Author's Note: This is just an old one from my files that I cleaned up a bit. It's supposed to be read as a tag taking place immediately after Season 3 Episode 5 Pinon Tree when they are all at the Drop. Tends to ramble a bit, all PIKE, a little angst and a little bit of sex (nothing graphic).
"Alright, next round as promised."
Mike sets the drinks down at the table in front of his thirsty roommates, turning back to the bar to gather the rest. His cheerful voice is trying to cover the fact that not five minutes ago he had told Paul that Gusti was rolling around with a WMD in his trunk. There's nothing he can do about it now, and the group already thinks he's nuts for chasing these birds. He comes back with the remaining three glasses, putting one down on the table in front of Charlie and giving her a friendly kiss on the top of her head to welcome her back from her trip to Florida since his hands are full with the last two drinks.
He looks over shyly at Paige who is staring at him, and he offers her the drink in his right hand as a peace offering greeting her with a soft, "Hey."
She takes the drink from his hand and briefly their fingers brush against each other. Mike savors the only physical contact he's allowed from her these days. He tucks his hand in his pocket, like he can save the tingling feeling from her touch for later, and turns to the group with a fake smile of enthusiasm despite everything that's going wrong in their lives.
Even as he laughs along at Jakes' and Johnny's playful banter, he swears he feels Paige's eyes on him. He looks back to Paige, and finds she is indeed staring at him like she's trying to figure something out. He nervously throws back the rest of his drink, using it as an excuse to head back to the bar away from her curious stare.
They were doing better since he'd apologized and told her about Lena, something he should have probably done in the first place. They were better, but still not good. There were so many lies and things unsaid between them, he didn't know if they'd ever manage to be truly good again.
He misses her. He misses what they used to have together. Not just the sex, though that had always been amazing, but the way they worked together. How she understood him. Unfortunately, that same trait was what had him avoiding her curious gaze now.
She's always been good at reading him. Too good. She's been talking to everyone in the house about how worried she is about him counting chickens and her fear of his rapidly increasing dependency on oxy. Just thinking about it, he reaches his hand into his pocket and subconsciously thumbs the remaining pills in his pocket. He may need to take just one more to get him through this night.
"Hey, can I talk to you about something?" Paige's voice at his side startles him as he guiltily pulls his hand out of his pocket.
"Sure." Mike says nervously. He walks over with her to the other side of the bar, away from the rest of the group just in case this conversation requires privacy. He licks his lips, and tries to stay calm, waving down the bartender to get him another drink.
"Is something going on with you and Charlie?" Paige's voice is low, but direct.
Mike isn't sure if he's relieved or disappointed that Paige wants to talk about work. He didn't know exactly what he was expecting, but the flash of disappointment he feels lets him know that he was stupidly hoping it would be on a more personal level. At least she's talking to him again. It's a start.
"I'm helping her out with her Germaine case. She's going to need someone to-" Mike begins to explain, but she quickly cuts him off.
"I don't mean like that. I mean are you two-" She doesn't finish her question because Mike interrupts her in surprise as he realizes what she's implying.
"You think I'm into Charlie?" Mike asks in surprise, gaping at her. He has no idea where she would get such a ridiculous idea. Up until this moment, he'd been worried she'd been noticing how he'd been following Paige's every move with his eyes. The drugs slowed his reflexes a bit, and he wasn't as good at hiding it these days. Sometimes he would just sit and stare at her for way too long before he realized what he was doing. It all felt a little pathetic.
"Charlie's distracted. She's keeping something from me, and then I saw you coming out of her room this morning…" Paige explains, looking down at her feet.
"I'm not with Charlie, ok?" Mike says a little too quickly.
His mind is racing. She saw him when he stole the oxy. She might not have realized what she was seeing, but it was only a matter of time until she would figure it out. Paige was smart, but she wouldn't understand. This would just reaffirm her mistaken belief that he was developing a problem or something. He didn't have a problem. He just needed something to take the edge off while he worked on this case. Once he got to the bottom of it and healed a little better, he would stop. He knew he would, but she wouldn't get it. Paige worked for the DEA so all she saw was junkies. He wasn't some addict, but she wouldn't believe him. She'd say if he could stop he needed to stop now, and Mike couldn't have that.
"Then why-"
"Are you jealous?" Mike asks, turning the conversation around on her.
"Do I have something to be jealous of?" Paige takes the bait, but turns it back on him.
"You have no right to be jealous Paige. After everything you-" Mike clenches his fist and sets his jaw as he almost brings up the one thing they don't talk about. Instead he changes course and reminds her, "You ended this, Paige. Not me."
