Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jeremy cracks his eyes open and unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth and he feels… weird. Different. Empty. There’s too many thoughts swirling around his mind but they’re all wrong , none of them are the voice he knows, the familiar voice that comes up from the base of his skull like hot tea and electricity and fills him with a warm glow and tells him what to do. No one’s telling him what to do.

“Son?”

There’s a voice, a man talking to him, but it’s the wrong voice , it’s someone different and wrong and he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to react. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to act.

“Son, can you hear me? Blink if you can hear me.”

He does, twice, letting his eyelids flutter in response. Getting orders feels right. Following orders feels right.

“Can you tell me your name?”

His throat feels rough and wrong but he speaks, lets the words come up, stilted and awkward as they are. “J-Jeremy Heere.”

“That’s it, that’s right,” the man says, and Jeremy can see one gloved hand come down on his arm, comforting and inquisitive and he would lean into the stranger’s touch but it’s wrong , it’s not lit up blue and commanding and it doesn’t sound like Keanu Reeves and it isn’t telling him everything he needs to know, do this , don’t do that , remember you’re a monster . “Just sit tight, okay? Your dad’s on his way, kid. It’s gonna be okay. You’re safe now.”

Safe from what? He was safe before, safe from corruption and screwing up, safe from himself. He was safe when he had someone watching over his shoulder and telling him what he was doing wrong, who else was doing stuff wrong, what he had to do about it.

He hears a woman’s voice join in with the man’s, and he still can’t really focus enough to make out faces or details, just blurry shapes with voices. Does he need glasses? Did he need glasses Before? He can’t remember. He has trouble remembering Before.

“How long was he infected?” she asks, detached and cool, talking to the man.

“Looks like a little over a year,” the man tells her. “Activation must’ve occurred September of last year, and then the thing incubated until taking total control a little after Halloween.”

“Like the other patients?”

“No,” the man says. “You mean the kids, right? From New Jersey? No, theirs got deactivated like right after activation. His was too powerful, though, too stubborn. Like the Goranski kid, except his got deactivated three months ago." 

The woman disappears and so does her voice, and Jeremy’s left with the strange man flitting over him, checking vitals and pressing cold gloved fingers into his arm. Alone, too alone in his head, Jeremy drifts to sleep.

He wakes up when he hears another man’s voice, this one familiar. “... as fast as I could, tried to call my ex-wife but she’s not picking up. How is he?” That’s Dad. The classification feels clunky, like Jeremy hasn’t thought about his family in forever. Like Dad is just a label, not a definition, not a person.

“He’s very confused, which is understandable,” the man tells Dad. “We’re still flushing MDR through his system, and we’ll need to keep him here another 48 hours for observation.”

“Can he hear me?”

“Yes,” the man says. “But he might not respond.”

“Jeremy?” Dad leans over him, and Jeremy can actually see him clearer than he’s seen anything else. “Hey, I’m here. I’m Heere , haha. Everything’s gonna be okay. I’m sorry all this happened.”

Jeremy tries to open his mouth and say that it didn’t just happen , he made it happen. He’s responsible for every fucked up thing that happened. But his head feels so, so heavy and there’s no one telling him what to say and what not to say. “You’re wearing pants,” he says, looking down at the khakis on Dad’s legs.

And then he wears himself out again and falls asleep.

When Jeremy wakes up again, the room is empty. He’s alone in his hospital room and he’s alone in his bed. “What do I do?” he whispers, lips chapped and throat sore and horribly, horribly alone. “What do I say? How do I do this?”

No one answers.

When he really focuses, he can pick out individual events from the past year, but it’s hard, like trying to grab at seashells before the tide carries them back out. He remembers the play vividly, and he remembers waking up here. Those are the bookends.

In between there’s lights, the grinding of a car engine, so many faces flashing in front of him. Pills. His phone. A vaguely familiar apartment, somewhere far away from Middle Borough. He tries to pick out Brooke, Chloe, Christine, Jake, but they don’t make many appearances.

He tries to find Michael in the waterfall of memories, but he’s distorted, buried too deep to decipher.

When Dad comes to get him and take him home, he’s got a big pair of headphones and an iPod. It’s too familiar to Jeremy, the shape of it sends phantom shocks down his spine. “The doctors said some of the other, uh, patients have issues with the quiet,” Dad says. “So… here.”

Jeremy holds the iPod and headphones in front of him and lets Dad lead him out the door. He’s wearing new jeans and a Star Wars T-shirt that Dad brought for him. It’s not his but it feels more like himself than the clothes he’s worn for the past year. It feels more like the clothes he used to wear Before.

