#notso writes fanfic

[notsowrites]

where every wish comes true

Summary: Alex wants everything to be perfect for his first Christmas with Michael.

A/N: my humble contribution to this year's @rnm-secret-santa for @dr-lemurr

[read it on AO3]

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Because the holidays have never been a big deal to Alex, he has a basic amount of Christmas decorations - a wreath for the front door, a fake tree that he usually puts up in front of the window in the study, and enough ornaments and decorations to make the tree look festive. It's basically the extent to which he feels is enough “holiday cheer.” He and Maria exchange gifts - a tradition between the two of them since they were kids. Even when he was overseas during the holidays, he'd always make sure she got sent something he knew she wanted but couldn't justify the expense for herself. Since he understood that money was difficult for her, particularly given Mimi’s medical bills. 

But in all their years together, their on and off again relationship with no discernible beginning or end points, Alex realizes that he and Michael have never shared the holiday together in any way.

And of course, everything is different now. Never before have they been in a committed relationship like this, one that others around them know about, and one where Alex feels like he can be public about his feelings for Michael. The pendant of alien glass around his neck, laying against his chest, feels like a promise that Alex intends to make good on one day.

The first problem he encounters this year, however, is where to put the tree. Typically he just rearranges the study, moving the couch from under the windows to against the wall, and putting the tree there instead. It's only temporary, and it makes the house feel a tiny bit more festive.

But when he drags the box out of the storage, and stands in the open doorway to the study, Alex realizes he doesn't want to keep the tree out of the way this year.

Wanting is something he's teaching himself is okay - he's allowed to be selfish. He's allowed to do things and desire things simply because they make him happy. And right now, he wants to put the Christmas tree in the living room, because he wants to be able to cuddle with Michael on the couch, with the fireplace going, and really see if all that fuss about coziness is actually true. There's simply never been the opportunity before where it was possible, and now that it is, Alex finds he wants to experience it for himself.

“There's nowhere to put it,” he whines to Maria on the phone, standing in the middle of the living room, surveying the furniture.

“And the study is not an option?”

Alex sighs, glancing down the hallway, the reasons floating through his mind. “No.”

“So we just need to figure out a different spot for you,” Maria replies, sounding much more confident than Alex feels. There's another voice in the background, and Alex can just make out Maria explaining his dilemma, realizing after a moment that she’s speaking to Rosa.

“Is that Rosa? I can call back-”

“She says you're overthinking it,” Maria pushes on, ignoring him. “And I agree with her.”

“Great,” he grumbles, falling down on the sofa and staring up at the ceiling. 

Overthinking is something that he knows he does on occasion, especially in regards to Michael. Because Alex can’t think of any time in his professional life - a decade in the Air Force, including officer school and two completed tours - where he’s had the same doubts and worries. Things just always seemed easier when he can fall back on facts and logic.

And Michael, well. Alex knows his feelings for Michael are sometimes anything but logical.

“What about in that space next to the dining table?” Maria asks, pulling him out of his thoughts. 

Alex glances over where there’s a potted plant in the corner near the doors that lead out to the patio; the decor in the wall alcoves; and the guitar he has leaning in the corner near his bedroom doorway. It might work, he thinks, but it’d be a tight fit. And he doesn’t really want the tree to be sticking out awkwardly, especially if he’s putting it somewhere he might trip over coming out of the bedroom.

“No, I don’t think so.”

There’s a bit of shuffling on the other end of the line, and then Alex hears Rosa loud and clear, realizing he’s been put on speaker.

“What about in that corner? Next to the sofa?”

Alex twists to look to his right where the end table is currently placed. It’s a large enough space in the corner if he moves the table and the plant - but isn’t the point of this to be able to see the tree while sitting on the couch? It really would just look like it was shoved into the only available spot between the couch and his keyboard bench.

“The couch would be in the way.”

Rosa sighs, rather loudly, and says something that Alex can’t quite make out, probably meant only for Maria anyway. While he listens to them chatter amongst themselves, he wonders about next to the fireplace, but figures there probably isn’t enough room and the tree would cover part of the TV - and it’d definitely make it harder to get to the record player. 

“Are you up for moving some furniture?” Rosa asks after a moment. “Because I think I have an idea, if I remember your house correctly, and Maria says I am.”

Not letting himself get too hopeful, Alex nods his head as if she can see him. “Yeah, if it’ll make this whole thing work.”

“Move your keyboard bench.”

For a moment, Alex wants to argue and ask where he’s going to put his music set-up in the meantime, but the answer is obvious. If he moves the keyboard, and his audio equipment into the study, they can go against the wall where he typically puts the couch when the tree is in there. It feels like such a simple solution, he’s annoyed at himself for not thinking of it. 

“You two are geniuses,” he replies quickly, pushing himself up off the sofa. “Love you both, but I gotta go.”

He hears the two of them giggling on the other end, and ends the call. 

None of the furniture he needs to move is actually heavy, thankfully. And he hopes he can get it done before Michael gets home - because he’d like to be able to at least have the tree up. First, he gets the bench - it’s the smallest and lightest part. Then all of the smaller items - the guitars, the sound mixing equipment, the speakers, and finally - the keyboard itself. The table, however, presents its own dilemma. It’s a little too big, and a little too awkward in size for him to lift all on his own.

Alex falls back onto the sofa, frustrated with himself and his own limitations, when he hears the front door open, close, followed then by the familiar sound of Michael’s boots on the floor.

“Rearranging?” Michael asks, and Alex turns slowly to look over at him, noticing the way he’s taking in the emptiness of the space where his instrument set up used to be.

“Trying.”

Michael nods his head, glancing around the living room and dining room, as if looking for something. “Where’d the rest of it go?”

“In the study.” 

He watches as Michael disappears out of view, his footsteps receding down the hallway, and then back towards him, as if Michael had needed to see for himself where the missing equipment had gone. 

“So we just need to move the table?” Michael finally asks, sitting down on the coffee table and sliding over until he’s across from Alex, reaching out and taking his hands in his, letting their fingers slide together. “Any particular reason for this change? You seemed pretty settled in how you had the house set up.”

Alex lifts his left hand, along with Michael’s, and motions vaguely towards the box with the Christmas tree that’s on the floor next to the dining table.

“I thought - I think it'd be nice to be able to enjoy the tree out here.” Alex doesn't know why his own reasoning feels dumb - it's his own home. A house he bought with his own money and has worked to furnish how he wants. “Since it's our first Christmas together.”

Slowly, a smile spreads across Michael's face, as he gently tugs Alex's hands towards him. Alex goes, letting himself be pulled forward until Michael is pressing their lips together - once, twice, three times. The smile never leaving his face, either.

Alex pulls one hand out of Michael's grasp, reaching out to slide it up along Michael's chest to cup his face, letting the tips of his fingers slide into the curls at the back of Michael's neck. His hair is longer - obviously in need of a trim, but Alex likes something about it like this as well. 

Especially when it means watching that one stubborn curl fall over Michael's eyes as he works. Or as he cooks. Or even as he's just talking while they're sitting on the patio chairs outside, Michael telling him about the dreams he had as a child, searching for home in the night sky.

“So where’d you put it last year?”

“Uh, the study,” he replies with a sigh, still frustrated with himself. “Christmas was never a big affair growing up. And here I just - I never saw much reason to go all out on decorating.”

Michael’s eyes go soft, and Alex feels a little less like an idiot for admitting something like this. 

“Max and Isobel always tried - especially when we were kids,” Michael says, his attention drifting back down to their hands, letting his fingers drift lightly across the skin. “Think they wanted to make sure I felt included. Never really got a real Christmas otherwise.”

Alex’s heart breaks for the childhood Michael should have been able to have growing up. That he’d been left to fend for himself so often in ways that no child should have had to do.

“That’s why I wanted to tree in here,” Alex tries again, gently tugging at Michael’s hands, pulling him towards where he’s sitting on the couch. He smiles at the easy way Michael moves, first pinning him against the back as their lips meet, sliding onto his lap and dropping his hands. Michael’s hands slide up to cup his face, kissing him over and over again as Alex drops his hands to his thighs. He doesn’t stop his hips from bucking up against Michael.

