Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There were two options. Naturally a person would look between them, pause, weigh them, and make a choice. Some people might pause longer, thinking about consequences and ramifications more carefully before making their selection. Others might look back and forth quickly and shrug before letting their feet carry them along either path.

Then there was Evan. He was always the sort of a ‘none of the above’ guy and it was really coming back to bite him in the ass. His brain seemed to be constantly at war, caught between overthinking and acting impulsively. Far too often he just gave up and collapsed under the pressure.

There were two options. The third had been crossed out by his mother, he was not backing out of this. It was good for him, she’d told him so, he wanted to believe that. In fact, he’d brought it up in the first place, she was just helping him follow through. He didn’t quite understand how calling Jared’s mom and conspiring for the two of them to meet up and talk was going to help-

“So I’m putting miles on my car to drag your sorry ass cross country for.. what reason?”

Oh.

That made sense.

It made his cheeks flush - he didn’t need a babysitter. Well, he definitely needed moral support if he was going through with this, but Jared wasn’t really a shining example. In fact Evan was always supposed to be the more moral of the two, was supposed to keep them out of trouble. Ever since they were kids. Well, what good did that do them in the end? So maybe it was fair to give Jared the reigns of responsibility this time.

There were two options. He was running out of time. Jared was looking him up and down, impatient but patient. Guilt was pooling in his stomach and he probably would have felt sick if he’d managed to eat anything before his mom had sent him down the block to the Kleinmans’ and.. he really felt like some pathetic toddler. He couldn’t do anything without his mom, he couldn’t even make his own doctor’s appointments-

No, he couldn’t think of it like that. It was exactly what they were working on. Maybe he couldn’t make his own appointments yet but he could go up to the counter and order his own takeout now. It was a process.

“Evan,” Jared’s voice was harsh but steady, as always. “If you could stay present for like, twenty seconds that’d be great.”

Two options. Truth or lie. Easy way or hard way. Well, he wasn’t sure which was easier and he wasn’t sure if omitting was the same as lying. One would think he knew plenty about lying at this point but his brain was still trying to connect dots to form whatever he needed to force out of his mouth to get Jared to stop looking at him like that. Not that he knew what that was, it just made him squirm a little. Normally he’d just accept that he’d never be able to read people - well, ‘accept’ had positive connotations, resigned was probably better, he resigned to the fact - but with Jared it made him want to throw up. Not that Jared made him want to throw up. He just thought after packing so many years into the suitcase that was their friendship (were they friends?) that he should be able to understand him on some cosmic level.. or something.

“Holy fucking shit. Dude.” Jared looked seconds away from stepping forward to wave a hand in front of Evan’s face.

Three strikes. He’s out. Except his feet were stuck in place and there was nowhere to run because if he ran Jared would just show up at his house and he’d still have to talk to him either way. So it was now or later and while he usually liked to go with later it would just be mortifying in this case. 

“Colorado?” Was all he managed to weakly supply. Jared was unimpressed.

“That’s not a reason, dude.”

Right.

“The um, the. The. That.” Evan furrowed his brow, feeling his throat betray him as it tightened with nerves. With a quiet cough he shook his arms out a little, trying to loosen up. He made his decision. “You know the.. I had that map with the pins? Of places. Well, obviously. Pins on maps are places, that was stupid-”

As he said it he stuck an arm out, gesturing with his whole hand. For a moment he squeezed his eyes shut and he could picture it, the map that is, stuck to his cork board with all the colorful little pushpins in it. Except for the fact he’d taken all the pins out nearly a year ago - when he’d resigned to fading into oblivion. The thing about that, though, was that he was getting better now. He really was. After talking to his mom he’d carefully stuck a few of those pins back into the holes they’d already left on the map. It left them loose, if Evan pressed on them they’d wiggle a bit. It was part of him getting better. There were a lot of steps to his process.

