#eg scott | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thetomorrowshow · 2 years

Text

poisoned rats in a pot of grain - ch. 11

Masterlist - Previous - Next

i'm stan and i was wrong

ok so i KNOW i said that last chapter would be the penultimate one but alas. here we are at ch 11/12. I SWEAR NEXT ONE WILL BE THE LAST ONE IF NOT YOU CAN HUNT ME FOR SPORT

cw: food, flashbacks, panic attacks, injury

Jimmy’s not sure what to think when he’s sitting in Major’s car once again, this time without a mask (and Major took his off as well as soon as they got into the car, pulling his hair up into a beanie to hide the blue, but Jimmy tries not to stare too much). It’s been over a year, he realizes, since they were last in these places.

Like last time, the clothes he wears aren’t his—but at this point, they might as well be. An oversized grey hoodie with the drawstrings removed. Blue sweatpants. Socks with the little grippies. A trash bag of similar clothing is in the backseat.

When he met with Major three days ago, he hadn’t expected this. He’d expected yelling, a jail cell with his name on it, thirty-to-life in prison.

Not a home. And a . . . a friend? Can he call Major a friend?

His head hurts. He’ll take a headache any day over that early, sluggish phase of his anxiety medication, though. The phase had left him feeling disconnected from his body, as if he was merely an observer from above. He didn’t like that. At least he can fully process everything going on right now.

Major turns on the radio and Jimmy practically jumps out of his skin when some country-pop song starts blaring from the speakers. Major turns it down with a muttered apology, then the car jolts back and they’re moving.

Jimmy runs his hands along the seatbelt, grounding himself bit by bit. The car starting to move had felt a little too much like a van pulling out of a garage, but not so similar that Jimmy felt anything more than a deep sense of dread. He breathes in, holds it for a moment, then lets it out. He’s safe. He’s with Major, and Major took care of him that one time so long ago when he’d tried to escape and had been such a bad pet—

In. Hold. Out. He’s safe. His fingers tap along the seatbelt. In his lap is a nice, new journal, and a pack of unopened markers. Josh had given them to him this morning after their last session. If his thoughts get too loud, he can crack open the journal and put some of them out of his head.

Major might think he’s weird. Barely ten minutes out of the mental hospital, and he already can’t handle himself. But Josh would tell him he’s had a very traumatic past year (and life), and that it’s okay to use coping mechanisms in public.

“Still want to stop at McDonald’s?” Major asks over the low music, and Jimmy can’t help that his eyes jump to his face.

Not that Jimmy’s seen very many unmasked heroes, but those he has seen he’s always been slightly disappointed with. Major is entirely different. Major is. . . .

Well.

Without even looking in the side mirror, Jimmy knows he’s turning a bit red. He hasn’t had any viable romantic candidates in a year, who can blame him? Major’s pretty, that’s it. It’s just—it’s a natural reaction to get flustered in the presence of a hot person. It doesn’t mean anything.

“I was gonna stop and get myself a chicken sandwich anyway, so it’s not like it’s out of the way. Anything you’ve been craving?”

He’s not sure how he can repay Major. His apartment and all of his belongings are likely gone, along with his money. But Major’s offering, and it seems safe to accept. . . .

He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. He wants to tell Major that just a hamburger is fine, that he is hungry, that he’s been craving fast food, but he can’t. He stares determinedly at the dashboard, willing his voice to work. His entire body is run through with tension, waiting . . . waiting for some undefinable other shoe to drop.

He hates it.

Major doesn’t seem bothered by his lack of response, just whistles a little to himself as he pulls into a McDonald’s drivethru. He grimaces at the line. It’s early afternoon, Jimmy realizes with a glance at the clock display. Lunch rush.

Lunch rushes are things. He forgot about that. There’s so many cars and people here. Jimmy shifts uncomfortably, slumps down a bit in his seat. That’s a lot of people seeing his face. He doesn’t like that. He really doesn’t like that. And he’s in the passenger seat, which means that he’s on the outside of the drivethru line and the front windows of a car are never tinted as darkly as the back ones and just anyone could look in and see him—

What can you do to fix this? Josh seems to ask in his head. What’s a simple thing that will help calm you down?

He can cover his face. His shirt? It’ll look a little silly, but not too bad. He glances over at Major, sees him idly looking out the window while tapping his hands on the steering wheel. Jimmy pulls the collar of his hoodie up until it covers his nose, hoping to quell the jitters in his stomach.

