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In the 19 years of life that Michael had experienced, there had only been 5 people that he had trusted with his entire being: Mama, Evan, Elizabeth, Uncle Henry, and Charlie. He had tattooed these names into his brain, a constant reminder that they were the only people that he could give his life to. William Afton was not one of these people.
Still, he let himself trust his father. Not that he hadn’t needed to convince himself to follow his father’s orders - he had spent hours in the shadows of his actively deteriorating apartment staring vacantly at the letter in his hands, his mind not fully there, at the familiar grandiose signature at the bottom written in royal purple ink, at the words written in impossibly neat and practised hand-writing, the way even through letters while Michael was cities away from him, he emanated superiority.
It was indisputably his father - the one he hadn’t seen in almost a year. The one that disappeared weeks before his 18th birthday, the one that was legally a missing person.
Save your sister.
Michael, trudging his emptied body down the streets that he had grown up in, clutching onto his stomach watching as the fresh blood leaked down onto his shaking hands, the fact that his own dad had sent him to his death lingering in a haze at the back of his head, knew that he did not save his sister - if she was ever really meant to be saved by Michael in the first place. Still, as his mind strays further away from the fucking mess that he is, all he can think of is how disappointed his father would be for failing to rescue her.
He did not love his son. Evan was a very distinct middle ground. He adored his daughter.
Michael remembers the day Elizabeth went missing in small parts - he remembers the date (July 23rd 1981, also known as her goddamn birthday), he remembers the terrified look on his father’s face as he banged his body against the door with Circus Baby, he remembers the confusion and fear that seized his body when he yelled at him to get in the car with Evan, he remembers the newspaper and missing posters, he remembers his father getting drunk out of his mind, silent tears falling down his face in the car, he remembers him looking at his remaining children not like people, but as possessions that only he could break.
He remembers Uncle Henry and he remembers Charlie. And he remembers how much they loved him.
Charlie, he thinks, and he would cry if he could, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.
Michael hadn’t seen her since they both left Hurricane for college - her in a nearby city studying biomedical science, him in Santa Ana studying engineering. He knew that she came home every weekend to visit him. He knew that she’d be in her home waiting for her dad to come home from his late shifts at his job.
Absently, as if the thought of the two of them had spurred his subconscious to a decision he was not aware of, he feels his feet taking him down a familiar path. One that he had raced down with Sammy and Charlie by his side until he was 9 (after that it was only he and Charlie), one that he had walked down with his mother and Evan before Elizabeth was born, before his father was just William Afton and not his dad, before everything turned to shit. Before he was left alone.
The rain batters against his body, what misses thundering against the ground around him. It’s so cold - everything is so cold. The blood streaks he was leaving on the beige sidewalk were sickening and horrifically gruesome, and if he were in a better state of mind he would be worrying about what the neighbours would think when they woke up, if the rain would wash all of it away. Hurricane had faced too many tragedies for such a small town. Before Freddies, the worst thing that happened in the place was a cat stuck in a tree, or a small scale robbery. Not missing children, not dead bodies found in back alleys, not grieving families wondering where their kids had gone.
Before he knows where he’s going, he stops in front of a house obviously grander than the ones that surrounded it, partially secluded in the small forest that it was built in. The richest families of Hurricane, the most powerful - the Aftons and the Emilys - were the only ones that could afford houses like these.
Charlie’s house feels more like a home than his did.
His legs feel like lead as he forces them in front of the other, his sense of touch leaving the ends of his limbs slowly - the only thing inside of him was blood and a heart that refused to stop beating. Maybe his father was right in that sense, he thinks idly, remembering something he had used to tell him. ‘ Aftons live forever.’ At the time, it was just one of the many somewhat creepy things his father said. Now, it seemed like a prophecy he had uttered to a child that didn’t know any better. A curse - maybe that was what you call it. The Afton curse - everyone survives, and yet nobody lives.
His eyes, once blue, now a frightening shade of violet, drift upwards at the windows of the house. The curtains are closed but the lights inside outline the familiar figure of a girl - his girl.
Charlie.
When the two of them were younger and in school, everyone always called her Charlie Emily. Last name perpetually included - the same way people would say the president’s name. ‘What’s up Charlie Emily!’ ‘That’s what Charlie Emily answered.’ ‘Yo, what do you think Charlie Emily got on the quiz?’ Her family was tied to her identity for, seemingly, the rest of her life.
