Michael can’t ignore a straightforward request like that. That would be the worst cruelty of all. In this moment, at least, both of them want the same thing, and that shouldn’t be thrown away. He wants to show them what it means to him that they’re still here.
He moves his hand hesitantly from their shoulder to their neck, then up into their hair, and he shifts forward and tilts his head, and then he’s kissing them for the first time in what feels like ages—slowly, gently, sighing through his nose. It feels so good, like getting into a warm bath. Too good—all those thoughts he’s been avoiding start to trickle in, and he stops for a moment, tense and nervy—but Wolfgang wants him, and they said it’s okay if he thinks those thoughts about them, so he restarts. He wants to forget about the bad things, about being afraid and being frightening, about violence and hypocrisy. He wants to forget about the fact that forgetting about those things is dangerous. There have been a couple times he almost felt that way, touching Wolfgang. He wonders if they’ve felt the same way.