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It’s early, the hallway they’re in between their classes is always really cold, and John made the mistake of wearing a T-shirt again. The way he does pretty much every time. Jaren, on the other hand, is dressed comfortably. Donning a hoodie he’d borrowed from John a few nights ago and a nice pair of jeans. If he was more of an asshole he’d ask for it back right now, he knows Jaren likes to layer his clothes. He probably has a T-shirt under it. He couldn’t do that to him, though. At least not yet. He’s not cold enough, maybe he’ll whine about it in class.
Jaren’s leaning against the wall, laptop case strung lazily over his shoulder as they wait outside the door. Their professor doesn’t finish his current class for another… what, twenty five minutes or so? They have more than enough time. It’s just English Literature anyway, and as much as he wants to suggest they just skip it to get coffee from the Starbucks across the street, he doesn’t. He needs to get his degree or something stupid like that. Every morning class makes him wonder how he hasn’t dropped out by now. Starbucks does sound tempting though, John hasn’t had a shaken espresso in too long.
“Smit,” He calls to him, watching Jaren respond to his childhood nickname with a raise of his brow. “Wanna get coffee after this class?”
He knows they both don’t have another lecture for a few hours after this anyway, so hey, no harm no foul.
“I’m broke as fuck, I had to buy a stupid textbook for Economics.” Jaren says sheepishly, readjusting where his laptop case lays over his shoulder.
“It’s fine, I got paid yesterday. I’ll treat this time.”
Jaren mumbles his response which swiftly alerts John to what’s going to happen next, acting quickly as he takes the laptop bag off his shoulder and places it at the ground by Jaren’s feet. He was right in his assumption, because next Jaren falls towards him and suddenly all his body weight is against John. It’s fine, he helps him towards the floor and moves them closer to the wall, positioning Jaren’s head on his lap as he lays him down.
He has something that he called “sleep attacks,” in his own words, and John still remembers the first time it happened. They were both a lot younger, it was in high school at lunch when Jaren suddenly lost consciousness. He can still recall the terror he felt, especially with Jaren being completely unrousable. When he’d come to, though, it was as if nothing had happened. As if he was used to it, and John’s come to be somewhat of an unofficial aid of sorts. He attends Jaren’s classes even if John himself doesn’t have that class just to keep him safe. He never paid too much attention to the details, just that it was very, very imperative to make sure that he doesn’t hit his head really hard on something. Though in John’s opinion that’d be pretty funny to watch, especially the few times he’d fallen in the wrong direction and accidentally taken a pretty hard hit. The drive to the hospital for a CAT scan was a lot less funny in those cases.
“Always at the best times, huh Smit?” He looks down towards the head in his lap, soft brown hair spilling onto him like a waterfall and even breathing tickling his thigh. He always looks incredibly peaceful, like the most terrifying thing didn’t just happen to him. The most terrifying thing might be a bit of a reach, actually. Jaren has said he can sometimes tell when they’re going to happen. Sometimes. He can’t personally imagine it would feel very good to randomly lose consciousness, though.
Regardless, he’ll probably be here for a while. A few days before this Jaren complained about his doctors messing with his dosage, because apparently the last dose wasn’t working, he guessed. Since then his sleep attacks have been lasting a lot longer, usually around thirty minutes or so, so he imagines this one would be much of the same. He shifts his position ever so slightly to grab his phone out of his pocket, taking his time to scroll through Twitter.
He even does the unthinkable, checking his student email, and raising a brow when he sees one from his biochemistry professor. Apparently he’d failed a quiz that had been assigned, but he has no memory of even being assigned one. She didn’t mention that in the last class he had, at least. Not that he recalls anyway.
His friend Matt was also in that class, and he’s online on Discord, so he shoots him a message asking about it.
Kryoz: did we have a test in biochem?
Blarg: ya she put it on canvas last night. you didn’t see it?
Kryoz: no??? she didn’t say anything about it
Blarg: ur supposed to check every night stupid
He clicks his phone shut in a fit of anger, as if the electronic in his hand had any say in what his professor does with her career. That’s why he always despised that class, because of shit like this happening constantly. Most of the time he checks canvas to see if anything was assigned, but this time it must have slipped his mind. He can’t be perfect one hundred percent of the time.
He takes a deep breath, looking back down to the man in his lap, and he gets an idea… though it sounds really fucking stupid. Like, cringeworthy stupid. Unless it works? He looks around to double check that the hallway is empty, and looking back down to Jaren again, he sighs.
“Smit, hey,” He nudges him gently, watching his body roll with the movement. “Can you hear me?”
Nothing in response, he seems completely dead to the world. Maybe it wasn’t stupid after all, then. John’s never been good at letting things out, at least not healthily, and maybe sleeping Jaren wouldn’t mind him testing the waters.
“I kind of hate professor Dupont,” He begins slowly, and he does feel stupid. “She assigned a test last night and I guess I didn’t check canvas and now I failed it. I mean… who does that? Why not send an email at least? It’s so fucking stupid.”
He’s looking down towards Jaren as if he’d respond, and knowing him, he’d probably agree that it’s stupid. He didn’t take biochemistry himself or anything, it wasn’t needed for his degree, but he knew somewhat about that class based on John and Matt’s constant complaining. His breathing is yet even and still, constant in his gentle exhaling.
“Maybe I should send her an email about it, actually,” He says with a sigh. It feels more natural if he imagines how Jaren would respond, at least. Sort of like talking to your cat when it’s in your room. “Maybe she’d open it for me, I could use work as an excuse. Especially if I’m really nice about it.”
It could actually work, he thinks, and he considers how he’d word it briefly until a crowd of students begin exiting the classroom they’re waiting outside of. He double checks to make sure they’re out of the walkway, ignoring the couple of strange looks he gets from people as they go by. Why should he have to explain it? He’s not the one who falls asleep at any second. He’s just the one who protects Jaren. His guard dog, or something like that. The concept of it makes him giggle, his attention being brought to the aforementioned man as he begins to wake up. He twitches for a moment before mumbling something under his breath, pushing himself off of John’s lap.
