(AUTHORS NOTE: (THANKS TO TERRYGYIMAH and A WILLIAMSON FOR REVIEWING! AND TO EVERYONE WHO ARE IS FOLLOWING MY STORY. I LOVE YOU ALL, HOPE YOU'RE ENJOYING THIS.)

CHAPTER 08

Seriously, Michael? Are you REALLY going there?

(takes place a week later)

Apparently, Kiki and Michael were as miserable as Morgan and Zara suspected they'd be. Of course, this didn't bother either of them a bit.. But then Kiki started seeking out Morgan, and she was stalling on losing Morgan's number. And then Michael started approaching Zara.

Like right now, as she stood in the doorway of her dance studio, sipping from a bottled water, looking at him, trying to decide whether she were going to laugh or kick him in the balls. Because he was essentially testing her, she could just feel it.

"Michael, can I be completely honest with you?" she asked, looking around as if she were about to tell him a deep and dark secret. He bit his lower lip then said quietly, "Yeah.I mean I was just telling you that sooner or later, Morgan will mess up, or get tired of you for your own good, Zara. You're a pretty girl."

"If you were really doing this for my own good, Michael, and you had any sort of confidence.. You'd say all of this to your brother's face. But you're not, and clearly you do not, so yeah.. You can see how I'm gonna take every little thing you say with a grain of salt, correct? I mean you did steal his wife.. Granted, she's a class A whore, but yeah.. And trust me when I say this, Michael. You might think you're the better brother because Morgan's made his mistakes.." she said, using airquotes to accentuate the words mistakes as sarcasm in the sweetest of tones dripped from her voice, before continuing, "But ask yourself, Michael.. Are his mistakes really wose than what you and that trampy, skank of a mutant inbred troll girlfriend of yours, did to him? If you can answer that.." she stated, her hand on her hips, looking up at him expectantly, waiting.

"I thought so, Michael. Now get the hell out of my studio. You really, really annoy me with your self righteousness. Your brother's clearly the better man hands down and one day, when it's too damn late, you'll see that. If of course, your moral compass isn't still completely fucked up from spending all that time being a big ol mama's boy." Zara said with a humorless smirk as she slunk past him and out the doorway, getting a running start, jumping into a dirty and oily Morgan's arms.

"Thank God you're here. He's like.. He won't fucking leave." Zara grumbled as Morgan looked down the hallway, saw his older brother standing there, watching them with a confused look on his face. "What did he say that made you so mad?"

"He was being the egotistical idiot jerk we all know and loathe. I'm sure he's a nice guy when he's not trying to mess your life up, baby, but he was basically insinuating that you'd get bored eventually, or you'd mess up eventually."

Morgan gave his brother an icy glare and then said calmly as they walked past him and into Zara's studio, "Get lost, Mike. And do me a favor.. Spend all this time you're spending trying to break me and Z up actually giving a shit about Kiki.. I mean you loved her so much, you wanted her so much.. You've got the disgusting skank now, have fun."

Michael looked from his brother to Zara and then sighed as he said calmly, "I was just trying to make her see that one day you'll do what you always do, to her, and hurt her."

"Right because I deliberately set out to hurt people. That's your job, actually. You and dad."

"He's sorry, Morgan."

"The hell he is. And even if that's true, Michael, just not really sure that I give a damn now. I mean you're always gonna be the favorite son.. At least Jax is supporting me on this, on my job, on leaving Kiki alone, on getting away from the mess you two caused, on moving on.. And that means more to me than anything any of you could possibly ever say to me or about me. At least he WAS a damn father to me."

Michael grumbled and walked out, he didn't feel like fighting, he was simply trying to make Morgan see that he was rushing into something and sooner or later, somehow, it'd blow up in his face. But he was sort of noticing that Zara and Morgan looked really intimate and cozy together, like they were happy, and it didn't matter what anyone did to try and tear them apart.

It was what he thought he and Kiki would have, but clearly, she was regretting her decision now and they fought all the time lately. He sighed as he sat down in the diner, read the newspaper.

When Morgan and Zara came in with Molly and Rafe, he just couldn't watch his brother being really and truly happy, despite what happened, so as childish as it was, he turned and walked out.

Molly and Zara sighed and exchanged looks, then quietly shrugged. There wasn't anything anyone could do to fix this, because Michael bought it on himself, clearly. And now that Morgan and Zara were happy, he was realizing just what he lost when he hurt his brother just for someone he thought he loved but clearly did not.