He climbs into Dad’s Nissan and jams the headphones over his ears, filters through the music options on the iPod as the car pulls out of the parking lot. Weezer, but that’s Wrong. The Hamilton soundtrack, but that’s Wrong. He finally finds a sample of a Stephen King audiobook and plays it on repeat, because it sounds closer, better. It sounds like a steady, even voice telling him everything he needs to know.

Dad stops at a McDonald’s before they get home, and he orders for Jeremy, chicken nuggets and french fries and a Coke. Jeremy eats without really tasting anything, longing for someone to tell him what he should be eating, how he needs food with more protein to build onto his skinny frame, because he’s so, so goddamned skinny and shouldn’t he be ashamed? Jeremy swallows cold french fries and tries not to think.

They get home and Dad is talking to him, something about taking it easy, something about Mom. Jeremy tries to read his lips without taking off the headphones. In the past year, he got pretty good at focusing on two voices, focusing on the voice in his head and the voices in his ears.

It’s all a blur, and then eventually Jeremy winds up in his bedroom, alone except for the smooth voice dictating Stephen King through his headphones. He needs to download some more audiobooks, he decides. Maybe self-help recordings. If he could find recordings of Keanu Reeves talking… he just feels so lonely in his own head, so lost, with no clue what to do.

He falls asleep with “The Matrix” playing on his TV, longing for the order and stability he knew a few weeks ago. He sleeps fitfully. He dreams about glowing blue eyes and electric shocks radiating up and down his arms and legs.

When he wakes up the house is too quiet, too quiet, so Jeremy puts his headphones back on and turns up the Stephen King audiobook and wanders downstairs. Dad left a package of Pop Tarts on the counter along with a note about having to go to work. Jeremy starts in on the Pop Tarts without bothering to heat them up and he cracks open his laptop to search for spoken word files to download. He needs someone to tell him what to do. He needs someone to tell him what to do.

Just before noon, there’s a knock on the door, and Jeremy automatically goes to answer it. There, standing on the doorstep in his red hoodie, headphones around his neck. Michael Mell. He looks thinner and there are dark circles under his eyes and he’s older, he’s so, so much older, and has it really only been a year?

“Michael.” Jeremy says it like he’s testing it out, trying to make sure he has the right name. It’s so hard to know things without someone reminding him what he needs to know, and he should know Michael, he should know Michael better than he knows himself. Everything’s a challenge now.

“Jesus Christ,” Michael breathes, incredulous. “I had to see it for myself. I had to know if it was true, but it is. You’re really back here.” Jeremy opens his mouth to say something-- he doesn’t know what-- but he doesn’t get a chance.

Michael decks him.

Chapter Text

“Michael!”

“Son of a bitch, you ruined my fucking life.” Michael’s breathing too hard, and leaning against the doorframe, like he’s the one who just took a fist to the face. “How could you? How could you ?”

“I’m sorry!” Jeremy says, but is that the right thing to say? He doesn’t know. It’s so hard. He wants to say something so he won’t get hit again and he wants to say something so Michael won’t look so broken. What is he supposed to say? He flicks through his brain, looking for something, anything. “I shouldn’t have blocked you out. I shouldn’t have left you in a bathroom on Halloween, I should never have called you a loser. I’m sorry, Michael.”

Michael just laughs, cold and harsh and not really like him, but also too much like him. Vulnerable, sad. “You think that’s what I…? Do you even remember?”

He remembers the play. He remembers Michael showing up with the Mountain Dew Red, and he remembers Christine screaming, and he remembers all the Squips deactivating… except for his.

“Michael, I’m sorry,” he says, eyes trained on the ground. “After the play it all gets kind of… fuzzy.”

“What, everything?” Michael says, sounding furious and curious, the two emotions warring with each other. “The past year? You don’t remember going to New York? You don’t remember Rich? You don’t remember what you did right after the play ?”

Jeremy shakes his head, feeling like his ears are full of water. “I remember I was just… just doing whatever it said to do.”

“Fuck you,” Michael says, but there’s not really any power behind it. He shakes his head. “So you don’t know? So this is… this is what happened, Jeremy.” He smiles and it’s fake, and his eyes look a little crazed. He’s speaking too casually, forcing a fake grin. “Oh, man. Oh, man. So Mr. Reyes called everyone’s parents, right? Normal thing to do, after everyone passes out. Everyone’s parents show up. My parents show up.” Michael sucks in a breath between his teeth. “And you… you fucking… you walk right up to them, right? And you say… you say, ‘Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Mell… did you know? That Michael’s gay?’” Michael lets out a kind of hysterical, breathy laugh then, eyes too wide.

Jeremy feels like a stone is sinking gradually through his chest down to his stomach. “Oh my God, Michael, I’m so sorry,” he says, feeling like there’s a rushing in his ears. He wants to put his headphones on and listen to his audiobook, but that would be rude, right? That would be rude. He’s not sure. “What did they…? I mean, I always thought they were pretty cool with that kind of…” He trails off when he sees the look on Michael’s face.

