Chapter Text
The world was a lava lamp around him, pinks and oranges and purples. It all reminded him of Joey.
Mitch used to wish Jonas was a girl. Mitch used to talk about Pokémon with him, he’d tell him about all the cool ones he had seen from the cartoon and Joey would give him a card based on his description. All of which were mangled in a drawer somewhere, he kept them, lovingly dog earred them. He used to sit across from Joey at lunch, sticking the mushed up food on his tongue out at Jonas so he would hide behind his sandwich because eugh Mitch gross! He used to share an art class with him, they were together in the too-warm building he did his summer schooling in, where their elbows would brush as Mitch made a green clay model version of himself and an orange clay model of Jonas and mushed them together to make a dingy gray-brown blob. Mitch used to think about pressing his face to Joey’s face, just like he did with the stiff, plastic lips of his buff soldier toys.
It felt.
Good.
But weird.
If Jonas was a girl it would be less weird. Because Mitch was supposed to get nervous about seeing a girl’s shiny hair and catch her frogs in the ditch near his house and excitedly give her the landline number on a crumbled up piece of paper with instructions to call between these specific hours (when Gary would be at work). But all these sticky, giddy feelings were for Jonas. The boy. And Mitch didn’t want to be a girl, so in this hypothetical (his please, please, please God, just make there two Wagner girls, I don't like the other one. Please, I won’t set another ice cream truck on fire. Swear it!) Joey would have to take one for the team.
Which was an awkward, scary desire. Mitch quickly remedied the line of thinking with, no, he didn’t want Jonas to be a girl, because then they would get married and then they would fight all the time. Mitch didn’t want to yell at Jonas, he didn’t want Jonas to yell at him, Jonas was his best friend. He still liked to think about pressing their mouths together.
Jonas was a boy.
The first dream he had about a boy—he couldn’t remember his name or if it was someone from T.V, but it was a guy—left him in a cold fucking sweat, he shuddered awake in the middle of the night, his red lava lamp igniting the posters he had of half-naked woman, inheritance from Freddie. Among them, Rob Zombie looked down at him like he knew all his secrets.
It didn’t mean anything.
It didn’t mean anything.
The dreams never left him, he stopped trying to wake himself up. He slept so little as is. His head was the one place he could indulge. So, yeah, he could have a girlfriend and let some chick at a party put a condom on him with her mouth—because when it all become too much, or he was getting too soft, he could close his eyes and see the men of his dreams.
He was in for a whole new world of hurt seeing Jonas again, with that little hat and hair swooping under his ears in a mathematical curve, looking more beautiful than ever goddamn—it’s like his brain and his junk were working in tandem to make Mitch a weak, lovesick, horny fool. Only this time, the fool knew he wanted to kiss a boy—that boy being Jonas Wagner. And he wanted to really kiss him, get all French, he wanted to engulf him like a fucking storm and put him on his knees and pull his hair and fuck him senseless. That dream where he had Jonas under him, wrapped in a swathe of heat and a singular bed sheet, covered in Mitch’s sweat and spit and lovebites was new, pretty vanilla as far as Mitch’s dreams went, but it triggered his telicanisis so it was worth some salt.
Not all his dreams about Jonas were sexy though.
Yeah, shocker, right?
He had dreams that were soft and lovey dovey in a way only Jonas could bring out of him. He dreamt about a fully operational WackyLand, walking around while holding Jonas’s hand and eating cotton candy (Javier was there too in a black and white clown costume but whatever), he dreamt about eating spaghetti with Jonas in a fancy ass dinner by candlelight and about stargazing with him on a blanket (it turned into a Galactica game at some point in the dream, but Jonas thought that was fun too). The more intimate dreams involved the two of them in bed, either Jonas’s or his, sometimes a made-up king, wrapped around each other. In those dreams Mitch got to kiss Jonas’s forehead, pet his hair, hold his side and put his face between his neck and his shoulder. In those dreams Mitch felt weightless, in between lazily making out, Jonas would ask if he wanted coffee. Did Jonas even drink coffee? Did he, in this made up scenario? He never let Jonas get out of bed anyway. Just a few more minutes, he'd tell him.
Mitch fucking hated those dreams, he woke up from them alone, with a big gaping hole in his chest, hugging his limp pillow or Buddy’s ass, to the eye-twitching beep of the alarm he swiftly silenced with his fist.
Just a few more minutes.
“Mitch?”
This dream was one of those dreams.
shit.
Mitch turned and saw Joey, also laying on his back with his head turned towards him. Mifch felt like he was on the operating table, his bed was connected to Jonas’s like it had been made that way, their arms were maybe an inch or two apart, Mitch’s pinkie twitched with the urge to reach out and touch him. He smiled, sinking the side of his face into his pillow, admiring Jonas. Joey was usually so blurry, but right now he was crystal clear, right down to the natural redness of his eyes and his perfect fucking nose.
“Oh great,” Jonas sighed, a sluggish smile on his face as he looked back up at the orange and purple and pink slushie that was the room, eyes lidded, “now I’m dreaming about you, in my bed. Naked. Yippee.”
Uh, sorry, but your line is: oh, Mitch, I’ve wanted you forever. Take your pants off, you big lug. Carmen totally sucks. The doe-eyed, rose-between-his-teeth version of Joey poofed out of existence as Mitch shook his head. He didn’t want to waste precious time dwelling on what his brain-mush came up with. Mitch closed the gap, hovering over Jonas, his eyes somehow still shining in Mitch’s shadow. Maybe Mitch had made Jonas cry so much that this was his brain’s default picture of him.
Mitch could fix this. He was lucid. He wasn’t going to he hopelessly in love tonight and sick about it in the morning. He could fuck himself out of this one.
