#special mention to roswell as well as i love that one and for the rest of time ill remember that scene when max points up h9ueiofjds

[spellbook-gayboy]

Cape-Watch Monthly Bulletin- February 2023

Hey, y’all! I’m your host, Christina Cabello, bringing you more of the biggest superhero news of the month with the Cape-Watch Monthly Bulletin! February has brought many new developments for our favourite heroes, and we have some of the biggest stories of the month waiting for you below the cut!

Visitors from Far Beyond!

Our first story on the list is quite the shocker! Earlier this month, in the aftermath of their victory against the Walking Dread, the Guardians of the Globe received a visit from quite the strange group of visitors. They were a team of both humanoid and non-humanoid aliens, who claimed to be heroes from the distant future called ‘The Guardians of the Cosmos’, apparently the best superheroes of the 31st Century. Little is known of the nature of their visit to the present, but the Guardians of the Globe accompanied them, and haven’t been since. 

Their absence naturally has caused some problems. After all, when the world’s premier superhero team suddenly vanishes off the face of the Earth, it tends to give the many supervillains of the world some ideas. Luckily, the recently assembled team of Breakthrough has been able to pick up much of the Guardians’ slack, dealing with all manner of supervillain threats over the two-week period that the Guardians were absent for. As stated by Breakthrough team leader Frontline, ‘it’s been a hell of a time for the team. We’ve been darting from country to country almost every day, and we’re completely worn down! Still, it gave us all a chance to test our mettle as a team and as individuals. Now that the Guardians are back, we’ll be taking some much needed R&R, but rest assured that Breakthrough will be back soon!’

While much of the group that approached the Guardians currently remains unknown to the public, several pieces of information managed to escape the media blackout and circulated through social media: as it turns out, this is not the first time that this mysterious group has been sighted. The first recorded instance that matches the description of the group goes all the way back to the summer of 1947 in Roswell, New Mexico. For the readers who aren’t aware of what this means, the ‘Roswell Incident’ is believed to be a precursor event to the infamous 1952 Wilmington Invasion, the first time that Earth became the target of a full-blown alien invasion. The account came from a local journalist dealing with the events in Roswell, who on one night described ‘a strange yellow bubble hovering in the air’ outside his apartment, from which he claims emerged ‘a whole host of strange and unknown creatures, some more humanoid with distinguishable limbs and organs, and others that defy description.’ 

Well, let’s hope that the next sighting doesn’t make me do research that’s quite as nightmare-inducing. 

Hold Your Loved Ones Close

Now, considering that it is indeed the month of February, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention possibly the biggest celebrations of the month, Valentine’s Day. As well as its obvious global recognition, the celebration has also found a special place in the hearts of the world’s many superhero communities, a short respite from the many stressful and potentially catastrophic days that most heroes face. It also provides an opportunity for them to renew their commitments to others, forge new relationships, and look back on those they’ve lost, and this year has been no exception, with many showing their affection for those they hold close. 

As they usually do, Capes Incorporated waded in on the hype around the day, taking to Twitter to show off the many happy couples among their employees, including the newest addition Magic Man, who also happens to be the only visibly LGBTQ+ member on the US branch’s staff. As you might imagine, Twitter responded by clowning on the thread. Another notable example is the Guardians of the Globe’s entire line-up, which consists of at least two non-heterosexual romances (Shrinking Rae and Dupli-Kate’s relationship and Rex Splode’s relationship with solo hero Invincible), as well as whatever the hell is going on between Shapesmith and Fifth Force. Finally, we also have what many have called ‘the world’s most famous queerplatonic relationship’ between the Argentinian heroes Devastador and Lob del Valle, who spent the day showcasing the many ways that they choose to celebrate their rather unique partnership. 

Finally, one last example of someone who has found love in the superhero community is... me! That’s right, dear viewers, I am now the proud girlfriend of one of America’s finest! While I can’t say anymore in order to keep the both of us safe (or about as safe as a superhero and a superhero journalist can be), just know that she is the absolute light of my life, and that I wouldn’t trade her for the world! 

The New(er) Guy

While on this subject, the Guardians of the Globe also welcomed yet another new member to their line-up this month with the relatively new American superhero Bulletproof. This announcement actually proved quite confusing to many both inside and outside of the superhero community of America, mainly due to the decision to pick such a new starter. In fact, Bulletproof’s career thus far is still much shorter than the last notable newcomer, Kid Omni-Man, who began last August. The only explanation for this new choice of member came from Guardians team leader The Immortal, who had this to say:

‘Of course, I understand why this decision might shock some people. For decades, the Guardians of the Globe has been associated with the cream of the crop, the best that Earth has to offer, far from a starter team. But as someone who all too well what the original aims of the Guardians were, I know the importance of nurturing new figures as well as developing the existing roster. I think that Bulletproof has a lot of untapped potential, and that the Guardians is the perfect place for him to really grow as a hero!”

In accordance with his short career, Bulletproof’s media presence has also been sparse and uninteresting up to this point, mostly tourist shots and pictures of some homemade pieces of very suggestive artwork. For now, he doesn’t seem to match the often larger-than-life reputation of his peers, but that can easily change with enough time. I wish him luck, especially with how difficult life as a Guardian can be. 

Trouble on the Tides

Our final story for the month is actually quite peculiar. Last week, while on an apparent mission off the coast of Chile, the superhero team known as Fight Force mysteriously vanished without a trace. The team of supers was last spotted somewhere in the vicinity of the city of La Serena, where they were documented by locals responding to a distress call from a cargo ship. What is most concerning is that despite how routine a situation like this should be, it still resulted in the disappearance of all five members. The government liaison to the superhero community, Peter Schlottman, gave this statement in response to the news:

‘While an event like this is certainly unusual and does arouse a great deal of suspicion regarding the wellbeing of Fight Force’s members, the American people can rest assured knowing that whatever may happen next, they can trust in the abilities of Fight Force. They are some of the United States’ finest heroes, and I have every confidence that they will be back in the public eye soon enough.’

Most of the time, I’d take his word for it, but a few anonymous sources close to Fight Force have suggested otherwise. If what they say is to be believed, then the situation may be much more dire: when they disappeared, Fight Force was apparently investigating the appearance of a strange tropical storm that had was holding the cargo ship in place, something which shouldn’t be meteorogically possible according to all known laws of physics and weather. Whatever turns out to be true, here’s to hoping that Fight Force makes it out alright. 

And that’s all for this month, folks! Once again, I’d like to give a big thank you to all our subscribers and donors, who keep the lights on around here! This has been your host, Christina Cabello, telling you to stay safe, stay hydrated, and tune in next month for more of the biggest superhero stories around!

[gra-sonas]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes, Isobel Evans/Greogry Manes Characters: Alex Manes, Michael Guerin, Isobel Evans, Gregory Manes, Max Evans Additional Tags: Fluff and Angst, Christmas Fluff, Malex Secret Santa 2020, 12 Days of Malex 2020, Kid Fic, Married Couple Summary:

Michael's eyes widened when he noticed Alex's sweater. "Oh my god, this is my early Christmas present tonight. My model husband, wearing an "ugly" Christmas sweater. Ellie, have you seen this? Have you seen how handsome Alex looks in his sweater? I mean, he'd give Colin Firth a run for his money any day, but wow, this sweater. I'm in awe."

---

My @malexsanta​ gift for @usbournejez - 7.5k of fluff with a smidge of angst. 

Your prompt "On Christmas Eve, Michael and Alex have to look after Greg's little baby together. Their true nature as parents are revealed. Also, you know, Alex holding a baby under Christmas tree lighting. How could Michael resist that?" spoke to me immediately, and I hope I managed to write something you’ll enjoy. MERRY CHRISTMAS! ❤️

~*~

"What are you wearing?" Isobel asked, looking at Alex in mild disbelief. Her usually well-dressed brother-in-law was wearing what looked a lot like a replica of Colin Firth's reindeer Christmas sweater from the first Bridget Jones movie.

"Michael's idea," Alex said, his dreamy smile betraying his annoyed tone.

Isobel chuckled. "Oh honey, you have it bad for my brother, so bad even, that you, Mr. GQ himself, put on an," she air quoted the next word "ugly Christmas sweater to make him happy."

Alex laughed. " Don't tell anyone, but I ordered Christmas themed onesies for us to wear in front of the open fire. There are candy canes and red-nosed reindeers printed all over it. He'll love it!"

"Alex, you're the gift Michael's been waiting for his whole life, even during the 50 years we were floating in our pods," Isobel said fondly.

Alex laughed, delighted, and then looked over Isobel's shoulder.

"Didn't you bring your husband? And where's the main attraction?"

"Greg's just getting all her things from the car. She fell asleep on the drive here and we thought we'd wait until the last moment to wake her up. You know how she is when someone interrupts one of her naps," Isobel explained.

"Like mother, like daughter," Alex chuckled.

Isobel flicked his ear, which caused Alex to let out a painful yelp. Then she poked her perfectly manicured finger into his stomach – right into Rudolph's red nose.

"You are still holding that against me? I was 9 months pregnant when that happened. You try that some day, Captain, and I'll come over and wake you up from a restful nap you were only able to take because your kid didn't do cartwheels inside of you for a change. You'd be grumpy, too."

"You know, if I could, I would absolutely try that," Alex said wistfully.

Isobel looked at him, an eyebrow raised in question.

"The pregnancy thing," Alex explained. "If I could, I'd do it. You know how much Michael's yearning to become a dad, but that's something I'll ever be able to give him. I sometimes wonder whether he ever regretted that he didn't fall in forever love with a woman."

Alex's train of thought was interrupted, when Isobel wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into a tight hug.

"You know," she began, but interrupted herself to kiss his cheek. Then she pulled back to look him in the eyes. "There are many other ways for you two to become parents, Alex. Michael loves, you. He loves you so much, no amount of yearning for a kid will ever make him regret that the love of his life is someone who isn't equipped with a womb." She squeezed him tightly. "Come on, let's go outside and help Greg."

Alex smiled into her shoulder and breathed in deeply. She smelled expensive today, but the scent of rain underneath was unmistakable. It was so familiar and soothing, the cloud of self-doubt over his head evaporated. He squeezed her one last time before he let go of her.

"Can I try my luck and get her?"

Isobel smiled at him, her eyes shining with fondness. "You do that. She loves her Uncle Alex the most, maybe she won't be too cross when it's you who wakes her up."

Alex followed Isobel outside to the back of the car parked in the driveway. Gregory was folded in half and dived for one last thing stuck in the in the far right corner of the trunk.

"Gotcha," he exclaimed in a hushed voice, carefully retreating back out of the trunk until he was able to stand up to his full height without being danger of hitting his head.

"Hi, baby brother, it's good to see you." He smiled warmly at Alex, and Alex felt a pang of love burst in his chest. He was on good terms with all three of his brothers these days, even with Flint, but Greg held a special place in his heart.

"Hello, you big lump. Good to see you, too," he joked and stepped closer to wrap Greg into a tight hug.

"Nice sweater," his brother murmured, "Michael will love it."

Alex pulled back and chuckled. "You know him too well. I just told Isobel that I ordered Christmas onesies we'll wear tonight. It's just wonderful to see him being a kid at Christmas, making up for all the years during his childhood he couldn't. Enough of that, though. Why don't you guys grab all the stuff and go inside while I'll try my best to kiss the princess awake?"

Isobel hauled a large bag over her shoulder, picked up two paper bags, and headed towards the house. Gregory clicked a button on the car key, and the trunk door slowly closed. Then he picked up the baby swing and another bag and nodded at Alex. "She's all yours. Good luck with our little Miss Grumpypants." He winked at Alex, then he turned around and followed Isobel.

Alex took a deep breath and steeled himself for the task ahead. He loved Eloise like he was his own, and she loved him. At least he hoped she would one day. She was only seven months old and couldn't do much more than coo and babble, but going by how huge she smiled whenever Alex picked her up, he liked to think that she knew who he was, and that she loved him.

He walked around the car and carefully opened the back door. She was fast asleep in her car seat, the ear of her favorite toy bunny (a gift from Alex) clutched into her tiny fist. Alex's heart clenched at the sight of her. She was so small and adorable. He couldn't wait to spend the day with her.

Carefully, he unbuckled the seat belt and tried to wrangle her arms out of the safety harness without jostling her too much. Her tiny mouth pursed in discontent, and she blinked one eye open.

"Hello sweetheart, there you are," he whispered and bent forward to press a soft kiss to her forehead. She mewled unhappily but grabbed for him until she had a fist full of Rudolf's face in her hand. He lifted her out of the car seat and scooped her up in his arms.

"That's my girl. I know you're still sleepy but it's cold out here and we should go inside. You can take another nap later, I promise."

She whimpered and buried her face in the crook of his neck, holding onto him and her bunny. He patted her back and closed the car door before he carried her back inside the house.

Alex stopped at the open door of the guest room, where Gregory and Isobel had already placed the bag with the baby's change of clothes. After Liz and Max's twin were born, Michael had set up a beautiful baby bed he'd built himself. "I want our nephews and nieces to have a bed here to take naps or spend the night when they come over, Alex, and maybe, one day, we'll even have a baby of our own."

Alex had struggled to hold back tears when Michael had said it. He always did when Michael mentioned things like having a baby or being a dad. He knew that Michael loved him, and that they'd probably adopt a child one day (he had several websites of adoption agencies bookmarked), but he couldn't quite shake the feeling of wondering whether Michael ever felt regret that they couldn't have biological children, like his alien siblings.

"Oh, there you are. Is she awake?" Isobel's voice nudged him out of his thoughts.

"I wouldn't quite say she's awake yet, but she's not asleep anymore either," Alex replied as he made his way into the living room. He smiled down on Ellie's head and pressed a kiss into her golden hair.

He took the bunny and dropped it on the nearby couch. Ellie snuffled and let out another sleepy unhappy mewl. Isobel came closer and smiled at her daughter.

"Could you turn her around so I can take off her jacket? Your house is so cozy and warm, I think I'll even take off the cardigan. You can put it back on when you think she's getting cold."

Alex turned Ellie around in his arms to give Isobel access to the. Ellie pouted at being wrenched from the comfort of Alex's embrace, but when she saw her mom, the pout quickly turned into a toothless grin.

"Hi baby girl, there you are. Did you have a good nap?" Ellie kicked her legs into the air in reply. "Oh yes, you are waking up. I can see that. Let me take off your jacket, sweetheart," Isobel cooed, opened the zipper of the jacket, and placed a flurry of quick kisses across her daughter's face.

Ellie giggled and threw her arms up in the air as far as she could. Isobel was quick to pull the sleeves off of Ellie's arms while she was still holding them up.

"This trick works like a charm every time," she told Alex in a conspiratorial tone. He filed the information away for later use. "Good to know," he grinned. "Can I try it with the cardigan?"

Isobel nodded, and scooped Ellie up in her arms. Alex stepped closer and opened the buttons of Ellie's green cardigan.

"Oh, is that cashmere?" he wondered.

Isobel rolled her eyes. "Yes, gift from my mom. I know she means well, but a cashmere cardigan for a baby isn't the most useful gift if I'm being honest. I would never tell her that, though. She loves being a grandma and that's what matters."

"True, I don't think I've ever seen your mom as relaxed and happy as she seems to be when she's spending time with your and Max's kids."

"I'll admit that I didn't expect Mrs. "what will my friends at the Country Club say about this" Evans would be such a devoted grandmother, not afraid to get her clothes dirty when she's taking the twins to the playground, nor ever complaining when Ellie spits on her. I'm so happy that Max and I are able to give her the baby experience, since she never had that with us."

Alex 's thoughts drifted off to Jesse. It had been five years since his father's death, and most days he was just grateful that he'd never have to be afraid of the man again. There were still moments when he missed him, though. Not for what or how Jesse was, but for what he maybe could've been under different circumstances. Would he have softened with grandchildren around?

Alex closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head. No, he wouldn't have. His father had been a hard man, and a soldier through and through. He would've despised Ellie and the twins for being part alien, probably wouldn't even have hesitated to lock them up somewhere, together with their parents. Alex shuddered at the thought.

He forced his eyes open again and looked at Isobel and Ellie. Isobel looked at him, worry creasing her brow.

"Sorry, just thought about my dad for a second. It happens sometimes," he said apologetically.

She nodded. "I know. Greg does, too."

She shifted Ellie on one hip and lifted one hand to cup Alex's face.

"It's okay, Alex. Losing a parent is hard. No matter what kind of parent. Grief doesn't follow logic, it follows emotions. And emotions are complicated. Messy." She stroked his cheek with the soft pad of one finger. "Come on, let this little nugget take your thoughts off of unpleasant memories. See if you get her to lift her arms so you can take the cardigan off."

Alex pressed a quick kiss to Isobel's open palm before he focused on Ellie again.

Isobel shifted her in her arms and he started peppering Ellie's face with little kisses. She squealed happily and raised her arms in excitement. Alex was quick to make use of the opportunity, and not half a minute later he held the cardigan in his hands.

"Ha, neat trick. I'll try and see if it works with Michael, too."

Isobel's face twisted in disgust. "Ew, I really didn't need that mental image of your and my brother's bedroom antics."

"Are you telling me you haven't tried it with Greg yet?"

She blushed. "That's between me and my husband. A propos, husband." She turned around to look for him. "Greg? Did you fall asleep in there?"

Gregory entered the living room, his phone in hand.

"No, just checked the weather report. We should get on the road if we want to make it there before the snow."

Isobel nodded. "Okay, time to say goodbye, sweetheart. Mom and dad won't be gone long. We'll be back tomorrow morning, just in time for opening the presents, and breakfast."

She turned to Alex. "You are making breakfast, aren't you? I'm dying to eat your pancakes and drink coffee from that fancy machine of yours. Husband, dearest, why don't we have a fancy coffee maker?"

"Because I believe in the magic of ChemEx, not coffee machines, honey. And now come, just a quick goodbye and then we really have to go." He bent down and took Ellie from Isobel's arms.

She laughed happily when he wrapped her in a comforting hug and kissed her chubby little cheeks. "Be a good girl, Ellie. We'll be back tomorrow morning."

Isobel hugged Alex, also kissing him on the cheek.

"When does Michael come home? Did he or Max say what they are up to?"

Alex shook his head, then he held his arms out in front of him and Greg placed Ellie in his arms.

"He didn't say, just that they were going to check something they discovered on a map? He didn't elaborate, but he said he'd be back home in time for dinner at breakfast this morning."

"Okay, I hope they'll be okay out there in this weather."

Alex's heart clenched painfully at the idea of something happening to Michael, but then he forced himself to relax. "They took Max's Jeep, not the truck. I'm sure they'll be fine. Michael wouldn't do anything reckless." He frowned. "Well, not on Christmas Eve at least. I'll text him later and ask how they're doing. Maybe they're on their way back already."

Isobel nodded and squeezed Alex's arm.

"If you hear from them, text me? I'll put my phone on silent, but I'll sneak a glance at it every now and then. There will be plenty of boring speeches tonight. But it's all for a good cause, and as the event planner, it's my duty to attend."

She kissed the top of Ellie's head.

"Be good, Ellie. I miss you already and can't wait to cuddle with you tomorrow morning. I love you." She placed another kiss on Alex's cheek. "And I love you, too. Thank you so much for taking care of her. We'd be lost without you."

Alex laughed. "Nonsense, you know how much I love having her here. We're going to have a lot of fun. I have everything we need like diapers, formula, toys. I have yours, Greg's and Dr. Lieberman's phone numbers on speed dial, Kyle lives just 2 miles away, I'm experienced in first aid, and Michael's an alien with healing powers."

Isobel looked at him with wide eyes.

"Good god, Alex, I know she's in the very best hands with you. Relax. We trust you. Indefinitely. You are an amazing uncle, and apart from Michael, Liz and Max, there's no one else in the world I'd trust my kid with as much, as I trust you. And now we're leaving to avoid the snow. See you tomorrow morning, and please, text me when you hear from my idiot brothers!"

She took Gregory's hand and pulled him with her. Greg looked over his shoulder at Alex. "She's right, there's no one else I'd trust my daughter with more than you. Love you, Alex, see you tomorrow," he said on his way out.

And then they were gone, and Alex was alone with Ellie. He closed his eyes and focused on calming his breathing. Focused on the warm weight of the baby in his arms. He caught a whiff of her scent he hadn't noticed before. Baby powder and rain, unmistakably. He buried his nose in Ellie's hair and took a deep breath.

The smell of rain calmed his frayed nerves. He had no idea why he was so on edge. He shook his head and opened his eyes again. He looked around his and Michael's living room and took in every detail.

The large open fireplace in the corner, the comfy looking L-shaped couch by the large, floor-deep windows, the many pictures of Michael and himself, and of their friends and families. The tall Christmas tree next to the fireplace, decorated with wooden ornaments and red accessories, strings of tiny yellow glowing lights woven into the tree.

Michael had helped him put up the baby playpen next to the couch before he'd left for his adventure with Max earlier. Another beautiful piece of furniture Michael had designed and assembled in his workshop.

The playpen was elevated so that Alex could sit next to it on the couch or on a chair and didn't have to drop down to the floor. The playpen was softly padded with colorful cushions Rosa had made for them, and a few soft toys were stored in a wooden box attached at the side. A mobile with little wooden aliens, stars, and UFOs hang from a hook above the playpen.

Ellie gurgled and wriggled around in his arms. He turned her around and looked at her with a soft smile.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart, your Uncle Alex has been very absent-minded today. I'm so happy you're here, though. Let's put a fresh diaper on you, and then we can play, what do you say?"

Ellie cooed and reached for his face with her little hands. He laughed and kissed the tips of her fingers, which got her even more excited. Eloise Manes loved kisses. Just like her Uncle Alex.

Alex carried her over into the guest room where a changing table with all essentials was set up. He turned on the small space heater, put her down on the table, and changed her diapers. Before he put her onesie back on, he blew a few raspberries on her naked belly. She laughed and kicked her legs in delight. Alex was in a great mood when they returned to the living room. He put Ellie in the playpen, and they spent the afternoon playing with the mobile, a soft ball, and of course, Ellie's bunny.

After a while she got restless, though. She didn't like lying on her back or belly for too long. Alex stood up, picked her up, and started walking around the living room with her. She gurgled and "talked" to him excitedly, reaching for anything that grabbed her attention, the Christmas tree in particular.

"No, Ellie, I'm so sorry, but I can't let you play with the tree or the ornaments. But you know what, why don't we call your Uncle Michael and see what he's up to. It's getting dark outside and I want to ask him when he's coming home."

Alex put Ellie on the hip of his good leg and pulled his phone from the back pocket of his jeans. He walked closer to the window and held up the phone in front of himself and Ellie. "Hey Siri, facetime Michael," Alex told the phone and kissed Ellie's had absentmindedly.

Michael answered on the third ring and his scruffy face suddenly filled the screen. He smiled.

"Oh, Ellie's already there. I'm so sorry, Alex, we got held up but we're on our way back now," Michael said before Alex could even say hello.

Ellie tried to reach for the phone and Alex struggled to keep it out of her reach without dropping her. He laughed.

"He's on his way home, Ellie, he'll be here soon and then you can give him a kiss." He put the phone down and hoisted her back up on his hip. He should've sat down on the couch instead of carrying her around while he talked to Michael. Oh well. He grabbed his phone and walked over to the couch.

He sat down; Ellie nestled comfortably in the crook of his elbow. "Are you still there?" he asked.

Michael waved at him. "Of course, darlin'. Still here. On my way home to you. Can't wait to kiss you and my adorable niece!"

Michael smiled warmly at them, and Alex felt like he was in danger of bursting with love for the man. His man. His husband.

Not in his wildest dreams would he ever have imagined that one day, he'd sit here in a house he'd built together with the love of his life he'd been lucky enough to marry two years ago.

"Hey, earth to Alex, are you still there?"

Alex laughed. "Ugh, sorry, this has been an ongoing thing today. So weird. I seem to get lost in thought every now and then. Sorry, what did you say when you'd be home?"

"I didn't say yet, but I think it can't be more than half an hour," Michael replied.

"That's good. Ellie's been looking forward to seeing you all afternoon." Ellie's head perked up at the mention of her name.

"I can hardly believe that. You'd think her alien uncle is her favorite, since she's, y'know, half alien herself. But nope. It's you. She has impeccable taste, I'll admit. You're my favorite, too."

Alex blushed, he honest to god blushed at a sappy wonderful thing his husband said to him. It was good that both his hands were occupied with holding a baby and a phone, it kept him from burying his head in his hands.

"Alright," he said. "About half an hour, good, that's when it's almost time for her dinner. When she's in bed, I want to snuggle up with you on our couch and enjoy an evening in front of the fire."

Michael nodded. "I'm in! Can't wait to tell you about our little adventure."

There was something in the way Michael looked at him through the phone that made Alex wonder, but then Michael turned the phone around and Max in the driver's seat became visible.

"Say hello to your favorite brother-in-law, Max," Alex could hear Michael say.

Max glanced over to Michael's phone and smiled.

"Hi, favorite brother-in-law. How are you and my favorite niece holding up?"

Alex laughed. "So many favorites, but guess what, you're my favorite brother-in-law, too."

Max snorted. "I'm your only brother-in-law, you're cheating."

Alex shrugged. "What, and just because you're the only one, you can't be my favorite? Drive safe, you two. And when you get home, tell Liz and the twins hi. See you tomorrow!"

"I'll tell her. Hope you and Michael will have a wonderful evening tonight. See you tomorrow."

Michael turned the phone back around to himself.

"I can't wait to see you, Alex. I love you. See you in half an hour," Michael said, pursing his lips to make a kissing face.

"I love you, too. I'm waiting for you. We're waiting for you," Alex said in a hushed voice. He dipped the phone a little to show Ellie to Michael. She was blinking tiredly and had jammed her thumb and part of her rabbit's ear into her mouth.

Michael's face softened at the sight of the little girl.

"She's adorable. See you in a bit Alex."

With that the phone screen went black. Alex sent a short text to Isobel and put his phone away. Then he reached for the beautiful blanket (matching the colors of the playpen cushions) Rosa had made for them and pulled it over himself and Ellie. He'd just rest for a bit until Michael came home.

~*~

"What do you think he'll say?" Michael asked when Max stopped the car.

Max turned his head and smiled. "What do you think he'll say? You know him better than I do, and I know what he'll say. Go inside, Michael. Take care of Ellie, then tell him."

Michael reached over and squeezed Max's hand.

"Thanks, Max. You're right. And thanks for coming with me today. Give Liz my best and have a good evening. See you tomorrow at eleven. You're bringing Arturo, right?"

Max shook his head. "No, he's coming with Rosa. Even though we told him several times that he didn't have to prepare food for the breakfast, he insisted on making "a little something". Expect Rosa's tiny car being loaded to the brim with containers with enough food to feed an entire army. He's just so happy to spend Christmas with family, we didn't have the heart to tell him no."

