Chapter Text
The hours pass slowly,like molasses dripping off a spoon.
Michael haunts the couch in pain and deeply grumpy about it while pretending he's fine. Alex doesn't leave him for a moment,working at the coffee table. Terrible for his back, his bad hip and his wrists, Michael thinks judgmentally. It becomes the soundtrack of the house. Even over the tv, Michael can hear the clacking of the keyboard and how it pauses for count of five if Michael shifts.
Which he does a lot, because one minute he's on fire and the next he in the Arctic.
He's hopelessly miserable and trying not to be, because Alex has been through worse and he fears Alex thinking he's being a baby. But damn it, does his knees have to ache like this? Even his teeth ache.
By the time the sun getting closer to setting, Izzy calls and she rants at him for five minutes for being 'poisoned' or as she put it 'zapped' with something when she's out of the country.
"Of all the times Michael! I'm not there with you!" She frets irritably.
Alex is in the bathroom, so he's more honest with his sister because she is not in the mood for him downplaying his problems and she's five minutes from getting on a flight back to New Mexico, Kyle or no Kyle.
"There is no need to shortcut what'cha doin'. I'm fine. M'just...tired..." He yawns.
"Yeah and I'm wearing gingham right now." Izzy snorts, "Tell me the truth."
He relents. "Is that the one with the little boxes?"
"In blue or red with white yeah. Table cloth. Those curtains in the barn renovation for the Wilson wedding." Izzy replies sounding exasperated, "Even you wouldn't wear in a shirt."
He remembers those curtains vaguely. "You'd disown me."
"Hell yes. Now talk. Tell me everything. How are you really feeling?"
"My nose keeps bleeding like a tap, freaking Alex out. I've had three obvious seizures and lost little blocks of time. My bones are burning like I'm lying with a fire under my skin, everything fucking hurts...even my feet. I've walked miles and stood on my feet for hours without a break with some of my jobs, and they have never hurt like this. Hurt less when I broke em'."
"How many times have you broken your feet?" Isobel asks nonplussed. "I should be coming home."
He thinks about it. "Six times?"
"Are you drinking acetone?" She asks worriedly, "Because that was like honest."
"Yeah. It helps some. Yeah and I have no filter."
"Okay, now I'm worried. My brother is have seizures and has been rendered unable to keep secrets." Izzy says half mock-seriously. She sounds seconds from running to the airport and it has a warm feeling blossoming in his chest, along with discomfort.
"I'll be fine. I'm with Alex."
"He's not a cure all." Izzy points out. "How is he over Mimi?"
"Really hurtin' Iz." He reports quietly.
"I'm sure he's more worried about you." Izzy replies, "But...what about asking Maria over? Liz will be in her lab. I'm here. She needs someone looking out for her and Mimi was her mother. It might be good. They can share memories, support each other and at least she won't be alone."
"That's a good idea." Michael agrees. "How are you over it? She was your great niece."
Izzy sniffs audibly and sighs, "Like I'm going to need you and Max at the funeral. And Maria is going to need all of us. Call her."
"Might take his mind off it and she won't be alone then."
"I shouldn't have left." Izzy frets.
"You needed to. Besides, Liz is on the job and I'm not dying. Just feel like shit."
"You better not be not dying! Or I am stuffing you that pod." Izzy threatens, then in a moment of surprising honesty she adds sounding upset, "I can't lose you."
'You won't. I've never left you Iz. Okay yeah, foster homes aside. But not willingly." Michael reminds her. "You can't get rid of me."
"Better not." She replies and her voices sounds more level. "I'm calling Liz. Keep breathing and don't do anything stupid. Kyle says you're going to be okay. You have to be."
"Don't stuff me in the pod!" Michael whines, just to hear her snort as she hangs up.
Alex comes out after a minute, and Michael breathes through a stab of agony, just to watch him walk back into the living room.
"How do you get more beautiful every time I see you?" He asks him.
Alex looks at him in exasperation, cheeks going pink. "Says the gorgeous cowboy." He comes over to the couch, sits beside him again and asks gently, "Are you still really hot?" as he feels his chest and forehead.
"Is this an abstract question? Cuz' you are way more..." Alex claps his hand over his mouth,
"Don't tease unless you're gonna follow through." Alex's eyes glitter and Michael smiles around his hand, happy. With that he plucks the thermometer again from the table. "Still a hundred and four. Compromise?"
"I get a shower?" Michael asks hopefully. He's clammy and his t-shirt was still plastered to his skin. He loathed not being able to shower.
"No."
"Come on Manes! I'm horrible right now."
Alex kisses him sweetly, dark eyes intent. "Never. Compromise? Washcloth, tepid water and..."
"I get an Alex Manes sponge bath?" Michael says grinning, "Hell yeah. I'm in."
"No lava soap."
"Aww."
____________
Michael thought about it while Alex got prepared in the bathroom, fretting about him falling.
Alex is setting up the sink with tepid water, when Michael texts Maria to ask if she wanted to come over to see Alex and she volunteers immediately to make Mimi's soup. She arrives an hour after they've wrestled with getting Michael clean.
