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It’d been another long day on set. They’d arrived under the fading cover of too-early morning darkness, at an hour which had prompted James to contemplate directorial homicide, though Michael had managed to convince him that hiding randomly-set alarm clocks in Matthew’s office would work just as well. Plus, they’d avoid unpleasant jail time.
And then, as if out of preemptive revenge, Matthew had scheduled them to shoot in different locations, scenes with other people, all of whom were very nice. None of said people, however, were James, and so Michael had spent the entire morning, when not occupied with channeling all of Erik’s outraged and violent anger, feeling unfairly deprived by this fact.
Also, he was incredibly hungry.
For probably the fifth time, he tried to check his watch, and failed, because his watch was set to some time that made sense within the context of the scene but had no relation to the actual placement of the sun in the sky. It was the middle of the afternoon, anyway; he could tell that much. No wonder he was starving; at least he was, finally, done for the morning, and thus allowed to go hunt down a far too delayed lunch somewhere.
He should probably wait for James, though. Or bring James food, because James was probably starving, also, and not complaining, because James never complained.
But James was still off filming, a scene that in theory should’ve been short—how difficult was it to put out special-effect fires in a bunker, really?—but for some reason hadn’t finished yet. There was, however, quite a lot of noise going on at that end of the set, though. And a small tendril of smoke, escaping up into the sky. Perhaps things weren’t going well in the special-effects department.
He’d started wandering idly in the direction of food, and wondering what the sudden commotion near the distant set might mean, and whether James would end up being stuck there all afternoon while someone reset the equipment, when one of the personal assistants came sprinting up to him, skidded to a halt, and then tripped over the competing needs to talk and reacquire air at the same time.
“You—come—you have to—”
“What’s wrong? Steve, right?” James would’ve known. James knew all the names of every crew member, and probably also the names of their pets.
“Yes—listen, he said we didn’t need to—but Mr Bacon told me to come get you anyway because he’s not really okay and—”
“Who isn’t?” Not James. Please. No. The world actually might’ve tilted, just a fraction, on its axis, at the suggestion of that thought. He tried to cling to balance in the face of the potential seismic shift.
“Oh, sorry—James—I mean Mr McAvoy but he said to call him—”
“What the hell happened to James?”
“Um…something about the fire, I think, and the extinguisher didn’t work right, and they couldn’t get it to go out and—but he says he’s fine and we shouldn’t—”
“Where?” He could only manage one word of that question. James. And fire. The ground spun threateningly beneath his feet. James, and fire. God. No.
“Outside over by the bunker set—” Where all the shouting had been coming from a few minutes ago. He could’ve gone over to see what had caused the noise. He hadn’t.
The world destabilized itself a little more around him. But his legs still worked, didn’t they?
He ignored Steve talking at him, and ran.
The on-set ambulance lurked in his line of sight, as he got closer, like a harbinger of terrible events. He clung to the fact that it was still sitting there, lights off, serenely unmoving, not rushing James away from him toward the hospital. And their set paramedic was leaning against the side, talking into a radio, making some sort of report. Maybe whatever had happened really hadn’t been that bad.
The alternative, of course—that whatever could be done already had been done—presented itself, viciously unbidden. No, he thought, just as viciously, and ran toward the excited little knot of bodies next to the placid vehicle.
He elbowed the first few observers out of his path—one of them he registered belatedly as Matthew, who seemed to be having a very emphatic telephone conversation with persons unknown, complete with angry hand gestures—and then a few of them recognized him and started making openings in the crowd, and he got his first glimpse of James, sitting very still on the ground, at the epicenter of all the activity. Kevin had a supportive hand on his shoulder, and his eyes were closed, one arm resting on pulled-up knees, and the other hand holding a—
Michael pushed the last interfering person out of the way, and fell down on both knees in the dirt and pulled James into his arms, where he could feel all that reassuring weight, very much present and alive.
James lifted his head, opened blue eyes, above the oxygen mask. Their gaze brightened when they found his, and the world creaked back towards balance, slowly.
