and part four
Back from conference! Shall possibly make a conference-and-Boston-related post tomorrow, but, I have been promising part four of the Continuation, so...here it is!
Title: Wounds (Down The Long, Long Road Back Home)
Rating: um, NC-17 for certain themes? See warnings?
Warnings: aftermath & recovery after non-con (not explicit in this part, just the fallout); James and nightmares; comforting; emotional trauma and some h/c
Word Count: 6,458
Disclaimers: boys are not mine; only doing this for fun; title from Toad The Wet Sprocket’s “Before You Were Born”: nothing is changing and everything's wrong/ but pain is the healing and the tears sting like alcohol/ just keep on there breathing/ we'll bring you down the long, long road back home…
Summary: part four of the Continuation; a new house, some nightmares, warm arms in the night, hope.
Notes: love to all who've been reading and commenting and encouraging; extra gratitude to tea_and_trifles and telperion_15, who offered insightful comments on a certain section and prompted me to go back and add more when I thought it was done--you made it better, thanks!
(five weeks, two days, and counting)
The nightmares hadn’t started right away.
Of course they hadn’t.
The pamphlets had said as much. Michael’d been handed them, at various points; going in to see James, leaving the building, again when they were signing James out. They’d had titles like Coping With Post-Traumatic Stress and Life After Trauma and Not Being A Victim.
He’d taken them all home. Stared at them, for a horrified eternity. Stuffed them all into a single drawer, in the kitchen, where he’d happened to be standing at the time.
Two weeks later, he’d taken them all out again. Read them, desperately. Had nearly given up on the spot.
James wasn’t a victim. He wasn’t an object. He wasn’t-except he was. Of course he was. Neither of them could argue that.
James couldn’t argue anything. James couldn’t speak.
That wasn’t entirely true. James could talk. It hurt him, every time, and Michael scrambled desperately to keep him from needing to say anything, attempting to anticipate his needs and wants and desires, but James hated being incapacitated, and tried to offer opinions anyway, even when they weren’t necessary.
Michael had wanted to cry, the first time he’d tried to hand James orange juice in the morning and James had looked at the glass and raised an eyebrow-no pulp?-and yes, he knew that James liked the texture of orange juice with pulp but. But he’d been worried about any texture at all, and he didn’t know how to express that, when James couldn’t answer.
James had looked at him, for a minute, and then at the orange juice, and then, very obviously, had understood. And somehow that’d been the worst feeling of all.
And the nightmares hadn’t even started yet.
The horrible pamphlets had told him they would. Had said that things might work this way: sometimes survivors seemed to be healing, but any hiatus in the night terrors might just be exhaustion, or shock, too many newnesses to cope with at once.
Of course coming home from the hospital, at last, had been another in a too-long stretch of seismic shifts and changes. James had slept dreamlessly most of that first night, and the night after that, and Michael’d known better but clung to the futile hope anyway.
He just hadn’t wanted to listen.
James had finally been allowed to leave the hospital, after nearly three weeks. Michael hadn’t thought that could possibly be enough-he could see all the soreness, every time James moved-but the doctors had said so, and those sea-blue eyes had smiled at him, and he’d thought that, maybe, they might be safe going home, after all.
And it was home, or as close as he could make it. Kevin Bacon, it’d turned out, knew someone who knew some other someones, and had wandered by with a list of houses belonging to various acquaintances, none of which were in use and all of which could be borrowed, if they’d like, for as long as they needed to stay.
Kevin had, in a burst of enthusiasm, walked through each house on the list with a video camera, and then sent all the resulting footage over via the internet. They’d ended up watching all of the videos at least twice, Michael curled up in the too-small chair next to James’s hospital bed and poking at his laptop one-handed because the other hand was being held, and was happy there.
They’d had to watch them all twice not only to make a decision, but because Kevin’s commentary was surprisingly helpful and, occasionally, hysterical-“So this is another bathroom. There are a lot of showerheads in this one. You could have an awesome party in here. Not that I ever go to those kinds of parties. Or know anything about Bruce Willis and the waterbed encounter. Hey, look, those are curtains!”-and also because Michael enjoyed watching James smile, and so would cheerfully view Kevin playing with light switches-“Oh, so if these control THOSE lights, then THIS one must…oh, wait, now it’s very dark in here and that’s not a helpful couch! Watch out for that couch. It loathes human toes.”-as many times as James would like.
