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They let Micky sit at one of the desks as he waited. They wanted someone to come pick him up, if for no other reason than his own safety. Told him that they didn’t like the idea of him walking home. He asked if someone could just drop him off at home, “This isn’t a car service, kid.” Was what he got back.
So he sat at that desk and looked at the phone debating whether or not he wanted to call or if he just wanted to wait until morning. If he waited until morning he could just walk home. The cops said they’d let him leave alone in the daylight. He did know that his friends would be worried sick. He’d get home in the morning and he was sure Peter would run up to him, see his busted lip and black eye and instantly pull him into the bathroom to patch him up. Just like Micky had shown him how. It would hurt Micky’s chest how much Peter cared. So often he felt undeserving of it. If he came back in the morning he knew Mike would try to not openly worry. But he would see it in his face. Mike would say that he was glad that he made it home mostly unscathed but he was sure he would feel Mike’s arms wrap around him a little tighter that night. Davy would joke about it, keep it from being too tense, and Micky would be thankful. So thankful that he wouldn’t know how to tell Davy that it meant the world to him that he wasn’t bothered by it. And it would hurt and ache and he would feel guilty and itch and he would lie. Micky knew he would lie. For no other reason other than getting them to worry less. He loved his friends, he did, he really did, they reminded him what it meant to care about people and be cared about. But sometimes they cared about him so much Micky couldn’t help but feel undeserving.
“Don’t beat yourself up too much,” One of the officers told him as they watched Micky contemplate the phone, “It was self defense, really.”
So he chose to call. Call and pray they wouldn’t freak out. “Beachwood typing service.” He heard over the phone, he heard Davy over the phone, tired and probably on his way to bed. Still answering under their current scheme despite the hour.
“Davy,” Micky sounded defeated, “Davy it’s me, it’s Micky, I’m down at the police station, and, well they don’t want me to leave without someone to make sure I get home alright.”
“Police station? Micky, did you get arrested? What happened?” Davy sounded frantic on the phone.
Micky took a deep breath, “It’s a long story, I can explain it all on the way home.”
He heard the line go dead, and Micky could just hope that Davy was on his way. Slumping down in the chair like a kid waiting outside of the principal's office.
One of the officers had given Micky a cup of coffee. It was room temperature but Micky still drank it. Late at night and the station had calmed down other than the ‘delinquents’ that cops dragged in through the doors. Some getting taken back towards the jail cells, others dropped in seats similar to the one Micky sat at, being told to call home to have their parents come pick them up.
The officer whose desk Micky sat at stood nearby. Waiting for whoever Micky called to show up so that he could go home. “You know, a guy like you would be right at home here on the force. Give your life some greater purpose again. Get to put back on a uniform.” Micky just sank in the seat. Letting the man say the words. Listened to words he had heard before. Or ones that had at least been similar. Things like purpose and worth and pride and honor had not meant much to him in years.
He fulfilled his purpose in life, a purpose that cost him his pride and honor and peace of mind and took all he was worth and laid it out onto the ground. So he wandered. Wandered and avoided any other sort of purpose the world tried to hand him. And for years his only purpose, the only he had was to bleed. Bleed and get by. Bleed and get by and keep moving. It took everything for Micky to walk away from that. It felt like an insult for it to be served back to him on a silver platter.
It was a relief to hear Davy arguing with someone else in the station. It caused Micky to jump up to his feet. “That’s my ride, can I go now?” Micky asked as the officer watched Davy argue with a man who had nearly a foot of height on him.
“Oliver Twist is your ride?”
Micky understood more and more why the comments bothered him, he couldn’t help it, he couldn’t help that he was short or British, maybe he could help his hair by keeping it neat but it was close to midnight, of course he wasn’t completely put together. “He’s my roommate.” Micky said like it was a ridiculous comment to make even if he could see it.
He didn’t wait for someone to tell him he could go, he just grabbed his jacket and walked towards Davy. “Honestly you should be apologizing to- God, Micky, your face.” He stopped what he was yelling about as soon as he saw Micky.
