Work Text:
“Christine thinks I should join an improv group.”
“Hell yeah, dude!” Michael says, glancing up from his GameBoy at Jeremy. “Wait, do you want to join an improv group?”
“Kind of?” Jeremy says, voice going all squeaky. Michael makes it to the end of the level and lays his GameBoy down in his lap. Jeremy’s staring out into space. Well, the space slightly to the left of Michael on the bed, at about eye-level, which means he’s probably telepathically communicating with the remnants of the Squip. Or the trauma-memory of the Squip. They still don’t really know what’s going on there.
And, yeah, okay. Michael can guess what the Squip is saying. They’ve been doing pretty good on the ‘cool-in-college’ front ever since the semester started. Joining a college improv group doesn’t really mesh well with the gamer-cum-stoner-cum-geek vibe they’ve been cultivating. Even if Jeremy’s a theater major. Michael firmly doesn’t care about if anyone thinks a college improv group is “too much” — if they do it’s better to weed them out early — but he can see why the Squip would be throwing an absolute bitch fit about it.
“Jeremy?” he says, and is instantly rewarded with sweet, sweet eye contact. Jeremy smiles lopsidedly.
“Sorry,” he says, more habitual than anything. He knows Michael doesn’t mind, and he isn’t really sorry, but it’s instinct.
“All good,” Michael replies anyway because Jeremy’s brain is a little bitch regardless of Squips. Jeremy’s wan smile widens into a grin.
“I think I do want to join a college improv group,” Jeremy says.
“Hell yeah, dude!”
Michael goes back to his game while Jeremy pulls out his laptop and starts frantically typing — presumably filling in the signup form. He has a sudden flashback as his character traverses the dungeons of Jeremy starting up sophomore year of high school by tugging on Michael’s sleeve and pointing at the signup sheet for drama club. He remembers Christine! and should I? and dude, I might as well just stand on stage and jerk a guy off.
Sophomore year was terrible for Michael — and Jeremy — in a lot of ways, but runner-up after the Squip has got to be Jeremy’s continued fear of being called gay while Michael was trying to figure out how in the hell he was supposed to come out to his best friend of twelve years. He’d said, ‘well, that’s not too bad, is it?’ and Jeremy had looked at him like he’d said that Apartheid was a good idea.
There’s been a lot of growth since then, and not just because both Jeremy and then Michael came out, but because Jeremy’s left behind those old ideas of what a particular hobby or interest says or doesn’t say about a person. Michael smiles to himself. He hears the slam of Jeremy’s computer before the mattress dips beside him.
“What are you smiling about, huh?” Jeremy says, getting comfy on Michael’s bed.
“Your character development,” Michael says, swearing as he loses half his HP to a sneaky mob.
“Ha ha,” Jeremy deadpans. He picks up one of Michael’s plushies and runs his fingers over the plastic whiskers of the stuffed Shiba inu. He’s gentle with it because he knows Michael is weird with his plushies like that, and it tugs at his heart a little bit.
“So,” Michael starts, “how did you even find the whole improv group thing?”
“Oh,” Jeremy says. He flicks the ear of the Shiba, then thinks better of it and puts it down. His hands immediately move to the sleeves of his cardigan to pick at where it’s pilling from use. “Um,” he continues.
“Poster?” Michael prompts, “Insta post? Tweet? Snail mail?”
“Simon,” Jeremy squeaks.
“Simon?” Michael says, losing another quarter of his HP. This was not a sneaky mob. He was caught so off guard by a name that his finger slipped off the d-pad.
“Don’t make fun of me!” Jeremy yells.
“Why would I— oh.” Michael puts his console down, level be damned. He was going to lose either way. “Holy shit, Jeremiah Heere — do you have a crush?” Michael cackles. “Oh, this is incredible.”
“I said don’t make fun of me!” Jeremy pulls a pillow out from under his head and hurls it at Michael’s face, except his aim sucks and it hits him very softly in the chest. He then hides his face behind his hands.
“I’m not making fun!” Michael lies. “I’m just…”
“Making fun of me,” Jeremy fills in, lifting his hands just to make sure Michael can see him glaring.
“No, if I was making fun of you I’d say—”
“No, Michael, please don’t!”
Michael cups his hands around his mouth. “Ha-ha, Jeremy has a big fat gay crush on Simon…” he trails off, realizing that he doesn’t know the last name of this guy.
“Don’t laugh,” Jeremy says, the sound muffled by his hands. Michael waits patiently for the thing that he’s most certainly, definitely for sure going to laugh at. “It’s Absent.”
If Michael had had water in his mouth, he’d have done one of those truly perfect spit-takes. “You’re kidding. ”
Jeremy makes a pathetic whine and flips over so his face is pushed into the mattress. “It’s how we got talking.”
And that makes sense, Michael thinks. He stops to think about the hilarity of it for a moment, and then he thinks about it for a little too long and a sharp sting starts to accompany the warm, fuzzy feeling in his chest about his friend finally getting comfortable in college and exploring his sexuality. “That’s… kinda perfect, actually.”
Jeremy turns back over, slowly, as if to make sure that Michael won’t get started again. When he’s satisfied with what he sees, he sits back up and grabs the Shiba again. “Mm-hmm,” Jeremy agrees. “Huh, he— uh.”
“Is he cute?” Michael says, tugging at the seam of his sock.
Jeremy gives Michael an excellent reference point for ‘cute’ by going all blotchy red, pink where the acne scars are denser. “I mean… yeah?”
Michael swats at his leg. “That’s good!” He thinks for a moment. “Wait, did Christine think you should join the improv group for theater reasons or for Simon reasons?”
“Both?” Jeremy says. “You know Christine, she wouldn’t do it just for… Simon reasons , but she was very, um. Very encouraging. On both fronts.”
Michael laughs, because that sounds very much like Christine. The encouragement probably came in the form of a long rant about the values of having hobbies and how beneficial improv is to theater in general, and that exploring one’s sexuality is important in college, but art is just so wonderful. “That’s good,” Michael says.
“Yeah.” Jeremy’s smiling softly, still pink in his cheeks. He beat out Super Mario 64 speedruns for Michael’s favorite thing to look at in their senior year of high school, and he remains #1. Michael picks the GameBoy up just to have something else to look at.
“You’re still joining for theater, though, right?”
“Oh, yeah, for sure , dude! The whole bi-crisis thing is, um, secondary.”
“Cool,” Michael says.
