mike shows up to old brush valley with pretty much nothing but a name and a secondhand guitar he never learned how to play.
in his first few weeks there, sneaking around at night, he'd spot chance and shadow and a few other employees sitting out by the bonfire pit when the weather was nice. they don't really have a fire most of the time, but a handful of them are musicians so they all drag out their instruments and play along and all.
mike's intrigued; its a way to get information and both become more familiar with the folks he's working with, and he mentions it offhandedly to hunter, who in turn tells chance. he's seen mike at a distance before and is a bit curious about the new guy with a shifty look in his eyes who has a story he clearly isn't telling.
and if mike is a troublemaker, chance is twice as much, so he's sure to sit out on he and shadows porch in the early morning with his guitar, right when he knows mike is heading in for his security shift. it starts off with a "nice guitar," and a "thanks," and turns to an invitation to help mike change the strings on the near-ancient acoustic he picked up on a whim at an antique store after his last breakup.
it's just an invitation and then it's breakfast every morning, movie nights on sundays, song suggestions and book suggestions and sharing pieces of their lives over biscuits and gravy and between the front seats of chance's car when they leave the valley and.
and then mike gets with edgar and chance isn't hurt, exactly, but there's a thread of betrayal clawing at the back of his throat and he isn't quite sure why. he has shadow. he has shadow and they're partners and they live together. but he's not mike, with his quick smiles and quicker fingers and a smart mouth, who touches without thinking and apologizes after and who chance still wants in any way he can have him.
it's easier to be friends, of course, but chance didn't think it would hurt this much to have mike showing up in the doorway of chance's so-called office at base, with that haunted look in his eyes, asking "chance, please," in the soft way chance has never been able to deny him. he would give mike all the world and more even if he knows he'll never be what edgar is to mike; even if he was there first, even if they share so much and keep sharing and mike never tried to drown him in the ocean or kill him in cold blood or die for him. they're just friends. it's easier that way.