“Keep going.” The tone wasn’t exactly gentle by any stretch but Evan recognized it enough. Usually Jared only broke it out when he was particularly impatient. More often than not he’d sit and listen to Evan’s pointless rambling until he got to the point, looking at him expectantly during pauses. Despite all his roughness Jared always listened and it made Evan’s chest warm because he actually felt respected around Jared. He felt seen by him. Ironic as that might have been.

“I wanted- well, my therapist thought, uh, and my mom actually. They both thought that- thought that I should do something this, um, summer since I’m sort of taking a- taking- taking a gap year. Anyways,” he cleared his throat, hesitantly meeting Jared’s gaze. Expectant yet.. waiting. “I thought the pins would be, um, a good place to start? Sorry that was.. my mom said that. I didn’t. So yeah, the pins, it’s- they’re for hiking trails, um, state and national parks and.. stuff. So I, well, we- my mom helped, we picked one. My mom would go but.. you know, yeah. I guess she talked to your mom about it since, um, I can’t go alone. You know. Driving and, um, I couldn’t do airports for so many reasons.. And I’m s- I know we’re like, adults now and it’s so weird- so weird for my mom to talk to your mom and.. You can say no that’s okay I- since we’re still kind of.. weird?”

Jared crossed his arms, quirking a brow. Evan felt the panic rush back in; maybe he had been wrong the whole time. Maybe they weren’t weird and he was being weird. He had apologized but they hadn’t really talked and Jared had seemed off the whole second semester. That didn’t mean he could make assumptions though; what did he know anyways?

“Unless we’re not weird, I’m so- so sorry. I didn’t mean to just put that- put that on- put that on you. You don’t want to be, um, stuck with me in a.. in a car. Shit. I’m sorry. I’ll just tell my.. my mom to forget about it and I’ll just-“

“If you don’t stop right now I swear I’m going to fucking steal your teeth.” It was aggressive enough for Evan to sense building annoyance but absurd enough that it almost felt normal between them.

“I’ve had.. um, nightmares about that. Not about you doing that but.. yeah.” 

“Jesus Christ,” Jared huffed out. When Evan looked up again he saw that he’d uncrossed his arms and tucked his hands into his pockets instead. Less closed off postures were good, right? He’d tried to read about postures and body language but it all seemed to stress him out more so he’d given up as quickly as he started. There were more fun things he could go on deep dives about. 

“I can leave,” Evan said quickly - so quickly it almost sounded like some sort of bastardized cough. Or like he was choking. He felt his body tense up and he gripped onto his forearm tightly, it was the only way he could keep himself from exaggeratedly gesturing.

“Dude,” Jared scrunched up his nose a bit in.. disgust? It had to be disgust, didn’t it? But he was taking a step forward, socks on his front porch, they’d probably get dirty. The thought made Evan worry about his own socks. They were probably sweaty, he was very sweaty. The humidity didn’t help. “Don’t break your arm again.”

Had he heard that right? It was almost teasing and with it Jared’s hand was closing around his own and pulling it away from his arm. for a second he held on, but almost as soon as it started it was ending and Jared was retreating back inside, leaning on the doorframe. It was almost weird enough to distract him from being reminded about the incident, just almost. His arm twinged with a phantom pain and his chest ached. He let out a ragged breath, “sorry.”

“Cross country for a single hike’s a little extreme isn’t it?”

“Oh,” it felt like his whole world was collapsing. Of course. He’d made the wrong choice, said the wrong thing. There were two options and he fucked up. Just like usual. He was supposed to tell the truth, the real truth, not just half truths. This wasn’t something he could slowly work on because if it wasn’t the full truth then it was a partial lie. He didn’t want to lie to Jared. He never wanted to lie to Jared. Or anyone! The words were clogged up in his throat and he was mentally kicking himself into the ground.

‘Just say it. Say it. I’m going to visit dad. We’re going to see my dad. My dad invited me out. I can’t drive alone. I can’t fly. I can’t do anything alone. No. No. No spirals. Deep breaths.’