It was kinda hot having Alex run a washcloth all over him and if he hadn't been feeling as bad as he is, he would have been seriously turned on. As it is, all he can do is tiredly kiss Alex and pat that truly amazing ass, while thanking him.
"Miracle you even want to kiss me right now." Michael tells him as he clings to him, bones rubbery.
"I never not want to kiss you." Alex just replies like this is a simple fact of the universe, like gravity or sunlight, toweling him dry. "Feel better?" He asks, pressing another kiss to his lips. "Let's get you back to the couch."
"So much better." Michael tells him, trying to walk on his own and not put weight on Alex, who still has not relinquished the leg. They make it to the couch because Alex is apparently changing the sheets on the bed. Michael loves this domesticity more than he ever thought he could.
"I could help!"
"You could keep your ass on that couch!" Alex calls back from the bedroom.
"Fine. I'll just admire yours." Michael calls back, coughing a little. "It is an incredible ass." He puts the ice pack on his knees, hoping the cool with eventually take away the burning.
The doorbell comes just in time, Michael thinks settling into the cushions. Alex comes out with a confused glance at Michael who shrugs innocently, and goes to the door. Only after checking the security feed.
Maria comes in with a kiss to Alex's cheek and brandishing a ceramic casserole pot.
"You look worse Guerin." She comments worriedly as she comes over to the couch. "Is there anything I can get you?"
"You've seen me worse." Michael replies easily, thinking of the sheer number of bar fights he participated in, in the Pony alone.
"Yeah." She comes a little closer and touches his forehead. "Damn you're hot."
"Don't make be blush." Michael counters smiling, "Its good to see you Deluca. How you doin'?"
She gives a tight smile and pats his shoulder, "Keeping busy. Enrique is holding down the fort at the Pony tonight."
"You got me and Alex in your corner. Iz sends her love."
Alex and Maria banter in the kitchen area, with the ease of people who know each other well and share a foundation of familial love.
Michael is grateful that she's here, that she's reaching out to Alex in this terrible shared grief for an amazing woman, even though its exhausting to manage. He tries to follow along, from where he's lying on the couch, tries to get Alex to focus on her, rather than checking his temperature for the millionth time.
He can't face food and his stomach hates him, but he's dealt with that before. His own life choices might not have ended in sickness like it would for a human, but his body has taken more than a beating or two.
Still, this is necessary for Alex.
He's lost his surrogate mother, she's lost her mom after such a long battle to keep her earthbound. Maria and Alex need each other to help them through this horrible time. And he completely understands that.
When he lost his mother... his eyes tear up thinking about now. It was a really dark time, coinciding with the loss of Max and a collision of so many things. The death of Noah, starting out with Maria and she really helped him cope with the loss. Helped him to see the bright side of life when depression and grief felt like it was killing slowly.
Back then, things with Alex were so frayed and hard. Alex and him might as well have been on two different planets. Miscommunication, old issues and the challenges that seemed impossible to overcome back then...Michael just couldn't do it any more. And Maria, she was the whirlwind that pulled him in a new direction.
It wasn't like they were going to last, he thinks now and it wasn't like he could stop loving Alex as the be all and end all of the universe...but they got where they wanted to be now.
Michael believes that Alex wasn't going anywhere and a year of trying to better had meant that they were both in the right place to start something new. Alex had won battles with his demons and Michael had buried a lot of his issues, faced his past and Jones. He was sure of them, in way he never was before.
Alex had opened his heart and his home to Michael, and the amazement had not worn off yet. He had a home and a boyfriend who loves him and they were making this work. A blending of their lives and a shared dream of happily-ever-after. They were finally on the same page.
So Michael felt he had to do the right thing. Alex needed his best friend and sort-of sister right now and she needed him. He couldn't disappear for a few hours to let them properly reminisce or whatever you were supposed to do at this point. He didn't know.
Izzy was hardly grieving Noah when they killed the bastard, she was coming to terms with trauma and losing Max. They didn't really sit around and reminisce with Max being gone, they were trying to resurrect him and deal with the huge hole he left behind. His Mom...no one alive knew her, including him really.
His experience in handling grief was being swallowed whole by it, consumed and drowned and then feeling so numb he could barely function. Numb got him through getting Max back. Pretending not to be numb kept him functional and if he couldn't really remember half of what he'd been doing, no one needed to know that.
And he couldn't disappear for them. He was parked on the couch, dressed thankfully or he could flop on the bed and be miserable quietly, but he was the rock in the stream. Or the meteorite...or...he wasn't making sense in his own brain. The point was, he was in the way.
"Michael? Michael are you okay?"
Alex sounded disturbed, so he forced his eyes open and blinked up at him. Maria was in the kitchen, the pot on the stove, her coat off.
Alex is gorgeous in black, dressed down again because he's making a point that he's not going anywhere, having changed after getting his t-shirt wet kissing Michael while washing his chest. He's distracted in a way that is usually beyond sensual for Michael at least, running a hand through his hair as he perches on his living room chair that he's still got shoved over to the couch so he can be as close as possible.
Wait, wasn't he supposed to be talking with Maria?
"Michael?"
Michael blinks up at him and tries to smile, "Yeah." He croaks, sounding like he's smoked fifty a day.
