Who: Isobel and Michael When: During the "no caffeine" situation Where: Michael's place What: Chatting and drinking Rating: PG-13 Status: Closed; Completed Gdoc
After she delivered the bacon and cheese fries to Rosa, Isobel headed to Michael’s apartment. Before the lack of caffeine and him meeting Sean, they had discussed meeting up for a little “show and tell” with their new abilities. Isobel guessed Michael had figured out he could essentially walk through fire and not be burned. Not to mention, Michael had his father’s ability to mind control too. That one could be more problematic, but only because she knew how much Michael didn’t like using it. What Jones and Noah did with that ability was disgusting and Isobel knew Michael never wanted to be a part of that.
Though Michael had mentioned already having beer, Isobel decided to be generous and bring some of her own. She even picked up a bottle of tequila for the occasion since she just knew it was going to get worse before any of it got better. She couldn’t blame Michael for how he felt towards Sean. Alex was his first love and from where she’d been in the timeline, they’d become an actual couple, going out on their first date and everything. Here, as long as Sean remained in the picture, that would probably never happen. Knowing he could never right the wrongs of so many years had to be killing her brother.
Arriving, Isobel didn’t bother knocking. Instead, she used her telepathy to reach out to Michael. Ready or not, I’m here. But don’t worry. I brought our best friend: alcohol.
You know us so well. was the response Michael thought back to Iz.
Michael never locked the front door if he was home. It just never occurred to him. If anyone was dumb enough to come in unexpectedly they’d learn that he didn’t need his powers to fuck them up. Have baseball bat, will swing for the stands.
He was sitting at his kitchen table, already a beer into things. His hair was its typical curly mess which didn’t really give any clue to how long he’d been awake. Michael looked his sister over with a critical eye as if looking for any signs Valenti was doing wrong by her.
“How’s Rosa?”
Smiling to herself, Isobel let herself in and spotted Michael at the kitchen table, a beer beside him. He looked at her, clear eyes studying her critically under those blond curls. Isobel had an inkling of what he was exactly looking for too, but he wouldn’t find anything. Kyle and her were doing fine.
The blond put her beer in the fridge, but left the tequila on the table between the two of them. She dug herself out a beer from the fridge too.
“She’s okay. She’ll be better when the Dome gives us our caffeine again,” Isobel replied, taking a seat across from her brother.
“But we’re not here to talk about Rosa,” Isobel continued, taking a sip from her beer. “How are you doing?”
Michael was the master at avoidance. Unfortunately, Isobel knew this. He could throw Max off easily. His sister was vastly more clever than their sensitive brother. Damn it.
“I’m peachy,” he replied with that smug smile he typically wore. Of course he followed that up with a drink of beer. Technically it was still in the AM. That had never stopped Michael before.
“How’s Valenti?” Might as well keep trying.
Isobel rolled her eyes at his answer. There goes Michael, the master of avoidance, doing what he did best: deflection. Unfortunately for him, Isobel was not about to let him off the hook that easily. She took another sip of her beer.
“He’s peachy,” Isobel echoed with a smirk. “Now spill it or you and I are taking a little visit to the mindscape where avoidance is kind of, sort of impossible.”
“No, lying is impossible.” Michael smirked at his sister while he lifted his beer bottle. “Avoidance…well, you just have to know how to dodge questions and I’m used to that for how many times I’ve been arrested.”
But he knew Iz wouldn’t give up so after he took a long drink of his beer he sighed. “Fine. What do you want to know first? Fire or how much I am a complete failure at relationships?”
“And we both know you’ll never dodge everything I throw at you,” Isobel counted, taking a sip from her own beer. “Or I will wear you down.”
Because Isobel was stubborn and determined and a pain in the ass, especially to both her brothers whom she loved so much.
“Fire. Let’s start with the potential good and end with the very obvious bad.”
“It’s also the one I have the least amount of information on.” Michael finished his beer then opened another before he began.
He took a drink then put the bottle on the table. “I don’t know. One minute I’m tossing dinosaurs around the next there was fire. I was manipulating it.” And he had no idea where that power came from.
“Well…I might be able to tell you where that power came from,” Isobel replied carefully, picking at the label on her beer bottle.