Michael knew that it drove her crazy, but that she didn’t want to cause people any trouble by asking them to drop the Emily part after so long, so he just called her Charlie (everyone took it as the highest honour to be able to call the Charlie Emily her first name) and she found it delightful.
Now, he stares at her from outside her house feeling like a damn stalker watching her in the rain. Michael can distantly hear the sound of soft music coming from inside the house playing on the old radio that his mother got Uncle Henry for Christmas in 1978. The fact that he could immediately recognize it was, in his context, rather annoying. His father used to play it.
Charlie adored his father for most of her life - he treated her as an adult, and at the same time he had an uncharacteristic protectiveness over her as her godfather. Michael didn’t understand it at all (thought it seemed as though he would never understand the way his mind worked). Charlie found it amusing as well as flattering to have him speak to her like she was older than she actually was. To treat her like an apprentice. A legacy.
William taught her her to play the piano, and chess, and even how to fucking drive. Henry taught Michael all of these things (a guitar instead of a piano) when he found out that his father had not done so already. Michael inherited Henry’s knack for everything to do with cars. Charlie inherited William’s love for prehistoric music - playing songs that Michael was more or less sick of hearing after hearing them for his entire life.
This one, he recognizes: The Things We Did Last Summer. And, he remembers, right before the two had parted ways for college, Charlie had forced him to dance with her to it in the middle of her room, away from her father’s sight. It felt like a secret - perhaps a bit more intimate than the ones they’d shared before. He was utterly dreadful, but Charlie seemed to have retained the things his mother had taught her before she died. Her movements were graceful, controlled, and yet beautiful. Just like Mamá’s.
Her smile that summer night was absolutely ravishing.
With a sudden surge of energy at the memory, Michael moves his body as steady as possible, moving shaky legs up the wet porch, rain drenching his vest shirt, his hair, his entire body. He probably looks like shit, but really, he just wants to see her before he dies. He doesn’t question whether or not he will.
Then, he knocks at the door, ignoring the pain that flared up his right arm.
The things we did last summer,
He hears the quick, excited sounding footsteps that approach, and he wonders if she thinks it’s her dad.
I’ll remember all winter long.
When the door handle turns, Michael considers running away, sparing her the sorry sight of her best friend. ‘You’re my favourite person.’ she used to tell him. But in the split second in which he contemplated this thought, the door had opened.
Charlie looks at him, and - god, her eyes are so green - her eyebrows narrow for a moment in confusion, and then just as quick, they light up as she beams up at him. “Mike!”
He goes to say something, panic seizing his chest, but his throat is completely dry, only ending up in an awkward pause in which they simply stare at each other. She was wearing a pink shirt with matching plaid woollen bottoms. Michael can not talk to pretty people.
Charlie opens her mouth questioningly, but then she stops, her eyes flickering down at the blood on his right hand. “Mike?”
This time, he finds it in himself to use his words, though he only manages to say two. “Hi, Charlie.”
The midway and the fun, the radio plays from the living room.
And then, he falls into her arms.
When he wakes up, it’s still night. He glances at the clock above the couch he’s lying on: 3:45 AM. Michael’s head falls backwards onto the old couch hilariously, pathetically.
“You’re awake.” a voice says from the arch between the living room and kitchen. It takes all of the energy in his body to turn towards the sound. Charlie’s leaning against the wall, her arms crossed across her chest, eyebrows furrowed in worry. She looked as though she had been crying for a while, judging by her flushed face and watery eyes.
“Charlie,” Michael manages to choke out, purely out of desire to speak to her once again.
He watches her face take on a multitude of emotions, before settling on complete and utter concern and a hint of fear. She walks towards him slowly. The radio was playing a different song this time. Again, he recognizes it almost instantly: Misty. This time because his mother played it on his 10th birthday and it had been stuck inside of his head for the rest of his life.
Charlie is beside him now, crouching beside him, arm on the cushions of the couch, careful not to touch him. He doesn’t know if he should be hurt from this. “Are you hungry?” she asks gently.
They both look down at his stomach at the same time, or the lack thereof. He sends her a hopeless look. “I’d say yes if I was sure it wouldn’t just fall through my body.”
Walk my way, and a thousand violins start to play,
Her voice is quiet, gazing at him with her eyebrows pitched upwards. “Yeah…” And then, without much warning at all, she begins to cry, tears overflowing down her face
Or it might just be the sound of your hello.