Alex's face is a picture of worry, "Is the pain getting bad again?" He frets, reaching for the coffee table where his perfectly laid out supplies sit. It honestly looks like he's planning to sell each item, from the bowl of ice to the collection of acetone. He's even organized the acetone by known purity, from industrial paint thinner to his usual ethyl acetate in nail polish remover.
Alex sits down by Michael's waist, one hand falling to his chest, the other holding out a bottle of acetone. Michael takes it because his bones are on fire still and he feels like he's rolled off a mountain, but mostly because Alex looks upset. Shit. Michael curses. He really is in the way.
"I'm okay."
Alex looks doubtful. "Maybe we over did it."
Michael wants to roll his eyes but his head is pounding. "I needed that bath. And having a hot boyfriend helping was real soothing."
Alex smirks at him, but his cheeks pink a little. How is he this cute and this beautiful? Then he completely ignores Michael staring at him adoringly and proffers a bottle again. "Drink some. Its been hours since you last had some."
Behind them Maria announces from the kitchen that she's made her mother's soup and Alex looks at her with a sweet smile. "She always made that when we got sick." He says softly, eyes distant. Michael wants to...kiss his cheek and hold his hand and whatever boyfriends are supposed to do when the love of their life is grieving.
Maybe he should google it. Someone must have written a guide! Not every single human could be naturally good at comforting like Liz or Alex.
He waits for Alex to move away and sit at the table, hopes he will so they can talk about Mimi. He'll pretend to be asleep so they can talk and he'll just listen, hoping for baby Alex stories.
He doesn't.
Alex turns so when Maria sits down in the other chair, he can face both of them. His hand is still on Michael's waist and the smell of the soup is turning Michael's stomach. Breathe through it. Acetone and.... Wait...He looks at the coffee table where there was a small brown bottle of MEK paint stripper, or more commonly known as the precursor for narcotic production. Methyl ethyl ketone.
He had asked Alex for it, a quick run to his truck where it was stored in the covered lock-box in the back. It wasn't flammable like acetone and not something he would admit to drinking even to Alex usually. But...desperate times, desperate measures.
Acetone is sold in a variety of products, all of which have differing impurities. None of them from methylisobutylketone to diisopropylether had harmed them and he had tried everything over the years, well before he understood the chemistry.
MEK he had found by accident, acts not as a painkiller but as very mild sedative and anti-nausea aid. The downside was the throbbing migraine it gave you and weirdly, hot flushes if you were Max for about an hour. He had used it in combination with acetone to straighten his hand years ago and had felt like hell afterwards. It took ten goes to get his hand to where it had been before Max had healed it.
When his siblings had been getting back into using their powers and had felt the sick drained side-effect, he had lent them a bottle. The dosage he had found had to be small, like a tablespoon or so. Not like acetone, which they could all consume in heavy amounts.
If he had a teaspoon amount it would dull all his reactions, kill the nausea and then give him in an hour a splitting headache. He might just get through the soup without offending either of them.
"Could you pass me the methyl ethyl ketone bottle?" He asks quietly and Alex turned to glance at him concerned. He had no idea what effect it had, trusting Michael to know being a chemist and an alien. "Don't open it. Fumes aren't good for you."
Alex rolled his eyes because it was an old argument. "Sure." He said and leaned over to pass it to him.
Just a small amount. Michael cautions himself and uncaps the bottle. Damn it always smells so good, he thinks and takes a small sip.
"What's that?" Maria asks curiously, "Never seen you drink that one."
"Never felt this weird before." Michael replies easily, recapping bottle. Almost immediately his spine looses its tension. His senses are dulled, the pain still there and he's...not floating just...
"Have some soup." Maria offers, her eyes worried. "You need to eat."
"He won't," Alex starts
"Okay." Michael agrees, because this was the point of the dead nerves feeling. And he needs to do it soon because it takes ten or so minutes for the dead feeling to take a hold of him and he needs to use a spoon. He started to re-break the bones after four minutes when he still had enough concentration, he remember.
"Here I put it in a mug so you can drink it better." Maria says kindly and hands it to him.
"Thanks darlin'." He says feeling that fucking weird tingling starting in his limbs. He misses how Alex's eyes sharpen on him at the word darlin' not being aimed at him and the tension running through his boyfriend's body.
He just thinks its sweet that Alex's hand stays on his heart.
The soup is...vile. No offense to Mimi Deluca because he's an alien and things don't taste the same to him, but it tastes of burnt flowers and cheese. How apt for a funeral, he thinks and bites his lip hard enough to make it bleed. Alex seems to really like it, so maybe its just him. Its nice to see him enjoy something, especially now when he's so stressed.
It makes him sneeze too which is weird.
"Accio. Alex." He says, as Alex hands him a tissue, eying the blood dots on the white paper worriedly. "Thanks."
He misses Alex's worried frown and makes half a mug. It's all he can force down, but still he smiles at Alex and listens as Maria finally starts to talk about her mother.
