Request: “Do you still do Be more Chill? Cause I would like to request for Jake with the Sweaters prompt. [sweaters- “Don’t show that cute face to just anyone.”]
-----
You were no stranger to the massive parties hosted at Jake Dillinger’s house, but this was definitely the first time that you’d found yourself to be the center of attention at one. You’d just been lounging on one of the large couches that had been pushed up against one wall of the living room having a conversation with Brooke when Jake came and dropped down to sit next to you, throwing an arm over your shoulders.
Brooke hesitated for only a moment, but something in Jake's gaze must have solidified her decision as she quickly muttered something about finding Chloe and abandoned her place beside you, leaving you alone with Jake.
"Some party, huh?" You said eventually, more to break the ever heavier silence than anything else.
Jake shrugged, studying you intensely. "It's the same as the rest," he said dismissively. "What's going on with you and Brooke?"
You blinked, surprised by his question. The two of you talked now and then, but there'd never been more than a casual acquaintanceship between you and Brooke. You'd assumed that was as plain to see from the outside as it was to you. "Nothing? She's nice and we talk sometimes, but I'm not sure how that's your business anyway?"
Jake's usual smile returned, cheeks dimpling with his happiness. He shrugged, tightening his loose hold over your shoulders to draw you a little closer to him. "I just don't want you to show that cute face to just anyone."
You opened your mouth to reply but found yourself stopping short. Cute? Jake Dillinger thought you were cute?
Your confusion must have been clear because Jake let out a boisterous laugh, leaning in to press a sweet kiss to your cheek before standing up from the couch. His hand slipped down your arm until he could take your hand in his and tug you gently to your feet. "Dance with me, cutie?" he asked imploringly, wide brown eyes fixated on you.
And really, how were you supposed to say no when you had someone like Jake Dillinger asking you for a dance?
wow it took 30 years didnt it. i did it, fuckers. please give me attention-
anyway, heres the final part :) do i know how to proofread? no. thats it thats all i was gonna say, i just dont know how to proofread.
warnings: uhhh none i dont think
-
In the middle of August, the Ninja Sex Party dropped their newest album “Cool Patrol” and the two of you were in love. You were in Jeremy’s room, lying on his bed beside him sharing headphones as the album played, and it all felt so teenage rom-com that Jeremy was half-distracted the entire time by you and lost different lyrics because of that. “Orgy for One” played and you nudged Jeremy before mouthing “you” to him with a playful look in your eyes and a smile that set his heart racing. He laughed, and nudged you back just as playful before the beginning to “Danny Don’t You Know” brought the two of you back into reality. He was emotional, and so were you, and there was something about sharing an emotion with someone that was intimate enough to make his heart skip a beat.
Your phone buzzed after a while, and you sat up, pulling an earbud out. “Fuck, Jeremy-” You stood up quickly, scrambling to get your things together, “-my cousins were coming over to do that picture thing since we didn’t get a chance before - I gotta go, alright? I’ll text you in a bit.”
He wouldn’t remember what he said to you, or the dumb joke you made as you were leaving his room. He would remember how the minute you left, he added “Heart Boner” onto your playlist with a devious little smile as if he were getting away with something. Just a little joke between friends. After all - you had that little moment together, how could he not not?
-
An hour after you left, Michael showed up with a plastic bag filled with Chinese takeout for three - eyes widening when he saw your absence. His smile fell as he looked towards the bag in his hand, frowning slightly as he began to delve into his thoughts. For what felt like minutes, the two boys just sat there in silence as Michael finally untied the bag to pass his friend his portion of their meal, frustration evident in the way he furrowed his brow and refused to look him in the eye.
“They had a family thing,” Jeremy said. “Didn’t [y/n] text you?”
“No,” Michael said, “they did not. I said I was coming with food and-”
“It’s tradition,” Jeremy countered. “Y’know? It’s that little... sign-picture-thing. Some sort of family tradition their parents started when they were little.”
Michael rolled his eyes at the sappy expression crossing his best friend’s face as he placed what had been your meal on the dresser, before collapsing back onto his bed - tilting his head back to maintain eye contact. “That’s cute and all, but what do I do with their orange chicken?”
He shrugged, turning back to his computer to close out Spotify. “I dunno - we can go by their house later and see if they want it.”
He heard his comforter shift and assumed that Michael rolled over onto his stomach. “But I have egg rolls for them,” he whined, voice muffled slightly by what Jeremy could only guess was Michael laying his face in his hands.
A quick booting down of his computer. He shrugged again, chewing the inside of his cheek. “Just don’t eat them?”
The moment of silence could have killed a man. “Jeremiah.”
He spun to face him. “Michael.”
They maintained eye contact for a moment, before Michael shifted so that he was now sitting up - pulling the plastic bag closer to him. “So did you two fuck yet?”
A thousand broken words slipped past his lips as Jeremy struggled to say something - a question, a swear, something that didn’t make him look stupid. “Why would you ask that!?” he tried to ignore the way his voice raised an octave.
Meanwhile, Michael seemed to have no problem with disregarding his panic. “So you haven’t.”
“Uh. No? We’re just friends?”
“You sure?” Michael asked, not even giving him the chance to answer as he looked away. “I don’t know, dude, you’ve been pining for a fuckin’ while now. Why don’t you just ask them out?”
“I don’t like-” he paused, before shaking his head. If Michael knew, then he knew - there really wasn’t any point in denying it any further. “I don’t know, I like Christine still-”
“You can like more than one person at a time, Jeremiah.”
“I know, but...” “I don’t even know if they like me still.”
“Dude. Bro. Homie. Broseidon. Buddy. They wanna fuck.”
“Michael!”
“They’re at least interested in you,” he said with a mere shrug of indifference, “do you just not see how they look at you?”
“I don’t-” Jeremy started, and then he stopped, the words he wanted to say sticky and catching in his throat like honey. “I don’t think-” He paused, shutting his eyes, “Michael, I don’t know why they’d still be into me. Like... they did the whole...” He tapped at his temple, “thing because of me.” He hesitated. That wasn’t entirely true, was it? “Or... they did it slightly because of me. I just - I don’t think they’d, uh, y’know... want anything to do with me like that.”
There was understanding in Michael’s eyes, lit up before he looked away to the carton in his hand. He dug through it with chopsticks, letting out a sigh, “Dude, I get that, but... they like you, dumbass.”
Jeremy laughed it off. “Yeah, sure.”
“I mean it!” Michael countered, before dropping the topic, “I’m gonna eat your food if you don’t.”
“What-” Jeremy popped open his order, “fine, okay - but this conversation isn’t over, Michael.”
“Mhm. You’ll accept it later.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
“You really suck at hiding your feelings, y’know?”
“Michael!”
-
Two weeks later, and Jeremy wasn’t sure how to feel.
There were strings of these little... moments between the two of you. He realized how much time he was spending over at your house after Michael teased him over it, how often the two of you studied together and how flustered he’d get when you were close to him, how many times he found himself grabbing your favorite candy from gas stations just to make you smile. One Sunday night, he was sitting at the end of your bed with a pillow hugged to his chest, spending another night at your house while Michael was off spending time with his family (not that Jeremy wouldn’t have been there otherwise - he stayed over every now and then just because he wanted to. Movie nights were good. Dinner was good. Being around you was good). You sat at your desk, legs crossed awkwardly in your chair in a position that looked uncomfortable to him but you showed no signs of discomfort as you continued to draw. The two of you had been talking, and Jeremy had just sat there fascinated with watching you draw after years of not recognizing your progress.
A question hit the air, heavy and loaded. “Would you have taken it?” You didn’t move to face him, the soft sound of your tablet pen tapping back against the surface as you scroll out and fumble giving away any nerves. “The... the SQUIP,” you went to clarify.
But he understood, and he spoke quick: “no.” He shifted slightly, holding the pillow closer to himself, “not after what it did to you.”
“But if you hadn’t known,” you said, pausing for a moment to gather your thoughts, “if... if it had been you, would you have done it?”
“I mean... I don’t think-”
“You can say yes, Jeremy,” you finally looked back at him. “I’m not gonna be mad or anything.”
His shoulders slumped slightly, a bit relieved of the thought. “Okay, then... yeah. I mean, yeah - who wouldn’t?”
You turned back to your work. “Yeah. Yeah, right? It sounds good. Like... you have a pill that’ll solve everything and tell you the right moves to make... who wouldn’t want that?”
That’s when Jeremy realized you’d been doubting yourself. Blaming yourself for saying yes. “I think a lot of people would have taken it.”
