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Alex pulls his jacket off and throws it to the couch, kicking the door shut behind him as he heads towards the bathroom.
What he needs is a shower to get rid of the antiseptic hospital smell, and then he needs to come up with a plan solid enough to help Kyle.
He’s tugging his sweater over his head when he hears movement coming from the living room and he thanks every deity that he knows that it’s cold enough out there that he’s wearing an undershirt.
He lets the sweater fall out of his hands and turns towards the couch and freezes, the air catching painfully in his throat. His heart skips several beats and then starts pounding hard.
Michael is sitting down on the couch with his head dropped low, only recognizable by the unruly curly mop of hair, his cowboy hat on the couch beside him, partially covered by Alex’s leather jacket.
When Michael doesn’t move or say anything else, Alex takes a cautious step forward.
“Guerin,” he says slowly and soft, not wanting to startle him.
Michael’s head shoots up and he looks directly at Alex like he’s surprised to see him there. He looks around himself as though he has no idea where he is.
Alex takes a step forward and freezes when Michael’s gaze snaps back to him almost as though magnetized, but his eyes are glazed over like he’s really out of it or drunk.
Alex takes another step and stops when Michael suddenly goes so tense that it looks like he might shatter at any moment.
“Guerin,” he says again, voice going even softer, and he swallows hard when Michael’s gaze focuses on him, losing a bit of the glazed over look. “Is everything okay?”
Michael blinks rapidly a few times and then he looks at Alex, really looks at him, eyes focusing so intently that Alex feels it like a physical touch.
“Alex?” He questions and his voice sounds rough and hoarse, like he’s been yelling or crying.
“Yeah,” Alex responds slowly and takes a step closer, exhaling in relief when Michael doesn’t tense up again.
“What-?” Michael starts and then stops. “Where are we?”
Alex huffs out a little laugh. “My cabin?” He says, it comes out more like a question than a statement.
Michael looks around again, but this time seems to be taking the space in, what he can see in the dark room.
Alex sits down on the coffee table in front of the couch, farther away than he would be if he sat on the couch beside Michael.
Michael’s gaze snaps to him again.
Alex licks his lips, “How did you get here, if you didn’t know this was my place?”
Michael swallows hard, and looks at Alex like he doesn’t know.
Alex thinks that maybe something else happened last night or this morning, something worse than what happened at Caulfield. It had to be pretty much horrific to make Michael disassociate this hard.
“What happened last night?” He asks, and he sees how the question hits Michael like an explosion.
He flinches backwards and blinks several times in rapid succession before his breaths start coming in fast and short, a wheezing sound that gets trapped in his throat, and he starts to gasp like he’s not getting enough air.
Alex moves forward immediately, kneeling awkward and painful on the floor right in front of Michael.
He goes to grab Michael’s hands and Michael flinches away from him, pulling both hands to his chest and cradling his left in his right in a gesture that Alex remembers from what feels like a whole other lifetime ago.
Alex stares at him with wide eyes as he starts to hyperventilate.
“Guerin,” he says, and Michael shakes his head, refusing to open his eyes, he starts to shake, and Alex hears it echoing in the clatters and clangs of his dishware and silverware in the cupboards and cabinets knocking into each other.
Alex needs to do something and he needs to do it now or else he doesn’t know what will happen if Michael loses control of his powers in this state.
Alex makes a decision and goes with it before he can talk himself out of it.
His fingers dig into Michael’s shoulders and he tugs him down sharply, leaning up and pressing their mouths together hard.
Michael inhales sharply in shock, the breath catching hard in his lungs, making him gasp as his harsh breathing stutters to a stop.
When he exhales hard through his nose and breathes in shakily, lips moving against Alex’s mouth slightly, but easier than he was before, Alex pulls back dropping his hands back to his lap, leaning back on his heels, as Michael takes deep, deliberate breaths and just continues to stare at Alex with wide and wet eyes.
Alex waits until his breaths are even and calm before he speaks.
“Are you okay?” he asks, and he knows that it’s a stupid question, but they have to start somewhere.
Michael gives him a look raising an eyebrow, and Alex just gives him a matching one back.
“No,” he responds, voice harsh. “I haven’t been okay in a long time.”
Alex lets out a small breath in disbelief. He wasn’t really expecting Michael to be that honest.
“Obviously,” Alex responds and Michael furrows his brow at him. “What are you doing here?”
Michael’s breathing hitches and he closes his eyes tight.
“Okay,” Alex says, moving his hands to Michael’s knees. “How about you tell me where did you go last night?”
Michael opens his eyes and stares at Alex with a furrowed brow like he doesn’t understand what Alex is trying to do, and Alex just stares back as earnest and honest as possible.
“The mines,” Michael answers after a long moment. “Isobel-”
He winces and presses a hand to his head, eyes falling shut.
Alex is about to tell him not to worry about it, when Michael opens his eyes again wide and bright. “Isobel was in trouble so I had to go.”
Alex nods his head, “I kind of figured it was either her or Max.”
