Chapter Text
Alex unlocked the front door of his house, wincing at every creak when he pushed the door open. With a bound of seemingly limitless energy that Alex couldn’t ever seem to muster, Michael was in through the front door, shaking shaggy brown hair out of his eyes as he looked for a place to set down the bottles of vodka, their illicit liquorstore prize.
It hadn’t been easy, but there they were, with their shitty bottles of 100 proof alcohol. Now, the next order of business- to get rip roaring drunk.
Alex’s oldest brother Matthew was holed up in his room with the flu, so there was no customary shout of greeting from either him or his best friend, T.C., who always hung around the Strong house like a cough that just wouldn’t go away. Kind of like the matching (flu-related) coughs that both T.C. and Matthew had shared with each other, and now kept them out of the way. At least they’d have the vodka all to themselves, unless stupid useless baby brother Tristan galumphed his way downstairs, in which case, Alex still didn’t foresee sharing the bottles. Tristan was too much of a tattler.
As Alex closed the door behind him, he almost careened into Michael, who, in response, almost dropped the bottles of vodka inside Alex’s front door.
“Move over, why don’t ya,” he muttered, looking cautiously through the kitchen and into the livingroom. If his stepdad was in the house, they were pretty much goners already. If he saw them, they’d have to grow moustaches and move to France or some other ungodly place.
Mr. Strong was Tristan’s biological dad, as well as Matthew and Alex’s stepdad. He worked as a something assistant financial assistant second in command taffypuller and professional number cruncher (okay so maybe just an accountant or something) at an empty-eyed office building, with walls as pale and cheeselike as his own pallid flesh. His stepdad usually parked his ass on the sofa, which was starting to show a sizable dent with every new sitter, and flicked on the television while he stuffed his face with whatever artisan cracker he’d picked up that weekend.
All in all, he was the sort of guy who would NOT be tolerant of underaged drinking in his house. But instead of sitting on the couch in his normal position (legs crossed before him, arms in a knot over his green polo as though he was judging the events on tv) Mr Bland, as Alex usually termed him, was passed out on the couch, snoring hard. Alex barely restrained a laugh: his stepdad’s snores whistled through his nose like a small train engine.
“Hurry in, don't make a sound,” he hissed to Michael, gesturing at him to keep it down.
Michael looked bemused.
“What’s goin’ on, Alex, I thought we were drinkin?”
His voice was at a normal speaking register: louder, even.
Alex couldn’t restrain his instant response: he leapt forward, clapping a hand over Michael’s lips, a desperate attempt to get him to keep it down.
“You wake him up-” here he jerked his head in the direction of his stepdad “- and there won't be any drinking, just going to jail. You wanna go to jail, Mikey?”
Michael shook his head vigorously. Alex tried to ignore the way his lips moved under his hand: thinking about details like that was just too gay. He also tried to ignore the fact that he'd just slipped up and used the name he used to call Michael by, back when they were best friends.
Mikey. The name brought back half eaten popsicle sticks, melting in his hands, the smell of hot summer sun, the dirt in the dugout of the little league team they'd both been in, and long afternoons spent at Mikey’s house playing the limited amount of video games that they’d been allowed. Specifically, he remembered a glitchy bootleg pac man game they'd played over and over, and a dopey Clapping Party game, which Alex had always beaten in order to get to the secret Blister level.
And- well, that was enough of that. Enough wandering like morons through memory lane.
“Okay, then. Let's try and get downstairs in one piece. Deal?”
Michael nodded. “Deal,” he agreed, and began to make his way down to the stairwell that led down to the basement.
The bare brick walls kept the interior of the stairwell shadowy, and for a moment, Alex thought of Michael tripping. Falling in the dark. He slapped at the lightswitch on the wall, so that the single bare lightbulb sputtered on, the yellowing light signalling that the bulb didn’t have much longer for this world. Whatever. At least he’d kept anyone (anyone in this situation meaning Michael) from falling to their certain death.
Michael carried on bounding down the steps as though there’d never been any danger, which pissed Alex off a little. (Everything pissed him off, even if it was just a little, but especially when it came to Michael.)
When they reached the bottom of the steps, Alex looked over at Michael, trying to make sure he wasn’t having second thoughts. It would suck if he decided ratting Alex out would be the right thing to do: it would be typical for a jock, but part of Alex hoped Michael wasn’t like that.
In the dim light of the laundry room, Alex made out familiar brown curls, and blue eyes that looked back at him with eager goodwill.
“Dude? You mind opening the door?” Michael held up the bottles by their necks, like hunting trophies.
“Sure, fine,” Alex muttered, pushing open the door to the basement all-purpose room.
Though everyone in the Strong family called it the “all-purpose room,” it didn’t have many purposes. There was a sofa, and a television, and not much else. Although, maybe you could call it “all-purpose” because Alex slept there more often than he actually slept in his (currently laundry-engulfed) bed. That actually made more sense.
Usually, he kept a stash of Budweisers and other contraband substances in the cushions, but his stepdad had started to wise up to Alex’s habit of stealing his beers out of the fridge, so the liquor store had been his second option.
