawn thing.
"What..? Do you see stars?"
Jax thinks hard about what Hyde just said. Yes, that was kind of what he was trying to imply, but as a metaphor, not literally.
The sick boy tries (and fails) to use his own homemade sign language to communicate, pointing to his head, making a bunch of movements and occasionally pointing at the stars.
Hyde chuckles.
"What? Did the intense heat in your body turn you delusionally affectionate towards the stars?"
Jax groans in frustration. (he tries to, but then ultimately starts coughing. This is the most times Jax has tried to do something without immediately getting the urge to bang his head on the wall.)
He can tell something came up in Hyde's mind as he recognizes the look on his face that mostly means he's either trying to calculate the nearest black hole forming and whether or not is it scientifically close enough to change even a speck of dust on earth, or maybe he's just dehydrated.
Speaking of dehydration..
"Jax, I'm gonna go get water for you. Can't believe I forgot about that, no wonder I felt a little dumb."
Jax swore Hyde could read minds sometimes. He's starting to believe his best friend has a sixth sense and can sense the fabric of space bending.
A few coughs and fidgeting with anything within distance later, Hyde comes back up holding a cup of water.
Hyde could've sworn he saw Jax drooling for 2 seconds. He'd never seen anyone so excited to drink water before.
Taking the cup of water away, without hesitation, Jax chugs the thing and nearly spits a few out from how fast he was downing it. How dehydrated was this guy?
After they sat on the bed in silence with the cup of water alongside them, Hyde spoke up first.
"So, are you able to explain properly what happened now?"
"Oh, yes, definitely dude, so..."
Jax tried his best to explain what happened this morning. He really did. From the sun giving him a slap, his sister giving the door a slap, to his face giving the floor a slap. And definitely, not leaving out the fact that a spirit was (and might still be) trying to give him a slap into the afterlife.
He also stumbled on his words slightly, tongue twisting and doing a somersault to a backflip to a round-off back handspring in his mouth trying to figure out the right words to somehow make his explanation somehow make sense.
"Spirits aren't really scientifically proven, I'd suspect you might just be unlucky today considering you are sick anyways"
Hyde tried his best to understand the gibberish block of speech that was sent flying at his face. He tried to be maybe a little more gentle and patient with Jax today. Sickness can sometimes mess up your brain anyways. Like his mother used to joke, the fever had probably burned his braincells. Given Jax as the subject though, his braincells should be at zero currently if the fever managed to really burn something inside. Hyde then laughs slightly at his own joke.
While Hyde was a little lost onto his own thoughts and jokes, the spirit Jax suspected seemed to have made way to him and decided to slap his forehead. Jax considers forgetting everything about science and praying to every god available to get this stupid ass-biting ghost off him and to go bite his sister's ass instead or something.
The sudden pain travelled through his forehead. He's thankful there's a bandage covering the injury or he would've forgotten he was injured and banged his head on a wall. With no other thought left, Jax covered his forehead with his palm like a little kid would after they just got flicked there. Except Jax wasn't a little kid, and his forehead had more than just a little flick.
Hyde stopped thinking about more silly jokes to insult Jax and noticed how the other was holding onto his forehead.
"Are you okay? Does it hurt?"
"Well, yeah, like shit.. Ow—"
The teal haired boy (is there literally any other way to describe his hair I'm DYING here) drove through his brain again, searching for a solution to not see his best friend in pain.
Do I tease him? No.. Insult him jokingly? Laugh? Roll my eyes? No, that's reserved for normal Hyde behaviour when Jax wasn't actively suffering. That's right, Jax was suffering because he had a fever, a killer throat and basically a gunshot lodged onto his forehead based on how much pain Jax looks like he's in. Hyde made a mental note to study whether or not the other's Hemophilia condition worsens during a sickness.
He swims through the sea of his thoughts, filled with many things, an endless amount of knowledge, childhood memories, astronomy equations, blackholes bending spacetime, the sixth dimensional world, but he can't seem to grasp what he wants to find.
What to do when somebody is in pain and sick, the topic is so familiar yet so far, where has he done this before?
In pain. Sick.
That rings a bell.
Right, his sister Heidi had been sick her whole life and was constantly in pain, being her older brother he obviously had to take care of her during her painful moments, but just what did he do?
Reassurance. Affection. Comfort.
Three words popped into his head like a bubble, the middle bubble being the biggest among the three.
Hyde puffs out a sigh and looks at his friend
Before Hyde can consider regretting his actions, he gently used his hands and removed Jax's palm covering his forehead.
He grabs onto Jax's face with not much force. He leans in and gently presses his lips against Jax's flawed forehead.