He grabbed Jonas’s face, tilting his head to suck a hickey into his exposed neck, all teeth and spit. Jonas’s arms came up and wrapped around Mitch’s bare back, letting out a breathy “ohhhh my god”. Heat pooling in his gut like molten glass, Mitch ignored Jonas’s soft hands gently stroking the space between his shoulder blades. He started to tug off Joey’s shirt, roving his hands over his chest and nipples. Jonas keened, kissing just below his ear, a brand. A groan loosed from Mitch’s throat. Christ on a Ritz cracker, this felt fucking real, the heat of Joey’s skin, the shivers wracking his body, the lips dancing down his neck. Fuck. Jackpot. If his alarm wakes him up right now the world will not be happy with Mitch Mueller they get.
Mitch was between Jonas’s Pac-Man pajama bottoms and white socks, he had already thrown Joey’s shirt into the ether and started rocking his hardening cock into the line of colorful ghosts positioned at Jonas’s crotch. Joey let his head fall into his pillow, hair fanning out like black halo, jutting his hips up into him.
Mitch started to peel the dorky pajama pants off like gift wrapping, with half a mind to start tearing. Jonas’s cock, standing straight up and leaking through his underwear, had Mitch’s undivided attention. Jonas made a low noise as Mitch pulled the band of his underwear down with his teeth. Mitch’s mouth watered. Of all the dicks he’s seen in Twink Monthly, of all the dicks he’s sucked behind 7/11’s, of all the many versions of Joey’s dick he had conjured up in the pitch of his room—this one was the best, hands down. It was thick from tip to base, a sputtering stream of precum was inching down the side and into the garden of dark curls, he watched it go like a raindrop on a car window. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck he had freckles here too.
Mitch could—and probably would—jack off to this till he was old and gray and his dick didn’t work. But Jonas was there to remind him that he could look at and touch the exhibit with an annoyed huff and wiggle of his hips. Mitch reacted like Jonas had slapped him upside the head. He snatched the underwear off, leaving Joey in nothing but his socks, and didn’t waste any time getting his mouth where it should be, minding the teeth and swallowing Jonas whole.
“JESUS,” Jonas shot up like a dead frog being electrified with jumper cables and then right back down, squeaking the bed. Mitch moved his tongue around him, tasting the salt, he went down further, letting the tip slide along the roof of his mouth. Jonas feebly lifted his hips, chasing the feeling and Mitch let him. Jonas brought himself up onto his elbow to watch Mitch work his magic, letting out a wanton noise he tried to muffle by biting into his knuckles. Luckily, it did very little, because the noises he was making—goddaaaamn, those, and the obscene slurping sounds were musical. Mitch pushed a stray pillow under himself and grinded into it as he sucked Joey off.
The world exploded in pinks and purples, spit was leaking out of Mitch’s mouth, the fusion bed started to melt at the ends, Jonas’s hand winded into Mitch’s bleached-to-shit hair. Mitch looked up at Jonas and found a picture he wanted surgically implanted into his eyeballs, or at least as his phone’s screensaver—Jonas was blushing furiously, all the way down to his chest, eyes far away and somehow still boring into him.
“Oooohh–crap, Mitch, I’m not–Mitch, I’m gonna–“
With a deep groan around Jonas’s dick (which Joey reacted to with hitched breath as he almost choked on his own spit), Mitch decided he couldn’t take it anymore, he pulled off Jonas with a wet pop and flung the pillow away. Because who fucking needed it? Joey looked dazed when Mitch crawled up to meet him. He tilted his head, staggered forward, lips parted, reaching, asking, wanting. And with a stutter of his heart and bravado, Mitch found he couldn’t bring himself to kiss him, just…the way Joey looked at him, it made him crave coffee. So Mitch knocked him off his elbows instead, and spread his legs with both hands, giving him access to all of him. The curves, the stretch marks; Mitch was mentally archiving all of it.
“Ohhhh, wow,” Jonas made this sort of laughing sound, the one he made when Mitch said something he really really didn’t want to find funny, but did.
Fucking nerd, Mitch thought, brainlessly, lovingly stroking the inner part of Jonas’s knee with his thumb.
”Look at you,” he mumbled. “Fuck, just look at you.”
Jonas blushed, laying his elbow over his eyes. The wobbly line of his mouth fell into a gentle ‘o’ as Mitch pressed his fingers to his entrance, massaging the muscle.
“Look at that,” Mitch said, slipping a finger inside with ease, savoring how Joey’s hiss tapered into a moan. There was some kind of dream-lube making this all possible, had to be. “All stretched out fer me.” Mitch moved the digit in and out, agonizingly slow. Jonas’s socked toes curled. “Just fer me?” Mitch’s smile got wider, shark-like. “Or do you think about Carmen when ya got yer fingers in ya ass?”
“Dude, c’mo-ahn!”
Mitch pinched his thigh out of meanness. He couldn’t help it, he was mad at Jonas. Even in his dreams. Even after the history project and all the ground they had covered, he couldn’t shake the anger at Jonas for daring to be something so beautiful, something that he couldn’t have, even with his naturally sticky fingers.
Fingers that were currently doing god’s work. When Mitch curled them, Jonas’s eyelids fluttered and his dick twitched, and he, to Mitch’s unyielding delight, started to fuck into his hand.
“I d-don’t–“
“Don’t what?”
“I don’t, oh my gggod–“
“Ya don’t think about Carmen and her fat tits? You don’t close yer eyes and pretend it’s her suckin’ you off n’ not me?” Mitch’s laugh was low and wicked, Jonas moaned at the sound and the feel of Mitch finding another purchase of skin to bruise between his fingers. “M’not that desperate ta fuck ya. I know Carmen ain’t on yer mind. You were watchin’ me, babes, eyes wiiiide open.”
“God, you’re such an a-asshole,” Jonas did his best to look angry, and Mitch, chewing on his lip with his big teeth and eyeing him up and down, didn’t have the heart to tell Joey he was only managing to look fucked out of his brains.
“Yeah, I’m an asshole.” And a big, fat liar to boot—of course he was that desperate to fuck Jonas. He’d take Carmen’s sloppy seconds any day so long as they came in a Jonas shaped doggy bag. ”But you like it,” Mitch grabbed Joey’s chin and licked up the side of his face, Jonas muttering ‘gross’, “what’s that say about you, huh?”
