Summary: Mike moves to California and begins living the not-quite life of his dreams.
Pairing: Mike/Micky
Warnings: I don't think there's anything warning-worthy here.
Notes: Show-verse, obviously :) Um. I really wanted to write a Mike/Micky story?
Disclaimer: I don't own the Monkees - this is done purely for fun. Please don't sue :)
When Mike tells his mother, she laughs, just once – this drought-dry chuckle that sounds like a car with a run-down battery. Then she looks down at her fingers for a moment before pushing herself to her feet. She walks over to the window and just stares out, while he studies the line of her back and rounded shoulders.
"California," she repeats, and he nods – not that she can see it. She laughs that juddering laugh again, and shakes her head. Then she straightens her shoulders, and turns around. Her mouth is a little twisted at the corners. "You'll do as you like, of course, but...it's – not quite what I was thinking of, for you." She sighs, like she's letting go of something – a familiar sound.
California, he thinks determinedly, hugging the word tight to his chest, keeping it safe from disappointment and guilt.
She doesn't say anything else after that. He's told her and she doesn't approve, but that's all there is to it. She tucks her unhappiness away, folds it all up, neat as one of his shirts, and proceeds with life as normal.
It makes him feel ten times worse than if she ranted or raved. Even if they're hot with anger or knotted tight with hurt, words are something to hold on to. Silence severs the connection completely, leaving both of them standing on opposite sides of a bridgeless river.
Other people talk to him though. Like his Uncle Robert, who says, belligerently, "You're a smart boy. I've always said that you were smart."
He has said that before. Though generally the word smart has always been preceded by 'too' and followed by 'for your own good.'
"Thank you," he says anyway. His uncle makes a face and bats his hands, like Mike's words are buzzing flies, and then immediately deflates the grudging compliment by saying, "So what do you want to go and do a fool thing like this for?"
He blinks.
"California," Uncle Robert reminds him. "It's a mistake."
The words are rock-sure and certain, devoid of even the slightest vein of doubt. Mike could talk this thing out for hours, explain every one of his reasons until he turned blue in the face…and it wouldn't matter one bit in the end. Because his uncle has already made up his mind. Strength of character, people call that.
Some people.
"Well, actually, if you check on the map, I think you'll find that California's a state, not a mistake," Mike says. He makes sure to smile, carefully, deliberately mild.
His uncle makes a sound in the back of his throat, but continues on, with bulldog tenacity. "Stay here, get a job, work hard…in a couple of years, you could – you could be somebody," he says. It sounds like it physically hurts him to give voice to this kind of unbridled positivity.
Mike considers it. "I guess I'm not going to just disappear when I get to California. Last I heard, they've got jobs over there too."
Uncle Robert eyes him. "Well, you're set on it – I can see that." He sounds more comfortable now that the conversation has steered away from all that limp-wristed flattery. "It's your mother I feel sorry for. She had real hopes for you."
Mike has to shake his head in admiration. No wonder Uncle Robert's been struggling so to build him up – he's always been better at tearing a body down. Why – look right here. Ripped to pieces in thirteen economical words…that's gotta be some sort of record.
But Mike closes his eyes and determinedly stitches himself back together. See, sure he could stay here in Texas and maybe even be somebody…
…the only problem is, he wants to be himself.
"California," his cousin May muses, leaning against the door of his bedroom. Her mouth twitches. "What do you want to go there for?"
"Why does anyone go anywhere?" he asks, a little short. He keeps his attention focused on his packing. "To see someplace new."
"So you're going to California just to 'have a look around,'" May says, grin sliding sly through her words, like it's the stupidest thing she's ever heard. She's younger than him, but she's already engaged to Dwight Aiken, who she met the very first day she started school.
He can sense her eyes on him, making him feel like he's a pane of glass. "Let me guess – you're bringin' your guitar along too."
He doesn't say anything.
"Well, let me tell you something – if you plan on singing for your supper, you're gonna starve to death." She laughs. "Why even bother going? You'll come running back here with your tail between your legs in no time."
"Maybe. Maybe not," Mike says.
"You think you're gonna make it big out there? Skinny beanpole like you with a guitar around his neck?"
"You almost got it right," he tells her, still staring down at his suitcase.
"Oh – what part'd I get wrong?"
He finally looks her square in the eye, because there's no point prevaricating with someone he's known almost all his life. He might as well be a pane of glass to her.
"I don't think it." That beating thing in him that urges him onward doesn't feel like wishy-washy thinking. It's a whole lot more certain than that. It has to be.
May doesn't look impressed. "Uh-huh? So you're the next big thing – guaranteed?"
"Well, it's either that, or the alternative," Mike says. He holds her gaze and makes sure not to blink.
"Which is?"
Stay here. Stay here and marry Betsy Aiken and buy a house down the street from her brother and his cousin and live a colorless, flat life, smudged with other people's fingerprints.
"Starve to death," he says, and shuts his suitcase. Do or die. Sink or swim.
The smile lifting the corners of her mouth doesn't even waver. Not for a second. "Well…I know which one I got my money riding on."
His Aunt Kate is the most accepting. "California, huh?" Her voice crackles down the telephone line. "Well…it might do you some good to get the place out of your system."
He feels…disappointed. He shouldn't, but he does. "It's California, Aunt Kate – not bad clams."
"So it is," his aunt says. "And you're a good boy – I don't think it'll do you any harm. You'll get by."
