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The first two months he’s with Maria are chaotic. With Max’s death, Rosa’s resurrection, Liz’s grief, and Isobel’s rage, there’s hardly time to breathe. Maybe that’s why, despite Maria’s assertion that they needed to talk after their kiss in the Wild Pony, they just...never did. She talked to Alex. Michael was able to ascertain that fact when he drunkenly spat the news at Alex one night and Alex’s only response had been an icy and flat “I’m well aware”, as he continued the task of putting Michael to bed, rather than let him stay passed out in a chair outside the Airstream after another bender. Michael never understood how Alex could compartmentalize like that. He felt a hundred swirling chaotic emotions around Alex, but not one of them was ever apathy. The fact that Alex could shut down his emotions, rather than yell or bring out the pyrotechnics, just made it starkly obvious that the intensity he felt for Alex had never been matched. If Alex had started dating someone, he’s not sure he would’ve managed polite disinterest with flat eyes like Alex is evidently going with since he learned about Michael and Maria.
So Maria had talked to Alex about Michael, but for some reason she hadn’t talked to Michael about Alex. At first, his breath caught every time there was a lengthy pause before Maria started a sentence, thinking this might be the moment. He wasn’t exactly relishing the idea of a conversation, and honestly had no earthly idea what he’d say. That day in the Crashdown he’d barely been able to choke out the words “it’s over, it’s been over” and that was before everything at Caulfield and the day after. Then, he had been driven by a singular need to seek something that felt normal and easy, but in the weeks since he’s struggled to get the echoes of “but you are mine!” “I shouldn’t have left you behind” and “you’re a miserable liar” out of his head. He hasn’t had the emotional wherewithal to figure out how he feels about all of that, much less to try to explain their entire history to Maria.
Every day she didn’t bring it up had felt like a reprieve initially, but now that it’s been two months, and there have already been several times when the three of them have had to interact, it’s starting to feel… unsettling. Some days he feels like just talking about it would be better. He’s never really had the opportunity to tell anyone on his own terms, and he hates not knowing exactly what Maria (or Kyle or Liz) even knows about him and Alex and what has gone on between them. He’s pretty sure Maria doesn’t have all the details, and it’s starting to feel like...lying somehow? Like another secret. And god Michael had been sick of secrets for a long time.
He considered bringing up the subject himself, but the opportunity never seemed to present itself. Maria doesn’t ever say Alex’s name if she can avoid it and changed the subject the few times Michael mentioned him in passing. He’d considered that Maria might just have an aversion to discussing exes too early in the relationship, but since last week when Maria was bored at work, she made up a drinking game where Michael had to do a shot when she correctly guessed the name of a previous conquest of his in the Wild Pony and vice versa, that explanation seems unlikely. The game was fun, and he’d laughed genuinely for the first time since Max died, so had decided once again not to ruin the mood by bringing up Alex.
Today, exhausted after another day spent in the lab with Liz trying to work out a cure for Max, he went straight to the Wild Pony, hoping for a few hours reprieve from alien nonsense. As usual, Maria seemed to sense what he needed as soon as she saw his face, and suggested they play another round of the game. Michael had smirked, and pointed to a guy he clocked on the way in that he recalled seeing Maria making out with under the bleachers their senior year of high school. She tipped a glass in his direction before downing a shot and perusing the bar for someone she thought might’ve been his type. They continued playing throughout the night, Maria threatening to cut him off when he teased her by intentionally choosing a few guys that she’d never touch with a ten foot pole.
It’s fun, light, and simple, just like it always is with Maria, yet some unease niggles in the back of his mind. He doesn’t realize what it is until he catches sight of Antonio at one of the back tables with a few friends. They exchange nods when their eyes meet, but neither makes a move towards the other. They haven’t spoken more than a few words to each other since Foster’s Ranch was bought out by the Air Force, and all the ranch hands, Michael and Antonio included, were suddenly out of a job. Michael had gone back to work at Sanders, and heard that Antonio and a bunch of the other guys had found work at another ranch nearby. Despite the fact that Michael and Antonio had hooked up off and on for about six months, neither had tried to continue things once it stopped being convenient. Michael had been wrapped up in Alex coming back to town, and by the way Antonio’s gaze lingers on the guy sitting next to him, Michael guesses Antonio hasn’t spent the last year pining after Michael. It had been fun though, and as Michael smiles to himself a bit at thinking of some of the more creative excuses they’d used to sneak off from the other guys on breaks, it suddenly hits him what’s been bothering him all night.