“Yeah... I think so, too.” You stopped drawing after a moment, turning around fully to face him, “can I confess something?”
He nodded slowly. “Oh. Uh. Yeah, sure?”
“I don’t keep the Mountain Dew Red because I’m scared it’ll come back and destroy everything and leave me fucked,” you said in a rush of words, shutting your eyes for a moment. “Sorry. I just needed to get it off my chest but... I think it’s better this way.”
“Hey, no,” Jeremy reached out, fingers brushing over your shoulder. “Michael and I would find more.”
You fumbled with your pen, it falling to the floor as you swore softly under your breath. Jeremy reached for it just as you did, foreheads clashing in cliche fashion as you immediately push back. A moment later, he offered your tablet pen back to you.
He spoke after you took it. “Hey, uh, c’mere for a minute.”
So you dropped your pen onto your desk and pulled your chair over to the bed. Uncharacteristically calm and soft, he took one of your hands in a motion less Jeremy and more... you... you weren’t sure. It wasn’t entirely Jeremy, that much was confirmed.
“There was this stuff that mom used to way when I was a kid,” he said quietly, dragging his thumb over your knuckles. “It was this whole...thing about how the ‘loudest voice has to be yours’ when you’re doubting yourself and shit - I don’t know, it just kinda stuck with me and... I’m glad I’ve gotten to know you, because you’re... different? Like - you keep going, and, uh, you’re a big nerd who laughs at my stupid jokes and... I’m glad you’re you, I guess?”
You cracked a small smile as you pulled back from him. Before he can question whether he crossed a line, you answer, “I’m saving this. I can’t focus on art with your sappy ass saying shit like that.” You stood, tucking your chair under your desk as you sat on your bed. “Fuckin’ sweet dork,” you mumbled as you pulled Jeremy into a hug.
He stiffened up for a moment, only to wrap his arms around you after a moment. He smiled into your shoulder, saying a muffled “Shut up” into it as you giggled.
You pulled away with a smile. “Why don’t you make me, Jeremy?”
One of his biggest regrets was not asking to kiss you right then and there.
-
Days later, you were in his room for once, sitting on his bed beside him. You were tired, far more than he was, looking at math problems that were blurry to you as you stifled back another yawn. Jeremy had stretched out, awkwardly leaning against his headboard as he tried to stay away until you finally resigned for the night - shutting your notebook and tossing it towards your backpack with a noisy clamor. You leaned against him, mumbling words long forgotten into his shoulder - likely about hating numbers - only to whine when he sat forward a moment later. Soon enough, he returned to be your pillow once more, laughing softly as you curled into his side contently and making some joke about how you only wanted him around for this reason.
“Nope,” you had hummed, “too bony. Bad pillow.”
He snorted a little, reaching up to tuck back a strand of hair out of place. “You seem happy.”
“I am,” you hummed. “Since it’s you.”
He reached up, gently tugging you closer to him in order to worm an arm around you. “You’re tired.”
“Mhm.”
“Sorry I kept you up.”
“That’s okay,” you mumbled into his shoulder, shifting slightly to be closer to him. “Math is stupid.”
“It’s not stupid,” he countered, “you just aren’t good at it.”
“Thus making it stupid, Jeremiah.”
Eventually, you went quiet. At first, Jeremy thought you’d fallen asleep, but you sat forward slightly, looking up at him and it was almost like there had been magnetism between you. You had leaned forward, and he gently reached up to guide your face to his, and the two of you kissed for a soft, quiet moment. Soon enough, you had drawn away and cuddled back up to him. He wasn’t sure if he fell asleep first, but he remembered how warm you felt against him and he remembered feeling nothing but warmth in his chest as he eventually dozed off.
There were a few things that hit Jeremy when he woke up. The pain in his back from falling asleep half-sitting against the headboard of his bed, the weight on him that confused him for a moment for a millisecond before he felt your hot breath tickling his skin, face buried in his neck. Then the memory of the night before - of a clumsy kiss he’d been craving for so long, and the way you kissed back and maybe that was his imagination? He wasn’t sure, but the thought was enough to nearly make him jolt - but you were enough to keep him as still as he could be. He looked at how peaceful you looked, and he felt his heart swell at just how warm you were against him and the memory of your lips haunted him as he felt his skin grow hotter. If remembering kissing you was enough to make him completely flustered, anything more would probably kill him.
Eventually, you woke up, groggy and sleep-ridden still at first as you sat forward and rubbed at your face. “Jeremy, I hate to break it to you-” You paused, yawning, “-but you aren’t a great pillow.”
He chuckled at that, sitting forward. “Hey, uh... sorry to, uh, ask, but, uh, do... do you remember anything about last night...?”
You stared at him, uncertain at first before you thought back on what had happened. You threw your notebook at your bag. And then... It came back to you, striking you hard and fast. “Oh.”
“I- I’m sorry,” he stammered, “I just - I was tired and I wasn’t thinking and I shouldn’t have...”
And he slowly trailed off when he saw the way you were looking at him, voice caught in his throat as your gaze flickered from his eyes to his lips and then back. He heard you whisper something - “fuck it,” he was pretty sure - before you started going in for another kiss - and he leaned forward to meet you halfway, a hand sliding into your hair as you grow closer to him. The night before had been gentle, sleep-ridden and warm - and now the two of you are awake and clumsy and so wonderfully alive during this messy kiss. His teeth had clashed against yours, your forehead bumped against his, but you correct. A little less force, a little more gentleness, a changing of an angle - the tiny ways to make things better and less awkward.
In a bold move you definitely didn’t expect, Jeremy’s hand falls to your hips, pulling you closer to him by your belt loops (a cruel reminder that you were asleep in jeans). His kisses grew slightly more frantic, more hungry, more needy - the tiniest little whimper slipping past his lips once you finally pull yourself back, breathing softly as you stared at him. His hand slipped back to your jaw, thumb grazing your jawline slowly and gentle.
“Jeremy?” you whispered, staring at him, “wait, you-”
“I... I know we were gonna try to be friends, but... I think I like you.”
You stared at him, flustered as he tore his gaze away from yours - a pretty rosy hue decorating his skin, blotchy and creeping up his neck to the tips of his ears.
“I, uh, I mean, I didn’t... I never planned on, uh... I just - I don’t - I, uh, I think you’re... a big nerd. You... you laugh with me and you, uh, you care about things - and you... you remember things about me - and, uh, other people do but... you’re just... you’re different.” He trailed a thumb across your skin. “You... feel like home. Even, uh, even if this... doesn’t really go anywhere, I - I’m glad that I know you and- I understand if you don’t, uh, don’t actually want this to go anywhere but-”
And you laughed. At first his stomach dropped, anxiety taking over as he grew nervous over the thought of you rejecting him - but something about the way you laughed made his heart flutter, one hand steadying yourself on his shoulder while the other hid your face.
“I... I don’t really know how to explain it better, but... can I, uh, can I kiss you again?”
And you laughed again, reaching up to brush back hair from his face. “Yes, Jeremy. You can kiss me again.”
Hey (if you’re still up for it) can you do Michael Mell x reader head canons where he helps the reader get her first tattoo? (Bonus points if it’s a matching tattoo with him!) Thanks in advance!
A/N: As someone who recently got a tattoo similar to George’s Pac-Man tattoo, I support this 100%. :)
Send in a Request | Masterlist
It’s your sophomore year of college. You and Michael have been dating for two and a half years now.
Even before you two had started dating--back when you were still just very good friends--you had joked about getting matching tattoos. Sometimes, the conversations would get more serious about it, and you would think maybe, but you would always find a way to back out. Tattoos are a big commitment, and if anything were to happen in your relationship with Michael, you didn’t want to have a permanent reminder of any mistakes or negative feelings.
But eventually, you start to feel more confident in your relationship. Michael is always there for you when you need him, and you’re starting to get vibes that someday, the two of you might just be more than dating. So you start to consider the topic more seriously whenever it gets brought up.
One day, you guys are squished together on Michael’s tiny dorm bed, cuddling and re-watching Game of Thrones when he mentions it. After some talking, you decide to throw caution to the wind and agree to go Michael’s favorite tattoo shop the following weekend.
Which is how you ended up here, in the leather seat, with a strange man holding a buzzing needle uncomfortably close to your upper arm.
Michael chose the tattoos, but you picked location, because you didn’t want it anywhere that would hurt a whole lot for your first tattoo. Michael won’t let you see the design until it’s finished, which you thought was sort of cruel, but you also trust him to not pick something stupid like a pot leaf or one of those Grateful Dead bears.
