boyf riends one shots // bmc

5: there's no other half there

time period: post-canon

warnings: self-harm, suicidal thoughts and actions, abandonment, self-hatred, pain

notes: this isn't lowercase, oh well
it's also a lot of me projecting my own personal problems onto michael who doesn't deserve this im sorry i just relate too much to him ugh

aking mundo - tagalog for "my world" (if it's the wrong translation, i blame google translate)

summary: michael thought he and jeremy were okay.

at least, they were for a while.

but, the summer before senior year, things start to go downhill.

***

Michael knew that, when Jeremy woke up from the Squip incident and started hanging out with him again, it was too good to be true.

Now, here he was, nine months later. The summer before senior year.

And Jeremy had slowly pulled away.

***

Michael guessed that it started after they had gone on their big trip.

The video game convention, across the country in California, was something they had been planning since January. Michael and Jeremy both put a lot of money into that trip, with the airfare and hotel and everything. And, when they finally got to the hotel in July, Michael had to ruin it.

"Jeremy, I wanted my bag there," Michael fake-whined at the sight of Jeremy placing his bag by the nightstand.

Jeremy rolled his eyes and removed the bag, laughing, but Michael noticed there was nothing real about the laugh.

"Hey, dude, I was just joking, sorry," Michael quickly backtracked.

Jeremy shook his head. "It's fine, I'm fine."

Michael hesitantly agreed, but he could tell something was up.

And it only got weirder from there. When Michael tried to talk about what he had learned on Discovery the previous night, Jeremy shut the conversation down. When Michael tried to get Jeremy to come check out some cosplays, Jeremy just shook his head. What hurt the most was when Michael tried to open up to Jeremy about what he was feeling about his current home situation (his parents had never really been that great to him), and Jeremy just said, "Maybe you should try to talk to someone else."

But every time Michael asked what was wrong, Jeremy played it off. "I'm just tired, Michael. I'm fine."

The next sign came later. It had been three weeks since the end of that trip, and Michael had barely heard from Jeremy.

One day, he went on Snapchat, bored out of his mind, and he saw that Jeremy had updated his story.

Wow, Jeremy rarely updates his story.

Curious, Michael clicked it.

The picture was of Jeremy and Rich in a car, and it was captioned "hanging with this guy". Simple enough, but the photo sliced something in Michael's heart. Rich was a pretty cool guy now, and they had actually started talking earlier in the summer. Suddenly, Michael got an idea that cheered him up.

He slid up on the photo and added a chat to it. "man, maybe the three of us should hang out sometime! that'd be fun."

Suddenly, he received a snap from Jeremy. Not a chat, a snap. Which was weird.

It was a blurry picture, captioned "nahhhh dude you'd whine at me the whole time".

What the... what? Michael thought, confused.