toxic codpendent boys babyyyy
i love you and it's ruining my life (boyfs)
Summary: After coming home from college for the first time in years, Jeremy's flooded with a ton of mixed emotions. He's tried so hard to put his past behind him, but it all shatters in the blink of an eye.
A/N: UGH codependent relationships are so interesting to explore and write about, dude I'm going insane. (I don't JUST write doomed/toxic yuri, I also do yaoi. I don't discriminate) The negatives of Jeremy and Michael (other than "ugh jeremy's evil and stinky >:(" and "Michael's pining but jeremy's too horrible to see :(") really should be written about more often, IMO. I love these stupid teenagers
Anyway, thank you so much for reading!! Seriously, you're all the best.
Walking home from class, Jeremy’s door is softly pushed shut as he enters the room. His old room. Not much had changed since he left back in August, home again (at the request of his therapist) after spending his other holidays working. It wasn’t his idea, at the expense of his poor father, as he knew his unexplained absence left the man worried. He worried enough about him already, he shouldn’t have to add to that by being back here. All of the mess he was front and center. He’d changed since college, he really did. However, for better or for worse, they didn’t know him there so it was easy for him. Easy to be someone else. Not like he had in high school, yet still someone else nonetheless.
But it was summer now, and that had to count for something.
He toes off his shoes, shoulders falling as he breathes in the familiar smell of linen and lavender. Suddenly, his ears perk up at the sound of a car driving by. Creeping up to the window, he looks out and
“He’s still driving that thing?” Jeremy’s eyes widened in shock. It’s been almost 5 years with that thing. You couldn’t even consider it a car anymore. Jesus, with how many times it’s broken down, how is he even alive ? He shakes his head and puts it out of his mind, but for a moment he's interrupted. Almost instantly he recognized that car, but why? It’d been over 2 years since graduation and he never talked about home. So, it couldn’t have been that easy. Then, it dawned on him.
That was Michael.
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Later that night, he’s standing in front of his bathroom mirror, trying desperately to put images out of his mind. As he takes off his shirt, his scars and not as much as it used to be but still ungodly pale skin are on full view, like a child’s connect-the-dots page taken a wrong turn.
The room’s flooding with steam and as he dissociates, he looks up to see sixteen year old him staring back. He’s that teenage boy again. His grim expression as he looks almost ready to drive his fist through the glass, binder in full view. It almost gives him a heart attack at the reminder that this is the same person he was just 3 years ago. He never did end up doing that, but the thought of it just made him shudder at how awful that teenage boy he had been. That stupid, whiny, annoying teenage boy who he could never run away from.
He ended up not going to Michael’s that night, he was too afraid. (And he also wasn’t home given that he was touring schools that weekend.) He didn’t want to leave the comfort of his bathroom and be perceived by everyone. A loser like him didn’t have the guts, and that’s all he was, right? However, he could fantasize. And so he did. He fell asleep on the cold tile wishing it was his best friend’s bed, the sounds of Link collecting his sword and silent “Shit!”’s of frustration followed by an attempt to be quieter in the background.
Jeremy blinked quickly, swallowing his breath and stepping into the shower to escape the fading reflection.
That didn’t help as much as he had hoped though. His mind, as it often did, only resurfaced more as he stood under the water. This was better, he deduced. Now, he didn’t have to see it. To be reminded. He could just think.
____________________________________
“Michael..?”
Puffing out a cloud of smoke, Michael shifts his eyes from the ceiling to the beanbag next to him. The only light being from the lava lamp in the corner, he squints briefly before he’s able to make out the boy in question. Even in the darkness, he looked…god.
He looked beautiful. As much as he still had so much turmoil inside him, how he knew they were drifting apart more than he liked but was too afraid to bring it up, he couldn’t deny the aura permeating off of his friend. Unable to look away as he drew him further like a moth to a flame.
“
Yeah?” He replied, voice raw before coughing a little.
“I…” Jeremy twitched. He felt like his teeth were about to run out of his mouth, like the back of his head was hinged open, brain fully exposed to the world. His thoughts, his feelings, his pain, all oozing out of each nook and cranny. He couldn’t help it. Maybe it was the weed, maybe it was being back somewhere so familiar. Regardless, he knew the real reason why he felt like he was losing it. Why he felt like he wanted to throw up and cry at the same time.
