Work Text:
—
The air outside was a little crisper than usual. I could feel the cool wind bite my nose when I stepped onto the back patio. It was enough to keep me in. I hoped that it would be a slow day, not wanting to deal with the stinging pain the cold brings to bruises and scrapes.
Slow day, it was. Kendra ended up passing out on the lounge couch, snoring louder than I’d ever heard her snore, and Rex had decided to go home. It was probably for the best, the cold makes everyone tired so it’s less eventful to stick around. The only reason I stayed was because I had nothing better to do. Sure, I could’ve went out and grabbed something to eat, maybe catch a movie, finally use that free gift-card the local comic book and cards shop gave me but where’s the fun in that? It was much more entertaining to bother Michael while he tapped away at his funky looking keyboard.
“You know, they’re saying it’s bad for your hands to be typing that much all the time,” I loomed over Michael’s monitor, grinning. “If I were you I’d go get that checked out, bro, Tiktok never lies to me.”
I was met with a very annoyed, clean-cut, leave-me-alone glare from Michael, who only looked up at me for a split second before going back to what he was doing. He didn’t respond in any other way, knowing that all I was looking for was retaliation. In true Gardner fashion, I continued pushing him until I got something in return. “Now that I think about it actually..” I slid my backside onto the desk where Michael was working, slightly tilting it with my weight. When I noticed this I backed off only slightly, finding it mildly hilarious how flimsy this thing was, “..Tiktok also told me that there’s a new Saw movie coming out and I haven’t seen shit about it!”
Michael was two seconds away from exploding. I could see it in the way he clenched his jaw. “Can you get your nasty ass off of my work-station?” All eyes on me baby. My plan was working, now all I needed to do was successfully initiate the back and forth and I was in. “Why don’t you push me off?”
I was met with a frigid scoff and a head shake. “What, you don’t wanna touch me? I’m not that gross, c’mon!”
My nagging was enough to get him to land a harsh shove on me. I stumbled off of his desk, nearly eating shit but playing it cool. “Jesus man, I didn’t mean that hard,” I protested while brushing myself off, chuckling a little to show him I wasn’t actually upset. In complete honesty and truth, he could have knocked me all the way down to the floor and I wouldn’t have complained. “Yeah, wasn’t hard enough.” Michael didn’t look up from his screen, but I could tell he didn’t mean that either. It was all just a part of our game. I’d say something stupid, he’d insult me, I’d insult him back, then we’d keep going with quips and smart remarks until eventually it stopped being entertaining. That was it. Our friendship was built on the foundation of being able to take a joke.
Or so I thought.
A week ago on a mission I’d caught Michael getting particularly frustrated with his tech. I didn’t say anything to him then. In my eyes the only thing that actually got under his skin was feeling as though the incredible work he does just isn’t enough. I mean, I can’t blame him, if I’d spent my whole life dedicated to one craft (which I pretty much have), I’d also be upset if people told me it was subpar. Did this deter me from attacking this weakness of his when we were having our usual banter?
I wish it did.
“Just like your research last week wasn’t hard enough. I mean Christ, what do you actually spend all that time in the lab doing?” I approached him once again, beaming as usual, but this time the reaction was different. “Fuck off, Guy.”
This wasn’t a typical Michael Holt ‘fuck off’, this had malice to it.
“What, can’t face the truth?” Why on the many many Earths I didn’t see his genuineness immediately, I have no clue. “The truth is that you’re a fuckin’ parasite.” All eyes were now definitely on me, not at all in the way I’d expected, but I got what I wanted. That, along with a violent scowl that ended up haunting me. “Don’t you ever come for my work when you know damn well you’ve been nothing but below the bar for 20 years.”
Ouch. Looking back on it, there really should have been no way I didn’t catch how serious he was being. “A parasite? Speak for yourself. Not being able to get the one job you’ve done your whole life right should unlock a new level of pathetic.”
That was it. The exact moment I realized I had actually pissed him off. After the final word had escaped my mouth I had a full demeanor change. Guilt seeped through every inch of my body as I watched Michael slam his palm onto his desk, cracking the cheap plastic. “You shut your fuckin’ mouth Gardner. There is not one being on this planet, better yet ALL of the planets on EVERY universe, who is more pathetic than you are. What is your problem, man? You couldn’t just leave me be? What do you gain from patronizing me every single goddamn day?” I thought that I could hear a quiver in his voice. Had I been hurting his feelings every time we’d bicker? Or was this one just a particularly deep cut?
