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Jared's head pounded as he was woken up from his dazed nap by the ear-splitting sound of his phone ringing on his nightstand. He slowly sat up, quickly regretting it as his caked nose cleared- just for a moment- and the cold air of his room went right up his sinuses and gave him a headache. Jared winced and grabbed his phone, answering the call before dragging his quilt over his head and laying down.
"Hello?" Jared's voice was raspy and weak, sniffling in between words.
"Jared? You need to come over." It was Evan. He sounded stressed, but that was just how he sounded most of the time. "Why do you sound like that? What's wrong with you?"
"I'm not coming over. I'm dying."
"Yeah, okay," Evan grumbled. "I really don't need you being funny with me right now. You don't get a free pass because you're on your period."
"No, I'm not fucking around, man, I can't come. I'm sick. Like, sick sick. What, d'you want me to prove it? 'Cause I will."
"Please don't."
"Here it comes."
"No..."
Jared emerged from his covers, ignoring the impact the sunlight that was seeping through his curtain had on his already painful headache, and lazily grabbed a handful of tissues, breathing in and exhaling violently through his nose into the tissue. Evan shouted through the phone in protest.
"Okay, okay, fine! Oh my god. Fine. Just stay there. Fester."
"You're seriously letting me fester?" Jared's phone was resting on his knee cautiously as he fumbled with tissues, trying to clean up the mess his nose made. Being so impulsive probably wasn't a good idea, but Evan brought it out in him.
"Yes! I'm not getting sick. I have a public meeting in, like, 4 days." This made Jared's heart twinge in pain.
"Okay. Good luck."
"What? Where are you going?"
"I dunno. Lunch, or... Something. Have fun."
"But I need you."
"Call Alana," Jared grumbled, slamming the 'end call' button before Evan could protest further. He wrapped himself up tightly in his quilts before rapidly kicking them off as his body was overwhelmed by the heat, making him uncomfortable. The cold air continued to rush into his nose. It felt like it was shooting straight up to his brain and drying it out. His lungs rattled as he threw his used tissues in the general direction of his webbed wire bin by his desk and watching the germy paper fly and fall lamely nowhere near it. He was told by his mother to catch up on his homework while he was away from school, and he would, but at this moment in time he felt like if he tried to stand up his head would fall off. He ran a hand through his greasy hair that stuck up in awkward directions and made a note to shower later. Later. When he didn't feel like his skull was filled with snot and mucus.
Jared let his head fall softly onto his pillow and allowed his eyes to close. Just a little while couldn't hurt, he thought to himself.
.
.
.
Jared woke up to the sound of a bin bag flapping at an obnoxious volume. He didn't open his eyes. He thought it must be his mother, giving his room a quick tidy before dinner, and if he dared make a single sound she'd make him grab some dishes and help her.
"Uggh," A voice whispered in a tone that was a little louder than expected. That couldn't be his mother. He knew who the disgusted groan belonged to. Jared shot up immediately, scaring Evan into letting out a yelp. Jared didn't blame him- he probably looked like a corpse, nose covered in snot, eyes sunken and teary, hair pointy and unwashed and his shirt crumpled and sweat-stained. Evan was a stark contrast, his curly hair albeit a bit ruffled from what Jared assumed was the thick bobbled hat sitting on the desk.
Jared regretted opening his eyes so abruptly. Evan had opened the blinds again, letting the natural daylight flood the room and hurting Jared's head. Evan had also cleared Jared's floor of the tissues, clothes, schoolwork and dishes that made his bedroom unreachable territory for weeks and organized his desk, bookshelves and somehow made his bed a bit neater while Jared was still tossing and turning in it. Evan's zip-up hoodie was tied around his waist so his sleeves didn't get dirty while he was clearing and disinfecting the room and he wore flimsy see-through latex gloves which Jared thought was a bit excessive.
