Dark Secret

Chapter 3

Jack had taken the car and was on his way to meet Ryan and Matt to record some Drawful with Supermega and Oney. When he arrived they had a couple of drinks before they started recording. Chris was the one with the artistic flair, Matt and Ryan coming up with the most offensive jokes possible and Jack was seemingly the most innocent of the four. They finished up recording and then had enough drinks to make their knees buckle. Ryan seemed to be downing shots like there was no tomorrow, despite his low alcohol tolerance. Ryan staggered to his feet and stood up on top of the coffee table holding  up a lit candle in a tealight as some kind of tribute.
"To our- " *belch* "To our good... GAAAAAY friend Jack... or Sean... whatever I dunno".
Jack was sat staring at him, a large grin on his face. Chris wasn't really paying attention as he was doing something on his phone and Matt seemed to look slightly uncomfortable as he watched Ryan drunkenly stumbling closer to him.
"I- um- it's your birthday tomorrow right? Yeah? Am I- Am I right?"Jack nodded, his smile getting wider at the expense of his completely pissed friend.
"Well- we... from Matty... and me... maybe Chris I dunno if he cares... Happy Bi...." *HEURGH*.
All of a sudden Ryan hurled up the contents of his hurled up the contents of his stomach, narrowly avoiding Matt and causing him to freak out and use Jack and Chris as a bridge across the sofa, winding them both.

"WHAT TIME IS IT?" Chris shouted at Jack, attempting to make his voice heard over Matt's cursing and screams at Ryan who was chasing him with his puke covered hands who gave up after tripping over the majority of e furniture. At this point Jack and Chris were pretty pissed too. Jack reached for his phone and pulled it out his pocket , dropped it, picked up again, tutted at the crack in the corner of the screen and turned on his phone:

01:44am - Tuesday 7th February

[✉ Markimoo ♥: Hey! Just wondering what time you're gett...] 10:23pm

[✉ Markimoo ♥: Hope you're having fun! Don't be too long x  ] 11:16pm

[✉ Markimoo ♥: Please call me, you said you'd be home a ... ] 01:36am

[📞 2 missed calls from Markimoo ♥]

"It's- it's um- wu- 1:44?" Jack drunkenly spluttered. He was squinting to try and decipher the blurred symbols on the screen, however because he was so focused on working out what time it was he didn't notice the notifications.
"Already? Wow- Happy birthday man... HEY MATT! RYAN! It's his birthday!" Chris proclaimed, pointing at Jack.
"Yaay!" They both shouted with little to no enthusiasm, not even bothering to turn around from their activities, even though Ryan wasn't particularly doing anything.
"I- I should um..." Jack started, with a very concentrated look on his face. He then rolled his head to look at Chris.
"I can't remember.. WAIT!..... No- no I got nothin'." With Chris being so heavily intoxicated, this for some reason sent him into hysterics and was fanning his face with both hands frantically in an attempt to calm himself down.
"Oh yeah I remember now... Crap I shoulda been home hours ago... I should probably get a taxi home, Mark is probably worryin'."

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It was 2:46am, Jack should have been back at the house by now and Mark was beginning to worry. He hadn't called or replied to any of Mark's texts since he first got there and although Mark tried to dismiss it as just 'maybe his phone is dead... but his phone is ringing' or 'he probably just left his phone in the other room... except that thing is quite literally glued to him', Mark couldn't help but feel panicky about where his boyfriend was. Mark had been sitting up all night waiting for him to get back, and as the night went on, the scenarios in Mark's head as to Jack's location were becoming more and more terrifying.
'What if he was in a car crash?'
'What he was bleeding out somewhere and nobody could find him?' 'What if he was DEAD?'
Mark started to panic and was starting to get a little hysterical, he said he would be back hours ago and there wasn't  so much as a text to say he was running late.