Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Gavin fucking Free.

Of course.

Somehow, Michael managed to forget, sometimes, how much the universe so obviously hated him. He’d forget how nothing ever worked out in his favor.

And then bullshit like this would happen.

He and Gavin had gone to school together since eighth grade. Gavin had moved - from where, Michael never cared to find out - and Michael had instantly decided he wanted nothing to do with him. 

No one did. No one wants to hang out with a freak. Especially not when you’re entering high school, big and scary with its ever changing social ladder. You could struggle to the top for years only to drop back to the bottom in a second. 

Michael, in the beginning of his junior year, had gotten through without ever saying a word to Gavin Free. Few people were as lucky, but he’d done it. Gavin wasn’t bullied, exactly, and definitely not by Michael. There was some kind of silent agreement throughout the entire school, and new students learned quick. You do not fuck with Gavin Free. You didn’t talk to him, you barely looked at him, you acted as if he didn’t exist as well as you could, but you didn’t touch him. Most of the freaks, the one who were treated as though they had a contagious disease, were bullied as well. Michael, personally, wasn’t into it, he just went on ignoring them. The one freak that got away with it was Gavin. It was just how it worked. Some would consider him to be the bottom rung, without a friend, or even someone to chat with, but some considered him to be at the very top.

Gavin Free was an untouchable. The only one.  Paths cleared when he took to the halls, never once did another teenage boy lay a hand on him. Teachers were kind and understanding when he was late or didn’t turn in his work. He’d never been in trouble. Not once in the four years Michael had gone to school with him.

Michael had no idea how Gavin felt about his position at the school, but assumed he enjoyed it. Michael himself was in an odd limbo, stretched out, clinging a rung near the top, his feet hooked around the middle. Neither popular nor unpopular, he made it clear he wasn’t going to take anyone’s shit, but didn’t meet many of the standards that one needed to be on top. He’d worked hard for that, for his little group of dickhead friends, for a reputation that kept his head out of the toilet, but Gavin had been handed his, without doing a single goddamn thing.

What Michael failed to realize, was, Gavin hadn’t asked for it. It was forced upon him, and for all the wrong reasons. 

Chapter Text

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Michael said, loudly, without a care that his partner was ten feet away and not deaf. “I’m not working with him.”

“Michael!” The teacher admonished, narrowing her eyes at him and gesturing towards the boy they were referring to. Glancing at him, Michael read his expression as unsurprised, head tilted towards his desk but eyebrows raised. They seemed to be saying, ‘this again?’. He didn’t even feel guilty.         

No one worked willingly with Gavin Free.

He assumed he’d end up doing all the work, as is, and this was a big project. It wasn’t something Michael would be able to do on his own, and he sure as hell wasn’t in the mood to drag Gavin along for three weeks. 

“You are working with him, and that’s final.” There were sighs of relief and a couple snickers from various points in the classroom. They were safe, and Michael was the newest victim. Selfish bastards.

“What if someone will switch with me?” It was the teachers turn, to raise an eyebrow, and Michael understood loud and clear. ‘No one’s going to volunteer for that.’

“Now!” She forced the smile back onto her face, cutting off Michael from making another argument. “Get with your partners. You’ll spend the rest of this class discussing topics and ideas, and three weeks from Monday will be the due date.”

Michael didn’t move. Neither did Gavin.

After a moment, Miss G jabbed a finger towards Michael, tight lipped, and then across the room to Gavin, a stern look on her face. Apparently, she was done with his shit. With the loudest irritated groan he could admit, Michael got up. It was less him standing up and more him shoving the desk out from under himself. The girl next to him yelped, but he ignored her. Grabbing his back, he trudged the few steps across the room, throwing himself down into the empty desk on Gavin’s right.

The seats left and behind him had been taken and dragged across the room. As though they were on their own little island, in the immediate middle and front of the row in their normal place, all the other desk had been pushed as far away as the room would allow.

Gavin’s head turned towards Michael, his mouth set in a deep frown.

Michael had never seen him smile.

“So, what could we choose as our book?” Gavin’s voice surprised him. Well, his voice wasn’t as surprising as his accent. It made him wonder how many people knew he came from England – and if it would have changed anyone’s opinion of him.

Probably not.

“I don’t care.” Michael grumbled, keeping his eyes trained to the scratched desk, Gavin’s gaze making him wildly uncomfortable.

“Could we,” Gavin’s voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. In his periphrial vision, Michael could see his stretched out arms, fingers tracing lines on the edge of his desk. When he began to speak again, his hands stopped moving and gripped it, tightly enough that Michael could see his knuckles turn white, straining against his skin. “Could we do a book called The Fault In Our Stars?”

Michael had read the book, and had a few guesses as to why Gavin would want to. He liked it, a lot, and supposed it wouldn’t be a terrible choice. Obviously Gavin knew the book, which meant he might do some sort of work. They weren’t actually sure what the project was. They were getting the first half now, which was a one to three page summary of the book, and a series of discussion questions, along with their own, that they had to discuss and record the conversation. Michael didn’t understand the importance of the project, and had assumed it was just a time filler and something to grade, since they didn’t do much in English. Their teacher had odd methods and mostly had classes participate in discussions and tried to get her students to, as she put it, feel books instead of just read them. The second half of the project might make it more clear, but, either way, Michael wanted an A. Since there was so little graded, big projects or tests meant a lot more than they might in other subjects.

“Sure, whatever.”

“Have, you, uh, read it?”

“Why would I agree to it if I haven’t?” Michael snapped. Though it was a valid question, he wasn’t going to pretend that he wasn’t angry to be stuck working with Gavin.

“Look,” Gavin started, and this time, his voice wasn’t soft or embarrassed. It wasn’t loud, but it was harsher, annoyance pouring out with every word, a little something Michael couldn’t quite place mixed into it. “I know you don’t want to work with me. I know that no one does. I don’t want to work with you either. You think I don’t know who you are, Michael? Michael ‘The Rage’ Jones?” No one had called Michael ‘The Rage’ to his face in a long time. “It’s an easy project and we both know it and according to your schedule, you’re not as much of an idiot as you seem, so this first part isn’t going to take long. We’ll have to work out of class, yeah, but don’t worry about your precious rep, alright? You’re not the first to be forced to work with me, and you won’t be the last. Just get over yourself.” It was the boldest thing anyone had ever said to Michael, and had it been anyone else, he’d have felt a surge of respect and then punched them in the face.

“Fine, fine. As long as you know I am not fucking happy.”

“You’ve only said it about three times. I’m blind, not deaf. Now let’s tell her we’re ready and see if we can go to the library.”

Chapter Text

They went to the library, with Miss G’s permission, and a short burst of excitement from the young teacher. After rattling on about her delight at their choice and Michael’s participating she sent them off with a pass to use a computer and see if their school library had a copy or two of their chosen book in circulation. 

Michael sighed with relief when they entered the library. There were few people there, from what he could see. The computers were on rows of desks in the back of the library, and after handing the pass to the librarian and signing in, he hurried to the furthest row back, where he could have his back to the wall and have the large desktop obscuring any wandering eyes from who he’d be sitting next to. Gavin had trailed behind him, and Michael refrained from asking how he knew where to go. It was probably insensitive to talk to him about the whole blind thing. Or it would make it seem like Michael gave a shit. 

“Michael,” Gavin’s hand was grasping air, moving around until it finally catch the back of the metal chairs shoved under the computer desk. He tugged it out, and moved slowly around, dropping carefully into the seat. “she said there’s a copy of the book on the shelf for you.” Michael felt a pang of something uncomfortable in his chest that made his stomach turn. He watched as Gavin leaned close to the computer screen, and then settled back against the chair and began to type. Before Michael had even  turned on his monitor, Gavin had logged on and opened a word document, typing his name, their class, the date and a title. He stopped, then, turned to stare back at Michael. Well, Michael assumed he was staring. He stood up, quickly, a discomfort that he could only compare to hundreds of spiders crawling over him at once making him shiver. 

“I’m going to get it.” The thing Michael thought he hated most about Gavin was his refusal to wear any sort of sunglasses. It didn’t make a difference if he did or not, he couldn’t fucking see anyways. His eyes were glazed over, almost completely white. Faintly, you could see the irises underneath, though Michael had never gotten close enough to see the color. According to legend, there was a thick but short reddish brown line in the corners of each eye, like a scar. It was hard to believe, to Michael. He couldn’t imagine anyone looking long enough to tell. 

While it was easy to find the book, the bright blue spine recognizable, he took his sweet time going back to the computers. Michael wasn’t always as smart as his grades would claim, and it didn’t occur to him that, the longer he took skirting around doing anything in the class period they had to work on the project, the longer he’d have to spend with Gavin out of school. 

The first discussion question?” Gavin began as soon as Michael finally set down again, jumping right into the work. “What is it?” His fingers were set on the keyboard, lined up on the ‘home row’, twitching impatiently as Michael dug the page out of his bag.

“Why did you decide to read this book?” Michael watched the words appear on Gavin’s screen as he spoke them.

“So?” Gavin prompted.

“I like the author,” Michael responded. Simple, easy. Reading was more of a private, guilty pleasure for him. He did have a reputation to uphold. There was no need to Geek out over John Green. Especially not to Gavin. “What about you?”

“My mom brought home the discs for me, one day.” He said as he typed.

“What made you keep reading?” Michael read next. “I enjoy the writing style.” There was more to it than that. Much more. But he sure as hell wasn’t going into it. Not now. Not ever.

“I stayed for Issac,” Gavin’s mouth was set in a thin line, his eyes locked on the computer even though he couldn’t see the words he was typing.

“What is your favorite quote from the book?” This was a hard one. There were a lot of very famous and often repeated ones Michael could rattle off, but there were a few that just completely touched them. He started flipping through the book. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to choose any of those that were more often quoted, he just thought there was a lot more gold inside than people realized.

He kept his eyes on the pages, looking for a few different ones that he thought he could classify as my favorite, and could hear Gavin typing. Thumbing to a later point in the book, he looked up as the final bell rang. Gavin was up, quickly, a white retractable walking stick suddenly wired around his wrist and pulled to its full length. “Type yours, if you have it. Email or print the document. I need to go.”

“Fine,” Michael mumbled, throwing himself over into Gavin’s recently vacated seat. More students filtered in as Gavin walked away from him, tapping, for study groups or use of the printers. The school library was most busy for the half hour between the time classes ended and the last late bus left.

Within seconds of looking back down at his book, Michael had made a decision. It’d been one of the three he’d been half searching for.

Staring down at the book, he double tapped enter and typed it out.

“You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but A Sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling and then you swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person who loves you and smile.” (Green 213-214.)

Being a teenage boy, this was a feeling Michael knew well. As society told it, men were strong. They did not have feelings, and if they did, they did not show them. Men did not cry. Men sucked it up and went on with life no matter what happened. As a boy, especially one with two older brothers, Michael had learned this exact process quickly.

Looking up to check his writing, he caught sight of Gavin’s choice.

“I was horrified, too, but there was something pleasant about a guy so despicable that he wouldn’t treat us deferentially.” (Green 186)

That same uncomfortable feeling he’d felt settle, heavy in his stomach started to bubble up, making him feel sick. He didn’t like the feeling.

Quickly emailing the doc to himself, and saved it to Gavin’s account. Holding the button on the computer, he waited for the screen to go black and stuffed his belongings randomly into his bag, getting out of that school as quickly as his feet and the straggling students would allow.

The fresh air didn’t ease the feeling of disgust he’d felt, and he couldn’t quite pinpoint what the disgust was directed towards, but there was a good chance it was himself. He told himself that it was for Gavin, and the fact he was going to be stuck with him for three weeks.

The entire way home, he couldn’t get the sickly feeling to ease up, and he couldn’t get the words out of his head, spending the entire twenty minutes it took him to get home thinking up all the possibilities of why that sentence stuck out so much to Gavin.

Chapter Text

Gavin navigated the high school hallways with ease. He walked confidently, head up, the light tap of his walking stick against linoleum sending lone walkers to the lockers and dispersing chattering groups faster than the late bell could. He walked straight through the middle of the hall, whispers lining the wide path leading him to his last class. 

And he fucking hated it. 

He hated English too. Well, he loved it. Reading was his only escape. Books offered him a world he could enjoy, one he might be happy in. Something he didn't have in reality. But he hated this specific class. Miss G has been the coolest teacher the first couple weeks. She hadn't tried to talk to Gavin about his 'differences' and didn't stand close to him and talk twice as loud as necessary when giving a lecture like his history teacher. While his favorite joke of sorts was, "I'm blind, not deaf," because it contained all the necessary shock factor that he'd never truly understand, it was also quite true. He could hear better than most of the kids sitting around him, only half paying attention to what was being said knowing they could just skim the chapter or copy notes later. Half the time, Gavin recorded the lectures anyways, but it still wasn't necessary for the teacher to shout into his perfectly healthy ears just because his eyes weren't quite up to par. 

So Miss G had been a godsend.

Until Gavin learned more about her.

She was the free spirit type, teaching because she loved words more than life and felt it was her duty as a well grounded young adult who came straight to teaching right from college, after going straight to college from high school (on full scholarship, might she add!) to help teenagers find their way. 

It was her goal to make every single student connect with authors and characters and love reading as much as she did. There were the occasional grammar lessons forced by the school curriculum she couldn't ignore, but nearly half her lessons and projects were less about the English work and more about the connections you made with yourself, the book, and the others you were forced to work with.

Gavin wasn't sure if anyone else had noticed, but he had, and he'd gotten her to talk a little about what she was looking for in these assignments, and he knew the game she was playing.

