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soberqueerinthewild · 4 years

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I’ve got more than one membership to more than one club

A Michael POV fic in which he contemplates his bisexuality. Moments of Miluca, mentions of Malex, discussions of Michael/OC, because I personally hold onto the headcanon that Michael has been with men other than Alex.

I wanted to explore Michael’s relationship to his bisexuality, because I think it’s so interesting. He acts in ways that show he’s not too concerned about hiding it (i.e. the reunion scene, the drive-in, not caring about Isobel catching him), yet it’s not something he talks about openly (as indicated by Isobel’s “flimsy little closet” remark in 1x13). This fic was my attempt to work through that a little. I initially started this during Michael Guerin week, but abandoned it because I wasn’t sure if I liked it. I came back to it recently and am still not sure, but decided to post it anyways. Thanks to @jumbled-nonsense for encouragement and editing!

***

The first two months he’s with Maria are chaotic. With Max’s death, Rosa’s resurrection, Liz’s grief, and Isobel’s rage, there’s hardly time to breathe. Maybe that’s why, despite Maria’s assertion that they needed to talk after their kiss in the Wild Pony, they just...never did. She talked to Alex. Michael was able to ascertain that fact when he drunkenly spat the news at Alex one night and Alex’s only response had been an icy and flat “I’m well aware”, as he continued the task of putting Michael to bed, rather than let him stay passed out in a chair outside the Airstream after another bender. Michael never understood how Alex could compartmentalize like that. He felt a hundred swirling chaotic emotions around Alex, but not one of them was ever apathy. The fact that Alex could shut down his emotions, rather than yell or bring out the pyrotechnics, just made it starkly obvious that the intensity he felt for Alex had never been matched. If Alex had started dating someone, he’s not sure he would’ve managed polite disinterest with flat eyes like Alex is evidently going with since he learned about Michael and Maria.

So Maria had talked to Alex about Michael, but for some reason she hadn’t talked to Michael about Alex. At first, his breath caught every time there was a lengthy pause before Maria started a sentence, thinking this might be the moment. He wasn’t exactly relishing the idea of a conversation, and honestly had no earthly idea what he’d say. That day in the Crashdown he’d barely been able to choke out the words “it’s over, it’s been over” and that was before everything at Caulfield and the day after. Then, he had been driven by a singular need to seek something that felt normal and easy, but in the weeks since he’s struggled to get the echoes of “but you are mine!” “I shouldn’t have left you behind” and “you’re a miserable liar” out of his head. He hasn’t had the emotional wherewithal to figure out how he feels about all of that, much less to try to explain their entire history to Maria.

Every day she didn’t bring it up had felt like a reprieve initially, but now that it’s been two months, and there have already been several times when the three of them have had to interact, it’s starting to feel… unsettling. Some days he feels like just talking about it would be better. He’s never really had the opportunity to tell anyone on his own terms, and he hates not knowing exactly what Maria (or Kyle or Liz) even knows about him and Alex and what has gone on between them. He’s pretty sure Maria doesn’t have all the details, and it’s starting to feel like...lying somehow? Like another secret. And god Michael had been sick of secrets for a long time.

He considered bringing up the subject himself, but the opportunity never seemed to present itself. Maria doesn’t ever say Alex’s name if she can avoid it and changed the subject the few times Michael mentioned him in passing. He’d considered that Maria might just have an aversion to discussing exes too early in the relationship, but since last week when Maria was bored at work, she made up a drinking game where Michael had to do a shot when she correctly guessed the name of a previous conquest of his in the Wild Pony and vice versa, that explanation seems unlikely. The game was fun, and he’d laughed genuinely for the first time since Max died, so had decided once again not to ruin the mood by bringing up Alex.

Today, exhausted after another day spent in the lab with Liz trying to work out a cure for Max, he went straight to the Wild Pony, hoping for a few hours reprieve from alien nonsense. As usual, Maria seemed to sense what he needed as soon as she saw his face, and suggested they play another round of the game. Michael had smirked, and pointed to a guy he clocked on the way in that he recalled seeing Maria making out with under the bleachers their senior year of high school. She tipped a glass in his direction before downing a shot and perusing the bar for someone she thought might’ve been his type. They continued playing throughout the night, Maria threatening to cut him off when he teased her by intentionally choosing a few guys that she’d never touch with a ten foot pole.

It’s fun, light, and simple, just like it always is with Maria, yet some unease niggles in the back of his mind. He doesn’t realize what it is until he catches sight of Antonio at one of the back tables with a few friends. They exchange nods when their eyes meet, but neither makes a move towards the other. They haven’t spoken more than a few words to each other since Foster’s Ranch was bought out by the Air Force, and all the ranch hands, Michael and Antonio included, were suddenly out of a job. Michael had gone back to work at Sanders, and heard that Antonio and a bunch of the other guys had found work at another ranch nearby. Despite the fact that Michael and Antonio had hooked up off and on for about six months, neither had tried to continue things once it stopped being convenient. Michael had been wrapped up in Alex coming back to town, and by the way Antonio’s gaze lingers on the guy sitting next to him, Michael guesses Antonio hasn’t spent the last year pining after Michael. It had been fun though, and as Michael smiles to himself a bit at thinking of some of the more creative excuses they’d used to sneak off from the other guys on breaks, it suddenly hits him what’s been bothering him all night.

Between tonight and last week when she first came up with the game, Maria has made a dozen or more guesses about past conquests of his. Some right (she has the advantage of having watched him pick up girls in this very bar over the past 10 years), some very wrong (seriously Tess Harding? She might be hot, but she’d used to have a thing for Max and that was a complete no-go in Michael’s book), but every single guess had been a woman, even tonight when more than half their guesses had been jokes or wild conjecture.

Roswell isn’t exactly a gay Mecca but there were a handful of openly gay and bi locals who frequented the Pony, plus even more discrete ones. Over the past 10 years Michael has hooked up with his fair share of them and though he hasn’t exactly broadcast it especially since most were one-offs, he also never cared much if people found out. Now that he scans the room he spots another guy he hooked up with a handful of times, as well as the English teacher from Roswell High who Michael never had a thing with, but who is openly gay and known to the whole town after some nasty graffiti was sprayed on his car a few years ago. It caused a bit of a stir at the time, so there’s no way that Maria, who even without her nebulous psychic powers, has her finger on the pulse of this town better than anyone, didn’t know he was gay. Besides, once, shortly after Alex came back to town, he eavesdropped on a conversation where Maria was subtly pointing out the men she thought were queer, encouraging Alex to have a little fun. He’d been irrationally jealous at the thought, particularly when he realized that she was right about 3 of the 4 guys she’d pointed out. It had inspired a text message that had the intended effect of both making Alex blush and leave the bar to head to Michael’s Airstream before Maria could execute any actual matchmaking. So, her lack of guessing any male conquests definitely isn’t the result of not having a clue of what guys in Roswell might find Michael worth getting on their knees for (or vice versa).

The rest of the night Maria was too busy to play any more rounds of the game, which was just as well as Michael is so out of sorts he’s sure she’d have been able to perceive that something was wrong. He tries to tell himself it doesn’t matter. The game was supposed to be a bit of stupid fun, but it still rankles him. He switches to water until closing, trying to get a handle on his feelings. Once everyone is gone, and Maria’s counting the till, the words escape him before he’s even made a conscious decision to utter them.

“You missed at least one tonight.” He hopes it comes off casual, but there’s a bit of an unintended edge to his words and he’s still not really sure why.

Maria seems to sense it, as she stops counting and swivels on her stool to face him. “Oh yeah?” She studies his face thoughtfully for a minute and Michael thinks she might be trying to get a read on him. Maybe the fact that he’s so unsure of his own feelings blocks her ability to get anything from him, because she looks confused as she asks tentatively, “Are you gonna tell me who, or do you want to see if I get it next time?” She seems to understand this isn’t a lighthearted continuance of the game.

Michael swallows hard. It feels like coming out somehow, even though she obviously knows about Alex, so knows he’s bisexual, but he’s still nervous. “Antonio. You know him? He was sitting in the booth on the left in the back.”

Michael sees the stark shock on Maria’s face even as she quickly covers it. “Antonio? Who works out at Atkins Ranch? Sure I know him. Comes in lately with a guy I’m pretty sure is his boyfriend.” Maria really does know everyone, and clearly Antonio’s sexual orientation hadn’t escaped her notice. Yet she still seems shocked to hear that he and Michael have history. She’s clearly uncomfortable now, avoiding his gaze.

He still doesn’t entirely get where the discomfort is coming from so he pushes on. “Yeah, I think he is at Atkins Ranch now, but we used to work at Foster’s Ranch together. We spent six months finding ways to slip off together on our breaks last year.” Shock flashes across Maria’s face again, even though that description is tamer than the ones he gave of his brief relationships with women she correctly identified, so it’s definitely not discomfort in discussing exes, just this particular ex (and Alex, his subconscious helpfully adds). It doesn’t take a genius to identify the commonalities there, though it is confusing. Maria clearly does not have a problem with queer people. Alex is one of her best friends, and he’d seen a ‘Love is Love’ rainbow sign in the bar window the last few Junes. Homophobia doesn’t make sense, but there’s no denying that she’s surprised and a little uneasy with him discussing being with men in the past.

He could let it go. That’s what he’s done the few times the subject came up with Max or Isobel. When Max insisted that he would have known Michael was bisexual if only Michael talked with him, Michael said nothing instead of shouting back that if Max had asked how Michael was after Alex went to war, they’d have talked about it. Maybe they would’ve. Fuck, he doesn’t know. They were both so messed up then, blinded by guilt, heartbreak, anger and resentment. He’d have been just as likely to shut Max down with a snarl and toss him across the room, but he’s annoyed Max never asked nonetheless. Michael had told Isobel something once. But he was so drunk and out of it, he doesn’t know exactly what he said. She tried to bring it up exactly one time before this year, and when he shut it down she looked almost relieved. He’s pretty sure it wasn’t a discomfort with him being bisexual, but a discomfort with love itself, especially the messy, complicated kind that would do nothing to help Michael blend into Roswell society. So in ten years, he’s had about three conversations outside of Alex or hookups in which his bisexuality was even acknowledged. He never thought he cared, but clearly he does because he can’t seem to let this go.

“So, why were all your guesses women, then?”

“I’ve watched you operate for 10 years in my bar, Guerin. And you always picked up women, so I thought I’d hedge my bets.” Maria aims for flippant, but doesn’t quite manage it. There’s something else there and Michael just can’t stop poking at it.

“Sure, I don’t openly proposition men in the Wild Pony, since if the goal is to get laid I don’t want to be distracted by having to clock Wyatt Long in the face first, but you know I’m bisexual, wouldn’t you assume that sometime in the last 10 years I might’ve hooked up with some of Roswell’s other queer residents?”

She looks down and is silent for so long, Michael’s not sure she’s going to respond. “I didn’t, actually.” She replies quietly. After a deep steadying breath, (unbidden, an image of Alex taking that same slow, deep inhale before saying he shouldn’t have left Michael behind, flashes through his mind). He shakes his head, trying to focus on the here and now as Maria continues. “Know that you were bisexual, I mean. I didn’t actually know that.”

“What the fuck do you mean you didn’t know?” Michael bites out, sharper and louder than intended. He softens his tone a little. “I might not know how you know, but you telling me nothing could happen between us because Alex and I had history is kind of burned into my memory.”

“I knew you and Alex kissed in high school, yeah. But that’s all I knew for sure. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re bisexual! And in ten years I’ve never seen you with a guy. Hell, Rosa and I used to make out in high school. Doesn’t make me bisexual!” She’s talking rapidly now, hands moving through the air like they do when she’s agitated, though he notices her brow furrowing a bit on the last words, and wonders if maybe she’s reconsidering just how bisexual it might make her. Ultimately he tucks that away for another day; he’d never tell someone else how to define their sexuality and it’s so not the point now. He’s more focused on the first words she said. That he and Alex kissed in high school.

He lets out a hollow laugh. As though it had ever been that simple. It was though, that simple, for a glorious half hour there in the museum. When it was nothing but the two of them, Michael’s nervous energy, Alex’s quiet surety, pressed together, gripping faces, hips, backs, anything they could touch. It was simple, pure, and wonderful, but so damn fleeting.

“That’s what he told you? That we kissed in high school? And you were gonna cut things off with us because of what you thought was one awkward high school fumble? And you never brought it up? You said we had to talk about it and then you never mentioned it at all? Are you really that uncomfortable with the idea of bisexuality that you can’t even have a conversation about what you thought was one kiss in high school and couldn’t even fathom that it might’ve been more than that? That maybe my sexual past might’ve included men and women? I never pegged you as uncomfortable with bisexuality, Maria.” He knows he’s stepped in it the minute he finished talking, but it’s too late.

“He didn’t tell me jackshit actually.” Maria’s voice is cold as ice now. He’s managed to avoid having a lot of relationship fights by generally eschewing relationships, but he and Alex have enough practice with them despite never having been officially together that he sure as hell recognizes a bad one as it’s starting. Apparently that conversation he was dreading is happening right the fuck now and he has no one to blame but himself. If only he could rewind time to five minutes ago and keep his damn mouth shut.

“Once in high school he was moony eyed over some guy and told me they’d kissed in the museum. I tried to get more out of him, but he was tight lipped about it like he always is, and I could feel that it was more than a stupid crush for him. He didn’t ever intentionally tell me it was you, but he couldn’t hide the fucking gutted look on his face when he came into the bar after you told him about our hookup in Texas. I’m sure you’d recognize it because it’s the only look he wears around us now, before he can hide it under his mask of cold indifference. And ok, maybe I did think it was just an awkward high school fumble and experiment to you. But I knew for him it was more than that and that it would probably be pretty shitty of me to try something with you. And hey, guess what? It fucking was. But I was so tired of denying myself what I want, when there are so many other things in my life are so damn depressing, so I did it anyways. Because a lot of times you make me feel good, cared for, happy even. Even when everything else goes to shit. And I wanted to hold onto that.”

Maria swipes at her face as a few tears well up, but her voice doesn’t waver as she continues. “You’re not the only one that sometimes uses this relationship to avoid a painful reality, ok Guerin? You don’t hold a fucking monopoly on it. So yeah, excuse me if I wasn’t relishing the opportunity to have a conversation about your history with my best friend so I could drown myself in guilt. I feel it every fucking day as it is. I guess I made some assumptions, but maybe it was easier to think it was a one time experiment for you back then, and not ask questions that might disabuse me of that notion, so I didn’t have to think too hard about what you meant to each other. And it’s not like you were exactly rushing to fill in the blanks, so don’t put this all on me. The single solitary thing you said to me about Alex was that it has “been over” and that I shouldn’t feel guilty. And in the entire time I’ve known you, you’ve never so much as mentioned that you found a guy attractive, so given those facts and that my guilt kicks into overdrive thinking about you and Alex together, I think the assumptions I made are kind of understandable, so miss me with this biphobic shit.”

Michael is stunned into silence for a moment. Maria told him once that he wasn’t exactly the arbiter of friendship, and she was right. He’s never really had friends. Max and Isobel were family even if sometimes he’d try to deny it. Maria had almost been a friend, but it veered off into a hookup and then dating, or whatever it was they were doing now, before they had moved past comfortable acquaintances. If he really thinks about it, Liz is his only actual friend and that had only been the past few months, so he has never been well versed in the rules of friendships. He hadn’t completely understood Maria’s initial refusal to sleep with him again because her friend had history, as she’d put it, with him. And since she’d later reconsidered, he hadn’t given it much thought, but evidently it really is affecting her and he feels bad that he’s been too wrapped up in his own conflicting feelings every time they were in the same room with Alex that he hadn’t really noticed the way she’d tense up and shut down after those encounters. He knows he’s been overwhelmed by his own shit, and is guilty at times of using their relationship as a reprieve of sorts. It shouldn’t come as a shock that she’s doing the same, and hasn’t brought up Alex because she too was trying to pretend that their relationship could be one easy and uncomplicated thing.

He knows picking this fight is unfair. None of this is her fault. Now that the immediacy of Max’s death, Noah’s death, and Rosa’s resurrection has passed, he’s had space to think about Alex, and he’s so fucking confused. That night Max died, he thought things were so clear. He felt certain he needed to leave the past behind and move forward with Maria, but now everything is muddled again. He’s tried to ignore it, and focus on the good things in his relationship with Maria, and not think about how Alex said he doesn’t look away. But his subconscious obviously hasn’t let it go and maybe that’s part of why he pushed today and got so annoyed with Maria for assuming all his exes were women. But also, maybe he does want some validation of his sexuality. He’s never had to think much about it because he’s barely ever been in a relationship, but now that he is in a relationship, and it is with a woman, it feels important to him that his sexuality is acknowledged at least by the people close to him. It’s odd because he’s never felt like walking in a pride parade, but everyone assuming he’s heterosexual just...it feels wrong somehow. But Maria is his girlfriend, not his therapist and she shouldn’t have to deal with his anger and irritation when he doesn’t even understand it himself.

He looks up at her intending to apologize and feign temporary insanity, but when he meets her eyes he sees her gaze has softened and she’s looking at him thoughtfully, with a hint of sadness. She speaks quietly before he has a chance to. “I am sorry for making assumptions. You’re right, I shouldn’t have. I hope you know that you being bisexual is not a problem for me, Guerin. That you’ve had more exes that are men than I thought is not an issue at all.”

The words are pacifying, but there’s something she’s not saying. “I’m sensing a but in there, DeLuca.”

She smiles tiredly at him. “But...I think it’s clear that we do actually have to talk about Alex. Obviously it’s on both our minds and ignoring it isn’t gonna cut it anymore.”

He knows she’s right, knows he was annoyed not five minutes ago that they hadn’t had this conversation yet, but suddenly he’s terrified. He can’t help the sinking suspicion that having that conversation will result in the end of this. Not just their burgeoning relationship, but a friendship too, and he’s so tired of losing people. He looks at her pleadingly. “I’m sorry too, I shouldn’t have snapped at you. And yeah, we probably should talk, but does it have to be tonight?”

She smiles softly at him, in the way that always makes his heart stutter in his chest, and takes pity on him. “No, it doesn’t have to be tonight.”

She wraps an arm around him, tugs his head onto her shoulder and presses a kiss into his hair. He closes his eyes, enjoying her closeness and wills himself to stay in the present, in this moment, with her. Tries to make himself believe that this thing they’re doing can work. Tries to make himself believe that this doesn’t feel like goodbye. It almost works.

#roswell new mexico fic #michael guerin #mentions of miluca and malex #introspective stuff #i just want michael to be able to talk to someone about his bisexuality #on his own terms for once #will i always use ani difranco lyrics for my rnm fics #survey says yes

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el-gilliath · 5 years

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Day 7 - Drunk and Disorderly

Y’all tired of my angst yet? No? Good, cause here is the last one. And this one has a miniscule of a hopeful (maybe sort of) ending. So there’s that. Thank you for reading my stories this week, it’s been a blast!

“Guerin, you can’t keep doing this.”

Michael looks at Alex. There’s two of him. Maybe three. He’s a bit unsure, it seems like his vision is swimming a bit.

“You’re hurting Maria.”

Michael snorts. “You don’t give a fuck about Maria.”

“Not true, but fine. You’re hurting me, then.”

Michael grins, the evil grin of someone sloppily drunk that knows he’s about to hurt someone else and liking it. “Maybe it’s my turn. Ever considered that, Alex?”

Alex looks at him, doesn’t give anyway anything. It pisses him off. He wants Alex to rage, he wants him to cry. He wants him to care.

“Why would I be here, if I didn’t care?” Apparently he’s speaking his thoughts out loud again.

“I dunno, ‘Lex. Maybe you just wanted to see the freak in prison, like your dad. The Manes legacy.”

“You’re not a freak. And you’re not in prison, you’re in a holding cell for being drunk and disorderly.” Alex sighs. “But yeah, that is my legacy. And right now? This is yours.”

“Calling me a criminal again, ‘Lex?”

“If the shoe fits, Guerin. Besides, you’re hurting my best friend. Your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Michael says quietly. He waits for the hurt to blossom as it always does. But it doesn’t. Maybe he’s finally been able to drink it away. “I broke up with her.”

“What?” Alex asks shocked. “Why?”

“She asked me to choose what I loved the most.”

“Of what, her and drinking?”

“No. Her and you.” Michael watches as Alex’s mouth drops a little. “It’s not easy to hide feelings for an ex-something from a psychic. She wanted me to choose. I chose you. I think she knew I would, that’s why she asked.”

Michael lays down on the bench in ‘his’ holding cell, his arm coming up and covering his eyes. “Now leave, ‘Lex.”

“Michael.” Hearing his name from Alex’s mouth does make the hurt blossom. Not drunk enough then.

“No. I chose you. Doesn’t mean that I want you right now either, it just means that out of the two of you I can lose her. I can’t lose you. Not wanting to lose you and wanting you are two different things. Now let me serve my drunk and disorderly in peace. I need time, Alex. Just like you did.”

He listens to the sound of Alex breathing, as the world swims behind his eyelids.

“Okay. Sleep tight, Guerin.”

He misses Alex the second he leaves the room.

#mgweek19 #michael guerin #roswell new mexico #roswell new mexico fic #guerinweek19 #my fic #that's all she wrote folks #angst over #lol who am i kidding #mentions of miluca and malex

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lovecolibri · 2 years

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Buck has major Michael Guerin energy in general, and I hate it so much that we seem to be heading towards the same breakup scenario for him with Taylor that M*luca got, where Buck just keeps clinging to her harder, no matter how miserable he is, and isn't being allowed to vocalize that he deserves more than this relationship, just because 911 got stuck with another self-inserting white woman showrunner. You can apply all the logic to how the character arcs should unfold this season, but that all goes out the window when the people at the top start making writing decisions out of pettiness.

Okay bestie, I have been sitting on this since Tuesday because I needed to get my thoughts in order and...they still aren't but I've got the time and less of a soup-brain today, so let's do this! Now @littlerosetrove made an excellent post about why it makes narrative sense for buck to be the one to break up with Tay Kay so I'm not going to rehash all the reasons why we know it should work that way, because it's like...SO obviously the way it needs to go down.