You didn’t watch Michael getting his tattoo done, both not to ruin the surprise for yourself and to try to keep the anxiety down for as long as possible. You didn’t think you were scared, but now, being in the tattoo parlor with all the noises and smells, it was kind of freaking you out.
Michael sits beside you as the tattoo artist starts to work. You flinch slightly, but force your muscles to relax. You didn’t want to cause him to fuck it up. Michael holds your hand, and, while it doesn’t hurt as much as you were expecting it to, you still squeeze tightly every once in a while when you get a random jolt of pain.
Finally, when the tattoo artist is finished, you get to look at it. There, on the inside of your left bicep, is a half-filled heart container from one of the 16-bit The Legend of Zelda games. When you look at Michael, he’s grinning, and his hoodie is off. On his left arm, in the same place, is the same 16-bit heart container.
After the artist wraps your tattoo and gives you care instructions, you and Michael pay and leave. When he kisses you outside of the tattoo parlor, you aren’t sure what took you so long to say yes. And you’re more than happy to have shared the experience with Michael.
husband!Jerm and you taking your kids to the park. Just saying.
I GRASP MY HEART
yes blease thank u for my life
fun fact i used to not rly want kids but i think with the right person i’d be happy with being a parent just sayin
anyway since u didnt come here to hear abt me probably
im gonna write short headcanons bc i love that jerm boy
jerm being a dad.... is good shit
but he’s also an anxious dad sometimes bc he doesn’t want anything bad to happen and i promise u he confided in his dad sometimes and his dad was v helpful
but anyway thats sort of irrelevant
it’s probably ur idea to take the kids to the park thats probs not too far from where guys live
ur kids are super excited and u guys pack a picnic
OK jerm would like... get on shit with them and crawl through the playgrounds if they are Small Kiddos just for safety
im 100% thinking abt that one draw w jazza video where mini jazza says his first word where u see jazza w his kid on the playground
honestly uhhh i feel jerm would record some of it or u would
these are short but this is such a cute idea thank u anon for my entire life
Original request: "Could i request a micheal x reader where Michael thinks the reader hates him because the reader is always glaring or staring at him but in actuality the readers just looking at him so he can draw Michael. One Day by accident the reader submits the drawing and it gets shown to a whole school and the reader gets embarrassed and runs off then Michael goes to comfort him."
A/N: To the anon who requested this: you are my absolute favorite! I love this boy so much, you have no idea. I don't care if my blog ever says requests are closed, I will always accept writing for him ❤
"He's doing it again," Michael groused, keeping his head down as he pretended to work on an English assignment.
"I'm sure it's not that bad-" His best friend started as he perked up beside Michael, looking around less-than-subtly to catch the supposed culprit. "Yeah, no, he's definitely staring at you like he wants you dead," Jeremy amended unhelpfully.
Michael groaned quietly, glancing toward the right side of the room again to see if he was still being watched.
Yep, same (h/c) hair, same red leather-bound notebook, same (e/c) eyes narrowed at him intensely. Their eye contact broke when you looked back down at your notebook, scribbling away at it in the same way you always did.
"What do you think he's writing?" Jeremy's voice snapped him out of his reverie.
Michael shrugged, beginning to pack up his things as the bell rang. "Probably different ways to murder me and make it look like an accident," he replied, waiting for his friend before heading for the door. "You and I both know he's hated me since we met."
The brunet winced as he collided with someone just before he could leave the room, the force knocking both he and his attacker to the ground. "Shit, I'm so sorry man-" he started, eyes widening when they met those belonging to the boy who'd been glaring at him all year.
"Watch where you're going," you growled, leaning forward to snatch up your journal from where it'd fallen before scrambling to your feet and disappearing into the crowded hallway.
Michael sighed, picking up his spilled things (and his what was left of his dignity) and standing back up. "Told you he hated me," he said simply, looking back at Jeremy.
Jeremy shrugged, shifting his backpack straps higher up on his shoulders. "Yeah, can't argue with that, I guess."
He shook it off, leading the way toward his beat-up PT Cruiser, knowing that both of them really needed a weekend of video games to take their minds off of the hell that is Middle Borough High School.
---------
"I really don't see why you won't just tell him you like him," Jake called, not even looking up from his phone as he spoke. He didn't really need to, after all, the three of you had had this conversation a million times.
"Yeah!" Rich chimed in from his place next to Jake, "It's not like he'd reject you! I'm, like, ninety-nine percent sure that Mell's into the artsy type anyway."
You rolled your eyes, putting the last couple of touches on your latest drawing. "Not everyone has perfect track records of not getting rejected like you two do."
Rich rolled his eyes, setting aside the xBox controller and making his way over to you. "You see this?" He asked, pointing at your drawing, "For one thing, this is fucking amazing, for two, it's kind of pathetic."
"Hey!" you protested weakly.
Rich rolled his eyes, "You know I'm right; you can't talk to the guy, so instead you draw pictures of him."
You ducked your head, unable to argue.
"You do realize that if you actually talked to him-" Jake started, sitting up and twisting around to face you.
"You guys could be fucking by now!" Rich interrupted, waving his hands in the air over dramatically.
Jake blinked, staring at Rich for a second like he couldn't believe he'd just said that aloud. "I was going to say that maybe you could date him instead of just staring at him from a distance."
"Whatever," was all you could muster, visibly perking up when you heard the doorbell ring downstairs. "Would you look at that, an excuse to stop talking about this," you said sarcastically, turning on your heel and making your escape.
Rich waited until he heard your footsteps on the main floor before launching himself at your desk. He was methodical, pawing through drawers until he found what he was looking for.
"Rich, bro-" Jake was understandably confused, "What the hell are you doing?"
Rich turned around, your red leather-bound sketchbook in his hands. "I thought it was about time that they get their asses in gear."
"You know he doesn't like people touching that," Jake's eyes narrowed suspiciously, "What are you planning?"
The shorter male grinned, flipping through the book until he found one of his favorite portraits that you'd done of Michael before carefully extracting it from the binding. "Figured my buddy's art was good enough to be on display at the art show, don't you think?"
---------
The Middle Borough High School Art Show was one of the highlights of the school year for many students. It wasn't necessarily that they liked the art, but it was hard to dislike an event that resulted in classes getting postponed. Most of your peers ended up trying to sneak away with someone to hook up or sneak in a quick smoke behind the bleachers.
Normally you enjoyed the art show just as much as the next guy, but this year you were a little preoccupied. First a few of your drawings had gone missing, then Rich and Jake started acting strange. Hell, one of them had latched onto each of your arms and were steering you down the school hallways purposefully.
They finally began to slow down when the three of you approached the end of the hall near the auditorium where a large crowd was gathered around one of the art pieces. Your heart stopped in your chest when Rich shouldered his way closer to the front, dragging you with him, until you could actually see what everyone was looking at.
Michael couldn't believe his eyes. Sure, the artwork had been blown up to about ten times the original size, thus losing some of the details, but it was all there. The shading of the leaves and placement of the tree branches perfectly matched those of his memories, the sunny sky paling in comparison to the glow surrounding the focus point of the piece.
The massive drawing focused on a young man as he stood under a looming maple tree. He faced away from the viewer with one hand holding a phone, head tipped down toward it, and the other arm hanging casually at his side. Even he was turned the other way, he was still drawn in such a familiar way that it felt like it didn't matter if you couldn't see his face.
Somehow, the artist had managed to make him blend into his surroundings and stand apart from them at the same time. Worn red fabric came across looking well-loved and warm and individual pen strokes made the polar bear on the back of his hoodie look soft enough to touch, while the mountain range at the base still looked jagged and harsh.
His hair looked wind-tousled and his headphones looked like they actually held weight where they were tucked over his ears. His skin was exactly the shade it was in real life, down to the way the light brushed over the Pac-Man tattoo on the subject's forearm, perfectly mirroring the one on Michael's own.
Really, it was undeniable that the drawing had been based off of Michael. Hell, if he'd had a photo of him standing and waiting for Jeremy after school, he was half-convinced that the artwork would be more accurate.
Michael was further surprised when his gaze drifted lower and he noticed the artist's name printed on a sheet of paper hung below the art. He twisted, turning to look at the faces around him. He paused as his eyes locked onto you.
You looked… sick. It seemed like the very existence of your artwork on that wall made you feel like you wanted to vanish, and the expression only worsened as your gaze locked with his.
As Michael watched, you tore yourself away from Rich and Jake, ducking your head and curling in on yourself as you turned tail and disappeared into the crowd.
Michael didn't even have to stop and think before he took off after you.
