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pastelwitchling · 3 years

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Malex Happily Ever After chapter 116 sequel

Part One.

As if Michael would leave. He didn’t care what Alex said, what he heard mattered more. And when Alex had told him to go away, his eyes and tears had begged Michael to come closer, to protect him. To give him a reason to trust again.

So he couldn’t leave. Especially not now.

Instead, he waited in his truck for another two hours before he spotted them. Alex was on his crutches – a smile tugged at Michael’s lips as he imagined Kyle insisting he use a wheelchair and Alex insisting he was fine – with Forrest right there next to him, a hand on his arm. He didn’t need to touch him, Michael knew he didn’t. Alex didn’t need help. But he may have needed comfort.

Michael’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as he thought of Alex asking Forrest to stay close, to be able to feel him and know that they were both okay. To be unable to breathe unless they were together.

When they were off, Michael followed. He’d hoped that Alex’s car in front of him would go to the Long farm to drop Forrest off, but they both went to Alex’s house instead. As Forrest stepped out of the driver’s seat and hurried to the passenger’s side to help Alex out, he made no move to leave. He went inside, instead, with Alex.

Michael exhaled slowly. It wasn’t like they could get up to anything with the both being injured from the car wreck, but to know that Forrest got to be there with Alex, taking care of him – it unnerved Michael to no end.

Around half an hour later, Michael saw Forrest leave the house, already calling someone on his phone. Michael listened closely and overheard the words ready for pickup, and realized Forrest was leaving to get takeout for them. He barely managed to sit still until Forrest got in his car and drove away, then he stepped out of his truck and stormed up to the front porch. He started to knock, then remembered that Alex was injured and shouldn’t be moving around.

“Sorry about this, Private,” he muttered, and opened the door with his mind.

“Forrest?” Alex called, and Michael clenched his jaw as he closed the door.

He stepped into the living room to find Alex sitting on his couch against several cushions and pillows. Michael’s eyes fell to his bruises and red scratches.

Alex’s brows furrowed and he started to stand. “Guerin? What’re you doing here? How’d you get in?”

“Opened the door,” Michael said dumbly, and sat next to him.

Alex didn’t move away. “You can’t do stuff like that,” he growled. “You can’t just march into my house when my boyfriend’s not here and –”

“Don’t call him that,” Michael said at once, getting closer. Alex held his gaze, unwavering. God, Michael loved him. “I need to know you’re okay, Alex. I – I can’t breathe until I do, okay?”

Something in Alex’s eyes softened and he sighed. He put a hand in Michael’s curls and pulled him in so that their foreheads rested together. Michael inhaled sharply, and instinctively reached out, grabbing Alex’s waist and gripping tightly.

“I’m okay,” Alex said into the space between their mouths. “Look at me, Guerin, I’m okay.”

Alex put a gentle hand on Michael’s jaw until he opened his eyes and took Alex in. He reached up and put a hand on Alex’s chest, his breaths shaking as he felt Alex’s heart racing.

“You’re okay,” he breathed, wrapping his arm around Alex’s waist and pulling him in closer.

Alex nodded, their foreheads still pressed together. He whispered, “I’m okay.”

Michael held on. He wanted to press his nose to the crook of Alex’s neck and inhale his scent. He wanted to run his hand up and down Alex’s back, the thin fabric of his shirt the only barrier between their skin. He wanted to push his face into Alex’s hair and fall asleep to the soft strands against his skin.

Then Alex took his wrist, gently but firmly, and put his hands down. The comfort and relief that had barely arrived was now replaced with panic. Michael knew what was about to happen.

“Please,” he whispered, trying to keep his and Alex’s foreheads pressed together. “Please don’t ask me to leave.”

Alex still had his eyes closed. “Guerin –”

“Please, Alex, I can’t leave you to him. I can’t.”

“He’s my boyfr—”

“Don’t say it,” he pleaded, wrapping his arms around Alex again and pulling him onto his lap. “Please, don’t – don’t say it.”

“You’ll be okay,” Alex said, his voice subdued, resigned, as if he actually believed that Michael would survive without him.

“No,” Michael said at once. “No, I – Alex –” He fumbled with his words. He knew he had no choice now but to tell the truth, or Alex would never trust his feelings again. “I only dated Maria because – because she was easier.”

Alex shook his head, as if the words pained him. “Michael, please –”

“If – if she said no, it wouldn’t have hurt, Alex!” he said desperately. “I wouldn’t have cared. But you looked like you might actually stay! And I didn’t – I didn’t want to lose you!”

“I can’t do this now,” Alex pleaded.

“I thought having some small part of you would be enough, than getting all of you, and then losing it again. I couldn’t have lived with that, Alex –”

“And me?” he demanded. His eyes shone with tears. “What was I supposed to do, sit around and understand that while you were with someone else? You have any idea the hours I’ve paced this room, the bunker, the base – just driving myself crazy with the thought of what you guys were doing together? If I’m so damn important, then why did she get you?!”

Michael stared, stunned speechless as Alex hid his face, tears falling down the bridge of his nose.

“A-Alex . . .”

Alex wiped at his tears, seemingly frustrated with himself for crying in front of Michael at all. After a long moment of silence, he finally spoke, his voice hoarse, “I wanted you more than anybody. I fought for you harder than anybody. And she got to have you.” He finished his words in a whisper, pushing away from Michael as if unable to take his touch anymore.

His eyes as he stared out the window were cold and numb. “I am so sick of coming in last. You are not going to come here now, Guerin, and pretend you love me more than someone who has finally picked me.” He turned slowly to face Michael whose eyes burned and vision blurred with unshed tears.

“Now, I say this because I love you. Get out of my house. Because the second Forrest gets back, I’m going to hold on tight, and never let go.”

Michael flinched like Alex had hit him, but Alex had already turned away, dismissing him completely. Michael didn’t want to stand, didn’t want to move, but his legs seemed to have a mind of their own as they picked him up and dragged him to the door. Alex wouldn’t turn to look at him, let alone say anything else.

Michael felt like his heart was lying in broken shards at the bottom of his stomach, Alex’s words, and cruel truth, ringing in his ears, repeating hopeless hopeless hopeless. There was nothing for him to do. This time, he knew he’d really lost Alex forever.

Michael stepped out, still trying to process what his brain just couldn’t, and came face to face with Forrest Long.

Forrest wanted to hurry. Rationally, he knew his Alex was the most competent and strongest person there was, but his heart thudded uncomfortably as he ran through everything that might happen to the airman while he was gone.

Get ahold of yourself, he scolded several times as he waited impatiently at the Crashdown diner, as he quickly called out, “Keep the change!,” as he drove a few miles above the speed limit on his way back to the house. It was his fault, after all, that he and Alex had crashed in the first place. Whether or not an alien was involved didn’t matter. He just wanted to make sure Alex got back on his feet, safe and happy, as quick as possible.

He had no idea that he would hurry back to Alex’s house with a bag of burgers in hand to find Michael Guerin coming out.

Michael blinked like he was surprised to see Forrest at all, but before Forrest could say anything, Michael went past him, his eyes almost numb with something like shock and . . . fear?

Forrest went inside, brows furrowed, and found Alex exactly where he’d left, though not exactly how. Alex’s shoulders were straight, his back taught, his eyes staring out the window.

“Alex?” Forrest said softly as he reached out and touched his shoulder. Alex inhaled sharply, like just waking from his thoughts, and looked up at Forrest with red-rimmed eyes.

Forrest’s bag fell onto the table and he sat down, taking Alex’s face in his hands. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Alex tried for a reassuring smile, but looked away as he wiped his eyes. “Nothing, please, just c’mere.”

Alex wrapped his arms around Forrest’s waists eagerly, pressing his face into his collarbone. Forrest instinctively held him back just as tightly. He kept thinking back to Michael’s face, how it didn’t look so different from Alex’s; heartbroken beyond repair.

He almost asked what Michael was doing here, why’d left so upset, but he didn’t need to. He could imagine Michael bursting in here, terrified for Alex, and Alex ending things between them, breaking them both.

He held Alex tighter. “Hey,” he whispered into Alex’s hair. “Can you sill breathe okay?”

I’ll know, he thought. He would know if Alex was lying.

Alex took a second, then whispered, “Yeah. I can breathe.”

Forrest’s eyes fell shut and his shoulders sagged. He held Alex tighter as a cool resolution came over him, overriding his own heart, cracking away.

“Okay, baby,” he said, holding Alex as tight as he could and putting a hand in his hair. “Okay.”

His hands didn’t tremble, his breathing was calm. He loved Alex more than anything, so he knew what he had to do.

Alex put his elbow on the car door, his chin rested on his palm as the black sky passed them by. Forrest, though he had no idea why, insisted that they go for a drive that night. Alex didn’t mind. Some fresh air, he’d hoped, would help clear his mind.

Except of course he knew that wouldn’t happen. He didn’t think he could ever forget the look on Michael’s face. He shut his eyes against the memory and reached for Forrest’s hand as he took them down a familiar route. Forrest kissed Alex’s fingers and said nothing.

Alex closed his eyes for a second, maybe he’d dozed off, but the familiar bumpy road woke him and he looked around to find that Forrest was driving them right into the junkyard. Alex caught Michael’s eyes first, who had been sitting in front of the lit bonfire and was just beginning to stand, looking just as shocked to see Alex there.

“What is this?” he asked as Forrest parked the car, seemingly giving Michael no attention. “Why are we here?”

Forrest turned the car off and sighed. He smiled warmly at Alex. “I love you,” he said, and the answer shouldn’t have left a seedling of dread in Alex’s stomach, but it did.

“I love you, too,” he murmured. Then, eager to change the subject, he asked again, “Forrest, what’re we doing here?”

“Alex,” he took Alex’s hand in both of his and kissed it again, harder, more desperately, as if he was trying to hold onto something. The dread grew and out of the corner of his eyes, Alex saw Michael hesitate where he stood, as if wary of approaching the car before someone stepped out.

Alex already knew where this was going. He shook his head. “No.”

“Listen to me –”

“No! You can’t do this.”

“You think I want to?” Forrest demanded, though his smile never left. “Alex, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. But I know you, I know who you really love, with everything you have, and it’s not me.”

Alex shook his head. He whispered, “That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is,” Forrest chuckled miserably.

Alex clenched his jaw, his eyes burning. “I’ll – I’ll never see him again, I’ll never talk to him again, I’ll –”

“Don’t do that,” Forrest said earnestly. “Don’t torture yourself like that. Alex . . . you know who he loves. You know how he feels about you. Don’t throw that away because you’re a little scared right now, you deserve better than that.”

“I said I would never let you go.”

Forrest shrugged. “You’re not. I’m letting you go.”

A cry escaped Alex’s lips. “You can’t do this, you love me.”

Forrest took his face in his hands and kissed him hard. Against his lips, he whispered, “I’m doing this because I love you.” He held Alex tighter for a few seconds before he let go with a sharp inhale, and put his hands on the steering wheel instead. His knuckles were white, his smile tighter now.

“Go, Cap,” he forced a chuckle, his head ducked. “Don’t make me wait here, or I might not let you leave. Then we’ll both regret it.”

Alex stared. He wanted to kiss Forrest’s cheek or take his hand in one last squeeze, but he knew that would be cruel to do. Holding his breath and not giving himself any time to think about it, Alex stepped out of the car. As soon as the door was closed, Forrest ran a hand through his blue hair and drove away. Alex watched long after his car had disappeared.

He put his hands in his pockets and hung his head back. Huh. He hadn’t noticed all the stars tonight. He looked over at Michael who’d been watching him, and felt that jagged shard in his heart that he’d had for too long finally ease away.

He walked past Michael and sat down on the other lawn chair in front of the bonfire. Slowly, Michael sat down, too, his eyes still on Alex.

“Private –”

“Can I stay here tonight?” he asked before he could fully process everything that had happened.

Michael nodded, hope coloring his eyes as they reflected the flames. “Please.”

Alex hugged himself. “‘Cause I still need a minute.”

Michael said nothing a moment, then moved his chair close enough to Alex’s that their knees touched and their thighs almost brushed. He visibly hesitated before he put an arm around Alex’s shoulders, his grip on Alex’s arm tight, as if scared he would disappear otherwise.

The touch sent a long-missed shock throughout Alex’s entire body, and he sighed deeply. He rested his head down on Michael’s shoulder, and the two just held each other like that for a long time.

#alex manes #michael guerin #malex #forlex #malex fic #malex fanfic #malex fanfiction #roswell new mexico #roswell nm #malex angst #malex fluff #tyler blackburn #michael vlamis

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anxious-ace · 2 years

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Ghost handbook shit:

Slenderman only really starts doing real damage once the marble hornets crew get involved

He was doing damage before but once Tim gets involved, shit gets real

The chaotic smart-asses have built a bonfire pit in the woods (or rebuilt the original one) near a river that runs through the woods

The river leads to a cliff and forms a waterfall

The members of Phantom Productions (or most of them) live in the neighborhood where the studio is

The reason Kate got away with the shit she's done is because her mom was the police chief and she's already been tried for it

The reason Jacob tried to kill Kate was because he was convinced she was a demon (he's kinda right)

I just don't know what type of demon she is

The rest of the marble hornets crew live together in the neighborhood right next to them

Like they live in the same house (yes Alex and the comic book characters are there too)

I think Taylor is in the medical field (I haven't read the comic I'm sorry) if so then that means that she works with Brian and Edith

I just found out that she's a technician at the hospital

Jacob was an inventor and made a lot of high tech shit, Kate is also making high tech shit

Someone has to make arm repairs/replacements

Toby got involved because it looked interesting and he wanted to know more about Slenderman

He also wanted to make money (who doesn't?)

Slenderman and the Kojek could work together but it would be way too much so Slenderman works alone

Jesse's and Kate's family's historically hate each other, it's not just those two

Ok but Seth showing the camera crew how to film and helping out though.

The faces in the woods were because of Gabe

I think he turned to cannibalism because he was starving, no one knows

Mans has gone missing twice during both the original and the current version of the show for 15 days each

That's 60 days which is under 2 months of him being missing

(I mean he has gone missing twice in the original and twice in the current version)

He also has retrograde amnesia from a car crash that happened after his mom died when he and Natasha were 2

Natasha has a photographic memory

Their dad was drunk driving because she died thanks to the Marburg virus

She had gone to Uganda and got it from an animal

Crystal is weird, I mean she is thought of as one of Kate's alters but she's also her dead sister who could be possessing her and has a physical form she uses often

I think to make it make sense, let's just say she kinda possesses her and since they can talk to each other, Kate's doctor thought she was an alter

She still has D.I.D. but Crystal wouldn't be an alter because she can possess other objects or people and has a physical form

#my ocs #ghost handbook: revisted #scp oc #slenderverse oc #creepypasta oc

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lambourngb · 4 years

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This Hard Choice

Fic prompt: “I don’t want you to go.” set before THIS HARD LIFE and THIS HARD JOURNEY - an AU after the shed, set sometime after the moment in 2x05. Alex doesn’t join the Air Force. I’m writing these each day- so thankfully I didn’t have to work today because this “ficlet” is 3,600 words. This is finished on Ao3 here.

****

The careful crunch of loose gravel and abrasive echo of a skateboard stopping on the rough pavement let Michael know that his attempt to avoid Alex had failed.

Parking down by Spring River, not far from where the concrete shelter of the Atkinson Ave overpass sported some of the late Rosa Ortecho’s graffiti murals, would have been an excellent place to hide from everyone in his life but Alex. It was insane to think that in such a short time, Michael had basically shared all of his favorite spots with him, from the private desert escape on a cut back gravel road not far from the crash site to the places in town when Michael couldn’t spare the fuel to drive far, like Loveless Park or the back acres of wrecked and salvaged cars at Sander’s Auto.

He would care more about his failure in evading Alex if he wasn’t so currently high.

Old man Sanders had let him crash on the couch last night with Rusty, his dog, and then left him the next morning with scrambled eggs and a small paying job of cleaning out the machinery tools used for alignment repairs. “Gotta use that MEK shit on it, it smells awful, so it’s a perfect job for you, kid, only need the one hand to clean the threads,” Sanders had instructed nodding to his bandaged hand as he handed over a pair of twenty dollar bills with a metal canister of solvent.

The money put gas in the truck and the leftover solvent was carefully hoarded for an experiment. Even with Michael’s careful handling of his make-shift cast while he worked on the task, he still finished having jarred the break one too many times.

Blue, cloudless sky stretched above him, keeping him warm and comfortable with a rare full stomach of breakfast. It was the perfect time, with his hand pulsing in unceasing agony, to test his theories about the effects other solvents had on his body outside of pain killing effects of acetone. There wasn’t much to lose, he reasoned darkly as he drank two quick swallows of MEK and laid back on his sleeping bag waiting for the effects to kick in, for better or worse.

Acetone reduced pain to a soft buzz in the background, like a gnat circling on the edges of his periphery. This solvent made him feel like the gnat, flying wildly through the negative space.

Negative space, he mused with his eyes closed. That fit with close-tailored accuracy to his future prospects.

“Guerin, hey, Guerin!”

Right. Alex was here. Alex had found him. He was trying to avoid Alex for some reason. He couldn’t remember why at the moment as he opened his eyes to Alex’s handsome worried face. Christ, he was beautiful. Those eyebrows were bridged together though, closing the distance. Michael wanted to be that in the moment. A bridge, not a chasm. Not the negative space.

A warm, soft hand caressed Michael’s face, bringing his fluttering attention back to Alex’s. Sometime in between his thoughts, Alex had clambered up into the truck bed to sit next to him. The hint of amusement in his dark eyes won out over concern, “Are you just really high right now?”

“Yeah, super high,” Michael breathed, smiling broadly before moving to make room for Alex next to him.

Alex pursed his lips together, taking in a deep inhale of the surrounding air, “I don’t smell pot-”

“Not pot, something better.”

The concern and alarm was back as Alex started to pull away from Michael’s clumsy hold and look around the truck bed. “Like what, like, meth or OXY?”

“‘S fine, don’t worry, ‘kay?” Michael wrinkled his nose at the movements, and patted the space on his chest with his right hand. “Come lay back down, okay?”

“No, not okay, you need to tell me what you took so if you start to O.D. I can tell the hospital how to treat you-”

The talk of a hospital cut through the fog. Michael pushed himself up with his good hand, before reaching to still Alex’s searching through the discarded blankets around him. Thankfully the discarded canister of MEK was in the cab of the truck with the contents of his pharmacy robbery, the box of nail polish remover and clean bandages. “No hospitals ever, okay? I’m fine, I promise. It was just… um, OXY like you said.”

Staring in Michael’s eyes, Alex paused, still concerned and wary. “How much did you take?”

“Like two pills, and um, it wasn’t even off label, okay?” Michael raised his left hand, the dirty ragged cast punctuating the need. Like it had every time before, the reminder of that night in the shed sent a wave of shame and regret over Alex’s face. An effective subject killer, but it still pained Michael to use it. “Before you ask, I got the pills from Isobel. Her mom had dental surgery so they were left over. I didn’t rob the pharmacy for drugs.”

“I know.”

“You know?” While the rock-solid belief was nice, that wasn’t a part of his experience.

Dropping his gaze down to Michael’s sloppy cast, Alex shrugged. “I overheard Jim Valenti telling my dad about the robbery, no drugs or money were stolen. Just beauty supplies and first aid stuff. It’s getting dismissed as kid type vandalism, not evidence of a drug cartel in Roswell.”

“That’s good.” Finally, news that brought relief to Michael, instead of increasing the heavy weight of dread in his chest. He started to lay back down on his sleeping bag and this time Alex followed, removing his keys and wallet from his jean pockets. Resting his face against Michael’s chest, his warm breath cutting easily through the thin cotton t-shirt, the argument was now forgotten between them as they took comfort in the closeness.