“Good thing for you,” Michael says after a moment, pulling away and Alex feels his hands drop down flat against his chest as he looks up to see a familiar smirk, “that your boyfriend is an alien who can move things with his mind.”

It’s always fascinating for Alex to watch Michael use his abilities, watching as the table slowly glides across the floor of the living room, freeing up the empty space in front of the bay window. 

Between the two of them, they carefully get the table moved into the study, and set everything to rights with his equipment, which seems to calm the remaining nerves Alex had about everything. 

Getting the tree together is easiest, the two of them laughing as they try and fluff the branches out enough to make it look somewhat like a tree before decorating it in the small collection of ornaments Alex has purchased and collected through the last several years. He sits on the coffee table to sort through the containers, Michael choosing to be the one to hang them up, taking any leads Alex chooses to give him about placement. 

And it’s then, as he watches Michael place the silver star at the top, that it hits Alex just how right all of this actually feels. How perhaps this is what has been missing for the holiday to feel like it’s more than just a date on the calendar. That perhaps next year they’ll be doing this not as boyfriends, but as husbands instead.

Husbands, Alex repeats to himself. Because he’d asked Michael to marry him, and Michael had said yes.

He watches as Michael effortlessly gets a fire going in the fireplace, fascinated by the way the flames burst from his hand, the logs lighting with minimal effort. 

“Is that why you run hot?” Alex can’t help but ask, raising an eyebrow at Michael and nodding at the fireplace. He knows enough about the alien’s biology to know the elevated temperature the alien’s have is related to their species, but it feels like a good moment to joke. He knows he’s tried in the past to make a similar remark in the past, but the timing hadn’t been right, and it hadn’t landed how he’d intended.

This time, however, he watches as a smile spreads across Michael’s face, his eyes lighting up in amusement. 

They settle onto the sofa, fingers laced together, Alex pushed into Michael’s side as they both take in the quiet moment around them. 

“What did you used to do for Christmas?” Michael asks, his voice quiet next to Alex. “Since coming back here?”

“Spend time with Maria and Mimi,” he replies, turning to look at Michael, noticing the way he’s focused on him, eyes bright and golden in the warm haze of the firelight. “Maria called me a grinch the first year I got back because I didn’t decorate.”

“But not this year.”

Alex shakes his head, leaning up to press a kiss to Michael’s lips. 

“No, not this year.”

#roswell new mexico #rnmsecretsanta23 #malex #malex fic #notso writes fanfic

[angrycowboy]

Writing Patterns

Rules: Share the opening of your last ten published works or as many as you are able and see if there are any patterns!

I was tagged by @dr-lizortecho <3

i'll save you a seat

“What was so important we needed to meet up here?” Maria asks as she approaches where Alex is sitting on the steps of the gazebo in the middle of town.

this life is sweeter than fiction

Liz places a milkshake on the table in front of him, but doesn't leave. Instead she stands there, hand on her hip, waiting for him to acknowledge her. Carefully, Alex glances across to Michael, who's brow is furrowed in adorable confusion as he glances back and forth between the two of them.

all the stars aligned

Maria stares at the unfamiliar woman standing in front of her, a strange familiarity to her features that Maria can’t quite place. It was as if she was looking at someone she knew, or perhaps a photograph she’d memorized long ago.

every guitar string scar on my hand

Alex stood still, chin raised as Maria fixed his tie. There was a crinkle to her brow, a look of intensity that felt like it wasn’t just directed at his accessories.

to hide would be so dishonest

Ever since he was a child, Alex has loved the snow. It wasn't something that happened often in New Mexico, and they didn't get a ton of it like he'd always seen in movies - but it was enough to build a small snowman and have snowball fights with his brothers. And there was always something magical about it too, the way it fell from the sky in tiny individual flakes and covered everything as far as the eye could see.

a love like this

They’re three days into their planned week-long honeymoon when suddenly Michael’s cell phone goes off - text message after text message, one notification after another. Alex can’t remember a time where he’s ever heard Michael’s phone go off this way, and grabs it from where it’s plugged into its charger on the nightstand next to the bed. Neither of them have looked at their phones for at least six hours, spending the morning after breakfast wrapped up in one another and the bedsheets. 

held on as tightly as you held onto me

They're barely inside the door of the hotel room before Michael is on him, dropping luggage out of his hands, and pushing him gently up against the wall. Alex laughs as their mouths collide, hands reaching out to grab on to Michael's waist, lips sliding together, tongues dancing. This is the part that has always worked for them, the part that didn't need to be worked on because from the first moment they'd kissed in the museum at seventeen, everything about the way they moved together felt innate and deeper than words could describe.

'cause i've waited my whole life

He can hear Maria and Dallas behind him, sees out of the corner of his eye as Kyle and Isobel slow dance together. He’s not sure where Liz and Max are, but he’s sure they’re around. Eduardo and Sanders are up at the pool tables, looking like they’re trying to one up another. He lets his fingers play with the curls that hang loose and long at the back of Michael’s neck.

we make the rules

Being back in their house for the first time since getting stuck in alien hell, Alex notices the smallest differences as he walks through. Michael's black cowboy hat hangs on a hook by the front door. The fridge is full of Tupperware leftovers from Michael cooking more than enough for one person. Michael's toolbox is sitting on the floor next to the door that leads out the garage, as if he'd been using it before coming to find him. Textbooks and notebooks piled on the dining table for subjects that Alex certainly has never had an interest in. He'd seen the closet separated between their clothes for exactly one day before he'd left, and now it's starting to look like a bit of a mix - Michael seemingly becoming more and more comfortable with moving past the rigidity of my side and your side and making it theirs during the time in between. His fingers drift along the shirt and jackets, his plaid mixed with Michael's patterns, a smile spreading across his face.

and i hope i never lose you

The handprint shimmers across the skin of his chest, above his heart. He watches as Michael’s fingertips trace around it, igniting the connection with each movement. Lingering feelings of regret, determination, fear, and love all mix together, and Alex doesn’t think he’s ever going to get used to the feeling.

Oh jeez. These are... a lot. I can definitely see a pattern!

Anyway, tagging @haloud @im-the-punk-who @portraitofemmy @nellie-elizabeth @beautifulcheat and anyone else who wants to partake in this! <3

#roswell new mexico #malex #malex fic #notso writes fanfic #writer meme

[notsowrites]

this life is sweeter than fiction

Summary: Alex & Michael have a lunch date at the Crashdown

A/N: i said i wasn't writing again until next year, but this happened that same night and i was going to save it until i wrote the sequel to "all the stars aligned" but now it's just gonna be part of a series set within that universe instead.

[Read on AO3]

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Liz places a milkshake on the table in front of him, but doesn't leave. Instead she stands there, hand on her hip, waiting for him to acknowledge her. Carefully, Alex glances across to Michael, who's brow is furrowed in adorable confusion as he glances back and forth between the two of them.

“Liz?”

“Alex.”

“Something wrong?”

She leans forward just enough to gently bump the milkshake glass again with her finger.

“Can we please take this off the menu?”

“What is it?” Michael immediately chimes in, reaching out to dip a finger into the ice cream. Alex watches as he pulls his hand back, slipping the finger between his lips and into his mouth. He's too focused on the explaining Liz is going to make him do to really enjoy the way Michael sucks on his own finger, even in the middle of the Crashdown with Liz standing a foot away.

“This is the worst selling milkshake on the menu, and Alex won't let me and Papi take it off.”

“It's good,” Michael replies innocently, reaching back over and trying it again. “Is that caramel?”

“It's Bananas Foster Ranch.”

The thing is, Alex doesn't want to let them remove it from the menu, even if he's the only one to ever order it so that it generates at least a bit of revenue. The timing of it appearing on the menu at the Crashdown had felt almost serendipitous - it first made an appearance the summer after senior year, Arturo clearly trying to add some new puns to the menu in his own effort to distract from the hurt of both Rosa's death and Liz's sudden departure. He knew it'd disappeared some time during the decade he was away - not enough people ordering it to justify keeping the option on the menu for long. But once he'd been back in town, once he'd been fully settled into Roswell once more, Alex had inquired to Arturo one day if he could whip one up for him, for nostalgia's sake.

