#queerjaredkleinman

  Evan waits until he’s done before walking up to the side of the bed, sitting down next to Jared. “Do you— d’you need anything?” 

  Jared shakes his head, carefully pushing himself to sit up as well with a wince. 

  “Okay,” Evan frowns a little. He reaches out, gingerly plucking Jared’s glasses from his face, before folding them up and leaning over to put them on the nightstand. “You sure? You aren’t hungry or anything?” 

  “No,” the other boy answers quietly, grabbing one of the blankets and pulling it around his shoulders. “m’just cold. And tired.” 

  Evan nods. He leans forward a little, putting a hand behind Jared’s head to guide him forward enough for Evan to gently press his lips briefly to his forehead. “You feel kinda warm, though.” 

  “I didn’t realize you were a thermometer.” 

  When Evan pulls back, Jared’s giving him a stupid, crooked grin. 

  This boy.

  To articulate that loving thought: “Alright, smartass, do you want me to go get a thermometer?” 

  “No,” Jared says, leaning his head back into the hand Evan still has there. “‘Sides, I’m pretty sure we only have, like. A cooking thermometer.” 

  “Hmm. I don’t think that’d work.”

  “Sure it could. Just gotta..” Jared yawns quietly, eyes fluttering shut for a second when Evan gently plays with the hair on the back of his head. “like. Jam it into my leg. Like an epi-pen.” 

  “Yeah, uh, no,” Evan says back with a quiet laugh, and Jared opens his eyes just enough to peer up at him, grinning dopily. “You’re so weird.” 

  Jared mumbles something incoherently, leaning forward enough to press his forehead into Evan’s shoulder. Evan lets him, easily, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and pressing another kiss to the top of his head. 

  They’re quiet for a few minutes - other than Jared’s slightly stuffed breathing.

  “Didn’t you have plans today?” Jared mumbles, pulling away only enough for his words to not be muffled by Evan’s sweatshirt. 

  “I mean, yeah,” Evan said with a shrug, “but I’m probably going to - to hold off.” 

  “Wait, no,” Jared pulls more, brows knitted together. “I—I’ll be okay if you go. I don’t want— you don’t have to stay here just ‘cuz I’m sick, dude.” 

  “I know,” Evan assures him with a small grin, shaking his head. “the library will still be there tomorrow, Jare. It’s fine.”

  Despite his words, Jared still looks a little guilty. “Are you sure? Seriously, I can—” 

  “Yes, I’m positive,” Evan tugs him close again, and this time Jared sort of just melts compliantly into it. “I’m staying, I’m going to take care of you, okay? I’m not— I want to. Promise. Especially since I’m sort of the reason why you’re sick.” 

  Quiet. And then, feebly,

  “Even though you told me not to kiss you.”

  “Even though I told you not to kiss me,” Evan repeats with a giggle, rolling his eyes fondly. “But - I mean, you’re— you were probably going to get sick either way? We kind of live together, s’kinda hard for us to not be around each other.” 

  Jared lifts his head again, grinning a little at him, and.

  Yeah, okay, maybe Evan could understand why Jared claimed that he just couldn’t not kiss him, if it was anything like this. 

  “Still - maybe you could’ve been less around me, though,” Evan comments instead, grinning back. 

  “Nah.” 

  “‘Nah’?”

  “S’completely unreasonable thing to ask from me.” 

  Evan blinks, before rolling his eyes again with a quiet laugh. “You’re ridiculous.” 

  “If you got me sick, then that means I can’t get you sick again, right?”

  “..I mean, probably not?”

  Jared tugs a little on Evan’s sweatshirt sleeves. “Lay with me, then.” 

  Again, Evan kind of just watches the other boy for a minute, before sighing, chuckling softly to himself as he pulled himself out of Jared’s grasp to crawl over and actually lay on the bed with him. “And apparently I was being the baby when I was sick,” he teases, and Jared lightly kicks Evan’s leg with one of his own. 

  “M’sick, asshole. You can’t be mean to me.” 

  “Okay.” 

  Evan shifts so he’s lying on his side, and Jared flops back down onto the bed too, facing him. 

  “Hi,” Jared stage-whispers, and despite himself Evan laughs again. 

  “Hello.” It’s quite unfortunate that Evan can’t blame the flush on his own face from fever. 

  Jared scoots a little closer to him, and knowingly Evan opens his arms enough for the other boy to plant himself pressed to Evan as much as he could be. He rests his head on Evan’s shoulder, and Evan’s hand returns to idly playing with his messy hair. 

