Who: Alex and Mike When: Thursday 9th November, late afternoon Where: Mike’s house Status: Complete
It had been a week since Halloween but Alex was still shaken by the events of that night. He wasn’t sure why, he’d heard about a lot of unexplained things happening in Point Pleasant since he moved there but the aftermath was just a new story, nobody he knew or could have known. This time it was different. He hadn’t met Jack before but there was a good chance he would have eventually through Mike. It was too close for comfort. He’d kept a low profile for the last week; work, home, the grocery store but only in decent hours with enough daylight left, never go out at night. He didn’t like not knowing when the next random thing would happen and if he’d be caught in the crossfire again.
It was a week before Alex stopped dwelling on his own reaction and even longer before the he had the courage to face Mike about it. He may have lost somebody recently too but he still felt unprepared on how to comfort somebody else through their grief. He kept trying to think of what he could say over text that wasn’t completely cliche or inadequate but, in the end, nothing came and he gave up trying to put it into words. Instead he found himself in front of Mike’s house on Thursday afternoon, still in this work shirt and a takeaway cup of coffee in his hands. He didn’t even know if Mike would be home but he knocked anyway.
It was Terry who opened the door but he didn't require much chit chat before sending Alex upstairs where Mike was lounging in his room. When Alex knocked, Mike opened the door expecting one parent or the other, a surprised little smile curling his lips when he saw who it was. "Hey," he said tiredly and stepped back to let Alex in. "Long time no seen." The clothes he'd worn to Jack's funeral the day before were crumpled on his chair and the rest of the room was in a similar state of disarray. He'd deal with it later, right now he was too numb.
From the little he'd seen him, Alex liked Mike's dad but it was hard to appreciate that when he was looking so sombre. It’d be hard, having faced the possibility of your child dying all these years only to have to comfort him when somebody else’s child did instead. Alex tried not to think too much on Mike and his terminal illness as he headed to his bedroom but when Mike came to the door, he did search his face for any sign the stress was getting to him. Not that he was sure of what he was looking for but there was definitely more tired lines around his eyes. “Hey….” he said quietly as he stepped into the room. “I’m sorry I didn’t come by sooner. I just… I figured you’d have everyone around you, you know? It was only after the funeral that everyone left and it really hit me so…” He shrugged. “How are you?”
Mike opened his mouth, paused and then shook his head. "I don't know," he replied honestly. "Weird." He'd been so sure he'd be the first to die and even if he'd absolutely subscribed to the 'who knows, we might get hit by a meteor tomorrow' happy nihilism but he'd still never really thought one of his friends might die before he did. "You want something to drink?" he asked, waving idly at the cooler in the corner. He hadn't expected Alex to come by at all, they weren't exactly close and dealing with sad people was The Worst. Still, he was glad he was here now. There were other things he wanted to talk to him about.
“No, I'm good, thanks though.” Alex shrugged as he walked further into the bedroom and sat down on the edge of Mike’s bed. He decided there was no reason to wait for an invitation when Mike hadn’t immediately kicked him out and was offering him drinks. He crossed one leg over the other and leaned back on his elbows as he studied Mike up and down. “So… Do You want to talk about it or do you just want somebody to distract you? Because I'm pretty good with either, honestly.”
"Distraction's good," Mike said, even if he was sure he could talk Alex's ear off about how fucked up it all was and how weird it made him feel. He just really didn't feel like it. Alex might not want a drink but Mike did so he got himself a root beer before sitting down in his office chair, pulling his feet up and crossing them comfortably. "Did something happen to you on Halloween?" If not, he was sure Alex had heard about how crazy things had been in town so it wasn't really a strange question.
