Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Michael couldn’t stop thinking about it.

He tried, but he couldn’t, and the fact that they were constantly around each other wasn’t beneficial to his efforts.

When he looked at Jeremy, he couldn’t help but be reminded of his voice, weary and garbled.

“I love you.”

He didn’t really mean it. He knew he didn’t mean it. If Michael thought otherwise, he would only get his hopes up.

“It’s because I realized that I wanted to be the one to go out with you.”

Jeremy had been out of it. He had no idea what he was saying or what he was doing, and, goddammit, Michael just wanted to watch his best friend talk incoherently about something weird or reveal some sort of embarrassing yet insignificant secret. He didn’t sign up to be faced with a maybe-confession induced by exhaustion and anesthetic.

“People don’t usually tell their best friend that they’d date them if they really had no feelings for them, regardless of how out of it they are.”

Michael was never going to get over this.

“Michael! Michael! Shit— Dude, we just died!” Jeremy complained, interrupting his thoughts. “You gotta help me get past the second horde!”

“Oh,” he said, remembering the familiar weight of the controller in his hands. “Right. Sorry.”

Jeremy side-eyed him. “Are you okay, man? You seem… I don’t know… off.”

“I’m fine,” Michael assured him, smiling and wrapping his fingers around the controller. “Just spaced out.”

“You’re spacing out more than usual.”

“I space out all the time, Jeremy.”

“Yeah, but never during a game, and especially never during games you suck at but insist you don’t.”

“I don’t suck at this game!”

“See? There it is. The denial.”

“Man, c’mon. Don’t make me bring up Super Mario Sunshine.”

“We agreed not to speak about Super Mario Sunshine.”

“Well, I’m speaking about it. Remember how—”

“Okay, fine,” Jeremy sighed. “You’re perfectly competent at this game.”

Michael grinned. “You flatter me.”

The corners of Jeremy’s lips upturned. “Of course.”

In that moment, Michael wasn’t sure whether or not to love or hate his smile.

The game over screen disappeared and they restarted the level.

It had been four days since the procedure. Jeremy’s mouth had healed, he was no longer feeling the effects of the laughing gas, and he had no recollection of what happened after they got home, which meant no memory of his confession. Michael was holding off on reminding him of what he did. The potential risks were much higher than the rewards.

Maybe he meant was he was saying. Maybe he had been over-exaggerating. Either way, it was best to keep quiet until the truth was forced out of him.

The grip on his controller went limp again. He stopped fiddling with the buttons, now only swirling around the joystick with his thumb.

He loosely registered enemies tearing apart he and Jeremy’s characters, causing another game over screen to interrupt them.

“Dude!” Jeremy said. “Seriously, are you all good?”

“I’m good! I’m fine, really,” Michael again reassured, setting his controller to the side. “Everything’s cool. Just— uh— thinkin’ about useless stuff. Hey, didn’t you wanna play the Dreamcast earlier?”

Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, why?”

He stood, gesturing vaguely to where the Dreamcast laid in the corner, waiting to be used. “That’s what we’re gonna do. I’m gonna get it set up, you get the other bag of Funyuns from upstairs.”

Jeremy smiled back at him, rising from his place on the beanbag chair. “Okay. I’m gonna bring down the Fritos, too, ‘cause the Funyuns will be gone in, like, two seconds.”

“I like the way you think, Heere,” he called as Jeremy ran up the stairs.

Michael stared into the empty room, then made his way over to the Dreamcast sitting in the corner.

He developed— or, at least, came to terms with— his crush on Jeremy late in the eighth grade, just before school let out. Michael had just passed Jeremy the controller after he gave up on trying to beat the Hellkite Dragon in Dark Souls (because no, Jeremy, I don’t care if it’s an optional battle, we aren’t skipping it, I’m gonna beat this bastard one way or another). Michael’s eyes strayed from the screen and to Jeremy’s face, all twisted in concentration, eyes focused, brow furrowed. His shoulders were hunched, and he was mashing the buttons as hard as he could as if it would make the character’s attacks stronger. It was the cutest thing he’d ever seen.