He’d asked, because he had to, even though most of him wanted to sit there and gaze at James smiling forever, “Any preferences?” and James had looked thoughtful and then tapped one of the addresses with a finger.
“Completely not surprised,” Michael’d said, “that’s the one that belongs to Richard Donner, I knew you had an unnatural relationship with The Goonies,” and James had started laughing, scratchily, and made a yes-all-right-you-caught-me expression, and Michael’d started laughing, too. “Seriously, though. That one?”
“Yes. Because of the sunlight.”
He’d known exactly what James meant; he honestly hadn’t been surprised, when James had liked that one. So many windows, so much light pouring in across glowing wood floors, the rich color of oak trees soaked in sunshine. Open spaces. Wide rooms.
It wasn’t the biggest of the options, or the newest, but somehow it wanted them the most. It didn’t like being unoccupied, Michael thought, which was the kind of thought he never would’ve had before meeting James but by now seemed like a normal consideration when choosing a temporary home.
“It’s lonely,” James had said, reading his mind, and Michael’d said, “I know,” which had earned another smile, and he’d felt, for that brief shining moment, like he could do anything. “So, that one, then. I’ll call Kevin back and let him know.”
He had. He’d also made a few more phone calls, very specific ones, for complicated purposes that’d involved him reluctantly giving Benedict Cumberbatch a key to their London flat, with the understanding that if anything beyond the scope of Michael’s instructions occurred, no one wanted to know.
Benedict had behaved himself, though. Which, Michael had realized, was a measure of the depth of his concern for James; they hadn’t let any of the details out, of course, but people talked, and word of the abduction, and the length of the hospital stay, had spread, in hushed voices.
Earlier, once they’d realized that at least that piece of the story was about to make the news-they’d tried, but the leak was inevitable-James had looked at him, wide-eyed, and written, Did anyone call my family?! and Michael’d said, shocked, “Oh, fuck-” because no, he hadn’t, no one had, none of them had remembered, in all the panic and fear and still-too-new emotions of rescue and relief.
He’d called Joy because he couldn’t face James’s grandparents. Not that James’s sister would be much easier, of course. But James had called his grandmother, that night. She’d been the last person he’d spoken to, before everything. Before.
James had just told her that he and Michael had gotten engaged, and Michael couldn’t make himself make that call. Maybe he was weak, for that. Not strong enough. But he couldn’t.
Joy answered her phone from, evidently, the tour bus, surrounded by laughter and chattering voices and the twang of someone’s guitar strings. “Hello, you! What-hang on, sorry-you lot, shut the hell up, it’s my brother’s fiancé, okay?-sorry, Michael, they’re all idiots who don’t know what the word quiet means.”
“We are not!”
“Did you say Michael? Is that Michael Fassbender?”
“It means we have to talk louder so he can hear us!”
“Your brother is engaged to Michael Fassbender and you didn’t tell us?”
“Yes you all are, no it doesn’t, yes he is, and I did tell you they were going out, so shut it, all of you. Michael, is this about the wedding, because I have a lot of ideas-”
Michael had opened his mouth to say something, anything, and then discovered that he couldn’t say anything at all, because he couldn’t make the tears stop falling.
He’d managed to edit the story, at least, in his fractured explanation. She didn’t need to know the horrific details. Not all of it. Enough to understand that James had been hurt. To read the truth of how, or some of it, in the spaces of all his silences.
She’d offered to fly out to California, to be with them. “I can be on a plane tomorrow if you-if he-if you both want that…”
Michael had hesitated. Almost said yes. But he didn’t know what James would want. And he hadn’t told her everything. “I’ll ask him. But…he doesn’t…having too many people around makes him…that might not be a good thing, right now. And you’re on tour, right? Anyway?”
“In Edinburgh, or nearly, but I’ll come if you need me.”
“I know you would. And I will ask him. But…”
After an eternally painful second, she’d sighed, over the phone, and said, “But,” and then, “All right, then. You…tell him I love him. And you, too. I love both of you. No matter what, all right?”