Because Michael hadn’t taken the trip home she did, she wasn’t sure which power her brother might be exhibiting at the moment. With the mention of fire, she had a better idea of where it came from, but control was a completely different story.
Michael took note of Iz playing with the label of her beer then frowned. “Spill it, Iz.” Because he wanted to know. All of it. He needed to know.
Isobel took a long drink from her beer. She was hoping to approach Michael with backup, but it looked like she was flying solo. Telling him where the power came from would involve her tiptoeing into what happened back home. She still wasn’t sure how Michael would handle that. She decided to go with her best bet and keep it vague as possible.
“It’s from your father, Michael,” Isobel replied carefully. “Which you kind of met already.”
Michael’s brows lifted. He was suddenly getting the idea that he would need something stronger than beer.
“My what?” His tone indicated that he really didn’t believe that. “What do you mean kind of?”
Isobel pushed the bottle of tequila towards her brother, knowing full well he wasn’t going to need something a lot stronger than that beer when they were finished with this conversation.
“Jones is your father. Max is his clone,” Isobel replied carefully. “And from your point in the timeline, you should know that he looks like Max at least.” Isobel took a sip from her beer. She’d probably need something stronger just to make it through the conversation.
“Jones wanted to use Max’s body to keep himself alive. It’s why he created tons of clones just like Max so he could keep jumping into them,” Isobel continued. “And along the way you found out you could walk through fire and not get burned.”
“That’s who that was?” This was definitely getting weird, and that was saying something. Michael took the tequila, opened it then took a long drink.
“And that led to me being able to throw it around?” Because that was what happened with the dinosaurs.
Isobel took the bottle from Michael and took a drink herself before pushing it back towards him. He was taking it better than she thought he would.
“Yep. He’s a huge dick. Unfortunately,” Isobel replied. “But everything gets taken care of…eventually.” It was far more complicated than that, but Isobel was trying to focus more on Michael’s new power and less on how much of a dick his father turned out to be.
“As long as you had a fire source to manipulate, you can, yeah,” Isobel confirmed. “I guess it’s one good thing that came out of meeting him.”
“Of course he’s a huge dick,” Michael grumbled. No, he wasn’t taking this well. It was just taking a few moments for the bad to sink in. But he was also missing a whole lot on just how bad his dad was. “He’s my dad. I don’t get the good parents. Ever, apparently.” His foster families had all been absolute fucks.
“Taken care of?” This he wanted to hear.
“Hey, what about your mom?” Isobel countered. “She was one tough cookie and it’s clear she loved you.”
She worked to defeat the Dictator and protect Michael. Lousie, Isobel’s mother, was friend’s with Nora. The two of them were brave enough to escape their world even if they ended up in place they didn’t plan, Earth.
“Uh, yeah,” Isobel replied softly. “We had to kill him. He wanted to possess Max permanently and kill us all. We banned together, including you, and we were able to take him down, but it was difficult. In the end, we had to figure out which was Max and which was Jones. Liz took the final shot and she chose right.”
The blond reached for the tequila and took another drink. Just thinking about it made her sick to her stomach.
“You mean the mom I never knew until I saw her as a shell of herself and a prisoner slash experiment specimen of the government?” Michael? Bitter? Not one bit. “That mom?”
Iz had taken the tequila so Michael settled for draining his beer then opening another one.
“So Liz finally did something right?” He really did have a thing against science nerds sometimes. “What tipped her off or was it just a lucky roll of the dice?”
“Hey, you learn more about her,” Isobel replied, sealing the bottle and pushing it towards Michael again. She knew Max and herself were the only steady family Michael had; his experiences with parental figures was just bad. And when he finally meets his mom? She dies in front of him. Yeah, she knew where the bitterness came from and she couldn’t blame him for that.
“One redeeming point in her favor,” Isobel added with a smile. “He named the song. The real Max told her he couldn’t remember it because he was too busy looking into her eyes or some bullshit like that.” Her brother was such a romantic.
“So, questions? Comments? Bitching about Sean?”
He took the tequila without a word then upended it to pour a long drink down his gullet. This would be a spectacular drunk.
“Max is a sap,” he said by way of finishing that conversation.