And within a couple days, it had been added back.

Liz had taken note almost immediately when she'd arrived back in town several months later, wasting no time demanding to know the reason why. But back then, Alex couldn't tell her. Because back then, there was no Alex and Michael - if anything there was only Alex and the mysterious Museum Guy. And to admit why he liked seeing the Bananas Foster Ranch milkshake on the menu felt almost like a declaration. It felt like once someone knew about him and Michael, it was too easy to connect the remaining dots.

“I don't understand,” Michael says, forgoing sticking his finger back in the glass again and just pulling the entire thing over towards him, straw between his lips as he sucks the ice cream up into his mouth.

“Took me way way too long to realize but-” Liz turns to look down at him, an eyebrow raised. “You want to do the honors?”

Alex wants to tell Liz to get lost, to take the milkshake with her and forget this entire exchange ever happened. But there's something in the way Michael is looking back at him, waiting expectantly for the answer, that makes Alex feel a tiny bit braver.

“It reminded me of you, Michael.”

He immediately covers his face in his hands, screwing his eyes shut and groaning at himself for the embarrassment he feels. He knows he shouldn't, that it's just another thing on a laundry list of items that have long allowed Alex to think about Michael when he couldn't actually talk about him in public, or mention him to anyone. 

He hears the familiar sound of Liz walking away from the table, boots stomping on the linoleum floor as she goes, and slowly drops his hands to see Michael watching him. Michael reaches over to gently grab hold of his hands, pulling them the rest of the way down, but not letting go and resting them on the table together between them.

“Hasn't this been on the menu since we were kids?”

“Summer after senior year, actually.”

A smile spreads across Michael's face as he tugs at their hands, pulling Alex's own up to his lips and pressing a kiss to the knuckles. It's the simplest little action, but it has Alex's heart soaring in his chest. Two years ago, he never could have imagined being able to do any of this with someone he liked - let alone with Michael. And there once was a time where he believed that no matter who he dated, who he tried to have a public relationship with, his father would always find some way to interfere. His goal became trying to be happy enough , find something he could live with so that no one else would ever know what it was like to be at the end of his father's rage.

Maria had always been his plan for happy enough, the plans made long ago sometime in high school before Michael Guerin swooped in and stole his guitar. He always knew that while he would never be in love with her, he'd never feel that rush of excitement that came with falling in love with someone - but he loved her enough, and she was the safest he ever managed to feel at a time when there was no one else in his life reminding him of his own worth. Her presence has always been his safety net, that person who no matter what, will always be there for him - and he would always be there for her in return.

But his father's death had changed everything for him. No longer did he have to look over his shoulder, no longer did he feel like there would always be someone lurking around the corner, ready to ruin any moment of happiness Alex may try and take for himself. And now, with the statue in the square gone, he didn't have to stare at the reminder each time he walked through town with Michael, the two of them holding hands and strolling down the sidewalk. For the first time in his life, Alex felt like he was starting to truly reap the benefits of the war he'd been waging since he was a kid.

“Didn't know you were so sentimental, Manes.”

Alex smiles at Michael across the table, because there's no way that's true. Not when Michael had found him last year in that portal dimension, sitting on the tailgate of Michael's truck, watching reels that contained his own memories as if they were movies.

Alex gently removes his hand from Michael's, and carefully pulls the milkshake glass towards himself across the table. He takes a sip from the straw, savoring the taste of banana and caramel. Nothing about the flavor of the milkshake reminds Alex about Michael, it's always been completely and totally about the name.

“Liked having things that reminded me of you, even before there was really an us .”

Michael chuckles quietly in response. “Would you change anything? If you could?”

It's a question Alex has asked himself before, not necessarily needing an answer, but more just a general curiosity. And while he wishes the incident in the shed never happened, Alex wonders who they both would be as people right now without it. Because he knows that, regardless of what happened there that night, there's also the incident with Noah, and Isobel, and Rosa that took place that night - a whole combination of which was the reason in the end that Michael gave up his scholarship to UNM, and stayed in Roswell for the next decade instead. Would he change his father, perhaps? But that would require going back even further and convincing Harlan that the aliens who crash landed in 1947 weren't dangerous, they weren't invaders, and they weren't here to murder humans. Everything feels like dominoes, one event after another, but all of them tied together.

“Only if you and I still ended up here,” he replies, carefully considering his words.

Liz comes back over to the table, looking slightly impatient. There's a brand new stain on the front of her uniform - something that looks like rocket relish, Alex thinks.

“Everything okay, Ortecho?”

“You have ten seconds to order.”

Michael laughs out loud, smiling over at him across the table. “Such great service here.”

Liz thrusts her arm out in front of Michael, showing him the face of the watch on her wrist.

“May I remind you, I have a life outside this diner. And a date with a very handsome, very sexy cowboy tonight. So god help you if I don't clock out from my shift in exactly 28 minutes.”

They both quickly place orders - hamburgers, fries, extra flying sauce. Liz glares at both of them as Michael asks for another Bananas Foster Ranch milkshake, but Alex decides to opt for Abducted by Chocolate instead. 

Better to dip his fries into.

“I'd ban both of you if I didn't think Papi would just ignore it.”

Alex watches Liz head towards the kitchen, pausing the scribble their orders down on her pad and sticking it in the window. The cafe is busy - a typical midday lunch rush, and Alex had been working from home today, so he'd shown up at the junkyard unannounced to ask Michael to grab something to eat with him. It felt like one of the perks of working from home instead of commuting out to Deep Sky for the day, because that would mean he wouldn't be home until closer to dinner if he did a full day at the office. Plus, he's certain that Sanders doesn't mind him dragging Michael away for an hour or so. The old man might be a crank, but Alex is convinced there is a soft spot buried somewhere deep inside him.

He turns back towards Michael, only to see him watching him, as if there is nowhere else to look in the whole of the diner. The milkshake glass is at the end of the table, Michael having finished the last of it off rather quickly, like now that he's learned why it's still on the menu he actually likes it.

“How'd you get them to keep this on the menu if it doesn't sell?” Michael asks, bumping the empty glass with his hand for emphasis.

Alex doesn’t know the answer to that question, only that every time it has been taken off, he's come into the diner and tried to order it. Perhaps it's less trouble to keep it on the menu than deal with explaining to each new waiter that gets hired why if a certain customer orders that one specific milkshake that isn't actually on the menu, they still have to make it for him.

“Guess Arturo just likes me,” he replies with a wink and a smile.

#roswell new mexico #malex fic #malex #alex manes #michael guerin #notso writes fanfic

[notsowrites]

for the Roswell New Mexico Big Bang 2023

SUMMARY: During Open Mic Nite at the Pony, Maria is visited by a descendant of hers with a message and a warning.

A year later, Alex returns to Roswell after cleaning up Project Shepherd and exploring relics left behind by extinct ancient civilizations to begin to unravel the mystery of Maria's mysterious visitor and the connection to her latest visions.

Based on the "lost" Season 3 summary: Someone will receive an earth-shattering message from an ethereal, yet somehow battle-hardened woman named Emilia who has traveled a great distance to relay this important information.

Read it here on AO3 and don't forget to check out check out the lovely artwork by @dr-lizortecho! 💜

#roswell new mexico #rnm2big2bang #malex #malex fic #notso writes fanfic #IT'S HERE IT'S DONE I'M SLEEPING FOR A WEEK

[notsowrites]

Still finishing up the last couple chapters of the big bang fic - but it's a long one, folks!

Crunch time this weekend to finish editing too. ☺️

#notso writes fanfic #rnm big bang #rnm2big2bang

[notsowrites]

4x13 Malex Missing Scene

Summary: Alex and Michael talk while they dance together at their wedding reception.

A/N: I have so many fic ideas for these two. They're husbands! Married!

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He can hear Maria and Dallas behind him, sees out of the corner of his eye as Kyle and Isobel slow dance together. He's not sure where Liz and Max are, but he's sure they're around. Eduardo and Sanders are up at the pool tables, looking like they're trying to one up another. He lets his fingers play with the curls that hang loose and long at the back of Michael's neck.

"You really want to be Alex Guerin?"

