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The road to this thing with Mike was, like most shit in Gerry's life, long and awkward. But unlike a lot of said shit, it at least has had a pretty harmonious outcome.
There's no need to mince words: Mike is a weird guy. He wears clothes that don't match the weather, always buttoned up almost to his chin or even with a scarf over it all. He barely talks and when he does, he's usually so rude that a normal person probably wouldn't bother sticking around long enough to hear whatever comes out of his mouth next. He's so obsessed with Leitners that, fuck, when Gerry first came across him as unexpected competition in a bookstore in Sutton, he'd assumed this guy who reeked of some kind of Mark had been the kind of folk his mum was always hanging out with. Sure, he was around Gerry's age - a skinny, awkwardly-proportioned teenager who didn't even meet Gerry's chin - but that didn't mean he wasn't up to no good.
It wasn't until a few weeks (and several more awkward run-ins) later that Gerry took a proper look at his Mark. They'd ended up having a halfway-earnest conversation that day, when Mike had caught Gerry with a Leitner and nearly tried to fight him for it. They'd been interrupted by the sky growing dark and grey, and Mike's sheer panic at the change had meant Gerry begrudgingly insisted they stick together as they found a place to stay clear of the rain. It hadn't thundered that day, Gerry remembers, but he was watching the whites of Mike's eyes and his frantic breathing and they'd…they'd talked, somehow. And Gerry learned that Mike wasn't looking for Leitners for the kind of power his mum was after.
Mike was chasing after Leitners because Mike was being hunted by something. Gerry hadn't realized that Mike's Mark wasn't…well. Consensual. But that meant Mike wasn't like his mom, Mike was like…like Gerry. Carrying a Dread Power along that he didn't ask for. Mike had told him in brief, painful detail about his scar, and Gerry had offered up that he had a lot of contacts because his mum knew all about this shit. Somehow they'd traded phone numbers and that had just…been that. Neither of them is good at small talk. Or any kind of talk, and they piss each other off about as often as they get a single thing done.
But Mike's the kind of clever that's almost mean, and he maps stuff out across books and centuries that even impresses Gerry sometimes. Mike comes up with sudden insights he hasn't even heard from his mum, and Gerry's still pretty damn convinced she's got to be the regional expert on the weird and cursed. They don't get deep into it - for all that Mike seems to want someone to talk to, he doesn't seem to know how, either, and Gerry can't really help him get over their combined awkwardness enough - but it's more than Gerry's ever had in someone his own age.
Today, there's no Leitner to hunt. Or rather, there was - but this bookstore in Chelsea was a dud, so they'd hopped a bus over to a cheaper area to sit and eat lunch before parting ways. It's become something of a ritual in and of itself. Gerry doesn't know what Mike's home life is like, just that his parents are dead - Mike had scoffed but gone pale when Gerry had off-handedly asked if his parents would be expecting him back, one of their first nights spent out late together, and Gerry had known well enough not to push the topic. But he knows this guy is skinny as hell, same as himself, so they've…somehow taken to eating together, at the end of whatever hunt they've had that day.
Not like either of them has a family dinner waiting at home, after all.
But yeah: about Mike being a weird guy. He's shifty, and panics easily, with a sixth sense for whatever's always following him around. He usually smells it before Gerry can - and Gerry knows he's not imagining it, both because he can see the Mark the Spiral has given him, and because there's no mistaking the way bulbs burn brighter around Mike on a regular day, and how on a bad day, the burning scent of ozone haunts him.
Well today, Mike's being weird. Weirder than usual. The kind of weird that usually means the sky's about to go grey and the lights are gonna burn too-bright above their heads and that burning warning smell might start curling through the air. But…it doesn't. The only thing that keeps happening is Mike barely sits still, and he's tunneling in on himself even more than usual. He shifts like he's anxious and on the lookout, but Gerry's slowly realizing he hasn't seen Mike look behind himself any more than usual.
Gerry's brows furrow, but he wipes it off his face as best he can when Mike looks over his ignored plate and frowns at him. He knows better than to start an argument. Instead he gives Mike a little more focused stare, and tries to really Look at him. "Your Mark's the same as usual," he says, shooting for casual and missing by a wide mile.
