Chapter Text
When he was little, Jeremy went to three different pre-schools.
Pre-school had been necessary. Both of his parents worked full time, and neither was going to give up their careers to become a full time parent instead. They’d both taken as much time off as possible, between their respective parental leads, and saved up vacation time, but when he was three, they’d gotten him set up in pre-school, and that had been that.
Except not quite. For the first few weeks, all had gone well, except for a minor incident on the third week when Jeremy tried to pick up broken glass, and earned himself a furious lecture from one of the extremely worried caregivers, causing him to cry in front of all the other kids. Officially, it had been a minor incident, but in his young opinion, it was the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to him, not helped by some of the older kids teasing him about it.
But on the fourth week, he’d been ignored.
As far as Jeremy was concerned, it was awesome. While the other kids were getting watched over, and had to stick to a schedule, he could do what he wanted. He played outside as much as he wanted, took seconds at snack, and best of all could spend as long as he wanted on his own without being urged to go and play with the other kids, or try to make friends.
It was the best. A bit lonely, but the best.
After about a month of being left to do his own thing, he’d fallen off the playground while playing alone, scraped pretty much his entire leg, and spent an hour sobbing outside alone before he’d been able to stand up again and go inside. When his mother picked him up and asked about his leg, he’d burst into tears again and told her all about it.
She’d been furious. Jeremy had never seen his mother so angry. She’d spent at least an hour yelling at the daycare staff about neglect, lawsuits, and potential antisemitism, all culminating in Jeremy being withdrawn from the daycare and taken home.
When his father had gotten home and found out what had happened, he’d been equally furious, and they had seriously debated filing a lawsuit, before deciding against it. A week later, Jeremy had started at a new daycare.
It had been different, and scary, and he didn’t know any of the grownups running it, so it was almost a relief when they left him alone too. He hadn’t wanted his parents to get angry again, so he hadn’t said anything to them, and was just very careful when playing outside alone.
The playground area was surrounded by a chain link fence, but the fence was old, and in one area the links against the ground were bent and raised. It was plausible that a small, determined child could wiggle through it if they felt the need to, but the caretakers were always careful to keep an eye on the little gap, and make it very clear that going under it was allowed under no circumstances, and anyone who tried was in time out for the next foreseeable forever.
Unfortunately, Jeremy was a deeply curious child, and was developing an increasing lack of respect for rules as a whole, so it shouldn’t have surprised anyone when after three months, he’d crawled under the gap, and gone exploring.
It had been fun, running around through the woods, but eventually he’d gotten tired and hungry, and decided to come back in for snack. But when he returned to the fence, he’d found that he couldn’t crawl back under it, the bend of the metal meaning that a child could get out of the playground, but couldn’t get back in. Attempts to climb the fence had been equally unsuccessful, and he’d eventually given up and gone around to the front door.
And then found that it was too heavy for him to open.
Which was how his father had found him, hours later at pickup, sitting dejectedly on the curb of the parking lot, tired, hungry and bored. Jeremy had spilled the whole story, relatively sure he was in trouble.
He had not been in trouble. The daycare people had been in trouble.
There was yelling again, and angry parents, and Jeremy had been taken out of that daycare too.
At this point, Jeremy had been four, and his parents had been very worried about how much their son was getting neglected. The third daycare had been rigorously researched, and his parents had visited in person and met the staff several times before they enrolled Jeremy in it.
He’d been nervous again, and had been hoping he’d be ignored as always, so he could play on his own, and not have to deal with strange adults. And sure enough, almost all of them had ignored him, and he’d decided to start his first morning by playing alone outside, and getting a feel for the playground.
But when he’d headed for the door, he was stopped by an amused looking woman, who had informed him that it wasn’t outdoor playtime right now, and he should try to make some new friends since he was new here.
Jeremy had been so surprised, he hadn’t even argued as she led him away, brought him to a group that was building block towers, and told him to join them.
The other kids had ignored him as soon as the lady left. Jeremy tried building with them for a while, but quickly got annoyed by them taking blocks from his pile, or even from his tower, and had stormed off.