It hadn't been a decision he'd made spur of the moment. It wasn't even something he'd only recently been thinking about. His family name holds ties to a legacy that he wants to move past. 

Maria hadn't been wrong - he had been a surly, angry emo kid who railed against heteronormative patriarchal norms. Being the only out kid in a sleepy cowboy town would do that to you. But taking Michael's name, he's realized over the last decade, didn't have to mean embracing all those things he supposedly hated.

"I don't want our kids to ever worry about what it means to be a Manes Man."

Alex feels Michael stop moving from their gentle sway to the music, pausing to look at him. Michael's eyes are wide, and curious, and there's that look in them that has been there for days - the one that Alex knows means I am so in love with you it's embarrassing. A look that he hopes is reflected back in his own eyes when he looks at Michael.

"Kids?"

"I do remember you saying something about our yard holding aliens."

Michael drops his head forward, leaning against his shoulder and Alex can't help but turn his head towards him, getting a face full of curls as he presses a kiss to them. They're getting long, but it doesn't matter to him because Michael is as handsome as he's always been.

"That's something you want?"

He doesn't answer right away, not because he doesn't have an answer - but because he wants Michael to look at him. Once upon a time, he believed his only way to achieve any sort of happiness in this world was to marry Maria. That it'd be enough. And then for a fleeting moment he dreamed of marrying Michael - back before it was even legal, wishing that there was some way for him to be happy despite the world telling him he couldn't be. And in the aftermath of the shed, those dreams shattered, the pieces fractured for more than a decade. 

"I'm terrified of turning into my father," he starts, holding on a bit tighter to Michael. "Of not being a good parent."

"You'd be an excellent dad," Michael immediately argued with him.

"You're biased."

"You married me, husband."

He knows, logically, it'd be possible to make a new legacy for the Manes family name. To take the evil, twisted version his ancestors created and turn it into something better. But there is a part of him that wants to close that chapter in his life completely, to start this new one with Michael where he doesn't have to live with the weight of everything his father and his relatives have done in the past. He and Michael can begin their own legacy, a new one - and give meaning to a name that he knows Michael has always believed never meant anything.

"I am so in love with you, Michael Guerin" he whispers into the space between them, their foreheads gently pressed together, his hand returned to the back of Michael's neck, fingers pushed into the mess of curls. He feels Michael's arms tighten around him, pulling their bodies closer, their heads moving together just enough for Michael to push forward for their lips to touch. "And I'm sorry I almost didn't fight for us to have this."

It feels important to make sure Michael understands. There really hasn't been a good moment to talk about it all, between getting out of the pocket dimension and Kyle needing to do a full work up on him to make sure whatever had been causing his health issues inside the other dimension were gone, to planning the wedding and the honeymoon.

"We're here now," Michael argues with him, pushing back, his voice quiet. "And besides, it's gonna make for one hell of a story to tell our kids."

#roswell new mexico #malex #malex fic #notso writes fanfic

[notsowrites]

i'll save you a seat

Summary: Alex has something important to tell Maria about Michael.

A/N: more from my "in a sky built before us" verse, which is basically my re-imagined S3/S4 and everything going forward.

[Read on AO3]

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“What was so important we needed to meet up here?” Maria asks as she approaches where he's sitting on the steps of the gazebo in the middle of town.

Alex doesn't reply right away, just pats the space next to him, and waits for her to sit.

“Alex-” she whines, glancing around before finally relenting, and falling into the spot next to him.

“I asked Michael to marry me.”

He knows he's dropping a bombshell on her, because they've technically only just started dating officially and publicly for the first time ever. No one really knows about the years of back and forth between them, and how hard they'd been trying to get to a place to be together. And Alex knows that part of that is his own fault, for keeping Michael his own closely guarded secret.

But he's never going to regret the things he's done to keep Michael safe.

He doesn't know what to expect in regards to a reaction from her, so the initial shock that crosses her face isn't a surprise.But as the words sink in, she hits him on the arm, her shock quickly morphing into something else.

“When?”

“While I was stuck in that alternate dimension.”

Her eyes narrow ever so slightly, and he immediately wonders if she's doing the math.

“That was weeks ago!”

And she's right, it was weeks ago. During that fit of desperation where for a moment Alex believed he wasn't going to survive whatever health issues the alternate dimension was causing him. It had been a dying wish at the time, to make sure he got to at least ask Michael to marry him before he died.

But as the black fractals burns receded, eventually disappearing completely, Alex had understood what an emotional and rash decision it had been. It wasn't that he wanted to take it back - he refused to see a downside in being engaged to Michael - but at least now they had time.

Time to date, properly. Time to do all the things they'd never gotten a chance before.

“It wasn't important with all that other stuff going on-”

“Yes it was!”

“-but I wanted you to know because I have a favor to ask.”

“I don't know,” Maria immediately replies, turning away from him. “I'm kinda mad at you right now.”

He knows she's lying.

“We want to get married here,” he continues, motioning around to the gazebo and the town square, “and have the reception at the Pony.”

She finally looks back at him, as if considering. “Did you talk to Isobel? She's the one with all the town events planning background.”

“Michael's telling her.”

Alex can't remember what made them decide today, of all days, was the one they were going to start telling people about the engagement and their plans for the wedding. There's been weeks now of dates to the Crashdown, and Planet 7, and even to the Pony. They've taken walks around town together, holding hands and letting everyone see. He's even pushed Michael against the bricks on the side of the Crashdown to kiss him when he's been overcome with the urge to feel his lips.

And then there's been watching Michael slowly move into the house. The way it was clear that he'd been trying in those days Alex had been trapped in the alternate dimension, but clearly still had trouble with moving completely out of the junkyard. It'd been slow - some clothes first, Alex making space in the closet and letting Michael choose which side he wanted. The slow appearance of Michael's textbooks and research materials from his trailer had Alex reconsidering the set up in the study. Quiet mornings waking up together, having breakfast on the terrace together or long showers after a round of slow morning sex. 

But in the end, Michael agreed to break the news to Isobel, and Max. And Alex got Maria, Liz, and Kyle. 

He knew Isobel would be the tougher work, because Michael would have to reel in her attempts at planning some big fancy event. Neither of them wanted it, they'd talked a bit about it already - Michael agreeing that small and simple was enough for them. He'd even made a comment that if Isobel wants to plan a big wedding, she can do it for Liz, or Maria - or even her own.

“I'm so happy for you,” Maria finally replies, leaning forward and wrapping him in her arms. Alex immediately relaxes into her embrace, feeling the tension that has settled into his shoulders earlier melt away. He can't explain why he was nervous to tell her, only that he worried she'd say it was too soon. 

A fear that he knows is mostly unfounded - Maria has always been, and still is, one of his biggest supporters in life.

When she pulls back, he watches as she glances around, as if taking the gazebo in with a new perspective, turning back to look at him. “You really meant it, didn't you? That you wanted to get married here.”

Of course she remembered that day between them, Alex doesn't know why he's surprised. 

“You know I didn't like to dream too hard about things,” he replies, knowing she understands his old good enough dreams, “but everything feels different now.”

She nods along as he speaks, taking hold of his hands, her attention turning to his fingers.

“No ring?”

Alex laughs at that, because it hadn't really crossed his mind that they'd need any sort of engagement rings. It's such a normative tradition - but then again, there is something that perhaps could mean the same thing.

Freeing one of his hands, Alex reaches up and pulls out the alien glass pendant necklace from where it's tucked beneath his shirt, holding it out for Maria to see.

“Michael gave me this, right before I left on the trip with Forrest,” he explains, holding the pendant in between his fingers. “I almost lost it in that other dimension, but Michael found it.”

Maria smiles, rolling her eyes just a bit. “Guerin really just became a jewelry maker overnight, didn't he?”

The question makes him realize she's not wearing her bracelet, which means the injections of the cure that Liz developed seem to be holding. He's heard Kyle talk about how there's been some small changes to her brain scans, perhaps an effect of the protein being reintroduced into her system.

But it means that he's not going to have to watch her slip away. That she's not going to become lost, like Mimi has. 

“No more bracelet?” He asks, sliding his hand down to her wrist.

She shakes her head in response. “Doesn't seem to be a point now.”

He supposes that's true as well.

