pure retrograde

"Hey, are you okay?"

Jake blinks, hard. He feels like there's sand under his eyelids, weighing his eyes closed, and he can't blink it out no matter how hard he tries. He can't figure out what he's looking at; the world is blurry, but there's someone in front of him, trying to get his attention. 

"How do you feel?" The guy says, clearly looking for an answer after Jake didn't respond the first time.

He feels woozy. Everything hurts, actually, now that he's becoming more aware. He can't see shit, and his whole body feels like it's screaming at him, pressed hard against cold concrete, and his head—

Fuck, if he has a concussion, he's gonna kill Amir.

Jake tries to sit up, tries to look around to see if he can spot him, but the man in front of him pushes him back gently when he tries to move, keeping him in place, the asshole. He doesn't even know this guy. He can't remember what happened, but he's pretty sure he knows who to blame. 

"Where's Amir?" He asks, and the sound of his own voice feels foreign in his mouth, dry and scratchy and off.

"Who's Amir?" The guy looks confused, and Jake's vision is starting to clear enough that he can make out specifics. He's lying on the ground on a street he doesn't recognize. There's people milling around him, some stopping to look every now and then, but mostly going about their day. The guy is still over him, trying to get his attention, holding a stethoscope like he's a doctor but wearing a dark blue uniform, a first aid bag laying open at his side. A paramedic, Jake's mind supplies, trying desperately to remember where he is and why.

He narrows his eyes at the guy, even though it kind of hurts his head. "Are you gonna charge me for this?"

"What?"

Jake can't pay any hospital bills. He can't pay any bills. He's 23, he doesn't have money. His dad kicked him off the family health plan after Amir pretended to be him to defraud a hospital, and his job barely pays enough for the rent at his shitty little studio apartment. He sure as shit doesn't have his own health insurance.

Jake brushes the guy off, suppressing a wince as he slowly pushes himself to his feet. "Actually, I feel fine. I feel better."

"I think you have a concussion—" He says, reaching back out for him, but Jake bats his hand away, hoping this guy gets the fucking hint and drops it.

"I'm good, man."

There's a long pause while the guy just watches him, eyes running over him skeptically, and it rubs Jake the wrong way, makes his skin crawl to be so looked at, which is— strange. He chalks it up to injury, to feeling weird and gross against the ground, but it weighs on him uncomfortably.

"Okay," The guy looks unsure, hesitating, then pulls out a wallet and hands it to Jake. "Here's your wallet."

"You stole my wallet?"

"We needed it to get your name," he says, then snatches it back right as Jake reaches for it, "which is?"

“None of your fucking business.”

He reaches for the wallet again but the paramedic refuses, holding it out of Jake's reach even as he stretches a little more than is justified for it.

Jake rolls his eyes, which hurts his brain even more. "Jake Hurwitz."

"Birthday?"

"August fifth, 1985," he answers, and the paramedic nods, slipping his license out to double check, "is this really necessary?"

"We just need to check. You should still see a doctor, Mister Hurwitz." He hands Jake the wallet and he pockets it without looking, turning around and walking off despite not having any idea where he is or where he's going.

Seriously, where the fuck is he?

He has no idea what's going on. He wanted to get away from that paramedic as quickly as possible, but he maybe should have at least asked where they are or what happened. That maybe would have raised red flags, though. He knows it's easier in the long run to just figure things out himself, ever since Amir started being the cause of all his problems.

Amir. This is definitely Amir's fault. He doesn't know how, or why, or where he is, but he knows it's true. He pats down his pockets for his phone as he rounds a corner, and is even more confused when he pulls out a phone that isn't his. It isn't anyones, at least not that he knows. It's not like anything he's ever seen; it's an iPhone, but it's huge, and flat, and has more cameras than a phone could possibly warrant. It looks futuristic. It doesn't have a home button, and it takes him a couple of tries to find the power, but when he finally hits the right button, the screen flashes to life, showing a photo of a random landscape that seems like a pretty obviously default lockscreen, and the date and time.

It's fucking November.

Jake's memory is a little fuzzy; he can't remember exactly what he was doing right before he was unconscious, or what day it was, but he knows that it was July. He's lost four fucking months. Was he unconscious the whole time? Did he miss his birthday? This sucks. He must be 24 now, and he doesn't even know how it happened. He doesn't even know where he is; the streets feel different, strange and unfamiliar and distinctly not like Brooklyn, and he isn't sure how to find anything that can help him.

No, that's— he couldn't have been unconscious for four months. He was laying in the street. He must just have a concussion. Temporary memory loss, probably, and it'll all come flooding back soon the same way his sight did when he first woke up.

He's struggling to figure out how to unlock the phone. There's no swipe to unlock, no instructions on the screen. All he can do is stare blankly at the background photo and seethe, hoping that his phone will ring and he can say hi, help, please, what is going on.

The phone doesn't ring. He slips it back into his pocket, and seethes some more.

He has no idea why Amir would give him a new weird phone that is impossible to unlock, or why he woke up laying on the street in a place he doesn't recognize, and he doesn't feel any closer to figuring it out. He tries pulling out his wallet to see if he has any cash— nothing. He must have got mugged or something. Someone probably took everything while he was knocked out. It was definitely that smarmy paramedic, the pretentious ass. He tries not to let the panic build in his chest; that rules out just getting in a cab and giving them his address, and that was the only plan he had left.

He just wants to go home. He feels gross; he's got gravel sticking to the backs of his arms, and what he thinks might be a little dried blood crusting over in his hair, but it's hard to tell. He needs to find an ATM or something, or at least someone who can tell him what the hell is going on. He checks his wallet again to make sure he at least has his card. 

He does, but it's not his card.

He doesn't even recognize it, but it has his name on it. Maybe this is another one of Amir's tricks, part of a scam designed to make Jake think that he's losing his mind. Amir would do that, try to get inside his head and freak him out, put him in a new place with somebody else’s phone and fill his wallet with cards he doesn’t recognize in the hope Jake will finally turn to him for help.

It’s impossible to overestimate what Amir will do in his sick and twisted quest to get Jake to notice him. Jake isn’t even sure what he wants, most of the time. Attention, for sure. Respect, maybe? For them to spend time together and hang out? He doesn’t have an obvious endgame, which always makes Jake nervous. Where will it end? Jake knows if he says yes to dinner it's not like Amir will back down. What’s next? Is this it? He’s obviously obsessed with Jake. Is he trying to steal his identity out of some fucked up jealous drive to be the same as him?

He’s catastrophizing, he knows, can feel the anxiety starting to grip at him, and he needs to relax. It's probably just from sometime in the last few months, he reasons with himself. There's a giant blank spot in his memory; it makes sense that some things have changed. He looks through his wallet trying to find any other evidence of what's been happening in his life for the last three months, but there’s not much. He's lost his metrocard, so no subway, not that he's seen any stops. This place doesn't seem like New York, anyway, or at least any part of New York he knows. Maybe he's on vacation.

Behind everything, buried beneath loyalty cards with one stamp for stores he doesn't even recognize, there's a tiny photo of Amir in his wallet, crumpled and almost too small to make out if you didn't already know what to look for. But Jake would know Amir anywhere, even if the picture makes him look... different. It's odd. It's a full body shot of him jumping in the air like he always does, taken from far enough away that his whole body stays in frame. He has more of a beard than the last time Jake can remember seeing him, though it's hard to make out much else about him. There’s something pulling in his chest when he looks at the photo; a feeling weaving itself tight and warm around his ribs, constricting and fluttering, and he’s not sure why. It’s like a muscle memory his brain can’t recall the pathway for; an instinct for which the basis has been lost, hidden somewhere in the lost part of his memory, a feeling of fondness so specific yet unplaceable. It’s like a dancing light in his peripheral vision, and he can’t seem to look directly at it, no matter how deep he searches.

Weird. 

There’s a Starbucks at the end of the street, and he starts to formulate a plan.

It’s not too crowded inside; the lunch rush is over and the afternoon influx of workers needing their caffeine hasn’t flooded in yet, so it’s easy enough for Jake to walk right up the barista, smile with all the charm he can muster after everything, and start digging for information.

“Hey,” he smiles, hoping to come across as suave, but he can tell from the way the barista looks at him that she can basically tell he was laying on the ground outside less than an hour ago.

She smiles at him anyway. “Hi! What can I get you?”

She’s pretty cute, with long dark hair swept up into a ponytail and a nice smile. She would probably be really hot out of her work clothes, and wow, okay, if Jake wasn’t in the midst of a crisis, his brain would probably linger on that mental image for a little longer.

“Could I get a venti iced coffee, and, uh, do you know how far we are from Brooklyn?”

“No,” she laughs, looking at him incredulously, “should I?”

Jake laughs too, because it just seems like the correct response. “No, I guess not. Just the coffee then.”

She grabs a cup and writes his name on it unprompted. “Iced coffee, that’s different.”

She says it conversationally, like it doesn’t really matter, but Jake weirdly feels like he’s been caught in a lie, like he doesn’t know how to pretend to be this slightly older version of himself effectively. “Yeah,” he says, trying to think of a good way to explain the situation he’s in and failing, “it’s just been a weird day.”

The barista nods like she understands, and moves to start making his coffee. Pieces are starting to slide into place in his brain, at least a little; he’s clearly nowhere near Brooklyn, maybe not even in New York anymore. This barista knew him, though, knew his name and his order, so he’s clearly a regular. 

He probably lives here, wherever here is. He moved again. That’s really strange. It’s barely more than half a year since his failed move to California; the new job and the office and the girl he liked but not enough. He just came back. He just spent a month in California learning the harsh truth that he needed to be in New York. He needed to be in New York; he felt like he could barely breathe the entire time he was in California, and the weight didn’t lift until well after he’d quit that stupid job, until he set foot on the floor of his old office, phone buzzing in his pocket and grinning because he didn’t need to answer it.

He felt like he was drowning and someone gripped him tight and pulled him to the surface. He went through all that, just to leave again a few months later?

Amir must have done something really insufferable to drive him away again. 

This is probably the result of Amir’s fucked up revenge for Jake actually leaving him. No way would he ever let Jake break away clean; even if that's almost what he did last time, he would definitely eventually track Jake down. He needs to figure out where he lives. How would this future Jake remember his address if he forgot?

“Hey, uh, you don’t happen to know where I live, do you?”

The barista turns to face him, still pouring his coffee, and looks concerned. “No, I don’t. Why?”

Jake shrugs, trying to stay casual, but he can feel the strain in his own voice. “Oh, I, uh, I just can’t really remember, is all.”

She just blinks at him, eyes narrowed like she doesn't understand what he's saying. “What?”

“I kind of hit my head earlier, and some information has… fallen out.”

“You hit your head so bad you forgot where you live?”

“It sounds worse than it is. It’s honestly fine.”

“Well, it sounds really really bad. You should probably go to a hospital,” she says, but passes him his coffee, “that’ll be 3.75, please.”

“I don't get a free coffee? An injured man doesn’t get a free coffee?”

“You said it was fine!” She gestures towards Jake’s pockets. “What about on Maps? Do you have your home address saved there?”

“What maps?”

“Oh my god. You are so old.”

He laughs, because it seems like she's joking, but she tilts her head at him like she's not joking. “C’mon, I am not that much older than you.”

“I’m twenty one,” she says with a laugh, and maybe that is younger than Jake, but only by three years. That’s not enough to laugh about it. “Just pay for your coffee and give me your phone.”

He does as she says, grabbing his wallet with one hand and passing her his phone with the other, pulling out his card to pay as she shoves his phone back in front of his face. 

“What was that for?”

“For Face ID,” she says, and Jake doesn’t know what that is but it sounds terrifying. “Here, see? ‘Home’.”

He leans over to see, and she’s right; there's a map with street names he doesn’t recognize, and right in the middle is a marker labeled ‘Home’. He pushes down the part of him that worries this is another Amir trick, because it is, unfortunately, his only lead.

“I can get you an Uber if you want,” she’s worried about him, Jake can tell, and it occurs to him that maybe he should be more worried about himself, “maybe you’ll feel better if you lie down for a while at home.”

“Right, yeah,” he says, and then, because he has to, “and an Uber is?”

“Like a cab?”

“Good. Cool. Yeah.” He’s nodding too much, jostling his brain around in his skull in a way that hurts like hell, but at least things are finally coming together.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

He nods again, too hard, and takes a long sip of his coffee. It does make him feel a little better, wiping the taste of metal off his tongue. “I’ll be fine,” he says again, mostly repeating it for his own sake, like if he hears it enough times it’ll become true. He's not fine, really, but once he can figure out who he is and where he is and what's happening, he'll be okay. “I just need to get home.”

The ride is a long and awkward one, and he spends the entire time trying to seem like a respectable guy and not like he's on the cusp of throwing up, but eventually the cab pulls up outside a normal looking house in a normal looking neighborhood.

Jake heaves a sigh of relief. Clearly he’s doing alright for himself if this is where he lives now. He’s been living in a string of shitty studio apartments, lately, so it’s nice to see at least something changes for the better. He thanks the driver and gets out, feeling around for his keys. The key ring he finds on his belt loop doesn’t have that many keys on it; there's a car key despite there being no car in the driveway, but Jake can figure out where he left it later, and a normal key that looks like it could be for a front door.

It opens right away when Jake tries the key, and he breathes a sigh of relief that he doesn’t have to deal with being locked out. He doesn’t remember this house, but the memory must still be buried deep in his mind somewhere, because he heads straight to the kitchen and pours himself a glass of water, drinking it as fast as he can. He has to grab a dirty glass from the sink and clean it, annoyed with his future self for leaving the sink piled high enough with dishes that there isn't even anything clean for him to drink from. He doesn’t feel worse than he did when he woke up on the street, but he doesn’t know if he feels better. Things still seem pretty bad, and he wants nothing more than to just take a shower and lie down.

He brings his glass of water upstairs and into the bathroom with him, kicking off his shoes and pants along the way. He takes his time with his shirt, being as careful as he can not to let it graze the back of his head, which is still pretty tender, and drops it to the ground, finally looking around and taking in the room as he pulls off his socks.

There’s two toothbrushes sitting in the cup by the sink.

Jake wouldn't think much of it, but there's other stuff, too. Skincare products, two sets of towels, makeup products Jake doesn’t know the names of scattered across the counter. Someone else lives here, he realizes all at once, like a cold bucket of ice being dumped over his head. He doesn’t even have the presence of mind to congratulate himself on having what he can only assume is a smoking hot girl in his life, because he’s so overwhelmed with thinking about having to tell his girlfriend that not only is he concussed, he has no idea who she is. Today has already been stressful enough without having to calm down a girlfriend he doesn’t even know.

He’s already climbing into the shower and turning on the water by the time he notices the ring.

There’s no way. It’s been four months, there’s no way he could be married. There it is though, sparkling up at him from his own hand as the water runs over his body— a gold band wrapped around his ring finger, shining as it catches the light. He has no idea how he didn’t notice it before. It’s definitely a wedding ring. He’s wearing a wedding ring. He got married so quickly after leaving New York? There’s no way, it would be too soon, and there's no girls in his life already that he would even want to marry. How can this even be possible?

He closes his eyes and lets the water wash the dirt and grime of the day away, and he starts to feel better immediately. The steam clears his head and the soap makes him feel less disgusting, and even gently working the dried blood out of his hair takes the edge off the whole situation. He washes his face, and there's a suspicious amount of grime there, under his eyes, that takes more scrubbing than he would like to admit to get rid of. He feels clean, at least, less injured and more just confused now. He shuts off the water and grabs a towel, stepping out and wiping the steam off the mirror, leaning in to look at himself and make sure he washed off all of the blood and dirt he can reach—

Holy shit.

What the fuck?

He’s looking in the mirror and the Jake that’s looking back at him is… old. Definitely older than twenty four. It feels like he’s looking at someone else's face; he’d be convinced he was caught up in some kind of body swap if it wasn’t for the fact that he can tell it’s his face. It’s similar enough to be obviously him, but so different to what he was expecting that the difference is jarring.

He scrambles out to where he’d left his jeans on the stairs, grabbing his phone from the pocket and unlocking it the way the girl at the coffee shop had, searching for the calendar and opening it as quickly as possible.

It’s 2023.

He hasn’t lost three months. He’s lost fourteen years.

The panic that's been simmering away slowly in his gut starts to finally bubble over, and he thinks that maybe he should have taken that paramedic more seriously. Maybe he should go to a doctor, but he has no idea if this version of Jake can even afford it. He can’t have missed fourteen years of his life. That’s so much time , and it's just gone, lost, and Jake is a twenty three year old trapped in the body of his thirty eight year old self. It’s fucking terrifying. He wants to go back in time, back to his shitty apartment and the rowdy office and Amir’s constant badgering. He can’t do this. He’s not ready to be almost forty. He was barely in his twenties. He’d only just got back to New York, and now he’s lost his chance to enjoy it, to actually appreciate his life, and now it's gone, and he can’t get it back.

Fuck.

There's panic coiling tight in his gut, filling his chest and squeezing his lungs enough that it's hard to breathe, but he does, takes a deep breath and holds it, in for five, hold for five, out for five, and he doesn't remember what that is or where he learned it but it sort of works, the pressure in his chest easing as he focuses on counting out the breaths.

