Homesick
by Otte, who probably finds kids too easy to write
Jeff picked through his backpack, looking at each of the broken and smashed items in turn. Thanks to Ness' smashing some of Giygas' robots to bits, Jeff had plenty of parts to work with. Even if he couldn't understand some of the more complex mechanisms of the alien technology, he was still fascinated and determined to discover more. He had to be more cautious though, he had found some pink goop in one of the pieces – it seemed interesting until he touched it and received some bizarre and painful stinging burns for his troubles. Thank God for Psi Lifeup, that was all he could say.
He glanced over the pieces, and then across his companions – Paula was making a fire, Poo was sitting meditating and Ness…looked strangely off colour. His hands covered his cheeks, hiding away the fact that his usual smile was absent from his face, and his eyes seemed sad, distant even.
"Ness?" Jeff asked, putting down his equipment and shuffling over to the forlorn boy. Jeff wasn't exactly the best at emotional stuff – that was more Tony's area of expertise – but he couldn't let one of his closest friends sit there looking like so very…un-Ness-like. It was weird seeing such a normally cheerful boy unhappy.
Ness looked over at the weedy boy slowly, smiling weakly.
"Hey, buddy," he said, grinning (the force behind the grin was enough to crack his face in two), "Those robot parts any use? I can go look for some more if they're not. I can do it by myself, one smaaaash from me and any of Giygas' goons are done for."
Normally Jeff found Ness' slight arrogant streak very annoying, but he thought this false, exaggerated cockiness was a lot worse. It was tragic, in a weird way.
"Yes, they're great. There's a lot I can engineer with equipment like that," Jeff said quickly and then paused. Well what did he say now? 'Sorry mate, but you look about ready to kill yourself?' Sure Jeff, that'd go down really well. If Tony were here, Jeff thought with some frustration, he'd know how to cheer Ness up. As infuriatingly clingy as Tony could be, he was much, much better at this kind of thing.
Jeff bit his lip; he hadn't really noticed how much he missed his best friend - he had been so preoccupied with the journey and spellbound by all the technology that they had found, he hadn't noticed that weird loneliness eating at the back of his mind.
How pathetic, Jeff thought to himself. His father would think he was a complete idiot.
"Jeff, man, are you alright?" Ness asked, his voice full of concern – probably the first non-fake emotion the young psychic had conveyed this evening, "You look…a bit off."
Oh, you are kidding me, Jeff thought to himself. He could almost laugh at the irony.
"I could say the same to you."
"I'm fine," Ness said, smiling. Jeff knew that Ness was never one to say he was anything otherwise. Paula and Poo didn't seem to notice the conversation between the two boys – Paula was in the zone with cooking dinner and Poo was in the zone…meditating. Jeff didn't have any idea what that would entail.
"You don't look so good though," Ness said, "Maybe you should have an early night tonight. We're out of coffee anyway; you've got no fuel to keep yourself up all night again."
"I'm fine," Jeff retorted lamely, "Now what's the matter with you?"
"Nothing, I'm fine. I mean dude, is there something troubling you? You can tell me about it."
"No, no, I'm fine! You –"
"No, don't be stupid, I'm fine. If there's –"
"Nothing's wrong, I'm fine."
"Well you don't – "
"You certainly don't look your usual –"
"I'm fine!"
"I'm fine!"
Both boys fell silent, watching on as Paula cooked their dinner over the fire.
Without warning, Ness burst out laughing. Jeff raised an eyebrow at the older boy, but Ness' laughter was infectious and a wry smile spread across the blonde boy's face.
"So we're both fine then," Ness said, still sniggering.
"I can't say we're both fine, but we're certainly both ridiculously stubborn," Jeff said lightly, wrapping his arms around his knees, "I can tell you're not fine."
"I can tell you're not either," Ness said, grinning. Jeff didn't know how Ness' good spirits could be restored so quickly. That said, the boy took everything in his stride. From cameramen falling from the sky (while Jeff, Paula and Poo looked on blankly, Ness would always enthusiastically strike a pose, as if it was the most normal thing in the world) and being specially chosen by a prophetic apple to save the world from an evil…whatever Giygas was, Ness didn't seem to be bothered by any of it. In fact, the only time Jeff had saw Ness in a bad mood was whenever they ran into that fat blonde kid and whenever he hadn't….
"It's been a long time since you called home hasn't it?" Jeff said, irritated that it had taken this long for it to dawn on him, "And a long time since we last had steak."
Ness was silent, his face going slightly red. Embarrassment was also a very rare emotion for Ness. Whenever somebody accused Paula and Ness of being a couple, Paula would go red and quietly mutter they were just friends, but Ness would just grin, sling an arm around her and play along.
"W-well…yeah…maybe I'm a little homesick."
Jeff smiled.
"Don't worry…me too."
"You, Jeff? Stoic, quiet Jeff has sentiments?" Ness mocked, grinning. Jeff, in a stroke of rare childishness, stuck his tongue out at the boy.
"Well…yeah. I miss Snow Wood…well…not so much the stupid school. But I miss the snow, I miss my friend Tony –"
"Tony-who-almost-squeezed-your-guts-out-when-we-rescued-him-from-the-Stonehenge-base Tony?" Ness interrupted.
"That is his full name, yes," Jeff replied dryly.
"You big girl, Jeff," Ness said light-heartedly.
Jeff mock-punched the boy in the arm as strong as his little nerd arms would let him...which wasn't very.
Once again, the two boys fell into another lapse of silence. This time, a comfortable one. "Dinner's up, boys!" Paula announced cheerfully, almost making Jeff, who had slipped into a daydream, jump out of his skin.
"Alright!" Ness said enthusiastically, "What're we having?"
Paula smirked, a knowing glint in her brown eyes.
"Steak. I sneaked one into our supplies as a bit of a surprise for you, Ness."
Before Jeff could even register what was happening, Ness launched himself at Paula and hugged the poor unsuspecting girl until she couldn't breathe.
Jeff laughed and blinked as something cold and wet fell on his nose. The skies had opened, and snow had started falling.