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Mike wasn’t yet ready to leave.
He stood motionless in his place, just letting the cold, but warming wind get through his body. His boot heavily hid in a high grass, too afraid to took a step further - to an endless field of purple, wee flowers, that frightened him with an ability to be ruined just by a tiny pressure on them.
Brown eyes slowly came across the space around, and Mike could’ve actually feel a little spark appearing in there. Such a weird feeling. How can you sense anything like that? But his mind turned to the navy sky and fields, field of purple flowers, that started just in a few inches from where he stood and ended somewhere where his sight will never be able to reach. It was… Amazing. So precious and unreal. Almost liminal.
Mike hated the feeling that started to grow through his veins: his body couldn’t believe what actually was happening right now. That peace, silence and beauty. There was almost nothing, but Mike finally could feel himself understood. Finally alone. Finally… right where he begun. Without anyone by his side, without a little ability to talk anything out. He felt like his thoughts were taken away.
What was he even doing?
Schmidt took a small sigh, moving a little bit forward. He knelt down before the flowers, examining them with unhidden interest. Forget-me-not’s, with light, pale purple shaped petals, that time from time shook against the wind waves.
Purple petals. How can there be a whole endless fields of purple forget-me-not’s if they are considered as the rarest ones?
Mike, not being aware of his own actions, reached for a flower stalk, carefully touching it. Gentle herb shuddered, falling down as if in desperation.
He brushed back, harshly looking around. Navy color of the sky disappeared in a deafening darkness, forcing something to lock off in Mike’s chest.
Wind calmed down, and all the flowers slowly leaned to the ground, freezing on their halfway.
Mike felt a burning sense splitting his skin apart from his bones again.
All alone.
Just like at the beginning….
Mike opened his eyelids widely, feeling a rush breath leaving his lungs. His fingers crumbled the ends of the blanket, and he straightened up on the couch, with hoodie slipped to the back from a cold sweat.
His gaze darted to the clock by a worked through all this night reflex, seeing a bright green 3:27 glowing on a black background.
Last time he checked before it showed 3:12.
Woah. A big sleep success, Mike. Such an unclucky moment for his pills being at home.
He sighed, turning away. His attention slightly fell lower, to the floor and an empty mattress there..
— Michael.. - Mike whispered looking around as if he could find Michael standing there in the corner while he didn’t find him on his sleeping spot.
A plan to visit one of the Afton’s family place turned out to uncover only worse and more rot under the surface, making their group to leave it with unfinished work, not able to be there any more. And what an awful idea it was to go there all together, with Abby, Vanessa and Jeremiah, since by the end of that ‘trip’ they all collectively wanted to die. No one could think about next second, feeling stuck in previous ones, so Vanessa decided that it would’ve been better if they all stayed at her house tonight.
Mike’s legs leaded him by it’s own. Cold floor reached his skin even through the fabric of socks, but that feeling dissipated in a dull heartbeat, pulsating in a temples.
Wherever Michael went, it wasn’t fine.
Mike trudged to the door, coming out to the wide, dark corridor. His shoulders were heavy while steps came through the walls, right to the entrance, with a foggy vision trying to recognize anything that was nearby. Michael’s pair of boots were missing.
Oh. Mike put on his shoes, taking all his effort to open the door hushedly, afraid to bring up anyone else’s attention to them. Everyone needed it to themselves here, at the moment.
He walked beyond, carefully touching a little stair with his sole; slippery ice made heart tremble only more, hiding under the shiny dirty snow. Street was starless, drowning in a bluish-black shadow of the sky. Quietness outside could only drive insane the inside’s one, and Mike already felt a goosebumps coming across his bones, craving to fall down and be left like that for a long time, just not the feeling of despair and fatalism surrounding this street. Making him trapped in a tiny, algid cage, forcing him to brake down and fall apart in pieces. His glance caught a glimpse of man figure. A short breathe came off his lungs.
Right under the street lamp, that wasn’t working either, letting out a sigh of relief Michael was standing there. Mike knew that he noticed him. Did he even wanted for him to notice him like that?
He could’ve turn away and return to the couch, giving an attempt to fall asleep once again. And Michael won’t even say a thing about that by the morning. He wouldn’t offend. Wouldn’t be mad.
But Mike couldn’t leave him like that.
His body dashed towards Michael. He waited, frozen, as if he needed to get ready for something, but when Mike stopped in front of him his throat contracted painfully, burying all the words on his mind deep down the ground.
A cigarette between his fingers was already burning out, but it was still left untouched, since the very first try to reach the pink, cracked lips.
— ..You will get cold, - Michael’s voice was unusual, without a notes of warm.
— That’s honestly the last thing I do care about right now.
Something in Michael’s chest hardly fell off. His handle dropped the cigarette on a bunch of snow, reducing all it’s attempts to burn ‘til the touch of his breath.
They both could sense a violent tense of silence between them, like someone just took away the ability to talk from their bodies.