Alex talks quietly and keeps a hand on Michael's chest, still sitting by his waist on the couch. He thinks that he is in the way here, the person who didn't even really know Mimi Deluca, and certainly had not loved her. He should aim for the bed. Michael knows that he won't be making it upright soon if he doesn't make a move now. MEK will render him boneless and he'll pass out for a few hours, then wake wanting to cry. But that will be later.
"Could you help me up?" Michael asks, sitting up slowly, embarrassed at needing the help and for the strain of his weight on Alex's prosthetic without the cushioning of his powers.
"Why? Yeah sure sweetheart." Alex says worriedly, easing him upright. He's always so strong, Alex Michael thinks admiring him.
"You don't look so good." Maria says concerned.
"I'll be okay. Just need sleep." He tells her gently and holds onto Alex as they work together to get him moving.
Alex helps him walk to the bedroom turning to the ensuite bathroom, but Michael shakes his head. Slowly they get him to the bed, where Michael gratefully crashes down to the covers. "What's wrong?" Alex asks, tucking him in. "Blanket?"
"I'm good." Alex is here and touching him and later he'll come to bed. Michael is already looking forward to cuddling up to him and feels that same bright bubbly feeling that's not all acetate.
"Stop saying that." Alex grouses, "You're not fine."
"Just tired." Michael tells him, because its true he is losing this battle and because he wants him to spend time with Maria. "Don't put me in the pod. I'll be good."
Alex looks alarmed, "Okay. I'm not putting in you in your pod." He strokes Michael's curls and sits beside him, "You're gonna be okay."
Michael smiles tiredly, and steals Alex's hand to kiss his knuckles. "I just need to sleep. MEK does that."
Alex didn't look any less worried but Michael painfully turned over onto his side and closes his eyes. Alex eventually goes back to Maria, but leaves the door wide open so he can see Michael from the couch. He's asleep in what feels like seconds but its fitfully and restless on what's really Alex's side of the bed.
He misses Maria coming in and Alex returning every half an hour to check on him.
_____
Between the fever and the MEK, sleep is anything but restful.
Nightmares chase him, memories dredged from their burial places in his mind and amplified, combining with fears and recent horrors.
Nothing makes sense.
He sees Jones killing his triad, people he doesn't even know, who died before he was born. He sees Caulfield and his mother's face before she dies. Fosters homes and the group places, the punishments and treatments they tried on him. He's running, bolting across the desert at night, at midday. He's been thrown into a dog cage again. He's being kicked and he's falling. He dies again with Noah, glass in his neck. Can feel the blood leaving his body, leaking over the floor in a cascade he can't stop. He loses Max again and Izzy's dying again and he's back there with the bodies of the girls Izzy's killed. The brand shaped like a cross and he can't get away...please....
"Michael! Michael come back to me. Michael!"
He's drowning in sand.
He's drowning in water again.
He's face first in the mud where they threw him, body broken.
"Michael! Guerin. Please. Wake up."
Alex. Alex walking away. Hair cut so short in a buzz cut, eyes studiously neutral, face cold. No. No.
"Michael baby, come on wake up. Please."
Michael's eyes open to the orange warm lamps of the bedroom, disorientated for a long moment. Where is he? His body feels like its on fire, heat curling around every muscle and he's surprised there isn't smoke rising from him. Fear grips him still, its ghostly claws digging in deep.
He throws himself up, ready to fight, to run...and collapses in Alex's arms. Their pendants clink as the two pieces of glass connect again. His hands are uncoordinated but one finds purchase on Alex's t-shirt, gripping tightly as if its all that preventing him from plummeting off a cliff-face. Maybe it is.
"Please don't." Its not a sob that leaves his too tight throat, but panted, pained little sounds of distress. He feels like he's drowning and the memories cling to him, fear and pain - both of the past and of the present have him cringing and curling deeper into Alex. Instinctively, he knows for as long as he is with Alex, he's safe but nothing feels safe.
"Michael, its okay." Alex tells him, catching him close. Alex's hands have no such trouble, arms banding around his torso, holding him tightly. Alex's arm is wrapped over his shoulders, fingers sliding into his hair. He buries his face in Alex's neck, shivering with fake cold as his body exudes heat.
"I don't want to be set on fire." He babbles, the memory of the barn so close, he can smell the hot metal, hear the chants. "I'll be good. I'll be better. Please don't. Please. I didn't mean to."
"No one is setting you on fire." Alex tells him firmly, sounding half-freaked out himself. "You can't burn baby. I'd kill all of them before they touched you."
"I'm not a demon. I'm not." Michael tells him desperately. "Please, I'm not."
"No. God, no. Just a dream. You're safe." Alex says and holds him tighter, "Its okay."
'They said they need to burn the evil out of me." Michael tells him, heart pounding nearly in time with head.
"No one is burning anything." Alex says thickly, one hand in his curls. "You are not evil. You're safe. You're with me. You're home baby."
His arm where they burned the sign of the cross into his arm, hurts almost like it did that night. Michael breathes in the scent of him, fills his burning lungs with it. Laundry soap, aftershave and gun oil and under all that, the Alex-scent that can't be described but its always so good. It feels as though Alex is that's holding him together, holding all of the tattered, frayed threads of him in his hands. "Please don't go." He begs into Alex's neck.
