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"Fuck.I mean… I can understand having a rough time letting your kid grow up, but that's…"
"Beyond reason?" Ethan asked with a snort. "Alex is an adult now, and he's going to graduate here in a few months. What's he expected to do? It's… Alex's dad may have been within his legal rights, but it's… it's notright— y'know?"
Jakob scratched his chin, his beard tickling his fingers. "Doesn’t help with his documentation problem either, does it?"
"No," Ethan sighed, then pursed his lips. "You don’t think…"
"No idea. Well… In for a penny, in for a pound, right?" Jakob drawled, feeling a small grin slip across his face as an idea came to him. "I've managed to teach more than one teenager to drive over in the north pasture. I'll ask Alex if he wants to learn how too."
"Only if you promise me you won't — "
Jakob chuckled at Ethan's suspicious expression. "Yes —I swear there will be absolutely no attempts at car surfing this time. You learned, though, right?"
"God, if I think of how many stupid ass bullshit things we used to do as kids…" Ethan said, wincing. "By all rights, there should be a pair of headstones out there with our names on them."
"Yeah well… There aren't and we grew up. Eventually," Jakob said with an easy shrug, gesturing at the laptop's camera with his coffee mug. "Just consider how many mistakes that we’re making here now that we'll be looking back on in the next twenty years."
"…You don't — You don't thinkthisis a mistake, do you?" Ethan asked hesitantly, his face drawn up again in an anxious expression.
"No," Jakob reassured him firmly. "You and me; us helping Alex — however this all shakes out, I’m certain that this is something I’m going to look back on and know that it was right. I just wish it wasn't necessary. But… even from just the little I've seen, from seeing how much you care? Alex's a good kid. He needs a chance to grow into a good adult, whatever form that takes for him. I'm more than happy to have him here, for as long as he needs."
Jakob took a sip of his coffee, watching the flurry of expressions flitting across Ethan's face, until finally he seemed to settle on sheer relief.
"Time to stop stalling though, Ethan," Jakob said into the growing silence, taking a deep breath to steel himself. "How areyoudoing?"
Ethan slumped then, inhaling deeply as the heel of his palm came up to scrub roughly at his left eyebrow. "School principal called me this morning."
Jakob couldn't help his sharp intake of air at that. Judging by the way Ethan's eyes jumped to his, it had been audible through the connection.
"That… doesn't sound good," Jakob hazarded.
"It's not," Ethan confirmed unhappily. "School board's calling an emergency video meeting this afternoon. Principal said she tried to vouch for me — hell, board president was in that art class you came to; stays after sometimes and we talk football. Maybe that's why I got a heads-up, I dunno. But… he passed along the warning that the board's likely to be a stickler for policy here. He's going to try and get them to ask me to 'take a sabbatical' while all this gets sorted… or at least — at least until it dies down. Said… Said it would look better for me than having to place me under… under administrative leave."
Ethan looked away at that, glancing out of his kitchen window; his Adam's Apple bobbing furiously as he swallowed.
"Won't that just make it look like…" Jakob trailed off, unsure how to say it.
Ethan snorted. "Sure as hell won't help."
"What about your classes?"
"They'll bring in a substitute. Hopefully not the same one that let the kids fling paint on the ceiling last time while they sat playing on their phones, but… I'm not sure they'll exactly be giving me a say in it," Ethan said, looking pained at the thought.
"…Is there anything I can do?" Jakob asked quietly; uncertain how he could help, but still feeling that familiar itch to jump in and save the day. To try and fix things for his old friend.
He hated seeing that dejected look on Ethan's face, wanted nothing more than to be able to reach through the laptop screen and smooth his fingers across the furrows etched so deeply into Ethan's brow. To see those warm brown eyes shine, that smile…
"You're already doing it. I'll be alright, just… Might have a little more time on my hands for a few days than I thought," Ethan told him, pasting on a thin smile that didn’t come anywhere near his eyes. "Might stretch a new canvas, paint something. Never know, a bit of a break might end up being a good thing, right?"
"Sure," Jakob said, trying to sound supportive. "A vacation's always nice."
"Yeah," Ethan said weakly. "Maybe. Anyway, I'll let you go. Didn't mean to be a bother this morning, just… Just wanted to see how you all were getting on."
"You're not a bother Ethan. Far from it," Jakob shook his head, trying to reassure him. "Call anytime you need."
Ethan snorted, "You're going to regret that offer when I drunk call you at two a.m."
"Mm, a video booty call does have potential, though. Or maybe I fire up the computer and we play games until dawn like we used to," Jakob suggested, something warm spreading through his chest to see a genuine smile cross Ethan's face at the memory. "I'm serious — I don't mind, Ethan. Not if it's you."