"You won't ever hear me complain about Arturo bringing food. I hate that he's putting in so much work to feed us all, but I also understand that it's important to him. Alex is still making pancakes, though. He even ordered more of the syrup you liked so much the last time," Michael teased.

Max grinned. "He's my favorite brother-in-law for a reason. And now go inside, Michael. I'm very happy for you. See you tomorrow."

Michael nodded and took a deep breath before he opened the car door and got out of the car. He turned around and looked at Max.

"Drive safe. Good night, Max."

"Good night, Michael."

Michael closed the door and Max drove off.

Michael patted his jacket down in search for his keys. He knew he was stalling. He didn't need keys to open the door. He just needed this one additional minute to compose himself before he faced Alex.

Once inside, he shrugged off his coat, toed off his boots, and hung up his hat on the hook by the door. The house was quiet, but he saw light coming from the living room.

On socks, he walked down the hallway and quickly washed his hands in the kitchen. He dried off his hands and went back into the hallway. The door to the living room was ajar. He pushed it open and looked around the corner in search for Alex.

When he spotted him and Ellie asleep on the couch, his heart soared. He entered the room, stepped closer, and looked his fill. Alex looked beautiful in the dim light of the room. His dark hair slightly tousled, his cheeks flushed from the warmth, and the sleepy baby draped across his chest. Michael pulled out his phone and took a photo.

Then he kneeled down next to the couch and softly stroked Alex's cheek. Alex stirred.

"You're back. I've missed you," he mumbled.

"I've missed you, too." He smiled. "Are you good on the couch with her, or would you like me to take over?"

Alex blinked his eyes open and assessed the situation.

"If I'm being honest, I wouldn't mind a bathroom break. Maybe you could take over. On my way back I'll make a bottle for her dinner. I don't think she'll make much of a fuss afterwards and should go to sleep fairly quickly. I defrosted a quiche this morning, I could put that one in the oven and when she's asleep, we'll have that and some wine in front of the fire."

"If I hadn't already married you, I'd ask for your hand in marriage again this very moment. I'm starving, and quiche sounds amazing," Michael exclaimed. He pushed himself up into a standing position, bent down, and gave Alex a lingering kiss.

"Hi, darlin', I love you."

Alex smiled warmly. "I love you, too." He shifted on the couch. "Do you want me to hand her to you, or will you float her over?"

"You can hand her to me, she has to wake up for dinner anyway," Michael said, reaching for Ellie.

Alex lifted her off of his chest and gave her to Michael. She blinked her eyes open and when she saw who it was who took her, she made cooing noises.

"Hello Ellie, my love. Yes, hello. I've missed you, too." He held the baby stable with his telekinesis, while he offered Alex his hand to help him up from the couch. Alex winced when he stood up and carefully stretched his stiff muscles.

Michael's eyes widened when he noticed Alex's sweater. "Oh my god, this is my early Christmas present tonight. My model husband, wearing an "ugly" Christmas sweater. Ellie, have you seen this? Have you seen how handsome Alex looks in his sweater? I mean, he'd give Colin Firth a run for his money any day, but wow, this sweater. I'm in awe."

Alex laughed. "You are silly, and I love you, I really have to go." He kissed Michael on the cheek. "I'll be quick."

Michael nodded and then turned his attention back to Ellie. She looked at him with big, brown eyes, then she smiled. Michael smiled back. "It's so good to see you, sweetheart. You have to tell me about what you and Alex were up to this afternoon."

Ellie made a gurgling sound. "No way," Michael exclaimed. "You read a book together? And played with your bunny? Sounds like you had a very busy day."

Michael continued to hold a rather one-sided conversation with the baby while Alex went to the bathroom.

When he returned to the living room with the warm bottle in one, and a large cotton flannel in his other hand, Michael was slowly dancing through the room, Ellie in his arms, and he sang "Jingle Bells" for her. She loved it and couldn't stop smiling and cooing.

Michael noticed Alex standing in the door and waved him over. As much as he'd loved to continue dancing with her, the bottle would get cold very fast, and if there was one thing Ellie despised, it was lukewarm formula.

"Dinner's served, Miss Ellie," he told the baby. "Where would milady prefer to dine tonight?"

~*~

Once Ellie was fed and asleep in her bed in the guest room, Alex and Michael returned to the living room. Alex opened the baby monitor app on his phone and set it up, then he put his phone down on the table in front of the couch.

When he turned around, Michael was standing in front of the wall where most of their photos were on display. He was looking at one of the framed photos, a picture of Michael, Isobel, and Max, shortly after they'd been found alone in the desert after hatching from their pods.

Alex walked over to Michael and hooked his chin over Michael's shoulder. "What are you looking at?" he asked.

"Oh, it's just this old picture of the three of us. Look how small we were."

Alex smiled. "Yeah, you were around 7 years old, I think. Or at least that's the age they assumed, right?" Michael nodded.

"Yes, 7 years old, and they made the day we were found our birthday on all the legal papers when it became clear that no one would come and claim us. Officially, I turned 7 on the day we hatched."

Alex kissed the shell of Michael's ear. "I'm so sorry that you have no way of finding out when your actual birthday is."

Michael turned around and looked at Alex. "Well, turns out I do, actually. That's why Max and I went on our little adventure today."

Alex's eyes widened. "You found out when you were actually born somewhere in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico? On Christmas Eve? How, Michael?"

Michael took a deep breath. "Not quite, but I think we found something that will give us some much-needed answers. I didn't tell you about this "mission" because I didn't want to stress you. It has to do with—" Michael took another deep breath. "It has to do with Mr. Jones."

Alex's breath hitched. "Michael, that was four years ago. And Jones is dead. Did you resurrect him? Is he in a pod?" Alex's heart beat faster, and he struggled to keep calm. He'd been the one who'd been taken by Mr. Jones. Jones had tortured him and left him for dead.

Michael had found him just in time to save him (with a handprint no less) from certain death. Then he'd organized a hunt for Jones that had ultimately ended with Jones being captured. The man had killed himself swallowing a pill filled with poison.

Kyle, Liz, and Michael had examined the body afterwards to make sure that Jones was really dead. They had buried him. How was it possible that whatever Michael'd been up to today, had to do with Jones?

"Is—Is Jones back?" His voice sounded small to his own ears.

Michael pulled him into a tight hug. "No, oh my god, no. I'm so sorry, Alex, I didn't mean to scare you. I did this all wrong. But please, don't worry. He's not back. What happened today has to do with him, in a way, but I swear, it's good news. Not a single thing to worry about."

Michael rubbed soothing circles into Alex's back, and slowly, Alex managed to relax.

Michael kept stroking his back for a while before he spoke again. "You mentioned earlier that you made quiche. And you mentioned wine. What do you think about getting comfortable, having dinner, and then I'll tell you what happened today?"

Alex nodded. "That sounds good. You should come with me to the bedroom, I have a surprise for you there," Alex mumbled into Michael's shoulder, still clinging to the comforting heat he radiated.

"My, my, our bedroom," Michael said suggestively, wiggling his eyebrows.

Alex chuckled. "Not what you think. Come, let me show you, I've been looking forward to giving you this all day."

He took Michael's hand and lead him to their bedroom. He let Michael enter first and switched on the lights. When Michael saw the Christmas onesies on the bed, he laughed. Then he pulled Alex into his arms again.

"You bought us Christmas onesies? You are incredible and I love you so, so much. I'll just take a quick shower. Would you put the quiche in the oven while I'm in the bathroom? Then we can eat and have a glass of wine by the fire."

Alex nodded. "Alright. Meet you on the couch in 20."

They kissed and parted ways, Michael heading to the bathroom, and Alex to the kitchen.

Twenty minutes later, they sat down on the couch, both wearing the Christmas onesies Alex had ordered for them. The quiche was in the oven and two glasses of red wine were placed on the table in front of them.

Alex had taken off his prosthetic for the day and put on a thermal sock on his left foot. The first sip of wine warmed him from the inside, and he felt finally ready to listen to Michael's story.

Michael ran a hand through his still damp hair. "So, long story short. It all started with Max having some weird dreams about a week ago. Liz and I ran some tests but couldn't find anything unusual. Three nights in a row, he had dreams of a very prominent rock formation. He made a drawing, and after some extensive research, I found it. Like you said, it's in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico. Max couldn't stop thinking about it. We just wanted to take a look at it, see whether we could find anything. Just to make sure that there was no immediate threat." Michael took a deep breath, then nipped from his wine.

"When we arrived near the rock formation," he continued, "we both felt this weird pull. We immediately knew that it was alien related, and after searching the area, we found the entry to a cave."

"You found an alien related cave in the middle of nowhere and investigated without any back-up? Michael, I feel like I'm getting a heart attack just hearing about this, even though you're sitting right in front of me."

Michael pulled Alex into his arms and kissed the top of his head. "I'm so sorry for worrying you, even though there's nothing to worry about. I swear."

Alex sat up again and looked at Michael. "You went into the cave, didn't you?"

Michael had the decency to blush.

Alex clenched his fists. "Michael, how could you?"

Michael looked at Alex, his eyes begging for forgiveness. "I'm sorry, Alex. We just had to make sure that no one was in trouble."

Alex sighed. "Okay, you went inside. What did you find?"

Michael's face lit up at the memory, and yet his eyes teared up a bit. "Alex, we found another pod."

Alex gasped. "Another pod? Michael, what on earth. I mean, not from this earth, obviously. Was there someone inside? Did you free them? Michael?"

A single tear ran down Michael's face: "There's a baby inside the pod Alex. And going by what Max and I were able to decode at the cave, this was Nora's and Tripp's child. A little girl by the looks of it."

Alex gasped when the realization hit him. " Nora and Tripp had a baby? Together? Are you sure?"

Michael nodded. "I'm fairly certain, yes. Alex, that's my sister in that pod, and your aunt. Or great aunt? I don't know, but do you understand what that means, Alex?"

Alex was at a loss and he struggled to think clearly. A baby. In a pod. A baby that was related to Michael, and to himself. A baby that was related to Michael, and to himself!

He felt like crying when he looked at Michael. "Michael, do you mean that—you and I—this baby—," he had to take another deep breath to center himself. "Are you telling me that there's a baby in a pod, a baby that's related to you and me. Are you telling me—Michael, what are you telling me?"

Michael's eyes were shining with unshed tears when he answered. "I think you know what I'm telling you, Alex, don't you? Please, tell me that you understand."

Alex nodded slowly. "You mean that I'll have to look into forging a birth certificate for her, and once everything's set up, and you and Liz have performed more tests, we'll release her from the pod and bring her home and raise her as our daughter. That's what you mean, right?"

Michael burst into tears and laughed at the same time. "That is exactly what I'm mean. Alex, what do you say? I'm sorry that I'm springing this on you, and there's still so many things to think and talk about. And I do want you to have a say in all of this. You don't have to make a decision tonight. And you can say no. I need you to know that. You can say no, and we'll be fine. Please, Alex, you can say no. I love you, no matter what, and I love you more than anything on this planet, or any other planet. I just—"

Michael's rambling was interrupted by Alex, who flung himself at Michael and kissed him harder and more desperate than he'd ever kissed him. Michael kissed back, and suddenly they were both crying and laughing and kissing, tears making their kisses taste salty.

They hugged each other tight and continued to kiss, until they both had calmed down considerably.

Alex took Michael's left hand in his. It was the hand his father had mangled with a hammer a decade and a half ago. The hand Max had healed. The hand, where a golden band around Michael's ring finger was a constant reminder of their endless love. He lifted Michael's hand to his mouth and kissed it. The back of Michael's hand, his fingers, the ring.

Then he looked up to Michael and nodded. "I love you more than life itself, Michael. I know how much you've dreamed about becoming a dad. At the same time, I felt miserable because it was clear, that I'd never be able to give you a biological child." Michael wanted to interrupt him, but Alex shook his head.

"No, Michael, please let me say this. I know that a biological child is not the answer, nor is it the only way to have a family. And I'm fairly certain, that there's one, maybe more, adoptive children in our future. But—there seems to be a child, a little girl, that in the most miraculous and inexplicable ways, is related to both of us. How could I possibly say no to this? I couldn't. I can't. I won't."

Michael's eyes were wide with wonder and wet with fresh, unshed tears, and Alex felt like he'd never loved Michael more than in this very moment. He linked his left hand with Michael's. "I'm in. I'm all in. You. Me. And our— daughter."

~*~

- One year (and one) day later –

Alex sat on the couch and let his eyes wander across their extended living room, taking in the things that were the same as the year before, and taking in the differences. The couch was the same, the fireplace, too. The Christmas tree wasn't the same, but it looked quite similar.

There were several new family pictures up on the wall, though, and their living room had at least doubled in size thanks to the large glass winter garden Michael had built over the summer.

"We have a big and growing family, Alex. When they all come over, we need the space. But even if it's just us, sitting in a winter garden is a great way to sit outside without actually being outside, especially during the colder months."

And indeed, it had become their new favorite room and personal oasis. Alex loved the in-floor heating, Rosa's contributions in the form of colorful throw pillows and a hand-woven tapestry depicting a starry New Mexico night, and Michael with his knack for plants, had turned the winter garden into a lush greenhouse.

Alex heard a noise from the hallway and turned his head, just in time to see Michael enter the room, holding a sleepy baby safe in his arms. Michael and her were both dressed in identically patterned Christmas onesies, matching the one Alex was currently wearing.

Alex's heart grew three sizes taking in the picture of the man he loved, and their daughter, Noreen. He still had to pinch himself sometimes to make sure he wasn't dreaming the whole thing.

But she was theirs. Officially. Had been for little over a month now, and it had been the most blissful time of Alex's life.

They had taken their time after Michael and Max had found the pod. Taken the time to examine it and all the documents they'd found in the cave. As it turned out, the baby had been born mere days before Nora had been captured and brought to Caulfield.

Only a week after the birth, Nora had insisted on putting her in the pod. Just for a little while, until it was safe for her and Tripp to be together. It never came to that, though. Nora had been taken, and when Tripp went to the cave and tried to free their daughter, he couldn't. He didn't know how to, and no matter how hard he'd tried, he'd been unable to get her out.

One day, Mr. Jones had showed up at his doorstep and offered to help. Tripp had been desperate and agreed to show Jones the pod. But Jones betrayed him and kidnapped the pod. He'd had no interest in the baby, he'd just wanted the pod for himself. Jones had also been unable to open the pod, though.

It took Tripp years to find the pod again. When he did, he brought it to the far away cave where Michael and Max had found it. Over the years, he'd gathered documents he managed to steal from Caulfield, schematics Nora had drawn, and a diary she'd written when she was pregnant.

There was a lot about Michael in her diary, about Louise, even Isobel and Max. It was a treasure trove of information and had provided the three siblings with many new details of their respective family's histories.

After Liz and Michael had determined that the baby was well, Alex had started the process of organizing legal documents for her. The official story was, that they got pregnant with the help of a surrogate out of state, and even though Alex and Michael were both eager to start their new family, they let a good nine months pass before they opened the pod.

Nora had programmed the pod in a way that would allow only two people with specific genetic traits to open it – her and Tripp. Since Michael and Alex were direct descendants of them, their handprints on either side of the pod opened it, and they had welcomed Noreen into the world on a sunny November day.

Michael walked over to the couch and sat down next to Alex. They looked down at the child - their child - in awe. She was absolutely perfect.

"I still can't believe that we get to have this, get to have her. Michael, we are so lucky." Alex choked up a little.

Michael wiped away a single tear that was rolling down Alex's cheek. "We really are."

He pulled Alex into his arms and kissed him. "Ready to begin this new chapter of our life when you are, darlin'."

"I've never been more ready for anything in my life, Michael."

[evanoracronwell]

Sunrise

Malex Cupid 2021 by @malex-cupid​

Day 3: “Do you know what today is?”

Also on ao3

__________________________________________________________

It is the sound of the phone ringing that awakens him.

With a grunt, he rolls over the bed until he reaches the nightstand and picks up the device, when he sees the notification on the screen the smile opens on his lips, and any irritation at being woken up disappears.

I'm already on my way home.

I can't wait to see you.

Love you.

Alex.

Alex, his beautiful and irresistible boyfriend.

And fuck if Michael would ever get tired of that word.

Smiling like a teenager, Michael answered the message, and as soon as he pressed to send he heard the growl coming from his feet on the bed. Wrinkling his nose, he looked at the beagle spread on the bed with his face completely mashed from sleeping.

"What is it, girl? It's not that early, it was almost time to get up anyway. We have a lot of things to take care of today"

With an excitement that made Buffy snort indignantly, Michael got out of bed and goes straight to the bathroom to take a quick shower and finish waking up.

Today was a very important day.

It was the first Valentine's Day that he and Alex would spend together, as a couple.

And well, honestly speaking, it was the first Valentine's Day that Michael would celebrate at all. He had no idea how to make it work. But it had to be perfect.

Because Alex deserved nothing but perfection.

So he changed his clothes and get ready to start the day.

He took Buffy for a walk even though the dog was clearly outraged about getting out of bed so early on Sunday morning.

He cleaned the whole cabin, feeling extremely proud of the home he built with Alex.

Now completely renovated, the cabin barely resembled that house that Alex had inherited from old Jim.

The couple's bedroom had been painted a light color, the bed replaced by a king bed, the wardrobe custom-made by Michael himself. The chair in the corner where Buffy always took refuge to sleep when she wasn't in bed with them.

The bathroom had been enlarged and adapted to Alex's needs, the treat they had done to themselves by buying a hot tub, and that they spent hours and hours in the water relaxing after a tiring day.

The living room now has a huge and comfortable sofa, armchairs and a television.

The kitchen had been renovated and modernized.

Everything was so perfect, so ... theirs.

The photos were scattered around the rooms. Showing captured moments of happiness between him, Alex, and the whole gang.

After so many years, Michael finally had a home to call his own.

And most importantly, a home with Alex. What made it even more special

With the house clean it was Buffy's turn to face the terrible shower, and the cowboy could only laugh while the dog whimpered as if she were suffering the worst torture at the hand of one of her fathers. But there she was, bathed and smelling the baby scent of the products they bought at the pet store, and with a pretty red bow that Isobel had made to buy for the dog.

And that was exactly why today had to be just perfect.

Because after eight months of living together, he would finally ask the hand of that beautiful man in marriage.

"Okay girl, now you behave yourself because Dad needs to go out and buy things to make dinner. Your daddy will be here tonight." He smiled when he saw how Buffy immediately reacted to Alex's mention. "That's right, girl, he'll be back today."

Michael had also changed a lot, months ago he had opened his own mechanical garage after old Sander decided to retire, the place had undergone a major renovation and was nowhere near the old Junkyard. Michael even had employees working with him, well ... just two kids that Michael was still training and teaching everything. But they were good kids and above all, hardworking, and after all, Michael never even imagined that he would have his own business.

As he drove to the market downtown, Michael found himself thinking about how much life had changed.

After Alex finally left the air force, he got a job at a private security company in Washington, but luckily he could work remotely, they paid extremely well and it made the job too perfect for Alex to turn down, so now taking the few trips he took to personally attend a few customers, Alex was always at home.

When parking the truck in front of the market, the cowboy smiled when he saw his sister standing at the front door waiting for him.

"You know when I said I was coming to the market when you called me, it wasn't an invitation for you to join me." Michael grunted, rolling his eyes as he grabbed a shopping cart and Isobel joined him in the aisles.

"Please, as if you could keep me away. Now tell me, how are the preparations for the big night?"

"I already cleaned the whole cabin and bathed Buffy and yes, I put on the bow you brought her yesterday."

"Great, my niece has to be beautiful. The candles?"

"I have already spread some of those aromatic candles around the house, I will light them as soon as I hear his car pull over. The delivery man left the flowers for me just before I left the house, they are already in the water and I will finish fixing them when I return home."

"Your clothes?"

"Washed and ironed."

"The ring?"

"On my nightstand."

"Your heart?"

"Coming out from my mouth."

Isobel laughed out loud at her brother's terrified look and hugged him around the waist, laying her head on his shoulder as she watched Michael go putting all the items in the cart.

"Michael, he loves you. Nothing is going to go wrong tonight, trust me. He will say yes. There is no couple in the world more perfect for each other than the two of you."

"We really are perfect together, aren't we?"

Isobel laughed again at her brother's silly passionate look, but she still agreed, because in fact there was no couple more in love and more perfect for each other than Michael and Alex.

"So, what's the menu going to be?"

The small box in his trouser pocket seemed to weigh a ton, making Michael's nervousness increase by the second.

Well, it turns out that cooking seems a lot easier in the videos he had seen on the internet than in practice. Not that Michael was not a good cook, he was, but he understood a lot more about cooking typical daily foods, yet he couldn't deny that he did an excellent job.

A few hours later and he had a perfect gorgonzola risotto, a rare grilled steak with a sauce of herbs and vegetables sautéed in butter. The table was already prepared with candles and a flower arrangement, beautiful, but small so that it wouldn't disturb them to look each other in the eye.

With a shower already taken and perfumed Michael looked in the mirror, that was not the kind of clothes he used to wear, dark gray trousers and a light blue shirt, but it was worth it, especially when he knew how turned on gets seeing him like that.

Perfect.

Tonight had to be perfect.

When Alex parked in front of the cabin all he could think about was how much he missed Michael, after four days away, all he wanted to hug his boyfriend and get into the hot tub for hours.

Upon opening the door, however, Alex felt his heart skip a beat.

"Do you know what today is?”

The room was lit only by two lamps that barely gave any light, leaving the rest of the lighting responsible for some candles. And flowers, white roses because Michael knew it was Alex's favorite, scattered as buds and petals everywhere. And right there, in the middle of the room, the most beautiful of all men.

Michael looked at him with a smile on his lips and his eyes were already watering.

"Michael ...?" Alex asked confused but thrilled as he dropped his backpack at the entrance to the cabin and took a step closer to Michael.

"It's Valentine's Day Alex, our first Valentine's Day together. And I've spent a lifetime wishing for this day, but never really believing that it could truly happen. Thirteen years ago you gave me a place to spend the cold nights, a guitar, and one of the most beautiful smiles I've ever seen in my life. " Michael started talking, staring at Alex, who was still a little confused, walking towards his boyfriend until he stopped in front of him. "You showed me that there was good in people and that there was a place for me here, on Roswell. On this planet. You gave me hope, Alex, hope that I could be happy, hope that there was more to people than just cruelty and second intentions. You taught me what it is to love and be loved in such a pure and intense way that it stayed with me, saved in my heart for more than a decade. Nurturing and comforting me every time I felt alone and lost. "

The cowboy smiled and touched Alex's face, who was looking at him so beautifully, his eyes already wet and shedding silent tears, both of them barely moving in fear of breaking that moment so sublime. Michael, speaking in a whisper as if he was afraid to wake up from that dream he felt he was living.

"There hasn't been a single day in my life that I haven't missed you, that I haven't thought of you, and most of all, that I haven't loved you. I'm yours, Alex, totally and completely yours, body, soul, and heart. I am yours to do anything you want. I always have been and will continue to be until my last breath, and beyond that too. I waited more than a decade to finally have you in my arms, and here we are living a life that I never even dared to dream of being possible. But we're here, celebrating our first Valentine's Day together. But I want more. "

With a beautiful smile, Michael took the box out of his pocket and saw how Alex immediately choked and sobbed as Michael went down on one knee showing him a beautiful and delicate silver band.

"I want to celebrate every Valentine's day with you, I want to start a family and see kids running around in our backyard, I want to adopt more dogs, I want to grow old by your side Alex. So please, could you make me the happiest man in the world and accept being my husband?"

Feeling completely overwhelmed with all the emotions he felt at that moment, Alex felt unable to even breathe for a few seconds while looking at Michael.

The beautiful and irresistible, Michael.

The eternal love of his life, Michael.

Kneeling at his feet asking Alex to be his forever.

"There is nothing in this world that I want more than to be your husband."

It was Buffy's bark that woke him, the small, plump beagle was lying on the sofa and Alex laughed when he saw her adorned with a red bow with the words "be my valentine" in white. Looking back at the man kneeling in front of him, Alex smiled so delighted and in love that Michael didn't even dare to blink for fear of losing that vision.

Alex never thought it possible to love that man more than he already did, but here was Michael proving him wrong.

Alex answered in a hoarse and choked voice and then threw himself into Michael's arms causing them to fall on the carpet in the middle of the room, between tears and laughter they kissed in love while Buffy barked and mumbled as if she were also celebrating the news.

"I love you, Michael." Alex murmured against Michael's already red and swollen lips after exchanging long, passionate kisses.

"I love you, too, Alex."

When the next day dawned, Michael grunted when he felt the light coming through the window waking him up. But the sigh coming from the man between his arms made him open his eyes and smile.

Last night had been perfect, much more than he had imagined.

Alex had accepted his proposal, they had eaten dinner while talking and listening to the soft melody that Michael had selected to play, and then they had spent a long time immersed in the hot tub where Michael sank into Alex's body, loving every bit of skin that he could touch. Only later, they went to bed and it was the cowboy's turn to ride Alex passionately, taking all the beautiful moans out of that mouth that he loved to kiss.

Now, holding the most important person in his life in his arms, Michael sighed contentedly as he brought his body closer to Alex, wrapping him tighter in his arms, and then smiled seeing the ring adorning that beautiful man's finger.

Alex, his fiance.

Alex, his future husband.

Yes, Michael smiled feeling his heart overflowing with love and happiness.

He smiled feeling the warmth of a new sunrise touching his skin and bringing all the promise of a long and happy life with Alex

Life couldn't be more perfect.

[pastelwitchling]

It’s a few years in the future and Kyle and Alex are best friends again. Forrest is moving back east to teach at a university in New Jersey and invites Alex to go back with him since his commission up and he’s consulting from home. Alex goes to Kyle for advice and Kyle realizes how much he wants Alex to stay and why.

Don’t get mad. But I hate whenever attending school/college/university is mentioned in fics, and I always imagined Forrest from New York, so I deviated quite a bit, but I enjoyed writing it, so I hope you enjoy reading it.

***

               Something most people probably didn’t know about Alex; he liked to run. Literally.

               Back when they were kids, Kyle would remember looking around the school gate for Alex, only to see him come running up to him, drenched in sweat, his cheeks rosy, his hair plastered to his forehead and neck. More than once, Kyle had asked him who he was running from, and every time, Alex had shrugged a shoulder, given Kyle a smile that convinced no one, and said, “The noise. But it’s gone now.”

               Then they stopped being friends for a long while, but every time Kyle spotted Alex running down the street, or running into the school building, or running home even as Flint called for him, he kept thinking back to what Alex had said about the noise. He had wondered if Alex had meant the noise at home, the one constantly caused by his brothers and father.

               But as they got older, and Kyle got to know this different Alex, he realized that noise more often than not referred to the voices in Alex’s head. They had always been there, long before he’d joined the military, weighing all the options of his life, everything that could and would go wrong that day. The first time Kyle had noticed it, Alex had had a big decision to make.