“Hey, drop the shit on the sofa,” Alex said, making sure that the door was shut completely. For good measure, he slid a chair up, leaned it so that it prevented the door from opening.
Instead of just dropping the vodka onto the dingy, tape-patched cushions, Michael had taken a seat on the sofa. He filled up the space a good deal more than he had in the eighth grade, back when he used to come over after school. Alex swallowed, pretended he wasn’t noticing how defined Michael’s shoulders were, even through the letterman.
“You wanna crack open one of those vodkas, bro?” Alex asked, trying to maintain a cool and aloof tone. He was a lone wolf, right. Yeah. “I mean, you earned ‘em.”
Michael turned around to face him, almost bouncing with exuberance. Scratch that, he was bouncing.
“Sure, man. You want me to turn on the TV? We could watch some reality show, or HGTV, or the cooking channel- I mean, I don’t really care, whatever you want.”
Alex detested reality tv. Hated it, in fact. But part of his mind went all gooey, seeing Michael on his couch again like that. That’s the only reason he could have blurted out what he said next.
“Sure, Mike. Whatever you wanna watch.”
Why the fuck did he sound so dopey? Michael was just a jock. Just a dumb, asshole jock, who he hadn’t really talked to since eighth grade.
If only the entire situation was that simple.
He went around the side of the couch, and lowered himself down onto the patched cushions as Michael turned to the channel to some reality show where people were trading dirty
glances. He didn’t know which one it was, but he supposed it didn’t matter. They were all pretty much the same, weren’t they?
Carefully, he avoided touching Michael’s knee with his own, which was much harder to do now that they were no longer thirteen. Michael beamed at him, cracking open the first bottle of vodka effortlessly.
“This is gonna be great, bro.”
Alex spared a glance at the television as some shrewish woman began shrieking. She could have been an opera singer, with lungs like that. As he watched, he tried to open his bottle of vodka, with little success: he only managed to dig the hard plastic of the lid into his hand, leaving red marks on his fingers. The edge of the lid dug sharply into his palm as he tried to twist it off, the way Michael had.
“Shit!” He almost dropped the bottle.
“Oh, dude, let me do it. You’re gonna fuc- mess up your hands like that, man.”
Alex glared for a second, but Michael didn’t seem interested in lording it over him or anything: he just held out his hand, as though it was a given that Alex would just pass the bottle to him. Alex thought about keeping the bottle and just trying harder. Strained fingers would be a small price to pay. But at the same time, he wasn’t getting anywhere, and he really, really needed to get drunk, especially with that guy sitting next to him. Things would be exponentially better if he were drunk.
“Fine, let’s see you do it,” he said, voice challenging as he tossed the bottle in Michael’s direction. Without looking, Michael caught it, and twisted off the cap in an easy motion. To his credit, he didn’t make any nasty comments as he handed it back to Alex.
“Thanks,” Alex mumbled. He looked down at it for a moment, then held out the vodka, as though proposing a toast.
Michael caught on, and held out his own bottle, until it touched Alex’s with a faint ring of glass.
“Thanks for helping me get this shit, and thank you, T.C. and Matthew, for being sick. I would have hated to share my booze with you.” He exhaled as he took a swig of the vodka: it burned all the way down.
However, the instant the vodka touched Michael’s lips, he spat it onto the floor with a sound like an overheating teakettle.
“What is THAT?” Michael demanded, wiping his mouth on his arm.
“Vodka, dude. Haven’t you had it before?” He wanted to be drunk NOW.
“No- and it sucks. It tastes like it’s on fire, and now my throat feels like it’s supposed to be on fire too.”
He held his nose, as though trying to prevent any oxygen from feeding the fire in his throat.
Alex would have been pissed, but the alcohol was already hitting his bloodstream- or maybe it was just the burning in his own throat that was mellowing him out.
“Look, you gotta exhale when you swallow- and maybe you need a chaser. Something to drink after the vodka.”
Alex dug around in the couch cushions, hoping to find a stray lukewarm Budweiser. Instead, he found a bottle of bright blue gatorade.
“G-rade!” Michael said gleefully, taking the gatorade and setting it between his legs. “I’ll just swallow this down after I get more vodka in me.”
Alex couldn’t help staring at the gatorade (and its location) for a moment or two. Then he managed to wrench his eyes away, back to his own bottle.
Pinching his nose, Michael took another swig of vodka, eyes going wide as it hit his throat. He exhaled with about as much subtlety as a freight train blowing its whistle, and followed the swig with “g-rade.”
Alex wasn’t one to be left in the dust. Fixing his eyes on Michael, he took another sip of vodka. Then another.
“This shit is actually pretty good,” Michael yawned.
They were both slumped on top of each other, still drinking. Or at least, Alex was. Michael had flagged to small sips, while Alex was still going strong. Something about the process of drinking together had vastly improved the idea of touching Michael. He watched as Michael pressed the long bottle of the vodka to his mouth, unable to look away.
Then, Michael looked straight at him, making eye contact in a moment that normally would have frozen Alex’s blood. Normally he didn’t gaze longingly into anyone’s eyes a la goddamn romance novels, and especially not if those eyes belonged to a dude.
