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Michael never invited Trevor for a visit to his house.
It was no wonder, knowing how much Amanda detested his mere presence. Not much had changed in the time that the Judas pretended to be dead or the years after their reunion; Trevor still wasn’t welcome in their house, and Michael was still pussywhipped.
That was one of the reasons why he hadn’t called Michael much in the past decade even though he often hung out with Tracey and Jimmy. He witnessed Jimmy getting a job and a girlfriend and Tracey getting a college degree, and he wept happy tears when he first met Tracey’s son. He was just living his best weird uncle life, really — but only when he needed to make sure that his oldest friend was, in fact, still alive, did he dare to break the promise he had made himself.
Don’t push him away again. Let him come to you. Because he will, eventually.
On those rare occasions that Michael actually wanted to spend time with him, they went to a bar. And sometimes multiple, changing place after a few drinks — on those nights, they reminisced on their past, and hints of Michael Townley were visible on De Santa’s aging face, in the way he grinned. Those nights Trevor cherished.
It was the summer of 2024 when things changed. Trevor was delighted when Michael called him twice in the same month — that was unheard of. Trevor thought they were finally getting somewhere in their relationship. Slowly but surely.
Even more unimaginable was the fact that Michael called every week in July, but then again, he could have called every single night, and Trevor would have run to him without question. So they hung out, sometimes in a bar and sometimes, to Trevor’s surprise, at the beach. The problem was that wherever they were, Michael stared at either a glass of whiskey or the ocean and barely said anything until they went their own separate ways again.
It wasn’t like him, which clearly warned Trevor that something was wrong. He analyzed his own behavior — had he been too pushy, too blatant in what he wanted? But he didn’t think he had been, what with being so used to hiding his deepest and truest desire.
So that left only one possibility: Michael was trying to find a way to tell him that he needed to get out of their lives before Tracey’s son was old enough to get attached to crazy Uncle T that ran a strip club and still got high sometimes. Even though he had cut back, it wasn’t enough to make him fit into their perfect lives, and it was all so clear in Amanda’s never-ending glares and Tracey’s quietness the last time he visited.
He was being pushed away again, abandoned like a high-maintenance household pet when its owners decided that it wasn’t a good enough replacement for a child, after all. And he understood it. After all these years, to his surprise, he had come to accept that nothing was permanent in his life — except drugs, maybe, but they didn’t make him happy. They just kept him functional.
He wouldn’t get to be happy. That was okay. He merely wanted Michael to say it to his face. He knew what was coming, but he wasn’t going to let the traitor have an easy way out and bring it up himself.
So when Michael invited him over, and the whole house was conveniently empty, and Michael looked so grave and broken when offering him the good whiskey and asking him to sit down… Trevor knew that the time for goodbyes had come.
Michael put down his empty glass, clinking it on the table a bit too hard. He struggled with his words, Trevor could tell; but he waited, willing to exhaust all of his patience before starting the conversation.
He had to wait in complete silence for minutes until Michael, evading eye contact, finally spoke, voice flat. “There’s no easy way to say this so I’ll just say it.”
Trevor simply raised his eyebrows.
“I’m dying, Trevor.”
Trevor’s head was filled with white static, preventing him from realizing what it meant yet, so he chuckled, “Are you having a heart attack, Porkchop? Do I need to give you CPR?”
Michael lifted his gaze, and the pain in his baby blue eyes told Trevor that there was nothing funny in that joke, and he realized what was going on before Michael’s actions — a slight shaking of his head and mouth pressed into a thin line — confirmed the bitter truth.
No, no, no. No.
“No,” Trevor croaked, realizing that the glass wasn’t enough. He put it down and reached for the whole bottle instead.
Not time for goodbyes yet.
He opened it quickly and lifted it to his lips, and Michael didn’t protest when he tilted it and let the liquor touch his lips.
When he spoke, his voice was impossibly soft and gentle, so unlike him. “I got cancer, T.”
Trevor couldn’t look at him anymore; he just drank and drank and drank, throat burning, tears filling his eyes, so he shut them tight.
“Come on, hey, that’s enough,” Michael muttered after too many gulps and pried the bottle off his hand, spilling some whiskey on his chin and shirt and making him splutter.
Michael was wrong. No amount of alcohol would ever be enough again.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and, with a whiskey-burned voice, coughed out the first question in his head. “What kind, Mikey?”
Michael put the bottle down and avoided Trevor’s gaze, leaning his arms on his thighs. “Lung,” he answered simply.