               “Is it about me?” Kyle had asked. Alex had not answered.

               The second, Alex had been older and Kyle had seen Michael Guerin lingering around him more.

               The third was a particularly cold Tuesday morning outside his home. Kyle had come with a box of donuts and some coffees, hoping to have breakfast with the friend he hadn’t gotten to see in days. He had exited his car the second Alex came jogging down the road towards him, drenched in sweat. It cost him an entire week of leg pains, made him limp more, and left a searing stab in his side that he couldn’t get rid of for days, but Alex’s hair, chest, and back were soaked, his cheeks were rosy, and despite the chilly air, he was panting heavily as if the heat wave was about to kill him. And Kyle knew that whatever decision he had to come to today was a big one.

               “Is the noise gone?” Kyle asked.

               Alex was stronger than he’d ever been, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have his limits with his disability. He didn’t seem to particularly care about that today.

               Alex took the offered coffee and shook his head. “Not yet.”

               “You’ll kill yourself if you keep going like this.”

               “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” Alex said as he walked past him and opened his front door. When Kyle started to protest, Alex gave him a smile over his shoulder. “Sorry, I know you don’t like those kinds of jokes.”

               “You’re right,” Kyle said, closing the door behind him. “I don’t.”

Alex settled the cup of coffee on the kitchen counter and grabbed a bottle of water, gulping it down in five seconds.

Kyle raised a brow, trying not to follow the beads of water as they left a trace down Alex’s strong neck, his collarbone, down his shirt. He wondered what Alex would do if he followed that trail with his –

“What’s wrong with you?” Alex asked, putting the bottle away.

Kyle rubbed his face, hoping Alex hadn’t caught the blush at his cheeks. “I could ask you the same thing. You haven’t been answering my calls.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex said, and pulled his shirt over his head. “I’ve been having some trouble with Forrest lately.”

Kyle clutched the edge of the counter to keep from falling over on his stool. Alex’s chest was damp, his abs prominent, his nipples and arms glistening with sweat.

“Yeah?” he asked, surprised at the steadiness of his voice. “How – what kind of trouble?”

Alex sighed, stretching his arms over his head. Kyle was going to faint. “He’s going back to New York.”

Kyle looked up at that, meeting Alex’s gaze. “I’m… I’m sorry, man.”

Alex shook his head. “He asked me to go with him.”

Kyle faltered. “W-What?”

“Yeah,” Alex sat down, tapping the counter. Kyle’s eyes fell to his chest just once more before he realized that Alex did not look happy at all by the possibility of moving with his boyfriend.

“You don’t want to go?” he asked, the words bitter on his tongue. He didn’t want Alex to go. He was sure Michael Guerin would’ve wanted it even less, even if he was too stubborn to admit it, but more importantly; Kyle didn’t want him to go.

“I really like Forrest,” Alex said quietly. “I like the way I feel around him. I like the way he treats me… but moving? Living with him? I… I don’t know if we’re ready for that. If I am –”

               “Then don’t go,” Kyle said a little quickly, and Alex blinked. “Or – uh – you know, if you’re not sure, then it’s probably a no, right?”

               Alex pursed his lips. “I guess. But does that mean it’s the end of us?”

               Kyle hesitated. “Would you be heartbroken if it was?”

               Alex seemed to consider this. Kyle covered his hand on the counter with his own. “Alex… if you have to think about it, then it’s a no. There is no right or wrong answer here. If it was love, you would know.”

               Alex shrugged a helpless shoulder, and in his half-smile, Kyle saw fear like he hadn’t seen since they were kids, and Alex had come nearly crashing into him as he ran through the school gates. “But he really likes me. What if no one else ever likes me like that again?”

               “Michael likes you like that,” Kyle said, and instantly realized it was the wrong thing to say. Alex looked away, wearily rubbing his face with his free hand. Kyle often forgot that Alex didn’t believe in Michael’s love anymore; hadn’t believed in it since the whole thing with Maria had started.

               Kyle wondered if Alex knew how special he was, how utterly beautiful, how kind and compassionate and smart. He never got to hear it from Michael, and the one person that had probably told him was leaving.

               He tried to imagine a Roswell without Alex, and found it empty and cold. He hadn’t realized how much he’d needed Alex’s council and kindness until he’d lost it. He hadn’t realized how much better his day would get after seeing Alex’s face, seeing his beautiful smile. He stood tentatively and rounded the counter to stand between Alex’s knees.

               Alex looked up at him, brows furrowed. When Kyle took his face in his hands, he heard the airman gasp.

               “Kyle…?”

               Without answering, Kyle leaned in slowly, giving Alex the chance to push him away, but Alex seemed too surprised to do much of anything. Kyle took Alex’s lips in his, his eyes fluttering shut at the contact. For a long moment, Alex did not react, but Kyle kept kissing him. He kept thinking, Any second now, and he’ll push me away. But Alex never did.

               Instead, Kyle soon felt the airman kiss him back, and he seized the opportunity, tilted his head and kissed him more deeply. Alex gave a little moan at the back of his throat, and Kyle let his hands fall down his damp chest, his stomach, and he wrapped his arms around Alex’s waist as the airman’s arms came around his shoulders.

               Kyle leaned into him, their bodies pressed together, nothing but the sound of their wet lips parting in the middle of the kitchen. It was when Kyle stood, pulling Alex up as well and forcing him onto his bad leg, now more sensitive because of the run, that Alex winced and pulled back.

               Kyle’s chin was against Alex’s forehead, the two panting heavily. Kyle wanted nothing more than to drag his hands up Alex’s back, to scratch the smooth expanse of soft skin, to kiss down his body… but he didn’t want to push his luck. Not yet.

               He pulled back instead, standing straight, but staying between Alex’s knees. He cleared his throat. “So,” he said. “You know.”

               Alex opened his mouth seemingly to answer, and he came up short. His shoulders slumped and he looked around as if wondering if he was dreaming or not, if what had happened had indeed just happened.

               Alex shook his head. “You want me to stay then?”

               Kyle pursed his lips. “I mean… I can kiss you again if that’s any answer.”

               “No, I got it,” Alex said. Then, “Kiss me again.”

               Kyle wasted no time, resting his hands on Alex’s strong shoulders and leaning down to kiss him hungrily again. Alex’s lips tasted salty from the sweat, his skin was warm and tight, his body curving against Kyle’s as Kyle leaned in.

               Kyle bit his lip and hesitated for only a second before he pulled his own shirt over his shoulders, too. Alex licked his lips as he ran a hand down Kyle’s chest, wrapped an arm around his waist, and pulled him in. Kyle moaned against Alex’s mouth as their nipples rubbed together, their naked chests, their stomachs.

               Kyle’s heart thrashed wildly. He’d never been so turned on in his life.

               “Keep kissing me,” Alex breathed, and Kyle groaned.

               “Wasn’t planning on stopping.”

               He grinded against him, his jeans against Alex’s sweatpants, his breaths labored as he felt Alex’s erection against his own heavily clothed one. He undid his buttons and pushed his jeans down. Was he thinking? No. Did he care? Hell no.

               Alex seemed just as surprised that he was willing to take so much off. He grabbed Alex’s sweatpants.

               “Kyle,” Alex breathed, and it only spurred Kyle on. He tugged the sweatpants down, halted only by the stool. Alex sat up a little, allowing him to slip that and his boxers off completely.

               “Ah,” Alex moaned as Kyle pressed in against him. He knew he should’ve been a little more startled that he was grinding against another man’s dick, but all he felt was desire. “Take it off,” Alex breathed against his mouth, tugging at Kyle’s underwear.

               Kyle wrapped an arm around Alex’s waist, and gently pulled him onto the tiled floor, dragging his own clothes over to use as a pillow for Alex’s head.

               He stood above him and stripped himself completely. Alex raked his body hungrily and Kyle came down to hover over him, kissing him desperately. Alex lifted his leg and their cocks brushed and Kyle’s eyes rolled up into his head, his mouth hanging open.

               “Alex,” he groaned, grinding down. “Like that?”

               Alex bit his lower lip so hard Kyle was sure he would bleed. “Mmh yes. Harder.”

               So Kyle grinded harder, and pressed his lips to Alex’s in a wet, open-mouthed kiss. He had no idea if he was even doing this right, but it felt good. It was so messy, so heated, and Alex was so sexy, it was impossible to feel like this was anything but perfect.

               Kyle thought he could come just from the sound of Alex’s naked ass slapping against the tiles. Then Alex spread his legs wider and bit a soft spot under Kyle’s ear, and that was officially too much.

               Kyle came with a loud groan and Alex followed seconds later, clutching each other tightly. They did nothing but pant against one another for several long minutes. Then, slowly, Kyle realized what they’d done and he pulled himself up. He offered Alex a hand and helped him up as well.

               And there they both stood, stark naked, in the middle of Alex’s kitchen.

               Kyle cleared his throat and began to look for something clean them up. When they were both dressed again, Kyle grabbed his coffee and mumbled something about his shift at the hospital. He was too busy thinking of Alex’s body, his lips, his eyes – about keeping all of that – to really concentrate on anything else.

               “Kyle,” Alex said as Kyle neared the door.

               “Yeah?”

               Alex had his back turned to him, his hands hugging his cup of coffee. “Thanks.”

               “For what?”

               Alex gave him a soft smile over his shoulder, a smile that spoke of a secret promise. “The noise is gone.”

               Kyle couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his own lips. “Good,” he said, and opened the door.

***

I don’t know. I’m not sorry.

[letterstothemidnightsociety]

Here we are at the end of October, in the Year of Our Troubles, 2020. And here I am, continuing my journey to avoid reality by looking for meaning in nostalgia and TV Hunks. It’s Supernatural!

Alright so we’ve made it to my (possibly/probably) all time favorite quartet of the entire series - Disc 3, Season 1, episodes 9 - 12. For the last few discs, I’ve been keeping things pretty technical in terms of television production and broadcast. But frankly, this sh*t is my jam. All that gooey emotion, all that sweet sweet lore, throw in some man tears and *chef kissy fingers* c'est magnifique! 

Now I’ll backtrack for a hot second here to talk about the filler vs. self-contained argument that I...probably jumbled in my last post. In shows like this, I tend to use “filler” to describe every episode that isn’t arc, but honestly, that’s not fair to a number of Supernatural episodes. The main difference being, is this episode meant to pad out your season or is it simply an episode that can stand on its own two feet? I’d say that’s the case for this entire disc.

First up, it’s Home. Guys, I think I cheered when I turned this episode on. We take our Winchesters, give them some small victories, build up their confidence, and then totally break them down again by sending them back to the beginning. This is not listed as the “official” return to the arc episodes, but I’d argue that Home is where we see a return to the Main Quest. Oh yeah, and Sam finally admits that he can see...what? What do we call these? Death Omens? I think Sam calls them premonitions? Either way, it’s…*shrugs* sure, do what you want. The premonitions do become important later and they’re basically the catalyst for the whole second season and that resolution takes us into the main conflict for the third season, and so on and so on, it’s a whole thing. It just seems like a hecking lot this go around, ok? But he finally admits it to Dean and that’s probably some kind of growth. Dean going back into that house again is also some kind of growth. Of course, he was like, 4 when he swore he’d never go back to that house again? Whatever, I didn’t care. I get too distracted by the fact that DEAN IS CRYING GUYS! LOOK! HE’S CRYING!!

Oh, and one more tie to the season arc - Hecking John Winchester shows up. I mean, he’s all over the episode and I think the most shocking thing we find out about him is that he was, at one point, a business owner?? But also it ends with conclusive proof that John Winchester is a massive dick who refuses to talk to his children. And I’m sorry, I don’t buy your “have to finish it first” excuse, I just don’t. To be clear, I’m not mad at the storytelling choice to do that, I’m mad at the character, which I guess is where it should be. 

I like that this episode builds out more of the world that the Winchesters live in with Missouri Mosely (Not the State!). I like that we see they’re not alone in this very literal fight against evil. She checks back in later in the series and honestly, I love Loretta Devine so I would have watched a whole spinoff show about this character. 

Two things I don’t like about this episode? #1 What genius decided that Mary’s ghost would just be on fire for 20 years? Like, cuz that’s what I am understanding about this ghost. That she is just constantly on fire. And that’s...unkind. 

Mary, who did this to you??

#2 Only a man could have written this episode because no single mom is just gonna LET two rando dudes into her home. 

Listen boys, you’re cute, but I’m a woman with two small children. Hell no you’re not coming into my house. 

Next up is Asylum and this is so good at walking the line between creepy and Spooky. UNlike the Bloody Mary episode, I do not need to hide my face from the screen at any point during this episode. 

Hey look, it’s like they’re brothers or something!

This one is another episode that does a good job building character and the world the Winchesters live in. Like any good procedural, it uses the main conflict to bring out the more important conflict. In this case, it literally brings it out, cuz the ghost is a psychiatrist who makes Same confront all his Daddy Issues. And by confront we mean, take it out on his brother who is the saddest-motherf*cker-I’ve-ever-seen BUT HEY! Salting and burning a body finally works for once in their lives! I love all the cringing that Jensen Ackles does in that scene because they clearly hadn’t figured out what that effect was supposed to look like yet. 

It must have been a real surprise to find out the ghost didn’t light on fire.

Oh and then there’s the phone call! And man, this must have been a bitch of a mid-season finale, cuz this episode aired in November of 2005 and the next episode doesn’t come back until January of 2006 and so you’re just WAITING to hear what John has to say. 

Now wait for two months to find out what he says. 

And of course, it’s nothing. We come back in January to Scarecrow and John has nothing to say cuz he’s a massive dick. Just calling 6 months in to your nationwide search for me to let you know that I’m not dead, but also, I’m only here to send you on another assignment and cause tension. And so the show continues to break down our dynamic duo because the fight they have over whether they should listen to dad or not literally splits them apart. They also introduce Meg as a new and more involved villain for the series. I mean, sort of. We don’t see her again for like, another five episodes. And then again another five episodes after that. So like, I don’t really...know that introducing her as an antagonist...really had the effect they were hoping for?

Is she evil cuz she’s a demon or just because she’s blonde???

Here’s some issues I have with Meg, the first recurring female character who isn’t dead - she’s the first recurring female character who isn’t dead and also, I immediately hated her. I remember watching the episode the first time and as soon as I saw her I was like, oh she’s a ruiner. It was almost a relief to find out she was a bad guy at the end because it was like I was allowed to hate her? To be fair to me, Meg comes on hella strong trying to keep Sam from going back to his brother, so we’re not supposed to like her, but looking back on it now I feel like the perpetrator of some real girl-on-girl crime. Does Meg actually do anything wrong? Aside from leaning real hard on some indie-style manic-pixie bohemian free spirit nonsense, she doesn’t do...anything that should make me hate her? Until, of course, she actively acts as a wedge between our dream team, but before then, I don’t...think she does? Honestly, it could just be me, but I do think that TV has gotten much better at writing/directing/presenting female characters in a way that doesn’t feel like they’re literally shoe-horning in a third wheel. And again, ultimately we are supposed to hate her, I just can’t decide if I was picking up on signals that were intentional or not. I remember having similar feelings when they introduced Joe in season 2, but that’s still far ahead.

I am willing to admit that this might be just me. I will not take back the things I’ve said about Emma Watson though, those are justified. 

And I think introducing more characters is important. It acts the same way introducing Missouri did -it broadens the world. For half a season, our only constants are the brothers. They’re these lone cowboys in a weird, mystical, dangerous wasteland and the villains are more obstacles than actual villains. When the story you’re telling needs to feel bigger than that, you need to do some world building and sometimes that starts with adding more characters. I will say, I hated Meg less this watch than I did on the first one. Or rather, I hated her cuz I knew she was The Worst, not because I felt like adding her to the show was a threat to the storytelling. 

OH! ALSO! The first mention of Dean and Pie! My heart grew three sizes that day! 

The hecking diner won’t serve him so he never finds out!!!

And finally, to cap it all off, we have Faith which is...a surprisingly rough episode? Ok, listen, Dean just resignedly accepting his own demise is like, ugh. UGH. ugh. Buddy. Buddy you are NOT Ok. Like, Dean is so intent on keeping everyone else in his family alive but does not seem as concerned about his own health and well-being and that...just...ughghghghg...I have a lot of feelings about that. 

Listen, some day I will talk about Sam, but it is NOT THIS DAY.

Like, I get that Rev. Jerry Gergich Roy Le Grange is not actually healing people, but he literally tells Dean that Dean has a purpose and he was saved from an untimely death for a reason, and he’s kind of not wrong? But then he spends the rest of the episode stopping Roy from healing anyone else and feeling overwhelmingly guilty that he was saved over someone else. I think out of everything that season 1 has presented up to this episode, this is the most philosophical and thematically complex. There’s the question of faith vs skepticism - can we ever just blindly believe in a good turn? The fact that Dean can’t says a lot about him as a human. Then there’s the question of who gets to decide who lives and who dies? Who’s worthy of salvation and who isn’t? Why do bad things happen to good people and why do good things happen to Dean? I mean, when Dean sees the Reaper coming for him at the end, he knows that it’s in exchange for Layla’s life and he’s just...Ok with that? He doesn’t try to run or fight it, and it’s only because of Sam that he doesn’t bite it. And the end of this episode is just a real bitch slap to the feels because Layla, our Very Special Extra, knows she’s going to die and she knows she missed out on her chance to be healed because Dean was an Ass with a capital A and took her turn (probably). And she’s also just ok with that and it kills me a little bit on the inside. 

Also, Layla is played by Julie Benze from Roswell and Buffy and Dexter and she’s always A+. And Roy was in Snakes on a Plane!

So yeah, not exactly “filler” in the true sense, but ties to the season arc are not as strong as in other episodes. And watching these episodes again I realize just how important they are to the series as a whole. I mentioned Helstrom last week and since then, I’ve finished the season. It’s only 10 episodes, and while I definitely enjoyed it, none of the emotional climaxes felt earned. 

Is how I feel. About the Emotions in Helstrom. That doesn’t mean I won’t watch a season 2. 

When you focus solely on the main arc in every single episode, you miss these little moments to develop character and relationships. When you get to the end of the season where the Winchesters are finally all in the same room taking on the Big Bad, there’s this feeling of satisfaction - you’ve been waiting for this moment. You’ve been waiting for Sam to reconcile with his father. You’ve been waiting for the guys to finally take on this thing that killed Mary Winchester. You’ve been waiting to see what will happen when the quest is over. That’s what makes the character decisions in the finale feel so big and so important, because they’ve been built up and built up for 22 episodes - 7 months in broadcast time. I think it’s harder to have the sort of weight that Supernatural builds in a show that stays so focused on the arc because its season is only 8 - 10 eps. There’s no room for sidetracking to build on the relationships in the show. You don’t have time for it, so you either have to keep character moments smaller (I’d argue MUCH smaller) or you end up with a finale that doesn’t resonate with the same gravitas as you want it to. 

Don’t get me wrong - I know it sounds like I’m ragging on short seasons, but I think a short season can be very effective when it’s done right. I also think a full season of 22 - 24 episodes can be very effective when it’s done right. But I think there’s a fundamental difference in how you tell the story when you have a short vs. a long season. I think TV is still figuring that out as it goes, as writers who are accustomed to long seasons shift gears to tell their stories with fewer installments. But I hope that TV doesn’t completely do away with the more procedural-style/self-contained episodes since those can be a powerful way to connect with your characters. That’s why I’m here in the first place. 

[spaceskam]

Could you maybe write something about Michael calling Alex, Alexander?

Sympathy For The Devil

Summary: Michael and Alex have been happily married for sometime until it’s revealed that Alex has lied about a few too many things. Can they come back from it?

warning: mentions of suicide

ao3

“Please open up.”

Michael stared at the front door of his sister’s house. She and her husband had gone on vacation but allowed him to stay because he didn’t exactly have many options. And still, despite the fact he’d gone all the way from Denver to Roswell fucking New Mexico, the one person he’d been wanting to avoid the most was right outside that door despite the fact there was a massive storm.

“I know you’re there, your car’s out front. You know, unless you’re actually a stranger and you stole my husband’s car and didn’t change the plates,” that voice said like it didn’t belong to a liar, “Look, I know you don’t want to talk to me or see me, but… Michael, you deserve to get to know me. You deserve that at the very least. So, please, just open the door.”

Michael heaved a breath and rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes. They’d already been rubbed raw from spending the last two weeks crying and trying not to cry and failing. He looked rough. He felt rough. He really didn’t want to open that door.

But, fuck, he really kinda did.

“Michael,” he said, “Just give me this last night. Let me try to show you that we might be able to fix this. Let me try.” 

And wasn’t that just so convincing?

Slowly, Michael cracked open the door. The man on the other side looked like his husband, he smiled like his husband, he was standing like a flamingo in a shitty attempt to keep his prosthetic out of the rain puddles just like his husband, but he wasn’t his husband. His husband didn’t exist. Alex Whitman was nothing more than a character created by Captain Alexander Manes.

“Hi,” Alexander said with that stolen smile, “You look great.”

“You just can’t stop lying, can you?” Michael demanded. Alex, no, Alexander’s smile began to falter, but he put it back on because he was a liar. “How did you find me? No, why did you find me?”

“Because I refuse to let that be the way we end. I need to at least try. You deserve me to try and you deserve an explanation. You deserve everything, Michael,” Alexander insisted, “I know how we can save our marriage.”

Michael furrowed his eyebrows at that statement. Mostly because they literally weren’t legally married in the first place. Turns out you can’t file a marriage license when half of the couple doesn’t exist. But, admittedly, part of him was curious. A massive part was curious. He was desperate to know why he’d lied.

“So you stalked me?”

“I didn’t stalk you!” Alexander said, bracing himself on the doorway as he continued to balance on his leg, “I just… Googled Isobel Evans-Valenti until I found an address while sitting in my car on the shoulder of I-25.”

“So you stalked my sister, cool,” Michael sighed, his eyes focusing on Alex’s leg. He knew that his Alex hated it when it rained and he had to be outside. It was bad for his prosthetic, but, more than that, it just made the liner and sleeve gross and sloshy in the socket. And here he was, standing in a storm, soaking wet and probably extra sloshy just for a chance.

“Michael,” Alexander said like he had the right, “Everything we need to save our marriage is in this envelope.” He fished out a surprisingly dry envelope from his backpack. Michael debated what to do for a moment. “After tonight, if you still don’t want to see me again, then I’ll go and leave you alone. Just let me try.”

Michael decided that even if this was the pathological liar that ruined his life, he didn’t deserve a fucked-up metal leg. Of all the lies, he at least knew that was real.

“I want to know the truth,” Michael said, eyeing him as he slowly let the door open wider, “If I let you in, are you gonna tell me the truth?” Alexander nodded sincerely. Michael sighed as he opened the door wider, gesturing towards the inside.

Alexander smiled so bright that it felt like being stabbed.

Michael had watched his Alex take off his prosthetic leg countless times in the two years they’d been together. Hell, he’d seen him do it on their first date that had lasted five hours longer than anticipated with them both tipsy on wine and each other. It’d never bothered him, it was apart of Alex and he loved every bit of that man. However, at this moment, he couldn’t even look at him. It felt too intimate to watch a stranger do. Even if he had done on their first date.

Still, Michael got him a towel and allowed himself to watch as he dried off the leg as best he could to avoid any rust. Then he did his best to pat down the liner and the sleeve but didn’t put them back on as he stared at them with some type of worry. Michael knew he really had to wait until they dried or else some serious chaffing would happen which meant he was going to be here for a while. Michael sighed.

“Look, I’ll go get you some clothes to change into.”

“Wait,” Alexander called, “Open the envelope.”

Michael slowly did as he said and hooked his thumb under the flap. Alexander pulled out his phone, resting it on the side table and then turning to watch Michael. He paused.

“Are you recording this?” Michael asked and Alex smiled innocently, “Why?” He wasn’t sure why he asked that when he knew very well why his Alex audio recorded everything. He had given Michael a big spiel about how ‘you never know what you missed the first time around’ which had sounded charming the first time he’d heard it, but sounded like the biggest slap in the face when he had recorded their arguments. Even that wasn’t all bad. Alex had come to him a day after their first big one and said he listened to it and apologized profusely for the way he raised his voice. He said he didn’t want to be another person on the long list of people who had screamed at Micheal for unprecedented reasons.

“You never know what you might miss the first time around,” Alexander said like it was charming. Because he always said it like it was charming. Fuck, it was.

With a sigh, Michael opened the envelope and pulled out the paper. He felt a chill go down his spine as he read the title. The 36 Questions That Lead to Love.

“What is this?” he asked, his eyes flickering up to Alexander who was still trying so hard to look positive despite the fact his damp hair was matted to his forehead and he couldn’t walk and he had about 15 minutes before he started smelling like a wet dog.

“You know,” Alexander said, “Like our first date.”

“You mean my first date with Alex where every question had a made-up answer?” Michael questioned. Alex shook his head.

“Pretty much every answer was real. Who I was with you was the real me, I swear,” Alex said. Michael took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he clenched the paper in his hands. “It worked the first time, why can’t it work now?”

There were a million reasons that it couldn’t work now. The main, glaring one was the fact that Alex wasn’t a real person and they’d started out on a lie. Everything was a fucking lie. Even if he was desperate to know the truth, how was he supposed to trust him?

“I don’t trust you, Alexander, that’s why,” Michael said simply.

“Don’t call me that, call me Alex.”

“No, my husband’s name was Alex and it wasn’t short for anything. How do I know you’re not just lying about what you’re called, Alexander?” Alexander took a deep, slow breath and nodded.

“Okay, I deserve that,” he said, nodding, “Fine I’ll be Alexander today.” That felt like a punch in the gut and he quickly realized his wrong choice of words. “That’s not what I meant, I just meant‒”

“I know,” Michael said. He couldn’t hide how resigned he was. He was tired and sad and part of him just wanted to go back to last month when he was sick and laying on his husband’s bare chest and listening to him recite The fucking Odyssey by heart. Or, loosely by heart. He added some more eccentric wording. Michael’s favorite had been: “There is the heat of love, the pulsing rush longing, the lover’s whisper, your face probably‒that shit can fuck up even the straightest man.”

“If you don’t want to, we can‒”

“If I do this with you, will you leave me alone forever?” Michael asked. Alexander stared at him for a moment before he nodded. “Then I’ll answer them. Let me go get you something dry to wear so you don’t get water all over my sister’s house.”

Michael turned and left to get him clothes before Alex could respond. He stepped into the guest bedroom that he’d made his home, having trashed it with his clothes and empty tubs of ice cream and candy wrappers. He took a moment to close his eyes and calm himself down. It was going to be okay. He could do this. It was just one night where he finally got the fucking truth and then he’d be gone forever. It’s not like the questions would actually work this time. Each and every answer would just be a reminder of how he had lied and ruined two Michael’s life. How he’d put him in a position where he would have to tell all his friends and coworkers and everyone that his husband actually had been lying to him for their entire relationship and be surrounded by a neverending stream of pity. He’d ruined him.