“How… How long was I out?” The exhaustion that was palpable in his voice earlier was long gone, but the bags under his eyes as he squinted towards John were ever present.
“Mmm,” He checks his phone for the time. “About twenty minutes, give or take.”
He rubs his eyes as he scans the floor for his laptop, grabbing the case and pulling it closer to him.
Before he can ask, John says “Your laptop is fine. I put it on the ground before it happened.”
Jaren breathes a sigh of relief at that, and John thinks it’s a little funny that he’s more worried about the laptop than he is about possibly hitting his head on something. Probably because he doesn’t have a pounding headache, maybe. That could explain it.
He feels a lot better about the whole surprise quiz thing, too, like a weight off his chest. Though it didn’t seem like Jaren even remembered him saying anything, maybe that could be his opportunity to practice being open, or something. It felt nice to actually speak about things out loud, despite how awkward of a territory it was for him. It was a work in progress, in his home growing up feelings were usually a taboo topic. Swept neatly under the rug to be forgotten about until later.
“So,” John starts, rising to his feet and holding a hand out for Jaren to take. “Starbucks after class?”
“I was thinking,” Jaren says, pausing to take a sip of his Sprite. “Would you want to help me study calculus some time soon? You’re a lot better at it than I am.”
John’s finished his final class for the day, but Jaren still has two more and it’s his civic duty as his friend to make sure he doesn’t accidentally hurt himself while in class. They went to the diner off campus they both like for lunch, they haven’t been in probably a couple of months, if John had to make an estimate. It reminds him of his childhood town in Missouri, reminiscent of the small diner his mother would take him to as a form of apology for shoving him into his church clothes.
Studying, though. Sure, he could help Jaren with that. He’s always been decent at math, unlike most of his friends. He doesn’t really understand what’s so hard about it, it’s simple instructions you follow. It’s pretty cut and dry, but he’ll take Jaren up on any offer to get more time alone with him. There’s just something about him, whether it’s the slightly curly brunet locks, or the way his cheeks haven’t quite lost their baby fat yet. Or maybe it’s his eyes, weary and tired most of the time yet gentle all the same. It could also be the way they’ve always fit together, like two parts of the same whole. As mushy and disgusting as it sounds, John could wax poetic about him pretty often. Not that he’d ever admit that to Jaren, anyway.
“Yeah, I could help you. What specifically are you having problems with though?”
Jaren’s messing with his straw, stirring the ice into his soda. “You’re gonna think I’m dumb.”
“I always think you’re dumb. What are you having problems with?”
It makes Jaren laugh, his eyes crinkling up at the corners as he makes eye contact again with John. He looks away, something in Jaren is so bright that sometimes it feels like looking at the sun if he holds his gaze for too long.
“Inverse trigonometric functions. I have a test coming up and it’s been making me really stressed.”
John gives a dismissive wave of his hand while he says “Pssh, that’s easy, dude. I’ll help you pass.”
The breath of relief Jaren lets out is cut short by their waiter bringing their food to the table, apologizing for the delay. It wasn’t really that long of a wait, and besides, there’s still an hour before Jaren’s next class. They have time. There’s a chorus of ‘thank you’ from both men as he retreats.
Jaren steals a fry off of John’s plate, which has come to be expected by this point. Jaren’s always doing little things like that in an attempt to get a rise out of John, but it’s stopped working. He doesn’t care about sharing anyway, Jaren can have whatever of his he wants. An unspoken policy of if it’s mine, it’s yours. Unless it’s Matt, in which case it still drives him up the wall. No clue where Matt’s hands have been, that gross little freak. He means that in the nicest way possible, too.
Jaren mutters something incoherently, and John puts down the food he’d grabbed to push Jaren’s plate out of the way. He picks up his backpack for Jaren to use as a pillow, but despite it being a pretty well rehearsed move, he ends up being too slow. Jaren’s head hits the table with a thud that makes John wince, but it didn’t sound too bad. He’s short, anyway, he’s sure it’ll be fine. It wasn’t that far of a way down. He lifts his head gently to place the backpack underneath him, patting his hair softly.
“Leaving me alone during lunch, eh?” John says sarcastically, taking a bite out of one of his fries.
He always looks so… angelic, in a way, when he sleeps. Like he didn’t just bang his head against the table comically. He’s sure when he wakes up Jaren will give him an earful about that, which means he probably didn’t get a concussion this time. His eyelashes are long against his cheek, feathering across it in a way that’s mesmerizing. Jaren really is such a beautiful man, if there’s anyone he’d give anything for, it’d definitely be him.
He lets his eyes wander around the diner, taking in the different decorations around the place. A lot of it is fish based, since their college is close to the ocean and a lot of the fish served here is locally caught. There’s a couple of lobster paintings hung up that John thinks are kinda cute, though if anyone asked he’d call them tacky. That’s where it differs from his childhood diner, it was a lot more southern hospitality down there. Not that one is more preferable to him, frankly he doesn’t really get invested enough in things like this to have an opinion.
His phone vibrating on the table draws him back to reality, looking over to see that he’s getting a call from his manager. Usually he’d just let it ring until it goes to voicemail, because the one thing he can get invested in enough to have an opinion on is that managers should just text instead of calling. Though, now that he thinks about it, he’d probably ignore their texts too. He’s definitely done it before and he can say with certainty he’ll do it again.
Tentatively though, he picks up. “Hello?”
“Hey, John, are you able to come in in an hour? We have two call outs, we’re really short staffed.”
He bites his lip, because being on the other end of that, he knows how much it really sucks to have two call outs. He works at a small coffee shop on the water, and if you’re down two people you essentially can’t get anything done. Even being down just one person is enough to slow down a close. He gets paid minimum wage, though, and because of it he doesn’t really care when he’s off. Plus he needs to go with Jaren to class anyway, so it’s not like he doesn’t have an actual reason he can’t go.
“Sorry, I can’t. I need to help my friend with his classes today.”
“Come on,” The frustration in his manager’s voice is easily read, even through the phone call. “Can’t you skip out just for one night? We’re really struggling.”
