Chapter Text
For lack of a better word, your friendship with John Egbert was intricate. Which was basically just a nice way of saying "complicated" now that you think about it, but you guess if the boot fits, you better fucking wear it.
When you were kids, things were easier. You were both young and infinitely stupid, and nearly attached at the hip. Growing up in a small rural town had that kind of effect on kids, clinging to just about any interaction they could get their grubby little hands on, but it came naturally for the two of you. You never fully appreciated how lucky it was that you had that together at the time. But he was your best friend and that was all that mattered.
Now, with this infinite stupidity, you're sure you had the time of your life in those elementary school classes. You were ten and he was nine but his birthday was soon. You'd always hang upside down from the monkey bars and taunt him, one hand on your shades and the other pointing at him shakily at the weird angle because he couldn't even climb on the damn things with the hem of your shirt up around your armpits since it was a size too big. You'd just laugh at him as he pouted until he got fed up and snatched your pointed sunglasses away from you and hide them until you trudged over to apologize with a lump in your throat and fiddling with your fingers nervously. You didn't want him to be upset with you. But he always huffed a little more before forgiving you and handing over your shades unscathed, and punched your shoulder.
Other times, you'd use white glue on your hands and wait until it dried because you were weirdly fascinated with how it looked when you peeled it off and flicked it into girls' hair as they squealed in disgust, whining about cooties. The teacher always made you two stay behind and clean it up at recess.
When he turned ten and it was almost summer, your art teacher taught the class how to make friendship bracelets. You thought it was kind of dumb at first, but red and blue thread looked good twined together like that, so you made one. And then you made another one. When you were finished, you looked down on them with pride, even though your knots were a little crooked and there were a few loose loops but you thought it fit okay. You glanced over at John a few seats away (separated on admittedly reasonable terms in retrospect, especially after the glue incident), and his tongue was peeking out of the corner of his mouth a little with the most concentrated look on his face as he tried to get his fingers to do what they were supposed to with the string. He didn't look back up, but you carefully stuffed the bracelets into your pocket until after class. You didn't waste time bounding after him when the bell rang, your lunchpail in your backpack making quite the ruckus as you tried to catch up, but he turned and slowed when you called out for him. You take his wrist and pull him around the corner with a faint smirk on your face, before pausing to take out the bracelets. You dangle it in front of his face for a moment and his eyes go kind of cross-eyed behind the glasses that he still has to grow into a little, and when he doesnt respond, you take the liberty of sliding it onto his wrist for him, tightening the knots accordingly. You look back up at him, and put your own on, and then look up once again for approval, a small grin on your face. He looks down at the string around his wrist, then back up at you and he looks kind of confused, and he laughs a little and asks you what the heck this was. You told him, hey yeah, it's a friendship bracelet. Because you're friends. And it was supposed to be a symbol of that or something, and you thought it would be cool. He looks at you now like youre crazy, and your grin falters. You then think it wasn't such a good idea. He shrugs a little, but you know he doesn't buy it. He leaves it on for the rest of the day though, but when you look for it the next day, you don't see it. And you don't ever again after that. So you stop wearing yours, too, but you keep it in a little box with other miscellaneous shit behind a couple jars on the shelf in your room. Just. A keepsake you guess.