A burst of panicked laughter left his lips. “Lung cancer?”
Michael only nodded, gazing down on the floor; Trevor jumped up from the sofa with a furious growl. “Lung cancer?! I fucking told you! I always fucking told you!”
“You did,” Michael agreed calmly, but his hands shook as he clasped them together, like praying.
“I knew this would happen! I always fucking told you to quit, you fuck!” he screamed as if Michael had disagreed with him, pacing with his hands up in both desperation and the urge to break something. Like his own skull.
Michael finally looked up at him and declared sternly, “And I didn’t, and now I’m dying. So that’s that.”
His eyes had zero fight left in them, and that made Trevor come to a halt. They stared at each other for a time, Trevor’s hands in tight fists and eyes wet as he fought the urge to hurt, to kill, until he tore his gaze away with a pained growl and sat back down, burying his face in his hands.
That’s that.
He would never have Michael.
After pining, hoping, wishing, dropping hints, craving for any sign, yearning for any moment of closeness, hanging on to the rare words of affection, for almost forty fucking years — this is how it would end. Because even when they were getting older and slightly grayer and Michael stayed with Amanda, seemingly fixing their relationship, Trevor had always harbored some hope that…
It didn’t matter anymore. He had lost. Maybe there were no winners here, but he had definitely lost.
He forced himself out of the thoughts when Michael hesitantly patted his shoulder twice — Michael, who should not be the one doing the consoling. And when Trevor lifted his head to meet the worried eyes, he withdrew the hand and leaned back. Away from him again.
Because everyone Trevor loved always left him in the end.
“How long?” he asked, voice trembling, trying to keep it together.
Michael shrugged a bit, but his voice was hoarse. “Got a few months left. If I’m lucky.”
A flare of anger burned inside Trevor again, and he desperately tried to smother it before doing something stupid.
A couple of weeks later, he couldn’t recall much of that day. He remembered he had failed to keep calm after Michael told him he wouldn’t try chemo. It’s too late for that. He remembered the bottle of whiskey flying into a wall, glass shattering everywhere. He remembered not eating, drinking, or sleeping for days and days. He remembered smoking and smoking and smoking and all those bitter tears that dulled the high that meth usually gave him, the painful wounds on his forehead and the smell of blood, the quietness in his soul even when he was surrounded by people at the strip club.
Whatever. At least he was still alive by the end of the summer.
Unlike Michael.
Time for goodbyes came without warning in August when Michael showed up at Vanilla Unicorn and asked him to go for a ride. He might have still been high, and his friend was merely a shadow of his old self, movements sluggish and voice weak as he was out of breath just after the short walk from his car, but Trevor rarely did say no when Michael asked him for anything, and especially not anymore.
Michael drove them to the hills outside the town — he said he wanted to look at the city lights from up there one last time, and Trevor didn’t really care where they were. His head was nothing but a jumble of things he should say, things he wanted to say, things he shouldn’t say but needed to, things that were trying to claw their way out of him, and yet, he couldn’t voice any of them. Even when they arrived, they were both frozen in their seats, unable to step out of the car or start a conversation. They just stared at the city that had given them so much grief, the fond memories buried under it all. But the view of the lights was stunning, Trevor had to admit. Michael seemed mesmerized by it — until he took out a carton, cracked open the window, and lit up a cigarette.
Trevor wanted to punch him in the face more than ever as he breathed in the smoke, then coughed long and violently. He hated Michael more now than when he announced he was getting married, came back from the dead, or revealed that he was dying. It was like he didn’t take this seriously. Like this would be simply another fake death to him even when his body convulsed with the force of his coughs and the raspy breaths he drew in sounded painful, to say the least.
And Trevor could do absolutely nothing to help. He was useless.
“When I found out, you know what I thought?” Michael started abruptly with a gruff voice, his gaze strictly forward. “This serves me right. Because I’ve barely done anything good in my life.”
“Fuck off with that karma bullshit,” Trevor grunted. “The reason is much more simple than that.”
Michael glanced at him, maybe to confirm that he was indeed glaring at the cigarette hanging from his lips. “It’s too late anyway, so can you not do that?” he sighed, blowing smoke out the window. “Just let me have this. Besides, it might be both. Don’t you believe in… in good and bad? We’ve done nothing but bad things, T. How could we get to be happy?”
When he said it like that, it did make sense. God, Trevor hated him so fucking much.
And yet, “Maybe you’re right. I don’t think I could be happy after you go.”
