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The car rocks like a cradle, or maybe like a tiny boat adrift on the sea. Maybe the way his mother used to sway him gently in her lap. Mike’s never been on a boat, but he’s always found the ocean soothing. He can feel the road rushing away underneath him, hear the hum of the engine, feel the turn of the wheels. There’s some kind of crackling old song on the radio, fading in and out of static.
By this point in his life, Mike is used to waking up and not knowing how he got there, but he’s usually not still in a moving car. He remembers, too, that he fell asleep in Idaho - and it’s hard enough to hitch a fucking ride in Idaho, let alone to somehow hitch a ride while he’s asleep.
He blinks the sleep from his eyes, and squints into the too-bright sunlight to figure out who picked him up - and when he curls his toes and shifts his legs out of the way, he finds Scott Favor in the driver’s seat, and he knows he’s dreaming.
Scott’s hair is down, loose in his face the way he always used to wear it, before the funeral. He’s got on a jean jacket and a ratty t-shirt all full of holes, something Mike isn’t sure he’s ever seen him wear, but he could have, once. The flat, green fields rush by behind Scott’s face, and Scott’s profile is all golden and lined with the sunset.
Since he’s dreaming, Mike lets himself stare. He pulls his knees up against his own chest, holding them close, and closes his eyes just to open them again - just to see that Scott’s still there. He’s got day-old stubble on his jaw, and his brow is all furrowed as he focuses on the road. In another time, Mike would have reached out, tugged on his sleeve to see if he was real - but if he does that, the dream will fade, and Mike’s enjoying the comfort his mind has conjured up.
The car rocks, and Mike sways with it, and he closes his eyes and exhales again. The radio switches over to some kind of country song, still crackling with static.
“It’s fine if you don’t wanna talk,” Scott says.
His voice is quiet and warm, the same kind of familiar tone he’d use whenever Mike woke up in his arms somewhere. It’s nice to hear it again. Nice that his mind has captured it so clearly, can play it back this way like an old cassette tape.
“I don’t mind. I’m just tired,” Mike mumbles.
“You know I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say you were feeling awake.”
Mike laughs, and presses his forehead against his knees, shaking his head from one side to the other. “Maybe when I was high.”
“Maybe so,” Scott agrees.
Mike lets go of his legs, and stretches them out so they’re resting on the dashboard. He realizes he’s only wearing his socks, but in the casual and passing sort of way you notice anything out of the ordinary in a dream. It doesn’t bother him. He sinks down in the seat, his spine curving as he settles into a strangely comfortable position.
“You don’t have - questions or anything?” Scott asks. “Or are you still too tired for that?”
Closing his eyes again, Mike hums and shrugs. “Like what? Don’t think the explanation’s gonna make a lot of sense in a dream.”
“Oh,” Scott says quietly. “I guess there’s no use trying to tell you that you aren’t dreaming?”
“Mm, don’t ruin it, Scotty, okay?”
“...Okay, Mike.”
A hand, then, reaches out and catches Mike's where it was hanging to the side, near the gearshift. The fingers that tangle with his are soft and familiar - Scott’s hands were always so soft. He’d never done anything in his life that could have left them calloused. More than once he’d had those hands on his hips, his waist, his chest, even his cock. He used to dream about lifting Scott’s hand to his mouth just to kiss his fingertips, gently.
He thinks about it now. Instead, he squeezes the hand in his own, exhales, and falls back asleep.
When he wakes up again, the car is stopped. It’s dark outside the window, his face pressed against the cool glass pane. As he blinks, the lighted sign of a motel comes into focus.
There’s drool on the window, and he wipes it away with his sleeve. He lifts his head, and looks around - and there’s Scott, walking back towards the car, hands shoved in his pockets.
Mike isn’t dreaming.
When he comes back to the car, Scott opens the passenger door, then stops where he’s leaned over as he realizes that Mike is sitting up and looking at him. “Oh. You’re awake.”
Mike nods.
“Are you dreaming, still?”
“I don’t know,” Mike tells him, slowly. Scott’s wearing the same outfit he was earlier, he hasn’t changed. The shadow of the stubble is still there on his face. There are bags under his eyes, though, that Mike didn’t notice earlier. His hair looks a little unwashed.
“Well I got us a room, if you wanna talk about it inside.”
“Okay.” Mike turns to look in the back for his bag, but finds the seat empty.
“When I picked you up, you didn’t have your bag or your shoes. I think somebody took ‘em. I can lend you some stuff or - we can stop somewhere. I can buy you something.”
“I don’t need anything,” Mike insists, shaking his head. He ducks out of the open door, under Scott’s arm, and feels grateful that at least he still has his jacket. It’s chilly, wherever they are - maybe still somewhere on the outskirts of Idaho. He wraps his arms around himself and turns back to Scott, just waiting.
Scott looks at him, and Mike can practically feel the weight of the words he doesn’t say. Instead, Scott just shakes his head and they walk together over to the door of one of the crummy little motel rooms.
