Motorcity: Join Me AU

@asktheburnersleaderandprogrammer

Continuation On the AU where Chuck is the Burners leader and Mike is still in Kane Co.

The coffee mug says ‘Worlds Best Rebel Leader (Not Counting Princess Leia)’

Laziest pen/pencil sketch

Crossover between join me au, and crazy=genius au which belongs to @asktheburnersleaderandprogrammer

DJ (CG) feels like something is off about JM!Chucks appearance, and realizes: he needs a swank pair of sunglasses too!

Grunt: *watching Motorcity with binoculors* Sir the Burners leader knows we’re watching

Mike: Are you sure?

Grunt: He’s holding up a sign at us

Mike: And what does it say?

Grunt: ‘Not you’

Mike: Really? Let me see *took the binoculors to look*

Disclaimer: I do not own Motorcity or the listed characters Title: Join Me Rating: T+ Summary: AU, Chuck and Mike never met in Deluxe; Chuck is leader of the Burners and Mike is still Kane’s Commander. Despite being enemies, Chuck and Mike find themselves having feelings for each other, but are both too stubborn to leave their sides of Detroit. Pairings: MikexChuck, DutchxTennie, FoxyxClaire(implied) Warnings: Don’t read if you don’t like or are triggered by violence or dystopian societies Author’s Note: For the sake of the AU to work Chuck is OOC and some events have been slightly changed.

~~~ 20: Present Trauma.

‘Six months already… where has time gone?’ Mike thought as he crossed out another day on the calendar in the bay. His black and orange jacket lay haphazardly on the hood of his car, Mutt as he’s christened it six months ago, to prevent getting grease stains on it while he worked under the car for minor repairs.

It’d been six months since the incident with the Genesis Pod; after Kane had flung them off of his war pod, he and Chuck had been falling to their deaths when the Duke of Detroit saved them using Chuck’s car Blonde Thunder, after ejecting the Duke Chuck had to be and backseat driver and hacker while the Pod was blasted by the last laser blast of ‘Bessie’, however in the chaos, Blonde Thunder was destroyed and Mike and Chuck were saved by a motorcycle fail-safe the blond had installed.

The battle was over in their favor, but the war was not.

For one thing, Chuck was horrendously injured - aside from his self-treated and rapidly returned hemopneumothorax, he also had head trauma, his synthetic left eye was busted, and his ribs were unsurprisingly broken. He had to be hospitalized.

Mike stayed by his side despite the other Burner’s being wary of his presence (minus Julie), for almost two weeks; Chuck was silent and despondent the whole time, having not said a single word to anyone. On day twelve of the Burner Leaders hospital stay, Mike had left the bedside for a minute to go take a leak, and when he came back Chuck was gone. Frantically he searched around the hospital, but video evidence proved that Chuck had escaped through the fourth story window and disappeared into the darkness of the nearby alleyways. With their leader gone, the remaining Burner’s had even more reason to not trust Mike, and they’d probably would have cast him aside like garbage if it wasn’t for Julie vouching for him. So he’d been taken in as a Burner, and was made their new leader no less than two months later.

Since Chuck had handed him the keys to the green car when he was prisoner, and because Blonde Thunder was totally destroyed and had only been fully rebuilt a week ago, Mike took the green car and finally gave it a proper name. The Burners had looked for Chuck for three months before finally giving up their search; Chuck was smart, if he didn’t want to be found there was no way they would find him. They could only hope that he was doing okay. Mike, however, hadn’t quite given up the hope of finding him. He’d search during his off-hours, and had exhausted almost every lead so far, even the LARPer’s hadn’t seen him, although admittedly during his time of searching Mike had become good friends with the role-playing group, and occasionally played D&D with them. “It’s been three years you know.” The rusty voice of Jacob said from behind him, making the brunet turn to the older man.

“Three years?” Mike inquired as he put his jacket back on - it no longer had the bandana wrapped around the Burners symbol on his arm, but he always kept the bandana in his pocket anyways.

“Since Chuck became a Buner.” Jacob told him, the older mans voice had a bittersweet tone to it.

“I see…” Mike replied, looking to the ground, slightly enough that only someone as close as Jacob could notice. In response, the Sasquatch driver put a comforting hand on the younger mans shoulder.

“You know… He really loved you.” Jacob consoled.

Mike cleared his throat “Clearly not enough.” Not even his support could keep Chuck with them.

“Now, now,” Jacob chided as he put a plate of bright green muffins on the hood of Mutt “you need to understand, Chuck had demons.”

“Demons?”

“Demon’s in his head my boy,” Jacob explained “Mental illness is something either tucked away or purged in Deluxe, so you tend to not hear about it much. But I believe Chuck had PTSD…” Seeing the confused look on Mike’s face, Jacob continued to explain “It stands for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder… It’s where a person is affected by a traumatic event, and effects them to the point of growing distant from loved ones, no longer enjoying previously loved activities, and having recurring stress and panic from the event, as if it’s still happening. I could see it in Chuck’s eye… He had what was called the ‘thousand yard stare’.”

Mike thought about what Jacob was saying, and applied it to Chuck; it was true, Chuck didn’t talk, but his eye would stare out blankly into space, almost as if he was looking right through everything. Not to mention Chuck did go through a lot of trauma in one day; being double crossed by the Duke, being captured and beaten half to death by Red, almost executed, having his entire city almost destroyed, then flung off a building and would have been killed if not for the quick intervention of the Duke himself. “But… Why just him… Why not me, or Julie, or…” Mike trailed off; he and the other Burners went through similar, why was Chuck the one fated to be struck by such a condition? “Everyone’s different, Mike.” Jacob told him “It doesn’t make anyone stronger or weaker. The best we can do is understand that it’s not his fault, and accept that’s how he is, and try to help him.”

Mike sighed “I’m going for a drive…” He picked up the muffins and put them in a brown paper bag, it’d be rude to throw them away even if they did look and smell disgusting. “Remember to call if anything comes up…” Jacob told him. “Of course.”

—

Once again a search through Motorcity yielded nothing.

By the time night came, Mike was tired and hungry, because he dare not eat the muffins given to him by Jacob, and ended up stopping at a fast food place. He didn’t bother to read the name of the food place, but when he walked in he was hit with familiarity. It was the same Burger Joint that he and Chuck had met when they started their relationship, it made his heart ache for more reasons than the greasy oil smell already clogging up his arteries.

He sat down to order a burger, fries and coke, which came immediately. He stayed at the counter and mostly kept to himself while he ate, and couldn’t help but overhear the conversation of some nearby patrons because they had no idea how to control the volume of their voices.

“Yeah Tory’s always willing to trade,” One of the patrons, a tanned girl with straight black hair said “he’s got good shit. Not for free though, I’ll tell ya.”

“Can I get tech from ‘im?” A male with curly brown hair asked. “Yeah. But only for whatever part he wants. He’s that guy with the eyepatch who hangs out in Lower Woodward.”

Mike’s attention was immediately caught - eyepatch? As in, one eye? Chuck had left the hospital before Jacob had finished his replacement bionic eye… It was far fetched, because people with missing body parts aren’t exactly unheard of in Motorcity, but it was the biggest clue he’d gotten so far. — Lower Woodward was, unsurprisingly, even more slummy than most parts of Motorcity. Now, income distribution wasn’t exactly great considering that there was a very small wealthy class, small middle class, and majority poor, but it was clear that that particular part of the city was populated completely by the very poor. At first Mike doubted that Chuck would be in such a squalid and possibly hostile area, but realized that it made sense, as it would be unlikely anyone would hide in such an area by choice.

The former military officer parked his car and made sure his security system was up to prevent theft or looting, and began walking down the street with his head down. Months of fighting Kane and the Burners were well known, even Mike at this point, but even with his infamy he didn’t doubt that there were a sizable amount of Motorcitizens who did not trust him or wouldn’t mind giving him a well-deserved beating.

His suspicions were confirmed when a seedy-looking man began following him, but Mike ignored him and kept his head down as he continued to weave about the streets, but every time he got a glance behind him, there were more and more shady characters, accumulating to form a gang of sorts.

Mike stopped when he came to a wire fence that split an alley in half and made an end “What’s up?” He asked calmly as he executed an about-face, not losing his military bearing to the face of the gang. If there’s one thing Mike was, he was honest (at least now), he wasn’t going to hide who or what he was to anybody. “Mike Chilton.” One of the men spat.

“That’s me,” Mike confirmed with his iconic grin but serious eyes “and how can I help you today?”

“Everybody’s been saying you’ve reformed,” another man spoke, with a voice heavy with hatred an an obvious lifetime smoking habit “but once Kanes lapdog, always Kanes lapdog.” Oh boy, this again. While he couldn’t blame the Motorcitizens from their weariness of him, especially considering how he played a direct part in the war and battles between the two sides of Detroit in favor of Deluxe, he’d naively hoped six months was enough to win their trust. This hope just couldn’t be applied to everyone.

Mike dropped his grin and lifted his hands up passively, he could definitely fight them off without Mutt, after all he had his spark staff in his jacket at easy reach; but he didn’t want to create more distrust with the citizens of Motorcity if he could resolve this peacefully. “Look, I don’t want any trouble.”

“Then you should have just stayed in Deluxe or fucking died.” The original man growled, which did cut a little deep in Mike; he knew that people had died directly and indirectly from Kane’s attacks on the city, many of these attacks he’d been the directly overseer of. While he did believe he could redeem himself, there were just some things he knew were unforgivable.

The gang stepped closer “Please,” Mike said “that isn’t who I am now.” He wasn’t Kane Co’s commander anymore, he was Mike Chilton, just Mike Chilton. “I don’t care.” The first man said, reaching into his jacked presumably for a gun or knife, but Mike still didn’t reach for his spark staff.

“Well, I do.” Mike couldn’t help his grin returning at this new voice; new to the situation but not new to Mike. The fence was shoved slightly enough for a person to slip between the wire and the alley wall, and Mike couldn’t help but chuckle at how even after everything they’d gone through Chuck still had a flair for the ‘mysterious entrance’ he’d often pulled at his LARP club, with the cape and everything, judging by how worn the cape was now however, it was definitely part of his regular attire.

“This doesn’t have anything to do with you, Tory.” One of the men said to Chuck as the blond man stepped between Mike and the seedy gang.

“Leave.” Chuck said simply.

“Tory-”

“I said leave for fucks sake, I’ll deal with this guy.” Hesitantly, the group of men actually turned and left. There was a moment of silence as they waited for the group to be completely out of sight, as Chuck turned to face his old flame with his hands shoved into his cloak pockets. His hair was slightly longer, and wilder than it used to be but the bangs were still parted and for the most part out of his face. His missing eye hadn’t been replaced, as indicated by an black eyepatch, and from his face to what could be seen of his body shape through his hooded cloak was very gaunt even compared his original petite self. Still handsome as ever, at least in Mike’s eyes.

Silence, all Mike could hear was his heart beating all the way up to his ears. Chuck sighed heavily “Why are you here?” He demanded, f his hands were digging around his various pockets until he produced a cigarette and a lighter, throwing Mike off slightly.

“I-” He began, Chuck didn’t let him finish, he lit the cigarette and stuck it into one corner of his mouth and used one hand to physically start dragging Mike out of the alley.

“I can’t fucking believe you,” Chuck reprimanded, not bothering to look back at him as he dragged him. “I can’t believe you came here, don’t you known this is a dangerous neighborhood?”

“I wanted to find you.” Mike told him, and it seemed to make Chuck skip a step, but only slightly.

“I’m taking you to your car, where is it?” Chuck asked, and Mike stepped down and made them both stop.

“I want to talk to you.” The brunet told his former lover sternly, rolling his wrist out of Chuck’s grasp, now that they were in close proximity Mike could study Chuck’s features more clearly; his cheeks were pale and seemingly bloodless as they no longer held a rosy tint, and his good eye was dark ringed, his neck and face had a few bruises that didn’t seem to be too fresh and there were some healed scratches scattered about his jawline and forehead. Clearly he’d been in several scraps over the six months he’d been gone. “…What happened to you Chuck? Why did you leave? Why didn’t you come back?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything.” Chuck practically growled, taking a long drag of his cigarette before looking to the side to blow the smoke out. “Look, I don’t know what you were hoping to accomplish by coming here. It’s been half a year Mike, if I wanted to come back I would’ve, if I wanted you to find me you would have a long time ago. So just do us both a favor and get lost.”

“You know I can’t do that Chuck.” Mike told him gently, placing a hand on his arm that Chuck thankfully didn’t shake off.

Chuck was quiet for a solid minute, the cigarette was in his hand but he was not longer actively smoking it, instead he was just looking down at the Burner with a sad eye. “…I know you can’t, and won’t.” Chuck said with a sad sigh “I’m sorry Mike… I’m not going back.”

“Can we please just talk…” Chuck didn’t answer, he took one more drag of the cigarette before flicking it away. “I missed you…” The blond stiffened up slightly, and Mike knew it was because Chuck had a hard time dealing with emotions. “…We can talk. Just not here.”

…

Chuck’s place was an apartment in a small complex, it was… kind of nice, given the area they were in, it had a small kitchen, living room, one bathroom and two bedrooms, although by the looks of it only one bedroom was being used as a bedroom while the other one seemed to be a room dedicated to Chuck’s technological side.

“How’d you afford this place?” Mike asked Chuck as the blond draped his cloak over the back of a chair - he wore an elbow-sleeved shirt very similar to the one he used to wear, except this was mainly dark blue with black sleeves and lacked the Burners insignia.

“I work human resources at a nearby tech firm.” Chuck answered, plopping down at his couch.

“Shouldn’t you be a programmer?” Mike asked, trying to lighten the mood as he sat at the other side of the couch.

“Credentials don’t transfer very well from Deluxe.” Chuck answered dry and matter-of-fact.

Silence. They just sat there awkwardly as Chuck grabbed a remote and turned the TV on, Mike knew Chuck didn’t watch TV very much, background noise just made the blond feel less anxious.

