Para: Home Sweet Home || Michael-Curry
“Yeah, sure thing. Though is coffee all that great for a guy with a heart condition? I mean, don’t let me be one to judge you when I am not exactly the epitome of resisted vices but still.” Mona was all amusement instead of accusation. Leave it to a man like Michael to ignore the orders of any doctor. She knew that he had his needs. If none of the others were being fulfilled (and given how empty the house felt, that seemed the case) then choking down full cups of black coffee at this hour probably seemed pretty harmless.
She let him pull her into the kitchen. Nothing much had changed here. The furniture was still the same. Those refinished chairs held generations of Mayfairs before her time – hell, before Michael’s time even. She pulled one out, nails painted blood red and glistening where they slid over the sturdy wood. Mona sat down, making an attempt to smooth out the billowing skirt of that white dress. Knees together, ankles crossed – ‘Only thing that ought to be between the thighs of a lady are her stockings and respect for Jesus!’, one of the Mayfair cousins had told her in church one Sunday, years and years ago, when Mona made it a habit to sit with her knees wide apart just like the boys did.
Her white hands coasted her fingernails over the surface of the table, feeling the grains of the wood under her touch. Marveling at the texture of it, seeing those intricate little bits that her mortal eyes had been too weak to appreciate. Someone had carved this table with love and Michael himself had dragged it outside one sweltering day in summer to sand off the worn spots, refinishing it with this shiny varnish. Mona blinked out of her fascination with the table when the chair beside her scooted out, filled by a satisfied man with a steaming mug moments later.
“Oh. Life stories, right. I wish I could say it was all excitement, this immortal life. But in all truth it’s pretty much as complicated and difficult and frustrating as it was when I wasn’t a She Hulk Vampirette. Did some world traveling with Quinn. We parted ways somewhere in Europe. Maybe I’m too much for anybody anymore. You know me. And I’m not sure where he is. So I came crawling back home. This is probably where I should start sobbing, Uncle Michael, but I do think my tear reserve might be depleted. I don’t know. I’m here. That’s a good place to be while I figure out the rest, don’t you think?”
Michael held the cup of coffee close to the edge of the table they now sat facing each other at. Even when the mug was lifted and he took a sip of the liquid he knew would be too hot to swallow properly (having to cinch his teeth in the aftermath), those blue eyes never left the face of the woman in front of him. Mona talked, her voice so familiar and yet so changed. Like the rest of her. Really, she was precisely how he remembered her before she began to drift so far away from him. But one look deep enough at her? Said she was entirely new in a way he would probably never understand. Yet, he couldn’t help but be grateful for having her in any way, shape, or form. Given the fact that it was him who was nearly the one to blame for losing her in the first place.
He listened. Truly and deeply to everything she told him. But his mind was between the here and now and the past that was not-so-distant enough he could brush off those memories from surfacing now and then. The impeding doom he lived in each and every day at the idea he’d wake up to a phone call or at her bedside and she’d be gone. Or that guilt he knew that until he was six feet under? Letting go of it wasn’t possible. Not completely. Relieved of it most nights? Yes. But saying goodbye completely? No, not possible.
Exhaling deeply, he squinted. “Do I have to give him a punch when I see him for making you cry? Cause you know? I might not do much to him given what he is? But I know I can make it hurt like hell anyway.” Hearing Quinn wandered off didn’t settle easily. Why didn’t you come home then? He didn’t ask it, but he thought it. “And you better not start crying again. Or I will track him down.” Oh how the smile on his mouth could be genuine and joking at the same time. Hard to tell if he would or not.
“Yes it’s a good place to start. Home’s always a good place to begin. You know you can be here whenever you want. It’s as much your house as it is mine,” and that was something he’d rarely tell another living soul. “So, my turn is it?” Finally looking down, Michael ran a hand along the edge of the table and bit into his bottom lip. No better way to kick off the conversation but with an.. “Aaron’s alive. Seems your brother, friend, whatever you call it? David Talbot? Isn’t the only one skilled at swapping bodies in the last second. We put him in jail, you know? I’d actually asked Ryan to let me in a room with him alone for ten minutes and we wouldn’t even need a trial when I was done.” He shook his head. To think he’d have walked into that room and not given Aaron one second to defend himself before he beat him to death with his bare hands?
Aaron didn’t know but he had two near death experiences in the span of a month that year. Kudos to him for surviving both. One by skill, the other by dumb luck of Ryan talking Michael out of being the one to murder him in retaliation for who he believed was still in that body. The man who murdered his brother. “I found out about a week ago. I thought you should hear it from me first.” Looking back up, Michael waited for what he said to sink in and to see her reaction. Problem was. They could totally stop talking about his life right then and there. Because past Aaron being alive? There wasn’t much he had in the way of good to speak about. And she’d just come home. Why lay his issues on her shoulders? Talk weather next? The Saints? Coffee?
One step at a time, Michael. One step at a time.
