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Michael is almost six when he meets the boy with flowers in his lungs and sparkles in his eyes. He’s scrawny and anxious and Michael thinks he’s a little bit strange.
“Why are you playing by yourself?” Michael asks the boy with sparkles in his eyes. “Don’t you have any friends?”
The boy looks up at him from where he sits on his swing, face pale in the sunlight. The park is crowded today, but not enough to keep Michael from enjoying himself. “Why are you playing by yourself?”
Michael stares at him. “Don’t got any friends.”
The boy smiles a small smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Me neither.”
Michael can feel the breeze on the back of his neck. Autumn is just around the corner and he forgot to wear a jacket. “What’s your name?” Michael asks him, standing off to the side as the boy kicks his feet to start swinging.
“Jeremy,” he says. “What’s yours?”
Michael hesitates. Then, he takes a deep breath. “Michael,” he says with determination. His hands tingle with anxiety.
Jeremy doesn’t stop swinging. “Are you a boy?” he asks curiously.
Michael’s stomach does a little flip. He nods. “Yeah, I’m a boy.”
“Okay,” Jeremy says. “Wanna be my friend?”
Michael’s heart sings. “Sure,” he says, taking the swing next to Jeremy. He can feel himself flying before he even starts swinging.
The boy with flowers in his lungs and sparkles in his eyes is the first friend he’s ever had, and the best.
Michael is almost eight when he and the boy with sparkles in his eyes and messy brown hair get dragged by their ears to the principal's office for getting into a fight with another classmate.
Then again, fight isn’t really the right word for what happened. The classmate in question had made the mistake of calling Michael a girl one too many times. Jeremy’s always been scrawny and anxious, but apparently he couldn’t just stand by and let someone treat Michael like that.
“I can’t believe you pushed him,” Michael whispers to Jeremy while they wait for their parents to arrive. “I didn’t think your little noodle arms could do that.”
Jeremy shushes him, a smile playing at the edge of his lips. “He should be getting in trouble too.”
Michael giggles at Jeremy’s pouty face. “I know,” he says. “We’ll be okay, though, Jerm.”
“I hate it when you call me that,” Jeremy grumbles. Michael pokes his cheek.
“Miah,” he says with a grin.
“Stop it!”
It’s all giggles between the two of them until Michael’s parents and Jeremy’s mom get there, and while they do scold their children for getting in trouble, Michael’s moms still crouch down and thank Jeremy for defending Michael.
He wonders in the back of his mind if Jeremy will always be there to defend him.
Michael is ten and the boy with freckles on his nose and a missing front tooth is nine when Jeremy’s mom leaves behind a note saying she’s sorry, but she just can’t do it anymore.
Neither Michael nor Jeremy know what it is, and Michael can tell that it’s eating Jeremy up inside.
“Did I do something?” Jeremy asks one day not long after her departure. He keeps pulling up grass and sprinkling it into an ever-growing pile next to him.
Michael frowns. “‘Course you didn’t,” he says with a shake of his head. Jeremy’s backyard has always felt warm and welcoming. Now all Michael feels is cold and afraid. Afraid for Jeremy. “This isn’t your fault, Jer. You know that.”
Jeremy is quiet for a moment. Michael can practically hear the lies he knows his mind is shouting at him right now.
“I guess I don’t,” Jeremy finally murmurs. He sprinkles one last handful of grass onto his pile before pulling his knees up to his chest and sighing. Michael scootches closer, puts an arm around his shoulders and gently knocks the side of his head against Jeremy’s.
“Well,” he says, “I do. I know it’s not your fault.”
Michael also knows that Jeremy doesn’t believe him for a second.
Michael is finally thirteen and the boy with flowers in his lungs and laughter in his soul is twelve when Michael gets the best present he’s ever gotten for his birthday.
(Yes, even better than the puberty blockers.)
“Oh, man!” he exclaims, beaming as he holds up the red hoodie to look at it. “Dude, this is awesome. ” He doesn’t hesitate in throwing it on even though it’s a hot summer’s day, and they both laugh when they see how big it is on him.
“Guess you’ll have to grow into it. I was almost gonna keep it for myself,” Jeremy says, smiling, “but red looks better on you.”
Michael guesses he should be grateful for that considering the way his cheeks flush. They’ve been doing that alot lately around Jeremy and he’s not quite sure why.
“It’s really comfortable,” Michael says. He wraps his arms around himself, snuggling into the hoodie. “Thanks, Jerm.”
And as comfortable as the hoodie is, Michael has the thought when he hugs Jeremy that nothing would ever be as comfortable as this.
Michael is fifteen and the anxiety-ridden boy who’s a little bit strange and has bitten down nails and sparkles in his eyes is fifteen, too, thanks to it being his birthday.
The blue cardigan that Michael has given him is currently being pressed into his face, hands bunched in the soft fabric. Jeremy pulls it away to beam at Michael with a smile so wide it almost breaks Michael’s heart.
“Just like when I gave you your hoodie,” he says. Michael smiles in return. “Which, by the way, rad patch, dude.” He points to the rainbow pride patch Michael had sewn on yesterday. “You should get a trans one at some point.”
“I probably will,” Michael nods. “Now try it on, man!” He gestures to the cardigan and watches as Jeremy shrugs it on, laughing a bit when they see that it’s just a little too big. “Wow,” Michael says. “It really is just like when you gave me my hoodie. Guess you’ll just have to wait for another growth spurt.”
“Whatever, I’ll still wear it,” Jeremy shrugs. “And I’ll still play that Sonic game you got me even if it’s super out of date.”
“That’s what makes it good!” Michael says, throwing his hands up.
