The Breakup
	Author:  Beowulf
	Fandom:  The Monkees
	Pairing:  Mike/other m
	Rating:  PG
	E-mail address for feedback: cliff@icom.ca
	Disclaimers:  The Monkees are owned by Paramount or Desilu or Rhino Records
	or somebody.  Not me.  I'm not making anything off this - it is fanfic
	based strictly on the characters which appeared on the television show.  It
	is NOT based on the actual musicians/actors.  This story was written with
	respect and love, and deals with a subject very close to my heart.
	Summary:  A man from Mike's past needs Mike's friendship and strength
	before it is too late.
	Warnings:  Sadness, grief
	(c) 2000

	---

	Chapter One


	The letter lay on the kitchen table all day while Mike was at work.  It had
	come in the morning post after Mike had left, a cream coloured envelope,
	addressed to him in rather scrawled handwriting, no return address.

	It was Peter who finally turned it over and noticed the words,
	"confidential", written in black ink.

	"Could it be from a girl?" he asked.

	"Don't know," Micky shrugged as he sipped his coffee.  Like Mike, he'd also
	found a part-time job, an attempt to make ends meet between gigs.  His job
	was working an assembly line, though, and he missed having coffee always
	within reach.  This was his second cup in twenty minutes.

	"He was seeing that girl Jeannie for a while," Peter mused.  "I don't know
	if he still is.  He hasn't been talking about her lately."  He dropped the
	letter back on the table and opened the fridge.  "What do you guys want to
	do about dinner tonight?"

	"Please, not pizza," Davy murmured.  He was sitting at the table, reading
	the newspaper.  Pizza wasn't his favourite, and it seemed like the other
	three could live on it indefinitely.

	"It's easy to make," Peter said.

	"Uck.  All those ingredients mangled together," Davy griped.

	"Hmm, and nothing at all like Shepherd's Pie or those weird English
	sausages you like," Micky teased.

	Davy took the teasing good-naturedly, though he didn't always.  The four
	guys had been sharing this beach house for over two years now, and
	sometimes elbows got rubbed the wrong way.

	It had been Mike's place before the other three came along.  Micky, Peter,
	and Davy had met in high school, started up a garage band, and played
	various small dives until they got serious about their music after
	graduation.  They toured through the summer, and Davy and Peter, who should
	have gone to college come September, decided to keep the band together.
	Their respective parents had been much more than angry, and the result was
	that the three of them moved to Los Angeles, to start their career in
	earnest.

	Mike came into it later.  Micky heard him playing classical guitar in a
	coffee house, and liked the sound so much that he told Davy and Peter about
	it.  Mike unknowingly auditioned the next day, and came off the stage to
	find himself meeting three strangers who wanted him to join their band.
	The four of them 'discussed' it in a bar that night, and, before the
	hangovers kicked in, Mike had not only three band mates, but three room
	mates as well.  The latter idea was not formally discussed, but Mike had
	mentioned that his current room mate, a man with visions of becoming a
	chiropractor, was leaving to return to university.  The equation of four
	people contributing to the rent made more sense than one person trying to
	do it alone, and the house was big enough, having two bedrooms and enough
	floor space for Micky's drums.  Everything just seemed to fall into place.

	The gigs did too, though there were a few dry spells, such as the current
	one.  That was no big deal, though.  The guys took turns taking 'day' jobs.

	The big deal was the settling in.  Micky, Peter, and Davy had been friends
	for years.  They knew each other; they were close, outgoing, and sociable.
	Mike was shy and quiet.  He didn't talk about himself, other than the stray
	mention here and there.  Getting him to talk was hard work; Micky noticed
	the only times that Mike loosened up was when he was dating his
	girlfriends, Leah first, then Becky, and this last one, Jeannie.  Or maybe
	it was that the girls themselves were voluble.  Mike always seemed to pick
	women who were energetic, who liked to do things, who liked to fill the air
	with laughter and bright conversation.  Micky had liked all three women
	immensely, and had benefited from the relaxed friend he got in return.

