DeadBeat [cashton + Muke] ✔️

[8]

❛ ━━━━━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━━━━━ ❜

It had been difficult, a long few months of Michael working from early in the morning to late into the night; desperation in every pen stroke, every key press.

Calum had gone, the deadly arsonist escaped, and what was even worse was that it wasn't only him who had sprinted free when the institution was attacked; cracked open like an egg and spilt.
There were too many criminals to count, too many minds unlike normal society now free to roam and bleed their madness from open sores.

After a while, Michael had managed to lead a solid clean up effort; clearing the city of much of its evil, throwing the crazies back into their padded cells in a new institution a few cities over. A stronger one. A better one.
A modern Alcatraz. They would rot there until their sentence was up and their life was done.

But... Calum was still free. Along with his insane partner.
And some nights the thought alone was enough to send chills of anguish and disgust up Michael's spine.

His wedding had been postponed for a long time, his mind too frazzled, body too tense, to even think about an important event such as that. Especially when he knew it needed to be perfect, because even if Luke insisted it didn't he still wanted it to be worthy.

After a while though, Luke managed to pull Michael out from his obsessive work; drag him from his drowning state in an ocean of muck and filth and haul him back to shore with a soft plea for him to stop exhausting himself so much.

As much as Luke insisted Michael saved him, showed him a world beyond death and drugs and violence, Michael was certain Luke had saved him too.
Luke had given him a breath of fresh air, a reminder not all of his life had to be spent wasting away for a job that would take everything he had and spit it back out.

"Mikey?" Luke called softly from the kitchen, a bowl of uncooked pasta in his arms to match the array of ingredient across the kitchen counter he would soon use.

A half hearted "hm?" came in return from the dining room; their old apartment long gone and a new home paid under their newly wedded names had become their place of rest.

"Why don't you close the laptop for a moment?" Luke suggested, hovering in the doorway with a look of concern in his eyes. "Come help me with dinner, give your mind some rest."

"I can't." Michael's response was almost an exasperation, his exhaustion still so strong as he rubbed his hands over his face. "I need to finish this case report."

"Those reports aren't due 'til Friday, you can rest for one afternoon, Mike." Luke countered, growing increasingly worried. "You're letting work consume you again."

"I know, I know-"

"You promised you wouldn't do this again..." Luke wasn't upset, and Michael knew his intentions were pure. Yet all it did was pour guilt in Michael's heart.