It was then that Michael felt his heart plummet into his stomach.

(It turned out the problem was that Michael was trying to kill it from the ground, when, really, he just needed to shoot arrows at the tail until it fell off, take the reward, and run. The Hellkite Dragon fight ended up lasting a solid forty-five minutes, but, really, the battle was the least of his problems.)

Since then, Michael had been adoring him in silence— adoring his personality, his humor, his mannerisms, the way the light fell on his face— and never dared to breathe a word to anyone he knew. It was better that way. For everyone.

When he was abandoned on Halloween, he had been crushed. He spent the better part of the night with embarrassing tears streaking his face and trying to steady his breathing, all the while feeling like something was clawing at his throat. If Jeremy chose a motherfucking life-ruining wintergreen tic-tac over his best friend, then maybe he’d been an asshole the whole time.

Maybe Michael wasted twelve years of his life.

He had pushed Halloween into the far recesses of his mind. After Jeremy woke up, he planned to tell him about all the shit he put him through until he was blue in the face, but he never did. He just paced in front of Jeremy’s hospital bed for three days and decided to keep it to himself, like he always did.

It took a while to get everything back to normal. Normal being as normal as it could have gotten. It could never be the kind of regular it was before, but it was something, and he and Jeremy eventually fell back into their step. They adapted.

He absentmindedly started plugging in wires where they needed to go.

Michael still sort of wished Jeremy had actually wasted all of his bar mitzvah money on a tic-tac. It would have been better that way. Maybe then everything would still be like it was before, and he wouldn’t feel like he forced his way into a friend group where he probably didn’t belong and where they probably didn’t want him. Then Austin Bremner wouldn’t have asked him out just because he hung out with said group. And then Jeremy wouldn’t have talked so much shit, and Jenna wouldn’t have anything to tell, and Michael wouldn’t have anything to question, and Jeremy wouldn’t admit anything while he was half-asleep and high as balls on fucking laughing gas or whatever it was the dentists administered to him, and Michael wouldn’t have anything to contemplate in the middle of his basement that reeked of weed while trying to set up some used Dreamcast he got on eBay for fifty bucks.

He ran a hand through his hair. Jesus Christ. He needed to stop thinking.

Jeremy came bounding down the stairs, a bag of Funyuns under his left arm, another bag of Fritos in his hand, and his right arm sliding down the railing.

“You got the goods?” Michael asked, stepping away from the Dreamcast.

He grabbed the bag of Funyuns from his underarm with his free hand. “You know I do,” he said, plopping into the second beanbag chair. “What are we playin’?”
Michael took a few steps over to the pile of games. He had no shelf to store them on, so stacking them in the corner was the next best thing (although, it caused some mishaps when he and Jeremy got high and tried to play Jenga with the towers of games, being surprised when it didn’t work as well as actual Jenga). He snatched his most recently-bought game from the top, then tossed it over to Jeremy, who studied the cover.

“Marvel vs Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes?” he read aloud.

“It was the cheapest Dreamcast multiplayer I could find,” Michael shrugged, sitting himself down next to Jeremy. “Granted, it may be scratched and I might be getting ripped off, but we’ll give it a try.”

“Holy shit, dude, is Pheonix Wright in this?”

“Nah, I don’t think so. This came out in ‘98. Ace Attorney hadn’t been made yet.”

“Aww, what? I wanted to watch a professional defense attorney beat up the Hulk.”

“He’s gonna use his mad lawyering skills to destroy everyone in his path.”

“‘Mad lawyering skills?’”

“Yeah. What, you think people waste all that money on law school for some weak-ass knowledge and debate skills? Nah, man. If I went to law school, I wouldn’t leave until I could actually beat up someone by yelling ‘Objection!’ enough times.”

“Well, I mean, that’s a good tactic and you could probably burst their eardrums after a while, but have you noticed how pretty much all the lawyers in that game are fuckin’ ripped? As if every law school in that universe also doubles as a bodybuilding agency? It’s wild. Do you remember that one where Edgeworth is accused of murdering someone? Either of them probably could’ve fistfought Von Karma in the middle of the courtroom if there weren’t a judge watching over them.”