	Unfortunately, Mike had been Leah's rebound, and she'd returned to her
	former boyfriend after a few weeks.  Becky lasted for two months, then over
	the space of a weekend, mysteriously shifted to being Davy's girlfriend.
	How it happened, Micky had no idea, and nothing was ever actually said
	about it.  Micky's girlfriend at the time, Rachel, had tried to find out,
	using various subtle means, and had come up with nothing.  Whatever Mike's
	feelings were, he gave no indication.  Davy's only comment was something to
	the effect that Becky and Mike had been ready to part ways anyway, and
	maybe it was true, for he and Mike seemed to have no tension between them
	over it.

	Jeannie appeared a few weeks ago, a tall girl, almost as tall as Mike, and
	a beach girl if ever there was one.  She was an absolutely gorgeous sight
	out on the sand, sunning those long legs as she read a book, but she hadn't
	been coming to the house lately.  Mike, as usual, was silent on the
	subject, but the consensus of the other three was that this relationship
	had sunk too.

	Thinking of her brought Micky's attention around to the cream coloured
	envelope.  Jeannie was the likeliest candidate to have sent something to
	Mike marked "confidential".  Micky picked up the envelope and sniffed it,
	looking for a perfume smell.  He'd never actually encountered a woman who
	used scented stationery, but there could be one in the world.

	The envelope smelled like paper and nothing else.  The lack of return
	address meant that the sender was fairly sure Mike would get it, or else he
	or she didn't want any identifying marks.

	"Curious," Micky commented.

	Mike didn't get in until after dinner.  He was doing some bookkeeping for a
	construction company, and they were getting busy.

	He dropped into a chair and rubbed his eyes.  "I can still see numbers.  I
	don't want to focus on anything for the rest of the night."

	"You've got a letter," Peter said, and Mike blinked at him.

	"A bill?"

	"No, a letter."  Peter pushed it across the table.

	Davy and Micky glanced over casually, while trying not to appear as if they
	were doing so.  They were in the living room, but there was no wall between
	that room and the kitchen.

	Mike glanced at the envelope, then picked it up and turned it over, looking
	somewhat bewildered.

	Not Jeannie then, Mickey decided, for he figured that Mike would recognize
	her handwriting.

	Mike opened the envelope, took out a single piece of paper, and began
	reading in silence.  A moment later, an expression went across his face,
	the likes of which Micky had never before seen.

	"Michael?" Peter asked, concerned.  He'd been doing the dishes, but paused
	at the white that had suddenly appeared in Mike's cheeks.  A few seconds
	later, he repeated the word, having not gotten an answer.

	Mike folded the paper and shoved it back in the envelope.  It looked as
	though his hands were trembling.

	"What's wrong?" Peter asked, looking a little frightened himself.  In the
	living room, Micky and Davy stood, ready to come in, but Mike got up
	quickly.

	"It's, uh, nothing."

	"Bad news?" Micky asked.

	"It's nothing," Mike repeated.

	"News from home?" Micky persisted, though he wasn't quite sure where Mike's
	'home' was precisely.  Somewhere in Texas was all he knew, though the
	letter had been postmarked in San Diego.

	"It's ok.  I have to make a phone call."  But Mike went past the phone,
	past the stairs, and out the front door, not even stopping for his jacket.

	"Pete, did you see anything?" Davy asked.  Mike had taken the letter with
	him, otherwise Davy would have risked a peek.  Davy wasn't a nosy man, but
	this was certainly an unusual circumstance.

	"I just saw words," Peter said.

	"What words?"

	"I mean, I saw that there were words, but I wasn't close enough," Peter
	said.

	Mike was gone for over an hour, and the other three hung worriedly around
	the house.  They were supposed to practice tonight, for they had a dance to
	perform at Saturday night.  Mike took their practices seriously.

	"I'm going to look for him," Micky said, but he'd just pulled on his shoes
	when the door opened.

	Mike came in.  "I'm sorry I've been so long," he said, his voice more quiet
	than usual.  "Weren't we supposed to practice for the dance?"

	"We can let it go until tomorrow," Micky said, but Mike shrugged.

	"It's ok."

	It wasn't.  That was obvious.  But the other three had the grace not to
	push.

	The group went through the songs they were planning to play on Saturday.
	Though he didn't miss a guitar chord, Mike failed to do his background
	vocals.  None of the others said a word about it.

