Chapter Text
“Hayley, I’m so serious right now—”
“You’re going to kill yourself, yes, I know.”
High school extracurriculars had to be the eighth circle of hell.
You threw yourself back onto your mattress with a grunt, the ceiling fan above you pulling into a trance. It was a brief respite from the endless scrolling you were doing on your laptop, the blaring white screens from websites that refused to provide a dark mode for their interfaces causing more than enough eyestrain for an entire lifetime.
Hayley tilted her head at you curiously, dyed red-orange hair falling lightly in front of her green eyes, her feet allowing her to idly rock your office chair back and forth where she sat at your desk. Across the room, Patrick blinked over, eyes twitching up from his Nintendo Switch that couldn’t be more than 6 inches away from his face.
“What’s wrong, again?” Patrick muttered, finally giving his own eyes a break by setting the console on the floor next to him.
“Everything.”
“Okay— what part of everything, though?” Hayley huffed. She turned back around to face your desk, flicking her black erasable pen between her fingers. “Is it yearbook stuff… or the History project, or…”
“Stupid community service sign ups,” you mumbled, pulling yourself upright. “There’s literally next to nothing to do where we live, I swear— and I can’t go back to the animal shelter this year, it won’t count.”
“Count for …?”
“National Honors Society.” You closed your current tab that held links to various volunteer programs in your area; most of them were a little out of the way for your current circumstances, or didn’t count for your stupid high school’s individual stupid guidelines for your local chapter, because the people who ran it were pretentious and stupid.
“Ohh— what? Why can’t you?” Hayley questioned, spinning back around to face you. “What’s wrong with the animal shelter? You have to go elsewhere?”
“They want us to broaden our horizons, or whatever the hell.” You tapped on the keys of your laptop a little more harshly than necessary, revisiting your high school’s page for the umpteenth time. “Something something ‘serve the community, not your own preferences,’ blah blah blah. If you already spent 15 hours in a specific volunteer program total then you can’t count any more hours there. I maxed my hours out last semester.”
“That’s such bull.”
“I get the sentiment,” you breathed, your own weak attempt at talking yourself down. “I’m just frustrated.”
“What’s available right now, then?” Patrick piped up, fixing his glasses so they sat right on his face. You flipped to another open tab— one containing a very short list of possible options— and heaved out a sigh.
“There’s the senior care facility…”
“All the way across town?”
“Yeah. That’s 30 minutes out on a good day, given the highway doesn’t get congested…” You adjusted your own glasses, eyes narrowing at the smear of text that refused to pull together as words in that moment. You tugged them off of your face, shutting your eyes to reduce strain while blindly cleaning the lenses with the fabric of your t-shirt. “I just don’t get how they think that’s realistic for a bunch of high-school students? Not all of us have regular access to a car. Travel time doesn’t count either. They only count the amount of time you’re physically at the building, clocked in.”
You opened your eyes back up, inspecting the state of your glasses. “And I don’t really want to entertain the elderly for an hour every week,” you muttered, almost entirely under your breath.
Hayley snorted. “You don’t care about senior citizens? Hello?”
“Did I say that?” You groaned. “Don’t put words in my mouth. I just— I feel, like, awkward. If my job is to just. Have a conversation. I’m not a conversationalist.”
“But you’re charming to adults, in a way,” Patrick pointed out. “I mean, my mom loves you.”
Hayley’s head whipped around to look at him. “Are you calling your mom old?”
“No!”
“Your mom likes me because she thinks I’m a better influence than Pete, and that’s a low bar,” you scoffed, finally planting your specs back on.
“And you’re also just cool? It isn’t even— She likes Pete now, too, but you’re just her favorite, for whatever reason,” Patrick stared at you, in that flat way, whenever he was being serious. “Genuinely—”
“I was kidding.” You turned your attention back to the list in front of you. “I don’t know. If I can get someone to come with me, maybe I can do senior care. Anyway! There’s also… park cleanups, but they only hold those a twice a year so that wouldn’t make up even a fifth of my time requirement. And… uh…”
You trailed off entirely, eyes running over the longer list of projects you disregarded for being unideal.