“If I were the judge, I would’ve encouraged it. Who would win?”

“Have you seen Von Karma? Dude’s old. Both Wright and Edgeworth were, like, twenty-something year olds, fresh out of lawyer-bodybuilding school. They could beat Von Karma up any day.”

“Yeah, but he also had a bullet stuck in his shoulder for years and just didn’t care. And he tasered two people without remorse. And he murdered a kid’s father, mentored the kid, and then blamed the murder on the kid over a decade later. He’s hardcore.”

“But the bullet spot was his weak spot. They could have just hit him on the arm and he’d be out cold.”

“Maybe if Wright had just punched his shoulder from the beginning he could’ve proved that dude was a killer.”

“He could solve all his cases by beating people up. Ace Attorney could have doubled as a fighting game.”

“You’re right, man. I’d love to throw down in court.”

The opening flashed onscreen. Michael gripped onto his controller. If he didn’t want Jeremy to find out anything, he’d have to focus, keep up their regular banter, and pretend nothing was wrong.

He recalled Austin Bremner’s attempt to ask him out. He had sauntered up to his locker and said, “Hey, how about you and I go out sometime? Bring your friends. We’ll hang.”

Michael swung his locker shut and turned back to him. “Nah, sorry, man.”

Austin frowned. “Aw, what? C’mon, Mitchell, I’ll take you out to the movies or some shit. Everyone else can come along, too. Y’know, so you don’t feel weird.”

He raised a brow. “... It’s Michael.”

For a moment, shock crossed Austin’s face. He shot him a nervous grin. “What’d I say?”

He mentioned it at their table later.

“I ‘dunno,” he shrugged. “Kinda seemed like he just wanted to hang out with you guys. He didn’t even know my name.”

“He what?” Jeremy asked, furrowing his brow. “Who?”

“I have no idea.”

“What’d he look like?” Jenna questioned, propping herself up on the table with her elbow.

“Uh, short little guy,” he said. “Buzzcut. Wore a letterman. I think it said Bemmer on the back? No, Benner. No, Brender—”

“Austin Bremner?” Jake asked. “I’ve seen him around a few times. He’s a year below us, I think.”

“So this ‘Austin’ dude,” Jeremy said. “He just asked you out solely so he could hang with everyone else?”

“Guess so.”

Jeremy narrowed his eyes. “Sounds like an asshole.”

“Oh, wait, now I remember!” Jenna interrupted. “Yeah, I know Austin Bremner!”

“You do?” Jeremy leaned towards her. “What’s he like?”

“Just a normal kid, pretty much,” she shrugged.

“You have to have more than that,” Jeremy prompted. “You really don’t have any dirt on him?”

She furrowed her brow and pursed her lips, thinking. “I think he cheated on Angel Lutz a couple months ago.”

“See? Asshole.”

“Or am I thinking of Austin Harris?”

“... Probably an asshole regardless. I mean, he used Michael, so I think that qualifies.”

Eventually, they all returned to their usual chatter, but Jeremy still seemed pissed. It was understandable— Michael was sort of pissed off, too, but he seemed to be even angrier than him.

At the time, Michael never suspected jealousy to be one of the factors in his attitude towards Austin, but it seemed conceivable, he supposed. Jeremy had just never been that jealous over something as trivial as Michael rejecting someone.

Maybe Jeremy really just had a crush on Austin Bremner.

Yeah.

Maybe that was it.