He knows this will just start up the same old fight they've been having for months. She'll remind him of how they were just a fling, how he lied about sleeping with his boss, and how he was the reason Lena was dead. Still he'd rather rehash the same fight again than start a new one about his pills. He can't stand the thought of her looking at him like he was some type of drug addict. He braces himself physically for the yelling he expects from her, but he's not prepared for what happens next.
"I know, ok? I fucked everything up." What Mike was expecting as a yell comes out as a choked whisper.
Are those tears Mike sees in Paige's eyes? Christ he didn't mean to make her feel this guilty. He worries everyday she's going to go back to that dark place where she stops valuing her own life. He can't worry about protecting her from herself and find his birds at the same time.
"It's all my fault. Everything is my fault. Colby-" Paige is still wallowing in her guilt, and Mike realizes his change of direction worked a little too well.
"He was right handed Paige. You had no way of knowing. Briggs spent the most time with him, it was his plan, if anything, he should have known." Mike assures her again. She shouldn't have to shoulder that burden too. It wasn't her. It was a dangerous plan. Mike himself had almost gotten shot by Ari, not that he's going to tell Paige that. He won't add to her guilt.
"Seriously. Are you ok?" Mike asks for the first time in a while. He needs to know she's ok. He needs her to know that this wasn't her fault. The haunted look in her eyes as she puts on a small fake smile and nods a silent yes at him, tells him she's lying. He doesn't know how to take this weight off of her.
"How about you? Are you ok? How's your bird hunt going?" Paige turns the question around on him, and even though she's doing it to change the subject it has been so long since she's expressed interest in his well being, Mike allows it.
"Everyone's looking at me like I'm insane. Maybe I am." Mike sighs.
"Maybe you are." Paige shrugs.
"That's comforting." Mike scoffs sarcastically.
"Is comfort what you want?" She looks up at him curiously, and Mike knows what she's asking. Paige is not comforting. She's a lot of things, but she never has been comforting. Charlie is comforting.
"I don't want Charlie." Mike says simply.
He also doesn't want to go back to talking about what he was doing in Charlie's room. With all the focus he's using to cover his drug secret, his other secret nearly slips out as he almost adds "I want you." It's on the tip of his tongue, but the words go unsaid. Taking a gulp of his beer and trying to change the subject he asks, "What were you and Briggs talking about in the corner when I got here?"
"Tequila fueled casual sex." Paige crosses her arms and looks at him in a way that makes him wish he hadn't asked.
"What?!" Mike nearly chokes on his beer. Paige seems pleased by his reaction, because she shrugs at his shock and explains.
"I'm going under with the Sarkisian's. Briggs is gonna work Ari. I'm going to work Toros. That way no matter who's appointed win-win." Paige gives him an unconvincing smile.
"No. It's too dangerous, what if Ari recognizes you?" Mike slams his beer down glaring over at Briggs. How could Briggs drag Paige into this shit? Hadn't they just seen what happened to people who got tied up with the Sarkisians? Colby had, and he'd paid the ultimate price.
"He didn't even know it was me. He was drugged out of his mind. He thought I was Layla." Paige starts getting defensive. She's acting the same way she always does when someone tells her she can't do something.
"The littlest thing-" Mike begins to argue, but she cuts him off.
"You don't have to remind me." Paige says bitterly. "I know the risks."
"Stop trying to sacrifice your life to catch the bad guys. It's too much. I'm not going to lose you because Briggs-"
"Colby's dead! I can't just do nothing. I can't sit at home safe. I need to do something. I need to-"
"The same way you needed to do something with Sid?" Mike challenges, the thought of her being in danger causing his anger to completely forget his awkwardness around her. He's now leaning in close, almost whispering to her, "I know what you were planning to do. You were going to have him kill you so we could get him on that murder. Did you even think for a second on what that would do to me? You could have died!"
"All I can think about is what I did to you. I wish I could undo it. All of it. I needed to fix that. I still need to fix that. But nothing I can do can bring Colby back. Nothing can make up for what I did to you-"
"So your plan was to get yourself killed?" Mike demands.
Paige looks guiltily down at her feet as Mike glares at her. He is furious. Her attempts to take her own life upset him more than her giving him up to Sid ever could. Mike knows in the back of his mind that he ranks her self preservation over his own, which probably signals an unhealthy relationship, but he doesn't care. He gave his heart to her long ago, if she chooses to stop it, that's her choice. He doesn't know how he would cope if anything ever happened to her though.
