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Three months (three? two? three.) had passed since he had last talked to a familiar not-hive-mind Jeremy. His hair started getting unbearably greasy on week two (he never would remember if he ended up showering when his sister wrinkled her nose at him in silent disgust or if happened later, of his own volition.) Now the idea of looking in the mirror sent him into a fit that required deep breathes in and out, in and out in order for him to feel Normal again. But how could he be normal when the only person that knew he had a problem with drinking filtered water and hated bluetooth headphones had swallowed an super duper cool anti depressant hard drive?
Sometimes Michael wished that they had split the pill, so that maybe, maybe Michael could be a little less Not Normal. But that only happened sometimes, the other times he managed to take care of himself in a regular, not at all rehearsed way.
Codependency issues? Michael wished his head would just — stop that idea before it made itself a home in his brightly lit, not at all hazy brain. Because Michael pointedly did not and had never had codependency issues. Ever. Jeremy was the codependent one, needing Michael’s advice on which pair of socks to wear, and
“Do you think Christine likes my blue or grey cardigan better?” Michael never said that he thought Christine couldn’t care less, and answered with what he liked better. Because that’s what best friends are for? Right? Also Jeremy always looked good in blue.
Whenever (if ever) he managed to get into the shower over the course of those three months, he turned the knob as far to the left as possible, letting the steam fill in the bathroom. When it started to get hard to breathe Michael would step in, not flinching when the Hell Fires of water made his skin pink and patchy.
He tried to avoid showers until either his moms or sister started to sniff twice when around him. Hygiene was inconvenient when his best friend was in a shitty episode of Stark Trek and there was little to no hope of saving him, and hey, what’s hygiene going to mean when the whole world is controlled by seizure inducing pop rocks that erase personalities?
It would mean jack shit.
He started to feel as if someone was pulling at his spine, trying to lift his skeleton up above his body and mock him,
“Look at what I’ve got here! Michael Mell’s shattered bones and broken heart!”
God, school was the seventh circle of hell. Dante was fucking right. Damn the bastard. Michael wished he hadn’t read his books in tenth grade English, so he could be blissfully ignorant to the literary irony of his own existence (are Japanese anti depressants worthy of being vaguely compared to Dante’s Divine Comedy? Probably not.)
He shivered every time he walked by Jeremy in the hallways. Michael felt his headband tighten as his jaw tensed and everything just. Wouldn’t. Stop.
He would seek solace in the janitors closet like a good little bullied side kick in a heterosexual teenage drama. He would be the quirky minority that fits the Oscar bill, the exception that is broken to fill up the perfect puzzle that had become “Jeremy Heere’s Life: Post SQUIP.” Michael had no idea what he was thinking, his mind had probably taken most of the damage that had meant to break his heart, guess that didn’t work out for either part of him.
He pulled open his twitter and scrolled, passing CNN’s latest spill on the presidential administration and Chris Evans’ sad as fuck Marvel related tweets, as he searched quite desperately for a proper Mind Numbing distraction. This was a new and improved certified coping skill that he definitely did not tell his therapist about, because who wants to hear a delusional retard talk about completely Normal anti depressants that make your best friend hate you?
Also, Michael did not have codependency issues, thank you very much. He just struggled with figuring out where his brain and his existence fit in with reality. Jeremy had kept him steady and he had done the same for Jeremy. They were a balanced seesaw, until Jeremy had clamored off and onto the rock wall to popularity. What a bitch.
On top of the complete and utter misuse of social media and ignoring the obvious option of therapy, Michael had also developed the nasty habit of having a crisis every time his foster moms talked to him. Especially when they talked about Jeremy.
They bickered over Michael’s social life the moment he stepped into their home, his spider-man backpack holding all his worldly possessions and a photo of his biological mother, the only reasons his moms were still Foster Moms.
Again, what a bitch.
They worried about him too much, how he didn’t shower sometimes, how he spent so much time playing World Of Warcraft and watching South Park while stoned. How he only had one friend since was seven. How he had stopped talking to him now, after a decade of friendship and kind of something a little bit more.
Codependency was a nonexistent bitch.
Michael chalked it all up to be a Mental Illness Thing. Something he couldn’t help, or maybe he was just too unlikeable to have anyone but Jeremy in his life.
On that note —
His “Jeremy” playlist slowly filled with short rap songs that made Michael angry that music existed, but eventually those melted into shitty guitar band beats with barely audible mumbled voices talking about suicide.
Suicide was just another Mental Illness Thing to Michael, he never wanted to act on it, he told his therapist as much, but Halloween had snapped something in him. Snapped something irreparable, not like his greasy hair and clenched jaw and deep breathing session held in the janitor’s closet.
It had snapped his grip on life. His fingers were jabbed with needles as he held on to the railings of Sanity. He was about to sink into the tour of hell that Dante wrote about. He refused to look down and instead looked up, and saw Jeremy’s face, looking very much unlike Jeremy, holding the needles.
Halloween had really driven that final nail into the coffin.
Three months and Michael sat on the very oddly sticky seat in the hospital waiting room. Waiting for his foster moms to pick him up because he couldn’t stop shaking enough to drive home, because Jeremy was somewhere in the maze of hallways, asleep, possibly without sentient Japanese anti depressants trying to make him popular.
Three months and Michael still couldn’t pin point why the definition of “codependency” made his stomach turn. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why the way his sister sneered when she talked about Jeremy felt Wrong and Right at the same time.
Jeremy was his best (only? best.) friend.
There was nothing wrong with going a little off the rails over that right?
Right?