A/N: i dont know what im doing i dont know my facts im sorr y
FROM HIM TO ETERNITY
1: 3AM
3am is the most useless fucking time. It's too early to sleep and too late to do anything else.
The only things you really can do are fuck and get drunk. Everybody hates 3am.
At 3am, we ask stupid questions. We drink too much coffee, smoke too many cigarettes.
At 3am, we think we're fucking invincible.
"What are you thinking about?" Michael asks me through a lungful of smoke. His eyes are heavy, tired. I wonder when he last let himself sleep.
"Nothing," I shrug. "Stuff."
"Pick one," he murmurs, stubbing out his cigarette before reaching for a new one. "Not both."
"Nothing, then."
Michael doesn't press me again. He doesn't seem to care enough.
We're sat against my bed, in my stuffy little bedroom, in the pitch black. He insisted we only light one candle, and that burnt out pretty quickly, so now we're left in a bittersweet, confusing, is-that-your-hand-on-my-leg darkness. And I think I'm okay with that.
"What about you?" I turn to him. He's staring at the ceiling; his fifth Virginia Slim is hanging from his mouth, unlit. "What are you thinking about?"
"Stuff," he's grinning, I can feel it. I roll my eyes. "Hey, Pete?"
"Yeah?"
"Have you got a light? My zippo's jacked."
"Probably, somewhere," I grunt, and fumble around for my lighter. "I can't see shit in this room."
"Whatever, doesn't matter," he shakes his head, curls bouncing. He takes the cigarette from his lips and pops it back into the carton. He's had the same one for months – it's vandalised with sharpie, the brand name scribbled out and the sides torn and battered. He goes through phases like that, Michael. Some things can be considered absolutely sacred to him, and the next day he'll throw them away. It's weird. I don't know why he does it. Maybe he's a little fucked up.
I offer him a blunt "sorry" and he shrugs again. Everything's quiet and, out of the blue, I can feel his hand graze mine. I can feel his fingers crawling across my knuckles, like a ghostly spider, and I'm about to suggest that maybe this is strange and maybe he should stop, when he plucks my own cigarette from my fingers and places it in his mouth.
"Thanks," he says coolly, taking a drag.
"Oh," I reply. Things get awkward at 3am.
Then again, things are always pretty awkward with Michael. He's that type of person.
Always quiet, always somewhat away in his own little world of coffee and cigarettes.
A part of me finds it kind of fascinating.
Another part finds it absolutely fucking enthralling.
"There was something I wanted to talk to you about, actually," he says, passing the cigarette back to me. Our hands brush again for a moment as I take it, and I feel like I shouldn't say anything at all. But Michael's silence is deafening and I need something to block it out.
"Yeah? What?"
He pauses for a minute and, from what I can make out, he looks like he's contemplating.
"Never mind, it's cool," he sighs, "Wanted. Past tense."
"Don't be fucking lame, Michael, what's up?"
He shifts away from me slightly, by about a third of an inch, and props up his arm against the bed.
He's looking at me a little more straight on.
"What do you think about aliens?"
His chin is resting on his arm and he's looking at me hard, like whatever I say next determines something important.
I shrug, "What is there to think?"
"Do you, like, believe in them and stuff?"
He's still looking at me, with glassy black eyes, some of last night's eyeliner tucked away in the creases of his eyelids.
They make me feel far too sad for comfort so I glance down at my hand, at my cigarette, and take a quick, rather desperate drag.
"Sure," I respond, turning to face him a little more. "It'd be stupid not to."
"Yeah, yeah, that's what I think too."
Michael shifted back to his first position, slouching over, knees pulled up.
"Was that what you wanted to talk to me about?" I find myself asking. Michael looks at me, and I look right back at him.
He holds out his hand for the cigarette this time. I pass it over.
"Dads fucking the gas station girl." He says loudly, and takes another drag on the cigarette.
I recognise the look on his face. His eyes are closed, mouth open slightly - some kind of nicotine euphoria.
It's something he made up, nicotine euphoria. It's bullshit, really.
Something about positive being negative and negative being positive and having it all balance out or something fucking stupid like that.
Like a fucking yin-yang orgasm or something.
But it's a philosophy, I guess. And you don't shit on someone else's philosophy.
"That...sucks, I'm sorry," I mumble, "Do you think they'll, like, split?"
"Do I care?" Michael half-laughs, eyes still closed. "They always end up back together anyway."
"Yeah."
"Mm," he shifts again, round the same way, arm on the bed. Eyes looking right at me. "Yo, let's- let's not, like, talk about this. Let's just...I don't know, you got music or something?"
"Sure, but you don't like my music."
Michael groans, "Don't be a fucking victim, Pete, I only said Morrissey should hurry the fuck up and put a bullet through his brain."
I'm smiling. He knows I'm smiling.
"Hey," he nudges me with his shoulder. He's smiling too. "I'm sorry, dude, your taste doesn't suck that much."
"I'm kind of tired, actually." I could do with another cigarette but Michael needs it more than I do. "3am kind of pisses me off."
"You wanna sleep?"
"Please don't banish me from the coven, I just need to recharge my goth."
He laughs. It's short and dry, but its a laugh.
"Yeah, I could do with, um, recharging my goth, too." He stubs out my cigarette. "If you're cool with that, I mean."
"Well, I've never not been cool with that." I sit myself back on the bed and he lays down next to me, with his legs hanging over the edge.
"Hey," he murmurs, "if you want, you can come with me and Firkle into town tomorrow. Art supplies and shit."
"Sure. But isn't Firkle meant to be, like, grounded?"
"When is he not, though?"
"Good point." I settle myself down in the same way as Michael, horizontally across the bed.
I don't know Michael as well as I think I do. He's unpredictable, I know that. He's mopey, I know that too.
I still think he's a little fucked up. But I don't know that for sure. Maybe it's none of my business. I don't know.
But I hate 3am. It makes me think of stuff like this. People. Michael. Michael's life. Michael's brain. Michael.
Maybe he hates 3am too. I'll have to ask him sometime.