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haloud · 5 years

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into the palm of your hand ch. 2

- ao3 -

Jake is tall. That’s the first and only thing Michael notices about him. He has to unfold himself out of the chair to avoid banging his knees on the bottom of the table, and when he manages and pulls himself up to height he towers a good six inches over Alex and Michael both. He has a nice smile, too, if you’re into that sort of thing. And he’s beaming as the two of them approach, comes out to meet them with his hand already outstretched to shake, and Alex takes it, Jake pumping his arm up and down while he grins so big his face must be killing him. Michael hangs back to let the reunion happen, hands in his pockets, thumbs in his belt loops so he can tug at them with all the nervous twitching in his hands.

The restaurant is nice, but not too nice, not even by Roswell standards. Jake’s clearly made an attempt with his clothes, but his attempt is a business-casual button down with the top button undone and the sleeves rolled up to reveal his tanned forearms. His slacks are pressed and neat as a pin, but Michael won’t judge too harshly for that. His hair is still close-cropped like it was Halloween of 2009. He’s…yeah, he’s handsome, in a normal and kind way, an honest way that reminds Michael of the smell of the old hayloft in the summer and the feeling of straw on his back and warm hands exploring his body on a scratchy old blanket. Michael doesn’t trust easy, but if Jake’s calling up memories like that, he can let himself relax a little bit.

“Jake, this is Michael. My boyfriend.”

“Hey,” Michael says, taking Jake’s hand. His handshake is a little more subdued than the workout Alex got, but Jake is still firm and eager, and he hasn’t dropped that grin of his.

“Thanks for coming! I was a little worried when Alex said he’d like to bring you—thought I might be signing myself up for the third degree or something—but when I found out it was the same Michael I knew I had to meet you.”

“The same Michael?”

“Yeah.” Jake winks at him, and Michael’s eyebrows go up. “I’m happy for you guys.”

“Uh…thanks?”

“Should we sit?” Alex cuts in. The tips of his ears are bright red, and Michael’s eyebrows climb even further towards his hairline.

“It really is so good to see you,” Jake says as they take their chairs.

The second they’re seated, Alex grabs Michael’s knee in a vice grip, nails digging into the denim. His hand is a little sweaty, clammy when Michael covers it to try and settle him. Is Michael being here part of what’s making him so nervous?

“Gotta say, I was surprised to hear you re-upped this time,” Jake continues.

Alex clears his throat. “Yeah, well…you know how it is.”

“I do. And if nothing else, I’m glad it’s giving me an opportunity to work with you again.” Another ready smile follows right on the tail of the last one, even if this one is a little more subdued and sympathetic. “How do you feel about it, Michael?” He takes a sip of water, and his muddy hazel eyes are suddenly hawklike over the rim of the glass.

“Uh.” Alex’s hand digs into him harder, and Michael rubs the back of his hand with his thumb. Jake hasn’t even opened his menu yet; he watches and waits for his answer with that smile on his face and something dangerous in his eyes. “Uh,” Michael glances over at Alex, who is laser focused on his glass of water, face like stone. “Well, I mean, it’s what he—what we thought was best at the time, and since he was able to get it in his contract that he’d be staying put for a while, I was…fine.”

Oh, you know, I’m still working through the soul-crushing guilt that not only did Alex sell more of his life to the military to help me and mine but also I that I was too busy trying to drown myself in household chemicals to talk about it with him, but every relationship is a work in progress! Anyway, I’m an alien who’s wanted by the same government you serve for blowing up one of the black site prisons they use to experiment on my people and also for existing, how’s your mother in law doing?

“Fine, huh?”

“Jake,” Alex says.

“Okay, fine, I’m being a little intense. I’ve got family who don’t get why I stay,” he directs to Michael, then to Alex he says, “I got in a huge fight with Sarah over it, like, five hours before I got on the plane. Sorry for being weird.” He laughs and looks genuinely contrite.

Michael tries to relax, but Alex doesn’t lose any of the stiffness in his posture. He does at least stop squeezing Michael’s knee like he’s trying to rip his kneecap off, though, and Michael massages the back of his hand again.

“How is Sarah?” Alex asks, then to Michael he explains, “Jake’s sister.”

Jake shrugs, his massive hands coming up in an exaggerated ‘what can you do’ gesture. “She’s doing well. Divorced and remarried since the last time you saw her. Went back to school and got a teaching degree, and she’s real happy with the new guy, so. It’s just we still don’t see eye to eye on most things. But I’m happy for her.” He fishes his phone out of his pocket and holds it out to them, flicking through an album of pictures of what looks to be Sarah’s wedding day. From the pictures, Michael wouldn’t be surprised if she was even taller than Isobel, so it must run in the family. The last one in the album is of Jake on the dance floor with a guy in a matching vest, the two of them chest to chest and mouth to mouth, off in their own little world.

“That’s Rohit, my boyfriend. He couldn’t get away from work to come out here with me, but he’s visiting for the first time in about three weeks.”

Michael makes a sympathetic noise. “That sucks for you guys. Been together long?”