Jesus, why was he trying to deny it? Michael had been smitten with Jeremy for years, and now that Jeremy had admitted to having the same feelings for him, he was trying to find excuses. Was it because Michael wanted to be the one to do it? Because he wanted to put to use one of the many unrealistic scenarios he conjured up in his mind in which he confessed to Jeremy, and Jeremy would be all ‘Me too, Michael!’ and they’d be happy forever? Was it because he was scared? Afraid of what would happen if it didn’t work out? Afraid for them to have a messy breakup? Afraid for a long-term friendship to be tossed away because Michael made a mistake? Was it because he didn’t want anything to change more than it already had? Wanted to spend the rest of time as best friends without heightening the risk of another falling out? Wanted to preserve what they already had?
Or was it because he was fearful in view of the fact that, if they had a fight and never made up, he would just go back to having no friends, abandoned and left behind? Because he had clung to Jeremy and only Jeremy for the past decade and never bothered to even attempt making any other friends? He had to be forced into a group because that was the one Jeremy was a part of, and if they fought, he would no doubt be pushed out of the circle. He was almost certain they didn’t want him there, anyway.

Goddammit. He needed to focus on the game, not psychoanalyze himself.

Really, it didn’t need to be that big of a deal. Michael just needed to stick to his original plan— tell Jeremy nothing.

Still, Christine had been calling and texting during the past few days, asking him if he had said anything yet. Of course, the answer was always ‘I’ll tell him later!’, and then she would say, ‘It’s better to just tell him now, Michael!’. He wondered how long it would take before the subject blew over.

“Aw hell yeah!” Jeremy shouted, again causing his train of thought to crumble. “Who sucks at fighting games now?”

“Still you,” Michael smiled.

“What? C’mon, dude.”

“I’m sorry, man. I have just never seen someone suck at Mortal Kombat as much as you do.”

“It’s hard!”

“Half of the time you just have to buttonmash to win, Jeremy.”

“No, you have to use combos. In fact, you use combos that I don’t know. Which I like to consider cheating.”

“I don’t cheat. I just utilize my knowledge.”

“Cheating.”

“The fact that you don’t know the combos isn’t my fault, Jer.”

“The fact that I have clumsy fingers isn’t my fault, either.”

“Are you kidding me? My fingers are chubby as fuck, dude. Those buttons are little. Still, I manage to kick your ass each time.”

“Whatever, man. We only played it, like— what— two or three times before the cartridge broke? How do you know I’m bad at fighting games in general just from one game?”

“It’s Mortal Kombat, Jeremy. A pretty substantial amount of fighting games do the same thing as Mortal Kombat with combos and shit.”

“The fact that your ass just got handed to you at this particular fighting game still stands.”

“Okay. I’ll admit to everyone that I was beaten one time during our first match of Marvel vs Capcom, a game in which you can make Captain America and Mega Man duke it out.”

“Thank you. I enjoy being the undefeated champion.”

“Undefeated for now.”

“That sounds vaguely like a threat.”

“It could be.”

“... We’ll go another round. And then I’ll beat you again and continue to carry on my title.”

“We’ll see,” Michael smiled, his voice low. “We will see.”

And, then— “Michael!”

The unmistakable sound of his brother’s voice.

Michael sighed, rising from his spot and sprinting to the staircase, climbing halfway up and then stopping in his tracks. “What?” he yelled in response.

He heard his phone buzz from the other side of the room.

“Do we have any peanut butter left?”

“You got a text,” Jeremy said, picking up Michael’s phone. “You want me to read it to you?”

“Yeah, hold on,” Michael responded, then shouted, “There’s some on the counter!”

Michael turned back towards Jeremy. His brow was knitted. Michael heard a distant “Thanks!” from upstairs.

“What?” he asked.

Jeremy glanced back up at him. “It’s from Christine. She said, ‘Have you told Jeremy what he said when he was dopey? You have to at some point! It’s gonna eat you up!’”

Shit.

“Jeremy, I, uh—” Michael began, his sentence just devolving into “uh… uh…”

“What’d I say?” he asked, setting the phone aside.

“Nothing!” he tried to reassure him. “You didn’t say anything. It’s all good.”

Jeremy made a face. “Is it really that bad?”

“No! Christine was just— she was just— uh—”

“Did I say something mean? Because, Michael, I swear, I will kick my own ass—”

“Nothing mean! Just— uh— shit—”

“Michael,” he said, eyes narrowing, “what did I do?”

Michael sighed. He darted his eyes away from Jeremy’s gaze.

Damn it.

