And maybe he’s getting better at this… thing between them, because he presses his foot right back against Sean’s and doesn’t think about what shade of red his neck is or how his hand is shaking slightly.
He thinks, It’s okay to do this, now. It’s okay to touch.
He thinks, When I go to the mountains, I need to take him with me.
He stops, fork partway to his mouth, eggs dangling down.
He frowns.
Because he doesn’t know where such a thought came from.
Sure, he was thinking about the mountains a lot this morning, but going to them? With Sean? Why, that’s just crazy talk. Isn’t it?
Isn’t it?
There’s a bright lance of pain through his head, quick and hot, causing his stomach to roll. The eggs fall off his fork, and he thinks, We should go up to those mountains.
Sean says, “Hey, you okay?”
And before Mike can answer (yes or no or I think something’s wrong because we gotta get up to those mountains, fo sho!) there are raised voices and a loud clatter behind him.
“Goddammit,” Sean snaps, slamming down his cup, the coffee j
ostled and splashing onto the table. Sean’s up and out of his seat before Mike can even set down his fork.
He turns to look over his shoulder and sees Daniel Houle of Houle’s Hats and George Kettner, who might be the closest thing to a town drunk they’ve got, pushing each other, faces twisted into thin snarls. Whatever argument they’re in has escalated quickly, because Mike didn’t even hear raised voices until they started shoving each other. Granted, he was distracted, but it’s something so out of the ordinary here in Amorea that he’d have thought he would have noticed the moment it started. People don’t fight here. Not to the point of where it’s physical.
Sean’s running toward them, ready to put himself between them, and Mike’s not liking that, not at all. Yeah, there’s a huge part of him that knows that Sean can take care of himself, that he can be downright scrappy when he needs to be, but those men are angry, furious even, and it won’t take much for someone to throw a fist and things to get out of hand.
He’s pushing himself up from his seat, ready to end this before it can go any further, when Sean catches an elbow to the face. It’s not done with any malicious intent; no, he’s sure that Daniel Houle is unaware that it even happened. But it does, and there’s a crack and Sean groans, staggering back a step or two, hands coming up to catch the first spurt of blood.
Things change after that.
Because Mike’s angry now.
He’s pushing by Sean, Walter already at Sean’s side and pulling him back. Mike’s at Daniel Houle and George Kettner. He grabs each of them by the back of the neck as George hooks his arm back to throw the first punch. George is sweating and smells thickly of scotch, but Mike’s got a good grip on him and on Daniel, fingers digging in. He’s taller than them, and wider. He’s muscle-thick to their middle-age fat, but he never uses that to his advantage. Never uses it to intimidate, because a bully is a bully is a bully, no matter what the size.
But he’s going to do it now, and is doing it, because there are dots of Sean’s blood on the floor, splattered and bright, and it’s driving Mike up the goddamn wall.
He’s growling low in his throat and his palms are itching to smash the two idiots together, to break their noses, to make them feel pain, their blood on the floor, covering Sean’s so he doesn’t have to see it anymore. He’s thinking how easy it would be, how angry he is, how stupid these men are in front of him, and he can barely breathe around his anger.
He hears a voice in his head, and it’s feminine, and she’s saying, You bastard, you fucking bastard, what the fuck is wrong with you, what are you doing, what are you doing, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you because I hate you, and there’s a sickening throb in his head, and it pulls on him. He feels like he’s slipping, slipping, slipping, and he’s so goddamn angry when he thinks, I could do this, I really could, I’m capable of doing this, it’s in me, just look at what I can do.
It passes, though. Somehow.
One moment he’s drowning in it, the rage slipping over his head, and the next a plug has been pulled, and he’s draining until he’s empty.
He’s in the diner. He’s in the diner and the two idiots are still trying to get at each other. He still thinks of smashing them together, but it’s not as strong. Instead, he pulls George one way and Daniel the other. Daniel, the idiot that he is, trips over his own feet and falls back against the nearest wall, knocking a couple of Walter’s photographs onto the floor, breaking the frames and glass.
George is panting against the lunch counter, and he’s not a young man anymore, so Mike glares at him, watching his chest rise and fall, making sure he’s catching his breath, that the old ticker keeps right on ticking. He’s red in the face, but that could just be residual anger along with exertion. Or it could be that he’s always a bit red in the face, given how much he drinks.
“Willy’s on his way,” Happy mutters near his right ear, and Mike nods stiffly, curling his hands into fists at his sides to keep from reaching out and knocking a few heads anyway. The constable was probably sleeping with his feet up on his desk anyway. Finally, the old codger has something to do.
Once he’s sure that they won’t go after each other again, he’s turning back to Sean, who looks more pissed off than anything else. He’s glaring at Daniel and George, who seem more embarrassed and sheepish than on the verge of fisticuffs. His hand is at his nose, staunching the blood, and it’s not as bad as Mike first thought. His nose doesn’t look broken and may not even bruise. The flow of blood is sluggish, and Walter’s telling him to tip his head back while trying to shove twisted napkins up his nose.
Walter takes a step back as Mike stands in front of them. Sean turns his glare to Mike, but it softens some. Mike puts a couple of fingers under Sean’s chin and tilts his head up, using his other hand to dab at Sean’s chin and mouth with a napkin Walter hands him.
“He got lucky,” Sean mutters.