“So…” Chuck trailed off awkwardly, looking to the floor instead of Mike “what do you want to talk about?”

“First off, why did you leave?” It was a touchy subject, Mike could tell from the apprehensive expression that immediately appeared on Chuck’s face, but it was first thing he needed to know, it was where this all began.

“B-because,” Chuck began defensively, taking in a deep breath to collect himself and his emotions but this only sent him into a coughing fit. Concerned and overwhelmed with protectiveness over the man he -still- loved, Mike scooted over next to him and put his arms around him, patting his back to attempt to alleviate his coughing “L-look it’s hard to explain, I was a shit leader okay.”

“You weren’t a bad leader Chuck.” Mike consoled.

“Don’t bullshit me!” Chuck snarled and nearly shoved him off “I got tricked by Duke! I’m a genius and I got outsmarted by a man that wears curlers to bed!”

“…” Okay, Mike wasn’t exactly sure how to respond to that.

“I knew he was up to something… maybe not what he was up to, but I knew it wasn’t good. All I had to do was agree to not help him, even if he left me in the depths all I had to do was follow him out. Hell, I could’ve agreed to help him, and then ditched. But I didn’t, Mike. I got captured by Kane, Motorcity was almost destroyed, my car was destroyed, me and you… We almost… Almost…” He started to choke up and a a distant, but distressed look appeared in his single blue eye.

The thousand-yard stare that Jacob had explained, that Chuck had the entirety of his visit at the hospital.

“I know, I know we almost died.” Mike drew his arms around Chuck again, pulling him in close, into a familiar embrace that they’d shared many times when they were together. “I know you’re hurt, I know you’ve gone through a lot, and I know you’re having a hard time with how you’re feeling.”

“Oh how would you know how I feel.” Chuck scoffed, but he didn’t pull away or push Mike off of him “You handled that situation a million times better than I did. You accepted the possibility of death so calmly, you took charge without skipping a beat, and here I am, a mess. You don’t understand Mike… You really don’t.”

Mike placed his cheek on top of Chuck’s head, normally awkward given their height difference but Chuck was practically laying on him in this position “You’re right Chuck… I don’t understand.” He murmured gently “I don’t know what it’s like to lose an eye, I don’t know what a tension pneumothorax feels like, I don’t know what it’s like to almost lose my city, until recently I didn’t know what it felt like to constantly be attacked by another government and neither did I understand what it really meant to be a leader. Those men earlier were right you know, I was Kane’s lapdog… I was the commander, but I was never truly a leader, everything I did, I did because Kane told me to, and I was too stubborn to believe it. So no Chuck, I don’t truly understand how you feel… But what I do know is that you’re still hurt, and I will always love you.”

Chuck started to sniffle, as his barriers finally started to come down, and his sniffling increased into he was full-blown sobbing into Mike’s chest, and gripping the edges of the others jacket either in a vain attempt to feel grounded or for the sake of comfort. “What I do know,” Mike continued, holding him in even closer, close enough he could feel the sobs racking the others body, close enough he could feel his heartbeat “is that I want to help you. I know that you have a lot of friends, who also want to help you, because they care about you a lot, and every single one of us just wants you back.” And for what must have been the good part of an hour, they just sat there with Chuck crying against him, and Mike holding him and occasionally rubbing his back or stroking his hair, no words spoken between them but there weren’t any words needed, Chuck needed to finally express his emotions and Mike just needed to know he was safe.

When his leg started to fall asleep Mike attempted to shift their position by sitting up straight, but this put them at an awkward angle and it put the weight distribution in Chuck’s favor, with Chuck not attempting to correct it and his death grip on Mike’s jacket made them fall on Chuck’s side of the couch with Chuck accidentally pulling Mike on top of him. Mike had to remove his arms from around Chuck and to avoid tumbling on him he planted them onto the couch on either side of Chuck but this just inadvertently put him in the straddling position. Awkwardly, and slightly blushing, Mike looked down at Chuck, who was still sniffling and the left side of his face was wet and sticky with tears. “Please…”

Mike started to pull away, but his interpretation of Chuck’s plea being to get off of him wasn’t what Chuck as intended, because the blond immediately wrapped his arms around his neck and pulled him in against him with enough force to tell Mike that despite his gaunt appearance Chuck was definitely a lot physically stronger than he used to be.

“Please don’t go.” Chuck whispered to him - lying chest-to-chest Mike wasn’t sure if the strong beating was his own or Chucks, but in hindsight it was probably both. Their faces were practically touching and Mike could see that even with the sclera being bloodshot, Chuck’s good eye wasn’t as hazy as it seemed earlier, it was the pretty maya-blue color that Mike had in the past gotten lost and almost drowned it. One of them initiated a kiss, neither was sure who.

And history repeated itself as the two men so completely lost in each other and passion that the rest of the world seemed to melt away.

—

A beeping in the distance cause Mike to open his eyes with a struggle, when he finally did get them open the room was too dark for him to make anything else except for the soft glow of the TV from the living room leaking through the slightly open door of Chuck’s bedroom. Chuck was still asleep next to him and had his head resting on Mike’s arm, which explained why his arm was asleep. Muttering to himself and shifting gently as not to wake Chuck, the Burner rolled out of the bed and wrapped a towel around his waist for the sake of modesty and gently tiptoed to the living room where his jacket was strewn on the floor, he picket the garment on, but zipped it to create the illusion he wasn’t buck naked, and turned his communicator on. The head icon of Dutch appeared and the sudden appearance of bright light in the dimly lit room made Mike have to blink repeatedly.

“Mike! Where the heck are you man? You’ve been gone all day! Don’t tell me you got yourself lost in the depths again.” Mike just tiredly nodded as he seated himself onto the couch.

“Look I’m fine and I’m not lost I just uh… I just ended up further away than I intended and it got too late to turn back, I’m in a motel.” Mike explained, of course it was a lie but he wasn’t going to betray Chuck’s trust so soon “I’ll be back tomorrow, okay?”

“Are you sure you don’t want us to get you? Our tracking device is saying you’re in Woodworth, and that place is shady even for Motorcity.”

“I’m okay, I promise.” Mike waved off the Whiptail drivers concern “I’m going back to sleep, see you tomorrow Dutch.” And before the other Burner could protest or put another word in, Mike shut off his communicator. Yawning, he gathered up the clothes strewn about and returned to Chuck’s bedroom where the hacktivist was thankfully still out like a brick.

Placing the clothes on a dresser, Mike carefully climbed back onto the bed where his partner automatically rolled back onto lying on his arm, which was pretty cute even though Mike would definitely wake up with his arm asleep again, but he didn’t mind too much.

With his free arm he rested his hand on Chuck’s cheek, gently pushing his wild bangs out of his face “I’ll always be here for you, no matter what you’re going through.” He promised, even though Chuck was asleep. As if in response the former Burner snuggled closer to him, and Mike joined him in slumber.

—

“I don’t know, Mike…” Chuck trailed off as they walked down the street. “Aren’t they going to… I don’t know, freak out if they see me again.”

“Maybe a little bit, but in a good way.” Mike told him with a grin “The Burners missed you a lot, especially Texas.”

“I’m not surprised, he just isn’t the same guy if he isn’t taunting me to my face.” Chuck joked a little, although his tone was mostly flat. It was a start though, a definite sign that he was starting to warm up.

They stopped in front of Mutt, which was untouched, the car had a top notch defense system even when idle, which was how it survived the whole night without having it’s tires or undercarriage parts stolen.

“So you use the green car now huh.”

“Mutt.”

“Excuse me?”

“I named it Mutt.”

“Oh.”

They stood awkwardly by the car, and Mike started to notice the beginnings of a thousand-yard stare returning to Chuck’s eye. “Hey, what’s wrong.”

“I-I,” Chuck took in a deep breath “I-I’m scared of driving.” That was a shock to Mike, as Chuck loved driving, and he’d loved his car, and he was the one to introduce Mike to cars in the first place. However… it sadly did make a lot of sense, as Blonde Thunders destruction had saved Motorcity but would have killed them if not for the motorcycle fail-safe. The whole even had been so traumatic of course he could barely even be near a car.

“Hey, that’s okay,” Mike assured him, grabbing his hand and giving it a gentle squeeze “you take the figurative back seat on this, and literal passenger seat. I’ll drive us back - and very carefully.” Normally Mike was a speed demon when it came to driving, but seeing just how jittery Chuck was he was definitely following the posted speed limit this time.

“I-I still don’t know… I… I tried once but…” Chuck explained, having a hard time putting into words why exactly he was having such a hard time around something he used to enjoy.

“But you went through something traumatic and now you don’t enjoy this anymore, Chuck it’s fine if driving scares you, it’s okay. I’m asking if you can trust me.” Mike told him gently, but Chuck was definitely still jittery. An idea came to him and Mike opened the passenger door and reached inside, grabbing a paper bag “You really liked these didn’t you?” He handed Chuck the bag, and although initially confused Chuck practically lit up seeing familiar bright green muffins inside the bag.

“Are these-”

“Yup, okra and mayonnaise.”

Chuck straight up ate a whole muffin in what must have been one swallow and no chewing, Mike would have been impressed if he wasn’t already so familiar with the capabilities of others throat. It took a little bit more coaxing, but eventually Mike got Chuck into the passenger seat.

He took the drivers seat and buckled in, but instead of starting Mutt up right away, Mike looked over to the hacker, who was breathing heavily with anxiety. “Just tell me when you’re ready,” Mike consoled, reaching over to grab his hand again.

“Do y-you care if I can never drive again?” Chuck asked between quick, anxious breaths. The brunet used his thumb to soothingly rub the back of his shaking hand. And he waited until Chuck had calmed down a little before he answered. “I’d love it if you could drive again, but only if you’re comfortable doing it. If you never drive again, I don’t mind as long as you’re by my side; whether it be in my passenger seat, or in a comm screen.”

“Thank you Mike…” Chuck took in one last deep breath “I think I’m ready.”

“Thank you for joining me today.” Mike replied with a grin, and put the skull of his spark staff on the stick shift, bringing to Mutt to life.

I'd like to say it's been a fun ride, and thanks for anybody who has read the story and enjoyed it alongside me. I went through periods of inactivity, I know and I'm sorry, but we've finally reached the end.

About the ending; at this point Chuck becomes very similar to the Chuck from the original series, where he's mostly in the passenger seat of Mutt and he's very squeamish when it comes to driving in general, and for a while he will literally only ever get in a car when Mike is with him. However, with time and support he will recover.

-The ages are as follows from the start of the fic to the end (which is the next chapter/epilogue); Julie: 16 (start), 18 (end) Claire, and Daar: 18 (start), 20 (end) Chuck, Mike and Jenzen: 20 (start), 22 (end) Texas, Dutch, and Foxy: 23 (start), 25 (end)

Tooley: 22 (start), 24 (end) The Duke, and Rayon: 28 (start), 30 (end) Kane and Jacob: 54 (start), 56 (end)

-From the time Chuck gets to Motorcity, to the epilogue, it’s been three years

-Chuck was originally and unsurprisingly homeless when he first came down to Motorcity alone. He stopped by Jacob’s shop asking for some water, where Jacob saw that his left eye was gone, and offered him a bionic replacement. Chuck was so thankful he started working for him for free, at this time Texas was already working for Jacob as a mechanic for a place to live. Dutch joined them shortly after when Jacob found him spray-painting the side of the building and didn’t have the heart to reprimand him. Julie joined them when Chuck saw her come to the diner, and recognized her as an assistant of Kane’s.

-Although Chuck often humorously referred to himself as an unemployed rebel leader, he was technically working for Jacob the whole time (but for free), his official job title was ‘Human Resources Secretary’

-Mike never hid the fact he was gay, it was just seldom known

-Claire is gay, Foxy is bisexual

-The Duke of Detroit is straight, this surprises Chuck.

-When they first met Mike didn’t actually like Chuck at all. His attraction started because Mike has a thing for bad boys that he neither realizes nor will admit to.

-Although Chuck appears to worship a 'data processor in the sky’, he is actually agnostic. He usually refers to the data processor in the sky to rebel against Deluxe ideals, where religion is outlawed.

-There are just two main differences that separates the AU Chuck from the actual series Chuck. The first and biggest difference being that he came to Motorcity alone and traumatized. While he was in Detroit Deluxe he was basically the same as his original series counterpart, but when he came to Motorcity being such a meek, and shy person he realized he’d get eaten alive in Motorcity with that kind of disposition and built a confident and flirty persona to hide this. His original shy and fearful personality showed around times of great stress and vulnerability. The other big difference is that the AU Chuck is prone to addictive behaviors such as caffeine, Jacob’s muffins, the fear inhibitor, roleplaying, alcohol, and even smoking and gambling on occasion unbeknownst to the Burners.

-When Chuck asked Julie to stay behind, it wasn’t exactly so she could keep up the fight for Motorcity. The biggest reason was that he could sense something was going to go awry, and because of her younger age and being a Deluxian he did not want her to get hurt.

-Chuck’s full name being Charles Torrence is a reference to his voice actor, Nate Torrence

-Chuck was originally going to paint the ‘green car’ (Mutt) black, and give it a wolf logo and the name ‘Moonstruck’, but Jacob talked him out of it, and this proved to just be a short-lived edgy phase he was going through

-There’s been on ongoing mistake where Chuck is mentioned to be crying through both of his eyes, when he can actually only cry through his right eye. This is a writing error. 

-Chuck’s booster wasn’t originally ‘fearless’ like it was the original series, it was literally just a booster of physical abilities. He installed fearless feature himself and put it to a level dial.

Disclaimer: I do not own Motorcity or the listed characters Title: Join Me Rating: T+ Summary: AU, Chuck and Mike never met in Deluxe; Chuck is leader of the Burners and Mike is still Kane’s Commander. Despite being enemies, Chuck and Mike find themselves having feelings for each other, but are both too stubborn to leave their sides of Detroit. Pairings: MikexChuck, DutchxTennie, FoxyxClaire(implied) Warnings: Don’t read if you don’t like or are triggered by violence or dystopian societies Author’s Note: For the sake of the AU to work Chuck is OOC and some events have been slightly changed.

