Ch. 6
After spending the night with Jade he should've pretty much knocked out in exhaustion on the helicopter ride home. Instead Dave found that aside from a twenty minute nap here, and a ten minute nap there, he simply could not sleep.
When Raul woke up, Jade made some breakfast and charmed him before they went their separate ways. After spending the night talking, the goodbye exchanged between Dave and Jade was casual and non-commital. He was extremely foolish for thinking it'd be all dramatic and shit. She gave him some seed packets and homemade tea blends with instructions on how to grow her plants and how to make the tea and when. She instructed him to brew some for himself and Raul once they got home, but he wasn't an avid tea drinker so he planned to just send the stuff home with his pilot instead. She also threw in some pain medication saying it was much safer to use than anything over the counter. He figured that the doctor knew best.
For being so tired he was awfully restless. He replayed the events from the previous night over and over in his head. Man he was itching to get home and get some ideas flowing for his next movie, get a few mixes in here and there, and...
To message her.
Jade had given him her chum handle for pesterchum verbally, for some reason not willing to write it down. He usually didn't need to write down things anyways, so he had no problems with that. GardenGnostic. Knowing Jade it'd be even easier to remember.
Despite his anxiousness to arrive home in a hurry, he was also weirdly upset the farther they got from Jade's island. He almost asked to turn the copter back, but what would have been his excuse? Oh hey Jade, forgot my watch or some shit, just came back to get it. Dumb.
Besides, there was work to be done. Dread it all he wanted, home was where he needed to go right now. Or at least one of his homes. Whatever.
He remembered Jade waving him off when they departed. He watched her like a sap behind the safety of his shades as they lifted off the ground and flew away. Her hair whipped around crazier than Medusa as she waved with a smile standing next to her stoic dog, who looked wild as the winds brushed through his long white fur. He raised his hand to give her a thumbs up paired with a stoic face.
"See ya, you fucked up mutt..." he mumbled in a way that was tinged with the slightest bit of affection. After all, he played a big part in the everything that had happened in the last two days.
"Bye, Jade."
...
When they got to his California home, Dave thanked his pilot with a large chunk of change for all the shit he had to go through, his share of Jade's tea leaves, and the last of the pain medication dose that Doctor Harley prescribed.
"Thanks a lot man, sorry about all that."
The man shrugged, "Anytime, sir." Then he went home to his wife and kids.
Dave went straight to his empty apartment and immediately headed for the shower. His phone was charging and his shit lay scattered on the floor, leaving a messy trail to the bathroom.
He sighed against the tile as the warm water eased the muscles that had tightened in the helicopter for about 10 hours. The tension slowly ebbed away, though not completely. Never completely. With his body relaxing he found that his mind was still running a marathon dedicated largely to one Jade Harley. When he wasn't thinking about her, he was preoccupied with questions. What was with the dog? The symbols at the frog temple? The timer on the lotus plant had stuck firmly to his mind, the numbers counting down as if they were projected on his shades which he wasn't even wearing at the moment. He might wear the things all the time but he wasn't going to wear them all the time of course. At least not in the shower. What would even be the point?
With a slight squeak of the cold water handle, Dave finished showering. His light hair was plastered atop his head looking a few shades darker. Quickly, and with the ease of habit he wrapped a towel around his waist after stepping out. He grabbed another towel and rubbed it against his head vigorously before patting away at his upper body. With one hand he put his shades back on his face, intense red replaced by reflective black. All the while thoughts streamed through his mind like the Nile. All his new questions melded with the numbing static of the never ending ideas that drilled his head. It felt like something between a jackhammer and a two ton headache at its worst.
He shook it away, all of it as best as he could. Yet there Jade stuck like a sticker onto his mental capacities. It wasn't like him. People didn't make personal impacts on him. Sure they could feed ideas, memes, tropes, stereotypes, material. There were only a few that had any meaning beyond being useful as a worker or as a reference.
When he signed onto pesterchum he saw that one such person just so happened to be online.
- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] -
TG: rose
TT: Dave. How did your venture off to Asia go?
