Work Text:
Set between season 5 episodes 2 and 4
Stacy had just told Mike it would be better if Mike kept his distance tonight and Mike was furious.
Mike stomps over to his car and slams the door behind him. He quickly switches the gear to drive and swerves away. Truth-be-told he didn’t really know where he was going, but he knew he had to get somewhere. His mind was taken over by red-hot anger and the urge to get away from Stacy’s home. He had a white knuckled grip on his steering wheel as lights and colors rushed and his vision became blurred and tunneled.
The alcohol in his system makes it that much easier to reach this state of mind.
He's brought out of it by a buzzing in his pocket, he doesn’t know how long he had been driving or where he went. He takes his foot off the gas and pulls into a neighborhood street to redirect himself back to an area he was familiar with. Mike pulls his phone out of his pocket and sees that he had missed a call from his contact “Lawyer.” and additionally it had sent him 2 messages:
‘Call me when you can’
‘Please’
Mike is undoubtedly annoyed, but he figures he could really use the distraction. (He pushes down the prick of worry in his stomach)
Mike takes a deep sigh before calling back. It rings once, half way through the second, Jimmy picks up. He answered with a strained “Hey Mike,” and all of Mike’s anger was gone.
“What happened?” Mike demanded.
Jimmy responded with a shaky laugh, “Wow, so serious.”
Jimmy’s laugh weakens and devolves into quiet sobs.
Mike decides this conversation would be best in person.
“Where are you?” Mike says in the same tone he had before.
With a voice that’s just a little too sad and a little too snotty, Jimmy answers with a weak, “nail salon.”
Mike takes the phone away from his face and snaps it shut, pressing his foot even harder on the gas as thinks of the quickest way to the nail salon.
On the other end of the recently disconnected line, Jimmy is in absolute disbelief. The kind-of-lawyer was currently sitting on his poor excuse of a bed in his so-called office. He continues to stare at his phone until he decides his headache is becoming overbearing. He lays down with his hands over his eyes and tries to disconnect from his brain.
He had been thinking about his life a little too hard today. Sure Chuck’s death happened a while ago, but everything in his life seems to be crumbling once again. He can’t seem to get Chuck’s voice out of his head. What was Jimmy doing with his life?
He thought about Kim, how she was probably right about the failure of his lawyer career. She was smart to not get too involved with him. Jimmy seems to destroy anything he touches anyway.
A chimp with a machine gun, that’s what Chuck had said.
He is awakened by a sudden pounding at the door.
Mike is concerned when he doesn’t see any signs of Jimmy after his first set of knocks. After about 30 seconds he knocks a lot more, a lot louder. Just when he considers breaking the glass, he sees Jimmy skid out of his office through the tacky bead curtain. Jimmy paced towards the entrance door. It takes a moment for Jimmy to unlock the door, failing to get both locks to line up, but when he does he swings it open with a bit too much force.
Jimmy is met face to face with Mike, and it dawns on him that he doesn’t know what to do.
Mike on the other hand was scanning Jimmy up and down, checking for any physical injuries that he may have received. Deep down Mike knew that Jimmy was just sad, mentally unwell, but he couldn’t help but check.
Jimmy stutters as he starts his apologies.
“Look I’m sorry Mike, I- I don’t know why I called. I swear it’s fine-”
“You look like shit, move.” Mike interjects.
Jimmy says nothing as he reluctantly moves out of the way of the door.
Mike looks around the room, again, only by impulse.
Mike doesn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, all of the nail polishes lined up perfectly in a row. The fish floating around in that fish tank that is probably two sizes too small for the amount of fish in it. The nail salon was only lit by the buzzing neon light of said fish tank and the faint orange light from the street lights outside.
The only thing Mike notices is the beer bottles in the trash can.
He knew the owner wouldn’t leave those in there all day. The older man realized that if that amount of beer was just in this trash can, there were probably a lot more in Jimmy’s office.
While Mike is walking around, Jimmy takes a seat in one of the massage chairs.
In Jimmy’s brain, it’s his massage chair, but of course he knew it wasn’t his. It was Mrs. Nguyen’s, but in his heart it was his. He had sat next to Kim in that chair when they were talking about Chuck, and he had sat in it alone plenty of times to end his night. Sometimes he would pretend he was a high-end business man getting his nightly massage. It was his chair, but only in his mind.
When he takes his seat he lets his entire body haunch over to rest his head in his hands. Mike puffs out a breath as he sits down next to him a minute later, wordlessly inviting Jimmy to talk. When Jimmy never does (as he is biting his lips to hold back more tears), Mike sighs and leans back against the salon chair.
“Look, I know you don’t wanna hear this, but I understand what you’re going through, really. To feel like you just fuck up everything you touch… and grief isn’t something that goes away quickly, loss hurts.
But… your brother loved you. And even though it happened a while ago, there’s no shame in thinking about it. You don’t have to stop being sad. It’s ok to cry.”
Jimmy turns his head in his hands away from Mike to breathe a shaky breath.
“It’s ok Jimmy.”
The sincerity combined with Mike’s rare use of the lawyer’s first name is enough to cause Jimmy to start crying again. Jimmy’s shoulders shake and Mike notes how tired he looks, how empty, how fragile. Jimmy lets out a few good sobs before gulping air in through his mouth to start talking.
“I’m… I’m so tired Mike.”
There is a noticeable slur to his words, but Mike doesn’t think for a second that these emotions are caused by the alcohol. This was raw. Without Jimmy’s usual fake… well fake everything really. This was the closest to the real Jimmy Mike had seen in a while, maybe ever.
Jimmy continues,
“I- I’m trying so hard, but nothing… nothing is happening .