~~~ 19: If Tomorrow Never Comes Chuck continued to flip Mike off, not saying a single word. The brunet cleared his throat to break up the awkward silence “Can you… please stop flipping me off so we can talk?” He started approaching him. Chuck scoffed, but didn’t put his middle finger down.

“Oh? Talk about what? How lovely the weather must be up here? Sports? Or how about how your boss is trying to kill me?” Chuck shakily stood up “And if you’ve come here for one last booty call, I’m afraid I’ve got a headache, and a faceache, and an everything ache because Red’s been using me as a punching bag for hours.” He bit his lip and finally ended his one-fingered salute to the officer. He didn’t know if he was weak-kneed because of how many times Red had kicked his knees and shins, or if it was because he was at the mercy of Mike Chilton, he really wanted it to be the former but knowing himself it was probably the latter.

When the brunet was close enough, Chuck tried to punch him, but Mike ducked down slightly and wrapped his arms under his and around his chest, pulling him into a tight hug “I’m so glad you’re okay.” The military officer told him gently, hugging him for all he was worth and not giving the blond any wiggle room whatsoever “I didn’t know about the plan until you were already captured, I thought… I came here as soon as I heard, I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“A little late for that isn’t it.” Chuck narrowed his eyes angrily and thankfully Mike was hugging him so tightly the shorter of the two had no way of looking at his face and seeing his lips quiver and his eyes glisten “Hurt me? Mike Chilton you’ve got some nerve. You /heard/ Kane, he’s going to kill me.” He told him harshly.

“No, shhhh, he won’t, I won’t let that happen.” Mike continued to try to comfort him but it didn’t seem to work well, and he knew it wouldn’t because he knew his ex boyfriend to be too logical to believe emotional appeals, when he looked up at him he paused noticing a detail he hadn’t noticed earlier because of the poor lighting “What’s wrong with your eye Chuck?” His left eye wasn’t the same maya-blue shade as as his right, not only was it swollen almost shut, but the iris was a glistening silver almost… almost metallic. “I don’t have a left eye Mike,” Chuck admitted weakly, as he realized his contact lens must have fallen out when Red had given him a black eye. “Your lackey Tooley beat me to near death before I left Deluxe, I lost my eye. I’ve had a bionic one.”

Mike frowned further “Chuck…” He trailed off, tucking some of Chucks hair behind his ear in a further attempt to comfort him. Chuck hated it, he really hated it, but given their history together and his own present unfortunate situation he was melting the Kane Co commanders arms. “Save it Mike, you had to see this happen. You wanted Kane to win and if he did win, what did you think would happen, they’d put me in a white and blue jumpsuit and I’d go back to being a law abiding Deluxian? I’m a registered terrorist in Deluxe, and nothing you could do would have saved me from persecution.” He wrenched himself out of the commanders embrace “Just… Just leave Mike. I’ll probably die but dammit you haven’t killed my team. They’re good people, and they won’t let Motorcity fall… Just, just leave me alone.”

“You know I can’t do that Chuckles.” Mike reminded him and gently held up the others chin, which was more humorous than sweet because of the height difference between them “I still love you.” Chuck’s heart skipped a beat, but he kept his resolve. “Yeah well you also love your nation… and I love my city… ” Chuck responded, once again pulling away from him “Kane’s going to destroy my city, Mike.”

“He’s relocating all of the residents Chuck, no one’s going to get hurt.”

“Are you blind or just that gullible? If something comes up, Kane’s would sacrifice thousands with no remorse. And the seeds of dissent were sown in every Motorcitizen and have blossomed for years. No one will become an obedient Deluxian like you.”

Silence roared between them. Mike stood still, now about two feet away from Chuck, whose gaze was turned to the ground. “What we had…” Chuck began, looking back at him, Mike was surprised to see a defeated look in his eyes. “I loved what we had. I loved you Mike.” He admitted, and Mike’s heart twisted at them impending ‘but’ “But we were so stupid to think we could somehow make it work. I couldn’t have you and Motorcity. You couldn’t have me and Deluxe. That’s why we ended, that’s why we can’t be together. That’s why I have no clue what exactly you thought you’d accomplish by seeing me here.”

“I… I just want to help you Chuck.” Mike surprised Chuck this time by his statement ending off in small whimper. “I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t want to hurt you-”

“Don’t you get it you dumbass, we’re way past that!” Chuck shouted, the suddenness of his raised voice made the brunet take a step back in shock, Chuck composed himself but his face still held a sour look “It’s not our fault we love our causes more than we loved each other. But damn it Mike it still hurt-” Mike shut him up by grabbing his face and slamming his lips against his - it was an effective way of shutting him up to because the familiar but sudden action. Chuck’s eyes widened, and his body froze in place. For a moment everything seemed to freeze. Slowly, but surely, Chuck’s eyes closed and he pressed back. 

Old habits died hard. If they ever died at all.

When oxygen became required, Mike pulled away but the deepness of the kiss resulted in a string of saliva between them, further proof of Chuck’s weakness for the other. “I’m going to help you…” Mike promised, and held both of Chuck’s shackled hands in his own. The Burner’s hands were shaking.

“Do you really want to help me?” Chuck asked softly.

“Yes Chuck, I do.”

“I need you to save my friends… To save Motorcity.”

“Chuck-”

“Mike nothing you do is going to stop my death sentence. Nothing. I don’t want to die for nothing. And the Duke was not only willing to sell me out, but sell out all of Motorcity. He’d sell you out if it was convenient for him.” Chuck warned him, and Mike realized he was right. While he did want both sides of Detroit to be unified as they should be, there was no telling what would happen if Duke outed him for having Chuck as a lover. “Do you remember the green car?”

“Well yeah-” Before the soldier could finish, the rebel leader reached into his back pocket and gave Mike a set of keys attached to a skull-head keychain. “These are the keys to that green car, it’s probably still with the Duke. Just… Just do what you have to.”

Mike looked to the keys, and he thought long and hard. The Genesis Pod, if it came to full fruition, would destroy Motorcity, all of the residents would become part of Deluxe. And Mike was loyal to Deluxe, it was his home and he was sworn to it’s people. However…. He didn’t want Motorcity destroyed, it was different from Deluxe, and in comparison it was almost backwards in it’s ways. But it had a right to exist, a right Chuck and the Burners have been fighting fiercely for. “I will Chuck.” Mike agreed, and pecked his lips again quickly “Sit tight okay, everything’s going to be fine.” Giving him another quick squeeze of a hug, Mike ran out of the room.

