Invincible

ninety-two

 hello!!! thank you for everybody's lovely comments on the last chapter :D and sorry for the delay on this one. it's quite long though. also quite grey though so sorry about that. things will look up soon i promise :) also, any shameless fans, yes, i totally stole the music from shameless. i love this song to pieces

   Isaac was so tired he was still asleep on the sofa when Jared's mum arrived home early from work, and Jared hurried to shush her loud greeting so as not to wake him.

    "Isaac's sleeping," he said sheepishly, then, motioning towards the kitchen, "I'm just making dinner. Cosmo's at work."

     Mum paused before following him into the kitchen, then fixed him with a 'concerned parent' stare.

    "Are you holding up okay?" she asked. He nodded.

    "Yeah- I, yeah. A bit shaken, I guess."

    "Alright," she said eventually, looking at a loose end. This was alien territory for them. They'd never been the type of family to have deep conversations about feelings, or really conversations about feelings full stop. Neither of them really knew each other at all, besides the obvious mother-son thing. She huffed out a breath through her nose and said,

    "You know he's going to need proper help, Jared. I mean- professional help. If we'd taken him to the hospital he'd be on red list suicide watch right now, Jer. Just because he didn't-"

    "I know," Jared interrupted, eyes not meeting hers. "I- I'll talk about it with him. Just- not today, okay?"

    "As long as you do it soon."

     She sighed and crossed the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine. Jared rolled his lips inward a second then said hastily,

    "He can stay, right? His parents are fucking psychos."

    "Language, Jer" she said tiredly. Then, "Yeah, he can stay."

————o————

     He and Isaac should've maybe been more unsure of each other than they were, given how things had been between them before Isaac's phone call. And yeah, maybe they'd need to tackle all that when Isaac was doing better, but for now it felt like enough to know through simple touches how close the other was.

     That night Isaac shared Jared's bed again (neither of them really discussed it, but there was no further mention of the spare room). Isaac lay so close to him that Jared could tell he wasn't asleep, could almost hear his mind whirring restlessly.

    "You okay?" he asked eventually, propping himself up on one elbow to look down at Isaac's face. Isaac unsqueezed his eyes and answered,

    "Can't sleep."

     Jared raised one eyebrow at him, reaching down to brush his hair out of his face just for an excuse to touch him.

    "That's surprising," he said dryly, all fondness and so familiar it made something in his chest hurt. "Not like you spent the whole day napping or anything."

     Isaac didn't laugh or even smile, really, but he let out this huffy sort of sound and that was enough for Jared.

    "Well okay," he said. "How about we watch a movie or some shit till you're sleepy again?"

     Isaac nodded.

    "Yeah."

     Jared pulled his laptop from the bedside table onto his bed, and shoved the pillows up against the headboard for them to lean on.