He'd assumed she'd put him with Michael on purpose and hated her for it, at first, but began to appreciate it, just a little, by the end of the period. Of course, he didn't want to work with Michael, let alone anyone else, because she wanted the class to open up to their partners through their projects. Her hopes were, and had always been, from what Gavin had observed, that this little book projects would not only kindle a love for reading so grand they'd never put their books down until they'd been finished twice, but she felt herself a matchmaker of sorts, and was regularly trying to force friendships that were never going to work. Apparently, to Miss G, as she'd told him one afternoon he'd hung back after class, books were magic. She thought that maybe, kids would pick a book because it spoke too them, rather than the usual cop out of a book everyone's read with a movie to go along with it and the biggest factor, a short, thin novel that they could rinse through. Big text that would lead them to answers in seconds. Michael and Gavin were probably the closest to come to picking a book they connected with. Gavin wasn't doing it to try and get close to Michael, to open up to him, he just couldn't get the story out of his head since his mom had brought him the tapes a couple months earlier. He'd listened to the entire book, start to finish, once a week for the past seven and spent hours rewinding to his favorite parts and the quotes that stood out to him the first time he heard it, memorizing every word. 

He didn't think he'd be able to do anything else.

After sliding into his seat, first row, four from the door, left side, he heard a body drop heavily into the chair his immediate left and the quiet screech of it coming closer to his.

Instantly, he guessed it was Michael, and was proven correct when a quiet, mildly-annoyed-but-definitely-less-than-yesterday voice mumbled a hey to him. Just as quickly, he regretted letting Michael see his chosen quote, and cursed himself for giving Michael and sort of insight into who he really was.

Sure, Gavin was lonely most of the time. Sure, it was hard, not being able to see and all that. Sure, the constant whispers and the frightening sensation of being watched never left. He knew the rules. He knew that he was 'untouchable', at least physically. He remembers the first day of school. 

"Look at him. His eyes are fucking creepy." 

"Dude, maybe he's on drugs?"

"Hey, fucker, stop looking at me!" 

"I'm not, asshole."

"Did you call me an asshole, fuckface?"

"Creative insult."

"The fuck you from?"

"England, dipshit. Can't you hear the accent?"

"Alright, that's it!"

Gavin had heard the feet coming closer. He turned to face the sound. Hands up in the universal 'surrender' gesture. he smiled. It wasn't a happy smile, or even a come-and-get-me smile. It was bitter and angry and probably more of a scowl but he couldn't tell. "Woah, you can't punch a blind kid! He wouldn't even see it coming!"

"Oh, dude, I knew his eyes were fucked up!"

This was whispered, further away from the boy who'd stepped up towards Gavin, but he still heard. Was that all he was, now? The strange kid with a weird accent and creepy eyes? Was he not a person, not a human, with interests and hopes and dreams and flaws? Was he going to just be 'that blind guy'? The guy they whispered about but never bothered getting to know if he was even really worth their whispered conversations. Was he nothing more than something he couldn't help and didn't want? 

He quickly found out that, yes, according to the entire student body, that's all he was, and all he'd ever be.

So, no one ever laid a hand on him. Not even a friendly one. Gavin didn't have many walls up, but no one cared to try and knock down the ones he did have. What happened with Michael had been a slip.

Because, as much as the whispering hurt, as much as the freshman sitting around, telling stories from their brothers and sisters about this crazy weird blind guy who, depending on your opinion, was the bottom or top rung of the social ladder without even realizing said dude was two feet away made his stomach turn, it was easier. Gavin didn't have to build up his emotional walls because they'd been sufficiently put in place by a load of shitty teenagers who didn't realize that, though he did not have the gift of sight, he did have feelings, and they were just as easily hurt as any other loser fighting their way through adolescence. 

And letting Michael in on that would only complicate the simple way of surviving that Gavin had found. 

Not that Michael would want in on any of it. No one did.

"I'll give you class today to finish your discussion questions, but tomorrow we need to get back to grammar so the presentation about your book will need to be done outside of class." Miss G interrupted the stream of slowly darkening thoughts and Gavin found himself grateful. It happened all the time, when he wasn't actively engaged in something. His mind would run off thirty different ways and he'd, from what others have mumbled around him, get a stupid look on his face. 

Around him, Gavin could hear desks being shoved around into pairs and groups chattering happily and papers being torn from notebooks and binders popping open. He listened to Michael offer his seat to some girl, and then there was the lovely screech of metal legs against classroom tiles and Michael didn't say anything to him.

Probably a minute later, Michael was mumbling at him to come to the library. 

They walked to the library, and Gavin was glad that Michael didn't speak or try and help him. If he wanted to be all quiet and sympathetic, Gavin couldn't stop him. But the second he started to try to steal Gavin's independence and give him help he didn't need, it was too far. Maybe Michael would never dare to hit Gavin, but Gavin had no problem punching him in the face. Another reason being hated school wide wasn't so bad - at least he wasn't being coddled.

"Hey, I can, uh, I can type today, if you want?" Gavin scowled at Michael's offer. He didn't even have to speak, Michael already was stumbling back, "Uh, I mean, I don't really feel like it though, so you know, you should do it." Nodding, Gavin followed the usual path towards the back row of computers, assuming Michael was going to follow him. His annoyance and frustration at the slight change in Michael's tone and his inability to see his partner only shone through for a moment when he practically threw his bag down next to an empty desk in the same back row they'd used the night before and roughly pulled his chair back. It was a similar fashion to the way the quietly raging Michael had moved when they'd originally been paired together. The whole situation was almost funny. Michael's pissed he's forced to work with some disabled loser, and said disabled loser is pissed he has to work with someone who refrains from treating him as such. 

Either Michael had caught on to the true reason for Gavin's irritation or had just gotten angry on his own, based on Gavin's completely lack of appreciation for his sad attempts to be helpful. Gavin could hear the quick rustling of papers and a curse as paper tore. A bag dropped heavily to the ground while a body dropped heavily into a chair. 

"What character do you connect most closely with?" Michael asked, and Gavin was pleased to hear a grumbling voice laced with disdain instead of the uncharacteristically calm and maybe even caring he'd gotten minutes before. 

"Issac. You?" Gavin would work willingly as long as Michael didn't try to pretend like anything Gavin said could change anyone's opinion about him.

"Peter Van Houten." 

Gavin's whipped towards Michael as soon as the 'P' was out of his mouth, because either of the possibilities were wildly unexpected and incomprehensible. He knew about Michael Jones. 

Or, as much as you could know if all your information came from fourth, fifth, sixth hand sources and easily misheard bouts of whispering gossip from freshmen who thought high school was just like the shows on MTV showed, with nothing better to do than create and spread stupid stories to fuck over their friends. As much as you could know with only hearing the enraged, cracking voice of a person over hundreds of kids in a hallway or the bored voice across the room in a class room without once speaking directly to them. 

Gavin was inclined to believe every rumor he heard on the simple basis that it's what several hundred kids did to him his first year of school and what another couple hundred did each year. 

He had various bits and pieces of information about Michael Jones, some conflicting, that he had crafted into a back story about a grade - A asshole who picked fights and pretended to be illiterate on occasion even though he was fairly intelligent. Gavin had a mental list of his flaws and imperfections and knew a bit more about his junk than he'd ever want to, thank you giggling girls who sat behind him in Physics, and a vague image of Michael Jones that was probably far off on his personally idea that all bullies were ugly to make up for them beating on others. 

"Why?" 

"Why what?" Gavin turned to face the screen again, even though he didn't need to, and felt for the bumps that indicated the 'f' and 'j' key to quickly type out their answers. 

"Why do you connect with Issac?" Michael clarified, sounding as though Gavin was an idiot for not understanding. 

"Obvious reasons," he drawled, but as his fingers flew over the keys, it was clear that he had a more serious reply to give Miss G. Halfway through his paragraph response, Michael decided to elaborate on Peter, and Gavin's typing stopped abruptly. 

"Hazel Grace gets this idea of who Peter Van Houten is based on something he wrote. She created this image based on something that wasn't Peter," Michael's voice had some of that softness again, but this time, it didn't bother Gavin quite as much. "Augustus adopts that same idea based on what Hazel Grace tells him, along with what made her create that image of him." Gavin could feel the guilt in the pit of his stomach, rising and looping through his organs and up towards his heart, making him cringe when it reached. He understood how Michael felt yesterday. "And they're angry and disappointed when they meet him. So angry and disappointed, they don't bother to find out about who Peter is. He's not what they wanted so they move on. And when they do find out, it doesn't change much." He listened to Michael take in a shaky breath and felt the guilt squeeze tight around his chest. This was Michael's revenge.

What Gavin didn't consider was that, maybe, it wasn't revenge. Maybe it was Michael's gift. 

Chapter Text

Michael stood in front of the door, hesitating. Potential excuses were running through his mind. Twenty reasons why he never showed up. It was so fucking uncomfortable, working with Gavin, and Michael could only imagine it would be worse to do it alone. At Gavin’s house. Few kids from school had ever been to Gavin’s house, and when they talked about it, they whispered vague statements like it was a horror movie. Michael’s best friend, Ray, had spent all day at school joking with him that he should take a few pictures, make a video tour, write a novel.

“You could start a business, dude. Sell shit in the cafeteria. We could make some good money.” He’d gone on. Michael simply joked that he should stop smoking joints before school and told him to fuck off.

Even if he didn’t feel guilty for the way Gavin was treated, he wouldn’t exploit a blind kid for cash.

He shifted his bag strap around on his shoulder, finally building up the courage to knock on the door. To Gavin Free’s house. Where he was about to spend two hours. With Gavin. Alone.

The door opened, just a crack, and one eye peered out.

“Who the fuck are you?” A gruff voice asked. What the honest fuck. Was this Gavin’s dad? Did Gavin not mention Michael would be coming over? Did he have the right house?

“Uhm, I, uh, I’m looking for Gavin?”

“Yeah, I’m sure you are. Now answer the damn question.”

Michael started to reply with his name, but before he could, another voice interrupted him from inside the house.

“Geoff, what are you doing?” Michael could hear the voice, this one obviously belonging to a woman instead of the rude man who was swearing at him, just on the other side of the door. The man pulled back, not opening the door anymore but not shutting it. Though quieter, Michael could hear him whining at the woman, and her laughing and telling him to stop being an asshole. After a minute of this, the door was pulled fully open and two people who did not look like they could be Gavin’s parents were facing him.

They were both way too young to be Gavin’s real parents. The woman smiled, kindly, but Michael was distracted looking at the tattoos both of them had.

“I’m Griffon, this is Geoff. You’re Michael, right? Gavin told us you had a project to work on?” Michael nodded, eyes traveling slowly up Geoff’s arm. “Come on in, then. I’ll show you to his room.”

Michael nodded again, and stepped inside. Griffon started towards a hallway, expecting him to follow, but before he could, Geoff grabbed his arm.

Geoff only held on for a second, long enough to lean in and say to Michael, in the scariest voice he’d ever heard, “Don’t you dare fuck with that kid, okay?”

Michael, eyes wide, frightened, and a little angry, tugged his arm back and agreed. “Well, I wasn’t planning on it, sir, but thanks for making me shit myself. Really needed that.” Geoff grinned a little, waved him away, and didn’t say anything about his word choice. Definitely not a parent.

He hurried to catch up to Griffon, and she smiled at him as she pointed him to a closed door at the end of a narrow hallway. The room seemed to be secluded from the rest of the house, being so far from the open room Michael had been lead through, and the only one in the hall. He’d taken a moment to glance around on his way there. Griffon had also pointed out a bathroom to him, in case he needed it, and it was right before the hall to Gavin’s room. All the rooms were spacious, with hardwood floors. Any furniture they had was pushed against a wall, including a large dining room table that was pushed beneath a window. He noted that the, looking at the flooring in living room that led to the hallway, there were strange dark spots and what looked to be fuzz stuck in cracks. Like someone had torn up a carpet and never gotten the floors redone . When he’d looked into the kitchen, which didn’t have a door but a wide doorway, the ground was tiled but there was, what Michael thought might be, an odd colored pasted between each tiled.

Like someone had filled in the cracks a long time ago.

It made Michael curious.

As he thanked Griffon, Gavin’s door opened.

“Come on, Michael. We don’t have all day.” He gave Griffon a nervous smile, and rushed down the hall to follow Gavin into his bedroom. The room had white walls, one window with a desk under it, a bed in the corner, and two long bookshelves on either side of the desk. There was a closet adjacent to the door. It was open, and Michael saw a pile of clothes covering the floor, leading out in a trail to the dresser pushed against the same wall.

Similar to the rest of the house, there were hard wood floors and all the nothing in the middle of the room. The only difference was the entire room looked newer. The paint looked more recent, the flooring was shiny and smooth, the window was definitely different than the two on the front of the house. It only fueled Michael’s confusion and curiosity.

“Your mom is really nice. Dad’s a little scary.” Michael offered politely, totally just making light conversation and not fishing for information.

Gavin sat on the edge of his bed, grabbing a laptop from off his pillow and pulling it onto his lap. He gestured towards the desk chair, so Michael dumped his bag of craft shit next to it and sat down. “Griffon’s great,” Gavin agreed, though he sounded completely disinterested. “Geoff’s harmless.” He didn’t call them mom and dad, but he didn’t correct Michael. Interesting. What was he hiding? “We have a project to do.” He shoved his computer to the side, reaching under his bed and pulling out a trifold board, sliding it across the floor to Michael’s feet. “Do you have the specifications with you?”

Michael nodded. Gavin didn’t move or speak, and it took a minute for Michael to understand. He blushed, and dug the paper out quickly. “Yeah.” Gotta talk ‘round the blind kid. It’s like when you nod while you’re on the phone except a hell of a lot more awkward.

“What’s it say?”

“We have to summarize the book, describe the characters we think are important to the story, why we think others should read this book, three interesting facts about the book, three interesting facts about the characters. Three in general, not for each. Uh, incorporate your discussion questions… make it pleasing to the eye,” was that inappropriate to say to Gavin? Since he wouldn’t be able to see it anyways? Maybe if it looked like shit, Miss G wouldn’t take points off since Gavin couldn’t see what he was doing.

Michael was an asshole.

“Easy then. I can type up everything, we already answered the discussion questions, I’ve got a printer. You can cut them out and make it look nice. We can probably finish tonight.”

“You know how Miss G is. That’s only step one.”

“Great.” Michael didn’t know if he should be offended by the irritated sarcasm, or agree with Gavin. He decided on a little bit of both.