“Hey man, I was just messing around.”
“Yeah sure. Going after the one thing you know I actually care about is just messing around.” He remained leaning against his now broken desk, glaring me down like he was about to slit my throat.
“Look, I thought you could take a joke. I mean, how many years have we known each other? Why would I purposefully try to hurt you?” Logic and reason, his favourite. “..‘Cause you’re a dickhead. You hurt everything you touch.” Jesus.
“No I don’t, everybody is fine with my presence. I have a shit ton of fans. You’re just mad that I brought up something you don’t wanna talk about.” I buried myself deeper into the hole. I didn’t want to be an asshole about this, but his anger was infectious. Something about his insults only pricked me to go further. “Back off, Guy.” His voice was raised, his body fully facing me. I was half expecting him to lunge at me, but that wasn’t immediate. “Or what?” I didn’t approach him. We stared at each other for way longer than I would’ve liked to, the guilt now building its way up to the back of my throat. You’ve done enough, just walk away, every bit of me was screaming but no matter how badly I wanted to stop, I couldn’t. “What makes you think you can come after me and succeed?”
That seemed to plug the fuse for just a moment. It’s like Michael realized who he was fighting with. He knew me. He knew I was just trying to fuck with him, but I could also see that he was still legitimately hurt. “Man, you wouldn’t hurt me even if I asked you to.” He sat back down at his desk, taking a few breaths to calm himself. I thought it was a silly routine after I had just been clutching my pearls expecting him to beat the piss out of me. Though I can’t lie and say I didn’t also let out a sigh of relief.
After almost a minute of the awkward silence building up, making the air of tension inside the Hall of Justice thick like the harsh cold fog outside, his voice cut through again like a foghorn, “You really think I don’t put in any effort?”
There was a twinge of sadness to his voice. The guilt came back, this time creating little butterflies around my heart. Of course I didn’t think that. Though I would never admit it, I thought that Michael was incredible. Every single part of me wished I had the work ethic he does, the way he was able to so cleanly focus on every part of the job, big or small, inspired me. Who’s pathetic now?
He’s perfect in every way, so to get his attention I do the only thing I know how: “How could I? The only time I ever see you do anything is during battle.”
Like a ticking time-bomb, Michael immediately stood back up. “I knew that was bullshit.”
“Knew what was?”
“You just messing around. The hell are you playing at?”
“I’m just speaking the truth.”
“Like hell you are.” He was now face to face with me. Sweat ran down my forehead, I could feel it dripping down but I did nothing to stop it. “What do you want?”
To stop. I still didn’t. “For you to get your shit together. I’m tired of seeing you frustrated all the time.”
“I need to get my shit together?” He lightly shoved me. “You need to get your shit together, man. Stop picking fights and maybe look in the mirror for once. You are nothing. You are nothing to this team, nothing to the world, and nothing to me.”
It was only fair that he got to dig under my nails too. The one thing that bothers him in exchange for the one thing that bothers me. The little voice at the back of my mind, begging me to stop, was all quiet now. All I felt was a boiling rage.
“Oh yeah? Nothing? This ring proves that I’m something. What have you got besides your stupid tech that doesn’t work half the time, huh?” I pushed him back. He shoved me harder. “An actual brain in my goddamn skull! Without that ring you have absolutely no one and nothing. It’s the only thing that makes you worth anything.”
I stopped laying hands on him. “It’s still something though, ain’t it?”
“Not enough. And it never will be.” We were now almost touching foreheads. If I had any good sense in me I would’ve once again, walked away. This would have been over.
“You wanna repeat that, Mike?” I got closer, close as I possibly could, puffing out my chest, making myself as big as I could. “You are not enough. You will never be enough. If you died tomorrow, I wouldn’t shed a single tear.”
Like glass, I shattered. Every single part of me internally shut off. That was too far, farther than I would have ever gone. My first reaction was to drop down to my knees and sob at his feet, apologizing for my life ever entering his, but that would make me look weak. I needed him to see that his words meant nothing to me. I needed him to see that I didn’t care, and that I wasn’t hurt, and that I wouldn’t cry myself to sleep that night.
