Work Text:
It’s Bill’s idea, of course.
There’s a week left on the tour, and they’re all tired. Not as bone-deep and miserable as they have been on other tours, ones where they were angrier or sadder and the schedules weren’t designed for the comfort and convenience of KISS, but tired, anyway. A little worn around the edges.
The bus is rolling from Texas to Utah, which is a considerable stretch of road, and Mike’s in the back lounge with his iPod when Bill sits down beside him and unceremoniously pulls Mike's headphones off.
"Douche," Mike says evenly, not bothering to reach for them. Bill will give them back when he’s ready, and not before.
"So I was thinking."
"That’s a noteworthy event of our time."
"The tour ends in California."
Mike sighs and gives up on the chance of this being resolved quickly. "Yes."
"So you could just, like, drive home while the rest of us have to fly."
Mike blinks and wonders why he didn’t go into accounting, or maybe library science, like his cousin. "Yeah."
Bill winds the cord around his fingers and frowns at it. "But we were talking about writing some more and stuff."
"Get to the point," Mike says slowly and clearly, "or I am going to punch you in the neck."
"You could come back to Chicago. Instead."
Mike frowns at him. "Well…sure, I could, I guess, but I thought we were going to take a week or two in between to chill and rest and stuff. Stop being sick of each other."
"I’m not sick of any of you."
"Figure of speech." After the last tour, it hadn’t been one. The six-month break had been more than a nice idea, it had been a necessity. They agreed to make remembering that we like each other time mandatory from then on, in fact, but apparently Bill has already changed his mind about it.
"You’re such a flake," Mike says without thinking, but Bill ignores him and twists the cord tighter.
"A week was how long I think it would take anyway," he says.
"Bill, it’s a plane, not flapping your arms."
"What?"
"What?"
Bill frowns at him, that squinty, nose-wrinkled frown that means he’s about halfway made up his mind to feel really superior. It always makes Mike want to smack him, and he thinks it’s a sign of admirable restraint and personal growth that these days he mostly doesn’t.
"We’ll rent a car," Bill says with distinct aggravation.
Mike rubs his forehead. "You’re thinking things without explaining them out loud again."
"We’ll rent a car and drive back to Chicago. Take a week for that, you stay for a week of writing, then you fly back to LA."
Mike glances toward the front of the bus. "You miss being in a van so much you want to cram us all in a car to drive from California to Chicago?"
"Not all of us," Bill says patiently, unwinding the headphones and tossing them down on the seat. "You and me, Mike."
Mike looks up at him, startled, and Bill smiles. He rumples Mike’s hair and unfolds himself from the seat, vanishing out of the lounge and tossing "Think about it," back over his shoulder.
Mike slips his headphones back on and doesn’t answer, but there isn’t really anything to think about. Bill has an idea. Of course he’s going to go.
**
Bill rents them a cherry-red Kia Rio hatchback. Mike doesn’t even know where to begin with that.
"I thought about looking cool." Bill is wearing jeans that could charitably be described as floods, and a baseball cap advertising a pit barbecue they ate at with the guys from The Envy. Mike is reasonably sure that he stole it, and also that looking cool was never an option. "But I decided on fuel economy."
"Whatever." Mike puts his duffel bag and guitar case in the back seat. "You’re driving first."
"We need to discuss our route."
Mike rests his head against the door and counts to ten. "We do?"
"I mapped out three possibilities. We need to pick one." When Mike looks up, Bill is holding out his iPhone, and there’s that set to his jaw that says they are going to have fun whether Mike wants to or not.
Mike gives in because, after all, he did agree to this.
They decide on a route that cuts over to Colorado, then east on I-70 through Kansas and Missouri before angling up through Illinois. "We will hit every tourist trap and Presidential library on the way," Bill says with great satisfaction.
"We’ve seen most of that stuff," Mike feels compelled to point out as he climbs into the car. He watches Bill crank his seat as far back as it goes and adjust every mirror three times. Life is hard when you’re stupidly tall. Bill, Travie, and the Cobras used to make up drinking songs on that theme, back in the day.
"We’ll see it again," Bill says, and slips his sunglasses on, staring out at the road and frowning slightly. "With new eyes."
"This trip had better not be an excuse for some kind of bullshit introspective meltdown, or I will leave you at a gas station and not be sorry."
Bill glances at him, eyebrows flying up toward his hair, then smiles. "Duly noted, my young Jedi. Get us some tunes and a more upbeat attitude, if you please?"
Mike exhales tension that he hadn’t realized was there until it snapped, and reaches for his iPod. "Lady Gaga all the way to the state line, fucker."
"That’s what I like to hear."
**
They stop for the night in a tiny motel with signs on the wall asking guests to please not clean carcasses in the rooms. Bill’s delighted by the character. Mike’s disappointed by the water pressure.
"There’s a drought." Bill points at the card on top of the towels that explains that very thing. "They’re having fires. You’re lucky there’s any water at all."