"I'm not going anywhere." Alex tells him, a hand sweeping up and down his back. "You're feverish baby. We need to bring your temperature down."
The crash of the MEK and the nightmare falls on him, making his body heavy. His head hurts like hell and he's so hot. Nothing feels real, everything warped by heat and pain, but the fear is draining away the longer Alex holds him.
Michael shakes his head dejectedly, feeling half-asleep and afraid to close his eyes. Sure of his reasoning, even though he doesn't remember what happened five minutes ago, or what day it is now. The heat and whatever else is in his bloodstream has him feel the warp of the world, the wrongness. Alex is here and he feels terrible but Alex is here, so he'll feel better. "You'll be gone tomorrow." He tells Alex's neck soberly, wanting to cry at the idea.
"I'm staying." Alex tells him plaintively, voice thick. "I'm here Michael. We're at home."
"I don't get to keep you." Michael says devastated all over again, the image of Alex walking away in fatigues stuck in his mind, "You're just gonna enlist again." He laughs, a broken sad sound. "Getting shot at is better than staying with me."
"Michael," Alex tries to move back, tone changing to that one specific one that makes Michael nervous. The one where he feels like he's going to have talk sense into Michael or someone else. Michael panics and clings harder.
"Don't. Please. I'll be better, I won't ask. I won't. I'll do whatever you want. Don't run." He babbles quietly, pleading.
Surprisingly, this makes Alex - who had been infinitesimally leaning back, tuck Michael into his arms even tighter. Alex's throat works and his hands are all but glued to Michael. "I won't." He says eventually, voice choked. "I'll stay."
"No. You won't, but you'll come back. You will, won't you? You have to." He always wants a promise of return and it falls from his lips heedless of the consequences. "Please come back."
"I'll come back." Alex says voice still thick and wet.
"Okay."
The tension that fear had inspired leaves Michael boneless and drifting all at once. "Michael?" Alex asks worriedly and he hums in response. He's too out of it to really fight when Alex levers him back and drops him gently onto the covers. "Lie still." Alex orders and Michael just nods exhausted.
Another voice joins Alex's and then a cloth cool and wet is pressed to his burning skin. He murmurs at the shock of it but closes his eyes. Another cloth is pressed to his face, wetting his hair, then its taken off and re-wet to be pressed to his abs. Something very cold is pressed to his chest and he gasps, without opening his eyes. "Shh. Its just an ice pack sweetheart. Kyle said we have to bring down your temperature." Alex tells him gently.
The ice feels so good, some of the fight goes out of Michael entirely and he murmurs an agreement. Slowly the heat is taken away, soothed by the cold and his skin is washed clean of the clammy sweat he hates. Alex's hands are always cool to the touch, but now they're cold, pressing the washcloth over and over again to his skin.
He falls - not asleep but into that half-awake state, dozing. Alex is beside him, so he's safe. Alex is staying, so he can close his eyes.
"I have never seen him taken down like this before." Alex says quietly somewhere to his left after a few minutes of quiet, where the only sound was Alex's breathing and the white noise of the fan.
"He always gets back up." Maria tries comfortingly. She was here earlier wasn't she? That's right. Mimi Deluca. This was good, his brain tells him.
"This isn't a bar fight Maria. He's really sick. I...I can't lose him. I can't." Alex sounds choked again and upset.
It hurts and its take almost to much effort, but Michael slowly turns onto his side, bringing his knees up so Alex is caged into the curve of his body. Alex's hand takes his and his other one drops to Michael's hip.
"You won't. Guerin is a fighter. Liz will fix this."
"How could anyone hurt him like that?" Alex asks, voice shaky. "He said he didn't want to be burned again. And setting him on fire? Was that Jones?"
"Someone...one of his fosters burned a cross into his arm." Maria says slowly, her voice full of thorns and tragedy. "I saw it once in a vision. He just said 'religious freaks' and avoided talking for days after that. They were in this barn and holding him down. There was fire and just...so much fear."
"How could anyone..."
"I don't know." Maria says softly, "I don't know Alex. He was a child."
_______
When he wakes again its still dark and he confused about the time.
He recognizes the room, catches the faint whiff of Alex's aftershave on the pillow and stares uncomprehendingly at the artwork on the wall, as he comes to terms with his own body. He's cold and the house is quiet, he realizes so he lifts his head just a little to see the battered alarm clock on the bedside table.
His head is killing him and his mouth tastes of chemicals, body aching like the worst hangover. His little breakdown is mortifying but he suppresses the urge to dive under the pillow and pretend he doesn't exist. Alex has nightmares and Michael had worked damn hard to be seen as someone who didn't judge and just wanted to comfort. It would be seriously hypocritical and damaging to get weird over his own breakdown.
Didn't make it easy. Shit, I really cried all over him, didn't I?
With his alien vision he can easily see his current stack of library reads on the side, his new framed picture of him and Alex half obscuring his clock. He loves that photo. It was mimicking his old one from when they were teenagers out in the desert, only this time they adults and finally together. Alex looks so beautiful in a black shirt with the desert behind him, guitar in his hands. He looks happy.