Chapter Text

Griffon poked her head in as Michael was smoothing out the last of the character summaries on the left side of the tri-fold, asking if Michael was going to be staying for dinner.

"No," Gavin answered for him, quickly. Griffon clicked her tongue but didn't reprimand him. He'd probably hear about it later.

"No, I have to leave soon, but thank you, Mrs. Free." Gavin flinched when Michael called her by his last name. He couldn't help but feel relieved when, instead of correcting it to Ramsey, she just reminded Michael to call her Griffon.

When she left, Michael was silent again. Not that they had been talking much before. They weren't friends, they weren't going to be friends, and Gavin wasn't going to waste time with unnecessary small talk. He was scared, secretly, that he might let something slip. Something Michael could use against him, or spread around. Bully him with. Michael was a bully, through and through. Or, at least, that's what Gavin had picked up on from hallway chatter and loud cafeteria scenes. High enough on the social ladder that no one pushed him around, low enough that no one cared when he pushed someone else around. He'd heard horrifying rumors of the things Michael had done to losers around school, awful things he'd called the nerds, even though Michael was intelligent enough to be in honors classes and pass them with A's. It was impossible to miss him screaming profanity and spewing rather creatively obscene insults across rooms, no matter the noise level of the crowd.

Gavin was a little bit scared of him.

The train of thought derailed into what Michael had said about Peter, something that had been sitting in the back of his mind, surfacing randomly throughout the days since they'd last spoken. It led to a lot of internal arguments for Gavin. Should he give Michael a chance to prove himself as something else? Did Michael want that chance? Why would Michael want that chance? No one had anything to prove to Gavin. No one cared about his opinion. No one even pretended too. And even if Michael did give a shit, why should get a chance to prove himself as anything more than a bully?

No one had ever given Gavin the chance to prove himself as anything more than disabled.

Turning around his computer, he asked if what he'd written was alright.

"Yeah, that's fine." Michael took the laptop and printed the page, as he had with the past four, before putting it back in Gavin's lap. "You type really well. Much better than anyone who can..." Michael trailed off, and Gavin could practically smell the embarrassment.

"See?" He supplied, and snorted. "I learned to touch type as soon as I started using a computer. I could do it without looking years before I didn't have the option."

"You weren't always blind?" Gavin's stomach dropped as panic gripped his chest. He hadn't meant to let anything slip. The beginning of a panic attack broke through the carefully placed barriers of confidence and disdain he wore around all his peers, and he couldn't stop himself from letting Michael in a little further.

"Ah, uh, no. I could see up until year nine." Gavin listened as the sound of scissors slicing paper stopped and there was a quiet thud and Michael let them go. The paper crinkled, and he assumed Michael set that down too. Why? To listen to him?

That panic had slowed it's spreading but the walls were still down. Maybe it would be nice to finally tell someone what had happened instead of listen to the wild assumptions people created to spread around about how he lost his eyesight. Even those were few and far between, though. Everyone assumed he'd always been blind. He'd often wondered if people would've been more friendly had they known. If he was less strange for being accidentally broken instead of born that way.

"How'd it happen?"

No one had asked before.

"Car accident. Glass to the eyes."

"Wow. Sucks."

He didn't say 'I'm sorry', or 'Oh, that's terrible', or call him a 'poor thing' or 'sweet boy'. He said 'Wow. Sucks.'

Gavin smiled at him.

He didn't know if Michael smiled back or not.

It did suck.

Chapter Text

This time, Michael didn't hesitate before knocking on the door. He smiled at Griffon when she opened the door, received a nod of approval from Geoff, and went straight to Gavin's room.

They hadn't actually had time to finish their presentation board when they'd been working together a few days earlier. Michael got a call from his mom needing him at home just a few minutes after Gavin had told him about the car accident that took his sight. When Michael left, they still weren't friends, but it felt different. Something had changed.

Again, the door opened before he reached it.

"How the hell do you do that?" Michael asked, awed, as he went straight to the spot on the floor where he'd been gluing pages to the trifold.

"It's not magic. I know about what time you're coming and I can hear you stomping around."

"I do not stomp. I'm graceful as shit, dude. Like a gazelle."

Gavin snorted. Michael had noticed that Gavin never laughed at him, just snorted or made some dumb noise. He wondered why. And then he wondered why he gave a shit.

Just as quickly as Michael had started joking, Gavin nipped it in the bud, and told him they needed to work.

"We should do the character facts." Michael decided.

"Right. Should we do them all about Hazel Grace? Since it's her point of view?"

"Uh, we can. I kind of wanted to do one about Augustus."

"Sure, yeah. He's important too. What's your Augustus fact?" Gavin asked, hand resting on the keys.

"How he puts unlit cigarettes in his mouth. For the metaphor."

"Alright." Gavin started typing, but Michael continued talking anyways.

"I think it's cool. I like to think of it as like, Death created the cigarettes as tools to slowly do his work for him, 'cause Death is obviously a lazy piece of shit, and Augustus is just kicking him right in his dick by letting them so close but not close enough to hurt him. Metaphors are some sweet shit, dude."

"You curse a lot," Gavin pointed out, because he didn't know what else to say, but it felt like he had to say something. That was the most Michael had ever said to him without needing too. Michael shrugged.

"They're just words, you know. People act like it's such a big deal to say shit or asshole or fuck, or god forbid something like cunt, but they're all just words. They have actual definitions, but, people give them such a negative connotations it gives them power. I don't see a difference between saying shit and crap but it puts a certain emphasis on it if I say shit instead. Because people are scared of them, which is dumb, which is why I don't give a fuck if I swear. People shouldn't give words so much power. It's just you making noises with your mouth. You make dumb noises all the time, they don't mean anything. I say a lot of dumb shit, it doesn't mean anything." Gavin wasn't sure what to do with Michael anymore. It was making his head spin. You think one thing about a person, and in two conversations, they've proved everything wrong.

So, Gavin did what he did best. He made a stupid noise and a bad joke.

"You're smarter than you look, Michael." He gave a cheeky little grin along with the statement, and it was Michael's turn to snort.

"Whatever, asshole, let's just keep working."

Things felt a little lighter, after that. They chose two more 'interesting' facts about Hazel Grace and printed them out. Michael made the occasional comment and Gavin made a few shitty jokes. The kind that were so bad, they were hilarious.

Michael watched him a lot, while he worked. He supposed that was a good thing about Gavin not being able to see him. As soon as he thought that, he felt guilty.

Michael felt guilty for a lot of things he'd thought about Gavin. He got so angry at Hazel and Augustus for being angry when Peter wasn't what they'd made him up to be, and when people listened to rumors and made snap decisions about who he was without even talking to him, but that's what everyone did to Gavin.

He'd made a lot of assumptions and believed a lot of rumors about Gavin that weren't true. Like everyone else, he'd gone with the crowd and left Gavin out just because they pictured him to be some freak. Sure, his eyes were a little unsettling and he was blunt and a little rude, but Michael was a total dick and people still hung out with him.

Michael's ringing phone interrupted his personal guilt trip. His mom was calling to tell him she needed him at home, again, a little earlier than expected.

"Hey, Gavin, I gotta get going," Michael told him as he started moving all of the project supplies out of the middle of the floor and into the empty corner where Gavin couldn't accidentally trip on them. He'd done it without being asked a few days before, and Gavin had been equal parts grateful and annoyed. "Want to finish it on Thursday?"

"Sure, yeah," Gavin mumbled, shutting his computer and shoving it off to the side. If he was being honest, he was a little peeved at losing time with Michael. He still didn't want anything to do with him outside of the project, not a chance, but he'd admit life sucked a little bit less with Michael giving him some healthy social interaction every few days.

"Sweet." Michael replied, and to Gavin it sounded like he actually thought it was. Because he wanted to hurry on with the project? Or because he wanted to be back at Gavin's?

It didn't matter.

Gavin didn't care.

He stretched out on his bed after he heard Michael shut the door, letting out an irritated sigh. A minute later the door opened again. Whoever opened it didn't speak, at first. Gavin pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked in the direction of the door.

"Griffon? Geoff?" They still didn't speak. Michael. "Did you forget your bag or something?" Gavin knew he didn't. He'd listened to Michael shove his things into it and swear when he threw it on the shoulder and accidentally hit the edge of Gavin's desk with it.

"I have two brothers." Gavin opened his mouth to ask why the hell Michael had come back to tell him that. "I used to have three." Oh. "I was seven when he died. We were twins." Michael's voice didn't crack, he spoke calm, and even, like he was reading a story instead of telling Gavin something serious and painful that had happened to him. He hated himself, then, for not being able to see Michael. "He was playing in the street." Gavin didn't know what to say. Michael didn't give him the chance. The door shut, and this time, it didn't reopen until Griffon came to get him for dinner.

Gavin wasn't at all sure what to make of Michael Jones.

Chapter Text

Gavin spent the nest few days alternating between listening for any word of the shattered windshield that disabled him and thinking about Michael. He heard a couple hilariously outrageous rumors involving a bear from a small group of freshman, one of which had a brother who'd graduated the year prior, but nothing about what truly happened.

Meaning, Michael hadn't told anyone. Which just added to the series of surprises Michael had thrown at him since they got paired together. A lot of Gavin's time, since the accident, was used for analyzing interactions and searching for motives in everything people said and did. He'd picked up on all the little things people did because they thought they were helping him out and doing their daily act of kindness, and started brushing them off because he didn't want their phony help.

Michael was no exception. Gavin zoned right in on every little thing Michael had done for him, examined every word he'd said to him, and he couldn't do it.

He couldn't find a motive. Not a plausible one.

It was driving him a little bit crazy.

Michael felt like he was holding his breath. Ever since he'd told Gavin about his brother. Holding his breath, waiting for someone to bring it up, waiting for someone to make a joke or apologize for his loss. Waiting for someone to ask for the gruesome details, or someone he'd gone to elementary school ask if that's the real reason they moved to Texas.

It never came.

Really, who would've Gavin told? Michael had told himself, trying to calm himself as he walked home from the Free residence after sharing his story. No one. That's who. Gavin didn't have anyone to tell.

Except he could've. Michael had tried and failed to bat away the accusations in his mind. Information was a currency in high school. There were plenty of people who would take Gavin in, disability and all, if they had something to cut Michael down with. He wasn't exactly a bully, but he was bad enough that even his dead brother was a line some would cross just to get to him.

More would cross that line than Michael was willing to believe. Despite his own mistakes, a part of him still believe strongly in human decency.

Human decency seemed to be a concept unknown to a large portion of teenagers.

Gavin was walking proof of that fact.

It hit Michael hard, the fact that he, and everyone else had treated Gavin like such shit. There was no reason to expect him to do anything different.

So Michael waited. He waited for Gavin to spread the rumor, to buy his way into a group of friends.

And when it didn't happen, he only felt worse for ever treating Gavin the way he did.

Gavin was too wrapped up in predicting what their next work session was going to be like to beat Michael to the door, when he showed up on Thursday afternoon, as promised. He actually jumped when he heard the knocking, and called for Michael to let himself in.

"Aha, beat you to it, this time!" Michael sounded way too excited for the situation. Gavin made a noise that might've been an agreement in reply from where he was stretched out in his bed. He made grabby hands in the direction of his desk.

"Laptop," he demanded.

"I thought you were too good to accept help from peasants like myself?" Michael snorted, but Gavin could hear the computer shifting around as Michael unplugged everything to bring it over. Apparently, they'd become friendly enough last session for Michael to start a running joke about Gavin ruling a kingdom.

"Well, young farmer, there's being incapable and then there's laziness. I don't feel like moving." Michael laughed at the name, and shortly after Gavin felt the computer drop onto his chest. He both appreciated the lack of care, most would've carefully put it into his hands while narrating their every move, and disapproved the treatment of his computer. Gavin still couldn't figure him out, and he hated it.

In the middle of discussing why people should read The Fault In Our Stars, the last portion of their presentation, Gavin popped the question.

"Do you want to stay for dinner?" He couldn't see the wide grin that spread on Michael's face when he asked, but it pretty much matched his own when Michael said yes.

They finished the project, both more upbeat and a little more friendly, and Gavin decided that the twenty minutes he spent typing up the reasons Michael threw at him and a few of his own was more than enough work for the night. He was going to introduce Michael to his favorite activity, because he had come to a conclusion.

He had figured out Michael's motive.

"We're going to play uno." Gavin informed him, as soon as Michael finished gluing on the pages they'd printed out for the finishing touches on the presentation.

"You can play uno?" He replied, without thinking about the insensitivity of the comment. Gavin smiled at him, unoffended.

"Idiot. Ever hear of braille?" Gavin hopped off his bed to get his cards from his desk, walking carefully along the edge of his room to avoid stepping on anything of Michael's, his hand trailing along the furniture that lined the walls. Michael watched as he dug around in one of the drawers, eventually producing a stack of cards held together by a rubber band. It was clearly a deck of uno cards, and from where he was sitting, he could barely make out the slight indents where the braille was on the bottom of the top card. Gavin headed back to his bed and sat on one end, moving his two pillows to the middle of the bed. He pointed to the other side of the pillows, telling Michael to sit.

Michael offered to shuffle and deal the cards, but Gavin wouldn't let him.

"Alright. I'm going to put mine right here," Gavin gestured to the space between his legs and the pillows, "'cause it's easier to read the braille when I'm not holding all the cards. Don't look, yeah?" Michael agreed. Gavin trusted he wouldn't peek.

Michael watched in awe as Gavin would reach out and run his fingers across the card on the top of the pile, and then across each of the cards laid out in front of him, and he'd make his move. Half the time he completed his turn faster than Michael did.

For the first few turns, and occasionally after, Michael would just call out what he'd placed. Gavin would look vaguely annoyed, and Michael was starting to understand that Gavin wanted to do everything on his own. Still, he felt like he had to help, make things easier. Most turns, they were in the middle of a conversation or Michael was too busy ranting or listening to one of Gavin's shitty jokes or puns that it didn't even cross his mind.

