Author's Notes: I was going to wait to post this Chapter, but the last chapter was fairly short, so I figured I'd post it. For some reason I have all the even numbered chapters written, but am having trouble finding motivation for the odd numbered ones. Quite frankly I'm shocked I've been able to stay in canon so long. The show keeps feeding my Mike/Paige plot bunnies. Even when he's with Abby he's talking about Paige.
Hope you enjoy this one! I find Paige super fun to write. Somehow it makes total sense to me that her teenage movie star crush would have been Ray Liotta, and that makes me laugh really hard.
Thanks: I appreciate the reviews so much! Thank you, thank you.
-J
Skinny Double Dirty Chai
Chapter 6
Paige is walking barefoot down the beach.
She feels exposed. Vulnerable.
She reaches for her gun which she normally keeps at her side, but cannot find it. Instead she just feels layers and layers of frills and lace.
She looks in a mirror, and realizes she is dressed in a long flowing white dress. She reaches back to try to unzip it, but there are thousands of tiny white intricate buttons. As she struggles with the cloud of fabric, she hears someone approach behind her. She whips around to face her attacker, and then sighs in relief.
"Charlie. Thank God. I know I look ridiculous, but I can't get the damn thing off. Help me with the buttons." Paige says.
She turns her back to Charlie, showing her the problem, and lifting her perfectly curled hair. Charlie doesn't help.
"It's time. Let's go." Charlie says, smiling and waiting for Paige to follow her.
"Go where? I can't go anywhere looking like this. Let me change first."
"It's time, Paige." Charlie says in her no-nonsense voice.
Feeling self conscious, but curious, Paige follows Charlie down the beach.
Charlie leads her to a small sand dune with an archway, and then gestures for Paige to enter first. Paige cautiously walks in and sees a long aisle. There are chairs framing each side of it, but no people in them. It's somewhat eerie. She wishes she had her gun.
At the end of the aisle she sees Briggs standing there, behind a podium, looking at her expectantly. Like she should know what to do. There is a man standing to the right, in front of Briggs, but his back is to her and she can't tell who he is.
She backs up cautiously. This is wrong. She wants to get out of here, back to the open beach, but the door behind her is shut.
"It's time, Paige." Briggs calls to her from where he stands up front.
"Time for what?" Her voice echoes in the otherwise empty hall.
She's not moving forward until she knows what the hell is going on. Briggs just smiles at her, like he knows a secret she doesn't. It's the same smile Charlie gave her earlier. It's infuriating.
"Ok, Paul. I hate this. Tell me what's going on, now." Paige is sick of this.
Gun or no gun, people need to start talking. Briggs just smiles that stupid smile though, like it's amusing him that she doesn't know. She looks around the room for clues, but there is nothing other than the empty chairs and the podium up front. Her eyes settle on the man who still has his back to her.
"Hey you. I'm an agent for the United States Government. I am armed and pissed off. I'm ordering you to turn around slowly. Hands where I can see them." She threatens.
She is starting to panic. Something is not right here.
The man turns to face her, and she suddenly can't breathe.
It's Mike.
The fact that it's Mike is not what startles her. What takes her breath away, is the look on his face. She has never seen such a look before. He is staring at her with such focus and intensity that the rest of the room seems to fade away. He's glowing, and the joy in his expression makes her feel like she's glowing too.
She doesn't even realize that she's walking down the aisle towards him, it's just happening. Their eyes are locked and she can't get to his side fast enough. She meets him at the end of the aisle, and his smile is so bright, she can't help but match it.
Suddenly the smile fades from his face to a look of confusion and Paige feels cold. She looks down and sees her white dress stained with red. She looks back up to him, but he's lying on the floor, covered in blood. He's dying. She didn't even hear the gunshot. She starts to scream, and drops to her knees to hold him, but she is being pulled to her feet and dragged out of the room by Johnny and Jakes.
"Paige! Wake up! You ok?"
Paige is in the living room. The tv is paused, and her housemates are staring at her. She must have fallen asleep on the couch. Her heart is racing, and she feels foolish. It was just a dream. Of course it was a dream.
"Sorry. Nightmare." she says, trying to calm her racing pulse.
"What happened?" Charlie asks.
She is sitting beside Paige on the couch and starts to pet her hair in a comforting, motherly fashion.
"I was at my wedding..." Paige begins.
"Your wedding is a nightmare?" Charlie asks, incredulously.
"No, sorry, not at MY wedding, we were at a wedding. All of us." Paige quickly covers. "I don't know maybe we were undercover or something. Mike got shot."
"I got shot?!" Paige turns around to see Mike sitting on a chair behind the couch, looking annoyed. "Why was it me who got shot? Is it because I'm the new guy?"
"Relax Levi, everyone dies in dreams around here." Johnny scolds, looking for who has the remote for the tv so he can unpause it.
