The Smoke From His Lips

22

It's been weeks and Evan hasnt said a word about Connor. He was uneasy, of course. He wasn't supposed to know and maybe it was just his anxiety that was eating away at him. He took a deep breath and let it go slowly. He hated being stressed.

"Evan, right?" Evan ended up screaming from getting scared by the sudden voice behind him. He fell kinda towards the lockers and looked behind him with a hand over his racing heart.

"Fuck Connor, you scared the shit outta me!" Evan squeaked and took a moment to steady his feet and pulse.

Connor sheepishly flicked a wave. "Didn't mean to, I guess. Jared always says my footsteps are too quiet."

Evan nodded in agreement and pushed his hair up and out of his face. Jesus Christ.

"Do you know where he is?" Connor asked, a bit quieter. It was weird to hear Connor so mellow, or at least to Evan it was. "I didn't see him much."

Evan nodded slightly. "He went to the nurse with a migraine. Probably sent home, or just laying down in her office. Jared doesn't usually get rides home and doesn't wanna walk all that way because he is pretty far that's like double digit minutes so most times he stays with the nurse if he has headaches or migraines and a lot of times in the cold and the winter it gets worse from atmosphere pressure or something? Then his asmtha gets worse with the temperature."

Connor never minded hearing rambles, he especially didn't mind Evans rambles about Jared. Most of them had a lot of quirky facts about the two and he liked the sibling dynamic they seemed to have. "He really can't win, can he?"

"Winter is merciless and it's just about time for it to whip his ass," Evan chuckled quietly and adjusted his grip on his books. "Jared takes naps when he's got migraines, he's probably still in the nurses office."

"Thanks," Connor mumbled before he started to rush off, grabbing his bag strap tight and speed walking down the hall. Evan found it kinda cute that Connor was so ready to see Jared. Maybe Jared was getting the attention he always needed.

Connor ended up sliding his bag off his shoulder so he wouldn't feel it thump against his legs as he hurried. He tossed it against the wall and ducked into the nurses office.

"Hey Connor," she greeted with a small and welcoming smile as she always did. She was a type of small, tubby little lady that suited it. He would call her a little old lady but she was more of fifties probably, grey hair but minimal wrinkles, and Connor usually thought to himself that maybe the lack of wrinkles is because she's chubby and the wrinkles just stretch for her lil fat. "Feelin' okay?" She frowned slightly. Connor went to the nurse a lot to take naps or skip class, she knew that, she's definitely talked to him about mental health. She definitely knew about his 504, it wasn't a surprise she talked to him about mental health before.

"Eh," Connor mumbled and shrugged. "I'm not here for me though, is Jared Kleinman in here?"

She nodded slightly. "Back room, might be napping. Bad headache, but he took his migraine medications a little bit o' minutes ago. If he's asleep, he'll wake up when it's fully kicked in," she explained and motioned to the door where the darker, separate room was where kids who were sensitive to light after head impact or from a headache. Connor stayed in that room whenever he was too overwhelmed. The door doesn't close all the way for supervision purpose, there had to be enough light so the nurse could see in, but just sitting on the springy and kinda plastic beds was good enough for Connor. Sometimes the nurse even sat on the opposite bed, rested her elbows on her knees and let Connor cry his problems out if he needed to, and she'd reassure him in terms of mental health. Occasionally he even had to sit on the bed with a kid on the opposite one, usually sleeping off a headache from basically a concussion.

Connor crept in the room quietly, seeing Jared laying curled up on the bed with his hood pushed up and his face half hidden, glasses folded on the ground and sleeve paw hands jammed into his eyes. Connor wasn't sure if Jared was asleep, but slowly closed the door as much as possible and sat on the opposite bed, looking over Jared and sort of doing a check over. He looked up and down over Jared, from his shoes loosened up and partially slipped off all the way to his bunched up hair was jutting out of his hood. He must've been pulling his hair. Connor didn't know how his migraines felt but he assumed it must've been painful. He frowned softly, just kind of wanting to scoop him up and take him home and tuck him into some blankets and hope he feels better.

He sort of spaced out looking at Jared with a soft and mellow-ish kind of look, so he didn't really notice right away that he was stirring in his sleep. He blinked hard and watched Jared slowly start to squirm as his body woke him up at the peak of his medication kicking in. Jared lowered his hands and blinked away the sleepy residue, briefly hummed and then looked up at Connor. He lazily smiled, fully content just looking at Connor. "Hey," Jared mumbled quietly and groggily, "what time's it?"

Connor glanced at his phone. "Two colon three eight," he chuckled slightly, knowing Jared would cringe like usual whenever he said shit like that, which was often. And Jared did cringe.

"Why do you say it like that?" Jared groaned with disgust, but also with a small smile and a small chuckle.

"To get on your nerves." Connor loosely shrugged as he smiled lopsidedly. "It started as being a prick after the third time you asked me to repeat it in the span of thirty seconds before."

"Are you still on that?"

"Of course, who do you think I am?" Connor snorted a slight laugh. He was probably the most comfortable with Jared, letting out quiet laughs and small smiles, which was something large to Jared. He made the all mighty, cigarette and pot smoking, intimidating bad boy Connor Murphy crack a dorky smile. "Head feel alright?"

Jared nodded and rubbed his eyes. "Only thing that's not alright is I have no fucking clue where my glasses are."

Connor grabbed his glasses, unfolded them and tried to gently slide them on his face. He didn't succeed, instead, he accidentally overestimated the distance between the glasses and Jared, and also wasnt good at aiming. He jabbed Jared's eye and then dropped the glasses. He scrambled with a red face to pick them back up and get closer to be more gentle, mumbling, "Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckimsorryisyoureyeokayjesuschirstiwastryingtobecool."

Jared initially winced but ended up laughing, which wasn't the cutest laugh but it was one that kinda brought a smile to Connors face. "Dumbass."

Connor managed to fumble a bit but get Jared's glasses on, staying relatively close to his face. "Ready to go hang out? I'm a lonely whore who needs some good attention."

"I'm always ready, but keeps the brightness down on everything," Jared chuckle sheepishly. "My eyes still hurt."
~

Gay?

Gay.

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