You both grow older still, and you were just about to graduate from elementary school with your shiny fake diploma and athletics award, and you had to walk down the aisle of the church this event was weirdly held at in pairs, and John was at your side. Some dark, desolate part of your young and dangerously infatuated mind thinks that it's like walking down the aisle to be married, but then you realize you'd be the one walking him down to someone else if that was the case right now and promptly shut that down. It would be more weird to think about stuff like that out of the blue in any other scenario except for the fact that you get boners in class when the wind blows in through the windows at the right angle and you can't really do much about your wishful thinking in regards to one John Egbert at this point so you stopped trying. But there's a difference between getting boners and just getting rid of that as easily as spit-one-two-three, and the way your fingers twitch when his fingers brush against yours when you offer him your pencil sharpener, or the way you press your legs together after his knee bumps into yours under the table, or the way your heartbeat speeds up when he smiles at you like the fucking goober he is. Or the way your eyes linger on things you never really noticed before, like the fact that you don't think youve ever looked at the bridge of someone's nose quite as closely to try and see just how many freckles were barely there because you thought you saw them at lunch one day and you were right goddamn it, or when he starts a growth spurt and his shirts start to ride up his stomach when he raises his hand to answer a question, and it became somewhat of an obsession. John Egbert became an obsession. Which was okay you guessed, you'd spent the better part of your life with him thus far, and he was great and spent time with you and smiled really nice and told you your jokes were shitty and rubbed it in your face that he could play mario kart better than you and generally acted like an ass a lot actually but that was just John and you liked him. A lot. And you think he must like you, too, at least a little, since he got you a new pair of shades for your birthday, and you liked them a lot, too. You wore them proudly on this night, just like every other one since you had received them, as you shake your teacher's hand, dressed to the 8-and-a-half in this bright green felt suit. You liked sending John your raps at two am and sometimes just sending totally random shit at two am also just to piss him off and wake him up with the pesterchum notification noise repeatedly dinging in his ear until he had basically no choice but to answer you/pay attention to you. But you just liked talking to him. Even if he told you your raps were as shit as your jokes. You guessed you didn't mind much. Sometimes you thought maybe he was catching on that you had these thoughts and that they weren't fucking going away, but if he was, you're pretty sure he's ignoring it. A year-and-a-half-long crush was a long time for a thirteen year old. You ride home in the passenger seat of your brother's car thinking about how you're too young to worry about marrying people.
High school happens, and the first two years go by just as you had expected them to. You and John had less classes together, but lunches and walks home and weekends were still usually spent together on a regular basis. Havoc is wrought almost constantly. You both acquire a few new friends along the way. You sometimes did homework, just like you sometimes went to parties, and sometimes still thought those weird thoughts about John, and sometimes wore that bracelet from fifth grade around your ankle instead. The colours were fading, and you doubt John would even recognize it at this point, but just in case. You don't take it off when he leaves over the summer before third year started to go to some summer camp. He writes you letters once a week even though he's not even over the state line. You appreciate it anyways. He tells you about a girl he met, who's apparently hotter than the tarmac out there, which he says can fry an egg if that helps put it into perspective. You wonder if that means she would burn him. At the end of one letter he says that it's a good thing he packed those condoms his dad gave him when he turned fifteen, and even goes so far as to write out a goddamn wink smiley like a fucking dweeb. You remember crumpling that letter up out of what you were pretty sure was a bad cocktail mix of second-hand embarrassment and jealousy. But when he comes home empty handed, he shrugs and tells you she made it clear at the end of the summer that it was strictly summer-fling material. His grin tells you that he didn't mind too much, and you were certain he didn't think about you, which sucks because it made your heart hurt a little, but you don't cry about it or anything. You just shuffle your feet, because you suddenly remember that you didn't take the bracelet off after he came back, and you try your best to tuck it out of sight into your sock with one foot as discreetly as possible. It kind of feels like a shackle around your ankle now.
In your third year, you start thinking about someone else on occasion, and it kind of made you feel guilty about having feelings for two people at the same time, even if this new thing seemed to be fuelled by the purely sexual needs your fragile teenage body had, but you were selfishly desperate for any chance to get John and this stupid infatuation out of your head for at least two fucking minutes. She proved to be an easy distraction, and you spend time with her and talk to her at two in the morning and try to act bashful when John punches your shoulder as he teases you about it. You wish you could hate when he touches you, but it still makes something in you ache for the feeling of it.