“No, no, you’re right,” Michael says, voice too thin, like he’s struggling for air. “No, no, they were super cool with it. They were great, right? They sent me… they decided to send me to this… super fun camp… with all the other little faggots. And I got to learn all about how I’m an abomination… going to hell. It was a blast.”

“Michael--”

“You ruined my life,” Michael says, not really with any malice. It’s just a fact. “I guess it’s good that that thing’s out of your skull. Good for you. Goodbye, Jeremy.” He leaves, and Jeremy stands there in the open door watching him walk away.

He waits until he sees the PT Cruiser pull out of the driveway, and then he puts his headphones back on and turns the volume all the way up.

When Jeremy wakes up the next morning, Michael is the first thing on his mind. He needs to see him, talk to him, needs to apologize properly, needs to see Michael just to reassure himself that he’s okay, that he’s still intact and safe after everything he must’ve gone through.

Jeremy’s legs bring him to Michael’s house like he’s on autopilot. It’s just an automatic response, the walk to Michael’s house, the turn by the stop sign with the spray-painted Darth Vader on it, the step over the cracked curb in front of the lawn.

He raises his hand robotically and knocks, and even though it’s early still someone answers immediately. “Oh! Oh my goodness, Jeremy,” Mrs. Mell says, looking also tireder and older than she did a year ago. Jeremy tries to dredge up the last time he saw Michael’s parents. Must’ve been pizza at Michael’s house last year, sometime before the Squip. Before everything. “I, um, I heard you were back with your dad. That’s good, that’s really…”

“Is Michael here?”

Her eyes widen. “Michael doesn’t live here anymore,” she says, and there’s too many emotions in her voice for Jeremy to sort through. His hands itch for the headphones he left at his house. “He won’t speak to us, if you… If you see him, can you tell him we still love him and we’re worried about him?”

Jeremy stares at her, feeling like he should be angry. But it’s hard for him to know what he’s supposed to feel these days. “Okay,” he says leadenly, and then somehow he manages to say goodbye and she says goodbye and he walks away.

Rich Goranski is sitting on the curb across from the house, smoking a cigarette and glaring. Jeremy does a double take before approaching him. “Hey,” he says. “You’re… you.”

“Yup,” Rich says, staring forward without really focusing on Jeremy.

“I, um… I don’t really know… what happened,” Jeremy confesses, reaching the other side of the street and looking down at Rich.

“Mulder and Scully didn’t tell you?” Rich says, puffing on his cigarette. He speaks with a heavy lisp now, After. (Before Rich must have, too, but Jeremy didn’t know Before Rich.) He’s also got burn scars traveling up his arms and chest. (That happened During, but before the part where everything gets hard for Jeremy to remember.) “The Squip. They made it to take people over, and boy did it.”

“Who’s they?” Jeremy asks, sitting down next to Rich. He reaches out for a drag on the cigarette, but Rich ignores him and doesn’t offer it.

“Big Japan,” he shrugs. “The Men in Black, the big shady organization that put us through all this shit. I got kinda a… vague idea of it. They take over a whole demographic… like ‘active millennials,’ I think that’s what we were. And then sell those demographics to the highest bidder. Then whoever… ‘owns’ us makes us vote for who they wanna vote for, buy what they want us to buy, protest what they want us to protest… we were drones, Jeremy.”

“Jesus,” Jeremy says, hanging onto the edge of the curb like if he lets go he’ll fall. “But it’s all okay now?”

Rich snorts. “Sure, everything’s okey-dokey now,” he says. “I mean, I guess the G-men and Captain America and whoever the fuck else they’ve got on ‘our side’ shut down the people making the Squips, but I dunno about you, man, I’m still fucked up.”

Jeremy nods, feeling his head cloud up. He wants someone to tell him what to do. “Do you know where Michael is?”

“He’s living with Jake in an apartment right outside town,” Rich tells him. “I can give you their address, but… look, if Michael doesn’t want to see you, you shouldn’t force him to, you know? I did some shitty stuff when I was Squipped and I still don’t know if Jake forgives me.”

“I forgive you,” Jeremy says suddenly, but he doesn’t know if he’s saying it so Rich can hear it, or if he’s saying it because he’s hoping Rich will say it back. Maybe he’s saying it just to say it, just to believe that anyone can be forgiven for what they did when the Squip was calling the shots.

“Awesome,” Rich says blankly. “Here, I’ll text you the address. … Use it wisely.”

Chapter Text

Jeremy walks home and gets his headphones and puts them on, and he sits on the couch and listens to an audiobook about boats until Dad gets home.

