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Michael Emerson is supposed to be happy now. David and the Lost Boys are dead. He’s got a beautiful girlfriend, an amazing brother and a loving mother. He’s a human again, able to bask in the sunlight. He can properly enjoy Santa Carla, the way it’s meant to be enjoyed - vampireless.
Everything around him was perfect, a recipe for joy. Which made the hole in his chest feel even worse. He didn’t know why it was there, why it wouldn’t go away. He only knew that the moment he watched David disintegrate in front of him, it appeared, and it hasn’t gone away since. Nothing feels whole anymore. There is a part of Michael that is missing everywhere that he goes, and he can’t place what it is, and it pisses him off to no end. Sam is whole. His friends, those Frog Brothers, they’re whole too. So why can’t he be the same? Why did he have to be left behind?
Weird isn’t enough of a word to describe how all of this feels. He hadn’t known the Lost Boys for that long, in the grand scheme of things. He didn’t know why not having them in his life felt so wrong - he’d lived 18 years without knowing them, and he’d been fine. Nothing had been missing then. So why were things missing now? Why did he ride to the bluff and stare at the ironworks, like somehow they’d reappear? It was his fault they were gone. He had no right to miss them as much as he did.
Sometimes he thinks too hard about David, and his mind drifts to places he doesn’t like to dwell on. All the little things about him that he didn’t even realize that he’d noticed float back to his head when that happens. He remembers his eyes, cold and lidded and calculating and knowing, always having this slight hunger in them that never went away, not even when he was dying. He remembers how his touch felt against his cheek, freezing cold, like touching a corpse, but also impossibly warm, as if all the blood in Michael’s body was running straight to David’s fingertips. He remembers the man’s mouth, how he’d lick his own fangs idly, how he’d bite his bottom lip just the slightest bit when he looked at Michael. He remembers how soft they seemed. He remembers the dreams he’s had about those lips ravaging him, always chalking it up to some sort of mind control. He’s still trying his hardest not to become everything his father feared he would be, even with the man miles away.
There’s no mind left to control him into having those dreams anymore, and yet they still come during the night. He imagines David drinking from his neck, teeth sharp and bite the gentlest sort of harsh. He hears David’s voice, low and gravelly, rumbling against his skin as his lips drag up his neck and down his jawline until they reach his lips and Michael can taste his own blood. He feels David’s hands grasp his hips and he can feel himself surrendering to everything that’s happening inside of his head, pushing away his father’s words to leave more room for thoughts of David. He lets David’s voice reverberate through his mind, the sweet sound of how he said his name echoing as if the vampire was doing it on purpose, to taunt him. He forgets about right and wrong, good and bad, lets himself indulge in things he’d get beaten the shit out of for in real life, because it’s just a dream, right? He swears that sometimes it all feels too real to be a dream, that he has too much control, that David has found a way back into his life through his sleep, making sure that the boy’s nights still belong to him. He hates that it’s working. He hates that he gets excited to fall asleep now, in hopes that he’ll get to pretend to feel the embrace he was never brave enough to fall into while he could.
Michael knows this is weighing on Star too. He wishes he didn’t know so he had more of an excuse to wallow in his own sorrow, and that’s selfish of him, but he’s had meaner thoughts than that, especially since David died, so he supposes that this is on the better side of things. Besides, they don’t have the right to be hurting as much as they are, right? They’re the ones who killed him, after all. Maybe they could grieve the other Lost Boys. Sam and the Frogs had caused their demises. He and Star had no part in those. But Michael had pushed David into Star’s stake, and the two had watched as their actions became the man’s undoing. He knows that even though Star was trying her best, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. It tore her apart, made her say and do things that she normally wouldn’t. He thinks about the earring, and grimaces.
It had taken Michael about a week after David died to take out the earring he’d given him. It had started to feel too heavy, weighing him down everywhere he went. He assumed it was some sort of curse David had placed on him from the grave, a way of manifesting even more guilt. But just as much as it weighed him down, it grounded him too. Days felt like he was just floating through them, aimlessly and exhausted. The earring, metal and cold, added that extra little bit of heaviness to him, the kind that reminded him he was human again, or at least alive. Sometimes that was comforting. Sometimes it wasn’t.
One day, he decided it was stupid to keep wearing it. Too many memories. Maybe the earring was the reason why he felt so heavy all the time. If he took it out, things would get better. After all, David had tried to hurt his brother. He wasn’t a good man, Michael tried to convince himself, so why try to search for good memories with him? Why keep a memento of him on his person every day? It was only causing pain. So he took it out, and it took embarrassingly long, as if the jewelry was fighting back, begging to stay. He didn’t listen to it, leaving it on his bedside table as he left the house to go meet Star at the boardwalk.
When he’d gotten there, it had taken Star all of two seconds to notice the missing earring, judging by the look on her face. Her eyes were wide, her brow was furrowed, and she wouldn’t look Michael in the eyes, gaze glued to his earlobe. He raised his eyebrow in tired concern.
“…Is something wrong?” Usually he’d crack some sort of joke, but his brain felt so weighed down that he couldn’t come up with one. Instead, he just stared at his girlfriend in a way that he hoped she interpreted as letting her know she could talk to him.
“Where is it? Your earring. Did you lose it? The hole will close up if you’re not careful, you have to find it.” Star’s eyes darted around the beach and up and down Michael’s person, as if hoping that it was somewhere around. Her tone was panicked as her fingers drifted to her boyfriend’s earlobe, squeezing the tender skin and trying to make sure the piercing was still there. Michael had averted his eyes nervously, allowing a pause to linger before he quietly admitted what had happened.
