Chapter Text
“So, like, what’s the worst thing about me?” Michael asks out of the blue one day, when they’ve gotten a GAME OVER for the tenth time.
“Dude, what?” Jeremy asks. “You’re my best friend.”
“I knooow,” Michael sighs, rolling over on his beanbag. He spots a piece of popcorn and flicks it with his fingers, sending it straight into Jeremy’s shirt. “But, like, seriously. I know I’m your favowite, but there has to be something.”
“You’re never gonna let me forget I said that, are you?” the taller boy responds dryly. He stands and shakes his shirt, but the popcorn just falls into his pants instead. He kicks his leg a few times, and it falls out onto the floor. “Why are you even asking? Are you gonna take off on a self-help mission or something?”
Michael laughs, but there’s something nervous behind it. “Just, y’know, reasons.”
Jeremy looks down at him strangely. “Seriously, Michael. You and I should know better than anyone that you shouldn’t change yourself just to make someone else happy.” Michael stares at the screen, refusing to make eye contact with Jeremy. They stay like that, silent, for a while. “Did something happen?”
“No,” Michael says unconvincingly, even though it’s the truth. Nothing happened, nothing’s going to happen. Jeremy plops back down next to him. “I’ve just been thinking about… stuff.”
You, Michael’s heart says.
“What kind of stuff?” Jeremy’s staring at him, now, and it makes Michael uncomfortable for a lot of reasons.
“Just, like...” he trails off, choosing his words, “...like, where this is all going.”
Jeremy raises an eyebrow, confusion and worry evident in the eyes his friend won’t meet. “Where what is going?”
God, he’s dense, Michael’s brain says. This is hopeless. Maybe there isn’t anything I can work on to make him feel about me the way I feel about him. Maybe he just never will.
His heart speaks up: I’m too dependent on him. Is that it? That’s what mom always says.
“Michael?” Jeremy asks, tentative.
“Nevermind,” Michael mumbles. He pushes start. The round picks up again, but Jeremy dies immediately. He’s too busy watching the TV reflected in Michael’s glasses.
“I mean, I guess--” the taller boy starts, stopping Michael’s heart and brain at the same time. “I guess if I had to pick something, you’re kind of… stressful.”
“What?” Michael exclaims, bewildered. “Why?”
“I- I don’t mean it like that! Or, well, I guess I kinda do,” Jeremy runs a hand through his hair. “I just mean, I… worry about you, a lot?”
Michael sits up and looks at him, letting his character get overrun by zombies. This is not what he was expecting. “Why?” he asks again, more curious than woe-is-me now.
“You just-- uh, you do dumb stuff, or weird shit happens to you, and I’m afraid you’ll get hurt,” Jeremy explains. “I used to always worry that people would be mean to you because you didn’t care what they thought, even though I did everything I could to fit in and still got bullied. I guess eventually, after… everything, I figured that wasn’t the problem.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Michael replies honestly.
I got nothing, his heart adds.
Yeah, what the fuck? Michael’s brain agrees.
Jeremy sighs in frustration, “I mean-- I don’t know, like...” He trails off, trying to come up with an example so he can explain what he means. He watches the timer of the GAME OVER screen tick down in Michael’s glasses. At ONE, he comes up with something.
“Okay, like your glasses. You lose them or break them all the time.”
“Yeah? Why would that worry you, it’s not like you have to pay for them.”
“No, I mean, you never just lose them or just break them, though. Someone dares you to do something stupid or something insane happens; it’s like the universe is trying to mug you and steal your glasses. I don’t give a shit about your specs, dude, it’s the ways they get demolished that worry me.”
Michael takes off his glasses and looks at them. They’re his fifth pair this year. “I still don’t follow,” he says self-consciously. “Name one time I broke my spectacles in a spectacular way.”
Jeremy kicks him halfheartedly, smirking at his friend’s dumb pun. “I can name several, actually. Like the time--”