this is MY mental illness and I get to pick the comfort ship :))
Being yelled at? Dave would rather die. Maybe it was something he'd picked up from childhood. Thanks to his friends, he'd learned that Henry was kind of a bitch. So, it was no surprise that he'd grow up to be messed up. But that didn't help the heavy feeling in his chest when even talking to authority figures, or anyone with slight authority over him.
So you could imagine how he was feeling when someone, who could only be described as a narcissistic karen, even slightly raised her voice. He wasn't even the one being yelled at, it was some random poor guy who only kind of inconvenienced her. Yet his body couldn't help but feel like he was in a life or death situation. His breathing was noticeably increased while he was simply standing still.
He was standing near the saferoom, with enough visibility of the main room to see what was happening. It took surprisingly long for phoney to get involved and break it up, which allowed his body to be in fight or flight for significantly longer than it would be normally. He didn't even notice the footsteps approaching him.
"Hey, Dave." He felt like his soul left his body for a second as he tried to calm down. "Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to scare you." Jack obviously hadn't noticed what he just did to the man. Dave turned to face him. "Jesus Christ, are you okay? You look paler than usual." Dave still was unresponsive as he tried to catch up with what just happened.
"I-m fine-" He tried to once again calm his body. Jack didn't buy it and tried to figure out what the hell was wrong. "What happened?" He looked over to the main room and all that was out of the 'ordinary' was two people fighting. But he couldn't understand how that would trigger someone, so it must've been something else.
Dave still tried to deny anything and shook his head. Suddenly the fighting got noticably louder, much to Dave's dismay. He jumped as he looked back at the two. Jack still hadn't connected the two dots and was beyond confused. He sighed but wasn't about to just give up. Maybe someone had yelled at him today? Jack knew he wasn't too fond of that.
Then he thought...maybe he had a daydream that scared him...It seemed unlikely, but what else could it be? Dave the realized his legs still worked and he speedwalked back to the saferoom. Jack tilted his head and slowly followed him. He gave Dave a minute or so to do...whatever he was going to. But he still hadn't come out, so Jack came into the room.
Dave was curled up in the corner, with his arms hugging his legs up the his chest. It looked like he was crying. If Jack wasn't concerned before, now he absolutely was. He made his way over to Dave and sat down next to him. He gave it a few moments before laying his head on Dave's shoulder to try and comfort him. Dave jumped a little, but calmed down when he saw who it was.
They sat in silence for a few minutes as Dave slowly calmed down. He'd stopped crying and now was calming his breath. He suddenly pulled Jack into a hug to further calm down. Jack didn't pull away and hugged him back, he seemed like he really needed it. Jack didn't try to pressure Dave into giving him an answer and just let him go at his own pace.
They sat for another couple of minutes as Jack rubbed circles into his back. Dave had calmed down finally before pulling away. He laid his head in Jack's chest. After a while of them chilling, phoney opened the door to yell at them, but realized they weren't killing kids or weren't doing anything bad. Jack shook his head and phoney nodded before leaving.
Dave pulled back and looked at Jack. "Are you okay?" Dave nodded and sat up. He started explaining how his fucked up past messed with him. While Jack has never really experienced it himself, he was sympathetic and let Dave vent. "I'll go ask phoney to let you chill in here for a while, is that okay?" Dave nodded.
started this while needing to vent, and now that I don't need to, imma just finish this so it doesn't stay unpublished because I might as well :p