The door opens when Scott turns the key, and the room is dark and musty. The floor isn’t sticky, though, which means it’s a step up from some of the places Mike has stayed in his life. Scott turns on a lamp, and his eyes adjust to the darkness, and Mike realizes there’s only one bed. He turns to Scott, his brow furrowed.
“I’m used to sharing with you. I guess I could lie and tell you it was all they had, but it wasn’t. If you want me to go back to the front desk and change it out, I probably can.”
The bed is a King, so it’s more than big enough for two. He could lay down and maybe even spread his arms all the way out before he would even touch Scott. Of course - he wants to touch Scott, because he always does, because it soothes the quiet cavernous ache that lives under his breastbone, just for a moment - but maybe for now he shouldn’t. He feels like that’s not why he’s here.
“‘S fine,” Mike says, and he sits down on the bed, bouncing a little to test it out. It’s tough, and the springs are a little creaky, but there’s enough give it’ll be better than sleeping on the ground.
“You still haven’t asked me anything,” Scott says, still standing by the door, watching Mike.
Mike shrugs. “Like what? I’m not like the other guys, I get why you did it, you know. I never figured out why you hung around in the first place." He picks at a stain on the comforter. "Just cause I didn’t want you to leave so soon doesn’t mean I didn’t expect you to.” It’s easy to be casual about it now, outwardly. Scott leaving him in Italy, leaving him for a girl, had hurt like someone had reached into his gut and pulled everything out, viscera twisted up in somebody’s fist. Everything after that, though - it’s been mostly hollow. When Scott pokes at the wound, it just feels numb, because Mike’s taught himself how to not feel it, just like half of everything else that’s ever happened to him. It’ll catch up with him sometime - but not right now, not with Scott prompting him.
“So why am I here alone? Why did I come all the way out to Idaho?” Scott presses.
That one does sting a little, but Mike shakes his head and looks down at the dirty comforter under his fingers. He picks at it. “How should I know? Guess maybe you felt bad about Italy. But I’m not in the middle of a road in Idaho anymore, so you know. Your job’s done if you wanna just go home again.”
“I don’t wanna go home. That’s why I came out here.” Scott walks over and sits down on the bed, just on the edge of it, so Mike barely feels the disturbance. “I ran away again. I think maybe I’m just gonna run forever.”
Forever. Mike’s never heard Scott use a word like forever. It was always deadlines and what-ifs and reflections on the past with him. He blinks, drinking in the novelty of it. “So where are you going? Back to Italy?”
Scott shakes his head. “I don’t really know where I’m going. I don’t wanna know.” When Scott starts to fidget, Mike notices that the old familiar leather cuff is back on his wrist - and Mike watches him toy with one of the rings on it. “I had this whole plan, you know. For what feels like my whole life. My dad acted like I was such a disappointment from the day I was born and I just kept thinking, God, he has no idea how bad it can get. He has no idea how bad I could be, if I just let myself. So when he drew up the papers so I wouldn’t inherit anything til I was 21, I decided I’d let myself prove him right for a while, so then when I came back he might finally be - proud of me. I had this idea that if I went back, everything would be different. Everyone would know what I was capable of, and they’d be impressed and happy to see me when I came back, like somehow what I did would change everything.” Scott finally glances over at Mike, eyes hidden behind his hair - but Mike can feel his gaze. “I think when I used to talk about going back, the other guys - Bob, they thought it was a joke, you know. But I guess you never did.”
Mike shrugs. “Just more used to people leaving, I guess. They’re all stuck in that place and they can’t get out, so the idea of someone really leaving doesn’t make much sense beyond, you know, everybody wants to. Everybody wishes they could.”
That makes Scott wince - and Mike would be lying if he said he didn’t get a little satisfaction out of it. But still, he presses on like he’s rehearsed this - he probably has. “I went back, though, and everything was the same. Nobody - nobody seemed to care about what I’d done. And they pushed and pulled and they wanted things and it was easy to treat it like - I don’t know, the way I always treated being around all of them growing up, which is basically the same way I treated a date. You just try to give people what they want. I guess I’m good at that. Maybe it’s the one thing I am good at. But - I’m not trying to get you to feel bad, that’d be stupid, I just keep getting off-track. The point is, nothing changed. And I fell into it, waiting to see if anything would be different, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t going to be. Everyone was just gonna ignore it. And I couldn’t. So I took the money and I gave some to Carmella, and I split. I found out from the guys - the ones who would still talk to me, that you came back here. And I found you.”
“It’s a nice story,” Mike tells him, still not above poking at Scott’s sensitive spots. He pulls his own knees closer to his chest, curling up and then stretching out his back. “So you left, and you found me. So now what?”
“I thought - just if you wanted, I thought maybe we could keep looking for your mom. We’ve got the money for it now. For motels and stuff. Carmella said she might know where your mom went after Italy. She got a letter, she forgot all about it. And it’s got an address, in Texas.”
“Texas?” Mike repeats, lifting his head up to look at Scott.