I lunged at him, knocking him to the ground and lightly pounding his head into the linoleum tiling. He was clearly winded, only halfway expecting me to actually attack him. He grabbed onto my bangs and pulled me down, trying to switch the dynamic but I wouldn’t let up. I now had the collar of his shirt firmly gripped in both of my hands. We rolled around on the floor practically wrestling for a good while, attempting to knock the other out but not wanting to accidentally kill each other.
He’d managed to get on top of me, gripping my neck in his strong hands and squeezing tightly, his thighs pressed so hard against my stomach I felt sick. Neither of us made any noise aside from groans of pain and frustration, which was for the best. Words would have made this all the worse.
With the little strength I had I managed to construct two extra hands to help pry his off of me, and when I was able to successfully do so I shoved him as hard as I could with all 4 hands I now had. He hit the ground pretty hard, but suavely picked himself back up again. The two of us sat on the floor across from each other, staring, breathing heavily, holding various parts of our body that hurt.
“Okay. I’m done.” My throat was hoarse despite not saying anything for the last 5 minutes. “This isn’t going to do shit, let’s just stop.”
Michael nodded at me. He didn’t say anything, just pulled himself off the ground and walked out of the room. I didn’t question where he was going.
I remained where I was sitting, holding my throat with one hand and the back of my head with the other. My mind was swirling. Fifty million things came in and out; an onslaught of self pity, self loathing, disgust, guilt, pride, and anguish. Did I really just do that? Was the billion dollar question. I couldn’t tell if I was just in an ego-driven fever dream or if I had actually laid hands on Mr. Terrific, Michael Holt. What possessed me to consistently hurt the man I so badly wished to love? It couldn’t have been anything. No matter how deeply I searched within myself I couldn’t find a justifiable answer.
I wanted nothing more than to chase after him, grab him up in my arms and tell him how sorry I was for all I’ve done. I wanted to be close with him, I wanted to be kind. I didn’t want to argue or fight, I didn’t want to bicker. So why on Earth is it the only thing I’m capable of?
The question stayed with me the entire night as I fought off nightmares. In the morning it was so cold, I could barely feel the sleep deprivation. Showing up to work was worse. Not only was the cold making my soreness from the fight even more dreadful, but it was also eerily silent in the Hall of Justice. I wondered if Michael had told the others, or if the air was just so off everyone could feel it.
Regardless, there were bigger fish to fry.
The Justice Gang was called in early over some kaiju tearing up Metropolis again. I didn’t particularly care, it was the same job we’d done so many times over. I was glad it was just another kaiju. It was hard to focus on anything, even the simplest tasks took a mountain of effort. On top of it all, Michael wouldn’t even look at me. Not that I was able to look at him either, my eyes were definitely focused on other things and not if he was paying attention.
–
“I thought you said this thing was just another kaiju?” With both of my hands holding onto a rope-construct wrapped around the body of the monster, I yelled at the top of my lungs towards a very frazzled Superman. He seemed to be in the same boat as me. He grimaced in response, not giving me any words but I knew exactly what he would’ve said.
We’d been trying to contain that thing for almost two hours by that point, a new record for us. I already had no energy going into it, I didn’t think that I could get any more tired but Jesus, was I wrong. Thank the universe for Big Blue making sure we stayed in one spot, otherwise the entire city would have been flattened like a pancake. Not that I cared, but LordTech would have had our asses in the ground if we caused that much of a loss in damage.
My ropes snapped in half as the kaiju twirled me in a circle. I let go of them instantly, not wanting to go flying into another building. My back already hurt from being slammed on the ground, I didn’t need to be bedridden. The momentum sent me into the air, but I quickly caught myself, ending up near Kendra. She seemed even more frustrated than I was. “What the fuck is this thing?” She screeched, flying full force at its face and swinging her mace another time like it’d do anything at all. By now I half expected Michael to have figured out something the rest of us were too stupid to realize, but when I turned my attention to him to see what he was doing I was met with a gruesome sight.
The kaiju swung its giant arm and smacked Michael out of its path like he was a goddamn mosquito. I watched as Michael flew full force into an apartment complex, breaking what seemed like a mile into it. His T-Spheres dropped to the ground upon the impact.