"I’m going to drown myself in the toilet," Mike informs him, but Bill just stretches out on one of the beds and turns on the TV.
They picked up beer earlier that afternoon, and by the time Mike finishes showering, Bill’s made a dent in the case. He’s also found baseball coverage and seems pretty content with his life. Mike flops down on the other bed and closes his eyes, feeling the blood pounding in his temples.
A can nudges his hand and he takes it, but doesn’t open it, just lets it warm against his palm while he listens to the disembodied game. His neck aches from falling asleep in the car with it at an odd angle. The bridge of his nose stings with sunburn.
He’s really, weirdly content. They’re out of the world here, existing somewhere in-between, and he likes it. He could stay here for a while.
"Are you going to drink that?" Bill asks, the edges of his diction blurred.
"Yeah." Mike opens his eyes and cracks the top, sitting up slowly. Something pops in his back, and his neck doesn’t actually feel better but he can pretend. "Thanks."
**
Boulder, Colorado, in the rain.
It's a detour from their route, actually, veering off the most direct path through the mountains to linger for a day in the foothills. Mike didn't say anything when Bill hit the turn signal and eased off the interstate; he didn't even smile until they were a good ten miles further on.
They've never played a show here. They've played Denver a few times, and after one of those they'd packed into a friend of a friend's car and come up here to Boulder, to wander around and window-shop and go to another show at a college bar.
This time they drive up into the foothills, the Flatirons, and park at a lookout point. Mike climbs up onto the barrier and looks down at the city spilled out like toys and the plains stretching out toward Denver and Chicago and even farther on. He turns around and looks at the mountains, old as God and reaching up as far as he can see, broken up sky and trees and stone the color of bruises.
Bill stands with his hands in his pockets and his sunglasses on, shoulders hunched against the rain, watching cars move past them down toward the valley. The wind catches his hair and swirls it around in a mess. He doesn't try to fix it, even when they get back in the car and drive back to town, even when they find a coffee shop and sit for an hour drinking and people-watching and not saying a word.
Bill smiles a little behind his coffee cup, the crooked little expression that means good things, that all's right in the world. Mike knows he's smiling too, and it feels like something good. It feels like it used to, way back, when they were both brave and there was nothing but possibilities.
**
There was one stop on the tour, one show, where Bill had introduced a song from Almost Here as being from "one of our old albums."
It lingers in Mike’s head, the idea that they have old albums, that they’re the veterans, the seasoned ones. They have been for a while, of course; the five-year anniversary show had driven that home pretty well. That had been really fucking weird, actually.
Mike and Bill and Adam had gotten stinking drunk after that show, falling-down spinning-walls drunk, with toasts to people they couldn’t have gotten on the phone if they tried and clubs long closed and gone, and to all of their friends, to everyone they knew.
"I wish Pete had been able to make it," Adam had said, lying on the floor of Bill’s living room, trying to balance his cup on his forehead.
"Or any of the guys." Mike rested his head on Adam’s hip, staring up at the ceiling.
"Nah." Bill was on the couch, of course, smarter than both of them. "It was ours, not theirs. So it’s only right."
Ours, Mike thought at the time, and closed his eyes against the spinning. Ours, ours.
"We’ve been here lots of times," Bill had said at the show, after that old song. He flicked his hair out of his eyes and beamed at the little crowd of die-hards who’d pressed up to the barrier to see them. "We love coming here."
**
They blow a tire an hour outside Durango, CO, and it turns out that the rental place screwed them on the spare.
"I am filing a complaint." Bill sits down on the side of the road with his phone. Mike hadn’t realized that it was possible to type with outrage. "I am calling a tow truck and then I am filing a complaint."
Mike sits in the shadow of the car, leaning back against the blown tire, and stares up at the sky. No clouds, no planes. Just blue forever.
"Tow truck in an hour. Or two." Bill throws a rock past the car, into the highway. "Want to play Truth or Dare?"
"No."
"Fair enough." Bill goes back to his phone--Word War, probably, or maybe Angry Birds, and fuck Pete for getting him started on that, anyway--and Mike goes back to staring. By the time the tow truck arrives, they’re both sunburned as fuck, and desperately thirsty, and Mike can’t shake the feeling that this whole thing was a stupid idea.
He gets them a hotel room while Bill sorts things out with the tow truck and the tire place. It’s an EconoLodge, nothing fancy or nice, but the room is dim and cool and by some freak accident, the water pressure is great.
Bill calls just as Mike gets out of the shower, and Mike lets him in with the towel wrapped around his waist and water running down his face out of his hair. Bill is holding a pizza box and a six-pack, offerings that Mike acknowledges with a jerk of his head toward the table.
Bill sets them down and turns to face him, mouth twisted slightly in apology. Mike knows his face, knows his tells. "You okay?"
Mike throws the lock and nods. "Yeah." And it’s true. He is. Somewhere in the last hour or so the irritation just drained out and…it is what it is. Stupid bad luck. Random chance. Life. A couple of hours out in the sun watching the wind go by.
"You get any song ideas sitting out there?" he asks.