Michael learned that Gavin used to absolutely love video games and had a few on his computer, similar to the one Issac played in The Fault In Our Stars, that read him a scene and he had to decide what his character was going to do, but he didn't really like them. Gavin learned that Michael played video games even more than he had when he could. Michael learned that Gavin had been living in the UK until his accident, but not why Gavin had moved to Texas after. Gavin learned that Michael had lived in New Jersey until he was eight, when his parents could no longer handle living on the street where they lost his son. They liked all the same books for most of the same reasons, they had similar taste in music, Gavin found out when he handed over his laptop and told Michael to turn something on. They both liked card games, and Gavin felt slightly proud of himself for choosing to take an uno break. They shared more of themselves with each other in the hour it took for Griffon to call them to eat than either had ever shared with another person, and by the end of it, there was no question if they were friends or not.

Dinner was weird, for Michael. Gavin rambled on even more, about pointless things. Geoff and Griffon seemed unsurprised by the behavior, but it was the most animated Michael had ever seen him. Geoff and Michael had a long conversation about Halo when, in the midst of a tangent, Gavin had mentioned a bit of what they'd talked about during their first uno game. Which had then cut off the story he was telling as he moved on to tell Griffon that he was absolutely top at uno and that Michael was terrible, proven by his five to one win loss ratio. It reminded Michael of what dinners used to be like at his house, back before everything went to shit.

When they finished eating, Gavin grinned at Michael and pointed towards his room.

"Ey, pleb," Michael laughed, surprised that Gavin had jumped in on the stupid peasant-king joke, "want to lose a few more games of uno before you have to leave?"

Michael happily agreed, and followed Gavin away from the table with a quick thanks to Griffon. He stopped to use the bathroom, sending Gavin on to set up the game again. He heard the phone ringing, once he had finished and started to head back to Gavin's room, and paused when he heard Geoff answer with, "Ramsey residence, who ya callin' for?"

Confused and a little bit curious, he headed back into Gavin's room and settled back on his end of the bed. Gavin chatted on for the first half of the game. Michael found out that Gavin hated being alone, because his mind would just come up with the dumbest things in the world. Michael was getting close to winning, about to break Gavin's three game streak, when he finally asked.

"So, why's Geoff's last name Ramsey if yours is Free?"

Gavin instantly froze, hand on the discard pile. Michael watched his jaw tense, and his mouth shift into a scowl.

"Why's it matter?"

"Just a question. I mean, it's kind of weird." Gavin grabbed the two piles of cards on the pillow barrier between them.

"Well, that would be because I'm not their kid," he sounded angry. Michael instantly wanted to take back the question. They hadn't been friends for long. Michael really didn't want to fuck it up so quickly. "After the accident," he swept up the cards in front of him, adding them to the stack, "my mother contacted some old friends from when she lived here as a child, asking them to take me." He reached over the pillows, for Michael's hand, but grabbed his knee instead, recoiling quickly like he'd been burned. "They didn't want me anymore than she did. No one wants a broken kid." Michael silently passed over his cards. Gavin ripped them out of his hands, putting the rubber band back around the deck. "I got passed off to Geoff and Griffon instead."

"Gavin," Michael murmured, "I-,"

"You should go, now." He interrupted.

"No, Gavin, you,"

"Michael, please. Please, leave."

Michael sighed, but stood. He didn't move for a moment, staring at Gavin. Gavin wasn't looking at him. Gavin wasn't looking at anything. Gavin was sitting there, curled into himself, and Michael felt guilty and even as he collected his things and propped the tri-fold up against the wall, he knew he shouldn't leave.

'You're not broken,' his mind finished what Gavin hadn't let him say out loud as he shut Gavin's door as softly as possible.

What the fuck just happened?

Chapter Text

Michael was a fan of grand gestures, and now seemed just the time for one. He'd left Gavin alone for a couple days, because they were ahead on their project and he wasn't actually sure why Gavin had gotten so upset with him for asking that stupid fucking question. Either way, Gavin needed some cool down time and Michael needed planning time so they didn't talk all weekend, or on Monday.

Michael had gotten the best idea on Saturday night, but he had to wait until Wednesday to implement it, because what he needed wouldn't ship until Tuesday after school.

Sure enough, an hour after he'd gotten home Tuesday afternoon, his mom had showed up in his bedroom with a small package and a confused look. He just said it was a present for a friend and that he wasn't doing anything weird. She took it without question, tossed him the box, and didn't bring it up again. Everyone in Michael's family pretty much left each other alone, most of the time. Both his older brothers were already graduated from college and off starting careers and families, and his parents didn't push themselves too far into his business unless invited.

Wednesday, during lunch, it was time to fix shit. Because Gavin was the only person Michael had ever trusted enough to talk about his brother, and he was the only person Gavin had told about his accident. And that meant something to Michael. He and his brother had been so close, so fucking close, while their other two brothers were so much older and not particularly interested in playing with a couple of little boys, and he'd gone and died and Michael learned what it was like to have something you loved ripped away from you and never given back. At the ripe age of seven he'd nearly drowned in his own grief while learning the fragility of human life and it had fucking ruined him. He talked shit and kept a thick wall between him and everyone else because eventually you got too attached and you loved and then they were taken away and it fucking hurt. But something about Gavin made Michael want to get close. There was something there, Michael didn't know what, something buried and broken that Michael wanted to dig up and fix because Gavin didn't deserve to feel broken all the time.
At first he'd thought it was the guilt talking, after suddenly learning that Gavin wasn't who everyone made him out to be, but a funny, interesting dude was pretty nice when he wasn't too busy hating the world and acting like he knew everything. The more they hung out, even just working on the project, the more he realized that he genuinely enjoyed hanging out with Gavin.

So, he'd made the decision that Gavin deserved a friend and it was his turn to do something he wanted instead of what was expected.

And Wednesday was the day he was going to do that something.

As soon as the lunch bell rang, Ray met him at his locker, as usual, but Michael brushed him off.

"Got plans with someone else," Michael explained, pulling a deck of cards out before slamming his locker shut and heading towards the cafeteria, Ray next to him.

"Who else would want to hang out with you?" Ray watched Michael's hands as he shuffled the cards a few times, tilting his head a bit as he saw an odd little pattern on the bottom of each card.

"Plenty of people," Michael scoffed, shoving him with his shoulder just before they reached the doors. "I'll see you later, yeah?" Ray nodded, and stared at Michael as he veered off the path to their usual table into the back corner. His eyes grew comically wide and his jaw dropped open, displaying his shock clearly when Michael sat across from Gavin fucking Free.

Gavin jumped in surprise, and maybe a little bit of fear when something heavy landed on the table across from him at the start of lunch. Not once since freshman year had anyone except a teacher, all of whom announced themselves at least four feet away, come to his lunch table. And when they did when he first started, it rarely ended well.

"Yes?" He said, carefully covering his anxiety with a hard, irritated tone. He generally kept a confident air of 'I'm better than all of you' when at school, because it was easier that reminding himself that they all thought he was as good as the dirt on the bottom of a shoe. He acted as though even addressing whoever was in front of him was a chore, something he didn't want, but had to do.

"I got you something," he recognized the voice to be Michael's, something he'd become very familiar with over the past couple weeks, followed by the sound of a creaking chair.

"Did you?" Gavin replied, forcing himself to sound bored.

"Well, for us," Michael corrected, sliding something across to table. He pushed it until it pressed against Gavin's fingers, where his hand was resting next to his container of food. Michael pulled his hand away from the deck of cards as Gavin put his over them. He watched as Gavin felt around the edges of the stack, until he finally pulled one of the top, sliding his thumb across the bottom where the braille told him which card he was holding. His usual scowl started to morph into something close to a smile, which grew as he continued to pick up and read six more of the cards.

"Seriously, Michael?" Usually when Gavin said this, it was sarcastic, like he couldn't believe Michael had actually done or said something so stupid, but this time he sounded excited, picking up each of the playing cards and running his fingers over them. Michael watched, impressed, as he separated them into four piles, one for each suit.

"Seriously! I got tired of losing, we gotta play something I can actually fucking win." Gavin grinned at him and Michael wondered if he knew how goddamn cute he looked when he smiled like that, and why he didn't do it more often. "And... I'm sorry, for bringing up your family and shit, last week."

Gavin shrugged. He hadn't wanted Michael to know. When they'd first started working together, he wanted to keep it a secret because he didn't want Michael to had anything to spread around. Everyone had already thrown Gavin away, he didn't want anyone to know that his mother had done the exact same thing. Once they'd really become friends, he was scared to tell Michael the truth because he didn't want him to realize Gavin had been so useless, so needy, that even his mother couldn't stand to help him around sometime. Now, he'd gotten so good at taking care of himself, doing everything he could on his own, he felt confident he could live without needing anyone. Maybe if his mother hadn't decided taking care of a blind son was such a handful, Gavin would've been comfortable relying on someone a little more, but he was so scared of people thinking he needed them to do everything for him, he had to prove he could do it all on his own.

Gavin was a fan of grand gestures, and Michael had just displayed the perfect one.

Chapter Text

Despite everything that happened, the clear movement from two random people living two separate lives to partners to acquaintances to friends and eventually something verging on best friends, with the potential to continue right on past best friends to another level of relationship, a small part of Gavin was dreading the moment they turned into their project. He was waiting for Michael to be free of him and sprint away from the confines of his friendship with Gavin into the open arms of his old friends, where he could dish out private information and be thrust back into his old social standing. Or maybe even higher. Perhaps this was a long, drawn out ploy to become king of the school.

Except, that kind of dumb crap only happened in bad teen drama films they showed on Disney channel that Griffon sometimes left on when her nieces were over that Gavin definitely did not want to listen to but had absolutely no choice in the matter. Right? Yeah.

And this was real life, and his friendship meant something to Michael. It had too. Ever since his strange outburst and Michael's perfect apology, lunch time games of gold fish had become routine, efficiently bumping Michael down to Gavin's level. Gavin had joked, when he heard a thump, a quiet 'ow' and a louder, 'what the fuck', and then a 'whoops, sorry' from someone who didn't sound very apologetic at all, that his level of awesome was so high, all strived to reach it, but when they couldn't, they tried to drag him down to theirs. It became a drawn out plot that he continued on with until he was sure Michael had stopped seething. At which point, Michael had jumped in and corrected him, that Gavin's levels of cool were so outrageous, the lowly commoners could not compute them, which is why Gavin pretended to be even less than them, so that he wouldn't be too overpowering. They forgot about their cards as they weaved a story about Gavin's kingdom and Michael slaying a huge fucking dragon that allowed him to be promoted from a simple watermelon farmer, ("watermelon, Gavin, really? Who the fuck even grows watermelons, that's so weird!" "Well, obviously, Michael, someone has to grow them or else we wouldn't have them and that someone is you, it's my kingdom, shut up.") to a knighthood. Gavin explained that Michael had almost lost his position as the King's knight when he questioned his need for watermelons, but had been deemed worthy enough to stay. Michael, alluding to what had happened at the beginning of that period, added on a bit about the peasants attacking him, the only knight, in effort to prove they were better for the King to trust. Gavin worried, for a second, but Michael was laughing and started asking about the watermelons again, sounding unbothered by the entire situation. Not only did it put Gavin at ease, but he felt a small swell of pride at being able to distract and cheer Michael up. It made him feel like he was actually a good friend. Which is why Michael and he were going to stay friends after the project was finished and they weren't being forced by a teacher to spend time with each other regularly. Michael would still come over and play him shit music while they alternated between Uno and poker, the same thing they did every time they took a break from working on English.

His attempts to sooth his worried mind worked during lunch periods and evenings when Michael was stretched out on his floor, explaining the different parts of the project and brainstorming ways to complete them, but the day after they turned it in, when Gavin slid into his usual seat, it was a lost cause. Michael always arrived a few minutes late, Gavin reminded himself and his leg bounced nervously under the table. Patting the front of his bag, the home for his new deck of cards, absently, Gavin tried to shut off the scenarios running through his mind.

When Michael did drop his bag onto the desk, Gavin waited for him to say something about how it was fun working together but it was time they part ways, to make it seem like it was something that just had to be done instead of his decision. He figured that's how it would go. Michael had that weird douchebag slash nice guy thing going on that made Gavin assumed he'd pull a, 'I don't want to do this to you, 'cause I'm good enough that I'll feel bad about it, but I'm a big enough dick to do it anyways because I care more about me than you.'

Instead, Michael, as usual, surprised him.

"So, hey, I have a question for you," Gavin waited as Michael pulled out his lunch, the paper rustling in his hands. "Oh, do you want a cookie?" Gavin nodded, and Michael placed one on the back of his hand, "That wasn't the question, though," Gavin still waited. He waited for what he thought was inevitable, the ending of a friendship that Gavin would pretend he never cared about but secretly missed. "I just didn't remember grabbing cookies, uh, anyway, wow, fuck, I got distracted. Do you want to come over, tonight?"

"Why?" Gavin instantly answered, "We're done with the project."

Michael snorted, "Wow, dumbass, I know that. What, you only hangin' out with me for my sweet brain?" Gavin shook his head quickly, taking a bite of the cookie so he wouldn't say anything stupid. "No, dude, I just want to hang out. We're always at your house, which, I mean, yeah, you know your way around there and stuff, but I just thought you might want to come over mine sometime and it's Friday so it's not like you're going to be doing homework or anything and we can just sit around and do shit. I don't know." Gavin smiled at Michael, who was rambling. He couldn't see Michael's expressions, obviously, so he had worked hard to figure out his voice. Social cues were hard when you couldn't see whoever you were socializing with, so Gavin had a mental catalogue of words and phrases and tones of everyone he regularly interacted with, along with pretty universal ones. No one could say he didn't do the best with what he had. When Michael rambled, it meant usually meant he thought he'd said something stupid. Whenever he mentioned Gavin's sight, he would go on and on and stumble over himself trying to apologize or explain until he realized Gavin was laughing at him and call him an asshole, or when he said something weird, he'd repeat it a few times in different words as if it would make him any less strange.

"Yeah, sounds cool."

"Awesome," Michael was talking in that voice that always made Gavin think he was grinning. Gavin, calm now that it was clear Michael wasn't going to run away, felt around his bag until he pulled out the cards so they could start a round of gold fish before lunch ended.