He waved it off, “eh, you’ve seen me with worse.” Micky was putting on the jacket, his jacket, Peter barely wore it anymore these days, “Okay,” Micky went turning towards the police officers, “Now that I have someone to escort me home am I free to go?”
It was late, and Micky knew they wanted a mom or a dad or an older brother or perhaps a girlfriend, but they got a Davy, and a Davy was as good as they were going to get. So the officers waved them off and they were walking outside to where the hodge-podged ‘car’ was.
Slowly but surely they had been fixing one up. Mostly Mike and Micky, on late nights where Micky was unable to sleep he ended up trying to teach himself how to fix a car from user manuals. Until it was early in the morning and the garage was filled with speech fit for sailors and stagehands. And Mike would worry, worry and come downstairs and find Micky covered in grease and some car part completely pulled apart. He would convince Micky to take a shower and take a nap and when he woke up they could try again together.
Far too many times had Davy or Peter walked into the garage to check on them and Mike and Micky were scrambling away from each other. Coming up with some excuse to why they had been practically in each other's laps. Some excuse other than they were making out.
There had been enough of those nights that the ‘car’ now ran well enough to drive. It was not pretty, not under any circumstance, it was dented and different colors and didn’t even have a hood, but it got them from place to place occasionally. Mike didn’t like to drive it, said it still needed more work, but it was late at night and Micky was at a police station across town so of course Davy grabbed the keys on his way out the door.
Micky sat in the passenger seat as Davy started the car. Leaning his head back as Davy pulled out onto the road. “I’m shocked Mike and Peter didn’t come with.” Micky could feel the vague pulse in his eye socket. A dull ache he was no longer used to. It made his head feel fuzzy. It made him feel like he was forgetting things. It was a feeling he used to love. He used to love the way it felt when the bones in his face crunched back and his mind felt like soup. He used to love the feeling of forgetting, of letting the thoughts slip away, but now his head just ached and the things that were slipping away were the words to his songs, the smiles of his friends, the feel of his home.
“Well they weren’t home yet from that gig.” Davy said as he pulled out onto the road.
That made Micky fill with relief. It helped him relax, hell, it made his head hurt less. “Oh, that’s good. So they don’t know.” Micky was nodding to himself.
“I don’t even know.” Davy was concerned, concerned and trying to hide it. “What happened?” Micky was quiet for a long time, “Micky, you said you’d tell me on the drive home.”
“How about we just tell the guys I got in a fight. No need to bring up the cops.” And Micky knew it was a long shot, but he always found himself doing long shots.
He watched Davy settle his hands on the wheel after he shifted the car back into gear after a stop. “Micky, you got arrested.” Davy was trying to talk calmly.
“Technically they are not pressing charges!” Micky was sitting up some more, his head still pounding.
“It’s still getting arrested.” Davy was turning, sticking his hand out the window, the back blinker hadn’t been fixed yet, “And I never really asked about the fights, I never really asked about much because I get it, things that I have no business knowing, but if I am picking you up from the police, and especially if you want me to not tell the Peter and Mike, I need something. I need something so I can be a good friend and shake my finger at you if need be.” Davy never talked like this, he never talked seriously. He let Micky be cryptic and off putting and avoid questions. Davy never pushed. Never really pushed. It’s what made him dangerous for Micky to be around. Is that Davy accepted him, oddities and all. So did Peter, but Peter had his own tendencies that it was less acceptance and more co-existence. And Mike was a whole different situation. But Davy, Davy didn’t use his shortcomings against him even when he had every reason to.
So Micky sat in the passenger seat of what they decided was a car, contemplating how he would say it. How he would admit to it. “It shouldn’t really count as getting arrested, because it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t do anything, but they took me in anyway.” It was a little bit Micky’s fault. He did punch back. He used to never punch back. But this time, this time he just wasn’t in the mood for some kid to run his mouth. For some kid to decide what his life was.
