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fandomweekly2019-01-02 09:26 pm
[#001] Heart In Hand (The Big Chill)
Title: Heart In Hand
Fandom: The Big Chill
Rating/Warnings: T/CW for suicidal ideation
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 999
Summary: Because I can't resist a universe where Alex doesn't die, honestly. In which Michael isn't put off by Alex no longer taking his calls, and decides to do something about it, before it's too late. Set a couple months before the film.
If anyone else had stopped taking his calls, Michael might have accepted it. Meg did, he had. Alex is different. Alex stops taking his calls and he thinks about senior year, Alex fragile, no reason except the clawing at the back of his brain, the stress of giving up on physics. He thinks about the week he’d spent not shaving and the way he’d hesitated picking up a knife, and the time he’d crawled into Michael’s bed at three in the morning and whispered ‘it’s just hard’, and they hadn’t talked about it. He hadn’t fully understood, then.
---/-/---
If anyone else had tried to get in touch, Alex might have accepted it. He’d moved in with Harold and Sarah, after all, after everything. Michael is different. Michael calls, and he thinks about everything they’d shared, the one thing they’d shared. There’s a tug on him that Harold and Sarah don’t see, that Michael would. It’s easier if they don’t talk, because if the day comes the tug pulls him under, Michael shouldn’t be close. He should forget about him first, let him become just another old friend he doesn’t talk to.
---/-/---
Michael is pretty sure he’s going to lose his job. Pretty sure he doesn’t care. There are other places he could go, places he’d be happier. The Village Voice, if they’ll take him, or he’d go back to teaching and freelancing and hoping for the best. This is more important. This is terrifyingly important in ways he can’t let himself fully put words to. The mental images are enough, drops of red welling up on the skin, a little and then a lot, too much, no stop to it, and Alex, Alex… Maybe he’ll show up and Alex will call him crazy for worrying, and it will just be that he doesn’t care anymore, and that’ll hurt, but there are worse hurts. One worse hurt.
---/-/---
Alex is pretty sure he’s not going to get hired. Pretty sure he doesn’t care. Harold’s done his best to help him find something, keeps offering to hire him if nothing else comes through. It doesn’t matter, nothing does. In a week, Alex could be feeling great, or he could be dead, it’s impossible to know. He never did know how to plan for the future. He’s never known what he wanted, ever since the one thing he was good at became the one thing he couldn’t do.
---/-/---
Michael’s half-dead with exhaustion when he finally pulls to a stop outside the Coopers’ house. He’s not sure how long it’s been since the last time he stopped. He’s been too wired to get much sleep. Twelve hours on the road, or thereabouts. He feels like he doesn’t know anything anymore, as he knocks on the door, frozen in time. Can’t breathe easy until the door swings open and Alex is there. Cutoff sweatshirt, the old college blue and yellow, ratty grey sweatpants low on his hips. Dirty blond hair a mess. Two days’ worth of stubble, and something in Michael’s heart clenches up at that.
---/-/---
Michael. Standing there, slacks and a sweater, what has he done with his hair? And new glasses, since the last time they saw each other, big frames, but he’s always preferred big frames. Dark eyes so wide, swaying on his feet, the uncertainty in his expression, and whatever brought him out here… whatever brought him out here, it’s something, how could Alex have not picked up the phone for him? How could he have told himself Michael would be better off, when he’s needed him? When they’ve needed each other. He opens his arms, Michael’s name on his lips, they crash into a hug his body’s been missing for years.
---/-/---
Michael stumbles forward, Alex catches him, they catch each other, and suddenly they’re on the couch, words tumbling out, tears tumbling out. He’s folded in half with his glasses in his hand, with his face buried against Alex’ chest, shaking with each sob. They piece together the chapters in each other’s life stories since they parted. Lonely nights and too many questions. The feeling of being adrift in the world. Needing something. Needing this. The emptiness no one else understood. Things they always did. The two of them, together again, the way they were meant to be. The thing they shied back from, once.
---/-/---
Alex isn’t sure who began it. He isn’t sure who moved first, he isn’t sure who cried first, he isn’t sure who began the moment which brought their lips together. It was him, when they were young, when he was unafraid of consequences-- or just unsure he would live to see them-- and he could reach for what he wanted. But it had been Michael who kept calling, Michael who drove so long to see him, maybe now it’s Michael who’s unafraid. Michael who knows the worst consequence of reaching is better than the consequence of fear. Maybe it’s a back and forth. All he knows is that when it happens, it feels right. And everything after that first kiss is the two of them in tandem.
---/-/---
There’s a man on the couch, when Harold gets home. A man on his couch-- a man on top of Alex on his couch, sprawled out in rumpled clothes, snoring, his face pressed into Alex’ chest, impossibly long legs, a pair of glasses dangling from his hand. And Alex just smiles and touches a finger to his lips, like there shouldn’t even be anything unexpected about this situation, as if Harold could expect to come home and find his best friend underneath a strange man on the couch. It’s only when he comes closer, sees the smushed and sleeping profile half buried in Alex’ college sweatshirt. How long has it been since he’s seen Michael with short hair, without that beard he’d started growing sophomore year, how long has it been since he’s seen Michael? He could hug him! But Alex shushes him, and maybe hello can wait.
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Thank you for sharing.
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I'm glad that you swerved things to fluff, that was really nice!
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I didn't mention earlier but the way you broke this writing into chunks was really interesting. The back-and-forth in such a short format made the writing snappy. I liked that!
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And thank you so much!
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Loved this!
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