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Alexis had made the fatal mistake of leaving the evidence right where Michael could find it.
A handful of royal blue rose petals, coated in blood and lord-knows-what-else, loosely wrapped in a paper towel, laid at the bottom of the otherwise empty bathroom garbage can. Easily missed if not for the vibrant red that managed to clash with the soft pastels of Alexis’ bathroom decor.
It had to be a mistake, because Alexis had him over for a homemade meal every Sunday, and cleaned his apartment within an inch of its life ahead of time. It had to be a mistake, because Michael was himself, and Alexis was more than aware of the attention to detail that others had called “ruthless”, and no one in their right mind would leave the evidence of such an embarrassing illness.
(Maybe it wasn’t a mistake. Maybe Alexis wanted him to see the bloodied petals. Maybe it was some twisted form of self harm e like so, so many of their shared traits.)
Had he not seen the proof himself, Michael would have easily dismissed the disease as nonsense, over-romanticized garbage that school children perpetuated - something akin to the increased rates of cardiovascular complications following times of tragedy and loss.
Unrequited love? How pathetic.
Part of him wondered if it was big-headed to assume that Alexis’ feelings were directed at him, part of him knew it was foolish to assume there was an alternative. Michael had tiptoed around the reality of it to the best of his ability, but when the strings of Alexis’ affection were dangled in front of him, it was difficult to deny the temptation to reach out and tug. Another part of him, the loudest, most pragmatic part, found comfort in the fact that, like every “friend” he’d ever had, Alexis would grow tired of his antics, his abuse, of him and move on in due time. Even the best toys broke if you played hard enough. Nothing was free, surely not something as pure as love.
He had to give Alexis credit, he had done an excellent job of hiding it. Michael hadn’t seen him so much as clear his throat, and yet the pile of flowers was formidable. Surely, he was in pain, some of the buds still had stems with thorns attached to them.
“Michael~”
God, he sounded like a fucking Disney princess. No hint of discomfort or pain in the voice that floated through the halls of his overpriced apartment, only the sickening adoration that laced his words. Alexis was never one to admit when he was in pain - unless it was under duress.
Not that Michael wasn’t an expert of that.
He opened the bathroom door before Alexis could knock, meeting the man with an incredulous expression.
“Are you in love with me, Alexis?”
Whatever thought was rolling around in his empty head disappeared, wide magenta eyes jumping from Michael’s face to the garbage can behind him. A dozen emotions flashed across Alexis face as he processed the situation. With the knowledge that he’d been found out hanging heavily between them, Michael fully expected him to crack. To pour his heart out. And Michael had every intention of meeting his heartfelt confession with indifference, because it truly to an idiot to look at him and feel affection.
Alexis’ expression settled on -
Resignation.
“Of course I am, Micha. But you knew that.”
Excuse me.
“Dinner is ready, by the way.”
Alexis disappeared down the hallway into the kitchen, humming an unnamed tune that ground Michael’s nerves into dust.
Michael didn’t acknowledge it again. Not out loud, at least. He had no intention of humoring these childlike games. He didn’t get crushes, and whatever silly feelings Alexis had were his problem to handle, not Michael’s.
Though, knowing Alexis’ secret made his discomfort far more noticeable.
His stamina wasn’t what it used to be, his energy off the pitch was lower. Much like anyone who had gotten sick with a cold or flu would. Michael took no issue with pointing it out to Alexis, and when that didn’t work he pointed it out to the team - something that clearly soured the opinions of their teammates when Alexis’ symptoms became difficult to ignore.
“How can you ignore this when you know he has feelings for you?”
Simple, really. Michael no interest in the romantic feelings of others, let alone reciprocating them. He knew better than to think friendships were anything more than transactions, and love was nothing more than weakness shared between two idiots.
On more than one occasion, Alexis had almost convinced him otherwise. Almost. The intensity of his affection threatened to burn him, and there had been times Michael felt like he’d be consumed by the magenta flames behind those perpetually tearful eyes. Sure, there was probably no other person on the planet that Michael considered himself remotely close to. Alexis was the the only person who knew his favorite movie was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and that his favorite season was winter. Alexis was the only person who he’d willfully told about his life before soccer, about his father. Alexis was the only person who ever saw the side of himself that he hid from others, who saw first hand his inability to view people as people - or more accurately, to view himself as human.
