#but! just another tally for the ‘mike is an aware and conscious human being who knows what he’s feeling’ board

[wibble-wobbegong]

do i make a big dnd metaphor post or do i just.

1. in season 3 mike actively avoided DND and pretended he no longer cared because he didn’t want to care. he was intentionally redirecting his attention because he wanted to grow up and consciously said no to DND. when playing, he makes sure to make fun of it in front of lucas.

mike was actively avoiding his feelings for will in s3, avoiding physical touch and pretending he didn’t care as much. he redirected his attention to el. he made a show of missing el and complaining in front of lucas.

they were both conscious actions. mike was aware and was actively trying to repress his feelings. it was on purpose. it wasn’t a mental byproduct of confusion.

2. in s4 mike proudly gets back into dnd. he’s at his happiest when indulging in the game despite how much shit his dad give him for it. anyone who isn’t in the club doesn’t seem to know what DND is (except max) nor that the hellfire club is just a DND club.

in s4 mike accepts his sexuality. he’s spending his time in the basement, even sleeping there, because it holds the things that remind him of will even though he most definitely gets shit for it from ted. in the same way mike has stopped repressing his feelings, he’s stopped trying to hide his sexuality. he doesn’t walk around showing it off, it isn’t an open thing, but he isn’t afraid of it and even indulges in his attraction to guys (most evidently eddie).

the hellfire club shirt throws off the purpose of the club because it’s covered in weapons and the devil and the word hellfire but, if you look close and you know what to look for, you’ll recognize the dice on the shirt. it’s not hidden. there’s just an easier conclusion to draw. mike isn’t hiding his queerness, but it’s subtle. most people wont look at the hellfire shirt and see the smaller dice, but rather the giant flaming devil and hellfire to draw the conclusion of satanism. most people won’t look at mike and see the subtle queerness, but rather the more obvious conclusion of asshole.

mike has accepted his sexuality. the only person he really tried to hide from was el, and after “from, el” that wasn’t a problem.

[mor-beck-more-problems]

Silence in the Library || Morgan & Mike

CW: Depression

@exorciseyourspirit

Morgan finally leaves the house to be an adult. Mike makes her regret everything.

Amnon was getting close to finishing his big project. There were just a few finishing touches he needed for it, and then, hopefully, it would all fall into place. As long as no one figured out what it was that he was gathering, then he had no need to worry. The little medium and the hunter and the dead wife could pose a problem, especially if the three began corroborating, but he had a plan in mind to take care of them, too. All it would take was one display of power, and they’d back off. Just like everyone always did. But today, he was at the library for a different reason, picking out books that seemed, to most people, to be normal historical reads. His chest ached dully-- turns out, broken ribs were a problem. He should’ve remembered, he’d been human once, but time made fools of memory. Rubbing his side, he stacked another book on his cart and moved along, turning the corner-- and very nearly running into someone he’d never expected to see here. It was, however, a pleasant surprise. “Aahh,” he said in Rebecca’s cheeriest voice, “if it isn’t the bottom feeder.”

Morgan had to return her library books eventually. Her automatic renewals had tallied themselves up until they could tally no more, and every morning she opted to stay curled up on the floor or in bed beside Deirdre, the library desk replied with a frighteningly cheerful message that they were still waiting for her returns. So, bolstered by her quiet Beltane and the bright day, Morgan forced herself outside to return them. It’s not that hard, she told herself. Get rid of some bad research memories. Actually have something to say in response to “how was your day?” It wasn’t that hard. She could pull herself together long enough for a library trip. She liked the library, didn’t she? But as soon as the books were dumped, Morgan had a panicked, self-conscious feeling that her drab sweats and not-washed-recently-enough sweater were being judged by the family and students milling in. Shrinking from the attention, she marched herself inside, trying to hold herself like she belonged there and hadn’t just crawled out of the house for the first time in a week. She went to the fiction section, always the easiest to find, and did her best to pick out a novel or two to take home. Something she could hide herself away in, a safe bet.