“Texas.” Scott’s watching him now, fully. He’s turned towards Mike on the bed, just his knees close enough now that Mike could reach out and brush over the skin the peeks out from the rip in his jeans.
He doesn’t though. “So we’re gonna drive to Texas?”
“Just if you want. I wanna keep going - and I wanna make it up to you.”
Mike shakes his head, and scoffs a little, turning his face towards the wall, trying to make out the wallpaper even in the dim light. “Why me? Why not Bob or any of the other guys? Why’d you come all the way out here? You - you don’t have to keep feeling sorry for me, Scott. I know I’m pretty helpless when I fall asleep and I know I - I know I told you too much, cause I knew it wouldn’t matter, but you don’t have to keep looking out for me. I made it 17 years before I met you, you know. I was alone for almost half of it.”
“What do you mean it didn’t matter?” Scott asks.
Of course it’s the one thing Scott gets stuck on. Mike groans and rolls onto his face, muffling his sounds into the pillows and dirty sheets, just for a moment. “Cause I knew you wouldn’t care, and I knew you’d leave. It’s a lot easier to get the same thing you’re always used to. For you, it’s whatever you want, and for me, it’s nothing.”
“I don’t get everything I want.”
“Of course not,” Mike mumbles, turning his face towards the wall. “Just most of it.”
Scott doesn’t seem to have a comeback for that. Mike can feel his weight shift on the mattress, but he doesn’t look to see exactly what he’s doing. “I didn’t go see anybody else because - I know I was an asshole, but they let me hang around so they could get some money out of me someday. They never really liked me. Bob - Bob did but he still - everybody always wants something. But you never wanted anything from me, Mikey.”
Mike laughs, hollow and broken. “You know that’s not true.”
“It’s not the same thing. You just wanted - me. Everybody else - my family and Bob and everybody else I’ve ever met, they want something else. Somebody else.” There’s a light press at the center of Mike’s back - but it’s gone again in a flash, like Scott reached out to touch him and then thought better of it. “I don’t think I ever loved anybody my whole life, Mike. Not the right way. I didn’t think I knew how. I figured it was easier to just - do it the way I was supposed to.”
“It’s not like anybody taught me. Sometimes it just happens.”
“Yeah. I think I get that now,” Scott says softly.
If Mike really lets himself think about the implications of that sentence, he knows he’ll either pass out or do something stupid or both. Instead, he closes his eyes and scoots closer to the edge of the bed, wrapping his arms around himself as he curls up on his side.
The weight on the mattress shifts again, and Scott turns out the light.
When Mike wakes up, the sun edges in around the flimsy curtain over the window on the front of the room. He rolls onto his back, and stretches - and then he sees Scott, still sleeping, out of the corner of his eye.
He’s shirtless, down to just his boxers, with one arm draped out over the bed like he’s still reaching for Mike in his sleep. Mike looks at him, lets himself have one long glance, from Scott’s messy hair, down to his chest, down to the scar on his stomach and the trail of hair leading into his boxers, down to his strong legs and his feet. Every familiar inch of him. It’s a strange kind of intimacy they share. He knows how it feels to sleep wrapped up in Scott’s arms, even knows how it feels to have Scott fuck him, but they’ve never kissed. Scott doesn’t do kissing. He never did.
The closest thing Mike’s ever gotten wasn’t very close at all. It was the one time a client had told them specifically what to do with each other, and he’d told Mike to suck Scott off. Mike had agreed, with only a little hesitation, wanting and wanting too much and still knowing that to refuse was more damning than to accept.
He sank to his knees in front of Scott, opened his jeans just enough to pull him out of his boxers - but the moment before he’d wrapped his lips around Scott’s cock, he’d tilted his head up instead, and trailed his nose down along the scar on Scott’s stomach. He’d pressed one gentle kiss, there where the scar faded into his happy trail, and then he’d gotten to work, hoping to cover for his own vulnerability.
Now, still, his eyes linger on the scar for that same reason. He sits up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and forces himself to look away. He shrugs off his jacket, still feeling sleep-warm, and leaves it on the bed as he stands up and walks over to the sink. He runs the water as quietly as he can, just enough to splash some on his face and rinse out his mouth. He glances over at the shower, and knows it would probably be a good idea, but the gnawing hunger in his stomach is so bad he can’t really ignore it anymore. As a compromise, after he takes a piss, Mike gets a damp washcloth and cleans off as well as he can in the sink, scrubbing just enough to feel a little cleaner - a little less like he just spent the last week or so sleeping in the dirt.
If he wants food, he’s going to have to talk to Scott, because without his bag he really only has a couple of spare dollars he keeps tucked in his underwear, just in case. If he asks Scott, though, it means he’s sort of agreeing to let him stick around. It feels too easy - but Scott did leave everything behind, get a car from somewhere and drive out to the middle of nowhere in Idaho just to find him. He remembered that exact spot on the side of the road, the same place Mike always ends up, even though Mike had been afraid he wasn’t listening back then.
