That's What You Get

Chapter One: Things We Don't Talk About

It always started the same way, with a look.

Not anger, not frustration. Worse. It was disappointment. Disbelief. Like Mikey had somehow failed an invisible test he hadn't even known he was taking. Pete had mastered that look early on, used it like a scalpel, slicing into Mikey's self-worth with just the slight furrow of his brow or the quiet exhale of breath through his nose.

Mikey had learned to dread silence more than shouting. Silence meant turmoil. Turmoil meant bad.

They were in Pete's apartment, back when Mikey still had a drawer there, when he still believed in the promise of something like love. The lights were low, because Pete hated overhead bulbs. "Unflattering," he'd said once. Mikey had nodded, dimmed them. He always adjusted himself to Pete's preferences, even when they changed without warning.

That night, Mikey had laughed at something someone said at the bar, a joke, harmless and stupid, from someone Pete didn't like. Mikey hadn't even noticed the shift at first, the way Pete's hand tightened around his drink, the pause before he smiled and said, "Ready to head home?"

But now, back at the apartment, the air had cooled. Pete had barely spoken since they walked in. Mikey stood in the kitchen, clumsy with the wine bottle, trying to pour two glasses like they always did after nights out. A peace offering. A ritual.

When he handed Pete the glass, Pete didn't take it. Just stared at it for a second too long.

"You really thought that was funny," Pete said finally.

Mikey blinked. "What?"

"That guy. At the bar. You laughed like he was the most charming person you've ever met."

The wine glass trembled slightly in Mikey's hand, but he tried to steady it with a smile. "It was just a joke."

Pete leaned back against the couch, eyes narrowed. "You think I'm being dramatic."

"I didn't say that."

"You don't have to." Pete took the glass then, sipped it without breaking eye contact. "I just wonder why you always seem to laugh the hardest when it's someone I don't like."

"That's not fair-"

"Isn't it?" Pete interrupted, setting the glass down a little too hard. "I've got your back. Always. But the second someone else bats their eyes, you forget who's in your corner."

Mikey's chest tightened. It wasn't true. He didn't think it was true. But Pete had a way of spinning things until Mikey couldn't trust his own memory.

"I wasn't trying to disrespect you," he said softly.

"I know you weren't trying. That's the problem."

That was the end of the conversation, technically. Pete didn't say anything else that night. He didn't need to. He went to bed first, leaving Mikey standing in the kitchen with two half-full glasses of wine and a stomach knotted with guilt.

Later, Pete would wrap an arm around him while they lay in bed, whisper that he just loved him so much, that he was scared of losing him. That Mikey was everything. That maybe he overreacted, but it's only because it mattered. That it was because he cared.

And Mikey would hold onto those words like a lifeline, ignoring how they always came after the damage had already been done.

That was how the cycle started. Subtle, suffocating, and endless.