Although Michael avoided his gaze, the confession felt too heavy in the small space. It didn’t matter. He had already pondered on it and knew what he wanted to do. He had just been looking for the opportunity, and the opportunity was now when he had Michael to himself and tears prickled in his eyes.
“You know, Mikey, that I can’t go on without you. So what do you say, eh?”
“... To what?” Michael asked with a gruff voice, finally facing him.
Even when everything else seemed to be dying, the color of his eyes stayed the same, and it still made Trevor’s heart skip a beat with its beauty.
He licked his dry lips before making his plea, talking rapidly as if Michael might throw him out any second. “We could get out of this car and jump to our demise right here. Or we could blow it up and burn to death. Or we could take a shitton of drugs and OD like a couple of washed up Vinewood celebrities. You’d like that, huh? Or with guns in our hands, Mikey, remember that? We could rob a bank for old time’s sake, go with guns blazing.”
The silence dragged on, and Trevor knew Michael wasn’t considering it. His eyes were ever so slightly too wide. “What are you suggesting here, T?”
The tears fell down his face then, and he sobbed, “That we go together before you waste away like a… like a… like a pathetic old man!” He wiped his face furiously. “You know I’ll do anything for you, Mikey. Just don’t leave me here alone! Not when you’re not gonna come back from the dead nine years later!”
Michael shook his head once, then again and again, closing his eyes. “No, no… Trev… I can’t… I got a family. I got a fucking grandson. I can’t. I’m only here to say goodbye to you.”
“I know,” Trevor cried. He knew, but it didn’t hurt any less. “I fucking know.”
“So don’t say things like that,” he pleaded, clearly distressed. “You’re not alone. Of course you’re not. But you gotta clean up your act because Tracey and Jimmy are gonna need you. Stop thinking like this. I want you to go on for them.”
For once, he wasn’t pushed away. It was something he had craved all his life, but not like this. Not if Michael wasn’t going to be a part of it. “What if I don’t want to? They’re your family, not mine. They’re not gonna want me around.”
“Don’t say that. They are your family, too. Even Amanda realizes that.”
He shook his head, pursing his lips, although the sad look in Michael’s eyes almost convinced him. “I don’t know. I feel like there’s nothing for me here after you’re gone.”
“Of course you do. This ain’t Romeo and Juliet.”
It was a weak joke that made Trevor laugh at first, joylessly and shortly, but it ended with a sob. “Isn’t it?” he choked out, his tears more desperate. He was losing the love of his life, and it felt impossible to move on. Wasn’t that the story?
Michael was quiet for a long, long time, gazing at the city below them. Long enough for Trevor to realize that Michael knew. The implication was too obvious. He just didn’t expect Michael to talk about it. “Were you… Were you always…?” he hesitated, never finishing that sentence.
Maybe it was selfish of him to admit it. Maybe it would have been kinder never to speak up. But he couldn’t keep quiet anymore, and Michael looked solely hopeless instead of angry or disgusted, so what was the harm?
“I was. Always, Mikey,” he whispered, then continued more firmly when Michael turned to look at him with eyes full of commiseration and guilt. “Stop that, don’t fucking pity me.”
“I’m not,” he insisted, but the look stayed. “But I treated you like shit.” He stumped the cigarette on the console, having taken only a few drags out of it, then turned to throw it out.
A wet chuckle escaped Trevor’s lips. “You did. It’s okay, not like I wasn’t used to it.”
“Jesus, that doesn’t make it any better. You deserved better, T,” he sighed, rubbing his face quickly.
Trevor had barely ever heard anything like that before, as if he was a normal person who deserved good things. Not in years. He sniffled before letting out a broken sob.
Michael looked guilty. “Don’t cry, T. You’ll find someone—”
“No, I won’t.” It was stern enough to shut Michael up. “I won’t,” Trevor repeated. “You… you were the one.”
“Fuck,” Michael whispered, and when Trevor looked closely, he saw a few tears in his eyes too. “I’m sorry. I… fuck. I guess I knew. I… expected you to make a move at some point.”
Trevor’s laugh was a surprised one, tearful and melancholic. “Really? Was I that obvious?”
“Maybe,” Michael said surprisingly gently. “Sometimes, yeah.”
Trevor wiped his running nose with the back of his hand. Jesus. And he had thought he did a good job hiding it. “How?”
“I don’t know,” Michael muttered. “I just got the feeling when we were young.”
Trevor hummed, clearing his throat. “Well, it doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t have wanted to, anyway.” He gave Michael a sideway glance after that. Maybe he still harbored some hope.