The high from the MEK was slowly fading, tiptoeing from his veins like a thief in the night. The echoing ache of his hand started up, the footfalls of sensation, getting closer and louder as the afternoon wore on until it was time for another bottle of acetone to chase it away. At least he knew the other solvent wouldn’t kill him, whatever that was worth.

“I looked it up, Roswell has a free clinic on Main if it’s about money-”

Not this fight again. It was his least favorite one, after the scholarship to UNM. Michael kept his voice soft, even though a surge of impatience tightened his throat. “Alex, I can’t, okay? I can’t go to the free clinic because people are going to ask questions.”

“My dad deserves to get punished for what he did-” Alex lifted his eyes up to Michael’s from where he was tucked against Michael’s side.

“Not just about what happened. First question they ask is about ID, okay? And the address on my ID is two foster dicks ago. I can’t risk it. Attention from the authorities has never brought me anythin’ good.” Michael reached to stroke his fingertip over the renewed worried line on Alex’s face, “I know you think it should just be easy, like seeing a doctor, or going to UNM even though my scholarship only covers tuition and housing, not food, or gas, or school supplies outside of books.”

Alex frowned in response, “I’m not naive, Michael, I know all of that.”

“Yeah? Do you know how expensive it is to be homeless?” Pride nearly stopped that admission to Alex, but he was tired of fighting with the one person that seemed to care about him. “It’s ironic, but it’s true. No address, no bank account, but at least I’m finally eighteen with a high school diploma, so I can have a fighting chance at taking a cheap retail job to serve the tourists. ‘Cause right now my budget covers gas for my truck, food, and paying to use the truck stop showers out by Cowboy Ruckus twice a week, so I’m not shown the door as soon as I show up somewhere.” Michael had to shut his eyes to keep from seeing pity on Alex’s face. It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t understand the ins and outs of how well the system protected everyone who worked within it but no one that stood on the outside.

It reminded him why he was avoiding Alex today in the first place.

Last night Alex had seen him at the Wild Pony. At Ranchero Night. While Alex was there to help Maria and her mother, the assistant manager of the bar and restaurant to host the outreach night, Michael had no other reason for showing except for the obvious one. He was hungry and the grudgingly offered program by Old Fred that Mimi Deluca spearheaded meant he was going to get a full belly of hot warm food with no questions asked.

The stories behind his favorite parking spots in downtown Roswell weren’t romantic discoveries to share with Alex, they all revolved around proximity to safety and soup kitchens. Even showing up too many times at a particular food bank carried risk, from other men who lived rough. The fights that happened between prime sleeping spots, between two people comparing their nothing with less than nothing, spun up quickly. It was ugly, dangerous and Michael’s telekinesis could only keep him safe up to a point.

“And sometimes I go places where there’s free food and no questions. Like Ranchero night.” There was no disguising how hard his heart was pounding under Alex’s ear, but Michael could concentrate on keeping his breathing steady as he waited fearfully for his response. Finally, unable to stay quiet, Michael ventured, “still want to be with me?”

Alex lifted his head, biting his lip briefly. Slowly, with a mindful eye on Michael’s cast, he shifted closer to kiss Michael’s mouth gently. “I didn’t realize how hard things were, um, I’m glad you told me. I wish it didn’t take me seeing you at the Wild Pony for you to tell me.”

“You’ve got your own shit with your dad at home. At least I know my truck is safe, you don’t have that luxury.” It was something that Michael couldn’t help but worry about every night since the shed when he wasn’t worrying about Isobel. The level of violence and the comfort that Jesse Manes had in using that against his own son, while it shouldn’t have shocked a veteran of Child and Family Services, it did. Every night Alex went home to that.

“It hasn’t been bad since that night, but I’m dodging my dad as much as I can. He’s probably just waiting until I’m 18.”

“Waiting for what?”

It was Alex’s turn to evade as he laid soft, suckling kisses down Michael’s throat. Michael chased at Alex’s lips, threading his fingers through the fading evidence of the black hair dye warring with the summer bleaching. They traded long, deep kisses, the heat of arousal building layers over the question until it slipped from view unanswered.

***

Michael walked confidently down the halls of the Roswell Travellodge toward the back stairs. The key to trespassing was to act as naturally as possible and hope he didn’t run into someone who knew him. Using the free ice machine in the various motels around town to stock up his small cooler was just one of the many life hacks he picked up since striking out on his own at sixteen.

His face was still throbbing from the lucky hit that jackass got in earlier after Michael had picked up dinner at the Ministries of Light community event. Someone felt like Michael needed to pay the unofficial cover to partake in the meal, and Michael had flipped off the guy, because every year on this planet had taught him how to treat a bully. A bully always has friends, and walking back late at night with a full stomach meant he hadn’t noticed his crowd of ‘admirers’ until they had him surrounded just a block from his truck.

Thankfully between rolling a dumpster with his telekinesis and his fast retreat, he made it to safety with only the slowly swelling eye as a souvenir.

It had been at least three days since he had last crashed at Sanders, long enough to impose again on the old man’s couch. Michael finished filling his cooler with ice, wrapping a cold chunk in a discarded t-shirt to press against his face, and drove toward the auto yard with a plan in mind. Maybe the old man needed Michael to fix something. His left hand had improved enough now to move from awkward plaster to a drug-store brace, leaving some of his fingers free for more dexterous work.

His headlights picked up a vague flash of movement just outside the office of the auto yard. Mindful of Rusty the dog, Michael slowed his approach to a crawl until he realized the movement wasn’t the yard dog, but Alex.

Michael swung out of the truck quickly, dropping the wrapped ice on the seat. Alex being here, unannounced, could only be trouble related to Jesse. “Hey, what’s going on?”

Straightening up from his seat in front of the office, whatever Alex was going to say originally abruptly vanished as he caught sight of Michael’s face under the wavering beam of the security lights. “What the hell happened to your eye?”

Belated he reached up to touch his face, and joked, “A fight, but you should see the other guy. Or guys. I think it was at least four on one. But I’m okay.”

The bruise must have been more impressive than Michael realized because Alex just paled in response. Agitated Alex crossed his arms in front, turning half away as he rubbed his hands bare of jewelry against his forearms. “What the hell am I doing?” he asked himself quietly.

“Alex?” Michael stepped closer, fear dropping his stomach downward in nausea. It was a dark survivor’s thought, but it would be a shameful waste to get sick now after a good meal. “Are you okay? Is it your dad?”

“I’m turning 18 tomorrow,” Alex replied in a non sequitur quietly.

It didn’t sound like a joyous thing to reach the age of legal adulthood for Alex. “Happy birthday?”

“My dad- listen, it’s never really been a choice okay? I’ve known it for as long as I can remember. I mean, fuck, I have to sign on my own, he can’t do it for me, but he might as well hold the pen in my hand.”

Michael wasn’t stupid. He knew enough about Alex’s family, his brothers, that the expectation of military service was less of a question and more of an accepted fact. He also knew Alex, who Alex was, and that was not a soldier of any kind. All of his reasoned arguments against this action jumbled in Michael’s throat, until the only thing that burst forward was inane words, “but you’re gay though, you can’t enlist!”

Huffing a tired sigh, Alex smiled sadly, “there are gay people every branch of the services, Michael. They just have to hide. My dad… my dad expects this of me. To join, to hide, to be...to be a Manes Man finally.”

“You can’t, you just can’t-” he squeezed his eyes shut tightly, breathing through his nose as he fought the nausea again. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I don’t want to go either.” Alex reached for Michael’s face, keeping his touch light over the hot swelling bruise. The mark on Michael’s face seemed to deepen the grief in Alex’s eyes. “It’s never been a choice for me.”

“It can be. It can be a choice, if you just tell him no.”

“He would kill me.”

“The Air Force is just as capable of killing you too.” Michael reached up to guide Alex’s hand down to press against his chest, letting the wild beat of his pulse thrum against Alex’s palm. This boy, this kind and beautiful boy, brought the spark of life to all of the lost and deliberately discarded opportunities in Michael’s life. The thought of Alex being shuffled off to that same, colorless existence that he was stuck in after lighting Rosa Ortecho’s car on fire, threatened to break something in him. “Cutting yourself off from who you are, it changes you, and it’s not a good change. Please don’t do this to yourself.”

Instead of responding, Alex looked back at the dark office of Sanders Auto behind them. “I don’t have to be home tonight, Sarge is letting me have one last night of freedom, so is it okay if I stay with you?”

“It’s an ancient couch I share with the dog,” Michael warned, licking his dry lips in response. At Alex’s nod, he led Alex over by the hand to the customer keys drop box and mailbox. After a moment he fished the key out from the hideaway safe and unlocked the office door.

One last night together as innocent kids before the hard choices had to be made.

***

The next day, Michael ignored his schedule, the scratched out decisions that kept him functioning and moving with one foot in front of the other. Instead of partaking the truck stop shower or heading for laundry day the Evanes, as Ann and Bob always did a late brunch at their club, he instead decided to join Max for his thrice weekly coffee stalking of Arturo Ortecho.

The scent of Alex was still all over him after he slept soundly on top of Michael, the only way to share that narrow couch. Rusty the dog had to settle with wedging his way between their legs and the less said of the amused look on old man Sanders face when he discovered them that morning, the better.

Alex’s probably finished signing his life away at this point, Michael reminded himself.

“Jeez, he looks like such a tool,” Max commented, breaking into the cycle of Alex-related thoughts abruptly. Michael turned to look out the window of the Crashdown to see Kyle Valenti beaming and gesticulating excitedly in front of a new red Camaro. Both his parents, in uniform already for work, were watching their son proudly, arm in arm. “I don’t know how the Valentis raised a jerk like Kyle.”

Nice parents, nice car, nice life ahead of him for school as rumor had it that Kyle was headed to Michigan, and it was clear from Michael’s eyes the guy had no appreciation of the privileged ease of his life. All of that love and support in his life, only for Kyle Valenti to use it to bully people. Bully Alex.

Anger was never far behind these days for Michael, his ever-present cellmate as he served his time for Isobel’s crimes. It swelled inside him, as the sun sparkled off the hubcaps and dazzled the eyes of onlookers from that deep cherry red car. Red like Rosa’s lipstick. Red like Liz’s prom dress. Red like the blood after the hammer dropped.

“Yeah, Jim Valenti deserves better.” That was Alex’s voice.

Michael jerked his head away from the window to find Alex standing next to their booth. He had to be dreaming. Alex was supposed to be at a recruiter’s office, losing his freedom and all evidence of his personality right now, probably getting the remnants of that emo black hair dye job buzzed off at the barber.

Except he wasn’t. Alex’s hair was still long and shaggy, brown sun-lightened locks spilling over his warm dark eyes. His earring and septum plug were back in, along with his jewelry. A lot of jewelry actually. Like maybe all of the jewelry Alex owned. Resting at his feet was a heavy duffle bag, the seams straining under the force of clothing packed inside.

“Alex.”

Shyly, Alex looked over at Max back to him, “Michael. It’s good to see you guys hanging out together again.”

“Alex.” Stupidly Michael kept staring at Alex, as if he was going to disappear if he blinked. “You’re here. You’re- you’re actually here, you didn’t-?”

Max creased his forehead, watching Michael completely unravel before him. “I kinda feel like I’m missing something here?”

“Alex Manes,” Alex held out his hand to Max jokingly, a small smile on his lips. He took a deep, audible breath and continued more seriously, “the disowned son of Master Sergeant Manes, currently homeless, and um, also Michael’s boyfriend.”

“Disowned?”

“I had a choice, joining the Air Force or getting kicked out of the family. And um, so I’m going to be crashing on Maria’s couch for a while, just until I can save up-” Alex’s explanation was abruptly silenced as Michael launched himself from the booth toward him. His bag hit the ground as Alex wrapped both arms around Michael tightly.

The patrons of the café faded into the background as Michael pressed his suddenly wet eyes into Alex’s neck. “Oh, thank god, you didn’t go.”

“I never wanted to go, okay?” Slowly Alex drew away a few inches, keeping his gaze on Michael’s face. His eyes narrowed at the bruise still blackening Michael’s eye, “and the choice wasn’t hard, when I realized it was you I was choosing. You gotta pick me too, okay? No more fights or robbing drug stores, I can deal with a lot, I know this won’t be easy being together but I can’t deal with violence. You gotta try, Michael.”

“Yes, yes, deal.” Aware of Max’s growing distrustful gaze, Michael ignored it. That could be their next fight with his brother after the subject of Isobel had been worn out, whether being close to someone human constituted a threat to their safety. Right now, the hard choice between their secret and Alex, didn’t have to be made yet.

#mgweek20 #guerinweek20 #malex #malex fic #michael guerin #alex manes #the lost decade #au after the shed #angst here but eventual happy ending

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nataliedanovelist · 3 years

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C-137 Vs. 46'\

C-137 Vs. 46'\ = A Gravity Falls & Rick and Morty crossover fic for @stephreynaart! I meant to finish this, like, forever ago, but I did my best and decided this has stayed hidden in my files long enough. I hope y’all enjoy it!