He wanted a snack, so he’d headed for where he saw a kitchen, and been stopped by the same lady from earlier, who’d told him that it wasn’t snack time, and he should go play with some of the other kids.
He’d informed her that the other kids already had friends, and ignored him.
She had led him over to one kid sitting on his own, a boy with glasses. She’d introduced him as Michael, introduced Jeremy to him, and told them to play together. Then she’d left again.
Michael looked at Jeremy. Jeremy looked at Michael.
Jeremy sat down next to Michael. Michael scooted away slightly.
“So, why are you sitting here alone?” Jeremy asked, curious.
“Don’t like people.” Michael said, giving a look that was probably supposed to make it clear that people included Jeremy. Unfortunately for him, Jeremy was not the most well socialized child, and did not pick up on that implication.
“Oh. Me neither, people always ignore me. Wanna go make stuff with play-doh?”
Michael had reluctantly agreed, but that was probably because there was music playing in the play-doh area.
By the end of the day, they’d decided they were best friends.
~
They’d ended up going to the same school, and being in the same kindergarten class. Kindergarten was fun, but Jeremy had already known how to read and count, so hadn’t really learned anything. Which was good, because the teacher ignored him as well most of the time. Jeremy was seeing a pattern. At least he had Michael.
Grade one had been… difficult.
The pre-school hadn’t had too strict of a schedule, beyond indoor playtime, outdoor playtime and snack. The kindergarten had been a bit more regimented, with different times for different activities. So the firm schedule of first grade wasn’t too difficult for Jeremy, with one exception.
The bathroom. Kindergarten and pre-school had had bathrooms right there that the kids could use whenever. In first grade, they had to put their hands up, wait for the teacher to call on them, and ask to go.
But when Jeremy put his hand up, it took a very long time for the teachers to notice him. Too long for a six year old to wait.
After a few weeks of embarrassment and having to change at recess, Michael came up with a solution. He would put his hand up, and ask if Jeremy could go to the bathroom. Which the teachers usually found amusing, but were fine with, especially since it could take almost twenty minutes for them to notice Jeremy, and the janitor was beginning to get annoyed about having to be called down to the first grade classroom.
So once that hurdle was cleared, Jeremy and Michael got through elementary school just fine, and soon their system of Michael asking questions for him grew, with Jeremy writing down any questions he had in class, handing the paper to Michael, and having him ask them. It worked, and well, and they both did well in class. Even if all their classmates just knew Jeremy as ‘that one kid who always had his friend ask if he could use the bathroom’. It also resulted in multiple questions from his parents about shyness and anxiety and if he was doing alright in class. Apparently due to him not asking questions and having Michael ask if he could use the bathroom, most of his teachers were fairly convinced Jeremy was mute.
He brushed off the questions as best he could, having long since learned that explaining that his teachers ignored him meant parents getting angry, and having to go and get ignored somewhere else. Which was the last thing Jeremy wanted, as any potential other schools would not have Michael in them, and would therefore be terrible. Michael was the best.
Michael’s moms were pretty cool too, even if they’d spent two weeks thinking Jeremy was Michael’s imaginary friend before they realised that their son had in fact been bringing another kid over. After that, they’d paid attention to Jeremy pretty regularly, and quickly felt like a second set of parents to him.
So all in all, elementary school was pretty good.
Middle school was not.
~
The first problem was classes.
Because classes were different now, and Jeremy and Michael had different homerooms, and therefor different classes.
During the second week of sixth grade, Jeremy had suddenly remembered exactly why he and Michael had their usual bathroom system in place, when he’d spent a solid half hour (he’d timed it) with his hand raised, waiting for the teacher to notice him and give permission to use the bathroom.
Spoiler alert: she hadn’t. The bell rang first, and Jeremy went during break.
This pattern continued for a while, until in November, when one day Jeremy was relatively certain he couldn’t hold it for another twenty minutes, and was desperate and annoyed enough to just stand up and walk out of class without asking.
The teacher hadn’t said a word, and neither had any of the other students. Nobody objected to him leaving, nobody was angry when he returned.