But. You are absolutely expressing my One Fear because we ALL knew that Michael had to be the one to break up with m*ria. He HAD to because he was the one who told Alex that he liked m*ria because, ya know, his mom died in front of his and Alex's faces and his brother was dead, and their past was coming back to haunt them and he was an absolute mess so clinging to something that was outside of all that mess (and a person who never treated him with the care and gentleness Alex had (when they weren't fighting) and who didn't see him as anything more than what he projected himself to be, who didn't see or try to poke at his bruised and batter heart, was all he could handle at the time), made...at least some kind of sense. Again, you can make an argument for pretty much anything and laying it at the feet of Michael's trauma response was an easy thing to do. But in the end, when he realized that he was in a relationship where he was always being talked down to and about, when he turned to Alex for all of his emotional needs, or even when he just wanted to have a fun day investigating stuff about his mom, when he realized he would always stand between Alex and danger, between Alex and a gun wielded by the man who crushed his hand so many years ago, when he was ready to burn the world down to find Alex after he was kidnapped and then built a bomb that would kill him and his entire family so Alex wouldn't get hurt, you would THINK it would make narrative sense for him to break up with his gf. You would THINK that after she went through all the backstabbing to take the man she KNEW Alex was still in love with after telling him nothing would happen between them now that she knew he was Alex's museum guy (and being a psychic, would have to have known Michael was still in love with Alex as well but conveniently forgot to mention that to Alex at...any point), that m*ria would be the one clinging to this thing she burnt down a lifelong friendship for.

But no. No, m*ria got to be the one to break things off because "maybe someone else" could love Michael better (girl, you think?! Joking about the kid who grew up running from foster homes and living in his truck being "house trained" wasn't a big enough clue that you didn't actually care about him beyond what he could do for you in bed and free labor around the bar?), and Michael? Well, Michael got to simper after her and beg her not to break up with him and throw out his first on-screen ILY in a blind panic (sound familiar 911 fam?), only to then show up where Alex was performing a love song he wrote about the two of them saying if he tried harder to break down his walls and build something solid would Michael come home to him, IN HIS EX-GFs BAR (while she is...nowhere to be seen), give some speech to his sister about how it's not their time yet, and then walk out in the middle of the song, which ends with Alex getting up and joyfully asking some new dude that we met for 5 minutes if he can kiss him.

Sooooo, that was a HUGE "fuck you" to any and ALL narrative satisfaction out of Michael dating m*ria. Because m*ira was the badass, mean girl attitude while also having all the other characters constantly talk about how nice and amazing she is, can do it all because she's just THAT COOL, self-insert character for the showrunner who refused to admit that the character had flaws, and that the stuff she did came across on screen as incredibly mean spirited and manipulative, and that's not even TOUCHING on 2x06 and that whole mess or season 3 after c*ria left and how they doubled down on her being the greatest person to touch this earth with Michael and Alex still simpering after her at every goddamn opportunity after that.

Michael never got to bring up how deeply unhappy he was, how unsupportive and mean to him she was, how lonely he felt with her, how much he tried and tried and tried and it was never enough for her, he didn’t get to express any of that, because the showrunner just....refused to acknowledge that that’s how that relationship came across on screen and not as the “fun, flirty, sexy” relationship she envisioned. She completely miscalculated Michael’s trauma and trauma responses, how they were perceived, and what exactly an adult audience for the adult show that she kept insisting it was, would expect for a breakup out of this broken character desperately searching for love, shyly ducking his head and lighting up when the man he loves comes around, putting up a front that hides the broken boy underneath, slowly being beaten down by the gf he picked up directly after an immense trauma involving the love of his life. (Sound familiar?!) There was a clear narrative path for that storyline to go and the only reason we didn’t get it was because the person in charge had a completely different idea about what was actually happening on the show, to what the audience was seeing play out on screen. (sOuNd fAmiLiAr?!)

ANYWAY

Now we have Evan Buckley. The one always being left behind. His parents left him behind the moment he "failed" to save Daniel as an infant, his sister left him behind when she followed Doug, and again when she pushed Buck away to make sure that even if she could never escape Doug, Buck could escape and go live his life, and now again as she is struggling with her PPD (this is a Maddie stan account, there is NO hate on her for doing what she did, just a note that her actions have contributed to his abandonment issues, though he understands and they have moved past the original hurt, and will move past her leaving again this season because he understands her even better now), his two serious gf's before Tay Kay have been the ones to leave, and before that, we saw him trying to make genuine connections with the women he hooked up with and always getting shut down. ("let's not ruin this by actually getting to know each other" from the pilot episode hits soooo differently after Buck Begins 😭)

Narratively, it makes sense that Buck HAS to be the one to break up with someone this time, right?! However, this new cheating storyline changes things a bit. On the one hand, there is the fan-made argument that Buck is in an incredibly dark place and is spiraling out, a theory somewhat supported by 5a (but NOT brought up or reinforced by KR, AK, or OS in their interviews, quite the opposite unfortunately), and how miserable and tired Buck looked a lot of the time, especially with his gf. Now if that argument is to be believed, and Buck is on his way to his own breakdown, it no longer makes *perfect* sense for him to be the one to break things off. Because him taking that step to break off a relationship for the first time, choosing himself and recognizing that he deserves better than the dry, sucking, emotional wasteland this relationship has been for him, should be a point of growth for him, NOT a pitstop on his downward trajectory.

During 5a seeing Buck having been in therapy but getting thrown off by Eddie getting shot and then not addressing any of that with him (at least not on screen, though KR popping up and saying the will scene was them “talking” about it and it doesn’t need to come up again would not shock me in the least), and then Maddie leaving, and Chim being pissed, and the whole team especially Eddie feeling “off”, causing Buck to cling to this relationship because it so far was the one thing, the one person he didn’t feel like he was failing, despite being miserable himself, it made sense that Maddie and Chim coming back and Eddie finally admitting what was going on and them talking things out, would allow Buck to settle enough to know that he was unhappy in that relationship and it needed to end. That would be him having growth and moving forward to put himself and his wants/desires/emotional needs first and recognizing that it’s not selfish to do so. But that can’t happen, at least not satisfactorily now, if we are to believe he’s not growing and moving forward, but he’s deeply regressing. Taking that step no longer fits the narrative of growth, if Buck isn’t growing. And if he’s not growing and is spiraling downward, it would actually make more sense now for her to be the one to break up with him over it to really push him further down that spiral.

On the other hand, if the interviews are to be believed, Buck is not in fact spiraling, but this entire cheating storyline is the way show there were cracks in the relationship (for some reason literally every interaction between Buck and Tay Kay wasn’t enough?), and that Buck has been miserable and needs to move on to happier, more fun, and freeing things with this new woman who makes him feel “alive”. The cheating was just an easy out to get him out of the relationship and into this new work flirtationship. Imagine how tired we all are. If this is the case, an argument can easily be made that Tay Kay is the one to break it off because so the audience that now feels a little bad for her (and are all PISSED that the show made them feel bad for her which is...mildly hilarious) will get a little vindication with her being the one to leave. The argument could also be made that Buck is the one to break it off, but with the cheating, it now will not be him standing up for himself and expressing how he never felt safe to express himself, how he didn’t feel supported, how he never trusted her enough to open up, or how they want different things and have differing moral stances. I mean, it could be that if they REALLY want the audience to hate Buck forever, but it will likely be him expressing that he was unhappy, and then groveling and apologizing while she cries and/or lashes out in anger. An now he has to just take it instead of being allowed to stand up for himself and maybe express a little anger back like he did with his parents so that the audience feels like he got some comeuppance and can go back to liking him again. Which after ALL the shit we had to sit through in that garbage relationship really pisses me off because we deserved a good and cathartic breakup that is impossible to get now, because Buck is a cheater AND a liar, and whatever breakup they have will be tainted with that guilt.

I’m at the point where I would rather have no on-screen breakup at all (partly fueled by NOT wanting to have to watch MW act one out) and just have the scene of him telling her the truth at the end of an episode, and starting the next one with him talking to Maddie or Hen or someone (NOT YOU l*cy, you can stfu forever) about how it went down and then we can all just forget about that whole relationship and move on.

But no matter what, it’s not going to be narratively satisfying now, beecause either Buck is not having the growth he SHOULD have out of this arc since he’s spiraling an breaking down instead of moving forward to a healthier, happier Buck/the whole thing is just him being guilty for cheating and not addressing or barely addressing the other SERIOUS issues in the relationship that are the reason it didn’t work, OR he isn’t the one to call it off and is left again, and we have to go through yet another relationship before getting him choosing to set himself free from something unhealthy for him. That. or we just don’t ever get that story for him at all which is, again, against the narrative for him, but I can’t imagine they would put him through this exact same thing again given that the GA hated it the first time around. Then again, Buck isn’t a cheater and yet here we are 🤷‍♀️ I’m not saying there will be NO satisfaction out of this storyline or that it won’t end up with Buck getting to have that growth later, but right now, that cheating plot basically took 99% of the joy out of the BT breakup we have been waiting to celebrate since 4x14. We’re all ready for it to end, but at what cost are we getting that ending? KR really said “fine you all have been cheering for an end to my pet character and pet self-insert relationship? You can have it, but I’m taking Buck’s character down with it, and shoving a new pet self-insert character into things that is going to be 100x worse and less fun to watch. Because it’s not about the narrative, or narrative satisfaction, or growth for the characters, it’s about her being petty that people hated her beloved character she decided to bring back in season 4, everyone HATED that the show “no homo-ed” so hard after that ROMATNICLY CODED shooting scene by wedging Tay Kay into the finale to take up key scenes Buck should have had with other characters in order to “build up” to them getting together (remember KR wrote the finale, BUT TIM is the one who wrote the Will Scene and the Buck/Christopher scene, neither of which KR had planned to have), and everyone REALLY hated how much Tay Kay was focused on in 5a. And KR can say all day that they “didn’t have” enough cast and that MW was less expensive to hire, and that’s why she was around so much but given that they cut firefam/rescue scenes that they had already filmed and edited and released promo about, to force more of her in, I’m not sure if I entirely buy that line.

At the end of the day, if the people in charge want to make something happen, they will make it happen, regardless of if it fits the narrative or not, and fans are left scrambling to make excuses for those choices to make the show make sense. We all mentioned how OOC things have been in season 5, (even 4x14 with how Bobby reacted to Buck’s crane stunt) and how distant the characters have been, which could be on purpose but KR doesn’t seem to think characters talking talking things out is important and we know there were Bobby/Chim and Eddi/Chim talking scenes that were cut (but again, tay kay was ONLY there so much because they needed more footage 🙄), and we know she has claimed Chim and Buck talked things out off screen so I am...less inclined to believe these things and this whole cheating thing are purposeful narrative choices, and more that they are just another instance of a showrunner not fully understanding their own show (no romantic undertones, MA’AM do you even watch the final product of your own show?!), and making choices that seem “fun” or “interesting” to them, or picking ones out of spite, and leaving it to the writers and the fans to try and make it work and make sense. And unfortunately, us and the characters are the ones left to suffer the consequences.

#my sweet nonnie friends #911 #911 spoilers #anti bucklucy #anti bluck #anti bucktaylor #roswell nm #roswell nm my behated #malex #anti miluca #anti maria deluca #are we living in the twilight zone right now?!#the parallels are sure something and i haven't even gotten to my other post where i'm going to mention the michael/buck alex/eddie paralles #i'm sorry this is so long i just have a lot of feelings #also sorry if it's an incomprehensible mess #but i needed to get it all out #thanks for giving me a reason to

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cakebeam · 3 years

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#rnm #roswell new mexico #anti miluca #anti maria deluca #michael guerin #alex manes #malex #yeah that hug really put a damper on things for me #not to mention no actual conversation between the two #on their feelings for each other #or alex being chosen first #or any real substance to show michael is officially over maria #but hey they kissed right?#so it's all good right?#right?#my stuff

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female-overlord-3 · 3 years

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question, does it bother you seeing the 2x06 malex kiss in edits? bc as a editor im like hmmmmm about bc ewwwww it from that scene but then hmmmm bc its ✨malex✨ but then back to ewwww that scene. i am conflicted. like do you think seeing it in edits would make people uncomfy or would they not care? and what are your feelings about it?

I only briefly saw some edits when it aired then after and while I was not a fan and was warned, I did/do try my best to avoid m*luca content but its gonna be there and it was kinda everywhere after that episode.

The thing is I'm kinda crazy and don't blacklist tags 😅 cause I'm too lazy and I've been able to create a nice little corner for myself. Like I'm fine if I see it but it's so random and very unlikely unless I'm going through the Roswell New Mexico tag or malex tag (which not cool if it's not malex related. THOSE WHO KNOW KNOW 😂 Thank god I'm not that delusional) so like if it's an edit to shade that scene or anything M*luca or M*ria, I can endure 👀👀👀 this is me blatantly asking and if so SEND IT TO ME!!!!! I'm getting sidetracked.

There will be people that care and those that don't so I guess the main thing would to properly tag and have a warning or mention if possible. That's honestly the best thing you can do because while tumblr tags aren't the best they are at least there.

I totally get that whole situation is conflicting because it combined Malex and M*luca in a way that's just (for me personally) so gross and toxic. It was something I love with something I hate into something I want to burn to ash. So please be kind to yourself anon!!! I hope this helps!!!!

Edit cause it's late and my brain got all hyperfocused: the Malex kiss specifically is nice and splicing that baby from the rest of that awful event is always a good thing in my book! For me personally of course but ya still tag and warn.

#alex manes #malex #michael guerin #roswell nm #anti maria deluca #anti miluca #respect the tags people #mentions of 2x06 rnm #anon ask

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jule1122 · 3 years

Text

Malex Fic - What They’ll Say About Us

I took the title and the mood for this from the Finneas song. It’s a little melancholy, but mostly sweet and romantic. Just a little fic about Michael reassuring Alex in the middle of the night. No real warnings, but the miluca break up is reference although it is way in the past.

What They’ll Say About Us on AO3

Summary: Michael thinks this might be one of those nights where they trade kisses until they fall back asleep.

Alex smiles and closes his eyes, capturing Michael’s hand when it brushes his. He squeezes Michael's hand before opening his eyes and speaking, voice barely above a whisper, “I don’t want to hurt you any more.”

Michael isn’t sure what woke him up. The bedroom is still dark and quiet, but while he fell asleep pressed against Alex, they are no longer touching. He wonders if Alex woke up and left the bedroom. It’s not unusual for him to spend an hour or two in the living room when he can’t sleep. But when he stretches and turns, he sees Alex laying on his side watching Michael. He scoots closer and runs his hand down Alex’s arm. Alex’s expression is soft and gentle, and Michael thinks this might be one of those nights where they trade kisses until they fall back asleep.

The easy answer is ‘then don’t,’ but Alex’s words are unexpected, at odds with the peace they normally find in their bedroom, and Michael’s confusion keeps him silent.

“I want to love you the way you deserve to be loved.”

“And how do I deserve to be loved?” Michael keeps his tone light, curious, hoping Alex takes the invitation to tease him.

Alex squeezes his hand again and takes a deep breath. “Without reservation. You should be loved openly, completely. You should be loved so deeply you never have to question it. I don’t know if I can do that.”

Michael closes the remaining distance between, hooks his leg around Alex’s and rests his head on his pillow. “Isn’t that for me to decide,” he reminds Alex gently.

They’re so close Alex barely has to move to place a kiss on Micheal’s forehead. “Self-preservation has never been your strong suit.”

Michael doesn’t say anything. It would be easy, too easy, to counter and start an argument where instead of hurling accusations, it’s self-recriminations they tally.

“For a long time I thought the worst thing about growing up with my father was not being loved,” Alex stops and tilts his head so he’s not looking at Michael.

As the seconds tick by, and Alex doesn’t continue. Michael taps his hip with their clasped hands to remind him that he’s still there. He thinks about kissing Alex, to comfort him, reassure him, to push the conversation to another time, but he can hear Reilly snoring in his dog bed so whatever is bothering Alex isn’t bad enough to alert him. Instead he waits, lets Alex decide if there is more he wants to say.

Finally, Alex takes a shaky breath and faces Michael again. “The worst part is that I never learned how to love. I love you so much. I feel like I am filled with love for you, but I don’t know what to do with it.”

The defeat in Alex’s voice sends a flare of rage through Michael’s body. He wants to revel in it, let the familiar warmth of anger give him purpose because it’s easier to focus on the person who hurt Alex than face the truth of how much Alex has been hurt. But he pushes his anger away so he can focus his attention on Alex instead of a long dead monster they will never be able to completely vanquish.

“When Maria broke up with me, she told me there was someone else who could make me happier than she did. She didn’t say your name, but we both knew she was talking about you.” He’s told Alex this before, years ago when they were trying to find a way forward. But Alex gives him his complete attention, trusting Michael is telling him again for a reason. “I thought she was wrong. Back then, if I even let myself think about being with you, happy wasn’t a word that came to mind. I thought if we ever managed to have a relationship, it would be full of drama, passionate and cosmic, sure, but not happy.”

Alex laughs when Michael says cosmic, and Michael can’t help but kiss him, both as a reward and to take some of the sting out of his words.

“She was right, though, and I’ve learned never to question Maria. We might have struggled to get here, but being with you isn’t a struggle. Life is chaos, it’s endlessly frustrating and sometimes heartbreaking, but being with you is my comfort, my safe space. Our relationship gives me strength and purpose and security. When I am with you I am both at peace and inspired, and I am happier than I ever thought I could be.”

He sees Alex shake his head and knows he wants to argue, so he lets go of Alex’s hand and presses two fingers against his lips, “Shhh,’ he says. “Listen.” He takes his fingers away and rests his hand on Alex’s shoulder, lightly massaging while he talks.

“I asked Maria once, after I realized how happy I was with you, if she looked into our future. She said she didn’t have to, that she saw us together at the hospital, and she knew.”

“I don’t remember being at the hospital with you,” Alex furrows his brow in confusion, and Michael can’t resist reaching up and smoothing it out with his thumb.

“I didn’t either,” Michael wasn’t surprised neither of them remembered. They had both been so focused on Maria and her recovery, a chance meeting didn’t merit their attention. There’d been no longing glances or weighted conversation, just the two of them briefly sharing space. “She told me you were saying goodbye when I came in. We were only together for a minute or two, but it was enough for her to know.”

“Something about our auras?”

“She wouldn’t say, but that’s what I thought too,” Michael shrugs. He knows Maria sees a lot more than she ever let on, but auras is usually the description she falls back on. “After she told me, I would think about it sometimes, try to figure out what she saw.” Michael leaves it there, waiting to see if Alex wants to know.

“What do you think she saw?” he asks, a bit of hope mixing with the curiosity in his voice.

“Remember when we found out my mom said there was no music on my planet?” Alex nods and Michael continues. “I hated hearing that because music is the one thing that has always calmed me, quieted all the noise in my head. I wondered if I would have missed it, even without knowing what it was, I would have felt the absence. Maybe I would have always felt a step out of place if I’d stayed there.”

“There would have been music. You would have taught them what it was.”

Michael shakes his head a little, amazed at the way Alex states that as a simple fact. That he believes Michael could have brought music to a culture that developed without it, that he would have the skill and insight to translate what lived inside him into a new language for his people. He can believe with certainty that Michael is capable of that while still believing he doesn’t know how to love Michael. He doesn’t know where Alex’s doubts are coming from tonight, maybe Alex will eventually tell him, but he may not. Sometimes they why is just less important than how they deal with them.

“I think my soul is always singing, trying to find the music to calm it, that’s what my aura is. But no one hears it because it’s playing at the wrong frequency, you know. Except you, Alex, you hear it, and your soul sings back. And once she saw us together, Maria could see it too. She looked at our auras and saw our souls singing to each other.”

He sees tears fill Alex’s eyes before he presses his face into Michael’s neck.

“You’re the only one who can do that for me, Alex. No one else makes me feel complete, no one else can love me the way you do. Promise me you’ll remember that.”

Alex’s breath hitches and he shudders in Michael’s arms. Michael kisses the top of his head and rubs his back. He silently curses himself for not telling Alex this sooner. It had felt too personal, too revealing about the depth of his own feelings. But what he didn’t consider is just like he needs physical, tangible proof - both their names on the mortgage, Alex agreeing to be their niece’s godfather - that Alex is as committed to their life as he is, that he’s not looking to leave, Alex might need to know that he gives Michael everything he needs to be happy and loved, that Michael isn’t missing out on anything by choosing to be with Alex.

Alex kisses Michael’s shoulder before looking up and giving Michael a watery smile, “I don’t know how you can just say things like.”

“You inspire me,” Michael wipes the traces of tears from Alex’s face. “Besides, how many love songs have you written me?”

“Not nearly enough,” Alex takes Michael’s hand again and kisses each finger. “And it’s not the same thing. I think about every word and rewrite them so many times. It feels like such a struggle to share the simplest thing, to find a way to say I love you. Even in the middle of the night, you know the right thing to say. It comes so naturally to you.”

“You are seriously underestimating the number of mental conversations I am having while changing someone’s oil.”

“I wish I could hear them,” Alex yawns, dropping Michael’s hand to stretch.

“Tired?”

“Yeah, sorry for keeping you up.”

“I like being up with you,” Michael shrugs away his apology. “We don’t have anywhere to be tomorrow. Except for playing with Reilly, we can spend the whole day in bed.”

“Sounds good,” Alex smiles, but Michael can still see a hint of sadness in his expression. “I do love you, you know. So much more than I’ll ever be able to show you.”

“I love you, too,” Michael slides his hand over Alex’s heart and something inside him clicks, knowledge he didn’t realize he had, is suddenly just there. Now that he knows what he can do, knows how to do it, it’s hard to hold back even long enough to make sure Alex wants this as much as he does. “I know how much you love me, Alex. I don’t ever question it, it’s a part of me now. I can show you,” he presses his hand harder against Alex’s heart to make sure he understands.

“You can do that?” Alex looks at Michael with a mixture of awe and hope and leans into his hand.

“Yeah, I can,” Michael doesn’t even try to hold back the smile the blooms on his face. He feels like his whole body is thrumming in anticipation. He takes a breath to center himself, focusing his attention back on Alex. With his free hand, he brushes the hair from Alex’s face. “Let me sing you to sleep.”

Alex closes his eyes and inhales sharply. “Please,” he breathes back out, opening his eyes and holding Michael’s gaze as he leans forward. As their lips meet, Michael feels warmth radiating from his palm. As all the barriers between them fall away, Michael feels the love surrounding them, and he knows he was right earlier, this will be one of those nights where they kiss and hold each other until they fall asleep.

#malex fic #rnm fic #my fic #established malex #future fic #late night insecurities #Michael and Alex love each other #very brief mention of miluca break up #gets a little sappy

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bestillmyslashyheart · 3 years

Text

4am

the whole thing is here but its over 18k so if you would prefer to read it on ao3 i understand

It’s widely understood that when Michael Guerin has a problem he drowns it in bourbon and anonymous sex. Occasionally he might complain to Isobel Evans about it or maybe even Max Evans but mostly, his problems end up on the floor of the Wild Pony, one way or another.

Alex Manes, on the other hand, doesn’t have problems. Or if he does, he doesn’t talk about it. Everyone knows that nobody bottles up their issues quite like Alex.

What nobody understands is that no one can ignore their problems forever. Everyone needs a release. Sometimes, that release comes in alcohol, sometimes in hitting something or someone and letting them hit you in return, sometimes even in the bliss of a stranger’s company. And sometimes it comes in the form of a late night phone call and quiet secrets and shared traumas.

