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“ Michael! ”
At the sound of that voice in his driveway, Michael threw back his head and groaned. The first problem with that voice was that it was Trevor. Of all the people in the world Michael would rather not see right now, it would be Trevor. The guy was completely psycho, there was no denying that; not even the rose-tinted lenses he himself put on when conversing with the man could mask that fact. Between cannibalism, rape, and twenty-four-seven belligerent behavior, being around Trevor was exhausting sometimes. Though, Trevor did have his good moments, where his humor lined up just right with Michael’s, and he was a tolerable human being to be around. Those times were ones Michael savored, as they didn’t come around very often. Right now, however, he didn’t have the energy to deal with Trevor, but there was no good way he could say that without pissing Trevor off and making the situation worse.
The second problem, though, besides the fact that it was just Trevor himself, was the tone of voice. That was the tone of voice Trevor put on when either a) Michael was in serious trouble for something he may or may not have directly done, or b) Trevor was in serious trouble for something he had done, and was in desperate need of assistance so he wouldn’t get arrested, or worse.
“You’ve gotta be shitting me,” he grumbled as he sat up, preparing himself for whatever barrage of toxic waste Trevor was coming to spew his way. Michael didn’t even bother locking the door anymore-- Trevor would just kick the door open, without any respect for Michael’s property, and even though Amanda had insisted that they get a bodyguard, or the secret service, or something , Michael knew that the only thing that would stop Trevor at this point from being in their life was if someone put him down, and he’d be damned before he would be the one to do it. The thought made him absolutely sick to his stomach.
Right on cue, Trevor marched in to the living room, and Michael thanked the gods that his family wasn’t here, or there’d be serious hell on earth trying to calm Trevor so he wouldn’t (further) scar his family for life with his insane tirades. He had some crumpled up papers in his hands and was pacing. That much was normal. But Michael couldn’t help but lean forwards in curiosity when he saw not shades of red on Trevor’s face, but instead white-- ashen white, as if he was scared.
“Look at this shit,” he spat out, throwing the papers into Michael’s lap. “I got this in the mail about a week ago. Fucking ridiculous! Can you believe this?! Un-fucking believable…”
Michael gave Trevor another curious glare, before straightening out the papers in his hands and looking at them. It only took a second for him to piece together what it was, and he hurriedly scanned the rest of the document with narrowed, concerned eyes. There was no way that what he was looking at was correct, and yet there it was.
“They’re revoking your citizenship status due to ‘lack of evidence of legal immigration’?”
“ And deporting me, if I can’t dispute it!” Trevor paced even more furiously now, hands grabbing at what little thin hair he had left on his head. “Can you believe it? Thirty years I’ve been in the country, and only now do they decide to fuck me over, now that I have everything set up! My business, my home, my friends-- everything! And now the heartless fuckers want to take it all away from me!”
Michael shook his head, having a difficult time processing the situation. This was something that happened to lower class people, to people of faiths other than Catholic or Mormon, to people of colors between pure white and complete black, to people with funny accents. And while Trevor did have a funny accent, he was white, and he didn’t have a religion (as far as Michael knew)-- he was the type of person the government usually overlooked, and yet somehow, he’d gotten under their radar, and they’d determined they wanted him out.
“Well, hold on now,” Michael soothed him, standing himself as Trevor slowed his pacing, “have you applied for a Motion to Reopen?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Trevor said quickly, “I fucking sent in the letter.”
“And?” Michael needed more details, to make sure Trevor had done this right. “What did you appeal under? Appeal to reopen in absentia decision, or changed circumstances?”
Trevor was starting to calm down, but instead of panic, he was becoming nervous, switching feet and beginning to sweat. Good; it was an improvement from scared maniac. “Uh, it was, uh, changed circumstances.”
At that, Michael raised a brow. He figured Trevor would send in an appeal under absentia decision, because there was no way Trevor would have been there at the courthouse, so this was a surprise. “Oh yeah? What changed?”
Trevor stiffened, his posture going rigid and straight as a pole, and he wouldn’t make eye contact with Michael.
“I got married,” he blurted out.
“What.”
“I, uh, I got married.”
Michael blinked. Then he snickered, taking a step back from Trevor.
“Wow. Trevor Philips, finally getting hitched. Very funny,” he said. “Let me guess, you went and found the first prostitute that would let you put a ring on her finger and called it a day, right? That’s the Trevor Philips way. That or, you know, you probably drugged someone and took them in to one of those fake churches that do twenty dollar weddings, right? Anything to get by.”
Trevor’s face grew more and more red as Michael spoke, whether out of anger or embarrassment, Michael couldn’t tell. He waited for Trevor to give him a response, but wasn’t prepared at all for the answer the Canadian blurted out next.
