#so malex only appears in the end and from forest and maria's pov

[bellakitse]

a conversation between insignificant others

“Hey…have you noticed that our boyfriends are madly in love with each other?"

“You noticed that too, huh,” she answers dryly, letting out a huff of reluctant amusement.

Forest and Maria share a drink and a conversation and start a friendship.

For @saadiestuff who came up with this idea of Maria and Forest talking about Malex and it just didn’t leave my head all day. Hope it’s what you wanted!

Forest thinks about turning around and heading back to his car a total of four times from the parking lot of The Wild Pony and the door.

Four.

He thinks of the absolutely awkward foursome dinner at the Crashdown two nights ago and stops.

He thinks of Alex, sexy and kind and a little nerdy Alex Manes, who he could have seen himself falling in love with, who he does love already despite only having known him for two months and pushes forward.

For Alex.

He walks into the bar around 8 pm on a Wednesday, and it’s blessedly a slow night. Less chance of being overheard. He spots Maria behind the bar wiping down the corner she’s at, while the other bartender tends to a customer at the other end.

He doesn’t know her that well, having only met her a handful of times. All he knows is that Alex calls her his best friend with a complicated look on his face and that her boyfriend is in love with his boyfriend, and that his boyfriend is in love with her boyfriend.

He also knows there’s a very good chance she’ll tell him to go to hell after he talks to her, but he hopes not. Their respective significant others are in love with each other, and he thinks that has a way of bonding people, even strangers.

He sits across from her and flashes her a smile that he’s sure comes off as uncomfortable when she raises an eyebrow at him. There is something knowing about the look on her face, and Forest remembers that Alex has said more than once that Maria is psychic.

“Is Guerin around?” he asks after a hello. He doesn’t think he can have this conversation with her if he’s there, the look of death the angry cowboy gave him the other night as the four of them shared a meal was enough to last him a lifetime.

Maria's expression becomes even more aware if possible, and Forest wonders if she really is psychic, and it’s not just some touristy gag she plays up.

“Guerin won’t be coming around here anytime soon,” Maria answers after a moment and offers no further explanation as to why her boyfriend won’t be visiting her establishment when it’s a known fact around town that the Wild Pony is like Michael’s second home. He thinks about the last time he was in the presence of both of them and thinks he doesn’t need an explanation.

“So,” he starts, dragging the word out, and Maria looks at him, waiting. “Dinner at the Crashdown the other night was awkward as fuck.”

Maria lets out a sound that is too sarcastic to call a laugh; she pours him a shot of whiskey and one for herself. He’s more of a vodka man but doesn’t say anything. “I think the words shit show would be a more accurate descriptor.”

Forest makes a face, not sure if it’s the truthfulness of her words or the sting of the whiskey and nods, remembering the encounter.

He and Alex had shown up at the diner for a casual dinner around the same time as Maria and Guerin, and somehow between stilted hellos and a tension that you could cut through with a knife they had found themselves agreeing to share a booth. He and Alex, on one side, Maria and Guerin on the other, with Alex and Michael across each other.

The evening had gone two ways, painfully awkward conversation, where Guerin asked him pointed questions that left Alex and Maria glaring at him. Or even worse, moments where Alex and Guerin seemed to get lost in their own little world all but forgetting that they had company.

One particular moment had been when Alex’s milkshake had arrived, and the man had proceeded to dip his fries in the shake as Forest watched him. Alex, feeling his gaze on him, had shrugged and answered they tasted better that way, at the same time as Guerin.

The smile Alex flashed Guerin, was brighter than the sun as he asked him if he finally conceded to the truth. Guerin answered with a smile of his own as he shook his head. A teasing look entered Alex’s eyes, and he promised that he would get him to change his mind eventually. The soft loving look on Guerin’s face as he asked if ten years of trying wasn’t enough, and Alex’s just as soft ‘no’ had struck a chord with Forest and given the sadness in Maria’s eyes at the time it has struck a chord with her too. Obviously the question was more than just about fries and milkshakes.

“Yeah,” he agrees, snapping out of his thoughts, he takes a breath before he speaks, knowing that once he gives voice to it, he can’t take it back. “Hey…have you noticed that our boyfriends are madly in love with each other?"

Maria freezes, her hand jerks on the bar counter, and he watches as she clenches it to stop the shake. He waits silently, waiting for her to process what he’s said. He knows she knows, but knowing doesn’t make it hurt less, he knows that too. It hurts him, and he’s not as heavily involved the way she is, he feels bad for being the one to force this to the surface for her, but he has no one else that can understand the situation he’s currently in.

She tips the drink back and takes it down in one swallow. He gives her an impressed look, and if he was even remotely into women, he thinks, as she looks at him with a no-bullshit expression on her face, she’d be his type. Beautiful, strong-

“You noticed that too, huh,” she answers dryly, letting out a huff of reluctant amusement. Sarcastic, yeah, she’d be his type if he liked women. As is, he can see why she’s friends with Alex, they’re a lot alike.

She sighs as she pours him another shot and then herself one.

“Michael and I broke up after we left you guys that night,” she confesses, looking down at her hands and then back at him when he doesn’t say anything, a cynical smile on her face that makes him want to reach out and take her hand. “Not going to ask me why?”

Forest raises an eyebrow at her. “I came here to talk to you about how our boyfriends are in love with each other, and after I leave here, I’m going to go and break up with Alex. I don’t need to ask you why when I already know. Are you okay?”