He’s sorta dumbstruck at that, because usually what you say to someone saying no is just ‘okay no worries!’ Usually you don’t beg them to come in despite it. They must be incredibly stressed if it’s come to this. Unfortunately for them, John doesn’t really care.
“Nah,” He deadpans. “Medical reasons, y’know.”
He can hear him click his tongue in exasperation, which again, takes him aback.
“How serious is it?”
“What do you mean, how serious is it? What?”
“Like, can’t you just come in?”
“Dude, no. I’ll see you at my next scheduled shift. I’m not available today.”
The call is hung up wordlessly afterwards, and the question of “ how serious is it?” lingers in the air above him. It’s not even his condition, it’s probably not something he could quantify even if he wanted to. Last time he picked up a shift and Jaren assured him he was fine, he ended up with a concussion that John still blames himself for. No one could have foreseen it, obviously, but still. He’s usually there to help him, and of course the one time he isn’t is when bad things happen. With the guilt drilled into his conscience like that, he can’t in sound mind pick up a shift. On top of all of that, anyway, he doesn’t even want to work. He’s still a student too, after all. When he’s not looking after Jaren’s dumb sleepy ass he has homework to do. The audacity was nearly astonishing, and the more he thinks about it the angrier it makes him.
He taps the table with his fingers right next to where his untouched food sits, and then he remembers the last time he was in this situation. When he had the bright idea to try being open with sleeping Jaren. It’s kind of embarrassing still honestly looking back, and he cringes inwardly recalling it. It did help though, and this was supposed to be his time to practice getting words out. Most of the time it feels like they’re stuck behind a metaphorical wall, and if he even tries talking about this with another person he’d lose his ability to even speak at all.
It’s a lot easier when the person you’re talking to isn’t even awake.
Before he sounds like the stupidest person in the restaurant, he looks around to see if any of the booths nearby are occupied. It must be his lucky day, because only one is, and it’s decently far away. It was usually pretty quiet in here around this time, especially on a weekday.
“Smitty?” He nudges him, getting no response. Just to make sure. He’s not sure what’s more embarrassing actually, talking to someone who’s asleep, or talking to someone who you think is asleep. If he had an audience for what he’s about to say he’d probably also pass out.
“My manager is… My manager is really fucking annoying.” He begins his tirade. “Like, calling me when I already told them about the whole, you falling asleep thing. I literally planned my availability around your schedule, so obviously there’s not really a time where I’m free. Especially because I’m in college, too. I don’t just work there because I love interacting with snobby customers.”
He can imagine what Jaren’s response would be, he’d most likely laugh at the snobby customer line. He’s always asking John for more stories from work, and he always seems to have new ones every shift. If it’s this bad at a small business, he can’t imagine the nightmare that working at a chain coffee store must be like.
“Plus, the whole ‘how serious is it’ thing is so fucking stupid. It just felt really gross for some reason, I have no idea. I really need to look for a new job or something.”
He leans his cheek against his palm, picking at his food that’s now gone cold. If Jaren is forced to be subjected to cold food, he could deal with it too. Regardless of how stupid it feels to be talking to someone who can’t respond, he can definitely feel the difference between letting things fester and letting things out. If it were a different day he’s sure he would have just sat on it until eventually he had an outburst of some sort. Maybe this was an outlet he needed for a while, but either way, Jaren doesn’t seem to mind.
He goes to complain again when he hears a quiet groan from Jaren, lifting his head up and taking in his surroundings. He presses a hand to his forehead and oh yeah. John forgot about the whole letting his head hit the table thing.
“How long was I out?”
“Didn’t keep track this time,” John begins, watching Jaren squint to adjust to the daylight as he rubs his forehead. “I, uh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t fast enough when you…”
“It’s fine, it doesn’t really hurt that bad.” Jaren says with a dry laugh, handing John’s backpack back over to him now that it’s served its purpose as the world’s most uncomfortable pillow.
“Anyway,” Jaren grimaces as he looks towards his cold food. “When are you free to help me study?”
He can see the campus down the road, changing the playlist he has on while he waits at the light. The sun has long since retired for the day, the twilight sky hangs overhead and most of the stars are lost to the light pollution of the city. It was the one night John couldn't attend a single class with Jaren because he needed to work, even if he’s hating his job more and more every day. Luckily his manager didn’t bring up the stupid call from the other day, though it was still kind of awkward to close with him. Whatever, it wasn’t really his problem. He’s not the one who chose to be a manager. Jaren’s class was a late evening graphic design class, which Matt also has, so usually he helps out when John can’t. The light turns green and he pulls into the campus parking lot soon after.
He sends the younger a quick text saying just “here,” scrolling on his phone for a moment while he waits. It’s a bit after nine, his class is most likely over by now, if John had to guess anyway. Not much time goes by before he watches Jaren’s silhouette appear from the building, walking briskly towards where John’s parked, and when he gets close enough John unlocks the door so he doesn’t jiggle the handle like he usually does. He also turns the radio down a bit, he tends to accidentally blare it when he’s alone in the car. There’s an ongoing joke among their friends that he’ll probably be the first one to go deaf based on his listening habits.
Jaren throws his laptop case to the floor with a bit of force that takes John by surprise, because usually he’s so concerned about that stupid laptop’s safety more than his own.
“Hey, dummy, how was class?” He looks over to where Jaren’s sat and immediately wishes he could take back his words. He has his arms crossed over his chest and an upset scowl on his face, and he says nothing in response. Eyes simply trained onto the dashboard in front of him.
“Are you—” John begins, and he’s cut off when Jaren’s face scrunches into an expression of anguish and his eyes tear up.
John’s never been good at vulnerability, it’s probably his actual worst attribute and his greatest adversary. Though sitting here just watching makes him feel awful, and he technically had been practicing trying to just… get things out. As stupid as that whole scenario was, he needed to put it into use, as bad as he still was at it. Now was probably the best time to do so.
“Smit,” He lowers his voice, trying to get the aforementioned man to look at him. “What’s wrong?”
