34

The cereal doesn't taste much of anything. It's the natural outcome of buying the cheapest cereal at the store, and he has regrets but nevertheless continues to bite down on the dastardly hard pieces of cereal, a grimace never leaving his expression. He winces as he bites on a particularly solid piece, holding a hand to his cheek as he crushes the thing between his teeth⎯ that suddenly seem very weak.

His cell-phone rings while he's swallowing, and accepts the call and puts it on speakerphone just as gulps down milk to fix that strange feeling in his mouth.

Perhaps he shouldn't stubbornly try to eat the cereal?

"Win? Are you there?" Jason asks, and Winston gulps down the last of the milk in the old glass, smacking his lips.

"Yeah," he says, rather lamely. He tacks on a "Hello. How are you?" in an attempt to sound normal, and winces again. That didn't sound very normal, did it?

Shit.

But Jason laughs, sounding amused rather than derisive, and says, "I'm well, how are you?"

"Good."

"Better than yesterday?"

"I was fine yesterday," Winston points out. He was fine, wasn't he? He'd gone to bed on time, brushing his teeth and anything. It might have taken him a while to fall asleep after he'd actually laid down, but it wasn't like he hadn't gotten any sleep at all. "I was totally fine," he repeats, and yet somehow it sounds feeble to his own ears. Odd.

Jason doesn't disagree, and it's fine. Winston didn't want him to, because he was fine.

"Do you want to do something today? My plans with roomie fell through," Jason explains at Winston's questioning noise, then adds, "Wanna go out?"

Winston stares at his bowl of soggy cereal, than at the empty glass of milk. He glances out the window; it's a decently sunny day, cloudy but not to the point that there's no sunlight. And it's the weekend, the ideal going out days for college students who aren't studying very hard.

And yet, Winston says, "You could—come over?"

It sounds like a question. It is a question, Winston realizes belatedly.

"I would love to," says Jason, softly.

Winston exhales in a carefully controlled manner, holding his breath in his aching chest longer than is strictly necessary. "Great," he says, voice weak and he glances around the apartment again. It's dirty, he can't help but think; a thought he's never had before.

Why would he? It hasn't mattered.

There isn't laundry on the floor, Winston doesn't like that kind of messiness, but there's a thick layer of dust on the pieces of the furniture he doesn't use often, dust-bunnies in the corner he doesn't bother to vacuum, grime on the bathroom's floor he hasn't gotten around to cleaning.

And suddenly it's all unbearable. He can't show this to Jason, Winston thinks.

"A, no in two hours?" Winston asks, already getting up and depositing his dishes in the tiny sink in the kitchen nook.

"I'll be there," says Jason.

Winston snags the phone from the table and turns off the speakers, putting it to his ears so Jason can't hear it when he turns on the faucet. "Would you wanna cook?" Winston asks, apropos nothing.

"Cook?"

"You said you like cooking. I have... sort of a kitchen," Winston points out.

Jason is silent for a long moment, so long that Winston has started wondering if he shouldn't asked. But Jason at last says, "I'll get groceries on the way," and Winston exhales. Shoulders relaxing, he hums a confirmatory noise, and Jason laughs. "I look forward to it."

Yeah, Winston does as well, but the words aren't coming and then the conversation is over and he's staring at the phone's black screen.

"Jason is coming over," Winston says to himself, and he sounds rather shell-shocked. He's never heard himself like that.

Not even Gary has ever been to this apartment.

Winston looks at the dust again, at the dirty corners and what he can see through the bathroom entryway. "Right," he murmurs, shutting his eyes a second. Tries to remember where he put the cleaning supplies, and then tries to figure out if he even has any.

He doesn't, it turns out. One quick trip to a small store not a ten minute walk away later, and Winston is sitting with his ass on the floor and dragging a dust cleaning into the corners and then below the couch.

While he works with one hand, he uses the other one to text Gary jason is coming over hwat do i do, help

Nearly two minutes of fruitless cleaning later (the dust has somehow fused with the floor), Gary's reply rings on his phone. Winston drops the dust cleaning, happy for the excuse, and goes and hunts down the piece of technology. It's not on the coffee-table, he discovers, nor is it on the couch.

Rather it is, for some reason, behind the couch.

Winston stares at the couch for a solid minute. He looks at the dust cleaner lodged halfway beneath it, and then he looks at the window above the couch. It's still morning, technically. Winston woke up early, and he got up early, too.

Sighing, he grabs the end of the couch and lifts it up just enough so he can move one end without scratching up the floor. His shoulders strains, arms screaming at him as he huffs and puffs, planting his feet wide and pulling until he literally can't anymore.

The couch strikes the floor with a needlessly loud thud. Winston brushes a hand through his hair and shakily exhales, the next breath in just as shaky as the one out.

Retrieving his phone is actually easy when the couch is out of the way, thankfully. He brings up the conversation with Gary and reads the message, a small smile growing on his face as he drops onto the couch. It doesn't bounce beneath his weight like the one at Gary's place does, but he's trying not to think about such things.

It's fine. It is.

Gary's message is a simple i'll call with a super important super necassary errand at the drop of a button, just hit me up! i'll make sure it's one jason can't help with! don't worry about anything!!

Winston laughs. "Thanks" he sends in return. Tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling, he sends another message after a minute. are you watching Imperial Coroner's Secret Love-Child today?, a new drama Winston hasn't watched yet. It's only got 3 episodes out and it seems to mainly be a romcom, a genre he doesn't tend to enjoy often.

But Gary adore them. He watches at least the first episode of every new show he has access to, and isn't shy about telling Winston which ones they have to watch together.

Gary does have a pretty good idea of Winston's tastes, though, so he does actually usually end up enjoying the ones Gary recommends him.

Fifteen minutes later, Winston twitches, realizing he's wasting valuable cleaning time. "Shit," he breathes, hopping up from the couch and tossing his way around the room, holding off on moving the couch back and instead taking the opportunity to clean behind it.

It's sorely needed, and Winston's nose wrinkles from the smell of cleaning agents required to make any kind of progress.

The apartment didn't look like this when he bought it, he can't help but note as he works. It wasn't nearly as bad then, or he wouldn't have moved here in the first place.