“Almost five years, right?” Alex says. “After you had your appendix out, wasn’t it?”

“Okay, the pictures are going away now,” Jake replies, his skin showing a blush way brighter than Alex’s does, “Didn’t realize I’d be roped into telling that story just for showing off my guy but okay I see how it is.”

Alex grins his sharp grin, finally looking up, and after one last brief squeeze his hand comes off Michael’s knee. “You should have been more prepared then, Lieutenant.”

“Let’s just say that the man I love is as patient as I am susceptible to the aftereffects of anesthesia and leave it at that, huh?”

Alex laughs, a true rocking-back-in-his-seat laugh, and it sets Michael fully at his ease, most comfortable letting Alex lead the emotional tone of the conversation. With the tension finally cut, Michael lets himself lean forward and rest his chin on his palm, watching Alex talk, letting the conversation flow over him without cutting in while Alex reconnects to his friend, talking more with his hands, laughing more easily. Jake seems kind of contagious that way, a smile and a laugh for everything—and he doesn’t try to freeze Michael out of the conversation, either, even though Michael is content to just sit there and not really listen and watch Alex talk and move. He’s gorgeous tonight, his shirt open a little at the neck, his long-fingered hand back on Michael’s knee, warm and caressing this time.

The conversation flows for a good couple hours. Michael is a convenient audience for them to share stories and relive them a little bit over again. Even when they’ve paid the bill and are getting up to leave, it’s with promises to do this again when Rohit is in town and Michael smiling to himself with a wry little smile because he’s the double dating kind now and goddamn if he isn’t happy about it.

Then, when they reach the parking lot, Jake stops.

“Hey, do you mind if I borrow him for a couple minutes before we head out?” Jake asks, inclining his chin toward Michael. Alex raises an eyebrow and glances between them, and Michael just shrugs his agreement.

With a bemused smile, Alex says, “Sure. I’ll be in the car.” He gives Michael’s shoulder a squeeze as he passes, and Michael looks around to watch him go, eyes on his back until he slips behind the driver’s side door.

Michael shoves his hands in his pockets for lack of anything else to do with them. If Jake wants to corner him to read him the riot act or tell him he’s not good enough for Alex or something he could have at least had the decency to do it somewhere Michael had something to lean against or sink into, to hold him up or have his back.

“You got the height advantage, but I’ll warn you—I’m scrappy,” Michael drawls.

“I’m…not going to hit you? What the hell, man.”

“Just like to be prepared. I got one of those faces.” Michael gives Jake a grin and a wink, but all Jake gives back is a concerned look starting to border on shrink-y, so Michael hurries on, “What’s up?”

“Okay. Okay.” He takes a huge breath like he’s psyching himself up for something. “There’s no socially acceptable way to say this, really, so I’m going to jump in.”

“I’ve never been socially acceptable a day in my life. Shoot.”

“Okay.” He takes another huge breath. “The first guy I loved was killed in a drive by when we were eighteen.”

Michael rocks back a bit at that, at the ice-cold awkward shock of someone else’s old grief. His eyes go huge and wide and he scrambles for something to say, something that’s different from the plain shit people spout.

Jake doesn’t wait for him to find it, though. “He was coming out of a club and a car jumped the curb and it was just…over. There was no real way to know if it was a hate crime or if the driver was just drunk. I was two hours away at school. We didn’t talk every day, so I didn’t even know for two weeks. His parents wouldn’t even let me go to the funeral, because I turned their son gay, and if he hadn’t been at a gay club then he’d still be alive.”

“Fuck, man.”

“I know. And I’m sorry to dump all that on you, but it’s important for what I need to tell you. It’s why I joined the Air Force in the first place—I was lost, depressed. I couldn’t keep going in school and I couldn’t stand the thought of going back to my hometown where everything would remind me of him, so I dropped out and joined up. And then I met Alex.”

Michael coughs to hide the catch of his breath. He can picture it so clearly—the way Alex looked with his hair shorn and his dark, dulled eyes set straight ahead, like the way he looked when Michael hid behind the neighbor’s car and risked getting hauled in for trespassing or—caught—so he could see Alex off that day he left to report for training.

“I was—I mean, I was a mess. Could barely keep it together. Kept getting everyone in trouble because of it, and he was so…when he cornered me one day, I honest to god thought he was going to kill me. But he helped me instead. Taught me how to keep my head down and survive, and I just…my story just came out. And after that, I didn’t know why until way later when he finally told me about what happened with his father before he enlisted, but we just kind of clung to each other.”

And again, Michael is relieved that Alex wasn’t as alone as Michael was, that even as tangled up and hurting and hollow as he must have been, he had someone to help him, someone to share that piece of himself with even when it was against the law. Michael owes this man, even if he wouldn’t accept it, even if Alex would deny it too. Michael’s in his debt.

“We dated for a little over a year before we broke up because we didn’t have a whole lot in common other than a little bit of shared trauma. If you haven’t noticed, I’m kind of chatty.” He winks. “And since I’d already spilled my tragic backstory, I wanted to talk about Jordan, like, all the time. Things I missed. Regrets I had. Fears. And Alex was a great listener…but not so great at reciprocity. He’d never let me in, never let me take any of his burdens on. Made me feel like a real dick. But there’s one thing he did let me do. Insisted, actually.”