Michael immediately balances his weight onto his left elbow, his eyes widening in panic as he wipes her face off with his thumb. This is when he notices the slightly sickly colour his skin was. Not the warm golden colour it had been just the week before. He stares at him for a split second in surprise, but quickly brushes it off as her tears turn into hiccups of pure agony. Charlie wasn’t really a crybaby by any means, but she was extraordinarily empathetic specifically towards Michael.
“No, no, no,” he mutters, moving her brown hair behind her ear, “Don’t cry Charlie. Don’t cry.”
“W-What happened to you?” she asks, bloodshot eyes, eyes trained at the gaping wound in his body. He assumes that joking about it was not the wisest idea.
“Nothing really.” Michael says weakly, much more focused on the fact that she was crying for him than the fact that he was actively losing half of his blood supply.
She sends him a look, rather similar to the ones she used to give him in high school. “Mike, your fucking organs are missing.” Charlie says hoarsely, her mouth twisted into a frown.
He waves it off, “Happens to the best of us.”
“Mike.” His name comes out more as a sob than she might’ve intended, but she just shakes her head sadly. “Please tell me. Who was it? What was it?”
Michael looks at her awkwardly, his mouth forming soundless words. “Uh, possessed murder robot thing.”
She stares at him, her lips quivering.
“Sorry.” he says.
If he was not an empty corpse of a human, she might’ve slapped him in the face for being such a dumbass. Instead, her mouth presses together, gazing at the obvious bloody hole in his body, she looked as if her mind was moving a mile a second. He remembers that she was technically halfway to becoming a surgeon. Although she was planning to perform on children, her expression conveyed that she really did not give a shit.
Charlie rises from her position crouched over the couch and moves over to one of the wooden cabinets in the kitchen, grabbing a few plastic boxes with a multitude of fancy looking things inside and returning to him. She doesn’t say anything - doesn’t even look him in the eye. He imagines if she does, she would just start to cry again and it would just generally be a bit of a pain to proceed with a makeshift surgery while also sobbing uncontrollably.
Charlie unbuttons his dress shirt soundlessly, fully revealing the horrific wound that the scooper had left. The lack of almost all of his organs, the fractured bones, the exposed muscle. Her face darkens immediately, and she whispers something under her breath. “You need surgery Mike, I don’t even know how you’re alive.”
“It - It was at Dad’s old job,” he stutters out, “You know the one. Circus Baby? The sister location?”
She nods silently, and then her eyes widen ever so slightly. “Remnant.” she concludes suddenly, fixing Michael with an intense faze, “There’s - The remnant experiments were conducted at the sister location. The year Liz died, remember?”
He pauses for a moment, contemplating what she had just said, and then, because he was much too alike with his dad than he’d like to admit, he chuckles dryly. “Of all the things in this damned world,” he breathes, “I’m being kept alive by fucking remnant.”
Michael and Charlie are all too familiar with it - the experiments his dad included them in, the information he told them as if they were his fucking assistants in the whole shitshow. It was perpetually, painfully stuck in their minds, a constant reminder of all his father put them through. Before he went missing that is.
Charlie’s brows scrunch together - she was very expressive - and she lets out a breath. “I need to clean your wound.”
“Charlie,” Michael says flatly, “In case you haven’t noticed, there isn’t really much left for me right now.”
Her green eyes flare up with anger as she hears his words, and she smacks him on the shoulder. “Don’t say that.” she warns, her voice steely, “Don’t fucking say that to me.”
“It’s not like I can stop it - ”
“If you fucking leave me again,” she interrupts, her eyes tearing up yet another time, nearly maniacal, “I’ll - I’ll - “ a sob breaks her words. Michael stares at her in confusion.
Charlie stands up rather quickly, looking like she’d rather be anywhere but in front of a dying version of her best friend.
“What are you talking about?” he asks, and if he wasn’t sure that she would physically wrestle him back onto the couch if he even attempted to get up, he would’ve done so immediately.
She looks at him for a moment in a mix of disbelief of how utterly thick he was and concern over at what point he was a thick bastard. Then she scoffs at what seemed to be the world, wiping her eyes and crossing her arms as she gazes at him. “You’re a fucking idiot, aren’t you Mike?”
He blinks, frowning, “I think it’s rather rude to call a dying man an idiot.” Michael says.