He’d whispered “Thank you” because he couldn’t manage anything louder, and she’d promised to call their grandparents and spare him that one, at least.
He’d phoned his own sister, too. She hadn’t answered-probably at work, other people still had work and ordinary lives-and he’d just said, softly, “Call me when you get this,” and hung up, because he didn’t know how to begin to leave that message.
She’d know it was serious, anyway. They weren’t close, in the sense of speaking to each other every day-probably the last time he’d called had been Catherine’s birthday-but that was just because they both belonged to the demands of their careers; she’d call him back, he knew, the second she noticed the message. And she’d come to California, too, in a heartbeat, if he asked. If he wanted her there. And he did. Except…
Except James had only met his sister once. She’d adored him-everyone adored James, often at first sight-and maybe she could even help; neuropsychology, he thought. Not quite counseling, or therapy, but something, at least. But James didn’t know her, not well, and Michael’d watched blue eyes flinch at every loud noise and every shadow for days now, and he couldn’t ask that of James.
He could ask for Catherine’s medical opinion. But he’d found himself afraid of the result, for more than one reason. He knew how James would interpret that request, shuttered eyes glancing away and turning the pain inside, another voice that’d tell him he wasn’t good enough, wasn’t whole. He knew how long it’d taken for James to believe words like beautiful and amazing and love, the first time around. If that was gone, too, he couldn’t imagine how much time they’d need just to start over again.
He would, of course. He’d kneel there in the rubble and rebuild whatever he could, finding the largest unbroken pieces and fitting them together, for as long as his support could hold them all in place. Forever, if he had to.
The other reason, though, was just that Michael, himself, was terrified to hear what she might say.
So he knew he wouldn’t ask her to come, even before she returned his call.
He’d sat down on the hard plastic of the hospital waiting room chairs, shaking, after. Hadn’t moved for nearly ten minutes, until the thought of James, expecting his return, got him up and walking again.
The house did want them there. That was something. And he’d seen an emotion approaching delight in those pain-shuttered eyes, when James had walked in, Michael’s hand hovering protectively next to his elbow. When James had looked around at all their familiar furniture, all set up and waiting for them, welcoming them home.
“How…”
“You have a lot of friends. And I might’ve had to let Benedict borrow my key to get into our flat.”
“You let Benedict…and the place is still standing? No, never mind...This is fantastic. You’re fantastic. I love you.”
“I love you. As far as I know everything’s intact. Both there and here. Want a tour?”
James had smiled at him, sunlight falling in through the wide windows and tangling in long eyelashes like strands of gold, and said, “Yes.” Michael’d held his hand, the whole way through. And James had held his right back, and those fingertips had been warm.
They weren’t always warm, though. Not all the time.
The small things hurt the most, he’d realized. Unexpected shocks like tiny earthquakes under his feet, once-sure footing dropping away into nothingness. Taking bits of his heart along into the abyss.
The small things. The look in blue eyes at every unanticipated sound. The way that almost all of James’s sweaters hung too largely, now, around thin shoulders. The fact that they’d spent the first week washing James’s hair over the sink, because the knife-cuts-and the other injuries-remained so raw and unhealed that they hurt, when immersed in the shower.
James could manage to shower, and to do so without assistance, by now, but Michael stood outside the door each time anyway, just in case.
Other things, too. Things he couldn’t even think about, without a red haze sweeping over his vision. Red, like the tiny spots of blood he’d found, once or twice, on James’s underwear, when he’d been doing laundry. James didn’t know he’d seen those. Never would.
He’d found himself searching those crushed-sapphire eyes for pain, every time James reappeared from the restroom. Most times he didn’t find any, and then he could breathe again. Sometimes he did. And then another brittle chunk of his heart gave up and crumbled away.
Small things. Life, now.
The nightmares had started the week after they’d moved in.
The day they’d moved in, they’d finished the tour, hand in hand, and then promptly run into an argument. Looking back at that, he almost smiled.
“Come on,” he’d said, “we’ve seen everything, even Kevin’s fascinating light switches, so, you, bed.”
