Something had been up with the moron for about a week, now. But I am nothing if not observant, and by discretely observing his passcode and reading his texts while he was downstairs doing laundry, I was able to deduce that he'd told Petey whatever this issue was, judging from his winey texts about Jimmy not telling 'them'… something. Something else of note was his text-conversation with Zoe, which seemed to be oddly quiet on his side of things, with Zoe receiving no replies to her invitations for a 'partay at some rich assholes place dude / lotta booze / wanna go?' And a similar pattern of behavior extended to not one but two of his favorite fuckbuddies. As soon as I heard our dorm room opening, I commented, "Sheesh, moron. Seems awfully douchey of you to leave 'Ballsdeep69' with no reply to their request to…" I read the text while Jimmy's head whipped around out of the corner of my eye. "'Fuck like a couple of slugs?'" I snorted at the mental image as he snatched his phone out of my hand. "I wonder if they know how gross looking that is."

Sadly, he took the most boring possible response by growling, "Don't read my fuckin' phone, asshole" in what I'm sure would've been a very threatening way if I were Petey.

Instead, I rolled my eyes. "Puh-lease, Jimmy. I, unlike your 'honnies'" I added some massive air quotes for this before continuing, "have the displeasure of living with you seven days of the week. And you've obviously been hiding something you don't want anybody to know about, so that just means I have no choice but to try and figure it out!"

Pulling a t-shirt on and flopping onto his bed to glare at me from across the room, he said petulantly, "How the fuck's it any of your business? You're the smart guy, can'tchya tell I don't wanna talk about it?"

"But you're talking to Petey just fine!" I pointed out. "Which implies that you're only keeping the knowledge from some specific people." Before I'd even finished, he started groaning.

"Oh boy, here we go! Look if you really wanna know that bad, I tested positive for HIV, okay?" …Huh. I suppose that wasn't particularly surprising, given his history, but still.

"That's…" I tried to think of what Petey would say in this situation. "…unfortunate?"

Jimmy let out a bark of sardonic laugher at that. "Yeah, 'unfortunate' is totally the word I'd use, dude."

I elected to ignore that. "But you've been using protection, right?"

He grimaced as he pulled some papers out of his backpack. "I mean, for the most part, yeah… But not, like, every time, you know?"

"No, I don't know," I rolled my desk chair over so I was right in front of him and began staring at him intently. "Please, enlighten me."

He sighed, but complied. "It's just a lotta work, you know? I mean, you've never, ya know…" Shrugging awkwardly, he finished, "It's just annoying to have to stop in the middle of things."

"Really?" I found this rather odd. "I've always found the idea of using condoms pretty appealing."

Jimmy looked up from his papers in surprise. "Seriously?" He adopted a patronizing expression. "You don't know how much of the sensation it cuts out, man. Bareback's the way to go for sure."

I shrugged. "When the person you're most attracted to is already reluctant to have sex at all, the idea of actually managing to convince him to go further is what makes it sexy," Not that that kept the whole business with Petey from going south. "Besides, watching somebody roll a condom on your dick is preeeeety hot."

His face scrunched up in confusion. Hesitantly, he replied, "I guess… I dunno it's just not my thing, I guess."

I nodded in agreement. "I suppose that's fair," A few moments after he turned back to his papers I added, "A shame you didn't; maybe you could've avoided spreading an incurable disease to four people."

He glanced up, his default glare in place, but he quickly shut his mouth. Before he could really muster a response, I pushed off and rolled back over to my desk.