“Can I ask what wasn’t your fault?” Davy was treading lightly. Trying not to cause Micky to freak. He could see he was on edge, skirting around the topic, downplaying it, and part of Davy wanted to let it slide. Wanted to nod his head and just say he was picking up Micky from some alleyway behind a restaurant where he had made a few comments that got taken the wrong way and that’s why he had a busted up eye again. But Davy had a feeling in his stomach. Always had around Micky. All a little too familiar the way he danced around topics. Reminded him a little too much of home. Things that Davy didn’t mean to be push on that still ended up seeming like pushing on a tender wound. Micky would say things that reminded him a little too much of his grandfather. And not even the things he said, but the way he said them.
Davy remembered getting in an argument with his grandfather once, he was a younger teen and he was begging for trouble, one of the first times the cops had picked him up and dropped him off at home. A pastime that he would soon develop. His grandfather had lectured him about his behavior, that he was young now, but someday he may look back and wish to not acknowledge the things that he did. He remembered the way his grandfather got distant after Davy made some stupid comment about his grandfather being perfect, about his grandfather having never done a regrettable thing in his life. Back then he never understood why his grandfather pulled out his Victoria Cross from a desk drawer and handed it to him, telling him that he did in fact have things he chose to not mention. It was Davy’s first time seeing it. He knew his grandfather served, there had been plenty of comments of Davy joining up once he got tall enough. And seeing that medal Davy thought it just proved his point that his grandfather was perfect. Davy had even made a dumb comment about how he already knew his grandfather was a perfect soldier, Davy didn’t understand back then why his grandfather had to turn and walk away, why he had to go into his study and smoke a pipe while listening to his Victrola to calm down.
So now he treaded lightly. Not assuming but being more than aware that there were topics that could very well never come up. Topics that weren’t any less true even if they never saw the light of day. Micky never said it, Micky never even got close to saying it, but he had an efficiency to him at times that felt nearly counter-intuitive to every other aspect of him, he was good with time and distance and thinking on his feet, he could throw one hell of a punch but refused to fight back unless he had a real good reason, he would eat just about anything as about as fast as you would let him, and knew a little too much about first aid to so adamantly say he was never training to be a doctor. Different country, different war, but that didn’t mean it didn’t break young men’s spirits the same.
“Okay, technically I hit him.” Micky knew how bad it sounded. “Technically I hit him first,” and that sounded worse. It made him regret it more if it was worse. “But I wouldn’t have hit him if he wasn’t running his mouth and pulling me into his little, his little, I don’t even want to call it a demonstration, because a demonstration is supposed to stand for something, and all that guy stood for was pissing me off!”
Davy nodded, he took what Micky was giving him. “Must have said something real nasty to piss you off.” Because Davy couldn’t think of what the answer could be. Only time that he had ever seen Micky hit someone was because of Peter, because they were being demeaning to Peter, and if that was what happened Davy thought Micky had every right to lay them out.
Micky was quiet for a long time. “Yeah, real nasty.” His voice hollow, and all Davy could do was nod. Accept. He had known Micky for long enough to know that pushing did nothing. If something wasn’t alright Micky would change course, turn around and walk the other way down the sidewalk, Micky would work with him, Davy owed him just as much to turn and walk the other way too when things weren’t alright.
After that the ‘car’ was quiet. Micky made a mental note that the radio should be a bit higher on the list of things that needed to be fixed. If for no other reason than to appease the painful silence that grew between them. Painful to almost a breaking point. And Micky had never been so thankful to pull into the garage. A pressure off his chest in a way. It took him a moment to breathe as Davy started getting out of the car. “Real nasty comment then, yeah? You got in a fight and I went to pick you up?”
Davy was confirming the story, and Micky just felt small as he nodded. He was thankful, he was shameful, he had too many thoughts and feelings running through his head for his patched up heart to handle. “Just between us though,” Micky was calling out, didn’t know why he was talking, running his mouth the way he used to run from his problems, “He called me a-” Micky laughed, laughed and took a deep breath, the word mumbled beyond recognition, “The cop thought I was right to punch him. That’s why they let me go.”