Michael's gaze eventually leaves Alex's face - who says its weird to have a photo of him when they sleep in the same bed now - and slides over to the clock. It reads 3:05 am.
He was asleep for hours, so he hopes the night was a success with Alex and Maria. He's now freezing and the headache is full force. He doesn't know when Maria left but the living room lights are off.
He wonders where Alex is, thinks about getting up and tries for the umpteenth time to access his powers.
Nada.
So he closes his eyes again, trying to reach out with his senses not linked to his powers, but the alien awareness of the world that he has.
Turns out it was moot point because the mattress dips and a weight slide into place behind him.
Alex, he thinks happily.
Michael turns over into him - because he can't resist the allure of those arms. The joy and luxury of having Alex sharing the bed has not worn off at all, knowing that he will be there in the morning and that this now theirs? Its the perfect comfort, the old wounds that he once carried healed over with the simple knowledge that Alex is there.
So he turns slowly, ignoring the pain and curls into Alex's chest, sliding his leg carefully between Alex's, so he doesn't bump his residual leg. Maybe it doesn't hurt him, but somewhere in the back of Michael's head he's very convinced that he might hurt Alex and more often than not, Alex's leg is twinging or aching with exertion.
As always Alex embraces him, lets him tuck himself into his arms and nestle as close as he wants to his body.
The tank top that Alex wears to bed is soft against his skin and he knows that Alex is wearing his boxers, when his hand seeking only to curl over his waist brushes his ass 'accidentally'.
At least he has finally taken off the leg.
He wonders if Alex is cold as said soulmate checks his temperature, then wonders if Alex has done his PT and taken his meds, if he's rubbed arnica cream on his stump. Michael enjoys doing that for him an it admittedly often leads to more, like an hour of making out or hot sex, but there was an incredible joy in taking care of Alex. Of watching those walls tumble down and Alex relenting, letting himself have comfort and pleasure.
Wonders as well if Alex will be annoyed at him if he asks.
His temperature is taken and Michael doesn't protest, letting Alex do what he wants amused that he has a thermometer with a lit digital display. Still, after a minute or so Alex's arms come around him as he settles, clearly satisfied with the results, head coming to rest on Michael's and his hand smells faintly of arnica which relaxes Michael more.
His soldier was okay, tired and here with him. Alex could sleep and Michael will hold him.
But the darkness is always easier for confessions and hard topics, so after a little while Alex's hand finds his curls, playing with the whorls and ringlets of his hair, finger combing them as he does when he's thinking. There is a tension on his body, that is not conducive to resting, so Michael waits sure he's going to speak and keeps his body relaxed.
Michael pets his chest gently and kisses the top of his sternum. He hasn't dealt with his stubble recently and its a little sharp, so he doesn't rub his cheek against Alex's skin like he usually would. With the hand not curled into Alex's body, stroking his chest, Michael reaches out and gently massages Alex's bad hip.
"Michael?" Alex asks softly and something in his tone tugs at Michael. "Are you really awake sweetheart?"
"Mmm?" Michael manages, hand sweeping down to knead Alex's bad hip. "Yeah baby? You okay?"
Alex kisses his hair. "How are you feeling sweetheart?" He asks tenderly.
"Like I got hit with my own Chevy." Michael admits, "But I'll be okay. You're here."
Alex huffs a breath, his tone a little bitter when he says darkly, "Not been much help that."
Michael frowns, wrestling with the blanket to tuck Alex into him tightly, "You always make things better. What's wrong Alex?"
"Nothing. I'm sorry." Alex whispers sounding troubled and...terrifyingly sad. "You're not well and I'm doing a shit job of this."
Michael frowns confused, then thinks this through. He can't be talking about Michael being sick can he? How is any of this his fault? He's been amazing. "What? No. You've been great. You always are."
Alex holds him tighter so he cannot lift his head and doesn't have the damn energy to shift away, or the inclination. "Everyone else seems to do things better. Liz, Maria...even Izzy and she's not even here. I can't stop thinking that maybe..." He says quietly, voice thick with something that might be hurt or distress.
"That letting me into your home was a bad idea." Michael says blandly, a stone dropping into his chest.
"What? No." Alex echoes him, except he sounds shocked. "No baby. No. Never. Fuck I want to shoot all the people who have ever made you feel like you can't have a home. This is ours baby. I want a life with you. I want this house to be yours too. It is your home."
"Then why do sound like you're regretting something?" Michael asks with some trepidation, then thinks of his earlier musings and finds the courage to ask, "This isn't over Bonnie kissing me is it? Cuz' you heard me tell her that I love you. And even if she did take my powers, she's not a bad person. I see abuse survivor when I look at her Alex. I'm not interested in anyone else but you."
He could point out that Alex was always the one running before, the one doing the two am walk of shame back to his car. He could angrily say that just because he was bisexual did not mean that he was unfaithful or how the fuck could he be discontent with finally having the love of his life, his person with him?
"No. It isn't about Bonnie. I hate that she did this to you and I hope she had reasons that are solid, but no."
"What then?" Michael asks lost. "You've been amazing."
Alex swallows hard, his throat clicking. "I'm afraid that I'm not enough."
