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"You know what people do in college, right?" Jenko asked.
"Have loads of fun?" Schmidt tried. He figured that was more or less the plan here (or, fine, more or more the plan here) but he also figured Jenko was trying to get something out in the open.
"Gay sex," Jenko said. "People in college have gay sex."
"And ... sex sex?" Schmidt said, because whoa boy. There was finding out that what (or rather: who) had been lame seven years ago was cool now, and vice versa, and then there was this.
Whatever this was. "Are you coming on to me?" he asked, just to check.
Jenko made a face like he'd just put another guy's dick in his mouth or something. "What? No. Of course not."
"Oh." Schmidt tried to work out if he felt disappointed. "Good." The answer he decided to stick with was 'probably not' - and if the thought police wanted to arrest him for that, then so be it.
He knew his Miranda, and he'd fucking well stick to it.
They roomed together. Of course they roomed together.
"Dibs on the top bunk!" Jenko said, while Schmidt's mind was still wrapping itself around the fact that there was, in fact, a top bunk.
As in: no two separate beds. As in: forget privacy.
It was still nicer than living with his parents, he supposed, but it wasn't exactly ideal or anything.
Jenko jumped on the bed. Schmidt's mind decided to stop trying to wrap and just go 'hey, nice ass' by way of punishing him for causing it so much pain and trouble.
"Dibs on the not top bunk," he said.
Jenko laughed and bounced a little. There was an amount of creaking that seemed rather disproportionate to the amount of bouncing going on.
Schmidt pictured waking up in the middle of the night with Jenko on top of him. Well, Jenko and whatever girl he'd talk into having sex with him within (theoretical) touching distance of his (theoretically) solidly asleep roommate.
Fun times ahead, fo' sure.
It took Schmidt about two days to figure that hey, maybe this college thing wasn't so bad after all.
Differently put: it took him about two days to find a girl who seemed to think (or willing to pretend she thought) he was a funny, interesting and also moderately sexy guy.
Jenko had already indicated he'd be happy to let Schmidt have the room to himself in cases of female company (which was decent of him, even if Schmidt strongly suspected he'd been expected to offer the same, which he hadn't) so Schmidt felt that he was well on the way to hitting a homerun here.
And then Jenko suddenly hugged him from behind and said: "Are you hitting on my boyfriend?" in a tone that really wasn't friendly at all.
(Schmidt sincerely regretted not having used the officially approved self-defense move in case of 'grabbing from behind' at that point. Too little, too late - story of his life.)
The girl made this face like Schmidt had suggested they french-kissed on a first date or something, then walked away very rapidly, exactly the way you should not walk away from a dangerous, raving lunatic like Jenko was (hopefully only) pretending to be.
Maybe she figured Schmidt was plenty man enough to handle his crazy not-boyfriend by himself.
"What the fuck?" Schmidt said. "I was - that was a good thing I had going there. I liked her!"
"Are you on drugs?" Jenko asked. "No fucking with students or teachers, remember?"
O-kay. "Are you on drugs?" Schmidt asked. A lot nicer than Jenko had. "This is college, remember? As in: not high school? As in: different rules?"
"Oh." Jenko looked sheepish. "Sorry. I forgot."
"You forgot," Schmidt repeated. "Do you know what day it is today? How about the date? Current President of the United States?"
"Yes." Jenko went from sheepish to sullen.
"Just checking."
Stupidly, Schmidt had assumed that to be the end of it.
So Jenko was a considerate jerk with a heart of gold sometimes, so what else was new? He was still Schmidt's best friend, and best friends did occasionally mess up your dates with girls.
It was a pity, really, that while all of that sounded oh-so reasonable in Schmidt's head, it didn't seem to have any particular effect on Jenko after Schmidt had walked in on him with a girl.
(They hadn't been using the top bunk. Schmidt had felt this justified a loud clearing of the throat followed by a louder 'excuse me?'. All that had happened after was, he felt, entirely on Jenko.)
(He just hoped that 'breaking down the bathroom door and murdering its inhabitant' would not be included in that category.)
"They all think we're gay," Jenko said. His tone made it clear this was to be considered A Bad Thing and that it was entirely Schmidt's fault.
As if Schmidt had been the one to give birth to the whole boyfriend rumor by public hugging and declarations of dibs and ownership.
"So we'll be gay," Schmidt said. "We get into a fight, we break up, and then ... girls!"
Mr 'College is For Having Gay Sex' looked unconvinced. "Right now?" he asked.
"Let's give it a few days," Schmidt said. He was not a cruel man, upon his Scout's honor he was not. It was all about selling the story properly - and maybe if Jenko went celibate for a few days, he'd get some decent sleep and stop forgetting the rules.
"Well, okay," Jenko said.
"You think we should actually have sex?" Schmidt asked the ceiling, which was actually the bottom of Jenko's bunk. Thinking of it as the ceiling felt more comfortable, though.
"Well, if nobody fucks, then nobody'd be getting any babies," Jenko said. "And then the human race would die out."
"I meant us, specifically," Schmidt said. To the ceiling. Nobody'd ever choked talking to an inanimate object. Inanimate objects were awesome. "You and me. Together."
The ceiling didn't say anything for a very long while. Fair enough, Schmidt supposed, it being an inanimate object and all.
"I think it would really help with the cover story," he offered.
"Right now?" Jenko asked.
The big difference between saying 'yes' and 'would you please go to the prom with me?' was the required number of syllables to get out before you were able to make it clear to the other person what you wanted. Schmidt choked about halfway through, but it got the trick done.
Having Jenko fall on him in the middle of the night while he was awake felt about the way he'd pictured it - although Schmidt thought he'd probably have found it much less fun if there'd also been a girl there, so that was good, presumably. Probably.
"Good thing we're not supposed to be brothers this time around, huh," Jenko said by way of 'good morning' the next morning.
Sweet, sweet romance. "Yeah," Schmidt said. "Good thing."
Things didn't get weird.
In fact, things seemed to get normal, if by normal you meant that the two of them were supposed to be a couple of completely unsuspicious and ordinary (apparently gay) college kids whose only interest in drugs and guns and counterfeit money was finding out how to score themselves some of that.
"You know," Jenko said. "I think we should hold off on the breaking up for a bit. Project an aura of stability. You with me?"
"Fuck yeah," Schmidt said. "I mean, who needs the drama?"
"Exactly." Jenko looked relieved, like he'd been worried Schmidt might actually say something like 'fuck no, let's break up right here and now - who cares about having great sex every fucking night anyway?'.
"And, you know, you're my best friend," Schmidt said. "Best fucking friend ever."
"Yeah," Jenko said, and his face got just a little bit weird. "Me, too."