#bibobceps

His friends are there now—two of them at least—but Luke isn’t.

It just doesn’t bode well for things to come, in Bobby’s opinion.

“Hey,” Reggie says when he meets Bobby at his locker, blindly bumping Bobby’s fist as he glances up and down the hallway. “Luke’s not here yet?”

“Guess not.” Bobby shuts his locker and shoulders his backpack. “Alex still home sick?”

“Think so,” Reggie confirms with a nod. “He said on the phone last night he was gonna try to be back today for a Spanish test, but I don’t know, he sounded pretty rough.”

Bobby grimaces. “Better he stay home and not infect the rest of us. He can always retake a Spanish test.”

“Yeah, but you know Alex.” Reggie shrugs. “If he’s not back, can I come over tonight? Since we won’t rehearse, I mean, just—just to hang out?”

A smile pulls at Bobby’s lips as his stomach does a weird, not unpleasant, flip flop. “Yeah, man, of course you can. Luke too?”

Reggie grins. “Of course!”

Bobby nods and turns back to his locker, fiddling pointlessly with the lock so that Reggie won’t see him blushing.

It’s not that he doesn’t like Alex—he does, a lot—he just… likes Alex as a friend. And he likes Reggie… and Luke… more than that… or differently… or something.

It’s stupid, and hell if Bobby knows how to put the damn thing into words, but… he figures the more time he gets to spend with just Luke and Reggie, the better. Even if it means taking advantage of the few times Alex isn’t available to make plans.

For the next twenty minutes or so, Reggie and Bobby hang around his locker, talking about their gig coming up in a couple weeks and the math homework Bobby didn’t do and whether it’s likely for Bobby’s finicky TV to be working well enough for them to play Super Mario Bros. after school today.

At 7:52, just when they’re starting to consider giving up and going to class, Luke appears at his own locker, about halfway down the hall.

“Hey, there you are!” Reggie calls, bouncing over to him. “We thought you weren’t gonna show up today.”

Bobby follows, and the closer he gets to Luke, the more dread bubbles up in his stomach. Luke slumps against his locker, not even reacting to Reggie’s words. He looks pale and flushed at the same time, his nose and cheeks an alarming shade of cherry, and his hands tremble slightly as he tries to put his locker combination in.

Bobby stops short a good ten feet away as the pieces fall into place in his head, and before he can think of the right thing to say, what comes out is, “You look like shit.”

Luke’s response is a little delayed. When he does raise his eyes to Bobby, they’re glassy and dull, and his self-deprecating laugh and mumbled little, “Thanks, Bobs, that’s real nice,” come out so painfully hoarse that Bobby swears he feels his own throat sting in sympathy.

He takes another step back. Luke doesn’t just look terrible; he looks contagious.

Reggie, it seems, has no such reservations. He sidles right up to Luke and slings an arm around his shoulders; Luke immediately leans back into Reggie’s hold, his expression crumpling with relief like maybe he was having trouble holding up his weight on his own.

“Aw, Luke,” Reggie coos, rubbing Luke’s arm. “Did you catch Alex’s cold?”

“No,” Luke grumbles petulantly, and then contradicts himself by coughing into Reggie’s shoulder (Bobby flinches). “Maybe,” Luke amends. “But it’s Alex’s dumb saliva’s fault.”

Bobby’s stomach flips again. This time, it’s a little unpleasant. When have Luke and Alex been… sharing saliva?

“Well, Luke, bro, you shouldn’t have taken a sip of his drink when you knew he wasn’t feeling well,” Reggie chides, parental but for the most part unconcerned.

Luke pouts. “But he had a milkshake, and I couldn’t afford to get my own, and it seemed like a good idea in the moment, it was yummy!”

Relief surges through Bobby so intensely he almost feels faint with it—so Luke and Alex weren’t kissing. Okay. Good.

Not that he should have any say in what his friends do with their mouths on their own time, he just… he’d like to know about it ahead of time, if at all possible. Maybe be involved himself sometimes, that’d be nice.

Again. Stupid.

“Why are you even here?” Bobby asks, and it comes out harsher than he meant it to; Reggie and Luke both look up at him, frowning. He clears his throat and tries to soften his tone. “I mean. You should’ve stayed home, if you’re sick.”