Spoiler alert: not cool. Not cool, like, whatsoever. Or, well, the improv group? Super cool. Great. Fantastic. The bi-crisis thing? Simon? Making Michael have a gay crisis. Not in the sense that he’s seen Simon and he’s so incredibly handsome that Michael is reconsidering his identity — that honor goes to Thomas Brodie-Sangster in The Maze Runner — but in the sense that he’s so in love with Jeremy, who’s crushing on someone else now.
He’ll live. He’s done it before. He lived through Jeremy and Christine dating for those performance art-filled three months. He tells himself that nothing can ever be as bad as that 6 week-a-versary. He doesn’t ever want to see a parsnip ever again.
Plus, he’s got other stuff to focus on now. College was not as forgiving as he liked to tell himself during high school, but it’s a lot easier. For one, there’s a gaming club where his knowledge of Apocalypse of The Damned makes him something of a legend, and where his affinity for Smash Bros. Brawl and Toon Link-mainage isn’t brushed off as nothing.
Also, classes fucking rule when you actually get to pick what they’re about. Michael’s been taking a sound design class, and it’s turning his whole world upside down. The things he’s missed!
So, all in all, things are good! Things, objectively, are better than they’ve ever been for Michael Mell. Aside from the obvious.
Jeremy walks in through the door to their dorm room looking like he’s seen a ghost.
“You good bud?” Michael asks, pulling his headphones off one ear and pausing the Animal Crossing gameplay he’s got going on YouTube.
“I— we— I— I— uh. Guh.” Jeremy makes a jerky movement with his hand and takes a deep breath. “Honey if you love me,” he concludes, then slumps against the door, boneless.
“Sure, dude,” Michael says. He doesn’t put his headphones back on though, because he needs to concentrate properly on the stereo sounds and he knows Jeremy’s going to boot back up any minute now and say something. Probably life-changing for the both of them, in very different ways.
“It’s a game,” Jeremy says “we played it today.”
He presses himself up from against the wall and walks into the room. He slumps right onto Michael’s bed instead of his own. He sits leaning against the wall, facing Michael as he starts them on their journey.
“So, okay, you stand face to face with someone, right?” Jeremy explains, “And then one person says: ‘honey if you love me, will you please smile?’, and the whole thing is the other person has to answer.”
“Do they just say anything or?”
“They have to answer ,” Jeremy continues, like it’s physically painful, “‘honey, I love you, but I can’t smile’, and you have to say it without smiling.”
“Sounds fun,” Michael says. Jeremy makes a noise that conveys something like ‘yeah, sure but, eh’. “So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that I was paired up with Simon for a round, and—” Jeremy flops down on the bed.
“Oh. Oh,” Michael draws it out. “You had to say you love him.” Jeremy seems to have given up on words, because he just makes another noise. This one says ouuuuurgh. “Do you?”
“What!?” Jeremy shoots up from the bed.
“Do you love him?” Michael asks again, staring at a soda stain on his laptop keyboard.
“No,” Jeremy says, confused, “well, I don’t— I— I-I don’t think so, at least. I’ve barely spoken to him. It’s too early to tell. It was just— guh.”
“Yeah, I got you, buddy.” Michael reaches out a hand to pat Jeremy on the leg, and then goes to pull his headphones back on. He does have work to do, even if that work is watching a cursor move left to right for ten minutes. Before he can get the headphones on, though, he feels a hand gripping his own and stopping him. He looks up at Jeremy. “What the hell, dude?”
“Sorry,” Jeremy says, letting go of his wrist. “You— if you have work to do, you should. I just—”
“No, it’s fine,” Michael interrupts the rant before it can get too bad. Jeremy’s stammer is mega bad today, so he’s obviously wound up from improv class. “What’s up?” He hangs his headphones around his neck, a tried and true Michael-signal for go ahead and talk to me. Jeremy deflates instantly upon seeing it, and he’s immediately reassured that it was the right move.
“Dunno,” Jeremy says, “just kinda wanted to talk, you know?”
“Sure. Shoot. Or do you want me to…?”
“Could you just… talk about your day?” Jeremy says. He’s picking at a loose thread in his jeans. There’s dust on the knees, probably because he did some exaggerated physical comedy in class. Michael smiles.
He talks about his 8 AM programming class, the one with the wacky professor that brings up binary and the creation of Minecraft even though it’s a course in C . He talks about his communicative written language class and how they wrote sentences for children’s books today. He retells the best examples from class, including a girl who’d actually self-published a kids book about board games as a metaphor for politics — Michael found that one a little bit of a reach, but it was still cool to hear. She was hella good at writing and talking. He goes all the way to his sound design class, and his homework, and by that point Jeremy’s looking significantly more relaxed than he did coming home.
“Is that what you’re working on right now?” Jeremy asks, pointing to Michael’s computer screen. It’s still frozen on a picture of the Animal Crossing: New Horizons inventory screen.
Michael nods, “Yeah, it’s pretty cool actually, New Horizons has a lot of sound design and, like, stereo things that people miss either ‘cause they’re playing it with the shitty Switch speakers, or because they’re hooking it up to a mono-channel TV.”
“Wait, really?”
Michael nods again, grinning now. “Uh-huh! So, the inventory sound moves from left to right with the cursor, for example.”
Jeremy’s eyes widen. “Dude!”
“Right!”
He thinks he kind of wants to do this forever. Michael would be so happy if he got to blow Jeremy’s mind with simple facts forever. He’s really finding his place here in college, and he’s glad for it, but there’s still nobody quite like Jeremy Heere. There just isn’t another person on this planet — Michael’s sure — that would appreciate his rants and truly listen like Jeremy does to mundane things.
“I’m gonna let you get back to staring at sounds,” Jeremy says, flopping down on the bed again.
“Thanks,” Michael says, for a lot of things.
“Dude, no worries, I’m the one who interrupted you.
And so Michael puts his headphones back on and listens to the little plick, plick, of the Animal Crossing cursor move across the screen. He’s got a whole list of stereo effects on sound design that his professor’s published. Somewhere halfway through the list Jeremy rolls off Michael’s bed and starts to rifle through his bag, presumably for his own homework.
By the time Jeremy tosses a crumpled up piece of paper at Michael’s back, he’s managed to get sidetracked watching Scruffy videos, so it’s probably for the best.
“Are you done yet?” Jeremy says.
“Nah,” Michael says, “but I’m not gonna tonight, anyway. Weekend Michael’s here.”
“It’s Wednesday.”