James actually moved the hand holding the mask, so he could talk. “Hi.”
“Hi, yourself—are you all right?” Please be all right, he thought. It was the only thought he had left. Please.
“I’m fine.” James stopped to cough, glancing away momentarily. The eyes met his again, after James recaptured air, blueness like raw gemstones scraped out of red-rimmed settings. “They weren’t supposed to tell you—I didn’t want to worry you—”
“Don’t talk.” Michael nudged the hand, holding vital oxygen, back into place. “Just breathe. What happened—no, I said don’t talk, not you, all right? Someone else.”
Kevin looked at him, over the tumble of curly hair where James, giving up the attempt to speak under Michael’s best glare, rested his head against an accepting shoulder instead. “From what I heard, there was a leak when they were setting everything up, some sort of lighter fluid or oil or something. No one noticed at the time, but when they ignited the flames, well…and then he was down at the far end, of course, supposed to be trying to put them out, only someone bought an old fire extinguisher and it wasn’t pressurized anymore…”
“Who the fuck—”
“Come on, you’re making it sound much worse than it was! I walked out of there, really, I’m fine!”
This otherwise convincing protest, unfortunately, ended up mostly discredited by a sudden cough. Michael tightened his arms around those familiarly solid shoulders. Still here. Still breathing, even if not exactly easily, at the moment. He shut his own eyes, for a second, and tried not to think about the alternative.
“He did make it out on his own,” Kevin corroborated. “And then almost passed out from trying to breathe nothing but smoke.”
“I did not!”
“I think Matthew’s firing some people.”
“Good.”
“The paramedic said he shouldn’t need to go to the hospital if he doesn’t want to. But he should rest.”
“See? I did tell you I was fine.”
“No one’s listening to you about this, James.”
“But—”
“No.”
“You’re lucky I love you,” James muttered, but he got the sentence out without stopping to cough, and Michael finally remembered how to make his own lungs work properly again, as if in sympathy.
“I love you, too. That’s why I’m not listening to you.”
“That’s hardly—”
“James?” Matthew came back, evidently through with telephonically eviscerating the guilty parties, and crouched down next to their small huddle on the bare ground. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, thank you. I could keep filming, if you want. Though I should probably change first, unless you want Charles to be covered in smoke for some nefarious purpose.”
“James, be quiet. You should know that we’re not listening to him right now.” Matthew clearly didn’t realize that James shouldn’t be allowed to judge his own recuperative powers.
“Okay. Is he all right?”
“Hey! Still here.”
“He says he is. He needs to rest, though.”
“But not the hospital, or anything, right?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“Good, then.” Matthew looked at James again, and at Michael’s protective arm around James’s shoulders, and some of the lines of tension in his face smoothed themselves away. “I think you two can take the rest of the day off. We won’t be able to use this set for anything else today, anyway, and we’re still more or less on schedule. And if I send James home, now, I might as well send you home with him, right?”
Michael couldn’t really argue with that particular comment, even if he’d been the least bit inclined to. It was true, after all.
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’ll get someone to take you back to the hotel.”
“I don’t get a say in this, do I?”
“No!” That came out rather loudly, delivered from three different sources. James looked up at Kevin pathetically. “You, too?”
Kevin shrugged at him. “I’m easily swayed by a powerful majority. And also I think your other half might kill me if I take your side on this one. And I like me not being dead. Sorry.”
“I don’t think I like any of you anymore.”
“We know.” Michael tightened his arm around James, who settled against him more comfortably, and sighed. And then coughed. Which made Michael’s heart, only just now calming itself down again, stutter in his chest.
“Are you—”
“I’m fine. I love you. And if you’re seriously making me go home, I’d like to shower. I think this is what being flambéd probably feels like. Not nearly as fun as it looks with food.”
“I love you, too. We can shower, yes.” He wasn’t going to comment on James’s horrible metaphor. He couldn’t.
