Title: What the heart hears
Pairing/Characters: Adam Lambert/OMC (Michael Fitzharris)
Rating:
Word Count: 7 x 100
Warning(s): PTSD, unintentional violence/abuse
Beta reader(s): @aislinntlc
Author's note 1 : For the glam_100 Prompt #067: Hearing
Author's note 2 : This is follows sometime after the events of last week's "What the heart sees"
Part of: A man in uniform series, which begins with Adam meeting Marine First Lt Michael Fitzharris at a party.


1.
It starts with a word.

“Stay.”

Adam knows he’s said it out loud when Michael turns, one leg sliding into his jeans. Adam hadn’t meant to say it. But he thinks it nearly every night they’re together.

Stay.


He knows he shouldn’t ask. Has asked. Sort of. Michael admitted that he doesn’t do over-nights. Not since coming home. Not since the IED that shattered his life. It doesn’t make waking up alone any easier, knowing they both wish things were different.

Stay Adam’s heart begs.

Michael’s eyes agree, but his body is rigid, his grip white-knuckle hard on his knees.

2.

Michael’s eyes close.

His breathing goes ragged.

They’d had a great night. Michael had cooked, salmon and vegetables from the farmers market. Afterwards, they’d nestled back to chest on a chaise lounge out back and watched the moon rise.

Michael had tugged Adam inside and up the stairs, pieces of clothing trailing behind them like the sappiest of rom-coms. Then Adam was on his back, Michael’s hands burning across his skin, cock pushing hard and slick inside. And Adam had laughed, breathless all over again, and high as a kite.

It had been perfect. And now it wasn’t.

One word.


3.

“I’m sorry.” Adam turns away, looking anywhere but at Michael.

“No.” Michael pushes into Adam’s arms. “Don’t apologize for wanting me. Never that.”

“But – “

Michael shakes his head. “It’s me. It’s my head and my fucked up brain. And-- I don’t know how to fix it.”

“I get it. I do.“

Michael presses his face to the crook of Adam’s neck, breath ghosting over Adam’s skin. “I wish… sometimes –“

“So do I,” Adam whispers.

They fall asleep like that, Adam’s arms around Michael’s back, one of Michael’s hands resting over Adam’s heart, the other tangled in Adam’s hair.

4.

There’s a sound. Someone speaking, words too soft to make out, but the need, the strength in them is so clear it presses into Adam’s brain. It pulls him up from sleep to look for its source.

The bedroom is quiet, dark.

Adam’s arms are empty, cold and lonely.

His heart stumbles then restarts when he feels Michael move beside him. Adam reaches out to touch Michael’s shoulder, the one that’s unmarked, then stops. Michael was supposed to go home. But he’s asleep, in Adam’s bed.

Adam’s smiling so bright his cheeks ache.

Michael is here. With him. He stayed.

5.

“MacPaulson, can you hear them?”

Michael sits up, eyes wide, his empty arms are bent like they’re holding something heavy.

“Dammit, Fast-Back, get your as-“ The words are cut off by a cry that shakes Adam to his core. “Down! Down! Get the fuck down! Now!”

Michael’s body twists then pushes up into a crouch on the wide mattress. He rocks back, one hand going back to stop his fall, the other swinging wide.

“Behind you!”

Michael’s moving forward, toward Adam, toward something in the past. Adam scrambles to get out of the way, his leg colliding with Michael’s knee.

6.

The pain bursts sharp and hot along the side of Adam’s face. It’s not until it comes again, hard and fast at his side that Adam can even register that Michael’s hit him. That Michael’s hitting out; fight against something; impacting Adam.

“Michael!”

Adam brings his arms up in front of his face, trying to protect himself.

There’s another hit, to his leg, and something shifts. Adam pushes back. It’s pointless and stupid. Some part of him knows that Michael is stronger, even sane and awake. Like this – he’s terrifying.

“Michael!” Adam shouts at the top of his lungs “Stop!”

7.

Everything stops, like a moment in time, frozen in a picture. Locked in bottomless grief; the kind staring back at Adam from Michael’s clear brown eyes.

Michael scrambles back to the edge of the bed and stares. “Adam?”

Adam nods, hands still braced in front of him.

“What?” Michael looks around and Adam watches as the reality of where he is, what has just happened, crashes down on Michael. “Noooooonooo.”

Michael’s up and off the bed, eyes still glued to Adam.

“I can’t. I shouldn’t. Oh god.” Michael stops, hands stretched in supplication. “Adam – “

Then he’s gone.

Stay—



(can I get an author's tag for over here? Pretty please? :)