Before Mike’s really made a decision, Scott wakes up and sits up to stretch, his arms over his head. When he turns to look for Mike, he looks mildly worried when he checks the bed - then the tension in his shoulders relaxes when he finds Mike leaning against the doorway to the bathroom instead.
“Are you hungry?” Scott asks, his voice still rough with sleep.
Mike nods.
“Let’s go get food, then, before we talk any more.”
They don’t check out before breakfast - although it makes sense that Scott has enough money maybe he doesn’t need to worry about that. There’s a diner right around the corner, one of those old-fashioned metal trailer kinds of places that stays open 24 hours and serves breakfast all day. They walk through the door and the whole place smells like coffee and bacon, and when they settle into a booth, the hard vinyl crackles underneath them.
Mike lets himself order a big breakfast, because he may as well. Scott orders coffee, and something smaller - and Mike knows if it was before, Scott would probably just steal extra food off his plate. Now he isn’t sure what’ll happen.
They wait in silence for the food. It’s the kind of silence Mike would have tried to fill once, but he feels like Scott knows all his stories now, all the ones worth hearing. He let himself run out of material. Instead, he listens for the song playing on the jukebox, and taps his fingers on the table in time.
Scott just watches him.
When the food gets there, they eat quietly, too, while Mike tries to sate his hunger of the week he’s spent rationing himself, and doing it poorly.
He can only eat so much, though, and when he’s done, he has a plate with half a stack of pancakes still on it. He glances between the plate and Scott, who’s still sipping on his coffee - and then he pushes the plate over to Scott’s side of the table.
Scott blinks down at the pancakes, then looks back up at Mike with his eyebrows raised, but Mike just leaves the plate there and shrugs.
Taking the hint, Scott starts to eat.
“If we do go to Texas,” Mike starts, enjoying the advantage of talking to Scott while his mouth is full, “What happens if she’s not there? We just keep going?”
Instead of trying to answer, Scott just nods.
“And if she is there - if she’s there, and I wanna stay, and I want you to leave, would you go?”
For a moment, Scott freezes. His fork hangs in the air, halfway to his mouth. He clenches his jaw, and his eyes go wide. After a moment, though, he breaks eye contact, glances towards the window, and nods again.
It’s obvious that Scott took it as something more than a simple request. Like it’s an answer to everything that Mike would even think of sending him away. For the moment, though, Mike lets the misunderstanding rest. He doesn’t think he’s capable of it, of telling Scott to leave, but he likes that Scott thinks he is. It lets him put off the decision for a little while longer.
It also lets him hang in the sweet balance where he spent the last four years of his life, wondering when Scott will leave again. Because maybe - maybe if he thinks Mike doesn’t love him anymore, he’ll go back to Portland after all. Maybe he’ll go back to Carmela, and the mansion where he probably belongs, and he’ll put all this behind him, like Mike already thought he did.
And if Scott makes it to Texas - maybe Mike can start to let himself wonder.
The stress, though, of talking about his mother, and of thinking about things with Scott like this, so frankly, makes him start to twitch, and his eyes start to flutter shut.
Noticing the signs, Scott reaches over and pulls the plate out from in front of Mike, so that when he lays his head down, he can just rest his face against the table - and he falls asleep.
He wakes up again to Scott, gently nudging his shoulder, waking him to get him up out of the seat. Mike makes it upright, but stumbles into Scott for a second - and while before, Scott would have wrapped an arm around his shoulders and helped him all the way out to the car, now he just gets Mike upright with a quiet little, “C’mon, Mikey,” and then lets him go.
The yawning cavern in the center of Mike’s chest starts to crack open - and like always, he trails behind Scott like a lost dog.
They check out of the motel, and Scott pays the late checkout fee. They climb back into the car, and Mike props his socked feet up on the dashboard. “I guess it’s a good thing no one checked for shoes in that diner.”
Scott laughs, just a little. “We’ll get you some shoes. I’d give you an extra pair or something, but I didn’t bring any. I packed light. Most of the stuff I still had at home was just - shit.”
“Nice shit,” Mike mutters, tilting his head back as he glances over towards the window. “Shit I bet anybody on our block would have given their left nut to steal.”
“Yeah,” Scott agrees quietly. “Maybe if we-” Scott stops, trailing off into an aching pause. “Maybe if I ever make it back up there, I’ll give all of it away. I probably should have.”
“Probably should have,” Mike agrees, curling up in his seat. The cavern in his chest cracks open a little more - and at this rate, he’s never going to make it all the way to Texas, but God he can try.
They pass the Wyoming state line while Mike is still awake. He spends the drive drifting in and out, playing with the radio when Scott doesn’t seem like he’s paying attention. He stops anytime he finds a country station or one playing oldies, anything with the pleasing kind of crackle in the background, the stations that really sound like the radio and not like a brand new cassette tape.
Sometime after they pass the Welcome! sign for Colorado, they find another motel and decide to stop for the night, because Scott is clearly tired of driving. They eat at a nearby restaurant, and split their food without talking about it, and Scott goes inside a nearby store just to grab Mike a pair of shoes.
