Work Text:
Mike awoke from a fitful sleep, heart pounding in his chest. His dreams were all the same nowadays: Edgar– alive, breathing, wonderful Edgar. Looking at Mike with so much love in his eyes that Mike could’ve sworn he felt it piercing his chest. Making plans for Base, trying a new recipe, complaining about Mike’s movie choices– Edgar, as he is. As he was. As he was always meant to be.
And then– from one breath to the next– Edgar, falling dead on the pavement. Edgar, axe to the chest while he’s stuck in a wall. Edgar, eyes going glassy as he stares at Mike from the bed they had shared for far too little time. Edgar, dead and lifeless, telling Mike that it was all his fault.
Mike lasted all of three days after Edgar’s funeral before he was packing a bag and transporting to the apartment in Latvia. Michael didn’t seem surprised to have Mike transport into their kitchen, though he blessedly didn’t say anything about it. There was no other utterance of ‘you turn into me’, no mention of cowboys or Mike’s fate to become one, no ‘I told ya you’d come runnin’ here sooner or later, pard’.
There was just Michael– wordlessly passing Mike a cup of coffee– with a sadness to his eyes that Mike had never seen before.
They existed in this limbo for the better part of a week– no mention of Edgar or Base or anything deeper than the weather. Michael talked about hunts he’d gone on with Boris and brought Bruno around almost every day; not the most subtle way he could try to raise Mike’s spirits, but Mike appreciated it nonetheless. This nothingness of a life gave way when Michael finally decided to ask the question that Mike had been asking himself for days now:
“What’re ya gonna do with the house, pard?”
It was something that Mike had been thinking about since before Edgar passed: what to do with the house? Could he really stomach living in the house where his husband (god, he lost his husband) had died? Could he deal with sleeping in a too big bed or– even worse– replacing the bed they shared with something better suited for one person? Could he bear seeing all of Edgar’s things exactly where Edgar had left them? Or should he shatter those memories of their shared life and box Edgar away to make the house feel less haunted? Was he even strong enough to do that?
“I’m not sure yet,” is what he said in the moment, hoping to any god that might exist that Michael wouldn’t see the anguish running through Mike’s mind. “I know I need to make up my mind soon, but…” But how could I leave that house? How could I stay?
“It’s too early,” Michael surmised. “Sorry, pard, I shoulda known better than to ask that just yet. Take all the time ya need, alright? House ain’t goin’ nowhere and yer room ain’t neither.”
Michael’s assertion that he should’ve known better than to ask almost set Mike on edge– only for the cowboy to follow it up with the room to wait and grieve. What seemed like it would turn into another comment on cowboyification became something softer, gentler, much more Edgar than Michael.
“I’m not gonna break if you push me, you know,” Mike bit out, anger at Michael’s kindness surging through him without his permission. “I know I need to grow up and accept that he’s gone and figure out what to do with the house and my life, okay? I know I need to stop pretending things are fine and start actually doing something because wallowing here or wallowing at home isn’t going to help. I know all of this– you don’t have to walk on eggshells around me pretending that I don’t.”
For a moment– one glorious, rage filled moment– it looked like Michael was going to snap back. It looked like Michael was going to yell at Mike the way he deserved to be yelled at, like he was going to hit Mike and call him a coward, a weakling, a sorry excuse of a husband, all of the things that Edgar had been shouting at Mike in his dreams. For a moment, it felt like Mike might actually face retribution for the guilt that had been festering inside him since he first found out Edgar was going to die and that he would have wasted his life doing time travel bullshit all because he had the misfortune of falling in love with Mike Walters.
And then that moment passed.
“I know ya know this, Mike,” Michael said, voice sadder than Mike had ever heard it before. “A’course I know ya know this. An’ I know yer kickin’ yerself somethin’ fierce right now, thinkin’ that everythin’ is yer fault and that ya somehow shoulda prevented this. Or that ya shoulda never gotten involved with Edgar in the first place. Ya think yer the only one around here who dreams about havin’ done things differently?”