“That you’ve have had an insanely irreversible impact on my psyche,” Jonas was breathless.
“Oooo, talk dirty to me,” Mitch winked and Jonas’s laugh broke like a dam from his lips, the colors swirled around them, pink and yellow and orange, reflected in the little tears springing to the corners of his eyes.
Mitch’s heart ached, he removed his fingers. Jonas felt the emptiness and looked up at Mitch—a god that had forsaken him—with his eyebrows drawn together. Sympathetic, Mitch crawled back over Jonas, grinning lasciviously, and Joey went lax, like a prey animal with a predator's teeth in it.
Joey gasped when Mitch brushed the tip against his asshole, rutting up into it. With the effects of the dream lube and not much ceremony, Mitch popped the tip in. Jonas dug his nails into Mitch’s shoulder and dragged them down in a delicious spike of pain. “Mhmh, jezzzus!” Mitch didn’t give him the time to adjust, once he was in, he started to fuck without mercy, chasing the high before he woke up.
Mitch promised that if he ever got the chance to actually fuck Jonas he’d be sweet, he’d take his clothes off slow and kiss him till his lips were blue, he’d keep all the freaky shit at bay—Jonas wouldn’t be into that, whips and chains, Jonas would want someone to tell him they loved him. And Mitch would. He would. He would. He would. Please, God, he would. But right now he needed something that was going to make all these squishy feelings in the morning worth it.
The sound that tore from Jonas and the hand that put his left asscheek in a vice grip was enough for Mitch to nearly blow his load. Jonas’s voice got louder and less restrained as Mitch moved, beginning to sound more like the Jonas he was used to in these dreams.
“M-Mitch! Mittchh. Please.”
”Thereee we go, finally fucked all the smart-ass outta ya.” He looked down at Jonas, sweating, red, looking lost and right where he needs to be simultaneously.
”I want—“
”Want what?”
“I–mmhah-“
”Well come on,” Mitch teased, breath coming out in hot pants. “What else ya want, Spots? M’already–f-fuck–fuckin’ ya. Given you my–goddamn rat tits that’s good.”
The dream was so pink now it was almost red. Mitch’s balls started to tingle as he clawed into the sheets. The bed was shaking but there was nothing for it to violently smack against—Mitch wondered what disaster of a room he was going to wake up to.
Then it happened.
A croaked whisper. A breath, really.
”K-Kiss me, please, I—“
One moment, Mitch is in total control, king of the world, the next?
“Oh fuuuuck me,” Mitch said through his teeth, “ya drive me fuckin’ nuts, Joey, c’mere–“
Mitch fell into him, starving, Jonas eagerly grabbing his face and sucking on Mitch’s tongue, pushing them together, inside one another, clay mashing together.
Mitch’s brain clicked awake at the sound of voices twittering through the walls. Fucking Judge Judy or Hoarders recordings no doubt. Mitch groaned, pulling the covers over his head. It was Monday, wasn’t his aunt supposed to be at work? Taking out those beer-can curlers and putting on a salmon pink lip to do her bullshit security job at the casino? Great, now he had to go to school, he hated being clammed up in his room all day avoiding his aunt and her snoring and her hollering at him for a Sprite from the fridge and her passive aggressive remarks about his mom and Tom and apples not falling far from trees. Which made him want to telepathically chunk the fridge at her—don’t start none there won’t be none, Lorraine.
Mitch sighed, Scratch’s hunk of scrap she devoutly called a car would arrive soon, he had until the roar of her engine speeding away from his trailer to make a decision. School wasn’t all bad, he could take ample smoke breaks since no teacher had the nuts to stop him and what security cameras the school’s cheap ass did put up, he could bust with his telekinesis (he would play by the principal’s rules if she could enforce them. No evidence of his crime? Tough titty). Plus it was Dodgeball Day and Mitch took boundless joy in hearing the PLINK of someone’s face colliding with rubber, plus Cliff was in his gym class and he had a mean fucking arm, that hillbilly could break the sound barrier with one of those dodgeballs.
But really and truly the only good reason for suffocating in that place was Jonas. Mitch blushed at the memory of his dream. Maybe today Jonas would wear that cute little yellow cap Mitch liked to hold over his head. Oh, sweet, sweet Jonas, he had all kinds of ways of saying his name. Mitch! Mitch? Miiiitch. They’d been texting, talking, Mitch could meet him casually by his locker instead of shoving him in one, Jonas was looking at him, for him, teasing him back, putting up with his chucklefuck friends, he didn’t tense up so much when Mitch put an arm around his shoulder and Mitch didn’t have to hold so tight because every time he looked down, Joey would be there.
Mitch sighed again at the phantom feelings of Jonas’s lips. Fuck, that dream. Under the blankets was the prize from Wackyland. The shark and seal were in astonishingly good condition for having been left in the aftermath of the flood and enduring all other elements before they found them, squished up next to each other like doves in the snow. Mitch had done a good job ensuring Buddy (Sellwood’s second greatest natural disaster) didn’t get his teeth into the seal. The feel of the stuffed animal triggered the memory of pinning Jonas to his bed in a spot of good, boyish wrestling that made him hot under the collar—had he gotten plastered and slept in his clothes again?—Jonas’s face got all soft and pink lights curled around them like cigarette smoke—what did pink lights mean? Green was scared, red was pissed—speaking of, just who does that pig fucker Dean he think his? Pickin’ on—
“JONAS!”
—like…that. The hell?
The fog in Mitch’s head started to clear, there was no splitting headache, indicating he hadn't drunk himself to sleep last night, but he was no less confused. The noise got clearer, he recognized it not as the white noise of the front room T.V, but of kids running up and down stairs, the sizzle of pancake batter and bacon hitting a pan, the booming voice of a man. It had been a long time since a man was in Mitch’s house, and it wasn’t like Lorraine kept company. Mitch reached under his bed for a baseball bat or a pair of nunchucks he didn’t know how to use. Instead, Mitch felt a travel suitcase and a pair of shoes that were for sure not his size and the smooth glass of a phone screen.