“So,” Maria says after a moment, smiling back at him. “Are we going to be strong arming Arturo to cook for this thing?”

Alex smiles back, because that's the next order of business today. But telling her, making sure she was the first one to find out, that mattered most to him.

#roswell new mexico #malex #alex manes #maria deluca #malex fic #notso writes fanfic

[angrycowboy]

have decided to go back and re-edit last year's big bang.

there were too many personal issues with the idiots living upstairs that i couldn't concentrate on my writing the way i wanted to. so now that i've got decent, rational people living upstairs, i'm gonna take advantage of it and make sure this thing makes sense.

slightly terrified about how much i'm gonna have to modify.

#notso writes fanfic #5K down 128K to go

[notsowrites]

every guitar string scar on my hand

A/N: So I was thinking about this gifset parallel I made for 3x01 & 4x11, and got an idea for a little fic. It’s something of a missing scene fic, I guess. Enjoy! <3

[AO3 Link]

----------

Alex stood still, chin raised as Maria fixed his tie. There was a crinkle to her brow, a look of intensity that felt like it wasn’t just directed at his accessories.

“What’s that look?”

Maria bites her lip, stepping back away from him with a soft pat to his chest. “I had a vision-”

“I thought those stopped after Liz’s treatment?”

“No, not recently,” she clarifies immediately, shaking her head. “Right after you got back into town. Right when everything with Jones, and the portal all started happening.”

Alex laughs, because that was so long ago. What exactly had she seen that she hadn’t told him and that she didn’t think was important enough to? “But it wasn’t about that?”

She shakes her head. 

“I know you loved mom reading your future, giving you little clues. But I felt like if I told you about this one, if I mentioned it, then it felt like I’d jinx something.”

Well, now Alex is even more concerned about what she saw. But even more curious is why she’s choosing this moment to tell him about a vision that is months old now.

“Maria, out with it.”

“I was standing in the middle of the gazebo. And everyone was there - Liz, Max, Kyle, Isobel, Greg, Sanders…” She pauses, as if considering her words, which he finds so strange. “I saw this day, Alex.”

He smiles, realizing what she’s saying. That she’d seen that he’d get to marry Michael. That they’d stand in the middle of town, and get to exchange vows to one another, in front of all the people they love who love them. And it ignites something inside him, to know that she’d seen it happen, despite everything that had happened over the last few weeks.

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until he feels the wetness on his cheek, and reaches up to swipe it away. 

“I didn’t think I’d ever have this. Any of it.”

“You know you deserve to be happy right?

He smiles back at her. “I do now. But for a long time… I wasn’t sure it was in the cards. You know that better than anyone.”

“My offer to elope still stands, you know.”

He thinks of that future they’d planned together as kids, to get married in a time when Alex believed it was the only option that existed. It wasn’t that he would have regretted that life, because he loves Maria. No one ever made him feel safe and loved like she and Mimi did back when being at home meant verbal and physical abuse from his father, and sometimes his brothers. Before he found what it meant to love someone, and to be loved back. 

“Thank you for telling me.”

“You know Isobel planned your honeymoon, right?”

Alex sighs. He’s browsed the itinerary she forwarded to his email, and already plans to call the resort before the reception to cancel most of it. He doesn’t want his days planned like that, and he knows Michael won’t either. There are plans in his mind that are much better uses of their time. 

“Come on, Mr. Manes, lets get you to the altar.”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” he lifts his hand up, pointer finger up to tell her to hold on a moment and runs off to his study.The paperwork for his name change is on his desk - it’s all notarized and everything he just need to send it off with a copy of the marriage license.

He holds up the paper as he joins her back in the living room.

“Alex Guerin?” Maria asks, sounding surprised before stepping back and looking up at him, as if letting it all sink it.

“Michael has a name that he believes means nothing. And I’ve got a name that has far too much weight and expectations attached to it.” He glances down at the piece of paper, feeling a sense of warmth blossom inside at how different everything is from where they started. “I can give Michael this one thing that he never had, the family he’s been searching for his whole life.”

“You’re gonna tell him that, right?”

Alex laughs, dropping it on the kitchen table. He thinks he’s gotten better expressing himself to Michael, and though he’s sure he’ll fumble his way through it later, he does plan on telling Michael after the wedding.  “I’ll let you know.”

#roswell new mexico #malex fic #malex #the guerins #alex manes #maria deluca #notso writes fanfic #jUST THINKY THOUGHTS THIS MORNING

[notsowrites]

this big bang fic is kicking my ass, but i am here to share the smallest snippet that is basically just ripped from s4 that i kept in my fic because it made me laugh:

#roswell new mexico #notso writes fanfic #rnm big bang 2023 #this doesn't give anything away either

[notsowrites]

for the Roswell New Mexico Big Bang 2022

Summary: Alex & Michael’s honeymoon is interrupted when Anatsa follows Liz out into the desert, discovering the portal and putting the aliens in harm's way when the location becomes public knowledge. The gang must work together to avoid dangerous government intervention, and ensure that Max & Dallas can safely return home from Oasis.

----------

Excerpt from Chapter One: 

Isobel laughs on the other end. “So what are we going to do? How do I deal with this?”

Before he can answer, he hears the glass door slide open behind him, and turns to look, watching as Michael steps outside wearing only his boxers. For a moment, Alex focuses on the ring on his left hand, the afternoon sunlight reflecting off it as he crosses over to him. His hair is a mess, sticking up in all directions and Alex has a moment to wonder what Michael would look like with it all pulled back, filing the idea away for later. 

“Isobel texted,” he says as Michael falls into the empty chair next to him.

“Put her on speaker.”

Pulling the phone away from his ear, Alex presses the screen for speakerphone, and holds it out between the two of them.

“What’s up, Isobel?”

“There’s my dear brother, finally,” she exclaims, and Alex swears he can hear the eyeroll in the tone of her voice. “Did you make your husband call me so you didn’t have to?”

Michael rolls his eyes. “I was sleeping.”

“Anatsa knows about the portal and the console, Michael. And now she’s here in my studio and she’s asking questions about what she saw, and I’m freaking out about how to handle it.”

“She’s at your place?”

“Yes, Michael, she’s here.”

He watches as Michael leans his head back, and realizes this isn’t going to be something they can solve from three states away. 

“I haven’t even seen the ocean yet, Isobel. You couldn’t wait until then to have your crisis interrupt us?”

And that’s one of the reasons Alex had been so excited for them to travel together to California. He knew Michael had never left the state, except for a trip to Texas a couple years ago, and there was something that made their entire honeymoon feel even more special that he’d get to be there to see Michael experience it.

[Read the fic on AO3]

@rnmbb

#roswell new mexico #roswell nm big bang #rnm bb #malex #malex fic #notso writes fanfic #so i wrote a thing #it was only supposed to be 20K #and then this happened #also y'all are gonna LOVE momecat's art #it's PERFECT

[notsowrites]

you were there

a 4x08 malex coda

this is absolutely the fault of @haloud and @im-the-punk-who 💜

[AO3 Link]

--------

He promises Max and Maria he's not going to jump through the quicksand. Max almost tried to take the truck keys, but taking the keys won't do a thing when he can just hotwire the car. Maria offers to stay, in case Alex tries to reach out again. It's tempting, but he sends her on her way instead.

The house feels too big, too empty now that he has a lead on where Alex is. On what may have happened to him.

He falls onto the sofa, dropping his face into his hands. How could he have been so blind? How could he have not sensed that something was wrong? Alex left almost a week ago. Has he been trapped wherever Maria had seen this whole time?

Why had he allowed himself to become so tangled up in the promises of Oasis? Of traveling back to a planet galaxies away. What was there for him, he began to wonder. Without Clyde and Bonnie speaking about its wonders, suddenly it didn't feel so important anymore. Not next to this home he was sitting in. Not the home he was building with Alex.

A real tangible future in front of him. That he was living right now. The dream he'd had at seventeen when he and Alex had first began this tumultuous path they've been on for the last fifteen years. 

In the closet in the bedroom, is a guitar. He's never asked Alex why it's in here, why he doesn't keep it in the living room with the others. But it's a familiar soft case with an even more familiar sticker, worn and peeling on the outside. For the first time since he'd returned it after Alex had tried to leave it for him in his trailer, Michael picks it up, gripping the neck and heading out the front door.

