[Oh. He isn't expecting a hug, which might say just as much about how low Jake's standards have fallen as Eddie's uncontrollable need to execute one.
Just as he'd been beginning to hope he wouldn't have to be alone, he'd lost track of Roland, and now in the loss of even that small scrap of familiarity, he's swung back to wondering if he should get used to this feeling. Family is a finite resource, after all. He's used his all up. And what does that leave him? An island struggling to stay afloat on the choppy waters the man in black had set him on.
Only the gentle human contact makes his heart thud painfully and reminds him he's not just an island. He's also a boy who'd been broken open by grief and tragedy not that long ago; the simple gesture rattles the bar of the cage he'd put up around it, piercing the the part of him not numbed by hearing his mother's screams as she'd died.
Jake has to swallow something thick and immediate as he links his hands together behind Eddie's back in the kind of thoughtless, unselfconscious reciprocation of young people have finding a like-minded ally during hard times. He gets the sense Eddie needs to lean on him--and that's okay even when he's actually not neither is Eddie. He understands wanting to say so with the hope the rest of you will catch up with your words.
A smile--just as unexpected--touches his lips while the worst of the day's revelations sloughs off to reduce them back to their proper ages. Even if it just lasts the duration of the hug, it's a good feeling.]
(We will be. We'll figure it out.)
[Except the absent promise doesn't seem to filter into Eddie's ear so much as echo inside him. To come from inside his mind.]
this might sound cheesy but i agree this is grate
Just as he'd been beginning to hope he wouldn't have to be alone, he'd lost track of Roland, and now in the loss of even that small scrap of familiarity, he's swung back to wondering if he should get used to this feeling. Family is a finite resource, after all. He's used his all up. And what does that leave him? An island struggling to stay afloat on the choppy waters the man in black had set him on.
Only the gentle human contact makes his heart thud painfully and reminds him he's not just an island. He's also a boy who'd been broken open by grief and tragedy not that long ago; the simple gesture rattles the bar of the cage he'd put up around it, piercing the the part of him not numbed by hearing his mother's screams as she'd died.
Jake has to swallow something thick and immediate as he links his hands together behind Eddie's back in the kind of thoughtless, unselfconscious reciprocation of young people have finding a like-minded ally during hard times. He gets the sense Eddie needs to lean on him--and that's okay even when he's actually not neither is Eddie. He understands wanting to say so with the hope the rest of you will catch up with your words.
A smile--just as unexpected--touches his lips while the worst of the day's revelations sloughs off to reduce them back to their proper ages. Even if it just lasts the duration of the hug, it's a good feeling.]
( We will be. We'll figure it out. )
[Except the absent promise doesn't seem to filter into Eddie's ear so much as echo inside him. To come from inside his mind.]