Mike looks surprised, visibly caught off-guard at the reassurance that whatever Spiral monster is always pursuing him isn't drawing any closer. Gerry's taken to doing that sometimes - checking in. Mike can't See it himself, after all. Somehow all those books and all that reading hasn't gotten him any closer to the Eye.
"Sure. Thanks." But Mike also doesn't calm down in the fucking slightest. He's almost…rocking in his seat, the sort of unconscious movement that sets Gerry's mind thinking of the one time he'd had food poisoning and had sat alone in his room, waiting out trips to the toilet, his entire stomach in agony. It's unnerving to watch, although Mike is usually a little unnerving to watch when he gets in deep into his…his shit. Mike has rituals that aren't magical - weird stuff he does sometimes, like shoving the same book down half a dozen times into a shelf like it didn't fit right the first time. It's grating, honestly, but Gerry's seen his mum do shit way more nerve-wracking, so he just pointedly looks away and sips at his cheap coffee.
He'll just wait out Mike's latest round of weirdness. It's not like Gerry really has a leg to stand on when it comes to sticking out like a sore thumb in public places. Between the scarves too early in the season and Gerry's long, ragged black hair and bridge piercing, they tend to collect stares.
As the meal progresses though, it just gets worse. They usually talk at least a little, but Gerry's too used to reading the room on his mom to make the mistake of talking when Mike is so on-edge. There is clearly a fine line right now between Mike and having a full-blown something, and Gerry's not interested in watching it in this cheap-ass restaurant. Sometimes Gerry wonders if Mike is right on the brink of crumbling to his own horrors, with how impossible he can be to placate, with how wrapped up in them he can get. But maybe Mike's so determined to fix himself that sheer stubbornness will keep him alive. At least a few more years - same as Gerry sometimes hopes his own keeps him alive a few more.
"Be back," Mike mumbles, awkward as ever. Gerry doesn't even nod as Mike gets up and presumably heads over to the restroom. If he's honest, the moments of solitude actually are a welcome relief. It's not that Mike's not entitled to being a bit of a freak, they both are, but that doesn't mean their different types of weird damage make it easier to not…bother each other. Gerry drains his coffee and refuses a refill from the waitress who finally wanders past. He also refuses a refill on Mike's behalf, who would probably curse him out for bothering, but the last thing that guy needs right now is more caffeine.
When Mike comes back, he looks worse.
His eyes have a wild, animalist edge to them. There's a high flush on his cheeks alongside the pallor and Gerry is instantly on the alert.
Right before he can Look again for any sign of the Spiral lurking closer, Mike leans in. "Hey." He hesitates. Gerry waits and then raises one eyebrow in a signal to yeah, keep going? Mike grits his teeth, swallows, and visibly recoils back into his seat. "Fuck."
Gerry waits what feels like a very polite length of time. "What the hell is it, Mike? You're acting like a–"
Mike snaps up and leans in even closer than his first try, and Gerry goes quiet. He also goes animal-still, unused to Mike getting the kind of near him that necessitates planting his hand on a cafe table and moving so close to his head he feels breath on his ear. Mike spits out a harshly-whispered, "You got a pad?"
Oh. Gerry blinks, surprised, and oh so aware of the way Mike is watching him for any reaction whatsoever. He's taut like when he thinks he's hearing thunder in the distance, defiant and watchful but entirely taken over by paranoid waiting. Gerry carefully keeps his face and voice neutral and shakes his head once. "Nah," he says, and thank god he tends to run dry for tone these days. "Don't need them, never thought to carry any around before."
Mike drops back into his side of the booth, visibly uncomfortable and annoyed and— maybe embarrassed. It's hard to say. The flush hasn't left his cheeks, but Gerry knows from watching Mike snap at an overly-curious shopkeep two weeks ago that he goes pink when he's mad, too.
"Guess…now I've got a reason to bother keeping some on me, though."
Mike's eyes go wide. He watches him warily. "I've usually got my own. Just..." He shrugs. It's the opposite of casual. Most things about Mike are. "Surprised me today."
Gerry shrugs too, and starts fishing for his wallet. "Well, I think I'm done eating. —And I'm not paying for your half, but I will come with you to the shops, if you want. I've got time to kill."