Stanchez for life!!!

~~~~~~~~~~

Episode Placement: GF = after the finale (season 3) R&M = Between S1E10 and E11 (In S2E2, Rick dates 1/12/2015 on the drop-off papers for Jerry. Though Alex hates dating cartoons, it can be estimated that GF took place during 2013 thanks to Sev'ral Timez, so the next summer would be 2014. So… yeah. I put way too much thought into this.)

The vast galaxy in front of them was an endless sea of stars and space-clouds of many different colors. Some were green, some were blue, some were magenta, it honestly looked like a generic Hot Topic galaxy t-shirt.

But Rick didn’t give a shit about some fucking space-clouds or some fucking shop for teenagers who were trying too hard to be goth. Rick didn’t give a shit about the fact that Morty barely knew how to drive the fucking spaceship. Rick only have a shit about getting away from the other fucking spaceships that were after the humans, but he couldn’t drive because Rick had to repair the fucking weapon to kill those fucking bastards. Fuck.

“Aw, geez, Rick, hurry it up!” Morty yelled.

“Don’t tell me how to do my job, Morty!” Rick snapped back as he tinkered with the huge ray-gun that laid by his feet.

The spacecraft jolted to the side as a beam just barely missed it. Rick caught his screwdriver as it flew in the air for a second and he finished the final turn. Rick grinned maliciously and aimed the newest invention out at the enemy. He pulled the trigger and rather than a beam of light or a bullet escaping the gun, it appeared that nothing happened, until each spaceship seemed to be covered with blood and guts from the inside, covering the windows and halting the enemies’ spaceships.

“Oh my God, Rick, what the hell?!” Morty screamed.

“Relax, Morty, you’ve seen worse. It’s just a gun that released microscopic ninjas that slice people up from the inside until they’re nothing b-b-but guts.” Rick burped through the alcohol and leaned on the big gun proudly with a monotone voice and facial expression.

“No, Rick, what the hell IS THAT?!”

Rick looked ahead to see a wormhole of pink, blues, and whites glowing brightly in front of them. Morty was trying to turn the spaceship away, but they were being pulled in by gravity.

“Well, fuck.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Mabel was bouncing like she had springs on the bottoms of her shoes as she held her Grunkle Ford’s hand. They were both wearing ponchos and on their way to the magical part of the forest. Mabel, Dipper, Stan, and Ford had only been back in Gravity Falls for two days and Ford wanted to start off this summer right by bonding with his favorite grandniece in the Multiverse.

Ford felt guilty of the little time they had spent together the previous summer. True, he had arrived home a little late in the season, but he had spent plenty of time bonding with Dipper, leaving not nearly enough for Mabel. Ford loved her very much, but with Dipper things were more predictable. The boy was a lot like him, so Ford knew what to expect and how to bond with him, like playing Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons or working or investigating an anomaly together. Ford had no clue what twelve… thirteen-year-old girls liked and Mabel’s overwhelming flood of love and affection had startled Ford like an old alley-cat.

Still, he admired her positivity and loved to do arts-and-crafts with her. They had captured time last summer for her to make a beautiful hand-turkey on Ford’s six-fingered hand; she had said that the extra feather made it special. The old scientist had no idea what he had done to deserve Mabel… no, he didn’t deserve Mabel, but she seemed to like him, so he owed her some alone-time. Mabel seemed to like the supernatural almost as much as Dipper (Dipper took a more serious approach to it while Mabel seemed to accept everything with loving arms), so Ford offered to take her out to the magical part of the forest over breakfast and Mabel nearly choked on her Stan-cake out of pure joy.

Now, as the morning sun rose and was nearly above their heads, after about an hour of traveling and quietly talking, they were starting to reach the magical part of the forest.

“So, why do we need ponchos, Grunkle Ford?” Mabel asked as she used her free-hand to play with the yellow hood that was over her beautiful brown hair.

“Because the fairies we’re going to investigate are… rather messy.” Ford landed on. The Barf Fairies used to turn his stomach, but after traveling through dimensions for over thirty years, Ford’s stomach had hardened and since Mabel also seemed to have a strong gag-reflex, he decided that he would try to learn more about the less-than-pleasant type of fairies. “I would hate for them to ruin a Mabel Pines original.” Ford added with a smile down at the young teenager.

Mabel grinned braces-free (she had them removed back in February) up at the old scientist, loving it when he called one of her sweaters a Mabel Pines original, and her eyes twinkled when she saw the blue sweater through Ford’s poncho, the one she had made for him with a golden six-fingered hand on the front, like his old journals. “So, these are…”

“Barf Fairies.”

“Right. What do you already know about them?”

“Only that we should avoid whatever they eat.”

Mabel laughed along with him and said, “Okay. Well… I’ve actually never talked to or met a fairy before, so looks like we’re both starting from square-one. Did you meet any fairies out in the Multiverse?”

“Yes, but they were very different than the one here in Gravity Falls. I once landed in a dimension where the seasons changing was caused by the fairies, and in another dimension I met a giant fairy-queen that looked more like a slug with wings covered in glitter.”

Mabel opened her mouth to contribute to the conversation, but they both heard a noise and stopped walking in the woods. The sound had made them think of clanking metal and yells. They looked up and around at the trees, but a little puff of smoke confirmed that they had heard some sort of machine.

“What was that?” Mabel asked quietly.

“I’m not sure.” Ford said honestly and started to walk them to a clearing.

The two Pines left the cluster of pinetrees so they could look around the skies more clearly. It was a beautiful cloudless early-summer day. As they looked up at the heavens above, a flying-disk of a spaceship was whizzing over their heads, having trouble staying up in the air. Ford held Mabel close in fear of it crashing down near them, but the spaceship staggered over the woods and crashed landed from a safe distance.

“Aliens!” Mabel gasped. “Dipper told me about the one under the town! Do you think this is like that one?”

Ford, whose mind was racing, shook his head to try to think straight, and he said, “No, I… I think I know what it is, but… Mabel, I’m afraid the Barf Fairies are going to have to wait.”

Mabel peeled off her poncho and shook her hair free, revealing her purple sweater with a heart and sunglasses on it that matched her red skirt and headband. Ford also took off his poncho, pocketed both of the big yellow articles of clothing in his trenchcoat, but then pulled out his gun. He opened his mouth to tell Mabel to stay close, but she already pulled out her grappling hook and was standing behind Ford, waiting for him to lead the way.

Ford crept back into the woods with Mabel behind him. He had a good idea of what had crashed into Gravity Falls, but he had hoped that he was wrong. He didn’t want Mabel to meet him. Ford was hoping he would never show up in this dimension, but if he was still traveling around the Multiverse…

A low hissing noise from a busted engine told Ford and Mabel where to go. They only had to walk a minute before the spaceship came into view, landing in between two trees and leaving a trail of up-turned dirt in its path before coming to a halt. Ford and Mabel slowly moved towards the ship with their weapons in hand, but they found it unnecessary as a boy stumbled out and coughed into a fist, on his hands and knees and ruffled from the crash.

“Oh geez, oh man, we’re dead. We’re dead. We survived, but we’re dead.” The boy moaned as he slowly stood up. He looked about Mabel’s age, had short brown hair, and wore jeans and a yellow t-shirt with white sneakers.

Mabel pocketed her grappling hook while Ford let his arms fall to his side, but he kept the weapon in hand, just in case. “Huh. That was… not what I was expecting.” Ford said, more to himself than to Mabel.

Mabel stepped forward with her hands up kindly and she cleared her throat, gaining the boy’s attention. He blinked at the two humans and Mabel said in a soft voice, “Uh, hi, I’m Mabel. Are you hurt?”

“What?” The boy asked. He seemed jittery from the crash, his eyes darting and his forehead glistening with sweat. “Uh, n-no. No, I’m fine. I’m…”

“MORTY!”

The boy groaned and squeezed his eyes shut as he tilted his head upward. “Yup, that’s my name. Morty.”

An older man in a white lab-coat with blue-white hair stumbled out of the spaceship, and not out of drunkenness for a change. “Morty, you little…”

“Sanchez.” Ford growled and covered Mable’s ears. He knew this guy had a foul tongue, and while Ford and his brother might have sailors’ mouths, at least he and Stan knew to censor themselves around the kids. Ford’s old friend didn’t.

The old man in the lab-coat looked at Ford and his eyes widened in shock before he grinned. “Oh, no way! Good to see you again, Fordsie!” He laughed, amused by the scenario in front of him. “Great, another genius. Mind giving me a hand with this piece of… erm, crap?”

Ford groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine, the sooner I can get you out of my home dimension, the better.”

The man Grunkle Ford had called Sanchez appeared shocked again and he dug around his coat. “Wait, wait, wait. Your home dimension?” Sanchez pulled out a white flat gun with a green bulb on top and he seemed to be reading off a tiny screen. “Huh. Dimension 46’\. This one’s way out of the loop. There’s no way I could’ve gotten you home with this thing. How did you manage to pull that off?”

“Long story.” Ford said and pocketed his hand in his trenchcoat.

“Grunkle Ford,” Mabel piped and smiled up at the visitor. “Who’s this?”

Ford looked down at his niece and decided to share this piece of his thirty-year-long journey in the Multiverse with her. “Sweetie, this is my old acquaintance, Rick Sanchez. Rick, this is my great-niece, my brother Sherman’s granddaughter, Mabel.”

“Oh, hey, nice to meet you, little lady.” Rick said with a small smile and then jabbed a thumb back at Morty. “That little screw-up is my grandson, Morty.”

“Oh, yeah, like you could do any better, Rick.” Morty huffed with crossed-arms over his thin chest.

“I could do better, Morty,” Rick said and rounded on his grandson. “You know what else I can do? I can also leave you behind on Asteroid 3924987, but I won’t. I can also feed you to a five-headed mega-bird from Bird-Person’s homeworld, but I won’t. I can also send you to the citadel and trade you in for a new Morty, but I won’t, as long as you quit being a pain in the ass.”

“Rick, please!” Ford hissed.

“It’s okay, Grunkle Ford, I heard worse when I went to get a snack and Stan was watching football.” Mabel giggled, remembering the other night when Stan’s team was losing and he let out a long stream of colorful swears that made him turn red when he realized Mabel had heard him.

“Of course you have.” Ford groaned and shook his head. “Well, let’s see what the damage is, Sanchez. What caused the crash? Did your micro-verse battery finally start a rebellion?”

“No, because they know if they do, I’ll get a new battery, Genius. When we came to this dimension through a wormhole we hit a mountain side and a part broke off here…”

The two old men examined the spacecraft and were discussing ways to fix it, meanwhile Morty walked up to Mabel and rubbed an arm nervously. “So, uh… I guess they met out in the Multiverse, huh?”

Mabel nodded; she didn’t know how these two old men knew each other or why these two humans were in a spaceship, but based on context clues, Morty’s guess made the most sense. “Wait, so you two are from another dimension?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Morty said with a shrug. “This is 46'\, right? My dimension is C-137.”

“Wow, cool!” Mabel said with shining eyes that threw Morty for a loop. “So, what’s different over there? Was Benjamin Franklin a man and never accomplished anything? Are dinosaurs still alive? Oo! I bet your sky is lavender-purple all the time, right?!”

Morty laughed a little and rubbed his arm again. “Uh, no. It’s, I think, pretty much the same as yours. My Grandpa Rick says there’s an infinite number of realities that are just slightly different from one another. M-M-Maybe the difference between C-137 and 46'\ is so small and unimportant it’s not obvious.”

“Oh, okay,” Mabel peered over to watch Rick and Ford work together for a little bit and then she smiled back at Morty. “So, do you always go on adventures with your Grandpa Rick?”

Morty sighed in a shaky puberty-voice and nodded. “Yeah, he’s always making me go on these stupid adventures with him.”

“What?” Mabel gasped with a smile. “They’re not stupid! I’d love to go to a different dimension with my Grunkle Ford! I’ve already been on one with him and Grunkle Stan when they had to rescue me from Dimension Mab3L. The other mes were a little self-centered, but it was a lot of fun to punch myself in the face and rescue my great-uncles.”

“Yeah, but from the sounds of it, your - what did you say, Grunkle Ford? - is nice to you.” Morty pointed out. “My Grandpa Rick treats me like garbage all the time, but then again he treats everyone like garbage, so at least he’s only signaling me out to stay hidden from the Federation or whatever.”

“Oh.” Mabel said quietly and held her hands behind her back bashfully, unsure of how to respond, but she decided to try to make Morty feel better. “Well, my other great-uncle, Grunkle Stan, is a little tough sometimes, but that’s only because he cares about his family and is toughening us up for a tougher world. He’s my hero!”

“That sounds nice.” Morty said with a small smile. He didn’t think Rick cared about his family like this Stan guy, but Morty wasn’t in the mood to kill Mabel’s optimism. “I like your sweater, by the way.”

“Thanks!” Mabel grinned proudly. “I made it!”

Morty’s eyes widened. “Wow, really?” Mabel held out her arm so Morty could feel her sleeve. “Oh my God, that’s amazing! You’re really talented.”

“Hey, thanks! If you want, I can make you one!”

“R-R-Really? You’d do that for me?”

“Sure! What’s your favorite color?”

“Uh… y-yellow.”

“Got it!”

Ford and Rick walked up to the teenagers and the six-fingered researcher said, “Well, I’m afraid the ship lost a part we need, but luckily I have the materials we need to build one in the lab back home.”

“Great!” Mabel said and grinned. “Let’s go! So, how did you two meet, anyway?”

Ford and Mabel led the way with Rick and Morty closely behind. “We met about twenty years ago in a high-security prison. I remember feeling relieved to see another human. I had been without human contact for a little under two years at the time since I had been stranded on some desert planet.”

“Yeah, this nerd got into big trouble for the extinction of a few million species on Planet 8824816.”

“What?!” Mabel gasped and looked up at her great-uncle, unable to believe that he would cause such mass genocide. “Grunkle Ford, you didn’t?!”

“Of course I didn’t, Mabel.” Ford quickly reassured his niece. “That was the planet I thought was a sandwich. Anyway, at least I didn’t do what Rick was in for…”

“What did he do?”

“I purposely caused mass genocide on Sector 56, Dimension “”113.” Rick said in a scaringly monotone voice.

“What?!”

“Rick!” Ford and Morty both scolded at the same time.

“Hey, it was either me or the Valakawns!” Rick snapped back. “Those bloodsucking leeches didn’t see what hit them, until the Federation caught me hanging from a tree upside-down, passed out and drunk.”

“Alright, enough!” Ford said firmly. “Let’s just build the part we need so we can get you two back to your home dimension. And, Mabel, once they’re gone we’re going to patch the wormhole with alien adhesive.”

“Okay. Last thing we want is for Dipper to get stuck in Dimension Dipp-3R or something.”

“Who’s Dipper?” Morty asked quietly.

“My twin brother!”

“Oh, cool! I don’t have a twin, but I have met multiple versions of myself.”

“Hey, me too! I’ve met Table-Mabel, Explainble, Threebel, Military-Expert-Mabel, Brainbel, T-Rex-Mabel, Fire-Mabel, and even Anti-Mabel!”

“I’ve met an Evil-Morty with one eye-patch who worked for the worst Rick in the Multiverse. I’ve also… Well, let’s just say I’ve met a lot of mes.”

The two teenagers talked while the two old men chatted on ways to fix the ship as they got closer to the Mystery Shack. Rick looked up and down the place and then snorted, amused. “Huh. Not the kind of place I’d expect from Mr. Stick-In-The-Mud over here.”

“My brother had to make some… changes in order to pay off the mortgage.” Ford explained and led the way to the back door. He opened it and said, “My lab is downstairs behind the vending machine in the gift shop. I believe Soos is giving a tour, so it should be safe to enter.”

“Gift shop?” Rick laughed and poked Ford’s shoulder. “When did you get so soft?”

“I am not< soft.” Ford said dignified.

“You’re wearing a blue sweater with a gold six-fingered hand.”

“My niece made it for me!” Ford said proudly and puffed out his chest.

Mabel rolled her eyes with blushing chubby cheeks and a smile and decided to let the old guys fight. She took Morty’s hand and said, “Come on! I’ll show you my room! I have a huge sticker collection you’ll love!”

“Oh, okay!” Morty said and allowed her to drag her up to the attic; it was nice being dragged to something nice and safe rather than some new monster of a different dimension.

“But hey, you turned your lab into a gift shop.” Rick was saying while the teenagers did their own thing. “Least you’re making a profit.” Ford wasn’t sure if Rick was being sincere or not.

“Actually, it’s all my brother’s.” Ford said and waved the subject away. “We’re getting off track. Let's just get you and your grandson out of my dimension.”

“Geez, you used to be way more fun.” Rick said with sagged shoulders. “What happened to the guy who ranked up million on Lottocron Nine and got tattoos with octopus-armed piglets? What happened to the interdimensional criminal who once shot fifty Bureaucrats to save a fellow scientist’s ass?”

“He discovered what was most important, Sanchez.” Ford growled with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Oh, HO!” A voice laughed as he shook his head and left the kitchen. “I know this guy isn’t talking about Mr. Goody-Nerds-Shoes!”

Ford pinched the bridge of his nose. The last thing he wanted was for his twin and his old friend to meet, but it seemed like some greater being(s) really wanted this to happen, so here we go.

Rick grinned at the sight of a conman in his suit and fez, with a can in his hand, instantly giving Rick the vibe that this guy couldn’t be trusted but would be a hit at parties and wasn’t a total snitch. “Now THIS is what I’m talking about! Name’s Rick, Ford Two.”

Stan barked a laugh and shook his hand. “The name’s Stan, Genius. And please for the love of Moses you weren’t just talking about my brother?”

“Are you kidding, this guy was a total badass!” Rick jabbed a thumb back at the fuming scientist. “He was a total idiot, had no clue how the Multiverse worked, but he was always willing to barrel into whatever crap was out there and destroy some shit!”

“Okay, you and I need to talk.” Stan tossed him the can of soda and went into the kitchen to get some snacks. “I wanna hear more about what kind of crazy violent nomad Ford was back in the day!”

“You got it! Just tell me how the hell he ended up with a cool twin? What, did you inherit all the fun traits leaving him with hobbies like collecting alien stamps?”

Stan barked a laugh and was back, looping an arm around his skinny neck. “I love this guy! Now, please tell me you were there when he got his stupid tattoo.”

“Stanley,” Ford scolded. “We’re supposed to be working on building the part he needs so he can go home. Rick and his grandson are stranded here…”

“Please, I can make that piece of shit from scratch in my sleep.” Rick said. “And Morty’s fine. That niece of yours will keep his small brain entertained for hours.” He turned to Stan and asked, “You got any booze, we had a rough crash here and I need a drink.”

“I got a secret stash in my room,” Stan muttered. “I don’t like drinking with the kids here, but I guess you can have a shot of whisky to relax. Want some soda?”

“Sure, why not. There’s a bit in my flask to last.”

And the old men walked away for the ‘Employees Only’ part of the house, leaving Ford to grit his teeth in annoyance and then bite his lip in discomfort. This could only end one way and he was not looking forward to it.

To be continued...

#gravity falls #rick and morty #stanchez #gift #fanfiction

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living-dead-parker · 5 years

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New Girl

Summary: Request - Can you do an imagine where your Tony’s daughter and there’s this new girl intern whose trying to outdo you so u feel like the avengers don’t really need you because you think she’s smarter and prettier than you .. thanks :)

What? I actually wrote something??

Warnings: cussing probably, slight angst, real ooc shit but idc man

Word Count: 4.5k ooh she long

You're not a jealous person. Really, you'd always felt jealousy was an ugly color. Unfortunately for you, everybody would describe you as such at the moment. Though in your defense, it's not jealousy. It's a case of fraud!

"Good job, Ally," your dad congratulates the intern. she'd originally been a temp. A seasonal temp for the Spring. Well, spring was over three months ago. In fact, Fall is approaching and it seems like she'll still be here for at least another three months. You scowl inwardly, tired of hearing her name. " We're all meeting in20 to discuss the Halloween charity event," Tony says and your eyes widen. She was definitely not invited to that meeting! "Meet us in conference room B, please?"

It's not that you don't like temps or interns. In fact, you've become great friends with a lot of them over the years. It's just something about Ally. She's a total suck up and she's totally stealing your place. Before she came along, the team would come to you for suit and tech upgrades. They'd go to you for advice on combat in regards to their suits or tech. But ever since Ally came around, she's taken over that. The team goes to her now and they seem to like her better for it as the last person to have stepped into your lab was your dad, three days ago to ask you if you could consult with Ally. Before that was Peter about a month and a half before that to hang out. It's been a while. Then you'd been placed to work on some SI renewable energy source project but then that responsibility went to Ally as well. Ultimately, you didn't have much to do, so you started, unknown to anybody but yourself, dabbling in the fashion industry and took up witchcraft because you have the time.

Before you even hear her response, you turn around and head out towards the elevators. Along the way, you find yourself bumping into Peter. He's quick to apologize despite the fact that you were the one not watching where you were going.

" Peter?" you call out confused. Why he's even on that floor, to begin with taking you by surprise. He has his own lab on the same floor you, your father, and Bruce do. Nowhere near this floor. "What are you doing here?"

" Uh," he pauses, nervously scratching his neck. "I was gonna meet with Ally. Gonna ask her if she can help me repair my web shooters, hang out a bit too."

You almost visibly deflate at that. Great, even your crush would rather go to Ally for something than you. You've helped Peter with his web shooters before, and he'd usually always hang out with you. What the hell? " Oh," you finally respond. "I can help you! After the meeting, I mean."

" It's fine, Y/N," Peter responds. "Don't wanna put a lot on your plate. Go work on your pitch."

Before you can say anything, Ally is walking out with your dad. The two are laughing like they've known each other for years. She calls out to Peter and he tells you he'll see you in a few. You watch him walk up to Ally and you pick up on how she bites her lip, tucking a strand of her long, black, straight hair behind her ear. Her green eyes stare into Peter's and you suddenly feel self-conscious as Peter stares at her.

"Hey Y/N," your dad calls out, walking next to you. "Why are you down here?" He presses a button and the elevator opens, allowing both of you to step in.

"Oh, you know," you start, waving him off. " Just practicing for the meeting. you know how I am."

