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His hand leaves a red smear as he clambers out of the car, knees hitting the dirt hard enough to make his teeth rattle and his bones ache. The sharp searing pain up his side steals his breath again and he presses his hand to his side. It's hot and warm and wet and sticky and he knows that the makeshift bandage he wrapped himself in to try and stem the bleeding was failing miserably.
It's over, finally, and he knows that it won't be resurrected, can’t be resurrected. Even if somebody tries, manages to scrape together pieces of the shattered whole Alex left behind, the last vestiges of Max & Isobel Evans and Michael Guerin have been burned from the system. The data that was held on the alien DNA from seventy years of experiments that allowed them to create a genetic bomb was corrupted beyond repair and the prototype destroyed. It had taken Alex months of work, hours and hours of not moving from computer screens, infiltrating bases and lying to everyone to keep them safe but he was done and it was over and there was no way that it could ever hurt them again.
He hadn't found other survivors, but then, that had never really been the hope. It would have been nice but Alex has always been a realist. It's how he knows that this is it for him. He survived being blown up and losing part of himself in the Middle East, bleeding out on the sand while Barnes screamed overhead, dark red pouring out over his own face for a medivac. He survived his father and having parts of him broken and patched together roughly with fishing wire and a shaking hand.
It makes sense that at the end of the war he doesn't make it.
He grits his teeth - come the fuck on, Manes - and staggers to his feet. His leg aches sharply, stump throbbing in time with the wetness that pulses out of his side and he grabs the backpack from the footwell where he'd left it.
Twenty steps. He can make twenty steps. He starts moving and he thinks it's stupid and he has the worst timing but he needs to do this. He needs to see him one last time and give him the ship piece and know that if Michael wants to leave he can because Alex isn't going to hold him back but if Michael wants to stay he has to know he'll be safe.
His knees give out again and he's so close but he can't get up. He presses his hand against his side and tries to remember how to breathe. There are lights on inside the trailer and Alex knows that he's in there but he can't raise his voice to call. He just hopes the crunch of tires and flash of headlights had caught his attention, that the delay in knocking would make him wonder who it was and come to the door because now... now Alex can't move.
It is enough, by some stroke of luck and happenstance it is enough.
Michael's alerted to the arrival of a visitor by both those things but frowns when a knock doesn't follow. What the hell? He picks himself up off his bed where he's been doodling as he does a lot, trying to figure out his next step. He'd always had this plan: build the ship and get the hell off the planet, but if their homeworld is truly gone as Noah claimed and their entire race was all but wiped out then… what’s really waiting for him out there?
Then again, what is there left for him on Earth?
It’s more difficult than he wants to admit to pull himself from a maudlin swirl of thoughts that aren’t settled by the bitter bite of whiskey and acetone. It takes him a few long moments before he decides, against his better judgement, that he should check out who has driven up but not knocked.
Michael’s barefoot as he pushes open the door to his trailer before his brow knits together in confusion before it gives way to be replaced by concern as he sees Alex fifteen steps away from his trailer, on his knees, clutching his side and is that- In the half-light of the grubby gibbous moon hanging in the sky overhead, Michael can see that Alex is covered in dark, shiny liquid which oozes slowly between the fingers he has pressed firmly against his side.
He doesn't even think about it. He immediately covers the distance and comes to a hurried crouch beside his fallen… friend? Ex-boyfriend? Michael doesn’t even know how to quantify Alex other than as a heartache of somethings, an eternity of almosts.
"Alex," Michael says urgently, hand seeking to cover Alex's their combined touch jointly is pressed against his side in a way that makes Alex hiss in pain, jolting him out of wherever his mind has gone. "Jesus, what happened?"
Alex doesn't respond for a moment, thinking if he opens his mouth he's going to throw up but he's never been one to show weakness when he doesn't have to and he realises that he hasn't thought this through because he doesn't want Michael's last memories of him to be him bleeding out on the steps of the airstream.
"It's over," he manages through gritted teeth and sucked in breaths, shuddering through a gasp as Michael's fingers push even more insistently against his side, covering his own fully and his hands are warm, a heat that's almost enough to replace what's seeping out of him with every passing second. It's ironic how cold the desert is. He sags into Michael's touch, hangs his head and closes his eyes. "It's finished."
Michael's confused and scared, both of which are evident and written across his face like words scrawled hastily on a napkin, and all he can think about is the amount of blood pouring out of Alex and how he can't seem to stop it, the horrible, hot sensation of liquid against his fingers he knows is going to stain his skin long after his hands are clean. "Hey, hey," he says urgently, going for commanding with his tone but his voice is just too tense and he hits frightened desperation. "Keep your eyes open and look at me, Alex. C'mon, man, don't do this to me." And if his voice is breaking then so be it, he doesn’t give it a fuck about whatever he isn’t supposed to let Alex see, doesn’t give a fuck about hiding his broken parts to appear together without his Person when this feels like goodbye. When it feels like whatever Alex is trying to say is final.
