Help Me

Return Journey

Mikey

Monday rolled around all too soon, and Mikey swallowed harshly when he realised that Blair would be arriving within the next thirty minutes.

That meant that he would be saying goodbye to his mother... And that also meant that it was another step closer to himself and Rye having to tell Blair about them... Having to tell the boys about them...

Yet there was no accompanying dread with that thought, only a well-contained excitement. Which was odd, even for him. Before everything had happened, Mikey hadn't even looked at another man before, let alone his best friend. And telling people his feelings would've been an easy no... He would have ignored those feelings, repressed them, and buried them under false ones.

But now it seemed that he'd found someone that could read him so well, and so easily.

One look from Rye, and Mikey was spilling his words out. It was still so new to him, this being honest about everything. Being honest about himself.

Speaking of which, Rye was in the process of moving their bags down the stairs by the front door, so all they had to do when Blair turned up was move everything into the car.

Mikey was upset that they were leaving, because he didn't want to leave his mother again; they had only just got back on the same level after he had stupidly shut her out. He didn't want to risk that happening again. But at the same time, he missed the boys so much, and he didn't think it was possible to miss them as much as he did.

He missed Jack's easy-going nature.

He missed Brooklyn's stupidity, yet also sometimes his weird intelligence.

He missed Andy's ability to always be able to make him laugh.

And there were so many other things that he missed about them, especially their company.

"Mike? Blair's here." Rye peered around the door of the sitting room, where Mikey was stood looking about the window. He blinked. He hadn't even seen Blair's car pull up onto the drive. Too engrossed in his own thoughts to notice. Yeah, that was another thing that he had yet to work on... Getting completely lost in his own thoughts. Yet he knew that everyone did that sometimes, so it wasn't necessarily something to work on, just... Something to try to get out of the habit of.

"Let's take the bags out now then, because then it'll be done." Mikey decided, turning away from the window and leaning heavily on his crutches as he made his way over to Rye.
He didn't really need the crutches anymore, but it was more for his safety than it was for anyone else. His knee was practically better, but he didn't want to risk messing it up again because he was being impatient. Or because he was being stubborn.
That was something else that he was working to change. Not completely, but enough to not hurt him and those around him. Because he knew that he'd hurt the boys those first couple of days whilst he was being stubborn.

"No. I'm going to take the bags now, and you're going to sit down."
Rye pushed his hands against Mikey's chest lightly, and Mikey didn't even try to fight him on it, knowing full well that Rye would win; no matter what he did Rye would always win.

"Rye." Mikey whined with a playful smile.

"Shush, now go and sit down."
Rye pecked Mikey's lips with a bright smile, laughing when a blush exploded across his face, feeling flustered. Mikey covered his face in embarrassment, still looking at Rye though.

"For the record, I find it kinda cute when you get flustered." Rye called over his shoulder as he left the room, winking. That only served to make Mikey even more flustered than he had been before. He walked right over to the sofa and sat down, setting his crutches down on the floor.