Chapter Text
Michael
“Sure you don’t wanna stay for another round?” Dean asks, feigning nonchalance as he lays in bed, one hand behind his head on the pillow, the other on his stomach and a cigarette burning lazily in his mouth. He meets his boyfriend's gaze through the mirror on the wall, where Michael is currently tying his tie. Always pristine and perfect―except for when they were alone.
"I'm sure I do," Michael says with lips quirked in a rueful smile. "But I can't. I need to be there. The rest of the family will be there as well."
"I could tag along?" Dean raises an eyebrow and smirks teasingly. Berating himself for opening his stupid mouth the moment he speaks.
Michael shakes his head and breaks eye contact, focusing on fastening his cufflinks. "No. You’d hate it. Plus you'd have to wrangle into, what's your expression again? A monkey suit? And make boring conversation with a lot of boring people."
"I can fucking behave myself for a couple of hours, Mike," Dean argues, using a disinterested tone of voice. He blows a smoke ring and watches it dissipate, then taps some ashes off the cigarette into the ashtray beside him in bed. He hears Michael chuckle.
"Sure you can, soldier." Dean hates the note of skepticism in Michael’s voice. "But too much is at stake tonight. I need to be at my sharpest, and I'd be thoroughly distracted having you walking around like sex on legs, should you be there." Michael shrugs into his suit jacket and comes to sit on the bed. He grabs Dean by the dog tags and pulls him in for a kiss. "I had these made for you," he says and holds up a set of keys to the apartment. "Feel free to come and go as you like when I'm not here. The idea of you loitering around, making a mess while I'm away, appeals to me."
"Making a mess, huh? What? Not afraid I'll drain your liquor cabinet and sell your TV?"
Michael growls and gets that heated look that goes straight to Dean’s groin, whether he wants it or not. "Knock yourself out, soldier. Everything you do makes life more interesting, that's why I love you, remember?" The words cause a flutter in Dean’s stomach. They always do. From the first time Michael whispered ‘I love you’ in his ear during a lazy morning fuck all those months ago, til now. It got to him. Snared him like a choke chain, constricting his airways. Mum and dad used to tell him they loved him before mum died. Then Ennis had said it just days before he got ripped to shreds by a landmine. Dean was a slave to hearing it, but snorted like he didn’t care either way. Michael tugged him in for another kiss. “Will you be here when I get back?”
“When do you get back?”
Michael shrugs and drops the keys onto Dean’s lap before rising. “I’m not sure. Hopefully late this evening. But possibly tomorrow depending on how it goes.”
“Yeah, well,” Dean takes one last drag on the cigarette before putting it out and moving the ashtray to the nightstand. “We’ll see. I ain’t too keen on sittin’ around waitin’ for you like a fucking dog for its master.”
Michael chuckles and looks down on him fondly. “I get that. I regret letting my duties tear me away from you, Dean. But know that I wouldn’t be disappointed if you’d be here when I come home. Just in case…” Michael takes up his wallet and drops a couple of bills on the nightstand. “If you want to have some fun while I’m away, it’s on me.” He bends down and gives Dean one last peck on the cheek and then he’s gone.
Dean is left staring out of the full glass wall opposite the bed, overlooking the skylight of the city. He feels hollow. Nine months they’ve been together and still Mike hadn’t introduced him to his family, nor any friends for that matter. Dean had begun to feel like Michael didn’t want to take it further, despite the fact that he spent most of his free time with Dean (not that there was a lot of that. Especially considering Mike had to travel back and forth between the office here and the one on the opposite coast and could be gone for weeks at a time). But the keys in his lap obviously proved him wrong. There was just… always one excuse or another to why Dean couldn’t come along to meet the family, and it didn’t sit well with him at all. He puts the keys on top of the money on the nightstand, reaches out to grab a remote and hits a button that lowers thick curtains over the glass wall, submerging the room in pitch black darkness. He shoves any melancholy thoughts away and goes back to sleep.