	Afterwards, Mike said he was going for a walk and left by the back door,
	out onto the beach.  Again, none of the others said anything, but they were
	rather at a loss what _to_ say.  They were out of their depth.  Whatever
	was going on seemed huge.

	Micky felt the most stymied.  He shared a bedroom with Mike.  Sometimes,
	late at night, if they couldn't sleep, they'd talk.  Their conversations
	were usually about day to day things - gigs, lack of gigs, bills, when they
	were going to get their break.  There were rare moments, however, when
	their late-night dialogues hit more personal notes...small childhood
	stories, perhaps something about their girlfriends.  Micky usually carried
	the bulk of their conversations, but he was a good listener.  Sometimes,
	Mike took the opportunity.

	Micky knew things that Peter and Davy didn't, and in those revelations was
	the trusted and unspoken understanding that Micky wouldn't tell anyone.
	Micky had realized from the first that Mike not so much valued his privacy
	as 'needed' it.  There were painful things in Mike's past.  Not that Micky
	knew what they were, not that Mike had explicitly said anything, but the
	symptoms were apparent all the same.  Mike wasn't only reluctant to talk.
	It seemed as if it would be too painful to.

	Sometimes though, late at night, across the dark of the bedroom floor
	between their beds, Mike would say more than a sentence or two.  In the
	strained threads of words that Mike had spoken to him during the last two
	years, Micky knew that Mike had no siblings, his family in Texas had been
	poor, he didn't get along with his father, and there had been a love
	affair.  Not a casual one.  It wasn't one of the three girls Mike had dated
	these past two years.  It had been something much more.  A lot more.

	What Micky suspected...the Nesmith family had been poor to the point of
	going to bed hungry, Mike's father had been abusive, and the love affair
	with whoever she was had been the reason Mike had left Texas.  Micky
	believed that Mike and his lover had travelled to California together, that
	they had actually lived together here, and had dreamed of spending a
	lifetime together.

	Micky once believed that tragic loves in one's past was a romantic thing.
	He'd fully bought into the 'better to have loved' credo.  Well, he had
	until he met Mike.  If these symptoms of loss were anything to go by, Micky
	supposed it was better 'not to have loved at all'.  On one hand, Mike could
	be the strongest one in the group - he always made sure the bills got paid,
	he always got the groups to their jobs on time, and when problems came up,
	he solved them.  A sheer ferocity lay under his determination.

	On the other hand, Mike could be the most tentative one among them.  His
	relationships with his girlfriends were more friendly than anything.  He
	went slower than a tired snail (this gleaned surreptitiously from Jeannie
	by Micky's girlfriend.)

	And sometimes, when he thought he was alone, Mike played his guitar in a
	way that would make a stone angel cry.


	Chapter Two


	When the cuckoo clock clacked out a weary midnight, Davy and Peter gave
	Micky a 'look'.  Implied - you're the closest to Mike.  Go find him.

	Micky put on a coat and went out on the beach.

	The Californian sky glowed with moonlight.  The water, moving in late-night
	tide, looked phosphorous green.  Even the sand held a spooky luminosity.
	Micky, not being a fan of solitude so overwhelmingly eerie, decided he
	would go only half a mile in either direction, and that would be it.  If
	Mike wasn't in that radius, he was going to be left to his own devices.

	Micky went north, and came up empty.  He backtracked and went south where
	the coastline was rockier and houses were fewer.  As he was emptying out
	his shoes for the umpteenth time, it occurred to him that he should have
	tried that way first.  Anyone who wished to be left on their own would
	choose the steeper way.

	A small jab of gratification in his logic hit him a few minutes later when
	he found Mike sitting on a slab of granite by the water's edge.

	Mike turned as Micky came up, but didn't say anything.  Micky found the
	least damp place on the rock that he could, and sat down, several feet away
	from the other man.  Close enough, but not too close.  Actually, it was
	about the same distance as what lay between their beds.

	The water pushed at the rock underneath them.  The moon, over-bright,
	seemed to charge the air.  Micky felt taut, tense, as though waiting for
	lightning to flash from the sky.

	At last, he said, "Something tells me that getting stoned to the gills
	isn't going to fix this."  Micky glanced at Mike, but the latter was
	looking over the water.  "How bad is it?'

