Can't Help That I'm Falling

Intro

AN: From now on, whenever there are words written in italics and surrounded by quotes, "... like so," it is to symbolize that these are words that Jack is signing. When the italics stand alone and are without quotes, it is simply a character's thought process.

I hope you're enjoying the story so far :)

. . .

Recording.

He high-fives the air, filled with a new determination. He's come too far to give up now.

11,000,000.

The amount of people who have been left wondering. Worrying. Scared.

They may be relieved, but they sure as hell are gonna be surprised.

He steadies his nervous breath.

It's time.

"Top of the morning to you laddies!"

He pauses for a moment, smiling. The time had finally come. He realizes that he's more than ready.

"My name is Jacksepticeye, and..."

He stops.

"I guess... I'll be adding subtitles," he says, finished with a laugh.

He continues.

"First of all, I want to say I'm sorry. It was wrong to keep you all in the dark for so long. That was terrible of me. I wanted so badly to Tweet something out, Instagram, or anything, but there would not be enough space in the caption to explain everything I needed to. So... I needed to figure things out. And now... Here I am. I learned a lot of ASL this past month. Yeah, American instead of ISL. Only because, as frustrating as it was... I had a lot of help."

He ushers to the side of him, off camera.

Mark slides his wheely chair into sight of the screen.

"Hey everyone," he says, surprisingly timidly.

For something that should be so easy, making a vlog, a thing he's done hundreds of times before... it's proving unsettlingly nerve wracking.

He glances at Jack, who's been grinning in his direction, but stops abruptly as soon as their eyes meet.

Jack looks down at his hands, gently wringing them out, and nods.

"Please," he says, not looking up.

Mark nods back.

"So... As most of you all know very well by now, Jack and I are very good friends, and have been for quite some time now. And recently, Jack, he... He had a bad accident. Now, I won't go into strong detail about it, but someone involved in that accident... Well, they lost their life. And Jack would like me to acknowledge that his heart goes out to the family of the lost, and he is extremely grateful that his own physical injuries were not any worse than they are. You see, he lost his hearing. The reason behind all the, you know," he moves his hands around to form the words 'jazz hands'.

Jack holds back laughter, and bites his lip.

Mark blushes, then let's off a confused look.

Why the heck am I blushing right now...

He comes back to his senses. Camera's still rolling. He lets out nervous laughter.

"I'll um, caption that one for 'em Jackaboy. But ah, anyways. Because of this... Jack hasn't really been the same. I mean well, he's still the same Irish potato you all know and love, but with some technical difficulties, I guess. He can't hear me right now, of course, and only knows what I'm saying by reading my lips. He can speak, but not so well, as he cannot very well hear himself talking. So you won't be hearing his loud mouth so much anymore."

Jack punches him in the arm.

"Hey!" Mark shouts.

"You make it sound so sad!"

"Yeah, well!! It is sad!" He says, rubbing his arm.

Jack turns from him to straight at the camera, with a look of complete "done"ness.

"You will still get videos," he says, slowly but surely, followed by a reassuring smile. "And a lot, with this little shit," he says, pointing to Mark.

Mark punches him back.

"AYE, STOP THAT."

Jack furiously pokes Mark under his armpit, which is followed by Mark slapping his hand away.

Jack gasps over-dramatically, as if on one of those soap operas, putting his hand over his mouth in astonishment, causing Mark to burst out with laughter.

"Well then," Mark starts, when they finally calm down. He smiles at Jack.

"I guess they'll still hear your loud mouth after all."

Jack smiles back, wondering how despite everything he's been through, he could ever be so lucky.

Lucky to have a best friend as amazing as Mark.