How could he love someone like him? Alexis looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky, but all Michael saw in the mirror was a ratty boy, a thief, a broken man who loved destruction because it was the only thing he knew.
Which was why Michael knew this wouldn’t last. Alexis was smart, he’d put his pretty little head to work and realize that, not only did Michael not return his feelings, he probably wasn’t even capable of doing so. At some point, hopefully soon, Alexis’ fever would break, the poison that Michael had fed him to get him under his thumb would wane and he’d realize that he’d been used to charm their teammates and pass a ball. Nothing else.
Alexis went on medical leave in the fall.
His stupid crush had finally entered the realm of severe inconvenience, and somehow Michael still hadn’t found the right words to admonish him with.
And he still insisted on having dinner every fucking Sunday.
He knew that Alexis cherished their Sunday night dinners together. It was the only way he could get Michael to come to his apartment - a free meal and to have his ego stroked, just like that ratty thief in his mirror at home.
Michael told himself it was fine. The food was good and Alexis always cleaned up after them both and he knew what kind of wine he took with his meals. It was fine. It was almost enough to distract from the pallor and incessant coughing.
He hated being around sick people. And Alexis was very sick.
(Even if he wasn’t hacking up a wedding centerpiece every night, what kind of healthy individual subjected themselves to that kind of pain over someone like him?)
“I heard that there’s some sort of surgery that might fix your… condition.” Michael stabbed at his steak with a fork. “Have you looked into that?”
Alexis didn’t look up from his plate. “I know. Grimm was telling me about it.”
“Are you going to do it?”
Their eyes met, and for the first time since he got sick, Alexis’s expression twisted in something akin to uncertainty.
“I’m not sure…”
In an instant, all of the disgust and frustration Michael had battled over the last few months boiled over.
“I’m not gonna return your feelings, Alexis. Ever. Give it up.”
Alexis choked on his words. “I-I know that-”
“Then why are you doing this?” Michael slammed his utensils down on the table, earning a startled look from the man across from him. “Are you just trying to hurt me?”
“What?! Micha, don’t be ridiculous-”
Again, Michael slammed his fist on the table. This time, Alexis winced.
“You’d really rather waste away than be done with me? What the fuck is wrong with you!”
Alexis didn’t answer - couldn’t answer, likely. He simply stared at him with those big doe eyes that Michael was beginning to hate. He couldn’t understand Alexis’ sickening idolatry, the insistence to throw himself into the thorny bramble that surrounded his useless, dusty heart.
A moment of silence passed between them before Michael stood. “This undying devotion shit isn’t needed or wanted, Alexis.”
And it certainly wasn’t deserved, but convincing Alexis of that was, seemingly, impossible.
So, Michael left.
He regretted it. Everyone knew it, everyone danced around it in conversation, but Michael would never say it out loud. How could he?
When Alexis moved into the apartment, he gave Michael a key.
“Just in case you need it, Micha~”
Michael never thought he would. In fact, this was the first time in the three years he used it.
Alexis did all those chores himself despite having the salary to hire help. He kept clean, if a little disorganized, and cooked as often as their schedules would allow him. Not just for himself, but for their team. For him. Michael always made fun of him for being “wife material”.
The apartment was spotless, as if it had just been cleaned the night before. Michael would have assumed that was the case if not for the neglected, wilting plants in the dining room and the funeral scheduled for the following day.
A funeral for Alexis Ness. Twenty-two.
It was ironic, really. Michael volunteered to clean out Alexis’ apartment - more accurately, he simply decided he was going to do it a few days before the funeral. He had no interest in cleaning anything, really, and there was nothing of Alexis’ that he wanted to keep. However, since the night their coaches pulled the team aside to announce his death, Michael battled an itching tightness in his chest that urged him to at least look.
He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. A mess? A rose garden? A clue as to what possessed Alexis to check into a hotel room and finish off his bottle of painkillers with half a bottle of red wine without so much as a phone call to fucking anyone.
(Not that Michael needed a clue, he knew exactly why.)