“I fucked up.” He finished, head hung low.
Michael shifted tiredly in his seat, hand covering his mouth to stifle a yawn. Leaning his head back, his eyes met the side of Jeremy, who instinctively turned to face him. “Whaddyoumean?” He asked, words slurring together slightly.
Jeremy laughs nervously as his lip quivers. Shaking his head, his brow furrows. “I- you know what I mean!” He exclaims and then almost a second later, his hand covers his mouth. Ugh, why’d he have to say that so loud? Thank goodness Michael’s moms weren’t home, but still. Jesus Jeremy, can’t you control yourself for one second? Tears pool behind his eyes, at first cooling to the bloodshot feeling, however stinging just a second after. His palms plunge hard to rub at them and make him look somewhat less pitiful than he already does. Which isn’t much as the croaking in his voice gives it away even more.
“I fucked up real bad Michael. I know I did.”
Sobering up as best as he can, Michael snaps up and inches closer, a hand gently tugging at Jeremy’s wrist. “Hey, c’mon man, talk to me. What do you mean you ‘fucked up’?”
His tone calming as always, Jeremy takes a quick breath; cringing internally at his shuddering. He sounded like a kid in trouble about to get sent to his room, but in his own sick way, wasn’t he just that?
“Just..” He sighed. “Everything. All of it. I keep screwing up and with the whole SQUIP thing…I- haven’t truly apologized to you for that. I didn’t even say I’m sorry and I should have!” Jeremy rambled, wringing his hands together before resting them on his knees, sweaty palms tugging at the fabric that was starting to feel like sandpaper.
He blinked, tears falling shamelessly. Michael was always so sweet to him, and why? He of all people didn’t deserve it. After all that he’s done, the kind, loving, handsome, funny, and so many other flowery words he could use to describe his favorite person didn't treat him the way he ought to be treated. Like a monster. He still treated him like his best friend, and that made the anguish inside tear him apart even more than it had.
“And I hurt you Michael. I never meant to, but I did and I’m…Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Michael’s eyes widened. He hadn’t expected that. Had it really been that long since he’d apologized? Since they’d talked about it? He wanted this, right? He’d been waiting for this for so long, and yet, now he doesn’t know what to think. It’s not that he didn’t think Jeremy meant it, it was just all so sudden and he’d already apologized profusely for everything else already.
But never for how much he had hurt him.
He knew he did, and Michael knew he was ashamed of himself, but he never said those words out loud.
How long had he been waiting to hear that?
How much had they thought, things other than and still similar in their own right, but never said to each other?
Michael sighed, head tilting to look even closer into Jeremy’s eyes. His hand rested on his shoulder and slowly, he nodded, glasses drooping down to his nose. “I know you are.”
“And I forgive you, Jer. I really do,”
He offered a somber smile which in turn earned him almost falling to the floor as the other rushed into him. Or rather, fell, seeing as he was stoned out of his mind.
And even in that foggy haze, Jeremy meant every word he said. Bubbling over like a shaken can of coke he wanted to say so many other things than sorry. He wanted to sing it until everyone in New Jersey heard how much he regretted it. How it was eating at him from the inside. He loved his best friend. He loved him so much. He was the light of his life, the one person he knew really cared about him. And that no matter where they went in life, he would always feel the same towards him. Was it romantic, he couldn’t tell. He just knew that he loved him more than words could describe.
Was it a little unhealthy? Yeah, it was. But at least he knew it and didn’t let it show. How worse could it have been if he did?
Voice muffled by the fabric of Michael’s shirt, he pulled away for a moment. Not caring out how desperate he sounded, he sniffled, cleaning his face off as best as he could with his sleeve.
Jeremy swallowed, cheek resting on Michael’s chest. “I don’t deserve it though. I was such an awful person, and god..” He sighed, shaking his head. “I…I don’t want you to go either. I don’t wanna lose you.”