“Dude. I’m fucking with you.” Evan wasn’t sure he could believe that but the alternative was to fall back into old habits and overthink himself to death. Hesitantly, he chose to take Jared’s words at face value without digging into them.

“Sorry, yeah.” With a short breath he just dropped his gaze. Something had to be at least marginally okay because Jared hadn’t said no. To be fair he hadn’t explicitly said yes but.. he spoke with the assumption that this was happening. He really was working on overthinking. Slowly.

“Just text me what day we have to leave and what time. And where we’re going beyond the ever ambiguous Colorado. We can talk logistics and pit stops - please tell me I have more than a day to prepare for this and please tell me you have fucking, like, things planned on the way. I’m not just sitting in a car the whole time,” it came out a little rushed and Evan wondered if he was the only person who saw Jared like this. Tripping over his own words as they rushed to make their exit. He liked to play it cool but this was something Evan was a little too used to seeing, him pulling his hands from his pockets to gesture a little back and forth, tilting his head for emphasis.

Everyone always guessed that Evan would be the one to over prepare himself but it was usually the opposite, he ignored things and then scrambled for answers. Jared wasn’t very organized but he planned well and was all about logistics, it was one of the main reasons Evan had accepted his help with The Connor Project. It was one of the main reasons Evan’s emails seemed to stop adding up when Jared wasn’t helping. He couldn’t help but internally cringe a bit at the memories.

“Text you. Yes. I’m- I’ll do that. Okay. Um, bye?”

“Yeah. See ya.” The look on Jared’s face felt out of place - he looked downright amused. It took everything for Evan’s brain to not just start screaming that Jared was obviously just laughing at him and how atrociously he’d handled this simple conversation. Instead he choked all those feelings down and shoved one hand in his pocket, waving a little frantically as he backed away from Jared’s front door. He faltered as he stepped backwards off the porch, nearly stumbling into one of the little bushes next to the steps before hopping away. Looking up he was met with Jared still.. smiling. Though his brows were drawn together. Another wave and he was briskly walking off back home.

It seemed like overkill - to send him over in person for the exchange. Or maybe his mom just wanted to be sure he was doing it. Or maybe it was just more respectful to do his best to look Jared in the eye when he told him about it because he was dragging him halfway across the country on his own time. Maybe it was just a lot of things and nothing was as black and white as Evan would normally like to see it.

That one seemed pretty likely.

Chapter Text

Evan hadn’t expected an itinerary.

Okay - to be fair it wasn’t that intense, he had a tendency to blow things out of proportion. It was a list of destinations that created a nice little connect-the-dots right down to Colorado. There was a stop for each day, a town, and between each item was the length of the drive. Well - there was a gap. Jared had added a bullet point of ‘???’ between ‘Des Moines’ and ‘Aspen’. That left a gap over twelve and a half hours and just thinking about that made him a little carsick. Before he could stress over it another text came through after the shared note: ‘add w/e in that gap one or two stops bc im not fuckin drivin for that long theres like no big cities in the hellscape that is nebraska.’ That was reassuring, once Evan could add in two stops over twelve hours would be broken up and then, if he did it right, no drive would exceed six hours by too far. He couldn’t help but feel a tenseness he didn’t know he was holding leave his body. Car rides were great and all but sometimes they were just a little too long. Knowing that Jared had taken steps to break the drive up into manageable chunks just made his heart squeeze in that one way - where it almost felt like he could pass out and he wasn’t sure why.

Looking back down at the list he felt his stomach flip a little because nothing was really set in stone, just almost equidistant blips on a map for them to rest at, little save points while he embarked on this journey. A journey he hadn’t even entirely disclosed to Jared. Right. The nerves and guilt started creeping back in. Before it could overwhelm him his phone pinged again: ‘make a list of fun shit we can do. last thing i want is to JUST sit in hotels and drive. im giving u free range dont let me down asshole’. At least he was given a task - a stomach turning task - but a task nonetheless. He couldn’t help but worry, that was sort of his prerogative, but he tried to choke it down. If Jared didn’t like the things he picked then he would just take over and it’d be fine. It would be fine. Even if it made him a little nauseous to think about being on the receiving end of Jared’s disappointment.