Davy nodded again, didn’t ask any more questions even if he really had not gotten many answers. Accepted it and slipped into the house. Leaving Micky sitting in the car still trying to gather all the thoughts and feelings that had scattered themselves across the floor.
He replayed the moment in his mind, scattered and fragmented, it was hard for Micky to think about. He wanted to think about it in a straight line, beginning to end, but he didn’t get that luxury. He tried to remember the guy's face, he could remember how it felt when his fist hit his teeth, he couldn’t see his face though. He saw so many other faces, his brain cycling though, he saw his father and his English teacher and his drill sergeant and so many other random people he had met that he only knew for a few hours at most, but he couldn’t pull the face of this particular man into his mind. Micky could hear his voice, clear as a bell in his mind,
“It’s young men like you who need to start pulling their weight,” the face was blur though. Cycling through, rapidly cycling though, looking for the one that matched the voice that came out of the mouth.
Micky wanted to think he kept his head down and kept walking. He wanted to think that the guy got in his way and gave him no choice. It was self defense, really.
“It’s young men like you who need to start pulling their weight,” The voice called to him from the other side of the street, and Micky knew he should have ignored it. If he kept his head down and ignored it he would have gotten home without a busted eye or without getting picked up by the cops or without having to call Davy.
Micky wanted to think he told him to mind his business, that that guy was the one who got in his face, who crossed the street and forced his hand. Micky didn’t want to hit him, he was a lover not a fighter, so it was self defense, really.
“It’s young men like you who need to start pulling their weight,” the voice grabbed Micky’s attention, causing him to turn and look and freeze in place. He tried to keep his head down around protests, when topics would come up he tried to laugh them off and change the subject.
The man grabbed him. The man grabbed him and that’s why he punched. It was all self defense, really.
“It’s young men like you who need to start pulling their weight,” the face was far too similar to Mike’s for his liking. He tried to get it to change, but it wouldn’t. It wouldn’t because he had finally found it. The face that made him cross the street because why would Mike be hanging around a crowd like this?
It wasn’t Mike though, Micky knew that as soon as he got close enough, “How about you mind your own damn business.” Micky did try to walk away. He wanted to think he tried to walk away, that the guy grabbed his arm and that was what made him turn and sock him right in the face,
It felt like punching Mike, and that made him want to throw up. He couldn’t recall the words, what the fight was about, but he was at home and he had punched Mike who he now stood over. He could feel the way Mike’s teeth felt against his fist, it wasn’t Mike, but it might as well have been. “I’m so sorry,”
Micky wanted to think that it was heat of the moment, that he snapped, that he through a punch in a fit of rage, “It’s young men like you who need to start pulling their weight,” And Micky crossed the street and punch him in the teeth and the cops put him in a car and took him to the station.
Micky laid face down on the ground, taking it, it had been so long since he felt like this, kick after kick after kick, “It’s young men like you who need to start pulling their weight,”
Micky would even take thinking that he was seeking out that mind numbing pain again. He would take that over punching Mike.
“It’s young men like you who need to start pulling their weight,” The voice did not match the face in Micky’s brain. The guy almost looked like Mike, it's what made Micky approach him in the first place, it’s what prompted the joke about the guy being a pacifist. He thought it was Mike, he thought he was saving Mike from a situation where he would get his own shiner.
“I’m so sorry! I totally thought that you were someone else!” Micky did think about walking away.
“Don’t walk away when I am talking to you,” The words felt wrong but Micky couldn’t remember, “Real men don’t walk away.”
Micky wished he could remember all of it. Because he knew that thought was a load of bullshit. Yet all he got were bits and pieces cut up and inter-spliced. Changed. Altered. And he knew he should stop thinking about it. The longer he thought about it the messier it got. The harder it was to remember the real parts.
Micky swung first, but he didn’t get in many more blows after that. Not until the end of the fight. Not until he practically knocked the guy out cold and stood over him, “Real men don’t need Uncle Sam to pull their head out of their ass.” Micky swung first and put his hands up in surrender as soon as the cops got there.