This was not his room.
Wouldn’t be the first time.
Before moving back to Sellwood, he and some buddies broke into a house to smoke, the owners were on vacation to the Bahamas or something. Once inside, he tripped and knocked himself out on a little coffee table, woke up alone, dried blood on his forehead and without weed. And what fuckers, because Javier, Scratch and Cliff were bums and freaks and assholes, but their loyalty was never in question, they would’ve dragged him out by his ankles if they had to. As he wondered what windows he could possibly escape through, Mitch’s sleep-idled brain was about to confirm that no, this was not his house, and, staring down at the arm connected to his shoulder, he was about to come to the following conclusion:
This was not his body.
“HOLY PISS FUCK,” tangled in the sheets, Mitch toppled off the bed. Fighting free of his constraints, he looked at his hands, they were covered in freckles that traveled all the way up his arms, he lifted his shirt to find that his stomach was soft and also covered in freckles, he had on pajama pants with PAC-man and the ghosts on them. He grabbed the phone, and frantically searched for the power button, the light stung his eyes, staring back at him was a picture of Jonas and Sidney, a black screen followed quickly, another picture of Jonas—Mitch’s reflection, Jonas’s face.
“Oooooh what the fuck,” Mitch muttered, and found his voice was deep but not gruff from years of cigarettes. He bared his teeth, whiter and smaller than his usual ones, he roved a stubby tongue over them and closed his mouth. He poked his nose and tried to wiggle his eyebrows but found he couldn’t do more than raise the left one. Tentatively, he touched the hair attached to his head, it was thick and soft and black, those bangs were sure to drive him crazy but he melted at the bizarre sensation that was being touched by a hand of Jonas and simultaneously combing through Jonas’s locks. Moving felt like puppeteering a video game character, he stood up, gawking at the museum of nerd shit that was Jonas’s room. He made eye contact with the stuffed shark, not the seal.
“What the shit.”
Mitch touched his cheek and soft jaw. This was a dream. A balls-to-the-walls crazy weird continuation of his sex dream. He was half hard after all, but that sure as hell wasn't his morning wood. Wrong wood, wrong tree, wrong forest. He squished his sides, rubbed his thighs and moved his hands to his ass to find that he had one. His dick—Jonas’s dick—twitched in interest and no, this was too weird, even for him. He had plenty of different dreams about all the different ways he could be inside Jonas, but this was never one of them.
The door burst open, alerting him to his surroundings.
“Jojo–” And there he was, looking at Jonas’s face again. He froze, in his wet dreams sometimes there was more than one Jonas, but never his twin.
Yeah some paranormal shit was afoot.
Sidney narrowed her eyes, opening the door further, he’s glad he took his hands off his ass. “The bus just left,” she motioned with her thumb, “Dean’s outside waiting for us to make our walk of shame.”
Mitch scowled. He looked away from Sidney to the photos strung up on the wall (dragonfly, shed, red herring) and then at his hands, stretching them out and examining his unbruised knuckles. Back to the Polaroids. Dragonfly. Shed. Red Herring.
“Youuuu ok?” Sidney asked, pinching her brow.
Back to Sidney. Now afraid of his own voice jumping out of Jonas’s throat like a frog, Mitch nodded stiffly, grunting a response.
“You’re being weird,” Sidney stepped further into the room and shut the door quietly behind her. Leaning into him, she stage-whispered: “Is it a superpower thing?”
Mitch snapped out of it with a groan, rubbing the crust out of his eyes with his thumb and index finger. “Y’know about that?”
Sidney looked at him quizzically. “Yeahhhh? Jonas, are you sure you–“
“I gotta get the hell outta here,” Mitch swiped past her, aiming for the door.
“You’re not gonna put clothes on?” Sidney stepped in front him before he could go downstairs in his nerd pants.
Mitch growled and turned on heel, rifling through drawers and throwing shit on the floor (and a T-shirt over Sidney’s face). He did not remove the pajamas and walked out wearing the shoes from under the bed, that yellow cap to keep the hair out of his eyes and was tying a jacket around his waist as he walked—just in case he was going to stay in the paradoxical boner situation all day. Mitch charged down the stairs towards the door, swinging his arms and clutching his fists. Two giggling kids ran under his arm on the staircase, Sidney pulled the shirt from her face, throwing it over her shoulder to follow him.
“..Your backpack?” She came down the stairs clutching her own. “What about your stuff?”
“Who needs it?” Mitch already had his hand on the door knob and was twisting it to barge out into the early morning air. The school bus was halfway down the block, Mitch could just barely see the face of Jonas’s red headed tag-along pressed to the glass, like a sad, ugly dog waiting to be put down. Still in front of the house was a red pickup truck, Dean shifted the car in gear, tilting his chin towards the bus.
“If you run, you can catch it,” he said, rolling the window up and leaving no room for rebuttal and the body of Jonas stranded. Mitch grinded his teeth, nerd-body or not, he wouldn’t chase a school bus like a fucking dweeb, and he sure as hell wasn’t going willingly to participate in Dean’s humiliation ritual, but Sidney grabbed his arm and dragged him along.
The bus hissed and squeaked to a stop, jerking forward on its wheels. When they got on, Mitch following Sidney’s shiny green alien backpack pin, Jonas’s scrawny little friend was waiting for them.
Mitch sneered.
Lewis.
Jonas started hanging out with this loser in the eighth grade, they had computer lab together and Mitch put him at the top of the shit list the second he caught him and Spots swapping Pokémon cards. Mitch remembered dumping milk on his head and stretching out his leg to make him trip with horribly fake little ‘whoops’. All out of a boiling, puss-filled jealousy his thirteen year old self couldn’t comprehend. Mitch stopped targeting Lewis so intensely once he realized it made Joey stick closer to him, they walked practically shoulder to shoulder and peered around blind corners together. After about a month, Little Orphan Annie realized he could take a leak without holding Jonas’s fucking hand and Mitch got Joey to himself again.
