Claire turned away from the door and jumped when she saw Jones sitting by himself behind his decks in the darkened flat.
"Jones! You scared me, I thought you were out. I didn't hear the music when..." she trailed off weakly.
Jones gave her a small smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"Can't work," he said simply, "I feel strange."
Claire looked at her feet awkwardly. She made to go into the bedroom but Jones' voice stopped her in her tracks,
"Dan... did I do something to upset him? I mean he's been gone for a while now and he's not said anything to me. I mean I not his minder or anything but I thought that, I thought-" Claire was shocked to see a tear spill out of the DJ's eye.
"Dan's in the hospital," she said suddenly realising that no one had thought to tell Jones, "He... had an accident," she continued slowly.
Jones' eyes went so wide that she could see the whites all around his irises. No one had told him. No one thought that he cared one way or the other about the grouchy bastard that kipped on his sofa. No one thought he cared about anything more than making as much sound for as long as was humanly possible. Apparently they had been wrong.
"What?" he asked in a small voice
Claire shifted her weight from one side to the other and looked at her feet.
"He jumped out a window," she said feeling foolish.
Jones went very quiet and seemed to fold in on himself before dissolving into sobs that shook his entire body. Claire had never cared for Jones, but in that moment she wanted nothing more than to hold him and let him cry. Something in his patheticness stirred some long dormant maternal instinct in her.
Instead she offered him a tissue and wrote down the name of the hospital and Dan's room number and left the room quietly.
He wasn't used to being about at this hour of the day. Twelve in the morning, who's together by then? Still it's not as though he'd been doing much except sitting around feeling sorry for himself and sleeping recently. He looked at the bunch of flowers in his hand. What a stupid idea. He had some vague idea that you brought people flowers when they were sick, but presenting Dan with a bouquet wasn't exactly their style. Too late to do anything about it now. Maybe balloons would have been slightly less soppy.
He knocked on the door and went in slowly. Dan looked pale and somehow smaller, on that bed with all those wires sticking out of him.
"Alright?" he asked, his voice cracking on the second syllable.
Dan turned in his direction and looked through him. Jones almost ran to the bed and dumped the flowers unceremoniously on the bedside cabinet. Dan lifted a hand and batted at Jones' tee shirt weakly.
"They didn't tell me," Jones sobbed, trying to pass it off as a laugh, "I thought I'd done something wrong, or you were tired of me, or something better had come along, or, or-"
Jones stopped talking abruptly and covered his mouth with the back of his hand,
"Why'd you do it, Dan? Why didn't you talk to me? I didn't know it had gotten this bad. When you get out of here, just leave fucking SugaRape, let me take care of you. You can write what you like, you don't need them. Just let me take care of you." He broke off again and started crying silently.
Dan studied his face dispassionately. Jones sat bent double with tears dripping off his nose and splashing onto the hospital issue blanket.
"It wasn't anything to do with you, Jones," Dan said in a voice that he hadn't used since he'd been here.
He wasn't even sure if Jones wasn't just a dream. He still felt the pain, but he always felt the pain. Even drugged up to the eyeballs and in his sleep. Jones looked up angrily.
"Not to do with me? You're in the fucking hospital for fuck knows how long and no one even bothered to tell me. Do you know how that makes me feel? Do you even fucking care, Ashcroft?"
He hadn't meant it like that. He just wanted to let him know he wasn't angry with him, he could never get tired of him, there was no one better in the whole world.
"No," he whispered hoarsely, "It was Barley. He-"
Jones let out an ironic laugh and threw his head back.
"Barley, yeah. For someone you're supposed to hate, you seem to hang around him a lot." His face went momentary hard and distant before crumbling again.
'Fuck it, Dan I-" his mouth formed what might have been an l sound when he stopped himself.
"You're important Dan. You matter. I just wish I mattered to you." He kissed Dan's cheek and left the ward.
Dan lay and touched his cheek where Jones' lips had touched him. When he drew them back he was surprised to see them glittering with tears in the harsh hospital lighting.