Something's Got a Hold on Me
by luvsbitca

It was 2am and Alex knew he shouldn't be standing in front of Michael's trailer but he had been…distracted ever since the night at the drive-in…hell, if he was honest with himself Michael had been distracting him since the first time he'd realised that he was attracted to the other man. The first kiss, the stolen moments under bleachers and in closets, the long drawn out moments when Alex had been alone at home because his father was blissfully away on assignment and his mother was off cheating on his father. Alex needed to change something – he couldn't live swinging between his bone-deep need for Michael Guerin and his sense of duty and the knowledge that he could never have all of Michael even though the other man had owned his heart since they were seventeen. He couldn't keep doing this and he knew that something was going to have to give but he just couldn't walk away, he had gone off to war and he was still back here craving Michael Guerin.

He knocked on the door and heard movement from inside. He walked back over to the embers of the fire and sat down in one of the chairs. Michael swung the door open and then stepped down from the trailer before coming to sit next to Alex.

They sat next to one another for several quiet moments while Alex tried to remember why reaching out for Michael wouldn't make this better.

"It's been ten years," Alex started. "I went to war and came back and it's over ten years later and still you are the person I want. You are the reason I accepted that I was gay – you are the person who I looked at and wanted. Then you wanted me back and it was amazing. It was fucking perfect and terrible all at once because every time you touched me I couldn't think straight. Even when you weren't touching me I couldn't think straight and…I've never felt like that about anyone. But then I had to leave and it broke my heart to leave you but…I'm not going to go over that again we were both there and it…I left and I thought it was just the way you felt about your first love but I was wrong and I came back minus one leg, with nightmares of war and more than a touch of PTSD, but still you can make my heart race with a single look. I'm seventeen again and I don't want anything as much as I want you to touch me."

"I am right here," Michael offered. "I haven't gone anywhere."

"Why not?"

"What?"

"Why didn't you leave, you had more scholarship offers than I could hold in two hands. You are a genius; you were the smartest person in the state of New Mexico. When I left you were deciding on a university. I heard that you hadn't left but no one told me why – I didn't know how to even ask because no one knew about us back then. But that's not why I'm here."

"Why are you here?"

"Because I crave you, Michael. Do you have any idea what that's like?"

Michael nodded. "You know I do. Your dad broke my fucking hand because I have been craving you for ten years."

Alex looked at the scar on Michael's hand and remembered that horrible night before he pushed those memories away because he needed to focus on this conversation. "Then you also know we need to do something about this. We need to make this either work or work out how to walk away."

"I've never walked away; you are the one who walks away. You're the one who left to join the air force and you're the one who always gets to decide when we're done."

"You think I have the power in this relationship?" Alex scoffed. "You think I have any control over this?"

"You decided we would be a secret when we were teenagers. You left to join the air force."

"I left to save us both," Alex cut in harshly and turned to look at Michael who was watching him with dark eyes. "My father would have done so much worse than what he did that night…he broke your hand – look at that scar."

"I wouldn't have let that stop me," Michael said. "You decided that it was easier to walk away, it's…never mind."

"You thought that was easy? You don't think I broke my heart that day getting on a bus and watching you disappear into the distance. You don't think I spent months, years, wishing that things had been different that I could have seen another way to save us both? You think I haven't regretting leaving you?"

"I told you then that we could just leave."

"And never see my mum again? Never speak to my brothers?"

"And you would have had to stand up to your father," Michael said bitterly.

"You forgot me dragging him off you? You forgot that he broke my nose that night as well. He threatened to report you. He threatened to kill you if he ever found you touching me again. I needed to leave so that we would both be safe. Did you forget about the way that you treated me the next day?"

Michael's eyes shuttered the way they always did when he was hiding something.

"And that," Alex said, "that way you hide things from me. You knew everything about me – you knew me better than anyone and I…I knew you were hiding something from me and then that day I came to you and I wanted to say 'let's run away' but you acted like you didn't know me, you told me not to get so emotional – it meant nothing, you…you broke my fucking heart in front of our high school so I did what my dad wanted and I joined the Air Force and got away from my dad and ensured he'd leave you the fuck alone as well and you've blamed me for it ever since. You might have offered to run away with me when you found out I was leaving but you never trusted in us."

"Ensure he'd leave me the fuck alone?" Michael screamed, something crashed to the left and Alex's eyes looked over at the heap that had been stacked perfectly when he'd walked past it earlier.