He's not going to be able to sleep, he already knows.

Just outside city limits is the place they'd been earlier. The quicksand that had almost pulled Maria down under, the closest to Alex he's going to get for right now.

He pulls the tailgate down, takes the guitar out of it's case, and sits down.

"I don't know if you can hear me when Maria isn't around," he starts, letting his fingertip roll over the strings. "But I'm sorry, Alex. I should have - you needed me and I wasn't listening. I'm sorry."

There's a sleeping bag rolled up that he's kept in the truck for ages. An old habit left over from those days when he was a homeless teenager. Tonight though, it'll come in handy. Not because he doesn't have a home these days. But because tonight, it'll keep him warm as he tries to work out how he's going to get Alex back. To the one person who once offered him up a warm place to sleep during the chilly spring nights.

The necklace around his neck starts to glow, a weak pulsing that disappears too quickly. But it's enough for tonight.

I'm listening now, Michael thinks as he wraps his fingers around the glass.

#roswell new mexico #malex #malex fic #notso writes fanfic

[angrycowboy]

i am going to be complaining about s4 of rnm until the end of time

so here is another little snippet from my big bang fic that gives absolutely nothing of the plot away:

back to writing now!

#roswell new mexico #notso writes fanfic #s4 was just bad and you cannot convince me otherwise

[notsowrites]

to hide would be so dishonest

summary: snow means different things to alex & michael

a/n: written for the 2023 year of the OTP event

[read on AO3 here]

----------

Ever since he was a child, Alex has loved the snow. It wasn't something that happened often in New Mexico, and they didn't get a ton of it like he'd always seen in movies - but it was enough to build a small snowman and have snowball fights with his brothers. And there was always something magical about it too, the way it fell from the sky in tiny individual flakes and covered everything as far as the eye could see.

A decade of deployments had made him miss more snowfalls than he cares to think about. And as winter creeps ever closer in the months after the wedding, Alex finds himself getting more and more excited at the prospect of sharing his love of the first snowfall with Michael. 

But when it happens, when those first flakes of the season fall from the sky, it's the middle of the night. It's a surprise change in the forecast, weather that was only predicted to be rain and ice turns into a full fledged snowstorm without warning.

And in the morning, Alex wakes up, and he knows it has snowed outside. Even before he looks out the window. He turns under the covers towards Michael, wanting to bury his nose against his husband's skin, kiss him awake and share the excitement of the first snowfall of the season. Relish in the fact that he can share these kind of little details with Michael, knowing that each time they've done so in the past it's only strengthened their relationship.

But Michael isn't there.

Eventually he finds Michael sitting outside, footprints from his boots leading out to the truck parked in the driveway. It's not where he's expected to find Michael at all - mornings when Michael does wake before him, it usually meant he was making coffee and breakfast, wanting everything ready for when Alex does wake up.

"What are you doing out here?" He asks, sliding onto the tailgate, and slipping their fingers together. 

There's a solemn look on Michael's face, as though he's lost in a memory, something long ago that's been pulled to the surface. 

"Just… thinking."

"About?"

Michael shakes his head, dropping his head forward and staring at their hands. Alex follows his movements, watching as Michael slides his other hand over top, something that Alex is pretty sure is happiness exploding inside him as Michael presses his lips to his knuckles. He doesn't know what's going on inside Michael's mind, and can't know unless he shares, but there is something in that simple gesture that tells Alex he will.

And so Alex waits as Michael keeps his hand pulled against his chest, holding on right to it as if needing it to ground him against something.

"Feels different now," Michael finally says, attention trained on him. "The first snow of the year."

"Because we're married?" He asks the simplest question, because he wants Michael to share with him, doesn’t want to push too hard like he’s done in the past.

Michael shakes his head. "That first winter after we came out of the pods, I was in the group home, and I didn't have any memories, so snow was - snow was new. It felt magical somehow, watching it fall."

"It is magical."

"Yeah," Michael continues, still not looking over at him, but Alex hears the way this isn't a happy memory for him. "It was for Max and Isobel, anyway."

Not for the first time, Michael speaks of the difference in how he had to grow up versus how Max and Isobel were allowed to grow up because they had simply gotten adopted. Two parents who absolutely loved them, who probably didn't let it bother them their children had no memories of snow before, and simply rolled with it, making it a happy experience as much as possible. And how can he argue with that when his own childhood, those happy years before his mom left were something of the same? He's held onto those memories so tight sometimes, afraid to ever lose them or let them be overtaken by all the years afterward.

But that isn't all Michael wants to say.

"I'd spend as much time as possible not in the group home or the foster homes. But winter meant - it meant more time stuck inside. And then when I started living out of my truck, it was just survival, one day at a time during the winter."

He wants to ask about Max and Isobel, but he knows now, better than perhaps anyone else, how much Michael abhors feeling like a charity case, that he'd have to repay the debt if they were to let him stay over. It wasn’t something he’d understood at first, or even for years afterwards. He’d had to learn the hard way how much Michael hated receiving gifts from others, as if marking them down in his mental ledger, how much he would then owe someone in the future. An old guitar is shoved into the further corner of the closet in the bedroom, tucked behind some storage bins and out of sight, and Alex hopes that someday he can give it back, and that Michael will believe there are no strings attached to it.

The cold starts to nip at his ears, and Alex can feel it settling against his nose as well. He pulls the blanket tighter around him, but doesn't dare move. Not yet.

"By the time I got the Airstream I was so used to the cold, the fact that the heating sucked didn’t bother me,” his voice stays quiet, and it begins to make sense why Michael would spend so much time around the firepit outside at the junkyard. “Isobel would always tell me it was an improvement over my truck.”

“And now?” He tries, hoping that maybe Michael will be open to making a new memory for himself about the snowfall, and this new life they’ve started together. The future he believes that both of them have wished to come true, but didn’t dare hope for because of so many other things in their lives that kept trying to get in the way.

Because now there are matching gold rings on their fingers, and beautiful vows they’d said in the middle of the gazebo in the town square; they’d had two amazing weeks together alone in California for a honeymoon and Alex had watched the child-like wonder on Michael’s face at seeing the ocean for the very first time. And this house that he’d bought after returning to Roswell after his injury, when he’d been reassigned to desk duty, no longer feels like it’s just his house anymore - it’s their house.

Finally, Michael turns towards him, a hand sliding up to cup his face, pulling Alex towards him as their lips brush together.

“This morning I got to wake up in the arms of the man I love, and it felt like-” Michael pauses, pulling back slightly, his fingers still brushing across the skin of his face, causing Alex to lean into the touch. “Like maybe I didn’t hate the snow anymore.”

He pushes forward again, capturing Michael’s lips with a smile.

“Thank you for sharing that with me.”

Michael stares back at him as they separate, confusion written in the way his brow is crinkled, but Alex can’t stop smiling at how much Michael has opened up to him this morning. It’s been six months since they got married, and a year since they finally decided they’d both had enough of not being together. And yet every day, he feels like he learns something new about the man that he loves. This man that stole his heart at seventeen, and never let it go. Who changed his entire life’s plan to protect Isobel, because she needed to be looked after. 

Giving Michael happy memories now, being able to make new ones together is all he can ask for. Because both of them have their share of the bad ones, and he’s more than aware of his own that will rear their ugly head when the time comes, but he knows that when it happens, Michael will be right there beside him waiting until he’s ready to share.

#roswell new mexico #malex fic #malex #the guerins #alex manes #michael guerin #notso writes fanfic #yotp 2023

[notsowrites]

held on as tightly as you held onto me

4x13 Malex Coda #2

A/N: found this sitting in my drafts, but for whatever reason i never published it. so i hope you enjoy this little... whatever it is. and look out for my big bang fic getting posted soon! <3

[read on AO3]

----------

They're barely inside the door of the hotel room before Michael is on him, dropping luggage out of his hands, and pushing him gently up against the wall. Alex laughs as their mouths collide, hands reaching out to grab on to Michael's waist, lips sliding together, tongues dancing. This is the part that has always worked for them, the part that didn't need to be worked on because from the first moment they'd kissed in the museum at seventeen, everything about the way they moved together felt innate and deeper than words could describe.