This isn’t time travel. He has to remember that this is him, this is his life. The memories are in there somewhere. He’s not lost his life, he’s just forgotten, and he’ll remember soon. This just feels bad because there’s a gaping black hole where his most cherished memories should be. His wife, his wedding, their house; he’s reaching desperately for memories that he knows should be there, but he can’t find anything. 

He just wishes he could remember.

Maybe there’s stuff around here that can help him remember, or maybe at the very least help him piece together enough about his life to be able to live it. There’s gotta be a photo album or a wedding picture or something around here, anything to clue him into who he’s married to and how long they’ve been together.

He doesn’t remember enough to know where any albums or pictures would be kept, but he does remember which rooms are which, so the memories are up there somewhere. He starts opening drawers at random, starting in the kitchen, hoping to find a bank statement or a phone bill or anything with a girl's name on it, but all he finds are letters addressed to him, final notices crumpled and shoved wherever they’ll fit. There’s no pictures hanging anywhere; the only picture Jake finds is one of his family from when he was a kid, sitting in a frame on top of the TV stand that he trips over a loose floorboard trying to get to. There were pictures at one point, though. There are nails in the wall, looking like you would hang photo frames from them. It looks like there were a lot, at one point, and that they were maybe taken down recently, or maybe Jake is just too lazy to pull the nails out and patch the holes. 

It’s strange. There’s clearly evidence of someone else being here; the wedding ring, the toothbrushes. Someone else lives here. But there’s only Jake’s clothes in the closet, and someone took all the pictures down, and there’s a general feeling of disarray in the house that screams ‘bachelor pad’. It’s all so contradictory. It feels like he’s missing something, some obvious piece that will retroactively make this entire day make sense. 

He doesn’t find anything specific, just more of the same; a general pervasive feeling that there should be another person here, but there isn’t. 

He hears his phone ringing from where he’d dropped it in his panic before. The screen is flashing a contact for someone named Mackenzie, and he answers it, hoping he still sounds the same. “Hello?”

“Jake!” There's a female voice on the other end of the line, and she sounds worried. “I called you six times. Where are you?”

“I, uh, I’m at home,” he says, because he’s not sure where he’s supposed to be, so there’s no point lying about it, “why?”

“Why? Are you serious?” She sounds pissed, hissing into the phone like she wants to yell at him but can’t. “Jake, don’t tell me you forgot. The mediation?”

“Mediation?”

“Yes, Jake, mediation. You’re late.”

“And, uh, what exactly are we mediating today?”

“This is not funny, Jake. You need to take this seriously. Do you want to lose your house?”

“No,” he answers, because even though he doesn’t understand what’s going on he still knows that sounds bad, “I don't want that.”

“Get down here, now.”

“Right, yeah, I will,” he mumbles, even though this call has left him with more questions than answers, “remind me of the address real quick?”

“Are you drunk?”

“No, I just need the address for the car.”

She’s quiet for a moment, and then sighs quickly. “Fine. I'll text it to you. Be here soon.”

She hangs up before he can respond, and his phone dings almost immediately with the promised text. It’s in Los Angeles, which answers Jake’s question about where he is, even if that had shot to the bottom of the list of important things to figure out. He gets himself dressed in what he can only hope is a normal outfit for this future version of him, and pockets some painkillers he finds in the bathroom cabinet for later.

He manages to get himself another taxi with the same app the barista used before, inputting the address and praying it works, and when the car starts honking outside, he trips over that loose fucking floorboard again in his rush to get out. 

The ride is a short one, but it feels like years to Jake, his thoughts speeding a mile a minute. Hopefully this woman can tell him who he is and what he’s doing. It sounds like things are… bad, maybe, if he’s facing the prospect of losing his house. He has no idea what’s going on. Mediation, that could be anything, right? It could be business. Maybe some deals went sideways, or he had some bad investments. Maybe it’s just about division of assets, and the woman on the phone was exaggerating.

He has a feeling he knows what it’s for, though, not that he wants to admit it to himself. The missing pictures, the empty house. He doesn't want to think about it, but even he can't avoid putting the pieces together for that long. It seems like his wife has left him. He wishes he could remember the situation, to know what’s going on and what he did. He needs to know if he deserves it.

He probably doesn’t. He’s still him, right? He’s still Jake. How much can a person even change in fourteen years? He’s still him, and he doesn’t deserve to get divorced, unless he’s divorcing her, in which case, she deserves it. He feels like he needs to know the story, though, or at least somebody’s version of it. He’s scrambling to find footholds in a smooth wall of memories. He needs stuff to jog his memory, and no one wants to help him.

By the time the car pulls up outside a pretty fancy looking legal office, he’s feeling nervous. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He has no idea what he's even supposed to say, or do, or how he's supposed to act. He doesn’t even know who he's married to. He has no option other than to walk in there and do his best.

So that's what he does.

The front desk lady points him in the right direction with a confused look, and he heads over as directed, spotting an irritated looking woman in a business suit pacing outside the door.

“Jake!” She sighs when she sees him, like she’s relieved, but just looks even more pissed. “You are a half hour late. This is gonna be devastating for your negotiating power.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve had a weird day.”

“Are you drunk?” She asks again, echoing what she said on the phone.

“No.”

“Your eyes are really red. Not to mention, you seem a little unsteady.”

He shakes his head, feeling weirdly defensive about it. “I hit my head. I’ll be fine.”

She watches him, dubious; obviously still pissed, but more unsure. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Absolutely. Of course.” He tries to sell it as best as possible, shooting her a weak thumbs up. “My head’s just a little all over the place.”

“Okay,” she’s nodding, eyebrows furrowed like maybe she’s just this angry all the time, “just follow my lead in there, okay?”

He nods, and she pushes open the doors, letting them into the room. It’s a small conference room, just big enough for a table and four chairs. The table is covered with papers, arranged neatly in rows and stacks and labeled with things like assets, and evidence, as a well dressed lawyer shuffles them around like he's looking through them.

And sitting next to him is Amir, looking up at Jake as he enters the room, expression unreadable.

Jake just sits down opposite him. He’s so fucking confused. He thought this was a divorce settlement. Is he suing Amir? He can't ask, not now. He doesn’t want to hurt his case, whatever his case might be. He can't even imagine what's going on now that he's in this situation, but part of him gets a sick thrill at the idea of maybe finally having Amir face consequences for his actions. Maybe he can get a restraining order, and finally get Amir to leave him alone for good. 

Even as he’s celebrating, something tugs at him, a feeling he can’t place, a ghost of an emotion felt so deeply it's all that remains. He isn’t sure what it is, or what it means, but it fucking hurts. Something hurts like hell and he isn’t sure why, trying to chase the feeling to the source and coming up empty. He has no idea why he has this overwhelming feeling that he can't do this, but he stomps it down. If it’s been fourteen years and Amir is still around in his life, still causing him problems, then he deserves everything he gets. Jake has no reason to feel bad about it.

The woman from outside (Mackenzie, he remembers from her contact on his phone) settles into the seat next to him, looking just as angry as she had outside, and Jake feels less affected by it. It seems like maybe that's just her default state.

“Jake,” Amir says, and he sounds the same but different, “you look terrible.”

He says it with a tone of maliciousness, but Jake thinks there's a tilt of his head and a look in his eyes of concern, a little bit, even if he does seem pissed. Jake shifts in his seat and tries not to read into it.

“You look terrible,” he snaps back immediately, too defensive, but it's not true. Amir looks good. 

Mackenzie shakes her head at both of them. “We’re already starting late. Let’s just get right into it, shall we?”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Amir’s lawyer answers, rifling through his papers, “shall we discuss the matter of the house?”

“Only if you have good news for us, Phil, otherwise we don't want to hear it.”

“We’re not willing to budge on this. My client insists on his right to the house. There are other areas where we could negotiate—”

“We are not negotiating anything until you and your client reach an agreement with us over Mister Hurwitz’s continued residence and ownership of his house. A house he purchased—”

“A house he purchased for my client and himself to reside in. This is obviously a joint property.”

Jake leans over to mutter in his lawyer's ear. “What’s, uh, what’s going on with the house?”

She looks at him like he’s insane, which is fair, but leans over to speak directly in his ear. “Amir wants the house, which is not good because you want to live in the house.”

She’s talking to him like he's a toddler, and he nods, even though he still doesn’t really understand. That guy just said he bought the house. Is this another Amir trick to try and steal his house from him?

“You can confer all you like, we aren’t changing our position. We honestly think the house is the least my client deserves, given the circumstances.”

He leans back over to whisper to Mackenzie again. “What are the circumstances?”

“Mostly that you’re a huge asshole,” she says, which Jake thinks is a little harsh.

“But what if I have, like, a family?”

“What?” She hisses louder than before, loud enough that Amir definitely heard, but takes a breath, whispering into his ear again. “Jake, tell me you’re joking. I cannot add ‘secret second family’ to your case file. They’ll eat us alive.”

“Second family? I don’t have a first family.”

She shakes her head like she feels bad for him. “Jake, I know you hate this, but like it or not, you’re still married until your divorce goes through. There's not anything that can change that, apart from getting through asset negotiations as quickly as possible so the court can approve it. This is the last chance to—"

“Wait— asset negotiation, like— like in a divorce?”

“Yes. I literally just said that.”

“I'm getting a divorce?”

“This cannot be new information to you. You're the one who filed for divorce.”

“I filed for divorce,” he echoes, trying to work through the pieces in his head, “I… I filed for divorce, from… Amir?”

For a second she looks even more angry than before. “What is this? What are you doing right now? Are you messing with me?”

“No! No.”

“Who else would you be getting a divorce from?”

He glances over at Amir on the other side of the table and he’s watching him, eyes sharp, head tilted. Jake wishes he could tell what he was thinking.

This all feels like a dream, like a weird nightmare he can't wake up from. There’s no universe in which he would actually willingly marry Amir. This has to be one of his tricks, Jake’s certain of it now. Obviously Amir wanted to ruin his life, or steal his house, or get back at Jake for moving away and leaving him. He’d probably even just pull this whole sick charade just for the attention, to get Jake to sit in the same room as him, even if it's through legal obligation. It must be a trick. He found a way to get Jake legally married to him against his will, probably ruin his reputation, and now he's trying to steal his stuff. That's classic Amir. Jake feels a renewed sense of anger at him, and doesnt even try to hide it.

“If you're not prepared for this, we can take a break,” Amir’s lawyer says, looking smug, and Jake wants nothing more than to slap the smarmy look off his face.

“Yeah, I could use a break,” Jake smiles, and everyone's eyes are on him but he doesn't care. The only gaze he can feel is Amir’s, eyes narrowed, questioning.

Mackenzie drops her head into her hands. “You were thirty minutes late and now you want a break?”

“I, actually, I'll just go grab a water, why don't you just keep going without me?” He lets out a shaky sigh, and gets up and leaves before he can even hear what words Mackenzie is yelling after him.

He spotted a watercooler back in reception and he really is thirsty. His head is still kind of pounding, and he downs the painkillers he brought from home, chasing them with a cool plastic cup of water.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Jake jumps so hard he drops his tiny plastic cup, and it splashes water all over his shoes. Great.

It's fucking Amir, because of course it is, following him around because he doesnt know how to do anything else.

“Jesus. You scared me, man.”

Amir is looking at him like he's trying to solve a puzzle, and Jake doesn't know what it is he’s seeing. He isn't sure he wants to know, but it doesn't really matter what he wants; Amir is always just gonna do whatever he pleases anyway.

“I didn't mean to scare you,” he starts, slowly, words pointed, “which you would know, if you were the real Jake. Which you're not.”

“What?” His voice is high and squeaky and defensive, and he feels like he's been caught in a lie he was trying desperately to pass off as the truth, even though he is, indisputably, the real Jake. “I don't know what you’re talking about. I'm normal.”

“You’re not yourself,” he says, cryptically, and Jake feels like he's seconds away from being busted, “so, tell me. What is it?”

Jake thinks for a little too long about whether to tell the truth or not. This is Amir; it's not like anyone would believe him, really, if he even tried to tell anyone, but then again, he could maybe use it against him. He's trying to steal Jake's house. He's probably looking for any information to give him an advantage.

Then again, he probably already has enough information about Jake to entirely ruin his life if he decided to. This is probably fine to add to the pile.

“I hit my head or something, earlier,” he explains, voice hushed, and Amir leans in with wide eyes, “I’ve, uh, forgot some stuff. My brain is a little scrambled.”

“Oh,” Amir is nodding like he at least believes him, which is good, but also Jake doesn't know what he's going to say about it, “how much stuff did you forget?”

He thinks about lying, but doesn’t know where to even start. “Just some. Just a little stuff. Time, mostly, and, uh, events. I don't remember what happened to me, or how I got there, or where I parked the car.”

“We all forget how we hit our heads and where we parked our car, Jake.” He shakes his head like this is obvious, scoffing. “What's the last thing you remember?”

“Uh. July 2009.”

“Oh. Jesus.”

Jake just nods, because he isn’t sure what else to do. “Yeah.”

“You don’t remember anything?”

“Not really,” he’s feeling the panic start to set in again, clawing up his throat, “I have no idea what's going on, and I’m pissed at you because I’m pretty sure you're trying to steal my house and I don’t really know why.”

Amir’s eyes go wide, like he’s realizing that Jake is serious. “You actually don’t know?”

“Why would I lie about this?”

“You lie all the time about all kinds of things.”

“No, I—” His instinct is to disagree, to get defensive, but he doesn't actually know. “Do I?”

“Yeah, you fucker.”

“Okay, so you’re still an asshole, which I assumed, but it’s nice to know I’m right.”

“Don’t assume, or we’ll both be asses!”

“That’s not the phrase. Are you trying to scam me with this whole divorce thing?”

Amir looks surprised. “Uh, no? I only want the house but you're being such a little bitch about it. How is that fair?”

“It’s not, it sounds like, because it’s my house.”

“You don’t even remember the house,” Amir says, which is true, but doesn’t mean Amir gets to live in it. Jake knew he shouldn't have told him.

“You heard what the lawyers said, man, I bought it. Which, last time I checked, makes it mine.”

“Well, you should check again, because you bought that house while you were married to me, bitch, which makes it ours.”

Jake scoffs, shaking his head. “Yeah, right. Look, I don’t know what legal loophole you found that lets you claim to the court that we’re married, but you need to knock it off.”

He looks so sad, and confused, and Jake isn’t sure what he said that hit so hard but he immediately feels bad, even over the layer of anger and annoyance he feels whenever he has to deal with Amir’s behavior. “You don’t remember, right, yeah. Well, it’s complicated.”

“Complicated? How is it complicated? Just stop.” This is the first thing that's felt easy since Jake woke up on the concrete all those hours ago. Being annoyed with Amir is his natural state, and it’s easy to slip back into, even in this unfamiliar situation. “Have you been following me around? Are you the one who hit me in the head?”

“No! Of course not. I would never do that to you, even if you are my ex husband-to-be.”

“Don’t say it like that, man, that makes it sound like we’re— you know, like we’re married.”

“We are married.”

“Yeah, I mean maybe, I don’t know. There’s no way it can be legally binding. I never would have agreed to it.”

Amir just laughs. “I don’t know what to tell you, Jake. Maybe you'll remember easier if you stop trying so hard to fill in the stuff you don’t remember with completely random shit.”

Jake rolls his eyes even though Amir maybe has a point. “I don’t need my memory back to know that I would never marry you. Even if I needed a green card, it still wouldn’t be worth the trouble. I’d rather get deported.”

“That’s harsh. That’s a harsh thing for a husband to say to another husband.”

“I wanna see the marriage certificate,” he says suddenly, and Amir looks pseudo offended, “show me the fucking paperwork, man. I’m not believing anything until I see the documents.”

Amir just shrugs. “Yeah, well how's this for poetic justice: I lost it.”

“You lost it.”

“Yeah,” he chuckles like it's a funny goof and not a missing important legal document, “so I guess we’ll just have to be divorced without it.”

“Why do you think we're married?”

“Why do you think we’re not?”

“Because, number one, that would be gay, and I'm not gay, but more importantly, because you're you, and I would never marry you. I mean, not more importantly. Equally important. I'm not gay. I’m happy for gay marriage, because I think gay people deserve it. I am not gay, though.”

“Oh my god,” Amir says, and he sounds so sad, “your amnesia made you forget that you're gay.”

“What?” Jake feels himself go back on the defensive, voice straining, but this is too much. “That's not true. I’m not gay. I've never been gay.”

“Bi, or whatever, then. Your amnesia made you forget that you're bi—”

“No—”

“You just said you don’t remember anything, man.”

“I would remember if I was gay,” he hisses, “or bi, or— I’ve not lost that many memories.”

“Okaaaay,” Amir says, head tilted, and he’s enjoying this a little too much, that asshole, “whatever you say, Jake. You’re not gonna get your memories back through denial, though.”

“I’m not going to get anything by listening to you. You’re trying to fill my head with lies. This is just like that movie, with the— the boat.”

His eyes go wide. “The Titanic?”

“How would this be like the Titanic?”

“Will you stop being a diva bitch and let me help you?”

“I don’t want help from you,” he says, even though he has no idea who else he could even try to get help from, “you’re unreliable, and you’re a moron, and you’re stalking me or something. All I ever do is ask you to leave me alone and you followed me all the way to LA.”

“Actually, you followed me here.”

Jake laughs. “That’s bullspit, man, total bullspit.”

“It’s true!”

“Why would I do that?”

He shrugs. “Because you loved me?”