"And that!" Alex screamed. "How do you do that? I know it's you, I know it's you because the first time I slid into you the entire room shook."

Michael looked…he looked scared and Alex had never, ever, no matter how mad he was a Michael, never wanted him to be scared. Too much in Michael's life had scared him and Alex had always wanted to be the sanctuary that Michael could escape to.

"I want you to know that you can share anything with me, Michael," he said softly, sitting back and trying to relax. "It always hurt so fucking much that you hid everything from me."

"What do you want from me?" Michael said, looking away but not before Alex saw the sheen to his eyes. "You come here at 2am and tell me that we can't keep doing what we've been doing but you started this. You came to my trailer and you decided that we were going to start something up. You stayed. You asked me to the movies. You decided it couldn't work so what the fuck do you want from me?"

"The only thing I've ever wanted from you is you. I want you. I want to fall asleep next to you and wake up with you. I want to fight with you and love you. I want to eat breakfast in your crappy trailer and I want to camp in the desert with you. I want your forever, Michael."

Michael's shoulders slumped down and his head hung low. "Why do you do this to me?"

"What?"

"Why do you come here and offer me everything? You did this ten years ago – you offered me something and then you left. Everyone fucking leaves. You're here offering me something I know that you're going to take away from me later. Why do you hate me?"

Alex felt like Michael had punched him, 1, 2, in the gut and in the heart. "Don't you get it, Michael – I love you, I've loved you for over ten years. I loved you when I was a stupid kid and I look at you now and I just want to love you again but I don't know how to do that."

"What do you want from me?" Michael asked. "I've given you everything I have and it's never been enough."

"It was always enough – you're enough but you're self-destructive as well. You keep testing me and giving me reasons to pull away and then you're mad when I do. And I hate walking away and then we both end up coming back together and then going through the same thing again and I can't keep doing that to you or to myself. I need this to either be a thing we are doing or I need you to let me go."

"What do you want from me?"

"I need you to not be a criminal. I need you to just let me in a little."

"I can't tell you all my secrets," Michael said. "They aren't mine."

Alex nodded. "They are Max and Isobel's too, right?"

Michael didn't answer, just nodded.

"Then don't tell me – but don't use it as a way to get me to run away. If we could just break that pattern – if you would stop giving me reasons to walk away and I could just stop giving you reasons to not trust that I want to stay maybe we could make this work and that's what I want – I want this to work, Michael."

"So do I," Michael admitted, voice low. "I tried like hell to forget you and I've never been able to. One look at you on that farm and I wanted you."

"Do you want to go out to dinner with me tomorrow night?" Alex asked.

Michael turned to look at him. "What?"

"Do you want to go on a date with me tomorrow night…tonight? Dinner at that Italian restaurant?"

"You want to be seen out in public with me?"

"I want to scream from the rooftops that you and I are dating and we're going to give this a go but I thought I was best to start with a date."

"You want people to know about us?" Michael asked, turning at looking at him, searching him. Alex wanted to reach out and touch him but he hadn't touched him at all tonight and he was terrified that if he did this would all be over and their moment of honesty would fade like the stars under the glare of the sun.

"Yes."

"You never wanted people to know about us."

"I was a teenager with a homophobic, abusive father who was trying to beat the gay out of me while I was discovering the wonders of homosexuality with a guy who was everything my dad hated. I was terrified that we would be found out and my dad would do exactly what he did."

Michael put his hand on the side of Alex's neck.

"I'm not that kid anymore," Alex said.

"I saw you talking to your father the night of the drive-in – before everything went to shit."

"He told me I was spending time with the wrong sort of person and he can go fuck himself. I don't care about your past, Michael but he's also right – I can't be dating a criminal not if I'm in the air force."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Why did you need to sell the wire?"

"Money."

Alex looked at him.

"It's not always easy to get a job with my background."

Alex thought for a moment and then asked the question that he'd wanted to know the answer to for over a decade. "Why didn't you go to university?"

"You remember the foster father I was living with at that point?"

"Hank something, right?"

"Yeah," Michael's hand slipped off him and rubbed against the skin of his knee. Alex could see a faded scar under his hand. "Someone broke into a warehouse on the air force base. They found the stuff at Hank's place and he said it was mine – claimed I was out during the break-in and there was no actual evidence against me and nothing to prove that I was there but I said I was home and my guardian said I wasn't. Suddenly, I have a criminal record and my scholarships dried up along with all of the offers to any university worth anything. The boss here, old Toby, never did believe it so he gave me a chance and I've worked here for most of the last ten years but it doesn't pay much and it's not easy to find something else when you're a criminal who's pissed off the Air Force in a base town."