Without its tenant, the apartment was eerily quiet. Alexis was almost always accompanied by a symphony of background noise - leafing through a book on his couch, fussing with dishes in his kitchen, gentle humming or mumbling as he tended to his little tasks. Without the usual soundtrack, all Michael could hear was the squeaking of the floorboards and his own screaming thoughts.
He stopped in the kitchen for something - anything - to distract himself. He settled for the nearest bottle of liquor, pouring a generous shot into the first glass he could find. Michael didn’t like hard liquor, but Alexis had been known to enjoy the occasional mixed drink. Of course, he should have read the bottle. Strawberry vodka. Disgustingly sweet, but just the right distraction from the discomfort that had settled into his body. Briefly, he considered the possibility that he was getting sick - and maybe he was.
If broken hearts and unrequited love were illnesses, surely mourning was too.
And that’s what this was, right? The tightness in his chest, the buzzing in the back of his skull, the heavy mixture of guilt and self loathing that settled in his stomach - what else could that feeling be? It had been decades since he mourned someone, longer since he mourned someone worth mourning, Michael wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to feel.
Abandoning the half spent glass of room temperature vodka on the kitchen counter, Michael made a mental note to rinse it and put it away before he left. It wasn’t like anyone would be by to clean up after him.
He meandered through the house, inspecting book shelves he hadn’t ever paid attention to, running his hand across the visibly worn throw blankets on the back of the couch. It took him a few moments to commit to venturing deeper into the apartment pausing in the doorway of the bathroom where he first found the petals in the garbage can. He never found out how long Alexis had been sick. Months? Years?
Maybe it was his whole life.
The only room in the apartment Michael never saw was the bedroom - he never really had a reason. Michael was of the opinion that everyone needed some sort of private space, and Alexis had so eagerly shared every other part of his life with him.
Not that he had a reason to see it now, he just couldn’t help it.
Just like the bathroom, Alexis’ bedroom was doused in pastels. All the hardwood and furniture were made with a lighter, natural grain, and the window sill was decorated in more wilting plants. There was no TV - Alexis liked to read before bed, couldn’t sleep if he had too much screen time. Michael couldn’t relate, he needed some sort of noise to drown out the screaming and traffic of a neighborhood he hadn’t live in in years.
The bedside lamp was on. It was a vintage thing, all copper and stained glass - the kind of frivolous decor Alexis was drawn to. The light it provided was meager, barely it was just enough to highlight the stark white envelope laying at the center of the made up bed.
Michael. His name, written in Alexis’ neat, wispy script across the front of the envelope.
He had no idea what the letter might say, just that it would surely be some sort of (deserved punishment). Of course, that meant that reading it was not optional.
Michael read the letter once, twice, three times before setting it back on the bed beside him. Something more visceral than anger settled over him - a years worth of complaints and frustration (and fear) boiled beneath his skin, dissolving any coherent thought he thought he had formed in the last week. Alexis’ benevolence felt like a dagger between his ribs, like thorns beneath his skin.
“Fuck you.” Was all he could manage.
Michael marched out of the bedroom like he had somewhere to go. It was a Sunday night, and he was exactly where he needed to be, only there was no dinner waiting for him, only an empty apartment with a bunch of dead fucking plants.
He was halfway to the door when he remembered the glass in the kitchen. Cursing again, under his breath this time, he walked back to clean up the only mess he could. There were a few fingers of vodka left in the glass that, against his better judgment, Michael knocked back in a single gulp.
It burned, significantly more than the first time, enough to overshadow the cloying sweetness that turned his nose initially. Astringent, almost. He coughed, silently cursing the pinprick tears at the corners of his eyes. Harder, his brain pounding against his skull, heart hammering against his chest. Harder, but nothing seemed to shake the needling sensation in his throat left behind by the alcohol.
He tasted copper.
Moments passed, Michael groaning over the kitchen sink as he tried to collect himself. Everything ached, but the fit gradually subsided, leaving only his watering eyes and an incessant itching in his esophagus.
In the basin of the sink was a single pink rose petal, covered in blood.
Micha,
I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I really am.
When you asked why I wouldn’t get the surgery, I struggled with my answer. The truth is, I didn’t want to give up my feelings for you. I know you’d never feel the same way, but my feelings for you are part of me. I couldn’t imagine not loving you.
I’m content with how things panned out. I know that you probably aren’t. I’m sorry for that too.