Negotiating to borrow the car isn’t hard (well-- it isn’t harder than talking about anything else. Talking at all is Hard, though.) Dad lets him take the keys as long as he promises to be home before ten.

He’s pretty sure Michael’s just going to slam the door in his face, so agreeing to the curfew is easy.

Jeremy drives with his headphones on, still listening to a monotone voice drone on about the upkeep of sailboats.

Jake and Michael live in a bright, cheery-looking apartment complex, with neatly trimmed bushes lining the sidewalk. Jeremy feels like a raccoon digging through the garbage, and he half-expects one of the residents to run outside and chase him off with a broom. He doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t belong here.

Jeremy knocks on their door and waits. And waits.

Jake answers, looking pretty much the same as Jeremy last saw him except his legs are healed up now, he’s not on crutches. He leans on a cane as he appraises Jeremy from the threshold of the apartment. “Oh, hey,” he says, trying too hard to sound casual. “Yeah, I heard you were back in town.”

“Hi, Jake,” Jeremy says, taking his headphones off and tucking them around his neck, but it feels wrong. It feels like he stole the look from Michael, and he doesn’t deserve it. “Is Michael…?” But he trails off when Michael appears behind Jake, wearing socks and boxers and a T-shirt.

“Let him in,” Michael says. Jake just walks away from the door, disappearing off into the small kitchen. Jeremy doesn’t move, he just stares at Michael across the entryway. “In or out, Jere,” Michael says tiredly. “We don’t need you letting in every mosquito in Jersey.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jeremy says, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. “Your parents miss you,” he says automatically, immediately feeling stupid.

Michael’s expression sours. “No, they don’t,” he says. “They miss the version of me they made up inside their heads. Are you just here to play messenger boy for my parents?”

“N-no,” Jeremy says, and his eyes dart down to his feet but he forces himself to look back up at Michael. “I needed to see you. Again. And I’m sorry. And… I missed you.”

Michael laughs harshly. “You didn’t miss me,” he says. “Maybe you do now , but you didn’t miss me when you were in New York, raking in the cash, fucking your way through Manhattan.” Jeremy inhales sharply; he still doesn’t remember most of what the Squip used him to do. It’s like he was hiding in a little corner of his head, trying not to look as the Squip grabbed the wheel and hurled him off the road. “Jeremy, if you feel guilty--”

“I’m not guilty,” he says. “I’m… angry.” Is he? It’s so hard to tell. Everything he feels is shrouded by a layer of fog. “What your parents did to you, what the people at the camp did to you… what I did to you… it was messed up. It was so messed up to do that to a person, and you… Michael, I don’t want you getting hurt, ever . A-and…” He’s hyperventilating now, and Michael takes a few steps forward like he’s going to help, but then he stops. “I’m sorry!”

“Jeremy, calm down,” Michael says, standing his ground and not moving forward. Before, Michael would have grounded him with a hand on his shoulder and talking him through breathing, in for two, out for two. In for three, out for three. Now he just watches. “I’m… I’m fine now.”

“What did they do to you?” He’s heard horror stories, he’s seen “But I’m A Cheerleader.” Honestly, Jeremy has no idea what goes down at real-life conversion camps. Prayer sessions? Torture? His mind conjures up horrible images of Michael in shackles sitting in a church.

“No,” Michael says. “No, I’m not going to indulge you and your… it’s not about you, alright? It’s my trauma. I share it with who I want to share it with.”

“Okay,” Jeremy says. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Michael repeats, staring at him. There’s something so stunted and uncomfortable between them, and Jeremy can’t help but think that if he still had the Squip, he would know what to say. He would know how to make Michael forgive him, if he even deserves to be forgiven.

But then again, the Squip is the reason Michael got hurt.

“Look, are you… is that all you came over for?” Michael says.

“I just wanted to see you.” It’s the truth. Jeremy went so, so long without seeing him.

“Here I am.” Michael’s eyes look flat. “Look, Jere, I’m… I probably shouldn’t have hit you. And I am glad that the Squip’s gone, because I know, Rich has told me, it’s not… a good feeling, having a Squip. So. But you can’t just step back into your life like everything’s the same. That’s not how it works.”

“I know,” Jeremy says in a small voice. It’s what he wants, though. He wants to crawl back into last September like nothing happened. Like no time has passed at all, like he never told Michael’s parents anything and Michael never went anywhere. Like they’re still best friends. “Are you okay?”

Michael looks like he wasn’t expecting that. “Yes,” he says, a little softer than everything else he said. “I… I’m in a group. I talk to people. I’m okay, Jeremy.”

Jeremy nods, chewing on his bottom lip. And then he turns around and goes for the door, and Michael just kinda moves back toward the couch and the TV, looking a little lost. Jake moves as fast as he can to the door. “Gimme your phone,” he says in a low voice as Michael goes back to video games.