Luke grimaces, and reluctantly pulls out of Reggie’s grip when the bell rings shrilly above them. “Mom wouldn’t let me,” he says with a wet sniff, yanking his locker open and grabbing a stack of books seemingly at random. “I didn’t have a fever, and I may have been known to fake a cold to get out of stuff once or twice… a month…” He shrugs, and drags a wrist under his nose. “Guess I wasn’t convincing enough this time.”

“This wasn’t convincing?” Bobby’s backed up another few feet, unable to take his eyes off Luke’s dripping nose, which he just wiped with his hand—God, who raised him? How and why in God’s green earth does Bobby ever find him attractive?

“In Mrs. P’s defense,” Reggie says cheerfully, “Luke’s really good at faking.”

Luke slams his locker closed. “Whatever, I’m fine. Let’s just get to class, Bobby. We’ll see you later, Reg.”

He starts, stumbling, down the hallway, toward the history class he and Bobby share. Bobby and Reggie exchange a look behind his back—Reggie’s is concerned, Bobby’s more than a little disgusted.

“Keep an eye on him, will you?” Reggie pleads. “Just until I see you guys at lunch?”

Bobby glances over at Luke, who’s paused a little ways down the hall to have a coughing fit into the crook of his arm—sleeveless, of course. “How close an eye are we talking?”

Reggie’s smile turns tolerant. “Please, Bobby? For me?”

Well, fuck, what is he supposed to say to that? He nods, stammers out a reply, and turns toward his classroom, just in time to see Luke careen forward with a spraying, uncovered sneeze.

Bobby shudders, hefts his backpack a little higher on his shoulder, and tries not to breathe.

“He better not get me sick,” he grumbles to himself, and goes to drag Luke into class.

***

They get about fifteen, twenty minutes in before Bobby starts to think, yeah, no, no way in hell this is gonna work.

Luke is struggling.

First of all, he can barely sit up straight and keep his eyes open, much less pay attention to the lecture, so Bobby highly doubts he’s learning anything. He sniffles more than breathes, coughs more than talks, and gets up out of his seat to get a tissue from the front of the room so often that their teacher Mrs. Carroll eventually just nods for him to take the whole box back to his desk.

Every time he sneezes, Bobby cringes and scoots his desk a few more inches away. Every time he coughs, Bobby sinks lower in his chair, trying to surreptitiously pull the collar of his hoodie over his mouth. Every time he blows his nose, and just leaves the dirty tissues sitting in a gross little pile on his desk, Bobby wonders how the fuck they’re even friends.

When the bell rings, Luke slumps back in his chair and coughs into a fresh wad of tissues for a full minute and a half, while their classmates file out of the room around them, giving Luke grossed-out looks as they pass.

Bobby doesn’t even have it in him to be embarrassed on Luke’s behalf, considering they’re totally justified in their disgust. Mrs. Carroll catches his eye from her desk at the front of the classroom, and before she can so much as mouth, Maybe you should take him to the nurse, Bobby nods and holds up a finger as if to say, No, yeah, I’m on it.

“Hey,” he says, kicking the leg of Luke’s chair. “Pack up your stuff, sicky, you’re going home.”

Luke frowns at him, tissues still held over his face, muffling his already stuffy protest. “What? No, I’m—”

“Shut up,” Bobby cuts him off. “I don’t care if you claim you’re fine, I don’t care if your mom will be pissed, you look and sound like shit, I’m taking you back to my place until someone can pick you up. No arguments, you hear me?”

Luke just looks at him for a moment, and Bobby worries he’s going to fight back again, but then something shifts in his expression, and he just looks so tired all of a sudden. “Yeah,” he croaks. “Yeah, okay, I—I think that’s probably a good idea.”

Bobby lets out a breath. “Good. Me too.”

It takes longer than it should to get Luke out of his seat and to the door, even after Bobby takes his books from him so that all Luke has to carry is his box of tissues. Mrs. Carroll writes them both hall passes, and doesn’t fight Bobby when he says he probably won’t be back for her government class in the afternoon.