Hyde hoped it wasn't too out of the blue as he lets go. Maybe it was, Jax looks shocked.
"Oh, sorry, was that too sudden? You kind of reminded me of Heidi so I well, did what I used to do when she had injuries and it always made her feel better...Speaking of which, do you feel better now?"
Jax blinks at him.
"Huh, I guess it really did. I don't feel like someone stabbed a hole there any more, so thanks.. I guess.. Would've probably preferred if you gave a heads-up next time though"
"Really? I'm glad that helped then"
"Mhm.."
Jax finds it weird and embarrassing to want more of that. He's too embarrassed to think of what it is specifically even in his own mind. Embarrassment is all he feels now.
Stupid thoughts, this is cringe as fuck, this is so unlike Jax. There's so many things wrong with him today.
He wishes he could get engulfed by his bed and never come out.
Please think of an excuse to escape this embarrassing, cringe, weird, awkward, not cool situation now, he thinks.
"I'm gonna go.. To sleep.. I'm tired, yeah, yeah. Goodnight, afternoon, whatever"
His words rushed as if he was trying his best to avoid something. Of course Hyde noticed that.
"Oh, okay, have a good nap then"
Jax slowly stirs awake, his head feeling awful and he still feels as if the sun has gotten 200x closer to earth because of how hot it feels. Next to him sitting is.. Some blue blob.. With a body?
Oh wait, that's Hyde.
Hyde with his back turned around him sitting on his chair doing.. Whatever he's doing.
Who am I? What's my name? Where am I? What's my purpose? What ghost is possessing me?
Jax lightly slaps himself on the face before he fully loses it.
I am Jax. Jax is my name. I'm in my room. There's no ghost.
He pinky swears to himself to never get sick again after this, it's horrible. It messed up all his brain signals. Nothing really feels much better. He has the same headache, body ache and fever from before.
This spirit is really trying to kill me.
Out of all things he could've remembered, he remembered that a spirit was out to get him for whatever he did.
Jax looks over to Hyde before attempting to call his name, only to no avail.
Geez, is this guy deaf or is Jax unknowingly mute?
"Hyyyyyyydee.."
No answer.
Hyde's name gets spoken many times by the him, but Hyde himself didn't respond. Was he ignoring him?
"Gosh I'm too high for this."
He mutters under his breath.
High definitely wasn't the right word but Jax didn't give two shits about it.
After about two minutes of laying there staring at the ceiling imagining stars and galaxies there, Jax decides to take action instead.
The boy barely stands up and stumbles slightly before tapping Hyde on the shoulder.
Hyde seems to get startled slightly and turns around.
"Jax? Oh- are you feeling better now? "
Jax feels the other's eyes staring intently trying to detect anything.
"No."
"Wait, huh?"
"No, I'm not fine. Feels like someone just knocked on my forehead hard with a hammer. But that's besides the point, what exactly are you doing?"
Jax's eyes head to the book Hyde was previously reading, now closed. The title read "Weird Universe"
Of course it's some nerdy book about space and stars and planets or whatever. That's a very Hyde thing to do. Does he come from the stars or something? Jax thinks that other people falls from heaven while Hyde falls from space. That would explain his alien interests. Literally.
aI'm...reading, why you ask?"
"Well, I was wondering why you didn't answer me the eight thousand times I called for your name"
"You called for me? Oh, sorry I didn't hear that, I was also listening to music"
He then plucked an earbud from the ear out of Jax's eyesight.
"...On one ear only?"
"Yes, I was worried that you might've needed my assistance so I didn't wanna get too distracted..though I got too focused on my book, so apologies on the inconvenience."
"Why are you speaking fancy english? Don't do that dude"
"Oh.. Sorry..?"
Jax blinks at him and turns away and marches to his bed. Yes. You heard me. He marched to his bed like he was in a strict high school marching band.
"Jax are you okay?"
Aforementioned boy turns his head and looks like his head is turning gears rapidly to figure out what that simple question was. This sickness must've really messed up his mind..
"Oh, yeah, sure, I'm just thinking"
"Okaaaay..."
Maybe an hour or more has passed by, and the two boys have been bickering on what to eat for dinner.
"A salad perhaps? Jax, you need to get your nutrients in. You are not eating junk food on my watch."
"Ew, no, no salads, jeez"
"Then what do you want? Gosh, you're going to make me sick too."
"Just get McDonald's or something.."
"No."
"Why nooooot?"
"Because you shouldn't eat junk food while sick. Okay, how about porridge?"
Jax grimaces at the word porridge but decides he's too sick to bicker some more with Hyde.
"Mmm.."
"That's a yes, right?"
"Yeah yeah"