The rage left Mike’s body in an instant, a newfound guilt filling its place. “Michael, I–”
“I know ya didn’t mean it, Mike,” Michael cut in, far more understanding than Mike deserved. “I’ve been where ya are right now an’ I’ll be damned if I let ya go through this alone. If anyone know what happens when ya go through this alone, it’s me. If ya really don’t wanna turn into me? You’ll let me help ya.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know ya are, Mike. I know.”
***
Another week passed without them talking about it before Mike finally cracked. “I want to sell the house.”
For the first time since Mike moved back into the Latvia apartment, Michael actually looked shocked. “You wanna sell the house?”
“Every time I think of going back there and sleeping in the bed we shared, I get so sad I want to vomit. But thinking of getting rid of the bed makes me just as sad because it feels like I’m getting rid of him. And if I have to get rid of him, I may as well do it all in one go rather than doing it bit by bit and breaking my heart in half every single time.”
Michael didn’t say anything, he just nodded and let Mike explain his plan for moving all of the stuff he wanted to keep from the house. They’d go together– Michael insisted– and clean the house out, getting it ready to sell and letting Troy’s guy take care of the rest. Whether it was out of the kindness of Troy’s heart or Michael making threats, Mike would never know; all he knew was that Troy was happy to have his guy take care of the sale of the house and that the guy seemed very nice and understanding.
They were cleaning in relative silence when Michael spoke up, “Ya know, sellin’ the house don’t mean yer gettin’ rid of Edgar.”
“I know,” Mike said softly, folding one of the Hawaiian shirts Edgar had gotten as a joke when they discovered MDawg and EdMan. “Still feels like it, though.”
“Yeah, I know.”
And unlike everyone else who told him things like that, Michael actually did know. He knew exactly what Mike was going through– was putting himself through the experience all over again. Michael made reference to his past pain, but never once did he acknowledge that he might be feeling the pain of their shared loss all over again as he helped Mike through it all.
“I haven’t thanked you, have I?” Mike said, voice still soft, as if he could somehow shatter the moment they found themselves in.
“Ya don’t have to thank me, Mike. I told ya, I’d be damned if I let ya go through this alone.”
Mike put down the shirt he was folding, grabbing Michael’s arm and forcing the cowboy’s eyes to meet his. “I really appreciate this, Michael. I… I know it can’t be easy for you, either.”
A flash of something darted across Michael’s eyes– too quick for Mike to name. “Easier fer me than it is fer you, pard.”
“It’s not a contest, Michael,” he couldn’t help but joke. He was rewarded by a grin from Michael.
“Yeah, if it were a contest, I’d be winnin’.”
***
Cleaning out the house together and getting it listed for sale changed something between Mike and Michael. Mike could feel it in apartment– a palpable electricity that seemed to strike whenever he and Michael were interacting with each other. Gone were the days of arguing with each other over how best to help Mikey. Gone were the days of Mike sobbing on the couch for hours on end, Bruno barely being able to cheer him up. Gone were the days of Michael sticking to small talk and old hunting stories instead of talking about what was happening with Base.
What hadn’t gone, however, were the nightmares.
It seemed like every time Mike closed his eyes to sleep, he’d see Edgar standing there. And for a moment, everything would be as it was– happy and complicated and silly and loving– only for that moment to pass leaving Mike with the decaying face of his husband telling Mike it was his fault. When Mike awoke this time, it was a different kind of guilt ringing in his chest.
“You’ve forgotten me!” Edgar screamed, eyes vacant and glassy and dead. “You’ve left me behind for him! How could you do this to me!?”
In the dream, Edgar’s boney finger had been pointing to Michael. In the dream, Mike wanted to plead with Edgar that it wasn’t true. In the waking world, Mike knew Edgar was right.
