"I Fall to Pieces - Part 2: Where the Wilde Things Are" R (Mike/Peter) 06/09/09
Title: I Fall To Pieces - Part 2: Where the Wilde Things Are
Author: Moondreams
Rating: R
Pairing: Mike/Peter
Genre: Slash
Warnings: Language, people being even more stupid (and by people, I still mean Mike)
Disclaimer: I don’t own The Monkees and make no claim that this ever really happened. It is purely the result of an overactive imagination.
Summary: Mike’s trapped. He’s threatening everything through his fling with Peter’s friend, Nurit. Someone should have told him that friends talk...
Author’s Note: I think angst might be a huge understatement for this part. Obviously, it’s kinda heavy even though it’s fairly short (for once!!) It was also a real bitch to write. I still think there’s something missing from it but hopefully I manage to capture all the cascading emotions. Also want to say a big thanks to hot_nez for clearing up some Nurit issues that could have totally messed this up. Hope it meets expectations as I realise pretty much everything has been leading up to this!
Mike woke in his bed. No, not his bed...nor was it Peter’s. The night’s events came flooding back to him as he just lay there in Nurit’s bed, staring at the ceiling. He noticed that he was alone, but he preferred it that way, he didn’t want to talk to anyone at the moment.
He felt strangely empty, detached. What the hell was he thinking? He didn’t know anymore, he just knew that it had felt necessary and it had made him feel better. That was it, he was OK now. He could go back, forget this ever happened, move on.
But he didn’t. It soon got out of control and out of his hands. It became something of a ritual:
Go to work, shoot an episode, spend time with Peter, go home, take care of Phyllis, bed. Go to work, record, fuck Peter, go home, take care of Phyllis, bed. Go to work, record, get fucked by Peter, go home, take care of Phyllis, go to Nurit’s, fuck Nurit, bed.
Every time he thought he had everything under control, ready to give it up, Peter would give him everything he had been craving. He would devour him spectacularly, pushing him over the edge into ecstasy time and time again, taking over. And time and time again, it would drive him back into Nurit’s willing arms.
She never asked anything of him, maybe that’s what was what made it easier. He wondered to himself, if Phyllis hadn’t been in that accident, would he have foregone another woman and simply slept with his own wife to sort himself out? Great, now I’m trying to blame my wife...He thought, sullenly to himself.
He knew he was wrong, he knew he had to stop but all the time he kept surrendering himself to Peter, he really didn’t think he could. He hated it, he hated himself. He knew if he were just to talk to Peter, he would understand. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.
~*~
A month of ‘I’ll talk to him tomorrow’s passed without any mention of his philandering. He just couldn’t show a weakness, especially when he knew that Peter had suspected such a reaction from him in the first place. He so desperately wanted to prove him wrong. But now he just felt like he was drowning, suffocated from his own lies. He was beginning to see no end in sight, he was completely trapped. Little did he know that soon enough, he’d be free. Freer than he would have ever thought...
~*~
Peter was taking a break from recording, trying to find Mike in the studio. Quite often, they tried to organise it so that they were recording around the same time in different studios so they could hang out or work on the music together.
He’d been noticing odd behaviour towards Mike on the set lately and was hoping to talk to him about it. A lot of the crew were keeping a close eye on him, whispering when his back was turned and pointing accusing fingers. It had immediately gotten Peter’s back up, did they know about them? Thing was, it was only ever Michael. They never made any such gestures towards him.
A small part of him wished they did know. For really the first time in their relationship, he was really struggling in keeping things quiet. Now that Mike had shown Peter how much he meant to him, he was finding it hard to contain himself. He’d been so proud of Mike, he felt for sure that he would steer clear of him for a while afterwards but it hadn’t happened. He apparently couldn’t get enough and Peter was happy to go out of his way to please him. It was finally mutual.
Mike was nowhere in sight and Peter began to wonder if he’d gotten it wrong and he wasn’t even working today. When he reached the cafeteria, he saw a small smattering of people but none were Mike. He did, however, spot a familiar face which was looking more depressed than usual so he put his Mike quest on hold for a moment to deal with this first.
“Hey you. Something wrong?” Nurit looked up into those concerned eyes, giving him a weak smile as she hand combed the hair out of her face with a sigh.
“Could say that.”
“Anything you wanna talk about?” She contemplated him for a moment. It may have been a long while since they used to hang out but he was still her friend and she trusted him. She gave another sigh, deciding to just come out with it.
“I’m pregnant.” Peter wasn’t sure how he was supposed to react. He instinctively wanted to congratulate her but she obviously felt it was a problem for a reason so he paused for a bit.
