Trevor sought shelter behind him, forgave the crooked smirk that matched the pair of blue, blue eyes. It sickened him to even think about that fat, lying traitor, but Trevor couldn't ignore the fact that he felt so young with Michael, shared the same cheeky, innocent grin that hasn't been seen since the Score a decade back. The memories resurfaced to him, wild and ignored all these years, Michael smiling right at Trevor, gentleness seeping into the weathered face of a man that had gone through too many battles. Even after all this time, Trevor thinks back to the first day he saw Mikey out of hiding, the same face peering into him, and it was almost like he never left; never left Trevor screaming for death, never let Trevor see his best friend lifeless and gone on the bloodied winter snow. Trevor can't remember just how many times he thought he couldn't go on after that day, the usual high of a successful score now incased in agony and numbness.
And now, just when he thought he could trust M, Trevor can never forgive himself for letting himself slip into the uneasy façade of hope; the idea that Brad was just in the pen. How stupidly he fell back into the same routine, be distracted by every second Michael was with him, accepting every word and gesture from Mikey and filling the endless void where his heart used to be. The same easy words and lighthearted conversations caught Trevor in a web of lies that he knew he'd never escape from, not this time. It was all over, it was never going to work out, and there was no 'happy ending', no light at the end of the tunnel. Trevor first visited the cemetery to see the death of a man, and now it was just the same.
Michael's words turned into static, a gun pointed right at T's forehead, those calm, blue, blue eyes now showing something nasty and angry spilling over the top of them. Trevor's hands shook when he lifted a gun out of his pocket, but it wasn't from the blistering cold. He heard himself growl 'pull the fucking trigger' when he saw Michael's fingers dance across the gun, those same hands once, a long time ago, wrapped in Trevor's. They stood, silent, heavy breaths misting in the tense air of midnight. He waited for the blast of the gun and a bullet in his head, but it never came. Instead, he looked his best friend straight in the eye, and that is when he made the mistake of leaving.
"Take the fucking shot!" Michael roared, his gun steady in his hand, fury engulfing his face.
How did this happen? How did the man that loved Trevor all those years back, gentle and kind and making him feel whole and not useless and forgettable like so many others had done in the past, show such uncontrolled rage? They both knew, as the snow slushed under their twitching feet, that no one was ever supposed to die here. Trevor fought to be indifferent; enraged by Michael, but he just couldn't, he held his breath and thought of the fact that there wasn't even any fucking bullets in his gun. He wanted the other man to end it, but instead he threw the empty revolver and ducked behind the metal gate, gunshots ringing in his ears. As Trevor fled into the freezing night, he felt his hands dab at the tears now streaming down his tortured face. It was nothing different from Ludendorff, 2004.
He desperately stumbled to his plane, parked haphazardly on the uneven snow, and flew away from North Yankton. The entire way back, his mind reeled at what he just discovered buried deep within the frozen ground and the silence of closed mouths. The wrong guy got killed, and the only thing that didn't go according to plan was Trevor showing up on Michael's door a few weeks ago. Trevor never meant anything to that slob in the end, he was only there as an escape; something to leave behind. Trevor was just holding him back from his cheap stripper wife and their kids, was just an insane liability with special uses. Michael was so frantic to ' get out of the game' that the only way for that to ever happen was to get rid of T, to get rid of those long nights where he would take the empty space beside Trevor on his cold motel bed.
He should've left Michael the moment he laid eyes on him, save himself from the years of mourning and hopelessness. He should've never fallen in love with the tainted snake of a person that hides secrets behind a mask of fake heroism and charm.
As soon as he landed his plane, Trevor sprinted back to his trailer in a haze of red and static, slamming the door loudly behind him. His hands searched the dark of his trailer for something he didn't know of until he felt the comfort of cool metal slide across his fingertips. He slowly picked up his favorite pistol, loaded, and weighed it in his hands. It was heavy and grounding in his palm; it made sense. Trevor stood alone in the silence and wondered if it really was worth it, was it fair for someone so great to leave someone like him to rot in the corrugated metal shack of a home while the they lived a life of blissful luxury. For a split second his brain went into survival mode, trying to remind him of something better, running seconds of memories with M.
"I mourned for you Michael!"
"And I missed you, T."
Trevor flinched and gingerly squeezed the trigger, knowing that Michael would be the last thing going through his head.
The phone rang, dragging T out of the depths of his false paradise of quiet and back into reality. He threw the gun against the wall and crumbled to the dirty linoleum floor, fishing his still-ringing phone out of his pocket.
"What." He mumbled
"Yo, man, do you know where Michael is?" Franklin said.
"I, uh-" Trevor squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to smash his head into the floor.
"He's been weird this whole day, and Lester told me he was up in North Yankton with you."
"Michael isn't available right now. He's busy." Trevor seethed into the phone, glad that anger replaced the emptiness he couldn't bear to feel.
With a shudder, T got up and turned off his phone, glancing longingly at the pistol on the floor. Trevor threw himself into bed, and willed for sleep to chase away all coherent thought. If he woke up at 4 in the morning, searching the darkness of his bed for a hint of a person that isn't even there anymore, he'd be the only one to know.