Chapter Text
“NOOOOOO!!!”
CRAck... CrAcK...
“AAAGGGHHHHH!!!”
Alex made a split-second decision. He yanked the shed’s fire extinguisher off the wall and swung it bodily at his father. Not to take him out, just to get him away from Michael.
He knew he would only have the element of surprise for a few moments but that would have to be enough.
Before his father had even hit the ground, Alex let go of the red canister, threw his backpack on and slung his guitar case over his shoulder—the two things he was never without—grasped a shaking, shirtless Michael around the waist and hauled him to the door. His father looked more shocked by the fact that Alex had finally stood up to him than he was by the fact that he’d just gotten whacked by a blunt object.
“KEEP YOUR BIGOTRY TO YOURSELF. I AM DONE WITH THIS FAMILY, THIS SO-CALLED LEGACY, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, I AM DONE WITH YOU.”
Alex slammed the shed door closed behind them without a look back. He had everything he cared about in this world on his body or clinging to it. His mother’s silver dream-catcher necklace was an ever-present warm spot against his sternum under his shirt.
Michael was silent but for the sobs of pain he couldn’t quite muffle. Fuck. He must be hurting so much and it was all Alex’s fault.
“Keys?” Alex asked even as he propped Michael up against the door of his truck two houses down and began rifling through his pockets.
He found them before Michael could rub two words together, eyes squeezed shut, his breath coming out way too harsh and shallow to be sending enough oxygen to his brain.
“Breathe, Guerin,” Alex soothed as he helped lift his friend into the passenger seat. He deposited his backpack and guitar case in the bed of the truck next to Michael’s belongings on his way around to jump into the driver’s seat. One scared boy leaned over the other scared boy to buckle his seat belt, found his own, and peeled rubber the moment he brought the old Chevy to life.
He shot out of the neighborhood like a bat out of hell. No rhyme or reason to where he was going.
Away.
Just, away.
They hit a speed bump on the street leading up to an elementary school a few blocks away from his house and the truck jostled the mangled hand Michael was currently hugging to his chest, moaning as he half-bent over it reflexively.
“Shit, sorry!” Alex glanced over and saw blood trailing down his left arm in little rivulets but at least it wasn’t gushing anymore. Oh, crap, right, Michael’s hand! “We need to uh, hospital,” he stole another glance at it and winced. “We need to take care of your hand, Guerin.”
“No...” his breath was still coming out in ragged puffs, and he was sweating now. He slouched down in the seat and appeared to be reaching for something on the floor of the cab.
“Whaddya mean, no?! Your hand looks like hamburger helper!”
“No hospitals, Alex.” When he sat back up, as much as he could with one arm to help support him anyway, Alex saw he’d found a water bottle and was currently chugging the thing like he’d just come in from a long run.
Alex blew through a red light as he made his way towards Roswell Community Health. “Don’t be ridiculous, Guerin, of course we’re going to the hospital!”
“Please, Alex.”
Alex could feel the panic creeping back in. The initial burst of adrenaline which had carried them out to the truck was starting to wear off as the immediate threat receded in the rear view mirror.
“Come on, man, it’s okay, you’re just in shock is all,” Alex reasoned that he himself couldn’t be in shock because he knew that they had to get to a hospital to get checked out, so of the two of them, he was the one thinking clearly, right?!
“We’re gonna get through this. We’re gonna be okay,” Alex repeated this mantra to himself as he tried to remember if he was supposed to make a right turn here or the next block up. As they passed by the Crashdown, Alex thought he recognized Max Evans walking a wobbly Rosa in through the front door but everything was kind of a blur right now so he couldn’t be sure.
“Alex, no, I can’t,” Michael was trying to sit up higher in his seat but his seat belt must have tightened on him the last time Alex braked to swerve around a corner so he hissed in pain instead when it compressed his ribs.
“Shit, did he break a rib, too?” Alex worried his bottom lip, torn between keeping his eyes on the road and wanting to assess all of Michael’s injuries himself. “Wait, what do you mean, you can’t? Is it because you don’t have insurance? Because I read somewhere that they have to admit you in the Emergency Room no matter who you are or whether you can pay. I have some money saved up, we can—”
“Alex. Look at me.”
“I can’t, I’m driving.”
“That’s a red light up ahead. Or are you color blind?”
Truth be told, Alex hadn’t really been paying attention to the color of the traffic lights. It wasn’t super late but everyone else seemed to be at home eating dinner or watching tv. They weren’t driving the person they’d just had the most magical time of their life with to the fucking hospital because their homophobic dick of a father bashed their lover’s hand in with a fucking hammer just for being together on his property, or anywhere, probably.
Alex made the brakes whine as he stopped at the red light. His jaw was gonna start aching soon if he kept gritting his teeth. His hands were already protesting the death grip he had on the steering wheel.
“Please?”
Alex inhaled deeply then looked over and promptly felt all the breath inside him whoosh right back out again at the pleading look in Michael’s light brown eyes.
“I need you to trust me, Alex—”
“Yeah but—”
“—and please take me somewhere else. Anywhere else.”
“But, your hand, you’ve already lost a lot of bl—” wait, why was Alex was arguing with someone who was clearly in shock or already experiencing some kind of PTSD?
Michael closed his eyes, took a deep breath, which still made kind of a rattle-y sound in his chest, and then re-opened them to gaze more steadily at Alex than he had at any point since this shitshow began tonight.
“The light is green.”
“Now you want me to drive?”
“I want you to trust me.”
Alex passed through the intersection only to have to stop several hundred feet down the street for the next red light. They were entering the crisscross section of town. The hospital should be only a few streets away now.
“Just hold on, k? We’re almost— wait, how did you know the light was green? You didn’t even look.”
“If you take me somewhere else, I will tell you anything you want to know.”
Alex’s eyebrows rose of their own accord. “Anything?”
Michael nodded, eyes never leaving his. He reached across his body with his right hand, holding it palm-front in a silent request for contact.
Alex’s body reacted instinctually, his left hand reaching up to meet Michael’s. A tiny spark of static electricity arced from Michael’s to his own. He startled and pulled his hand away but the small smile on Michael’s beautiful face was so welcoming it made him want to go back for more. He wanted to know who this enigmatic boy was inside and out. Why was he so fascinating?
“The light is green again.” Michael told him before lowering his left hand down between his knees and pouring the rest of the water over it to cleanse the gaping wounds, sucking air in through his teeth. It must sting like a bitch.
Alex looked to his left and saw that it was indeed green. “You just did it again!” Alex pressed on the gas and the truck rumbled forward, his eyes on the road. “How did you know that? I was looking at you this whole time!”
He could feel the weight of Michael’s gaze on him. It was warm and comforting, which was weird because wasn’t Alex the one who was supposed to be taking care of Michael? Wasn’t he the one who had fucked up? Wasn’t Michael the one who had nothing and yet never complained which made Alex want to give him ALL the things?
Yes.
Alex looked over to meet those swirling milk chocolate eyes. “I trust you.”
Michael’s whole face relaxed and his eyes looked glassy in the reflected street light. He closed them for a moment and a tear stained his cheek.
Alex drove right on past the hospital. “I know a place where we’ll be safe for a while. But just so you know, I have a lot of questions.”
He heard a light chuckle from his right.
“And you better deliver, cowboy.”
“Ask and ye shall receive, darlin’.”
~*~