“Oh, wow. I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone. Whose is it, anyone I know? Unless, you don’t wanna say. I can dig that.” He added, not wanting to force the issue if it was too personal. She stared at the floor, hair falling into hair face again.
“Michael.” She said, barely above a whisper.
“Michael who?” Peter said, genuinely clueless to the implications. When she looked up at him, a ‘take a wild guess’ look in her eyes, his mind stalled. No...
“My- Monkee Michael? Phyllis’ Michael!?” His voice began to get louder, making her twitch. She was hoping he would take it better than this.
“How? No. When?” He asked, not really wanting to know the answer.
“It started about a month ago-“ Peter began to get dangerously light-headed.
“S-started? This is an ongoing thing?”
“Well, it’s not been hugely frequent, it’s just been a couple of times a week or something. Nothing serious.”
“No? Looks pretty fucking serious now, doesn’t it?” He was beginning to lose his composure in a big way. He could tell that he was upsetting her, but he just couldn’t help it. He felt like he was in some sort of nightmare.
“I know it’s been a mistake. But- but he seemed up for it and then he kissed me...” She continued talking but Peter’s mind had shut down by now. So, he started it too... He clenched his teeth tightly, staring intensely at nothing in particular. He was suddenly aware of Nurit’s eyes on him, as if waiting for an answer to a question he hadn’t heard.
“What do you want me to say? You sleep with a married man who has everything to lose, you’re gonna get hurt.” He stood up, storming off, leaving her in a worse state than when he’d found her. He needed answers and he needed them now.
~*~
After some investigation and partial interrogation, Peter found out what studio Mike was recording in. His anger had dissipated slightly, instead leaving a horrible feeling of impending doom. Instead of finding Mike with Hank, the sound engineer, he found him surprisingly talking to Micky in the mixing room.
Peter burst in, making them both jump. “Micky, can you leave, please?”
“Hey, man, you really need to control your urges. He can’t be expected to just drop everything, y’know. Shouldn’t you guys be working?” Micky said, jokingly.
“Get out, Micky.” Micky began to frown, seeing how Peter never once looked at him, keeping his eyes firmly on Mike. Something wasn’t right here.
“Pete, what-?”
“GET THE HELL OUT, MICKY!” He pushed him out of the door, the poor drummer too startled to fight back as the door was slammed in his face. Peter turned back to Mike who just stared back at him, eyes wide and face pale as Peter began frantically pacing in front of him.
“Tell me it’s not true.”
“What?” Mike instantly cursed himself, knowing exactly what Peter was talking about. This was not a time to play dumb.
“Tell me. It’s not true.” Mike’s failure to meet Peter’s gaze was answer enough. Peter laughed a non-laugh that managed to get caught in his throat.
“How did you-“
“She told me.” He said, cutting him off. “Yeah, she is a friend after all. Or did you forget that?” Mike couldn’t think of anything to say. He’d been preparing to tell Peter for a month but never prepared himself for being confronted with it.
“Why, Michael? I don’t get it.” The hurt was beginning to come through the anger now, the confusion. Mike still couldn’t get his mouth to work, the reality of what he’d done finally hitting home.
“Did I just imagine all this? That we actually had something, that you loved me? Was it that worthless?”
“No! God, no. It was, IS something. I do love you, Peter-“
“Then WHY?!” Peter went back to reeling on him, trying to see where he went wrong. Again, Mike was lost for words. He’d never seen Peter so rattled and it unnerved him.
“It was...too much. I couldn’t handle it, there was too much feeling.” Peter got very close to him then, studying him. His eyes softened a little, back to the confusion again.
“You could have just told me. Why didn’t you tell me to cool off, you know I would have. You know that right? How is this making anything better? What about Phyllis?”
Something churned inside of Mike then, he didn’t like it at all. “What about her?” He said, indignantly.
“You didn’t think how this would affect her? When she finds out?”
“Who says she has to find out?” Peter didn’t like where this was going, Mike was getting his back up and that was never good.
“It’s only a matter of time...”
“She still doesn’t know about you, don’t see how it’s any different.” In the back of Mike’s mind, he had a horrible feeling of déjà vu but he wasn’t sure why. Peter began to bristle at Mike’s words.
He knew that it was totally different. When he was with Peter, all he was thinking about was Peter, nothing else mattered. When he was with Nurit, everything else mattered. He didn’t stop thinking about Peter and Phyllis and what might happen if they found out. It was different for the simple fact that he loved Peter and he didn’t love Nurit.