Hayley glanced over at Patrick, and then back at you. “That can’t be it.”
“…It’s not. It’s just— ugh. I don’t know. I don’t know! I don’t know what I’m going to do, and I want to quit NHS.”
You promptly shut your laptop, then moved to press your cool fingertips onto your closed eyelids. Your dilemma was hard to put into words, truly. Did you care about your community? Absolutely. Did you appreciate being considered to be a part of a student organization that would likely provide you with a jumpstart in future education and career choices? 100%.
Did the anxiety of having to thrust yourself into something different and unpredictable make you want to vomit all over your duvet? Yes.
You liked the animal shelter because animals were predictable. Easier to respond and react to than other human beings. You wanted that to be the place you filled up your schedule with to make it through the extra requirements that NHS membership provided you with, only to watch that plan slip through your fingers; you were promptly informed the last time you turned in your time sheet that while you may continue to volunteer at the shelter as you wished, you needed to pick another avenue of service to complete your hours for the school year.
15 more hours of community service for the remainder of 11th grade. Wrapping your mind around your schedule being flipped on its’ head so you could complete it made you squirm.
As if sensing your internal spiral leeching into the air, Hayley set her pen down and sat completely upright. “Hey, it’ll work out. It always does. When you started this thing you thought you could never do community service in the first place, and you’re already halfway through the goal time. You’ll find something.”
You dragged your hands up to cover your whole face, giving your body temperature a moment to stop hiking all the way up. She was right— things normally worked out for you. Your brain was just addicted to drumming up the worst possible scenarios, killing your hopes of anything ever going right before you gave it a shot.
“You know, you could try tutoring,” Patrick mentioned. You peeked at him through the gap between your fingers. “I’m pretty positive the program the school has running with the town library counts towards community service hours.”
You slowly slid your hands off of your face, his suggestion banging around in your brain in your silence.
“It’s laidback, from what I’ve heard,” he continued. “You don’t even schedule appointments yourself, the library assigns people to you based on your availability. And if you don’t get anybody for the days you’re supposed to come in, you can still help out so you’re picking up time.”
“How do you know all this?” You blurted.
“Ray. Before he graduated, anyway.”
You nodded slowly, digesting.
Tutoring. Huh. You never thought of yourself as the best teacher… obviously you were doing well enough grade wise to land yourself in the honors society, but explaining concepts to someone else was a different issue entirely.
“That’s a good idea,” Hayley pointed at Patrick, and then turned to beam at you. “You have to tutor, like, that’s the only thing that makes sense. Ray’s an awkward dude, kinda— if he could tutor, you can too.”
“I forgot there even was a tutoring program,” you muttered, a finger running along the stitching of your duvet. “I mean… maybe? It’s… I guess it doesn’t sound too bad…”
“Yeah. It would be like having an office job. You don’t really have to be super outgoing, just friendly enough, and stuff, and help students with their work. It’s cut and dry.” Patrick picked up his Switch once more, and the sounds of virtual grass crunching in what you assumed was Minecraft resumed. “You can do it. I think it makes more sense for you than organizing a food drive or something.”
You sucked your cheek in, staring off into space.
That could work. The library was decently close to your house, or at least on the path home from school. So that would be less gas used up, ergo, less complaints from your parents about paying for said gas. And the library was quiet… the environment wouldn’t be as grating…
You could give it a shot.
“I guess I’ll talk to Ms. Malcolm tomorrow.”
Hayley turned back to her notebook, and the faint sound of ‘Subwoofer Lullaby’ from Patrick’s corner provided a sense of ambience. The overall energy in your room became calm again; with the malevolence dissipating from your body, your individual activities was a return to your typical state of parallel play. That’s what you liked the most about these friends in particular— you never had to think too hard. You didn’t need to be ‘on’. The performance that was being surrounded by peers who found your demeanor odd made you very grateful for the understanding you did receive from Hayley and Patrick.