She stares silently at her feet, and they both know what she would have done if Mike hadn't shown up to stop her. Mike's tempted to walk away while he can, go direct his anger at Briggs for pulling her into this mess, but her quiet voice, almost like she's talking to herself, keeps him rooted in front of her.
"It was supposed to be fun. I wasn't supposed to feel anything. I wasn't expecting to fall in- I mean, I wasn't prepared for that. It was just so intense. Everything with you seems magnified tenfold from every other part of my life. I've never… I've never let anyone in quite the way I did you, and I know it's not an excuse, but Mike I felt everything."
Paige is admitting to him for the first time what he wanted to hear all along, but now that she's saying it he just wants her to stop. Because he knows where this is going.
"It was like I felt everything for the first time, and I felt everything so deeply. So completely. And at first it was wonderful. Terrifying, but exhilarating. It was like a high that I thought I might never recover from. So when you lied… when you played me… I've never felt betrayal that deep. I wasn't ready to feel hurt like that. I'd never experienced anything like it, not even in my darkest days. I don't know what happened. I just wanted the pain to stop. I wanted it all to go away. You. The things I was feeling. So I went to Sid and I-" The words end in a choked sob, but she pulls herself together. Mike stands there helplessly hearing her recount everything that went wrong.
"So yes. I deserved to die for what I did to you. I destroyed the only person I've ever-" Paige doesn't finish what she was about to say, still can't find the courage, instead she says in a cold voice, "You betrayed me first but I… I murdered you."
Mike finally finds his words, and instead of letting her walk away in self hatred he grabs her by her wrist, desperately pulling her close. He wants to fix what was broken between them.
"I'm not dead! Feel that?" Mike grabs her hand and presses it to his chest right over his heart, her eyes widen at the touch, and he leans in even closer to her, "It's yours. My heart is still beating and it's still yours, Paige."
She stares up at him with wide green eyes and then her hand slides up his shoulder, from his chest to his neck, gripping him tightly she pulls him down to kiss him passionately. His hands come to her waist and he's instantly kissing her back with just as much force. Too much force, because they stumble backwards against the bar, and Mike uses one hand to catch their weight, refusing to stop kissing her. The kiss is messy and desperate, and it takes them a moment to find the familiar in sync coordination they used to have.
After a moment of convincing himself this is truly happening, Mike realizes through his haze he is making out with Paige in the middle of the Drop. While his roommates may not be paying attention to the two over in the dark corner of the bar, it's only a matter of time until they're noticed if they stay here like that.
Pulling her with him as he walks backwards, he clumsily pushes her out the side door. They slam against the brick wall, and her lips move to his neck while his fingers dig so deep in her skin he knows he'll leave bruises. He wants to bruise her. To leave memories of this moment painted on her skin. He sucks in the cool night air into his lungs as she sucks on his neck, as though she too needs to leave her mark. His eyes look for anywhere that might provide them more privacy in the dimly lit alley. At the end of the alley, on the empty side of the parking lot he sees it like an orange oasis.
"Paige." He gasps, as her lips begin to form a dark bruise on his neck. "Over there."
She pulls away from his neck long enough to see the direction his eyes are looking, her eyes heavy with lust and she just nods in silent agreement. They stumble through the alley, unable to pull apart from each other long enough to actually walk straight, until they reach the orange monstrosity that is Paul Brigg's car.
Mike lifts her into the backseat and climbs in after her. The open car doesn't provide much protection soundwise, but it's deep enough that no one should be able to see them lying in the back unless they come looking. Luckily the parking lot is empty.
"Hurry." She gasps, ripping the hoodie from his shoulders to grip his bare arms. "Mike, hurry."
Obliging, Mike grabs for her jean shorts and yanks them down her legs. He slides his hand between her legs, and once he's assured she's ready for him, he quickly moves between her legs, unbuckles his pants and slides into her. There's nothing sweet about what they're doing. It's hurried and desperate and angry. They should be apart, they both know it, but they've been apart for so long it was only a matter of time before they came crashing back together. Her hands thread through his long hair, knocking the hat he wears carelessly to the car floor. He stares down at her as the silk of her robe pools around her, still amazed by the look on her face as she takes him inside her.
"How could you think there could be anyone else for me? It's you Paige. It's always you." Mike whispers, in her ear as he thrusts inside her, "You haunt me."
"Mike." She moans his name softly, her hands on his hips guide his rhythm.
"You once asked… fuck… What you are to me… shit…and I fucked it up, but I need to tell you… I need you to know…" Mike pants with exertion as he tries to get the words out, trying to focus on what he needs to say and not the feel of her wrapped around him.
