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Damned Jude Perry. Jude had gotten some strange idea in her head that she and Mike should have monthly brunches, and Vast knows how she thought of that. So Mike will often get up early (6:30! Is this Jude’s plan to torment him?) and get ready (Which takes hours!) and go to the place Jude says to meet (Some dingy old cafe, usually? Why does she even like this place?), and half the time she never shows up.
Today was one of those times. Mike sat outside at a table with his tea, half an hour after Jude had said she’d be there. He watched as the people went by as he sipped his tea, irritated at her. If she wasn’t going to show, he would leave. But if she was just late, and he left, she’d laugh at him for days. So he waited, unreadable as always, and planned what he’d say in his shouting fit.
Mike wasn’t a Watcher, but he liked to see people going about their days. Sometimes, if he was feeling fanciful, he’d imagine what their day was like. That man over there was on his way to a desk job that he used to support his wife’s baking business, and that woman was a florist.
A tall, handsome Black man walked by and sat at a table near Mike’s. Mike was interested, seeing how tired he looked, worry lines etched into his face. But…something about him seemed wrong. Not normal wrong. Maybe it was the faint chill in the air, or the shiver down his spine when the man sat down. He just seemed…inhuman.
Mike’s phone went off, startling him from his staring.
9:37 A.M.
Message history between mikecrew and jxde.pxrry.
jxde.pxrry: not coming xoxo
mikecrew: ugh
mikecrew: bitch
jxde.pxrry: deal with it slut
jxde.pxrry: i have someplace to be 😏🔥
mikecrew: fine. have fun with your arson.
mikecrew: next week?
jxde.pxrry: you know it
Well then. Mike could leave. He stood up to walk home, and immediately sat back down, hit with a dizzy spell. The man at the table near him heard him and turned around, looking concerned.
“Are you alright?”
His voice was quiet. Mike waved his hand, attempting to wave away the worry in the man’s voice. By the look on his face, he hadn’t succeeded.
“Just …vertigo,” Mike laughed at the irony, more than a little bitterly.
“Do you need water?” The man asked.
“No, but thank you…?” Mike paused for a name.
“A-Oliver.”
“Mike.”
Oliver smiled at him, and his tired face lit up. Mike smiled back, suddenly more cheerful than he really ever was. He got up, this time without the dizzy spell, and sat down at Oliver’s table.
“It’s nice out, isn’t it? The sky is so blue,” Mike said.
Oliver was still smiling, although a little wariness had crept into his expression.
“You’re not about to throw me into it, are you?”
Mike took a few seconds to register what Oliver had said.
“What? You…what?” Mike sputtered.
Oliver laughed.
“You have a reputation, even among the other Fears’ avatars.”
Oh. Oh.
The chill that still vaguely lingered in the air around Oliver made sense now. The End had an odd way of marking its avatars.
“I won’t throw you, I promise. I don’t want to.”
“And I can’t hurt you. I won’t be the thing that ends you, and honestly I don’t want to either.”
Mike blushed. With his pale complexion, it was almost written on his face.
Oliver’s phone went off, and he looked apologetically at Mike.
“I’ll see you around, Mike.”
And, surprisingly, he did. Oliver had no way of knowing where Mike was, Mike was sure of that. Mike would have called it fate, or the universe pulling Oliver and him together, except he had given up on the universe caring about humanity years before he Became. He knew that the cosmos couldn’t - wouldn’t! - care about two people (if they could be called that) like Oliver and Mike. But somehow, they’d still managed to find each other.
The first time they saw each other after that morning was at the grocery store. They didn’t even stop to talk. They just…made eye contact as Mike left.
He went to a bookstore, and he knew he had no idea that Oliver worked there. He couldn’t have known. He walked into the magic shop and, subsequently, walked right into Oliver, who was walking out of the shop. They both blushed and apologized, and Mike noticed the name tag that was still pinned to Oliver’s sheer purple shirt.
“Oh-hi, Mike,” Oliver breathed.
Mike just looked at Oliver. Not in a bad way. Oliver was nice to look at, Mike decided.
“Uh…Mike?”
