Archive of Our Own ^beta

Michael had gone to various lengths of pushing and shoving quite unknown people to him to be the very close distance to Ballpark he was, and he was not going to let a single body push past him. He's by now decided his toes are going to be grown into the insole of his shoe, considering the amount of pairs of feet that have trodded across them. And the bodies, the various thousands of bodies squishing against him, a built up cluster of stoners and hippies built up right from the back of the moshpit, but Michael is here and he's fucking enjoying it, despite the hot sweat across his forehead and the swinging arms on each side of him, hitting him in the head each time the moshers swayed. But Michael is feeling fucking brilliant and there is absolutely not one thing that could change this intense feeling of utter joy.

Michael missed the first quarter of Ballpark Music and he was cursing at himself when he missed the reminder from the festival app, telling him Ballpark were playing in fifteen minutes. Heck, it took hours, he thought, to push his way out of Violent Soho and make his way though this fucking, ten-thousand-body puddle of moshers. But Michael is here and all he can hear are the joyful cries and a voice in a microphone saying, "Splendour, is it nice to be alive?"
Fuck it, Michael waves his arm and cheers because he's been waiting since day one of Splendour for this moment with his favourite band and he's all time favourite song. And 'It's Nice To Be Alive' starts playing and the ocean of festival go-ers scream and this song is old but yes, Michael thinks, it is nice to be alive.

"Boring as bat-shit, you people make me feel so curious and I don't know why."

Michael belts the song at the top of his lungs and he smiles at the people around him and absorbs every second of this. He's waving his arm and closing his eyes for a second and wants nothing more than this to never end. Not for a single second.

"So stop. Don't get carried away."

Michael opens his eyes again and jesusfuckingchrist he drops his hand and he's no longer swaying, and Michael swears there is a fucking angel standing a metre away from him. Where the fuck was this boy before? The lad is blond and he's a fucking stunner, Michael thinks. The guy is talking to a friend behind him. How he can fucking hear with this sound? Michael doesn't know, but he continues to watch the boy and he has to check himself because he's stopping right now, and this moment is so precious and he doesn't want to waste it so he looks around and offers a smile to a few people, who look a bit high off of something else rather than the music, and pushes far enough to have the angel boy directly in front of him.

"I prefer enthusiasm while you're here with me."

Once again Michael is "fucking it" and he leans down a slight bit and holds onto the guys legs and lifts him onto his shoulders. Twisting fingers hold onto Michael's green hair, and he is smiling to himself because for once he did something slightly confident without seeming like a wanker or getting an awful response. Michael is also certainly not high, mostly because his mother swore she'd cut off his winky if he got into anything illegal, but he feels fucking high and this toothy smile is not going to fade for the next couple of hours.

"We're fucking amazing. We dropped down from some other dimension, just to be with you. "

Michael thinks he loses himself a bit again and has to stop singing to himself, when he gets a bit of a slap on the head from the lad on his shoulders, and good because he didn't think he could hold the lad anymore. So he sets him down and looks at him in the eye. Michael looks at the band playing in front of him and put both of his hands up in the air before turning to face to boy next to him. "Michael." he shouts, smiling inevitably at this fucking angel child with the most wonderful cheekbones and eyes and for fucking fucks sake Michael needs a breather right now.

Michael drops his hands, and a small smile is all the boy can manage, it seems. He has a glint in his eye, reflecting from the stage lights and Michael thinks he's so stunning shining and glimmering like this. And he understands The Beatles now, because this lad is fucking Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, with his kaleidoscope eyes and he almost expects the sky to cave in and turn orange like marmalade.

"Chill out. It's alright. Kiss me. It's nice to be alive."

Michael looks at the band again then back to the boy and he does absolutely not expect angel lips pressed against his and then he shuts his eyes and gets used to it, and yes this kid is a fucking angel, he is kissing the gods. Such lips cannot be crafted by a power that is not godly. Michael half expects the lad to grow feathery white wings and levitate the two into the sky above the crowd. And fuck yes ballpark for telling the angel to kiss him.

Blond angel boy is staring at him and they're compacted so close, he's practically glued to Michael's chest. So the boy looks up at him and shouts, "Luke." and Michael is completely utterly one-hundred percently fucked.

At the end of the night, after another hour of trying to get back to the campsite, which they quite fail in doing, they end up on top of a hill. And it'd probably be a shorter process if Luke didn't decide he needed to visit the highly classy and highly expensive champagne bar at the top of the hill and buy a $60 bottle of Sparkling French Champagne and then, of course, Luke needed an Indian Headdress. So after all, both of their tents were "too fucking far and my feet are merging into my toes and walking is like fucking struggle street", so the hill flowing into the valley of the amphitheatre was as good as the camping mattress in Michael's tent and his tent had blankets but the hill had an indian headdress-wearing-angel who was stubborn and would not be unstuck from Michael's chest until the time the sun rose, and so Michael decided he likes grass and Indian Headdresses now, and fuck, he might not be high or have gotten laid, but he would not trade Splendour this year for anything.