Bill blinks and then smiles slowly. "Mostly I just got sweaty and gross and totally failed at Angry Birds."
"Fuck that game, man."
"So much." Bill tosses him a beer and Mike stretches out on the bed, reaching for the remote. Still not in the world; unreality preserved. He isn’t quite sure what he’s preserving it for, but there’s something just at the edge of his mind, just out of reach. He just needs to wait for it. Something is figuring itself out.
**
Mike thinks Bill was kidding about the Presidential museums right up until he finds himself standing in a parking lot in Abilene, Kansas, and quietly wishing that he had something heavy that he could use to hit Bill over the head.
"It's going to be awesome," Bill says sternly. "Stop glaring at me."
"It's going to be stupid."
"Just come on. I'll buy you ice cream after."
"Ice cream? I'm not five, Bill."
"Everyone likes ice cream." Bill takes his sunglasses off and marches toward the museum. Mike closes his eyes tightly and counts to ten, then follows. Bill has the keys. There's no point standing here on the pavement until his face melts off.
Inside, it's overly-air-conditioned to the point where it makes Mike's skin hurt. He buys a souvenir t-shirt and a biography, both of which delight Bill, who sits through a half-hour documentary while Mike sits on a bench outside. Afterward, Bill buys a candy bar with Eisenhower's face stamped on it. "And I'm not sharing," he adds as they slide into the car again, wincing at how hot the interior is after an hour in the sun.
"I'm not sharing either."
"You didn't buy shareable stuff."
"I could read aloud."
Bill laughs and drums his hands on the steering wheel. "Yes."
"But I won't."
"You're killing me."
Mike shakes his head and opens the book, pretending to be interested in chapter two while Bill laughs more and tries to navigate out of the parking lot without hitting anyone who remembers the era recorded there.
It reminds him of a time when they were still in the van--a number of times, actually--but he doesn't say anything. Neither of them, on this trip, has given in to the urge to begin any story with "Do you remember--," no matter how appropriate or exact.
**
They have dinner at the Mexican restaurant across the parking lot from their hotel. Fajitas, chimichangas, their combined body weight in guacamole, and margaritas the size of fishbowls. God bless excess, and Mike figures he’ll run an extra mile tomorrow and call it good.
That vague plan dies a painful death when after two margaritas each Bill waves down the waitress and asks her to just bring a bottle of tequila to the table, with two shot glasses, if she could be so kind.
"Bill." It’s half warning, half plea. Mike’s brain is already swimming in tequila soup behind his eyeballs. This is a bad idea.
Bill shakes his head and pours the shots, somehow not spilling a drop. His jaw is set in a stubborn line and he keeps licking his lips in a drunken, distracting tic that he’s never grown out of.
"We don’t even have limes," Mike protests weakly.
"So what?" Bill shoves the shot over to him. "Man up."
"Oh my God."
"Don’t wimp out on me now, Carden." Bill does his shot and throws his head back with a shudder. Mike stares for a moment, the line of his neck and the jump of his pulse in his throat.
Bill’s already reaching for the bottle again. "If you get behind, you’ll have to do doubles to catch up. I’m not going to baby you." Mike closes his eyes and downs the shot, biting his lip to keep back a groan. Fuck.
"Good man. Round two. Go go go."
"Bill. Jesus Christ." He closes his fingers around the glass automatically as Bill shoves it into his hand, tequila sloshing over his skin. "You’re insane."
"And if I wasn’t, where would we be? Where, I ask you, Mike?"
"Sober." This shot hurts less going down. He’s getting into the zone.
"And that would suck." Bill licks the rim of his glass and goes for the bottle again, and Mike gets hit by another memory. A cluster of them, really. A montage.
Tour nights and label parties, Bill licking salt off Adam’s neck and chasing tequila off Travie’s skin, taking a shot from a glass balanced in Victoria’s cleavage, laughing. All of them, everyone, laughing. Shouting and dancing and falling together and holding on and talking about how amazing it was going to be, how they were going to have the whole world, everything.
And fighting, too, pushing and shoving and puking and way too young for some of it. Some of it crumbled them at the edges and cracked them at the core, but right now all he wants to think about is the laughing, and how the lights always got so bright as the bottles went around.
**
The whole trip is pauses and detours. The drive between Chicago and LA can be done in a day and a half if you’re really dedicated; Mike has done it. They’re taking a week. The whole point is to keep stopping.
They’re going through Kansas City when Bill sees the sign for an amusement park, and he almost turns the car into a hood ornament for two separate semis in his attempt to get from the lane they’re in over to the exit.
It’s already mid-afternoon, but it’s not like they have anywhere to be. They eat horrible food and play stupid rigged games and ride roller coasters until Mike feels dizzy and Bill’s hair stands up in a wind-whipped mess right out of a Tim Burton movie.
They stay in the park until closing, after the sun goes down and the air gets heavy and thick and warm. When they’re walking back to the car, Bill bumps against Mike’s shoulder, smiling with a pure and easy contentment that it still isn’t Mike’s first instinct to associate with him.