But he could do this. Just one more night.

He grabbed a pair of sweats and a baggy shirt for Alexander to wear, making sure they weren’t anything special before he gave them to him. The last thing he wanted him to do was ruin anything else. Once he was sure he could go on without the two articles of clothing, he brought them back out to Alexander.

“Here,” Michael sighed, handing him the clothes before turning around. Alex was sort of stuck in place because he didn’t have his crutches which annoyingly made Michael feel bad. He wondered how long it would take before he stopped giving extra thought towards everything to make sure it was disability-friendly. Hell, his first thought, when he took a shower at Isobel’s, was that Alex would need a bench, but Alex wasn’t even there.

“All done!” Alex said cheerfully because for some reason he was trying to pretend like this was normal. Nothing about this was normal.

Michael turned around and felt a sting in the back of his eyes. Alexander looked too much like Alex. Hair was haphazardly dried, sticking up every which way and making him look painfully young. Michael’s clothes were already big on him, so his bigger clothes dwarfed him in a way that made Micahel just wanna cuddle up to with him. But it wasn’t his sweet Alex‒this was manipulative Captain Alexander Manes who had managed to get a fake ID and fake passport and evaded his entire military background just so no one would find out that he wasn’t Alex Whitman.

“Okay,” Michael said, collapsing on the couch. Alexander lifted himself off the chair and awkwardly hopped towards the couch, flopping down on the other end with his phone in hand.

“Before we start the questions, I want you to know that Alex Whitman was apart of me. It… It feels weird to me too, to put him to rest like this,” Alexander said. Michael rolled his eyes, keeping his gaze away from the man and instead on literally anything else.

“We’re not putting him to rest. You’re the one who made him up, he isn’t fucking real,” Michael sighed, rubbing his eyes against, “Listen, I just want the same thing I wanted when those fucking army guys came to the house two weeks ago: the truth. Why did you lie to me? Why would you make up Alex Whitman in the first place?”

Alexander was silent for a moment and when Michael dared to look at him, he had a level of guilt on his face that Michael didn’t know he was capable of. But, then again, maybe that was fake too. He wouldn’t be surprised.

“When we met, I was… not in a good place. I just wanted some type of escape. So I gave you a fake name and then when you showed up for our date with those questions because you wanted to be cute and charming, it felt like an opportunity to be someone better. If I knew I was going to fall in love with you, I never would’ve lied. I just thought it was a one-time thing. I never wanted to hurt you,” Alex promised. Michael looked up as tears brimmed his eyes all over again. This felt so stupid. Why was he still crying? He’d had two weeks to get passed the crying stage. “Alex Whitman was a good escape, even if he was imaginary.”

“He was fucking real to me, Alexander,” Michael snapped, looking at him and forcing the tears away. Alexander nodded.

“I know. I loved him too, Michael, he’s who I wanted to be so badly,” he said and Michael scoffed, “Listen, I don’t expect you to completely understand why I did what I did or even forgive me for it. I just want to be honest.”

Michael closed his eyes for a moment. Honest. He says he wants to be honest. He promises that he wants to be honest. Michael can do that.

“Okay, then let’s get this over with,” Michael said, letting out a breath as he reached for the paper with all the questions. He never thought he’d be doing this twice. “Number one, given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you want as a dinner guest?”

“Fantastic question, Mr. Guerin, do you remember my answer the first time?” Alexander said, giving that big smile. It was the one where his cheekbones seemed to be downright offensive and he wanted to go all middle-aged aunt and pinch them. He didn’t.

“You said Margaret Hamilton and I was convinced you only chose her to impress me because I’m an engineer,” Michael said. He remembered being shocked that some guy that looked that pretty and who was unemployed knew who Margaret Hamilton even was. “You told me it was because you liked people who could outsmart you.”

“Which is true, one of the reasons I love you, but I also met her once and she was super cool,” Alexander said. Michael looked to him genuinely bewildered. “I went to MIT and majored in software engineering. She used to be the director or something of that division, so she visited campus and I got to meet her. See? Honesty.”

“Okay, so, what, you’re some super-secret genius?” Michael asked. Alex smiled and shook his head.

“Nah, I didn’t graduate. Got bored,” he said simply. Michael couldn’t imagine giving up that chance of a lifetime simply because he got bored. But Alexander wasn’t him. Part of him wanted to know more about his time at MIT but he didn’t feel like dragging this on.

“Alright then. Question number two, would‒”

“Hey, wait, you didn’t answer,” Alexander prodded. Michael sighed.

“I didn’t realize I was answering.”

“Of course, that’s how this works.”

“Yeah, but I’m not the one who lied.”

“C’mon, Michael. You said you’d do this one thing with me,” he said. Michael clenched his jaw as he stared at the question. He knew what his answer was. He just didn’t want to fucking say it.

“I’ll answer this next one.”

“Michael, come on, you can’t blow off the first question, we’re being honest tonight,” Alexander said. Michael glared at the paper. “Mikey,” Alex sang.

“I would have dinner with Captian Alexander Manes, okay?!” he snapped, turning his glare to the man beside him, “Over anyone in the entire world, over even my fucking mother who I have never met, I would choose you. Because I want to know why the fuck you lied to my face for two years, fuck, Alexander, I want to know how. How can someone keep up a lie like that for two years?”

Alex’s eyes were wide and his eyebrows were raised as if he was shocked by the answer. Michael didn’t believe he was. There was no way.

“Okay. I deserve that. Question two, would‒”

“You’re not gonna answer?”

They stared at each other for a moment. Long enough that Michael softened because Alex was beautiful and had eyes that he couldn’t fucking say no to. Cheeks he couldn’t say no to. Lips he couldn’t say no to. Michael slumped his shoulders. This was actually unfair.

“We need booze,” Alex decided after a moment, “This is kinda like a first date, right? And, for a first date, there’s a severe lacking of alcohol. I think it would take the edge off and make it a little easier.” Michael nodded. It sounded like the best idea he’d heard all week. At least wine would loosen him up a bit, make him less terrified.

“I’m sure Isobel has something,” he said. Alex held up his finger.

“No need.”

Alex got up on his knees, twisting over the back of the couch to shuffle through his bag which gave Michael a perfect view of his ass. The sweats hung low on his hips and the shirt slid up as he bent over and it was just a lot for Michael to deal with. He knew this was probably self-destructive. Spending time with the man with whom he had a bad track record of keeping his hands to himself around, recreating their first date, and struggling to not picture him naked and moaning whenever he bent over the couch like that all seemed like a really big recipe for disaster. To top it all off, he was adding alcohol. What could possibly go wrong?

When Alex flopped back down, Michael had no control over the way he let his eyes trail up his body to his face. Alexander had the decency not to tease him about it. Michael was an emotional mess, he was bound to do something stupid like yell at him and then immediately want to sleep with him. He focused on the bottle of wine.

“I stopped on the way because I figured it might come in handy,” he said. The name was something French and fancy that he couldn’t pronounce and, knowing Alex’s taste in wine, it was probably easily $50. Alexander pulled out his keys and flipped open his corkscrew keychain.

They each took sips straight from the bottle.

Once Michael had loosened up a little bit, he allowed himself to face Alexander completely.

“Question two,” Alexander asked, “Would you like to be famous? In what way?”

Michael opened his mouth to reply but was rudely interrupted by a loud crack of thunder that shook the house. He jumped like he always did when he heard a super loud noise and Alexander quickly moved to comfort him, placing his hand on top of Michael’s. He snatched it away.

Alex had been very aware of the abuse Michael suffered as a child. Loud noises were usually a warning before something much worse happened. That was just another reminder that Michael had given all his truths to a man who didn’t bother sharing his own.

“Yes. I want to publish a thesis on some invention I eventually come up with,” Michael said, shaking off the thoughts with a large gulp of wine, “You?”

“Nope, I like being no one.”

“Okay,” Michael said. It was the same answer as the first time. He didn’t know if that was comforting or not. “Before making a phone call, do you rehearse what you’re going to say? Why?”

“No, if I rehearse and still mess up, then I feel like a  fuck-up, so it’s easier to not practice.”

“First time I said I did practice, but you said that and I tried it and I felt better, so no,” Michael answered. Alexander smiled with those stupid fucking lips.

“What would constitute a perfect day for you? Still a day with your family with no worries?” Alex asked and Michael nodded, unintentionally scooting closer as a loud clap of thunder shook the house again. “Mine is still that any day would be perfect as long as I was with you.”

Michael shook his head, letting it fall into his hand after propping his elbow up on the back of the couch. He remembered blushing like crazy the first time he heard that answer. It felt like a pickup line, but had seemed so sincere and had been staring at him like he was the world. “Even today? When I’m so fucking mad at you and that the only reason I’m doing this is so I can figure out why you lied to me before I never want to see you again? This is perfect?”

Alexander chewed on his bottom lip. “Maybe not the most perfect, but still perfect. You’re breathing and that feels like a good day.” Michael shook his head again.

“I don’t believe that, Alexander,” he said. Alexander groaned, leaning forward to put the wine bottle down before looking Michael in the eye.

“Why are you so deadset on the fact that Alex Whitman and Alexander Manes are so different? We’re not. Literally, every answer has been the same so far. I’m not lying or being cruel when I say that I was 100% real when I was with you. I’m still super fucking gay, I’m still really bad at spelling, I’m still really good at trivia, I still love to recite Greek literature to you when you’re not feeling well, I still love to record everything, I still get super dizzy when I drink tequila, I still sleep on the right side of the bed, I still think your cooking is better than anything in the world, and I still am a million things you know about me. You know me better than anyone and that is still true,” Alexander said. He seemed honest. It felt real. All those things seemed like impossible things to fake. Michael was just tipsy enough to nod his head in agreement. “Okay? Okay, next question.”

“When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?” Michael wondered, waiting for the answer. He was pretty sure he could guess it.

“I sang to myself on the way here and the last I sang to someone else was when you were too sick to follow The Odyssey or the Illiad,” Alex grinned. Michael smiled back. Knew it. “And you?”

“My first night here I got so drunk that I just laid on the floor and scream-sang REO Speedwagon,” he admitted and Alex easily slipped into a laugh that Michael could feel in his bones. God, that sound still felt like a gift.

“And to someone else?”

“Kyle came in to ask me to stop, so I tried to serenade him.” Alex laughed a little harder.

“You do have a killer Kevin Cronin voice,” he laughed, picking the wine bottle up again and taking a sip. He handed it to Michael who did the same. He could taste Alex on the bottle and it was hard to figure out which substance was more intoxicating. “Okay, okay, If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?”

“Mind,” Michael answered, “You said body last time.”

“And that’s still the same, so clearly we’re still a half sexy pair,” Alex teased and Michael couldn’t help but laugh. He blamed the wine.

“Do you have a secret hunch about how you’ll die?” Michael asked. He had half a bottle of wine in his system and Alexander felt a whole lot like Alex and Alex’s lips were looking absolutely inviting.

“I remember you saying you think your appendix would burst and you would just think you were exaggerating your pain and now that I’ve known you for two years and I’ve seen how much of a baby you get when you’re sick, I think that’s not gonna happen,” Alex chuckled, leaning forward even more. He was so fucking close. Michael nodded.

“I think it will,” he said, “You said you weren’t afraid of death.”

“Still not,” Alex hummed, tipping back the last of the bottle. He gave a sweet smile when he was done, flicking his tongue over the corner of his mouth. Maybe drinking was a bad idea. “Name three things you and your partner have in common. This is easy.”

Perfect, perfect. A perfect reminder that this isn’t Alex. Michael shook his head, fixing his wandering mind back on the anger he felt towards the man who had lied to him for two years. He faked a wedding license. “I don’t know anything about you.”

Alexander rolled his eyes. “You know me better than anyone else, Michael.”

“I knew Alex. I have no idea who you are,” Michael insisted, though his voice wasn’t as certain as it was before. This felt like a night with Alex. God, it felt like Alex. He wanted Alex.

Alexander couldn’t be him.

“Fine, I’ll name some. I can do more than three. We both have an unhealthy obsession with Firefly and watch it on repeat, we both are obscenely stubborn and refuse to admit when we’re wrong, we both have horrific handwriting, we both feel the need to tip waiters like 50% even when service sucks, we both like the same music, we both like hot chocolate when it’s hot and ice cream when it’s cold, we have a lot in common, Michael. We’re perfect,” Alex said, grinning that easy grin.

Michael could feel his heart thudding in his chest as he stared at the man who was suddenly very close. It was hard. The lines between Alex Whitman and Captain Alexander Manes were blurring in a way he didn’t want them to. One was his fun-loving husband who found every excuse to dote on him and make him blush, and the other was a pathological liar who held a list of military credentials that matched a hardened old man.

“None of my traits as Alex change when I’m Alexander. I’m still me.”

Michael would never forget how confused he was when those two guys stood on his doorstep, asking for Captain Alexander Manes. They’d been searching for him for two years, that he’d gone AWOL from his post two days earlier than he was supposed to and that they had feared something bad had happened. Michael didn’t get a chance to get any more details about that, he just remembered his head spinning and feeling sick and confused at the name he was being told. He was about to tell them that he didn’t even know anyone in the military, but he’d turned to find Alex behind him and looking like a deer caught in headlights.

“You know what my favorite thing that we have in common is?” Alexander asked, closer than he should be, “That we both fight for the right things.”

Alex had tried to explain that day, begging him to listen as Michael packed a small back and tried to get the hell out. He couldn’t spend the night in bed with a stranger. It had been hellish. He’d turned a 7-hour car drive into 10 and Isobel and Kyle still had to go get him from the border of Colorado and New Mexico he couldn’t see straight enough to drive. He had thrown his phone out the window somewhere in the desert after that, tired of seeing call after call from ’Achilles♥’.

It was getting hard, though. He was trying to separate who he is to who he was, but it felt so impossible. They looked the same, they sounded the same. If he closed his eyes and let himself go, all he heard was Alex Whitman. He couldn’t figure out if he was in love with Alex Whitman or if he was actually in love with Captain Alexander Manes. What if the difference really only was their last name?

“For what in life are you most grateful?” Michael whispered, taking in his face. The little scar on his forehead that Alex had said came from crashing his bike when he was eight, was that the same story for Alexander?

“You.”

“I need more wine,” Michael said, scrambling to his feet before he did something stupid like kiss him. Alex nodded, holding out his phone. Michael suddenly remembered that he was being recorded and took it with hesitant hands before heading to go find Isobel’s wine.

Once he was out of earshot, he held the phone to his mouth.

“I will not sleep with him, I will not sleep with him, I will not. I will not. I will not,” he repeated, raking a tough hand through his hair. He took a deep breath and focused on that moment when Alex had admitted that wasn’t his name. That had hurt so bad. “You know, I don’t understand why I even let him in here. I know him. I know how stupidly charming he is and I know how well it works on me and he gives me those sweet little ‘fuck me’ eyes and I just want… I don’t know what I want. I want to clear my head.”

Michael searched through the cabinets and eventually found a cheap-ish already opened bottle of wine that he planned to reimburse the Evans-Valentis for. He pulled the cork out haphazardly and threw back some more. He didn’t know why he kept drinking. He knew it was probably going to make him want to sleep with Alexander even more.

Maybe that’s what he wanted to happen.

“No, no, I don’t want to sleep with him. I want this night to be over so I can move on. He’s a pathological liar. I can’t trust everything he says,” Michael said, sighing harshly.

Before he could think any harder, a harsh clap of thunder sounded, shaking the house and taking away the electricity. Panic surged through Michael like it always fucking did in these stupid situations and he froze, looking down at the phone and unlocking it to give him a little bit of light. It was on 46%. Somehow, that made him more panicky.

“Michael?” Alexander called, “Are you alright? I can’t come to you, I don’t have my crutches, just follow my voice!” He yelled because he knew Michael and knew he was probably feeling uneasy and that wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t he be different? This was too hard. “Follow my voice, baby.”

“Don’t call me baby, Alexander,” Michael grumbled as he used the phone to lead himself to the couch again. He sat far away from Alexander again, but that didn’t seem to bother him. Michael kept a hold on the phone and Alexander let him. He hated how thankful he felt for that. “Next question.”

“If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?” Alex asked, ignoring the fact that it was super dark. Michael cradled the wine bottle to his chest, finding Alex’s eyes the best he could.

“I could change the fact that I raised myself,” he admitted easily. It was a big one, but it’s what he said the first time. Maybe then he wouldn’t have been so stupid to trust the first super hot guy who was into him. Isobel had told him it was sketchy that Alex had no friends or family, but Alex had also just moved to Denver and it just felt right and Michael barely had any friends or family. He should’ve looked into it more. “What about you?”

Alexander didn’t answer.

“Alexander?” he asked. He didn’t feel the couch move, but he couldn’t really see him and the sudden silence was making him anxious. Then he heard him gulp, so he calmed down just a bit. “What would you change?”

“Everything.”

“Too vague.”

“Well, it’s the truth.”

“Is it? I don’t really know anything about your childhood at all. All I know is that your parents died when you were…” Michael trailed off once he realized that he didn’t know that. “Wait, are your parents even dead?”

Silence.

“Oh my God!” So much for letting himself think they might be the same.

“They’re basically dead, they haven’t spoken to me in‒”

“No, that’s not basically! You told me your parents were dead! That’s a huge thing to lie about!” Michael scoffed, sitting up straight, “The next thing you’re gonna tell me is that you didn’t actually lose a leg in a motorcycle accident.”

Silence. Again.

“Oh my God. Oh my God, what is wrong with you?” Michael said, but he couldn’t bring himself to move away. He didn’t want to be alone in the darkness, even if that meant he was alone with a cruel liar. “You can’t just not answer me this time, Alexander, this is, like, a serious issue. You lied about how you lost your leg and about your parents being dead.”

“Just let me think,” he answered, but Michael didn’t like that.

“No, so you can come up with another lie? Tell me the fucking truth.”

“When I was 8 years old, my mother left,” Alexander said, taking a slow breath, “And a few days after that, my father hit me for the first time because he realized I was gay. He knew before I did. He thought he could beat it out of me. So that’s what I’d change. The fact that he beat me.”

“I’m sorry,” Michael sighed, “But that doesn’t explain why you lied about everything.” Michael had been abused his whole life too. He didn’t lie about it.

“I was taught from a young age that what I wanted was wrong, that who I was was wrong. So I spent my entire life trying to pretend. I did what my dad wanted and I lied to cover up the bruises for thirteen years of my life because it was easier than dealing with him.”

“Thirteen?” Michael parroted, “You said it started when you were eight, that would’ve made you twenty-one before… Oh.”

“Yeah,” Alexander sighed, “Oh is right. I joined the Air Force because he wanted me to, but I figured out that he wanted me to because he wanted to watch me. So, I made sure I went to school so I could become an officer. I eventually got put in a special task force and I got away from him, but he was still there, you know? Just in my head. He was always in my head. I was 26 before I had my first kiss because even though I was alone with six other people most of my time and three of them were openly queer, I couldn’t bring myself to accept it. Every time I considered it, I could feel my dad hurting me to stop. Even when he couldn’t be there, he was there through letters telling me to make sure I was being a Manes Man. Manes Men do this, Manes Men don’t do that. It was hell. He controlled me in every little facet well past my childhood, so I finally cut him out of my life when I was 27. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was tired of being in the mold he forced me into.”

“I wish you would’ve told me about that,” Michael said, trying not to be too offended when Alex had just admitted to suffering to almost 20 years of constant abuse.

“I didn’t want to admit that I was 28 years old and just coming to terms with my sexuality.”

“But I told you about all the shit that happened to me,” Michael argued, “Why didn’t you trust me with your feelings?”

“That’s not why I didn’t tell you, Michael, I didn’t want to bring it up.”

“But you should’ve! For two years, I felt like the fucked up one in this relationship and that you had to cater to me! If you would’ve just told me that you fucking understood, then everything could be different!” Michael spat out, “You ruined everything! And I still feel like a dick for getting mad at you for not recounting abuse! How fucked is that?!”

“Michael, please,” Alexander tried. Michael huffed a huge breath and took another sip of wine. He needed to calm down. He really did. But who the fuck lies about all that?

“The next question is tell me your life story in four minutes. Take longer than four if you need to, I need more than that. I need the fucking truth,” Michael insisted. He heard Alexander gulp. “I’ll calm down when you fucking tell me.”

Then he waited.

“Okay, okay, so… Like I said, I was 8 when my mom left. My dad and my older brothers went out of their way to make sure I was just like them. We all had the same haircut, had the same clothes, everything. We were miniatures of my dad, which… really fucked me up. Even when I went to college to get some semblance of freedom, I didn’t know how to be someone other than my father. And that’s hard. It’s super hard to see someone as a monster, but then you can’t bring yourself to be anyone other than exactly like them. And then I was wearing his uniform and I would look in the mirror and it was a constant battle to figure out who I was. Was I Alex, or was I Master Sergeant Jesse Manes?

“I dealt with that for years. Every time I looked at a boy who was attractive, I would have to immediately shut myself down. I wouldn’t let myself and I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I convinced myself that I was straight, that I could be. But that didn’t work because I didn’t even want a girl to hold my hand without feeling awkward, so I just resigned myself to a life of celibacy. It was more than that, though, because I hated myself so much. I was hardly a person, I was just a carbon copy and I was suicidal as hell. But on some level, it must’ve been good for me because it made me ballsy.

“I didn’t allow myself pleasures or anything, so I became really good at combat and coding which you know. That’s how I even got in a special task force when I was that young. I did a year at MIT, wasn’t the biggest fan, and they put me in the task force. And, you know, like I said three of them were openly queer. It was so weird for me to be around people that were open and honest with themselves and, it took a while, but eventually, I started to see that maybe I could be too. I had my first kiss with Lieutenant Cameron Adler. He was, like, 6’7” and biceps bigger than my head, literally could’ve crushed me, but he didn’t. And when I freaked out because I liked the kiss, he was just there to help me through it. He was my first everything, my first love and all. I think that was the first time I thought I might be okay.

“Then, obviously, a few months later it went to shit. My team got bombed. No one fucking made it. Except for me, which is bullshit, right? I was so fucked in the head and had spent years of my life hating myself and who I was, and all these people who were happy and good died. I wasn’t conscious, but I was told that I was found with Cam’s body on top of me, like he was shielding me with his, like, 275lbs of muscle. They thought I was dead and, legally, I was for a few minutes, but they were able to bring me back and all I lost was a leg. I hated when they told me that. ‘Look, you made it and all you lost was your leg’ because that wasn’t all I lost. I literally lost the only family I’d ever known and now I was back under my father and I just kept sinking lower. I had so much therapy, physical and mental, and nothing really helped. Yeah, I could walk again, but my mental state was so fucked. I spent all day just thinking of ways to end my life and how I wish someone would do it for me or how I wish they just had found me later so that they wouldn’t have been able to bring me back. And I was going to do it too. I had it all planned out. I was going to take a bath and overdose and let myself just go away forever. That’s why I left my post. I had two days left before I was officially honorably discharged, but I just drove to Denver and got a hotel and planned to kill myself there.

“And then I met you.”

Michael looked at him with tears in his eyes. Fuck. “You can’t say that. You can’t say that like you’re only alive because of me. That’s basically a threat.”

“I’m not, I’m sorry,” Alexander sighed, “I’m not going to kill myself if you don’t take me back, it’s not like that. I just meant that you reminded me that I could be okay again. I’d had so many therapists insist that it gets better, but you were the first thing that showed me that, okay, maybe it does.”

“I didn’t do anything, I just bought you coffee,” Michael sniffled. He didn’t like thinking about his Alex being in that state. His Alex was always cheery and charming and beautiful.

“Yeah, I know. Look, I planned to off myself that night and I wanted to just get myself my favorite drink beforehand so at least I went out with something good. And then I forgot my wallet and that just felt like proof that I needed to end it. Like, of course, I wanted one last good thing and I managed to fuck that up.” Michael remembered the way Alex had been frantically searching for his wallet and was almost in tears when he couldn’t find it. That was the only reason he paid for him. He didn’t want to see someone cry. Then he'd gotten closer and realized the guy was hot as hell. "Then you paid for me and asked my name. I couldn't give a fake one because I already gave the barista my first name, but I could give you a fake last name so I did. I wanted one goddamn night where I wasn't a Manes Man. I didn't know that coffee would lead to talking for 6 hours straight and spending the night with you because it shouldn't have gone that way. We just fucking connected like something…"

"Cosmic?"

Alex let out a soft laugh. "Cosmic. And, by that point, it was too late to go back. So I just went with it."

"So you just let us go two years in a lie?"

Alexander moved closer, close enough that he could see his eyes. He felt more at peace than he had in awhile which really pissed off the logical section of his brain.

"I was more myself as Alex Whitman than I was ever as Alexander Manes because I was with you and you pushed me to be myself. I would give the world to you, but you already gave it to me first," Alex insisted.

Gravity did that fucky thing it did when Alex got too close and Michael tipped his head forward to meet Alex's. He wanted it to be real. He really did.

But he didn't trust him.

"You'd really give me anything?" Michael whispered. Alexander nodded.

"Anything. You're my life, Michael. If I could take back the lies, I would, but I wouldn't take back finally feeling free because of you," Alexander promised, slowly moving his hand up to cup his cheek. It was slow, it was on purpose. They met for a kiss in the middle.

Their first kiss as Michael Guerin and Alexander Manes.

Michael kept it short, though a kiss after two weeks without felt like remembering to breathe. Alex didn't push it.

"Then can you give me time?" Michael asked, "I need… I need space before I can even try to trust you again."

"Then I'll give it to you. All the time in the world if you need it," Alex said, sincerity in his voice in a way that felt strange. It felt good. "You know how to find me when… if you want to see me again.”

Michael waited with a bouncing knee as Alexander skillfully lifted himself to the chair he’d originally sat in, putting on his dry liner and sleeve before the prosthetic. Michael didn’t know how long he’d been here, but clearly, it’d been long enough for that to dry. So, at least three or four hours. God, why did time never make sense when Alex was around?

When he was done, he stood and pressed a kiss to the top of Michael’s head.

“I love you,” he said because they never parted ways without saying that, even if for a moment. You never know when would be the last time you’d see someone. The only time they hadn’t was when Michael had left him. “I promise that there won’t be any more secrets between us. Ever. I’ll tell you whatever whenever.”

Michael thought about asking if he wanted to stay until the rain stopped or until the lights came back on, but the words never made it to his mouth. He thought about saying he loved him back, but that didn’t feel right either. He did love him back, but he still wasn’t sure if he only loved Alex Whitman or if he loved them both. So Alexander left without any argument.

It was cold and lonely when he was gone and Michael curled up, his head thudding as he tried not to stress too much by the darkness. It was only then that he realized he still had Alex’s phone. He quickly raced to the door, ripping it open and silently hoping that he’d still be there.

“You forgot your‒” he yelled as soon as he opened, but the driveway was empty and the rain was still coming down hard. He hoped that Alexander would make it home okay.