Did Micky even swing first? Did it even matter?
Micky remembered the punch, he remembered how sick it made him feel, to punch someone who looked that close to Mike in the face. He never liked to think of Mike as hurt. He wanted to take care of Mike, protect Mike, love him, stay with him, he wanted to pull Mike into his arms and hold him until all the bad things disappeared. Now here was this false Mike, telling him to grab his gun and join the line, false Mike didn’t know any better, he didn’t know that Micky, despite the grown out hair and beads and trendy clothes, had already done his time pulling his weight. Real Mike didn’t know either. So did it really matter which one was yelling at him from across the street?
Did the guy even look like Mike? Or did Micky just decide that he did because it was one of the few faces he could think of that he would never want to punch? One of the few faces he could justify regretting punching no matter how much he might have deserved it? Micky regretted it. Regardless of what led up to it, regardless of who swung, it made him sick to think he hit someone. That he hit someone for something like that. Real men don’t walk away. Cops drag them off. Give them a slap on the wrist and make them call home. Micky regretted it. He regretted all of it. Regretted it so much it made him sick. He regretted being a real man.
“Hey babe,” Mike’s voice was soft, hand rubbing his shoulder, he hadn’t noticed him get into the car. “Davy said that you were still in the garage, and I just wanted to see how you were doing.” Poisonous thoughts filled Micky’s mind. Poisonous thoughts that forced him to ask if Mike would still be so gentle if he knew the truth about the stranger he for some reason let sleep in his bed.
It wasn’t the first time he had thrown himself into Mike’s arms. His head loud and crowded and all he could do was reach. Reach for something stable, something real. “I’m sorry,” He quietly sobbed. “I’m sorry.” And Mike just held him close. Held him close until the sobbing stilled.
Mike was gentle with his face, thumb running gently over his cheek, black eye slowly starting to form. “Davy said you got into an altercation.”
“I got arrested.” Mike's eyebrows went high as the words spilled out of his mouth. Micky didn’t mean to say it. But it was like he couldn’t help it. And as soon as he said that the words just kept coming, “I got arrested because I punched this guy in the face, but he might have punched me first, I don’t really remember, but I got arrested, and Davy picked me up, and I asked him not to tell you, but it just keeps going over and over again in my mind, and there's parts that I just can’t get right, but I punched him, Mike, I punched him, and I didn’t even have that good of a reason, and, and, and-” Mike was pulling him back into a hug as he began to heave. As he ran out of breath. Held him close and securely as he got it all out.
“It’s okay, Micky, It’s okay,” He let Micky sink against him, his full weight in Mike’s arms. “I just want to make sure you are okay.” Micky turning to jelly in his arms, “I don’t care about the other guy, okay? I only care about you.” And Micky nodded. Just letting himself be held. Letting Mike hold him. “Can I take care of you? Get you inside? Make sure you are okay?” There was always something guilty about letting Mike save him. And he nodded every time. Because Mike was so good at saving him. Even better at it when Micky let him, when Micky wanted him to. Even the small things. Even when they felt like the farthest thing from small. Even moments like right now.
So he let Mike lead him inside, and lead him upstairs, he let Mike help him change and bring him water and sit at the edge of the bed as Micky was all cozyed in. “Did you have a good gig?” Micky asked quietly, a damp rag cleaning his face even if Micky told him that he had cleaned himself up at the police station.
Mike nodded, nodded with a small smile. “Made a good chunk of change. The music was boring beyond belief, but they tipped well.” and it was quiet and calm. Mike helped it be quiet and calm. Reaching out and letting his hand run against Micky’s face. It made Micky smile, smile and grab it into his hand, smile and grab his hand and pull Mike forward so that he collapsed against Micky. Collapsed against him in the way that Micky could kiss him in that passionate, romantic, close to perfect way. Close to the way that Mike kissed him that first time. Where reality became clear and he saw something wonderful and beautiful and wanted in front of him.