“I’m borrowing 3 of your diamonds, by the way,” Patrick stated, followed up the sound of a chest opening and closing quietly ringing out from his console.
You laid flat on your back once more. “As long as you’ll actually give 3 back. Because that’s what borrowing means.”
You just needed to survive junior year. That what’s everyone kept telling you.
Most school days were dull.
You hardly shared any classes with your closest friends— which was good for your ability to focus, bad for your sanity— so the majority of your time was spent staying in your lane as best as you could. In the sea of everyone dating, living out teenage recklessness, and the like, you were the loser who did extra credit assignments for fun.
But you were busy enough as is; chugging along through the honors program and classes with the added pressure of being in the photography-slash-yearbook-layout club in your junior year meant you had your work cut out for you, and you didn’t care to get too closely entangled with the lives of other students. You didn’t feel like you were better than them. You just weren’t cut out for the sparkling social life everyone else seemed to slot right into.
“…You finish the homecoming mock-up yet?”
You startled quite a bit when Pete popped up over your shoulder; the sound of someone speaking directly to you after tuning the scattered conversation in the clubroom out like white noise was jarring.
“Uh.” You lifting a hand at the screen in front of you, drawing his attention to it. It wasn’t anything super spectacular yet, but you were decently versed in graphic design— at least enough to be entrusted with a lot of the fancy, special event pages. That really just meant more work for you. That’s what it always came down to, thinly veiled with a compliment.
Pete hummed in approval. “Okay, awesome, cool. I have a suggestion though—”
He dropped a printed photo on the desk directly in front of you. “You should throw this one in there.”
You blinked at the image, then over at him, then back down at the image. Your eyes ran over the contents, setting, the people in it…
“No.”
“This is literally the coolest photo ever?”
“It’s literally just a picture of you and your goons?” You scoffed, batting the photo off of the desk and getting back to work. “No one cares that you and Chris wore tuxes for a night. You are not all that, bro.”
“It’s not just me and Chris! Look—” The picture was shoved in front of your face again. “Mikey looks sharp as hell! And Patrick! And Gabe! And Alicia, also, I forgot she was there—”
“Can you go away?” You groaned. “You’re in yearbook. Do you know how it would look if everyone who knew that and purchased one opened it to see a big dumb snapshot of you in a suit? That’s, like, Grade-A nepotism, basically. Yearbook nepotism.”
“That doesn’t make any goddamn sense.”
“It makes plenty of goddamn sense! Post it on Instagram, maybe then people will actually care.”
“I already did, it would look cooler in the yearbook! C’mon, please?”
“Kill yourself.” You pushed a lock of your hair out of your face, attempting to regain concentration.
Pete sighed, and plopped himself down in the office chair next to you, the wheels shifting a bit with his weight. Meanwhile, his thumbs flew furiously over his phone keyboard. “I’m telling Patrick you said that to me.”
“I don’t care. I’ve been on good behavior for two weeks now.” You saved the current draft on screen— one of three, since you needed to have options to present to your teacher coordinating yearbook production. “I’m so tired. I need to be in bed, now.”
“Twins,” Pete muttered, dry. “You’re out after school, yeah? No meetings? We should play Minecraft.”
“We should.” You closed the current window and pushed back in your office chair, raising your fingernails up to gnaw on idly. “God, I haven’t even gotten a second to see any of what Patrick’s been up to on the server, it’s like he’s—“
You stopped, abruptly smacking yourself in the forehead.
“Never mind.”
“Huh?”
“Can’t play today, I forgot.” You fought with everything in you to keep the whine out of your voice. “I start tutoring today, damn it. Damn it, damn it.”
Pete’s eyebrows drew together, though his lip quirked with amusement. “You’re getting tutored?”
“No, idiot. I’m the tutor.” You picked up a random pen nearby, clicking and unclicking, over and over and over. “Damn it, dude, I wanted to go home.”
Pete hummed, slumping back in his own chair like a starfish. “You’re always doing some other ridiculous thing every time we talk.”