They spend the next several hours naked, wrapped up in each other, forgetting anyone or anything else exists in the world. It feels like an indescribable happiness has settled over them, that this is a moment all their own to enjoy. They've been reaching for it for months now, every decision leading them here. 

When finally, Michael pushes into him for the first time in what feels like weeks, Alex wraps his arms around him and pulls their bodies close. He loses himself to the way it feels when they are connected together, whispering Michael's name over and over as his climax builds, his entire body a live wire. He holds Michael through his orgasm, and kisses him at the thought of the many more their going to have over the next couple days. He follows not long after, Michael's hand wrapped around him, their eyes locked together.

There have been times in the past where he's run, scared of the connection that seemed to blossom between them every time they touched. Because it wasn't what a relationship should be built on, and he was terrified of the possibility existing where it was the only part of them that worked. It had been a relief to finally truly get to know Michael, to share stories of childhoods and dreams and to realize nothing changed. Even Michael's other-worldliness hadn't mattered, hadn't changed anything about how he felt. If anything, it had only made him fall deeper in love with Michael Guerin, something he hadn't believed was possible.

They fall asleep wrapped around one another, and wake up much the same way. Room service sustains them as neither of them seem to be able to get enough, clothing remaining optional when every time they look at each other they're reaching to touch and make contact. Michael fills the absurdly large tub in the bathroom, and Alex tries to hold back tears as he gently massages the muscle of his leg, kisses pressed to the amputation scars of his stump.

He lets Michael spend a ridiculous amount of time tracing the skin of his chest where the black fractals had appeared while he'd been trapped in the inter-dimensional alien hellhole. Doesn't say a word as Michael presses his palm to the skin above his heart, eyes closed as if trying to work something out. 

There hadn't been a moment to check when he'd stepped back to Earth through the portal, Clyde holding them all hostage. And Kyle had been dumbfounded when they'd finally reached Deep Sky, the fractals suddenly gone as if they'd never been there at all. He'd realized on the drive that his breathing had normalized in the moments after returning, as if signaling that whatever had happened to him was a direct result of his presence in the pocket dimension.

"I could have almost lost you," Michael whispers against his chest. "Again."

He doesn't want to think about all the times before. About his father and a hate crime, about break-ups and hook-ups, about Caulfield and a crazed axe murderer, kidnappings and genocidal dictators. They've been through so much together and apart since he's returned to Roswell, but Alex wouldn't change a thing. Because without all of it, he's not sure they'd be here right now. It feels like they've lived a whole lifetime already.

"What are you thinking about?" He asks, sliding his hand over Michael's, slotting his fingers in between, letting their hands fit together.

"Max always said the handprint was a psychic connection, that it went two ways between him and Liz." 

There's a question in Michael's eyes, something he seems to be piecing together, gathering the courage to ask for perhaps. Alex doesn't want to step on the moment, so he waits, running a hand through Michael's hair, tangling curls around his fingers, leaving Michael to his thoughts.

"I don't - it doesn't make it easier. I think Liz and Max are proof enough of that. But I want - if you do - to try it someday."

He presses their hands against his chest even tighter, keeping them there so Michael can't pull away. He's never thought about the handprint, about how it works or what it does. At least, not in the context of the two of them. His understanding was that it had been necessary that night Wyatt Long had hit Liz while shooting bullets through the Crashdown windows, that it was the reason she was even alive today. It felt something necessary, because if anything, Alex gets the why. Faced with something similar, he’d made the decision that he’d rather die with Michael in an alien prison created by his family, than to live in a world where Michael didn’t exist.

Because there had never been a decision to make. Michael is his choice, every time.

Carefully, he lets go of Michael’s hand, rolling him onto his back. He lets his hands wander, mapping skin and muscle and bone he is as familiar with as his own. Alex starts with Michael’s lips, pressing gentle kisses to them - one, two three - before moving to his chin, his neck, his chest. He feels the gentle caress of Michael's hand on his back, fingers bumping against his spine as he works his way back up to Michael's lips.

"I'm right here," he replies, capturing his lips in a bruising kiss, needing to get the point across. "And we've got the rest of our lives together now."

#roswell new mexico #malex #malex fic #notso writes fanfic #i wrote this in september #don't ask why i never published it

[notsowrites]

As I Reached For You

A 4x06 Malex Coda

A/N: I have so many thinky thoughts about where this whole "Alex was quicksanded" is going. But I of course needed to write out one of the more angsty one.

[AO3 Link]

---------

"You made it."

Michael rolls his eyes, dropping into the empty seat across from Max's desk. He's intimately familiar with all aspects of the sheriff's department, having spent most of the past decade locked in the holding cell for the most inconsequential of things. But this whole thing feels different, starting with Max asking him to come into the office. But who knows, maybe it's because he's powerless now. There's no alien telepathy happening these days. He's all but human.

A choice taken away from him by yet another person who believes they know best.

"Need help figuring out that proposal for Liz?"

Max frowns at him, as if he's confused by the question."No, I - you haven't heard anything from Alex have you?"

Michael shakes his head. He's trying to keep his cool these days, knowing that Alex is traipsing around the desert where cell service is spotty. But the truth is, between Mimi's death, and his own fight against human illness, the silence on Alex's end is beginning to worry him.

Surely Alex has been somewhere with cell service by now.

"He said he might be out of range."

Max nods, but he doesn't look convinced, opening up the manila folder that's sitting on the desk in front of him, spinning it around so it's facing Michael.

There's a photograph there of an SUV.

A very familiar looking SUV.

"That's Alex's-"

"I know, we ran the plates."

Michael pushes off the chair, listening as it screeches against the linoleum floor.

"Is he alive?"

"There's no sign of him."

He doesn't understand. Alex was just collecting weather balloons. This wasn't something dangerous, his bigoted father is gone, there's no one left who is going to try and kidnap Alex these days.

Max points to something in the photo of Alex's truck, and Michael glances down.

"See that? It's alien."

"The locusts," he sighs, picking up the photo to get a better look. Sure enough, there are multiple spots all across the windshield, similar to what happened to his console and the locust he and Liz tried to dissect.

"The what?"

"Liz brought a specimen to me, a genetically modified locust with alien guts. When we tried to look at it, it yeeted itself across the room and splattered across my console."

"What does that have to do with Alex?"

Michael drops the photo on the desk, making sure Max is paying attention as he points to the markings on the windshield glass. "Locust guts."

"I don't understand. Why would alien locusts be attracted to Alex?"

Michael rolls his eyes again, but stands up and reaches under the neck of his shirt to grab his half of the alien glass necklace he'd made. "Because before he left, I gave Alex the other half of this."

"You gave Alex alien glass?"

As much as Michael would like to get into the finer points of his relationship with Max, now with this new information that Alex's truck was abandoned, he feels like he needs to get out of this office and find him. But where to even start looking? The New Mexico desert is vast and it wasn't like they could just pick a place to start and hope they find him.

He's pushing to stand up and head out, ignoring Max's calls of protest when he wonders if this is his fault. Alex had asked him to take the console to Deep Sky, to run diagnostics on it to potentially make tracking down the weather balloons easier. And he'd refused. He'd let his own insecurities take over as though Alex wasn't worth trusting with it. And he'd done so just long enough for Alex to change his plans so that he didn't need the console, and could get along fine without it.

Was he the reason Alex had gone missing?

If he had his abilities, if Bonnie hadn't sucked them right out of him under her misguided attempt to save him, Michael knows things would be shaking and he'd be working to clamp down the excess of chaos inside him. He'd let the anger bubble over a little, the tiniest of releases to satisfy the itch.

Now all he does is slam his hand against the wall.

"Where'd they find his truck, Max?"

"Michael, don't do anything stupid-"

He turns around, ready to grab the folder off Max's desk.

"I need to find him, Max."

"And we will, but you're still sick and you're powerless. Just wait-"

He feels that anger at himself bubbling back to the surface.

"If this was Liz, if she was potentially missing, you wouldn't be sitting here behind a desk."

