When I Return || Perrentes

Chapter 20: When

Mike settled down with Tony that day to watch an episode of Supernatural that was airing on TV - it was season one episode one. Tony remembered watching it with Mike so long ago, in the car, on his phone, waiting for Vic and Jaime to finish their groceries. Mike had gripped his arm in the ending scene - and he did the same as they watched it now, even though he knew what was going to happen.

Tony missed it. He missed those simple days of being in love and filled with heartache for a person he thought he couldn't have. That was such a straightforwards, simple problem. Now he shared a living room with ghosts, and he himself was one of them.

He tried so hard to smile and forget what he'd been told, but it stayed in his gut and swirled around so he couldn't eat his dinner. It was like sawdust that coagulated in his mouth and struggled down his throat and sat uncomfortably in his stomach. He simply had to stop eating, lest the dinner clash with the knowledge he'd gained and make him sick.

He'd left so much of it that undoubtedly the others noticed and were worried - but Cassadee, of course, knew why, and when she took his plate away she looked, for a fraction of a second, overwhelmingly guilty, before she hid it again behind her lovely smile. Tony wanted to tell her it wasn't her fault that he was so destitute - but he had to keep it a secret, and said nothing. He pressed himself so close to Mike it was though he was trying to get under his skin, so scared of losing him, and Sammy curled up and snuggled into his lap, and he ran his fingers through his thick fur and tried to tie his consciousness back down - but it was a bit too late, and the world has dimmed again and tapered at the edges. It was like looking at things permanently through a badly focused lens.

"So," Mike said as they went to bed that night, settling down beneath the sheets. "Any further thoughts on a cat?"

Tony slipped a thigh between Mike's legs and wrapped an arm around his body, and didn't look him in the eye as he smiled (sadly, but it was dark, so Mike couldn't see), his head against Mike's chest, and closed his eyes and felt his warmth, the cotton of his top against his face, heard his heart thundering in his chest, strong and determined like the hoofbeats of a racehorse, never faltering. "Yeah," he agreed. "Yeah, we can get a cat."

He said it without resistance, because why not? Nothing was worth arguing, and he couldn't even picture the scenario in the first place. And if his time with Mike would be so limited, he may as well agree to getting a cat.

He wriggled back up after a while, and Mike was still awake, so he leant his forehead against Mike's, looked into his eyes. He almost couldn't recognise them, so removed from reality he was again, so he closed his eyes and smiled and he pressed his mouth against Mike's, parting his lips, letting his tongue flicker in, kissing him slowly and deeply, trying to breathe him in. He was happy when Mike reciprocated, wrapped his arms around him, one hand pressing into the small of his back, pulling him impossibly closer. Tony kissed him again, exhaling deeply through his nose as he did so, placed one hand on Mike's shoulder, and ran it down his chest slowly, his fingers hooking briefly at the neck of his top and tugging gently.

Mike didn't know how Tony was feeling, so he didn't have any reservations about taking advantage this time. They didn't have sex, but their hands and mouths did wander, and Tony buried his head in Mike's neck and kissed him below his ear, and then on his throat so that he sighed, flicked his tongue over a vein through which warm, living blood ran freely, kissed his collar bone and sucked a bruise onto it. By the end of the night they were covered in a myriad of bruises that had arisen from either fighting or loving. The two were the same. Mike had a lovebite on his collar bone and Tony had one on his chest, just below the script that arched across it. Whilst Mike was lying between his legs, hands on Tony's hips with his nose dipping beneath the fabric of his pants, whilst Tony's eyes were closed and his fingers were in Mike's hair and tugging to elicit those quiet sighs, whilst his head was tipped back against the pillow and his spine was slightly arched he didn't have to think of a single damn thing. He could let biology do the thinking for him, let the hormones speed through his veins and arteries and his blood pump furiously and the chemicals rush around his empty brain. He could let the tension build in his gut and tighten and loosen at intervals to make him at least feel good for a little while. It didn't matter and he didn't care.