Chapter Text
Mike was never one for love.
How could he be? He didn’t have time for it, not while balancing taking care of Abby on top of school and work. Even if he did have the time, he doesn’t have the social skills or frankly the patience for it either.
With the way love works in this world, he always figured that if it was meant to happen, it would. Maybe 10 years from now, once Abby’s all grown up and he gets his own shit sorted out, but it would. I mean, it’s not completely unheard of to get a late mark, to find your soulmate later in life. Maybe it just wasn’t his time.
But that hardly matters. What matters right now is Mike being able to get his sister out the front door in time for school.
“Come on, Abby, we gotta go.”
Mike pulls on his jacket and looks over to where Abby is sitting at their small dining room table. She’s coloring and a half-eaten plate sits forgotten beside her. When he doesn’t get a response, Mike sighs and walks over, picking up her plate and sticking it in front of her face.
“Are you done with this?”
She nods.
Mike dumps the rest of her eggs in the trash and sets the plate in the sink, then he begins cleaning up Abby’s coloring stuff.
“Hey, I’m using that!” she whines indignantly
“You’ll have plenty of time to color later, we need to get you to school.”
Abby slumps back in her chair with a groan as Mike picks up her paper and her bucket of crayons, setting them aside on the counter.
“You have your backpack?”
“Yes…”
“Ok, come on.”
Begrudgingly, Abby picks her backpack off the floor and follows Mike out to the car. The air is cold and foggy, as it often is in the fall. The chill humidity brushes over their skin and sticks to their hair. By the end of the morning, their curls will have gone frizzy.
Mike gets in the car and sets his bag in the passenger seat, glancing at his sister in the rearview mirror as he starts the car.
“You buckled?”
“Yesss.”
“Alright, ‘nough with the attitude…”
Mike lets out a breath and pulls out of their driveway, heading through the reddened trees, rubber tires rolling over the damp asphalt of their neighborhood.
The drive is quiet, minus some barely audible music on the radio. Mike never has it too loud when Abby’s in the car. He claims it somehow helps him “see better” and he refuses to be anything but the utmost careful with his baby sister in the backseat.
When they get there, Mike gives her a short goodbye as she leaves the car. Same one he does every morning.
“Bye, Abs. I love you. Be safe.”
At this point, hearing it a million times before, Abby barely does so much as nods with a quick “Love you!” as she runs to class. Mike tightens his jaw and heads back to the road, making his way to work.
Exhaustion tugs at his eyes. Caffeine might help. He ran out of coffee at home so now he can only hope he comes across some place cheap. He can’t afford to buy coffee at some big chain, he’d probably hate walking into one as well. The noisy chatter of a crowded, small building, all the different smells, menus confusing and overwhelming. It’s just not his scene.
As long as they’ve lived here, albeit only a few years or so, he’s never really gotten a head of what all is around. He keeps a careful eye out for anything, buildings sprinkled between trees and fields. Gas station, houses, strip mall, gas station, park, grocery store, gas station . Well, at least he won’t be running out of gas anytime soon.
Still a bit away from the mall he works at, he sees a sign for a diner up ahead.
“Sparky’s”
It looks small and it’s pretty isolated, but it doesn’t look too dingy. As long as it’s cheap and not utter garbage then he doesn’t really care anyways. He parks out front and heads inside, a bit hunched over in his baggy jacket. He fumbles his wallet out of his pocket, counting money under his breath as he checks the menu, seeing what he can afford. Looks like the coffee is in fact cheap. Perfect.
Mike takes a breath as he walks up to the counter, looking up from his wallet, cash in hand.
“Hey, uh, can I just get-”
He stops, eyes widening slightly as he actually processes the person in front of him. Tall, thin, quaffed brown hair, two small stud earrings, and a nametag that reads “Ness”. None of that is what made him stop though. No, what made him stop was the big, bright pink heart on their cheek. It’s their soulmate mark, clearly, that’s not surprising, he was just a bit caught off guard by how…for a lack of better words, in his face it is.
“Oh, wow…” he lets out unintentionally.
He freezes a bit. Shit. Back to the task at hand, Schmidt, don’t be rude.