"Please, Alex, just hold on, okay? I'll get Max and he'll patch you up, it'll be okay."
Alex laughs a little, hollow and it tastes like copper on his tongue. He doesn't look up - he can't look up because he can hear the fear in Michael's voice and this isn’t what he wanted, so he presses his face against Michael’s shoulder and feels one hand cupping the back of his head even as the pressure on his side gets firmer and he groans a little. The word lurches around him and he shakes his head, feeling his whole body starting to shake. He recognises this feeling. Last time he'd felt like this he'd been surrounded by sand, too. But he wasn't home.
At least here, with Michael's arms around him, he was home.
"I think it's a li- little late for that, Guerin." His words taste like loss and I'm sorry and the world's starting to white out around the edges which is impressive because his vision’s going dark from the centre.
Michael's desperation hits new peaks when it becomes glaringly obvious that Alex is slipping and there is literally nothing he can do but grip him that much tighter and draw him closer. "No, Manes, no, you don't get to do this to me-" He shakes his head and lets out a bitter and almost hysterical laugh.
"But you're sa-sa-safe. They can't hurt you anymore. ‘S what counts." He can hear his words slurring, stumbling as they fall from his lips, and Michael’s shaky inward breath tells him that Michael hears it too.
"I don't care about being safe," Michael insists, his voice cracking again. "Not if you're not with me. Please, Alex, don't - Just look at me, please." He reaches for his face and smooths his thumb over Alex's cheek as he grips at his face desperately, prying it up from where Alex is resting in his shoulder to look at him, but Alex is finding it hard enough to breathe.
Alex’s head lolls into the touch against his cheek and though it's unfocused he manages to look up at Michael. His hand lifts to curl around Michael's wrist, though the squeeze is hardly strong enough to be called that and he manages a small smile. Michael’s stricken face is enough to knock the smile off his lips, closing his eyes and sagging forward again as he stops himself coughing, knowing what’ll spill from his mouth when he does. He can taste it burning at the back of his throat.
"I can't- I can't lose you. I can't." Michael shifts Alex in his arms, back to chest, lips pressed against Alex’s temple and hand pressed as firmly as he dares. He doesn’t know what to do. “Alex, please-”
Alex forces his eyes open again. He looks up at the sky, wanting to turn his head to the side but struggling to do so. The stars are pretty, he thinks, even as he manages to force himself to shift his gaze to the side and Michael’s face swims back into view, sharp angles and shadows and everything Alex ever wanted. But he can see the broken look and wonders if maybe he should have just gone back to the cabin?
"Took a wrong turn on the way home," he teases, eyes shutting for a long moment until he drags them open again. It's hard, the cold's swimming up through his veins, sinking into his bones and he knows this is probably it.
“That’s not funny,” comes the tight response, Michael’s breath choked on a humourless laugh. “Alex- come on, stay with me, it’s gonna be okay. I just gotta call Max and-”
"'s important to me, Michael," his eyelids flutter. "S-safe and ho-me." He wets his lower lip, his throat feels dry. It's cold and he turns into the warmth Michael's pouring out of every part of him like the preemptive grief Alex can feel settling in the air and his eyes close because he can't keep them open anymore, there's a lead weight on his soul and it's fitting that he's paying the price of his family's sins with his life.
As much as he would have liked things to end differently, Alex is at peace; he's done what he needed to. He saved them. "'m sorry, I-"
His expression twists, contorted in a stab of pain and a shudder before consciousness flees and his eyes roll back in his head, going limp and lax in Michael's arms.
Michael's eyes widen in abject horror and dismay as Alex goes limp in his arms and it doesn't seem to matter how many times he cries and pleads with the other man, he's not waking up and all he's doing is gripping and clinging to him in some desperate attempt that maybe if he holds on just long and hard enough that it might turn back time and make it so Alex isn't dying.
"No, no, no," he mutters over and over again, wrecked and broken, as he just rocks with Alex gripped tightly in his arms and he wants to hate his human, for doing this to him, for letting go and for not giving him the chance to make things right but he can't. He can't because he loves him too much and he can't, he just can't, he won't be able to go on if Alex is gone.
He flexes the hand still gripped tightly around the wound in Alex's side as he shakes his head. “Wake up! Please wake up." It's desperate, begging, voice raw and his entire chest feels as though somebody's reached in and ripped his heart out, the vacuum it’s left behind steals his ability to function, he can’t breathe past the roaring emptiness inside of himself.