Morgan, dizzied by the abundance of titles, impulse settled on two books that she had been meaning to get to and already knew half the plots of from pop culture discourse. See, she was fine. She had picked out books like normal, together people who knew how to be alive. She was fine--then she was crashing into a book cart and Rebecca. Or rather, the thing that lived inside her. Her face fell with disgust. “Don’t you have any other tricks besides that one?” She asked, a thin edge to her voice betraying how it still hurt. “It’s not a good idea to remind me how easy it would be to drag you down with me. And then where would you be?” She looked down into the cart, angling for a glimpse at the titles. Whatever he was up to, it was safe to bet it wasn’t anything good.

Amnon just smiled. How easy it would be to remind her of her place or to show her how little power she actually held in the moment-- but he didn’t need to. It would just be for her sake and he cared so very little about it. “Lovely to see you, too,” he said, leaning against the car to look at her amusingly. “You know, it’s cute how you think you’re actually threatening.” He plucked another book from the shelf, glanced over the title, and set it in his cart. “I’m sure it works on most people-- it’s the little ones you have to watch out for, after all--” waggled a finger, “but you’re cute little antics don’t threaten me at all. How’s your girlfriend?”

Morgan went stiff, gripping her book tighter to her chest. Any pretense of pleasantries fell from her expression. She turned hard and bitter; had she been alive she might have flushed with her anger. “You don’t know the first thing about who I’m seeing,” she snapped. “And I’m going to keep it that way, Mike. And if you think that I won’t hurt you just because you’re wearing my friend as a meat mask, you can think again. I’ve been through death, dipshit. You don’t scare me.” She shoved the bookcart away to one side, rattling the wheels and knocking off the topmost volume from the stack and started to go.

Amnon was delighted to see that mentioning her girlfriend set her off, stepping away slightly as she shoved the cart aside. He simply crossed his arms and looked over at her. “Oh, I don’t think that you won’t hurt me, I simply think that you can’t,” he said with a shrug. “You’ve no idea what I’m capable of, after all, and you? I know your limits. I know your weakness,” he finished quietly, taking a single finger and dragging it across his throat in one, fluid motion, the universal sign of decapitation. He bent down, hiding his wince of pain in his ribs, and picked up the book, dropping it on the top. “So, go on then-- are you gonna show me what you’ve got? Or do you just wanna spit venom at me.”

Morgan stopped in her tracks. She should go, she thought faintly. She should go and crawl back into her hole under the blankets in the bedroom. There was a voice in her above the death-pit that knew this. But the rest of her, the part that raged, that wouldn’t message Remmy, that watched with jealousy as animals died, pulled on her. And it was so galling, to hear these words from Rebecca’s voice, Rebecca who wasn’t even here to be sorry or understanding or judgemental. Rebecca who she couldn’t even be angry at for letting this happen to her in the first place, for deciding she wasn’t good enough to have her curse broken in a way that would have given her a real life. And this ghost, this thing that had screwed her worse than Constance was laughing behind her face, was enjoying himself like she was something to play with-- Morgan whirled back, stomping towards her, arm outstretched to see how the two of them liked feeling broken.

She took the bait, just as Amnon expected her, too. Newly born vampires and zombies always seemed to hold such anger. It was the same story, over and over again, even when they knew it was coming, even if it was something they’d told themselves they wanted-- the pain of a lost life was always more than they could handle. Even Amnon had felt that way when he’d first materialized. In a way, he sympathized with Morgan’s plight. But in his eons as an incorporeal swirl of power, he’d lost the ability to do just that-- sympathize. And so, when he saw her hand reaching for Rebecca’s wrist, it took only a second to unleash the power in him, a telekinetic ram slamming into Morgan and pushing her back into a shelf. He stood up, no longer smiling, eyes hollow. “I told you,” he hissed, “you can’t hurt me.”

Morgan’s back slammed against the wall before she could even give Rebecca’s body a scratch. Had she been alive, something might have cracked. But as she sank to her feet in a clumsy mess of limbs, staring at Rebecca with horrified awe, her bones righted themselves on their own. “What the hell?” Had Rebecca always been able to do that? She scowled, straightening. “And I said I’m not afraid of you. You think that felt like anything?”

“Oh, I’m well aware of your tolerance to pain,” Amnon said darkly. People were beginning to gather, but he didn’t care. “Try and touch me again and I’ll show you just how far your pain tolerance can go.” He turned and grabbed his cart, pushing it around the corner, away from Morgan again, only to run straight into-- Morgan? “I thought I told you--” but something was different about her this time. It wasn’t her. Black and white stripes and a menacing look to her eye-- Amnon knew within seconds what this was. In the next, the cart was slamming into Rebecca’s broken ribs and he was keeling over. Funny how that worked out. Being human, being vulnerable.