At the end of the day, Michael promised to call Gavin once it was clear for him to come over, before hurrying home to set shit up.

His mom got home from work shortly after he got home from school, and usually she came home to see her son lazing on the couch with more snacks than he should ever be able to eat, especially when he still had two full servings at dinner, and an xbox controller. Or, up in his room, toying with his computer. More recently, she'd not find him, but a note in his place, telling her he was working on his English project at Gavin's. That Friday, she was digging her keys out of her purse when she heard a loud slam, and an even louder string of curses and words she wasn't even sure were actual words. Worried, her searching became more rushed and she opened the door as quickly as she could, thinking the worst. Instead, she just saw Michael in the living room, pushing all the furniture towards the walls.

"What in the world are you doing?" He jumped up, surprised, having not heard her come in.

"Oh, uh, I, well..." he fidgeted, moving in front of the coffee table he was rearranging as if he could hide the entire room. "Gavin's coming over."

"Gavin? Your partner?"

"Friend," Michael corrected.

"Why do you and your friend need the furniture up against the wall?"

"So, in Gavin's house, everything's like this," Michael started as he resumed pushing the table again, and Mrs. Jones moved to stand on the opposite side of it so he would stop.

"Okay, Michael, our house does not need to be like his."

"Stop," Michael snapped, "let me explain." His mom's eyebrows shot up in surprise, and then narrowed as she got that stupid angry look that Michael had first seen when he was three and knew very well fourteen years later. "Seriously, okay, just be quiet for like, two seconds. Gavin's blind, alright, and he'd probably be super pissed that I'm moving shit around because he's really proud of being able to do shit. Like, half of the stuff you do everyday without even thinking about it, you'd completely fuck up with a blindfold on, but Gavin's pretty much permanently blindfolded." His mom started to say something, probably something sarcastic about knowing what it meant to be blind, so Michael just kept going, "So let's throw you into a house with hallways you've never heard about and rooms with shit lying in the middle of them and blindfold you and see how you feel walking around." Mrs. Jones understood, then, why he was moving the furniture. She smiled at him, reaching out and ruffling his hair. Michael frowned at her when she called him her 'sweet boy'. No one had called him sweet. That was Mitchell. Mitchell was her sweet boy. She didn't notice his discomfort, telling him that he would have to move it back the next day, and leaving him to continue on with his mission to Gavin-proof the house.

He couldn't shake the icky feeling, but pushed it away to make room for his excitement as he finished clearing a path through the living room, dragging the random decorative dresser into the empty bedroom at the end of the hall that would take them to the stairs. He cleaned up the landing, the upstairs hallway, the bathroom, and his bedroom. Once he was sure he could navigate Gavin easily throughout all the necessary parts of his house, he called him to come over.

Considering Michael could walk to Gavin's house in about fifteen minutes, it only took about five for Geoff to drive him over. Michael was waiting by the front window, and when they pulled up, he bounced excitedly down the few front steps and out towards the car. Gavin was already getting out of the passenger seat, his walking stick extended to full length and tied around his wrist.

"Hey, Michael! Call me when you want me to come get you, Gav," Geoff shouted out the window. Michael nodded back at him, bounding down the walkway to meet Gavin while he waved in Geoff's general direction, just before he tore out of the driveway and back down the street.

"Alright, dude, you ready for an awesome night of doing nothing?" Gavin laughed, and nodded. Usually, when Ray would come over, they would play some video games and look dumb shit up online, maybe play some shit boardgame or make up new rules for Monopoly, but not of that would really work for Gavin. Michael figured their usual routine of card games, music and chatting would work just as well at his house as it would at Gavin's. And this time, they would be uninterrupted by homework.

Gavin started forward, the tip of his stick tapping out a safe path for him to walk, but Michael stopped him by reaching out and tugging on two of the fingers on his free hand. "I know you don't like accepting help and shit," Michael took a step forward so they were shoulder to shoulder, pulling his hand away, "but I don't really want Geoff to murder me if your stupid ass trips or something and you get a scraped knee. Besides, you know you want some of this sweet hand holding action," Michael teased, pressing the back of his hand against Gavin's.

It took less convincing than Michael had expected. Gavin just nodded, doing some weird thing with his walking stick against his thigh that Michael didn't really catch but ended up with it folded and hanging off his wrist. Once that was taking care of, he slid his hand away from Michael's, only to bring it around so their palms were together. Gavin felt his cheek heats as his face flushed, Michael holding his hand and keeping their bodies close enough that their shoulders bumped and their thighs brushed together every few steps. Gavin couldn't see that Michael's face was just as red.

Chapter Text

Their routine changed from working at Gavin's house four times a week to Gavin coming over to Michael's house a couple days after school to work on homework, and hanging out at his house for as much of the weekend as they could manage.

Michael no longer needed to run home to move all the furniture every time they made plans. After the first week, Gavin had allowed Michael to help him enough that it was unnecessary. Instead, they would walk straight to his house after school or Michael would meet him in the driveway. Gavin would take Michael's arm, holding near his elbow and at his wrist, or sometimes they would hold hands and Gavin would think about how nice it felt, the skin of his palm heated by Michael's. No one had held Gavin's hand in a long time. He'd forgotten the comfort provided by a simple touch from someone you care about. Michael would then lead him through the house up to his bedroom.

They were walking back to Michael's house after school, exactly a month after the first time Gavin visited, discussing the nearing end of school and upcoming senior year. Gavin didn't have his walking stick out, instead Michael was acting as his eyes, warning him of crosswalks and bumps in the sidewalk. Their arms were brushing together, and Gavin couldn't figure out why he was so hyper aware of it.

He knew when they got to Michael's drive, both because the walk had become so standard he knew roughly how long it would take on any given day and because Michael hooked their arms together at the elbow and nudged him into making a sharp right. He didn't pull his arm away, but did stop pushing Gavin with his hip.

Gavin smiled at how much easier it felt, even with Michael leading him, to walk down the drive and up the few steps to the door. The only places he could flawlessly maneuver without aid were his home and school, and even school was iffy at times. It was nice to have another place he could get around with ease. Somewhere else he felt like he was safe and welcome.

Michael was still chatting about summer plans, unaware of the swell of affection that exploded inside Gavin, making him feel warm and comfortable in a way he couldn't remember ever being.

They were upstairs, in their standard position, Michael stretched out across his bed, pressed against the wall with Gavin sitting on the end. Gavin's legs were out in front of him, hanging off the edge while Michael's feet were resting against the side of his thigh. Michael's laptop was sitting on his stomach and Gavin heard the facebook chat sound every few minutes. Gavin was toying in a slinky when the door opened without warning.

"Oh! Hi boys! You were so quiet, I didn't think you were here!" Gavin recognized the voice as Mrs. Jones'. He turned his head towards the door and gave her a shy smile. She made him vaguely uncomfortable for reasons even he didn't understand. Michael made a noncommittal noise on his other side, and mumbled something Gavin couldn't make out. Obviously, if Gavin couldn't tell what he said, Mrs. Jones wouldn't be able too, but she didn't ask. The door squeaked quietly and repeatedly, as if she was pulling on the door, but couldn't decide if she wanted it open or shut. Gavin turned his face back towards his lap, where his hands were playing with the slinky. Usually, he tried to 'look' towards whatever he was focusing on, even though it made no difference. While it didn't matter to him, people had beaten it into him that staring blankly forward was freaky and made everyone around him uncomfortable.

Mrs. Jones stood silently in the doorway for a few more minutes. Michael's computer beeped with messages, but Gavin couldn't hear him typing. He figured there was some sort of intense staring contest going on, Michael and his mother communicating with looks, something Gavin couldn't participate in.

"Well, alright, boys. I'll be downstairs if you need anything, Mi." The door finally shut all the way. Two quick pings sounded from the laptop, and Gavin waited for the sound of Michael replying to the messages, but they never came. Instead, the bedsprings groaned as Michael sat up. Gavin felt a hand on his shoulder, and then he was being pushed. For a moment, he thought Michael was angry at him, even though he hadn't even spoken in the past half of hour. Which was something that might be considered a miracle by some, but then the hand stopped pushing and grabbed the side of his arm, pulling him onto the end of the empty half of the bed. He still didn't understand, until Michael laughed softly and tugged of the back of his shirt.

"Lay down, dumbass. This bed is comfy as hell." There was some shifting closer to the wall, and Gavin tentatively started to lean back, trusting Michael to warn him if he was about to smack his head into the wall. It didn't, and once he was settled, Michael laid down next to him. The bed was only a twin and they were two teenage boys, so their bodies were pressed together. Something warm, flat and heavy came to rest on Gavin's thigh, Michael shifting around for a moment before stilling again. Gavin panicked for a minute until he realized it was just Michael's laptop.

"I don't know what's up with my mom," Michael started with a heavy sigh, "she's being weird."

"What do you mean?"

"Like, she keeps calling me sweet boy and shit, which I mean, is cool, whatever, like, I'm your son, I know I'm never going to be an adult in your eyes, she still calls my older brothers strange shit. My mother is a weird fucking lady, right, nothing new there, but I'm not her sweet boy." Gavin could've made several jokes, but Michael was using his 'I'm being serious and this is something meaningful so don't be an idiot' voice, so he refrained. "That was Mitchell, right, like, I was a total little asshole when I was kid and Mitchell was all smiles and yes ma'ams, and I was screechy and obnoxious and he was always calm and spoke all soft and nice whenever he talked to someone. We were identical in looks but we had completely opposite personalities, and he was the good one. He was always the better one, and like, my mom would always call him her sweet boy and me her little devil. She never meant anything bad by it. I mean, he was her favorite but she didn't hate me or anything." Gavin didn't want to speak, didn't want to interrupt, so instead he pressed the tip of his finger against the back of Michael's hand, tracing letters he hadn't had a reason to use in years. Gavin's plan backfired when Michael tensed and fell silent. He didn't stop his movements, but knocked his knee into Michael's and mumbled for him to keep going. "Uh, right, uhm, everyone tried to keep things equal between us, and even if they didn't, we shared anyways, but, the one thing he always had that I didn't was a nickname. I wasn't jealous, I mean..." Michael stopped again, as Gavin formed an apostrophe around one of his knuckles, before drawing an 'r'. "Are you writing?"

"'Don't sound so surprised," Gavin murmured, continuing with an e. He waited a moment, since he didn't know how to convey a space, before trailing his finger over Michael's hand in the shape of an m. "I learned how to write before my accident, dummy."

Michael was distracted when he resumed his rant, trying to focus on Gavin's writing and talking at the same time. "Right, well, it wasn't like Mike and Mitch or anything, we were always Michael and Mitchell, but my mom and dad always called him Mi, instead. It fit him, better than me, 'cause he was a sweet, adorable little fuck and loved it but I was kind of an angry little shit and all, so I never minded. That's the first time my mom's ever called me that, though. We don't even talk about him. Ever. Most of the time, now, it's like he never even existed." Michael paused. He tilted his head to the side, moving it over so it was resting on the open space on Gavin's pillow. Softer, he continued, "Sometimes I think it should've been me." Gavin stopped mid u. The way Michael said it, god, he sounded... Gavin didn't even have a word to describe it. Like it was just a simple fact, something he had learned and accepted, the same way you tell someone that two plus two is four. Michael honestly thought that he should've died in place of his brother. He didn't say anymore, so instead, Gavin redrew the u, followed by a r, i, t, and an e. When he finished writing it out, he turned his face towards Michael and gave him a small smile.

"I'm glad it wasn't you."

Gavin felt Michael's hand on his thigh. There were two pokes, about an inch apart, and then Michael's finger slid in a semi-circle underneath. A smiley face.

"You're my favorite, too."

Chapter Text

Michael had cancelled their Friday night hang out the fifth week, but had called him as soon as he’d woken up and showered on Saturday. Gavin didn’t mind, much, it was just over a week until finals and there was plenty of studying to do, and they’d already made plans for most of summer. It’d been decided that, as much fun as they had just sitting around talking to each other, they were going to actually go out and do things once school was out. One night alone wasn’t going to kill Gavin when he had plenty more to look forward too later. 

Michael met him in the driveway, as usual, and had tried to sneak them upstairs to his room but Mrs. Jones had caught them halfway through the kitchen.

“Oh, hello, Gavin,” she greeted him softly, a hint of surprise buried beneath the phoney politeness she usually regarded him with. He wasn’t really sure what her problem with him was. If it’d been more recent, following the day she’d woken them up for dinner after she discovered them napping, Michael curled around Gavin liked his was a body pillow with a his laptop and textbooks squished between his stomach and Gavin’s arm, both worn from a day of school and afternoon of studying, he’d assume she wasn’t a fan of her son sleeping with strange boys, but it’d been going on since the first time Gavin had stepped into his house. She always talked to him carefully and slowly, like he was an idiot because he couldn’t see, in a way that drove him crazy. She was never rude and Michael never mentioned her saying anything strange about him, but Michael could just be trying to protect him. That was nothing new. He gave her a forced smile and returned the greeting with as much kindness as he was willing to muster. “I wasn’t expecting to see you, today, after you didn’t come around yesterday.” He bit down on a sassy remark and shrugged, Michael’s hand slipping off his shoulder when he did. 

“Just had a lot of work to do,” he replied. She patted his arm, where Michael’s hand had been.

“Well, you two have fun.”

Michael quickly tugged him away, taking his hand to lead him up the stairs once his mother had gotten into the other room. They settled onto his bed, sitting side by side in the middle of his bed, against the wall, with their knees touching. Michael set his laptop, with his itunes on shuffle, in front of them and Gavin got out the cards Michael had gotten him for a game of rummy. It was nice, Gavin thought to himself as he shuffled the cards, how they didn’t even have to talk. He hadn’t been close enough anyone that they could just go on without talking, just enjoying each other’s company without filling it up with words. It was always fun hanging out with Michael, whether they spend the entire time silently studying, or nodding along to new music, or talking about their childhoods, or tossing jokes back and forth. Comfortable. That was how Gavin felt. He hadn’t felt comfortable since before the accident. There was a constant fear of running into something he didn’t know how to handle without his sight. The day of the accident, his world, and subsequently, himself, had become a little more empty and in the two months since they were assigned as partners, Michael had shoved himself into all those little empty spaces and hollow crevices and filled them up until something Gavin hadn’t even realized was missing had been found. 