“I don’t know about that, Mike…” Chuck admitted in a hoarse whisper to himself, wondering if he’d made the right move in trusting Mike.

~~~

Mike walked out of the holding cell and was surprised to see Julie, the intern appeared to be messing with some sort of file, and he was about to question her when he heard his boss’s voice “WHAT? The Duke double crossed us AND you let the Burner’s get away with their cars?!” He saw Kane was yelling at Tooley, who looked guilty as he usually did when stuff like this happened. Which was all of the time.

“Uhhm,” Tooley was scratching his head to think of an excuse “At least we’ve still got the Burner’s leader.”

“You idiot!” Kane yelled again, something so common for him to say it must have been an impulse at this point. Mike slowly walked over, he might have to diffuse a situation if one rose, but it was unnecessary as Kane sighed and rubbed his temples “Clearly I’m just going to have to handle this myself. This ends now…” Something about the tone of his voice made Mike’s hand shake, and clearly he wasn’t the only one, he looked over to Julie and they knew they had to step in.

“Sir!” Mike called, nipping at their leader’s heels with Julie as well “Sir, what’s going on? Sir, stop.” At that, Kane did stop on his way into his pod, and turned to them, albeit appearing annoyed.

“Just listen to us.” Julie pleaded “You promised you’d give the Motorcitizens time to evacuate, doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“This isn’t a debate.” Kane informed both of them sternly, “You want to know what real leadership is? It’s making the hard choices,” with that, the red haired man yanked Mike’s arm, pulling his military commander in with him “You’ll learn that one day…” Mike believed he was talking to him… but the way he looked at Julie when he said that, it seemed to insinuate something he had no idea of. Julie tried to call them down in vain “You can’t do this, just listen-” The door to the pod slammed shut, and they flew off. Mike swallowed hard, and he looked to the dash panel to see that the Genesis Pod was at 30%.

—

Chuck had barely gotten a minute to himself when the door opened again, he weakly looked up expecting to see either Red or Mike again, but was surprised to see Julie run in. “Chuck… ” She whispered sorrowfully, but clearly in a rush still.

He looked up, covering his left eye with his hand so he wouldn’t have to give her a nasty surprise “You shouldn’t be here!” He told her, almost in a commanding tone. This didn’t appear to phase her, as she immediately turned to the prison access panel, button mashing away no doubt trying to free him.

The fail safe voice of the panel kept repeating “Access Denied” in a monotonous mantra.

“You have to get out of here!” Chuck covered up his left eye with his blood and sweat soaked bangs as he rose onto his feet “If they catch you-”

“Come on…” Julie whispered fiercely to herself and she continued to try and fail to crack the system. Which wasn’t going to happen; Kane knew who he was imprisoning, he had imprisoned one of the greatest hackers in Motorcity, he wasn’t going to put anything in that access panel besides some of the greatest anti hackware. And Julie was getting frustrated.

Chuck looked to the door, getting as frantic as she was “They’re going to be back any second.” He informed her, putting more emphasis in his tone

“Good, let them find me!” She retorted.

“Blowing your cover won’t help me.” He reminded her.

Boiling over, she kicked the wall and turned to him in a huff “Well I don’t know what will!” Once the brunt of the frustration was out for him to see, she huffed out a sigh and looked to the side.

He walked over to her “Do you know why I asked you to stay behind the other day?” He inquired, using the full extent of a ‘big brother’ tone as possible.

The younger Burner was looking to the floor “To watch your back…” She replied softly. “Look where that got you..” His heart panged, he did not want his friend to blame herself for his capture, at all. He put a comforting hand on her shoulder. He forehead rested against his chest, and this was probably the most physically contact they had received from each other. Neither of them were particularly touchy, and never had been, but the situation was dire.

He looked to the ground as well “I knew that if something happened, you’d be there to pick up the pieces.” He told her. Julie was the youngest Burner, she was fifteen when they met and was not even eighteen yet; but he could see in her the qualities of a leader he himself didn’t even possess, she was strong but level headed, and if he would leave to Burner’s to anyone, it would be her. Touched by his words, Julie looked up at him at first surprised, but then she smiled softly, and he smiled back down at her.

Just then the door opened, and Tooley stepped in. Once the light from the adjacent hallway hit them and made them visible, Tooley called out “Hey! Who’s there?” Julie did the only thing that could be done to cover her ass in this situation.

She slapped him so hard he ended up spinning as he fell back to the ground. Damn, for such a small hand she had a hell of a slap.

Julie then ran back to Tooley feigning fear “Julie…?” Tooley inquired, confused to see the intern there.

“I-I don’t know what happened.” She lied on the spot “I was bring him food, l-like you asked me to.”

“I asked you to?” He echoed, confused as usual.

“Yeah,” she ‘confirmed’ and continued her excuse “and then he tried to so I uh, I uh, I hit him!” Oh the deep red five-star on Chuck’s pale face really cemented in that story. “Oh, Tooley,” she continued to play damsel in distress by ‘hiding’ into the henchman “it was so scared.”

Kane’s goon hugged her back, and Chuck’s stomach churned at the sight and he could almost feel the ghost of his left eye tear up, remembering how the seemingly infantile man had beaten him almost to death “There, there. Tooley’s gotcha.” He turned to Chuck with a reprimanding look of disgust “How could you?” He scoffed lowly, and escorted Julie out of the cell.

Chuck was once again left sitting there in the dark. Once the shock finally settled, he groaned aloud “Oh great, now they’re going to add pedophile to my criminal record aren’t they?”

— About ten minutes or so after the incident with Julie, Chuck was still slumped against the wall but at this point was nearly asleep, when someone else walked into the cell. “Oh come on how many visitors am I going to get today? I was sleeping.” He hissed sarcastically.

“Kane wanted to deal with you himself, but,” Red said from behind his visor, as he walked up to the blond menacingly and then stopped barely a foot away “I got sick of waiting.”

“Yeah, I have that effect on men.” Chuck said with his usual mocking grin, but he didn’t bother to open his eyes or look up.

Red knelt down, so used to Chuck’s remarks by now they didn’t phase him as much as they used to “Don’t tell me you’re tired. I’m just getting started.” He chuckled.

“I love a guy who can get it up.” Chuck couldn’t help but put a double-meaning to his enemy’s words. However, this didn’t stop him from rushing Red and tackling him. Red reacted immediately by trying to push his off but the Burner responded by weaving an arm over his neck and slinking behind him.

With Chuck literally on his back, Red forced them both backwards against the wall, smashing the Motorcitizen between the wall and his body, but this didn’t deter Chuck in the slightly as he continued to apply a chokehold. They’d removed the booster from his wrist.

However, they didn’t know he had another booster in his bionic eye. Red elbowed Chuck hard in the ribs and then used the arm over his neck to quickly snap forward and arm-throw Chuck off of him and toss him back to the ground.

Chuck looked up angrily at Red - the iris of his bionic eye was now flashing red, and his other eye was completely flushed scarlet. While he’d put a fear inhibitor function on the booster that he’d kept on his wrist, the booster in his eye followed the original function of just enhancing physical abilities.

With Chuck on the ground again, Red attempted to stomp him, when Chuck moved out of the way he tried to punch his head but Chuck rushed him again this time with a headbutt and a shove with his shoulder. Now back on his feet, Red started boxing at him, but Chuck guarded his head, neck and torso with his wrists. And then shoved Red away, finally creating some distance between them.

Red stood his ground, looking more annoyed than threatened. Chuck panted, he was having a hard time breathing now for some reason and the never used booster in his eye made his entire face tingle even worse with the amount of facial trauma he’d already sustained. Yet he grinned, and did the universal ‘bring it’ motion with the left hand.

At the gesture, Red charged his fists with his characteristic bright red electricity, and rushed at him. He threw his first back and threw it forward in a punch, giving Chuck the opening he was looking for. He dodged the punch and got the the side of Red’s arm, and grabbed it in both of his, making sure that his hard-light energy shackles wrapped around the electrical gauntlets of Red’s fists that were still sparking.

The resulting interaction between the shackles and the gauntlets had the consequence he was hoping for - the electricity of the gauntlets overcharged the shackles, and there was a combustive force that threw Red across the room, and did the same to Chuck; although now the blond was finally free. The blunt force knocked Red out since he hit the back of his head directly, but since Chuck landed on his side he managed to stay conscious. Chuck shakily got up, he was still panting, he still couldn’t seem to catch his breath, and he ran out of the holding cell.

And immediately was barraged by blasts from Kane’s security bots.

“I hate my life.” Chuck wheezed as he sprinted down the hallway, at this point the only thing keeping him from getting blasted was blind faith. Which actually seemed to work.

Now out of the signal-blocking holding cell, his comm systems resurrected and almost immediately Julie’s pop-up call head came out “JUMP OUT OF THE BUILDING!” She commanded.

“Julie I know you want to help, but now’s not the time to compassionately take me out of my suffering.”

“JUST DO IT!” There was enough of a growl in the inflection of her voice that for a second, he was more afraid of whatever consequence she would impose on him for not listening to her than the thought of death by jumping out of a building, bracing himself he rammed his shoulder into the glass of a window and started ascending hard towards the ground.

“Um, Julie? JULIEEEE!” He shouted, his right eye teared up hard. Then he was scooped up by her pod.

He hit the ground hard and groaned, his chest felt so tight…. Actually, he could only feel one side of his chest rise normally.

“You can never just stay put and wait for a rescue can you, lab rat?” Julie said humorously, and offered her hand to help him up, he shakily took her hand, still wheezing.

“I-If Red wanted to be my lover, he’s gotta get with my friends.” Chuck couldn’t help a reference, although Julie didn’t get it. He kept struggling to breath and hastily took his shirt off.

“What are you doing?” Julie asked confused.

“R-Red elbowed me really hard in the chest, and it was aggravated by a blast I’m g-g-getting a tension pneumothorax.” He told her, he breath hard and started counting his ribs starting from the center of his collarbone, and stopped his finger under his second rib right above his third rib. “Give me a straw and a knife.”

“What are you-”

“Julie please!” He yelled out hoarsely, she scrambled and managed to get him the requested items. He rolled up his shirt and bit down on it. Shutting his eyes hard he sunk the tip of the knife into the intercostal space, and once he heard a hiss he dropped the knife and shove one tip of the straw into the hole. The tension is his chest started to lesson as trapped air escaped and his lung had room to expand, he signed out in relief but tears were pouring down the right side of his face from the pain. With a shaky hand he cut the straw short, and used some duct tape to keep the straw in place. He’d need proper treatment for his pneumothorax soon. He would really have to thank Jacob soon for all those crash courses in field medicine.

Still taking deep breaths, he put his blue shirt back on. Although still concerned, Julie approached him again “I think you forgot something.” She held out his earlier confiscated blue Burner’s jacket.

“Thank you, Julie.” He replied sincerely.

—

For several minutes Julie tried to re-establish contact with the other Burners, and during that time Chuck sat and waiting, hoping that his tension pneumothorax wouldn’t return. He was truthfully glad it was just a pneumothorax and not a hemopneumothorax, because a straw wouldn’t cut it if his lungs were filling with blood with air.

“Dutch, Dutch!” Julie called as she finally got back in touch with the Whiptail driver. “I’ve got Chuck! What’s your status?”

“Chuck? Thank god you’re back!” Dutch repeated, sounding relieved and excited, but this died down quickly “Nol help us fix this.” Pop-up screens of the Genesis Pod appeared, with that appeared to be some form of hard light circuits branching off of it. “We hit the Genesis Pod with Bessie-”

“Bessie?” Julie repeated.

“That’s what we named the weapon. But the pod’s defenses just heal itself.” He explained in a panic.

“We’re going to have to take out the control module.” Julie said as she looked up to her leader.

“Where’s that?” Dutch and Chuck asked in unison.

A crestfallen look crossed Julie’s face. “Kane’s Warpod.” She told them.

“Is there any way we can get inside?” Out of habit Chuck crossed his arms momentarily - before the sharp pain of his shabby chest decompression stabbed him hard enough to make him drop his arms again with a cringe.

Julie looked around as she thought hard “I can think of a way. Chuck,” she turned to the blond rebel leader “take me hostage.”

—

Mike stood behind his leader in the warpod as said man was typing away at the progress of the Genesis Pod. His heart was sinking as the scheme of Motorcity’s destruction was drawing closer and closer with each passing moment. “Sir…” Mike started, keeping composure “I’m… Not sure about this?”

“What’s there not to be sure of, Commander Chilton?” Kane began, not bothering to turn around, and if he had he would definitely see the confliction clear in Mike’s face “You’ll be standing by my side as we build a better world from Motorcity’s ashes. This will be our victory Chilton, /ours/.”

“Ours…” Mike repeated, but much quieter. Now that he thought about it, Kane used words like us, we and ours quite a lot… Up to this point, Mike had always assumed that the nation’s leader was referring to all the people of Deluxe collectively. Now… The more he thought about it, the more and more apparent it was that Kane was referring to them. Them as in, himself and Mike. Just them.

Their relationship was beyond that of simply just a soldier and his commanding officer. Kane had singled him out since even before he was a cadet, grooming him… like a father and son.

Mike was too eager to follow his orders, to be something far greater than himself. He wanted… he wanted…

He had wanted to be just like Abraham Kane.

Now that he watched the screen of the Genesis Pod’s progress however, the one thing he did know was that he definitely didn’t want to kill hundreds of thousands of people.

He remembered what Chuck said… everything that Chuck had said. Every time he told Mike that he was sheltered, that he was clueless, that he was a cinnamon roll whatever that was. All the time’s he told him that he had no individuality and freedom.

He was the commander of Kane’s Army, but in the end… He wasn’t so much Michael Chilton as he was an extension of Kane.

Suddenly his bosses comm screen came to life, and Mike was shocked to see the battered and bruised face of Chuck there, standing in what seemed to be a pod.

“Hello Abraham.” Chuck greeted gruffly.

“Charles Torrence.” Kane growled in rage, and Mike wasn’t sure if he was more surprised by the call or by the fact that Chuck actually had a full name. “Where did you- how did you-!”

“I have someone I think you might.” Chuck coldly cut him off.

“A hostage?” The red-headed ruler insinuated, then laughed “We both know you’d never hurt a civilian.” That was a sentient about Chuck that Mike had to agree with, surely Chuck could never harm a soul, let alone an innocent one.

With that the Burner let out a cold, cruel laugh of his own “I’m a programmer Kane. I’m a man of logic, not a man of emotion. There’s a lot of immoral things a scientist is willing to do for the greater good. /You/ taught me that, Kane.”

The Kane Co commander wasn’t sure what to think, with all of the one on one confrontations he had with Chuck (of war, and pleasure), he’d never seen him act so cold and detached.

“I’ll give her back, when you turn off the Genesis Pod.” Chuck finished. Mike’s eyes widened at what his ex-lover was suggesting, a gesture that Kane did as well.

“Her…?” Kane questioned, his tone confirmed that he and his soldier were thinking of the same person.

Chuck reached over off screen and forcefully pulled Julie close to him, his face cold and devoid of all emotion.

“HELP! PLEASE!”

—

Something about this was wrong, very wrong. His ex-boyfriend holding his close friend and colleague hostage was wrong on it’s own. But this… this wasn’t logically right either.

Although Julie appeared to be a meek intern, Mike knew her better than that. She was tough, she was strong, she was stubborn she was, she was a god damn survivor, a way better one than most of Mike’s personally trained soldiers. And for some reason, she was very well versed in most forms of defense combat anyways.

She was by no means a damsel in distress.

Not to mention that Chuck was no perpetrator.

For one thing, he could barely even talk to women let alone hold one hostage. And he wasn’t very physically strong either, and Mike knew from the whiteness of his sclera that he wasn’t on his booster at the time of the call. Even if he was stronger than Julie, she was strong enough to give him a hell of a fight. Chuck didn’t have any scratches (Red dealt blunt for and electrical trauma, not scratches) to indicate a struggle, and Julie didn’t have a mark on her either. And for the majority of the call, Chuck wasn’t even holding her down in any way. There was no way Julie would just be a passive prisoner.

Kane was too panicked to see it the way that Mike saw it either, as he rushed his war pod to the rendezvous point. Maybe the ruler was still somewhat set in the old ways and could only see girls and women as damsels…? While it would be easy to say that Mike’s lingering affection for Chuck was the reason that he doubted this whole thing, the logic just didn’t fit.

Kane stopped his pod and beckoned Mike to follow him, the two of them climbed to the top of the pod and from the roof they saw Chuck holding Julie. Although, Mike immediately noticed he wasn’t holding her too firmly, the blond seemed to quickly whisper something to the intern, but she said nothing in response. Kane looked down almost gently at Julie, which caught Mike off guard, but then his angry look reappeared as he looked back up at the rebel leader. The commander looked back to his former lover as well; Chuck side-eyed him sadly but only for a moment.

“Let’s get on with it.” Kane grumbled.

“It’s simple,” Chuck began, holding both of Julie’s biceps as he held her in front of him, raising more suspicion in Mike, as it was a weak hold and Julie could easily wrench out of it “I’ll send her over, she turns off the Genesis Pod, and then I’ll surrender. No escapes, no protests.” Chuck bargained.

“And what happens if I don’t agree to your terms?” Kane challenged back, Mike looked to Julie and tried to mouth that it would be okay, but she wasn’t looking at him. “Don’t tell me you came all the way up here with just a bluff.” He took a threatening step forward.

“One more step and I drop her!” Chuck threatened, pushing her forward just a little bit but still gripping her.

“No you won’t!” The Deluxe ruler spat back at him “You don’t have the stomach for this.”

Mike noticed Julie’s facial expression change ever so slightly, she looked down, then at her captor.

And then Chuck seemed to push her off of the edge, and then catch her before she could descend for real.

“N-No!” Kane shouted, getting into a defensive stance. Chuck was holding Julie, dangling her off the edge. He was the only thing that standing between her and a violent death.

Mike however, wasn’t as blinded by fear as his boss was; he saw right through it all. Julie had pressed herself back into Chuck and flung her own self over to make it look like he was pushing her, but she was clearly moving on her own will, it was especially easy to see because Chuck had the same horrified look on her face as Kane.

This was staged.

This wasn’t a hostage situation at all.

But why… how was Julie in on this?

Chuck gave Kane a threatening look “I should let her go.” He challenged.

“No wait!” The ruler of Deluxe nearly stammered “I’ll do it,” he finally agreed, defeated, which Mike didn’t see coming. He knew that Julie was treated a lot better than other interns, but he didn’t realize that their boss cared about her this much, to this extreme “just, don’t hurt her.” He pleaded. “Please!”

With a bit of a cough and a huff, Chuck struggled to heave Julie back onto the roof “If I didn’t know you better, I’d almost believe you cared.”

‘That make’s two of us…’ Mike wordlessly agreed.

Slowly, Chuck had the pod approach the war pod, until it was close enough for Julie to walk over. She said something quietly to their boss that Mike didn’t catch. However, he did catch Kane’s words to her “It’s okay,” he replied, and his eye’s narrowed as he kept them fixated on his long time thorn in his side “you’ll be safe soon.”

Julie stopped in her tracks and she tried to whirl around but was whisked away by a forcefield. “No! No!” She shouted as she pounded against the hard light. This confirmed Mike’s theory; this wasn’t a hostage situation, this was a coup, somehow Chuck got her on his side. And Kane didn’t notice any of this.

“No!” Chuck yelled, dejected as the red-haired girl was pulled away. His only leverage in this situation.

“Now…” Kane began, and he curled his fists “Let’s finish this!” He yelled and charged at the blond. Mike followed, but he had no intention of attacking Chuck.

It wasn’t much of a fight, Chuck pressed against his bionic eye which activated his booster, but that still didn’t compare to someone of such greater size, strength and fight skill. Chuck didn’t stand a chance. But he tried, oh did he try. He was a scrapper at heart, he was going to try to fight until the bloody end no matter how much it hurt him. In less than a minute, he was standing with blood running down his face from his forehead, even more busted up and broken than earlier. 

The blonde could barely stand, he was wobbling as he tried to get into a fighting stance, and Kane wasn’t having any of it “Pathetic….” He snarled and threw his fist back for a fishing blow.

“No!” Mike shouted and threw himself between Chuck and Kane.

Kane was shocked.

Chuck was shocked.

Mike was still conflicted, he wasn’t thinking straight.

“Chilton what are you doing!” His boss barked, “Get out of my way!”

“I won’t let you hurt him!” Mike shouted back, his words had little to no thought behind them, yet so much at the same time.

“Chilton step aside-”

“I love him!”

Silence, at first Kane was dumbstruck, and then he just became angry all over again. And even more so this time. Meanwhile, Chuck could barely register what was going on, he definitely had a concussion at this point, and his makeshift needle decompression had fallen out, so his pneumothorax was returning, and he was bleeding profusely not just from his head, but internally as well. He could taste the coppery red fluid dripping out of his mouth. He was so disoriented, so afraid… so…so…

So sure he was going to die.

He whimpered and weakly gripped the back of Mike’s jacket, and before he knew it Kane was holding both of them over the edge of the building by the fronts of their shirts.

“You’re choosing some sewer rat over Deluxe!” Kane roared into Mike’s face “You were like a son to me! You could have had it all!”

“I’d never stand by you in a world build on the graves of thousands of innocent people! That was never going to happen!” Mike shouted back.

“…I know that now.” Kane said, in the most chilling voice either of the two younger men in his grasp had ever heard.

And he dropped them.

Chuck feebly looked to the ground, it was far away now but it would be close all too soon. He was vaguely aware of Mike holding his hand, and the comforting sound of his voice. Mike was so brave… And Chuck still loved him so much… He’d just literally fought against his own tyrannical ruler, and gotten thrown off of a building, for the greater good. And he was still trying to comfort him, even as they were falling to their deaths.

Some shitbag of a leader and a lover Chuck was, he couldn’t return all of the sentiments Mike was giving him, he couldn’t be the strong one here, he couldn’t comfort Mike back or even tell him that he still loved him.

All he could think of was death.

All he could think of was how close he was to death.

All he could think of was how scared he was.

—

Disclaimer: I do not own Motorcity or the listed characters Title: Join Me Rating: T+ Summary: AU, Chuck and Mike never met in Deluxe; Chuck is leader of the Burners and Mike is still Kane’s Commander. Despite being enemies, Chuck and Mike find themselves having feelings for each other, but are both too stubborn to leave their sides of Detroit. Pairings: MikexChuck, DutchxTennie, FoxyxClaire(implied) Warnings: Don’t read if you don’t like or are triggered by violence or dystopian societies Author’s Note: For the sake of the AU to work Chuck is OOC and some events have been slightly changed.