---------
When Michael finally found you, it was under the same tree as the one in your drawing and he was struck by the irony for a moment. Eventually he forced himself to move, settling himself on the ground beside you as he tried to think of what to say.
It was you that finally broke the oppressive silence. "I'm sorry," you said.
It was then that Michael noticed how small you seemed in that moment. As one of the three most popular guys in school, you'd always seemed to emanate confidence- you were untouchable. But now, as you sat there with your head down and your shoulders hunched, he was struck by the fact that you were just as human as anyone else. "Why would you need to be sorry?"
"Isn't it a little, I dunno, creepy?" You laughed humorlessly, "For me to have been drawing you without your permission?"
Michael thought for a minute, trying to come up with an appropriate reply. He ended up shrugging, "I mean, it's better than thinking you were out to murder me."
That got a real laugh out of you and Michael couldn't help but grin in response. "No," you said once your laughter had subsided, "That's not something you'll need to worry about." Your grin faded a little, "Neither is the drawing thing," you amended, picking up the little red notebook that Michael had always seen you with and turning it over in your hands for a moment before holding it out to him. "I- uh, I won't draw you anymore and I figured that since you're in them, they technically belong to you."
Michael took the book from you slowly, fingers lingering on the worn leather and thumb brushing absently at a tear along the side. He lifted the cover slowly, gaze taking reverently at every drawing he uncovered, each one seeming to rewrite a little of what he'd thought he known about you. Each drawing unearthed something you treasured, whether it was a portrait of him (he couldn't help but blush at the sheer number of them, let alone the quality) or a quick sketch of a bird you'd seen and thought pretty.
He closed it after a few moments, nudging it against your thigh to get your attention. You turned back to him with a raised brow, clearly confused. "You aren't keeping it?"
"No," Michael replied, shaking his head slowly. "Who am I to keep an artist from his sketchbook, after all."
You still looked puzzled, "Really? I thought you'd be a lot less cool about this."
Michael shrugged, looking away with a flush on his cheeks, "It's kind of, I don't know, flattering, I guess? That you thought I was worth drawing."
"Worth drawing?" You mocked with a roll of your eyes, "If you were just worth drawing I would have done one and left it at that." You lifted the book pointedly, "I think you and I both know I've done a lot more than that."
The brunet chuckled, biting his lip as he tried to think of what to say. "You can, um, you can still draw me, if you want?"
You twisted around to look at him again, clearly shocked.
Michael raced to explain himself before you could say anything. "I mean, with me knowing about it this time, of course, but I thought- y'know, they're really good and with some better posing and me knowing not to move or make weird faces or something, then they could be really great and-" he cut himself off, face burning, and his hand twitched up to mess with the cord of his headphones the way he always did when he was nervous.
You couldn't help but laugh, grinning fondly at the action you'd noticed in your time admiring him. You brought a hand up to catch Michael's, gently tugging his hand free of the cord and setting it back on his leg with a light squeeze. "You're in it for shared custody then, huh?" you teased, tapping a finger against the cover of the sketchbook. "You realize that means you'll have to deal with me more often, right?"
Michael's blush darkened and you ducked your head, "I… wouldn't be opposed?"
"Shared custody it is then." You grinned, laying back in the grass to look up at the clouds, content with enjoying the way your rocky day had turned out. Maybe this wasn't you asking him out, but it was a start.
Maybe by this time next year you'd be able to talk him into doing some nude modeling...
i anticipate one more part to this fic before i wrap it up completely, and maybe i wont take four months to write this one-
warnings: none, to be honest? theres like. some angsty conversation but its not much or super heavy.
The next morning, Jeremy Heere woke up to a foggy mind and new weight on his chest and side. He blinked in the light of day peeking through the blinds, drew in a deep breath, and realize this was definitely not his bedroom. At first he froze, looking to his side - where you had curled up close to him, peacefully sleeping. Then he remembered everything, all within an instant, and it was like the storm that had been brewing inside of him suddenly ceased.
Okay. Okay. This was fine. Jeremy pressed himself back into the bed, shutting his eyes - you were probably just cold, and since he was there, you just - you must have gravitated his way. It made sense. It made complete sense, actually - you were definitely still somewhat sick, so being cold made sense for you. With you curled up close to him, he couldn’t move without the risk of waking you up. So he stayed still, eyes shut as he listened to the soft sound of your breathing, acutely aware of how warm you were beside him. Why was he so... tuned into that? You were asleep. You were alive. Yet it was almost as if that was a foreign concept as he observed how warm you were, flush against his side, and how peaceful you looked when he stole a glance towards you.
So he laid back and shut his eyes, and tried to fall back asleep for a little longer and not think about the way that his arm had slightly draped over you-
Luckily, that didn’t last long. He felt you stir awake, before the weight of you on his chest was gone and he was left yearning for that little bit of warmth. He listened to you stifle a yawn.
“Shit.” Your voice was quiet. “Hey, uh, Jer?” You reached out, gently shaking him. “C’mon, dude-”
He feigned waking up as well as he could, and thankfully it seemed to fool you. “Mm?” He hummed as he looked up at you. You were bathed in the pretty sunlight of morning and that caught his attention more than it should.
“Does your dad know you’re here?” You asked.
He sat forward slowly, shifting into a more comfortable position. “I’m pretty sure he knows I’m Heere, [y/n]-”
Immediately, you jabbed him with your elbow. “That was fucking terrible, Jeremy.”
He smiled a little, the remnants of sleep having taken hold of him. He stifled a yawn, “no, uh, I didn’t - I didn’t really say anything-”
“Then... you should go home.” You froze for a moment, looking toward your bedroom door, “fuck, my parents don’t know you’re here and, uh,” you looked back at him, “they’re... gonna question why I have a guy in my room.”
He watched you crawl off of your bed, standing and stretching for a moment before heading towards your door. You held a finger up, slowly cracking your door open to peek out into the hallway, before quickly slipping through and shutting the door behind you. He stifled a yawn as he, too, climbed out of the bed with nothing but a fatigue in his bones and a weird light in his chest - and he paused as he caught sight of a Gameboy color sitting on your desk, the faded grape color having caught his eye in its contrast to your desk. He took a small step over, picking it up and pulling the game cartridge from it - and he smiled at the chubby, determined Pikachu that met him. You’d changed - that much was certain - but... there were little pieces of you still scattered about. While he never knew you to be a flower person (after all - he had caught a glimpse of dried sunflowers sitting on your desk, and a sticky note next to them to figure out where to put them that looked faded from light), or someone who... who used people, you were still you in lovely little ways that made him crack a smile and made him wonder just how many things weren’t you before? How many things exactly had been scripted out for you to follow? His stomach twisted at the thought.
Then he stumbled across your sketchbook, and did an act that he felt in his bones would be utter betrayal to you: he opened it. He hadn’t seen your art in so long, and his curiosity would have eaten him up if he hadn’t at least peeked at what you had been up to. Besides... you had to have improved, right? He knew that. He knew art was a huge part of your life and who you are, and he just-
He recognized your art. Not in the sense of it hasn’t changed, because it had drastically changed from the shitty anime style with too-pointy features and stiff poses (not that he saw anything really wrong with that - you were young, you were practicing, and even if you hadn’t improved you were in love with what you were doing). He’d seen these sketches before, posted online from an artist he followed who had actually posted not too long ago an apology for their absence. The timing was too right, the details too exact. He snapped it shut quickly the moment he heard the doorknob jiggle, turning to face you immediately as he pushed it back onto the desk behind him.
You stared at him upon opening the door, his panicked expression definitely giving him away. “Uh... you alright?”
“Yes!” Jeremy had said it too quickly, too suddenly, and you raised a brow before he continued, “I’m, uh, I’m fine - are your parents-”
“... Gone,” you said, leaving your door open as you walked towards him, “are you sure you’re alright?”
“I just. I, uh. Please don’t be mad.” Jeremy stepped aside, looking back towards your sketchbook, “I, uh, peeked.”
“You looked?” you said, more confused than angry - and he was thankful for that. “Okay?”
“You aren’t mad?”
“I mean... you didn’t, like, destroy anything, right?” You flipped open the sketchbook, only to pause as you realized which one he had looked into - because you had been keeping two sketchbooks, one for on-the-go that was smaller and fit into your bag and another that you often left at home unless you were going on a long trip or had any other excuse to carry it with you. The one that you used for the pieces you planned, or the ones you sketched with the intent of posting them online.
“I, uh... why, uh, why didn’t you tell us?”