And they smiled, smiled against each other in that way where things weren’t perfect but they were perfect enough, more perfect than Micky thought he would get. As perfect as he could probably get in his life. A life that was plagued with pain and fear and running, but at least he got this. At least he had a face that smiled at him, smiled at him and held out his hand and pulled Micky into his arms. When things got too much Mike would always pull him into a hug. A hold. How he loved to be held. He had always loved to be held. He loved to hold too. He loved to be close. He loved so much. Mike let him love and be loved. That was so much better than silence. Then laying alone. Than just simply being consoled.
It almost made the moment in the ‘car’ feel silly. That he was practically spiraling out of control. Mike had taken all the thoughts and straightened them out, not fixed them, they were still a mess, but at least Micky wasn’t drowning in them anymore. The thoughts instead were stacked in a plie for Micky to deal with later. And he felt silly, for freaking out about it in the first place. For crying, for practically collapsing, for being some fragile thing that Mike had to save. But it was the way things went. The world would fall apart and Micky would fall with it instead of running. He would fall with it and Mike would help pull him from the rubble of his own destruction.
Mike held his arms tight around Micky. Like Micky was going to drift away if he let go. Quiet and understanding. They had kissed and cuddled and Mike had made sure Micky was clean and fed and cared for. Nights were not always like this, creeping into morning with heavy hearts and unspoken worries. But if Micky needed it to be like this, Mike would let it. Micky knew he was lucky. Beyond lucky. “All the things that I had to do to end up in this bed with you,” So many people he thought he would see again that now were distant memories. So many awful things that made Micky sick to think about. So many questionable things that made him wonder why he did any of it. “I would do all of it again if it meant ending up back here.” Back there in Mike’s arms.
He felt Mike hum against him. Something like comfort, like appreciation, like agreement. “You’d really do that all for me?”
It was funny to Micky, but not the kind he could make a joke about, the kind that just made him hold onto Mike just as tightly. Holding each other. “Yes.”
Micky’s hand was being brought up to Mike’s lips, bruises not yet forming but his knuckles were tender from the fight. It was possible that they wouldn’t bruise, “I wouldn’t ask you to do that,” Mike didn’t know, but he knew, he knew well enough. There were reasons for not talking about the past. Mike didn’t know, but he knew, he knew that ‘yes’ meant something.
“You don’t have to ask,” Micky spoke quietly, “I’d do it anyway.” Both of them should have been asleep hours ago, but instead they laid in each other's arms like it was one of those nights where they were pushing off the inevitable. Quietly wrapped in each other, a world of their very own where none of their problems were real anymore. Just far off things that couldn’t hurt them. “Mike?” Micky still spoke quietly, Mike’s lips still brushing ever so slightly against his fingertips, “Mike, I’m not proud of punching that guy. I’m not proud of hurting anyone. Or getting other people to hurt me. You know I’m not proud of getting shot, hell, you are the only person I’ve ever told that I was shot in the first place. Last person who really knew was the doctor who rushed me out of the hospital.” Micky was just talking, talking to tire himself out, “But if doing all that is what gets me here I can’t exactly regret it. There’s lots of things that I regret, but nothing that leads to you, and before you go and say that there is nothing too special about you, I don’t want to hear it. Okay? You are special to me. You’ve told me before that I make you feel like a real person sometimes and that is a two-way street.” He thought he could feel Mike smile and laugh ever so slightly, easing the words out of Micky more and more, unable to stop them. Words he kept so close to his chest. But he’d let Mike see his scars, he’d let Mike see the most rotten and corrupted parts of himself. Parts of himself that he thought were forever ruined, yet Mike still kissed the tender bruises and held him close and acted as if all that rot could never change the light he saw Micky in. “That guy was okay I think, I think they kept him overnight. I hope he’s okay. I just got fed up and next thing I knew he was on the ground.” Micky thought he felt Mike nod, and it was late or early or whatever they were going to call it and Micky felt the words pour out of himself like alphabet soup out of a can, “It feels like it’s been too long to come clean about some of this stuff, about my past, and you know it bothers me, you know I get nightmares, I know you get nightmares too, and I know you’d never ask me to talk about it, and it’s not like I would change any of it, I mean, maybe before meeting you if I had the chance to go back I would have waited to get drafted, but now I wouldn’t change a thing because I don’t want to ever risk losing this, losing you, I wouldn’t want to risk not ending up here.” The arms around him pulled tighter, “Maybe I do regret punching that guy a little bit. He didn’t really deserve it. But he was getting on my nerves. And I just, I don’t know, all of a sudden I was a scared kid again being told violence was the answer. He was telling me violence was the answer. So that's what I gave him.”