Michael locked the door and went straight to the guest bedroom, locking the door to that as well as he curled up in bed. He always locked his bedroom door too, it made him feel safer. Alex had assured him that it wasn’t weird at all and had even picked up the habit himself. They’d both picked up habits from each other over time.

He ended the recording on the phone after getting under the covers, staring at it. The recording was five hours long and it sparked curiosity in him even if the phone was dwindling dangerously close to 20%. He started it from the beginning.

“Okay, so I’m on the interstate right now because apparently, that’s a good idea. I was getting too antsy at home, everything still smells and looks like Michael just felt for a couple hours and that’s just too much, so left. I don’t really know where I’m going. I mean, where should I go? It’s been two weeks since my husband left me because he found out I was a big fat liar, there’s not really a fun place for people like that except for hell, right? But I’m not going to hell, I still have some life left in me and I’m working on figuring out where exactly to target that life.”

Alex’s voice rambled on and eventually, as usual, he started reciting Homer because he just did that when he couldn’t think. Michael had thought it was cute if not a little weird at first, but it had quickly become something that was comforting and hearing it, even through a recording, seemed to calm him.

“Patroclus’ death is what pushed Achilles to fight, you know? It gave him a reason. I keep thinking about Michael. I always think about Michael. Finding out I was… finding out I wasn’t exactly who he thought must’ve felt like a death. But it was Alex Whitman’s death, so my burden to bear and Michael was the victim. I’m the one who has to avenge, who has to fight. I need to find him.”

Michael dozed off the sound of him rambling his affections.

The next morning, Michael didn’t even get out of bed. The first thing he did was hook up Alex’s phone to a charger and started to look for older recordings. He had a Google Drive that seemed to hold all of them, each and every recording he’d ever made labeled with the date and it went all the way back to the day they met. Michael clicked on that one, the very first.

”I don’t know what I’m doing,” Alex’s voice was quicker than normal, anxiety clear in his tone even despite the fact he could hear the smile, “I mean, I really don’t and I don’t have anyone to talk to and it’d be pathetic to talk to myself, so I’m going to record it to make sure it’s not a fucking dream. I woke up this morning thinking that would be the last time I ever woke up and now I’m literally driving to some guy’s house to have sex. Me! Hooking up with some random guy! I don’t know what I’m even doing. He just came up to me and bought me coffee and we sat in that damn Starbucks until it closed and I’m so sure those baristas hate us, but I didn’t want it to end and I don’t think he did either because he asked me over and I’m doing it. I don’t know what happened, he just asked to sit and have his coffee with me and I had a moment where I was like ‘okay, my last memory could be either this coffee or this coffee and this cute guy and I haven’t even talked to a guy since Cam and that’s been over a year now. God, I’m so anxious, what if I’m shit in bed?

“I did do something stupid though. I gave him a fake name, but it felt good. I think that was the first time in my life that I’ve introduced myself and I haven’t been saluted or assumptions hadn’t immediately been made about me. This guy‒Michael, his name’s Michael‒looked at me like I was just Alex. I’m not a Manes Man. That’s never happened before. I like it. I can pass for an Alex Whitman, right?”

Michael would’ve scolded himself for smiling at the memories it brought back, but he was too sleep-heavy to care. He remembered that night really well. He’d been jittery with nerves too and had hoped his house wasn’t too messy when he let Alex inside. It had been his first few months as a professor at CU Denver and his house was a fucking wreck, but Alex didn’t seem to care. They sat on the floor of the living room, sipping on wine and talking for way too long. That’s when the 36 questions had come up and Michael had jokingly suggested they go through them. Alex went along and they had gotten through them without touch each other too much until question 36 required them to ask advice on any problem. Alex’s drunken problem was that he really wanted to sleep with this guy he just met but didn’t know how to approach it without seeming either really creepy or overwhelming. Michael had all but pinned him to the floor and stripped him bare. It was too good for a first night together. They fit and moved too well.

It was unheard of.

Michael scrolled down, trying to see any other date that stood out to him. He landed on the one that was from their wedding day, six months before their disaster ending, and pressed it without too much hesitation. He wanted to know.

”I keep looking at him and he looks so happy and I feel like an asshole. He deserves the world and the truth with it, and I can’t bring myself to tell him. I want to marry him today, even if we are just eloping in Vegas with a guy dressed as the priest from the Princess Bride performing the ceremony. I want to marry him more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. He is the love of my life, I’ve never been more sure. God… I love him.” Alex laughed and it felt like the world got a bit brighter. “I want to scream it from the rooftops that I love him just so maybe it’ll stop feeling so overwhelming.”

He did scream it from the rooftop of their hotel. Michael remembered feeling higher than life.

“I need to tell him the truth. He needs to know who he’s marrying. I’m going to do it.”

Michael didn’t have to listen to more to know that he absolutely didn’t do it. Though, he did want to know why. The issue was that it wasn’t ever answered. It was probably fear. Fear that that overwhelming love would end. And somehow it really fucking didn’t end.

He still loved him. Alex, Alexander, whoever.

Michael went to the first one again. He didn’t really know why he did it, but starting that day he began listening to all the details that Captain Alexander Manes had recorded over the years. It was really him, the recordings being something so raw that he didn’t need to lie to. He heard the two of them giggling and kissing and being ridiculously in love for two years. He heard it all over the course of 60 hours of audio.

For the next six months straight, that’s all Michael did. He just listened to Alex over and over and over until he could recite the recordings as well as Alex could recite The Odyssey. He could laugh with them, smile with them, love them. He was falling in love all over again with the man in the recordings. He loved hearing his excitement, his love, his laugh, his rambles. He hated hearing him crying on bad days or just feeling defeated and forcing himself to push through. He listened to recordings of therapy sessions he didn’t know Alex attended, hearing him talk through his still lingering depression and PTSD. Michael had known that Alex had some problems, even if they were only shown in the dead of night when he woke up screaming, but he’d never known how bad until he listened.

And he listened and listened and listened and listened.

“I can’t believe you’re still listening to him,” Isobel said one morning, shaking her head as Michael smiled into his cup of coffee. He always smiled at this one. It was just a random April morning, but Alex had recorded himself waking Michael up to breakfast in bed and he could hear the sheets rustle and the smack of kisses that he could still feel on his chest. It made his stomach knot up.

“Why?”

“He lied to you about who he was, Michael, and you’re just letting him manipulate you from afar all over again,” she sighed. He knew she meant well and she’d had a controlling boyfriend in the past that colored her opinion on Alex’s choices. The problem was that, aside from a few sketchy things about Alex, she’d liked him. They were a lot alike and Michael loved it. “It’s been six months, it’s time to move on.”

He thought about that for a moment. It was time to move on. He was sleeping in his sister’s guest bedroom and he was doing the same thing day in and day out. He needed to do something different. Even if it wasn’t exactly what she meant.

“Yeah,” he nodded, placing the mug down. It had been six months. Six months that he spent every day listening to Alex talking and learning about him and memorizing all the aspects of Captain Alexander Manes that he didn’t know before. Every little detail.

He wanted more.

Michael went back into the guest room and pulled out his laptop. He went to his E-Mail and opened a blank new message. He pulled Alex’s E-Mail into the To bar. He put 25 Questions To Fall Back In Love With You. Everything else came easy.

’I’ve been listening to every single recording over the last few months and I’ve been getting to know Alex Manes better and better and I’m at a point where I’m eager to know more. I want to trust him. I want to trust you because I love you.

But we’re still strangers, right? Technically, I mean. And we still have 25 questions left so here’s all my answers. If you love me still, give me your answers. Truthfully. As truthful as you can.’

He answered all his questions within the next half hour and sent it without reading over it. If he proofread it then he would risk second guessing sending it in the first place. He didn’t want that. He just wanted to see Alex again and see if it felt the same. They were cosmic before, they had to be cosmic again.

Alex answered by the end of the night.

‘Not gonna lie, I thought I was hallucinating when I saw this in my inbox. I miss you. Here’s my answers.’

Michael poured over them instead of sleeping that night. Most of them were the same and expected, but a few changed. The ones that changed had Michael feeling even more eager to go home. They matched the man in the recordings.

His greatest accomplishment was hacking into Russian intelligence while getting a blowjob. His most treasured memory was their wedding day. He shared that, if they were going to continue, it was important that Michael knew that he was stubborn and would fight to the death if he knew he had the chance to keep him(the first time it’d been that he’d lost his leg). Question 36, the infamous ‘problem in need of advice’, was now a lot less dirty.

’The man I’m in love with seems to be eager to try to save our fucked marriage. I’m super excited, but we have a lot of hours between us. What do you think I should do? Should I go to him or let him come to me or should we talk via E-Mail until we’re ready to see each other face to face again?’

Michael was feeling not too unlike he’d felt when Alex had shouted his love from the rooftops or when Alex had cradled him and recited The Odyssey like it was a fairytale. It made him feel like he was melting and Alex was the mold. This shouldn’t be a thing. He shouldn’t be this happy over an E-Mail from someone who’d lied.

But he was. And he was willing to try again and fight for what felt like the right thing because that’s what Achilles did for Patroclus.

’I’ll be home by tomorrow night. I call the bed.’

[the-whole-long-stupid-story]

Hypothetically Speaking

A M&M wedding fic - with picspam to follow 🍬

Okay, so this has turned into a CHAPTERED freakin’ debacle, because I need to do it justice and a one-shot didn’t allow me the head space /thinking and brainstorming I needed. 

Here’s chapter 1, with chapter 2 hot on its tails. I’ll share the picspam at the end of this, so it makes more sense.

@adampascalfan thanks for the inspiration! This has now taken on a life its own - hope you enjoy it.

Marriage wasn’t a huge priority for him. He didn’t really think he and Maria needed to do the whole ‘spew-your-guts-out with a bunch of kissy kissy vows, proclaim undying love and seal it with a chaste kiss while wearing white’ type thing like Max and Liz had, because in his mind they had already been married for years. Although he’d only admitted openly to it recently, it had always been her. He had never had eyes for anyone else, Maria was the only girl for him and that’s the way it would always be. He didn’t need a piece of paper to declare to the world what he already knew to be true. And going on the amount of times people would mutter that they bickered like an old married couple, it seemed as though the rest of the world already knew they were bonded for life too.

But was it enough for Maria? He didn’t need the piece of paper, the pomp and ceremony - but did she? He was certain she knew how he felt about her, because he had made a habit of trying to tell her more often. Since that afternoon he left Roswell on his bike and told her he’d always love her, and ever since that evening when she’d chosen to leave with them - with him - he had made a point of letting her know how he felt about her. Not super regularly and certainly not in huge proclamations, it wasn’t his style. But during quiet moments together in the back of the van, or when she was nearly asleep in his arms, he’d whisper the words quietly against her ear, so she would never forget. He’d also made their fake IDs with matching surnames, something he hadn’t even done consciously. It just seemed natural to do so. He didn’t bother correcting strangers when they assumed that he and Maria were husband and wife, either. These were all just little gestures towards their unspoken commitment and he did them mostly without a second thought, but he also knew it culminated in ensuring that she knew exactly where he wanted her to be - with him.

But still he wondered - did she need a receipt for these actions? The paperwork?

His thoughts were answered one sunny Spring afternoon in May, when they were in California. They’d been careful, and they hadn’t managed to find anyone on their trail, so they had stopped in a small town north of LA for a few months or so to re-group and get some temporary work to keep the finances flowing. They had a small 3 bedder, which was better than the nookie motels they’d previously stayed in, but it still wasn’t 5 star living by any standard. Better than the van, though. Michael was ready to toss that load of junk in and find something a little more reliable, but so far he had to concede that it had done them proud. They’d changed its colour several times so it was less traceable - at the moment it was a lightish, mustardy yellow.

Across the road from the apartment was a park - a pretty decent size, with a playground for kids, and picnic areas, a pond and lots of trees. It’s where they usually went when they needed to discuss something in-depth that they didn’t want anyone in the apartment complex to overhear. But they also went there to relax in-between their temp work and errands. Michael and Kyle had just finished their shift helping a local mechanic with parts, and were making their way over to the park to find the girls. Max was back at the apartment, using their old clunky computer to check for any updates and research where they might head for next.

Michael could see the girls sitting in a bushy clearing near the pond, they all had ice creams and seemed pretty relaxed as they chatted and laughed. He smiled a little as Maria tossed her head back, laughing at something that the other two had said - he liked seeing his girl so happy. She was like sunshine, she made everything brighter. Warmer.

“Hey, I’m gonna grab a water. You want one?” Kyle asked, pointing over to a kiosk near the playground.

“Yeah, sure. I’ll meet you over there,” Michael said, nodding towards the girls.

They hadn’t seen him walking towards them, and they were continuing their conversation happily as he approached. They were sitting in a clearing near the pond, with shrubs and bushy trees surrounding them. He couldn’t fault their choice; they always had to be wary of who could see them or hear them, and he was pleased that they’d done so well at finding a secluded patch to hang out in.

“It definitely wasn’t something I was expecting, especially after what Future Max had told me we’d done in the other timeline with the wedding in Vegas,” Liz smiled at the girls as she recounted the tale of how Max had proposed the night before graduation. Michael slowed down a bit and hung back. They still hadn’t seen him, and he didn’t really want to interrupt her moment. “But I just knew it was the right thing, the best thing for us. I didn’t mind that we were so young.”

“I think it’s so romantic. Star crossed lovers,” Isabel mused. Michael rolled his eyes.

“Well you were pretty young yourself, Isabel” said Maria, nudging her lightly with her elbow. Michael leaned against a tree, just out of their sight in order to continue listening to their conversation. He didn’t want to barge into any girly chat, especially one that was about marriage. Next thing you know they’d be cooing at the prospect of babies, and he sure as hell didn’t want to be present for that conversation either.

“Yeah, you’re right. I guess when you know you know - age shouldn’t factor into it,” Isabel shrugged, taking a lick of her ice cream.

“Is that why you conducted your hypothetical survey on me at the Crashdown that day?” Maria smirked and raised an eyebrow.

“It wasn’t so much that I wasn’t sure about marrying Jesse. I loved him, I wanted to marry him. I was more concerned about everyone else, how they were going to react. I knew there would be push back…”

“They all came around eventually though,” said Liz kindly. “They all wanted to be part of your special day in the end.”

“Yeah,” Isabel smiled tightly. Convincing her parents, Max and Michael to give her their blessing had been hard. But she didn’t want to think about her wedding day for too long, it was too painful to recount. She switched the spotlight off her. “So…what about you Maria? That day at the Crashdown you dropped a handful of plates when I asked my hypothetical question about marriage. Still feel the same way?” Isabel raised her eyebrows expectantly at Maria, awaiting for an answer.

Michael’s eyes narrowed. He was pretty certain he knew which day Isabel was talking about, but he’d been distracted with his friends, devouring breakfast and sharing jokes after a long night shift at Meta Chem. He’d never thought to discuss it with Maria in more detail, thinking she had just accidentally dropped a bunch of plates in a rush. Now that he thought about it though, she never dropped plates.

“Wait…what exactly was this hypothetical question you asked?” Liz hadn’t witnessed their interaction and had never sought out a further explanation as to what had happened. Michael smirked, he was grateful Liz hadn’t been there either.

“Oh, Isabel asked me what I would say if Michael asked me to marry him,” laughed Maria. He froze. Isabel had what?! “And she didn’t mention it was hypothetical until after I dropped all the plates.”

All three girls giggled. Michael didn’t. What was so funny about that? Was the idea of marrying him so far beyond her - no, so terrifying to her, that she had forgotten all about fine motor function? He remembered when George at work had asked him if he would ever marry Maria, and although he assumed that the guys were expecting him to flip out at the question, he hadn’t. In fact, he’d properly considered it, for a few milliseconds at least, before he gave his answer. And it had been a truthful one - it was something he’d think about further down the track. He blinked. That had been nearly 3 years ago. Was ‘further down the track’ now? They were both only 20 years old, but they felt more like 40. They’d been on the run for nearly 2 years, and even before then they’d all grown up pretty quickly. So much for misspent youth.

Isabel snickered and continued. “Honestly, the look on your face. You were gobsmacked. But also - I remember there was something else there in your eyes too. Excitement?”

“Uhh, I’m not sure if that’s the word I’d use,” Maria smiled. “I’ve never had any huge desire to have a traditional white wedding - no offence. I guess it just comes with the territory of being raised in a broken home - my dad deserted my mom, his wife.” She shrugged. It wasn’t a big deal for her, she just wasn’t sure she believed in all the fuss of marriage. “I don’t exactly have a great track record when it comes to the men in my life sticking around long-term. Why tempt fate?”

“C’mon Maria, your dad - that was lousy. Unforgiveable. And yeah, Michael has done his fair share of running in the past, but you really think he’ll ever walk away from you again?” Liz grinned. “I know he’s not exactly your traditional marriage prospect, but you must have at least thought about it. You and Michael, surely one day you want to make it official?”

Michael held his breath, and bristled slightly. Good old Parker putting his girl on the spot. He suddenly felt tense. Did she really place him in the same category as her dad? Fearful he’d abandon her? Concerned that if they tied the knot, that they’d end up as just another statistic in the divorced column? Those times he’d walked away, he thought he’d made it clear it was for her own safety - her own protection. Never on a whim. And certainly not because he didn’t love her enough. Christ, it was the opposite of that - he’d even said it to her. Suddenly he didn’t want to stay and hear anymore of this. But he couldn’t pull himself away. He needed to know her answer.

“Well, I mean - does a piece of paper make true love official? I think there’s more to it than that,” she paused and looked at the other two women as she realised they might take that the wrong way. “I know there’s more to it than that for you guys too, I just… I don’t need a big white dress or an official ceremony to know that Michael and I are in it for the long haul. He stayed here for me, I left there for him,” she shrugged again. “One day sure, I’d love to have an intimate ceremony with him somewhere and make it official. It’d be great to do that in our own type of way. But I also kinda feel like the night we left after graduation was a ceremony in itself. It was a one-shot decision. Just like the night he was supposed to go home. Make a choice, and that was it. No turning back. I chose Michael.”

Michael released the breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding. Leaning against the tree, he closed his eyes for a second. He was taken aback by her honesty, and touched by her feelings towards him. It had been unspoken, they’d never really gone into detail on it. But she was right - had had stayed on earth for her, and when it was time to leave Roswell forever, she had left for him. She’d left everything for him. Despite all the crap he had put her through over the years, she had chosen him. They’d chosen each other over everything else - there wasn’t really anything bigger than that when it came to love. They didn’t need a ceremony with sappy vows to prove it.

Well, sometimes it’s nice to hear it out loud too though, you know.

Michael opened his eyes sharply and looked around. He had sworn he had heard that voice out loud. But there was no-one else around, no-one close by enough to be able to invade his thoughts. And though he didn’t want to fully admit to it, the voice had sounded pretty close to…

Alex. Yeah, good work Sherlock.

Michael shook his head a little. He must be dehydrated. Where was Kyle with that water? Instinctively he rubbed a hand down his cheek, feeling a tingling sensation on his face.

Just remember what I told you a few years back, Guerin. She’s not just some girl.

Get out of my head, he thought angrily, trying to shake the voice of Alex out of his brain. He knew she wasn’t just some girl. Hadn’t he already proven that countless times? She was his girl, and he was planning on keeping it that way. He wasn’t planning to leave her side, ever again. But a wave of fear washed over him. Did she doubt that, even a little bit? He looked down at his hands, they were trembling a little, and the sun through the trees glinted off the rings on his fingers as the shook. What the hell?

Prove it. She’s your girl. Make sure she knows it.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Kyle was approaching, holding out a bottle of water to him.

“Nothing, just…waiting for you. What took you so long?” He grabbed the water and opened it quickly, guzzling it down in the hopes of washing Alex’s voice away from inside his head.

“Big queue, lots of people here today,” Kyle glanced over to where the girls were sitting in the clearing and nodded in their direction. “You going over there?”

“Trust me, you do not want to go over there right now,” Michael said emphatically.

“Ohh,” Kyle breathed and furrowed his eyebrows. “Girl talk.”

“Yeah, listen - I need your help. Let’s go talk somewhere away from their kissy kissy conversation,” Michael muttered, taking all his might not to physically grab Kyle and drag him back to the apartment as quickly as possible. He had plans to make, and he needed all the help he could get.

[bellakitse]

when you smiled and said to me (are you gonna kiss me or not)

 alex manes week 2019- Day 2: Alternate Universe (AU)

College AU Meeting

Alex Manes is sitting on one of the benches outside the Arts and Science building waiting for his friend Liz to come out. Holding on to a cup of coffee but he doesn’t drink it. Instead, Alex lets the cup warm his hands and hopes that warmth will chase away the cold his last lecture left inside him.

When he decided to go into Family and Child studies, he knew that eventually, he’d have to sit through a course on child abuse and neglect. He’d thought he was ready for it, but the three-hour lecture had left him feeling raw, every example his professor spoke of felt like a retelling of Alex’s childhood. As he sat there, his whole body tense, he’d felt like all eyes where on him, like everyone in the lecture hall could see the cracks and breaks he works so hard to hide.

“My biochemistry partner asked about you again.”

Alex looks up and finds his friend smiling down at him as she comes to stand in front of him. Alex blinks rapidly in hopes that it will clear his sudden cloudy vision. The way Liz frowns tells him he isn’t successful.

“What’s wrong?” Liz asks as she takes a seat next to him.

“Nothing,” Alex smiles at her or he tries to at least, but it feels tight and fake on his face so he can only imagine what it looks like.

Liz raises an eyebrow at that. “Alex Manes,” she starts, lets his name hang between them like a warning. “Tell me what’s wrong, or I’m calling Maria, putting her on speaker phone, and we’ll both get it out of you.”

Alex lets out a tired chuckle at the threat or promise since he’s sure she will call Maria and between the two of them there nothing they can’t get out of him. His two best friends are relentless like that, it doesn’t even matter that Maria is still back in Roswell while Liz and him at in Albuquerque at UNM. They always get what they want.

“We started child abuse and neglect in my Child Advocacy course today,” he says with a casual shrug when Liz’s face tightens. “It hit a little too close to home, you know.”

Liz nods softly because of course, she knows. More than once growing up she helped clean him up after one of his father’s ‘discipline’ sessions, more than once he slept in her bed when he couldn’t bear to go home. Liz circles her slim arms around him, and Alex goes willingly, smiling more sincerely at the warmth and affection he finds there.

Pulling back, her hands go to his face holding him in place as she looks straight into his eyes. “You are special, you are exactly who you are supposed to be, there is nothing wrong with you, you are loved,” she tells him. Alex lets out a calming breath as she says the mantra his therapist had gotten him to repeat to himself when his past trauma gets the best of him. Grateful for the reminder, he nods at her.

Where life had fucked him over in the family department, it had made amends in the friendship department.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” He says softly as he leans his forehead to rest against hers, smiling back when she gives him a bright smile of her own. “What were you saying about your partner?”

“Oh!” Liz exclaims her eyes lighting up as she remembers. “My biochemistry partner was asking about you!”

Alex frowns confused a bit, he wasn’t part of the science crowd at all. So who the hell knew who Liz’s biochemistry partner was. “Okay?”

Liz rolls her eyes at him, letting out a huff.

“Alex,” She starts off slowly, earning herself a small glare in return at the condescending tone. “My very good looking -dresses like a cowboy- genius science partner asked me about the hot guy in the leather jacket who always walks me to class is and if said hot guy is single.” Liz finishes in a rush, her smile bigger if possible.

“Liz,” he warns, already knowing where this is going.

“He’s hot, Alex,” Liz proclaims, her eyes widening for effect. “Not my type but totally yours and he thinks you’re hot.”

“I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

Liz rolls her eyes at him again. “Sure you do, the guy is hard to miss, cowboy hat, tight jeans that look painted on, curls, he told me he shares a music course with you, his name is Michael Guerin.”

Alex startles at the name, because yeah, he does know who she’s talking about now, Michael Guerin is in his music composition course. A total cowboy like Liz said, from the hat to the boots and the large belt buckle in between that should be ridiculous and instead always leaves Alex feeling hot and flushed around his neck. More than that Michael has honey-colored curls and eyes that remind Alex of liquid amber, always warm when they lock with Alex’s, lingering.

“Music composition,” he gruffs out, coughing to clear his suddenly dry throat. Michael has been asking about him? He thinks he’s hot?

“What did he say?” he asks unable to help himself, blushing when Liz smirks at him.

“Interested, are you,” she says knowingly.

“Liz,” he whines, his face feeling hotter by the second.

Liz laughs, as she leans in to give him another hug in an apology of her gentle teasing. “Sorry, just messing with you a little. He said that you share a class and that he likes how you play guitar, that he’s wanted to talk to you but that you always run out of class.”

“I have psych across campus. I either run, or I don’t get there on time, and the professor locks the door,” he explains, still rosy cheek at the lasts information.

“Professor Williamson right?” Liz asks, wrinkling her nose. “The guy’s an ass.”

“Yeah.”

“Anyway,” Liz continues easily. “I guess he’s seen us together, because well we’re attached to the hip.”

“You’re needy,” Alex teases, laughing when she lets out a dramatic gasp.

“I am your best friend, the light of your life, your sunshine on a cloudy day!” Liz proclaims loudly, drawing the eyes of more than one of their peers as they walk by them.

“You’re loud, is what you are,” Alex answers, laughing as she gives him a pout. “And everything else you said too, best friend, the light of my life, sunshine.”

“The wind beneath your wings,” Liz grins, wiggling her eyebrows.

Alex snorts at that, nodding at her. “Sure, you can be my Bette Midler.”

Liz grins. “I’ve officially peaked then, life doesn’t get better if I’m Bette.”

Alex shakes his head. “Anything else about the cowboy?”

“Interested,” Liz repeats, singsong, laughing when Alex just shoots her another look. “I told him we’re just friends and that yes you are single, he smiled, and then he mentioned that bar in town, the one you were talking about with the open mic?”

“Lizard tail brewing,” Alex answers for her, nodding in agreement when Liz wrinkles her nose at the name.

“Well there is an open mic tonight, and he said he’d be there. Hint hint,” she finishes, poking at his side with her index finger.

“Hmm,” Alex hums quietly and say nothing else for a moment, curbing his smirk, as Liz gets more and more restless the longer he stays quiet.

“Oh my god, Alex Manes,” she finally exclaims, letting out a deep breath as if she had been holding it in, waiting for him to make a decision. “Don’t make me drag you there, because I will!”

“Geez, Liz, relax,” he says, raising his hands in a mocking gesture, chuckling when she gives him a dirty look. “You need to unwind, we should get a beer tonight.”

“Brat,” Liz murmurs but smiles when Alex throws his arms around her, pulling her in for another hug. “Lucky for you, I love you, so let’s go get you a cowboy.”

Alex shakes his head. “I said beer, I said nothing about a getting a cowboy.”