Jeremy doesn’t question it, just hands his phone to Jake, who quickly hammers a number into the contacts. “That’s me,” he says, handing the phone back. “Rich said you’re a little foggy on everything that went down, so uh, if you ever need to talk, you can call me. Or Rich.”

Jeremy nods, his head feeling waterlogged. “Do you forgive him?”

Jake looks startled. “Rich? You mean for…” He looks down at the cane. “Yeah. Yes, yes I do. But I’m not Michael, and I’m not gonna speak for Michael.”

“Right,” Jeremy says, staring down at his phone. “Thanks, Jake.”

“’Course.”

He shuts the door.

When he gets home, Jeremy’s surprised to see a car in the driveway. It’s too dark for him to recognize it. He parks the Nissan beside the strange car and walks inside, and there she is.

“Mom,” Jeremy breathes, and in a second he’s engulfed in her arms, face buried in her sweater.

“Hey,” she says, rocking back and forth a little. “Hey, your dad called me, told me what’s been happening… I know it’s been awhile, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, baby…” She leans back and wipes a hand across his forehead, smoothing his bangs.

His headphones got knocked off when they hugged, and now he stoops down to pick them up. “You’re here?”

“Mm-hmm,” she says, blinking away tears. She’s a thin little woman with big glasses, an English professor-turned-writer who still hasn’t put down roots since the divorce six years prior. “Not for a real long time, honey, but I’m here. I was so worried about you.”

“Yeah,” Jeremy says, not really sure what he’s supposed to say. Did Dad tell him she was coming? Maybe he did and it slipped past him; it’s so hard to listen . The Squip always told him he was a bad listener. “You seen Dad?”

“We had dinner,” she explains. “Where were you?”

“At Michael’s.”

She smiles. “I always liked him. It’s good to know that even after… well, whatever it was happened, you two are still such good friends… Jeremiah, honey, why are you crying?”

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know.

Chapter Text

The next day, Mom takes him to the mall (“retail therapy,” she says), except she won’t let him bring the headphones. “I never get to see you, honey, I just want to have a real conversation with you,” she explains as they wander past the shop windows.

“Uh-huh.” He’s having trouble zeroing in on her words with all the other stimuli flooding his brain. People chatting in the food court, three different songs drifting from the speakers of three different stores, and louder than it all, the horrible, deafening silence . No one telling him what he should say to Mom. No one telling him how to walk, how to hold his shoulders, which shirt to buy.

“... and a new pair of shoes, your sneakers are looking kind of ratty. We could go to Payless?”

Payless, the salesperson, the Squip, the shoebox… His brain feels like it’s stuck in a rinse cycle, battered relentlessly back and forth. “Yeah, sure,” he mumbles, feeling like he’s drowning. What is he supposed to do? Where was he supposed to be? What did he do?

“... miah? Jeremiah?” Her voice fades in and out like a radio with bad reception, and Jeremy’s legs wobble and it’s all too much, too much, too much. What’s happening? What did he do? Why is he so terrible, terrible, terrible , and does everyone in the mall really think he’s a slob? What?

Jeremy’s got his hands pressed over his ears and he’s bent over ( horrible posture, but who is there to tell him so?) and the next thing he knows, Michael Mell is trying to slip his own trademark white headphones over Jeremy’s ears. “No,” Jeremy mumbles.

“Yes,” Michael insists. It's like a dream, Michael showing up at the mall right when Jeremy needs him, except Jeremy doesn't deserve his help, not anymore. “Just, come on. I’m not letting you have a panic attack in the frickin’ mall, Jeremy.”

So Jeremy lets Michael put the headphones over his ears. It’s like sliding under the surface of a warm bath, letting the comfort surround him. Whatever Michael was listening to fills his ears, something weird from the seventies, but the singer has a calming, low voice that’s easy for Jeremy to listen to.

He watches Michael and Mom like he’s looking through a fish tank. “Professor Heere!”

“It’s good to see you, Michael,” Mom says, looking upset. “I don’t know what’s wrong with Jeremy.”

“He’s… been through some stuff,” Michael says, sparing Jeremy a glance. “Uh, how are you?”

She looks startled, but Jeremy’s grateful. Michael knows he just needs the attention off of him for a moment. Michael’s too good a friend. Jeremy doesn’t know how he ended up with Michael as a friend. Ex-friend? It’s hard to say now. “Oh, I’m good. Been busy,” Mom says. “What about you? How are your parents?”

Michael stiffens but his face doesn’t betray anything. “They’re alright,” he says.

Once Jeremy’s calmed down, he hands Michael the headphones and wanders off with Mom, and she promises they’ll be quick. And that next time she’ll let him bring his headphones and iPod.

