Chapter Text
Michael woke up, nearly six months later, to the scent of apple shampoo on his pillow, and that now-familiar compact muscular shape in his bed, and James in his heart.
He lay there for a while as the morning crept towards proper day. James was sleeping, safe and sound and breathing steadily; James was a morning person not by inclination but by necessity, he’d figured out, and enjoyed lazy mornings off to their utmost. Michael, who tended to want to accomplish as much as possible on any given day, was discovering that he could want to accomplish staying in bed and holding James, drowsy and warm, more than anything else.
James stirred, not physically, but edging towards wakefulness; attuned as usual, he nudged back, coaxing thoughts about coffee and breakfast and crossword puzzles in bed or maybe other things in bed, if James would be in the mood for that. James murmured back something affectionate and wordless, and curled into the hollow left by his body as Michael got up to get the aforementioned coffee started.
James might be in the mood, once awake. James hadn’t quite been a virgin with men, which he’d admitted when Michael’d finally cautiously got around to raising that question, but he was very enthusiastic, and a quick learner, and, it turned out, easily aroused by the sight of Michael walking around naked in their shared hotel room.
Michael walked around naked often.
They were here in the nondescript hotel, not out hunting for a flat together, because filming had recommenced, several weeks ago. James had tried to insist on going back to work after a week’s hospital rest; Michael had opened his mouth, then literally bitten his lip, so hard he tasted blood.
James’s health. James’s decision. He was done trying to make choices for the both of them.
But James had smiled, a small upward curve of those lips, and said, “…all right, maybe two weeks, at least? I’ll stay in bed at the hotel, and you can get back to work, and not slow down the production even more?” and Michael’d breathed out in relief and started to say “thank you” and James had gone up on tiptoes and kissed him, there in the street outside the hospital beside the car waiting to take them home.
Their first kiss. James had tasted like chapstick and summer days and amusement, like strawberries and ice-cream and county fairs, all excitement and simple affectionate joy.
He’d touched his lips, after, a little amazed; James had grinned, shrugged, said, “I’ve never actually kissed a man before, you’re my first, you know, would you like to try it again, because I would,” and Michael’d let out the kind of possessive growl he’d never expected to hear from himself and pulled James into his arms.
James hadn’t protested the possessive streak. Michael found himself somewhat embarrassed by this unsuspected part of his personality, and then gave up on being embarrassed, because James seemed to like it.
He liked knowing what James liked. And he remembered every desire, whether that involved kisses to the back of his neck or pistachio ice-cream for dessert.
James had promised that Michael could try to persuade him. So Michael tried.
He thought maybe it was working—certainly James, unprompted, had been the one to climb into his lap while Michael was faithfully watching the complete first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation at his request, and therefore the one most responsible for distracting them both quite thoroughly from Captain Picard—but he’d also been finding that he was afraid of one last thing, and that was the unknown answer. What James would say, if asked.
He didn’t ask. But he thought he could feel it, possibly, potentially, that evanescent sweetness, glowing like liquid sapphires, between them.
He could always feel James, now. Near, far, the distance didn’t matter. He’d’ve hated that constant tether, once. These days it felt like an anchor. A home.
Wherever they went, that would be the same. On the next project, or side by side on a soundstage, or separate on different continents, he’d be with James, and James would be with him, forever.
There was still some required adaptation, of course. Neither of them was terribly practiced at balancing multiple emotions, input from twinned sources, and occasionally James said one of Michael’s lines aloud when Michael was concentrating very hard; Michael sprinted across the film set, and destroyed Matthew’s carefully placed shot, the time that James stubbed a toe on a stone step and yelped in pain. James liked to know where he was, to stay in contact, a curious quick brush of awareness across the link; Michael didn’t really mind, but this had resulted in some distracted moments, not good when he was in the middle of wire-work and complicated stunts.
He wondered, on occasion, hopefully deep down enough that the thought was only for himself, whether that wistful clinging was a legacy of his own carelessness with James, such that James couldn’t quite have faith in them at some unconscious level; whether, alternately, it was an older wound, a memory of a father who should’ve loved him and who’d walked out the door and never come home. Maybe it was just James, fathomless wells of self-deprecation under that laughing generosity of spirit.
He tried to always answer, to reach back and hold James’s intangible hand, clumsily but sincerely. He wanted to. Wanted to be there. Committed.
They learned. Together.
He tried not to overreact to minor incidents, these days. To wait and inquire whether James was all right, what James wanted him to do. And James grew a bit more confident, more certain of Michael’s presence, his resolution, his love.
He’d probably never not worry when James was cold or tired or in pain, but he could lean on the bond for reassurance, and he was finding he liked that too. James got better at timing the plaintive tiny check-in moments, remembering Michael’s schedule, still kissing him through the link at unexpected times but doing so before and after intense scenes, not during.
And, he thought, sitting down on the side of the bed that morning, coffee cup in hand, this was a good life. They were good. Together.
He kind of wanted to go back in time and shake his younger self. He’d had no idea. Being this close wasn’t a weakness. It took nothing away from him. It was a strength.
And then he corrected that thought, as sleepy blue eyes blinked and opened, in the depths of the pillows. James was his strength. “Good morning.”
“Morning…” A yawn; up on one elbow, but no move to acquire the coffee just yet. “You’re smiling.”
“I’m happy. Did you want me to make breakfast for us, or would you rather go out somewhere?”
“I can tell you are. Whichever you want, really; I’m not awake enough to be hungry yet. Though I wouldn’t say no to you offering.”
“Then…pancakes?” He handed over the mug; when James took it, their fingers touched. The heat spread out, and warmed them both through. “We might even have walnuts and cinnamon.”
“Is this a special occasion? Or are you just feeling the need to indulge me, today?” Cheerful, but with a hint of darkness behind that; he could feel James pulling back, withdrawing into unobtrusiveness, the way that James tended to when faced with unexpected kindness: something had to be wrong, Michael must want something, or be trying to soften bad news, or was about to tell him to get out and never come into the cozy hotel suite again, it was too hard after all…
Michael shook his head. Said, “James, stop that,” and covered those anxious hands with his, folding them around the ceramic curves of the mug; let them both feel it all, every piece of his heart, laid bare for James to accept and hold if he wanted to, all the protectiveness and fond thoughts about seeing that smile in the morning every damn day, special occasion or not, and gratitude for the second chance and determination and desire and love, always love, nothing held back.
James gasped at the force of it, but didn’t flinch. Reached for him in turn, embracing the flood with something like awe: you want me, you want this, you mean it all…
“Yes,” Michael told him. “Yes, I do.”
And the knowledge of it spread up into blue eyes, slowly, warming them from the inside.
James took a sip of coffee, somehow managing to do so even with their joined hands. “Pumpkin-spice. You remembered.”
“Of course.”
“You always do.”
“Of…course?”
“I told you,” James said, and smiled at him, sitting in the messy pile of sheets and pillows on the ordinary pumpkin-scented morning, just a day, two days shy of a six-month milestone, “that you might be able to persuade me. Of something.”
“That I love you? I do. You know that.”
“No,” James said, leaning in, bringing them so close that their noses bumped together, gently, and Michael breathed in the taste of him, “that I love you.”