	"It's bad," Mike said, in a strange, even tone.  Almost nonchalant.

	No, Micky realized.  Not nonchalant.

	Controlled.  Controlled with that fierce determination.

	"Your family?"

	"A friend.  He's sick."

	Micky waited.  When the next words came, his gut had already told him what
	they would be.

	"He's going to die."

	"A friend in San Diego?  Have I met him?"

	In the dim light, Micky caught Mike's momentary frown.  "Oh.  The
	postmark."  Mike paused.  "No, you haven't met him."

	"It's not that far away, you know, to go and see him."

	"But, to stay..."

	Micky's heart hammered.  "To stay there and not here?"

	"He has no one else."

	Micky chose his words carefully.  "Michael, I'm guessing this is a friend
	you haven't seen in at least two years.  Surely he has someone in San
	Diego."

	Without looking at him, Mike said, "It's a funny thing about when you're
	dying.  People tend to drift away."

	"And he has no family at all?"

	"He has family."  Again, that strange tone.

	Micky waited.  He was very good at waiting.  He had a feeling Mike wanted
	to talk, trusted Micky enough that he _could_ talk.  But there was
	something holding Mike back.  In the absolute rigidity of Mike's posture,
	Micky suddenly thought of the water pressure found at the bottom of the
	ocean.  He'd seen a show on television once, about divers who had gone down
	deep into the black, cold sea, down to where the deepest sand shoals lay,
	and where the dead stillness of the water was deceptive.  The pressure at
	the bottom was so intense that the water _couldn't_ move, but that made it
	more dangerous, rather than less.  One small puncture in his suit, and the
	pressure would kill the diver in a quarter of a second, his lungs and
	internal organs exploding before he could even know his suit had failed.

	Mike looked that way now, as though the smallest opening would rip him
	apart.

	After some long minutes, Mike said, "It doesn't matter that it's been two
	years.  I'm the reason his family won't have him, won't speak to him, even
	now."

	"Guilt," Micky said.

	"Guilt?" Mike looked startled.  "No, not that."

	"If you're blaming yourself for something," Micky began, but Mike shook his
	head.

	"It's not that.  It's...well, something else."

	"And you're going to give up 'everything' in your life to take care of
	him?  Bag it all?"

	"It's a long story.  Or maybe it isn't.  Maybe it's really simple."  Mike
	looked over the water.  The waves were driving themselves fiercely at the
	granite now, crashing with all their might only to dissolve in the
	aftermath of the fury.  "I can play the dance on Saturday, but no more.  I
	can't wait too long.  To be with him right now is more for myself than for
	him.  I suppose that doesn't seem to make sense.  It's just, there's so
	much I never said.  I guess I forgot.  And, there's no more time."

	"He must have been a good friend," Micky said quietly.

	"A better one than I was."  Mike got up, but he turned away from the house.

	"What's his name?" Micky asked before Mike was too far away.

	"Joseph."

	Micky watched his friend walk away, feeling anxious and bitter.  That was
	all he was going to get?  Just the first name?  This was the one that was
	going to break up the Monkees - Micky felt he deserved a last name, at
	least.

	He started back towards the house, thinking it rather ironic that a man
	would be the one to cause the split.  Micky always figured it would be a
	girl, that one of them would meet _the_ girl and decide to marry, find a
	steady job, settle down to a life of mortgages and barbecues.  He'd been
	playing the odds that it wouldn't happen until after a record contract, but
	figured it was inevitable.  He just hadn't thought a _man_ could come out
	of left field like this, and sink all the runners.

	They 'could' get another guitarist, and another roommate, but they'd spent
	a helluva long time finding Mike.  He was far more to them than just a
	guitarist and one-quarter of the rent.  He was the strength, the champion
	fixer of problems, the one who (figuratively) went in where angels
	wouldn't.  If there was a crisis, all they had to do was get to Mike, and
	it would be ok.

	Obviously they weren't the only ones who felt that way.  There was someone
	else in San Diego who understood the exact same thing.

	Peter and Davy were waiting up, the former looking peaked from being up so
	late.  "Did you find him?" Peter asked.