“Yeah, you’re dying and you’re an idiot.” Charlie tells him, pulling a nearby chair from the dining table over back to him and sighing as she sat down on it, grabbing a saline solution from one of her boxes and lifting his shirt up again. “These statements can exist at the same time, you absolute moron.”
“I’m feeling quite attacked right now.” Michael announces, though there's a slight smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.
She notices it immediately and rolls her eyes, “Leave it to Michael Afton to tell me jokes while half his motherfucking organs are missing.”
“You’re acting like it’s my fault.”
She meets his eyes. “Why the fuck were you in an abandoned restaurant? How did you manage to lose your organs? Why are you laughing about it?”
He doesn’t answer any of these questions, ignoring her completely and watching as she sprayed the solution onto the wound, wondering if she was just in denial about his inevitable, ever approaching death.
She leans back and gazes at him, a strand of hair falling from her ponytail. Her hair had grown out, he thinks absently. It reached right below her rib cage now, a clear distinction from how short it was when they were 17. The contrast between the last time they had seen each other versus now was a little surprising. Still, she looked fucking beautiful.
“Take your shirt off, Mike.” Charlie says quite literally out of nowhere making him flush a bright shade of red as his eyes snap towards her incredulously.
“Pardon?” Michael had only ever used his manners when he was irrevocably taken aback.
She blinks in confusion, then her eyes widen like saucers as she looks away, completely flustered. “Oh my god, not like that.”
“Charlie,” he says a bit breathless, but the opportunity was so clear, so he had to take it, “Are you asking me to undress?”
“Fuck off Mike.” she hisses, burying her head in her hands. “I should just leave you here. If you die I’ll be free of your horrible sex jokes.”
He barks out a laugh, his lungs practically exploding with the force applied. “No, no, I’ll do it.”
“Please shut up.”
“Okay, wow, didn’t know you were into that. You want me to call you mommy too?”
“ Mike.” she rolls her eyes, though her cheeks were a furious shade of red, “I’m not having sex with a motherfucker missing half his organs.” Charlie looks at him curiously for a moment, then asks, “Do you even have a dick? Or did that get stolen by your fucking murder robot friend too?
He sends her a flat expression. “Yes I still have my - ” he looks down suddenly, then looks back up with the same face, “I do still have my dick. Thank you for your concern.”
She snickers, undoing the last of the buttons of his dress shirt, “Yeah, yeah, I’m so happy for you.”
Charlie helps him sit up properly, and he thinks that if he’s not careful his lungs (or maybe it’s just one lung, he doesn’t know) might fall out of him if he so much as stood vertically. But they don’t and with Charlie’s assistance, he removes his dress shirt, then the tank top underneath (but that was very much reduced to a mess of fabric by the scooper.) He imagined that Charlie would at the very least grimace at the state he was in, but her face was perfectly neutral, not a hint of emotion other than concern shown on her soft features.
Then, once he was shirtless and there was nothing blocking her from proceeding with whatever the hell she felt she had to do to attempt at keeping him alive, he was laid back onto the couch.
She looks at him for a moment, then at his chest, then at his stomach. “I’m going to clean the - the wound - and then I’m going to bring you - ”
“Not to the hospital.” he says quickly in a rather hopeless voice, interrupting her, “Please, no hospitals.”
“Mike,” Charlie says in a stern tone, similar to the one she used to use when they had both worked at the old pizzeria, “In case you didn’t notice, you need a digestive system to survive.”
“I don’t need anything to survive right now.” Michael tells her, a pleading look in his eyes. He hates hospitals for a number of reasons. One: death. Two: Evan. Three: Mamá. Two of the Aftons had passed in the hospital and watching his little brother die, his head wrapped in bandages, a coma enveloping his consciousness, was enough to keep him far far away from the place. “If I have remnant then the only thing I need is a functioning body.”
“You’ll deteriorate.” Charlie says softly, “Your body needs nutrients, you will quite literally start to eat your own muscles.”
They stare at each other for a moment in the low light that the old yellow lamp cast onto them, nothing but the radio from beside them and the pounding of the rain outside reaching their ears. Charlie meets his eyes, and he can see the exact moment she loses the hope that she had for him for good, the shine in her eyes flickering away.
Her eyes train on the saline in her hands blankly, as if she did not exist at all. Her voice is impossibly quiet, but he still manages to hear the words that escape her lips. “I’m not going to let you die on me Mike. I’ll save you, okay? And then I’m going to fucking kill your dad.”