Now avoiding eye contact a bit more than he normally does, he semi-mumbles his order of a simple coffee. The person just smiles, way too cheerfully for this early in the morning, and takes the money out of Mike’s hand, quickly counting it and putting it in the register.
“No problem, sir, I’ll have that done for you lickity split. Do I have a name for the order?”
“Um…yeah, it’s Mike.”
Ness nods, writing his name on a cup before he walks further back behind the counter to a coffee machine, beginning to make his drink. Mike swallows and stands awkwardly, glancing around at his surroundings. There’s not too many people here, a few old couples eating breakfast, some other younger adults, likely college students, looking like their coffee is the only thing keeping them from the brink of death as they work on whatever it is they have with them.
Considering his order should be quick and no one else is in line, he just stands by the counter, putting his wallet away and his hands in his pockets as he waits for his drink, his eyes mostly on the floor, occasionally looking to see if Ness is coming back yet.
He’s a bit startled when he’s looking out the window and is suddenly greeted with that cheery voice once again, an accent he can’t quite place.
“Here you are! I hope that’ll spark some life back into ya!”
Ness smirks a bit, clearly amused by his own joke, though Mike assumes it’s more of a business catchphrase. He’s sure everyone who works here probably says it to anyone who orders. He’s not all that amused but he tries his best to give a small, polite smile as he grabs his drink. It comes out a bit more like a crooked, awkward grimace. He’s never been great with facial expressions. Ness doesn’t seem to be bothered though, his cheery demeanor never faltering. It honestly puts Mike a bit on edge. He doesn’t understand people who are this…bubbly.
Mike mutters a thank you, turning to walk back to his car as Ness tells him to “have a nice day!” from behind. He’ll have a better chance of such a thing when he drinks this coffee, hopefully. When he gets back in the car, he takes a slightly hesitant sip, bracing for the worst.
Oh. It’s…actually pretty good.
Depending on his coffee to be the pick-me-up he needs, Mike makes the rest of his way to work, heading inside to put his stuff in his locker and put on his uniform. He heads over to his usual table in the food court, taking a seat in his usual chair, setting everything up as he usually does. Coffee to his left, Walkie-talkie to his right, a book in between. It isn’t long before another predictable thing happens. Jeremiah, his co-worker and probably the closest thing he has to a best friend, sits at the table…one chair off from normal.
Mike looks at him, then the chair he usually sits in. Jeremiah starts talking to him but he’s finding it difficult to focus with this small break in routine. In a monotone, slightly mumbly voice, Mike speaks up, interrupting Jeremiah’s much louder voice.
“That’s not your chair…” he mutters, matter-of-factly.
Jeremiah quirks an eyebrow, leaning a bit closer.
“What’d you say?”
Mike raises his volume a bit, “That’s not your chair.”
That may have come off a bit harsher sounding than intended, which Mike only realizes because Jeremiah sits back and raises his hands defensively.
“Jeez, man. What are you even talking about?”
Mike clears his throat and lowers his voice a bit, trying to adjust his tone to sound softer.
“I just mean you…you normally sit there…”
He looks at the chair to his left and gestures with a slight nod.
Jeremiah looks at the chair, then back at Mike and shrugs.
“So?”
Mike looks between him and the chair before looking back at his book, sighing and muttering before he takes a sip of his coffee.
“Nothing, nevermind…”
As he takes a sip, Jeremiah smiles a bit, chuckling softly.
“Well, ain’t that cute.”
Mike furrows his brow and swallows, coughing slightly before he speaks up.
“What?
Jeremiah points to the cup. Mike looks down at the drink in his hand, only now noticing the way Ness wrote his name. The handwriting is almost a bit…theatrical, in a way. It loops in a few places, almost half-cursive, and the dot above the “i” is in the shape of a heart.
Jeremiah laughs a bit, “You get hit on by some cute barista or something?”
Mike blushes a bit and sets the coffee down, blinking a few times as he thinks back to the interaction.
“Um…uh, no, I-I don’t…I don’t think so.”
He furrows his brow further as he looks back at his book, a classic way of avoiding eye contact.
“He just, um…he was real…cheery…he probably just writes like that.”
Jeremiah nods, crossing his arms.
“Alright…”
He lifts his chin up and leans forward, taking a peak at Mike’s book.
“Whatchya readin?”
