Work Text:
At first it had been deafening, the alarms screaming out in agony as the turbulence started, but by now it had almost faded into the background as Morgan was frozen in his seat. The flashing red lights, the people screaming, the panicked flight attendants, none of it even registered. The engine had failed and the plane was going down. He was going to die. They were all going to die.
If he hadn’t already used his power for the month he would just summon Alex to him and it would all be okay.
Alex.
This was going to destroy him.
If he wasn’t already so overwhelmed thinking about the actual prospect of dying, Morgan would probably spare a moment to wish the world good luck; it was going to need it to keep Alex from completely destroying it. There would be no one for Alex to mark as personally responsible for this tragedy, no hero to obliterate in the name of vengeance. He would probably kill them all for not saving the plane.
It was strange: the knowledge that you would be dead soon. It sat uncomfortably in Morgan’s mind, but it wasn’t the thing at the forefront. Everyone says that when you’re about to die your entire life flashes before your eyes, but Morgan thought that wasn’t quite the right way to describe it. It wasn’t his entire life that flashed before him, just the important part. All he saw was Alex.
He remembered the day that they met. Summoning Alex to him that day had been the best decision Morgan made in his entire life. He knew that with certainty now. It had been the start of the best and happiest years he could remember because he finally had someone to enjoy the time with. His life wasn’t all driven by spite and proving his family wrong anymore. Finally, he had someone to care about and who cared about him, and he didn’t have to prove himself worthy to be deserving of it because Alex liked him for who he was.
A montage of “Alex and Morgan’s Greatest Hits” played through Morgan’s mind. It was ending far too soon, but he found joy in the fact that it had been at all.
There couldn’t be too much time left now, minutes maybe? Seconds? He didn’t know.
Though he had made many mistakes in his life, Morgan always tried to keep his mind in the present. He didn’t want to carry around regrets so he never left unfinished business, but he realized now that he had unintentionally left himself with just one regret that he would carry with him into this fiery demise.
He had never told Alex he loved him.
He had thought there would be more time. Of course, there had always seemed to be so much of it spread out in front of them and never a perfect moment to tell him so Morgan had waited. But the time that had once seemed like an infinite resource was now slipping through his fingers as quickly as the plane was falling through the clouds.
Closing his eyes, Morgan tried to brace himself for the end. He didn’t know what he believed, but he hoped that there would be something. Any second now he would be finding out for sure.
When the end came there was no stillness or peace, just a loud crash and suddenly there was air racing around him. Morgan’s eyes flew open and for a moment he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He’d always thought the ideas of heaven and hell were too black and white, but surely he’d somehow made it into some version of heaven. He was cradled in Alex’s strong arms as they flew high above a city.
Alex’s eyes met his and Morgan smiled, if this was the afterlife maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Sure, this wasn’t actually Alex since the real one would never die, but if this was the closest he would ever get to be again he might just be able to accept that.
Morgan held on tightly and nuzzled his head into the strong line of Alex’s shoulder. “I thought I’d never see you again. How does this even work?”
Landing gently in a field just outside of the city, Alex slowly put Morgan down onto his own two feet so they could talk. He looked at Morgan for a moment in confusion, “What do you mean?”
After taking a second to look around in wonder, Morgan looked back at Alex. “Obviously you aren’t actually here,” Morgan said like it was the most obvious thing in the world while Alex looked utterly lost. “You can’t die and this is some kind of afterlife, so how does this work? Like, you can’t actually be him.”
“Morgan,” Alex said carefully, finally understanding. “You aren’t dead.”
His brow knit together in confusion and Morgan shook his head, “Of course I am. I was on a plane and the engines failed. The plane crashed. We all died.”
Eyes wide, Alex took a small step toward Morgan and put a hand gently on his shoulder, “Listen to me, you’re alive. I saved you.”
“That’s impossible. You couldn’t have known. All of the communication went down, no one knew we were going down. I couldn’t have brought you to me, my power doesn’t reset until tomorrow. No, no, that’s impossible,” Morgan argued.
“I would never lie to you, Morgan,” Alex said sincerely. “I can keep a vague reading on your lifesigns even when you’re out of sight. I can’t sense much, just your heartbeat and breathing, but it’s enough to know that you’re alive and I can usually tell when you’re in trouble. A few minutes ago your heart rate and breathing both elevated drastically. I knew something was wrong, so I came to you as fast as I could.”