Morgan was going under, not on the ground, but in the part of her that knew the appropriate thing to do was run like hell in the other direction and leave Mike to whatever fate awaited him. She was storming towards him again when someone--some thing darted out from the stacks and gave him one to the ribs with the cart. Morgan stopped short, the wind starting to flag out of her sails, and then-- “Oh, earth.” It was her. Only, it wasn’t. They locked eyes, and the mime creature flashed a look of menacing glee. She staggered towards her in a cartoon like zombie walk, then mimed taking a knife from her hip and lunged. Morgan held her hands out to keep the mime at bay, but somehow, despite all odds, the fabric around her sweater split and a trickle of blood peeked through along with a pinch of discomfort. Morgan shoved her away, hard enough to make her stagger a few paces and walked--into the hands of Rebecca’s mime double. The mime woman kicked her off balance at the knee and threw her to the floor. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Lucky for Amnon, the Morgan-mime seemed more interested in her actual counterpart. Although that made him feel a flash of anger. How dare someone ignore him. Gritting his teeth, he stood back up, clutching his side, strode forward-- and came face to face with Rebecca. He blinked, bewildered again. “You can’t be--” he started, mind reeling for a moment. No. He was in Rebecca. This was just an illusion, or a dream. Like in his sleep. And then it hit him-- both literally and figuratively, as a fist dug into his stomach again and he collapsed to the floor. “Oh, chara!” he cursed, slipping back into his native language subconsciously as he let loose a string of Arabic curses. The Rebecca mime reeled a foot back to kick him while he was down and he gathered himself just enough to raise a hand, eyes flashing, and throw her straight through a bookshelf, toppling it over onto the Morgan’s.

Morgan didn’t stay down long. She was crawling away from this and going home. “Fuck mimes, fuck curses, fuck this town, and--fuck!” She barely rolled away from the falling shelves in time. There was no safe direction to run towards--except to Mike. She didn’t have time to be baffled at aligning with him, just enough to get behind the person who could make shit fly. “You might want to be running,” she started to explain, but her mime double shouldered her way out from under the shelf, groaning with hunger. One arm hung loose and all wrong from where the books had crushed it, but she staggered towards them with ease, one foot determinedly over the mess, then the other. The Rebecca double, not far behind her. “Yeah, she definitely skipped breakfast.” And Morgan didn’t have much on her for stopping either one in their tracks. Well, at least not for good. “You got any better ideas besides playing slap fight?” Their doubles scrambled up the shelves on pantomime ladders then higher, til they dangled on the ceiling. Morgan backed away from their strange painted eyes as they smiled down at them and leaped in for another attack.

Amnon did not sit well with being made to feel weak. Eyes flashing again, anger rising, lights began to flicker. A low hum as the electricity in the air began to build. “Yes,” he growled, Rebecca’s voice low and dark. “Kill them.” He followed her line of sight up to the mime doubles hanging from the ceiling and stopped on the lighting fixture Morgan’s was holding onto. As if from seemingly nowhere, it crackled, sparked, and exploded, toppling the mime, setting her ablaze with electricity. The smell of rotting flesh filled the room, and Amnon staggered, winded. He’d forgotten how much power it took, coughing into a hand. He pulled it away to reveal blood. In the next moment, a heavy body came down between him and Morgan-- Rebecca. Well, the mime of her. Fists curled around his neck and squeezed. For the first time in perhaps thousands of years, Amnon gasped for breath-- and for help.