“Sidney! Jonas! I stopped the bus for you.” Lewis walked backwards down the aisle, back to his seat.
“Congratu-fuckin’-lations. You want a medal?”
“Woah,” Lewis blinked, ogling Mitch-Jonas like he was a snake sucking down a rat. That’s how he and Cliff used to bond. Back in the day, Cliff had this big-ass California Kingsnake named Lady, he caught it with his bare hands when he was fourteen. They would sit in his room and watch her chase her food down like incredibly stoned Roman Emperors in a colosseum.
“Jonas woke up late,” Sidney elbowed him in the ribs before sliding into the seat in front of Lewis. Of all the empty seats. “And on the wrong side of the bed.”
Yer tellin’ me, Mitch thought.
“Looks like you barely woke up,” Lewis adjusted his thick glasses and stared down at Mitch’s pajama pants, “hey, I think I’ve got a pair just like that.”
“Figures,” Mitch plopped down beside Sidney, slouching and putting his hands between his knees.
“You can hop off the asshole train, if you want,” Sidney set her backpack in her lap.
“IIIIII’ll leave you guys to it,” Lewis shrank back behind the seat like a meerkat and when Sidney peeked back over, he had his head down, clunky blue headphones engulfing his head with the faint buzz of Weird Al Yancovik flowing through them. She turned back to him like the judge that sentenced him to juvie.
“What?” Mitch spat.
“You know what. You’re being a total dick.”
Mitch sucked his teeth, frowning at the Pickle Rick drawn in sharpie on the seat in front of him.
“Whats your deal? Seriously, you sound like—“
“Mitch,” Mitch smiled mirthlessly, a big toothy one that hurt his cheeks. Jonas didn’t smile that much did he? “Bet I do.”
Sidney looked crestfallen. Big ol’ sad look he was helpless against when Jonas used it.
“Are you, like…mad at me?”
Mitch sighed, long and heavy, his lungs caving in. He spared a look at Lewis, who was bopping his curly orange head along to the music. “You,” he lolled his head back to look at her, “know about the freaky northern light shit, right?”
“The superpowers? Yeah,” Sidney examined her nails, before pursing her lips thoughtfully. “Is that car still following you guys? It’s–they shouldn’t be able to come up to the school like that, right–?”
“You know about tha’ car too?”
“Do you have brain damage?” Sidney asked incredulously, tapping her temple, “you told me all this.”
“No, Joey told you all this,” Mitch rolled his eyes. His big, beautiful green eyes.
“Oh–oh you literally have brain damage,” Sidney grabbed and tilted his face, squishing his cheeks, “what’s the date? Who’s the president? How many fingers am I holding up?” Sidney didn’t leave her three fingers up for long before she continued pulling at his face. “You concussed yourself at that abandoned murder park, didn’t you—“
Mitch swatted her hands away, he didn’t like being eye-level with people, he decided. “Ok, I’m gonna tell ya somethin’,” he hissed, “and it’s gonna be batshit–“
“Sure, whatever, do something with your lights real quick so I can see how your pupils dilate–“
“I’m in Jonas’s body.”
Sidney stilled, pulling the kind of face you’d expect when you tell someone that. Sort of pinched, laced with ‘where do you come up with this shit’—the kind of look Javier had on him when Cliff plucked another home brew southern phrase out of his ass.
“…What?”
“I’m in Joey’s body.”
“Uhhh,” Sidney looked back at Lewis, waiting on a punchline. When none came, she turned back to him, starting to smile, eyes slightly squinted. “Quit bullshitting.”
”Ain’t bullshittin’.”
“Whatever man,” with a little grin, she dropped her backpack onto the sticky bus floor, gazing out her window and the trimmed hedges rolling past. Mitch didn’t say anything, tilting his head to the off-white roof of the bus. Mitch walked to school as kid, didn’t ride his bike for fear of someone stealing it off the wrack. He only rode the bus for field trips, provided he was allowed to go and could catch his mom in time for her to sign his permission slips. From then on it was prison buses—those were colder somehow, and there wasn’t a glitchy Ariana Grande song emanating from the radio.
“Ok, I’ll bite,” Sidney crossed her arms, “who’s in your body?”
“Who the fuck else, stunt double?”
He watched it dawn on her like someone witnessing the world's most unimpressive eclipse.
“…Prove it.”
“I d—how?”
“I dunno, smart guy, tell me something only Mitch would know.”
“That’s fuckin’ stupid,” Mitch scoffed, “you don’t know anythin’ about me.”
Sidney sliced her eyes across his face, like she was playing connect the dots with his freckles. Mitch could hear the rumble of the bus’s engine and some other, groggy morning chatter and Amish Paradise from Lewis’s headphones. Sidney’s gaze was unwavering, and he met it. Sweat accumulated on her brow and the hard line of her mouth started to melt like a popsicle.
“Jojo–“
”Guess again, knock-off.”
She tore her eyes from him to stare down at her backpack. No words passed between them. Mitch started to think telling her what was up was a bad idea—but he figured he needed someone in his corner right now. And unfortunately, the only slot open was Jonas’s painfully unattractive twin.
“Ok,” she barely blinked as she raised her head, “ But if you’re—here, then where’s Jonas?”
“Uhhh,” Mitch scratched his chin, “damn, I don’t…”
“Is…is he in your body?”
“Maybe?? Fuck if I know.”
“Oh my god—call him, or something! You have Mitch’s, er, Joey has your number right?”
“Hop off my ass! I don’t have his fuckin’ phone,” Mitch snapped.
“Shit, ok, it’s fine, you can give me your number and we’ll–“ Sidney rummaged around in her bag and pulled out her phone, “shit,” with wide eyes she fruitlessly clicked the power button in rapid succession, “shitshitshitshit, no.”
Sidney knocked her head against the back of her seat. The dead cell phone, loose in her grip, fell between her knees and to the bus floor with a clamor. Just when Mitch thought she was comatose in her grief, she rested her foot on her phone to keep it from sliding to the back of the bus.
“…can you like,” she started to chew her nail, eating nail polish in the process, “telepathically communicate with him? With a brain link or something?”