It's as he buries his face into Alex's hair and just lets his grief overcome him, sobs wracking his body and begging a universe that’s never given him anything to just give him this, give him Alex and he’d never ask for anything again, that his hand begins to glow. He doesn't even realise it until his palm is lit up like a torch shining from inside his skin and pouring energy out of a place deep inside of him that’s so desperate to do something that he taps into Max.
He grits his teeth and shifts, Alex’s limp form laying back on the sand as Michal cries out with the effort it takes, channelling his pain, his hurt, his everything. The strain makes his ears pop and when the built-up energy explodes out of him in a blast he falls to the side, hoping against hope - and he knows how dangerous hope is to someone like him - that whatever just happened is enough to bring Alex back from the place he’s gone to where Michael can’t follow.
The wait for Alex to respond is agonising and Michael’s breathing heavily like he’s just run a marathon, wanting to touch but not wanting to undo whatever he’s done. There’s nothing but the eerie laughter of the coyotes mocking Michael's pain echoing around them, hubcaps clinking together in the cool breeze in a discordant clatter-click. The wind whistles, cool and calculating and uncaring as it tangles in Michael's curls and stings the tears on his cheeks. Alex's body doesn't seem to be touched by the wind, but particles of sand settle over the pant legs of his ABUs, like the desert's already trying to take him away from Michael. He wants to shout but he doesn’t have the strength. His arms are shaking, shuddering but he can’t move.
And Alex- Alex isn’t moving.
Somewhere else, for Alex, there's nothing. Silence and darkness and stillness then there’s everything. Energy rushes through him like a lightning bolt splitting an oak tree. He's flooded with warmth and grief and sadness and desperation. His mind shrieks with cries of Don't leave me, don't leave me, don’t leave me, don't you fucking leave me behind. The world rushes in swirls of purple and blue and black, of galaxies and spiralling nebulas and the feeling that home isn't as far away as he'd thought, though Alex has known for a long time that home isn’t a place. Home is a person but his person hadn't wanted it to be home and so he's done his best to make the planet hospitable. To make the planet a suitable home for his home.
Breath and life pour into his body like a waterfall crashes over a cliff and he gasps, bolting upright, confusion ripping through him and his hand immediately drops to his side. His shirt's still sticky with blood, congealed and cooling rapidly against his skin but it doesn't hurt and there's no more warm gush.
Michael. He turns his head, shifting onto his knees to see Michael slumped to the side, hands splayed on the ground. Alex reaches out to grab at Michael's shirt, tugs him close and Michael crashes into him, face pressing against Alex’s shoulder as though the strings that had been holding him up had all been cut at the same time.
Michael breathes Alex in, managing to shift his face so that it’s pressed against the sweat-soaked skin of his throat and he lets out a choked sound, a half-sob, something that sounds like you’re alive but doesn’t quite make it to being formed.
Alex wobbles, unprepared to support Michael’s almost dead weight and twists his hips as he falls to the side and they hit the ground again, with Michael basically sprawled over him, the latter having let out a faint grunt at the impact on the ground, having missed it rushing up to meet him. Alex isn't quite sure what was happening, or how he's somehow managed to stop bleeding out all over Michael's knee but he isn't about to challenge a fucking miracle when it's slapped him in the face.
"Guerin?" he starts, voice a little rough and he wets his lower lip and grimaces at the taste of blood that bites on the edge of his tongue. Definitely real, then, he's somehow come back from the dead and now Michael's sprawled out against him like a limp cowboy-Jesus and how is this his life? "We- we better get off the floor. Can you move?"
"Yeah," Michael manages weakly and in a rumble more than an actual word. "I should be able to." He grunts again trying to shift his weight because it’s hardly fair to be KO’d on top of someone who was dead a couple of minutes ago.
There’s a moment where Michael’s trying to collect his senses before he wets his lower lip, plants his hands and shifts. He realises a split second later that it’s not the best idea because he loses it all over the sand, bile and beer and whatever shitty food he’d managed to dig out of his fridge for dinner splattered across the ground in front of his airstream.
“Well,” Alex manages, “fuck.”
Somehow, Alex's no-longer-dead ass manages to wrangle Guerin's nauseated-cowboy-Jesus self into the Airstream and settle him on the bed, a bottle of water in one hand and an uncapped bottle of acetone in the other. As he watches Michael washing down one after the other, in the light of the airstream he looks at himself, blood-soaked ABUs clinging to his skin, not even remotely close to drying off. His skin is covered in his own blood; his hands, his arms and he feels it against him like a brand.
It's then that he notices Michael's hands. The same hands Michael’s been staring at since he downed the water and acetone. He looks between his blood-and-sand caked fingers and Alex. They twitched slightly, and Alex wonders if he’s stopping himself from reaching out again.