No one understands and that’s exactly the way they like it.

---

He’d turned the ringer up loud earlier in the day to make sure he didn’t miss a phone call or a text and Alex was sorely regretting that now.

The sharp ring woke him from a light sleep and Alex snatched the phone off the bedside table and answered the call before it could wake anyone else up. He didn’t even have time to look at the Caller ID.

“Hello?”

Heavy breathing on the other end was his only answer. Alex twisted his wrist to check the time. 3:12am

“I can’t hold a guitar.” Alex collapsed in on himself at the husky voice. It sounded like the other man had been crying. Or maybe screaming.

“Guerin?” He let out a breath. “Are you okay?” He hadn’t seen Michael since his father had dragged him out of the shed the previous afternoon. By the time Alex could sneak back out there, the place was empty and all of Michael’s things were gone. “That’s a stupid question. Did you go to the hospital?”

“No insurance.”

“You’re a minor, the state should cover you,” Alex told him with absolutely no knowledge whatsoever if what he was saying was actually true. If Michael believed it at least he might go see a doctor and worry about the bills later.

Michael laughed. It was a harsh, broken thing and he stopped suddenly after a few seconds. “And when they ask me what happened? Am I supposed to tell them the resident war hero smashed it with his hammer because he caught me with his son?”

Alex closed his eyes. He hadn’t thought of that. He’d just wanted Michael to be okay. “Guerin-”

“I tried to pick up my guitar,” Michael cut him off. “I can’t even fucking hold it. My hand won’t- it won’t grip.” Alex felt tears sting the back of his eyelids. “I can’t play Alex.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex choked out.

“Don’t,” Michael replied forcefully. “It’s not your fault. It’s not.”

“He’s my dad.”

“He’s a monster. Doesn’t make it your fault.”

Alex pulled his knees up to his chin and pressed his forehead to his leg. His phone creaked from how tightly he was squeezing it. He didn’t know what to say.

Michael was silent on the other end of the line. If it hadn’t been for his harsh breaths, Alex might have thought he’d hung up.

“Rosa’s dead,” Alex said suddenly. He hadn’t meant to say it but the words were on the tip of his tongue. Michael was quiet. “She- she’s dead. How- god, Michael, Liz called this morning and I couldn’t even process it. I hadn’t heard from you since my dad- and I just wanted to know you were okay and I couldn’t process that my friend is- she’s gone, Guerin.” Alex lost the battle against the tears, one he hadn’t realized he’d been fighting for hours now, and they streamed hot and heavy down his face. They burned on his cheeks but he made no moves to brush them away. There was no one here to see them anyway.

“I’m sorry.” Michael sounded so earnest, like he truly meant it and wasn’t just saying that to be polite, it soothed something in him. Just a little.

“She was going to California,” Alex confessed. “We talked about me coming with her after graduation. Maybe go to LA. I could play music and we’d get a crappy little apartment and bug Liz and Maria to come visit us.” Alex sniffed. “We were supposed to leave. Leave and be happy. Away from here.”

“I’m sorry,” Michael said again. It was quiet for a while. “You can still leave, Alex. You can go to California and make music. You don’t have to stay here, not with him.”

“What about you?” Alex asked quietly.

Michael’s breath hitched. “What about me?”

“Would you want to make music?” He couldn’t quite bring himself to ask him to come with him if he left, not yet. It was too soon.

Michael huffed. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. Did.” He let out a pained groan and hissed curse. Alex got the idea that he might have tried to move his hand. “You know, I always kind of thought of starting a dad band? Find someone to make music with, have a couple of kids, jam out in the garage instead of doing homework kind of thing.” And now he can’t even hold a guitar. Because of Alex and his dad.

Alex swallowed around the lump in his throat. “That sounds pretty great,” he admitted quietly.

“Yeah?”

Neither of them pointed out that it was a lot less likely to happen now. “Yeah. You could pick up the triangle. Or maybe a cowbell.”

“Hey now no need to be mean.” But Michael laughed.

Alex smiled even though the tears hadn’t quite stopped. “You’d be great at it.”

“I’d be awesome. Don’t sell me short.”

“I could never,” Alex promised. The air sobered between them. “Michael. You’ll play again someday. I promise.”

Michael didn’t reply right away. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

The line went dead.

---

The phone hitting him in the face woke him long before the ringing would have. Michael jerked away from the impact, his eyes blinking open blearily.

“It’s for you,” the girl next to him muttered. “Shut it up.” Michael didn’t remember her name.

He grabbed the phone fully intending to turn it off when he saw the name flashing. He answered it just as it was going to voicemail. “Hold on,” he mumbled. Without waiting to hear a response, he rolled over the girl on his tiny bunk and fell to the floor with a crash. Cursing and rubbing his elbow, he grabbed his boxers from the floor and fled his new Airstream. “Alex?” Alex’s reply was lost when he dropped the phone trying to pull his boxers on.

“Shit,” he cursed, scrambling to grab it. “Alex?”

“Guerin?” Alex almost sounded amused which was good. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Fine. You?” He pulled the phone away from his ear to check the time. 3:52am. “Shit, it’s late.”

“Yeah,” Alex agreed. He didn’t say anything else.

Michael dropped heavily into one of his new lawn chairs. Well, it was new to him. What was that old saying? One man’s trash is another man’s treasure? “How’s Basic?”

The line was silent before Michael heard a whoosh of air as Alex exhaled loudly. “It’s shit.”

Michael rolled his eyes. “I could’ve told you that.”

“Don’t,” Alex said, not pleading or scolding, just simply. “Not right now.”

“Okay,” Michael agreed. He didn’t want Alex to hang up. It was the first time they’d spoken since Alex left and he didn’t know when or if Alex would call again.

“They- fuck,” Michael heard a thud. “They have expectations.”

“Who?”

“Everyone!” Alex shifted. “They all know my dad. And the guy in charge here was an old buddy of my grandfather’s.” Michael didn’t know what to say. “They all expect me to be them. And I don’t- I don’t know if I know how not to be.”

“You’re not them, Alex,” Michael reminded him.

“I wasn’t,” Alex agreed. “Out there when I could dress how I wanted and act like I wanted and do what I wanted. But here? Here there’s no me, it’s just- it’s just the military and the way you have to act to be military and I see my dad and my grandfather and my brothers everywhere I look and I don’t want to be them, Guerin!”

“You’re not,” Michael assured him. “You’re not them and unless they do some serious brainwashing and maybe a personality transplant over there, you’re not going to be, okay? You’re Alex. Not Jesse, not Clay, or Flint, or Greg. You’re Alex.”

Alex was quiet. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Where are you?”

“Basic training,” Alex replied immediately.

“Alex,” Michael groaned. It was like pulling teeth sometimes.

“Uh,” Alex hesitated. “In a supply closet in the communications building.”

Michael raised an eyebrow even if Alex couldn’t see it. “Why?”

“Because they lock up our phones except for pre-approved usage times.”

Michael double checked his phone but it definitely said Alex’s name. “You’re on your phone now.”

“Well yeah, I couldn’t remember your number so I broke in and stole it.” He said it like it was nothing.

“Alex,” Michael laughed.

“What?” Alex said defensively.

“Would anyone else in your family break into a military facility to steal their phone to make a middle of the night phone call to their-” Michael stopped short of labeling himself anything in relation to Alex. “No way,” he continued. “They wouldn’t dare.”

Alex hummed consideringly. Michael heard a loud noise on the other end. “Shit,” Alex hissed quietly. “There’s a patrol. I gotta go.”

The line went dead. Michael stared at his phone as the call ended and the screen went black. After a while he realized Alex wasn’t going to call back so he trudged back inside the trailer only to freeze at the sight of the naked girl in his bed. He’d completely forgotten about her and after talking to Alex the thought of getting back in bed next to her only made his skin crawl. He fished some sweats out of the closet and went back outside to sleep in his truck.

---

Michael’s hands were shaking as he listened to the phone ring. It had been a while since they’d spoken, longer since they’d seen each other in person, but there was only one person Michael could even think of calling.

The call connected to a loud burst of music and a shouted, “hold on!” Already, Michael’s hands were steadier.

He waited as the noises faded and the world quieted. “Guerin?” Alex asked, a little breathless.

“Hi,” he greeted, his voice smaller than he’d like.

Alex didn’t ask what was wrong or why he was calling. He just waited.

“I needed you to answer,” Michael confessed into the silence. “I needed- I don’t know. I just-”

There was a shout of, “Manes! You coming back?”, and Michael’s heart started to race until Alex replied. “I’m heading out! I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Oh come on, Manes, that guy was hot!” Michael closed his eyes.

Alex laughed. “Not hot enough.” There was a long pause as the world got quiet on Alex’s end. First the voices disappeared and then the music cut off with the loud slam of a heavy door. “Guerin?”

“Sorry for ruining your night.” It was after 3am and Michael had been fully prepared to wake Alex up. He wasn’t prepared to catch Alex out on a date.

“You didn’t,” Alex assured him. A car door opened and then closed.

Michael didn’t know what to say. The more he thought about why he’d called, why he’d needed Alex to answer, the stupider he felt. But he also couldn’t hang up so he just sat there, phone pressed tight against his ear hoping Alex didn’t hang up.

Alex didn’t hang up. After a while he started humming under his breath. It was too faint for Michael to make out the song but it was a pleasant reminder that Alex was still there.

“I need to drive home,” Alex said after a while. “Do you mind if I put you on speaker?”

Michael should probably just end the call and let him drive but, “that’s fine.” A second later, Alex’s car turned on and his music started playing briefly before Alex turned it off and continued humming. Michael listened to the sounds of Alex driving and let it lull him half to sleep. He heard the engine shut off and the car door open and close followed by the house door open and close and still neither of them said a word.

Michael listened as Alex got changed for bed and he heard the quiet sigh as Alex slipped under the covers. “Late night.”

“Long week,” Alex countered. He started humming again.

“What is that?”

Alex hesitated. “It’s nothing. Just something I was playing around with the other day.”

“You’re writing?” Michael smiled. Alex had always wanted to write his own music.

“Trying to. Sometimes.”

“I like it.”

“Thanks.”

The humming started again and this time Michael recognized it, realizing that Alex was humming the same part over and over again. He tried to join in.

Alex let him for a few notes before he started laughing. “Hey!” Michael scolded half heartedly. “I’m not that bad.”

“Yeah you are,” Alex laughed.

“Hmph,” Michael grumbled. “Well compared to you everyone’s terrible.”

“You’re biased,” Alex accused lightly, his voice barely above a mumble.

“Yeah I am,” Michael agreed. “Night, Alex. Thanks for answering.”

“Always.”

---

Alex paced the parking lot, his phone in his hands. He kept turning it over and over, not pausing long enough to actual call anyone.

He knew who he was going to call, that was never a question. This was how it went. He called, the other answered, they talked or didn’t talk depending on the night, and then they never spoke about it again. Middle of the night phone calls were sacred. No matter how long it had been or what had been last said in the daylight, if the phone rang in the middle of the night, it got answered.

Which meant Alex had to wait. It was just past two in the morning now. By any rational person’s clock that was late. Hell, Alex was normally asleep by 10 o’clock so this was extremely late. He just wasn’t sure if it was late enough to count as a middle of the night call. He needed it to not be a regular call.

Alex didn’t stop moving for the next 30 minutes. He covered the parking lot four times over and nearly dropped his phone twice because he couldn’t stop playing with it. When it was almost three (2:41am but he’s rounding up) he pressed Call.

“One second,” Michael answered gruffly after six rings. There was another voice muffled in the background. Whoever it was did not sound happy that Michael had answered the phone.

Alex bounced on his toes lightly and waited as Michael made his excuses to his hookup of the night.

“Okay,” Michael said after a moment.

“I kissed my squadmate,” Alex blurted out. “Well, I kissed him and then he sucked me off. In my commanding officer’s office. And we got caught.”

Silence. “Are you getting discharged?” Trust Michael to skip past the awkwardness for once and cut straight to the point.

“I don’t know.” Which was part of the problem.

“Isn’t it against the military’s rules to be gay?” Alex heard the creak of Michael’s truck door opening and then the slam of it closing.

“Yes. Kinda. Not really? It’s complicated.” Alex started pacing.

“Yeah, I’m a little drunk so you’re going to have to explain that one to me.”

“DADT got repealed. Today. Or yesterday, I suppose.”

“So you’re not getting kicked out?”

“I don’t know.” Michael waited. “It happened two days ago. They hadn’t actually filed any charges against us to start the discharge process. And now with DADT being repealed it’s all up in the air. Because the ‘offense’ happened before the repeal and also because they don’t know if the repeal goes into effect immediately or if there’s a delay or what that means for us.” Alex stopped and squatted on a curb.

Michael didn’t say anything right away and so Alex waited. “Alex, did you get caught on purpose?”

Alex closed his eyes. “Maybe.”

“Alex…”

“Can you imagine my dad’s face if his son was dishonorably discharged for engaging in homosexual activity?” Alex could. He’d pictured it many a time. “It would be on record. He’d have to acknowledge it.”

“So you’re going to throw your life away? To piss off your dad?”

Alex rolled his eyes. “It’s the Air Force, not my life.”

“It’s a dishonorable discharge,” Michael corrected. He sounded remarkably sober for a guy who claimed to be drunk. “That kind of thing sticks with you.”

“I know.” Because he did know. He just wasn’t sure he cared all that much.

Michael huffed. “So now what?”

“I don’t know. They could go either way. Hell, they could wait to decide what to do and just leave us in limbo for now.”

“Why now?”

Alex dropped his head to his knees. This was the part he hadn’t wanted to admit to. “I’m being deployed next week.”

“Shit, Alex.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “I’m a coward.”

“You’re not a coward. Not wanting to go to war does not make you a coward. It means you have a brain and some semblance of self preservation.”

“I joined the military, Guerin,” Alex reminded him. “I knew what that meant. But now that it’s here…”

“You’re going to be fine, Alex.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes I do. Because you’re not allowed to not be fine.”

Alex’s shoulders sagged. “Not allowed huh?”

“No. I checked the rule book. You have to come home, safe and sound.”

“Yeah okay,” Alex sighed.

Michael let the silence linger before, “was he good at least? Like, worth getting kicked out of the military good?”

Alex smirked. “I’ve had better.”

He heard the slow lazy smile that spread across Michael’s lips, the smugness just oozing through the phone. “Yeah you have.”

---

Alex’s voice was a sleepy mumble when he finally answered. “Guerin?”

“Hey,” Michael greeted softly. It was late, even for this kind of call. Hell, Alex would probably be needing to get up for the day soon at this point.

Bed sheets rustled as Alex shifted in bed. He waited for Michael to speak first. When he didn’t, he started humming, as had become his habit.

Michael let him for a little while, his eyes closed as he listened to Alex try out different notes. He’d been working on the same tune for years at this point but Michael never tired of hearing it. “Alex?”

Alex stopped humming with an inquisitive noise.

“Am I really that bad of a person?”

“You’re not a bad person at all,” Alex told him. His voice was still slightly rough with sleep and for the first time Michael felt bad for calling him. Alex had clearly needed the rest. “You’re an idiot sometimes and you make terrible life decisions but you’re not a bad person.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“If you want me to lie, call me when I’m awake,” Alex grumbled. They both knew Michael wouldn’t though. They didn’t talk like this when the sun was shining. If they talked at all it was inconsequential.

“Max is joining the sheriff’s department,” Michael told him. “Because of me. Because he thinks he needs to to get me out of trouble. Because I’m such a screw up that he needs to literally make a career out of cleaning up after me.”

Alex sighed. “You’re not responsible for what Max does. He’s a big boy, just like you, and he makes his own choices, okay?”

Michael waited for him to tell him he wasn’t a screw up. He didn’t.

“Guerin?”

“Yeah, okay.” Michael swallowed thickly and hoped Alex couldn’t hear it through the phone.

“What is it?” No such luck.

“You were supposed to tell me I’m not a screw up.” Alex didn’t reply right away and Michael scoffed. “Guess I should have called when you were awake.”

“You’re not a screw up,” Alex finally said. But had lost some of its meaning. “You just make bad choices sometimes.”

Michael had a sudden flashback to his truck that last summer. “Right.” He nodded even though Alex couldn’t see him. “I forgot. I’m throwing my life away.”

Alex sighed heavily. He sounded a good deal more awake now than he had. “Guerin-”

“Sorry for waking you up.”

“Gue-”

Michael hung up.

---

“Hey man, are you okay?” Richards grabbed his shoulder but Alex threw him off without a thought. He must have been rougher than he’d thought because Richards took a full step back and put his hands in the air. “Manes? Alex?”

“I’m fine,” Alex barked.

“You are not fine,” Henderson told him. Alex whirled around. He hadn’t even heard him come up behind him. Henderson also took a step back.

“Okay, fine. I’m not fine.”

“What do you need, man?” Collins asked from behind Richards.

Alex wasn’t even entirely sure what had happened. One second he was fine and the next he was having what might be a panic attack. “I need to leave.” The guys immediately started clearing a path to the door. Alex was nearly outside before he realized what he really needed was something else. “I need my phone.”

Henderson turned on the spot. “I’ll get it.”

Collins and Richards waved Alex outside, neither one of them touching him and making sure no one else even came close. It was impressive considering how crowded the bar was tonight.

Alex braced himself against the brick wall, closed his eyes, and sucked in slow, deep breaths. There were people walking on the street behind him but Alex blocked them out. “Here,” he heard Henderson say. Alex opened his eyes to see his cell phone in front of his face. He snatched it from Henderson with a gruff ‘thanks’ and started scrolling through his contacts. It had been a while since either of them called and their last call hadn’t ended well but Alex didn’t care.

He ignored the fact that it was barely past midnight and hit Call. As it rang he pressed his forehead to the back of his hand, his fingers digging into the brick. The guys stood around him, not quite hovering but not leaving him alone just yet.

Alex ignored all of it and listened to the phone ring.

The dial tone cut off with a, “-uck off Max!”

Alex sagged lightly against the wall. There was a slamming door and some more cursing before, “Alex?”

“Hi,” he whispered.

“What’s wrong?” They didn’t usually ask. But then again, Alex didn’t usually call this early in the night. He was suddenly acutely aware of his friends pretending not to listen in.

“Can you-” Alex cleared his throat. “Can you just-”

Thankfully, Michael didn’t need him to finish the sentence because Alex wasn’t sure that he could. He waited half a beat to make sure Alex didn’t say anything else before he was off on a tangent about something. Alex could honestly say he had no idea what Michael was talking about, at some points the terminology he was using went straight over his head and at others he was referencing people Alex had never met. But it honestly didn’t matter as Alex felt his panic subside and the tension leave him the longer Michael talked.

After more than a few minutes, though it honestly could have been an hour and Alex wasn’t sure he’d have noticed, Collins came over to him. “Do you need a ride home?”

Michael stopped talking, clearly listening in.

Alex nodded. “Sorry.” They’d all come together.

“Dude,” Richards scoffed. “Don’t apologize. Place was lame anyway.” He turned and led the way to the car, Henderson on his heels. Collins lagged behind to make sure Alex was following.

“Alex?” Michael asked.

“Yeah. Can you-”

Michael hummed. “So yesterday Izzy-” Alex let the words roll right over him. He barely paid attention to where he was walking and trusted Collins to get him back to the car in one piece.

Alex didn’t say a word the whole ride home and the others left after making sure he got into his apartment in one piece, none of them asking the questions obviously on the tips of their tongues. Alex loved them for it, just a little bit.

He listened to Michael ramble as he got ready for bed and collapsed on top of his sheets.

“I saw my dad today.”

Michael cut off mid word.

“He- he’s visiting an old friend of his apparently.”

“I didn’t realize the devil had friends.”

“Plenty of demons in hell,” Alex said lightly. “I didn’t think he saw me but then he was out at the bar I went to tonight and he,” Alex stopped. He hadn’t even really processed it earlier, what exactly had set him off. Now, he wasn’t sure he wanted to admit it. Hell, he wasn’t sure he could admit it.

He let out a shuddering breath and said nothing.

After a while, Michael started talking again and Alex fell asleep to the sound of his voice.

---

Maria grabbed the keys out of his hand even as she shoved him out the door. “Your truck will be here tomorrow,” she told him. She closed the doors behind her and watched him as he stumbled across the parking lot. “Is there someone you can call?”

Michael laughed. “At this time?” He paused. “What time is it?”

“3am,” she sighed. “Look, you can’t stay here. I can’t afford that right now.” She’d just bought the place and he knew any small problem could snowball for her right now. “I need to clean up and lock up. If you’re still here when I leave, I’m calling the Sheriff.”

She hesitated a moment, a wary eye locked on him, but eventually she went back inside. Michael didn’t miss the definitive thud of the deadbolt turning in the lock a second later.

Michael tripped twice on his way to his truck, his feet catching on the gravel. He had half a thought of using his powers to start the engine but he dismissed it, recognizing that he really was way too drunk to try and drive. Honestly, he was drunk enough that he might somehow blow the car up trying to start it with his powers. Instead, he pawed clumsily at the seats until his cell phone appeared.

Holding onto it tightly, he slammed the door and started down the road. The Wild Pony was on the opposite side of town from Sanders’ but at least he wasn’t parked out at Foster’s right now. That would have been too far.

Michael wasn’t sure at what point he’d dialed the phone but before he knew it it was ringing in his hands.

“Hey,” Alex’s tiny voice answered. Michael stopped and stared down at his name on the screen. He didn’t have a contact photo set for him; Alex wouldn’t let him take one. “Guerin?”

“Alexxx,” Michael drew out his name far longer than necessary.

Alex sighed. “You’re drunk.”

“Yes,” Michael nodded firmly. “Very. Maria took my keys.”

“Where are you?”

Michael looked around. “Roswell.”

He thought Alex might have snorted. “I know that. Are you at the Pony?”

“Nope.” Michael shook his head. “She kicked me out.”

“Oookay. So where are you now?”

“Walking.”

Alex paused. “You’re walking home from the Pony? Drunk?”

Michael shrugged. “She said I couldn’t stay or she’d call the Sheriff. I don’t want to see Max’s disappointed face again. It’s a stupid face.”

“Michael,” Alex sighed. “Can you call Isobel? Have her pick you up.”

“She’s got a new boyfriend. She’d be mad if I woke her up. Says she needs her beauty sleep for him.”

“Mich-”

“You left.” Alex choked on his name when Michael cut him off.

“I couldn’t stay.”

“No. You could,” Michael focused more on putting one foot in front of the other than on the words spilling out of his mouth. Probably a good thing because otherwise he’d never say it and he’d just have more nights like this one. “You just won’t. You never will. But I know that. I’m good for a fuck but not to stay over. Whatever.”

“Guerin-”

“You left.” He’d gotten to the edge of the street and he tripped over the lip of the sidewalk. The phone fell to the ground next to him and he missed Alex’s response. When he got back up, the phone was cracked but the call was still connected. “You left Roswell. Two days before you said you would. You didn’t say goodbye.” Half the reason Michael had gotten so drunk tonight was because he’d made plans for a night with Alex only to realize Alex had skipped town.