"Yeah, it's our subconscious way of saying we care." Briggs chirps, sitting down next to Charlie with a fresh batch of popcorn.
"So wait, you're saying you have all had dreams about me dying? That's messed up." Mike clarifies.
"I haven't." Jakes says simply from the couch.
Johnny and Charlie crack up laughing at the offended look on Mike's face.
"I did have a dream that Johnny and I were about to get executed by a crazy hippie, but then Paige drove a truck right through the barn and shot everyone up... Oh wait. That really happened today." Jakes continues, ignoring Mike's indignation.
"Paige did what?" Briggs demands. He had clearly not been briefed.
"Oh man this is great, you gotta hear this. So I'm all tatted up to go under as this Mexican drug dealer, and the woman is crazy into me. She wants me bad. And Jakes over here is getting a little jealous of my game..." Johnny excitedly perches on the edge of the couch, forgetting the search for the remote, beginning to relay his version of the story.
"I was not jealous. That bitch is crazy." Jakes argues.
"Whatever man, you totally were. So anyway she's all leaning in like... 'hey want some tea?' and I'm all like 'You know I do girl,' because she was hot. Like smoking hot." Johnny continues on, ignoring Jakes interruption.
"She's also bat shit crazy."
"Dude, I'm telling the story right now. No need to be hating." Johnny whines.
"Fine. Proceed. But I'm telling my version next and Paige will back me up."
"Whatever man, so anyways, as I was saying..."
As Johnny takes over the storytelling responsibilities from Jakes, Paige lets her mind drift back to the dream. She is still really shaken up from it.
What had her worried though was not Mike dying. Johnny was right, she dreamed about her friends dying all the time. It was just natural when under so much stress. What bothered her was the way she felt before Mike got shot. When she was walking down the aisle. The way he looked at her, and the way she felt when he did. She actually wanted to marry him. And that scared the shit out of Paige.
She tries to calm herself down. It was just a dream. She had had sex dreams before. She'd probably had one about everyone in this house, including Mike, so there was no reason this dream should mean anything. Except this wasn't a sex dream. The feelings in this dream were intense and unfamiliar. That look Mike had given her, the bright smile, the adoring eyes.
Damn Jakes. This was all his fault. Really the dream said more about Jakes, putting stupid worries in her head, than it said about her relationship with Mike. They were just friends, and Paige liked it that way. The dream was probably just her reaction to what Jakes had said the other day at the Drop. But she had fixed that. Mike had hooked up with someone else, so clearly Jakes was wrong and Mike couldn't be that into Paige if he had slept with Gabby.
She looks over to where Mike was laughing, listening to Johnny's dramatic retelling of the days events. Mike catches her looking, and flashes her a smile. She feels the same nervous knot in her stomach, and it makes her feel light headed and a little nauseous. She jumps up off the couch and goes to the kitchen to get herself some water.
"Get a grip Paige." She mutters to herself as she fills up her glass at the sink.
"Hey." She drops the glass in the sink in surprise.
She has been so lost in her own thoughts that she didn't even notice Mike enter the kitchen.
"Oh, hey!" she says, picking the glass back up and starting from scratch. "You scared me."
"You ok? You look spooked." He asks, walking over to grab a glass himself.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just tired. Didn't you hear? I had a big day today."
"I haven't heard yet actually. Johnny's still going on about his physical prowess in there. I doubt he'll get to your part of the story anytime soon. Why don't you tell me?" Mike asks.
He's leaning against the sink beside her, close beside her, while she finishes filling her glass. She is very aware of the way his arm brushes up against hers and how their hips are nearly touching.
"Nothing new. Johnny and Jakes are idiots who almost got themselves killed. I saved their asses. Same old, same old." Paige shrugs modestly, not looking at him as she takes a sip of water.
Did he always stand this close?
Mike pivots so he is standing directly behind her, reaching around her to fill up his own glass, in a familiar fashion. His voice is close to her ear, and Paige feels frozen, caged in against the cool kitchen counter by his warm body.
"Yeah, you definitely don't have Johnny's flare for the dramatic. I'm heading back in there to hear him tell it. I'm just going to wait for him to wrap up the part about taking her to Pleasure Town all night long."
Mike chats away casually, unaware of anything unusual in Paige's behavior. She's certain 'Pleasure Town' is Johnny's phrasing and not Mike's.
"Well that could take a while. I heard about it the entire car ride back to Graceland." Paige laughs nervously at his proximity.
She doesn't dare turn around.
"I still can't believe he slept with a suspect!" Mike exclaims, turning off the spigot and taking a step back to lean casually against the opposite counter facing her.
"You do what you gotta do. There's not that much difference in the dark." Paige murmurs absent mindedly, sipping her water.
Now that he's not so close she can finally think again.
She truly believes what she says. Sex was just sex. She has never thought of herself as the romantic type who would want a big wedding. Marriage was just an outdated form of claiming women as property, and Paige had never wanted to be possessed by anyone. Nor did she have any desire to be responsible for someone else's happiness. Well, not for more than a couple nights anyways. She was just too happy with her independence. So why was that dream still so vivid in her mind?