Liz shrugs as she stands and pulls him along. “We can do both, it’s call multitasking, come along Manes we only have a few hours to get you into your tightest emo rock jeans.”

***

They get to the bar around 8 p.m. there’s already a decent crowd, but they manage to get a small high table near the small stage on the left corner of the bar.

Liz places her jacket over the back of her seat. “You watch our table while I go get our drinks, the first fleet is on me.”

Alex nods as he takes off his own jacket, revealing a snug maroon sweater that he’d paired with the skinniest jeans he and Liz found in his closet, they felt painted on but made his ass look great according to Liz.

Liz looks him over with a smirk, taking in the outfit and his lightly lined eyes. “You’re sex on legs Manes, I almost feel sorry for Michael.”

Alex blushes but laughs at her comment. “Go get the alcohol, Liz.”

Liz nods, laughing as she walks away.

Alex sits down and looks around the place, the place is a dive, but it reminds him of the wild pony, making him comfortable. He sees a few people look his way in interest and it relaxes him some more.

Surveying the room some more he finds what he came looking for, a few feet away, closer to the bar Michael Guerin sits with his guitar case next to him, a beer in his hand and his focus entirely on Alex.

Alex stares back, he looks the way he always looks at Michael, only now with the knowledge that Michael has been watching him too, it’s heady to know that the guy he’s been crushing on for months is interested back. He tilts his head and gives the boy a soft smile as he signals him to come closer, his smile widening when Michael stands and starts walking towards him.

Still sitting Alex smiles up at him when Michael stands right in front of him, closer than they should for two people who have never really spoken before. Alex isn’t bothered by it though, the tension feels electric between them, and it just increases as Alex gives Michael a once over, approving once more of the other boy’s styles. Licking his lips, he looks up at him, grinning when Michael’s eyes focus on his mouth.

“Hey, cowboy,” he starts with a grin. “I heard you’ve been asking about me.”

Michael shrugged as he takes a step closer and Alex spreads his legs so Michael can step between them, swallowing hard when he does just that. “You always run out of class. As nice as your backside is, I figured it was time to get to know other parts of you.”

Alex laughs at the bold comment, flustered but impressed by the direct approach. “You going to sing for me?” he asks pointing at the guitar case.

Michael looks down at the case and then back at Alex, grinning. “I’m going to charm the pants off you.”

“Who says you haven’t already?” Alex asks as he places a finger on Michael’s belt and tugs it gently to see if Michael will come.

Michael goes more than willingly, their fronts all but pressed together.

“Yeah?” Michael breathes as he places his hands on Alex’s shoulder.

Alex’s places his own hands at Michael’s waist. “I’ve heard you play before Michael, I always watch you, I just didn’t know until today, until Liz told me, that you were watching me too.”

“I can’t look away, Alex,” Michael says softly, gently as he moves his hands from Alex’s shoulders to his neck, tilting his head a bit. They stay that way, just looking at each other, Alex can feel his heart squeeze at the tenderness he finds in Michael’s whiskey-colored eyes.

“Are you gonna kiss me or not,” he says after a moment, enjoying the way Michael’s eyes widen, continuing before Michael can react. “By Thompson Square, it’s a good song, you should play that if you know it.”

Michael blinks at him, once, twice, and by the time the words sink in, Alex is grinning so hard his face hurts.

Michael stares at him some more, before letting out a loud laugh. “You’re kind of an ass,” he says still chuckling. “We’re going to be great together.”

Alex laughs too, letting go of him. “Go serenade me, cowboy, and charm the pants off me.”

Michael nods picking up his case and leans in close. “When I finish I’m coming back for that kiss you just teased me with,” he says with a smile that grows as Alex stares at his mouth.

Alex bites down on his smile, his stomach flipping with excitement. “Can’t wait.”

Michael gives him one last smile, before heading for the stage just as Liz comes back to their table.

“The sexual tension,” Liz starts as she places a fleet of beer in front of him. “I stayed by the bar while you guys were talking and I could feel it from there, so what happened?” She asks as she sits.

“Nothing,” Alex says smiling as Michael takes the stage and the crowd lets out a cheer. “He’s going to sing and then,” he trails off as Michael strums the first chords of his request, flashing Alex another grin when their eyes lock.

“And then?” Liz prompts as she looks at the boy on the stage and then back at him.

Alex shrugs happily, grinning. “And then I’m going to kiss me a cowboy.”

[space-malex]

This is the tale of me realizing that Alex Manes is my favorite character on Roswell, New Mexico

I went into the show from the very beginning as a fan of the original. In the original, my favorite character was Michael. Following behind Michael was Maria and Alex. I kind of expected RNM to be the same, and when I watched the pilot, it confirmed my suspicions. I was like “oh yeah, Michael is my guy.” I wasn’t expecting malex, but did that ever shoot to the top of my ships list immediately. I loved all the characters, but I was pretty sure Michael was gonna be my big ol’ fave, just like 20 years ago. However, I was struck by Alex in a way I wasn’t expecting. He was so different from Whitman, but you could see the depth in him and he hit my feels immediately.

Ep 2: I fell more in love with all the characters, including Michael. Seeing his scenes with Isobel and that conversation with Alex at the end, ughhh. But then we got the human scenes and I fell more in love with Alex during his scenes with Maria and Liz. We got to see him smile and open up a little and I felt myself ache with love. And then at the end with him and Michael I could hear my heart cry “my babies.” At that point I was like okay, maybe they’re both my favorites.

So, onto episode 3. Two big things happened that week. The episode aired, and we saw the first instances of Alex hate. There was a lot of talk about Michael deserving better and Alex being a jerk. Until this point, I had been operating under the assumption that Michael was my favorite character, and Alex had hurt him, so it surprised me how fiercely protective I felt over Alex and how upset the attacks against him made me. I immediately jumped to his defense (and I guess I’ve been doing that ever since lmao). I still felt horrible for Michael, but my love for Alex was growing ever stronger. The second thing that happened is that over the weekend following the episode, for whatever reason, the fandom decided to collectively watch Hello Again. You can imagine the result. Everyone became massively thirsty over Tyler in an instant and many of us (the non-PLL fans mainly) realized we had been sleeping on him. Did falling in love with Tyler influence my love for Alex? Perhaps.

Episode 4 was without Alex. Michael was 😩, especially during his scenes taking care of Isobel and his scene at the end with Max and Iz. I just wanted to hold him and tell him everything would be okay. At the same time, I missed Alex. I really felt his absence (same with ep 11). Unlike the episodes without Maria, Kyle, Noah, or Jesse Manes, the omission of Alex left a tangible void in the episode. At least for me (how I did not realize from day fucking one what a goner I was I’ll never know lmao).

And then episode 5 happened and it was all over. I remember the second Alex appeared at the cabin, sassing off to Kyle like the gay icon he is, and the realization physically hit me. “Oh my god. He’s my favorite, isn’t he? My actual son!” Then the rest of the episode happened and solidified my lifelong Alex Manes love and stanning.

Maybe it’s because I relate to him in many ways. Maybe it’s also because I relate to Michael in many ways and Michael has that intense love for Alex too. It’s rare even now in tv for a gay character to “have it all” so to speak. To get a well-developed arc, to be complex, to have a deep relationship with their love interest. Alex gets all of those things. He’s sassy, but he’s not the “sassy gay bff” trope. He’s an abuse survivor who is still dealing with fallout from it, but he’s so strong. He’s a genius but not in a flashy gary sue kind of way. He’s not perfect. He’s flawed. He’s fleshed out. Not to mention, he had the single best character arc of the whole season.

That being said, even though Alex is my favorite character, I love Michael just as much. It’s incredibly rare for me to have an otp where I love them both pretty much equally. The vast majority of the time I will love one half much more than the other. Malex is a special ship in that both halves of it are such well-developed characters individually that there isn’t a wild imbalance in their (narrative) relationship like there can be with a lot of couples. And while I do think that Carina (and the narrative) favors Michael, she’s done justice to Alex and has created a character that a huge portion of the fandom has fallen for. I think that’s pretty awesome.

[dramallamadingdang]

Time for replies!

These be for @princesspiratecat, @jennamaxon, @criquette-was-here, @nimitwinklesims, @eulaliasims, @greatcheesecakepersona, @alienbirthqueen, and @niamh-sims...

princesspiratecat replied to your photoset “Tree’ing a bit. :) Mostly to break up the monolithic terrain texture...”

This actually reminds me of where I live, Lake Arrowhead in Southern California when it's dry. Except I don't see a lake.

alienbirthqueen replied to your photoset “Houston, we have a terrain. :D FINALLY! OMG, what a ginormous pain in...”

this is so gorgeous!! it reminds me a lot of northeast california/nw nevada, which is where i grew up of course haha

Yeah, it’ll work pretty much for any desert-y place in North America. Like, anywhere from the Okanagan Desert in Canada, to the less mountainous parts of Montana down to New Mexico and west to the more interior parts of California, Oregon, and Washington in the US, and then down into interior northern Mexico. Mostly my inspiration for the look of the place is the Great Basin (so Alienbirthqueen is right on!) and Chihuahuan Deserts, though. Not so much the Mojave or the Sonoran because those are generally flatter (and lower in elevation and therefore much hotter/drier) and the vegetation is different. Like, there’re no saguaro cacti, which is the signature plant of the Sonoran, of course. But the Lake Arrowhead area (or the Lake Tahoe area) can work, too, given that I’m adding pines to break up lot-view textures. :) In that, it resembles my home turf in SW Colorado, as well.  

Except yeah, no water. The place may or may not have some on-lot water, though, which wouldn’t be big enough to be a lake. I’ll imagine it/them to be springs magically stocked with fish. But I haven’t decided on that yet. I mean, I DO like to build my fishing spots, but I’m trying to go for some authenticity here, trees notwithstanding. ;)

Anyway, basically any higher desert area that’s not a “sandy” place will do, at least with the season set-up I’m giving the place. (Which of course can be changed to make it whatever anyone wants.) It has spring and autumn...mostly because I like to use season-enabled trees/shrubs so that there’s a visual change with the seasons. I get kinda visually bored, if you will, otherwise. :) 

jennamaxon replied to your photoset “Tree’ing a bit. :) Mostly to break up the monolithic terrain texture...”

Rest rather green - much better in the second pic. For a moment, I thought you were frowning at the rubbish cart

Well, if we’re being all green and environmentally-conscious, rubbish is bad, right? :) But no, just frowning at the uber-green trees, I’m afraid. 

criquette-was-here replied to your photoset “Tree’ing a bit. :) Mostly to break up the monolithic terrain texture...”

Oh, this neighborhood makes me want to create this type of climate setting too! Somehow it feels like a place from a good old 90's road movie. Love the new texture for the pines. Looks way better!

Well, that would certainly be different for you! All your neighborhoods and pics are so green and European and pretty. Which isn’t a bad thing, of course, but I’d be very interested to see what you’d do with a more desert/wasteland sort of environment....

nimitwinklesims replied to your photoset “Houston, we have a terrain. :D FINALLY! OMG, what a ginormous pain in...”

Cool cool cool! It looks so much like your photo!

That’s what I was shooting for. But I tell you what, it was hard! I couldn’t figure out how TS2 decided which terrain images from the terrain default to paint where. It just seemed kind of random, and in some of my attempts, when put into TS2, the terrain was only using 2 (of the four) images in the terrain default, which looked really weird. So in the end, I put in an existing terrain, and then redid the road structure and resculpted most of the hills and such. Then, I still had to edit the terrain default to rearrange the images to suit this particular terrain to get it to look how I wanted. So it was more complicated than I’d envisioned. I could’ve probably put more time into figuring out what was going on with all that, but I just wanted to get ‘er done so I could start building.

eulaliasims replied to your photoset “Aw, c’mon, you didn’t really think I wouldn’t do rocks, did you? :)”

oh, this looks fantastic. I love the scrub--that's always something I've felt some desert neighborhoods need. it adds a lot!

niamh-sims replied to your photoset “Houston, we have a terrain. :D FINALLY! OMG, what a ginormous pain in...”

That looks fantastic! I love the scrubby scrubs- perfect for that environment!

Yeah, for this kind of desert -- the American kind, as in all of North and South America  -- there’s gotta be scrub. Pretty much the only American desert that doesn’t have scrub is the Atacama in S. America, since it’s like the driest place in the Americas. :) But even it has some scrub in places. I mean, this ain’t the Sahara or Arabian deserts! 

The lack of scrub really, REALLY bothers me in Strangetown, since that’s obviously supposed to be inspired by Roswell, NM. I am still going to play that neighborhood one of these days, but it has to undergo major terrain/deco renovation before I’ll be able to look at it without screaming bloody murder. :)

greatcheesecakepersona replied to your photoset “Houston, we have a terrain. :D FINALLY! OMG, what a ginormous pain in...”

Lovely! Now all that's missing is the Breaking Bad van :)

HAH!. Yeah, I’ve never watched that show (though it’s on our list to watch), but I know that it’s set in New Mexico, though I don’t know if it’s actually filmed there, so...yeah. :)

nimitwinklesims replied to your post “You sound like such a cool person! It's really nice to hear about...”

I often have a hard time keeping the classical composers apart (I'm embarrassed to admit), but Smetana's Ma Vlast always makes me cry -- it was played at my Czech grandfather's funeral... It's heartwarming to read that you like the Czech composers a lot. I'm Dutch but because of my děda I have a fondness for Czech things as well. Also, sort of related, I have played Händel's Harp Concerto at one point (when I was still taking harp lessons).

Yes, Ma Vlast is one of the best pieces of music ever written. IMO, at least. :) I’m not a person who’s into patriotism/nationalism, but I do tend to love music that has a concrete feeling for place, both physically and emotionally, and Ma Vlast has both. It’s why I love stuff that incorporates folk music from a particular country or area, because of that sense of place and time, and the Eastern European composers tend to do that really, really well, which is why I find myself drawn to them. Aaron Copland did that well, too, for American themes. Appalachian Spring (with its incorporation the Shaker “Simple Gifts” song) and the Billy the Kid and Rodeo ballet music and whatnot. Great stuff. I think that this is why I was ultimately drawn to film/TV scores, both in terms of performance and my own compositions. Film scores are designed to have a sense of place and character and sometimes history about them. So I guess it’s not surprising that that’s where I ended up spending more time, professionally speaking.

That said, for all that I am a classical musician, I’m not a walking compendium of knowledge about all of classical music. Certainly not now that I’ve been away from school/academia for *cough* like 30 years now! I have forgotten much of what I did once know, but frankly my knowledge was always pretty specialized. I know much about the body of work of specific composers in whom I have an interest, but much of the rest...I don’t care to know about it, frankly. All the baroque stuff? Meh. I mean, there’s bits of it that I like -- Handel wrote lots of good stuff, for instance -- but much of it just sounds all the same to me, and I’m just not interested enough to know more. Like, while I appreciate his technique and innovations and all that, I just don’t much like Bach’s music, for instance, and I took/take a lot of ribbing for that, but...I like what I like, and the rest of it I’m content to ignore. Which is pretty much my attitude in general, when it comes to music. *laugh*

jennamaxon replied to your post “You sound like such a cool person! It's really nice to hear about...”

The Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis is an outstanding piece of music. Real hair on the back of your neck stuff. If you like 20th C English choral - my recommendation would be Holst's The Evening Watch. I heard (and sung) it first at college. I was breathless after the first listen.

You know, Holst has a lot of good stuff that no one seems to know about. :) If the average person knows any Holst at all, their knowledge tends to begin and end with Mars and Jupiter from The Planets. Which is a shame. I need to listen to more of his stuff, myself, now that you mention it.

[lizacstuff]

Roswell NM FanFic: Swooping Hearts (Max/Liz)

Description: Liz does some soul-searching about her feelings for Max, and Max confronts the truth, each at the prompting of a friend. Canon compliant, takes place in the 6 weeks between Barely Breathing (1x08) and Songs of Texas (1x09). Echo.

Note:   I bought that Liz was ready to move forward with Max in Songs of Texas (1x09) but here are a couple of “missing scenes,” conversations with Kyle and Michael, that might have taken place during the 6 weeks prior to help get the characters were they were at the beginning of that episode.

Read on AO3

Max felt a rush of nervous energy as he wound his way through the hospital on the way to the lab. That feeling was nothing new when he was anticipating seeing Liz, but he was pleased to perceive no light flickers in his path. Maybe his control was getting better. Once he was outside the lab door, he paused before entering. Day by day, week by week, things had gotten progressively better between him and Liz. It had been four weeks since Isobel had entered the pod and these days when Liz looked at him it wasn’t with suspicion or anger, no these days it seemed she mostly felt a sort of awkward sympathy towards him. Which was a step up, but not exactly ideal. He knew he didn’t deserve ideal, he also knew they didn’t deserve the amount of work she was putting in to cure Isobel. What she was doing, how hard she was working to help people who had hurt her... it was just another thing about Liz Ortecho that awed him.

However, to be fair, pretty much everything about Liz Ortecho awed him.

When Max finally did push open the door of the lab, neither Michael nor Liz stirred from their work, each was too engrossed in their respective tasks. He cleared his throat.

The sound startled Liz, and she looked up quickly, searching for the source. When her eyes found Max, she felt a familiar sensation. If she’d been asked to explain the sensation, she’d have said it was as if her heart dropped into her stomach and then did a full somersault before swooping back into place. It was something that occurred most times when she saw him and it was disconcerting to say the least. Especially because of the cage she had proudly built around said heart. The walls of that cage were supposed to protect against this type of thing.

Since he’d come back to town, the ‘swoop’ had been accompanied by a variety of emotions, affection, lust, terror, anger, suspicion, regret, empathy and sympathy to name a few. She’d felt more, more emotions, more of everything, since returning to Roswell than she probably had for the entirety of the last ten years combined. Against her will, the walls had slowly started to come down; it was a lot to handle.

Their gazes locked for a moment. These days there was such a sadness to his eyes and seeing it there now, she felt a tightening in her gut, as if something had ratcheted up the pressure on her one more notch. She had to find a cure, and soon.

Finally, Michael interrupted the silence. “Max, what’re you doing here?”

“Uh...” What was he doing here? Looking at Liz sometimes had the effect of making him lose his train of thought. He shook his head as if trying to jog himself back into reality. Food. Right, that’s why he was there. He raised up his arm and revealed two take-out bags. “Dinner. I stopped by the Crashdown, I thought you two could use some sustenance.”

“Yes,” Michael said gratefully, and then held up his hand. One of the bags flew directly from Max’s hand toward his own.

Just then, the door opened again and Kyle strode into the lab as the bag hit Michael’s hand. He surveyed the group and said with forced joviality, “It’s a party in here.”

Michael rolled his eyes as he came over to stand next to Max as if lining up against the other man. He replied sardonically, “It was a party, then you showed up.”

Kyle looked a little taken aback at the open animosity. Over the last month when he’d interacted with Max, they’d been cordial. Max was grateful for his help, Michael not so much and Kyle could not figure out why. His best guess was that Michael had aligned himself with Max over the so-called love triangle that involved Max, Liz and himself. However, since it had been well over a month since he’d had anything to do with Liz romantically and since Max didn’t appear to be holding a grudge, that didn’t quite seem to explain it. “Good evening to you, too, Guerin.”

Michael ignored him and looked to Max. “I need to go collect another sample. You wanna give me a ride and...” he gestured with the bag of food, “I’ll eat on the way?”

“Sure,” Max said, carefully keeping any disappointment he felt out of his voice. It’s not that he’d planned to stay long, but he would have liked to, at least, have a chance to talk to Liz, even if just for a minute. Instead, he caught Liz’s eye once more and held up the take-out bag to indicate it was hers, before resting it on a nearby desk.

Liz watched him turn to leave, feeling oddly bereft. She hadn’t seen much of him since they’d started working in earnest on a cure for Isobel. He’d stop by occasionally to bring pizza or burritos or check on their progress, but he never stayed more than a few minutes. Despite the number of times she’d told herself that distance from him was best, and how disconcerting she found the heart ‘swoop’ when she did see him, she found herself wishing he would stay. When he was almost out the door she called, “Bye Max. Thanks for dinner.”

Max looked back with a half-smile and waved before the door whooshed close behind him.

“Did I interrupt something?” Kyle asked as he came over to Liz’s workspace.

Liz shook her head in answer, looked down at her notebook where she’d been keeping records and then slammed down her safety goggles. “Maldita sea!” she muttered angrily.

Startled, Kyle asked, “What’s wrong?”

Liz let out a long and frustrated sigh. “Another failure, I’m never going to get this.”

Kyle studied her a second and then moved so he was standing right next to her. “You know, Liz, you don’t have to do this. You’re killing yourself trying to find a cure for-” Kyle stopped himself, he’d been about to say ‘our sister,’ he mentally course-corrected and continued, “your sister’s murderer. It’s not worth you making yourself crazy or running yourself into the ground.”

Once again, she shook her head dismissively, but didn’t meet his eye as she said, “I’m not.”

“You are,” Kyle insisted. “You do your regular lab work during the day and then you stay all night working for the aliens.”

“I’m not working for them.” Liz replied a bit defensively. She hopped off her stool, walked over to the desk and picked up the take-out bag Max had left. It was the least he could do, but the gesture still warmed her heart. She reached in to the familiar bag, pulled out a salad and smiled. From the tag, she could tell it was a Solar System Shrimp Salad, special ordered with edamame instead of croutons, and Intergalactic Vinaigrette instead of the Mars Rover Honey Mustard that usually came with it.

She wondered if Max knew her exact order from the one other time he’d gotten take out from the Crashdown for them, or if he’d relied on her father’s expertise. Then she remembered her dad was off tonight. It was all Max.

As Liz prepared to eat, Kyle looked around the lab appraisingly. “Seriously, you’re eating dinner at 8pm at work. You should go home and get some rest. You can come back tomorrow.”

Liz speared a shrimp with her fork and then looked at him. “You don’t understand.”

Kyle frowned with resignation and then slumped down in a chair a few feet away from her. “I think I do. It’s Evans.”

xXx

“You know,” said Max as he climbed into the driver’s side of his jeep, “You should be a little nicer to Kyle. He’s one of two humans who know our secret and he’s helping with Isobel.”

“I hate that guy,” Michael muttered as he settled himself in the passenger seat.

Max glanced over him as he pulled out of the parking spot and then realization dawned. “A-ha!” Kyle had generally been a bully in high school, but Max suddenly remembered who his favorite target had been.

Before Max could elaborate on that revelation, Michael hurriedly said, “Despite him knowing we’re not human, I don’t know why you’re so friendly towards him; he’d like nothing better than to marry Liz and take her off to some suburban track house and have 2.5 kids and a dog.”

Max grimaced with revulsion, he couldn’t help but picture it and it sent a frisson of anger through him. The overhead light blinked on and off, and then sparks flew from it before it extinguished.

“So I take it you don’t like that idea.” Michael emphasized the word ‘don’t’ with a rough laugh.

The other man swallowed the very large lump that had taken up residence in his throat, when he spoke his voice took on an even more gravely quality than usual. “It’s none of my business. I want Liz to be happy, and I know it’s not going to be with me.”

Michael shook his head but smiled. “Max Evans, always the martyr.”

“I’m not being a martyr,” Max shot back roughly.

“What would you call it then?”

Max was silent for several long moments before he let out a long sigh and said, “Respecting her wishes. She told me we weren’t meant to be together.”

“Really?” Michael asked with genuine surprise. Of the two of them, currently he was the one spending a lot more time with Liz and that admission surprised him. Not that Michael and Liz had bared their souls to one another, they hadn’t, but whenever Max came around or was mentioned in conversation it seemed to him that something ‘sparked’ in her. Not the way Max literally sparked over her, but something in her eyes and general demeanor. He had sort of assumed that they would find their way to one another once this crisis with Isobel was over. Just like Michael hoped that he would find his way back to a certain someone, if he only found the right opportunity.

Max kept his eyes on the road, but nodded with resignation. “She told me the day we put Isobel in the pod. Those exact words, ‘you and I weren’t meant to be together.’” Max recited the words that had played in his mind a hundred times over the last month, each one a gut punch. He shook his head as if to clear it before adding, “Not that I blame her. In her shoes, I don’t think I could get over what we did.”

Michael let that sink in and the two rode in silence as Michael ate his burger. Maybe it was true; maybe they weren’t meant to be together, and maybe it was bigger than Max and Liz. Maybe humans and aliens just didn’t mix. Maybe none of them was meant to be with a human. That thought left him with a pit in his stomach and he was unable to eat the last bit of burger. He balled up the greasy paper and shoved it back in the bag.

However, all things considered, he had to admit that Liz had taken the news about aliens very well. Kyle too. They knew the secret, and were still helping to cure Isobel. Plus they hadn’t turned them in to any secret government alien-hunting organizations. Yet. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if certain humans found out about them, if a certain human found out about him. If Liz could work so hard to save one of them, after what they’d done, then... Michael’s train of thought stopped cold and it dawned on him: Max didn’t know.

There was something very important that Max didn’t understand at all.

He shifted in his seat to face him, “You know why she’s working so hard to cure Isobel, don’t you?”

“What?” Max’s mind had clearly wandered in the few minutes of silence. Then he seemed to remember the thread of the conversation. “Oh, well, that’s because she’s a good person, infinitely better than any of us.” His voice held quiet conviction.

“Well, I won’t argue with you there.” Michael acknowledged the truth of the statement. “You’re right, Liz Ortecho is a good person, but that’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?”

Michael blew out a breath in disbelief; Max could be so smart, but so thick at the same time. “She’s doing it for you.”

Max felt his heart lift at the words. He glanced over at Michael who was watching him. Michael nodded at him with a knowing expression, as if to reinforce what he’d just said.

Then reality settled in. “No,” Max replied decisively before continuing, “That’s a nice thought, but Liz is decent. She would help find a cure no matter what.”

Michael tipped his head to the side as if acknowledging the truth of that, but Max didn’t see it because his eyes were on the road. “Probably, but she wouldn’t be working late every night, last week she practically slept in the lab in order to keep her eye on one of the trials. That, Max, she’s doing for you.”

Max shook his head. It’s not that he didn’t want to believe it, he did, but it just didn’t line-up with what he knew. What he knew was that he’d been involved in the thing that had hurt Liz most. He couldn't forgive himself, there was no way he could expect her to forgive him.

Undeterred by Max’s skepticism, Michael continued, “When Isobel injected herself with the poison, Liz was overwhelmed, she was feeling guilty, she couldn’t pull it together and figure out what to do, do you know what she needed?”

Max’s eyes didn’t leave the road, he also didn’t breathe, he just gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

“She needed motivation, she needed to stop thinking about finding a cure for her sister’s murderer, and she needed to start thinking about finding a cure for YOUR sister. Bringing you in to the equation is what allowed her to focus and start work on a solution and now that is where her single-minded dedication and determination is coming from. You. She cares about you.”

Max glanced over at him, as if he wanted to check his sincerity.