“No.”
“…what?”
“No.”
“What?”
“I’ve been in bed for three weeks. And we’re home now. I-we’re home. No. Not bed. Not yet. Please.”
“Oh,” Michael’d breathed, because he couldn’t say anything else, couldn’t argue with that. “Oh. All right. Um. Couch? At least? Maybe?”
And James had gazed at him, soundlessly, and had skimmed fingertips lightly across Michael’s offered hand, barely touching, not accepting support, not this time, but making contact. Had nodded. Assent. Agreement. Compromise. Michael’d nearly wept.
He’d had that sensation more often, recently, than he could ever recall in his life. He wasn’t certain he could survive much more.
But he could. He had to. He’d be there for James. He’d promised to be there for James. Always. They’d been-no. He wasn’t thinking about that. About the words he’d said, that night. About any promises they might’ve made, James laughing in his arms, saying, exuberantly, yes!
James could barely say the word yes, now. That first sound. So complicated.
So he hadn’t wept then. Not then.
Only after the second nightmare.
Not after the first nightmare. He’d still thought that might be the end of it.
Two weeks after that, after he’d realized that James couldn’t sleep for more than one or two hours in their bed, not even close to making it through the night, he’d stumbled out into the kitchen, aching everywhere, inside and out, and had dug out all the damn pamphlets, and had read them all under the accusatory glare of the overhead lights, abused eyelids struggling against sleep.
James couldn’t sleep. Not for more than a few hours. Not without dreams. Not without those dreams.
Michael didn’t know what to do. What he could do. What anyone might be able to do.
He’d tried sleeping down the hall, in the guest bedroom. He’d actually suggested that option even earlier, as early as the very first night, when he’d put one foot inside their as yet unused bedroom and James had looked at their previously alluring shared bed and then at him and had visibly straightened those shoulders and Michael had realized, horrified, that he shouldn’t be asking that much so soon.
But James had raised those eyebrows at him with an expression that said please don’t tell me we’ve lost this too, please stay, please don’t leave me and Michael’d sighed and gotten into bed fully clothed, leaving inches of petrified space and layers of fabric barricades between them.
And those first few nights had seemed to work, despite the invisible rocks of tension in the bed beside them. For boulders, they’d been startlingly unobtrusive companions. And he’d let himself, just for a second, think that perhaps they might become pebbles, over time.
After the fourth night, the second nightmare-or rather string of nightmares, since James could never go back to sleep, after, still seeing those predatory images every time he tried-Michael’d moved down the hall for the next night, hearing James’s unspoken protest, and, worse, the subsequent lack of protest: James wouldn’t, or didn’t know how to, argue with Michael’s decisions, anymore.
He’d thought it might help. He’d not wanted to sleep anywhere other than next to James; every atom of his body shouted that it could be a disastrous idea. But he’d also read the fear, in those cracked-gemstone eyes. In the seconds it took for James, waking up, to comprehend the other body in the bed as someone he might be able to trust.
So he had thought it might help. Might help to remove that other body, the physical pressure of presence, in the dark.
It hadn’t helped. Of course not.
He’d been lying in the coldness of the guest room utterly sleepless, head and stomach and every other damn body part all throbbing with trepidation and dread and the knowledge of how quietly James had nodded, accepting all the reasons and rationalizations for Michael not sharing their bed. And he hadn’t heard James wake up, sobbing, in the night. And he’d thought that possibly it’d worked, that the move, the space, the distance, might’ve finally allowed James to feel safe.
He’d ventured back down the hall, through all the unmoving shadows and dim spaces of the still-new house, unhelpfully unknowable shapes painted in the obsidian-glass shades of night, holding his breath. Needing to know.
Had found James curled into a tiny ball, shivering, on the floor. Had registered, shocked, the pillow soaked with tears, with the imprint of that wet mouth, where all the pain had landed, smothered in fabric and feathers because James hadn’t wanted to let it out of the room.