As soon as Max’s name is out of his mouth, Michael crumbles, and Alex realizes exactly who it is that has Michael like this.
Alex moves up, hands cupping Michael’s face as he falls forward and his breathing hitches.
Michael drops his forehead to Alex’s, and Alex tries to look into his eyes, but they’re shut tight, as his face is scrunched up like he’s trying to stop himself from crying.
“Guerin,” Alex says, and he moves his hands to his hair, carding his fingers through the unruly curls in a soothing manner as Michael’s breaths shudder out of him. “Did something happen to Max?”
Michael trembles and shakes his head and his eyes shut even tighter and Alex can see the tears leaking from the corners.
He slides his hands down to the back of Michael’s neck and digs his fingers in a little and Michael moves fast, dropping into Alex’s lap, and pushing him back against the coffee table hard enough that Alex knows he’s going to have a bruise in the morning where the edge is pressing harshly against his back.
Alex carefully stretches his legs out in front of himself, sticking his feet beneath the couch and wrapping his arms around Michael’s waist as Michael wraps himself around Alex, arms and legs before he buries his face into Alex’s neck and his breathing shudders out of him, before it catches in his throat and he sobs.
Alex wraps his arms around him tighter and Michael just collapses into him, pressing his face harder into Alex’s neck as he cries, tears wetting the collar of Alex’s shirt.
Alex slides one hand into Michael’s hair and one up and down his back and tries to soothe him as much as he can.
He looks up at the ceiling and blinks rapidly to stop himself from crying. He wants to ask Michael what happened, but it’s obvious that what Michael wants from him right now is this.
So Alex keeps running his hand down his back and through his hair and keeps him close as Michael’s cries peter out, slowly but surely and he seems to sink more into Alex’s lap.
It takes Alex a second to realize that the hitching breaths are actually hiding words.
“He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s gone,” over and over and over again, getting increasingly louder.
Alex tightens his hold on him, fingers digging into his back.
Michael stops speaking, breath shuddering against Alex’s neck.
Alex feels him inhale deeply and then he moves back, bracing his hands on Alex’s shoulder as he moves his face away from his neck to look at him.
He stares with his wet red rimmed eyes, the tear tracks down his face, and swallows hard before he speaks.
“Sorry,” he says, voice hoarse, tightening his fingers on Alex’s shoulders almost painfully.
Alex shakes his head immediately hands moving to cup the back of Michael’s neck.
“You don’t have to apologize,” he says not looking away from Michael’s eyes. “I’m here for whatever you need.”
Michael looks at him with unblinking eyes for a long moment, before he sighs and says forward eyes falling shut as he presses his forehead to Alex’s and just exhales.
“I’m so tired,” he says, and he sounds exhausted. “I just want to sleep.”
“Okay,” Alex says, voice low nodding his head. “We can do that. But we gotta move first.”
Michael seems to slump heavier against him for a second just breathing in deeply before he sighs and moves, getting to his feet in quick movements.
He holds his hands out, and Alex gladly accepts his help, and stumbles a little when his knees buckle as soon as Michael lets him go.
Michael reaches out to steady him, and Alex smiles in thanks, looking at Michael and freezing when Michael uses the hold he has on him to pull him in a little bit closer.
Alex stares at Michael, “What are you doing?”
Michael stares right back at him, “You kissed me.”
He says it like a statement, but it sounds like a question.
Alex licks his lips, and his eyes drop to Michael’s mouth and then back up to his eyes. “You were hyperventilating. It was the only thing I could think of at the time that would’ve surprised you.”
Michael licks his lips swallowing hard and looks at Alex intently. “That all it was?”
Alex clenches his jaw. “No,” he says, and Michael gives him a startled look, eyes going even wider, but he masks it quickly.
Alex continues, “But these last couple of days have been hell, and I don’t want you to make a decision that you might regret later.”
Michael stares at Alex again unblinkingly, and then exhales roughly before letting Alex go.
Alex nods his head once and turns around leading the way to his room.
Michael follows him after a few seconds of hesitation. He doesn’t wait for Alex to urge him to lie down, just walks straight to the bed and lies down, burying his face in one of the pillows and closing his eyes.
“You could at least take your shoes off,” Alex says as he reaches his drawer to take out some clothes to change into after his shower.
Michael grumbles under his breath but Alex hears the rustling of fabric as he moves and then the two loud thuds of his shoes hitting the ground a few seconds later.
Alex shakes his head and closes his drawer clothes in hand. “I’m going to shower,” he starts, and Michael interrupts him, his words making Alex freeze in the middle of the room.
“I was trying to leave you behind.”
There is silence for a few long seconds while Alex tries to figure out what exactly he means by that.
“This morning seems like a lifetime ago,” he continues, and Alex starts to feel a little faint, but he grits his teeth and stays as still as possible. “And Max-”
Michael cuts himself off with a small pained noise, and Alex turns to him immediately.
Michael is sitting on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands as he leans over, elbows propped on his knees. His breathing shudders as he inhales deeply.
