A/N - Set mid-#54, maybe six months after the war but before Visser One's trial. Possible spoilers. Platonic bromance if you look for it.
Wait, was Jake's house destroyed in #49? xD I can't remember. If it was, um . . . oops? ^_^ I know it was definitely damaged, so if that's it and it wasn't completely destroyed then they just rebuilt it and moved back in for whatever reason. Okay? Okay.
This chapter could definitely stand alone as a oneshot, but there was some more that I wanted to do with this, so . . . It shouldn't be more than one or two more chapters, though.
I opened the door – hey, don't look at me like that; it was unlocked – and knocked on the frame, poking my head inside. "Hey, Jake," I called, my voice echoing around the big house. Not as big as mine, but big. Bigger than he needed, or wanted. "You there?" Of course he was. He was always there.
He didn't answer, but I stepped inside anyway, letting the door fall shut behind me. Barefoot, I padded around the house in my morphing outfit, checking each room. Kitchen, empty. Living room, no Jake. His room, nothing.
Finally, I came to face the last room in the house, the only one that I hadn't checked. The door was closed, and there was no sound coming from within, but I knew he was there. Had to be.
I quietly turned the knob, and sure enough, there he was, sitting on the bed and staring stony-faced at the opposite wall. Everything else in the room was coated with a thick layer of dust and looked untouched, but I could tell that he spent a lot of time there. More than he should.
"Hey Marco," he said flatly, his expression unchanging.
"Geez, you really need to consider getting a maid for this place," I tried to lighten the mood as I stepped inside the room, but it didn't work. The moment I set foot inside that room I felt a shadow settle over my mood.
"What are you doing here?"
"Gee, Jake. I'm hurt. I'm not allowed to visit my best friend's house without arousing suspicion?" Admittedly, we hadn't been seeing much of each other lately – I was too busy with interviews and acting and endorsements, and he was too busy moping around – but we'd been best friends for as long as I could remember, and there was no way in hell I was going to let the Yeerks ruin that too.
"Marco."
"Yes?" I plopped myself down on the hardwood floor, leaning back on my elbows and peering up at him.
"What do you want?"
"That's a good question, fearless leader." He grimaced at the nickname and I made a mental note to avoid calling him that anymore. "I want to snap you out of your funk."
"I am not in a 'funk'."
I snorted. "Please."
He let out a frustrated sigh and there was a long, heavy pause.
"So what are you doing in here, anyway?"
He didn't respond for several seconds. "Just thinking."
"Yeah? There's a surprise." I grasped at the chance to try again to cheer him up. Swing and a miss. Ouch. That's strike two.
"It's silly, you know. I keep thinking that if I sit here long enough he'll show up and ask me what the hell I'm doing in his room and then we'll go out and shoot some hoops or something. Like we did before, you know?"
"Yeah, I know." Well well, looked like we were getting somewhere.
"How did you do it? Get over all of it, I mean – the war, and everything?"
I paused, thinking. It took me a minute to figure out how to phrase it – we were guys, after all, and guys do not talk about feelings. It's like Dude Rule #1. And yet, here we were, sitting in Jake's dead brother's room and doing just that.
"I think it was because I still remembered how to smile."