Maria shrugs. “I thought I would be more heartbroken about it,” she admits. “I mean, I risked my friendship with Alex for him, it feels like it should mean more now that it’s done, but mostly I feel stupid for even starting something with him. It’s so obvious now how they aren’t over, no matter how much they both say they are, they’re-“

“-never going to be over,” Forest finishes for her, his own heart aching, he knows it’s true, and he’s already accepted it, but it doesn’t make it any less painful.

Maria’s expression softens, and she reaches out, placing a hand over his. “Are you okay?”

Forest startles at the question and the warmth behind it, letting out a breath. “I could have loved him,” he says quietly, running a hand through his blue hair. “I think I already do,” he says with a smile. “He’s really easy to love.”

Maria nods, and as someone who has loved Alex since they were kids, he figures she would know.

“He smart and funny, sarcastic and quick in the best way, he’s stupid hot and has no idea. He does that eyebrow thing of his that is so sexy; he’s nerdy in the cutest way and in the sack,” he whistles. “He does this thing with his tongue that I swear makes me sees stars.”

“I didn’t need to know that,” Maria snorts, shaking her head at him.

“Sorry,” Forest says quickly, giving her an apologetic look. “I overshare when things are awkward.”

“It’s fine,” Maria shrugs.

Forest gives her a grateful look, and it goes quiet between them, he guesses there isn’t much left to talk about when they aren’t with the people that link them anymore. “I’m sorry about you and Guerin.”

Maria looks away from him, and he worries for a second that it’s to hide tears, he’s never done well with people crying in front of him, but when she looks back at him, all he sees is a calmness and peace he didn’t see in her at dinner, almost like a weight has been lifted off her.

“You can’t fight fate,” Maria answers after a moment. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you too.”

Forest lifts his shoulders. “It was good while it lasted,” he answers and finds that he means it. He doesn’t regret a moment he’s shared with Alex, even now knowing that it was never meant to last.

Maria smiles, and it’s more real than any smile she has given all night. “You’re a good guy, Forest,” she says to him, smirking after a moment. “Even with the unfortunate blue hair.”

“Hey!” he protests with a laugh, relieved when she joins in.

She pushes his glass toward him. “A drink for the road?”

“Sure, I could use some liquid courage for my next stop,” Forest answers picking up his glass. “To us.”

Maria clinks her glass with his. “To us, the insignificant others,” she says dryly. “We could form a club.”

And well, he can’t argue the title and figures as shitty as it is to be in this particular club right now, being in it with someone like Maria makes it easier.

 ***

Two Months Later

 “You run a bar,” he starts, giving his friend a side look as he pays for their coffees from one of the local vendors of the Sunday Farmers Market in the middle of town, a Bearclaw in his other hand. “Why are you up for this? Why am I up for this?”

“I’m up, because, they have the best limes and oranges for the bar here,” Maria says around a mouthful of donut. “And you’re here because you wanted to hang out, and this is the only free time we both had. Stop complaining. It’s 8 am, and I closed the bar at 3, you were in bed all night.”

“Yeah, but not alone,” he says with a smirk, thinking of the hot doctor he’s been hooking up with for the last two weeks. “I’m tired. He did this thing-

“Do not overshare,” Maria warns him quickly, with a small glare on her pretty face. “I don’t want to know.”

“Mean,” Forest pouts. “We need to get you laid.”

Maria shoots him a smug look. “Who says I’m not?”

“Ooooh, dish,” Forest demands with a wide grin, pouting when Maria shakes her head.

“We’re keeping it quiet for now,” Maria answers when he gives her a pair of puppy dog eyes. “It’s someone that will send ripples when people find out, so we’re enjoying it privately.”

“Scandalous,” Forest teases. “Can you give me anything?”

Maria looks at him, teasingly. “Blonde, leggy.”

“Hot,” Forest says with a smirk.

“She thinks so,” Maria answers with a smirk of her own.

Forest lights up, ready to grill her some more when he spots something out of the corner of his eye. He turns and sees Alex a few yards away, his faithful beagle Buffy by his feet and an angry cowboy all but plastered against his back as Alex looks at a table of handcrafted jewelry. He feels Maria shift and knows she’s watching too.

They stand there silently and watch as their ex-boyfriends interact. Guerin presses his face against Alex’s neck, and even from here, Forest can see that the man is half asleep. He grumbles something that has Alex laughing, turning around to face him. Whatever Alex says to Guerin, has the man smiling softly at him, before leaning in to kiss him tenderly. They stay like that for a moment, and Forest can’t look away, he feels an ache in his chest, still, but as he watches the brilliant smile on Alex’s face when Guerin breaks the kiss just to lift their interlock hands and kiss his knuckles, Forest finds himself smiling too.

“They’re shopping for my birthday,” Maria comments as Alex turns back to the jewelry and shows Guerin a turquoise earring and necklace set. She nods at his hand. “Turquoise is my favorite.”

Forest looks down at Maria and finds that she has a smile on her own face, a little sad, like his, but a smile nonetheless, and he feels a wave of fondness for her, grateful that out of all this, he gained a friendship with her.

He turns them around and away from the happy couple lost in their own little world like always.

Linking their arms, he leads them towards the limes she wants. “So tell me more about this mystery woman.”

#roswell nm #malex fic #malex #forest and maria friendship #my writing #michael x alex #so malex only appears in the end and from forest and maria's pov #i'm posting this and crossing my fingers that i don't get anon hate for it #i won't respond to it if i do so don't bother