There were many responses that Michael could go with in reply to this shattering statement. Michael for once doesn't go with his first instinctual one and discards several before he speaks. Something he has done or not said maybe, has triggered insecurity in Alex and all of Michael wants to reassure and soothe.
He should probably say that Alex is always enough. He could point out that things were different and they were supposed to be better.
But he doesn't go with any of these tried and true replies. Insecurity as he well knows is not slayed by rational arguments and anger. Alex is a survivor of abuse, of torment that systematically tore down his identity and any semblance of self-love he ever had. It has taken Alex years to accept himself, to free himself from his father's hate and homophobia. Michael will not be the one to stick a knife in that progress.
Love is out of control, but as much as love heals it also gives someone immense power when its shared. Michael knows he can influence Alex in ways that others can't because he loves Michael. The reverse is true. Alex can destroy him, has hurt him with words alone over the years that seemed to flay flesh from bone, leaving him walking wounded for months, years later, well after Alex has forgotten the argument. Alex can ease his fears and tame his chaos, can smother the anxieties that plague him sometimes and has for the last few months, shown Michael a patience that's bordering on saintly.
This is love. What it can build, it can destroy.
"When I was a kid," Michael says quietly, "Hell...most my life really...I used to lie awake at night and there would always be bruises or broken bones or just a really shit day...and I'd try to imagine what having someone who cared...what that would be like." Mostly, it was wondering what having a mom was like or what being with his siblings would have been like.
A sound like a smothered sob reaches his ears and Michael kisses his t-shirt covered chest. "Later when things went...well when they were bad...I'd always think of you. Pretend you were there. Sometimes...after we'd...you would hold me and..and I'd think of that. I'd imagine you were there. That moment when I was lying in your arms like now or just tangled up together watching the stars."
Those arms were steel bands around him now, "I'll always hold you." Alex tells him, breath hitching.
"That's all I need." Michael tells him softly, "I don't want anyone else Manes. Just you."
"You keep asking for Maria." Alex says, like the words are forced out of him, scraping along the walls of his throat.
He doubts he was calling for her like a bleating sheep in his fever dreams. He's pretty sure he was panicking about Alex leaving him and a kaleidoscope of his worst memories. So he's not sure where this....insecurity...this partly-hidden jealousy is coming from.
There are a million answers to that statement but Michael realizes that somewhere he went wrong here. He thinks over today and wonders how the hell he managed to trigger Alex's insecurities.
Throughout the moving in process and even him breaking the gazebo, Alex has been calm, soothing all his fears and anxieties. But now it was his turn and over the worst possible thing and bizarrely, ironically the easiest to settle.
He can't help but remember what Alex has said after he'd gotten him down from the ledge the Lockhart Machine had driven him onto literally. About how he couldn't get the rocky path ahead of them, out of his mind. Maybe this was it. That fear.
He's mistakenly thought that Alex had just decided that they could handle it and that those old fears about not being good enough had gone away and it was just Michael having doubts. So Michael pulls away and Alex breathes out like Michael just punched him or soemthing. He puts on the beside lamp, because he has no powers and manual is gonna have to do. Alex won't look at him, turning onto his back to look at the ceiling instead, jaw tight.
Fine.
"I've loved you for nigh on fifteen years Alex Manes and I've spent nine? Yeah, nine of em' pretty sure your mother was dead."
"What?" Alex asks taken aback, he glances at Michael like he's grown a second head.
Michael nods and lies back down close to him. He reaches out and smooths his hand over Alex's well-defined chest. "Overheard it one day when I was fixin' something for Iz. Learned your mom's name and well...if you discount natural causes, the two main reasons a woman dies in this country is cuz' her partner put her in the ground or childbirth. Jesse Manes? Wasn't a hard conclusion."
Alex sounds a little overwhelmed. "My mom walked out on us. I told you that. She's alive." Michael nods so he splutters, "Okay...but what..."
Michael gathers his limited strength and gets his elbow under himself, rising to touch Alex's face. "But I have no idea how you feel about Mindy. I don't." He shakes his head slowly. "I know how you feel about everyone else we know, but not her." He holds up a hand to halt Alex from speaking, "But I know that Mimi was your second mother."
Alex blinks at him, confused and the grief returns to his eyes.
"When I lost my mom...it was so hard." Michael tells him and Alex makes a pained noise, turning to him.
"I was...all I had was pain and sometimes I was just numb from it. I couldn't win Alex. If I was too functional Izzy thought I wasn't upset about Max, if I was drowning in pain, I wasn't helping. We were broken. Max was dead. I was dead for a while there too. Seventy one of my people were dead including my mother. Their deaths are on me. That night was a clusterfuck and..."
"Michael, baby." Alex said distressed and he kisses Michael's hair, lets him fall back into his arms. "No, their...what happened was anything but your fault. You blame my family, hell you blame me, but not you."
"I will never blame you. Never. And yeah I do blame your family." Alex's jaw works again struggling to differentiate between him and his surname again. "But that's not what I'm saying. Sometimes when I think about her, its like a steel knife in my chest. Getting the shit kicked out of me would hurt less. I felt utterly alone in all that pain. I don't want that for you." Michael tells him.