It's something. Not much, but something. He tangles his fingers in the telephone cord and twists it tight round his fingers.
"I said I'd let you know, since you won't be seeing me around from now on. But then, you weren't really seeing me around before" – Texas is a big place, and even if it feels like it, not everyone lives in Mike's pockets. "Well, now that I've told you, I guess that's that. So…so long and all."
He readies himself to hang up when his aunt's voice crackles suddenly down the line again. "All right, Mike," she says, "But just remember…I never said that California was the place you needed to get out of your system."
When it comes time to finally leave, Uncle Robert doesn't show up. "No point," he says. "It's a waste of time. The boy'll be back here in no time flat."
His cousin May comes, but it's not due to some newfound bigness of heart, given that she only stays five minutes before skipping off, saying, "I've got some other things to do." And, like the blithe twist of a knife, "Anyway, I'm sure I'll see you soon."
That leaves him and his mother – who stands there, carefully, gamely smiling, and all of a sudden, he feels fiercely grateful to her. Because she doesn't like it, any more than anyone else – given the choice, she would've gone for the suit and tie and the steady job and Betsy Aiken and grandkids and stability – but she's never once tried to stop him or talk him out of it.
So he can't help it, the words come out in a grateful, reassuring tumble, "Listen – I know you're not sold on this whole thing yet, but…don't worry, ma. I'm gonna – I'm gonna make out okay. Better'n okay. I'm gonna be a big success – I promise." He catches her hands in his and bends down a little, so he's looking straight into her eyes. "Why, one of these days, someone's gonna ask you, and you'll be able to say, 'My son's Mike Nesmith, you know – Mike Nesmith, the famous musician.'"
He smiles at her and she nods – then, like she can't help it, she pulls him in close and tight, and whispers hot into his ear, "You know you can come back home, right? Whenever you – want to."
He has to pull away at that, so he can pretend that the distance between them is just physical, because…
Sink or swim.
Do or die.
"Yeah, ma. I know," he says, real soft.
Texas was hot and tough, like a leathery, overcooked steak, where California's sunny and sweet, like orange juice. It's not perfect, of course, because people are people everywhere – but then, Mike's always preferred his orange juice with a little bit of pith, anyway.
And California is easier. Easier doesn't mean easy, he knows, but he can work with that. California's got more bend to it, more give than Texas. He can breathe there, and the only expectations he carries on his shoulders are his own.
He scouts out the clubs and local dives, and that's how he meets the others. It's not exactly glamorous, because the clubs are full of hungry young musicians, slinking around in the shadows and snapping at the barest possibility of a gig when it's dangled in front of them.
Hanging around the edges of crowds in sticky-floored clubs, he meets Micky's eyes so often he feels like a night hasn't really happened unless it's corroborated by the amused twist of Micky's mouth. They check each other out between songs and after sets – quick glances, an indifferent shrug of the shoulders (I could do better than that), an assessing purse of lips (not bad), an impressed raising of eyebrows (hey, these guys have really got something).
It's like they've got this semaphore based on smiles and looks and tilts of the head. But once or twice Micky just flat-out grins at him. He starts by letting his mouth curve soft and small, before the smile overwhelms his whole face, like he can't keep it in. It's a kid's smile – a crazy trumpet blast of pure enjoyment. Every time, it makes Mike smile back, before he has to duck his head and grin down at the table.
Whenever this happens, he knows with a bass-line certainty that one of these days, they're gonna cut through the crowd and meet each other for real. It's only a matter of time.
With Peter, it's different. When he sits down next to Mike it doesn't take more than a couple of sentences to see that Peter's the kind of person his Uncle Robert would refer to as, "Ten kinds of fool rolled into one."
But he stares up at the stage attentively, and he taps his fingers on the table to the beat of every song, like he doesn't even realise he's doing it, and Mike thinks that there's a better word for what his Uncle Robert meant, and that word is – different.
His Uncle's voice comes back clear and strong and dismissive. "Dumb's dumb – no matter how you dress it up."
Mike narrows his eyes and thinks defiantly that even if someone is "ten kinds of fool rolled into one" – well, by Mike's lights, that's a bargain. His Uncle Robert's much older than Peter – and he's only ever managed to be one type of fool in the whole entirety of his life.
He turns to Peter and strikes up a conversation.
And then, without quite understanding how it happens, a couple of nights later he and Peter are listening to Davy explain why the dark-haired daughter of the club owner just spilled her drink all over Peter and then ran off in tears. Davy finishes by saying, " – so, like I've told you, she's really in a fix. What do you think we should do?"
His brown eyes fix on Mike's, full of earnest valor, while Peter alternates between staring at Davy and shooting expectant looks at Mike. It does sound like Hilary, the club-owner's daughter, is in a bind, but Mike still attempts to clarify that he and Peter had only wanted an explanation…not this – chivalric invitation.
We. What do you think we should do?
He figures, from the troublesome niggle in the pit of his stomach, as well as Peter's frown, that it's a lost cause, but he opens his mouth anyway. But he doesn't get any further than clearing his throat, because all of a sudden, Micky drops down into the seat next to him, looks around at the others, and asks, "So, what's happening?" as if they've all known each other for years.
Then he aims that peculiar, arresting smile at Mike – and abruptly it hits him. The four of them are already ankle-deep in their first adventure.