Jake laughs. “If I loved you, then why would we be getting a divorce?”

“Because you’re a rat coward! You’re a— a— a— a diva roach!”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Look, even if you are being a coward factory right now, I’m still willing to put all that aside and help you. Ex husband to aspiring ex husband.”

“Why would I want your help?” He asks, but his resolve is wearing down, and something deep in his subconscious is telling him to trust Amir, to take the opportunity to let him help.

Amir just slaps him on the back, hard, like they're talking about sports teams or something. “Because, Jake, who knows more about you than me?”

Jake groans. Unfortunately, he has a point. He’s still too stubborn to admit it, but Amir is right.

“I don’t want help from you. I don’t want anything from you, man. Just leave me alone.”

“Too late, I’ve already started thinking of ideas. Also, in terms of my payment—”

“Absolutely not.”

“‘Don’t worry about it’, I was gonna say! Although, if you did want to throw a little payment my way—”

“I don’t.”

“Yeah, but I’m just saying, if you did—”

“I don’t, though.”

“Will you let me finish my shit at least, please? Can you give me that? Can I finish my shit?”

“I’m not paying you, man.”

“Of course, exactly right. And I wouldn’t expect you to. If you did, though—”

“I’m gonna go home,” he says, rubbing his forehead. He doesn’t even care if it means he fucks himself over in negotiation and Amir gets to steal his house. “Tell them I’m sick or something, I can’t go back in there and pretend like I know what they’re talking about.”

Amir smiles, nodding like he’s excited. “Okay, yeah, sounds good. Where are we going, like to brunch, or somewhere a little more mellow?”

“I am going home. To my house.”

“Nice, a little less exciting than a brunch, but I’m sure we can make it special in our own way.”

He puts a hand on Amir’s chest to stop him from bounding forward, too eager. “Alone. I’m going home to my house alone.”

“Yeah, alone, exactly right, just you and me.”

“Just me,” he says, stressing it, hoping that Amir can take the hint and leave him alone. It would be the first time ever, probably, but he can dream.

“Oh, if you think I’m misunderstanding your signals, ass, then you’re dead wrong. I’m just ignoring them.”

“Amir—”

“Hey, I’ll drive. Since you don’t have your car.”

Amir doesn’t know how to drive, or at least, he didn’t, from what Jake can remember of him. It makes Jake nervous to climb in the car with him, even though he’s definitely been spending too much money getting cabs everywhere. “Shouldn’t you at least tell those guys we’re leaving?”

“They’ll figure it out. Like this is the first time we’ve left in the middle of divorce mediation.”

He laughs while he turns to leave, like they actually do it a lot, and Jake feels the panic returning again, along with shame and regret and heartbreak so strong he could cry from it, overwhelming him all at once like the crashing of a wave. It’s so strong he stumbles. He has no idea where it came from, but it hurts like hell. His eyes are glued to Amir, watching him, so familiar yet so different, and there's a pang in his heart like he’s unlocked something, but he isn’t sure what yet.

Amir is a terrible driver.

Jake wishes he'd never got into the fucking car with him. He's definitely gonna kill them both, and Jake is gonna die not even knowing what the fuck is going on in his possibly-sad possibly-dope life. 

He expected Amir to be bad, so it's not like it's even a surprise. Jake let this happen. Now Amir is taking sharp corners at sixty and Jake has to hold on for his fucking life. 

"Can you please slow down?"

Amir shrugs and hits the break so hard it sends them both forward in their seats, Jake's head almost hitting the dashboard. 

Amir looks smug, like he didn't just almost kill them both. "Is this better for you, you princess ass?"

"It almost gave me a goddamn brain injury. Another one. I'm pretty sure they don't let you have more than one on the same day."

"It would have just knocked your memories back in, jeez. Relax, man." Amir sounds so sure for how wrong he is, and it rubs Jake up the wrong way.

"You wanna know what I think? I think you're full of shit. You don't know what you're talking about and also we're both gonna die— too slow now, bud."

"God, slow down, speed up, all you do is freaking nag me. How about telling me I'm doing a good job? How about telling me you're proud of me?"

"Proud of you? You drive like a maniac," Jake shivers as a car brushes past them, far too close, "you have to stay in your lane, Amir. Who even taught you to drive?"

"You did, dillweed , and you honestly did a pretty terrible job," he laughs, honking the horn at no one in particular, "move asses!"

"They are moving."

"Not very fast!"

"Faster than you, though, right?"

"Yeah, because you nagged me and told me to slow down so now I'm trapped here with these— these asses."

"Stop saying ass so much," Jake shakes his head, trying to focus, "did I really teach you to drive?"

"Yeah, when we first got to LA," there's a shift in Amir, a change in the tone of his voice, and he sounds happy and wistful in a way Jake doesn't think he's heard him sound since he came back to New York, "we went on this big roadtrip all the way across the country, and you got mad at me because I couldn't drive the RV, so you had to do all the driving. Then like a week later you forced me into your car and yelled at me until I learned how to drive."

"Huh."

It's hard to know if he should believe Amir about things he says they've done. Amir is a loose cannon; he'd lie just for the hell of it, and that's without the potential reward of sculpting memoryless Jake to be whatever kind of guy he wishes he was. That's exactly what Jake would do, probably. He'd at least think about it, for sure. He doesn't know if trusting Amir is even worth the trouble, but something pulls in Jake's heart when he talks, like maybe they did have a road trip, and maybe it meant something to Jake, too.

Amir is actively scamming him with this whole divorce thing, though, so it's hard to say.

They reach the house in what Jake has to assume is record time, even with Amir driving at a crawl for the last quarter, and he swerves into the driveway, slamming the car into park.

"Jesus, dude."

Amir is already getting out of the car, though, unlocking the front door with his own key which Jake is pretty sure he shouldn't have, and Jake just has to scramble after him and attempt to mitigate any damage he might do.

"Why do you even have a key?"

"Because it's my house too, Jake, we share it. Remember?" Amir punctuates his words by flicking Jake in the forehead, definitely hard enough to leave a mark, and opens the door, heading inside.

"No, I don't remember, ass, that's the whole point," he watches Amir's face as he looks around, eyebrows furrowed, and Jake narrows his eyes, "is there a problem?"

Amir shrugs. "No. I was just surprised by what you've done with the place, is all. It's, uh, it's different."

"Is it?" Jake looks around, frantically clawing at his memory, trying to remember what he did, what he changed, but there's nothing, save for a general feeling of loneliness. He suddenly feels self conscious about the bare walls, about the dishes piled high in the sink, even though he doesn't know how any of it came to be. 

Amir's nodding, walking around slowly like he's appraising pieces at an art gallery. "It is. It's, like, empty."

It doesn't feel empty. There's stuff everywhere, it feels like; letters and flyers and takeout containers, empty liquor bottles on almost every surface, clothes Jake doesn't even recognize lying limp on the floor. "What do you mean?"

"You've got rid of most of your stuff," he says, and Jake has no fucking idea why he would do that, "so the house looks empty. And sad."

"Why would I do that?" He asks it more to himself than to Amir, barely loud enough to fill the room, but Amir shrugs again, eyes shifting.

"I don't know. Maybe you're depressed or something."

"I'm not depressed. I would know if I were depressed," he's just being defensive, but he actually doesn't know anything about his life, really, except for what he's figured out, "maybe my girlfriend didn't like... everything. All of my stuff."

Amir looks upset for a second, but it turns suspicious fast enough that Jake isn't sure he really saw it. "You don't actually have a girlfriend, right?"

"I do. There's makeup in my upstairs bathroom. Why else would that be there?"

"Oh, it's probably mine. I left some here when I left." 

"You wear makeup?" Amir nods like it's not even a crazy thing to admit to, and Jake shakes his head. "I don't think so, man. No way. You might be actually weird enough to do that, but it was on the counter. It was out. Someone definitely just used it."

"Was it you?"

"What? No," he says, but remembers earlier, the smudges, the weird grime while he was washing his face in the shower. Why would he wear makeup? He would never, not even as a joke. That's the kind of thing that gets gay rumors started about you, and Jake would never risk it. "I'm not gay. I wouldn't do that."

"Okay, well, first of all, wearing makeup doesn't make you gay, you toxic homophobic fuck. And second of all, you are gay. You're gay married to another man. The faster you stop denying it, the faster we can work on cracking your little memory safe."

Amir makes a gesture like he's breaking into a tiny safe, and Jake rolls his eyes.

“My memory safe is not 'little'," he mumbles, far too defensive even to his own ears, "and I'm not gay."

"Whatever, Jake, I'm sick of this. Can we please start getting your memory back now?"

"How?"

"I thought you had a plan?"

"What? Why?" Amir just laughs and Jake is so fucking angry at him, at the whole fucked up situation, at everyone in the goddamn world, but mostly him. It doesn't even matter that they're in the future or whatever, Amir is so similar to the way he usually is, purposefully obtuse and idiotic and irritating and suddenly something hits like a spear through the brain, pain sharp and shooting. It's not a memory, exactly. It's more like a feeling, or maybe the memory of a feeling, an emotion that isn't his burning through his veins and roiling in his stomach. It's like deja vu but stronger, and it hurts his head like he's been hit all over again. He's so pissed, pissed at Amir for always being here and always being too much like himself and always causing problems and for fucking leaving him—

He doesn't know when he closed his eyes, but he feels Amir's arms holding him up like he might collapse, one hand on Jake's cheek, and it's so unexpectedly tender that it jolts Jake right back into the present moment. He's shaking like a scared chihuahua, barely supporting his own weight, and Amir's thumb is brushing against his stubble and Jake can feel the motion all the way down to his toes. He didn't feel it before, but now that he's here, he can feel it like a rash; his body fucking yearns for Amir's touch, craves it like he's starving, and he didn't even realize until he got to feel it. 

His hand moves without him even telling it to, grasping at Amir's wrist, and Amir leads them to the couch, threading their fingers together as Jake all but collapses onto it.

He lets it happen. He feels like he needs it, like he doesn't even know what would happen if he let go of Amir's hand. He's grounding him, and Jake tries to breathe, tries to stop shaking and will his heartbeat to calm down the way the pain in his head has slowed to a dull ache. Amir is just there, watching him, holding him, and Jake feels like he could cry, even if he doesn't really understand why. There are tears pushing at his eyes and he uses all the strength he has left to will them away, and hopes Amir doesn't notice.

Amir looks shaken. He looks scared, which is an emotion Jake isn't all that used to seeing on Amir. Sure, he frightens, like an easily startled wild animal, but it's not like he's scared. He's holding so still around him, and when Jake shifts to push his hair off his forehead, Amir moves away all at once, like he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't. Jake feels his absence immediately, like he would a knife to the chest or a fist to the gut, but he tries not to show it, even if the burn of tears behind his eyes threatens to fall more than they did before.

"Is— are you—" Amir swallows hard, and Jake has no idea why he seems so nervous all of a sudden, "do you remember again?"

“No,” he answers quickly, and watches as Amir very obviously sighs in relief, “I just felt… weird. Maybe I felt a memory? I don't know.”

Amir is nodding along a little too much, like he's putting more effort into looking like he’s listening than he is actually listening. “That’s interesting.”

“Why were you so nervous when you thought I remembered?”

“I wasn't,” Amir says before Jake has even finished talking, “it was fine, it was normal.”

“No it wasn’t,” he’s still shaken from whatever that was, but all he can focus on is Amir. It's like the entire world has narrowed down to just this, here. Just them, sitting on the couch, a cold ghost of a feeling where Amir’s hand was gripping his. “C'mon. Talk to me.”

His skin burns with want, itching to reach back out and interlock their fingers again, but he pushes down the feeling. It's nice to have something feel familiar for once in a way that doesn't feel like trying to access a hidden secret; it's not the first time he's felt this inexplicable desire to have Amir close to him, however small the point of connection. He came back, didn't he? He came back from California, at least the first time, and Jake can remember the feeling. A want so strong it clawed its way up his throat. Desire so potent he didn't even really understand it; he barely knew what he was doing, and he definitely didn't know why, he just knew he needed to come back. It wasn't until he saw Amir, had him in his fucking arms, that he even felt like he could breathe again.

The whole thing is still so fresh in his mind. It feels like it just happened; it was only a few months ago, to him, yet to Amir it's probably a lifetime away. Jake wonders if Amir even remembers. Does Jake even remember? He doesn't know if that's how this works, but he feels like he couldn't forget. It feels like too much of a feeling for Jake to ever be able to unfeel it, even if he doesn't really get it. Maybe future Jake figured it out. Maybe Amir actually was telling the truth, he thinks, and the thought is fucking terrifying, but maybe that's why Jake followed him here, all the way across the country.

"It's nothing, Jake," Amir shrugs, but he's still and stilted and awkward and Jake can read him well enough to know that he's uncomfortable, "I just... I know that when you remember, you're gonna be mad at me. I like this baby version of you. You got way less mad at me back then."

He sounds so sad that it hurts Jake's heart to look at him, but he can't look away, eyes trained on his every movement. It feels like he's getting somewhere, at least a little bit; he feels like his head is swimming with emotions that aren't his, and guilt for actions he doesn't remember, but it's more than he had before. Slivers and flashes are better than nothing, even as he's still coming up empty for actually remembering his life. He tries to chase it, tries to follow the feeling to the accompanying memory, but it's hard, like his own brain is locking him out of accessing it on purpose.

"I got mad at you back then," he says, choosing his words carefully even though he has no idea whether it's the right thing to say, "you probably just don't remember. The nostalgia covers up the bad stuff."

"Yeah, maybe, maybe," Amir is nodding, but Jake can tell there's more, there's something here that he's not getting, something that he's just not seeing, "are you mad at me now?"

"I was," he answers honestly, "not so much anymore. It wore off, I guess. It like— unlocked part of my brain or something. That's what it felt like."

"Oh, so the way to get your memories back is to just get really really really pissed off?"

"I don't think—" Amir is already kicking the coffee table over before he's even finished speaking, sending empty bottles clattering to the ground, and anger wells up inside him again. "You ass, don't do that."

"Is it working?"

"No!"

"Are you sure? Because you didn't give it much of a chance."

He raises his leg and Jake puts his hand on Amir's knee just to stop him from doing it again, and tries to ignore the full body feeling of relief that comes from the physical contact.

"I don't think that's gonna work. It's just gonna make things worse."

"I mean, it can't hurt to try, right?"

"It absolutely can. My head is pounding and it made an extremely loud, horrible noise. Please don't do it again."

Amir rolls his eyes but acquiesces, holding up his hands in defeat. “Okay, so what now?”

Jake isn't sure. He knows that that's the closest he's felt to actually feeling the memories of this weird future self. He felt like they were right there, like he could almost reach them for a second. He felt so angry, disproportionately, he knows, that it was like it flipped a switch inside his brain. Like he burned with a heat so hot that for a second he could melt down his defenses, at least a little bit.

He swallows hard. He doesn’t really know how to articulate any of this. He barely even understands it, he just thinks maybe it's something, or a fraction of something. It's not enough, but right now that fraction of something is all he has. "You say I get mad at you a lot, right? So maybe it's a strong emotional memory. Maybe experiencing emotions that are strong enough is making it easier to get to the memories with that emotion. Or something."

"What, like deja vu, but it actually happened?"

"Yeah. Kinda— well. Exactly like that." Amir looks like he's thinking, considering the words, and Jake reluctantly wills himself to move his hand off Amir's leg. "Please don't kick the coffee table again."

“I wasn’t gonna! Wow.”

“Yes, you were, I could tell.”

“Enough. More than enough, actually. You’re making a martyr of me.”

“I can’t deal with this right now, my head is pounding,” he rubs his hand over his face again, trying to press away some of the sting, but the pressure only relieves the feeling for a second before he’s back to the same level of pain, “can we just be quiet?”

Amir is nodding, but Jake doesn’t have that much faith in his ability to actually be quiet for any amount of time. “Absolutely. Hey, why don't you lie down, have a snooze or whatever, and I’ll try to find wherever you've put all of your shit. Maybe you’ve stashed pictures or something somewhere that’ll jog your memory.”

“Maybe,” he answers, but Jake doesn't think so. He searched this house from top to bottom looking for anything, and came up basically empty.

Amir jumps up, giving Jake a pat on the thigh, and shoots up the stairs, clearly happy to be helping in his own way. Jake’s just happy he’s gone upstairs, leaving the downstairs quiet enough that he can close his eyes and get a few minutes of rest. He’s fucking exhausted.

“Do you even love me anymore?”

(Of course I do. I could never stop loving you. That's all I know how to do.)

“Why would you ask me that?”

“You’re such an asshole. Why can’t you ever just say what you mean?”

(I love you.)

“Yeah? What do I mean? Since you know every single fucking thing about me. What do I mean, Amir?”

“You’re so insecure. You’re gonna spend forever being a dick to me because of your garbage self esteem or whatever.”

(I’m sorry.)

“You’re an idiot. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

“Yes, I do. I know you Jake. You know that.”

(I know.)

“You’re pathetic. You’re absolutely pathetic.”

“I can’t do this anymore.”

It feels like all of the air has been sucked out of the room all at once, like his blood has gone still in his veins. This is all so wrong. He never meant for this. This isn’t what he wanted.

“What are you talking about?”

“Maybe we should take a break.”

He can’t breathe. Everything is crashing down around him and he can’t fucking breathe.

“A break?”

“Yeah. Get some space for a while.”