Alex looked like he was going to cry. Michael stroked his face and Alex's gently clasped his wrist.
"You and Maria need each other. That's why I called her." Michael tells him. "I'm worried about you. And despite everything, Deluca and I are friends. Her mom is dead, of course I feel for her."
"You...for me?" Alex asks softly, stilted and hopeful.
Michael stared into those lovely dark eyes. "Yeah for you. Alex I don't want anyone else. Not Bonnie, not Maria, not some gorgeous fantasy woman you're imagining... or for the record, any other guy. I want a picket fence life with you."
"But I can't even take care of you properly." Alex says, that distress quieter but still here.
Michael stares at him mystified. "You brought my fever down. You got me clean when it was driving me nuts. You put up with me whining..."
"You don't whine. You're in pain and you're sick." Alex argues. "I just...you seem happier when someone else was here. Like Maria. She made you soup and I never even thought of that...and..."
Its not enough to assuage fears so Michael sighs and gently pulls Alex's top leg over his hip, snuggling closer. "I don't want other people Alex. Liz had a higher chance of fixing this, that's why I asked for her. Max is my brother. Iz refused to let me brush it off. As for Maria...She didn't come for me Alex. She came to see you. I didn't like the soup. I lied so you and her could sit together and talk and you love that soup. She hates my cooking and I don't like hers."
"You're sick." Alex argues, like him suffering is the primary reason anyone would do anything. Then he looked down."You wanted...you got us together for Mimi. For me?"
"Yeah." Michael can see the argument and shakes his head, " Yeah she is concerned for me, but I was third wheel baby. And that's okay."
"You're not a third wheel. We're together. You've been helping me through the grief Michael. You've supported me in so many ways. Even...even when all I wanted was you to hold me." He rubbed Michael's knuckles, "Why...why didn't you tell me about how bad you were feeling?"
"Because you've been through worse." Michael doesn't mention his leg intentionally. "You've been sick and I wasn't there and there are a million things better than dealing with a sick guy."
"You're my sick guy." Alex says pointedly. "Why wouldn't I want to take care of you?"
Okay, Michael thought. Time to break out the bigger guns. Alex could not be spiraling over taking care of him. The guy had been angelic, putting up with Michael, the cold cloths, the endless comfort...
"Baby, if we weren't dating, right now without Izzy here, I'd be in my trailer trying to drown in acetone. Alone. Eventually even she would leave. Max sure as hell wouldn't be breaking out bowls of ice. For Liz yeah, but not for me."
Alex shakes his head and looks angry at the thought. "No, you wouldn't be alone. I'd be there."
"No, you wouldn't. No one would be. And that's okay." Michael tells him.
"You think I wouldn't be going out of my mind that you were sick, alone in your trailer?" Alex sounds wounded and no doubt there is some anger there.
"You'd be trying to beat Clyde's head in not handing me tissues for my bloodied nose. You'd assume that my siblings were there and that I wouldn't need you." Michael tells him, knowing how Alex thinks. "If we weren't dating, I wouldn't want anyone there Alex. They've got no patience for it. I'd rather do it alone. Being vulnerable is fucking hard, but I'm safe with you. I can be scared, because you're here. Every other time, I've been alone."
"Not anymore." Alex tells him harshly, molding Michael to him.
They were quiet for a minute and Michael wondered how much damage he'd just caused when Alex broke the silence, "What do you mean you were dead?"
Michael groans. "Why do I have no filter?"
Alex pokes him gently, "Hey. Tell me."
"Noah stabbed me. I bled out on Max's floor and in all the shit that went that night, that was least exciting."
"No to me." Alex snaps, "Wait...that...the blood on your shirt...that was? You said it wasn't yours!"
"I lied." Michael told his collarbone.
"Well no one is killing you again." Alex says like this is given fact of the universe. Then he asks softly, "So...I'm not screwing this up? I'm not like...being super annoying and clingy? Not...being an ass and you...you don't wish you were stuck with someone else?"
"No." Michael tells him honestly."Who the fuck told you that?"
Alex smiles like he's won the lottery and the tension leaves him. Michael shakes his head.
"I'm terrified Alex, that I'm going to give you like a million reasons to regret me..."
"I wouldn't listen to a single one." Alex tells him flatly.
"But I love this house. I feel like shit, but I love spending time with you. I want to do all the domestic things. I want..."
"What?' Alex asks softly, his dark eyes wide and full of so many unnamed emotions.
"I want to grow old with you. I want to be with you forever. We're in this together. I know you'll love me whether I've got powers or not."
"Of course I would." Alex tells him aghast that was even in question.
Alex moves so he's bracketing Michael's aching body. "You're going to get better and I'm going to be there every step of the way. I don't want you to regret me. Giving me another chance after all the times..."
Michael kisses him.
"We gave us a chance. And I have never regretted loving you Alex Manes, the pain we caused each other? Yeah. But loving you? Never."
Alex looks longing at his mouth again and slowly looks up, "I'm staying Michael. I want to grow old with you too. I want to experience everything with you. I don't want you be scared, or lost or cold or anything if I can make it better."
"You always do." Michael kisses him again. "You always make it better."