You think she caught on to what you were trying to accomplish with her about two or three weeks in. Which you found kind of funny to think about, because she got it before John even would. Maybe you muttered the wrong name by accident when she gave you a handjob in the locker rooms after school. Rookie mistake, but you wouldn't put it past yourself. But she didn't make too much of a fuss about it when she broke it off a week later, and neither did you. Just another text to delete. You felt bad for being so selfish about it, but not bad enough to really say anything. You were just the standard asshole. And now your distraction was gone. But it gives you an excuse to spend more time at John's place and pretend that you're moping over her while you lean your head on his shoulder and he doesn't say anything about it.
Senior year, and all hell breaks loose. The year flies by, worrying about averages and college applications and jobs, and you can't even count on two hands the amount of times you've almost kissed John Egbert. There was the day you both skipped last period to hang out for a bit, and walking down roads aimlessly led you both to your old elementary school, and neither of you could resist snooping around. Classes were in session so you knew you weren't going to be allowed inside, but the playground was still in the back, unsupervised and left at your mature disposal. You tell him to race you to the monkey bars, and you win, and he's already pouting as he tries to say that he tripped on the gravel as you climb the bars to sit on top. You felt like a giant trying to use normal sized toothpicks, and when you hook your legs over one bar to hang down, you could reach your arms over your head and touch the ground with your elbows if you wanted. But one hand is on your shades, and your shirt fits better now so it doesn't really fall past your navel. You swing a little and punch his knee, and he punches your stomach and you didn't really think this through. Trying to avoid getting the wind knocked out of you, one of your legs ends up slipping from the bar and you let go of your sunglasses in your instinct to catch your impending fall, which promptly clatter to the ground and you're hanging by a thread but can't stop laughing as you nearly kick John in the face, and he slips on the gravel again and lands right on his ass in front of you. His glasses are crooked and yours are lucky you didn't land on them, and you're staring at one another with breathless laughter. Seventeen and you're almost sure you're in love with this boy. You try to see if you can still see freckles on the bridge of his nose. You would've kissed him right then but you know he would've made fun of you for using a cheap trick like the spiderman kiss at a moment like that, so that is definitely the reason you held back.
Another time he had messaged you at one in the morning on a Sunday to come outside and you were dumb so you did, and he said he just wanted to go for a walk. You both remain silent until you make it to the edge of town, and John stops to stare at the road continuing out into fields until you couldn't see it anymore. You wonder what's out there that he wants that he doesn't already have here with you, but you mentally berate yourself for your selfishness once again. A future, you think to yourself. That's what he doesn't have with you. So instead you direct his gaze upwards at how the stars are clearer out here, even though you aren't too far away from town in the first place, and he smiles a little and nods.
The storm clouds roll in almost faster than you can notice them, and it's almost as if you'd fallen asleep standing up out there on the road, because when you blink at a single drop on your cheek, the next thing you know it's just raining and raining, and raining. You look over at John, your hair already in your eyes and dripping as rain just falls straight down on you both, and he's turning to look at you, and he just breaks into a smile and laughs. You can't help but join him. You both run as fast as you can back home through puddles and mud. His house is closer, and you're standing under the porch suppressing shivers, and he offers to get you a towel before you go home, but you shake your head since it would be kind of pointless to dry off and then go back out to get wet again, but you're afraid to speak because you know as soon as you unclench your jaw your teeth will start chattering. He tells you you're dumb and tells you to at least wait until it slows down and sits down on the porch steps and you sit with him because at least that was reasonable. His shoulders are shaking a little and you wish you could wrap your arms around him to make it any better, but you're just as cold and it would be kind of redundant. By the time it actually starts slowing down, John is starting to doze off, his head slowly making it's way down, steadily closer to your shoulder. So you slowly start to drape your arm around his shoulders to steady him, gently guiding him closer, and you can't help it when you press a kiss to the top of his head. Then his temple meets the damp fabric of your tshirt and he jolts from the sudden cold of it you guess, or maybe he felt you kiss him, and you internally curse. Fuck that was dumb. You feel dumb. You are dumb. He looks at you weird and you lick your lips because the rain water tasted funny. But part of you knows you're putting far too much significance on the fact that you barely even did anything at all. You're not sure why kissing him seems to be such a big deal, or at least thats what you tell yourself.