  “Nap?” Jared quietly requests into Evan’s sweatshirt, and Evan hums in response, his eyes having already slid shut. 

  “For a little while, yeah.” 

  They open again, though, because he feels Jared’s head move so he’s looking up at Evan. 

  “Love you,” Jared tells him quietly after a moment. And.

  That’s still kind of new for them. 

  Or that’s what Evan tells himself, anyway, when those two words make his heart do way too much in his chest. 

  “I love you, too,” he says just as quietly, glancing down, brushing some of Jared’s hair off his forehead. “Get some rest, Jare.” 

  Shifting again, Jared hums affirmatively, closing his eyes. Evan thinks he might’ve noticed the way his heart skipped, because he puts one of his hands there, on his chest right above it. 

“Did you see they released the Animal Crossing update?” Christine knew they would of, she’d seen their phone light up with plenty of Twitter notifications for their favorite games while they got lunch together. It was more about presenting a little segue in the conversation - she’d been talking for the last hour about how she’d found out how to design enamel pins. It wasn’t like they were bored or anything, she just could tell they were buzzing with their own energy. At some point they’d slid down where they’d been sitting, doing a half turn to drape legs over the arm of the couch and place their head in her lap.

“Yeah!” Behind their glasses Jeremy’s eyes lit up immediately, hands crossing over their stomach, fingers laced together and tapping excitedly. “I haven’t been able to, like, play yet today.”

Christine nodded, she knew this too - they’d spent their whole Sunday together in comfortable company. She dropped a hand down to brush their hair away from their forehead, smoothing a thumb over their skin. At the touch Jeremy’s eyes immediately fell shut as their mouth moved.

“They added fireworks. It’s like- so, you can do like custom designs for them? I was sort of avoiding too many actual spoilers from people who- y’know, people who time travel. Since the fireworks event is tonight. It’s, uh, at seven. So after dinner I can show you?”

This time they wouldn’t see her nodding so with a fond little smile she murmured a little, “yeah.”

“They also added, like, dream towns back. Well, dream- they’d be dream islands now. But there’s no actual dream suite.. like, plot or anything to place. You just need to place- like, place a bed in your house.”

“Which you’ve already got,” she mumbled in response - she’d gotten an extensive tour of their island and house, as well as watching them play. She brought her other hand down, separating their bangs into three clumps to lazily braid. Their hair wasn’t too long, just enough to play with.

“The kinda crazy thing though, it’s like- I guess it’s not that interesting,” the sudden drop made Christine frown to herself. It happened less often but they never could truly escape that little voice in their head. It was just a matter of drowning it out. Sometimes they just needed a little extra help. Pausing her braiding - and subsequent unbraiding - she instead smoothed a palm over their hair, pushing it back again. Her other hand carded through the hair on the side of their head.

“Hm?”

“Um, well- alright, so there was like.. Y’know there’s a camera function. There was a glitch people would use to remove the HUD with the camera open. So.. like, well, to.. for aesthetic reasons really.” They opened their eyes to peek up at her, meeting her gaze where she’d been looking at them expectantly. It was enough to urge them on. “It’s a full feature now- to remove the HUD, that is. Which is cool. Um, well. Yeah. Because it shows that they’re listening so there’s hope for some missing features to get added even if they aren’t planned to be added yet. Since they’re still updating.”

“Mhm.” The fingers through their hair urged them to close their eyes, letting out a contented sigh.

“It’s a big back and forth about the fact they didn’t add everything at first. Like, the dream islands. And I get where they’re coming from, it doesn’t seem like there really was a reason to not have it for initial release. I guess I don’t mind, though.” Jeremy shrugged as best they could, slowly opening their eyes again. “I just like playing slow anyways.”

“I’m excited to see everything.” Jeremy’s responding smile mirrored Christine’s own, beaming and showing off their teeth. Eyes crinkled at the corners. After a beat of silence they stuck their tongue out up at her. In turn Christine scrunched up her nose, pinching their cheek.

“Bwahh,” Jeremy blurted out after a second, throwing their arms up before letting them flop back limply, one dangling off the edge of the couch.

“Bweee,” Christine returned, squishing their cheeks and leaning over nearly in half to press their noses together. It was a little awkward since they were basically perpendicular but it was nice all the same.

After a moment she lifted her head a few inches, just enough so they could properly meet eyes without practically going cross eyed. Jeremy returned her gaze with drooping eyelids and a dopey smile. She absentmindedly moved her fingers, lightly tracing swirls over their scalp, dragging through their hair.

“Love you,” she whispered, tilting her head fondly.