Alex is missing and Max is wrong to think he is going to sit calmly around while they devise a plan of action. He doesn't care right now that there's a crazy shape shifting alien who doesn't care if he's dead or alive.

He storms out of the office, and out of the building. If Max isn't going to help, that's fine. He'll figure it out himself.

—-------

"Spending time in a hole in the ground wasn't on my to-do list while I was visiting, ya know."

Rosa stands at the bottom of the ladder in the bunker, looking around in slight wonder. He guessed for someone who's never been down here, the place is probably slightly overwhelming with the amount of stuff he has.

"You're the only person who can help me with this." Michael slides the alien glass necklace over his head and holds it out to Rosa. "I need you to find something with this frequency."

She takes the necklace, inspecting it for a moment, before looking up at him.

"Here or-?"

He shakes his head. "We're going for a drive."

"Gonna need a little more than that if I'm cutting into my sister time."

He hates needing to talk so much when all he wants to do is get to the coordinates Max had given him, the location of where the state police bad found Alex's car abandoned, and search for him. He doesn't even know what he expects to find or why he thinks they'll even find Alex out there in the middle of the desert, but it's the only lead he has and it's not like Max can send a search party out to look for someone wearing a shimmery necklace that reacts when you touch it.

It's then he realizes Rosa appears to be missing the most important part of this whole thing.

"Alex is missing. They found his car abandoned outside town. Did Liz not tell you?"

She shakes her head. "She just said you needed my help."

That's so Liz, he thinks. He knows she's preoccupied at the moment studying his now normal cells in hopes to science together a cure.

"But I don't understand something," Rosa continues, finger running over the alien glass as it shimmers under her touch. "How is a necklace going to help us find Alex?"

"Because Alex has the other half. And I have to hope that wherever he is, he's wearing it."

—-------

Rosa stands in the precise location of the spot where Alex's car had been found. The battery had been dead, the report had said, keys still in the ignition. But all Michael can see around for miles is sand and dirt. It had been half buried, as if a wind storm had rolled through at some point. But that was what led to someone discovering it, and to the state police getting involved.

All things they can worry about later.

"I - there's nothing here, Michael."

He was afraid that might happen. It was the easiest starting point, to think Alex was with the truck somewhere. Even if he refuses to even consider what it would mean for Alex to be buried underneath the sand this way.

That's not even going to be a possibility to him. Alex is alive. He knows he is.

"Are you sure?" He can't help asking.

Rosa turns back away from him, closing her eyes and he waits. He can hear her talking to herself, but can't make out the words. She'd done the same thing when he'd been teaching her how to focus, to catalog each sound in order to isolate the one she needed.

He almost doesn't see when she moves, taking a few steps away from him, as if walking towards something.

She holds out her hand, the necklace dangling from her fingers. "Michael! Take this, so I can focus."

He runs out to her, hopeful it means she found something. The necklace immediately goes over his head and back around his neck, and he takes a couple steps back to give her space.

"There's something - it's faint. Almost like I can't hear it. But there's something…"

She keeps moving, a few steps here, a few more steps there. And Michael wonders how bad the interference from the earth is that she's having this much trouble. But he's asked her to find the smallest piece of glass in the wide open desert - this was never going to be easy.

But he had to try.

"H-here," she finally announces, stopping. "It's here."

Shovel in hand, he digs.

It's his only focus, that they may find Alex.

He doesn't think about how he's digging up dirt and rock and sand. How no one could actually survive this.

He just digs.

Eventually he abandons the shovel, getting down on his hands and knees. Whatever Rosa heard, whatever is down here, he is going to find it.

—-------

Even covered in sand and dirt, Alex Manes is the most beautiful thing he's ever laid eyes on. His hair is matted to his head from the days underground, the necklace still hanging around his neck. Michael presses their foreheads together, softly touching their lips together as the tears roll down his cheeks.

He can't be dead.

He can't.

This isn't how this was supposed to go. Moving in together was supposed to be the beginning. They were building a life together, wasn't that was Alex said?

"Max," Michael sobs into the phone that he's barely able to hang onto. "I need you."

Time passes differently as he sits in the middle of the open desert, cradling Alex's body.

This is his fault. He'd panicked, refused to trust Alex with the console. Had made Alex go traipsing around the desert chasing weather balloons without a plan.

It didn't have to be like this.

"I can't save him, Michael."

He feels the anger bubbling up beneath the surface again.

"Just heal him. Do that thing you do best."

"I can't." There's something different in Max's voice. Regret, maybe. "I asked Bonnie to take my powers."

Michael drops the phone to the ground.

What I can't live without is you, Alex had told him just a week ago. But how was he supposed to live without Alex? How was he supposed to care about this planet, about staying here, when the one person who had tethered him here for the past decade was gone? The one person who made him first believe this planet could be home.

He pushes his hand against Alex's chest, above his heart. He tries to not think about how Alex's chest isn't moving, there's no air traveling to his lungs. That his heart isn't pumping blood anymore to keep him alive.

"You said you can't live without me," he sobs, bent over Alex's body. "But what about me?"

He was supposed to marry Alex. They were supposed to get married, and start a family. They were gonna grow old together. This was supposed to only be the beginning.

Not the end.

"What about me?" He asks again.

Palm still pressed against Alex's chest, Michael starts to sing. He doesn't know if Rosa can hear, doesn't really care either. The words to a song he's only heard once. He pauses every so often to gently kiss Alex's lips, to not think about how they feel wrong. He sobs the lyrics out word by word, remembering the way Alex had looked at him that night six months ago when he'd kissed him outside the Pony. The way Alex had laid his head on his shoulder afterwards, lips pressed to the skin of his neck.

This isn't how their story ends.

The ground starts to quake but he barely feels it.

Michael opens his eyes to see his hand glowing red.

He'd almost lost Alex once. That day he'd maneuvered his way into Deep Sky, only to find Alex teetering on the edge of a ledge. It had been one of the most terrifying moments in his life. A feeling he'd never wanted to repeat. One wrong move, one wrong step, and Alex would have been gone forever.

But he hadn't lost him that day. He'd gotten there in time. He'd found him.

Because they were just finally getting the chance they always should have gotten. They were going to go on that date and hold hands while walking down Main Street. And they were going to start the rest of their lives together.

"This planet isn't home without you in it," he says after he stops singing.

Beneath his hand, Alex's chest moves.

Spitting up sand and dirt, he watches as Alex reaches out to grab onto his shirt, opening his eyes finally.

"Michael."

He's alive.

He's alive.

Michael let's the tears come, feels them streaming down his cheeks, dropping into his shirt.

"I got you," he says, keeping his arms wrapped around Alex. "I got you."

But Alex won't stay still pushing against him, looking around the open desert, as if searching for someone. "Where is she?"

"Where's who?"

"She said - she said I was a contingency plan."

Michael shakes his head in disbelief. Tezca? Had she followed Alex out here as he began his weather balloon search?

"Someone did this?"

Alex nods, pushing himself to sit up, though immediately reaching back to take his hand again. As if Alex needs the touch as much as he does. He watches Alex glance around again, focusing for a moment on Rosa sitting on the tailgate of his truck not far away, phone pressed tight to her ear.

"How'd you - what happened?"

"You died," he replies, voice quiet. It feels less significant in this moment now that Alex is alive in front of him. He glances down at his hands and realizes he brought Alex back.

Bonnie had taken his abilities. She'd made him human. How had he been able to save Alex?

"What's wrong?"

Of course Alex notices. Back alive and of course he senses something is off.

"She stole my abilities. She made me human. But - I just - that shouldn't have been possible." He stares down at his hands, wondering what happened to allow him to bring Alex back to life. That he was suddenly able to heal just like Max.

Like Jones.

He reaches out, trying to move something, anything in the vicinity.

Nothing.

Alex takes hold of his hand, pressing it against his heart, keeping his own on top, and Michael looks up at him, meeting his gaze.

"We'll figure it out. Okay?"

Michael nods. Because it feels much more possible to do something, to believe something, when he's got Alex by his side.

#roswell new mexico #malex #malex fic #alex manes #michael guerin #temporary character death #because i apparently like it angsty #this is my contribution to haleigh's handprint agenda #notso writes fanfic