Then it's the summer after you'd graduated from highschool, Fourth of July, fresh into the adult world but still not ready to accept it. One more summer, you tell yourselves. One more and then we're gone forever. You're too young for a midlife crisis, but it's never too late for an existential one. Your entire life seems to have gone by so fast, and it's all you can think about as you watch fireworks go off all around you, John leaning back on his hands beside you just a steady warmth that you just subconsciously feel at your side whenever he's there. You don't even have to look to know. You're both sitting on the terrace outside John's room, a blanket stolen from the hall closet to sit on, his comforter draped over your lap while he braves the chill of even summer nights with just a t-shirt. Your sunglasses were left on his desk inside, not that you needed them nor really wanted them right now.
You're startled when you feel a nudge on your shoulder, and you look over at him curiously, blinking away the lingering thoughts about what the fuck you're going to do with your life after this point.
"Just shut up," he tells you, but there's no real bite to his words, not with a grin like that on his face.
You open your mouth to say the obvious, that you hadn't even said a damn word, you were trying to enjoy the show here, but he cuts you off before you can get there. "Stop thinking about stupid stuff. And don't try to tell me you're not thinking about stupid stuff, because I know you are. You've got that 'I'm thinking about stupid stuff' look on your face, and that is not why I invited you here for this free show courtesy of this entire block's middle-aged populace and their mother." And here, he slows down, you're just kind of sitting there dumbfounded for a moment, hoping to not show it. But his expression softens, and he just shakes his head. "Just relax, okay? You look like you're about to shit yourself over the thought of taxes or something, jesus."
You snort a laugh, tempted to tell him he's not that far off, but decides against it. You just nod, trying to actively shove all these thoughts out of your head, and you let your shoulders relax with a soft sigh that's barely perceptible over the sound of another explosion.
And the show lasts about another ten minutes after that, and when things start dying down, you both stand to start packing your blankets up. You're about to head inside before you realize John isn't coming with, and you step back to stand beside where he's leaning over the railing of the balcony, looking up and down the street.
You ask him what he's doing, and he shrugs, saying that he was just checking to make sure all the shows were done. Finales were always his favourite part. So you wait with him for a few more minutes, and you just. Watch him idly, taking him in. The light from the street lamps washes everything out, and frankly it's not a flattering light for anyone. But your gaze flits between his face, to the back of his neck, his shoulders, his arms, and end up at his hands, clutching at the railing tightly. You can kind of make out how his fingertips are getting a little red from the chill, not that yours are any better, and despite the fact that it would probably do him no good with your bony hands, you still want to take his hands in yours and warm them up, press his knuckles to your lips, his palm to your cheek, his fingers in your hair, a hand on your waist, fingers curling around the hem of your jeans-
Fuck. You just want to reach over and kiss him. Make it happen.
But you don't. And you both end up shuffling inside when there is no finale.
Then there was the last time you almost kissed him, where you actually did kiss him. It's the summer still, and he tells you when you're at his house that he got accepted to some college that he really wanted to get into, and it sounds great until he tells you it's far away. Of course. But he's smiling and he's excited so you're excited too, and you congratulate him. In your head you're thinking that this is a bad idea and you should tell him it's a bad idea because what if you still cant stop thinking about him when he leaves? It's easier to think about him when he's right here in front of you, and you're able to see him all the time whenever you want and get to have him all to yourself.