Tony nods as the elevator goes up two floors to the conference floor. Upon arrival, your phone dings, showing an email notification. You open it and see it's from someone named Alex Gianni. A fashion designer on the come up. Not too unknown as his clothing is all the rage with teens and internet influencers. However, the biggest thing about him is that his father, Arlo Gianni, is one of your father's biggest critics. The two have a mutual dislike for each other and it's kind of hilarious. Nonetheless, you're acquaintances with Alex.

' Y/N Stark, It's in my interest to ask you if you're available to direct my winter line's fashion show. I'm well aware of your eye for design and fashion as well as the mixture of applied sciences into your practices. In short, I grant you creative freedom over the show, based on the looks should you decide to accept this offer.'

Initially, you didn't think much of the email and decided to ignore it for the time being. You'd decline his offer later, for the sake of your dear old dad. However, the offer is very tempting. You've been wanting to do a show before, but you never really got the chance. Nonetheless, you push the thought behind and decide to focus on the subject matter of the meeting.

"Where's Parker?" you find yourself asking, seconds before the meeting is set to start. Everyone shrugs but Tony says to just start without him, that he'll fill him in on the information. So you commence the meeting. Most of your bit is the introductory stuff. Pepper would begin discussing the meat of it all. Halfway through your speech, Peter and Ally walk in, laughing obnoxiously loud. Their eyes widen when they see you and your upset face. Being the professional you are, you continue like that never happened. However, as you continue, you notice the unprofessionalism of the others in the room. They all managed to start some kind of conversation with Ally and even Pepper and your father managed to ignore you and to join in. Peter couldn't seem to keep his voice down and that was the final straw. "And I have a big announcement to make!"

The loudness of your voice gained all thin attention. With a smile used to hide the anger and the heartbreak, you speak up. "I've decided to drop out of the charity event organizer committee. Pepper will be fine on her own, I know she will be."

With that, you head out the conference room and into the elevator. Once the doors shut, you let the tears fall. The anger and the sadness of having everybody forget about you and Choose the seemingly smarter and prettier girl finally coming out. Through teary eyes, you unlock your phone and decide to email Alex back.

' Hey Alex, I would be honored to direct your show! I'm so glad you chose me, please let me know when you'd like to meet to discuss plans.'

Two days passed before you got a sudden response. You'd spent those two days in bed crying and listening to a lot of Fleetwood Mac. No one even tried looking for you or talking to you for those two days given that you haven't gotten a single knock on your door, nor a text or call, not even a message from FRIDAY. When you opened the response, you saw that it was a text from Alex asking if you could meet in two hours. You were quick to respond, jumping up to get ready. For the first time in 48 hours, you were up and smiling.

You were quick to throw on some jeans, a top, and a coat over that. You asked FRIDAY to do a scan where everybody was so that you could avoid them all for now. Deep down, you feel like you're exaggerating, but at the same time, you know you're not. Everyone has been forgetting about you, often ignoring you for Ally for the past six months. Some you've gone that amount of time not seeing. It's depressing. Their unprofessionalism was just the thing that made you break. So, FRIDAY gives you the best route to take so you don't have to see any of them and you take it. You're in a car withing ten minutes and you're driving off toward's Alex's house to meet up.

That's how the next couple of weeks went, without anyone noticing. You'd wake up at 9 AM, get ready for your day and head out as soon as you were ready. You'd go to the nearest cafe, get some breakfast, and eat. Then, you'd get to Alex's house by 10:30. Then, you'd both convene for a while, bouncing ideas off each other, and get to drawing or writing plans. You'd try on the clothes, feel it, look at it. He'd take you to the stores, spend some time with the die-hard fans of his and his brand. You truly delved into the world of the clothes. By the time you were done, it'd be dinner time. You'd have dinner with Alex's family, and it was those moments that you got the familial attention you'd been craving for some time now. Sure, Arlo made comments about your dad, and usually, you'd refute them, but not this time around. Instead, you ignored them and just pretended they were never said. It felt wrong but it felt nice to have someone actually ask you how your day was despite spending the day around you. On days where you weren't over at Alex's house, you'd spend some time watching videos or pictures from influencers who wore his stuff. You'd be in your own rabbit hole for hours on end, listening to music that could serve as a possible soundtrack. You'd even go into your lab and find ways to improve on the show through engineering and science.

Then it all came crashing, in a sense, one day. There were about three weeks until showtime, and you were at home in your lab. You'd gotten the notification. You were expecting the news to come out, it had to at some point before the show. However, you weren't really expecting the backlash from those around you. It started with Alex's brand posting the picture on the brand's account. It was a black and white picture of you, Arlo, and Alex standing in Alex's office. You're all looking at a rack of the new clothes and you're all smiling and laughing. A candid picture. Around it had the words 'Lexicon Couture x Y/N Stark Fall and Winter 19.' It had the date of the show and the time it would happen. The caption read, 'Something big is coming. #LexiconxStark #GiannixStark'

Everyone was freaking out in the comments, the post becoming one of the brand's most liked. Next, came Alex's post. It was the same thing, except he tagged you in the post and he even added a red heart emoji. A most exclusive emoji. Then finally came Arlo's post. It was a repost of Alex's and he added something along the lines of 'my basically new daughter has teamed up with my son for his line.'

Not too long after the posts went viral, you got the email from the company to repost the pictures to gain even more viewership, so you did, leaving the caption as simple yet ominous as the brand's caption. Not too long after you posted it was there a knock on your door. You were too busy adding some finishing touches to the design to care that it could be something not good, so without hesitation, you tell the person to come in.

"You're working with Arlo Gianni?" your dad asks, bursting through the door. You look up from your tablet, seeing Tony's totally devastated look. Without thinking about it, you nod, looking back down at the sketches on your tablet. "The Arlo Gianni? The one who's one of my many enemies? Y/N, how could you do this to me?"

"It's not that serious-"

"Not that serious? He called you his daughter, in his post, Y/N. I take offense to that."

"Look, I didn't take offense to you calling Ally 'like a daughter' okay? Plus, he's not that bad once you get to know him. I was only working with Alex at the beginning but much like all his other kid's ventures, his dad got involved because he cares. Plus Arlo feeds me and asks me how my day has been. I'm just finally trying to set foot into the fashion world like I have been for the past couple of years and my good friend Alex is offering me an outlet to do just that by allowing me full artistic and directorial creativity over his line's show."

Tony stays quiet, noticing how you don't look up at him. "Well, Peter seems devastated that you're so close to Alex. He ranted to Ally the other day that the girl he likes, you know you, has disappeared for days and suddenly she's shown hanging out with Alex Gianni. So...."

"I don't know what you want me to say, dad," you respond, hoping he gets the hint that you're upset now. Hoping he'll react in one of two ways; leave you alone, or apologize for being a dick. "I'm just chasing my dreams here since I have nothing to do here. So, if you're gonna keep chastising me, please go away."

Without another word, he exits your room. When the door shuts, you ask FRIDAY to lock it, feeling the tears come out. Suddenly, you're friends with the enemy and that's when Peter and Tony decide to come around to realizing that they want you? That's when they decide to come around? All for the wrong reasons too? Well, now you plan on rubbing it in that you don't really need them. Yeah, sure it's mostly spite speaking, but deep down you're pissed. How dare they think that they can cast you out and then get mad when you find something of your own to do?

So the next day when Alex asks you if you want to go on his family's vacation for the week, you're quick to respond yes. They'd claimed it would be a celebratory trip to Italy for finishing the show ahead of time. You'd spent the next week teasing your father, the Avengers, and Peter by making them jealous. A post about how Alex is your most handsome best friend at the moment for Peter to see, an Instagram post with Alex's whole family, calling them the best and most supportive team on earth aimed at all the Avengers, and a Snapchat post with Arlo pouring you a glass of champagne to stab your own father in the chest the way he did to you. It was petty, it was ridiculous, and it was everything you felt like doing at the moment. Then at some point in the week, your intentions became sort of clear to Alex, who found it rather amusing. He admitted that he wasn't attracted to you in that way because he's gay, but he'd help you in the part of making Peter jealous by posing with you in various promising poses.

The week was over and you were back home. Now there were only two weeks until showtime and it was time to do some press. Alex had been in interviews all day and you were meant to be working on a guest list for the show, and you weren't so sure if you wanted to invite your dad or the Avengers. On one hand, you've worked on this on your own. This was your thing and you wanted to enjoy it as such. However, you do want them there, even if you currently are upset with every one of them. Plus, it could be a good way to rub it in their faces.

So with that, you add them all to the list. You go on about your business for the next couple of hours, until you see that Alex has sent you a link to a video of one of the interviews he did. In the interview, he reveals that he wanted you to do the show because you inspired the line. He'd based most of the line on your style but gave it a more urban and even modern spin for the youth to wear, as he claimed. Essentially, you were his muse. It all kind of made sense why it all came easy to you. It was based on you. You found it flattering and that made your heart skip a beat, joy filling every fiber of your being. Someone did notice you when everybody else did not.

So, you did some press and eventually, the show came around. You'd been at the venue all day, helping prepare and get everything accounted for. You were running this thing and it was a tight ship, so nothing could go wrong. Everyone got there in time, everything got put together in time, and by the time it was an hour until showtime, you were beyond tired. You had a total of thirty models, a great variation of everything and you felt proud. You cooled down before the show, deciding to get yourself sort of ready for post-show pictures and interviews. When the show started, the sound of Rico Nasty's Roof began to play and the crowd began to cheer. Then the first model walked out; donning a pair of acid-washed distressed jeans with a cropped multi-color jacket, a white Lexicon tee, and some platforms. Her hair was in messy space buns and she wore some neon-pink sunglasses to match the jacket. Right as she reached the end of the runway, another model came out, wearing more from the fall line. You watched from behind the walls of the facade to see the Avengers, your dad, Pepper, and Peter all sitting front and center. Nowhere in sight was Ally. Good.

People seemed to enjoy the fall portion of the show, and it was probably the most fun part to direct. The fall line was more of a modern urban thing, something the cool kids are wearing today and it's very in your face. It's very 'break shit and rage' as you've explained before and you've always had a knack for alternative dress styled. It was punk meets hood and you've always thought that was a cool style. Eventually, after a good twenty minutes, that portion of the show was over. Alex came out and announced a short five-minute intermission, wanting to prepare and transition into the second portion smoothly. In that time, you ran around making sure everyone was good to go. Once the five minutes were over, the sound of Fleetwood Mac's The Chain begins to play. This was the fall portion, which to you was a more formal style. It was warmer in tone and in use, and it was more sophisticated. It still had a youthful feel, but it was more formal than the other stuff. Nonetheless, everyone at the show seemed to dig it. By the time the show was over, everyone was giving the models a standing ovation. At the end of it, you and Alex came out, earning the loudest cheers of all.

At that moment, you felt the rush you'd been searching for. You found your calling and it was everything you expected it to be and more. Once the crowd silenced, Alex wrapped an arm around your shoulder and hugged you close as he took the mic and took the time to address the audience. You watched him proudly as he spoke, one of the biggest smiles on your faces.

"I especially want to thank my best friend, my partner, my muse, Y/N Stark," he speaks, looking back at you as the crowd cheers. "For taking up the job as director of the show. She did an amazing job with everything and through this process, we became closer. She's so creative and I'm glad she agreed to this. My show wouldn't have been the same, and it probably would have failed if it was anybody else."

He hands you the mic and you take it, watching as everyone silences down. You begin your speech, just saying thank you to everyone and it makes you feel emotional deep inside. "I also want to thank the Gianni's for taking me in during this process, making me feel like family and taking care of me during all the long nights and early mornings," you say, taking your father by surprise. "I also want to thank my father Tony Stark and the Avengers for unknowingly fueling my necessity for this show, otherwise, I don't know if I would have done it," you continue. "Most of all, I wanna thank Alex," you pause and notice the way Peter looks jealous as you turn to Alex. "For putting me on this project, for trusting me to do this, and for being the best friend a girl could ask for. For encouraging me to do my own thing after this and for helping me realize some things. Anyways, thank you all so much!"

By the time everyone is off stage, all sorts of people are coming up to you and to Alex, asking you all sorts of questions. All you want to do at this time is get to the afterparty and get a drink or something. Maybe get a burger or some tacos on the way, but you just want a meal and a drink. So, you get through it all as quick as possible and by the time you're done, the only people left are your dad and the Avengers. They're all standing together, some of them holding flowers, others holding cards. You chuckle, feeling a little nervous to approach them. However, you do it anyway, because you can only ignore them for so long. Apparently that limit was about two months. So with that, you walk up to them, a small smile on your lips.

"I have a feeling we're all in for a lecture," Tony speaks up, handing you some flowers. Your nod, eyes wide and words ready to go.

"Yeah, thank you, you whole bunch of actual assholes," you say, making them all go wide-eyed and gasp at your bluntness. "For ignoring me for nearly eight whole months over some intern who was just supposed to be a temp. I don't know if any of you notice, but Ally? I hate that bitch! And I rarely hate anybody! So, the fact that you all ignored me for her at some point in time? That's kind of annoying."

"We didn't ignore you for her-" Steve begins.

"Yeah, we didn't mean to, at least." Natasha comments.

"Hm, let me think," you say, letting it all out now. "Natasha the last time we talked was literally four months ago. Steve, you haven't talked to me in six. Peter, you've ditched me for Ally, which was kind of heartbreaking because I liked you and I kind of thought you liked me back, but ya know, and she's so much prettier than me, so that doesn't help either," you ramble. "Pepper, you basically wanted me off that project and then you got Ally's help, so that was fun. Bruce, Thor, Sam, Bucky, and Wanda, all of you immediately ditched me for Ally, so that kind of sucked. And most of all, my dead old dad. That little argument with you kind of hurt because you were so betrayed that I was working with Arlo Gianni, but behind closed doors, he'd been taking care of me better than you had for the past couple of months since Ally came around. Plus, you only ever talked to me to tell me that Ally would be taking over one of my projects or that I'd have to cover for you in a meeting."

"Why didn't you tell us sooner?" Tony asks, mirroring everyone's guilty frown.

"I wanted you guys to realize you were shutting me out," you say, the tears you'd been holding in for the better part of eight months now finally coming out. "I was always initiating interactions with you because no one paid me the time of day. But then I finally decided to stop, see if it made an impact, and apparently, it did not, because no one sought me out for so long. But that day of the Halloween Charity meeting, Alex emailed me right before it, asking me to direct this for him. I was initially going to decline, but once the meeting was in full swing and then Peter was walking in laughing with Ally, and then everyone began to tune me out to start talking with her, that was what caused me to snap. You all shut me out, so I took the hint and fucked off. I accepted Alex's offer and for the first time in months, I'd felt happy. I felt happy, I felt needed, I wasn't alone, I wasn't someone's second or last choice. And it felt good."

"Y/N," Tony whispers, stepping closer. "We're so sorry, sweetie," he says sincerely, pulling you into his arms. Everyone begins piling around, hugging you as well. "I'm sorry we didn't realize that earlier. I didn't know we made you feel that way, it wasn't anyone's intention to make you feel worthless or anything. I just told everyone to back off a bit because I didn't want you thinking that SI or Avengers stuff was all you had to do all the time."

"But did I ever complain?" you ask, and everyone goes silent. "I didn't mind helping with that. I loved doing all that work because it meant that I was always hanging out with one of you guys. So you can only imagine how shitty I felt when suddenly, no one was talking to me. Trading me in for Ally."

They all stay silent for a few seconds. Then the wave of apologies came around and you find yourself laughing.

"Look, it's fine. I'm over it now, my grudge has gone away because I found my calling, I found my thing and I'm happier now. I found my best friend in this world, and I found my group of people away from my initial group of people and I'm just over it. But please from now on, no ignoring me? Or else I'll pick up a new passion out of spite."

Everyone is quick to agree, hounding you in another giant group hug, assuring you that they all still cared. After that day, Ally didn't become much of a problem. She still worked at SI, still in her current position, but you managed to stay away from her. Everyone would talk to you like normal and Peter went back to hanging out with you again, making sure to always comment on how he likes you and not Ally. You'd hold it over him for some time, opting to torture him with his crush just a bit longer, just because you're a sadistic spiteful person. In the end, it all worked out as you began to take the fashion world by storm.

Leave feedback, requests, and asks, please!!

#tony stark #tony stark x reader #tony stark x stark!reader #peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker x stark!reader #reader insert #request #stark!reader #stark!daughter #iron man #spider-man #marvel fic #mcu fic #spiderman imagine #tony stark imagine #slight angst

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chaoticgremlinwholikescheese · 3 years

Text

Car Crash

TW: blood, hospital, car crash

JACK’S POV:

I can’t get the face right. No matter what I do, it’s either too round or too long. I’ve gone through six pieces of paper. All of them have ended up in the trash can. I chew on the end of my pencil. Then I stop, because I’ve bitten down on the eraser. Though the pink color looks appetizing, erasers taste rather dry.

“Davey, your face is weird! I can’t draw it!” I shout. Davey isn’t here, so he can’t respond. But I hope he feels my anger at his stupidly shaped face. I could have chosen Albert, but no, I wanted to draw Davey because he was the first subject I saw. I’m being cursed for my laziness.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out. It’s an unknown number. I answer it and put the phone to my ear. “I swear, if this is another one of those robo-calls, I will-” A voice cuts me off. “Hi. I’m Riley Addams, I’m a nurse at St. Gregory’s hospital. Is this Jack Kelly?” I frown. “Yes. I’m Jack Kelly.”

“You’re listed as Alex Kaminski‘s emergency contact. She was in a car crash. She came in about fifteen minutes ago. I’d like to ask you a few questions.” My heart stops. Alex was in a car crash? “Is she alright?” I ask. “I’m not her doctor, so unfortunately I don’t have that information. Now I need to know, does she have any allergies?”

“N-no. Not that I know of.” I hear a pen scribbling on the other end of the line. “And her birthdate?” I take a moment to remember. “July sixteenth, 1999.” More scribbling. “Alright. We can finish filling out the forms when you arrive. Are you able to come soon?”

“I’m on my way right now.” Riley thanks me and hangs up. I grab my coat and keys. My hands are shaking like crazy. I can barely lock the door. I run down the stairs. I clamber into the car, and I almost forget to put on my seat belt. I race down the street, going at least twenty miles over the speed limit.

I need to get to Alex. Need to get to the hospital. My head races with what ifs. I try to shut them out, but they keep coming back. I head down the main street. Then I stop. The wreck sits right in front of me. I see Alex’s silver electric car. It’s barely recognizable. The front is crumpled, as if it was nothing more than a soda can. I see the other car. The red truck is untouched, only a slight bend in the fender.

I do a u-turn and screech out. I have to take the long way to the hospital. I keep glancing at the clock. Each minute that passes is a minute that she could be dead or dying. Time sees to be moving too slow. I should be there by now.

When I finally pull into the parking lot, panic is overtaking me. I rush out of the car and sprint into the ER. I go straight to the front desk. “I’m here for Alex Kaminski.” I say hurriedly. The lady types something into the computer. “She’s currently in surgery. She’ll be out in an hour or two.” I feel faint. “Why is she in surgery?”

“I’m not sure. Please, take a seat in the waiting room. You can wait for her there.” I stumble to the nearest chair and collapse into it. This can’t be happening. Alex has to be alright. She has to be. My girlfriend will walk out here any minute, and she’ll be fine. Or I’ll wake up and this will all have been a nightmare. Yes, that’s what it is. A nightmare.

I pinch myself. I don’t wake up. I pinch myself harder. I’m still sitting in the uncomfy hospital chair, surrounded by the smell of disinfectant. My phone rings. It’s Davey. I pick up. “Hey. I’m stopping at the store. Wanted to see if you needed anything.” How can he be so normal? How can he be living life like nothing happened?

“Alex is in the hospital.” I choke out. There’s silence on the other end of the line. “What?” I repeat myself. “She got in a car crash. I saw the car, Davey. I don’t know how anyone could have survived that. She’s in surgery. What if she’s dying, Davey?” My voice cracks. “I’m on my way right now. Which hospital are you at?” I give him the name. “I’m going to stay on the phone with you, alright?” I hear him starting his car.

“Davey, I can’t lose her. I love her. Please, she can’t die. Don’t let her die.” I realize I’m sobbing. My tears roll down my face, salty on my tongue. I can’t breathe. I’m shaking so hard the whole chair is vibrating. “Breathe, Jack. In and out. She’s going to be okay.”