Michael broke down, rushing to Mike and tightly, almost cruelly wrapping his arms around his shoulder blades through under the elbows, leaning towards his height.
It took Mike a second before forgetting about everything and hug him by neck, snuggling closer.
— I don’t know what I’m supposed to be anymore, - Michael gritted his teeth, hiding his face towards a cold fabric of hoodie, - I tried so much. I tried.. I tried to become literally, fucking, everything. I tried to be someone who will be needed. At least once for my entire life I wanted someone to reach out for me so I can just help them, help.. Him. I tried so hard to be perfect. I ran after every single ability I had in front of me, I forced myself to be the first in everything, to be seen, to my father be able to tell everyone about his son and how proud he is of me, what an amazing child I am.. I wanted to be loved like him. I wanted to be loved like Vanessa. I wanted be loved like all these people around me, who can came home and just deserve a hug by basically stepping across the threshold. I wanted to be loved. And I tried so hard just to.. fail. For a thousandth time in my life I failed again. A fatal, fucking, walking issue.
Michael’s knees buckled with uncontrollable sob fetched from his chest, but Mike caught him in time, holding tightly and going down with him in his arms, not even sensing a snow absorbing through the fabric of their pants, raising a shivers all over the skin.
— Hey… hey.. - Mike cuddled him to himself, letting Michael to rest his cheek on his collar bones, stroking his wet from snow hair with a shaking palm, - No. No, Michael.. you are loved.
— Oh, by who, Schmitty? By you?
— By me.
Michael bursted, trying to hold back a burning pain in the eyes.
— I don’t have a clue what look of Michael Afton in your mind is right now, but you won’t say the same words once I will let down and your life too. Like I’ve always been with others.
— The look of Michael Afton is right near me now. And that’s the only look of you that could come to my mind, Michael. You’re not just someone’s expectations. You are loved. You are loved. You are loved, Michael, that you, who.. Who you have a will to describe only by your own. And I will agree with each word you will say. Because I..
His palm stopped between a dark stripes of Michael’s hair.
Michael wouldn’t have say a word. Just pressed his torso closer, catching a silent, quick heartbeat underneath Mike’s skin. At first for a long time he could feel that his own deserves to beat the same.
— Because I am with you, - he said it in a single sigh, - After Garret died I.. Maybe it will sound miserable and egoistic, but I never felt loved since this moment. It was always me who was trying to make everything feel like it, forgetting about myself, completely. I was hanging on myself feelings of my family, and I.. I failed too, Michael. I couldn’t save them. Because they had no feelings, but an emptiness, which I couldn’t handle. Couldn’t heal. I wasn’t giving them enough love, wasn’t able to give them what they needed, wasn’t able to make them say something to me that would make me feel needed.
Michael weeped through a smile that came across his face, but not that pure to reach the dimple on his cheek. His face twitched, moving away for a few inches to look into Mike’s eyes. Those beautiful puppy eyes. Just to see a reflect of his own tears in them.
— Oh, Mikey, - his lips were trembling, - What if this world is just isn’t for us? What’s so wrong with us in it? So wrong with our surnames, with our fate? What’s so wrong with us?
— And I fear that you know the answer.
They stood silent.
— ..Nothing. Why wouldn’t this world be for us? Aren’t we able to change our own one? Not as a victim. Not as a saver..
— Just two people? - Michael’s sight glanced, not taking off Mike’s. His words sounded like a mock, - With absolutely normal future?
— With absolutely loved future. And not because it’s a ‘must’.
— That’s so naive.
— And sometimes that’s all what we need to be strong.
— Awful, - Michael chuckled, and this time Mike couldn’t hold back a corner of his lips rising, - You’re awful, Schmitty.
— But you like it.
— A lot.
— And that’s what my feelings to you made me like, Michael.
His heart pounded.
You’re not the only one who is loving now.
Mike leaned closer, leaving a kiss on a cold forehead. Michael tensed up from how horrific that action was, but Mike was holding him so close that he couldn’t do anything but resist and weakened on his chest. If only the stars weren’t hiding behind that black veil and captured that moment, Michael would’ve look at them for eternity to replay it again and again. Mike, freaking, Schmidt just kissed him on the forehead!
He whimpered, saying louder:
— ..Just promise me not to forget this by the morning. Promise not to leave me when we are finally.. finally here. Whatever it’s called by.. This world.
— …Okay, - Mike leaned closer, - and you know? We don’t have to name it in our world..
— Okay, - Afton repeated, feeling a mild and sticky from tear-roads touch on his cheek.
Mike never felt someone by his side so much in one evening. As well as he wasn’t ever sure of how to express tactility, he felt that not only Michael needed him closer, but he needed him nearby too. They haven’t drop a single word. Weren’t even sure if they slept at least a half of left night time. But waking up on a small, not meant for sleep couch breathe-to-breathe with each other, with still dark winter sky outside and almost rare shines of bright sunrise, they could’ve never feel more weird and happy at the same time ever.