They walk slowly down the school hallway, Luke leaning heavily into Bobby’s side so he doesn’t stumble. Bobby almost manages not to think about the germs Luke is almost definitely passing to him, because his own health doesn’t matter as much as Luke’s right now. Bobby’s worry for him is hotter, more present, in his chest than any anxiety or germaphobia.

And that worry only grows when they get to the nurse’s office and find Reggie sitting on a plastic-covered bed waiting for them.

“There you guys are!” he says cheerfully, grinning and swinging his legs like a kid. “Honestly, I didn’t think you’d last the whole period.”

“The hell are you doing here?” Bobby asks as he guides Luke into a chair.

“Felt like I was gonna throw up,” Reggie explains, then gives Bobby an exaggerated wink he doesn’t understand.

“You did? Are you okay?”

Reggie’s brows knit together. “No—Bobby, that’s just what I told Miss Ellison so I could get out of English class. I wanted to meet you guys down here so I could go with you when you leave.”

Bobby frowns. There’s a lot going on today, he doesn’t have a whole lot of brainpower to spend on Reggie’s riddles. And he’s definitely missing something here.

Apparently, Luke is just as confused. “Wait,” he croaks, sniffling and slumped over in his chair. “You’re sick, too, Reg?”

Reggie rolls his eyes. “No, Luke, not really. I just pretended so that I could go home with you guys. You are going home, right?”

“Yeah, he barely lasted one class, he’s not staying the whole day,” Bobby says, ignoring the petulant glare Luke shoots him.

“Then I’m going with you.” Reggie glances nervously between them. “Unless… you don’t want me to?”

“No,” Luke says quickly. “No, I want both of you. Please.”

Reggie grins. Bobby’s stomach flips.

“Fine, I guess we’re all sick, then,” he grumbles, ducking his head to hide his blush, and points to Luke and Reggie each in turn. “Stay there, I’ll be right back.”

It’s unfairly easy for Bobby to convince the nurse to let him drive Luke and Reggie home, since they’re both “so sick” (he doesn’t even have to pretend to be sick himself. The nurse takes one look at Luke and agrees to let Bobby go with him for no reason, if only to get his germ-ridden friend off school property).

It’s a little less easy to call Emily Patterson at work and explain to her that he’s Luke’s friend, no, ma’am, he’s really sick, I don’t mind taking him back to my house until you get off work, yes, ma’am, I’ll make sure he gets all his homework, etc, etc, etc.

Reggie’s parents don’t even pick up. Bobby has a fake conversation with “Reggie’s dad” just so he can tell the nurse with some level of confidence that Reggie’s been given permission to go home with him, too. He’s not sure she believes him. He doesn’t think she cares.

“You’re gonna get sick,” Bobby says when he returns to find Luke lying on the bed with his eyes closed, head in Reggie’s lap, sniffling into Reggie’s pant leg while Reggie strokes his hair back out of his face.

“I think he’s got a fever now,” he says, which is not at all a response to what Bobby said. “Are we ready to go?”

Bobby gives a resigned sigh. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go.”

***

As Luke gets worse, he also gets clingier. Which, really, Bobby should’ve expected. It’s one thing in the car, where Bobby can roll the windows down and focus on driving while Luke stretches out all over Reggie in the backseat, coughing and sniffling and ignoring Bobby whenever he reminds him to cover his damn mouth.

Once they get back to his house, though, Bobby washes his hands about fifteen times in a row, then heads into the studio with the intention of recommending that Reggie do the same, only to find Reggie and Luke curled up on the pull-out couch together, fast asleep.

For a minute or two, Bobby just stands there, watching them. Both of them idiots, one of them disgusting, and yet… god, he loves both of them so much. How fucking stupid is that?

Luke’s gonna get Reggie sick, if he hasn’t already; that’s just an inevitability at this point. And then one or both of them is going to get Bobby sick, and it’s going to suck, because colds always hit Bobby super hard for no good reason, which is why he tries so hard to avoid catching them.

But a few days of misery is worth it, he guesses, if he can spend today taking Luke’s temperature and rubbing his back and forcing Vitamin C on both him and Reggie until they’re both sick of him.

And at least, whatever happens, he can blame this whole thing on Alex.

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