Alex was quietly relieved when Mike decided on distraction. He would have sat down and talked about Mike’s friend if it was what he’d wanted to but feelings weren’t exactly his first choice. He wasn’t sure if Halloween was a much better topic but he’d follow Mike’s lead for as long as he wanted to talk about it. “Not really. I mean, I saw some things but I wasn’t there long.” He’d only just gotten to Dragonfly when things started going crazy and been able to leave almost immediately but if he had been there earlier, if he’d actually bothered to make an effort to celebrate, if he’d already been drinking… The ‘what ifs’ were scarier when they weren’t impossible hypotheticals. “What about you?”
"I believed I was the Mad Hatter," Mike replied. "Had a fantastic tea party by mixing every drink I could get my hands on. Probably the only reason I didn't get an alcohol poisoning was because Nate gave me something to prevent it when he drove me home." He supposed it could have been worse, he could have dressed up as a serial killer and that without a doubt made him wonder about Jack and the way he'd died. "Something was really wrong that night, I don't... think it was drugs."
“Yeah?” Alex raised an eyebrow at Mike’s confession. He had concluded that much himself but he hadn’t dared think too much about what really caused it. It was the first time he understood why people in Point Pleasant chose to believe the official version of events. He wanted to believe them. “It probably wasn’t but will knowing that really change anything?”
Mike gave him a bewildered look. "It changes everything," he said but maybe it was different for Alex. He had always believed in things whereas Mike hadn't. "Whatever it was, it killed Jack," he added quietly. "That guy who killed him? He wasn't a bad guy, not attack people with a hatchet kind of bad, he was just... dressed up like fucking mass murderer." The police hadn't released much information but people talked. Some of the neighbors had seen things, said things, it was hard not to listen. He couldn't help but wonder what Jack would have done if he hadn't gotten killed. He'd been dressed as a demon, nothing good could come of that.
Alex nodded as he listened to Mike but he wasn’t as convinced that knowing what really happened changed much at all. If they hadn’t shot him at the scene, the police would have found and convicted the murderer, even if he hadn’t planned to become one. The only thing that would have changed would be how it dragged out afterwards, Jack would still be dead. He knew better than to say that though so he just nodded. “I’m sure he didn’t expect it to happen,” he said carefully. “But I guess all you can really do is figure out how to live with it now. It’s not like you can do anything to help the guy now.”
Mike nodded. He couldn't really put into words how weird he felt that Jack had died before he did. He'd been so pessimistic about the future for himself and clearly optimistic for his friends. Jack and Vicks would come to his funeral, that was how he'd always pictured it. They'd comfort each other and move on. Maybe by then they'd have families, or they'd have grown apart but Mike always pictured them at the funeral. His mom stoic, Terry bawling despite knowing what was coming and Vicky and Jack up front because they were his best friends. Instead he'd had to go to Jack's funeral, watch his aunt cry so hard she could barely stand without support and Vicki was way more of a mess than he'd ever imagined she'd be when he inevitably died from his stupid disease. "Yeah well," he sighed after a long moment of silence. "I'm just trying to wrap my head around curses and shit being real, I guess."
“Yeah, I didn’t think too much about the kinds of other things that were out there until I moved here,” Alex admitted. He could definitely understand wanting to change things once somebody knew the truth, he lived it too, but this wasn’t one of those times and the only thing Mike could do was keep going anyway. He wanted to tell him that but he didn’t know how to put it into words and besides, Mike had wanted distraction more than comfort. He pursed his lips together as he tried to find something and let the silence hang thick and heavy between them for a moment. “Do you want to talk about it?” He finally asked when he couldn’t think of anything. “Or even just him? Tell me what he was like. He was your drummer, right?”
"Yeah, he was a really good drummer," Mike said. "We were friends a long time but never really close. You didn't really get close to Jack." Not a lot of people got close to Mike either but their reasons were very different. "We argued a lot about what kind of music to play, he was more of a rocker than me, then Vicks joined and I was outnumbered." He huffed with a faint smile, shaking his head. "I didn't believe him when he said he was cursed, maybe if I'd believed him I could have helped him out more." He didn't want to say he might have been there with him and Jack might still be alive. That was just a horrible path to take and he didn't need the guilt trip from something he couldn't even be sure of. "How about you tell me what's going on with your research instead?" he asked then, straightening up a little to put on a brave face. "Any progress?"