That night, Jeremy texts Michael and thanks him. He doesn’t know what he ever did to deserve Michael Mell, but he also doesn’t know everything about what exactly he did to hurt Michael Mell. Outing him was an act of violence, he knows that.

He wishes he knew why he couldn’t stop the Squip from doing it.

i don’t want you to be upset, tbh , Michael texts back after a few minutes. i don’t know what i want. but i know i don’t want you to be a wreck.

Jeremy considers it for a moment, and then he opens a new message and texts Jake.

“I have never heard of this place before,” Jake grins as Jeremy holds the door open into the little cafe two days later. “Real hole in the wall, huh?”

“My aunt used to work here,” Jeremy explains, and he’s feeling kind of okay today so the headphones are in the knapsack hung over his shoulder. “You want a coffee? My treat.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jake says, walking with Jeremy up to the front counter. “Get me, uh… a vanilla latte. Yeah. I’ll be over there,” he says, gesturing with his cane to a pair of fat leather chairs next to the window.

Jeremy orders and pays, and then once he has both coffees he heads to the chair next to Jake. The wait gave him time to come up with a script for what to say to him. “Thanks, man,” Jake says, taking his latte.

Jeremy sits down beside him and blows on his hot tea. “I don’t want to be in the dark,” he says. “I want to know what happened. Everything that happened, from the play to the time I woke up in the hospital a week ago.”

Jake whistles. “Alright,” he says. “The play… I mean, I was just waking up, I was all confused, my legs hurt like hell… But I saw you talking to Michael’s mom and dad. And… yeah, it was fucked up. I mean, I’ve been outed before…” Jeremy shoots him a questioning look. “I’m bi as hell, my dude. Anyway, I’ve been outed before, and it sucks but people are always like… so, so apologetic. Like it just comes out and then they’re like, ‘oh my God, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,’ you know, whatever. But you… I mean, you knew what you were doing. You were smiling. At first I thought it was a joke, or something, like they knew the whole time and you were making a joke, but damn, they blew up… Michael looked fucking terrified. I thought his dad was gonna hit him.” Jeremy flinches involuntarily. “Look, it’s… they’re not in his life now. He’s okay now.”

“They sent him away,” Jeremy says lowly.

“Yeah, but you’re getting ahead of me,” Jake says. “First, you went away.” Jake goes on to tell him about Jeremy running off to New York, about the gambling rings, the rumors.

“Michael said that thing about… having sex with everyone in Manhattan,” Jeremy says.

Jake shrugs. “All anyone knows are rumors. That’s between you and your Squip. But the gambling, the money, that’s true enough. Rich vouches for it. And, obviously you know, the money itself.”

Jeremy blinks. “What money?”

“The Squip counted cards, played the books… got you, like, 40k. But you know that!”

Jeremy shakes his head. “Wh-what? I don’t know anything about any money.”

Jake’s eyes widen. “Wait, you treated me without knowing about the money? Aw, that’s so sweet.”

Jeremy shakes his head, feeling like it’s filling up with water. “Wait, wait, wait, this doesn’t make any sense. The people who stopped the Squip, the feds or whoever, they would have taken the money.”

“Nah, they can’t trace it back to anyone with a legal claim to it,” Jake says. “Plus I think they want to consider it reparations for letting the Squip get out of control? I dunno. But point is, you’ve got 40k to your name. I mean, I think they transferred it to your dad’s account. He didn’t tell you?”

Dad probably told him, amid a bunch of other stuff. It’s hard for Jeremy to listen. At any rate, the money’s safer with Dad than with him. He wouldn’t know what to do with it. Maybe buy a new pair of shoes…

A new pair of shoes. Mom. Oh. The money. Mom. Oh .

“Jesus Christ,” Jeremy mumbles, looking down at his hands. She showed up again because… because she knew. She knew about the money. “Jake, I have to… I have to go home.”

“Okay,” Jake says, surprised but not pushing Jeremy. “You alright?”

Jeremy presses his lips together and gives him a quick nod, but he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if he’s alright. He just knows he needs to get home.

Chapter Text

Mom is on her laptop at the kitchen table when Jeremy walks in, and there’s so much anger bubbling in his chest that he doesn’t know what to do with it. No one’s telling him what to do with it, and he’s just angry and he doesn’t know what to do.

“I was missing for a year,” he says, letting his words just tumble out. “You didn’t care! You didn’t look for me.”

“Jeremiah, sweetie, calm down,” Mom says, shutting her laptop. She genuinely looks worried, and Jeremy’s chest cinches painfully.

“No!” he says. “No, you came back… you came back, you didn’t come back for me. You came back because I’ve got 40 thousand dollars and you want your share.”

