Work Text:
The only way
Christ, what a day or so it was.
When Sister Michael offered them up a job, as if she were some sort of mob boss and they were her loyal foot soldiers, Michelle hadn’t expected it to quite turn out the way it did. She might have exaggerated a little, no a lot, about the strapping farmers, who she hadn’t seen with her own eyes at all, but still, it couldn’t have gone a lot worse.
From James losing a game of heads to the rear of the school van, Clare smashing the front window in a foul-mouthed panic and her own terrible attempt at a joke with the lipstick, just about everything that could have gone wrong, did.
And then there was the next morning.
She should have followed quicker, having woken up as he slipped out of the room and down the stairs. When she eventually did, hearing the unmistakable sound of lips pressing together even from the distance she was at, it was already too late.
Worst of all, she wasn’t that surprised.
None of them might have said anything, and sure, Erin and James hadn’t said anything about it themselves, but they only ever grew closer… and at no point where they stopped or challenged about it. Writing the script and filming it the previous summer, the way they seemed to treat personal space as a non-existent entity, the sneeze he claimed was a sneeze, that had her wondering what the hell he was playing at… the signs were all there even if the words weren’t. Even as far back as Prom there was a case for investigation… maybe even Katya…
After all was said and done, when Erin quietly told her on the way back that she’d let him down, that should have been it.
It was the only way.
So only God could know why Michelle found herself drawn to James like a moth to a flame the rest of the day. Throughout dinner she kept looking at him, to the point where her Mammy was seconds away from asking what was going on if she hadn’t have stopped.
When Martin and Deirdre went to work after seven though, she sensed her chance.
“Oi, ballache, whatcha watchin’?”
Striding into the living room with more purpose than was necessary, she could answer the question herself when she looked at the screen. Green jackets, rifles… the French being called bastards every five minutes, it was a regular feature at home. Sean Bean was such a ride in her opinion...
“Just a re-run of Sharpe”. He answered, glancing up at her. “I can turn it off if you want?”
“The fuck’s up with you!?”
Screeching almost like Clare, James jumped out of his skin when she spoke. He was taken completely by surprise at the outburst, even though Michelle’s random acts of turning on him were nothing out of the ordinary.
“Wh-What? Nothing, I’m just… watching the TV”.
“I know! Why haven’t ye said nothin’! Why aren’t ye mopin’ or tellin’ me ye hate me for stoppin’ you’s!?”
Exhaling softly, James very briefly looked away, only a half-second but that was enough for him to compose his answer. Gently curving up his lips, he gave his cousin a smile.
“I don’t hate you, Michelle. As much as you might hate me, I know you’re doing the right thing”.
“Of course I’m doing the right fucking thing! When don’t I!?”
Pretending it to be a rhetorical question, James simply rolled his eyes, returning his gaze to the television to watch a Frenchman’s chest exploding from a well-placed rifle shot. On another night she’d have torn him apart for his ignorance but after the day they’d had, it wasn’t the right time to start castigating him. His understanding confused her… massively.
“I don’t hate ye, James”.
He only just managed to stop himself from rolling his eyes again, raising a brow instead when his attention was on her once more.
“I mean it! Yer… I was actually worried about ye, ye know… when ye were out cold, like”.
“I know”. With another soft sigh, he looked up at her again. “You care, Michelle. I… I understand your reasons… Erin too”.
“Aye, she told me ye… well… yer not…”.
“You’ve nothing to worry about then, have you?”
Only then did she get a true glimpse, a faint one at that, at what he was hiding beneath the surface. It shocked her… proper shocked her.
“Ye… ye really care about her, don’t ye?”
She hadn’t realised he’d turned the TV off when she’d paused in thought, or that he was now on his feet, surprised by his sudden presence in front of her. The small look under the armour he was now putting up was gone, his normal unassuming presence taking over.
“I care about all of you”. Deflecting he might have been, but answering, hands in pockets, he was not lying. “Just promise me one thing?”
Unable to find the right words to reply, all she could do was nod.
“Don’t give Erin shit about it, please? I chose to tell her… so don’t have a go at her about what you saw or make her feel like she’s done something wrong”.
“A-Aye… alright, yeah… I won’t. I promise”.
There were few times in her life that she’d swallowed so hard, her throat stinging sharply, her eyes more glassy than they should have been.
“Thank you”. He reached out, patting her on the arm. “Night, Michelle”.
Waiting for him to walk past on the way off to an unusually early night that was not exactly the worst idea all things considered, Michelle found herself frozen to the spot. Only James and his Englishness could leave her so speechless, though it was normally through his innocent stupidity that she lacked a coherent response.
“Yeah… night…”.
James out of the way, she stood there smarting, trying to regather herself. She shouldn’t have been this affected about his life, not when he was her English dickhead of a cousin. Yet as Orla quite rightly put it, he was a good man. A kind, sweet young fella actually. Her skin crawled at that desperately accurate description…
Absolutely, she wanted to boke on seeing them snogging, still did thinking about it, but… but then he was being all… James about it.
There was more to it than just a kiss, more than just one stupid moment of teenage hormones kicking in. Erin wasn’t possessed and James’ concussion wasn’t that bad. He at least, cared a great deal for her. Too much.
Which was the problem if it ever went wrong… the validation for what she’d said to the pair. Michelle cared for them all too, just like James said he did, the very reason for her putting a stop to their coming together so prematurely. The scarily tantalising thought that ran through her head as she stood there in the living room all worked up, was that she couldn’t really go on without either of them in her life. For the sake of the foundations of the group and herself, they could never be.
She’d done the correct thing… totally unaware that he’d told Erin he would wait for her, a fact neither of them mentioned.
But very clear to Michelle hours later though, was that she was denying two of the most important people in her life, the happiness that they both equally deserved.
For that, she felt just as guilty as she did right.