“I got married to you .”
Michael froze, and stared at Trevor, deciding whether to scream at him or punch him.
“You did what now.”
“I told them I got married,” Trevor repeated slowly, before pointing at Michael, “to you.”
There was a moment where nothing happened, where the both of them were as still as statues. Then, Michael was shoving Trevor roughly, screaming at the top of his lungs. He was pissed. He was furious. He was livid, he was mad with rage, he was blind with anger and seething hatred, stomach churning with anxious nausea. But, more than any of that, he felt hot with confusion and bewilderment. Of all people, why had Trevor chosen him?!
“Are you fucking kidding me!?” he shouted, teeth grinding together audibly. “You can’t be fucking serious!”
“I am!” Trevor shouted, scrambling out from beneath Michael and away from him, against the far wall, instead of retaliating physically. “I faked a few documents, some easy ones, but now they want more papers! More realistic documents that I can’t forge on my own! Look, I did it because I’m scared , Mikey! You gotta understand that. Look, we just have to fake it until they clear my name and stop hassling me about revoking my citizenship, and then we can go back to hating each other with every fiber of our beings without further complaint. But right now, I need you to cooperate, because I fucked up and I’m in deep shit now.”
“I am not married to you,” Michael barked. “Go back to fucking Canada for all I care, I’m not gonna fucking play house with you!”
“God fucking damn it, Michael!” Trevor shrieked, holding a hand to his bruising eye socket. “This is my last chance to stay here, and you won’t help me? I’m your best fucking friend, for fuck’s sake! Ride or die, motherfucker!”
“Yeah, and you’re also a deluded maniac who hunted me down after I left you for ten years, just so you could latch on to my ass again! I could do just fine without you!”
Trevor pounded the floor in frustration. “You know you love me, you asshole! I make your life worth living!” He inhaled deeply through his nostrils, before lowering his voice. “Okay, okay, look, I know the situation is pissing you off, and I know I should have talked to you first, but for fuck’s sake, I need your help now! And it doesn’t have to be forever, okay? We both know that. We’ll just get Lester to fake some papers, hack some databases or whatever, fake it until they believe it and get me back my citizenship, and then we’ll just delete everything. It never happened. Just for once in your life, can you think of someone besides yourself?!”
Michael ran a hand down his face and groaned loudly in frustration. “Even if I were to play along with this stupid thing with you, what would Amanda say? My kids?! Franklin?!”
“They don’t have to know!” Trevor scooted along the floor, inching his way closer to Michael. “It’ll just be between me, you, and Lester. No one else ever has to know about it. Not another damn soul, okay? Just, please, Mikey, come on… they’re gonna want to see us in person to talk details about taking care of the situation. I need you to do this for me. Please, Mikey.”
Mikey. That nickname always made Michael’s resolve weaken or harden, based on what it was that Trevor wanted of him. Something about the way he said it, more than anything, was what made Michael’s furrowed brow unknit some. Trevor sounded like he needed him, and that was really all Michael wanted; to feel like someone needed him in their life. And Trevor, oh Trevor, Trevor always delivered. He sighed, and dragged both hands down his face, pulling at his lower eyelids dramatically.
“If I do this for you,” he began, and Trevor was instantly sitting up straighter, eyeing Michael intently as he awaited his ultimatum. “If I do this for you, you can’t come to my house anymore uninvited. Amanda is sick of you showing up like you live here, and so am I. And!”
Trevor was about to speak, but Michael had cut him off with his “and!” exclamation.
“And… I’m not going to be a bail option anymore if you get put in the pound. It’s either Ron or Franklin, but you don’t get to contact me for that anymore.”
“That’s some good bonding time though,” Trevor whined, but promptly shut his mouth at Michael’s narrowed eyes.
“One last thing,” Michael added. “We’re both gonna completely forget about Ludendorff. Period. We can talk about Brad, but Ludendorff never happened. You got that?”
Trevor swallowed thickly, protest burning in his amber eyes, but after a moment’s hesitation, he gave a quick, curt nod. Michael stood up from the floor, walking past Trevor into the kitchen to get himself some scotch.
“Alright then, hubby. Get in touch with Lester.”
“And you would both say your relationship is… healthy?”
The judge looked between Michael and Trevor with skeptical eyes, the too-tight arm around Trevor’s waist causing her to raise a skeptical eyebrow. Trevor just smiled gently up at her with puppy dog eyes, and Michael cleared his throat, a strained smile of his own directed at her. Trevor was too warm against him. It didn’t feel natural.