A sudden painful stinging ran from the bottom of my feet to the very top of my head. Panic rang behind my eyes as I remained idle in the air. I could feel my heart nearly escape my chest out of my mouth as I watched the world around me become a blur. Every single centimeter of my body wanted to leave the fight and rush over to him. Yet I didn’t. I just remained there, idle, stagnant, frozen. No. I tried to convince myself. No, he’s fine. But the nagging wasps still buzzed around my brain, filling me with doubt.
What if he’s gone? I couldn’t shake the feeling. The very last moments spent with him, the very last moments I’d ever spend with him, were me hurting him. The argument replayed in my mind over, and over, and over again, I retraced every move I’d made on him, going over everything a thousand times as my head and heart pounded violently screaming no, no, no, no, no, no.
The world began swirling, I felt light-headed, did no one else see that? I could see through the blur that the others were still fighting. Then, I felt something warm drip down my face from my eyes. The cool air heavily contrasted my hot tears, making them sting my cold-bitten bruised cheeks. Fuck, I’m pathetic. I couldn’t shake it. I had to move or I’d die here.
As soon as my internal temper tantrum had started, it ended. Cheering erupted from below me, as the big blob of monster flesh was slowly lowered to the ground. I thought this was convenient timing. I cursed under my breath, finding it ironic that a decision was handed to me on a silver platter. I wasted no time rushing past the bustle of noise, ignoring Kendra waving me over, going straight to where Michael was.
In front of me was a pile of rubble and a couple loose broken pieces of his tech. I didn’t see him anywhere. “Fuck,” as quickly as the word left my mouth a couple of hand constructs formed in front of me. It was an instinct, creating little helpers so that I didn’t have to lift all the rubble on my own. I went through each and every piece of debris that I could find, tossing it out of the way. “Mike?”
I crawled around on my knees, wood splintering into them. I winced each time I felt one puncture my skin, but at the time it didn’t matter to me. I was going to stop at nothing until I found him.
“Mike, c’mon bro, don’t do this..”
I managed to make it to the very end of the Mr. Terrific shaped hole in the building. Glass, wood, brick, metal, any solid substance you could think of was branded into my skin. My hands were red and sore from lifting broken chunks of the apartment walls and sifting through chunks of glass to see what was underneath. I didn’t care. The further I delved into the debris, the harsher the rusty, putrid smell of blood insulted my nostrils. I knew that was him, but it made my stomach turn. I wanted to find Mike, not Mike’s intestines.
“Mikey?”
As I stood in the middle of what used to be someone’s living room, my heart began racing again. I had been searching for what felt like forever, with absolutely no sign of him aside from a couple pieces of his chair. “Shit.”
I leaned against my knees, hanging my head. I wasn’t going to give up, but I needed a minute. I was in so much pain, and so out of breath. I knew I would definitely die trying if I kept at it much longer, but I couldn’t just leave him if he was trapped somewhere. I may be pathetic, but goddammit, I am not a coward.
I turned my attention to the broken door behind me. There was a trail of blood leading out of it and seemingly down the parts of the building that were still intact. With a swift movement of my hand I retracted my constructs and ran to follow the trail of blood. The holes in the floor tried to eat at my steps, I stumbled to avoid them, desperate to not look like an idiot. Around six feet away from the door was a slumped over sack of flesh in a white, red, and black jacket.
Oh thank god!
As fast as my legs could carry me I made it over to him, dropping down to my knees and grabbing his hand. I held it close to my chest, lifting up his head with the other. “Mike! Mike, c’mon...” I shook his head gently, not wanting to hurt him any more, but with enough urgency to maybe knock him back into consciousness. “Please. Please wake up, Mike.” I kept shaking him, squeezing his hand as hard as I could. The desperation in my voice was so embarrassing. If I wasn’t so focused on Michael I would’ve gone out and asked Big Blue to shoot me in the leg with his freaky laser eyes.
Those stupid, hot, shitty tears welled up in my eyes again. I didn’t want to believe that he was gone. I felt so stupid for ever hurting him, I felt so small. I felt as though his death would be my fault. I distracted him. I’m the reason he got hurt. If I’d’a just kept my big mouth shut, none of this would’ve happened, none of this would matter near as much.
