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Liam in one of Mike’s shirts and his own boxer briefs, sitting on the counter instead of a chair because he’s a wildling, ankles knocking against the cabinets.
again, doesn’t think he could do it, not without flinching. That he stops this now or he puts it in Liam’s hands to do what he will, because Liam’s more responsible than him in the only way it really counts, and Mike loves him, and Mike’s fucking sick of it, of loving him and not having him and not being able to blame anyone but himself for it, sickly grateful for any sign that Liam’s better off without him.
MIKE WITH THE L-WORD even if it is only in his thoughts </3
Mike didn’t know what he was getting himself into when he sent Liam that text. Didn’t have a clue that when he opened that door a crack, to let Liam choose whether or not he wanted to push it open the rest of the way, Liam would decide instead to blow the damn thing off its hinges. Mike is, apparently, a fucking idiot. How could he have expected anything else, knowing Liam Fitzgerald as well as he does? Years may have passed, but the kid’s still the same, deep down.
Mike always thought Liam, young as he was, would leave at the first hint of something newer, more exciting, but it’s been six years now that Mike’s known him, and the only time Liam stayed away is when Mike drove him off. Even then that didn’t really stick. He’s starting to figure out that as long as he lets Liam in his life, distance be damned, his own lack of charms be damned, Liam is going to keep coming back.
No one seems to have let Liam know that by the time you hit twenty-four you probably shouldn’t be sitting on counters, swinging your feet like an infant. Alternately, Liam got told enough that he decided he’d do it more. That’s just as likely.
Mike gets the chicken breasts seasoned and in the oven while Liam cusses out the vegetables. Mike doesn’t have a lot of faith in Liam’s knife skills after the third time he hears Liam mutter ‘fuck off’ under his breath, and turns out he was right not to. “You murdered those poor fuckers,” Mike says, looking at a mess of red wet pulp that was supposed to be slices of tomatoes. Liam grabs the carnage and shoves it in his mouth.
He has Liam, though, and maybe that’s not much, maybe that’s not enough, but in this moment, it suits him just fine.
“Will you come if we make the Finals?” he asks, and Mike realizes that it’s the first time Liam’s asked him to come to one of his games since that drink in St. Paul two years ago. He asked in ignorance then, had no idea how much he was asking for. He knows what he’s asking for now.
Mike traces those bruises whenever Liam comes to him, not gently, exactly, because Liam doesn’t like gentle, but carefully. Traces the places where other people have left their mark on him and bites back the anger that washes over him, unsure if it’s the implied violence of them or the mere fact that someone else has left an imprint on Liam’s body that has him pissed. One of those things would be better. One of those things would mean he was a better person. He’s still not sure which one it is.
“You fucking see that?” Liam crows an hour later. Mike can picture him right now, hair damp from the shower, throat raw from celebration, burning brighter than anyone else in the damn room.
Mike’s watching the slow sweep of the zamboni across the ice, missing something he can’t put into words.
Liam’s a speck below, but the jumbotron cuts in close when it’s his turn to take his skate with the Cup. He accepts it a little gingerly, and there’s a collective intake of breath from the spectators when it looks like he might drop it.
Mike wakes up to the sound of Liam walking right into a wall. At least he’s pretty sure that’s what it was, considering when he gets into the hall Liam’s glaring at the doorway into the living room, rubbing his head and looking betrayed.
Mike curves a hand over it. He’s gentle about it, but Liam still sucks in a breath between his teeth, sharp and pained. If it hurts him this much drunk, it must be fucking torture sober. “They’re broken, aren’t they,” Mike says, flat. “Pretty sure, yeah,” Liam says. “How many games have you been playing with broken ribs?” Mike asks. “Three,” Liam says.
godammit liam
On the ride to Mike’s he rambles about sparklers (he’d probably burn his eyebrows off, knowing him), and potato salad (Mike’s potato salad is admittedly very good), and buying a shit-ton of fireworks (not actually legal, and even if it was Mike would never fucking let him, but nice try).
Mike’s getting old, hell, Mike’s been old, and here’s Liam singing at the top of his lungs, seat dancing, wearing a backwards cap without an ounce of irony and somehow fucking pulling it off. Mike’s not sure how this happened to him, but then, it’s been happening for a long time. You’d think he’d be used to it by now.
“He’s happy about it,” his mom says. “I know he’d rather get his teeth pulled than say it, but he loves the hell out of you.”
at least liam got to hear it from someone ;-;
“I just realized something,” Liam says after a minute, sounding wide awake. Of course the second you turn out the light he’s got his energy back, because he is apparently a toddler. “Mike, hey.”
Subtle, thy name is not Fitzgerald.