Michael seemed to struggle with his words, opening his mouth and closing it again. “... Yeah,” he agreed after another long pause and a tiny shrug. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s nothing to apologize for,” Trevor answered, even when his heart had shattered into millions of unrepairable pieces. “You loved her and that’s that. I’m just glad I got to be a part of your life, Mikey. Most of it, at least.”
Michael sighed regretfully, wiping his eyes quickly with his fingertips. “Yeah. And… you do know how important you are to me, right? No one’s known me as long as you. When it was only us… Those were some of the best years of my life and I never realized it. I… wish I hadn’t fucked everything up between us. That we’d had more time together.”
Trevor swallowed heavily, sensing that Michael needed something — and knowing he was sincere, it was easy to give it. “I forgive you. I wish that too, but… I forgive you.”
Michael stared at him for a long time, and it was hard to face when Trevor felt his soul bare, ripped open, no more holding any secrets from him. Eventually, Michael smiled a bit, the corners of his lips turning up but wet eyes pleading when he spoke in a weak, hushed voice.
“Come here, Trev.”
“What?” he breathed out.
“Come here.” He leaned closer over the center console.
He did not reach out his arms.
Not a hug.
The quick thrumming of his heart almost made Trevor feel sick. Why now? “Not out of pity,” he eventually whispered, maybe a warning, maybe begging for a confirmation that Michael really considered them friends, that there was love between them, even if it was platonic on one side.
“No. Because I want to.”
Trevor rarely said no to him, and especially not now. He leaned forward, and Michael pressed their lips against each other; Trevor cried again, would have been unable to deepen the kiss even if he had dared, hands too shaky to touch Michael.
But Michael’s hand found his face, though the touch felt weak and his movements were slow. Fingertips that smelled of tobacco gently brushed on his cheek, and then lips followed, kissing away tears as if new ones weren’t going to replace them immediately.
And then Michael pulled away, a few tears making their way unhurriedly to his jaw, sitting back in his seat. Was it calm resolution or defeat in his eyes? Trevor didn’t know, but he let Michael lean away from him again, for the last time, now that their goodbyes were exchanged in a fleeting moment as sweet as a first and the last kiss painted with tears could ever be.
In its own twisted way, Trevor decided, if you believe in Michael’s karma bullshit, it was fitting that was the only moment set aside for them.
Trevor didn’t know everyone at the wake.
He wore a suit that was slightly too small for him. The ceremony, held at home, hadn’t even started, and the collar of the shirt already made him feel like he would suffocate at any minute, and he couldn’t stop pulling at it with shaky hands until Franklin gently guided him outside to the backyard, out of sight of Amanda and some rich-looking old fucks Trevor could only assume were from the movie studio or the golf club.
Trevor saw the worry in Franklin’s kind, clever eyes, but he didn’t ask how Trevor was, for which he was grateful; he just opened the top button for him, loosening his tie with firm hands. ”No one’s gonna care if your shirt isn’t properly buttoned, dog.”
Trevor almost felt like he could breathe again. “Thanks, F.”
“You’re welcome,” Franklin answered quietly, pushing his hands to his pockets and turning to look at the pool. He wasn’t crying, but then again, neither of them was right now — it didn’t mean they weren’t heartbroken. Maybe Franklin, too, had wept his tears away already.
“Family life treating you well?” Trevor asked conversationally after a while, still examining Franklin’s face. He looked tired in a way that was expected of a father of two young kids. Maybe a bit old for his age, if Trevor was honest. Nonetheless, he had no doubt Franklin did a good job raising them.
“Yeah. Yeah. Real good,” he murmured. “Can’t complain.”
“Great. Well, I figured since I haven’t seen you at the VU.” He forced a small smile to his lips, knowing full well that Franklin tried to live more cleanly for his wife’s sake.
He didn’t mean it as a jab, but he saw Franklin took it as one. He jerked his neck in a way that eerily reminded him of Michael. “I’m sorry, T. With the kids and the business, it’s been hard finding the time—”
“Yeah, of course,” Trevor cut him off. He had already heard that story before. “Don’t worry about it.”
The kid was quiet, clearly trying to find the right words, maybe thinking what was alright for him to say. Trevor knew that back when they still used to see each other, Franklin had sometimes felt like he had to walk on eggshells around him. He couldn’t blame him. “Can’t help thinking I shoulda seen M more when I still could,” he eventually sighed.
Trevor felt his words as daggers to his gut; there was never enough time, was there? “You and me both, brother.”