“How do you know?” Davey doesn’t answer for a moment. “I don’t. But I need to believe it.” I cover my face with my hands. “I’m scared. I’m really scared.” I say quietly. “I know. I know.” I feel like my world is falling apart. The woman I love more than anything is in the OR, and who knows if she’ll come back out. I have no information. I’m in the dark. I’m drowning in it.

“Jack, I’m pulling in now. I’m going to hang up. I’ll see you soon.” I mutter an okay. The line goes dead. A few moments later, I see Davey come in. He quickly scans the room. When his eyes land on me, he rushes over. He sits down next to me. “Have you heard anything?” I shake my head no.

We wait for an hour. Two. Everytime a nurse or doctor comes out, we look up in hope. But every time they call another name. At some point Davey gets up. He comes back with bad hospital food. I barely touch it. All I can think about is Alex. I don’t know what I’ll do if she’s dead.

I’ve loved Alex for years, in a way I’ve never loved anyone else. She’s everything to me. She’s the most important thing in my life. Everytime she laughs, everytime she smiles, my heart sings. She’s my sunlight. And if I lose her, I think I’ll break. And no one will be able to repair me from that.

A man comes out, his ear on the phone. “I know! She totally damaged my truck. I’m going to sue her for it. It doesn’t matter if I ran a red light! She should have been more careful!” Is that the man who hit Alex? I walk over to him. “Can I help you?” He asks snarkily. “Do you by any chance own a red truck?”

“Yeah. What’s it to you?” Anger boils in my gut. “You hit my girlfriend.” I growl. “She should have looked where she was going.” He snickers. I punch him, and he falls to the ground. A nurse runs over to help him up. I want to go hurt him more, but Davey holds me back. “Stop!” He shouts.

“No! He’s the one who hit Alex! He admitted it himself, he ran a red light. He’s the reason she could be dying right now. He should be the one in the hospital bed, not her! He needs to pay!” Davey turns me to face him. “And he will. But not like this.” I know he’s right. But that man hurt Alex. Every part of me wants to beat him into the ground.

A nurse comes out. “Alex Kaminski?” My head snaps up. “Yes. Yes! That’s me. That’s us.” We walk over to the nurse. All my anger disappears. I need to get to Alex. “She just got out of surgery. She sustained minor injuries to her face and arms, but there was more serious damage to her lower extremities. The doctors were able to remove the debris and stitch the cuts. She should heal just fine. She’s in room 342.” I almost fall to the ground in relief. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” I give a quick hug to the nurse and run towards the room.

Room 312. 320. 336. 341. 342. I stop outside the door. “You can go in first. I’ll give you two some time.” Davey says softly. I give him a nod of thanks. I slowly open the door and walk inside. Alex is laying on the bed. She has white bandages covering cuts. A tube sits under her nose. She has a black eye. I sit down on the chair next to her bed.

I grab her hand and squeeze it once. Her eyes slowly blink open. She looks at me. “Jack?” Her voice is scratchy. “Hi, sweetheart. It’s me. I’m here.” I press a kiss to the back of her hand. “How do you feel?” She groans, which is a clear enough answer. I brush some hair out of her face. She leans into the touch. “I’m so glad you’re alright. I was so scared.” I say quietly. “You ain’t getting rid of me that easily.” she chuckles.

“Good. ‘Cause I need you around.” She pats the bed next to her. “Want cuddles.” She mumbles. I pull the covers back and lay down next to her. She places her head on my chest. I wrap an arm around her, careful not to irritate any injuries. Her eyes slowly close. A few moments later, she’s fast asleep.

Davey peeks his head in. He smiles when he sees the two of us. “How’s she doing?” He whispers. “Good. She’s a little banged up, but she’ll be okay.” He takes my old seat. “How are you doing?” I debate how to answer. “I’m alright. I’m still spooked, but she’s okay, and that’s all that matters.”

I kiss the top of her head. “I’m never letting her drive again.”

#newsies #newsies oneshot #jalex #jack x alex

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planetsam · 5 years

Text

@larenoz, @roswellprompts

Present day, Michael’s truck gets destroyed/damaged beyond repair and he looses it. People don’t understand why he’s so upset about it. Except maybe Alex. Cause me PAIN, make me cry but finish with sweet, sweet comfort and a happy ending.

(follow up HERE)

Alex barely manages to pull over safely.

He scrambles out of his car and stops only long enough to grab his first aide kit before running to the overturned truck. Michael is already pulling himself out and thank god because Alex imagines that the windshield isn’t safety glass. Michael pauses on the window and Alex drops the first aide kit to get a good grip on him. He hesitates only long enough to smell gas before he hooks his arms under Michael’s and hauls him out. He manages to grab the kit and practically yank Michael back to his car where they cower against the heat as the car erupts into flames.

Alex looks over to see Michael staring at the truck. It’s twice he’s had to haul Michael away from the burning wreckage of a home, but this is inexplicably worse. Family is more important but it’s an abstract thing for Michael. The truck is his. His first home, the thing that kept him safe when no one else could. Michael doesn’t get up like he did at the prison, he doesn’t stare as the flames lick and take away his hopes. He makes a noise of unbelievable pain and folds into himself. And Alex knows he has to take him away.

“Guerin, someone’s gonna call the police,” he says, “we have to go.”

“But—“ Michael looks at him desperately, knowing he’s right but not wanting to. His eyes search his face and Alex doesn’t try to hide his grief, “it’s my truck,” Michael gets out.

“I know,” Alex says. Michael opens his mouth, “I know,” Alex says emphatically, “but you can’t get checked out at the hospital.”

Michael pushes himself up and to Alex’s bone deep relief he seems to get it. Michael’s just wrecked his car but he looks alright and Alex immediately tosses him his keys. Michael needs to be focused on something other than this and if the police come, he needs to make it clear that Michael is fine. Michael looks at him and then gets in the car, swiping at his cheeks as they get onto the highway and drive away. Alex directs him back to the cabin where he can patch anything superficial up. Michael gets them back to the cabin and Alex keeps him moving until he’s inside, but then he sits down hard. Alex gets his bigger first aide kit and when he comes back Michael hasn’t moved.

“My truck’s gone,” he says when Alex sits next to him.

“I’m sorry,” Alex says.

“But—“ Michael licks his bottom lip, “it can’t be gone,” he says, “I had it for so long, I fixed it—“ he looks around like the truck will appear, “Alex,” he says his name like he has the answers and Alex feels like he’s been stabbed.

“You took good care of it,” he starts.

“So why’s it gone?!” Michael demands, sudden anger lacing into his voice.

“I don’t know,” Alex says.

Michael bites into his bottom lip and mumbles an apology, retreating into himself. Alex wishes he knew how to pull him out. Maybe that’s the most frustrating thing about this. He doesn’t know how to deal with this honest Michael. He always thought that getting Michael to open up would be the hard part, not what came after. It makes him feel woefully inadequate, like he’s too weak to help. Powerless. Things he hates, things he’s not sure he would be willing to put up with for anyone else. But it’s Michael, who has always managed to be the thing that pushes him past where he thinks he can go. Alex moves forward and sets about picking the glass from the windows out of Michael’s hair.

“That truck was home,” Michael mumbles.

“Not the airstream?” Alex asks. Michael shakes his head, “why did you get it?”

“Iz said I needed a roof,” Michael says, “and I needed somewhere to work.”

As he picks glass out, Michael moves forward and rests his forehead against Alex’s sternum. Alex can feel the tears drip down onto his jeans and feels them increase before Michael makes a sound. Alex wraps his arms around him and Michael buries his face in his chest and sobs as Alex tries to hold him together. Michael drags his face up to Alex’s shoulder and Alex rubs circles on Michael’s heaving back, letting him mourn the truck and everything else he’s weeping over. When the heaving sobs lessen, Alex tries to assess him and Michael keeps his face buried in his shoulder.

“Do you want some acetone?”

Michael shakes his head.

Gently Alex untangles himself and goes to the cabinet, fishing out a bottle of Macallan that came with the house. He looks to see Michael stare at the whiskey. Before he can say not to, Alex opens the bottle and Michael inhales sharply. Alex pours a few fingers into two glasses and comes back with the achingly expensive bottle, handing Michael a glass.

“Alex,” Michael starts.

“That truck was your home,” Alex says, “your home burned down, so, we’re commemorating it,” he tells him and holds up his glass.

The whiskey is so achingly good Michael’s tears stop, though the effect is ruined by the sniffle he gives. They sit silently for a moment letting the burn of it slide down their throats and sink into their bellies. Alex has never really had a home, or a safe place aside from that tool shed. He doesn’t fully trust the cabin considering it’s on top of a bunker and stuffed with alien hunting facts. Michael had a home and it’s gone now. Alex wonders if anything survived the fire or how they would get into the truck but remembers that it doesn’t really matter. The truck will, sadly, be in the junkyard soon enough.

“Shit, I need a car,” Michael realizes aloud.

“First let me make sure you’re okay,” Alex says. Michael looks at him, “physically,” Alex amends and moves closer, “does it hurt anywhere?” Michael looks away, “Guerin—“

“Okay, fine,” he pulls his hand out.

Alex fights against the nausea that swamps him at his hand and the glass embedded in it. Michael is very good at hiding his hand. Still. Alex carefully takes his hand and Michael goes to pull it away. Alex gives him a warning look and Michael glares right back.

“I want to keep the scars,” he says.

“That’s not going to be a problem,” Alex says.

“Seriously,” Michael says and Alex frowns. He’s seen Michael’s lack of scarring but he just assumed he finally got Max to do something. Now as he looks at Michael he isn’t sure.

“I just need to get the glass out and disinfect it,” Alex says.

Michael stops trying to pull his hand away. Alex picks the glass out and pours him more whiskey. One to numb the pain if that works on aliens and two because of he gets Michael into the right fuzzy state he can get him to sleep here with minimal protest. Even so after he’s bandaged his hand and cleaned up, he’s surprised when Michael looks at him shyly.

“Can I crash here?”

“Of course,” Alex says and something relaxes in him.

“Just for tonight,” Michael adds quickly and Alex risks covering his leg with his hand.

“You can stay,” he promises and because this is a night for boldness, it seems, he looks at Michael, “Do you want to go pick out a car tomorrow?”

Michael’s throat bobs and he looks anywhere else before he meet Alex’s eyes.

“You don’t have stuff to do?”

Alex shakes his head. Michael waits for a moment before he nods.

They shuffle around each other and Alex almost asks Michael to spend the night in his bed but he knows that’s not where they are. Michael is settled on the couch and Alex brushes his teeth and goes to just check on him. He’s never had anyone sleep on his couch. He sees Michael curled around himself and before he can think too much about it he crosses over and shakes his shoulder. Michael’s head snaps up and he shies back. So Alex throws his idea of bed out and instead he climbs onto the couch with Michael. Michael looks so adorably surprised he almost stops crying.

“It’s just my truck,” he says lamely.

“It’s not,” Alex corrects and bands an arm around his waist. Michael shifts to get comfortable and looks up at him, “I’m not leaving you out here alone,” he says firmly.

“Why not?” Michael asks and Alex hates how these conversations are easier in the dark.

“Because,” He says.

“Because, what?” Michael prods.

“Because I’m not a truck,” Alex blurts out.

Michael stiffens and Alex realizes he’s stumbled onto the thing that’s been grating him. He’s not a truck and every mention of home and loss and abandonment seems to cut into Alex like it’s a barb. He’s not a truck and he wants to make it clear that the truck isn’t Michael’s only home. He got it a month before he met Alex. And maybe the truck was there more, but Alex is here now and he wants that to count for something. He’s got Michael squished between the couch back and his frame, still firmly putting himself in front of Michael and any danger. For all the good it does. But it takes a moment for Michael to shift and tug him so they’re laying side by side, foreheads touching on the pillow.

“Sorry,” Alex starts.

“No you’re right,” Michael says, “you’re not a truck,” he shifts closer, “I don’t know what to do with people coming back,” he says finally, surprising Alex, “it’s never happened before.”

“I didn’t make it easier,” Alex says.

Michael laughs softly in the dark but his fingers curl over the shell of Alex’s ear and Alex sinks into the touch.

“You came back though,” Michael says, “you’re here.”

In the dark, Alex nods and Michael can feel it. Michael’s hand leaves his ear to wrap around his waist and Alex pulls him closer so Michael is half on his chest his bandaged hand on top of him. Alex isn’t a truck, he can’t replace that. But Michael curls against him and his breathing evens out and Alex thinks that maybe one day they can both find out what’s its like to have a home.

#michael guerin #alex manes #malex #malex fic #roswell new mexico #roswell nm fanfic #Michael x Alex #malex fanfic #prompts

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f1 · 2 years

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Albon will have new-spec Williams in Austria again after damage repair | RaceFans Round-up

In the round-up: Williams says it has been able to repair the upgraded aero package on Alexander Albon’s car after his crash at the start of the British Grand Prix. In brief Albon will be able to run upgrades at Austrian Grand Prix Albon was the only Williams driver to run the team’s major upgrade package at the British Grand Prix. However it was heavily damaged when he was taken out in the multi-car crash at the first corner of the race. However Williams’ head of vehicle performance, Dave Robson, said it had been possible to repair much of the damage. “Having damaged Alex’s car at the race start last weekend, coming straight into a sprint event is logistically difficult,” Robson acknowledged. “However, we have been able to repair or replace much of Alex’s car such that we can continue to understand the updates during FP1 on Friday.” The team’s efforts to assess the changes will be made more difficult by the loss of one practice session this weekend. “There is very little time to change the car before it passes into parc ferme at a sprint event and so we will need to be bold going into FP1 if we are to continue to push the performance,” said Robson. Norris warns over sausage kerb crashess Lando Norris said Formula 1 should take note of the alarming airborne collisions caused by sausage kerbs, after one launched Dennis Hauger’s car into Roy Nissany’s cockpit during Sunday’s Formula 2 race at Silverstone. “I think we’ve mentioned it several times and every now and then you maybe have a year where you get away with it and nothing happens and everyone’s like, ‘oh, it’s okay,'” said Norris. “But you have freak accidents, like turn one [in the grand prix] and like what you saw in the last corner in F2, that it can happen even when you least expect it.” Norris said the sport has been “lucky” to avoid worse crashes involving the kerbs, “because I think the halo genuinely did save someone’s life again today. Maybe not many people saw it, but good to see.” He said that “something needs to be done” about the kerbs. “It’s always hard because you’ve got a guy, whatever kerb is there, if you’ve got a guy coming to T-bone you, no matter what height they’re at, it’s never a good thing. “But the way that they get smashed up into the air and launched in the air is it probably comes out worse that way than if it was just a pure side impact in some circumstances.” Lawson yet to learn when he’ll drive Red Bull Liam Lawson does not yet know whether he will get to for Red Bull after replacing Juri Vips as the team’s test and reserve driver. Vips drove in the first practice session for Red Bull in Barcelona, one of two sessions the team is obligated to give over to young drivers during 2022. He was subsequently dropped from the team after using a racial slur during a live stream, though he remains part of their junior driver programme. “For me, it’s a very, very cool opportunity, obviously,” said Lawson. “But that stuff, I’ll wait to find out more, I guess. I don’t know exactly what sessions I could potentially be doing this year, but for now it’s it’s just carry on focussing on F2 and we’ll see what happens later. But it’s a great opportunity.” Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free Happy birthday! Happy birthday to Ddonovan1993! On this day in motorsport 20 years ago today Michael Schumacher won at a slippery Silverstone, ahead of team mate Rubens Barrichello and pole-winner Juan Pablo Montoya via RaceFans - Independent Motorsport Coverage https://www.racefans.net

#F1 #Albon will have new-spec Williams in Austria again after damage repair | RaceFans Round-up #Formula 1

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justlightlysedated · 5 years

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found me the edge of something beautiful and loud

for @fraudulentzodiacs 💖💖

****

Michael is twenty four and Isobel is getting married.

It's the only thing that could ever get him back to Roswell.

Max and Liz pick him up in Albuquerque on their way to Roswell, and he spends the entire trip dodging Liz's probing questions about his research and Max's not so subtle remarks about how skinny he looks and his overall haggard appearance.

Michael doesn't mention how he's been hardly sleeping since the name Alex Manes had popped up in the list of candidates waiting to test the new age prosthetics his team was working on.

They make it to Roswell and drive straight to the Wild Pony.

There were drinks and congratulations and avoiding Isobel’s Mother Hen interrogation and Kyle's well meant conversation about one of his papers, but Michael couldn't really see Kyle and not think Alex.

The drinks kept flowing even after the bar closed, and Maria had been cajoling Max into singing a duet with her when she stopped and both her and Liz yelled out at the same time.

“Alex!”

Michael felt as though the entire world had screeched to a halt and his stomach hadn't gotten the message.

“You're here!” Maria yells happily.

“It's your bachelorette party,” is the first thing Michael hears Alex say in five years. “I wouldn't have missed this for anything.”

Michael's fingers curl into fists and he swallows hard looking down at the table.

He remembers the last time that he saw Alex, a determined with a wild look in his eyes as he told Michael that he was joining the Air Force.

He feels Isobel’s hand over his and when he looks at her she gives him a look that clearly says that she hadn't known that he would be there.

Michael inhales once, deliberately slow and gives her a smile.

He can do this.

Michael is nineteen and his entire world just tilted on its axis.

“You can't be serious,” Michael says looking at Alex who is sitting down at the edge of Michael's bed refusing to look up at him. “After everything that he's done to you, after everything that you did to get out from under his thumb, you're just going to keep walking down the path that he wants for you?”

“What else am I supposed to do?” Alex snaps finally looking up at him. “I want to get out of here, Guerin! I don't want to spend the rest of my life in this town stuck working three jobs just to get by!”

“Come with me, then,” Michael blurts out surprising himself and Alex who stares at him with wide eyes. “I have my own dorm room. You can stay with me,” he continues stepping closer. “And then we'll figure the rest out.”

Alex shakes his head in quick jerky movements. “I refuse to become your newest charity case.”

Michael frowns at him, hurt making his chest ache. “That's not what this is about. I care about you, and you don't really want to do this.”

“What do you even know about what I want?” Alex snaps at him, standing up. “You barely even know me. All I am is your Roswell Summer fling.”

“That's not true,” Michael snaps back, feeling a little irritated with himself that he had ever believed that Alex was okay with it when one of his new friends had called him that the first and only time that Alex had ever visited him on campus. “You know how I feel about you.”

“Do I really, Guerin? Because you come by every summer and you make my head spin and you leave again over and over and so what? Just because you love me, I'm supposed to just sit here and put my life on pause until you come back?”

“Stop this,” Michael says a little desperate. “You're trying to get me upset to make this easier, but newsflash, Alex, nothing is going to make this easy.”

Alex crosses his arms over his chest and looks away from Michael.

Michael moves in close and sighs in relief when Alex doesn't push him away.

Michael drops his forehead to Alex's temple and breathes in.

“Everytime I go it tears me apart, I never want to leave you. I would stay here, if you asked me to,” he whispers voice low.

Alex shakes his head again.

“You have this big brain that you need to be using to make the world a better place and I refuse to be the thing that got in your way.”

“Alex, I don't care-” Michael starts pulling away from Alex to catch his eyes.

Alex refuses to look at him as he cuts him off.

“Besides,” he says exhaling slowly, but it still doesn't stop his voice from shaking. “Like I said, this is just a Summer fling.”

“No,” Michael says shaking his head.

“Yes, Guerin,” Alex says finally looking back at him. “Or are you going to tell me that you're not with anyone else the times we’re not together?”

Michael pulls his lips into his mouth and looks away.

“This isn't a real relationship obviously,” he continues words starting to blur together as though he's trying to speak as fast as he can to get the words out. “So why are we holding on to something that's just not getting us anywhere-”

“Stop,” Michael says clenching his fists and breathing heavily. The lamp shakes on top of the night stand.

Alex stops talking, stops moving, stops breathing.

He just watches Michael with wide wet eyes, and Michael swallows hard and closes his eyes and exhales roughly.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks and his voice sounds tired.

He can hear Alex swallow hard.

“Because I'm going to go. And there is nothing that you can do or say to stop me.”

Michael can't do this.

Alex stands right behind him in the bathroom mirror.

Michael's eyes dart all over him, taking him in and letting the water run over his hands.

Alex looks so different yet exactly the same.

By the time they were nineteen, he had lost the eyeliner and the nail polish. The piercings stayed until he made the decision to leave the one place that Michael always came back to like he was caught in the gravity of this town.

But in reality, he was caught in Alex's gravity, always pulled in close whenever he was near enough.

Michael is here because Isobel is getting married, but he would be lying if he said he hadn't hoped to run into Alex.

One difference lies in the way he carries himself, how his shoulders are tense, and he's standing with his legs at shoulder’s width, at attention as though he needs to be on his guard.

“Don't blame Isobel,” he says and that's one way that he's still the same, his voice always had the ability to make Michael stop and pay attention. “She told me to stay away. I came because I needed to see you.”

Michael scoffs and looks back down at his hands, washing off the rest of the soap.

“Michael,” Alex says voice low and too close, fingers just barely grazing the back of Michael's neck.

Michael hadn't even heard him move.

His eyes snap back to him as he shuts off the water. He feels his heart beating rapidly in his too tight chest making it hard to breathe.

“There’s something I want to show you. Something you have to see. Come with me?”

Michael inhales sharply.

“I don't think there's anything that you have to show me that I want to see,” Michael says before he's turning around fast, forcing Alex to take a step back.

