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The chill winds of a late December morning in New Jersey make the dead greenery surrounding Sunfish Pond sway. One brave, handsome boy shivers along with the bald trees as he shoves his feet into a pair of old ice skates. He has long since outgrown them, but he grits his teeth through the pinching pain, the war flashbacks to eighth grade, and the thought of the blisters soon to come. He has done far worse things in the name of proving himself right.
Because Michael McLovinit Mell is nothing if not a man of pride. Jeremy has told him several times that this is not at all the case and the word pride is not interchangeable with recklessly stupid .
Jeremy is a fool. In that respect, Michael means. Otherwise, an all around incredibly lovely dude. Great… collarbones. He could write multiple essays on the slippery slopes of those clavicles. If it weren’t for the fact that now is not the time to wax poetic over his friend’s glorious bone structure, given that he is on a mission .
For pride.
Michael finishes tying the cruelly tight, bladed shoes and, after struggling for longer than he is willing to admit to, pushes himself into a triumphant semi-standing position.
Atop of the frozen ground, he eyes the unremarkable expanse of what is hopefully the equally frozen Sunfish Pond. The frosty sheen coating the water is relatively new, true, but ice is ice. Finding this logic rock solid, Michael is fairly confident as he falls into an awkward, wobbly sprint in the direction of the pond, tiny red skates creaking somewhat worrisomely underneath him.
Miraculously, he reaches the edge of the poor man's ice skating paradise without falling, which feeds his ego to a degree that, in hindsight, is maybe a bit much. So much, actually, that he jumps for style points, pondering whether or not an elegant spin would’ve been more appropriate before he’s crashing through the millimeter thick ice and frigid water mercilessly engulfs his cocky ass.
Jeremy is less than sympathetic when Michael appears later that morning on his doorstep, blue and in the midst of his transformation into his final form; The dankest human ice sculpture to grace America.
“Hey,” Michael greets, teeth chattering so violently he’s entirely incoherent.
Jeremy gives him a single look up and down and crosses his arms, which appear to be desirably warm inside the oversized sleeves of a fluffy polyester house robe, “I told you so.”
“That’s fair,” Michael concedes, words once again incomprehensible as his jaw rapidly and unstoppably quivers.
“Get in here,” Jeremy sighs, opening the front door wide and stepping back so as to avoid being trampled by Michael in the his haste to absorb the artificial interior heat, “I’ll start a bath.”
Michael frustratingly attempts to peel off his glacial jacket with uncooperative, trembling hands; With so much of his focus on this obviously impossible task, he can only manage a suggestive eyebrow waggle in response.
Cheeks flushing cutely and enviously, Jeremy throws a glare over his shoulder as he starts stomping up the stairs. Michael follows, giving up on trying to remedy his coatastrophe.
“Please shut up,” Jeremy requests, though Michael hasn’t technically said anything, “I read a book about the essentials of sea survival back in ninth grade when we were paranoid about the ice caps melting and all of North America being submerged in the ocean. A victim suffering from mild hypothermia can usually be re-warmed without risk in a supervised hot bath of around a hundred and four degrees.”
“Loser,” Michael stutters, ironically, before rethinking that and bringing up the far more interesting bit of Jeremy’s nerdy spiel, “Supervised?”
They’ve reached the only bathroom in the house, where Jeremy crouches to access the cabinets below the sink.
“Don’t worry,” He says, pulling out a fancy glass bottle, half full of a light pink sludge, “It’s not gay if you use bubble bath.”
“I have an argument-” Michael fights to get out, the urge to make a joke much stronger than frostbite could ever dream to be.
“No,” Jeremy understandably shuts him down, plugging up the drain of the tub and turning the faucet on, “You have explaining to do. Sunfish Pond is only a fifteen minute drive away, and you look like you’ve been roughing it alone in Antarctica for a week. What the hell, man?”