Morgan’s double fell within feet of her, spasming with the impact of more stimulation than even her dead body could take. Morgan brought her foot down on her neck, eyes screwed shut as she felt the bones give and the muscle pulp. It wasn’t real, she told herself. It wasn’t really her down there, getting rubbed into the carpet and even if it was-- Morgan grimaced as she brought her foot up again and stomped into her skull--she was a lucky bitch to be out of her misery so fast, even if she was evil and “Gross--!” Filled with black blood. She turned to check if Mike was seeing this, but he was a little occupied getting strangled. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. She could leave him. Maybe she even should, but he sounded too much like Rebecca, wheezing and desperate. Morgan could imagine exactly how the heart in Rebecca’s body raced, how the lungs must be trembling with panic, fighting for just a little more in the world. And Morgan saw Blanche and Rebecca’s students collapsing under the news, and hearing that she had let it happen and knew she still didn’t want to be another creature that only took from the world  “Damnit, Mike!” She crossed the short distance between them and wrenched the mime double’s arm until it popped out of its socket, then pulled her, ragdoll style, free from Mike before pinning her against the wall next to him. “Yeah, I’m between meals too,” she said. “--Seriously?” Rebecca’s mime twisted an invisible knife through her abdomen. “Mike--?” She called.

Amnon felt the world slipping away from him. Surely Morgan wouldn’t leave them. She couldn’t, not when it was Rebecca would suffer in the end. He could just leave if he wanted to. He even prepared to begin the tug to leave her body, but-- blackness ate away and so did he, falling into a darkness. Rebecca’s body hit the floor when the arm was yanked away. But she did not move. Stirring, after a moment, her head lifted. Eyes sullied and hollow and tired as she turned to look up at the scene unfolding before her.

“Morgan?” Rebecca muttered, staggering to her feet. She swayed, reaching out for something to grab onto. “Where-- “ she tried, but her voice felt lost, her vision still blurry. It clarified enough for her to look directly into her own eyes. Body freezing. What was going on? Was she dreaming again? Rebecca blinked, reached out-- she had to help her.

But one more blink, and dark eyes returned. Amnon groaned with his effort, still exhausted, still winded, ribs pounding with pain. Without thinking, he reached into Rebecca’s belt and pulled out her holy dagger. Staggered forward with a heavy step, limping, as he swung the dagger down, past Morgan’s arm, and into Rebecca’s heart. He’d pictured this moment for so many years, finally doing it, finally seeing it-- it didn’t bring him as much joy as he’d wanted. Black blood oozed over his hands and down to the floor, but he held the dagger there. With one heavy exhale, he turned to look at Morgan silently, as the clone melted into nothing in front of both of their eyes.

Morgan was frozen in place, staring horrified as Rebecca--real Rebecca, who was kind and knew things and could tell her how to exist here without hurting people or wanting to die again--surfaced for all of a second and vanished again. Was she coming back again? It had really been her, right? She’d used her name, and her face--she was worried, maybe tired, maybe scared, things Mike barely knew anything about feeling. “Shit,” she whispered. Then, quickly, “You couldn’t even pretend like it was hard. You’re a real psycho, you know that?” She turned away and stepped carefully over the goo her own double had left behind and stood over the mess. Her books were right there, unharmed except for a few pages, but she suddenly couldn’t find the energy to pick them up and carry them to the checkout desk. She kicked one over, wondering if the will would find itself if she gave it another second. Weirder things had happened; half a minute ago she’d seen Rebecca come back from the nowhere.

Amnon pulled the dagger back only once the clone had all but melted away into a puddle and puff of smoke. Wiped the blade on Rebecca’s pants, before acknowledging what Morgan had said. In his moments of darkness, he hadn’t known what had happened, but he could hazard a guess. “I do, actually,” he said back to her, walking over and thumbing through the pile of books and broken shelves for the one book he needed most. Picking it, he stuffed it under his arm, glaring down at Morgan. Sirens blared outside, employees already heading towards them, ready to offer help or start cleaning up. He wasn’t going to stick around for it, however. “Don’t think this changes anything,” he said to Morgan, before stepping specifically on one of the books she’d been holding as he passed her by.

Morgan flinched away from him, chilled by how quickly his moods shifted. And not even a fucking thank you. “Course not,” she grumbled bitterly. And then, as he left, “Sure thing, Professor Rothbard! I’ll tell them to charge you for the property damage, no worries!” Some student intern picking up books reached for one of the ones she’d picked up and held it out to her timidly. Morgan looked at the boy with confusion. What was he so afraid of? And then it sank in. How she must have looked, yelling like that, bashing evil mime-bones in, the works. “Thanks,” she mumbled, frowning, and shrank away. Maybe it really would have been worth deleting one more stupid reminder email.