A few more hesitant tests over the year proved that as long as he was there for attendance, Jeremy could skip class as much as he wanted, without consequence.
Needless to say, seventh grade was a lot more enjoyable.
Oh, he went to most of his classes, but Jeremy was a restless child. When he was stressed, annoyed or distracted, it was great to have the option to just… get up and walk away. Run through the halls for a while (also not allowed, but no one ever stopped him), then return to class when he was feeling better. His grades that year were excellent, despite not being able to ask questions. The same went for grade eight, and then it was high school.
High school had its own challenges, but was also a bit easier. Michael and Jeremy had some classes together again, so Michael was able to resume asking questions for Jeremy in those classes. He’d also gotten used to Jeremy’s ability to just walk out whenever he wanted, and was openly jealous about it, albeit mostly as a joke.
Unfortunately, high school was also a melting pot of stress, hormones and puberty, and was when kids started getting really vicious with each other.
Not that Jeremy was ever targeted by bullies… ever, but Michael was. Halfway through freshman year especially, one formerly quiet kid named Rich suddenly started speaking up, and also became a giant dick. Michael had to put up with shit for a while, before he developed a reputation as the weird loner headphones kid, and most people left him alone. No point making fun of someone who couldn’t hear you and didn’t care. Rich was the only real problem, occasionally shoving Michael against lockers, or various other things.
That kid had anger issues.
Sophomore year went in the same vein, of them having some classes together, and some apart. Jeremy started going to most of his classes just for attendance, and then immediately leaving and spending his day wandering around the school by himself. After school, he would go over to Michael’s house, and sleep over as much as possible. His parents were fighting more and more, over almost every topic that came up. Jeremy started stashing food in his room to avoid having to leave his room, and almost cried from relief when Michael gave him his noise cancelling headphones as a loan for however long he needed them. They were probably the only reason he could sleep at home anymore. He started noticing bruises on his father’s arms occasionally, and tried very hard not to think about their origins. His mother started being unable to notice Jeremy was in a room unless his presence was pointed out to her.
In the late spring, his parents divorced, and his mother left without fighting for custody. Jeremy gave the headphones back to Michael, as there was now almost no noise in the house to try and ignore, just the occasional sounds of TV. His father started exclusively working from home, and developed an aversion to pants.
Jeremy bombed that year’s finals, narrowly passing almost everything. He failed his math class by three percent, and out of desperation ended up waiting until his math teacher left the room, and then went up to his computer and moved his grade up by ten percent, heart pounding with fear the whole time. Skipping class was one thing, but blatant cheating was another. If he was caught…
But he wasn’t caught, and the teacher didn’t notice the difference. He passed math, and never told anyone what he’d done, not even Michael.
He’d spent most the summer at Michael’s house.
One of Michael’s moms made tech for superheroes, so as a result, Michael was an enthusiastic fan of them, and kept Jeremy up to date on all the heroes and villains running around. That summer, a new supervillain began operating in their area, one who could make people fall into hysterical laughter just by talking. Appropriately, he was named Comedy, and apparently worked for a bigger, badder supervillain called the Squip. Whatever ominous plans he had were probably going to be unpleasant for them all, so Michael’s mom spent most of her time frantically working on better gear for the local superheroes, in the hopes that they could handle it before said unpleasant things came to pass.
But that was the most interesting thing to happen that summer, and their Junior year had started without incident. Jeremy’s resolution to attend class more had quickly been broken by him struggling to give a shit, and he’d eventually only been showing up just because Michael got sad and worried if he skipped too much.
A few weeks into September, he felt someone staring at him during lunch.
To his surprise, Rich Goranski had been staring at him, looking deeply contemplative. They’d made eye contact, and both immediately looked away.
Jeremy had written it off as surprising, and a potentially bad sign. Just his luck, the first time he starts getting reliably noticed would probably be to get bullied.
On Friday, he’d bothered to show up to math (might as well actually work at it this year, but he could always just sneak onto the computer and change his grade again), and left halfway through to use the bathroom.
Rich had followed him into the bathroom, locked the door, and talked to him.
And Jeremy’s whole life had flipped.