The stark white of Michael's face only made the bluing bruises seem more severe. The sea foam green of the walls was almost an exact match of what came out of Brian as he finished surveying the damages. Of all the wounds he saw the one he would always remember. It was the one that propelled him toward the bathroom.
His beautiful fragile Michael had been sown back together. The point where his collarbone gently became the adam's apple was torn. A jagged gash so harsh that within moments of seeing it, it had managed to reduce a strong street-wise 29 year old man into a quivering mass of heaving, gasping nothingness. He realized, as the contents of his stomach left him fast enough to ricochet back towards him and onto his shirt, just how close he came to losing the only thing he ever really had.
After his shaking had subsided he braved a glance in the mirror. His hair was matted to his head by his fearful sweating. The stink of himself was enough to make him want to return to the comforting place with his head above the bowl. Definately not fit to be seen anywhere near Liberty Ave. Not that it mattered anymore. If Michael woke up... NO! His mind rebelled. When Michael wakes up he's going to be Brian's everything. From this moment on Brian was a one man man and if Michael would have none of him then he would be a no man man.
He straightened his shirt took a deep breath and took another look at Michael. This time he didn't see the bruises and the gash and the IV's. He saw his beautiful fragile Mikey. His body shook from the force of it. The pure unadulterated knowledge of love flooded his senses and he forgot everything outside the door. He curled himself tightly into Michael's heat. He was home.
He is standing in a white room of doors. He picks the one he almost always picks. In every way this dream is the most made of memory, of fact. He remembers this day, ten years past, better than he remembers last week. He blinks as the whiteness over takes him and suddenly he is surrounded by his life at twenty.
The apartment he calls him can more accurately be described as a room with an attached bath. His second hand thrift store bed is drowning in all the things he'd experienced alone. The celebratory trick he'd brought home after his first official day of college. The one he did on his last too. This one decidedly less celebratory. It was covered in the tears, the anguish and the hurt of Brian getting everything he'd ever wanted. Of being, for the last time, cast aside. The pride that swelled in him for everything Brian had set out to accomplish and did was indescribable. However did nothing to numb the pain of his loneliness or his isolation. He sat on that bed and he remembered. He cried. He loved. It was in this profound moment of crying and loving that his peace was shattered by a soft knock on the door follower by an even louder knock of someone hitting the floor.
There he lay crouched in a ball, ripped shirt, dirty jeans and cuts on his face. Michael saw to his face first. He used his whispered rambling to cover the gasp of rubbing alcohol on open cuts. There was nothing he could do to cover the first gasp that escaped him as he peeled back the soiled clothing to reveal a battered Brian. There was also nothing he could do to stop the tear that escaped when he saw those strong beautiful thighs covered in blood.
The look of pure fear that Brian must have seen in his eyes asked the silent question. Answered only by a slight shake of his head. Not Michael's worst fear but not far off. Brian had always been excited by the prospect of being on the giving end of a willing rough fuck. It had seemed though that the tables had turned and his rough trick had been too rough.
After he was tucked safely into bed Michael watched him. When he did he didn't see the year of silent agony that they both suffered as three, six, and twelve months eeked by. Always with a tenative negative. He didn't see the terrified shaking Brian vowing he would never let anyone top him ever again. He didn't see the months of icy silence that always followed Michael being privy to another one of Brian's dark secrets. All he saw was his beautiful fragile Brian. And that his beautiful fragile Brian had come home.
AN: This story go a whole lot darker than I had intended.