“We can shower? Interesting plan.”
“You know I didn’t—I meant—I didn’t mean that! You can’t even breathe—”
“I keep telling you I can. You’ve just decided not to listen. Which is still not fair, by the way.”
“—and I’m not going to let you out of my sight ever. And you’re not going to complain about that.”
“Who’s complaining? I get to see you naked in the shower.”
“If I don’t want to see you naked in the shower, and James isn’t dying after all, can I leave too?” That was Kevin.
Michael said “Yes,” and James added, “Oh, sorry, I didn’t say thank you for being here, I should’ve said—” and Matthew said “No, you can’t, if they’re going home—and, James, I’m glad you’re fine, honestly—then I need you to stay here and keep working, and also we have to talk about you looking overly menacing when we’re shooting close-ups…”
“You realize that’s just my normal face,” Kevin observed, but got up to follow Matthew anyway. With that departure, as if on cue, most of the crowd slowly dispersed as well, leaving the two of them more or less alone, sitting together in the quiet dirt.
Neither of them spoke, for a minute. Just stayed very still, amid the drifting scent of smoke and the sudden cessation of sound, and leaned on each other. Because they were both there to lean on.
“Still here,” James murmured, after a comfortingly endless minute, and Michael kissed him, softly.
“I probably taste like smoke.”
“You do. I’m still going to kiss you.”
“Perfect.”
After a few minutes their driver turned up, and Michael refused to let James stand up without help, which made James roll his eyes, at least until the point at which he tried to walk across the parking lot and ended up stopping halfway to cough, and then gave up protesting the support. Even after he managed to regain air, Michael watched him the entire way back to the hotel, just in case. If he looked away, for one second, James might forget how to breathe again.
At the hotel, he tugged James into the shower, flipped on scalding water to cascade all over them, and then grabbed James’s shampoo and tried to replace the harrowing edge of smoke with the wonderfully friendly scent of apples. He’d never mock this particular shampoo again, he decided, as it carried away the ugly reminders of fear and danger and pain, washing the thought of fire away with water and steam.
James looked up at him, amused, but stood there and let Michael take care of him, shutting his eyes against the exuberant soap and smiling, when his hair stuck to his face.
“I love you.” That came out a little waterlogged, because James was trying to talk through the shower and all of Michael’s ministrations, but understandable anyway. And followed by no coughing at all.
“I love you, too.”
“I think my hair is sufficiently clean, you know.”
“One more.” Just to make sure.
“Fine.” James ran a hand through his own hair, collecting lather, turned around, and drew a small heart on Michael’s chest, and Michael kind of wanted to cry. He didn’t, because that would’ve just been pathetic. But he wanted to.
“Are you all right?”
“Me? You—”
“Yes, you. The person who’s washed my hair five times, and the rest of me at least three. Are you all right?”
“You were covered in smoke. You tasted like smoke. I couldn’t—I had to—now you taste like soap. And that’s…better.”
To which James said, through all the lightly falling water, “Yes, it is,” and then kissed him again. “And I’m better, too. I’m fine. And I’m not going anywhere. Except possibly to bed, because maybe I might be tired after all, and you’re not allowed to tell Matthew that, ever, and you are allowed to come hold me, in bed, for as long as you want. All right?”
“Yes. All right. Always.”
“I meant naked in bed. Just so you know.”
“Still not having sex with you. At least not yet.”
“I know. I just enjoy you being naked.” The blue eyes were gazing up at him, now, through all the tumbling crystal drops of water, reassuring and bright and alive, and Michael looked down into all that sapphire-sparkle welcome and found a smile waiting there.
So he held James a little more tightly, surrounded by the warmth of the shower and the scent of apples, banishing all the last remnants of smoke and fire from pale skin, and said “Thank you,” and knew that James understood why, heard everything else he didn’t say, from the way James held him in return.
And when James took a breath, under the soft splashes around them, Michael felt it, and breathed in too. In and out, and in, again. Together.