Work Text:
Left Them All Behind
Eric's favorite movie is The Princess Bride. Michael keeps refusing to watch it. But one day, when he's sitting on Eric's couch, Eric pounces, cackling about an ROUS attack. He hits play and actually sits on Michael through the whole film. Michael groans several times -- a number of which are because his body is going numb -- and laughs even more.
They watch it peacefully whenever Eric suggests it after that. They've made plans to watch it again when Michael nearly drowns and Eric nearly bleeds to death and their lives get impossibly more complicated.
Eric is lying in a hospital bed to recover, and he keeps refusing to see anyone. But one day Michael just forces his way past Nurse Angus and hauls in a VCR that he hooks up. He hits play and sits on Eric's bed. He doesn't hit stop until the credits have finished even though neither of them has ever copped to loving the end theme.
He smiles weakly. "'We are men of action. Lies do not become us.'"
Eric chuckles.
He fights a blush. "So I'm admitting two things. It's my favorite movie now, too."
Eric laughs outright at that, so hard that he starts to choke against the bandaged stretch of his neck. A higher power drew a line in the sand there, and Michael is tired of ignoring signs.
He leans down to cup Eric's chin as the laughter and coughs subside. "And all death can do is delay true love."
Death can't stop it, any more than he can stop it -- or blushing. He's afraid to pounce, but he kisses Eric until he starts to understand how it must have felt to dive into the lightning sand, to suck the weight of the world into your mouth just to make sure someone else can breathe.
He finally pulls back when Eric's heart monitor goes a little crazy, because no way does he want to face Nurse Angus again right now.
Eric is struggling -- for breath, for words, for something. Michael expects his next words to evidence surprise or disbelief, like the bad imitation he's heard Eric do of the Impressive Clergyman's "dweam wiffin a dweam" speech in the past. He frowns and bites his lip and feels his face tensing up, but he still waits, since that's what Eric has done all along.
"How do you think that rated?" Eric asks.
"What?"
"The kiss, how did it rate? Maybe we should grab some kid from the pediatric ward to guess the level of passion. Or we try it again and try to decide for ourselves. What do you think?"
Michael is the one laughing again, and it's another thing he can't stop -- at least not until Eric's hands pull him back down for another kiss. He traces the hidden wound on Eric's neck where the past is scarring over cleanly. The future is an unlimited taste in Eric's mouth, and all Michael can think is, As you wish.
- end -