“You don’t have to tell me this,” Michael says. He leans back as far as he can go without actually taking a step back, trying to give Jake space, trying not to look too interested. He’s hungry, yeah, for any scrap of information he can get about this part of Alex’s life. But if Alex wants him to know, he has to trust that Alex will tell him. It took a massive government conspiracy to get Michael to open up the first time. He can’t be overly critical of Alex’s struggle to do the same.

“I think I kind of do, actually.” Jake shoves his hands into his pockets and lets out a long breath, steaming the cold night air. “I don’t know if it’s for me or if it’s for Alex or what, but I think I should tell you this. You know…I look at him and I still see that nineteen year old kid. My escape. The only gay guy I knew, the only person who knew my grief. It’s not especially healthy. It’s a big part of the reason we’ve been avoiding each other for half a decade. But yeah, I think I need to do this for him more than anyone else.”

Well. What’s Michael supposed to do with that? At seventeen Alex had big, expressive eyes and he licked his lips as a nervous habit and Michael could have sat for hours in the too loud violent cafeteria watching him paint his nails from four tables away. He didn’t know Alex at nineteen, not really, but Jake did. And Michael wants to honor every version of Alex everywhere.

He sends a quick text: Jake caught me up talking about the good old days. You ok with that?

Alex types, then erases, then does so a couple more times before a reply finally comes through: I love you. Tell him I said thank you.

Michael slides his phone back into his pocket. “Okay. Hit me.”

“It’s just this.”

Jake holds out his phone, open to his contacts. And right there: Alex’s Michael.

Michael’s fingers tremble, just slightly, as he reaches out to take it, to hold it in his hands and marvel over it and what it could mean.

Jake shoves his hands back in his pockets. “I’ve had you in my phone for nine years. Don’t know if the number’s any good anymore, of course. But you were the one thing…he never wanted to talk about the past. He never wanted to talk about you. But before we deployed, he asked me…if anything happened to him, if I would talk to you. Tell you he was sorry. That he was always thinking of you. ‘Hear his voice for me one last time.’ That’s how he worded it. I’ve never been able to forget those words.”

Michael’s mouth is too numb to form any words at all. He’s all—cracked open, Alex has reached inside his chest and pried his ribs apart. Michael used to write Alex letters and burn them in his fire pit because smoke becomes air and particulates travel on the wind and there was as much chance of Alex breathing him in from a world away as there was him opening any letter Michael sent him. Then there are the letters he kept, the ones full of hope and pain and—Michael kept them, just in case, like he kept one of Alex’s too-small black hoodies, so that he’d have something to bury if the nightmare came to pass.

Alex’s Michael. It’s there like teardrops smearing the ink off his ten cent ballpoint pen. It’s there like a cotton sleeve held to his cheek on a sleepless night.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Jake says, slipping his phone out of Michael’s limp hand. The man has a smile for every occasion, and the one he’s wearing right now is sweet and sad. “I really am just so happy you guys found each other in the end. It was really nice to meet you, Michael. Thanks for helping me keep a promise, yeah?”

And with a jaunty two-fingered wave, Jake turns around and heads for his car, those long legs eating up space so quick that before Michael can process him leaving, he’s gone.

His phone buzzes: Just saw Jake’s car leaving. Everything ok?

Fine. Headsd yiour way, he responds. It takes him four tries to type the message even that legibly, his hands are shaking so bad.

He nearly jogs across the parking lot, fumbles with the handle before he can yank the door open and climb inside, climb over the gearshift still clumsy and needy to stuff his unsteady hands into Alex’s pockets.

“Hey,” Alex croons, cupping the back of his neck when Michael ducks in to rub his forehead against his shoulder, sawing out rough breaths in the space between them.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Alex says, holding him close. “Whatever he had to say, it’s in the past. I’m here. You’re here. We are.”

There was a time when Michael laid on his back and begged the sky to let him stop needing Alex Manes, and there was a time it broke him that the begging didn’t work. And now he’s here, with Alex’s voice present and physical in his ear, the whole biological process of speaking, from the vibration of his chest to the movement of his throat and lips and tongue to the way his breath blows past the outside of Michael’s ear, and he’s home. He’s not alone.

“Michael?” A little bit of fear creeps into Alex’s voice, so Michael pulls back to look at him, blinks away the wobbly film of tears in his eyes.

“I just. Love you. God, I love you,” Michael rasps. He’s never going to stop saying it, now that he’s allowed, and it’s never going to feel any different. Like ripping the Band-Aid off a cut that’s all healed and feeling fresh air on the skin beneath.

“I love you too,” Alex whispers back, a kiss pressed to Michael’s temple, his other hand coming up to grab his waist.

“Take me home,” Michael says, but he doesn’t let go, not to let Alex drive or for any other reason, not for several long minutes.

#my fic #malex

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