It's the smell that always gets him, waking up in soft blankets with Lana's thick brown hair in his face. Mike doesn't know if it's the shampoo or just her natural scent, but it's like his own personal cocaine. And when he reaches his hand out to touch the hair, he can feel it, actually feel it.
Mike's brain tries to buzz warning signals to him. This isn't a hallucination, it's real and he's here, Lana divorced you, Lana's dead, so who the fuck does this hair belong to? But it's sputtered through a fog of hangover sleep and wishes from Mike to make this sweet, warm dream last just a bit longer before the cold run of reality.
The hair is still real and soft, Mike's hand touches it and runs through it, pouring his fingertips down to a warm shoulder and an arm that seems to enjoy the attention.
His dick stands full at attention and Mike presses forward. His companion is naked and lacks Lana's curves, but the smell persists, the body is warm, and it has been a long time since Mike had been with anyone. He breathes the smell in, savours it, and nips at the available neck.
The warm body rolls over to face him, and lips press his chest. It's Greg, Mike knows it's Greg, but right at the moment, Greg is just enough Lana that Mike couldn't give a flying fuck that the lips working their way down his chest weren't actually hers.
Greg's dick was in about the same state as Mike's, and it brushed his thigh while the younger man nipped and licked his way almost to the edge of the bed, landing his mouth to the sensitive space on the upper part of Mike's inner thigh. He groaned and bucked up, knocking the blanket mostly to the floor and caught sight of the exact moment that Greg's mouth came down over the head of Mike's dick, tongue swirling and wet.
Mike came, hard, at the contact, it really had been too long, but the chance to enjoy it was slammed with the visual reminder that the last time he'd seen a mouth descend onto something, it was the monster that ate Lana's better half. It was Greg's mouth that filled with cum, but Mike was the one who tossed his head to the side and vomited on the plush bedroom carpet.
“Holy shit,” Mike drew the words out of his mouth like a rising symphony, then rested his gaze on Greg, whose mouth was still too full to speak but the flash of anxiety through his wide bloodshot eyes spoke volumes.
At a shuffling noise, Mike looked upward to find Meredith un-coiling from her nap position on the ceiling. She didn't spare him a glance, but skitched her way across the tiles and halfway down the wall, to land comfortably in a beam of sunlight. She looked well, healed and clean, no evidence from the events of yesterday.
Mike took small comfort in that.
Greg was out of the room, having fled in silence while Mike was distracted.
Mike paused just long enough to stretch, then gathered supplies from the adjacent bathroom to clean the mess. 'It wasn't awful,' he reasoned with himself. And while he wasn't gay, he wasn't totally straight either, and had quietly considered himself bisexual since he had that fling with a male school teacher, in his early twenties. But it was Greg, and Greg had been a quick friend when Mike had started dating Lana years and years ago, so Mike wasn't going to let something like a blowjob come between them. Or more. It might've been more. He had gotten very drunk, and his tolerance wasn't what it used to be since he hadn't touched any alcohol in so long. It didn't go well with little blue pills.
Dressing was quick, and Mike enjoyed the real clothing, with real colors, but as he pulled on the sleeveless red tshirt, he wished for more color, brighter, an intensity that he used to hate but Wentworth abstained of. 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder, I suppose,' Mike mused, which carried the thought back to Greg, and he wondered if the events of last night was just accredited to Greg's missing him.
Greg wasn't in the kitchen, or lounging at the couch watching reruns of Japanese cartoons, as he often did, but a quickly scrawled note proclaimed Greg was off to work, would be back later, and there was leftover cake in the fridge. That was fine, the note, not the cake. The cake was awful.
Mike took a deep breath, a beer from the fridge, and a seat on the couch. They didn't have cable, nobody had cable anymore, at least not anybody who knew how the internet worked.
Mike put on a streaming service, and browsed through endless show descriptions until boredom set in. It was nice. Just sitting peacefully, without pills to take or people screaming down the hall, or Mick Buchanski rattling on into Mike's ear about alien conspiracy theories.
Mike came upon a show, one of the old remastered-tocolor black and white monster flicks from the 60s, and a round face flashed through his mind. That guy, the one with that giant pizza cutter. Julian. From Big Box.
It was still early, before noon, and there were only two different Big Boxes in town. Mike chose the one closest to the graveyard, just off Henley Ave. He didn't lock the front door when he left, they never did because Lana always forgot her key. She once sat outside for about four hours until Mike came home from work, only to find out that he also forgot his key, and they had to smash the basement window to get into the house. It became a whole debacle when the police showed up because the neighbors saw two shadowy figures creeping in through the basement window, and Mike had loved living in this neighborhood. But that was the past. A millennia ago, before Wentworth, when Mike could still hold his kid and Lana was alive and monsters were still just humans who mostly didn't eat each other.
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The SUV was still in the driveway and Mike gave it a passing thought, then took the brisk walk to the bus stop. He'd had enough of being away from the outside world and now with the opportunity, wanted to engage with strangers and immerse into the ebb and flow of society.
The bus was five minutes late, the seats were stiff blue plastic that slid you off with every lurch of the vehicle as if the bus itself didn't want you there. A young child sat backward in their seat staring at Mike the entire time until the child slid a little to far to the left and hit their head on a standing pole.
