#michander

That time we went to Italy to get @francescany married to the awesomest #Michander turned Global Explorer out here. It was the best few weeks of my life and I could not have been happier to be there. Love you both and thank you for such beautiful memories. #HappyAnniversary #Love #LoveInTheTimeOfGradSchool #Amore #OAmor #Casamientor #Casamento #Italianos

He'd only meant to go away and spend some time living life on his own, away from the rest of the coven; coming home with a new fledgling in tow was not part of the plan.

The first time Alex runs away from home, he's five. Michael has always been like a bit of a miracle drug, just always there to welcome him into his home whenever he needed an escape route from his dad, replacement parents at the ready. It feels... cheap, in a way, needing to fucking replace his parents in the first place, but Michael and him play pirates up in the attic and he forgets about his life for a while. It's strange, the way Michael always seems to be able to make him close his eyes and pretend he's somewhere else. Batman and Robin, starring Michael and Alex, respectively. Cowboys and Indians, wherein the Cowboys and Indians inevitably always reasonably work out their conflicts and become best friends (after Michael ties Alex to one of the wooden beams supporting the roof). A pirate ship on the raging sea, Captain Michael at the helm, a steering wheel they found in a dumpster, Navigator Alex leading the way to treasure and islands just for them to explore. (He would have taken the position of Quartermaster, but as Michael reasoned, there was only a pretend crew to boss around, so deciding where they were sailing to adventure was by far the preferable position aboard the H.M.S. Lang.) Michael is a raging typhoon of a person. On most days, Alex feels impossibly small. Until Michael takes his hand and tells him to keep playing, to never stop lest they blink and find themselves impossibly old the next moment, having forgotten how to have fun and be children. He says he never wants to grow up, and Alex believes him. But then he looks at his parents, and wonders how. How can one stay young and free and happy with so much disappointment in the world? & Alex knows he's the disappointment. He doesn't mean to be-- wants to be a better brother, a better son, a better man. He wants to play with Elsie; on days that Michael is busy with being charming or hanging out with the million other friends he has, Alex loves to play with Elsie, dolls and dress-up and teatime and fashion show. He lets her put make-up on him, and together they try on mom's dresses and model for each other, laughing the whole time. Until Dad gets home, and the fun stops as quickly as the turn of the knob on the television clicks off and flickers to darkness where once was laughter and noise. "You're a fucking disappointment!" Dad rages, tearing the pretend wig off of Alex's head as Elsie runs to her room, crying. "Men don't play with dolls, they play with trucks, and I'm ashamed to call you my son!" You'd think you were a girl, or a fucking faggot from the way you act, he later adds over dinner, Elsie's eyes still swollen, and when Alex asks his mother later, very quietly while helping her do the dishes on his step-stool to help him reach the counter, what a faggot is, she just shakes her head and gives him a damp smile. & Michael knows what a faggot is. As far as Alex is concerned, Michael knows what everything is. The way things work, the deeper, integral meaning behind things-- even life, a question that's been on Alex's mind all too much recently. "Why are we all here?" he asks one day, sitting on the dock in Bensonhurst Park beside Michael, dangling his legs as his other half hurtles rocks out into Gravesend Bay. The bay opens up into the Atlantic, and Alex feels even smaller than he usually feels around Michael. There's this great big world out there, and he's just one person. "What's the point?" he slowly adds when Michael doesn't automatically answer him. "Does it matter? Just relax. Have fun." Michael's always like that. Alex's mother and sister go to church, and every time that Alex goes with them, listening to talk about this mysterious God dude that acts in mysterious ways, he thinks about Michael. And because Michael probably isn't God (he's pretty sure, at least), he decides that God must be a lot like Michael. Hard to understand, harder to read. Everything is a mystery. But he slowly shakes his head, deciding to obstinately talk back to the mortal immortal beside him, hoping it doesn't get him backhanded here like it does at home. "Yes. It matters. Of course it matters. How can it not matter?" Michael doesn't hit him, just stares at him for a long moment, like he's looking so deeply into his soul that there isn't a thing about Alex he doesn't see, doesn't know, and takes his hand. A part of him wonders if it wouldn't have been better, easier to just be hit. & It's a brisk, rainy day in October when Michael drops a stack of magazines on the attic floor, looking at him purposefully. "You're not a faggot." "How do you figure?" The magazines, as it turns out, are filled with topless girls. Well-- not topless. Some naked, some wearing bikinis. They're all very pretty. Alex doesn't get it. "You're supposed to touch yourself," Michael explains, nodding to one of the pictures as he undoes his jeans and takes out his cock. For a moment, he just stares, watching his best friend as his stomach