“If you got to us in time then where’s the plane? The other people?” Morgan asked, still in disbelief.
A dark look crossed Alex’s face. “I–I couldn’t…”
Morgan looked like he was going to throw up, “No, no, no, don’t. No. If you could save me you could’ve–”
“No. It was too risky,” Alex argued. “If I had stopped the plane it would have put you in danger. There wasn’t enough time to slow it down properly. You would’ve been seriously injured at the least.”
“They’re all dead,” Morgan whispered. “They’re dead because I’m alive. Because you saved me.”
“No. Morgan, this was my decision. You aren’t responsible for their deaths,” Alex insisted.
Morgan shook off the hand that still sat on his shoulder and turned away, suddenly retching into the grass. Alex tried to go to him, to comfort him, but Morgan moved away from him. “No. No, I can’t do this.”
Standing there helpless, Alex watched as Morgan broke down into tears, sinking to his knees in the tall grass. He wanted desperately to go to him and provide comfort, but Morgan wouldn’t allow him. “Morgan,” Alex whispered desperately as tears welled in his eyes. “I couldn’t let you die.”
“So now I–” Morgan stuttered through his sobs, “I-I have to–to live with this.” The immense amount of guilt felt like it was devouring Morgan from the inside-out. What made his life any more valuable than the others? Certainly there were more important people on that plane: children, teachers, doctors, people who deserved to survive. But Alex had saved him and left them all to die brutally.
The confusion inside of Alex was building, he did the only thing he could to ensure Morgan’s safety. Morgan had always known, Alex had always told him, that other lives didn’t matter to him. Sure, Alex tried to avoid civilian casualties in battles, but that was mostly out of disinterest than kindness.
“What did you expect me to do?” Alex asked, his voice dark and laced with confusion. “I’m not a hero, Morgan, you know that.”
The sobs had finally calmed enough that Morgan’s body was no longer shaking with the force of them. His anguish had settled into numbness as he looked over his shoulder at Alex. “You’re heartless.” The venom in Morgan’s voice made Alex take a step back, unsettled by the shift in his friend. “I know you’re not a hero, but you have to feel something! People are dead because you’re selfish and still you feel nothing,” Morgan rose to his feet and looked fiercely into Alex’s eyes. “Goddamnit, feel something!”
Alex was paralyzed by the disdain in his friend’s voice. “I couldn’t let you die, Morgan.”
“Why? Why not? You let all of them die! How am I different from them?” Morgan shouted.
“Because you’re you!” Alex said fiercely. “And I love you! That’s what makes you different!”
Morgan froze for a moment. Was it not only minutes ago that he had been lamenting the loss of his chance to share his own love with this man? He closed his eyes and let himself sink back to his knees as the weight of his grief pulled him down.
“I need to go home,” Morgan whispered. “I need to be alone.”
Alex walked slowly toward his friend and knelt in front of him. “Let me take you home.”
Morgan nodded and Alex scooped him up into his arms. Morgan melted into the solid shape of Alex’s strong chest and closed his eyes. When he reopened them he expected to see his apartment, but instead he was met with the sight of clean lines of marble and steel.
“I know you said you wanted to go home and be alone, but please just stay here for a day or two. I’ll leave you alone if that's what you want,” Alex’s voice was soft but insistent. Morgan sighed but nodded into the shoulder his head was still nestled into.
Alex carried Morgan down a long hallway to his bedroom and set him down gently on the bed. Alex kneeled at the side of the bed near Morgan’s head and stroked his fingers through the soft brown curls that laid across his friend’s forehead. He didn’t want to leave him alone in this state, but he knew that Morgan needed time and space to process his feelings on his own.
“If you need anything, just say my name and I’ll be here,” Alex whispered as he looked intently into Morgan’s eyes. “I know you need space so I’ll sleep on the couch tonight.”
Morgan’s expression was still blank as he nodded and closed his eyes. He listened as the bedroom door clicked shut as Alex left before finally taking a deep breath and letting his tears fall freely. Morgan adjusted the bedding around him until he was wrapped in Alex’s duvet and the other man’s scent that lingered on the soft fabric kept him grounded.
He was trying to process everything that had happened, but his brain was too overwhelmed. Too many things had happened too quickly for him to process and he was exhausted from the mental strain of it all. Eventually he conceded and let sleep take him, hoping that things would be clearer when he woke.