Yes, I miss him. I mean what I wouldn’t give to have him back for a day, hell an hour, just to tell him everything I didn’t… everything I couldn’t.. He died thinking I hated him. And… There's nothing I can do about that. And… and… what I wouldn’t give to start over with Kim. What I wouldn’t give to- to live again!”
Jimmy is fully breaking down now, bawling while curling into himself. His nails digging into his sleeved arms. He was hugging himself tight while taking in thick swallows of air.
Mike is about to stop him, to remind him to breath, but Jimmy starts again,
“Everyone feels the need to give me the same piece of shit reconciliation, ‘everything will turn out fine, it’s going to be ok, it’s ok to not be ok.’” Jimmy moves his head from side to side in a mocking manner,
“I don’t need that. That’s useless. They’ll give you that but no one gives you space to breathe. ”
Jimmy visibly stops after his last statement. His shoulders dropping and his face relaxing from his previous look of anger. His voice is quiet now. Mike once again notices how fragile he looks, like a gust of wind could break him into a thousand pieces.
“Oh… to breathe. No one… ever told me… how hard it would be to breathe. What I wouldn’t give to go back to a time before. Before all of this… and breath.”
Jimmy goes back to his previous pose: leaned over in his lap with his head in his hands. His eyes lose focus and he stares at the space between his feet. Tears, snot, and sweat streaming down his face, and they sit. Jimmy hicks and sniffles as he weeps, slowly becoming aware of the warm hand between his shoulder blades.
Mike rubs his back and Jimmy hates it. He hates that he’s being treated like a kid, he hates how small he feels. But he mostly hates how he doesn’t stop him, how he slowly leans back into his warm hand. Mike knows, of course he knows. Jimmy turns his head in his hands once again, this time to look at Mike.
Once Jimmy finds his eyes, he sees the weirdest mix of sadness and pity. It isn’t an odd mix of emotions in general, but it was odd to see on Mike. Strong, emotionless, Mike. Jimmy’s eyebrows knit up in the way they always do when he’s worried, actually worried.
Mike sighs a soft sigh, “When my son died… I was a mess.”
Jimmy slowly sat up at the mention of one of Mike’s personal backstories. Mike’s hand stays on Jimmy’s back, but further down towards the middle of his back and it has stilled from the previous movement.
“I drank everything away when I found out. My friends, my family… my morals,” he grimaces, “That was 2 years ago now… but I still remember the feeling I felt at his service. I was so angry . Everyone had the nerve to tell me they were sorry for my loss, why should they be sorry? It was my fault. If anything I should have been apologizing to them. For killing our Matty. That pity was the worst feeling in the world.
I ended up breezing through months of my life remembering nothing. I uhm-” Mike’s voice broke once as he took a deep breath before continuing, “I recently lost my temper with my grandbaby, my Kaylee. All she did was ask about her father. I mean shouldn’t I at least owe her that? The answers to her questions? Anyway I uh… went back to the bottle a little while back and it’s been a little rough with Stacy and Kaylee since.”
Mike was looking off into the distance and Jimmy noticed how his jaw hardened as he was delving further into his past thoughts.
Jimmy shifted further forward in his seat to try and catch Mike’s gaze, while Mike was doing everything to avoid eye contact. Even as Mike felt the lawyer’s stare further boring into him, he said nothing. After what felt like an eternity, Jimmy finally spoke,
“It’s a uh, it’s a little hypocritical to not take your own advice don’t you think?”
Jimmy gave an awkward laugh before clearing his throat,
“You can cry too, Mike. Like you said, healing can take a while. You and I both know they love you Mike, your granddaughter. They know that you had no choice but to… play the cards you’re dealt.”
Jimmy shrugs and gives a pitiful smile as he remembers what his father used to say about the garbage druggies that used to blow into his little gas station.
“You don’t have to be strong all the time Mike, sometimes the best thing you can do is let it all out.”
Having finally caught Mike’s slightly puffy-red eyes, Jimmy pulled one side of his mouth up into his signature half-smile.
Mike puffs a breath out of his nose. He leans back and finally takes the hand off of Jimmy’s back that Jimmy had forgotten about until then. Mike rolled forward to get his feet firmly planted on the ground. He slowly rose to his feet, age showing as he braced his back. Jimmy stood up shortly after with the elegance of a baby giraffe, struggling to get his top half over his legs.
Mike was halfway to the door but turned around and waited for Jimmy to move towards him. Jimmy didn't really know what to do. Either way he could tell Mike was waiting for something, so he started shuffling towards Mike. Once he was an arms-length away, Mike shoved his hands in his pockets and put on his usually apathetic expression, save the excess red around his eyes. “I have some things to tend to tonight but…” Mike turns and starts walking to the door. He lifts one hand up as a sign of farewell,
“...Call me if you need me.”
Jimmy watched as Mike left out the door, walked over to his car, and drove away. Jimmy could still feel the spot Mike kept his hand during that entire encounter. His mind repeated those last words in his head over and over… for once it felt like someone cared. He didn’t expect that person to be Mike.
Jimmy was about to turn around to make it back to his stiff futon to attempt to get some sleep before his phone went off. He reached in his back pocket and saw a text from Mike.
“Don’t forget to lock that door before you go to sleep.”
Jimmy smiled at his phone and turned around to lock the front door of the salon before making it back to his office/ bedroom.
Jimmy laid down in his bed that gave him more problems than it solved and tried to place a name on the warmth he felt right above his stomach. He actually felt… lighter? He hadn’t realized he’d been smiling until he put his hand to his mouth and felt it.
Man he was drunk as fuck.
Nonetheless, after what felt like an eternity, he actually slept throughout the night.