The simple two word question must have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, because he lets out a strangled sob and squeezes his eyes shut. John absentmindedly unbuckles himself, reaching over the center console to pull him into his best attempt at a hug he could manage from this position. Jaren immediately buries his face into the crook of John’s neck, and he can feel his heart shattering in his chest. He’s never seen the brunet so upset, at least not in a very long time. The last time he was like this was when his family dog had passed away in high school.
He does his best to be soothing, despite the fact that he has absolutely no clue what he’s doing. Rubbing Jaren’s back gently and giving it a pat every now and then as he cries into John’s shirt.
“What’s going on?” He says quietly, the radio still playing music softly in the background, and it makes Jaren pull away to take a couple of deep breaths.
He looks… gorgeous. Which John is immediately kicking himself for thinking, because he’s obviously having a terrible time right now, but god. The way the dim street lights are illuminating his face, reflecting on the big, globby tears that are surfacing in his eyes and rolling down his cheek. The way his brows are scrunched together and his mouth is turned downwards into a woeful frown. He looks like a painting of some sort, like a piece of art.
“I’m so fucking tired of having,” He begins, hiccuping between his words. “Of having narcolepsy. It’s ruining my fucking life.”
This is the part he’d usually stay silent at, because he doesn’t know better and he doesn’t know what to say. Jaren doesn’t deserve that, though, especially with the way he’s unknowingly been assisting John in his search to learn to just get things out. It’ll be awkward and unhelpful, probably, but he can’t just let him sit there. What would he want someone to say to him, if the roles were reversed? Yeah, that’s how he’ll go about it, and he needs to hide the excitement he feels at coming up with that brilliant idea because he couldn’t even begin to explain this to Jaren. Regardless, why didn’t he think of this before?
“What happened?” John’s tone is soft and unsure, but Jaren doesn’t take notice. Or if he does, at least he doesn’t mention it.
“I had a stupid sleep attack and Matt wasn’t paying attention so I fell onto the person next to me and they shoved me off of them because they thought I was being a creep and I hit my head and it really fucking hurts,” he takes a deep breath, his voice wobbly as he goes on. “My doctors keep messing with my modafinil dose even though it keeps making it worse because they can’t accept that it doesn’t fucking work for me. I can’t even tell when they’re coming on now and I can’t even drive for myself or even go to class by myself.”
“Alright,” John says, mostly to himself as preparation. He can feel himself shaking ever so slightly as he poorly navigates the situation. “It’s… It’s okay, and I’m sorry that Matt wasn’t paying attention, but it won’t be like this forever. Stuff like this is something you do a step at a time, um, and it’ll get to a place where it’s manageable.”
He grabs one of Jaren’s hands, struggling to intertwine their fingers, because that’s another thing John doesn’t have much experience with. He can’t lament over that right now, though, and Jaren’s expression softens. All the tension he had earlier seems to have been let out, though John really doubts how useful anything he said was. Maybe what he said didn’t really matter, though. Maybe Jaren just needed to get it out.
“You’re right,” He says softly, wiping his eyes with a dry laugh. “It’s not like they’re actively trying to sabotage me. And it’s not like Matt did it on purpose, you know how he is…” He trails off and John rubs his thumb against Jaren’s.
“I feel kind of better now, thank you John.”
“Of course, it’s what I’m, uh, here for.”
He unplugs the aux cord from his phone, handing it over to Jaren who gingerly takes it. The one thing John usually never gives up control over is the music, if he’s gonna drive it’s gonna be his choice. After the night Jaren had, though, he deserves to play whatever he’d like. It’s not a very long car ride anyway. As long as it isn’t an assortment of TikTok songs again, he can probably put up with it.
“Can I spend the night with you? I don’t feel like going home. If my mom finds out I had a sleep attack during class without you she’s going to be a hover parent for a week.”
He looks over to where Jaren’s sitting, blank expression on his face and eyes trained on his phone as he scrolls through it to search for a song. He looks ethereal, especially in this lighting, and John could wax poetic about him. Until it dawns on him that this absolutely, probably means something. The way he gives him butterflies, the way John would do anything for him, the way he can’t seem to get enough of him. Oh boy. John’s fucked.
“Of course you can,” He looks behind him as he begins to back up to pull away from the curb. “My house is your house, Smit.”
“Here, you dumb bitch.” Jordan says, placing down a draw four card to Matt’s dismay. None of them have class on Fridays, and they haven’t kept each other company in a pretty long time. Though, John guesses Matt probably wishes they weren’t hanging out right about now.
“Whatever,” Matt says as he picks up four cards, hardly doing a good job of hiding the annoyance in his voice. “Playing Uno with only three people fucking blows.”
John hums in agreement as he puts down a yellow six card, prompting Jordan to pick up. Only playing with three people doesn’t stop it from being the actual worst game, though. Especially when you already borderline hate your friends like John does. Not actually, but he sometimes has to imagine that he’s drop kicking them so he doesn’t do it for real.
“Can’t Smitty come? Where is he, actually?” Jordan inquires, waving his hand at Matt to prompt him to play.
“He’s at a doctor's appointment, they’re changing his meds again or something.” John plays a reverse card after Matt.
They’re at Jordan’s apartment, who lives just a bit off campus. It’s not really that far of a drive, but it’s slightly out of the way. His house is probably the nicest out of everyone’s though, which means when they need a place to convene and he’s involved, it’s usually at his place. He’s never complained about it as far as John knows, and they bribe him with differing snacks to keep him complacent. It’s a win-win situation.
“For what? His sleepy bitch disease? By the way, fuck you Jordan.” Matt puts down a draw two and Jordan just shrugs.
“Revenge is sweet.”
His mind wanders to the aforementioned man, who in Matt’s affectionate words, is getting his meds for his sleepy bitch disease. It is just a little funny, and Jaren himself also makes jokes about it every now and then, so as long as John makes sure he doesn’t hit his head and die it’s fine. The other night though, where he attempted vulnerability with him for the first time. Sure, it was broken and unsure and honestly not that helpful, Jaren still sulked a bit for the rest of the night. But god, did it open the floodgates for something inside of John. Maybe he’d had it pushed so far down that he didn’t even realize, like most things related to feelings in the first place. He’s way too old to be this inept. At least he’s working on it.
