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The last thing Mike expects to come home to is a bleeding Ignacio Varga sitting at his kitchen table and attempting to extract shrapnel from his bicep.
Exhaling sharply, Mike grabs his first aid kit and gets to work on the kid, not asking why he's there, but reminding him to stay still as he presses fingertips to the tied off strip of t-shirt that's wrapped around his arm.
Nacho swears through gritted teeth as Mike's steady fingers remove every fleck of metal. Hot pain shoots through his arm as Mike pours iodine onto the wound, his fingers flying out to grip onto the older man's knee.
Mike barely bats an eye at the grip, just carries on cleaning, packing, and bandaging up the wound.
The worst of it is over, but it's still a hot pulse, throbbing beneath the bandages, and the sweat that collects in the space between Nacho's bare collarbones is indication enough that he's going to need something strong.
"Today's your lucky day, kid," Mike says, rummaging around a drawer in his kitchen. He pulls out a bottle of pills. "Just got my prescription in."
Nacho swallows the pills dry, ignoring the roughness in his throat, and thanks Mike for helping him, "I'm sorry, I didn't know where else to go."
"It's fine, kid," Mike says, though his expression doesn't shift from his usual stoic stare. "Just don't make a habit of it."
- - -
When Mike shuffles into his living room the next morning, just past five am, Nacho is fast asleep on his couch.
Nacho's arm is elavated, propped against pillows on Mike's suggestion. The spare sheet Mike had dug out of his closet is old, but barely any of it is covering Nacho's bare torso anyway.
Mike watches him for a moment before starting his usual morning routine, coffee and the local paper.
It's just after six am when Nacho wakes up, blinking the sleep from his eyes as he stretches on Mike's couch. His arm still aches, but he feels almost revitalised as he lets out a yawn that's far louder than he intends it to be.
"Sleep well, kid?" Mike asks, not looking up from his paper. "There's coffee in here if you want it."
There's the soft pad of bare feet behind him, and Nacho soon appears, the hard lines of his torso coming into Mike's line of sight.
Mike watches in mild curiousity as Nacho pours out a cup of coffee.
"Thanks..." Nacho says, stirring the spoon in his cup. His back is turned to Mike, who looks away quickly when Nacho turns back around. "Don't call me kid. I'm not a kid."
"I know," Mike responds, the corners of his mouth twitching into the lightest hint of a smile.
- - -
Nacho returns to his own home but starts getting itchy after a few days.
Every car that parks across the street outside his house is a threat in his eyes, keeping him on edge.
He shows up on Mike's doorstep again, making sure he isn't followed by one of Hector's men.
"You do realise that if they find out you're staying with me, they're going to come for us both, right?" Mike asks, sat on a chair opposite where Nacho is sat on his couch.
"I've seen what you can do," Nacho explains, gesturing with his hands as he leans forward on the couch. He holds Mike's eye, his brows knitted together as he tries to reason with him. "You're more capable than Hector and any of his men. You're the only person I know who can help me."
Mike considers him for a moment. The kid seems genuine, like he's frazzled but determined to fight with all he's got.
Sighing, Mike leans back in his chair and nods slowly, "Okay, but when they come knocking, I'm saving my ass first.
- - -
"Kid, you've got to calm down," Mike says, watching as Nacho stands by his window, peeking out through the curtains.
"Stop calling me that," Nacho frowns. "Does one of your neighbours install cable? This truck has been parked there for hours."
"Yes," Mike says, monotonously as he returns his eye to the television that's playing an old western. He's just gotten home from a brief meeting with Stacey, and had ushered her away quickly when he'd remembered Nacho was staying at his house. "Now either sit down and shut up, or go out and do something else."
Nacho shifts on his feet, ponders. He eventually lets out a sigh and nods, agreeing, "Okay."
Mike had hoped Nacho would choose the latter, but then the couch dips besides him and Nacho is sitting down, hands smoothing over his thighs as he tries to relax.
It's silent for a few minutes after that, Mike aware of Nacho's presence besides him, Nacho trying to fixate on the telvision and not his own paranoid thoughts.