“Us?” You raised a brow, shutting the book as you turned away from it. “Oh. Michael. Look, Jeremy, I... considered it, but... I dunno, there’s a reason I use an alias online-”
He turned shades of red before you, averting his gaze as he understood -mentally kicking himself for a stupid question. “That’s fine! I just - I’m, uh, surprised. You’ve... you’ve really improved, you know?”
He had caught a glimpse of your smile as you ran your fingers down the textures cover of your sketchbook. “Drawing every day does that,” you admitted with a casual shrug, before shaking your head to dismiss any further thoughts and you looked back up at him, “c’mon. I’ll walk you home.”
Jeremy swore he knew too much about you.
The thought hadn’t occurred to him until one day during lunch, where you were sitting next to Michael and talking about dumb things that made you laugh - and he noticed how there was a small wrinkle in your nose when you laughed or smiled hard enough. But you laughed at the same jokes, and, fuck, was it possible to have missed someone’s laugh?
But there was Christine. He liked Christine. He knew he liked Christine. Besides - you seem so close to Rich, how are you two not dating? He was always so touchy with you, an arm around your waist casually and he knew so many facts about you.
But then again, Jeremy also knew a lot about you. He knew your favorite candy hadn’t changed (Sour Patch Kids, specifically the watermelon ones), and that you loved the peach-mango slushies from Wawa (and the lemon bars, and the sourdough melts with pepperoni). He knew you loved art so much, and he loved watching you draw and the way you furrowed your brow in frustration while paying such close attention to every little action you took whil eerasing and redrawing different parts over and over. He knew you painted your nails black without a care, and he remembered the day you had offered to paint his nails and Michael’s too (and Michael had been the one to take you up on that offer, Jeremy too nervous and flustered to say yes - how would he even explain that to his dad?).
Then there was the way you always joked alongside him. Michael was used to his lame puns and stupid jokes, usually elbowing him playfully at the first painfully bad pun before meeting the rest with a groan feigned with annoyance - but you? You laughed at him, and you made shitty puns back, and you made him smile. There was something so beautiful in your smile, and god - you were like sunshine to him. Even when you were tormented by the bullshit you’d gone through, you still had the kind of presence who lit up a room and you were still the kind of person whose presence he sort of hungrily drank in because you were so warm and loving and so, so damn nerdy that you felt like home.
And one day it was just you and him and Michael. Michael left the room, door left open as he meandered through the Heere household with expertise - and you lit up at something. And you nudged him, pointing over forwards the faded planet stickers still stuck to his bedroom door. And he smiled: you remembered them. He couldn’t believe that you would remember such a little detail like that, but... it made him feel important, in the weirdest way, and maybe he was greedy for chasing that feeling but it was so good that he was willing to accept another religion’s deadly sin if it meant he’d feel important.
And he finds himself listening to Spotify on lazy afternoons after classes, and he hears you in some songs. So he sort of smiled at that after the first few times it had happened, and made a new playlist with your name as the title - with the intention of finding some image to throw into onto it later. Michael caught him adding music to it one day, and he sorta laughed at it before nudging him.
“So where’s my playlist, Jer?”
Jeremy laughed it off.
And then it clicked in Michael’s mind as he looked at him, taking in the sight of the faint flush to the scrawny boy’s face as he went back to what he had been doing without much of a second thought and that stupid dreamy look in his eye that Michael had seen so many times before. “You like [y/n], don’t you?”
“What? No!” he immediately said, spinning his chair and pushing away as he looked at Michael. Then the guilt set in quick, regret pooling deep in his stomach with a nasty poison to it all. That’s when he first started to sort-of realize that you were more than a friend in his mind. But he finished your playlist that night anyway (at least - finished enough, even if he would add more tasty jams for you to enjoy at a later date) and he sent it to you.
The heart emojis you sent back made him smile.
The sticky summer heat enveloped you as you took a slow, cautious step onto the front porch. Even at night, you felt as if you’d completely melt if you stayed outside for too long. But you needed this moment to yourself, to breathe and stand outside in the quiet. To pretend that Michael wasn’t snoring inside. Besides - it’d just be a few minutes. You sank down onto the porch swing that was definitely relatively new considering Michael absolutely didn’t have this a few years ago. You’d remember if he did. It swayed underneath your weight, and you shut your eyes for a moment and breathe. And it was just you.
Then the door creaked open, and you opened your eyes to see Jeremy standing halfway in the doorway, leaning out to look at you. At first he acted as if he were going to speak - but he stepped out, shutting the door behind him as he approached you.
He stopped at the edge of the swing, curling his fingers around the chain at his end. He stood there nervously, fiddling with the metal absentmindedly before he finally took in a deep breath to calm his nerves.“Are you okay?” He asked, voice quiet and laced with the dwindling remnants of sleep.
You nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine.” And you were. Tired, sure, but you were okay and you’d trade anything to just be okay forever.
Jeremy sat down next to you, absentmindedly rocking the swing back and forth. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” you nodded, “I just forgot how loudly Michael snores.”
He raised a brow at that. “How did you forget?”
You shrugged. “It’s been a while-”
“Yeah,” he said, “but - what’s your secret, [y/n]?” He smiled at you, “I’d do anything to forget that.”
You couldn’t help but crack a smile in return. But you didn’t respond, instead looking back out.
So Jeremy spoke again. “Can... Can I ask you something?”
“You just did,” you said without a second thought, before looking to him, “but yeah, sure.”
“You, uh, you don’t have to answer or anything, since, I, uh, I know how bad it was but...” He paused for a beat, taking in another breath to calm himself. “What was it like?”
You understood. “It’s like...” You started, pressing your lips together as you searched for the words. “It’s just a constant voice in the back of your head. Like - y’know how it feels to second guess yourself sometimes?” He nodded. You continued, “it’s - it’s sorta like that, but instead of being hard on yourself for that, you have something else making the decision to give you shit for it every fucking moment.” You wrapped your fingers around your other wrist, acutely aware of the electrical scars that now reside there, “I don’t want to go back to that.”
“I’m sorry-” He started. Then he went wide-eyed, “wait, fuck, you did this for me, right?”
“Not entirely,” you shrugged. “I mean... Rich said it’d make me cool. That people would like me, and... then, after I took it, it said it’d help make you like me.” You paused, “ugh, god, that sounds so fucking stupid when I think about it.”
“It’s not,” he said, a little too quickly, “I mean - I think it makes sense, since... I dunno, we all want to be liked, I guess?”
You blurted out your thoughts, “it wanted to... to get to you, too.” You pulled your bottom lip between your teeth for a moment. “Sorry, it - it just said you were, uh, the perfect candidate.” You forced a bitter laugh past your lips, “I wonder what the criteria for that is.” But you turned gentle, voice soft. “I, uh, I said no. You didn’t deserve... that. You deserve to be yourself, Jeremy.”
For the longest time, he was quiet. But he finally looked over at you for a moment, “what if it had been me?”
“What?”
“What if... y’know... it had been me instead of you?”
“I... I don’t know.” You pressed your lips together into a thin, tight line as you mulled the thought over. “I don’t think we’d be sitting here right now.” Nervously, you scratched at the back of your neck. “And I think you’d be a huge dick, to be honest.”
“What!?” He turned back to you, “why?”
Your laugh was light, airy, forced. “Just a feeling.” A smile ghosted over your lips as you looked away. “You still like Christine, right?”
That caught him off guard. “Uh - yeah, I mean - I do, but - it’s, uh, it’s complicated.” He frowned.
“Oh,” you smiled, genuine this time, and turned back to him. “Another crush? That’s... actually really valid.”
“What about you?” He asked, and he ignored the hope that rose and quaked in fear inside of his chest.
You merely shrugged. “I don’t know. I... haven’t really thought about how I feel in a while. But... I think I like someone.” You paused to laugh the thought off, “god, I feel like a kid saying it like that, but...”
And then you paused again.
“Oh my god.” You looked at Jeremy, “we’re seniors.”
In time, he wouldn’t remember the conversation exactly. He remembered the vague outline - college, majors, high school, and for a moment sex, before the air felt awkward (in... a weird way that felt good and weird at the same time, and he couldn’t exactly define why). You stood up, stretching as you turned to head back inside, and you said something to him that he didn’t remember because, if he was honest, he was lost in the way you looked in the light of the moon and stars and it made him feel like a big fucking sap. He followed you inside after a moment, laughing off the spaced-out behavior, and descended into the depth of Michael’s basement with a hope that he would get some good sleep - and if he couldn’t, he hoped at least you would. One of you should at least make it through the night with this sleeping dragon nearby.