So you help him celebrate by going and getting drunk. John tells you you're the best wingman ever even though you've never helped him pick up a chick in your entire life. You get sentimental. You both talk about all the dumb shit you've done in your lives together, and the friends you've made, and the sleepovers you've had, and the parties you've crashed, and the teachers you've pranked, and the dumbass pictures you've taken, both of you trying your hardest to just laugh and continue sitting upright on his bedroom floor in the dead of night by now. He's leaning back against the side of his bed while you lean against the nightstand, the handle of the drawer digging almost painfully into the back of your neck but you ignore it. You sit in silence as he cradles a beer bottle in his hands before he shifts and tells you that the elderly couple two doors down from his place are away in Florida for the summer and have a pool that you could swim in. You don't even question it as you try to make your way out of the house and down the street by the light of the street lamps as quietly as possible. It's only when you hop the fence that you realize you didn't bring shorts, but he just snorts and laughs almost too loud so you try to shut him up by shushing him, but your shushing ends up being louder than his laughing and it's just not working out for you.
He stares at you for a long moment, surprisingly serious expression on his face, even though he's swaying from side to side a little to a non-existent beat. And then he reaches over and fucking pulls your pants down around your ankles, and laughs even harder, like he just played the best prank of his life. You almost fall on your face trying to get them off, and he asks you what you're doing, like he didn't expect you to really go for it. You shrug and tell him you're going fucking skinny dipping, and you'll be damned if he wusses out on you and doesn't join you. He whines for a minute about peer pressure as you strip out of your shirt too, and turn to stand at the edge of the pool, your toes curling over the edges as the water laps a little and makes a pleasant noise and it's so calm but it looks cold. And then you hear John coming at you and he tackles you both into the water. You sputter as you come back up, and he's just laughing while you try to get the hair out of your eyes and find your balance. You manage, and just splash him in retaliation.
You spend about half an hour swimming, naked in a strangers pool, feeling a little woozy at first from all you've had to drink up to that point, but it passes, and you're just left with the pleasant effects of the nice buzz you've got going on. You fail to care about anything else. It passes in silence, and it eats at you more and more that John is leaving. You're upset by that, but you want to be happy for him, you really do. But you don't want him to leave. You think about playgrounds, and you think about bracelets, and you think about aisles, and you think about rainstorms, and you think about sex, and you think about booze, and you think about getting him to stay. So you idly swim closer to where he's floating easily on his back, his legs gently moving him through the water blindly, and effectively hiding his lower body from view with the way the water moves with him. You stop just beside him, and he blinks up at you, most likely just trying to focus without his glasses helping him out, and he stops swimming, standing up as best he can on the slope in the middle of the pool that leads down to the deep end. You reach out for his shoulders, your fingertips already turning wrinkled, as you grasp his wet shoulders, and he looks at you funny, a look that you've seen throughout the years, except this time he actually asks you what's wrong. You don't want to answer, so instead of playing it off like you usually would, you bring your hand to his chin, taking it between your thumb and forefinger and tilting it up so that you can lean in and kiss him. You're surprised he didn't pull away before you made it, but you're not complaining. It's just a subtle press of your lips against his, and his lips taste vaguely of chlorine, and it feels like a big deal, but he's not moving. It's a really big deal, and he's not doing... Anything. You wonder if he hasn't moved away just to humour you, but then he does pull away and looks at you. You know he is, even though you refuse to open your eyes. You lean forwards again and he shifts in the water, but you just press your forehead against his and sniffle.
You ask him if he'll stay now.
You didn't open your eyes in time as he punches you right in the jaw.
He tells you he loves you but there's no fucking way.
You don't realize how shitty and insensitive and selfish it was of you to say that until the next day when you wake up on the couch in your own living room. You don't remember getting there, but it's a bittersweet feeling. John probably didn't want you to stay after that anyways. Funny how that's all you wanted from him. Finally the consequences for all the stupid shit that has and hasnt come out of your mouth has caught up to you. He doesn't message you for a week until he says goodbye for when he was going to catch his flight. Your keys don't make it to the ignition of your car, even running like you had down the stairs before he tells you he's already lifted off. Your shoulders shake with silent sobs as you clutch at the steering wheel and lean your head down against it, not moving until you accidentally hit the horn and scare the shit out of yourself and your brother throws a shoe out the window at you to get inside and you leave your phone in the passenger seat because you don't want to look at that message anymore. In the end you're not even really surprised it turned out this way.