TRANS // ot4

Epilogue

"Broken ribs, popped lung, rebroke his wrist, popped a knee out of socket, and hit his head pretty hard," Calum pauses, looking over his uninjured boyfriends concerned faces slowly. "He didn't know who I was or who he was or why he was here when he woke up, but that faded within a few hours. There shouldn't be any long lasting effects. Michael-"

"I know," Michael huffs, because he's already heard this a million times already. "I could have died, I know." Calum frowns at him, while Ashton and Luke eye the tense scene in front of them. Michael drops his broken arm and his scratched arm down to tangle his fingers in his lap, on top of the blanket, and mutters, "Why the fuck do you think I was on the bridge?"

The three flinch simultaneously and Luke drops the balloons, ignoring the way they all float up and knock against the ceiling, spreading out to lay flat against it. "Mikey," he says quietly, sticking out his bottom lip again. "You didn't really want to die, right?"

"Was thinking about it," Michael's snaps, in a harsh tone. It's coated in venom, meant to sting where it hurts, and Luke flinches accordingly. Ashton squares up on instinct and takes half a step in front of Luke, before he realizes that Michael's the bad one here, Michael's making Luke feel threatened. He looks conflicted as to whether he should protect Luke or comfort Michael, wavering back and forth, half way in front of Luke. Michael eyes him for a second, before flicking his eyes over to Calum when he starts talking again.

"You're- I'm putting you in therapy, or something," Calum decides, crossing his arms over his broad chest. "You're going into therapy, and you're not coming out until you love yourself as much as we love you."

"I do," Michael cuts in, on top of Calum's last word. He grits his teeth for a second, before spitting out the rest of his statement. "I love myself, fuck, my dick looks great, my chest looks great, I look great. It's not about loving myself, because I do. I love myself a lot, it's a matter of making other people love me."

He pauses, letting his boys soak that in with varying expressions on their faces, before he continues. "Not only that, but I need to accept that not everyone is going to respect my pronouns and my transition, and I can't. Fuck, people are so fucking mean!"

Luke instantly shoulders past Ashton and takes the two steps that separate him from the bed. He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and struggles with the handrail of Michael's bed, jostling it around noisily and pulling it up and down. Finally, he manages to get it to fall back enough so he can climb in, carefully maneuvering around Michael's chest and cast and slotting himself against Michael's side. He moves the bed around quite a bit, but before Michael can yell at him, Luke glances up with huge, watery, blue eyes and sticks out his pretty pink bottom lip in a pout.

"You're my boy," Luke says gently, reaching up to trail his fingers along Michael's jawline. "I love you so much, okay? Promise you won't try to leave again."

"Luke-"

"Mikey," Luke responds in a low, pleading voice. Michael melts, relaxing against Luke's body and ducking down to bury his face in Luke's hair. The nickname is a weak point of Michael's, because it means Luke's comfortable with him. It was the first nickname he had after announcing that he was a boy.

He noses along Luke's hairline and whispers, "I'll try, Lukey."

"Promise," Luke repeats in a firm tone. He probably would have stomped his foot if he was standing.