Alex frowns at him, and Michael takes the opportunity to let his gaze drop down deliberately dragging it back up and wetting his bottom lip with his tongue.

“Besides the obvious.”

Alex watches him steadily, eyes a little wide as though he's surprised that Michael is hitting on him.

He watches as Alex swallows hard and takes a step closer.

His eyes drop to Michael's mouth and then back up and he tilts his head and speaks.

“Guerin, if you ever loved me, come with me.”

It's a low blow. And Alex knows it, but he doesn’t look away.

Michael looks at Alex seriously for a few long seconds before he nods his head slowly.

Alex exhales and his shoulders drop and he gives Michael a small smile.

“Great, you're driving.”

He holds the keys out and drops them.

Michael catches them automatically.

Alex turns and walks out of the bathroom.

Michael is seventeen and Alex works at the UFO Emporium giving tours and talking about the Crash of ‘47.

He watches him as he goes through the information, and his voice sounds like he's bored, but he answers questions and smiles at the curious little kids encouragingly.

Michael feels a pulse low in his gut and he thinks a little unsteadily about things that are way too soon to be thinking about especially about someone he hasn't even kissed yet.

Alex looks over the crowd again and this time their eyes meet.

Alex's eyes are wide and dark and the black eyeliner is new and interesting.

He stumbles over a passage Michael knows he knows by heart now, and it makes him bite down on his lip so that he doesn't smile.

He knows that Alex is probably wondering if he's here to talk about what happened at the Evans’ Family BBQ last summer.

And in a way he is, but not in the way that is making the dread pool in Alex's eyes whenever he glances at him for the remainder of the tour.

“Can we talk?” Michael asks shoving his hands in his pockets as the rest of the group heads separate ways.

Alex looks at him for a long moment.

“I didn't know you were back,” Alex says not responding to Michael's question.

“I just got in today,” Michael says, which is technically true. He got in on a bus an hour ago, and had checked his bag into the locker rooms at the terminal before he went in search of Alex.

Max and Isobel had no idea he was in town, yet.

Alex inhales deeply and nods his head, making a motion with his hands that Michael should follow him.

Michael follows close enough that he treads on Alex's heels twice, until Alex leads them into an enclosed space, marked off for repairs.

Michael looks around the dimly lit room with the model UFOs hanging from the ceiling and the backdrop of fake stars forming constellations that aren't even in their correct place.

Alex stops in the middle of the room and turns to face Michael.

Michael takes a few long seconds to stare at him.

He catalogues the differences, the septum piercing, the eyeliner, the way his shirt is stretching out at his shoulders, and the similarities, the multiple bracelets, the chipped nail polish, the way he stares at Michael like Michael is something amazing he never thought he'd find.

“Okay,” Alex says licking his lips. “Talk.”

Michael thinks of all the things that he wants to say. About how he hadn't realized how badly he wanted Alex's mouth on his until Alex had tried to kiss him and Michael had pulled away. About how he'd thought of little else for months. About how he'd imagined how it would feel to kiss Alex for the first time. About how ever since he unpacked his things in his room when he'd gotten home, he'd felt this restless, buzzing feeling in his veins that made it feel like he was waiting to come back here, to Alex.

But Alex is looking at him like he knows exactly what Michael is going to tell him, so Michael just acts.

He fits his fingers to the curve of Alex's jaw and tugs him in, pressing a soft lingering kiss to his mouth.

Alex inhales sharply once, and kisses him back, pushing into Michael.

Michael sighs as their lips part, eyes still close as he savors the still feeling that spreads through him at Alex's touch.

“Stop,” Alex says sudden and loud after several minutes of silence.

Michael does immediately because Alex sounds like he just remembered something important and just watches in confusion as Alex gets out and walks at least until his eyes catch the broken sign of the UFO Emporium.

Michael watches as Alex turns right by the broken front doors and raises an eyebrow at him before he turns and ducks beneath the fading yellow caution tape zigzagging across the broken doors.

Michael clenches his fingers around the steering wheel of the car and wishes that he wasn't sober or that he had more to drink or that he hadn't fallen for Alex's goading and had stayed when Isobel had wrapped an arm around him as he'd been heading towards the exit.

Through the open passenger side window he can hear the sounds of something heavy crashing.

Michael gets out of the car.

Finding Alex isn't difficult at all once Michael gets inside.

It almost feels as though something in Alex is tugging Michael to the right direction.

He stops right in front of the black curtain and he can make the sounds of Alec moving around behind it, and he wonders if he really wants to do this.

Alex had cut them up into little pieces when he left saying words that Michael knew he didn't actually mean, but still left him feeling like he’d gotten millions of paper cuts all over his body.

And now, here he was, leading Michael to the place where they shared their first kiss like he wants to take a trip down memory lane as though they'd parted amicably.

“Are you going to just stay out there until it's time for us to leave?” Alex speaks startling Michael into motion.

Michael pushes through the thick curtains and looks around to see that Alex is standing in the middle of the room.

The space looks completely different than the last time that Michael saw it.

Gone were the fake stars and the UFO saucers and the display cases. Instead there was the bare bones of a room, completely painted in shiny glossy black, the smell of fresh paint heavy in the air.

Alex was standing besides what looked like a projector. He's messing around with the buttons, but he shoots Michael a look out of the corner of his eye and speaks.

“You know, I had this whole speech planned out, but I can't seem to remember the words, probably all the tequila I had to drink to get me through the Wild Pony doors.”

Michael licks his lips and just continues to watch him as Alex looks back down to what he's doing and keeps speaking.

“I thought once I got here the words would come to me but the only thing that I can think about is how you dragged me out of my bed in the middle of the night to take me to the middle of the desert, so that you could recreate our first kiss to a backdrop of constellations that were actually in their proper place in order to undo the kink in your delicate alien aesthetic sensibilities.”

Michael exhales and tries not to let the warmth of the memory spread through him.

Alex is looking at him like he knows exactly what Michael is doing.

As though the last five years of distance is nothing compared to the fact that he knows Michael inside and out.

Michael swallows and says. “You said you had something you wanted to show me.”

Alex nods his head and closes the panel he had open on the projector before he gives Michael a look raising an eyebrow. “A little help?”

Alex looks up to where there is a spot where the projector is supposed to go, and Michael just swallows again before he takes a step closer and reaches out with one hand, concentrating.

He hears Alex breathing hitch as the projector gently levitates from his hands and to the ceiling.

Michael tries to block him out and connects the projector to where it needs to go.

He exhales once it's in place and let's his hand drop, eyes opening and looking directly into Alex's.

Alex is looking at him like how he did the first time that he saw Michael use his abilities, eyes wide, brows raised, lips parted, radiating surprise and awe and warmth.

Michael looks away from him.

He hears Alex move, hears him pick up his crutch and the tap it makes, louder than the sound of his shoes as he walks further away from Michael to the other side of the room.

Michael closes his eyes and inhales deeply trying to think of a way to tell Alex that while he appreciates this trip down memory lane, it's about five years too late when Alex speaks.

“Keep your eyes closed for me for a second,” he asks and his voice sounds a little muffled, but Michael just exhales and keeps his eyes closed.

“When I heard that Grant Green was planning on reopening this place I asked him if he'd let me work on one of the exhibits, now that I've got all this free time. I've been thinking about this for a long time, ever since I realized what a mistake it was to let you go when I joined the Air Force.”

Michael feels as though Alex hit him in the chest and it's hard to breathe, hard to think.

“I know I hurt you,” he says voice low and pained. “And I knew that I could probably just apologize and you'd take me back, but I've had nothing but time on my hands the last few months to think of a way to show you that I'm serious.”

Michael inhales carefully and turns towards the sound of Alex's voice.

“Can I open my eyes now?” Michael asks slowly.

“No,” Alex says on a shaky exhale before he breathes in deeply and Michael hears the click of a switch and it gets darker behind his eyelids.

He opens his mouth to say something about why Alex would need total darkness when Michael's eyes are already close, when there is another click and Michael can just make out a faint imprint of light through the backs of his eyelids.

He hears Alex walk closer.

“I figured taking you to the stars would be a good step, but I can't exactly commandeer a space shuttle, so I thought I'd bring them to you, instead.”

Michael takes that as the cue it's supposed to be and opens his eyes.

Michael used to have these dreams sometimes after falling asleep next to Alex, about traveling through the stars, seeing millions upon millions of them streaking pass and a feeling of overwhelming love and peace.

Opening his eyes to see Alex standing right in front of him, his face lit up by the brightest star next to him, looking at Michael as though he were the sun, leaves him poleaxed.

He wants to say something, anything, but as he starts to spin slowly in a circle to take in the rest of the room he quickly realizes exactly where they are standing.

Michael stops and Alex starts to walk as he speaks, “They are holographic projections. It took me a while to get it working just right, and for a time there I thought I'd never get it right.”

Michael gives him a look as Alex passes by in front of him, looking around at his work instead of Michael.

“And the stars kept glitching whenever touched but now they just move out of the way,” he waves his right hand around in demonstration and Michael watches as the lights move away from his hand and then back as though they're repelling magnets.

He continues to speak, and to walk around in a slow circle, orbiting Michael who turns slowly to follow his procession through the stars feeling his stomach fill with something warm and fizzy and a noise like a heartbeat thumping in the back of his head.

He stops right where he began, and tilts his head towards the bright star right by his face.

“And I'm pretty sure that this is Altair.”

Michael's breath hitches because Alex is right.

That is Altair and if Michael follows the lines he can make out the other two points of the triangle pointing straight at Alex, like the very heavens had been giving him a sign.

Michael once again follows the cues given by Alex's voice and the way that Alex is looking at him, with eyes wide and dark and waiting.

Michael steps right up to him, and Alex just continues to watch him as if the decision to where this goes next is all in Michael's hands, and fuck Alex for doing this to him.

Letting Alex go was one of the most difficult things that Michael had ever had to do in his life.

And he thought he had let him go.

Until he saw his name and read the file attached and promptly had gotten drunk and drunk more acetone than he had in a while.

It was one thing to think that Alex would get hurt if he was sent into an active warzone. It was a whole other thing to see it all spelled out for him in clinical precision.

And here he was standing in front of Michael as though Michael didn't know how close it had gotten, as though Michael didn't know that he had almost died.

Michael kisses him, digging his fingers into the back of his neck and crashing their mouths together hard.

Alex makes a muffled hurt sound against his mouth and Michael swallows it biting insistently against Alex's mouth until Alex's lips part beneath his.

Michael kisses Alex with all the anger and all the fear and all the loneliness he's felt the last five years and Alex lets him, wrapping his hand around Michael's wrist and opening up to him.

Michael parts their lips with a gasp, and breathes feeling a rush of emotion go through him.

Alex leans his forehead against Michael's and sighs.

When Michael opens his eyes, all he can see is Alex, and his wide dark eyes almost black and seeming endless with the bright points of the stars shining within them as though he's got an entire galaxy trapped in his eyes just for Michael to see.

Alex shudders and moves, their noses brush together and Michael's eyes fall shut.

Alex kisses him soft and sweet. A fleeting press of lips that leaves Michael feeling completely undone.

When Alex pulls back, Michael's fingers snag against the collar of his jacket, keeping him close as he opens his eyes to look at him.

Alex watches him back steadily.

“This is just the first stop,” Alex says.

Michael takes a deep breath and lets him go.

Alex gives him a smile, and then walks past him, leading the way out of the room.

Michael watches as he cuts a path through the stars and swears he feels a tug in the pit of his stomach that pulls him in Alex's direction as he starts to get further away.

Michael follows the pull and wonders what else Alex has planned for them tonight.

Michael is sixteen and being around Alex is really confusing in a way that Michael doesn't know what to do with.

Max had driven them to Sander's Auto after he'd picked him up at the terminal.

He tells Michael that Isobel is hanging out with a new crowd these days and parks the car in front of a precariously leaning structure, that seems to shudder every time there is a strong gust of wind.

Michael sees what he means when he catches sight of Isobel sitting on one side of Rosa, Maria on Rosa's other side on a dirty broken couch pressed against the shuddering structure and they're all giggling and passing a smoking joint around.

It's impossible that that is what's making Isobel giggly, but then Michael sees her take a sip from a flask when she thinks no one is watching.

“Evans has booze and she's not sharing!” Comes a familiar voice from above them, and Michael looks up to make out Alex sitting down on an overhang of the metal structure, his legs hanging down, a guitar cradled in his arms as he points with one hand at Isobel.

Isobel starts sputtering and Maria and Rosa start to pat her down, and they all collapse into pile of giggles that Max goes to break up.

Michael finds himself leaning on the car and watching as Alex starts to play with the guitar looking over to Michael and away.

It makes his stomach clench, and Michael suddenly wants to be closer.

He pushes off the jeep and walks past where Rosa, Maria and Isobel race to Max's car.

Max stops him with a hold on his arm. “They want food.”

Michael licks his lips and nods his head.

“I'll find my own ride.”

Max looks at him and then up at Alex and shakes his head as though he knows something that Michael doesn't before he's nodding his head back and heading to the jeep.

Michael hears the jeep leaving as he starts to climb up to where Alex is.

The strumming of the guitar stops, and Michael pulls himself up, looking into Alex's surprised eyes as he sits down beside.

The structure moves and Michael holds it still with his abilities until it stops shuddering and then throws Alex a look trying not to look as suddenly sick as he feels.

He swallows hard and says, “You trying to court death, Manes?”

Alex shrugs and starts to move his fingers along the fret, strumming the guitar softly.

From this close, Michael can make out the fading bruise on his cheekbone, and the lurid purple-green edge of a more recent one right by the collar of his shirt.

Like always it sends a jolt of rage through him and Michael clenches his fists tightly as the structure shakes beneath them for a few tense seconds.

They both exhale when it stops and Michael looks to see Alex sitting there with his eyes closed, fingers clenched around the guitar.

Michael gently pries it from his grip, and Alex lets it go reluctantly.

But he turns to Michael as Michael settles the guitar in his lap and starts to play.

“I'm so glad that you're here,” Alex says. “Liz is off to camp, and I'm not touching what's going on between Rosa and Isobel and Maria with a ten foot pole. And all Max does is sigh despondent, everytime he remembers Liz is gone, which is once every five minutes.”

Michael grins, biting down on his lip and looking down as the clenching in the pit of his stomach gets worse.

“I'm glad to be of service,” he drawls and darts a look at Alex who looks away suddenly.

There is a second fraught with heavy tension when Michael starts playing automatically.

Alex bursts into a peal of laughter at the same time that Michael realizes what song he's playing.

He stops and Alex nudges him with his knee.

“No, come on, keep playing.”

Michael looks at Alex from the corner of his eye to see that he's smiling encouragingly.

Michael starts playing again, and his fingers nearly fumble on the chords when Alex starts singing along.

“-I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now-”

Michael finds the chords automatically, and he's really glad that this was one of the first songs he ever learned to play, because he can’t take his eyes off Alex, but he doesn't want Alex to know that he's staring at him.

Alex is singing into the air and his hands are curled around the ledge on either side of his knees.

He looks so happy and beautiful and at peace and Michael has to look away.

The clenching in his stomach gets worse, and there's a tight feeling in his chest as though it's hard to breathe.

Michael's gaze is dragged back to Alex as his voice soars.

“-because maybe you're gonna be the one that saves me-”

Alex's eyes open and he looks straight at him as he sings and his voice trails off and Michael stops the chords from moving.

There is a moment where all Michael wants to do is move closer and he can feel that Alex wants him to.

And then the wind blows fast and sudden and the structure shifts alarmingly below them.

“Fuck,” Alex breathes. “We have to get down.”

Michael agrees, but when Alex starts to move the structure tips more to one side and Michael reaches out with one hand, eyes closed and realizes abruptly that it's too late to do anything to stop it or fix it.

But he can hold it still as much as he can while Alex gets down.

Michael sets his hands down on the metal on either side of his thighs and concentrates.

The structure stops moving, but Michael immediately starts shaking.

“Go, Alex,” he says through clenched teeth.

“What?” Alex says sounding a little out of breath and a lot panicked.

“I can’t hold it long,” he grits out. “Please, Alex.”

Alex looks at him one second too long.

Michael glares and his concentration flickers and the structure leans alarmingly almost making them fall. Michael catches it again and gasps.

Before Michael can tell him to move again, Alex is moving. His motions tug nauseatingly at Michael's control.

Then in a move that would've killed them both if Michael were anybody else, Alex grabs him by his shoulders and tugs him along as he jumps down.

Michael's control wavers and snaps and there is a loud crashing noise as Alex's motions make the pile of scrap metal destabilize even faster.

They land on their sides, hard against the dirt, and Alex makes a high pitched pained sound as he lands on his bruised shoulder.

Michael rolls them so that he's caging Alex beneath him and then he concentrates again, feeling the bile at the back of his throat as he catches the pieces that would've landed on them.

The loud crashing, grinding sound stops and Michael darts a look at Alex, whose eyes are wide open in shock and awe, lips parted slightly as he gazes over Michael's head.

Michael grunts with the effort as he leans up and pushes the metal in his hold away from them.

Michael's knees are on either side of Alex's hips and Alex's lips are still parted as he leans up on his elbows and doesn't look anywhere but Michael's face.

“Wow,” he breathes. “How did you do that? Are you like a superhero or something?”

His voice is full of awe and genuine curiosity, and Michael remembers the conversation Max had with him about keeping this a secret, but he's pretty sure this falls under extenuating circumstances .

Michael inhales deeply and just says it.

“I'm an alien.”

Alex's brow furrows, and Michael bites down on his lip hard waiting to see how Alex was going to react.

“Like Superman?” he asks slowly.

Michael scoffs in derision, “Please don't compare me to that goody two shoes, I'm much more badass than that.”

Alex laughs, a giggle that goes slightly manic and Michael let's himself fall on the floor beside him, looking up at the blue, blue sky that seems brighter all of a sudden.

He feels a hand on his, and he looks over to see Alex looking at him with a soft smile on his face.

“Thanks,” he says simply, but Michael hears all of the definitions in the one word, thanks for staying, thanks for telling me, thanks for saving my life.

Michael just nods his head once and looks back up at sky, the tight feeling wrapped around his chest making him feel lightheaded.

When Michael sees the sign for Sander’s Auto, he almost pulls the car over to the side.

Of course Alex would bring him here.

The place where Michael had saved his life, exposing his secret in the process.

He drives them straight to the scene without being told, and is not surprised when the headlights shine across a guitar leaning against a rusty bar stool.

Michael stops the car, turning it off and looks to Alex.

Alex inhales deeply and sends Michael a nervous smile before he's getting out of the car.

Michael watches him through the windshield as he sets his crutch down carefully and then grabs the guitar, leaning comfortably against the stool as he props the guitar on his thigh and starts strumming.

Michael hears him checking if it's still turned through the open window.

He turns the car off, but leaves the headlights on the lowest setting as he gets out of the car.

Michael walks around to the front of the car and leans back against the hot hood.

Alex clears his throat and looks up and smiles when he sees Michael is out of the car.

“This was the place I figured it out,” he says as he begins to strum the guitar, notes playing out a familiar tune that Michael can't quite place. “That you would do anything to protect me. And that I was absolutely, hopelessly in love with you.”

Michael feels his heart leap to his throat, and his mouth feels dry.

And then Alex closes his eyes and starts to sing, and Michael feels as though his heart is trying to beat right out of his mouth.

“-would you tremble if I touched your lips?-”

Alex sings as he opens his eyes and looks at him.

Michael feels mesmerized and captivated. Alex is shining in the lights, and he looks like he's the alien, dark wide eyes, red mouth making sounds that send shivers down the back of Michael's neck and urge him closer.

His pulse slows as Alex goes through the chorus voice soft, and he feels like the entire world has narrowed down to this moment right here.

“-would you swear that you'll always be mine-”

Michael finds himself nodding as he pushes off the car and moves closer.

Alex's fingers stumble a bit when he realizes that Michael is moving in closer, but he keeps going, voice cresting as he goes into the chorus again.

Michael reaches him just as he starts the last line, “-you can take my breath away-”

Michael thinks, gladly, and leans in, pressing the guitar between them as he kisses Alex.

It's not rough and biting like the one he gave him at the Emporium but it's not sweet and gentle like the one that Alex had given him back.

No, this kiss was all tongues, deep and wet and conquering because Michael wants him, has always wanted him, has never stopped wanting him, and here he is making Michael's heart race like he's sixteen all over again.

He pulls away when Alex's fingers dig into the back of his neck, and Alex gasps, heaving breaths against his mouth, hard and fast and it makes Michael want to kiss him again.

He nudges their noses together, dropping his forehead to Alex's and sighs.