“What kinda geek shit—?”
“Look,” she took her hand away from her mouth, bending to pick up her phone, “I would rather know he’s in your body and not floating in an astral plane somewhere or in, like, a parallel universe. So we’ve got to find some way to get ahold of him. ASAP.”
“We talking about the multiverse?” Lewis reappeared, sliding his headphones off. “It’s real, me and Peter are doing Newman’s project on it: A World Where Seagulls Evolved To Eat Plastic,” Lewis waved his hand across the air like a vision appeared before him.
“Shut up, Lewis,” said Sidney and Mitch in unison.
“Tough crowd,” Lewis rolled his eyes and disappeared behind the gray-brown seat covers, his exit music was Weird Al Yankovic’s My Bologna.
Jonas was learning a lot about Mitch these days.
For one, he was discovering that Mitch was insanely hot.
Maybe he’d always known that, Jonas started to get jealous of him at around fifteen. Mitch was getting taller and taller and skinnier and skinnier and the baby fat just melted off his face, revealing a god-like jawline to go with that pointy chin. And his legs went on for days and kept going. God, those legs. Jonas could watch him run for hours—perks of being in mortal danger all the time. Jonas was starting to enjoy being caged between Mitch’s arms and put in headlocks, with Mitch’s firm chest pressed against his back, making him feel so warm he could incinerate. He wasn’t sure what that said about his psyche, but he knew it sure wasn’t heterosexual.
Jonas discovering that he was bi was not an insane hoop to jump through, it was more like a slow, steady climb up a diving board—his crush on April O’Neil…and Casey Jones, blushing when both the girl and guy took off their shirts in the weird French films he got off too, bumping his shoulder against Sidney’s when she came out to him in middle school, and squirming when Dean insisted that “bisexuals didn’t exist. It was only an example of uncontrolled lust and greed” with all the fervor of a bible-belt pastor. The last step that sent Jonas plummeting into the greedy and lustful waters of bisexuality was Mitch smiling at the top of the Impaler, with his brassy slicked back hair and soft amber eyes.
Soft.
That was another thing, Mitch could be…surprisingly sweet. When they were kids, Mitch tried to give him twitching insects and frogs that peed on his hand. And when he talked about his brother—Freddie—he held that switchblade between his fingers and gave what felt like a eulogy. He let that porcupine…possum…dog…Buddy-thing lick his face and lovingly squeezed him into baby clothes. Where did he get the clothes, you may ask? He used money he could’ve bought cigarettes or weed with and went to thrift stores and garage sales in search of them. Looking like a grungy teen dad, no doubt. Mitch picked up his cigarette butts and any others he found. Kids get into shit, he said, Freddie used to make me pick ‘em up and eat ‘em. Bugs too, but that’s good for ya, ain’t it? Protein. Mitch struggled with reading, but loved to tell stories, he recounted the entirety of Insidious Bloodbath lll when Jonas was too squirmy to finish it (the killer did what with the teeth??). Oh and a big momma’s boy, Jonas realized, not in a creepy wear-people’s-skin(or teeth)-way, in a Mitch-way. He had a torn up insurance calendar with Henrietta’s release date on it. He said he wanted to pass Newman’s so he could graduate. He wanted to make her proud, make her sacrifices worth it.
Human.
It all made Mitch human and it made Jonas miss him, it made him wonder what he did wrong to sour such a loving and silly disposition. He wasn’t alone in it, at least. Mitch’s dad, his step-dad, an unforgiving system that took one look at Mitch’s scuffed clothes and mean mug and tossed him aside with all the other bad apples. And maybe Jonas was selfish in hoping some of that sweetness would be reserved for him, Mitch was Jonas’s only friend upon arriving to Sellwood Middle School, after all. But it was coming back, in doses, and Jonas already had a lot of confusing feelings about that—he didn’t need this big fat crush on Mitch to cherry-top it.
What Jonas needed was for things to go back to normal, when he and Mitch weren't so intertwined, orbiting each other. He didn’t need to know Mitch had recently switched his cologne from passing whiffs of his shirt and neck. He didn’t need to know that Mitch kept a cacti garden, or that he had a little battered sketchbook and a sharp, angular art style, or that he liked Star Wars or that he used his telekinesis to make his friends fly around and he absolutely, certainly, by-god did not need to know that Mitch Mueller slept in the nude.
Jonas shrieked and it was a peculiar sound to hear Mitch make. It was like ventriloquism, his mouth was moving but the voice of Mitch Mueller was coming out of him. But HOLY CRAP, a little girly screaming was justified because it—it was just there. The leviathan of a penises, Mitch was Rasputin reincarnate. It was the length of his hand currently, flagging in such a way that would be comical were it not so…it. Surrounded by the same scratchy dark hair that was on Mitch’s chin and pits, Jonas followed it back up to the treasure trail he’d caught himself admiring from time to time. Jonas clapped a large, bony hand over his eyes.
You creep, he thought.
Jonas had been in Mitch’s room exactly once, high as a kite, and now he was scrambling around blindly for something to clothe Mitch’s stunning body with and decided on a sheet with stains Jonas wasn’t going to question. Wearing his newly acquired toga and trying to step over the wreckage of Mitch’s bedroom, his foot rolled over something pink and skin-like and something else uttered a yelp that tapered off into a hiss.
“Oh! Oh! Sorry, Buddy—“
Buddy blinked up at Jonas with those tiny black eyes, snorting and sniffing the air, like he could tell something was up—oh, no, he was just licking his crotch. Jonas waded through Mitch’s dresser, finding a mix of Mitch and Buddy’s shirts—he picked up a one that said I Rode The Impaler! Who’s Next?, his classic torn up white tank top, a shirt made entirely out of fishnet that Jonas debated putting on…for science. Creep alert! This guy doesn’t get laid! He should put that on a shirt and wear it around.