“So are you.”
“But I’m doing like… fun stuff. I go out on the town. I’m not taking every class under the sun to earn a billion extra credit things for the stupid piece of paper they give us at the end of it all.”
“First of all, no one says ‘going out on the town’ anymore, that makes you sound like you’re 60. Second of all—” He snatched the pen you were clicking from your hands, and you let it go without resistance. “I try my best. If this is the best I can do, I will push myself to that limit. I can’t draw back now that I’ve set the bar.”
“You sound like a cartoon character right now.”
“Literally go die.”
You spun your chair around to start slowly putting your stuff away, while Pete pulled out his phone. “Tutoring should be lightwork for you, though.”
You huffed a little through your nose, fingers working the zipper on your backpack. “We’ll see. Don’t jinx it.”
At least the library was quiet.
That was the thought majorly carrying you through your unrest as you sat at the table in the far back, designated for volunteers. You were too exhausted to know what to feel; if most things you did stressed you by default, did you deserve to complain? Not really.
You had to operate like you were programmed, or you would never get anything done at all; such is life. The real world. You were just… getting a jump start. It was only going to get harder.
You had no idea who you were there to help, either. Obviously, you were sent to sit at those specific desks because the staff had someone coming in, but you were provided with no further information about the student. No age, grade, subjects— nothing. Not that the subject matter would be an issue when you’ve been sporting As in every class since the first grade… but still.
So, out came your phone for the time being, and you opened up your text thread with Patrick.
You:
> [Let’s play 8 Ball!]
trick:
????
Aren’t you community service-ing rn???
You:
the community i’m supposed to service isn’t here yet so play the game
trick:
This isn’t very professional, just to let you know
[Your move.]
You:
i’m literally not doing anything yet whag do you expect out of me
trick:
I’m joking
You:
[Opponents move…]
you’re not very good at it cause i can never tell
trick:
Oh yeah how’s the whole autism screening thing going
You:
😐
what about this conversation is making you think about that
stop
The slight creak of the entrance door pulled your eyes in that direction, though you quickly dropped them back onto your screen as a tall, skinny silhouette carried itself over to the front desk. Someone about your age, probably— you didn’t think too hard about it.
trick:
[Your move.]
I didn’t mean it like that 😒
Genuine question
You started to play out your turn, though fumbling at the last second as that gangly silhouette grew closer in your peripheral. The turn ended with you accidentally sinking the cue ball, a loss you didn’t have time to mourn as that figure was now standing just feet away from you.
When you turned your phone off and looked up, you were more than a little surprised to see Mikey Way. Standing over you. Looking.
You cleared your throat. “Hi?”
“Hi.” He shifted on his feet, somehow coming off more awkward than you felt. “You’re tutoring?”
“…Yeah?”
“Ok. Cool.” He pulled out the chair next to you, plopping his backpack down on the floor next to it. “So— I’m not doing well in English right now, and I got directed this way by Mr. Broom; I don’t think I need that much help but I don’t really have a choice, I guess…”
Half of the words out of his mouth became white noise as you recovered from the shock of seeing him alone.
First and foremost— you didn’t realize you could be paired with students from your own school. In your mind, you thought it would be more likely to end up with some middle schooler that’s failing Algebra or something— not someone your own age. You were somewhat mortified by the idea, actually.
The fact that it was someone you knew made everything feel a little weirder, too. You would’ve been fine working with a friend, or a stranger, but Mikey was an acquaintance. That strange grey area where you weren’t sure how friendly or professional you were allowed to be, or if he even remembered who you were. Which was a bit of a ridiculous thought to have, since he addressed you like he knew you, and it would be strange for him to not remember you knowing that you had always existed around each other in the same friend circles.
And he was looking right at you with his weirdly pretty-for-a-boy eyes, so you felt a little nauseous.
Were you overthinking it? Probably. That’s what you did best.
“Oh—” You nearly winced as you cut him off, though words continued to spill out regardless. “You’re failing English?”