Michael clicked his tongue and ran a hand down the other’s wrist. Part of him wanted to snap back and agree with him, and it did. He had been a dick, plain and simple. But the rest of him just couldn’t do it. He never could.
“Shh..hey, listen. I’m not going anywhere, Jeremy. Really, I’m not!” Michael smiled somberly in an attempt to cheer him up. And Jeremy, hung onto it like a dog waiting for his owner. “I know you’re sorry and you feel like shit about it, but I’m not angry about it anymore. What’s done is done. But, I’m still here, aren’t I?”
Jeremy nodded and returned the gesture, lips curling into a crooked half-smile. As Michael breathed out an unseen sigh of relief, Jeremy inched back towards him. Emotions heightened from what was normally a welcome smoke, he was utterly exhausted. After taking what was way too long to say all that he had kept inside, he drifted into a wobbly sleep. Michael succumbed to a fit of yawns just seconds after, palms resting in the small of the others back as he passed out.
__________________________________
Cicadas chirped outside his window and as Jeremy tried to fall asleep, that was all he could think about. Every thought that popped into his head pertained to that night, and many others before that. It was all memories. Memories of a better time, a time that passed, and a time that he could never return to. Maybe a time that he never deserved. Taken for granted like it meant nothing more when it truthfully meant the world to him.
Turning over in bed, he faces the window; streetlights emitting a soft glow through his curtains. God, why can’t he just stop? Why can’t he relax and be normal for once?
Sighing, he leaned up and propped himself on his shoulders. Reaching over, he pulled his phone onto the bed and unable to sleep already, he figured it couldn’t get that much worse.
That didn’t last long. The first thing. The very first thing Jeremy saw when he opened his phone, was a throwback picture to a birthday party.
Michael’s, to be exact.
It was his fourteenth, barely a month after eighth grade began. He pointed behind him, face wide in fake ecstasy at the banner saying “Happy Birthday Mikey!” as if he didn’t know what day it was. He “hadn’t expected anything”, but he knew damn well that wasn’t true. The kid reveled in his birthday. He was one of the few people, if not the only person, Jeremy knew who genuinely enjoyed it. The memory made him smile.
For a brief moment, he forgot about everything his mind had been weighing on him before coming down from the high and back to reality. The pain knocked the wind out of him harder than before. Why? Why did it hurt him as much as it did? Why did every time he even so much as thought about Michael he felt like crying? Was it because of the whole SQUIP thing? Was it from being home after so long?
Could it have been that he lost something he so desperately wanted back?
To return to the safety of having him there and they can live in their mutually doomed relationship forever.
Where they get high and everything somehow makes sense.
Where he’s a bigger loser now more than ever and it doesn’t feel like a giant failure.
Where he feels…happy. And loved. And life feels worth living because someone, at least one other person, cares and has been there for the entirety of all he’s done. When others left, when he figured out who he truly was, when he almost lost himself, Michael was the one that stayed. After all the work he’d done to not return to those feelings or the person he was then, was just tossed out in the blink of an eye as he realizes he’s back right where he started.
Only difference now was, he knew what this was and that he couldn’t keep it up. He was older, and despite him basically regressing somehow, thinking about Michael, his subtle yet immediate swing into the beginning of a depressive episode; he understood that what he was hoping for wasn’t real.
He couldn’t do that. Not to him.
As much as he missed him, he didn’t want to be the burden he knew he had to be on the other. (Michael never thought he was, but in Jeremy’s own fucked up mind, that’s what he believed.) He can’t deny himself anymore, about what he’s feeling/wanting at this moment anyway. He loved Michael. More than he’d loved…anyone.
But now as he lies awake in bed, wanting to forget about it all, the thing that calms him down into an uneasy sleep is going back into the place he regretfully knows best. His head.
Dreaming he’s fallen asleep in the boy with the red hoodie's arms, like he’s done so many times before, he falls asleep. Finally. Why was he so pathetic? He wasn’t any better than his own father. Trying/chasing after a love that he knew he wouldn’t get. But hey, that was tomorrow Jeremy’s problem when he inevitably woke up.
Unbeknownst to him, his phone dings from his bedside table.
From: maybe? Micheal
“Hey.”
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