Chapter Text
“...And I think that’s where we’ll leave it for today!”
It was late, the end of a very long recording session. The dearest friends had just finished one of their Geoguesser challenges - this time Oscar could only guess countries whose name started with the same letter as the correct country. A tough challenge, especially for countries like South Africa, which had no other countries beginning with S close enough to it, but even so he’d managed to come out on top once or twice.
Though perhaps, he’d simply gotten lucky with Jack’s less than ideal guesses.
He listened as his friend went through the outro, himself chiming in with a soft “bye!” his tone a little more tired than it normally would, even with how late it was for him. He was generally a night owl, sometimes staying up until almost sunrise just to spend some time with Jack, but tonight, all he felt like doing was sleeping for the entire weekend.
“You looking forward to Saturday?” Oscar’s half closed eyes snapped open at Jack’s sudden question.
“Oh… yeah, yeah.” He nodded rubbing his eyes distractedly. “I mean, we’ve been waiting months for this, right? You finally coming over to visit,” he added more enthusiastically.
“Right!” Jack’s face lit up in a wide smile, and Oscar felt his face heat up in response. Weird, it wasn’t really that hot in here… “You’ll be there to pick me up, yeah?”
“Of course.” Oscar returned the smile, feeling his eyelids droop again. Man, he was tired. All those late nights spent with his dear friend catching up to him.
Jack seemed to notice his fatigue, because he smiled again, more gently. “I’ll let you get some sleep,” he said softly. “Night, Oscar.”
“Night, Jacky.”
They ended the call, and for a few minutes Oscar sat and stared at Discord on the screen, his messages with Jack being displayed before him. He read through the most recent ones, mainly just small talk with the odd line of banter thrown in here and there. Was it just him, or did some of Jack’s messages lately have an almost flirty tone to them?
No, he was just tired. That was it.
Slowly he stood up, stretching, having been sitting down for hours now grinding Geoguesser with Jack. Turning his head he gazed at the unmade bed behind him; it seemed so welcoming right now, and yet, despite his exhaustion, he didn’t feel like sleeping just yet. In his mind he was replaying the last few hours, not focusing on whatever metas in the game he needed to improve on, but on who he was playing said game with.
Jack.
His dearest friend, the man he’d spent almost every day for the last two years with. He was all Oscar could think about.
Sighing, he flopped onto the bed, not bothering to even pull off the black hoodie he’d been wearing. He curled up against the pillow, his eyes now wide open. Why couldn’t he stop thinking about Jack? Why was all he could see in his mind’s eye an image of him smiling that adorable smile of his?
Adorable? Friends - even dearest friends - didn’t think of each other’s smiles like that. Did they???
Before he could dwell on it further, Oscar fell into a sleep filled with dreams of his friend, dreams that only further confused him.
He spent most of Friday sleeping, only waking to eat and briefly hang out with his family. By now he’d developed a particularly nasty cold, which he assumed was the source of his tiredness. Still, he wasn’t going to let it stop him meeting with Jack, so on Saturday morning he dragged himself out of bed, hastily pulling on a hoodie and some sweatpants before making his way to the airport.
It was a pretty miserable day, rain drizzling from an overcast sky, making the still relatively warm air feel humid and oppressive. It did nothing to help with Oscar’s cold, in fact, he was sure he could feel himself getting worse as he hopped onto the bus bound for the airport on the outskirts of town. Grateful that he’d managed to find an empty seat on the crowded vehicle, he slumped down onto it, pressing a tissue to his nose as he watched the grey world outside whizz by.
Now that he was actually going to meet Jack again for the first time since the World Cup, Oscar felt suddenly apprehensive. What if they didn’t get along as well as they did online? What if he said something wrong? What if–?
He awoke with a start just as the bus pulled into the stop near the airport. He must’ve fallen asleep, exhausting himself with worrying and being ill, lulled by the slow patter of the rain on the windows. He stood up quickly, his heart pounding; this was it. In just a few minutes he’d be with his dear friend again. Staggering off the bus he made his way into the airport, finding a row of seats a few metres away from the arrivals section where he sat down again, brushing his tousled hair away from his eyes as he did so.
He was so, so tired…
“Oscar?”
He almost leapt out of the chair at the sudden appearance of Jack standing over him. “What..? When did you..?” Oscar’s flusteredness wasn’t just due to the shock of seeing him there, but also because of how damn good looking he was. Considering he’d just spent sixteen hours on a plane, Jack looked immaculate, clad in a loose dark blue sweatshirt and jeans. He smiled down at Oscar, though his expression held something else, almost like concern.
“I just got here,” he explained, sitting down in the seat beside Oscar. “I thought you’d be there to meet me!”
“I guess I fell asleep. This stupid cold is knocking me out.” Oscar attempted a laugh.
To his surprise, Jack frowned. “I thought you didn’t look too good… Hey, you’re really warm!” He placed a hand on Oscar’s forehead, who flinched beneath Jack’s cold touch, his skin heating up even more.
“It’s nothing,” Oscar insisted, pushing his friend’s hand away reluctantly, immediately missing the feeling of Jack’s skin on his, though why he missed it so much, he couldn’t explain.
“It’s not nothing,” Jack said firmly, grabbing the handle of his suitcase and standing up. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a fever? I wouldn’t have come - we could’ve done this some other time. We could’ve–”
“Jack, I said I’m fine.” Oscar’s tone was a lot more aggressive than he’d intended, and as he watched Jack recoil, he felt his stomach twist with guilt. He stood up unsteadily, about to apologise, but Jack interrupted before he could formulate the words.
“Let’s just get to your place.”
The bus ride home was awkward, to say the least. The rain hadn’t yet stopped, in fact, it had gotten heavier, until all Oscar could see through the window was a greyish white haze. He watched as raindrops raced each other down the glass, suddenly not wanting to look at Jack.
He knew he shouldn't have snapped the way he did, but how could he explain? People pitying him had always made him uncomfortable, and seeing the concern in his dearest friend’s eyes had done nothing but made him feel irrationally guilty. The logical part of his mind knew Jack was just worried because he cared about him, and it was only natural to be anxious about a friend, but even so, he hated the thought of being a burden to him.
They were supposed to be having fun together this week, how would he do that if he was holed up in his room resting?
He wasn’t going to ruin their time together just because of some stupid fever.