Alex inhales deliberately and exhales slowly and rubs his nose against Michael's before he's tipping his chin further back and slides their mouths together, licking against his lips and pulls back when Michael moans low in his throat, feeling a spike of lust, and pushes for more.

“Wait,” Alex says and laughs when Michael says no, and tries to kiss him again.

Michael sighs and straightens up letting Alex go.

Alex shakes his head as though he's trying to clear it and sets the guitar aside.

“Ever since we met all you've been doing is trying to protect me, and you saved my life right here in this spot, and I just hope you know that you've always been my hero. It was the thought of you that kept me going some nights, so even while apart, you kept me safe, and I want you to know that.”

Michael stares at him, feeling a well of emotions clogging his throat. He doesn't know if he's going to make it through the rest of this little trip down memory lane if Alex is going to say something like that everytime.

“You can't remember your speech, huh?” he says after clearing his throat twice.

Alex gives him a small smile, “It's coming back in stages.”

“Or you're just a lying liar that lies,” Michael says and Alex laughs and moves to get his crutch, and Michael snaps his fingers and it flies to Alex's outstretched hand.

Alex gives him a smile and stands up.

“Where to next?” he asks as Alex starts walking towards the car.

Alex gives him a look out of the corner of his eye and a shy smile. “The skate park, of course.”

Michael shakes his head with a smile. “Of course.”

Michael is fourteen and visiting Roswell for the first time.

Max drags him to the skate park the same day he gets in, and spends the entire time staring at the girl riding her bicycle around the track instead of skating.

Michael spends the entire time teasing him and trying to stay on the skateboard for more than a few minutes at a time.

Michael manages a slow and easy ride and then forgets how to stop and falls to the floor.

He groans and hears laughter, but when he looks up it's not directed at him.

There is a group of kids all looking to be around his age, surrounding another kid their age, and pushing him around.

Michael stands up slowly and hears the names that they call him. Names that people call Michael because he gets good grades and has nice, longish curly hair.

He deliberates getting involved, and he can see Max's anxious stare from somewhere to his left when the kid spats out something truly mean that makes the guy who looks like the ringleader red in the face.

He goes in for a punch, and Michael reacts.

He pushes into the middle and blocks the bully's punch with his skateboard.

The kid yells out in pain, and Michael lifts the board over his head, “Go away!”

The kids scramble, the bully giving Michael a glare as one of his friends tugs him along.

His eyes fall to the kid that he’d been bullying and Michael thinks that he's imagining the guilty look in his eyes.

Michael turns to the kid who is walking away with his skateboard under his arm.

“Hey!” Michael calls out. “I literally just saved your life, some gratitude would be appreciated!”

The kid turns around, eye roll visible from space, and says. “Thanks for the totally unnecessary life save, I had it under control.”

“Not from where I was standing,” Michael says moving closer as the kid drops his skateboard to the floor.

“Then maybe you should've gone stand somewhere else.”

Michael huffs out a laugh and shakes his head.

“I was just trying to help.”

“I didn't need any help. I can take care of myself.”

“Everyone needs a little help sometimes,” Michael says, the mantra that his mom instilled in him since she adopted him.

The kid shakes his head, and then sighs. “Thanks,” he says and sighs again. “It’s kinda hard to face your bully when he's wearing the face of your best friend.”

“Ouch,” Michael says in sympathy looking over to where Max is once again staring dreamily and the girl riding her bicycle. He wonders how he'd handle it if Max was the one pushing him around and calling him names.

“I'm Alex,” the kid says and motions with chin to the skateboard still in his hands. “I can help you with some tricks I learned to stay on?”

Michael licks his lips and nods his head.

“I'm Michael, by the way.”

Alex smiles at him, and Michael feels a jolt go through him like a lightning bolt. He feels a little dizzy and lightheaded.

“Nice to meet you,” he says.

Michael swallows hard and smiles back.

“Nice to meet you too.”

Michael follows behind Alex into the abandoned Skate Park with a date set for demolition and something else to be built in its place with his heart in his throat.

This was the first place that he ever saw Alex, the place where Alex taught him to skate, the place where Alex told him about his father, the place where Alex used to run to if things got too bad at home.

Alex stops right by the handrail and looks over the empty eroded course.

Michael leans next to him and looks up at the sky.

There are black clouds rolling in the distance, getting closer, blocking out the stars and as Michael watches lightning flashes and the thunder rumbles from afar.

“I knew about the Morrison Grant,” Alex finally says and it sounds like it's being dragged out of him, and it hits Michael right in the chest like shrapnel.

“Max told me. He found me here teaching Susan and Jimmy how to stay on a skateboard and he came up to me and just started speaking all about how you called him in tears because you were homesick, but not for the place you grew up in. You were missing me more than ever and you told him you were going to turn it down and transfer so that you could be closer, and I couldn't-I couldn't let you-”

Michael feels as though the bottom of his world just dropped out.

“You were thinking of declining your future handed to you on a silver platter all for what? Some nobody from Roswell?”

“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” Michael snaps and inhales deliberately trying to keep a lid on his rage.

He can hear Alex gripping the handrail tighter in his grip, and the thunder rolling closer.

“So,” Michael says and swallows back the way he wants to be sick. “Your best plan at convincing me to accept the grant was to join the Air Force.”

Alex inhales deeply, and is quiet for so long that the sound of thunder starts to shake the handrails, but that could also be from the failing grip Michael has on his anger.

“The Air Force was the easy choice,” Alex says on an exhale. “It was pushed in my face as the only viable option if I wasn't going to be going to school to become a lawyer or a doctor or a politician for so long that it wasn't difficult to decide to join when I made the decision to leave Roswell. What was difficult was leaving you behind.”

Michael clenches his jaw, and he can feel Alex's gaze on the side of bus face, but he doesn't turn to look at him.

“No,” Michael says finally and looks at Alex. “What would've been difficult was talking to me, and deciding on a plan together, but you weren't afraid that I was giving up my future for you. You were afraid that my future had no room for you because, ‘I'm going to change the world’ as you've always said. So you broke us apart without giving me an actual choice.”

“Do you regret it?” Alex snaps turning to face Michael fully. “Everything that you've accomplished. You've gotten this far this early because you took the grant and left the state of New Mexico. You are going to change the world. You already are.”

Michael scoffs and mirrors Alex movements. “You've just alluded that I would've gotten here eventually,” Michael snaps back. “And do you think I care about any of that when you've also just told me that you joined the Air Force because of me-”

Alex starts shaking his head but Michael keeps talking.

“-do you know that I haven't been sleeping lately? Because we get medical records of all our viable candidates.”

Alex's breath hitches and he closes his eyes looking down.

There's a second where the only sound is the thunder and Alex's shaky breaths.

“You ever get tired of courting death, Manes?” Michael asks voice rough.

Alex flinches as though Michael tried to hit him.

“I've been working on something specially designed for you,” Michael admits. “It's what keeps me up at night. The plans are all there, but I feel stuck. Might have to invent an entirely new element.”

Alex scoffs, but it gets him to look up at Michael.

“My father found out about us that summer,” he says and once again Michael feels his entire world screech to a stop.

“He threatened me to break up with you, but that never worked, especially since I didn't live with him anymore.”

Alex takes a deep breath, and Michael really doesn't like where this is going.

“So he threatened-”

“Me,” Michael guesses feeling sick to his stomach.

Alex shakes his head. “He told me that it wouldn't be hard for him get your scholarship revoked and ban you from going to any school in the United States, that it wouldn't be hard for someone with his resources. He lined out his whole plan in detail and showed me every single step. And while I didn't have proof that he could actually go through with it, there was nothing to prove that he couldn't. And I was going to tell you, but then-”

“Max told you about the grant,” Michael says and sighs.

“Alex,” he starts and takes a step closer.

Alex shakes his head. “You know, I've read all of your papers. And I keep a book full of your newspaper clippings. And I am so proud of every single thing that you've accomplished”

Michael just stares at him and then deliberately drops his gaze to the crutch Alex still has hooked around his right hand and elbow, and then back up to his face.

Alex gives him a resolute look back.

“I don't regret it,” he says evenly. His voice shaking minutely. “No matter what.”

Michael inhales deeply once and nods his head.

There is nothing that he can do about this now. He doubts that he could've done something about it even if he had known the real reason Alex broke up with him that summer.

Short of building a time machine, there's no way to undo the past. Not without causing more damage.

“There is one more thing I have to show you, if you want to see it.”

Alex says when Michael doesn't say anything else.

Michael swallows hard. “Where?”

“Not too far from here,” he answers and looks over to the cluster of buildings near the park.

The lightning flashes and the words Roswell Community Center are illuminated.

Michael is eighteen years old and he doesn't know how to swim, which is something that he should've probably told Alex before he followed him into the dark pool room at the Center.

The thing is that Michael has been desperate for some alone time with him, but with Max leaving on a road trip with Liz in a few days, Isobel has been cramming their days full of bonding activities that Max and Michael both go along with because they know she's afraid that they'll fall apart with the distance.

He's barely had a chance to kiss Alex let alone touch him, and he feels like he might die if he doesn't get his hands on Alex sometime in the next twenty seconds.

Alex turns right by the edge of the pool, and he's illuminated by the blue green lights as they shine out of the water, and the scent in the air is heavy with chlorine, but Michael can just smell the sweet bitter scent of the acetone that had spilled earlier on Alex's shirt.

He crosses the space between them, and Alex inhales sharply before Michael presses their mouths together hard and a bit off center.

Alex makes a muffled sound against his mouth and kisses him back, reaching up to dig his fingers into Michael's hair to drag him closer.

Alex bites against Michael's mouth and Michael slides his hands around Alex's waist and tugs him in even closer.

Which was a mistake when they weren't watching where they were going standing by the edge of the pool.

Alex slips and Michael stumbles to catch him.

They both go over and into the water.

Michael isn't expecting the instant panic that engulfs him the second he's entirely beneath the water.

He doesn't talk much about the three years he spent in the system before getting adopted, but there is a reason why Michael never goes near water deeper than five feet.

He sinks like a stone while Alex immediately gets himself to the surface.

Michael wants to reach for him, but he can't. There are bubbles all around him, and he's not entirely sure which way is up.

He can hear a sound that mimics his name but slow and as though his ears are full of cotton.

And then suddenly he's tugged upwards.

He breaks the surface with a gasp and immediately starts to kick with his feet.

“Wait! Guerin! Stop!” he hears someone say, but he can't make out who it is over the roaring in his ears and the pounding of his pulse in his temples and the way he can't seem to get enough air in his lungs.

The person starts to pull him and Michael fights back hard. He hears a hiss of pain and a voice calling his name, and then his feet are touching solid ground beneath him.

He tries to run, to get away, but he feels heavy and clumsy and he still can't breathe.

A sound like a windchime breaks through the panic, feeling like Isobel as it spreads calm through him like if someone had poured acetone directly into his brain.

“-Michael!” the panic in Alex's voice makes his eyes snap open.

He pushes the feeling of gratitude at Isobel and turns to Alex who pulls him into a hug immediately.

Michael wraps his arms around him and holds him tightly.

Alex's heart slows as they stand there holding each other in four feet of water.

Michael finds the rest of the panic receding when Alex moves, pulling away from him and looking at his face.

“Are you okay?” he asks brow furrowed, eyes wide and worried.

There is eyeliner smeared around his eyes, running from the water, and Michael remembers the last time that he saw Alex like that.

His eyeliner had been running from the sweat, and he was lying on his back next to Michael laughing at something that Michael said that he can't remember, and he'd turned the smile on him, and Michael had thought with a staggering clarity, I love you.

He hadn't said it then because Alex had cut off the words with his mouth and had proceeded to make Michael forget about every letter of the alphabet except a couple of vowel sounds.

“I love you,” he says into the quiet stillness that falls over them.

Alex’s eyes do that thing they always do when something takes him by surprise and he stares unblinkingly as though he's trying to see inside of Michael's head.

Michael just watches him back not hiding anything because he's never been ashamed of his feelings for Alex. He just always seems to be leave Alex speechless when all he did was make a true statement.

Alex blinks, and his expression changes, eyes going darker. He parts his mouth, wetting his bottom lip with his tongue, and then inhales deeply as he moves his hands to Michael's face, fingers softly tickling up his jaw and curling around his ears as he tugs Michael in and kisses him, soft and slow and sweet.

When he pulls away Michael trembles in his hold, but he doesn't open his eyes.

Alex nudges their noses together and exhales the words soft and delicate and tender between the space of their mouths like it's the only place he wants the words to live.

Michael parts his lips and catches the words and swallows them whole, feeling a warmth spreading through him.

When Michael kisses him, his lips are curved into a smile.

Michael calls Max as soon as the door that leads to the pool swings shut behind Alex.

Max answers and he sounds halfway drunk and Michael can still make the music coming from the broken speakers in the Wild Pony.

He hesitates for a second because he had completely forgotten that Alex had dragged him out of the party not even an hour ago.

Michael takes a deep breath and Max stays silent waiting.

“You told him,” is all he says and he can't help the way that his voice sounds accusing and hurt.

He can't change the past, but there is all this rage bottled up inside for what could've been if Alex had just talked to him before deciding what was best for them both.

And since he refuses to take it out on Alex when he clearly has taken it out on himself, Max is the next best option.

Max doesn't say anything.

“He was already under pressure from his dad and you just sealed his fate.”

He hears Max swallow.

“I told him because he deserved to know. I didn't know about his dad or his plan to join the Air Force, Michael, but I won't be sorry for telling him. I knew if anyone could make you see sense, it would be him.”

“You shouldn't have gotten involved,” Michael grits out.

“I was doing what I thought was best-”

“You're not my dad!” Michael snaps and it instantly takes him back to that summer, and telling Max that he came to him for a listening ear not a lecture.

“I know,” Max says sounding a little tired. “I'm sorry. I was worried that you were going to make a rash decision.”

“I've been in love with Alex since I was fourteen years old,” Michael says feeling the fight sap out of him at the way Max's voice sounds. “And sure I didn't understand what I was feeling at first, but I know now that I fell in love with him in that skate park. And I haven't fallen out. No matter how hard I tried. I thought that I'd gotten him out of my system and the sight of his name sent me reeling. He almost died, Max.”

His voice shakes and he hears Max's sharp intake of breath.

“I'm sorry,” Max says again.

And then there is the sound of Liz singing loud and off key and trying to get Max to follow her to the dance floor.

Michael shakes his head and sighs. “Go. We'll talk about this later. I have someone waiting for me too.”

“Okay,” Max says. “But listen, I never meant to hurt you. I love you, Michael. You're my brother.”

Michael sighs and rolls his eyes. “Love you too, bye.”

He hangs up the phone and takes a deep breath before walking through the door.

The pool is exactly the same, which isn't a surprise.

He hears the splashing from the water and looks over and stumbles over one of Alex's shoes on the floor in front of him. He follows the trail to the other shoe and then Alex's jacket and then his shirt and then his pants.

Michael swallows hard as his eyes spot Alex's crutch and prosthetic leaning against the ladder that leads out of the pool, and the pair of black boxers are on the ground beside them a manila folder resting on top.

Michael gets closer to the edge, slowly and looks over the water where he can make out the blurry form of Alex's body as he moves beneath the water towards where he left his things.

“No trouble moving in the water, I see,” Michael says as Alex hooks his arms over the edge and leans his chin on top looking up at him.

He's glad that the words are coherent because half of his brain power is dedicated to letting him know that Alex is naked as though he hasn't figured that out.

Alex shrugs, “Swimming is easier than walking these days.”

Michael swallows hard but really doesn't know what to say to that.

“Come here,” Alex says and motions with his head to the space right in front of him. “I promise not to pull you in.”

Michael takes a deep breath and moves closer, dropping gracelessly into a crouch right in front of Alex.

He looks at him and then looks at the manila folder and then shifts his gaze to the prosthetic limb.

Michael motions at it with his fingers and drops back to sit down on the floor as he catches the prosthetic in his hands and starts to inspect it.

He hears Alex exhale and move in the water.

“The smell of chlorine and the taste of the pool water always reminds me of you, and how you said the words like you couldn't contain them anymore, and how you looked at me with your eyes wide and so honest and so full of love. You loved me,” he says sounding amazed and Michael's gaze darts from the prosthetic he's not even really paying attention to to Alex who is staring right at him.

“I've never said those words to anyone else.”

Michael's fingers tighten around the prosthetic and he can't look away.

“I knew that day that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. You left that summer and I started making plans and saving money, and then I visited you on Campus and just, all of my plans seemed so small compared to your new world-”

“Alex,” Michael starts but Alex lifts one hand and he stops.

“Just let me finish and then you can say what you want.”

Michael licks his lips and nods his head.

“And then,” he inhales and gives Michael a look that means don't interrupt. “A person you've been talking about constantly while we're on the phone calls me your Roswell Summer fling and it put a lot of things into a new perspective. I started making new plans. The kind that takes years to complete and while the Air Force hadn't been a part of the plan originally, it helped.”

Michael continues to stare at him. “What kind of plans?”

Alex motions with his head to the manila folder.

“Everything is in there. Read it well, because this is where you make the choice.”

Michael's eyes dart from the folder to Alex and back and back to Alex.

“What choice?”

Alex licks his lips and his stare intensifies a little.

“You can go, take my car and go back to the party, just let Maria know where I am, she'll send Cam to come and get me. Or,” he stops and then swallows and looks at Michael from beneath heavy lids. “You can come join me. I promise I won't let you drown.”

Michael watches as he pushes away from the ledge.

“Read. I'm going to finish my swim.”

And then he's ducking beneath the water once again.

Michael watches him make one lap, before he sets the prosthetic back where it was and inhales deeply once before he picks up the manila folder.

He skims through the papers once, pauses and then starts reading them more carefully.

The first set is Alex's military contract with a date stamped that it had been reviewed recently. It details his new assignment and the location. Effective once his medical team here in Roswell signs off on it. In Albuquerque. Michael immediately mentally calculates the miles between the base and his lab, and it leaves him feeling a little light headed at how close Alex is going to be.

The next set is a letter from the bank congratulating Alex on his new account opened almost six years ago. The secondary account holder is Michael Guerin.

Michael's eyes dart to where Alex is still doing laps, going faster than he was before.

Michael looks back down at the paperwork in his hands.

The next set of papers is a lease for a two bedroom apartment. The address is of course in Albuquerque. And Michael doesn't have to calculate too hard to know that the place was right in the middle between the lab and the base.

The last set of papers is an unsigned marriage license, dated August 13th 2009, two weeks before he'd broken things off.

Michael looks up to see Alex leaning against the other side of the pool, just staring at him.

Michael looks back down at the papers in his hands.

This is his future on a silver platter, once again.

Alex is giving him everything he wanted for them five years ago, but this time it feels like something that could be real and permanent instead of just a fantasy, a daydream he used to fall asleep to.

Michael has been in love with Alex what feels like forever. He doesn't think he'll ever be able to love anyone else.

He's tried and he's had relationships that lasted longer than a night, but everything always felt wrong, like there was something missing and it was this.

Michael closes the folder and sets it aside.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

Alex says he needs to make a choice like he doesn't already know what Michael is going to choose.

Michael opens his eyes and isn't surprised to see that Alex swam across the pool and is back to leaning his chin on his arms staring at him with wide dark endless eyes.

Michael stares back for a long second trying to see if Alex means this. If this is what he really wants, but he doesn't really doubt that. Not when Alex did all of this. Not when Alex literally stripped himself bare and exposed everything.

Michael stands suddenly, and sees the way the fear slides into Alex's eyes the second before he's pulling his shirt over his head.

He drops it and finds Alex looking at him kind of startled, as though he wasn't expecting this when he'd told Michael to make a choice.

Michael doesn't hesitate as he starts to unbuckle his pants and tug his shoes off using a little help.

He kicks his jeans off with his boots and keeps his eyes on Alex's and he hooks his fingers into the waistband of his boxers and tugs them down.

Alex's gaze drags over him like a physical touch, and Michael shudders, his eyes falling shut.

He can hear Alex treading water and figures that the water is deep enough.

He jumps into the pool and Alex yells something, but Michael's head sinks beneath the water before he can make it out.

Before Michael can sink too deep, Alex is there, tugging him up to the surface.

Michael grabs on to him immediately and Alex sinks a little, both of them going under before he's reaching out with one hand and pressing Michael up against the ladder, fingers wrapped tightly around the metal bar.