****
After tossing and turning on the couch for an hour, Alex sighed and consigned himself to the fact that he wouldn’t be sleeping that night. He couldn’t stop thinking about what Morgan had said to him earlier, it echoed in his mind tauntingly.
“You’re heartless,” the vision of Morgan in his mind taunted him. “You feel nothing.”
He almost wished it were true. It would have been easier than what he had felt, what he was feeling now. When he had materialized below the falling plane hours ago, all he had felt was pure fear. It had been so close to hitting the ground and his only thought had been of Morgan.
He hadn’t lied when he told Morgan that he couldn’t have saved them all. Even if he had tried to stop the plane, the sudden stop in momentum could have torn the plane in half, people still would have died. Morgan could have died. There was no other option where that ensured Morgan’s safety, so there was just no other option.
Morgan had been right about something though: Alex was selfish. There were many reasons that Alex wasn’t a hero anymore. He had put those days behind him because he had become bored of not being able to use his powers to their fullest extent and the heroes had always acted so self righteous, but most of it was self-interest. He was selfish and never more so than when it came to Morgan’s life, he would not let anything come before it.
He had decimated hordes of heroes in the name of saving Morgan’s life and never thought twice about it, but today had been the first time it had also come with civilian casualties. Alex hadn’t even stopped to consider it, the obvious choice had been to save Morgan–there was no other choice.
Alex laid still for a moment so he could hear the distant sound of Morgan’s heart beating steadily in his chest and the breath moving smoothly in and out of his lungs. It had always been a comfort to him that he could sense Morgan from any distance. At first it had confounded him, Morgan had been on the run from his nemesis for the first time, on the opposite side of the globe, and Alex could still sense him. It wasn’t like hearing it the way he did now, but something more internal, it was like he could feel Morgan’s heart beating in his chest right beside his own. It wasn’t until he had finally realized his feelings for Morgan that he understood what had happened. His powers had taken his love and protectiveness and made a physical manifestation so that he would always have a way to keep the man he loved safe.
He had never told Morgan about it until today because he had been afraid to share the emotional connection. He was afraid that his love would be unreciprocated and he was right. He hadn’t even meant to say it, but when Morgan had asked why he was different–why he had been saved–the words had burst out straight from his heart.
Alex shuddered as he remembered the way the words had hung in the silence between them as Morgan sank to his knees, obviously weighed down by the confession he hadn’t wanted to hear. The pain of Alex’s heart shattering in that moment would have destroyed him right then and there had it not been for his need to care for Morgan.
Since asking to go home, Morgan hadn’t said a single word. Everything Alex said was met with a dead stare and a faint nod. So Alex had kept his word and stayed away from Morgan since leaving him in the bedroom. Even when violent sobbing had torn its way through Morgan’s body and every protective urge in his body had screamed at Alex to go, he had stood in his office and gripped his desk until it splintered and collapsed under his hands. It had been the first thing to break as he fought for control, but not the last.
With a sigh, Alex rose from the couch and walked to the window. It was just after midnight and the moon was still shining brightly in the sky, illuminating the trees in the distance. It was a beautiful night, the kind that he and Morgan would often spend in his lair’s observatory looking at the stars and naming the constellations. Morgan loved looking at the stars and Alex loved anything that made that sparkle appear in Morgan’s eye while he talked about something he was excited about.
Suddenly, he found himself in his bedroom and there was a warm hand wrapped around his wrist, pulling him down into an even warmer bed. “Morgan? What–”
“Sshh,” Morgan shushed him as he climbed into the bed. “Just lay with me.”
Morgan laid his head right above Alex’s racing heart and an arm wrapped around his waist to hold tightly. Alex tentatively wrapped arm around Morgan’s shoulders and felt a little bit of the tension ease out of his body.
“Your heart is still racing,” Morgan whispered softly after a few minutes.
A light blush colored Alex’s cheeks. He and Morgan had been close before, hugging, sharing a bed when there was no other space, and had even kissed that one time during a stakeout, but this was different. This time they were in Alex’s bed and they were holding each other because Morgan had called him here.
“Did you mean it?” Morgan asked after a moment of silence when Alex didn’t say anything.
“Mean what?” Alex said through the air catching in his throat.
Morgan tilted his head up to look into intense glowing eyes and their faces were only inches away. When he spoke, Alex could feel the light breath on his lips, “That you love me.”
“Yes,” Alex answered without a moment’s hesitation.