Jonas couldn't tell what was clean and what wasn’t and the idea of putting a shirt up to his nose to check made him feel like a panty-sniffer. Under Mitch’s Choke and McFuck You shirt with the peeling bandaid was a neatly folded white and blue plaid button up with mid-length sleeves. Jonas unraveled it to see it was heavily wrinkled, still had the tag on and smelled unmistakably of store.
That’ll do.
Jonas took a gamble with a pair of orange Fruit of the Looms—with Juicy written on the butt in white fabric paint—and shut his eyes to clumsily pull them on, careful not to step on Buddy again. He buttoned the shirt all the way to the top, doing his best to smooth it out and snapping the tag off. He shoved Mitch’s phone into the pocket of Mitch’s only jeans. Jonas roamed a hand over the plane of his stomach, now covered in a shirt and away from his sinful, prying eyes. There was a cut on his hand that burned when he flexed his fingers and a variety of scabs.
Jonas felt like the main guy in Avatar (the blue one) walking down the hall in Mitch’s absurdly tight jeans that rode too low on his hips. Staring at himself in the mirror was…weird. Like Twilight Zone level weird, or maybe A Goosebumps book called Help I’ve Swapped Bodies with my Bully! type of weird, but he was used to that level of weirdness by now, numb to it even. There were two toothbrushes in a cup on the sink. Robotically, he picked up the one that wasn’t wet and proceeded to brush his—Mitch’s teeth.
Weird.
Brush, rinse, spit.
Jonas touched his…Mitch’s hair. It was kind of..cute, all messy. He then applied a 2-for-1 deodorant and took a plastic bottle of whiskey-colored cologne—the new one—and gave Mitch’s body a generous spritz.
In The Reeds, it was called.
“Volìa,” he said, and Mitch’s voice parroted it back to him. “Hey Joey,” he tried again, feeling the words in his mouth, noticing the lack of an accent. He stood up straight, and his muscles pulled awkwardly against the position.
Geez, Mitch was tall.
He leaned into the mirror, there, he could see the acne marks, each of Mitch’s eyelashes, the dark roots of his hair, a scar on his left ear and his temple. He touched his chin, and blushed at the memory of everything he now knew about Mitch’s anatomy. He debated shaving, but that would be rude, wouldn’t it? He’d hate to think of Mitch giving him a Mohawk or something were the roles reversed.
Speaking of.
”This is…a powers thing. I think. So uh,” Jonas looked up at Mitch’s reflection, “you’re probably in my body. Right? Yeah. We’re usually in this kind of thing together.” He pulled out the phone from his back pocket and looked for Mitch’s contact before realizing he needed his own. Under ‘Scratch’ Jonas found ‘Spots’, he quickly shot himself a ‘hey’ text.
Nothing.
Maybe this warranted a call, but Jonas was starving, hunger picked at him like a vulture, he could think of nothing else. It led him to opening the fridge and cabinet doors in search of something, he wondered if his taste buds would be different, acclimating to what Mitch did and didn’t like. …What did Mitch like? He knew so much about him and yet couldn't name his favorite food. They got blue slushies sometimes, something like that, maybe? Boy, some pal and secret devoted worshipper of Mitch Mueller you are, Jonas.
He reached into the warm, wood-smelling cabinet and grabbed a box of knock-off strawberry Poptarts shoved way in the back. Ok, he could get used to this long arms thing. Tearing the silvery package and biting into the Poptart was heaven. Jonas chewed and passively watched whatever fuzzy Columbo episode was left on the T.V, taking note of the empty, sunken-in armchair in front of it. Mitch lived with his…aunt, right? Yeah, his aunt. Jonas called her ‘ma’am’ once and she snorted, mouth half open as she turned back to her program. Mercifully she didn’t seem to be home. Jonas brushed the crumbs from his shirt and flinched away from grabbing another packet. He didn’t want to inflict his eating habits onto Mitch’s body, he wasn’t quite full—but when are you ever? Dean’s voice hissed in his ear. Jonas shut the cabinet door with a note of finality. Hopefully his appetite would change.
A loud barrage of car honks assaulted his ears. After nearly jumping out of his skin, he barreled outside to see the commotion, almost running into the screen door. Outside, Scratch’s car was pulled up to the house, the chipping paint of the skull on her hood almost grinning at him. Scratch was really laying on the horn, as well as making honking noises with her mouth.
Jonas sighed, a sound that was both exasperated and fond. It was a relief to see them these days, these previous harbingers of terror had become gargoyles that watched over him in any spaces he may share with them, warding off evil spirits (Neil Beckham, Jeremy Whitten, the entire wrestling team, and the occasional cheerleader). Jonas walked out, sort of expecting the usual greetings. Dotty. Lil bro. Agonizing but not necessarily unkind silence from Cliff. He was waiting on proof that he was hallucinating being in Mitch’s body and not actually wearing it like a skin suit. Ew. But no, as he approached the car, they called him Mitch and bro and Cliff called him boss. Like Jonas was capo in those noir detective movies he watched for his dual credit film class (which is how he discovered the horny surrealist French movies).
“Ok so listen, big man,” Javier turned in his seat, just as warmly as he would have greeted him normally. But his voice was booming, like he didn’t need to worry about breaking Mitch, and he sported a wicked grin that suited his clown makeup. “You know that prick that poured bacon grease in lil bro’s textbook?”
“Beckett,” Jonas rolled his eyes, crawling into the back. The seats were cold, splattered with morning dew–Scratch forgot her tarp last night?—Cliff smelled overwhelmingly of black coffee, “don’t remind me.”
“Right, right,” Javier rubbed his hands together evilly, “I’m thinkin’ piss grenades. Shove a whole bunch in his locker. Then when he opens it—“
“S’always piss grenades with you,” Cliff tucked himself further into his hat and his seat. “Piss grenade this, piss grenade that. Shit in a balloon an’ I’ll hear ya out.”
Scratch cackled, Jonas watched the mirror on Javi’s side of the car wobble, loosening from its duct-tape.
“Didn’t have a problem with the grenades when Whitten took a leak on Honey’s door handles,” Javier reminded him. Cliff grit his teeth and growled like a junkyard dog, causing every spiky hair on Mitch’s body to stand on end.