“It’s true, Max,” Michael reassured. “When we’re working and we hit a road block, you’re the reason she doesn’t give up and finds a way around it. When we hit a dead end, you’re the reason she finds another path and when we discover the well is dry, you’re the reason she digs a new one and keeps going.”

Max was stunned. He really had been chalking up her help entirely to her character, plus a little guilt and a lot of scientific curiosity. The fact that he might also be a factor floored him. “Really?” his voice held equal parts skepticism and wonder.

Michael just laughed. “Open your eyes, Max. If you were a little more observant you’ll see the truth of what I’m saying.”

Max let that sit for a beat; Liz cared about him. Even if it wasn’t enough and she never fully forgave him, it was something. He allowed himself to feel a moment of lightness, he’d experienced so few since Isobel had gone into the pod... then he glanced over at Michael and smirked. “How about this for observant, I know you don’t like Kyle because he was an ass to Alex Manes in high school.”

“How did...” Michael’s voice trailed off.

Max answered with a teasing tone to his voice, “I was the one standing next to you on prom night, remember?”

Michael was silent for a minute as he let that sink in. “Yeah,” Michael’s mouth finally curved into a half-smile and then he turned to, lightly, punch his alien brother on the arm. It was nice to be back on good terms with Max, more than nice, he’d missed him. “You were.”

xXx

After Kyle dropped Max’s name, Liz didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to, the truth of what he said was written clear across her face. Liz transferred her attention back to her salad and took a bite.

“Soooo...” Kyle studied her intently. “You’re just completely over him lying to you and covering up Rosa’s murder for ten years?”

“I didn’t say I was over it,” Liz said defiantly.

“Why are you killing yourself then? Look, I’m not saying you should give up or stop searching for a cure, but you don’t need to spend every waking minute on it.”

“You don’t understand,” she repeated and then put down her fork and met his gaze. “I can’t... I can’t live with him in this kind of pain. I have to fix it.”

“His pain?” Kyle said incredulously.

“Kyle...”

“No seriously, Liz. You’re worried about his pain? After what he did to you, what he did to Rosa?”

Liz looked to the ceiling and blinked hard several times, trying to stem the heat she felt building behind her eyes. She took a deep breath before transferring her focus back to her dinner.

“How can you even think of forgiving him?” Kyle asked. However, as he watched the emotions play across her face realization slowly dawned. “Good god, Liz, you’re in love with him, aren’t you?”

His words hit her like bullets, and Liz felt an overwhelming urge to run. To jump out of her chair without a word and take off down the hall; away from this room, away from Kyle’s questions, away from truth. She did not want to have this conversation. However, she didn’t run, instead she transferred her gaze back to her salad, the salad Max had brought for her and found a chunk of tomato with her fork.

She managed to say, “That’s ridiculous,” before taking a bite of salad. Kyle couldn’t see the ‘swoop’ her heart did, out of its cage, every time she saw Max, could he?

“It’s not, though, is it?”

“I barely know him,” Liz lied, cutting him off before he could say more. The truth was that she did know Max, faults and all, but she feared that he didn’t really know her. She was a hot mess, an imposter going through life with a professional façade, an air of togetherness that she didn’t feel. The façade designed so that no one could see through it, not her father, not her boss, not Kyle or Alex or Maria, and certainly not the man who... well, the man in question. The man in question had her on a pedestal, it was one of the many reasons it would never work between them, no matter how they thought they felt about one another.

Kyle watched the play of emotions cross her face and realized it was worse than he’d thought. “Listen, it’s obvious you’re... conflicted, but his pain is not your problem. I get that he’s cut up about his sister but-”

“It is my problem,” Liz replied softly. “I caused it. Max and Isobel share a psychic bond, apparently have their whole lives, now it’s gone, sort of. I made the thing that did that and now Max is... alone, really alone for the first time and I can’t stand it. I can’t stand that I’m the one who did that to him.”

Liz shivered, despite her sweater and lab coat. She felt exposed at the admissions she’d made. She hadn’t even admitted to herself why she was working so hard. It’s as if she’d had a tacit agreement with her psyche not to think too deeply about it, but now, thanks to Kyle, all of it was coming out.

Kyle let a few moments of silence pass, and when he finally spoke, his voice held both kindness and the very real concern he felt over Liz becoming so obviously attached to an... alien. “Look, Liz, I don’t want to upset you, but I also don’t want you to get hurt. It’s... it’s just important to remember that we know so little about them.”

“I know.” Liz said the heat returning to her voice as she dropped her fork and finally met Kyle’s gaze. “You think I don’t know that?” Now she stood, abandoning her salad, and started pacing around the room. “You think I don’t know that it’s crazy... that this whole thing is crazy? I know it’s crazy, Kyle.” She shoved one hand into her hair and then grabbed a fistful of it in frustration. “I’m here at ground zero of this whole situation, using my job as a scientist and my access to a lab to research alien antidotes. Its nuts. And, yes, it’s a little overwhelming to find out that a boy I grew up with, that I’ve known for 20 years, someone I almost ran away with after high school is an alien. And it’s even more overwhelming to find out that his sister murdered-”

Kyle had been listening, but he couldn’t stop himself from interrupting. He asked incredulously, “Wait... you almost ran away with him after high school?”

Liz who was breathless after her rant, shot him an awkward look that was tinged with pity, but she didn’t pull punches. “Yes. I feel like... I forgot that. Or it was fuzzy for years, but since I got back to town it’s been slowly coming back to me and now the memory is clear as day. I remember how I felt, how happy I was. We made plans; he was going to go on the road trip with me. We were going to kiss at the ocean... and the Grand Canyon.” Her voice was wistful as she said it.

Kyle grunted at the idea of his high school girlfriend taking off with the likes of Max Evans only weeks after they broke up. However, he was an adult now, time had passed, so he put his ego away and mustered as much objectivity as he could. “That’s all well and good, I guess, but it doesn’t change what they did, what he did.”

“I know.” Liz said, shaking her head. “You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I’m conflicted about this? All of this?” She gestured to the lab at large and then sat back down as if deflated. “But if I’ve learned anything the last few weeks, studying his biology, studying them, I know exactly what it would mean for certain people I’ve run across in the scientific community to get their hands on what we’re doing. Max is not wrong when he tells me they are all alone here. They are alone. If people knew they existed, their lives would be over. When it all happened they were teenagers, they were terrified; they had no one who could help. Isobel has no memory of it... and I do truly believe Max had no idea what the consequences of his actions that night would be for me and my family.”

Kyle grimaced. “So, it’s okay that he lied to you?”

“No,” Liz said sharply as she felt the stab of pain in her gut when she remembered the betrayal she’d felt when he’d done his best to throw sand in her eyes. “That’s actually harder to forgive. I wanted to trust him, with everything I had I wanted to trust him, and it turns out I was right not to, he was lying.”

“But you’re still doing this.”

Liz shrugged helpless and searched for an answer. Why was she doing this? “You might find it hard to believe, and maybe I’m a fool, but deep down I believe he’s...” What? What did Liz believe about Max Evans? Then it all suddenly made sense, why she was doing this, who he was as a person, deep-down. “I believe he’s good.”

The revelation shook her, but in her gut, she knew it was true. Max Evans was good, maybe his actions hadn’t always been, when he’d acted out of terror and desperation, but just as she knew in her bones she was safe with him, she knew at his core, he was good. She could feel it.

She stood again, time to get back to work. “And he’s in pain so I need to get back to work. Michael will be back soon with the sample and I need to prep for it.”

Kyle waited a beat, and then when it became clear the conversation was over he stood and said, “Well then I’ll leave you to it.”

At that, Liz looked up and then called, “Wait, Kyle.” He paused in the doorway and looked back to her. At almost any point in the last decade, having such an emotionally open conversation would have exhausted Liz, if she’d even stuck around for it, but now she felt better. Unburdened, focused and most surprising she felt clearer on her complicated feelings for Max and the entire situation. “Thanks, uh, I think that helped.”

He nodded once in acknowledgement and then left the room as Liz, more determined than ever, set about finding a cure for Isobel, and a way to stop Max’s pain.

The End.

[seeaddywrite]

stars, hide your fires: chapter four

this chapter wouldn’t exist without @soberqueerinthewild‘s cheerleading, handholding, willingness to let me rant at her about my plot holes, & assistance with the word ‘soldier,’ which really shouldn’t be this hard to avoid. also, big thanks to @lire-casander for her cheerleading, assistance with middle names, & general fabulousness. 

the plan is to upload chapter five by Thursday evening :) thanks for reading this crazy adventure of mine.

AO3 LINK

chapter index: 1 || 2 || 3 || 4

It’s frighteningly easy to get a meeting set up with the oldest of Alex’s brothers. Charlie responds almost instantly to the email he sends requesting a face-to-face, and surprises everyone by saying that he’s already in Roswell, and would love to see Alex the next day at 0900. His presence doesn’t bode well for the secrets they’re trying to keep; Charlie’s a sniper in the Air Force Special Operations Task Force. He’s rarely stateside, and for him to be in Roswell either signifies that he knows something, or that there’s something else going on that Alex doesn’t know. Neither option makes Alex particularly optimistic, but he can’t allow it to change anything.

Going in the next day isn’t ideal. Alex had been hoping for longer to research and develop his narrative, but there’s no stalling now. He’d been the one to request the meet -- it’ll look suspicious if he asks to postpone now, which is the last thing he needs. Charlie always had a soft spot for Alex when they were kids, but Alex knows better than to think that will matter if he gives the slightest reason for Charlie to doubt his sincerity. While Charlie may have smuggled him snacks when their father locked him in his room, and brought painkillers to the shed when Alex hid there after a beating, he’s still Jesse Manes’ son. There’s no such thing as the benefit of the doubt in that world.

And, well -- Kyle had said it best, the evening before, when they’d finally settled down to review files and put together a game plan. “Aren’t any of you Manes guys normal meatheads?” he’d demanded, thumbing through Charlie’s file with increasingly anxious fingers. “Look at this! Charles A. Manes. Air Force Silver Star Recipient three different times. Sniper. Special Operations Task Force. Best known for taking out thirteen armed terrorists in a shoot-out by himself -- this is the guy you think has a soft spot for you? Seriously? What if he’s already talked to Flint and decides to shoot you on sight?”

At the time, Alex had waved off the concern and pointed out that none of Jesse Manes’ sons could ever be average. Not if they wanted his approval. Charlie was Spec Ops, Hunter was an ace pilot, and Flint was head of Research and Development in several major projects. They were all brilliant in their fields -- but Alex had the distinct advantage of being the only one who’d given orders. The rest of them, as he’d once accused Flint, are sheep. They’re exceptional as long as there are directives in play; without them, they’ll fall like marionettes with their strings cut.

At least, that’s Alex’s hope. As he stands in the middle of the bunker he’d requisitioned from Jesse Manes all those months ago, face-to-face with a brother he hasn’t seen in close to a decade, he’s not so sure. Valenti may have had a point, after all. Charlie looks nothing like the young man Alex remembers from brief visits between deployments; where once there’d been a liveliness to his dark eyes, there’s now only a cool, calculating stare. Age seems to have wiped away all traces of similarity to their mother, and Alex feels an uncomfortable wave of deja vu. Staring Charlie down in this bunker bears way too much similarity to the day he’d played the same game with their father and come out on top.

Sandy colored hair, shorn in military style that hides the greys just beginning at the temples, posture so ramrod straight that it looks painful, and features that may as well be carved out of granite -- Charlie’s entire appearance screams ‘Jesse Manes’ son,’ and Alex can’t help but wonder if he’s made a mistake, expecting any measure of softness from this man.

Just as he’s psyching himself out, though, Charlie steps forward and slaps Alex’s back in greeting. It’s as close to real affection as any of the Manes boys get, and, paired with a cool smile, it signifies that things are going even better than Alex could have hoped for. “It’s good to see you, kid,” Charlie tells him, glancing around the underground headquarters as if he was reacquainting himself with a space he hadn’t seen in a while. “You’re looking pretty good for a guy who got on the wrong end of an IED not so long ago. I’m impressed.”

Alex can’t help but stand a little straighter as Charlie looks him over, the response as automatic and ingrained as jerking awake at the first ray of sun on his face or jumping to attention when he hears the order. He’s spent a lot of time on base acting as if he’s still got two legs -- pity isn’t something he can tolerate, and at first, there’d been no escaping it. It’s not pity that he’s worried about with Charlie, though; he just doesn’t want to give away any weaknesses. His missing leg is something that can’t be helped, nor can his brother’s knowledge of the injury, but he can damn well be sure that it’s made clear that the prosthetic doesn’t slow him down.

“Sorry I couldn’t get back Stateside when you lost the leg,” Charlie continues, still scrutinizing Alex from all sides. “I tried, but I got shipped overseas two days later. Did you get my letter?”

It’s so far from the suspicious welcome that Alex had been bracing for that he’s momentarily speechless.

“I -- uh, yeah, I did,” Alex says when he pulls himself back together, and nods jerkily. “I meant to write back, but -”

Charlie shakes his head, a bizarrely affable smile on his face. “Don’t worry about it. You had more important things to worry about.” He moves around one of the temporary tables Alex has set up in the bunker, his every step infused with the sort of deadly grace that Alex could never hope to emulate. Charlie glances at some of the carefully-selected files spread out on top of the table. He never pauses long, but the laser-focus of his gaze tells Alex that he’s cataloguing every detail for later perusal.

It’s part of the plan, for Charlie to see the work Alex has been doing, to believe he’s as dedicated to protecting the world from aliens as the rest of the men in their family, but he still has to clench his fists in the pockets of his jacket to stop from fidgeting. There’s nothing about Michael or the Evans’ twins in the contents of those pages; Alex refuses to endanger them further, even though Max and Guerin had both told him to use whatever he had to in order to get the information he needed. There are too many ways for that to backfire, though, and he refuses to risk it. There are other ways to earn his way into Project Shepherd than by throwing his people under the bus.

“So,” Charlie says, after another moment of rifling through the files. “Dad decided to read you in, huh?”

This is where it starts to get tricky, and Alex feels every muscle in his body tense. It’s an effort to maintain his nonchalant facade, but he manages it. “I had to hack into his databases first,” he tells the other man honestly. “But, yeah. Eventually.” He’s talked through his story with Kyle and Guerin at least twenty times the night before, and he’s prepared for anything Charlie might ask. Anxiety ebbs away as he slides into the well-rehearsed cover, and Alex feels himself becoming steadier, more dangerous -- more of the man who’d survived Baghdad and ten years of active duty service.

“You know Dad would never trust me voluntarily. That hasn’t changed.” It’s no use pretending that Jesse had a magic change of heart about Alex’s ‘weakness.’ No one would be fooled. So the narrative isn’t so different from the truth, at least to begin. “But since I figured out the truth, even he can’t deny how useful I can be. At the very least, I can shore up your cyber defenses, because it took me less than half an hour to break in and get all of the intel on the Project’s servers. His access password was ‘password,’ for Christ’s sake.” There’s no pride in his tone, just matter-of-fact honestly and scorn for Jesse’s computer illiteracy.

“And then I found out about Caulfield, and I wanted to see it for myself, you know? I thought Dad was crazy, but if there was proof …” Alex lets the thought trail off deliberately, knowing that sometimes less is more when it comes to this sort of story.

The mention of the off-books base makes Charlie’s expression darken, just enough that Alex notices. He leans back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest in a way that makes his muscles stand out in stark relief against his brown t-shirt, and Alex’s jaw tightens momentarily. If Charlie thinks things like overt displays of physical dominance are enough to scare him, he’s got another thing coming -- after growing up in a house with their father, Alex is pretty much desensitized to anything that Charlie could possibly try.

“And then you went to Caulfield,” he prompts expectantly, eyes narrowed shrewdly. It’s a standard interrogation tactic employed by the military: don’t give away any of the answer when the question is asked. Use prompts rather than specifics. Lets the detained person say what’s really on their mind, take the answer in the direction they want -- and usually, they’ll implicate themselves.

Alex isn’t that stupid. He blinks wide, guileless eyes, and nods slowly. “Yeah. Then I went to Caulfield.” He leaves Kyle out of the story for now. Flint knows, so it’ll come up at some point, but Alex isn’t eager to bring his friend into the tale, and it’s not really relevant at the moment, anyway. “I had to see them for myself, Charlie. I mean, aliens? It sounds like something out of a fucking Star Wars movie, not real life. I needed to see it. So I went.”

As he speaks, Alex is careful to maintain that careful air of naivete. The act balances on the knife’s edge between uselessness and innocence, and he needs to stay just on the side of innocence. If he takes it too far, Charlie will write him off as foolish and unhelpful, and that’s the last thing he wants -- but it’s important he play the awed younger brother just trying to follow in the family footsteps. That’s his ticket into the game.

Charlie nods, his expression no less guarded. “And?”

Christ, he’s not making this easy. Not that Alex had expected him to -- but it would have been nice.

“And it’s hard to deny the truth when you’re standing right in front of them,” Alex says bluntly, letting some of the incredulity and fear he’d felt in that place seep into his expression. It feels odd, to be so calculating of his every movement and facial tic around someone that’s supposed to be his family, but he doesn’t let that stop him from doing it anyway. “Dad’s right. You’re all right. There are fucking aliens invading our planet -- and I want to be part of trying to stop them.”

Silence echoes in the space between the two men, and Alex doesn’t look away from Charlie, doesn’t give him the chance to think that he might be lying. Instead, he lets that announcement sink in for a moment, then continues: “I know you’ve heard Dad saying that I’m weak for our entire lives, but I’ve served three tours on active duty, and did my time on the ground, just like the rest of you. I signed up to serve and protect my country, and I’ve done it. That’s part of who I am, now, and I can’t just ignore the alien threat. Dad may not like it, but I’m part of this family, too. Protecting people is in my DNA just as much as it is yours -- I want to be a part of Project Shepherd. I want to help.”

The lies taste like ash in his mouth, and everything integral to Alex’s being rebels against the idea of being just another Manes sheep with no free will of his own. He’s had literal nightmares about that, about what he could have been capable of if his father had been able to crush his will. But he knows what Charlie wants to hear -- it’s the same thing all of his brothers have wanted to hear for his entire life. They want him to be one of them, another nameless airman in the generational parade, want him to stop asking questions and fall in line. And, most importantly, Alex knows what Charlie will be willing to believe. He’s learned from experience that people remember their first encounters with a person more than anything else. And to Charlie, Alex is always going to be the little boy determined to follow in his big brother’s footsteps, desperate for approval and in need of protection and advice.

Charlie shifts his weight on his shiny, black boots, and looks at Alex steadily. “We’ve already got three people trying to run things here, Alex,” he says carefully, and the omission of ‘kid’ is either a sign of respect, or a signal that Charlie is trying to distance himself from Alex. Guessing which is dangerous, so Alex doesn’t try. “And even if I say yes, Dad’s not likely to be happy about it when he gets back. He’s been pretty clear about not wanting you onboard for a long time.”

He appreciates that Charlie doesn’t try to pretend that Jesse Manes gives two shits about Alex. It’s easier that way, with at least some honesty between them -- and Alex has always hated it when someone tried to tell him that his father does care about him. Fathers who love their sons don’t break their bones to show it. They don’t spend years attempting to reshape their souls with their fists, like it’s nothing more than clay on a potter’s wheel.

Alex snorts. “Dad’s never wanted me around, Charlie. That’s not news to me. But you said ‘when he gets back,’ right?” He’s walking the razor’s edge, now, and knows that if he over or under sells the act here, this is as far his mission will go. “If he’s not here, you’re running things.” It’s not a guess; Alex is no stranger to chain of command, and Charlie’s the highest ranking of the brothers by virtue of age, at the very least.

“I’ve been stateside for three days, Alex,” Charlie says with a sigh, running a hand over his shorn hair. It’s the first sign of stress that he’s shown since arrival, and it’s enough to tell Alex that he’s getting somewhere. Charlie wants the extra help, wants to have another person to depend on -- it’s a fair bet he’s got access to Alex’s personnel file, too, and knows that Alex has the skills to actually be helpful.

In other words, Alex has got an opening, and he’s going to exploit it.

“And I’ve only been in Roswell for less than twenty-four hours. Dad fucked off somewhere without any warning months ago, and Flint and Hunter have taken on most of the responsibility here. I can’t just read you in without talking to them first. It wouldn’t be right -- especially since Flint is pretty damned sure you purposefully blew up Caulfield with Kyle fucking Valenti.”

The words don’t particularly surprise Alex; of course Charlie and Flint would have been in contact in the last six months if they’ve been working together. To make matters worse, Flint likely would have contacted Jesse as soon as it happened. Alex can’t be certain, but he’d be willing to be that intel is why Jesse showed up in Roswell despite Alex’s warnings and tried to kill Kyle, around the same time Max brought Rosa back to life. So no, he’s not thrown off by the fact that Charlie knows more than he let on initially -- but it’s still irritating to have it thrown back in his face.

Alex narrows his eyes and crosses his own arms over his chest, keeping his weight perfectly centered on his legs to hide the ache that’s started in his bad knee from standing and posturing for so long. “Flint thinks I blew up a secure facility and nearly killed myself on purpose?” he asks, acid dripping from the words. “No wonder he’s been stuck in R&D for ten years. He’s clearly got no fucking common sense.”

Charlie quirks an eyebrow in an expression that Alex recognizes from looking in the mirror. “So you didn’t blow it up on purpose?”

“I didn’t blow it up at all!” Alex says, the anger in his exclamation genuine. He’s not willing to take all of those deaths on his conscience, not even in a lie. “Some security protocol went off and the whole damn base self-destructed before I could do much more than stare at an old woman through the glass door, and get some insane story about a cancer-causing alien that sent Valenti off the deep end.” He sits slowly at the computer desk and tapped out a short sequence on the keyboard. On the monitors, the security footage of Valenti Sr. being shoved into the alien’s containment unit and, presumably, contracting brain cancer. Alex watches steadily, refusing to waver now. “If I’d realized that Valenti was going to find out our father murdered his, I would’ve left him in Roswell.”

Talking about something that is still causing Kyle so much pain in such a cavalier fashion makes Alex hate himself. He wants to scream when Charlie just nods, his lips twisted in disdain, like Kyle’s reaction to realizing his father had been murdered was somehow pathetic instead of justified. Thankfully, Alex doesn’t have to work very hard to hide his reaction; both he and Charlie are looking at the screens. “My guess is that he cracked one of containment cells, trying to get at the one who gave Jim the tumor, and it sparked the self-destruct.”

Guerin hasn’t been mentioned thus far, and Alex knows Flint had no idea of his presence at Caulfield, so there’s no hesitation as Alex rewrites the truth to fit his needs. It would be stupid, if he didn’t know for a fact that Guerin’s not on any surveillance footage from that day -- Alex had been sure of that. He’d torn his way through the cyber defenses of whatever server the video had been backed-up on without any finesse and erased everything, practically daring them to trace the data trail back to him. It hadn’t been smart, but Alex hadn’t been in the right headspace to be smart, back then. Not after witnessing Michael losing his mother a moment after finding her. Not after their near-escape from a deadly explosion. Not after being shoved out of Michael’s life and losing the only sense of family he’d ever known for his best friend --

At the time, Alex had almost hoped they’d come for him.

But Guerin is safe, for now, because of that stupidity, so Alex can’t bring himself to regret it.

Charlie’s brows furrow as he digests that explanation, and Alex can see his certainty waver. In that moment, Alex goes for the throat -- figuratively, of course. “Charlie, please,” he says, closing the video on the server and spinning his chair back around to look at his brother head-on. “You and Flint and Hunter are the only family I’ve got left. And you know I can be useful. None of you have the tech skills that I do, or the inside knowledge of Roswell. I’ve been here for months. I still have roots and connections here that none of you do. I can help. All you have to do is let me. And when Dad gets back, I promise, he won’t be able to deny that I’ve done good work.”

As he speaks, Alex is eight and standing in the kitchen of the house they all grew up in, begging a twenty-year-old Charlie to stay home after their mother had finally had enough and left. Then it’s Charlie, coming back on leave and swinging a six-year-old Alex around while he laughs. Or Charlie, smirking as Alex proudly smashed a guitar over Flint’s head at twelve, or the man in uniform, boarding the plane to take him back to the Middle East with a small smile over his shoulder just for Alex, who’s fifteen and cradling a broken wrist against his chest. It’s almost easy to want Charlie to believe him, to want to truly be on his brother’s side -- because despite everything he knows about Project Shepherd and the horrible things his brothers have done, a small, childish part of Alex is always going to want their acceptance.

But as much as Alex cherishes the memories of Charlie’s kindness, he hates the feelings of helplessness and impotence they evoke more. Since enlisting, Alex has built his life on the pillars of control and logic, his own sort of power, to make up for the lack in his childhood, and stepping into this situation has cost him all that work.

But this is for Michael, for Liz and Kyle and everyone in that group who’d come to mean something to him, and for them, Alex will allow his foundations to crumble, if that’s what it takes. This is only shaking them a little -- and tonight, at least, Alex has the promise of returning home to the one person who always makes him feel safe and stable.

“I’ll talk to Flint and Hunter,” Charlie says after a long, fraught silence.

Alex can read the answer in his eyes, though -- he’s convinced the man that he can be trusted, and he’s done a good enough job that he can be sure Charlie will persuade the others one way or another. The calculating, ruthless part of his mind that Alex tries to keep locked down is pleased at the ease with which he manipulated Charlie -- the rest of him, the human parts, just feel cold.

“I can’t guarantee anything until I talk to them, and I’d be thinking of some specific ways to show them you’re worth the risk,” Charlie continues, and Alex’s stomach sinks. Proving his worth to an anti-alien task force is going to involve doing a lot of shit he doesn’t want to think about, he’s sure -- but that’s a problem for another day. He made it through today’s set, and Alex has every intention of taking the whole match. And he’ll have some time to plan, now -- if Hunter’s still in Afghanistan, as his records indicate, there’s no way Charlie will have a response for him in the next day or even two. Alex will make damn sure to take advantage of that time.

“Thanks, Charlie,” Alex says with a smile that rings false to himself, but would fool anyone who didn’t know him well -- which, ironically enough, described his brother perfectly.

“Don’t thank me yet,” the older man says with a grim twist of his lips, and for a moment, Alex wonders why he looks so unhappy. Is he really that worried about selling the idea to Flint and Hunter, who hang off of his every word? Or is this fear of their father -- reluctance to go against his will? Alex doesn’t know, but he wishes Charlie would stop looking at him with those pitying, worried eyes. It’s making it harder to keep the smile on his face.

To the younger brother’s unending surprise, Charlie pushes away from the wall he’s been leaning against and moves closer, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Take a couple of days of leave and think this over while I reach out, huh? This isn’t like the other ops you’ve been involved in. It’s not something you ever get to walk away from. Just -- remember that. Consider your options. You never wanted this life, kid, and you’ve already lost enough.” Dark eyes, so close in color to Alex’s own, sweep over his body to linger on his bad leg, and Alex shivers despite himself.

