dove ۶ৎ

imagine attending the annual berzatto family christmas party, and you're admiring all the decorations that donna put up. mikey sees the way your eyes are twinkling under the lights from across the room. he didn't know you could look even more beautiful than you already do. he walks over to you and puts his arm around your shoulder and squeezes, giving you a kiss on your temple. "you like the decorations, huh? you know i helped out this year." you look up at him in shock because, with all the love in your heart, there was no way mikey did any of this. he continues, "yeah, come here. i'll show you." he takes your hand and leads you through a door frame then stops. you look around in confusion. "what am i supposed to be looking at?" he points up and both your eyes follow to the mistletoe above your heads. "eh? pretty good, right? wanna give me some lovin'?" mikey teases. you feel his hand go from your waist around to your ass and he squeezes. "bear, stop it! you have no shame. your family is here!" luckily everyone was engrossed in their own separate conversations to notice you or mikey. he puckered his lips leaning in for a kiss with a hand still firmly planted on your ass. you laughed trying to escape his grip, "seriously, mike! i can't stand you." you playfully elbowed him and he stood up straight again, his hand on his hip, and pouted. "c'mon, i did this just for you, baby! just one kiss?" you couldn't resist his big brown eyes and how the dim lights made them look even darker. "alright, fine." you barely had time to close your eyes before mikey's mouth crashed onto yours. your lips parted ever so slightly and mikey's tongue managed to slip its way into your mouth. you pulled back with a surprised smile. "oh, michael. you're so bad." he smirked, "i still get to unwrap my present tonight, right?" his hand squeezed your ass for a second time. you're not sure how it ended up there again. "we'll see how good you can be and go from there." you replied. the rest of the night you had to try everything to keep mikey's hands off of you. it got pretty difficult the more red wine he drank, but you wouldn't want to spend your christmas eve doing anything else.

"i love you" carries so much weight in the bear but more specifically when it comes to mikey. i think about how carmy and richie were arguing when carm got locked in the freezer and how richie just kept repeating "i love you" bc to him it felt like he was fighting with mikey in that moment and how during fishes when nat told mikey "i love you" when he was arguing with lee. i think they always told mikey "i love you" during times when tensions were high so that he would know even at his worst he was still so loved and nothing could ever change that. it was so easy for mikey to spiral and get in his head especially when he wasn't sober, but saying "i love you" was always something that his family hoped could ground him

i think one of my favorite little details of fishes is that in certain scenes you can hear mikey telling stories and being loud without seeing him and if you listen closely you can hear him telling the same story that he told in the flashback in s1ep6 confirming that he does in fact tell the same stories repeatedly