"Jesus, I can feel the heat radiating off you," Mike reaches over his side of the couch, pulls a beer from the small cooler sat on the floor besides it. "Here."
Nacho blinks at the bottle offered to him before looking up at Mike, confused.
Mike deadpans, a slight annoyance to his tone "Just drink it, kid."
Nacho takes the offering, his knuckles bumping against Mike's as he hands it over. Nacho grabs the bottle opener off the coffee table, snaps open the beer, "Thanks."
"Whatever'll calm your nerves, kid," Mike shrugs.
"Stop calling me that."
- - -
Mike doesn't stop calling him 'kid'.
He does it in the diner they eat in a few days into Nacho's stay, and the waitress looks between them in utter confusion.
He casually drops it when he's heading off for work and giving him a firm nod before disappearing out of the door.
Nacho isn't impressed by any of it, his neck always burning hot when Mike drops it into a sentence.
It doesn't help when he keeps dreaming about that night, Mike's fingers on his arms, how he'd cleaned up the bullet wound and taken care of him. It doesn't help when Mike cracks a joke and Nacho's face flushes warm.
It especially doesn't help when he can feel Mike's eyes on him in the mornings, or when he's out of the shower, dressed in just a towel.
The shame overrides him as he lays on Mike's couch at night, bites the back of his hand to mask his groans as he brings himself to a climax.
He can hear his voice when he comes, low, mature, "Kid."
- - -
Mike comes home late, weeks after Nacho has practically moved in.
Nacho's chest sinks in relief at the sight of him, head lifting in the dark of the living room.
"What the hell happened?" Are the first words Mike says to him, switching on the light, exposing the tipped over chair and lamp on the floor.
Nacho doesn't move from his position sat on the floor, feet planted on the ground and elbows on his knees, hands hanging in front of him.
Mike's fingers are warm as they grip around Nacho's wrists, pulling him up slightly as he inspects the blood on his knuckles, "Jesus, kid. Did you kill someone?"
Nacho shakes his head, stares at the fingers around his wrists, calloused and lined with age. He swallows, looks up at Mike with teary eyes, voice shaking a little, "I don't know. He wasn't... he was barely breathing. They threatened my dad. I had to."
Mike nods firmly, lips pressed together. He understands, thumbs stroking across the bruised skin of Nacho's knuckles absentmindedly, "Come on, let's get you on your feet, kid."
Nacho rises to his feet slowly, brow furrowed as he gathers himself.
Meeting Mike's eye, Nacho's joints tighten as he tries to prevent himself from doing what he immediately does.
Mike doesn't process it at first, the crush of a mouth against his own.
- - -
"Please," Nacho's fingers are on Mike's face, lips pressed to the corner of his mouth as he whispers. "Please."
"Jesus, kid," Mike says slowly, fingers splayed against Nacho's chest, holding him back a little. He can feel the rise and fall of his breathing, hear the desperation in his tone.
He kisses him again and Mike lets him, his own hands moving to the sharp angles of his hips.
"Okay," Mike nods, fingers looping around Nacho's belt. "I've got you."
- - -
Mike's calloused fingers press into the nape of Nacho's neck, eyes fixed on him as he kneels between his legs.
Nacho's lips press around him, a slick, welcoming heat, eyes dark as they look up at him from behind dark lashes.
"That's it, kid," Mike encourages, eyes dragging down the lines of Nacho's muscular torso. He inhales at at the sight of Nacho's fingers wrapped around himself, bringing himself closer to the edge as he curls his tongue around him.
Mike comes, hard and fast, blunt nails digging into the hot skin of Nacho's neck.
Nacho follows shortly after, spilling onto the hardwood floor.
- - -
Mike wakes up before him. He always does.
Nacho isn't on his couch this time, though. He's sleeping next to him, beneath the scratchy linen of his sheets that he always forgets to put on a gentle wash.
Nacho's toned back is scarred, fresh nail marks from where whoever he had an altercation with had tried to stop him.
Mike wonders if he should mention it when Nacho wakes up, or if he should mention what had happened between the two of them.