About halfway through their first game, Michael leaned into Gavin and mumbled, “Sorry about my mom. She’s so weird. Drives me fuckin’ crazy sometimes.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Gavin tilted his head to the side, tapping it against Michael’s before straightening up again. “At least you have one,” slipped out, Gavin unable to stop himself or the bitter tone that accompanied the statement. Michael broke into the moment of self-loathing before it could truly begin.

“Dude, you have a mom! Griffon fucking loves you, and Geoff was about six seconds away from killing me just for breathing the same air as you at first. You’re their kid, and whatever piece of shit was dumb enough to pass you off doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about, alright?” Michael didn’t wait for any sort of agreement or acknowledgement, just sped right on with his rant, “I don’t know if you believe in fate or anything but you were meant to end up here, okay, because you’re not broken and you’re not ruined, you’re like, fucking perfect and apparently where you were, people didn’t see that, but here they can and that’s what matters. Yeah, shit sucks, the accident was nasty, but it brought you to Griffon and Geoff who love you so fucking much and I know you can’t see that but I hope they fucking tell you because it’s the most obvious thing in the world and you’re my best friend dude, so don’t give me any of that shit because you have a mom, and a dad, and a best bro, and you don’t need some bitch who pushed you out of her vag forever ago anyways.” Gavin didn’t know what to say, once Michael had finished. People had already danced around the words ‘special’ and ‘disabled’ when he was around, like maybe he didn’t know what was wrong with him, and it only made him feel worse. It made him feel fragile and small, and always only fueled the idea that his mother had given him. That he was broken and useless, that he would serve no purpose but be taken care of. He was thirteen was he was rushed to the emergency room with people promising the doctors would fix him, and when they didn’t, the obvious conclusion was that he was broken.

But, for the first time, someone had taken him away from that train of thought and lead him to the one that said ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ Michael had made him feel like they hadn’t fixed him because there was nothing to fix.

Michael had called him perfect.

He set his hand on Michael’s shoulder before gently tapping two fingers against his jaw. Michael stopped moving, confused, but Gavin was only setting himself up to draw a smiley face on his cheek. After Gavin had started the method of silent communication, Michael had taken to scrawling emoticons on him to convey expressions. Gavin hadn’t felt the need to, seeing as Michael could just watch his face to see how he was feeling at any given point. It felt right, then. As soon as he finished the colon, he could feel the shift of Michael’s cheek as he actually smiled. A moment later, his hand found Gavin’s knee and drew back a response. A colon and a capital D. Gavin’s real smile grew and he returned the sentiment, this time, poking Michael’s forehead twice, near each of his temples, and then tracing from cheek to cheek, over his nose, and in a wide arc over his chin. Michael laughed, and Gavin felt the movement under his finger tips, resting near his friend’s jaw. He wondered what Michael looked like, just then. Gavin never enjoyed being blind. It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t cool, it made everything harder and separating him from everyone he knew, but he didn’t think he ever hated it more than in that moment when Michael was near giggling and Gavin thought how fucking cute he must’ve looked but he wouldn’t know. There was no way for him to ever know exactly how Michael looked.

He could get close, though. Slowly, his smile suddenly gone, he trailed two of his fingers over to Michael’s ear.

There’d only been two other times when Gavin had done this, with Griffon and Geoff. Shortly after he’d moved in with them, he woken up, chest tight with fear and his entire body slick with sweat, with no clue as to what had frightened him so badly. Geoff heard him scream when he tried to open his eyes and everything was still dark, it being so soon after the accident that every once in a while he’d be out of it enough to forget what had happened and where he was. His new parents had burst into his room in record time to find him blubbering and choking on his own rushed speech. Griffon and Geoff had slid in on either side of him and held him until he calmed down. He realized he could almost picture a nose when he reached out and accidentally grabbed Geoff’s. Geoff had let him run his hands all over his face and hair, Gavin curling all around him until he had a vague image in his head of his guardian. He’d done the same to Griffon, mapping out her features in his mind. It had made him feel almost normal, for a moment, picturing the couple he’d imagined standing on either side of himself, pre-accident. There was no way for him to know if his mental picture was anything even close to the real person, but there was some comfort in at least having an idea.

Of course, it didn’t matter to him what Michael looked like. He’d like him, either way, but the curiosity would drive him crazy.  

Gavin repositioned himself, so he was on his knees facing Michael. As he slipped his fingers through Michael’s curls, thumb running over his ear, he whispered, “Is this okay?” He felt Michael nod. “What color is your hair?” He asked, as his right hand slipped into the hair on the other side of Michael’s head, both hands brushing through, cataloging the length, the style.

“Uh, kind of… I don’t know, reddish brown, I guess? Like, almost red but still brown, I think?” Gavin laughed softly, his hands pulling through the hair until they settled on Michael’s jaw. After running his thumb across the edge of Michael’s lower lip, one hand stayed on his jaw and two fingers of the other outlined his mouth, up to his nose, both his eyes. Gavin brought his other hand up to slide his thumbs across the smooth skin under both of Michael’s eyes before reaching up and brushing all four fingers on each hand over his eyebrows and back across his forehead.

“Eyes?”

“Brown.” Gavin nodded, letting his hands trail down Michael’s cheeks, over his jaw and down his neck, until his palms were resting on Michael’s collarbone, fingers splayed out on either side of his neck. In his mind, he could see it, like a badly drawn picture. The dumb smile Gavin had always pictured when he made Michael laugh now had a face to go with it, and if it wasn’t the most beautiful thing he’d ever fucking seen.

“Perfect,” he murmured, tapping both his index fingers against the curve where Michael’s shoulders met his neck. In an instant, before he had time to process what was happened, there were hands on his hips and lips touching his and his mind had gone blank.

The sensation lasted only a few moments before Michael had released him, and pushed himself back to the top of his bed. Gavin stayed where he was, frozen, hands falling onto his legs.

“That was a mistake, dude, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that and you had no way of stopping me, I’m fucking sorry, okay. Like-“

Gavin didn’t want to listen to Michael ramble and try and correct himself. The first four words were enough.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I think I’m going to go home.”

“Oh, uh, yeah, okay. Yeah. I’ll, uh, help you downstairs.”

Gavin wanted to say no, but he couldn’t. He’d felt so comfortable letting Michael help him, he hadn’t bothered to memorize the number of steps on the stairs or into and out of each room. His walking stick was collapsed in his backpack, downstairs. This was a situation Gavin had never considered. He‘d never imagined there would be a time when he would need to get away from Michael.

He only let Michael lead him as far as the bottom of the stairs, where his bag was resting next to his shoes. Michael had stood there while he dug out his stick and unfolded it.

“I’ll see you Monday, right?” Michael asked, sounding nervous. What did he think Gavin was going to do? Switch schools because the boy he had a ridiculous crush on didn’t actually want to kiss him?

“’Course,” and Gavin gave him a small smile for good measure, but it was forced. He doubted Michael would notice the difference.

“Yeah, okay. Uh, sorry, again. See you.”

Gavin nodded and started towards the door, tapping a path out in front of him. He knew enough to get himself to the driveway, but even if he didn’t, he could hear Michael following him out, and he was an idiot if he actually thought Gavin didn’t know. Outside, he pulled the simple phone his parents had given him and hit two, dialing Geoff. Geoff was there to pick him up within minutes, and, thankfully, didn’t ask any questions. Gavin wasn’t sure he’d have the answers if he tried. 

Chapter Text

Gavin spent the weekend immersed in studying, doing anything to avoid thinking about his big dumb crush on an idiot and how lovely it felt to have Michael’s lip touching his lips until Michael realized that Gavin was Gavin and not someone he wanted to touch with his mouth.

Michael spent the weekend attempting to study but mostly hating himself for ruining such a nice moment with his stupid urges and feelings and shit. Feelings never got you anywhere good. Caring got you nothing but pain. Between the moments of reminding himself that nothing good lasts long and, being who he was, he was bound to fuck up anything good the same way he fucked up his family by convincing the most important person in his life to do something that ended with his dead, he wished the he had spent just a little bit longer kissing Gavin if doing it at all meant he was going to lose his best friend.

On Monday, Michael waited for Gavin to approach him announce he didn’t swing that way, but they were still friends. When it didn’t happen, he assumed it was confirmation that they were no longer friends.

On Monday, Gavin waited for Michael to approach him and confirm that it was all good, but it didn’t happen. Instead, someone unexpected caught up with him while he was waiting for Geoff to pick him up at the end of the day.

“Yo, Gavin. Hey!” He didn’t recognize the voice, but turned away from the parking lot to face whoever was yelling at him. There was the sound of sneakers against pavement, slowly increasing as whoever it was got closer, until he could hear faint, heavy breaths and someone patted him on the arm. “I’m Ray. We have –“

“Math, right. What do you want?”

“I, uh, just thought you should know something. Michael’s my bro and all but you seem like an okay dude and it’s not real cool of him to jerk you around or anything. I was over there on Friday, and he and his mom were getting into it, about you. I didn’t really hear much, but he said he just felt bad for you. Or guilty for something. I didn’t really get a whole lot, honestly, but I just thought, you two seemed pretty close, so I figured you might want to know he wasn’t really your friend. Before you got screwed over.”

Well, he already had, but thanks for the warning, Ray. Normally, Gavin would’ve looked into it. Probably just flat out ask Michael if he’d said that, but the signs were there. The seed of doubt had been planted months ago. Saturday had made it sprout, and now it was a full grown flower of disbelief. He’d always known Michael was too good to be true. This just proved it.

Ray was there, waiting, and Geoff hadn’t yet arrived, so Gavin wrapped himself in a protective cocoon of nonchalance and shrugged, uncaring. “We really weren’t that close. Thanks, though.”

“Yeah, no problem, dude. Sorry.” With that, Ray was off, and Gavin was alone, unsure if he was angry or sad or hurt, but probably all three.

Geoff picked him up and took him home. Once he was in his bedroom, he settled into a nice mix of sad and hurt, laying on his bed for hours just going over every moment they spent together. It was like his mind was a garden, and that little flower had poison in its roots that had spread out to infect all the beautiful little roses that had existed amongst the seed, that had overpowered it.

Michael had made him feel like he was important. Michael had made him believe that he was worthy, that he was whole, that he was normal. Michael had made him believe that he was more than normal. Michael had told him that he was perfect and he fucking believed it.

“God, what a dumbass,” he snorted into the empty room.

He’d fucking believed it and Michael had been trying to stroke his broken little ego because he was trying to erase his own guilt. He wasn’t perfect. Not even close. He was nothing more than a charity case, apparently.

The sadness faded into a kind of empty. Michael had given him something, changed him, and then left him even worse than before. Before, he hadn’t known what it meant to be accepted, he hadn’t known what it meant to feel whole, to feel fixed when he was still blind. Michael had shown him that, but it was a ruse, and now Gavin had it ripped away. It was never fun to be blind, but Gavin thought it was much worse to become that way than to be born that way. He’d known what it’d been like to see, to experience life in every way, and he lost it. Michael had been an emotional replication of the car accident.

By Friday, he’d cycled through the feelings of betrayal and rushes of sadness, spent half the week reminding himself that he was better than this, and had then felt an overwhelming anger. At Ray, for even telling him, and then at himself, for being okay with being used just so he wasn’t alone. He didn’t need pity, he reminded himself, he was strong and he was capable and he didn’t need people to pretend to like him because they felt bad. He got angry at Michael, for feeling bad for him. Whether it was because he felt guilty for bullying kids at school and treating Gavin the same way everyone else did, or because he just felt bad that Gavin had a bad social life and a sad story, it enraged him.

During his last period after this anger had rose up and consumed his mind, burning through every other thought, Miss G announced that they were going to have an unorthodox final. It was expected, as was her lengthy tangent about public school systems and testing and life after school. The last few minutes before the bell rang, she finally got to explaining what their strange last assignment would be.

“You’ll be writing an essay. At least one full page, but you can make it as long as you need. You’ll turn your copy into me, and then stand in front of the class and explain what you wrote. You don’t have to memorize it, just say the same thing to the class that you write to me. Differences in your writing and speech will not get you points off. I want you to write about the most important thing you learned from my class. This is helpful for you, to evaluate what you did this year, and me, to evaluate my teaching and what students take away from me. The only way to fail is to not do it. If you want to turn in the paper and not speak, you can still get a C. If you speak, but forgot to write the paper, you can get a D. So, good luck on your finals next week, have the paper on Wednesday and be prepared to speak, and if you choose not to show up, have a fantastic summer.” As she finished, the bell rang, and Gavin hurried out to meet Geoff in the parking lot. He was so fired up, ideas bouncing through his head faster than he could process them. There was so much he’d learned from that class, but by the time he arrived home, he’d figured out exactly what he was going to write.

Geoff and Griffon but tried to talk to him, but he brushed them off with a quick excuse of studying and nearly ran to his room, feeling around on his bed for his laptop. He kicked off his shoes into the middle of his floor, something he rarely did for fear of forgetting and tripping over them later, dumping his bag randomly at the end of his bed. In minutes, he had a word doc open and his fingers flying across the keyboard as he poured out all his anger and disdain and hurt into what was, basically, a summary of his experience as a high school student.

Once all the rage had been pounded out by his fingers and the keys were thoroughly abused by his vigorous typing, he tapped a few final keys to play back what he had written, checking for any errors. Normally, he’d ask someone around to proof read, but it was probably better he didn’t share his essay with his guardians.