Her face goes white… but she doesn’t deny it. “Sit down, sweetie.”

“No,” Jeremy says, but a sick part of him is thrilled to be given a command. It’s hard not to just do what Mom says. She knows better, right? Everyone else knows better than him what he should do and when he should do it. “Get out of my dad’s house.”

Mom adjusts her glasses, stance powerful. “You can’t talk to me like that.”

“If I gave you a third of that money right now, right this second, would you leave?” She hesitates, and he can see the truth in her eyes. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You’re not here for me and you never were. Get out of my dad’s house .”

He feels powerful and in control and he hasn’t felt like that since… since the Squip made him feel like that. He gets kind of a head rush as he watches Mom hastily pack up her things.

Jeremy’s seething, frothing with rage. It invigorates him. “Bye, Mom.” He stands unmoving in the kitchen as she tosses her things in her laptop bag, as she marches upstairs and comes back down with her suitcase in tow.

“Goodbye, Jeremiah,” she says coldly. “But for the record, I do care about you.”

“Six years,” Jeremy spits. “Six years, and I can count on one hand the number of times you’ve come to see me.”

“I’ve been… busy.”

“But your schedule cleared up when you heard about the money.” Mom just shakes her head. But then she’s gone, the door swinging shut behind her, and Jeremy feels victorious and… empty.

She’s still Mom.

Dad stands in the doorway to his office, staring at the place where his ex-wife just stormed out. “I’m sorry, Jeremy,” he says. “I would have thrown her out before if… if I knew how you felt.”

“It’s okay,” Jeremy says. “I didn’t even know how I felt.”

“And about the money,” Dad says. “I told her it was all for your college fund. And that’s true.” College. He’s going to need a GED before he needs a college fund.

“Thanks, Dad,” Jeremy says, but the strength he got from being mad is starting to fade. He needs more. He needs to feel like a person again.

He calls Rich.

“Yello?”

“Hey, Rich, it’s me,” Jeremy says, leaning his forehead against the cool surface of his bedroom wall. “I just… I just got really, really angry and I don’t want that feeling to go away. Because feelings are… I just don’t get a lot of them. Anymore. How do I… what do I do?”

Silence on the other end of the line. And then-- “Meet me in front of the Mells’ house in twenty minutes,” Rich says cryptically. And he hangs up.

Jeremy shows up at the curb where he saw Rich a few days ago and waits. It’s almost dusk, and his head feels too empty. Rich shows up after about two minutes carrying two cartons of eggs.

“You wanna get a good arc on it,” he instructs, coaching Jeremy on the best way to throw a raw egg. “Strong stance, hold it with your thumb and two fingers like this, and then let it fly.” The egg in Rich’s hand sails through the air and smashes into the vinyl siding above the Mells’ garage. “Now you try.”

“Are you sure this is okay?” Jeremy says, staring down at the egg in his hand.

“No, it’s not fucking okay,” Rich says, rolling his eyes. “Neither is sending your only child off to a torture camp. Throw the egg, Heere.”

Jeremy flashes back to Little League pitching practice, remembers where his feet are supposed to be, how to aim. He throws the egg and it collides with a window shutter on the second floor.

Rich whistles through his teeth. “Nice one,” he says, and he grabs another egg from the carton. Righteous anger sings through Jeremy and he feels good, he feels in control. He’s been so empty , so confused , but he knows that this, at least, is something .

They get through all of the first carton and almost halfway through the second when they see the Mells’ front door start to crack open. Michael’s parents are coming to investigate. “ Run ,” Rich says, and Jeremy doesn’t need to be told twice. He sprints down the street with Rich as fast as his legs will take him, running and running and running until his side splits and his breaths come in sharp little bursts and his legs burn but he’s still going. Rich splits off from him at one point and vanishes into a copse of trees and Jeremy keeps running.

He runs and runs and runs until he gets to the 7/11 down the road. Where Michael Mell is sitting on the curb.

Chapter Text

“H-hey,” Jeremy says, skidding to a stop. His lungs burn but he feels alive. “What’s…” He bends over, trying to catch his breath. “Michael. What are you doing here?”

Michael looks up at him, eyes red and kind of panicky-looking behind his glasses. “Oh, hey, Jeremy,” he says flatly. He zeroes in on the egg carton Jeremy’s still holding. “Making an omelet?”

Jeremy looks down like he forgot he still has the eggs. “Something like that.” Michael pats the curb beside him and Jeremy takes the invitation to sit, setting the eggs down in the grass beside them. “What are you doing here?” he asks again.

Michael sighs, his breathing quick and fluttery like a frightened bird. “I… the slushie machine was out of cherry. So I had a panic attack. Like a fucking child.”