The first thing that happened was a blur of motions: you trying to rip out your IV as you panicked, and a nurse who just opened the door grabbed you by the wrist to stop you before you did any true damage. Then came a thousand questions from a thousand people, all trying to pinpoint the when and why and how and what happened that you could barely remember at that moment. When your breathing picked up and panic set in, the room was cleared save for a single person taking vitals. When he left, you were alone. The room felt cold. The room was silent-
Wait.
The room was silent.
Oh, god, the room was silent.
It was gone. Your thoughts were your own again, yet it still felt as if a piece of you had been snapped off. Broken off. Crumbled away over time, yet - yet... how long had you been out? Hours? A day? You couldn’t completely recall. You remembered someone asking you the date, the time, the anything, but... it slipped your mind far too quickly as a thousand other questions followed suit. You squinted at the whiteboard on the wall across from you, stamped into the corner, and red dry-erase marker spelling out the date.
Barely two days. That was good. You were... you were fine. You were okay. This was okay. Two days was okay. Two days was much less than what Rich dealt with-
Oh. Fuck, Rich - had he woken up? He must still be in the hospital - was - were you in the same one? Fuck, you felt foggier than ever. Like the pieces wouldn’t connect, yet lined up perfectly. Every little bit of pressure merely popped the piece apart again, and it left nothing but frustration to fill the space between. You’d have to see him as soon as you could.
The first person who came to see you (not quite counting your parents) was Christine Canigula with a pretty bouquet of sunflowers in her arms. Her purse bounced against her hip with every step around the room (mainly due to her trying to find a nice place to set the flowers down), and she finally gently sat at the end of your bed and talked to you happily about everything that had gone on within the past few days. She opened her bag, fishing out a small little bag of assorted goodies that she placed in your hands.
“I thought you could use something nice,” she smiled, “I hope you get out of here soon.” When you couldn’t muster up anything past a weak smile, she continued, “Rich actually asked about you, when I saw him earlier.”
You looked up. “He did?” You asked, voice quiet and broken.
“Yeah!” She chirped, “he woke up the other day, actually,” she drummed her fingers against her leg, “
The second was Michael. Michael, who had a ball of emotions choking him as he searched for the right thing to say to you. Worried and angry and upset and... relieved. All of it evaporated as you told him everything. Every detail, every action explained - and he realized what lied beyond the glimpse you’d given him while you looked as if you were trying to escape his house. He sat on the edge of your bed in stunned silence, just staring at the floor as you felt guilt creep into your stomach.
“Michael?” You finally said, voice quiet. “I’m... I’m sorry.” You paused, “for everything. You - you don’t have to forgive me, but...”
“You used me.” He said. You could hear the underlying anger dripping from those three words alone.
“I know.” You swallowed your emotions. “I’m... I know it was awful and I should have fought more to not do that, but...”
He finally looked back at you. “So,uh... how much of that was real, then?”
You opened your mouth to answer, only to stop for a moment, looking away. “I... I don’t really know,” you said, voice cracking and giving you away entirely. “Shit.”
“I mean-” He said, “you were - it was weird, [y/n]. One minute you’d be one way, and then... you were, y’know, you. It was like things never changed.”
That hit you hard. “Michael?” You choked out his name, before continuing, “please don’t tell Jeremy.”
“What?” He stared at you, “[y/n], he deserves to know-”
“No! I mean - he does,” you clarified, “I just - I need to tell him this myself.”
He bit his tongue for a moment. “I, uh, I think I’m gonna have to tell him some things before he loses his shit, [y/n]. He was fuckin’ freaked when the ambulance drove off.”
After a moment of stunned quiet, you mustered up a quick nod. “Right. Just - don’t tell him everything, alright?”
The conversation had died there. After a few more minutes of silence, Michael stood and made his way to leave - rattling off the usual “get well soon” message that you expected.
“Michael?” You called out, and he stopped. “Thank you for coming to see me. I... I appreciate it.”
His smile had faded, and he nodded a little. “Yeah...” He looked back at you, and he looked so soft and genuine that time. “Later, [y/n].”
The next day, Jeremy was shoved into your room without much of a chance to gather his bearings. True to his word, Michael had explained a few things while leaving Jeremy pretty in the dark on what had happened. The hardest thing was looking at Jeremy and telling him the rest of your story. That you had wasted six hundred dollars on a stupid, shitty pill that you thought would help you. A pill that you thought would help you essentially get Jeremy to reciprocate the feelings that you bit back and hid underneath everything. You lied through your teeth that you had just wanted him and Michael back. You couldn’t just... admit that you had a crush on him, could you?
He reached out and laid a hand on your own. “Michael told me.”
Shit. Fuck. Nope. You nearly hit the button for a nurse in that moment to try and see if you could get him out. What the fuck, Michael? “He told you...?”
“Look,” he said, “I’m flattered, [y/n], I just... I like someone else. I mean, you’re - you’re cool and all, but-”
“I get it, Jeremy.” You said. “I... I understand.” You paused for a moment, “but... I did miss you and Michael, y’know.”
“Why’d we stop hanging out?” Jeremy asked.
Something inside of you hurt at that question. “I don’t know.” And that was true, to say the least. You had your suspicions, sure, but at the end of the day, the why rested without an answer.
He stared at you. “Wait...” He trailed off, before looking away. “Oh.” His voice dropped to a whisper, “shit.” He looked back at you, “hey, uh, I’m - I’m sorry for dropping you like that- I just-”
“I get it.” Which was sort-of the truth, at least. “You don’t have to apologize, Jeremy.”
“... Okay,” he said after a moment, “I’ll, uh, I’ll see you in school,” he stood, “feel better soon-”
And then he was gone.
Three months later, and you were still haunted by a voice in your head every so often. You started therapy shortly after you were released from the hospital, the mystery of what happened to you remaining as such. You started medication soon after, your depression having grown worse post-SQUIP (and your father had been glad for you getting help, since he’d admitted it hurt him to watch you suffer for so long while being unsure of what to actually do to help you). You attended group therapy outside of Metuchen.
You had Rich. Rich, who picked you up on Thursday nights to drive you to group and back again. Rich, who knew how you felt and hid his guilt for pulling you into this shitty world of trauma and pain that’d haunt you for who knows how long. Rich, who slung his arm around your waist casually when the two of you were hanging out and was touchy with you in a way that made you feel safe and secure. You had Rich at your side, the friend that you honestly had never expected to have but were glad for at the end of the day. While you wished he didn’t feel the pain that you did, it was almost... nice to know that someone else understood.
At two in the morning, one mid-February day, he called you.
“Another nightmare?”
“Yeah... you?”
“Yeah.” A pause. “You wanna talk about it?”
“Yep,” he dragged the word out. “Uh - do you...?”
“You go first, Rich.”
His phone must have been on speaker, because you heard the sound of him shifting in bed - blanket swooshing as he probably turned over onto his side. “Same old shit.” He began, “I, uh, was in Jake’s house, and... it was on fire. My, uh... It was there.” He paused for a moment, “y’know. Saying the same shit.” You didn’t have to see Rich to know he was touching his neck, fingers running along the scars there. “What about you?”
Your phone was lying beside your head. Shutting your eyes, you took a breath before exhaling slowly. “It was, uh, actually... good for once. I mean - it started good. I was... I was with Jeremy. I... think we were dating? I don’t know - we were holding hands and I had let go and walked ahead only to notice he was standing still, and - it... it’s weird, Rich, but - I swear there was some kind of stupid circuit pattern that, like, trailed down his neck - and... and his smile, Rich-” You paused, taking a shaky breath, “and then I heard it.” Another long pause. “Then I woke up.”
You heard Rich suck in a breath. For the longest time, there was silence on the other end. Despite not hearing any chimes to indicate it, you thought that maybe he had hung up. But then he spoke, voice quiet and broken, “why did you say yes?”
“What?”
“To - to buying it, [y/n].”
You stared up at your ceiling. Soon enough, you kicked off your blankets as you grew too hot for comfort, shifting against to try and find some sort of comfortable position. “You sold it pretty well, I guess.” You started, before biting your lip for a moment, “I thought it could help me.”
“... With?”
You changed the topic. “Why’d you take it?”
No response.
“Rich?”
“Gretch is gonna fucking suck tomorrow.”
“... Yeah.”
“You wanna skip?”
No, you wanted to say. But you shrugged. “Yeah. Where are we doing?”
“Fuck, I don’t know - Wawa?”
“Sure.”