"To the shops–" Mike is reflexively digging for his own wallet, and now, Gerry can see what he was missing before. What he'd assumed was fear is pain. It's how Mike winces when he leans one hip up to get at his wallet, the way he stays curled over and shortens his frame even more while flicking through an obnoxious amount of bills to get enough out. (He still painstakingly makes exact change, even when he's visibly got a half-dozen hundred pound notes in that roll. Gerry misses out on teasing him for it today.) "...Yeah. Fine. I've got some at home, but I'm out of…screw it, sure."
"Well don't let me twist your arm," Gerry rolls his eyes, but they get up at the same time, bills abandoned on the table, and leave together.
***
The nearest pharmacy is lit even brighter than the glare of late-summer outside, and Gerry squints as they enter. Mike keeps watching him out of the corner of his eye and it's making him antsy. "I'm grabbing something to drink," Gerry says dismissively, and with that they separate.
Gerry wastes time at the fridge and gets a can of soda he isn't all that interested in drinking. Ice cream, overpriced by several pounds, catches his eye further down – but nah. That's…patronizing, probably. Besides, he doesn't even know if Mike likes that kind of thing. At all, or specifically…now.
He lets his mind settle into a blank buzz and then he slowly realizes it's…been plenty of time, right?
He steps back into the main body of the store. His stomach does an odd, pinching flip when he learns can only locate the right aisle because it's called feminine care, and he heads over with heavy booted steps.
Mike is staring at an empty section of shelf when Gerry comes up behind him. Mike tilts for a moment, enough to clearly confirm it's him in his periphery, and then he turns back around with a tight jaw. Gerry isn't sure what the hell to say, but it isn't nothing that Mike presents his back to him again with just the most cursory of glances, so Gerry rolls his eyes and stays put.
"Not got your…size?" It's his best guess.
Mike bristles. "Seriously?"
"Well, my mum's…old. Definitely never seen hers around the flat, don't think she's young enough for it so… Yeah. Seriously."
"Well, they're not like fucking briefs." That one sounds just a little more like the usual Mike.
Gerry finds he has to suppress a smile. "No? They don't come in different patterns and sizes and all that shit? How come there's like, twenty kinds here then?"
"Fuck off," Mike says, but his lips are twisting into a smile. They make eye contact for a moment, and it's…easy. Weirdly easy.
Then Mike sighs and looks away. "Nah, they just– don't have the kind I usually get, yeah. All these others sit wrong, or they peel off too easily, and I'm not wide enough so those start folding whenever I start fucking walking– anyway." Mike looks momentarily abashed and then defiant about it, like he hadn't meant to say about half of that but had instinctively gone on his usual rant.
Gerry can't help that his eyes are wide, but he doesn't bother hiding the slow smirk. "Glad to know you're always a prickly arse about everything."
Mike scoffs again, looks Gerry up and down. He swallows, opens his mouth, then shuts it with a click. Looking at the wall, he scans it again before sighing and grabbing one that, to Gerry, looks basically identical to all the others.
"You grab some paracetamol or something too?"
"Yes, mum," Mike snaps, rattling the bottle he'd apparently shoved into his pocket for that whole exchange.
"You're gonna get yourself walked out of a store if you keep doing that, you know."
"Tch."
Buying everything takes relatively little time, but Gerry is on edge the second Mike puts his pile on the counter. Mostly because Mike is on edge, visibly daring the cashier to say anything. She doesn't even make small talk. Or eye contact, after the first attempt. Gerry doesn't bother trying to give her a reassuring smile when she looks back at him – he's no good at those. Just cracks open his soda and sips it so he's got something to fiddle with.
They leave together, in sync despite Gerry's longer legs, and that's when Mike suddenly stops. "Fuck," he hisses, and he steps to the side out of the way of the door before just curling down, in place. He ends up in a crouch.
Gerry knows better than to ask something as stupid as 'are you okay?', but now he wishes he had a cigarette instead of a Coke. Instead, he looks right to left and then very deliberately stands between Mike and the door. The next people who walk out give them a wide berth, and their view of Mike, pitched forward and looking like he might vomit onto the pavement, is at least blocked.
"Did you take your–"
"Not fucking yet, I just bought them." It's what Mike is fighting with right now, Gerry realizes. His hands shine in the sunlight – slick with sweat, probably. He fumbles the cap of his painkillers with another mumbled swear.
"I got it." Gerry bends down and puts his can by his knee.
