#alchael

God, yes, of course he remembers. How can he ever forget? Alex thought he had that memory locked away, hidden under bad action movies and buried sisters, but here he stands in front of it. They meet in front of his house, on a cold winter night, lives crossing in the way it’s always meant to. That’s how Alex always saw it, anyway.

Alex shouldn’t confront it. He knows better than that. He’s gotten so much better at ignoring what he doesn’t want to see. The world endings, the clawing captives, the endless cycles. He knows better than to stare into the pillar of pale white-blue light that is this humanoid figure, vague in its details, standing agonizingly still. He knows better than to keep staring at it as it seems to shift the more he thinks about those words, about the memory attached to them.

“Please,” Alex says to no one. No one but himself. No one but him, the masculine figure in the shifting light, the boy of his dreams…

Fuck, he knows it. Alex tries to lift his feet off the ground, tear it away from the layers of snow he stepped in on his way towards one last side quest he desperately needs before the end of the world— he needs something fleeting, he needs something to chase he needs— but his body does not cooperate. Chained to the ground below him, Alex is forced to watch this ray of light coalesce into something he wishes he could grab and… and what? Destroy, bury away again? Put back in its rightful place? Or maybe even k—

It’s only a figure. The light is too harsh to discern any small details of the face. But Alex knows it like his soul was made for remembering it. The short hair, neatly smoothed to one side. A thin, young body, taller than him— always fucking taller than him, despite how often he used to stand on his toes to try and tower over him for a change. A familiar figure. A figure he has met time and time again. A figure he chases.

If it has a mouth, Alex can’t see it opening.

Do you remember—

It has to have a mouth. Lost in its light.

—when you kissed—

—

You didn’t wait. It was Valentine’s Day and He had just walked you and Her home after being out all day and evening. You couldn’t recognize the fact that it wasn’t a day for you.

He walked you both up to your front door, and She walked inside almost immediately because it was so late and cold and snowy outside, She didn’t want to stand there and freeze any longer with you. You can’t imagine anyone who would.

Except Him.

He turned and walked away, heading back to his home which was right next to yours in the true and perfect reality that used to exist. You stood by your doorway for two degrading seconds before bounding down your icy front stairs. It’s a miracle you didn’t slip and crack your head on those steps. Or maybe a curse.

“Wait!” you called out, and He did. He was always so good like that. He waited until you caught up. You were red in the face, red in the nose, stinging with pain. He looked calm, blue jacket over blue striped sweater. When you caught up to Him, the colours seemed to blur together, mixing with the snow, a glimmering light wall between you two and the rest of the world.

Do you remember if you said anything to Him before making your move? Did you ease Him into it like a good lover does? Can you recall if you asked Him like any normal person would; and not do what a teenage boy raised on movies would do?

Do you remember when you kissed M…

—

Alex kisses Michael.

It feels like hardened sunshine.

Michael’s body, thin and young and soft as Alex remembers it, stands stiff in Alex’s grasp. Its white body wreathed in iridescent shimmers of light is warm to the touch of his hands and lips. The light is almost unbearably bright when Alex is so close against it; it burns Alex’s eyes even as they flutter shut. But Alex doesn’t care. He clings to its heat, his arms grabbing at Michael’s arms so tight he wonders if he might break them.

Michael is still. He doesn’t lean into the kiss or back away from it. He just stands there and takes it. Yes, he definitely has a mouth, and it fits into Alex’s exactly how he remembers it. Soft, unbelievably soft, unlike any other lips he has ever touched since that day. And warm. God, Alex can’t get enough of that warmth. It brings him comfort on this snowy night.

But…

Alex considers pulling away, but he can’t. Not even to breathe. He pulls in air through his nose, right up against Michael’s, and the shimmering boy with light features doesn’t react or think it’s gross and pushes him away. He just continues to stand still, unmoving in Alex’s shattering grip and aching kiss. 

Maybe if he is softer, Michael will respond? Alex relaxes his grip on Michael, but never truly lets go. One of his hands moves from his arm, up to his cheek, cradling it, keeping it close. The other wraps around Michael’s skinny waist, pulling his body towards Alex’s own. But Michael never makes a willing movement. His body is dragged by Alex, empty-looking, drawn by a string. Alex doesn’t need to open his eyes or break the kiss to feel his idleness.

“Please,” he mutters into the kiss, still not pulling away to talk. His lips drag and crash against the coalescence of sunlight that he traps in his arms. “Please, please, please. Michael, please, why, why won’t you…”

—

He’s still when you kiss him.

