Hello again! Been a while, but I plan on updating a lot more regularly this time (along with starting a new multichapter within a few weeks…). This is probably one of my favorite chapters that I've ever written. Because of my overwhelming pile of headcanons of Michael and Amanda's childhood as well as my burning desire to write about Amanda's backstory, I wrote this chapter, where Amanda realizes she's in love in a motel room during the winter of 1991. (Title comes from "Is There Somewhere" by Halsey, which inspired this fic. As always, enjoy, review and all of that stuff!
(P.S. Been thinking about starting a tumblr account to write about short headcanons and post moodboards and stuff, but not sure how popular it'd be. If any of you would like it, let me know!)
Smoke drifted lazily through the air in gray tendrils, twisting itself into vague shapes in the dim yellow light of their motel room. ShapTitlees of cars and people and animals. A dog, Michael even told her through another puff of his cigarette.
Amanda took another drag herself, making the smoke thicken above them. Probably the closest we'll get to cloud gazing, she lamented. It was a miracle that they'd even managed to find time for a motel room instead of just fucking in the back room of the strip club, which was basically the extent of their two-month long relationship.
She pushed the thoughts aside as the smoke started to dissipate. "What do you see?" she asked him. They'd been doing this the whole night, to spice up their "in between rounds of sex" cigarette breaks: picking shapes from the smoke and giving them personalities as if they were astrology signs.
"I dunno...A cloud?" he said dumbly, laughing at his own joke. She briefly wondered if he'd dipped into their weed stash while she'd been in the bathroom. He smiled over at her, and the lucidity in his admittedly gorgeous blue eyes told her he was anything but high.
For a moment, she became a little too distracted with his stupidly, unfairly attractive face and the bead of sweat that traveled down from his messy, short black hair (she so wished that she could smooth it back) all the way down to his muscular chest. Michael looked at her expectantly, as if just waiting for her to call him out.
"Um, right," she said distractedly before playfully slapping his arm. "Something besides a cloud, you idiot."
He sighed in defeat. "Ahhh, fine. A gun," he said, putting the cigarette between his fingers and pointing up at the cloud of smoke in an imitation of his pistol, a muted "bang" coming from his lips. "A smart motherfucker. Clean, strong, good in a fight. Gets shit done. Sound like anyone we know?"
"Well, I'd say Trevor, but then you just had to add 'smart' and 'gets shit done,'" she said teasingly. "So I think that sounds just like you."
Michael smiled faintly at the gun-shaped cloud that soon faded back into the air. "Yeah, I like that one," he said almost wistfully. "You see anything, Mandy?"
She looked up towards the ceiling, trying to make sense of the haze. Through the thick smoke, she finally managed to make out something: a couple of wings, a beak, even. "I see... a bird."
"A bird?" he asked in disbelief, squinting up at the ceiling.
"Yeah, a bird," she said. "Birds are free, Michael. They can fly anywhere. any time they want. Up and up and never come back down…"
He sat up, stamping his cigarette out in the nearly-full ash tray they'd kept next to the bed, and looked at her almost pityingly. "You wish that was you, don't you?"
She put out her own cigarette, which had nearly burned down to her fingers by now. "I...I guess I do," she said sadly. "I've never been outside of this god awful state, unless you count one trip to South Yankton when I was a kid. I...I just know there's more out there than just North Yankton. More that I'll probably never get to see because I've been stuck here my whole life and I can't see myself ever getting out."
"Maybe one day we can go somewhere," Michael said softly, hesitantly settling his free hand over hers. "Anywhere but here."
"I'd like that," she murmured before coming to her senses and stiffening up. They'd never really talked this deeply, aside from the usual surface-level "getting-to-know-each-other" bullshit. "Um, sorry...I didn't mean to just talk that much…"
Now he was looking at her as if she was high. There was something almost cautious in the way he looked at her, the way he touched her. It held a gentleness that she'd never seen in anyone before, let alone any other guy. "No, don't be sorry," he said, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "I...I think you should do it more, actually."