Entering Big Box felt like coming home again. He'd been there so many times before, it was almost as if he'd never left. The entrance was packed with bug sprays and camping gear, the sort of thing that gave an extra boost to the approach of summer, and Mike was greeted by an elderly man with coke-bottle glasses and a bright yellow vest with HENRY written out on a badge.
“Welcome to Big Box,” the old man- Henry- smiled, showing his front teeth that were too white to be real and wrinkles for days. “Do enjoy your visit.” And the words actually came out sounding sincere, so Mike offered a smile that he hoped matched the mood.
“Actually,” Mike said smoothly, “I was hoping you could help me.”
Henry's smile grew wider, and he took a step closer in anticipation of usefulness, “I'll do the best I can, that's what I'm here for.” Henry let out a little chuckle, like his words were a sneaky private joke between them.
“I'm looking for someone, he works here, his name is Julian?”
“Oh sure, sure,” Henry nodded, “How d'you know him? Family? You his brother or something?” Henry looked Mike up and down, like he was trying to figure something out.
“No, just...” Mike paused, trying to decide how to present himself, “A friend.”
Henry nodded again, this time with some certainty, and gave Mike a knowing wink. “Okay, say no more, I gotcha. He'll be up in toys, probably just back from break. Go on and surprise him.” The old man chuckled again, and seemed pleased with himself, so Mike gave a quick head bow in thanks and scurried away to find the toy department.
Along the way, Mike's eye caught a flash of purple, and when his head caught up to his eyes, he was treated with visions of probably the brightest, most colorful piece of clothing he'd ever seen laid out on a 40% off clearance rack. It was a long-sleeved knitted cardigan, an awful smashing patchwork of purples, blues and reds. He needed to buy it, and wear it forever.
He took a short detour to pay and agonized over finding an employee at a cash register. He was actively avoiding the self-checkouts. They hadn't existed before Mike was in Wentworth, and now seemed to have become a dangerous invasive species, thriving on new automated processes and pushing out the old of human interaction. Mike felt like a bottomless human sponge, trying to soak up as much social greetings as possible and wondered if it was ever going to be enough to make him feel better. More normal. Even just a tiny bit normal would have been okay.
He ripped off the tags as soon as it was paid for and pulled the cardigan on over his t-shirt. He went to use the toilet. He got a drink from the water fountain near the line of closed cash registers. He milled quietly through the electronics section, looking at a wall of video game cartridges, wondering if he should buy one for Greg.
By the time he settled on some cute-looking racing game, Mike realized he was stalling. He had all the reason in the world to stall. He didn't know who Julian was, if the guy had any answers, if the guy would even talk to him, or just call security because some weirdo in an obnoxious cardigan stalked him to his workplace and is ranting on about giant pizza cutters and monsters.
When Mike actually decided to just do it and get it over with, his anxiety immediately dissipated and he was struck unexpectedly with an entirely different emotion. Because of course, the toy aisle, with all the things for children.
A haggard-looking woman walked passed him, with a tiny baby strapped to her chest and a three foot tall little boy with big bright eyes scooting about next to her like a humming bird on speed, hands out, trying to touch everything. The woman was sighing and growling in frustration, urging the child forward, and Mike felt a wave of jealousy, wondering how tall his Stacey would be right now if she weren't negative six feet.
“Can I help you find anything?”
Mike startled, turning eyes upon Julian and remembering why he'd come here in the first place, “Julian! Hello. Yes. Hi.”
Julian's face cracked, but just for a moment, and then an obscene smile washed over it. "Well, customer I have never before seen in my life, did you need help finding anything today?"
There was an awkward silence, as Mike narrowed his eyes. "My name is Michael, we met last night at the-"
Julian cut him off with a loud sudden burst of laughter. "You must have me mistaken for another Julian. That happens all the time. Most Julians look exactly alike. Good day to you, sir!" Julian went to leave, but Mike grabbed the sleeve of his arm.
"I see them, obviously you do too. I don't know where they come from, where they go when they disappear, why they're here to begin with, I don't know anything," Mike snapped. He let go of Julian's shirt and ran the hand through his hair in frustration. "I thought I was losing my mind, I spent the last few years in a mental institution! And this is the first time that anyone has ever..." Mike's voice cracked, and he fell silent.
Julian sighed. "Then go back," he said without looking at Mike, "It's a smarter thing to do, then trying to follow this train. It doesn't lead anywhere good."
"I want to know," Mike demanded. "I need to know."
“No, you don't,” Julian snapped. He turned to flash a glare back at Mike, then felt an immediate pang of guilt as he took in the other man's wretched expression. “Look, this isn't a quick info session and done sort of deal. It's a whole rabbit hole that you can't climb out of it, except the rabbit hole is lined with teeth and filled with fire-breating poison ants bigger than your face. You migh think you want this, but you don't."
"You're wrong."
"One chance. Meet me, tonight, in the tree cluster behind this store, at midnight. But once you're part of it, there's no backing out, you can't come back from it. Please don't even come."
"I'll be there."
"I hope not."
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Mike caught the bus back to Lana's, wondering what time Greg got off work, and if he'd have enough time to make amends before he met with Julian. He clutched the bag from Big Box that held the video game he purchased and was so lost in thought that he didn't even hear the sirens until he was standing right next to the police car. It pulled up to the side of the road and parked in front of Lana's house. Her van was still in the parking lot, now covered in yellow police tape.
The front door of the house burst open, and Greg came running out, dashing across the lawn and into Mike's arms. “She's dead!” Greg cried, “My sister is dead!”