	"Yeah, I did."  Micky cleaned sand out his shoes before stepping all the
	way inside.  Then he dropped heavily on the couch, still feeling the grit
	under his feet.  He knew the other two were waiting.  What do I say? he
	thought.  They deserve to know something.

	"Michael's leaving the group.  He'll play the gig on Saturday, but that'll
	be the last one."

	Peter bolted upright.  Davy stared.  "Why?" he demanded.

	"Michael has a friend.  It's not anyone that we know.  He's ill.  He's very
	ill, and Mike's going to go to him, take care of him."  Micky couldn't
	believe how difficult it was to talk.  He was the one whom no
	tongue-twister had ever tamed, yet he couldn't pull out a coherent
	sentence.

	"So he's leaving?  Just like that?" Davy asked.

	"He's a close friend of Michael's."

	Davy frowned.  "San Diego's not that far away.  How 'close' can he be?"

	"I don't know all the circumstances.  Michael says he needs to go, and
	we'll have to accept that," Micky said.  "Somehow."

	"Can't his friend come here?" Peter asked.  "We have room.  We could all do
	something."

	Micky didn't know how to answer that one.  Trust Peter to come out with the
	unselfish response.

	"Perhaps you could suggest it to Mike," Micky said at last.  "Like I said,
	I don't know the whole deal."

	"We're family," Peter said.  "And Mike's friends are ours too."  He looked
	at Davy.  "How far away is San Diego?"

	"Three, four hours, depending on traffic," Davy said.  "But Pete, we don't
	even know what this guy's got."

	"I'll ask Michael when he comes in," Peter said, curling up in a corner of
	the couch, his eyes on the back door which led out onto the beach.

	"Mike's gone for a walk," Micky said.

	"I'll wait."  Peter could be pretty determined himself.

	"All right.  I'm going to bed though."  And Micky did, going up the stairs
	with a heavy exhaustion in his arms and legs.  He'd had more than enough
	for one day, and he had a shift at the assembly plant tomorrow.


	Chapter Three


	Micky didn't get home until after six the next evening.  He'd put in
	overtime, he was tired, and Mike had been on his mind all day.  He got in
	to find Peter sitting at the bottom of the stairs with wide-eyes.  No one
	else was home.

	Micky frowned.  "Is something going on?"

	Peter nodded slowly.  "Mike and Davy had a fight.  It was bad, Micky."

	Is this how it's going to be until Mike leaves? Micky wondered.  He'd never
	felt such tension in their house.

	"How bad?" he asked at length.

	"There was some yelling.  I've never heard Mike yell," Peter said.  "Davy
	thinks that Mike doesn't care about the group, or he wouldn't leave us in a
	lurch.  Davy went that way--" Peter pointed at the beach door.  "And Mike
	left out the front."

	"Did you talk with Mike last night?"

	Peter nodded.  "Michael's friend is going to die.  Did you know that?"

	"Yes."  Micky sat on the steps with Peter.

	"After Mike told me, I didn't say that his friend could come here," Peter
	continued.  "I don't think Mike's friend would want to die among people he
	doesn't know.  I asked Mike what he plans to do, you know, afterwards, and
	he said he couldn't think that far ahead.  He's really upset, and he's
	trying not to show it.  This friend, he must mean quite a lot to Mike."

	"I think you're right," Micky said softly.

	"It made me think, what would I do if any of you guys died?"  Peter took a
	long breath.  "Death is the person leaves and they never come back, Micky.
	They're gone forever.  I don't know if I could handle that.  I think it
	would hurt so bad."

	Micky blinked as Peter added, "I think Davy's scared.  I don't know if he
	thinks we can get along without Mike.  We've kind of made Mike the guy who
	handles everything."  He noticed the expression on Micky's face.  "What is
	it?"

	"I was just thinking that you're far brighter than me."

	Surprised, Peter could only manage to say, "I was just thinking about how
	I'd feel, if it was happening to me."

	"Exactly.  I've been wrapped up in my own head."  Micky stood and
	stretched.  "I'm going for a swim, then I'll look for Davy."

	The two things went together as Davy hadn’t gone far at all.  He was down
	on the sand a short way from the house, sitting and watching the water.