"Maybe I should," she said hesitantly before reaching over to the nightstand and grabbing another cigarette to calm her nerves. She held out the pack to him, offering one of the few cigarettes left to him. "One more before round...four? Five? I kinda lost track..."
"Think it was five," he said with a laugh. "And nah, I think I'm good for now. You go on ahead, though." He flicked his lighter on, holding out the small flame until her cigarette lit up. She smiled at him, at the sight of his familiar, beloved silver lighter that he'd engraved his initials on with a knife. MT. Michael fucking Townley, who she couldn't seem to get out of her head lately.
Michael caught her staring at it, and smirked over at her. "You like that, huh? Well, one second…" he said, trailing off as he got up, still stark naked, and went to where his jacket was discarded on the floor along with the rest of their clothes. He dug around for a moment, before appearing with a triumphant smile and his pocket knife in hand.
He got back into the bed with her, skin still slick with sweat against hers, and grabbed his lighter. Carefully, he held the knife up to the side of the lighter and started carving at it until two letters became visible right under his own initials: AC.
"There you go, Ms. Cooper," he said, proudly showing his handiwork off to her. "Least it's not as cheesy as carving our initials into a tree with a heart 'round it…"
"Hm, I don't know…" she drawled out with a teasing smile. "I wouldn't put it past you, darling. You are pretty cheesy from all those old movies you watch."
He looked at her in faux pain. "You hurt me, Mandy. I'll have you know I got some of my best lines from stuff like Rum Runner."
"Define 'best,'" she laughed, earning an annoyed sigh from her boyfriend (or would "fuck buddy" be more appropriate? She couldn't remember the last time they'd actually had time for a date).
"Okay, ow. Way to ruin the game plan I've had since I was 16: use movie lines on pretty girls and hope my ruggedly good looks will do the rest," he muttered, wrapping his arms around her. "And don't you worry. My fuckin' amazing movie taste is bound to rub off on you sooner or later."
"God I hope not," she said. "And as for your 'game plan': it's a good thing you're pretty, Townley. Your jock status in high school probably helped, too." She reached over to his arm around her waist, feeling the wiry muscles beneath her fingertips.
"Ah, high school," Michael said longingly. "Things were easier back then."
"Oh, I bet they were, Mr. All-star Quarterback," she purred, resting her hand on his chest.
High school had been fun for her, too, at first. Sneaking out with her friends while her mother and whatever stepfather she had at the time were too wrapped up in themselves to notice, drinking cheap beer and partying instead of studying, waking up with hangovers and hickeys on her neck...and then her grades started to tank, and then she ended up here, having to take her clothes off in front of guys for money.
Story of my life, I guess.
"...'Mand?" he asked her hesitantly, still touching her in that unfamiliar way that made her heart pound against her chest. "You okay?"
Not really. "Yeah, um, sorry," Amanda lied shakily. "Just thinking too much."
"Let me take your mind off that, then," he said softly, reaching over and tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear before pressing his lips against hers.
He kissed her, tongue tasting of Redwood cigarettes and cheap whiskey against her own. His lips traveled downward, planting a trail of hot, fiery kisses along her jawline and onto her neck, no doubt feeling the thump of her pulse against his mouth. Against her chest, she could feel his own heart pounding and briefly wondered if he felt the same as her, the same damn feelings that she'd tried so hard to not get with anyone else before.
Amanda sighed against his lips in anticipation, reaching up and running her hands through his soft black hair and roughly pulling him back on top of her.