"Shit, don't touch your bed." It seems easier to say something stupid like that, don't get blood on your bed is an easier thing for him to deal with than what he thought he'd heard Michael saying. It's easier than trying to understand what's echoing through his chest and his mind and his soul the wracked agony that's making it hard to think. "You should- can you stand?"
He nods his head and shifts so he's on his feet though admittedly his shakier than should be feet but his feet all the same. He drags his gaze away from Alex to his hands again, palms up and fingers trembling, remembering the sensation of desperately clinging to Alex’s body as life literally poured out of him, remembering the feeling of Alex slipping away. He feels sick again knowing that image, Alex dead on the ground, is not a memory he’s getting rid of any time soon.
Alex catches Michael again, hands gentle against his sides. Michael's already covered in his blood, so it's hardly like Alex spreading a little more is going to make any difference. He’s not exactly clean himself right now. The vacant, empty, horrified look on Michael's face is something he knows well, something he recognises. He can work with this. He's done this before with members of his unit and others back at base. Talked them through the motions of cleaning up, helped bring them back to the present.
"Shower," he orders, tone soft but firm and he starts nudging Michael in the direction of the airstream's small bathroom. He can wash his hands in the sink, under the stream of the shower. "You'll feel better once you're clean. C'mon, Guerin, let's move." His hands are insistent, nudging the base of Michael's spine.
Michael's hands close around Alex's shoulders where they grip, hard enough that even in spite of all the blood on his hands it’s possible to see his knuckles going white. Alex feels the pressure of fingers against his skin and the fabric groans under the touch but he doesn’t move, doesn’t shrug off what he knows Michael needs. He goes still as Michael clutches at him, steady and sturdy and some part of Michael knows it’s ridiculous that he’s relying on Alex for strength right now, but hasn’t Alex always been the stronger one?
"I'm not a soldier," Michael manages to fire off but the retort is weak, lacking in the same spunk and heat that it normally is, Alex finds that he misses the tease of Private, the cocky little grin that would follow it because Michael knows what a reaction that gets.
Still, after a moment or so he does move with Alex’s gentle insistence, reaching for the edges of his t-shirt that he drags off, tossing it aside and shivering as he does. He feels all kinds of wrong and he knows it's more than the physical. Knows that there’s something inside of him that’s just been broken and he’s not sure how to go about patching it up, or if it even can be.
"I know," Alex replies softly, following Michael into the small bathroom. It's easy for him to pack everything that just happened away, switch into a mode that has him taking care of someone else. Push the fact that he just died to one side, push the fact that he was ready to die and completely okay with that outcome to one side to be unpacked on the twelfth-of-fucking-never along with everything else he just handily ignored. "But you'll still feel better once you're clean."
To his credit, he keeps his eyes up and it's in part because he doesn't want to see the dried blood where it kisses Michael's skin like a brand. He presses past Michael, leans into the shower and twists the dial to get the water running. His sleeve gets soaked and the water runs in pink rivulets off his skin and into the plughole. He snatches his hand out quickly, not prepared yet to see it running off his skin.
"And the rest," he says, unbuttoning his own shirt. In the acrid, flickering light of Michael's bathroom, the red that's smeared all over them both is a deep, dark shade of death and it makes Alex's stomach turn. "I promise you'll feel better once you're clean."
Michael's jaw ticks like the hands of an old grandfather clock as he tries desperately to process the fact he lost Alex today and would have lost him permanently if not for the sudden manifestation of a new power, if that’s even what it was. He doesn’t know if he wants to find out if he could do that again. He's tense, struggling to hold his shit together but thankfully has enough sense of mind to reach down and slip out of his jeans and underwear in one fell swoop, all of which are discarded in a heap somewhere. Distantly he hears the thudding of his belt buckle hitting the ground.
It's not like Alex hasn't seen him naked before and he’s not sure he could move himself into the shower right now so he just sort of waits, swaying slightly on his watery legs, feeling like the earth’s still pitching, like he can feel it travelling at sixty-seven thousand miles underneath his feet in its perpetual orbit around the sun, like it didn’t just grind to a halt a little while ago when Alex’s final breath left his body.
“Guerin,” Alex murmurs and it startles Michael out of his own mind. He stumbles a little, and Alex steps back, feeling the sink pressing against the curve of his spine. He ushers Michael into the shower under the warm spray, half pulling the curtain closed after him but then deciding against it. He doesn’t want to take his eyes off Michael. He’s not sure what he’s expecting, but he doesn’t want whatever it is to happen. It occurs to him to follow, but he doesn't have a seat or a grab-rail here to support him and he can't really climb into the shower with his prosthetic on; that was just asking for trouble, as much trouble as it would be to climb in without it on. So he takes a breath and shrugs out of his shirt, pulls his tee over his head. They're both ruined, a hole in them from the gunshot and blood-stained. His pants are gone, too, but he hasn't got anything else to wear and if he strips down bare here he's not sure he can come back from that.
