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fandomweekly2019-02-14 02:23 am
[#007] Gimme Shelter (The Big Chill)
Theme Prompt: #007- Travel Plans
Title: Gimme Shelter
Fandom: The Big Chill
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 971
Summary: (the second happiest everyone-lives AU possible, the Alex-doesn't-die-and-they-wind-up-properly-together-after-about-a-decade AU) Michael is writing a book, Alex is driving. Every so often it gets a little more complicated than they'd planned for-- they'd have reached their destination tonight if it wasn't for the weather, but sometimes an extra stop isn't so bad, anyway.
“Look at it this way, you’ll get an essay out of this for sure.” Alex offers, peering through the driving rain.
“We need to find a place to stay tonight before this gets worse.” Michael’s jaw is set, gripping onto the seat, the little handle over the door. His chest is rising and falling quick, and his gaze is unfocused, even as slow as Alex is going. Lights move past them through the dark and he flinches hard.
“Nothing’s going to happen.” He promises, but there’s not a lot he can do to comfort Michael-- if he takes a hand off the wheel to touch him, he’ll only be more worried.
The rainstorm had come on fast while they were on the road, and Michael had tensed up at the start, but now that night has fallen, it’s even worse.
Another car passes them, and Michael whimpers. Jumpy as the first long drive he’d been on after his parents’ crash-- at least, of all the drives Alex has seen him on. Maybe he’s had to take nerve-wracking trips for work, it’s not like he can plan for the weather when he’s being sent somewhere. Now, working for himself alone, there’s still only so much he can do about weather…
As soon as Alex thinks he sees a motel sign, he pulls off at the exit, and into the lot.
“I’ll get the room.” He promises, leaning over to kiss Michael’s cheek. “Just breathe, babe, and I’ll be back. If the weather is bad tomorrow we’ll stay here another night.”
It’s going to be a balancing act to avoid inclement weather as they move north, trying to get themselves home ahead of winter. The last thing he wants is to add to Michael’s worries, when he’s already dealing with the worry of whether or not he can sell a book, whether he can make a go of it on his own without the People job he’d come to loathe, the worry that comes with having to take care of Alex now… the last thing he needs is to worry about an accident, too.
He knows Michael doesn’t think about him that way, doesn’t think of him in terms of worries and burdens. He never did when they were young, he doesn’t now. But Alex thinks of himself that way, knows just how brittle and unpredictable he can be. Does Michael remember the brittleness? How hard he could be to live with?
They’ve enjoyed each other’s company so far on the road trip. They don’t rub up against each other wrong any more than they did in college, which is to say, not at all. A lot of things might rub either of them raw, but not each other.
He gets them a room, and they’re soaked to the bone by the time they get in, but Michael is loose-limbed and laughing when Alex pulls him down onto the bed nearest the door. They spend a little time just rolling around kissing, before stripping each other out of wet clothes and pulling each other into a hot shower. Michael, shivering a little until he can get him warmed up, but not out of fear, that’s all that matters.
They hang their clothes up in the shower once they’re out of it, tuck themselves into the bed further from the door. They’ll both look slept in in the morning.
“The storm’ll blow over.” Alex pulls Michael in to lie against his chest, ruffles his hair. “Then we can get back to it. It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay-- you know I’d never let anything happen to you.”
Michael hums, lifting his head just to be able to kiss Alex’ shoulder, to look into his eyes a moment before settling back down. His lips are so soft, and Alex should have been taking advantage of those lips for years, but now…
They’d had some grand ideas when they’d started, about having sex in every bed they stopped to spend the night in. That might have been fine for one of the old college road trips, a long weekend spent aimlessly traveling. Hell, back then they’d spent more nights in the car or in a tent somewhere than they had in motels, and now they’re just old enough to not want to sleep in a car even if the weather was clement… let alone try to have sex in the backseat, not of Michael’s car. Michael has too much limb to try to have sex in that cramped backseat and Alex is just a little too broad.
Practically speaking, they do not have sex in every bed, they don’t have sex in half of them. With the driving and the sightseeing and the days when there’s just suddenly no energy, it’s not a feasible thing to keep up. The weird ones they tend to-- the one made up of old train cars, they’d had a fantastic night, the kind of night Alex thinks you remember for years as the pinnacle of what a romantic getaway can be, but sometimes in the cheap chain motels, they just need the sleep.
Still… they spend every night together, spend every night touching, skin to skin and slow, gentle kisses goodnight, they spend every night close. Breaking out of a tight cuddle to find a comfortable position to sleep, gravitating back into a clinch, waking up sprawled across each other one way or another or pressed tight back to back and sharing a pillow.
They’re on the last leg of the trip, all they have to do is avoid the weather, maybe three hours north for the last city they plan on exploring a couple days before they can head for home to settle in, to edit. To live. To live reasonably well ever after, together.
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(though after a couple weeks of writing Alex in hospital, like... I at least had to give him the opportunity to Take Care Of His Boy)
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Thanks for sharing it.
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