“You— uh— when you were drifting off, right when we got home…” Michael ran a hand through his hair. “You told me you loved me. That you were jealous of that one kid who asked me out a few weeks ago because you wanted to go out with me instead.”

Jeremy was silent. They both were.

“Oh,” he said finally.

Michael rubbed the sole of his shoe on the ground. “Yeah.”

He glanced back over at Jeremy, who was now staring at the floor, his face redder than he’d ever seen it before. Jeremy spoke again, his voice cracking. “Listen, Michael—”

“It’s fine,” he dismissed, fiddling with a loose thread on his sleeve. “Don’t worry about it.”

Jeremy winced. “Michael, I’m really sorry—”

“No, no, I get it! It’s cool! Lots of people say shit they don’t mean when they’re out of it! It’s fine! It’s all good!”

“Michael—”

“Jeremy, really, it’s okay! You didn’t know what you were saying. It was a lie you told while you were loopy. You probably just wanted to get a reaction out of me.”

“I—”

“It’s absolutely fine! You were almost asleep, not to mention—”

“Michael.”

“What?” Michael asked. God, he wanted to vanish into thin air.

“I’m— wait, are you… uh… are you crying?”

He touched a finger to his cheek. A trail of wetness streaked down his face, barely there, but there all the same. “... I guess so. Jesus, Jer, I’m sorry.”

This was embarrassing. He was embarrassing. He hadn’t even realized he was crying.

“Michael, are you—”

“No, no, sorry,” he interrupted, swiping a hand over his face. “I don’t really know why I’m doing that. I’ve just been thinking a lot.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Jeremy told him.

“I know.” He threaded a few fingers through his hair. “But I am anyways.”

A pause. “Hey, Michael?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s going on?”

His plan was to keep quiet until the truth was forced out of him, but now that the truth was being forced out of him, he decided that maybe he needed to start planning for things better.

Michael took a deep breath, ignoring the parts of him that were screaming to stay quiet and make something up. “I, uh… I know you probably didn’t… mean what you said, but Christine thinks you did, and it’s been kinda bothering me a lot. I was afraid bringing it up might make us fight, so I just sort of avoided it. It just... wasn’t worth mentioning.”

Jeremy’s face grew even redder. He glared at the ground, then towards the ceiling, then dragged a hand down his face and mumbled something.

Michael was afraid to ask, but he did it anyway. “... What’d you say?”

Jeremy, for a half a second, glanced up at him, then returned his gaze to the floor. With another crack in his voice, he said, “I meant it.”

Michael stared at him. “What?”

“I— fuck, dude, don’t make me say it again— I meant it,” he admitted. “Just— if you wanted closure to make you feel better or something.”

Michael wasn’t sure what to say.

In his stomach, there was a deep sense of dread, and in his head, there was doubt and confusion, but his heart felt like it was blooming. Or plummeting? Blooming? Both, maybe?

He had a lot of things he wanted to say, but, instead of articulating his most important thoughts in an accurate way, he asked the same question Jeremy could ask him.  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

Jeremy half-laughed at that. “Are you kidding me? I had to blow all my bar mitzvah money on some obscure pez candy just to talk to Christine, and we didn’t even end up working out. How was I supposed to tell you, my best friend who I was a complete asshole to for months? You’re a way better person than me, Michael. It just… I was scared.”

Michael racked his brain for responses, but none surfaced. His mind was racing, his heart was racing, his stomach was doing flips in both the good and bad way, and he wasn’t sure of what he was going to do next. “I’m… not… Jeremy, trust me, I’m not better than you.”

“Yes, you are. I know you say you have, but even if you haven’t forgiven me for the shit I put you through, you still stick around. I don’t deserve you, Michael, and I was afraid that if I told you and something happened, then you’d leave for someone who does.”

Michael sat there for a moment.

He didn’t like to think back on the period of time where he was abandoned and friendless, but, sometimes, he couldn’t help it. Jeremy spent the first month apologizing, until Michael, really not wanting to discuss it any further, eventually told him stop, I forgive you, and they finally agreed to renew the promise they made in the sixth grade vowing to tell each other if something was bothering them.