The air was clearer, the room was lit up, you could actually see the worn beige carpet, his clean clothes were folded and tucked away in his dresser, the three steps leading to his bathroom weren't cluttered with shoes and boxes that you had to climb over to get to the landing that led to the door, his schoolwork and papers and books were organized- and Jared didn't miss the small details, like the books on his shelves being kept in the same order, and the small trinkets and figurines he kept around hadn't moved an inch. He looked up at Evan, who had been rambling about how Jared should KNOW not to scare him like that, especially when he looked like he was on the brink of death for about 2 minutes.
"You did all this?" Jared asked, head still foggy and voice still weak. He built up the energy to heave himself up, wobbling a bit as he regained his balance.
"What? Yeah. I did. What did I do wrong now?" Evan complained. "Did I-- did I pile your schoolbooks in the wrong order? Did I mess up the ambience by vacuuming? Did I invade your man-cave by burning some scented candles? Did I--"
"My mom gave you scented candles?"
"No, idiot, I bought them today. Yankee Candles, trademark, Autumn Nature Walk. Large jar. Provides 110 hours of fucking freshness. It's the one I used to have in my old house. Obviously."
Jared stared, dumbfounded. He had bought the candle himself. With his own money. He had remembered the way that Jared pestered him to know why his room smelled of sticks- in a good way, he would always clarify- when they were both around 8-9 years old. He made sure to get the exact same one- fresh- just so Jared's room could smell nice for the first time in months. Jared's heart swelled with nostalgia and fondness.
"And you... Cleaned. Everything."
"Yeah! It was a mess in here, so I... Did my best. You also have water. On your nightstand. And that weird minty, like... nose-clearing thing. Vapo-rub. Hot water bottles were too expensive."
Jared looked at his nightstand and, sure enough, a tall glass of fresh water sat on it, next to a small plastic jar of Vapo-rub. His lava lamp hummed as the cyan blobs warped up and down. Jared was looking for distractions.
"And I thought you might want a shower so that you look less...." Evan searched for words. "Dead. And you had no towels. Your mom said you just sort of... Don't have them? Like, you just get dressed straight after?"
Jared tried to laugh, but it came out as a husky rasp. He had bragged to his parents many times that he simply was too good for towels. He got out of the shower, sopping wet, and put on his clothes straight away. Come to think of it, that was probably how he got such a nasty cold in the first place.
"So I got you one. A towel," Evan clarified. He rooted around in his hiking backpack which was sitting patiently at the foot of Jared's bed and pulled out a very colourful bath towel. It had cartoon dinosaurs on it with very exaggerated proportions standing happily infront of a watering hole with a volcano behind them. Bit of a morbid addition, Jared thought.
"I got you this one because it has dinosaurs on it," Evan explained, holding it up like a prized oil painting, "and because I knew the inaccuracies would make you really mad every time you pick it up."
"Dinosaurs aren't bright purple," Jared grumbled, fighting back a smile.
"Exactly! Oh, and I got you, uh..." Evan threw the towel at Jared who only just managed to fumble enough to catch it properly, diving back into his very full backpack. "Got you these." He displayed a 4-pack of fluffy socks, one of Jared's favourite things to wear in secret. "One pair is green and the other is blue. They also had a two-pack of purple and pink but I didn't wanna get you 4 pairs of socks because that's overkill." He threw the socks in Jared's direction again, but Jared made no effort to catch them. Evan went digging around again and pulled out what seemed like the final item from his bag.
"And then I got this. It's a national geographic, but this week it was about Mars and I thought you might find that cool, because you like--"
Evan was cut off when Jared discarded the towel onto the floor and took a step forward, using one hand to clasp the back of Evan's neck and using the other to cup his cheek to pull him forward enough to kiss him. Evan stumbled back a bit at the impact but gently dropped the National Geographic to shakily grab the hand that was holding his face, kissing Jared back.
Jared was the first to pull away, regret in his eyes. Evan's face twitched with confusion.
Jared's eyes flicked all around his room, trying to hide his panic. "Shit, I'm sorry, man! You're gonna get sick and you won't be able to do the speech and--"
"No, it's whatever," Evan remarked, dazed, before he slid his hands in Jared's short, messy hair and pulled him back in, catching him in another kiss.