The too-blue eyes had flickered up when he’d come in, then darted away, helplessly, quicksilver and bruises in the darkness, and Michael had known exactly why James couldn’t sleep in the expansive sprawl of bed without company, and he’d sat down on the floor beside the small huddle of pathetic hair and averted eyes and damp pillow, and had waited. Until James had breathed in and looked up again, and Michael’d smiled, while his heart cracked open along immeasurable fault lines in his chest, and held out a hand: bed?
James had swallowed and nodded and accepted his hand and they’d both slid gingerly back between whisper-soft sheets, and Michael had never left him alone, at night, not once, since then.
Neither, of course, had the nightmares.
Michael’d suggested, tentatively, counseling. The brochures had said as much; the doctors he’d telephoned, despairingly, had recommended psychiatric evaluation. James had looked at him with shattered eyes: you think I’m crippled.
He’d never offered that suggestion again.
James always woke up trying to scream. And then collapsing in pain, from the force of agony, flaying renewed rawness into his not-yet-healed throat.
This particular night was no different.
This nightmare, James thought from within it, very clearly, was different.
For one thing, it wasn’t about him.
Not exactly, anyway. He was still in it-he was there, could feel the cold metal bite of handcuffs holding him in place-but the darkly outlined shape who walked through his dreams wasn’t walking toward him. Not this time.
There was another person. Also pinned to a bed, across the room. James couldn’t quite see the face, not with those wide shoulders, that heavy presence, larger than life the way he always was in these dreams, standing between them.
He heard the laugh, though. He always heard that laugh, in the dreams. Sometimes he heard it when awake, too, and spun around looking for the ominous shape, even while he knew it wouldn’t be looming behind him. He tried to control that instinct, as much as he could. He recognized the look in Michael’s eyes, each time he failed.
And, as if prompted by that memory, the monstrous figure moved, and James saw the other person sharing his nightmare, and it was Michael.
With the irrational lucidity of the dreams, he knew that that was because of him. Because Michael had come looking for him, and his reward, for trying to rescue James, could only be pain.
The laugh echoed, in his head. Through the shadows. Off the glinting blade of a knife.
James tried to beg, to implore, to make it stop, to do something, anything, but he couldn’t speak. No voice left. That had been taken away from him too. He pulled on the handcuffs, but they held him ruthlessly to the spot.
He knew his lips were moving, shaping words-please, please don’t, please hurt me instead, not him, I’ll do anything you want just don’t hurt him-but the noise wouldn’t come out. His throat was on fire, from all the ineffective screams he kept forcing through it.
Michael, he tried to cry, I’m sorry, this is my fault, all of it, I’m not worth this, I love you, I’m SORRY-
“-James? James, please, this is a nightmare, it isn’t real, please wake up, come on-”
Michael. Michael’s voice. Saying his name. Pleading with him, love and fear streaking in like a shooting star through all the black.
A nightmare. Of course it was. Not real.
“I’m here, James, I’m right here, next to you, you’re here too, you’re safe, it’s just a dream, I promise, please-”
He fought his way out of the persistent shrouds of dream-fragments, even though they clung to his thoughts like spider’s-webs. Opened his eyes, to find more darkness.
Not total darkness, though. Michael’s eyes, wide with worry even in the lack of light, caught and offered the only available bits of brightness in the room. James never had quite figured out what color those eyes were; they shimmered from blue to green to grey, with changes in Michael’s mood, with laughter, with intensity, with concern. Right now they looked almost silver, iced-over lakewater under the distant hints of moonlight.
He blinked. Focused on those eyes. Whispered, “You’re here,” because the taste of horror still crawled across his tongue, and he could see, for a terrifying second, Michael stretched out and wounded and bleeding because of him.
“Oh god-James-yes, I’m here, yes, and so are you, I love you-oh, James, your voice, you were making sounds and-don’t talk, please-”
Michael was sitting up, tensely, next to him, not quite touching him, hands held out helplessly as if uncertain of their purpose; James breathed in, and out, and felt the air enter and leave his lungs, and the chilly presence of the pillow under his cheek. Solid. Not the insubstantial stuff of nightmares. And Michael was real, too.
“You-do you want the Vicodin, or something? Anything? Please tell me-I mean don’t tell me, not out loud, just write something down, anything you need me to do. I can-just tell me what you need. Please.”