“Well, I mean, yeah,” he stammered, eyes darting between her and Trevor. “Trevor and I, we’ve been through a lot together. We got engaged before the order was sent out, so I guess the marriage is gonna have to kind of be scheduled earlier than planned. It’s a minor inconvenience; we wanted the parents to be in town, but I got to help him, you know?”
The judge nodded, shuffling through the false papers Lester had fed to her without her knowledge. “I see. So you divorced Miss Amanda de Santa to be with your… highschool sweetheart?” She didn’t look like she believed it at all, a quirked brow the main indicator that she was close to calling security to separate them from their “loving” embrace.
This isn’t going to work, Michael realized, paling. Luckily, Trevor swooped in to his rescue.
“That’s right, sweetcheeks,” he intoned up to the judge, wrapping his arms around Michael and giving him a big smooch on the cheek. Michael’s eyes widened in response, and it took all his willpower not to shriek in horror or punch Trevor in the face. He wasn’t supposed to do that. They hadn’t talked about it. His skin felt… weird. “We met in our junior year. Well, I was a junior, and he was a senior. He was an exchange student, you see.”
“Ah.” The judge nodded at that, seeming to take the information at face value; the first thing she seemed to believe that entire day. “Now, I do hope you both realize that your… marriage, does not immediately give you citizenship status, correct?”
“Yeah, we understand that just fine,” Trevor said, pinching Michael to get the confused look off his face. He gave him a warning glare out of the corner of his eye.
“And, Mr. de Santa, you do know that you will be required to fill out a Form I-864 Affidavit of Support, which signifies that you are prepared to and will support Mr. Philips financially for ten years, regardless of whether your marriage falls through?”
Michael wanted to scream. No, no he had not known that. And if he had, he never would have gone through with any of this.
“Y-Yeah… I, uh… read that in the… the thing.”
He glared at Trevor out of the corner of his eye, but the other man was just smiling at him sweetly, before resting his head on Michael’s shoulder and giving a happy sigh. Fuck. The guy could act, apparently. Michael’s heart felt like it stuttered in his chest, but he shook his head and kept smiling sweetly. The judge’s eyes softened at the sign of affection, and she clasped her hands together after pushing her glasses farther up the bridge of her nose.
“Very well. Once the two of you are married, you may return and apply for a green card, Mr. Philips. Then, it’s a three year wait to apply for Citizenship status, or five, if the two of you divorce by then.” Then, quietly to herself, she muttered, “Wouldn’t be surprised.”
“So is the court going to give me the time to prepare the wedding then?” Trevor asked, his voice falsely shaking with hope.
“Yes,” she said, straightening out her files and slapping them back down in conclusion. “I would like to meet with the both of you again a month after your marriage to discuss your green card situation. Is that clear?”
“Yeah,” Michael replied, shifting back on his feet, ready to book it out of the court and to get away from Trevor as fast as he could. His skin was still burning… tingling?... from where Trevor had kissed him. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”
Trevor squeezed Michael’s hand in excitement, pulling him in close for an affectionate hug. Michael’s entire body froze up at the contact, skin tingling.
“Awe, Mikey!” he exclaimed giddily, “It’s finally happening! We’ve dreamed of this for so long! Can you believe it?”
Michael gave a fake laugh and patted Trevor’s back awkwardly, his limbs feeling reluctant to move. “No, no I can’t…”
The judge just stared at the two of them blankly for a few moments, before shaking her head. “You’re dismissed,” she muttered, stepping down from the podium, and the few people that had stopped by as witnesses left as well. But no one was out of the room faster than Michael and Trevor.
“Fuck!” Michael exclaimed as soon as they were out of earshot of the courtroom, and all those that had beared witness to the hearing. “You’re shitting me, right? Three fucking years?!”
“Hey,” Trevor barked in defense, “it’s not like we’re gonna have to pretend to be lovey-dovey about it when we’re not in public! We don’t even have to share the same damn house! We just have to appear in court a couple times for updates about our marriage, maybe pretend we like each other a little bit there, just enough so they don’t suspect we’re just doing it for the green card-- because, you know, if they think the marriage is fake, they’re gonna deport me anyways--”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Michael complained, placing a hand to his forehead in grief. “Of fucking course. Am I gonna have to peck you on the cheek too next time, sweetie?”
Trevor made a sound of disgust. “You sound like you’d rather kiss arsenic.”
“Just about,” he told him honestly. At least, he thought it was honestly.
Trevor balled his fists and grit his teeth. “Fuck, Michael, I know this is hard for your homophobic ass, but--”
“I’m not homophobic,” Michael growled. “I just can’t stand the thought of kissing you .”
“You haven’t even tried!”