Mikey’s expression turned sheepish, and he shrugged. “No— it’s— I’m not failing, there’s just some assignments I’ve almost maxed out the attempts on, which are really tanking my grade. So…”
“Ah.” You tapped your fingers against the table, your own heartbeat loud in your ears. “Well, uh. That’s what I’m the best in, actually, so. I can help.”
You chuckled stiffly, doing your best to subvert the urge to punch yourself in the face for saying something so awkward and unfunny and obvious. Of course you were good at English, you wouldn’t be sitting in that seat if you weren’t. Was it hot in there all of a sudden?
“Great.” He slid his school provided Chromebook out of his bag, along with a blue spiral bound notebook. “I, um. Appreciate it.”
His left arm brushed against your right as he set up his materials, and your palms glassed over with sweat.
“…Of course, yeah.”
Pete and Patrick both halted in their conversation the moment a chime alerted them to your presence in the Discord call.
“Oh, hey,” Pete spoke up first. “How was it?”
“Um…” You turned on your wireless headphones, watching the little light blink a couple times before it turned blue, and you slipped them onto your ears. “Good.”
“You say that with the cadence of someone who got crapped on by a bird, or something,” Pete replied. You could hear the light tapping of a controller on one of their ends as you crawled into your bed, settling under your weighted blanket.
“M’tired,” you mumbled, opening up Discord to back-read the conversations you missed before they hopped on voice chat.
“Was it a decent day, at least?” Patrick inquired. “I didn’t hear from you after that hour or so.”
“Sorry. I forgot to get back to you.” You squinted at your screen, eyes starting to dry under your contacts. “It was fine. I was, um— I helped Mikey today, actually.”
“Mikey?” Pete echoed. You rolled over to peel off your lenses and flick them onto your nightstand, then fumbling for your glasses.
“Yeah. Way.”
“Well, duh— what could Mikey need help with? Mikey’s not dumb.”
You scoffed, “Having bad grades doesn’t make a person dumb. Grades rely on performance, not intelligence.”
You settled back in, now comfortably scrolling through previous messages. Pete mimicked your words like a fly buzzing in your ear, and Patrick cleared his throat.
“Get on Minecraft.”
“M’tired.”
“I wanna show you the slime farm, come on.”
“What do we even need a slime farm for?”
“Fire resistance potions.”
You grunted, and instead opened Instagram to flick through. If you were honest with yourself, you knew you felt a little too out of sorts to even justify getting on the call with them. At the same time, you weren’t quite positive you wanted to be alone with your thoughts, either.
Mikey Way.
You couldn’t say you knew him super well, but you knew your interest in him was a smidge more of something than it was with everybody else. You couldn’t say you liked him, per se— but he was always just attractive enough that everything you did around him got filed into your memory to analyze and beat yourself to death over later. God, you were so awkward.
Not like he was on the market. He had Alicia. It was mostly just a thought that always nagged you whenever Pete brought him around. It sat in the recesses of your mind, serving to annoy you over all else. You chalked it up to being nervous around conventionally attractive people, as most are; Hell, Alicia made you nervous too.
You still kept that crumb of information to yourself, though. You’d die before daring to admit that you thought a boy was kinda cute.
Maybe being on the call wasn’t helping, actually— your mind was still negging you, and the longer you sat in the presence of your friends, the bigger the urge to spill.
“I have stuff to finish for History, so I’m gonna go,” you muttered, halfway through a yawn.
“Can’t you stay on the call while you do it?” Patrick asked, sounding unfairly like some kind of dog that was eager to keep you present.
“You two distract me,” you half-joked. “Was just checking in. See you tomorrow.”
There was a collective ‘bye’, and you slipped out of the call.
And instead of grabbing your laptop, you covered your face with your hands and rolled over.
You needed to get it together. You could handle one day of being perceived by an attractive person; it was fine. You would be fine. He got what he needed out of you for the day, anyway— Mikey had no reason to come back while you served out your time, you were positive of it.