Alex leans against the sink, bracing his hands against the rough, battered porcelain and looks in the mirror, it’s starting to steam up, the warmth curling in the air prickling at his skin and causing a gentle fog to cloud the mirror but it’s not quite fully covered. So he stares at his chest, at scars that track the oft-cruel path of his life and peels away the blood-soaked bandage, dropping it in the sink and running his fingers over where he knows the bullet broke through his skin, ruptured something important. Where he knows Michael's hand pressed hard enough to hurt and long enough to heal and tries to ignore the way he feels like he's being torn apart from the inside out.
Michael's back rests against the tinny wall of the shower and his head tips to embrace the spray of the water, feeling it trickle through his curls and run down the length of his spine and over his side that aches and burns in a way he knows is alien to him. It belongs to Alex, it’s a memory of the pain of that bullet that all but ruined everything. The water's no longer clear when he opens his eyes and looks down, it's a light pink and he finds that he fixates, stares it and watches it circle the drain. He feels like it’s staining the cubicle; no matter how many times he cleans it it’s never going to be free of the taint of Alex’s blood. He’ll always see it, smell it- Fuck. His legs give a moment later and he slides to the floor.
Michael just inhales and exhales deep and slow - the same way he’d seen Alex breathing sometimes, when that look in his eyes creeps in without his permission, and maybe Alex thinks he doesn’t see, but Michael’s never looked away, not really - as he draws his legs up towards his chest, leaning forward until he's got his forehead pressed against his knees and his arms are outstretched on top of them. He bites at his lower lip and it's just this side of painful: that's good because pain helps keep him rooted, brings him back to the present, stops him from getting lost in the what ifs and the subsequent warring emotions that feel like they're trying to latch their claws in and drag him under. He’s already fighting a losing battle with them.
Eventually, he lifts his head and just looks at Alex through damp strands of hair which are plastered to his face.
Alex feels his chest tightening and though he'd pulled the flimsy curtain half-closed it had shifted when Michael had fallen. He doesn’t move, but he does jump and is no longer looking at himself, he stays rooted to the spot, watching Michael curled up in a ball on the floor of the shower cubicle looking small and broken and it isn’t until Michael looks at him that he awkwardly eases himself down. He finds himself reaching into the shower and watching the blood on his forearms mix with what's coming off Michael, twisting and disappearing down the drain. His leg's throbbing and his head feels like it might break apart, panic and grief and loss pulling at his heart and it makes his world tilt.
He doesn't know what to say because I'm okay seems flimsy and I'm sorry seems somehow worse. So he waits for his hands to be cleaned of his own blood that cakes them and then pushes his hands through Michael's hair, brushing those strands away from his skin and leaning forward, feeling the patter of cooling shower water kissing his skin, pressing their foreheads together like he hopes that might help Michael breathe.
Michael swallows hard as Alex's fingers bury themselves in his hair and his own hands now clean of Alex's blood lift to run along his arms and up over his shoulders before his hands simply cup and cradle the back of his head. He's trying to breathe, he really is, trying to take reassurance in the warm very alive presence of Alex but he can still remember the limp weight of him in his arms only moments ago.
He pulls in a breath and lifts his gaze to look at Alex. "Don't ever do that to me again."
"Got it," Alex mutters, "next time I get shot in the stomach I'll go straight back to the cabin."
He takes a breath, water dripping from his eyelashes and his nose and he knows he needs to clean himself up, though the water's running down his back and over his shoulders and the run-off's starting to soak into his pants. His hands cup the back of Michael's head and he meets Michael's eyes. He wants to tell him that he won't, but he can't promise that.
"That's not even remotely funny," Michael bites out, voice harsh and words cutting, head shaking.
"It's a little funny," Alex manages and he leans back as Michael does. His hand lifts blindly, fumbling for the dial and turning off the steady stream of water. He shivers, the chill hitting his skin and the thrum of adrenaline that had kept him alive is starting to drain from him and he's tired and he's pretty sure he died and he's pretty sure Michael saved him and there's a lot to unpack there. He ignores the narrowing of Michael’s eyes, the look that’s thrown in his direction that tells him in no uncertain terms that Michael doesn’t agree with Alex’s take on the humour of the situation.
They’re silent for a little bit, then, Alex completely still as Michael’s gaze sweeps over him like he’s trying to memorise this moment - or maybe, like he’s trying to scrub this memory out with something older, something better - before he just pulls himself back into the present, watching the wet patch on Alex’s pants spreading over his thighs. "Pretty sure I have some clothes you can borrow."