seems to knot up and travel up into his throat. Michael kind of looks like a girl sometimes-- or at least, enough of one, with the one exception of the stuff between his legs. But everyone looks the same when they're twelve, and very slowly, Alex follows suit, tugging his pants down exactly to mid-thigh, where Michael's are bunched, too. "You're supposed to look at the magazine, not me," he nudges him with his shoulder and a small smile, and Alex hastily nods. The girl, really, is very pretty. But he feels himself getting soft anyway, and so he comes to sneak glances at Michael instead. He knows Michael knows, because he does it every single time, and he just laughs it off and punches Alex in the shoulder for being such a girl. It's okay if Michael says it, Alex thinking he might not mind being Michael's girl one of these days. & "I still don't get it." They're back on the dock in their park, watching the sun go down. "Why do I always feel so small?" His hand isn't in Michael's this time, Alex watching nature slowly start to paint the sky with every color on the palate. For now, it's still mostly blue, but he can see it changing, slowly, starting on the horizon, the last dregs of sunlight shimmering beautifully in the bay. "Because you're supposed to." Michael doesn't show a whole lot of emotions, never has, rarely offering even a grin. It's all about subtlety, and it wasn't until Michael actually laughed out loud, beaming from one ear to the other at something Alex had said, that he'd understood why, that it matters so much more this way. "You know what, Alex?" he starts slowly, looking to him with a smile. "I'm glad you're a faggot." & It's always about the unexpected shit with Michael, building forts in the attic, surprise trips to Central Park to play pranks on people or feed already fat pigeons, hopping on a random subway and just riding it all the way to the end, with no clue of where the hell they'll end up. Alex has been fifteen for over six months when it's Michael's turn, and the house is filled to the brim with people, bustling here and there. There's a girl on either side of him, but when Alex works his way through the crowd to lift his glass of sparkling white grape juice with a lopsided, huge grin, and a Happy Birthday, Dude, Michel lets go of them both, takes Alex's face in his hands, and kisses him, pulling back with a grin. "Thanks, Man," he winks, leaving Alex to blink with a stupid smile on his face, seemingly frozen in place. It's long after the party, Alex staying later to help Michael's mom clean up the place, that they're back up in the attic-- their attic-- that Alex finally works up the courage to open his mouth, leaning back against one of the beams. "... why'd you--" He swallows hard. "Why'd you kiss me? You're not-- you're not a--" "A faggot?" Michael just smiles, dropping down on the tattered mattress beside Alex. "Because I wanted to." It hangs heavy in the air for a moment as Alex slowly nods. It's always like this with Michael. Questions always just lead to more questions, never any answers. "Do you... still... want to?" Michael just leans over to kiss him, harder than before. & Michael has countless girlfriends, and Alex knows it doesn't fucking mean anything when they jack off together and Michael grabs hold of his cock to stroke. Alex never comes faster than he does under Michael's touch, and he wonders if he's like that with everyone, if everyone comes apart in his presence. Still, they're not boyfriends or anything, and Alex feels lucky as it is just being around him, being his best friend amidst hard kisses, desperately questing hands as Michael rolls him onto his back to leave him pinned, always in control. Things at home are shit, but he doesn't care, not with Michael by his side and literally just down the street from his house. Sometimes he doesn't even bother coming home to sleep, especially after a big fight with his dad about how he's not a fucking real man. Michael has all these friends with all these stories, and so all he has to do is listen for the flea to inevitably end up in his ear. Michael's friend Scott ran away from home and hitchhiked across the US, so why shouldn't he? Why can't he? It's just an idea at first, but it turns into more of a plan with every day that his dad gets drunk and yells at him, which is most days. He wants to get out of here-- Michael is always mentioning how great San Francisco sounds, so why not? Maybe they could graduate, go together, just pack up and head to the other coast. Maybe that one will make him feel less small. & "Come on, Elsie, you know I can't stay forever." It always ends with her in tears, and Alex's heart aches when he looks at his baby sister (who isn't a baby anymore, he has to remind himself, even if she's just two years younger than him). He gets close a few times, but then Elsie cries, or he gets high with Michael up in the attic, and the world doesn't seem so bad anymore. Especially not when he meets Peter. Peter is mortal and acts it where Michael doesn't, and Alex feels like he's on top of the world when it's just the two of them up in his room, his heart hammering in his chest when the word boyfriend leaves Peter's lips and they kiss until they're dizzy. It goes on for months, Alex putting off running away if only because he's helplessly in love, having sex for the first time and feeling so damn complete in the wake of it all that that he never wants to leave if it means never leaving Peter's