"I don't need your help." But Mike's voice sounds oddly thick and choked and Gerry just…decides to grab the bottle anyway. Mike actually fights him for it, and then after a split second of Gerry's fingers over Mike's on the bottle he just throws it at Gerry's chest.
Gerry catches it and sits properly down on the pavement, ignoring passerbys, and peels the little protective film off from the top before tipping out two into his palm.
"Three," Mike says, sounding winded.
Gerry just theatrically shrugs and does as he's told, then hands over the pills.
"Hang on. Here." Gerry's holding out his soda. Mike looked like he was about to just swallow his pills dry, and Gerry would rather not watch that.
This time, Mike stays still for even longer than he'd done over accepting the pills, then takes the can with a slow, almost careful hand. He's shaking. Gerry's own gut twists. How bad does this shit get? Like, he knew it was supposed to be bad, but Mike's acting like he's seriously ill. If Gerry felt the way Mike looks, he'd have rallied to stay in bed all day. Or at least be taking quite the extended trip out of his mind and body and just…floating in that space he goes to whenever his mum's got him up to the scariest shit, the stuff that wakes him up at night still.
But Mike is as alert as ever, shivering a little and wide-eyed and scowling at everyone who passes them. A weird anxiety keeps gnawing at Gerry. Mike wipes off his mouth and then hands the soda back, looking abruptly subdued.
"I still don't have anything to do the rest of the day," Gerry says, which is both a lie and something he wishes were true. His mum won't go looking for him til at least four or five days pass, he knows that much from real experience. "I can walk with you back to your flat."
Mike looks over at him, and there's finally less immediate anger in his gaze. It's…it's jarring. Worrying. There's a glaze to his stare and a sagging weight to his shoulders and he watches Gerry with something new in there. What is it? It's not suspicion. It almost looks like a horrible mirror, like maybe Mike is hoping about something he really, really thinks he ought to know better about.
Gerry barely breathes while he waits for an answer.
"Fine," Mike says at length. He says it like a word Gerry's never heard him say, though. He says it like 'please'.
***
Mike's flat, it turns out, is in a pretty nice area.
Obnoxiously nice, almost. The flat itself is up three flights of stairs, though, and Gerry is pretty sure he chews through his own bottom lip making sure he doesn't have a single change of facial expression while Mike makes his slow, painful way up all of them. By the time they're on the landing that must be his - Mike doesn't say a word, but he abruptly exits the stairwell - Mike is the palest he's ever looked, and Gerry can see sweat making his scarf and the lower back of his shirt stick to him.
They're literally at the door when Mike sort of…he doesn't fall, really, but he knocks his head against the wood of his front door with the kind of muffled, tongue-biting shout that sets Gerry's hair on end. He does it with a swaying motion, like he's literally dead on his feet because whatever horrible momentum brought him here has run out, having brought him exactly as far as he needed and no longer. Like a genie's wish with a nasty little clause at the end.
"Fuck." Mike's got his keys in one hand, but the other is fisted somewhere low on his front that Gerry…supposes isn't his dick, in fact. Just the flat expanse of the lowest part of his torso, right before it would be obscene to be grabbing at in public. It still feels a little private, like right now Gerry's unintentionally a voyeur.
Gerry waits for a strained moment of politeness, pretending he isn't seeing it, but Mike doesn't actually move again. His breathing sounds all wrong, like it's gone sharper.
Gerry takes his own deep breath instead and reaches over, carefully, and bumps against Mike's hand that's got his keys. "I got it."
Mike jerks away without a word, eyes snapping open and entire face already screwed into a grimace. But he doesn't argue, and he shoves the key at Gerry with visible exhaustion.
Gerry nearly drops the key himself, it's so slick with sweat. But he gets it into the door and shoves it broadly open, waiting for Mike to go in first. He does after several more seconds, hunched and not making eye contact.
He also doesn't take his keys back, nor does he shut the door. Gerry can sense the invitation from not being told to fuck off, but that doesn't make him any more comfortable following in at half the pace Mike is using right now. He shuts the door behind them instead, and glances around for - right, of course Mike actually has a little hook for his keys by his door. Fucking lunatic of organization, even if half the time it's organization that clearly only makes sense to him.
(Mike has brought 'his notes' on more than one occasion. Gerry had asked him what the hell was on the page he was open to and Mike had sneered something about how if he learned shorthand, maybe he'd be able to keep better pace in his own research.)