"You better get dried off first," Alex replies softly. “No good both of us staying soaked if we don’t have to be.”
Michael chuckles weakly for lack of any better response because there’s nothing about this situation that’s funny and stays still for a one-two count until he's moving, gripping at the wall and using it to pull himself back to his feet. He's cold and that's definitely not normal, is that what Max feels like every time he heals somebody? If so, no thank you.
He grabs two towels, one for himself and the other for Alex. Clad in a towel Michael offers a hand to the other, trying not to look at how Alex is still covered in blood looking like a murder victim.
Alex doesn't move immediately, doesn't get to his feet because he's been doing too much on his prosthetic and now he's on his ass he'll be stuck there until he's taken it off. He eyes the hand that’s being offered to him, hesitating because he knows how hard it’s going to be getting to his feet, before curling his fingers around Michael’s and letting Michael haul him to his feet. He rocks unsteadily, on the spot, hips burning and stump aching, pain sharp and lancing through his lower back, shooting down the nerve that gives him trouble more regularly than he wants to admit.
He shivers and uses the sink for leverage as he shakes his head a little, trying to regain his equilibrium and struggling. Michael’s arm slides around his waist without hesitation, warm and comforting and there like Alex was made to slot into his side (and fuck, hasn’t dying made him feel sentimental all of a sudden). Michael’s watching, Alex knows he’s waiting until he can feel Alex’s body relaxed and stable rather than listening to the ‘’m okay’ which Alex had instinctively muttered. Michael knows Alex would sooner stand on his own and struggle than rely on someone else for help even when he needs it and in that moment Alex is bone-achingly grateful for the other man’s insight into his psyche.
"I'll just- get cleaned up," he mutters, squeezing Michael's fingers and taking the towel with his other hand. "I'll be through in a minute?" There's not enough room in here for the two of them, not really. The small bathroom's crowded enough as it is. His mouth still tastes like copper.
"Okay," Michael mutters with a small nod before he pulls away and slips out of the small bathroom to stray into the rest of the trailer where he busies himself with digging out some dry clothes. It's easier to focus on the practical than it is to think about what just happened.
Alex emerges a few minutes later. He's clean, having washed as much of the blood off of himself as he could, scrubbed at the skin of his hands and used the towel to clean off the blood that was all over his chest. He doesn’t look like a murder victim anymore.
He supposed, in some ways, he was. Shot in the gut by the service weapon of a fellow Airman.
He's managed to get out of his pants without removing his prosthetic (which was a trial in itself, but thank you gravity) and has scrubbed himself dry, skin pink where he’s tried to scrape the sensation of crusting blood off of himself and failed, it haunts his skin like fingerprints. Towel secured around his waist because all of his clothes are destroyed, he shuffles into the main living area to see Michael in underwear and little else, dry clothes in his hand.
He swallows, throat dry. He doesn't know what happens now. He hadn't really expected to still be functioning by this point of the evening. He doesn’t see the glowing edge of a handprint poking out above the towel secured around his waist but Michael does.
Michael’s gaze is heavy and intense; unspoken unbridled emotion written in his eyes and on the lines of his face as he regards the other man. Alex feels his gaze lingering at his waist but doesn’t look down; he’s trapped under the weight of the grief guilt anger worry lovelovelove that’s pulsing through him, Michael’s eyes seeming to shoot what he’s feeling directly into Alex’s soul.
Alex takes a breath as Michael closes the distance that separates them and without much more preamble he pulls the t-shirt over Alex's head and helps his arms to find the sleeves. Alex's arms lift sort of without his conscious permission because he thinks that Michael needs this more than he does. Settling it against himself, he glances up and Michael catches his eyes, asking for permission to do the same with the sweatpants he has draped over his arm. Alex bites his lower lip and takes a breath, about to argue that he can put on his own sweatpants but he doesn't. Instead, he shuffles past Michael and sits down heavily on the small bed. The beat up mattress groans and puffs out under the sudden weight but Alex sinks into it like it’s made of memory foam.
"Might as well take this off first," he mutters, glancing up at Michael and giving him the permission he's seeking. He's never let Michael actually take of the prosthetic before. "There's a button down near the- uh- down near the ankle."
Michael puts the sweatpants down for the moment as he listens, eyes tracking over the prosthetic like he’s categorising its parts for careful replication at a later date. His fingers carefully run down the length, seeking and locating the button that allows him to pull off the prosthetic. He’s perfunctory - the anxiety on Alex’s face at this moment isn’t lost on him so he doesn’t make a big deal out of it, even though it feels like a Big Fucking Deal. He eases the socket off Alex’s stump and rolls down the socks, trying not to feel the pang in his chest at the skin that looks sore: Alex has been on his feet for too long. He gives Alex a small smile and can see the way it loosens a knot in Alex’s chest as he carefully pulls the sweatpants up, watching Alex lifting his hips in a way that’s more hypnotic than it has any right to be, the wide-eyed wonder on his face and perfect ‘o’ of his lips as he watches the tenderness of Michael’s touch.