“Weekend Michael’s here,” Michael says, shutting his laptop and putting his headphones on top of it. He spins his chair around to face Jeremy, and there are papers scattered all over his bedspread. Jeremy’s sat in the middle of the paper inferno, Switch in hand. He’s got his own headphones hanging around his neck, and leaking out of them Michael can hear the New Horizons 7 PM music.
He is so, so in love with Jeremy. Michael stands up and walks over to Jeremy’s bed, staring at the scattered sheet music and scene scripts expectantly. Like a good (too good) bestie, Jeremy shovels the paper together into a messy heap so Michael can return the favor of flopping himself across Jeremy’s bed.
“So,” Jeremy starts, drawing the word out like he’s psyching himself up to say something. “Uh, do you…”
“‘Do I’ what?” Michael says, poking Jeremy’s thigh with his socked foot.
“Do you have one?” Michael raises an eyebrow, because they’ve been friends for a while but sometimes Jeremy’s brain is a few steps ahead. Or skips a step. Or eight. “A crush,” Jeremy clarifies, and goes scarlet.
Michael looks at his red cheeks, and the switch in his hands, and the stereo headphones around his neck and his Marvel Comics T-shirt. “Yeah.”
Wait.
Jeremy goes bug-eyed. “You do? I was just kinda asking ‘cause I was sick of you making fun of me but—”
Oh, shit. Wait, wait, wait. What just happened!?
“— who is it?” Jeremy’s voice comes back in through the static in Michael’s ears.
He’s got enough composure not to immediately say you, but there’s an embarrassingly long silence before he says,
“You don’t know him.”
“Him, huh?” Michael is knocked out of his panic enough to send Jeremy a look. “Okay, sorry, uh. I forgot?”
Michael snorts. “Yeah, him. I’m still gay,” he clarifies.
“Good,” Jeremy says, then stares out into space. Michael kicks him before the Squip can have anything else to say about it.
“Yeah, good. He’s—” Michael scrambles for something to say. He suspects he’s blushing, because Jeremy looks very mischievous and he’s leaning in towards Michael to — oh, yeah, yep, okay — poke him in the side.
“What’s his name?” Jeremy asks, clearly enjoying his sweet, sweet revenge.
Michael blanks. “J—” Oh, no. “Jordan.”
“Jordan?” Jeremy says. Michael knew that seeing that many Newsies-clips couldn’t be good for him. He’s paying for his friendship right now with probably the worst Freudian slip that’s ever occurred on this campus.
“Mm-hm,” he nods. “He’s… you wouldn’t know him, like I said, he’s a—” Jesus, Michael, think! “—a chemistry major.”
“When have you ever been in the vicinity of the STEM buildings?” Jeremy asks. It’s more likely a ‘how the hell did you find this guy?’-question rather than a ‘I’m calling your bluff’-question, but it makes Michael sweat regardless. But he’s getting into the groove of it.
“Well, there’s gonna be some labs there next semester—” True, actually, “—so I walked past just to check it out.” That’s more of a lie. He’s walked past the building on Google Maps street view, though, so. White lie. Half-truth.
“Huh,” Jeremy says, sounding about satisfied. “What’s he like?”
Why couldn’t Michael just have said no? “He’s um— well, he’s geeky.”
Jeremy’s brow raises.
“He is!” Michael reiterates. “He likes comics, and games.” This is apparently the hole he’s decided to dig for himself. “Spider-Man’s his favorite hero.” Stop talking! “He hates Mountain Dew, so that’s a good sign.”
He can’t really read the expression on Jeremy’s face, and he turns away before Michael can start trying to decipher it properly. He feels like he’s fucked up somewhere, done something that’s shifted them slightly to the left for some reason.
He sits up and scoots closer to Jeremy. “Any new builds I should see?” he asks, and Jeremy looks up, bright smile already on his face.
“Yeah! I built this orchard, look.”
Jeremy walks his character towards the back of the island, pointing out little new pieces of furniture along the way as he goes. His hands are shaking a little bit where they hold on to the console.
“You know…” Michael starts slowly, “You’re my favorite person. Still.”
Jeremy twitches hard enough to press the right shoulder button and pop up the reactions menu. He makes a noise, and then the orchard comes into view. “Here it is,” he says, slightly shaky. He doesn’t sound sad, or anything, though, so. A win for Michael Mell. “I finally managed to get all the fruits, because Lydia down the hall has cherries!”
“Hey, nice!” Michael cheers. Jeremy leans into his side as he continues down the orchard, pointing out the silo that he’s so proud that he crafted, and the damaged windmill he saved up his miles for.
“You have to go to Harv’s island to customize it to this colorway,” he explains, pointing to the grayish wheel. His head is warm against Michael’s shoulder and his hair is tickly against his cheek.
“You’re my favorite person, too,” Jeremy says after a while.
He’s changed the color of his roof.
The improv group is teaming up with the theater faculty to arrange a 24-hour musical project, and Jeremy wants Michael to join. There are several issues with this:
- Michael isn’t an actor.
- Michael can’t sing.
- Michael doesn’t want to see Simon, and Simon is 110% going to be there. (It was one of the selling points. ‘I promise you can fun of me about Simon all you want!’)
It’s not that he isn’t happy for Jeremy and his crush. He is! He just isn’t ready to face whatever hunk it is that’s caught Jeremy’s attention. He might not care about other people’s opinions, but Jeremy is Jeremy, not other people, and if Simon is some fantastically good-looking dude it’s likely to send Michael into some sort of crisis. Again.
But Jeremy’s been hounding him for days, and sign-ups close today. Any time spent with Jeremy is a good time, guaranteed, but he doesn’t know if time spent with Jeremy and an improv group and a bunch of theater students is a good time.
“Michael, please.”
“I dunno, dude! It’s just… not my scene, ya’ dig?”
They’re both sitting on their own beds for once, feet over the edge and staring each other down like it’s some sort of Mexican standoff. Jeremy’s been attacking him with the puppy-dog eyes for the past six and a half minutes. It’s unbearable.
Suddenly, though, the puppy-dog eyes are replaced with Jeremy’s brows raising and his expression lighting up. “You could be on tech crew!” he shouts.
Michael knows he’s fucked.
Michael was a techie in High School. He joined in the latter half of sophomore year in an ill-advised attempt to be closer to Jeremy in case things went sideways again. It ended up being mostly him looking at Jeremy from afar, falling deeper in love with him as he watched Jeremy and Christine prance around on stage in the best/worst — and only! — The Last of Us and Much Ado About Nothing crossover ever.
But he liked messing with the sound and the lights! He especially liked messing with people (read: Jeremy) by muting their mics when they said something he didn’t find funny.