Stumbling out of bed he crossed the short distance to his desk, setting his phone down before his hands awkwardly settled on his hips as he studied the map in front of him. It clung to the corkboard his dad had attached to the wall so many years ago. Glancing down at his phone he started to place clear thumbtacks over all the cities Jared had provided in his list. The ghost of a trail stretched from New York to Colorado now. The tacks stuck out amongst the few pale pink and yellow push pins already there. Maybe the distinction between push pins and thumbtacks didn’t really matter or maybe he wasn’t even using them right. Maybe there really wasn’t a true difference. Honestly, he couldn’t be bothered to look it up for the time being, he had more pressing matters.

Like filling in all the gaps Jared had left for him.

Opening up his laptop he pulled up his browser, glancing down at his phone before typing in Des Moines to Aspen directions and pulling up the map. Again he was met with 12 h 49 min and again it made his nerves light up. Wiggling his mouse he woke it up before scrolling in on the expanse of land between Iowa and Colorado - formally known as Nebraska. There really wasn’t much, at first all he managed to add was the Pawnee National Grasslands because, hey, they were sort of in the area and while things like forests and mountains were great he should probably learn to appreciate the flatter things in life. Part of him was waiting for Jared’s quip before he shrunk back, settling down into his desk chair. It was hard for Jared to provide his little commentary when he was talking to himself in his own head. Alone.

Regardless that still left just about nine hours from Des Moines to the grasslands. There was no way that would end well so instead of relying on the map he opened up a new tab. After a beat of hesitation he tried searching: road trip stops in nebraska. There were over two million results but he only needed the first one. An article titled The 15 Best Nebraska Roadside Attractions in a bold font. Hopefully Val wouldn’t let him down - he couldn’t help but wonder if she liked her job. If she liked writing articles. The little profile picture of her was sort of silly, she must marginally enjoy herself. Well, he hoped she did, at least. 

When his phone pinged he flinched, craning his neck to see another text from Jared: ‘also itd be sick if u could do this like Now. we leave monday and i need to know where were going chop chop’. Evan couldn’t help but squirm in his seat, it was already Saturday, time limits made him antsy. Leaning over he responded with a single thumbs up emoji. Before he could slump back into his chair, throat closing up, chest heaving, there was another ping. Another text from Jared: ‘for real tho. just lmk. if theres nothin fun or w/e we can just do whatever when we get there. just better to have a plan and all ykno so just gimme suggestions for stuff. then well b able to like get a hotel closer to shit.’

It was like Jared had some secret read on him, like he was tuned in to whatever frequency that all his stress leaked out at and could pick it up from across the block. Not to mention that somehow he knew exactly what to say. Which, it didn’t really seem like it but it was more in the sense that Jared somehow knew what Evan needed to hear, not what he wanted to hear. Sometimes it fell flat and the sentiment was lost in translation as both of their buggy means of communication collided. This was one of those times where it landed. Ground control crackled over the line and successfully guided him to tether himself before he could float away.

Finally he could look down at the list. Skipping the little fluff paragraphs at the top of the article he scrolled to the first location. It was truly roadside, he was looking more for something more than a photo op, preferably with a hotel nearby. After some scrolling up and down he settled on number 4, clicking on the provided link and leaving the article behind. The Fort Cody Trading post seemed to be some sort of museum, which.. that would always spark interest in him. Maybe it wouldn’t make as exciting as a day as Chicago would, but there seemed to be a Hampton Inn right across the street and Evan couldn’t really argue with that. Adding it as a stop to the map broke the nine hours to the grasslands into a six and three split, just about. That would do because even if only around fifteen minutes had passed Evan really didn’t care to keep looking for the most interesting place to rest in the middle of Nebraska. He was pretty sure this was as good as it was going to get. Wincing from his own dismissiveness he made silent apologies in his head - his skimming and clicking showed that this place held significance and he was mentally kicking himself for writing it off just because it was placed in the middle of nowhere by his standards. 