“How can you tell if you like someone?” John asks out of the blue, interrupting the argument he hadn’t realized he’d drowned out about Uno rules between Matt and Jordan.
It’s silent for a moment as they both take in the question, giving each other a look that John can’t quite read. It’s not like he asked them to build a pipe bomb, for fucks sake.
“I guess, well,” Matt starts, though he seems pretty unsure where to begin. He places down a blue three to fill the silence as he thinks, in turn making John draw. “I guess based on how they make you feel? Like, when you think of them all the time, and you think they’re attractive and whatever else. I don’t know man, I’m not good with mushy things like that.”
“Mushy things?” Jordan asks with a laugh. “You have a girlfriend.”
“So do you!” Matt counters, and Jordan just shrugs again. “Who is it John?”
His eyes go wide at that, because oh yeah, he didn’t really think that far ahead. He’d sorta just got lost in his thoughts while playing the stupid colorful card game that Jordan had to convince them for an hour to play. He didn’t really think about how they’d actually respond.
“No one.” He punctuated it by putting down a skip, Jordan raising an eyebrow at him.
“Surely it can’t be no one if you asked, do you think we’re gonna judge you or something?”
“I don’t know,” Matt interrupts. “I’ll judge him if they’re ugly.” It earns him an elbow to the ribs, which makes him yelp.
With a glare in Matt’s direction, Jordan continues “John, really, we wouldn’t judge you. You haven’t been in a relationship the entire time we’ve known you, this is honestly exciting to hear.”
Matt goes to speak again and Jordan cuts him off by saying “We wouldn’t judge him, right Matt?”
The sarcastic comment Matt was probably about to make dies in his throat, instead grumbling out “Right.”
John doesn’t really have a reason not to trust him, they both already know about the whole being bisexual thing, so it isn’t like they’d immediately start hate criming him. If anything, being next to Matt in the Uno rotation is a hate crime in and of itself the way he hoards draw fours. Regardless, it’s just so… awkward, to talk about crushes with other men. Not that he has any girl friends he could ask instead, so he’s stuck with the most emotionally stunted male friends as his only option. Asking Anthony wouldn’t even be a choice, you can only get an emotion out of that guy once he’s absolutely plastered, and even then it would be so slurred you probably wouldn’t be able to understand it. There’s no harm in being honest, despite the way he gets the urge to dry heave.
“It’s… Smitty.”
It’s silent, until Matt snickers to himself and John feels his face go red. Maybe there was harm in being honest, actually, because so far this fucking sucks.
“I, I, I’m actually—” He begins to stammer like he’s trying to take it back when Matt cuts him off.
“No! No, John, sorry, I wasn’t laughing because it’s funny,” Matt starts, the panic in his voice palpable. “I’m laughing because it’s really obvious that it’s Smitty.”
Jordan just stays quiet, seemingly deciding that his hand of cards is more infinitely interesting than John’s impromptu love confession.
“I… What?”
“Like, okay,” Matt put his cards down, turning to look at John fully, whose face is now absolutely flushed. He feels incredibly humiliated if he’s being honest, but at least he stopped the Uno session. Silver lining. “You guys are constantly joined at the hip, you care about his safety, you guys tell each other everything. You’re essentially a package deal at this point, like we can’t invite one of you without the other.”
The confusion on John’s face must have been obvious, because Matt sighs and continues.
“You guys are basically already dating, is what I’m saying. It feels like it, anyway.”
“That just can’t be true,” John’s putting his cards down too. “Smitty is so… Different from me.”
“Uh, yeah, stupid. That’s how people work. And I’m so different from a Kia Soul. What’s your point?” Matt deadpans.
John clicks his tongue, averting his gaze from Matt’s. Despite it, he can still feel Matt’s eyes burning into him. It’s stupid, though, to him it makes perfect sense. Jaren is like an angel reincarnate and John is just some barely average guy. Sure, he wants to protect him, but that’s because he cares about him. After watching him take several hard hits because of his own carelessness, he couldn’t really claim it meant anything more than that, right? He does enjoy the moments after, too, though. How peaceful he looks when he sleeps, how he’s slightly confused for just a moment when he wakes up, how they can both laugh it off. He’s come to love being Jaren’s human pillow. Fuck, maybe it does mean something.
“What should I do?”
Jordan’s finally putting his cards down in defeat too, looking back over to both Matt and John. “You tell him?”
It makes John laugh, really laugh, because jesus christ, there was not something on this earth he could do less than that. It would be an automatic rejection, without a doubt. Jaren is something else entirely, on a whole different level, and John couldn’t compare. It wouldn’t be fair to hold him down, either. Especially with the state of affairs he’s got going on. He’s in his late twenties trying to teach himself how to communicate, what kind of partner would that be?
“What’s so funny?”
“I so cannot tell him. Like,” He’s gesturing as he speaks. “I cannot stress enough how much I can’t do that.”
Matt and Jordan share another look before looking back over to John. At least they turned on music for background noise earlier, because the silence in the conversation is incredibly thick. He could almost feel it on him like a heavy coat.
“Just practice telling him when he’s asleep and see how it makes you feel,” Matt says simply, like he just solved all his problems. As if he doesn’t already do that and just him knowing makes him feel stupid. If they knew too he’d probably die on the spot. “It’s not like he’ll hear you. You have nothing to lose, if you decide it’s too much after then sure.”
He goes to protest when Jordan cuts him off, adding in “He’s right, actually. I think that’d be a fantastic idea.”
That’s why it’s even more frustrating, because he knows it’ll work. The few times he’s vented to sleeping Jaren has actually been like a weight off his chest, and he knows doing this would help too. Matt was right, too, because it’s not like Jaren would hear him. He could just practice what he wants to say until it feels right and until he builds up the confidence. Maybe if he’s in the right place at the right time and it happens it’d be worth a try.
“Yeah,” John sighs in defeat. He’s utterly fucked, regardless. “I guess I’ll try that.”
Jordan wordlessly plays a draw four, and Matt gets up and silently walks away from the table. It makes him smile, maybe all his friends are just as inept as he is. Maybe it all isn’t so clear cut.