As Mike would learn, having someone who understood exactly what you were going through and could help you through that process with kindness and grace was, in fact, a good thing. It was also something that made intense feelings of connections start to spark. At first Mike tried to write it off as grief mixed with loneliness mixed with the genuine friendship he and Michael had built over the years. But as time went on, it became clearer and clearer that his feelings for Michael were starting to skew in a way he hadn’t expected.
In a way he wasn’t prepared for.
Everything came to a head when Mike woke up screaming apologies to Edgar, tears running like rivers down his face. He was barely aware of the door being thrown open, only realizing he was not alone when he felt Michael’s arms wrap around him, pulling his back to Michael’s chest and whispering reassurances into Mike’s ear. Slowly but surely the world came back into focus, the last of the dream fading away and Mike’s heart rate finally going back down.
“Yer alright, Mike. I’m right here, darlin’, yer alright,” Michael said softly, rocking Mike back and forth gently. Mike found himself leaning back into the warmth of Michael’s chest, a calm he hadn’t experienced since he lost Edgar washing over him. “Ya back with me, darlin’?”
“Yeah,” Mike said, voice rough from the screams that had woken him and Michael. A quick glance at his phone let him know it was just after 4AM. “Thank you, Michael. I… Thanks.”
“You don’t gotta thank me, sweetheart, I’m just glad I was here.” Michael’s grip on Mike tightened as he spoke, the squeezing grounding rather than smothering. “You… What were ya dreamin’ about, Mike?”
There was something in the way Michael was speaking that set Mike slightly on edge. Michael must’ve noticed, as he started rocking Mike back and forth again, the movement easing the tension almost immediately. “I… I was dreaming about Edgar.”
“Just Edgar?”
“...No.”
It had started as just Edgar but slowly the memories started to fade into memories of Michael– a ghostly Edgar watching them, a look of disappointment on his face. Mike was laughing with Michael only to catch sight of Edgar, running after him but he kept fading further and further away. Mike couldn’t get to Edgar fast enough, waking up screaming before he could explain or apologize.
“I don’t know how to live while knowing he isn’t,” Mike admitted. “I know he would want– actively wanted– me to move on with my life and keep living but how can I do that without betraying him?”
Michael squeezed Mike again. “Ya said it yerself, darlin’: he wanted you to live and keep goin’. It’s not betrayin’ his memory to do what he had asked.”
“And if that involves moving on from him?”
There was silence for a moment, their rocking slowing to a stop but the comfort of the grasp remaining. “I’ll be honest, Mike: you’ll never fully move on from him. I’ve been tryin’ for years now, and there’s still an Edgar shaped hole in my heart that I know will never be filled. Just because ya got room in yer heart fer someone else don’t mean that you’ve moved on from Edgar; ya’ve just grown yer heart around that hole so you can love like ya did before.”
Mike sat with that for a moment. He thought back to his dream and the Edgar that was fading away; was he actually disappointed, or was he proud? The memory was fuzzy, but thinking back to the Edgar– real, living Edgar– that he loved– that he loves– Mike knows he wouldn’t be disappointed with him. He could almost hear Edgar’s voice in his mind:
Come on, Mikey-bear, you’re allowed to be happy. I want you to be happy– you made me happy, Bear. I would never want to deprive you of that happiness even if it’s not with me.
Even if it’s with Michael, Bear. Hell, especially if it’s with Michael.
He couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up in his chest at that. Mike wiggled around in Michael’s lap, looking into the cowboy’s eyes and seeing himself reflected in them; his pain, his sorrow, his hope.
His love.
“You know I love you, right?” Mike asked, watching as that same something that flashed in his eyes when they were cleaning out the house. He knew what it was now– knew the same love was shining in his own eyes now.
“I love you too, Mike,” Michael said with the slightest sense of disbelief in his voice. “Goddamn, I love you so much.”
Their first kiss was soft– a gentleness that Mike wasn’t expecting from Michael but relished in anyway. There was understanding there– care and consideration and the knowledge that they understood what they were going through and were willing to go through it together.
That they would get through it together.