It helps tremendously and he lets out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. Major does happen to look over, but he doesn’t comment on it.

“I’ll order me a chicken sandwich, and you a burger, and both of us fries. Sound good?”

That’s . . . oddly considerate, isn’t it? Jimmy nods, looks over to meet Major’s eyes, sending him what he hopes is a sufficient smile with his mouth covered. Major apparently understands and smiles back.

“Right. That’ll come with ketchup, onions, and pickles, I think. Is that all good?”

It sounds fine, so Jimmy nods again, and soon enough there’s a burger and fries in his lap and a cup of water in his hand and he’s not entirely sure where to put it or whether he can eat in Major’s car. Major has pulled back onto the road, his own sandwich unwrapped and held in one hand, so Jimmy assumes it’s okay and sets the water between his knees before unwrapping his burger.

“My name’s Scott, by the way,” Major says between bites, and Jimmy, burger halfway to his mouth, freezes. Does Major expect him to say his own name, now? Because words aren’t exactly his strong suit right now.

As if he can read Jimmy’s mind, Major continues, “And I know that at the hospital, they were calling you TJ for some reason? But I . . . I know your real name, I think. Do you want me to call you your real name?”

He’s not sure why Major—or, Scott—would know his real name, but after taking stock of himself, he realizes that he actually wouldn’t mind being Jimmy. No secret identities, nothing misconstrued about his role. Just Jimmy.

It’s dangerous, he knows. But his name is his and his to give out where he wants to, and he wants to be called his name for once. Before his nerves can get the better of him, he nods.

Scott’s smiling a little when he speaks. “Okay. Hi, Jimmy. It’s nice to properly meet you.”

Jimmy makes it about thirty minutes in Major’s house before having a panic attack.

Josh had told him that even with his medication, the sudden change of environments would probably trigger emotional distress. So Jimmy’s sort of expecting something to go down—and down it goes, while he’s sitting in the middle of a bedroom that is so familiar it almost hurts to look at. It’s the same room he’d woken in that one time so long ago. He hadn’t thought he would remember it very well. Now that he’s here, though, he remembers everything about it, down to the color of the carpet, and it’s far too much to cope with.

His clothes are still in the trash bag, his new journal on the bed. There’s a desk in the corner, chair pushed up into it. He’s not sure what to do with that. One side of the room has both a closet and a set of drawers, which is somehow both thoughtful and utterly overwhelming because Jimmy only has three shirts and two pairs of sweatpants, one of which is reserved for sleep.

But what really sends him spiraling is the brand new phone in his hand, already unlocked and set up with Major—labeled Scott—as the only contact.

He doesn’t know what to do. There’s an app on the phone that leads to the internet, and Jimmy hasn’t been connected to this form of the outside world in months.

There’s a new phone in his hand. There’s a charging cable already plugged into the wall.

There’s an outlet in the wall that’s never going to blow out when he plugs his phone in. A phone that won’t spontaneously catch fire. A messaging app that won’t glitch out and send highly inappropriate texts to his contacts.

His tears aren’t of joy, like he’d expected. He’s not happy. He cries because everything is wrong, everything’s changed and it’s so very hard to cope with change after days—after years—of maintaining a routine.

So once Jimmy’s done hyperventilating over all the things that are new, once he’s done bawling about how nothing makes sense, he curls up in the corner of the room against the bedframe and stares at the wall until Major—Scott—calls his name. Then he rises, shoves the phone into his hoodie pocket, and leaves to join the superhero for dinner.

Scott really wants Jimmy to leave his room more often, and he’s not even subtle about it.

And sure, maybe lying on the floor staring at the wall for hours at a time isn’t the best thing, especially when he occasionally misses his medication because of just how deep he’s sunken into that mindset. Scott had laid down a ground rule of eating at least one meal a day together, and some days that’s the only time Jimmy can manage to drag himself up to face the world outside his bedroom.

It’s not that he’s not eating—he’s certainly not very good at eating, but whenever he has the strength to to slip out of his room and fix himself some lunch or breakfast, he grabs a couple of non-perishables and stocks them away in the set of drawers. If Major notices, he doesn’t say anything. And when Jimmy’s stuck in the recesses of his own mind, he’s always got a sleeve of crackers or a can of soup to keep his strength up. It’s certainly more than he’d eaten before.