He gets up to make coffee.
- - -
"He's not dead," Nacho says, sliding his phone into the pocket of his sweatpants. He exhales sharply, eyes closing in relief. He presses his hands together, fingers resting against his lips. "I've never killed anyone. Not by myself. I've helped bury them, but I've never..."
Mike watches him from the doorway for a moment, before sighing and stepping into his bedroom. He takes a seat on the edge of the mattress, besides Nacho, who's worrying his thumbnail between his teeth.
Nacho's shoulder tenses under Mike's hand, but relaxes soon after, when Mike's voice cuts through the air.
"You did what you had to do," Mike says, and it shouldn't be reassuring, not really. Not coming from a man who's killed for lesser reasons than Nacho. "It is what it is."
When Nacho meets his eye, Mike's stoic expression doesn't shift, but his chest aches at the sight of Nacho, all sad eyes and jaw tense.
"I'm sorry," Nacho says, turning his face away to look at the shag carpet. "Last night. I'm not-- I don't."
A breath of air leaves Mike's lungs, his hand moving from Nacho's back to his own knee, "Yeah, me neither."
- - -
Hector's men don't seem suspicious anymore.
Hector takes his hand in the hospital and tells him he's an honourable employee, that he showed his loyalty to them.
His dad doesn't speak to him, having witnessed Nacho's carnage on the man he'd almost killed.
"I did it for you, dad," Nacho tells him, pleads in that shaky but calm manner of his. Like he's a pin drop away from falling apart. "Please, you have to understand."
"I don't like this, Ignacio," his dad says, refusing to face him. "This violence. My son... he would never be involved in such things."
Nacho leaves his father's house with tears stinging his eyes.
- - -
"You don't have to leave, kid," Mike says as he watches Nacho packing up his things. They haven't really spoken in the past week, Nacho residing back to Mike's couch, mostly working with Hector's men.
"I told you not to call me that," Nacho exhales as he shoves a shirt into his bag.
"Where are you gonna stay?" Mike asks, leaning against the door frame like he had done time and time again, always observing him.
"I don't know," Nacho says, zipping up the gym bag. He gives Mike a quick glance, eyebrows raised as he moves to pass him. "I just know I need to get away from here."
The hand that clasps around Nacho's arm stops him in his tracks, and when he meets Mike's eyes, they're the softest he's ever seen them.
"Kid," Mike says, voice low as he holds Nacho's gaze. "Stay."
Nacho's tense shoulders sink, his lips parting as he sighs. He closes his eyes, chin dropping towards his chest, "Why do you care so much?"
Mike's thumb strokes across the raised, scarred flesh on Nacho's arm where the shrapnel had entered weeks before, "I just do, kid."
Nacho's lips are rough, calloused from where he's worried them between his teeth, but Mike kisses him anyway.
- - -
"Mike, I know it's none of my business, but who is this guy?" Stacey asks, eyebrows drawn together as she watches the man that had just bid Mike a quick goodbye leave through his front door.
"I'm sponsoring him," Mike lies between sips of his coffee, figuring there's no harm in it. He watches from the kitchen table as Nacho disappears into his van. "Alcoholics anonymous. I figured since I sobered up, I could help other people going through what I did."
Stacey's warm smile shows him that he has her convinced, "That's so sweet of you."
Mike simply nods.
- - -
"Do you still hate it?" Mike asks, arm draped around Nacho's shoulders as they lay together in his bed.
Nacho frowns, confused, "What?"
"When I call you kid," Mike clarifies, meeting Nacho's eye.
The corner of Nacho's lips quirk up into a smirk, head moving from side to side, "Not really. Not anymore."
Mike can't help but smile, a small chuckle leaving him, "If anything I'd think it'd be weirder now."
"Yeah, well, no point in trying to stop you saying it," Nacho shrugs, head resting against Mike's bare shoulder. "Can't teach an old dog new tricks."
Mike scoffs, chin tucking over the top of Nacho's head, "Yeah, keep it up, kid. See where the old jokes get you."
"I don't know... They've gotten me pretty good so far."