Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Jeff Eastin or any of the producers/writers of Graceland, nor do I own any of their characters or lines. All I own is my own imagination.
The Answer
They're in his room and she's sitting on his bed reading over Lisa's file as he stands over her. Paige has eyes the colour of sea foam. Her nose is straight and sloping, leading down to full lips. Her skin is bronze from the sun and her cheekbones curve out of the gradual slant of her face. Her honey-blonde hair falls in waves, her dark eyebrows are furrowed, her lips are just slightly curved downward in a frown- and suddenly he understands.
"I know where Briggs is." Her eyes snap up to his, wide and very, very blue.
"Where?"
"It all makes sense now." Things are falling into place in his head, coming together. The key was Lisa. The woman Briggs was in love with.
"Where is he?" Paige presses, as her gaze follows him around the bed to the papers scattered all over his duvet.
"He's here. He never left." Mike's own eyes bore into hers, imploring her to understand. He knows exactly where he is, why he's there, and how they're going to pinpoint his exact location.
"It all makes sense! Jangles. Jangles burned the house down. Jangles killed Lisa." He knows all this because he suddenly sees himself as his former role model. What would he have done if someone destroyed his home and his friends and then murdered the love of his life, the sexy, tough, infuriating DEA agent that he couldn't get out of his head, no matter how hard he tried? He would not rest, would not pause, would not eat until Jangles was dead, because he was in love. "Briggs could never let that go. He wouldn't leave without-"
"Mike. Mike, stop."
He shuts up abruptly as she turns him to face her. His face is a picture of confusion. Can't she see how important this is to finding Briggs? Doesn't she know what he's trying to tell her? And can she stop saying his name like that because it's really putting him off his game with how delectable it sounds?
"Stop moving, stop thinking, just... stop." Her eyes are roaming his face, as he breathes heavily for little to no reason, except Paige is pretty much the reason for everything he does. "You have done everything a good agent would do."
But he hasn't. "Well, Juan's dead, this house is burned, and that's all because I'm not good enough. So." He says this with a wry smile, because everything about that is completely true. It's bullshit. He feels like shit, he's quite certain he looks like shit, and this whole situation is just shit.
She steps closer and puts a hand on his chest. His heart palpitates and he knows she can feel it underneath her palm. "You fooled all of us, Mike." He glances down at where her hand is and swallows. He can't do this. He can't. Not with her looking at him like that.
When he looks back up at her she has a little smile on her face, and through her parted lips he can see her pink tongue, and it crushes his tenacity completely. He surges forward and presses his mouth to hers, hard. She takes a step back from the force of it, and, after a moment of hesitation, kisses him back.
The thing is, he's wanted to do this for a long time. Actually, since she slapped his ass in that ladies' restroom where he first talked to her. He's imagined kissing her in many different ways, in many different places, in many different clothes (or none at all, if he were perfectly frank), but none of them are even close to the real thing. It's a little messy and he's fairly sure his nose is too close to her eye to be comfortable, but it's warm and soft and sends bolts of electricity through his blood so that it tingles everywhere.
Her hand leaves its place over his heart (except it stays, because really, she's been holding that goddamned thing for months now) and relocates itself to his neck, pulling him closer. His own hands find themselves gripping her hips gently as his lips move against hers. Her fingers trace their way to his jaw, leaving burns on his skin.
He doesn't want to pull away, but he initiated the kiss and he doesn't even know if she likes him in that way and if she's going to make an exception to her "no romance/dating/involvement of sexual intentions in the house" rule (which he knows is never going to happen, but hey, he can dream), and Mike's nothing if not respectful to a woman's wishes.
They separate slowly, and when they are thoroughly disconnected, he is still so close to her he can count her eyelashes and see the little bit of eyeliner on her right eye that's uneven with that of her left.
And then she leans away from him, averting her gaze and letting out a short breath. Her hand drops from his face and his heart follows it. He swallows again and immediately takes a step back, feeling incredibly awkward and, to be honest, rejected. His lips press tightly together and his eyes focus on the little scuff on his floor.
He forces a smile and looks back at her, because he will not be a coward.
She lets out a little laugh, shaking her head. "Oh, believe me, there's a- a version of that that I want." His ears practically perk up, and his heart wobbles to its feet. Hope rises within him.
"But not like this." She says it with her eyes trained steadily on his and he makes himself do the same as his heart stumbles and falls to the floor in a heap, Hope beating at it mercilessly with its fists.
He bobs his head as if in agreement, except Heart is screaming no, no, no. "Why's that?"
Her smile is sad. "'Cause that wasn't about me." Understanding hits him like a train. She's got it all wrong.
Paige taps her hand on his chest, right where it was just moments ago, just above his heart. Heart trembles at her touch. "You're lost, Mike. And I'm not the answer."
He's frozen in a state of shock. He's lost? She's not the answer? Okay, maybe he is a little lost, but she is definitely the answer. And now she's leaving for the door.