"This makes me think of Warped," Bill says, bumping him again and digging the keys out of his pocket.
"Which Warped?"
"Any Warped. They were all the pretty much the same. Bad food and crazy random shit and sunburn."
Mike looks at him over the top of the car, and yeah, Bill’s face is red across his cheekbones and his forehead, the tips of his ears and nose standing out bright and angry. Mike hadn’t noticed, but now that he has, he’s suddenly aware of the sting in his own skin.
Bill finally gets the car unlocked and slides inside. "Back in the day," he says, laughing a little and then hissing. "Jesus, the seats are fucking hot. Be careful."
Mike gets in and watches Bill from the corner of his eye as he gets the car started and the AC on. The unspoken agreement of no nostalgia has been broken, and that makes Mike wonder if he made up the whole thing and it was never an agreement at all. Now there’s a crack in the wall and the past is going to get in.
"We need a hotel for the night," Bill says, squirming in his seat and buckling his seatbelt. "Fuck. Ow. Hot. Probably should’ve thought and found one earlier. Oh well. I’m sure we’ll find something, and if we have to go a little further, it’s no big deal. Worth it, right? It was so worth it."
He looks up at Mike and smiles, and Mike can’t quite smile back, because the past is taking up all of the room in the car and trying to choke him. History is going to kill them both if they’re not careful.
"Mike?" Bill prompts, reaching over to hit him on the thigh. "Worth it?"
"So worth it," Mike says, and looks away, out the window, across the parking lot at where the amusement park lights are going dark. "Hell of a day."
**
Mike drops his duffel on the bed and goes back to the bathroom, suddenly aware of the sweat on his skin. He wants a shower, cold at first to rinse off the heat of the day and then warm to ease the random aches in his muscles. It's going to be glorious.
He gets the water started and takes his t-shirt off, tossing it to the floor beside the toilet and reaching for the fly of his jeans. A glimpse of movement in the corner of his eye, the bathroom door opening, makes him jerk in surprise. "What the fuck, Bill? You scared me."
Bill is leaning against the doorframe, already stripped down to his boxers. "I just wanted to use the sink."
"You didn't have to sneak up on me." Mike moves aside, out of the way so Bill can come in, and shoves his jeans down, suddenly unsettled for no reason. "Did you see a vending machine on our way in?"
"Down at the end of the hall." Bill splashes water over his face, rubbing at his temples and under his eyes. "You want anything in particular?"
"Something with chocolate and peanuts."
Bill drags his wet hands back through his hair, raking it off of his face. "Peanuts or peanut butter?"
"Either or." Mike pulls his boxers off and climbs into the shower, closing his eyes as the water his his face. It's fucking cold and it feels good, carrying away the sweat and dust, and he just lets it hit him, standing under the spray and letting the feeling blank out his mind, shut up his thoughts, just let him be for a few minutes.
When he goes back into the main room, Bill is sitting cross-legged on the bed, slowly unwrapping a chocolate bar. There's a stack of three more sitting beside him, various kinds and flavors, along with two pops and a bag of pretzels.
"Went on a little bit of a binge, there," Mike says, dragging the towel over his chest and torso.
"Couldn't make up my mind." Bill breaks the candy bar into quarters and licks the chocolate off his fingers. "You know how it goes."
"Nobody knows how your mind goes, Beckett." Mike grabs a pair of sweats and a t-shirt from his bag and tugs them on, pushing his wet hair back off his face. Bill doesn't say anything, and Mike glances at him as he takes one of the candy bars. Bill is looking down at his lap, his brow furrowed slightly and his thumb pushing at the broken edge of the chocolate. "What?"
"Nothing."
"No, what?"
"Just..." Bill sighs and shakes his head, dropping his legs over the edge of the bed and getting to his feet. "I don't know."
"Where are you going?"
"To the bathroom, is that okay?" There's an edge to Bill's voice now, one that makes Mike itch to pick and dig at him, to press the issue and provoke, but he holds back and tears the candy bar wrapper open instead.
"Whatever."
Bill rolls his eyes and goes, and a minute later the water starts running. Mike shakes his head and sits down on the edge of the bed, scowling at the pile of snacks and the remote control. There's something else in the room, something hovering just out of sight and sucking away all the air. The past, again, maybe. He doesn't know for sure, but he wishes it would get the fuck gone. He's getting whiplash from the way things keep going from okay to awesome to distinctly shitty, over and over again.
He eats his candy and wipes his hands on the bed, staring across the room at the window overlooking the parking lot. It's full dark now, and bugs are swarming in slow, lazy circles around the lights. Someone pulls into the lot on a motorcycle and parks it over by the Kia, then gets off and walks toward the gas station across the street. Mike wonders absently how much he would need for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He hasn't smoked in over a year, but the idea of it sounds good right now, the ritual feel of the paper under his fingers and the smoke in his lungs and something to focus on that is all heat and chemical and not thought.