Gerry hangs the key and then, intensely aware of how awkward this is and determined not to look like it, leans against the first doorway in the hall. When he turns his head left, he can glance into an open-plan kitchen and dining area that is…weirdly nice, despite being a space clearly meant for one person. He doubts the little hallway that Mike's currently staggering down leads to more than a single bedroom and bathroom, but then, how many flats has Gerry really been in?
"You want tea or something?"
Mike is halfway down the hall, clearly intending on going into one of those sets of doors without announcing what he's up to. The fury from earlier is just a flicker, now. His eyes look tired. "I don't need to be babied."
Gerry takes in a deep breath and reaches for compassion he's never not been kicked in the teeth for using. The best he can offer is, "Maybe I just wanted some tea, and you can convince me to make you some too if you ask nice."
"Fuck you, Gerry." But Mike's mouth tilts into a parody of a smile before he turns back around, pushing off the wall, nearly doubled over. "I'm…going to go change. Tea's in the right hand cabinets. Knock yourself out."
So Gerry does. What the hell else is he supposed to do? He finds he doesn't want to leave. Obviously, a period isn't going to kill Mike, probably, because Gerry's sex education was piecemeal across insinuated texts and bone-dry anatomy books but he's pretty sure he understands how that works. But Mike looks…bad, awful even, and having puttered awkwardly around for an hour with him looking like he might be on the verge of passing out has Gerry feeling something weird. Something he can't place.
He's pouring out the boiled water from Mike's neglected-looking electric kettle when he thinks he recognizes it. It reminds him of when he's scared and wants to go hide, just…in reverse. Protective, Gerry supposes. What an odd thing to feel. It doesn't suit him, right? The Keays - the von Closens, the whatever his mother thinks their noble lineage is - they don't help people. They're not heroes. Gerry turned eighteen to exactly zero fanfare two weeks ago, and he's already certain that his story is chiseled into place. He can't interact with the kinds of people that deserve protecting, and there's no tools that ward off the Dread Powers for long.
The sound of Mike's footsteps coming back up the hallway come at exactly the moment Gerry's reminding himself he's incapable of helping anyone. He stares down at the twin mugs of tea and…wishes he was more prone to outbursts and not just burning up inside. He thinks he wants to smash something, just maybe not something Mike owns. Because he…
He likes Mike. And he can't tell if that matters at all. Gerry swallows hard.
Mike doesn't say a word as he comes up behind him and stands at the counter, too. He's hunched over, even shorter than Gerry than usual, and he looks abjectly miserable, but some of the color has bled back into his face. He doesn't look so grey through the lips and underneath his eyes, although Gerry's quick glance tells him he's still grimacing in pain. He also smells like soap, though his hair isn't damp. That furious embarrassment has drained away instead though, leaving him just looking exhausted.
Mike reaches for the mug.
"One second. Not ready yet." Gerry interrupts. He spoons out about double the sugar he'd ever bother with himself, and Mike doesn't stop him, just squints.
"How'd you know how I take my tea?" He takes it once Gerry's finished stirring it, and leaves immediately, heading out of the kitchen as if expecting to be followed.
He didn't. He'd just noticed how Mike took his coffee, and figured maybe it was the same tooth-rotting ratio of water to sugar. "Lucky guess."
Mike snorts. The sound's almost normal.
Gerry follows him into what is clearly a living room, judging by the size and lack of a bed, but otherwise oddly bare. There's a single couch and a coffee table, but the rest is either empty or taken up with bookshelves or just…stacks of binders, papers, and more books. There's a handful of knick knacks that are eclectic and odd enough that it's clear it's not Mike's decorative choice, but more things he's collected to study. Gerry stares at an old, yellowed globe map that sits across from them where a normal person might've placed a television.
Mike curls up onto the couch, slumped over so far Gerry isn't convinced he'll be able to drink the tea without it pouring right back out his nose. He also takes up about two-thirds of the couch despite his stature, but Gerry's plenty narrow enough to sit on the remaining cushion and still leave an inch or two between them. It's still the closest they've ever been to each other, aside from the occasional squeeze on a crowded bus.
"D'you…need anything?"