“I had to go,” Alex told him. “My friend needed me.”

“I needed you,” Michael might have whined. “You just skipped town in the middle of the night.”

Alex exhaled heavily. “I didn’t think you’d care. I mean, you always find some excuse to not be around when I leave.”

“I care,” Michael insisted. “You’re just an asshole.”

“And you’re drunk.”

“Doesn’t make you less of an asshole.”

“Where are you now?”

Michael looked up. “Crashdown.”

“Okay.” He paused. “Michael?” Michael hummed. “Keep walking.”

Michael looked down at his feet, surprised to find them stuck in place. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Just take a step.” Michael did. “And again.” Michael did. Slowly, leaning more heavily on the buildings he passed, he got to the end of the strip.

At some point he started narrating his journey. After a while Alex started giving him directions like he didn’t know how to get home, like Alex knew the way better than he did. Michael didn’t argue with him, though, just kept talking as he walked until eventually he crashed into the locked gate at Sanders’. Michael picked the lock without thinking about it. He’d lost the key Sanders gave him a long time ago and using his powers on the lock was an old habit.

“You home?” Alex asked. Michael was sure he’d been talking this whole time but he must have missed some of it.

“Mhmm,” Michael agreed as he trudged up the steps of his trailer. He almost dropped the phone as he fell onto his bunk.

“Good night, Guerin.”

---

Alex couldn’t sleep. His body was thrumming with something like excitement. Or maybe anxiety. He didn’t know.

The news broke that morning and it was all Alex could think about all day. Every time he thought he’d finally got it out of his head, someone or something would remind him and he’d be lost to it again.

He had to be up in three hours, had to be at work in less than four, and yet he had hardly even closed his eyes.

Alex fought with himself for a few more minutes before giving it up and getting out of bed to get his phone. It was across the room so he unplugged it from the charger and carried it outside with him. Sometimes, he’d scroll through his contacts and fool himself that there was someone else he might call but tonight he didn’t bother with the pretense; he went straight to Michael’s name and hit call.

Michael answered immediately, almost like he’d been waiting for Alex.

“They did it,” he greeted.

Alex felt himself smile. “Yeah.” It was nearly reverent. “They actually did it.” Michael laughed and a second later Alex joined in. He leaned back and stared up at the stars. “They really did it.”

They sat quietly for a while, just listening to each other breathe.

“Run that dad band idea by me again?” Alex had no idea what had possessed him to say it. They never mentioned these phone calls, never, and it had been years since Michael brought it up.

Michael made a strange noise. “Couple of kids, crappy family garage band instead of doing homework?”

“Yeah that.”

“First step is finding someone you can make music with.”

“And marrying them,” Alex smiled. “I can do that now.” As of this morning, he could marry any guy he wanted, anywhere he wanted.

“Yeah, Alex. You can do that now.”

Alex closed his eyes. “Might need to find me a mean triangle player.”

Michael paused and Alex wondered if he’d gone too far. “No cowbell?”

“Eh,” he sighed in relief. “You can always use more cowbell. Could need a guy who can do both.”

“Steep requirement.”

“Well, I could never marry just anyone.” He laughed. “Gotta have standards, you know.”

“Only the very best for Alex Manes,” Michael agreed.

“And for Michael Guerin.”

“Sure.”

Alex opened his mouth to reply when another voice beat him to it. “Are you coming back? Or should I go?”

Michael audibly wavered so Alex made the choice for him. “It’s late. I need to sleep.”

“Alex-”

“He sounds hot.” He hung up.

---

Isobel was going to be fine. A few bumps and bruises, possibly a concussion if she actually got checked out at the hospital, but otherwise she was fine. As far as car accidents go, it was nothing, especially considering the state of her car.

Michael had just had time to push the oncoming car just slightly to the side before it hit Isobel head on and the adrenaline rush from using his powers publicly and being scared to death that Isobel almost died was starting to wear off.

“Michael, I’m fine,” she insisted. Noah hovered in the open front door behind her but Isobel ignored him. “Really. It’s you I’m worried about.”

Michael looked at her, surprised. “Why would you be worried about me? You’re the one who almost died not an hour ago.”

“Yeah but you’re the one who,” she stepped closer and lowered her voice, “decided to use his powers in public.”

Michael rolled his eyes. “It was Main St at midnight, hardly town square in the middle of the day.”

“Still,” she insisted. “You’ve been antsy ever since and you keep asking me if I’m okay and-”

“That’s because you almost died!” He reminded her.

“But I didn’t!” She put her hands on his shoulders. “You saved me. You did good, okay? So take a deep breath and relax. You’re starting to stress me out with how stressed you are.”

“I’m not stressed.”

“Well you’re something.”

Michael rolled his eyes. Behind Isobel’s head he saw Noah start to pace, his eyes locked on Isobel. “Your boy toy’s getting antsy. You should do something about that.”

Isobel looked over her shoulder and smiled before focusing back on Michael. “You should stay. Crash in the guest room.”

Michael shook his head. “I’m going home.”

Isobel eyed him. “Is home code for the Wild Pony?”

“No, home’s code for my shitty little Airstream,” Michael rolled his eyes.

“I don’t think you should be drinking tonight. You’ve already used your powers once-”

“Good night, Isobel.” Michael hugged her, cutting her off. “I’m glad you’re not dead.” He pushed her gently towards Noah, exchanging a nod with the man, and drove off.

He didn’t go home. He also didn’t go to the Pony.

Michael parked his truck by the Crashdown and scurried across the street to the shuttered UFO Emporium and broke the lock. He slipped inside, careful to shut the door behind him, and navigated blindly through the rooms until he got to the room with the tacky glow in the dark stars painted on the wall.

He sat on the floor, sucked down half a bottle of acetone, and called Alex.

“Hmm?” Alex answered sleepily.

“Who would pay money for a dump like this?”

“Hmm?” Alex asked, slightly less sleepily.

Michael leaned back slowly until he was lying on the floor staring up at the ceiling. There were more ‘stars’ up there but some of them were stuck on and were falling down. “They couldn’t even be bothered with halfway decent stars.”

“Guerin,” Alex grumbled. “Are you at the museum?”

“It’s terrible.”

He heard Alex roll his eyes. “It’s always been terrible.”

Michael looked around. “I don’t know. It’s not all bad. I’d even say this room’s had some amazing things happen in it.”

“Amazing, huh?”

Michael hummed in agreement. He listened to Alex shuffle around in bed and didn’t say anything for a while.

“Bad day?” Alex finally asked.

“Isobel was in an accident,” he confessed. “Other guy was drunk, just missed hitting her head on.”

“Is she okay?”

“Bumps and bruises,” Michael told him. “She was coming to pick me up. I was right there. She could’ve-”

“Hey, no, she’s fine,” Alex assured him. “I mean, come on, she’s Isobel Evans, a little thing like a car accident isn’t going to take her out.” Michael laughed.

“Nah, she’d wait for the apocalypse or something.”

“Please,” Alex scoffed. “She’d rule the apocalypse. Dare the world to try harder.”

Michael laughed until he started crying. “The guy just missed her.” He wiped at his face. “Almost took the front of her car off.”

“But he did miss her,” Alex reminded him. “She’s okay. Say it.”

“She’s okay.”

“She’s okay.” Michael drew in a shuddering breath. He let it out just as shakily.

“She’s okay,” Alex said again, his voice calm and even.

Michael took a few deep breaths, trying to calm down. It wasn’t working. “Can you-?”

Alex started humming without any more prompting. It had become a habit over the years. When Alex called but couldn’t or wouldn’t talk about why, Michael just rambled about whatever he could think of until Alex either fell asleep or hung up. When Michael called, Alex would hum for him. Sometimes he’d recognize it as a popular song but most often, Alex would just hum. Bits of it he recognized, some lines that Alex repeated over and over, something he once said he was working on. Michael had never heard more than bits and pieces, wasn’t sure if Alex had gotten any further than that, but he’d always liked hearing it.

That was what Alex hummed for him tonight and it settled him like nothing else could.

---

“Alex,” Henderson stepped in front of him, his hands in the air in front of his chest to show he meant no harm. “You need to sleep, man.”

Alex shook his head. “I need you to move.”

Elcott touched Alex’s elbow and he jerked away from her. “Don’t.” Her eyes were sad but kind. No pity.

“Manes, it’s late. You need to be awake and alert tomorrow for your shift. You need to sleep.”

Alex shook his head again. “Right now, what I really need, is for you to get out of my way.”

“Look, Manes, we’ve been there,” Henderson started.

Henderson was his friend. They’d been posted together for years before this deployment and they knew each other pretty well. Alex knew that Henderson understood, knew that he could talk to the man if he wanted, the problem was that he didn’t want to. He couldn’t.

Alex stared him in the eyes. He had a few inches and about 20 pounds on Alex but Alex had no doubt he could take him. After all, he had plenty of experience fighting men bigger and taller than him. “Move.”

Henderson shared a look with Elcott before sighing heavily and stepping to the side. “Try not to get caught doing something stupid, will you?”

Alex didn’t spare him a sideways glance let alone a response as he burst out into the cold night air and made a beeline for the communications building.

Two uniformed men stood guard out front. Alex ignored them until one physically stepped in front of him. “Manes. You can’t be in here.” Lt. Walker’s eyes were kind, he knew what had happened earlier, but his tone left no room for argument. “You need to go back to the barracks.”

Alex shook his head. “I need to-”

“Personal communications are not authorized at this time, Manes, you know that.” Walker stepped in front of him, hand outstretched, but stopped shy of actually touching Alex. It was a wise choice on his part; Alex was crawling out of his skin and he had no idea how he’d react to someone’s touch right now.

“I need-” Alex’s voice cracked slightly and he squeezed his eyes shut to avoid seeing their reactions.

“Manes,” the other guard said, the one Alex didn’t know.

“Five minutes,” Alex pleaded. “I need five minutes.” He swallowed thickly.

Walker exchanged a look with the other man, the man shrugged and pointedly looked away, and Walker opened the door behind him. “Five minutes.”

“Thank you,” Alex told them sincerely as he slipped inside. The place was mostly dark, all operations communications being run out of a different building and personal communications prohibited at this time of night, but Alex knew the way to the phone bank just fine. He hadn’t had occasion to use it much but every soldier stationed here knew where to find their connection to back home.

Alex didn’t bother with a chair. He grabbed the phone off the desk and curled up on the floor, his fingers dialing a familiar number without hesitation.

It rang twice before being sent to voicemail.

Alex called again. It rang once.

Alex let out a mild curse and called a third time. This time it was picked up just before it went to voicemail. “Who the hell is this?”

“Michael,” Alex exhaled.

“Alex?” There was a loud clang like Michael had dropped something. “What time is it over there?”

There was a clock on the wall opposite him. “3:52 am,” he answered.

“What’s wrong?”

And just like that, Alex broke. He’d been holding it together all day, since 1:36 pm. Since Alex pulled the trigger and another man fell to the ground and didn’t move.

Michael made soothing noises on the phone, a low murmur of words that Alex had no hope of understanding but that was okay for now. He just needed Michael’s voice in his ear.

“I killed someone,” he finally croaked out. “He was going to shoot us but I shot him first but it doesn’t even matter because he’s dead because of me.” Tears were falling freely but Alex didn’t notice. “I killed someone, Michael,” he whispered.

“Alex.” Michael’s voice was soft, gentle. Alex wasn’t sure he deserved it right now. “I’m sorry you had to do that.”

“I shouldn’t have,” Alex closed his eyes only to be blinded with the memory of the man falling to the ground, chest covered in blood. His eyes snapped open. “I-”

“You shouldn’t have had to,” Michael agreed. “But you’re alive. And your squad’s alive, right?”

“Yeah.” Every one of them had gotten back safe and sound, no injuries. “He should have gotten to go home alive too.”

“It was you or him. And I’m not sorry it was him.”

“Don’t say that. You don’t know that.”

“I know you,” Michael’s voice was strong and sure. “And you wouldn’t have pulled that trigger unless you absolutely had to. You could never hurt anyone unprovoked. It was you or him.”

Alex let out a shuddering breath. He wasn’t sure he believed Michael but he couldn’t deny the words helped. Alex didn’t say anything else and after a moment, Michael started up a running commentary on what he was doing.

“Manes.” Alex looked up to see Walker stood in the doorway. His eyes were on the hallway, respectfully not looking at Alex, but his five minutes were clearly up. Alex looked at the clock to find it read 4:12.

He cursed lowly. “Sorry,” he said to Walker. To Michael, he said, “I’ve gotta go.”

“Try to get some sleep,” Michael asked. “You sound tired.”

Alex felt his eyes slip closed. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Michael replied. “For staying alive.”

Alex didn’t know what to say to that so he hung up without another word. Walker gave him another minute to pull himself together before he stuck a hand out to help him up. Alex took it gratefully. “Thank you.” He wasn’t talking about the help.

“Don’t mention it,” Walker replied. He didn’t say another word as he escorted Alex outside where Henderson was waiting. The two men exchanged a look that Alex couldn’t decipher before Henderson was ushering him back to the barracks.

“Better?” He asked as they reached their bunks.

Alex nodded, surprised. “Yeah. I think I am.”

“Good. Now get some sleep. We might get an hour at this rate.”

“Thank you,” Alex whispered, Henderson was skipping his own precious sleep to stay up with Alex. The man just rolled his eyes and pointedly got comfy on his bunk. Alex’s lips twitched upwards as he followed suit.

---

“Sometimes I hate Isobel,” Michael opened with as soon as the call connected. It had been stewing in his head for days just begging to be let out.

Alex hesitated. “Why?”

Michael dropped his head back against the headrest and stared through his windshield at the stupid banner strung up in the middle of the main square. Congrats Graduates!

“I could’ve had my Master’s by now,” he said. He’d done his research. Four years of undergrad followed by the two year graduate program for agricultural engineering at UNM and he’d have two degrees under his belt as of yesterday. “I should’ve had my Master’s by now.”

“And how is that Isobel’s fault, exactly?”

Michael closed his eyes, the images of Isobel’s face that night in the cave flashing in his mind. “She couldn’t handle me leaving after high school. Had a freak out or whatever.”

“...that’s why you stayed?” Alex sounded disbelieving.

“She- she did something. Something stupid,” Michael ran a hand over his face. “I’m not saying it was the only reason I stayed but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a big part of it. I didn’t want her to do anything like that again. I couldn’t-” He cleared his throat. “I looked it up. UNM’s grad programs, I mean. They had the program I wanted and if I’d gone after high school I’d be done by now.”

“Apply again,” Alex urged.

Michael shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. You got a full ride the first time, you can do it again.”

Alex didn’t get it. Isobel hadn’t had any more blackouts since Rosa died but neither Michael nor Max had talked about leaving since then. Michael had no way of knowing if his leaving would just set her off again. He couldn’t take that chance. Not if he wasn’t there to shoulder the blame again. “I can’t.”

Alex exhaled loudly. “Why not?”

“I just can’t.”

“You can,” Alex told him earnestly. “You’re more than smart enough, Guerin. Any school would be lucky to have you, you just have to apply.” Michael scoffed. Alex groaned. “You’re wasting your mind on that ranch, Guerin. You could do so much more.”

Michael had heard all of this before. Didn’t make it easier to hear this time. “And what if I don’t want to? What if I’m happy on the ranch?”

“If you were happy on the ranch, you wouldn’t be hating Isobel right now,” Alex pointed out.

Michael hung up on him. He ignored Alex’s call a moment later, too.

---

Alex watched the guy leave, his clothes still haphazard from how quickly he’d pulled them on after Alex’s not so subtle hints to leave had finally registered.

“Are you allergic to sleeping next to someone?” Henderson laughed. “They never seem to stay very long.”

Alex shot him a glare and ignored the friendly ribbing from the other two guys sitting on his couch. He was well aware of his dating habits, or lack thereof, but that didn’t mean he wanted to hear about them from his friends.

He lasted about five minutes before he retreated back to his bedroom. The room reeked of sweat and sex and a strange man’s cologne and Alex threw open the windows and grabbed the can of Febreze, spraying liberally all over.

His phone sat untouched on his bedside table as he stripped the bed and tossed the soiled sheets into a corner to wash another day. It stared accusingly at him as he pulled out his clean bedding and diligently made the bed.

When the bed was made, Alex snatched his phone up, pulled the screen out of the window, and ducked outside to sit on the small roof over his front porch. He sucked in deep lungfuls of fresh air as he scrolled through his phone. After about ten minutes he gave up pretending that he wasn’t going to do what he knew he was going to do and pulled up his contacts.

Michael was number four on his most frequently contacted list. Alex thought that was actually a little low, especially recently, but he pressed Call and shimmied onto his back as the call connected.

The stars were bright tonight, the sky empty of clouds, and Alex found himself searching out the few constellations he knew as he listened to the phone ring.

“Not actually a good time,” Michael was out of breath when he answered. Alex’s stomach clenched. They always answered each other’s calls, no matter what they were doing. If Michael was really about to hang up on him for some-

“Michael!” It had been years but Alex still recognized Max Evans’ voice, though he’d never heard it sound quite like that. “Get back here!”

“One second! Don’t get your-”

“Michael!” And there was Isobel Evans. She sounded nearly as fed up as Max had.

Michael grumbled something at them, the phone clearly held away from his mouth. “Can I call you back in like five minutes?”

“Michael!” That was both Evans’ that time.

“Ten minutes?” Michael corrected.

Alex smothered the laugh that was bubbling in his throat. Nothing about this exchange was particularly funny. “That’s fine,” he assured Michael. It wasn’t like Alex was going anywhere.

“Thanks,” Michael sounded sincere as he hung up.

Alex stared at the dark screen for a long moment before he laid the phone on his chest and returned to stargazing.

“Yo Manes!” The call came from inside the house. “You still up?”

Alex didn’t answer. He wasn’t in the mood to socialize tonight.

It was almost twenty minutes before his phone rang and Alex answered it almost as soon as it started ringing. “So,” he greeted, dragging the word out in an obvious question.

“Don’t ask,” Michael pleaded. “I would like to forget the last half an hour ever happened.”

This time Alex did laugh. “Okay,” he agreed easily. It was easy not to push when he was a thousand miles away and the answer didn’t really matter.

“Thank you,” Michael sighed in relief. “Now. What’s up with you?”

“Not much,” Alex hedged.

Michael hummed mockingly. “Yep, of course, you’re right, you always call me at two in the morning because nothing’s up.”

“You used to let me lie to you,” Alex remarked mildly.

“I did,” Michael agreed. “I do.”

“Rough night?”

“We’re not talking about that, remember?”

“Of course not,” Alex agreed lightly.

They let the silence linger for a while before Michael sighed and launched into a riveting tale of Johnny-the-idiot-ranch-hand. Alex let him talk for the better part of the hour, part of him engrossed in the stories of Johnny’s sheer incompetence, before he felt ready to talk about why he’d actually called.

“Do you think I’m broken?”

Michael cut off mid word. “What? No. Why would you think that?”

“I can’t date,” Alex confessed. “Hell, I can’t really go on a date. I just- I can do sex just fine, I have no problem meeting guys and hooking up but anything more than that and I get the urge to run in the other direction.”

The line was silent for long enough that Alex had to check it was still connected. “Guerin?”

“Yeah,” Michael cleared his throat. “Yeah. I’m here. I, uh, I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Sorry?” Alex wasn’t sure if it was something he should apologize for. For all that they’d made a habit of this, the late night phone call, the ready listening ear, they’d never discussed matters of the heart. Not that he thought this was a matter of the heart, but it was similar enough he supposed.

“No, no, you don’t need to apologize,” Michael hurried to say. “I just wasn’t expecting it. But I’m good now.”

“Are you?” Alex arched an eyebrow even though Michael couldn’t see him.

“Yes,” Michael said. “And you are not broken, Alex Manes. Not in any way. So what if you’re not a serial dater? That’s fine.”

“I’m not a dater at all,” Alex reminded him.

“So? There’s nothing wrong with that. Just means you’ve got high standards.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “Are you planning on extrapolating on that?”

Michael laughed lightly. “You’ve got standards, Manes. You don’t want to date because none of those guys are worth your time. You’re good at reading people, yeah? I’m sure if someone held your attention for longer than a fuck, you’d consider a date but none of them are worthy of it so you don’t.”

Alex hadn’t really thought of it that way, that maybe he just hadn’t liked any of the guys he’d met enough to want to date them. Or he had, but he’d dismissed it because how could no guy be worth dating? Well, no guy except… “You think quite highly of yourself, don’t you?”

“This isn’t about me,” Michael hedged.

“That’s not a no,” Alex observed.

“No, it’s not. But this really isn’t about me. There’s nothing wrong with you, Alex. I promise.”

Alex swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. “And I’m just supposed to take your word for it, huh?”

“Don’t you trust me?”

He did. “Should I?”

“...you either do or you don’t, Alex.” Michael’s voice was quiet.

“I do,” Alex confessed. Promised. “I do.”

---

“Michael,” Isobel scolded for the fourth time in ten minutes. And for the fourth time, Michael ignored her completely. When he reached for the bottle again she stretched across the table and snatched it from his fingertips. “Stop drinking.”

Michael turned his head slowly to stare at her. Uncaring if anyone was watching them he yanked the bottle from her grasp with a surge of his powers. It spilled all over both their laps but he paid it no mind as he poured himself another healthy portion. Isobel leapt from her seat with a horrified gasp. “Michael!”

Michael sipped his drink. A heavy hand on his shoulder splashed a little out of the glass and onto his already ruined jeans. “Michael,” came Max’s disappointed voice a moment later. “It’s not even dark outside yet.”

“Which would probably explain why I have half the bar to myself.” Michael toasted Max with the little that remained in his glass before tossing it back in one swallow. He reached for the bottle again to top it off.

“Why are you like this?” Max asked. He dropped into the seat next to Isobel with a heavy sigh. Michael glanced at him, saw the uniform firmly in place, and looked away. He wasn’t in the mood for Deputy Evans today.

“Max!” Isobel hissed. “If you’re gonna be an ass just leave. I’ve got this.”

Max raised an eyebrow. “Clearly.”

“I’ve-”

“How about you both leave?” Michael cut her off. He waved a hand at the door. “Don’t let me stop you.”

“Michael.” It was Isobel’s turn to sound disappointed and just like that Michael was over it. He stood up so fast his chair fell over and nearly took him with it. Michael reached for the edge of the table to steady himself and knocked the bottle to the floor in the process.

“Dammit.”

Max rolled his eyes as he stood. “I’ll pay for it.”

“I didn’t ask you to.” Michael glared up at him. Max ignored him and walked over to the bar to pay Maria. Isobel wasn’t looking at him so Michael took his chance and lurched towards the door. The ground moved slightly under him but he was used to it and adapted quickly.