Alex swallows down pass the lump in his throat and says, “You-you don’t have to talk about this if you can’t.”
Michael presses his hands harder against his face, and Alex clenches his fingers into fists just watching him.
“Max,” he says again, voice muffled, and then he exhales roughly, rubbing his fingers hard against his scalp before he looks up, and his eyes go a little startled when he sees that Alex is turned towards him.
“I don’t know what happened during his fight with Noah, but it was almost like he was high or something. He sounded manic, talking about how we needed to stop living in the past, and he wouldn’t listen to me or Isobel, and he-he healed my hand,“ he swallows convulsively looking at his hand and opening and closing it like its bothering him.
"But I didn’t want it,” he continues looking back up at Alex with pleading eyes, begging him to understand. “And it didn’t feel right. Like he was taking something from me that I didn’t want to give up, and after, I just couldn’t get the stupid words that faith healer from Texas said out of my head, in order to heal, you have to reopen the wound in your mind. And then I was trying to make Isobel feel better about this whole Noah thing, and she also said that it was time to stop living in the past, and I just-”
He shakes his head closing his eyes tightly, and Alex feels like he’s rooted to the spot, like he won’t be able to move until Michael finishes what he has to say, and Alex feels like he should say something, anything, but all of the words turn to ash at the back of his throat leaving him with a sour taste on the tip of his tongue.
“I love you,” he says, looking up at Alex with wide eyes, terrified but determined. “I’ve loved you what feels like my entire life, and I’ll probably always love you, Alex. Whenever you kiss me, whenever you touch me, whenever you hold me, I feel like I can do anything, like I’m soaring high above the clouds in the stars, but every single time you walk away I crash to earth, harder and harder every time, and it hurts so much, and I can’t keep living like that.”
Michael looks away from him, and Alex inhales sharply, feeling like he’s the one about to have a panic attack.
“So when we found Rosa’s body hidden away in a pod in a shrine built by Noah, I realized that they were both right. We can’t keep living in the past. And over the last couple of days, it felt like I was stuck in the past, but instead of a hammer your dad wielded a bomb that took away my mother from me, and it all felt too similar to how it was back then. And I knew you were waiting for me, but I didn’t-I can’t-I won’t-I wouldn’t be able to take it if you walked away from me again, not when everything felt like how it did back then. So I went to the same place I always go to whenever things are out of my control and I just want to feel normal. The Pony, and Maria was-”
“Stop,” Alex says, finding his voice the same second that Michael mentions Maria’s name, closing his eyes tightly so that he doesn’t see whatever look is on Michael’s face.
Alex inhales deeply and then exhales slowly, trying to center himself. There is a lot to unpack there, way too much for him to deal with at this moment in time, but there is one thing that he has to know before he tells Michael to just go to sleep and that they’ll finish this conversation when he’s not still reeling from the events that happened over the last couple of days.
He opens his eyes and looks at Michael who is staring at him like he’s afraid that Alex is going to walk away without saying anything, “If-if that’s how you really feel about this, then why are you here?”
Michael gives him a helpless look. “We found Max, and everything just came crashing down all around me, and I felt like the solid ground that I was trying to stand on had just crumbled beneath my feet, and we tried to bring him back, but there was nothing that we could do, and the moment that I realized that he was actually gone, that he wasn’t going to just wake up and give me a hard time for being an idiot who leaps before he looks, the only person that I wanted to see was you.”
Alex inhales deeply and nods his head once, accepting the words. “Okay,” he says, and exhales. “Okay,” he repeats and then points towards his bed with his chin. “Just go to sleep, if you can. I can make you some tea if that would help, but I need to take a shower first.”
“Alex,” Michael says sounding confused, but Alex shakes his head.
“We can deal with everything else after you’ve at least slept a little bit, okay? I’ll call Liz so she can let Isobel know where you are, but everything else can be left for tomorrow.”
Michael looks like he’s going to protest, but Alex shakes his head again crossing the space between them, and putting a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “You came here for a reason, and right now, I know what you need better than you do, so just try to sleep. I’ll bring you something warm to drink after I take a shower, okay?”
Michael swallows hard and looks at him like he can’t really believe that Alex is real and not a figment of his imagination, but he nods his head slowly, and Alex pushes his shoulder slightly before moving his hand.
Michael catches his hand in his, and Alex gasps as he drags it to his mouth and presses a kiss against the back of it, soft and sweet before he lets Alex go, and drops back on top of the bed sideways, eyes fluttering shut.
“Get comfortable,” Alex says, and Michael just hums in acknowledgement.
Alex stares at him for a second longer, studying the way that his entire body seems to relax and lose the tension that he’s been holding in his shoulders, and how he twists his head to the side and presses his face against one of the pillows he’d dislodged from position earlier, and how he sighs in relief and a contentment that Alex doesn’t really understand after everything he just said.
He watches him for a bit longer, and then he turns and walks out of the room.
First he needs to shower, he still can smell the antiseptic hospital scent on himself, and then he’ll make plans to deal with everything else.