Mike glances up at him, then looks back down at the book.
“Oh, uh…”
He sticks a finger between the pages he was reading to keep his place and closes the book over it, showing Jeremiah the cover.
“It’s a book on theories surrounding dreams…like…what they mean, what they can tell you, how to utilize them, stuff like that.”
“Huh…interesting. You been having some weird dreams or something?”
Mike lets out a sigh, “Um…I mean, just the same ones I’ve had for years…figured I’d try to…I dunno, learn more about them or something. See if maybe I can get something out of it…”
Mike is vague on purpose, he always is. He figures Jeremiah wouldn’t really care to know more about his dreams, his nightmares, why he keeps having the same ones, what exactly he’s trying to use them to figure out. Even if he did, Mike wouldn’t want to get into it. Jeremiah just nods.
“Interesting…You know, I have this recurring dream where-”
“I’m sorry, can you just…can you please move to the other chair?”
Jeremiah makes a puzzled, slightly amused expression.
“What’s with you and the chair, dude?”
Mike sighs, “It’s just that…you normally sit there and I’m always positioned under the assumption that you’re going to sit there. I tried to just face you from here but it was uncomfortable so if you could just…sit where you normally do, that’d be great…”
Jeremiah gives Mike a look that floods him with embarrassment. He slumps sheepishly and fidgets with the corners of his book, muttering out a “Please.” that hopefully softens his tone.
Jeremiah sighs a bit and shrugs.
“Alright, man, if it really bothers you that much.”
Jeremiah gets up, moving the metal food court chairs with complete ease as he sits in the one to Mike’s left, where he “normally” sits. Mike mumbles a “Thank you.” and returns to his book, sipping his coffee periodically.
“Anyways, as I was saying, I have this recurring dream where I forget to put my pants on before going places…can you tell me what that means?”
“Uh…probably means you’re worried you might forget to put on your pants.”
Jeremiah scoffs a laugh and nods, “Yeah fair enough. I’ve come close a few times.”
Mike snorts a little, “You’ve come close to leaving your house with no pants on?”
“Yeah, man! I’ll be about to head out the door and realize almost too late why I felt so comfortable!”
Mike shakes his head, a crooked, amused smile on his face.
“Maybe you have prophetic dreams. They’re warning you to pay more attention before you make an ass out of yourself.”
Jeremiah laughs and gives Mike a small punch in the arm. Mike rubs over his sleeve where Jeremiah punched him, letting out a half hurt, half amused breath.
“Ow, hey.”
“Don’t be a smartass, Mike.”
Mike rolls his eyes and goes back to his book.
“Don’t be an idiot who forgets his pants…”
Some time passes and Mike jumps a little when he’s broken out of his focus by someone else sitting at the table. Raphael, another member of security at the mall, one Mike doesn’t know all that well. Well, to be fair Mike doesn’t really know anyone besides Jeremiah and Vanessa. He has the chair flipped around backwards, arms over the back, and he’s got his typical playful smirk on his face.
“Hello coworkers.”
Raph steals a fry from Jeremiah.
“Hey, I just got those!”
“Explains why they’re hot.”
“Yeah, no shit, Raph. Hands off my food.”
Jeremiah wraps his arm around his basket of fries, pulling them close and huddling over them protectively. Raph laughs and lifts his hands up in mock-defense.
“Alright, alright, no problemo, pal…”
“Who the hell says pal?”
“Well I’d normally say amigo but Nessa said if I kept saying that she’d pinch my ear off or something, sooo I’m trying to phase it out of my vocabulary…”
Jeremiah scoffs.
“What’s she got against the word amigo?”
Raph shrugs, “I think she has more of an issue with me than the word. I’m sure she just got annoyed with me saying it all the time, as she gets annoyed with everything I do.”
“Well you are obnoxious.”
Raph puts a hand to his chest and gasps dramatically.
“I think I’m rather charming, actually.”
Mike glances between the two, silently observing their conversation. Once he decides they’re not really saying anything interesting, he just goes back to reading his book and drinking his slowly cooling coffee. His brows furrow as he focuses on the words across the pages, deep in thought about how some of it might apply to his own dreams, hoping he can figure out something, anything to make sense of what happened to his brother.