While Mike waits out in the cold, his feet freezing on the pavement, he looks around and shoves his hands in his pockets and wishes he had a cigarette.
When Scott walks out with a bag in his hand, he also passes Mike a pack of Chesterfields, pressing them into his palm.
Mike basically never buys cigarettes, and nearly always bums them. He does remember though, in passing, the one time he and Scott had made so much money off a job he’d bought whatever he wanted from the convenience store, and that had included a pack of Chesterfields he got on a whim.
At the motel, Mike steps into the new shoes, and finds them comfortable, if still a little stiff. Even though the room is so grimy again that they could probably smoke in it without it hurting anyone, Mike steps outside, and Scott goes with him.
Mike pulls out a cigarette, and Scott lights it for him, and they pass it back and forth out of habit.
“I got you a bag, too, and some clothes. Not much. If you want we can stop at a thrift store or something in Texas.”
Nodding, Mike exhales, and watches the stream of smoke float up towards the stars, barely visible still standing under the motel lights. “Maybe.”
Scott pulls the lighter back out and starts to play with it, flicking the wheel and moving his fingers over the flame. Mike reaches over and flips the lid shut, then hands him the cigarette. Scott’s never toyed with the idea of self-destruction in quite the same way that Mike has - he doesn’t like to see the signs that that might have changed.
Once the cigarette is down to the filter, Mike throws it down and crushes it under his heel, and they both step back into the room.
Mike takes a shower, now that he can. He stands under the warm spray, lets it soak his hair and rinse all the dirt off his skin. He scrubs at his face and takes deep breaths in the humid air that fills the bathroom.
He changes into a new pair of underwear, and throws on his old shirt, and hops onto the bed again with his hair still damp.
Scott’s watching television when he comes out, and for whatever reason, he keeps his eyes firmly locked on the screen. At first, Mike reads into it - but then he glances over and realizes Scott’s in the news, because his family have reported him missing.
Mike blinks, frowning, then looks back over at Scott. “After everything, now they’re gonna report you missing?”
Almost startled, Scott glances over, then shakes his head and looks away again, hiding behind his hair. “It’s their way of saying it’s my last chance. I cleaned out my bank account, I got all the money in cash, put it somewhere they couldn’t take it back. If I don’t do what they want, they could probably have me declared dead once I’m missing long enough. They’d probably do it, too, just because they can. To get back at me for shaming the family name not once but twice.” He scoffs, and laughs, but it’s rough with emotion - totally absent of the kind of self-assured undertone Scott always used to have.
Sitting up, Mike reaches over and wraps an arm around Scott’s shoulders. At first, Scott tenses, refusing to lean into the touch. Then Mike pulls him closer, mutters a quiet, “Come here,” and Scott goes easily, turning his face into Mike’s chest.
With one hand clutched in the fabric of his shirt, Scott starts to cry, choked snuffling sobs pressed against Mike’s skin. Mike just reaches up, slowly, and strokes his hair, and lets him.
“I’m so fucking stupid,” Scott mutters once his breathing has evened out again.
“Maybe,” Mike tells him. “But you’re hardly the only one.”
Snorting, Scott sits up, pulling away to wipe at his face. “I guess that’s almost comforting.”
Mike shrugs, and scoots back up the bed. “Makes me feel better sometimes.”
Scott gets up and takes his turn in the bathroom for the night. He washes off his face in the sink, and brushes his teeth with one of their newly acquired toothbrushes and toothpaste. He turns out the lights before he climbs back into bed, and this time they both manage to slide under the comforter, in between the slightly stiff sheets.
In the dark quiet space under the sheets, the distance between them seems like a canyon.
“Mikey, could I-” Scott mumbles, but then he stops himself. “Never mind. I shouldn’t ask.”
“You didn’t even finish asking. Worst thing I could do is say no.”
Mike doesn’t know that Scott’s ever asked him for much of anything. Maybe half-joking, maybe teasingly - but he doesn’t really have to ask. Mike just always gives it to him, whatever he wants. Scott gets things handed to him without ever really having to figure out how to say that he wants them.
“Could I just - hold you? The way we used to?” Scott asks. It’s a whisper so quiet it’s mostly breath, and Mike can barely hear it.
The crack opens wider, and that big yawning space threatens to swallow him whole. “Okay,” he says, almost as quietly.
He rolls towards the center of the bed, and meets Scott in the middle. With only a little awkward shuffling, Mike turns on his side, and Scott presses up behind him, one arm tucked close over his chest, the under pushed up under his waist, both of them wrapped tight around Mike to keep him as close as possible. Scott’s face presses against his shoulder blade through his t-shirt, and Mike feels him take a deep breath.
“Thank you,” Scott tells him.
Mike reaches up and presses his hand over one of Scott’s, where it’s still clutching at his chest. “You’re welcome.”
