Anything ragged or rotten or rusty Yes, I love trash!

[47redbirds]

His fish tank is moving.

More specifically, his fish in the fish tank are moving. Talking. There's a puffer fish that Mike swears is fucking beat boxing, and he's sitting in the middle of his cramped trailer, right on the floor as he watches his tank.

He doesn't have a tank--it's his kitchen sink, for once devoid of any dishes. There's no tank and there's no puffer fish and it's not even filled with water, but Mike sees beyond that. He sees the certain truth that many people don't find. The difference between reality and what's fake and everything that's in between. He swears the fish are just from another universe. Another dimension, transposed here and Mike is the only one who can see them. The only one who knows who and what they are.

He's also on a lot more than Oxy today.

His dealer had provided him a lot of goods today. Out of respect, he says, for keeping the marshals out of his hair. Mike just pointed them the other direction so he'd still get his fix, it was as simple as that. The world isn't about who's nice and who does things from the kindness of their hearts and who doesn't. The world is about who's left with what they want.

Mike? Mike has everything he wants right now. Even if he's on the floor and has been for nearly two hours, staring at an empty sink he can't really see, convinced that he's just opened a new doorway to another world. That he can see the truth.

He hears the knocking, knows it can only be Tim. He doesn't get up to open the door--instead, with a surprising amount of grace, he throws the keys out the window for Tim to pick up. He can't look back, not now. He can't look away.

The RV is in a slightly better state than usual, at least--relatively clean, although Mike's hair is still long and unkempt. There's a pipe and a pill bottle on the kitchenette's table, and a few dimebags of his usual weed. There's also small dime bags of tablets, too: a regular smorgasbord.

Mike says nothing as he hears the door open. He smiles.

Comments

[comfortablyerect]

Tim's seen Billy.

And not in the fucked up, drugged out way Mike is currently seeing fish. Billy flew down for a visit, like a long distance booty call, and figured Tim out in approximately ten seconds, the way he always does. It's not easy to hide anything from somebody like Billy. Especially when you happen to be in the very beginning stages of withdrawal.

Billy convinced him to get clean. Convinced, guilt tripped, whatever. It worked either way. And it was painful and rough and not something Tim ever wants to go through again, but he fucking needed it. He's better than that, better than the level Mike had dragged him down to. The level he'd let himself get dragged down to, because it's his fault, really. Might might have taken advantage of his vulnerability, but Tim's the one that was weak enough to cave. Weak enough to keep caving, over and over again.

And he's better than that.

Tim hasn't seen Mike since. He hasn't taken himself off the case yet either, and he probably won't, no matter how much he needs to. It'll be better for him, probably, to redirect his focus. Let Raylan be Mike's handler. Or, hell, let Rachel be his handler. She's stronger than the rest of them combined. But taking himself off the case would be suspicious, not to mention it feels like a weak thing to do. Like a surrender.

But he needs this closure. Needs it like he needed to get clean. It's a one step at a time sort of thing, and this is the next step. He knocks on Mike's door, and the only answer he gets is the keys thrown out the window. So it's gonna be one of those kind of days. Great.

He gets the keys, unlocks the door to the trailer and goes inside. It's a little cleaner than usual, admittedly. But Tim's too distracted by Mike sitting on the floor to pay attention to that.

"Hey." He nudges Mike's leg with the toe of his boot. "Get up, Warren."