He’s loath to admit that he’d probably like doing it for the 24-hour musical project, but he doesn’t want to stage a repeat of sophomore year — he’s done enough of watching his crush talking to their crush from a sound booth for the rest of his life, he thinks.
But Michael’s biggest problem is that he happens to be very in love with his theater-nerd crush and is therefore very easily convinced to watch him from a sound booth. At least this time it’s just for 24 hours.
The biggest auditorium on campus has been completely taken over by not-yet tired students and the rows of chairs are filled up with groups of people, abuzz with activity. The group of actors are in the front of the room, Jeremy gesticulating wildly to the writers. Michael smiles a little, happy to see his best friend be so animated and wacky in a public setting. Theater has been good for him. Then he sees who he can only be Simon also looking at Jeremy with a little smile. It’s a cute smile, Michael has to admit. He can see why Jeremy’s smitten.
The only other member on the team, Ross, taps him on the shoulder. “I’m gonna go take a nap,” they say, jutting a thumb towards the door, “‘cause we probably won’t be doing stuff for the first couple hours before we know what’s going on.”
Michael nods. “Yeah, yeah sure.”
Ross does a salute and then walks to the corner of the room and pull their hoodie over their head. They seem really routined on the whole 24-hour theater thing, which is both impressive and concerning. Michael looks back down to the acting group, who are now standing in a big circle, throwing invisible zaps of lightning at each other.
He pulls his headphones over his head, leaving one ear exposed for optimal conversation-to-noise ratio. He makes his way down the center aisle toward where the scripting group has sat down on the floor to draw out the plot with colorful markers on a huge sheet of paper. It’s like a science fair on crack.
“Hey,” he says, uncharacteristically awkward. One of the members, a girl with curly pink hair looks up at him, smiling.
“Hey!” she says, her voice bright and clear. “Ah! You’re one of the techies, right?”
Michael feels his eyebrows raise. “Yeah,” he answers, surprised at being remembered.
Her smile twists a little, like she knows he’s surprised. “I like your hoodie,” she says with a lazy gesture to the patches covering his sleeves.
“Oh, thanks!” He says. Michael sticks his hand out toward her. “I’m Michael.”
“That’s a fun coincidence — I’m Michelle!” She takes his hand in a firm grip and shakes it. “We’re not super far on the plot yet, but we think we’ll need you guys to do a few funky sound effects.”
“Nice!” Michael says. That’s good news for him, considering there really isn’t much to do by way of lights in this venue. He might get to turn some spotlights on and off, and maybe hit the red overhead lights once or twice, but other than that it’s mostly going to be him making sure that everybody’s pop filters are on and that all of the people on stage can be heard. “I’ll probably be around, just grab me if you need, yeah?”
Michelle gives him a thumbs up, then turns back to the group. The civilized sketching on paper has turned into a heated debate on whether or not the main character should be a scientist. Michael starts to walk back up the stairs to sit in one of the middle rows and let his noise canceling headphones do their job for a while, but someone grabs his wrist.
He whirls around, nearly swearing out loud before noticing that it’s just Jeremy. Jeremy with pinky blotchy cheeks and sparkling eyes and an Into The Woods T-shirt.
“Hey!” Jeremy says, like they didn’t walk to the auditorium together a few hours ago.
“Hey,” Michael says, hopelessly endeared. “All good?”
Jeremy nods like a bobblehead. He seems really excited about this whole thing. “Yeah! We decided on the parts, or, like, the beta-parts, I guess. I’m gonna have a singing number!”
Michael punches him lightly in the shoulder. “Dude, that’s great, Jer!”
Jeremy just keeps nodding. Then, he stops suddenly, his eyes wide. “Did you ever get Jordan to sign up, by the way?”
Oh, right. That. Michael seems to have gotten into the habit of digging his own grave deeper and deeper every day, and part of that was off-handedly trying to get Jeremy off his back about the 24-hour theater thing by telling him that he’d try to convince his crush to do it instead.
“Yeah, he’s— he had an assignment.”
“Psh,” Jeremy scoffs, frowning, “so do I, but it’s just 24 hours, isn’t it?”
He seems weirdly offended that Michael’s crush isn’t down to do spontaneous theater projects. If only he knew.
“Yeah, but, like, STEM assignments are heavy, man.” He still doesn’t look entirely pleased. “How’s Simon?” Michael tries. Jeremy immediately blanches.
“He’s, um— he’s good. I guess. He’s the antagonist, I think.”
“Cool!” Michael says. He looks over to where Simon is standing on the stage, leaning suspiciously close to one of the girls in the dance troupe. Bisexual people exist — duh — and Jeremy’s never been very good at being clear with his feelings, but the sight still puts a sour taste in his mouth. He doesn’t want Jeremy to be hurt, not ever, but especially not because of his first crush in college and especially not when it’s on a guy. “Now you can put the moves on the hot villain dude,” he adds.
Jeremy sputters and puts a finger up to his lips to violently shush Michael. “Not so loud!” he hisses. Michael was talking in a normal conversational tone, and there’s absolutely no way Simon would’ve heard it from way up here. He nods seriously anyway. Jeremy looks back at Simon with a little wrinkle in his brow.
“Maybe you could talk to the scripting group,” Michael says, “to try and get them to orchestrate a little forbidden romance between the hero and the villain. An enemies-to-lovers situation. You could kiss!”
Let it be known that Michael Mell is a benevolent man.
“Maybe,” Jeremy says, vacant. Michael claps him on the shoulder.
“I’m gonna go get familiar with the equipment.”
Jeremy nods, still staring at Simon with a little furrow to his brow. He looks worried for some reason, but Jeremy looks kinda worried about lots of different things a lot of the time, so Michael guesses it’s just Heere-brand overthinking that’ll pass in a few minutes and walks up towards the tech booth.
Michael passes the still sleeping Ross and walks into the booth to familiarize himself with the surprisingly large array of buttons and sliders. It’s not larger than the one he used in high school — probably a bit smaller, actually — but it looks entirely different. The layout is wack.
Before he knows it, he’s been in the booth for two and a half hours, messing with the lights and accidentally blinding the poor dance crew while they were trying to figure out their blocking. He’s got a bunch of colors to mess around with, and a surprising amount of different directionals.
Ross shakes him out of it by knocking on the doorframe. “Hi,” they say.
“Oh, hey,” Michael says.
“You wanna switch out? Take a nap, eat something?” Ross asks. “It’s been eight hours.”