She always walks away.
She walked away in the ladies' restroom, she walked away in that hospital room, and she's walking away from him now.
A bolt of resolve strikes him like a punch to the gut. "No."
The click of her shoes stops halfway to the doorway. Out of the corner of his eye he can see her turn ever so slightly towards him. "What?"
"I said, no." He rotates himself to face her profile.
"No, what?" She also faces him now, irritation flashing in her face.
"No, as in "you're wrong"." Mike lifts his chin, determined. He's not sure what he's determined to do, but he's going to do it.
"What, exactly, am I wrong about?" she drawls, raising one eyebrow, which she really needs to stop because it sends thrills through him every time and is really distracting.
"You're the answer," he says without really thinking about it. But he supposed since he was determined to do something, he might as well say this with gusto. "You said you weren't, but you are. You're the answer."
"Oh, yeah?" she says with a sneer. "What exactly am I the answer of?"
"Everything," he replies in a heartbeat. "For me, at least. You're my answer."
Paige goes still. Her sardonic expression crumbles and what's left is defeat. "What are you doing, Mike?"
"Telling the truth," he says softly, taking a step towards her. She takes a step back.
"Please, don't," she almost pleads, voice very quiet.
Sudden frustration flares in him. "I'm tired of lying, alright? I've been lying since I got here! I've been lying to Briggs, to Charlie, to myself, and to you, and you're the last person I want to keep things from. I'm done." His eyes flash and in her eyes he can see his own face, dark and thunderous.
But Paige is anything but afraid. "Lies are all we have," she shoots back. "It's our job. It's our lives. And if you can't handle that, maybe you should just leave and find a place where everything is sunshine and bunnies and syrup if that's all you're capable of!"
"A lot of the time I wish I could," he says. "But I can't. Not just because a place like that doesn't exist - the problem isn't getting there. The problem is I can't leave. I can't leave my job, I can't leave Graceland, and I can't leave you."
She is silent, and stares at the floor between them.
"You know how I feel about you. I want you. I've wanted you since your karaoke thing. I don't know if I love you, but there's a very good chance I could, if you gave me the chance." Mike takes a deep, shuddering breath - it feels almost foreign to say so many true things at once - and soldiers on. "So please, just say something. Tell me, one way or the other. Yes or no. I can't live in this middle of flirting and dancing around each other anymore, Paige."
At the sound of her name her eyes fly up to meet his. She opens her mouth but nothing comes out, and she closes it again, sighing. "This can never happen, Mike. Things like this never work."
"It can," he insists. He's gotten himself in deep now, and no matter from which side he emerges, he will get out.
"Look at what happened with Briggs and Lisa."
"Well then it's a good thing I won't get myself captured and made a heroin addict," he quips to lighten the mood, giving her the hint of a smile.
Her lips twitch but she shakes her head. "Still, you and me wouldn't work."
"Do you want it to?" Mike asks suddenly. "Do you want it?"
Paige smiles slightly. "If that kiss was anything to go by..."
"Just say it." It's somehow imperative that he knows either way.
She rolls her eyes. "Yes, Mike, I want it."
He takes two quick steps and they're that close again, noses nearly touching. There's a fleck of mascara in the corner of her eye. "Then what's stopping you?"
"You know what's stopping me."
"I don't care about that. At all. Paige, what else do I need to say? Something cliché? You're the brightest star in my sky? You light up my life? You already know what you are to me. You're the answer. The reason why I do the things I do! Hell, I even went out with Abby because you wanted me to. I thought it would get you out of my head, but then I came back home, and you smiled at me, and I couldn't concentrate for the next two hours!"
He finishes his rant, and he's breathing hard again, staring into her face. His hair is sticking up in every direction, and his eyes are red-rimmed in exhaustion. He thinks maybe if he looked better today this could have gone more smoothly.
Paige is gazing at him with a thoughtful expression, head tilted to the side. One of her eyebrows is raised. And then she shrugs. "Okay."
Mike opens his mouth to further strengthen his argument, but then he realises what she's just said, and now it's just hanging open like a dead fish.
She smirks. "You'll catch flies if you keep doing that."
His jaw snaps shut. "Did you just say "okay"?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, what?"
Paige laughs at the parody of her previous words. "Okay as in I'm willing to try this thing out, whatever it is."
They stare at each other for another moment, less than an inch apart. He absentmindedly admires the way the light reflects off her hair, turning it bright gold.
This time they both move at the same time, and their lips meet somewhere in the middle.
AN: First Graceland fic! Pike is my GL otp, so I just couldn't resist when that kiss scene happened.
If you follow me on tumblr you'll know that I had some technical issues while writing this - I was halfway through when I tried to save it and it kind of spazzed out and deleted all my work, forcing me to rewrite the whole damned thing. Which, of course, almost made me rage-quit and abandon this, except I really wanted to write it, so here it is, slightly less good as the original.
I am so sorry.
Love,
Stormy/theatreturtles