"Mike, you don't have to-" She seems almost panicked at the thought of hearing what he has to say.
"No, I do have to. From the first moment I saw you. It's always been you. You're my answer. For fucking everything. You're my answer." Mike's fingers are tangled in her hair holding her ear close to his lips, forcing her to hear the words he's tried to tell her so many times. "I am so lost when you're not by my side. I need you…. just you… and it terrifies me."
"What are we doing?" Paige's voice is breathless as Mike fills her again and again.
"I don't know." He groans in her ear. He's getting close, the frantic motions, the taboo setting, and the time spent apart from her all rushing him to finish quickly, but he keeps trying to delay his gratification because he knows once he's done, he'll have to let her go.
"Tell me what you're feeling." Mike asks desperately. Her eyes are hidden behind her lids and lashes, and he needs to know the secrets she keeps as he moves within her.
"I'm feeling you." Her voice is breathless as she kisses him softly.
"Paige, I need to know-" He tries to find the words, but she hushes him.
"I don't want to talk. I just want you." She assures him. "As much as you can give me. Please, Mike."
So he gives himself to her. He gives her everything he has, and for the next few minutes the car rocks with the hidden lover's motions in the night. He's now trying to be quick, but whether it's the oxy or his hesitancy at what this means, she beats him to the finish line. Her body shaking and gripping around his pushes him over the top, and he tries to remain silent as he releases inside her.
He lifts himself off of her, sitting up, and she continues lying across the backseat, breathing heavily. He looks down at her beside him, then up at the night sky. He doesn't know what the hell just happened. He doesn't know what it means. One second they're screaming at each other, then they're not talking, now this? What is going through her head? How is he supposed to know if she won't talk to him?
"We should go back inside. People are going to wonder where we went." Paige finally says, pulling her shorts back up and sitting up beside him, like nothing just happened.
Her cool demeanor brings a sudden horrifying fear to Mike's mind as he replays their earlier conversation.
"Tell me this wasn't you trying to make it up to me." Mike says, his voice suddenly dark.
How could he have not realized it before. Somehow, in the moment, he'd gotten lost in her. He didn't know why she always had this effect on him. She was a thousand times more addictive than the oxy running through his blood, but now that the high was wearing off he was unsure of what this meant.
Paige's silence, however short, terrifies him, and Mike repeats in a harsher tone, "Paige, tell me you didn't just fuck me because you feel guilty about giving me up to Markum."
"Ok. It's been a stressful day, so I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that to me." Her voice is cold and biting.
"No! I can't keep pretending like nothing happened. One second we're screaming, one second we're fucking? What was that, Paige? What am I to you?"
"You're an asshole." Paige scoffs, getting out of the car. Mike rolls his eyes in frustration and jumps out of the car to storm across the parking lot following her. He doesn't know why he tries with her. He's clearly not going to get a straight answer. She is incapable of expressing any emotion except anger. Still, the screaming is preferable to the stony silence he can't let them go back to.
"Hey, I know that ok? I know I can be an asshole, I know I fucked up, and I know I'm a lot of things. But you? You, Paige… you're everything to me. There I said it. Again." He steps forward arms out challenging her. "What am I to you?"
He knows she's just going to give him some snarky response. He's ready for it, but just once he wants her admit that she cares for him too. Because he can't be crazy imagining this whole thing between them. Mike feels like he's lost his mind ninety percent of the times these days, but he can't be wrong about this. It can't be one sided. He knows she feels something for him too. There is something real between them.
"You're alive." Paige's voice is soft and her answer unexpected, making him stop to listen. "I did it, because I needed to know you're alive."
Mike watches her cautiously from a safe space across from her.
"I need… I need you to… Fuck, I don't know." Paige sounds defeated as she sits down on the bumper of Briggs' truck, still trying to find the right words. "I just… I need you too. I need you, Mike."
The raw honesty in her voice, makes Mike cautiously walk back and sit next to her on the bumper of Briggs truck. He lets out a deep sigh, not sure what to say. He doesn't know how to fix this.
"...And you look really hot in that outfit." Paige teases with a forced laugh, and Mike joins in laughing, letting her break the tension.
"I'm glad you like it, because I stole it from your closet." Mike teases but his laugh fades into a sigh.
"I don't know how to do this, Mike." She finally admits softly, wrapping her arms around her waist.
She hasn't really admitted anything new, but just knowing she's as lost as he is, somehow helps. He loosely puts his arm around her shoulders and kisses the top of her head, "I don't know what to do either."