He wants to cry but he can’t. He’s angry and he’s exhausted and he’s humiliated and he wants to fucking cry, but he cant, he can’t do anything because Amir is still right there. He’s right there and he wants to leave him just like Jake always knew he would, eventually. It’s not fair. He's scared, he's fucking terrified. He has what he’s always wanted and he’s fucked it all up, just like he knew would, just like everyone knew he would, and now Amir is leaving him, and Jake can’t do it. He’s pissed at Amir and he fucking hates himself. He hates himself and he’s angry at himself and he can’t handle Amir leaving him. He’s lost his footing and he’s falling, and he needs to claw the high ground back.

“Fuck you. I want a divorce.”

He opens his eyes, squinting against the dim light that's barely filling the room, and it takes him a second to adjust to his surroundings, to remember where he is and what's going on. He fell asleep on the couch. Amir is perched on the couch with him, gently shaking him awake, or as gentle as Amir gets. He’s saying his name softly, and for a moment this feels so normal and domestic and soft that Jake smiles, and it takes him a little too long to remember that he doesn't remember.

“Amir?” He mumbles, rubbing a hand across his eyes. It’s dark in here now, with only one small lamp turned on, and it casts shadows over Amir’s face that make him look older, that remind Jake of his situation. 

“Hi,” he’s smiling down at Jake and reaches out to brush his hair off his forehead, pressing the back of his hand against Jake’s head. Jake has no idea if he knows what he’s doing or if he’s just copying what he’s seen people do in movies, but his hand lingers there before he pulls it away. “I ordered a pizza. I thought it might be good for you to have some food.”

“Pizza?” Jake laughs, incredulous, knocking against Amir as he stretches out to get comfortable. “No noogs?”

“I’ve been known to enjoy a noog in my time. Not tonight, though.” He pushes himself up off the couch, stretching until his shoulder cracks. “You’re the one with the traumatic brain injury, so I got your favorite.”

The edge of Amir's shirt pulls up when he stretches, and Jake watches, eyes glued to the strip of pale skin, to the way Amir's arms flex. Jake bites his lip.

There's no way. 

He cannot do this. He absolutely cannot do this. Not ever, but especially not now. He can't be pathetic enough that Amir is sweet to him one time and now he's...

He's not anything. It doesn't matter. His heart is fucking racing but it doesn't matter. He feels the way he did on that plane back to New York, the same feeling in his chest as he did when he walked through the CollegeHumor doors and made eye contact with him after so long away. He didn't know what it was, back then, or at least he wasn't willing to dive deep enough to identify it. That was only a few months ago, for him, but he still feels different. He feels a lifetime of experience between then and now, even if he can't remember it. Which is maybe why he can tell for the first time what this feeling is, this drive to always have Amir as close as possible. He feels the buzzing of desire settling under his skin like a blanket of fresh snow, the feeling driving him forward to do something, anything, just like it did when he got back to New York.

The dream tugs at the edges of Jake's consciousness, already starting to fade, but he considers it, even though it's confusing enough to barely be helpful. He has to assume it's a memory, right? It felt like a memory, emotional and raw and real in a way his dreams usually aren't. It could just be the events of the day weighing on him, though. Giving him weird dreams. He's got a lot on his mind, and it could be that his fucked up brain is just regurgitating it all in a different format.

Because if the dream is real, if it really is a memory, then...

Then what? Jake actually married Amir? He wouldn't. He would never do that. Right? It felt real, in the dream, emotional and raw and painful, but it could still be a trick, he supposes. Amir could still be using some fake marriage to scam him out of his possessions. Of course Jake asked for a divorce. That's the only situation where this makes sense. 

He watches Amir head over to the kitchen, opening cabinets looking for any clean plates and not finding any (and not closing any of the cabinets, either). He'd seemed so sad, in the dream. Jake was so angry, and Amir looked so sad. He'd been a dick, but it seems like Amir maybe had them forcibly married, so he was probably justified.

He can't stop thinking about Amir's face in the dream. Do you even love me anymore, he'd asked, and Jake hadn't even answered. It's such an Amir thing to say, to randomly assume that Jake loved him, that they were in love. 

It didn't feel like that, though. It didn't feel like Amir was manipulating him into a corner, forcing him to engage with a fucked up fake marriage scam. It felt real. 

Jake hates to admit it, but a good detective considers all the clues, and if he's gonna be a detective then he's gonna be a good one. So he has to admit, there is a slight possibility, however small, that there's more to this Amir marriage thing than the short lived scam Jake had assumed it to be.

Someone rings the doorbell, and Amir trips over himself to answer it, coming back into the room with a pizza box balancing under one arm.

Jake practically jumps up off the couch. "Careful with that!" He puts an arm under the box to counterbalance where Amir was about to drop it, and guides it to the coffee table, sitting back down on the couch. 

"Dinner is served!" Amir looks pleased and opens the pizza box with a flourish, preening like he cooked it.

Jake rolls his eyes. "Yes it is. Thank you for not trying to cook right now. My head couldn't take it."

"I'll let that one go because you have amnesia or whatever the fuck, but you should know that I am an excellent cook."

"I don't believe you."

"You shouldn't," Amir nods, grabbing a slice of pizza and what Jake is pretty sure is a dirty plate, "I was lying."

Jake laughs, and between the food and the rest he's feeling a lot better, at least physically. "At least you admitted it."

"Admitting it is always the first step."

"What's the second step?"

"Not admitting it?"

"That's sort of a backwards step, right?" Jake has no idea why he feels so okay all of a sudden. He should still be worried; he still doesn't have his memories back, still has no idea what he's doing or why, and now he's eating dinner with Amir of all people and things feel fine. Better than fine, actually. He doesn't necessarily remember enough to contextualize it, but he feels for the first time in a long time that he's exactly where he's supposed to be. 

Amir is picking the cheese off his pizza for reasons Jake doesn't understand, but looks so happy to be just eating the sauce covered base that Jake doesn't say anything about it. It's just one of those Amir-isms Jake has had to acclimatize to, he supposes. It's almost cute, the way his nose wrinkles in concentration as he tries to peel it off in one smooth layer. Jake catches himself thinking it a second too late, has to wipe the sappy look off of his face before Amir notices that Jake has been looking at him a little too much for a little too long.

"Oh!" Amir gasps, mouth full of pizza, "I found some stuff in the attic while you were asleep. I thought it might help, you know, remind you about your life."

Jake didn't even realize this place had an attic, but Amir scurries off and drags over a dilapidated cardboard box full of assorted stuff. He eats his slice as fast as he can so he can move over and have a look at it, dig through the contents and see how they make him feel.

He can tell without even touching it that there isn't that much. There's three different kites, which is exciting but doesn't exactly bring back a lot of memories other than that he remembers he loves kites, which he already knew. He pulls them out one by one, trying not to get too distracted admiring them, but they're seriously nice. Holding them in his hands feels incredible. One of them is a trick kite, striped pink and purple and blue, double handled and sturdy and Jake can see it flying in his mind, swooping and diving and spinning. He doesn't know if it's a memory, or just his imagination, but it's breathtaking.

Amir clears his throat. "Soooo... do you remember... kites?"

He smiles. "Yes, Amir, I remember kites."

He doesn't remember ever telling Amir how important kites were to him, but he probably found out the same way he finds out everything about Jake— relentless stalking. 

Or maybe you told him, says the little voice inside his head, maybe you confide in him things that would be too scary for other people to know. 

Maybe you do love him, the voice says, and it sounds a lot like Amanda saying who is obsessed with who here?

"You like kites," Amir says slowly, coaching him, "you like to fly your kite."

He's trying to help but it makes Jake laugh. "Yeah, I know. I remember that."

"Is this unraveling any memories for you?"

"Unraveling?" 

"Yeah."

"Like they're all wound up in my brain?"

"Yeah."

"No," he says, turning the kite over in his hands, "this thing is so pimp, though."

"You bought it for Pride a few years ago but you were too nervous to fly it."

That feels like a lot to unpack, and he isn't sure where to start, so he just swallows hard and places the kite on the floor next to the box. "It'd be so cool to take it out. See it in the sky." 

"We should, it might help you remember kites."

"I already remember kites."

"It might help you remember other things, then. Like the sky."

"I remember the sky," he says just because he feels like he should, even though he knows Amir is just talking to fill the space.

Underneath the kites there's some more things, though none of it jogs any particular memories on first inspection. 

Amir leans over his shoulder, trying to talk him through it. "That's a bunch of your articles from the website, and that's your favorite yellow belt, and that's from your first day at CollegeHumor—"

"I already remember all this stuff—"

"Let me finish! Okay? And that's from your first day at CollegeHumor."

"...Okay, so you were finished."

"You barely gave me time to breathe!"

"I already remember all of this. Do I not have any stuff from the last ten years?"

Amir shrugs. "I couldn't find any. I took most of the important stuff when I left, and I think you threw everything else out or something."

"What? Why?"

"You said you didn't want any of it," he says, and Jake isn't sure why but he feels a pang in his chest at that, "you said you wanted it gone. Even though this is gonna be my house, pretty soon, so, you know. You were kind of an ass for that."

He's quiet for a long moment, thinking, brain turning over all the information. He remembers the dream; how angry he'd felt, how bitter. Maybe he did want everything gone. He wishes he could remember what he was so angry about, whether Amir deserved it. He wishes he could remember what their relationship was in the blank space of his memory. 

"Why—" he doesn't know if he can bring himself to ask. He doesn't know if he even wants to know, really, but he feels driven to it, like this is the piece he has to figure out to have any hope at finishing the puzzle. "Why was I so mad at you?"

Amir shrugs again, but this time he looks less sure. "You were mad at everyone. I think you just didn't like how your life turned out."

He furrows his eyebrows, thinking. "What?"

"You were sick of me and you never liked LA and you took it out on everyone. You blamed me for a lot of it, just because I brought us here and I got us fired, which is bullshit, but also true."

"We got fired?"

"Oh yeah, big time. I'm pretty sure they have a restraining order against us."

"What do we do now?" He didn't mean to say we, he meant to say I, or you, but his subconscious takes the wheel like he knows whatever they ended up doing, they do it together.

Amir smiles. "We work at a podcast network."

"Doing what?"

"What?"

"What do we do there?"

Amir laughs like Jake is being dense. "What are you talking about, man?"

"Like, what's our job?"

"I don't know, fucking— content, or whatever the fuck. Does it matter?"

"Yes? How do you not know what we do at our job?"

"You don't know either, ass."

"I have amnesia, ass!"

He shakes his head, and Jake feels ridiculous for almost thinking he was hot earlier. "You didn't know before the amnesia, man. No one does. It's like a mystery"

"It's not like a mystery. We must have jobs."

"Whatever."

"Not whatever. You really don't know what we do?"

"It's fine. It's fun. We get to work in the same office, which was great until you started divorcing my ass." He laughs like it's a joke, but it's stilted like he doesn't mean it. "Now it's pretty awkward."

Jake nods, and moves back over to the couch, grabbing another slice of pizza. "That's... good to know."

"Did any of that stuff help?"

Jake is quiet for a moment, thinking it over, but he can already tell it hasn't worked. "Not really."

"Oh. That sucks," Amir flops down next to him and grabs his plate, starting to peel the cheese off a fresh slice, "how about some pictures? There aren't any left here I think, but I've got some on my phone."

"You do?"

"Yeah. Well, maybe." He digs his phone out of his pocket and it's the same as Jake's, smooth and thin and futuristic. "I break my phone a lot so it depends. You were being a real queen douche to me so I can't remember if I imported any or not."

Jake doesn't completely understand that, but nods anyway, because he can get enough of it through context clues. Amir is scrolling through his phone, the same kind that Jake has, he thinks, and Jake tries to lean over to watch him, but he shields it from his eyes.

"Hey! Mind your own bitchness."

"This is my bitchness," Jake frowns but leans back, allowing Amir the space, "what are you hiding from me?"

"Nothing, okay, but you can't just be looking over my shoulder all the time. Stealing glances at my most private thoughts."

"What?" Jake laughs, but Amir's face is crinkled up in distress. "You do it to me every single day."

"Yeah, in the past. You don't get to look at my phone anymore. You don't get to steal my secrets and sell them on the dark web. That's a husband privilege."

"I thought you said we're still married. I still get husband privileges, right?"

"Wrong, wrong, wrong. You lost your husband privileges when you started trying to divorce me and take the house."

"You keep saying trying. I'm not trying to divorce you— I am divorcing you."

"Enough. Absolutely enough. You don't even know what you're doing. You don't even remember our marriage, man. You don't know jack cock."

Jake rolls his eyes, but his mind lingers, even while Amir is searching his phone for pictures. He watches Amir, his face focused as he scrolls, and he catches sight of his own hand again when he goes to take a sip of his soda. It feels like a lifetime ago, the first time he saw the ring on his hand and wondered what it meant. He still wonders what it means, really, since all the answers he's found have only led to more questions. It's been— a lot, this day, but the evening has actually been kind of nice, against all odds. Just him and Amir, eating dinner and hanging out. The reality of his situation is hanging over him like a boulder, but it feels more manageable when he's locked in a verbal sparring match with Amir. It makes sense, it feels easy. It feels good, like he's right where he's supposed to be, which is a vaguely terrifying thought. 

He looks at the ring, watches it glint in the light. It only now occurs to him to wonder why he's wearing it, if he's locked in litigation over a sham marriage, trying to knuckle through a divorce he asked for. Maybe it's to get dates, though it does seem like he doesn't get out much.

Amir flips his phone around to show Jake the screen. "Here! Our wedding day. It was so beautiful. I wept, not that you could blame me."

It's a picture of them sitting at desks in an office building he doesn't recognize, but from the background he can gather that it  seems to be a CollegeHumor office. Jake is squinting at the camera and looking annoyed, and Amir has his arm thrown around Jake's neck, looking thrilled. Jake already has a hand raised to try and push him off, and the picture is blurry like Amir took it suddenly, like he does to Jake all the time, even back when he can remember. He's holding up a certificate Jake can barely make out the words on, except that it says 'marriage certificate' and is covered in lipstick.

Jake sighs. Yeah, of course. The marriage was bullshit all along. He suspected as much. He shouldn't have let himself get swept up into Amir's fiction and actually start to consider it could be true. 

All that introspection was for nothing. Oh well.

Jake shakes his head. "Right, so, there was no real marriage."

"What are you talking about, man?" Amir grins, gesturing to the picture. "That was the day we became wed. It was the first day of the rest of our lives!"

"Everyday is the first day of the rest of your life."

"Woah. That's so inspirational. Can I quote you on that for my memoir?"

He feels inexplicably betrayed, like he's lost something even though he never had it, and he blames himself for even listening to Amir in the first place. Of course they weren't really married. He doesn't know how Amir twisted him into almost believing that they were. 

"I, uh—" He doesn't know what he wants to say. He's angry at Amir for wasting their time, he's annoyed about this whole situation, and he's unexpectedly crushed to figure out that their marriage was never real. The dream was just a dream, or he misinterpreted it, or he just fucking made it up, it doesn't matter. He's fucking exhausted. "I think I'm gonna go to bed for the night. I'm still pretty tired."

"You don't wanna see more pictures?" Amir asks, vaguely confused, but Jake shakes his head.

"I'd rather just get some sleep. Maybe after a full night's rest my brain will just reset itself, right?"

That's almost definitely not how this works, but he knows Amir doesn't know enough to argue with it, and he nods, unsure. "Okaaaay. If you want. I'm gonna stay here, though. I don't think you should be all by yourself."

"No way, man," Jake says, because he absolutely cannot trust his body to not start responding to laying in bed next to Amir the same way it did when he was being all domestic and shit, "I'm not sharing a bed with you."

"Of course not," Amir laughs, "I'll sleep in the bed. You can just sleep on the couch."

"I am not sleeping on the couch in my own house."

"It's my house too, and you don't wanna share the bed. Besides, it might be good for you to sleep on the couch. Might help you remember."

"How?"

"Well, when we were together you slept on the couch a lot. So. Familiar activities, right?"

"Right. Were we 'together' or did you maybe just forge a marriage certificate and convince the state of California that it was real enough to warrant divorce proceedings?"

"The, uh. The first one? Could you repeat the question?"

Jake shakes his head. "Nevermind. You obviously have no idea what you're even talking about, so it's pointless to argue with you."

"Wow," Amir says, dragging it out, "you're clearly on the right track back to memory town, given how quickly you've re-earned your bitchly patch."

" What?" He asks, and Amir just laughs, "what the fuck are you talking about? What does that even mean?"

"It means you're mean— means. You're a meansie to me."

Jake just stares at him. He was an idiot for ever thinking Amir could even maybe help him. "God, I can't do this. Can you just go away?"

"Fine," Amir snips, straightening up and walking towards the stairs, "but only because you asked nicely."

"No I didn't," he mumbles, but Amir is already gone.

He's too exhausted to feel bad, really, but he does. Amir is always an ass to him, both now and in Jake's memories. He shouldn't feel bad, he should feel good, like he's finally getting somewhere. He should be proud of himself for standing up against Amir's batshit crazy and not letting himself get broken down. 

He doesn't feel good, though. He feels like an asshole. He wishes he could be more mad at himself for never having the balls to finally ditch Amir, but he remembers trying, remembers how that turned out. He thinks he knows why, as much as he ignores it. It seems maybe like it's still an issue.