His nightmares are a repetitive loop. The day Garret was taken. The last day their family really felt like a family, before he had to fuck up and take his eyes off his brother, leading to him being taken by god knows who to god knows where for god knows what reason. His dad at the grill, his mom at the picnic table, Garret playing with his toy plane. What should be a happy memory always shifts into being surrounded by endlessly tall trees, the sound of the wind and birds overwhelming him, and the sight of Garret, his poor little brother, hand against the glass in the backseat of a stranger’s car.
He runs and runs, screams his name, but it’s never enough. He’s never able to stop it, never able to save him, never able to figure out even a clue of who took him. That’s why he’s been reading this book. He’s desperate for answers, for strategies, for anything that might help him solve what the police couldn’t, hoping that somewhere in these dreams is a detail he missed. A face, a license plate, anything, anything that the 12 year old version of him might have seen that he just needs to remember. Maybe then he can finally at least get some closure. Eventually.
He’s broken out of his train of thought when he feels a large hand on his shoulder. He looks up to see Jeremiah standing over him. Raph is gone.
“Hey, I’m gonna head out to my post, actually do my job and stuff. You can have the rest of my fries if you want.”
He pats Mike’s back, making him lean forward a bit from the impact, always a little too unaware of how much bigger and stronger than Mike he is.
“And stop scrunching your face up like that, you’re gonna give yourself a headache.”
Mike watches Jeremiah as he leaves and turns back to his book, pausing for a moment.
Damn. He is getting a headache.
He makes a dog ear on the page he was reading and puts his book back in his bag. He grabs his coffee, staring at it for a moment. Would more caffeine make it better or worse? He’s not sure. He keeps drinking it anyways, caring more about not being exhausted then having his head not hurt. He’s more than used to headaches. Dealing with the crowded, bright mall, dealing with Abby, just always holding his face too damn tense.
He takes the painkillers he keeps in his bag out, shaking a couple into his palm, then popping them in his mouth and washing them down with his nearly empty coffee. He grimaces as they struggle a bit to go down, then sighs once they’re gone.
Just another day and just another headache.
The rest of Mike’s shift continues on as normal. Nothing crazy happens, he stops by for some ice cream, he sits and reads, keeping an eye and ear out for anything suspicious or any messages on his radio. He occasionally sees his coworkers, exchanges a few words if they engage with him first, otherwise he keeps quiet, zoned in on his book and his theories.
It isn’t long before his shift is over and he heads back home, greeting Max as he walks in the door. Max is watching TV on the couch as she typically does after she brings Abby home. Abby always goes straight to her room to color, leaving Max with not much else to do. Max will check on her from time to time, ask if she’s hungry or wants to do anything, but she never moves from her desk, always just drawing whatever’s on her mind. It keeps her busy, so neither Mike or Max particularly mind it, they just worry sometimes.
“Abby been good?”
“Yep. She hasn’t left her room, like always.”
Mike sighs a bit.
“Well, as long as she’s not getting into trouble.”
Mike hangs up his jacket and his bag, sitting in his arm chair, slumping back with a heavy exhale. Max glances up at him, fidgeting with her rings, a slight hint of concern on her face. Mike misreads it as possible irritation and rubs the back of his neck.
“I swear I’ll pay you soon…I only recently got this job, money’s still tight.”
He pauses and swallows, continuing before Max gets the chance to respond.
“I really appreciate you looking after her, seriously. I…I don’t want you to feel like I’m taking advantage of you or something, I’m just…in a huge bind right now.”
Max’s expression softens into an almost pitiful smile.
“It’s ok, Mike. I know. You’ve been in ‘a huge bind’ for as long as I’ve known you, since your dad…you know.”
She shrugs vaguely, not needing to say more. They both know.
“Money would be nice but I’m mostly doing this cause I care about you guys. Abby deserves to be taken care of and I know this is the only way you can manage that right now.”
Mike looks away and swallows, slumping further down in his chair. He knows she means all of that, that she’s essentially doing this out of the kindness of her heart, but he can’t help feeling a little guilty. He wishes he could do something, anything to pay her back for all she does for him.
“I just…feel like I really owe you by now.”
“You don’t owe me an-”
“I don’t owe you anything, I know, that’s what you always say…but I should. I should be doing something to thank you, more than just whatever words I can give you.”