He opens one of the Cokes instead. Caffeine is almost as good as nicotine, except not at all, but it'll do for the moment.
Bill comes back dressed again, t-shirt clinging to his wet skin, hair flopping down over his face in a clumpy mess. "Okay?" Mike asks, pushing the other can toward him.
"I'm fine." Bill's voice is tight, distant, and he ignores the peace offering, just rubs at his hair with a towel and then tosses it into the corner.
"Don't be all weird."
"I'm not." He shakes his head and goes over to the TV, flipping through the little premium-channels book that's lying beside it. "They have HBO. Maybe we can find some True Blood."
"You and your vampires." Mike means to say it with affection; he thinks he does, but Bill tenses, his shoulders rising up toward his ears and his jaw clenching tight.
"Mike..."
If keeping the peace isn't an option, then dragging things out into the open is all he can think to do. "What is this about?"
"What is what about?" Bill has a certain tone of voice for when he's being deliberately dense. They all learned to ID it years ago, for situations just like this, when Bill is trying to avoid a fight that someone else very badly wants to have. Mike doesn't know if he has a similar tell, but he's willing to bet he does. He can think of plenty of cases where he found himself being played like his own guitar.
"This attitude. This...this whole fucking trip. Nostalgiafest 2010."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You do." The next words bubble up out of his throat before he can catch them, before he can stop them, before he even realizes that he's thought them, because they startle him just as much as they do Bill. "Are you breaking up the band?"
Bill turns to stare at him, his eyes wide and his mouth falling open a little. "Am I what?"
"I don't know! This whole...just the two of us, back to the beginning, wandering around middle America alone being all nostalgic but not talking about anything, is this some kind of way to build up to breaking up the band?"
"We don't talk because you have the conversational skills of a dead lizard."
"Where the fuck do you come up with this shit?"
"Where the fuck do you come up with the idea of me breaking up the band?"
"It makes more sense than me being a lizard, jackass."
"Jesus fucking Christ." Bill presses his face into his hands for a moment, drawing a deep breath slowly enough that Mike can hear it. "Okay. First of all. Breaking up the band would kind of be a, you know, full-band decision. With everyone. You remember. Those other guys who are in the band."
"I don't know, maybe you wanted to talk to me about it first."
"Adam was around from the beginning, too, you know."
"Yeah, but." Mike feels his shoulders trying to hunch defensively and shrugs to ward it off. "Adam is Adam."
"That's very fucking insightful. Thank you."
"Don't get pissy with me."
"Then don't be an idiot." Bill pinches the bridge of his nose hard. "And second of all, if I was going to have that conversation with you, why the hell would I drag you off on a road trip alone to do it? So you could flip out and kill me and nobody would ever find my remains?"
"I'm not going to kill you."
"But if you were, alone in a hotel room in Missouri would be the way to do it, right?"
Mike frowns and thinks for a moment. "Yeah, okay, probably."
"Thank you." Bill sighs and turns to face him properly. "What the hell, Mike?"
"I don't know! It was the only thing I could think of that made any sense."
"The only thing."
Bill's voice has a distinct tone in it, like there's definitely a correct response Mike could choose, and a whole range of others that would be wrong. "Yeah."
Bill shakes his head, shoves his feet into his sneakers without untying them and grabs his key card off the desk. "I don't even know what the hell to do with you sometimes."
The wrong answer, then, Mike thinks as the door bangs closed. All right.
**
Bill comes back after about half an hour, and much to Mike's surprise he's carrying a pack of cigarettes. He throws them in Mike's lap with a weird look of challenge and sits down on the other bed.
"Um," Mike says intelligently. "What?"
"If we're doing some weird turn-back-time routine where I want to go back to the beginning, you should be smoking."
"I quit smoking."
"I know that. But you think we're doing a nostalgia trip. And if we are, you need to smoke."
"I don't think you understand how quitting smoking works."
"One won't kill you."
"Yeah, but it might get me started again and undo a hell of a lot of work."
Bill stares at him grimly and pulls a lighter out of his pocket. He flicks it on and off, and Mike can't look away from the flame. "I know for a fact that you bummed one off the sound guy in Virginia, and Michigan, and probably every single other venue when you thought nobody was looking. One at a time obviously doesn't mess you up that bad. Now fucking smoke."
Mike isn't really in the habit of doing what Bill tells him just because it's Bill; kind of the opposite, really. But for some reason he slides his thumbnail under the top of the cigarette packet and tears it open, then taps one out into his palm and settles it between his lips. Bill flicks the lighter on again, holding the flame steady, and Mike leans forward and draws in deep, closing his eyes. Fuck.
"Better than sex," he mutters, sitting up straight again. He exhales a stream of smoke at Bill's face, and Bill doesn't flinch, just sets the lighter down beside him and hugs his knees to his chest, resting his chin on them and looking at Mike thoughtfully.
"So," Mike says after a minute. "This is about going back in time."
"Maybe." Bill shrugs, running his thumbnail over a bruise on his shin. "It hadn't occurred to me, but now that you bring it up, maybe that's it was. Under the surface."
