Sick and tired (open!)

[Noam Goldstein]

Noam hated being sick.

He hated the feeling of being out of it, and the feeling of not being as alert as usual killed him. For someone who was always quite active and full of life, it made him slow down. Applying the brakes was something that Noam detested, and often times when sick, he didn't. He continued to go to class, not wanting to have to make everything up(which wasn't fun at all, it took up precious free time) or lie around doing nothing for an entire day. Sure, he got plenty of other students would ask him "are you okay?" which he'd answer by nodding his head, but the attention wasn't in the form of amazement - which was the type that he liked.

Right now, he was sitting at the cafeteria for dinner, playing around with his food. He poked his fork into a morsel, and frowned. Usually, he scarfed it down within ten minutes, but normally, it was a shorter time period than that. Noam coughed into his fist, looking around. There wasn't anyone sitting at his table for the moment, which was fine, but he always preferred company. Rambling was probably his favorite dinner time activity. Although it slowed down his speed of eating, Noam didn't care. When he didn't sit at an already occupied table, and when no one sat with him, he'd eat within five minutes.

But now, feeling like there was a lump in his throat, and his nose quite runny, he kind of wanted to be alone. However, this dream was kind of crushed when he noticed someone approaching his table.

[Cameron Osiris]

“Noam! You snotty nosed rascal.” Cam said, sitting directly across from his roommate. “You should be in bed man, you look terrible.” He winced slightly. His food was stacked high, as he hadn’t been able to taste anything until recently when his cold decided to cease. “You probably caught it from me,” he added, his fork full of food before going into the black hole that was his mouth. “Sorry ‘bout tha’,” he said, his mouth full of food, so he closed his trap to actually finish.

Life had been a rollercoaster for Cameron lately. There still wasn’t any sign of Chester, not that he was trying to contact the redhead either, and the fact that he had his own place off Hammel grounds meant they probably wouldn’t run into each other. It had been a month, and not a single peep. Cam was feeling a little closer to normal now, a little sadder than he was before, but that was to be expected. Especially when the person he was in love with had only used him to see what a kiss felt like.

Watching Noam push his food around, Cameron glanced over at him. “You want me to make you soup instead? I’ve got some chicken noodle with your name all over it.”

[Noam Goldstein]

"Dude. No, I'm fine," protested Noam, "Seriously. I'm a-okay, really." However, he didn't quite sound like that. He took a bite of the food on his plate - not very much taste. "Really, dude. It's nothing. It's but a mere scratch," he said, imitating the Monty Python voice at the last little bit, but it didn't exactly sound very much like those actors at the moment. "Eh. Nah, I don' think I caught it from you. It's nothing, I swear, not worth missing class." His father was being quite harsh on the teen at the moment - he'd been making sure Noam did his homework, which was something that he liked to ignore(for the most part). His grades were improving miraculously, but doing schoolwork was boring. And making up work was almost worse than homework.

Noam didn't have much of a clue what had went on between his roommate and Chester. He hadn't really known Chester very well, occasionally running into the redhead or making small talk, but nothing much. However, he had noticed that his roommate was a bit sadder, but he didn't quite know what to do about it. For now, he figured that ignorance was the best policy(as usual). Nothing much had happened to him - he'd developed a small crush on Tanner, which had left almost as soon as it had arrived. It had almost been two months since he'd come out to Michael. And he wasn't sure how he felt about it.

"Nah, I'm cool," he insisted. Chicken noodle soup did sound good though - and after a pause, he figured that Cam probably wouldn't be irked if he changed his mind. "Well, if you and your epic self is up to making your extremely awesome roommate some soup, I wouldn't mind, actually..."

[Cameron Osiris]

"Pretty sure your power isn't bullshitting, and it's definitely not working on me," Cam said, his eyebrows raised at Noam. Seriously, who was he trying to kid? The blond sputtered out a laugh at the movie reference. "A mere flesh wound!" Cam was graciously going along with the ploy. When had Noam become to talkative? He sighed and used his fork to point at Noam. "You are a braver man than I." Not that he liked missing classes either, but Noam shouldn't run around making everyone else sick.