Jake doesn't trust Amir as far as he can throw him, so trying to figure out the exact nature of their relationship is proving difficult. The more it hangs over his head, the more he thinks about it— there's a possibility that he is attracted to Amir. It hurts his brain to think about, head pounding. It's such a fucking stressful thought it makes him feel sick, anxiety churning his stomach, and he does his breathing-counting again just to try and settle his heart. He knows he likes girls. He's not that repressed. He likes making out with them, having sex with them. He thinks girls are hot. Does he think guys are hot? He thinks everyone does, probably, because some guys are hot, indisputably. Like the guy from My Chemical Romance. He likes girls, so he's not gay just because he thinks some guys are hot. Right?

Amir had said he was bi, though, which is— Jake has never really considered it before. He's been so desperate to prove himself as not gay that he didn't really think about the idea that he could be something else. He likes girls. Does he like dudes the same way he likes girls? He's spent so long fighting against any thoughts his brain could possibly deem as gay that he isn't sure. He thinks he might. He thinks he could be attracted to men. He could want to sleep with a man, maybe, could be attracted to a hot dude the same way he would a hot girl. He could have a thing for anyone, probably, as long as they were hot and normal and not insane.

He maybe possibly has a thing for Amir, though, which is becoming more and more difficult to justify. He'd chalk it up to future Jake having terrible taste, but worst of all, he thinks he maybe possibly always has. There's no roadmap for it; the way he feels about Amir isn't like anything he's ever felt for anyone, girl or guy. He doesn't really know what it is or how to handle it or how he's dealt with it for the last fourteen years.

Amir and his fake marriage certificate have got to Jake's head, and now he's having an identity crisis.

The marriage certificate was definitely fake, too. Which means the marriage is almost definitely fake. Jake isn't sure why he'd even go along with it. Even if he does have... complicated feelings about the whole situation, he can't imagine himself ever agreeing to something like that. He always figured he'd get married; probably pretty young, to a nice girl, and buy a house with a white picket fence and have some kids and just generally do all the normal family things. That's what his parents did. That's what he expected for himself, what he wanted, to be a normal guy with a normal life that makes him a normal amount of happy. That's what he's always dreamed of— normalness. A normalness so strong it can cover up the feeling in his chest that's always been there that he's different to everyone else, that there's something deep and intrinsic wrong with him that he wishes he could will away but he can't. He dreams that one day he'll wake up and everyone around him won't be able to tell just from looking at him that he doesn't really know how to fit in, no matter how hard he tries, and fuck does he try hard. He isn't sure what it is; it's just a sense that he's fucked up, on a fundamental level, and he wants so bad to just be like everyone else. To not feel like an outsider with everyone.

Well. Almost everyone.

He pulls his phone from where it's charging, and types attracted to men? in the search bar. He meant what he said about needing some sleep, but right now, he needs research first.

"Jake—" 

Jake doesn't answer, just keeps mouthing along the juncture of Amir's neck, revelling in the way his stubble scratches against Jake's own. His hand moves up the front of Amir's chest, under his shirt, feeling his hot skin as his mouth makes its way down to kiss his shoulder.

"Amir," Jake mumbles, and turns his head to meet his eyes, "I love you."

Amir smiles, soft and tender, eyes wide and loving, and all of a sudden the scene shifts, the world warping around them and Amir's eyes shining with tears of a different kind.

"Do you even love me anymore?"

He remembers this, Jake has been here before, he's seen this— this memory? This dream? He isn't sure. He doesn't have control over himself, he's forced to just watch as he spits at Amir, vitriolic. "Why would you ask me that?”

“You’re such an asshole. Why can’t you ever just say what you mean?”

The world changes again in a flash of color, and he's back on the couch, Amir's breath catching as he drags kisses across his collarbones. Amir pushes him off and pulls his shirt over his head, and Jake's eyes track the movement, watching his chest, his arms, his happy trail, hand reaching out to touch.

He's not touching Amir, he's holding divorce papers, throwing them down on the table hard enough that a few loose sheets spin out from the folder. Mackenzie tries to put a hand on his shoulder but he shrugs her off, leaning over to yell as close to Amir's face as he can. 

"It's my fucking house. Fuck you."

Amir looks furious, gaze hard and body still in the way he does when he's genuinely, soul deep angry. "You don't even care. You just want it so that I can't have it. You're petty, and small—"

"Shut up—"

"It's true! You take everything out on everyone else because you need everyone to be as miserable as you are."

"I'm not miserable. I'm doing great."

"You can't be happy so you can't let anyone else be happy."

"I am happy!"

"Bullspit—"

The whole room fades, washing away like dirt, and Amir fades with it, until it's just Jake, alone, standing on a street corner looking at his phone and wondering how he's made such a mess.

Then there's a scream, and a crack, and he wakes up with a start.

"Wakey Jakey!" Amir is shouting the second Jake opens his eyes.

His throat is scratchy, not unlike the fabric of the couch tickling against his arms, and his brain rushes to catch up with his surroundings. He can smell burning, the air sour with smoke, so strong he coughs with it.

He can't see Amir, but he can practically hear him rolling his eyes.

"Don't be a tiny little baby, Jake, it's just breakfast."

"Is there any breakfast left? It seems like you burnt it to a crisp." He pulls himself to his feet and stumbles over the loose floorboard, cursing.

Amir shouts back over to him. "Are you okay?"

He heads towards the kitchen, where Amir's voice is coming from. "I'm fine. Answer the question. Is it burnt to a crisp?"

"Yeah, a crispy surprise, maybe."

"I don't want a crispy surprise," Jake mumbles, throat still thick with sleep, and when he rounds the corner into the kitchen the air hits him so hard his eyes start watering. "Jesus, what did you even do?"

"I cooked breakfast for us!"

"I know that's what you think you did, but what did you actually do?"

"What, it's my fault that some of the things got a little too cooked?"

"Yes. Obviously. You were cooking them."

Amir shakes his head and gestures over to the table, where he's laid out two placemats and a loose handful of random cutlery. "Will you go sit down so I can serve you?"

"I don't know if it's safe to eat that, man," Jake says, but sits down at the table anyway, "and none of these knives are even clean."

"Yeah, you honestly need to do your dishes more, not that I'm judging. There was nary a clean plate to be found."

Jake did notice the pile of dishes in the sink, water green enough that they were definitely sitting for a while. His instincts tell him to blame Amir, but he has an uncomfortable suspicion that this one is all him.

Amir comes over with a plate, piled high with what looks like it was maybe once food, but is now closer to coal. Jake's nose wrinkles just looking at it, and Amir is watching him impatiently, grabbing a fork.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Bone appe- tits."

"Crass," Jake mumbles, and watches Amir dig into his pile of ash.

Amir seems like he's loving it, and Jake takes a fork, tentatively moving the top layer of burnt crust to try and find a part worth eating. It's charred all the way through somehow; Jake isn't sure how Amir even did that, let alone without waking Jake up. He gently tries to impale a piece on his fork, and it basically crumbles to dust.

"How did this happen?"

Amir has his mouth full, and when he talks he spits black flecks over the table. "Can you at least try it before you start whining like a bitch, please?"

"I can't try it, because it's crumbling before my eyes. Plus I think it's probably poison."

Amir's hand moves over his heart, offended. "You think I would poison you?

"Probably not intentionally, but this food is definitely poison. You shouldn't be eating it, either."

"It's fine! It's tasty."

"It's tasty? What does it taste like?"

"Mostly like ash, and fire."

"Yeah? Like fire? Fire's not a taste, bud. You shouldn't be eating it." Jake grabs Amir's plate away from him, ignoring his noise of protest, and puts both of their so-called breakfasts in the trash. "Let's go get a sandwich or something."

Amir looks extremely touched and Jake already regrets inviting him. "Jakey... are you asking me to get dinner this morning?"

"That doesn't really work," he shakes his head, but he'd be lying if he said it didn't pull at his heart strings a little, "let me get ready and we can head out, okay?"

Jake is already heading upstairs and Amir is nodding, standing from his chair but not moving to do anything else.

Amir drags them to some place Jake is unfamiliar with, but Jake is unfamiliar with almost everything, now, so he lets it happen. It's not like he has a suggestion of his own.

It seems normal enough; an average breakfast spot, sandwiches and pancakes and waffles lining the menu, and Jake breathes a sigh of relief. He needs food that's edible right now.

"This seems good," he says, because he's worried Amir will be offended if he says I was expecting somewhere much weirder.

Amir nods, smiling. "This place is awesome. They make the best huevos rancheros. Amir style."

"What is Amir style?"

"Shit, Jake, it's a lot of salt. I made that an old reference so you would get it and you still didn't get it. What the fuck?"

"I have amnesia," Jake says, suddenly feeling offended, "I literally have amnesia. Also, can you not curse? There are children here."

"Oh, they'll hear it eventually. I heard my first curse at one second old, when, upon being yoinked right out of my mothers inhospitable womb, the midwife pointed at me and screamed, 'holy shit, what the fuck is that?' then fainted. She had to have eleven stitches and told everyone she saw the face of Satan."

Amir makes a face, tongue sticking out and bad hands curled up like claws that Jake assumes he thinks makes him look evil, but it's so cute and painfully Amir that it makes Jake smile, chuckling.

"That's such a depressing story, man," Jake says, but he's smiling, and Amir is smiling too.

They reach the front of the line and the worker smiles at them. "Hi! What can I get you?"

Jake opens his mouth to order his favorite— maple bacon pancakes— but Amir beats him to it.

"We'll have a huevos rancheros and a scrambled egg toast."

"I don't want that."

"Yes you do, it's your favorite. And we'll take them both Amir style." He shoots a wink at Jake when he says the last part, and Jake wishes he was embarrassed by it, but it's just endearing.

The cashier just pushes some buttons on their register. "I don't know what that means."

"No salt, c'mon," he whines, and it makes Jake laugh.

"I thought you said Amir style was a lot of salt."

"It's a very inconsistent style," he says, shooing Jake pretty aggressively towards the corner table, "go save that good table, I wanna sit by the window."

"Okay, okay, I'm going," Jake shakes his head, watching as Amir tries to lean over the counter and take something from back there, "you fucking weirdo."

The place isn't that busy, but it's busy enough that grabbing the table as soon as possible is definitely warranted. Jake settles into his spot in one of those tiny cafe couches, surveying the place, watching Amir chatter away to the cashier. For the first time since last night he lets himself actually think. The fight, the crisis, the dream— it's a lot, especially before breakfast, but it's weighing on Jake's mind. He thinks he has bigger problems than suspecting that he might be a not so closeted bisexual. 

It's— the dream felt really real, this time. It did before, but this time it felt undeniable. He's not sure what to make of that. He was— he felt— he was kissing Amir, in the dream, not just a little but a lot, heavy and hot, hands on his skin. It's maybe not the most important part of the dream, but it's the part that lingers at the forefront of Jake's mind; he feels a shiver run through his body as he thinks about the fact they definitely had sex. Jake had sex with Amir, and it seems like he really really wanted it. The worst part is, Jake kind of gets it. He wants it too.

His head is such a confusing melting pot of emotions and half formed memories right now; he feels guilty for being a jerk to Amir, he feels disappointed that their marriage is fake, and he feels weird about feeling disappointed. He likes Amir, as hard as it is to admit. He actually likes him, wants him, feels bad about upsetting him. He doesn't know exactly what went down between them, even if he has snippets from his dreams, but it feels like hell, knowing that they're so pissed at each other. 

Amir had said do you even love me anymore, and Jake wishes he could say yes, of course I do, but it always stays the same. He always fucks it up. He doesn't know why he would do that. The fake marriage is one thing, but if they actually had something, Jake doesn't know why he would throw it away. Amir had said yesterday that he was always angry, that he hated LA and was sick of Amir and took it out on everyone, but that's—

Jake doesn't know if he believes him. 

He can buy it conceptually; LA is annoying, and he's been sick of Amir since literally the first day he met him. He also moved cross country to be with him, though. Twice, according to Amir. He's been sick of Amir since the jump, but at the same time, he could never be sick of him, really. He'd go wherever Amir went forever. 

So why the fuck would he file for divorce? Why is he so angry all the time? It's hard for Jake to believe he just hates Amir and LA and it's made him a furious guy. He knows himself, kind of, as much as he hates himself. He hates himself way more than he could ever hate Amir.

He feels it again— the feeling from before, like a stabbing pain right in his brain, and he clutches his head trying to make it go away, trying to avoid making a scene. It's too fucking much, it's overwhelming, he feels like everyone is looking at him and watching him and he's so fucking weird, why is he like this, why can't he just be fucking normal—

There's hands pulling at his wrists, gently prying his fingers from where he's pulling on his own hair, and when he manages to open his eyes those hands are on his cheeks, holding his face, and Amir's worried eyes are staring back at him, concerned. Amir is kneeling on the ground in front of him so he can be close enough to hold him, to look him in the eyes, and it sends a warm rush of emotion through Jake. He uses the corner of his thumb to brush at Jake's cheek and he realizes he was crying, tear tracks smudging under Amir's fingers. 

"Hey, it's okay, man," Amir is saying softly, and he's so close and so beautiful and his hands against Jake's skin burn like lightning, like finally being a complete circuit after so long spent missing a piece, "you're okay. It's just memories."

His face is right there, and his eyes are so breathtaking, and Jake feels like such a shithead. His whole body is screaming for Amir, heart thundering, skin electric everywhere he can feel them touching.

He wants to kiss him. The urge is so sudden and overwhelming that it makes him dizzy, everything in the world out of focus except for Amir, and his eyes, and his lips—

Jake leans forward, but Amir leans back, his hands holding him in place.

"Jake," he says, seriously, and it knocks Jake back into reality like a bucket of ice water.

"Shit. I, uh— sorry."

Amir is frowning at him, his eyes scanning Jake's face with worry. "Are you okay?"

He's nodding even though it's not really true, swallowing hard, and immediately trying to forget that he just tried to kiss Amir and got brushed off. "Yeah, I'm— I got the feeling again, the— the deja vu."

Amir is nodding with him, dropping his hands away from Jake's face, and he feels cold the second Amir's touch is gone. His hands are still clinging weakly to Amir's wrists, and when he pulls back Jake makes a disappointed noise that is absolutely humiliating.

It makes Amir smile though, even if Jake continues to pout about it. "I'm coming back, I just gotta grab the food."

Jake nods, letting go, settling back into the corner of his couch. "Yeah, yeah, that's fine. It's good. Take your time."

Amir nods, and heads over to grab their food off the counter. 

That was... a lot. It came out of nowhere this time, less build up than Jake was expecting, but still powerful enough to knock him off his feet if he were standing. The feeling made him sick to his stomach. It was painful, how much he hated himself, how angry he was at himself for being like this. He tries to brush it off, tries to ignore it, but the feeling settles heavy and stale in his stomach.

Amir gets back with their food, looking pleased, like he's already forgotten about Jake's little episode before. "Okay, just wait until you try this, it's gonna blow your tiny mind."

"Unnecessary," Jake mumbles, but takes the fork as Amir offers it, digging in. "Oh, this is really good."

"Well, don't just say that it's really good. That's not a compliment. Say that it's pimp, or that it's dope—"

"How is really good not a compliment? It's absolutely a compliment."

"Yeah, some may say. Others? They wouldn't."

"Wouldn't what?"

"Wouldn't say, Jake. Wouldn't say."

"Nothing you say makes any sense," Jake says, but his hearts not in it; he's mostly just savoring the opportunity to spend time together and eat delicious eggs.

Amir laughs. "Okay, hotshot, tell me if think this 'makes sense'," he says, putting air quotes around the words, "how's about we get your huevos to guevos and get the fuck out of here."

"Why would we do that?"

"Because," Amir says, looking around, leaning over the table conspiratorially, "keep this to yourself, but I've got a kite in the trunk that literally has your name on it."

Jake shrugs at him. "Why would I need to keep that to myself?"

Amir just shrugs back, mirroring Jake. "So no one tries to jack your freaking kite. Duh. It literally has your name on it."

"Yeah, you've said that twice now."

"Well it does! It literally has your name on it!"

"Does it actually?"

"Not literally," he says, in such a classic Amir tone that it fills Jake with affection, "I mean, can't a man use a metaphor anymore?"

“You're insane,” Jake says, but he's smiling into his breakfast, excitement and adoration bubbling in his chest, “can we fly it?”

“Sure, if you want.” 

He has this look in his eyes, just watching Jake smile back at him. He looks so fucking soft, and something catches in Jake's chest. It's a look Jake's seen before; it's burned into the back of his retinas, like when Amir first saw him step back into that office. It's— it's a lot of emotion that Jake has always struggled to name, or explain. It's hard for him to— he knows Amir loves him, he has the whole time, and maybe he didn't know the exact details of how he loved him, back in the day, but he still knew. Amir loves him so much. Too much, really, far more than he deserves. Amir loves him, and Jake never knows how to process it. He's not— he can't show it like Amir can, all romantic letters and I love yous . He's not good at that. He's not good at saying what he means. Amir loves him so fucking much, and Jake has never known how to handle it.

He still doesn't, apparently.

