Dave x Jack Oneshots

24. Love, Jack

It was almost 1 am. Jack could see his alarm clock on top of the drawer from his bed, displaying the time.

It was late, and he was supposed to be asleep, but he just couldn't sleep, even if he wanted to.

Probably because he drank too much coffee at daytime, since last night he only had 2 hours of sleep and needed to keep himself awake.

The tangerine tried watching TV, counting sheep, thinking about pizza, working out a little, but nothing worked.

Then, his eyes slightly widened as he started getting up from his bed, walking up to his closet.

From there, he took out his steel-string acoustic guitar that he got when he was 14.

He sat down on his bed, positioning the guitar on his knees.

He played the G chord, running his fingers throught all 6 strings, scrunching his nose at the cringy noise the instrument made.

Jack had lost his tuner somewhere, so he tried his best to tune the guitar on his own.

A while later, he played the G chord again, together with some other basic chords.

Well... It wasn't the most accurate tuning, but it was good enough.

Once the orange finished with tuning, he took a small breath in, his left hand fingers positioning on the frets to play the Am chord.

As soon as he did that, he started playing "Waltz in A minor". Simple.

There were a few slip-ups as he played, but the tangerine played the whole thing pretty well.

He rested his fingers for a minute, then picked up his guitar again, coughing a little.

"On a dark desert highway..." he let out a whisper, slowly playing his instrument.

"Cool wind in my hair..." he got a little louder, despite not really liking his voice, which was croaky, cause he needed sleep.

But whatever. He was alone at his home, in the middle of the night.

---

"Warm smell of callitas, rising up through the air..." Dave almost choked on air, as panic took over his body when he heard Old Sport's voice from upstairs.

"Wait, Jack's awake?! He's usually sleeping by now! What the fuck?! Wh-" Panicked aubergine's thoughts were cut off as he heard the orange continue singing.

"Up ahead in the distance... I saw a shimmering light. My head grew weary and sight grew dim, I had to stop for the night..." God, Jack's voice was so beautiful. He should sing more often.

Dave's panic slowly faded as he crept upstairs, as silently as humanly possible.

He had done this before a dozen of times, so he knew which spots to place his feet on.

The aubergine heard the tangerine playing his guitar, and his voice was clearer.

He put his left ear to Jack's bedroom door, to hear him better.

As Jack kept performing in his bedroom, Dave remembered the song. It was Hotel California, by Eagles. They're a great band. Dave and Jack would sometimes sing their songs when bored at work.

"Welcome to the Hotel California..." Dave sang the chorus together with Jack, luckily, the orange couldn't hear him.

"Such a lovely place..." Jack sang, "Such a lovely place..." Dave sang quietly after him.
"Such a lovely face..." Jack continued, as Dave softly rocked his head left and right, his eyes closed.

These few minutes of singing felt like seconds to both of them.

When Jack strummed the final chord, Dave was about to whistle and clap loudly, but he remembered that he is in the tangerine's house without him knowing, so he stopped himself from doing so.

There was a minute of silence, so Dave began sneaking away from the door. Before he could reach the stairs, he heard a finger-style guitar melody.

So Dave sneaked back to where he was.

He tried to recognise what Jack was playing, but nothing rung the bell.

Maybe... Jack writes his own music?

Seconds later, a elegant fingerstyle was taken over by a strong, confident chord variation melody, that pricked up Dave's ears.

He still couldn't identify the song, but goddammit, it sounded good.

When he tried to look more into what Jack is playing... Not only what chords he's playing, but what the instrumental's theme was about, he imagined something related to... Love?

He didn't know why. For all he knew, it could be about child-murder, or Scuttlers.

The instrumental was pretty short. Too bad Jack didn't sing in this piece.

When Dave heard him walking, he stopped breathing and didn't move a single muscle.

Jack put his guitar back in the closet, then yawned and flopped onto his bed.

Dave started breathing again, calming down.

Wait... Why is he in Sportsy's house again? His memory got a little fuzzy.

Oh, yeah, he was short on food. He needed to steal some from Jack. He doesn't notice anyway, so...

Later...

As Dave was shoving random food he found in his huge pant pockets, a sheet of paper fell out from one of the cupboards.

He bent down to pick it up and put it back where it was, but when he shone his flashlight on it, he saw... Guitar tabs?

He picked the paper up, sat down by Jack's kitchen table and analyzed it.

There were sloppily written guitar tabs, chords, their strumming patterns. All of this was written by Jack, cause Dave knows Jack's handwriting pretty well.

It was obvious upon futher inspection that it was the instrumental Jack played before going to get some shut-eye.

Dave realized he hadn't looked at the title yet.

"Love, Jack"

Dave's eyes reread the title about 15 times and... Nothing changed, it's still "Love, Jack".

The aubergine's breath hitched as he put down the flashlight he was holding on the table.

"Love, Jack"

...

Jack writing down these words with his own hand was already a big surprize to Dave.

The tangerine wasn't the affectionate type of person. He never showed anyone "that" side of himself since his parents' car crash accident.

If he is in love right now, who could that special person be? That question was hard to answer.

Who could that song be meant to?

Dave gripped his dark purple hair, trying to think, but nobody was coming to his head.

Maybe it was that one hot stripper fax that Jack couldn't keep his eyes off of 1 year ago in Vegas?

Nah, that's bullshit, Jack isn't that terrible.

The aubergine picked up the flashlight and flipped the page over, to immedeatly see his answer in the bottom right corner.

"To : Dave ❤"

A few tears involunterally escaped Dave's eyes as he took the sheet of paper with shaky hands and hugged it, putting it to his chest.

"I-I- I love you too, Jack..."