No one really knew what to do for Cam, and the blond didn't expect anyone to be his savior. He just needed his friends around to get him through, to help him get over Chester. Though he didn't believe this to be possible.

"Alright bro," Cam said, going back to devouring his food. But he had a little grin on his face, and in his mind was counting down the seconds until Noam caved. If he did, he was definitely sick. Triumphant, Cameron clapped his hands together and wiped at his mouth. "Epic self would be glad to make soup for extremely awesome roommate," he said, eating a little faster. "Jus' lemme finnsh this, kay?" He asked, continuing to eat. Once he was finished, he got up to put the tray away.

Going over to Noam, Cam just took he mostly full food tray away from his roommate. "You really shouldn't waste food," Cam said, pretending to be very disappointed in his friend. Cam smirked and patted Noam's shoulder. "Come on dude, let's go back to the room." After disposing of the contaminated food, they were off to the dorms.

"So, you've been busy I here," he said, smirking to himself. Gossip traveled quickly here at Hammel.

[Noam Goldstein]

"I'm not bullshitting, dude," he protested, taking a breath - and sniffling. Definitely not good for his cause. "Really. I'm fiiiine." He chuckled as Cam went along with his little thing. Monty Python was definitely one of the curly-haired teen's favorites. "I am," he proclaimed. "I am." He gave a cough, slightly ruining the effect. "Okay, maybe I'm a little bit sick. Just a little. Seriously."

"'Kay," Noam replied with a grin. "I challenge you to make it beat Bubbe's matzo ball soup," he proclaimed jokingly - unfortunately, his grandmother's soup wasn't as good as most would think. His dad's mother was never a spectacular cook, and as a child, Noam had often dreaded Passover seders because of the usually overcooked food, and odd-tasting concoctions. He wondered how his father had survived on that kind of food. Watching as Cam went to put his tray away, he crossed his arms, though only briefly - he coughed into his fist just seconds afterwards. Being sick was awful, he decided.

"Oi! I'm just not in the mood for this," he protested - partly because he was sick, and he couldn't think of any better excuse. "Right. Let's go." He stood up, and began to follow Cam back to the dorms. "Soooo."

"Huh? Oh. Um." He looked away. What had Cam heard? He wondered if he knew about his coming out - Michael hadn't told many, he figured, but the date with Tanner probably turned some heads... he really wasn't sure. "Er. What are you talking about? I've been boring, not busy," he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets, trying to remain as calm as possible. "Really, there really wasn't much going on with me, I swear, man. Really. I've been as boring as usual." He looked away from Cam. He figured Cam would call him out on it...

[Cameron Osiris]

"Dude, shut up, you'll only make yourself worse," Cam said with a sinister grin. Something about telling someone to shut up who was already pretty quiet just amused him. "And for the record, my cooking is just dandy," he remarked, crossing his arms in front of him. No one would guess it, but he was good in the kitchen, he just didn't show off. Growing up with just him and his dad, well, someone had to make a homemade meal once in a while. Kraft Dinner got real old real fast.

"We can work on your bullshitting skills another time," Cam said, slinging an arm around Noam's shoulders, "come on Gnomey, you and Tanner? If I would've known you had a thing for blonds, I couldn't set you up sooner! With me." Smirking, Cam gave Noam a squeeze and then released him.

Cam opened up the door to their dorm, and after they were both inside he headed for the pantry. "People just love talking about your love life, so, fess up. How was it?" They needed something to talk about while the noodles boiled. "Just don't get any ideas, you're sick, so I can show you the moves later." Cam was teasing of course, but his back was to Noam as he got down a bowl for his sick roommate. Cam really did feel responsible, he had been sick first after all.