Rich’s truck was like a second home to you, between the times the two of you skipped classes and every drive to and from therapy. The two of you skipped class too often - sometimes morning classes, sometimes afternoon, it always depended on how the two of you were doing. Sometimes you’d sit in the Wawa parking lot, eating breakfast or lunch, enjoying the rebellious freedom that came with skipping class. The guilt would stay in the backseat, a constant reminder of your fuck-ups, but... you were glad to have a moment to breathe.
Rich’s hand found yours that morning. He squeezed it. For a minute, there were just two broken teens sitting together, holding hands, trying to feel less broken together.
Over a week later, you texted Rich after hearing it - or, at least, you thought you did. He told you to call Michael - closer to you, and carrier of the Mountain Dew Red at you and Rich’s mutual request. Your finger lingered over Michael’s contact information when a thought struck you, hard and heavy. Why call him? Why not let it come back and fix what it had done? You felt broken enough - how much more damage could it do to you? Besides... now you knew how to take care of it. Maybe that knowledge would be enough to help you gain some sort of control over it.
An hour later, Rich texted you saying Michael hadn’t heard from you. Another hour passed. He told you he was coming over. You couldn’t respond, staring at your phone blankly as tears began to well up. Thirty minutes later, rocks hit your window. Five minutes later, Rich was sitting on the end of your bed as you curled back up, the bottle sitting on the bed between the two of you. He looked tired, running a hand nervously through his hair as he didn’t meet your eyes.
“I know.” He said, breaking the silence. “Just - don’t fucking do it, okay?”
You broke your gaze away from the bottle. “What?”
“I... I’ve thought about it too,” he said, quieter this time. “But... I think...” He paused, “it’s just a bad idea, alright?”
“It can’t-”
“It can.” He stressed, before grabbing the bottle with one hand and your hand in the other. He pressed the bottle into your hand, curling your fingers around it in a cliche action. “Just - fucking drink it, [y/n]. I’m tired.”
“You can stay here tonight.”
“Nah,” he stood. “I... need to get home soon. Just... drink it, alright?”
He didn’t leave you until you finally obliged.
The chill in the air that came with early March was no match for the chill you felt whenever you were around Michael. But Michael had the soda, and Rich lived farther away from you, so he became your lifeline whenever you felt the prickly feeling that came with every nightmare of it and he, thankfully without much complaint, would show up on your front lawn. You sat next to him in silence, an half-empty bottle of Mountain Dew Red sitting in your lap as Michael quietly looked up at the stars. The feeling in your stomach almost seemed to weigh you down, keeping you in place until Michael decided he’d had enough, until he gave up on sitting with you.
But he didn’t. He just sat there in silence, wearing his signature red hoodie in an attempt to keep himself warm. His breath colored the air with a puff of white as he exhaled. It was too cold for this shit, and yet... he sat with you.
“What was it like?” He began at one point, slowly looking over to you. “Y’know... the...” He paused, before tapping his temple, as if you hadn’t understood before. But you understood the why there.
“Like I was a puppet,” you said, echoing back something you’d said before in therapy. Almost completely subconsciously, you tugged at your sleeve. “I... I could disobey, but... it would get mad, and - and I didn’t like that, so I just... I did what it told me to. Sometimes, it would...” The ghost of a shock silenced you, and your breath hitched for a second as you try to regain some control over yourself.
When Michael’s hand landed on your forearm, you flinched immediately. But before he could fully tear his hand away from you (having only just pulled it away slightly), you immediately shifted closer to him. Almost as if he understood, he opened himself to you, and - after hesitating for too many moments - you nearly collapsed into his arms, wrapping your own around his torso and burying your face in his neck. At first you had just wanted the comfort. The warmth of another person. But your breath went shaky, and before Michael could say or do anything else, he heard you choke back a sob before you clutched at the fabric of his hoodie. Every soft, broken apology sent pain rippling through him. He’d been so pissed with you before, and now...
Now it was as if Michael was a child again, having seen the aftermath of hurricanes through Florida on the news. Or like the car accident he once witnessed, only staring before one of his moms tore him away from the sight, picking him up with ease and keeping his face turned away. He understood, all within that moment. He knew you were hurting, and in turn, he felt that pain too. He had hurt. He was in so much damn pain when he found out you’d originally just been using him, and now... he understood that maybe (or, perhaps, definitely, but a definite wasn’t quite there yet in his book) nothing had been your idea. Part of him wanted to look away from you, to give you some kind of privacy, and yet... you clung to him. You kept your face buried in his neck, hot tears wetting his skin, and you shook in his arms as you kept stammering out apology after apology for things that did and didn’t involve him.
That was when Michael decided that forgiveness was back on the table. Neither of you were ready to have that talk, but... the fact of the matter was that he let that option exist again. Every glimpse of you that had come flooding back to him when he visited you in the hospital seemed to haunt his memory once more. The real you. The you he hadn’t seen in so long. And, if he were honest, the you that he genuinely had begun to miss when your presence disappeared all that time ago.
He was ready to try again, if you were there to meet him halfway.
The following Wednesday came with a disgusting feeling of dread the moment that thunder clapped during your last class. You’d left your umbrella at home - clear skies, your weather app had lied - and chances were you were going to miss your bus when meeting with the guidance counselor quickly after school (because, of course, shit never worked out in your favor). So you clenched your jaw and pulled your bag close to you, taking off as the rain pounded against the pavement. You almost slipped, you could barely see through the rain, and you were already soaked to the bone by the time you were a fourth of the way home. When you heard a car coming down the street, you thought nothing of it until it slowed down, pulling over towards the side of the road and steadily crawling alongside you.
Well, fuck, if you were about to die, at least you wouldn’t deal with-
The car honked. When you turned, you immediately recognized the P.T. Cruiser and the two boys inside of it. Immediately, the passenger side window rolled down. “Get in, loser, we’re going shopping-”
“Michael-” You started to say, only to stop as you weigh your options. Get in the car and face Michael and Jeremy - or keep waking home in the rain. You barely even considered the latter as you pulled open the back door, throwing your bag in and immediately slipping into the warm car.
The backseat was comfortable. It had always been comfortable, actually - that much was certain. Even when you were shivering endlessly, sopping-wet backpack lying in the floorboard between your legs as you rub your arms in some attempt to get warm, you felt strangely at home sitting in the back of Michael’s car. The sticker was still on the head-rest of the driver’s side. Jeremy kept looking back at you every so often as Michael made his way towards your house. The moment he turned onto your street, you went for your keys.
And, of fucking course, you must have forgotten them that morning. So you ended up in Michael’s house, sitting on his bed in some of his spare clothes while your clothes are being oh-so-lovingly laundered by the ever-so-gracious Michael Mell. You toyed with the fabric of tee-shirt you were wearing, some indie band logo printed across the chest - something that felt so Michael, when you thought about it. Of course he’d have some obscure merch. You sat there with one of your class binders in your lap, working on homework when you finally get to geometry. As if to make the day even worse, you realized you were missing your calculator.
“Shit,” you said, “fuck-” You looked up to Michael and Jeremy, “can I, uh, borrow a calculator? I think I left mine at school-”
Jeremy stared at you for a split second before immediately going for his own bag. He stammered through a sentence, before he finally pulled out a familiar purple case and held it out to you. “I, uh, was going to give it to you tomorrow - I meant to give it back earlier but I, uh, forgot-”
You took it gingerly from him, before kind-of smiling in return. “It’s fine,” you said, “thank you-” and then you cut yourself off with a sneeze, your arm flying to cover your mouth.
Michael chuckled a little as he laid back, stretching himself along the foot of his bed. “If you needed a ride, you should have just asked, ya goof,” he smiled at you.
You nudged him with your foot. “Come on, Mell,” you said, “I thought I’d be fine.”
“You’re lucky Jeremy saw you, y’know,” he said, “I didn’t notice you crossing the street earlier, so...”
Jeremy flushed at the comment. Your gaze flickered from him back to Michael, “I thought you were driving, Michael.”
“I was!”
“Aren’t you supposed to pay attention?”
“I was!” He said again, sitting up, “you weren’t even crossing in front of me!”
“Thank god for that,” you said.
“Wh- I wouldn’t hit you!”
“That’s what they all say, Michael.” You smiled a little, “no, dude, I totally wouldn’t kill my wife, who would do that? Not me. I wouldn’t kill my wife-”
“[y/n]!” Michael poked you in the leg, “come on - I don’t think I’d be that obvious-”
“Are you seriously trying to say you’d be able to get away with that?” You said, only to notice how silent Jeremy had gone. When you looked back to him, you noticed that he had just sat there, watching you and Michael playfully bicker over his totally not real plans to murder someone. When your eyes meet his, he blinked, awkwardly smiling as he looked away and towards his phone. You barely get a glimpse of the time before you realized that your parents should be home.