About two weeks in, he has his first therapy session with Nora, who is a very nice woman but frowns when he mentions that staying in his room just feels safer. He knows what’s going to happen while he’s there. He knows that everything there, while new and disconcerting, is more familiar than anywhere else (including this downtown office, so far away, with the stiff sofa and the sequined pillows) and therefore more tolerable.

He doesn’t mention that while he’s in his room, his mind slips into a deadened state where all he can do is stare at the wall and hope that no one will come to hurt him.

He does mention that every time Scott knocks on the door, he immediately shoots to his knees and bows his head, months of conditioning refusing to relinquish its grasp.

Nora suggests two things: one, leave the room more often. Spend time in other parts of the house, engage in leaving the house maybe once a week. Jimmy doesn’t like that suggestion at all—it sounds terrifying and like a recipe for disaster.

Her second suggestion is to leave the door to his bedroom open, and really, why hadn’t Jimmy thought of that?

It makes perfect sense. He can’t be taken by surprise when Major knocks if there’s no need to knock. So even though it’s nerve-wracking and possibly one of the hardest things he’s ever done (anyone could see him, anyone could come in and hurt him), Jimmy starts leaving the door wide open.

And then he’s embarrassed about the way he occupies himself in his room, so he starts holding on to his phone while he stares at the wall, a video pulled up and ready to play in case Scott passes the doorway.

And then he just starts actually watching the video pulled up.

He still doesn’t have a reason to regularly leave the room, but he starts watching a long series of videos purely by accident and ends up getting sucked into the series, taking more and more time out of his staring-at-the-wall time and redistributing it to other things. It’s almost like just engaging with the content of the series gives him energy to do more.

And by some happenstance, Scott mentions that he has a home gym over dinner one night.

Jimmy’s never been able to properly work out. He used to go running, and he picked up more than a few hand-to-hand fight tricks in his time both as a hero and a villain, but an actual gym he’d deemed too dangerous for his spontaneous volatility. And suddenly, with his powers no longer as random as they had once been, he has the freedom to do whatever he wants. Somehow, he hadn’t already put that together.

It’s a little overwhelming, if he’s honest. When he mentions it in passing to Scott (as casually as he can, though he spent days building up to it and he’s inwardly shaking in terror), Scott only looks sad for a moment before offering to start small—use the home gym for as much physical activity as he’s cleared for, try to spend more time out of his room each week. It’s just like what Nora recommended, and while Scott isn't a certified counselor, he is probably the smartest person Jimmy knows.

He’s also the kindest person Jimmy knows—he doesn’t know too many people, to be fair (his social circle consists of his conservator and his therapist and that’s it), but that doesn’t mean that Scott isn’t the first person to seem to genuinely like him in . . . well, forever. Jimmy knows, after several weeks of nothing but patience and encouragement and reassurances that there isn’t another shoe about to drop, that Scott only has his best interests in mind. He trusts him on this.

So he starts working out. He starts joining Scott for movie nights. He starts helping out with chores here and there, and that’s perhaps the most surprising thing—Jimmy finds he likes doing chores. He feels like he’s actually helping out, repaying Scott’s hospitality in little ways—and it reminds him of the time Before, when he and Lizzie would clean the bathroom together or switch out the laundry. It ain’t much, but it’s honest work, and he hasn’t had the opportunity to do anything like it in years.

He has panic attacks, of course. He has flashbacks. One morning he lies in bed, too terrified to move because he’s back on that table and faceless scientists are operating on him and Xornoth has a gloved hand in his hair.

He can feel Scott’s touch on his arm, he can hear what he’s saying, but all he can do is whimper when Xornoth demands, “Eyes on me, little bird.”

“Jimmy, can you look at me?”

He can’t, he really can’t, because Xornoth just told him where to look and he can’t disobey his master’s orders.

Scott’s thumb is making circles on his wrist, and Scott himself is saying things like “Wake up, please” and “It’s just a nightmare, you’re okay, you’re safe”.

Scott’s never lied to him before.

So despite the threat of Xornoth right in front of him, the next time Scott asks Jimmy to look at him, Jimmy opens his eyes and sees Scott and not Xornoth.

And though he can still feel the IV in his arm, the touch of too many rubber gloves and a too-familiar hand carding through his hair, Jimmy knows it’s not real.

Scott holds out his hand, and with a herculean effort, Jimmy takes it.