Michael had no idea it’s been eight hours. As soon as the knowledge settles in his brain he realizes how hungry he is, and that he for sure should really drink something. Probably definitely water. He stands up from the spinny stool and rolls his neck out. He’s defo been sitting in here for too long. He exits the booth awkwardly and switches places with Ross, who familiarizes themself with the buttons quickly, without blinding any dancers.
Michael scans the room for Jeremy, and finds him running lines with one of the other actors. He decides not to interrupt him because he knows how stressed Jeremy can get about being off-script in normal circumstances.
He walks himself over to the closest 7-11, thankfully still open even though it’s nearing midnight. The streets are calm even though it’s late on a Friday night, possibly just slightly too early for people to be going home from the post-exam-week parties just yet.
He gets himself a spinny hot dog and a slushy for old times sake. Standing in front of the Slurpee wall he stares down the blue raspberry machine and his own cup of New And Exclusive Cherry. He’s already halfway through his hot dog, so he’ll have a hand free soon. Knowing Jeremy, he’s probably done the same thing as Michael and forgotten to eat or drink. He finishes his hot dog and walks back to the register to get another cup.
He tries to remember if Jeremy’s ever gone on a rant on why slushies are bad for the voice, and can only come up with various diatribes on chocolate, coffee and dairy. He pulls the handle for blue raspberry and fills up the medium cup.
“Jer.” Michael walks up to where Jeremy’s sitting in the front row of chairs mumbling lines to himself.
“Hm? Oh, Michael!” Jeremy’s smile really is unfairly cute when he’s excited. His eyes are all sparkly and the tips of his ears go red. His mouth drops open just a little bit when he sees the cup that Michael’s holding out for him. “Fuck, dude.”
Michael grins. “You’re welcome.”
Jeremy takes a big sip and then tilts forward to lean his head against Michael’s stomach. Michael’s stomach that erupts in butterflies at Jeremy’s head leaning against it. He places a hand in his hair and scratches at his scalp. Jeremy hums around the straw. “Lines are hard,” he mutters.
“Hard drugs,” Michael says, the many awake hours hitting him. Jeremy snorts, in a similar situation. “You feelin’ okay?”
“Mmh,” Jeremy says, mouth full of slurpee. “‘S fun.”
“That’s good,” Michael says. He twists a lock of Jeremy’s hair around his finger. Around and around and around. It’s a good fidget. Jeremy’s hair is soft, and the weight of his head is familiar against Michael’s side. He’s suddenly tired.
Michael yawns. Jeremy pushes himself up and blinks at him. “Are you tired?” he asks.
“Nah, I’m good, dude.” Michael says, failing to fight off another yawn.
“Do you want to take a nap?” Jeremy asks, frowning now.
“I’ve been up for longer,” Michael says. He scratches at his eyebrow.
“Yeah, but do you wanna take a nap?” Jeremy asks again. “I’m probably going to sit here for a while, if you just wanna rest a little.”
Having someone who’s known you for so long is both a blessing and a curse, because Michael could definitely stay up for longer. He could dig one of the Monsters he’s packed out of his backpack and be good for, like, another hour and a half at least. And by then he could eat something else and be good until rehearsals start up for real and the adrenaline hits. Jeremy knows this, and he also knows that Michael struggles to sleep in unfamiliar places, unless he’s got something familiar.
He gives up and sits down in the chair next to Jeremy’s. Jeremy’s already pulled off his cardigan and hands it over to Michael. “Blanket,” he says, like that’s a normal thing to do for your best friend.
“Thanks,” Michael says, pulling it over himself and leaning back in the chair. He pulls his headphones over his ears and lets the sound of Lily Allen’s discography wash over him. Leaning on the back of the auditorium chair is uncomfortable, though, and by the time he’s made it through three songs he still hasn’t managed to drift off. He blinks his eyes open and glares at the stage in front of him. Something taps on his leg.
He looks over to Jeremy and lifts his headphones up. “What’s up?”
“You can lean on me, if you want?” Jeremy says. Michael’s heart beats extra hard for a second. He smiles at Jeremy.
“Thanks, Jerm.”
Jeremy’s bony shoulder is better than the back of the chair, even though it’s equally hard, just because it’s Jeremy. His cardigan smells like fabric softener and citrus body wash, with a vague undertone of weed that hasn’t left since high school.
It’s safe and it’s home and when Michael’s woken up he doesn’t recall ever falling asleep. He sits up and cracks his neck as he looks at Jeremy.
“How long was I out?”
“Like, an hour,” Jeremy says, hand sliding off Michael’s shoulder.
“Shit, that long?”
Jeremy nods. “That’s good. We’re gonna try blocking with everyone on stage, so we might need you on lights,” he says apologetically.
Michael gives him a thumbs up. “All good! It’s why I’m here, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Jeremy says. “Could I have my cardigan back? It’s kinda cold in here.”
“Oh, yeah, ‘course dude.”
Michael slides the cardigan off and immediately notices what Jeremy’s talking about when the action makes him shiver. He hands the bundle of blue knit back and Jeremy gratefully puts it on before standing up and making his way to the stage with a little wave. Michael waves back, grinning.
He himself stands up and cracks his back then makes his way up to the tech booth again. Ross smiles at him when he enters.
“You and your boyfriend are cute,” they say.
“Oh, he’s not—”
“Oh, sorry. Is it like a,” Ross waves a hand, “thing you don’t talk about?”
“It’s not a thing at all,” Michael says honestly, pointing to where Jeremy’s facing Simon on the stage, red in the face. “See that blonde guy? That’s his crush.”
“Who, Simon?” Ross says, glancing at Michael and then down at the stage again. “He’s, like, super straight.”
Michael sighs. “Yeah, I figured. Point is, he’s not into me.”
Ross pats him on the back. “That’s rough. Sorry.”
“Eh, I’m used to it,” Michael says, halfway cognizant that he’s sharing way more than he usually would with a stranger. Some sort of combination of sleep deprivation and being wrapped in Jeremy’s cardigan for over an hour, he guesses.
Ross raises an eyebrow. Michael sits down on one of the stools and turns on the overhead lights and gets an enthusiastic thumbs up from one of the theater faculty members.
“We’ve been best friends since we were, like, four.” Ross hisses as they lean over to fiddle with one of the volume dials closer to Michael’s side. He sees now that all of the actors have mic packs on and are pulling their mics on with varying levels of difficulty. “Thanks for micing everyone,” Michael says.
“Sure,” Ross says with a smile. “So, how long have you been into Mr. Hero Man?”