Franklin gave him a sad smile and a pat on his shoulder. “You should come meet the kids and Tanisha soon, T.”
“Sure. Yeah. Love to.”
But he recognized the guilt in Franklin’s eyes. It was the kind of guilt that he genuinely felt, there was no doubt about that, but he would never do anything about it, just hand out empty words. Exactly like Michael thirty years ago with his small kids. It was too complicated to fix it. Trevor was too complicated. But it was okay.
They went back in, and Franklin spotted Lester standing in the corner of the kitchen, leaning on his cane but otherwise looking well. Franklin muttered that they hadn’t seen each other in years before going to him, and neither had Trevor, but then Tracey came to him, kissed his cheek gently, and handed Leo to him.
Trevor felt like a knight chosen for the most important quest in the whole kingdom. He joined Franklin and Lester, giving them a brief nod before focusing on the boy. He saw the two exchanging a look but didn’t pay it any mind.
Leo, dressed in dark pants and a shirt, was always more on the quiet side. He was a contemplative kid who still didn’t talk as much as he was supposed to at his age, but it was more evident now than ever. Trevor figured he was still a bit too young to understand what was going on, why everyone looked so grim, and he didn’t know if it was ultimately a good thing.
It meant he might not remember Michael at all when he grew up.
Trevor did, in fact, still have a few tears left in him.
He held Leo as Tracey and Jimmy read something from the Bible that Michael wouldn’t have cared about at all, and came to the conclusion that life should go on. For the kids. For the grown-up ones and the small one in his arms who needed to hear about the adventures of his granddad one day. The great Michael Townley with the big blue eyes exactly like his.
Lester didn’t stay long, and neither did Franklin. In the middle of the priest’s speech, Trevor spied Dave Norton, of all people, standing in the hallway, but he must have slipped off soon because he didn’t see the man more than once. The rich assholes, the ones who knew nothing about Michael, stayed for hours, eating and drinking and talking. He escaped their meaningless prattle by going upstairs and staying in Tracey’s old room, which was now a guest room. Jimmy and his girlfriend or Tracey occasionally kept him and Leo company before going back downstairs to support Amanda.
He watched the boy sleeping in the crib after the day's hassle tired him out, listening to the guests leaving one by one. Then it was quiet for a while before Amanda, Jimmy, and Tracey started talking, putting away food, and he could do nothing but sit and listen. He should have gone home, to the tiny apartment he had bought near the strip club after he got tired of sleeping on a couch, but that felt like the end, for some reason. And he wasn’t finished yet.
And then Amanda emerged from the stairs, taking off her earrings as she walked, pausing when she saw him through the wide-open door. “Oh. I thought you left already.” Her voice was dull, hoarse after speaking and crying for hours.
“He loved you,” he said without preamble. And not me went unsaid.
She didn’t answer, just looked at him indifferently from far away. But what was there to say to that? She must have known; Michael had, after all, stayed with her until the end. She had buried him as hers. Trevor only had the memory of a kiss, one he would never, ever share with anyone. That was solely his and Michael’s.
“I’m getting clean. For the kids.”
“Good,” she said, hiding the earrings into her fist. “That’s good.”
“I’m signing into rehab tomorrow. I don’t know how long that’ll take, but if you or they need anything, just ask me. I mean that. I’ll be here.” He spoke with conviction.
“... Not in my spare room, I hope.” But there was something like appreciation in her gaze.
“God, no.”
With a small laugh and a hopeful heart, Trevor walked out of their lives for a few months.
In January, the last movie Michael had worked on came out. Trevor rented an entire auditorium for himself, Tracey, Jimmy, and Amanda — despite inviting her, he hadn’t been too sure she would join them, but he was glad she did. For the kids.
Tracey wet his shoulder with her tears, but he was happy to be her rock; they all sobbed through the shitty action movie and waited for the credits to roll, and when Michael’s in memoriam showed up, Trevor wondered if Michael had lied to him on their last night.
He wondered but did what Michael had asked and took care of his family until the end. He never had his own, but that was okay because it turned out that he was wanted and needed as the Funny Uncle T. It wasn’t the love he had always yearned for, but it kept him sane, nevertheless.
So Trevor didn’t get to leave with a gun in his hand, either, and even in his final days, Michael long gone but never laid to rest in his aching heart, he kept asking himself: if Michael truly had wanted that kiss, and he always knew Trevor loved him, and he had expected Trevor to make a move… Why wait all that time?