Michael’s voice, like the empty hands, carried despairing undercurrents, exhausted concern and the bleakness of futility, even when the words were offers of help, of hope. James breathed in again. Gazed at those tired, determined, wonderfully changeable eyes. He did love those eyes.
“No Vicodin. Not as bad as you think. Promise.”
“You-if you say so, but-I don’t want you to be in pain, you don’t need to-to try to be strong, or-not for me. I love you no matter what, James. Always.”
“I know.” Michael still hadn’t moved any closer, no doubt convinced that physical contact would be a terrible idea. And that beloved voice sounded so ragged, worn to impossible thinness with lack of sleep. That was his fault, too.
Eventually, James knew, Michael would ask the usual questions: Can I touch you? Do you want to talk about it? Those questions always came after the nightmares; James always answered yes to the first, and no to the second, and let Michael’s long fingers wrap themselves around his hands, in the night, until the shaking stopped. He could let his hands be held, as long as he had time to remind himself that those fingers were Michael’s.
But suddenly eventually felt too far away. He didn’t want to wait. He wanted to feel Michael’s warmth against him, to touch and be touched, to know that they were both there and together and not bleeding and very real. No matter what.
“Michael?”
“What is it?” Michael set his hand on the pillow, halfway between them, a forlorn little gesture that tugged at the broken strings of James’s heart. “Do you want the Vicodin after all? I knew you were-”
“No. You.”
“What?”
“Sorry. Um.” He had to pick words carefully; they did hurt, more than slightly, but other things were more important right now. “I want you. To hold me. Please.”
Michael stopped breathing. He could hear the absence of sound all around them.
“James…you…are you asking…are you sure you want…”
James nearly laughed. Reached over and picked up Michael’s lonely hand in his, instead. “Love you. And yes. Asking.”
“Then…Yes. Of course. You-how do you want-”
James found himself smiling, in the dark, at that disbelieving, hesitant, joyous answer. “Maybe just put your arm around me?”
“I can do that.”
“You feel good like this. Maybe the other arm, too.”
“I love you,” Michael whispered, into his hair. James whispered back, against the faded fabric of Michael’s t-shirt, worn soft by years of washing, “I love you too,” and let all the heat soak into his bones, beneath his skin, and chase away the lingering cold.
After an ageless stretch of time, enveloped by a feeling he’d decided might be almost like security, he added, quietly, “Thank you,” and felt the arms tighten a hairsbreadth more.
“For what?”
“For…being here, I think. For being real.”
“For being…You said that when you woke up, just now. That I was here. You don’t think I’d-you know I’m not going to leave you, right? Not ever.”
Not ever was an enormous promise. James knew that all too well. He hadn’t thought he’d ever end up back in that house, with that figure from his dreams, again. Until he had.
But Michael meant the words as they were spoken. He knew that, too. So he very deliberately replayed them, in his head, and then chose to accept them. Because that was a choice he could still make, for both of them, right now.
Anyway, that hadn’t been the reason behind his own reply. So he could truthfully offer reassurance, at least on that front. “I know. That’s not why. But thank you for that too.”
“Don’t-wait, then why? Something you were dreaming about? Because your dreams should know I won’t leave you, too.”
He couldn’t hold back a huff of near-amusement, at that. “Sounds like something I’d say.”
“I know. That’s why I said it. Do you want to tell me?”
James left his head on Michael’s chest, while thinking that over. Listened to the sound of the heartbeat, as recognizable as his own. “You smell like fabric softener.”
“I did the laundry this morning. Is it bothering you?”
“No. I like it. I like you. That was what made this one so bad. Because it was you.”
“What?! I was-in your dreams I was-James, you know I would never hurt you-”
“No!”
“Don’t-”
“…oh, ow, that was stupid-”
“-shout! James-”
“-no, it’s fine, I’m fine. Stupid, but fine. Promise. I just probably shouldn’t yell at you for a while…but no, though. Of course you wouldn’t. I know that. I do know that.”
“You are not fine. Then what was-”
“It was you being hurt. In the dream. He was hurting you. Not me. And I couldn’t-I kept trying to stop it, to scream, to-but I couldn’t-I couldn’t help you.”