“Why did you do that?” Alex asks gasping.

Michael licks his lips, “You said you wouldn't let me drown.”

Alex stops moving and just stares at him, and Michael smiles at the reaction.

He slides his hands up to Alex's neck and pulls him in closer.

He nudges their noses together before dropping his forehead to Alex's and exhales.

Alex melts into him, pushing in closer, and dropping his face to Michael's neck.

Michael wraps his arms and legs around him and holds him tight.

He inhales and closes his eyes and vows to never let Alex go again, no matter what.

#me living half the time in an au where michael got adopted by a good family???? more likely than you think #malex #malex fic #this one is for sarah ❤#LISTEN #i adore you #your fics make me soooooooooooooooo happy #you make me soooooooooooo happy in general #but i would gladly read everything that you write #and not only that but you are the sweetest and amazing and one of my absolute favorites and i adore you!!!!#and i will literally write you anything that you want #but this one came from my heart to you!!!#hope that you like it!!#💖❤💖❤💖❤💖❤💖❤💖❤💖❤💖❤💖❤💖❤💖❤💖❤💖❤💖❤

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ladyshilya · 4 years

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Roswell New Mexico: Stay (I Missed You)

Let’s see if Max is really dead and if he how they are going to bring him back. Also how are they going to tell everyone about Rosa.

Episode starts off with Max and Liz in bed, well I would have thought that was promising but the way it was shot made me think it was a dream. I was right because then we see Liz crying over Max’s dead body. Rosa comes in wanting to know why Liz looks different, what happened to Max and talking about Isobel seeing her the night before. Liz tells Rosa that didn’t happen yesterday. It cuts to Liz talking with her father because she is taking the grant and moving away.

In the next scene we get a funeral which I thought was for Max but it was for Noah. When they had Michael come in drunk it really made me believe it was for Max. Isobel is up there trying to talk about Noah but she is having a hard time because well he was an asshole and she has lost her brother. After looking a photo that had Max in Isobel flashes to when she see’s Max’s body. Isobel decides that they should put him in the pod and not tell anyone about him. Basically have everyone believe he is out of town. At the house later Isobel and Liz get into a fight but I am sure a staged one because Liz says I’m sorry twice to get Liz to respond. When Michael follows Liz outside we find out that she has had Rosa at Max’s house and she is leaving town with her sister.

Rosa keeps having dreams of Noah which makes sense since he was obsessed with her and put her I a pod. Liz concerned about her Rosa has Kyle do a check up on her but he can find nothing wrong. It seems that Max healed everything wrong with her and she knows that Kyle is her half brother. Isobel really wants to believe there is a way to get Max back but Michael shows her how his heart is shriveled up and dead from what he did. Basically Max had a heart attack bringing back Rosa.

When Rosa and Liz arrive at hotel Liz breaks down crying and Rosa can hear her. I have never been that distraught that I went into the shower with clothes on. I have been distraught before, I think I have a huge aversion to getting my clothes wet. While sleeping Rosa has another nightmare and Liz makes Rosa tell her what happened. They discover that Noah has been in Rosa’s dreams which is one because she never met him. He did do everything through Isobel while Rosa was alive but I dunno maybe she saw him once. Maybe he did some mind visit while she was in the pod. Anything is possible he was an obsessed alien. Liz realizes that Rosa has a connection to Max because she knows things she shouldn’t. This means that Max is alive is some way and explains why his hand print has not faded.

Alex and Kyle head to the morgue to grab Noah’s body so they can do a heart transplant. Noah’s boys is still there because if you burn an alien it releases a toxin so that would be a bad idea. When they get there they find a different body on the slab. When they confront the doctor he told them he though Alex took the body since the guy looked just like him. It seems that Alex’s brother Flint has the body. Alex tries to get his brother to give back the body but he won’t and is head to Area 51. Rosa sees a car on the driving on the other side of the road and things it would be the perfect car to transport something anonymously. Since Flint was an ass, Rosa grabs the wheel from Liz and turns the car.

Flint wakes up from the crash and the body is gone. With Michael’s help they were able to get the Noah’s body to an area to take out his heart. Michael explains what he knows about them and their biology. He seems to think it’s organic tech, which makes Liz happy because tech can be repaired. When they open up Noah’s body all they find is a shriveled heart that can’t be uses. When Liz is talking with Rosa later she tells Rosa she studied restorative medicine because of what happened to Rosa. Liz plans on bring back Noah’s heart so it can be used on Max. Max gave her back the one thing that she wanted so now she is going to bring him back.

Rosa has another dream with Noah in in and he is choking her but he stopped form lighting from Max. Max does not look do great at all. It seems that Rosa is the only person Max can talk to and he was her to stop Liz from bringing him back. Wait, why what does Max know?

While all of this is going on Michael is having to deal with Maria being upset with him that he hasn’t called her back after their kiss. Michael tells her he is not the best at relationship and really doesn’t do them. Alex leave Michael a guitar but Michael gives it back. Alex give Michael the intake file on his mother and tell him there has to be more and he will help him find it. Michael doesn’t want to find out more and he pushes Alex away saying they are not good for each other. Michael hits a girl at the bar Maria works at and even kisses her in front of Maria. Michael also get punched from the girl guy and Maria kicks him out of the bar and takes his keys. I get it Michael has to do the loner thing but really can’t he have one of them. Right now I lean more towards Alex but really I would be happy if they let Michael do the polyam thing and have both of them.

Maria also has to deal with her mother leaving the nursing home that she has her in . It seems that sometimes Maria’s mother is lucid but she was talking about Rosa recently. On her last escape there is a light and then we see Maria looking for mother. All that is left on the ground is the bracelet her mother was carrying. I will admit to being really intrigued but Maria’s mother.

Isobel is dealing with the fact she keeps having memories of Noah. She even goes as far as to train and work on her powers so she can get stronger. When Isobel is visiting with Max wondering why can’t feel him but can still feel Noah. Isobel uses the ultrasound machine that is there and it looks like she is pregnant. Well I guess we know why she can’t get rid of Noah because a part of him is inside of her.

Well it was good start to the season. It’s not going to be an easy task to bring back Max. I think we all knew everyone was going to do everything they could to make it happen. I am guessing Liz is not going to California now. Also if they stay in town someone is going to find Rosa. Why doesn’t Max want Liz to bring him back? What does he know? What is Isobel going to do about the baby? What happened to Maria’s mother? So many questions to be answered and many more that are not listed. I really hope they do not do a whole love triangle with Michael because he is bi, let him be polyamorous. It might take some time but Maria and Alex are friends I am sure they can find a way to share. Seriously lets have multiple healthy representations on TV.

Until next episode where the group continues to find a way to bring back Max. Max continues asking Rosa to make sure they don’t accomplish it.

#roswell #roswell new mexico #Roswell reboot #roswell cw #roswell spoilers #roswell new mexico spoilers #roswell nm

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aliencowboyqueen · 5 years

Text

FIC: The Rules to Accidental Dating (8)

Pairing: Alex/Kyle

Summary: In which Kyle and Alex accidentally pretend-date their way to love.

Rating: Teen+

Find Chapter 1 here. | Find previous chapter here. | Fic Masterlist.

Chapter 8

Liz asks Kyle to stop by and when he visits her lab, she gestures him towards the microscope.

"I need a second opinion before I do anything," she says, but she is surrounded by a cloud of vibrant energy that tells Kyle she is expecting a positive one. "But it's been a few hours and..."

Kyle looks into the eyepiece. "It looks like the cells have repaired themselves... And they are stable?" When he saw Max's samples last, the cells were collapsing in on themselves. Now they look healthy and stable. "You did it, Ortecho!"

She throws her arms around him. "I won't know for sure until I try with Max, but..." She is smiling an infectious smile. "I will revive him... And then I can kill him for putting me through this."

Kyle laughs. He pulls her close. While he knows they're both glad for Rosa to be alive, even he whom Rosa doesn't like, he knows that Max's condition has been difficult for everyone. "You'll finally be able to leave this lab." With the exception of that movie night, Liz has barely showed her face outside. Once she get invested in something, she gets consumed by it, blinders on. "It'll be good for you. You're starting to turn a little green. Right here." He brushes his index finger against the tip of her nose.

"You're in a good mood," she says, look at him curiously.

"I'm taking Alex out for dinner later," he replies. He wants to tell her the truth. Tell her all about the crazy situation he and Alex found themselves in and about the fact that, strange as it is, he is enjoying it. Yet he can't when her eyes light up even more as soon as he says that.

"I'm so happy for the two of you," Liz says softly.

"Things are starting to look up for us all, aren't they?"

ooo ooo ooo

And then ...

Kyle's shift is almost at its end when ambulances bring in the victims of a massive car crash. He doesn't even get a chance to shoot a text before he has to get ready to assist in a surgery.

By the time he finishes, the sky has gone dark.

He finds a single missed call on his phone. When he sends Alex an 'I'm sorry, hospital emergency' text but doesn't get a response.

ooo ooo ooo

When he gets there, a bag of fast food in his hand, he finds Alex behind the cabin, throwing a ball to Bailey the Beagle. The ball lights up on impact every time it bounces off the ground, tiny colorful explosions in the night.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stand you up," Kyle says once he's reached Alex's side. "There was..."

"It's okay," Alex says in tiny, resigned voice. It's the tone that suggests it's not really okay but Kyle is off the hook. "I saw on the news."

Kyle rubs the back of his neck with his free hand. "Surgeons are the worst people to date," he says. He holds out the paper bag. "I brought food."

"You didn't need to drive all the way here," Alex says. He looks at Kyle, at the take out bag, at Kyle again. "It's not like I was starving."

Bailey drops the ball at Kyle's feet.

Kyle shrugs. He sits down onto the step of the cabin. "I spent several hours stitching a teenage boy back together." He takes the ball and throws it for Bailey, who follows it excitedly. "I just... want to play fetch with a cute dog and feed my boyfriend fries."

Alex sits down to him and there's suddenly concern in his expression. "How did it go?" he asks.

"He'll be okay." Kyle sighs. "Scars to show off and moths of physical therapy, but he'll be fine."

Alex nods. Bailey brings them the ball again and Kyle throws it for her. Then Alex says: "You remember I'm not really your boyfriend, right?"

Kyle hands him the takeout bag. "Eat your fries." When Alex takes it from him, Kyle leans his head against Alex's shoulder. He is tired and the day was long.

Later, Alex rests his free hand on Kyle's knee when he's holding the cup of fries out for Kyle. And he leaves it there, his thumb tapping a steady rhythm against Kyle's jeans.

"This is an okay date," he says after a while. He is smiling.

Kyle wants to protest that he meant to take Alex out for actual food for once. He wants to say that if they keep eating all this junk, he'll have to double his gym time. But all he makes is a content humming noise.

They sit there, tossing Bailey the ball and occasionally rewarding her with fries, until Alex has to get up to stretch his body.

When he asks Kyle to stay, Kyle is surprised by the realization that he never meant to go home.

↳ Next Chapter

#kylex #kylex fic #rnm fic #myfic

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iolrachs · 4 years

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1989, 11th July - Alex is born to Tom and Anna Weiss in Lakeville, Minnesota.

1998 - A nine year old Alex learns to hack, inspired by his older sister, Kaz.

2003 - Tom begins to teach a fourteen year old Alex how to shoot a pistol, taking him to a shooting gallery most weekends.

2007, September - Tom suffers a heart attack and dies, leaving behind Anna, Kaz, and an eighteen year old Alex.

2007, September - Alex begins a four year course at the University of Minnesota, majoring in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Computer Engineering. During this time, he joined the Minnesota Running Club.

2010 - Kaz marries Lucya. Alex is the best man at her wedding.

2011, June - Alex graduates from the University of Minnesota with full honours.

- Alex remains unemployed, albeit with a sideline in computer repair. The majority of his income, however, comes from hacking gambling sites to increase the odds of him winning.

2013 - After hacking into several government databases and being hunted by the governments in question, Alex came to Conrad Roth for sanctuary on his research vessel. Though he initially offered to work for free, Roth allowed him to stay aboard and welcomed him into his crew as a technician.

- Alex meets Lara Croft and Sam Nishimura, as well as the rest of the Endurance crew, finding his old friend Jonah a member. Alex immediately develops a crush on Lara, nurturing it in secret, though his over-awkwardness annoys Lara to some degree, and becomes fast friends with Sam.

- Alex meets Dr Whitman after the Endurance is hired to help in filming Whitman’s World. Alex does not take kindly to him, having hacked into files about his private life and discovered his messy divorce and financial strife.

- Roth charges Alex with forging the necessary permits for the ship and the expedition, including the crew.

- While setting up a Wi-Fi range extender for the Endurance, Alex fell overboard. He was saved by Lara, though pushed back into the water by Sam in mischief.

- With the expedition to find Yamatai on hold due to funding issues, Alex presents a solution in the form of a self-made 99.9% hacking program. He uses it on gambling sites to increase their chances of winning and accrue the necessary funds – however, the 0.1% chance of detection occurs and Alex is forced to throw his computer overboard to avoid being traced.

- While at sea, the Endurance needed an intermediate repair in the engine room. While Alex insisted it was a mechanical fault, Reyes correctly informed him it was an electrical fault. In attempting to make a joke, Alex made a flirtatious remark about a girl in Reyes’ photo – a girl he soon learned, around the foot in his mouth and disbelief at his own idiocy, was Reyes’ 14 year old daughter.

March - The crew came to a crossroads midway into their journey. Lara suggested venturing into the Dragon’s Triangle, where Whitman rebuked the idea. Alex hacked into a satellite to show the weather conditions over the triangle – with the storms there and Lara citing Himiko’s apparent myth for controlling the weather, a myth that could have some element of truth, Roth decided to make for the Triangle.

- At 11pm, in the vicinity of Yamatai, a storm strikes the Endurance and cleaves her in two. Alex manages to escape the shipwreck and makes it to the beach with Reyes, Jonah, Grim, Sam, Whitman, and another crew member. Although Alex tried to save him with CPR, the crew member died on the beach.

- The crew reunites with Lara while she is caught in a bear trap, having been searching for the kidnapped Sam and Mathias. The crew free Lara and split up – one to go with Lara and head for Roth, who is communicating via radio and attempting to gather all crew at his location, and the rest to fan out and find Sam. Alex offers to go with Lara, but is denied by Whitman, and joins the party searching for Sam.

- When Lara attempts to use an abandoned radio tower to boost the rescue beacon from the Endurance to call for help, it is Alex who talks her through both finding the control bank and the method of patching the signal manually through the tower’s maintenance box.

- While searching for Sam near Himiko’s palace, Reyes, Alex, and Jonah are taken captive by the Solarii Brotherhood and imprisoned in an old airplane wreck suspended in the underground geothermal caverns. The three are rescued by Lara, though are separated from her again while she returns to the caves to hunt for Sam and Whitman.

- The three manage to escape and reunite with Sam, but are cornered by the Solarii and begin a gun battle to fend them off. With Roth and Lara on a helicopter Roth had called, it seems the four will be left to the islanders, until Lara forces the pilot to land for their friends.

- Roth dies protecting Lara, and Alex attends his funeral pyre burial. He suggests to Lara that they only need to regroup, though he agrees there is something strange about the island. He leaves with Reyes, Jonah, and Sam to go to the old PT boat on the beach, with Reyes believing she can repair it sufficiently to allow them to escape.

- With the boat in bad condition, it becomes apparent Reyes needs her tools from the Endurance to properly repair the boat. Taking inspiration from Lara’s “See what you can do.”, Alex volunteers to fetch the tools from the wreck.

- He manages to successfully evade the Solarii raiding the wreck for scrap, as well as climb and travel over dangerous terrain to reach the wreck. On reaching the engine room, however, Alex was surprised by a Solarii gunman. Their brief gunfight saw Alex come out victorious, however a steel girder and several other pieces of the Endurance’s ceiling were loosened in the battle. They came crashing down on Alex, severely injuring his leg and pinning it beneath the metal beams, trapping him there until Lara came.

- Though she attempted to remove the debris, it caused Alex too much pain. The Solarii, aware of Lara’s presence and previously alerted by the sound of Alex’s gunshots, stormed the engine room, engaging in a brief exchange of bullets. After convincing Lara to leave him and return to Reyes with the tools, Alex shot at the ruptured gas pipe, causing an explosion that rocked the ship and ultimately had Lara presume he was dead. Instead, Alex was severely burned along his left side and right arm, thrown from the debris into a lower room by the blast. He was knocked unconscious and sealed within the room as the Endurance sank, with only a limited supply of air.

- Waking up on the seafloor some unknown period of time later, Alex knew he had to act. If his air supply did not run out, it would be the mounting pressure that killed him, his saving prison already groaning under the weight. Eventually forcing himself to stand, though he could not put his weight on the injured leg, Alex dragged himself to the room door, where he forced it open and attempted to swim to the surface before the pressure killed him through knocking all air for his lungs and drowning him, or by giving him brain damage in the process. Successfully making it to the surface, Alex makes for the remaining half of the Endurance, seeking to raid what medical supplies may be left in order to treat his wounds.

- A tourniquet tied around his leg and what bandages he could find binding his leg in a makeshift splint, Alex retreats to rest for the night, resolving to return to the crew in the morning. By the time he awakens, however, Lara and the crew have already journeyed inland to rescue Sam.

- Alex slowly drags himself to the beach, forced to take frequent breaks and rely almost entirely on a crutch (his leg is useless, he knows this, he knows this, but still he forces himself to go on). It is there he sees the PT boat leaving off in the distance, Lara having rescued Sam from Himiko. Though he tries to hail them, his voice is too hoarse, his body too weak, and so they leave without hearing him.

- Three months pass, and Alex is still on the island. His leg is barely healed, broken and twisted beyond all compare. Though he refuses to look, gangrene has begun to set in to the wound by the second month, despite his attempts to keep the wound clean. He searches for any other possible way off the island, evading the stragglers of the Solarii and killing them where he must.

- By the sixth month, Alex resolves that the only possible way to escape is to hail for rescue from the radio tower as Lara did. It takes him several weeks to cross the island, slowed as he is by injury and his leg, and several days to climb the tower. On his descent from the tower, his leg gives out and he falls from the last ladder, breaking his right arm.

early September: Lara travels to Pripyat at the behest of her hallucinations of Alex. There, she meets his sister, Kaz, and her family-in-law, and defends them from Trinity. Although Viktor and Kirill are killed by Mr Cruz, it is revealed that Lucya is still alive, having faked her death to escape Trinity. Lucya, Kaz, Varvara, and Pavel are all taken into Witness Protection, where Lara gives them burner phones that they may remain in contact with her should they need her.

late October - Alex is rescued by plane and flown to Bokutoh Hospital for emergency treatment. He is treated for sepsis and found to be suffering from septic shock; his arm is set and his leg, too far ravaged by gangrene and infection, is amputated above the knee. He remains in a medically induced comatose state for several weeks, half-dead and kept alive by IV lines and antibiotics.

2014, January - Alex begins to stir. Although still disorientated and incredibly weak, hospital staff manage to get two sentences from him – Lara Croft and Yamatai.

- Although not enough to identify him, as his identification was left in the Endurance, Alex’s repeated murmurs of ‘Lara Croft’ drive hospital staff to find her in the hopes she might know their mystery patient. She is located on account of her publishing her testimony of what happened on Yamatai.

10th February - Lara Croft is contacted. She does not remain convinced the hospital have the right person, until Yamatai is mentioned. She immediately packs and fly for Japan.

11th February - Lara reunites with Alex. At first she does not believe it is him, believing instead that it is a hallucination or a cruel joke. Though Alex manages to convince her, through tears on both parts, he is still not strong enough and falls asleep again.

12th February - Lara contacts Jonah, Reyes, and Sam to inform them of Alex’s survival. They all fly to the hospital to see Alex with their own eyes and reunite with one they thought dead.

15th February - With Alex’s permission, Lara has him transferred to Royal Surrey County Hospital, so that she and Sam may keep watch over him.

17th March - With doctors finally satisfied he is recovered enough to be released, Alex is discharged. He is offered a place to live by Lara, in her London apartment with her and Sam.

1st April - Alex begins the process of being fitted for a prosthetic leg. Although he tries to argue, Lara insists on paying for the whole process, as well as his rehabilitation and learning to walk.

November - Atlas DeMornay forces Lara to attend therapy and prove she is of sound mind before he allows her access to her fortune. It is revealed to Alex and Sam by Atlas that Lara is in fact a Lady.

- Obsessed with proving her legitimacy, Lara begins a search for the Divine Source. Although forbidden to accompany her physically, Alex remains in London as technological backup, ready to hack and find information and funding as Lara needs it.

- Following her return from Syria, Lara returns to Croft Manor, bringing Alex and Sam with her. Though it is Lara who does all the work, Alex still attempts to help her find evidence she is the rightful owner of the estate and her inheritance.

- Lara and Jonah fly out to Siberia to find the lost city of Kitezh. Alex remains in Croft Manor with Sam, helping out in the restoration where he can and waiting for Lara to return.

#headcanon. › alex.

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