Michael was so warm against your thicker, younger body. You were so cold and despite being with you outside all day in the same snow, he was as warm as the Sun and you were stealing his heat. His were soft, you didn’t know lips were meant to be this soft, you’ve only had your own chapped ones and the hard mirror glass as reference. But he’s so soft, but he’s also so still, and when you grab at him and pull him eagerly closer to yourself he just sits there and takes it.

You know it’s not right. You knew this was wrong then, you know it’s wrong now. You knew you were not supposed to be kissing the older boy who took your sister out on a Valentine’s Day date. You’re not supposed to kiss boys without asking. You’re not supposed to kiss boys, period. Especially not when he was as rigid in your hands as he was.

You kept the kiss for far too long. You don’t even want to know how long it actually was. It looks bad on both of you for letting it linger the way you two did. When you finally pulled away, your heart pounding in your chest so hard it drowned out any noise the world had to offer, your eyes fluttered open to behold the sight in front of you. 

And what a sight it was. God, he was beautiful, wasn’t he? How his lips were parted, pink tongue visible when you couldn’t feel it earlier (and yes, you tried). The best part was that Michael’s lips were red from your kiss. You looked at that colour and felt proud that you rubbed off on him. You didn’t see the redness in his eyes as well. You just saw red on his blue and knew it was a match made in heaven, if such a thing still existed to a teenage boy.

You didn’t know what to feel. His warmth, his sunshine, was fleeing from you the second you parted from him, and reality started to settle in. Not the perfect reality you lived in the nanosecond before your kiss. This was a different reality. A reality where sunshine could harden and would never respond to you. A reality where you couldn’t be older and couldn’t sweep him up into your arms. A reality where you couldn’t make him kiss you back.

“Alex!!”

The reality where your sister saw what you did.

…Do you remember when you kissed Michael and Allison wouldn’t talk to you for a month?

—

Alex pushes Michael down onto the snow.

Light flickers at the harsh contact with the ground. Reality and all its cracks seem to break down a little faster tonight as Alex clutches Michael’s face in his hands, and if there’s flesh underneath all that heavenly light, it will surely bleed red against his hands.

“Kiss me,” Alex says. His lips hurt from being smashed into Michael’s for so long without break, but he keeps shoving himself further onto his brilliant body, his hot face. “Why won’t you kiss me?”

It’s like he’s young again. Trying to cling to Michael’s frozen body, ignoring the cold world and whatever cruelties She has to offer. But there’s no pride that makes Alex pull away now, or agency for anyone to tear him off of the light he sits on top of now. He kisses Michael, harder, messier, far more desperate, feeling at his soft face like it’s the very first time. 

Be mine? Alex wanted to ask, all those years and cycles ago. Not Hers. Not your own. Mine. My Valentine. My Michael.

And this is how Michael responds. It’s how he responded those years ago. Nothing. No reciprocation. Not even a proper rejection. Just a glimmering light on a cold winter night, doing absolutely nothing.

Alex pulls away. His lips are red and cracked. He looks down and sees the iridescent silhouette of a beautiful boy beneath his too-big body of a too-old man. And for a moment he thinks of running away, like he did when he was a kid. It’s probably the most noble action after the fuck-ups Alex always does. But as Alex glowers at the glowing body and feels the heat against his thighs, he feels movement that isn't his own.

Michael’s body, stiff as a board and just as interesting, slackens against the ground. His limbs stir upwards towards the sides of his head, and though his light never dims, Alex notices a shift. A change in the iridescent pattern. A flicker of red, brighter than any other colour. The pale white-blue light that previously dominated the iridescent shimmer gives way to red as its new prominence. Gives way to Alex and his cracked, bleeding red lips.

And Michael’s hands reach up.

Alex almost throws himself off of Michael. When has He ever reached towards him? Towards anyone but Her? Alex is meant for chasing. Michael is good at being chased. But Alex doesn’t run and cower like he thinks he will because his body knows what his heart really wants. And his body wants to stay still.

The slivers of light that are Michael’s fingers reach up towards Alex’s face. They grasp at his cheek, and the feeling of heat on his cold skin once again makes Alex lean into it. Michael cradles him with crooked fingers, which shift and weakly curl into his skin. Alex can’t tell if he’s grabbing him to pull him closer or to tear his skin apart. Alex doesn’t care either way. It’s far too weak to do either on its own.

A smile flits on Alex’s lips as he leans back down onto the facsimile of Michael. He leans his head on Michael’s forehead and stares into where his eyes would be, never blinking. It makes Alex’s eyes sting from staring so long. You’re not supposed to look directly at the sun, after all.

Alex closes his eyes and kisses Michael again, softer this time. And Alex swears, he really does, that Michael’s hand trails from his cheek to the back of his neck. A hand that grips him deathly tight. Blood stains their lips as the body of light melts into Alex’s body, finally giving away the warmth Alex so obviously deserves after all his withholding.