His heart hammers against his chest wildly, he feels as though it might just jump out (and that would be kind of bad because he really does need as many organs as he could get). Michael does not know if he should be flattered or terrified because honestly, he had enough vengeful murderers in his life and he didn’t need another one. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Look at what he did to you!” Charlie snaps, gesturing at the entirety of his body, “He ruined your life!”
“Have some faith Charlie- ”
“ Screw faith! I’m a doctor, we can’t have faith! We have facts and science. That fucking - ” she stops, at loss for words to convey just how fucking livid she was. “You don’t deserve this.”
He doesn’t answer that.
Charlie looks at him, “You don’t deserve him.” She repeats earnestly. “You know that.”
When he doesn’t respond again, she more or less grabs him by the head, her face rather close to his and asks, “Mike, you don’t think you deserve this, do you?”
Michael realizes, a bit slowly in hindsight, that tears were streaking down his face silently. His eyes sting with the feeling of them flowing outwards. Charlie’s face practically crumples.
“Mike,” she says once, and then crushes him into a warm embrace. If she could hold him tighter without maybe accidentally killing him, she would’ve. He can hear her heartbeat, and then his, beating against his chest. When he was a lot younger, when Elizabeth was just a baby, his father used to put Michael’s hand to his chest and ask him what he felt. He would say his heartbeat. Then William would smile (it always made him impossibly happy when he saw his father smile because of him) and say that it meant that he was alive. And the fact that he was alive and his heart was beating was one of the few things that mattered.
“He sent me there,” Michael says softly, “knowing that I was going to die.”
“You’re not dead Mike,” Charlie whispers into his hair, squeezing him once, “You’re not dead, you’re not dead, you’re alive, you’re still here.” She kisses him on the side of his head, then she pulls away and does the same on his temple, his right cheek, and then his other. “You’re with me, and you’re not gonna fucking leave me again, you’re mi - ” Charlie stops, as if the next words that would’ve left her mouth were blasphemy. She settles on burying her head in the crook of his neck and holding him again.
“Love,” Michael says in a hoarse voice, “If you don’t mind, I still kind of need to close my stomach.”
She pulls away immediately, smiling at him bashfully. “Yeah, yeah, sorry. I’ll numb the area. Lie back down - I’ll fix it.”
“I still have no organs.”
“I’d rather I actually try to stop you from hitting the dust than just let you die because science goes against your existence as anything but a dead man.”
He smiles lazily, “You’re so nice Charlie.”
She snickers slightly, patting down his skin after numbing it, and pulling out her stitches. “Glad to be of service.”
Watching her work on his body, humming under her breath to the tune of whatever song that came from the radio, her eyes sharp and diligent with every move her hand made, the control and a little bit of hopelessness that he saw in her expression, Michael Afton thinks that he’s never seen a girl so beautiful.
“You’re really pretty.” Michael tells her as she’s finishing up the last of the stitches. He doesn’t know whether it’s the fact that his mind had become muddled with the music that played from the radio (Put Your Head On My Shoulder) or the scent of medicine and rain that enveloped his sense of smell, but he does find it in himself to tell her this.
She isn’t phased in the slightest, only sparing a small smile. “Flatterer.”
“Is that all?” he pouts from his position on the couch, “I’m so hurt.”
Charlie snorts, “If you didn’t know, I am strictly prohibited from flirting with my patients.” she winks, “Call it a moral code if you’d like.”
“Ah yes, Charlie Emily is under her strict moral code inside her house as she performs on her oldest friend with nobody around.”
She lets out a light laugh. “Stop distracting me Mike, I’m not finished.”
“It’s been like 20 minutes,” he whines and he’s rather aware that he sounds like Elizabeth (and she was like, 6, so this might not be the best thing).
“Don’t be such a baby,” Charlie tells him with a slight roll of her eyes.
“You’re three weeks older than me.” Michael reminds her flatly.
“And yet I could be your wise old wizard mentor in terms of maturity”
He sticks his tongue out. “This is what I get for calling you pretty,”
She sighs, and with a final flick of her hand, she finishes the very last stitch and leans back in her chair. Charlie sends an obviously tired look at him. “Do you want me to call you pretty too?” she asks.
Michael laughs. “It would be nice, yeah.”
She does a little laugh, where a small breath leaves her nose as she smiles at him. Charlie leans forward, resting her chin on her hand and meets him with a fond gaze. “You’re also rather pretty Mikey.”
He beams, “Thank you very much my love.”