arms. The summer of 1962 seems to cover them in a thick, fat blanket of laughter and love, Alex too busy smiling to notice the humidity coating their bodies in sweat the second they step outside, giddy and spent from too-long afternoons in each other's company. It's foolhardy and stupid, but Alex loves this boy more than he loves himself, and when he grins, pushing Peter up against the sandy brick of his parents' apartment building, only barely missing the fenced-in gardenias, he doesn't care for a moment about who might see them or the mosquito bites they might get, kissing him hard to say goodbye even as he's still smiling against his lips. "I love you," he whispers that night to the shouts of faggot from down the street, and hears it back, quiet but true. "I love you, too." & The giddy feeling in his chest doesn't last long. Hidden beneath the window, he'd thought for sure no one would see, but when Alex closes the door to the apartment behind him, the harbinger of silence seems to rage greater than any other. "Turn around, go to Michael's house, your father--" His mother doesn't get to finish as the loud crack of a ceramic plate shatters across the room, harsh and grotesque to make them all flinch, Elsie peeking out at the scene from the cracks between the railing bars. Her hands look tinier than normal, more fragile, and Alex finally gets it, what it means to be a man. So he steels himself, not running for once even as his father's hand sails down across his cheek, backhanding him. "No fucking son of mine is going to be a fucking faggot!" "Dad, you've been drinking--" Grabbing hold of his collar, Alex feels his body collide with the wall, his face millimeters away, breathing brandy and anger. He doesn't even try to fight, not even with his dad's fist impacts his cheekbone. "You're a fucking disappointment! You're not a boy or a man, you're a sissy and a faggot and I don't want you in this house for one more second! Never in my life have I been so ashamed to ever have called you my son!" "Well, maybe I've never been so ashamed to have you for a father!" he finally hollers back, his face red from anger and the burning of both his cheeks. He doesn't care, struggling against the bigger man. "Get off me!" He manages just barely to push his father off, desperately tempted to hit him and fire back somehow. "I hate you. I hate you so fucking much. What gave you the goddamn right to treat any of us like this?! I should hit you just for making Elsie cry all the time! Or for making Mom run to church every Sunday to ask what the fuck she ever did to get her saddled with a dead-beat asshole for a husband!" "You ungrateful piece of shit! I earn money! I spend every day at work to feed and clothe and make sure this family has a roof over its head!" "Money that you gamble away and spend on booze so that you can feel better about yourself?! You've always been a selfish prick, Dad, why should this be any fucking different, right?!" "You make me regret to have ever let you live, boy! I'm going to beat you so hard you won't remember the last ten years of your life for ever daring to step foot in that dirty boy's house, for spending time withthose people, for being a fucking disappointment to your father! My reputation--" "I don't give a shit about your reputation, I don't give a shit how many times you hit me, it's not going to make me love him any less-- you can't beat the gay out of me!!" "Don't you dare say that word in this house!" "I'm gay! Dad, I'm fucking gay! I'm a fucking gay faggot! The gayest fucking faggot ever, and there's nothing you can do that's going to change me!" "I don't want you under this roof! I don't want you in this house!" "Fine! I don't want to stay! I've never wanted to live here! So I hope you go to hell and rot away while I go do something for myself for once in my goddamn life!" "You've always been selfish, you ungrateful bastard! Always! You're the one that's going to hell-- your judgment day will come sooner than mine!" By the time Alex gets to his room to start pushing shit into a bag, Elsie has run after him, sobbing as she shakes her head, pleading with him not to go. She clings to his leg, begs him to take her with him, but he's not thinking straight, taking a long moment to beg her to understand that he has to do this, that he can't take her along and risk her getting hurt. His own life is worthless, discardable. If something happens to him, it doesn't matter. If something were to happen to her, he'd never forgive himself. "I'm sorry I'm selfish, baby girl," he whispers as a last goodbye, pressing a desperate kiss to her forehead before pulling her close, her tiny hands beating against his back to plead with him to change his mind, not to leave her forever. She's fifteen, but she seems so much younger when he holds her, when he lets go of her one last time, just shaking his head before heading downstairs to go. He seems to be riding on a wave of anger, ushering him down the street and to Michael's place lest he break his own bones. He needs a distraction, just needs to close his eyes and pretend he isn't fucking Alexander Colton Haynes Jr. for one night. His father's name. His father's fucking name. Michael has the door open before Alex even gets there, pulling him inside with a light punch to his shoulder and an offer to let him beat him up, but Alex doesn't care to, doesn't know what the fucking point would be. It takes a while for him to calm down, Mrs. Lang doing double time