"You know Briggs said something earlier tonight…" She says leaning her head on his shoulder.
"Since when do you listen to the preachings of Paul Briggs?" He asks.
"You always have. He said, time heals some wounds. Casual tequila fueled sex heals others. Maybe that's all this was."
"There's a problem with that theory." Mike says, staring off into the parking lot, appreciating the quiet moment of his arm around her and her head on his shoulder.
"We're not drunk?" Paige guesses. "Well not yet at least. The night's young and Jakes is buying."
Mike appreciates her attempt to lighten the mood as she stands up and gestures for him to follow her back in the bar. As he looks at her holding out her arms to him in the moonlight, he sighs and answers her, "I could never be casual with you."
"We were casual." Paige reminds him of the terms of their brief fling.
"You were. I wasn't. Maybe that was the problem." Mike tells her what he was too afraid to voice out loud while they were together.
"I think we had bigger problems than that." Paige rolls her eyes, but doesn't list the ways they've hurt each other. "I guess the question is, what do we do about it? We can't fix things."
"I have been so in love with you, for so long, and I've been trying to hide it, because I know you're not where I am. I don't know how to not be in love with you anymore Paige." Mike holds his arms out in surrender and shrugs. "I'm sick of hiding it. Sick of knowing you're on the other side of the wall, and I can't be with you. Sick of feeling like I can't talk to you. Sick of knowing you're in the room, but that we're not together."
"You need to learn. I'm not good for you Mike." Paige says sadly, getting up and walking back to the bar. Before she can get too far Mike grabs her and pulls her back into his arms.
"Maybe you need to learn to let me love you." Mike corrects her taking her chin and gently putting it up to his face so she could see how honest he was being.
"We should really head back inside. People will wonder." Paige says softly.
"Let them." Mike growls, kissing her again. She returns his kiss, and he wonders if maybe they can stay right there kissing in the moonlight forever, but he knows they can't. "What do you want to do?"
"I want to sleep." She admits with an embarrassed laugh, "I just want to be home in my bed and I just want to sleep."
"And when you're picturing you in your bed… am I there too?" Mike asks, wondering if he's pushing things too far, but not wanting to lose the closeness he feels to her right now. He worries about her too, and he knows she probably hasn't had a good night's rest since she was kidnapped with the tinkerbells.
"I have to be up early tomorrow to brush up on the Armenian file and plan how I'm going to get under with Toros." Paige makes excuses, but she's still smiling and looking at Mike's lips.
"That's fine. I have to be up early to work on a case with Briggs tomorrow so I'll be out of your hair." Mike answers resting his forehead against hers and looking hopefully at her, "So can I stay?"
"I need to sleep." She protests, but she's kissing his lips even as she does.
"I need to sleep too." He agrees, kissing her back playfully.
"Like actual sleep-sleep." Paige reminds him, "Not like before when we'd say sleep but stay up all night."
"You think I could go another round after what happened back there?" Mike asks teasingly, "I'm barely cleared for duty and you're just putting me through the paces."
"If you stay, everyone will know." Paige puts up another flimsy excuse even as she presses against him kissing him breathlessly.
"Charlie's about to pass out in there. You offer to drive her home, and I'll say that I'm not feeling great either and ask if I can join. We'll put her to bed, I'll close my door, meet you in your room, and I'll be out before dawn." Mike promises. "No one will know."
"You're getting a little too good at this sneaking around." Paige smiles into his hairline and he knows he's won.
"I learn from the best." He stares down at her with unabashed admiration, and she smiles up at him at the compliment. "So why don't you go back in first, and I'll wait a minute. To avoid suspicion."
"Ok." She agrees kissing him one last time. Smiling at him hopefully she says, "I think… I think this could be good. Now all you need to do is lose the beard and we may be through the worst of it."
She's trying to say it in a lighthearted way, but Mikes knows what she's saying and he pulls her back in for a deep kiss, relieved to hear her say the words. Pulling away he stares down at her trying to memorize her face as he gently strokes her hair. "Go. I'll be in in a moment."
"Ok." She says, pulling away with a huge smile he hasn't seen in ages. "I'll see you soon."
"Yeah." He smiles back at her as she walks back into the bar. The moment the bar door closes behind her he grimaces in pain grabbing his side. Now that the adrenaline was gone, he's feeling the pain of all the effort he just put his side through making love to her. He reaches into his pocket and grabs the oxy he has there, swallowing three dry. He leans against the truck and waits for the drugs to kick in, knowing that he's still got a long road ahead of him.