Bringing up Sean didn’t help his mood. In fact, it made it worse. Only with Isobel would Michael let it show at all. “I hate ‘im. He’s everything I’m not. Never was or could be. And he’s perfect for Alex.” And this place allowed Alex to be who and what he was without repercussions without Michael having a chance to participate in that with him.
Isobel wasn’t surprised that the mention of Sean upset him. Like Michael said, Sean was everything he wasn’t and, at least according to him, he was perfect for Alex. Isobel wanted to disagree, but she could see his point. He didn’t have half the baggage that Michael possessed, but she always believed that was what made Alex and Michael good for each other. They helped each other deal with that baggage.
“Yeah, I don’t know about perfect,” Isobel replied, polishing off her beer. “Everyone has baggage.”
Michael gave a derisive snort. “Are you kidding me? He spent exactly six months fucking around before he found Alex.” There went some more tequila. “Then they lived happily ever after. That was two years ago.”
He never had a chance. Never got a chance with Alex. Not even in this place where a lot of people saw it as their opportunity to be happy. Michael saw it as yet another place to remind him of how worthless his life was.
“Well, to be fair, you were with Maria when I arrived here,” Isobel replied. “And I believe you were with Maria when Alex arrived too. Or that version of you was anyway.” In their world, Maria and Michael had mutually broken up, but here it was a different story when Isobel arrived.
“It was just…really shitty timing,” Isobel added quietly. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t be happy here even if it isn’t with Alex, but, knowing you, you’ve already made it your mission to be as miserable as possible while you’re stuck here.”
He could see how that would happen, him being with Deluca if Alex wasn’t here. They had history after all. Not quite as rocky as with Alex, but nothing went smoothly with Michael.
“You’re hilarious,” he said. Then he sighed as he shoved his fingers back through his curls. The gesture only messed them up more.
“What about coming out of the alien closet?” Maybe if he changed the subject…
Isobel stuck her tongue out. “I do what I can.” And of course Michael would attempt to change the subject. Isobel rolled her eyes to let him know she knew exactly what he was doing, but he did make a good point.
“You’re totally trying to change the subject,” Isobel replied, reaching for the bottle of tequila and taking a sip. “Who says I haven’t already fallen out of the alien closet?”
Michael sighed. “The truth is I don’t know if I can even try to be happy, Iz. Every time I see Alex or his boy toy on the network or around town it’s a punch in the chest. I’m a fucking mess. You know it. And I know it.” And that was way more confession than anyone has ever gotten out of him.
“Oh yeah?” Michael didn’t believe her one bit. “Name me one person that you’ve told you’re an alien.”
Isobel frowned and scooted her chair over next to Michael’s, wrapping an arm around his shoulder, and pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Oh Michael. Hey, we can be messes together. You don’t have to deal with Alex and his boy toy alone, okay?”
And Isobel hadn’t told anyone she was an alien, but she’d considered using her powers on Dr. Geek so that was something, right? “Does considering telling someone count?” She offered him a playful smile.
Iz was the only one allowed to show him sympathy. She had long since earned the right. It even worked on Michael a little since he leaned against her after the kiss. “Thanks.” He knew he was being a bit dramatic. Probably a lot dramatic. Maybe Iz was right. Maybe he needed to get his head on straight.
He snorted at the question. “No.”
“How about I work on telling someone about my alien heritage and you can work towards maybe moving forward?” Isobel offered. Obviously, Isobel would be willing to help him and she might just need his help to share their secret.
“I’ll help you. You help me,” Isobel added, putting her head on his shoulder. “Maybe it’ll be good for both of us or at least we can say we made an attempt.”
Michael looked at her as if she were nuts. “Every time you tell someone the truth I go on a real date?” Not a booty call. “Something like that?”
He smirked at her as he shook his head. “What the fuck is wrong with us that we need this weird challenge to make us do what would be good for us?”
“I think the better question is what isn’t wrong with us?” Isobel countered, smirking. “But you have yourself a deal. Every time I tell someone the truth, you go on a real date or something close to that at least.”
She prodded him in the shoulder as she spoke. “Should we shake on it or blood oath it or what?” She was totally kidding about the latter.
Michael turned his head in order to kiss Iz on the cheek. “Pretty sure an unusual display of sibling affection is enough.”
He chuckled then hugged his sister against his side.