This is the absolute last thing Michael wants to get into. The sordid details of his precious but absolute crap car’s broken heater, the five minute struggle to crawl out of the freezing (not to be mistaken for frozen ) pond in the first place, followed by another fifteen minutes of sitting on the cold ground as he cried while unsuccessfully working to pull off the much too tight, cursed ice skates, taking breaks in between endeavors to just lay down to quake and sob. It really was eighth grade all over again.
He had eventually managed to yank the evil skates off of his fat feet, promptly and quite angstily hurling them into the water the second he was able. They had fallen through the thin layer of ice just as he had and watching them do so had made him wonder why he hadn’t just thrown a rock or something before doing a fucking pas de chat into a pond in the middle of winter.
Upset with himself and just in general really, he had stopped by the Seven-Eleven for a quick pick-me-up cherry slushie.
Hot coffee would’ve been the smarter choice, yes, but then so would’ve been going home instead of subjecting his best friend and probable love of his life to his worst moment this month. Michael isn’t about making intelligent decisions; He more often goes for doing what’s going to make him the happiest he can be.
Watching Jeremy expertly uncap a bottle of his secret stash of lavish bubble bath as if it were a champagne bottle, Michael is pretty damn happy.
“You’re not dizzy or anything, are you?” Jeremy questions as he mixes the thick liquid with the hot water. The room is quickly flooded with the familiar scent of cherry.
“No,” Michael answers, with minimal chattering, thank god . He’s been sure that his jaw is going to fall off any second now for nearly twenty minutes.
“Good,” Jeremy mutters, mostly to himself, checking the temperature of the bath with his fingertips before standing upright to declare, “You should start stripping.”
“I am no longer taking career advice from you,” Michael quips and mentally high fives himself for finally vocalizing a full sentence without being in danger of biting his tongue in two.
Jeremy’s eyes roll hard , “Do you need help?”
Michael’s eloquence disappears as suddenly as it had appeared, a jumble of disjointed vowels and consonants spilling irrepressibly from his numb lips until he gets just enough of a grip on himself to choke out a flustered, “ Whomst ?”
Jeremy snorts, lips curling as he raises his hands placatingly, “Your hands are still shaking a lot- I don’t know! I’m just asking, dude, chill.”
When Jeremy tells you to chill it’s a bit like Kanye telling you to get over yourself. Hypocritical, but extremely jarring.
Michael chills to the best of his ability, “Sorry… Yeah.”
Jeremy startles a bit, fumbling just as Michael had only moments ago, “Uh, you, um, what?”
“Need help,” And that sounds way too meek and out of character, so Michael continues, winking in a manner similar to that of an epileptic about to have a seizure, “ Stripping ,” But then that sounds like he’s not at all sincere, so he gives up and goes into his human disaster mode with the assistance of a fake laugh, “Seriously, though. I can’t feel my fingers.”
“ Shit ,” Jeremy curses, rushing to (welcomingly) invade Michael’s personal space, unzipping his jacket and tearing it off in a flurry of movement that will soon have Michael harder than a sparkling diamond if he isn’t careful.
He thinks of overpriced bad pot, Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, and stubborn nacho stains that never come out no matter how many goddamn cleaning hacks you try, because there are so many elements in the perfect batch of nachos that it’s never as simple as googling ‘How to get cheese out of your favorite jacket?’ when you’ve used three different kinds of cheeses and other assorted ingredients that are visibly mixed with the fucking cheese stain on your best fucking jacket that you’ve spent forever making the coolest thing in your entire lame wardrobe- He is soggy asparagus flaccid.
Until Jeremy unbuttons his jeans, that is, slender fingers so obviously trying their best make this the least awkward as possible, but it’s Jeremy , so he of course fails. And brushes directly against Michael’s weapon of ass destruction.
The weapon is immediately, for lack of a better word, cocked.
Michael leaps away with all the grace of a gymnast with two broken legs, heedful to keep his back to Jeremy as he busies himself with pulling his shirt over his head with unsteady hands.
“Thanks, those were the hard parts,” Michael coughs out, doing his best to ignore the double entendre and just focus on taking his clothes off and getting into the tub without El Presidente getting noticed.