I looked over him to see where the blood was coming from. I couldn’t see everywhere without moving him, but I deduced that it was coming from somewhere on his lower back and the back of his head. Both weren’t good signs.
I held his limp hand up to my face, placing his knuckles on the bridge of my nose. There was nothing else I could do. I sunk down into him, burying my face against his arm, crying uncontrollably like a wuss. As my body shook, I finally let myself go. Years worth of pain, frustration, anger, sadness, and fuck it- love too- just poured out of me like a fountain. I completely melted as the memories flushed out of my brain, away and out of my eyes, and down the back of his hand.
“I’m sorry.” The most strained two words I had ever spoken in my entire life. “I’m so sorry, Michael. You shouldn’ta had to get hurt because of me.”
Every bit of me ached. I don’t know why I insisted on making his torment all about me. The only person that I was ever upset with was myself. At any point I could have told him how I felt, I could have talked to him normally. I didn’t have to annoy him, or pester him, or beg for his attention by being hurtful. All I had to do was be honest. It shouldn’t take him dying for me to understand that.
I didn’t realize how loud I had been with my crying. When I finally got a sense of reality all I could hear were my lousy sobs echoing through the empty, half-fucked-up apartment complex. I closed my mouth, trying to breathe, but no way in hell was I going to lift my head from the pit of Michael’s warmth. I held his hand with both of mine now, feeling his knuckles and the calluses near his finger tips from his work. I wasn’t going to leave until they pried me away.
In my anguish, I barely noticed when a small, weak force gently tugged on the top of my hair. I carefully lifted my face out from Michael’s arm, moving his hand out of the way so I could see what touched me. To my surprise, it was him. “What are you doing, jackass..?” I could see a very tiny smile spread on his face through his smudged makeup. His fingers feebly ran through my bangs, pushing them out of the way of my forehead. “Mike?”
I was met with a quiet grunt in return. Not moving an inch, I sat up ever so slightly, not letting go of his hand and keeping my face close to his. “Shit, man you scared the hell out of me.” It was my turn to smile. I put my free hand onto his cheek, gently pressing our foreheads together. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he used his last bit of strength to shove me away, but he didn’t. Instead, he melted against my touch. If he wasn’t breathing I would’ve thought he’d just up and died right there from how limp he went.
“...You mean it?” His voice was soft and low, I could tell how bad he was hurting, yet still it seemed like he was just glad someone came after him. “Mean what?” I tried my best to make that sound genuine, because it was. I didn’t really know what he was referring to.
“That you’re sorry.”
My mouth opened just enough to allow a cold breath to escape it. I could feel it hit me in the face, rather than him, like a cloud of disbelief. I had no idea he’d heard all of that. Part of me wished he didn’t, but the other was glad that he did.
“Yeah.”
Our exchange sunk into both of us while we continued to hold each other for the next minute. My heart went back to thumping wildly in my chest, and I wanted to rip it out. It was annoying. Every time I’d do anything with Michael it would be like this, as if I didn’t have enough going on.
When enough time passed, I felt Michael move his hand down to my cheek. He weakly pulled our faces apart. Worry shot through me, but it was soon put to rest when I met his eyes. There was so much despair in them, something I had never seen from him before. It almost resembled heartbreak, making mine shatter.
There was something else, though. Love. Hope.
I was confused. I didn’t understand why he’d have any bit of fondness for me. Especially after all we’d been through.
“I wanna start over.” Despite his injuries, his voice was still smooth, music to my ears, “I wanna talk to you. I want an explanation for all this shit.” With every phrase he lightly shook my face. “When I’m better.. you and me.. we are gonna fix this.”
Before I could respond, a cluster-fuck of footsteps and feathers barged in. “Guy, what the fuck? I-” Kendra, in a blaze of glory, slicing mine and Michael’s tension in half with a knife. “Don’t scare me like that, dude. You okay, T?” She approached us and kneeled down to get a good look at his injuries. “I’ll be fine, just get me to a hospital.” Kendra pulled him up to his feet, leading him away. I assumed help was already here. I remained there on my knees, staring dormantly at the spot Michael used to be.
–
For a week after that, Michael remained hospitalized. For a week after that, I didn’t show up for work.
I was so distraught by everything.