"But not breaking up the band."
"Seriously, if you say that one more time, I will put that cigarette out in your eye." Mike knows Bill's threat-voice, and that isn't it, so he just shrugs and blows smoke at him again. "The band is everything."
Mike looks at the end of his cigarette for a moment, not quite able to look at Bill's face when he replies. "No, it isn't." It used to be, maybe. But it isn't now, and they both know it--they all know it--and probably that's okay. That's the way it is. That's life.
"Okay." Bill tilts his head to the side so it's his cheek pressed against his knees, his little smile turned on its end. "Maybe that's what I was going back and looking for."
"We haven't talked about music barely at all."
"I said the band, not the music."
Mike stares at him. The cigarette is burning down toward his fingers; he should probably find somewhere to put it out, but it's barely even a distraction right now. "I don't get it."
"Jesus, Mike." Bill sighs, his smile wavering but not quite fading. "Sometimes, you're like this shockingly insightful savant, and sometimes you're the dumbest guy I know."
"Fuck you, Beckett."
"Something like that."
Mike blinks. "What?"
Bill unfolds himself from the bed slowly, precisely, all bones and angles that turn into weird not-quite-gracefulness when he moves. It's only about a step between the two beds, but Mike probably still would have time to react if he tried.
Bill takes the cigarette from Mike's hand and sets it on the bedside table. He leans in slowly and deliberately, resting his hands on either side of Mike's hips on the bed, framing him. He meets Mike's eyes for a moment, just a beat, before his gaze flickers down to Mike's mouth. At any point in that, Mike could react, could move or say something. Bill gives him plenty of time.
Mike doesn't move, not then and not when Bill's mouth covers his. He doesn't kiss back, but he doesn't pull away.
Bill takes a shaky breath when he breaks the kiss, the backs of his fingers brushing against Mike's arm as he stands up straight. "Maybe you were right. Maybe this is...going back in time."
"We never did that."
Bill's smile is crooked and uncertain, not quite reaching his eyes. "What's the point of going back in time if you're not trying to change something?"
Mike stares at him for a moment, the silence stretching out until it's just a little too loud.
"It's like you've never even watched Back to the Future before," Bill mutters, turning away. He drags one hand through his hair, fast and helpless, and rubs his thumb over the faint scorch mark the cigarette left on the bedside table.
"This is...new information, dude."
"Is it?"
"Um. Let me think. Yes."
Bill shakes his head and laughs softly. "Sorry." He gets into the other bed, kicking at the covers until they come untucked from the end of the mattress. "Go to sleep, Mike. We'll forget all of this in the morning."
**
Obviously that doesn't happen.
Bill is an absolute master at refusing to talk about things, though, so they kick off the day in strained, careful silence. Mike bites down on his tongue to keep from pointing out that they could make it to Chicago by evening. If he says it, Bill will do it, and Mike isn't sure which of them would be admitting defeat, but he doesn't like the odds that it might be him.
He's made decisions for pettier, more stupid reasons in his life. Actually, starting a band with Bill in the first place might have been one, at the time.
"And look at how that turned out," he says aloud, just to make Bill squint sideways at him.
"Why are you talking to yourself?"
"No reason." He slouches down lower in the passenger seat and flicks the cover of his Eisenhower book open and closed. Bill drove right past the exit for the Harry Truman museum that morning without even slowing down. Mike's slightly more disappointed about that than he will ever let on.
Bill's quiet for a moment, but Mike knows him, knows that he will have to know. "Look at how what turned out?
"Starting a band with you."
"Yeah, it got you here." Bill gestures out the window. "On a road trip across mid-America after a tour where your C-list band got viciously mocked by people wearing facepaint and leather."
Mike knows him well enough to tell precisely how much he means that and how much he doesn't. "Whatever, dude."
Bill hits his turn signal to pass a truck. "How many times have you cried yourself to sleep wishing you'd pushed to get them to let you in Fall Out Boy instead?"
They've joked about that a lot over the years, endlessly in fact, but there's an edge in Bill's voice this time, something that tells Mike to answer more carefully this time. "First of all, I don't cry. Second of all, the only question is which one of them would I have killed first. It never would've worked."
"That's not really a question," Bill says, eyes fixed firmly on the road but the corner of his mouth twitching slightly with the threat of a smile. "You and Pete would've had the ultimate cage match of all time, only instead of 'cage,' read 'van.'"
"Whatever, Patrick's a control-freak asshole."
"News flash, so are you."
"My point exactly." Mike waits a minute, tapping his fingers restlessly against the window until he decides that yeah, he's going to say it. "Besides, if I had joined them, I wouldn't have a band now."
This time Bill really does smile. "And you do have a band."
"Yeah. I do."
Bill hits the turn signal again and guides the car off at the next exit.
"Where are you going?"
"We're not in any hurry," Bill says, popping a completely illegal U-turn to get into the parking lot of a sincerely sketchy gas station. "Go in there and ask them where we can find a bar with sports on TV."