Between tonight and last week when she first came up with the game, Maria has made a dozen or more guesses about past conquests of his. Some right (she has the advantage of having watched him pick up girls in this very bar over the past 10 years), some very wrong (seriously Tess Harding? She might be hot, but she’d used to have a thing for Max and that was a complete no-go in Michael’s book), but every single guess had been a woman, even tonight when more than half their guesses had been jokes or wild conjecture.
Roswell isn’t exactly a gay Mecca but there were a handful of openly gay and bi locals who frequented the Pony, plus even more discrete ones. Over the past 10 years Michael has hooked up with his fair share of them and though he hasn’t exactly broadcast it especially since most were one-offs, he also never cared much if people found out. Now that he scans the room he spots another guy he hooked up with a handful of times, as well as the English teacher from Roswell High who Michael never had a thing with, but who is openly gay and known to the whole town after some nasty graffiti was sprayed on his car a few years ago. It caused a bit of a stir at the time, so there’s no way that Maria, who even without her nebulous psychic powers, has her finger on the pulse of this town better than anyone, didn’t know he was gay. Besides, once, shortly after Alex came back to town, he eavesdropped on a conversation where Maria was subtly pointing out the men she thought were queer, encouraging Alex to have a little fun. He’d been irrationally jealous at the thought, particularly when he realized that she was right about 3 of the 4 guys she’d pointed out. It had inspired a text message that had the intended effect of both making Alex blush and leave the bar to head to Michael’s Airstream before Maria could execute any actual matchmaking. So, her lack of guessing any male conquests definitely isn’t the result of not having a clue of what guys in Roswell might find Michael worth getting on their knees for.
The rest of the night Maria was too busy to play any more rounds of the game, which was just as well as Michael is so out of sorts he’s sure she’d have been able to perceive that something was wrong. He tries to tell himself it doesn’t matter. The game was supposed to be a bit of stupid fun, but it still rankles him. He switches to water until closing, trying to get a handle on his feelings. Once everyone is gone, and Maria’s counting the till, the words escape him before he’s even made a conscious decision to utter them.
“You missed at least one tonight.” He hopes it comes off casual, but there’s a bit of an unintended edge to his words and he’s still not really sure why.
Maria seems to sense it, as she stops counting and swivels on her stool to face him. “Oh yeah?” She studies his face thoughtfully for a minute and Michael thinks she might be trying to get a read on him. Maybe the fact that he’s so unsure of his own feelings blocks her ability to get anything from him, because she looks confused as she asks tentatively, “Are you gonna tell me who, or do you want to see if I get it next time?” She seems to understand this isn’t a lighthearted continuance of the game.
Michael swallows hard. It feels like coming out somehow, even though she obviously knows about Alex, so knows he’s bisexual, but he’s still nervous. “Antonio. You know him? He was sitting in the booth on the left in the back.”
Michael sees the stark shock on Maria’s face even as she quickly covers it. “Antonio? Who works out at Atkins Ranch? Sure I know him. Comes in lately with a guy I’m pretty sure is his boyfriend.” Maria really does know everyone, and clearly Antonio’s sexual orientation hadn’t escaped her notice. Yet she still seems shocked to hear that he and Michael have history. She’s clearly uncomfortable now, avoiding his gaze.
He still doesn’t entirely get where the discomfort is coming from so he pushes on. “Yeah, I think he is at Atkins Ranch now, but we used to work at Foster’s Ranch together. We spent six months finding ways to slip off together on our breaks last year.” Shock flashes across Maria’s face again, even though that description is tamer than the ones he gave of his brief relationships with women she correctly identified, so it’s definitely not discomfort in discussing exes, just this particular ex (and Alex, his subconscious helpfully adds). It doesn’t take a genius to identify the commonalities there, though it is confusing. Maria clearly does not have a problem with queer people. Alex is one of her best friends, and he’d seen a ‘Love is Love’ rainbow sign in the bar window the last few Junes. Homophobia doesn’t make sense, but there’s no denying that she’s surprised and a little uneasy with him discussing being with men in the past.
He could let it go. That’s what he’s done the few times the subject came up with Max or Isobel. When Max insisted that he would have known Michael was bisexual if only Michael talked with him, Michael said nothing instead of shouting back that if Max had asked how Michael was after Alex went to war, they’d have talked about it. Maybe they would’ve. Fuck, he doesn’t know. They were both so messed up then, blinded by guilt, heartbreak, anger and resentment. He’d have been just as likely to shut Max down with a snarl and toss him across the room, but he’s annoyed Max never asked nonetheless. Michael had told Isobel something once. But he was so drunk and out of it, he doesn’t know exactly what he said. She tried to bring it up exactly one time before this year, and when he shut it down she looked almost relieved. He’s pretty sure it wasn’t a discomfort with him being bisexual, but a discomfort with love itself, especially the messy, complicated kind that would do nothing to help Michael blend into Roswell society. So in ten years, he’s had about three conversations outside of Alex or hookups in which his bisexuality was even acknowledged. He never thought he cared, but clearly he does because he can’t seem to let this go.