Her cheeks have a slight dusting of pink on them at the last nickname. “You’re very welcome pretty boy.”
He groans, letting his head fall backwards, “Don’t call me that.”
“It’s cute!” she insists, standing up from her chair and bringing the boxes back into the kitchen. “And I’m not lying.”
“I thought you said you don’t flirt with patients,” Michael questions, shifting ever so slightly so that he was sitting mostly up, his back against the back of the red couch.
Charlie returns, pulling the hair tie off of her long, light brown hair, a bowl of frozen cherries in her left hand. “Hm, I’ll guess I’ll make an exception for you.”
“I am ever so honoured.” he says dramatically, a playful grin on his face.
Charlie sits down beside him, passing him a cherry. He gives her a questioning look, she just shrugs. “Maybe you can still taste it.” is all she says.
Michael Afton can, in fact, still taste cherries and this revelation is met with a mini celebration from the two young adults. Not teenagers. Michael throwing up a thumbs up and Charlie shooting her arms into the air with a small cheer. When he looks at the smile that graces her lips, he does think that she’s the most amazing woman ever. Then they decide that he really shouldn’t swallow it, considering the fact that he did not have a digestive system.
He leans closer, “Alright Dr. Emily, hit me with your worst breach of your flirting rules.”
She snorts, but does move a little closer to his face. “I think you’re just trying to get me to flirt with you.”
“Would you blame me?”
“Yeah.” she answers immediately, sticking her tongue out at him.
He lets out a sharp laugh, “I haven’t seen you since last summer,” Michael says, “I missed you.”
Charlie falters for a moment, blinking twice, then her gaze flickers around his face as if taking in his existence in front of her. She recovers quickly enough,
“Did you miss me or the things we did?”
Michael rolls his eyes, falling backwards. “God knows I’m absolutely horrid at dancing - I don’t even know why you asked me. Do you know how humbling it is to dance with someone trained by my mother?”
“Did your mom not also try to teach you?”
He sends her a look. “Yeah, she tried. Unfortunately, I inherited my father’s lack of skill. Along with many other things.”
“I don’t think that’s a thing.” Charlie says, laughing.
“Well it’s the excuse I’m giving because I think it’s even worse if I’m just like on my own accord.”
She snorts, “Alright then, I’ll take your word for it.”
He pauses, then grins at her, “Shall we resume the undressing part of tonight then?”
Charlie throws his shirt at his face, rolling her eyes as he dissolved into laughter. “Fuck you Mike. Your stomach would collapse.”
Michael shoves his arms through the sleeves but leaves the buttons undone (he is truly atrocious at handling those dastardly creations) He’s about to say something else when the radio begins to play a different song. One that they were all too familiar with.
“It’s Been A Long, Long Time.” Michael says, and then he smiles at Charlie. “Didn’t take your emo songs out of this?”
She smacks his knee in retaliation, “If you didn’t know, I’m the only one in this house that listens to this when I’m in an emo phase. It’s actually rather normal to listen to these casually.”
Kiss me once, then kiss me twice,
“Then kiss me once again,” Charlie sings, as Michael attempted at getting up (he failed) and as she laughed at his failure.
From the couch, he continues the song. “It’s been a long, long time.”
“You sound wonderful.” Charlie says in between the lines.
“And you’re a wonderful liar.” he tells her, grinning.
She stands up, pulling him up and steadying him on his shaky feet. “Haven’t felt like this before since can’t remember when,” she croons, beaming up at him.
“It’s been a long, long time.” Michael pauses, thenasks her, “Am I just going to be getting the boring parts of this song?”
She laughs, turning up the volume to the radio and returning to his arms, placing hers on his shoulders and tilting her head. “Would you like a dance?” she inquires in a mock low voice, trying to sound like a British gentleman (it was horrendous, Michael thinks, she had probably awoken the ghosts of the royal family).
“For old times sake,” he says, but they both know that that was a lie, and it was probably the last time they’d get to hold each other like this.
They dance, it’s entirely amazing, and it's exactly like last summer. Charlie looking wonderful, her steps graceful and precise. Michael looking like an idiot, stumbling every other beat.
“How have you been my love?” he asks quietly, spinning her around.
Charlie nods her head, “Well, finals have absolutely destroyed my soul, so I’ve been better.”
Michael barks out a sharp laugh, “Sorry about that.”
“I’m doing better than you though.” Charlie says, “Your organs are missing.”