“I took it out.” The moment the words left his mouth, Star’s fingers had darted away from his ear, and she’d stepped back. When he looked back up at her, she looked more hurt than he’d ever seen her before.
“But David gave it to you. That earring was David’s, and he gave it to you as a gift. You’ve never taken it out before. Why now? Are you trying to forget him?” Her voice broke halfway through one of her sentences. Her eyes were huge at this point, and she was staring up at Michael like he’d just destroyed everything she loved. Immediately, his mindset shifted into one of frantic comfort, but the pain lingered even still.
“What? Star, no I’m not.” He reached out to put his hand on her shoulder, but she stepped back again. He let it fall to his side, resigned.
“But you are! We killed him, we hurt him, and you think you can just walk away from him by taking the earring out, Michael. It’s not that easy, it’s never that easy! He’s going to be so mad at you, Michael, he’s going to be so mad at me, because I loved him and I still stabbed him and then I let you do this. What kind of person am I, I’ve failed him, I’ve failed everyone-“ When Star spiraled, she spiraled fast. She had begun pacing back and forth, her voice quickening, her heart racing so hard Michael could practically hear it. He should comfort her. He knows he should. But something in him is hurting so hard, and he can’t help but respond with the same amount of heat that he was being given.
“You’ve failed me, Star!” His voice was getting louder and louder. Passersby were staring, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to care. Emotions were high. Everything was high. Everything hurt. He was saying mean things just for the sake of it, just to feel something other than soul crushing grief. “I’m trying to get better, which is more than I can say for you, because obviously you don’t want to accept that things have changed and he’s gone and he’s never coming back, so now all you have is me, your stupid boyfriend. If you loved David so much, why’d you start dating me, huh?”
“You didn’t know him like I did, Michael!” Star’s response was loud, immediate, accusatory. She had drawn closer to him, jabbing a finger at his chest, her eyes welling up with tears that were just now beginning to roll down her cheeks.
“I didn’t, Star! That’s the problem!” Michael’s voice raised to a shout, but it cracked just as quickly, and then he’d broken entirely. Out of grief for David, out of pain for himself, out of regret for yelling at Star. It all became too much for both of them so fast, and he had just broken down.
He’d let out a pained sob as he collapsed into Star’s arms. His body felt like it had gone limp, his head buried in her shoulder. He could feel her shaking too, before her head fell on his shoulder in return, her hair draping overtop of him in a grief-filled cascade. Their sobs seemed to synchronize in a strange way, filling the air between them. It was comforting and amplifying all at the same time, and despite being pressed up against eachother, it still felt like there’s a little space carved out for David, just in case he got tired of being dead and decides to come home. But they both knew he can’t do that. The space remained regardlessly, though, because they couldn’t bring themselves to crush that little bit of hope.
“Star, I think I was- Me too, with David, I- I think I was in-“ It comes out without him even thinking about it, but he stumbled over his words all the same. It was something he was admitting to himself as well as to Star, and yet even still, when the thought crossed his mind now, he just pushed it away, finding it so much easier to ignore it. He didn’t know what was stopping him from finishing the sentence. His grief, maybe, or the voice of his father inside his head. He didn’t have to wonder for long, though, as Star interrupted him.
“I know, Michael.” Star’s voice had broken, head buried in her boyfriend’s shoulder. He was grateful that he hadn’t had to finish the sentence, but didn’t know how to feel about the fact that she’d known how he felt about David before he had. She’d dug her nails into his back, half to hold him closer and half out of resentment that he’d shoved David into her stake, that he loved David too, that they’d never see David again. Michael just let her feel. It was the only thing he could do. He had never taken the earring out again after that. Whether that was out of fear or reluctance to let go, he didn’t know, and he didn’t have it in him to find out.
He and Star aren’t the only ones, and he knows that deep down. It feels like they are. It feels like nobody else understands except for the one person who understands far too well, and that understanding spreads through the air between them like a poisonous gas, choking the young lovers with memories they wish they could just let go of. And sure, they might be alone in this specific kind of grief. But Michael sees his mother bring home piles of movies on days she looks particularly tired, even though they still don’t have a television. She always rushes them to her room in hopes that her boys won’t catch her holding them, but he’s gone in there once or twice when she wasn’t home and seen them all lined up and organized meticulously. Michael wonders if she really misses Max or if she just misses that hope of normalcy that he’d given her at first, with the job and the talking and the kindness, the sort of things that her ex-husband had never offered her. He’s not his mother, though, so there’s no way for him to ever really know how she’s grieving. All he knows is that she’s really good at putting on a strong face for them, and it makes him resent himself even more for not being able to do the same thing.
He hopes his mother’s grief isn’t as heavy as his. He hopes Star’s isn’t either. He knows it’s not fair to try to compare pain like that. Everybody’s grief feels heavy to them even if it doesn’t to you, Lucy told him once. Everybody hurts. It’s useless trying to figure out who hurts the worst, because pain isn’t something that’s the same for everybody. But Michael wants to take on everybody else’s grief for them, so they don’t have to feel anything, so they can be normal. But at the same time, he wants to unload all of his grief onto them instead, let himself feel free again, because it feels so unfair how badly this all hurts him. It’s something that doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to go away. And maybe it won’t. But Michael hopes it gets easier. If it doesn’t get easier, at least let it fade to the back, let its constancy stop droning on in the forefront of his mind.
He wonders if he’ll make it through the night tonight without dreaming of David.
He knows he won’t.