Why I acted the way I did, why he acted the way he did, why it ended that way, what we were going to talk about when he returns, when he even will return..? It was all way too much for me, every single thought, question, fuck, even feeling taking up full real estate in my brain and not paying a lick of rent. I almost took a screw-driver to the side of my head, to self-lobotomize, but I thankfully decided against it.
It was probably two in the morning when I got a knock at my apartment door.
I was a jumbled, depressed mess, to put it lightly. The knock startled me so bad I nearly fell off my couch. I’d fallen asleep with the TV on, half-dressed, face first into a bowl of milkless Fruity Pebbles. The milk expired in the fridge a couple days ago, but I couldn't be bothered to go pick some up. What was the point anyway? Besides, cereal totally tastes just fine without it.
When I’d finally remembered where I was and who I was, I stood up and walked to the door. I opened it while rubbing my eyes, and was met with Michael Holt standing right in front of me. He was fully dressed, looked really good too, and here I was in my boxers, which definitely had holes, looking like a damn deer in headlights. “Shit. Mike. You’re back?”
He gave me a nod in return. “Yeah. Sorry for turning up randomly, I just didn’t wanna do this at work. I just know the others would be nosy.”
Too true. I gave him a half-assed smile, “It’s fine, bro. Sorry for.. Uh,” I stared down at my bare legs. “..me. I wasn’t expecting visitors.”
He shrugged, showing he didn’t care and knew I’d probably not look near as nice as he does. “Come in, man, Jesus, where are my manners..” I was mostly kidding, trying to be stupid, and it seemed to work. As I held the door open and watched him walk past me, I noticed the smallest crumb of a smile on his face. So far so good.
He took off the jacket he was wearing and set it onto the coat-rack I have near my front door. In almost an instant the mood shifted to an unbearable awkwardness. Almost like there was a bubble around us, reflecting our violent argument turned near-death-experience-apology and forcing us to face it. It was clear that both of us had a lot to say and didn’t know how to say any of it.
“You uh- You wanna sit?” I gestured to my couch, which looked filthy even in the dark. I could see Michael wince at the thought of sitting on it, but even so he obliged, taking the least dirty spot he could find. I joined him shortly after, brushing the crumbs onto the floor. Gee, what a great look, Guy.
“So…” I wasn’t looking at him. “..What did you wanna talk about?”
After a bit of silence, I received an answer, “I wanna know what all of last week was about. And I don’t want any excuses. No bullshit. Just the truth.” He was firm but soft when he spoke to me. I could tell he really just wanted to figure me out. That, or he already did, he could see right through me he just needed proof he wasn’t crazy. “Please.”
Please.
That stuck to me like a bad tattoo. Please.
I sighed, seeing him only out of my peripheral. I had no clue where to begin. I knew that whatever I started with would take every bit of me to get out. As much as I wanted to open up to him, stop pestering him and just be vulnerable for once, actually doing it was so difficult. I didn’t know how he’d react, or if I was being reasonable. I didn’t know if anything made sense, or if I would just dig myself deeper into the grave I’d made the second I met him.
I fidgeted with my ring, twisting it around my finger a couple of times. “I admire you like crazy, man.”
This was it. No going back.
“You’re beautiful, smart, confident, brave, everything I’ve been trying to be for my entire damn life. And I dunno if it’s just envy or what but damn, that’s not the only thing I want.” Not once did I look him in the eye. “I want you. I want you so bad it hurts. I want you so bad that every other week I’d have dreams about us just doing the dishes together, that’s how bad it is. And I know that- I know that’s crazy and stupid considering all I have ever done is treat you like shit.”
My eyes darted around the room. “I have no excuses or valuable reasons to give you for why I do that. I don’t know. It’s what I’ve done my whole life. I can’t act like I like you, because deep down it feels like it makes me look fuckin’ weak. I know that’s not true. I know that’s silly. But fuck, I can’t erase my- my.. my coding.”
With a shaky breath I continued, my damn heart doing that thing again, “I like being able to mess with you. I liked you way more after I learned you didn’t actually despise me after I poked fun at you. I like how you clap back. It kinda felt like you understood me, and maybe had the same fucked up wiring.” I looked back down at my hands, playing with my ring again. “I know I went too far.” Finally looking up from my shame, my eyes desperately tried to meet his, “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I do that. Internally, I’ll be screaming stop, but I never listen.”