~~~

18: Fear and Loathing in Vega.

“Chuck, you’ve gotta lay off the alcohol.”

“I’ll lay off when I’m dead.”

Dutch and Tennie watched from the safety of other side of the room as Jacob tried (unsuccessfully) to stop Chuck from drinking himself to the point of blackout for the fifth day in a row. Dutch had gotten his girlfriend caught up on the news she’d missed out on, having not visited in over a month.

“Wowwww…. Just wow, he’s been like this for almost a week?” Tennie inquired, watching the usually zany leader of the Burners behave so depressingly.

“Yup.” Dutch confirmed with a sad sigh.

“Him and Mike…?” Tennie whispered as so Chuck wouldn’t hear her.

“Yeah… I kinda suspected it to be honest… But, I didn’t think it would turn out like this. Them break up and turning Chuck into a wreck. I mean, I know no one feels good after getting dumped, but I didn’t expect this from Chuck.” Dutch admitted.

“Is he still… Functioning?” Tennie asked “As the leader, I mean.”

“Well he’s kind of taken the metaphorical, and literal, back seat on this. He hasn’t even touched Blonde Thunder since what happened, now for patrols he sits in the back seat of Nine Lives because he’s too inebriated or hungover to legally drive. Not to mention the other day when we had to rescue Texas from Kane, he didn’t even come because he didn’t want to be anywhere near Mike.” The African American man explained, exasperated. Now, to say he hadn’t experienced breakup would be a lie, but he never quite turned into the mess that Chuck currently was. On the same side of a slightly different coin though, unlike the blond burner, Dutch was actually developed emotionally. Chuck had the emotional development of a brick. A brick that flirted with people and used flirtatious antics to mask his actual insecurity and social detachment.

“That’s troubling.”

“It is.” Dutch agreed, crossing his arms. “The only promising thing is that he’s still capable of decrypting under the influence, he’s getting through the chunk of data we collected the other day.”

Tennie looked around and noticed something different “Say, where’s Julie?” She asked, double life or not Julie was usually present during the day.

Dutch shrugged with his hands in his pockets “I think she said something about a meeting with her boss.”

~~~

Disclaimer: I do not own Motorcity or the listed characters Title: Join Me Rating: T+ Summary: AU, Chuck and Mike never met in Deluxe; Chuck is leader of the Burners and Mike is still Kane’s Commander. Despite being enemies, Chuck and Mike find themselves having feelings for each other, but are both too stubborn to leave their sides of Detroit. Pairings: MikexChuck, DutchxTennie Warnings: Don’t read if you don’t like or are triggered by violence or dystopian societies Author’s Note: For the sake of the AU to work Chuck is OOC and some events have been slightly changed.

~~~

17: Texas Told’em

“TEXAS TOLD YOU NOT TO STICK YOUR DICK INTO EVIL.”

While Dutch, Jacob, R.O.T.H and Julie was stunned into silence, Texas did not miss a beat in yelling that, jumping out of his chair and grabbing Chuck by the collar of his shirt, the intimidating effect was unfortunately not lost by Texas’s inferior height.

“I-I-” Chuck stammered, the less bold aspect of his personality started to surface at his anxiety, he was cut off when the Stronghorn driver slammed him against the wall and drew his fist back to punch him. Chuck froze at the remembrance of the beating he’d gotten from Tooley that resulted in his artificial eye.

“Knock it off, Texas!” Julie snapped and grabbed the dark haired man’s fist, effectively stopped him as he was grounded slightly out of his angry state. Blinking, he absentmindedly dropped Chuck. The leader was still shaken, but fixed up his jacket anxiously nonetheless.

“Chuck… You’re not serious are you?” Dutch asked, looking to his robot companion before back to his programmer leader.

Damn the Duke, damn the duke right to the recycling bin of the netherworlds. “I’m… I’m serious.” Chuck confirmed, soft and morose.

“You’re… You’re DATING Mike Chilton?! Chuck, dude - he’s Kane’s right hand man!” Dutch near stammered.

“I’m aware, Dutch.” Chuck had his arms behind his back, as to silently and unseenly up the level of his fear inhibitor. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep a straight face.

“How… How did this happen?” Julie inquired, there was something else in her voice that Chuck couldn’t immediately pick up on.

“I… I… well…” The blond swallowed hard, “He… He sneaks down here because the freedom we have down here intrigues him- well, mostly the food and cars actually. One day a couple of months ago we were both at the same fast food place at the same time, and, we couldn’t fight with so many people around and instead had a conversation about loyalties and ideals… and, well…”

“Then you stuck your dick into evil?” Texas broke in when Chuck trailed off.

“…Bluntly, yes. We… Started dating soon after.” Chuck admitted, raising the level of his inhibitor to half-strength, the sclera in his natural eye became a rose shade.

“…Dude.” Was all Dutch could say, R.O.T.H was chirping something of similar meaning in his robot language.

“Guy’s… Guy’s I…” Chuck swallowed “I’m sorry, okay… I’m sorry; I knew it was wrong to lie and hide this from you. I know it’s wrong to feel this way about someone who’s our enemy.. But…”

“You can’t continue this relationship with Mike, Chuck.” Jacob half-consoled, half-scolded as he approached the younger man and gently touched his arm

Chuck got onto the defensive “You don’t understand - Mike’s different.” He himself wasn’t sure why, but he knew deep down Mike was different, he wasn’t the same as Kane, the other Kane soldiers or even Dutch’s brother. He just… was different. He just didn’t see the true corruption behind Kane’s execution of his ideals.

“You can’t have your loyalties divided like this Chuck.” Jacob argued back “Chilton still fights on the behalf of Deluxe, he’s a soldier and it’s a soldier’s job to follow their orders. He’s not just any soldier either, his orders come directly from Kane.”

Chuck’s expression twitched and then faltered, like a drooping leaf. In response Jakob placed a hand on his shoulder, sensing the distress he was beginning to fall into.