to make things up to him, going so far as to make his favorite food for dinner, breaking out a board game for them to play after. He goes to sleep in Michael's bed, curled up in fetal position, puffy-eyed and raw, glad to know that things would improve from here on out, that he'd finally get out of here. Maybe he could take Peter along, and Michael, too, and they could all be happy together, drunk on life and not caring about a single deadbeat dad anymore. It's a perfect plan. And it's not until the following afternoon that his world shatters to pieces, Michael and him back at the same board game as Mrs. Lang steps into the living room, her face pale, almost ashen. "It's Elsie," is all she whispers, Alex willing himself not to understand, fighting against the truth behind her words. Maybe Elsie is on the phone, maybe Elsie is heading over here to join them, maybe Elsie had done something extraordinary-- anything but dying. "Wh-what?" "Alex, I'm-- I'm so sorry. Your sister k-killed-- killed herself last night." Time seems to slow to a stop, and even the shaking of Mrs. Lang's voice seems to even itself out in this space of meaning and understanding. For a moment, in a split-second of complete abandonment of reality, everything makes sense. The wave crashes down, and time starts again, Alex slowly shaking his head. "I don't-- I don't understand." "Your sister committed suicide. Alex," her voice seems to plead with his blank stare. "Your sister is dead." "But," his voice wishes desperately to insist as he stares at her in disbelief. "But she's my sister." "I'm so sorry," she whispers, starting to tear up as she shakes her head again. Alex swallows. It feels so grossly out of place, grotesque and too much in his throat all at once, too loud for the silence in the room, despite the taunting of the ticking clock. There's never enough time. Everything makes sense. I'm sorry I'm selfish, baby girl. His existence seems to tear him limb from limb as Alex wishes he were standing so he might collapse, getting up instead to feel his knees buckle as he heads to the door. "Alex--" Michael catches him by his upper arm halfway to the door, narrowly missing a punch as Alex whirls in his grip. "Let go of me!" "Alex!" "I said, fucking let go of me!" he screams, deciding to take the other way out-- up, up, the stairs and to the attic, Michael hot on his heels. "Alex!" He makes another grab for him and misses, but it's enough, Alex launching himself at Michael, not daring to miss this time as he straddles him on the ground, effectively pinning him with one hand as he starts hitting him, first his face, then his chest, his punches seeming to get weaker and weaker as he feels himself start to cry, sob, shaking his head in desperation, as though wishing there was some way to bring back his sister, make all of this be some horrible nightmare. He's still hitting Michael, but weakly at best, his arms coming up around Alex to pull him closer, letting him tear at his shirt, desperately trying to claw his way out to some escape from this life. "My sister! Not my fucking sister!" He's tearing at his hair through his sobs until Michael presses his forehead against his, keeping him close through his screams. "Why couldn't I have just t-taken her-- I wanted to protect her, and it's my-- it's my fucking fault! It's my-- wh-wh-- why did it have to be Elsie--" Michael kisses him before he even sees it coming. It's everything he needs, clawing at Michael as he kisses him back just as fiercely and desperately, letting Michael tear off his shirt and roll him onto his back, pulling off his own shirt before kissing him again. It reminds him of all those times they jacked off together, Michael's hand wrapped around both their cocks, sweaty foreheads pressed together as they clung to one another. But this is different, and Alex can feel it in the way Michael pushes him onto the mattress to force him to stay there, to just take direction and let him lead, one finger slowly pressing inside of him. He needs this. More than wanting or craving, he needs this, needs someone to take care of him and take him over for a bit, his own body incapacitated and useless in the face of indescribable grief. Michael is careful about the way he fucks him-- slow, methodical, almost gentle, as though the mood of the sex always seems to suit itself to the mood of the moment, destructive and painful and needing comfort and care. So he holds him, gingerly thrusting, his hand wrapped around Alex's cock as he keeps crying, quiet. Alex has always come faster than Michael, but he's careful to draw it out and slowly tease him here, knowing how badly he needs him right now. After he comes, Michael takes his time to wipe off his front, clean him up again of both of their come, content to just curl up with him. They sleep on their mattress in the attic that night, Michael promising to get him on a bus to San Francisco, saying he knows some people that he can stay with, that Alex will be taken care of. He decides to become Xander that night, not Alex anymore, and Xander feels older but no wiser than his former self. & Michael remembers the day Alex followed him home, and the day he sent Xander away. He squeezes at his best friend's shoulder, doing his best to remind himself that they'll meet again. San Francisco, 1969 Watching the bus leave Port Authority as Xander waves to him out the window, Michael holds his hand up in goodbye with a small smile. "I love you, too, Man."