Scott smiles, and it’s enough to break the flashback’s hold completely.

Jimmy, haltingly, smiles back.

It’s after that flashback that Jimmy knows he can trust Scott. That had been one he wouldn’t have been able to break out of by himself, one that would have swallowed his voice for days. Scott had interrupted it before it had really ascertained its hold on him.

Sure, he’d trusted Scott before. He’s trusted Scott for a long time—ever since he first put his life into Scott’s hands. But this is different. It’s like an entirely different type of trust, because Jimmy now trusts Scott as not just a caretaker, but as . . . as a friend.

He knows for certain now that Scott isn’t taking care of him out of some moral obligation. Scott genuinely cares about him. He’d suspected, of course, but he hadn’t been able to know for sure.

Jimmy finds himself shy for the rest of the day, avoiding eye contact and speaking nary a word. The dynamic has changed, somehow, and he’s pretty sure it’s in a good way.

Even good change, however, is change, and he’s exhausted and anxious about anything that might go wrong. He goes to bed early, finds comfort in the security of laying on the floor and staring at the wall until he drifts off.

Jimmy ventures out into the world again for the first time five weeks into his stay with Scott.

It’s not a long trip, nor a dangerous one, but Scott drives him down to a city park and they walk together, Jimmy with a medical-style face mask on and Scott with his bright blue hair tucked into a beanie.

They bring vegetable peelings and scraps to throw at ducks—which is confusing to Jimmy, but Scott had said something about bread being unhealthy for them which is whatever—and on a bridge, over the duck pond, they talk.

Scott starts. Scott talks about college, about his friends, about how he became a superhero—and with that, his misadventures in dating.

“Wait, you dated a villain?” Jimmy asks incredulously. “And you almost joined him?”

“I was a stupid college kid,” Scott defends, though he’s laughing. “I made dumb choices back then.”

“Oh, and you never make any these days.”

“Exactly,” Scott declares pompously. “I’m known for my impeccable decision-making skills.”

Jimmy chucks a potato peel into the water, watches the ducks and turtles fight over it. “Was it a good decision when you let me into your house last year?”

Scott goes silent, looks down. “Yeah,” he says after a moment, fiddling with the railing. “One of my best ones.”

Jimmy blushes. Not quite what he’d been expecting, but he’s not going to say no to a bit of a confidence boost. “Really?” he asks quietly.

Scott doesn’t answer, though. “Was that really where you lived?” he changes the subject. “Where I dropped you off that one time? Because . . . well, after you went missing . . . again . . . I—I kind of went looking for you. And the landlord of the building I dropped you off at didn’t recognize the description I gave.”

“Oh, no. I had you drop me off a few streets away, I think,” Jimmy replies, casting his mind back. A lot of his memories from then—the brief period between captivities—are fairly blurred and unstable. “But yeah. I lived in that neighborhood. Nothing special, I know.”

It hadn’t been anything special. It never had been, not as long as he’d lived on his own.

“I sort of thought you had a decent bit of money,” admits Scott, tossing a scrap to the ducks. “I mean, you were always robbing banks and rich citizens.”

Jimmy scoffs. “Okay, firstly, I have zero credit score. There was no way I could get anywhere nicer than the shadiest of apartments without getting arrested for having suspicious amounts of physical money. Secondly, I lost a lot of that money. And third of all, most of the time stealing from actual people was an accident—I usually just shoplifted from Walmart or whatever.”

It’s quiet between them, then, and Jimmy stares out over the pond, sees turtles lined up on a log a little ways out. He turns to ask Scott if he thinks he can throw far enough to get food to those turtles, only to find Scott staring at him, slackjawed.

“Wh-what is it?” Jimmy asks nervously. Scott blinks several times, straightens.

“I—lost how? And what do you mean, stealing on accident? That was—that was an insane amount of money that you took, what happened to it all?”

Before Jimmy can answer, Scott continues. “Lost, like—like you blew it all at a casino? Or—”

“Gosh, no!” Jimmy bursts out incredulously. “Me? In a casino? Are you joking?”

Scott has the decency to look embarrassed, at least, the tips of his ears turning pink. “I—all right, then, how?”

“I . . . I just lost it.” Jimmy shrugs, flicks a piece of carrot into the water. “Depends, really. Once on the pier my wallet fell out of my pocket and rolled into the ocean, where a fish swallowed it. Once I dropped it all down a drain. One time a roll of bills caught fire in my hands.”