“Michael!” Isobel’s yell got cut off by the slam of the door closing behind him.

Michael squinted when the sun hit his face. It honestly was a lot earlier than he usually drank but it wasn’t like he had a job to fill his time anymore so what did it matter. He pulled his phone out of his pocket as he staggered over to his truck. By the time he got the engine running he’d already listened to Alex’s voicemail twice.

“Michael!” Max came barrelling out the Pony’s front doors. “Do not drive!” Michael dropped the truck into drive and pulled out with a spray of dirt that may or may not have hit Max in the face.

He made it back to Foster Ranch without killing anyone or himself. He counted it as his achievement for the day. Once he got to his Airstream and saw the notice to vacate his parking spot on his door, he knew it would be his only one.

Michael crumpled it into a ball and tossed it over his shoulder. Sanders didn’t have any work for him right now but he might be willing to let Michael park the Airstream in the lot anyway. If he didn’t, Michael didn’t really have a backup plan but that was tomorrow’s problem. Truthfully, it was yesterday’s but Michael was nothing if not someone who could procrastinate.

He flopped onto his bed and called Alex for the third time. As it rang he dropped it onto his chest and waited for the voicemail message. It was the only time he got to hear Alex’s voice these days.

“You know when someone doesn’t answer it’s not usually an invitation to keep calling.” Alex’s voice was raspy and gruff but it was the most beautiful sound Michael had heard in days, if not longer.

“Alex!” He shot up in the bed and nearly dropped the phone. After fumbling with it for a few precious seconds he pressed it to his ear. “You’re okay!”

There was a pause. “Yeah.”

Michael’s heart sped up. “That’s not exactly your reassuring voice, Alex.”

“I’m alive,” Alex told him needlessly. He was talking to him, he could tell he was alive. “Henderson’s not. Elcott’s not. Markle’s not.” Michael listened to Alex take a deep breath. He pressed a fist into his eyes. Henderson and Elcott he had heard of from Alex a bunch, Markle he didn’t know. “My leg’s gone.”

Michael’s eyes shot open. “What?”

“My right leg. It was- they couldn’t save it.” Michael had no idea what to say. “Can we- I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve been talking about it for days, it’s all anyone wants to talk about and I just-”

Michael desperately wanted to talk about it. “Wyatt Long got arrested again yesterday; public indecency.”

Alex’s exhale sounded relieved. “What’d he do?”

“Decided it would be a good idea to take a shower in the high school locker room. During school hours.”

“Why the fu-”

“He was drunk. Thought he was late for football practice. Or at least that’s the story I got from Max. The official story is it was all just a big misunderstanding and the Sheriff’s Department is ‘very sorry’ for the trouble they caused him.”

“Man,” Alex snorted. “Must be nice to own the town.”

“Right?” Michael slowly lowered back onto the bed and closed his eyes. Alex’s voice washed over him. “Some guys just have all the luck.”

Alex hummed. When he didn’t say anything more, Michael launched into another story. And then another one. And another.

It was easily half an hour later, in a lull between Roswell updates, that Alex finally spoke. “I bought a house.”

Michael’s breath caught in his throat. He swallowed around it. “Oh yeah? I thought you said you were renting only, that there was no point in trying to settle down when you were just going to have to move again soon.”

“Yeah,” Alex agreed. “But my service is almost up. And with my leg...”

“Right. So, uh, which one’s the lucky city?” How far away was Alex going to be?

“You remember Lily Pierce?” Alex asked suddenly.

Michael furrowed his brow. “Cheerleader? Parents were never home so she always threw the parties?”

“That’s the one.”

“What about her?”

“I bought the house two doors down from her place.”

Michael’s heart stuttered. “That’s in Roswell.”

Alex let out a huff. It sounded vaguely amused. “So my realtor said.”

“You bought a house in Roswell?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

Michael wasn’t sure how Alex expected him to react to that. “When’s your service up?”

“Not for another year.”

“Captain Manes!” A distant voice scolded. “You’re not supposed to be up!”

“Alex?”

“Shit, Guerin. I’ve gotta go.”

“Alex!” But Alex had already hung up.

---

Michael paced outside the Airstream, phone clenched in his fist as it rang. He counted the rings and answered on the last one.

“Thanks for the heads up,” he greeted.

Alex sighed. “You knew I was back in town.”

“From Isobel!” Michael yelled. He’d found out from a flyer on Isobel’s dining room table denoting a welcome home parade for resident town hero Alex Manes. Not because Alex had bothered to tell him himself.

“I was going to tell you.”

“Clearly.”

Alex was quiet. “You’re angry.”

“Damn right, I’m angry! You blow back into town without a word only to show up at my door with your dad? Alex!”

“Not about that,” Alex dismissed. “You’re upset about that but not this angry.”

He was right, Michael was more angry about everything going on with Max and Liz fucking Ortecho, but that didn’t mean Michael could admit it. “Right,” he scoffed. “Because you know me so well.”

“Okay, I’m not talking to you while you’re like this.”

“Fuck you.”

Alex hung up. Michael’s curses split the air but there was no one around to hear them. He’s not too proud to admit that he threw a minor tantrum, dust kicking up around him as he used his powers on the lawn chairs he hadn’t packed up yet. They went tumbling across the distance until they crashed into the side of his truck.

The loud clang they made when they collided startled him out of his anger. With a disgruntled sigh, he trudged over and grabbed the chairs, folding them up and tossing them in the bed of the truck. He had to pack everything up anyway now that the land had been sold. No point putting them back out.

Once that was taken care of he felt calmer. And slightly ashamed. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and called Alex back.

He answered on the second ring. “You still pissy?”

“Fuck you,” Michael replied. It was decidedly more teasing and less angry than the last time he’d said it. Alex clearly heard the difference.

“Good. What’s up?”

“Just some bullshit with Max thinking he rules the world.”

“The usual, then?”

Michael snorted. “Nah. Little more than the usual. He, uh, he decided to go around sharing secrets that weren’t his.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“It’s a shitty thing to happen.”

“Yeah,” Michael exhaled loudly. “So. You’re back.”

Alex paused. “I’m back.”

“How long?”

“Don’t know yet. I’m finishing up my service and then, well, I’ve got the house, so…”

“How is it?” He’d driven by it once, right after Alex told him he bought it, but he’d never been inside.

“Looks like crap,” Alex laughed. “I should have gotten someone to come clean it. Or, you know, furnish it. I’ve got a bed and one folding chair.”

“You’ve been back for two weeks.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Clearly.”

They both fell silent. Michael could tell Alex had something on the tip of his tongue but whatever it was, he didn’t say it.

“You going to the reunion?” Michael finally asked, when the silence had dragged out too long.

“Reunion?”

“Yeah, Izzy put together our ten year reunion. Saturday night? Pretty sure Maria’s going.”

“Uh,” Alex stuttered. “I guess? I haven’t actually been to see Maria yet so it would be a time to catch up, I guess.” Michael definitely didn’t read anything into the fact that Alex hadn’t seen his best friend since coming home either. At least he wasn’t avoiding Michael specifically.

“I’ll text you the details.”

“That’s fine, I can get them from Maria.”

Michael tensed. “Right. Sure.”

“Look, Guerin-” Alex sighed and stopped. “It’s late.” It was always late, with them.

“Yeah, sure. Good night.”

He hung up before Alex could reply, some of that earlier anger still simmering under the surface.

---

Alex stared out at the desert behind his house and fingered his phone in his pocket. He wanted to call Michael but he wasn’t sure he could. Not after how he’d left things earlier.

This was the problem with coming home, he thought idly. They’d made a relationship that worked for them and it worked in part because they didn’t see each other very often. Barely a month in and he’d fucked it up.

After staring into the darkness for too long, Alex gave it up and went to bed. He spent over an hour tossing and turning before accepting that sleep wasn’t coming. At least not easily.

His phone was on the bedside table, easy to reach from the bed. Alex stared at it for a long moment before giving up and unplugging it from the charger. He told himself he was just going to play a game but he wasn’t surprised to find himself pulling up Michael’s contact. He stared at his name until the screen blurred and then he pressed Call.

He didn’t even know what time it was. It might not be late enough for this kind of thing.

Michael answered but didn’t say anything. Alex listened to his breathing for a few minutes, equally unwilling to talk. For once, Michael didn’t take the silence as an invitation to ramble and instead stayed quiet.

“My dad’s a dick,” Alex offered eventually.

“He is,” Michael agreed readily. He didn’t say anything more.

Alex wanted to apologize, wanted to take back what he’d said earlier at the drive-in but the words got caught in his throat. “I’m not scared of him,” he said instead. “I’m not,” he added firmly.

“No one ever said you were,” Michael replied. “No one could.” He made it sound simple, like it was a fact. Alex wasn’t sure if it made him feel better or worse.

The line was quiet again, the silence only broken by the sound of Michael yawning.

Alex closed his eyes. “I don’t care about the copper wire,” he confessed. It came out so quietly he wasn’t sure Michael heard him.

On the other end of the line, Michael let out a breath, long and slow. “I know, Alex.” And then he hung up.

---

Michael sped away from the hospital, trying to leave the image of his broken siblings behind him. Isobel seemed confident that she needed to be there, that it was the only place safe for her, and Michael was trying not to argue with her but he didn’t understand. He didn’t understand needing a door with an exterior lock to feel safe. And Max was half dead on his feet these days and Michael couldn’t deal with them both. He was never supposed to be the strong one.

The sun was shining overhead but Michael pulled out his phone anyway. It rang and rang until eventually he got Alex’s voicemail. He pulled the phone away from his ear, stared at it, then called again.

“Guerin,” Alex greeted, his voice hushed. “I have a meeting with a general in less than a minute, can it wait?” Michael let out a shaky breath.

“Captain Manes,” he heard a voice call. It sounded authoritative. “Yes, sir,” Alex replied, his voice faint.

Michael prepared to be hung up on but Alex’s voice was suddenly loud in his ear again. “Guerin?”

“Yeah,” Michael replied. “Yeah, it can wait.” Still, Alex hesitated. “Go to your meeting, Alex,” he urged. “I can wait.”

“Okay,” Alex said slowly. “I’ll call you back when I’m done,” he promised just before the line went dead.

Michael made it home and through two oil changes before his phone rang. He ignored Sanders’ look, wiped his hands, and walked away pressing his phone to his ear. “Hey,” he greeted, knowing who it was without even checking the caller ID. “How was your meeting?”

“Long,” Alex huffed. “Generals are entitled assholes.”

Michael raised his eyebrows. Alex wasn’t overly fond of the Air Force but he was usually respectful of it and the men and women he served with. “Tough day, huh?”

“Could be better,” Alex agreed. “You?”

“Isobel committed herself to the psych ward,” Michael admitted. “She’s been having blackouts for the past couple of weeks and she doesn’t know where she goes or what she does and it’s freaking her out.”

“Can they help her?” Alex asked. He didn’t ask if she was okay or if Michael was and for that Michaelw as grateful. He wasn’t okay and he suspected Alex knew it but they didn’t need to talk about it.

“I don’t know,” Michael exhaled heavily. “But she figured it’s better than waking up in the middle of the desert again.”

“Hmm,” Alex mused. “Waking up the desert with no memory or sleeping in an uncomfortable bed in a locked room you can’t get out of…” Michael pictured him weighing his hands like a scale.

“It makes her feel better,” Michael shrugged. He didn’t get it either but it was Isobel’s call.

“That’s all that matters,” Alex agreed. He paused. “Want to hear about this guy Jones? He stole a developmental vehicle they’re testing out and wrecked it last night and now he’s trying to stop the brass from figuring it out.” It wasn’t how they usually did this, Alex talking his ear off, but it sounded really good right about now.

“Yeah,” Michael agreed. “Tell me about Jones.”

The sun went down while Alex talked and Michael felt the words ease some of the ache in his shoulders. It was nice, he realized, to hear Alex’s voice. It didn’t matter what he said, Michael was tuning most of it out, but it didn’t matter.

---

Alex had just started getting ready for bed when the phone rang. At first, seeing Michael’s name flash on the screen, Alex was tempted to ignore it. He’d spent the entire day waiting for Michael to come home so they could talk only for him not to show up. But it was after midnight and a phone call after midnight was always answered. It was their unspoken rule.

“Guerin,” he answered in a clipped voice.

“He’s dead,” Michael gasped.

Alex froze. “Who’s dead?”

“Max.”

Alex stood up from the bed and started grabbing his things. “Where are you?”

“I don’t- I don’t know. I dropped Izzy off and I was going home but-”

“Stay there,” Alex told him. He snatched his keys off of the table and yanked the front door open. “I’m coming.”

“Don’t-”

“I’m coming,” Alex repeated firmly as he started the car.

“Don’t hang up,” Michael requested weakly.

Alex closed his eyes briefly as he took off towards Isobel’s house. “I won’t. Michael, I won’t.” And he didn’t. He started humming as he drove, the old chords forever on the tip of his tongue. He’d never managed to put words to them, not in the decade he’d been writing the music, but he knew the melody like the back of his hand.

He made it to Isobel’s house and immediately turned in the direction of Sanders’. It was only five minutes or so before his headlights picked up the familiar form of Michael’s old truck parked on the shoulder. Alex parked behind him and hung up the phone before getting out and hurrying over to Michael’s door.

Michael was staring at his dark phone when Alex reached his window. There was a look of utter confusion on it, like he didn’t know what had happened. He turned that look on Alex when he opened the door. “Alex?”

“Hey,” he greeted softly.

Michael stared at him for a moment longer before he started leaning towards him. Alex wrapped an arm around his shoulders and hugged him awkwardly as Michael planted his face in Alex’s neck. “Max is dead.” Alex was about to ask what happened when Michael continued. “Rosa’s back. He brought her back.”

Alex froze. He genuinely did not know what to say to that.

Michael pawed at the back of his head, his fingers scrabbling at the fine hairs at the nape of his neck. “You stopped singing.” His hand felt different than normal but Alex ignored it.

Alex immediately started humming again. Bit by bit, he felt Michael relax against him. The positioning was uncomfortable for both of them but Michael didn’t seem inclined to move and Alex couldn’t bring himself to suggest it. They stood there for the better part of an hour before Michael unfolded himself.

“It’s late,” he remarked. His face was already starting to shutter, his grief from a moment ago hidden away. “You should get home, get some sleep. You’ve got work tomorrow.”

“Guerin-”

Michael pushed his shoulder gently until Alex took a step back and he could close the door. Alex didn’t stop him as Michael gave him a tiny, crooked smile and a nod in thanks and drove away.

The next time they saw each other, neither said a word about that night, silently agreeing to pretend the last time they’d seen each other was in the Airstream before Max and Noah died and Rosa was resurrected.

---

Michael got lost in the music. His fingers were cramped and his arms were tired and he barely noticed. Every now and then he’d shake out his hand, maybe run the fingers of his right hand across just to convince himself that his eyes weren’t lying, but then he’d go right back to the guitar. He’d stolen it from the Pony a few nights ago and he’d been playing it ever since.

Turns out not everything is like riding a bike. Michael was having to relearn everything, recondition his fingers to work like they’re supposed to, and he was enjoying every second of it. Part of him wanted to keep it to himself, to hoard this kernel of joy and not let the world ruin it like it had ruined everything else, but part of him also ached to share it. To not be alone in this too.

Michael missed a chord and stopped to rub the cramps out of his fingers. A quick glance at his phone showed the time was 1:57am so he unlocked it and called Alex without a second’s thought.

“Guerin?” Alex’s voice was rough with sleep but the worry was evident. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Michael promised. It was somewhat of a lie, plenty of things were wrong, but nothing at this moment. “Listen.” He put the phone on speaker, set it down next to him, and started to play. It was rough, a far cry from what he used to be able to do, but it was also worlds better than anything he’d done in a decade.

He ran through a few songs, old favorites that he’d first learned in high school, before his fingers took over and started playing something new. Well. Not new.

Over the phone, Alex inhaled sharply in recognition but Michael didn’t stop playing. He’d been listening to this melody for ten years and his fingers knew the notes faster than he could think of them.

Finally, the song came to an end. In its wake there was only silence.

“That’s my song,” Alex said softly. “You played my song.” Michael didn’t know what to say so he didn’t say anything. “You played-” Alex cut himself off. He cleared his throat before continuing, “it sounded amazing, Michael.”

Michael closed his eyes and ducked his head. “It wasn’t,” he objected. He didn’t comment on the rare use of his first name.

“It was,” Alex repeated. “I’ve never played it before.” He quieted. ”I’m glad I could hear you do it.”

Michael squeezed his left hand into his fist, relaxed it, then did it again. “I’m glad I could play it for you,” he replied softly.

They sat in silence for a moment longer. “Okay,” Alex eventually said, at a more normal volume. “Now play Free Bird.”

“Fuck you,” Michael laughed. “Let me work my way up.”

“Fine,” Alex scoffed. “Play Thnks fr th Mmrs.”

Michael rolled his eyes but complied. The only reason he knew it was because Alex had been obsessed with it in high school so he supposed it was only fitting.

They stayed on the phone for a while, Alex making requests and Michael doing his best to fulfill them, before his hand cramped up too much for him to continue.

“Hey,” Alex said softly, just before Michael could hang up. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For letting me listen.” He hung up before Michael could think of a reply.

---

Alex eased the car door closed, not wanting to interrupt the quiet night. It wasn’t that late, was actually pretty early if you counted before midnight as early, but Alex kept to his routine anyway. Up ahead, a body lounged against the wall, a dark cowboy hat pulled low. Alex ran his eyes over the familiar form, taking in every detail he could as he came to a stop next to him.

Michael slowly looked up at him. “You came,” he greeted, like he couldn’t quite believe it.

“You asked me to,” Alex reminded him. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t the middle of the night. Michael had called and Alex had answered. It’s what they did.

---

Michael wasn’t sure why (that’s a lie) but he found himself pulling into Alex’s driveway three hours after he’d said goodnight to Maria. She’d asked him to stay over but he’d made some excuse he couldn’t even remember to go back to the Airstream but instead he’d driven around for hours until finding himself here.

At Alex’s house.

They didn’t do this. If they needed each other in the middle of the night, they called. They didn’t show up. Not in the last 18 months since Alex moved back had they done this. But here Michael was.

He got out of his truck and let the door fall closed. It was loud in the quiet night but Michael didn’t care. Alex’s neighbors were far enough away that they shouldn’t be too bothered by it and waking Alex was sort of the whole point of being here. Wasn’t it?

Michael made his way to Alex’s patio, his steps heavy, and dropped into one of his chairs. The metal squeaked across the bricks at the motion but Michael hardly noticed it. He planted his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. It wasn’t long, or maybe it was, before the front door opened and Alex stepped outside. Michael heard him close the door before making his way over to him, his crutches sounding different on the brick.

The chair next to him pulled back and a moment later Alex dropped into it. He set his crutches to the side and placed a bottle of bourbon on the table. Michael glanced at it. It was his favorite brand. Alex hated it.

“Maria has her powers because her family was experimented on at Caulfield,” Michael greeted. “And the more she uses them the more they hurt her. It’s what happened to Mimi. It’s why Mimi gave her a necklace to block her powers.”

He looked up when Alex didn’t say anything and found himself staring at Alex’s stunned face while he processed his words. “She didn’t tell you,” he realized. Alex shook his head. “Shit,” Michael cursed lowly. He’d come here to vent not to drop a bomb on Alex. “Sorry. I figured she would.” Alex shook his head again. His fingers turned white with how hard he was squeezing the arm of his chair.

Michael reached out and gently unhooked his fingers. The second Alex’s hand was free, he twisted in his own and held on tight. He knew how Alex felt about Caulfield, knew he felt guilty for his family’s actions there. He really hadn’t meant to just unload on him like that.

After a short while Alex’s grip on Michael’s hand eased and he started to breathe easier. “Okay,” he said. “What else?”

Michael stilled. “Who said there’s something else?” Alex just looked at him. Michael tried to meet his gaze but he couldn’t, finally relenting, “I don’t want her to use her powers but she wants to. She doesn’t seem to care that it could hurt her or kill her.”

Alex didn’t say anything at first, his grip tightening on Michael’s again though this time it was in comfort. “It’s her life, Guerin,” he finally said. His voice was harder than Michael was used to at this time of night. Michael opened his mouth to reply but Alex talked over him. “It is. Just because you’re dating her does not mean you get to make those choices for her. I’m not saying you have to like it or ignore the issue, but the decision’s hers. Like it or not, it’s not your call.”

Michael yanked his hand away and stood up. “So I’m just supposed to sit here and watch her self-destruct?”

Alex looked at him evenly. “If that’s what she decides to do? Yes.”

Michael shook his head. “No. That’s not gonna happen.”

“It’s not easy to watch someone self-destruct,” Alex said quietly. His voice still wasn’t any softer. Michael stifled a flinch when he realized what Alex was talking about. “But it’s not your call. Sometimes all you can do is sit back and watch.”

Michael froze, thought about what he’d said, and dismissed it. “No,” he shook his head again. With that, he spun on his heel and went back to his truck.

Alex didn’t call after him.

---

Alex knew where Michael was, knew who was with him right now, and still he called him.

“Hmm,” Michael greeted quietly. In the background, there was a rustle of sheets and Maria’s questioning murmur. Alex forced himself to listen to it as Michael made his way out of his girlfriend’s bedroom.

As Michael wordlessly made his way outside, the quiet click of doors opening and shutting revealing his path, Alex raised the bottle to his lips and took another long sip. He should stop, he knew he should. He’d passed too much at least an hour ago, but he didn’t care.

“Alex?” Michael finally asked. It was otherwise silent on his end.

“Do you have any idea how much it hurts?” Alex asked. He was pretty sure he wasn’t slurring but Michael’s next words quickly corrected him.

“You’re drunk.” He didn’t say it like a question because it wasn’t.

“I spent the day with you and your girlfriend,” Alex reminded him. “Yes, I’m drunk.”

“Alex…”

“Just talk,” Alex ordered. He didn’t want to talk about it, especially not with Michael, but he needed Michael’s voice in his ear. Over a decade and he’d still never found something that helped even half as much as letting Michael ramble in his ear until his thoughts settled and he could breathe again.

Michael didn’t say anything right away. There was a pause long enough that Alex was almost about to plead with him before Michael got with the program.

“There’s a group of women who like to come by and get their cars fixed any time it’s really hot outside,” he started. “Isobel calls them the Real Housewives of Roswell…”

Alex closed his eyes and let the words wash over him. Michael never raised his voice above a murmur, his tone light and gentle, and at some point Alex capped the bottle and set it aside. He let Michael talk for almost two hours (at one point he’s fairly certain Michael started reciting the plot of his latest tv show but Alex wasn’t going to call him on it) until he was cut off by another voice.

“Everything ok?” Maria asked. “Are you coming back to bed?”

Alex hung up before he heard Michael’s answer.