It was quiet for a long time before he heard Mike softly snore. Micky didn’t know if it was a relief or not. Maybe it was better if Mike was asleep. It gave him a second chance. Gave him a second chance to decide that wasn’t a part of himself.
Deciding it wasn’t a part of him never stopped the nightmares, or the anxiety, or the pain, or the thoughts. All it had done was make him run.
Micky didn’t sleep particularly well that night, drifting in and out. Waking up and reaching for Mike, selfish little comforts that made the tossing and turning almost bearable. Until it was late into the morning and Mike was stirring awake. Mike’s hand gently on Micky’s face after the usual groans of displeasure of being awake. “That’s starting to leave a shiner.” Followed by a kiss to the cheek.
Micky expected Mike to get up and out of bed, but instead he stayed, thumb lightly running over the forming bruise, lips ever so often brushing over. Easing Micky awake in a way where the dread in his chest felt a lot more manageable and so much less crushing. Quiet yet tugging, nothing brought the words forward other than Micky’s own morbid curiosity. “When did you fall asleep last night?”
“We were talking, and then, well, now we're here.” Mike said, almost confused. Micky just nodded. Nodded and accepted, he didn’t want to dig too much of a hole for himself, “Everything alright?” Mike asked.
Micky nodded. Choosing his battles. “Didn’t sleep very much.” It was complicated and messy, and his thoughts were the farthest thing from coherent. But he held onto Mike. Held onto comfort and safety. Held onto home.
Home. Such a funny thing. He’d decided this was home what felt like ages ago. But there would be moments where he would forget. Where it would slip his mind. Moments where if it all disappeared he wouldn’t even have missed it. Moments where he was so entrenched in the past he still thought home was that place on the corner of the block that hurt to think about. Moments where he was haunted by scratched out faces that smiled as he laid in the grass bleeding out.
There was always some part of Micky that felt guilty that he didn’t will himself to think about his parents when he was sure his breathing days were over. Always a part of him that-
“Hey babe,” It was Mike’s voice, soft and soothing, guiding him out of his own mind, “You want breakfast?”
Micky smiled, smiled and leaned in and left a kiss on Mike’s face, “I think it’s almost lunch.”
“You want lunch then?” Micky could see it in Mike’s face. The way that he was trying not to worry, trying not to pry, trying to not be too concerned even if Micky knew that Mike couldn’t help but be concerned when Micky got into fights. Those days were gone for the most part. Micky didn’t seek them out like he used to. But Mike still looked at every black eye and bloody nose with that same worry as the first time he saw them. A little better at hiding it, but there none the less.
“What you making?”
Mike paused for a moment, “I think we have some tomato soup, I can make some grilled cheese, maybe, we still have bread, right?”
Micky laughed. Laughed and kissed him. Kissed him and got out of bed throwing on a robe over his pajamas. Somehow everything felt normal and right again. His head still loud but not in the way where he was heaving on the ground, the way that he was up for anything. “Maybe!” He said, trying not to think about it too hard. He had spent a lot of the last 24 hours thinking a little too hard, and he was getting better at it, at thinking about the past, but he still had a long way to go. Maybe one day it wouldn’t hurt. It wouldn’t push him to snap. Maybe one day he could spill his heart to his friends. But for right now he was just thinking about lunch.