The room hangs silent for a moment. Max bites her lip a little, spinning her ring round and round, taking a hesitant breath before speaking up.
“Well…if you really wanna do something to thank me that bad…I’m sure I could come up with something.”
Mike looks at her curiously, brows furrowed.
“Yeah? Like…like what? As long as it’s not too expensive, I…I’d like to do something for you.”
Max smiles shyly, playing with the ends of her hair a bit.
“I was thinking maybe we could just…go out to eat sometime?”
Mike looks confused for a moment.
“Max, I don’t think we could…I mean, again, I’m tight on money, I don’t know who else would watch Abby-”
“That’s ok! I-I could pay and we could just take Abby with us! I wouldn’t mind going out with all three of us, I just…kinda wanna spend more time with you. Have a little more than…this. Just…saying hi, talking about Abby, talking about work. She’d probably spend the whole time coloring anyways, it’ll be like she's barely even there.”
Mike chews on his tongue, his forehead creased in thought. He scratches his face a little and sighs.
“I mean…I’d feel bad making you pay…”
“We could split it? Whatever would work best, Mike, please, I just…I think we could both use some time out, you know? I want…”
Max stops, feeling like maybe she’s sounding a little desperate. She is, frankly, but she’d rather not embarrass herself entirely. Mike thinks for a moment and sighs.
“Well…maybe we could. We all should probably get out more, that’s true. I just…can’t even think of anywhere I could afford.”
Then Mike remembers where he was this morning.
“Actually…this morning I stopped by this pretty cheap place. A little family owned diner. I only tried the coffee but it was pretty good. Maybe we could go there?”
Max shrugs.
“I’m fine with anything.”
Mike nods.
“Alright. I guess I’ll ask Abby about it and we can…figure out when we wanna go.”
Max smiles, “Sounds perfect.”
Mike gives a small smile and nods before the room returns to nothing but the tv playing. Once Max leaves, Mike finishes up dinner for him and Abby. When they sit at the table, Mike pokes at his food as he speaks.
“Hey, so…Max was wondering if maybe we’d wanna go out with her sometime. Just for…I dunno, lunch or something? Would you…Would you wanna do that?”
Mike looks up at his sister, who shrugs, mouth half-full.
“Sure. I like Max.”
Mike nods at the simple response.
“Where would we go?”
Mike tilts his head to the side a bit, taking a bite of food before he answers.
“Uh…this diner sorta near by. It’s called Sparky’s. I got coffee there this morning and everything was pretty cheap and it seemed nice so…”
He shrugs, taking another bite of food. Abby nods, thinking for a moment before she smiles.
“Can I get chicken tenders?”
Mike looks up at her and laughs softly.
“Um. Yeah, probably.”
Abby nods and smiles, going back to eating her food. Guess that conversation is over.
They finish up dinner and Mike puts Abby to bed, tucking her in and making sure she has everything she needs before going to his own room. He lays down and begins reading his dream theory book again, turning to the dog ear and flipping it back up, his lamp lit beside him. Once it seems late enough, he sets the book on his night stand, takes his meds, turns the lamp off and turns on his nature sounds. If he’s lucky, maybe he’ll finally see something useful in his dreams tonight, something that might help finally lay his nightmares to rest.
If not, then it’ll just be a night like any other, and then a day like any other. Nothing changing, nothing getting better, but hopefully at least nothing getting worse. He’ll just have to see when he wakes up in the morning.
He closes his eyes and thinks back to the day Garret went missing, thinking of whatever he can on his own before he drifts to sleep. His memories have only grown fuzzier over time. Each year he ages, the details get more and more obscured, not sure what may have even actually happened versus what he’s just seeing in his dreams. His dreams haven’t wavered in how vivid they are, however. He hopes that means he can find more in them than his foggy, partially repressed memories.
His surroundings and senses slowly fade around him, all that lingers being the nature sounds and his breathing, until once again, he’s back in those woods, back with his family, back to desperately searching for answers. Running, screaming, chasing, back in this loop again.
And like always, he wakes up in the morning with no more information than before. Just the permanent pit of guilt left over in his chest and a blanket of unrest draped over his whole body, making it difficult for him to even get out of bed. He only does so for Abby, all he has left.