---

Michael wasn’t sure he’d ever get over the sound of the ocean. It was late, very late, and the beach was deserted except for them, and the only sound in the world was that of the waves crashing gently against the sand.

“Heartbreak sucks,” Liz huffed. She was carving smooth circles in the sand around herself with her feet. It was the first thing she’d said since she’d joined Michael an hour before.

Michael hummed questioningly.

She gave him a sad smile and turned to look out at the water. This far out, the only light came from the moon and it made the waves shimmer. “When I first got here, I used to come out here all the time. Used to stare at the water like it held all the answers.” Her laugh was brittle and self-deprecating. “Like the ocean could fix my relationship for me.”

Michael pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his arms on them. “I’m not sure it’s that powerful.”

She smiled. “No. But sometimes it feels that way. Like if I spent enough time here it would wash away all of the bad stuff and leave all the good. All the parts that love Max enough to fix are problems.”

“Yeah,” Michael sighed. “I get that.”

Liz bumped his shoulder with hers. “You’ll be okay, Mikey. If you and Maria are meant to be, you will be. It’s just a few rough patches.”

Michael couldn’t help himself, he laughed. Liz stared at him in surprise. “Yeah, no, Maria and I are done. It’s not a rough patch.”

She furrowed her brow. “You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do. And so does she. We’re not meant for each other, no matter that we love each other.”

Liz frowned and shifted over to rest her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

Michael hummed. He couldn’t quite bring himself to agree with her, even though he knew that’s what she was probably expecting. Maria had done the right thing ending things between them. He’d tried to deny it at first but he’d quickly come to accept it. They really weren’t meant for each other. Maria was meant for better men than him and he was meant for one specific person. The rest of the world paled in comparison and Michael had finally stopped denying it. To himself at least.

“You’ll find someone,” Liz assured him. “You deserve to be happy, Michael.”

Michael smiled. “So do you. Even if it is with my idiot brother.”

Liz’s lips quirked upwards but she didn’t say anything. They sat in silence watching the waves for a while before Liz sat up with a groan. “I need sleep.” Michael sat where he was as she stumbled to her feet and held out her hand. “You coming?”

Michael shook his head. “I’m good here. Not like I have to work in the morning,” he teased.

Liz gave him a searching look before shrugging. “You know the way back, right?” Michael nodded and she left. He heard her trudging through the sand behind him until she hit the road.

When the sound of her car had faded into the night, Michael dug his phone out of his pocket and called Alex.

“How’s California?”

“I like the ocean,” Michael replied. “It’s peaceful.”

“It is,” Alex agreed. “I always felt small, though. Standing on a beach. The entire world out there in front of you and you can’t see any of it because there’s just water.”

“Yeah,” Michael breathed. “Yeah.”

“How’s Liz?”

“She’s good. Obsessed with her work. Misses Max for some reason.”

Alex laughed. “Can’t imagine why she’d do that.”

“I can,” Michael confesses, the night giving him courage. “I miss you.”

Alex inhaled sharply. “Guerin-”

“Hey, it’s after midnight, doesn’t count, right?” Michael cut him off. He wasn’t ready for the big conversation just yet.

“No lies after midnight,” Alex reminded him.

“Who said I was lying?” The next wave brushed dangerously close to his toes. Michael didn’t move. There was a voice on the other end of the phone, faint but recognizable. “Is that Forrest?”

“...yeah,” Alex muttered. “Hold on.” There was a shift and then the sound was muffled like Alex had covered the receiver. “‘Night,” Michael heard him say, followed by what sounded like a kiss.

“You sure you don’t want me to stay?” Forrest asked.

“No, I’ve got an early morning,” Alex hedged. “No point.”

“Okay.” Another kiss. “Good night.”

Michael waited until he heard the door close and the sound cleared up before speaking. “Not up to sleepovers, yet?”

“No,” Alex replied. Michael wasn’t sure if it was an answer or an order but either way Alex’s tone left no room for discussion so Michael dropped it. Problem was, he didn’t know what else to say. The mood from earlier was gone. Alex cleared his throat. “I miss you too.”

Michael felt his lips turn up in a helpless smile. “Yeah?”

Alex hummed. “I’ve kinda been wanting to show you the ocean for years now. I’m a little annoyed I didn’t get to.”

“Well,” Michael swallowed. “I hear there’s an entirely different ocean on the other side of the country.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Just something to consider.”

“Good to know.”

Silence fell over them again. Normally this is when Alex would start humming but Michael wasn’t sure he could take it right now. Not now that he knew the words to go with the song.

“Night, Alex,” he finally said. “I’ll be back next week.”

“Good night, Michael.”

They hung up. Michael stared at his phone, trying hard not to think about how much softer Alex had sounded telling him good night than when he’d said it to Forrest. It wouldn’t do him any good to compare himself to Alex’s boyfriend. Their time was now. His and Alex’s would come. He believed that.

He had to.

---

Forrest snuffled and reached for him as he got out of bed. Alex paused and waited to make sure he hadn’t woken up before he grabbed his crutches and hauled himself upright.

Navigating out of his bedroom in the dark with his phone tucked under his chin and both crutches in his hands while trying not to wake up the man sleeping in his bed was harder than he’d anticipated but Alex managed it. In the hallway, he paused just long enough to ease the door closed behind him before making his way outside.

It was late, late enough that Alex almost expected to see the beginnings of the dawn on the horizon, but he hadn’t been able to sleep yet. Tonight was the first time Forrest had stayed over, the first time Alex had had to share his bed with someone other than Michael for longer than a few hours, and he wasn’t dealing with it as well as he’d hoped he would.

He didn’t even hesitate before he called Michael.

“Alex?” Michael sounded groggy.

“Fuck you,” Alex replied. He dug the palm of his free hand into his eye.

“What did I do now?” He sounded simultaneously wide awake and more tired than he had a moment before.

“He’s not you.”

“Alex-”

“You got to move on, why can’t I? Why can’t I make this work? Why can’t I be with someone who’s not you?”

“Alex-”

Alex hung up.

---

It was late when Alex showed up at the Airstream. The fire was mostly embers and Michael was on his second and last beer of the night. When Alex got out of his car, Michael put his beer down and stood to greet him. He meant to meet him halfway but Alex was quicker on his feet and met Michael before he’d gotten more than a handful of steps. The last gasps of the fire provided little light but what light there was danced across Alex’s face.

“It’s late,” Michael greeted. He’d been back from California for almost two weeks and this was the first time Michael had seen him since then.

“Yeah,” Alex agreed. He looked at Michael with a strange look in his eyes. If Michael didn’t know any better he’d say Alex came here for a reason. A very specific reason that didn’t involve a lot talking. “It’s almost four.” He stared at Michael until Michael got it. What happened in the early hours before dawn, when the night was at its peak, didn’t count. They’d scraped together a decade long relationship on that premise alone. The secrets, the fears, the hopes, the dreams, anything confessed across a phone line when the moon was high in the sky, didn’t count. Not really. Sure, lately they’d expanded that to in person conversations but Alex wasn’t here for a conversation and he wanted the same rules to apply. What happened between them at this time of night only existed in the here and now. It didn’t carry over into the daylight.

Michael knew it was probably a bad idea. As they’d both said many a time, their relationship involved too much sex and too little talking when they were actually together and that had been their downfall. They were doing better lately but they weren’t there yet and Michael had no idea how introducing sex would impact them now. And that didn’t even take into account the fact that Alex still had a boyfriend who wasn’t Michael. But if Alex wasn’t going to mention that part, neither was Michael. He took one careful step towards Alex. “So it is,” he agreed.

Alex waited a second, searching his face for confirmation, before he lunged forward and kissed him. His hands went straight to Michael’s hair, tangling in the curls at the nape of his neck while Michael clutched at his waist and pressed them as close together as they could possibly be.

They lost themselves in each other for long enough that when Michael finally pulled back to catch a breath, even the embers had died off. Alex trailed his lips down his neck and found that one spot that drove Michael crazy. The spot that no one else had ever found. “Alex,” he moaned. Alex’s only reaction was to start leading Michael backwards until his back hit the side of the Airstream with a gentle thud. Michael braced himself against it, cupped Alex’s face and pulled his lips back up to his.

Michael lost his shirt and his boots right there and Alex’s shirt found its way to the ground as they maneuvered the two steps it took to get to the door. They had to separate to get inside and Michael felt like he could hardly breathe during those few seconds. When Alex was finally inside, Michael pulled him close. It made walking back to the bed difficult but neither attempted to pull away again.

When they finally did, Alex didn’t go far. He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at his prosthetic for long enough that Michael decided to press his luck. “Stay,” he asked softly. Alex’s shoulders tensed and his eyes closed. “It’s still dark out,” Michael pointed out. “Sun’s not gonna come up for hours.”

That made Alex look back at him and Michael couldn’t help but kiss him again, his fingers sliding through Alex’s sweaty hair to hold him close. “Stay.”

Alex pulled away again to fish his phone out of his pants and set an alarm but then he was back in Michael’s arms. He still hadn’t said more than five words since he showed up but Michael didn’t care. Not yet anyway.

Whether or not either of them got any sleep was a question neither was inclined to ask nor answer but when Alex’s alarm went off just as the sky was starting to lighten outside his window, neither moved. They stayed where they were, Alex half on top of Michael, his fingers reaching up to tangle in his curls. Michael was busy trailing a finger up and down Alex’s arm.

Eventually, though, the sky got light enough to force Alex into action. “Sun’s up,” he murmured. He paused and considered the view out the window. “Well. Almost.” He kissed Michael, slow and thorough, before pulling away completely.

Michael watched silently as Alex got dressed. When Alex was ready, sans his shirt which was still outside, he stopped and considered Michael still laying in the bed. With another glance out the window, he leaned down and kissed Michael one last time before turning and leaving without another word.

---

Michael didn’t hear from Alex for days after the night they spent together. It wasn’t too surprising nor was it unusual; their calls had never been an overly frequent occurrence and their paths didn’t cross in town much. But still, it made Michael antsy. He knew the point of it was that they wouldn’t talk about it, wouldn’t even mention it, but dammit, Michael had questions. He needed to know what it meant, both in the present and for the future, and whether or not he should be prepared for it to happen again.

He was still trying to figure out to bring it up with Alex when the opportunity dropped into his lap. Liz’s welcome back party at the Crashdown started five minutes ago and he was running late. After spending too long searching for a parking space, he hurried around the corner to the diner only to find Alex and Forrest just ahead of him. Alex’s shoulders were tense and there was a careful distance between the two men but they were still clearly together.

“Alex,” Michael called before he could stop himself. Alex froze in his tracks as Forrest turned to greet Michael. Michael nodded at Forrest in hello and waited for Alex to turn around. He eventually did, at first not quite looking at him before clearly forcing himself to meet his eyes.

“Guerin,” he greeted. “We’re all late,” he reminded them as he started to take careful steps towards the diner entrance. Forrest offered Michael a strained smile before following him and suddenly Michael was done.

He took his phone out of his pocket and called Alex.

The ringtone sounded loud and sharp and Forrest looked at Alex in surprise. “Since when do you have the volume on?”

Alex put a hand on his pocket over his phone and didn’t answer. They all stood there as Alex waited for the phone to stop ringing. Taking mercy on him, Michael ended the call, watched Alex’s shoulders relax, and called again.

This time, Alex had a hand on the door when his phone went off and his knuckles went white around it. “Are you going to answer that?” Forrest asked.

Alex sighed heavily and nodded. “Yeah, okay.” He pulled his phone out and put it to his ear. “Not now,” was all he said, his voice echoing through Michael’s phone, before hanging up and trying to tuck it away again.

Michael called him back.

Alex let out an actual groan of frustration before turning around. “Forrest, we’ll meet you inside.” Forrest looked between them before nodding slowly and stepping around Alex and into the diner. When the door shut behind him Alex led Michael around the corner and across the street for a modicum of privacy.

“It’s daytime,” Alex pointed out.

Michael looked up at the sun shining above them and nodded. “I thought that’s what the sun meant.”

“Michael,” Alex huffed. “What do you need, right now?”

“Answers,” Michael replied simply.

“It was 4am,” Alex reminded him. “What happens at 4am stays there. We don’t talk about it, we don’t ask questions, we don’t fucking bring it up in the middle of the day.”

“Maybe we should.”

“No.” Alex shook his head. “You don’t get to change the rules now.”

“I’m not trying to change the rules! I’m trying to understand.”

“Understand what?!” Alex shot back. “It was a 4am thing. It doesn’t mean anything.” Michael was stunned silent and Alex took advantage of it to walk past him. “We’re late for Liz’s lunch.”

Michael shook his head and spun. “It meant something!” Michael yelled after him. Alex stopped in his tracks. Just ahead, their friends turned the corner, clearly looking for them but Michael ignored them. “Of course it meant something, Alex, it always means something! And I am sick and tired of us pretending that it doesn’t.” Alex turned slowly to face him as Michael closed the distance between them. “Every single phone call,” he said quietly but earnestly. “They meant something. They mean something.” He shook his head. “They’re not nothing,” he pleaded gently.

“They’ve never been nothing,” Alex agreed softly.

A weight lifted off his chest and Michael breathed a little easier. “Maybe I am trying to change the rules but I think the rules need to change,” Michael said. “We can’t not talk about those things. About-”

“Michael-” Alex cut him off.

“Alex.”

Alex turned his head slightly to look over his shoulder and Michael was suddenly reminded of their audience. Forrest, Kyle, Maria, and Liz were standing on the corner staring at them. “Now’s not the time,” Alex finished.

Suddenly, the last thing Michael wanted to do was sit through a lunch with all their friends and Alex’s boyfriend. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.” He stepped around Alex, careful not to touch him, and walked over to their friends. He greeted Liz with a quick hug. “Welcome home, Liz. I’m afraid I’m gonna have to miss your lunch.”

“We’ll do something another time,” Liz agreed easily. He nodded at her and crossed the street to his truck, pulling away before anyone could even think of calling after him.

---

Alex heard Michael pull away and didn’t move. He waited until three sets of footsteps walked away and he knew there was only one person left behind him. Still, he hesitated before turning around.

“So,” Forrest started. “I think it’s safe to say this thing between us has run its course.”

“Forrest,” Alex started but Forrest held up a hand to stop him.

“It’s okay, Alex. I knew we weren’t going to last forever. But we had some good times and I don’t regret it.”

“I didn’t want it to end like this,” Alex told him sincerely.

Forrest cocked his head slightly. “Where did you go three nights ago?” Alex looked away. “It was the first night you agreed to stay over at my place but you disappeared for hours, snuck back in after sunrise. Where’d you go, Alex?” His voice was soft with understanding but Alex heard the hurt in it.

He couldn’t lie. “I went to Michael.”

Forrest nodded like it was exactly what he expected to hear. “Wasn’t just a chat was it?” Alex shook his head. “He’s who you’re meant to be with.”

“Forrest, this was real.” Alex needed him to know.

“I know it was. But I’m not Michael Guerin so it was never going to work.” Alex didn’t know what to say to that except-

“I’m sorry.”

Forrest swallowed thickly and nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” He stepped forward and pressed a kiss to Alex’s cheek. “See you around Alex.”

And then he was gone.

Alex tried really hard to convince himself the next breath he took wasn’t one of relief and he couldn’t quite succeed.

He took a moment to pull himself together and followed after him. Only, when he turned the corner it was Liz leaning up against the wall with Forrest nowhere in sight.

“Let me guess. You’re skipping out on my lunch, too?” She didn’t look too upset about it so Alex didn’t feel too bad when he nodded. She huffed a small laugh and shook her head. “You two are a mess.”

“Don’t worry, we’re well aware,” Alex assured her.

She smirked. “I’m sure you are.” She jerked her thumb behind her. “Mikey took off that way so I don’t think he’s headed back to the scrapyard.” Alex looked down the street in the direction she indicated and knew immediately where Michael had gone. “Hey,” Liz put her hand on his arm to get his attention. “Don’t fuck it up this time, yeah? Either of you.”

“We’ll do our best.” He gave her a quick hug and a promise to meet up later and hurried away to his own car.

It was a relatively short drive out to their spot and Alex made it shorter.

Michael’s truck was in the same spot it had always been and Alex parked next to it. He didn’t see Michael but he wasn’t too worried. Alex rounded the car and pulled the liftgate down to reveal Michael sprawled on his back in the truck bed.

“Should I have called?” Alex asked.

Michael opened his eyes and looked at him. “No,” he replied. “I think we need to get used to doing this the old fashioned way.” He held out a hand and helped Alex get up next to him, moving only slightly to give Alex room.

“Forrest broke up with me,” Alex announced.

“Oh?”

Alex hummed. “Asked me where I went three nights ago and then told me we were never going to work because he’s not Michael Guerin.” Michael didn’t say anything. “He wasn’t wrong.”

Michael shifted so they were looking at each other. “Are we ready now? I know I am.”

“I just got out of a relationship twenty minutes ago,” Alex reminded him.

“So is that a no?”

Alex sighed and looked up at the clouds. “No. It’s an ‘I wish I was a better person’.”

Michael gripped the front of Alex’s shirt and tugged lightly until Alex looked at him. “So are we doing this?”

“What is this?” Alex asked, needing clarification or rather needing there to be no confusion.

“This. Us. For real. No more walking away. No more hiding behind middle of the night phone calls. No more seeing other people. Just us.”

Alex rolled over onto his shoulder so he could look down at Michael. “For good?”

“That is the idea.” Michael’s eyes were more serious than Alex could ever remember seeing them.

“Good. But no fuck ups, okay?” Alex put his hand to Michael’s chest. “We go all in, I’m not sure either of us will recover from it going bad.”

Michael wrapped an arm around Alex’s back, his other hand going to Alex’s cheek. “We won’t. It may not be perfect all the time but we’re not going to fuck it up.” Alex took the words for the solemn vow they were and kissed him.

---

Epilogue

Michael had no idea what the fight was about. He wasn’t even sure it was actually about anything. They’d both been stressed for days about different things and they hadn’t had much time together and suddenly they were shouting at each other over the dishes.

He watched Alex storm away and part of him felt relieved. It had been going too well for months now and he had to admit he’d been waiting for something like this to happen.

When Alex didn’t come back after a few minutes, Michael finished up the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. That done, he crossed the empty house to the living room and picked up Alex’s guitar. Part of him didn’t want to disturb the silence in case it led to another fight somehow but he couldn’t sit around doing nothing so he started picking his way carefully through one of the new songs he was learning, taking it slow and playing quietly.

When the song under his fingers turned into Alex’s song a few minutes later, he wasn’t surprised. Ever since he figured out how to play it, it was one of his favorites, his body long used to relaxing to the melody.

As the last chords echoed in the room (he may have been playing louder than he meant to), his phone started ringing. Somehow he wasn’t surprised to see Alex’s face on the screen. Setting the guitar down, he answered.

“Too loud?”

“No,” Alex replied. “Can you-” he cut himself off with a groan. “Can you just-”

The last of the tension slipped from him as he settled back against the couch and started rambling about his week. Halfway through, Alex stepped inside from the back patio and hung up. Michael let his phone drop as Alex curled up next to him on the couch but he never stopped talking. When he ran out of things to say, Alex took up the slack and filled him in on his own week.

The sun went down around them and Michael didn’t notice.

“Hey,” Alex sat up once he’d finished and they’d enjoyed a few moments of quiet. “No fair using my own song against me.”

Michael smirked. “Whatever works. But truthfully, I was playing it for myself. For some reason I’m practically conditioned to relax when I hear it.”

“Oh really?” Alex hummed, a smirk tugging at his own lips. “Wonder why.”

Michael shrugged. “It’s a mystery.”

#malex fic #my fic #rnm #long post #does contain minor/mentions of miluca and forlex and alex cheats on forrest with michael #so warning for that i guess

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captainsassmanes · 4 years

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Six weeks.

Six weeks since Forrest had left Alex.

Five weeks since Valenti and Greg found out and practically moved into Alex’s place.

Four weeks since he and Isobel accidentally found out when Greg showed up for his too large for one person takeout order at the Crashdown. Isobel had happily flirted it out of Greg, making the man flush a youthful red.

Three weeks since he showed up at Alex’s door, beers in hand, shaking in fury when Valenti refused to let him in.

Two weeks since Greg, Valenti and Maria had convinced Alex to make an appearance at the Pony. Michael kept his distance, but his eyes never drifted for more than a moment. Alex looked small; defeated it a way Michael had never seen. He went home that night and trashed the airstream, overwhelmed with guilt and envy and regret. He thankfully passed out before making the inevitable late-night drunk phone call.

One week since Alex sang on stage again. Michael hid at the bar, jealousy pacing his gut as he watched his friends, Alex’s friends, sit together and smile together and cheer for Alex together. Something told Michael he wasn’t welcome.

Tonight, Alex sang again, this time, without a small party in the crowd. Maria was working the bar and Michael was keeping his usual stool warm, but the others had been pulled in other directions for the evening.

He listened closely as Alex sang lyrics to a song he distantly recognized. Something made his stomach churn and his heart pick up its pace. He held tightly to his bottle as he stared at Alex; his eyes closed, head tilted to the side, mouth just a breath away from the microphone, fingers moving gently but surely over the keys. Michael tried swallowing down the lump in his throat, taking a swig of his beer when it just didn’t seem to budge.

“Have you spoken to him yet?”

Michael looked into concerned brown eyes. He and Maria hadn’t gotten back to the comfort they’d had before they dated, the friendship that meant so much to him, but he appreciated her effort. He turned back toward the stage, shaking his head, unable to find the words.

“Dunno what you’re waiting for, Guerin.”

The echo of her words sat heavily in his chest as he tried letting Alex’s voice take him away. He’d found himself dreaming lately of a different life. Of a bed that was soft and seemingly never ending, with smooth, white sheets that felt so gentle covering his skin. Of tanned skin, scarred and perfect, wrapped around his own. Of dark hair, darker eyes. Of callused fingers and strong hands. Michael found himself drifting when Alex’s voice brought him back to reality.

I live here on my knees as I try to make you see

That you’re everything I think I need here on the ground

But you’re neither friend nor foe though I can’t seem to let you go

The one thing I still know is that you’re keeping me down

Michael finished his drink, threw a twenty on the counter, determined to pay off his probable four-figure debt, and headed out into the cool, desert night.

About twenty minutes later, a familiar body walked through the door, pulling on a worn, leather coat. Michael stood straight and took a deep breath.

“Hey.”

Alex nodded but averted his eyes. “Hey.”

Michael adjusted his hat, feeling out of his element, a feeling so unfamiliar in the presence of Alex. “You sounded great. Better every time.”

A small smile crossed Alex’s face as he tucked his hands into his pockets, shoulders closing in on his ears. “Thanks.”

Neither man said anything for a bit, the sound of passing cars and crickets keeping them company. Eventually, Alex cleared his throat and nodded to his Jeep. “I’ve gotta get going. I’m working in the morning.”