“I’m not heartless Chuck, I understand how both love and infatuation feel. And however strong the feelings you are you can’t balance the safety of Motorcity on them. Chilton is military official of Kane’s army, and he himself will eventually have to choose between you and Deluxe…. Settle this with him now, Chuck, or.. You can ‘t be a Burner anymore.”

His blood spiked with ice - not be a Burner anymore?! That was all he was! He dedicated absolutely everything for the cause of liberating Motorcity, for the cause of liberating people in general from the oppression of Kane. “You can’t be serious! Isn’t that a bit overkill?”

“It is not overkill, Chuck. If you were dating some random from Deluxe - hell, any /other/ soldier than this wouldn’t be a problem. But this is the commander we’re talking about… talk to him tonight, tell him he can either choose Deluxe, or choose you.”

This was some Disney plot inconvenience bullshit right here “So you’re trying to tell me either break up with my boyfriend or I’m booted out?”

“That… may be what’s best, Chuck.” Dutch drawled out slowly “I mean, this relationship between you and Chilton? It’s messed up. But… We can’t tell you how to feel, or who to feel for. Just… go find him, tell him to pick. You’ve been trying to recruit him forever so… I guess now’s your chance? We don’t want to lose you man.”

He kept frowning, he turned his fear inhibitor off, and realized he was actually quite close to tears but he didn’t want his team, especially Texas, to see it. “F-Fine… ” He stammered “I’ll… tell him to meet me at the charging ports, and I’ll ask him if he’s willing to leave Deluxe…”

“Do you want one of us to go with you?” Julie asked.

“No… It’s between me and him.”

~~~

His radio really liked being as ironic with his life problems, because the song that came on once he was halfway to the charging ports was “I Hate this Part” by the Pussycat Dolls, a song and band from the time before dystopia. Chuck heavily sighed, he really could drive faster than five miles below the speed limit, but he was too nervous to confront Mike with this.

“You okay nerd?” Texas asked as his head appeared from the back seat.

“Not really- WHAT THE-?!” Chuck swerved and had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting anything. Once parked temporarily, he twisted around to face his unexpected passenger “What are you doing here?!” He demanded and summoned his sling-shot for good measure.

Texas put his hands up defensively in the face up of the other Burners weapon “Hey hey put that thing away!”

“I told you I didn’t want to bring anyone with me!”

“I’m here as back-up to make sure he doesn’t attack you!”

“Texas I swear to-” Chuck inhaled deeply and pulled back, reminding himself to be the adult here. This wasn’t the first time Texas went against his orders after all, so he’d have to take this with a grain of salt, it was too late to take him back. “Fine, but when we get there stay in Blonde Thunder okay? Only come out if you see that I’m in danger, okay? Keep yourself hidden.”

“Roger that nerd.” And with that Texas ducked back into the junction between the front and back seat.

The song ended as Chuck pulled up to a spot near the charging ports, Mike was already there, mostly in uniform but he was wearing his Burners jacket rather than his uniform top, and his hands were resting in the pockets. When he spotted the approaching blond, he flashed him a smile.

A knot formed in Chuck’s throat and his legs grew heavier with each step. “H-Hey Mikey…”

“Hey Chuckles- you alright babe?” He asked, concerned as he noticed his usual confident partner was shaky and seemingly timid.

“I-I, u-u-uh-” Chuck began with a stammer, Mike had to grab his upper arms to keep him from falling over with how shaky he was; Chuck held onto him back and in his current state, instinctively hid his face between the shorter male’s neck and shoulder.

Confused but concerned, Mike drew his arms around the blond in return in an attempt to calm him down “Woah… is, something wrong?” He asked, kissing the back of his head.

Why did Mike have to make this harder by being so damn sweet?

“…Promise me to not be mad.”

“Excuse me?”

“Promise me!”

“I… I, I promise?” Mike agreed, albeit reluctantly. “Whatever it is… I want you to know, I… I love you.”

If you strained hard enough you could hear something akin to glass breaking in the distance. That was Chuck’s sanity. Of all times to tell him? Of all damn times?

Chuck looked up from his shoulder slightly “D-Do you mean that?” A hand stroked him back gently, making the whole situation even worse.

“Of course I do.” Chuck wasn’t exactly the most emotionally developed guy out there, but by the sound of Mike’s tone he knew that he meant it.

“…Itoldtheburners.”

“Huh?” The brunet inquired, Chuck had spoken too fast for him to quite catch what he had said, only really picking up ‘Burners’.

Chuck sucked in a breath, trying to internally stabilize himself as he continued to cling onto the pillar of strength that was Mike Chilton “I told the Burners.” He paused, then continued to clear the confusion “About us. I told them about us-” He started to ramble, starting with the incident with the Amazons and the Duke, and finished where they currently were, sans Texas being in the car.

Although Mike was very stiff, he continued to hold him in anyways “They… Know about us?”

“Mike I can’t keep doing this…” Chuck admitted, gripping the black fabric of his jacket, he noted Mike’s shocked and nearly horrified expression “Like this, I mean. I want to stay with you- because I l-love you too.” His voice started to lurch with his body, a sincere if somewhat forced confession he’d been saving for a less tense time “I can’t date the right-hand man of Kane, not when he’s the very person I’ve staged this rebellion against. Mike… the only way for us to stay together, is if you join me (1).”

There was a long silence, stretched farther than the eye could see.

“Chuck…” The shorter man began, his tone was soft but his hold on the other was growing limp, a bad sign “You know… You know I can’t do that.” Chuck pulled away from him, his eyes were streaming tears. Well, only his right eye was. His left eye wasn’t his real eye.

He wanted to be angry, he wanted to be upset. He wanted to scream at Mike all of Kane’s injustices and crimes against humanity. About the Terra’s. About Red and the fate of Red’s home. About how Kane had not only exiled him for trying to do the morally right thing, but had him beaten and taking his eye away. Back when he had been loyal to Deluxe and Kane, just like Mike.

He wanted so badly to be enraged.

But all he felt was mutual sorrow when his maya-blue eyes met Mike’s dark brown ones.

Of course he should have seen this coming. They had talked about this at the fast food restaurant all of those months ago, when their forbidden liason’s began. They were both loyal. Loyal to their respective causes, to their people. Mike was loyal to the people of Deluxe, he was a soldier and he served his people first. Chuck was loyal to Motorcity, to his people, and to their liberation.

He swiped his sleeve across his right eye “Well then… I guess this is where it ends.”

More silence, Mike stood there still. Chuck knew the other commander wasn’t heartless, that this was hurting him as much as it was hurting Chuck. He stayed silent. Up until Chuck turned to leave “Come back with me to Deluxe… I’ll put a word in for you.”

“You know I can’t do that Mike.”

~~~

Texas was almost asleep when his leader finally returned - Chuck had opened the door fast and had slammed it closed equally as fast - the Stronghorn driver peered out and saw Chilton had exited through the charging ports. “So he said no? No surprise there nerd, you really know how to pick them.” Texas said, as he sat up.

“…” Chuck was silent and had his back turned to him as he sat in the driver’s seat, and started up Blonde Thunder.

“You’re better off without him anyways-” Texas was surprised when a sob ripped itself away from the other Burner, followed by shaky sniffles, but Chuck refused neither to turn back nor even cover his face with his hands to cover his most likely devastated expression “You, uh, you alright nerd?”

Chuck didn’t answer. Not to his question, not when the other man’s arms went around his shoulders and drew him in for an awkward bro-hug, not when his sniffles began dying down. Yet he realized, that maybe the painful choice was the right choice… because even though giving up Mike was painful, he could never give up the Burners… A the usually insensitive Texas providing him with comfort in his moment of weakness further vilified his resolve that they were his family. A weird, loud, sometimes dysfunctional, and chaotic family, but they were all he had.

~~~

1: Don’t you just love it when the title of something appears in the dialogue.

Disclaimer: I do not own Motorcity or the listed characters Title: Join Me Rating: T+ Summary: AU, Chuck and Mike never met in Deluxe; Chuck is leader of the Burners and Mike is still a Kane’s Commander. Despite being enemies, Chuck and Mike find themselves having feelings for each other, but are both too stubborn to leave their sides of Detroit. Pairings: MikexChuck, DutchxTennie Warnings: Don’t read if you don’t like or are triggered by violence or dystopian societies Author’s Note: For the sake of the AU to work Chuck is OOC and some events have been slightly changed.

~~~

16: Also Known as a Buster

“Why did I have to like Mike Chilton so much.” Chuck cursed to himself as he drove back from the Duke’s lair towards the Burners HQ, his radio was blaring, he needed some form of stimulation to get the edge off of his raging thoughts “Why did I have to be attracted to someone who was literally the worst possible choice for me. I liked Claire but she didn’t feel the same,” he roughly sighed “we could have dated. I’m not a bad guy why couldn’t she be at least at little interested?”

Almost as if the universe itself was answering him in divine coincidence, his radio started playing the ancient song ‘No Scrubs’ by TLC, which almost made him pout.

The Duke wasn’t going to release the footage right away, at least Chuck hoped so, the man had to have at least a little time to register the rejection of his ‘offer’. And with his impending blackmail, Chuck would have to force his hand and have to tell his team /himself/ of his relationship with the subordinate of Kane, because since they had to find out ultimately preferred if they found out from him rather than the Dukes attempted bribery.

He droven up and stopped at his usual parking space in the garage and paused once he stopped Blonde Thunder. He had to face his team before the Duke’s news reached them, but he still found himself frozen. He stood for his own convictions when he refused to steal from the Amazons, but now he had to come clean about lying and conflict of interest.

The blonde’s hand was visibly shaking when he opened his car’s door and stepped out, walking to the main area. Jacob was behind the counter as usual, Texas was excitedly chatting with Dutch, and Julie seemed to as usual just be both listening to them out of courtesy and keeping to herself.

“Hey Chuck.” Dutch greeted his leader, rotating his body in his chair but not getting up, his smile dropped seeing the sullen expression of the other man. “Is something up?”

“…” It was as though a proverbial cat had got his tongue “We need to talk…” he struggled to just keep his voice straight “It’s important.”

“What’s wrong nerd?” The Stronghorn driver asked as he rotated himself and his stool to face him properly. While Texas didn’t always seem very bright, for all of his quirks he was in fact very perceptive in his own way, and he could tell something wasn’t just up with the blonde Burner, but something was wrong, something was wrong, something was eating at him.

“…” He hated being so chicken shit, but he put his booster on to suffocate his ability to feel fear, and dialed it onto a low setting to where his inhibitions were only a little bit lowered and his sclera turned a faint pink. In the months since he’s gotten the booster he’s been experimenting with it, and finally found a way to put ‘intensity scale’ of 1-10 on it so it wouldn’t be as addicting and he wouldn’t get hit with all of the effects full force at once. He put the setting to 3, a fair amount for the announcement he was about to make. “I’ve been keeping a secret from you all.”

Dutch and Texas looked to each other and Jacob, Julie sat stiff but her eyes dilated before narrowing again, almost suggesting she was bracing herself. Odd, the blonde hacktivist noted.

“You see…” He sighed heavily and dialed the booster to a 4 “I’ve been seeing someone behind your backs.”

“So you’ve been dating someone..?” Dutch traited off, it was surprising sure because despite his flirtatious ways Chuck had never actually dated before to their knowledge, but it wasn’t exactly groundbreaking news.

“Someone actually wants to date you?” Texas’s mouth gaped in shock, making Dutch smack his arm a little “Is she cute? Did you get to score?” That time Julie hit him.

“I’m dating Mike Chilton.”

Chuck broke it out in an almost exasperated manner, it came out obviously forced.

However, it did take a huge weight off of his chest.

“WHAT?!”

Disclaimer: I do not own Motorcity or the listed characters Title: Join Me Rating: T+ Summary: AU, Chuck and Mike never met in Deluxe; Chuck is leader of the Burners and Mike is still a Kane’s Commander. Despite being enemies, Chuck and Mike find themselves having feelings for each other, but are both too stubborn to leave their sides of Detroit. Pairings: MikexChuck, DutchxTennie Warnings: Don’t read if you don’t like or are triggered by violence or dystopian societies Author’s Note: For the sake of the AU to work Chuck is OOC and some events have been slightly changed. (YES I HAVE NOT DIED, FINALLY GOT LAPTOP ACCESS ) ~~~

15: Sab-cat

“If this is about the Duke’s tires being slashed, I swear it wasn’t me.” Chuck insisted even as the Duke of Detroit’s henchmen continued dragging him the the lair of the notorious Duke. After dropping Mike off he’d been ambushed by a bunch of the Duke’s gangs cars circling around his, and then magnetizing it to where he was forced to the dumps where the Duke lived.

When he was pushed and prodded through the halls, there was a show of lights as the Duke made his characteristic over-the-top entrance “Chucky, how nice of you to visit.” The Duke greeted and turned with an ear-to-ear grin.