Do you even love me anymore, Amir had asked him, and he couldn't even say yes. He does. He knows he does. He doesn't even need to get his memories back to know that. Amir is the one bright spot in his otherwise dismal life, ironically. He knows he loves him, doesn't know how he was ever so deep in denial about it, but somehow Amir doesn't know. He remembers how angry he felt; bitter and petty and so fucking hurt, lashing out like a wounded animal. Jake fucked up a good thing, the only thing in his life that matters, because that's what he does. He's pissed at himself for it, for letting this happen, but he's not even really surprised. Of course Jake would fuck up the only relationship he's ever really had; he can't ever have a good thing, he's too much, he's not enough, he can't ever just be fucking normal—

Amir's hand wraps around his wrist where it rests on the table. “Jake?” He asks gently, fingertips soft against Jake's skin. “You okay?”

He nods even though he thinks maybe he isn't. 

“Once you get that kite in the sky you'll feel like two hundred dollars,” Amir smiles.

Jake laughs, some of the tension leaving his body. “That’s not that much.”

“That’s a whole cockfuture, Jake. Though with inflation who could imagine what they’re worth now. Eight, maybe nine million dollars? It's impossible to know,” he says, and Jake doesn’t know what he’s talking about but he’s obviously just talking to fill the silence, to drag Jake’s mind away from the dark part of his brain where all this bullshit lives. He appreciates the hell out of it, not that he knows how to say it. He just smiles, and shifts his wrist so he can squeeze Amir's hand, lingering there while he finishes the rest of his breakfast.

Amir drives them to the beach, and Jake feels his heart melt when Amir pulls the trick kite out of the trunk. That was the one he was hoping for— it’s beautiful, a two line delta made up of blue and purple and pink, and clearly a quality piece, too. It has sturdy posts but is so light. He can just tell it's optimized for speed and maneuverability. 

Jake’s hands are itching to fly it, to see it soaring, and when he looks up at Amir, he has that look on his face again, eyes soft, and Jake’s breath catches in his throat.

“I, uh— thanks, man,” he mumbles, for lack of anything else to say.

Amir just shrugs, watching Jake like he’s someone worth looking at. “I just wanna see you happy,” he says, small and soft and genuine, and for some reason it breaks Jake’s fucking heart.

It’s November, so the beach is quiet, and he sets up easily enough; he’s not flown this particular model before, or at least, he can’t remember flying it, but it’s similar enough to what he knows that it doesn’t give him too much trouble. The whole situation has been making him nervous, with his brain and the divorce and Amir, but once he gives the kite that first tug to propel it into the sky, all of that starts to melt away.

It’s fucking incredible.

Jake’s heart is thundering in his chest, adrenaline pumping. He feels electric, ducking and weaving the kite among the sunbeams. It’s like magic. He’s owning the fucking sky, watching it fly, gliding into a stall, spinning into an axel. He feels alive, even if he does feel kind of rusty. He’s not sure how long it’s been since this future Jake let himself fly, but the muscle memory is still in there somewhere, even if he’s maybe not as good as he should be. He fades into a backspin and loses control of the line tension, tanking the kite into the ground, but he cartwheels it back up easy enough that it feels okay. He can get it back if he works at it, he knows, even if it’s faded. He can learn it over again. When you love something you can relearn it over and over and over again, and it’s still worth it.

Amir is clapping everytime he does a trick, yelling his approval like he’s in the audience at a football game, and Jake doesn’t remember that much, really, but he doesn't think his heart has ever felt more full than it does right now, in this moment.

He gets the feeling again, prickling at the back of his brain, but this time it doesn't hurt— it spreads through his veins like melted chocolate, thick and slow and warm underneath his skin, collecting around his heart and staying there. It feels so different to how it felt the other times; the other times it hurt, like it was painful for him to even try and remember, but this isn't that. It doesn't hurt. It feels good, it feels fucking great, and it's a rush so foreign that it almost knocks Jake back. He has no idea the last time he felt like this, but it's been— a while. It's there though, he knows, a loose thread in his peripheral vision, and he knows it's attached to something. He feels the rush of adrenaline and endorphins flood his system in response to the flashes of foreign feeling, feelings that aren't his but are. A burst of happiness and love and contentment he wishes he could grab and hold onto. 

He feels flashes of memory flicker through his mind, not quite images, but feelings and moments, snapshots of his life, and it's so much. It's all Amir, he realizes, his every happy memory since he basically first hit adulthood being based around the way his heart flips over when Amir smiles at him. He feels insane, but good, like he can do anything. Like the pieces are finally fitting into place after he's been staring at the puzzle for so long. He doesn't remember, but he understands, now, he thinks. 

He loves Amir. He loves him, he's fucking in love with him, and almost everything makes sense for a second, with his kite in the sky and Amir watching him from a safe distance.

Amir seems to have noticed something is up and jogged over, looking vaguely concerned, but Jake is just grinning like manic, twisting the kite into an axel. 

“Are you okay?” He asks, and Jake laughs, because he's way better than okay, “You looked like you had another moment there.”

He feels like he could cry, and for the first time since he woke up on that sidewalk it isn't from frustration, or sadness, or anger.

“I did, kind of,” Jake lets the kite nosedive to the ground so he can turn fully to Amir, watching the way he squares himself up to deal with whatever it is Jake is going through, “it was different.”

“Different?”

“It was good,” he says, laughing again because the joy is just bubbling out of him and he can't even stop it, “it was— I was happy.”

“That's good!” Amir smiles, “It's only been bad memories so far. Maybe that's just because of everything that's been happening, though—”

“I love you,” he says, before he can even consider stopping himself. Amir stops talking mid sentence, and Jake knows he shouldn't, but it's spilling out of him before he even knows how to stop it. “I love you.”

Amir opens and shuts his mouth a few times like he isn't sure how to respond. “Jake,” he says eventually, tone flat and hard to read, “you don't know what you're saying.”

“What? Of course I do.”

“Jake—”

“I love you,” he says again, just to make sure Amir really hears it.

He does, it seems like, pushing his glasses up his nose, face pinched. “You don't remember.”

“What, I need to get all my memories back just to know that I love you?”

“You don't love me, Jake,” he snaps, harsh and raw and it catches Jake off guard, “you don't remember that you don't love me. So just quit it, with that.”

“Amir—” Jake's voice is quiet, and he reaches for Amir's hand, but he side steps, brushing him off.

“Please don't, Jake.”

He wants to say more, but he nods anyway, reluctantly. He doesn't want to make things worse, especially not for Amir. He doesn't know how to say what he means, anyway. He doesn't remember enough to know why he was like that, why he would do that, and he's furious with himself for it. It feels like Jake is facing the consequences of somebody else's actions, and he just wants to scream at him and say why, why the fuck would you do this, how could you possibly have let this happen?

Amir gestures vaguely towards the kite. “Do you wanna fly some more?”

He thinks about it, but shakes his head, already starting to reel the lines back in. “No, it's— that's enough kite for one day, probably.”

“Okay. Let's go back to the house, right? There's, uh, there's maybe some stuff we can look at.”

“Okay,” Jake echoes, still nodding, “yeah. That sounds— that sounds good.”

The drive back is quiet. Jake wishes he could remember— the weight of it rests heavy on his heart, the look in Amir’s eyes when he heard Jake say I love you burned into his mind.

When they reach the house Amir tosses Jake the keys. “You head in,” he says, and Jake tries not to look disappointed, “I'm gonna go try find your car.”

“I have no idea where it is,” he starts, but Amir just lifts a hand to dismiss him.

“I know where you go,” he laughs, and it makes Jake smile even after everything, “I’ll figure it out.”

Jake nods, holding out the keys. “I could come with you, then you could drive—“

“That’s okay. You should probably— you should rest, for a while. When I get back, we need to— we can talk.”

“What, you don't want me with you?” He says, and he doesn't even know why, because it just makes him feel worse when he watches Amir's face not denying it.

“Get some rest, Jake.”

He swallows hard, but nods. “Yeah. We can— we can talk, when you— yeah.”

Amir turns and walks off, leaving Jake standing in their driveway, and he feels so much worse than he did before.

The pressure of the whole situation has only been exacerbated by his brief moment of euphoria, the feeling that things could be good and he could be happy only making him feel worse now that he's crashed back down to earth. The feeling claws icy and sharp at his skin, catching in his throat and staying there.

He can barely hear himself think over the blood pounding in his ears, but even with that he still can, thoughts sticking and unavoidable and too fucking much. His hands are shaking as he tries to get the key in the door, just another fucking thing he can't seem to do right, and his chest hurts and he can't breathe and he feels sick, the world shifting out of focus as he finally gets the fucking door open and kicks it shut behind him, dropping the keys onto the ground.

Even just being in this house makes him feel worse— the dishes and the garbage and the empty walls and cluttered floors making it so fucking obvious that he can’t do anything, can't even exist properly. His life has been crumbling around him, for who knows how long, and he’s just stood around and watched it happen, made it worse, even, all petty anger and fiery bitterness that he wishes he had an explanation for, that he wishes he could just will away instead of taking it out on the one person he never wants to fuck things up with.

He kicks a garbage bag that's laying on the ground in the entryway, hard, hard enough to send its contents scattered across the floor, but he doesn’t even care. He's made it worse, obviously, because that's what he does. He makes everything worse— the garbage, his career, Amir’s life, it's all the same. Just more things for Jake to fuck up. He punches a hole through the drywall just to feel something, and when that barely scratches the itch of the feelings tearing at his insides, he does it again, savoring the way the wall crumbles under his knuckles reverberates through his bones. He moves towards the couch and he trips over that fucking loose floorboard, again, and he’s so fucking angry, burning with more overwhelming dread than he's ever felt in his life, that he drops to his knees and starts trying to rip it up with his fingernails, finally getting it loose and throwing it across the house, not caring where it lands. 

His hands hurt, and he hadn’t even noticed he’d started crying until he’s shaking with it, heaving sobs wracking his body as he fights to keep breathing. He feels like his every worst fear about his life has come true, and he can’t even remember it. He can’t even remember why, or how, except for a few loosely connected maybe not real snippets of memory. He feels like his heart is going to explode. He has no idea how long he sits there, waiting for his breathing to return to normal, but even once it does the anxiety festering in his gut stays, heavy and sour.

He doesn't feel better, but he feels like he can breathe again, sort of, eventually, rubbing his eyes. He needs to fix this before Amir gets home. He pulls himself to his feet and goes to get a glass of water, downing it in one and filling the cup back up again. His hand screams at him when he picks up the floorboard but he ignores it, moving around to slot it back into place and looking carefully to avoid tripping over the hole. The screws look like they're busted, but Jake doesn’t have any new ones, or if he does he doesn’t know where they are. Not that it makes a difference; he’s obviously lived with it like this for however long it's been. Just another thing he's too useless to fix.

Something catches his eye when he tries to shift the board into place, and he moves it back, curious, leaning down to try and see closer.

There’s something in there.

It’s hard to see, but Jake sticks his hand down without thinking too much about it, feeling around and pulling up a paper bag, looking old and dusty and worn, a faded sharpie scrawl across the front that is barely legible, and even once Jake thinks he can make it out he doesn’t understand it. Ozenenz , it says, and Jake isn’t really sure what it is, but it sticks in his chest like it means something, like it was important to him, once.

He doesn’t even move to the couch, just stays on the floor, gently opening the bag and trying to see what’s inside. It's so fragile it tears a little under his fingers, even though he’s being careful.

There’s an assortment of knick knacks in there, some that he recognises, some that he doesn’t, but every single one makes his chest ache with yearning, deep and hot and real. It's so woven into his very being that even the ones he doesn’t remember elicit the shadow of a memory; a broken rubik's cube and a rolex and a red and yellow “most bitchly” pin, and he can feel it, can almost remember them sitting at their desks, arguing about whatever thing Amir was doing now. This is the most jogged his memory has felt during this entire fucked up situation, sitting on the floor surrounded by a bunch of seemingly random objects.

He thinks he’s gone through everything, but there's some papers in there too, hiding amongst the crumpled paper of the bag. He pulls out the pile, gently, unfolding the top piece.

It’s their fucking marriage certificate.

Jake’s seen it in the picture, but it's here, and it's real, lipstick stain slightly smudged but still firmly in place. Amir had said he’d lost it— Jake should have figured he’d have stashed it under their floorboards, the weirdo. 

The next sheet is a folded up letter, ‘fuck you Jake Hurwitz’ written in block capitals across the front, and he's not sure why he kept it until he turns it over and there's more. Thanks for everything it reads, an unexpectedly heartfelt display from Amir, you are the one bright spot in my otherwise dismal life. 

Jake could cry if he wasn't already all cried out. I know that at the end of the day, you have my back, and I just want to say thank you for that. I appreciate you, it finishes, and it pulls at Jake's heart, even if the other side had called him a diva roach. 

He doesn't know why Amir would put this here. It feels almost like he put it here for Jake to find, except that that's crazy and also he almost didn't find it at all. There'd be no reason for Amir to stick this stuff under the floorboards of a house that maybe wasn't even going to be his, Jake realizes. This is— he put this here. This might mostly be Amir's bag of stuff, but it's Jake who put it down here.

He took down every picture frame but left this, here. 

There's some photos under the letter, and Jake flips through them, trying to recall the memories they're attached to. Some, he remembers easily, even though the pictures are pretty old and grainy. Others are new to him, or at least, to him now, pictures of them on their road trip, in Miami, a picture of them in front of a muffin that Jake doesn't understand.

He flips to the next one, and it catches him off guard; there's a photo of him, in a tux, leaning over to kiss Amir's cheek, and he's also in a tux and and he's grabbing onto Jake and he's smiling like he's the happiest he's ever been. 

Jake is smiling too, in the picture, eyes crinkled and lips curling into a grin where they're pressed against Amir's stubble. He looks so fucking happy. Happier than Jake thought he'd ever have the capacity to be, and it hurts to think about having something that could make him feel like that.

It hurts even more to think about losing it, but it's not a surprise. If there's one thing Jake is good at, it's fucking everything up for himself.

There's a few more pictures of them in the suits, and Jake wishes he could remember this. They look so happy and in love, wrapped up in each other, and he knows the pictures can't capture the inevitable way they bickered the whole time, but it makes Jake's heart yearn so hard it feels like he might throw up.

He's so engrossed in looking at the pictures that he doesn't hear Amir until he's standing right next to him, crouching to be eye level with where Jake is sitting on the floor. “Are you okay? There's— are those my ozenenz?”

Jake nods, exhausted. “I think so.”

Amir looks somewhere between touched and confused, and when he speaks again, his voice is unexpectedly soft. “I can't believe you kept those.”

“They were under the board,” Jake says, knocking against the floor, “I hid them, I guess. I don't know.”

He still looks soft, but his eyes focus with concern, looking Jake over. “Are you okay?”

He nods, and rubs a hand over his sore eyes. “Yeah, I think. I had, uh— something happened.”

“You hurt your hand,” Amir mumbles, gently taking Jake's wrist and lifting his arm closer to his face. 

“It's fine,” he says, and tries to pull his arm away, but Amir's grip holds fast. Jake feels ridiculous being tended to like this, especially for something he did to himself. He's a grown man. This is silly.

Amir doesn't look at him like it's silly. “Sit on the couch. I'll be right back.”

Jake does.

Amir goes to the kitchen and comes back with a little first aid kit, sitting down next to Jake and making a mess across the table as he pulls things free.

“You don't have to—” Jake starts, but Amir cuts him off, handing him a shitty protein bar that he's already torn open the wrapper of.

“Eat,” he says, and Jake does, because he feels so exhausted and emotional that he doesn't have the fight in him to disagree, “you need food.”

He starts wiping at Jake's hand gently with something from the first aid kit, and it's wet and cold and unpleasant but the soft touch of Amir's hands holding him makes Jake feel like he could endure almost anything.

“What happened?” Amir prompts softly, and it's so far off from what he was expecting that Jake feels like he could burst into tears again right now.

He shrugs, struggling to put the feeling to words. “Had a bad moment. I'm okay.”

Amir nods like he understands, even though Jake doesn't, really. “You probably had a panic attack.”

“A panic attack?”  

“Yeah. It happens sometimes. You, uh— you have some Xanax for it, somewhere. I don't know where you've put it.”

“Oh,” he says, and he's not sure how he feels about it. 

Amir wraps some bandage around his hand, and Jake watches the movement, trying to savor the feeling of Amir's soft touch. “How are you feeling now?”

He nods, slowly, assessing. He doesn't feel great, but he does feel less like he is immenently about to die, so— he supposes that's okay. “Better,” he says, because it's nonspecific but honest, and Amir nods, patting his hand gently to let Jake know he finished with the bandage. He flexes his hand once to try it out, but it still hurts like hell. He's not sure what he was expecting.

His eyes catch on the photo again— it feels like a picture of a different person, a man Jake doesn't even really know. A guy he hasn't got to meet, but happens to have ruined his entire life. Amir follows his eyes, expression softening when he sees the picture, leaning down to pick it up between his fingers, and just looking at it for a while.

Jake isn't sure about this weird energy hanging in the air between them but he has to ask. “Is that our wedding?”

He nods, a smile pulling at his lips. “Yeah, kinda. We were already married, technically, but we didn't get a wedding the first time, and you— you wanted one.”

Jake swallows hard. That makes sense— he's always liked weddings, always wanted one of his own. It was always part of his grand plan to have a big white wedding, with all his friends and loved ones. He got to have it, apparently. He got to have a wedding to someone he loves.

He got to have what he wanted, and he fucked it up, and the weight sits heavy in his chest.

"Things with us—” He's scared to ask, really, but he needs to know, needs to face the consequences of whatever it is he can't remember, “was it really so bad?"