Michael broke that promise, and, evidently, so had Jeremy.

Really, the fact that Jeremy felt the same about him and actually admitted it to him was mind-boggling. Michael still wasn’t sure if he believed it one hundred percent, but he was pretty up there. (Ninety-six percent, maybe? Ninety-seven?)

Which only meant that it was Michael’s turn.

Shit.

He could only hope that someone wasn’t going to jump out of the closet with a camera and yell “Psych!”

Michael, already feeling his face burn, spoke. “I’m— I’m not gonna do that.”

Jeremy glanced up at him. “Why?”

He decided to focus his gaze on the wall. He’d reached the point of no return. “I— Jesus— I… feel the same. About you.”

Jeremy was quiet, and, then, “... What do you mean?”

He took a deep breath, rocking on his heels for a moment. Jeremy would always be oblivious as hell, but Michael knew that he, himself, was probably painfully oblivious to some things, too, so he couldn’t really blame him. “When you said you… ‘meant it.’ About your dopey confession. It bothered me so much because if you didn’t mean it, it would fuckin’ suck, and if you did, it could also potentially suck, because it would just heighten the risk of getting into a fight and never speaking again. I didn’t want to take that chance.”

Another bout of silence. Michael was sick of silence.

“You were afraid of fighting again, too?” Jeremy asked.

Michael looked over at him, making eye contact for a brief moment. Jeremy was practically glowing crimson. “Yeah. Like, for the past week, I’ve had at least eighty fight scenarios play over in my head, and they all suck.”

“Dude, I have at least two hundred I could lay out right now.”

Michael raised both hands to head and ran them through his hair. “I can’t fuckin’ believe this. Is this— are we together now?”

Realization crossed Jeremy’s face. “Shit, are we?”

Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. “If you want to be. Do you want to be?”

“Yeah. Do you?”

“Yeah.”

Another pause. “Are we… is this… so we’re a thing now?”

“I— yeah, I guess.” Michael could feel his fourteen year old self screaming.

Hesitation, and then, “What if we fight?”

Michael’s smile, which he hadn’t even known was there, faltered. “Promise we won’t.”

“We’re gonna fight at some point. I mean, we just fought. I was Spiderman and you were Captain Commando.”

“I know, I mean— let’s not have… big fights. Like, no I’m-not-gonna-talk-to-you-for-days fights.”

“... We’re probably gonna have one of those at some point, too.”

“God, I know, I just— I don’t want to.”

“Me neither.”

“Let’s just… let’s promise not to break up over something really stupid. Like  jealousy, or me kicking your ass at the next round of Marvel vs Capcom.”

Jeremy grinned. “Deal. Although, I can’t see you beating me at Marvel vs Capcom anytime in the future, so I guess we’re safe on that one.”

“I don’t know,” Michael said, strolling closer to Jeremy. “The future’s full of possibilities.”

“Including the possibility where I beat you next match.”

“That’s a pretty small possibility.”

“It happened once already.”

“Which means you’re out of luck.”

“Or that I’m getting luckier. I mean, we did just get together. I think. I’d consider myself pretty lucky at the moment.”

Michael’s stepped a little closer. “We are a thing, right? We both said we wanted to be and now we are? This is what that is?”

Jeremy edged a little nearer. “Yeah. We’re… a thing.”

“A together thing. A dating thing.”

“M’hmm. Does that mean this is a date? Right now?”

“God, I hope not. I want to take you to better places than a basement that smells like weed. Plus, if this is a date, it means we’ve been dating for years.”

“Good point. Although, I’d be happy if we just sat in your car in the parking lot at Target.”

“Me too, but I’m not letting that be a date, either. My car smells like pot.”

“What are your date regulations, Michael?”

“I can’t take you out anywhere that smells like weed.”

“What about that hipster cafe that just opened up next to the mall? Every time I walk past it, it reeks of pot.”

“Why would we go there? You said that Jenna told you their coffee is pricey and tastes like water, and you swore to never step inside, anyways, because the whole place sorta scares you.”