“Sure,” Jeremy’s voice cracks.
There’s unease elaborately intertwined with the fruity fragrance in the air until Michael slips into the sweet embrace of the sublime water, up to his chest in the mass of bubbles, and up to his ears in toe curling ecstasy as his body temperature starts to rise higher than what must have been subzero.
Michael turns off the faucet and then twists to express to Jeremy, “Holy fuck .”
Jeremy, whose face looks to be burning hotter than the luxurious bath and possibly even the sun, flinches before stammering, “What? Oh! Yeah! Yeah. I know. It has to feel better than the lake.”
Nonsensically covering his nipples and smothering a grin, Michael sinks deeper into the tub with a dramatic gasp, “Jeremy Come Heere, you were supposed to turn around ! My delicate nineteen-thirties sensibilities-”
Jeremy looks far more scandalous than Michael could ever be capable of, “My middle name is not come-”
“-are completely disrespected an offended! Just what do you have to say for yourself, you voyeuristic fiend ?”
“I hate you,” Jeremy answers, flatly, cheeks still heated enough to rewarm the entirety of Sunfish Pond, “And I saw you naked last month -”
It’s Michael’s turn to blush, which he is only slightly relieved to be able to do again now that he’s unthawing, “Completely different!”
“Because of the chocolate ice cream all over your face, or the max volume Lil Pump making your house vibrate?” Jeremy innocently questions, pulling a fresh towel out of the pantry and laying it on top of the closed toilet lid.
Michael scowls, “You never knock.”
“And you never lock your door.”
“And you never told me about your hidden vault of fancy-shmancy bathing products. So who’s really at fault here? Me or the vanilla scented candle in your soap dish?”
Jeremy lunges and leans over Michael’s bubble shielded body to snatch away the incriminating candle with a huff, “This is why I didn’t waste a bath bomb on you.”
“Fake friend.”
“I’m literally saving you from dying of hypothermia as we speak,” Jeremy points out, the sentence seeming to bring him back to the nature of the situation, “Right… I’m going to make some hot chocolate and grab some clothes for you. And extra blankets. Still not dizzy?”
“Only with love,” Michael brightly assures at the mention of cocoa, “You have the mini marshmallows? And the cayenne pepper?”
Jeremy’s nose wrinkles, “Yes, you freak. Are you feeling Disney movie sick or terrible slapstick comedy sick?”
Michael ponders this, “Me, Myself, and Irene.”
“That bad, huh?” Jeremy smiles.
“I need to be held.”
“Noted,” Jeremy snickers, “So, a disgusting jumbo mug of spicey cocoa, twenty blankets, and some Renee Zellweger for little spoon Michael?”
“The tiniest spoon,” Michael nods, “And get me your big Space Invaders T-shirt. I’m too thicc for the rest of your twinky wardrobe.”
“I don’t- Fine,” Jeremy concedes, leaving the bathroom and calling over his shoulder, “Shout if the room starts spinning!”
“Kay,” He says, and prides himself on waiting a full sixty seconds before yelling, “Jeremy Come Heere!”
The sound of frantic steps on the stairs have Michael laughing into his hands before Jeremy’s panicked face comes back into view.
“What?! Are you- Are you…,” The joke lands, and is received rather badly, “Fuck you. Get ready for The Room motherfucker, Jim Carrey is canceled.”
“No, please,” Michael begs, but the pleading is a bit lackluster accompanied by the hysterical laughter, “No Tommy Wiseau. I’ll do anything, please.”
Jeremy cocks a brow, a hand moving to his hip, “Really? Anything?”
Michael’s giggles die down as he very eerily gets the feeling that he’s just stepped into the best kind of a porno, “Uh… yes?
Jeremy grabs the handle of the bathroom door, “Then perish.”
The door slams obnoxiously, the barrier only slightly muffles the explosion of hysterics Michael goes into until his ribs ache and his breath runs out.