	"Hey, man, you all right?" Micky asked, taking a spot on the sand beside
	him.  "Peter told me that you and Mike got into it."

	"Other than feeling like an idiot, I'm all right," Davy said.  "Is Mike
	back yet?"

	"No."

	Davy picked up a stone and lobbed it into the water, not even bothering to
	try to skip it across the waves.

	"We'll find another guitarist," Micky said.

	"I suppose.  Maybe we could find a female one."

	"You would suggest that."

	Davy took a breath.  "I didn't think Mike and I would be...yelling.  I've
	never heard him raise his voice."

	"It takes a lot to get him going," Micky said.

	"I thought, how can he think so little of us to just get up and go at a
	moment's notice?" Davy said.  "This guy in San Diego, when have _we_ ever
	heard of him?  How close can he and Mike be if they haven't spoken in two
	years?"  He looked at Micky.  "That's what got me.  It felt like all this
	hard work meant nothing, that 'we' meant less than someone who hasn't even
	bothered to pick up the phone in all this time."

	"I don't understand that part either," Micky conceded.

	"It burns me," Davy muttered.

	Micky leaned forward and propped his chin in his hands.  "You're thinking
	that we mean shit all to Mike.  I'm wondering if this is a sign that we
	were never going to make it anyway.  Peter is the only one able to leave
	himself behind and look at this from Mike's point of view."  He paused for
	a moment.  "If we leave our feelings out of this, Davy, and just look at
	what is going on..."

	"What is going on is that Mike is leaving."

	"Yes, but he does care about us.  When we've been down, he's been there for
	us."

	"I know," Davy said, in a low tone.  "Micky, I 'do' know that.  And I wish
	it hadn't gotten out of hand earlier with Mike.  Mike does care about us,
	but, for some reason, this guy out of no where, this guy that not one of us
	has ever had a hint of before, somehow he means more."

	"Yes," Micky mused.  "And I wonder why."

	---

	Mike stayed away.  Micky wondered if he was at Jeannie's, and almost
	called, but returned the phone to the hook.  Instead, he spent the night
	making the rounds, putting up notices that the Monkees were looking for a
	guitarist.  He even went to the coffee shop where he'd heard Mike play so
	long ago, but it had closed down.

	The next day was Saturday.  Micky woke up to find that Mike's bed hadn't
	been slept in.  A pang of worry cut sharply through him, allayed only when
	he checked the closet and found Mike's clothes were still there.

	Mike didn't show until an hour before the dance was due to start, and it
	was with a flurry that the equipment and instruments were carted out to the
	car.  They barely had time to get to the gig and do a quick sound check
	before they had to start playing, the only time they'd ever gone on stage
	without warming up first.

	This is the last time we're going to play together, Micky thought, half-way
	through.  It hit him suddenly as he was glancing out over the audience and
	caught the back views of his three bandmates.  Davy and Peter were huddled
	close together at one side of the stage.  At the other side, Mike stood in
	a spot nearly behind the curtain, head down as he played his guitar.

	Micky felt something flood his chest.  I'm going to lose it, he thought,
	and attacked his drum skins loudly to hold back the rush trying to come up
	his throat.  Startled, Peter and Davy shot a look back, but Mike didn't
	turn.  If anything, Mike's head went lower down.

	They packed up afterwards in silence.  This was the point when Davy and
	Micky would have been hitting on girls, and there had been some lovely ones
	visible in the audience, hovering by the stage.  Micky didn't have the
	heart for it, and Davy didn't either for he simply got in the car and
	waited for the others to do so too.

	When they got home, Mike took the keys for the car off his key ring and
	gave them to Micky, then stood in the middle of the living room, looking as
	if he didn't know which direction he should go.  He glanced around the
	place a couple of times, ending each sweep at the stairs.

	"When are you going to leave, Michael?" Peter asked, his voice catching on
	Mike's name.

	"Early tomorrow morning.  My bus leaves before six."

	Micky suddenly noticed that Peter's cheeks were wet.  Peter was letting the
	tears stream unabashedly down his face.  Mike went over and hugged him,
	very tenderly, as though Peter was a sand sculpture, ready to crumble.  Or,
	perhaps, Mike himself felt that way.