Matt’s house is small, a studio apartment, and he only got it because he really disliked his roommates last year. It isn’t a bad place, he’s got it decorated nicely and he surprisingly keeps it clean, but it’s a bit small when you’re having your entire friend group over. Jaren, Anthony, Jordan, and Matt are playing Mario Party while John watches, standing with Jaren behind the couch. He’s always been more of an observer than a participant in most games, so he doesn’t mind this. It was a four player game, anyway, so someone was destined to sit out. It was either this or Uno Flip, and John would rather not play anything at all. He’s mostly annoyed that the couch is so small that he’s forced to stand, though he got over it when Jaren volunteered to stand with him. He wonders why he didn’t just sit beside it, actually, but it’s too late now.
“Do you guys wanna get food somewhere?” Jordan asks, looking away from the TV that’s so loud it’s starting to grate on John’s ears. He often wonders if Matt always lives like this, or he just does this when he has guests over. Either way, his poor neighbors.
“Where would you want to go?” Anthony rolls a six on his die, landing on a neutral space. John sorta wishes he landed on a bowser spot, it’s kind of funny when he gets mad.
“We could go to the diner around the corner, I haven’t been there in a while.” Jordan responds and it makes John make a face, mostly because he’d just gone there recently with Jaren. The food is good, if they want it he’d relent, he doesn’t really care that much anyway. Jaren’s standing so close to him he could hardly think at all, partially in a daze as he watches them all play.
“Should we go out? Or…” Matt lands on a mini game space, and when Jaren wobbles a bit on his feet and mumbles his response, John acts fast.
Firstly, he swipes the controller out of his hand because he knows Matt would throw a fit if he were to drop it, placing it gently on the edge of the couch cushion. He puts his arms around Jaren and suddenly all of his weight is against him, and he rebalances himself accordingly. It’s a well rehearsed choreography they’ve had going on for a while now, so he’s mostly glad he didn’t let Jaren fall on his face. Though, again, it would have been just a little funny. New party trick, let Jaren fall on his face in front of all your friends.
“Alright, well,” Matt looks over the situation at hand, eyes looking John up and down and he holds up the brunet. “We’re probably not going to be able to go out or finish the mini game.”
“We could just pick it up,” Jordan offers, placing his controller down onto the table and stretching his spine. “Smitty will probably be back to earth once we get back. Can we kick him out for cheating, by the way? He hates this mini game.”
Anthony checks his phone for the time, shrugging in response. “How long is he usually out for? And also, I don’t think passing out counts as cheating.”
“It does too,” Matt counters with a laugh, gesturing over to Jaren. “All of the dramatics just to avoid playing dash and dine.”
John’s still holding him up as he listens, though it’s kind of beginning to become a struggle. Holding someone up isn’t very easy for prolonged periods. Regardless, he still laughs along with the group.
“Uhh,” He readjusts his grip on Jaren, his hair cascading over his shoulder from where he’s keeping his head against him. “Usually thirty minutes or so, lately. Do you care if I put him on the bed?”
“Nah, you’re fine. We’re probably good to go, then, but do you know what Smitty would want? Is he gonna be mad we left without him?” He can feel Matt’s eyes on him as he lays Jaren down carefully, sweeping his legs up and over onto the bed.
“No, he’ll understand. I’m not that hungry, but he’ll probably just want fried fish.” That’s what he usually gets every time they go there, anyway. He doubts he’ll have switched it up suddenly tonight.
The switch is then put on sleep mode as the rest of them discuss what they want to eat, and finally John feels like he can hear his own thoughts. Maybe he won’t be the first to go deaf based on Matt’s preferred TV volume alone. They shuffle out the door and he hears Matt grabbing his keys, waving a final goodbye to John and he’s alone. With Jaren. Oh boy.
It’s fairly dark out now, based on the window by Matt’s bed, though you still can’t make out any stars from here. He wonders if Jaren would ever want to visit Missouri with him, where he lived incredibly rurally and you could make out nearly all the constellations. He could probably still recall some of them to this day if he saw them, it was something he and his brother’s would do when they got bored and the TV service had gone down for the night. It’s been a long time since he’s gone back, though, and he can’t say he misses it, really. It’s complicated. Maybe most things are a lot more complicated than they seem.
He looks over to Jaren, who’s in a tranquil slumber, even breathing and mouth slightly parted. He genuinely seems so celestial, divine and unlike anything else found here. Or is that putting him up on a pedestal? John wouldn’t know, but the way his stomach ties itself into knots does tell him that he absolutely had feelings for the younger. He bites his lip when he recalls the Uno conversation from the last time he hung out with Matt and Jordan. Now would be as good of a time as any to practice, to see how it’d make him feel. He never really let his mind wander in the past when it came to Jaren, because really, why bother?
He sits beside him on the bed, mattress sinking in slightly under his weight, and he brushes away the hair that’s fallen into Jaren’s face.
“Smit?” He gives him a gentle push, and no response. To be expected, but still, he likes to make sure.
“There's something, um, that I wanted to tell you. And I know you can’t hear me right now, and honestly I’d probably never tell you if you were awake. Is that weird to say?” His voice is low, as if he wasn’t fully alone right now. Maybe it’s because it was a message meant just for Jaren to hear, though even he wasn’t really meant to hear it.
He can imagine the way Jaren would cock his head to the side in questioning worry, thinking about how he’d immediately comfort any suspicions Jaren would have about it being a bad topic. It isn’t bad, necessarily… it’s just, complicated.
“I think I have feelings for you,” He starts, watching the way Jaren’s chest rises and falls softly. Everything about Jaren was so soft. From his hair, to his features, to his personality. “There’s so much about you that I… That I really adore, and I think you’re something very special. You’re going to make someone really happy one day, I really think you’re like, something else.”
Jaren seems serene, blissfully unaware of the conversation taking place, and the sound of Matt’s upstairs neighbors walking around echoed through the ceiling. It was so quiet he could hear the blood flow through his ears, feeling his heartbeat pick up in his chest.
“Obviously, I wouldn’t um, I wouldn’t expect you to feel the same. I’m nothing special, and there’s so much about you that I can’t even, uh, put into words. But I really think I have feelings for you.”