“A while,” Michael says. He isn’t really sure when his feelings started drifting from purely platonic to something romantic, but he knows it wasn’t like flipping a switch. It was a slow realization that the full-body shivers he got when standing close enough to feel Jeremy’s body heat probably weren’t just friends material. A lot of fantasies of kissing Jeremy were born in high school, though. “Junior year, probably.”
“Ah. Do you wanna turn down mic D?” Michael moves the slider down a bit. Ross nods in approval. “Well, at least he’s not straight.”
Michael actually laughs at that, and Ross smiles wryly. Michael flicks on the spotlight as pink-haired script girl points at the ceiling above her. He turns the light down in the rest of the auditorium as well. Michelle gives him double finger guns. “Probably more queer people in this room than not,” Michael muses.
Ross shrugs. “You’d be surprised.”
Michael focuses on Simon, who’s moved on to another girl in the dance troupe. The first girl he was talking to is sitting in Michelle’s lap, gesturing wildly. Jeremy’s staring into space, vaguely in Simon’s direction.
“Yeah,” Michael says. “I guess.”
All in all, the 24-hour musical is a huge success. They open the doors to the auditorium after 22 grueling hours of work to an unexpectedly large and excited crowd. The energy of the audience is enough to power everyone through the show, and any mishaps are expected and easily laughed away by both audience and crew.
When the audience has cleared out and the theater faculty and improv group leaders have declared the project finished, students start slowly filing out of the room.
Jeremy has been starfished in the middle of the stage and has been since Michael helped him take his mic pack off twenty minutes ago. He walks up and kicks his leg.
“C’mon,” he says, “let’s go.”
“I don’t wanna mooove,” Jeremy whines. Michael snorts and is about to point out that he’ll leave without Jeremy, if that’s what it takes, because he needs his bed four hours ago. He opens his mouth, but just as he’s about to say something Simon walks past. He stops by Jeremy’s hand and stretches his fist out.
Jeremy, dazed, pulls his arm off the ground with some effort and hold his fist out so Simon can bump it.
“Good job today,” Simon says, and Jeremy goes red.
“Y– yeah! Thanks, uh— you— you too!”
Simon smiles a tight-lipped smile and leaves. He nods to Michael as he goes. Michael raises his brows and looks down at Jeremy.
“I’ll leave without you,” is what he says.
“Nooo!” Jeremy says, and struggles off the ground. Michael holds out a hand and pulls him up. Neither he nor Jeremy let go for a while after that, just stand on stage holding hands in silence for a bit.
“He’s right, you know,” Michael says.
“Huh?” Jeremy says, letting go of Michael’s hand to wipe sweat off his palm.
“You did good today.”
“Oh!” Jeremy says. Then, he presses himself to Michael’s chest and throws his arms around him. He’s warm, and his T-shirt sticks to his back when Michael pulls his own arms up around him. “Thank you. You did really good, too.”
Michael laughs. “I just pressed some buttons.”
Jeremy squeezes him. “You’re good at it,” Jeremy says. “I’m sorry Jordan couldn’t be here to see it.”
“It’s fine,” he says shakily. He tries to convince himself that the chill down his spine is just cooling sweat in the chilly auditorium, but it doesn’t quite work. He pulls away. “Come on, let’s go home.”
Michael ends up sleeping for eleven hours, and Jeremy’s still asleep when he wakes up. Michael picks his DS up from the nightstand and boots up Kid Icarus: Uprising with the volume as low as it can go. He’s not getting out of bed unless he absolutely has to, and his headphones are on a hook by the door.
He glances over to Jeremy, and it doesn’t look like he’s waking up any time soon. He’s got creases on his cheek from the pillow, probably because he turned over. Michael’s just staring at him like a creep when he sleeps. His eyes are closed gently and for once he doesn’t look anxious about anything. Jeremy’s hair is an absolute mess and he’s got the covers pulled up past his chin, completely bundled up. Michael loves him so, so much.
He looks back to his DS when it starts to hurt his chest.
He’s just started on Chapter 17: The Aurum Brain when there’s a groan from the other side of the room. Jeremy’s blankets and cover rustle as he shakes himself awake. He groans again, stronger this time.
“Morning,” Michael says, pausing before he rushes into battle proper.
“Mmmh,” Jeremy says, “morning. I feel like someone hit me with a semitruck.”
Michael laughs. He feels the same, but maybe just like he’s been run over with a car. He has a sneaking suspicion that the chairs in the tech booth are, like, really bad news for his back. “I feel ya’, buddy.”
He hears the rumble of Jeremy’s stomach from across the room and laughs again.
“I don’t wanna get up,” he whines. Michael glances over, and he’s lying flat on his back and pulling the covers over his face.
“I’m hungry, too, we can brave the world together. Dining hall’s not too far.”
“Time ‘s it?” Jeremy asks, muffled by layers of blankets.
Michael taps his phone screen. “11:56.”
Jeremy shouts. “Nooo! They won’t be serving breakfast when we get there.”
Michael tosses an IKEA plushie at him. “There’s lunch, though. Sundays are usually good.”
“Mmm. I want pancakes.”
“Maybe if you close your eyes and wish really hard they’ll have pancakes.”
“Micah, if I close my eyes I’ll fall asleep.” Michael laughs, warm all over from the nickname. Jeremy tosses the plushie back. “You go first.”
It takes the both of them twenty five minutes to make it out of bed, and when they finally stumble out the door they haven’t managed to change out of sweats and pajama shirts.
They run into Ross in the hallway outside the dining hall, and they wave at Michael with the hand not holding a brown paper bag. Michael smiles and waves back, happy to see someone else who looks at least a little bit as exhausted as he feels.
“Is that him?” Jeremy asks when Ross has passed them, and Michael looks at him in confusion. “Jordan?”
“Where?” He looks around. “Oh! No, no, that’s Ross. They were the other techie with me yesterday.”
A look of realization dawns on Jeremy. “Cool,” he says, sounding a bit strangled.
“Yeah,” Michael says, “there were. Fourth year, I think.”
“A senior,” Jeremy says, awed. Like he forgot that people actually make it all the way through college. Michael nods. “What’s their major?”
“I dunno,” Michael shrugs. He picks up a tray. “Hey, look! They’ve got pancakes!” He points to one of the trays that one of the cafeteria staff is putting down into the heated aisles.