Shock jolts like electricity down Alex’s spine at the thinly-veiled warning, and he opens his mouth to ask why Charlie is suddenly so worried about his choices -- or maybe to deny that he wants anything but the mission? Alex isn’t even sure. But Charlie is already walking away by the time Alex pulls himself together enough to speak. “I’ll call when I’ve got an answer for you,” he says over his shoulder, deep voice echoing off of the cavernous walls of the bunker as he begins the ascent to the surface.

Alex stays seated in his desk chair long after Charlie disappears, staring at the blank wall in front of him. Doubt and insecurity encroaches on him, flickering like shadows in the corner of his mind, and for the first time, Alex allows himself to wonder if he’s gotten in over his head. For a long, dark hour, he lets his mind conjure one possible scenario after another, each one growing darker and darker, and all ending in the death of everyone he cares about. What if Charlie’s warning was a hint that they know his plan? What if his brothers are three steps ahead while Alex is lagging behind? What if they’re going after Guerin and the others as he sits here feeling sorry for himself? What if he loses the few parts of his soul that the war left him with?

Eventually, Alex can’t take it anymore. The walls of the bunker are closing in on him, and if he doesn’t leave this place soon, he’s not sure he’ll be able to pull himself out of the spiral Charlie’s warnings had started. It’s so stupid that he’s reacting this way -- but he’s been running on caffeine and adrenaline and sheer stubborn determination for the last thirty-six hours, and now that the immediate threat is past, everything else is crashing down on him at once. The burden he’d taken on. The responsibility he’s shouldering. The fact that to succeed in this mission, he’s going to have to send Charlie and the rest of his biological family to prison.

Usually, when he has moments like this, Alex finds himself sitting behind the bar at the Wild Pony, or in the middle of Liz’s living room, or even with Mimi DeLuca in her little apartment. Being alone had never been particularly good for Alex’s mental health, and he knows that none of them would turn him away.

But there’s only one other place he wants to be right now, and it’s not with any of them -- and for once, Alex is pretty sure that he won’t be turned away.

Drawing in a deep, determined breath, Alex stands slowly, finds his equilibrium, and points himself toward home.

[lit-works]

Atomic Rough draft

It is September, 1954. The orange sun burns down on the still smoldering wreckage of a fire-engine red 1932 Ford Roadster. Inside are the earthly remains of Danny Byers.

Byers was a bright lad, a recent graduate of UCLA, come to New Mexico to put to use his freshly minted knowledge of science in a small United States department of Agriculture think-tank. The future was boundless for this young man and his death is a tragedy, for both his parents, and for his country.

But why was Danny Byers even on the road at this time? Shouldn't he have been busy in the lab, performing experiments, conducting research, and documenting the results? From the look of the wreckage, its apparent he was traveling at high speeds. Why? Where was he going? Was he being followed, or even chased?

I have been called to the sites of this grisly wreckage for professional reasons. I'm a detective, specializing in traffic for the police department. My name is Nathan Dewitt, and I've lived on this earth for 31 years. I've decided to record my thoughts and the details of my cases as i perform my investigations as a memory aid. I don't really know why i need to explain that to myself.

The flashing lights mirrored in his aviator sunglasses, a tall lanky man in a Chavez county police uniform stands beside the wreckage. Nearby another man in uniform is taking notes on a pad of paper. Him and i share the experience of doing the same thing at the same time.

I get out of my Pearl white Mercury monterey, and approach the man standing nearest the wreckage. I recognize him as i get closer, it's the Sheriff Jack Lawrence. A man with skin like leather from the sun, with a wide stomach and a thick moustache. Once he sees me he explains that “another motorist spied the wreck at around 5:30 this morning. My deputy, Buck Rhodes was the first to report to the scene, and confirmed that the driver was dead.”

“Daniel Byers.” i say

“Yup,” Jack says. “Was last seen alive at his place of employment for the last year, the New Mexico Botanical Research facility. Last seen by Mike Murdock.” when mentioning Mike Murdock, the sheriff's face twitches a bit.

“Anyone question Mike Murdock?” i ask.

Jack explains in a sardonic manner that Mike Murdock used to work for him. A savvy politician, Jack says no more about the man.

“Anything else you care to add before i look around?” i ask.

“Yup. I'm thinking this Daniel Byers kid had communist sympathies.” Jack flatly states.

I nonchalantly dismiss Jack's claims. The red scare.

Danny Byers body is still in the vehicle; an ambulance is on the way to transport it to the morgue. I examine the body to no protest from either attending officers. The body itself reveals little, except for the state of my own sanity. Casual observation shows that it has been severely burnt and suffered several broken bones. He likely died as a result from the crash, and the burns were post mortem. Lucky break. Burning isn't a pleasant way to go.

By looking at the gouges in the earth and other similar physical evidence i can determine the vehicle left the road, then rolled end over end before coming to rest at its current location in the desert. This suggests a high speed, but does not reveal whether it was crashed accidentally or forced off the road.

The passenger door of the vehicle was jarred free of the main wreckage. It lies about 25 feet away. Examining it, I've discovered a soiled towel. The towel is stained with what appears to be blood and some weird purplish substance that gives off an acrid smell and is always warm to the touch. At this point i can't identify the chemical.

About midway between where the wreck lay and where the vehicle originally left the road sat a patch of flattened desert grasses and mangled cacti. Closer scrutiny revealed trace amounts of blood. A few feet away from the disturbed flora, i see a trail of footsteps leading away from the site. These are rather unusual tracks; one was apparently made with a work boot, the other is a narrow dragging track, quite indistinct. These tracks continue towards the road, at which point they are lost. Just prior to vanishing on the unyielding pavement, a single well-defined print is visible. This appears to be a narrow, exceedingly long human foot with very distinctive nails that pierce the earth.

About 100 yards away, nearly invisible against the surrounding landscape is a shredded shirt sleeve. It is caught on a cactus and flaps forlornly in the wind. A strip of common khaki cloth. I pocket the strip of cloth for later.

I walk back to Sherrif Lawrence, to gauge his opinion on the matter once again.

“Looks like just another tragic accident to me.” Jack drawls.

I show the sherrif the strip of torn khaki cloth i had found nearby the wreck. “Wind blows all kinds of things across the desert.” Jack shrugs as he lights a fresh cigarette and tilts his hat against the gust.

There are two things that i must now do. 1.) I'm curious about Byers’ personal life, and must stop at his place of residence for a compulsory search. 2.) The most likely course of investigation into the possibility of foul play leads to the lab, located only several miles south of the crash site.

-

Danny lived in Roswell, in a small single-bedroom home with a well-equipped garage. Searching his place reveals very little. A young bachelor, Danny Byers had plenty of automobile magazines, dirty dishes, and soiled laundry lying about. He did not take his work home; no lab materials besides a few pens and notepads are present in his home. His neighbors all recall a bright, and friendly young lad who spent his free-time working on his hot rod in the garage.

-

The New Mexico Botanical Research Institute is a small cluster of newly-constructed, whitewashed, cinderblock structures standing forlornly in a barren expanse of desert. The facility consists of a central building, a small storage-shed, and a few well-tended greenhouses and garden plots. The parking lot holds 5 vehicles as i arrive.

As i exit my car i am met by a short mustachioed hispanic man, who seems friendly, that speaks english fluently with only a slight spanish accent. I tell him my profession, and reason for being at the labs. He introduces himself as Ray Ortega. “Danny was a good boy. A very intelligent and hard worker. Him and i spoke alot about cars, it was a shared passion for us, and i loved his hot rod.” Ray expresses.

Ray is a chatty fellow and talks to me for as long as i like, a little bit longer even. Ray was born in Texas and has lived in New Mexico for only a few years. He has no family in the area, but mentions being good friends with a 'Perez’ family. I ask who i should speak to in regards to my investigation and Ray directs me to the main building and tells me to ask for Mike Murdock, the head of security, or Dr. Schmidt. As i begin walking towards the building Ray adds, “Be sure to talk to Lupè. He and Danny were good friends.”

Upon entering the facility i am greeted quite gruffly by Mike Murdock, according to his security badge. A man i recognized as a former deputy, working under Sherrif Lawrence, until he had been discharged from duty. After checking my credentials murdock stepped into a nearby office to announce my presence.

[tatooedlaura-blog]

The Madness of Punch

the series read as follows:

Superman … Monday … Cheezy Pouffs … Bacon … Stumbling … Trail Mix …  Punch … Friday … Preparation … Uncle Mudler … Normal … Backseat … Mudler-sense … The FBI … Unthinkable … Patience … Elephant Jokes … Cooking … Rickety Tables … Mr. Skimmer … Bert and Ernie … Midnight Confessions … The Moon … Bright Sunshine … Graying Skies … Darkened Night … Possibilities … A Thing with You … Humming and Thrumming ... Warped Cosmology

@today-in-fic

____________

MRI taken, fish fed, email answered, thumbs twiddled, Mulder phoned, brain picked by aforementioned phone call, groceries shopped for and mother retrieved, they headed to the appointment.

An hour later, they settled in the car, quiet for a moment before Maggie spoke ... 

amusement lacing every word that followed, “so, basically, you have polyps in your sinuses and vigorous sex will break the blood vessels in your nasal cavity?”

This was possibly worse than when she innocently asked her mother, after hearing Bill talking to one of his friends, what 69’ing was, “I should have left you in the car.”

“Oh, no, dear. Then I would have nothing to share at the card party Thursday.”

“Don’t make me make you walk home.”

Maggie moved her hand to Scully’s arm, squeezing it tightly, “honey, believe me when I say I am overjoyed to hear that the worse things you have are fatty growths and too much sex.” Moving on, she clicked her seatbelt, “now, do you think we have time for milkshakes before you need to leave for the airport?”

Key in ignition, dignity thrown out the window, Scully grinned the grin of someone with fatty growths and too much sex, “plenty of time.”

&&&&&&&&&&

Mulder collapsed into guffawing giggles that left him gasping for air, “oh … good … God … shit, I can’t breathe … I would have given almost anything to have seen that.”

She shoved his feet over to make room so she could sit on the already creaking bed, “it was an experience but who really cares as long as that’s what it is. I’ll get the polyps taken care of when we get back and we’ll just have to have less vessel-breaking sex in the future.”

This sent him right back into laughter the likes of which finally had her putting her hand over his mouth, trying to get him to shut up given it was after 11pm local time and they were going to get thrown out of the dump that was ‘MeadowLodge Suits: Drive up, sleep in, get out’ if they didn’t quiet down. Yawning while she waited for him to calm, “by the way, I like that you didn’t even attempt to get two rooms, then lie about sharing.”

“Skinner isn’t an idiot. He’ll keep it quiet though and Dennis down in billing has been asking about us for years so he’ll shut up as well. Why waste money when we don’t have to?”

“Then why didn’t we stay at a better hotel with all this money we’re going to save?”

Mulder looked around the aesthetically unappealing mustard yellow décor, “what? You don’t like this?”

Moving to pull on pajamas, “just once, you’re going to let me book the hotel.” Once dressed, Mulder watching intently the whole 30 second process, she returned to the bed, “give me the five minute rundown, please.”

&&&&&&&&&

Case done by the following Monday afternoon, Skinner shipped them to Wyoming, mosquitoes the size of Scully eating her alive while they tramped the outskirts of Yellowstone, looking for a bank robber attempting to hide in the woods. At least this time, Mulder didn’t mention a nice trip to the forest.

As an aside, they traveled over the Old Faithful and shared a pizza in view of the geyser, Mulder, for what it was worth, snapping a picture of the top of the spout so he could show people how tall it was. Scully looked at him until he cracked, “what? I want to see just how many people give me that look before they either laugh me into oblivion or gently correct me in what they hope is the nicest voice possible.”

“You’re special, Mulder, you know that?”

Ringing his arm around her neck, he smiled as he kissed her temple, “just ‘cause I’ve got you.”

&&&&&&&&&

And suddenly it was the end of July, Skinner finally letting them home after varying degrees of cases and assholes and scary type fellows. Walking into Mulder’s apartment, he dropped their bags to the ground and turned to her, “it’s Thursday, Scully.”

“It is Thursday.”

“You know what Thursday is.”

“The day after Wednesday, last I checked.”

He could give her the Look like nobody’s business and she loved it, “I need some Punch.”

Shaking her head, she moved towards the bathroom, “call Mom and see when the festivities are happening.”

And he did and it was good.

In less than an hour, after a quick shower together and some general fooling around, which they had chosen not to do while on cases, they pulled up to Maggie’s, Mulder rushing up the walk and inside, leaving Scully behind to lock the car and be amused.

She found him breathing deeply the scent of homemade cooking and motherly love, grinning like the proverbial idiot. Maggie was already walking slowly towards the pair, boots gone, braces on, crutches present. Mulder hugged her the moment he could, Scully following soon after, “how are the ankles?”

Looking at her daughter, “it feels strange and I’m nervous without the boots but the end is in sight and that’s something.”

All moving into the kitchen, the ladies greeted them as if returning from a three-month long expedition, Betty going as far as declaring how much they’ve grown since they last saw them. Scully hugged her, “Mulder needs punch.”

With a grin, “we already have two glasses ready and places for you at the table.”

Mulder studied the seating arrangement, “why are we not next to each other?”

Janet, piping in as she shuffled Roswell cards courtesy of Mulder’s kitschy souvenir binge on vacation, “because, from what I recall, the punch makes her floppy and we need someone who can handle their liquor to catch her.” Pointing the deck at him, “that, my friend, is not you.”

He really couldn’t argue.

&&&&&&&&&&

Scully was asleep on the table by 9:18pm, head resting comfortably on the wood surface, the game happening around her, Lillian tucking her hair out of the way whenever it drifted across the playing area.

Mulder, on the other hand, somehow managed to hold total punch annihilation at bay even though total inebriation still occurred, his plan of one gulp of water for every two sips of punch failing miserably. His tongue was blue as midnight, which he continually shared roughly every 5 minutes and Betty, beside him, had to keep gently nudging his cards closer to his chest so the entire table, at least, couldn’t see them. When that round had finished, she turned to him, “Fox, would you like some more pie?”

With an enthusiastic nod, he moved to get it himself but Maggie held his arm while Betty retrieved the dessert. Thanking everyone at the table for their part in pie presentation, he took his first bite, waving his fork in Maggie’s direction, “she makes the best pies.”

Maggie caught the fork before it went in her eye, returning it and the attached hand to the table, “Janet made this one.”

“Then Janet makes the best pies, too.” Another bite later, “Scully doesn’t like pie. I don’t understand. I mean, she keeps trying pies but she just doesn’t like them. I’ve tried her with apple pie and cherry pie and peach pie and pumpkin pie and chocolate pie and I mean, my God, the amount of pie I’ve wasted on that woman is astounding. Peanut butter pie and blueberry pie and every time, she just takes a bite and looks like she’s gonna die and then slides it over to me to finish.” Turning towards Maggie again with the fork, “what did you do to her as a child? Did you force feed her rhubard pie or mincemeat or something? How could you raise a kid who doesn’t like pie?” Maggie tried to answer, defend her dessert choices for the past 34 years but never got past taking in a breath before he plowed ahead, re-addressing the table, Scully’s prone head and the air in general, “I love pie. Any kind of pie. My sister Sam used to make pretend pie and she always knew I’d eat it ‘cause she called it pie. She’d serve it up in her tea set, make me sit in that damn little chair and scoop up forkfuls of fake pie. At least she’d serve fake ice tea with it so that was something. She would line up her stuffed animals and dolls and just go down the line, feeding everybody pretend pie and pretend cookies and fake cake … once she made a pretend pot roast for us but then took it away ‘cause she said she’d accidently burned it and it tasted funny.” Taking a deeper swig of his Punch, “she stopped having her tea parties about a year before she disappeared but even on that last day, that afternoon, before we had the fight about the TV and before she floated in the air, she made a real pie for me … she made it with Oreos she’d smashed up and pressed into a pie pan and put frosting on as filling. She cut it and served it and brought me a glass of ice tea and told me she’d make me real pies from now on because she was going to be a chef and learn how to make all the pies for real so she’d always have something I’d like to eat.”

The table, right down the line, Maggie, Janet, Lillian, Betty, Ellie and Ruth, all had to fight various stages of sighs and sympathy, all wanting to hug Mulder tightly, all wanting to make the life of their Fox better.

He didn’t notice any of it, fork feeding himself another mouthful, “I think she would have been a good cook. She loved reading cookbooks. She’d get up on a stool when our mother was gone and study the buttons and dials on the stove, look inside the oven, make me come explain to her how the gas to the burners worked. She is irritating as hell sometimes but for a little sister, she’s not too bad.”

No one corrected his present tense usage for his long-gone sibling but Ellie quietly scooted his cup away as he continued, “I think that when Scully and I have a kid, I’ll buy her a tea set and explain the stove to her, feed her all kinds of pretend pie and see if maybe she wants to be a chef.” Aiming for the third time at an astonished Maggie, “you’ll have to teach her how to make meatloaf and pie and lasagna but,” swinging the fork around to Betty, “you will not be teaching her how to make the Punch. You will make the Punch and I will drink the Punch but even when she gets to be 40 or 80 years old, she will never be old enough to see the Punch.”

Looking around at the women, he grinned a blue-tooth smile, “why are we not playing? Did I win?” Glancing from the fork in his hand to the near empty plate in front of him, “I like pie.”

Twenty minutes later and after another piece of pie, sans diatribe, Mulder gave into annihilation, entire body dropping slowly against Betty, his last words being, “I should get Scully home to bed.”

Betty, supporting his dead weight admirably, gestured for assistance and soon, FoxNDana were both snoring peacefully on the table. Maggie took them both in, her glance sliding between, then to her cohorts, “how should we get them somewhere to sleep for the night?”

Studying the situation, Ellie suggested they start with Mulder. It took all of them to get him up, move him, pull down the sheets on the adjacent bedroom, lay him down, set an hopefully unnecessary wastebasket by the side of the mattress, be amused by his arm searching for Scully.

Returning to the kitchen, they expected to move Scully next but instead, found her sitting up in her chair, tears evident on her cheeks, the saddest look on her face they’d ever seen. Maggie held still on her crutches, “Dana?”

Scully sniffed hard, swiping her cheeks but not answering until Maggie asked when she’d woken up, if everything was okay, to which she finally responded, “I woke up when you asked him if he wanted pie.”

The ladies had a concrete-enough, vague notion of Scully’s personal life, complete with abduction, infertility and gunshot scars to collectively and quietly gather bags and shoes, calling hushed goodbyes while Scully sat there, guilt-laden at having chased away her mother’s friends with her insanity. Once the front door shut and Maggie returned to her, Scully waited for the inevitable, ‘what’s wrong’ but instead received a gently hand to her back and a quiet, “did you know he wanted to have a daughter with you?”

[midnatt-heronweather]

2020 review

Disclaimer: You won’t hear much about the virus in this. I’m not a denier, I know the damage and destruction covid19 has caused and the death toll, therefore I am not yet cold enough not to realise this is going to sound completely selfish, but that is my decision.  My reviews focus on MY year. Just so you’re aware. “I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me.” Bob Dylan.

2020... What can I say?

This was the year I decided to officially identify as Non-Binary, not that anyone actually cares or believes me or things i'm "(insert stereotype at will)" enough. except for those very VERY rare people who do and who actually listen and hear me when I speak

Anyway -It has been a trashcan fire of a year since February/March February when I saw the Hu and Counterfeit alongside Ally. And I say February/March because that was the weekend I say my year ended...the good part anyway. Because it was that weekend when I got the ultimate honour, privilege and miracle of meeting Jason Carter, After that it was like a Dementor had French kissed the year and I can’t be the only one who thought it? Conventions and gigs postponed, rescheduled and ultimately cancelled, masks, social distancing, lockdowns the works. And can I just say - I didn’t clap, and I don’t feel in the slightest bit ashamed for it. Despite or maybe because I have friends and a few family who work in the NHS I couldn't bear to be a part of the hypocritical BS idea. I live in a country that will clap for their 'beloved' life saving NHS but then stand silent when Pay rises are frozen and when the NHS is in danger, we as a country expect a lot but don't lift a finger to gave back, clapping doesn’t pay bills. But...Bright points in the year let’s try staying positive and leaving the crap outside shall we...well... The main one has got to be that the US finally found their sense and President Elect Joe Biden will b sworn in January 20, 2021. After that... I’ll have to get back to you. Oh...no..no that’s not one... seriously I’ll have a think and get back to you. Conventions: Just one this year, for me, because of the obvious... But what a convention FCD Events presents 2258 a Babylon 5 Conventions: Where, as well as finally being among actual self confessed fans and being able to tick a b5 convention off my bucket list after starting cons way too late to attend the OG cons I did the impossible... I MET JASON CARTER... have I mentioned this? Have I? Should I say t again? I MET JASON CARTER!!! Also Mira Furlan, Tracy Scoggins and Patricia Tallman, but I met him! Finally! And... Just a reminder I did warn you guys, several times that it was likely hell would freeze over if I ever got that particular honour, do not say I didn’t. I’d never done an FCD before, I’d meant to, even bought a ticket but it just never seemed to happen, but the second someone said b5 con, I was so there! Karan Robinson made my year by making me the Anla’Shok uniform. And Nadine added the cherry on top by making the belt buckle that ONLY Marcus and Entil’Zha Sinclair wear: D (for the record: Velcro still hates me) David one of the organisers of FCD kept randomly shouting “We live for the one.” And when people other than m actually knew the response and responded... dude kick in the feels I kid you not. Next Year (Angel Willing) Adam and I are attending the Teen Wolf conventions entitled “Howl at the Moon 4” in Paris, France... which is cool on so many levels not least of which being I get to meet JR Bourne and Daniel Sharman again and get to visit the church of St Julian of the poor. And yes, there are cons planned here in the UK. But... well. It’s already looking Grey, and not the good kind. Music and Gigs: Two gigs one after the other at the 02 Ritz in Manchester. The First:

The Hu a Mongolian band who Ally really likes and I think are pretty cool. They are amazing live there’s no doubt, can hold their own in England even in a room of idiots. The 2nd :

Counterfeit (also with Ally) I went VIP and got to meet the boys again, and listen to a Q&A with them. I will forever love them, not just because of Jamie’s acting side despite what people say. Didn’t realise how special until recently though because;  after keeping fans going and hyping up new singles during lockdowns, they recently decided to go their separate ways. Jamie’s gone solo and he’s put three songs out on YouTube. _ I was meant to be attending a one off gig by Ruelle and Fleurie both of who had music used on Shadowhunters, even talked my friend Lou into it, but it was a victim of the lockdowns and things and I’m not the optimistic type so I doubt it’ll ever happen now, will be lucky if even one of the ladies comes over here if I’m honest. Recently I’ve rediscovered a love for Black Veil Brides and their leader Andy Black’s solo stuff. Olivia Hyde of Bad Pollyanna recently killed everyone in her black unicorn’s fanbase with an amazing solo album, me included. Ally has introduced me to a few interesting bands this year, *Wingtips – very 80s Goth, very Ally (translation: very cool.) *Allegiance Reign – a Japanese Samurai metal band,  not sure what Ally actually thinks of these guys, she found them while perusing YouTube and thought of me :D Suggestions greatly accepted, I am always up for giving new stuff a try. Hopefully next year things will even out and gigs will be able to be put on again. TV and Fandom’s: *We FINALLY got Roswell: New Mexico in the UK, and ITV blitzed through 2 seasons in less than a month, but it was enough for me to decide I loved it, maybe more than I did the original. Alex is my fave, but obv Michael isn’t half bad, nor is Max when he’s not making goo-goo eyes at Liz. * Finally got to see 9-1-1 Lone Star and I absolutely love it, (I kinda knew I would from all the talk) * Decided to give the Charmed reboot a 2nd look and it’s proved addictive, now waiting for s2 to be downloadable on Amazon or something. *In march I was so, so excited for the return of The Expanse and the fact the main cast were coming to a con in the UK, then.. The verse went to hell. I still Love the Expanse, but I’m not as die hard as I was, not for lack of trying. Still love it for Anna of course, any excuse to see her. *After 15 years Supernatural finally ended in 2020 with season15: I stopped watching religiously at the end of season 6 but that does not mean I stopped liking the show just that I didn’t like the direction (like with The Expanse recently) I loved watching the reaction of the fans, and how much they (we if I’m counted) mean to the cast. * I have to mention Cursed... If only to say HOLY HELL DANIEL! 𝑴𝒚 𝑭𝒂𝒗𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝑻𝑽 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒘𝒔 𝒐𝒇 2020 Cursed 9-1-1 Lone Star & 9-1-1 Warrior Nun Prodigal Son Penny Dreadful: City of Angels Doctor who (Officially season12) Roswell s1&2 (it counts cos ITV only just got the reboots) Charmed s1&2(it counts cos E4 only just got the reboots) Call the Midwife (s9 btw) Our Girl Strike Back: Vendetta Friends: “Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .” ― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

My understanding of "friendship." is skewed, and I’m not saying that to be "Vulcan." it’s honest, and anyone who wants to know how or why just has to ask. But let’s leave it at that for this. It makes some things more stark... and I've said this recently, but this binfire has made even me more aware of who’s out there in my verse, whose pack, who’s potential, and who’s just pathetic. The last I’m not going to waste my breath on. The first two: Pack and Potential (read: new acquaintances /potential friends) Pack: Yes I go on about friends as 'Pack like a person whose OD'd on Teen Wolf... because I am so :P My pack as a whole are varied, and spread out across this country with a few dotted around Europe and Aus. hopefully they know who they are because I don't do mushy crap as they know. But if they do know, they know I'm there when I'm needed and more than willing to sod off when not. Yorkshire brass makes me frank and I’d hope fair. There are 2...mayb 3 who sit above the rest, in special place for the things they've done and things they've been through with me. I make no denial of that. But everyone is important to me. I wouldn't change them for anything.... Ok... tell a lie, maybe 1 or 2 when they do my box in, but that’s only like for a week maybe less. I've spent too many years and got too many scars and burned too many photos and bridges because of fake people and users to not be honest to a fault. It’s who I am. Potential: the Counterfeit gig in Manchester, 2258 and yes even Tiktok have given me the opportunity to make some interesting acquaintances this year, and some I hope will become friends in the real in the future, but for now I will say - "I am defensive, stand off ish, sometimes bull headed and of course opinionated, but I am by no means blind. Or blinkered despite what may be said of me. I am there when needed, if I can be of use, just poke me."   Ave Atqua Vale This section has its own post these days. Sadly. Pictures Will try and make one of my “a year in ten pics.” Posts later. Final words While I am not fond of this time of year, Enjoy your celebrations whatever for they may take, I will be watching The Magicians / Call the Midwife and plotting 202? Cosplays. I will be here when (fk knows why) I'm needed. Otherwise-  Compliments of the season, now go get a beer, i'm sure you need it after reading this crap.

in the words of The one and only Jason Carter  “Hindsight is 2020″