“Did more than throw a balloon at ‘im fer that shit.”
“Ya got a better idea?” Javier threw his hands up.
“Single out his car, take parts off throughout the day,” Cliff rested the steps of his plan on the tips of calloused fingertips, “hide ‘em. He’ll be looking for a car that ain’t even in one piece an’ s’already bein’ sold for scrap.”
“That feels like overkill,” Jonas couldn't help but smile. The mental image of Andrew Beckett freaking out, looking at four lonely, spinning tires in the middle of the school parking lot while Cliff, Scratch and Javier tip-toed away with their spoils like cartoon bandits was pretty funny. Even if he knew all the cars they were wreaking—Neil’s included—were insuranced down to the last bolt.
It made him wonder though, why did they care so much? Jonas understood that Mitch was er, particular about his nerds, and his friends seemed to execute the sentiment of their leader. Like a hive mind, better yet, a pack. But Mitch’s gang seemed equally enthused by taking vengeance on Joey’s tormentors.
For the love of the game, he supposed.
“Uh, hey, guys–“ Jonas said, far too quiet for Mitch’s voice.
“And way over complicated,” Javier argued. Scratch was tailing out of Park n’ Wreck at sound-breaking speeds. Jonas was forced to hold on since this side didn’t have a seatbelt—this is what it felt like to be on The Impaler, except the ground was much closer and ready to scrape his face off like an over-eager cheese grater.
“Why won’tcha’ just beat his ass, Javi?” Cliff inquired.
“I’m not tryin’ to get suspended for making the guy look like the popped zit he is,” Javier huffed, but seemed to be pondering Cliff’s suggestion like a long lost lover.
“I say we take a lighter to his hair!” Scratch did not stop at that stop sign.
“I hate tha’ smell a’ burnt hair,” Cliff nudged his heel into the back of Scratch’s seat.
“Then we cover him in pig's blood at prom!” Scratch slapped her stirring wheel enthusiastically. “Or tomato sauce if you don’t wanna give up a pig, Cliff. Ooooh, we sic some skunks on ‘im and theeeeen pour the tomato sauce! Just to be nice,” Scratch said in that sing-songy way she did sometimes. Usually when she was about to bite something important off.
“Guys—“ Jonas tried again, feeling like he was gonna throw up. Every time he had been in this car, he had Mitch to hold him. Which was awkward, every single time, but oddly comforting. Well, except when he put his hands around his waist and squeezed to get him to light up. Like a freaking glow stick.
“Grenades,” Javier firmly stood his ground.
“Car.”
“Skunks! Shunks! Shunks!”
They continued on like that, Jonas felt like he was attending a weird slam poetry contest. He started fiddling with the lowest buttons of his shirt.
“Enough,” Javier turned back to Jonas, “whatcha’ think bossman? S’your boy, your call.”
They all turned to look at him, even Scratch, who was supposed to be driving. They screeched to a stop as a bus passed them at a red light. Some trash in the floorboard started to float, responding to the fact Javier had just called him Mitch’s boy. Bro, Jonas realized as the trash re-entered the force of gravity, he meant to say bro.
“I think…,” Jonas announced, just as quietly as before, “I think I’m in Mitch’s body?”
The silence that overtook the car was deafening. Jonas could hear the birds outside.
“Wait. What?” Javier looked at him like he was an especially baffling crossword.
“I’m in Mitch’s body,” Jonas said, louder.
“Sure! That’s how it works!” Scratch cut her wild eyes to him in the rear view mirror as she pressed the gas pedal, jerking Jonas forward—the other two were unmoved, they had their sea legs. “You're in Mitch’s body! I’m in Scratch’s body! Javi’s in Javi’s body—“
“No, no, I’m Jonas. I think, I—Jonas—am in Mitch’s body,” Jonas pressed his hands to his chest to drive the point home. It was weird to hear Mitch say his legal name so much. Jonas felt Cliff’s gaze searing through him and started to sweat.
Cliff sniffed him.
“Yeeeaahup,” Cliff drawled, “somethin’ wrong wit’ this one.”
“The shit you mean by that?” Javier’s eyebrows lept higher up on his forehead. “If this is some freaky doppelgänger shit, I ain’t havin’ it, bro.”
“It’s—I think it’s a superpower thing?” Jonas squeaked, tightening Mitch’s shoulders. Cliff grunted next to him in agreement, like a very wise redneck sage.
“Oh,” Javier bemoaned, turning back in his seat and massaging his temples, “ohhhhh this shit gets weirder and weirder.”
“Whoaaaaa,” Scratch took a corner entirely too fast for a car with doors missing. “Is that somethin’ you guys can do?”
“My best guess is that it’s a Mitch superpower,” Jonas propped a long arm up to keep from flying past Cliff and out the door before dropping his head onto the headrest once they were back on four wheels. “I think he’s in my body? I texted him, but…” Jonas peered down at the phone, still no response. “Do you think he’s at school?”
“That’s reallllll hit or miss, lil bro,” Javier sighed like his soul was leaving his body, he turned around to look at Jonas again. “But we’ll keep a look out for him…you…if that helps.”
“Hey! You think Mitch could swap my body with one of Cliff’s chickens? I’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to get my head chopped off,” Scratch mused, squashing her face in thought.
They stared at her in varying degrees of ‘what the hell’.
”It’s too motherfuckin’ early for this shit,” Javier said into his palms, rubbing his face and smudging his makeup.
“I reckon you’d die if ya got yer head lopped off,” Cliff grinned, leaning into the space between the two front seats, grabbing ahold of Javier’s headrest. “Run around fer a bit. Then drop.”
“Then the chicken would probably stay in your body forever,” Jonas contributed. And before he could spiral about what that meant pertaining to his case of being stuck in Mitch’s body, Scratch shrugged her knobby shoulders with a little ‘hmm!’ noise.
“Yeahhhh, but would ya really know the difference?”
“No,” the three of them agreed, doing a donut into Scratch’s usual parking spot.