#dont ask me how evil leafy is talking here

[evilherehotel]

lemon pye

[sleepypeaky]

weeping willow

michael x bonnie

request: michael gray × bonnie gold with 68 from the big prompt list except let's just pretend in this au that polly and aberama aren't dating so it doesn't make things weird lol

68. “Let’s carve our initials into the tree.”

Warnings: homophobia, some slurs, yearningg

a/n: i love this ship so thank you so much <3im sorry i made it a little darker, i feel like their ship requires a bit of accuracy i dont normally add. also yearning.  im gay and so are they. also pretend that teh golds just moved down there for no reason

Michael opened his eyes.

He was lying on the grass with his head in Bonnie’s lap. Bonnie leaned against a willow trunk, his hands twisting through michael’s hair.

This had become their spot. This particular tree had be mangled as a sapling, probably by a farmer who then changed his mind about removing it. Now, at nearly a century old, it grew at an odd angle, which led its leaves to touch all the way to the ground. It was here, beneath the leaves of the weeping willow which curtained them from the outside world, that they fell in love.

3 months earlier

Michael had been assigned to welcome duty. Typical.

A new ally was moving down to birmingham, what michael had been told was it was a skilled marksman and his boxer son. Michael and the son were roughly the saem age, and therefore michael was stuck with the task of showing him around the city.

As the car pulled up, Tommy and Michael stood shoulder to shoulder on the steps. In the next whirlwind of seconds, tommy introduced them all and ushered Aberama inside, leaving Michael and Bonnie to stroll the streets of small heath. 

After about 20 minutes of empty touring, Bonnie asked,

“do you have any natural places around here?”

“what? the raining coal dust and brick streets aren’t your slice of heaven?” Michael said sarcastically.

Bonnie chuckled. 

Michael led him to the northern outskirts of the city. He explained that when he moved here he had also longed for the nature he was accustomed to. It was a little ways off, but still on the northern hills surrounding the city there were farms and fields and forests. They walked for a while, meandering through the grass. They talked, oddly enough. Something between them allowed this simple communication. 

After a bit, bonnie looked off into the corner of the field they were in. A large weeping willow crowned the corner of the field. Michael wondered how he had never noticed such a magnificent tree before.

“Lets go see it.” Bonnie grinned. 

Then, as if once more boys, they raced to the tree with the giddiness of someone who finally found a treasure. It seemed that with that short sprint, they were now the closest of friends.

Bonnie climbed up a branch at once. As if he had done so with this tree many a time. Michael, ever afraid of heights, watched him from the ground. 

“What d’you say michael?” Bonnie asked as he once more stood on the ground.  “Let’s carve our initials into the tree.” 

Michael tilted his head, inviting an explanation.

“Well, seeing as we are the only people around here who value the outdoors, i say we mark the tree as ours.”

Michael smiled, “I do believe you are right.”

Bonnie took out a pocketknife, unhinging the blade and approaching the tree. Before long, a ‘B.G’ was carved in surprisingly nice fashion into the grey bark. He handed the knife to Michael, resulting in an ‘M.G’.

They stepped back to observe their handywork.

~

Of course Michael had heard it, the mutterings followed by harsh spits at the ground. The bodies so badly mutilated they were no longer recognizable. But everyone always knew who they were– that is to say, why they were in such a state. 

Michael heard it used as insults to other men, he heard it yelled from fathers to sons in furious disappointment. 

Michael heard it from him, and as a permanent tormenter Hughes’ voice echoed in his mind. He felt sick.

fag.

sodomite.

poof.

They all heard it, everyone did. but most could walk by without notice.

Michael tried.

And then Bonnie came, and the fear took a deeper,  tighter hold.

Bonnie already knew who he was. He got away as a ‘rumored homosexual’, living in relative safety knowing that anyone who tried anything would get their skull blown off by his father. he knew he was lucky.

Michael denied it all, then all of a sudden he was tasked with showing him around and he fell hard

As the weeks past, they talked, shared their pasts –to an extent– with each other. Normally michael wouldnt do this but there seemed to be a connection that made communicating easy, made it seem ok.

And michael was consumed. It was everything, his dark curly hair, his manor, the way his cheekbones caught the light, the intensity of his gaze. His heart beat red, but the fear and confusion he felt encased it.

He remembered what he had been taught, what was said, what he had been told by that evil man and the society around him.

And then he slowly he grew more silent, reserved. The friendship that sprung up so quickly seemed plugged, like a stream with dwindling water.

Such was the case today as he quietly followed bonnie to the willow.

As usual, Bonnie was in high spirits. He hoped his cheery attitude would raise michaels, he desperately wanted the old michael back.

“Race you!” He called, beginning to dash across the field. He thought perhaps a sudden spark of competition would snap him out of it.

But Michael kept his pace, waving his hand to suggest he would not be racing today. 

Bonnie sighed in defeat and allowed michael to catch up.

“Michael” He started as they pushed through the leafy curtain, “What’s the matter?”

Michael looked at bonnie as if surprised, 

“What? Nothing’s the matter.”

But this statement fell short as his eyes refused to look up from the shadowed ground. He felt the bubbling wave in his chest rumble. He refused to cry.

Bonnie sighed and crossed his arms, starting in a hushed tone

“Michael i know something has been wrong for a while now, please tell me.”

Perhaps it was the softness of his voice, or the light hand on his arm. But to michael keeping it in seemed no longer to be an option. 

He opened his mouth and found a large lump in his throat, he tried to swallow it but found his throat now dry as a bone.

A tremor stared throughout his body, and the tingly sensation of fear coated his skin. His lips quivered

‘bonnie–” he tried and had to clear his throat. his eyes still unblinkingly linked with the earth.

“i-” the tightness of his chest became unbearable. He couldnt breath, and his mind went elsewhere.

“I love you.” He whispered, the tears he promised to hold in fell freely from his eyes, traversing the faint sunspots on his cheeks. 

Bonnie watched as michael’s shaking form wept in silence. His own cheeks became wet. He crept his hands up to michael’s face and lifted his chin. He pressed his forehead against his and whispered against michael’s soft sad lips,

“I love you too.”

Michael looked up at the love of his life with bright watery eyes, translucent pearls continued to leak out and roll to the ground. He moved his chin just a fraction to connect his lips with bonnie’s. 

perhaps the willow knew, for the wind seemed to subside and pull the curtain of the leaves closed around them. 

~

Now, reclining in the new warmth of spring, that day seemed so long ago. 

Michael once again looked up from his place in Bonnie’s lap, he reached up and caressed his cheek. Bonnie leaned into Michael’s touch.

“I love you so much bonnie.” Michael said, gazing in utter adoration at the face above him.

Bonnie shifted his body so he could lie down beside michael and kissed him.

As they lay intertwined, the warm aromatic breeze fluttered through the willow’s branches. A beam of sunlight entered as if through a door, and shone upon the bark of the tree. In the light were two names carved; now encompassed in a heart.

☾ ✧ ☾ ✩ ☾ ✧ ☾ ✩ ☾

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