And just like he has, so many times, Mike falls asleep in Scott Favor’s arms.
When he wakes up in the morning, Scott’s out of bed and moving around, but there’s a little bag on the bedside table full of donuts, and there’s a coffee sitting right next to it, still warm.
“I haven’t been awake long, but I thought I’d get you breakfast,” Scott tells him. He’s sporting the closest thing Mike’s seen to a smile since the first time he woke up in the car.
Mike just blinks at him for a moment, and watches as it falls away again. “Thanks,” he says, just a moment too late.
Scott shrugs, and turns back to his bag. “Just figured it’s easier than stopping to eat. We can just get back on the road this way. Get you there faster. We’ll still probably have to stop again but - maybe only one more time.”
Picking the bag up off the table, Mike starts to eat, and only hums in response.
One more day, one more night, and one more drive, and they’ll make it to Houston.
They check out, grab all their stuff, and pile back in the car for another long haul.
Mike spends less of this drive asleep, trying to make sure that Scott always has music to fill the silence and keep him company. There’s a country station they keep most of the way through Colorado before it finally fades into static just a handful of miles out from the tip of Oklahoma.
They stop there, in the tiniest part of Oklahoma before they hit Texas, just to actually get lunch, since donuts were hardly a very filling breakfast for either of them.
It’s only been a few days of diner meals and motel rooms, but Mike feels like he’s living in the lap of luxury. It doesn’t feel totally strange to share it with Scott, to do this when it still feels pretty similar to their last trip across state borders and countries to try and find his mother - but it’s different. There’s no motorcycle stealing, no sleeping in the rough, no dates. They’ve finally got Scott’s money to sustain them - and maybe it won’t last too long, or maybe that’s why they’re stretching it out, staying in cheap motels and eating in diners. Mike can’t really be sure without asking, and asking implies he expects to be a part of it after Texas.
He still doesn’t. Not really. Scott’ll come to his senses, and go back to Portland. It’s the only thing that makes sense. If he doesn’t do that, he’ll get distracted again. Meet a waitress or a girl behind the desk at a motel or something.
Mike thinks all this while he sits curled up in the passenger seat, watching the scenery pass by.
They stop somewhere in Texas. The drive to Houston is still long enough that Scott wants to rest - and they want to get there at a decent time, so they can knock on the door, go right to the address and make sure they’re not showing up in the middle of the night.
The motel is a little nicer this time, and they do end up close enough to a thrift store that they duck in and Scott hands him a little money that he spends on a new jacket and a pair of pants without any holes.
After dinner, they settle in the motel room and both of them sit on the bed, leaned up against the headboard, watching the television.
There’s another update on the news about Scott, and Mike watches the way his fist clenches, knuckles stark white against the comforter. Of course Scott’s family has the money to keep him in the news cycle, to keep people looking for him.
“Sometimes I wish they’d just disowned me.”
Mike turns his head, and hums, an inquisitive little sound.
“I think - I think sometimes I hoped they’d just do this and I’d be able to feel like I couldn’t go back. Like I didn’t have to. But as long as they expected me to go back - it was like this rope, pulling me back. If they’d have cut me off back then - I would have been angry, and upset, but I wouldn’t have - I couldn’t have tried to go back.”
Mike really can’t understand having both of your parents still alive and together and wanting so badly just to be free of them - but that doesn’t mean he’s immune to the pain in Scott’s voice or expression, or the way he punches his clenched fist against the mattress. “You did, though. But it seems like - now maybe they get it?”
Scott laughs, and hangs his head. “Yeah. It’s just a little too late, isn’t it? Just long enough to let me fuck everything up. Long enough I could still try to blame them, when it isn’t even just their fault.”
Sighing, Mike pulls his knees up to his chest. He could try to give Scott some kind of empty comfort, or he could give more than he’s comfortable with saying yet. Instead, he just rests his head on his knees and watches. “It’s easier to blame other people, that’s true. But we can’t pretend those things don’t affect us, either. It’s never just one or the other.”
Turning to face him, Scott frowns, opens his mouth, then closes it again. He looks down at the bedspread, and sighs. “Thanks for letting me bring you to Texas, Mikey.”
The cavern cracks open further - at this point any remaining protection Mike may have from his own feelings are only hanging on by a thread. “Thanks for driving,” he says, and then he turns onto his side, facing away from Scott, and slides under the covers before he says anything else.
In the morning, they’re both quiet. They clean up, they eat breakfast, and silence sits heavy between them all the way to Houston.
It’s a blue house, the address that Scott has written on a little scrap of paper in Carmela’s softly looping handwriting. Mike checks it against the mailbox, and then checks it again. He combs through his hair, looking in the mirror on the visor, then starts to open the door.
Right as he moves to step out, Scott’s hand wraps around his wrist. “Wait - what if she’s not here?”
Mike shrugs, looking down at the slip of paper again. “Then I guess we see if anybody knows where she went, and figure it out from there.”
“And if she’s - here?”
Again, Mike shrugs. Scott lets him go, but when he steps out of the car, so does Scott.