“Cut the formalities Duke, why did you have your thugs drag me here?” Chuck demanded briskly, hand hovering near his energy saber. The thugs didn’t bother to disarm him, which was odd considering that Chuck’s strategy of relying on gadgets and trickery was well-known.

“I just wanted to have a civil conversation over business.” The older man explained, overly friendly in a clearly insincere fashion. Chuck scowled; he didn’t trust the Duke any further than he could throw him, and sure the Duke wasn’t heavy-set but Chuck wasn’t well-endowed with upper body strength as it was. Not without the booster at least.

“Well make it quick, I don’t have all day.” Chuck tried to not snap, but his patience was running thin.

Duke walked over, his insincere grin still in place sinisterly “I need to you to go to Amazon territory and steal something for me. It’s a chemical called selenium sulphate.”

The younger blonde immediately put his hands up defensively in refusal “Woah woah man I don’t steal. I’m no criminal like you.” He argued.

“What kind of hypocrite are you to call anyone a criminal, Mr. Registered Cyberterrorist, ne number one most wanted in Deluxe, AKA record holder for most traffic violations in Motorcity and known vigilante.” The Duke dragged that one out; it was true, even if Chuck was on the side of the greater good he did have an extensive criminal record between the two sides of Detroit.

“Okay I get it geeze.” Chuck threw his arms up, not liking the criticism even if it was accurate. The Duke was unfortunately smarter and wittier than he was given credit for.

“Besides,” the Duke put a hand on his shoulder, but Chuck slapped his hand off before he could continued and interrupted him.

“Violate my space bubble again you flamboyant hair-dye obsessed fruitcake and see what happens.” His threat fell on uncaring ears as the Duke only smirked.

“I knew you’d be reluctant on the idea, so let’s trade services.”

“Yeah sorry but I don’t want service from the red light district.” The Duke’s henchmen gasped at the implications, and Babs angrily chewed her bubblegum. The Duke himself was unaffected.

“Ooh, sick burn there Chuck. How about I cut to the chase. you steal the selenium sulphate for me, I don’t leak to everyone that you’re sleeping with the enemy.”

“…” …

“And don’t try to deny or say I can’t prove it, I have pictures of you two together, and explicit video of your car shaking during your private time with Deluxe’s top military authority. And I’m well aware neither you nor Mike are underaged, so no you can’t send the police after me for possession of child porn.” Damn it. May the almighty data processor in the sky damn the Duke of Detroit to the recycle bin in the underworld.

“Duke if you dare…” Chuck started, but was unable to finish his threat. What could he do? Duke clearly had the upperhand with the blackmail he possessed, and the Blonde Burner was fully aware that should anyone find out about his secret liaisons with Mike not only would his loyalties be questioned, but his ability to be a leader. He’d already been accused by Texas of ‘sticking his dick into evil’, which he technically had been doing. What if the Burners found out? It wasn’t enough that he was having relations with Mike Chilton of all cats, but also that he was deliberately lying to his faces. They’d given him all of their loyalty and yet he was unable to return the same courtesy.

Duke was still grinning at him, it made even a non-violent soul like Chuck knock his lights out “So are we on the same page now? Better get that selenium sulphate, if you don’t want your dirty little secret out.”

Chuck mentally weigh his options. The Amazons and the Burners were in generally neutral terms, not good enough ones where Foxy would just give him the selenium sulphate, she’s most definitely want him to buy it but he couldn’t because he had no money as it was. And stealing it would only cause hostility between their two groups, no to mention give him even more unwanted negative attention, it not like he could explain to his friends that he caused bad relations between them and the Amazons just to cover his own ass.

On the same coin, if his relationship with Mike was revealed there was no way his loyalty wouldn’t be questions. His friends would feel betrayed by him, and question his ability to be their leader when he couldn’t steer clear of contradicting emotional involvements.

And if the news spread to Deluxe, what would happen to Mike? If he had to choose between Chuck and Kane, which would he choose?

Chuck swallowed his poison.

“I refuse.”

Disclaimer: I do not own Motorcity or the listed characters Title: Join Me Rating: T+ Summary: AU, Chuck and Mike never met in Deluxe; Chuck is leader of the Burners and Mike is still a Kane’s Commander. Despite being enemies, Chuck and Mike find themselves having feelings for each other, but are both too stubborn to leave their sides of Detroit. Pairings: MikexChuck, DutchxTennie Warnings: Don’t read if you don’t like or are triggered by violence or dystopian societies Author’s Note: For the sake of the AU to work Chuck is OOC and some events have been slightly changed.

~~~

14: Heterochromia

The morning was spent with Chuck desperately trying to keep his secret boyfriend quiet in his room while said boyfriend suffered from a massive hang-over. Mike had suffered headaches and migraines before, but had never been hung-over. It was almost sad that his first experience drinking involved getting completely sloshed and then waking up hung-over, just barely lucky enough to not be throwing up.

“I’m dying.” Mike groaned, his hands gripping his head as if it were an oversized pimple that needed to be popped.

“Oh settle down, you are not.” Chuck rolled his eyes “You’ve survived being hit by cars, being punched through solid polymers, and falling from high elevation. A little hangover won’t do you in.” In response Mike groaned painfully, in a rather melodramatic fashion. “This is what you get for not pacing yourself like I told you too.”

“Fuck you Chuck.”

“Not right now.” The blonde smirked at his play on words and managed to dodge being smacked.

A knock on the door shut Mike up “Yo, Chuck man we’re going on patrol. Feel like joining us?” He heard Dutch from the other side of the door, slightly muffled.

The hacktivist glanced down at Mike, who was still curled up miserably “N-Not today,” Chuck began, trying to make himself sound miserable and in pain “I-I drank too much last night and now I’m dying.”

He heard the mechanic groan at the response “Dude, you and those nerds…” He heard Dutch mutter, his voice getting softer indicating that he was walking off. Chuck let off a sigh of relief, grabbing a bottle of ibuprofen from his desk. Chuck didn’t believe in using medication unless if he had to, believing to relying on it compromised his immune system by making him dependent. But now was a good time to use some.

He shook the bottle and two small tablets fell into his palm “Open up Mike,.” he ordered gently, tapping Mike’s cheek. A groan sounding close to a whine rumbled from the others throat, but Chuck kept softly tapping his cheek until the other eventually complied and opened his mouth so he could drop the pills in “Don’t chew these, just swallow.”

Mike made a face as he dryly swallowed the pills “It is so typical of you to make me swallow.” The double-meaning must have been intended because Mike smirked despite his shut eyes, and Chucks freckled face flooded with a crimson hue.

“And here people tell me I have a one-track mind.” The blonde hacksaur muttered sarcastically, his gangly arms crossed over his chest, he stood up and stripped down to change into a fresh pair of clothes - being held captive by Mike in bed all night he hadn’t had a way to change into pajamas last night and had slept in his clothes.

He looked over his shoulder to make sure Mike was okay, or at least less bitchy, and rebooted his computer, he started up his security monitors and saw that the rest of H.Q. was clear thankfully, meaning everyone even Jacob had gone on patrol. Thank the almighty data processor in the sky.

“Come on Mikey, we’ll get you some coffee and a bite to eat, then get you out of here.” He wrapped his arms around the Commander and practically dragged him out of the bed.

“The painnnn.”

“Oh get over it you Deluxe baby, at least you aren’t vomiting your guts out.” With somewhat of a hassle he managed to drag his boyfriend to the kitchen and make him sit at one of the stools, luckily coffee was already made and there was a bag of bread out. He prepared Mike’s coffee - while Chuck preferred drinking his coffee black, and a pot at a time due to his tolerance to the effects of caffeine, Mike liked his coffee with cream and sugar dumped in it and could get wired on two mere cups.

“Thanks, babe.” Mike hummed when he was handed a large mug of coffee and a few slices of toast, and Chuck bit the inside of his cheek at the new pet name. The brunet worked slowly at consuming the makeshift breakfast, the hangover making him quite sluggish.

He left him be, he pulled a tarp off of the unnamed green car that the Burners kept as an emergency spare. It was the most versatile, but personally Chuck just didn’t prefer it. Whilst Mike was eating, Chuck was just going to check it’s part, as it has very rarely been used.

“Dude that car looks awesome.” He heard Mike say - his voice sounding wistful rather than whiny like it had been all morning, Chuck whipped his head over to look at his boyfriend, who was staring at the car in amazement as if he had never seen a car before. As if his goal as a Kane Co commander wasn’t to destroy all cars left in existence.

“This one?” Chuck tilted his head and looked back to the car - it was green, in excellent condition (due to top notch repairs by Dutch, and rarely being used in the first place) and had a cartoonish caricature of a small dog with big eyes spraypainted on the side. “This is just a spare we use in case of one of our own cars so broken down we can’t readily use it.”

“It look’s really cool.” Mike basically repeated what he’d already said before. This was one thing about Mike that both baffled and intrigued Chuck - when he first came down to Motorcity cars and the prospect of driving in one terrified him, it was a fear pill he still struggled to swallow to this day. Mike was the opposite, the dangerous death machines that he’d seen nothing but negative propaganda of his whole life, simply excited him. “Do you ever drive that?”

“Sometimes.” He shrugged.

“Is it fast?”

“It’s the fastest car actually. It just isn’t as good a fit for any of the Burners as our own cars are.” Chuck preferred diverse weaponry, and a lightweight frame to accentuate accuracy, even if it came at the sacrifice of speed and power. “I’m not a big fan of the color green anyways.”

“I think it looks sleek.”

“Maybe I should buy you a green jacket then.”

“But I like this one.” Mike pouted, pulling the ends of his orange-trimmed jacket closer together.

“Oh I know.” Chuck shrugged “If you like the car so much Mike maybe I should drive you home with it.”

“Can you!?”

“-I was just kidding. But uh, if you really want to.”

Mike stood up briefly before Chuck briskly rushed over and shoved him back to sitting “Finish your breakfast first.”

“But Chucccck I wanna ride in the green car.”

“Too bad. Finish your toast and coffee.”

~~~

By the time the two finally went into the green Burner car, Mike was practically bouncing with anticipation. Seeing this type of hyperactive, almost childish excitement from the other boy made the edges of Chuck’s lips pull into a smile unwillingly.

“Buckle up.” Chuck told him, not waiting for a response or action he reached over and strapped the buckle for him - this seatbelt was different from the others, as it strapped from both sides with four diagonal straps and was designed in a manner similar to an octopus or squid. Slowly Chuck pulled out of H.Q; when he wasn’t on missions he would always adhere to traffic laws and speed limits, simply because due to missions he already had the Motorcity record for most traffic tickets. Most being unpaid because he had no job and the DMV didn’t always accept ‘community service’ as a method of payment.

“Can’t we go faster?”

“Mike if I get another traffic ticket Blonde Thunders gonna get repossessed, and believe me when I say I can’t afford to pay for it back now.” Or ever, because as he viewed it he would probably be an unemployed bum vigilante forever. His boyfriend pouted at that “Just relax as I take you back to the border, okay? At least I agreed to use this car instead of mine.”

“Maybe you should trach me how to drive, Chuckles.”

“…” Chuck fell silent as they came to a stop light, when the light turned green again he spoke as he started off again “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I like cars.” Mike liked cars. Mike Chilton, the commander of Deluxe’s military and second only to Abraham Kane himself, the man who hated cars and loved watching their destruction. Something akin to pride, close to arrogance, welled up in Chuck; he’d corrupted his precious Deluxe cinnamon roll into something even Jenzen probably wouldn’t be able to recognize.

He knew that the only thing keeping Mike from joining his side was his steadfast loyalty to Deluxe, and to Kane. He just didn’t see the cruelty and ruthlessness in Kane that Chuck had experienced first-hand. Remembering the beating he’d received from Tooley after the henchmen had been sicked on him courtesy of the tyrannical leader, Chuck’s left eye twitched. His boyfriend didn’t know this, but the Burner’s leader left eye was actually bionic. A fully functioning near replica of the eye he’d lost because of the horrible beating from Tooley. The only person who knew was Jacob, no one else could tell because of how real it looked, coupled with the fact that Chuck wore a contact over it to hide the metallic-silver coloring of the synthetic iris.

Liking cars was at least a start.

“Sure Mike, I’ll teach you how to drive. First lesson’s next time we meet up okay?”

“It’s a date.”