He does pause though and leans in to press a kiss to the tee-covered handprint that he knows he’s left behind; he can feel it against his own side, Alex’s heartbeat thrumming firm and steady and alive in time with his. When he pulls back, Alex’s eyes are soft and confused and warm.
Alex’s hand slides to his side, vacating the spot left cold by the removal of Michael’s lips. He feels something tingling through him and when he's got some space back he lifts the hem of his shirt to reveal the edges of an iridescent handprint on his skin and his eyes flick up to Michael. Any lingering embarrassment at having been helped into sweatpants is gone, curiosity getting the better of him. His fingers shift against the mark, watching the way Michael’s breath hitches and his fingers flex where they’re resting against the bed like he’s trying not to reach out. He busies his hands with tying a knot in the right leg of the sweatpants, to do something useful, something that it’s pressing his hands against every inch of skin to prove to himself Alex is still alive.
"What's- what is that?"
"Uh," Michael begins before he rubs at his curls. "That's definitely my handprint from where I brought you back." He swallows and regards the glimmering shape, Alex has shifted the shirt up a little higher to expose it fully and Michael feels a pride - and a rolling heat - at having marked Alex so thoroughly in a way no one else ever could (except Max, but Max doesn’t count). "From, uh, from what I know of it it means we're connected until it fades."
Alex swallows and lets his shirt fall down, covering it up again and he just nods. He's read about the handprints, the ones found on dead bodies but never on someone living. He guesses since Max can heal Michael knows because of that, but it's a strange thought. One strange thought of many that’s crossed his mind this evening, this day. It feels like he’s been on the move for weeks, which isn’t a lie, but today’s events have stretched over an aeon and Alex is exhausted.
He's taken his prosthetic off - well, Michael has, with a care and a reverence Alex knows he doesn’t deserve - which is in direct odds to the thoughts of leaving that shoot through his mind like boy racers at an intersection, because he's done enough damage for one night, but now he's undressed and down a leg and Michael's looking at him worried and afraid and soft edges where he’s used to sharp angles and Alex hates himself for it. It twists inside of him and he shivers.
"I'm sorry, Michael."
Michael looks away at the apology before he pulls a breath in and rocks back up to his feet before he settles on the bed beside him. "You scared me," he admits as he hunches forward and clasps his hands together, thumbs crossed each other, pressing together to centre himself. "I thought-" He catches himself because his voice might have broken again. He pushes a breath out, drops his head and just flexes his hands. He can’t say it, he can’t say the words. Saying them makes what happened real even more so than it already is and Michael can’t handle that.
Alex leans to the side slightly, not sure if physical comfort would even help right now considering how fragile Michael looks. How fragile he feels. Alex guesses the cracked spun-glass sensation in his chest is Michael. He's teetering on a knife-edge and he presses his lips together and bumps Michael's shoulder.
"I- I needed to make things right."
Michael turns his head ever so slightly and he feels the flex in his jaw, a shooting pain up the side of his head where he can feel his teeth grinding together. "Not your place to make things right," he argues with a shake of his head. "And not if it means you get shot and di-" He rips his gaze away as that lump in the back of his throat is back and he just breathes, wondering how Max does this, how he brings people back and not feel like he's coming apart, unravelling like an emotional tapestry at the whim of an angry child.
"It is," Alex stresses. "It- it was. But that's over now, I- there's no way my family can hurt yours anymore." Never mind that he's pretty sure that even if it hadn’t been his brother that had fired it could have been (though, to Flint's credit, Alex thinks he saw a horrified expression crossing his face when he realised just what he'd seen and how far he'd fallen, he thinks even if it wasn't his brother who had shot him seeing a bullet colliding with Alex's side has made him re-evaluate a few things).
He catches Michael's hand, the one that's been healed and no longer bears the scars of the Manes family patriarch. Jesse Manes had only survived being in a medically induced coma for three weeks before his organs shut down and he flatlined. It couldn't have happened to a nicer person and though Alex still feels an echo of grief that rips his breath away sometimes it's for the father he wishes he had rather than the one he got. He brushes his fingers over the back of Michael’s hand, pleased that the last physical vestiges of his father’s hatred were gone. He hates that there’s no magical fix for the emotional.
Michael's fingers seek out and curl around Alex's before he as his grip flexes, loosening and then tightening, reassuring himself with each touch that Alex is still there, still there, still there.