“Oh my god,” Jeremy whispers, nearly throwing a plate onto his tray and rushing over to grab what looks to Michael from the distance he’s standing at to be minimum five pancakes. Michael looks away when he starts drowning them in syrup in favor of stacking his own plate with lasagna. Apparently, the morning after being in a 24-hour theater production is a bit like being hungover, which Michael has been exactly twice and regretted violently both times.
On second thought, this is a bit softer. He catches up with Jeremy at the fruit baskets. He bumps him lightly with his elbows. “Happy?” he asks.
“You don’t even know,” Jeremy says.
They sit down at a table by the windows looking over the courtyard. Jeremy digs into his pancakes with a ferocity that Michael hasn’t seen in weeks. He himself picks methodically at his lasagna, making steady progress as Jeremy inhales his food.
Michael looks out at the people walking across the courtyard, some of them enjoying the sunny fall day by sitting on benches and reading, a few brave dudes presumably on sports scholarships running across the lawns in just shorts and tank tops. The lasagna is good. He feels kinda like he’s going to fall asleep into it.
“Michael?” Jeremy asks, pulling him out of his daze. “Are you okay?”
“Huh, yeah?” Michael asks. “Why?”
Jeremy frowns. “You looked… I dunno, worried.”
He doesn’t feel particularly worried, just tired. A little bit of the ache in his chest from this morning hasn’t gone away yet, because Jeremy’s still sporting the bedhead and his wrinkled Middleborough High sweatshirt.
Michael grins. “Just tired. I’m okay, Jerm, promise.” Jeremy squints at him, so Michael laughs and reaches over to briefly squeeze his hand across the table. Jeremy flips his hand over and interlocks their fingers properly, and Michael is a little confused now. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Jeremy looks down at his half-eaten pancakes, abandoned in favor of whatever this bout of worry for Michael is about. “I— I j-just— fuck.” Michael squeezes his hand in a hopefully comforting gesture. “I worry that I’m— that I’m forcing you to do things that you don’t… wanna do. Jusss—” Jeremy shakes his head, “just ‘cause I want you to be there. I’m sssorry.”
Michael frowns. “Is this about the musical?”
Jeremy nods, still staring down at his food.
“I had fun, Jer,” Michael says. “Really! I wanted to be there. You don’t have to be sorry. Let’s be real, it’s probably good that you drag me to do other stuff than just getting stoned and playing games.” He smiles. “I had fun,” he says again, to make sure Jeremy knows.
“Really?” Jeremy says, looking up.
“Really,” Michael assures. Jeremy nods, and then seems to notice that he and Michael have been holding hands for the past however long and immediately disentangles himself.
“Sorry,” he says quickly.
“All good,” Michael says as usual.
He ends up stealing one of Jeremy’s pancakes.
Michael can feel where his and Jeremy’s fingers were intertwined for a week, which is hella cheesy and probably stupid but it makes his chest feel warm and happy so he doesn’t care. He’s thinking about it instead of writing his assignment in communicative language when the door opens to reveal a rain-soaked Jeremy.
Michael almost laughs, but then he sees Jeremy’s face and it’s wet but not just from the rain, if he’s reading the red, puffy eyes and bitten lip correctly. Michael pauses his Weezer and stands up, still at his desk and waiting for Jeremy to say something.
When he doesn’t, Michael starts carefully. “Jer?” he says quietly.
“Hey,” Jeremy says, a little raspy. He tugs off his jacket robotically and hangs it on one of their command hooks. It’s been seeing a lot of rain the past few days — Michael thinks it might fall off and scare the shit out of them in the middle of the night sometime soon.
Jeremy takes a few steps into the room, then wipes at his eyes. Michael stuffs his hands into his pockets.
“So,” Jeremy starts, “Simon’s straight.” He laughs, then hiccups, then hides his face in his hands. Michael takes that as his cue to walk up and wrap him in a hug. Jeremy immediately grabs onto his hoodie and buries his face in Michael’s neck. He trembles as Michael runs a hand over his back.
“I’m sorry, dude,” Michael says.
“It’s really fine,” Jeremy says, hiccuping and entirely undermining his own statement. “It was just… humiliating.”
Jeremy has a tendency toward hyperbole, but Michael has no doubt that his feelings are genuine. “Why?” he asks gently, shaking water out of Jeremy’s hair with his fingers.
Jeremy hiccups again. “I— um. I told him that— that maybe— well, I asked him if he wanted to, like, um— grab a coffee. And he just… looked at me, like… like…”
Michael hugs him tighter. He rocks slightly from side to side as Jeremy breathes shuddery exhales against his collarbone. They stand there in silence for a while, until Jeremy laughs a little, without crying this time.
“You know, I don’t even think I liked him that much. He was kind of a dick sometimes.”
“Yeah?” Michael huffs a laugh.
“Yeah,” Jeremy says, laughing again. “It’s just— I think I just got carried away with, you know, having a crush on a guy and in college and everything.”
“Mm,” Michael hums, like he hasn’t had the same crush for three years.
“Still embarrassing, though. Like, he didn’t laugh but I could tell he was kinda weirded out by it.”
“Well, he’s dumb,” Michael declares, earning another laugh from Jeremy.
“Could you just… talk about your crush for a bit?” Jeremy asks as he peels himself away from the wet spot he’s made on Michael’s hoodie. “I wanna have some hope for life, and, like, love.”
Maybe there were rocks in the cereal that Michael had for breakfast. Wouldn’t that be wild? “Sure,” he says. He coughs right after, hoping that it’ll cover up the choked-rooster sound of his voice.
Jeremy cheers and throws himself onto Michael’s bed.
“You have your own bed,” Michael says, trying to right himself into some sort of normalcy.
“Not as comfy,” Jeremy says, grabbing the Shiba plush and leaning against Michael’s mountain of pillows. “Come on!”
Michael leans against the pillows as well. “Well,” he starts. He glances over at Jeremy, who’s still the loveliest thing he’s ever seen when he’s hugging the dog plushie with his puffy-ass eyes and snotty nose. He feels something sorta… snap in him, and then he just starts talking.
“I feel like I’ve known him forever.” Jeremy draws in a little breath, but Michael just barrels on. In for a penny, in for a pound. “We have so much in common. We like the same games, and we’re so in sync whenever we game together.
“He’s cute. He’s not, like, conventionally handsome or whatever, but I don’t care. He has a really nice nose. It goes really pink when it’s cold outside.”
Sooner or later, Jeremy’s gonna notice that Michael’s made-up crush is not in fact made up but is himself. But finally saying it all out loud feels so good.