Whatever stupor Mike was in, Oliver’s voice immediately snapped him out of it.
“Hello, Oliver,” Mike gestured to the name tag, “you work here?”
Oliver looked down at the item like he’d forgotten he was wearing it.
“Oh! Yes, I do. Just finished for the day. I do tarot readings. And I paint cards.” He pulled off the name tag and put it in his pocket.
They walked together, down to a park. They spent an hour or so talking about nothing in particular and made plans to meet again.
The next time it was dinner. Mike only remembered the important parts: Oliver wore gold eyeliner and they had pasta.
And then they met again. And again.
Until they were meeting up every week and Mike had developed a huge (Vast, haha) crush on Oliver. And he wasn’t sure it was one-sided.
Shit.
They were at Mike’s apartment, fifteen stories up, on his balcony. Mike was perched on the railing, and Oliver was sitting on one of Mike’s decrepit patio chairs. They’d been there for a few hours, alternating between talking and just sitting together in a comfortable silence.
Oliver was sitting in the sun, which made him look ethereal, like an angel. The sun framed Mike from behind, so he appeared to be a silhouette in front of an impossibly cloudless sky. Oliver’s eyes were closed, but Mike was sure he wasn’t sleeping. Oliver didn’t sleep anymore. Whether that was a choice or a product of his entity, Mike didn’t know.
“Mike.”
Oliver opened his eyes (eyes that shimmered with years of unshed tears, tears for every person who he couldn’t save) to look at Mike. Mike hopped down from the railing to sit across from him.
“Yeah?”
“Do you ever think about if any of it matters? Us? Anyone?”
Mike had thought about that. He had thought about it even more since he met Oliver. Would his love matter if they were so insignificant? He used to know that nothing mattered. He still knew. But isn’t there freedom in insignificance?
“I don’t know, Oliver. I don’t think it matters to the universe. It’s all insignificant compared to the size of the cosmos. But matter to the universe? That’s like a gilded cage. And I’ve always liked my space.”
Oliver looked at Mike as he spoke like he was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen.
Mike waited for Oliver to reply.
Instead, Oliver kissed him.
It was soft and sweet and tinged with melancholy, the kind of kiss you’d give your lover on their deathbed. Mike didn’t mind. He was sure he tasted like ozone to Oliver, who threaded his hands through Mike’s hair, and Mike melted. They pulled away, and Oliver fixed Mike with the most tender look he’d ever seen.
“I’ve wanted to do that since I saw you at the café,” Oliver whispered.
“I’ve definitely thought about it a lot since then too,” Mike murmured.
He kissed Oliver again, almost reverently, and Oliver tilted Mike’s face upwards as their lips brushed.
When they pulled away and Mike opened his eyes again, Oliver’s eyes were full of tears.
“Oliver, are you alright?”
The tears began to carve a path down Oliver’s careworn face.
“I don’t know.”
Mike got up and walked around the shitty patio table to sit next to him. He touched Oliver’s shoulder, then sat down next to him. Oliver wordlessly crumpled into Mike’s embrace. Mike held him as he shed tears for every person he’d seen who’d lost their lover, a lover who Oliver couldn’t save. Oliver had never really been in love before. He’d never had what those people lost until now, and he understood their fear now. As Oliver cried, Mike kissed his forehead, his hands, his knuckles. Oliver calmed down, and he and Mike just held each other for a while. Maybe it was minutes, maybe it was hours. But they were together.
They got through it.
They got through the days where Mike was so dizzy he could barely stand. They got through the nights that Mike would wake to Oliver pressing kisses to the center of Mike’s forehead, tears running down his face. They got through the thunderstorms that would have Mike trembling with fear and remembered pain. They got through the days where Oliver would lay, motionless, without a pulse, the only indication that he lived being his shallow breaths.
There were happier times too, of course.
There were days where they’d sit on the balcony, playing cards and laughing. There were the mornings that one of them would wake up to see the other one making breakfast, and rise to help him. There were the lazy afternoons spent on the couch, languidly kissing while watching a movie. There were the nights out, where they’d go out on extravagant dates. There were the days spent happily with friends and the days spent happily alone.
They got through it, together.