"You're leaving something out," Alex said, watching Michael's eyes.

"It's not worth it, Alex, leave it alone."

"Please tell me."

"Your father made sure I was brought up on charges – Sheriff Valenti was away at the time and his deputy did what the decorated Air Force officer told him to. If it hadn't have been for him they wouldn't have charged me – there was no evidence and people around knew what Hank was like."

"I'm going to kill him," Alex muttered, shoving a hand through his hair. "We had a fucking deal – I join the Air Force and he leaves you the fuck alone."

"Yeah, well, your father's a double-crossing bastard."

"I'm so sorry, Michael."

Michael shrugged. "Probably won't have left anyway…I'm-"

"You deserve the fucking world, Michael. You deserved every scholarship, you deserved to get to make the decisions about where your life took you. I am so fucking mad at him – you don't deserve any of the shit being with me put you through."

Michael chuckled. "Being with you was worth almost anything."

"No, being with me stole your future."

Michael's hand slid rough and hot against the side of Alex's neck and pulled his attention back to the curly-haired man. "Being with you gave me…being with you was…fuck, Alex, it's not your fault what your dad did. You should have told me that was the deal and I'm sorry about the way I treated you the day after everything happened – I wish I could explain it all. Being with you brought me to life. Yes, I'd like to go on a date with you tonight."

Alex smiled. There was so much more between them than either of them had ever even known. "I know you have this secret and I'll respect that but I'm going to ask you one thing."

Michael nodded.

"Don't lie to me. Tell me you can't tell me, tell me it's none of my business but don't lie to me and don't push me away. I want to be here – I want to be worthy of bringing you to life."

Michael nodded.

"And I won't leave because of something stupid. I hear communication is important to this type of thing."

Michael looked away for a moment, his face shuttering. "I have a lot of secrets."

"You can trust me with any secret but I will wait for you to be ready."

"I might never be able to tell you my secrets." Michael said, pulling his hand away. Alex grabbed at it and held it tight. "Can you accept that?"

Alex paused and thought on it because Michael was being honest here and whatever this secret was it was big and involved two other people and Michael really might never be able to tell him and it would always be between them. But he'd lost ten years with this man and the idea of missing more because of a secret, because of something that wasn't about them made him sure. "Yes, be as honest with me as you can and I will leave your secret alone. I don't want to miss more time with you, Michael."

"Neither do I."

Alex sat back and kept a hold of Michael's hand. They sat in silence again for a few minutes.

"Come inside," Michael said finally.

"No, I should go home."

"Come inside."

"We are going to do this right. We have our first date tonight."

"We don't need to do anything…just-"

"Yes, I'll stay," Alex said pulling Michael's hand up and pressing a kiss over the scar. "I'll need to leave at about 6 to get ready for work; do you want me to wake you?"

Michael shrugged and Alex decided right then that he would wake him and he'd work out all of the little ways that Michael showed what he wanted but didn't think he deserved.

Michael stood and led him into the trailer, leading him over to the bed. They striped off to boxers and Michael watched him, not taking his eyes off him while Alex pulled off his prosthetic and the protective sock. Alex had seen any number of reactions to the injury but Michael's gaze was intent without gawking.

"What happened?

Alex looked down at his leg and sighed. "Could we talk about it another time? I just want to feel you lying next to me."

Michael looked away and nodded before he slipped into the bed next to Alex.

"I do want to tell you everything," Alex said, pressing a kiss to Michael's shoulder. "It was a terrible accident. I got shot and then run over by a jeep."

Michael pulled away and looked at him.

"The driver was shot as well; I couldn't get out of the way of the vehicle because I'd been shot in the leg and was pinned down. The car drove over my leg and between the two injuries they couldn't save it. It's not nearly as glamorous as a bomb or an IED but it earns me a drink at every Air Force bar injury competition."

Michael pulled away and leaned down to press a kiss to the scar. Then he curled around Alex and rested his head on the other man's chest. Alex didn't know what to say.

"Go to sleep, you've got almost three hours of sleep in front of you."

Alex slid a hand into Michael's curls and closed his eyes.

The End