“You cool with me telling the guys I have a boyfriend?” Liam asks, and then before Mike can say anything, “I live with you, telling me I’m not your boyfriend is actively deluded at this point, Michael.” Mike gives him the finger, but he really has no rebuttal there.
Mike refuses to be the kind of controlling shithead that dictates what Liam is or isn’t allowed to do like he’s got any valid claim on him. He saw enough of that growing up.
“That’s so sweet,” Liam says, following him up the stairs like an annoyingly gleeful shadow. “You’re so sweet.” “You want to sleep in the bed too, you might want to stop there,” Mike says. “You are probably the only person alive who would make someone sleep on the couch for calling them sweet,” Liam says.
It’s an objectively stupid moment that Mike realizes he’s going to be stuck with Liam for the rest of his life.
They don’t tell you that when you let a ridiculous teenager with more balls than sense into your bed, you aren’t getting him to leave. If Mike knew that, he never would have done anything with Liam, wouldn’t have considered it for even a second. It would have been a mistake.
“What?” Liam asks, looking up from the crossword like he can feel Mike’s eyes on him. “Nothing,” Mike says, leaning over to press a kiss to Liam’s temple, and tries and fails to bite back a smile when Liam visibly preens at the attention.
“What’s the date?” Liam asks finally, because of course he doesn’t know, doesn’t seem to classify days beyond ‘game day’ and ‘not game day’ and occasionally ‘holiday!’, and when Mike tells him he writes it down, hand enviably steady on the page.
holiday!
That was the wrong thing to say, brings up an argument that’s been going on since before Liam even moved to Minnesota, Liam offering to come with Mike, Liam asking to come with Mike, Liam begging to come with Mike, until Mike finally cracked and let Liam come to an appointment with his neurologist, half horrified and half amused when Liam peppered rapidfire questions at the guy until he looked like he wanted to hide under his desk.
Liam goes slow now, tongue sticking out of his mouth a little like he’s concentrating the best he can, and he still can’t get the damn vegetables chopped properly. Kid can sink a puck through a goalie’s legs from thirty feet away but can’t cut a tomato without carnage ensuing. It makes no fucking sense.
“What if it’s worse next time?” Liam asks. “What if you fall down, or you hit your head, or you—” “Stop fucking making up shit scenarios,” Mike says.
“Don’t recall you applying for citizenship,” Mike says. “I’m half-assing it,” Liam says. “Too much work unless an American decides to marry me. Can’t imagine where I’d find—” “I’m leaving the room,” Mike threatens. “You planning on doing that any time soon?” Liam asks when Mike doesn’t move. “In my mind,” Mike says.
Honestly, though, she’s better behaved than Liam is. Less likely to bite, too. Or beg for food with big sad eyes. Or demand to be petted. Jesus, Mike picked up a fucking puppy long before he picked up Bella, didn’t he.
Liam doesn’t make him feel bad about it, which honestly makes him feel worse. Mike remembers when Liam would talk about his hands like a goddamn revelation. Now they’re not good for shit. They used to get beat up as bad as his face did, usually worse, so maybe it’s fitting that he’s lost control of them the same way he lost control of his head, but Mike’s always had them. There are so many things he took for granted before he lost them, but he misses his hands the most, he thinks.
He wants to see if Liam’s hair starts thinning like his dad’s. If he goes gray, like Mike has, or if it stays the sandy brown it’s always been. He wants to see if he needs reading glasses. He wants to see if his sense of humor is as childish in his sixties as it was when he was eighteen, as it still is now. He wants to see if he puts on weight in retirement, gets softer. Wants to see him with those wrinkles everyone associates with excessive smiling, because if anyone would get them, it’d be him. He’s already got the start of them, but Mike wants to see them etched deep.
“I don’t want you to leave me behind,” Liam says, muffled into Mike’s shirt. Liam never says the word death. It’s always euphemisms. After. Leave behind. Go. Dancing around it like a boxer against a stronger opponent he can only beat if they get too tired to throw a punch before they have a chance to knock him out with one blow.
I love you so fucking much, he doesn’t say, but he thinks it so goddamn hard he’s pretty sure Liam hears it anyway.
The last thing Mike said to me was that he was going to wring my fucking neck if I forgot to pick up dog food one more time. I promised I wouldn’t. I did forget, in the nightmare of a day that followed, because later that day Mike got a concussion. It was on ice, irony of ironies. He wasn’t skating. He hung his skates up when he hung his jersey up. All it took was a patch of black ice on the sidewalk, and he was gone. Knocked himself out. Intracerebral hemorrhage. He died in the hospital that night without ever regaining consciousness. He never had a chance to wring my neck, and I never had a
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I can’t count how many times Mike asked me to leave him. How many times he tried to push me away. Turns out he left me instead. That’s the reason he asked, I know. He didn’t want me to get left behind.