“And it does scare me. Whenever I go by, there’s people inside that I’ve never seen in my entire life, and they just keep… regenerating. The place doesn’t even have regulars, I think. Just new people every day. I’m convinced that if I go in there I’ll get sucked in by a portal to hell. I know Jenna went one time, but how do we know that’s even the real Jenna? Maybe the real Jenna got eaten by a demon made of weed, which is why it smells like pot all the time. Actually, I think I’m onto something, Michael.”

“So why would we want to go there if it’s infested by weed-demons?”

“Oh, because maybe-Jenna also told me that, although their coffee tastes like shit, if you buy one, they give you a bunch of these Cinna-Stix copies for free. According to her, they taste better than the original, which is impossible. That could just be maybe-Jenna’s way of luring me into the portal to hell.”

“Maybe we’ll go there just to get coffee, receive generic brand Cinna-Stix, and run out of the door. I’ll protect you from any conspicuous portals.”

“Thanks, Michael. That’s pretty sweet.”

He felt himself pink. Before he could think, he asked, “Could I— uh— kiss you?”

Jeremy’s eyebrows raised. His smile fell for a brief moment in surprise, then upturned into a toothy grin, genuine and wide. “Okay,” he said, a hint of a giggle bubbling out of his throat.

Michael leaned towards him, and Jeremy did the same.

It was sloppy. Their teeth clacked together once, and then twice, and Michael’s heart was beating out of his chest the entire time. He was sure his hands were sweaty. Jeremy sort of tasted like Funyuns, and Michael probably did, too, having just scarfed down more than half the bag in less than ten minutes. After three years, Michael could not have asked for a better kiss.

They stopped for a second. Then kissed again.

Then stopped. And kissed again.

After they broke apart, they stared at each other, smiling wide.

“That, uh…” Michael began, trailing off because, as it turned out, there really wasn’t much to say that he could articulate into coherent sentences.

“Pretty, um… Pretty nice,” Jeremy finished for him.

“Yeah,” he agreed. Michael struggled to look away. Jeremy’s cheeks were rosy and pink and pretty. Jeremy always seemed to look pretty.

Jeremy’s already wide grin widened some more before he severed his gaze to look at his feet instead, then at the floor, then at the Dreamcast. He lowered himself back onto one of the old beanbags they had both chipped in for a couple years ago. Both chairs were slightly reminiscent of a trash bag, but it worked for them.

Jeremy patted the seat next to him. “C’mon,” he said. “I’ve got another round to beat you at.”

Michael hopped into the chair beside him and picked up his controller.

Maybe they would have another falling out. Maybe they would get into some fights. Maybe, at some point, they’d even end up taking a break.

But that was fine. They’d worked through it before, and they could again.

Besides, he really only wanted to think about the present. About how, after three years of wishing and wanting and, deep down, knowing it would never happen, he kissed Jeremy.

He wasn’t sure how to describe the feeling. All he could say was that it felt nice, but it felt more than nice, too. More than sweet and more than pleasant.

It was difficult to realize that three years of hoping and daydreaming all led up to Jeremy confessing to Michael while he was high and half-asleep. If he went back in time and told his fourteen year old self everything that had happened, he wasn’t sure if past-Michael would be rolling around on the floor, refusing to believe a word, or in shock. His present self still couldn’t believe it, and yet here he was, and here they were.

A grin was still on his lips when his phone buzzed again, reminding him he had a text he still needed to check.

While still trying to mash buttons on his controller one-handed, he clumsily unlocked his phone and tapped out a reply.

jesus christine:

Have you told Jeremy what he said when he was dopey?? You have to at some point! It’s gonna eat you up!!!!!!! >:0

highway to mell:

yeah, i did actually

He glanced towards Jeremy, who was transfixed on the screen, furiously tapping at his controller.

highway to mell:

it went better than expected

He tossed his phone to the side and returned to the game.

Jeremy’s head was gradually finding its way to Michael’s shoulder. The game’s background music softly blared, serving as something to fill the comfortable silence that rested between the two of them.

Michael could not have been happier.