“James,” Michael breathed again, “I love you,” the despairing collection of syllables held up like a cracking shield, a last-ditch talisman against evil. They settled into the featureless night, brushing up against sheets and furniture and walls with a feather-light caress.
“I love you, too. And my dreams do know you wouldn’t leave me. That was why you were there. Because you tried to save me. And I-I am letting you be hurt, aren’t I? With this. With all of this. I’m sorry.”
Silence, for a moment; then sounds, hastily muffled by a sympathetic pillowcase, and Michael’s cheek shifted away from his head, leaving desolate space behind. “James, don’t-”
“Are you crying? I didn’t mean to make you cry.” He tipped his own head up. Found those pale eyes again, noticing the new wetness where the moonlit lakes had swollen and spilled. “I don’t know if I can fix this. I can’t tell you if-when-this is going to get better. And I know that’s going to keep hurting you. I would…I’d not hurt you, if I knew how to make it stop. But I don’t. But I can apologize. I know-I do know how hard this has been. Everything you’ve done. Are still doing. And I love you. And I am sorry.”
He did have to stop talking, then, because the piled-up sentences were clawing jagged lines into his throat on the way out. Something else, he thought. Something that wasn’t words.
One of his hands had gotten trapped between them, pinned between his chin and Michael’s shoulder; he freed it, gingerly. Looked at Michael’s face.
Kissed his own fingertip, lightly. Set the finger over Michael’s lips, on top of all the saltwater tracks. Lifted it away; prolonged contact might be asking too much, but he’d had to make the gesture, at least. Then he waited.
Michael blinked. Stared at him, through all the tears. Blinked again.
James raised both eyebrows at him. Attempted to mouth, silently, your turn to talk, you know!
“…what? Also…I knew you were in pain, you shouldn’t be trying to talk at all…and, James…you kissed me.”
Well, sort of. He tried to add, to the end of that statement, I’m not in THAT much pain, still no Vicodin! and Michael shook his head, evidently baffled, but there was that hesitant joy again, pulling at the edges of lips, the corners of eyes.
“I don’t…were those even words? Was that last part about the laundry?”
James sighed, voicelessly. Rolled his eyes. Lifted his hand again, and set it over Michael’s heart. Tapped his fingers, twice, in time with the steady rhythm. Saw Michael start, very slowly, to smile.
“All right, I did know you probably weren’t talking about the laundry…You’re touching me. You do know you’re touching me, right? You…” Michael touched his own lips, gently. The same place James’s finger had rested. “I don’t know what to say. I love you. You’re incredible. You amaze me. Every day. And…about your apology…I’ll listen if you think you need to say those things, but you don’t need to be sorry. I said once that I’d be here for you forever, anything you needed, and I meant that. I’m never not going to mean that. And of course this hurts. Every time I see you in pain, every time I can’t-take your pain away, somehow-that hurts. But…you kissed me, just now.”
James did have to interject, at that one, with a small wobble of his hand, side to side: not exactly a kiss. Not quite.
“I know. But it was-it felt like-and you asked me to hold you and you’re looking at me right now like you want to smile and that’s the best thing I’ve ever fucking seen. So I’m not ever going to care about whether it hurts, as long as I can maybe get you to look at me like this one more time, sometime. Because I do love you.”
In the quiet, the little fragments of moonlight, peeking around the shutters, spread out around the room. Glowed, wordlessly serene. Settled down, finding new homes in the folds and valleys of sheets, the upright lines of dresser drawers.
James tested his voice, cautiously, in the wake of that gleaming encouragement. Working again, if rustily. Better. “I love you, too. And this is good. You holding me. Good.”
“So now I’m never letting you go. Thank you, by the way. For telling me. About this one-tonight, I mean, this nightmare. I want you to-if you want to tell me, you know I’m here, right? Anything you want to say.”
“I know.” He watched the moonlight play with Michael’s hair, dyeing it in silver-washed blond. Michael as a blond, he thought, amused.
“You are smiling. Are you-”
“I like your hair. You said…anything, right? That I want to say?”
“I like your hair, too. I love your hair. And yes. Anything, ever. Please.”