“You want me to come with you?” Scott asks, hands pressed to the roof of the car.
“You can just - ask around if you want. Like you did in Italy,” Mike says, and he tries not to let that sentence press too hard on his own bruise - or if he does, he tries not to let Scott hear it.
After he rings the doorbell, while he waits for someone to answer, Mike can feel his heart racing. His fingers twitch, just a little, but he keeps his eyes wide open and begs his own mind to cut him a break, to not ruin this moment, just this once.
The woman who opens the door has a kind face and short, dark hair, and she gives Mike a kind of puzzled smile.
“Uh - I’m sorry. Do you - do you know Sharon? Shari Waters?”
“Sharon?” The woman asks with a confused frown.
“Well she - she might have lived here before you bought the place? How long have you lived here?”
“Just a couple of months. It’s a rental place, and I just got a job. Was she the previous tenant?”
Mike kind of smiles, even though he wants to cry, and he looks down, shaking his head. “I don’t know, actually. But if - if there is a way to reach whoever owns the place could I get that from you? And see if she left a forwarding address? She’s - she’s my mom.”
“Oh,” the woman says, in the kind of sickly sweet, sympathetic tone that Mike knows well. “Of course, let me get you a card.”
The woman ducks inside, and when she comes back she offers Mike a drink or a snack, but he politely declines and walks back to the car.
Of course, Scott isn’t where Mike left him, either. He’s across the street at the house there, talking to a woman who was working in the yard. While they talk, Scott throws his head back and laughs, the kind of smile that Mike hasn’t seen in months spreading over his face.
Standing there, hidden by the car, Mike wraps his arms around himself and watches them, just waiting. Seeing if Scott will turn back around and he’ll be noticed, or if Scott will just go inside her house and never come out, invited in again, in out of the cold and happy to leave Mike standing in it.
Then Scott turns, gesturing, and catches sight of Mike. He jogs back to the car. “Hey, the lady across the street says she was here.”
Mike nods, just once. “I got the landlord’s information so I can - call him and see if she left a forwarding address.” His palms itch, and his face flushes. “You can just - drop me off somewhere with a payphone.”
Scott’s face falls, and he looks stricken. “What?”
“I said you can drop me off somewhere with a payphone, Scott,” Mike says again, and he climbs inside the car, ducking into his coat as he settles into his seat.
After a long, quiet, moment, Scott sits down in the car, and closes the door. Even the way it latches seems quiet, like Scott didn’t really put enough power into it. “Okay,” he says softly. He starts the car, but when the radio starts to play, he reaches over and turns it off. “Okay. If that’s what you want.”
Mike can’t answer - so he doesn’t. Instead, with his eyes squeezed shut, he feels himself twitching, and he falls asleep.
He wakes up at a gas station, with his face pressed against the window. When he blinks the sleep from his eyes, he can see Scott standing inside the phone booth, gesturing passionately while he talks on the phone. Mike aches to go over and lean against his back. To wrap his arms around Scott’s waist, to talk him down from the frustration, to tangle their fingers and help him unclench his fists - but he stays seated in the car.
After Scott hangs up, he comes back to the car and when he sees that Mike is awake, he hesitates for a moment before he sits back down in the driver’s seat. “He almost wouldn’t give me the address. He wouldn’t believe me, that you were her son. I had to threaten legal action. Not that it means anything, but I guess it scared him enough.”
There’s a new address on the other side of the slip of paper, in Scott’s scratchy handwriting. He passes it to Mike, careful that their fingers don’t brush.
“I wanted to - can I at least get you a room for the night? And leave you some money?” Scott asks.
Mike, unable to respond, just shrugs.
“Okay,” Scott tells him.
They stop at the first motel they see. It’s the nicest one yet, but it’s not so nice that Mike would feel uncomfortable there. Maybe the real reason they’ve spent all their nights in cheap motels had nothing to do with Scott or his money, and everything to do with Mike and what he’s comfortable with.
Scott checks them in, and walks Mike to his room. Then, carefully, he drops the key in Mike’s hand.
Mike wraps his fingers around the key. “What’ll you do now?” he asks, unable to stop himself.
Hands shoved in his pockets, Scott shrugs. “Go somewhere else, I guess. Maybe go to Austin. I’ve never been. Maybe I’ll buy a motorcycle and just - drive as far as I can until I get sick of it. I don’t know.”
“If you’re going back to Portland, you can just tell me, you know. You did your good deed. I’m not gonna be mad at you.”
Scott frowns. “I’m not gonna go anywhere my family’s gonna find me. And I’m not - if I can’t help you out, I’m just going nowhere. I’ll do what I have to do just to waste their money and stay away from it all. I - snuck some of the money into your bag already. So just take it.”
Looking down, Mike shakes his head, tired and frustrated. “I know you’re looking for something, Scott. I think you should just go find it.”
He watches as Scott’s hand reaches for his, and their knuckles brush gently before Scott pulls back like he’s been burned. “Can you please just let me come in for a second? Just so we don’t have to do this in the parking lot?”
