In the dimly-lit storage room in the back of the diner, Jeep clutched the electric screwdriver in his shaking hands. Everything was a mess. People were dying, and he knew he needed to get plywood to board up the shattered window so they couldn't drag anyone else's body out, but at the moment he could only stand and breathe uneven. He needed to be still, to try to convince himself it was just another nightmare and soon he'd wake up with the same sickly feeling he always got. His finger twitched against the screwdriver's trigger.
He heard a soft sound at the doorway and turned to find Michael staring at him with deep, unearthly eyes. It was unsettling. It made Jeep want to talk on impulse, endlessly, about everything. It made him wonder what Michael was. An angel, he'd said, or he used to be. What did that mean, with the possession and the shark teeth? Too many questions but not the time to ask them. Plywood, now. Window, now.
Jeep couldn't stop himself. "So what'd you do? Before you came here?"
Michael set the plywood slab just outside the door, making his way back to the stack. Jeep couldn't tear his eyes from the tightening of the muscles in his arms. Lithe but solid. He almost missed Michael's reply. 'A soldier'? 'His' army… God's? Shit.
Suddenly the screwdriver held Jeep's (feigned) interest. Anything to distract him from the stretch of the t-shirt fabric across Michael's back. "What changed? Why'd you leave?"
An overlong pause, then Michael's eyes shifted uncomfortably. "I was given an order I didn't believe in. He lost faith. I didn't."
Faith. That was a funny thing. Jeep knew what it was like to believe in something no one else did. It was like cold gasoline soaking his lungs, a burning crawl of anger when his dad just gave him that look and he couldn't do anything to convince him that Charlie had changed, because she-
Jeep swallowed the thickness in his throat, bitter taste for bitter thoughts. He'd wanted to breathe, but now it was almost too much effort. "Seems like everything I have faith in causes me nothin' but trouble."
Michael's eyes turned to his feet for a moment before he spoke. "When God chose your kind as the object of his love, I was the first in all of Heaven to bow down before you. My love and hope for mankind was no less than His."
Jeep was quickly losing his ability to ignore the softness of Michael's voice.
"But," Michael shrugged off the doorway and stepped closer. Breathing short but quiet, Jeep's head felt light- like when he'd spent too much time with his face pressed in close to a hot engine and its fumes. He slipped the screwdriver onto the desk behind him. Michael continued slowly, "I've watched you kill each other over race and greed, warring over dust and rubble and the words in old books."
Jeep couldn't tear his eyes away. Michael's gaze was so incredibly soft yet there was a piercing omniscience in his eyes, striking Jeep quick with the thought of the incomprehensible age of this creature. The things he must've seen.
A step forward. "I see some people who will not be bowed."
Shit.
"I see some people who will not give up, even when all hope is lost."
Each step Michael took toward him made the waves of heat in Jeep's stomach roll deeper. He felt sick. He felt high, slowly suffocating in Michael's existence. Everything felt wrong inside- vulnerable, breakable like taking even the smallest breath could wreck him.
"Some people who will not be bowed."
He was so close now. Jeep could see the icy flecks in his irises and feel Michael's too-human breath ghost his face. "Some people, who realize being lost is so close to being found. I see you, Jeep."
Love confessions in movies Jeep had watched were cruel lies compared to this. This was almost religious, and it wasn't as weird as it should've been that Michael sounded like he was reciting a hymn. Michael knew it all, the pain when his mother left, the pain from losing his father to drink and reclusive depression, the ache he felt as the days passed and Charlie pulled further and further away. It broke something in him, some floodgate that came crumbling down at the realization that someone like Michael had been watching him, drawing strength from him.
Jeep searched Michael's eyes and the disbelief and wonder he felt must have shown through. Michael's eyes became somehow softer and the sincerity in them made Jeep shudder.
"You, Jeep. You are the reason I still have faith."
He hadn't meant to do it. He hadn't really planned to lean up and press his lips softly to Michael's, eyes shut and fingers grasping at his hips. By the time Jeep realized what he'd done, Michael was pressing back, hands sliding up his jaw and into his hair and Jeep couldn't bring himself to pull away. Their mouths slid together slow and hot as Michael lifted him onto the desk and slipped between his open legs. Jeep whined into the wet, welcoming mouth against his own. Michael was pressed against him, hand around the back of his neck to hold him there. Not that Jeep would have moved.
Michael's mouth slipped down just under his lips and moved slowly from his chin to his jaw, softly biting until he reached the spot just under Jeep's ear. Jeep's hips shifted, sliding to line them up and rock gently against him. His heels pressed into the backs of Michael's knees, drawing him forward. Michael shivered, sinking lower to fit closer to him. His lips found Jeep's again as they rocked together, trying to keep silent. Someone would find them eventually, no need to rush the embarrassment. Even so, Jeep couldn't stop.
It was jarring how quick everything had shifted. He didn't even know what this meant, if anything- just that Michael was encouraging it and he needed someone. He… needed someone to feel something like this for him.
Something Charlie didn't. Something Michael could.
He whimpered into Michael's shoulder as he pulled their cocks out. He tried not to think about what exactly he was doing, but thinking about anything became harder from then on. The lightheaded feeling had solidified to a dull haze, warm and heavy like he was drunk. He took them both in his hand and looked up at Michael to find him staring back at him with wide eyes. It wasn't a comfortable expression, almost worried, but it was endearing. Jeep couldn't stop himself from smiling. He buried his face in Michael's shoulder again, stroking them faster.
Michael nudged his shoulder and pulled back slightly. Jeep glanced down just as Michael exhaled softly and came in small spurts. When he looked up again Michael's eyes were wide, staring down at the mess on Jeep's shirt. For a moment the only thing Jeep could think of was that Michael had probably never done anything like this and the thought had him shaking out a breathless laugh, his mind pleasurably blank as he came. They sat together for a while, breathing in each others' space, hearts racing from more than the sex.
When Jeep finally pulled his face from Michael's chest, the unease he'd felt before came rushing back. He felt sick and anxious, couldn't fathom what he'd just done. If it were possible, Michael looked like he felt even more out of place than Jeep, body rigid and spaced out, looking at seemingly nothing over Jeep's shoulder. He focused when Jeep touched his side and fixed his pants.
"I don't..." Michael trailed off, pulling at Jeep's shirt. Jeep couldn't look at him.
"'S fine."
Michael kissed the corner of his mouth and backed away, grabbing a sheet of plywood on his way out.
"It's almost time for the next shift."