**
They don't get as drunk as they did on the night with the tequila, but they both pretend they do, and even more. Mike is warm and buzzing with beer, but he isn't wasted. Still, he laughs when Bill's hand settles on the small of his back as the cab dumps them out at the closest hotel after they leave the bar. He lets his steps sway and carry his body into Bill's, a loose collision that doesn't put either of them in danger of falling but lets them both pretend it might, so that they lean on each other while they unlock the door to the room.
Bill kisses him as soon as they're inside, and Mike stops laughing. He closes his eyes and goes with it, opening his mouth and letting Bill in. He doesn't know what this is, he doesn't know what it wants to be, but they're out of the world and out of time, and he thinks he can find out without losing anything.
"Mike," Bill says, barely more than breath.
"Yeah." Mike has no idea what he's agreeing to, but he nods, letting his hands wander along Bill's arms down to his hips. He isn't trying to hold on, just touching. Testing out this rewritten history.
He loses track of how long they kiss, but Bill's whispered words have taken on a distinct, yearning whine by the time he slides his hands down to Mike's fly, fumbling his jeans open and pulling them down off Mike's hips.
Mike feels like he can't get enough air, like something's stopping it in his chest. Bill sinks to his knees and glances up at him, eyes dark and unreadable. The sunburn highlights his cheekbones in dark red like streaks of paint, a baseball player's grease or an actor's stage makeup. Mike reaches to touch before he can think, reassuring himself that it's just Bill's skin, that this isn't a game or a show.
Bill winces a little at the touch, then smiles, turning his head away from Mike's hand and breathing slow and hot against his dick. He doesn't say anything, and Mike thinks that's good, that they need to be quiet now. If one of them starts talking it'll go like it always goes between them, jokes and argument and something that tenses and coils like it's alive and breathing. When they're quiet, it's just the two of them.
Bill licks, just as slowly, and Mike's hips jerk despite himself. He bites down on his lip, forcing himself to hold still, to breathe, his hands clenching at his sides. Bill takes him in his mouth, deep and tight with his tongue pressing hard against the underside. His hands are resting on Mike's thighs now, fingers tracing absently up and down out of rhythm with his mouth and tongue against Mike's cock.
"Bill," Mike says, even though he wasn't going to say anything, he really wasn't going to. Bill makes a vague, acknowledging noise and takes him deeper, eyes closing in concentration. One of his hands slides up Mike's thigh and then in between his legs, fingertips wandering over his balls and the sensitive skin at the base of his cock, teasing nerves that must be shot to hell anyway, because that's the only explanation for why everything feels so fucking intense, like he's a goddamn teenager again.
Bill looks up again, meeting his eyes, and Mike's stomach tightens, his knees threatening to shake. He's right on the edge but not quite there. "Just a little more," he mutters, digging his fingers harder into his palms. "C'mon, just...c'mon, right like...fuck, just a little..."
Bill closes his eyes, lashes falling dark against his cheeks, and takes him deeper, a little more heat and pressure that's just right, exactly it, and Mike punches himself hard in the thigh as he comes to keep from cursing or saying Bill's name again like some kind of moron.
Bill chokes and pulls back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Warn a guy," he mumbles, blinking hard, but he's smiling when he looks up again. "You've got no manners."
"Shut up." Mike catches Bill's arms and hauls him to his feet, pushing him toward the bed. Bill takes the cue and goes the rest of the way, falling backwards onto the mattress and undoing his own jeans, eyes fixed on Mike's and mouth twisted with a smile that's half amused and half challenging.
Mike braces himself over him, faces close and knees tight against Bill's hips. He doesn't kiss him, just breathes hot against Bill's mouth as he slides his hand down, nails scraping against the print on Bill's t-shirt until he reaches the exposed skin at his waist.
Bill makes another of those thin, whining sounds when Mike wraps his hand around him, and Mike closes his eyes, his breath stuttering for a beat. He can feel sweat dripping off his forehead and his nose and his chest, but Bill doesn't complain, just arches up under him and says his name with a demanding edge. Mike obeys without thinking; there's really no chance of thinking at all, not now. Just reacting. Tightening his hand and stroking Bill's dick, slowly until he finds the rhythm that makes Bill groan and turn his head, pressing his face against the inside of the arm that's holding Mike up.
Bill moans when he comes, low and choking like he's telling a secret, and Mike leans forward and kisses him clumsily, his mouth landing half on Bill's lips and half on his cheek. He's got Bill's come all over his hand, so he figures the moment as a whole is still pretty much intimate as hell.
"Fuck," Bill says, and Mike pulls back, getting to his feet and looking around for something he can use to clean up. There's a box of tissues on the bedside table, so he grabs the whole thing, taking a handful for himself and passing the box off to Bill.
"I think I'm still drunk," Bill mutters, wiping at his face. "I need water. Not from the sink."
"Jesus." Mike sits down on the other bed, not quite sure if he wants to burst out laughing or throw a pillow at Bill's face. "You and your fucking issues with tap water."