Disclaimer: I do not own Motorcity or the listed characters Title: Join Me Rating: T+ Summary: AU, Chuck and Mike never met in Deluxe; Chuck is leader of the Burners and Mike is still a Kane’s Commander. Despite being enemies, Chuck and Mike find themselves having feelings for each other, but are both too stubborn to leave their sides of Detroit. Pairings: MikexChuck, DutchxTennie Warnings: Don’t read if you don’t like or are triggered by violence or dystopian societies Author’s Note: For the sake of the AU to work Chuck is OOC and some events have been slightly changed.

Warning: This chapter has verbal mentions of sexual activity, and underaged drinking

~~~

13: Touch the Skyy

“Geeze Chuck must have had some serious rage or something.” Dutch said over com to Texas after another minor skirmish with the Kane forces.

“Didn’t think the nerd had it in him.” Texas responded in agreement. Julie stayed silent at her end.

Even though the skirmish had been minor - Kane forces being past the border, Chuck went all out with figurative guns blazing. He’s gone so far as to leave Blonde Thunder and physically fight the Kane soldiers. That was beyond odd, as Chuck never physically fought if he didn’t have to, the obvious skills gap between him and the Kane soldiers prevented this. In fact, when the blonde had spotted Mike amongst the soldiers he’d charged for him directly and thrashed the dude with the type of ferocity they’d only seen once, when some punk had slashed Chuck’s tires.

Mike had seem so affected by the beating he’d backed off with the other Kane soldiers, Mike, retreated. The man who always had a plan actually retreated. “Probably a fluke.” Texas concluded, thinking about it, Dutch reprimanded the other Burner for having so little faith in their leader. Well, the fighting capabilities of said leader at least, which Texas questioned constantly.

“Yeah, a fluke…” Julie surprising agreed with the Stronghorn driver, although she believed there was a reason to the ‘fluke’.

~~~

“If you wanted to convince them things hadn’t ‘changed’ between our enemy dynamics, you could have just shot at me and missed you know.”

“I know I know.”

“I almost thought you were going to kiss me right there and then.”

Chuck rolled his eyes “That’s what this meeting is for, isn’t it?” Not waiting for an answer he pecked the Commanders cheek “Now change won’t you?” Mike was still in his standard uniform, which Chuck hated.

“Yeah yeah ‘dear’.” Mike teased the last word out, earning him a playful punch in the shoulder, he shrugged off his uniform jacket and put on the black and orange one that he was stowing in a messenger bag.

“You look better in color you know.” Chuck complimented as Mike altered the rest of his attire.

“I know.” The brunet winked ‘Although I was under the impression you preferred me in the nude.”

The Burner scoffed at that half-heartedly “Not that that’s entirely untrue, but I’m not a pervert.”

“Bullshit.” The longer Mike spent in Motorcity, the more he often he’d drop a swear word. He still wasn’t as vulgar as Chuck could get in a mood.

Still, it was pretty hot.

~~~

“What’s that over there?” Mike asked, noticing what appeared to be a very steep cliff-edge, what had caught his curiosity was all of the warnings graffitied on the many signs around it. Presently he and Chuck were going on a drive around Motorcity.

Chuck looked to the side through the ciorner of his eye but didn’t move his head away from facing ahead “Oh that’s the Motorcity Doom Jump.”

“…Doom Jump.”

“As the name entails, it’s suicide trying to drive to the other side.” Chuck explained, recalling a story about how a few years ago some poor schmuck had tried and ended up dead “No ones made it, so no one dares to try.”

“Couldn’t you use an energy blast of some kind to propel yourself?” Mike suggested, the other boy hummed in thought at the thoughtful observation.

“I suppose someone could, the problem is however that no one ignition is strong enough.” Chuck explained, turning when the road curved “But enough of the Doom Jump, is there anywhere you want to go today?”

“How about we see those friends of yours, the non-Burners I mean.” Mike asked, he was truthfully wondering if they were doing well, especially after the last time he saw them where the two kids were captured by robots.

“The LARPers? Sure.” The blonde began driving the direction of the freeway “I was going to go over tonight anyways, it’s drunk Magic the Gathering night anyways.”

“It’s what?” Mike looked at his boyfriend like he’d just grown two heads; yeah he knew what Magic the Gathering was because Chuck had played a few games of it with him (even giving him a black-devotion deck), but, drunk? They drank? Underaged and outside of a holiday? In Deluxe alcohol was strictly illegal except on holidays, and not for anyone under the age of 21, the law was in place to prevent abuse caused by alcoholism.

“Drunk Magic the Gathering,” Chuck explained nonchalantly “It’s a drinking game, everytime someone uses an artifact card you take a drink. We’re probably going to get super wasted tonight because Ruby uses a colourless deck and it’s like every other card is an artifact.”

“You drink?” The brunet was still quite bug eyed.

“Not really,” Chuck shrugged “I’m what they call a ‘light-weight’ so I usually stop after like three or four shots. And only on Saturdays.” Saturday was the day they alternated between Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons every week.

“Shots?”

“A very small cup of alcohol you’re supposed to down as fast as possible.”

“Why do you down it as fast as possible?”

“That shit burns your throat.”

“Then why do it?!?!?!” Oh boy, despite all of time he spent in Motorcity Mike was still the Deluxe cinnamon roll that Chuck had pegged him right from the start.

~~~

Minutes later the pair were at Ruby’s door, Chuck knocking on the door with his other arm linked with Mike’s, they were dragged in right away by the enthusiastic darkslayer.

“Hey you’re that Deluxe guy we saw a couple months ago.” Sam pointed out once Chuck and Mike were over, of course none of the LARPers were aware that he was more than just a guy from Deluxe, but the Commander of Kanes army. Mike nodded and smiled politely.

“Hope you don’t mind I’m Lord Vanquisher’s boyfriend.” The brunet said, making the others laugh softly as they were well-aware of the Lord of their realm being bisexual (it was pretty obvious from his flirting with guys). Hearing the other refer to himself as his, made Chuck’s stomach lurch and flutter. He gently pulled the brunet down to sit on the couch with him, and set both of their decks up. Chuck personally used a blue-devotion deck, his side deck was a black devotion deck but he had it currently leant out to Mike. By now Mike had a basic understanding of the game.

“Hey guys,” Chuck said, referring to the LARPers “if you could uh, please don’t mention Mike to the Burners okay?”

“Why not?” Thurman asked, his brow raised. They knew Chuck liked having a life outside of the Burners, but they didn’t think he’d be secretive about everything he did. It couldn’t be because Mike was a Deluxian because Julie and Claire were as well, and it was no secret in Motorcity.

“It’s just..” Chuck thought quickly “I don’t want them to think I’m dividing my loyalty.” Fair enough, it was one thing to have a life outside of his gang, but having a love life whilst also being a leader could be seen as spreading himself too thin. His shoulders were drawn up slightly tensely, partly because he wasn’t the best at lying, and partly because of the guilt of actually lying. He relaxed when Mike kissed his cheek reassuringly.

When Ruby got out a few bottles of liquor out, it was Mike’s turn to become nervous, his boyfriend wasn’t surprised because he was well aware of Deluxe’s strict policy on alcoholic beverages. Mike viewed the liquid as a substance that turned any decent person into some abusive monster, unaware that that was only an extreme situation that came from abusing the substance. “You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to babe, I wouldn’t force you.” Chuck assured, rubbing the shorter man’s arm. Mike looked up at him and nodded. Chuck himself wasn’t intending to drink, as he had to drive Mike back to the border later.

“He doesn’t drink?” Ruby asked, her head tipped in confusion; she was so used to seeing other teens excited to try.

“He’s a Deluxian, remember? Drinking in Deluxe is only legal during state holidays.” Chuck explained, still rubbing Mike’s arm.

“You don’t want to even try?”

“I’m good…” Mike muttered quietly under his breath, watching as one of the other LARPers mixed a clear liquor with a soda, he deduced it was to make the burning taste that Chuck had earlier described more bearable.

The game started, and Chuck had managed to draw a Plainswalker, and Mike had made two swings before he was beaten by Thurman. As he sat there patiently waiting for the next game, he couldn’t help but continually looking to the red solo cups with the alcohol in it. He’d seen the LARPers drink it, and besides become clumsier and slurred speech they didn’t seem much different than before. They weren’t passed out, or throwing up, or beating anyone like he’d expected.

They seemed relaxed even, kinda dumb, but relaxed.

Tentatively, he grabbed a clean red solo cup and filled it with mostly cola, and began pouring some of the clear liquor in it.

“Not too much,” Chuck chided to the side “that’s a hundred-proof.”

Sadly Mike didn’t know what proof meant, and didn’t heed the warning as he should.

~~~

“Duuuude we should so go jump the Doom Jump.”

“Mike you’re drunk.”

“Shhh no, really, just start driving towards it from like a huge distance and then you’ll make it to the other side.”

Chuck rolled his maya-blue eyes, Mike strapped in the passenger seat and rambling drunkenly about ‘cool’ stuff they ‘should totally do’. Mike must have been a daredevil at heart because some of these suggestions were crazy enough to make Chuck cringe.

Not that it exactly took much to make Chuck cringe.

Mike, unlike Chuck, wasn’t a light weight, but he’d drank way too much, especially for someone who hadn’t built up a tolerance and drank at least half of a solo cup of Skyy at his first go.

“Can I drive?”

“No Mike.”

“Can I give you head while you drive?”

“…No. Mike.” Chuck’s face turned bright red at the suggestion “You’re drunk, it’d be illegal.” Not to mention Chuck already had way more than enough traffic tickets by now.

Mike pouted at the rejection “Aw such a poor sport, Chuckles.”

Chuck sighed, he knew he wouldn’t be able to take Mike back to Deluxe if he was this sloshed, anyone would be able to tell he was intoxicated, not just from the way he spoke and his current lack of common sense, but his stumbling also. “Mike, do you think you could do something for me?”

“Did you change your mind about the blowjob?” As if to make the taller boy more embarrassed he traced a teasing circle over his chest, Chuck gently swatted his hand away, his face still flushed.

“No, I need you do come home with me - and no I don’t mean for sex wipe that smirk off of your face.” The hacker explained, driving up to the Burner HQ, knowing everyone else’d be asleep by now “You’re too wasted to go back to Deluxe, you need to stay the night here to sleep it off. You’re head’s gonna hurt like a bitch tomorrow but you could pass it off as a headache when I take you back to Deluxe.”

Mike nodded clumsily, messing with his seat belt, which Chuck put a child safety lock on just for this occasion.

The Burners leader stopped Blonde Thunder and got out first, going to the passenger side from the outside and unstrapping Mike from his seat, dragging him out by putting the others arm over him. He trudged with the extra weight, the brunet clinging to his clothes as his fogged brain could at least rationalize his inability to walk straight.

“Be quiet, okay?” Chuck whispered as he maneuvered them both, silently cursing himself for choosing the farthest room in the place. While Texas could probably sleep through a nuclear war during an earthquake, Dutch was another story; whilst sleeping he was guarded by R.O.T.H who never slept, and the last thing Chuck wanted was to alert the bot.

Once (finally) at Chuck’s room, Mike dumped himself onto the bed, so drunk his body felt way heavier than it actually was. Looking at the Commander over his shoulder, Chuck flipped the light on and locked his door - it wasn’t unusual for his door to be locked at night anyways, Chuck rarely ever slept at night, usually opting to stay up all night and sleeping at irregular intervals during the day.

“Maaaaan this bed is like, really neat.” Mike commented, already snuggling Chuck’s pillow, as the blonde amusingly watched from his desk chair.

“Thank you.”

“Do you ever sleep in this bed?”

“I don’t sleep.” At night at least, and usually he didn’t actually sleep he just passed out at his desk chair against his will. With Mike distracted by drunken exhaustion, Chuck busied himself by hacking into the Deluxe military report system, where he filed and timed a false report of Mike being ill that morning. He flipped the lights down, as the light of the computer was enough for Chuck.

His companion wasn’t passed out yet “Come lay with meee, your bed is way more cozy than your car.”

“Mike I’m busy.” Wrong thing to say, because before Chuck knew it strong arms wrapped around him from behind and half-dragged, half-carried him back to the bed, making him almost yelp in surprise “Mikey!”

“Sh, it’s time to sleep.” The Deluxian slurred, arms wrapped around the other boy firmly, try as he might Chuck would not be able to break that lock.

“Mikeyyy.” Chuck whisper-pouted “I told you I don’t sleep.” In response Mike didn’t even bother to let go of him, just pulled the blankets up to cover them both, and shifted to where Chuck’s head was resting atop his chest.

“Sure you do.” And with that, Mike passed out drunk. Leaving Chuck trapped there, and unable to sleep.

Chuck rolled his eyes, staring at the ceiling “If he thinks I’m going to fall asleep he has another thing coming.” Yeah, he wasn’t going to fall asleep; even if Mike’s body was super warm, and his arms were snug, and his breathing pattern was soothing.