There’s really not much else for him to say, but Matt and Jordan were right when they said it would be a good idea to test it out, to test the waters against sleeping Jaren. Again, the same feeling of a weight lifted off his chest, like he’d been floating on cloud nine and never to come down. Relationships were weird, he thinks. He never really saw himself getting into one with as many flaws as he harbors, and he can guarantee Jaren wouldn’t be the one to put up with it. It wouldn’t be fair to him, honestly, and it also just seems unlikely. He was lucky their paths even dared to cross in the first place, why push it further? It’s unrealistic, and John’s always been someone who lives in the moment. Not a big daydreamer and not a big escapist. He’ll make peace with the reality that falls before him.
Jaren’s faint grumble brings him back to the aforementioned reality he just claimed to not escape from often, looking down to see tired eyes blinking wearily at him.
“Was I out long?”
“No,” He checks Matt’s alarm clock sitting neatly on the desk beside him. “Only about twenty minutes.”
He pushes himself up, taking in the environment he was in. John watches as his eyes scan the room until he recognizes that it was Matt’s.
“Where’d everyone go?” He’s repositioning himself to sit criss-cross on the bed, looking at the TV where he was just moments ago playing Mario Party.
“They went to get food at Metro Diner,” he watches Jaren pout for just a moment before continuing. “I told them to get you fried fish.”
“Fuck yes,” Jaren leans his head against John’s shoulder from behind him. “You know me so well.”
“I’d like to think the title of Smitty’s best friend isn’t just for show.”
It makes him snicker, John’s body rocking with the movement it causes.
“It was, until just now.”
“Alright,” John says with a sigh. “I’ll explain it again.”
He and Jaren are sitting in his room, his bed has become a mess of differing calculus notes. Jaren’s laptop sits neatly in the middle, unaffected by the paper trail beside it. It makes John wonder why he didn’t buy a laptop for college. He’d explained it to himself that he probably wouldn’t use it when he graduates, and it’d just collect dust after a while. Looking at how neat and organized Jaren is, though, has him regretting his past choices. It’s too late now, anyway, he’ll be in his last semester soon. It’s not even worth buying anymore.
He’s trying desperately to tutor Jaren, though the brunet doesn’t seem all too interested in trying to learn. He’s constantly changing the topic and talking about other things, but when they do manage to stay on topic, Jaren just can’t seem to grasp the concept. He can’t understand what’s even so hard, it’s simple, you follow the steps and you’re done. It could be worse, at least. Last time he tried to tutor Matt he almost strangled him from frustration.
The only light they have in the room is a lamp in the corner, a dim yellow hue illuminating his small space and accentuating Jaren’s features. They have the light from Jaren’s laptop, too, but it doesn’t really do much. He really needs to change the bulbs in his ceiling fan. Jaren’s adorned in an olive green cable knit sweater, he looks good. He always looks good, not that it’s any different this time. His hair has gotten long, wavy and down to his shoulders where it rests upon them.
“Okay, Smit,” He calls towards him, and Jaren looks over to the paper where John’s writing an equation. “We’re finding the inverse function for a given one-to-one function, right?”
Jaren’s face scrunches up in frustration, though he continues to watch. “Right.”
“Okay, so what you wanna do is start by replacing the function notion name with y. Are you following?”
“Kinda,” He says, but the look on his face makes John doubtful. It’s going to be a long night.
“Alright, then we’re going to reverse all the x’s and y’s, so every x becomes a y and every y becomes an x.”
He continues to work on the problem, explaining step by step how to do it, and when he gets to the end and turns back to Jaren, his eyes look nearly glazed over.
“Do you need me to explain again?”
“John,” Jaren says in exasperation. “This is your seventh time explaining it and I still don’t get it. I think I’m doomed.” He rakes a hand through his hair in stress, and John sits back up. Okay, well, that’s fine.
“Do you want to take a break?”
“God, please. I don’t think there’s anything that’ll help me understand at this point.”
It makes John chuckle, though he still doesn’t get what Jaren doesn’t get about it. Maybe he’s just a bad tutor, honestly. He’s kind of been explaining it the same way over and over. In his defense, he did get Matt to understand it eventually, though it took about four hours and a lot of arguing. What is it about math with someone who doesn’t understand it that brings out the worst in people?
Jaren lays back on his bed, and John watches as his eyes scan around the room, looking at the different decorations he has up. It’s mostly paintings he’s done that turned out halfway decent. If he wasn’t so dead set on becoming a biochemist he would have gone into art instead in a heartbeat. Something about how there’s no rules to it, you can put whatever you want on the canvas and it’s just allowed. There’s no right or wrongs, you don’t even have to be good at it. He can appreciate the time for rules, like in math and in science, but it’s also nice to just do whatever you want. Maybe he can add that to the list of seemingly endless lists of things that aren’t as simple as they seem. Or maybe everything is just this complicated.
“What do you see yourself doing after college?” Jaren breaks the silence that had come over them, his eyes still trained onto one of John’s paintings. John is a year above Jaren, and it had always kind of been labeled a taboo topic between the two of them that John eventually wouldn’t be able to help anymore. He tries not to really think about it too much, either. He doesn’t want to imagine things being different.
“I’m not sure,” He answers after a bit of time. “I guess either look for a job in my field or go back to school for my master’s degree. I haven’t really thought about it,” another pause. “What about you?”
“I don’t know, either,” There’s something off about Jaren’s tone that he can’t quite make out. He sounds fragile, and it makes John look over to him again, though his eyes still haven’t moved. “I feel like because of my narcolepsy I’ll never really be able to do anything. Like, it’s all just a waste of time. I still can’t drive even after they adjust my meds a billion times because it’s still so unmanageable.”
Vulnerability. John’s greatest hang-up, though he knows Jaren needs his support. Needs him to say at least something. John just needs to get it out. He can do that. He’s done it before. He’s been practicing for moments like this.
“I’m sorry Smit,” His voice is small. “I really hope they can get it figured out. I know it isn’t easy.”