Alex wanted to ask more about what Mike meant about Jack being cursed but he decided to go back to it later when it wasn’t as raw. It was Mike’s chance to dictate the conversation. “Yeah, um…” He tried to think of anything he’d learned that he hadn’t told Mike. He hadn’t spent much time in the last week on finding anything new, instead he was retracing old steps in case he had missed anything or had a new context for it. He suddenly remembered what he’d been waiting to tell Mike on Halloween but obviously that hadn’t happened. “I met that teacher cop I was telling you about, Dylan Bailey. He’s probably not going to be too much of a help and probably thinks I’m crazy but he knew my mom so… that’s something, I guess. Oh, and he knew yours. He said she was a doctor or something?”
"Yeah," Mike replied. "Still is, she's a neurologist, has her own practice." Alex had never met her but that wasn't unusual, he'd only been to the house twice now and Rebecca worked a lot. "She and dad shocked everyone to hell and back when they got married 'cause he took her name and not the other way around." He smiled faintly at that and despite what people thought it made sense to him. She had a PhD, Terry didn't. "Maybe my parents knew your mom, I mean, they know Bailey and it's a small town. I can ask them." He wasn't sure what purpose that would serve but any distraction was a good one lately.
Alex smiled across as Mike spoke about his family. He had never really thought about what would have happened if his own parents had married, would he have the kind of life Mike did? Or were there skeletons in their closets that Mike didn’t want to talk about? He knew they probably weren’t all perfect but they seemed happy and solid which was more than his own family had been. “They might, it couldn’t hurt to ask. Message me when you do?” He paused then added, “Or ask them if they knew anyone named Hawthorn, I’m kind of tossing around the idea of tracking my dad down but… I don’t know yet.”
"Hawthorn," Mike repeated and tried to commit that to memory. He really could use something to distract himself with, snooping around about Alex's parents could be that distraction. "What was your mom's name?" he asked then, unable to remember if Alex had ever told him. He didn't think so and so all he knew was her last name which might be enough. Especially given her history. People liked to talk in this town and going missing was definitely juicy gossip. Terry probably knew either one if they were close to him in age.
“Laura. They weren't married or anything, I don't even think they were serious. Dylan said he'd met him but he only really knew about him from rumors which I guess is common in a place like this.” Alex glanced over at the window then back to Mike with a shrug. Portland wasn't a big city but it was bigger and small town gossip wasn't a thing where he'd grown up. It was strange to him how everybody here always had some kind of connection. Though it was also useful… “His first name was Ashley, by the way. I'm not sure if he's still here or anything. He's old enough to have a real family by now if he is but, you know, whatever.”
"You can't find him anywhere online?" Mike asked, guessing the answer was no but it still felt worth asking. It was possible that the guy was on social media and just had his profile locked up tight. Or maybe he knew he had a kid out there and took all the precautions not to be found. Dick. "I wish I knew who my bio-dad was," he added then, though he honestly didn't really care about knowing the guy. "It'd be just my luck to fuck my half-brother or something. Be careful hooking up with girls in town."
“I’ve looked but there’s so many Ashley Hawthorns and most of them are girls,” Alex said with a shrug. He knew there were ways to narrow down search parameters but he wasn’t too sure if he even wanted to find him. Like Mike, he wanted to just know something about the guy, like if he had any other family. Family who didn’t know about him yet but would welcome him when they did. He was half lost in his thoughts when he caught what Mike was saying. He wondered if he’d said that out loud then laughed. “You know, I was just thinking about if I had any siblings out there. But don’t worry, not much chance of that happening. The hooking up part, I mean. Things have been a bit dry for… well, a while… What about you?”
