double update yay! sorry for the wait !! please be sure to read 95 before this :)
The next day Willa texted asking if she could come round in the evening to see them both. There was nothing in the fridge for dinner, so Jared proposed a supermarket trip and Cosmo quickly jumped on the idea, rambling on about how they'd run out of Frubes or some shit ("You're nearly twenty and you still eat fucking Frubes, Cos!?" "Fuck you, don't define a man by his yoghurt!").
"I can drive," offered Cosmo, already having grabbed his keys. Jared raised his eyebrows, stifling a laugh at Isaac trying to cover up his horrified expression.
"Really?" Jared asked.
"Yeah. 'S'no problem," answered Cos, beaming, and Isaac's expression softened. He nodded.
"Yeah, cool, that'd be good. Thanks Cos."
He smiled, and Jared realised he'd noticed Cosmo's real reason for offering them a lift: he just wanted to help in some way. He'd felt as helpless as Jared these past few weeks, but with no way to relieve it. So now Jared nodded too, and they both followed Cos out to his car.
"I call shotgun," said Isaac with a little smirk, and Jared gave him the middle finger before clambering into the back.
"Let's roll," Cosmo announced happily. He attempted start-up a couple of times before realising the car wasn't in gear.
"Real smooth, bro," said Jared sarcastically as they finally reversed, grinning at Cosmo in the rear view mirror.
"Kindly fuck off," Cosmo retorted. He reached to turn the radio to Heart FM. "Ayyy, we have a tune!"
Isaac was smiling, not quite as big as he used to but getting there, and Jared felt something in his stomach flutter stupidly (he was kinda worried about how much he was thinking like a fucking twelve-year-old girl recently. He was like, Critical Red stage; well into the clichéd crush symptoms and two steps away from actually buying One Direction tickets and following Ariana Grande on Twitter).
Cosmo was singing, bobbing his head to the music with all the rhythmic precision of a cucumber.
"WAKE UP KIDS, WE GOT THE DREAMERS' DISEASE-"
Jared smothered a grin.
"C'mon Isaac," said Cosmo, "let's crank up the ol' volume. Get the party started."
"You're so lame," groaned Jared, but Isaac only grinned and did as Cosmo said. Cosmo went from bobbing to swaying, and then Isaac started singing along and fuck Jared was a lost cause. He cursed his twelve-year-old self for being such an emotionally repressed asshole and not preparing him for all these fucking feelings.
"DON'T LET GO, YOU'VE GOT THE MUSIC IN YOU! ONE DANCE LEFT, THIS WORLD IS GONNA PULL THROUGH-"
The next song on the radio was 'Steal My Girl' (which Isaac and Cosmo sang along to just as enthusiastically), and Jared thought it was probably a sign.
————o————
In the supermarket Cosmo behaved like that 5-year-old kid you always see chucking random items into their flustered parent's trolley.
"Cosmo, put the fucking Monster Munch back," Jared was ordering as they rolled the trolley down the crisps aisle. "Have some fucking standards, dude. Pickled fucking onion flavour?"
He only noticed Isaac's laughter when it reached past a stifled chuckle and into actual giggles, at which he turned round and raised an eyebrow in the other boy's direction. Isaac hid his eyes then emerged to point terribly unsubtly at a horrified mum who was actually covering her child's ears.
"I can't believe this," she said, outraged. "This is a family zone! I don't want my kids hearing your disgusting language! Your parents should be ashamed of you."
"Well I'm sorry if-" began Jared sarcastically, and then broke off at Isaac's pointed expression. 'Be nice,' said Isaac's stupid eyes. Jared huffed, then grunted out, "I'm sorry. I'll tone it down."
The lady nodded sharply.
"Come on, Rupert," she said, tugging her child away down the aisle. Jared let out another sulky sigh.
"Who the fuck calls their kid Rupert anyway?" he mumbled grumpily. Isaac laughed and reached out a hand to ruffle Jared's hair as he walked off down the aisle, leaving Jared staring after him in a mixture of crankiness and fondness and this crazy happiness that he was laughing again.
He was almost back to smiling when Cosmo returned from the other side of the aisle with an armful of chocolate digestives.
"Special offer," he said, then, "You sure you two aren't going out?"
Jared coughed to cover up his choking, then rammed Cosmo with the trolley.
"No, we're not going out. Fuck the hell off."
Cosmo held up his hands in mock surrender.
"Woah, dude! No need to turn to violence, I'm just pointing out that you kinda act like a married couple."
Jared's mouth fell open.
"It's complicated," he said eventually, and Cosmo gave a loud laugh at his expense before dumping his haul of discount biscuits in the trolley.
————o————
'Complicated' was a fucking understatement. Jared was determined to let Isaac make the first move but if he didn't do it soon, he thought he might actually explode.
He thought about dropping bigger hints or some shit ("hey, Isaac, wanna sleep with me in like, a non-literal sense?" or maybe "hey, Isaac, remember that time we shouted then kissed, wanna do it again with less shouting and more kissing?"). But he couldn't. He was a good person, really- a good person for Isaac, at least, and Isaac was vulnerable and the power balance was all wrong with him living in Jared's house. When Isaac was ready- if he wanted to- then it would happen. And Jared could wait (or at least, he told himself he could, but it was fucking hard when he kept waking up to Isaac in his bed).
This morning was one of those occasions and Jared was staring- observing- there was really no way of saying it that didn't make it sound creepy. It was weird to think of another guy as beautiful but Isaac was beautiful, that was just fucking fact- the way his lips weren't quite closed so you could see the tiniest hint of his teeth, the soft lines of his nose, the sharper shadows of his cheekbones. Jared's gaze traced the high arch of his eyebrows and the pale skin of his throat and it was gay as fuck, this creepy-ass watching him sleep, but he couldn't tear his eyes away. He wanted to wake him up softly with kisses, wanted to run gentle fingers over his skin. The thing was that he knew what Isaac's lips would feel like – the memory was fucking burnt into him, the softness, the giving and taking. Isaac's eyelashes quivered and Jared's eyes flicked up to meet his just as he emerged from sleep, all lazy and lax like a sun-drunk kitten.
And Jared knew he should make up some excuse or at least try to make it look less like he'd been staring, but for some reason he just- didn't.
"Hello," said Isaac with a warm little smile. Jared's heart hurt. He took a deep breath and grunted out,
"You snore, you know." His voice was all tense and weird but Isaac must've been too sleepy to notice because he just shrugged, still smiling, and burrowed back under the covers till only his eyes were showing.