"So, have you ever..." Mike starts to ask a question.
Paige is so lost in her thoughts she barely hears him. She snaps herself out of it, and turns her head to look at his face. She needs to be able to look at him again without blushing over that stupid dream. It's just Levi for god's sake.
"Sorry, what were you saying?"
"Nevermind." Now it's Mike's turn to look away shyly from her.
"So this dream you had... I got shot?" Mike asks, changing the subject.
"Yeah, sorry about that." Paige looks down at her feet.
Somehow her omission of other details of the dream feels like lying.
"No, don't be sorry. Thanks. For caring." Mike says awkwardly.
She looks up to examine his face curiously. She's not sure what she's expecting to find there. Maybe the look from the dream? But she just sees Mike. She sighs, relaxing a little. She's overreacting.
"Yeah, well next time you make an appearance in my dreams, try not to get shot so fast. Kind of ruins the mood." Paige jokes, trying to lighten the atmosphere of the kitchen.
"The mood, huh?" Mike grins, raising an eyebrow at her.
"Are you having dirty dreams about me?" He flirts playfully.
She grins like a Cheshire Cat, finally feeling like herself again. She never was one for brooding and soul searching. This playful banter is familiar. This is Paige's specialty.
"All I'm saying is, next time you enter my subconscious, make sure to wear the American Flag underpants. I have a scenario involving them and Ray Liotta I'd like to try. If you're lucky, you might even get to watch." She throws him a flirtatious wink.
Yes, Paige's five minute allowance of distress for the week is definitely up. All sunny skies from here.
"A threesome with Ray Liotta. Really? That is your sex dream?" Mike asks dubiously.
"Have you seen Goodfellas?" Paige insists.
Ray Liotta was undeniably the sexiest man alive.
"Yes. Yes, I did... Twenty years ago." Mike teases her. "I'm not having a threesome, real or imaginary, with Ray Liotta. Get me a better costar."
"What makes you so sure I'd choose you over Ray?" Paige winks at him.
Mike clearly did not understand that the first time she saw Goodfellas was when she finally became a woman. Ray Liotta was the perfect human specimen and could never be replaced in her dreams.
"Oh, come on! The man is like sixty!" Mike protests.
"Who would you choose?"
"Anyone is better than Ray Liotta!"
"Who Mikey?" She pesters, happy that they've fallen back into their normal banter.
"I don't know. Look at Hollywood, there's all sorts of choices from THIS century. Russell Crowe? Hugh Jackman?" Mike offers up some actors' names he deems more suitable.
Paige stares at him with a huge smile on her face.
"What?" He asks defensively.
"I just assumed you'd pick a woman." She laughs.
"It's your threesome! The question implied it was a man!" Mike sputters.
"No, nope. It's fine I just didn't know you swung that way. Maybe we should have taken you to a different type of bar rather than the Drop..." Mike starts pacing towards her, and she runs away playfully.
"We could have gone to Swinging Richards! Or The Closet! The Manhole!" Paige yells out random names of gay bars as she runs in laps around the kitchen with Mike in hot pursuit.
"Haha Mike's gay. You're hilarious." He taunts as the two of them face off on opposite sides of the island. "At least I have better taste in men than you."
"No really! I was so off base with the girls I was throwing at you!" She squeals as he chases her around the kitchen. "All I needed was to find you a well built man! Come to think of it, you and Briggs would be adorable..."
"Oh, you take that back right now." Mike warns, jumping over a chair she throws in his way.
"There's a great karaoke night at The Tool Shed on Tuesdays!" She laughs.
"Not in a million years. Remember, I've seen you karaoke!" Low blow.
"Oh, like you could sing any better!" Paige scoffs, ducking out of his reach with a giggle.
"Dying cats could do better." Mike makes a lunge and manages to pin her between himself and the counter top.
"Gotcha!" Mike grins down at her.
She tries to get away, but now that he's finally caught her, he's not letting her go, grabbing her and tickling her mercilessly.
"Say I'm sexier than Ray Liotta." Mike insists as Paige howls in laughter, still trying to escape.
"Never!" Paige manages to squeak out in between giggles.
"You know it's true!"
"Blasphemy!" She laughs.
She manages to push by him, away from the counter, but he catches her, wrapping his arms around her middle, lifting her in the air as he continues to tickle her waist.
"Say it! Or I won't stop!" He threatens.
"Ok! Ok! You're sexier than a young Ray Liotta." She gives in, her sides hurting, and he sets her back on the ground, still keeping a loose hold on her waist.
She turns around to face him, ready to tell him that he would never be sexier than the current Ray Liotta (because damn that man aged like a fine scotch) but when she sees his face she is struck dumb.
He is staring down at her with the exact same smile she saw in her dream.