“I know,” Jeremy laughs. He thanks Michael, tells him he’s had the best birthday yet, and hugs him.
Michael hopes that his heart isn’t beating loud enough for Jeremy to hear.
Michael is seventeen when he comes to terms with the fact that he’s in love with the boy named Jeremy who has flowers in his lungs and sparkles in his eyes and a voice that makes Michael believe there might really be a God.
He would have been a little bit more okay with this if Jeremy hadn’t completely fucked him over.
First there was the SQUIP, then there was the silent treatment, then there was the panic attack in the bathroom—
And now there’s Mr. Heere, telling Michael he needs his help to save Jeremy, or something. Michael’s pretty high, so he’s not really sure.
“Do you love him?”
Michael is sure he hears that. “What?” he stutters out. He’s sure he hears Jeremy’s dad repeat the question, he’s sure he tries to formulate some kind of response, he’s sure that Mr. Heere is genuinely worried for his son.
And he’s sure that he does, in fact, love Jeremy.
The play goes straight to hell pretty quickly, and the next thing Michael knows, he’s sitting by Jeremy’s hospital bed watching him wake up. He brushes off Jeremy’s question of, “After everything I did to you, you were still there for me. Why?” and brings in his father, not wanting to confront his feelings just yet.
He and Jeremy are fine.
Michael is still seventeen and the boy with electrocution scars on his back and sparkles in his eyes is also seventeen when they realize that they are definitely not fine.
There’s a lot of yelling on both their parts. Jeremy begging Michael to just talk to him, Michael begging Jeremy to stop apologizing for what happened in the bathroom because it’s fine it’s fine it’s fine.
When Michael realizes he’s crying, he almost laughs because he hasn’t hardly been able to cry since he started T. Instead, he turns his head and grabs Jeremy’s cardigan, pressing his face into his chest and sobbing.
“I’m so fucking mad at you,” he finally says, words coming out watery and unsteady.
Jeremy’s breath hitches. “I know, Michael, I’m sorry—”
“I’m not mad at you for that!” Michael snaps, lightly yanking on his cardigan. “For-for calling me a loser at the party, or whatever. I’ve moved past that, you asshole.” He sniffles, almost whimpering when Jeremy sets a hand in his hair. “I’m mad because I’ve moved past it but you haven’t.”
Jeremy hesitates. “You know what I did wasn’t okay,” he says quietly.
Michael lifts his head up to see that Jeremy is crying too. “No,” he says, “it wasn’t. It wasn’t fucking okay, Jer.” He lets go of Jeremy’s cardigan to smooth a hand down his arm and take his hand. “But I do forgive you, okay?”
Jeremy’s mouth quirks upwards into a smile, and Michael’s chest clenches when he adjusts their hands so their fingers are laced together.
“That’s all I wanted to hear, Michael.”
Michael is eighteen and the boy with flowers in his lungs and thumb holes in his cardigan is eighteen as well when they kiss for the first time.
They’re high. It’s Christmas time and Michael has colorful lights strung up around his room, a Christmas vinyl playing softly in the background, and a burnt out joint on his nightstand. He hovers over Jeremy on his bed, using his elbow to prop himself up while he slips his tongue into Jeremy’s mouth just to feel him shiver beneath him. He doesn’t care that Jeremy might not return his feelings right now. He only cares about the warmth of Jeremy’s chest against his and the way everything feels hazy and nice.
After about ten minutes, Jeremy voices a, “Hey, Michael?” against his lips.
“Hm?” Michael hums in response. Jeremy pulls away, hands still fisted in his hoodie.
He looks up at Michael with half-lidded eyes. “Do best friends kiss each other?” he asks softly.
Michael falters, a wave of guilt hitting him before he decides he can deal with it later.
He leans back down, presses a soft kiss to Jeremy’s lips before pulling away again ever so slightly.
“They do if they want to,” he whispers, and that’s enough for Jeremy.
Michael is still eighteen and so is the boy with long skinny limbs and sparkles in his eyes who’s not so strange to Michael anymore when they officially start making love at night with the moon as their only company.
They discovered soon after their first kiss that just being friends would never be enough. Michael had been more than okay with that, and from then on, they kissed knowing full well just how much love was behind each touch.
Jeremy asks Michael one night as they’re about to make love again if he’d ever considered doing this with someone else to try and get over Jeremy.
Michael tells him that, no, he didn’t, because why would he make love to anyone else when a boy with flowers in his lungs and sparkles in his eyes exists at the same time as him?
Michael is twenty-five and the boy with nails that aren’t so short anymore and flowers in his lungs is twenty-four when they kiss under the altar and Jeremy Heere becomes Jeremy Mell.
It had been a long time coming, honestly, and when their friends found out they were engaged, there’d been an almost collective reaction of, “Wait, you weren’t already?”
Michael is sure that he’s never been more in love and he never wants it to stop.
Michael is eighty-one and the ashen-skinned man with wilting flowers in his lungs and dull, brown hair is eighty when the life leaves the blue eyes that no longer hold very many sparkles.
Michael has outlived most of his loved ones. He’s sad, yes, but he knows he’s lived a good life and he knows that Jeremy lived a good one too. He used to wonder—before he and Jeremy ever got together—if he would get to live that kind of life.
He didn’t realize it before, but he’d been holding on. Just for Jeremy.
And now he can let go.
Michael is almost six and the boy with flowers in his lungs and sparkles in his eyes is scrawny and anxious and Michael’s never seen anything more beautiful than him as he holds his hand out for him so they can walk into their afterlifes together. They’re happy and healthy even if they’re dead, and Michael thinks that’s a little bit strange.