"I might have fucked a half sibling or two for all I know," Mike said with a wry smile. In the grand scheme of things, what did it matter? It wasn't like he was ever going to have kids, not with the chance of them having this same damn disease, and he'd never know if any of his one night stands was related to him. "I'm starting to think you might be asexual," he added, only half teasing. "Or demi - that's when you only fuck people you have an emotional connection to. So romantic."
“I'm not a virgin, I'm definitely not asexual,” Alex chuckled. He hadn't heard of being demi but it did sound kind of appealing to him. Not that he'd ever had much of a chance to get emotionally connected with anybody first. One night stands were much easier when you couldn't bring people home in any sense. “It's just been a while, that's all. It hasn't been a good year to actually meet anyone.”
Mike let out a tired chuckle. "You can have sex and still be asexual," he told his clueless new friend. "Just like you can be straight and still experiment with fucking a guy. It just means you're not really attracted to people sexually. "I think I might be aromantic or something, I can't imagine being in a relationship with someone, being all goopy and sweet."
Alex wasn't sure how sex as an asexual would even work and he was pretty sure messing around with a guy put you firmly in the ‘not straight’ category but he didn't want to sound stupid either so he didn't ask more. He didn't care what people did, he just didn't understand all the terms for it. “Maybe you're just an asshole,” he said with a teasing grin. “But all the best rockstars are so you're probably on the right path there.”
Alex wasn't the first person to suggest Mike might be an asshole and he wasn't wrong either. Mike smirked faintly at that. "Stardom here I come," he muttered. "Make sure to die in six years and get into the real cool 27 club." It wasn't that far fetched with the way his stupid illness seemed to be progressing. "Man, Jack's death would have been epic if we were already famous," he added with a touch of snark. "Fucking tragedy."
“Yeah,” Alex said quietly as the mood darkened again. He knew how everything could circle back to somebody in the early stages of grief but he wasn't sure how to deal with it. He was quiet for a moment as he considered his best options then decided it was best to keep the conversation rolling away from death. As much as he could, anyway. “But he sounds like the kind of guy who would love becoming some obscure trivia question that stumps anyone who becomes a fan after your second or third album. And the rest will mostly know him from the dedication on your first album and then the true fans are from now. So, I guess that's just me… Not that I like you enough to count either.”
Mike had to laugh at that because it wasn't too far from the truth. "He'd come back from the dead to bitch at me for dedicating some whiny indie song to him," he mused. "We probably wouldn't have lasted together making music for long, it was just fun for now." It wasn't supposed to end like this though, fuck everything. "Don't worry about it, I don't like you either," he added belatedly, but his smile was warmer than the words warranted.
“Won't it be satisfying to know you're eternally frustrating him like that?” Alex said with a smile. He liked to think there was an afterlife, though he hadn't seen much proof of it until recently and even then, he wasn't convinced there wasn't another explanation. “Mind you, I haven't seen much proof of the afterlife but it'd be comforting if there was.”
Mike had always disagreed with that notion. He was using his time on earth to have fun because there was nothing that came after. With Jack dead he wasn't as eager to maintain that theory so he just shrugged. "Guess we'll find out eventually," he said softly and with everything that had happened lately, how could he ever be sure? They'd seen ghosts, but were ghosts actual sentient beings or were they just echoes? He preferred to not think about it because it was the kind of stuff that made his brain feel like exploding.
Alex stayed quiet, uncomfortable with where the conversation was headed. He had spent most of the year mourning and knew how easy it could be to slide into a funk, something he felt Mike was better avoiding while he was there. He shifted on the bed and sat up a little straighter. “Anyway,” he said as brightly as he could without it seeming too rude, “Let’s go for a walk. Have you even been outside for much lately? I know it’s dumb but let’s just try it, okay?”
Mike rolled his eyes at that. "It's fucking cold," he pointed out but Alex was right, he hadn't really done anything outside the house for a while. "Let's go for a ride," he suggested instead, already getting up with a bit of a stretch. There was something nice about chatting and listening to music in a car and he could use the change of scenery so Alex was halfway right about going for a walk, he was willing to get out of the house at least.