“Oh, yeah,” Michael shifted out of the way of the driver’s door. He watched as Alex climbed up, watched his hand on the wheel, the curve of his waist, the fall of his hair.

“Listen, Alex,” Michael said too loud. Alex paused with his hand on the door, ready to pull it shut. “Fuck Forrest, okay? He’s an idiot. I don’t know what he was thinking- “

“Shut up, Guerin.” Michael closed his mouth and stared as a cloud crossed Alex’s soft features. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Sorry. I just meant- “

“I know what you meant.” Alex’s knuckles were white as he squeezed the steering wheel, empty eyes staring through the windshield.

“I was happy.” His voice was so quiet Michael took a chance by moving a step closer to make sure he missed nothing. “I didn’t love him, knew I couldn’t, but I was happy.” A shy, crooked smile appeared, and Michael was rocked with a wave of jealousy. “But I just couldn’t let you go.”

The hope that rose and bloomed in Michael’s chest was bright and warm. He moved closer and waited, willing Alex to let him in, to let him try again.

“Forrest said he felt like he was competing with a ghost he could never beat. I guess I talked about you a lot,” Alex rested his forehead against the back of his hands, eyes shutting. “Comparisons I didn’t know I was making, stories I shared. He told me I even said your name in my sleep sometimes.”

Michael nodded his head even though Alex’s attention was elsewhere. Slowly, he took off his hat, taking another step forward.

“When I look at you, I see Maria.”

The bile climbed into Michael’s throat as he stood, frozen and barely breathing.

“I didn’t think I was a jealous person; I haven’t been before. But I look at you now and I see the two of you together. The laughs you shared. Comfort you gave. Kissing and sex and…” Michael watched as Alex looked up at one of the tall stadium lights in the parking lot. His eyes were wet, and Alex’s voice broke. “You loved her.”

Alex turned and Michael ached. Everything had been so complicated, so horrible a year ago, and he made what he thought was the right choice at the time. But every day since he’d been shown how wrong he’d been.

The laugh that escaped Alex’s lips was cold and empty. “Forrest didn’t want to be with me because I’m still in love with you. But I don’t want to be with you because you remind me of how I’m never the first choice.”

A tear slid down Alex’s cheek as Michael felt his eyes well and burn. “I don’t know how to get over that.”

“Alex, that’s not- “

“Goodnight, Guerin.”

Michael stood in the rising dust as Alex drove away, watching the lights get smaller and smaller.

Sometimes the world ends with a whimper.

#roswell new mexico #malex #malex fic #past miluca mentions #my fic

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lire-casander · 3 years

Text

a million miles (come take me home)

[3,133 words] [teen and up audiences] [beta'ed by @ravens-words] [title from home by goo goo dolls] [michael guerin, alex manes, isobel evans] [angst, fluff, mentions of miluca (just in passing), switching povs] [written for @manesalex part of my lire’s 20 for the 20th]

[michael and alex have always been ships passing each other in the night, but knowing that maybe there won’t be a new chance to see him is driving michael insane]

[my dear, dear molly, i hope you know how much you mean to me. your love and your support ever since we first met have been a northern star to me. i’m so grateful every day for the fandom that brought us together, despite everything else. i really hope this friendship will be everlasting]

a million miles (come take me home) | on ao3

Life has obscure ways to fuck with Michael, of that he’s completely sure. He’s been staggering in Roswell for ten years, making as much money as he can from scrapping cars and putting them together, hustling with copper on the side, and still he hasn’t managed to see the light at the end of the dark tunnel that his existence has become. He doesn’t even have half the answers he's been looking for, and yet he's still waiting for some miracle to bring the last of the pieces of his ship to him.

He's holed up in his underground bunker, as exposed as it is after everything, instead of facing the truths that pile up at his door. He's picking at the last straws of his sanity while Alex is loading up his truck and driving away, back to the Air Force for who knows how many more years.

He's ignoring the persistent tapping on the dormer above his head.

"Michael, I can hear you pacing down there!" Isobel exclaims from the outside. "Open the damned door, or I will!"

He huffs, picking up a different iridescent piece and offering it palm up to the device sitting in the middle of his work desk. He's been focused on understanding the intricacies of the console Mr. Jones had kept with himself in the pod for fifty-years; he started studying the pieces shortly after they defeated the evil, and as a retaliation to the knowledge that Alex would be leaving town once again, after breaking up with Forrest, and would most likely never come back again. At least, that was his intention. Something to do with not being able to breathe in Roswell even with his father six feet under.

Michael wants to pretend that he doesn't care. Maybe if he tries hard enough, he will also end up believing his own lies.

The dormer vibrates with the power of Isobel trying to unlock it. He shrugs, watching closely the piece as it shivers and sighing when it falls to the surface at the same time as the dormer surrenders to Isobel's attempts and flies open. The next thing he hears is the clicking of her heels stepping down the ladder.

"Were you planning on leaving me outside forever?" she asks as a greeting, dusting off her jacket as she steps closer.

"How did you unveil my evil plan," he deadpans. He doesn’t even look up at her except for a brief glance to acknowledge her presence.

"Michael, this isn't healthy."

He suppresses a laugh that threatens to spill out of his throat. He wants so badly to get back at her, to tell her exactly how hypocritical it is of her to call him out on the pervasive attitude he's displaying. He doesn’t, though — he needs to focus on his own pain and channel it into something useful.

"Michael," she repeats, this time urgently. He looks up, only to find her perfect makeup a bit deranged at the edges.

"What's wrong, Iz?" he questions, letting the pieces rest on top of the table and fully turning to her.

"You," she says pointedly. "I can't believe you're hiding in here instead of going after him!"

He shakes his head. "Not you too, Iz. I've had enough bullshit from Max to last me a lifetime." He closes his eyes and takes a breath to calm himself. "It's you who should be out there enjoying life, now that you're free from everything." Now that you have Greg, he wants to scream but he doesn’t.

He doesn’t want to hurt his sister with words that he won't be able to take back.

Michael has been idling in Roswell because of his siblings — the ones who were chosen over him, the ones who took him back in, the ones who he'd die for — and now that he’s got the chance to escape his fate, he's been too chicken to follow his heart.

That has only driven Alex further away. Michael’s inability to love him properly has been the one reason to turn Alex back to the Air Force when he'd sworn off. Michael will never forgive himself, he will never be able to change his past actions. But he's taken the chance to atone for his sins and amend his mistakes. He's let Alex go.

He'll never confess how much it's killing him on the inside.

"You're an idiot, Michael," Isobel huffs out, frustration mixed with an affection that's always run deep between them.

"Maybe that should be my middle name," he tries to joke, but it’s to no avail. Isobel's eyes are reading his soul, as always, without needing the help of her mental gymnastics.

"Maybe," she concedes. She hasn’t moved to get any closer to him, but she isn't showing signs of leaving either. It's making Michael deeply uncomfortable, because this is one of the few instances when he doesn't know what's going on in her mind. "I just. I don’t want to lose you, Michael."

He looks down, biting on his lower lip. He knew this was coming — ever since Max left town to follow Liz — and this is exactly why he can't do the same, as much as he wants to. Not only does he believe he doesn’t deserve a second chance with Alex, Michael knows that Isobel needs him by her side. Despite her strong appearance, his sister has just about lost everything she believed to be a fixture in her life in the span of two years — Michael has witnessed her slowly falling apart.

"You won't, Iz," he promises, reaching out and grabbing her hand. "I'm not going anywhere."

"And that's the problem," she exclaims. She squeezes his hand back, though. "You're here, all the time, looking for something that's neither in Roswell nor up there," she tells him, pointing her index finger to the ceiling. "I'm losing you, Michael, and you haven't even left me yet."

"I'm never leaving you, Isobel," he says fiercely. "I'm just trying to find a way to take us all home when the time comes. I've never belonged here, you know that. Now it's time for me to do something about it."

"Do I?" Isobel quirks up an eyebrow. "Do I know, Michael? Because to me, it's perfectly clear. You're scared. You're so terrified of loving and being loved back that you bolt every single time you so much as think someone might love you. All those flings all these years, and then dating Maria? Don't tell me you were in love with the allegedly best friend of your cosmic love."

He recoils as though she's slapped him. He looks up at her, eyes wide. "I—" he stutters. "I—how do you—"

"I have eyes, Michael," she scoffs. "I might have missed it the first time around, I confess I was a lot more self-centered when we were teenagers. Then, Noah happened," her voice breaks slightly around the name, but she recovers quickly. "And—and everything after. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you when you've always had my back. But that's in the past. We all deserve to be happy, Michael. Even you, as much as you seem to hate that idea."

He shakes his head. It's been ingrained in his mind for so long, that he's started to believe that he didn’t deserve nice things coming from humans. He always thought he should be punished for having feelings — even Alex had been forced away for loving him, back when they were seventeen. But in time he's learned a lot about his past, and in doing so, he found out that he's been, in fact, always loved by someone — his mother, Isobel and Max, Alex, Sanders. He's never known what to do with that knowledge, so he's always fought against it.

He’s fought so hard, that he’s pushed Alex away.

“You haven’t lost him, Michael,” Isobel insists, a sense of urgency coloring her words. “You’ve had bad timing, that’s all. But you need to tell him how you feel.”

“It’s too late now,” he retaliates in defeat, shoulders slumped forward and eyes lost in the iridescence of the fallen pieces. “He’s back to the Air Force.”

“Oh, but isn't that just the best part of it all?” Isobel reaches out with her free hand and places her fingers beneath Michael’s chin, lifting his head up until their gazes meet. “Alex left, right. I don’t know why you seem so convinced, but he isn’t back to the Air Force.”

Michael’s eyes widen in surprise as his brain overworks trying to find the exact words that Alex spat at him when they last saw each other — with Alex loading his SUV and Michael vibrating out of his skin with need, neither of them speaking their minds. He isn’t surprised when he comes up with no proof whatsoever that Alex did, indeed, hint about not taking the honorable discharge that he’d been offered. He averts his gaze from Isobel’s, trying to gather his thoughts as the ruckus in his soul echoes higher than his doubts.

When he meets Isobel’s eyes again, she’s smiling at him. He figures it doesn’t take alien powers to decipher that a new feeling has taken him hostage, and this time he won’t let go that easily.

For the first time since turning seventeen, Michael Guerin is hopeful.

When the green blinking numbers on the nightstand clock reach way past three thirty in the morning, Alex gives up any pretense of ever trying to sleep a wink. He stops tossing and turning on the bed, and instead he lies on his back staring at the ceiling as he wonders how on Earth he’s ended up like this.

The truth is, he knows the answer to that question.

He sighs. His hands grip the edges of the sheets, the fabric foreign in between his fingers. He’s spent a week in this place, and it’s still so new and strange. He hasn’t gotten used to the novelty of everything — to the desk under the window and the adapted bathroom and the lack of stairs. He thought he’d be happier here, because it meant a new beginning somewhere nobody knew him, and a part of him is rejoicing in the fact that he’s been able to finally become who he really wants to be without the burden of being a Manes man.

Alex didn’t think anyone could miss just one person this much, but here he is, unable to sleep because nightmares fill his dreams with vivid memories of that last fight, of the words that crossed the space and felt like punches and stabs, of the deep feeling of dread building up in his gut as he limped his way away from Michael and into the car. He remembers the first time he ever left Michael Guerin — both seventeen and so in love it hurt — and yet this one feels more definitive. It feels like the final goodbye, and Alex finds himself realizing that he isn’t ready to bid his farewell to Michael. Not yet.

Maybe ever.

There’s a faint noise coming from the front door that he almost misses, but it’s difficult to ignore when it cuts through the eerie silence around him. Alex frowns, pulling the cover up in an attempt to shield himself from the intrusion — maybe if he tries hard enough, whoever it is that’s come barging on his door at this ungodly hour will go away. He thinks that maybe it is a drunk student, confused by the dark and the alcohol, right back from a frat party.

This is what he gets for coming back to school at his age.

The knocking persists, the sound pervasive to his ears as it grows in intensity and urgency, as though whoever it is on the other side has a real need to get inside. “Do you know what time is it? Go away!” he groans. “Come back in the morning!”

“Alex? You in there?”

All of a sudden, Alex feels the weight of the world pressing against his shoulders as he recognizes the crisp voice at the other side of the door. He pushes the duvet aside and slides off the bed, grabbing his crutches. He took off his prosthesis, and he isn’t feeling like putting it back on, simply because he's exhausted and he doesn't think he needs to hide himself from the man outside. He leans heavily on his crutch while he turns the knob and opens the door just a fraction. He's greeted by a sight he doesn’t want to ever forget — whiskey eyes and wild curls — as his nostrils fill with the scent of rain.

"What are you doing here at almost four in the morning?" he says curtly, keeping the door ajar as a protective shield for himself.

"I needed to talk to you," Michael offers. Alex could get lost in that drawl, in the way the words roll off that tongue, but he shakes himself out of the incipient reverie.

"You could have waited until the morning."

"You know me, I'm not a patient man."

Alex wants to retort that Michael isn't a man, period, but he isn’t that vindictive. He never cared about who Michael was, he isn't about to start spitting nonsense about the man who still owns his whole heart. Against his better judgement — and before someone opens any of the other doors and snoops into his life — he opens the door wider and motions for Michael to get inside. Alex doesn’t wait for him to follow, he turns around and goes back to his bed, sitting slowly as he hears Guerin closing the door at his back.

"So," he begins when Michael has sat down on the chair across the room. "What are you doing here? How did you know where I was?"

"Greg told Isobel, and she told me. I guess they wanted me to come up here."

Alex is so going to kill his brother. He loves him more than anything, now that they have reconciled the images of each other that they had growing up with the men they've become, but that doesn’t guarantee that he is going to walk away unscathed. Alex had told Greg in no uncertain terms that Michael shouldn't know where he was going. He'd rather Michael believed he was enrolling back in the Air Force than to know how pathetic he was for wanting to study when he was almost thirty.

"Why did you lie to me?" Michael asks, breaking the silence that has stretched between them. "I confronted you and you told me you were going back to them."

"You confronted me," Alex huffs. "That’s rich. I remember you, just like you always do, stomping onto my front yard and demanding answers to questions you did have the right to ask."

“Didn’t I?” Michael has the audacity to snort. “After everything—after what we—you really think I had no right to—”

“There you go again!” Alex throws his hands up in the air in exasperation. He’s thisclose to kick Michael out in the cold hallway by pushing him away with his crutches. He can’t believe he’s putting up with this voluntarily at God knows what time in the morning. Well, maybe he can.

He’s always let Michael Guerin get away with anything he wanted.

“What do you mean, again?”

“You’re so full of yourself,” Alex accuses. Weariness is starting to seep through his skin and settle in his bones, making every single part of his body feel like it’s made of lead. “We’ve gone through a lot together, of course we have!” he exclaims, voice rising above a reasonable pitch for early morning. “But then you forgot all of that and went to date my best friend because it was easy!”

His pain is spiking, both physical and mental — the weight of everything he’s been suppressing for years crashing down like waves now that he’s started to speak up. Guerin is staring at him open-mouthed, his whiskey-colored eyes filled with something Alex hasn’t seen there in a hot minute.

Worry.

“I never said dating—”

“You did!” Alex wants to turn around, but he’s somehow trapped between the wall and his crutches with little space to maneuver. “You said that, and then you acted like I wasn’t important, but that’s not what cosmic love should feel like! It shouldn’t be like a rollercoaster where you can’t even tell up from down! And that’s what this has been for forever, Guerin! I just wanted an out, I wanted to leave Roswell and all this insanity behind, and you came to yell at me that last day and now you’re here yelling at me some more!”

“I think you are the only one who’s yelling right now, Alex,” Michael says in a soft voice, all pretense of a rough exterior fallen as Alex looks up at him. “I get it, I do. You’re angry at me.”

“I am,” Alex acquiesces. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, Guerin. Shouldn’t you be trying to go home instead of standing in the middle of a dorm room in the dead of the night?”

“I never thought I’d live to see the day when Alex Manes would be wrong,” Michael jokes. Alex would like to kick him, and he almost does, fingers wrapped around his crutch. “You think I’m trying to go home?”

And there’s a hint of some emotion that Alex can’t place, not within Michael Guerin’s range of feelings, but it’s there, and it’s tearing apart the defenses he’s so carefully put up around his heart to prevent Guerin from breaking it beyond repair.

“I’m already home,” Michael whispers, taking a step forward. Alex doesn’t move away, he’s stuck to his spot, mesmerized by the gleam of green that he can see in Guerin’s eyes.

“You—you are?”

“You are my home, Alex,” Michael says a little bit louder. “That’s what I came to say. I was—I was a mess before you, and I was a mess with you, and I’m definitely a mess after you. But—but you’re home to me, Alex. Not some weird planet I can’t even remember. Home isn’t just a place. It can be a person. But it can be a feeling. And you—you are mine.”

Alex stares up at him dumbfounded, ears ringing as the words he’s been dying to hear finally reaching his core. He thinks he might have to call Greg and thank him — or curse him — for tipping Michael towards him. But that’s something for another day, because right now Alex just wants to live in this moment.

So he does, leaning forward instead of away, and allowing his forehead to rest against Micahel’s, inhaling and exhaling in sync for the first time in ten years.

#you say i'm your hero (but you're the one who saved me)#lire's 20 for the 20th #malex #malex fic #michael guerin #alex manes #isobel evans #michael guerin/alex manes #alex manes/michael guerin #angst #fluff #mentions of miluca #squint and you'll miss it #pov alternating #switching pov #rnm #rnm fic #roswell new mexico #rsowell new mexico fic

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justlightlysedated · 4 years

Text

don't you know the kids aren't alright

friendship malex edition™

one.

Michael had taken Maria at her word and only stayed over four times out of the week, probably because he spent the rest of the week with her inside of the bar.

But when the Airstream wasn't parked in the back of the Pony, it was back at the scrapyard.

Maria gets out of her truck and walks around to get the brown paper bag full of food and booze that she'd gotten together.

Liz had called her and told her that Michael had been hurt, and the gist that she'd gotten from the conversation was that it had been serious, and that Michael had insisted on being left alone.

Maria figures that it's early enough in their relationship that she shouldn't expect to be let into every single aspect of his life, but she didn't think there was any harm in offering a little company.

She shuts the door closed with her hip and makes her way around the Airstream towards the front.

She rounds the corner and then stops short when she hears Michael hissing.

She looks for him, and then ducks back towards the side of the Airstream, the back of her calf hitting the trailer hitch before she even realizes what she’s doing.

She had been expecting Michael to be alone, so it’s more than surprising that he’s not, but what’s more surprising than that is that he’s with Alex.

Thankfully, Michael was sitting with his back towards where she’d been walking from, because his gaze was focused over Alex’s head, but Alex’s gaze is focused in the space between them, where Michael had one of his arms propped up on a small table.

Michael hisses again, but this time she hears the click of something glass hitting something metal, and then Alex is exhaling loudly.

“I have no idea how you drove all the way here like that,” he says, and Maria can hear the sounds of something being unzipped.

“I’m multi talented,” Michael says, sounding like he’s talking through his teeth.

“You should’ve let Kyle stitch this up for you,” Alex says, and the words surprised Maria.

She didn’t really question how Liz seemed to know so much about Michael. She had seen them in Texas. It seemed that in her quest to get Max Evans, Liz had made a friend in Michael.

And while she had known that Kyle had been making amends, especially where Alex was concerned, she hadn’t realized that he was someone that Michael hung around with as well.

Just like she hadn’t realized that Michael and Alex spent any time together.

“But now you’re stuck with my basic medical knowledge,” Alex continues, and Michael makes a low sound, almost like something scared him.

“Are you sure we can’t just stick a bandaid over them and be done with it?”

Alex makes a low amused sound, “Are you afraid of a tiny needle, Guerin?”

“No,” Michael says firmly and too fast to actually be believable. “But I’m definitely afraid of the mad man holding it.”

Alex doesn’t really reply to that, and there is a tense silence between them that Maria definitely doesn’t understand, but it’s broken up by Michael saying Alex’s name in a soft low tone, like he’s trying to be careful.

“Don’t,” Alex says, firmly. “It’s okay. I got what you meant, but I still have to do this. You don’t know the definition of keeping still and you’ll tear the gash open again, no matter how fast you heal.”

Michael just exhales and Maria doesn’t hear him say yes, but he must nod or something, because the next thing that she hears is Alex speaking again.

“This will all be over before you know it,” he says, and then Michael makes a low pained sound.

“If you don’t keep still, I’m going to tie you up,” Alex bites out, not sounding serious about the threat.

Michael inhales sharply, a small hitch of pain before he speaks, “Is that a promise?”

Alex makes a scoffing noise and Maria doesn’t have to be looking at him to know that he’s rolling his eyes.

“Just keep still,” Alex says. “I’m almost done.”

“Yes, Captain,” Michael drawls flirty, but serious.

There is silence for a few minutes where Maria thinks about making her presence known.

“Thank you,” Michael says in a low voice, almost too low for her to hear.

Alex makes a low questioning sound, and Michael inhales deeply before exhaling again, “If you hadn’t kept your head, I don’t know what would’ve happened.”

Alex doesn’t say anything for a second.

“Well, one of us has to be the cool, calm and collected one, and I hate to break it to you, Guerin, but it’s definitely not you.”

Michael makes a noise in protest, but they both fall into silence for a few minutes before Alex speaks again.

“There,” he says. “All done.”

She can hear him, most likely, moving to stand, the chair scraping backwards through the dirt and gravel as he does. She hears more zipper sounds and then the rattle of a bottle of pills.

“Liz says that these should help with the pain, but you can’t mix them,” he sounds a little resigned, like he knows that Michael is going to tell him that he doesn’t want to take them, but to both their surprise, she hears the rattle of the bottle and then the low sound of something being uncapped.

“You know I also mean acetone, right?” Alex asks, which makes Maria furrow her brow. Was that supposed to be some sort of code word for something?

She moves to take a look, and sees that Alex is standing, looking at Michael with a raised eyebrow as Michael tips his head back and swallows the pills he just took dry.

He shakes his head and then turns back to the big first aid kit that Maria had missed at her first sight of them, putting things away.

“Kyle is probably going to stop by tomorrow, if you would prefer to avoid that, but as long as you keep the stitches on for a couple of days, you should be fine.”

“Leaving already?” Michael asks something strange in his voice, and Alex stops what he’s doing to turn to face him, tilting his head to the side like he’s trying to puzzle Michael out.

“Yeah, you didn’t want me here in the first place, I know how not to overstay my welcome, and besides, there’s something that I have to do before it gets too late.”

Michael just nods his head, and doesn’t say anything else.

Maria stares as Alex closes the first aid kit and then exhales roughly as he turns back to face Michael, clenching his jaw.