"Didn't you say that I was your family?" He asks, looking up at Alex. "Because if so then there's nothing for you to make right." He smooths his hand up Alex's arm and stops his hand at his face, thumb brushing over his jaw. Alex tips his head into the touch to his face and glances up at Michael, conflicted and tired and worried.
Alex snorts a little in spite of what’s going on, "You-" Of course Michael picks now to point that out, when they haven't spoken properly in a long time even after what he wanted to try with Maria didn't work, after Alex has spent months ripping apart everything he could find just to seal off all loose ends and tie it up with a bow and present it to Michael and Max and Isobel so that they can know they’re safe here. So Michael can know that even if his home isn’t in Alex’s arms, cradled against his heart in the carefully carved section that’d been Michael-shaped since he was sixteen, home can be Earth.
"You should get some rest," he murmurs, pressing a kiss against Michael's palm and he's relieved that it doesn't taste as coppery as his lips do. He should text Kyle, but his phone is in the bathroom in the pocket of his pants and he's pretty sure the screen’s cracked, shattered beyond repair. "We can- we can talk in the morning?"
Michael watches Alex closely, if he looks away for even a second he might vanish and cease to be like footprints on the shore wiped away by the tide, he’ll be outside on the floor, lying in blood and sand, sightless eyes staring up at the infinite blackness of Michael’s origins. He thinks he has good reason to be wary of letting the world blur and fade into nothing and closing his eyes. Michael’s never looked away, he sure as hell isn’t going to start now.
“You’re going to stay?” He asks because it might be implied but right now Michael wants - no he needs - absolutes. He needs to hear it. Needs to hear the words come out of Alex’s mouth.
"Took my leg off, didn't I?" Alex replies, humour almost threaded through his tone but now the adrenaline's gone from his system he's boneless and exhausted and trying wildly to not process the fact that he died today. Michael's died before, he knows that. Max and Liz, too. Hell, Rosa holds the award for being dead the longest and still somehow coming back from the brink but Alex doesn't know how to process it.
So he doesn't. It’s in the box. It’s in the same box as Fallujah and Baghdad and Iraq. It’s in the same box as the fifteen-year-old that was beaten bloody by his father and shoved up against lockers the next day by his former best friend. It’s in the same box as the Alex that had to hide who he was for such a long time that he still doesn’t truly know who he is anymore outside of these moments with Michael Guerin, where he remembers that love makes a person whole as much as it shatters them.
"Get some sleep, Guerin. I think you need it more than me." It might not be a lie, but it also might be; Alex has been running on coffee and hatred and revenge for weeks now, burning the candle at every end possible to just end this.
There’s another moment of silence, infinite but not empty as Michael just watches Alex, looks at him, searchingly. There’s an ache in Alex’s chest that he knows isn’t his, a bubble of hope that’s tentative, a faint flame fanned too many times but never been allowed to truly spark, never been allowed to catch the kindling and burn. He feels Michael’s hands flexing and he doesn’t know how to decipher the look in Michael’s eyes. He’s not sure Michael knows how to decipher what he’s feeling.
Michael’s gaze tracks over Alex’s face, the path he’d take with his fingers if he wasn’t so afraid of letting go. He remembers Isobel and Max holding his hand in the group home and telling him that they’ll stay with him and promising him that whatever happens, they’ll face it together and that they’ll not leave him, they'll never leave him. That they’ll stay and it’s a hollow promise they were never able to keep, they left him alone, left him behind.
But Alex is staying. Michael can feel it. He took his leg off, after all. He just nods, shifts and pulls away to collapse behind Alex into his less-than-comfortable-but-it’s-softer-than-the-floor mattress. He’s too tired to do anything else, even if his fingers reach out for the hem of Alex’s shirt and twist, not willing to let go just yet. Not willing to lose that contact.
Alex fusses with the sheets, pulls them over Michael and thinks about how he's supposed to stretch, how he's meant to do a set of exercises before he settles in for the night so that he doesn't wake up in the morning with stiff hips and a stiffer knee but honestly, he's died tonight and he figures he can deal with the repercussions once the sun's up. Instead, he settles beside Michael, feeling how the other man immediately shifts to wrap an arm over his waist, tuck him in close and curls around him like a pliable radiator. He thinks about the bloodied backpack that's sitting outside, and thinks in the morning he'll give Michael the piece, but he'll ask him to stay. He'll hope he's enough.
Michael’s gone the moment his nose brushes against the back of Alex’s neck, lost to the world from a soul-deep exhaustion the likes of which Alex can only feel second-hand, and Alex falls asleep to the warmth of breath against his back and the weight of an arm around his waist, anchored for Michael as much as for himself, lulled by the clink-clank of hubcaps and the chattering, howling laughter of the coyotes whose mockery of the night carries softly like the echoes of ghosts in the wind.