“He doesn’t think a lot of himself,” Michael says, glancing at the now very squished Shiba inu in Jeremy’s hands. “But he’s a good person. He’s done some weird shit, sure, but who hasn’t. Maybe his shit was a little weirder—” A lot weirder, “—but he’s genuinely sorry. And he tries to make up for it, still. He’s… passionate, and talented, and better than he knows.”
Michael takes a deep breath, digs his short nails into his palms. “He’s my best friend,” he says.
The silence in the room is absolutely deafening. What Michael has just done hits him all at once. “I’m gonna go pee,” he says, detouring towards his nightstand to fish a pre-rolled joint out of the drawer. He all but runs to the ensuite bathroom — thank god for the ensuite — and realizes only after he’s closed and locked the door that he didn’t bring a lighter.
So much for that plan.
He sits down in the shower. The floor is still wet. Jeremy takes morning showers.
Okay, what the fuck?
There’s a knock on the door not even a minute after he’s locked it.
“Michael?” Jeremy’s voice is thready when it comes through the door.
“No,” Michael says. He’s a fucking idiot is what he is.
“Okay,” Jeremy says, two octaves above his normal speaking voice.
It’s all so absurd. It’s the weirdest fucking thing that’s ever happened to Michael, and half of his high school was once connected by a hivemind of pill-sized supercomputers.
“Michael?” Jeremy asks again. “Are you okay?”
Michael’s shoulders are shaking.
“Are you crying?”
The laughter bubbles out of him completely uncontrolled and echoes something horrible off the bathroom walls. A thunk from the door.
“Wait…” Michael manages in between giggles. “Did you just hit your head on the door?”
“I was worried about you, jackass!” Jeremy yells, and then Michael can’t help but laugh even more. Jeremy’s quick to join him, presumably because the panic-worry about Michael locking himself in the bathroom and maybe having a panic attack passes.
They both laugh until Michael’s stomach hurts. His pants are all wet from sitting on the shower floor.
Jeremy stops laughing first. “Michael, can you come out?”
“I already did,” Michael giggles.
The sound of Jeremy clearly slapping the bathroom door. “Hey, dude, I’m serious. I’m still…”
Worried about you. It remains unsaid, but Michael can read between the lines and he stands up and walks toward the door. He stops right in front of it, hand hovering over the lock. He’s got a face full of bathrobe. “Promise it won’t be weird?” he says quietly.
Jeremy probably only hears him because they’re both so close to the door. “I promise,” he says, and then Michael unlocks the door.
He stares at the floor when he walks out, studying the pattern of his socks closer than he ever has before. He sees Jeremy’s socks, too, army green with little dachshunds all over. He’s stepping closer, but Michael doesn’t look up.
He sees shitty linoleum dorm room floors and doggie socks and Jeremy’s jeans that are still damp from the rain, and then he doesn’t really see anything because Jeremy slots himself in against Michael and wraps him up in a hug.
He’s shaking again.
Michael can’t bring himself to say or do anything other than lazily grab at Jeremy’s arms where they wrap around his neck. They stand like that for a while, hugging for the second time today.
“You’re my favorite person,” Jeremy says.
Michael huffs. It’s a laugh and a sob and neither. “Thanks,” he says.
Jeremy’s hand reaches up to his neck. His fingers are cold when they brush over Michael’s scalp, and he shivers. “I think I figured something out,” he says, and when Michael tries to stand up to look at him he presses him down into his shoulder again. “No, wait. I— I think I know… why. Shit, hold on, this isn’t—”
Michael gives a tug to his shirt. It’s okay.
“I never really liked Simon,” Jeremy says slowly, “because I like you.”
Everything in Michael’s brain screeches to a halt.
“Well, I love you,” Jeremy says, and everything starts except it’s like when you press the accelerator for too long in Mario Kart and your kart goes poof. “I’m in love with you.”
Jeremy needs to stop talking if Michael is supposed to survive the night. Michael, completely involuntarily, makes a loud, screeching noise. And Jeremy, the bastard, has the gall to laugh.
“This is a lot,” Michael squeaks.
“You’re telling me,” Jeremy says. His fingers make slow, relaxing circles in Michael’s hair. He tugs on it after a while, and Michael stands up to look at him. Jeremy’s teary-eyed too. “Hey,” he says stupidly.
“Hey,” Michael replies, equally stupid. He expresses as much. “We’re kinda stupid.”
Jeremy smiles, his hand still in Michael’s hair. His eyes flit over Michael’s face, and then a look of determination passes over his face. Michael doesn’t have time to ask him what’s going on before there are lips on his.
Lips. On his.
Holy fucking shitballs.
Michael’s kissing someone.
Michael’s kissing Jeremy.
He breaks the kiss with a huge, dorky, elated grin.
“I love you,” Michael says, laughing. “Holy shit, I love you.”
Jeremy smacks him on the shoulder. “You ruined my romantic gesture!” he whines.
Michael can’t stop smiling. He feels like he did when his moms got him an SNES for Christmas. Jeremy’s looking at him with this fond look and he doesn’t really know what the hell is going on right now. “Sorry, do you want a do-over?” he asks.
Jeremy doesn’t hesitate before putting his hands over Michael’s cheeks and squishing their mouths together again. Michael hasn’t had a lot of kisses, but he’s absolutely certain that this is the best kiss he’s ever experienced.
He can’t wait to see how good they’re gonna be at this in a couple of years.
Jeremy is the one to pull back this time. “I love you, too, by the way.”
“Take that, Simon,” Michael whispers, pressing his lips to Jeremy’s again.
“Wait, wait, wait!” Jeremy says, words distorted by Michael kissing him over and over. “Was I your secret crush all along?”
“Um,” Michael says. “Maybe?”
Jeremy laughs, delighted.
“You caught me off guard!” Michael argues.
“So you made up a fake crush? And then just…” Jeremy has to take a break to laugh and catch his breath, “described me to me?”
“It was very cathartic!”
“Oh yeah,” Jeremy giggles, “I’m sure. Wait, holy shit!” He cackles even louder. Their neighbors are gonna be on their case, if this keeps up. “ Jordan? As in Jeremy Jordan? Michael!”
“This is your fault!”
“Wh— how is this my fault!?” Jeremy laughs.
“I don’t— do you want to be my boyfriend?”
Jesus Christ, what a mess.
Jeremy bites his lip to stop laughing. He’s looking at Michael like he’s the most precious thing in the world. As if that isn’t Jeremy — teary-eyed, red-faced, giggling Jeremiah Heere. “Yeah,” he says, warm, “I really do, Micah.”
Michael kisses him about it.