Insomniac

Chapter 2: Meeting

"What's up fellow gamers? It's me, your boy, Jackspedicy. Coming to you live at the--" Coughs swell in Jack's chest, interrupting his playful intro and breathless laugh-- "at the local hospital. By jaysus." He curls up, just slightly, so that his free arm is trapped between his chest and the white blanket covering his legs. He then wrestles it out to lift up that hand once more, lifting one finger up as a sign for the camera (and Robin, whom had taken a step forward in concern) to wait. The pain that had pushed up against his ribs subsides a moment later. "Sorry, I'm not in the tip-toppest shape at the moment as you can plainly see. Um," he chuckles, it's quiet and trailing and not at all full, careful to not cause another swell of pain in his chest. "It's a long story, and I don't want to get too into it? I was in an accident and I'm making this video to assure everyone that I'm fine. Your boy may not be indestructible, but he is at least damn near immortal. Hey, what's that look for?"

Robin snickers just behind the camera. Of course, laughter is highly contagious to him so it's not even a moment later when Jack is laughing a little as well. "S-Stop that dude, c'mon! Trying to make an update video here." Despite the words, though, he's still smiling, still chuckling softly, until it all dies back down and they're both calm and collected. "And I thought I was the giggly bitch. Damn. Um." Another short chuckle, "Where was I? Oh yeah. So back onto the subject of this video; I probably won't be able to record for a bit? I have some stuff pre-recorded but I don't know if that'll last the whole recovery process. If I start running out of videos I'll try and see if I can record but no promises there. So don't worry, if I suddenly stop uploading I'm not dead. Maybe nearly dead, but not— no." And again he interrupts himself with a laugh, "No I'm not gonna make that joke. Some of ye are bound to take it seriously. Anyway, I can't do my full normal outro here cause I don't want to pull anything out, but I'll still see all you dudes in the next video. Take it easy y'all."

——

Sean frowns, looking back up at Robin -- whom is also looking at him expectantly-- from the laptop screen. "I...don't remember recording this."

"And you're sure of that?"

"Yeah. When did we record this, exactly?"

"Uh, yesterday."

"No, what day?"

Robin makes a slightly confused hum as he pulls out his phone, "Today's what? Wednesday? So I guess Tuesday."

He looks back down at the video, scrubbing the red bar back to start it over. Jack, the him from Tuesday, restarts his intro and rambles on. No editing out the coughing fit. No cutting to different takes. It's just all him, unedited and untouched. The him from Tuesday. "A whole day and I don't even fucking remember it. What the hell..."

"I thought you said that this happens all the time?"

"Yeah, hours. I'm used to missing hours. But a whole day?" He shakes his head, setting the laptop aside. "Nu-huh. Nah man. Not a whole day. This is new."

"Well, what do you want to do about it?"

"I don't know. I've been to so many doctors that at this point I don't really know if there's anything left to do about it." He sighs, but doesn't let himself dwell on that thought for long. PMA, after all. It wasn't hopeless, and up until now he had been mostly fine. Especially because of his-- "Actually, do you think you could stop by my house and get my journal? It should be in my room."

"Yeah, sure. What does it look like?"

"Thanks. It's blue, small, and spiral bound." He shakes his head, "Man, I didn't really think I'd need it in a hospital of all places but I guess I was wrong. You still have the spare key, right?"