“Listen, since I’m already here,” he says, and Michael tips his head back to look up at him. “I know that you said you didn’t want my help, but I still went ahead and continued to look through the files we got from Caulfield, and there is something that I think you’d like to see.”

Michael stares at Alex in silence for long enough that Maria would’ve found it uncomfortable but Alex just lets him, gaze steady right on Michael, like this is something completely normal that happens all the time.

“Okay,” Michael says, voice careful. “What is it?”

Alex reaches up into the front pocket of his military fatigues, and pulls something that Maria is pretty sure is a picture and hands it to Michael.

Maria moves to lean back against the Airstream feeling the hot metal at her back.

She wonders how Michael learned what had happened to his mother exactly, and if it had anything to do with Alex.

She hears a low noise, that sounds almost like a sob and a soft ‘hey’ coming from Alex, and she closes her eyes tightly, biting down on her bottom lip.

Michael had told her so many things the night that they had officially gotten together, but never once in the speech that he’d given her had he mentioned himself, not really.

She hears a sound like something dropping to the floor, and curiosity gets the better of her, enough that she sneaks another look, and then decides that maybe it will be better to wait until Michael comes to her.

She turns to head back towards her truck, trying to blink away the image of Alex kneeling on the floor and Michael, leaning over him, their foreheads pressed together, and she really hopes that she won’t have to add Alex along to the provision that Michael doesn’t kiss any Lindsay’s.

two.

Alex hadn’t helped to set up the lab, but he’d cleaned up the rest of the place, even going as far as to set up a training room for the aliens, where he had also set up a small space for Kyle to work out if he had to be here in the lab and couldn’t get to the gym.

Some of the equipment he’d brought was even better than the equipment at the gym in the hospital so Kyle found himself there most mornings.

This morning he walks into the room and promptly wishes that he had decided to use the gym at the hospital.

He had thought when he heard that Michael and Maria were dating that things would tone down between Michael and Alex, but no, Kyle still got the urge to ask them if they wanted him to leave the room every single time they were in the same room together.

They seemed to gravitate towards each other, and slowly shut everything else out like they were in their own world, when they both became focused on what the other was doing or saying.

Case and point, the fact that Kyle was able to walk into the room, that was dead silent, and that neither Michael nor Alex noticed that they weren’t alone.

Michael was too busy focused on keeping something that looked way too delicate and entirely too expensive in the air and Alex was too busy entirely focused on Michael and the stopwatch he had in one hand.

Michael makes a low pained sound, and then gasps, hands coming up to his head and Alex steps forward, easily catching what looked like a centrifuge, only grunting slightly as he sets it down on the floor at their feet and moves forward and stops Michael from curling forward, bracing him with his body.

“Come on, Guerin!” he says, as he tries to get Michael’s hands away from his head. “I know that you can do this!”

Michael shakes his head and his voice sounds thick with anger when he speaks. “No I fucking can’t, Alex! I need the acetone!”

“No, you don’t,” Alex snaps. “You’re dependent on that shit, and while I’m sure it does help you manage the pain, it’s not necessary! You know what you have to do!”

Michael drags his hands away from his face, and he looks at Alex, glaring so hard that Kyle is surprised that Alex doesn’t step away, and just gives Michael an unimpressed look instead.

“Yeah, well maybe terrified aliens were able to get themselves under control and use their powers on command after several hours of being tortured, maybe you should try some more of your family’s methods to really get this thing rolling.”

Kyle sees Alex’s reaction because he’s looking for it, unlike Michael, whose gaze moves to the side as he shakes his head, the way his eyes flash with an infinite sadness and pain that he hides beneath a steely look, and then takes a step away from Michael.

Michael’s gaze snaps back to him then, and Alex just nods his head once, before he’s stuffing the stopwatch back into one of his many pockets and then reaching for something at his back.

Kyle inhales sharply when he sees the gun and freezes along with Michael who goes so still that Kyle momentarily thinks that he unlocked a new ability to freeze at will.

Alex stands at attention, feet shoulder width, and he lifts his hand up, pointing the gun towards Michael, not dead center, but in his general direction, and Michael’s gaze goes hard and brutal, and then Alex is bending his arm and pointing the gun at his temple.

Michael’s face immediately loses all sort of hardness, as he seems to almost melt as he takes a staggering step towards Alex.

“Alex,” he says, voice questioning and shaking, and he looks like he’s two seconds away from somehow standing in the way of that bullet. “What are you doing?”

Alex gives him an impassive look. “A bullet can travel two thousand five hundred feet per second. The same principle applies here for holding something that weighs nearly two hundred pounds completely still for fifteen minutes. Only a little more advanced.”

Michael shakes his head a little, giving Alex a highly incredulous look, “You’re not planning on shooting yourself.”

Alex just blinks at Michael like he doesn’t see what’s so unbelievable about that.

“Alex!” Michael snaps. “Lower the gun.”

“Five,” Alex starts, and Michael furrows his brow like he doesn’t understand what Alex is doing until he takes the safety off the gun and continues with, “Four.”

Michael reaches out with one hand and Kyle can see that he tries to pull the gun away from Alex’s head, and Alex’s arms moves a little, but he still manages to keep a hold of the gun.

“Three.”

Michael moves towards Alex, and Alex takes a step backwards for each move Michael makes forward, keeping the distance between them equal.

“Two,” Alex keeps going, and Michael makes a low wordless noise, and then he shuts his eyes tight and holds both of his hands out towards Alex, and Kyle is more worried about the gun being pointed at Alex, even if he’s the one pointing it, and he’s about to make his presence known so that he doesn’t actually have to witness this, when the entire room starts vibrating, every single machine starts to shake, and even the walls seem like they’re trembling.

“One,” Alex says, finishing his countdown, finger on the trigger.

Kyle barely has time to do or say anything when there is the sound of the gun going off.

At the same time, every single thing in the room goes absolutely still, even the air feels like it’s still even though Kyle knows that that is impossible.

Alex is still standing on the other side of the room, and Kyle can smell the scent of singed hair in the air, but Alex looks otherwise unharmed, even though there seems to be a tiny explosion frozen right by his head.

Kyle’s eyes go to Michael, who is standing, breathing heavily, but in a steady rhythm, eyes open wide as he stares at where Alex is standing, both of his hands open in front of him, fingers barely trembling.

He twists both of his hands in the air and the explosion disappears into nothing, leaving behind a bullet frozen in the air.

Alex reaches up and plucks it out of the air like this is something that happens all of the time, and he hisses a little, probably because it’s hot, and then looks over to Michael.

“I honestly wasn’t expecting that to work that well,” he admits, and Michael drops his hands, exhaling roughly and the entire room seems to breathe out with him, taking all of the heavy tension with it.

“What the fuck were you expecting?” Michael asks, sounding angry, but not as much as before.

“That you would manage to pull the gun away?” Alex says, sounding more like he’s asking a question than making a statement.

Michael stares at him in disbelief, and Kyle shares the sentiment.

“Now,” Alex continues, putting the gun back in it’s holster against his back. “The centrifuge please, holding that still for a half an hour should be easy after that display.”

Michael shakes his head a little, but does what Alex says, reaching out with one hand, and easily lifting the object even higher than he had it when Kyle had walked into the room.

Kyle moves then and sits down on the bench, deciding that he’s had enough of Michael and Alex for today.

He puts his headphones in, and ignores them as much as they seem to be ignoring him.

Curiosity does get the better of him, and he finds himself looking over and pausing his music while he jogs on the treadmill.

Michael keeps the centrifuge in the air, and doesn’t even seem to be breaking a sweat and there is a look on his face that seems something like wonder.

“Time,” Alex says, voice sounding so proud, smiling widely at Michael, that Kyle is surprised that he doesn’t just reach out and pull him into a hug.

Michael lowers the centrifuge carefully, and he exhales once it’s on the floor and turns to Alex, who raises an eyebrow at him in question.

“Fine,” Michael says. “You were right.”

Alex’s smile just widens, and Kyle can see the confused light in Michael’s eyes at the sight.

“I knew you could do it,” he says, reaching out and patting Michael on the arm. “And no acetone! I’m very proud of you.”

“Now,” continues turning towards a clipboard he has propped on the back wall, so he doesn’t see the way that Michael’s eyes go from confused to hungry within a millisecond.

There are plenty of things that he knows about Michael that he would prefer never to know, but the fact that he apparently has a praise kink was definitely at the top of that list.

Kyle turns the treadmill off, and makes enough noise as he’s leaving for them to know that they definitely weren’t alone.

three.

Isobel turns the corner expecting to find Michael alone so she finds herself stopping short, right next to the front of his truck when she hears him laughing, long and loud and delighted. Isobel tries to wrack her brain for the last time she’d heard Michael laugh like that. She’s seen him snicker at jokes and chuckle when he’s flirting and smirk a whole lot and smile, small but genuine when he's happy, but she can’t remember the last time he laughed like it was something that he couldn’t help.

“That was terrible,” she hears him gasping out between breaths.

She’s not expecting Alex Manes to be the one to snort and say, “Yeah, well you’re the one who laughed.”

She moves a little closer, and she can see them lying back in the back of the truck. Michael is lying flat, hands crossed behind his head, propping him up as he looks up at the sky. Alex is lying on his side, propped up on one hand, staring at Michael.

She hears Michael inhale deeply and then exhale, the cold air making a plume of smoke escape his mouth.

“How long?” he says, and she hears Alex sigh, and turn a little so that he’s looking out across Max’s backyard.

Isobel crouches down right by the front wheel, not really wanting to hear this conversation, but feeling like if she moves she’ll interrupt their conversation, and something about it feels important.

“A few weeks,” Alex says, sounding like he hadn’t actually wanted to speak.

She hears the truck moving as though someone moved, and Michael’s careful breathing.

“Just ask,” Alex says after a few seconds of silence.

Michael exhales loudly and then the truck moves again, and Isobel looks over to the back of the truck and she can see that they’re both sitting, facing Max’s backyard, and staring at the lights that make up Roswell.

They’re both quiet for long enough that Isobel’s legs start to fall asleep, and she thinks about making her presence known since it’s not like they’re talking about anything important.

She’s making to stand up when Michael speaks.

“Are you planning on coming back?” Michael asks, voice almost too low for her to hear.

“Yes,” Alex says with no hesitation, almost before Michael even finished speaking, and from the way she can see Michael turn to face him, she knows that Michael wasn’t expecting him to answer so fast. “Roswell has never been home, but there are still some people here that I care about.”

Alex doesn’t look at Michael as he says it, and Isobel can’t make out their faces, but there is something in Michael’s silence that feels too heavy for the words that Alex said.

"Tell me, Guerin," Alex says, breaking the silence. "What is the center of gravity?"

"The point in any solid where a single applied force could support it," Michael answers, speaking slowly, voice coloured in confusion.

"Actually," Alex says, and Isobel sees him turning to face Michael as well. "It's a v."

There is a second of silence where Isobel cannot believe that Alex just said that, and Michael's silence is heavy with judgement, and then Alex snickers, the sound falling out of his mouth, before he starts to giggle helplessly, and then Michael loses it completely, laughing hard and leaning to push Alex hard enough that he moves backwards and the truck moves with him.

"That's even more terrible than the last one," Michael says between laughter.

Isobel can see Alex well enough now, that when he smiles it looks so bright and happy that it could probably be seen from space. "Yeah, but you still laughed."

Michael just shakes his head, and Isobel wonders if he's ever going to tell Alex that he didn't laugh because the joke was funny, but because Alex found it funny.

four.

Liz is waiting for Michael by his truck since she already knows that Kyle will be taking Alex home and she doesn't like the idea of him driving home alone.

She's looking up at the sky when she hears footsteps, and she turns towards the door and spots Alex walking out, his arm in a sling.

She almost calls out to him, but Michael walks out right behind him, and reaches out, stopping him right in front of Kyle’s car.

“Wait,” he says, and Alex turns around a little too roughly, pulling away from Michael’s hold and taking a step backwards.

“What is it, Guerin?”

Liz can just make out Michael's expression from her position, but his body language is easy to read, and his fists are clenched to his sides, and he keeps rocking on his heels, and he doesn't speak, he just continues to look at Alex, or well, at where Alex had told them that he'd gotten shot.

He had played it off, but he'd been gone for a few weeks, more than enough time to recover from the worst.

Alex sighs and opens his mouth, but Michael beats him to it.

"Can I see?" He asks, sounding both hesitant and determined.

Alex barely hesitates before he's pulling the sling over his head and then popping open the buttons of his shirt.

Michael moves closer then, eyes intent on Alex's shoulder.

Liz sees his hands unclench, fingers stretching out before he shakes them out a little, eyes so intent, like he's trying to heal Alex through his gaze alone.

As soon as she thinks it, Michael moves forward, hand raised.

Liz ducks down to avoid being seen as Alex looks around, one of his hands coming up to trap Michael's hand against his chest.

"What are you doing?" He asks, voice a low hiss that Liz almost doesn't hear.

"What do you think?" Michael snaps back, sounding a little exasperated.

"You can't do that," Alex says, and there is a sound, almost like a scuffle, before Alex speaks in a low urgent voice.

"Hey," he says, like he's trying to get Michael's attention. "I have a doctor's appointment in a few days and a miraculous recovery is going to be hard to explain. Otherwise I'd let you do it in a heartbeat. It's really uncomfortable."

Michael makes a low sound.

"I can always just go into your head and make you forget all about the pain," Michael suggests, but it sounds half hearted at best.

Alex makes a low humming sound, "Don't tempt me."

Michael just laughs low and amused, but doesn't say anything else.

There's enough silence that Liz feels safe enough to straighten up and check if the coast is clear and she exhales softly when she sees them.

Michael has his forehead pressed to Alex's shoulder and Alex has one hand in his hair, and they don't seem to be doing anything but just breathing together.

They look so comfortable in each other's space that Liz realizes for the first time that maybe their previous relationship was more serious than she'd thought.

Kyle walks out of the building then and he makes a low aggrieved noise when he sees them.

"Come on," Kyle says, walking by them and hooking his arm around Alex's, dragging him along. "I want to get at least four hours of sleep."

Liz doesn’t bother to duck out of sight, since Kyle waves at her, but she’s distracted by Michael’s face as he watches Alex leave, something sad, but somehow sweet.

Liz keeps staring at him until he turns and catches her at it.

He raises an eyebrow at her, and she raises one back at him as he walks closer.

“Figured you’d want some company,” she tells him.

Michael just shrugs, but unlocks the truck with a flick of his wrist.

She gets into the passenger’s seat worrying her bottom lip between her teeth and waits until they’ve been on the road for a few minutes before she decides to say something.

“You don’t really talk about it, but if you ever do need to talk about Alex, or anything, I’m-”

“No offense, Liz,” Michael says, fingers tightening around the steering wheel. “But I really don’t want to talk about it.”

Liz makes a face at him. “Maybe talking about it will help you-”

The radio blasts loudly with static for one second before the tape clicks and starts playing a country song that Liz is pretty sure was made before she was born.

She just rolls her eyes and leans back in her seat.

five.

Jenna isn’t exactly sure how she got volunteered to chauffer Alex to the next Team Save Max meeting, but having Michael Guerin in the passenger’s side seat of the car wasn’t exactly one of the things mentioned when Liz had asked her for the favor.

The only good thing is that she doesn’t have to get out of the car or even call Alex.

Michael gets out of her car before it even properly stops, and she stares as he walks towards the front door, crouches down by the plant pot holding a ficus too shiny to actually be real, and digs around in the pot before he pulls out a shiny silver key covered in dirt.

Jenna watches him letting himself into Alex’s home like he pays rent there and wonders if everyone does that or if Michael is just a special case.

He’s rushing out of the house not even a full minute later, and he looks a little flustered, and a lot preoccupied. She stares at him as he walks past her car, and then realizes it and turns back around, getting into the backseat wordlessly.

His brow is furrowed, and Jenna can feel the discontent vibes and she wonders what the hell happened in the less than a minute that he was inside of Alex’s house.

Alex walks out of his house a couple of minutes later, and it doesn’t take a genius to know that that is definitely sex hair.

It also doesn’t take a genius to figure out that he is pissed the fuck off.

He waves at Jenna through the open passenger side door window, and then gets into the backseat pushing Michael aside.

Jenna seriously would like to curse out her libido for getting hooked on Liz Ortecho so badly that she said yes when Liz asked her to please pick Alex up.

She puts the car into drive and Alex turns to Michael and hisses in a low angry voice, “Do I really have to have a conversation with you about privacy?”

Jenna distinctly knows that this is not the way to get through to Michael Guerin.

“Maybe, if you had told me that you were dating someone, I wouldn’t have just walked in!” Michael answers back, voice coming out harsh and accusing.

“I’m not dating anyone,” Alex answers back through his teeth.

Jenna glances at the rearview mirror and she can see Michael giving Alex a pointed look.

Jenna can feel Alex rolling his eyes.

“You don’t have to be dating someone to have sex with them. You know that.”

Jenna can feel the unhappy vibes exuding from Michael.

“And besides, even if I was dating him. You still have no right to walk into my house uninvited!”

“That’s never been a problem before!” Michael snaps back.

Alex exhales loud and rough, and Jenna glances at the rearview mirror again to see him giving Michael a tired look.

“Things are different now.”

Michael doesn’t respond to that, and Alex doesn’t say anything else.

The rest of the drive passes in silence and once they get to the Crashdown, Alex gets out of the car, before Jenna even fully parks it, and it makes her hum a little thoughtfully.

She looks to see Michael still sitting in the backseat, staring as Alex walks into the diner with eyes that are entirely too big and wet for his face.

He looks really sad and upset, and Jenna distinctly remembers him kissing Maria goodnight the last time that she had seen them together.

“You’re actually an oblivious idiot,” she tells him, and Michael turns to her, giving her a confused look, and Jenna just shakes her head.

Trying to get Michael to understand something by force was an exercise in futility. She remembered Max failing at it more than once, and it looks like Alex has decided to just let him come to his own conclusions, but the problem is that she’s sure that Michael is coming to all of the wrong conclusions.

It might be worth it to stick around just to see the fallout.

“If you don’t get it, I’m not going to be the one to explain it to you,” Jenna replies before she gets out of the car and heads towards the diner.

six.

Max is setting the empty glasses down in the sink so that they’re out of the way when he sees Michael walking down the hall, fast enough to be suspicious.

Max follows after him after barely a moment’s consideration, and finds himself outside on the side of the house where all the cars are parked, Michael momentarily out of sight.

Max doesn’t have to search long to find him again, heading to the only car with a light on, Alex’s.

Max slows down and hides behind Kyle’s SUV, peering around the corner to see Michael slowing his walk as he gets closer to Alex, who is bent over the driver’s seat like he’s getting something out of the glove compartment.

“Not going to complain about the secret message if this is the sight I’m getting,” Michael drawls.

Alex moves to get out of the car, and Max can feel the unimpressed stare all the way where he’s standing.

“I have a present for you,” Alex says after a few minutes of silence where Michael moves to lean back against Alex’s car.

“Oh yeah,” Michael responds easily. “What’s so special that you couldn’t give it to me in front of everyone?”

Alex reaches inside of the car and pulls out a backpack, which he hands to Michael, zipper already open.

Michael gives the bag a confused look, but grabs it and takes a look inside.

Max practically feels the shock going through Michael as whatever it is that Alex has in the bag surprises the hell out of him.

He reaches into the bag, and Max can see the way whatever is inside lights up as he touches it reminding him of their pods.

Michael moves his shocked eyes from inside of the bag to Alex.

“What?” he asks, breathless, but a slight undercurrent of anger.

Alex inhales deeply, and he squares up like he’s preparing himself for a fight.

“Jim Valenti had that hidden in his cabin. I found it months ago when Kyle went to figure out if he had anything hidden out there and we found the bunker he had fully stocked for Rosa going through withdrawal. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was until you showed me what you had in your bunker.”

Michael looks back inside of the bag and then back at Alex.

“And you didn’t think to tell me that you had it then?”

Alex makes a low sound and takes a step towards Michael, and Michael takes a step backwards and Alex freezes.

“To be honest with you, no, I didn’t even think about telling you that I had it. I wasn’t exactly thinking about anything else but the fact that you’d been planning to leave the planet.”

Michael just scoffs low and disbelievingly shaking his head. “What does it matter to you if I want to leave or not?”

Alex just laughs hollowly and drags his hands through his hair.

“You ever get tired of reopening this wound?” Alex asks, rhetorically, and the words seem to surprise Michael who turns to look at him, brow furrowed.

Max starts thinking that maybe he shouldn’t be witnessing this conversation.

“I get that you’ve obviously moved on, and are happy with someone else, but none of that negates the fact that I care about you, and that I would be devastated if you went somewhere where I couldn’t find you.”

Michael’s face goes slack, and he just continues to look at Alex who turns and paces a little in place as he keeps talking.

“I had hoped that these last couple of months you would’ve figured that out by now, but obviously we’re never going to get on the same page, so here’s this.”

He turns back towards Michael. “I kept it out of some sick and twisted sense that as long as I had it, some part of you would still be mine, but it’s time to let go of that. And let go of any hope of someday. All I want is for you to be happy, and you are, and it still hurts that it’s not without me, but it’s the only thing that I have ever wanted for you.”

“Alex,” Michael says, shaking his head, eyes wide and wet as he takes a step towards him.

Alex just shakes his head. “It’s alright, you don’t have to keep explaining yourself. I get it, okay?”

Michael just stares at him not saying anything, and Alex turns away, blinking his eyes rapidly before he inhales deeply and turns back to Michael, a brittle smile on his face.

“Happy birthday, I had a fun time but I think that I-”

“I am happy,” Michael says, interrupting him, and Alex just exhales shakily, turning away from Michael momentarily. “And I like making Maria happy. We’re good together. She makes me feel needed and mattered, and I like that.”

Alex makes a low sound, almost like a sob, and he just says, “Guerin,” in a sharp voice, and Michael just shakes his head and moves closer, dropping the bag and reaching for Alex before he can move back.

“But I’m not in love with her, I like her a lot, and I hoped that it would’ve been enough, but it’s not, Alex. It’s not enough when being in the same room as you makes me feel so much more than I do when I’m alone with her.”

Max really desperately wishes that he had left when Alex had given Michael the backpack, so he turns around and sneaks away as quietly as he can, really not wanting to witness whatever was going to happen next.

“What are you trying to say?” he hears Alex asking, voice shaking a little.

“I’m saying that you should keep the bag,” Michael answers back, almost too low for Max to catch it.

“But you like Maria,” Alex says, pushing the words almost like a barrier between them,

“Yeah,” Michael admits easily. “But not as much as I like you.”

Max gets too far to hear anything else, but he turns at the door and catches a glimpse of them, standing still, foreheads pressed together.

He shakes his head and walks back inside of the house wondering why his siblings have to make love so complicated.

#basically everyone seeing michael and alex being 'friends' and going 🤔🤔#not a malex fic technically but also technically a malex fic cause i'm me #mentions of miluca

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