Rating: Strong R. Content some readers will definitely find disturbing.

Usual disclaimers apply: I own nothing but the story.

PAST IMPERFECT by Jayne Leitch
2004

As soon as the door closes behind Bianca, Michael is there, watching him from across the room. Alex can only look at him for a second before it becomes unbearable and he has to turn away; when he raises his glass to take a sip of water, his hand trembles.

"That's only one version." Michael's voice is soft, gentle, and Alex remembers the little boy who took such care with the things and people he loved. "Alex, please, that's the version they convinced her to believe so they could demonize me."

"Wh--" His voice catches; he clears his throat. When he speaks again, it's barely more than a whisper. "What version would you have me believe, then?"

There is silence for a long moment, long enough to make Alex wonder if turning his back on his brother had made him disappear. But then he hears--thinks he hears--slow, measured footsteps crossing the room, and Michael draws up next to him. "Do you remember the summer before you left?" he asks, and though he still speaks softly, every trace of gentleness is gone.

Alex's hand tightens around his glass, threatening to break it. He forces himself to put it down. "Of course I remember."

"Father had sent the two of us on holiday, to a cottage on some private lake he'd just bought. Of course, he was too busy jet-setting to more exotic places to come with us--but then, we were happier that way. Without him." Close beside him, impossible to move away from, Michael smiles. "You were seventeen, on the cusp of taking your place at Father's side as the golden son, the true Cambias heir…and you felt like everything in your life was chafing you raw."

Alex gives a slow shake of his head. "Not everything," he says quietly, then takes a deep breath and turns to meet Michael's gaze straight on.

The smile playing on Michael's mouth widens, turns boyish. Alex stares, captivated by the shape of it, all soft nostalgia. "We understood each other so *well*, remember? What we needed. We understood *need*, Alex. We understood what it was to need each other."

"We were young." Alex drags his gaze away from Michael's mouth just in time to see a flash of hurt harden his eyes. "We didn't understand enough."

The smile evaporates. Michael steps even closer, more adult in appearance than Alex remembers from life but note-perfect in physicality, and Alex's breath hitches in his chest. "We understood each other," Michael repeats, his voice low, his words precise, "the way nobody else ever could, or will." His mouth curves again, and Alex fights a rush of mingled fear and longing. "If the good people of Pine Valley knew what we did that summer, they'd say it was wrong. Unnatural. Offensive. *Evil.*

"But you liked it."

There's nothing for Alex to thrust against--Michael isn't there, he's dead, he's *gone*--but his hips jerk like he's seventeen again anyway, the pull of sense-memory through his body overruling his mind's insistence that they *had been* wrong, that to believe otherwise would be disgusting.

Overruling the part of his mind that *is* disgusted. "No, don't--"

"Don't what? Don't remind you of what we used to mean to each other? What I used to mean to you? We're *brothers*, Alex. We love each other."

He's so earnest, speaking of love like it hasn't been the cause of so many shameful things in both their lives. Alex remembers making the decision to leave home for good, and has to look away. "They all think so badly of you, Michael--"

"Who are you gonna believe? The self-important people of this self-important town who have no idea--no *idea*--what it's like to grow up the way we did and be who we are?" Michael leans with him, eyes darting and bright as they catch his gaze again and hold it. "Or the brother who would have done--who *did*, you know I did--anything for you, *everything* for you?" He raises his hands and cups Alex's face, but there's no warmth, no pressure, and if Alex hadn't seen the movement he wouldn't know it was happening at all. "Who let you die--*helped* you die--even though it killed a part of me as well?"

Alex knows he could move, back away, pull out of Michael's nonexistent grip--but his body, thrumming with their imagined closeness, overrules him again; all he can do is squeeze his eyes shut. "Bianca Montgomery. You--you ra--"

He can feel the kiss--or he thinks he can, and that's more than enough to make his insides twist and clench and *burn*. The knot low in his belly tightens as Michael's tongue strokes hard on his own, and his hands clutch at the air as he fights to touch--to touch--

--nothing. He opens his eyes and Michael has disappeared, leaving him standing--shaking--in the middle of his living room, alone and aroused and swallowing convulsively against a wave of nausea.

"My God, Michael." Almost without thinking, Alex picks up his glass and throws back the last, lukewarm mouthful of water--and chokes on it. He doubles over, coughing raggedly until he can catch enough breath to speak.

"It was you."

End.

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