"Not at the beginning," Amir smiles, eyes still on the picture, "it was good. It was really good, for a long time. Until—"

He cuts himself off, and Jake watches the way his eyes shift, nervously, putting the picture back down gently. He knows what Amir is talking about. It makes him feel sick.

"Until I started getting angry."

Amir scoffs. "You've always got angry. You were never exactly a peaceful dude."

"So what happened?"

Amir shrugs, but he looks unsure. Nervous. "You hated me for ruining your life or whatever. It's like you wanted to get back at me for it."

"I didn't hate you," Jake says, because it's so important that Amir knows, "I don't hate you."

Amir laughs, but it doesn't reach his eyes. Jake can tell he's on the verge of tears. "You don't remember. It was— it was bad. You didn't—" he chokes on the words like they're hard for him to say. "You didn't love me anymore."

"I do," Jake says, and Amir lets out a sob, quiet and harsh and it breaks Jake's heart, "I do, obviously I do. I could never stop loving you."

He's shaking his head like he doesn't believe him. "Jake—"

"I love you," he says, just to make sure it's obvious, and Amir drops his head into his hands, "I love you, Amir—"

Amir is shaking his head, and Jake feels desperate. "Please don't do this."

"I do, I love you, of course I love you, I can't—"

"Jake, stop."

Jake shuts up straight away. Amir's eyes are serious and it scares Jake soul deep.

It takes a while for either of them to speak again, but when he does, Amir is quiet, barely audible. "You're not even you. You don't know. You don't remember."

"I know," Jake says, because it's all he has, "I know, I'm still me, I might not be— I might not have all of the memories, but I'm still the same. I'm still me. I know."

"You don't."

“I do,” he says, more urgently this time, “it lives in my fucking soul. It doesn't matter how much I remember, there's no amount of forgetting that could make me forget how I feel about you.”

“You did forget, though.”

“Oh, for like one second. Is that a crime?”

Amir sniffles, but he's smiling now, if a little sadly. "Jake, you hated me. You told me every single day, and soon you're gonna remember, and you're gonna go back to the way you were before, and—”

“I won't—”

“You will, Jake, and I don't know that I can handle when that happens." He's not looking Jake in the eyes, picking at a loose thread on the couch. "It was so hard for me to lose you the first time. It took me so long to stop crying. I was beefing like a fucking cow, Jake, you have no idea. I can't do it again."

“I'm sorry,” he says, and he feels like he's scrambling, desperate, “that's not— I love you—”

“You don't—”

“I do, I absolutely do—”

“You don't, Jake,” his eyes are pleading with Jake to just leave it alone, but he can't, he always has to push it too far, he has to make Amir see that he loves him, “you did. You think you do because you did, but you don't anymore. You don't remember, Jake. You don't love me anymore.”

“Bullshit,” he says, because even if he doesn't know he still knows, “that’s bullshit, it's—”

“We have divorce court tomorrow,” Amir says, cutting him off, “the mediation yesterday, that was the last one. We're finalizing tomorrow.”

“That was the last one?” He asks, and Amir nods. “Why did you let us leave?”

“Because it was always gonna go to court, we knew that. It's not like we were ever gonna come to an amicable agreement.”

“I can't believe you just correctly used the term ‘amicable’,” Jake says, instead of anything worth saying, but it makes Amir smile.

He just shrugs, and he looks so fucking sad that Jake wants to pull him into his arms. “It’s over, Jake. It's already done.”

Jake shakes his head. “No, it's not already done, it's— there's still time, we can—”

“This is what you wanted, Jake,” he sounds so small, and Jake feels like he's never been angrier at anyone in his life than he is at himself, “when you get your memories back you'll be thankful.”

“I didn't want this, I don't want this, please,” he's begging now and Amir is shaking his head and this all feels so impossible, “we can— I can— we could do couples therapy—”

“We already tried, Jake. You said therapy is bullshit.”

“I can change, though, I can be different—”

“You don't want to change, Jake. Soon you're gonna remember everything and you're gonna be pretty embarrassed about all this. It's—” he cuts himself off like it's hard to say, but smiles at Jake anyway, “it's for the best, you know?”

Jake doesn't know. It doesn't feel like it's for the best, it feels horrible, like he only just started breathing for the first time and now he's having to give it up again. He's already fucked everything up, and now he has to watch it happen, now he's here, making Amir more and more upset.

He nods slowly. “All I want is for you to be happy,” he says slowly, holding on to every word and hoping against hope that he doesn't have to go through with this, “if this makes you happy— if being with me makes you unhappy— then I wouldn't want that.”

Amir is smiling sadly, but it's better than how openly upset he was before. Jake, on the other hand, still feels like he can't breathe.

He did this, though. He did this to Amir. This other him, who has all of the memories and is the worst guy in the world, apparently— he did this. It's so hard, and confusing, but he's hurting Amir, and he has to stop. He has to stop always making things worse.

Jake stands up, suddenly, and Amir looks worried. 

He swallows hard, struggling to look Amir in the eyes but never able to not look at him for longer than a few moments. “I'm gonna head out for a bit. Clear my head.”

“Are you sure? You're—”

“I'm okay, I just, uh, I need— I need some air.”

He turns to go and purposefully doesn't look back until he's out of the door.

He doesn't know where he's going— he just picks a direction and starts walking, barely even watching the streets he passes. He doesn't know if there's some deeply buried memory guiding him somewhere specific, or if he's just getting lost, but he doesn't even care, eyes burning with tears and chest heaving with feeling.

He always has to make things worse.

He's seen it, in the memories, and he sees it in his actions now; he's always upsetting Amir, always trying to drive him away, and the one time it ever actually, really worked, he has to make it hurt more, can't just let Amir get a clean break. Jake likes to blame their relationship problems on the nebulous Future Jake, who's always fucking up; he's the one who caused the problems, he's the one who pushed until they hit breaking point, but this was all him. 

It's all him, he reminds himself, and the pain in his hand throbs again. He can't ever leave well enough alone. He always has to be pushing it. He's too far, too much, too weird. Too fucking boring. Always a little too something. He can never just be enough.

Something hard presses against the back of Jake's shirt, and he stops in his tracks.

“Gimme your wallet.”

“Fuck,” Jake puts his hands up immediately. “I don't have my wallet, okay, man, I left without it, I'm not— I'm in the middle of this divorce— fuck, please don't kill me—”

“Jake?” The pressure against him retreats and Jake breathes a sigh of relief, though he still doesn't put his hands down. “It's me. Ranchel!”

“Your name is Ranchel?” He says, instead of something normal like are you going to kill me?

Ranchel grabs his shoulder and spins Jake around so they're face to face. He keeps his hands up for safety's sake, but it seems like Ranchel probably isn't going to try and hurt him, at least yet.

“How's it going, man?” He smiles at him, and Jake smiles back nervously, “I haven't seen you since the piping.”

“Since the what?”

“When I piped you,” he says, like it's a perfectly normal admission.

“You did what to me?”

He rolls his eyes dramatically. “I hit you in the head with a pipe,” he says, holding up the pipe he was just pressing into Jake's back.

“What the fuck, man? Why would you do that?”

He looks so surprised that it catches Jake off guard. “You don't remember?” 

“I have amnesia,” Jake says, and it feels like a stupid excuse even though it's true.

“Oh damn.” He reaches for his pocket and Jake braces to get piped again, hands in front of his face like that will even help, but he pulls out his phone, holding it out for Jake to look at. “You asked me to.”

Jake looks and— yeah, that's his fucking number, sending a text that literally says fifty bucks, one hit, you good for it? 

He isn't sure what to make of that.

“It's— why?”

Ranchel just shrugs, pocketing his phone. “You said you wanted to get out of paying alimony. Seemed like you needed it. I didn't ask too many questions.”

“Shit,” Jake mumbles. He can't even play the amnesia victim card anymore. He literally did this to himself.

Rachel shrugs, gesturing to his pipe. “I can hit you again, if you want?”

“Why would I want that?”

“Just thought you might like it. You seem like kind of a freak.”

“I'm not,” he says on instinct, ignoring how immediately defensive he feels, “I'm normal.”

“Hey man, it's not bad. Might bring your memories back.”

That makes him think for a second.

It could work. There's no real evidence to suggest that it definitely won't work, probably. If that's how he lost his memories that's probably how he gets them back, right? Jake's not a doctor but that sounds right.

He needs to get his memories back, and then he can— well. Then he'll remember. He'll have context for the things that are happening to him, someone to blame for the way things have gone.

Then what? Then he goes and tries to win Amir back and makes everything worse? Again? He doesn't want that. He doesn't want to keep ruining Amir's life, and he's clearly blown all his chances. He needs to do the right thing. 

He needs to get his memories back and let Amir go.

Amir thinks Jake doesn't even love him anymore. It's obviously not true. Jake loves him more than anything, more than he can even say, and yet somehow he's let Amir think that he doesn't anymore. He gets angry, and he lies, and he's petty. He hates the list of things he's learned about himself since he first woke up on that sidewalk, dazed and confused. He hates himself, that Jake and this Jake and all the Jakes in between.

He doesn't want to remember. He knows that there's shit in there he doesn't want to see, memories he doesn't want back, and it's fucking terrifying to have to face down the actual memories of things that are already so hard to live through now, in this moment. 

He doesn't want to remember, but he owes it to Amir to try, to actually try, so—

“Okay,” he says, and he's already regretting it before the words are even out of his mouth.

Ranchel is already grinning, pulling the pipe back like a baseball batter. “I'll make it a good one for you.”

Jake closes his eyes and tries to think of every memory he can't reach, until he's distracted by the second of sudden, blinding pain.

“Do you even love me anymore?”

“Yes,” he says, gasping and desperate, “I love you, I love you so much. I love you more than anything.”

Amir shakes his head, eyes sad. “You know that's not how this goes, Jake. You can't change it. It's a memory.”

“It doesn't have to be, right? Maybe I don't want to remember.”

“That's fair. This sucks, after all. You were a dick for that.”

“Hey,” Jake argues, even though there's no point, really, “that's harsh.”

Amir is watching him closely, like a cat waiting to pounce. “It's easy to want to forget this. What about everything else, though?”

The scene changes, and this time Jake is watching on from outside his body as they lie in bed, huddled together under the sheets against the snow outside, some cheesy movie Amir likes playing on the TV as Jake just watches him watch the movie. It shifts again, and Jake recognizes this one; them in tuxedos, smiling and laughing and basking in each other as they say their vows, both emotional wrecks. It shifts again, and they're in the kitchen, dancing and touching and Amir is kissing him breathless, pushed up against the island. 

It's so much. Too much, maybe, he thinks, watching the way Amir's hand slides up his thigh, the way he's smiling against Jake's lips. 

“Why'd you do it?” Amir says, and the scene shifts back to the one thing Jake doesn't want to see. “You didn't want it. Why did you file for divorce?”

“I don't know,” he says, but he does, he remembers here, or he's slowly figured it out, at least.

Amir laughs. “Jake, I know. I know, and since I'm a figment of your dreams, that means you must know, so, I'll ask you again— why'd you do it?”

“I was scared,” he says, and the words come directly from his soul, “I was terrified that you were going to leave me, so I just— I did it first.”

“Why?” Amir asks again, and Jake struggles to find the words.

“Because I hate myself.” 

The dream flickers through flashes of the same emotion; the fear, and the shame, and the hatred that runs so deep it's buried in his blood at this point. Jake can never be enough, is what the voice in his head tells him over and over, and it's almost like he's gone out of his way to prove it right.

“Do you hate yourself more than you love me?”

He gets more flashes of himself, fucking up and lashing out at the one person who means more to him than anyone else in the world. The only person in Jake's life that never left him. 

He shakes his head. This is the scary part, but it's true. He knows it's true. “No.”

“Then prove it.”

He's not sure where he is when he wakes up.

He feels like hell. It takes him a while to even look around, the pounding in his head so extreme even with his eyes closed. When he finally cracks them open, it all comes flooding back. 

He's in a hospital. He got piped, and now he's in hospital. Amir is slouched in an uncomfortable looking chair pushed against the wall, snoring quietly, and Jake smiles at him, even as a pang of guilt courses through his system.

He tries to pull himself out of bed, but there's too much going on around him, machines and IV’s attached to him that he isn't sure how to untangle himself from, and the movement stirs Amir awake.

“Woah, hey, be careful. It took a bunch of doctors like, a bad amount of time to set those up.”

“You were just asleep.”

“I'm a very light sleeper when it comes to Jakey activity. I'm always ready to hop—” he does a little hop, towards Jake on the bed, and it sends a rush of fondness through his whole system— “into action.”

Amir laughs, and Jake narrows his eyes. “Why are you in such a good mood?”

“I'm happy! I'm happy you're not dead in a freaking ditch right now, and I don't have to write ‘piped to death’ on your sad little gravestone. Do you know how that would make me feel?”

“I don't know, bad?”

Amir nods. “Yeah, more than bad, actually.”

“Not everything has to be more than something,” he says, and he feels it echo in his brain, a memory of a moment. Sitting in their office and watching Amir pack up and thinking ha, that stupid bitch looks so sad, he doesn't know I'm coming with him. A memory, a real, honest to god memory, whole and formed from his brain. 

He remembers.

He can remember.

It's hard to know if anything is missing, because he wouldn't know what it was to even check, but he finds himself reaching for memories and finding them, periods of time he was missing that have come back to him, filling the empty gaps and leaving him feeling like he actually knows anything, for the first time in a while. The feeling sits kind of strangely, in his chest; he has the memories, he has this old Jake, and it's him, but it's like he's trying to reconcile the two different people that he was, however briefly. Like an evil twin, except they're both him, it's all him, his brain, his thoughts and actions and memories.

He knows, he remembers; the ever present pressure of self hatred pressing at his ribcage, the driving force of anxiety that fuelled all his decisions. He remembers, and he remembers remembering, but he also remembers the not knowing, how easy it felt. He wasn't quite as haunted by an ever present sense of wrongness; it had been so scary, to feel the flashes of it, to imagine that this is how Other Jake felt all the time.

It is scary. 

Amir's hand brushes against his, not quite holding, but not letting go, either. “How are you feeling? Your head took that pipe pretty hard, huh?”

“Yeah,” he mumbles, and the brush of Amir's hand against his is the only thing grounding him against his whirring thoughts, “I, uh, paid Ranchel fifty bucks to do it.”

Amir snorts. “Yeah, he told me. You didn't ask him to keep it a secret or anything.”

“I definitely did,” Jake says, and there's a little thrill to the fact that he can even remember that, “I told him not to tell you.”

Amir's eyes go wide a little, and he pulls his chair over to sit right next to Jake's bed. “You remember doing that?”

He hesitates, but nods, and Amir lets go of his hand. “I do. I, uh— yeah.”

“Do you—” Amir looks nervous, like he's choosing his words carefully. “Do you remember anything else?”

Jake nods. He remembers so much his brain is having a hard time catching up with it all.

Amir is not quite looking him in the eyes, and Jake feels the weight of every time he's told him he hates him, every time he's told him to die pushing down against him.

“Like what?” He asks quietly, and Jake's breath catches in his throat.

There's that feeling bubbling in his chest again, hot and angry and impossible to ignore, hatred so potent he feels like he'll die if he keeps it trapped inside, exploding like the time Amir put a fork in the microwave. He'd forgotten before for a while, almost, what it felt like; it's like too much feeling for his body, like he needs to get it out or he doesn't know what will happen. 

Amir looks so nervous, and Jake shuts his eyes, because seeing him like that and knowing it's because of Jake makes him feel awful.

It's so easy to be angry at Amir, is the thing. It's basically in Jake's deeply buried instincts at this point to lash out at him, to let out the pressure building in his chest by putting his hatred onto Amir. 

He doesn't want to do that anymore. He can't, he's seen it from both sides, how he's let all his fucking anger and hatred ruin his own life. Amir's just collateral damage to Jake's fucked up mental health, because he was too scared and stubborn to be anything other than angry. 

He doesn't want to be that anymore.

He tries to push it down, and it's still there, but he grits his teeth against it, and tries.

“You can have the house.”

Amir's eyes go wide, and it's clear that's not what he was expecting Jake to say. “What?”

“You can have it,” he says, and he knows the words sound strained but he hopes Amir can tell he fucking means it, “you can have whatever you want. I want you to have whatever you want, because you deserve it, because— because I love you—”

“Don't do this, Jake, you don't remember—”

“I do remember, I remember everything, I—” He cuts himself off, trying to take a deep breath. It's not in his nature to think things all the way through, to consider his words before he says them, but this is— he doesn't want to hurt Amir anymore. He doesn't want to blow this. This feels like the moment, for better or for worse. Sink or swim. 

Amir is looking at him, eyes wide, and Jake feels like he can see things clearly for the first time in years.

“I remember how— it was fucked up, the way I treated you. I was awful to you, and most of the time you didn't deserve it, and— it's—”

“Most of the time?” Amir says, but he's smiling, small and soft and unsure, and it makes Jake laugh, steels his resolve.

“A lot of the time, maybe,” he says, and Amir's hand moves to brush against his again, an echo of a hold, “I was so angry at myself all the time, and I was so fucking scared of having something so good and losing it, that— that I made it happen anyway.”

Amir nods. “I was scared too, Jake. We could have been scared together.”