“So, why were all your guesses women, then?”
“I’ve watched you operate for 10 years in my bar, Guerin. And you always picked up women, so I thought I’d hedge my bets.” Maria aims for flippant, but doesn’t quite manage it. There’s something else there and Michael just can’t stop poking at it.
“Sure, I don’t openly proposition men in the Wild Pony, since if the goal is to get laid I don’t want to be distracted by having to clock Wyatt Long in the face first, but you know I’m bisexual, wouldn’t you assume that sometime in the last 10 years I might’ve hooked up with some of Roswell’s other queer residents?”
She looks down and is silent for so long, Michael’s not sure she’s going to respond. “I didn’t, actually.” She replies quietly. After a deep steadying breath, (unbidden, an image of Alex taking that same slow, deep inhale before saying he shouldn’t have left Michael behind, flashes through his mind). He shakes his head, trying to focus on the here and now as Maria continues. “Know that you were bisexual, I mean. I didn’t actually know that.”
“What the fuck do you mean you didn’t know?” Michael bites out, sharper and louder than intended. He softens his tone a little. “I might not know how you know, but you telling me nothing could happen between us because Alex and I had history is kind of burned into my memory.”
“I knew you and Alex kissed in high school, yeah. But that’s all I knew for sure. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re bisexual! And in ten years I’ve never seen you with a guy. Hell, Rosa and I used to make out in high school. Doesn’t make me bisexual!” She’s talking rapidly now, hands moving through the air like they do when she’s agitated, though he notices her brow furrowing a bit on the last words, and wonders if maybe she’s reconsidering just how bisexual it might make her. Ultimately he tucks that away for another day; he’d never tell someone else how to define their sexuality and it’s so not the point now. He’s more focused on the first words she said. That he and Alex kissed in high school.
He lets out a hollow laugh. As though it had ever been that simple. It was though, that simple, for a glorious half hour there in the museum. When it was nothing but the two of them, Michael’s nervous energy, Alex’s quiet surety, pressed together, gripping faces, hips, backs, anything they could touch. It was simple, pure, and wonderful, but so damn fleeting.
“That’s what he told you? That we kissed in high school? And you were gonna cut things off with us because of what you thought was one awkward high school fumble? And you never brought it up? You said we had to talk about it and then you never mentioned it at all? Are you really that uncomfortable with the idea of bisexuality that you can’t even have a conversation about what you thought was one kiss in high school and couldn’t even fathom that it might’ve been more than that? That maybe my sexual past might’ve included men and women? I never pegged you as uncomfortable with bisexuality, Maria.” He knows he’s stepped in it the minute he finished talking, but it’s too late.
“He didn’t tell me jackshit actually.” Maria’s voice is cold as ice now. He’s managed to avoid having a lot of relationship fights by generally eschewing relationships, but he and Alex have enough practice with them despite never having been officially together that he sure as hell recognizes a bad one as it’s starting. Apparently that conversation he was dreading is happening right the fuck now and he has no one to blame but himself. If only he could rewind time to five minutes ago and keep his damn mouth shut.
“Once in high school he was moony eyed over some guy and told me they’d kissed in the museum. I tried to get more out of him, but he was tight lipped about it like he always is, and I could feel that it was more than a stupid crush for him. He didn’t ever intentionally tell me it was you, but he couldn’t hide the fucking gutted look on his face when he came into the bar after you told him about our hookup in Texas. I’m sure you’d recognize it because it’s the only look he wears around us now, before he can hide it under his mask of cold indifference. And ok, maybe I did think it was just an awkward high school fumble and experiment to you. But I knew for him it was more than that and that it would probably be pretty shitty of me to try something with you. And hey, guess what? It fucking was. But I was so tired of denying myself what I want, when there are so many other things in my life are so damn depressing, so I did it anyways. Because a lot of times you make me feel good, cared for, happy even. Even when everything else goes to shit. And I wanted to hold onto that.”