Mike looks over at him. That anger is still dulled down, and without it, Mike looks oddly vulnerable. Like this, curled up and visibly in pain, he just looks…sad. Like something Gerry wants to protect, even though that can't be the kind of person Gerry really is. "Why?"
"Figure it's easier for me to get up and grab you something right now." Mike's staring at him with blank confusion. Gerry feels anxiety knot in his throat, so he keeps talking, voice lighter. "And I'm a snoop. Maybe I'll keep rooting through your flat if you let me get up again."
Mike snorts and shakes his head. When his smile fades though, that sadness is there again. "No, just…why."
"Dunno what you mean."
"You do know what I mean!" Mike sits back up, accusatory. The effect of his renewed anger is dampened at the way he winces on his way up, and the care he's taking not to spill his tea all over his lap. "Don't fucking- play dumb. You're way better at reading people than I am, you weird emotional shithead, so just…just answer me!"
Gerry goes still whenever someone's shouting at him. He wonders if Mike's ever noticed. If he has, he's never asked. "Then how about…I dunno why." He sees the moment Mike puffs up with another demand, so he continues in a rush. "I'm being serious! I just…want to."
Mike's silent for a while. When he speaks, his voice is subdued again. Barely more than a whisper. "Want to what."
Gerry can't look at him. "Want to help, I guess."
There's another long, long silence. Gerry can't tell if it's awkward or relieved or if he's about to have tea thrown at him. So when Mike breaks the silence with, "Could you tell?" Gerry is at a loss.
"Sorry?"
"Could you tell. Before. That I'm… That I'm not a… Did you know."
Oh. "Oh. No. No, had…no idea til you asked me for a pad after being cagey as hell all morning."
"I was in pain."
"Yeah, caught on afterwards." A beat. "Sorry. Seems like it's awful."
Mike is staring at him still, and that disbelief from before has redoubled. "Yeah. It is. So you don't…you didn't know. But you don't care?"
Gerry has, in the past, tried to run away from home. Interacting with normal people is frustrating to the point of impossibility, and there are always moments like this - when he's being given all the signs that he's missed out on a big social cue. Something everyone else on the planet would know what to do with, and that Gerry can't even see. Feeling it with Mike causes his stomach to drop. It makes his tone snappy. "Care about what, Mike? Just use your words. You're usually pretty fond of them."
Mike's face is pinched. "So even though I'm a foot shorter than you and scrawny, you just…thought I was just a short guy?"
Gerry barks a laugh. It doesn't sound polite. "Mate, I dunno if you've noticed, but everyone is short compared to me."
Mike's mouth moves like he's laughing, but his eyes stay transfixed and halfway between terrified and…and enraptured. Like he can't believe what he's staring at it is real. "Okay, fine. So you didn't already know. It's just that…people would usually care. About finding out their fr–" Mike pales. "--finding out someone they know is trans."
Gerry's ears are ringing with that half-said word. "Would they, now?" Gerry finally risks a sip of his tea to buy himself time, now that Mike's done jerking around and sloshing his tea nearly over the rim. "Well. I don't see why finding that out about my friend really matters." His heart nearly thuds right out of his throat when he commits to saying the word he's sure he just almost heard. He's momentarily deaf with the sound of his own blood in his ears. "Except that maybe now I'll be keeping some backup pads in my wallet or something. …If they fit. They looked kinda wide."
Mike finally laughs, teeth visible for a flash. "Yeah. It's hard to sneak them around without a proper bag."
Gerry makes a noise of understanding, and then it finally goes quiet in a way that doesn't feel like it's sitting on his chest. "Well, if you give me one of them, I'll see if I can make it fit."
"...Okay." Mike agrees. "Sure." And then he grimaces. "Later, though. I'm not getting up for a while."
"I've got all day," Gerry says, and Mike doesn't tell him he ought to get going. So he doesn't.
***
"Here."
"Thanks." Mike takes the hot water bottle from Gerry's hand. He'd finally actually asked for something, on Gerry's third trip 'to get more tea' so he had an excuse to offer to get anything else Mike might've needed. Gerry is finding that seeing Mike in distress is…achingly similar to seeing his mum upset, just with different emotions attached. But the same instincts are there - hover, offer help, be quiet. It's been an effort not to scoot further from him on the couch to give him room, but somehow as the day progressed and Mike went more horizontal on it, it got easier to…linger close. Now, when Gerry settles back onto the couch, there isn't room for him to not be pressed up against Mike's feet, so that's where he ends up.