Slowly, Morgan inched a little closer until their noses touched lightly and Alex held his breath. A part of his mind was screaming with hope that Morgan was going to kiss him, but another was shouting to make it stop, knowing that if it happened he would never be able to live without it again. But Alex stayed silent and still. If this was the punishment that Morgan intended for him, to give his heart the one thing it desired more than anything just to take it away forever, he would accept it. Morgan was alive, he could bring himself to regret anything about that.
“Alex,” Morgan’s lips were so close he could almost feel them when he whispered gently. “You’re thinking very loud.”
A small exhale, almost laugh escaped Alex’s lips. When he went to speak, suddenly lips were on his. His eyes widened with surprise before falling closed and giving in to the part of his mind that wanted to pretend that this was real, that Morgan was kissing him because he loved him back. He let himself exist in the fantasy, memorizing the feeling of Morgan’s lightly chapped lips moving against his, and when a tongue brushed against his bottom lip he graciously accepted, drinking in everything that Morgan was willing to give.
Morgan’s hand came up to Alex’s cheek, stroked lightly across his jaw, tangled into his hair, and Alex let himself be wrapped up in all of it. It would destroy him when it was over, but at least he would always have this. Taking a risk, he slipped his hand under the soft material of his friend’s t-shirt and ran it up the soft skin of his back, and to his surprise, Morgan didn’t stop him. He caressed the strong muscles along Morgan’s back, his shoulder, down the sharp curve of his hip bones, the lightly defined abdominal muscles across his stomach, the light covering hair on his chest.
When Morgan’s lips pulled away Alex felt his own instinctively try to follow, to not let the moment end, but it did. They both breathed heavily into the space between them as their foreheads pressed together.
“I love you too,” Morgan breathed.
Alex froze. No. This was too much. This was cruel. “No, no, please don’t say that to me,” he begged.
Morgan sat up suddenly, confusion in his eyes and fear in his fear. “W-what? I thought you–”
“My emotions can only take so much,” Alex whispered, his voice cracking as it betrayed how close he was to breaking. “You can kiss me and let me think it’s real, let me touch you like you’re mine. If that’s what you want to do, if you need to hurt me, go ahead. But don’t tell me that.” His eyes were shut tightly to keep the tears back. “I can’t handle that much.”
Calloused fingertips brushed across Alex’s cheek and his golden eyes opened to see Morgan’s green filled with tears of their own. “Alex, please, believe me. I’m not trying to hurt you. I couldn’t. I know I said some horrible things earlier, but I’m sorry. I understand if you don’t want me anymore because of what I said, but I do love you.”
A soft sob fell from Alex’s lips, “You–you don’t hate me for what I did?”
Morgan laid down and put his head back onto Alex’s chest and spoke softly, “I am so sorry that I ever made you think that. I was in shock and it’s going to take me some time to be okay with what happened, but I know it’s not your fault. I was just so sure that I was–that I was going to die… I was in shock when it didn’t happen.” Morgan looked up into Alex’s eyes. “Thank you, you saved my life.”
Tears flowed freely down Alex’s cheeks as he spoke, “I couldn’t let you die.” He stroked his thumb across Morgan’s cheek, gently, like he was fragile and precious because he was.
“I know,” Morgan closed his eyes and nuzzled into the hand on his cheek, pressing a light kiss to Alex’s palm. “When I thought I was going to die… all I could think about was that I had never told you how I feel about you. And when you told me, I shut down because all of a sudden all of the love I feel for you came flooding back and all of my anger washed away. I felt so guilty for the things I had said to you. I was sure that you were going to hate me.”
“I could never hate you,” Alex reassured Morgan, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “I’ve loved you for so long, I’ve forgotten what it feels like not to. Even my powers knew before I did, it’s why I can sense you so far away.” Alex gently took Morgan’s hand and placed it over his heart. “When I feel my heart beating, it’s like yours is right beside it. I can feel it when you aren’t okay.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Morgan asked.
“Because when I realized why it was happening, I was afraid you didn’t feel the same. I didn’t want to lose you. Having you in my life, but wanting more, was better than not having you in it at all. Even if it had stayed that way forever,” Alex answered.
“But I do feel the same,” Morgan said, bringing their foreheads together. “I love you, Alex.”
“I love you too, Morgan,” Alex said before leaning forward and bringing their lips together in a long, intimate kiss; it was soaked in tears and inflamed in passion.
When they finally separated, Alex pulled Morgan into his arms and reveled in the knowledge that he was safe.