“I know,” he says, swallowing hard, “fuck, I know, and I— I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry, Amir. I hate that I hurt you because I was too embarrassed to be scared. It was like— I could feel myself doing it, but I couldn't stop making it worse.”

“Why?” Amir says, and Jake doesn't know which part he's even talking about so he just answers.

“I'm not like you. I care what other people think. I wish I didn't, I wish I could stop, but— I do. I did. And—”

He's not good with words. He's not good at explaining himself, but Amir's eyes are on him and he wants this, he wants to open up to Amir, to be a better Jake than he was before.

Amir rolls his eyes and looks at his wrist like Jake is taking too long, but he can tell he's just trying to lighten the mood. “Well?”

“All I ever wanted was to be normal,” he says, and the words sound small even to his own ears, “it's— I only ever wanted to be a normal guy. I just wanted a normal life, where people liked me, and I could fit in, and then—”

He takes a deep breath, steadying himself. Amir’s hand is on his arm, and the weight against his skin is the only thing keeping him grounded, his brain threatening to spiral the second Amir lets go. He's never said it in so many words before. He’s barely let himself even think it, really, too scared to address the truth for what it is, but Amir’s eyes are soft and his hand is warm and Jake wants to tell him, wants to open up for him. He wants to be better, for Amir. For himself, maybe, too. 

“And then?” Amir prompts, voice soft, and Jake can barely meet his eyes.

“And then I met you,” he says, swallowing hard around the lump in his throat. “I met you, and there was no more normal.”

Amir huffs a laugh in that mock offended way he always does. “Sorry for making your life interesting. Before I came along you were a real snooze, you know.”

“I know,” he says, and he's smiling, “it's— I'm not— I never felt like I deserved you.”

Amir laughs properly, and fixes Jake with a disbelieving look. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” Jake shrugs, and it pulls at the tubes sticking out of him, “I— I'm not good at saying it, but— I came back, you know? I came back. I always come back, and it's—”

Amir squeezes his hand, and Jake laces their fingers together and hopes it isn't too much.

“You're everything to me, you've been everything to me since before I even realized you were,” he takes another breath, steadying himself, focusing on Amir's hand and his eyes and the rise and fall of his chest, “you’re everything and— and I'm nothing, and I hated that, and I told myself that I hated you for that, but it isn't true. I hated me for that. I hated myself so fucking much, and I took it out on you. I hated myself and I just wanted to be fucking normal, and I wasn't, and I'm not, and I blamed you but it was never you. It was me. I thought you robbed me of this normal life but I never really wanted that, I wanted this, with you. I wanted our life. I want you.”

Amir hesitates, watching Jake like he’s waiting for him to say sike. “Do you mean that?”

“I mean it more than I’ve ever meant anything in my life.”

“Things were bad,” Amir says, breaking eye contact, “things were really bad, Jake.”

“I’ll change. I’ll— I’ll try. I think I should maybe go back to therapy, or something. Give it another try. It can be— things’ll be different this time.”

Amir smiles at him, and Jake feels it all the way through his body, heart pounding. “Yeah?”

“I love you,” he says, and for the first time in a long time Amir looks like he believes it.

“I love you too,” Amir says, and he looks like he might cry even as Jake feels himself already crying, “even if you are kind of a douche-a-roo sometimes.”

“Bad phrase.”

“Nah.”

“Bad me?”

Amir lifts their joined hands to his lips, kissing Jake's knuckles. “Bad us.”

Jake laughs, watery and tearful and pathetic sounding but he doesn’t even care because Amir is smiling at him, and his hand is warm against Jake’s palm. “That's romantic. You said something romantic.”

“I can be a romantic guy. I’ve got romance in my freaking jeans,” he drops Jake's hand and stumbles to his feet, almost tripping forward and ripping Jake’s IV out, fumbling for something in his pocket.

It makes Jake rolls his eyes, but he knows he looks so sappy with fondness that it probably doesn’t have the same effect. “You don't have to do this for whatever the bit is, buddy—”

“Aha!” Amir says, and pulls Jake’s wedding ring out of his jeans pocket. “Slippery little fuck.”

“How do you have that?”

“They took it off you for your brain surgery or whatever the fuck they did. They gave me all your stuff when I got to the hospital.”

“I had brain surgery?”

“I don’t know, maybe. They stopped giving me updates after I bit that nurse.” He kicks his chair back behind him so he has the space, and drops to his knees hard, wincing.

“Did you hurt yourself?”

“Nope. it’s just my knees.”

“Did you hurt your knees?”

“A little bit, yeah. Just a little bit. I think they're broken.”

“They're not broken, jesus—”

“Jacob Hurwitz,” Amir yells, loud enough that Jake is shocked no one immediately comes running into the room, “would you do me the honor of being my wifey for lifey?”

It makes him think about the first time they did this; Jake on one knee in the living room of their old muffin, a pawn shop ring clasped in his hand because it was all his pitiful recently fired savings would allow for. Amir still wears that ring. They had years to replace it, to get a nicer one, something more expensive, but he insisted on keeping it, even when Jake tried to upgrade it.

He’s wearing it now, Jake notices, and it makes his heart clench with emotion.

He holds out his hand and Amir slips the ring onto his finger, and Jake is grinning like a maniac but he just can't stop. 

“You do know I'm not your wifey, though, right? Buddy?”

“Yeah sure,” he says, standing back up slowly, one hand on Jake's hospital bed to pull him up, “my hubandy for lifey, or whatever. That's what I said.”

“That's not what you said, man.”

“It's what I meant, okay? That we love each other.”

“We love each other,” Jake echoes, trying to commit every single thing about this moment to memory. He can't believe he didn't want to remember; this is worth every bad memory, every shitty moment he has to claim as his. He squeezes Amir's hand just to remind himself that this is real. “I love you.”

“I love you,” Amir says back, smiling wide, and it's still such a fucking thrill to hear him say it, “we should probably ditch this pity party, huh? We have a date to go to.”

“Yeah?” Jake says, already moving to pull out all of the assorted things attached to him. It wouldn't be the first time one of them has left a hospital bed without proper dismissal; the nurses always figure it out eventually. 

“Yeah. A court date. Divorce court.”

Jake groans. “I thought you meant a real date.”

“We can do that after.”

“Do we even still need to go to court?”

Amir shrugs. “Last time we didn't they sent us a pretty big fine.”

“I never saw a fine. You can get fined for that?”

“It's special treatment. They do not like us over at the courthouse very much.”

Jake nods. That sounds about right. “Alright, let's go. What time is the hearing?”

Amir looks at his wrist even though he isn't wearing a watch. “Well, it's eight forty five now, so—”

“It's ten thirty four—”

“Oh, it started four minutes ago.”

Jake laughs as he stumbles to his feet, reaching for his clothes that Amir had stashed in the chair next to him. He changes out of his gown and into his slightly muddied clothes quickly, feeling good even though they are almost definitely about to get fined.

They slip out of the room, vaguely sneaking to avoid anyone asking questions, and they've reached the parking lot when he feels Amir tug at his hand where they're joined, turning to face him.

“Jake?” He asks, quiet, pulling them into a secluded corner.

The need for sneaking has mostly passed, but Jake lets himself be dragged regardless. “Yeah?”

“Kiss me?” He asks, tugging Jake closer, and Jake is more than happy to oblige, leaning in with a smile until his lips are just barely brushing Amir's.

“There's literally nothing I would rather do,” he says, and finally connects their lips, one hand finding Amir's hip and the other staying intertwined with his at their sides. Amir's free hand comes up to tangle in his hair and it's like Jake's body lets out a sigh of relief, like the press of Amir's lips against his is what he's been aching for this whole time. It's more than just that, though; it's Amir's hand tugging at his hair, and his body melting against Jake's, and the sound of his breath catching in his throat when Jake pulls him tighter against him. He almost feels high from it, the feeling of connection with Amir, the ache in his chest quieting down to a soft hum as all he can focus on is the way Amir feels against him. 

By the time Jake pulls away, he's gasping for breath, and Amir chases his lips, whining when Jake moves back to dodge him. “We really have to go.”

Amir rolls his eyes and tugs Jake along by their still joined hands. “Fine, I guess, since you're obsessed with divorce court now.”

“Obsessed, you're the one who said we had to go—”

“Okay, but when we get home, you're gonna show me exactly how sorry you are,” Amir says, voice low, and the look in his eyes goes straight to Jake's gut, even as he turns to pull them along to where he parked the car.

Amir can't see him, but Jake nods, and follows.

“I object!”

The entire courtroom turns to look at them as Amir barges in, finger raised like Jake knows he's seen lawyers do in movies, and he tries not to look stupidly endeared by it but he's pretty sure he's failing hard.

They made good time, but they're still late enough that Jake is surprised their lawyers are even still here. Mackenzie gives him a look, one of her standard what the fuck do you think you're doing looks, but Jake just gestures to Amir with a shrug, like she's even gonna understand what that means. She clearly doesn't, but Amir is already talking, letting himself through the court gates and right up to the judge. The bouncers here are terrible.

“I object, your honor. I object to this— this— this— this farce of a case!”

“I'm sorry?” The judge asks, looking forward deeply confused. “Are you involved in this case?”

“Involved in this case? We are this case! Tell him, Jakey.”

He's not gonna say shit to a judge, but he does nod, leaning to bow before remembering that's not right for judges. “Yes, your honor. We're the divorcee's here, sir.”

“Sir,” Amir scoffs, gesturing to the judge with his thumb, “really? You're gonna kiss another man's asshole right in front of my face?”

“C’mon, man.”

“No I'm serious, if you really wanna tongue at his hole could you at least not do it in front of your husband?”

“So crass.”

“I'm sorry, but this, I'm sorry to say, cunt—” he turns to face the judge, nodding like he understands, “—no offense, but this cunt is really getting on my last nerve.”

The judge goes from relatively perturbed to extremely offended immediately. “Excuse me? I will not tolerate that sort of language in my courtroom.”

Jake's nodding, holding out a hand to try to keep Amir from causing anymore problems. “Absolutely. Of course.”

“Oh, here we go again. I'm sorry, okay, I am sorry, but am I just not supposed to mention that you're performing analingus on the judge as we squeak? Sorry if that's ‘offensive’.” He put offensive in air quotes, though Jake knows he still doesn't really understand how they work.

“It's absolutely offensive,” Jake says, mostly ignoring the way the eyes of everyone in the room burn into them because as much as he feels awkward, or nervous, or self hatred brewing under his skin, he's here with Amir and they're arguing about nothing and it feels right, “why did you realize it was offensive and then say it anyway?”

“You're nitpicking me.”

“I'm not, you're the one who—”

“Enough!” The judge says, banging his gavel, and a pair of bailiffs finally show up to grab each of them by the arm. “I will not have this here. Are you two going to behave so we can discuss your case?”

“Yes, your honor, sir,” Jake says, at the same time Amir goes dead weight to get out of the bailiff's grip, but he keeps hold of him easily.

After a few seconds he stands back up and brushes himself off. “Yeah, okay. I'll play nice.”

They both move to sit down next to their lawyers, and Amir says something that makes his furious, right as Jake settles in his seat next to Mackenzie, who looks more annoyed with him than usual.

“Jake, what is going on?” She asks, voice hushed, and he leans over to speak into her ear as much as possible.

“We're not doing it anymore.”

“Doing what?”

“The divorce.”

“What?” She looks over to Amir and Phil, who seem to be having a similar conversation and then looks back to Jake, eyes wide with surprise. “Jake, please think this through. There's a reason you wanted a divorce, right? This has been such a long road, and we finally have them right where we want them. The house is pretty much yours—”

“I don't want it,” he says, and he's watching Amir who's watching him back, expression soft, and it makes Jake's heart flip over in his chest even after all these years, “I want Amir to have it. I love him.”

“Jesus Christ,” she says, right as the judge bangs his gavel again.

“Quiet in the courtroom. We're here to discuss the case of Mr Hurwitz v Mr Blumenfeld, on the finalization of divorce. Your opening statement, ple—”

“Absolutely!” Amir says, getting to his feet, and the bailiff moves like he's ready to tase him at any moment. “We actually don't want it anymore. We're in love again, if you can believe it.”

“I can't,” Mackenzie says into her coffee, and Jake gives her a look she either doesn't notice or ignores.

The judge looks suspicious. “You're in love again?”

“Just like the day we met,” Amir says wistfully, though Jake remembers the day they met and he's not sure they were in love then, actually, “we're happily married now!”

“I thought you were citing emotional damages,” he says, flipping through a case file, “it says here in your paperwork you recalled repeated verbal abuse and emotional distance—”

“Jake's gonna change,” he says, gesturing over at where he's sitting.

Jake nods. “I'm gonna change.”

The judge is looking between them like he doesn't understand, and points his gavel in Amir's direction. “You called me the C word two minutes ago.”

“Pretty sure that's not illegal,” Amir says, laughing and looking over to Jake, and he's scared to respond either way because he's not sure if it actually is illegal, “anyway, I'm not married to you, so it doesn't really seem like your business.”

“It's absolutely his business,” Jake says, leaning forward to get as close to Amir as possible without leaving his chair, “he's the judge for our case. This is literally his business.”

“Mr Hurwitz,” he turns to Jake, seemingly having decided that attempting to get answers from Amir is a fruitless endeavor, “you agree with this? You're the one who filed for the divorce, and have been quite adamant that it went through as quickly as possible.”

“That's correct, your honor, but the last few days has shown me that I actually had a lot of misplaced anger towards Amir, so what I should have been doing was working on myself to be a better husband to him.”

“You said, and I quote, ‘fuck that rat weasel, that diva, that shit stained roach—’”

“I did say that,” he nods, and Amir laughs like it's all a funny joke now.

“He did say that, I remember. He's gonna change, though.”

“I'm gonna change. I love that shit stained roach, sir.”

The judge is looking between them, and Jake doesn't know if this is a normal amount of uncomfortable for a judge to look, but it doesn't feel like it. “I think you both should change. I think you need to change a lot, both of you. This union is a menace to society.”

“Easy does it,” Amir says, and Jake doesn't think he's helping, “we're fine to society. Neutral at best. It's not my fault if the world revolves around our love.”

“That's not what I'm saying at all. You guys are horrible,” he says, brow furrowed, and Amir laughs.

“But,” Jake says, scrambling to justify, “isn't it better that we're horrible together? That way we're protecting the rest of the world from each other.”

The judge pauses for a long moment, and Jake can tell he's considering. Jake looks to Amir to get a read on him only to find him already looking back, and the look makes Jake melt, any worries he had floating away at the tender look in Amir's eyes. He could look at Amir forever, especially if he's gonna be looking back at him like that, like Jake is something beautiful. Like he's something worth looking at.

“No,” the judge says after a long breath, and it drags Jake out of his moment, “I think you both make each other worse. I think you're a force for destruction and need to be separated for the good of everyone.”

“What?” Jake says, and Amir is laughing that little evil laugh he does when he doesn't agree with something.

“This is bullshit, man. We're soulmates.”

The judge shakes his head. “It's better for everyone if you two stay far, far away from each other. As a servant of this court and this country, I have to do my part in that.”

“Wait, you can do that?” Jake says, but he's cut off by the banging of the gavel 

“You two are officially divorced.”

“No!” They say in unison, and everyone else looks relieved to be filing out of the courtroom, until it's only them left, sitting dumbfounded on opposite tables.

Jake doesn't notice him move, but he feels Amir slide into the chair next to him, lacing their fingers together, and he can feel Amir's wedding ring pressing into his skin.

“So,” he starts, unsure, “what do we do now?”

Amir smiles, and leans in to kiss him, lingering against Jake's lips. “Will you marry me?”

“You just asked me that at the hospital,” Jake says, but he's grinning so wide it makes Amir laugh.

“Alright, ass, will you remarry me? A second wedding for these two newly unwed bachelor's?”

Jake leans forward, closing the sliver of distance between them, kissing him soundly, savoring the way Amir immediately pushes back against him, his hand cupping Jake's jaw, and Jake doesn't even care where they are or who might see or what they might think. The feeling of Amir's skin under his fingertips is so much that Jake feels breathless, Amir's lips stealing what little oxygen he has. He's not exactly complaining; he chases the feeling, and Amir lets go of Jake's hand to lay over his heart, fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt.

“Fuck it,” Jake mumbles, words almost entirely consumed by Amir's lips, and just climbs into Amir's lap, chair creaking under their combined weight. It gives him such a better angle to be able to run his hands over Amir, to feel the press of his body everywhere, and Amir breaks away from his lips to kiss his way down Jake's neck, biting at the soft skin under his jaw. He's definitely gonna have a mark there, later, but that's tomorrow's problem, and tomorrow doesn't seem quite so daunting with Amir's lips on his neck and his hands on Jake's chest and his wedding ring catching against the material of Jake's shirt.

Jake rests his hand against Amir's cheek, tilting him back up to meet Jake's lips, and when he speaks it's so quiet that even if the room was full, only Amir could hear. 

“Let's go home,” he says, and feels Amir's smile, his hand moving to brush a thumb tenderly against Jake's stubble.

“Yeah, let's go home,” Amir whispers, “we’ve got a fucking wedding extravaganza to plan, anyway. It'll be even phatter than the last one, and that one was pretty phat.”

Jake laughs, and leans his forehead against Amir's, savoring the moment before they have to untangle from one another.

“Yeah,” he says, leaning in to kiss him one more time, “I remember.”