Chapter Text
Jeremy stares at Michael’s back as they walk down the stairs, wondering if he’s really about to do this.
“You okay?”
Jeremy trips a little as the stairs move beneath him. He grips the handrail and giggles.
Michael laughs at him over his shoulder. His cheeks are flushed and he’s wobbly, too, and the doubt Jeremy felt moments ago is swiftly replaced by a swirly numbness, and a guilty sort of contentment that he only gets from drinking too much of Michael’s gin.
No matter what they’re doing, he can’t help but feel safe with Michael.
They reach the bottom of the stairs and fumble their way outside. Jeremy can’t take his eyes off Michael’s shoulders, in that old leather jacket of his.
The streetlight outside their apartment is buzzing, and the bleakness of it is harsh. Jeremy looks at it, and feels comforted, nonetheless.
The air is perfect. Not cold, not hot. Just right. Jeremy’s always loved October.
“It’s so cold out here,” Michael shoves his hand into his pocket.
“You’re always cold,” Jeremy says. His teeth feel numb.
“Heheh yeah.” Michael pulls a crumpled box out of his pocket and flicks it open. He pulls a cigarette out, then offers the box to Jeremy.
“You sure?” Michael asks.
Jeremy said he would, upstairs in their warm apartment, feeling so good after their other roommates went to bed. Because that meant that now it was just him and Michael, and Jeremy could do anything when it was just him and Michael against the world.
But outside, in the bleak light, Jeremy feels like he can’t do a thing. He shakes his head, staring at that box.
Seeing that pack in Michael’s hand is too weird.
“That’s okay,” Michael puts the butt of the cigarette in his mouth, then pulls out a box of matches. He strikes one. “If you want, you can just take a drag off mine.”
Jeremy’s eyes are transfixed on Michael’s hand, on that match. He quickly stuffs the matchbox back in his pocket, then lifts the match to his lips. His other hand is guarding it, though there’s no wind at all.
The flame lights up Michael’s face. The angle of the lighting is all wrong, but it makes his skin glow. Overpowering the shadows under his eyes, and the redness within them.
Michael inhales, shaking the match to extinguish it. He drops it on the sidewalk, then takes the cigarette out of his mouth, holding it with his first two fingers, and exhales. Smoke pours from his lips and out from his nose.
He closes his eyes and tilts his head ever so slightly back as the cloud dissipates from around him, looking for the world like he’s done this thousands of times before.
Jeremy thought, in his drunken state, that when Michael asked if he wanted to smoke, he meant pot.
Not cigarettes.
Jeremy didn’t even know Michael smoked cigarettes. Not until he saw him stuff that red and white pack into his jacket pocket not two minutes ago.
Michael takes it from his lips, offering it to Jeremy.
“I don’t know how,” Jeremy says. He takes it, trying to hold it like Michael did, but he feels like a fake.
“Just put it in your lips, and inhale,” Michael says, not unkindly. “It’s gonna taste real bad.”
Jeremy shakes his head. Yeah, he figured that was what you were supposed to do, but somewhere deep in his stomach full of booze, the nerves are still there, unshakable.
Jeremy looks at him. Those kind brown eyes tell Jeremy that this is still his Michael, yet Jeremy can’t help but wonder who this guy is, with that half-empty box of cigarettes in his pocket.
He doesn’t think he’s met this Michael before.
God, Jeremy’s plastered.
He puts the orange end near his mouth, like Michael did. Before it even hits his lips, he can taste it. It’s disgusting. He hesitates.
“You just inhale, breathe. It’s gonna taste really bad.”
And while everything in him is screaming not to do this, his stomach is full of gin and his head is empty of everything, except the knowledge that he’s standing next to Michael.
And Jeremy trusts Michael.
Jeremy tries again, and this time, it hits his lips. He inhales.
He feels a burn, in the back of his throat, and a whole forest fire rips down into his lungs. But then he exhales, slowly, and his head gets a little fuzzier. He watches the smoke fall from him, wondering where it came from. He barely tastes anything.
“There,” Michael says. Jeremy hands the cigarette over, already wanting it back. “That was a big hit, dude.”
Jeremy wouldn’t know.
Michael watches the cigarette for a split second before putting it back in his mouth. Jeremy can’t look away. Michael moves to stand next to Jeremy under the awning of that restaurant they live above, long closed for the night, and smokes.
Jeremy shoves his hands in his pockets. He almost coughs, but doesn’t.
“Want one?”
“No,” Jeremy says. His ears are ringing. “If I started, I’d never stop.”
“Yeah,” Michael says, exhaling. The smoke hits Jeremy’s nostrils. Jeremy does want one. “I thought I’d quit, but."
Michael holds the cigarette out a bit, and taps it with his thumb. The ash crumbles away. Jeremy watches it fall. Still air hangs between them.
“When did you start?”
Michael looks at him sideways, and his eyes change.
And Jeremy knows exactly when Michael started, before Michael even says anything.
“Junior year. October.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
Jeremy looks away then.
The bus stop in front of them is empty. It’s weird to see it like that. In the daytime, there’s always a small crowd hanging around outside their apartment, waiting for one bus or another. But at one in the morning, no one.
Across the street, a group of men turn the corner, they’re loud and drunk as they cross the street, towards them. Jeremy could laugh at how different that picture is from his. He’s drunk, too, but not like that. Not in a fun way.
“You got a cig?” One of them in the back asks Michael. It makes Jeremy nervous, but Michael just leans against the storefront, and pulls the pack from his pocket. He flicks it open again, and pops one out for the guy to take, then he hands him his matches.
The guy lights up and hands Michael the matches back. “Thanks, man.”
“No problem.” The man nods at Jeremy, then hurries away to catch up with his group.
Jeremy wonders if Michael’s ever bummed a cigarette from someone like that.
It almost makes him sad.
Michael drops the orange butt on the ground, and puts it out with his shoe. He takes out another, and lights up. Jeremy inhales with him. Michael looks like a dragon when he exhales.
“Do you wanna walk to the park?” Michael asks.
“No,” Jeremy says. “If I walk I might puke.”
“I’m definitely gonna puke tonight.”
Jeremy laughs a little. Michael does, too. Inhaling, exhaling. Jeremy lets the smell wash over him.
“I like that smell.”
“Smoke?” Michael’s eyes go wide, almost like a laugh without laughing.
“Yeah.”
“You’re so weird.”
Jeremy smiles. “Yeah.”
Michael coughs. Jeremy breathes in the fresh air. Michael smokes.
“I think I might drop out,” Michael says.
“Yeah?” Jeremy watches the leaves fall.
Michael takes a really long drag, closing his eyes again. “I don’t think I can do college.”
“Oh,” Jeremy feels his stomach clench, fighting between the gin, the nicotine, and this third thing Michael just gave him.
“I don’t really know anymore, what I wanna do.”
Jeremy watches Michael. Michael's not looking at him. He's watching his cigarette burn between his fingers. He drops it, and puts it out with his shoe, not looking up.
Jeremy wants to help, but he doesn’t know what to do, either.
Michael puts his hands back in his pockets, and that’s where they stay.
“Do you wanna go back inside?” Jeremy asks him.
Michael looks up at him, then. He glows under the streetlights.
“Yeah.”
"Okay," Jeremy says. "Let's go back."