“No way.”

Jimmy rubs the back of his neck, fingers rolling over the scar there. “Yeah. It never worked out for me. I think I mostly just kept doing it because . . . I guess I wanted someone to stop me.”

Scott doesn’t respond for a long while. When he does, his voice is quiet. “I’m sorry. I should’ve noticed.”

“That wasn’t your responsibility. We were enemies, Scott.”

They stand there in silence a minute more, then Scott hands Jimmy what’s left of the bag of scraps, and Jimmy upends it, shaking about half a bag’s worth of vegetable peelings into the water. Ignoring the frenzy below, he and Scott set off for home—which Jimmy is privately grateful for. He didn’t want to say anything, but he’s been growing more and more anxious that even with the medical mask, someone would recognize him.

“So,” Scott says once they’re back on the proper trail, heading in the direction of the parking lot. “Stealing from rich people on accident?”

Jimmy groans, but he’s smiling. He really, really likes this. He likes the way Scott talks to him, like an equal, not like something delicate that could break at any moment. He likes the way he teases. He likes hanging out with him.

“Look, what you have to understand first is that most of the time, I had no clue what I was doing, I was just trying to not hurt anyone. Got that?”

“You disabled the alarms on Joey Graceffa’s house before sneaking in, Jimmy. We have camera footage of it. You’re telling me that was an accident?”

“Entirely.”

Scott had asked him, back in his first week here, when he would be feeling up to meeting with Lizzie.

Apparently that day is today, around two months into his stay at Scott’s house. He’s anxious—too anxious to be in his room all morning, instead sitting around in the kitchen or the living room and just generally getting in Scott’s way. The man has become his main source of comfort and is probably the only person he truly trusts in the world—even Nora doesn’t see him at his worst, those moments only for Scott.

Scott had taken the day off without even asking Jimmy if he wanted that, which warms his heart every time he remembers it. Scott curls up on the couch and puts on a commentary video to watch, which Jimmy can’t help but become absorbed in. He doesn’t even know the movie the commentator is reviewing, but it seems terrible and the commentator is witty. It doesn’t put his anxiety to rest, but he manages to become distracted right up until Scott checks his phone and lets him know that Lizzie is on her way.

Then he runs, bolting from the couch to his room in a matter of seconds. He hides behind his bed, trying to breathe. In, hold, out. His hands are shaking. His entire body is shaking. This isn’t good. He doesn’t feel good.

Long minutes pass. His ribs hurt. His ribs burn. One of them is broken, it’s surely broken, it was kicked in and snapped he can feel it—

His scrabbling hands pull up his new blue sweater (he’d tried to dress nice for seeing his sister again) and he prods at his side. Nothing. It’s normal.

Flashback. Okay. He’s fine. Somehow, over his panicked not-breathing, he hears the front door open. That was—okay. Perfect. He loves that for himself. He’d expected maybe twenty minutes of time to calm himself in his room, maybe longer, but apparently his bad luck was still in effect even when it literally couldn’t be.

Another few minutes before there’s a soft knock on his door.

“Jimmy? Can I come in?”

Jimmy can’t quite make his voice work (please not today, not when he actually has to talk), so he shifts around until he can extract his phone from his back pocket and texts Scott an answer in the affirmative.

A moment later, his door creaks open. “Jimmy? Are you—hey, there.”

Jimmy looks up through watery eyes (when did he start crying?) to see Scott kneeling beside him. Scott doesn’t say anything at first, just settles in against the bed and holds out a hand.

Jimmy takes it.

Despite himself, he feels his heart jump.

Scott sits there with him for a few moments, then says quietly, “It’s okay if you can’t meet with her today. Do you want me to tell her to come by a different time?”

And Jimmy feels a wave of gratitude and affection for Scott utterly overwhelm him, because in the past decade, nobody has ever shown this level of kindness toward him. Few people have seen him as anything good or deserving of love, and here Scott is, holding his hand and offering to change everything out of nothing but the kindness of his heart.

Just knowing that Scott is here, and that Scott is Scott, Jimmy feels okay with what he has to do. Not great, but at least capable.

After all, how bad can it be compared to living as a pet for literal months, abused at every turn to the point of barely even knowing his own name? Talking to his long-lost sister about how he killed their loving parents is going to be a walk in the park.