	Micky went up to he and Mike's room, soon to be his room only, and sat on
	his bed.  He could hear sporadic movements from downstairs and some words
	he couldn't make out.

	Two years, Micky thought, and what have we got to show for it?  What didn't
	happen that was supposed to happen?  Where are all the places we said we
	were going to go?

	When Mike came up, Micky was still sitting on his bed.  Mike gave him a
	tired look before starting to pack.

	"Do you want me to get out of here while you do that?" Micky asked softly.

	"No.  It won't take me long."  Mike wasn't taking much, just his clothes, a
	few small possessions, and his guitar.  The guitar case and a gym bag would
	do it.  Then, instead of getting ready for bed, he put on his jacket.

	"I thought you weren't leaving until the morning," Micky said.

	"I feel like...like I have to get to him.  Like I have to go now," Mike put
	a hand to his forehead.

	Micky could see the trembling now, in Mike's shoulders and hands.  "You and
	Joseph were very close, weren't you?"

	Mike didn't look at him.  "Yes," he said, in one of the quietest voices
	Micky had ever heard.  "We were..." Mike started, but paused for so long
	that Micky's throat ached because he was holding his breath along with the
	silence.  "We were more.  More than you and I are.  Joseph and I were
	'more'.  We left our families and we came here, to California.  We thought
	we could do it.  We wanted to make it last forever."

	It hit Micky.  All at once, like a lightning bolt that opens the sky, it
	all flashed clear.

	"Oh my God," Micky murmured.  "Oh my God."

	"We tried to live with everything hidden, but sometimes, we couldn't.
	People found out.  We lost friends, our jobs.  It got nasty."  Mike
	stopped.

	"I wish you'd told me."

	Mike lifted his head, and the grief in his eyes made Micky shudder.  "You
	and I share a room together.  I'm sure it would have gone over _real_
	well."

	Micky stood and took Mike's shoulders.  "Tell me where you're going.  Give
	me an address, please.  San Diego's not that far away and I can help.
	Whatever I can.  You're not alone in this, I promise, Michael."

	Bewilderment and uncertainty went over Mike's face.  "Micky--"

	"I'm not letting you go unless you give me an address.  I'm serious," Micky
	said.  "If you don't want me to tell the other two, I won't, but they'd be
	ok with it.  As Peter says, we're family, all of us, family because we
	choose to be and not just because we happen to be born into it."

	Mike stared at him for a few seconds longer before managing a nod.  He
	found a piece of paper and wrote it out, but slowly, as if waiting for the
	figurative other shoe to drop.

	"I'm four hours away, Michael.  That's all that I am.  You call me, and I'm
	on my way.  Peter and Davy too, if you'll give them a chance."  Micky
	glanced at the paper and was relieved to see a phone number as well as an
	address.  "I'm phoning you Monday morning."

	"Pushy," Mike muttered, and Micky smiled.

	"Yeah, well, get used to it."

	Mike handed him the paper, then eyed Micky as if he'd never seen him
	before.  "Thank you."

	As he started from the room, Micky asked, "Do you have a picture of him?"

	Mike paused.  After another long look, he opened his gym bag and took out a
	small notebook.  There were several photographs in the back pages.  He took
	one out and handed it to Micky.

	It was a picture of two men in someone's back yard, standing so close under
	a tree that their arms must have been rubbing.  Mike was on the left,
	looking shyly but happily into the camera, his shoulders relaxed and his
	face unlined.  Beside him, looking at him with a wide smile, was a tall,
	thin man, blonde and lovely and looking as if he'd just sneaked into a
	candy store.

	"Nice looking guy," Micky said as he handed the photo back.  Then he added
	quickly, "Not that I know much about that area."

	"He's a nice looking guy," Mike said, looking at the picture for some
	moments before returning it and the notebook to his bag.

	"I'll talk to you on Monday," Micky told him.  He almost got a smile; at
	least some of the tension went out of Mike's body.  Then Mike turned and
	went down the stairs.

	Micky heard Mike's steps cross the floor between the bottom of the stairs
	and the door, then stop.  Perhaps Mike was giving the place a last look.
	Then Micky heard the door open, Mike step through, the hinges again, and
	then the sound of the latch quietly clicking closed.

	(end)