“This moment.”
“Really. This moment.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Greg says, and it’s mean, but he’s furious. He’s so close to having something that’s his, a life that belongs to him, and there’s this… this interloper. This false face. God, how hot the rage is when it just courses through him, quicker than he’s ever experienced before. “You’re not real.”
Mike takes a breath and lets it out slowly. “Maybe not out there. But here? In Amorea? I’m real. I’m more real than you ever were. And I want to go home.”
Greg shakes his head. “Didn’t you hear? They don’t remember you. They don’t know you. Happy and Calvin and Walter and Donald. Mrs. Richardson. They don’t know who you are. And Sean? Oh, Mike. Sean might have loved you, if love can even exist here. But he doesn’t know you from Adam. He’s gone. Everything you had is gone.”
He knows he’s having an effect on Mike. He can see it in the set of his shoulders, the way his chest is heaving. How red his face is. “I know,” he says, voice trembling. “I know. But he loved me once. And he can love me again. Even if it takes the rest of our lives. No matter how short they may be.”
And Greg is hit with it then, the memory, and it’s so—
Didn’t you get tired of it? How long it took for me to… I don’t know.
We did what we had to. To get where we are now. I needed to wait, just like you did.
To make sure I was what you wanted.
No, and you get that fool thought out of your head right now, big guy. I knew it was you from the very first day.
Oh. Then—
Because. I knew what it would mean. It takes me time, Mike. Sometimes a very long time, to get to the point where I’m ready to say out loud what I’m thinking in my head. I knew you were what I wanted, but I just had to get used to the idea of it. Because there’s no going back now, you know? This is it for me. I wouldn’t have been ready for this a year ago. Or six months ago. It happened because we were both ready for it. And I’m ready for you.
I would do it again.
What?
All of this. To get here. If I had to, I’d do it all over again.
Lucky for you, big guy, you won’t have to. I don’t know if you know this, but you’re kinda stuck with me now.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Eh, I guess we’ll see.
—goddamn overwhelming, the sheer magnitude of it. He’s Greg, but he’s also Mike, and he has loved with everything he’s ever had. He can feel it down to his very bones, in every single beat of his heart. He’s Greg and he’s Mike, but he’s able to feel the difference. Greg has never had this. Mike has. Greg wants it. Wants it so bad that he can almost taste it. There’s a burning jealousy rolling through him that this fake version of him has had something he hasn’t. Has loved in a way he never has. He’s not going to—
“I would do it again,” Mike says quietly. “For him. Over and over again. Three years. Six. However long it took. Whatever it took. To get back to him.”
Greg believes it. Believes every single word. “We both can’t go.”
“No. We can’t. He’s—”
His fury overtakes him. “And you thought that… what? I’d just give up? That I’d just give in? Let you take over? You’re not real, Mike. You are a part of me. I made you. They took you from me and gave you a name but make no mistake, you are nothing but a copy. This is mine. This is my chance. After everything I’ve been through, this is mine. I’ll take care of him. I’ll take care of Sean. I promise. He won’t ever—”
He doesn’t get the rest out because Mike runs at him, silent except for the smack of his shoes against the asphalt. Greg barely has a chance to brace himself before he’s struck by a wall of muscle, breath knocked from his body. He’s falling backward, a heavy weight on top of him.
The horse rears back as they narrowly miss colliding with it. They go down hard, the air knocked from Greg’s lungs as he hits the ground. He’s dazed as his head raps against the road, little bright bursts of stars crossing his vision. He’s thinking, Of course, of fucking course this is what would happen. Nothing’s ever easy, nothing can ever just fucking work.
And he’s so angry about that. So, so angry.
He’s been in this position before, he knows. Someone coming after him, someone knocking him down, someone landing on top of him trying to hurt and take. He saw it happen to his mother time and time again, his father’s face red with drink and exertion, screaming that she didn’t do anything right, she never did anything right. He worked hard all fucking day and had to come home to this shithole. Can’t she see she’s killing him? He doesn’t want to do this, but she’s making him. This hurts him more than it hurts her.
Greg thinks, Ain’t that right, bucko?