TG: fine
TG: asiany
TG: doesnt matter. weird shit went down somewhere off in the middle of nowhere
TG: like bermuda triangle weird shit
TG: maybe i was in the bermuda triangle holy shit i dont even know
TT: That's in the Atlantic Ocean, Dave. Near Florida.
TG: ok whatever point is that shit went down like the economy or like oil drills and the superman ride at six flags
TT: I've never been.
TG: its one of those drop rides
TT: Ah, continue.
He proceeded to tell his friend, one of his only friends, the basic points of what had happened.
TT: I guess I'll have to take the bet off of you being homosexual. That's too bad.
TG: we are not talking about how gay you think i am and want me to be for your slash wizard fanfics lalonde
TT: How is it fanfiction when I wrote the books myself?
TG: dont change the subject
TG: and dont even pretend like you didnt wish i was into dudes for your hot ero literature
TT: I'd never. It just seemed like that was the case with your obsession with "dudes." I mean, SBaHJ's cast is almost entirely male, not to mention how blatantly homoerotic you've made the relationship between your main characters.
TG: bromance
TG: its called bromance rose and you would know nothing about it
TT: However you want to label it, an artist's work is the eye through which the audience sees the artist himself, and despite the thick layers of "irony" that you use to cover up everything in your life, all I see is a bunch of references to male genitalia and Oedipal issues.
TG: why are we even friends omg
Dave smacked his head to his desk. The exhaustion was finally kicking in, and Rose Lalonde was subduing his consciousness like some sort of snake charmer with her wannabe psychology babble. She was the only person that he put on the same level as himself, though he meant that as no conceited comment. In fact, she was probably above him in many ways except in making any pop culture references. Girl needed some street cred, which is an extremely difficult task when one spends most of her waking hours locked up in her home writing fifty pounds worth of literature in a day. He'd admit she was sharp as though Japanese kitchen knives that were always on television ads though.
When Rose finished what was probably three chapters worth of analysis of his life and everything she could pick apart about what had happened with Jade (in what was probably the abridged version), she gave him one more curt message before she got to bed.
TT: Now that you've prolonged it long enough by talking to me, message her. Good night Dave.
- tentacletherapist [TT] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] -
Fucking trust Rose to read into the literal conversation he was having. Not the words or content of the conversation, the fact that the conversation was actually happening. Who says a guy can't talk to his friend at like, her two in the morning without it being an excuse? Like he, Dave Strider, would feel like a panicky preteen girl trying to dial her crush's number. Too lame. No, he was just in the mood to have his ear talked off right this very minute. He could add Jade to his chums easy. Easy...
He typed her chum handle with a straight face, not at all feeling slightly sick and nervous about it.
Shit.
What if she didn't want to talk to him? They had talked an awful lot last night but who's to say it meant anything?
Dave almost called Rose to ask if she could analyze the fuck out of that question but like hell if he would ever sound that desperate. Of course Jade would talk to him. They got pretty close, right? That was a thing that totally happened. She was like the Batman to his Lois Lane or some shit. Comics.
- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] -
TG: yo jade
TG: so this is dave
TG: of the strider variety
TG: you know the one that just paid you a visit in toadstool town
TG: yep in the flesh
TG: or you know the digital flesh
Goddammit he was rambling. Or was he? He was certainly over thinking which wasn't a thing that usually happened, but he could feel the rare heat of embarrassment clawing its way to his face and the rest of his body. Oh my god this was a disaster. Abort ship. Every man for himself. To the lifeboats captain!
No. I will go down with this ship. I won't put my hands up and surrender. There will be no white flag above my door. I'm in l-
GG: dave?
TG: oh hey there
-x.x.x.x.x.x-
Hello readers! Hope you liked this chapter... There's quite a bit more to this story but I'm pretty busy with school and things, so sorry if chapters don't come out very quickly. I'm honestly not trying to fish or pander when I say that reviews make me write faster. They really do make me want to update quicker, and sometimes I buck up and write when I read them, but they don't necessarily mean that I will... What I'm saying is THANK YOU for every favorite and follow and review. They inspire me and drive me more than you all know. Thanks for reading!
Edit: Made corrections and some not too significant changes.