A robotic male voice read his work back to him in a strange monotone, “This year, I learned about people. I’d already known quite a bit about people. People always have some sort of ulterior motive. Miss G gave us this assignment with an ulterior motive. To find out which parts of her teaching had been most effective. Is that bad? No. She’s not hurting anyone. But she still gets something out of it. She would get nothing out of giving us a written test, but it’s a win-win if she has us do this. I already knew that people were selfish. They worry about themselves, their own reputations, their own feelings. They do things completely disregarding everyone and everything around them. Everyone’s only worried about themselves. People are cowards. When someone is different, they push them away. They put them down. They take their differences and build them into something terrible and scary and turn that person into a monster. They don’t care how that person feels about it, it’s not their problem. How that person feels does not and will never directly affect them and thus it’s nothing to consider when they outcast someone for something they had no choice in. They’re afraid of your differences because they know it makes you better than them. People want to be special. They strive to be different and unique and one-of-a-kind. When someone different comes along, they see that they’re special and they try to take it away because they want it for themselves. These are all things I’ve known about people for years, but people still managed to teach me something new and terrible about them this year. I learned that people are exactly who you think they are, and they’re always going to be that way. You hear stories and you only see the parts of a person they show and you make assumptions. There’s that dumb saying, assume makes and ass out of u and me, which is a cute play on words and it’s not true. Your first instinct about a person is always going to be right. People will try and say that people can change, but it’s only an act. You are who you are, through and through, and if you’ve ‘changed’, you’re lying. To yourself, and maybe everyone else, if you’re a good enough actor that you can convince everyone else you’ve somehow rewired your entire personality. You look at a person and you think, they’re a bully, and they’re rude, and they’re dumb, and then they pretend like they like you, and they make you think all kinds of things about yourself, and try to show you that they’re considerate and fascinating, but then the ruse falls and you find out they were exactly who you thought, and that you’re exactly who you thought you were too. It was all just blurred vision, screwing up the image of a person, making you thing you were seeing something new and different and good, but then you see clearly and you see all the bad that people try to hide.”

The following Wednesday, Gavin hadn’t had to go into school until the second final, his English final, and it was the last hour and a half of his junior year. He had a printed copy of his spiteful essay and the words memorized to deliver to a class of kids who already hated him.

Miss G collected their papers at the beginning and began to go in reverse alphabetical order by last name. Gavin would be one of the last people to go. A series of kids went, most of them explaining a rather helpful grammar or writing tip that Miss G gave them, a couple seniors talking about college essays, only one person had strayed from the curriculum path to talk about some life lesson they’d learned from one of the books Miss G had forced them to read earlier in the year. She sounded very pleased by them, and Gavin wondered if she would be offended by the things he had to say about an entire species, or appreciate the emotion and personality he’d put into his writing. Knowing her, it would be a little bit of both. He prayed that she didn’t try to keep him after the bell rang to try and correct his societal views.

“Michael Jones!” Miss G called, and Gavin kept his face turned towards his desk, tracing shapes on the wood with one finger.

“Uh, I’m going to paraphrase a whole lot, Miss G, ‘cause I got a little more personal than I meant to when I was writing my essay, so I hope that’s cool.” Michael spoke from the front of the room, and Gavin heard the sound of papers shuffling.

“That’s fine, Michael.”

“Cool. Alright, so, this year, I learned that a person is more than their disability. I’d always thought that a disabled person was defined by what they couldn’t do, but they are actually defined by what they can. I thought disabled mean incapable, but it doesn’t. To live without hearing, or speaking, or missing a limb, or a certain chromosome, or having too many chromosomes, that makes you different, but it also makes you extraordinary. Some of us struggle to get by with all our parts and pieces in place and functioning like they’re meant too. We look at someone who’s disabled and see what’s difference and zero in on it and judge it and act like they’re not even a person. They’re nothing but what we see, but that’s not true. They have feelings and aspirations and a past. There are all things that we have about ourselves that are different and messed up and that we hate, but we project all that crap onto someone who has that difference where everyone can see it. We’re jealous because we have to hide and bury our problems, because we’re afraid of someone finding it, because they don’t have to be scared of hiding it because you get their biggest problem at face value. We’re scared that someone’s going to think they love us, and then uncover that nasty little piece of us and realize we weren’t what we want. But, you have three options. We can either pretend that it’s not there, that we’re all good and right and sane, and spend our lives as something we’re not. We can hide our bad parts, and our good parts with them, spending it alone. Or we can display our bad parts alongside our good parts and find the people who want all of you, everything you are. And, this year, I learned that the third option is the best option. You’ll find people who want you, every part of you, and those people will display all their pieces to you and you’ll want them all too.”

Three students went after Michael and Gavin didn’t think he heard any of them. His hand had frozen somewhere around the middle of Michael’s speech.

“Gavin Free.” Miss G called. He stood slowly, unfolding his stick and walking to the front of the classroom. He turned to face his classmates and took a deep breath.

“This year, I learned about pe…” Gavin stopped. It wasn’t right. He knew fuck all about people. Michael… Michael had just gone and surprised him. Again. Michael was the first person to surprise him, and he just kept doing it. He couldn’t say what he had written to a classroom where Michael was sitting after he’d said that, in front of plenty of kids who would tear him apart for it because everyone knew exactly who he was talking about. That wasn’t pity. No one did that because they felt bad for someone. The growing flower of doubt had been stomped on by the word disability and by the end of Michael’s speech, it was nothing but smashed petals and a crumpled stem. Ray had lied to him, or misunderstood, or something, because Michael was genuine and nothing like Gavin had expected. “This year, I learned…” it had been easy when he was pumped full of rage and ready to let go of everything that had built up over years of being ignored, but now, he didn’t know what to say. “I learned that…”

“You don’t have to relay it word for word, Gavin, just the general idea.”

“Uh, right, yeah, can… can I start over?” Miss G was going to read what Gavin had written, later, and he’d probably get points of for saying something completely different on his paper, but there was no way he was going to repeat what he’d typed in a fit of anger.

“Of course.”

He took a minute to gather his thoughts, took another deep breath, and then he just opened his mouth and let it all spill out.

“This year I learned about life. Things happen all the time. Friends come and go, the weather gets bad, your crush kisses you and it you spend days confused, misunderstandings throw you for a loop, there’s a nasty accident, someone dies. These things happen to someone every day, and life just keeps happening. You’re so focused on one thing, you don’t realize that life is just continuing around you. Sometimes, you’re not really living, you’re just existing, but you don’t realize it. You don’t notice life just happening around you. While you’re focused on figuring out something someone said to you, or getting over your grief or fighting with someone, or yourself, and all these huge seeming things are going on and they seem like the biggest deal in the world but life is still happening in the background. You’re stuck in the past, thinking about all the things that could’ve happened differently but your present is still continuing. You’re stuck on someone who hurt you and you don’t notice the person who’s patching you up. I learned to just, go with the flow. Float on the river that is life, instead of holding onto a rock and going against it, or struggling to speed up and get past the rocky spots. Sometimes things get nasty, but it will always clear up. I learned that life is a beautiful thing when you’re actually living it, even though it can seem horrible when everyone’s living it around you.”

There were seven more students to go after Gavin had sat back down in his seat, and the last one finished fifteen minutes before the bell was going to ring.

“Those were great, guys. Thank you for a fantastic year. Sadly, under no circumstances am I allowed to release you before the final bell, so go ahead and take out your phones or move around to see your friends. Everyone be careful, and have a great year.”

A few students cheered, and then Gavin listened to the sound of twenty different phones being turned on and desks being pushed around, an instant wave of excited chatter washing over the room. He didn’t even hear a desk sliding closer to his, over the sounds of happy teenagers. Three fingers tapped his knee, and then stayed there.

“Hey, Gav.”

“Michael. Your speech was good.”

“Yeah, uh, yours too. Was really good.”

“I, well, I… Ray talked to me on Monday.”

“Really?” Michael sounded surprised, “He wasn’t giving you shit, was he? I’ll take him out for you, dude. I got your back.”

“I know you do. He just, uh, he said that you were only friends with me because you felt bad for me. And, I believed him, but,”

“God damn it, dude, really? I swear, that little fuck loves to spread rumors, it wasn’t,”

“I don’t think he was trying to spread a rumor. He said he overheard you and your mom talking, but he was pretty nice about it? He seemed more like he was trying to protect my feelings or something.”

“Fuck. He’s usually got okay intentions, but dude’s an idiot. I was talking to my mom about Mitchell. We had a real heart to heart about shit, and it just happened to occur while Ray was over for a game night. I only didn’t invite you, ‘cause I didn’t want to sit there and play video games while you felt like shit ‘cause you couldn’t. My mom asked about you and I went to talk to her about it and she started calling me ‘sweet boy’ because she thought it was sweet that I was being so nice to you, even though you’re blind and shit, which is how I got to thinking about all the shit I wrote my paper about, and I figured it would work ‘cause you taught me that, and stuff, and we ended up talking about Mitchell and how I felt guilty about his death and how you weren’t just someone I felt bad for, that I really like you, like, a whole lot. And I was being kind of loud at first but then we got all quiet and emotional and shit, so Ray probably only heard the middle bit and took it the wrong way.”

Gavin felt so stupid. All of it was just a big, dumb misunderstanding. This all could’ve been avoided if he had just trusted Michael.

“And, uh, I thought you were mad at me, for kissing you, or else I would’ve talked to you and shit would’ve been set straight and everything would’ve been fine.”

“I wasn’t mad, idiot.”

“Really?”

“You’re the one who said it was a mistake.”

“Only ‘cause I didn’t want you to hate me for liking you.”

“I like you, Michael. Good parts and bad parts.”

The fingers on his knee moved, drawing out a heart. Gavin smiled. The bell rang. Students hurried out, excited whoops sounding from every part of the building. Michael waited until it was near silent, the classroom empty.

“You want to come over?”

“Of course.”

They stood up, and a few steps out the door, Michael grabbed Gavin’s hand and tugged him to the side.

“You almost ran into something.”

They were in the middle of an empty hallway.

Michael didn’t let go.

Chapter Text

When they leave school holding hands, it's warm and nice and Gavin feels secure but it doesn't mean anything. Michael has held his hand a few times before. It comes with being blind. People hold his hand and lead him around and it doesn't mean anything to Gavin.

Michael isn't in the habit of holding hands. It means something to him. It means he likes Gavin. It means he wants to be close to him. 

When Michael asks him out to lunch two weeks into June, it’s not a big deal. Gavin's gotten used to having plans. He'd gotten used to waking up to a phone call from Michael asking him to come over or being jostled awake by Michael shoving him over to make room on his bed after showing up unannounced. He never minded. Sometimes he went back to sleep while Michael waited around for him to get up, either toying with his computer or going to play games with Geoff. Sometimes he forces himself up, starting his day with a long conversation with his best friend or a game of cards in comfortable silence. Going out to lunch doesn't mean anything. It's just another day of hanging out with Michael. He isn't sure why they don't just order pizza, or why Michael asks three days in advanced instead of just showing up and telling Gavin to shower so they can leave.

Michael asks Gavin out on a date and it's a big deal. He asks Geoff for advice about where they'd been out before, so Gavin can order without having the menu read to him, somewhere fancy but not too fancy, and Geoff threatens him a little, but tells Michael the perfect place. Gavin is waiting outside for him and Michael holds his hand the entire walk. They sit and eat and talk for three hours, and Michael pays, to Gavin’s annoyance and confusion. Michael walks him back home, and it’s not even five, so Gavin invites him in to hang out a while longer. Normally, Michael would say yes, but it’s a date and he wants it to be like a date, not friends hanging out, so he says he had a good time but he should get home and Gavin shrugs and drops his hand and goes inside and Michael walks home a little confused, but pleased with the day.

When Michael asks, three weeks and four lunches later, for Gavin to go to dinner, Gavin says yes and it's not really a big deal. At first.

Michael asks Gavin to dinner, and he’s planning on asking Gavin to become his boyfriend, and it’s a big fucking deal. He’s never had a boyfriend before, and never thought he would, but then he met Gavin and they became friends and that plan changed pretty fucking quick. The date goes similarly to the first four, and Michael grabs the bill as soon as it’s set down.

Gavin argues that he should at least pay for his half, that Michael always pays, and Michael laughs. Michael tells him that, of course he’s going to pay, they’re dates. He asked. If Gavin wants to pay, he can ask. Gavin goes silent.

Michael realizes he never technically used the word date.

Gavin holds Michael’s hand the entire way home from their date and when they get to his door, he doesn’t ask Michael to come in, but he does ask him to be his boyfriend and Michael says yes and asks him to if he wants to hang out tomorrow and Gavin says yes and then goes inside and Michael goes home and they’re both smiling like idiots.

When Gavin wakes up the next morning, he tells Griffon he’s going to his boyfriend’s house and she doesn’t bother to ask who he is. He walks there, instead of getting a ride. He’s got the path memorized. It’s not much different than any other day they’ve hung out. They sit on Michael’s bed, listen to music, chat, play cards, nap. Gavin starts to write out a list on Michael’s thigh and he asks what it is. Gavin tells him it’s a list of things he likes about Michael. When he finishes, he feels two fingers tap the corner of his mouth twice in quick succession and Michael asks “Kiss?”