“You don’t see how it’s different? So I’m just some piece on the side to keep quiet, a way to get your kicks, is that it?”
“No, Nurit’s to get my kicks. What we have is messed up, it’s not right, it’s not even a relationship.” Oh shit... He knew then what the déjà vu was. It was a total replay of their first experience. Mike yelling things he didn’t mean at Peter, Peter trying to refute them, but somehow he knew the conclusion to this particular row was not going to be as pleasurable.
“You don’t mean that. I know you don’t. You’re just scared, you’re so stuck in your stupid ways that you can’t just enjoy something. I thought we’d gotten past that, I thought you’d realised it didn’t matter. But you have to fuck it up by fucking my friend and knocking her up!” If it were even possible, the rest of the colour drained from Michael’s face.
“What?”
“She’s pregnant, Michael.”
“Well, who’s to say it’s mine?” He said, knowing full well it probably was but was trying to clutch at straws.
“She does, I don’t see why she’d lie about it. She’s not exactly thrilled.”
“Not gonna happen. I can’t- I’m not getting involved. Phyllis...” Mike realised then just how big a mistake this really had been.
“Oh, oh that’s real noble Mike! Knock her up and then ditch her! Now Phyllis is a problem, is she?” Peter was exasperated by now.
“What the fuck do you want from me?! You either want me to stop seeing her or want me to stay with her!”
“I want you to go back in time and actually think about what the hell you’re doing! Think about someone other than yourself for a change! That maybe, just maybe you might be about to break someone’s heart.” That was it, he’d gone. The scale of what had happened truly hitting home for Peter. He’d given himself totally to this man, would do anything for him and thought Mike felt the same way but now all his beliefs were being thrown into flux.
Now Nurit, someone he didn’t even love, was going to have a part of him for the rest of her life. Something Peter could never have. It wasn’t fair.
“Yeah, well, if you hadn’t been so pig-headed about fucking me then this never would have happened!” Mike could have gone up to Peter with a knife and stabbed him through the heart and it would have hurt far less than the words that just left his mouth.
As soon as he’d said it and saw Peter visibly shake, he wanted nothing more than to take everything back. To hold him so tight and tell him how he truly felt. But he couldn’t. God dammit he just couldn’t. His feet were planted firmly in that spot, his pride preventing him from making a move.
“Peter, I-“
“Shut up.” Mike flinched. This isn’t happening. Tell me this isn’t happening. Why aren’t I doing anything to stop this? “I wanted to fuck you- no, I wanted you to want me to fuck you, because you love me. I thought you knew that and I thought that’s how you felt. Obviously, I was mistaken. Obviously, I was too blinded by my own feelings to see that you wanted out. All you had to do was say. Then maybe you’d have hurt just one person instead of several.”
“What-?”
“I don’t want to talk to you, to hang out with you anymore. I’ll record with you but I don’t want to make music with you anymore. Not ever. It’s over, happy?”
Not even remotely... Mike thought, but that’s where it stayed, as a thought in his head as he looked into those eyes, so full of fury and pain. Nothing he could say would make that go away, he knew it. He’d let it go too far, it was too late.
As Peter turned to leave, Mike stopped him with one final question. Another thought he wished had stayed in his mind.
“You gonna tell Phyllis?” Peter half turned, not looking at Mike.
“The fact that you even have to ask me that shows how much you don’t know me after all this. I hope for both your sakes that she never find out.” And with that he left, leaving Mike leaning against the mixing board, alone. Seconds later, the silence was broken by Micky rushing back in, a frantic look on his face.
“Christ, what was all that about?! Everything OK?” He could tell by Mike’s face that everything was definitely not OK. He put a hand on his shoulder, trying to coax him into talking. Mike felt like he was going to throw up.
“He found out...”
“Found out what, Mike?”
“That I’ve been sleeping with Nurit. And now she’s pregnant.” Micky’s arm fell to his side. Mike’s words felt like a slap in the face, he could only imagine what it had felt like to Peter. Without saying another word, he turned on his heel heading for the door.
“Wait! Where are you going?!”
“Where do you think I’m going!? I really fail to see how you’re a victim in all this, Mike. You have two people who love you unwaveringly and you throw all that away for some quick fuck? He’s gone through so much shit for you, sneaking around to protect you and your marriage and this is how you thank him? Pardon me if I’m the only one that finds that totally fucked up.”
As Micky left, hurrying after Peter. Mike was truly left alone with his thoughts. But the only one that really stood out was:
I deserve all the shit that’s coming to me. And so much more.