“My life sucks,” Jimmy realizes aloud. He lets out a bark of laughter. “Gosh, it really just has sucked, hasn’t it?”

“I . . . Jimmy, I’m. . . .”

“It’s fine. Really,” Jimmy adds, when Scott raises a brow. “I just can’t think of anything good that’s happened to me in the past decade, up until—” he cuts himself off, heat spreading to his cheeks. “Anyways. Don’t—don’t send Lizzie away. I can talk to her. I just . . . freaked out.”

With Scott’s help he stands, and with Scott’s hand still in his he finds the strength to walk (his bad hip twinges, but he’s not sure if it’s actually acting up or if the pain lingers from the brief flashback) into the nice living room.

Lizzie’s sitting there. Maskless. Street clothes.

Her fingers tap-tap-tap against her knee. Jimmy knows that feeling. That anxiety, but nowhere to run. Holding it in because there’s no other option. Staying quiet and complacent because if your master thinks for even a second that you’re moving without permission, they’ll punish you terribly and brutally.

He’s working on that.

Lizzie looks up when he enters, smiles cautiously.

Jimmy doesn’t think he can be blamed when all of his words of apology die in his throat and all he can think about is how much he missed her.

Something tips her off. He’s not sure what. But she stands, spreads her arms, asks the question quietly.

“Is it all right if I hug you?”

Jimmy throws himself into his sister’s arms and sobs.

Jimmy’s been living in Scott’s house for nine weeks and two days (not that he’s counting) when the man hugs him.

It’s a shock, one that sends him reeling and grasping for any reference on how to work with this. He hasn’t been hugged since . . . he hasn’t been hugged . . . in years, probably, because even before everything he’d been a fairly solitary individual. He doesn’t think he’s been hugged on a regular basis since childhood.

If Scott is a hugger, that’s probably going to change relatively shortly.

Scott pulls away quickly, likely put off by the way Jimmy freezes (because of course he can’t respond to things like a normal person, he’s a pet he acts like a pet), and holds him at arm’s length, face cycling through all sorts of feelings.

“Sorry, I really—I should’ve asked, we ought to make a list of—”

Jimmy gently deattaches his arms from Scott’s loose grip, then tries for a hug of his own. It’s awkward, and stiff, and he thinks he put his arms in the wrong place but Scott—

Scott doesn’t mind, just gasps slightly and relaxes into Jimmy’s hold, hums softly. And even though he knows he’s doing it wrong, he can’t help but feel this is unequivocally right.

Uh-oh.

Very suddenly, Jimmy’s life is shifting from a depressing series of torturous events to a romcom. Because out of nowhere, he has a crush on—on Major.

It’s so sudden that his vision seems to tilt, from this way to that, in a dizzying sequence that leaves him feeling rather ill. He barely has to wonder why Scott’s become an object of his attraction. It’s barely been more than two months and he’s already done a million incredible things.

Three days in, he’d gone over Jimmy’s medications with him and asked about allergies and favorite foods and the like, obviously trying to make Jimmy’s time here as pleasant as possible.

Whenever Jimmy expresses that he likes a food, Scott writes it down. There’s now a list in Scott’s list notebook (he makes lists so often that’s all Jimmy can think to refer to it as) with all of Jimmy’s favorite meals.

Jimmy had mentioned offhand that he went to a trampoline park once as a kid and had missed it ever since, and Scott had gone out of his way to look one up and offer to go, eyes bright.

Scott leaves the doors open ever since he noticed Jimmy doing it.

He never complains about Jimmy’s frequent panic attacks.

He’s seen Jimmy at his lowest, and continues to care about him.

Not to mention, his cyan hair is gelled up into the loveliest little curls, his eyes are a prettier blue than the noon sky, the dimple in his left cheek is placed just perfectly to offset his brilliant smile. His arms are strong and chiseled, as Jimmy’s noticed on one or two sleeveless occasions, and the one time he’d seen Scott with just a towel wrapped around his waist his mouth had actually gone dry.

How had he not noticed before now? It’s fairly obvious, in hindsight.

“We should make a list of what physical touch we’re okay with,” Scott tells him as he pulls away, and Jimmy only closes his mouth and nods and tries furiously not to blush.

He can’t have a romantic relationship right now. He’s not even interested in one. He’s trying his best every day to remember that he can even be a human, let alone a boyfriend.

He shouldn’t. But gods above, he wants to try.

78 notes · View notes