“Then…” James looked down, briefly. At his hand, still resting over Michael’s heart. Then back up. “Sometimes I’m angry at him.”
“Only sometimes?” Michael pulled him in more closely, wrapping them up together. Bordering on too close, really, but James took a deep breath and focused on the words, instead, the sensation of them rumbling through Michael’s chest, bone-deep vibrations against his skin. “Because I’m angry at him all the time. That he could do this-could hurt you-”
“Us.”
“What?”
“He didn’t only hurt me. He hurt us. And I hate that. I hate-I thought I was done. With this. With him. I thought-but I’m not. And now you’re hurt too. Just-not fair.” He fought not to let the last word tremble. Failed.
Michael lifted one hand, tentatively; when James didn’t flinch-which took some effort, but he was impressed by his success-Michael smiled, faintly, and brushed fingertips across his cheek. Then higher, the fingers weaving through his hair, stroking, caressing; he expected himself to pull back, but ended up leaning into the motion, instead. The hand, there, felt somehow right, easing the sharp spikes of the omnipresent headache, the hurt and rage and fear.
“You know,” Michael murmured, after a second, “I think I’m glad you said that.”
“You are? Because I’m not.” He’d never hated anyone before. Not before this. Even after the first time, he’d been able to set it all aside, to say I’m fine and I’m going on with my life, and anger had seemed useless anyway: he’d walked into that house, years ago, willingly.
But he was angry now. At the uncaring injustice of events, at having to face it all again, at having Michael, this time, dragged along with him into the quicksand. And he couldn’t do anything about it. Couldn’t even look anyone in the eyes and demand to know why. The only person who could answer that question was dead.
And he hated feeling this way, emotions he’d never known he could have, more than all the rest of it combined.
“I am.” Michael rested the hand on his cheek, momentarily. Gentle. Reassuring. “It means you’re human, after all, you know.”
“…sorry, what? Was that a concern? Because I might be not exactly-or less than-but I’m pretty sure my species hasn’t changed.”
“You’re not less than anything. Don’t say that. I just meant…I have been worried. You-you never talked about it. About him. How you felt. And you should be angry, not-you deserve to be angry. It isn’t fair. But instead you apologized. To me.”
“I-oh.” He decided that Michael wasn’t holding him too closely, after all. He could stay right there. They both could. “Sorry-”
“James…”
“I mean sorry for scaring you. I just didn’t-you’ve been doing so much. For me. For us. I couldn’t ask you to-I couldn’t tell you. Too ugly.” Might not’ve made sense; Michael was still looking worried. “Not me. I’m not-me, anymore.”
“Oh,” Michael said, after a blank second of shocked silence, “oh, no, James, that’s not true, that isn’t-you’re still you, I promise. You-of course you hate him, and this, and I hate all of this too, and you don’t think that about me, you still love me-”
“Of course I-”
“Then don’t ever think that. You-you told me that you thought this house was lonely and you said you liked my hair and you worry about hurting me even when you-and you said this felt good, me holding you, and this feels good for me too, you know that. All of those things are-you’re still you. I know that. I know you, and I know who you are. And I’m in love with the person you are. And I always will be. Is that-does that help? At all?”
James sighed. Let himself relax, into Michael’s fabric-softener scented embrace. Let some of the heartache heal itself, too, at last. “Yes.”
“Yes?” Real surprise, in that echo. As if Michael hadn’t expected anything to help. So he said it again.
Michael said something into his hair, this time, that sounded like “…so fucking incredible,” and James whispered back, “yes, you are,” and got a wondering little laugh. “I meant you. And I didn’t think you heard that.”
“Um…I can still read your mind, too. Sometimes. Michael…I’m in love with you, too. I don’t…I don’t know a lot of things, right now. But I do know that. Just so you know. And…do you think you could…I think I’m tired. Now. Stay here?”
“James…you…really fucking incredible. Do you want me to keep holding you? Or if you want to try to sleep I can let go-”
“I think,” James told him, “I can sleep with you holding me. I kind of like the fabric softener,” and the memory he took with him, drifting off into blessedly uninterrupted slumber, was of Michael’s expression, in that moment, lit up by the first elated ray of morning sunrise.