If they were to become world-class comedians around this, the fact wouldn’t be so morbid, they think. And so this is the thought process they proceed with. Michael grins, wiggling his eyebrows, “Don’t worry, I’m getting used to it. I’m simply one of a kind.”
“Which is why you’re my favourite.” she tells him, arms wrapping around his neck. They stay in the same spot, swaying slightly. Her eyebrows move upwards, and then she dreamily smiles. “I do love you Mike.” Charlie says softly.
“I love you too.”
She stills, then she pulls his head closer so as it were bent in her direction. “You still don’t know what I was trying to do,” she starts, looking into his eyes, “last summer, do you?”
“Trying not to notice how I stepped on your feet every other second?” he asks, a light chuckle escaping her as he gazes down at her. It’s warm - the sun of her world is brilliantly fond of her very existence.
She doesn’t really know if she wants to throttle him or herself, but she thinks that accidentally killing someone wouldn’t be too good for her career so she just laughs morbidly. “I think I’ll just accept my defeat.”
“You confuse me every time we see each other.”
“And yet you know me so well.”
They both look at each other and then dissolve into giggles like they were damn teenagers (and to be fair, they still felt like that), clutching onto each other as the chorus picked up again and Michael spins her around, and again, and again, and she’s laughing so hard that she falls into his arms as he dips her low. “Have you been dancing with girls at your fancy little college?” Charlie asks, a grin on her lips as she looks up at it. She looks absolutely dazzling.
He snickers, “You expect a lot from me, don’t you?”
“There’s no way no one has asked you to a dance.” Charlie says as they both rise and begin to sway again, but they’re significantly closer than before.
“Oh I was asked,” he acknowledges, “I just have trauma from the last time a pretty girl asked me to dance. I don’t know if you know her - she was gorgeous.”
She beams, clearly amused, “You’re a moron.”
“Uh huh.”
Charlie’s smile subsides but there’s something so incredible in the way in which she looks up at him like he was the sun and she was the Earth. A constant dance, fate tied to each other. “British bastard.”
His face falls into one of complete annoyance. “I hate you so much.”
“Nah,” she giggles, leaning closer, “You love me.”
“It’s a sickness,” Michael tells her, “I’m working on a cure.” And then he twirls her around her again and for some reason, Charlie seems to have the time of her life when he does this, and so he does it again and again until she’s in a dizzy daze in her living room, arms wrapping around his neck as she falls into his embrace. Her eyes meet his, a radiant smile on her face, “I can’t ever get tired of you, you fucking Brit.”
“Ah, guess we’re stuck together then.” Michael chuckles. “My amazing best friend.”
“If we’re stuck together we might as well get married.”
He looks at her, an amused look on his face. “Charlie, I’m dying. You’re not supposed to marry a dying man.”
She waves him off, but there’s a sadness behind her eyes that he recognizes. “Excuses. Come on then, kiss your bride.” He has quite literally no idea if she is joking or not.
“That’s a safety hazard.” Michael decides to tell her.
She sends him a deadpanned look, her eyebrows forming a perfectly straight line, “Mike, I am well aware that you don’t care about safety hazards.”
He lets out a raucous laughter. “You want to get married in the middle of your dad’s living room, half my organs missing, in your pyjamas, to a zombie man.”
“You make it sound a lot worse than it is.” Charlie says, and then she smiles like what was happening was a dream. Or that might be the after effects of Michael spinning her into a human turntable. “Are you not going to kiss me? The last night you’re alive?”
Michael is aware that there is a very large possibility that she is joking, but as he looks into her soft eyes (they really are a beautiful colour - an earthy green, it has the same calming energy that Henry’s does), and then they flicker to her lips for a split second. “Charlie, I’m going to die. I don’t deserve you.”
Charlie seems to take that as a sign that he’s the thickest man she has ever had both the pleasure and immense misfortune of meeting, and so she slides her hands over to his face, gazing at him intensely as her eyebrows furrow and with a sudden determined expression crossing her face she cups cheek softly.
“You’re an idiot and fucking Brit.” she says for the umpteenth time tonight, really solidifying this fact to be honest. “I truly have no idea why I tried to get you to stay with me last summer by dancing, seeing as you're an actual moron." Charlie sighs, then she smiles dreamily as his face flushes a hundred different colours of red. "I really can't believe you're the boy I fell in love with."
When she kisses him, Michael is sure that he’s never met someone so brilliant.