"You never know. You never know. With a bottle, you know."
"You're demented." Mike lies back across the bed, staring up at the patterns the window blinds leave on the ceiling. So they're not going to talk about it. That makes sense. "100% screw-loose, man."
"What can I say?" Mike doesn't look, so he doesn't know if Bill's smiling. "I know what I like."
**
They sleep late the next day, and get breakfast before they get on the road. Mike drives, and Bill plays with the iPod, making on-the-fly mixes by scrolling rapidly at the end of every song to find the next thing he wants. They're both mostly quiet, except for singing softly or tapping out a rhythm as the highway rolls by.
They stop before the sun goes down, just outside St. Louis. They'd talked earlier in the trip about visiting the Arch when they came to it, part of the deliberate game of nostalgia and kitsch, but when they actually came to it, Mike didn't stop and Bill didn't say anything. It would've felt fake now. Pointless.
Bill gets out of the car in the hotel parking lot and stretches, groaning. "Stupid little car."
"You picked it." It's the first thing Mike's said in hours, and his throat feels raspy. He fumbles around on the floor in front of the passenger seat, finding a half-empty bottle of Dr. Pepper and taking a swallow. It's flat and warm, all syrup, and it feels good on his throat.
"I'm going to be maimed for life." Bill sighs and looks over at the office. "I'll go take care of this."
"I'll wait." He walks a slow circle around the car, kicking pebbles off the asphalt and into the grass. There's a knot in his stomach that isn't quite anxiety, just a little too sweet; anticipation, maybe. They'll be in Chicago before dinner tomorrow. This is the last night.
He doesn't know what that means, and it's weird that he doesn't need to.
Bill comes back with the key and they walk to the room, duffel bags balanced against their backs with the ease of long practice. The door swings closed behind them and Mike just about has time to register that it's very dark before Bill kisses him.
This time they're both stone-sober, and it shows. It's slower, more exploring, more cautious and more confident at once. The thing they're being cautious with isn't each other, but tomorrow, and the day after that.
"Screw it," Bill whispers, and presses up against him. The next kiss is harder, more demanding, and Mike gives in to it, letting caution slip through his fingers and tomorrow fall out of his mind.
They end up sliding down to their knees on the floor, fighting with each other's clothes and still kissing, clumsy and aggressive enough that Mike thinks he's going to have bruises and he definitely left a mark or two on Bill. Bill gives a frustrated breath after a particularly awkward impact between Mike's skull and his nose, pulling back and frowning. "We're stupid," he says flatly. "There's a bed right there."
Mike nods. "We are stupid. That's, like, a given."
"So come on, then." Mike stays on his knees, watching Bill move over to the bed. "Come on, Mike."
"What is this?"
Bill stops, his skin looking almost silver in the half-light from the parking lot, shoulders hunched in that way he always does to hide his height. "What do you mean?"
"Is this...a thing?"
"I don't know."
Mike swallows before he asks again. "Why did you..."
Bill laughs, and Mike thinks about how he would know that sound anywhere, in his sleep, in the dark. "I had to know."
"You had to know?" He would also know that sound as something that makes him want to punch somebody in the face. "This is some kind of Curious George shit?"
"And I wanted to." Bill sits on the edge of the bed. "Your insecurity is not the most attractive thing about you, you know, Mike."
"Yeah, well. It's what I've got."
"Come here," Bill says quietly, and Mike goes.
**
They lie on the bed and kiss for what feels like hours, though Mike couldn't say for sure, because Bill's t-shirt ends up covering the clock. They jerk each other off and then move to the other bed to sleep, and in the morning they wake up earlier than they have the whole trip, get coffee from the lobby, and hit the road again.
Bill sings along with every song, his voice clear and too loud for the car, projecting like he's on stage. Mike doesn't tell him to shut up, just presses his fingers against his own thigh to mime the chords.
They stop just outside Chicago, at the last exit where they can still pretend they're not in the city. They don't need gas, and neither of them is hungry, but they park for a few minutes anyway, sitting quietly and letting Tom Petty fade into silence.
Mike hits pause as the last note dies away. "I can't believe you have 'American Girl' on here."
"I'm a man of diverse and complicated tastes."
"You're...yeah, fine, all of that."
Bill laughs and grips the steering wheel tightly, pressing his arms against the resistance. "I don't know, okay? You know that I don't know."
"I definitely know that."
"I just..." He lets go with one hand to gesture, wild flailing arcs. "Maybe it was a stupid idea. I don't know. I just wanted to go back to the beginning. To the two of us. And...change that, and see what would happen. See what changed."
Mike nods, looking out across the parking lot at the highway. "And what's the verdict?"
"Open-ended."
It's Mike's turn to laugh, because how can he not, when Bill is being so...himself. "Open-ended. Yeah, okay."
"But look." Bill waits until Mike does look, then gestures at the skyline up ahead. "We came back to where we began. That's got to mean something, doesn't it?"