Jaren doesn’t say anything to that, at least not at first. He finally turns his gaze away from the painting he’d been staring into, looking back into John’s eyes and he does his best not to look away. Looking at Jaren is like looking into the sun with no protection, like the light he exudes is far too much for someone like him.
“I think I just don’t want you to go.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like,” Jaren looks away. “I always assumed once you graduated you’d go back to Missouri with your extended family. I don’t want to say I like, rely on you, but coping with my sleep attacks got a lot easier once you started to help me.”
He wonders if Jaren knows he likes helping him. Catching him and protecting him from hurting himself, being his pillow when they’re in a public place, learning all the signs to watch out for when a sleep attack is about to happen. He wonders if he knows Jaren better than Jaren knows himself, though that couldn’t possibly be true. He’s just lucky to have an opportunity like this.
“I’m not going back to Missouri, I can tell you that at least.” John says with a small laugh, though the silence that follows is heavy and uncertain. Jaren’s pushing his laptop out of the way, approaching John’s side slowly, sitting on the edge of the bed next to him so close that their legs are nearly touching.
He wants to scoot away, out of respect for Jaren’s personal space, but he feels frozen. Like he’s stuck in place, and he guesses Jaren wouldn’t have come this close if he didn’t want to be here. If anything, this proves his whole point about not knowing Jaren better than he knows himself. He can hardly guess his next move most times, unless it involves him falling unconscious.
“How come you’ve never been in a relationship before?”
It’s a question that catches him off guard, another tick on the list of things endlessly complicated. There’s no easy answer, because he’s never really thought about that himself, either. He’s just never really been one to seek them out, not a fan of dating apps and because he keeps to himself, he never really meets anyone new. The entire time they’ve known each other, only one of them has had a partner briefly and it was Jaren who had a girlfriend for about two months in high school. He still remembers having to comfort him after she broke up with him. Not really the best of times.
Maybe it was because of the state he saw Jaren in, a war torn wreck from having his first heartbreak. He can’t even imagine how that’d feel, and maybe he never wants to feel it himself. It could also be his parents’ slow dissolution of their marriage, watching it go stale until it fizzled out, suddenly having two separate homes as they moved out and got remarried. Maybe other people aren’t something to own, or maybe seeing other people’s reactions to love have done him in.
“I’ve never thought about that until now,” John answers honestly, watching as Jaren looks at him expectantly, with some sort of emotion that gets lost in translation. “You haven’t been in one in a long time either, though.”
“I have a reason, at least.”
Jaren’s eyes burn into him so deeply he swears he can feel it in his very being, like it’s being woven into his very soul.
“What would that be?”
He moves in closer, so close that John can smell the citrus cologne he’s got on, the smell thick on his sweater. The sweater that John thought looks really good on him, especially with how it contrasted with his eye color.
“I’ve heard that, possibly,” He begins, turning John’s head to face him. He’s looking at John like he knows something that John doesn’t, his expression soft and his hand on John’s cheek. He can feel his skin burning beneath his touch, it doesn’t feel real. “I’m going to make someone very happy someday. That I’m very special, and that I’m something else.”
John takes in his words and oh. Oh. Jaren heard it. Jaren heard when he was talking to him the other day when he’d passed out at Matt’s, and he wanted to die on the spot. His face immediately flushed red, feeling hot all the way to the tip of his ears, and millions of questions raced through his mind. How much did he hear? How did he even hear him? How long was he awake?
He’s stammering something incoherent, like he’s trying to take it all back or deny it, but Jaren closes the gap between them, pressing his soft lips against slightly chapped ones. It can’t be real, it feels like he’s in a dream, and he wants to punch himself, or some other movie story cliche. But it’s real, and it’s Jaren, and his stomach feels like it’s tying itself into an incredibly complicated knot. It’s messy and it’s rushed, John has no experience with this type of thing, but Jaren leads gently. He puts a hand on John’s thigh, briefly breaking the kiss to swing himself around and straddle John’s leg. It’s everything he would have guessed it would be if he let himself think about it, the way Jaren tastes like peppermint gum, the way his tongue feels against John’s, the way he gently bites his lip, smiling into it when he hears a small noise from the back of John’s throat.
He pulls away and they’re both panting, and it feels… divine. Like Jaren was an angel plucked from another dimension, and he’s somehow lucky enough to have him here, with him in his room. But he’s not, he’s just another person, he’s Jaren, he’s Smitty. The friend he grew up with, the friend he cared for, the friend he protected.
“How… How did you—” John starts, trying to form even some sort of sentence, but his head is spinning and he’s in daze. Jaren cuts him off all the same.
“They adjusted my dosage the other day, so my sleep attacks haven’t been lasting as long,” He laughs, voice still low. “I woke up but I heard you having your moment and I didn’t want to make it awkward for you by interrupting. I didn’t… I never thought you’d feel the same for me.”
He feels like he’s living in the past, the present, and the future all at once as he looks into Jaren’s eyes, still panting. Like time is racing yet at a standstill. He’s still wordless, there’s nothing he could say to this. There’s nothing he could formulate that could complete this, that could make it whole.
“I’d been, uh, I guess learning to be vulnerable while talking to you while you slept. I guess I didn’t account for the variables changing.”
It makes Jaren laugh, a genuine laugh from deep in his chest and John rocks with him as it moves through his body.
“You don’t need to wait for me to sleep, y’know. Getting the words out is the hard part, but having someone to reassure you is what makes it worth doing.”
John just nods numbly, still speechless. He can’t recall if he’s ever felt this way before, he’s never had someone steal his voice from him like this before. It makes sense that if it’d be anyone, of course it’d be Jaren. Even though he’d spent all this time telling himself it could never be the same, telling himself Jaren was some ethereal being that could never return something as ridiculous as feelings. He comes to the conclusion that most things aren’t simple, maybe there’s nothing that’s simple.
A math problem will be easy to one and hard to another, a marriage will be successful for years and fall apart year one for another. One day the car will depreciate, one day you need to communicate, and maybe nothing is that black and white. Maybe John has a lot to learn about the world, and maybe it’s just the beginning. Jaren intertwines their fingers, and it’s quiet.