He laughed shakily in between kisses. "Round five it is, then," he said before leaning back down and pressing kisses against her collarbone, muttering in awe against her skin, "You're so fuckin' beautiful…"
Beautiful, he'd told her countless times that night. No other guy had called her that, she realized. Pretty, yes. Sexy, a lot. Same went for "hot." Gorgeous, occasionally, but never beautiful. It made her heart flutter a little bit. There was a nice ring to it, admittedly.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him eagerly at the thought, which he quickly reciprocated. Each new kiss grew more fervent than the last, and, soon enough, they were beneath the sheets again forgetting where each other ended and began.
They fucked underneath the dim yellow lights and white sheets of the motel room, so different from their usual hot, hasty, animalistic sex in the back of the strip club. No more pressure or pretenses, it was only them and their own thoughts.
Once they were finished and laying tangled together again, her head against his shoulder and his arms around her waist, she knew for the first time what making love was like.
Love.
She stopped herself cold there. Nope. It couldn't be. Michael was a casual fling, that was it, and soon enough he would be gone, having skipped town for the next bank or store that caught his eye, and she'd be nothing but another hookup to brag about. Nothing but another tally mark in the list of girls that had fallen for his looks and charm. It was about time she accepted that…
His soft voice gently invaded her thoughts. "Hey, Amanda?" he asked hesitantly, looking down at her as if unsure about something.
"Yeah?" she managed shakily, distracting herself with tracing a finger over one of the scars on his chest.
"We've been together a couple months now, right? And... well, shit, I barely know anything about you and I think it's about time I changed that," he said almost shyly. For just a minute, a flash of vulnerability showed in the cocky, fearless Michael Townley, and it made those feelings swell up again in her mind.
This time she didn't try to push them away. "Well…" she said with a smile, turning on her side to face him. "What do you wanna know?"
"Everythin'," he said, moving closer to her and taking his hand in hers. "I just wanna know everything about you."
Shit, where did she even start about her mess of a life? From the beginning, I guess.
"Okay, Townley, your wish is my command. I was born into this god-awful town with two sisters and parents who got divorced when I was a kid. I had a shitty childhood stuck with my mom and whatever boy toy she had at the time. Years passed and I promised myself that I'd leave North Yankton some day and never end up like her," she said, bitterness seeping into every word she had. "Then high school came and I snuck out and partied too much. Then it ended...and, um, I fucked up my chances of going to college and finally making something of myself…"
She paused for a second, glossing over the worst time of her life: the day she turned 18 and her mother all but forced her to step on stage at the local strip club. Tears formed in her eyes, angry and resentful, and she blinked them away before they had a chance to escape. Michael looked over at her almost pityingly and gripped her hand a little tighter, sending her back to reality.
"And then I ended up here, telling you the pathetic story of my life. The end," she said, hanging her head with a self-deprecating laugh.
"Hey, it's not pathetic, okay?" he said softly, a rare softness in his eyes. "That makes you even stronger to me now."
For a lingering moment, they looked into each other eyes a little too intensely before they both had to look away awkwardly.
"So…" she drawled out, averting his gaze and those stupidly gorgeous baby blue eyes. "Your turn, darling."
"My turn?" he asked, raising his eyebrows in shock.
She leaned in closer to him, looking at him through fluttered lashes, and her lips brushed lightly against his when she whispered, "Who ever said that I didn't wanna learn more about you, too?"
He laughed a little nervously. "Well, I'm afraid it's more of the same: poor childhood growin' up in a trailer park with my parents. My mom wasn't so bad, but my dad was a mean son of a bitch…" he said, swallowing hard and eyes growing distant for a second. She could tell that he, like her, was blocking out the worst of the memories.
"Anyway," he continued. "I used football to escape that shit and keep myself sane. Then one day when I was seventeen he-fuck-I mean I broke my throwing arm. Got kicked off the team and lost the scholarships I'd been offered for college and that was that. Dad skipped town a while after. Or was hit by a train or joined the Navy; I was told so many stories I lost count…"
She looked at him in a mixture of surprise and pity. This was way more than she'd expected from him, and knew how much it had to have hurt to tell her. "Shit, Michael, I'm sorry...if I would've known-"
He waved his hand, cutting her off. "It's fine. Honestly. I've been holding it in for six years and I'm just glad someone listened. Plus what you told me must not have been easy either, so I guess we're even," he said, pausing as a mischievous glint formed in his eyes. "Now that that stuff is over with, can we talk about something more simple, Mandy?"