Maria swipes at her face as a few tears well up, but her voice doesn’t waver as she continues. “You’re not the only one that sometimes uses this relationship to avoid a painful reality, ok Guerin? You don’t hold a fucking monopoly on it. So yeah, excuse me if I wasn’t relishing the opportunity to have a conversation about your history with my best friend so I could drown myself in guilt. I feel it every fucking day as it is. I guess I made some assumptions, but maybe it was easier to think it was a one time experiment for you back then, and not ask questions that might disabuse me of that notion, so I didn’t have to think too hard about what you meant to each other. And it’s not like you were exactly rushing to fill in the blanks, so don’t put this all on me. The single solitary thing you said to me about Alex was that it has “been over” and that I shouldn’t feel guilty. And in the entire time I’ve known you, you’ve never so much as mentioned that you found a guy attractive, so given those facts and that my guilt kicks into overdrive thinking about you and Alex together, I think the assumptions I made are kind of understandable, so miss me with this biphobic shit.”
Michael is stunned into silence for a moment. Maria told him once that he wasn’t exactly the arbiter of friendship, and she was right. He’s never really had friends. Max and Isobel were family even if sometimes he’d try to deny it. Maria had almost been a friend, but it veered off into a hookup and then dating, or whatever it was they were doing now, before they had moved past comfortable acquaintances. If he really thinks about it, Liz is his only actual friend and that had only been the past few months, so he has never been well versed in the rules of friendships. He hadn’t completely understood Maria’s initial refusal to sleep with him again because her friend had history, as she’d put it, with him. And since she’d later reconsidered, he hadn’t given it much thought, but evidently it really is affecting her and he feels bad that he’s been too wrapped up in his own conflicting feelings every time they were in the same room with Alex that he hadn’t really noticed the way she’d tense up and shut down after those encounters. He knows he’s been overwhelmed by his own shit, and is guilty at times of using their relationship as a reprieve of sorts. It shouldn’t come as a shock that she’s doing the same, and hasn’t brought up Alex because she too was trying to pretend that their relationship could be one easy and uncomplicated thing.
He knows picking this fight is unfair. None of this is her fault. Now that the immediacy of Max’s death, Noah’s death, and Rosa’s resurrection has passed, he’s had space to think about Alex, and he’s so fucking confused. That night Max died, he thought things were so clear. He felt certain he needed to leave the past behind and move forward with Maria, but now everything is muddled again. He’s tried to ignore it, and focus on the good things in his relationship with Maria, and not think about how Alex said he doesn’t look away. But his subconscious obviously hasn’t let it go and maybe that’s part of why he pushed today and got so annoyed with Maria for assuming all his exes were women. But also, maybe he does want some validation of his sexuality. He’s never had to think much about it because he’s barely ever been in a relationship, but now that he is in a relationship, and it is with a woman, it feels important to him that his sexuality is acknowledged at least by the people close to him. It’s odd because he’s never felt like walking in a pride parade, but everyone assuming he’s heterosexual just...it feels wrong somehow. But Maria is his girlfriend, not his therapist and she shouldn’t have to deal with his anger and irritation when he doesn’t even understand it himself.
He looks up at her intending to apologize and feign temporary insanity, but when he meets her eyes he sees her gaze has softened and she’s looking at him thoughtfully, with a hint of sadness. She speaks quietly before he has a chance to. “I am sorry for making assumptions. You’re right, I shouldn’t have. I hope you know that you being bisexual is not a problem for me, Guerin. That you’ve had more exes that are men than I thought is not an issue at all.”
The words are pacifying, but there’s something she’s not saying. “I’m sensing a but in there, DeLuca.”
She smiles tiredly at him, “But...I think it’s clear that we do actually have to talk about Alex. Obviously it’s on both our minds and ignoring it isn’t gonna cut it anymore.”
He knows she’s right, knows he was annoyed not five minutes ago that they hadn’t had this conversation yet, but suddenly he’s terrified. He can’t help the sinking suspicion that having that conversation will result in the end of this. Not just their burgeoning relationship, but a friendship too, and he’s so tired of losing people. He looks at her pleadingly. “I’m sorry too, I shouldn’t have snapped at you. And yeah, we probably should talk, but does it have to be tonight?”
She smiles softly at him, in the way that always makes his heart stutter in his chest, and takes pity on him. “No, it doesn’t have to be tonight.”
She wraps an arm around him, tugs his head onto her shoulder and presses a kiss into his hair. He closes his eyes, enjoying her closeness and wills himself to stay in the present, in this moment, with her. Tries to make himself believe that this thing they’re doing can work, make himself believe that this doesn’t feel like goodbye. It almost works.