"Did you…" Gerry pushed himself to finally start speaking, so he could get this over with, but he ends up stalling with uncertainty. Mike looks over. "Fuck. Alright, just- earlier. When you were making a fuss about this." Mike's expression is going a bit still and stormy. (The irony.) Gerry keeps going. "Did I interrupt your…were you hoping to have to convince me it was alright? I mean…"
"You've lost me."
Gerry sighs and drags a hand down his face. "Did you…want to talk about it, I guess is what I'm asking. I dunno, you don't have to explain a damn thing to me, but you've been quiet and you were clearly prepared to give a bit of a speech, or at least throw a pillow at me earlier, so I was just thinking…" Gerry lets it trail off with a shrug.
Mike is curled into a ball around his hot water bottle like a cat, and the tense lines of his body have finally started visibly relaxing. Maybe that's why all he does is level Gerry with a considering stare and then nod, slowly. "...Yeah. Yeah, I guess I was thinking you'd need to hear it. And I don't really ever get to…" He snorts. "For obvious reasons, I'd rather no one knew, so I don't talk about it."
Gerry thinks those reasons aren't all that obvious, actually, but he knows better than to offer up that opinion right now. Instead he just nods, and gets to drinking his third or fourth round of tea. The caffeine is making him a bit antsy, but it also lets him fidget with something while he listens, and Mike does better when he's not directly stared at.
"It's just…" Mike takes a deep breath, and when he lets it out he deflates a little more. If earlier he'd looked ready to fight Gerry over not challenging him, now he seems to relax into it. "It's sort of funny, I guess. It's supposed to be this big, horrible deal, and I guess it was before I figured it out? But that's the thing. When I did realize what all the…signs…could mean, it– it turned into something that was relieving."
Gerry is silent and still, just watching. Mike seems to pick up steam as he goes, and right at that moment, he…sort of smiles. It's like watching clouds part. Gerry was expecting something a lot more grim-sounding, after the prologue to all this.
"What I mean is, it's…the one thing I've taken into my own hands to try to fix about myself that worked. Because figuring it out was…weird. But fixing it? That was easy. New clothes, new hair…some visits to a doctor that didn't understand eveything, but finally understood enough to be able to fucking help me." Mike's voice grows stronger as he goes. "It was the first proof I got that yeah, even the broken parts of me could maybe be fixed, so long as I found the language to describe it and the right powers to change it. Meant maybe I could fix…the rest of it. The thing chasing me, the…scar." Mike shrugs. He's quieter again, but it's a slow, meditative kind of quiet, not the sulking terror Mike sometimes takes on at night.
Mike shakes his head like he's coming out of a trance, and his eyes cut over to Gerry again finally. "If nothing else, it tells me I'm not crazy. 'Cause I know I was right about this."
There is a curious lightness in Gerry's chest, one that doesn't seem to fit with the tension around his eyes. They burn – he distinctly remembers the last time he cried, but the bitter sobbing he'd muffled against his pillow once he got home from one of his mum's meetings didn't make him feel anything like how Mike's story just did, so he isn't too sure what it means. He swallows and waits a few seconds before he trusts his voice. "Sounds like you know yourself pretty damn well. Wish I had half your confidence, honestly."
Mike makes a noise like he tries to scoff, but he doesn't break eye contact. "Pretty nice way of calling me a stubborn arsehole again."
"Hey now, you just brought that up again, not me." Gerry has the brief, wild urge to reach over and tousle Mike's hair. Is that just something people do in movies, or is that a real thing? He isn't sure. He doesn't try it out. He's done enough new things for one day. Or, well… Almost enough new things. "...You got any paper around here? Ones that aren't covered in your Da Vinci Code scribbling."
Mike points out a pile wordlessly, though he ends up having to direct Gerry through how many tomes to move before he gets to the ream of blank printer paper halfway down.
All in all, it's not a lot of work to do in order to earn himself something else to kill time with. And if Mike passes out sometime after it's gotten dark, and Gerry props himself up in the corner of the couch, wondering if he'll do the same and end up sleeping over someone else's flat for the first time in his life, well… Mike owes him for the soda earlier, or something.