Michael shows up at Gavin’s two days later and runs into Griffon on her way out. She thanks him and tells him to go inside and when he asks why he was thanked she just smiles and gets into her car. Geoff doesn’t give him any sort of talk from where he’s seated on the couch when Michael steps through the front door without ringing the doorbell, just tells him he’s a good kid and that Gavin’s probably still asleep. He is, Michael finds, but he just slips into the empty space between his boyfriend and the wall, just like he did fifty times before Gavin was his boyfriend. He has a piece of paper folded in his pocket that’s ruined from being folded and unfolded and tossed away and then retrieved. Michael’s only there for ten minutes before Gavin rolls into him and, still half asleep, mumbles his name. Michael laughs and asks who else it would be. Gavin promises he wouldn’t want it to be anyone else and Michael pulls the paper out of his pocket and starts reading. “This year, I learned that a person is more than their disability. I’d always thought that a disabled person was defined by what they couldn’t do, but they are actually defined by what they can. I thought disabled mean incapable, but it doesn’t. To live without hearing, or speaking, or missing a limb, or a certain chromosome, or having too many chromosomes, that makes you different, but it also makes you extraordinary. This year, I met Gavin Free, the most extraordinary person I’ve ever known. I’d heard of Gavin, seen him around, and avoided him, just like everyone else. I knew a lot about him. I knew he was blind, I knew he was roughly six feet tall. I knew he was skinny, and had brown hair and a dumb haircut. I knew where he sat at lunch because it was the one table where no one else sat. I knew that everyone hates him. There was a lot I thought I knew about him. I thought he was useless. I thought he was nothing. I thought that he would be a burden. I thought he was dumb and sad and I thought there was a good reason everyone hated him. I thought there was a good reason, somewhere, for me to hate him without ever hearing his voice. There was a lot I learned about him. I learned that he the best uno player ever, and that he has a great taste in music. I learned that he’s stupidly funny. I learned that his favorite joke is ‘I’m blind, not deaf’, which is horrible and sad but amazing because he can joke about something I get scared just imaging. I learned he isn’t useless at all, and he doesn’t depend on anyone. I learned that he was, somehow, still extremely kind despite being shit on over and over. I learned that there was absolutely no reason for anyone to hate him. Some of us struggle to get by with all our parts and pieces in place and functioning like they’re meant too. We look at someone who’s disabled and see what’s different and zero in on it and judge it and act like they’re not even a person. They’re nothing but what we see. Gavin taught me that wasn’t true. He showed me his feelings and told me about his past and there’s so much about him I learned and so much I still have, and can’t wait, to learn. He taught me that there are all things that we have about ourselves that are different and messed up and that we hate, and that we project all that crap onto someone who has that difference where everyone can see it. I learned that we’re jealous because we have to hide and bury our problems, because we’re afraid of someone finding it, because they don’t have to be scared of hiding it because you get their biggest problem at face value. We’re scared that someone’s going to think they love us, and then uncover that nasty little piece of us and realize we weren’t what we want. But, you have three options. We can either pretend that it’s not there, that we’re all good and right and sane, and spend our lives as something we’re not. We can hide our bad parts, and our good parts with them, spending it alone. Or we can display our bad parts alongside our good parts and find the people who want all of you, everything you are. And, this year, I learned that the third option is the best option. Gavin taught me that you’ll find people who want you, every part of you, and those people will display all their pieces to you and you’ll want them all too. I never wanted to know Gavin, not before you partnered him with me. He showed me the things he thought were bad about him and I stayed. He showed me everything and I wanted it all. Together, we learned so much about each other, and it taught me so much. I learned to open myself up, to let someone in, and I couldn’t have picked a better person. This year, Gavin taught me how to be a better person, he made me want to be a better person, he taught me about himself, and he taught me that there's more to life than appearances. This year, you paired me up with Gavin, and it was the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me. Thank you.” Gavin listens to the sound of paper being folded and then Michael admits, “I spent a couple hours last night trying to write it in Braille, but I got two sentences in and then went to check and realized half the dots were missing and it was backwards.” Gavin taps his index and middle finger against Michael’s jaw twice, the first thing he could reach, and demands, “Kiss.”

When Gavin is still at Michael’s house when Ray, Kyle and Andrew show up for their weekly game night, he offers to leave but Michael says he should stay. He introduces Gavin as his boyfriend and Ray greets him warmly, Andrew is friendly enough and Kyle makes a vaguely homophobic comment in a semi-friendly tone that doesn’t sit well with Gavin and makes the other three boys laugh uncomfortably.

Michael sits with his back against the couch, Gavin between his legs with his back against Michael’s chest. Michael’s arms are around his boyfriend, holding the controller in his lap while his chin rests on Gavin’s shoulder. Gavin reads one of the Braille books he keeps at Michael’s while the rest of the guys play video games. Kyle makes increasingly obvious comments about Gavin’s sight and his disapproval of their relationship and Michael tells him to shut the fuck up or get the fuck out so he gets the fuck out. Gavin apologizes and says he should’ve left and is surprised when both Ray and Michael argue that he deserves to be there more. Being wanted still seems new to Gavin and the feeling is warm and comforting and he hopes it never goes away. Between rounds, Michael will tap Gavin’s hand twice with two of his fingers and Gavin will tilt his head up so Michael can kiss him. It’s become their system, Gavin not always sure where Michael’s lips are in relation to his own, and Michael never wanting to kiss Gavin when he can’t see him to stop it before it happens. Not that Gavin ever refuses a kiss when he feels the tap, but it’s nice to have the ability.

When Geoff arrives to pick Gavin up at the same time as Ray’s mom, they walk out together. Ray apologizes, sincerely as far as Gavin can tell, for being a piece of shit. Gavin tells him its okay, Ray never actively did anything to him, and Ray tells him it’s not. Gavin says they should agree to disagree and Ray tells him that Michael’s lucky to have him. Gavin doesn’t say it but thinks that only the opposite is true. He’s lucky to have Michael. Michael could do much better.

Michael is shocked when Gavin says it to him, two months after they’ve graduated from high school. They’re spending every day they can together before they go off to their respective colleges, several states away. Gavin is staying local so he can live with Geoff and Griffon and Michael is going to college in New Jersey. Gavin tells him he’s enjoying their time together, and the past year has been the greatest of his life, but they should break up before the summer ends. They’re in bed together, having spent the day alternating between naps and long kisses and slow hand jobs, just lazily enjoying each other’s company. Michael doesn’t instantly agree, like Gavin expected, but instead he gets angry, and confused. He asks why the fuck they should do that, why the fuck would Gavin want that, what did he do, if Gavin’s enjoying their time why the fuck would he want to end it and Gavin tells him exactly what he didn’t tell Ray. That Michael is too good for him and he’s going to meet someone amazing at college, someone who is good enough, and Gavin doesn’t want to hold him back, he wants Michael to find someone who’s better, who will make him happier than Gavin could, and Michael calls his bullshit. His voice is softer but Gavin can still hear the anger hiding underneath the calm, sweet tone. Michael tells him he’s an idiot and he’s got it wrong, that Gavin is much too good for him, and that it doesn’t matter who Michael meets at college, because he’s not looking, and unless Gavin comes up with a better reason to dump him, it’s not going to happen. Gavin isn’t sure he believes it, the part where Michael says he won’t be looking, because Gavin doesn’t think he can give him everything he wants, because he never asked what Michael wanted. If he did, Michael would tell him he was it.

When they go to college, they’re still together and the deal with the long distance relationship well enough. Ray, it turns out, goes to the same college as Gavin and they become even closer friends than Ray and Michael are. Michael meets a lot of new people, and even reconnects with a couple kids he knew when he was very young. Gavin doesn’t try to break up with Michael again, and only makes the mistake of accusing him of cheating once. The fight is explosive and nasty and they don’t talk for a week. They still don’t breakup. Gavin tries to call on the eighth day and the line is busy, because Michael is already calling him. They talk and apologize and Michael promises he would never cheat and tells Gavin he regrets not making it clearer that he would never cheat and not doing enough to make sure Gavin didn’t doubt him and how he felt and Gavin says he isn’t sure why he ever thought it and how he hates feeling so insecure and he’s trying and Michael says he’s trying to and they promise to try together. Michael comes home that weekend and they fuck for the first time and Gavin doesn’t tell him he loves him during  because that’s cheesy and cliché and too in the moment so he tells him when they wake up the next morning and Michael says it back and Gavin believes him.

They last through college and when Michael moves back for good after graduation, he and Gavin move into their own apartment a few towns over. Living together is hard and it takes a long time for Gavin to get acclimated to the new place. It would’ve been easier if he had let Michael help him with anything and there would’ve been one less broken arm if he didn’t insist on doing everything himself. Michael teases him when he’s helping Gavin get dressed one morning that if he had just accepted help in the first place, he wouldn’t need it then but he stops laughing when Gavin replies that he’s scared to ask for help because he’s scared to be a burden, scared that it’ll be too much and that Michael will dump him just like his mother did and it’ll never stop hurting, just like when his mother did it.

When they’re twenty five, after being together eight years, Michael is in the bathroom brushing his teeth and Gavin is sitting on the couch and Michael yells, “Hey, do you want to like, get married or some shit?” And Gavin yells back an affirmative and they don’t talk about it.

Michael comes home three days later and gives Gavin a ring and Gavin wears it and he can feel Michael’s when they’re holding hands, but they still don’t really mention it.

At breakfast two days after, Gavin says he’d like Ray to be his best man and Michael responds with the name of a college friend for his own.

After work, Michael mentions a venue.

A week later, Gavin picks a date. He tells Michael he can choose decorations and color schemes, because it doesn’t make a difference to him. Michael tells him he can pick the food.

In the months leading up to their wedding, they go back and forth, every few days casually bringing up guest lists and seating charts and Michael occasionally mentioning who is and isn’t coming. A couple suit fittings pop up into Gavin’s schedule and he goes. Ray agrees to be his best man. Everything comes together slowly and it’s somehow done in time and Gavin never thinks anything of it.

On their wedding day, either Ray or Michael is always by Gavin’s side to inform him who’s approaching him to say hello. When Michael says his mother is coming, he’s shocked when he receives a hug from unfamiliar arms and a high voice with a distinctive British accent speaks in his ear instead and its clearly not Griffon. Gavin hates and loves Michael all at once. There’s a quiet fight in the other room between him and the woman who gave birth to him and she tells him he looks wonderful and she’s so glad she was invited when it’s over and he tells her he’s glad she came but she gave up on being his mother a long time ago and he would rather not see her again and she cries and apologizes but he doesn’t budge and the gross feeling that had been in the bottom of his stomach ever since his accident finally disappears and he feels so strong, he knows he did the right thing.

People ask about the big proposal and who asked and about how stressful planning was and Gavin laughs when he tells them there wasn’t one and technically Michael asked but it was more of a mutual agreement to get married and have a wedding, and it wasn’t stressful at all because they didn’t really plan, they just kind of made decisions and then went on with life until there was another decision to make. It works for them, though. Neither of them needed a big proposal or a big fancy wedding. It’s simple and easy and, like their relationship, just kind of followed the flow of life and what felt right. The same way they became friends, and then more, the just let things grow and happen and didn’t question or fight it.

When they’re twenty seven, Gavin can’t sleep and Michael has been out for hours and Gavin wakes him up to inform him that they should get a kid and Michael agrees and then goes back to sleep.

Six months later they have one. Well, they don’t have one, but they adopt a girl and she’s four months old and Michael claims she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen and Gavin’s never hated his disability more. They both love their adopted daughter whole-heartedly and she’s theirs, no matter what anyone says.

On her first birthday, Ray and his wife come to celebrate and his wife tells Michael and Gavin about this new surgery that’s being tested but has so far been very safe, that Gavin would be a perfect candidate for and it should fully return his sight and they thank her. Later, after they’ve left and Holly has been put to sleep, Michael asks if he wants to do the surgery and Gavin says no.

When Gavin is thirty, he tells Michael he wants to see again. Michael says okay and Gavin signs up for the new surgery.

After ten appointments with varying tests and long discussions, and two psych evaluations, Gavin is accepted into the surgery and leaves his husband and daughter for four months. The surgery only takes a day, but it’s still being tested and improved upon so he’s kept for observation and reintroduced to seeing very slowly. It’s awful and slow and he hates it and only gets to talk to Michael once every couple weeks and he hates that he can’t just leave but knows seeing the world in its entirety so soon after being released from the darkness he was locked in for twenty years would be dangerously overwhelming. It’s weird to see again, but amazing, and there are some things he needs to relearn after so long. It blows his mind, every single day he’s in the hospital, that he can see again. That he’s not blind anymore.

That he’s finally been fixed.

He misses Holly’s third birthday but decides it’s worth it to finally be able to see her, to finally be able to play with his daughter without worrying about accidentally hurting her or himself, to really get to watch her grow up.

She’s the thing he’s most excited to say. Most people would expect it to be Michael, but, in Gavin’s head he knows exactly what Michael looks like. He’s convinced the image he created in his head when he was seventeen, the image made by spending days exploring Michael’s body, cataloguing every inch of him, he knows his husband, he knows what he looks like, but no matter how often he  held Holly, no matter how many times she was described to him, no matter how long he sat with her in his arms, playing with her little hands and tiny feet and round cheeks and soft hair, he couldn’t picture her.

When he’s finally released, Michael and Holly are waiting for him. Michael’s leaning against the car, but Gavin barely even notices him. She’s there, barely as tall as his kneel. Her hair is light brown and so, so curly. It looks un-brushed, but Gavin knows she’ll cry for as long as it takes for one of them to sit with her in their lap and brush it out until she’s had enough. She’s wearing a bright pink dress, and even from a few feet away, Gavin can see how strikingly blue her eyes are. Michael was right. His daughter is, truly, the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He doesn’t have much to compare it to yet, but he’s sure there’s nothing else.

He chokes on a sob when she runs toward him, screaming Daddy. It’s the loudest noise he’s ever heard but he doesn’t care, because it’s only a second before her tiny arms are wrapped tightly around his leg and she’s talking and talking and half the words aren’t words but Gavin isn’t listening anyways. He’s staring at her and crying and he can fucking see. He’d never believed he would see again. He never thought he’d be okay again.

He finally reaches down and pulls her off his leg. She fights him only a second, but then he’s hugging her and she hugs his neck, even tighter than the grip she had on his leg and it nearly hurts but Gavin doesn’t have the heart to make her let go so he just cries into her hair and wonders if Michael purposefully adopted a child that looked, at least somewhat, like both of them or if it was just a happy accident.

It’s another two minutes of him crying and her mumbling before Gavin remembers Michael is there and looks up to see his husband for the first time after fourteen years, and froze. He had started to walk forward, so he could get Holly in the car and they could get home and he could play with her and read her stories and bathe her without accidentally getting soap in her eyes, and do several thing to his husband that he would not think about with a small child in his arms, and he froze. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t look away.

He was wrong. He was the most wrong a person has ever been in the history of the entire fucking universe. His mental image of Michael didn’t even compare to the real thing, and, he would never say it to her, but Holly had competition for the most beautiful and it looked like she was coming in a close second.

“Jesus,” he whispers to his daughter, who just kept chatting to him in half-gibberish, half-English, “I did good. I did so good.”