You could hear a pin drop in my apartment. It was so silent and still that I could now audibly hear my chest pounding. I think Michael also heard it.
I watched him look around the room, searching for the best way to reply to me. I could tell he wasn’t expecting me to be in love with him of all things, but for some reason he wasn’t upset about it.
“Can’t believe I’m saying this..” It was his turn to not look at me while he spoke, “...but I feel the same.”
I swear I could picture fireworks going off behind his head. My jaw hung open. “I couldn’t tell if it was mutual. You’re very hard to read.” He looked at me. “I enjoy bickering with you, hell I even enjoyed fist fighting you. I think only the goddamn devil knows why, but something about knowing you didn’t mean any of it felt... Special.”
An overwhelming sense of fear and joy swelled up my lungs. Holy fuck.
“I’m sorry for what I said, too. I went just as far as you did.” He reached out a hand and gently placed it onto my wrist. A chill went up my whole body. “I want you too.”
Sparkles whirled in my eyes. I started laughing quietly. It came out almost like a sickly wheeze, but I couldn’t help myself. “Isn’t it ironic how we love each other after all the hateful shit we did?”
Michael smiled, dryly chuckling with me, “Yeah, it is, isn’t it.”
I laughed a little harder, leaning against his shoulder. It, no, everything, was partly delirium, maybe a smidge of disbelief, and most definitely a fuck ton of joy. I was so glad that we were mutually experiencing the five stages of grief wondering how the hell to get the other's attention, not knowing a thing about love or socializing. I was only good at being an asshole, and he was only good at being closed off.
My happiness must’ve been contagious, because soon he joined me. We giggled together for what felt like half an hour, making fun of our stupidity as adults and letting go of all of the tension. His laugh was so cute. The way his nose crinkles up, the way he doesn’t fully smile but you can tell that he's trying to. I almost cried, I felt so lucky to have been able to witness such perfection so close to me.
When things died down, I was left staring up at him from his shoulder. He looked down at me, a new admiration in his eyes. I wanted to lay there forever, attached at his side to the ends of the Earth. I felt one of his strong hands hold my face. “From now on, man, just talk to me. I’ll do the same. You wanna show me something? Show it to me. You wanna tell me about your day? Come tell me about it. I’ll love you so long as you’ll love me.” His voice was lovely. I could barely pay attention to the words being spoken, but I’m glad I did.
“I mean, we can still do our thing, just- don’t feel like it’s all we can do.”
“Yes, sir.”
We giggled again, like we were little kids. It felt nice.
Everything slowed once more. I could only see him. I went limp against his hand. Nothing else mattered in that moment, just him, his voice, his smile, him. We stared at each other, admiring the other's features. His thumb moved up and down my cheek slowly, and goddamn was it incredible. I reached a hand up to hold his face too, tracing over the wrinkles on his cheek with my fingers. His skin was soft, probably contrasting to my roughness. He didn’t seem to mind at all.
As if things couldn’t possibly get better, Michael steadily leaned closer to me. He inched closer, closer, until eventually our lips touched. I tightened my grip around his face, pulling him even closer to me as our lips continued their tango.
Even with my eyes shut, I could feel the world around me bursting with colours. With little effort, he pushed me down onto the seat of my couch, crawling on top of me, not allowing our lips to separate. I couldn’t help myself but moan in pleasure as he put his weight on me. I definitely preferred fighting him with my tongue over my fists.
He was now holding me with both hands, while mine had trailed down to his waist. I swore I heard small moans from him too once I did, and I smiled. Our kisses got more sloppy, more passionate, more desperate. Years worth of pining let go in one night. It was fuckin’ awesome.
Michael began melting into me, growing weaker and tired the longer we went, and so did I. Our kisses slowed, breathing heavily between each peck. I wrapped my arms around him completely, rubbing his back and allowing him to wear himself down so much that he eventually fell asleep face first in the crook of my neck.
I felt like I was holding the entire world. One of those damn pocket universes had nothing on Michael Holt. Yeah, you replicated the big bang, Baldie, but do you have the most precious man alive laying on you right now? Didn’t think so.
I laid my head against his, continuing to massage his back and relax myself.
I am the luckiest man alive.