She giggled a little, attempting to lighten the mood. "Sure, babe. Like what?"
"Ah…" he trailed off, narrowing his eyebrows in concentration. "Shit, something like 'if you could go anywhere in the whole damn world, where would you go?'"
"Hmm...well at least it's not as cheesy as 'what's your favorite color?'" she said with a teasing smile. "That's actually kind of hard, but probably somewhere in San Andreas. I hear Los Santos and Las Venturas have a hell of a party scene."
"Yeah, probably a lot better than doing rails in the back room of the club, huh?" he chuckled. "Vinewood for me too. Gotta see where all the best movies are made."
She nodded, smiling a little. Of course he'd choose Los Santos. "Okay, my turn, Townley. What did you wanna do when you were a kid? You strike me as the kind of guy who didn't always wanna be a bank robber growing up…"
"Well, you got me there," he muttered. "I was always kinda banking on my football career working out, but if it weren't for that, I woulda loved to work in the movies as a director or producer or something."
"You'd be good at it. I can tell," she said, earning a crooked smile from him. "As for me, I had no fucking idea other than that I liked to dance. It sounds stupid...but I always wanted to be a dancer. I guess I am, in a way," she said with a bitter laugh.
"Hey, you'd be fuckin' amazing at it. I'd go to every one of your performances," he said reassuringly, giving her the vivid image of him sitting in a front row with flowers in his hand and a proud grin on his face. "Alright, back to me now: what, Amanda Cooper, is your biggest fear?"
"I get horrible claustrophobia," she smirked, but her smile faltered as she thought of what she was really afraid of: of ending up like her mother, of being alone and bitter and full of regrets with kids that hated her guts. She didn't wanna kill the mood, though. "Now...what could the great, fearless Michael Townley possibly be afraid of?"
"Heights," he answered without so much as a second of hesitation. "I really fucking hate heights."
"That's...surprising, to say the least," she said, frowning slightly. She'd expected something a little more obvious from him, like being shot or arrested or something.
"A bit anticlimactic, huh?" he asked, laughing. "Sorry to disappoint you, honey."
"No, not really. I just think it's funny is all," she said, laughing to herself at the thought of him being perfectly fine while in the middle of a gunfight but freaking out the second he went on top of a building that was more than two stories high. "Okay, my turn…"
They went on like that for a while, asking each other questions about their disappointing pasts and hopeful futures. Almost an hour later, judging by the decrepit clock hanging on the motel room's wall, they knew each other more than they ever had in the short time than in the two months they'd been together. Slowly, throughout countless questions, his cocky, charming facade had started to crumble, the chinks in the armor revealing the almost shy and insecure hopeless romantic that she'd never thought he'd be.
One thing had made itself clear to her during that time: Michael Townley had fallen hard for her and he'd fallen fast. And if there was one thing clear to her now, judging by the way that he held her and kissed her like she was more than just an object to be fucked and ignored afterwards and the way her heart pounded against her chest whenever he so much as looked at her: she had fallen for him in the exact same way.
"Amanda?" he said softly, looking up at her. They'd been quiet for the last few minutes, wrestling with their feelings as she ran her fingers through his hair and he hummed in contentment beneath her.
"Hm?" she murmured because she couldn't trust her voice to form any more words. She teased her hand through his dark locks, trying to hide the shakiness of herself.
"I think I'm falling in love with you…" he whispered, and when his eyes met hers, they were filled with a mixture of excitement and pure, unbridled fear.
She took his face in her shaky hands, tilting it up to hers as she leaned closer to him. Right before their lips met, she said, "I think I am, too…"