What did his standards even matter? Who was he to judge? Places had significance outside of his bubble and it was disrespectful to think otherwise!

The vicious cycle of his thoughts just dragged him back down again, tossing him around and dragging him under the water. His brain sounded like a washing machine. Jerking his head up his eyes landed on his overflowing laundry basket. He needed to wash his clothes for the trip.

Right. The trip.

With one last silent apology to anyone he may have offended with his aforementioned (thoughtlessness, really) dismissiveness he closed out his extra tabs. Now he just needed to fill in the gaps. Tucking a leg up under himself Evan leaned over and unlocked his phone to pull Jared’s location list back up, just now realizing the title, ‘Super Cool Mega Drive To Mountain Hell’. For starters, the fact that every word started with a capital despite knowing that Jared had long since turned auto capitalization off just made him laugh to himself. The mental image of Jared making sure each word started with a capital was just a little too much. Too much of what, he wasn’t sure. Just.. something. The heavy, ambiguous something hanging over his head. The hollow, creaking something rattling in his chest. The second thing that pulled the smile on his face wider was the thought that Jared probably didn’t even think about the fact that Evan would see what he wrote as the title. Getting access to unfiltered Jared thoughts was always a treat.

With one hand he pecked at his keyboard, pulling up results for ‘things to do in cleveland’. Now he was pulling his other leg up, perched in his chair as he reached for his post-its and a stray pencil. There were only three big cities to decide for in the end, his initial research already covered the two stops he added and their final stop was a given. The pin up on his map representing the West Maroon Trail was the punctuation to their trip. 

Except that it wasn’t.

(As far as general placement it was but according to the logistical timeline it wasn’t.)

Sweating, Evan tried to cram the thought down. He ignored the feeling of sweaty fingers clinging to his computer mouse as he finished his little list. Now there were three post-its looking up at him, messy scrawl titling them as ‘Cleveland,’ ‘Chicago,’ and ‘Des Moines.’ They each had their own bullet points, words crammed together in the small space. His own sweaty hand had smudged the words a little - well, it would’ve smudged a little either way, the curse of being left handed. His hands were sweaty though. Generally he was just sweaty. Sweaty with three smudged post-its.

There should’ve been a fourth. Another stop nestled between those grasslands he’d added to trail and their final stop. Denver. The funny thing about Denver though was that they didn’t need to plan anything. They didn’t even need a hotel. His dad was expecting him within the week, waiting for Evan to make good on his promise to let him know when he’d be in Colorado. Glancing up at the map above his desk he scanned the thumbtacks. Push pins? Thumbtacks. Denver was blank. 

In an act of symbolism he sat up on his knees in his chair, straining forward to haphazardly shove a clear thumbtack onto the map, skewering Denver.

That was nice and all but Jared didn’t have a direct pipeline to the map hanging up in Evan’s bedroom. Even if he did he probably would block it off because it was a pretty useless connection to have. The only way Jared would know was if he told him. He had to tell him.

“Ev, honey! Come help with banana bread!”

After spending time with his mom. That was important. The truth was important. His mom was important. Really, he needed to stop comparing things, but his mind was one track and his mom had successfully derailed it. Getting out of his chair he mentally slammed a post-it onto the inside of his skull, blaring text leaving a reminder to ‘tell Jared tonight’ so he couldn’t forget. The funny thing was though, as soon as he was standing the movement jostled it - the post-it fluttered to the floor of his mind, trampled with all of the other things he promised himself he wouldn’t forget.