That was gay shit.
But this was an exception. This was Michael. And he couldn’t tear his gaze away. The contact only warmed his already heated blood, as his head whirled. Those lips were so close.
His hand reached out, in a moment of instinct, and his fingers traced over Michael’s cheekbones, where remnants of baby fat still clung. He was touching his bro’s face, and it wasn’t awful, not at all.
And Michael hadn’t pulled away yet, or told him to stop. Instead, his eyelids fluttered, and he leaned into the touch, grinning in a way that should have signalled Alex to stop, to slow down, before he ended up doing something that they would both regret.
But before he could mull over the topic, Michael had lowered the vodka from his lips.
“Dude, what are you-”
Before Michael could get the words out, Alex pressed his lips against Michael’s, blotting out whatever his friend had been about to say. There was nothing sweet in the way he kissed Michael: his lips were bruising against Michael’s. He twisted his hand in Michael’s hair, tugging him in, his nails scraping Michael’s scalp.
He wanted Michael to fight him, to bite the inside of his mouth, to push him away. He wanted a bloody, nasty, harsh kiss.
Instead, Michael kissed him back, with a faint but determined insistence. His tongue had the medicinal sting of vodka, with the distinctive sugary-sweet aftertaste of gatorade on top. Tropical punch.
Alex kissed him back even harder, one hand slipping down Michael’s shoulder, under his letterman, to press against his well-muscled chest.
“Fuck.” That was nice, nicer than he’d imagined. Not that he’d imagined this before- oh hell, who was he kidding? Not anyone at this point.
Michael started to pull away, just the slightest bit. He couldn’t leave- not now. Alex pushed Michael back against the couch with all his might, and sunk his teeth into Michael’s lip, just enough to hurt. He didn’t taste blood, but Michael let out a gasp, kissing him back with almost equal force, although his blunt teeth just barely closed on Alex’s lip.
He straddled Michael, pushing back against his shoulders with his hands, kissing him with punishing force. Though he’d been tossing back the vodka, it had left him burning.
Finally, he broke away, gasping for breath.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
Michael stared at him with a weird intensity, before grabbing him and pressing his lips to his, kissing him harder. Alex’s hands slid down Michael’s chest, running down to unbuckle his pants.
Afterward, they lay together under the shitty blanket they'd dug out of the cushions, still undressed. Michael had closed his eyes, just a little bit, and was sporting a dopey little grin on his face. Absently, Alex rubbed his hands over Michael’s shoulders, pulling him close to his chest, even though Michael was taller than him.
“Useless jock,” he muttered into his curls, tousling his hair almost affectionately.
Michael giggled in response, snuggling down under the blanket. Alex had thought he’d feel less drunk afterwards, but his head was still spinning. He inhaled the soft smell of sweat, which clung to Michael’s bare skin, and resisted the urge to lick at the top of Michael’s deltoid. Instead, he pressed his face into Michael’s neck, nipping at the skin, which was already bruised and blotted with hickeys.
“Ow,” Michael whined, but didn’t move away. Instead, he tucked his head back against the sofa, relaxing: Alex could feel the tension go out of his muscles.
The door creaked open, and Alex swore into Michael’s shoulder, peering around the bulk of his friend. Tristan’s pallid face poked around the door, staring through his black double-dyed hair. At the sight of Alex and Michael on the couch together, he dropped the stack of heavy books he’d been lugging with him.
“Alex!”
He swore that there were at least five exclamation marks tacked on the end of his name, and grinned at his stepbrother, who was staring from Michael back to him. What a baby-whiner.
“What, did I scare that hoodie off you?” he asked, voice heavy with sarcasm. “Least that would be an improvement. When’s the last time you washed that thing?”
“Alex, are you naked?” Tristan demanded.
Grinning wider, Alex began to lift the blanket.
“Forget it,” Tristan said, putting up his hands. “I don’t want to know! I DON’T WANT TO KNOW! Can’t you put a sock on the door or something?” His face was bright red.
“Maybe you should get better at knocking,” Alex shot back.
“Maybe you should get better about- not being naked with your boyfriend!” Tristan spluttered out. “A-asshole!”
Alex was silent for a moment, thinking about what Tristan had said.
Boyfriend.
He wasn’t gay. Maybe he was that thing. That thing where you were into dudes when you were drunk. Beer-sexual.
“Maybe you should get out of here before I beat your ass,” Alex said, hands tightening on Michael’s shoulders.
“Okay, okay! Fine,” Tristan whined, hurriedly gathering up his books before slamming the basement door.
“Should I leave?” Michael asked. He looked worried, eyebrows drawing up over his baby-blue eyes, mouth curving to form a sad little frown.
Alex shook his head. Almost too fast.
“Nah, you can stay,” he said, settling down against his friend. “Wanna watch some TV?”
Michael nodded, squeezing himself down on the sofa, and putting his head on Alex’s chest.
As he switched on the television, Alex sniffed in the scent of Michael: shampoo, sweat, and a little bit of vodka.
Not bad. And. Maybe he sort of liked it.