“Do what?” Mike asks him, half curious and half stubborn on purpose, holding so tightly to the key that it stings the palm of his hand.
Scott’s face is an open picture of misery for a moment - but then he steels himself, his brow set and determined, as he ducks his head in close to Mike’s, and speaks quietly. “I love you. I’m not looking for anything Mikey, except you. I came to Idaho, and I drove you to Texas, because I - I wanted to try to do it right. I know I’m too late, and I know you don’t care anymore, and I - probably, I deserve that. I can’t even be mad because I’ve done - at least half a dozen worse things to you in all the time we knew each other. But the least you can do is just - stop pretending you don’t know.”
“How would I know when you never said anything?” Mike asks.
“Don’t say that to me. I know you knew what I meant.”
Sighing, Mike takes the key in his hand and unlocks the door. “I knew that was what you thought. That you think you’re in love with me, just because I’m the only person who’ll still do this for you.”
“You’re not,” Scott tells him, hovering in the doorway, refusing to step foot over the door jamb, just hovering there awkwardly. “And you know you’re not. You know what I left behind to come out here, so why would you say it like that? Just listen to me. Tell me - tell me you don’t love me, and I’ll go.”
It’s the one thing that Mike knows he can’t do. But Scott is standing there in the door like he’s braced for a blow, his eyes closed and his hands clenched into fists. He’s got his head ducked, and one foot is already turned away, like he’s already halfway out the door and ready to leave, because he’s that certain Mike will be able to say it.
But he can’t.
“Kiss me,” Mike says instead.
Scott’s eyes fly open, and he looks up at Mike. “What?”
“I said - I said if you love me so much, then kiss me, with nobody watching, and maybe I’ll believe you.”
Mike steps back, holding the door open, and Scott walks in slowly, like he’s drawn forward, taking each step forward to match Mike. “Are you serious?”
“If you don’t want to do it, you can leave.”
Immediately, Scott shakes his head, and he closes the short distance between them, pressing into Mike’s space and just gently resting his hands on Mike’s hips, like he might still get refused or be pushed away.
Mike reaches up and places one hand on Scott’s shoulder - the other he pushes up, into his hair, pushing it back off his face. “Well?” he says, trying to pretend his heart isn’t racing, that his fingers aren’t twitching a little, that this doesn’t scare the hell out of him, more even than ringing the doorbell had.
Hesitantly, Scott ducks his head, and presses their lips together. It’s soft, warm and sweet, but mostly just a dry brush of lips. Still - Mike gasps, quietly, into it, and Scott seems to take that as encouragement. He tightens his grip on Mike’s hips, pulling him closer, pressing harder into the kiss, pulling Mike’s bottom lip into his mouth and biting at it, softly, somehow still desperate.
Mike pulls back, just enough to say, “Scott,” but Scott just keeps kissing - kissing the corner of his open mouth, his cheek, his jaw, his temple. Then he nuzzles at Mike’s hairline, just above his ear, and kisses him on the cheek again before he moves back down and presses another soft, lingering kiss to Mike’s lips. This time, his tongue presses gently against Mike’s lower lip, just a touch, and Mike kisses him back, leaning forward to chase after it.
They stand there in the still dark room, the curtains drawn, all the lights off, and trade kisses until Mike’s lips feel tender.
Scott pulls back, and Mike lets out a quiet sound of protest, but he just takes one of Mike’s hands in his, and slides it down the front of his body to rest over his cock - which is hard in his jeans. “Now will you believe me? Is this enough? I want you. I love you. Let me come with you, please.” He presses his forehead against Mike’s, and his nose nudges at the delicate space just under Mike’s eye - and Mike loves him. God, how he loves him.
“Okay,” Mike says softly. “Alright. If you want to.”
“I want to,” Scott tells him, and he kisses Mike again, just because he can, because he wants to, apparently.
Overwhelmed, Mike starts to feel the tell-tale twitch of his fingers and the hitch in his breath. He pulls back, laughing a little, and shakes his head. “Scott, I’m gonna - sorry.”
He keeps his eyes open long enough to see Scott throw his head back and laugh - happier maybe than Mike has ever seen him. Genuinely happy.
Scott’s hands are on his shoulders trying to support him, but Mike just sinks onto his knees, pushes Scott’s shirt up, and presses his face against Scott’s stomach, kissing over the scar on his belly. “Sorry,” he mumbles again, already mostly asleep.
A hand pushes into his hair, moving gently. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”
When Mike wakes up, it’s still dark out. He’s in bed, and Scott’s arms are around him, one hand moving gently through his hair. The television’s playing softly in the background, but when he opens his eyes, Scott isn’t watching it - he’s watching Mike instead.
“Good rest?” Scott asks, grinning.
“Not really,” Mike tells him, stretching out his legs. “Pretty bad timing.”
Scott leans in and presses his laughter into Mike’s mouth. “Well, we’ve got time.”