Chapter Text
“Jesus fucking Christ you piece of shit!”
“The lady next door swored,” Axl says helpfully. Then, in case Mike isn’t sure where ‘next door’ is, he points with one chubby hand (Axl is losing his baby fat slowly, unlike Ty, whose state of perpetually worrying wore him out, and Anders, who never had any) in the direction of the woman kicking her car tyre and swearing like a sailor.
And their dad was a sailor, so Mike knows that’s accurate.
“You’re lucky you’re not a man!” their neighbour – who Mike hasn’t seen before, so she must be new, although he doesn’t really keep up with who’s living where – kicks the car again. “If you were, I would eviscerate you. Slowly.”
“What’s viss-er-eight?”
“It doesn’t matter, finish your tea,” Mike tears himself away from the window and goes back to shepherding peas onto his fork.
“It means stabbing,” Anders says with relish, demonstrating on his chicken. “And pulling out the guts. Lots of blood.”
“It doesn’t really mean that, does it?” Ty looks at Mike worriedly, whilst Axl chirps “cool!” and tries to imitate Anders’ stabbing motions, sending peas flying.
“It… does,” he says slowly, “But her car’s not human, so don’t worry.” They don’t need a repeat of the ‘defenestration’ episode, where Ty didn’t sleep for weeks. Sure, he was twelve then, but he’s only just fourteen. “It’s just a figure of speech, like when you say you want to kill Anders, you don’t mean it, do you?”
“Sometimes.”
“I’ll sell you for scrap metal and then we’ll see who’s laughing!”
“Excuse me,” Mike stands up from the table. “I’ll be back in a sec. Eat your peas, Axl, I’ll know if you haven’t.”
He ignores his littlest brother’s horrified cries of “But I’m allergic!” and closes the door, leaving the chaos of his living situation behind, at least for a little bit.
“Need any help?” he sticks a hand in his pocket and loiters awkwardly. The woman looks up and gives him a once over with a flick of her perfectly made up eyes, and Mike is suddenly very aware of the fact his shirt has a hole in and his jeans are paint-stained. Ah, the joys of three younger brothers and a job at a construction site. “I’m – Mike. Johnson? I live next door.”
Her eyes – the colour of the sky in Midwinter, and doesn’t he sound like Anders when he thinks like that? – flicker briefly in the direction of the door (and he hopes that his brothers aren’t making their spying obvious) before returning to him. She straightens up. “Michele.”
“Couldn’t help but notice…” he gestures vaguely to her car.
“Aren’t you sweet?” Michele says in a voice that suggests anything but. “My car won’t start, as I’m sure you guessed.”
He could offer to look at it, but Mike’s knowledge of cars doesn’t really go beyond ‘it moves and fits my construction gear and occasionally children in,’ so he’d probably just screw it up more. “Need a lift somewhere?”
“Why?” Michele narrows her ice-eyes.
“Well, clearly your car isn’t responding to your… detailed threats, so,” he shrugs. It’s almost like he’s back in school with Robb and Val, and everyone avoiding them because there was something a bit strange about them. “I can put my little brothers in the back if you’re concerned about me being a serial killer.”
“I’d rather you were a serial killer.”
“You say that like you’ve already met them.” They both turn to look at his house, where three children he’s only half convinced are related to him duck out of sight. “…and you don’t need to. So. Need a lift?”