Jeremy frowns. “It’s… it’s okay that you had a panic attack.” But that’s not what he means, not what he means at all. The anger he felt outside Michael’s parents house is fading fast, and there’s nothing to replace it. He’s terrified of being empty again.

“No… but it’s, like, whatever,” Michael grumbles, staring down at his feet. “The scary thing is… I, like, wanted to break the machine. I wanted to kick it and punch it and… So, Jamal from my therapy group says I need to have more con structive impulses and not de structive impulses, so I came out here and sat down and I’m just trying to… be .” He rambles, looking a little spaced out. “Speaking of destructive impulses, I’m really sorry I hit you. That wasn’t okay.”

“It’s okay,” Jeremy says, but Michael shakes his head.

“I… I just get so angry,” Michael explains, but Jeremy’s not sure why he looks so upset about that fact. He wishes he could be as angry as Michael seems. “The shit I put up with… I mean, they had us wake up every day and recite this thing. ‘I will embrace God and avoid sin. I will avoid sinful thoughts. I will punish myself as fit for sinful thoughts.’ It was fucked up. Sometimes I wake up and I’m saying it… it’s like you never get out.” He shudders. “God, I’m as broken as that damn slushie machine.”

No, you’re not , Jeremy wants to say, but the words catch in his throat. Is he? Didn’t Jeremy himself have a hand in breaking Michael? Is Jeremy broken too? He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know. “I’m sorry,” Jeremy says, but the words are too empty. He’s too empty. “Michael, I… I can’t tell you how sorry I am; I wish that I could.” Jeremy stares at their shoes, his Converse and Michael’s beat-up Vans. “What should I do?” he asks Michael. “I never know what I’m supposed to do. What do I do?”

Michael shakes his head. “I can’t tell you that, Jere,” he says. “No one can tell you what to do except for you.”

Jeremy sighs. “If anyone else outed you like that, made you go through all that shit, I’d be calling them an asshole. But I’m the asshole, and I just… I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say.”

Michael sits and holds his elbows, Jeremy sits next to him, they sit, they just sit. Cars whiz past on the road and a few families walk in and out of the convenience store, not giving them a glance.

“That was pretty good,” Michael says finally, lips quirking upward. “What you’re saying right now, that’s alright.”

Jeremy smiles. “I’ll do everything I can to make this better,” he says, waving a hand between the two of them to indicate what he means by this . “Even if that means leaving you alone, if that’s what you want, I’ll do that.”

Michael laughs a breathy little laugh and shakes his head. “Nah, I don’t… I don’t want you to stay away. That’s… you know, it was weird, because when I was in that… place, I just kept thinking I wanted to get out so I could track you down and kick your ass. But then sometimes I was just thinking… I just wanted to get out and see you. I missed you, Jeremy.”

“But I hurt you.”

“I said I missed you, not that I forgive you,” Michael clarifies, staring down at his hands folded in his lap. “It’s weird, all the different ways you can feel about someone at the same time? I still love my parents, but I hate them for sending me away, and I’m scared of them, and I miss them. And I feel all that at once. And I feel like I probably shouldn’t still love them, but what the hell am I gonna do? They’re my parents .” Jeremy nods, thinking about his mother’s face before he made her leave the house. “And I feel all mixed up about you, too, honestly, scared and angry and sad and happy to see you again. At least with you, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me again. I don’t think that’s true for my mom and dad.” A tremor rocks through him. “If I saw them again, they’d… I mean, nothing physical, I don’t think. And I’m legally an adult, so it’s not like they can force me to go back to that camp. I think…” He shivers again. “But I know they’d do… something. It’s just better if I don’t see them.”

“I know,” Jeremy says, but he doesn’t really know. He doesn’t know anything. He knows he wants Michael to be okay. The sky gets darker. The air gets colder. “I… I should go home.”

“I’ll drive you,” Michael says, standing up, wincing as the feeling returns to his legs.

“You sure?”

Michael looks at him, really takes a moment to check in with himself. “Yeah, I’m sure,” he says, jingling his car keys. “Come on.”

Dad takes Jeremy out for a nice dinner one night, kind of a “thank you” and “I’m sorry” and “we’ll be okay” all rolled into one. They get steak and thick French fries.

Jeremy texts Rich and Jake a lot, and Michael sometimes, but nowhere near the way he used to. Something is broken between them, that’s a definite. It might be they themselves that broke, he doesn’t know.

Mom calls the house. Neither Jeremy nor Dad answers.

And then one day a text comes from Jake.

pizza 2nite at our place. rich will be there.

and michael, obvs

Jeremy stares at his phone and waits for someone to tell him what to do— before he remembers no one does that anymore. I’ll be there , he texts back, and goes to find a fresh shirt from his dresser.