So Michael drove you (and Jeremy) home at long last, leaving you to thank him a thousand times on the way there and as you got out of the car. You barely had time to wave back at him before you crossed your front lawn to get to shelter, rain pelting you the entire time as you head inside with plans to tackle your homework.
The next morning, you felt like shit. At three in the morning, you woke up with the grossest feeling taking hold of you and forcing you out of bed and to the bathroom. With a disgusting taste left in your mouth, you sank back, your senses completely muffled as you realized what had happened. Fever. Fuck. You pressed your back against the rim of the bathtub, and you breathed. Shit. Shit shit shit shit- you didn’t need to get sick. You skipped enough class as it was - this was only going to make shit worse.
You didn’t realize you passed out shortly after until your dad stumbled across you. He woke you up gently, before helping you to your feet and helping your sluggish form back to your bedroom after pressing a cold hand against your forehead. Shaking his head, he walked you to your bed, leaving the room and returning with a cup of water to leave on your nightstand. He told you that he would be at work, but that your mom would drop by during her lunch break to check on you and hopefully bring some medicine. You barely processed it before you fell back asleep.
The next time you woke up was around lunchtime. You still felt hazy and hot with fever, but the sound of your phone going off was enough to capture your attention. Michael. He had asked where you were, and you barely have enough energy to type out what you thought was just a simple “fever” - thankfully, auto-correct caught you - before you turned back over with the intent of going back to sleep. Barely ten minutes pass before your mom came in with a plastic bag in her hands, rattling off the contents of it before she felt your forehead. She told you to get some more rest. You happily obliged.
The next day, after a night of bland soup and forcing down your meds with ice cold water, you see a newly formed group chat with you, Michael, and Jeremy, poised proudly at the top of your messages.
Michael: u guys need anything or
You stared at the message. You guys? You barely have time to try and question it further when a text bubble popped up.
Jeremy: i’m good
You: what
You: you ok, jer?
Jeremy: no im sick
You: what
You: how???
Jeremy: you
Michael: jeremys being a little bitch
Michael: hes always like this when he’s sick
Michael: you need anything, [y/n]??
You: idk some good soup would be rad
You: my dad brought some gross shit last night and it sucked
You: parents got medicine.
You: send me love.
You: and tissues
Jeremy: please let me sleep
You: sorry jer
Michael: kk
Later that afternoon, the doorbell rang. You forced yourself out of bed, managing to get the front door open only to see a little plastic bag sitting right outside of it. You looked up to see Michael standing outside of his car, and you could only assume that he rushed back to his car to avoid exposure. He waved at you, only budging from his spot when you wave back at him.
Bless Michael Mell and the soup he brought you. You’d have to thank his mom. Or maybe both of them - they were both goddesses in your eyes. You only knew that Michael couldn’t cook for shit.
At midnight, you woke up again, a dull hunger restless in your stomach. You had left some soup for later, and you were fully ready to heat the rest of it up and devour it. You shoved the Tupperware bowl into the microwave, punching in a number before you swayed into the counter, leaning against it to keep yourself standing as the microwave buzzed. Strangely enough... it almost felt internal after a minute.
Then you heard it. Your own name being cooed in a voice that sent shivers and a ghost of a shock through you. Glitching in and out. You panicked. You bolted, dashing to your room to find your phone. Your hands were shaking as you went to unlock it, fucking it up the first two times before finally getting it the last. You didn’t think. You went for the first number you saw.
The moment someone picked up, you spoke. “Michael,” you said, voice caught in your throat, “shit - dude- it’s - it’s back-” You took a breath, trying to calm yourself before continuing, “just - I need the Mountain Dew Red. Please-”
You heard a distant, groggy “...what?” on the other hand as a hand fell over your own, causing you to slowly lower the phone as it appeared before you.
It stood tall as ever, eyes gentle, manipulating your senses as you swore you felt warmth from it’s hand over your’s. “We can fix this.” It said, voice quiet. Soft. Gentle. “We can start over and make everything right.”
“I...” You whimpered, attempting to take a step back. Instinctively, you dropped your phone and shut your eyes and covered your ears in an attempt to drown everything out. “No.” The word spilled past your lips once, twice, too many times as tears rolled down your cheeks.
Fingers grazed your cheek almost lovingly. “Just let me fix this, [y/n].” It said softly, almost kind, and you felt your stomach drop. “You can reboot me - just - another dose of regular Mountain Dew-”
“No,” you shook your head, “I’m - you’d-”
“I’ll fix this. I promise-”
The sound of frantic knocking at your front door was enough to force you to your feet as you rushed to answer before anyone else could wake up. “Michael-”
Jeremy stood there, soaking wet and panting like crazy as he clutched a bottle of salvation within his right hand. He straightened up a bit, holding it out to you. “Sorry - Michael, uh, gave me a few bottles as back-up so I ran-” He said.
He shut up the moment you flung your arms around him, burying your face in his chest, completely ignoring the soda he carried in favor of comfort. Just for a second. That’s all you had needed. He stiffened up underneath you as you clung to him, only for you to pull away almost immediately after.
After you took the bottle and unscrewed the cap, downing the drink with nothing with a minor headache following in it’s wake, Jeremy could only stare at you. “You... You really heard it, huh?”
You winced, breath hitching as you swayed slightly. Jeremy’s hands found your shoulders, steadying you as you looked back up at him. “I-” You started, only to stop immediately, “thank you- I’m- I’m sorry you had to run here.” You paused, “I... didn’t know it was raining, or I wouldn’t have-”
“It’s fine,” he said, letting go of you as he took a small step back. “I’m - I’m gonna head back home-”
Thunder clapped. Lightning flashed in the distance. You reached out and caught him by the wrist, “stay here.” You said, “it’s - it’s late, and... and I don’t want you walking home in the rain.”
He almost debated with you, but another growl of thunder was enough to debunk whatever argument he was formulating as he followed you inside. You locked your front door back, retreated back to your room to find some clean clothes that would hopefully fit him (thank fuck for all your baggy shit, still hidden away in your closet), and handed him a towel. The microwave chirped for what you could assume was the thousandth time, and you rushed to stop it - only to have to punch in more time. You could hear the shower running from the room over. The hum of the microwave, the smell of spices tinting the air... and you felt alive. You were there. Breathing. Heart pumping. Mind... going, at least - even if there were moments of betrayal there. You were still there, and it was strange to think about that sometimes.
The water shut off abruptly, and you pulled yourself from your thoughts as you stopped the microwave just a second before it was meant to go off. As you seated yourself at the kitchen table, Jeremy emerged and made his way over to you. He pulled out the chair nearest to you, and slowly sank into it.
“You feeling better?” You asked, looking up at him.
“I, uh, I should be asking you that.”
“You were sick too, Jeremy,” you said, “why’d you run here?”
“You sounded scared,” he shrugged, “besides - I’m better-” Immediately he was cut off by a cacophony of coughs, as he turned away from you. “I’m fine. What about-” He finally looked back at you, still embarrassed of the shades of red he’d turned, “what about you?”
You suppressed a smile. “I’m... decent.” You shrugged, “I’ve... never really seen it before tonight.”
“You haven’t?”
“Nope.” You paused, “I dunno. Maybe being sick like... weakened me or something.” After another pause, you noticed Jeremy shiver. “You can take my room, Jer. It’s warmer - I’ll just - I’ll take the couch-”
“It’s fine, [y/n] - I’ll just - I’ll sleep on the floor-”
“You are not sleeping on the floor, Jeremiah,” you feigned offense, “you are a guest! You’ll take my room and I’ll sleep on the floor-”
“You’re still sick too, y’know,” he retorted, “just - I’ll take one side of the bed if you want-”
“Fine.” You frowned as you stood, “if you insist.”
After leaving the bowl in the sink, filled with water in the classic “it has to soak” manner, you lead Jeremy to your bedroom. You snagged your phone from the floor, plugging it back into charge as you took one side of your bed - making sure to stay as close to the edge as possible while Jeremy took the other. The room was almost silent, the sound of Jeremy breathing quiet enough to merely tint the air.
Right as you started to fall asleep, you turned onto your back. “Jeremy?” You said, stifled by a yawn. When he hummed in acknowledgement, you continued, “thanks for coming here.”
You barely caught his soft, almost hesitant “yeah, uh, no problem” as you fell asleep.