“And I don’t want to!” The older man shook his head, yanking his hand from Trevor’s, who hadn’t let go since they’d left the courtroom. “God knows where your meth-ass has been. I don’t trust your skin, much less your lips.”
“I’ll have you know,” Trevor countered, “that I haven’t touched any meth, or any drugs for that matter, for a whole fuckin’ week. And I showered yesterday. I’m practically spotless!”
Michael wanted to gag. “Ugh… they’re not gonna believe us if we don’t kiss, are they?”
“I would think not,” Trevor replied as they exited the courthouse and entered the streets of Los Santos. He turned to face Michael on the steps, hands shoved in his pockets against the brisk autumn chill. “So I say we practice.”
There was a pause between them.
“Here? Now?” Michael looked around, at the number of people around them, and shook his head. “No. No way. Absolutely not.”
“Best place to do it,” Trevor argued. “It’s not the same if we do it in private. You’re not used to having an audience. Doing it out here will make it easier later. Just a quick peck. It doesn’t have to be long and romantic like your cheesy black and white french noir films.” He gestured around them. “Besides, no one’s gonna pay attention. It’s 2016, everyone’s gay.”
“Except me,” Michael barked. “I ain’t gay, and I didn’t--”
There was no time left to argue. Trevor surged forwards, crashing his lips against Michael’s in order to get him to be quiet. Michael’s eyes widened in surprise, his entire body freezing up at the abrupt, unexpected contact. Trevor’s lips were chapped, not soft in the slightest, but that somehow-- somehow -- sent an extra thrill through his veins. It was burning, and not necessarily in a good way, but found that he couldn’t pull away even if he had wanted to. And, to his surprise, he found that he really didn’t want to.
He didn’t respond to the kiss-- didn’t have time-- because almost as soon as it started, Trevor pulled away, lips wet and eyes wide himself, as if he could hardly believe what he himself had done. The two men stared at each other for a long, quiet moment, before Michael began to feel his face heat up. People were staring. Trevor had been wrong.
Before he could berate Trevor about the situation, the other man pointed behind Michael with a snicker. “Whoops. There goes our judge.”
“What?!” Michael whirled around, searching the crowd for the woman with wide, panicked eyes. “Where!?”
Trevor cackled at Michael’s distress, punching him lightly in the back. “Fooled ya. The bitch isn’t around.”
Trevor began to make his way down the steps, and, after taking a moment to gather his bearings, Michael followed. As soon as he was next to Trevor, the Canadian wrapped an arm around him, and for whatever reason, Michael didn’t push him away. He would come up with excuses later, but for now, he just let Trevor stay there.
“Hey,” Trevor said after a period of quiet, “this whole thing ain’t gonna be too bad. Remember how the judge said you’ve gotta financially support me for ten years?”
“That’s probably the worst part about the whole thing,” Michael groaned. “You’re not actually gonna make me do that, right? We can fake the numbers, right?”
“Ugh,” Trevor balked, “fine. But I was gonna say, hey, there’s one way you can make up for ditching me for ten years.”
Michael couldn’t help but laugh at that, and sort of shrugged in agreement. “Yeah, yeah, alright, I guess that’s sort of funny.”
“Funny?” Trevor frowned at Michael. “I was being one-hundred percent serious, you cockwaffle.”
“Uhuh, sure you were,” Michael replied, still smiling as he thought of more ways to make light of the awkward situation. Though, a lot of his thought process was still focused on the kiss he and Trevor had shared, as brief as it may have been. He managed, eventually, to steer his thoughts away from the texture of Trevor’s lips, to another joke of sorts.
“How are we gonna break the news to Franklin?”
“Huh?”
Michael shrugged. “Well, I mean, the kid’s got two dads now. How are we gonna tell him?”
Trevor’s face broke out into a wide, mischievous grin, and Michael grinned back even wider.
“Michael, Michael, Michael, what in the world happened to keeping it between us?”
“If we gotta do this shit for at least three years,” he replied simply, “Franklin’s gonna find out eventually. I say, just to avoid embarrassment later on, let’s beat him to the punchline and tell him ourselves. Me, personally? I’m proud as a peacock.”
Trevor snorted. “Don’t ever say that again.”
“Only if you,” Michael bargained, “agree to play along with me when we tell Franklin about the situation.”
The Canadian shook his head and laughed, relieved that Michael was finally taking the situation a little more lightheartedly. Michael’s heart felt funny at the sound, due to the changed circumstances between them, and how close together they were now. If he had to go through this shitty situation to save someone’s American citizenship, there was no one else he would rather do it with.
“Do we get to kiss again?” Trevor asked without warning.
“No.”
Trevor didn’t sweat it; he just turned forwards, and grinned wider.
“You’ll change your mind. Just you wait.”